Essays


  •   -PD-US, modified.

    Attrib: modified, PD-US.

     

    Essays,  Science

    The moons of Jupiter

    The fascination of astronomy for me, beyond the beauty of the night sky, beyond the immense imponderables of a vast and ancient universe, is that our understanding of the universe has been gleaned by observing a few points of light in the sky. One illustration of this can be found in the history of our knowledge of the moons of Jupiter.
  •   -CC BY-SA 2.0, Dave Winer, original posterized.

    Attrib: Dave Winer, original posterized, CC BY-SA 2.0.

     

    Essays,  Politics-Government

    Citizenship: Making sense of hysteria

    With the never-ending wave of hysteria being promulgated daily in the news media and on the internet, how do we make sense of it all? How do we deflect the emotional pull of anger, greed and hate, all cousins of fear, that are often brought to us by those who wish to drown our better selves in the worst emotions, so as to persuade us to think or act in some certain way? How do we find a way to think and act responsibly when our politicians, pundits, preachers, programs and parents promote their agendas, at times with little regard for truth or ethics or morality, while with the deepest cynicism, couching their points of view in the language of truth and ethics and morality?

  •   -CC0 PD, .

    CC0 PD.

     

    Education,  Essays,  Philosophy

    Life, education, and life-long learning

    We each are given a precious life and can choose to do with it what we will. We can act in our natural self-interest and seek safety, material wealth and pleasure, or we can act outside of our direct interests, enriching our lives through the consideration of others. Our lives are most meaningful and worthwhile when we love others. The elements of life to be savored most are those that are founded on the humble idea that we are all human beings who are worthy of consideration.
  • Book review, Title When I Was a Child I Read Books, Author Marilynne Robinson, Rating 5.0,

    When I Was a Child I Read Books

    Marilynne Robinson

    Book review

    Essays,  Religion,  Reviews

    The capacious heart of Marilynne Robinson

    Every few odd years Marilynne Robinson has produced a book of essays, notably Absence of Mind and The Death of Adam. The latest arrival is When I was a Child I Read Books: Essays. The best of Robinson shines in these latest essays: In them she lays out her vision of the American Dream, celebrating the strengths of the American way of life, marked by its liberality (individual freedom), sense of community, and generosity, each informed by a non-sectarian respect for the soul.

  •   -PD-US, Oren Jack Turner.

    Attrib: Oren Jack Turner, PD-US.

     

    Essays,  Philosophy,  Science

    Fuzziness is all

    Alongside Newton's powerful physical model of the universe came a growing belief that the universe in principle was deterministic, that the rules by which the universe behaved could be discovered and modeled, were repeatable, and could be in principle exactly or absolutely determined. Absolute determinism came under serious question with the advent of subatomic physics at the start of the 20th century, more or less collapsing in the face of problems insoluble with the physics of Newton and Maxwell, and only explicable by using the new quantum mechanics, which posits that natural phenomena could be modeled at the highest attainable precision only by using explicitly probabilistic models, that is, by building into the models a modicum of fuzziness.
  •   -Oregon Scribbler, .

    Oregon Scribbler.

     

    Essays,  Religion,  Science

    Can religion and science be reconciled?

    "Adherents of religion and science too often want to own the unknown"

    Victor Stenger, a physicist who has written extensively about religion and science, asserts emphatically that science and religion cannot be reconciled, and at best merely coexist in parallel thought universes. His primary argument is that faith requires no evidence and science does. Alfred North Whitehead, in his essay Religion and Science, emphasizes the commonality of change in both science and religion, and that both are more plastic than the controversialists from either camp would acknowledge. Is Stenger one of those controversialists? Can religion and science be reconciled?

  • Book review, Title How Should We Then Live?, Author Francis A. Schaeffer, Rating 2.5,

    How Should We Then Live?

    Francis A. Schaeffer

    Book review

    Essays,  Politics-Government,  Reviews

    How should we then live?

    Part 4 of 4 of this review of Francis Schaeffer’s How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture suggests an alternative answer to the question regarding how we should then live, and attempts to answer the original question posed in part 1: How did this book influence U.S. Evangelical Christians to become more politically active?

  • Book review, Title How Should We Then Live?, Author Francis A. Schaeffer, Rating 2.5,

    How Should We Then Live?

    Francis A. Schaeffer

    Book review

    Essays,  Politics-Government,  Reviews

    Absolutely relative

    Part 3 of 4 of this review of Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live examines the author's claims that Christian ethics are the only absolute standard for society.

  • Book review, Title How Should We Then Live?, Author Francis A. Schaeffer, Rating 2.5,

    How Should We Then Live?

