Eugenics and Other Evils

Nobel Laureate James Watson is at the moment a rather non grata persona in many circles. This has led a professor of genetics to attempt a history of eugenics, in The Guardian.

Despite his frantic backtracking, James Watson's statement that Africans are less intelligent than Europeans follows a long and dubious tradition of geneticists claiming that supposed racial differences have a genetic basis. The idea goes back to the birth of the science of evolutionary genetics and its bastard sibling: eugenics.

One not overtly amusing thing about this is the myth (perpetrated by e.g. Dawkins) that it was Evolution and modern DNA-research that proved the equality and value of humans. Racism and religion went hand in hand, until science dispelled both by bringing light on the matter.

In reality, values and equality are religious or at least mystical notions, just as racism may be. However, if evolution and DNA provides the only data available, it is impossible to prove matters like "same value" or "equality".

No humans are really alike, not even twins. Value is all in the eye of the beholder. So it is not surprising to see that the ones traditionally supporting eugenics seem to have been rather progressive people, whether biologists or bishops, with their own various and often well intended agendas to improve society and mankind.

Eugenics societies sprang up at the beginning of the 20th century in most western countries to promote breeding programmes, but the movement was not confined to scientists. Browse through the Eugenics Society's membership list and you find lords, ladies, bishops, academics, writers, doctors, artists and politicians from all sides. In November 1913 the Oxford Union carried a motion approving the principles of eugenics. As a cabinet minister, the young Winston Churchill advocated compulsory sterilisation of "the feeble-minded and insane classes". George Bernard Shaw and HG Wells were profoundly influenced by Darwin. The contraception pioneer Marie Stopes campaigned to pass laws to enable sterilisation of the "hopelessly rotten and racially diseased".

But the writings of literary eugenicists betray their real roots: fear. In 1915 Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary: "On the towpath we met and had to pass a long line of imbeciles. It was perfectly horrible. They should certainly be killed." HG Wells openly advocated the killing of the weak by the strong, insisting that "those swarms of blacks, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people ... will have to go".

Despite some goode observations, it is hard to avoid the feeling that the geneticist in Guardian is just as political correct as the eugenists. Not the least as he fails to mention voices that protested against this mania, long before Hitler managed to make eugenics a pariah of postwar science.

Perhaps the foremost was G.K. Chesterton.

Eugenics is a nice-sounding word, combining as it does the Greek words for "good" and "birth." And Francis Galton, who made up the word and the idea, proposed Eugenics "for the betterment of mankind." But that's as far as the nice-sounding stuff goes. The actual definition is rather horrible: the controlled and selective breeding of the human race. Galton based his ideas on the theories of his cousin: Charles Darwin. By the beginning of the 20th century, when Darwin's theory was safely embraced by the scientific establishment, Eugenics was getting good press. The New York Times gave it constant and positive coverage. Luther Burbank and other scientists promoted Eugenics. George Bernard Shaw said that nothing but a Eugenic religion could save civilization.

Only one writer wrote a book against Eugenics. G.K. Chesterton. Eugenics and Other Evils is one his most prophetic books.

The edition linked to above is heartily recommended. Not just for Chesterton's perceptive ravishing of the logic behind eugenics and the objectives beneath the surface, whether one agrees or not that the movement combined the capitalist desire to maintain cheap labour with the socialist desire to scientifically organize society.

The most thought provoking part is the last. Here eugenicists of the period speaks through a series of authentic articles and letters.

Hair raising stuff.

Keith and Rick warming up for Zep

Interesting news on Rick's site:

Rick appearing with Keith Emerson at Led Zeppelin Reunion
Rick will be joining Keith Emerson, Chris Squire and Simon Kirke to warm up the crowd for Led Zeppelin's reunion gig at the new O2 venue in London on 26th November. No specific details have been released yet, but as soon as they are we will have them on the RWCC site.

And on this blog.

Evolution, or The Fight to Death

For someone who believes that evolution basically is a convenient and credible model which fits most of the facts, but doesn't really care if is is absolutely true or not in all and every matter (I'll kindly allow scientists to work out the details the next centuries, including the scientific issue of whether I am free to write blogs or not), it is interesting when someone rather intelligent stirs up some controversy.

