Beliefs are an excuse to disobey the law?

My social media these days are brimming with numerous examples where public officials are openly defying the law.  Since when have religious beliefs become trump cards over the laws of this secular nation?  Have we become a theocracy overnight while I was naively thinking this nation was founded on the principle of separation of church and state?

Public officials are supposed to be held to the highest possible standards of respect for the laws of the land.  Police officers, holders of elective office, judges, appointed public officials, and so on are entrusted by all the American people with the responsibility for upholding the law.  In return for accepting that responsibility, they're granted important discretionary powers.  But such powers are not infinite!  They have limits, and open disregard for the law is beyond those limits.  If public officials disagree with the law, they either should resign their position of authority or obey the law while participating in a campaign to change the laws with which they disagree.  This necessitates an open discussion and the participation of all the people, not just those who oppose those laws. 

Martin Luther King (following the principles used by Ghandi) showed the world how to change unjust laws by nonviolent means.  When he and his followers disobeyed the law, they expected to be arrested, and they were.  They actually wanted to be arrested, as a direct indication of their grievances with bad laws that sanctioned racial discrimination.  Nonviolent opposition gave a voice to the downtrodden victims of racism.  Given their objectives, this exposed the injustices being perpetuated in bad laws and eventually led to the rejection of those laws.  No matter that racists still stain the American landscape - they're no longer able to use the law to implement their hatred.

If people are allowed to use their religious beliefs to disobey the law without punishment, is this not an open invitation for defiance of the law for virtually any reason?  Why obey the laws when you personally disagree with them for your own personal reasons?  This seems to represent an acceptance for lawless behavior of all sorts.  How can the "law and order" conservatives of this nation support open flouting of the national, state, and local laws?  How many times have I heard from conservatives that we must respect our laws without regard to whether or not we agree with them?  Are conservatives somehow able to pick and choose which laws to obey?  Not unless this nation has become a theocracy and the Constitution replaced with something else as the law of our nation.  Their hypocrisy reveals their lies (as my friend R.J. Evans says).

It seems clear to me that public officials who disobey the law should be arrested and tried, with the prospect of serving time in prison for their actions.  Public officials are not somehow above the law, and in fact should be expected to set the highest possible standard for lawful behavior.  Our justice system is structured so that our representatives create the laws, our law enforcement officers arrest lawbreakers, and our judicial system establishes their guilt or innocence, imposing sentences on those convicted.  At no point in that process is there any room for those charged with law and order to pick and choose which laws they enforce.

Yes, I know that our system is laced with flaws along that path.  It's far from perfect.  Corporate executives have broken laws left and right and virtually nothing happens to them other than a wrist slap of a fine.  And I recognize that there are bad laws and bad judicial rulings.  And public officials time and time again reveal their hypocrisy and contempt for our laws, rather than living up to the highest moral and legal standards.  But just as ordinary people are expected to obey the law regardless of their personal opinions, and ignorance of the law is no excuse, neither are religious beliefs (or any other belief) justification for anyone to disobey the law and escape arrest, trial, and punishment.  Yet, even the embarrassing governor of the state of Oklahoma is publicly defying rulings by both the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma - and she walks freely and openly in defiance even as I type this. 

The religious reich and the rich elite have shown their contempt for our laws in the most open and brazen ways possible.   If our laws are to have any meaning or significance in the future, they must be enforced vigorously, without regard for personal justifications.  If religious beliefs can supercede public law, then where does it end?  What other excuses might be offered to disobey the law?  That sort of thinking ends in utter chaos.

Watch and Warning: errant communication?

During an interview for Wx Geeks, the subject of the confusion caused by the terminology of messages - namely watch and warning - came up as a topic.  Given the short time available during the show, I want to offer some more comments about that topic.  The claim is made by some that the similarity between the two words (what I refer to as the "wa-wa" problem) is the source of the confusion.  I don't pretend to understand how and why this confusion arises; after all, I'm a meteorologist, not a communications expert.  However, I find this premise to be pretty much ridiculous.  To my knowledge, no one has done any work to validate that the public's inability to distinguish between a watch and a warning lies exclusively or even primarily in the "wa-wa" arena.

Imagine we decided to coin new terms for the content of watches and warnings, calling them instead kenutenaries and chinkaderas, respectively.  Does anyone honestly believe that calling them tornado kenutenaries or severe thunderstorm chinkaderas would clear up the underlying problem?  I seriously doubt it.  So what do I attribute this problem of distinguishing watches from warnings?  Anything I'm about to say is pure speculation, of course;  I've done no studies and have no scientific basis for my ideas, but I do have decades of experience with the meteorology and our attempts to communicate its hazards.  What seems plausible to me is that many people in that great, faceless mass called "the public" are basically not interested in the weather very much, unless it's going to affect them directly and personally.  I understand that.  I appreciate that not everyone shares the passion of weather geeks when it comes to the atmosphere.  Not everyone is passionate about hockey, or pole dancing, or scrapbooking, or mathematics, either.  I get that.  Most of the topics limited numbers of people are passionate about don't involve events that can prove fatal to the general public. 

Here's the kicker regarding this widespread lack of interest in the weather (and geophysical hazards, in general):  it can rise up on occasion and kill you!  One would expect, naively, that knowing that risk would get most everyone's attention.  It seems clear this isn't the case.  If you're uninterested in the atmosphere, that doesn't protect you from its threats.  There's one very effective way to protect yourself from atmospheric hazards:  being prepared for them.  If the distinction between watch and warning is an important thing for you to recognize in order to take appropriate action (and it is!), whose responsibility is it to know that distinction beyond any doubt?  Yours!  Everyone's!!  We meteorologists can turn ourselves inside out and backwards trying to figure out how to wordsmith this difference so that no one could possibly misunderstand it, and still, there inevitably will be those who will, by personal choice, not make any effort, and so will remain confused and unable to articulate the difference.  After all, it could never be of concern to them, right?  Until it is.  Then those very same ignoramuses are quoted in the media after a weather disaster "We had no warning!" even when they did have a warning!

If I've learned anything in 40+ years as a meteorologist, it's that you can lead horses to water, but they won't necessarily drink it.  There will always be those whose lack of a sense of responsibility for their own safety will mean they have no clue about things, and certainly won't be sensible enough to plan for what is, after all, a rare event.  Yes, it's "normal" not to be hit by a tornado, so the so-called normalcy bias means people are reluctant to accept that something rare might actually affect them directly and personally.  That normalcy bias is reflected in their behavior when a tornado is in their vicinity:  They want to confirm that it's actually about to happen to them.  But when this complacent, it-will-never-happen-to-me attitude is confronted by an approaching tornado, the odds are good that such people will be ill-prepared and therefore only luck enables them to survive.  They'll be ready to blame anyone but themselves for their misfortune.

Yes, a significant fraction of folks, even in Oklahoma, don't know the difference between a watch and a warning, despite decades of attempts to educate them for their own safety.  Some horses always will refuse to drink, no matter what name by which we refer to the water. 

Yes, we should do the social science studies to learn in more detail why people choose to be ignorant and perhaps there is some verbiage we can use to make ourselves more clear to the public.  At some point, however, we must also recognize that there will never be a time when 100 percent of the public understands perfectly those weather hazard messages we're attempting to convey.

Speaking of the war on equal rights ...

My last blog was focused on my struggle to understand the necessity to drive marriage equality all the way to the SCOTUS.  It seems to me that the 14th Amendment is not really very difficult to interpret: "No person" is to be denied equal rights without due process.  What's to be interpeted there?  I made mention of the war on equal rights, and I need to expand on that a bit.

