It was McCain’s economic adviser, old colleague, and former Senator Phil Gramm who suggested that the United States was merely in a “mental recession” and that complaining about the current economic conditions amounted to “whining.” From electoral-vote.com today, we get some insight into Gramm’s history, its relation to the current clusterfuck on Wall Street, and why it matters to McCain:
This nationalization [of insurance giant AIG] poses an especially large challenge for John McCain, who is now railing against corporate greed and lack of government regulation of the financial industry. What he doesn’t talk much about is how deregulation happened. It was the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that repealed the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act and thus eliminated the depression-era walls between between banking, investment, and insurance that made this crisis possible. Glass-Stegall erected walls between banking, investment management, and insurance, so problems in one sector could not spill over into the others, which is precisely what is happening now. The primary author of that legislation was none other than his economic advisor, former senator Phil Gramm (who thinks the country is in a “mental recession”). McCain fully supported the bill and has a decades-long track record of opposing government regulation of the financial industry. His new-found conversion to being a fan of regulation is going to be a tough sell as Obama is already pointing out that McCain got what he wanted (deregulation) and this is the consequence.
Now, it occurs to me that I have been ranting against the market and its disciples quite a bit lately. I don’t want anyone to get the idea that I think government is a panacea. I don’t. My rants have been a reaction which, Mr. Newton tells us, is equal and opposite to an initiating action. The action to which I am reacting is the constant drum beat on the right proclaiming, mostly as a matter of dogma, that markets can do no wrong. In some cases this dogma has a subtext that implies poor people are poor because they are lazy, stupid, and disfavored by God. The rich, on the other hand, are rich because they are hard working, industrious, and God loves them. Think I’m stretching on the God thing? It goes back to Calvinism and our rich Puritan heritage.
In theory, free markets, like communism, work great in practice. In practice, often times they don’t. Now, I’m going to go completely off the rails by dragging Aristotle into a post where I’ve already dredged up Newton, Calvin, and the Puritans. Aristotle and others noted that there is harmony to be found in the middle — the Golden Mean. The dogma of the free marketeers (and the Communists, if there are any left) leads to extremes that disrupts harmony and causes problems — probably due to Newtonian reactions. I always think of a sling shot. If you pull it as far as you can to blind market worship, it’s going to snap back on you.
Right now, we’re going through a bit of a snap back.
Last paragraph is especially telling.
Stiglitz Comments
One of McCain’s arguments was that the safeguards put into place in the 1930’s were unnecessary encumbrances for 21st Century economics. Gramm kicked down an old-fashioned firewall and here we are, so close to that old crash again that McCain had to stir up a new recipe, a double-dose denial cocktail:
“The fundamentals of our economy are strong!!! And by that I mean, the American Workers are strong and resilient!!! And if people disagree with that, then they are …” (dot, dot, dot … they are what? Unpatriotic???) “So we are in a crisis!!! And I will lead the American Workers to safety!!!” Total sludge.
I’m not an expert in the banking field, so take this with a grain of salt. But “deregulating” with the implied promise of a bailout is not “free market”. That takes us back to mercantilism or socialism (depending on the motive).
One of the difficulties with “free market” is that entities must be free to fail. (I suppose this a “failure” of free markets– of a sort– but what’s the option? Mercantilism/socialism, not markets.) Of course, there is great reluctance to allow this– on the part of those who are failing and the politicians that want to support them for various reasons.
You’re right that it’s not a completely unfettered market. The problem, as I see it, with complete deregulation, including allowing failures to occur, is that these failures aren’t occurring in a vacuum. Often times, failures will take down more or less innocent third parties. In the case of AIG, that could be a lot of innocent third parties.
Boom & crash seems to be one aspect of laissez-faire capitalism. Ultimately, maybe this leads to a more vibrant economic ecosystem; but, like a flooding versus a dammed river, it’s awfully hard on those at ground level.
I like to think this fits well with Republican “faith-based” thinking…just have faith that corporations & banks etc. will regulate themselves adequately, just have faith that we can balance the federal budget by not reducing spending while cutting taxes, just have faith that tax cuts for the wealthy will “trickle down” to the masses…
Not only am i not an expert in the banking field, I can’t spell economics without a dictionary.
It seems to me that we can only ever really talk about a modified free market as it is actually happening here. As soon as the gov’t got involved the first time, or at least by the 2nd or 3rd time, the hopes of regulation free markets became moot. We are constantly in need of undoing previous fixes and I can’t imagine us ever breaking out of that loop.
Palin has said some amazingly contradictory things about this whole issue. (fix the problem so government can get out of the way)
Doug, no mention of Darwin, Machiavelli, or Sun Tzu?
There are third parties either way. So, one either prefers tagging the innocent taxpayer and subsidizing guilty companies and semi-guilty stockholders– or allowing the market to tag the companies/stock-holders.