The latest hoot is from Scott Adams and Dilbert, not to mention Dogbert. If nothing else, he very much keeps the Blog Evolutionists on the alert. Scott is involved in not a little controversy in this area, still Dilbert is the only comic I read daily.

And the one I shamelessly utilise in my talks at work. Or at least used to, back in the nifty 90's, when less than 50 % of my colleagues did.

In short, I heartily dislike it when something I wish would become popular, really does.

Keith Calling

For anyone lacking their daily dose of Keith Emerson News (in Norway belonging to the nice and noble tradition of The Finn Kalvik News), there is a brave new interview at Vintage Rock.
Rather cozy too.

Not the least interesting is the news that fans can track the progress of his new record (Marc Bonilla on guitar), to be released next year.

We’ve already shot an awful lot of footage of work in progress in the studio. I’ve got one complete piece, which will go up on YouTube in the next month or so. There will be a My Space and YouTube coming up very soon, of which I’ll be making an announcement on my web site. Yeah, there’s some great stuff of Marc and I recording together, personal interviews with Marc and myself, and a lot of interesting things. I just want to put these out periodically on My Space and YouTube and get the excitement going.

Rest assured, we'll be back with more. Stay tuned.

Dawkins blows it

Sometimes you have to grab your arm rather hard to check if you're awake. I had no intention of writing on Richard Dawkins until next month. And then, suddenly, he proves beyond doubt that he is the madman who has lost everything except his reason, according to a recent news report.

In his speech, Dawkins portrayed a black-and-white intellectual battle between atheism and religion. He denounced the "preposterous nonsense of religious customs" and compared religion to racism. He also gave no quarter to moderate or liberal believers, asserting that "so-called moderate Christianity is simply an evasion." "If you've been taught to believe it by moderates, what's to stop you from taking the next step and blowing yourself up?" he said.

The rationale behind this is no doubt Dawkins' blind faith in all religion being blind faith. He still hasn't learned anything from Alister McGrath. In Norway this attitude resulted yesterday in a rather extreme urbanist, and notorious public speaker, declaring the Nobel Prize Laureate Al Gore to be a Christian Fundamentalist.

The logic is simple. Gore is a believing Christian, hence he also must be a fundamentalist - or he wouldn't really believe. All religions are alike, especially suicide bombers.

So the question is. When will Al Gore leave his cover of fighting against global warming and go on to blow himself or the planet up, whatever his fancy is?

And if the danger is really blind faith, when will Dawkins take the nest step and blow himself up? Not to mention start to advocate arresting anyone suspected of a tad of theism, before they blow anyone up.

At least there is hope that Gore will wait till he receives the Nobel Prize in Oslo this December. With Dawkins there is no time limit.

Autumn Holliday

Norwegians tend to do the opposite of common sense, not to mention otherwise than members of the EU.

Six weeks after school has started after summer, we have the National Autumn Vacation - all kids out of school for one week. October is definitely autumn in Norway, dark and rainy. So, what would Norwegians do when having some days off in that season?

Well, some has travelled so long down the Path of Decadense to take some days in Spain or Greece to catch some more summer. We even witness such behavior during Easter.

True Norwegians, however, do the opposite, as there are places in Norway even colder than where people live. So when Autumn Holliday arrives, our family goes by car with our kids and sometimes some friends of theirs, for over 3 hours to a cabin (a bit like the one in the picture above) in the mountains to celebrate the possibility of even more rain and cold, sometimes even snow.

Of course, this is far from modern facilities like running water or webservices. That is one reason this blog has been hibernating for a week or so.

The days are mostly spent reading, hiking (nice weather this year, rather annoyingly warm in fact), talking and watching DVD's (Star Gate SG-1 Season 3 and Surface - the short first (and unfortunately only) season). Not to mention eating and drinking well.

In short, cozy around the fireplace and all that. Refreshing is just the first name.

Here is a live webcamera from Trysil - 30 km from our cabin in the mountains, with a nice view to the piste slopes.

It is the Norwegian Way. Some of us even get used to it.

