Thoughts on Mass Violence, Guns, etc.

Once again there is a mass shooting. Once again there are calls for more federal gun control laws. Why not? We've been told that the US has the most guns in the world, and that these kinds of things don't happen in other countries, and that the laws proposed are "common sense" and will protect us from this kind of violence, if it weren't for the NRA lobbyists controlling things. I'd like to take this opportunity to explore some facts.

First off, yes, the US does have more guns than any other country. Almost one third of the US population owns guns. Even here in gun-phobic NJ one eight of the population owns guns. But the US is not unique in having mass killings, or even mass shootings. In fact the US ranks 66th in mass shootings, and all of the countries with more mass shootings than the US have stricter gun laws, most of them already have the proposed US gun control laws. Also, anti gun groups outspend the NRA on lobbying.

Guns are involved in some 35000 deaths a year, most of them suicides. Of the 14000 gun involved homicides in the US each year, most are gang or drug related. All rifles account for less than 300 deaths and mass killings account for less than 200 deaths. In Chicago alone in the past weekend, more people have been shot in gang-related violence than in all the recent mass shootings combined. Why do the mass shootings make headlines and nobody talks about Chicago? Because the mass shootings happen to the "right" kind of people (rich whites) and the Chicago gang violence happens to the people we don't care about (mostly poor blacks). Yes, I'm bringing in the race card here, because it fits. If Chicago gang violence affected rich people at concerts and malls it wold make national headlines as well.

I'm not suggesting mass shootings are "ok" or we shouldn't care about them, I'm saying we should care more about the poor people being massacred in our inner city streets than we do about the slight risks of our celebrities and the upper class.

If the goal is to save lives, the laws should focus on suicides, gangs, drugs and hand guns. Yet NONE of the proposed gun laws address these issue at all. This excellent article points out that the following gun laws cannot affect the gun suicide rate at all:

• Magazine size restrictions: You only need a magazine size of “one” to kill yourself.
• Waiting Periods: Statistics do not show that people buy guns to commit suicide. They’re either use one they already have, or choose a different method.
• Banning certain classes of firearms, such as semi-automatic rifles or handguns: You only need the most basic functioning firearm possible to kill yourself.
• Tax bullets: You only need one bullet to kill yourself.
• Blanket gun confiscation: Won’t work, and they admit it won’t work, except all those times when they don’t.
• Mandatory gun confiscation of depressed people: Terrible, terrible idea, because it would only cause fewer people to go to the doctor for their depression symptoms, making the problem worse instead of better.

I will note "Red Flag" laws fall into this last category. More on them later...

Let's revisit the mass shooting problem for a moment. Of all the mass shootings I am aware of, the murderer either got his gun legally, passing a background check, or was unable to pass a background check and so got the gun illegally. None of them. Zero. Not one, bought a gun legally without a background check. Yet we're told "universal" background checks will solve the problem.

On the contrary, universal background checks ARE a problem. First off, they result in a de facto $100 tax per gun, meaning that they disproportionately prevent poor people from defending themselves (like the poor people in Chicago). Secondly, when implemented strictly, as in Washington state, they prevent safe storage of guns and gun safety. Thirdly, they have been shown to be ineffective.

Out of some 30000 people who failed a background check in the past few years, almost all of them have been mistakes (e.g. law abiding citizens denied their rights) and of the few cases where a felony was committed nobody has been prosecuted. The conclusion is that there is no evidence showing that background checks affect crime. Criminals do not purchase guns through legal means.

What about an "Assault Weapon" ban. The first problem is that there is no such thing as an "assault weapon." There is such a thing as an "assault rifle" which is strictly controlled in the US, banned in some states, and even in states where they are legal, purchasers must go through an 18 month federal process of background checks and paperwork. Assault weapons, on the other hand, are a made up political term which varies, but usually includes any gun which is popular, in order to ban the widest variety of guns. Also note that the US had a nation-wide assault weapon and "high capacity" magazine ban in effect for ten years. The result was that there was no decrease in crime or deaths. In other words, these laws provably do not save lives.

What about so-called "Red Flag" laws? Surely if citizens could point out the violent people in their midst and have their guns confiscated we would all be safer. No. First off, even without red flag laws, citizens can report to the police people who they believe are going to harm themselves or others, and the police are authorized to take appropriate steps. In the case of the most recent mass murder, for instance, he threatened a neighbor with a rifle and police were called. Ultimately nothing was done. Police couldn't find the man and it was not considered worth following up, apparently. In other words, existing laws were not followed.

Rather than saving lives, I am aware of at least one case in which red flag laws have killed people. It stands to reason, if you are a law abiding citizen, who owns guns to defend yourself from a home invasion, when police execute a non-knock raid in the wee hours, that you are going to think it is a home invasion. That kind of thing will get people killed, either by the homeowner mistakenly shooting police or by police shooting the homeowner. The way most of these laws are written they are a license to legally SWAT gun owners, with expected results.

