Font rant

You read a lot of conflicting information, most of it not evidence based, with precious little reference to actual scientific studies on the subject of which is more readable (or legible, which is more technically defined): serif or sans serif fonts. So the choice has a significant proportion of subjective esthetic judgement involved. 

So, here's my take. Sans serif fonts like Helvetica and Arial arose out of the Bauhaus or Brutalist architectural esthetic of the early to mid 20th century. The dogma that they are "cleaner" and "easier to read" is, in my view, largely false. They were probably adopted for computer screens because, at low resolution, they are easier to reproduce and easier to decipher. But there actually is considerable evidence that not only are serif fonts, when accurately imaged, are at least as easy to read for large amounts of text, and they are generally preferred by readers in such formats as books, journals, and magazines. 

I personally despise the Brutalist esthetic whole cloth, and dislike sans serif fonts for most purposes. Where they are marginally better, I find semi-serif fonts, like Asul or Optima, are even better... such as for screen fonts. But even for e-mail I prefer a nice serif font, like Palatino or (a new favorite) Caladea. Fonts that have genuine italics (which are completely different, not merely algorithmically derived slant).  

I find most people barely notice these differences, but, as someone who had to prepare "camera ready" legal copy for 35 years using ordinary word processing applications, I have strong, and likely unshakeable views on the subject. Down with Arial! Grind it into the dust! Helvetica is only marginally better. It looks and feels anti-human, machinelike, indifferent to emotion, flying in the face of beauty. (By the way, the skinny and really quite ugly Times New Roman is very probably my least favorite serif font). 

I rest my case, and if you are unconvinced I banish you to the virtual realm of the Philistines! You can come out when activities are not textual! 

(G-mail does not offer a full range of fonts. This e-mail should appear in most browsers and e-mail apps in a generic serif font, based on my choices, but many programs substitute fonts willy nilly). 

Tectonic revolutions and the weirdness of Western North America

About 40 years ago a good friend introduced me to the concept that the Sierra foothills and Coast Range in California were accreted to North America as "island arcs" comparable to Japan, and I found that fascinating, but I admit I pictured Honshu smashing California, one and done. I probably would've been flabbergasted to realize that it wasn't just one island arc, but a whole series of "exotic terranes," and it wasn't just California. All or nearly all of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and most of California are made up of exotic slivers and slices, some having moved along faults or caught up in moving plates that originated far away. Some less far. So a big island system, actually probably closer to Kamchatka than Japan, collided and slid along (now North, then mostly east along the now-western, then equatorial and E-W oriented margin of Laurentia (North America). That superterrane, now called Intermontane, consisted of two detached pieces of old North America with a slice of coastal material from Gondwana... now Indonesia... slivered in between. It collided about 170 million years ago. I won't try to account for all of this in a paragraph, but another big one, the Insular superterrane (docked with N. Amer. about 100 million years ago), forms a lot of British Columbia and Alaska. It consisted of Wrangellia, which originated in what is now coastal Siberia (it's controversial) docked way out in the ocean, which was probably the Kula ocean, not the modern Pacific (it's really complicated), with a slice of continental crust, the Alexander Terrane, that made its way along the Uralian ocean then east and north of North America from a point near Europe. A long way, but this was before the modern Atlantic opened up. And that's how the Yellow Aster formation in North Cascades National Park is actually a little piece of the red sandstones that the founder of modern Geology, James Hutton (1726-1797) referred to as the Great Unconformity (coining that word). In Wales. Rocks identical to rocks in Wales are found in the Pacific Northwest, not because they're similar, but because they are the same rocks. So if that doesn't boggle your mind just a bit, you aren't really thinking about it. 

I said this was weird, but actually there are a lot of places in the world that are similarly complex, with bits and pieces rifting, translating, docking... it's extremely complex. There have been at least two, probably three sequences where all the landmasses have come together in a supercontinent, most recently about 400 million years ago as Pangaea. Most people have heard of Pangaea, but the details of how the surface of the Earth has evolved over time are truly amazing, and virtually all of this science has arisen in my lifetime. 

Lithic worlds, Earths and Super Earths

If the whole subject of speculation about the prevalence of life and the nature of exoplanets makes your eyes glaze over, you may want to skip this musing. 

I have come to what I consider an inescapable conclusion, which I believe will eventually just be one of those "background wisdom" things everyone knows.

Our Solar System (our star system, or SS) has four inner "terrestrial" (terrestroid would be a better word, or perhaps even better, lithic) planets. Some star systems do not have inner lithic planets; some have all or mostly lithic planets, not necessarily close in; and a good fraction of such planets are of the SE type (Super Earth), mass between 1.1 and 2.0 Earth masses, a common enough type that it seems the majority of SSs have at least one. Another type, still lithic but clearly hopeless for life, would be the 2.0 to 3.5 or so range, which are also common and usually lumped in with SE, but actually are clearly different. Beyond 3.5 or so they hold hydrogen and are Neptune-type. No example of a Super Earth exists in our SS. 

But here's my conclusion: 

Our SS has examples of 3 extremely common types, which exemplify, respectively, the large majority of lithic worlds in the universe. Runaway greenhouse, which can happen easily inward of the socalled habitable zone (Venus), but can also happen within and even beyond the habitable zone (colder, farther from star). The second is cold, dry (Mars) type, which can range from Moon size up to a good deal larger than Earth, which is where liquid water did not take hold sufficiently to create an atmosphere that retains water vapor and ozone (a neat, tightly balanced trick). Cold dry worlds (Mars) are probably the most common type of lithic planet, with SEs being second. The third, Mercury, is the hot dry type, which are just too hot, inward of habitable zone, to retain any liquid water or much of an atmosphere at all. Mercury would be Mars type if it were further out. Hot dry worlds are usually tidally locked; a whole other subject which limits habitability even further, but I won't go into that further. If Venus, even though almost Earth size, were where Mercury is, it would look more like Mercury than it does. So this is a separate type, but small lithic bodies quite near stars are also extremely common. 

The gas planets in the SS, apart from being all bunched up and pretty far away, which is not typical but not rare, are nothing special, apart from Satur's especially beautiful rings. 

Which, of course, leaves Earth. Earth is the anomaly, the rarity. And not just because of life. It formed from a major collision, ending up with a large moon and relatively lower density (only slight, but definitely abnormal). It acquired a lot of probably cometary water (not necessarily typical). It is inward of a large gas giant that caused the heavy bombardment period to peter out early. It developed, of course, the unique chemistry of life, quite early on, which came to regulate surface temperature despite the universal tendency of main sequence stars to increase continually in temperature throughout their main sequence lifetimes. And, probably because of life and the advent of free oxygen and thus ozone in the upper atmosphere, it is 1) protected from lethal radiation at the surface and 2) retains water, which otherwise would eventually dissociate at the edge of space into hydrogen and oxygen, and the hydrogen would all escape, converting the Earth into Mars type. This is the usual fate of worlds situated in Earth's approximate position. The presence of oceans for billions of years, therefore, led to plate tectonics, which didn't kick in until about 1 billion years after the origin of the planet, and which is almost certainly necessary to retain habitable conditions on the surface, but which is probably highly unusual in the universe. Quite a number of just barely stable conditions, all of which are necessary for the habitable conditions remaining stable on this planet for more than 3 billion years. 

