Scottish Nous

Confusing Appearances with Reality

It is said that once the great Akbar drew a line and demanded of his wise man, Birbal, that he shorten the line without cutting or erasing from either side. The latter drew a longer line parallel to it and Akbar’s line was thereby shortened. Wisdom lies in drawing the longer line. -Activity, Nicholas Roerich [link]

No.

Implications Science Has for Ethics*

Hwang Woo-suk, who has acheived scientific infamy by falsifying his stem cell research data, will  nevertheless acquire a bit of philosophical recognition as he crops up in future case studies relating medical ethics to the alleged achievements of modern science.  It is an absolute shame that this revelation will bolster those who, in virtue of their antiquated religious commitments, are opposed to stem cell research.  To counter the villainous Hwang's negative effect, I will take this opportunity to remind my readers of a bona fide scientific discovery with ethical implications.   If god does exist, then it appears he/she/it is the biggest abortionist of all time, since 60% - 80% of inseminated eggs fail to attach to the uterine wall. [link] Of the fertilized eggs which do manage to make it up the fallopian tube and attach, on average, greater than 30% are spontaneously aborted (miscarried) during weeks 5-27 of gestation. [link] I suppose that a religous  fanatic could counter with the retort that this is our fault, i.e., a natural consequence of our fall from the state of grace, but I think only a religious fanatic could find that plausible.

* I wonder what a Usage Panel would say about this locution?  Using a wildcard search on Google returned about 250 hits (many at .edu domains) with and 300 without redundant results excluded.  Yet Google claimed there were 127,000 results?  Still, that's not too many.  Maybe it's the two singular nouns that are bothering me.  Or maybe it's just late.

Bush: "I'm a Legal Cowboy, Baby!"

Bush has reauthorized - some thirty-odd times - a highly classifed and unconstitutional program that permits the NSA to spy on U.S. citizens.  (It is a presupposition of this post that Bush has acted unconstitutionally.  I do not here argue against a broad interpretation of the Constitution that permits the president unbounded legal authority in some situations.)  And he intends to continue reauthorizing it indefinitely, in the face of heavy criticism, because he's a legal cowboy, baby.  The NYT broke the story after withholding the information for an entire year.  When they finally managed to get around to fulfilling their journalistic duties, Bush accused them of breaching the nation's security.  When aides revealed to the president that he may be ignoring long-standing legal rules to "authorize" illegal behavior, the president pitched a temper tantrum.

According to Capitol Hill Blue, which may or may not usually be a reliable source, the president's temper tantrum ran as follows:

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”  “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”  I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.” [link]

Now this is amusing, if not strictly true.  Yet, as noted here, it does echo a similar sentiment Bush is recorded on video as expressing when president-elect:

If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator. [CNN]

And, as we will shortly see, if Bush didn't say it, he thought it.  Paul Campos, a CU professor, has an excellent article on Bush's personal war on civil liberties.  You see, there exists a system in place for issuing warrants for spying to nasty little organizations like the NSA.  And, in fact, the secret court that issues these secret warrants need not even be approached before the spying begins, so long as the NSA obtain the warrant within three days post commencing.  Furthermore, these secret warrants are almost never turned down by this secret court.  So why does Bush need to break the law (you can read: "undermine civil liberties" here if you like)?  Campos points out that it's "easy to imagine what sort of spying a president might want to order that wouldn't be approved by a court."  And, we should add, by this mockery of a court in particular!

We'll display the standard party line defense by making fun of Cheney's mental capacity:

Either we're serious about fighting the war on terror or we're not," the vice president said. ''The President and I believe very deeply that there is a hell of a threat.

