What We Know (Part II)

Last time around, I proposed that knowledge might be divided into two categories, internal and external, and I proposed some basic sub-divisions of internal knowledge.

External knowledge took some time to get my thoughts organized to put up even a first pass, but I think I've come up with something that's ready to propose.

As mentioned previously, external knowledge is that knowledge which one acquires from some source outside one's self. There are, it seems to me, two sub-categories within external knowledge: received knowledge and sub-created knowledge or knowledge by analysis.

Received knowledge is essentially "data" which we receive from the outside world. Received knowledge is thus best divided into categories according to the source of that data. The categories that seem readily apparent to me are:

Knowledge by observation -- This would include everything we perceive via our senses. However, it seems important to me that we be clear on the what it is that we perceive, vs what we conclude about the nature of the world ( sub-creative/analytic knowledge) based on those perceptions. Thus an observation might be "when I let go of the ball, it appeared to fall towards the ground" while the most basic level of analysis is "when I let go of the ball, it fell" and one might eventually add to that a further level of analysis: "all dropped objects fall".

Knowledge by testimony -- This compromises knowledge of the outside world which we receive, not directly through out own senses, but rather through the spoken, written, or visual testimony of others. So, for instance, I know by testimony that Washington DC is the capital of the US, but I've never actually been there. So in an observational sense, I have no knowledge of DC, even though I know a fair amount about its past and present by testimony. One might know by testimony something that someone else found out by observation or by revelation or relationship (see below). One may also receive by testimony the analysis made by some other person. This gets a little tricky, but I'll try to touch on it more later.

Knowledge by revelation -- Certain things cannot be derived strictly from observation and analysis thereon, but can be revealed to us from an outside source. Religious mysteries such as the trinity and the Eucharist fall into this category. I imagine that all the readers here are like me in that they have not directly received knowledge by revelation, but rather have knowledge by testimony (received from Tradition and Scripture) of these revelations. However, it's important to remember this is a possible source of knowledge.

Relational Knowledge -- There may be a better name for this, but my purpose here is to capture elements of knowledge which find their source not in observation of events through the senses but rather through a direct personal relationship with someone. Thus, I know that my wife loves me not because she cooks dinner for me, or because she kisses me, or because she tells me that she loves me, but rather through a direct experience of our relationship. Certainly, one can be wrong in one's understanding of what the information one receives in this way means (thus, I might believe based on relational knowledge that my wife loved me, but it might in fact be the case that she only wanted my money -- more fool her...) but I think it's clear that there is a form of 'data' that we receive in this way -- separate from any information we gather through our senses.

Sub-created knowledge or knowledge by analysis consists of those conclusions that we draw about the world based on the information we receive into our minds via the above means.

We sub-divide sub-created knowledge into fields of study or knowledge based on both the subject matter and the means of analysis used (theology, metaphysics, science, history, economics, etc.) However, I think the truly important thing to understand about knowledge by analysis is that it is sub-created knowledge. What do I mean by that?

In his Republic, Plato describes a cave in which prisoners mistake shadows for real creatures. Plato meant the image to represent the difficulty of discerning the nature of the forms form their imperfect instantiations in the physical world. The image is apt, but it might well also describe our attempt to gain accurate knowledge of the outside world based on the evidence of our senses.

There is, outside of us, a real world containing real things that work according to real laws. And yet, our knowledge of it is limited not only by our ability to perceive the outside world accurately (say, the inability of a colorblind man to fully appreciate the color of a rose) but also by our ability to understand what we perceive. Sometimes this failure to perceive is based on poor or incomplete observation, as in the story of the blind men investigating the elephant. (Each of them experiences only a small part of the whole elephant, and forms a mental construct of the elephant in his mind, based on that incomplete perception, which bears little resemblance to the real elephant.)

Having accurate knowledge of something consists not merely of making accurate observations via the senses, but of constructing within one's mind a working model of the thing observed which successfully matches the real thing.

Thus, my understanding of how a manual transmission works is good or bad depending on how closely the image I have in my mind of how a manual transmission works (and why it is making that peculiar grinding sound) matches the actual makeup of the transmission I am dealing with.

My understanding of the structure of the solar system is good or bad to the extent which the model of the solar system (both the bodies in it, their makeup, and their motion and interaction) matches the real solar system that exists outside of me.

