Apologia Pro Evolution

Chad of On The Silent Planet, another Catholic blogger with an interest (indeed, a far more professional one) in evolutionary biology, offers the first in a three part series dealing with evolution and belief.

The overall plan for the series:

Part I: Introduction, and Why (Micro)Evolution is Good Science
Part II: Why Macroevolution is a Historical Field, but Yet Still is Good Science
Part III: Why Evolution Properly Understood is Compatible with and Affirming of Christian Belief

I've go to salute the guy. The last couple week's I've barely had time to write anything, much less such an ambitious undertaking. I'm definately looking forward to reading this series.

Moral Reasoning -- Backwards

It seems we often see these day very clever (and sometimes less so) people trying to derive moral norms by reasoning forward from basic principles. To take a rather basic example: just about all human societies have had it as a norm that killing another member of society without just cause is wrong. The points of difference are on what constitutes "just cause" and what constitutes "member of society".

One must then decide whether to reconcile these cultural views, or instead proclaim (as some do) that moral norms vary by time and place. I would tend to argue that one simply cannot take moral norms at all seriously and yet argue that they can be fundamentally different depending on when and where you live. In ancient Rome a pater familias was considered to have life and death power over his family (at least in the earliest times -- later Roman civilization increasingly recoiled against this) and thus could (with full moral justification) decide that it was best for the family if one of his children was killed. One may say that this was right or that it was wrong, or that it is a morally indifferent issue (though that certainly seems a hard position to maintain in this case) but one cannot sensibly maintain that it was right then but wrong now -- unless by "right" and "wrong" one simply means "customary" and "not customary" or "beneficial to society" and "not beneficial to society".

If we take it that some things are always wrong and others always right -- that there is some sort of objective moral code which applies to us as a species, or as rational creatures -- the question then becomes how to determine which things are right and wrong, given the differences between various society's moral codes. Many seem to take some general principle as a given, and then reason onwards from there. Thus, in addressing the question of murder, many people who believe they are reasoning from first principles argue that murder is the unjust killing of another being who possesses consciousness and self-awareness, and thus unjustly depriving that being of those faculties. Others argue that it is the ending of any life that is the inherent wrong, and thus advocate vegitarianism.

And yet both of these, in fact, are not working from first principles, but rather are working backwards for certain assumptions -- assumptions that are perhaps so deep-seated that they hardly seem like assumptions. Thus, when someone assumes that personhood (and an inherent right to life) follows from the possession of self-awareness and consciousness, that person implicitly accepts an assumption that killing a human is different in a fundamental way from killing an animal. Consciousness and self-awareness are then seized upon as the most obvious differences between most humans and other animals. Similarly, someone who recoils from all animal killing and advocates vegitarianism implicitly assumes that there is a fundamental difference in kind between animals and plants which makes the killing of the one acceptable but the other not.

Where then do these assumptions come from? Perhaps a true skeptic would say that these are but emotional reactions to the world, unrelated to either reason or reality. But I find this approach to be so unappealing as to seem untrue. Rather, it seems to me that the human person possesses some basic understanding of right and wrong -- which may be obscured to a greater of lesser extent by one's cultural conditioning and personal inclinations and desires. From this (in the absence of some other source that one chooses to trust on such matters, such as revelation) one must take those things which seem most clearly certain and then reason backwards to the general moral principle -- which may itself proceed to resolve some cases on which one is less sure by instinct.

It seems to me that it is in violating this basic principle that Peter Singer's controversial ideas about infanticide clearly go wrong. Singer has identified what he believes to be the characteristics of a human that make killing it wrong, and upon applying those characteristics finds that killing an infant is not murder. Yet, instead of taking it that this means he has chosen the wrong attributes as being the essential characteristics that define the right to life, he assumes that society as a whole has poor instincts as to what deserves the full protections of 'personhood'.

Using the backwards approach, it seems to me instead that one must take our basic revulsion at the idea of killing an infant as a starting point, and work back from that to a definition of what makes murder wrong that explains that killing an adult is wrong and that killing an infant is wrong. From there one can ask: If killing a human that does not yet possess self-knowledge is wrong, then what is it that makes killing wrong? Is it the very identity of being human? This seems a fit to me, since being human is a binary characteristic -- while such things as consciousness and self awareness admit to levels of degree. From there, the question that one asks as you push out into the more ambiguous waters of abortion or euthanasia is: Are we dealing with the killing of a human in this situation? Has there been some sort of change in kind, where we are not longer dealing with a creature of the same sort as another human? Or are we looking at a person who is the same in kind, but at another point in the range of development of function?