    Francis A. Schaeffer

    Book review

    Essays,  Politics-Government,  Reviews

    Christianity good, secularism bad

    Part 2 of 4 of this review of Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live examines the author's historical approach, and evaluates his comparison of Christendom and secular society.

  • Book review, Title How Should We Then Live?, Author Francis A. Schaeffer, Rating 2.5,

    How Should We Then Live?

    Francis A. Schaeffer

    Book review

    Essays,  Politics-Government,  Reviews

    The good old days of Christendom

    In his book How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, what did Francis Schaeffer have to say that influenced so many Evangelicals to become more politically active? Part 1 of 4 of this review summarizes the author's primary theses, then assesses the impact of critical historical events that were minimized or left out of the author’s analysis of Western Civilization.

  •   -CC0 PD, .

    CC0 PD.

     

    Essays,  Politics-Government,  Technology

    The superweed and GMO crops

    Superweeds are weeds that cannot be killed with the usual pesticides used by by today's agro-businesses, such as Roundup. They have begun to pop up in fields that grow crops which have been genetically modified (GMO) to increase their resistance to pesticides. This allows farmers to use Roundup more liberally to kill weeds. This approach worked very well at first, but after a prolonged overexposure of the weed population to Roundup, weed species resistant to Roundup have been selected. This is a serious agricultural problem, as these weeds lower the yield, increase the cost of harvest, and remain a problem that is not easily solved. Why is this strategy employed, when agronomists predicted that such an outcome was inevitable? Why not just move to organic farming, eliminating the use of chemical pesticides, which like antibiotics, are indiscriminate in destroying both pests and beneficial organisms?

  •   -Oregon Scribbler, .

    Oregon Scribbler.

     

    Essays,  Philosophy,  Religion,  Science

    What to believe?

    Confusion is the only rational outcome of the questions raised by religion.  How can one be certain that God exists or certain that God does not exist, or if God exists, what form God takes?  To insist that any religion has the unequivocal answers to these questions is to be blinded by the fear of uncertainty and the fear of death.  That is not to say that the religious impulse is a false one.  What is the purpose of life?  How do we live a good life, a meaningful life, a fulfilled life?
  •   -Oregon Scribbler, .

    Oregon Scribbler.

     

    Essays,  Philosophy,  Science

    Zeno’s Paradox? Not so much

      -Family, .

    Family.

     

    The first time I heard the tale of Zeno's paradox was in childhood, one night after dinner, with the family still around the table. My father grabbed a random section of the day's newspaper, called for a pencil, and with occasional cramped diagrams in the margins of the newspaper, intense and intent, showed us something that fascinated. Such moments with my father, which were relatively rare, I still treasure. His telling of Zeno's paradox inspired me these years later to attack the subject more vigorously.

  • Book review, Title American Sphinx, Author Joseph J. Ellis, Rating 4.0,

    American Sphinx

    Joseph J. Ellis

    Book review

    Essays,  History,  Literature,  Reviews

    Jefferson’s legacy

    Joseph Ellis provides us with an ambitious analysis of the compartmentalized mind of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was extraordinarily adept at saying and writing, apparently believing, and doing things that were paradoxical and often diametrically opposed to each other. Ellis suggests that this helps to explain his enduring following by just about every political persuasion in the United States, and even abroad: Anyone can find in Jefferson something that supports one's ideology, especially if they studiously ignore, in perfect Jeffersonian fashion, the things Jefferson said or did that would negate their ideology.

  • Book review, Title Atlas Shrugged, Author Ayn Rand, Rating 1.5,

    Atlas Shrugged

    Ayn Rand

    Book review

    Essays,  Politics-Government,  Reviews

    There but for the grace of God goes … Ayn Rand?

    I have been sometimes surprised by which ideologies have chosen to embrace Ayn Rand and for what reasons, wondering how she influenced anyone beyond selfish teens and the wealthy. I was particularly surprised to see signs of evangelical Christians embracing Atlas Shrugged, since on first inspection, it would seem a gargantuan stretch between the ideas of Rand, an avowed atheist who openly mocked the religious and the poor, and the ideas of Jesus, who emphasized a caring life centered around selflessness to focus on God and the afterlife he promised. It would seem impossible for evangelicals to follow Ayn Rand; how did this come about?
  •   -PD, Jastrow.

    Attrib: Jastrow, PD.

     

    Education,  Essays,  Literature

    The art of writing? Just get started

    I was talking to a friend about the difficulties of writing, and so gave some thought to my own writing process. I have often felt stymied in getting started writing, both in business, of which I did a large amount, or privately; I enjoy writing, and sometimes can write freely and fairly quickly, but the norm is that I struggle to start. My most usual technique is to write a set of scattered notes down, anything, and then revisit it and start shaping it. Most of my more serious “essays” started in one direction, and are in many ways unrecognizable when I am done, precisely because one idea or phrase begets another.
  •   -PD-US, .