To make matters worse, red flag laws allow victims' families to sue people who could have "red flagged" shooters, meaning that you can be held responsible for a coworker or neighbor who commits a crime, and also ensuring that the maximum number of people are falsely flagged. What happens when one is falsely red flagged? Well, assuming they are not killed in the police raid, they need to spend about $30000 in legal fees to get their lives and property restored (probably damaged, as various cases have shown), and of course the states' costs in all this come form the tax payers. No, red flag laws, apart from being unconstitutional, are a bad idea and will not stop criminals.

What changes will provable reduce mass shootings? First off, stop rewarding the murderers with fame and fortune. Almost every mass murderer has been a copycat killer, and many have even stated so in their manifestos. They see this act as their shot (no pun intended) at making a difference in the world and being remembered forever.

Second, get rid of gun-free zones, and allow national concealed carry. Some 98% of all mass shootings occur in gun free zones, and many of the murderers admit that the sought out a gun free zone because they knew they wouldn't meet armed resistance. The fact is that there are bad people out there, but the fact is that most people are good. Gun free zones will stop law abiding people from being armed because they follow the law. Someone who intends to kill someone will not be stopped from carrying the means to do so merely be a sign.

Despite propaganda (that's what it is) claiming that concealed carry will increase crime, people who carry concealed weapons for self defense are among the most law abiding in the nation - more law abiding than police. Why not let them defend themselves?

Of course mass shootings will still happen. These things will only reduce the number of deaths, not eliminate them. And as I have pointed out, mass shootings are a drop in the bucket. What can we do about the larger problem? Regarding suicides, while gun suicides are a large number, there is no evidence that removing guns affects the suicide rate. Even in countries like Japan, which has a very low number of guns, the suicide rate is higher than in the US; the methods simply change. I am not an expert on the issue of suicide prevention so I will not speculate as to the best way to reduce the suicide rate, but I will note that among faithful practicing Catholics the suicide rate is negligible. Spread the Gospel, folks!

As for gang and drug related killings, again I am not an expert, but I think if we enforce the laws, and protect whistle blowers it would help. Legalizing drugs would not. As I understand it, the gang problem is related to the breakdown of families and the lack of fathers. This in turn is actual racism, in the form of social programs that target minorities and encourage this behavior. Again I'll note that among faithful practicing Catholic families the divorce rate is negligible. Spread the Gospel!

Lastly, for people who claim that we should endure anything, give up any right, to keep people safe and save lives note that the one federal law that has been proven to save lives, more than any of these other laws, was the national 55 MPH speed limit. In addition, a national 55 MPH speed limit would reduce carbon emissions. Why aren't the gun hating, climate loving people of America pushing for that law?

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Novas Order

This post is inspired by a couple of discussions with Protestants. Bear with me.

Consider two stars, Castor and Pollux. They are the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini (image courtesy Wikipedia). They represent the heads of the twins the constellation depicts.

Castor is actually a system of 6 stars, about 51 light years from the earth. Pollux is closer, about 34 light years from earth, and is a simple star.

Let's suppose one of the stars in Castor, and the star Pollux both go nova simultaneously. On earth we would detect Pollux going nova after 34 years, and then we would detect Castor's nova only after another 17 years had passed. That's because of the length of time it takes the light for each event to reach the earth.

But things would get even weirder if we were in a spaceship traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light. The notion of simultaneity, it turns out, is relative, depending on your frame of reference.

What does this have to do with Protestants? First off, there is the Communion of Saints. According to Catholic belief, the saints in heaven are alive in Christ, enjoying the Beatific Vision, and interceding for us. That is backed up by numerous scripture passages, of which I will only name Revelation 5:8. For more on the topic see "The Intercession of the Saints".

According to many Protestants, those who are dead are asleep, waiting to be woken on the Last Day. They case this on Scripture like Isaiah 38:18 (which refers to hell, not heaven) and Psalm 115:17 (which refers to dead idols), or Psalm 6:5 (which refers to Sheol, not heaven).

But one of the key objections in this conversation was that the saints can't hear the prayers of more than one person at a time because they are not God. I've heard apologists talk about how God can give the saints in heaven the power to hear more than one prayer at a time, but I'd like to suggest an alternative hypothesis. Even in our own galaxy, things that are simultaneous to one observer may not be simultaneous to a different observer. What if our "simultaneous" prayers on earth are not simultaneous in heaven? Why should we think time in heaven works the way it does on earth? Time is a phenomenon of space, and heaven is not in our space-time continuum.

And another thing... the notion of the particular and general judgements. It has always bothered me that we are taught that there are two judgements after death - the particular judgement, where we are judged as individuals and steered to heaven or hell, and the general judgement at the end of the world, when all are judged and we will see God's plan. Both are based on Scripture, but what's the sense of a second judgement when you've already been judged? You know the outcome.

