Awful thought

If Levi Aaron reforms himself in prison, and rededicates himself to God and Judaism under the guidance of a sympathetic chabad chaplain, will Agudah attempt to mobilize us to pray and lobby for the correctional system to treat him leniently?

Happened with that cop killer from Florida...

Dishonest Comment games by Yaakov Menken

On Menken's now infamous evolution post, a "James Ross" objected to a few things Menken said:

“Evolution occurred by random chance” 

No who knows anything about evolution says it occurred by random chance. The claim is that it occurred by natural selection which is the very opposite of chance. 

It is noteworthy that neither of your two friends are biologists. They should read a little biology before they make claims based on gut hunches. And so should you. You’ll find that the math has been tested and proved correct time after time after time. 

A physicist is not likely to have any specialized knowledge of biology and your two friends obviously dont’t. 

Also, in your original post you either goofed or lied about Crick. He accepts evolution. In fact, he even says that the aliens who may have seeded earth developed by evolution themselves The alien theory relates to abiogenesis which is not the same thing. Crick, by the way, also believes abiogenesis could have occurred on earth. He simply used the alien theory to point out that determining how abeogenesis occurred on earth is supremely difficult, so difficult that there’s no way to rule out the alien theory. You misrepresent his views, however, when you pretend his difficulties with abiogenesis have anything to do with evolution, just as you misrepresent evolution when you suggest it has to do with chance.

Menken dealt with this with his usual dishonesty. First he published three comments from his own supporters that ignorantly criticized Ross's point. Usually, Cross Currents tries to streamline debate by refusing to publish identical points. I guess the rules are different when the identical points have all been made in support of the blog owner.  Also, the three anti-Ross comments are shorter then the typical Cross Currents comment, offer nothing new to the debate, and provide nothing in the way of evidence. They appear to have been published for one reason only, namely that they support Menken.

After stacking the deck this way, Menken made his own comment:

James Ross has already been corrected by numerous others. Without chance mutation, there are no options from which natural selection can choose. He’s also wrong about Crick’s Directed Panspermia. “Crick found it impossible that the complexity of DNA could have evolved naturally.” This affects not merely abiogenesis, life from inorganic matter, but the evolution of DNA. For those who find it impossible to imagine that there could be “Codes” in the Torah, they should do a study of DNA and its incredible complexity.

Taking his middle point out of order, he calls it “noteworthy” that neither of the friends I asked are biologists. To state that only biologists can examine probabilities and combinatorics related to DNA and evolution is similar to saying that only oncologists can analyze probabilities related to cancer, or even that only long-haul truckers can analyze probabilities related to traffic accidents. There is only one serious rationale for limiting the field of experts to evolutionary biologists only: that only those with a significant bias towards accepting the likelihood of evolution by chance choose a career in evolutionary biology, resulting in a self-selecting group who will all tell you with full confidence that of course the math all works — the substantial numbers of mathematicians, engineers, physicists and chemists who feel otherwise, notwithstanding.

There are several mistakes in Menken's answer. All of these mistakes were pointed out in a subsequent comment, but of course Menken refused to publish it. To the reader it appears that there was no rebuttal, which is another example of Menken's mendacity.

See my rebuttal to Menken's nonsense after the jump. (Disclosure: This is not the comment submitted to Cross Currents. The comment was rewritten for publication here]

Stuff I don't understand about the sad case of Leibby Kletzky

Aside from the obvious - i.e what [expletive deleted] is wrong with people and how [expletive deleted] could someone be so evil? -- I have a few questions about the Kletzky case.

How did the cops find his body so quickly? Kids, unfortunately, disappear with some frequency, and my impression was that many remain missing for months and months. Was Leibby found in less than two days because his murderer was unusually sloppy? Was it because the cops got a lucky break? Did the army of Jews who participated in the search help at all? Or are my stats wrong? Perhaps a quick resolution isn't that unusual?.

I hope someone writes an essay for one of the excellent magazines detailing the steps in the investigation. I really would like to know exactly how the cops cracked this case.

Update: Here's my answer. The uncovered this video and tracked the owner of the car:



Great work NYPD. Now I suppose we have to have a whole debate about the value of surveillance videos, privacy and the rest.

Placeholder Evolution Post

Something from Talk Origins I think every creationists, ID supporting science denier  like Yakov Menken, should read:

Claim 
Evolution has not been, and cannot be, proved. We cannot even see evolution (beyond trivially small change), much less test it experimentally.


