Well, we’re all pretty excited around here. The Large Hadron Collider is essentially finished and about to go online. As I’m sure you know, CERN has been building the device in France and Switzerland for 8 or 9 years now and pay-off is just around the corner. The scientists will be doing all kinds of experiments, but the Big Fish is the Higgs Boson, a stealthy little thing also known as the “God Particle”.
I’m not sure why it’s important, but scientists all over the world are producing record amounts of saliva as they slobber over the possibilities. The Higgs Boson is a theoretical particle predicted by the Standard Model of physics—in fact the last missing particle in the Model—and it may be the thing that imparts mass to other particles, which, despite being completely counter-intuitive, is why they are looking for it.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost track of all the “elementary” particles they’ve found over the last 80 years or so. It started with atoms, then neutrons, protons and electrons, and now it’s like somebody left the barn door open. They’re everywhere; quarks of all kinds, leptons, WIMPS, photons, bosons, neutrinos, W and Z particles and on and on. Isn’t it fascinating how they can predict a particle mathematically, or based on the behavior of other particles, and then design an experiment to find it?
Years ago, my friend Brad Hill (who was taking a double major in Theoretical Mathematics and Celestial Mechanics) held the opinion (firmly tongue-in-cheek) that physicists create particles when they extrapolate them. Essentially, his theory was; “they make up a particle which doesn’t exist, then design an experiment to find it, which “calls” the particle into existence from the virtual world. We had more than a few laughs over that now and then. But now, I find myself taking the idea seriously. Science has come a long way since the early 70’s. Or maybe I have, who knows? Anyway, now we have Quantum Mechanics, in which virtual particles are real, and the Uncertainty Principle, which allows for things like made-up realities—which includes elementary particles.
So maybe the Higgs Boson doesn’t exist at all. But now that the theorists need it to complete the Standard Model, the Large Hadron Collider will not so much “find it” as call it into existence. There is some precedent after all. The concept could explain all kinds of things, like disco, pet rocks, Hillary Clinton and Sasquatch, to name a few.
So let’s lift a glass to the LHC and all those boys and girls who will be running it, looking for another particle that doesn’t exist, but very well may in the next few years. It’s an exciting time to be alive, isn’t it?
Monday, March 24, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
IGM THE TAX MYTH
INTERGALACTIC MEMO
The tax myth
I was up half the night writing and rewriting another Intergalactic Memo in my head. What set me off was some hack running for president talking about taking care of the American worker, cutting taxes for the middle and lower class worker, and raising taxes on the wealthy. All of them are spouting the same tired mantra—“protect the workers, relieve the burden on the productive members of society” etc., ad nauseam.
In the Review Journal this morning I noticed a quote in an article by John Edwards. I didn’t read the article, I just saw the quote in a bigger font and read it. Here’s what it says:
I will pay for it by repealing President Bush’s income tax cuts for Americans who make more than $2oo,ooo per year.
I don’t even care what he’s planning to pay for. This kind of wrong-headed thinking is ludicrous. Where do these ideas come from? The Communist Manifesto? Mein Kampf? A pamphlet from the Socialist Workers Party? I swear, this kind of muddle-headed, emotion-driven, irrational, ideological drivel grates on my nerves like sandpaper eyelids folding back and scraping on the brain! We have Bolsheviks trying to run the country!
It’s as if liberals (and far too many Republicans are closet liberals) believe that anyone who earns over some arbitrary amount of money—$200,000 will do nicely for the moment—doesn’t work. What? Only people earning a wage are “workers”? Wealthy people don’t earn their money? That’s right out of Karl Marx. What is anything he had to say doing in an American political debate? Are there really people out there who think the country is thick with trust fund babies, the idle rich, the indolent, self-absorbed social elite? Because it isn’t true. They exist, certainly, but our media seems to have given the false impression that they are legion. The truth is less than one half of one percent of our citizens are wealthy by inheritance. (People like Paris Hilton, who, based on what we know of her thus far, is a complete waste of protoplasm). It is also true that the wealthiest 5% of the country pays over 50% of all taxes. Do people just not believe that? Then read this:
The latest data show that a big portion of the federal income tax burden is shoul¬dered by a small group of the very richest Americans. The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 per¬cent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes. These are proportions of the income tax alone and don’t include payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. (The American, Nov-Dec 2007, Stephen Moore, author)
Rich people pay taxes. It is a myth that they don’t. Corporations often get around paying, but that’s another issue altogether, which has to do with capital gains, writing off losses, and all kinds of other complicated stuff.
