As If Thinking Matters

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Dr. Wysong's Blog - 11/12/2010 

INTELLIGENCE

When human intelligence is normally discussed, it is common to refer to IQ. But let’s use intelligence to see whether that’s an accurate measure.

IQ tests score on things like vocabulary, remembering who the 16th president of the US was, the ability to put puzzles together, finding a word in the letters CARNEF, and determining the arrival time of trains. A person’s history and education can dramatically affect scores. A good memory can as well.

Idiot savants can have IQ scores off the charts and be able to put libraries of books to memory, but be quite unable to function well in day to day life. This is because the IQ measure is biased toward the notion that intelligence has to do with bytes in our neural hard drive. This, in turn, is based on materialistic bias, i.e., the idea that we are nothing more than an elaborate computer.

But, as Solving The Big Questions As If Thinking Matters proves, we cannot be defined by matter, but are something other. So, if the premise of IQ is wrong, its results, in terms of true intelligence, are as well.

True intelligence has to do with creating a better life and better world. It requires reason and judgment in real life situations. One must be able to critically weigh information with the overriding motive of getting to reality. It means doing the hardest thing of all, setting aside short term self interests and intuitive cognitive biases (a form of “common sense”), and guiding life toward the best possible long term goals. For these rational skills, there is simply no effective test other than the results of experience.

In this regard, all children are unintelligent. They think only in the moment and are preoccupied with whatever will bring them the most pleasure the quickest. Kids don’t have to make meals, buy clothes, clean the house, or pack for a trip. They just get up in the morning and run after fun. They jump in the car expecting all their needs will be cared for when they arrive—they won’t even go potty first before a long trip without reminding. They, like animals, seem to have no concept of future consequences.

Problem is, too many adults never get out of this child-like and animalistic mode. For example, they expect a big daddy government to care for their needs, or big daddy anthropomorphized god (not to be confused with the true creator—see Solving the Big Questions) to forgive them all their failings, while they go about trying to have fun for the day. They are unintelligent because they refuse to grow up by taking responsibility for themselves and the future of the world.

IQ may predict academic and some forms of work success. Society is filled with really smart educated people who can build machines, put men on the moon, and break atoms apart. Yet in the day to day course of things, our world is really quite insane.

Our high IQ technocrats spend billions to develop weaponry that can annihilate all life on the planet and create industry that compromises the very environment upon which our health depends. We idolize foul mouthed, crotch grabbing, drug gobbling, money awashed pop and sport stars, eat ourselves into oblivion, fill our days talking about American Idol, and spend trillions on a medical system that focuses on treating symptoms rather than addressing causes. Government spends beyond its means and prints money to cover the debt. Politicians are voted into office based upon their charisma even if they are so deluded by ideology and ignorant that, by so doing, they would destroy the best benevolent dictator the world has yet to have, the Constitution.

I could go on and on about our high IQ stupidity. And I have. That is what the Thinking Matters books are about in large part.

So what is true intelligence? It is the ability to act today as if tomorrow matters, to see failure as opportunity, to respect and learn from history and experience, to discern reality and live in tune with it (not with how we wish the world to be), to be led by reason and fact (not by unexamined beliefs and faiths), and be open-minded with only one allegiance: the pursuit of truth. I encapsulate this in the SOLVER principles discussed in the two Thinking Matters books: Self responsibility—Open-mindedness—Long view—Virtuous intent—Evidence—Reason.

These principles of intelligence have little to do with IQ, and even less to do with technology, political correctness, group think, and heady philosophies. They have to do with our core being, that part of us that tells us we are more than an amalgam of the Periodic Table, that nudges us to do what is right, that calls us to reason in order to carefully measure what we do in terms of its future impact, and to achieve our only purpose in being, to love.

 Word: amalgam - \ə-'mal-gəm\ (click for pronunciation) noun: a mix or concoction of things put together as a single thing; an alloy of mercury with another metal that is solid or liquid at room temperature according to the proportion of mercury present and is used especially in making tooth cements 

 Thought: The unintelligent are fixated on short cycles, the intelligent have their eyes on the horizon. 

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Dr. Wysong's Blog - 10/15/2010 

COMMUNIST AMERICA 

Who ever thought we'd see the government running multitrillion dollar deficits, taking over health care, bullying, regulating, and taxing productive business out of business, owning banks, creating a permanent dependent underclass, be the number one employer in the country paying beyond private sector scale, destroying entrepreneurial incentive, printing fiat money by the boatload, and politicians treating themselves like royalty on our dime. 

The government racks up debts that will be impossible to repay without printing money, while narrowing the tax base. At least 50% of Americans pay zero federal income tax, and 10% of the population–the demonized productive "wealthy"–are expected to pay the lion's share of everyone's citizen expenses. 

Politicians have no limit to their appetite for programs that convince voters they can have what they dream of: something for nothing. So huge blocks of the public now think they are entitled to live at the expense of their neighbors and future generations. If the money is not in the treasury to pay for the freebies, then, not wanting to further alienate the tax paying voters, politicians simply borrow and print. 

History teaches that this kind of government doesn't work and can't last. For one, the productive "wealthy" will simply leave, stop risk taking, or stop working. They will hide their incomes or only invest where they are protected from taxes. The political response will be bigger and tougher government... as occurs in all communist/socialist societies. 

Following World War II (fought, incidentally, against anti-freedom socialistic tyranny), the paper currency standard was put in place in an attempt to fix problems government created. This allowed governments to run huge deficits and finance their activities through money printing. 

Read the Communist Manifesto. It's basically identical to today's government policies. Any politician who tries to oppose the landslide of modern communist-style entitlements is immediately labeled insensitive, or another catch-all epithet du jour, such as "racist," "sexist," "homophobe," "wealthy," etc., and has been unelectable. 

How soon we forget the blood our brothers shed in wars to fight communism. How we ignore our duty to the Constitution and the sworn oaths our elected leaders make to it. We repudiate the fact that any politician or citizen violating the Constitution and attempting to subvert it with socialism/communism is a traitor who should be either banished (say, to one of their dreamland communist countries like Cuba or North Korea) or punished accordingly. 

In the alternative, since some insist on dividing the country, let's actually put in a border. On one side will be those who wish to adhere to the Constitution and understand equality to mean equal opportunity, not equal results. Government and taxes will be minimal and free enterprise will reign. On the other side will be a big communistic/socialistic style government with huge taxation so that everyone, regardless of their ambition or productivity, will have all their needs taken care of. The government will run all the businesses. Which side of the border do you imagine the power seekers and the free loaders will move to? Which side do you think entrepreneurs, risk takers, job creators, and wealth generators will move to? Which side will end up with the better standard of living and the most security and freedom? 

If you think all Americans should be equal and have the same number of cars and televisions, free health care no matter how they live their lives, paid-for drugs that do more harm than good, Viagra for sex offenders, a bankrupt retirement scheme, guarantees for the banks, union job security and pensions for all, free food (more Americans are now on food stamps than at any time in history), etc., you better get a grip on reality. Such pie-in-the-sky ideas about how we might like the world to work (do the least, get the most), doesn't have anything to do with reality, how the world actually works. How about the common sense of: you get what you earn; you suffer the consequences for your own behavior? 

Right now our economy is a charade. And economy is what social order is all about. When the bubble bursts and it falls apart, the consequences will be devastating. 

Government out of the Communist playbook will get you a Cuba ghetto, a loaf of bread for a wheelbarrow of dollars, loss of freedom, and the iron hand of government like in the Soviet Union, Cambodia, North Korea, pre-capitalist communist China, etc. 