Response: 
Nothing in the real world can be proved with absolute certainty. However, high degrees of certainty can be reached. In the case of evolution, we have huge amounts of data from diverse fields. Extensive evidence exists in all of the following different forms (Theobald 2004). Each new piece of evidence tests the rest.

• All life shows a fundamental unity in the mechanisms of replication, heritability, catalysis, and metabolism.
• Common descent predicts a nested hierarchy pattern, or groups within groups. We see just such an arrangement in a unique, consistent, well-defined hierarchy, the so-called tree of life.
• Different lines of evidence give the same arrangement of the tree of life. We get essentially the same results whether we look at morphological, biochemical, or genetic traits.
• Fossil animals fit in the same tree of life. We find several cases of transitional forms in the fossil record.
• The fossils appear in a chronological order, showing change consistent with common descent over hundreds of millions of years and inconsistent with sudden creation.
• Many organisms show rudimentary, vestigial characters, such as sightless eyes or wings useless for flight.
• Atavisms sometimes occur. An atavism is the reappearance of a character present in a distant ancestor but lost in the organism's immediate ancestors. We only see atavisms consistent with organisms' evolutionary histories.
• Ontogeny (embryology and developmental biology) gives information about the historical pathway of an organism's evolution. For example, as embryos whales and many snakes develop hind limbs that are reabsorbed before birth.
• The distribution of species is consistent with their evolutionary history. For example, marsupials are mostly limited to Australia, and the exceptions are explained by continental drift. Remote islands often have species groups that are highly diverse in habits and general appearance but closely related genetically. Squirrel diversity coincides with tectonic and sea level changes (Mercer and Roth 2003). Such consistency still holds when the distribution of fossil species is included.
• Evolution predicts that new structures are adapted from other structures that already exist, and thus similarity in structures should reflect evolutionary history rather than function. We see this frequently. For example, human hands, bat wings, horse legs, whale flippers, and mole forelimbs all have similar bone structure despite their different functions.
• The same principle applies on a molecular level. Humans share a large percentage of their genes, probably more than 70 percent, with a fruit fly or a nematode worm.
• When two organisms evolve the same function independently, different structures are often recruited. For example, wings of birds, bats, pterosaurs, and insects all have different structures. Gliding has been implemented in many additional ways. Again, this applies on a molecular level, too.
• The constraints of evolutionary history sometimes lead to suboptimal structures and functions. For example, the human throat and respiratory system make it impossible to breathe and swallow at the same time and make us susceptible to choking.
• Suboptimality appears also on the molecular level. For example, much DNA is nonfunctional.
• Some nonfunctional DNA, such as certain transposons, pseudogenes, and endogenous viruses, show a pattern of inheritance indicating common ancestry.
• Speciation has been observed.
• The day-to-day aspects of evolution -- heritable genetic change, morphological variation and change, functional change, and natural selection -- are seen to occur at rates consistent with common descent.

Furthermore, the different lines of evidence are consistent; they all point to the same big picture. For example, evidence from gene duplications in the yeast genome shows that its ability to ferment glucose evolved about eighty million years ago. Fossil evidence shows that fermentable fruits became prominent about the same time. Genetic evidence for major change around that time also is found in fruiting plants and fruit flies (Benner et al. 2002).

The evidence is extensive and consistent, and it points unambiguously to evolution, including common descent, change over time, and adaptation influenced by natural selection. It would be preposterous to refer to these as anything other than facts.

Fox's Well Coordinated War on Media Matters

Wow. The Fox lies just don't stop. Instead of reporting about their own parent company's corruption, Roger Ailes and his no-integrity goons have launched a full press attack on Media Matters:

Over the past three weeks the network has run dozens of segments attacking Media Matters -- on Fox "news" and opinion shows, on the Fox Business Network, and as the top three simultaneous lead stories on its website, Fox Nation. They have repeatedly encouraged viewers to file complaints with the IRS, even providing a direct link to a pre-filled form on their website.

As the video shows, it seems like every Fox employee got the memo. [After the jump] They are all singing from the exact same song sheet. And they say the liberal media is guilty of group think?  Also disturbing is how the Fox talking heads just lie about what Media Matters does, and about what censorship is. These are professional reporters, with degrees from good journalism schools. Doesn't it embarrass them to go on the air, carrying Ruport Murdoch's water like this? The lack of integrity from the hired help at Fox is downright frightening. Look at how people will corrupt themselves for money.

