The blog World of Psychology published an excellent post by Margarita Tartakovsky that examined an atrocious "editor's letter" that recently appeared in the chick mag Women's Health. The letter, by editor-in-chief Michele Promaulayko, was an abysmal failure in women's ongoing search for dignity in a world that demeans us at every turn. You can go over to World of Psychology to read the heinous text, then the five insightful criticisms of it made by Ms. Tartakovsky.

I cannot contain within myself a sixth criticism that was no doubt omitted only due to lack of space (really, a lot more than just five criticisms could have been made, but that would have required a whole series of blog posts). Ms. Promaulayko boasts, "We came up with a plan to help you look great naked—or in a barely there swimsuit."

Why exactly, Ms. Promaulayko, should women be so eager to parade around naked—or nearly so—in public? You did not say "nude," which implies a certain dignity in the natural human form—you said "naked," which is a much more sordidly suggestive word. Why should we do this? Because modern women should have no self-respect whatsoever? Because we should have no sense of modesty, nor view our bodies as temples? Is it because you feel it's important to women's health to manipulate and frustrate men (not to mention, the Catholic in me must add, tempt them to sin), or to to play petty games of intimidation with other women? Really, Ms. Promaulayko.

And no, the answer is not "it's encoded in our DNA."

In a culture that promotes alternative medicine, natural childbirth, and sometimes-bizarre dietary supplements, it seems strange that natural infertility treatments are not well-known. A natural infertility treatment is not necessarily alternative medicine, but rather a conventional-medicine approach that seeks to cure the underlying cause of infertility, allowing natural conception. It stands in contrast to assisted reproductive technology such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), which is stick a "band-aid" solution that does nothing about the underlying causes of fertility problems.

Why is assisted reproductive technology the current standard of care for infertility? If you type "fertility treatment" into Wikipedia, you are redirected to "assisted reproductive technology." Wikipedia, being written collaboratively by people around the world, reflects the biases and attitudes of those people. Fertility drugs and IVF are what people think of when they think about infertility treatments.

I think the reason IVF is so popular — despite its astronomical cost and mediocre success rate (only 1 in 3 attempts results in a live birth) — is because it is a "magic pill" approach. It is a silver bullet, a straightforward process left in the hands of doctors. Natural fertility treatments are more complicated because they start with diagnostics, rather than jumping immediately into treatment.

Among the diagnostic steps used in natural fertility treatments for women are ultrasound, laparoscopy, and sonohysterosalpingography (SHSG) to look for structural problems in the reproductive organs, as well as hormone level checks. During her menstrual cycle, a woman's estrogen and progesterone levels can change significantly in as little as 24 hours, so daily or every-other-day tests are best. Any underlying disease or structural abnormality that is uncovered is treated to increase the odds of a naturally conceived pregnancy.

How successful is natural infertility treatment compared to assisted reproductive technology? IVF has a maximum success (pregnancy) rate well under 50% (for 27-year-old women), with an average success rate closer to 35%. Statistics for live birth are even worse, with an average of only about 27% of attempts resulting in live births. That means that an average of 8% of attempts result in a miscarriage or stillbirth (or, if the fetus is imperfect, abortion). The poor success rates reflect, in part, the fact that over 50% of embryos conceived in vitro have chromosomal abnormalities, as reported by Rebecca Taylor of Mary Meets Dolly. Natural fertility technology also has treatments for male infertility.

According to the Pope Paul VI institute, a major proponent of natural infertility treatment, so-called "natural reproductive technology" has higher success rates than IVF for various infertility diagnoses. These results are both statistically significant (i.e. not due to chance) and personally significant (i.e. they're a lot higher). For example, for a diagnosis of endometriosis, IVF has a success (pregnancy) rate of about 21%, while natural reproductive treatment has a success rate of about 57%. It reports a 37% success rate for tubal occlusion compared to IVF's 27%. The whopping 82% success rate reported for natural fertility treatment of anovulation (not producing mature eggs) may be due to straightforward treatment of the most obvious cause of anovulation, hormonal insufficiency (although I am speculating here).

I find it amazing that natural treatments for infertility are not better-known, even though they are more effective than current approaches. That's right: for infertile couples, it is more effective to try to conceive a baby the way nature always has than to inject a sperm into an egg under a microscope, with less chance of complications like chromosomal abnormalities and multiple gestation. Who wouldn't choose that first, if they knew it was available?

Image credit: "Test tube baby" by Brendan Dolan-Gavitt. (CC) Some rights reserved.

Why do people think it's selfish to have lots of kids?