In other words, Rare Earth. It really is true: a lot of things that can easily stray into the "easy" part of the graph, and cause a planet like Earth to resemble either Venus or  Mars. Only a tiny fraction end up with conditions where life is possible for long periods of time, and of course the regulatory (Gaia-like) nature of biospheres themselves play a big role in that. 

This explains the Fermi Paradox completely, and means that naturally habitable planets are rare as hen's teeth. It is the evolution of intelligent life, however common or rare that turns out to be, that will make life in the wider range common in most of space possible. The natural origin of life really is a near miraculous concatenation of not particularly likely-in-combination factors. 

One countervailing factor: SEs may have all of these characteristics, although probably only at the relatively lower end of mass range. Planets between about 0.9 and 1.5 Earth masses are probably candidates for liquid oceans and plate tectonics. I've seen in print the "educated guess" that the majority of living worlds are probably closer to 1.5, meaning, as living worlds go, Earth may be near the lower end of the mass range. Planets like Mars, or even up to 0.7 or 0.8 Earth masses, probably cannot sustain plate tectonics or retain liquid water over eons, no matter what else may be going on. But it seems likely that most planets that have liquid oceans and plate tectonics are, in fact, SEs. 

The fact that 70%+ of all stars are probably too dim to have a habitable world at all (Class M or red dwarf stars) is another limiting factor, of course, but that's another topic. 

The court, the oh-so-undemocratic Court

    Courts are inherently not democratic institutions, but it seems to me that when, through a profoundly anti-democratic campaign lasting decades, a high court is stacked with extremists, whose views and decisions are consistently well outside what at least 3/4 of the people regard as just and moral, the governance of that republic can not really be said to be operating on democratic principles. It is too much of a compromise. "America is a compromised republic, where one of the key branches of government is representative of a tiny elite and is willing and eager to impose its policies, despite the opposition of 75% of the public." Like the sound of that? I don't. We must resist. 

There is precedent, principally during Reconstruction, when the Congress exercised its rightful Constitutional power to determine policy, and, particularly, to determine the makeup and jurisdiction of the courts. In recent decades there is a false blanket of tradition, wherein the Court can't be challenged (or even, it seems, be made subject to the most fundamental of ethical rules). Time for that to end. We must take charge of the court, first within the existing Constitution. Impeach miscreants like Alito and Thomas on quite valid grounds of ethical improprieties. Add 4 new seats. Remove the power of the court to restrict the right to vote (this can be done by statute, as reflected in a legal opinion by CJ Roberts himself written while working as a OLC lawyer for Reagan in the early 80s). Outlaw gerrymandering nationwide by statute (tricky, but legally feasible). Declare a right of a woman to control her body, including the right to end a pregnancy up to viability, as medically determined. 

If and when we are able again to amend the Constitution, impose a ten year limit for all Federal judges, no exceptions (except maybe the 10 years starts again if elevated to the CofA or the SC). Create explicit rights to privacy, and, as far as possible, to medical care, to access to food and housing, to a safe environment and sustainable livelihood.

I won't add in ending the Electoral College or the grossly disproportionate representation in the Senate, as these issues are separate from the Court issues, but it's all of a piece: reinforce and augment democracy, including ditching undemocratic provisions in the Constitution where necessary. The current historical impasse on amendments will not last forever. 

We need to not only restore our democratic-principled republic, by wresting power from the elitist court, but also to improve it, to make it more democratic than ever, more robust, more dedicated to the principle that governance must ultimately be with the consent of the governed, and that government does indeed have a role in "promoting the general welfare," which takes precedence over elite privilege when the two are in conflict. 

Old fart experience with new toy.

I am reasonably handy with tech stuff on a consumer level. Was a relatively early adopter of personal computing. Waited a bit on smartphones but got one before 2013. Can usually make stuff work, even semi-experimental music software like Jamkazam, which I used a lot during COVID to play music over the internet with close to zero latency. Which statement in and of itself proves my point, since most folks have no idea what that even means. 

But I bought a Sonos smart speaker on sale to play music from streaming, primarily, through WiFi rather than bluetooth. I spent an hour or so following the instructions but it didn't work through WiFi and sounded only fair through bluetooth. So I packed it up and am sending it back. Satisfaction guaranteed; I ain't satisfied. 

My only reason for this little rant is the observation that high tech appliances these days are not really very user friendly (too often), and, in particular, are just not designed for older people who didn't grow up with computers and can't easily read 5 pt. sans serif type on a booklet 4" x 4" that contains about 3000 words, some of which are actually important. Usually I power through all that; I'm pretty good at intuiting control designs and making stuff work through trial and error. But this thing just didn't work as intended after numerous tries and careful reading of the instructions, and to the extent it did work, it was difficult to find the music I wanted to hear using their App and the sound was just OK. And the damn thing kept losing connection to WiFi and had to be "found" again. I'd heard one of these in someone else's house and I thought it was surprisingly good, but in my own home and the best I could do to get it working, it was crap. 

I have to admit I sometimes pine just a little for the old days, when you took something out of the box, plugged it in, and it worked. Or, even setting up a stereo system with all the speaker wires and everything... that was a bit of a hassle, but it was easy to understand and after 20 min., it was fine, worked completely intuitively, and didn't involve deciding to "live with" unsatisfactory half-measures. I find that phones, laptop computers, tv streaming devices, etc. almost all work with some issues; some frequent glitches and need to restart, relocate wireless connections, etc. My verdict: there's a way to go to make the "internet of things" that we keep hearing about actually workable. 

 

Nix on "Independent State Legislature" theory

I'm not really sure how likely it ever was that the SC would accept the nutso butso "independent state legislature" theory, that would have essentially de-democratized US elections permanently. But the fact that they REJECTED it, 6-3 has to be counted as a "save."  

Facing the Antrhopocene

We as a species really, really need to face the facts. And now. 

One of a series:  Facing the Antrhopocene. 

 

Highway names in regional dialects

Perhaps commonplace dialect observations. I had to make the transition from 1 to 2 in order not to be immediately identifiable as one of the loathed California transplants (which I am, of course, but I like to say Oregonian by choice).

1.  In California, in times past we used to say "Hollywood Freeway" instead of "the 101," and still do for some of the old landmarks. They do this somewhat in Chicago too. "The Kennedy," "The Eisenhower," etc. (In Calif. names after presidents or other public figures don't go over well. The Richard M. Nixon Freeway is very short (incomplete, as are many golden age freeways) but it's never called that, nor is the Simi Valley Freeway called "The Reagan Freeway." Ever.) Anyway, over the last 50 years the "Golden State Freeway" became, mostly, "the 5" (which is also the Santa Ana Freeway and many others of course). "The 5," not just "Five." "The 405;" "The 101."