This holds true not just for physical objects but for supernatural objects, forms and systems of thought:

My understanding of God is perfect or imperfect to the extant that it resembles or does not resemble the God whom I shall meet upon departing this mortal world.

My understanding of what 'Justice' is accurate to the extent that the ideal of justice which I have in my mind matches the universal form of 'Justice' -- of which each of our understandings is but an incomplete and imperfect copy.

The purpose of different types of analysis is thus to provide a set of techniques for producing certain kinds of sub-created understanding/models successfully. Science is meant to provide one with the best set of methodologies possible for determining the physical causes of a physical process. Metaphysics is meant to provide the best methodologies for coming to an understanding of being, essence and teleology. Psychology is meant to provide a structure for coming to an accurate understanding of why other people think and feel the way they do. Economics attempts to provide a set of tools for developing accurate models of how people will spend their money. Etc. Each methodology uses different modeling techniques and is meant to be applied to different sorts of systems. And in each case, the goal is to produce a sub-creation within one's own mind which as closely as possible mirrors the real world outside oneself.

Just War, Terrorism, and Empire

Bearing Blog as an post up asking interesting and difficult questions about the nature of just war as regards a diffused threat such as terrorism.

I've sometimes wondered if one of the difficulties in applying just war doctrine to some of our current problems is that our thinking on just war was mostly developed during the medieval period, when there was indeed a "community of nations", all based on at least somewhat similar principles, in Europe.

In some ways, our current situation seems to me vaguely like that which faced Rome in the period from 100BC to 30AD. Picture America as late republican through early imperial Rome. A large, wealthy country, only recently (last century) a major player on the world stage. Very proud of its middle class family virtues and republican form of government -- despite the fact that the ruling elite has almost entirely abandoned those ideals.

Picture Europe as the aging Helenistic world of the same era: Old, cultured, tremendously proud of its intellectual and cultural heritage, and yet producing few thinkers or artists of the level of those who came several hundred years before, demographically imploding, morally corrupt, politically Byzantine and militarily powerless.

Now, Rome felt it to be a necessity for security and stability that it begin to take possession of outlying, unstable countries and put in place stable, friendly governments there. Later, as their innate distrust of empire wore away and was replaced with an increasing need for funds and citizens, they simply started annexing outlying countries.

And, of course, there were the 'barbarian' tribes and countries outside the Roman sphere of influence. During certain periods they and the Romans pretty much left each other alone. But as they became dangerous and unstable the Romans felt that security necessitated that they fight a series of low level defensive and offensive actions -- either conquering or driving back various tribes.

How does just war doctrine deal with such a situation? Should the western world simply try to keep the 'barbarian' hordes out? Does it try to set up stable client states to keep the natives under control. (Our record there certainly isn't good.) Does it do its best to police the unstable countries at its periphery and hope that eventually cultural conquest will achieve what military conquest cannot?

Ghetto Pope!

This, from the clever Man with Black Hat:

I once saw an episode of Pimp my Ride with my brother, who assured me that the guys up at the seminary were avid devotees.

Walking to Work

One of the senses in which I'm very fortunate with my line of work that I now live within walking distance of my office. It's a fifteen minute walk (bracingly up hill in the morning and gently down hill in the evening) and I really ought to do it more, but I'm always coming up with excuses not to.

It only takes a few minutes to drive, so when I'm running late (which is most mornings -- not being a morning person at all) I often fall to temptation and jump in the car instead. (This requires some coordination as we went down to just one car when we moved so close to work.)

I really ought to do it more often. Not only for the excercise, which I'm sure I need, but also because it provides a fifteen minute buffer on each side of the workday when one can be quiet and think things through.

Remembering a Faithful Priest

My brother the seminarian reflects on the one-year anniversary of the death of his spiritual director, Fr. Larry:

Every time I met with him, he would tell me the same thing before I left: "Remember, Will, that God loves you." And right then I knew it was true. Not because of his decades of academia and his doctorate, but because of his profound faith, which no teacher but the Spirit can teach. When I was around him, I knew that God was real.

I will miss the joyful "Hhheeeiiiii, Will!" with which he would greet me, and I will miss his candid, loving spirit.