Recently there was a bit of a dust-up in the combox at my sister's blog, Mama Says*, in which one commenter in particular charged that only selfish parents have big families. Having lots of kids (eight, in this case) allegedly is harmful to the older children in the family.

This is a mainstream attitude in modern American culture. Big families are viewed with scorn and derision, the parents accused of being selfish because either (a) they are dividing their love and attention among too many kids, (b) they are contributing to overpopulation, (c) they are using more than their share of natural resources, or (d) all of the above.

As a cradle Catholic, I have known a lot of big families. I even grew up in one, as the oldest of a brood of eight. But I have yet to meet a big family with selfish parents who are focused on fulfilling their own desires at the expense of either their family or our larger society.

I think this attitude stems from the discomfort people feel when they see large families. They cannot imagine themselves having a baseball team's worth of children, so they feel subconsciously threatened when they see one. That statement is not intended to be judgmental; it's human nature, and everyone experiences feelings like that when confronted with behavior that falls outside of social norms.

Why it is not selfish to have a big family

Let me present a picture of a typical big family. This fictional family has two parents and a startling number of kids. They have a strong religious faith, perhaps Catholic or Mormon or Evangelical. The parents at times feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of people underfoot. They know they could easily take steps to prevent themselves from having so many children, but they don't, because they have decided to trust God. They see each kid as a gift and have faith that God will provide for the kids he gave them. This is not a decision made lightly. This is radical, and they know it.

All the members of the family make a lot of sacrifices in order to follow this path. Maybe the kids aren't in as many organized activities, sports, and lessons as most of their peers. Maybe they go to restaurants less often, take fewer vacations, and share bedrooms. Maybe the younger kids rarely see a new article of clothing, being clad instead in hand-me-downs.

But they also have a lot of privileges that their peers will never know. They are never lonely. Their house is the neighborhood social hub for the 18-and-under set. They probably have a groupie or two, lonely children with no siblings whose parents work all day. They have a precocious understanding of the important things in life, like love and sharing. The older ones help their parents and learn child-care skills. They all learn practical life skills by doing chores, such as how to do laundry. They see what it is like to really live according to one's ideals and values.

They never have to hear their parents say that children are burdens, or that they are "so glad" they're done having kids.

And above all, they never, ever feel unloved. Big families like to repeat the saying that "love doesn't divide, it multiplies." It's more than a cute saying, it's literally true: the kids all love each other. Each new baby has a live-in fan club. Each older child has a crowd of younger devotees who think he is the coolest person on the planet.

The truth is, every parent of a crowd has no choice but to give of the deepest part of themselves, every single day. They are practically forced to be unselfish.

Selfish parents could not do this job.

* (cough cough) Which I helped design, by the way (ahem) not that I'm boasting or anything, but I have mad skillz don't I? Nevermind that I didn't do most of the work.

I'm mulling over a move from Blogger to my own site. I know what content-management system I'll use (and it's not Wordpress), have hosting already, and really just have to bite the bullet and start setting it up. I'd like to make this a science-and-faith site, not just a science-and-faith blog. The new site will probably have separate feeds for different topics (like science, Catholicism, health), a combined feed if you want all the posts in one place, and ... a forum! I might be looking for new writers or guest posters, too. I am open to feedback about what changes you might like to see here.

This Sunday is Pentecost, the day the terrified and confused apostles were sent out from the second-floor room where they hid after Christ ascended into heaven. The Bible records that the Holy Spirit provided "tongues of fire" that let them be understood to speakers of all languages. Kind of makes Pentecostal "speaking in tongues" (untranslatable tongues, that is) pale by comparison. Wear red to church!

Father Alberto Cutie is not cute. After being caught fooling around with a woman on a public beach, he was put on leave by Archbishop of Miami John C. Favalora. That was scarcely three weeks ago, and now he has already decided to convert to Episcopalianism so he can "be with the woman he loves." (Also, as he did not say in the statement, so he can break his vows without being chastised.) Presumably, he chose his new faith so he can still be a priest, since as a Catholic, he can be married or be a priest, but not both. What kind of priestly formation did Fr. Cutie go through, that he finds switching faiths as easy as buying a new car or repainting a house? Three weeks?

The acting director of the National Institutes of Health is Dr. Raynard Kington, but some (unfortunately not very current) rumors hint that Dr. Francis Collins is a "top contender" for the permanent spot. Dr. Collins is the former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. H/T to Rebecca Taylor of Mary Meets Dolly.

My "Animals and Catholics" series will continue. Really. It's just been a distracting month, what with National Anxiety and Depression Awareness Week and everything else. Stay tuned.