The idea that the rich don’t pay their fair share is just plain wrong. Like the rest of us, they take advantage of every deduction and exemption and exception they can legally find. A very few people—like George Soros—hire a phalanx of attorneys and accountants to keep from paying, but that is rare—and unethical. But for the most part they pay the lion’s share of taxes.
These politicians constantly pick on the working rich as if they are a separate class, which is tantamount to inciting class discrimination. It is the working rich who drive our economy, who pay the most in taxes and licensing fees and regulatory expenses, as well as mandated insurance, workers comp, social security and so on. They are not a separate class, they are not different from us—they just make more money—and pay lots more in taxes.
How many jobs has Steve Wynn created in Las Vegas? Tens of thousands at least—and all those employees pay taxes as well, but nowhere near as much as Mr. Wynn, who is the one who took the chances, had the dream (over and over again) found funding, created, and made his vision reality. I don’t know Steve. My guess is he and I wouldn’t get on very well. But I respect what he does. How about the Maloof brothers? I do not like their style at all. They were obnoxious rich boys in high school, spoiled and conceited. (I played ball with them on Wednesday nights back in the day). I think the Palms reperesents the worst of Las Vegas, the seedy, the crass and lascivious, but they too took their fathers seed money, started businesses, grew them, expanded, bought professional sports teams and came to Vegas and built a successful mega-resort. How many people do they employ? Thousands. And the Maloofs, like all the resort owners, pay local, state, and federal taxes. Regulatory fees, etc. We tax the snot out of them. And now we want to hit them again so they can pay for education. If we keep taxing the rich, keep picking on them and treating them like powerful chattel, they will eventually give up and go away. We’ll get just what we wanted and no one will have a job. Read Atlas Shrugged. It could happen.
And think about the sports franchises. Huge stadiums, even larger salaries for the players. But without A-Rod and his millions the peanut and beer guy would have no jobs. The grounds keepers would be doing something else, the security people and ushers and kiosk workers and memorabilia hawkers would be out of work and paying no taxes—and sucking up federal aid. Every stadium employs hundreds of people, every team hundreds more. Professional athletes may be idiots as a general rule, but they work hard. Their careers are short and often end in permanent, crippling injuries. Most of us have no idea what kind of commitment and determination it takes, starting as a kid, to make it to the pros. The sacrifice is tremendous. And because they are “wealthy”, hundreds of thousands of people have jobs. In what sense do pro athletes not work? And yeah, I think most of them are ignorant, spoiled brats too.
In what sense does my buddy Bryan not work? He owns a successful pool plastering business, employs 40 or 50 people and makes a good living. (I have no idea how much but it’s more than $200,000 a year). He works eighty, ninety hours a week—more than any of his employees. Explain to me why he should pay a higher percentage of taxes. I’ve talked to him; if he could get out from under the debilitating crush of taxation, he could expand, hire more people, purchase better equipment. He’d have more work, have to hire more people. And all those employees would pay more actual tax dollars to the government.
Let’s look at an unnamed hotelier. My cousin happens to be married to the guy. He’s worth billions, and he employs tens of thousands of people, pays all kinds of taxes, corporate and personal—millions and millions every year. He’s one of the majority of rich people who pay their fair share. They understand what taxes are for, why they are necessary. Most of us don’t. And most of the working rich spend even more on charities than they do on taxes. But when the politicians decide they have the right to spend other people’s money, and that some people should be forced to pay more by virtue of their success, all that philanthropy will dry up. It happens time and again, and still most people don’t get it. They don’t see the rich as being victims of unfair treatment, they just see the free money vanish and pronounce the rich selfish.