I'm a semi-regular reader of Media Matters and I can attest that 99 percent of the time all Media Matters does is post video and transcripts of what people have actually said.  If you want Media Matters to stop posting your content, the solution is simple: Just tell the truth. If you don't distort the facts, Media Matters is out of business.

Is FOX News about to crash and burn?

I can't imagine that this Ruport Murdoch sanctioned criminal activity was only happening at News of the World, The Sun and The Sunday Times. And only in Britain.

Oh and by the way THANK YOU GUARDIAN for exposing the sleazy and illegal tactics employed by these dishonorable thugs.

PS: Has the previously great Wall Street Journal commented yet? FOX News, of course, is playing defense and staying super silent. 

• Search for more information about the conservative media and how it rolls at 4torah.com

Mourning KJ

by Jenna Weissman Joselit of From Under the Fig Tree

In New York, change is the coin of the realm. Nothing remains intact or in one place for very long. Businesses come and go, neighborhoods rise and fall, synagogues and churches shutter their doors and move away.

But not Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun (or “KJ,” as it’s commonly called), a stalwart and true urban presence on East 85th Street since 1902.
A raging fire claimed the life of its dignified limestone and brick building last night, leaving me, along with thousands of New Yorkers, with an acute sense of loss.

While I’ve attended services on occasion, my relationship to KJ happens to be professional rather than personal. Years ago, I wrote a book about modern Orthodox Jewry in which the history of the congregation figures prominently. One of the book’s chapters, in fact, contains a description of the building’s cornerstone-laying ceremony, which took place 109 years ago.

Spirits ran high that day, the sources tell us in what now makes for painful reading. There was a band and bunting and the usual complement of official dignitaries. A “vast concourse of Jewish citizens” also turned out to participate in the proceedings. Everyone on hand agreed that Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun was the “most modern and beautiful orthodox synagogue in New York.”

May it rise again.

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What We Can Learn From Chazal About Dating

All honor to Rabbi Steven Pruzansky for managing to publish something that didn't make me want to run for a toilet. His new piece in the Jewish Press is actually quite excellent, and deserving of a much wider audience. See it after the jump

HT: MS

It Gets Besser

A Guest Post By E. Fink

This video is a take-off from the very successful It Gets Better campaign.

Some quick thoughts:

• A criticism of the It Gets Better campaign is that for many people, it does not get better. I think the same could be said of these folks. Does it really get better?

• If it is "better" in the "After" shots then is that not an indictment against the "Before" community? Should we as a community be trying to "get better" too?

• I honestly hope that these people can find happiness and success in their lives. I just wish there was room for them to do that within their native communities.

• Search for more information about before and after pictures at 4torah.com

Click here to learn about how you can sell your products on Amazon and receive $75 in free clicks

General Reminder for Cross Currents Readers

If there's one thing that makes me furious about Cross Currents its the dishonest game the editor plays with his comments. He has a few basic tricks:

(1) Often he simply refuses to publish your comment.Happens all the time. Though Cross Currents claims only "disrespectful" comments fail to pass moderation, I have a thick file of perfectly polite comments that I and others have written that were denied publication.  The only thing these polite, but rejected comments have in common is that they make Yaakov Menken look bad.

(2) Other times, Cross Currents will print a critical comment, and then rebut it incorrectly. Then, when the writer attempts to point out the flaws in the  rebuttal, his new comment is denied. This is especially cruel because it creates the false impression that the original writer had no response and the illusion that Cross Currents won the point.

A full example can be found here.

So, if your comment at Cross Currents has suspiciously failed to pass moderation, send it to me at yourfavoriteblogger@gmail.com and I'll probably post it here.    

• Search for more information about things we do to encourage the free and open exchange of ideas at 4torah.com

Peek A Jew (peeking at KATE(!))

Check out the holy brother with the camera top center

HT AZ

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Peek a Jew: Harry Potter

Quite a few Jews seem to have been in attendance at the world premier of the new Harry movie. See them at 0:45

HT AB

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Parshas Balak: Should you feel like showing off at the dinner table tonight, use this

OK, here are a few neat things you can say to regale your children and impress your wife, (or live in boyfriend as the case may be.)

