…the Cogitorium Twitter Feed

As of November, 2023 the TimsCogitorium Twitter has been deleted. I was hoping Elon Musk would cave to greed and return Twitter to a useful public forum. Instead, he’s apparently willing to lose tons of money in an attempt to create a forum for his own warped world-view. This somewhat completes a full-circle that started in 2019 when most of this blog’s content was pushed to social media. I’m now fully off of social media, so any thoughts I need to share will have to be here.

For historical purposes, the old Twitter feed has been exported and the content is now available within this site.


Conservatives Evolutionists vs Progressive Intelligent Designers

TLS-ColbertSmall “c” conservatives are, by definition, ideologically committed to preventing or slowing the rate of change. The essential premise is that things are better the way they are, or maybe even the way they were, but definitely not the way they are going. Bill O’Reilly asserted the futility of this last night on The Late Show when saying to Stephen Colbert that conservatives believe they are losing the culture war to progressives. In response, Colbert noted that conservatism is always a losing battle because the culture always changes.

In a similar vein, Vox’s Matt Yglesias penned an interesting article about small conservative communities desperate to preserve the status quo. They are often resistant to new industry and new development coming to town for fear of what outside elements might come along with it. He noted the brutal truth that change was going to happen to these towns either way. By resisting the influx of outside influences, they were instead suffering the withering death of attrition as their young people went off to college and never came home.

In both cases, the conservative path is to ultimately have change thrust upon them by outside forces they don’t control and didn’t influence. In this way, conservatives are embracing a sort of cultural evolution. After all, in the natural world, evolution is simply the change induced by random events. It’s not directed. It’s not controlled. It’s not inherently good or bad. It just happens.

In contrast, small “p” progressives not only accept that change will happen, they advocate for it. They try to control and direct it. This doesn’t mean all progressive changes are good, but it at least means they were thought out and intended. They are open for debate, refinement, and improvement. Ironically, this puts progressives in the position of advocating for cultural intelligent design.

Go figure…


…the Cogitorium Facebook Page

As of November, 2021 the TimsCogitorium Facebook page has been deleted. I neither like nor trust the platform, and I will no longer support the irresponsibility with which Facebook has handled curation of their content. I appreciate all the thoughtful interaction over the last decade.

For historical purposes, the old page has been exported and the content is now available within this site.


Einstein’s God was not Yahweh

Einstein on GodThe quote attributed to Einstein, “The more I study science, the more I believe in God,” is getting a lot of play around the interwebs.  I though it might be interesting to look at what he might have meant by the statement.

Einstein is also widely quoted as saying, God does not play dice with the universe.” Together, these quotes are oft cited as evidence of scientists believing in God—usually by fundamentalist Christian groups defending themselves against the encroachment of science on their literal interpretation of their mythology.

First, Einstein was neither a Christian or even a Jew. He was raised as a Jew and was schooled as a Catholic. He had ample education in the Abrahamic religions, but rejected them nonetheless.

Still, Einstein is not properly classified an atheist either.  He rejected the notion of a personal god. Instead, he said, “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”

In other words, he was a Deist, and was in the spiritual company of Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington, Ethan Allen, and Thomas Paine. Deists believe that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is the product of a creator.

So Einstein’s quote is an observation of the mathematical beauty, the order, the ever unfolding revelation of the inner workings of the universe that he perceived. It’s not remotely an affirmation of the bible.

Einstein’s god never intervened in human affairs or suspended the natural laws of the universe, and absolutely did not have a supernatural existence or the capacity for miracles.  This makes Einstein a curious poster boy for Christians in specific, or even theists in general.


Dear GOP, Drill This

Either unregulated free markets work, or they don’t.  Either a thing is the President’s responsibility, or it isn’t.  You can’t have it both ways unless you’re inventing your own reality… Oh yeah, never mind.

US Oil ProductionOkay, maybe we should mind a little… The GOP’s message is that Obama is responsible for high gas prices and he should do something about that.  And that something is to “drill, baby, drill“.  Unfortunately, those damned liberally biased facts stand in stark opposition to the GOP’s message.  As the chart on the right shows, oil production under Obama has risen at a substantial rate, and contrasts markedly with the steady decline of production under George Bush.  In fact, the number of oil rigs in production in the U.S. has reached a 24-year high, according to oil field services company Baker Hughes. In 2005, domestic production was 1.89 billion barrels. This year, experts say, production is expected to surpass 2 billion barrels.

drilling_gas_prices_chartFurther, there’s no correlation between domestic oil production and gas prices.  The chart on the left shows instead that the two numbers seem to roughly track.  If we assume (moronically) that correlation is the same as causation, the obvious policy would be to stop domestic production in an effort to bring prices at the pump down.

