Disagreeing better

From a review of Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt, by Arthur Brooks:

.... Brooks argues that “motive attribution asymmetry” leads people to assume that those with whom they disagree are motivated by hate. This shuts off the possibility of negotiation and compromise, and breeds contempt, which Brooks defines as a combination of anger and disgust. Contempt, not only for the ideas held by those with whom we disagree, but also, and more significantly, for the people who hold those ideas.

From an essay Brooks wrote, adapted from the book:

Contempt makes political compromise and progress impossible. It also makes us unhappy as people. ....

The argument Dr. Brooks makes that resonates most strongly with me is first to reject the notion that disagreement is bad.

You might be tempted to say we need to find ways to disagree less, but that is incorrect. Disagreement is good because competition is good. Competition lies behind democracy in politics and markets in the economy, which — bounded by the rule of law and morality — bring about excellence. Just as in politics and economics, we need a robust “competition of ideas” — a.k.a. disagreement. Disagreement helps us innovate, improve and find the truth.

Instead, according to Brooks, we need to disagree better. .... (more)

'Love Your Enemies' Arthur Brooks Book Review | National Review

"In my end..."

Just discovered, T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: extracts from "East Coker," read by Jeremy Irons (12 minutes). YouTube has more of Eliot read by Irons.

"I bind unto myself..."

The Celtic poem known as St. Patrick's Breastplate:

I bind unto myself today  The strong Name of the Trinity,  By invocation of the same,  The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this day to me for ever. By power of faith, Christ's incarnation; His baptism in the Jordan river; His death on Cross for my salvation; His bursting from the spicèd tomb; His riding up the heavenly way; His coming at the day of doom; I bind unto myself today.	Against the demon snares of sin, The vice that gives temptation force, The natural lusts that war within, The hostile men that mar my course; Or few or many, far or nigh, In every place and in all hours, Against their fierce hostility, I bind to me these holy powers.
I bind unto myself the power Of the great love of the cherubim; The sweet 'well done' in judgment hour, The service of the seraphim, Confessors' faith, Apostles' word, The Patriarchs' prayers, the Prophets' scrolls, All good deeds done unto the Lord, And purity of virgin souls.	Against all Satan's spells and wiles, Against false words of heresy, Against the knowledge that defiles, Against the heart's idolatry, Against the wizard's evil craft, Against the death wound and the burning, The choking wave and the poisoned shaft, Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.
I bind unto myself today The virtues of the starlit heaven, The glorious sun's life-giving ray, The whiteness of the moon at even, The flashing of the lightning free, The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks, The stable earth, the deep salt sea, Around the old eternal rocks.	Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
I bind unto myself today The power of God to hold and lead, His eye to watch, His might to stay, His ear to hearken to my need. The wisdom of my God to teach, His hand to guide, His shield to ward, The word of God to give me speech, His heavenly host to be my guard.	I bind unto myself the Name, The strong Name of the Trinity; By invocation of the same. The Three in One, and One in Three, Of Whom all nature hath creation, Eternal Father, Spirit, Word: Praise to the Lord of my salvation, Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

St. Patrick's "Breastplate" Prayer (The Prayer Foundation).

Lecture

A high school history and psychology teacher writes "In Defense of Lecture in the Classroom." By doing so he is defending the method I most often used.

.... The material every day is new to most and there is little to no prior knowledge of the information. ....

Lecture imparts knowledge. Knowledge is a requirement for innovation and creativity. Simply put, you cannot be creative with knowledge you do not have. This is why, when initially presenting information to students, I try to do so in as simple a method as possible. Creating an environment with as few distractions as possible decreases the extraneous load on our limited working memory and allows for the possible processing of more material. ....

Evidence tells me the idea of having a particular learning style and the statistics associated with the learning pyramid are myths. ....

It isn’t everything, but it should certainly have its place in the classroom…especially with initial presentation of new material or as a method of reviewing information. Collaboration, creativity, and innovation are all great…after you’ve acquired the knowledge. ....