But what if they are describing the same judgement? On earth they would appear to happen at different times, but again, God is not constrained by time. When I die, why can't I be judged on the last day, and be in heaven (hopefully) on the day of my death? If we can do such tricks in our own galaxy with worm holes etc. why should we think God can't accomplish it? I'm not saying that this is what happens, necessarily, but I see no reason why it could not happen that way, either scripturally, theologically, philosophically or scientifically.

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How to persuade a Christian to become an atheist

It is with both sadness and amusement that I came across this piece, on "how to persuade a Christian to become an atheist." Sadness to see people spreading yet more misinformation on the internet (surprise, surprise) and amusement to see how they have simply taken the pages from "how to persuade an atheist to become a Christian" and turned some things around. The graphics are kind of creepy and the logic is, well, absent, but the methodology is generic "how to persuade person X of argument Y."

One has to wonder why an atheist would want to convert a Christian to atheism, other than for the sake of meanness. A Christian is charged with spreading the Gospel - not so the atheist, who has no gospel. A Christian is charged to help his fellow man by educating him and correcting him when he is in trouble - not so the atheist who has no duty to his fellow man. The Christian can argue that more Christians in the world makes the world a better place in terms of peace and taking care of the poor. The atheist make desire company, but historically atheists have not known to be the most charitable peaceful people. So any reason the atheist has for evangelization would be personal preference based on an unconscious "Christian" desire to "help" others based on cultural surroundings or upbringing, rather than a tenet of his "faith."

I thought it would be interesting to see two people who have read these respective instructions go "head to head." So it occurred to me it might be fun to take this to the next level. "How to persuade an atheist who is trying to persuade a Christian to become an atheist to become a Christian." With that in mind, here are my responses to the responses to the questions in the Christian -> Atheist article. I've copied some of the text, and edited or paraphrased it for brevity. The question part (in bold) is what is asked by the Christian. The normal text is the suggested response, and my rebuttal is in bold italics).

• What existed before the big bang?
  • We don't know yet.
  • Another theory is that our Universe exists as part of a much larger multiverse.
  The question and answer both beg the issue. We can't properly speak of "before" without time, which as far as we know requires the big bang to have occurred. However, we can ask the metaphysical question, "is time required for causality?" Clearly it is not, since the big bang happened. So the question is not what existed before the big bang, but what caused the big bang? And if you say "the laws of physics" what caused them? And if there's a multiverse, what caused that?

• Order can't come from chaos, entropy wouldn't allow that.
  • Chaos and entropy describe different things. Entropy can be locally reversed.
  But entropy can't be globally reversed. If you're going to claim it can you have to show me which the laws of physics you wish to suspend for your argument, which undermines your scientific claims. The example used of order coming from chaos is not in fact, order from chaos, but an experiment designed to locally produce order. If the intent of the atheist was to show that an intelligence can design a system which produces order, then yes, I agree, an intelligence can design a system which produces order.

• Life couldn't come into existence by mere coincidence.
  • It didn't.
  So the atheist concedes the argument, and adds words which make him think he has "won." So be it.

• Life is too complicated to happen through mere coincidence and random events.
  • Evolution provides a mechanism that is anything but random or coincidental.
  Another concession. And I guess evolutionists who talk about random mutation are wrong as well. Thank you for agreeing.
   
  
• If people don't believe in God, where do they get their morality from?
  • It should scare you to think that the fear of Hell is the only thing stopping the Christian from committing atrocities.
  It would if that were true. However, this shows a lack of understanding of Christianity, since Christians do not claim fear of hell as the source of morality (or even the source of moral behavior). It also ignores the question (irrelevance fallacy). Where do atheists get their morality from?
   
  
• If God doesn't exist why does most of the world believe? (Argumentum ad populum}
  • Just because a majority of people in a group or the entire world believe something does not make it automatically true.
  Correct. The Christian has asked an irrelevant question. However, this says nothing about the truth or falsehood of the claim "there is a God."
  
  
• Something can't come from nothing. (Cosmological Argument)
  • If it is possible for a god to be uncaused then it is possible for the universe to be uncaused.
  Correct. However, Occam's razor demands we choose the simpler proposition. Which is simpler? That one exception exists, or that everything is an exception to the rule?
  
  
• The Bible proves God exists. Why would so many people write about God if it wasn't true? (Argumentum ad Verecundiam, Circular reasoning, Tautology)
  • Any critical examination of the Bible will clearly show it to be full of inaccuracies and contradictions.
  They're both wrong. The Bible doesn't prove God exists, it asserts it. Even if the Bible were perfect in every other way it still wouldn't be a proof. On the other side, where are the inaccuracies and contradictions? Because I have yet to see one which wasn't easily refuted if one looks at the actual text and context, rather than reading isolated misleading claims.
   
