Pursuing praxis

Sigh. Kenyans are ecstatic that Obama got the nomination. Why? Because he’s so qualified? Because he’s a great speaker? Because they agree with his positions and policies? Because they think he will be good for our country, and advance noble ideals and practical solutions? Because he’s (more) photogenic?

No.

Because he is Kenyan. Obviously.

From the Kenya Times:

"We as a family are thrilled to be directly related to a man who has not only made a major achievement, but has also made history."– Said Obama, Barack Obama’s Uncle

"It’s unbelievable! This shows that Kenya is a great place; a great country. God has blessed this country. Senator Obama is already the next U.S. President." — Bishop Beneah Salalah of the Anglican Church of Kenya  [can you believe that?!]

"We know he will go ahead and be elected President of the United States. The American citizens have shown that they don’t see race or tribe in someone, but his or her leadership qualities. Africans should learn from this."– Kakamega Mayor Joe Serenge

"We are strongly behind him and we urge Americans to go ahead and elect him their President."– Kisumu Mayor Sam Okello

"Kenyan" is the only information most Kenyans need. It’s all they needed when I was there a year ago, and it’s all they care about now. There is no discussion of Obama’s political positions, his background, his qualifications, his experience. Only that he is Kenyan, and was a Senator for just four years in Illinois, and now he is nominated for president.

No matter that only his dad was from Kenya; his mother is rarely if ever mentioned. (It remains bizarre to me that mixed race people are judged to belong to the darker race, whichever it is, by all races). No matter that several tribes spent the better part of January trying to kill each other, resulting in about a thousand completely unnecessary deaths (the Prime Minister’s views notwithstanding). No matter that no tribe is more "Kenyan" than any other. No matter that if Obama was actually from Kogelo village and actually born in Kenya, the odds of him getting a good education and big opportunities would have been drastically reduced, not to mention being barred from running for president because he wasn’t born in the US. Yes, that sure makes Kenya great …

It’s total tribalism - whether you are blessed for it or cursed for it - which stems from determinism. In family-based tribalism, it reduces to genetic determinism. Pro-Kenyan-Obamaism, while cheerful to say the least, comes from the same premises that motivates people to burn each other alive. Lacking a machete doesn’t change the poor logic of "my family," "my tribe," "my color," "my town," "my country." You’re born into all of those, at least two of those you can never change. And if you’re very poor like most Kenyans, it can be hard to change your town or your country as well. So basically they have no choice as to whether they’re somehow linked to someone who turns out to be from one of their many groups. Ergo the person is brilliant and they are better people for being involuntarily associated with him. Wha…?

I became friends with the cook at the guesthouse I stayed at. We had many interesting and rewarding conversations, even on religion and politics, which for safety’s sake I had vowed not to discuss at all while abroad. On matters of business and politics, people were a lot more receptive than I had expected. Njenga and I talked about Obama several times. They knew more about him than I did, and were totally stoked about him back in spring 2007! I barely recognized his name.

Njenga asked if I supported Obama. I said no, because I didn’t know anything about him, and my views on all the candidates were preliminary at the very best, since it was early in the race and I didn’t have time to follow US politicking. I asked why he supported Obama. "Because he is from Kenya!" Njenga said, lighting up like a Christmas tree. "Obama is black - and there has never been a black President of the United States before. It would be good, very good. There is still so much racism."

I said, "Njenga, don’t you see, that is what it means to be racist - to prefer someone because of their race, or their country, or whatever. Racism isn’t just white people being unfair to black people. Racism is about being unfair to anyone because of their race, whatever their race. If you are against racism, don’t judge Obama based on his race. Judge him on the things he can control - his thoughts, his values, his actions, the kind of character he has, the kinds of policies he supports."

That stopped Njenga in his (mental) tracks. He considered it briefly, seriously, and then a smile spread across his face. "You are right. What you say is right. You are an unusual person," he said, addressing me by my last name, as was his custom. "What you say is very unusual. There aren’t many people like you," he instructed me. It was neither praise nor criticism, more like an observation, though he was often hugely entertained by my unusualness, all while being deeply interested in the ideas discussed.

This exchange probably sounds like a parody, the way I relate it. But that’s the style of speaking English in Nairobi - very much out of my third grade teacher’s book. I think it must be some combination of English as a second (or third) language, the tradition or dialect, and the state of political education even among the educated. I learned it by trial and error; speaking very simply, respectfully, cheerfully and honestly (sometimes brutally so) kept people happy and got me what I wanted. So it was wierd being hailed as an intellectual giant (staying in a roach-infested guesthouse for $10 a night), when I only said what I thought was simple and obvious, as simply as I could.

(It is exhausting speaking like that though.)

It’s lovely that Obama can be billed as the first post-racial candidate. But that’s true only among a certain demographic. It’s not true for all Americans, to say nothing of all nations. Many people still care very much about race, as an extension of a tribalistic outlook on life, selectively ignoring the contradictions that crop up. I wonder how many of Njenga’s people (the Kikuyu) are cheering for Obama (a Luo) this week. Cuz they were hacking each other to bits and burning each other alive six short months ago.

Related Posts:
Love of civilization
Thompson, Mouch, Chalmers et al., the later years

Q: What’s the difference between a chicken and an egg?

A: An egg needs certain favorable conditions to turn into a chicken. An egg can be cracked, squashed, scrambled, drained, rotted; the chick starved, stunted, left out in the cold, predated upon, cannibalized. Killing a chicken is a much more effortful, violent affair, because it has the will and the ability to survive and reproduce on its own. You have to be willing to shoot it, wring its neck, chop off its head, or something, in order to kill a chicken. Many people aren’t up to the task, so the chicken gets to live. And lay eggs. And make more chickens. And then killing just one chicken gets you no where.

Dammitall, am I going to have to vote for McCain?

Sigh.

Obama and his wife scare the piss out of me.  

I saw a great pic of a friend impersonating Superman, complete with logoed t-shirt under an Oxford shirt and business vest and trousers.

And it got me to thinking - no one wears a good business vest anymore. If I talked about vests with you recently, I most certainly don’t include tan leather or leather-like vests from the ’70s in this category.

Then it occured to me that perhaps I just hang in the wrong crowds. I mean, my friend is essentially a businessman - at least, he’s not an academic. And in my various fields of academia, it seems REI sets the fashion bar for grad students, and jeans are a common occurence even among faculty in my department. The only time I see colleagues dressed smartly is when they’re giving a talk and looking for a job. I heard that Joe Gregory, a Great Paleontologist who recently passed away, was among the last who insisted on wearing a tie at work. And I think most of my G.G. Simpson books show him in a suit. People used to dress up more, even in paleontology, even at Berkeley.