Bearing Children

The Darwins offer our congratulations to Erin of Bearing Blog, who is the proud mother of Miss Mary Jane Frances!

Go over to say congratulations. Stay to gaze at that beautiful little face.

Hey, kids, let's put on a show!

Painting has stalled out for the moment (hence, no pix yet)-- not because I'm bored with it or have lost motivation, but for two reasons. First, I lost my in-house babysitting now that my siblings are gone, and second, I'm at crunch time in rehearsals for my show.

Earlier this summer, some talented friends of mine, a large group of siblings, asked for my help in putting together a musical revue based around various standards of the 30s, 40s, and 50s. They have the vocal and instrumental chops to perform the pieces (and the dance moves too), but needed someone to create and stage a coherent show. I love doing that sort of thing, so they gave me a list of songs they'd been practicing and I set to work developing a plot that would tie them all together. The show is meant to be light entertainment, so the story is a classic tale of a kid getting a lucky break in New York City (circa Gershwin) and melting the heart of his frosty leading lady.

The script was put together gradually from scenes built around the songs, and once the basic structure was set, we began to find themes and running gags. A final character was added to incorporate the oldest brother of the family, who joins in on one of the last songs in the show. Not everything is perfectly melded -- Route 66 is tacked on as a sort of prologue because I couldn't quite work it in smoothly anywhere else -- but on the whole we have a fairly tight plot with plenty of gags.

Performance is next Saturday, so we're ramping up the rehearsals. Next week we have three full runs plus a dress rehearsal Friday night. For an amateur show in someone's living room, it's suprisingly technically polished. Lights and curtains have been hung, mikes are being set up, and there's even a 12'x8x wood floor for the stage and tap routine (moved from a different part of the house). Our orchestra consists of piano, bass, and drums, and for intermission our 16-year-old pianist is presenting us with a an abbreviated (though hardly less difficult) version of Gershwin's An American in Paris. Considering that the show is not only free but includes dinner, I'd say that our invited audience is full of lucky stiffs.

So the upshot of this is that paint and moulding have been temporarily upstaged by blocking, choreography, and the search for the right shade of blush to simulate a livid sunburn under the lights. Regular home decorating resumes in two weeks, by which time I'll have to buy all new rollers, because the ones I stored in the fridge (thinking I'd get back to the painting tomorrow) will have hardened beyond salvaging. Oh well, them's the breaks in show business.

The shot heard round the world...

...was the Democrats blowing their own foot clean off.

Senator Joe Lieberman, who just six years ago was the much vaunted VP candidate, is now a man without a party, thanks to Daily Kos and such.

Now, I can't say I'm exactly a Lieberman fan. I voted against him and Gore in 2000, and I am not impressed with folks like him who used to voice pro-life convictions and then conveniently lost them when they went to run for high profile office.

Still, it can't be good for the Democratic Party or the country as a whole to have the extreme left winning out over more moderate strains. Though it may turn out to be good for the Republican Party come 2008 -- thus letting them off with another "saved only by the opposition's idiocy" victory.

Jack and the Clinical Trials

From Barb:

I just wanted to let you know that Jack was not accepted into the clinical trial in Memphis. It was full.
They've decided to put him into the clinical trial here in Cincinnati which is for all types of cancer and is in the first phase. At first his parents were upset because they thought the clinical trial in Memphis would give him a better chance. Now they just feel that perhaps God has other plans that will keep them home.
One problem is that this trial is all oral medications (pills) and Jack (like lots of other kids) doesn't do well with pills, so they're working on trying to teach him how to swallow them. They also cannot begin until his counts come back up...they were still too low as of the end of last week.
Thanks again for all of your prayers...

Jack's prayer:

Venerable Louis and Zelie Martin, Servants of God,
You offered many prayers for your own sick children.
We unite our prayers with yours for Jack's healing.
May God look favorably on your intercession and, in His Mercy, grant us our request.
May His will be done in all things.

Venerable Louis and Zelie, pray for us!

