McFreedom

I've decided that, rather than trying to get this old blog going, again, I'm going to move to a new one. It's my new Brett Thomas' baz.com blog, which will be much farther ranging (and hopefully more frequently updated).

The Discovery Institute, a creationism Intelligent Design think tank has generated a list of "scientists" who have "doubts about the adequacy of Darwin's theory of evolution." They now have "over 700", with the most recent press release adding another hundred. Quoted notably in the release is Dr. Michael Egnor, an "award-winning brain surgeon named one of New York's best doctors."

Scientists have rightly responded to this with humor. The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has created Project Steve, which seeks to find scientists who believe that "...there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution ocurred..." who are named Steve. As of the end of March, they had 795.

On the Institute's blog, today, Dr. Egnor wonders, "What if Darwinism Were True?" Presuming this is not an April Fool's joke - and certainly Dr. Egnor has seemed little if not overly serious - it is an astonishing admission for someone we're supposed to respect as a "scientist." Dr. Egnor wonders:

What if experimental evidence demonstrated that we could account for biological information (or whatever we call the astonishing complexity of living things) without inferring design? Would I lose my faith?

No, I wouldn’t.

First, if this is in fact the misunderstanding that has driven Dr. Egnor to the welcoming arms of the Discovery Institute, it's truly amazing. Evolution doesn't eschew design - merely a designer. The misunderstanding that natural selection is random is common amongst creationists, but that second word - selection - shows that it is, in fact, not random.

Regardless, Dr. Egnor then goes on to speculate on what would happen if

intelligent design were shown to be right, by scientific evidence? Most atheists would feel their faith in materialism greatly endangered, if not untenable. I suspect that is the cause for all their vitriol. Is Darwinism true? I’ll believe it if I see it. Is intelligent design true? Atheists won’t see it, because they won’t believe it.

So, to summarize: Dr. Egnor's position is that he believes in God, and that he believes evolution by natural selection is incorrect. If he's wrong, he will not change his position on God. However, scientists who are atheists (he speculates) might continue to be atheists even if evolution by natural selection is wrong, therefore they are the ones who are unscientific.

I mean, really, you can't make this up. "I'm right, no matter what the evidence is, but you won't accept the real evidence because you can't accept what would happen if you're wrong."

I'm going to go out on a limb, and oppose the conventional wisdom, and reiterate my previous assertion that the Republicans will definitely hold the House, and probably the Senate. I base this prediction not upon what I desire to see; I'm reasonably ambivalent on the topic. Convincing arguments can be made that a Republican win or loss would be the better outcome, and I personally haven't been able to decide between them.

The first factor in this prediction has been the recent unreliability of polls. In 2000 and 2004, polls predicted Democratic victory and were wrong. I see no reason to think that whatever systemic issue was in play in those elections is not going to cause a similar outcome in this one.

The second is my previously mentioned concern about gerrymandering. These districts were very carefully carved up to apportion the votes by party. I don't believe this country has moved so much since 2004.

Frankly, I will be very happy about the health of The Republic if the Republicans lose the House. Simply because I've felt for many years that gerrymandering has been our greatest internal threat, and a Republican loss would refute that concern. But, I'm too cynical to expect that to happen, so I predict that the Republicans will maintain their control.

Robert A. Heinlein, in the "Notebooks of Lazarus Long," said a lot of memorable one-liners. I read this one when I was a teenager and I think it made a bit of an impression on me:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

Specialization is for insects.

I can't say I can do all of 'em - and hope I never get to find out on the ultimate one. It's amusing how many of these have changed in relative commonality, at least for men. When Robert Heinlein was a young man, probably a lot more guys knew how to "pitch manure" or "build a wall" than "change a diaper" or "cook a tasty meal." Now, the reverse would be true.

Via Jane Galt, I note that FuturePundit is commenting on two recent studies that show that "being overweight shortens life expectancy." While that may not sound new, the interesting point of these studies that BMI (body mass index, the rough-and-ready approximation of how heavy you are relative to your height) outside the normal ranges - both high and low - has long been known to increase early mortality. There's a number of reasons for this, but part of the issue is that if you have something really wrong with you (like cancer), you often lose a lot of weight right before you die. So, presumably, in some of the people with a low BMI, that BMI is really a symptom and not a cause.