So, if I ever have time to spare, or am hard up for change, or just need a change of pace on a post-tenure sabbatical, maybe I’ll opine in a book. I even thought of a cool title: Class Outside the Classroom: Practical, Professional Attire for the 21st Century Academic.  

First impressions of Cairo:

Clean, modern, civilized, organized, bright, polite, educated.

After three days:

Dirty, backward, brutish, sluggish, dingy, offensive, ignorant.

Getting in at night, I was whisked through the airport - around, not through, customs - with incredible ease, efficiency and professionalism by a pick-up company hired by my friends through the American University Cairo. I tooled through Cairo at night looking at flood-lit gorgeous architecture lining smooth paved roads riding in a leather-interior car getting travel tips from my driver. I arrived at my friends’ place on an island in the middle of the Nile with a gate and guard who carried my bag upstairs, and was met by my friend’s husband at 11pm in their quasi-chippendale furnished apartment on the fifth floor… I was in total heaven. A clean, spacious apartment, quiet, bug-free, welcoming, and people to talk to without using my 3rd grader teacher voice! I blabbered on in excitement even though Lorraine was out of town till the next day and Karen wasn’t in for another four hours and I nearly didn’t care. But then she did arrive (at like 3:30am) and I most certainly did care, and we talked till 5am and went to sleep with the chanting moaning morning prayers of the mosque nearby floating through the air.

Over the last three days we’ve been to the Khan A’Kalili downtown for outdoor market shopping - where Karen managed to haggle the price of two silk scarves down from 650 pounds to 71 ("Special price for you my friend!" my ass). We tried to visit a mosque but were hissed out the gate by a man in a tunic because women weren’t allowed in. Another tuniced man in the market told us (very derisively) to cover our heads. We were widely leered at and hissed at (hissing used to get your attention as well as serve as a comment after you’ve already walked past). We acquired a tout almost involuntarily who, despite claims of not doing it for business, most certainly tried to extract as much money from us as possible at the end, but it was mainly worth it no matter how inflated his price, and he didn’t leer at all, which was nice. He took us thru the market before it opened (at 11am), to a cemetary in the back, where the low brick slums stretched out (often built on their ancestors’ graves) for hundreds of yards, backed by the smoggy skyline of Cairo, and the unmistakable outline of the pyramids in the distance. He then took us through a glass-blowers’ area (more like rolling than blowing, and hellishly hot and a terrible job by all standards), and his "uncle’s glass shop, this necklace very nice on you, you must buy!" then to a spice stand where we sniffed spices (all in 50lb bags neatly arrayed) and drank mint tea before we decided to cruise alone in the market.

By that time the wind had definitely picked up, and we were in the midst of a day-long dust storm which covered everything (especially sunscreen-laden skin) and blocked views from one skyscraper to the next. Truly icky. We arrived back at the apartment feeling like powdered donuts.

The following day we went down to the Citadel to see a couple of mosques - one from like 1348, and the other from about 1838, and a great overview of Islamic Cairo, after an extended headache at the travel office at the AUC - and a much smaller headache, at that, than had we arranged everything by hand. I wasn’t feeling so good, and deteriorated throughout the day for unknown reasons, and came home and slept for 14 hours, so not much to report there. I’m much better now though.

Yesterday we took a cab the 30km to Giza for the famous Pyramids which, despite their fame and ages-old status as tourist attract, did not disappoint. They’re like elephants - everyone knows they’re big and old, and when you see a big old one, you think, "Wow! It’s really big! And really old!" And some camel-riding dude came and put Karen (bodily) on his camel, then me, then walked us around despite our protests, then tried to charge us a hundred pounds for it ("It is nothing, really, a fair price. It is for my children!" - we gave him 10 pounds; you can rent camels for 20 pounds an hour at the Pyramids). The Sphinx was actaully a bit anti-climatic compared to the pyramids (two huge ones, a medium sized one, and six small ones). We got two British dudes to take our picture, and after a bit of conversation they offered to share their minibus back to Zamalek with us - score! - and didn’t disappoint, being courteous and charming British chaps the whole way. (Karen was stoked when Simon said "bit dodgey"). Then they offered to buy us a drink at the Marriott where they were staying, which after a fairly warm day in the dry heat and sun was quite nice. They work for Japan Airlines and have been all around, so we swapped traveler’s stories and downed salted peanuts and our drinks of choice. And the Marriott was very nice, way more upscale than the Marriotts I’m used to at home. We signed off after a drink, and walked the ten minutes back to Lorraine’s place (after a frenzied stop in the first restroom after the Marriott). 

Today Karen and I actually got an early start, got croissants and capuccinos at a cafe (trust me, an American/European eating experience is totally under-rated in the Middle East; I personally have had plenty of "authentic" experiences to know that just means "dirty, uncomfortable and potentially hazardous to your health" in most cases in the 3rd world). Then we hit the Egyptian Museum, which despite its notoriously bad curation (i.e. very little), totally rocked. I saw King Tut’s mask! And a bunch of mummies - mostly their faces and hands and feet, as the rest was wrapped up, including King Ramses II, who ruled for 67 years and was insanely powerful and famous. I saw a copy of the Rosetta stone, which was a letter or somesuch written in Egyptian, Arabic and Greek, 3 copies, and after 20 years of brain-busting work a Frenchman figured it all out, and allows us to understand much of heiroglypic writing. 

I tell you what, the ancient Egyptians were really really neat, and I know next to nothing about them. But, having seen ancient Chinese art and artifacts and history this time last year, I think the Egyptians were much better, all around. They seemed to be really into this afterlife business, and after that, it was agriculture and hunting and fishing, and of course all the implied academics that goes with building pyramids and preserving bodies and making beautiful arts and crafts and inventing writing. As a porportion of artifacts, material for warfare was extremely small, and could in most cases be construed as hunting materials. I saw one reference to war, and that was in defense against invaders. All in all they seemed to be largely academic, religious and peaceful. The Chinese, by comparison, had a ton of stuff for war - armor suits and gun powder and helmets and spears and armor for their horses, crossbows and knives and spears and all manner of overtly war-time goods, combined with a very clear emphasis on army and cavalry and military rank. Plus all their conquests and destroying of cities and such. No such degree of militarism in Ancient Egypt. Mostly when Upper and Lower Egypt united that was a big deal, then it was 3000 years of civilization till Alexander squashed them in 332 BC, and then they were occupied by foreigners till 1952 when they kicked out the British. 

And by and large I’d say they haven’t really progressed since the 1400s. I bet it was better 50 years ago though. Islam is on the upswing here as in much of the world, and it’s the young people, not the old, with huge beards and tunics and very conservative dress and extremely backward views. The older folks dress more western, shave their beards, and aren’t a threat to anyone (though whether they actually do anything productive is another question). 