And then among Reps and esp. Dems, there’s faith in government (and for the secular types on the Left, there’s also faith in Evolution as a comprehensive “explanation” for the development of life)…
Eric, as a molecular and evolutionary biologist I’ll just point out to you that theres no “faith” involved in scientific fact (that of the role of evolution in directing the development and radiation of living forms on our planet). And evolution is comprehensive – yet the devil (er um) is in the details. Selection, genetic drift, evo-devo, cis-acting evolution… the jury is still out on how the car works in each case, but its there and its running, thats easy to see time and again.
And in a defense of Progressive views of Government… thats not faith either. Faith in Government cant save this country from men like George W. Bush and John McCain.
What we have is confidence in the role of a competent government to uphold a social contract on behalf of the people against powerful monied interests and their greedy failures. A service that the public often cannot provide itself in the face of concentrated wealth and greed.
On the other hand, even a competent government can efficiently screw up the works. See ‘farm subsidies’ for a fair example.
Brian,
There’s tons of irrefutable evidence for lower-case-e evolution (fact without need for faith). But there’s not much evidence for capital-E Evolution as a comprehensive *explanation* for the development of life. It’s a nice comprehensive story, but has far, far, far too many holes to qualify as an explanation. As you said, the devil is in the details. As a result, Evolutionists have to engage in the sort of hand-waving that would make a miracle-wielding creationist proud. “Well…Evolution just did it, don’t ya know.” Now, that’s faith!
As for faith in govt, it clearly exists. It’s actually at fever pitch in Dem circles these days– after peaking awhile back in Rep circles. When I run into Obama fans, many of them really believe– with scant evidence– that He will change the world. It’s kinda cute, really. But if He is elected, that idolatry, too, will almost certainly fail.
You said: “What we have is confidence in the role of a competent government to uphold a social contract on behalf of the people against powerful monied interests and their greedy failures. A service that the public often cannot provide itself in the face of concentrated wealth and greed.”
What you call confidence is just a synonym for faith. Yet I haven’t seen much evidence of such competent governance. (“Where is this competent govt of which you speak?”) And if there’s not much evidence, then we’re talking about a blind faith.
Finally, as it turns out, greed, wealth and power are at play in markets, in government, and especially with companies using government. Beware of all three…
I have faith that my money will allow me to buy more or less the same amount of stuff tomorrow as I could today. Currency is trust.
Doug –
You are typically right about tomorrow and today.
Not so right about next year and today.
Almost certainly wrong about ten years out and today.
Inflation is partly a pernicious tax on us all – a way for the government to steal wealth by printing money.
Although, it is probably better to have, on average, a small rate of inflation than it would be to take the draconian measures needed to ensure there was no inflation at all.
Yes, currency is trust – but look at who manages it. Do you trust all of them?
Evolution is a suffiently powerful mechanism to explain life on earth. The presence of some gaps in a history spanning billions of years should not be a surprise. The evidence is still sufficient to elevate evolution to a level much, much higher than “faith”. To equate belief in evolution with faith because of some gaps is just rhetoric or ignorance. The entirety of creationism is one giant gap devoid of ANY evidence.
When reason and evidence fall short and inferences are drawn, then the gap must be bridged by “faith” (or a similar term– for those allergic to that term). That’s not rhetoric or ignorance; that’s just the way it is.
The presence of some gaps? Evolution– not as a powerful story (which you’re assuming) but as an explanation– has far more gaps than it fills in.
What gaps? I mean, give an example.
I join T in asking for specific examples to back up your claim that evolution “has far more gaps than it fills in.”
Actually, you have just defined “the scientific method” where the gaps are bridged by experimentation through testable hypotheses. Thats where creationists and IDist “give up” – where the actual pursuit of truth could undue their “faith” and bias to self-drawn conclusions. Personally, I just like to think theyre lazy.
That the results of such work in evolution (“gaps”) have not yet been completed to your satisfaction is your problem – not that of science. The pursuit of truth will not stymied by the impatience of (forgive me as I use the most academically definitive term to describe someone not formally trained in the biological sciences) the ignorant.
It’s not a problem for me at all. I lose nothing whether God used evolution to do 99%, 62.1% or 22.6%.
As I noted before, the gaps (where reason and evidence are lacking for now– whether resolved in the future or not) require faith. Sure, science fills gaps all the time. But until it fills any given gap, if you decide to believe one story over another about that gap, then you do so by a combination of reason, available evidences and faith.
By the way: If you’re going to toss around the term “ignorant” in that way, I hope you’ll be consistent in trying to squelch any comments on economics by someone other than me or a fellow PhD in Econ. ;-)
Now, to the primary topic: gaps. Let’s start with an explanation that covers evolutionary progress through vital and reproductive organs. How did vital organs evolve from nothing to something? How did reproductive organs evolve while still allowing procreation and evolutionary progress?