This line of reasoning, the same line that our intellectually destitute president pressed against the NYT and its journalists, implies that it is a necessary condition for diminishing the "hell of a threat" we face that the NSA need not even seek a warrant for spying on citizens within three days after they kick off their dirty work.  Now this is not obviously true.  In fact, it's got not one iota of prima facie plausibility.  It would require serious justification in the form of rigorous  and carefully reasoned argument - argument our President is probably incapable of and our system of government not equipped to handle - if it could have a chance of being sustained.  What seems obviously true is that if such an overly permissive court that can convene on a moment's notice to grant warrants with a three day grace period, can so handicap the NSA that they couldn't perform their nasty job, then the NSA should be immediately disbanded on grounds of gross incompetence.  Who could not share this intuition?

There is simply no excuse for removing the last roadblock standing in the way of severe and wanton violations of civil liberties.  Or at least, not in the manner that the president has gone about it, given the prima facie implausibility of the piffle coming from the executive office.  Why on earth would so many more people be at risk of death if the standard and supremely lenient process for obtaining warrants was followed?    I contend that this is hard evidence that the president is thrilled to get rid of the checks and balances so many Americans rightly demand as a condition of any form of legitimate government (if there is such).  I conclude that if Bush didn't say to hell with the Constitution, he's surely acted as if he thinks as much.

Pandora Using Local Flash Storage

By now you've surely heard of Pandora, the nifty little radio station that attempts to tailor the music it plays to selected artists or songs.  But what you probably didn't know was that Pandora uses local Flash storage to cache the .mp3 files it has played.  In other words, I'm telling you that Pandora delivers copyrighted material, and lots of it, directly onto your hard drive.  If you're into piracy, this is either heaven or hell.  I'll provide the information first, but I recommend sticking around for the warning.

If you're running XP, you can easily find the cached files in your \plugtemp directory by  clicking Start --> Run and enterting "%temp%".  This takes you to c:\ Documents and Settings \ <Your User Name> \ Local Settings \ Temp.  Now manually drop down into \PlugTmp.  What you're looking for are the "access-#" files, where "#" stands in for some number, in the \PlugTmp directory.  These are .mp3 files with a renamed extension  numbered in the order Pandora has played them.  If you're running a different OS, a search for the occurence of "access" in the file name - over hidden files and folders -  should pick them up.  (On a Mac, you need to find the files "WebKitPluginStream-#".  Or just play a Pandora song or two and search - remembering to include hidden files - for "access-1.*")

Now it would be very easy to copy and paste these files into another directory and change the filename to whateversong.mp3.  (They're streamed at 128 kbps.)  If you're just curious, Windows Media Player can handle the files in the format Pandora stores them in.  You can also increase your Flash cache by right-clicking the Pandora player and going to "settings".  I presume this renders Pandora the world's largest provider of copyrighted material.  They also provide the easiest, if not the most selective, method of downloading as many songs as your disk drive can hold.  Just set that cache to "unlimited" and keep Pandora playing.  Indeed, they aren't just providing these tracks like Napster, say, but they're rather forcing anyone who doesn't know about flash local storage to possess copyrighted material.

It is illegal to copy these songs, of course, but there are more nuanced methods of retaining access to everything you've heard.  There are two legally relevant sections in Pandora's terms of service:

You agree that you will not:

3.1 use the Pandora Services to reproduce copyrighted materials;

3.2 copy, store, edit, change, prepare any derivative work of or alter in any way any of the tracks streamed through the Pandora Services;

3.3 make the Pandora Services available over a network (other than Pandora's network) where it could be used by others;

3.4 provide your password to any other person;

3.5 translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create derivative works based on the Pandora Services or any portion of them;

3.6 circumvent any technology used by Pandora or its licensors to protect content accessible via the Pandora Services;

3.7 rent, lease or sublicense any of the Pandora Services; or

3.8 use the Pandora Services in any way that violates the terms of this Agreement.