2.  In the Pacific Northwest, you never say this. It's just "205," "99," etc. You do say "The Ross Island Bridge," but it's never "the 26."

3.  In the Eastern Seaboard, you usually say "I-x" for interstates. Not "The I-95," just "I-95." In the PNW folks never say this. It's not "I-5," it's just "Five." 

You're welcome for this useless information, which is nonscientific, just based on my observations. 

The Anthropocene: Where on Earth are We Going (Will Steffen)

This video by Will Steffen (Climate Council of Australia) is genuinely excellent and shows how some policy considerations that we consider purely "matters of opinion" in America really do verge on "consistent with what is real" vs. "total delusional about the consequences". And that's very, very worrisome indeed, as this video makes all too clear. Video

 

Supreme Court impeachments and increase

Generally, I think we have to be wary of changing goalposts and hypocrisy, even for a good cause. Consider the current Supreme Court scandals. Is there a danger of that here? The scandal mostly seems to center around expensive perks given to right wing judges by people who pretty clearly are trying to influence them or, more likely, ensure their compliance with an agenda that sometimes causes them to shred the law and even logic. Thomas seems to be the worst: expensive private vacations, education expenses (much like Trump's lackeys), for which I'll bet no one paid any taxes; real estate sweethearts. Alito took expensive vacations from a billionaire with actual cases before the Court. But is this out of norm, or new? What was Scalia doing at a super private richy rich resort when he died? If we were calling these things out just to get at our least favorite judges (which we are, to an extent), and these things were just business as usual for all the justices, I would be sympathetic to an argument that it's a double standard. But that does not appear to be the case. It's the cynical and unprincipled right wingers who do this stuff. The more honorable justices (which I'm guessing includes Roberts and former Justice Kennedy) have avoided quid pro quos, and even the appearance thereof. So, no, this stuff is already against recognized judicial ethics standards, whether or not these are enforceable canons against the untouchable Supreme Court. 

We certainly can make newly black-letter the requirement that justices of the SC accept no emoluments of any kind. Increase their pay, to say $750K (it's now nearly $250), but impose strict ethical standards beyond any doubt. And, meanwhile, in the cases of Thomas and Alito, in a fine day after the 2024 election, one hopes, the Congress should impeach and convict those two for ethical lapses. There is certainly basis in the constitution for removing them from office for "bad behavior." In Thomas's case, there are other grounds as well, since he clearly voted on cases in which his wife had a pretty well-defined interest. 

This is only one element of dealing with the crisis caused by the far right takeover of the Court. The other is to pass the expansion of the Court to 13 that has already been drafted and presented as a bill. There is precedent for that, too, and the Congress unquestionably has the power to do that (subject to presidential veto). 

I disagree with the Biden wing of our party that seems to think that no interference with the court is ever justified. But the fact is, the court has been hijacked, and the means to do it, if not outright illegal, certainly make a mockery of how the constitution is supposed to work. So, I say, a some extraordinary measures to right the course are called for. 

Of course we can do very little if we don't win. Democrats, who are now the "big tent" party that includes or at least pulls in temporarily everyone who believes in the continuity of small-r republican government, need to push for a full-on landslide at all levels in 2024, so we can undertake the kinds of actions that will not only "right the course," but ensure that the ol' ship o' state stays on course for a good long while afterwards. 

 

Child labor

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-14-2023?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

I had naively thought that the whole issue of no child labor had been settled a long time ago in this country, in favor of civilized behavior. Apparently I was wrong. 

 

Comment on the prevailing lack of interest in geology

For some reason, most educated people know a fair amount of geography, both human and even physical (such as, they know approximately where Tahiti and Madagascar are, for example). And a smattering of interest in where resources come from (oil, mining, etc.) isn't unusual. But interest in deep time, paleontology and historical geology, is actually pretty unusual. I find that it's a surprise to most people, for example, that over the course of the last 150 million years, North America, on the west, docked with a huge archipelago, much as Australia is now doing with Indonesia and New Guinea, and ended up incorporating it into its western margin. If the names Wrangellia, Siletzia, and the Insular and Intermontane superterranes sound like something out of a fantasy novel for you, you're missing out on one of the most interesting reorderings of scientific knowledge of the last 50 years, which basically explains why and how 1/3 of our country is mountains and where they came from. Other parts of the world have similar stories, of course, but you would think people would be a little more interested than they are in how our homeland came to be. The big picture, such as Central Washington University's Nick Zentner explains in a long series of YouTube lectures, is actually pretty easy to grasp, once you realize that there's actually quite a lot we know about this stuff, which was pretty much a complete mystery before the 1970s and the plate tectonic revolution. 

 

Short rant on the economy

Countering the negative "vibe" message that seems to be everywhere right now. We are not in a recession. The economy does have serious structural problems, most caused by, I'll say it, lack of any kind of industrial or forward looking public investment policy, and excessively low taxes and poor tax enforcement on the very rich and certain large corporate entities and banks. I don't get why people are surprised that the Fed has decided not to raise interest rates yet again. Earth to doomsayers: we are currently in historically normal inflation and historically low unemployment. We have a long way to go to make this economy work for everyone, but deliberately distorting the truth to make it sound like we're in Trump's "terminal decline" just plays into their hands. The economy needs a shot in the arm from public investment, not cutting back on spending, and for heaven's sake, not by cutting taxes. Although reducing bloated military spending should certainly be on the agenda. 

The truth is that North America is resource rich, we have the world's reserve currency, and we are not overpopulated or otherwise challenged any more than the rest of the world by the environmental crisis. So we should be rolling up our sleeves, uniting around the job that needs doing, and put aside all the idiocy and polarization. Right now, regardless of whether you tend towards liberal, social democratic, or conservative politics, that means electing Democrats at all levels to begin the process of ridding our country from the scourge of Fascism, aka Trumpism. 

Waste heat and a high energy society

 A friend commented to my recent post on stationary batteries that we all need to learn to use less electricity. I don't think this is right, but there is some truth in it, or at least it is an issue. Few think about the issue of waste heat, but we actually are in the ballpark where this is part of the problem, and it's not going to go away. We have to find optimum, including with regard to maximum human populations, and make that the sustainable standard. Here's part of what I said in response (edited slightly): 

I don't believe less electricity is the main issue or the essence of a truly long term solution. There's nothing wrong in principle with a high energy society (literally). It's whether the energy is sustainable. Of course, way down the road, there's the issue of waste heat, which represents (I'm told) a lower threshold of sustainability than is frequently assumed. Even for purely physical reasons (as opposed to spiritual, esthetic, psychological, or other human concerns), there is a limit to how much high grade (low entropy) energy we can generate and dissipate in the atmosphere as waste heat before the capacity of the planet to radiate the heat into space without continual temperature increase is exceeded. A guess is that even from this point of view a global population of 20 billion people using energy, even all renewable energy, at the level now prevalent in the West, China, Korea and Japan, is unsustainable. In times short by geological standards, the oceans would boil. So we have to figure out how to find and stay with what is optimal. 