The good news is that Egyptians, despite their pre-Enlightenment thinking, won’t hurt you. They can offend you and appall you, but they won’t mug you, rape you or murder you the way they do in other parts of the Middle East and Africa (I’m thinking of Nairobi and South Africa in particular). So that’s good.  

More later. Especially on Egyptian men. It will be redundant for anyone studying rats or slime mold, in general.  

An incomplete list of road hazards I experienced in the last week:

Herds of: goats, sheep, cattle, donkies, chickens, zebra, impala, gazelles. Tortoises, ostriches, dogs, speedbumps, countless unmarked very large speedbumps, cars in the wrong lanes, diesel fumes so thick you can’t see through them, crazy matatu drivers, crazy bus drivers, torrential rains, flocks of school children, loaded down bicycles with centers of gravity a dozen feet in the air, streetside vendors, potholes bigger than any pot I’ve seen, bridges without railings, traffic cops and their tire-spiking barriers, other road barriers, diversions, punctured tires (7 punctures in one day), car-jackers and highway bandits (potential, not personally experienced, thankfully), and more.

“Hello? May I please speak to someone with a functioning brain?”

Such is my Microscribe Saga – the month and a half exercise in frustration that began with Virgin Atlantic breaking my microscribe (a bit of computer equipment for recording and importing shape data from objects – antelope skulls, in my case), followed by a week trying to wring a repair/work-order number out of the parent company before I could ship it, followed by a $500 bill (paid by yours truly) to mail it back to the US for repair, followed by a $2000 bill (very kindly covered by my advisor’s research funds) to upgrade it to the new model because they don’t make some parts for the old model anymore. (And mind you, when I asked about the difference between the new and old models, I was told: color, and a USB port, neither of which was broken on my otherwise mangled microscribe). Finally, after 2 weeks to diagnose, and 2 weeks to actually fix and calibrate it, they posted my microscribe on Feb. 28^th, by FedEx International Priority, to arrive in 2-3 days’ time, at the museum address I had provided.

Now the fun begins. First, the FedEx contractors (a courier service at the airport) failed to reach me on my cellphone, which has been in service continuously since Jan. 19^th. Did they leave a voicemail? No. Call back, try again? No. Try the ubiquitously popular text message? No. Call the museum, the name of which was on the box and is a well-known landmark in the city? No. Call the other fellow, head of department, whose name was also on the box? No. Do anything besides sit on their hands and wait for a bolt of lightning or burning bush to tell them what to do? No.

And, thanks to FedEx’s backlogged tracking number service, I was under the distinct impression my dear microscribe had been sitting in some British town for a good six days. After 2 days of phone calls and emails, I learned it was actually in Nairobi, and likely had not spent an inordinate amount of time in Britain at all. In fact, it had probably been sitting in Nairobi for nearly a week at this point. Remember also, I came out here in large part to USE the microscribe in the collections. All my work to date has been second-priority stuff, with a ruler, string, and notebook, which doesn’t justify the $400 research permit or the daily bench fees – not including the plane tickets, housing, paperwork headaches, or the bureaucratic bullshit I’ve been putting up with for the last several months.

But what of my dear MS? The holdup was due to its declared value - $2000 (about a third of the replacement cost, actually). High-value items of this sort need a PIN number for delivery. (I’ll hold off on asking Why??) Who knew? Not the company in California, for sure. Nor FedEx International, apparently, nor the museum whose missing PIN jammed up the delivery works. And of course, the museum person with PIN codes was out of the office last Friday, when I figured all this out. The secretary kindly passed it on in his absence (probably a no-no), and I phoned it in to the FedEx guy, leaving it in a message with a co-worker, and a clear request that he call me No Matter What, Today.

Nothing. So I nagged him again Monday morning. Did he have the PIN? “Huh?” The PIN and message I left last Friday. No, of course not. So I gave it to him, and asked when I might expect the delivery. This afternoon, perhaps? “No, it will take 2-3 days to process the PIN.”  

WHAT?!? … Apparently it takes a long time to crunch through a string of nine letters and numbers. But what could I do? I told him in no uncertain terms that that was Ridiculous, the package was Urgent, and to please deliver it As Soon as Humanly Possible.

Speaking with the head of supplies at the museum on Monday (because of course no one works on Saturdays, or before 9:30am, or really after 4pm, and certainly not during lunchtime, from 1-2pm, or really the half-hours bordering that time), I learned there was also an issue of a clearing charge. For what, exactly, I am still ignorant. For delivery? But I already paid for that. Apparently, if the goods are for research by museum staff, the museum will cover it. If it’s for personal use, I have to pay it (and it’s about a hundred bucks, I think, to get it across town, which is nearly half what it cost to ship it to the other side of the planet – and in 1/7^th of the time!).

One of my contacts here volunteered to write a memo to the supplies guy (by hand, since there was no power that day), basically lying that it was for use by various department staff so I could dodge the fee, because he fully understood it’s mine, and for my use, and while I’m happy to demonstrate and share knowledge, I haven’t any mind to let others risk breaking it – not that I really have time for that now, I’m so pressed as it is. So, memo written and submitted, I should have had it Tuesday. I gave the supplies guy the FedEx guy’s info, the tracking number, the situation, everything. I passed it off as cleanly as I knew how. Full information disclosure. Cards on the table.

Two days later I called the FedEx guy to see what the heck was up with my still-missing package. He claimed there was an issue with the clearance fee. I said it had been handled, the museum would pay it. He then dodged to a problem with the clearing agent – hadn’t heard from him. So basically, one or both parties failed to get my baton in the hand-off of the Delivery Fiasco. I went to bug the supplies dept guy. The secretary assured me the clearing agent would talk to FedEx today. Hopefully I should have it tomorrow. That is, Friday, March 16^th, 2 weeks later than expected.

Evidently by “tomorrow” it’s understood here to mean “Sometime this week. Maybe. Be sure to remind me at least a half dozen times. Then I’ll see what I can do about it at the 11^th hour, by which time it will probably be too late to do anything about it until tomorrow.”

So, I have ranted to various individuals about the mess, including taxi drivers, the guesthouse cook, the receptionist, my travel agent, and now a recurrent boarder at the guesthouse here (a civil engineer working near the Ugandan border), who has been very kind, and perhaps the most conscious and intelligent person I’ve yet met in Kenya. Instead of chuckling softly and shuffling away (like one prominent museum staff member today), or shaking his head and smiling (like the taxi driver), or feigning sympathy and indignant outrage without effecting any change at all (like the other museum staff member), this guy actually looked me in the eye and listened, then offered novel suggestions about what to do.