This "war" springs from the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York in 2001.  With the aid of the military-industrial complex and religious tribalism, we as a nation have succumbed to fear as a result of that attack - an irrational fear of terrorism from the outside - you know, islamic jihadists and all that.  It's an irrational fear because the actual American death toll from terrorism (excluding military casualties in our ill-conceived, ineffective military actions against terrorism) doesn't warrant the level of fear that has been generated.  We'll never solve the problem of external terrorists by military action.  Some of the "patriotic" conservative politicians have joined hands with the terrorists in promoting this unreasoning fear for their political (and pecuniary) gain, aided by some media pseudo-pundits* and the news media in general.  We're allowing this exaggerated threat to frighten us to give up our Constitutional freedoms in the name of "security".  This is precisely what we've been warned not to do by no less a person than Benjamin Franklin:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

What we've done is to give the terrorists precisely what they want:  to transform ourselves into the de facto enemy of muslims around the world.  Along that path, we're denying ourselves the very freedoms of which we're so proud that have distinguished this nation for much of our history.  We're losing the war on terrorism, badly.  Not only are terrorist actions causing us to waste vast resources on "security theater" as well as huge military expenditures leading nowhere, but we (including the courts!) have gutted the 4th Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Our lives are being tracked by the so-called National Security Agency (better named the National Insecurity Agency!) without warrant or probable cause, police are being transformed into a paramilitary arm of the government with the apparent right to use deadly force with impunity whenever they wish, and so on.  Edward Snowden, like Daniel Ellsberg (remember the "Pentagon Papers"?) before him should be honored as a hero for exposing the NSA's intrusions into the lives of ordinary Americans.  Instead, he's cast as a traitor and so has been forced to become a fugitive from the "American Justice" for being a whistle-blower.  We're sleepwalking our way into becoming a fascist oligarchy and international bully.  The "collateral damage" from our foreign incursions recruits new terrorists every day.  Ordinary Americans are being bombarded with propaganda about the terrorist bogeyman from islam, while the real threat, resulting from real acts of murder, is home-grown terrorism from right-wing extremists willing to commit any crime to advance their cause.

What makes our nation attractive to the residents of other nations is its opportunities.  Those opportunities spring from the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution.  We're being led to yield those freedoms for the illusion of our own "protection".  What we truly need protection from are those who would gain from our irrational fears.  Those who profit from that fear are the real enemy and we need to stop giving in to this pressure from our enemies (foreign and domestic) to sacrifice our essential liberties.

_________________________________
*A true pundit is:  a person who knows a lot about a particular subject and who expresses ideas and opinions about that subject publicly.  That is, a subject matter expert.  Most of the media's pseudo-pundits are pretty far from experts in their public proclamations of their opinions about various topics.

The Supreme Court and the war on equal rights

There certainly is a lot of "celebration" going on in liberal ranks, and deep consternation (if not outright howling in agony) from many conservatives regarding the recent Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decisions.

From where I sit, I'm certainly happy about the same-sex marriage decision.  Despite the narrowness of the margin, it was the right decision.  Although the Affordable Healthcare Act is not what I prefer to see (i.e., the single-payer option), it confirms what the program was intended to do: make affordable healthcare possible for millions of Americans who otherwise had no healthcare support.

But what this blog is about is not the rulings, per se, but rather concerns my puzzlement over why it was necessary for the SCOTUS to rule on same-sex marriage.  In my view, this is already covered by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution:

Four principles were asserted in the text of the 14th amendment. They were:

1. State and federal citizenship for all persons regardless of race both born or naturalized in the United States was reaffirmed.
2. No state would be allowed to abridge the "privileges and immunities" of citizens.
3. No person was allowed to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without "due process of law."
4. No person could be denied "equal protection of the laws."

Source:  here

It seems to me that it would take some pretty severe distortion of these principles to suggest that it would be legal in the US for anyone to deny anyone else equal treatment under the law, regardless of who they are (i.e., race, gender, religion, sexual identity, or anything else).  In fact, a lot of things are going on right now where some Constitutional rights have been wrongly taken away in the name of a bunch of conservative talking points.  The Constitution is being invalidated routinely these days by the same SCOTUS that has enjoyed the approval of the very people currently upset with the SCOTUS' recent rulings.  Constitutional rights are being abridged with impunity, everywhere.  Evidence of that abounds on social media.  Absurd cyrpto-fascist notions are being bandied about by some of the religious reich, such as abolishing the Supreme Court or intentionally violating the SCOTUS rulings.  These are clearly unconstitutional ideas and border on being sedition.  Interesting that such notions emanate from that very segment of our population which claims to represent law and order, and family values.  They're hypocritical frauds.

The divisions are deep and ugly these days in American society, and the rather odd, mixed collection of rulings by the SCOTUS over the past few years has not healed those divisions but, rather, has deepened them.  It seems we must make up a complete list of every possible human trait and state specifically that we shouldn't discriminate against that group, and then ram that through the SCOTUS before they can be afforded equal protection of the law.  Does a reasonable interpretation of the words above not automatically include everyone?  What part of "no person" do you not understand?  Evidently, I have to be realistic enough to know that many people have unreasonable interpretations of the Constitution, and they won't give those up, regardless of battle defeats.

Regardless of the battles won (on both sides) by particular SCOTUS rulings, when they go against the religious reich, the victories are always local.  The war will never be won against the religious reich, until they die out completely.  The problem is clearly that logic and evidence mean nothing to an irrational belief system.  They'll never give up so long as they assume their version of religious belief trumps our secular government's mandate (see the 1st Amendment) to run the nation with church and state clearly and totally separated.  When religion is allowed to push its beliefs and principles into everyone's public life, democracy is transformed to theocracy - a fascist form of dictatorship - for examples, review the Middle Eastern muslim theocracies.  Like the muslim zealots, the christian fanatics are under the belief they're doing their deity's will, and that's impossible for logic and evidence to overcome.

Nice to win battles from time to time, but the war goes on unabated.  Social progressives must be prepared for the war to go on for a long time.

 

A national discussion of racism?

Recent events include the racism-motivated murder of nine people in a South Carolina church, as well as the spate of racial injustice events by law enforcement.  The never-ending string of such incidents suggests to me that racism is alive and well here in the USA, and no one's hands are entirely clean.  We've been trying to address this topic for our entire national history and, so far, have been unsuccessful in truly coming to grips with it in striving to see it expunged from our national psyche.  It lives on like an insidious disease that has become immune to many attempts at finding a cure.

Racism has no roots in science.  Our genetic heritage demonstrates we all came from the same place:  The Rift Valley in Africa.  Interbreeding is so widespread, virtually all of us contain genes from one or more races different from what we wear on the surface.  Isolation of different groups led to the inevitable divergences in certain traits, such as skin color or physical characteristics, but these divergences are trivial.  We're all just humans, and "racial" differences amount to virtually nothing of any real scientific significance.

So why did we invent racism when it has no scientific basis in objective reality?  Racism is the child of tribalism.  Tribal unity and support for one another was an evolutionary advantage for humans at our beginnings.  Our ability to subordinate our personal needs for the needs of the tribe has been a powerful influence on the "success" of our species.  But that evolutionary success comes at a price:  hatred and distrust of other tribes, different from our own.  Given that some groups of humans look notably different from other groups of humans,  it's virtually automatic to let that hatred and distrust run free.  Differences in religious beliefs clearly stoke the fires of tribalism, as well.  And that hatred is handed down from one generation to the next - children tend not to see racial differences as very important, so adults have to inculcate such "values" in their youth.

Can we have a discussion that could lead to the eventual repudiation of racism?  I like to think it's possible and I certainly want to see that happen.  But there are powerful forces that make this difficult to envision any time soon.  For instance, many people use racism (and, more generally, tribalism) to prop up their personal sense of identity, seeking to lift themselves above others by the simple expediency of de-humanizing those who are different, proclaiming them to be inferior.  This is a familiar refrain in human history, and it's not likely to go away just because some of us want it to.

The current discussions about the Confederate flag indicate that many in the South are unable to let go of the failed Confederacy, the aims of which were to promote and enhance the spread of bigotry and treason.  The tribalism of the South causes them to cling to what was thoroughly defeated and shown eventually to be immoral, no matter how noble their troops were in their vainglorious failure.  They couldn't imagine being loyal to the "American" tribe because they aimed to perpetuate a hideous Southern institution:  slavery, so they formed their own tribe:  the Confederacy.  The rest is history, of course.  Surely the time has come to face the reality that the Confederate cause was based on a racist falsehood.  Not much to be proud of in that cause.

Racism is hardly unique to the South, of course.  Urban ghettos all over this nation are the visible result of widespread racism, even if it's not "institutionalized" in law (as it has been in the South for so much of their history).  In the final analysis, when it comes to human interaction, many Americans (inside and outside the South) are uncomfortable with those whose racial characteristics are different - on both sides of any specific racial divide.  At least Southern racism has been overt and clearly made manifest in obvious ways (e.g., the ostentatious display of the "stars and bars" symbol).  Racism, like the HIV virus, can wear many disguises that make it difficult to detect, much less to eradicate.  Many people harbor racism despite imagining themselves to be completely free of it.  I know people who vigorously repudiate racism, and perhaps they genuinely like and care for some individual of a different race.  While they may like individuals, however, they still harbor a tribalistic contempt and distrust of groups of people they don't even know.  This is an insidious form of racism because it involves a self-deception.  "I have friends who are XX!"

People who harbor irrational beliefs are incapable of being persuaded by logic and evidence.  They stubbornly cling to those beliefs without regard for their basis in reality.  Perhaps, with time, such beliefs will die out - but it may take a very long time!  Tribalism is deeply embedded in our genes.  Having that conversation is likely to prove futile, in the face of so much willful irrationality.  But I think we have to continue to try.  Hence, this blog post.

Bigotry, oppression, liberals, freedom of speech, and hate

A recent Facebook "discussion" with a friend has brought to my attention some disturbing trends.  It seems that in some "liberal" circles, it's become fashionable to redefine racism as "prejudice + power" - this new definition assumes that racism can only be applied by those who have the power to enforce their bigotry.  Hence, in the USA, it could be said (using this new definition) that only white people can be racists, because whites are the majority and traditionally have excluded participation by non-whites from having much power.  As I see it, the combination of prejudice and power can equate to "oppression" - but not to racism. 

My personal definition of racism is when someone assumes they can know something meaningful about someone else simply by knowing the person's race.  If I had experienced many of the things my African-American friends tell me about (i.e., if I were black), there's a good chance I'd be a racist.  My life would be dominated by white people making assumptions about me based solely on my race, so it would be natural to reciprocate.  Tit for tat, and all that.  It would take an extremely strong sense of shared humanity to shun that path and instead allow every person I meet to show by their actions who they really are.  I discovered this concept for the first time in the Army, when I was forced to interact with a very diverse set of people - I learned on my own that someone's outward appearance said nothing at all about their character.  Not all racists are white!  Why condemn those not participating in racial oppression?  Race is a useless, divisive concept ... but I've discussed that in other blogs, so let me move on with today's thoughts. 

It's clear that the combination "prejudice + power" often results in oppression.  Women are the victims of male dominance in many professions and in many aspects of their lives.  Misogyny (literally, woman-hating) is a gender-based prejudice - another sort of bigotry.  Naturally, misandry (literally, man-hating) is its female equivalent.  If we assume that men have more "power" (at least in some ways), then they could be misogynists if they combine their power with a prejudice against women.  Obviously, it would be natural for someone consistently victimized by misogyny to develop misandry, and such women exist, some of them in the halls of academia.  Unfortunately, prejudice against men (or women) is just another form of bigotry.  It's understandable why some women might embrace it, but it's not very effective in doing something about misogyny in the long run.  Not all men are misogynists!  Many men support and even encourage the legitimate aspirations of women.

No matter what people think, and no matter how bigoted they might be, I strongly support their right to express their views.  I've commented on freedom of speech several times in the past - it only means something when it's applied to the expression of ideas with which we disagree.  What's disturbing to me today is the news that dissension is being suppressed by "liberals" in academia.  Personally, if someone is actively shutting down free discourse on any topic in a university (or anywhere else), such a person is not what I consider to be a "liberal".  My notion of being a liberal is that dissent should be encouraged, not suppressed.  The founders of this nation clearly intended free speech to be the law of the land, and so freedom of speech was the very first item in the Bill of Rights - the first 10 Constitutional Amendments.  To suppress dissent is an implicit admission of either a fundamentally flawed viewpoint, or a weak foundation for that viewpoint.  Lacking valid logic and/or evidence, one way for a viewpoint to dominate is to suppress other viewpoints, perhaps even with violence.  History has shown us many examples of this and no truly liberal person should ever support suppression of dissent.  The willingness to allow dissenting views implies a sense of confidence in one's viewpoint - its logic and evidence are sufficient to convince a rational person of its validity.  It's in academia where many of us first encountered ideas that weren't in full agreement with the culture in which we were born and raised.  This is a good thing, forcing us to think about our ideas, and is the principle so nicely embodied in the University of Wisconsin's "Bascom Plaque".  It's precisely in academia where free speech is most important!

One characteristic of bigotry is the use of hurtful epithets hurled in the faces of the oppressed.  Thus, many liberals espouse the notion of banning "hate speech".  To me, this is an unacceptable tactic.  Who decides what qualifies as "hate speech" and what's the basis for that decision?  Sounds like censorship to me, which is the antithesis of free speech.  I continue to argue that words only have power over someone when that someone grants that power to those words.  I always refer to the old childhood chant, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me!"  To be offended, one must agree to be offended.  We may well find the use of hurtful epithets to be distasteful and off-putting, but they're just words and if we choose not to be offended, they lose any power over us. 

Finally, let me repeat comments I've made in previous blogs - the notion of "hate crimes" that some "liberals" have embraced.  The general idea is that if a criminal act is perpetrated by someone who hates the victim for some reason, then that adds to the level of criminality and so deserves more punishment than normal for that crime.  This is, to put it simply, a ridiculous notion, because it requires us to know what the perpetrator was thinking before and during the criminal act.  It's a concept similar to the Orwellian notion of "thought police" - that you could be punished just for thinking incorrectly.  If you've committed a crime, you should be punished for that crime, not for what you were thinking before and during your criminal act.  Perhaps the concept of "hate crime"  was an outgrowth of WWII and the evils perpetrated by the Axis powers, but I find it a disturbing concept that's likely to be abused.  If you think "hateful" thoughts but commit no crime, should you be punished just for thinking them?  Not in my world, thank you!!

Security, bureaucracy, and information flow

Ruminating on some recent events discourages me about bureaucracies once again.  An incident of late was characterized by an appalling absence of information flowing to the public, evidently because "public affairs" types are dead set against providing any information about negative events.  They seem to think that the best thing they can do is limit the discussion by providing no information, even when there's no conceivable harm to do sharing that information.  To such bureaucrats, the quicker the incident disappears, the better.  Unfortunately, such a policy opens the door for speculation and even encourages conspiracy theorists to allow their imaginations to run wild, while there isn't any information by which to dispute talk of conspiracies.  In an investigation following such an incident, it seems to me it would have been helpful to update the public about the situation - choosing utter silence is disrespectful to the public.

Our whole national paranoia about threats to our security, encouraged by many politicians, leaves me disgusted with the process of "security theater" - in which seemingly rational security measures make access for innocent people more time-consuming and even privacy-invasive, even though such measures represent little or no meaningful barriers to a determined terrorist.  Yes, creating barriers to external threats is rational, but the barriers I see would be little more than a minor annoyance to anyone with reasonable intelligence and a fierce will to do harm.  I think of it as I think of the act of locking your home's doors at night: door and window locks prevent honest people from entering, but represent little challenge to any criminal with half a brain and a determination to do you harm.  The act of locking your doors offers little more than a trivial contribution to your home security against those truly intent on harming/plundering you.  Security theater gives you the illusion of security, but does little to improve on it, in reality.

In our national obsession with foreign terrorism, we've been allowing government more and more license to commit unconstitutional acts in the process of "protecting" us.  The 4th amendment has been eviscerated in the name of security.  There's now a tolerance for widespread use of electronic surveillance measures, including the NSA's collection of emails and cell phone calls into a giant national data base for them to "mine" for whatever strikes their fancy.  There are reports of ugly abuse of security measures by TSA employees in airports.  The so-called "Patriot Act" continues to sanction abuses.  Bureaucracies impose stupid rules and "protocols" that may be totally unnecessary, but must be followed at the operational level by the agents of the organizations.  Such protocols seem mysterious and disturbing to the public, so without any information explaining their actions, the public is left to speculate about what's going on.  I consider that to be more harmful than good.

I've seen the notion of being ready for a storm result in a "certification" process that's mostly an empty sham, without much real substance in terms of storm readiness.  No matter how many certificates they may have, the city of Norman and the University of Oklahoma are far from being truly "storm ready" - it would take many years and cost a lot to provide what truly is needed to be ready for a storm (e.g., a tornado). 

In some situations, it's difficult to imagine just how to protect everyone in real-world events.  If the public is not equally committed to accepting responsibility for their own safety, and I'm pretty confident in assuming most people are not committed to that, there's little organizations and governments can do to protect them beyond what they're doing now.  It's comforting to see them working to improve the situation, but I doubt seriously they can protect themselves from lawsuits in the event people are harmed by a storm.  I can foresee circumstances in which people are killed but am powerless to do anything about it.  This situation is not helped when the bureaucrats place the protection of property as a higher priority than protection of people!  I've seen many examples of this, unfortunately.  "Oh, we can't use that space as a storm shelter!  It holds too much valuable property!"  Wait long enough, and the big disaster will occur ... and the lawsuits may well follow.   Being silent is not helpful or beneficial.  

Dealing with drought

Lately, some alarming messages have been spread via the media about drought in California - some of them are a bit misleading (e.g., that CA has only one year's worth of water left - the situation is dire, but that's a hyperbolic statement of the reality).  There are those who will lay the blame on global climate change.  This is also not an appropriate position, since there always has been a danger of drought in the semiarid and arid regions of the US, and no guarantee can be made that what we've observed in the historical record is as bad a drought as natural variability can generate.  Climate change may be making the situation worse, but it's not the whole challenge.

A major part of the problem for CA and, indeed, for much of the western third of the USA (east of the coastal mountain ranges) is that drought always has been a frequent visitor - from the Great Plains westward to those coastal mountain ranges.  The notion that the expanding population centers from the continental divide westward are living on borrowed time is not a new one.  I recommend reading "Cadillac Desert" to learn some of the history of the "water wars" in the west.  Dividing up the scarce water resources among all the competitors has always been a challenge even during non-drought years;  increasing populations demand more of everything.  Making choices is not necessarily easy.  Drought magnifies the urgency and the seriousness of the consequences for any set of choices.  Large population centers, like Los Angeles, El Paso, Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, etc., are reaching out over increasing distances to find new water to support additional growth. 

A lot of agriculture west of the Mississippi River uses irrigation to grow crops that in most years would not be possible depending only on natural rainfall.  On the plains, much of this water for irrigation is "fossil water" in underground aquifers that represent finite resources.  When (not if!) those aquifers dry up, that agriculture can't be sustained.  Decreasing fresh water sources in the west leave agricultural (and industrial) uses competing with human water needs.

What's worse is that water is being squandered stupidly ... for example, building grassy golf courses in the desert is an ecological nightmare.  Where I used to live in CO, the neighborhood association discouraged xeriscaping, and encouraged homeowners to maintain Kentucky bluegrass lawns that required heavy watering at least every other day in that semiarid climate.  Wasting fresh water in such stupid ways has potentially harmful consequences even in non-drought times, but when drought is ongoing, such waste can be criminal.

Some simple calculations show that the cost in terms of energy to pipe in water from water-rich areas, mostly east of the continental divide, is quite high.  Using that much energy to import water - generally uphill - creates problems in its own right, and will make that water very expensive.  The real problem here isn't the current drought.  It's the growth of unsustainable populations in regions that inevitably are going to experience serious droughts that constitutes the real problem.  Anthropogenic global climate change may be enhancing that concern, but it's always been there.   Whenever local sources of water become inadequate for the population centers, those centers have populations that have become unsustainable.  Even before anthropogenic climate change became a topic for discussion, there were ongoing battles for fresh water resources.  Everyone feels their personal concerns take priority, but politicians who make the laws governing water rights can be influenced by the rich to favor the claims of the rich to that fresh water.

Drought has been ongoing for several years in the western half of Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, to the extent that an old bogeyman is making an unwelcome appearance:  cloud seeding.  It's not widely understood that the conditions of a real drought - an absence of rainclouds - make seeding completely useless in mitigating that drought.  Even in cases when rainclouds are present, the actual contribution of cloud seeding to net rainfall has never been shown to be effective in any carefully-done statistical trials.   I have a more comprehensive discussion of weather modification, but the substance of the science is that weather modification to enhance rain has never passed rigorous statistical tests of its effectiveness.  The weather modification companies who sell their "services" for the purpose of drought mitigation haven't a scientific leg to stand on, and yet are profiting from the misery of those suffering from drought.  Those companies may well honestly believe in what they're doing, but the opinion of weather modification activities from the science of meteorology is pretty much dubious.

In OK, we now have vast quantities of waste water from fracking being pumped underground, which not only consumes that water, but has the potential to contaminate the underground water (to say nothing of causing earthquakes in certain areas).  As I said, drought makes many "minor" concerns morph into serious concerns.

Dealing with drought is never easy ... as fresh water availability declines, there will be winners ... and losers.  Who decides who wins and who loses?  On what basis?  The simple fact is we can't survive without adequate fresh water, and as the resource declines, it's going to get ugly.  The sooner we face the unpleasant realities of drought and its consequences, the better.  Sticking your head in the sand won't solve anything.  Solutions won't come easily and it's impossible to use the diminishing resource to satisfy the needs of the increasing demand.

Discrimination disguised as religious freedom

These days, there's an ongoing brouhaha over Indiana's new legislation signed into law by the governor - it's a "religious freedom restoration act" (RFRA) that effectively grants businesses the right to discriminate against persons on the basis of the business owner's religious beliefs.  An outpouring of disgust regarding this has resulted, including calls to boycott the state.  RFRAs are a total load of rubbish, of course.  The true origins of this legislation are rooted in the fear and revulsion (bigotry) that some people (mainly christian right-wing conservatives) feel about the LGBT members of their communities.  I'm not qualified to offer any sort of psychoanalysis of that fear's origins, so I'll not engage in "pop psychology".

In the USA, there's no need to restore religious freedom!  It's been guaranteed since this nation was founded within the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution.  Some christians are especially fond of seeing themselves as being persecuted on the basis of their religion - in a nation where the majority of its people are christians, christian churches are open and operating throughout the land, christian holidays are national holidays, and most of the people's elected representatives are christian.  Persecution?  What a load of self-centered nonsense!  If religious freedom is under attack by anyone, it's by the christian "religious reich", not the non-christians!  And one of the rights protected by our religious freedom is to be entirely free from religion, despite what christian religious reich apologists assert!  In some cases (e.g., within the military), Americans are literally being forced to participate in religion!

The absurd, convoluted rationalizations on behalf of these RFRAs are a communion wafer-thin veneer over the bigotry many of their supporters show regarding LGBTs.  Consider this:  a civil war was fought, and a massive civil rights protest leading to anti-discriminatory legislation was conducted, just to allow people of color in this nation to be granted their freedoms, rather than being enslaved and marginalized.  Open discrimination on racial grounds is no longer acceptable.  Similar rationalizations to those being heard today, also with their origins in religion were used, especially prior to the Civil War, to justify the evil institution of slavery (which is sanctioned in the Old Testament).  Not all christians see the bible as racist, but racists always have been (and still are) cherry-picking the bible in order to institutionalize their bigotry.  The battles to support civil rights for people of color in the USA have been fought - and, unfortunately, are still being fought to this very day - albeit not with armed conflict, but instead with political activism on both sides.  I'm sorry to say that racism is alive and well in the USA.

So we now have RFRAs designed to restore something that has never been interrupted in the history of the US:  "religious freedom".  What can be the real point of RFRAs?  No rational person today can argue that businesses are empowered to discriminate openly on the basis of skin color (race is now recognized to have virtually no meaningful scientific basis), of course.  Here and now, the fear and loathing are not openly directed at people of color, but rather at a person's sexual orientation.  And virtually identical arguments are being advanced that religion can justify that discrimination.  Of this, there can be absolutely no doubt!  The handwaving and rationalizations are only a transparent disguise on behalf of discrimination.  Please, let the christian conservatives supporting this legislation enlighten me:  just how does baking a cake for a gay couple to celebrate their marriage restrict your freedom to practice your religion?  Such a marriage may offend you, of course, based on your opinion of what the bible says.  Too bad for you, there's no Constitutional protection against being offended!  Are Christ's teachings such that he would discriminate against anyone for any reason?  In the entire New Testament, nothing is said by Christ about homosexuals whatsoever!  The Christ in the bible I read would send no one away, especially those he considered to be sinners.  The notion of homosexuality as a sin might have been extant at the time of Christ, but there's no scientific basis for seeing it as anything other than inborn sexual orientation - you can't catch it from someone else, and it can't be "cured" of it, any more than you can "cure" the color of your skin.  You don't choose to be gay, anymore than heteros choose to be "straight".  Homosexuality is a natural condition, as science has shown, and we share it with many other creatures.

Thus, it seems to me that the real intent of RFRAs is two-fold:  (1) To allow discriminatory business practices, and (2) to push a particular religion-based concept into the law of the land.  Both of these are direct violations of the Constitution, and are lynchpins of the religious reich.  All the other arguments, meant to deflect attention from the blatant bigotry of RFRA proponents, are just so much obfuscation.  They realize they can't simply discriminate against LGBTs, so they create this smokescreen to disguise their true intentions.

A memorial tribute to my colleague and friend, Ron Pryzbylinski

This is more or less the text that eventually will appear in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society this coming June.  Thanks to the AMS for graciously granting me permission to post this ahead of its formal publication

 

This image is from the National Weather Service, St. Louis, MO.

The severe local storms community, including both research and operational meteorologists, lost one of its most distinguished members, Ron Przybylinski, on 12 March 2015. Ron passed away as a result of complications arising from treatments for cancer, which came as a terrible shock to everyone as he appeared to be recovering from his illness and was about his normal business at conferences and work until his untimely passing.

Ron was born in South Bend, Indiana, in 1953, and obtained his B.S. (1977) and M.S. (1981) degrees in meteorology from St. Louis University.  His full-time professional life began in 1981 when he joined the staff of the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Indianapolis, Indiana.  In 1991, Ron was selected for the position of science and operations officer at the St. Louis office of the NWS, which he held right up to his passing.  Although his service to those offices was at the highest levels, his influence and knowledge went well beyond them, spreading throughout the nation and the world through his publications and his many presentations.

Ron was a forecast meteorologist dedicated to the science of meteorology, applying scientific principles to his forecasts as well as contributing to that science by his research.  His primary interests were bow echoes and quasilinear convective systems (QLCSs), especially when those systems produced tornadoes.  Not only did he do the research, he served that science whenever the opportunity arose:  he was a project leader for the Operational Test and Evaluation of the new WSR-88D Doppler radars in the 1980s.  Ron also helped to organize (and participated in) the Bow Echo and Mesoscale Convective Vortex Experiment in 2003.  As part of the COMET Cooperative Project with Saint Louis University, he investigated severe wind gusts from convective systems, starting in 1994.  Ron also made time in his busy schedule to volunteer as a tornado damage investigator as a member of the NWS Quick Response Team.

In addition to numerous scientific publications and conference presentations, Ron served a term on the Severe Local Storms Committee of AMS, as well as two terms as a Councilor of the National Weather Association.  He was awarded the NWA Operational Achievement Award in 1989, and in 2003 he received the NWA’s Fujita Award for his research achievements.  The AMS awarded Ron the Charles L. Mitchell Award for outstanding service by a weather forecaster in 2012, and in 2013 he was recognized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with a Distinguished Career Award for his forecasting and research achievements.

Another important facet of Ron’s career was sharing his passion for storms.  It seemed he could always find time to talk at length with anyone who shared an interest in storms:  with youngsters, students and NWS interns, and his professional colleagues.  He helped to develop COMET training materials, particular those related to bow echoes and QLCSs, and shared his abundant experience and knowledge with many younger forecasters, helping them learn how to deal with diverse weather situations.  Ron’s infectious passion for storms was irresistible to those around him, inspiring everyone who knew him to work a bit harder and learn a bit more.  He had an engaging manner that endeared him to all his friends and colleagues, and he also had a delightful sense of humor.  Ron was a serious meteorologist, but he didn’t take himself too seriously.

Ron Pryzbylinski can never be replaced, but those of us who had the distinct pleasure of knowing Ron and working with him are grateful for the legacy of professional dedication and knowledge that he left us.  We miss him and would like to convey our deepest condolences to his family and close friends.

A memorial tribute to my friend and mentor, Yoshi Sasaki

 

I took this photo in his old office in the Engineering Laboratory across from the Union on the OU main campus.  This was in 1973, but he looked very much the same right up to the time of his death.

Today, I was informed that my friend and mentor, Yoshi K. Sasaki, died sometime this morning.  Many younger people at the OU School of Meteorology (OU-SoM) have little idea what a great meteorologist and person he was and how influential he has been.  He certainly was the advisor for the majority of doctoral students graduating from the OU-SoM during his active tenure there.  He won many OU and international awards for his work, including promoting US-Japan business collaboration, bringing Japanese companies to Norman.  He helped Walt Saucier found the Department of Meteorology when he came to OU with Walt from Texas A&M in the late 1950s.  I did an earlier tribute to Yoshi when he was still alive.

My first interactions with him were during my first days at OU as a beginning grad student in 1967.  In a stroke of stupendous good fortune, I was "assigned" to his care as my advisor.  I didn't know him at all, then.  Yet, shortly after I arrived, Dr. Ed Kessler (then Director of the National Severe Storms Laboratory [NSSL]) called Yoshi while I was in his office, and I heard Yoshi describing me to Dr. Kessler in glowing terms as an outstanding student!  That left me flabbergasted and determined that I would do whatever it took never to let him down.  He clearly had more confidence in me than I had in myself at the time.

This was at a time before Yoshi became famed for his work with variational data assimilation.  He had the time to be a great advisor and to do some excellent work as a classroom teacher.  It was in his graduate dynamics class that I began to gain some inkling of what the atmosphere was all about.  What soaring excitement there was in his classes, where putting in extra effort paid big dividends in terms of understanding.

It was clear that between us was a considerable cultural divide, but I never felt that it damaged our interactions.  He slapped me down when I was cocky, and he picked up my spirits when I felt overwhelmed and beaten down by the challenges.  In fact, he challenged me more than anyone to become what I wanted so much to be.  He looked at my lousy math grades when I first came to grad school and announced that I would minor in mathematics!  By colossal good luck, I took courses from some great math teachers as a result, flushing my math phobia down the toilet and replacing it with huge enthusiasm for a subject that had been so brutal for me.  He recommended I take rigorous courses in fluid dynamics from the School of Engineering, which again put me in classes with some outstanding teachers.  As a result of this, I went from being a so-so student to the point where I was "setting the curve" in most of my courses.

Following my sabbatical in the military, I returned to my graduate studies more determined to complete my doctorate than ever and, although Yoshi was now much busier than he had been owing to his rising fame, I was ready to become more independent - something Yoshi let happen.  He supported me with his grants as I flopped and floundered, trying to figure out a topic for my dissertation research.  When he went on a sabbatical to Monterey in 1974, he told me either I had to find a new advisor or find a way to support myself.  In no way did I want anyone else's signature on my dissertation, so I found employment at NSSL.  That turned out to be the change of venue I needed, and I eventually found my topic and completed my doctorate, with his signature on it!!

All that I have accomplished is in no small measure a tribute to this wonderful man, who did just whatever I needed, when I needed it.  He was a master at giving me just the help I required and not a bit more.  I graduated with a clear vision of what I wanted to do and how to do it.  That's worth considerably more than a piece of paper!!

I could go on and on about his accomplishments, and the friendship he has offered to me after graduation.  I'm reminded today of his comments to me at the time when his university mentor, the late Shigekata Syono (who was also the advisor of the late T. Theodore Fujita) had died:  he told me that Syono told him the best way to thank your advisor for what he did for you was to become successful in your field, and to pass on what you have learned to others.  Yoshi was trying to honor that advice, and  I've tried to honor it, as well.  It was so typical of him to have deep human insight as well as a great intellect - no cultural barrier could inhibit that!

As we mourn the loss of this honored individual, we can take solace that he's left behind a huge legacy:  I can mention a few names of his doctoral students from around the time when I was a student - Dr. E. W. (Joe) Friday [a National Weather Service Director], Dr. Robert Sheets [a Hurricane Center Director], Dr. Stanley L. Barnes [NOAA research scientist], Dr. Jerome P. Charba [NWS research scientist], Dr. John McGinley [NOAA research scientist], Dr. John M. Lewis [NOAA research scientist], and many others.  Obviously, this list leaves out many who were influenced by Yoshi, including many of my storm chase friends (e.g., Al Moller).  He will not be forgotten and can never be replaced.  We will miss him, but are proud to have been a part of his legacy.  My deepest condolences to Koko, his wife, and sons Larry, James, and Okko, and daughter Anna.

A First Take on the OU Fraternity's Racist Video

It just happened yesterday that a video showing the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity doing an overtly racist chant went viral.  The reaction by the University of Oklahoma (OU) and the national administration of SAE has been to suspend the organization.  That's great and sends the right message that such behavior is unacceptable.  But that's not the end of the story, here.  Racism has not been eradicated at OU as a result and I don't expect that to happen any time soon, actually.  The roots of racism go much deeper than that, so eradicating it will take more time:  likely many generations.  Although racism tends to be more overt in 'southern' states, it is comparably pervasive in the north.  No region has a stranglehold on bigotry, unfortunately.

My personal story is relevant here, in explaining my reaction to all of this.  I was raised in a family that was not overtly racist, but in looking back, I see some tell-tale signs of a racist undercurrent.  We lived in the lily-white western suburbs of Chicago, where I was 'protected' from other races by hidden, but very effective barriers to integration.  We were segregated in a state where segregation as codified in law did not exist, but was just as entrenched as in Dixie.  To know a Catholic or a Jew was about as diverse as it got.  Hence, I grew up knowing little or nothing about races other than mine.

When I was drafted into the military during the Vietnam era, I was immersed suddenly in a racially and culturally diverse group with no prior experience in dealing with that.  For me, it turned out we all had a common enemy (the military - most of us didn't want to be there) so we had grounds on which we could build a personal relationship.  And we did.  It was easy to get along with people unlike myself  simply because we shared one very important characteristic:  we were human.  I didn't like everyone I was in contact with, but there was no clear reason to dislike any particular racial/cultural group just because of that factor.  All races and cultures produce both people I like, and those I dislike.  After the military, my scientific career put me in contact with some very smart and talented people who put the stereotypes to the test.  This revealed that those stereotypes are bankrupt notions.  I know of no racial or cultural reason that prevents individuals from becoming whatever they want to be - some of my friends/colleagues were not of my race or cultural background.  Imagine that!!  The ratio of nonwhite to white meteorologists was small and remains so, begging the question:  is that because of some racial/cultural disposition to not do well in my profession, or is that because of racial and cultural barriers (of various sorts) keeping many individuals out for reasons other than their abilities?  My conclusion was that the stereotypes are horseshit, and there's no reason to conclude that, on the basis of race alone, an individual of a nonwhite race or a different culture automatically is incapable of being successful in my profession.  Logically, then, this likely extends to any other profession.  Race alone provides nothing useful in the way of information to conclude anything concerning the value and potential of an individual.  Race represents real differences among people, but those differences aren't universal and, therefore, aren't significant.  Cultural differences are even more obviously irrelevant.

Martin Luther King's dream is a living reality to me:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

What I've learned is that humans evolved in a hostile world by banding together in tribes for the mutual benefit of tribe members.  This gave us humans an evolutionary survival advantage, so tribalism is deeply embedded in our very core.  But tribalism has a dark side:  distrust of and contempt for other tribes.  Tribalism is the source of racism (and cultural conflict) - it's a meaningless distinction that some people cling to in hopes of having an important place in the world, I suppose.  Science tells us that all humans are the same in the vast majority of their characteristics, but they have some superficial differences that evolved because they were isolated from each other in different parts of the world, where things like skin coloration gave certain individuals an evolutionary advantage.  The acid test is that we different 'races' can still interbreed.  We can have sex with a monkey (a distasteful thought) but we can't interbreed with them, any more than we could interbreed with a rabbit, or a tree.  There are enough differences in our DNA compared to that of a monkey that offspring of such a physical union aren't possible.  Tribalism makes us resist interbreeding with other races, even though virtually all of us have at least some DNA from other races (that resistance has not always been effective!).  Many African Americans have white bloodlines, and vice-versa.  I know of many black Americans with the Doswell surname (many of whom I'd be proud to know personally), and I'm pretty sure that name didn't come to America from Africa.

If we accept that racism is simply an atavistic holdover from tribalism and represents a concept that has absolutely no meaningful (scientific) basis, then perhaps eventually we can overcome the detestable scourge on humanity of racism.  But racism dies hard:  too many people find too much comfort for their insecurities in thinking themselves superior to those of a different race.  Whether hidden or overt, racism is simply inconsistent with reality.  There is no important distinction among the different races, although there are likely slight differences (on average) among the races with regard to characteristics like athletic or intellectual prowess.  Any such differences say nothing about individuals!  Racial and cultural bigotry are manifestations of ignorance, and it's ignorant people who inculcate their children with such bigotry.  Deep-seated racist attitudes are prevalent today, despite the species having made progress.  Most humans now recognize that overt expression of racist and cultural bias is unacceptable - even if they still believe in such things.  To believe that racism is dead is to perpetuate it.  We much acknowledge the widespread persistence of bigotry if we are to be successful some day in making Martin Luther King's dream a reality.

If you find yourself uncomfortable with those of other races, my advice is to work at developing more diverse interactions.  When you know people as individuals, not stereotypes, their racial characteristics fade away, and you know them as a person - not as a member of a particular race.  You may or may not like them at a personal level, but you may now have good reasons for that like/dislike.

A Hierarchy of "Miracles"

In a recent Facebook discussion, I was asked why I differentiate between biblical miracles and those claimed in post-biblical times (right up to and including the present).  I'm not entirely happy with my responses, so I've been mulling it over for a while. The following is the result:  my attempt at a hierarchy of miracles and my comments about them, roughly in an arguable descending order.

1.  The set of those events that are beyond a doubt, unambiguously attributable to the intervention of a very powerful (or ominipotent) deity without any other plausible explanation.  As I see things, this is an empty set.  The bible offers several candidates, but they all fail to meet reasonable criteria.  Sorry, folks, but a document written in the Bronze Age by people who were pretty unsophisticated in their understanding of natural processes provides absolutely zero credible evidence that these events could only be explained by divine intervention in human affairs.  And it seems pretty convenient that virtually all the candidate events (Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, jesus walking on water, people raised from the dead, feeding of the multitudes, etc.) have ceased in the post-biblical era.

2.  The set of those events that have a plausible explanation in terms of processes for which we have a substantial scientific understanding.  If one accepts that such events have a natural (as opposed to a supernatural) explanation, then these events don't qualify as miracles at all. What might be deemed "miraculous" is that a natural event occurs - an earthquake that topples the walls of Jericho for Joshua, the Red Sea is fortuitously parted by a tsunami or a seiche that allows the escape of the Jews led by the mythical Moses, and so on and on - at just the right time for our biblical "heroes".  However, if such stories have any factual basis in both historical evidence and naturally-occurring physical processes, they only speak to extraordinary good fortune for those involved.  You can attribute that to a deity if you choose, but none of these constitute a very compelling example of what I would consider a miracle.  Attributing such to divine intervention is pretty comparable for thanking god for helping someone score touchdowns, or providing rain after a prolonged drought, or being cured of cancer in a hospital, or finding lost car keys.

3.  The set of those events that have their origins in mythology plagiarized by biblical authors from the mythology of other, earlier religions.  Considerable similarity exists between many of the biblical stories and those of even more primitive religions.  Some see this as evidence that actually supports the reality of these narratives.  It is at least a logical possibility.  Unfortunately, it's at least equally plausible, based on the facts as we have them, that they're just recycled mythology, stolen by biblical authors to spice up their writings.

4.  The set of those events that are original myths made up by biblical authors.  Unfortunately, I'm not enough of a religious scholar to know all of the myths of other religions, so I'm uncertain what biblical stories are original.  I'm betting there are some, however.  The opportunity for magical thinking to reinforce the messages that biblical authors wanted to communicate would likely have been irresistible.

4.  The set of those events that are simple "magic" as practiced by magicians since time immemorial.  Magicians and shysters of all sorts use a wide array of tricks to deceive people into believing that the practitioners have supernatural powers.  I have little doubt that some fraction of the miracles described in the bible might well have been simple deceptions of a gullible audience by skilled magicians - parlor tricks and sleight of hand.  This includes faith healers and that ilk, as well.

5.  The set of natural events that are perceived by the gullible as "miraculous".  There seem to be many such "miracles" used by catholics for saintly candidates to be canonized as saints by the church:  there have to be two "miracles" documented (How? Eyewitness testimony?) to be the result of intercession by the candidate, so miracles are inferred from natural events.  Other miracles in this category include images of jesus on burned toast, "bleeding" statues, the Shroud of Turin, the development of life on Earth, and so on.  These are simply natural events or magical interpretations of faked relics, that provide believers with a "confirmation" of divine intervention.

In short, it seems to me that true "miracles" (i.e., divine interventions) are a myth, created to confirm the existence of a mythological deity.  No other rational explanation based on evidence can be offered, unless an actual deity chooses to break what believers take to be a self-imposed ban on miracles that would meet the criteria of #1. 

VORTEX - SE: A political scientific boondoggle

It's come to my attention that a project to study tornadoes in the Southeastern US has been created, via political 'pork barrel' machinations.  This project is predicated on the following basis:

"The southeastern United States commonly experiences devastating tornadoes under conditions that differ considerable from those on the Great Plains region where tornado research has historically been focused.  NOAA/NSSL has a newly funded mandate to collaborate with the National Science Foundation in better understanding how environmental factors that are characteristic of the southeastern U.S. affect the formation, intensity, and storm path of tornadoes for this region."

Several institutions within the southeastern US have been pushing this sort of idea for years.  With the help of their Congressional delegations, they evidently have succeeded in forcing this absurd project on the rest of us.  They assert that tornadoes in the southeast are different, and that their regional storm problems therefore have been overlooked.  There's little doubt that tornado fatality counts in the southeastern US are higher than elsewhere, but it's never been demonstrated that this is the result of a difference in the meteorology of tornadic storms in the southeast.  There are many non-meteorological reasons for high death rates in the southeastern US - this blog isn't the venue for a complete discussion of those non-meteorological explanations. 

Nor has it ever been shown that tornadoes in the southeastern US are the result of some (as yet, unspecified) difference in the physics of severe storms and tornadoes.  To the contrary, there is every reason to believe that the meteorology of severe storms and tornadoes is the same the world over.  Absent a compelling demonstration of an important difference in the meteorology, this program is based on an unvalidated hypothesis. 

Yes, the climatology of tornadoes in the southeast differs from that of the Great Plains.  For instance, there's a well-defined tornado "season" in the plains:  tornadoes occur with high frequency in the months of April, May, and June on the plains, and relatively low frequency at other times of the year.  In the southeast, tornado frequencies generally are much lower than the peak months of the plains tornado season, but those relatively low frequencies only decrease substantially during the summer months in the southeast.  Thus, although tornadoes are less frequent in the southeast, they can occur at almost any time of the year, including in the winter.  The reasons for this are clear to most severe storms meteorologists:  they have to do with the ingredients for severe storms and tornadoes, which come together often in the early to late spring on the Plains, and rather less frequently in the southeast but without a clearly defined "tornado season".  This is a clear indication that severe storms and tornadoes in the southeast are more or less identical to comparable storms on the Plains.  The only difference in the regions is the climatology of the ingredients, but the ingredients are everywhere the same!  It seems quite unlikely that any particularly useful meteorological insight is to be gained by this project.

The proposed program is patterned after the already completed VORTEX and VORTEX2 field observation campaigns in 1994-5, and 2009-10, respectively.  These observational campaigns included mobile radars, instrumented vehicles to intercept storms, and so on.  Doing a similar project in the southeast will be much more challenging, owing to the presence of extensive trees, substantial orography, a high frequency of low cloud bases, and a higher overall population density compared to the Plains.  Visibilities needed for successful storm intercepts are just not common in most of the southeastern US.  This renders even more questionable the basic concept of conducting such an exercise in the southeastern US, since it adds to the danger level for the participants, who will be much less able to see and avoid storm hazards in the course of their observational assignments.

This situation is simply an example of how some institutions can game the system to secure funding for themselves.  Unfortunately, government funding is basically a zero-sum game.  What existing programs and projects will have to be cancelled or delayed because of this boondoggle?  This is not the path to scientific cooperation and collaboration - rather, it's divisive and will damage the relations among scientists for decades to come.  This is not a good idea in any way, and it speaks loudly that this ill-advised reallocation of scarce scientific resources is the result of political posturing rather than a reflection of sound scientific justification.

English as the language of science

As a "beneficiary" of the widespread dominance of English in science, I'm often embarrassed by my inability to speak in more than one language. When people apologize to me for their English, my response is always that their English is far, far better than my ability to communicate in their native tongue.  I've often wished that we Americans routinely were schooled in another language at the same time we learn our native tongue, as happens in many nations in Europe. A good argument could be made that we Americans should be taught Spanish at the same time as we learn grammar in schools.  Spanish allows the easy extension to other European languages:  French and Italian, for instance.  Of course, it would nice to speak German, and Russian, and Mandarin Chinese as well.  The problem is that many people, including myself, have limited aptitude for learning new languages, and the time spent doing so takes time away from things we need to do to advance our scientific careers.  It's all too easy for me to defer the effort since most all of science these days is conducted in English.

Forcing non-native speakers to make presentations in English usually results in awful  presentations, forcing them to listen to presentations in English inhibits their ability to understand, and forcing them to write in English frequently results in nearly unreadable manuscripts.  It's NOT "efficient"! Attending international conferences can be quite painful, as people forced to use English struggle mightily to make themselves understood.  I assume they have a genuine wish to communicate their scientific work, but their limited mastery of English makes it very challenging, and often unsuccessful.  I cringe during such presentations and breathe a sigh of relief when they finish.

I think if everyone spoke the same language as their first language, that surely would be "efficient" but most people cling to their own native language as a form of tribalism, resenting strongly the forced imposition of another language on them. I've not experienced it directly, but it's not hard to grasp why that resentment arises.  Cultural tribalism is inevitable, no matter how much we might hope otherwise.  It's not necessarily a completely bad thing:  from my perspective, language is intimately tied to culture, and I surely have no wish for all the diverse cultures of the world to merge into a global mirror of American strip malls, American movies, chain stores and restaurants, and suburbs.  I like to experience different cultures and learn about other viewpoints.

The ascendancy of a language in science is tied, I believe, to the ascendancy of the science done in that nation. It becomes a self-reinforcing tendency: the more important the science done in your particular language, the more scientific colleagues need to be able to communicate via that language. We Americans have benefited, language-wise, from the rise of England as a world power and its scientific prosperity in the post-Renaissance era. As American science declines in significance, thanks at least in part to economic decline (as well as rampant anti-intellectualism and anti-science campaigns by fundamentalist religious extremists), the use of English as "the" language of science will decline. However, as this article suggests, there's a sort of hysteresis as a result of earlier work forming the foundation for current work.  There always will be a need to read foundational scientific works, at least in translation, if not in their original language.  Nuances in one language may not be translated properly in another, so there's always a benefit from the ability to read the original works, to see and understand the original presentations rather than subtitles or other translational forms.

