A Common Error

David Gordon, as usual, has written a brilliantly perceptive, neutral, un-emotional review of Brian Leiter's book Why Tolerate Religion?.

While I won't rehash any of Gordon's points here, I will take a brief look at one of the premises Leiter suggests in his book:
"Ancient testimonial evidence in favor of events that are inconsistent with all other scientific knowledge about how the world works is nowhere thought to constitute evidence for belief in a particular proposition, and that is exactly the status of the putative evidence in support of the resurrection of Christ."
Mr. Leiter's assertion here is most certainly not unique to him, and some variation of it is widely held by self-proclaimed skeptics of many stripes. As we will see, there are a variety of problems with it.

To start with, we have a straw-man fallacy. Specifically, that Leiter is putting "Ancient testimonial evidence" in the same context as "scientific knowledge". The proper context would be to put "historical knowledge" with "ancient testimonial evidence". (I'll take a look at his argument about proper scientific context in a bit.)

When we look at an event purported to take place in the past, we are using historical knowledge. Think about it: when scholars were ascertaining the probability of Caesar crossing the Rubicon, they did not appeal to science, but to the historical arts. In a high school text book recounting that JFK was assassinated by a rifleman while riding in a car, supporting evidence in the article will likely be pictures, articles from newspapers at the time, and interviews with people who witnessed the event. What will not be included are articles on how rifles work, the metallurgy of bullet slugs, how fast motor vehicles are able to travel, etc.

In the interest of brevity, I won't rehash here the enormous volume of work that has already been done by those far more qualified than either myself or Leiter, with regard to verifying the veracity of the life of Jesus Christ. Take a look here, here, and here for example.

But what if we look at the story of Christ's resurrection within the context of science? If he would permit me the liberty, I certainly think that Leiter would conclude that the resurrection of someone who is fully dead* is scientifically impossible. And, I agree one-hundred percent. In this case it appears the argument under consideration proceeds something like this:
1. It is scientifically impossible for people to rise from the dead.
2. It is claimed that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
3. Therefore, that claim (2.) must be false.
Did you catch what went wrong? Historians and theologians hold that Christ rising from the dead was never claimed to be a result of natural (i.e. scientific) processes, but was... wait for it... a super-natural (i.e. miraculous) process. So now we have four options:
1o. Super-natural processes may not occur.
2o. Super-natural processes may or may not occur.
3o. Super-natural processes may occur.
4o. Super-natural processes must occur.
Option 4o may be pretty tough to defend, since its acceptance would bring with it a whole host of other questions that must first be answered before moving on, and is as such beyond the scope of this article.

Which leaves us with three corresponding potential assertions when considering the ressurection of Christ:
1o-1. Super-natural processes may not occur.
1o-2. It is claimed that Christ rose from the dead by a super-natural process.
1o-3. Therefore, the claim (1o-2.) is false.

or

2o-1. Super-natural processes may or may not occur.
2o-2. It is claimed that Christ rose from the dead by a super-natural process.
2o-3. Therefore, the claim (2o-2.) may be true or false.

or

3o-1. Super-natural processes may occur.
3o-2. It is claimed that Christ rose from the dead by a super-natural process.
3o-3. Therefore, the claim (3o-2.) may be true.

Clearly, the result hinges not upon whether or not Christ's resurrection is scientifically possible, but whether it is possible for super-natural events to take place.

(It is worth noting that 2o-3 and 3o-3 contain "may be true" rather than "is true". This is because the mere possibility of something having happening does not mean that it has happened. In this case, we would then move on to the historical knowledge context to try to determine the probability of something actually being true.)

So it is possible to start with a premise that prohibits super-natural processes. But that proposition will necessarily be one that is arrived at, either correctly or incorrectly, a-priori. This is necessary because by definition, super-natural processes (at least those in consideration in the context of Christ's resurrection) cannot be considered experientially on demand (if you know of something otherwise, i'm all ears). In other words, if you want to decide that the supernatural doesn't exist, and then use that as a foundation to dismiss everything that purports to be supernatural, you are starting with a premise that is not known to be true, and as such may or may not result in a true conclusion.

