During the first Republican Presidential Debate last year, a simple question was posed to the ten candidates, “Does anybody [on stage] not believe in evolution?” Surprisingly, three of the candidates raised their hands. This brief episode illustrated a disturbing trend in our nation: The belief that faith is more important than reason. “I don’t care what the science says, The Bible says this,” has become a credo, almost an affirmation of faith, among certain religious groups.
NIU is no exception when it comes to this type of irrational thought. I have run into numerous people on campus that have still not accepted evolution. One of the keys to intellectual advancement in college, as well as life, is an ability to objectively evaluate evidence and arrive at conclusions consistent with that evidence. We must also be willing to challenge previously held beliefs in light of new evidence. Fundamentalist religion impedes these basic principles. It’s time that strongly religious people realized this. Much of what religious texts say is allegorical, so they should not be taken literally. There are some important lessons that can be learned from The Bible, but the origin of species isn't one of them. Reading The Bible and believing that the Genesis creation stories are true is akin to reading Animal Farm and believing that animals can talk; it completely misses the point.
If there is a God, and this God gave us the ability to use science, the greatest tool we have for understanding the world, then why wouldn’t He want us to accept its findings? Why would He want us to rely instead on superstition and emotion? He wouldn’t.
Regardless of what flavor of religion you follow, reason is not something to be feared. You should turn to religion if you feel it answers the question of why we are here, but we should all rely on reason to find out how we got here. Evolution is a truth, and there are many more truths that can be discovered if you just liberate your mind from the chains of extreme religion.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Monday, September 10, 2007
Why Politicians Make Dumb Public Policy Decisions
I kind of wince whenever I hear the average politician talk about economics. Both sides of the aisle tell us how we have to keep jobs here, we have to produce here, trade is bad, oil companies are gouging us, and that the economy is doing terrible. Well Bryan Caplan, an economics professor at George Mason University, says that politicians are pandering to our irrational sides. If you take the average voter, you'll find that they don't disagree with much of what I said in the second sentence. Caplan says the average voter has four biases:
1.) An Anti-market bias: The average voter doesn't understand what supply and demand truly is, so they will support policies that interfere with the market.
2.) An Anti-foreign bias: The average voter believes that foreign trade hurts America, and will support tariffs and protectionism.
3.) A Make-work bias: The average voter believes that employment is more important than production.
4.) A Pessimistic bias: The average voter often believes the economy is doing worse than it really is.
The politician I've heard echo these biases the most is none other than Illinois' wonderful senator Dick Durbin. Not only does he support "price gouging legislation" (a practice that only exists in Democrats' minds), but he says that outsourcing is hurting American workers. The lack of any evidence of price gouging by oil companies and that whole low 4.6% unemployment rate thing don't shake Durbin from his stances at all.
Durbin exemplifies the stupid, pandering politician. He doesn't even attempt to understand the methodology behind outsourcing or gas prices. Instead, this liberal-populist curses them.
If you think these biases are limited to the left in this country, you'd be mistaken. I don't know what happened to conservatives in this country, but somehow they've gone from supporting small government and questioning the government's motives, to being flag waving super-patriots. All you hear them say is, "We should buy AMERICAN!" and "Immigrant workers are taking our jobs!"
Liberalism and conservatism are dead in this country, they've been replaced by different flavors of populism, and it's sad.
Here's a word of advice to anyone who disagrees with this; instead of getting mad at what I said, try to understand the economic principles behind the moves that those bloody evil corporations make. Instead of calling their decisions conspiracies, do the math. Instead of saying the economy is doing bad, look at the data out there. We may well be heading towards a recession, but it has nothing to do with trade, gas prices, outsourcing, or corporations. What I'm trying to say is don't rely on "common sense" so much. As Einstein said, "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
For more on this subject, follow this link: http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9340166
1.) An Anti-market bias: The average voter doesn't understand what supply and demand truly is, so they will support policies that interfere with the market.
2.) An Anti-foreign bias: The average voter believes that foreign trade hurts America, and will support tariffs and protectionism.
3.) A Make-work bias: The average voter believes that employment is more important than production.
4.) A Pessimistic bias: The average voter often believes the economy is doing worse than it really is.
The politician I've heard echo these biases the most is none other than Illinois' wonderful senator Dick Durbin. Not only does he support "price gouging legislation" (a practice that only exists in Democrats' minds), but he says that outsourcing is hurting American workers. The lack of any evidence of price gouging by oil companies and that whole low 4.6% unemployment rate thing don't shake Durbin from his stances at all.
Durbin exemplifies the stupid, pandering politician. He doesn't even attempt to understand the methodology behind outsourcing or gas prices. Instead, this liberal-populist curses them.
If you think these biases are limited to the left in this country, you'd be mistaken. I don't know what happened to conservatives in this country, but somehow they've gone from supporting small government and questioning the government's motives, to being flag waving super-patriots. All you hear them say is, "We should buy AMERICAN!" and "Immigrant workers are taking our jobs!"
Liberalism and conservatism are dead in this country, they've been replaced by different flavors of populism, and it's sad.
Here's a word of advice to anyone who disagrees with this; instead of getting mad at what I said, try to understand the economic principles behind the moves that those bloody evil corporations make. Instead of calling their decisions conspiracies, do the math. Instead of saying the economy is doing bad, look at the data out there. We may well be heading towards a recession, but it has nothing to do with trade, gas prices, outsourcing, or corporations. What I'm trying to say is don't rely on "common sense" so much. As Einstein said, "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
For more on this subject, follow this link: http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9340166
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Well, here it is...
I'm bored at work right now so I thought, "What the hell? Why not start a blog?" The rest is history, I suppose. This blog is gonna cover (real) news and give opinions. I may try to recruit some more bloggers (about three other people come to mind) so there will be some diversity of viewpoints and more news covered. Any stuff I cover is gonna have a libertarian spin to it, so I'm making my biases known. I'll give my take on important news stories and curse stupidity, but I'll avoid pointless celebrity news and stuff like that. Unless, of course, I want to rip on the media for covering pointless news. In which case, all is fair game. I'll get more of this running once I get done with work and back to my Mac at home. I'm using a Windoze computer right now, so I need to wrap this up because it's only a matter of time until it crashes. This is the place you should come for news though. Seriously. Do it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