  
• The universe and life show clear signs of design.
  • Life reproduces and mutates by itself. The same cannot be said of an inanimate object.
  False. Life does not reproduce and mutate by itself. It needs material and energy outside of itself to do so. The atheist is using the same argument to show lack of design by claiming (without proof) that the universe is not designed. The atheist cannot show evidence of something complex created without intent (or design, but I think intent is a better word to use here), but makes the claim that "everything" is anyway. Intention is not something which can be measured scientifically.

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Logic

I had several discussions over the last day with different friends on the topic of logic. One such discussion was whether logic could prove the existence of God. There was debate, but I wanted to expand on my thoughts a big here.

Logic per se can prove anything and noting. It depends on the axioms you start with. For instance, take the argument for God's existence from design. It goes along the lines of "Complex things need an intelligence to design them. The universe is complex. Therefore there is a designer. We call that designer 'God.'"

I have yet to see an atheist who was convinced by that logic, even though it is perfectly sound. The problem is that the atheist rejects the axiom that complex things need an intelligent designer. Therefore the proof, while perfectly valid as a proof, is rejected. But let's continue to follow that chain of logic where it leads.

Ask the atheist why he rejects the notion that complex systems have a designer and he will ask you to show why he should accept that notion. You reply that everything we see that is complex has a designer. My iPhone, car, house all had an intelligent designer. "Ah" replies the atheist, "but you are overlooking the prime example of a complex thing that has no designer - the universe!" And of course they hold the truth of the statement that the universe has no designer based on the axiom that there isn't a God.

And so their logic is consistent as well, only it is circular. If you are trying to determine whether or not there is a God, you can't start with the axiom "there is no God" and see where logic takes you. You have to start with the axiom "there may or may no be a God" or you are being intellectually dishonest. It has nothing to do with logic, and everything to do with faith. The atheist has blind faith in his axiom.

N.B. As Deacon Will on Plurk pointed out, the first reading for the next day was Wisdom 13:1-9 (emphasis mine):

All men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God,
and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is,
and from studying the works did not discern the artisan;
But either fire, or wind, or the swift air,
or the circuit of the stars, or the mighty water,
or the luminaries of heaven, the governors of the world, they considered gods.
Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods,
let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these;
for the original source of beauty fashioned them.
Or if they were struck by their might and energy,
let them from these things realize how much more powerful is he who made them.
For from the greatness and the beauty of created things
their original author, by analogy, is seen.
But yet, for these the blame is less;
For they indeed have gone astray perhaps,
though they seek God and wish to find him.
For they search busily among his works,
but are distracted by what they see, because the things seen are fair.
But again, not even these are pardonable.
For if they so far succeeded in knowledge
that they could speculate about the world,
how did they not more quickly find its Lord?

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What works - Personhood

This is part 2 of a series on what works for pro lifers. The first was about fetal pain laws. So, personhood amendments. These are a great idea in theory, but I have yet to see one which passed. One problem I think is that the wording always leaves room for opponents to claim that it will lead to earthquakes and hurricanes. Colorado's says:

Section 32. Person defined. As used in sections 3*, 6**, and 25*** of Article II of the state constitution, the term "person" shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being.

In Florida it says:

SECTION 28. Person Defined: (a)The rights of every person shall be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life. The right to life is the paramount and most fundamental right of a person. (b)With respect to the fundamental and inalienable rights of all persons guaranteed in this Constitution, the word 'person' applies to all human beings, irrespective of age, race, sex, health, function, or condition of dependency, including unborn children at every stage of their biological development regardless of the method of creation. (c)This amendment shall take effect on the first day of the next regular legislative session occurring after voter approval of this amendment.

Oklahoma's says:

“A ‘person’ as referred to in Article 2, section 2 of this constitution shall be defined as any human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being to natural death. The inherent rights of such person shall not be denied without due process of law and no person as defined herein shall be denied equal protection under the law due to age, place of resident or medical condition.”

Wisconsin's says:

Equality; inherent rights.  Section 1.  All people are equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; to secure these rights, governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.  As applied to the right to life, the terms "people" and "person” shall apply to every human being at any stage of development.

What's wrong with saying:

The term "person" applies to any living member of the species homo sapiens.

Much harder to argue against that. It's harder to argue that this isn't true because it's science fact, not words of law to be interpreted.

I can't imagine someone wiggling their way past that definition, but on the other hand I would not have expected doctors to redefine what a contraceptive was (used to be defined as preventing conception, now redefined as preventing pregnancy) and the redefine what pregnancy means (used to begin at fertilization, now redefined as not to begin until implantation) all in order to reclassify abortifacients as "contraceptives". What a pack of lies.

But it may be that it's not the language at all, but the consequences. If I made a law that said gravity existed and it would affect people's ability to commit abortion, would they vote it down? Would they argue that gravity doesn't really exist?