This is the repeated cycle of societies through history:  1. from bondage to courage  2. from courage to enlightenment and liberty  3. from liberty to abundance  4. from abundance to ignorance and complacency  5. from ignorance and complacency to apathy  6. from apathy to dependence (seeking security rather than  freedom)  7. from dependence back into bondage 

We are presently coursing from #6 to #7. But we could begin to reverse it at the coming election. Vote out the communists, the socialists, the career fat cat politicians who demagogue the voters, give themselves raises, obscene vacations, benefits and retirements, impose a form of health care on us they are exempt from, and enact laws they have not even read. 

The degree to which such politicians are out of touch with reality in their communistic euphoria is typified by the leader of the House of Representatives recently saying, and actually believing, that the best way to stimulate the economy is by increasing food stamp distribution and extending unemployment compensation. Put in place of such incompetence–people who do not even understand what creates economic health in a nation–intelligent citizen representatives, people who know and respect the Constitution, preferably those who have actually held private sector jobs, created businesses, and revere the freedoms this country was founded on. 

Vote in the coming election, but only if you know how to measure candidates against the standard that defines America, the Constitution. 

 Word: communist [kom-yuh-nist] 

–noun A system of tight government control in which all labor and productivity is dispersed according to the mandates of those in power. It depends upon the false ideal of people working as hard as they can without regard to reward, and people receiving all their needs without regard for the efforts put forth. 

 Thought: "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." —Thomas Jefferson 

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Dr. Wysong's Blog - 

BE A BODY BUILDER 

In the quest for health and good looks, people spend a lot of time on scales nervously charting body weight. Here’s a better idea. Shed the clothes and look in the mirror. Then be truthful about what you see. 

If you don’t like what you see, do something about it. One of the best ways to remodel the body and stimulate health is body building. I’m not suggesting trying to look like the steroid and hormone fueled Hereford bulls in bodybuilding magazines, but rather fit, strong, and well shaped. 

Body building is best accomplished through weight training. I mean serious training using enough weight to go to failure in about 12 repetitions. You need to do enough sets working the various muscle parts (not necessarily all in one session) to feel a muscle pump. Do the whole routine aggressively enough to be spent in about 20 minutes. Do a routine about three times per week. No, going to the fitness center and lying down on a soft mat to “stretch” will not cut it. 

Whereas aerobic exercise takes a lot of time and can tend to wear out bones and joints, and even decrease muscle size, weight training sculpts the body adding and subtracting where it looks best. Rather than measuring your exercise program with sweat, miles, and hours, you should measure the results by looking in the mirror. Your goal should be a comely shape and strength, not the gaunt and frail look that comes from overly stressing the body with hours of aerobics. 

Seek the look of the sprinter who loads the body to its max for a short time and then rests to recover and build muscle, not the skeletal look of the marathoner who has exhausted all body reserves. 

Now it may seem narcissistic to focus on looks, but health is a lot about looks. Healthy people look trim, but also well shaped. How you look outside is a mirror of how you look inside. Body building tends to make you body conscious as you seek muscle growth. Even some soreness once in a while is good in that it makes you aware of the muscle group you targeted in your last workout. If you spend more time in front of the mirror, even flexing here and there, good. You need to be thinking of your body; if you don’t take good care of it where else will you live? 

None of this will work, however, if you do not eat right too. Get off the carbohydrates (starches and sugars) and emphasize protein, healthy fats, and raw as much as possible. Intelligently designed supplements are very important as well. For a more thorough discussion, see Living Life As If Thinking Matters.

Thinking Thought — "I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead."— Jimmy Buffett

Thinking Word — narcissistic - \nar·cis·sism\ Click for pronunciation -noun: Excessive love or admiration of oneself. A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem

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Dr. Wysong's Blog - 

THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS 

Through the years I have often been criticized for my forays into subjects apart from health. Understandably, people come to me because of my formal education in medicine. They are then surprised, some even affronted, when they get something that seems unrelated to my degrees. 

Let me explain. The primary reason I am no longer in day to day clinical and surgical practice is because I just can’t get very excited about sticking my finger in holes in cracking dams. Attempting to repair health problems after the fact and not addressing fundamental causes is not only uninteresting to me, it seems unethical as well. Yes, repairmen are needed, and it is technically interesting work. But solutions that stop things from breaking in the first place make so much more sense. 

The frustration I have felt with conventional medicine has been paralleled by my dismay with the noisome effects of most human meddling. There is not only heart breaking disease and suffering, but injustice, starvation, abandoned children, war, oppression, animal cruelty, despair, and meaninglessness. But no matter what the problem, remedies always seem to be focused on effects, not causes. If there is starvation, send food. If kids are homeless send money. If there is oppression, send arms. 

I have been troubled by and pondered these things since earliest memory. Over the years I have thrown myself into conventional band aids such as medicine, philanthropy, education, legal redress, industry, religion, and being a compliant citizen. But none of it got at the root cause. 

And when I say cause, I am looking for the deep cause, the starting point from which the problem incubates. Since people’s actions are a manifestation of how they think, it is thinking that must be the root of all good and evil. Sadly, we are superficial, lazy, and pleasure for the moment driven. We want instant gratification, not the hard work of measuring long term consequences, sacrificing, and working now for a better future. 

So long view thinking is the tool we must cultivate and use. There are three important things this thinking must be applied to if we are ever to make a better world:

The first is resolving the question of origins. If we do not know where we came from we cannot know our purpose, nor can we decide if ethics is even important.

Second, we must have health. Without it, not much of anything else matters.

And thirdly, we must have freedom to seek, learn, grow, and live the destiny we decide upon.

These are not separate issues, they are commingled and interdependent. One cannot be resolved without addressing the others. We must first be philosophers. Not the nihilistic or solipsistic kind that gets nowhere. But the kind that uses reason free of bias and lets reality and the facts lead to truths to live by. 

I can’t be a good doctor or a good person without rationally exploring and answering each of the above questions. If I do not know from where health comes, I can neither prevent nor heal. If I do not know from where I come, I cannot know if I have any moral obligation to anything. If I do not know from where freedom comes, I simply expose my underbelly for others to lord it over me. 

For example, the idea that we are nothing more than organic machines that evolved from primordial muck, leads to the materialistic, symptom-based approach of modern (failed) medicine. It also promotes a survival of the fittest mentality among nations. It leads to the prevailing sense of purposelessness, and hopelessness. Religious ideas based on little more than hope and faith can foul things up as well. Likewise, living in a society in which freedoms have been lost, or in which economic blight binds one to struggling for daily existence, jeopardizes health and makes ethics seem superfluous. 

Remarkably, few have set about rationally resolving any of these questions. People just go to church, make their doctor’s appointment, and vote based upon the star power of candidates or their promises of hand outs. People think the realms of health, origins, and politics are where mere “beliefs” and “faith” belong. So rather than these subjects being the continuing center of open thought and important discourse, most people take the attitude that they have a right to their private opinion. Polite conversation is supposed to be about American Idol, who’s going to win the Super Bowl, and the upcoming trip to the mall. 

I disagree. People do not have a right to their opinion. They have a right to pursuing the truth and forming the correct opinion. 

My two books, Living Life As If Thinking Matters, and Solving The Big Questions As If Thinking Matters are my 1400 page attempt to focus on these three most important things and show how rational thinking can be brought to bear on them. The AsIfThinkingMatters.com website does more of the same, as do my newsletters on that site. These venues were created to permit fully exploring the three most important topics using reason and evidence. 