Buridan is da man!

Hear all ye people, hearken to the advice from Bedes Journal about Medieval Science Fiction. Or more precise, Medieval Science.

SF author Michael Flynn has written a novella about Paris in the late 1340s. The rector of the university, John Buridan (1300-58) and two famous students - Nicole Oresme (1323-82, later also rector in Paris) and Albert of Saxony (1316-90) - decide to carry out Galileo's experiments on falling weights (from nearly two hundred years later).

This was an important step. One of the biggest hinders to overcome for modern science to develop at all, was Aristotelian theory of motion, which e.g. insisted that heavier bodies would fall faster than lighter.

Naturally, Flynn is aware of an even earlier forerunner who today is overlooked in many circles. The Alexandrian John Philoponus (490-570) had done "falling weights" as a thought experiment, arriving at the same conclusion as Galilei (in opposition to Aristotle) would do more than thousand years later.

Unfortunately events placed Philoponus on the sideline. Not only for muslim natural philosophers, also christian Europe forgot him until the 1200's. And even then he was perceived too much a lone and heretic figure. Until Buridan and his students start reconsidering in Flynn's novella.

The story is fun, interesting and eyeopening. It imagines an alternative scientific revolution in the fourteenth century, within Thomistic and Aristotelian concepts. And Flynn makes it plausible, based on a solid and sensible understanding of medieval natural philosophy.

The story is followed by a thesis, based on Standard Medieval Dialectic with 1) the question to be determined, 2) objections, 3) arguments, 4) the determination of the answer and 5) replies. In short, just like discussion foras on the web. Or how they should have been.

You can get the magazine as an e-book here. Or just approach your nearest Medieval Science Fiction Sales Guild.

Bush bans Chesterton

At least indirectly. A rather suprise move from a government considered more religious than most, still in the War Against Terror all seems allowed.

Too dangerous for US prisons?

"The New York Times reported this past week on a Bush administration plan that allows the government extraordinary jurisdiction over what is acceptable in religious practice. According to the article, the Office of Inspector General in the Justice Department issued recommendations to the Bureau of Prisons designed to prevent American prisons from becoming terrorist recruiting centers in 2004.

One of the recommendations was the "Standardized Chapel Library Project." The name itself elicits shivers, but what it does is worse. It first required a group of experts to compose a list of "150 book titles and 150 multimedia resources" for each religion. In order to be accommodating, lists were prepared for religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Bahaism and the African tribal religion of Yoruba.

If a book doesn't make the list, it is removed from the library. This required purge has only recently begun to wreak havoc on federal prison libraries. These libraries have amassed a huge quantity of books through donations and must now purge most of those books. According to USA Today, an inmate at the federal prison camp in Ostieville, N.Y. claims that about 600 books were removed by the chaplain this past Memorial Day to comply with the order. Six hundred books is an astounding number, but it's still not enough to recognize the vast wealth of knowledge that has now been banned.

Consider a few prominent Christian authors of the past century. Fulton J. Sheen was the first televangelist and won an Emmy in 1952 for his television series "Life is Worth Living." According to the official Web site of the cause for his canonization, Sheen wrote over ninety books. G. K. Chesteron was a popular Catholic apologist. The American Chesterton Society's Web site says Chesteron wrote 100 books and made contributions to 200 more.

So between only two Christian authors, there are about 200 to 300 works. Not all of these works will be banned, but it shows how much is being lost. The scope is magnified when you consider that Christianity has so many other authors. Between C.S. Lewis, John Calvin, Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian authors over the 2,000 years of Christianity, how can one select only 150 books?"

150 book titles per religion? One can imagine someone will have to write 50 books or something on the Yoruba way of life to reach the number at all. And ban 50 000 on Christian life, thinking and history to get down to it. And who is to decide what is acceptable in religious (or non-religious) practise?

There is of course something to be said for censoring of prison libraries, as for most political decisions. People reading The Late, Great Planet Earth or the The God Delusion may notice a raised adrenaline level. I have personally banned TV-evangelists from my own bookshelves. Still, there are a lot more than 150 books to be written against such policies.