Now let’s talk about all those nice people who work at Wal-Mart (the ones who represent all those working in low-paying jobs.) We look at them and see their struggles, trying to make ends meet, and our knee-jerk reaction is to blame the rich and legislate another draconian tax to suck them dry. But there is no connection between Sam Walton’s billions and the fact that his cashiers make 12 dollars an hour—or 8, or whatever it is, other than the fact that Wal-Mart employs hundreds of thousands of people, all of whom pay taxes. But Walton personally kept less than one percent of his company’s earnings. He just knew how to make money. Most retail jobs don’t pay a lot because they don’t demand a lot of education or skill or experience. Those are low-skill jobs. Most of the people who have them don’t want to work full time. How many of them are retired and want extra income? How many are lacking in schooling and training? Those jobs are not meant to provide a living wage. And the argument that without those workers, the faithful employee, Wal-Mart wouldn’t exist, is fallacious. Because without Wal-Mart none of their jobs would exist either. Look at the minimum wage. It is meant for part-timers, the retired, teen-agers and those just entering the job market. The assumption has always been that employers who pay minimum wage are going to spend a lot of time training their people in entry-level skills. It’s not meant to be a living wage. The fact that so many people settle for those jobs and try to live on them, is not the employers problem and certainly not the governments problem!
This posturing about the evil rich is nothing more than a disingenuous ploy on the part of politicians to set one group of people against another for the sole purpose of collecting votes and re-election funds. And yet, every four years millions of people fall for it hook, line, and sinker.
And how can it not be obvious to everyone that the only two methods of taxation which even approach equity are a flat tax or a federal sales tax—without loopholes and exceptions. Our current income tax is illegal anyway. And don’t start yelling about the 16th amendment:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
(This is a direct contradiction to the original amendment, which required apportionment, and all those other things I mention in the next few sentences.) And there is credible evidence that the 16th amendment has never been properly ratified.
According to the constitution (remember that document?), and the Supreme court, an “income tax” can only be collected from corporations since income is defined as “corporate profit”. A tax on wages originally came with very specific and limiting parameters. The tax must be for a specific and publically stated purpose, the length of time it is to be collected must be set, the amount collected must be pre-determined, and the various states must be apportioned according to population with a set amount for each state based on the latest census. Does that sound like the IRS? And does the 16th amendment sound like something the Founding Fathers would approve of? Read it again. It is carte blanche; the congress wrote themselves a law that says they can take as much money from us as they want. No limits. Yep, that sounds like socialism all right.
To review: raising taxes on wage earners, regardless of their income, is never the right thing to do. (It is occasionally acceptable to exempt some people from paying taxes altogether). Lowering taxes, especially on the working rich, always increases overall tax revenues. Always. It stimulates the economy, increases employment, and rebuilds infrastructure. It is better for everyone. This is fact. It can be proven. It is historical. And yet, again and again, the liberals deny it, claim it isn’t true. One might ask oneself why they would do that. What is their motive for such duplicity? If any of them would just come out and publically announce they subscribed to a socialist agenda, that would be fine. I would have no problem accepting their position and would be content to let the voters decide. But they never make such an admission. Why not? The entire democratic platform these days is based on socialist ideology, global government, global economy and the surrender of National sovereignty to some nebulous, ill-defined, intrinsically ineffective and naturally corruptible form of bureaucratic nightmare. What are they afraid of? What is it they will not speak? How do they really see the world and humanity in general? Because what they are saying is not what they are thinking.
Other than that, I’m pretty happy with the way things are going. How about you?
The tax myth
I was up half the night writing and rewriting another Intergalactic Memo in my head. What set me off was some hack running for president talking about taking care of the American worker, cutting taxes for the middle and lower class worker, and raising taxes on the wealthy. All of them are spouting the same tired mantra—“protect the workers, relieve the burden on the productive members of society” etc., ad nauseam.
In the Review Journal this morning I noticed a quote in an article by John Edwards. I didn’t read the article, I just saw the quote in a bigger font and read it. Here’s what it says:
I will pay for it by repealing President Bush’s income tax cuts for Americans who make more than $2oo,ooo per year.
I don’t even care what he’s planning to pay for. This kind of wrong-headed thinking is ludicrous. Where do these ideas come from? The Communist Manifesto? Mein Kampf? A pamphlet from the Socialist Workers Party? I swear, this kind of muddle-headed, emotion-driven, irrational, ideological drivel grates on my nerves like sandpaper eyelids folding back and scraping on the brain! We have Bolsheviks trying to run the country!