He quotes Dr. Meir Stampfer, in the New York Times as concluding the case is closed. Being overweight or obese "raise[s] the risk of mortality...It really should be the final word...as to whether [being] overweight is actually bad for you or not." And, yet, the author of another recent study, Dr. David M. Mannino, says that "diabetes is really the driving factor among early death from criticial illness among people who are overwieght or obese." In this study, he controlled for diabetes among the overweight and obese, and discovered that having a high BMI is not in an of itself risky, if you don't get diabetes.

The trick, of course, is that having a high BMI is a major risk factor for diabetes. There's no question that, if you change your diet and exercise, and that drops your BMI, you'll reduce your risk for adult onset diabetes substantially. There's a study from 2001 that showed that, among those high-risk for diabetes, doing 150 minutes a week of light exercise (walking) and losing 5-7% of body weight cut risk of the disease by 58%.

To sum up what we know so far: Having a high BMI is bad because it's correlated with getting diabetes. Regular excercise and diet control are correlated with a normal BMI. The conclusion coming from these correlations is "you can substantially reduce your risk of dying early by lowering your BMI." One question I've had after reading these studies is, "Does being fat in and of itself increase your risk for diabetes? Or is it that excercise protects you, and since regular excercise is correlated with lower BMI, the BMI correlation is a red herring?" To a certain extent, this is an academic question, as "fat but fit" individuals are fairly uncommon. Most people, if they excercise regularly, trim out (I have no study to back this assertion up; it's just my own personal observation).

Interestingly, a study in 2004 set out "to examine the relative contributions and joint association of physical activity and BMI with diabetes." This study only included women, and defined "active" as "expending more than 1000 kcal on recreational activities per week," which, I'll note, isn't much. Their conclusion was that, although both BMI and activity level are "independent predictors," "the magnitude of the association with BMI was greater than with physical activity." In other words, exercising is good for preventing diabetes, having a normal BMI is better, and best is to do both.

The AP reports that "About 1,000 Muslim clerics and religious scholars" issued a statement about the recent flap about Pope Benedict's statements. I don't care the slightest about either the Pope, or their opinion of him. However, they note, "[A]ll infidels, should know that no Muslim, under any circumstances, can tolerate an insult to the Prophet (Muhammad). ... If the West does not change its stance regarding Islam, it will face severe consequences.""

I recognize that it is unlikely any "Muslim clerics and religious scholars" read this blog, but I thought I'd go ahead and lay out my message to them, as well. As an infidel, my opinion is, "screw you and your prophet. If you don't change your stance regarding religious freedom of speech, you will face severe consequences." No doubt my pronouncement will have precisely as much effect on them as theirs did on me (in other words, "none") but I just thought I'd get that out there.

Betsy over at Betsy's Page notes a case in North Carolina about whether consent can be revoked for a search by a police officer. The basic facts of the case appear to be that Timothy Stone was asked by an officer if the officer could search him; Mr. Stone agreed. However, when the officer began shining a flashlight down the searchee's pants, Mr. Stone attempted to revoke his consent to the search. The officer continued, anyway, and discovered a pill bottle with crack in it.

The court found that the search wasn't reasonable because "a reasonable person in defendant's circumstances would not have understood that he would be subjected to an inspection of his genitals," and, as is the normal remedy in cases where police overstep their search authority, threw the evidence out from consideration. Betsy then ends with the non sequitor, "It's as if the criminal can consent to a search, but then know that he's safe as long as he hides the targeted goods (so to speak) in his groin area. This will leave criminals with a safe zone where they can hide stuff and not be searched unless the police get a new warrant."

The questions here, I think, are interesting, and I'm not sure I have a strong opinion on them. But, it is clear to me that Betsy doesn't have a clear understanding of search law, because there's no warrant involved in consensual searches, by definition. Searches with warrants have nothing to do with whether you conesnt to them, and, if your consent is important to the search, there's no warrant involved.