And:

The Pandora Services utilize technology to protect transmitted digital information. Your use of the Pandora Services may be limited by such technology. You acknowledge that, from time to time, Pandora may modify or discontinue using such technology. Security modifications made by Pandora may from time to time include required or automated updates, modifications, patches, and/or reinstallations of software. IF YOU ATTEMPT TO VIOLATE OR CIRCUMVENT ANY SYSTEM OR NETWORK SECURITY COMPONENTS OR TECHNOLOGY, YOU MAY BE SUBJECT TO CIVIL OR CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

Now to play songs you've already heard again, you don't have to "translate, copy, reverse engineer, etc..." anything.  You can just open up the files in WMP.  I wonder if having a rewind button on your radio is illegal?  Because the potential for music piracy is so insanely high here, I suspicious of whether or not Pandora has some kind of secret back door deal with the RIAA.  In fact, it looks as if they might be engaging in illegal actions themselves.  If I give you a few digital and copyrighted tracks, am I off the hook if I make you first accept an agreement that you won't copy or store them, etc...?  Minimally, they must be digitally watermarking these tracks.  Using watermarked tracks, the RIAA could easily track down most people uploading Pandora files.  Still, removing a digital watermark isn't all that hard.

A more insidious plot might involve tracking whether or not files are moved or deleted from this directory.  I wonder if toying with the directory enough would be grounds for issuing a warrant to seize and search your computer?  If you're just copying the songs out of the folder, this couldn't be tracked unless the Pandora player is searching through all the files on your computer.  Surely not?  But don't you think there just have to be some drastic security measures in place if they're simply handing out complete 128 kbps .mp3 files of 6,000+ songs?  i'll be listening to Pandora, but you can sure as hell bet I won't be stealing music.

Amusing ID Court Transcript Excerpts

Rothschild is questioning (for the prosecution) Behe.

Q.  That purposeful arrangement of parts, that's not -- you didn't originate that?
A.  No, I didn't.
Q.  At least, it goes back to Reverend Paley?
A.  Yes, it does.  Further back than that.
Q.  Now let's start with the bacterial flagellum.  You've made a point about how complicated and intricate it is?
A.  Yes.
Q.  And it really is.  I mean, it looks remarkable.  But a lot of biological life is pretty remarkable?
A.  That makes me very suspicious.
Q.  You're suspicious about how remarkable biological life is?
A.  No, it makes me suspicious, you know -- that was a joking way to say that I think much of biological life may bespeak design.

Q.  Fair enough.  The entire human body, that's an amazing biological structure?
A.  I'm thinking of examples.
Q.  Hopefully, not mine.
A.  Rest assured.  Sure.  Yes.

Q.  Do you watch football, Professor Behe?
A.  I do on occasion, yes.
Q.  I watched the Notre Dame/USC game last weekend.  It was quite a game?
Mr. Muise: I might have to interpose an objection here, Your Honor.
Mr. Rothschild: I told Mr. Muise his alma mater did themselves proud, despite the final result.
Q:  And one of the things the announcer said was about one of the USC offensive linemen is, he's like a mountain?
A.  Yes.

pwnage! ID i5 t3h 5UxoR!

An interesting post on the ID debate at Language Log.  Apparentely, Michael Behe was one of the "reviewers" for the ID textbook Of Pandas and People.  What's interesting is that Professor Behe claimed he had objections to the definition of ID offered in that book.  But then, if he did have objections, why didn't he raise them during the "review" process?  The answer is shocking:

Professor Behe said that although he had reviewed the textbook, he had reviewed only the section he himself had written, on blood clotting. Pressed further, he agreed that it was "not typical" for critical reviewers of scientific textbooks to review their own work.

And it gets worse.  Testifying before the court, Behe claimed that the peer review his book Darwin's Black Box underwent was more serious than the peer review for scholarly scientific publications:

…Behe agreed, when asked by plaintiff's counsel Eric Rothschild if the "peer review for Darwin's Black Box was analogous to peer review in the [scientific] literature." It was, according to Behe, even more rigorous. There were more than twice standard the number of reviewers and "they read [the book] more carefully…because this was a controversial topic."

