FOX vs NPR

 
Canadian Cynic recently informed us of an American college professor who claims that his conservative students are smarter than his liberal students.

A bit of background. Peter Schweizer published an article in the National Post where he took issue with the widespread belief that liberals in America are smarter than conservatives. Apparently, George Bush has a higher IQ than other presidential candidates and got higher grades in school [The arrogance of uneducated liberals].

Popular culture has greatly contributed to the myth of ignorant conservatives and enlightened liberals. One study by a group of academics found that by examining 124 characters in 47 popular political films spanning five decades, liberals were routinely depicted as “more intelligent, friendly and good” than conservatives.

The arrogance of some liberals in this regard is astonishing. You don’t even have to be highly educated yourself to complain about how uneducated conservatives are. Michael Moore, college dropout, travels all over Europe talking about how “idiotic and uneducated” conservatives are. He also said: “Once you settle for a Ronald Reagan, then it’s easy to settle for a George Bush, and once you settle for a George Bush, then it’s real easy to settle for Bush II. You know, this should be evolution, instead it’s devolution. What’s next?”

Sounds about right to me.

One of the commenters (jdcarmine) on the National Post website chimes in with ...

Wonderful! I am a college professor and this is even more stunning when comparing liberals and conservatives. For example, last semester none of my liberal students had even the foggiest notion where Iran was relative to Israel and none could find the West Bank on a map. None knew where China and Russia were relative to the Middle East. But...All the conservative students knew these basic facts which made it easier for conservatives to discuss the significance of the Iraq war whereas the liberals could only spew platitudes about it.

Now here's the fun part. Canadian Cynic quotes a study done some years ago by WorldPublicOpinion.org [Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War] They asked about three misconceptions concerning the war in Iraq: (1) there were links between Iraq and al Qaeda; (2) weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq; (3) world public opinion supports the US invasion of Iraq.

They then compared the number of people who believed none of these misconceptions with their source of news. This is an indication of the politics of the people in the survey. People who watch FOX news are assumed to be more conservative that those who get their information from NPR. Here are the results ...
I think Canadian Cynic has a point. Sure, this doesn't prove that conservatives are stupid and liberals are smart, but it sure says something about gullibility and it's reasonable to assume that there might be a correlation between that and intelligence.¹

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1. I get most of my American news from CNN. I guess that makes me about average in intelligence. My main concern is that watching Larry King and Lou Dobbs will make me dumber than I am already.

Science and Philosophy Book Club: Wonderful Life

 
The Science and Philosophy Book Club is discussing Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life this Thursday at CFI [Stephen Jay Gould's "Wonderful Life"]. Come to the Center for Inquiry on Beverley St. at 7pm on Thursday August 7th. A $2 donation is required. Bring something to eat.

You can sign up on the website and let everyone know if you are coming.

Wonderful Life is one of my favorite books. Apparently the central messag is very difficult to understand since so many people get it wrong. I've seen very bitter attacks on the central theme from people like Daniel Dennett in Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995). He says,

I mentioned in chapter 2 that the main conclusion of Gould's "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History" (1989) is that if the tape of life were rewound and played again and again, chances are mightly slim that we would ever appear again. There are three things about this conclusion that have baffled reviewers. First, why does he think it is so important? ... Second, exactly what is his conclusion—in effect, who does he mean by "we"? And third, how does he think this conclusion (whichever one it is) follows from his fascinating discussion of the Burgess Shale, to which it seems almost entirely unrelated?

Dennet is often referred to as "Dawkins' lapdog", a sarcastic reference to the relationship between Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley.¹ It should come as no surprise that Richard Dawkins didn't like Wonderful Life either, and for many of the same reasons that Dennet parroted in Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Here's what Dawkins said in a review published in 1990 and reprinted in A Devil's Chaplain.

How should Gould properly back up his claim that the Burgess fauna is super-diverse? He should—it would be the work of many years and might never be made convincing—take his ruler to the animals themselves, unprejudiced by modern preconceptions about "fundamental body plans" and classification. The true index of how unalike two animals are is how unalike they actually are. Gould prefers to ask whether they are members of known phyla. But known phyla are modern constructions. Relative resemblance to modern animals is not a sensible way of judging how far Cambrian animals resemble one another.

The five-eyed, nozzle-toting Opabinia cannot be assimilated to any textbook phylum. But, since textbooks are written with modern animals in mind, this does not mean that Opabinia was, in fact, as different from its contemporaries as the status "separate phylum" would suggest. Gould makes a token attempt to counter this criticism, but he is hamstrung by dyed-in-the-wool essentialism and Platonic ideal forms. He really seems unable to comprehend that animals are continuously variable functional machines. It is as though he sees the great phyla not diverging from early blood brothers but springing into existence fully differentiated.

Gould then, singularly fails to establish his super-diversity thesis. Even if he were right, what would this tell us about the 'nature of history'? Since, for Gould, the Cambrian was peopled with a greater cast of phyla than now exist, we must be wonderfully lucky survivors. It could have been our ancestors who went extinct; instead it was Conway Morris' 'weird wonders', Hallucigenia, Wiwaxia, and their friends. We came 'that close' to not being here.

Gould expects us to be surprised. Why? The view that he is attacking—that evolution marches inexorably towards a pinnacle such as man—has not been believed for years. But his quixotic strawmandering, his shamless windmill-tilting, seem almost designed to encourage misunderstanding (not for the first time: on a previous occasion he went so far as to write that the neo-Darwinian synthesis was 'effectively dead'). The following is typical of the publicity surrounding "Wonderful Life" (incidentally, I suspect that the lead sentence was added without the knowledge of the credited journalist): 'The human race did not result from the "survival of the fittest", according to the eminent American professor, Stephen Jay Gould. It was a happy accident that created Mankind.' Such twaddle, of course, is nowhere to be found in Gould, but whether or not he seeks that kind of publicity, he all too frequently attracts it. Readers regularly gain the impression that he is saying something far more radical and surprising than he actually is.

Survival of the fittest means individual survival, not survival of major lineages. Any orthodox Darwinian would be entirely happy with major extinctions being largely a matter of luck. Admittedly there is a minority of evolutionists who think that Darwinian selection chooses between higher-level groupings. They are the only Darwinians likely to be disconcerted by Gould's 'contingent extinction'. And who is the most prominent advocate of higher-level selection today? You've guessed it. Hoist again!

I'm amused that an ethologist is lecturing a paleontologist on how to interpret the fossil record.

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1. First mentioned by Stephen Jay Gould in Darwinian Fundamentalism in the New York Review of Books, "If history, as often noted, replays grandeurs as farces, and if T.H. Huxley truly acted as 'Darwin's bulldog,' then it is hard to resist thinking of Dennett, in this book, as 'Dawkins's lapdog.'"

More Payrus Editions available online

P. Cair. Cat
http://www.archive.org/details/greekpapyri00gren

P. Cair.Masp I
http://www.archive.org/details/papyrusgrecsdp01masp

P. Cair. Masp II
http://www.archive.org/details/papyrusgrecsdp02masp

P.Cair. Masp III
http://www.archive.org/details/papyrusgrecsdp03masp

The Great Harris Papyrus
http://www.archive.org/details/MN40051ucmf_1

P. Lille I
http://www.archive.org/details/papyrusgrecs01jouguoft

P.Lille II
http://www.archive.org/details/papyrusgrecs02jouguoft

APF 1
http://www.archive.org/details/archivfrpapyru01leipuoft

APF 4
http://www.archive.org/details/archivfrpapyru04leipuoft

APF 6
http://www.archive.org/details/archivfrpapyru06leipuoft

SB 2
http://www.archive.org/details/sammelbuchgriech02wissuoft


Thanks to Ioannis Kokkinidis.

Aegyptus LXXXVI (2006)

: Aegyptus LXXXVI (2006), pp. 340 (aegyptus@unicatt.it)-
Pubblicazioni dell'Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Largo A.
Gemelli, 1 - 20123 Milano) :

S. Barbantani, Considerazioni
sull'ortografia dei poemi di P.Lit.Goodspeed 2 e sulla loro
destinazione

W. Luppe, Ein Textvorschlag zu Favorinus Peri phyges
(betr.Kol.II 22)

S.D. Charlesworth, Consensus standardization in the
systematic approach to nomina sacra in second-and third century gospel
manuscripts

G. Nachtergael-R. Pintaudi, en aide>: nouveaux témoignages épigraphiques

L. Del Corso, Lo 'stile
severo' nei P.Oxy.: una lista

R. Duttenhofer, Schiffsschlepper am Nil?
O.Schoyen MS 1910

H. Harrauer-A. Papathomas, Griechische ptolemaeische
Papyri aus "Totenbuchroellchen" in Graz

H. Harrauer, Anmerkungen zu
Papyri

H. Harrauer, Thyruros

G. Messeri, Scampoli II

D. Hagedorn,
Chrysos oder chrysion? Regionale Besonderheiten des Wortgebrauchs im
spaetantiken Aegypten

C. Sànchez-Moreno Ellart, Pherne and parapherna
in the documents of Augustus' reign: on the subject of P.Ryl. II 125
once again

H. Foerster, Nachtrag zur Edition von P.Vat.Copt.Doresse I

E. Lucchesi, L'homélie XIV de Sévère d'Antioche: un second témoin copte

P. Grossmann, Kirche und mutmassliches Bischofshaus in Antinoopolis

Necrologio:

J. David Thomas, Naphtali Lewis

Testi recentemente
pubblicati

Recensioni

Libri ricevuti


Source: Papy-L

The View from Siberia

 
Total eclipse of the sun, in the Altai region of Siberia on Friday, August 1, 2008.