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Relatively speaking

I don't know who came up with this, but a friend once told me about a curious custom. After reading a fortune cookie, say the words "in bed" and see how the wisdom becomes funny (and sometimes risque). For example: "A pleasant surprise is waiting for you...in bed." or "Your success will astonish everyone...in bed." It's gotten to the point where every fortune cookie fortune I read, I mentally add an "in bed" even if I don't say it, just to find out what it would have said.

I've come to notice that there's a similar trick used by many people today, which they confuse for being smart. That is, they either mentally, or often verbally add the words "for you" to everything anybody says. Things like "abortion kills an innocent human life...for you" or "religious liberty is a fundamental right...for you." Sadly, they don't even see, probably by becoming accustomed to hearing it over and over, how logically self contradictory it is.

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The bible tells me so

When my kids were young we had this board book that played a number of songs when you opened it. One of them was Jesus Loves Me. And perhaps it is OK for small children, but I winced whenever it came on. For those unfamiliar, the theme of the song is I know Jesus loves me because the bible tells me so.

I can't abide by a faith that makes me abandon reason, and the way some people treat the bible has always been a sticking point for me. The argument goes something like "well, 'X' is true because hte bible says so."

"How do you know the bible is true?"

"Because it's the word of God."

"How do you know it's the word of God?"

"The bible says so."

This is what's known as circular reasoning. I could write a blog post that says it's the word of God, and that wouldn't make it the word of God.

At any rate, I've been thinking of a series of blog posts about how a belief in God is not only possible, but necessary by applying logic, and that Catholicism is not only plausible, but very likely true using reason. Of course faith is always required at some point, but faith and reason go hand in hand.

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Why are people pro-choice (part 3)

This is the third in an ongoing series of posts about the reasoning pro-choicers use to arrive at their point of view. In part 1 and part 2, we covered the back alley abortion argument and the when does life begin argument. Today's reason is:

Reason #3: It's my body, my choice.

This may actually mean one of two reasons. The first meaning is that the fetus is part of my body, and I have the right to do what I want with my body. An abortion is just like liposuction - taking away part of my body. Of course, this falls prey to the same logic we applied in part 2. Without regurgitating the whole thing I submit this one quote and direct you to read Part 2.

Dr. Jerome LeJeune, professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, was the discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down syndrome. Dr. LeJeune testified to the Judiciary Subcommittee, “after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being.” He stated that this “is no longer a matter of taste or opinion,” and “not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence.” He added, “Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”

Note that this is a scientific fact. With technology like DNA analysis we can prove that the fetus is not part of the mother's body, but is a unique individual, from the moment of conception on.

But perhaps what the pro-choicer means is "I accept that it is a separate and unique life, but my right to control my body trumps the fetus' right to use it for warmth and nourishment. The two arguments that can be made are defense and privacy.

The defense argument goes something like "if an intruder entered my house and attacked me I would have the right to defend myself, even if I killed the attacker. Therefore I have the right to abort the baby that has entered my body." Mother Teresa was well aware of this argument when she said:

"America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. (Mother Theresa -- "Notable and Quotable," Wall Street Journal, 2/25/94, p. A14)

She saw at once the problem with this argument is that it purports the child to be an attacker. The child is not attacking the mother. It is not threatening her, and in fact is there naturally. In over 99% of abortions, the woman willfully chose the behavior that put that child in that position. Even in the case of rape, the child is not the one who attacked the mother. Rather than being the case of defending against an intruder, it's like inviting a neighbor for tea and then murdering them.

The privacy argument reasons that although I could not kick someone out of a public place, it is perfectly reasonable for me to kick them out of my own home, because it is my place. How much more so do I have the right to "kick out" the fetus, within my own body, which is more my domain than my home.

This falls to similar logic. Although you can kick someone out of your private house, you can't kill them because they are in your private house. Even more so if you invited them in in the first place. Human life trumps property rights in law (and in Asimov's three laws of robotics).

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Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

On July 7, 1868, Frank Bunker Gilbreth was born. He received an education through high school and at the age of 17, became a bricklayer. He later rose to become a building contractor, inventor, a management engineer, and a lecturer at Purdue University. On October 19, 1904 Frank married Lillian Evelyn Moller and they had 12 children; Anne, Mary, Ernestine, Martha, Frank Jr., William, Lillian, Frederick, Daniel, John, Robert and Jane. They lived in Montclair NJ, where Frank died of heart failure on June 14, 1924 at the age of 55.

I first learned about Frank Gilbreth as a teen, when I read the book "Cheaper by the Dozen". It is the autobiography of the Gilbreth family, as told by two of their children. If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend that you do so. The story is interesting, funny, and heartwarming. In fact, there are two sequels, "Belles on Their Toes" and "Time Out for Happiness" which are also very good. If you have seen the movie "Cheaper by the Dozen" with Steve Martin, I have to tell you it's a completely different story - they just stole the name. I highly recommend you don't see that movie. The movies you want are "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "Belles on Their Toes".