Mother's Rule of Life

I am as in need of scheduling advice as the next person, and so last Mother's Day when my own mom sent me A Mother's Rule of Life I thought that perhaps this would be a useful tool for getting my home and life into a more scheduled routine. The subtitle is "How to Bring Order to Your Home and Peace to your Soul", and though my soul is already peaceful, my house could certainly use a little order.

Unfortunately, my first reading of it left a distinctly bad taste in my mouth. I wedged it into a bookshelf and left it there until last week, when the organizational urge struck again. Maybe I'd been too hasty with my first impressions and so overlooked some good advice. After re-reading it, I can say, upon careful consideration: Nah.

I just can't take this book seriously. My first presentiment of trouble came from the first page of the first chapter, in which the author recounts how she was pounding the table and issuing her husband ultimatums about schooling, the house, and yelling about how she just couldn't take it anymore. I could tell at that moment that the author and I had already diverged wildly in terms of personality and coping mechanisms for stress, but hey! the Lord works in mysterious ways, and if He had revealed the secret of organization to this woman then who was I to naysay?

Unfortunately, the rest of the book bore out my initial impressions. The book was more about the author's transformation than about the practicalities of creating and following a rule of life, and I simply couldn't get over her personal problems, emotional neediness, and relationship struggles. Merely discovering that using some common sense and a bit of stepping into the other's shoes will make a relationship a lot less stressful isn't going to fly with me as wisdom from on high -- I already knew at 18 what she was discovering at 30. I found myself irritated and bemused by her insistence that God was calling her to take every other Saturday "off" from her family. I felt sorry for her husband.

Also, it's no news to me that I need a schedule; this book didn't tell me anything I didn't know already. My problem is one of motivation, and for that I find books on housewifery almost useless. It strikes me that A Mother's Rule of Life is a book that will be of greatest assistance to women who are from the same mold as the author. However, if emotional displays annoy you and a lack of common sense vexes you, go straight to the source and pull your inspiration from the Rule of St. Benedict. At least he won't burden you with chapters of irrelevant personal details.

Gene Expression Questions Philosopher

Over on Gene Expression Classic, Razib has up another in his 10 Questions series of interviews, this one with philosopher Matthew Stewart. I confess to not knowing enough about writers of general consumption philosophy books to have any opinion or knowledge of Stewart's work, but I'm charmed by the opening of a recent Atlantic Monthly (full text only available to subscribers or in the library) article he wrote:

During the seven years that I worked as a management consultant, I spent a lot of time trying to look older than I was. I became pretty good at furrowing my brow and putting on somber expressions. Those who saw through my disguise assumed I made up for my youth with a fabulous education in management. They were wrong about that. I don’t have an M.B.A. I have a doctoral degree in philosophy—nineteenth-century German philosophy, to be precise. Before I took a job telling managers of large corporations things that they arguably should have known already, my work experience was limited to part-time gigs tutoring surly undergraduates in the ways of Hegel and Nietzsche and to a handful of summer jobs, mostly in the less appetizing ends of the fast-food industry.

The strange thing about my utter lack of education in management was that it didn’t seem to matter. As a principal and founding partner of a consulting firm that eventually grew to 600 employees, I interviewed, hired, and worked alongside hundreds of business-school graduates, and the impression I formed of the M.B.A. experience was that it involved taking two years out of your life and going deeply into debt, all for the sake of learning how to keep a straight face while using phrases like "out-of-the-box thinking," "win-win situation," and "core competencies." When it came to picking teammates, I generally held out higher hopes for those individuals who had used their university years to learn about something other than business administration.

Seems to jibe pretty well with my own experience dealing with MBAs. I certainly haven't found studying Classics rather than Marketing, Business or Computer Science to have slowed me down at all in working as a marketing/data analyst and web programmer. Though I would say it often takes a a few years for your earning power to equal that of someone with a technical degree, even if you end up doing about the same work.

Requiscat in Pace

Fellow blogger and occasional commenter John Farrell's father, David J. Farrell, died quietly on Friday morning. Our prayers go out for the repose of his soul, and for the Farrell family during this times. And thanks to St. Joseph, patron of the good death, is doubtless in order. Few of us could do better than to die quietly and at home, surrounded by our families.

Book Meme Redux, or Me Too

Darwin got in first and took all the good answers, so my list is a bit lighter.

1. One book that changed your life: Lewis's The Four Loves. I read it at 17, and it had a profound influence on my thoughts about love and friendship, making me susceptible to the intellectual wiles of the freshman Darwin.