Once he told me "A man must know how grieve, because if he doesn't, he holds onto what he should give to God. Every man should grieve, for that is how he finds joy. Hear me now, believe me later..." So I grieve for him, because I hope to know that joy that he knew.

I know he will be in heaven when I get there (by God's grace), and I pray that I can be as intimate with Jesus Christ as he was here on earth.

Would that all seminarians had such examples of holiness to guide them! God rest your soul, Fr. Larry.

The Sad History of my Chocolate Bar

Oh readers, I am going to recount to you a tale so full of woe that I know you will be weeping at your monitors as you ponder my great misfortune.

On Friday evening, I was given a Chocolate Bar as a belated birthday present. It was a Ghiradelli Mint Chocolate Bar, pristine, wrapped, beautiful. I delighted in this Chocolate Bar! I treasured it! I saved it for the time when I ran out of the Chocolate Squares I was also given that night. I placed it on a high shelf in the pantry, and waited.

Sunday night I considered having my Chocolate Bar, but Darwin was not ready to indulge at that late hour. So I decided to hold off until we could share it, because I love my husband just that much.

Monday afternoon I came down the stairs to find that my girls had pulled up a chair, unlatched the pantry (again) and pulled out the mexican hot chocolate to eat. Mexican hot chocolate, for those of you unfamiliar, comes in tablets made up of eight wedges. You heat the milk and pour it in the blender, then add two wedges for each cup of milk. It's good. Well, I found the mexican chocolate on a plate on the table, Babs washing her hands, and Noogs scaling a bookshelf to get a toy. I scolded them, set them up to play, and then, inspired by the mexican chocolate, decided to have a bite of my very own Chocolate Bar. And it was gone! Gone! Gone!

Noogs fervently denied moving it at all, and Babs was no help at all. There were no traces of mint chocolate about them, no wrapper anywhere, no smell of mint around. For a brief moment I wondered if Darwin had taken it to work, but I quickly dismissed that thought, because Darwin loves me and would never take my Chocolate Bar without asking permission.

I turned the kitchen upside down. I looked in all the girls' favorite hiding places. I searched under the couch -- no mean feat for someone who's eight months pregnant. I took up and replaced all the items on the pantry shelf. No Chocolate Bar. I even opened up the oven and checked inside, on the off chance that some enterprising young tooglet had stashed it in there. But it's unlike the girls to hide away food. They usually eat it right away and then look guilty if I catch them. Babs in particular, when she knows she's done something naughty, will hide her eyes and refuse to look up for the longest time. It's cute, kinda.

When Darwin came home he searched as well. Readers, we cannot find my Chocolate Bar anywhere in the house! How does a Chocolate Bar simply go missing, with no traces? I wanted that Chocolate! I could taste it! But alas, IT IS GONE. There will be No Chocolate for Mrs. Darwin, and I did so look forward to it.

Sob.

Matter, Form and Sanity

If you hang around certain sectors of the Catholic blogsphere much, you probably hear from time to time about this thing called "formal causality" that some people wish could get a little more respect. However, if you're not in the habit of reading Aristotelians or Thomists in your spare time, you may not be sure what is meant by it.

First of all, the word "causality" will lead you astray. In standard parlance "cause" is generally used in terms of "cause and effect". However, Aristotle's four causes (material, efficient, formal and final) cover a rather wider stretch of ground.

According to Aristotle's way of thinking, the universe is made of up matter and form. Matter in and of itself is just stuff. (If Star Trek had been written by Aristotelians, they would have constantly encountered beings with made up of matter and animate souls but no form -- the Aristotelian version of The Blob.)

Say you have a coffee mug sitting next to you (mine is already empty). That mug is made of matter. It also conforms to the 'form' of mugness. The form consists of those essential elements of mugness that make a mug be a mug, instead of a tumbler or a cocktail glass or what-have-you. So the material cause (the stuffness) of my mug is ceramic and glaze. The formal cause of my mug (the form) is 'mugness' -- whatever that is.

Now why, you may be wondering, do people feel this is such an important thing to consider? It sounds almost like a tautology. (This mug is a mug because it is like a mug.) Well, form may not seem much of a big deal when you're dealing with a mug. Indeed, I think one is right to question whether there really is an ideal form of "mug" or if mug is simply a human invented category which is useful in sorting the contents of your kitchen cupboard. However, form becomes very important when considering certain moral questions.