Another nail in the coffin of the failure to drill position is the U.S. Energy Information Administration report that the U.S. exported 430,000 more barrels of gasoline than it imported for the month of September. This is an historic change, because we’ve been a net importer of gasoline, mostly from Europe, since the 1960s. We are not domestically constrained on gasoline supply.

Another inconvenient truth is U.S. net petroleum imports have fallen to about 47% of the nation’s consumption, down from a record 60.3% in 2005, Energy Information Administration statistics show. It’s been 15 years since the nation’s reliance on foreign oil has been this low.

So does Obama deserve all the credit for this?  No, absolutely not.  While he’s called for ending the $40B in annual subsidies to big oil, so far the money flows unabated.  While there was a brief moratorium on deep water drilling after the BP oil spill, that was long ago lifted.  Obama subsequently opened up drilling in the Arctic to the howl of environmentalists, and also agreed to open leases for drilling off the eastern seaboard, despite his reputation on the right for shutting down oil exploration.  Obama may not be responsible for the boom in production, but it’s not at all clear how you can claim he’s a hindrance to it.  There might be a claim that he could do more to spur drilling, but there’s no evidence he’s done anything yet to impede drilling.  If anything, his policies lean the other way.

Meanwhile, in reality, the major reasons for increases in domestic oil production lie with recent advances in geologic imaging allowing accurate identification of underground oil deposits, as well as the development of new extraction techniques making previously unprofitable wells productive.

oil -- u.s. oil efficiency improvingThe impact of energy efficiency should also not be underestimated. Not only are our homes, cars, and appliances cleaner and greener, but advances in technology have reduced the need for travel. More of us are telecommuting to work, or using GoToMeeting instead of jumping on a plane.

Hmmm… domestic production is up, domestic use is down, and gas prices are still rising.  That doesn’t sound like the supply & demand model we learned about in school!  But wait, I’ve heard rumors that the US is not the only country on the planet.  Maybe there are other players here influencing the market.

It turns out that growing industrialized counties like China and India are consuming an ever larger portion of the global oil supply.  In aggregate, the global demand is expected to barely keep pace with global production.  So there’s minimal excess capacity in the market, and that helps keep prices high.  Granted, additional production will definitely help this problem.  However, if China and India continue growing at their current rate and eventually consume oil at rates approaching what we do in the U.S., the need will far outstrip the supply of oil on the entire globe.  So long term, most of us have to find an energy alternative to oil anyway.  The only way “Drill, Baby, Drill” solves this problem is if the US becomes entirely oil self-sufficient, and then detaches itself from the global oil markets.  And that flies directly in the face of the GOP position on open, free, and unregulated markets.  Can you imagine the cries when the law is passed that prevents Exxon from exporting?

And speaking of free markets, oil speculators are in no small part responsible for the current price spike.  Almost 70% of the current oil commodities market is driven by speculators.  Why is speculation driving prices up?  Primarily, the speculation that there is an imminent military intervention in Iran that will dramatically impact the delivery of Mid-East oil.  Meaning, the increased saber-rattling toward Iran is helping drive prices up by driving speculation of a coming supply crunch.  Keep in mind that while Obama has offered stern warnings to Iran, the current GOP Presidential contenders (excluding Ron Paul) have all promised to attack Iran if they don’t fall in line to U.S. demands.  Commodities speculation is fairly unregulated, and it seems highly unlikely the GOP would support such financial regulation.  Meanwhile, their militaristic approach to foreign policy exacerbates fears that are driving the free market in the direction they claim to not want it to go.

Mitt Romney is on record saying that rather than bail out the auto industry, the market should just have been allowed to run its natural course.  That’s what’s best for the markets and ultimately best for America. Why then, is it not best for the markets and best for America to let gas hit $5/gallon if that is the natural course of things?  Why should the government intervene on gas prices?

If your mantra is, shut up and take your medicine while the markets sort it out, then shut up and take your medicine.