More tilt-shift stop-motion by Keith Loutit. Wait for the rescue helicopter.

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo

See also this.

Fabian Tassano ponders social skills and cleverness. 

In my experience, the exceptionally clever are not ‘crazy’ in any meaningful sense of that word, at least not the functional ones. They are just not particularly good at office politics, which is something you need to be brilliant at in modern academia to avoid being marginalised. To be good at something requires you to be interested in it. Being interested in (say) the frontiers of theoretical physics is relatively incompatible with being interested in the machinations of a professional hierarchy. And vice versa – which may be why modern scientists tend to be dull, if by ‘dull’ you mean incapable of having an original thought.

Ophelia Benson notes how “defamation” is being slyly redefined.

Critics of Islam, however reasonable, also know they are likely to fall foul of people who have, as Kenan Malik says, internalized this idea that criticism of Islam is (1) taboo and (2) in and of itself ‘defamation’. As I mentioned, the copy editor for Does God Hate Women? flagged up ‘possible defamation’ in eight places. What I didn’t spell out (but you probably guessed) is that all the items cited were simply criticism, with arguments and evidence, of a kind that is utterly taken for granted in ordinary public discourse. They were not in any normal sense ‘defamation’ – it’s just that they were not flattering. The copy editor seems to have made exactly the leap that some protectors of religion would like everyone to make, and equated frank criticism of religious ideas and practices with ‘defamation’. The copy editor seems to have drawn the conclusion that frank criticism of Islam (as I noted, there were no such queries about other religions, which got their share of criticism) is somehow illegitimate.

And Edmund Standing reads the Qur’an. He isn’t terribly impressed. 

These are clearly not the writings of a rational mind. Deranged by religious delusions, the author or authors of these passages would no doubt be considered mentally ill or psychologically unbalanced were this ‘holy’ book to be written today. Yet, as a religious text, the Qur’an is all too often given a special exemption from normal criticism, and we are told that we must show it ‘respect’, despite the hateful attitude it takes towards those who do not accept Islam. Around the world, children are taught to revere the Qur’an as the very words of the creator of the universe, as a perfect book with a timeless message, yet how can texts like those I have just cited do anything but instill a negative or contemptuous attitude towards non-Muslims? And why would anyone in their right mind claim that this book should be held up as the most important book ever written, or even as a great work of literature?

Speaking of human nature and its denial, via The Thin Man, here’s Milton Friedman and Naomi Klein:

For more on Ms Klein’s sly distortions, see this piece by Johan Norberg. Update: Via Gaffee, there’s a longer version here. Recommended.

Incidentally, this site is two years old today. Cake and beers all round. And giant floating cat heads.

I’ve touched on some problems of social construct theory before, more than once, and noted that its implications could appeal to unsavoury motives: 

If a person’s tastes and disposition are primarily socially constructed, that person can also, presumably, be remade to suit society and its representatives. Such high-minded Agents of Society might even become “engineers of the human soul,” to borrow Stalin’s phrase.

With the above in mind, let’s turn our attention to the feminist commentator Amanda Marcotte, whose book cover mishap entertained us so. In a recent outpouring, Ms Marcotte offered this: 

The theory that women have a natural urge to have babies is one that’s got a long and ignoble sexist history, […] None of that is to say that the urge to have children that some (but far from all) women experience isn’t real, and that’s my other giant problem with the ongoing preoccupation with [evolutionary psychology] theories to explain things that are cultural constructs… 

Note that Ms Marcotte is quite insistent on this point. The inclination to reproduce simply is a cultural construct, and a dubious one at that. Why humans should apparently be unique in this regard, untouched by biology, isn’t entirely clear. Presumably, human beings – specifically human men – have constructed elaborate patterns of behaviour to mimic almost exactly biological inclinations that are felt as real, by men and women, but which don’t in fact exist.