A couple years back, I was discussing gay marriage with an earnestly liberal Christian who was also a medical doctor. She asserted that the existence of hermaphrodites proved that gender was a loose set of descriptive categories, and therefore one should marry whomever one felt attracted to. I claimed that humans were meant to be males or females capable of reproduction, and that the fact that some people are born without clear or functioning gender characteristics no more meant that people were not supposed to mate male on female than the fact that some people are born blind means that people are not supposed to be able to see. The fact that there are deviations from the norm does not mean that a norm does not exist. After some consideration, she said that concepts lick sickness, disability and disfunction were all relative to arbitrary ideas of how a human "ought" to work, and that now she thought about it she could think of no objective definition of "health" vs. "sickness" for human beings. Awkward predicament for a doctor, eh?

The defect in this doctor's thinking was that she had discounted any idea of there being a "form" to which we as humans are meant to conform. And having dispensed with the idea of form, she no longer could say anything was actually a defect.

Now, when we start speaking of "defects" in regards to people, it's important to be clear on what we mean. From the point of view of Catholic morality, there is an inherent dignity to the human person by virtue of identity -- by the mere fact that it is a human person. The dignity of the person does not stem from the degree to which it conforms to the ideal. Someone who is born blind is not less of a human because he lacks a characteristic which humans are meant to have. Nor is a hermaphrodite less of a human because he lacks correctly formed gender features.

Further, there are some characteristics which pertain to the human form, and others which are merely accidents (surface features that do not pertain to the essence of what it is to be human). So while we might say that it is in the essence of a human to have eyes capable of sight, there is not particular value to a certain color of eyes.

Formal causality (like most of Aristotle) isn't taught much these days. Yet, as you can see, it's necessary to be able to make any kind of sane analysis of what a person, thing or animal is, and what it is supposed to be.

Many point to the predominance of science in the modern mind as the reason why few people understand formal causality anymore. And yet, in a sense, modern science should give us a good, realistic grounding in at least certain kinds of formal causality, though because of its limitations it clearly doesn't place a particular moral value on conforming to form.

Take, for instance, the question of hermaphrodism which my acquaintance brought up. From a biological point of view, it's clear that an individual who has unformed or malformed gender attributes, and thus is incapable of or uninterested in reproduction, is in some sense not the way an individual is supposed to be. After all, if all individuals were that way, there wouldn't be any more. It's an evolutionary dead end. However good one might feel about being a hermaphrodite, or how affection one might have for him/her, it's clear that from a biological point of view something isn't right in that picture. Although biology doesn't produce moral precepts, it's at least clear that hermaphrodism cannot be considered 'normal' and thus perhaps it's a bad idea to use it as the basis for your moral analysis.

Certainly, modern science doesn't concern itself with questions like "what is the essence of being human" but there is a certain rough realism about it which, if taken seriously, should help to reign in the wilder impulses of our modern, relativistic, moral feel-good-ism.

Why We Have Laws

As graphic photos of aborted babies have become less common over the years at the March For Life and large number of simple, black "I Regret My Abortion" signs have become one of the most common and moving features of pro-life demonstrations, members of the pro-abortion commentariat have been forced to find a new gloss to replace the old "pro-lifers are bitter old men who hate women and love fetuses" meme of years gone by. (Though that doesn't stop some people from continuing to parrot it.)

One theme I read several times from pro-choice authors this year was, "Where do these women who had abortions get off demanding that the law take that right away from other women? Sure, maybe they regret it, but shouldn't every other woman have the same choice that they had?"

This seems to me to exhibit a serious misunderstanding of why we have laws about these kind of things. On the one hand, a law may be put in place to prevent people from doing something which they genuinely desire to do. One example of this might be the drinking age. It is illegal for a 20-year-old to buy a drink. This is, at least in theory, to the advantage of the common good. But for the 20-year-old, it denies him the ability to do something which he might otherwise wish to do. However, other restrictive laws also have the purpose of freeing the restricted person from being forced into an undesirable action. An example of this might be laws that prevent twelve year old girls from marrying. It may be some some 12-year-olds genuinely wish to be married, however the premise of the law seems to be at least partly that few 12-year-old really want to be married, and thus the law fees them from being given in marriage before their time.