So, please don’t write off this effective and efficient method. It mustn’t be boring or passive. Provided students are afforded the opportunities to synthesize, discuss, and apply material presented, lecture is a wonderful foundation for learning in most classrooms. (more)

With younger students, especially, it is important to mix up the method of presentation a bit but lecture is the most efficient way to present knowledge and knowledge is essential. Of course it isn't effective if the teacher doesn't know the subject matter well enough to know what is important. Nor is it the easiest way to teach. The effective lecture requires not only familiarity with the material but also the ability to engage the interest of those in the class.

In Defense of Lecture in the Classroom - The Effortful Educator

More Moto

Today I acquired Mr. Moto's Three Aces, a 1956 book club omnibus containing three of the pre-WWII books. From the fly-leaf:

THANK YOU, MR. MOTO (1936) — The story of two Americans swept into the intrigues which run throughout ancient Peking.... All the city knew that danger lurked in the shadowed streets—that at any second death might come swiftly and silently to prying foreigners. Yet outwardly the city preserved the calm of centuries. Eleanor Joyce was blind to the dangerous connection between her secret commission and national events. Tom Nelson sensed something and his friends feared he had found out too much. Mr. Moto knew, too, but was powerless to interfere—until the blundering of the two Americans suddenly and strangely made him master of the situation!

THINK FAST, MR. MOTO (1937) — The old and respected banking house of Hitchings Brothers in Shanghai is more than a little concerned because a distant relative, Eva Hitchings, has persisted in operating a gambling house in Honolulu—which she defiantly calls Hitchings Plantation. Young Wilson Hitchings, just out from home to learn the business, is sent to Honolulu to wipe out the blot on the family reputation. But he little realized that he would encounter Mr. Moto! With blood-chilling politesse, the slick Mr. Moto keeps four rendezvous with death in twenty-four hours—as Chinese outlaws gamble to lose in Honolulu!

MR, MOTO IS SO SORRY (1938) — On the same train with Sylvia Dillaway and Calvin Gates, bound for Mongolia, were the Russian and Mr. Moto. As soon as Mr. Moto's presence was known to the Russian, he gave his cigarette case to Sylvia. The case was inscribed with a code message to the Russian Army. The fear of danger was borne out when the Russian was mysteriously murdered, and to protect Sylvia, Calvin took the case from her. Then things started happening fast. The Japanese Army wanted that case—and the devious Mr. Moto was playing a little war game of his own. But certain shocking events came to light and turned everything upside down!

More fun reading.

John P. Marquand, Mr. Moto's Three Aces,  Little Brown and Company,  1956.

Socialism

Commenting on the absurdity of a New York magazine recommended list of books "to understand socialism," Steven Hayward suggests better ones, among which Leszek Kolakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism.

The three volumes proceed soberly and methodically through the development of Marxism and socialism starting with Hegel and other antecedents that Marx drew heavily upon. But then you finally reach the epilogue of volume three, which opens thus:

Marxism has been the greatest fantasy of our century. It was a dream offering the prospect of a society of perfect unity, in which all human aspirations would be fulfilled and all values reconciled... Almost all the prophecies of Marx and his followers have already proved to be false, but this does not disturb the spiritual certainty of the faithful, any more than it did in the case of chiliastic sects: for it is a certainty not based on any empirical premises or supposed ‘historical laws,’ but simply on the psychological need for certainty. In this sense, Marxism performs the function of a religion, and its efficacy is of a religious character.

Socialism and “The “Experts” | Power Line

Shame

I've been missing Kevin DeYoung since his move and new responsibilities. But here he is: "We Are Supposed to Feel Bad About Stuff":

Our world is seriously confused about shame.

Strike that, the church is seriously confused about shame. We’ve made Jesus into a Rogerian therapist, the Bible into a book of self-actualizing pablum, and the gospel into a perpetual reminder that, hey, you’re awesome! The only shame left is saying or doing anything that leaves one feeling ashamed.

Shame is not a small matter in the Bible. The English word “shame” occurs 174 times in 161 verses in the ESV (and “ashamed” another 63 times in 58 verses). Clearly, the Bible has a lot to say on the topic.

