The Ongoing Redef

A couple of interesting stones embedded in the hillside of the slippery slope down which we are presently tumbling presented themselves to TOF's attention recently.

Odds and Ends

No Comment Needed

The Limits of Tolerance

Salon, a lightweight "magazine" in which writers bravely face the applause of the echo chamber, features a vitriolic attack on Shi'a Islam.

Ha ha. Of course not. It is to laugh. That would be islamophobia and right-thinking people avoid that, um, religiously. No, it is a vicious attack on the one group the author knows will not fight back. How many instances of hate speech and logical and factual errors can you spot?

Sometimes the Mask Slips, a Little

Because the same arguments used to back X can also work for Y, why not be upfront about it?

Getting a Load On

Chastek gives us this tidbit:

Considered mechanically, loading and reloading [a semi-automatic rifle] are the same. The slide moves back in response to a force. In fact, we might just as well consider the slide as pushing the hand as the hand pushing the slide. It’s all one big machine, if machines are all you’re trying to explain.

Scientism in three steps: a.) give an account of, say, loading that applies to both loading and reloading – say, a mathematical law. (b.)  call the account a description of “the mechanism” (c.) proceed to be baffled and snicker at any appeal to “vital forces” or “free will”. The mechanism suffices to explain anything! Who needs to put some ghost inside of it!

But Need He Remain Faithful to Her?

Only a bigot would disparage his love. How is it different from this, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this?  Where is the understanding?  The tolerance?

Meanwhile, in an Unexpected Move...

China may become the largest Christian country.

This Should Get Your Goat. Or Not.

Some of you may remember the woman who married the Eiffel Tower, or perhaps the one who married the roller coaster.  (What marriage does not have its ups and downs?)  Or the fellow who married his Laborador retriever.  (The bride was very fetching.)  Perhaps even the woman who married herself, or the woman who married a warehouse; though those last two may have been stunts.  (Only the last two?  Oh, the humanity!) 

Well, fans of the untergang, another blow has been struck in the demolition of the West, albeit in a more remote corner of the West. 

A Brazilian man is to wed his pet goat – but has promised not to consummate the marriage.
Former stonecutter Aparecido Castaldo, 74, has decided to end his days as a single man to marry his beloved Carmelita.
The happy couple will walk, or trot, down the aisle on October 13 in Igreja do Diabo, or Devil’s Church, in the city of Jundiai, Brazil.
Aparecido has been in love with the pet for two years and says a goat has advantages over a human companion.
‘She doesn’t speak and doesn’t want money,’ says the father of eight children – four women and four men from four different marriages.

 Of course, there are multiple problems, as there always are when one contravenes the natural order.  If he does not consummate the marriage, is there a marriage?  Lack of consummation has been grounds for dissolution since the Code of Khammurapi, and in many cultures the rule has been "the act makes the marriage."  Which is why it's called "the marriage act."  So the lovely bride already has grounds for an annulment in the groom's prior stated intent. 

Pagan Rome and Christendom added another requirement: "consent makes the marriage" and it is unclear whether Senhorita Carmelita has given her consent to this union, or even whether she is competent to do so.

It may be that for Sr. Castaldo, a goat does have advantages over a human companion, especially if, as one suspects, he may have troubles attracting the latter.  And when one realizes that he regards normal conversation and the support of his spouse as disadvantages.  We will pass over in silence the name of the "church." though we may roll our eyes a bit as we do so.  At least, Sr. Castaldo should have no problem finding a nanny. 

But come, let us celebrate their love for each other.  To do otherwise would be capraphobic.  

Little Boys, Roller Coasters, and Angelina Jolie

The British have come up with the solution to sexual abuse of minors.  Namely, we must act now to prevent young boys (and girls, TOF supposes) from using their wiles to seduce vulnerable older men. 

The age of consent for sex should be lowered to 13 years-old to end the ''persecution of old men'' in the wake of the Savile sex abuse scandal, a leading barrister has claimed.
.... The barrister added: ''Instead, we should focus on arming today's youngsters with the savoir-faire and social skills to avoid drifting into compromising situations, and prosecute modern crime.