It’s as if liberals (and far too many Republicans are closet liberals) believe that anyone who earns over some arbitrary amount of money—$200,000 will do nicely for the moment—doesn’t work. What? Only people earning a wage are “workers”? Wealthy people don’t earn their money? That’s right out of Karl Marx. What is anything he had to say doing in an American political debate? Are there really people out there who think the country is thick with trust fund babies, the idle rich, the indolent, self-absorbed social elite? Because it isn’t true. They exist, certainly, but our media seems to have given the false impression that they are legion. The truth is less than one half of one percent of our citizens are wealthy by inheritance. (People like Paris Hilton, who, based on what we know of her thus far, is a complete waste of protoplasm). It is also true that the wealthiest 5% of the country pays over 50% of all taxes. Do people just not believe that? Then read this:
The latest data show that a big portion of the federal income tax burden is shoul¬dered by a small group of the very richest Americans. The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 per¬cent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes. These are proportions of the income tax alone and don’t include payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. (The American, Nov-Dec 2007, Stephen Moore, author)
Rich people pay taxes. It is a myth that they don’t. Corporations often get around paying, but that’s another issue altogether, which has to do with capital gains, writing off losses, and all kinds of other complicated stuff.
The idea that the rich don’t pay their fair share is just plain wrong. Like the rest of us, they take advantage of every deduction and exemption and exception they can legally find. A very few people—like George Soros—hire a phalanx of attorneys and accountants to keep from paying, but that is rare—and unethical. But for the most part they pay the lion’s share of taxes.
These politicians constantly pick on the working rich as if they are a separate class, which is tantamount to inciting class discrimination. It is the working rich who drive our economy, who pay the most in taxes and licensing fees and regulatory expenses, as well as mandated insurance, workers comp, social security and so on. They are not a separate class, they are not different from us—they just make more money—and pay lots more in taxes.
How many jobs has Steve Wynn created in Las Vegas? Tens of thousands at least—and all those employees pay taxes as well, but nowhere near as much as Mr. Wynn, who is the one who took the chances, had the dream (over and over again) found funding, created, and made his vision reality. I don’t know Steve. My guess is he and I wouldn’t get on very well. But I respect what he does. How about the Maloof brothers? I do not like their style at all. They were obnoxious rich boys in high school, spoiled and conceited. (I played ball with them on Wednesday nights back in the day). I think the Palms reperesents the worst of Las Vegas, the seedy, the crass and lascivious, but they too took their fathers seed money, started businesses, grew them, expanded, bought professional sports teams and came to Vegas and built a successful mega-resort. How many people do they employ? Thousands. And the Maloofs, like all the resort owners, pay local, state, and federal taxes. Regulatory fees, etc. We tax the snot out of them. And now we want to hit them again so they can pay for education. If we keep taxing the rich, keep picking on them and treating them like powerful chattel, they will eventually give up and go away. We’ll get just what we wanted and no one will have a job. Read Atlas Shrugged. It could happen.
And think about the sports franchises. Huge stadiums, even larger salaries for the players. But without A-Rod and his millions the peanut and beer guy would have no jobs. The grounds keepers would be doing something else, the security people and ushers and kiosk workers and memorabilia hawkers would be out of work and paying no taxes—and sucking up federal aid. Every stadium employs hundreds of people, every team hundreds more. Professional athletes may be idiots as a general rule, but they work hard. Their careers are short and often end in permanent, crippling injuries. Most of us have no idea what kind of commitment and determination it takes, starting as a kid, to make it to the pros. The sacrifice is tremendous. And because they are “wealthy”, hundreds of thousands of people have jobs. In what sense do pro athletes not work? And yeah, I think most of them are ignorant, spoiled brats too.
In what sense does my buddy Bryan not work? He owns a successful pool plastering business, employs 40 or 50 people and makes a good living. (I have no idea how much but it’s more than $200,000 a year). He works eighty, ninety hours a week—more than any of his employees. Explain to me why he should pay a higher percentage of taxes. I’ve talked to him; if he could get out from under the debilitating crush of taxation, he could expand, hire more people, purchase better equipment. He’d have more work, have to hire more people. And all those employees would pay more actual tax dollars to the government.
Let’s look at an unnamed hotelier. My cousin happens to be married to the guy. He’s worth billions, and he employs tens of thousands of people, pays all kinds of taxes, corporate and personal—millions and millions every year. He’s one of the majority of rich people who pay their fair share. They understand what taxes are for, why they are necessary. Most of us don’t. And most of the working rich spend even more on charities than they do on taxes. But when the politicians decide they have the right to spend other people’s money, and that some people should be forced to pay more by virtue of their success, all that philanthropy will dry up. It happens time and again, and still most people don’t get it. They don’t see the rich as being victims of unfair treatment, they just see the free money vanish and pronounce the rich selfish.