Shame can be a hard subject to talk about because a massive problem for many people is misplaced shamed. Whether in every day “failures” like a messy house and unwanted pounds, or in more catastrophic situations like the experience of sexual abuse or racial bigotry, almost all of us have elements of our person or our past that wrongly make us feel embarrassed, dirty, and ashamed. The Bible is well aware of this tendency. When Zophar inquired of Job, “Shall no one shame you?” he was castigating Job for sins Job hadn’t actually committed. Zophar thought Job should be ashamed, but Job knew he had nothing be ashamed of.

In the New Testament we see the apostles often addressing the misplaced shame Christians were liable to feel because of their faith in a crucified Savior. This is why Paul says “I am not ashamed of the gospel” (Rom 1:16) and why he insists that no one who believes in Jesus will be put to shame (Rom. 10:11). Peter emphasizes the same thing (1 Pet. 2:6), reminding the believers that there is no shame in suffering as a Christian (1 Pet 4:16), and that ultimately it is the enemies of Christ who will be put to shame for having opposed God’s people (1 Pet 3:16). Most importantly, we follow Jesus, who was treated with utter shame (Mark 12:4; Luke 18:32; 20:11), and yet, in despising the shame, gave us the subjective example and the objective means by which we can cast aside the shame that does not rightly belong to us.

Because misplaced shame is such a pervasive human problem, and because the Bible is genuinely concerned to see us address our (often) undeserved sense of humiliation, too many Christians think the way to make hurting people feel better is to simply eliminate the category of shame altogether. Surely, it’s not coincidence that two recent, popular (and misguided) books—incidentally, by women and for women—are entitled Shameless: A Sexual Revolution and Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals. Church got you down? Voices in your head making you unhappy? Just follow your dreams, be true to yourself, take a chance, and do what makes you happy. Shame is just another word for the impossible expectations that the church, the flesh, and the Devil put upon you.

But just because you found a hammer does not mean the whole world is actually a nail. .... (more)

We Are Supposed to Feel Bad About Stuff

Orthodox?

In "Why J. Gresham Machen Didn’t Like the Term ‘Evangelical’," Thomas Kidd quotes from Machen's “What Is Orthodoxy?” (1935). Machen is not satisfied with "Fundamentalism," or "Conservative," or "Evangelical" as descriptive of his theology. Instead:

...[I]n view of the objections that face the use of other terminology, I think we might do far worse than revive the good old word orthodoxy as a designation of our position.

Orthodoxy means, as we have seen, “straight doxy” [or “straight teaching, straight doctrine”]. Well, how do we tell whether a thing is straight or not? The answer is plain. By comparing it with a rule or plumb line. Our rule or plumb line is the Bible. A thing is “orthodox” if it is in accordance with the Bible. I think we might well revive the word. But whether we revive the word or not, we certainly ought to hold to the thing that is designated by the word.

Why J. Gresham Machen Didn’t Like the Term ‘Evangelical’

Auden on the Psalms

From a 1971 W.H. Auden letter critical of liturgical reform:

As for the Psalms, they are poems, and to 'get' poetry, it should, of course, be read in the language in which it was written. I myself, alas, know no Hebrew. All I know is that Coverdale reads like poetry, and the modern versions don't.

Coverdale's version of the Psalms is the version used in the Book of Common Prayer.

Coverdale's Psalm 1:

1. BLESSED is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners : and hath not sat in the seat of the scornful.
2. But his delight is in the law of the Lord : and in his law will he exercise himself day and night.
3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the water-side : that will bring forth his fruit in due season.
4. His leaf also shall not wither : and look, whatsoever he doeth, it shall prosper.
5. As for the ungodly, it is not so with them : but they are like the chaff, which the wind scattereth away from the face of the earth.
6. Therefore the ungodly shall not be able to stand in the judgement : neither the sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
7. But the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous : and the way of the ungodly shall perish.

liturgical reform – Snakes and Ladders

"They that seek..."

From Chapter 1 of The Confessions of Saint Augustine

Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that Thou resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee. Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first, to call on Thee or to praise Thee? and, again, to know Thee or to call on Thee? for who can call on Thee, not knowing Thee? for he that knoweth Thee not, may call on Thee as other than Thou art. Or, is it rather, that we call on Thee that we may know Thee? but how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? or how shall they believe without a preacher? and they that seek the Lord shall praise Him: for they that seek shall find Him, and they that find shall praise Him. I will seek Thee, Lord, by calling on Thee; and will call on Thee, believing in Thee; for to us hast Thou been preached. My faith, Lord, shall call on Thee, which Thou hast given me, wherewith Thou hast inspired me, through the Incarnation of Thy Son, through the ministry of the Preacher. ....