Tropical depressions are forming in the Gulf of Mexico. Last year, there was a bumper crop of named storms after two lean years, though not as many as in 2005. Let us pray that this year resembles more 2006 and 2007. After all, if another storm hits southeast Texas, this blog will suffer. I had a very hard time posting last year when the power went out!

Kari Byron is pregnant. You don't know who Kari Byron is? Then you lose geek points! She's the red-headed chick on Mythbusters. The growing belly is growing obvious on the show, and she's been sitting out on the bungee jumping and skydiving. I'm just waiting for her to bust the myth that what you crave during pregnancy will tell you whether it's a boy or a girl. (I thought they had a chromosome for that.)

Earlier this week I wrote about science fiction author John C. Wright's conversion story. I was moved to read this story again because I am finishing up his excellent trilogy The Golden Age (The Golden Age, The Phoenix Exultant, and The Golden Transcendence). (Yes, though I am not the Sci Fi Catholic, I have always been a sci fi Catholic.)

The protagonist of The Golden Age is an engineer who calls himself Phaethon, after the mythical Greek character Phaëton. The future Phaethon's father is a solar engineer who has named himself Helion (the mythical Phaëton's father is Helios, the sun god). The novels take place in the Golden Oecumene, a far-future, solar-system spanning civilization. The Golden Oecumene is a near-utopia thanks to abundant energy and other resources, the advice of super-intelligent and benevolent artificial intelligences called Sophotechs ("wise machines"), and immortality of identity resulting from the technology to mechanically read and copy minds.

The Golden Age is a philosophical series. It was written while its author was still an atheist, and the world is entirely secular. Reason and logic are core themes. This series rests on the power of the mind, but unlike some science fiction in which "the power of the mind" means the discovery and development of paranormal abilities, the only power of the mind in the Golden Oecumene is the ability to think.

Using their reason, Helion and his son Phaethon (as well as the super-intelligent Sophotechs) have determined that there is an objective truth, and that it includes not only the laws of nature, but also the laws of morality. The ultimate conflict is between good and evil, with "good" characterized by existence, life, endeavor, and reality, and "evil" by nihilism, emptiness, and self-deception. Phaethon and his father live a philosophy called the Silver-Gray School by which they strive to discipline themselves to remain connected to reality and to comport themselves with honor and integrity.

I have never read a godless story so philosophically compatible with Christianity. While Wright reports that it required a series of miraculous experiences for him to acknowledge God's existence, after reading The Golden Age, I don't believe much of a miracle was required; he was a rational atheist ready to meet a rational God. (Perhaps this is why he calls his mystical experiences "overkill.")

For example, an ancient Judeo-Christian philosophy dating back to the book of Genesis is the idea that one's name is a relection or part of one's essence. Thus Abram had to be renamed "Abraham," meaning "father of nations," and his grandson Jacob was also called Israel, meaning "struggles with God" (which explains much about the Old Testament history of his descendants). God himself is named YHWH, variously translated as "I am," "I am who am," and "I am that I am": God's very name is the declaration of his perfect and infinite existence.

In the Golden Oecumene, individuals choose their own names, but nobody seems to choose a name just because they like how it sounds; one's name reflects one's identity. Thus Helion is the one person in the entire Oecumene who controls the sun for the good of everyone in the solar system. The meaning of Phaethon's name is left to the reader to discover.

The Golden Age is sort of a secular humanist's dream, a paradise based only on reason; but the rational conclusions that triumph in the end are so compatible with the Catholic faith that it makes my heart hum. In light of its author's conversion, I take it as an inspiration to explicitly reject the notion that religion is irrational, as well as the use of the irrational in religion.

I've gotten less political here as the U.S. presidential election draws near. But I just have to comment on this bone-headed study, described in a Houston Chronicle story with the asinine title "Liberal versus conservative: DNA may tell."

What are the problems with the study? First, the research methods are flawed, because the concepts of "liberal" and "conservative" are very subjective and specific to modern United States culture. And second, the conclusion reached by the researcher being interviewed is far more than what is supported by the data.

The researchers started by having their sample fill out questionnaires on social policies such as "support for the war in Iraq, support for or opposition to immigration, opposition to gun control, [and] support for the death penalty." Each of these is a complex issue with nuanced arguments, about which many people have complex opinions, but since they were part of a questionnaire, it is likely that ratings were obtained simply on a polarized scale. My own opinion on the death penalty, for instance, cannot be classified into simple support or oppose; it would take me at least a couple of paragraphs to explain it.