Now let’s talk about all those nice people who work at Wal-Mart (the ones who represent all those working in low-paying jobs.) We look at them and see their struggles, trying to make ends meet, and our knee-jerk reaction is to blame the rich and legislate another draconian tax to suck them dry. But there is no connection between Sam Walton’s billions and the fact that his cashiers make 12 dollars an hour—or 8, or whatever it is, other than the fact that Wal-Mart employs hundreds of thousands of people, all of whom pay taxes. But Walton personally kept less than one percent of his company’s earnings. He just knew how to make money. Most retail jobs don’t pay a lot because they don’t demand a lot of education or skill or experience. Those are low-skill jobs. Most of the people who have them don’t want to work full time. How many of them are retired and want extra income? How many are lacking in schooling and training? Those jobs are not meant to provide a living wage. And the argument that without those workers, the faithful employee, Wal-Mart wouldn’t exist, is fallacious. Because without Wal-Mart none of their jobs would exist either. Look at the minimum wage. It is meant for part-timers, the retired, teen-agers and those just entering the job market. The assumption has always been that employers who pay minimum wage are going to spend a lot of time training their people in entry-level skills. It’s not meant to be a living wage. The fact that so many people settle for those jobs and try to live on them, is not the employers problem and certainly not the governments problem!
This posturing about the evil rich is nothing more than a disingenuous ploy on the part of politicians to set one group of people against another for the sole purpose of collecting votes and re-election funds. And yet, every four years millions of people fall for it hook, line, and sinker.
And how can it not be obvious to everyone that the only two methods of taxation which even approach equity are a flat tax or a federal sales tax—without loopholes and exceptions. Our current income tax is illegal anyway. And don’t start yelling about the 16th amendment:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
(This is a direct contradiction to the original amendment, which required apportionment, and all those other things I mention in the next few sentences.) And there is credible evidence that the 16th amendment has never been properly ratified.
According to the constitution (remember that document?), and the Supreme court, an “income tax” can only be collected from corporations since income is defined as “corporate profit”. A tax on wages originally came with very specific and limiting parameters. The tax must be for a specific and publically stated purpose, the length of time it is to be collected must be set, the amount collected must be pre-determined, and the various states must be apportioned according to population with a set amount for each state based on the latest census. Does that sound like the IRS? And does the 16th amendment sound like something the Founding Fathers would approve of? Read it again. It is carte blanche; the congress wrote themselves a law that says they can take as much money from us as they want. No limits. Yep, that sounds like socialism all right.
To review: raising taxes on wage earners, regardless of their income, is never the right thing to do. (It is occasionally acceptable to exempt some people from paying taxes altogether). Lowering taxes, especially on the working rich, always increases overall tax revenues. Always. It stimulates the economy, increases employment, and rebuilds infrastructure. It is better for everyone. This is fact. It can be proven. It is historical. And yet, again and again, the liberals deny it, claim it isn’t true. One might ask oneself why they would do that. What is their motive for such duplicity? If any of them would just come out and publically announce they subscribed to a socialist agenda, that would be fine. I would have no problem accepting their position and would be content to let the voters decide. But they never make such an admission. Why not? The entire democratic platform these days is based on socialist ideology, global government, global economy and the surrender of National sovereignty to some nebulous, ill-defined, intrinsically ineffective and naturally corruptible form of bureaucratic nightmare. What are they afraid of? What is it they will not speak? How do they really see the world and humanity in general? Because what they are saying is not what they are thinking.
Other than that, I’m pretty happy with the way things are going. How about you?
ChASTITY
I’m watching a show on the History Channel about the early Christian church. They are talking about writings by, or about, some of the Apostles, like Peter and Paul, that were excluded from the New Testament for one reason or another. A section of the show is on celibacy and how it came to be part of the doctrine of the early church. Which it didn’t. It became doctrine for a few of the churches but not most, until the Nicene Creed, by which time the practice was so entrenched and protected by special interest groups that it was retained.
In one of the apocrypha, something attributed to Peter, the experts explain that while Paul’s admonition in the New Testament to separate from one another for a time for prayer and meditation, then return to intimacy, Peter advises us to “remain chaste and avoid the [putrefaction] of the flesh.” (Brackets indicate I don’t remember the actual word, but that one is close).