Oh! that I might repose on Thee! Oh! that Thou wouldest enter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my sole good! What art Thou to me? In Thy pity, teach me to utter it. Or what am I to Thee that Thou demandest my love, and, if I give it not, art wroth with me, and threatenest me with grievous woes? Is it then a slight woe to love Thee not? Oh! for Thy mercies' sake, tell me, O Lord my God, what Thou art unto me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. So speak, that I may hear. Behold, Lord, my heart is before Thee; open Thou the ears thereof, and say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. After this voice let me haste, and take hold on Thee. Hide not Thy face from me. Let me die—lest I die—only let me see Thy face. .... (The Confessions)

The Confessions of Saint Augustine

"There shall be always a Church on earth..."

Via Mere Orthodoxy, two passages from the Westminster Confession.

From Chapter nine:

When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he frees him from his natural bondage under sin; and, by his grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he does not perfectly, or only, will that which is good, but does also will that which is evil.

And from Chapter twenty-five, a passage which may seem especially relevant these days:

This catholic Church has been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular Churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the Gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.

The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated, as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a Church on earth to worship God according to his will.

The blog poster explains why he finds these passages reassuring.

The Westminster Confession.

The Surprising Humanity of the Westminster Confession

A sense of evil

Originally posted in 2006:

"How in blazes do you know all these horrors?" cried Flambeau.

The shadow of a smile crossed the round, simple face of his clerical opponent.

"Oh, by being a celibate simpleton, I suppose," he said. "Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil? But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, too, made me sure you weren't a priest."

"What?" asked the thief, almost gaping.

"You attacked reason," said Father Brown. "It's bad theology." (G.K. Chesterton)

I have always enjoyed reading mysteries. I began with Conan Doyle, and soon progressed to Agatha Christie, and then to Chesterton, Marjorie Allingham, Dorothy L. Sayers, etc. I still enjoy those authors — whether in print or in the many film and television versions. A part of the pleasure is that justice always (or almost always) triumphs. Some great evil, usually murder, is committed, peace and order is disrupted, anarchy threatens, but then order is re-established, tranquility restored and justice done.

Later, I started reading the so-called "hard-boiled" authors like Chandler and Hammett and their many successors. The moral issues tended to be much less clearly drawn and the victory of good much less complete. No one, in these books, is unambiguously good.

A sense of evil is central to all of them. It is much easier to be drawn into the books if you possess a firm belief in the reality of original sin — the flaw in every person. The "hard-boiled" stories were more realistic about evil, though, since the dividing line between good and evil passes — not between us — but through each of us; and — in this life — there are no final victories for good.

"Woe to those who call evil good..."

From another interesting essay at Quillette, Spencer Case on "Moral Zealotry and the Seductive Nature of Evil":

A tempting fallacy about morality is to think that wickedness must arise from transparently abhorrent motives, and goodness from nice ones. Few explicitly endorse this crude dualism, but many breezily equate hatred with evil, love with goodness, or both. This way of thinking makes it difficult for us to see the dangers of moral zealotry, one of the most insidious motives for wicked behavior. ....

...Solzhenitsyn wrote that, “To do evil a human must first of all believe that what he is doing is good” and seek a justification for his actions. Shakespearean villains like Macbeth and Iago, “stopped short at a few dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.” The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of many other real-life pariahs:

Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That is how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, civilization; the Nazis, by race; the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood and the happiness of future generations.

He could have added, “…jihadists, by the glory of a new Caliphate.”

Solzhenitsyn doesn’t specify here whether he thinks that these oppressors were driven by moral considerations, or merely appealed to them post hoc to rationalize their deeds. We are left to surmise that there was some element of both. ....