The police may search you for three reasons. The first is that they went to a judge and convinced him to issue a warrant searching for specific things in specific places. In order to this, they must show probable cause before hand that you have the thing they're searching for, or were involved in a specific crime. It does not matter whether you consent to this search, or not, or, in a lot of cases, even if you're present. The second is that the officer on the scene has "probable cause" to believe you've been involved in a specific crime. The classic example given is if an officer is walking past a house, hears a scream, knocks on the door, and a man comes to the door covered in blood holding a knife. The officer has probable cause to search the house for evidence of a crime, with or without the homeowner's consent. A probable cause search is a little risky for the officer, because he has to be able to back up, after the fact, why specifically he thought a crime had been comitted, and "he looked like a drug dealer" generally doesn't cut it. In cases where the officer performs such a search and fails to turn up any evidence, it's possible (especially in racially-charged cases) for the officer to get in a lot of trouble, civil lawsuits to be filed, etc. In the present case, I believe probable cause could've been established, say, if the officer had seen Mr. Stone trying to sell crack, and had then searched him. In that case, Mr. Stone's consent would not matter, either.

The third reason police can search you ends up being the cause of most of the searches that are conducted. And, once you understand the rules about when the police may or may not search you (or enter your home to conduct a search), it's actually pretty mind boggling that they occur much, at all: The police simply ask you if they can search. "Sir, would you mind if I take a look around?" "Ma'am, could you please pop your trunk?" "Sir, could I step inside for a moment?" "Sir, would you mind if I searched you for drugs?" Most people respond to these questions in the affirmative, because they think the police have the authority to back up these simple requests. Under the US constitution, they do not. Many criminals are caught simply because the police ask if they may, or state that they are being, searched. People don't want to annoy the police (arguably especially criminials) so, they go along, and the police catch them.

If the police officer does not have a warrant, he generally has no right to search you, enter your house, or detain you, unless he has specific probable cause that you have been involved in a crime. The reason I know as much as I do about this is that I am a gun owner in California, and the laws are so confusing that most peace officers don't know them as well as I do. I've done the research to know what I need to know if I'm pulled over with my (utterly and perfectly legal) rifles on the way back from the range. My fear is that, the law is so vague that a police officer, if he becomes aware of my rifles, may confiscate them and arrest me. Knowing that I don't have to tell him I have a gun in the car (which, ridiculously, establishes probable cause in California), and that, if he asks me if he can open the trunk, I can say, politely, "no," may help me avoid an expensive and inconvenient legal battle.

So, the real questions, here are: "Once a citizen has consented to a search, may he withdraw that consent?" Generally speaking I believe that the answer to this is "no," but I don't know the case law and I suppose it's not inconceivable that this is an undecided question. The impression I get from the article that the question the judges thought more relevant was, "When a reasonable person consents to a search of his body, should he expect that the police are going to shine a flashlight in his pants?" Bearing in mind, of course, that prior precedents have established that, when a reasonable person agrees to a search of his body, he is not agreeing to a strip search. The question really before the court is, "Is shining a flashlight down someone's pants more like a strip search or more like a pat-down?" I don't have a strong opinion on the matter, but I don't think it matters too much. If the type of people who get busted for crack this way could know "all you have to do it hide it in your pants," they'd already know that, when the police ask you, "May I search you?" the answer is "no."

Many pundits of both stripes are predicting that the Republicans will lose the House of Representatives in 2006. They cite numerous polls showing voter anger, unhappiness with the war, etc.

Mark my words: none of this matters. The reason it does not matter is that the House Republicans (and Democrats, too, for that matter) have gerrymandered themselves so completely that it's going to be hard for any incumbent (or incumbent party) to lose a seat, much less that many. All analysis of "close races" and the like don't matter. The Republicans are at greater risk of losing the Senate (and everyone agrees that's not much risk) as, thus far, no one has figured out how to gerrymander Senate districts.