Groups like Feminists For Life employ similar logic in regards to abortion. By their way of thinking, an abortion is not something which most women (all other things being equal) genuinely desire. Rather, its availability allows others to force a woman into having an abortion that she does not truly desire. The fact that abortion is available allows a boyfriend to say, "I didn't want us to get pregnant. I'm willing to pay for the abortion, but I'm definitely not interested in helping you raise a child."

In this sense, the availability of abortion as a valid (or at least legal) option actually decreases the freedom of women in certain situations because it presents an undesired and yet possible alternative into which they can be pushed. If abortions were unavailable or less available, it would give a woman more legal and financial bargaining power, since the law currently acknowledges (at least in theory, though not always very well in practice) that a man has a level of financial responsibility for any child he fathers, whether in or out of wedlock.

One Small Simile For a Man

Al Kimel of Pontifications is probably the first person ever to make a valid theological point by comparing the Catholic Church to Riker. Should there be an award for that, or would it just encourage others?

What We Know (Part I)

As a number of clever people (a group among whom I flatter myself to number) have observed, one of the problems that causes a great deal of the heat in the Intelligent Design vs. Evolutionism vs. Creationism debate is that a great many people on all sides have a poorly formed understanding of the types of knowledge and their relative sources, weights and degrees of surety. I'm convinced that what we need far more than teaching ID (or materialism) in grade and high schools it to begin teaching (perhaps around the junior high level) some very basic philosophy of the "what do we know and how do we know it" variety.

Of course, I say this, but I have to admit that my own philosophical formation is not what it should be. I may have read more Plato and Aristotle than your average bear, but the more I flounder about in matters philosophical the more I realize that high school and college (during which period I did most of my reading on the topic) are periods at which one is very young to make the best possible use of philosophical primary source material. And nowadays, I spend much of my spare time chasing small bablets around the house and keeping up the side business and blogging and such. Naytheless, I've never been one to shrink from speaking about things that I don't know as much about as I should, so I'm going to take a stab at a series of posts on the topic, partly to clear my own thinking, and partly in the hopes of getting some good feedback from our readership -- which includes certain people who know lots about philosophy whom I shan't name except to say that they are called Scott and Bernard and David and others whom I'm sure I'm shamefully forgetting. If it seems like there's interest in continuing to tinker with such a work, I'll set up a wiki once I feel I've nailed down a couple questions that would determine the overall structure.

So without further ado...

There are many things which we may claim, with various degrees of accuracy to know.

I know that 2+2=4
I know that I exist.
I know that the sun will rise tomorrow.
I know that killing another person without good cause is wrong.
I know that, when dropped, objects tend to fall.
I know that my wife loves me.
I know that I love my wife.
I know that God, our creator, is eternal and unchanging.
I know that Christ was born of a virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilot, was crucified, died, and was buried, but rose again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
I know that Socrates died in 399 BC.
I know that there are seven continents.
I know that I am currently typing on a Dell Latitude.
I know that it is sunny outside.
I know how to drive a car.

All of these are true statements I could make about my knowledge, and yet they represent a number of different types of knowledge derived from a number of different sources.

The two most basic divisions of knowledge seem to be knowledge which one may know from within one's self, and knowledge which one may know from the outside world. Of these, the former category is smaller, but contains the knowledge which one may know with the greatest surety. For the purposes of brevity (and do feel free to suggest better terms for these categories as we move along) I'd like to call the first of these internal knowledge and the second external knowledge. I'll discuss internal knowledge in the remainder of this post, and start on external knowledge in Part II.

Within the category of internal knowledge, some things we know irrespective of any experience of the outside world at all. (I'm not sure what the name for this category should be, so if anyone has any ideas, let me know.) Within this sub-category fall mathematical knowledge and self knowledge, represented in the above list by:

I know that 2+2=4
I know that I exist.

Self knowledge is both the most certain and at the same time the least useful area of knowledge. As Descartes observed, it may be known with certainty that "I think, therefore, I am" and yet in a sense this mere knowledge of existence gets us no where.