It's quite unlikely that a universal native language will ever arise, despite the clear and obvious advantages of having one primary language.  Our languages are a big part of who we are as cultures and I doubt that many would surrender that willingly.  Hence, I believe it's important to encourage children, whose ability to learn languages is undiminished, to learn at least one other language at an early age.  America has "benefited" from the dominance of English far too long and far too deeply.  Most of us have surrendered our ability to communicate effectively with the non-English-speaking part of the world.  It's bad enough for our society to be in such a position but, beyond that, it's quite detrimental to our science.  I envy my scientific colleagues who are fluent in at least one other language.

My take on the Chapel Hill murders

We still, as of this writing, have no definitive explanation for the murders of three muslims by atheist Craig Hicks, who voluntarily surrendered himself to police and is charged with these murders. The media have noted he is an atheist and the suggestion has been offered that this crime may have been motivated by his atheistic "hatred" of muslims and is not just a dispute about parking.  This despite his saying (on June 18, 2012), "While I am an outspoken atheist (obviously), I would never take away a persons [sic] right to religion. I would even fight for their rights to have religion if it ever came to that."  I don't know what the investigation will find as an explanation.  And the results of such an investigation may not reflect reality.

Whatever his motivations, the murder of three people is a heinous crime and it's quite appropriate for atheists to confirm that violence is not an acceptable way to resolve religious disputes.  I think such a  message should be directed primarily toward religious believers, as they seem to be the ones most inclined toward seeking violent "solutions" to disputes.  Need I enumerate all the myriad examples of violence committed as a result of religious extremism?  I think not.  [Please don't bring up atrocities perpetrated by atheist Communist dictators.]  Examples of atheists resorting to violence in the name of atheism are pretty uncommon.  This incident is conspicuous precisely because of its rarity.

Being an atheist carries with it no guarantee of anything, good or bad.  No doubt atheists have committed a full spectrum of crimes, but it's perhaps of some interest to note that our American prisons hold only a tiny percentage of atheists (around 0.2 percent).  It seems clear that being religious doesn't prevent believers from being incarcerated for criminal acts.  Since atheists have no sacred scriptures calling for them to commit violence on unbelievers, there are no universally-accepted atheist clergy who might sanction criminal acts of violence against believers, and there are no doctrines of any sort uniting atheists in a violent "crusade" against believers, then we are left with an inescapable conclusion:  Craig Hicks acted on his own volition to commit murder, for a reason or reasons yet to be determined.

Naturally, when religious apologists are called upon to explain why people professing to be of their faith have committed violent crimes, they like to say that these are not "true believers", with the obvious implication that true believers would never do such a thing.  It seems there are a lot of phony believers in prison.  Now I'm not going to say that Craig Hicks could not have been a "true atheist".  That would be quite comparable to the christian apologists' explanation for christians who commit vile crimes.  If it were valid to say that no atheist could commit a violent crime, then that might be an explanation.  Unfortunately, that's not a true statement.  However, there's considerable evidence that atheists are less likely to commit a violent act in the name of atheism than religious believers in the name of their religion.  Know any atheists who've flown planes into buildings lately?

Muslims have become very frightening to many people around the world.  You can equate islamophobia with racism if you wish, even though being a muslim is not a racial thing at all. But islamophobia is not paranoia;  it's based on the reality that muslim terrorists commit murderous criminal acts on innocent victims in the name of islam (that there are explanations for their terrorism is irrelevant). It's become evident that seemingly peaceful muslims living in our communities can be vicious terrorists.  A concern for islamic terrorism isn't just bigoted islamophobia!  Some of the more well-known atheist spokesmen, like Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins agree.  Muslims have yet to outgrow the propensity to violence codified in their "sacred" scriptures, and so they represent a much more worrisome threat than christianity at this time.  To think otherwise is to be oblivious to reality.  What worries me is that christian fear of islam will lead to a more militant form of christianity - not a more militant form of atheism.  Will the terrorists succeed in creating a real religious war by spreading fear in christians?  They're close to that in their clash with the jews of Israel.

I have no reason to apologize to anyone, as an atheist, for what Craig Hicks has done.  If it turns out to be a parking dispute, of course, that settles the issue.  If he did it from some spasm of anti-islamic fervor, I surely can say I had nothing to do with that - if he'd asked me, I'd have told him to back off and not give in to such passions - that it would be harmful to the cause of atheism to make martyrs of these innocent people. Some atheists seem willing to accept responsibility for the actions of this man.  I don't believe there's any reason for atheism to do so.  My friend RJ Evans has articulated this pretty well here.

Let the recriminations commence!

It's becoming apparent that the forecasts for a 'historic' snowstorm for New York city have proven to be incorrect.  At least one meteorologist has already apologized for not getting this correct.  So the recriminations will commence in the media, I'm sure.  Blogs will be written, Bill Belichick's nasty mischaracterization of weather forecasts will be resurrected, politicians will voice their displeasure, letters to the editor will be written, and so on.  Mea culpas and excuses will be offered.

All of this could have been avoided, of course, and I don't mean by the obvious decision to issue a different forecast.  Let me explain briefly from where forecasts come these days:  to an ever-increasing extent, forecasts are more or less coming from numerical weather prediction [NWP] computer-based models.  Human forecasters who have to make forecast decisions are presented with a number of different model forecasts, some produced by different computer models, and some produced by starting the same model with slightly different input starting conditions.  To some extent, the variability within the ensemble is a measure of the uncertainty of the forecast, but even the uncertainty is, well, uncertain!  This collection of different model forecasts is referred to as an 'ensemble' of forecasts, and at times, there can be considerable variation among the different forecast model results, as was the case with this event.  It was quite likely to snow heavily somewhere at some time - the problem was to pinpoint when and where.  A 'historic' snowfall in New York city would have devastating consequences! 

In reality, what is inevitably true is that all the model forecasts will be wrong, to a greater or lesser degree.  No human- or computer-based weather forecast has ever been perfectly correct, and none ever will be.  Uncertainty is inevitable, so the best any forecaster can do is to say "[some weather event, like a blizzard or a tornado] is likely to happen, and my confidence in that occurrence is [some way to express the uncertainty of that forecast, such as a probability]."  Numerous studies have shown that forecasters are actually pretty good at estimating their uncertainty; this is seen by their forecast reliability.  Reliability of a probabilistic forecast means that, given a particular forecast probability, as that forecast probability increases, the frequency of occurrence of the forecast event also increases.  Forecasts are perfectly reliable when the probability forecast is X percent and the occurrence frequency is also X percent.  In general, it's not a good idea to present forecast event probabilities as either zero or 100 percent, although it's possible in certain situations - the probability of having a blizzard in the ensuing 24 hours when it's presently 100 deg F in July is pretty close to zero.

If the forecast probability is neither zero nor 100 percent, then a particular forecast is neither wholly right or wholly wrong.  If the event occurs although the forecast probability was low (say, 1 percent), then this is the one case out of 100 you would expect to find.  If the event fails to occur despite a forecast probability of 99 percent, again, it's the expected one case out of 100.  In the case of the snowstorm in the northeast, the problem was to know just where the heavy snow would be.  Clearly, when the event occurs, you want the forecast probabilities to be high and when it fails to occur, you want the forecast probability to be low.  Of course, there at times when it doesn't turn out that way, as I've described.

Getting back to the 'dilemma' of choosing from an ensemble of forecasts, the most likely event is the average of all the ensemble members.  But even if that average actually turns out to be the best forecast, it will not be completely accurate.  And there are times when the forecast that would have been the best is one of the ensemble members - the problem is to know with confidence which would be the correct choice, and the challenge is that science simply can't predict that with accuracy.  And in some situations, none of the ensemble members is very close to the real evolution of the weather, unfortunately - i.e., none of the model solutions were accurate.  There is no scientific way to choose the "model of the day" and efforts to do so are simply a waste time!

Everyone wants the forecasts to be absolutely correct, all the time - but like the Rolling Stones say, "You can't always get what you want!"  We need to re-negotiate our contract with forecast users who expect us to provide a level of certainty we simply are [and always will be] incapable of providing.  Users deserve to know our uncertainty in the forecast products we send out.  Not doing so is scientifically dishonest - forecasters know their uncertainty, so not sharing it is to withhold important information!