Two other things:
The nature of Evolution as an overarching explanation is that it is difficult to test it through experimentation on testable hypotheses.
And in equating creationists and ID’ers– or in asserting that the latter as “giving up‖ means that you don’t understand their pursuit (or dismiss it out-of-hand). What have you read from ID’ers?
(OK very long – but very important IMHO Doug)
On claiming economic ignorance – no problem!
Id refer to the recent Michigan State report of a cistrate-minus bacterium evolving to thrive on cistrate media (20 years of research, over 10,000 generations of bacterium) as proof of the strength of the scientific method in demonstrating macro-evolution.
The evolution of vital and reproductive organs are complex systems that are still being researched, but there is confidence in modeling through comparative analysis. We must also think outside the box to realize that components of certain systems may have had historical function outside of their current context.
For example: At IU there is an evolutionary biologist who just delivered his tenure seminar. His lab studies the development of beetle horns, a completely novel appendage, only found in the beetle insect family, as if arisen from nothing! But alas its not from nothing. What his lab has found is that the genes that pattern appendage development (legs, wings, mouthparts) have been coopted by the beetle to develop these new appendages. The genes function if different ways, in different manner, with new players also.
The common parable from IDists (Michael Behe is most prominant) is that a mousetrap without all parts is useless. So how can you design a functional mousetrap without designing the whole thing as one? But whats to say the spring doesnt function in another capacity in some other system, or the plank as a an essential platform, etc – or each with singular purpose?
And then here is the crux of evolution: steadily through time, due to mutations that may allow the parts to better link, and environmental constraints, the parts are assembled together (coopted from other sources) and give rise to this new function that is beneficial to the organism. And this organism can then thrive and reproduce, passing on those mutations that allow for such a system to hold, until all the organisms in that population have this function, long forgetting the time that they didnt.
Id also like to point out that the IDist movement is very specific that their cause is the “wedge.” Do drive a stake in the heart of science to promote faith as the only answer. Id refer to Judge John E. Jones III (GWB appointee) closing decision in the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover:
I don’t understand the particulars of your cistrate example. But it sounds like, at most, one of the amazing number of steps required to explain the development of life from X to what we see now. The appendage development seems more impressive as one potential piece of what might be part of an explanation.
But it is not enough to find that evolution is powerful or can do some cool stuff– if one wants to call Evolution an explanation. Instead, one must determine how evolution took us from A to B to…Z.
On the evolution of vital and reproductive organs, I don’t quite understand what you mean by “confidence in modeling through comparative analysis”. But that hardly sounds like an explanation.
By the way, this is not a call to scientists to quit looking for such things– only a call to humility, consistency, and clear thinking about what has (and has not) been accomplished.
Finally, I’m not sure why citing a judge is helpful to your case (even though he was appointed by GWB!). Maybe next, he’ll be pontificating about the supposed glories of the minimum wage for fixing poverty.
Well my point of quoting the Dover decision of Jones was to point out that ID is no more than creationism with a face-lift. Its not pontification – its legal fact now. The law is clear – has further precedent, beyond the dozens of other cases for years protecting science.
I dont think any of those things are lacking. To the contrary, I think the scientific community is far more open, transparent, consistent, and focused on education in the past 15-20 years than any other time in history. Big questions are left to be answered, about examples and mechanisms – but there is also no significant evidence to refute evolution as the unifying theory of diversification of life on earth.
As a Catholic I find that hardly antithetical to belief in God (nor does my Pope). Science doesnt exclude God – it simple doesnt comment. Science is the analysis of the natural world. Therefore it renders no judgment of supernatural explanations. Science is unbiased.
That’s what Judge Jones says about ID vs. creationism. Apparently, he’s ignorant on that point. Oh well. “Legal fact” or not– anyone who has read anything on ID (from ID’ers) knows that it is only a cousin of creationism.
You note that “there is also no significant evidence to refute evolution as the unifying theory of diversification of life on earth”. Again, that’s not what I’m disputing (a negative). The (positive) question is whether Evolution provides a comprehensive explanation for the development of life– or not. (The two paragraphs you ignored from my previous reply underline the limits of Evolution in this regard.)
As I said earlier, I agree that Evolution is not antithetical to belief in God. I also agree that Science doesn’t exclude God. Of course, a handful of vocal and popular and Evolutionists do take things that far– but as such, are not commenting as scientists or within Science. Sadly, they give evolution/Evolution an unfortunate black eye in the religious community– by conflating what is Science and what is Philosophy. Of course, they have a whole lot to lose in this debate: if Evolution cannot explain all, then they have trouble rejecting the existence of God. I understand but regret their strategy or blindness with respect to these questions.