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[Photo Credit: SciAm.com]

The Night Chicago Died

 
Last weekend we watched Donnie Brasco, a 1997 film with Al Pacino and Johnny Depp. The plot is based on the true story of an FBI agent, played by Johnny Depp, who infiltrates the New York mob and befriends a petty criminal, played by Al Pacino. The acting is great. It's hard to understand why Al Pacino wasn't nominated for a major acting award. Perhaps it's because we had been nominated many times in the past and won best actor in 1992. The last scene in the movie is a classic.

The movie reminded me of a song by the British group Paper Lace. They wrote a song about a fictional² night of warfare between Al Capone and the Chicago police. The song, The Night Chicago Died, reached #1 for a brief time in 1974.² I think it's one of the best songs of the 70's but very few people agree with me.

If you haven't heard it you should click on the video and listen at least once. I love songs that tell a story and in order to appreciate the story you need to listen to the words as well as the music. I've included the lyrics. Read the opening lines in order to get the context. The song is about the family of a Chicago cop.

Daddy was a cop
On the East Side of Chicago
Back in the USA
Back in the bad old days

In the heat of a summer night
In the land of the dollar bill
When the town of Chicago died
And they talk about it still

When a man named Al Capone
Tried to make that town his own
And he called his gang to war
Against the forces of the law

I heard my momma cry
I heard her pray the night Chicago died
Brother, what a night it really was
Brother, what a fight it really was
Glory be

I heard my momma cry
I heard her pray the night Chicago died
Brother, what a night the people saw
Brother, what a fight the people saw
Yes, indeed

And the sound of the battle rang
Through the streets of the old East Side
'Til the last of the hoodlum gang
Had surrendered up or died

There was shouting in the street
And the sound of running feet
And I asked someone who said
'Bout a hundred cops are dead

I heard my momma cry
I heard her pray the night Chicago died
Brother, what a night it really was
Brother, what a fight it really was
Glory be

I heard my momma cry
I heard her pray the night Chicago died
Brother, what a night the people saw
Brother, what a fight the people saw
Yes, indeed

Then there was no sound at all
But the clock up on the wall
Then the door burst open wide
And my daddy stepped inside
And he kissed my momma's face
Then brushed her tears away

I heard my momma cry
I heard her pray the night Chicago died
Brother, what a night it really was
Brother, what a fight it really was
Glory be

I heard my momma cry
I heard her pray the night Chicago died
Brother, what a night the people saw
Brother, what a fight the people saw
Yes, indeed

The night Chicago died
The night Chicago died
Brother, what a night it really was
Brother, what a fight it really was
Glory be

The night Chicago died
The night Chicago died

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1. There never was such a night in Chicago. Most of the killing took place when rival gangs fought it out, not between police and gang members. The British songwriters had never been to Chicago and knew very little of the history. It's one of those stories that you would like to be true but sometimes real history sucks.

2. It is often thought to be a backhanded reference to the Chicago riots of 1968 but there's no evidence to support that theory and by 1974 the memory had faded.

Soccer Team Wins by Scoring on Itself

 
Friday's Urban Legend: TRUE

This sounds so much like an urban legend that it's astonishing to learn it really happened. The story is covered on snopes.com [Football Follies].

It was a match between Barbados and Grenada in 1994. In order to advance to the finals, Barbados had to win by at least two goals. Near the end of the game Barbados was ahead 2-0 when an error resulted in an own goal by Barbados. With the score now 2-1 the Barbados team was threatened with elimination.

Here comes the funny part. The tournament rules state that in the event of a tie the game will be decided by sudden death overtime and, for the purposes of calculating points, the winner will be rewarded as though they had won by a score of 2-0. In the 87th minute, the Barbados team deliberately scored on themselves in order to tie the game and send it into overtime.

The Granada team realized what was going on and tried to score on themselves to avoid overtime and advance to the finals. (Winning 3-2 would not allow the Barbados team to advance.) Thus you have this bizarre scene where a team is trying to score in its own net while the opposition is defending their opponent's goal.

Here's a video of some of the action. Listen to the commentators. It sounds like a scene written by Monty Python.

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