I've been saying for years though, and I think it's true, that we as a species have committed to high technology. There is no going back, and the future that entails the most meaningful life and least suffering and death is a high-but-sustainable energy society. We will not achieve optimum only or even mostly through conservation, but mainly through learning to develop energy resources that are not slowly killing the world we live on. The good news is that it is increasingly clear that this is quite possible: the issue is political. Can we wise up fast enough to commit to the changes and efforts necessary to make this happen, in time? No one knows, but it sure seems likely there will be some rough going during this critical century. 

Stationary batteries and their role in futuer power production and supply

Obviously, I'm no electrical engineer. But from what I've read about, I think this article in the NYT misses an important component of getting our infrastructure ready for an all-electric vehicle, renewable power future. And that is the role that stationary batteries will play, in every building, every house, every user of power during peak times. Battery technology is getting so good, so long lasting, so reliable, and so developed from nonrare materials that they can be installed everywhere.  Sodium ion phosphate and other new technologies that don't require large amounts of nickel, cobalt, or lithium are coming online rapidly. But, you might say, that's just storage, how does that help the shortfall of capacity? Well, it doesn't, entirely, of course. We do have to build a huge amount of renewable sourced energy plants and the transmission infrastructure to distribute power. But batteries will smooth out the curve; eliminate the need for "peaker" power plants that only come on line during periods of peak demand. Essentially, with a little margin for failures, the power system will only have to provide the average daily power consumption; the batteries will smooth out the peaks and charge to full when power demand is at its lowest. This could, I'm told, amount to as much as a 20% reduction in the peak power production levels required. This article doesn't really address this point, which is obviously crucial. This is clearly part of Elon Musk's long range strategy to turn Tesla into a critical energy company, but he is not alone in furthering this kind of technology, the advantages of which are obvious and compelling. 

Self Driving more difficult than thought... don't hold your breath

 A few years ago I seriously talked about the day, not too far off, when you could buy a new electric car from Amazon, and it would drive itself to your garage. 

Tesla autonomous driving crashes

But, as this piece in NY Times indicates (however sensationalized it may be), the problem of autonomous AI driving systems has turned out to be very much more difficult than some thought, and is probably actually not in the cards in time for it to matter to people my age (I'm 70). 

Important to note: this issue is entirely separate from the paradigm shift to battery EV cars, which is well underway and accelerating. The autonomous systems cost extra ... a lot... and relatively few people buy them. Frankly, based on this record, there should be a moratorium on including them in cars for sale to the public. No matter how many warnings not to rely on them, people do it, and they are clearly not safe to allow to control a car unattended.... yet. 

Stop saying Aileen Cannon is a "Trump-appointed" Judge without explanation of more!

For crying out loud, mainstream mediatypes!  Aileen Cannon isn't recusable because she's "Trump-appointed." That's legally irrelevant, as it should be. She's recusable because she has an actual conflict, on the record, namely that she was rebuked and reversed by the appellate court in this same case, in the pre-filing discovery litigation phase the investigation stage. 

Chinese Battery Innovation and its importance for the future

Australian YouTube influencer Sam Evans is a super-pro-EV guy, no doubt, no prevarication. But he does respect and stick to facts except when expressing pretty clearly identified opinions. Anyway, this video shows a couple of important things. First, probably due to vestigial racism, it's commonly believed that the Chinese are very good at economic development and manufacturing but not so much at engineering innovation. Absolutely not true: Chinese battery technology leads the world, beyond question, and their innovations are driving the great paradigm shift that will result in the world switching wholesale to electrically propelled vehicles... possibly eventually even including aircraft. The other striking point is the technology he's discussing itself. It really does appear that in the fairly near future two of the two greatest disadvantages of personal EVs... range anxiety and the time it takes to charge (which results in bottlenecks at charging stations as the number of users increases)... have been solved. And the remaining one, lack of sufficient charging and electric power infrastructure, is a more fundamental issue that we face as a global civilization for reasons that go way beyond EVs. We simply must invest in renewable-based electric power infrastructure as a tip-top public policy imperative. Anyone who tells you different is simply wrong. 

I'm no fan of the Chinese government, and am fully supportive of American efforts to remain competitive and a leader in technology, while maintaining our liberal small-r republican government (no thanks to the Cryptofascists on the right). But ignoring the technological revolution being led by China is just sticking our heads in the sand. We must embrace and master these new technologies. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbXRGxROkOU&list=TLPQMDkwNjIwMjO-F4B5DlAGng&index=8&pp=gAQBiAQB

Chris Licht, good riddance

 I never watch CNN. Well, maybe 20 min. a year. But I've got to believe it's a good thing the Powers of the megacorporate owners of the network decided to fire Chris Licht. A troglodyte who equates "move to center" (which is such a laugh!) with "associate the network with the effort to re-elect the malignant narcissist who was America's first would-be fascist dictator to serve as president."

Economic disinformation, an example

Justin Wolfers, author of Think Like an Economist, gives a good example of  how politically motivated distortion of economic data often works. This kind of "reporting" (read disinformation) is the source of a lot of predictions of imminent recession, despite the fact that inflation is roughly half what it was a year ago (and at historic norms after a long period of exceptionally low inflation); while unemployment remains low and job creation is at historic highs, when considered over multiple months. Anyway, here's his example. In both Republican and Democratic administrations, going back at least a few decades, monthly job creation numbers are released as early as feasible using statistical extrapolation methods to yield a number, even though some data is not final. This feeds the demand for timely information. And these numbers are always adjusted around a month later when data is more complete. Over longer periods, typically, there are either slight overreads or slight underreads of the initial numbers, depending on what you might call "hidden secular trends." So numbers might be consistently overestimated for, say, six months in a row, and this might reasonably be considered as a sign of what you might call "hidden weakness" in the economy. Generally these numbers really are produced by dispassionate econometric analysts, so, in both Republican and Democratic administrations, these deviations tend to be small and genuinely caused by trends which are inherently difficult to detect. So, if it were the case over, say, the last six months, that the "Biden" jobs numbers were being adjusted downward for each month in succession, one could say, as some of the "Tech Bro" libertarian economists have done, "See, the economy is actually worse than they're reporting. Fair enough, actually. Technically right, in the hypothetical, although the effect is usually very small. But. But. Do these same libertarian axe-to-grind folks say the opposite when, month after month, the jobs numbers are actually adjusted upwards? No, they do not. They say, almost as a chorus, that the numbers are rigged and the administration is corrupt. In fact, this is the situation: jobs numbers, averaged over the last year or so, have pretty consistently been adjusted upwards, and as an indicator honest reportage must conclude that these numbers reflect concealed strength, not weakness, in the economy. (This indicator, obviously, isn't the only one, but inflation numbers are also encouraging since the beginning of the year). 