Im confused as how a federal judge who is presented evidence in a court of law can be “ignorant.” And Ive read alot on ID – its the siamese twin to creationism. Every single one of its proponents, and its biggest benefactor at the Discovery Institute, view this as a religious crusade. Its called “The Wedge”. Link. Its not only spoken – its written.
Im still confused as to what were then arguing as to “positive” rather than “negative.” Again, that the theory of evolution has not currently addressed all issues does not falsify it, nor prove some sort of limit of the theorem. Thats what a theory is: a universal model that is infinitely testable. So it does “provide a comprehensive explanation for the development of life.”
I apologize that I cannot personally explain in full all the advancements of evolutionary biology over the past 150 years to describe to you how we get from A to B to Z. And maybe a few Ms and Xs are simply hypotheses, but again are testable under the theorem of evolution and will be completed in due time. In terms of comparative analysis: as we cannot travel in time to make observations. We can instead utilize current biological systems to establish genetic, ecologic, molecular, etc rules that govern biological systems and establish experimental systems that decrease probability in our hypotheses and help inherently define historical biological events. Be understanding current biological systems better, we can infer with confidence their role in closely-related ancestor organisms.
ID does a great disservice to religion when it puts “God in the gaps.” Its bad science – but its even worse theology that only damages the powerful nature of faith. It makes God the fool, not just themselves. I care not make God to be a fool.
Sorry to confuse. I was using your definition of “ignorant” from post #17. (I think it’s a limited definition, but was working with what you gave me.)
Creationism makes no reference to science at all; ID makes no necessary reference to “God”. That alone is enough to separate these “twins” well before birth.
The point about positive/negative is that you had changed things from my contention that a.) Evolution is a very limited “explanation” to your assertions that b.) it’s the best thing going; and c.) it has not been falsified. I agree with all three statements! But being the best thing going and not being falsified (if it can be– in practice) doesn’t necessarily make it an impressive explanation.
No need to apologize that you can’t explain it in full. No one can. Such an explanation is not even close to existing (at least yet). At present, Evolution is the skin of an explanation stuffed with a story.
A few M’s and X’s?! There are probably one million times more things unexplained than explained. Stories? Yes. A semi-compelling meta-narrative? Yes. “Infer with [varying degrees of] confidence [faith]”? Sure– and change the hypothesis when the data no longer fit (as science is supposed to do). Explanation? Not so much.
For example, with little if anything in hand to “explain” the evolution of vital and reproductive organs, it requires way too much faith for me to jump on that mechanism as a decent comprehensive story– let alone a good comprehensive explanation. But hey, people believe all sorts of things (Joseph Smith was a prophet; George Bush is a fiscal conservative; the earth is 6,000 years old; etc.)– and it is a (relatively) free country.
Finally, I should note that you mention a key point: “we cannot travel in time to make observations” about these things. This necessarily limits what science can do in this context. That’s nothing to be ashamed/embarrassed about, but let’s own up to the limitations and expand and tweak the theory as well as we can, going forward.
Brian, can you also define what you mean by “creationism”? Someone who believes Genesis 1:1; someone who believes in an old-earth or young-earth; and so on…
I’m not sure we’re on the same page with our definitions there…
Sure, yeah I think sometimes there is an element of talking past one another on these debates.
While there are varied degrees of creationism I suppose (old earth, young earth) – I would categorize any discipline that puts increased weight upon any literal interpreation of Genesis even in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary, as “creationism.”
I personally believe in Genesis 1:1 – thats an article of my faith. I also accept the consensus view of Jewish scholars that Genesis is a narrative devise, not a historical accounting of events.
I just want to say that I apologize if any of this came off as mean spirited. I greatly respect your debate in the 9th CD races and your insight on economic matters. Im sure you know what its like to defend your discipline at times. Sometimes history of less civil debates cloud us into failing to recognize when others come in good faith.
Thanks for your kind and encouraging words. No apologies necessary; I think you’ve conducted yourself in a respectful manner.
The reason I asked about creationism is that young-earth creationism is so very different than ID– most notably, in that proponents of the latter, probably without exception, are old-earthers.
As an aside, I don’t like the term “creationist” in general– since it conflates all sorts of beliefs and belief systems, and often used as a sloppy pejorative term. And if you take the term by its most direct and obvious meaning, it’s simply someone who believes in Genesis 1:1.
As for Genesis (an absolutely wonderful book to teach on), I think it’s more common to think of Genesis 1-11 as some combination of history and literary device. (I think that most Jewish and Christian believers and scholars take the rest of Genesis as mostly historical.) Along those lines, I would heartily recommend Nahum Sarna’s excellent books on Exodus and especially Genesis.
We can continue from post #25– or drop it here– if you would like.