I, and you, have a duty to be probing, open-minded, truth-seeking philosophers, origin of life students, doctors, and political scientists. Until we get it right, there will be no lasting solution, nothing will fall into rational line, and we will continue to be mired in the misery that is the rotten fruit of short sighted, naïve, and wrong thinking.

Thinking Thought — "When people cease to complain, they cease to think." — Napoleon

Thinking Word — noisome - \noi'some\ Click for pronunciation -adjective: Offensive to the point of arousing disgust; foul: a noisome odor.

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Dr. Wysong's Blog - WE ARE A DICTATORSHIP

Society needs laws. They should be fair and just laws that do not unnecessarily infringe upon liberties. Our Founding Fathers knew this and installed a benevolent dictator. That dictator’s first initials are U.S., the last name is Constitution.

A pure democracy (plebiscite) cannot work because the majority of voters cannot be trusted for their intelligence or their concern for much beyond their short term personal benefit. That’s why the “progressive” democracy movement is counter to our long term interests. As a democratic republic we are to use our votes to elect people who will protect the benevolent dictator—The U.S. Constitution. 

The Constitution is a contract with citizens guaranteeing them their liberty—particularly from unnecessary government intrusion. But few have read it, and public schools do not even teach it.

Go to the sites noted here to learn about the Constitution. Use the second site’s section for kids and read the material prepared for grade schoolers, and then work your way up.

National Constitution Center - ratify.constitutioncenter.org

U.S. Constitution Online - usconstitution.net

The Constitution is a legally binding contract between citizens and government. It is the only thing that stands between us and despotism. Read it, understand it, and hold politicians to it. 

Thinking Thought —"Europe is almost certainly a goner. The future, if the West has one, belongs to ("evil") America alone-with maybe its cousins in brave Australia. But America can still survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that ethics, intelligence, and rationality is really the world's last best hope (in other words, if we protect the Constitution). " —Steyn

Thinking Word — Plebiscites- \pleb-uh-sahyt, -sit\ Click for pronunciation -noun: A direct vote of the qualified voters of a state in regard to some important public question. The vote by which the people of a political unit determine autonomy or affiliation with another country. (Also see usage in blog below)

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Thinking Thought —“The formula ‘Two and two makes five’ is not without its attractions.” —Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821–1881)

Thinking Word — Mot Juste- \moh zhoost\ Click for pronunciation -noun: Exactly the right word or expression. (Also see usage in blog below)

Dr. Wysong's Blog - CHOLESTEROL: A LESSON IN SELF DESTRUCTIVE ILLOGIC

What would you call it when someone offers another a piece of candy, warns them that the candy has poison in it that could cause disease or death, and the person takes the candy and gobbles it up? I struggle for the mot juste, but stupid cannot be far from appropriate.

I’ve just finished writing a book entitled, The Cholesterol Myth—Believe It To Your Peril. In essence, the book demonstrates, contrary to popular belief, that cholesterol is not the cause of cardiovascular disease. Moreover, the attempt at its eradication with the use of statin drugs is disastrous. 

Cholesterol is arguably the most important biochemical in the body, since, for one thing, it is the precursor to vitamin D and the rest of our hormones. Hormones regulate everything, including life itself. On the other hand, statins are fraught with dangers—disease inducing and life threatening dangers.

In the book I try to help people understand these facts and demonstrate that natural and safe alternatives can not only prevent cardiovascular disease, but even reverse it. Yes, actually remove the atherosclerotic plaques in arteries!

As an example of a natural therapy, vitamin B3 (niacin) is an effective and safe way to do what statins are supposed to do. By this I am not recommending that cholesterol be toyed with, since, for one thing, long life is associated with high, not low cholesterol numbers. But if you are going to attempt controlling this life giving biochemical, there are better ways than statins to do it.

The Mayo Clinic website—which cholesterol-counting, statin-pushing doctors evidently don’t bother to read—makes this surprising statement: “Niacin is a well-accepted treatment for high cholesterol. Multiple studies show that niacin… has significant benefits on levels of high-density lipoproteins (HDL or “good cholesterol”) and low-density lipoproteins (LDL or “bad cholesterol”), with better results than prescription medications such as “statins,” like atorvastatin (Lipitor®).” 

Now then, back to the stupid thing. Right beside this statement on the Mayo website is an ad for Lipitor, a statin drug replete with dangerous side effects such as increased risk of suicide, liver damage, and heart failure due to interference with the production of the essential biochemical, Coenzyme Q10. In fact, in order to list all the dangers, the ad had to include a scroll feature.

Advertising is so powerful today, people are so gullible and willing to truckle to anything giving the appearance of authority, that an ad for a poison could be placed right beside a scientific study proving the dangers of the poison, and the ad will still pull customers—including doctors. Today, people have become so dulled, so consumption ready, that snake oil purveyors don’t even need to hide the fact that their elixir may not work and very well might kill you.

The media is filled with ads describing the side effects of drugs, and which in the same breath make an appeal to purchase. People by the millions choose the drug rather than heeding the warnings. Then, as a nation, we decide to do the stupid thing en masse by trying to figure out how to have government make such drugs more affordable or free for all! 

Why do people behave so irrationally? Because we insist on chasing dreams, beliefs, faiths, and desires rather than facing the reality that we are ultimately responsible for ourselves—including our own health.

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Thinking Thought —“We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.” —Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890)

Thinking Word — A Priori- \ey pree-awr-ee\ Click for pronunciation -adj: reasoning from a general assumption to a particular instance; assumed valid independently of observation and evidence; assumed to be true prior to investigation. (Also see usage in blog below)

Dr. Wysong's Blog - 9/11—WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE LEARNED

It is so easy to forget terrible events such as 9/11. It’s not that we’re insensitive. Forgetting, or at least removing traumas from present consciousness, is a necessary survival mechanism. Each of us will face many tough and tragic experiences through life. If we were to keep in the front of our minds the acute fear, anger, and sadness from each episode, we would soon be spending our days puddled up on the floor sobbing, afraid to move, heart broken, and quite smelly.

So we must put the past behind. What we need to take with us are the lessons so that we decrease the risk of even more tragedy. The fear, anger, and sadness we felt on 9/11 needed to slowly move from the emotional front part of our minds, into the rational and intellectual recesses that we can draw from to be smarter in the future.

Everyone has their own takeaway from 9/11. Unfortunately, after all the news, commentary, and speculation few understand the true cause. Instead, effects and peripheral issues are the focus. 9/11 was not really caused by poor homeland security, impoverished, uneducated, and abused Muslims, President Bush, oil, inadequate airport security, or American imperialism.

The fundamental cause was BELIEF. Belief is what drove the terrorists to do their horrendous deed. They believed that God was telling them to do what they did. Since their God was the ultimate authority in the universe, and their everlasting life in paradise depended upon them doing His will, what choice did they have? To them, their act was the ultimate morality.

The lesson of 9/11 is that belief drives actions. So if we are to be better people and make a better world, we must be darn sure our beliefs have been carefully crafted using reason and evidence, and then critically examined in the light of new evidence as it emerges. We must commit to the process of truth seeking, not the implementation of given beliefs. That leaves out beliefs we were born into, faiths that were hammered into us by parents, schools, or other authority figures and organizations.

The only God we can ever know is truth. After all, there is a truth underlying our world, our existence, purpose, and destiny. If truth isn’t God, what could be? However, since nobody can claim complete knowledge of that truth (God), our lives must be about openly pursuing it. That can only occur without the prejudice of preexisting faith, and with absolute allegiance to reason, facts, and evidence. It means that at some point in our lives we must wipe the slate clean, use our conscience, reasoning faculties, and the evidence that exists in reality to form our views. This process must precede belief; a priori belief should not be used to twist our reasoning or shoehorn facts.