Like call the US embassy tomorrow, or even the head of the airport. The embassy? I don’t need a stamp or to be med-evacked, thanks. No, he insisted, this was a real problem, and right up their alley. They can talk to the blooming idiots at the delivery company, and get the wheels rolling, because it’s patently ridiculous that as a student and researcher here to do work, I’ve nearly wasted a third of my time because of administrative crap and blatant ineptitude and poor service.

So, if my dear microscribe isn’t waiting for me tomorrow morning when I arrive, I will call the FedEx guy, give him hell, make a trip to the supplies office (because face-time is how things work here, if they work at all), and then call the embassy, give them my sob story (in as professional a tone as I can muster), then try to forget the whole issue so I can measure as many eland skulls as humanly possible before closing time (to the tunes of KMFDM, drowning out the static-clogged Indian music and references to Allah being piped over the lab radio) and tomorrow take off for two days of sunshine, driving, and hopefully lots of bovids. And hopefully on Monday I can finally do what I came here to do.

And if my microscribe has not survived over two weeks of transit… well…. I just might give it up, cry for the first time in my professional life, and resign myself to doing a PhD with old, unsophisticated, second-rate methods, supplemented by suggestive but ultimately inconclusive microscribe data taken from too few of the wrong specimens to really be of any use at all.

But by golly, I plan to see lesser kudu this weekend. Crack of dawn, there I am, binoculars and camera in hand, tracking down the wiley wascals of the northern bush of Tsavo West Nat’l Park, some 50 miles northeast of Mt. Kilimanjaro. My plan is to see all those bovids that can most reasonably be seen in Kenya – lesser kudu having a fair distribution through Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania – thereby removing any reason I might have of visiting this country (or region) again in the next 20 years, if ever.

–3/16/07. PS: On the brighter side of this bureaocratic nightmare, the US Embassy got back to me right away, although the fellow was not terribly helpful, saying "Welcome to Kenya. Their bureaocracy is not as evolved as ours." Well, it’s too evolved, in my judgement, but that’s largely an issue of semantics. I threatened the FedEx guy with harassment from the US Embassy, and paid a special visit to the supplies department at the museum, and was told it should arrive this afternoon. Although my outlook now mainly consists of "The proof is in the pudding," the good news is that they haven’t yet promised to deliver it by a specific date or time. The fact that they said ‘this afternoon’ is therefore a ray of hope in an otherwise bleak landscape for science (and business in general) in Kenya. We will see. I am considering returning to Kenya (red tape depending) after Egypt if I cannot get the minimum amount of work done to justify my trip. Better to shell out a little extra, then have a heap of only semi-useful data to struggle with for the next two (or ten) years.

After the collapse of the Taggart Bridge, the explosion of Project X, and the blackout in New York City, many of the leaders of Washington emigrated en masse to a promising region of tribal Africa, rich in resources and authentic culture, free from the shackling traditions of narrow-minded, cut-throat capitalism and shallow American culture. There, with moving speeches, kindly smiles, and confidential discussions with chiefs late into the night, they worked to bring the enlightened perspectives of multiculturalism, environmentalism and liberalism to the people of the region. They introduced the novel concepts of welfare benefits for the poor and social responsibility for the few arrogant and wealthy proto-industrialists.

Though slow to initially take hold, these plans of social reform (popularized with the slogan, “Health, wealth and rest for all: Giving for a better tomorrow,”) percolated into the culture like sewer runoff into a parched and fruitless earth, giving rise to the first generation of political leaders of the new Better Tomorrow Party. Over the following decades, these social servants, as they preferred to be called, oversaw the construction of urban infrastructure, implemented a modern curriculum in the new public schools (sensitive to the diverse racial, cultural, religious, and gender differences of its students), and took to task the exploitative CEOs and industrialists, (mostly foreign investors and capitalists, but also a few natives who had risen from the ranks of dusty, penniless bums that littered every thoroughfare and intersection). Through the redistribution of the money expropriated from their customers, these leeches of society were finally made to give back to the people they had profited from for so long.

The efforts and results of this People’s Government (as the unopposed Better Tomorrow Party was referred to), can be seen today. The capital is the commercial hub of the region, with a new 30-story international conference center built by the government to showcase the country’s wealth and attract foreign businessmen and tourists, with the hopes that the added revenue will fund underground sewer systems for the peripheral residential areas. The stately Museum of Science, founded by the imperial colonists over a hundred years ago, attracts researchers from all over the world with its century-old collections of natural and cultural artifacts. A 5-year Museum Beautification Project is currently underway, the resulting unavailability of plumbed water and electricity comically giving the bathroom and laboratory facilities an historical atmosphere. It is hoped this project will spawn a trend in gentrification in that part of town, which is prone to regular power outages and has family incomes well below the national average.

In line with the Dignity First Bill, they city’s residents have the smartest wardrobes on the continent, with the government providing every resident with two Oxford shirts, 2 pairs of stylish trousers, and a pair of loafers (for men), or three blouses, two skirts, and a pair of pumps (for women) each Christmas. Residents are understandably fined for appearing ragged, dirty or unkempt in such clothing (it belongs to the People, after all), which also helps educate and motivate stubbornly lazy individuals, especially those whose homes lack running water, indoor toilets, raised floors, and rain-proof roofs.

Mysteriously, crime has crept upwards, dramatically in recent years, despite three decades of increasingly progressive education. Results from the recent overhaul of policies and regulations to remove the “loopholes,” by which individuals circumvented the law, have evidently yet to become noticeable. Nonetheless, a “tough stand on crime” remains a top priority for citizens and politicians alike, and following the upcoming expansion of the jails and a new military police force (sporting fatigues and berets with their automatic rifles), criminals are sure to think twice before hijacking your car, kidnapping children for ransom, poaching elephants (an official National Treasure), or polluting the air with their 30 year old, diesel-guzzling tin can of a car.

Amidst the tension surrounding the upcoming presidential election (replete with the customary charges of corruption, upsurge of tribal warfare in the rural districts, and threats of terrorism) one may rest securely knowing the country is in good hands, no matter the election outcome. All the candidates vying for the title of Honorable High Chancellor Commander-in-Chief His/Her Excellency The President share a commitment to protect the now-universally recognized human rights to safety, food, shelter, clean water, clean air, health, insurance, education, employment, and retirement pensions. With this unified front against crime, poverty, disease, and ignorance, the future looks bright indeed. Although they have long since passed on, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Mouch, Mr. Chalmers and their brethren in history would be proud of this burgeoning nation.

- by Jim T. Scudder

As a continuation and tangent on the previous line of thought on stuff, identity, and cause and effect:

As far as I can tell, a good chunk of science is devoted to answering the question: I see an effect; what is/was the cause, and how do I know it? At the end of the day, what is the identity of the material and processes responsible for this, and how does that identity cause this effect?

