Perl is evil. The proof of this assertion is that

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With the latest article on Cardinal Schönborn’s thoughts on evolution and Intelligent Design,^[1] I conclude that I simply cannot trust the media’s, any media’s, representation on this issue. Which is rather depressing.

See also:

• The Church and Darwin
• Appealing to Rome on evolution
• The Church and evolution

1. Mr. Tom Heneghan. “Vienna cardinal draws lines in Intelligent Design row” Reuters 2005-11-20. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=uri:2005-11-20T111756Z_01_KWA040635_RTRUKOC_0_US-RELIGION-EVOLUTION-CARDINAL.xml&pageNumber=0&summit=

Ms. Linda Moulton Howe has posted an interesting page on the sun, ice ages, and climate at Earthfiles.com.^[1] I have no idea how accurate she is, but I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt because I like the ideas she is proposing. Yes, I am biased.

She offers two essentially unrelated facts and attempts to relate them. I have no clue how related they are. I am not really tempted to say she is necessarily right. But the facts themselves are rather interesting to me.

Of lesser interest, apparently the Sun is not obeying the predictions scientists had for it this year. Rather than having a quiet year, it has produced an unusually large sunspot. Along with this, some scientists apparently think that it has been gradually building up its energy output for a while now. What does this mean? Apparently, if Ms. Howe’s presentation is accurate, we do not know. That hardly surprises me. I feel certain I have noted before examples of scientists being forced to admit that they do not know everything, but a quick search of my log reveals no easily found examples of this. This article then, if for no other reason, is noteworthy for this alone: scientists do not know how much affect the Sun’s energy output could have on global warming.

Of greater interest to me, is the graph towards the bottom of the article.^[2] It shows a clear lack of simple or direct relationship between carbon dioxide levels and average global temperature. If accurate, this graph calls into question all our models of global warming and all our currently popular theories as to its causes. While some people might prefer a known wrong, and not just wrong but bad, explanation to no explanation, I prefer to say “I do not know.” Such people would say that we must continue to pretend that carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming, simply because I have offered no better theory. They are wrong. It will do us no good to follow blind alleys in a vain quest for a solution to the “problem.”

Which brings me to an item of lesser interest in this article. I put “problem” in quotes above, because if accurate, this article explains that global warming is at best a delay in a cooling cycle that will, in terms of the devastation we will have to survive, dwarf the problems that global warming will create. Viewed in this light, it might be worth dealing with those problems if we can push back that cooling cycle for another hundred years, give us another hundred years to produce better technology to help survive the ice to come after.

1. Ms. Linda Moulton Howe. “Is the Sun Heating Up?” Earthfiles.com 2005-11-18. http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=1017&category=Science
2. The image is in the above article. Its address is, or at least was, http://www.earthfiles.com/Images/news/S/SunEarthTempCO2z.gif

So Mr. Scott Adams, of Dilbert, poked his fingers into the debate over Intelligent Design, and the Darwinists promptly proceeded to roundly attack him.^[1] He proceeded to try to clarify how many of the comments proved his point exactly,^{[2] I think he did so less than clearly, but I do not think his lack of clarity mattered to much by that point.}

The point he is trying to make, badly, is that when you attack people instead of their positions, or when you attack ideas that people really do not profess, others will question you even where you appear to be, and perhaps are, credible. If you want to convince me that you are right, and I am wrong, then you had best either know what I think and refute that, or stick to your own position and not claim to address mine at all. When you attack a straw man, those with the wit to realize what you are doing will doubt your position. If it was all that accurate, why would not not attack my position directly?

Beyond this point that Mr. Adams attempts to make though is a larger one. Evolution might be, I think is, the best materialistic theory for life as we know it. But science, in practice, claims more than that. It claims that evolution is not just the best explanation that science can offer, but an explanation that we must accept as objectively true. The realm of objective truth cannot be restricted to materialist explanations without proof that only such explanations are in fact objectively true. Such a proof is outside the realm of science, and so a counter argument would be equally outside the realm of science.