2. One book that you've read more than once: Declare by Tim Powers. An excellent mix of historical speculation, suspense, action, love across time, and the supernatural, set against the backdrop of the Cold War.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: Well, Darwin already took The Divine Comedy (thought I came up with it independently) so I might have to grab The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. That's pretty meaty stuff for an island sojourn. Or maybe I'd have to find a copy of Bad Twin.

4. One book that made you laugh: My Home Sweet Home by Giovanni Guareschi. Family doesn't get funnier than Margharita, the Passionaria, and Alberto.

5. One book that made you cry: I read Jane Eyre when I was 13 or 14, and found myself snuffling at Jane's stirring declaration that she was not an automaton, Mr. Rochester. It's possible that something more recent has made me tear up, but nothing springs immediately to mind -- I'm not much for crying.

6. One book that you wish had been written: The Complete User's Manual to Eleanor, Julia, and Isabel. Boy, would that make my life easier!

7. One book that you wish had never been written: Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This is the book responsible for numerous heinous theories of child and human development by perpetrating the myth of the tabula rasa -- thus rejecting the notion of original sin.

8. One book you're currently reading: A Mother's Rule of Life. I'm reading it, but I'm not liking it.

9. One book you've been meaning to read: The Death of Achilles by Boris Akunin -- fourth in the series of Erast Fandorin mysteries. These are excellent reads for anyone who loves classic mysteries, and are uber-stylish to boot.

AND I'm back, having just remembered that I wanted to tag a few people: Rick and Rhonda Lugari and BarbfromCincy in the combox, and Amber and CMinor -- time permitting for all, of course.

Book Meme

Well, it had to happen some time. I've been tagged by Zippy with the book meme that's been going around. No I have to figure out what book changed my life other than Lord of the Rings and the Bible if I'm to not blend in with everyone else.

1. One book that changed your life: Plato's Dialogues -- My father very wisely put the basic dialogues of Plato in my way at age 14, which must be the height of what Sayers calls the "pert age". I'm far from being a complete Platonist, but hitting me as they did at just the right age, some of Plato's basic ideas like the relation of "the Good" to the gods (Euthephro) have become very deeply ingrained in my thinking.

2. One book that you've read more than once: Brideshead Revisited -- I've probably read Brideshead more times than Lord of the Rings, which is impressive since I started reading it three or four years later than LotR.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: Dante's Divine Comedy -- At a practical level, I'd pick the bible first, but since so many other people had picked that, I figured I'd pick a runner-up. The Comedia rolls religion, philosophy, beautiful poetry and memorable characters into one package. If I had to read only one piece of literature for the rest of my life, that would be it.

4. One book that made you laugh: Three Men In A Boat -- Need one say more?

5. One book that made you cry: The Smith of Wooten Major by Tolkien -- a quiet but incredibly powerful little book which always leaves me misty-eyed.

6. One book that you wish had been written: The Return of the Shadow -- Some years after finishing Lord of the Rings, Tolkien started work on a sequel to be title The Return of the Shadow, which was to be "a supernatural thriller" dealing with an "orc cult" springing up among the men of Numenor a generation or two after the War of the Ring. He abandoned the project after writing a couple chapters.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: The Koran -- It may be un-ecumenical to say so, but if there's one book which has resulted in more blood and loss of souls from the Church, I can't think of it. Eat your hearts out, Freud and Marx.

8. One book you're currently reading: I'll cheat and list two, I'm actively reading A War Like No Other by Victor Davis Hanson (about the Peloponnesian War) in my spare time, but I've also been working (very slowly) through the 12 books of Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time for just over five years, since MrsDarwin and I got married. (My Dad gave me the set as a wedding present.) One of the best sets of novels from the post-war period, Dance to the Music of Time spans some forty years of story time and is in some ways like an English Remembrance of Things Past, which makes it a perfect work to read on and off over a long period.

9. One book you've been meaning to read: Again, I'll cheat and mention two: Modern Physics and Ancient Faith by Stephen M. Barr and also Worlds Apart, A Journey to the Great Living Monasteries of Europe by Tudor Edwards.

Tagging: The ATP, the Opinionated Homeschooler, and the LogEyed Roman. And since the "two shall become one" I shouldn't be surprised if MrsDarwin followed up with her own picks.

Seal-ing his fate

Help out a local boy attain his dreams of B-movie stardom!