This is a good example about how having a particular vested interest in a certain view of the economy can and does result in completely misleading information being plastered all over the mainstream press. Unfortunately, economic anxiety, fed by this kind of thing, is somewhat self-fulfilling, and can create negative feedbacks that actually negatively affect economic outlook. Bottom line: stick to facts, and keep a critical view that looks for reliable factual basis in prognostications you see in the media. 

Default Bill and the Push for 55%

I choose to believe that the 5 Democrats who voted against the default limit (including Sanders, technically not a Democrat, and including our Senator, Merkley), did so as a symbolic protest against cuts in vital programs and a particularly insidious fossil fuel pipeline, just about the worst kind of corrupt public policy imaginable. Had the vote been truly close, I believe every single one of them would have voted Yes, because they have all shown in their overall stances that they put the interests of the nation and its people above mere politics. 

The 31 Republicans who voted No, however, constitute a veritable rogues' list of traitorous MAGA Fascists, who were truly voting to destroy the American economy and fiscal stability, in the mad belief that such would inure to their benefit in their constant quest to put antidemocratic powergrabbing above all else. 

Democrats need to do everything possible to shorten the careers of every one of them. 

We cannot let up. I'm an enthusiastic endorser of Simon Rosenberg's "Push for 55" where we should not only grapple desperately to retain the Senate, re-elect Biden and retake the House, but we should push for a massive repudiation of Fascism by getting a landslide nationally in 24, and making gains in the local governments of every Red State, while consolidating control in every Blue State. This is not impossible. But you have to work for it, and believe you can succeed. 

NO to denying medical care due to indebtedness

Let me just be totally clear. Supposedly nonprofit healthcare systems turning away patients because they have unpaid medical bills is totally unacceptable. I realize that as a society we have to have realistic ways to pay for medical care. But this is not it. We simply have to do better, and part of that solution has to be to make it totally illegal to deny care due to medical indebtedness. Period, and I will not countenance or even listen to any arguments to the contrary. This is a red line we should never have crossed and must not continue to tolerate. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/business/allina-health-hospital-debt.html  

Terrane Accretion Animation, Western North America since 170 Ma

This is a really long, albeit to me totally fascinating, video about the mantle tomography evidence for major terrane and plate movements on the margin of North America mostly between about 100 Ma* and 50 Ma. But I'm not proposing my farflung correspondents watch the whole thing necessarily. But, please pull it up and watch between 56:00 and 60:00 to see how, much like Australia ramming New Guinea, several large and small microcontinents (comparable to Borneo, Sumatra, or Japan, say) were accreted to North America to make the Western Mobile belt, which is all of the three West Coast states, and some adjacent areas (not including the Rockies, a different story), much of Mexico, all of Brit. Columbia, and all of Alaska. From 170 Ma to the present. If this doesn't pique your interest just a little bit, you're hopeless when it comes to "lay interest in science." No offense.  

(*means "million years ago," usually pronounced "M-a"... notice that Karin sometimes just says "Years," since it's obvious she means "million years").

YouTube Zentner

These ideas are somewhat controversial in detail, but in general the fact that something very like this happened is by now indisputable. 

Biological Imperative

My impression is that even many "futuristical" thinkers and science fiction writers have not yet fully absorbed what I believe is the emergent picture of where we, as an intelligent, inchoate technological species on a relatively isolated natural life-bearing world in a quiet spiral arm of a (relatively) quiet galaxy, find ourselves. 

Here's how I see it, as succinctly as I can manage. I'll put it in Powerpointese (aka bullet points). 

• Whether through the Anthropic Principle or otherwise, the universe is much the same, at least in the filaments rather than the voids, everywhere: galaxies form stars, which are accompanied by planets. This process is stochastic, but it is possible for planets to be relatively stable for very long periods of time with conditions favorable for the origin and persistence of life. And, at least occasionally, life evolves self-awareness and intelligence, which in its broadest strokes means the ability to correctly perceive the actual nature of the cosmos, and use technology to expand life beyond the surface of the single planet of origin. 
• Although this process is clearly possible, there are very good reasons to believe that it is somewhere between exceedingly and very rare. The origin of life may be (just barely) "downhill," meaning it is likely to happen given the initial conditions favorable for it, which clearly occurred on Earth fairly quickly after the surface cooled down and the early solar system era of heavy bombardment had come to an end. (In some systems this bombardment phase might never end, which would be one of the filters making life and advanced life respectively less common than they otherwise would be). 
• On the other hand, there are clearly "choke points," developments in the history of life which are not likely to happen, and so typically only happen in the history of any given life bearing world after long periods of trial and error. And some may, occasionally, never happen in any given system. Examples are the origin of a reliable and accurate system of coding and transmitting genetic information; the origin of oxygen production through a particularly efficient form of photosynthesis (necessary ultimately for the survival of any but the most limited and basic chemoautotrophic life); the parallel and concomitant evolution of respiration, which makes life much more energy efficient; the origin of a eukaryote-like cellular structure (making sex possible and evolution more efficient, also making the emergence of macroscopic life possible); and the origin of human-level intelligence, which has the potential to speed up evolution enormously by introducing the ability of organisms to perceive their situation and respond to it rationally rather than purely through trial and error type biological evolution. If any of these kinds of transitions (there are several others) were to fail to happen, then life would be stuck, and would not evolve to a "higher phase." What the "higher phase" that results from the evolution of intelligence looks like we do not yet fully know or understand, but it appears that it is of at least equal importance in the evolution of life on, or from, this planet, as the evolution of photosynthesis. 
• Stars, especially little red dwarfs (over 70% of all stars), and planets (nearly all stars have planets)... are, on the other hand, very common. So there is plenty of undeveloped but developable real estate. A big catch is that stars, vis a vis other stars, are very, very far apart. This may be a feature, not a bug. If stars are too close together, as they are near galactic centers, encounters and such things as proximal supernovae, are probably common enough to disrupt most planetary systems before life really has a chance to evolve to higher levels there. But distance makes interstellar exploitation of resources very difficult. We have to solve some truly humongous engineering problems to be able to make use of "the stars," literally. But in the meantime our "solar nursery" is actually quite large and resource-rich. Once our civilization has achieved sustainable advanced technology on our planet, we can become a "system" civilization, with orbital habitats, asteroid mining, and even some utilization of the planets and moons of the Solar System.
• From the foregoing facts it becomes inescapable to conclude that a sort of universal biological imperative exists: to go forth into wider space, and spread life as far and as wide as possible. To seek out and colonize habitats; make use of matter and energy available literally everywhere to expand the sphere of life to encompass the entire universe. While not embracing a religious or teleological perspective, this seems to be pretty clearly the "purpose" of intelligence: to figure this out and accomplish it. I don't doubt that somewhere out in the vast cosmos others are dealing with these same issues, or have long since passed the initial phases and are well along on such a program. But here and now, in this little corner of the cosmos, we are it, and this is our history, our task, and our fate. 