I’d like to point out that when you start with an observation of a thing (or a process performed on, to, or by things), and you want to understand their causes by studying them (as opposed to studying your astrology forecast, your tea leaves, or the mental exudate of someone unfamiliar with those things), you can only ever arrive at an explanation rooted in material things (even if you’re a psychologist studying a non-material thing like consciousness – because it’s an attribute of the brain, a material thing, and doesn’t exist apart from one, just like the color green doesn’t and can’t exist apart from things that are – and are seen to be - green). The law of cause and effect applies only to things with an identity, and it applies unavoidably and without error; there are no violations to cause and effect or to identity, just in our knowledge of them. Stuff is what it is, and it does what it does – whatever that may be; we just have to figure it out. At no point in this trail of knowledge building does the stuff being studied suddenly cry out “I decree that you can’t understand me any further! Suspend the rules you use to learn about everything else and find another explanation! Find a way to explain me without studying me!”

And I’d also like to point out that what counts as “beyond explanation” in nature has changed over time; that is, with the expansion of human knowledge. The bar keeps getting pushed higher; or rather, the line of defense keeps shrinking back, and it will no doubt back into a circle around human consciousness, concept formation, thinking, feeling, and all that human stuff, which is still just stuff and processes of stuff, even if demonstrably cooler than the next coolest animal. But, I can think of no object or phenomenon in reality, for which we have data, which will repel any and all human understanding from now to the end of humanity. (And stuff lacking data cannot be counted as knowledge). So those who would say what we can’t know, a priori, demonstrate their own (shall we say) lack of information.

I suspect that the urge to make such a conclusion (and pronouncement and prescription for other people’s activities) comes from a morphing of “I don’t know” to “I can’t know” or to “No one can know.” To me it clearly indicates that person considers himself the measure of all human knowledge, present and future. That is patently irrational. To be rational, one would have had to survey all possible means of acquiring knowledge of something – which in concrete terms is very hard to do when new technologies are constantly being created, and new discoveries which prompt further technologies also keep piling up. How can a person look at a complex (and no doubt baffling) system and also know of all possible ways of investigating it, even those not invented yet, and conclude (without exhausting all possibilities, including those uninvented) that it simply can’t be known? Or, that the natural system is evidence for an un-natural being acting in un-natural and un-knowable ways? Oranges make orange juice, and mangos make mango juice; just as an orange will never squeeze out mango juice, a natural system can never provide evidence for a system or thing beyond nature (super- or un-natural). It will only ever speak to more of the natural, regardless of our level of understanding of it.

The only battle ground for this is philosophy, and it’s a limited battle ground. That is, not all tough questions are best treated by philosophy; in many cases, the philosopher has to pass on the question to a scientist or other specialized person, because it simply isn’t for philosophy to say. A philosopher cannot give answers to questions like, What did humans evolve from? Did humans evolve at all? Is natural selection powerful enough to produce new species? An educated and careful philosopher could undoubtedly posit some very good answers, but he would be speaking outside his capacity as a philosopher. Instead, philosophy deals with questions like: How do we know about reality? Is reality knowable? Can we know about anything besides reality? What is reality anyway? How is knowledge made? Is there more than one way to make knowledge? Is it strict, or is there some wiggle-room in how you do it? What counts as good or real knowledge anyway? And how do you know THAT? What CAN you know? Can we say what we can’t know? And so on.

Turf Wars, Episode VI
 

It appears that the bugs and I have come to an understanding, which is: Stay the hell out. I’ve made a few entomological discoveries, the most interesting of which is that bugs, of all kinds, hate waterless hand sanitizer for a period of about 12 hours. I’m now out of hand sanitizer (I’m a soap n’ water kinda person anyway), but the bugs are steering clear of my doorjamb, which is their primary thoroughfare into my room. I also stopped up a few of their building projects in the kickboards around the interior perimeter, where there were importing dirt, exporting bug carcasses, and providing a steady stream of scouts into my room. Hallelujah, I can sleep with a lower mean concentration of adrenaline in my system.

Couple days ago I was further bug-proofing the perimeter with the ZA equivalent of Raid, including my bathroom, which apart from the spiders has been relatively bug-free. I returned to my bathroom a few minutes later and found a 2-3” red and orange centipede writhing on the floor near my stuff. After jumping back with a scream and profanities, I hit him with the bug spray again. It barely fazed him though, and I concluded he was already fully consumed with the molecular destruction of his body. So I crouched there and watched him curl about till he finished, unceremoniously, belly-up. I got a spoon and chucked him out the window, wondering if even the micro-ants were chemically tough enough to approach him.

I won’t even begin about the spiders (which, admittedly, could be much worse. I haven’t seen any tarantulas or ones the sizes of saucers). And several of the kudu skulls I’ve measured have had mud wasp nests in the braincases. So far all empty, though the different colors of mud (gray to black) make me think some are more recent than others. Most have already been broken. I think they’re for growing a single large larva. Ew ew ew. I’ve yet to see one of those wasps pissed, and I’m alright with that. At about 2” and black, happy wasp = less unhappy Katie.  

The foregoing logistics aside, my trip has started off quite badly, actually. When I unpacked my microscribe, I noticed one of the joints sounded a bit crunchy (nnnnnnnnot good), and two parts of the accuracy tests it failed, one horribly so (on the wrist joint). I spent all weekend fiddling with calibration blocks, power supply and adapter configurations, re-reading the manual, you name it, trying to characterize how it was off and if I’d be able to apply a correction factor to my data afterwards. No such luck. It’s off by a good 10% on each measurement, and that’s regardless of size. Up from about <0.2% error a couple weeks ago. You name it, I probably tried it. No go. The MS is belly-up for my purposes. Which sucks, cuz I came to digitize stuff.

It obviously got damaged in transport, and what I think happened was security people opened up the case to have a look, then didn’t put it back together properly, and the joints traveled in a bad position and got tweaked with the rough and tumble (despite the Fragile tag and my request to have my bag plastered in Fragile stickers, which they didn’t do.) I also think they were rough or careless, because they ripped off about a quarter of the lining in the bag, and one of my calibration blocks was out of its spot in the foam. Of course, the airline absolves itself of responsibility for baggage (unless they completely lose it, which now I wish they had), especially for electronic and fragile items. I spent the weekend feeling extremely incompetent and a waste of good air, but hammered out a string of options and strategies for making the most of my time here, and for the next 4 months too.