I'm sure by now everyone has heard the hype of this summer's soon to be released blockbuster…Snakes on a Plane.

To celebrate the release the Alamo Drafthouse is holding the 'Blanks on a Blank' filmmaking challenge in which teams are randomly assigned an animal and a vehicle and then given the task of creating a disaster movie with only one rule - incorporate the line that Samuel L. Jackson will never live down (earmuffs if you're watching with the kids).

So the cast and crew of 'Seals on a Scooter' needs your support and here's what you can do to help us out…this will take some time as all films are roughly 5 minutes. If you are short on time then just view and vote '100' for 'Seals on a Scooter'.

1. Direct your web browser of choice to www.blankonablank.com
2. Enter the site and click the "Create an account" link
3. Get yourself registered
4. Then click the 'Films' link at the top of the page.
5. The list of films will then display - click on the 'View Film' link for a particular film and watch away.
6. After the film completes assign it a score and then click the small 'Return to Films List' link at the bottom of the page.

7. It would be most helpful if you assigned a score of '100' to Seals on a Scooter and '0' to all others.
8. And no the Alamo couldn't have made this process any more difficult.

Thanks for your assistance…
The winning team gets to send 2 members to the L.A. premiere of 'Snakes on a Plane'…
Please help make a young seal's dream of walking the red carpet and appearing in US Weekly come true.

Yours,
M.F. Seal

I might have preferred "Yaks on a Humvee", but that's just me.

Off the face of the earth

I've found it easy to resist the surge of commentary about Mel Gibson's drunken remarks about Jews, mainly because I'm not particularly a fan of Gibson's. I thought The Passion was definitely one of the more interesting attempts at serious religious art in the film medium, but aside from that I've thought every movie that he's directed was just terrible.

But I was amused by this opening paragraph in an editorial in this morning's WSJ:

So Mel Gibson, arrested in Malibu, Calif., for drunk driving, tells a police officer that "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Pity the actor for not substituting the word "Israelis" for "Jews." The latter apparently confirms his long-suspected anti-Semitism. The former would have made him a darling of right-thinking progressives the world over, especially at this moment of Middle East stress.

That had kind of been my own thought as well, to be honest.

Of course, Israel represents a rather interesting question in regards to the whole idea of Just War. I tend to support Israel for something of the same reason that John Derbyshire once gave: Because in a generally oppressive and uncivilized area of the world they are one of the few fairly just and egalitarian democracies. (Ironically, the runner up in that category is arguably Lebanon.)

However, there is another half of conservatism that is much less sanguine about Israel. Some say this is because of anti-Semitism (and there is some of that in certain paleo-conservative circles from what I can see) but I think it is also because Israel represents something of a puzzle in that it is so new. Fifty years ago there was no state of Israel, and 100 years ago there was not a Jewish majority population in that area. Israel is an example of a phenomenon which has become very rare in the modern world, though it happened often in the 'Dark Ages', of a people moving into a previously populated area and securing political control over it essentially by force.

The Normans did this to England in 1066, and before them the Danes did much the same to parts of central England in the 700s to 900s. Before that, the Saxons did the same thing to the Celts and Roman Britains when they invaded. By comparison, the Israelis took a fairly peaceful route: moving into the area while it was under Turkish and then under British control, and building up to where they represented a sizeable percentage of the population before demanding political control. And yet, there is a sense in which the local Arab population can rightly see Israel as an invading population.

Much of just war doctrine centers around whether or not a war is defensive in nature. If your country is invaded, it's generally considered just to defend it. Going off and invading someone else's country requires much more work to justify -- some maintain that it can't be justified at all.

And yet, pretty much all the territory on this earth is conquered territory many times over. Which raises the question: at what point is one required to admit that no matter what you think about how the current owners acquired their territory, their right to it should now be respected? People have long memories. In Northern Ireland the IRA and the Orange Men are still fighting it out over the wrongs committed by Cromwell and William III, as well as the much more recent oppression of the Irish Catholic population. In the Balkans grudges stretch back 1000 years or more.

Israel is new by comparison -- unless you count the country established in 1948 as possessing true historical continuity with the Israelite kingdom that was dispersed in 70AD. And yet, looking at the map of the world, a goodly portion of them did not reach their current form until after 1948. I don't think there's any period of time one can lay out which makes a new country "established" rather than "invading".