A while ago, I posted this clip of the 100-year-old Trinity Lutheran Church being moved on a hydraulic platform trailer 12 miles to its new location in the town of Manning, Iowa. The effect is decidedly surreal; sort of Fellini meets Gilliam:

The relocation of entire buildings, usually wooden ones, happens more often than I’d imagined. Via Oobject, here’s another radical move in Providence, Rhode Island: 

Does art progress? Theodore Dalrymple has his doubts: 

One often hears of ‘cutting-edge’ art; indeed, the much older term, avant garde, is of the same ilk. This suggests that there is progress in the arts, as there is in science, and that what comes after must, in some sense, be better than what came before. Art has some kind of destination, with later artists further along the road to it than earlier.

In science, progress is a fact (except for the most extreme of epistemological sceptics, none of whom, nevertheless, would be entirely indifferent as to whether their surgeon used the surgical techniques of, say, the 1830s, rather than those of this century). The most mediocre bacteriologist alive today knows incomparably more that did Louis Pasteur or Robert Koch, for example; the most mediocre physics graduate knows incomparably more than Sir Isaac Newton ever did. This is because scientific knowledge is cumulative. But no one would suggest that the paintings of Rothko were better than those, say, of Chardin because he lived a long time after Chardin, and that Chardin’s were better than those of Velasquez for the same reason.

Art teachers and critics use the false analogy with science in order to deny the importance of tradition in artistic production. They do not realise that science is entirely dependent on tradition for its progress. It is not just that most competent scientists know a lot about the history of their subject, but that the very problems that they set about solving, their entire mental worlds, are inherited by them. No scientist has to discover everything anew for himself: no mind, however great, is expected to begin again from zero. Tradition is the precondition of progress, not its antithesis or enemy.

The comparison of art with science isn’t entirely convincing. One could argue, at least notionally, that the destination of science – its conclusion, as it were – would be a complete explanation of the entire physical universe, including the people in it who happen to ponder such things. It’s a pretty fanciful idea, perhaps, but a comprehensible one. But what would an analogous artistic destination be – a work of such staggering beauty that those who see it burst into tears and die contentedly?

While this site has much to offer readers with an interest in music, psychodrama and abandoned mental hospitals, it’s possible I’ve neglected any engineers and physicists among us. To remedy this mortifying oversight, here’s a little thought experiment, courtesy of Sam Hughes: 

A plane is standing on a runway that can move (like a giant conveyor belt). This conveyor has a control system that tracks the plane’s speed and tunes the speed of the conveyor, relative to the Earth, to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction).

Now comes the question.

Will the plane be able to take off?

The answer isn’t quite as obvious as one might assume. Needless to say, a detailed pondering ensues.

Update: Because you know you secretly want to, How to Destroy the Earth. 

This is oddly charming. James May meets an upgraded ASIMO robot – one being trained in object recognition. What struck me about the clip isn’t so much the robot’s ability to discern types of object and note their similarities, though its abilities are impressive. It’s the fact that watching ASIMO in action elicits a distinct urge to treat it as a child. 

(h/t, The Thin Man)

In a recent post on the neglected fallout of affirmative action, I wrote:

The justifications for PC racial discrimination have never been entirely convincing or morally palatable. Treating people not as individuals but as generic representatives of some designated victim group is condescending and unfair, and seems likely to perpetuate racial hang-ups and give license to opportunist role-play.

Stephen Hicks outlines some common arguments on the subject and notes their essential distinctions:

The argument for racial affirmative action usually begins by observing that blacks as a group suffered severe oppression at the hands of whites as a group. Since that was unjust, obviously, and since it is a principle of justice that whenever one party harms another, the harmed party is owed compensation by the harming party, we can make the argument that whites as a group owe compensation to blacks as a group. Those opposed to affirmative action will respond by arguing that the proposed “compensation” is unjust to the current generation. Affirmative action would make an individual of the current generation, a white who never owned slaves, compensate a black who never was a slave.