Some people might question whether mathematical knowledge properly belongs in the category of things which may be known withour reference to the outside world. Certainly, as children we learn to think about mathematics by dealing with concrete examples. (You have three pennies and I give you four more, how many do you have now?) However, I think that the mathematical concepts are knowable separately from any material example of them. That is because mathematical entities exist by definition, rather than being discovered by observation. We know what "two" is by concept. We do not need to examine numerous examples of two to see what two really is, and add two objects together repeatedly to see if they always equal four. Rather, two is two by definition, and one finds "two" in nature to the extent that material things conform themselves to the concept. Indeed, some mathematical concepts (a point, a line, a circle, two parallel lines, etc) exist only as mental constructs and are never found in perfect form in the physical world.

The other sub-category within internal knowledge consists of that which we may know internally, but do so only with reference to the experience of the outside world. Within this category fall the following statements:

I know that I love my wife.
I know that killing another person without good cause is wrong.

The first of these constitutes knowledge of an action which I which I myself perform, and thus I am able to observe it first hand and know it internally. I suppose one might call this knowledge of action. One performs an action in relation to the outside world, and so this knowledge requires interaction with the world, but the knowledge itself is internal.

The latter statement is an example of moral knowledge. Again, I think this would inspire a certain degree of controversy. Many people assert that morality is a learned system of culturally determined regulations. Certainly, one finds different moral standards in different cultures. Nor, as any parent can attest, are children naturally moral. Far from it, they often seem naturally selfish and willful. And yet there are certain basic moral norms which do seem to be inborn (in some sense) in human nature. Among these is that innocent life should not be taken without cause. Also that property, rightfully owned, should not be taken by another. That parents should care for children, and that the young should in turn care for the elderly. Plato held that such moral laws (which are known, though perhaps incompletely, but all human beings) are imperfect memories of the perfect forms of Good, Justice, etc. with which we were acquainted before birth. Christian tradition has normally assigned this knowledge to an innate understanding of certain elements of God's will through natural means -- natural law. Either way, it seems to me that the idea that such basic laws are inborn in us comes so naturally that it should not lightly be discounted.

I have put moral knowledge in the category of internal knowledge which we know in reference to the outside world because all of these moral norms deal with our interactions with other persons and things. If one has no knowledge of other people, one cannot know that killing them or stealing from them would be wrong. Still, I'm not fully satisfied with the classification. If anyone has suggestions, I'm open to them.

Next time, the major sub-categories of external knowledge...

Children's Mass

Babs started the morning off by throwing up twice, so we decided to do the mass in shifts thing today. I trotted off to the 9:30 with the "family" choir while MrsDarwin and Noogs are currently at our usual 11:30 mass. (Babs has proceeded to eat a huge breakfast and is -- so far -- keeping it down, so perhaps she was just messing with us.)

There seems to be no excuse like "family" for bad liturgy... Not that the 11:30 at our parish is high mass or anything, but there is at least a certain seriousness to it. The 9:30 features an Alleluia with hand motions (What is it with hand motions? I hated them at least as much at age six as I do now -- perhaps more so then since my teachers back in parochial school were always of the opinion it would be 'cute' for us to learn songs with hand motions.) and a setting of the Our Father which lasts into eternity with all the tinkley shallowness of new age elevator music.

I've never understood that theory of liturgy that in order to involve children in it one must assume all the least likeable stylistic elements of childrens TV programming.

This was hardly the worst case of liturgical foolishness I've seen, but one could tell from the signs of boredom and derision among a number of the teens and older children that it was nonetheless doing damage.

Blogger Bleg

Has anyone else been having blogger eat comments the last couple days? The long post below on construction vs. design had a comment from Scott Carson vanish after being up for a while, and then two comments that I added afterwards won't show up in the pop-up window, but do if you click through to the page that has only that post. Very strange...

If anyone has run into this and knows a cure, I'm all ears.

It Stinks to Heaven

Adult Swim has once again scrambled the schedule, and now our line-up of shows we watched before and after Fullmetal Alchemist have once again been re-arranged. Once upon a time the show before was the charmingly foolish Inuyasha. Now, there is the appauling in every way Stroker & Hoop. We know that nature abhores a vacuum, and so we may conclude that Stroker & Hoop sucks to an unnatural degree...

Creation: Design or Construction?

David over as Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex has a fairly decent piece up this evening dealing with some important distinctions in the ID debate.