The issues were categorized into "socially protective" and non-"socially protective" policies, about which the interviewee says "certainly there's a left-right orientation." Being themselves mired in American political culture (the study took place at Houston's Rice University), the researchers apparently cannot even see their own bias in labeling the various policies as "left" or "right." To them, "socially protective" policies are right-wing, not left-wing — even though in some cases, policies considered liberal could be seen as more "socially protective" than the corresponding conservative policies.

For example, the researchers considered opposition to gun control, classically a conservative position, as a "socially protective" policy, which fits their data (which I will get to below). Yet arguments in favor of gun control, classically liberal, always have a socially protective pitch; if not to protect innocent people from being killed by guns, why restrict them?

The biases of the researchers make the data worthless for the purpose the researchers are seeking — determining whether one's place on the political spectrum has at least a partial biological basis. Yet even if the data were good, the conclusion announced by the interviewee is on another planet from what those data actually show.

What the data show is that people who favor "socially protective" policies (the ones pre-defined as "conservative") have stronger physiological responses to anxiety-provoking situations (disturbing images and startling sounds) than those who do not favor those policies. Physiological response to stress is strongly tied to psychological factors whose biological basis is unclear at best. But the interviewee cites some concrete numbers, apparently pulled out of thin air: "Probably two-thirds of the explanation is outside of biology," with the rest based on specifically on DNA. Keep in mind that this study did not look at genetic factors at all. There is absolutely no support for saying that correlation between biology and politics, if it exists at all, is based on DNA rather than on environmental effects on one's biology. In other words, there is no investigation into whether the results come from nature or from nurture. (In fairness, this conclusion is not presented in the abstract of the study itself.)

This study was published in the prestigious journal Science, yet almost all of the researchers hail from the field of political science. Only two of the eight authors have any background in psychology, and only one of those is clearly identified with biological psychology. As with some other journal articles, how this nonscientific rubbish passed peer review is a mystery.

Michael Dowd, the self-proclaimed "evangelist of evolution," wants religious people to discard their beliefs while keeping their religious language, which he would like to redefine to refer to concepts from the scientific theory of evolution and speculations of evolutionary psychology.

This is a pretty big horse pill to swallow. Dowd knows this, so he markets his ideas with his Seven Reasons for the Gospel of Evolution. And here they are, seven reasons Dowd thinks people of faith should come around to his way of thinking:

1. The gospel of evolution would give us a common creation myth. Since Christians and Jews already share a common creation myth, I assume Dowd must mean to use the gospel of evolution for a sort of universal ecumenism, in which all religions — Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity among them — acknowledge one and only one story of origins: naturalistic evolution.
   
2. It validates both scientific and religious ways of speaking. Of course, religious ways of speaking are already "validated" in the religious community. Dowd must mean therefore that religious ways of speaking will be validated among the atheistic community. Indeed, throughout his interviews, Dowd comes across as desperate for the approval of atheists.
   
3. It is a key to understanding and alleviating suffering, which comes from not living "integrously" with the flow of evolution. History, with its lessons on the eugenics movement and on Nazi genocide, teaches a far different lesson on what happens when humans try to base their ethics on the theory of evolution.
   
4. Religious language can be interpreted in a way that's universally true. By this, Dowd means it can be interpreted naturalistically. He says, "I don't have to wait to die to go to a place called heaven. When I'm in a place, integrity, love, compassion, generosity, care, consideration, I'm in heaven now, and so are you. It's true for everybody." But obviously, it's not true for those whose earthly lives are full of suffering, whether from loneliness, physical or mental illness, drug addiction, or other causes of grief. It seems cruel of Dowd to be so eager to steal the hope of a happy afterlife from people who are far from experiencing "heaven" on earth.
   
5. Only by knowing how we really got here and the trajectory we're on can we respond to problems like terrorism without making things worse. "It is impossible to know how to move into a healthy sustainable future" without understanding evolution, says Dowd. I agree that understanding evolution is important, but there is no reason religious beliefs should be discarded at the same time.
   
6. It unmasks the powers of manipulations. "We are so easily led around like a nose-ring (sic)." Here I assume Dowd is giving in to the frequent atheistic criticism of religion, that organized religion exists to manipulate the masses. Yet people of faith like myself believe we are more free in many ways than are people without faith.
   
7. "It gives us the tools for understanding how to have a great life and thriving relationships no matter what hand life deals us." That's funny; my Catholic faith also gives me those tools, and much more explicitly. I imagine that the Gospel of Religion has no sacraments, for example.