    PD-US.

     

    Essays,  History

    Whitewashing the most peculiar institution:
    a Lost Cause

    Leonard Pitts, one of my favorite columnists, just wrote about the persistent whitewashing of Confederate History in the old South, and pointed to the out and out lies that are being told about it. The biggest whopper, of course, is that the Civil War was not about slavery! Of course, the South was quite clear and unambiguous as to why they started a Civil War. In their own language justifying their secession from the Union, they described slavery as the primary reason for their treasonous behavior.

  •   -CC BY-SA 4.0, Mikheil Baramidze.

    Attrib: Mikheil Baramidze, CC BY-SA 4.0.

     

    Essays,  History,  Memoirs

    Here’s the Thing about equal rights

    Herein lies a tale of history misunderstood, and then of history revived. It begins in Heidelberg, Germany in 1975. I was then a young soldier in the US Army, and with a fellow soldier, my friend Ted Withycombe, had taken a day trip to visit the storied university town of Heidelberg. While strolling along the Philosopher's Way, where students and professors had trod for hundreds of years, we chanced upon an unmanaged but well-trodden path that went up the hill towards the Heiligenberg, which other people were clambering up. There was no sign that described that path, nor could it be found on our map.

  • Book review, Title Absence of Mind, Author Marilynne Robinson, Rating 2.5,

    Absence of Mind

    Marilynne Robinson

    Book review

    Essays,  Reviews,  Science

    Parascience: Fair – or not

    In the very first sentence (above) of this collection of essays, who's full title is Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of Self, Marilynne Robinson fires an immediate broadside as she sails the still uncharted territory of consciousness, or perhaps, the territory of charting consciousness. The title 'Absence of mind' appears at least a double entendre: The removal of the mystery of the mind by sloppy, imprecise parascience (a word Robinson uses more in the sense of scientism) and a poke at those who would arrogantly misuse the authority of science as being absent of mind.

  •   -PD-US, Pieter Claesz, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague.

    Attrib: Pieter Claesz, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague, PD-US.

     

    Essays,  Philosophy,  Religion

    Hope against hope: Immortality and illusion

    Shortly after my father-in-law Burt died, Christopher Hitchens, the contrarian and atheist, announced that he had been diagnosed with an incurable disease. There was a good deal of response in the media , much of it around the idea that Hitchens subscribed to no hopeful or immortal view of his afterlife. Many asked: should one pray for him, given that he did not believe in any religion? Should he go against his life-long atheism and embrace the "life-enhancing illusion" of the soul's immortality before he dies?
  •   -CC0 1.0 PD, Max Pixel.

    Attrib: Max Pixel, CC0 1.0 PD.

     

    Essays,  Healthcare

    Healthcare and the last days – Letting go

    The surgeon Atal Gawande asks, "What should medicine do when it can’t save your life?" In the U.S., terminally ill patients are most often given aggressive cure-at-all-costs treatment rather than palliative, or comfort care. But while patients live about the same amount of time whichever choice is made, for aggressive treatment the quality-of-life is much lower, and the economic costs are enormously higher. Gawande suggests that, for terminally ill patients, by changing the focus of their care to quality-of-life rather than aggressive treatment, the economic problem itself will be significantly lessened as a result.
  •   -PD-USGOV, .

    PD-USGOV.

     

    Essays,  Politics-Government

    Iraq as a Failed Anti-Terrorism Policy

    The Bush administration has seriously hurt America’s anti-terrorism efforts with a failed policy in Iraq. For the past 18 months, the Bush administration has focused America's military almost exclusively on Iraq, spending precious lives and money to fight internal Iraqi terrorism that was created by invading Iraq. Over 600 US troops and a half a trillion dollars have been lost on Iraq, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed, with no end in sight.

  • Book review, Title The Death of Adam, Author Marilynne Robinson, Rating 2.5,

    The Death of Adam

    Marilynne Robinson

    Book review

    Essays,  Religion,  Reviews,  Science

    Modern Jeremiad

    Marilynne Robinson's The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought could just as well have been entitled 'Modern Jeremiad', as its tone is often bleak, accusatory, and angry, sure that the world, and America in particular, has taken a set of massively wrong turns in terms of both its thinking and its behavior. This is a book that marks modern thought as empty of spiritual meaning, and continually contrasts secular (mostly failed) ideas and behaviors with Christianity's spirituality and ability to offer meaning and moral structure in a modern human's life. The essays are wildly uneven, and the variation in quality is quite wide; most are readable, but several are nigh on unreadable. If you were to read this book from back to front, you would, roughly speaking, be reading from the best essays to the worst.