It is assumed from this that Peter is demanding we all be celibate to be counted as serious Christians, and that this is the genesis of the practice in the early church and later Catholicism. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is the same misunderstanding Paul suffers from. Chastity is not the same thing as celibacy. Celibacy is the total abstinence from sexual activity. Chastity is maintaining ones purity and virtue, but does not (necessarily) involve abstinence. Chastity is being true to marriage vows, remaining faithful to a spouse, and keeping sexual appetites and activity set within the bounds God gave us. Thus a married woman (or man) who is sexually active and maintaining fidelity, is being chaste. A person maintains his or her virtue through fidelity, not abstinence. Peter was telling the church (assuming the document is authentic) to be chaste in the sense of keeping vows. If they were to stray, they would be subject to the sins of the flesh. Paul was saying the same thing by the way. Neither Christ nor the Apostles ever preached any form of abstinence other than abstinence from adultery and fornication—which are defined as extra-marital sex and pre-marital sex. Indeed, marriage is one of the saving ordinances given us by God. Remember, He didn’t tell Adam and Eve to reject one another, He told them to multiply, and replenish the earth. These days sex is so mundane, promiscuity so common, that it no longer occurs to anyone that the Apostles might have been speaking about pre-and extra-marital sex. Society can now only imagine they must have been talking about no sex at all, because these days the only realities are sex or no sex, nothing in between. It’s too bad really. Makes God’s job that much harder.
In one of the apocrypha, something attributed to Peter, the experts explain that while Paul’s admonition in the New Testament to separate from one another for a time for prayer and meditation, then return to intimacy, Peter advises us to “remain chaste and avoid the [putrefaction] of the flesh.” (Brackets indicate I don’t remember the actual word, but that one is close).
It is assumed from this that Peter is demanding we all be celibate to be counted as serious Christians, and that this is the genesis of the practice in the early church and later Catholicism. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is the same misunderstanding Paul suffers from. Chastity is not the same thing as celibacy. Celibacy is the total abstinence from sexual activity. Chastity is maintaining ones purity and virtue, but does not (necessarily) involve abstinence. Chastity is being true to marriage vows, remaining faithful to a spouse, and keeping sexual appetites and activity set within the bounds God gave us. Thus a married woman (or man) who is sexually active and maintaining fidelity, is being chaste. A person maintains his or her virtue through fidelity, not abstinence. Peter was telling the church (assuming the document is authentic) to be chaste in the sense of keeping vows. If they were to stray, they would be subject to the sins of the flesh. Paul was saying the same thing by the way. Neither Christ nor the Apostles ever preached any form of abstinence other than abstinence from adultery and fornication—which are defined as extra-marital sex and pre-marital sex. Indeed, marriage is one of the saving ordinances given us by God. Remember, He didn’t tell Adam and Eve to reject one another, He told them to multiply, and replenish the earth. These days sex is so mundane, promiscuity so common, that it no longer occurs to anyone that the Apostles might have been speaking about pre-and extra-marital sex. Society can now only imagine they must have been talking about no sex at all, because these days the only realities are sex or no sex, nothing in between. It’s too bad really. Makes God’s job that much harder.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
WIMPS
There’s an interesting article in Physorg.com this morning. Something called the Cryogenic Dark Matter Research Project, being run by Fermi Labs and involving several universities, made a major announcement today. Which is; they still haven’t found any dark matter. The experiment involves some cryogenically chilled crystals that will make a sound if WIMPs happen by and interact. WIMP’s of course, are Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, thought to be the best candidate for dark matter. The announcement was all about how the CDMRP had “regained” the lead in the search for dark matter. Better equipment, much more sensitive crystals and less background noise. They said the new device should be able to detect WIMPs even if only two or three impact it during the course of a year. The scientists tried, but were unable to keep me from noticing the big “NO DETECTION” comment towards the end of the article. I’m not making fun of the fact that they haven’t found anything yet (yes I am) because sometimes these things take a while. Why, look how long Crypto-Zoologists have been looking for The Loch Ness Monster, Sasquatch and Chupacabra, Madeline O’Hare, and Jimmy Hoffa, and they still haven’t hit pay dirt. No, my complaint is that they held this big press conference to announce they haven’t found anything yet, despite exponential improvements to their detectors. As I always say, Dark Matter may exist, but I’m waiting for some hard evidence. The universe expanding faster than it should be is not hard evidence.