It would be nice if evil always announced itself and evil people always looked malevolent. Evil, alas, sometimes wears a nicer face. Otherwise it could be fearsome, but not seductive. There is no human impulse or emotion that is immune to moral corruption. Our most benevolent instincts and intentions, untethered from reason, can lead us very far astray, indeed. Subtle are the ways of the devil. (more)

Moral Zealotry and the Seductive Nature of Evil - Quillette

Bargaining

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Mr Moto

Today in the mail I received John P. Marquand's Stopover: Tokyo (1956). It is the last of six Mr. Moto novels and the only one set after World War II. In the pre-war books Moto is an agent of Imperial Japan and most of the stories take place in a China then being invaded by the Japanese. Moto himself is sometimes portrayed as at odds with the militarists. The last of the pre-war books was written in 1941 before Pearl Harbor. Moto was on hiatus during the war but reappears in this book, still serving in Japanese intelligence but now allied with US intelligence. Most of the Mr. Motos were serialized in magazines before coming out as books. I think I first read this one in the Saturday Evening Post. I would have been ten years old. The dust cover is in bad shape but has been carefully conserved. The book itself is a first edition and is in quite good condition. Quoting from the dust cover:

STOPOVER: TOKYO brings to life with an electrical crackle of tension a struggle for supremacy in the neon-lighted maze of postwar Tokyo. More than sharing honors with Mr. Moto in the story are the young American Intelligence agent Jack Rhyce and his beautiful associate Ruth Bogart, also of Intelligence and posing as his secretary. Jack's mission: to break up a Communist espionage and terrorist ring in Tokyo known to be planning anti-American riots and political assassination.

Under the cover of working with a seemingly innocuous organization called the Asia Friendship League, Jack was to try to locate and silence Skirov, the Russian rumored to be masterminding the Communist secret apparatus. In addition, he was to find and put out of commission an unidentified American presumed to be next-in-command to Skirov. Reports had been received from certain left-wing sources that Skirov and the American were soon due to meet in Tokyo. When they did, the fireworks would start. It was up to Jack to keep them from going off.

Even in San Francisco, where Jack and Ruth first met, they realized that unknown parties were watching them. By the time their plane had landed in Tokyo they knew their chances of making a fatal mistake were dangerously increased by the fact that they were falling in love. And from Gibson, their Tokyo contact, they quickly found that the "harmless" Asia Friendship League was far less harmless than it seemed. Into an increasingly complex pattern of plot and counterplot slips a third character—the ubiquitous Mr. Moto. To Jack Rhyce he is not immediately recognizable as friend or enemy, but it is through his agency that the mounting pressure is brought to the danger point and the velvet Japanese night is made to erupt in violence.

Last week I watched all eight of the Mr. Moto movies starring Peter Lorre. The last of those was produced in 1939. In the films Moto works for the "International Police" or another employer rather than the Imperial government. I found they held up rather well for me as light entertainment. The books by Marquand, who was a serious novelist, are better, or at least that's how I remember them. It will be interesting to find out.

The Wikipedia entry on Moto — both the books and the films — is pretty good.

"If you tarry till you're better..."

A blogger I follow thought this a good hymn for Ash Wednesday,  "Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy" (Joseph Hart, 1759):

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love and power. Refrain	View Him prostrate in the garden; On the ground your Maker lies. On the bloody tree behold Him; Sinner, will this not suffice? Refrain
I will arise and go to Jesus, He will embrace me in His arms; In the arms of my dear Savior, O there are ten thousand charms.	Lo! th’incarnate God ascended, Pleads the merit of His blood: Venture on Him, venture wholly, Let no other trust intrude. Refrain
Come, ye thirsty, come, and welcome, God’s free bounty glorify; True belief and true repentance, Every grace that brings you nigh. Refrain	Let not conscience make you linger, Not of fitness fondly dream; All the fitness He requireth Is to feel your need of Him. Refrain
Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Lost and ruined by the fall; If you tarry till you’re better, You will never come at all. Refrain

A variation on the hymn by the Missouri All State Choir:

Screwtape

Tom Nichols tells us that while in Oxford he came across some previously unknown letters from Screwtape to his nephew. Wormwood has been reprieved and assigned to a subject in North America. I hope this won't be the only one of the newly discovered letters he will share:

My Dear Wormwood,

By now you know that it was only through my good offices that you have been released from the House of Incompetent Tempters so soon. For you, it has been an eternity, but your stay was shorter than you deserved, and you have me to thank for it.