If you restrict your focus to what can be studied by a materialist approach, all the available evidence will support a materialist theory. That does not make the theory an accurate description of history. I care more about learning what is historically true than what is the best science can offer.

1. Mr. Scott Adams. “Intelligent Design, Part 1″ Dilbertblog 2005-11-12. http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2005/11/intelligent_des.html
2. Mr. Scott Adams. “Intelligent Design, Part 2″ Dilbertblog 2005-11-15. http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2005/11/intelligent_des_1.html

This story^[1] rocks. God bless that soldier.

1. Mr. Derek Hunter. “”Navy Seals…” DerekHunter’s C-Log 2005-11-15. http://www.townhall.com/blogs/c-log/DerekHunter/story/2005/11/15/175711.html

Catholic News Agency is reporting that the Church has recognized a 67th miraculous healing at Lourdes.^[1] I wonder what response science would have, if it looked at, this.

1. Catholic News Agency. “Italian woman’s healing at Lourdes officially recognized” 2005-11-15. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=5404

I find it interesting that the (apparently from his blog) very liberal Richard Stallman would rather the violence done to women and the abortion(murder) of children in China as part of their one child policy^[1] than work for greater investment in finding alternative water sources.^[2] Given 7 ocean’s worth of salt water, how can it be an “unsolvable” problem? Rather, this is a problem of being unwilling to commit to research and allowing companies the profit necessary to make that research viable. It may also be a function of greed, and not being willing to fund the further research to bring the price per gallon down to an affordable level. I doubt that however, as one would think that the larger market would attract even if charity failed to assist.

1. Mr. Luke Schierer. “the deplorable state of China” Random Unfinished Thoughts 2005-09-14. https://www.schierer.org/~luke/log/20050914-1417/the-deplorable-state-of-china
2. Mr. Richard Stallman. “Secret plot with the World Bank” Political Notes 2005-11-12. http://www.stallman.org/archives/2005-sep-dec.html#12%20November%202005%20%28Secret%20plot%20with%20the%20World%20Bank%29

This was rather amusing:

Rohirrim

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

I wonder if (Mr.?) Marco Fioretti has ever visited www,vatican.va.^[1]

1. (Mr.?) Marco Fioretti. “Free Software’s surprising sympathy with Catholic doctrine” News Forge 2005-11-11. http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/11/03/1643243&from=rss

Today I wake up to find that Mr. Peter (Bleeter) Lawler’s dissatisfaction with Mr. Sean Egan’s decisions as they relate to bringing Gaim some voice/video(-vv) functionality has been taken public. I should not be surprised, but I rather was. The first I knew of it was this OSNews blurb^[1]. That in and of itself is likely, even had I not made the mistake of posting to the list about it, enough to ensure this reaches slashdot and causes a rampage of ignorant users.

The OSNews article links to Mr. Lawler’s blog, where his side of the argument is.^[2] He claims it is not an argument,^[3] but his consistent tone throughout has been confrontational.

In one respect he was wrong, I did mean that he ought not to be insulting me in exactly the way he took it at the time. I was annoyed and upset, and I do not take well to his slander of me. But then, I also doubt he would have taken that tone had we been face to face.

But that aside, let the record, as I have seen it these last two days, stand for itself.

My conversation with Mr. Lawler. My subsequant conversation with Mr. Egan. This second conversation happened several hours later, and I had calmed down considerably from the fustration I felt and unfortunately expressed with Mr. Lawler. My conversation with Mr. Richard (rlaager) Laager. Mr. Laager is another gaim developer, who IMed me with concerns about the whole mess.

1. Ms. Eugenia Loli-Queru. “Gaim Kills Off Gaim-VV Webcam Support?” OS News 2005-11-11. http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=12615
2. Mr. Peter (Bleeter) Lawler. “Death of gaim-vv” http://www.livejournal.com/users/bleeter/ 2005-11-11. http://www.livejournal.com/users/bleeter/12357.html
3. Mr. Peter (Bleeter) Lawler. “gaim-vv death part trois” http://www.livejournal.com/users/bleeter/ 2005-11-11. http://www.livejournal.com/users/bleeter/12357.html