We need to start thinking WIPEOUT

I keep thinking that the election in my lifetime that 2024 should most closely resemble should be 1964. The complete wipeout of an extremist and a lot of his party by the onrushing of common sense in a somewhat battered electorate. Of course in many ways 1964 was still the 50s and it was a very different time, but I think Simon Rosenberg might be onto something when he talks about going all out, pushing for a 55% landslide and taking back the House, keeping the Senate, and making gains in some surprising state races, like Mississippi. Dobbs may turn out to be the Fascists' Achilles' Heel. 

Chinese "manipulate" their market, but there's absolutely nothing anyone can do about it

You kinda gotta hand it to the Chinese. Rather than impose even more prohibitive tariffs (which is what Trump did), they have announced emissions requirements for new cars to be sold in China that essentially prevent any but full battery-electric-drive cars from being sold. Guess what? The Japanese makers, who formerly depended on the Chinese market, have no competitive vehicles to sell there, and won't for some time, if ever. Ford and GM have a small number, and so will lose most of this market. Mercedes will do halfway OK, but all other European makers are screwed. Since China has 18 different EV manufacturers, including the second largest (BYD), only Tesla, which manufactures many of its cars there, among foreign manufacturers, will be competitive in the Chinese market, starting next year. This is hugely disruptive, although in the case of the Japanese, they've pretty much lost this huge market already. 

Step down already, Dianne Feinstein

It's kind of sad, really, but Dianne Feinstein has probably already lingered past her best-advice retirement date long enough that overstaying her incumbency is likely to be what she is most remembered for, at least for the next few years. I happen to think she has never been the kind of public-service oriented Democrat we need more of, but her recent tenancy in office has been mostly a problem, not part of any solutions.  

There is no shame in recognizing that it's time to step down. And, hey Dianne, come on. It couldn't be more obvious that it's past time. 

Biden must announce that the 14th amendment makes the debt ceiling moot.

I will reiterate. I think Biden makes a mistake every day he fails to announce that the Administration is going to regard the fourth clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which requires that the debt of the United States not be subject to "question," as supreme. Regardless of what the Congress does. Let the anti-US fascists file in some right wing district court; the Supreme Court will have no choice but to take the case instanter. And, OK, we'll be rolling the dice. But the supposed textualists of the Supreme Court, however mad they may be, are beholden to the big business interests that are truly horrified by the prospect of default. And how could they possibly twist their doctrine to say that a WW1 era statute should trump the black letter of the Constitution? Well, sure, they could, but I can't believe they would. Dumbos like McCarthy, Gosar and MTG may think somehow it would inure to their advantage to crash the world economy and destroy the advantageous position America derives from having the reference currency and most desirable bonds. But I cannot believe a Supreme Court majority would do that. And if I'm wrong, we would be no worse off, because if we again give in to this extortion, by a minoritarian party that will probably never receive a majority of the popular vote nationwide, we will have lost our democracy anyway. 

China No. 1 vehicle exporter in the world

I know, I know, electric cars, again? But a milestone just occurred, according to respected economic metrics. As of around now, China will have surpassed both Japan and Germany as the world's top vehicle exporter.  (Almost all EVs or plug in hybrids... including Tesla and other foreign manufacturers with plants in China, but only Tesla constituted a significant fraction). This reverses an economic status that had lasted for almost 50 years. Chances are this development will not go backward any time in the foreseeable future. The only country that is not importing Chinese cars at record rates is the US. Which has its pluses and minuses. 

Most countries outside Europe and North American now import most of the cars sold there from China. China strategically targeted the auto industry as the next phase of its long term economic development, about 15 years ago, and realized immediately and correctly that battery electric vehicles would be the future. A conclusion several of the legacy car makers, especially in Japan, have still not accepted. 

If you think this is no big deal, consider this: At least two thirds of Japan's industrial economy is based on the auto industry. They dominated (especially Toyota) for half a century. But that dominance is over. 

Town Hall fiasco: Get to 55

Apologize for belaboring the point, for those who are following the long nightmarish trainwreck that is Donald Trump. But not only was the CNN "Town Hall" a free, handpicked Trumpster-audienced infomercial for Trump (when's Biden getting a Town Hall on CNN?)... it was a total fiasco. I did not watch it, but I've seen enough to get the gist. Trump is a complete idiot, digging himself in deeper and deeper with admissions of criminal conduct on the record. And he clumsily evaded questions on support for Ukraine and the human right of women to control their own bodies. Both of which are strong majority issues where Republicans are totally out of touch. Not only that, but I have to believe that however much red meat he may be giving over to his moronic, White Supremacist cult followers, he is making it abundantly clear to the normal majority that he is completely nutso, and must never, ever be allowed anywhere near public office again. 

I could be wrong. I am dumbfounded that more than single digits of the population can even entertain the notion of another Trump presidency. But I almost feel at this point that when it comes right down to it, however problematic voting for an 80 year old "pol" like Biden may seem to some especially younger, so-called "independent" voters, it will be no real contest. I am drawn to Simon Rosenberg's idea of "get to 55" (percent)... that Democrats can not only can win, but we can blow out the election. And this is worth whatever time and money we beleaguered normies can muster. 

(Watch out for "no labels," because they are completely fraudulent; they would rather elect Trump again with a spoiler candidate than help Biden win. This cannot be allowed to happen). 

(Rosenberg is the Democratic electioneer/pollster who correctly predicted the much stronger than expected showing in 2022, apart from New York, which pretty much lost us the House all by itself). 

Example of extended mind

An example of extended mind from things like e mail. 

Many years ago in a Chinese language class I adopted Shang Da Wen (尚大文), with appropriate tones, as my "Chinese name." Shang, 尚, meaning something like "Esteem," is a common Chinese surname. Da Wen means "great literature," but it's actually not something the Chinese would recognize as a name. 大衛 , dà wèi, is the more usual form for "David."

But a few years ago (apparently) I poked around and decided I liked 城大衛 , Chéng dà wèi, better. It means "City of David", or, perhaps, David Towne.

Thing is, I had forgotten this. It ceased to be part of my conscious mind. But stumbling around in gmail's settings brought it back again. 

We are groping around in the dark with this digital augmentation of mind thing, but it is already real, and is already making our lives qualitatively different from the lives of humans of any previous time. 