Your letter of effusive gratitude is not only pointless but offensive. Yes, I secured your release because I am your uncle—a relationship I cannot escape, no matter how embarrassing your failures during your last posting on Earth. But Hell is built on realism, not emotion. The truth of the matter is that this current stage of our war with the Enemy is in a critical phase. We face dedicated counterattacks on all fronts. We have also, however, been faced with a flood of foolish souls who seek damnation in such numbers that we are nearly overwhelmed in our ability to escort them to Our Father Below in anything like an orderly fashion.

This is our good fortune, to be sure, but it has forced us to press back into service even such manifest failures as you. Do not for one moment believe that your return to duty reflects confidence in your abilities: your previous debacle in mid-20th century England, in which the Enemy relieved a man from your grasp before your very eyes, is a loss that even now rumbles the empty stomachs of your fellow devils.

I have therefore interceded with the Office of Tempter Assignments to send you to a battlefield on which even an idiot like you might succeed. .... (read it all)

The (New) Screwtape Letters - The Bulwark

Misfortune

Re-posted because it's perfect:

Pseudoscience

From the beginning of an informative column by Matt Ridley in The Spectator, "Lying with science: a guide to myth debunking":

‘The whole aim of practical politics,’ wrote H.L. Mencken, ‘is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.’ Newspapers, politicians and pressure groups have been moving smoothly for decades from one forecast apocalypse to another (nuclear power, acid rain, the ozone layer, mad cow disease, nanotechnology, genetically modified crops, the millennium bug…) without waiting to be proved right or wrong.

Increasingly, in a crowded market for alarm, it becomes necessary to make the scares up. More and more headlines about medical or environmental panics are based on published scientific papers, but ones that are little more than lies laundered into respectability with a little statistical legerdemain. Sometimes, even the exposure of the laundered lies fails to stop the scare. Dr Andrew Wakefield was struck off in 2010 after the General Medical Council found his 1998 study in the Lancet claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism to be fraudulent. Yet Wakefield is now a celebrity anti-vaccine activist in the United States and has left his long-suffering wife for the supermodel Elle Macpherson. Anti-vax campaigning is a lucrative business.

Meanwhile, the notion that chemicals such as bisphenol A, found in plastics, are acting as ‘endocrine disruptors’, interfering with human hormones even at very low doses, started with an outright fraudulent study that has since been retracted. .... (much more)

Lying with science: a guide to myth debunking | Spectator USA

St David's Day

Philip Jenkins on why we are certain March 1 was the day the patron saint of Wales died and why "death days" were so important:

St David's, Pembrokeshire, Wales

March 1 is the feast of David, the early medieval bishop and missionary who became patron saint of Wales. We actually know strikingly little of David apart from that date, of March 1, but I’m going to suggest that represents a good deal in its own right. ....

A death about 590 is a reasonable guess, but we could easily slip fifty years either way. Oddly though, we can be sure that he died on March 1, whether in (say) 532 or 632 AD. Through the Middle Ages, hagiography was a vast area of cultural effort, when almost any outrageous achievements could be credited to a saint. (No, David did not really make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he was ordained by the Patriarch). The one thing that we know these writers did keep faithfully was the death day – the date not the year – because that marked the hero’s ascension to glory, the promotion to heaven. In a particular church or community, those days were critical, as marking the annual celebration of the beloved local saint.

Argue as much as you like, then, about precise years, achievements, martyrdoms and areas of activity, about the number of lepers cured and tyrants opposed – but don’t quarrel with death days.

Death days.

It’s an interesting term. I know my birthday. I also know that at some future point I will die, and that that will befall on a particular date. Let me be optimistic and assume that it will be a distant event, say on July 23, 2049. Each year, then, I pass through July 23 happily unaware that I am marking my Death Day, surely as significant a milestone as my birthday, but not one I can ever know with certainty until it occurs. Nor is it something we really ever contemplate, as we all know, in our hearts, that we are immortal.

I suppose though that it is something we can learn from those medieval monks, that the Death Day is not just a key event in anyone’s life, but literally the only one we can take with absolute confidence. [emphasis added]

THAT’LL BE THE DAY THAT I DIE