Long story short, I’m sending the MS back to California for diagnostics and (hopefully) fixing, at which point they’ll charge me an arm and a leg and send it back to me (if it’s repairable at all). I can probably get it back in a month, which is just enough time for them to send it to the museum in Kenya, where I’ll meet it when I get there on March 1^st. Then, I should have a functional MS for the bulk of my collections work there and in the museums in South Africa in May. The collections here are good, but small compared to the other places, and I’ve only got a shed of springbuck skulls to get through in Namibia, as it’s mostly field and observation work out there. I’ll gather qualitative data on specimens here, as well as some old fashioned linear measurements with the trusty old ruler and string (and calipers, though using a 12 inch ruler I can get to within 2-3mm on larger measurements, and 1mm on smaller ones with just my eyeballs, and the ruler is often faster), as well as photograph some of the more important ones, like juveniles, on which I can hopefully do 2D morphometrics later on (the MS lets me do 3D morphometrics). If you haven’t heard me yabber on at length about my work yet (or in a while): morphometrics is the study of shape. It captures all the same data as linear measurements (if you do it right), but also captures the location of all the end-points relative to each other, so you can study shape and not just single linear measurements. It’s kind of a glorified connect-the-dots. Yeah, that’s what I’m getting a PhD doing: playing connect-the-dots. Dear lord. I won’t be telling the insurance people that or they’ll never take me seriously.

The excellent news came in tonight: I talked to KP, explained what happened and what my strategy was, and asked if he had any suggestions for getting reimbursed for this prohibitive but unexpected research expense. In about as many words, he said have them send the bill to me, I’ll pay for it out of my research funds because you really need to have this fixed, and your plan of action for this and the intervening time sounds great, carry on, give my best to James. Whew! It’s funny how not being out a thousand bucks, and not having your advisor think you’re a useless idiot, will really put the spring back in your step.

Now, I just have to find a better camera, cuz mine totally sucks. To my knowledge, it has taken one good picture out of (now) hundreds. For the life of me I cannot get it to alter the shutter speed or exposure time. I think I’ve tried every combination of buttons; it is permanently stuck on 1/16^th s shutter speed and 1/20^th s exposure time. The good pic had 1/64 and 1/81. I don’t know what happened. But it’s useless, and I need to avoid image distortion in addition to poor quality if I’m to document specimens and do morphometrics, so tomorrow I’m going camera shopping in Bloem. Hopefully they have something, and hopefully tomorrow morning the South African rand takes a nose dive and I can get more buying power with my struggling US dollars (man I wish they were in pounds! It’s over $2/lb right now). Yet another item I should have been more prepared on, and thought ahead for, a good camera for back-up 2D morphometrics, although 2D is such a poor substitute for 3D in bovids, it’s perhaps a lost cause. It’d be different if I was studying piranhas or blades of grass or sand dollars or fly wings or something existing mainly in two dimensions. Curly bovid horns just don’t fit the bill very well, and like hell I’m surrendering to the world of tooth-specialization and forget what the dorsal surface of my critters looks like. I will not spend all my research time labeling, counting and measuring tooth cusps. I’d rather splice a gene into bacteria, and there’s a reason I’m no longer doing that.

So, tomorrow I make my first trip into town and, re-remember how to drive a stick, but on the other side of the car and the other side of the road. Good thing bad driving is the norm here; I’ll be going grandma-slow and checking every direction three times. And, given the habitual nature of driving, I’ll be going to bed now so that I don’t make tired, automatic US-driving decisions and crunch the tin can of a car they’re lending me. I don’t need whiplash or more paperwork at this point in my trip. To say the least.

The many stand alone bungalows (they call them chalets) all have a twin bed, a couch, kitchenette, several windows, full bathroom, and electricity etc. The door locks with a skeleton key, and the shower pipes are all exposed, but it works. All the buildings (save the research lab/shed) are in tan-orangey mud style, with red roofs. It’s very striking with the yellow-green grass, red and brown dirt, bright blue sky, and gray-green eucalyptus – the trees looked oddly familiar before I found out they are Australian. There’s even some Mexican trees around, and of course maize is originally American, and they’ve had to specifically plant native African plants, including acacia. I don’t know my African plants at all, but there’s a frighteningly thorny giant bush down by the creek, so maybe that’s the acacia. The thorns are widely spaced, true enough, but they’re about an inch and a half long, and it’s a dense looking bush. Personally, I’m glad plants don’t have legs. Ever wondered why plants haven’t evolved locomotory apparati, apart from passive means of dispersal? You’d think if echinoderms can manage a water vascular system, some plant would figure out how to manage xylem and phloem and the cell walls in order to move. I mean, it could be like one of those solar-powered cars; not exactly awe-inspiring, but it gets you from here to there, when the sun’s out.

Anyway, it’s mostly farmland around here, and probably some ranch land too. The birds are obnoxious in the morning, and in my eaves at night, and I wake up to rooster calls. They’re lovely, actually, and my only major gripe with the place is the bugs. I’ve been on the bug warpath the last two nights, fending off the ants and beetles and spiders and god knows what the other things are. My first afternoon here (Friday), a B-52 beetle motored in through the open window, loud, low and heavy. He plopped down behind my kitchen table and started the water-beetle GI-crawl in no particular direction. I got out my birding ‘noculars and studied him from across the room. Then, using an upside-down juice glass as a magnifying glass, I got a closer look at him. Black, with a yellow-green V down the back, and long, terrestrially useless hind legs that he had to drag around. I chucked him out the front door and he hit the air flying.

But really, he was the best of the worst to come. The ants remind me of summers in Las Vegas. There are little sand-trap holes everywhere, and little mounds spring up a day after the ground is raked. There are red ones and black ones, teeny-tiny ones and huge ones with heads like portable vice-clamps. Some move slowly and methodically, others zoom about with their butts in the air. All of them are body-snatchers. If I squash a bug and leave it on the floor, probably within 15 minutes the micro-ants will have found it and started working on eating, dismembering, and carting it off. That is, if the medium and big sized ants don’t wreck their plans. Thus ensues a little squabble that spirals into a call to arms and a mobilization of troops, all while trying to make off with the dead body. This is in addition to the (small) roach(es) in my kitchen, the giant black wasps that elect to lazily inspect a room and won’t be guided away, the beetles on little beetle-missions, the voracious colonizing spiders endemic to my bathroom (including the cute brown one behind my mirror, that inevitably I forget about till I’m two inches away without my glasses, then he comes into focus), the strange double-bodied winged things that freak me out and stink when squashed, the 40 decibel crickets, the occasional metallic blue-green fly, a few midges, one mosquito to date, and at least a dozen kinds of moths.