Israel has stood the test of time for more than a generation, and it offers its Muslim citizens as much freedom and more opportunity, in many ways, than most of the surrounding Muslim countries do. It seems to me that at this point in history, all reasonable observers must acknowledge it as a country that is here to stay (not an invading population) and that with that status comes a need to proportionately defend itself from attack. Not that anyone has ever accused Hamas and Hezbollah of being reasonable...

The Schedule

In an attempt to get more organized (more on that later, if time permits!) Darwin and I sat down last evening and created a little "curriculum" for the girls for fall. It's a simple list of what we want the girls to accomplish. Some of the resources we have, some are ordered, and some we need to find, but I think it's an achievable set of goals.

Noogs (4)

Religion

• Read Tomie De Paola's Bible Stories out loud.
• Start Ignatius's Faith and Life, Book 1 (Our Heavenly Father)
  
• Memorize Ten Commandments?

Writing

• Focus on learning how to write her letters
• Seton's Phonics Workbook 1 for Kindergarten

Math

• Basic addition and subtraction
  
• Learn to tell time
• Study the calendar: learn the days of the week, the months, and the seasons

Reading

• Finish Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (we took, in effect, a summer hiatus, and so are resuming with lesson 88)
• Research further reading programs
• (just remembered this one -- forgot to write it on my master list) Memorize one or two short poems from A Child's Garden of Verse
  

Personal

• Make Bed
• Put dirty clothes in hamper
• Brush own hair and teeth

Babs (just about 3)

Religion

• Basic prayers: Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, Grace before meals (she has these pretty much down, but it doesn't hurt to keep working on them)
• Read Tomie De Paola's Bible Stories out loud.

Writing

• Memorize alphabet and identify letters

Math

• Identify numbers
• Work on counting

Reading

• Early lessons in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons , if she shows interest and aptitude.

Personal

• Put dirty clothes in hamper
• Potty training
• Brush own teeth

Baby (5 months)

• Cut that tooth!

Seeing it all written down looks a bit intimidating, frankly. However, I think that these are things we would be working on whether or not I consciously planned them out. And it seems that it can't be too soon to start documenting what we're doing, both for future reference and in case anyone ever wants to give us trouble about homeschooling (God forbid!).

The Spam Fantastic

I just read yesterday about the phenomenon of "empty" spam: spam that contains large chunks of literature (generally of the 18th-century variety) to slip past filters. Lo and behold, today it happens to me! In a solicitation for Mr. Clean's Magic Erasers, I received the synopsis of what seems to be a blood-and-guts Spanish tragedy. Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what play this could be?

Act I, Scene i Don Andrea, a Spanish courtier, has been killed in battle against the Portuguese. His soul is brought out of oblivion by Revenge to witness the death of his killer, Balthazar, at the hands of his lover, Bel-Imperia. Act I, Scene ii A Spanish General describes the battle, in which the Spaniards were victorious, to the King of Spain. Lorenzo and Horatio bring Balthazar as a captive before the King who says that he shall be treated with honour. There is debate between Lorenzo and Horatio as to who took Balthazar captive. The King decrees that Lorenzo shall have Balthazar's weapons and horse, and that Horatio shall have the ransom. He places Balthazar in Lorenzo's charge. Balthazar asks Horatio to keep him company. Act I, Scene iii The Portuguese Viceroy learns that Balthazar has not been killed in the battle, but taken prisoner. Villuppo claims that Alexandro tried to kill Balthazar which caused the Portuguese rout. The Viceroy has Alexandro led away, while Villuppo hopes to benefit through his deception. Act I, Scene iv Horatio tells Bel-Imperia about Andrea's death. Bel-Imperia transfers her affections to Horatio and have her revenge on Balthazar. Lorenzo and Balthazar come across her. Balthazar is in love with Bel-Imperia and there is witty, but pointed by-play between them. Bel-Imperia drops her glove which is retrieved by Horatio who reports that the King and Portuguese Ambassador are coming. Hieronimo, Horatio's father, arrives with a dumb-show which he explains as England triumphing over Spain. The Ambassador interprets this as a warning to the King for Spain not to be too proud after the victory. Act I, Scene v Andrea complains that all he has seen is Balthazar having a good time. Revenge assures him that it will not last.
...Act IV, Scene i Bel-Imperia claims that Hieronimo is not doing anything to avenge Horatio. He already has a plan in mind. Lorenzo and Balthazar enter. As one of the entertainments for the wedding, Hieronimo intends for them to act in a play about Erasto, the Knight of Rhodes, with each of them taking a part, and each speaking a different language. Act IV, Scene ii A distraught Isabella enters. She kills herself. Act IV, Scene iii A brief scene in which Hieronimo is preparing for the play. Act IV, Scene iv The play is acted before the King and Viceroy. In the guise of the Turkish emperor's lieutenant, Hieronimo stabs Lorenzo who is playing Erasto the Knight of Rhodes. Bel-Imperia, as Perseda, stabs Balthazar (the Turkish emperor) and then herself. Hieronimo reveals the truth and tries to kill himself, but is arrested. The King threatens to torture Hieronimo into telling him who his co-conspirators were, but Hieronimo bites out his own tongue. He then stabs the Duke of Castile and kills himself. Act IV, Scene v Andrea is now satisfied and the dead are all given their just rewards. Lorenzo, Balthazar, Pedringano and Serberine will all be punished suitably, as will the Duke of Castile.