Michael Dowd Series:

• Part 1: Demoting the sacred
• Part 2: Original sin
• Part 3: Seven false reasons for the gospel of evolution
• Part 4: The compatibility of science and religion

The recent post about this blog's position on evolution has attracted a lot of attention. Perhaps I should have added that I believe evolution is "only a theory" in the sense that it is nothing more than an idea of secular science and is not at all a sacred thing. I say this to make a contrast with the position of Michael Dowd, a self-described "evangelist of the gospel of evolution."

Dowd, previously a Catholic and then a fundamentalist Protestant, is now the inventor of "evolutionary theology" and the author of Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World. He was recently interviewed in two parts on the secular humanist radio program "Point of Inquiry," where he explained his naturalized religion.

There is a lot to Dowd's message, parts of which will be addressed in future posts. But his ideas all boil down to one central thesis: God is not a supernatural, personal being, but a personification of reality. In other words, God is the "proper name" we give to all of nature. His term "Religion 2.0" seems to refer to a hybridization between pantheism and the philosophy of Spinoza, both descendants of Eastern philosophy.

Though he calls it a "personification," Dowd's thesis about religious thought actually makes God into a non-person. In other words, God's personhood is merely symbolic.

Dowd explicitly rejects all private revelation (what Catholics would call "the deposit of faith") in favor of the revelation uncovered by science. He says that scientific facts are "God's native language." This idea echoes the beliefs of the Deists, who accepted "natural theology" but rejected the revealed theology that is central to the claims of Christianity. Interestingly, in the radio interviews at least, he makes no attempt to refute the idea that revelation contains truth, but merely denounces it.

The Catholic Church holds that while doctrine can develop in the same way a flower unfolds, its core content never changes. The original deposit of faith was completed with the writing of the books now included in the Bible. The Church is so careful on this point that she uses a dead language as the official tongue of faith, lest the natural evolution of living languages distort the unchanging contents of revelation.

Nature likewise never changes (except, the Christian would maintain, through the rare interventions of God known as miracles), but our understanding and description of nature — in other words, science — changes frequently and often dramatically. For example, consider how the uncertainties of quantum mechanics (a model which even has a postulate called the Uncertainty Principle) compare with the clockwork universe of Newton. Even the theory of evolution, the scientific nucleus of Dowd's philosophy, may in principle be one day replaced or drastically modified as the central unifying theory of biology.

And much of Dowd's message draws not on the overall theory of evolution, which is a very strong model with overwhelming scientific consensus, but on the much more speculative field known as evolutionary psychology. To derive our behavioral "integrity," as Dowd recommends, from such a controversial discipline is to build our morals on a foundation of sand.

I subscribe instead to the Cartesian (and fully Catholic-compatible) view that science, as the study of nature, is subordinate to supernatural truth. By removing the supernatural from reality and calling the remnants "God," Dowd has made himself into an evangelist of nonsense. A commenter on the Point of Inquiry website put it well with these insightful remarks: "If the universe is god is the metaphor, then doesn’t god lose all meaning? ... An impersonal and unknowable god seems like no god at all, at least from a teleological point of view."

Michael Dowd Series:

• Part 1: Demoting the sacred
• Part 2: Original sin
• Part 3: Seven false reasons for the gospel of evolution
• Part 4: The compatibility of science and religion

A recent article in Maternal and Child Health Journal found the more culturally Americanized a pregnant Latina woman is, the more likely she is to be suffering from depression. Hispanic women who speak English or were born in the United States scored higher on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale.

Based on the abstract, this article's conclusion appears to be badly flawed. The problem is that the CES-D appears to be focused on measuring depression in people coming from American culture. Depression, curiously, appears different in Latino culture. Somatic (physical or physiological) symptoms are much more common, and may include headaches and stomach problems. The cultural place of women, in particular, may lead them to find it inappropriate to express opinions contrary to those held by people in authority over them, which "obviously may interfere with necessary self-disclosure," according to the Mental Health and Aging Website.

It is possible that in this study, Latinas who were less Americanized experienced depressive symptoms more as physical complaints and less as mental or psychic pain. They also may have felt inhibited from giving completely open responses on the questionnaire, even if they was kept confidential, if those responses might be in conflict to what authority figures (husbands, boyfriends, fathers) expected of them. Women who have internalized American cultural values to a greater extent would be more likely to have high scores on an American depression scale.

The abstract does not indicate whether these issues were addressed in the study. If not, it may show only the predictable result that Americanism leads to a specifically American experience of depression in pregnant Latinas.

Image credit: Maria & Michal Parzuchowski. Some rights reserved.

I just wrote about some interesting Eucharistic oddments, as this sacrament is fascinating to me and one of my favorite devotions. Yet somehow (despite subscribing to some of the blogs that discussed it) I completely missed "Crackergate" until now.