And so what we have here, on both sides of the arguments, are two pairs of competing principles. One pair is highlighted by the following question: Should we treat individuals as members of a group or should we treat them as individuals? Do we talk about blacks as a group versus whites as a group? Or do we look at the individuals who are involved? Advocates of affirmative action argue that individual blacks and whites should be treated as members of the racial groups to which they belong, while opponents of affirmative action argue that we should treat individuals, whether black or white, as individuals regardless of the colour of their skin. In short, we have the conflict between collectivism and individualism. […]

This seems a good point to ask which of the above sounds less bigoted and insulting. Less racist, if you will.

Advocates of affirmative action rely upon a principle of social determinism that says, “This generation’s status is a result of what occurred in the previous generation; its members are constructed by that previous generation’s circumstances.” The other side of the argument emphasizes individual volition: individuals have the power to choose which social influences they will accept. The second pair of competing principles follows: Do individuals most need to be made equal in assets and opportunities, or do they most need liberty to make of their lives what they will?

Some peddlers of grievance, among them Shakti Butler, Joseph Harker and Peggy McIntosh, have redefined racism as “prejudice + power” and argue that racism is something only members of the “dominant group” can indulge in. The “dominant group” is, of course, understood to be Caucasian, though one might wonder how this addresses overtly racist assaults committed by people with dark skin or the realities of power in other parts of the world – Zimbabwe, for instance. The formulation of “prejudice + power” is, it seems to me, disingenuous and absurd, and wilfully so. Consider, for instance, the following personal experience:

If I can borrow from The Onion… 

It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can’t catch a break.

Whatever the political preferences of readers, this is a moment in history, and questions come to mind. With the first black president soon to take office in the most powerful nation on Earth, where does that leave calls for affirmative action? Is it still possible to defend policies that extend privilege on the basis of pigmentation rather than character and talent? Will “colour-blind” attitudes, which echo the sentiments of Martin Luther King Jr, still be denounced as “racist” and “rightwing” – and as an attack on civil rights, rather than an affirmation of them? What of racially segregated student orientations conducted in the name of “diversity”? Will Professor Noel Ignatiev continue to insist that “whiteness is a form of racial oppression” and should therefore be “abolished”? Will students still be told that “the term [racist] applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States”?

And I wonder what Obama’s election, and much of what it symbolises, says about William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn’s forthcoming book, Race Course Against White Supremacy, the premise of which is that,

White supremacy has been the dominant political system in the United States since its earliest days – and that it is still very much with us.

Will it be as insightful as earlier efforts by this “veteran political activist”?

Update via the comments:

The justifications for PC racial discrimination have never been entirely convincing or morally palatable. Treating people not as individuals but as generic representatives of some designated victim group is condescending and unfair, and seems likely to perpetuate racial hang-ups and give license to opportunist role-play. Unsurprisingly, the negative fallout of such policies has all too often been ignored by those who favour them. See, for instance, this article by Heather MacDonald:

In 2004, a groundbreaking study of affirmative action in law schools blew away every rationale for racial double standards ever put forth. UCLA law professor Richard Sander found that law schools that admit black students with lower GPAs and Law School Admissions Test scores than their nonblack peers – almost all law schools, in other words – actually lowered those students’ chances of passing the bar. Because of the ‘mismatch’ between their academic preparedness and the academic sophistication of the school that has bootstrapped them in, the preference beneficiaries learn less of what they need to pass the bar than they would in a school that matched their capabilities. Far from increasing the supply of black lawyers, affirmative action actually decreases the diversity of the bar.

And this, by Gail Herriot:

It didn’t seem to matter that… students admitted with lower academic credentials would end up incurring heavy debt but never graduate.

Both of the articles are worth reading in full. And note how proponents of “diversity” often reacted to contrary data with glib dismissal or disingenuous boilerplate. I’m therefore inclined to wonder how much reality it will take to alter the convictions of people who seem quite proud of their fashionable prejudice and are willing to lie about how well that prejudice works. As Heather MacDonald argues in the piece above:

Yet for the [racial] preference lobby, a failing diversity student is better than no diversity student — because the game is not about the students but about the self-image of the institution that so beneficently extends its largesse to them. 

(h/t, sk60)