In Praise of Recessions

See Whitman's previous post here.

An interesting post, Whit. You know, all politicians for the last few decades have deemed it to be the most important thing in the world to prevent recessions - whatever the cost. Mostly because politicians tend to lose their jobs during recessions.

But conservatives, it seems, would be well advised to NOT avoid recessions. Periodic economic downturns are, as you say, unavoidable, and trying to prevent them only makes matters worse. But as you also point out, long economic expansions tend to make people too confident, and consequently they are less amenable to conservative arguments against dreamy liberal programs. Toss another few billion into SCHIP to insure children who are already insured? Why not? It's for the children. Wall off more property from energy exploration and production? Why not? It will stop the greedy capitalists. Tie up nuclear power and refineries in regulatory nightmare? Why not? It's to save the environment. And so on.

The Why not? is answered quite simply in all cases, but when everything seems to be working out okay for people, they are just not interested. After 25 years of a Reagan economic expansion (fueled to excess by Federal Reserve expansionist policies) people have just forgotten the hard lessons learned in the 1970's as to what is prudent and possible in this world. And here we are today with the kind of administration in Washington that would have gotten less votes than Ron Paul in any other election year. I mean, for goodness sake, this administration actually ran on (and is now implementing) policies to solve the nation's energy problems via raising car fuel efficiency standards that were first tried and failed under Gerald Ford in 1975!

Periodic recessions, naturally occurring, would be the very things to remind the electorate that there are limitations in this world that cannot be overcome by government fiat. The goal for conservatives, as the economy is slowing down, would be to restrain government (principally the Fed) from doing things that would artificially prevent the recession, and to counsel patience. I think that argument would be a lot easier to make than advocating for more coal mines or less health care mandates during economic good times, which is where conservatives seem to have found themselves the last number of years.

Re: OUTRAGEOUS!

I have an idea. Instead of bonuses, why not just call them bribes? The politicians would then understand better the purpose of these payments, enabling cooperation and even camaraderie to arise between Washington and AIG. Then we could all turn our attention back to TV where it belongs. Posted by: Longfellow, via email

Evolution: Is This Progress?

God of the Gaps? Good grief, no. I was merely pointing out that such concepts as "randomness" and "probability" are concepts that implicate events that are not causally determinate in any a priori sense. Sort of like friction in physics. Will heavier objects fall at the same rate as lighter ones? Yes, but only when certain ... um ... un-earthly conditions are present, such as a vacuum. Introduce pressurized air into the occasion, and lighter objects tend to fall slower than heavier objects. How much slower? Well, that in turn depends on many other factors, all of which need to be discovered through observation and measurement, and hopefully, can be reduced to some formula of predictability that, at base, is arbitrary, even if true. In reality, the mathematical precision of the laws of gravity gives way to the actual behavior of real objects in real life, and "friction" is a convenient scientific catch-all encompassing these all but infinite exceptions to the rule.

To put my original point another way, secular evolutionists appear to embrace non-causal or quasi-causal conceptions ("random" and "probability") they deem important, but will not admit other kinds of non-causal conceptions. And with rare exceptions, they do so without explaining why these other conceptions are refused a place at science's table. They simply declare, "Ad hominem." And when questioned further, they loudly reply, "Ad hominem!"

God is not in the gaps; oh no, not at all. The gaps are merely the limits of human understanding, and God is in the gaps, the non-gaps, and most importantly, in the humans who refuse to rest in ignorance and despair. At base, secular evolutionists seek comfort rather than truth, because if there is a God, then the world is most certainly a larger place than is contained within their philosophy. And in this, they are more like religious dogmatists than they are like free people created in the very image of God.

Posted by: Whitman via email.

Evolution: Is This Progress?

So, Whit, are you espousing some sort of God of the Gaps idea? I've often thought this was a particularly demeaning approach to including God in the scientific discussion. After all, part of scientific progress has been the gradual closing down of more and more places where God might be located, each time making Him appear like some Grapes of Wrath immigrant, uprooted again, tiredly loading His heavenly goods on a broken down truck, searching for some plot of earth that will sustain His own.

via email.

Evolution: Is This Progress?

Well, not if you are a secular evolutionist, aka an atheist, aka the mythological media creature known as a "scientist." A scientist in this sense somehow transcends the human, and lives in grand conceptual constructions where the merely human has no place. Unfortunately, the whole notion of "progress" is precisely human in content and import, and has no place in any theory of a true scientist – unless of course "progress" is defined as having one's theory published and peer-reviewed and extolled and admired by other scientists. Then the secular evolutionist's theory becomes more than true; it becomes Truth, a large edifice anchored in the granite rock of unexpressed metaphysics.

Except for the approbation of their peers, the secular evolutionists are particularly obsessed with keeping science free of anything remotely human. By and large they do so by erecting around their little garden massive walls of "randomness" and stout gates of "probability." Evolution's processes ultimately must be random, or measurable only in a probabilistic way. Anything less, and evolution might become teleological, and heaven forbid, might even point us towards some sort of theocratic presence. But what are "randomness" and "probability?" Well, whatever they are, I do not think they can be defined without reference to the important Enlightenment (and scientific) concept of determinate causality. They are, in essence, conceptual placeholders for things that happen for which we find no necessary causative precursor. Random events are effects that do not have causes, and probable events are effects whose precise causes are
unknown or indeterminate.

But on this view, randomness and probability are themselves outside of determinate causality, or at least NOT OF determinate causality. How then do such concepts differ from objective teleological concepts, artistic categories such as mystery and beauty, and in deed, theological concepts like divine intervention? But even if they differ from them (and I most assuredly think they do), why on earth do secular scientists think they necessarily exclude teleology, aesthetics, and theology?

Because that's how secular scientists define them in the first place. Or to put it another way, that's how secular scientists want them to function. Careful, Doctor, your metaphysical presence is showing.

Posted by: Whitman via email.