As pointed out by Boing Boing, the the New York Times Magazine has a great article about Intelligent Design. One of the more amusing passages:

Fewer than one-third of conceptions culminate in live births. The rest end prematurely, either in early gestation or by miscarriage. Nature appears to be an avid abortionist, which ought to trouble Christians who believe in both original sin and the doctrine that a human being equipped with a soul comes into existence at conception. Souls bearing the stain of original sin, we are told, do not merit salvation. That is why, according to traditional theology, unbaptized babies have to languish in limbo for all eternity. Owing to faulty reproductive design, it would seem that the population of limbo must be at least twice that of heaven and hell combined.

As I’ve written about rather often, intelligent design isn’t science by a long shot. Scientists don’t usually have theories that include supernatural all-powerful beings. I have nothing against supernatural all-powerful beings. They are pretty cool. It falls outside of what we call science.

Perhaps you’ve read my article on Frivolous Lawsuits. I think we should be very suspicious when the government takes away our ability to appeal to the courts. Perhaps you’ve also read my article on Judicial Activism. I think it is disingenuous at best to label every judge you don’t agree with an activist. They see it differently; get on with it.

This new law that Bush just signed may not be the worst thing in the world. We want smart courts and it is possible that there are loopholes that don’t make sense. I don’t know that class action law suits are one of them, but I concede it is possible. There are lawyers whose best interest involves enticing people to join class actions. To me this is similar to something like the ACLU — a necessary but sometimes annoying check and balance.

What is worrisome to me about this new law that Bush signed is it is clearly the tip of the iceberg in terms of the intentions of this president and congress. The right wingers want to erode your ability to seek remedy in the courts. That is a bad thing. It is clearly the big money special interests that are pulling the strings here. There is no benefit to your average everyday American and yet they are silent. Big corporations just got it a little easier at your expense. This particular one just moves things from state to federal court — the cases with undeniable merit will still be heard. But this is the first of what looks to be a series of maneuvers to erode your access to remedy via the courts and that is not in your best interest. Even if you work for or own a big corporation, it is not in your interest. These cases aren’t all greedy lawyers and it is irresponsible to create legislation as if they are.

It is amazing to me that fucking idiots like Tim Graham can write this shit with a straight face. The issue here is not whether *real* reporters ever ask softball questions. Of course that happens all the time, or at least part of the time. The issue is this guy was a complete and utter fake, planted by the Right because their president is so fucking stupid he can’t handle real questions. We’ve all seen George W. Bush blantantly not answer questions because it wasn’t in the script that Karl gave him. The guy cannot think on his feet. Whether you like or hate Bill Clinton, the guy is very, very smart and can not only think on his feet, but be impressive as hell as a result.

While being lied to and spun until we barf is nothing new for this administration, I can’t believe that fucking idiots like Tim Graham can possible think that we will believe his bullshit.

I was thinking about what intelligence is. We all know there are different kinds of intelligence, like people who are smart at math or vocabulary or have practical intelligence or social intelligence, etc. The word can have a very broad number of uses. Specifically, though, when I meet someone and I get the sense that they are very intelligent, what makes me think so?

In pondering this one thing that came to mind is: intelligent people get more information out of less data. They realize the implications of things and can “read between the lines”. Another way to think of this is that they “get it”. This implies there is a certain aspect of awareness to this sort of intelligence. Intelligent people are ultra-aware. In fact, when people are unaware it generally makes me think they are unintelligent. Even simple examples — when someone is standing talking in a hallway in a place where they are an obstacle and people are having to jostle around them. Or when people are talking on the phone and are walking or driving inattentively. I always think “wake up, stupid!”. You can’t be intelligent if you are unaware.

So what impresses me about intelligent people is they are very aware of what is going on, they are getting as much information as is possible out of the amount of data they have, and they put it all together quickly and in a way that emphasizes what is important. Some people are smart but they get caught up in the unimportant details of things.

As someone who is a great admirer of intelligence, the thing that scares me most is a culture that does not embrace it. Like, in school when being considered “a brain” was a bad thing. Or people who scoff at intellectuals. Or the “tall poppy” syndrome where being smart makes you get cut down. I hate the very thought of these things. I’m not some elitist who thinks that smart people are somehow “better” than less smart people. I am an elitist, though, who thinks that people who do not strive to be as smart and as educated as possible are missing out. I can’t think of anything dumber than embracing dumbness.

Human beings are marvelous creatures and 99.99% of what makes us different from the other animals on this planet are our brains. You are reading these words over a global public network using technology created by people who were smart and put that intelligence to use. We are surrounded by the fruits of the labor of centuries of smart people. Be one of them. Use your head. Think. It’s why you are here.