But that's not really what I wanted to talk to you about. Frank and Lillian Gilbreth pioneered the field of motion study engineering. It began in Frank's early days as a brick layer. In trying to learn his new job, Frank studied the other bricklayers. He got in trouble with the foreman for studying too much and not working enough. From the book:

During Dad's first week at work he made so many suggestions about how brick could be laid faster and better that the foreman threatened repeatedly to fire him.

"You're the one who came here to learn," the foreman hollered at him. "For Christ's sake don't try to learn us."

Subtle innuendos like that never worried Dad. Besides, he already knew that motion study was his element, and he had discovered something that apparently had never attracted the attention of industry before. He tried to explain it to the foreman.

"Did you ever notice that no two men use exactly the same way of laying bricks?" he asked. "That's important, and do you know why?"

"I know that if you open your mount about bricklaying again, I'll lay a brick in it."

"It's important because if one bricklayer is doing the job the right way, then all the others are doing the job the wrong way. Now, if I had your job, I'd find who's laying brick the right way, and make all the others copy him."

"If you had my job," shouted the livid-faced foreman, "the first thing you'd do is fire the red-headed unprintable son of a ruptured deleted who tried to get your job. and that's what I think you're trying to do."

He picked up a brick and waved it menacingly.

Gilbreth's studying paid off. He learned what made the fastest brick layer the fastest. But he didn't stop there. He studied the motions that bricklayers made, and found a way to reduce the number of movements to lay one brick from 18 down to six. At a time when an expert bricklayer was laying 125 bricks an hour, Gilbreth was able to lay 350 using his methods.

This was just the beginning. He and Lillian became engineering consultants. They developed a set of standard motions, called "therbligs" (Gilbreth backwards, with the "th" transposed). The rest of their professional lives were devoted to finding what they termed the "One Best Way" in various industries. It was Gilbreth's idea that a surgical nurse serve as "caddy" (Gilbreth's term) to a surgeon; providing surgical instruments as called for. He devised the techniques used by armies around the world to teach recruits how to rapidly disassemble and reassemble their weapons even when blindfolded or in total darkness. Above all, Frank and Lilian were scientists, who taught that our methods of doing things should be constantly examined, and improvements adopted.Gilbreth even discovered the best way to button his shirts (from the bottom up was faster than the conventional top down) and to teach his children (by painting information on the walls of their bedrooms and bathroom).

Of course, having a "One Best Way" flies in the face of "freedom." Why shouldn't I be able to decide what bricklaying method works best for me? The answer, of course, is you can decide what method to use, but if your desire is to lay brick well, you are better off using the method that is objectively the best rather than making something up yourself.

I know this was a long intro, but these are my thoughts, so I can ramble as much as I like. Anyway, I see this whole thing as a metaphor for religion. Everybody claims they want to find peace and joy in their life, and to wind up in heaven. Yet many people have no plan on how to do that. They approach it by trying to make something up that "works for them." At best they will do what their friends do, or try to emulate some popular figure (who usually turns out to be a miserable stinker in the end). Why should they think that making something up at random will work? Why should they follow the advice of someone who has no better knowledge than they do?

Science would suggest that we emulate Frank Gilbreth and take a look around us. Who's doing it better? And what logic and analysis have they applied to the problem that indicates they know what they're doing?

Scripture, natural law and logic all indicate that the Catholic Church is that "One Best Way" to get to heaven. Nobody else has the history all the way back through Abraham. Nobody else has the direct authority of Christ. Nobody else has the apostolic succession, the priesthood, the saints, the miracles, the Truth. Even disregarding biblical authority, its adherence to natural law and common sense indicates its sense. It is that "One Best Way."

Some people criticize the Church for not "keeping up with the times", but if there is a "One Best Way" it is what it is - it doesn't change with the times. For example, good nutrition is good nutrition. It doesn't change with the diet fad of the month. Every once in a while nutrition recommendations are refined a bit, but we're not going to suddenly find out we don't actually need protein. The Church is like that.

You are, of course, free to make up your own way. There is no employer forcing you to do things "the company way" as with Gilbreth. As Pope Benedict XVI says "We impose nothing, yet we propose ceaselessly." I do hope you'll do the research and find your way home to the Catholic Church. And if you do follow a different way I hope your way eventually leads you to heaven and I meet you there. For me, I'll stick with the One Best Way.

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How not to win

Once upon a time, there were three congressional candidates; a republican, a democrat, and an independent. It was an election year and the three candidates all wanted to win. One day they went out into the wood, campaigning door to door.

Along came a voter named Vince. Vince was a good man. Vince took a look at the candidates' platforms. Vince thought the republican position on certain issues was too hard. He found the democratic position to be too soft. The independent's position was just right.

Suddenly there was a knock on Vince's door. It was the democrat. "How have you decided to vote?" asked the friendly democrat.

"I was thinking of the independent" replied Vince.