Pretty lurid stuff! An honorable mention goes to the reader who does my Google work for me.

AND the Honorable Mention goes to: both A Philosopher and Bernard Brandt, who inform me that this is none other than Thomas Kyd's A Spanish Tragedy (seems I wasn't far off in my guess!). I've shortened the synopsis accordingly.

Genetic Outlaw

Several people, most recently Kevin Jones of Philokalia Republic, have already linked to this, but I thought this BusinessWeek opinion piece on genetic testing and eugenics by Prof. Elizabeth Schiltz was definately worth quoting:

Scientists are beginning to tell me precisely how much dissident acts like not aborting my son cost society. A study published in 2000 in the American Journal of Medical Genetics concluded that the average lifetime cost of each "new case" of Down syndrome is $451,000. This study differentiated the lifetime costs of various types of prenatally diagnosed disabilities leading to abortions in one hospital in Michigan. For reasons I can't fathom, Down syndrome turns out to be the most expensive by far. In contrast, the lifetime costs of conditions like spina bifida ($294,000) and cleft lip or palate ($101,000) seem almost negligible.

This study was offered to quantify the cost of banning "second trimester elective terminations for prenatally diagnosed abnormalities." Imagine the public outrage that would greet the publication of a study calculating the cost of not terminating pregnancies if it were broken down into a category such as family income. Although most of our civil rights laws now include "disability" in the litany of prohibited bases for discrimination—along with race, gender, and ethnic origin—our enlightened liberal commitment to diversity appears to go only so far. While we are willing to mandate accommodation to make jobs or public transportation accessible to a person with spina bifida, the social cost of accommodating her birth is increasingly being seen as exceeding her worth.

This emerging public consensus in favor of eugenics is not the product of any sort of reasoned debate. There has been no referendum, no debate in Congress, no move to amend the Constitution. It's emerging from the collective force of countless decisions by loving and caring mothers and fathers, in consultation with conscientious medical professionals who are using the truly miraculous and astonishing discoveries of brilliant scientists plunging deeper and deeper into the mysteries of life. These people are not intentionally practicing eugenics in order to create a perfect master race. They are simply trying to alleviate potential suffering and protect the quality of the lives they are bringing into the world.

But it is time for us to acknowledge the collective effect of these private decisions. Do we truly endorse the implicit message we are sending to our disabled brothers and sisters—that our commitment to diversity does not extend to genetic diversity? We need to confront the disconnect between how we see ourselves—as an enlightened, liberal society committed to fully integrating people with disabilities in all sectors of life—and how people living with the disabilities we would identify for extinction must see us.

Issues like this will doubtless come more and more to the fore in the coming decades, both because the improvement of medical technology will make greater 'improvement' of the human race possible, and because these sorts of issues cut to the very center of the issue of what it means to be human.

Math Bleg

Several readers commented on how my "What you should know by 18" list was pretty light on the math and science (though I hope some of the addendums in the comments helped with that). One of the issues there is that I had a hard time coming up with a good idea of what the minimum a civilized and functional person should know in these fields would be. It really was meant to be a pretty basic list. (A high school student could do all the reading on that list in under a year, I'm pretty confident.)