Background: The whole thing started when a Florida student took a consecrated host home instead of consuming it at Mass. Perhaps he acted out of ignorance (but also defiance, as he was there was something of a showdown in which parish officials asked him to return the host before he went home).

Enter biologist PZ Myers. He is rather evangelical about his beliefs, which include equating "atheism," "science," and "truth." I won't link to his blog "Pharyngula," not wanting to encourage his juvenile attention-seeking, but he gleefully documented all his actions there. (If you really want to read it, let Google help you.)

I said Myers "entered," but "barged in hollering 'Look at me, look at me!'" is more descriptive. He requested his followers readers send him consecrated hosts, which he pledged to treat to profane as foully — and publicly — as possible. They complied, and he published a photograph of a host in the trash can, with a rusty nail driven through it, along with pages from the Qu'ran and Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion.

The blog "The Big Stick" wrote eloquently about Myers' attention-seeking actions.

Myeres does not understand people's love of the Eucharist, so instead he insults them. He is guilty of a number of rhetorical sins, most prominently argument by sneer. Myers has described those upset by Eucharistic sacrilege to be "demented [unprintable]s" in the throes of "mass lunacy" and "astonishing ... insanity." (As you can see, he also plies the trade of perpetuating the stigma on mental illness.)

Myers says his e-mail bag is overflowing with death threats toward him and his family, and he proves it by publishing some of them. The nastiness of the hate mail he has received is enough to make me queasy. I think it is proof that you can have faith without forming your conscience to it, as I asserted in this post.

Elsewhere in his blog, Myers mentions secular humanism as "a good alternative" to Catholicism. If Myers really is a secular humanist, than his conscience seems not to be formed by his beliefs either. "Good will" and "tolerance," tenets of secular humanism's ideal of building a better world, are sorely lacking in Myers' actions.

Myers does not understand his opponents' outrage. Mark Shea remarked, "One gets the impression that both he and his followers, having nothing but contempt for Catholics, have no real grasp of the interior contours of Catholic faith and belief and therefore no grasp whatever of the hierarchy of values at work in Catholic life." Some out-of-context quotes (you would think Myers, who loudly deplores "quote-mining," would know better) led me to believe that Shea also does not understand Myers' motivation, but the whole of his writing shows that he does.

Some of the Catholic responders to Myers, though, do not understand his motivation. Myers does not intend to insult the person of Jesus Christ. How can he, when he views belief in God being as nonsensical as believing in the Tooth Fairy? He wants to demonstrate that "it's only a cracker." He doesn't even believe in such a thing as sacrilege, so he can hardly commit it. His sin is not of sacrilege, but just of being a jerk.

In 1999, Italian sculptor Maurizio Cattelan created this sculpture above, naming it "La Nona Ora" ("The Ninth Hour"). In 2004, it sold at Christie's for $2.7 million. Pope John Paul II is made of wax, and the meteor is volcanic rock.

Science and Religion News discusses some possible meanings of the sculpture. The meteor may represent the new militant atheism movement, or it might be the Kaaba stone at Mecca, showing Islam's ascendancy over Christianity. Cattelan himself raised the idea of an "upside-down miracle," in which a tragedy comes from the heavens and the Pope is saved by earthly forces.

I like to see it as a symbol of the physical illness that John Paul II suffered in the final years of his life.

What do you think of the sculpture? What might it stand for?

I hereby hold Michael Medved accountable for his Townhall.com post on American DNA. Also hereby held accountable are the psychiatrists he cites, Peter Whybrow for his book American Mania: When More Is Not Enough and John Gartner for his book The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (A Little) Craziness and (A Lot of) Success in America. I have not read the books, but I have read Medved's article.

Gartner's thesis is that many historical American figures (he profiles nine of them) were "hypomanic." Apparently he is using this term apart from its usual meaning as a pathology of Bipolar II Disorder, redefining it as a personality trait that has lead to material success achieved by these men (yes, they are all men), who include Christopher Columbus, Andrew Carnegie, John Winthrop, Alexander Hamilton, David O. Selznick, and Craig Ventor. The reviewers indicate he has further defined this personality trait as uniquely American, which if correct, mars his book with a deplorable bit of nationalism. Analyzing the psyches of people long dead is always tricky business, even when one is not reinventing psychiatric terms and concepts.

Amazon.com was kind enough to let me view a page from the book, which describes Carnegie's passion for philanthropy (p. 164). You can't judge a book from a single page any more easily than by its cover, but it does seem a far reach to link philanthropy with mania. It would be interesting to see how Gartner justifies this thesis.