IGM Alien Intelligence
Interesting article at Phys.org this morning. The headline reads thusly: E.T. not likely to have human-like intelligence: Astronomer.
The astronomer, a Dr. Charlie Lineweaver, speaking at a conference in Australia, says he is reviewing the major patterns of evolution on earth. Apparently, he plans to make the case that since no other life form has evolved intelligence closely resembling ours, it is unlikely that an alien life form would develop intelligence similar to our own. Really? I guess that makes sense. In fact, it makes such good, obvious sense, that I daresay it might be a waste of time and money to actually study it. But then he goes on to say;
“If human-like intelligence were so useful, we should see many independent examples of it in biology, and we could cite many creatures [which] had evolved on independent continents to inhabit the ‘intelligence niche'.
Since when did usefulness become a hallmark of evolution? I thought it was all random, accidental, processes— mute, blind, and wandering on the winds of chance. Oh wait, once a mutation occurs and is “useful”, it begins to breed true. I believe the phrase is “natural selection”. Interesting word, selection. It implies a number of possible scenarios and a process of decision-making (selection). Sounds almost like some kind of intelligence is involved, doesn’t it?
And is the good doctor implying that intelligence isn’t useful? And if that were the case why would it exist at all? Because according to the laws of evolution, intelligence is no more important, or likely, than yellow feathers or scales or a noxious odor. Many scientists claim that intelligence actually gets in the way of survival, that it is a hindrance. Of course, if that were accurate, intelligence would not have been “selected” and bred true. Right? Personally, I find intelligence pretty handy.
But that’s not what piqued my interest. It was the notion that we might not recognize alien intelligence, even if we saw it. Then how would we be able to determine something was intelligent? We have examples in the animal kingdom (here on earth) of very complex social structures, and behavior sets, all of which effectively mimic intelligence. But ants and birds aren’t “intelligent”. Do you remember that episode of Star Trek (the original) where they encounter a blob of mobile rock that turns out to be a silicon-based, intelligent life form? Spock uses his mind-meld to figure out the thing was only trying to protect its young from a mining operation. (The young being round blobs of pure silicone about the size and shape of a breast implant. But not as hard.) But the humans had no way to communicate with the creature, no way to test for intelligence.
I’ve had an idea for a novel in mind for some time based on this very problem. It’s a First Contact story. Humans encounter life somewhere in the galaxy. The aliens are obviously intelligent (they are in a starship) but do not answer our attempts to communicate. The entire book would be an account of the humans attempting to communicate with the aliens, and the aliens trying to do the same. But the two species are so different, so “alien” that a common ground is never found—perhaps cannot be found. The end of the book would be the human expedition finally giving up in defeat and leaving the alien craft floating in interstellar space. The aliens leave as well, and continue with their journey of exploration. I haven’t written it yet because of the obvious challenge of writing from the point of view of a species with which humans are unable to communicate and where there is no chance of common understanding. Tricky, but I’m mulling it over.
I would counter Lineweaver’s thesis by arguing the following: If we encounter intelligent aliens whose “type” of intelligence is sufficiently foreign to our own that we can’t test for it, we will never know they are intelligent. Unless they display mastery over technology, which means they will be similar enough to us that we will be able to communicate somehow.
Many of us suspect that whales and dolphins (among others) are intelligent. But we can’t be sure because we can’t communicate with them. And being able to learn is not a reliable indicator—science is training bacterium to perform tasks. (Of course, by that standard, men and women won’t think of each other as intelligence.) Having a rudimentary language, it seems to me, is not sufficient proof either. Most animals communicate with each other, and many do so with us, but their levels of intelligence do not rise to the self-aware, sentient ability to form abstract ideas and concepts (which do not exist in nature) necessary to include them in the inner circle. At least we don’t think so. We can’t communicate with them well enough to find out.
As some of you know, I firmly believe (and I’m being serious here) that the universe is full of intelligent life. Further, I believe it is human life, with necessary adjustments for varying environments. I do not rule out new species of alien intelligence—that would be a bonus—but my belief is a matter of faith. It is not based on any evidence—other than God’s announcement to Moses and others that He builds planets for his children and populates them across the universe. What? You hadn’t heard? Earth is one of a limitless number of such worlds. But that’s just me. Anything Moses says that God says-- I’m taking to the bank.