 

Extended Mind

We are asked to believe that there is this inchoate thing called Extended Mind, already nascent. So, say, a pen and notebook (or ancient equivalents) are "technology" to help you remember things, and even becomes a separate mode of expression after a surprisingly short time after writing was invented. But they're not actually a part of mind, merely tools of mind. You have to go and find the notebook, physically, and decipher it using the extremely slow and inefficient frontal cortex. It's a big picture machine, but when it has to decipher symbols and such it's actually s l o w .  But, the idea is, digital technology is getting close to the point where it can update mind and memory in real time. Already if you are by a computer (phones are computers, just not very good ones), you can remember almost anything from general knowledge, and, if you're so inclined, you can organize for retrieval images and sounds from your life. I don't choose to do that, but one could. And the means to retrieve digitized data through some sort of neural link or digital/bio-analog translator may well be at hand, or nearly so. 

I dunno. I suppose so. Anyone who tries the impossible task of writing "hard" science fiction, meaning based on reasonable extrapolation of the way things really are rather than endless Deus-ex-machinae, will now I suppose have to take into account that human minds are on the verge of expanding exponentially; something that probably hasn't happened for, oh, a million years. Give or take. 

Coronation nonsense

I honestly don't care much about whether the Brits keep or ditch their anachronistic monarchical system. We have our own problems. But "God Save the King?" Whatever... not my king, and I disapprove entirely of monarchy from top to bottom. 

When Justices accept bribes

I know this is pretty commonplace, but I can't resist. Does anyone believe for a second that if a "left leaning" judge accepted tuition for a kid in private school being paid by George Souros the right wouldn't have a collective paroxysm? Well, that is exactly what Clarence Thomas did with Harlan Crowe (still can't believe that name). And that was only one of many thinly disguised bribes. There is no other word that fits. If it were Kagan or Sotomayor there'd be impeachment hearings scheduled already.  

Simply Refuse to let the US default on its debt

I am completely uninterested in legal technical reasons against my view that what I'm suggesting here is the way forward given the insane intransigence of the Republican caucus in the house with regard to the debt ceiling. We are beyond the phase where legal niceties can be allowed to impede action to protect our country from catastrophe. I won't even go into why using the already incurred debt of the United States is profoundly damaging to the country and downright unpatriotic in its essence. I think everyone of good faith and even modest intelligence already understands that. But my point is this: the extortion of the Republicans is an anti-constitutional, wholly unjustified, and potentially truly devastating action which has no justifiable rationale or purpose other than naked, anti-democratic power grabbing. So, I argue, the response must be equally blatant and willing to set aside tradition based on civility and "not upsetting the applecart." Too late for that: the applecart is racing toward the cliff edge, and it's getting close fast. 

Section 4 of the  Fourteenth Amendment reads: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

So, the Biden administration should get an OLC opinion tout de suite to the effect that the WW1 era debt ceiling law is unconstitutional under this provision, and the administration simply will not default on the US debt no matter what the House or Senate do, because the Constitution trumps their actions. 

Of course, the Righties will sue. Take it to their stacked Supreme Court. But that will put the issue in its most naked power-struggle terms: Will the Supreme Court actually vote to throw the world economy into depression, and probably destroy the advantageous position of the US dollar as the reference currency and its debt as a "gold standard," forever?  Maybe they will, but as I see it there is no real alternative if the Rightists in Congress refuse to secure the debt, and the question must be pressed. The fact is that by any reasonable interpretation the debt laws do contradict the 14th amendment, in that there is no way to satisfy the provisions of both if the Congress refuses to act to secure the debt. The Biden administration should try in good faith to get them to back down, without giving in to blackmail on policy that is, in fact, profoundly and overwhelmingly unpopular. But if, as appears likely, the fascists in the Right Wing caucus refuse to protect the financial stability of our nation, the administration should simply say that in their view the Constitution prohibits this from happening, so they're just not going to do it. We will pay the debts our nation has incurred, no matter what the right wing traitors say. 

Paul Krugman a while back opined that this was probably the fallback position, or something like it, for the Democratic administration. But I would argue that the time is at hand. In order to protect our country from serious negative impacts which even the threat of default (as we learned in 2011 when they tried this before)... can cause. The announcement should be prepared, and should actually be given, soon. This charade needs to be brought to a final and decisive end, soon. And if the Supreme Court decides to pitch us into a global financial crisis and at the same time probably the worst Constitutional crisis since the Civil War, so be it. At least the battle lines will have been drawn unmistakably. 

Japan is in trouble

As some of my farflung correspondents will no doubt have noticed, I harp on the electric car revolution a lot. This post expands that a bit, to the looming facts about Japan, which sits poised to nudge the entire world economy into global recession (if the idiots in the Republican caucus of the House don't do it for them first). 

Contemplate this. Since 1990, Japan has lost its lead in several areas of global commerce. Sony invented the walkman and was a major player in consumer electronics in the 80s and 90s, even buying Columbia and CBS in the US as if they were just crumbs from the table. But they missed the "chip" revolution and failed to develop the iPhone or anything like it... and this is just symptomatic. The Japanese are barely in the consumer electronics or large appliance markets anymore, sectors largely dominated now by South Korea and the US, with some participation by Europe especially in larger appliances. China makes these things for its domestic market, as well as under contract to US and Korean manufacturers. In fact, other than scientific and technical instrumentation (important but not huge), and autos and other transportation technology such as shipbuilding, Japan is no longer at the forefront of any global technology. 

And now, the handwriting is on the wall. They have completely missed the boat on the EV revolution. They were pioneers, developing the hybrid drive and some early electrics (e.g., the Nissan Leaf), but they aren't even in the top 25 of any electric vehicle sales anywhere, and they have been resistant. Mitsubishi, Mazda, Subaru, Suzuki, and Honda have no potentially viable mass market electric vehicle even in preproduction, much less production. Toyota and Nissan are way behind too, with no credible plans to mass produce EVs at a profit anytime soon. Toyota, Nissan and Honda, the Japan big 3, all have global sales (of all cars, not just EVs) down 20 to 40% year over year due to their failure to produce cars that people want to buy. In the US a significant part of this sales loss has gone to Tesla, which is also the #1 seller of EVs in China. But the #2 to 20 or so brands are all Chinese, and the Chinese are poised to start selling their well engineered and popular cars (dominated by BYD) everywhere (except North America, interestingly). And EVs by Tesla and the Chinese are all going down in price, to levels that only Ford, GM, and possibly one or two European makers (not including BMW) have a prayer of matching. 

So what is the takeaway? Autos are 65-70% of Japan's manufacturing exports. And they are losing their market share at an alarming rate, with no end in sight. Japan has a national debt, that, proportionally, is far worse than America's. There is every reason to believe that Japan is headed for a massive economic downturn that may last for decades, and could drag the whole world economy down. 

Cheers, enjoy the springtime everyone. 