Interestingly, of the two options remaining, you still may not conclude that Christ did rise from the dead. This is because starting with a proposition that includes supernatural processes maybe being possible, you will not conclude that they did take place at every single opportunity. Using Occam's razor or whatever other process of epistemological ratiocination, one will decide, on a case-by-case basis, reality is best known when a purported event is best believed or dis-believed.

So, if you start with the premise that the supernatural is impossible, then you have already reached a pre-determined conclusion before you even pretend to make a logical consideration. If you do not start with that premise, then you rely on other information as to the probability of whether or not any given event occurred.

*By fully dead, I mean not only not mostly dead but also not unconscious  not in a "swoon", etc. By "fully dead" I mean to rule out circumstances similar to those of stories of people returning to life after having medically died (most of which take place w/in a few hours of being pronounced dead), such as this, this, or this.

It Doesn't Need To Be This Complicated

"Legal Pot Complicates Drug-Free Workplace Policies" trumpets an AP headline.
Seriously?
Has no one ever heard of alcohol?

"Businesses in Washington state, where the drug is legal, and Colorado, where it will be by January, are trying to figure out how to deal with employees who use it on their own time and then fail a drug test."

I'm gonna take a wild stab at this by saying that they could deal with it the same way they dealt with finding someone drunk on the job. The only reason this is confusing to some is that many people say that we have private property here in America, precious few understand what true private property entails.

If an employer actually exhibited full private property rights over their workplace, they could make any (voluntary) requirements of their workers. No alcohol, no drugs, heck, even no yellow rubber duckies if they wanted to. It would be the employers prerogative as to what they allowed and didn't, and a potential employee's decision as to whether or not the pay was worth it.

My employer does not and will not perform drug-tests, either random, conditional, or periodic. Did this cause me to run out and do drugs? No. Does this in any way make me want to do drugs or cause drugs to appear any more appealing? No. Does this reduce the negative connotations I associate with drug use? No.

"Police departments are especially worried. Officers take oaths to protect all laws, state and federal. (...) "Marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, so officers would not under any scenario be allowed to use marijuana," "

Hmmmm. Non-sequitur much? This is only a problem if the premise started with is that the government ("of the people and for the people") is more important than the people it was supposed to serve.

Where would this leave patients of legitimate medical marijuana usage who fail employer required drug screenings? In the same place that patients of legitimate hydrocodone usage who fail employer required drug screenings are.

This is only a crisis to those who start with the presumption that because the federal government decrees something that those it is supposed to serve disagree with, because to them it is not readily apparent that 'those it is supposed to serve' are more important than our currently devolving mob rule.

Here to help?

The oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico during the Deepwater Horizon spill was awful. 
Apparently, the EPA requires the use of an oil dispersant known as Corexit. Recent studies by Georgia Institute of Technology and Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes (Mexico) found that the oil plus dispersant was found to be about 52 times more toxic than oil alone. 

http://phys.org/news/2012-11-gulf-mexico-clean-up-times-toxic.html 

Because no private property or profit-and-loss mechanism is involved, the government is fundamentally unable to avoid these blunders. 

But rather than hold the corporation fully liable and responsible for its actions, the EPA will just as likely be given increased funding and/or oversight. Because increased funding and/or oversight do not resolve the fundamental lack of central planning to calculate, it will not prevent the EPA from making these same mistakes in the future. 

Intel Is Not The Whole Universe

If Broadwell, Intel's years-away new chip architecture, goes BGA will it be the end of swap-able CPUs?

Hardly.

http://phys.org/news/2012-11-intel-broadwell-cpu-swap-outs.html 

Two things this article embarrassingly left out: 
1) They forgot about AMD, Intel's major competitor. What a great way for AMD to capture the enthusiast market: Intel totally offends it. (Assuming AMD won't do the same thing and move to BGA.) 
2) They also don't mention that by the time the Broadwell architecture makes its debut, the PC maybe in single-digits of computing market share. Mobile devices, both phones and tablets, have no reason to stop their meteoric rise, especially as they become more powerful and functional for work tasks. Laptops have been capable desktop-replacements (in all but a very few scenarios) for years. It won't be long until tablets and even smart-phones become laptop-desktop replacements. 

Also, they declined to mention that Intel does know how to make awesome enthusiast motherboards - BGA may not necessarily result in the beigeification of Intel product.