"Oh, you don't want to do that" warned the democrat. "If you vote for him it will split the democratic vote and the republican will win. You don't like the republican, do you?" Wince admitted that he did not, and the democrat left, whistling a happy tune.

A short time later there was another knock at the door. It was the republican. "Have you decided who to vote for?" inquired the republican.

"I was thinking of the independent" replied Vince.

"Oh, you don't want to do that" offered the republican. "If you vote for him it will split the republican vote and the democrat will win. You don't like the democrat, do you?" Wince admitted that he did not, and the republican left, humming a happy tune.
 
A while later there was another knock at the door. It was the independent . "Have you decided who to vote for?" inquired the independent.

"Well" replied Vince, "I'd like to vote for you but I can't, because if I do a republican or a democrat will win instead."

A while ago I was listening to the Life Report podcast, and the topic of discussion was whether or not you would vote for a pro-life candidate if they were a third party candidate and both the republican and democratic candidates were pro-abortion. The general consensus was that if they voted for the pro-life candidate, that would weaken support for the "less pro-abortion" candidate and the "more pro-abortion" candidate would win. Therefore they would vote for a republican or democrat, even though the person were pro-abortion, and even though they had a perfectly good pro-life candidate to vote for.

After I untwisted my brain from trying to wrap it around that logic I penned them a long letter, and decided not to send it. Perhaps I should have, but it was apparent by the long and detailed discussion of the topic on the podcast that they thought they had thought of everything, and were not open to "new" ideas on the subject. And I can see how someone, like Vince, can be convinced that the logic makes sense.

My refutation is simply this. If you want "X" to happen, why would think the best way to get there is taking action that prevents "X" from happening? If you want to promote pro-life laws, why would you vote for a pro-abortion candidate? Yes, the candidate you want to win might not win, but they surely won't win if nobody votes for them. In addition, the fact that the candidate gets a percentage of the vote could cause whoever does win to evaluate their position on the issue.

The same faulty logic is used over and over again, to justify doing what we want to do instead of what we claim we want. "Everybody downloads music - the music companies even account for that in their pricing." The implication is that if I don't download illegal copies of music, I am somehow paying too much. Of course, if you don't want the music companies to build in a charge to cover their losses, the best way is not to steal the music, so they have no losses to cover. I can't make everyone stop illegal downloads, but I can control my own actions, and if I don't personally, what hope is there that the practice will stop?

If I want to live in a world without hate, without violence, without crime, how can my own hatred, violence, and crimes further my goals?

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Boolean Algebra - Computer Science Week

Ok, a brief respite from my usual blog topics for National Computer Science Education Week. Each day this week I'm going to blog about some topic in computer science. My goal is to make these topics introductory enough so that anyone can read them and learn something, and perhaps get an interest in learning more.

Today's topic is Boolean Algebra. I know the work "algebra" scares people off. Months of sitting in school trying to fathom what "x" was has left a bad taste in the mouths and minds of millions. But the word actually comes from the title of a book, עilm al-jabr wa'l-muḳābala ‘the science of restoring what is missing and equating like with like,’ by the mathematician al- K wārizmī. So let's restore what is missing in algebra - fun (well, maybe not, but we'll try).

You're familiar with arithmetic operators, + - x and /. George Bool came up with a system of operators on the values TRUE and FALSE. There are three basic operators (which can actually be reduced to 2), that describe all the things you can do. They are AND, OR and NOT, and they are pretty simple to understand.

"I'll eat chicken OR beef." Means I will eat chicken. I will eat beef. I will eat both. The only way this is FALSE is if I will eat neither chicken nor beef.

"I had bacon AND eggs for breakfast." Means I had both, I could not say this if I didn't have bacon or if I didn't have eggs.

"I did NOT eat the peas." This of course, would be false if I did eat the peas.

Pretty simple, and yet George made it complicated by adding formal equations and parentheses and varous properties. The nice thing that falls out of it are some general principles that let us simplify logic. For instance, the sentence:

"If it is NOT Tuesday OR it is NOT raining I will NOT have duck for dinner."

can be shown to be logically the same as

"If it is Tuesday AND it is raining I will have duck for dinner."

Of course, that sounds obvious, but just like numerical algebra, you can use boolean algebra to take some complicated logic problems and find a simpler form that is equivalent. For more information see Ones and Zeroes: Understanding Boolean Algebra, Digital Circuits and the Logic of Sets.

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God is Weird!