Seems simple enough, but almost nobody does it. To have even a moment with no belief—to wipe the slate clean—is too terrifying. The brutal honesty required for that moment requires far too much courage. It’s so much safer to remain swaddled in the arms of our surrogate mommies and daddies: our beliefs and faiths. So we myopically plod on with our comfy, safe, and secure beliefs and faiths…and then bemoan the inevitable 9/11s that result.

This process of truth seeking is the basis for the two Thinking Matters books. Use them to find the honesty and courage to wipe the slate clean, and start anew with a mind, heart, and conscience that you truly own. They will help you find answers that can transform your life and the world.

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Thinking Thought —“Don't believe there's plenty of time for everything. There isn't.” —Lillian Hellman—Harvey Mackay

Thinking Word — perquisite- \pur-kwuh-zit\ Click for pronunciation -noun: an incidental payment, benefit, privilege, or advantage over and above regular income, salary, or wages. / Among the president's perquisites were free use of a company car and paid membership in a country club. (Also see usage in blog below.)

Dr. Wysong's Blog - INCREASING MINIMUM WAGE TO FIX UNEMPLOYMENT

There is not a person I talk to who is not feeling the pinch in this economic downturn. Particularly do I hear this from business owners.

What are politicians here in Michigan doing about it? With 15% or so unemployment (almost double that in some cities), they are proposing a new minimum wage of $10/hr. and mandatory medical benefits for part timers. Now there’s a real job creator!

What is wrong with their heads? A forced increase in wages by government can only decrease the desire of businesses to hire. Also, as discussed in Living Life As If Thinking Matters, businesses that jump wages must get the money from somewhere. They get it from increasing the price of their products. Then, when employees go out to buy these products, they cost more and thus there is no net increase in their wage.

But forcing businesses to increase wages is a real vote getter, so we will continue to hear perennial demagoguery about the "fairness" of increasing wages. Smart voters should see through this.

But back to what's wrong with politicians' heads. For those who put forth such policies, they are empty. They are empty because many politicians have no history to fill them properly. For example, those in the government now who are advancing the trillions of dollars of indebtedness have no experience to qualify them to manage such economics. Most have no experience other than publicly supported schooling taught by publicly supported teachers who were taught by other publicly supported teachers. 

They have never had to make it on their own in the business world, contend with government regulation, meet payroll, pay unemployment to employees who were fired for due cause, and live hand to mouth while working sixteen hour days to build a business. Too many politicians have no perception beyond "public support," entitlements, and perquisites. They do not seem to realize what feeds "public support," namely business. 

Politicians who are now masterminding the largest and most complex economic system in the world have never so much as run a Kool Aid stand. Experientially they are idealistic kids in grown-up bodies, pandering for votes, and given far more power than they deserve. 

A prerequisite for government office should be a minimum of ten years running a business created from nothing.

What a different, more realistic, and better country this would be.

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Thinking Thought —“Each man is the architect of his own fate.” —Appius Claudius Caecus (340–273 B.C.)

Thinking Word — Xenophobia- \zen-uh-foh-bee-uh\ Click for pronunciation -noun: an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange. (Also see usage in blog below)

Dr. Wysong's Blog - RACISM AND OTHER ISMS ON THE BEACH

One of my favorite sports is 2 X 2 beach volleyball. The only problem is, in beach volleyball you only get to hold the court if you and your partner win. Since it is not unusual for there to be pro players on the courts, they can monopolize the play, meaning I get a lot of sit time.

Waiting for my turn, I usually stroll down the beach and enjoy the water, sand underfoot, wonderful weather, birds and creatures, and the interesting throngs of people.

Recently, it struck me gazing over the crowd, how heterogeneous it all was. We hear a continual drone in the media about racism and sexism and are led to believe preferences are immoral and must be eliminated. But here on the beach, where everyone was able to freely interact as they chose, there was rampant xenophobia—and there were no protests and riots. Everyone seemed quite content being with whom they preferred as they lollygagged around in the sun.

There was toddlerism, teenagerism, girlism, boyism, seniorism, familyism, churchgroupism, whiteism, blackism, mexicanism, orientalism, and volleyballplayerism. Looking overhead I saw duckism, and seagullism. In the water there was minnowism, crabism, and seaweedism.

Yea gads, there was political incorrectness everywhere. Nature didn’t even have it right. When you think on it, preferences abound elsewhere too, in neighborhoods, clubs, organizations, economic class, marriage, schools, and race-devoted television and radio channels. In the recent election, curiously heralded as a victory against racism, 90+% of blacks voted for the black candidate. In prisons, blacks, whites, and Mexicans strictly segregate, by their choice, and even kill one another when the divisions are not respected.

My beach mirrored what we see everywhere in society and nature. Things like to associate with their own kind. Clearly, rights groups, media commentators, and politicians have it wrong. Separating off into groups most like what we are is the natural order of things. Can we hope to change that reality by removing words from language or by legislation? Hardly.

Besides, isms are not really a problem so long as they do not unjustly interfere with a person’s right to explore their talents and be treated fairly. But that cannot include forcing a Chinese speaking restaurant to hire an English speaking Caucasian, or professional basketball and hockey teams to play a ratio of black to white players in accordance with the ratio in the general population, about 1:5.

The freedom to explore one’s talent, a thing guaranteed by the Constitution, has been confused with equality of results. This communistic notion that everyone should have equal station in life, lies at the root of the present financial pandemonium in government and the health care debate. If socialized health care succeeds (because everyone has a “right” to someone else paying for their healthcare), next everyone will be guaranteed a certain standard of food, housing, clothing, and entertainment money. All of this will continue until the money runs out or the payers stop paying. Then revolution. Such is the fate of those who will not learn from history.

The fact of the matter is there is no equality anywhere in nature or society. There never was and never will be. Results will always be different because creatures and people are different. Any attempt to force equal results on society will doom that society because such effort denies reality.

Nevertheless, political correctness, race sensitivity, and victim-mania have reached absurd heights in our society. For example, Henry Gates, a black man who is a Harvard professor and vacations in exclusive Martha’s Vineyard, was arrested for disturbing the peace by a policeman who teaches officers not to racially profile. Gates cried racism—and had sympathizers across the country—in a country laced with black politicians and policemen, in a state with a black governor, and in a country with a black president! 

Those who continue to claim racism in a free society are the true racists. Leading a group to believe they are victims only assures feelings of dependency and smothers human initiative and self-responsibility.

When my turn came on the volleyball court I had to face losing to professional volleyball players. I could have protested the unfairness of their height, their skill, or that I lost. I could have, but I would have been laughed off the beach. That would not have been politically correct of them, but it’s a reality I needed to face nonetheless.

Reality is about doing the best with the cards we have. We will win some and lose some. Be thankful for the freedom that permits that. It is what drives us to improve ourselves.

Being “equal” by winning all the time and having all our needs met regardless of our efforts—or lack thereof—would be the most boring of all lives. An interesting and worthwhile life is about challenge, change, and, most importantly, maintaining the freedom that permits us to be unequal. 

(Read more about the absurdity of political correctness and the futility of attempting to change reality with our ideals in, Living Life As If Thinking Matters.) 

[asifthinkingmatters-blog]

Thinking Thought —"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it." —Andre Gidé

Thinking Word — concatenation- \kon-kat-n-ey-shuh-n\ Click for pronunciation -noun: a series of interconnected or interdependent things or events; something linked together in a series or chain. (Also see usage in blog below)

Dr. Wysong's Blog - HOLY BOOKS AND PI COUNTING

Some people spend their entire lives attempting to decipher holy books. If the Creator of the universe did indeed write such a book, it would be worthy of our utmost attention. But most people hold this belief merely because it is what they were told, not because they have proven it to themselves. For some, the only proof necessary is that the book itself claims to be the word of God.

Some, however, do search for such proofs. One purported proof is prophecy. But that is not an easy task, nor does it consist of self-evident facts. In the case of the Bible, one must be skilled in the quiddities of not only English, but ancient Aramaic and Hebrew (the original languages used in writing the texts) plus have the ability to discern which translation, of the dozens available, to use. It is also necessary to have the wherewithal to know which books are to be included in the Bible, since there are many that have been left out, and many that are included make no claim to even being inspired.

Nevertheless, hundreds of prophecies have been extracted from the Bible and other holy books using a concatenation of symbols, types and antitypes, historical references, and exegetical subtleties. Many such prophecies have forecasted an end of the world. Many of those ends have come and gone. Those that lie yet in the future have a profound impact on the lives of millions of people.

Some see prophecies as proof of God and of the veracity of a holy book by which they attempt to guide their life. Others spend their lives proselytizing, go to war, or perform terrorism in an attempt to convert the world to their beliefs. They do this to garner God's favor and in order to be on the right side when the prophesied end comes (arguably a rather self serving "ethic"). How we think, what we believe, and who we are following other than our own consciences, has a lot to do with the misery we visit on planet Earth.

In Solving The Big Questions As If Thinking Matters a complete analysis of religion, holy books, and ends of the world is given using something that is rarely implemented in this matter: reason, evidence, and open mindedness. I will not attempt to repeat all that here, but do want to make the point about how people should not be so sure about things they have never really proven nor have direct evidence for, and then let their conclusions guide their lives. 

If you have been following along in these blogs, you know I think there is plenty of evidence–scientific, empirical, rational–for an intelligent cause to the universe. The proofs are there in plain site. No holy book is necessary to tell us there is something much greater than matter and natural law at play in the universe. Nor is one necessary to tell us what we can glean from honestly listening to our own consciences.

Furthermore, every feat (miracle) that supposedly proves a holy book to be written by God is a feat humans have been proven to be capable of. As documented in Solving The Big Questions, this includes mind reading, out of body travel, clairvoyance (prophecy), materializations, healings, and the like. In other words, if one rests the case of proving God wrote a particular book on such events, then people today who perform such feats could be considered God too.

Let me give an example. You remember from geometry how the number pi is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. It is 3.1415... Note the ellipsis (...), meaning the number does not end with 5. It goes on forever. Setting aside the interesting question of how a circle that is definite can be defined by a number that is indefinite, how many numbers could you remember for pi? Certainly 10, like in a phone number. But how about 20, 50, 100? Stretching it, right? How about 22,514 numbers for pi? Impossible it would seem. Some could conclude that a person capable of such a feat was like God. What they wrote would be "inspired."

In the video below, Daniel Tammet is shown reciting pi out to this number, taking five hours and nine minutes to do so. That’s a real time, real life "miracle" you can see right in the here and now. No need for an archeologist or ancient language scholar to parse words written thousands of years ago.

Many such extraordinary abilities of humans are detailed in The The Big Questions. Understanding that spectacular events are not restricted to holy books, but are occurring right now all over the world, broadens our mind and makes us less anxious to attribute to God that which is human and set out on a jihad, crusade, or get feeling too smug about our own holiness because we think we have gained some esoteric holy book understanding.

The world set before us is not only more fantastic than we imagine, it is more fantastic than we even can imagine. Keeping our minds open is the means by which we can edge closer to the answers to the big questions. This is the only means we have to get near to truth and reality, and truth and reality is the only real God there can be. 

[asifthinkingmatters-blog]

Thinking Thought —"Each man is the architect of his own fate. " — Appius Claudius Caecus (340–273 B.C.)

Thinking Word — hoary- \HOR-ee\ Click for pronunciation -adjective: White or gray with age; as, "hoary hairs." Ancient; extremely old; remote in time past.--/written by hoary chaps casting rheumy glances back towards their golden youth/ had Mozart lived to the hoary old age of 73/ the hoary willows

Dr. Wysong's Blog - GM BANKRUPTCY

One of the largest companies the world has ever known has gone bankrupt. Over the last five years, its stock was selling near the fifty dollar range at times; for a few weeks it stayed near a dollar before being de-listed last week. How could this happen?

Everyone has their opinion, so here’s mine.

When companies get to a certain size, when the sheer numbers in the workforce attenuate any clear message or purpose, when the bloat makes it very difficult to track accountability, when they go public and are answerable to stockholders looking only for profit, they lose the core beliefs that inspired the company in the first place. It becomes a race for dollars for this quarter and “how much can I get,” not regard for the long term consequences of actions. 

Unions and management have been setting their wages and benefits based upon what they would like, or think they should have, rather than on the reality of the market and the company’s profitability. Notice how companies operating in the red and on debt just continue to pay out big wages, salaries and the now-infamous bonuses. This is unconscionable and immoral.

Actually it is theft. One does not get to have what they do not earn. One does not get to borrow from others, promise to pay them back, take a salary and benefits that are not justified by the earnings of the company, and then leave those who loaned the money in good faith holding the bag (bankruptcy).

Government has been a big player in this debacle. It imposes onerous regulations, permits unfair competition from other countries, fosters unions when they are not necessary, and forces the payment of unemployment to employees who deserve to be fired. Perhaps most destructive is the movement toward socialism and its encouragement of the idea that everyone deserves a certain standard of living and that we all should have equal results regardless of our efforts, risk taking, ingenuity...or lack thereof.

All of our economic problems spring from ignoring reality and attempting to operate society and business as we believe it should be, not as life actually is. It may take a total collapse of our economy—as present actions by government are indeed facilitating—to force us back to the most basic economic principle of all: YOU GET WHAT YOU EARN. (See Living Life As If Thinking Matters for rational thinking about money, business, and politics)

The following videos demonstrate what work and ingenuity can do. These people are not playing victims, they are not waiting for others to solve their problems, they are not whining that their lot in life is not equal to somebody else’s. If companies and government would operate using these principles, there would be no economic disasters.

[asifthinkingmatters-blog]

Thinking Thought —"A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline."—Harvey Mackay

"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life." —Charles Darwin (1809–1882)

Thinking Word — circumlocution- \sir-kuhm-loh-KYOO-shuhn\ Click for pronunciation -noun: The use of many words to express an idea that might be expressed by few; indirect or roundabout language.--/In a delightful circumlocution, the Fed chairman said that "investors are probably revisiting expectations of domestic earnings growth." / Courtesies and circumlocutions are out of place when the morals, health, and lives of thousands are at stake./ The man's speech contained so much circumlocution that I was unsure of the point he was trying to make.

Dr. Wysong's Blog - TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES 

If we think things are ever going to return to the way they were, we are probably wrong. Washington is miring the country in so much red ink that we are now headed the way of the banking and corporate institutions they are bailing out. Don’t wait for manufacturing to return to our shores. Why is a CEO going to pay a union worker here $30 an hour to make a widget when he can get someone elsewhere in the world to make it for $1 an hour? Also, why conduct business here when success is demonized and the only solution government can think of for their economic woes and to prop up their dependent voter base is to tax the successful?

We need to be alert to the socialistic shenanigans on the move and how they will eventually destroy liberty. But in the meantime, we need to tighten our belts and redefine our needs. Here are some ideas on how to live with less and still have a happy and fulfilled life. 

Make being frugal a challenge that you can take pride in and enjoy succeeding with.

Redefine success and being rich. Having your family’s basic needs cared for – if you are doing it and not depending on others to do it for you – is wealth.

Make recreation something other than shopping.

Consolidate trips in the car. If you make one trip rather than two, you just doubled your gas mileage, one instead of three, you just tripled it. This also decreases the wear and tear and the need for repair.

Borrow (and return), rent, and share, rather than buy.

No credit cards, unless you are paying the bills before interest is added.

Stay healthy. Exercise, sun, natural food, and loving relationships. The cost of illness can bankrupt you. This is not a place to skimp.

Reuse and repair. Learn how to sew and how to use tools. Keep a neat junk pile for parts you can improvise with.

Learn how to prepare healthy meals at home.

Redefine success. It is not easy street and lots of stuff filling the garage. It is creative work you can be proud of and taking care of yourself.

Buy what you need, not what you want. Take a good look at your closets before running to the mall.

Don’t pay retail. With some ingenuity, particularly with the Internet, you should never have to.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Compost, grow a garden, can or sell your extra crops.

Figure out how to get off the grid—or as close to that as possible. You can even make your own solar panels and windmills.

Go to garage sales and have garage sales.

Give to others without spending. Give of yourself.

Don’t waste money on education that does not prepare you (or the kids) for a specific job. Classes from teachers who have no real world record of success, in topics like geography, business, biology, communications, liberal arts…or something like ebonics and multicultural studies squanders money and is pretty much worthless in the job market.

Get a second job. Do what you have to and forget “pride.”

Make yourself indispensable to your employer. Don’t stop looking for work once you land a job.

Help your employer make the company successful and solvent—work is not just about what you can get. That mentality is what is ruining American business and this country.

Enjoy what you have. Smell the daisies. Be content and forget the pop culture mania.

Grow your mind. Be a part of society’s solution, not its problem. Lots more ideas on how to do this in Living Life As If Thinking Matters.

[asifthinkingmatters-blog]

Thinking Thought —"People who like this sort of thing will find this is the sort of thing they like." — Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

Thinking Word — panache- \puh-NASH\ Click for pronunciation -noun: Dash or flamboyance in manner or style. A plume or bunch of feathers, esp. such a bunch worn on the helmet; any military plume, or ornamental group of feathers.--/ If you are going to do musicals, you must engage directors who know how to bring panache and sparkle to the production./ Brian put his panache on his marching band helmet./ Despite tripping on the way down the stairs, the contestant continued her walk with great panache.

Dr. Wysong's Blog - FLOWERS BEDEVIL EVOLUTIONISTS

There are about 300,000 species of flowering angiosperms today. They fill our world with wonder, color, and scent. Their roots, fruits, and seeds feed us, clothe us, and shelter us, and their biomass provides fuel. Their takeover of planet Earth occurred (it is speculated, since all dating methods into prehistory are speculation) about 100 million years ago. There are no transitions to flowers in the geological record, they just suddenly appear and in perfusion. Researchers have a bounty of analytical tools such as synchrotron radiation, fossils, biochemistry, genomic data, and so on, but they have not a clue how these plant creatures evolved.

Sometime look at a flower, I mean really look at it. Note the intricacy and exquisite beauty, symmetry, and detail. Look closer at the tender elements and think about how so many elements that lend to beauty and have nothing to do with survival could have come to be. Evolutionists believe it is all the result of atoms mixing together over a long enough time. We, in the meantime, are supposed to forget that such a thing has never been seen to occur, and that not one scientist anywhere can explain with detail how even a tiny pixel of even one microscopic cell in the flower could come together piecemeal over eons by chance.

Nevertheless, since evolution is a religion based upon faith, none of that matters. In a recent article in Science (April 3, 2009:28) about the flowering plant conundrum, note these quotes from the article: The appearance of flowering plants occurred “in a blink of geological time.” Darwin could not fathom how it happened and had “an abhorrence that evolution could be both rapid and potentially even saltational.” With all the modern minds and tools, scientists are coming up with ideas that “might explain the amazing success of this fast-evolving group.” The mystery remains “the nature and identity of the angiosperm ancestor itself.” They appear “with a bang, with no obvious series of intermediates…” “It doesn’t appear we can locate a close relative of the flowering plants.” 

In other words, after hundreds of years working on the problem, nobody can explain any better than Darwin could over a century ago. Nevertheless, after enumerating all such problems and the paucity of data and proof, the article ends by quoting a leading evolutionary researcher: “I believe a solution to the problem is within reach…the mystery is solvable.”

And that, it is proclaimed, is the sobering science of evolution.

[asifthinkingmatters-blog]

Thinking Thought —"One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young." — Unknown

Thinking Word — evanescent- \ev-uh-NES-unt\ Click for pronunciation -adjective: Liable to vanish or pass away like vapor; fleeting. --/the evanescent thought of a moment/ the evanescence of the morning mist/ It is asked how any wisdom can be so evanescent.

Dr. Wysong blog - BEING OLD

On a trip down south, I noted so many elderly folks. Cold is a stress that becomes harder to tolerate as we get older. So people like to go where they are more comfortable. The warmth, oxygen carried off the ocean, and increased vitamin D from the sun all make a person healthier and just plain feel better. I have about double the energy when I go down south.

But the benefits of heat and sun are not my point here. As I walked among so many in the twilight of their years, some scarred, most suffering some ailment, I thought about how common it is to ignore the elderly. We tend to forget that they are people too, people with the same feelings as those of us younger.

They deserve more. Inside those wrinkles, underneath their slow and unsteady gait is still the person they were when playing hop scotch on the playground. 

Think about the you that is inside. Reflect on the fact that that you has not really changed from earliest memory. Yes, we gain some knowledge and experiences, but those are like wrappings. Our core selves remain the same and will remain such no matter how long we live. This is one of the strong arguments that we are (that is to say, the self-aware I is) something other than mortal and as such not subject to mortal death. (See my book, Solving The Big Questions As If Thinking Matters, to see such proofs developed much more completely.)

So don’t assume that the apparently stolid elderly person that you pass on the street is, inside, waning and infirm like their bodies may be. They deserve awe for hanging in there during a life, not disregard. Inside they carry the memories of youth and vitality that they cannot regain. They remember falling in love, having and raising children, school friends, a life of work, painful illnesses, wars, and losing those they love.

The elderly are all winners. They have run the course and, with somewhat exhausted capabilities and various inevitable infirmities, are trying to make the most of the remainder. Through their sweat and tribulations they have created the world we now all enjoy.

Pay attention to them and extend them respect, kindness, consideration for their limitations and contributions to the world, and for the real person they are inside.

Treating others as we would be treated is especially true with regard to the elderly. Every one of us will be in their shoes one day. Pay attention to them. Extend a helping hand. Visit them. Treat them with respect. Introduce yourself. Engage them. Look them in the eyes, smile like you mean it, and greet them like they are as valid as they are, real people who need love like we all do. 

[asifthinkingmatters-blog]

Thinking Thought —"The fact that an opinion has been widely held doesn't mean that it's not utterly absurd." —Bertrand Russell

Thinking Word — enervate- \EN-ur-vayt\ Click for pronunciation -transitive verb: To deprive of vigor, force, or strength; to render feeble; to weaken. To reduce the moral or mental vigor of.--/ Prolonged exposure to the sun and dehydration enervated the shipwrecked crew./ The sickness enervates its victims until they can no longer get out of bed./ The long day outside in the hot weather enervated the workers.

Dr. Wysong blog - IS EVOLUTION REALLY A FACT?

The following article was sent to a science journal.

I am not a religionist. Now then, with that straw man set aside, I have a gripe with The Scientist—and most other science journals, as well as lay publications that follow their lead. Repeatedly woven into the thread of articles, editorials, and letters is reference to evolution as if it were a fact. If that declaration is not made outright, it is sure intimated with attitude and allusions.

For example, September 2008, p. 14: “Evolution has been well-documented…” In your January 2009 issue, with Darwin’s picture gracing the cover, an author (p. 26) charitably states, “And 127 years after his death researchers are still grappling with some details of the theory of evolution.” As if to say the evolutionary house is in order, except for some dust on the blinds.

Since those making such assertions are scientists taking pride in their objectivity and evidence-based reasoning, and if evolution is something more than a word de jure, let me pose to your writers these obvious questions about the so-called remaining “details”:

1. Where is the proof that life did, in fact, arise from inorganic matter? Life, I say, not a dead amino acid or microsphere that tendentious extrapolations are made from. Something that defeats the Law of Biogenesis (life can only spring from preexisting life) would be a nice “detail,” if evolution is to pass the red face test.

2. Where is the proof that single cells, in overview, transmutated to humans? No extrapolations here either, please. A change in finch beaks and antibiotic resistance in bacteria do not prove humans came from a primordial volcanic belch, any more than an athlete’s success in training to jump higher proves he will one day jump over the moon. Variation is to evolution as a firefly is to a lightning bolt.

I will grant that there is change, and that evolution means change. That’s even in the dictionary. But biological change within bounds (the only change we have ever observed, and science is, after all, observation) does not prove abiogenesis, or that humans evolved from imagined spontaneously generated cells. Rather than abusing lexicography by conflating dictionary evolution (mundane progressive change, like we might see in industry or education) with biological macroevolution, let’s see direct facts and evidence for the big stuff. For example, show the mechanisms and chemical pathways that change inorganic elements to life, no organs to new organs, and cause intrabreeding species to form new, morphologically unique populations that cannot breed back with their progenitors. Is that not the crux of the proof needed for materialism and its favorite daughter, evolution?

Such proof should be everywhere if evolution is true. Instead, the so-called evidence for evolution is equivalent to the evidence one could use to prove humans can jump over the moon. People can learn to jump higher to a degree, that can be scientifically verified. Resistance exercises, plyometrics, fast twitch training and the like can increase vertical jump to a degree. The remaining “detail,” the moon jump, remains elusive. But is it not essential to the proof?

Similarly, organic chemicals can form spontaneously to a degree, and creatures can be shown to vary and adapt to a degree. The remaining “details” of spontaneous generation, and species transmutating from one to another, is elusive. Is this data not, like the moon jump, also essential to the proof?

If evolution is to be spoken in the same breath as fact, let’s see a progressive biochemical schematic demonstrating the origin of a self-replicating cell, an organelle...or even one of the more than 6000 enzymes thus far discovered. Each step within the biopoietic soup must stand on its own, be compatible with the imagined solvent, be sufficient to exist, but insufficient enough for selection to force more and more complex revisions. Or how about a biochemical schematic of how an organ, any organ, can arise when there was not one to begin with. Further, demonstrate how an existing creature is sufficient to exist and at the same time insufficient enough to force dramatic species-jumping revisions. Provide the biochemistry for the steps creating the trillions of chemical parts and pieces, not just purblind apologetics that sound like fairy tales: “Ponds were drying up so fish evolved legs.” Or, “Lizards were falling off cliffs reaching for food, so they evolved wings.” Scientists should not be yarn spinners.

Variation that merely reveals the potential within an existing genome does not count. Neither do faith-based assertions about how you believe atom to man evolution is true. What is needed to remove the fog is the chemistry for the continuum from star dust to humans under the power of natural law. Before that, perhaps you could point me to a cogent explanation for how natural laws evolved.

Why, for some strange reason, does evolution demand a spontaneous decrease in entropy and increase in information that repudiates its supposed natural law benefactors; why, on the same piece of geography under the same selective pressures, to this day, is there outrageous (from an evolutionary perspective) diversity, such as fish, clams, humans, birds, insects, worms, trees, molds, bacteria, and viruses; why can there be found no detail and direct evidence for how the same mechanism, operating in the same environmental context, creates such vastly different results; and why do freely breeding species always revert to the wild type, not new innovative forms…and so on? 

Moreover, how, if evolution is an exacting and winnowing force, can the supposed relatives of the ancestors of every creature that exist today still exist side by side with their evolved progeny? We supposedly came from one-celled organisms, etc., but one-celled organisms, etc., still exist side by side with us. Creatures exist today (living fossils) that look identical to fossils hundreds of millions of years old.  

Strangely, of the tens of thousands of articles and books about evolution, not one answers such essential questions! Yet evolution is a fact?

A neat evolutionary continuum can only be devised by being carefully selective of the evidence and ignoring the endless oxymorons and conundrums. For example, how does one fit the following into the simple to complex schemata: humans have about 25,000 nuclear genes and some 50-100 trillion cells; a threadworm has about the same number of genes but only 959 cells? Selling evolution to explain such absurdity reminds me of, “It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries, removes warts and is a floor polish.”

If the headwind of natural law, logic, and science matter, evolutionists should be overwhelmed with a crisis of conscience, not hubris.

Genetics shows no inclination toward, nor does it foster the dramatic revisions necessary to spur macroevolution. To the contrary, biology goes to great lengths to preserve the status quo, such as with DNA repair mechanisms. Genetics merely reshuffles cards in obedience to natural laws, it does not turn them into a slot machine. Reality is not liberal, it does not behave as we might like it to. It is radically conservative, imposing absolute laws and exacting a heavy price for disobedience.

Even if intelligent humans in their laboratories are permitted to intercede as nature surrogates (as they have for hundreds of years) and attempt to create factitious life from inorganic elements, or hatch new functional organs, nothing happens. Even if it did, it wouldn’t be a fair test. Using intelligence to prove there was no intelligence is not very intelligent.

You say I am being naïve because these matters are too complex and took eons of time to accomplish. You have faith that the proof is forthcoming, because, since life is here, life must have evolved. Giving you comfort with this blissful addiction to a belief is your assumption that there is but one other alternative, religion. Since you believe the anthropomorphized grey beard in the sky option is invalid by reductio ad absurdum, evolution must be true. Such nimble use of logic is not science.

Provide the proofs and evidence or stop referencing evolution in your article titles, sequaciously seeding it in text as if it lends to erudition, and pretending that science would collapse if it weren’t for Darwin. In fact, although his hypothesis that is now propagandized worldwide as fact and dogs thought on origins, it has not yielded one salutary discovery. Not one! The depressing amorality it spawns, however, does justify about any action and makes a mockery of ethics. (I am not saying evolutionists are amoral, just that they should be if they are intellectually honest.)

If your writers were to substitute the correct descriptive words, “change” or “variation,” every time they felt the uncontrollable urge to pay homage to evolution and chant its ohm, not one bit of value in any article would be lost.

If you can’t provide actual proof for stardust to man evolution, don’t assume (have faith) that it is merely due to insufficient research. Also, don’t panic that evolution’s defeat means you must concede an ecclesiastical victory and start genuflecting. The better inference is that the materialistic/reductionistic paradigm is wrong. There are options other than religion or evolution. These other options are where reality (true science) resides, in all of its rationally perceived and unperceivable dimensions.

[asifthinkingmatters-blog]

Thinking Thought — "Europe, is almost certainly a goner. The future, if the West has one, belongs to ('evil') America alone-with maybe its cousins in brave Australia. But America can still survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that ethics, intelligence, and rationality is really the world's last best hope. " —M. Steyn 

Thinking Word — dissolute- Click for pronunciation -adjective: Loose in morals and conduct; marked by indulgence in sensual pleasures or vices.--/ Of course we have problems at once because sinful lives can mean dissolute lives and holy lives can incorporate healthy lives./ In my opinion, Jack is seduced into extravagance and hoodwinked into spendthrift and dissolute habits./ The latter had been driven insane by the combined forces of a dissolute lifestyle and tropical diseases.

Dr. Wysong blog 

It is hard not to wonder what has brought our country to the state it is now in. Trillions are being thrown around like pin money. A trillion. That’s a thousand billion! That’s like trying to comprehend infinity to those of us searching for a gas pump charging a couple pennies less. 

At the least, with all this spending and borrowing by government, inflation is bound to occur. “The first panacea for a mismanaged nation,” said Ernest Hemingway, “is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.” 

Inflation is theft. By eroding the value of a currency, inflation punishes savers and creditors (what they have saved is now worth less), and rewards debtors (what they owe becomes less in proportion to the amount the dollar is devalued). And what nation has become the biggest debtor of them all? The United States of America. Such economic irresponsibility by government, tends to justify the same behavior in its citizens. 

Insidiously, inflation consumes the value of cash, savings, municipal bonds, corporate bonds, Treasury bonds and T-bills. Friends who lent America money, who bought our debt in good faith, are robbed and made fools of by believing in the value of the dollar. Speculators who bet against America by shorting the dollar in the currency markets are vastly rewarded. 

Let me continue to rant about the mess we are in. About half the country (or thereabouts) pays no taxes for the privileges and security this country gives them. How did that happen? American citizens are members of a club. We all get benefits from the club, so we all should be paying (reasonable) dues. 

After swimming in the swamp called public education, 35% or our citizens cannot calculate a 10% discount even with a calculator. How did that happen? What is even scarier is that these are the people “get out the vote” campaigns find. (As mentioned in Living Life As If Thinking Matters, if we don’t institute a mandatory voter literacy test, requiring a basic understanding of the Constitution, our republic is doomed.) 

There seem to be no guiding social or political principles. Getting the most for the least seems to be about the only “ethic” the public, politicians, and CEOs have. People can now sue for almost anything and hope to hit the jackpot. As a result, insanity lurks everywhere. A label on a baby stroller reads, “Remove baby before folding.” A three inch fishing lure with two treble hooks has this printed on the package: “Harmful if swallowed.” Playground equipment is being removed from grade schools so kids will face no danger. Safety guidelines for this equipment has grown from 13 pages in 1981, to 81 pages in 2006. Competitive games are banned so children don’t have to experience losing. 

Such nonsense, and our current economic woes, are spawned from two things. One is laziness. We refuse to take responsibility for our own lives. Secondly, we refuse to face the difference between ideals and reality. Ideally we would all just get along. Ideally (it would seem) everyone in the world should make the same amount of money and own a nice home. Ideally there should be no borders, nobody should ever experience pain, never lose at anything, and have no unfulfilled needs. 

What is most silly is that people think this utopian ideal can be encouraged with mere politically correct words. For example, we try to solve an immigration problem by calling illegal immigrants undocumented workers. What’s next? Drug dealers become unlicensed pharmacists? Will such words solve the immigration or drug problems? 

Ideals that cannot, and arguably should not be achieved, are not reality. And reality is what we must face or we pay dire consequences. We cannot remove all danger from the human experience nor make everyone equal. If the world were perfectly safe, if there were no headwinds or risks, if there were no winners and losers, think about what a boring existence it would be, lying around eating Cheetos off our chests and producing methane. 

We are here to exploit our talents, to overcome hardships, and to build character. Life’s difficulties and the freedom afforded by a republic make this possible. Being able to fully exploit our talents (amazingly demonstrated in videos below and elsewhere on the site), and reap the rewards thereof, is what being human is all about. 

The current trend toward socialism denies reality by attempting to construct a nanny state. It is to be funded by theft from the productive. It leads by exhortation, not example. Such a system has no hope of fulfilling our human needs. Jackson Browne aptly wrote, “Oh, people, look among you; it’s there your hope must lie.” 

One last point on this socialism thing—that may seem harsh at first glance. America is a benevolent dictatorship. The dictator is the Constitution. New citizens must swear an oath to our benevolent dictator. Each of us citizens has an implied oath. Politicians must swear an oath. The Constitution is the antithesis of socialism. So when Americans support socialism they are being traitors. When politicians take the oath to the Constitution and then promote socialism, they are committing perjury as well as being traitors. John Adams said, “Our Constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” 

When a country is filled with citizens and leaders who are traitors, when the morality of devotion to the ideal of liberty and personal responsibility is repudiated and flouted, how can a free country stand? 

It can, but only if we the people awake. We are better than this. Our forefathers risked all to sail across oceans to come to a place of liberty. Think about what they endured on sailing vessels for months to find liberty in the New World. Many of us and our parents also fought, were maimed in, and died in wars to secure this freedom. Now we are voting it all away?

[asifthinkingmatters-blog]

Thinking Thought — Surely God would not have created such a being as man. . . to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality. – Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 

Thinking Word — vituperate- Click for pronunciation -adjective: To find fault with; to scold; to overwhelm with wordy abuse; to censure severely or abusively; to rate.--/ The author was vituperated by many critics in the media for lifting material from other sources without properly attributing them./ I used to like rap music, but lately the blatant vituperation has really begun to irk me./ No matter how many people would vituperate him, he remained happy and calm.

Dr. Wysong blog 

The idea that humans are immortal has been with us since the beginning of recorded history. With the rise of science and technology, and the increasing secularization of the world, the idea has become less fashionable. After all, if materialism and evolution are correct in arguing that we are nothing more than moving mounds of atoms, then we are no more special than any other conglomeration of chemicals. Rocks eventually turn to dust, therefore so must we--or so the reasoning goes. 

But, as I spend some 700 scientifically referenced pages proving in Solving The Big Questions As If Thinking Matters, both materialism and evolution are clearly wrong. Not only are these concepts irrational, they are unscientific. 

If one can clear one's mind from materialistic, evolutionary, and religious presuppositions and dogma, and just look at the evidence and use reasoning, it will become clear that we are something other than the atoms of which we are composed. Such conclusions have nothing to do with our fear of death or perhaps a desire to be immortal. They are forced by logic and evidence--if one will dare to put aside things that ruin and stultify the mind, like "belief," and "faith." 

The following videos show just some of such evidence to consider. Although essentially hidden from mainstream public view, many scientists have studied phenomena such as the unusual talents of children that cannot be explained by learning or genetics. They have also revealed cases of very young (just beginning to speak) children speaking in languages other than that of the parents, even in tongues no longer used anywhere in the world. Some are born with scars that the children describe as being caused by events in a "previous life." Where possible, historical confirmations occur. 

Guess what. You just may be an immortal person. Whether you "believe" it or not will not change the fact if it is true. I dare you to read my book and not walk away understanding that you are more than protoplasm, and that you have a very specific purpose in this life.