Scott Adams proposes a plan to rid the world of religious extremism

I have often thought that America’s strict rule about not teaching religion in schools is responsible for the fact that the more fervant forms of christianity are more widespread in america than they are in europe. In english schools religious education is (was?) compulsory and usually took the form of comparative religion and the history of religion.

I expect that, if people knew more about the origins of their respective religions, they would be far less likely to adopt fundamentalist positions. A timeline that takes in the origins of the pentateuch, the early christian synods, the arian heresy, the filioque clause and the spanish inquisition would innoculate most kids against some of the wackier ideas that masquerade as religion.

Did the same Andrew Sullivan who wrote this…

My own view is that conservatism is fundamentally rooted in skepticism about the human mind and its capacity to change society. So it’s basically resistant to large-scale change, but, on the rare occasions that such change happens, is necessary and turns out okay, conservatives can live with it.

…and this …

A government’s only concern should be raising revenue for the basic tasks of government; and it should do so by as neutral and fair a scheme as possible. Any more ambitious scheme should be queried and nit-picked until it dies. Any proposal designed to enforce some abstract notion of “social justice” would never pass the skeptical conservative’s sniff test.

…also write this…

Our job will not be finished in two more years; maybe not in twenty. But this is America. It can be done. Bringing the Arab and Muslim world into the new millennium is a pre-requisite for our own security and the world’s. We must finish the job.

?

On the same day ?

I have always been a late riser but last summer I decided to start getting up at 6:00am to beat the traffic. I have been getting up early for almost a year now but it still doesn’t feel right.

I enjoy getting home while it is still light so I can play with my kids and my morning routine is like clockwork and yet it still feels strange… I feel like an expat living in a foreign country. I like my new home and will probably never go back but I have fond memories of the old country and I will always consider myself a late riser.

Oh - and 6:00am is no longer early enough to beat the traffic. I should get a hybrid so I can drive in the car pool lane.

You won’t catch me quoting Arianna Huffington too often, I hope, but here goes…

Whether Al Gore ends up running in 2008 or not, he is modeling the way our public figures, and especially our would-be presidents, should be operating — from the heart and true to themselves. Standing for something more important than just winning, and more powerful than the fear of losing.

Arianna tells us that Gore has learned his lesson and that candidates for public office should break free from the tyranny of the focus groups and be themselves.

Wasn’t there a candidate last time out who did what Arianna is asking for? I think the more important question is whether the democratic primary voters have learned ther lesson.

Lager shandies at 7 years old. Pints of lager by 12. At 16, I became a man and switched to bitter.

A little after that I had my first craft brew - Marsden’s Old Thumper - and never looked back. Trader Joe’s has just started stocking it…ah…takes me back…

Definitely makes my top 5.

About 16 years I announced, to no-one in particular, that my next car would be a convertible and sure enough, when I emigrated to California 7 years later that’s exactly what I got. When that car died on me a couple of months ago I decided to do something very uncharacteristic - I chose a sensible car. That car just arrived over the weekend and I feel touched with a sadness that I was completely unprepared for.

On my inaugural drive to work this morning, each and every convertible that went by made my resolution stronger :

My next car will be a hybrid convertible

Julio has a list of all the features that would be in his dream MMO.My list would be very similar but with the word ‘not’ carefully inserted into most of the sentences.

But, then again, I haven’t played an online game for a long time and I haven’t really enjoyed one since Ultima Online so it probably does not matter what I think.

Bertrand Russell says that

“The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment. This is the way opinions are held in science, as opposed to the way in which they are held in theology.”

There is a fragility about uncertainty that makes robust certainty in the face of all evidence so appealing. But what happens to certainty when it becomes certainly and obviously wrong?

Maybe we’ll find out in November.

What do all these players have in common ?

• Beckenbauer
• Vogts
• Voller
• Klinsman

They are all great german players who went on to coach their national team. The best dutch players, too, seem to make an easy transition to coaching - Cruyff, Gullit, Rijkaard, van Basten.
How come english players don’t do the same ? It seems that you are not qualified to be an England manager until you have coached Swindon, Watford or Oxford.

Scott Adam’s blog is very, very funny. He is often thought provoking and usually hilarious on subjects ranging from the frivolous - such as the ethics of walking naked from the shower (and is it OK to twirl?) - to the serious - like the question of whether Iran is trying to build nukes.

A lot of the fun comes from reading the comments. He even has funny readers and Scott has a particular talent for riling them up by taking non-stands on issues where clearly, according to his readers, he should taking a stand.

Scott recently formulated an Adamesque set of rules for debating. The highlight was a rule that says, if someone asks a question and the respondent tries to change the question before answering, the questioner wins by a knockout. That was pretty funny until Scott started asking some questions of the form :

Hypothetical parody of a serious contemporary issue with only two possible responses

• First answer is immoral
• Second answer is illogical
  

The knockout rules preclude changing the question and so Scott provided a valuable service to psychology (and dictators) by demonstrating that most people would rather be seen as immoral than illogical. A few killjoys (including me, I am ashamed to say) missed the point and thought it was an exercise in debating or politics or philosophy or science.

A follow-up experiment to see whether people are willing to justify their immorality precisely because the only alternative is illogical would be interesting.

Since reading Opening Skinner’s Box, Jeff and I have often fantasized about a school science experiment that is ostensibly about one thing but is actually about another. A favorite idea would be a project that tests my theory that if an object is about to fall from a table, men are more likely to try to catch it and women are more likely to put their hands in the air and say “eek!” A few isolated experiments seem to confirm the theory but we need more data to be sure.