One that I had been meaning to dive more deeply into is addressed (and, indeed, the problem demonstrated) by his point #3:

Someone limiting himself to modern science is very limited in what he can say about the existence or non-existence of a design in nature because of what he means by design. He limits himself, by method, to speaking about the identification (by proof or hypothesis) of a secondary efficient (natural) cause.

A further distinction which may help in defining what science addresses under the title of "design" as opposed to what philosophers and theologians (or in the ID debate, more often apologists) occurred to me, so here it goes...

The word "design" can, of course, mean very different things to different people in different circumstances.

Design may indicate a purpose or intent, "It was his design to seize the throne, and the queen's gaffe in picking her nose in public gave him just the chance he needed."

Design may also refer to a pattern, "He stood, staring at the intricate design of squirrel skulls laid out upon the driveway."

Or "design" might be used in the sense of schematic or blue print, "When building the out-house, he carefully followed the designs given to him by his feng shui consultant."

I think one of the difficulties in the "Intelligent Design" debate is that different parties are often using different definitions of "design".

In the physical world, we are used to finding design in the sense that I would like to term "construction" and then working backward to find design in the senses of "plan", "purpose", "intent" and "orderliness". Say you come upon a table. You discern it to have been constructed by a carpenter, in that it is made out of a material which you know to be a good construction material (wood) and shows signs of having been put together using tools with which you are familiar (saw, plane, sander, screwdriver, wood glue). You know that people are known to use these tools to construct items similar to the table. And so you take it as a given that the table was constructed, and may go on to think about why it was constructed, how well it was constructed and suchforth.

Now, let us say that you come across a sphere, exactly roughly one inch in diameter. It is a mathematically perfect sphere, so far as any instruments can detect. It is made of a pinkish substance of harness similar to diamond that conducts electricity as well as a super conductor. It behaves as if it has mass but no inertia and is repelled by both poles of a magnet. Is it, you are asked, a constructed artifact or a natural occurrence? Well, it's rather hard to say, isn't it. Certainly, no natural process you know of could have constructed it -- indeed, it seems to defy the laws of nature. And yet, you have no idea how anyone could have constructed it -- that too is to the best of your knowledge impossible. Certainly, God could have created it ex nihilo, but that's merely because according to the very definition of God He could create anything. With any degree of seriousness, all that a scientist could say about it is that he has no idea how it could have come to be, and all that a theologian could say about it is that clearly God must will its existence, since God wills the existence of all things that exist. Science fiction fans everywhere would declare that aliens must have made it.

The difficulty in addressing the question of "design" in living things is that although living things demonstrate several characteristics we often associate with constructed things, we have no idea how one might go about constructing a living organism, or a part of one. The only way that we know of for getting a living creature is: from another living creature.

I think this is why people thinking in a scientific mode tend to react so negatively to discussions of animals or cell structures being "designed". Thinking in terms of construction, the scientist thinks "we have no idea how to construct a bacterial flagellum, so where do these people get off suggesting it was designed?" The scientist may not have a very good idea of how the flagellum developed via evolution, but he does at least know how one bacteria can split into two bacteria, with occasional mutations in the line of descent. So he's willing to take a flyer on it since he has no idea what another form of "design" would look like.

The design theorist is in some senses no better off. He feels that a feature such as the flagellum could not have evolved via "random chance" and yet aside from positing that a designer was involved, he has no idea what the answer to the scientist's construction question is. Perhaps God created the first flagellum equipped bacteria ex nihilo. But then, perhaps the flagellum did indeed result from a series of gradual modifications over time -- and the "design" part is found in the proper working out of an unlikely series of events. What the design proponent is most set on (in most cases, at any rate) is that the development of the flagellum was intended. However, in this conviction he is not necessarily disagreeing with the scientist strictly speaking, since science doesn't have to tool to answer questions about intent anyway.

A picture is worth 100 Easy-to-Read Words

High fashion meets the latest reading at the Darwin household:

Manolo says, And now do you like my hat?

(Thanks to Happy Catholic for sending me to Manolo's Shoe Blog in the first place.)

Why I was not carefree this afternoon

As I was about to send Babs off to dance lessons, I had to pull her out of my friend's van to change a rather runny diaper. Then I kicked back with my book, and very soon was contemplating an afternoon nap. Then I got a call from my friend.

"I'm on my way to bring Babs home. She had another hugely runny diaper, and the only explanation we could think of was that she must be sick!"