The astronomer, a Dr. Charlie Lineweaver, speaking at a conference in Australia, says he is reviewing the major patterns of evolution on earth. Apparently, he plans to make the case that since no other life form has evolved intelligence closely resembling ours, it is unlikely that an alien life form would develop intelligence similar to our own. Really? I guess that makes sense. In fact, it makes such good, obvious sense, that I daresay it might be a waste of time and money to actually study it. But then he goes on to say;
“If human-like intelligence were so useful, we should see many independent examples of it in biology, and we could cite many creatures [which] had evolved on independent continents to inhabit the ‘intelligence niche'.
Since when did usefulness become a hallmark of evolution? I thought it was all random, accidental, processes— mute, blind, and wandering on the winds of chance. Oh wait, once a mutation occurs and is “useful”, it begins to breed true. I believe the phrase is “natural selection”. Interesting word, selection. It implies a number of possible scenarios and a process of decision-making (selection). Sounds almost like some kind of intelligence is involved, doesn’t it?
And is the good doctor implying that intelligence isn’t useful? And if that were the case why would it exist at all? Because according to the laws of evolution, intelligence is no more important, or likely, than yellow feathers or scales or a noxious odor. Many scientists claim that intelligence actually gets in the way of survival, that it is a hindrance. Of course, if that were accurate, intelligence would not have been “selected” and bred true. Right? Personally, I find intelligence pretty handy.
But that’s not what piqued my interest. It was the notion that we might not recognize alien intelligence, even if we saw it. Then how would we be able to determine something was intelligent? We have examples in the animal kingdom (here on earth) of very complex social structures, and behavior sets, all of which effectively mimic intelligence. But ants and birds aren’t “intelligent”. Do you remember that episode of Star Trek (the original) where they encounter a blob of mobile rock that turns out to be a silicon-based, intelligent life form? Spock uses his mind-meld to figure out the thing was only trying to protect its young from a mining operation. (The young being round blobs of pure silicone about the size and shape of a breast implant. But not as hard.) But the humans had no way to communicate with the creature, no way to test for intelligence.
I’ve had an idea for a novel in mind for some time based on this very problem. It’s a First Contact story. Humans encounter life somewhere in the galaxy. The aliens are obviously intelligent (they are in a starship) but do not answer our attempts to communicate. The entire book would be an account of the humans attempting to communicate with the aliens, and the aliens trying to do the same. But the two species are so different, so “alien” that a common ground is never found—perhaps cannot be found. The end of the book would be the human expedition finally giving up in defeat and leaving the alien craft floating in interstellar space. The aliens leave as well, and continue with their journey of exploration. I haven’t written it yet because of the obvious challenge of writing from the point of view of a species with which humans are unable to communicate and where there is no chance of common understanding. Tricky, but I’m mulling it over.
I would counter Lineweaver’s thesis by arguing the following: If we encounter intelligent aliens whose “type” of intelligence is sufficiently foreign to our own that we can’t test for it, we will never know they are intelligent. Unless they display mastery over technology, which means they will be similar enough to us that we will be able to communicate somehow.
Many of us suspect that whales and dolphins (among others) are intelligent. But we can’t be sure because we can’t communicate with them. And being able to learn is not a reliable indicator—science is training bacterium to perform tasks. (Of course, by that standard, men and women won’t think of each other as intelligence.) Having a rudimentary language, it seems to me, is not sufficient proof either. Most animals communicate with each other, and many do so with us, but their levels of intelligence do not rise to the self-aware, sentient ability to form abstract ideas and concepts (which do not exist in nature) necessary to include them in the inner circle. At least we don’t think so. We can’t communicate with them well enough to find out.
As some of you know, I firmly believe (and I’m being serious here) that the universe is full of intelligent life. Further, I believe it is human life, with necessary adjustments for varying environments. I do not rule out new species of alien intelligence—that would be a bonus—but my belief is a matter of faith. It is not based on any evidence—other than God’s announcement to Moses and others that He builds planets for his children and populates them across the universe. What? You hadn’t heard? Earth is one of a limitless number of such worlds. But that’s just me. Anything Moses says that God says-- I’m taking to the bank.
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