It is unclear, however, whether or not Behe is capable of identifying who counts as a reviewer.  And that's putting it mildly.  Michael Atchinson, a heavily religious biochemist at UPenn's veterinary school, was alleged by Behe to have reviewed Darwin's Black Box.  [See here and here.]  Unfortunately, Michael Atchinson has reported that he never saw the manuscript.  His "review" consisted of a ten minute phone conversation with the publisher during which he suggested that publication should be "seriously considered".  While this does not falsify Behe's claim that Darwin's Black Box underwent insanely rigorous peer review, it provides an undercutting defeater for trusting Behe's testimony regarding review quality. (The publisher was referred to Michael Atchinson by the wife of an editor who happened to be attending the yearly class in which Atchinson identifies "being a Christian" as "the most important thing in my life."  This article by Atchinson appeals to divine providence lying behind his recommendation-to-consider-publishing-cum-"review".)

Then there's the question of whether Robert Shapiro really did give DBB a peer review.  Shapiro is quoted by ARN (an ID propoganda machine) as saying:

This book should be on the essential reading list of all those who are interested in the question of where we came from, as it presents the most thorough and clever presentation of the design argument that I have ever seen.

Yes, well, in full context that quote reads:

Michael Behe has done a top notch job of explaining and illuminating one of the most vexing problems in biology: the origin of the complexity that permeates all of life on this planet. Professor Behe selects an answer that falls outside of science: the original creation of life by an intelligent designer. Many scientists, myself included, will prefer to continue the search for an answer within science. Nonetheless, this book should be on the essential reading list of all those who are interested in the question of where we came from, as it presents the most thorough and clever presentation of the design argument that I have seen.

I'm not sure when this quote dates from, but I'd be willing to bet that when Shapiro initially read DBB, he didn't think that Behe was engaged in a scientific project.  But if he didn't think that, then he can't be counted as giving Behe's book a "peer-review... analogous to peer review in the [scientific] literature" .  If I produce an entertaing and clever set of cartoons that Shapiro suggests others should read, he has not therby endorsed my cartoons as passing scientific review.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania has some good links here.  One of those links is to Mike Argento's column, which picks out some highlights of Judge E. Jones III's ruling.  I know what tonight's reading will be:

Of former board member Jane Cleaver, the judge wrote, "Cleaver admittedly knew nothing about ID, including the words comprising the phrase, as she consistently referred to ID as 'intelligence design' throughout her testimony."

Get trial transcripts here. And the  ruling.  My concluding quote comes from Applecidercheesefudge:

Mr. West, who is also an associate professor of political science at Seattle Pacific University, said the decision would "further embolden those who favor Darwinist theory and think that, rather than winning arguments, they can get the government to censor those who favor intelligent design."

Perhaps.  But pace Mr. West, the fact that the ID people haven't ever won an argument made it very easy for the government to censor them.  And if they were in possession of decent arguments, there wouldn't a need for all the disingenuity behind the promotion.

Unintelligent Design Banned

Victory! The Guardian reports.  From the court's judgment:

"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom."

That's pretty much a no-brainer.  And from the caption to the picture of the chimpanzee which accompanies the article:

Panbanisha the communicative chimpanzee.  Intelligent maybe, but now officially ruled to have not been designed.

Just Bizarre

Beth Agnew finds grading her student's papers so f-ing hilarious that she can't stop laughing.  Check out the (large) video here.  Or learn how to instruct your students in relieving their pre-final exam stress here.  Can you even begin to imagine the improvement in quality of education students would receive if only professors of philosophy would adopt this technique?  Submitted without more comment.

Seeing Eye Miniature Horses?

Yes.  And you can get the book, Helping Hooves, which very usefully features "over 100 all-color photo's [sic]".

Unicorn Tusks Still Pretty Magical

The narwhal's tusk/tooth/horn, recently discovered to function as a sensory organ, contains some ten million odd nerves exposed to the frigid arctic water. That's one hell of a cold tooth.  Can you just imagine the pain?  [Via Majikthise]  Now go to the Metropolitan's website to see the The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries.