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."

It's not often that the secular media get anything right about the meat of Catholic theology. Father Robert Barron gives us a splendidly reasoned exception with his argument for priestly celibacy, published on the CNN website. From the essay:

This is why, as G.K. Chesterton noted, there is a tension to Christian life. In accord with its affirmation of the world, the Church loves color, pageantry, music and rich decoration (as in the liturgy and papal ceremonials), even as, in accord with its detachment from the world, it loves the poverty of St. Francis and the simplicity of Mother Teresa.

To sum up Fr. Barron's argument, priests should be celibate because in so being, they become living models of the transcendent communion with God that we will experience in heaven.

He even mentioned G.K. Chesterton. I am pleased.

Is it offensive if someone falsely accuses your family of murder?

CNN reports that actor Tom Hanks, star of the Da Vinci Code sequel Angels & Demons, has stated that there is nothing controversial about this film.

"Everybody is looking for some scandal whether a scandal exists or not," Hanks said of the film. "I think a kind of natural reaction is now that somehow because it's the second Robert Langdon mystery that there is some degree of controversy over it. And there is really not."

No cause for controversy? The movie pits the Catholic Church against the Illuminati, who we are to believe (contrary to reality) were a secret society of scientists dedicated uncovering the truths that the Church was vigorously suppressing. The incorrect portrayal of the Illuminati might be controversial to some, but it could possibly be described as artistic license.*

But still, no cause for controversy? What about Hanks' character Robert Langdon's remark that "the Catholic Church ordered a brutal massacre to silence [the Illuminati] forever"? What about this quote from the trailer, in which Langdon declares, "They were dedicated to scientific truth. And the Vatican didn't like that. So the church began to, how did you say it? Oh, hunt them down and kill them."

Making grossly libelous claims about men who are, Catholics believe, God's earthly representatives is cause for controversy. I'm not sure how Mr. Hanks missed that part.

A major religious leader has publicly denounced the film for ridiculing people's faith, spreading lies, creating confusion about the truth, and perpetuating false stereotypes about the Catholic Church. He is not a Catholic leader, nor even a Christian leader; this came from American Hindu statesman Rajan Zed.

Zed, notable for reading the first Hindu prayers in the U.S. Senate, is also a panelist on Newsweek's On Faith. Does Hanks think that thoughtlessly "looking for scandal" because of the name Robert Langdon is a vice that extends to respected, well-informed non-Christian religious leaders like Zed?

What do you think about the controversy around Andgels & Demons? Are Catholics justified in being upset?

*Perhaps before being issued an artistic license, a person should be required to pass a proficiency test in creating art. That may have saved us from films like this.

National Anxiety and Depression week is over. This event is sponsored every year by Freedom From Fear, which has advocated for the mentally ill for 25 years.

Freedom From Fear was kind enough to send me a free kit to help me spread the word about clinical depression and anxiety disorders. The kit includes two DVDs:

"The Pain of Depression: A Journey through the Darkness"

"Stories of Hope and Courage" (about anxiety disorders)

I am giving these DVDs away FREE to my readers! I have seen "Pain of Depression" when it aired on PBS, but I haven't seen "Stories of Hope and Courage."

Here's how it works:

Leave a comment to this post. Share a story about how mental illness has affected your life or family, or just say hi. If you prefer one or the other DVD, make a note of that and I will try to accomodate you if you win. Make sure you include your e-mail address with your comment or leave a link to a page where I can find it. The deadline is Sunday, May 17th, at midnight CDT. One entry per person!

I will number the comments in the order they appear on the page, then use a random number generator to pick two winners, one for each DVD.

Good luck! I hope to hear from you.

It's that time of year again: National Anxiety and Depression Awareness Week is May 3-9, 2009. Some of last year's series of depression and anxiety posts turned out to be the most popular articles on this blog. This week will feature all new posts about mood and anxiety disorders.

Are you participating in National Anxiety and Depression Awareness Week? Bloggers, do you have blog posts in your archives about depression or anxiety? Leave a comment and I will give you a dofollow link.

No, don't. Please. Instead, read these articles. I have scoured the WHO and CDC websites and other authoritative sources, applied a generous dose of perspective, and distilled the big picture of the H1N1 swine flu epidemic down to some key essentials.

Bottom line? Wash your hands and don't freak out.

• Is H1N1 Swine Flu Dangerous?
• How is the H1N1 Swine Flu Transmitted?
• What do the WHO and CDC H1N1 Flu Response Mean?

And if you crave more details about the epidemic — which is verging on becoming a pandemic but so far not a very deadly one — here are two more:

• Timeline of the 2009 H1N1 Swine Flu Outbreak
• Influenza Virus Classification: The Many Varieties of Influenza (with some nifty pictures)

I am keeping these articles up-to-date as new information emerges. As the WHO puts it, "the situation continues to evolve." Fortunately, the evolution is trending towards becoming a big "never mind." Pray that this continues!

Every year, Lake Superior State University compiles a list of words to be banished for "mis-use, over-use and general uselessness." As I like to fancy myself a writer, this blog has an annual tradition (of which this is the second installment; that's a respectable lifespan for a blog!) of nominating words and expressions for the next LSSU list. Here are my 2009 nominations:

Green collar. This one was actually banished this year by LSSU, along with every other construction using the word "green" that does not have to do with nausea or envy. I wanted to single this one out for being an especially egregious and useless expression.

Down economy. Unforgivably overused.

These tough economic times. This clichéd phrase usually shows up in platitudes that are themselves useless.

Pass Constitutional muster. This terribly overused expression returns over 66,000 results from Google. What is a muster, anyway?

Shock and awe. This oldie was appearing in stories broadcast on NPR as recently as last month. I'm shocked that it is still in wide use despite appearing on LSSU's list five years ago.

Signature — as in, "signature dish" (uttered frequently by the infamous Chef Gordon Ramsay as he abuses struggling chefs), "signature service" (marketed by a certain large oil-change franchise), and many other abuses.

Give back. The phrase "give back" requires an object; one gives back to someone. To describe charitable endeavors as "giving back" is vague, ungrammatical, and devoid of meaning. (Oh wait: this was on the 2008 LSSU list. Well, it bears repeating.)

My readers (hi Grandma!) are an erudite bunch, and I know you are thinking of some words you ardently wish to see banished. Nominate them in the comments below!

It's almost the weekend, so let's talk about TV.

I watch FOX's House regularly. I am losing interest in the program because (besides becoming clichéd and boring) it is not realistic.

The medical cases themselves are full of inaccuracies; one is tempted to uncharitably call them lies. One character is "dying" of Huntington's chorea, which in reality is not a fatal disease at all. A patient died of acute eclampsia a month after giving birth — never mind that eclampsia is cured by delivery of the baby. In one especially infamous episode, a psychiatric condition called "mirror syndrome" was completely invented out of thin air by the writers. (There is a real condition called mirror syndrome which affects pregnant women; this illness was also featured in an episode. Oops.)

Each episode begins with an apparently healthy patient dramatically (and often graphically) collapsing. They are then whisked to Dr. House's hospital, where his team of crack doctors (a bunch who apparently failed medical ethics in school) personally conduct the procedures and tests that are normally done by nurses, radiologists, and other specialists. Dr. House invariably treats the patient more callously than can be imagined, often being deliberately cruel — and clearly delighting in it. At the end, Dr. House (or, less freqeuntly, another doctor, such as the skankily-dressed hospital administrator Dr. Cuddy) has a brilliant flash of insight that tells him the patient's true diagnosis, and treatment after that is quick and easy (unless it is incurable and the patient dies, which happens fairly often).

Scientific American blogger Jordan Lite notes that the cases are often taken from the New England Journal of Medicine's clinical problem-solving column, and that one writer-producer, David Foster, is an M.D. A book has even been written about the show, The Medical Science of House, M.D. But I find the science unrealistic. This is not how medicine is works.

A real mystery disease is usually chronic. A patient with a real "zebra" condition has usually seen many doctors. Once a diagnosis is made, if it is made, treatment is not necessarily quick and easy.

Also, a good doctor is not cruel.

CNN recently featured a story on Dr. William Gahl, who is a real-life diagnostician of rare diseases. Read this story for a realistic picture of how doctors approach medical mysteries. And keep watching House, if you enjoy it. But remember that it's just as fictional with its science as Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.

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.

The first photographic images of exoplanets (planets orbiting stars other than our Sun) have recently been reported in sources including Scientific American, Space.com, and NASA. Exoplanets are typically discovered through indirect observation. Direct observation and photography of these worlds is notoriously difficult for a host of reasons: their tiny size (by definition, a planet must be smaller than even a dwarf star), their dimness, and their relatively close proximity to their parent stars, whose bright light drowns them out.

The image pictured comes from the University of California at Berkeley and depicts a planet orbiting a star called Fomalhaut. This composite image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the planet's position in 2004 (bottom) and 2006 (top); from these data astronomers have calculated and graphed the planet's orbital path. Fomalhaut and its planet are relatively nearby, about 25 light years away.

Another amazing image consists of a system of three exoplanets, pictured at left, which have been detected orbiting a star with the unassuming name HR 8799. The Keck Observatory, which sits at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, claims the honor of creating these images.

There is a catch in calling these "the first" images, though. The devil is in the details, which not even many of the science writers reporting these images seem to have caught. As a matter of fact, at least two direct images of exoplanets already exist! I should know, because I wrote an article about them last month. One was taken as far back as 2004, and the other was reported (again, incorrectly as "the first") earlier this year. Oh, how quickly these science writers forget!

Neither the Fomalhaut nor the HR 8799 images are the first direct images of exoplanets.

As nearly as I can tell, the "firsts" for these images are this: the Fomalhaut images seem to be the first planet discovered through direct observation of visible light. The HR 8799 system images seem to be the first family of exoplanets discovered through direct observation of infrared light. The previously existing images I mentioned above, on the other hand, were discovered through the indirect methods that so far have been the main way of detecting exoplanets; the images were created only later.

All of these images are exciting. Planets outside our solar system intrigue the imagination! But please, I wish the science reporters would do a little fact checking and get their stories straight.

Scientific American, whose articles often are noticeably skewed toward an antireligious (rather than merely secular) perspective, begins to make up for past transgressions with this fascinating profile on an accomplished geneticist and evolutionary biologist who speaks up for the compatibility of evolution and religion. Among the excellent points Francisco Ayala (who was once ordained a Dominican priest, though it's not clear whether he still practices any faith) makes:

• Evolution not only does not undermine a divine explanation for nature, it actually helps. It shows that the suffering in nature, caused by predators and parasites and plain bad luck, is amoral rather than immoral — that it is not evil in the sense of an act of the will. Since God by definition can do no evil, describing nature as neither good nor evil explains how a good God can create a world with natural suffering. It helps, in other words, with theodicy.
  
• Outside the United States, the strong feeling that "Darwinism" is the enemy of Christianity and vice versa is not prominent.
  
• The biggest reason I feel strongly about explaining how evolution is compatible with faith is reiterated by Ayala: Many intelligent Christian students of biology lose their faith when they discover the strength of the theory of evolution because they believe evolution and Christianity are incompatible. It is tragic to think of people turning from God as a result of learning more about his sublime creation.

Ayala's interest in the philosophy of science, unfortunately, does not seem to show as much evidence of his theological training as SciAm implies. For example, according to Wikipedia (admittedly not a terrifically reliable source), he has spoken out against the United States ban on federal funds for vivisecting human embryos.

Nevertheless, though I have far less education in both science and theology than Ayala, I would like to think that in at least some ways we are kindred spirits. We both oppose the sneering attitude of the "Brights" who think they have the corner on truth, when they are actually just closing their eyes to the brightest part of it.

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.

I don't think any of them are right about why trailer park devastation is so prevalent in the media after tornadoes. I think it's because trailer homes are not sturdy structures. But that's not the point.



The irony of posting about storm damage while I am a refugee from a major storm is not lost on me.

The science world is all abuzz about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe. Located under the Switzerland-France border, it is the largest and, more importantly, the highest-energy particle accelerator in the world, with an energy of 7 tera-electron volts (TeV).

Take my word for it that that is a very high energy. Here is an easier number to understand: At full energy, the LHC will use $100,000 worth of electricity per day.

Americans could have outdone the LHC, with the planned Superconducting Super Collider, once planned to be built south of Dallas, Texas. It was to have an energy of 20 TeV. But Congress cancelled the SSC's funding in 1993.

Today the LHC lit up with its first beam. No particle collisions have been conducted, although once they start, particle physicists hope they will be able to fill in the gaps in the Standard Model of particle physics. The media hyperbolically calls this "the search for the God particle," i.e. a particle called the Higgs boson.

Some bosons, er, bozos have cried loudly that the LHC will create a microscopic black hole that will not immediately disappear, but that will consume the entire earth. To keep apprised of this developing crisis, I recommend this blog, Has the Large Hadron Collider Destroyed The Earth Yet?

I've started a new blog for sharing all the useful, nifty, informative, and entertaining miscellany of the web that I feel like sharing. Be sure to stop by Ginkgo100's Picks from the Web some time.

Scientific American recently interviewed U.S. Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) about her new book, Sex, Science, and Stem Cells. DeGette's book decries opposition to her favorite political pets, those related to human reproduction. Her thesis that this opposition constitutes an attack against science itself is an appalling lie, in which SciAm is blithely complicit. (It's not the only publisher so inclined; "Science and Religion News" glowingly praised the interview.)

The trouble starts right with the title of the interview: "Congresswoman Slams Religious Right's Assault on Science's 'Edgier' Side." "Edgy"? To many scientifically literate people, embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) is vivisection writ very small. Something that unethical can hardly be described with the benign adjective "edgy."

What began in the title grows worse throughout the article. On the second page of the online article, the interviewer asks, "Why did you choose to focus on what you call the "edgier-side" of the big antiscience conspiracy?" This is a classic loaded question, an informal logical fallacy, which makes SciAm's political position crystal clear. Let me refute the assumption behind this question here:

There is no big antiscience conspiracy. The Bush administration is not whispering together with other opponents of (ESCR), "How can we stymie science? Let's count the ways!" In fact, I think one would be hard-pressed to identify even one ESCR opponent who also opposes research that does not involve destroying human beings.

There is no assault against science. Rather, the assault is against particular forms of scientific research that are unethical. ESCR is in the same category as the notorious Tuskegee Study.

ESCR is not about sex. It's about human life: the lives of embryos and the lives of sick people hoping for cures. Research ethics forbid allowing the potential for medical cures to trump the rights of research subjects. It would be just as unethical even if adult stem cell research did not offer potential cures without the ethical thorns.

DeGette declares, "I'm pro-science." She seems to be trying to recouch language to denigrate her opponents, the same way abortion-rights supporters did when they coined the noxious term "anti-choice." There is an implicit lie in DeGette's rhetoric: If you disagree with her political views on ESCR, then you are "antiscience." SciAm should dispense with perpetuating this mendacity and pay no more attention to DeGette.

In an old post, I tallied the assorted protests of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States. Expanding on that precedent, I present the 2008 Leave the lights on Awards for World Youth Day Protesters.

The Irony Award

For confusing one's own characteristics with those of the object of one's protest.
Winner: The Green Left for calling Benedict XVI "the reactionary pontiff."

The Most Outrageous Lie Award

For getting it so, so wrong.
Winner: Alex Bainbridge of the Socialist Alliance, who declared that the Church is waging a "war against sex"
Runner-Up: This guy, whose T-shirt reads, "I won't f---- with your gods, you don't f---- with my science"

The Most Childish Complaint Award

For the protest with the tone most akin to a child whining, "He got more pudding than I did!"
Winner: The Australian Greens, a political party, which was upset that the government of New South Wales spent so much on extra police, made road closures, and so forth — all for an event "just for Catholics"

The Most Legitimate Protest Award

For having a good point, even though the thing requested is logistically unrealistic.
Winner: Various victims' advocates who felt the Pope's public apology to sex abuse victims should have been made in personal audiences

I admit I was fascinated when I first heard about the Law of Attraction. Mainly, I was fascinated that so many people were so attracted to an idea so intellectually unattractive. Among those who have been taken in are the likes of Oprah Winfrey.

So I peeked a little deeper into the world of New Age channelled beings. They are an intriguing bunch! Here are the top ten things I learned:

10. Abraham, channeled by Esther Hicks, is not a single spirit, but a whole group of them. They thus often go by the name Abraham-Hicks. (This confusing nomenclature does not mean that Abraham are a bunch of rednecks, as it might appear at first glance.)

9. Abraham teach, among other things, that "anything that you can imagine is yours to be or do or have." Abraham do not, however, teach you not to split infinitives. (They would probably prefer that I say "to not split infinitives.")

8. Channelled spirits do not teach spelling, either. Take poor Djwal Khul. Other versions of his name variously add and remove H's. His followers often just give up and call him DK.

7. The continent of Lemuria was a short-lived hypothesis of the 19th century. A better understanding of plate tectonics made it obvious to science that Lemuria never existed — but the channelled spirit Ramtha, who claims to hail from that land, never got the message. Perhaps Ramtha is actually from the real sunken continent Zealandia. They didn't have geography classes 35,000 years ago.

6. Ramtha teaches that we are all gods. In fact, he calls us "forgotten gods" because we have forgotten our divinity. Apparently Ramtha himself forgot this when he led 2.5 million warriors into battle against the Atlanteans.

5. In the New Age, spiritual beings may be warm fuzzy teachers (except Ramtha), but extraterrestrials are militaristic. Just consider Ashtar Galactic Command, led by the ET Ashtar Sheran.

4. Channelled beings care a lot about their copyrights. Abraham's channeller Esther Hicks has been removed from the "Law of Attraction" video The Secret due to "contract issues." Meanwhile, the Austrian Supreme Court recognizes that only Judy Zebra Knight is allowed to channel Ramtha.

3. Channelled beings have their own secret societies. The Illuminati of the New Age is called the Great White Brotherhood. Despite their provocative name, they do not seem to have any connection to David Duke or the National Alliance.

2. Though Christians generally view the New Age movement to be inimical to their faith, Jesus is very busy in the New Age. He is constantly being reincarnated (despite not being dead). He dictates texts like A Course in Miracles that are in utter contradiction of his earlier words found in the Bible. In the New Age, poor Jesus is a pretty confused guy, and I suspect he must be very tired.

1. Jesus is part of the Great White Brotherhood. Of course he is.

Ben Stein has an impressive curriculum vitae: presidential speechwriter, actor, comedian, social commentator, game show host, attorney, author. Now he has added "filmmaker" to that list with his documentary film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Its central premise is that the theory of intelligent design (ID) is better than the theory of Darwinian evolution, but "Big Science" refuses acknowledge that fact. Like the medieval Church, it excommunicates any academic who questions Darwinian dogma or advocates for ID.

I have not had the opportunity to see the film (it isn't playing in my city), so I will base my commentary on reviews and materials from the Expelled website. I'll start with the two-minute "Super Trailer," which opens with this dialogue between a teacher and Stein, who is sitting in the back of the classroom:

Teacher: Moving through history in an unguided and undesigned way, the theory of evolution --
Stein: Excuse me!
Teacher: Yes, Ben.
Stein: How did life begin in the first place?
Teacher: Mr. Stein. You have the same question every time.
Stein: Well, you never answer it, sir.
Teacher: (sputtering) You know, we've been through this so many times, you have been so --
Stein: Could there have been an intelligent designer? (cue electric guitar solo)

The film has been accused of being propaganda rather than a documentary by the site "Expelled Exposed," and this conversation between a cool, collected Stein and a caricature of a hapless teacher certainly supports that assertion.

The trailer continues with interview snippets from what are presumably supposed to be academics disgraced by their belief in ID, and then a choppy bit of an interview about the origin of life that reeks of out-of-context editing. It ends with some indignant comments about those people, including (heaven forfend!) the National Academy of Sciences, who insist on the separation of religious and scientific thought. Stein complains, "There are people out there who want to keep science in a little box, where it can't possibly touch a higher power, cannot possibly touch God."

This trailer has two main themes -- that scientists can't answer questions about the origin of life, and that science and religion are improperly kept separate -- both of which I strenuously disagree with. (Lest I be accused of taking things out of context, feel free to peruse the official overview of the film.)

I'll start with the second theme about the separation of science and faith. Religion and science have both different methods and different ends. Since both seek truth, they can never contradict each other when conducted properly, but neither do they answer the same question. Religion is ordered to learning about God and his relationship with us, and about sanctification -- ultimately, about all things supernatural. Science is ordered to learning about Creation -- all things natural. The scope and methodology of science is such that it is impossible for it to make conclusions about religious topics. If science attempts to explain a miracle -- a supernatural suspension of natural law -- it cannot call that event a miracle, only declare it "unexplained so far."

So yes, science absolutely should be kept in a little box where it can't touch supernatural things. That is its proper place. And religion properly should touch on only those aspects of the natural world that affect our relationship with God, and leave the rest to science.

The exact historical process by which the first living DNA cells originated is one of those events that belong to science. Religion can tell us only that God was the ultimate cause; science alone can (possibly) discover the method. And in only the last few years, new discoveries have begun to shed light on this method. We may someday (soon, even) have a pretty good idea of the nitty-gritty chemistry that sparked the first DNA life.

But there is another issue that begs to be addressed. Regardless of how the first life came into being, whether a natural process or an ex nihilo fiat, the origin of life actually has no bearing at all on Darwinian evolution. Evolution is concerned with what happens to life that already exists. In other words, even if the origin of life can never be explained naturalistically, evolution by natural selection is not thereby invalidated.

The information available to me about this film does not make me hopeful that it contains much scientific investigation. I rather suspect it will follow the fallacy that if you say something loudly and often enough, it will come true.

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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)
  
• James Watson, six months later, still apologizing for remarks he denies having made about the inferior intelligence of Africans (Scientific American blog community)
  

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