Whybrow's thesis troubles me more because, according to reviews, he generalizes it to the gene pool of the entire U.S. population. He links it to a particular allele in the dopamine reward system, which he asserts has a higher frequency in America than elsewhere due to self-selection. Specifically, he argues that individuals with this allele crave material rewards and are more inclined to seek them out actively than individuals without the allele. Since the immigrant ancestors of today's Americans presumably shared a desire to seek material success in the New World, Whybrow assumes they must have possessed this allele, which has been passed down to us. Further, he blames this allele for American materialism.

The speculation is interesting, and reminds me of Edward Hallowell's speculation that America's relatively high rate of ADHD is due to similar self-selection among immigrants. But leaping off this speculation and blaming America's cultural flaws on genetic heritage disturbs me. What about the materialism of Europe and Japan? I wonder if Whybrow has statistics as to the frequency of the allele in question in different world populations.

Curiously, Medved takes what Whybrow (judging from the reviews) considers a negative trait and recasts it as a positive one. It seems inevitable that racial politics would eventually come into a discussion like this, but I am surprised that it came from the usually-measured Medved himself. His same post also notes that African slaves did not have these (desirable, in his view) genes -- but tries to cover up this racist potshot by adding that there are a lot of African immigrants in America today, who presumably do share the gene. Nice try, Mr. Medved, but you can't make such an egregious statement "okay" by backpedaling.

Politicizing the issue even further, Medved's final argument is that a "welfare state" (right-wing-ese for a state with social programs to take care of its population) wouldn't work in America the way it does in Europe because Americans just don't have the genes for it. Now speculation has degenerated into virtual incoherence. Maybe Medved just has too much good old American hypomanic craziness to sound rational 100% of the time.

For further blog reading:

• Is Having Depression or Bipolar an Advantage? (World of Psychology)
  
• Is Bipolar Disorder a Dangerous Gift? (World of Psychology)
  
• "Once Diagnosed, Never Underdiagnosed", on whether bipolar disorder is a gift (Furious Seasons)
  
• Kenyan Runners and a non-genetic explanation for their dominance in running events (Gladwell.com)
  
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This guest post is by my sister, Mile Hi Mama of Mama Says. She graciously wrote this at my request.

I have often decried the fact that Beijing is hosting this year’s Olympic events. Hosting the Olympics creates a sense of legitimacy for a government, a tacit world-wide approval as each country sends their most elite athletes to compete in a spirit of brotherhood. China's human rights abuses, in my opinion, were simply too egregious to ignore. Then the story came out that the Chinese government had kicked almost two million people out of their homes in order to make the Olympic stadium, and simply bussed them out of town when foreign dignitaries came to visit.



Tibet, which Communist China took over in 1954, is taking advantage of the new attention being paid to that part of the world. Their government-in-exile is led by the Dalai Lama from India.

Interestingly, the Dalai Lama does not want to secede, they merely want autonomy. He acknowledges the many benefits and modernity that has come to Tibet through China. The Tibetan Buddhists simply want to practice their religion in peace.

“Free Tibet” protests have broken out around the world, and are coalescing around the symbol of the Olympics, the Torch. In Paris this week, officials had to extinguish the torch twice in order to smuggle it past the protesters. San Francisco is upping security. Mount Everest is being closed to hikers, both in Nepal and China, when the Olympic torch is scheduled to come through.

Earlier this year, director Steven Spielberg distanced himself from the opening ceremonies (he was helping to design them), citing opposition to China’s involvement in Darfur, Sudan. Increasingly in America, and throughout the world, China has come under fire for human rights abuses, unsafe working conditions, lead laced toiletries, food, and toys, and for their oppressive use of force against their own people. China has also been criticized for its practice of executing criminals without the promised court oversight, and then selling the organs of the deceased for transplantation.

Hillary Clinton has publicly called for President Bush to avoid the opening ceremonies as well, which is quite ironic in light of her appearance as First Lady at the 1995 at the Conference for Women’s Rights in – you guessed it – Beijing. At the time, she was able to remark on the violation of human rights that takes place when children are forcibly ripped from their mother’s womb and killed simply for being a sibling, while standing in the very place such horrendous actions take place. This year, quite a few high profile politicians seem divided as to whether a boycott is the most effective way to cause change. One thing they do agree on is that change in China is necessary.

China exercises tight control of any information its citizens might read. The great Firewall of China effectively blocks any stories, websites, or news that does not line up with the Chinese governments Communist agenda. The average Chinese citizen has no idea that the world is rooting for Tibet, the world criticizes the government for abusing its people, that the world cares about them.