''As for law reform, now regrettably necessary, my recommendations are remove complainant anonymity, introduce a strict statute of limitations for criminal prosecutions and civil actions and reduce the age of consent to 13.''

Ms Hewson argued that ''touching a 17-year-old's breast, kissing a 13-year-old, or putting one's hand up a 16-year-old's skirt'' are not comparable to cases such as the Ealing Vicarage rape or Fordingbridge gang rape and murders from 1986.

This reminds me of the book with the Worst Release Date Ever.  TOF no longer recalls the title or author, but it was a professor at Univ. of Minn. and the thesis was that we cruelly deny the sexuality of children.  We should instead allow the little darlings to be, well, darlings.  What made the release date so bad was that the clergy abuse scandal erupted shortly after and the opportunity to pound the Church took precedence over poking a stick in the eye of bourgeois morality.   For a while everyone pretended to be outraged over fondling young boys; at least until it became far too obvious that it was nearly always boys that were being molested (80% of accusations). 

Marriage-go-round

Remember the woman who married the Eiffel Tower?  The warehouse?  His pet dog?  Herself?  Another lesson in the ongoing decline of the Modern Ages has surfaced: a woman has decided to marry a roller coaster.  

Amy Wolfe, a US church organist who claims to have objectum sexuality, a condition that makes sufferers attracted to inanimate objects, plans to marry a magic carpet fairground ride.

Most of this would be much simpler if folks actually realized that the term "marriage" has a specific meaning and that not every attraction or appetite should be called that. 

Angelina Jolie and Denialism

Any scientific theory that argues from an appeal to celebrity should always be discounted for that reason.  But the headline Will Angelina Jolie Help End Climate-Change Denial, And Help The Republican Party? is too remarkable to pass by with no comment. 

The gist of the story is that Ms. Jolie's decision to have a double mastectomy in the absence of any positive evidence of breast cancer will help people get in line with the pravda on global warming climate change.  "By modeling how to think with data when data do not tell us what we would otherwise want them to say, she displayed a level of decision-making courage that business and political leaders should strive to emulate."

Or perhaps not.  It is a mistake to suppose that a scientific fact or -- as in this case -- a mathematical model determines a policy of action.  Facts by themselves have no values. 

Everybody dies. Therefore, Jolie will die of something. Might be cancer, might be a worn-out heart, or by apoplexy brought on by reading the NYT. Jolie will not now die from breast cancer (almost certainly), though she might exit via ovarian cancer—or maybe by some other cancer (colon, skin, pancreatic, etc.). Her liver might fail or she may stroke out. Anyway, she will die, though she may (only may) live longer and then dye from something else. All she has done, then, was to remove one of these many, many choices of death. 

There are also the possibilities of false positives on the test for "the gene" and of negative outcomes on the surgery.  Or to put it more plainly, it is not at all clear that anyone was "thinking with data" or at least not all the data.  A certain amount of emotional commitment was involved. 

What Would be Redefined Must First be Destroyed

The Washington Post reports:

    …It’s hard to overstate the breakdown of marriage and the rise of single-parent families. Consider out-of-wedlock births. In 1980, about 18 percent of births were to unmarried women; by 2009, the proportion was 41 percent. Among whites, the increase was from 11 percent to 36 percent; among African Americans, from 56 percent to 72 percent; among Hispanics, from 37 percent (1990) to 53 percent. Or look at the share of children living with two parents. Since 1970, that’s dropped from 82 percent to 63 percent. Among whites, the decline is from 87 percent to 73 percent; among African Americans, from 57 percent to 31 percent; among Hispanics, from 78 percent to 57 percent.

That's for births to unmarried women:

1980→2009

18→41

11→36

56→72

37→53

and for children in natural households

1970→2009

82→63

87→73

57→31

78→57

You can almost see the poverty rates, impoverished women, and the children missing a parent. 

Notes from the Untergang

In an audio conference entitled Why Get Married? author Masha Gessen had this to say:

“It’s a no-brainer that (homosexual activists) should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. …(F)ighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there — because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. 
The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist. And I don’t like taking part in creating fictions about my life. That’s sort of not what I had in mind when I came out thirty years ago. 
I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally… I met my new partner, and she had just had a baby, and that baby’s biological father is my brother, and my daughter’s biological father is a man who lives in Russia, and my adopted son also considers him his father. So the five parents break down into two groups of three… And really, I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.”

And speaking of polygamy...

While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end with same-sex marriage. We need to legalize polygamy, too. Legalized polygamy in the United States is the constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice. More importantly, it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families.

 Slippery slope?  What slippery slope? 

Meanwhile, life gets really, really complicated:

But despite their commitment to gender equality, many feminist institutions have long had trouble seeing trans women as part of the movement. Cisgender feminists of the 1970s often viewed their trans sisters with suspicion, as though they were men in dresses trying to invade “real” womanhood. Some women’s centers, rape-support organizations, and lesbian-rights groups have gone as far as expelling trans women from their midst. The legendary Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival has always barred trans women from entry (and still does). Second-wave thought leaders like Mary Daly called them “Frankensteins” and in her book, The Transsexual Empire, radical anti-trans feminist Janice Raymond accuses trans women of “appropriating” the female body and many other much less pleasant things.

Cisgender?  Transgender?  Sigh.  Who knew there were such terms?  LGBT life can be complicated, apparently.

What next?  Normalizing pedophilia?  Oh, wait.

Like many forms of sexual deviance, pedophilia once was thought to stem from psychological influences early in life. Now, many experts view it as a sexual orientation as immutable as heterosexuality or homosexuality. It is a deep-rooted predisposition — limited almost entirely to men — that becomes clear during puberty and does not change.   

Well, as long as it's a natural sexual orientation...  The article makes no outlandish pleas, and is actually a reasonable analysis - simple word substitution suggests itself - yet one cannot help but wonder.  How long to Tolerance?  How long after that to Celebration?  After all, when orthodoxy becomes optional it will eventually become outlawed.  

Perhaps we can simplify by dividing folks into Eloi and Morlocks:

The buzzword among cognoscenti is “post-person,” defined in a much-cited 2009 Philosophy and Public Affairs paper by tenured Duke professor Allen Buchanan, as those “who would have a higher moral status than that possessed by normal human beings” (emphasis original). Buchanan admits crafting chromosomal übermenschen “might be profoundly troubling from the perspective of the unenhanced (the mere persons) who would no longer enjoy the highest moral status, as they did when there were only persons and nonpersons (‘lower animals’).” 

Oh, those whacky cognoscenti....

Better yet, the neuroscientists can help out, because Neuroscience™ can tell us whether a criminal is more likely to lapse back into crime! 

Identification of factors that predict recurrent antisocial behavior is integral to the social sciences, criminal justice procedures, and the effective treatment of high-risk individuals. Here we show that error-related brain activity elicited during performance of an inhibitory task prospectively predicted subsequent rearrest among adult offenders within 4 y of release (N = 96). The odds that an offender with relatively low anterior cingulate activity would be rearrested were approximately double that of an offender with high activity in this region, holding constant other observed risk factors. These results suggest a potential neurocognitive biomarker for persistent antisocial behavior. 

 Aren't they cute when they pretend to do Science™?  Never mind what you have or have not done.  The Brain Scan™ does not lie! 

Or maybe not.

Weak statistics are the downfall of many neuroscience studies, according to researchers that analyzed the statistical strategies employed by dozens of published reports in the field. Especially lacking in statistical power are human neuroimaging studies—especially those that use fMRI to infer brain activity—noted the coauthors of the analysis, published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience last week (April 10).

Phrenology has been rediscovered and really-truly scientificalized.  Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we substitute correlation for causation.  But that's what happens when we try to apply methods devised to study inanimate matter to matter that can talk back. 

Ends and Odds

Yes, it's that time again: Clearing the Tabs!  Wherein TOF posts a number of links which he saved as of possible interest for his Reader and wishes to get up there before his collander-like mind forgets why he thought them interesting.

Clearing the Tabs

Yes, it's time to clear the tabs once more.

1. What does the Catholic Church call a medieval woman

who was a herbalist and wrote books about it?