I've been musing about infinity recently. No, not the car! The thing that looks like a lazy “8” . Everybody thinks they know what infinity is, right? It's something really really big. But that's not the half of it! The first time I was confronted by something infinite was in math in high school. I was in "mathletics" (yes, I was then and always will be an egghead), and came across something like the following problem:

solve for x, whereand the “...” means “continuing on infinitely”. Well, x is obviously, uh, well, I guess ...something. But what? After failing to solve that problem in the time allotted, I spoke to my math teacher. Since the number of square roots in infinite, you can take off the first one and still have

and since you know that's equal to x, you just substitute the x right back in place of the whole inside shebang, like so

so you square both sides, simplify and solve

Piece of cake! And I went about my merry way thinking that you could do the substitution because taking one square root operation off an infinite series made so little change it didn't matter. But wait! That's not really true. Taking one thing off an infinite series doesn't make a small change, even an infinitely small change – it makes no change, and that's the cool thing about infinity - “normal” arithmetic doesn't work!

I never knew until my father's funeral that his favorite hymn was “Amazing Grace”, but when I heard it I knew that one of the things he probably liked about that hymn was the stanza

When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

You see, my dad was also a math geek (took after me, no doubt). As a mathematician, you can tell the author “gets” infinity. He doesn't say “we still have lots of time left” or some sissy statement like that, he says “no less” (well, grammatically it should be “no fewer days,” but we'll forgive that).

And that's the freaky part of God. I have friends who say that God can't possibly care about them because why would the creator of the universe want to waste time worrying about some idiot on a flyspeck planet in the corner of nowhere. But consider now an infinite God. He could spend a billion years contemplating whether or not you stub your toe tomorrow morning, and how much of His (infinite, remember) time has we “wasted?” None! He still has an infinite amount. Multiply that by a a million years of toe stubbing by 6 billion people and now how much has He wasted? None! The person who doubts God based on “finite resource” arguments simply doesn't understand God or infinity. And why should they? We never encounter infinity in “real life”.

Of course, there's another reason why a million years means nothing to God. Since time seems to be an artifact of being in our universe, and God is outside the universe, then I imagine God doesn't experience time in any sense we can imagine. He is outside of it, and superior to it. It must have been quite a thing for Jesus to experience the universe as a human being!

Being outside time has some very interesting implications. A young child may wish something could “un-happen”, but as we grow up we are taught that this is impossible. And yet, it is not impossible for God. How do you know that something terrible didn't happen yesterday; something so bad that you prayed with all your heart for it not to have happened, and so it didn't. It's kind of like some science fiction alternate reality story, and yet that's only form our perspective. From what I imagine would be God's perspective it would be a perfectly reasonable scenario, although one must assume that if God made it un-happen there is no difference between that and God not allowing it to happen in the first place. Thus, to us God cannot change his mind, but this is not a limitation on God, merely a limitation on how we are capable to thinking of things. For to change your mind means you thought different things at different times, and the idea of God being confined by our linear notion of time is nonsense.

My point it that God is as freaky weird as any mathematics you can dream up (and I mean that in the best possible way). We can say “God is infinite” all day long, but we can't imagine what that even means, and we rarely stop to think about what the consequences are (like actually being able to care for all those sparrows, and us).

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One More Into the Breach

Since everyone is analyzing the president's speech at ND, I figured I might as well. I have an advantage over other bloggers of having access to a symbolic logic analyzer.

It was developed over the past years, using an algorithm developed by Muller Holk of the Division of Logic of the Encyclopedia Foundation on Terminus. It is capable of digesting a speech and producing a summary of its actual symbolic content. I started with the original transcript of the speech given here, and after a few milliseconds of computing time I got the following (cross references to conflicting material are marked with [] by the parser):

I am smarter than you.

The most important issues are the economy, the ecology and harmony. Every other issue should take a back burner to these.

The following things are evil: prejudice, self-interest, materialism, taking advantage of the weak, power and privilege in the face of injustice, violence.

The following things are good: stem cell research and "choice" [so we can keep our prejudice against the weak, our self-interest in our bodies and convenience, our material goods (instead of spending them on children), and keep our power and privilege of life in the face of injustice, and our violence against the weak]

I once wrote what I believed on my web site and someone said they wouldn't vote for me because of my bigotry, so I held on to my bigotry, but changed my words to hide it so I would get his vote, because I am cleverer than you, and everyone knows getting votes is more important than being honest about intentions.

Let us work together to reduce the number of abortions, unintended pregnancies and increase adoptions, support mothers, support conscience, and make sure policies are grounded in ethics. Those are things we can do.

[For my part in this I will make abortions more available and less expensive, suppress religious efforts to reduce unintended pregnancies support adoptions and help mothers, remove conscience clauses and make sure we remove funding from ethical stem cell research and put those funds to work on ethically problematic research.]

The abortion debate is irreconcilable, so keep talking - but only talking - while I make policies Because talking but not doing is fair [to me].

When I was young I helped people in Chicago. I looked up the name of the archbishop so you would applaud because I am smarter than you.

I am an African American. 55 years ago people did a good thing to help stop discrimination against the disenfranchised who were denied basic human rights, and Notre Dame had a big part in it. Now look at Notre Dame.

Remember, faith is doubt, love is hate, war is peace.

Remember that each of us is endowed with the dignity possessed by all children of God [except the unborn].

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