 

What is at stake

Maybe I'm out of touch, but I am baffled by headlines like this from The Guardian: "Biden v Trump: US is unenthused by likely rematch of two old white men." Seriously? OK, I think we've had enough gerontocracy, too, but the similarity in ages and race of these two pales to total insignificance when any person of integrity and good faith ponders for a single second what is at stake. 

---

The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog. 

       --Mark Twain

Straight dope on electric vehicles

 I know I harp on this a lot, but let me just lay out what I believe are irrefutable facts: 

1. Battery technology is currently undergoing a massive technological upgrade, which will result in batteries being chargeable in less than half an hour to run a car for about 300 miles; they will also cost less, weigh less, be made interchangeable with existing battery packs in the most advanced companies (Tesla and a few others, maybe), and be made from materials that are not unduly expensive or rare (sodium ion technology uses no "unobtainium"). This battery technology will be rolled out over the next two or three years and will also be used to make the grid more efficient, making "peaker plants" obsolete and helping to green up and reduce the cost of grid power. Most people will have household backup batteries installed within a decade, in addition to the proliferation of charging stations. 
2. Electric motors for cars and trucks are a fully mature technology which is cheaper, more efficient, simpler to build, and lasts about ten times as long with almost zero maintenance as compared to  internal combustion ("ICE") powered drive trains. They also have superior performance and will, with the introduction of more fast charging and the battery technology improvements, make all motor vehicle transportation, including long distance trucking, far more energy efficient, cheaper in the long run, and superior in all aspects of performance other than speed of "filling up," which will require some adjustments but nothing that can't be accomplished. 
3. The techniques to manufacture affordable and superior electric vehicles have now been developed, and the manufacture of ICE vehicles is rapidly becoming a technological dinosaur that will be phased out surprisingly rapidly over the next 15 years... at most.  

This, and not some diabolical strategy, is why Tesla is reducing prices and outcompeting on both quality and price nearly all of its competitors right now. Other American manufacturers are way behind in this. Tesla and the Chinese have been way out in front, with Americans (apart from Tesla) and Europeans doing less well, and the Japanese having miscalculated so badly that they are likely to massively lose market share over the next ten years. I would expect that several of them will likely fail altogether (Nissan, Subaru, Mazda, Honda unless it reverses course soon). Although actually one of the worst in terms of strategy, Toyota will likely survive and eventually thrive, just because they have so many resources they can probably pull it out and change over. Stellantis, BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen will struggle but probably manage to stay in business, but only if they commit to a rapid changeover like yesterday. And some of them still haven't.

Nearly all new cars by the early 2030s will be electric worldwide. Companies that don't prepare for this will have nothing to sell because no one will want to buy expensive and obsolete ICE vehicles. 

Some musing on the Abiogenetic Origin of Life

I started reading what I thought was a scientific critique of some of the ideas for the Origin of Life (abiogenesis at origin), by Robert Stadler and Change Lee Tan, entitled The Stairway to Life, an Origin-of-Life Reality Check. The book is essentially based on the idea that each the 20 or so steps they identify as essential to the origin of self-reproducing cellular life is extremely unlikely to occur spontaneously even in an available time of tens or hundreds of millions of years, and that each must be multiplied, not added, to yield an estimate of the overall probability of that happening. Their conclusion: an abiogenetic origin of life on the early Earth was spectacularly unlikely (so it must be God). Sure enough, looking into it a bit they're Intelligent Design Creationists, and he's funded by the "Creation Science Institute." (An oxymoron, to be sure). I should've suspected this. 

All these arguments legitimately do is to demonstrate just how complex and difficult a problem this is, since the predicate, that it "must be God," is not in any sense scientific or supported by evidence. Even if you accept some of their assumptions, they play fast and loose with estimates for how likely certain sequences of events that may actually be driven by the energetics of the environment actually are.  (They are very critical of the (to them) overly optimistic assumptions of people like Carl Sagan and Nick Lane). They tend to treat them more like the question, if you just mix the ingredients for life together, how likely is it to spontaneously form an organism?... which ignores the function of synergy in complex systems. It becomes increasingly obvious as you follow their arguments that they are driven by a preconceived faith agenda: that life must have been created by God, so let's tear apart all the thinking and work that has gone into investigating how life might have originated on Earth naturally. It's pretty easy to tear down intellectual edifices if all you intend to replace them with is "it's supernatural." After all, this is one of the great mysteries of our time, and there is no one who seriously claims that we fully understand the origin of life. 

Having said that, we have to face the fact that this really is a virtually entirely unresolved question. You often read that "life seems to have originated within a relatively short time after its continued existence under the conditions of the early Earth had stabilized," and that this should be at least some indication that the origin of life itself may be pretty likely, as opposed to some of the milestones along the way to the evolution of the complex ecosystems of the current earth, and the evolution of human-level intelligence, some of which appear to have been "difficult," i.e., weren't very likely and took a long time to emerge in the course of evolution. The basic idea is that the origin of life must be likely, because it seems to have happened right off the bat on Earth. 

But is this really a reasonable supposition? I'd submit that we just do not know. It is at least possible that the arguments for why the abiogenetic origin of life is very unlikely are essentially right, and that the fact that it (apparently) happened early on Earth falls more in the Anthropic Principle sphere of reasoning. In other words, maybe it is extremely, extremely unlikely, but since we would not be here to talk about it if it hadn't happened, our very existence is a selection effect that isolates an extremely unlikely event. And, of course, if that is so, we should not expect life to have originated anywhere else in the universe, ever. Which, so far, we cannot absolutely rule out. In fact, the fact that no evidence for life originating elsewhere than Earth has emerged after decades of searching all available evidence is becoming somewhat concerning to those who are predisposed to expect life to be common (this is what's called a scientific bias, but it's the predominant one, we have to admit).

Truth is, we simply do not have enough evidence to choose between these alternatives, or some intermediate. This is why I believe NASA's (and others') goal of searching for evidence of non-terrestrial life, somewhere, is crucial. A discovery of a second presumptively abiogenetic origin of life will change this debate radically, and serve as an impetus to finally figure out what happens when the conditions for the origin of life arise, presumably in planetary environments more or less like the early Earth. Until we are sure that this actually does happen, and is not some incredible, never-to-be-repeated fluke, we cannot fully refute the Creationist view. That doesn't mean Creationism (or Intelligent Design) is science; it isn't. They demonstrate fairly thoroughly the tough nut of the problem, but then they just say, well, it's impossible, so it must be God. To me that's as good an example of specious reasoning as you'll ever find. Even if all their critiques are right, and it just seems like a miracle, all that proves is that it's unlikely; it says nothing about some posited agency that "created" life... that is an intellectual leap that isn't justified by any evidence at all. And, of course, carrying that forward to the particular, historically contingent and arbitrary version of a supernatural origin invariably favored by these pseudoscientists can't even pretend to be logical, rational, or scientific. Faith requires none of those, but if they are the criteria, as they should be, then any conclusions based on faith are excluded from scientific consideration.