But tonight was the best. I was greeted by a giant dragonfly when I returned to my room around 7:30. I had my windows shut all day, so how he got in I have no idea. I tried to convince myself he was worth having around, since he was enthusiastically eating bugs gathering at my kitchen light, but he was almost the size of a hummingbird, and my adrenaline skyrocketed every time he started flying, because he was huge, and fast, and ran into things with surprising speed and force and repetition, and dive bombed me a couple times (though at his rate, it might be expected by purely Brownian motion). I finally got him with a good dose of bug spray (after working up the courage for several minutes to do it, and after about a half hour of circling each other in my chalet [diameter maybe 18 feet]). He flopped into my dish drainer and I emptied probably a fifth of my can of spray on him. He was still flailing and buzzing about amidst the dishes, and I ended up squishing him between two dinner plates and finishing him off with the produce knife. Pity. He was beautiful, with dalmation spotted wings and a green and black striped body, and he ate lots of bugs. But man. Talk about nerve-racking. I just can’t live with bugs, and it’s a total toss-up as to which are worse – a giant single roommate, or a horde of tiny ones. And now I have to wash all my dishes again, too.

Oh, and I saw two cows today too. A red one and a black and white one, replete with their cute little horns, and attendant cattle egrets. They munched the tall grass under the eucalyptus, next to the cat-tail reeded creek out back of the research shed, with crop fields on the hills beyond. Ah, live bovids – so novel and refreshing a sight!

Fortuitously (given yesterday’s rant on rhinos), and hilariously, the following anecdote came up in a seminar today:

The speaker, (micropaleontologist and world expert on shelly protists, foraminifera, a deep thinker on deep time, and funny as hell to boot), recounted how he was attending a conservation biology seminar, where the speaker was talking about endangered birds requiring marsh habitat in the bay area if they are to survive. Something about only 12,000 breeding pairs of X species locally.

Back up a sec, and let’s talk about the "recent" history of the SF Bay area. Recent in geological terms means the last 125,000 years. Or even 8000 years, since that’s when the first humans (probably…) arrived, and started leaving giant mounds of clam shells around the bay area. Around 125K years ago, the earth was doing it’s glacial cycling, where you have a little ice age followed by warming, and it does this like 5 times or something, over 10s of thousands of years. And in fact the ocean levels were a bit lower than they are today, when this was happening. Then about 40,000 years ago (or was it 11000? nuts…) we had a glacial maximum, and everything was #@*$ing cold. Like, the line practically bored through the bottom of the graph. That cold. (haha).

Now, to step this out for the kiddies, that means there was a lot of ice. And ice is made of water. And that’s a lot of water. And that water has to come from somewhere. That water comes mostly from the oceans, since most of the water on earth is in the oceans. And when you freeze up a bunch of water at the poles, that means there’s less left for everywhere else. This means that ocean levels fall - quite a lot, actually. In the SF Bay area, they were about 360 FEET lower than they are now. That is, if you stood on the easy bay mountains and looked out where the Golden Gate Bridge is across the bay - you just MIGHT be able to see the water on a clear day. And this was normal, for a long time.

But, the good news is (well, not good - it’s just news, cuz it’s just the facts) since that glacial maximum is in the past - everything’s been warming up since then. And the interesting facts are these: Unlike the previous lukewarm-cool cycles that were happening 125K years ago, it’s been an almost continuous increase in ocean levels since that maximum cold. None of that up-down cycling bit, although there have been greater and lesser plateaus. And, some 8000 years ago, there was really just this piddly little body of water that was where the bay is now. Just pathetic. And it’s been slowly increasing ever since. By about 2000 years ago, we crossed the previous high water mark (of 100K years ago, give or take). In comparison to the last 125K years, sea levels are the highest they’ve ever been - but just a little bit (probably within 10 meters). This is also at the tail end of a very long upswing in sea levels. (I should probably point out the obvious and say that sea levels and global temperatures are positively correlated). And it is true that the slope of the graph is a bit steeper over the last little bit (500 years? 1000 years? Bit hard to tell on a graph covering that amount of time), than say 5-10,000 years ago.

Now, this raises a few very practical points, the insanity about global warming not withstanding. Because earth temperatures have been warming (period) over the long haul, and because the rate of increase is slightly steeper more recently, we might reasonably expect temperatures to increase slightly over the next 50 years. And, reasonable projections indicate a rise in bay water levels of maybe 3 feet. 50 years and 3 feet are chump change for paleontologists, but even paleontologists are land-owners and (usually) law-abiding, tax-paying citizens, and have some investment in the 100 years of their existence on this hunk o’ rock. So, applying our knowledge of historical patterns, and looking at a detailed topographic map of the bay area water levels, present areas of settlement, industrialization, and major economic import (including the marshes - I haven’t forgetten about the story), the following is indicated:

Some of the most important companies of Silicon Valley, which evidently have arrayed themselves along the western shoreline of the bay, including Sun Microsystems and others I recognized by can’t now recall (BIG names), fall within this 3 foot span. Yessiree, it’s true. 3 feet of water - for any reason, and "NASA, we have a problem." Gone, guys. Unless these companies pick up shop and move, they’re toast. Of course, they won’t go without a fight, but even dikes (or is it dykes? I can’t remember) and levees and seawalls are short-term fixes for a major problem - a gagillion cubic tons of water pressing in from the bay, non-stop. Better to re-locate uphill than fight such a brainless behemoth. Hopefully that’s what they will do - becuase unless it’s a tsunami or something, 3 feet doesn’t happen overnight. Still, this is a major, major economic drain for a very, very important sector of the global economy. I expect stocks to rise in the dredging industry, however. 

But wait, it gets better. Our valiant speaker informed us that, without a doubt, 3 feet of water will wipe Stanford off the map. Simultaneously, the island of SF will be cut in half with a straight of water running NW-SE through Colma. Next goes UC Davis, which sits well upstream on the Sacramento (I think) River, but will nonetheless be subject to the effects of higher water levels, and will get swamped. The hikes uphill on the Berkeley campus do indeed have a long-term benefit beyond my heart, quads and ass: Berkeley will remain untouched. In fact, there’s this nice little restaurant about five blocks down from the western-most border of campus that, with a slight shift in its business strategy, is exellently located to exploit the "fresh fish n’ chips" corner of the market. New student hangout?? We’ll see…

More later… must run. The fate of the marshes and the character of a prominent conservationist remain to be seen…. 

Another comment from the Dawkins/God discussion over on Evolving Thoughts. Interestingly, after I posted this, no one commented on it. Not even a reference. Maybe it was too late in the game. Maybe no one knew what to do with it. I don’t know.

Seems the various positions can be summed up in a table tracking one’s view/position on the existence, idenitity and efficacy of God. (Many apologies for the icky formatting; no tables in WordPress). Follow the arrows for trains of thought.

Person:             God’s existence      God’s Identity               Any effects?

