Dawkins's Stupidity

So, I was reading a review of one of Dawkins's books, "The God Delusion". The review is eponymous, and was originally found in Harper's. The version I read is posted here. Generally, it sounds like an interesting book, and now that I'm done with Gould's "Full House", I'm looking for another book by a filthy godless heathen to read. If I end up reading it, I'm sure I'll manage to comment on it here. But I did find one of his arguments, as recreated by the review, to be just dumb. No, I'm not just trying to be mean. There are plenty of arguments against God's existence that aren't dumb. Just not this one.

The chapter titled "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God" reflects his reasoning at its highest bent. He reasons thus: A creator God must be more complex than his creation, but this is impossible because if he existed he would be at the wrong end of evolutionary history. To be present in the beginning he must have been unevolved and therefore simple.

There are many problems with this argument. First, most traditional Christians (okay, most traditional Christian philosophers) actually do believe that God is simple. But more importantly, Dawkins makes a big assumption here. We have really, really good evidence that the diversity of life on earth arose through the vehicle of evolution. We have no evidence whatsoever that the principles of evolution should apply even to alien races, much less to a transcendent being. Perhaps I'm oversimplifying his argument. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But this seems like a completely obvious objection.

A similar objection goes like this. If Dawkins is right, then the theory of evolution also proves that life on earth was created by aliens. Now, I happen not to believe that life on earth was created by aliens. But this is just because there's no good reason to believe it, not because evolution somehow magically makes it false. The theory of evolution does not entail that whatever started life on earth is less complex than anything on earth. Evolution assumes a relatively closed system. If something outside of that system interferes, it's not bound by the laws of that system.

Working for the Man, Pt. I

So, this semester I'm in a clinic at my law school, which requires me to work 21 hours at the local U.S. Attorney's Office. I assume most of you knew that already. But I also have to write a journal entry every week. Many of these are not going to be interesting to the large and varied audience this blog has. (Well, varied at least. Hi Mom!) But some of them might be, so here's the first one.

The activity described below was a sentencing hearing. The defendant had pled guilty to knowingly aiding the production of methamphetamine, and she was being sentenced. Because of her extensive cooperation, from the very beginning of the investigation, the US Attorney’s Office recommended a downward departure from the guidelines. There was some discussion of whether or not a ‘safety valve’ departure was warranted. I did not hear all of the discussion, but it seems that because of the particular crime involved, it was not allowed. The judge felt that some downward departure was warranted, however, not a substantial departure. The defendant was sentenced to about 38 months in prison. The defense attorney asked that the defendant be allowed to turn herself in. She was working at Dillard’s, and wanted to quit that job with some notice. Since the guidelines indicate that this should only be done under exceptional circumstances, the judge denied this request. The defendant, a young girl, burst into tears and said that her attorney had not told her this while the US Marshal came to take her away. The judge let her say good-bye to her mom.

This was a very emotional scene; I don’t think there was a person in the courtroom who was not affected. I thought that the judge was probably too harsh. That morning, I had seen the sentencing of a woman convicted of fraud. Despite how many lives she ruined, she was sentenced to less time and was allowed to turn herself in. Meth is bad, and helping people make meth is illegal, but is buying some cold pills to sell, in order to make a quick buck or two, really worse than cheating people out of all that they’re worth? I also noted that there are times when it can be really hard to be a prosecutor. I’m sure that the AUSA in this case was not excited about this outcome either.

Perhaps the thing most personally useful was the discussion afterward about the dangers of methamphetamine. I don’t know much about meth; still don’t, I guess. But I hadn’t been as aware of how dangerous it is. My impression was that it was roughly as dangerous as something like Ecstasy. The impression I got from the attorney I talked with was that it is more like Crack than Ecstasy. (A friend of mine at the law school agreed with the attorney.) The reminder of the human side of prosecution was also useful; it’s easy to put the thugs in prison, but there are certainly criminals that tug on your heartstrings. Specifically it reminded me to keep in mind always that the defendant is a person with a family, and to beware of dehumanizing or demonizing them.

Are we there?

From wikipedia: The [Court of Chivalry] was last convened in 1954, for Manchester Corporation v Manchester Palace of Varieties Ltd [1955] 1 All ER 387. The theatre displayed the City of Manchester's (that is, the Manchester Corporation's) arms both inside and on its seal and this usage implied that it was linked with the City's Council. The City had requested that the theatre cease the usage and had met with refusal. The court ruled in favour of the City (the Corporation). This was the first time that the Court of Chivalry had sat for approximately two centuries, since 1732. The opening part of the judgement involved an analysis leading to the determination that the Court of Chivalry still existed.

There are two things I love about this sort of thing. One falls into the odd decision of a court: it's a little odd when a court has to decide if it has jurisdiction (though all courts have jurisdiction to consider whether they have jurisdiction, this seems a bit recursive to me). But it's very odd when a court has to decide whether or not it still exists. If it decides it doesn't exist, who made that decision.

I also love these odd little legal artifacts you find floating around, detritus from a legal system that has existed for over 1000 years. Some of these things don't exist anymore (fee tail), and some are pretty out there (Rule Against Perpetuities). For some reason, these things interest me, probably partly because of my interest in history and partly because of my interest in philosophy. Any of you readers out there have a favorite legal antique?

Bush's New-found Bi-partisanship

Recently, President Bush has made several statements indicating a hope that he can work together with the newly democratic Congress. The optimistic could perhaps believe this marks a return to the 'uniter, not a divider' rhetoric we heard early on, and perhaps even actions matching the rhetoric. Most of the pessimistic people I've heard commenting on this suggest that Bush is as serious now about bi-partisanship as he was at the beginning of his term (which is to say, not very). But doesn't this just reflect that, with a Congress opposed to him, and largely elected on 'not-Bush' grounds, he has to try and use this rhetoric to get any part of his agenda passed? That is, he really means it, but only because he has to?