Instead, the Chinese government is telling their people that they have found dynamite and plastic explosives in the Buddhist monasteries, and floats whispers about suicide bombers.

When China became a host city for the Olympics, the Chinese government agreed to allow the foreign journalists uncensored access to the Internet. The Firewall would be lifted, at least for the duration of the event. It might be the only chance for the Chinese people to have unfettered access to the Net. If the Chinese people realized that the world was watching, and for the most part, rooting for an overthrow of the oppressive regime from the inside, what would happen? Could a week's worth of access to the rest of the world change the future of the Chinese people?

I'm for the Chinese Olympics now. It's their only chance.

I visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science recently. Near the west end of the exhibit halls is a Foucault pendulum. It is an enormous brass ball with a delicate finial at the tip, depending from a tower reaching storeys above the rest of the building. Its stately swings above the polished floor appear to remain in a plane, but due to the angular momentum of the rotating earth, its path precesses in a ring. Traced on the ground, that path would resemble not a single line endlessly retraced, but a flower with countless narrow petals.

A half-dozen or so visitors surrounded the pendulum. We could not perceive the tiny course changes between swings, so to demonstrate the effect, the exhibitors had set up a ring of pegs just inside the limits of the swing. As the pendulum precessed, its finial periodically toppled a peg.

We could see the finial passing just millimeters from the next peg. I pulled out my digital camera and photographed each pass, hoping to catch the moment of the peg's fall. More visitors appeared, and excitement rippled through us each time the pendulum swung past its target. I switched my camera to video mode and tried to record the fall, but the batteries died, and all around people groaned with me. Now each approach drew a breathless gasp: would the peg fall this time? Now the finial seemed sure to touch it; now the peg wobbled; we all held our breath. As the pendulum swung again, its point lightly brushed the peg, and we cheered noisily as it tipped.

Throughout the experience I was sharply aware of its incongruity in the 21st century. Wonders are routine now. No respectable action film lacks CGI effects. Any event we want is at our fingertips on YouTube; any natural phenomenon is a search away on Wikipedia.

Yet we at the museum crowded around the giant pendulum and its literally mundane movement, captivated by the tiny drama of the effects of the rotation of the earth. And when the peg fell, we cheered.

Today is the 188th birthday of Susan B. Anthony, an early American feminist. She is best known as a suffragist, although she was an ardent activist in many areas of women's rights.

Anti-abortion feminism

Anthony had much to say about abortion, which she referred to on at least one occasion as "child murder." During Anthony's life, abortion in America was condemned by men -- who recognized the erstwhile mothers as the only guilty parties. In her publication The Revolution, Anthony wrote, "All the articles on this subject that I have read have been from men. They denounce women as alone guilty, and never include man in any plans for the remedy."

She once lamented, "Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!" This was a minority sentiment then, and all the moreso now. Eerily, modern feminists vigorously defend the "right" of a woman to undertake this burden of conscience, while devoting nary a word to the partners and parents who pressure women into abortions. The term they use, "pro-choice," is quite a misnomer, as many women who undergo abortions feel they have no choice at all.

In fact, as long as it is legal to perform this act of violence on a woman, those who feel her impending motherhood is not in their best interest will urge her to suffer it -- without conscience.

Especially egregious is the argument that even in the absence of other legal avenues to abortion, women who conceived as the result of rape should be "allowed" to abort. The raw truth is that an act of violence (abortion) can never heal another act of violence (rape). Claiming otherwise to rape survivors during their most vulnerable weeks following the attack is unforgivable, yet many politicians who claim they are pro-life have succumbed to this irrational but passionate argument.

Natural Allies

Anthony recognized that oppressed groups make good allies, on the principle that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Thus she also opposed slavery and supported voting rights for blacks. Speaking at a conference in 1859, she asked, "Where, under our Declaration of Independence, does the Saxon man get his power to deprive all women and Negroes of their inalienable rights?"

The modern feminists' movement and its obsession with "abortion rights" is puzzling, considering that unborn babies are another natural ally of women: both are historically victims of a society that has placed them in a position of lesser power. Women, being able to speak up for themselves, should feel sympathetically inclined to represent those who cannot. Anthony's friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton remarked in a letter, "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."

Yes, it really happens

The UCLA student group Live Action publishes The Advocate, a pro-life student newspaper that has made national news with its investigative reporting. Its undercover investigations have shown that the UCLA student health center offers pregnant students only one "choice," abortion, and that the local Planned Parenthood turns a blind eye to reports of statutory rape.

This is what legalized abortion has brought to American women. To the mainstream feminist movement, I have to say: Nice job. You really screwed this one up.

Resources
Feminists for Life of America