True believer:              Yes        –>    Yes, whatever    –>     doesn’t matter

Pragmatic believer:     Yes        <–   doesn’t matter    <–        It works

Irrational athesit:        No         <–   doesn’t matter    <–       No evidence

Rampant skeptic:  Can’t know    <–     Can’t know       <–  doesn’t matter and/or can’t know

Empiricist:    Depends on the data <– matters, don’t/can’t know  <–  No evidence yet

Rational atheist:         No         <–  ID matters & is invalid <–   No evidence and it matters

Rational believer:      Yes          <–  ID matters & is valid   <–    Yes/no and evidence matters

Semi-rational believer  Yes      <–  ID matters & is valid    <–   Evidence doesn’t matter

So really it boils down to an investigation of both the evidence for and concept of God (or insert any other supernatural being here). Although I won’t let loose a whole rant on the formation of the concept of God, and valid concept formation in general, I’ll just say that the concept of a supernatural being is broken, no matter how many people hold it. This is because it was formed without accurate, thorough-going reference to reality and proper conceptualization (which is a very common thing to do), so it cannot legitimately claim a referent in reality. Like Santa Claus.

Nothing like a chain of blogpost comments spinning off into the netherworld of stultifying philosophy, where "utlimate solutions" involve poll-taking, pulse-taking, and shrugging one’s shoulders before reaching for a drink. See the continued discussion of philosophy and God (re: Dawkins’ new book) over on Evolving Thoughts.

I’ll post more of my views on God and philosophy a bit later, but first let me hack into Pragmatism, that "quintessential American philosophy." Webster’s defines it thus: "An American movement in philosophy founded by C. S. Peirce and William James and marked by the doctrines that the meaning of conceptions is to be sought in their practical bearings, that the function of thought is to guide action, and that truth is preeminently to be tested by the practical consequences of belief." (My emphasis). This includes such lines of thinking as: "Well, if people dislike war, and sure don’t like getting killed, war must be an evil thing, it must be wrong to kill other people." Or, equally validly: "Well, people don’t like terrorists blowing up businesses and buildings and people, and the latest poll shows that 68% of Americans would support a war with Ira-, so going to war is the right thing to do." But why are 68% of people right? And how are you going to execute this war? And for what purpose? i.e. again, why? Pragmatism’s got nothing.

Rather than glorifying the practical man of action, Pragmatism shackles all men of any action by:

1) failing to acknowledge the indispensible role of the mind in *any* human endeavor,
2) teaching that it’s not necessary to dig too deep to understand something - simple observation and eventual consensus will tell you everything you need to know,
3) implying and/or advocating that no "outside" standards are necessary, "truth" is what people agree upon - just take the most recent poll results, you’ll be fine, which leads to:
4) failing to provide any guidance on how to properly think about anything, and therefore how to properly DO anything; (What is "proper" anyway? Just run around and do your thing, you’ll figure it out, and if not, look at what everyone else is doing,) and therefore:
5) leaving the way open for all manner of rotten ideas, evil aspirations, irrational notions, or (most  modestly) any hope of integrating the various aspects of one’s life - thinking, acting, feeling; work, love, play: past, present, future; self, friends, family, state, humanity, enemies; business,  art, recreation; learning, choices, conundrums; religion, politics, shopping, dating, communicating.

And on.

Pragmatism provides no principled position or defence on, for, or of anything - it is anti-principles (save the principle of doing what works, which boils down to poll-taking). There is no integration, no attempt at resolving contradictions; there’s just stuff; do what works; that’s all you can do. "Meaning?" Things mean what we say they mean, however we use them. If calling yourself a Nazi gets you better service at the bank, go for it. If calling something a "science" gets it more funding, or more respect, go for it. If going to church makes you feel better, fine. If you believe blowing yourself up will get you 71 virgins in the afterlife - well, who’s to say if that’s true or not, but it’s obviously important to you, so who are we to say what’s right or wrong? Standards and norms are culturally (or ethnically, sexually, chronologically, geographically) determined. One reality? One world? One life? Whatever you say, whatever works for you….

It’s a completely anti-thinking approach to life. God forbid you ever ask two questions, of anything: "Why?" and "How?" Pragmatism’s answer: Because that’s what we say/what people say/what people do/what seems to work. 

My further rant (the prompt of the above rant…) was responding to someone’s claim that the whole question of God is really one of "pragmatics", and I do believe he is a professional philosopher.[Update: turns out "pragmatics" is a specific term in language studies and in whatever branch of philosophy where they sit down and make "rules" for speaking, which nobody follows. So, take the above and below as my general view on pragmatism, and it still works. The couple follow-up posts to my comment were useful and illuminating, in one way or another. Whatever the philosophy philosophers think guides science now - I totally disagree. It’s totally trapped in the problem of uncertainty, which is foiled against the truism that we’re not omniscient. It’s yet another false alternative that I find surprising these folks buy into. Many are quite bright and careful thinkers. But, that’s for another day.]

Need I point out that pragmatics - which boil down to doing, saying, or believing whatever one "wishes" to designate as "working" or "being good", the unswerving facts of a single reality (and therefore logic and standards) be damned (or mealymouthed into impotence) - are yet another variant of subjectivism? That kind of approach has no place in determining the existence or nature of anything (material or mental), because to determine is to evaluate, and to evaluate is to judge by reference to a standard. To have traction on reality, this standard must square essentially with reality, to the best of our present ability. Pragmatism is singularly unconcerned with what "actually" or "essentially" is (absolutes are dogmatic and irrational; truth is a myth; rationality a preference), only with what appears to work, "how ever" it manages to work; the *why* has been dispensed with.

Yet that *why* is both the seed and soil of science. It seeks the causes of things, in reality, by use of a comprehensive logic combined with perceptual observation, and judged against an ultimate standard: reality. While Pragmatism might like to claim this standard, it fails as a philosophy because it’s not interested in *why* reality is THE standard (for science or Pragmatism or anything else), how that intersects with knowledge building, (or values or human relations) or WHY anything is as it is. "It works. That’s what matters." But why? Not mechanistically or materially (that’s usually the job of a science), but conceptually, fundamentally, philosophically? Pragmatism’s got nothing to offer; it has defaulted on its job as a philosophy.

Pragmatism is no friend of science - it acts as a parroting acolyte at best - and whatever success or consilience it claims is at the expense of consistency and integration of its own self-proclaimed tenets. But then, Pragmatism was never concerned with the confines of a single reality or the injunctions that reality imposes on those seeking life within its borders.

An a-cerebral philosophy espoused by a philosopher becomes, in its promulgation, an anti-cerebral philosophy. It stops people from thinking, by example and by principle. I find this beyond unacceptable from any who are paid to think.