The other problem, however, is that although I deal with data analysis on a daily basis as part of my job, I've honestly forgotten most of the higher math I ever knew. I went through calculus in high school (I used the Saxon textbooks and did moderately well) but that's ten years behind me now. On a daily basis, I mostly just end up summing and averaging large record sets. Once in a while I do a little regression analysis: but that's just by using the crutch of trend() and forecast() functions in Excel, not through any solid remembrance of the math involved.

But this is something I've been feeling increasingly guilty about lately. And as my projects seem to get more and more mathematically intensive, one of these days it's going to come back to bite me.

So for those of you with serious mathematical chops: Can anyone recommend a good refresher book on higher math? On a practical level, it wouldn't hurt me to read up more on the kinds of business data analysis that I do on a regular basis, but at a more basic level I feel like I never fully "got" calculus and some of the other elements of higher math, although I gained the ability to get through problem sets with relative facility. I tend to be the sort of person who needs to nail the general theory in order to feel like I really understand what I'm doing at the particular level. So I'm thinking I may need something that takes something of a top-down approach. I still have my high school calculus text book sitting around, but I'm kind of wondering if I need to take a different approach.

Suggestions welcome.

Painted Ladies

For them as cares:

1. Two walls of the living room have been painted -- the easy walls. Now for the twelve-foot ladder and the huge heavy overflowing bookcase.

2. The carpet was cleaned this morning. Night and day, folks, night and day. I almost don't hate it.

The before pictures are waiting to be picked up, but the after pictures are going to take a bit longer. But it's quite a difference, believe me!

And that's what I did this summer, teacher.

Bad news for Jack

Please keep eight-year-old Jack in your prayers:

We just received the bad news tonight that Jack's cancer is back. He had a MRI done on Friday because they were concerned because his blood counts were still low.
They are cancelling the bonemarrow transplant because it would be of no use....the chemo they're using is obviously not working. Tomorrow Jay and Suzy will meet with the doctors to see if there are any other options, such as a clinical trial in another city that will accept him.
We obviously need that miracle...
Thank you so much for all of your prayers....it is such a comfort to our family to know that others are out there praying for our Jack.

Once again, here's the prayer for Jack.

Venerable Louis and Zelie Martin, Servants of God,
You offered many prayers for your own sick children.
We unite our prayers with yours for Jack's healing.
May God look favorably on your intercession and, in His Mercy, grant us our request.
May His will be done in all things.

Venerable Louis and Zelie, pray for us!

I'd Like Mine In Green

Much has been said over the last couple weeks in the ranging argument about art and whether it is morally/culturally/aesthetically acceptable to modify it, with the main disputants being Steven of Flos Carmeli, Tom of Disputations and ZippyCatholic.

The 'cultural conversation' side of the argument seems to be of the opinion that editing a work to remove content you object to is morally upright and culturally unproblematic because once an author completes his work, it is the property of the current owner and of society as a whole, rather than the artist. The artist thus, the theory goes, has no particular right to never see his work changed.

My own thinking is that a piece of art represents a crystallization of the artist's thought, and thus of him. And in that sense, while one is certainly welcome to create derivative works which make one's "commentary" on a existing piece of artwork (in the world of music variations on a theme are sometimes more interesting than the original theme), changing or destroying the original piece seems far too grave a step -- erasing, as it does, the distilled piece of thought and personhood which the artist left behind. (Obviously, this all has to do with modifying an original work. Clearly, modifying a copy of the original is of less import to the wider culture, regardless of whether it is morally or aesthetically right in and of itself.)

I wonder, however, how the pro-modification disputant would address the question of a strictly aesthetic desire to modify an original work. Say someone decided that the Venus of Urbino should have a cat next to her instead of a lapdog. Would it be part of the 'cultural conversation' to paint out the dog and replace it with a cat? Certainly, certain people might feel there is a moral imperative to put a stitch or two of clothing on Venus before she gets cold, but would those who support the idea that it would be already to throw a little drapery over her also support changing strictly aesthetic elements of the painting?

Or say you really felt that Blue Boy should have been Green Boy. Would one be justified in painting over the original. Obviously, one could make a knock-off painting, and some have to varying effect. (Goodness...) But could one modify the original?

And if not, does this not suggest to those who are holding that modifying a work for moral reasons is acceptable that there is some degree of weight to the original creation of the artist, such that even in their own view one must have a sufficiently good reason to change a work of art, beyond mere whim?