As long as the present American Foreign Policy is accepted, there will of course always be a need for radical anti-terrorist measures. Even if terrorism will not easily disappear with a wiser policy, my religious hangups indicates that it is rather foolish to behave like fools.

Buying Byzantium

Walking Through Byzantium mentioned here may now be ordered here.

Wakeman's Treasure Chest

Rick may not quite be my fav rock composer (aorund 10th position), still he ranges high on my list of keyboard players (number 2 or 3, depending on my mood). However, as entertainer and stand up musician he is definitely #1. Noone tells stories like Rick, or performs more tongue in cheek. That is one reason he has become such a household name on British Television.

And he was the artist I saw most often in concerts in the 70's (3 or 4 times). One reason, of course, was that ELP never attacked Norway.

Now it is possible to relive his 70's and 80's prog and circumstances, even the iconic, not to say excessive, King Arthur on Ice Show from 1975. With skaters and the full scoobie gang.

As Rick mentions in the video interview on this Treasure Site where you can order the set, the critics slammed the Arthur show even before it had been done. As it went for three sold out nights at Wembley, there was hence no need to provide any press tickets.

No journalists (outside the growing prog press) will line up for these DVD's, either. That makes it easier for the rest of us.

The Return of Prog?

That meek and modest magazine, Terrorizer, has recently started a series on "The Return of Prog".

While prog never really left the building, it disappeared in many a journalists' eyes for the flashy and fashionable, not to mention the frenetic hunt of highly selcted parts of the underground scene for for the Next Big Bang. Which makes one gratefull for the return of prog in music magazines the last decade.

Another good thing is that publications like Terrorizer have not fallen for the standard media myth. It however still speaks volumes that the magazine feels obliged to mention that

"Rock fans growing up in the 80's were regularly informed that punk rock destroyed prog rock forever. This is of course utter nonsense. In fact, throughout punk rock's brief flash of tabloid infamy and chart-topping ubiquity, the behemoths of prog rock - Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes and ELP in particular - marched on, largely impervious to the impact of a cultural phenomenon that was far more significant in terms of its later influence than it was dominant at the time".

That cultural phenomenon was little else than a new generation arriving, more fond of straight and simple music, raw and romantic, beer and beat, than something that needed engaging the intellect. In short, Prog rarely got you broads.

Looking at Terrorizer is a welcome breath of sanity (and dare I say honesty?) from more mainstream magazines. And despite the ritual reprimanding of ELP, Terrorizer is obviously in even more awe of that band than of other behemoths.

We are invited to a general and generous feature article, as well as several pages on Rush, Sean Maline (Cynic), the influence of Prog on Metal, Van der Graaf, Ian Anderson, Zombi and Steve Hackett. And great photos of Keith and Rick.

Next issue is already in the kiosks (though not in Norway) and deals with stuff like Prog Art (capital letters needed, of course), Dream Theater, "forgotten prog" (hopefully they'll mention the forgotten fact that even Bowie and Elton John were influenced by prog in the early 70's), and Davy O'List (guitarist of early The Nice).

Rolling Stone Magazine and Q will in no way the next decade or two admit that Prog didn't "lose" to punk or retired (in the 80's prog related bands and artists sold more than most, while hundreds of new prog bands emerged - a trend which has only accelerated the last decades). Still, it is promising that niche magazines like Terrorizer are out of the cupboard.

Virtual walk

As somewhat of a time travel buff, though wary of the real thing (too many nasty smells and bacteria, not to mention daggers in the dark), I have followed virtual reality with a rather keen interest.

Sooner or later, we will be able to make virtual walks through ancient Rome and Jerusalem, not to mention Tenochtitlan or Cordoba. While waiting for that (I predict it will take less than five years for the most famous cities), it is a pleasure to announce that a great "virtual guidebook" to my fav metropolis, Walking Through Byzantium, now has been printed.

By some whim of fate (or conspiracy, more likely) there has been a peculiar lack of movies and TV-series placed in Medieval Constantinople. Though novels abound.

For those of you into Norwegian, I would also recommend my blog post here (with illustrations), for the rest of you I would recommend this site.

Soon it will even be possible to order the book.