Comment of the day

I said this in my post below about Menken's clownish attempts to discuss evolution, but one of my commenters said it better:

Menken said: Once my biases were removed, however, I gradually rejected evolution as an unproven and unlikely conjecture.
To see the bias of the evolutionists, on the other hand, one merely need observe their reaction to the theory called Intelligent Design.
Sir Francis Crick himself (with James Watson, the discoverer of the DNA molecule) found the probabilities for evolution to have occurred by chance so overwhelmingly unlikely that he promoted a theory of Directed Panspermia, genetic seeding from outer space

SKP said: In these debates about evolution, two things scream that the anti-evolutionist likely doesn't know what they are talking about:

1) When they demonstrate that they don't know the scientific meaning of the word "theory"
2) When they confuse evolution and abiogenesis

If they don't know what a "theory" is and they don't know what "evolution" is, then they probably don't know what the Theory of Evolution is for them to be opining/criticizing it in the first place!
--
In a follow-up comment to his own post, Menken avers that he has two very smart friends who also think evolution is bunk... er "that the mathematical probabilities are too poor for chance mutation to explain the evolutionary process." The fact that Menken thinks this relevant tells us all we need to know about how his epistemology works. See, neither of his two smart friends are biologists! Both are physicists. Why would Menken offer their opinions as evidence? I have an extremely smart plumber. He's an absolutely brilliant guy. Should we see what he thinks about heart surgery? 

Look, I don't doubt that these friends of Menken are intelligent, but they obviously haven't read up on this particular subject. Had they, or Menken bothered with elementary research, they'd have discovered that the  probabilities behind evolution are not too poor, and that this has been demonstrated several times over.

Also,  they'd have learned that the evolutionary process has nothing to do with random chance. If it did, Menken would be right. It it all came down to random chance, it would not be possible for life to develop via evolution. However, this is not the claim. Scientists don't say evolution was the product of random chance, but of NON RANDOM natural selection.The fact that Menken and his friends are unaware of this basic fact, is another reason to disregard their objections.

• Search for more information about evolution at 4torah.com

The Shafran -Slifkin - Menken blog war

Far be it from me to barge into someone else's blog-war but I do have some comments about the current dust up between the clowns of Cross Currents, and the venerable Rabbi Natan Slifkin.

Yeshivas Funded when Public Colleges are Cut

Orthodox Jews on taking care of the non Jewish needy: Government should not get involved. Private charity is sufficient. Let us donate as we see fit from our own money. Let the charities compete for resources like any business. Let us take care of our own needy, with our own money, with no help from the government.

Orthodox Jews on government money for Jewish schools: Gimmee, gimmee, gimme!

Case in point:

TAP Dancing: Yeshivas Funded when Public Colleges are Cut from InvestigateNY  

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The Orthodox Jewish Christian Lover's Religious Double Standard

Sheikh Yusuf Quaradawi, chief Rabbi of the Muslim brotherhood, has been quoted saying this:

‘Today the Jews are not the Israelites praised by Allah, but the descendants of the Israelites who defied His word. Allah was angry with them and turned them into monkeys and pigs….There is no doubt that the battle in which the Muslims overcome the Jews [will come]….In that battle the Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them.

This is a viciously anti-Semitic remark, and I condemn it absolutely, but guess what? The belief that God rejected the Jews after the golden calf, and that we are the decedents of those rejected Israelite, some of whom were turned into monkeys and pigs, is a very old, very traditional Muslim belief.  A Muslim who speaks this way is behaving like a good and faithful Muslim, just as a Christian who speaks about Jews being condemned to hell, or destined for slaughter at the Rapture is speaking as a good and faithful Christian. Why do I mention this? Because our dear GOP Jewish friends can't seem to behave consistently.

When a Muslim speaks as a traditional Muslim he's condemned by the GOP Jews, but when a Christian  says things that are just as ugly, the GOP Jews defend him. Wevre seen it happen time and time again. After some Christian public figure insults us, the sniveling flack-like XXX of the world tell us the insult must be graciously accepted because, after all, the obnoxious Christian was only speaking from his heart and sharing a sincere religious belief. It happened when Ann Coulter insulted us.  And when Pat Robertson insulted us. And when Jerry Falwell insulted us. And when Mel Gibson insulted us. And too many other times to count.

Unlike the GOP Jews, I say an anti-Semitic remark is to be condemned no matter what. I offer no religious exemptions. A believing Christian who says we Jews are unloved and rejected by God, practicing an "imperfect" religion and preordained to die when Jesus returns is no different from a believing Muslim who says Allah magically made our forefathers into monkeys. Both remarks are hateful. Both remarks should be condemned. And both speakers should be ostracized, together with any court Jewish conservative who dares to defend them.

• Search for more information about GOP Jewish defenses of Christian anti-Semites at 4torah.com