No, dear readers, there is another explanation. You see, Babs is clever enough to pull up her chair to the pantry door so she can unlatch the chain. She did it this morning, when I came down to find that she'd scarfed a quantity of prunes. Yes, prunes.

So the prunes will have to be hidden somewhere else, I see. In the meantime, Babs maintains that kind of cheer that's only witnessed in the two-year-old who is pleased as punch by her ability to produce fantastic and grotesque diapers.

I only wish this counted as "toilet humor"...

The Home Visit

My midwife and her assistant came over today for the 36-week home visit. I don't know if you can call it the nesting urge, but I did a fair amount of cleaning and rearranging yesterday in preparation. Heck, I even had Darwin hang some pictures that have been sitting around for months! But my bathroom counter is clean, and the floor is swept, and I hope I won't have to do that again before the baby is born.

The midwife checked out the layout of the house and made sure we'd laid in our supplies. For them as is interested, here's a partial list of stuff you need to have handy for a home birth:

• A bag for baby containing some cloth diapers, an undershirt, some socks, a first outfit, and several receiving blankets.
• A bag with eight towels and twelve washcloths
  
• A sterilized pan for the placenta (bake in a paper bag at 250 degrees for an hour, place the paper bag in a plastic bag, store in a safe dry place)
• A postpartum bag containing the antibiotic eye ointment, rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls, Q-tips, small unopened bottle of olive oil
  
• two fitted bed sheets, a plastic sheet, and two sets of pillow cases. (In early labor you make the bed with one sheet, put the plastic sheet over it, and put the other bed sheet over that. Then after the baby is born you pull off the soiled top sheet and plastic sheet, and voila! The bed's already made.)

Baby's heartbeat is strong, she's wiggly and of a good size (but not too big!) and I'm as healthy as a horse. And I'm about 70% effaced and almost 2 cm dilated, and baby's head is low. This could all go down quickly once it starts -- heh, heh, heh...

But in the meantime, I feel just fine. My mom is scheduled to come out in three weeks to help with the girls and the baby stuff, and as long as my ankles don't swell up, I ought to be able to hold down the fort until then. And I haven't developed any new stretch marks (yet)! And a friend took the girls to dance lessons, so I'm carefree all afternoon! You think I'm going to write a long and witty post for your edification, but what I'm really going to do is make some cocoa and lay down with a book and relax.

TTFN!

Reading Around

Scott Carson, fed up with low-achieving students bitching about him on ratemyprofessor.com, bolsters his self-esteem by testing himself in the areas that really matter.

Pauca Lux ex Oriente explains how the Orthodox observe the Lenten season, and challenges his Western brethren to become more inventive in finding new ways to do good.

MrsDrP agrees with me about the need for improved marriage preparation, and recounts her own horrific Engaged Encounter retreat.

Star Trek Materialism

Mark Shea has an article on Catholic Exchange about materialism and the Star Trek mentality. In the process, he recalls what if memory serves was definately one of the top ten all time bad episodes of STNG.

Needless to say (he says, resuming his fandom personality from ten years back) this is just another example of how Babylon 5 was infinitely superior to any of the incarnations of Star Trek.

And I Nominate...

I'm kind of charmed by the Catholic Blog Awards, so I was itching to nominate someone. Hopefully I'll come up with more later to but to start the day off right I've nominated Scott Carson of An Examined Life for "most insightful blog" (how else could one describe a blog that finds fascinating things to say about McDonalds, the Mitford novels and Frank McCourt all in the same week) and Fr. Martin Fox of Bonfire of the Vanities for "best blog by a priest or religious" (need one say more?).

However, I must say there are some catagories that I think they could add:

Best Eastern Rite Blog: Pauca Lux Ex Oriente (keeper of the Holy Hand Grenade awards)
Best Use of Astronomical Imagery: CatholicSensibility
Best Retired (Aging?) Blog: City of God
Best Conservative Catholic Science Writer: Farrell Media
Most Subversive Fake Blog: Blogging Ex Cathedra
Most Papal Blog: Musum Pontificalis

Special thanks to CollegeCatholic (best by someone who was in kindergarden when I was in junior high?) who nominated us for Most Intellectual Blog -- though I think I'd have a better chance in "most long-winded blog".