Carl Zimmer, over at the Loom, reflects on the judge’s ruling in the Dover creationism trial. And he makes an important point about "balance". Too often, it seems, when reading or viewing a piece of journalism, both sides of the argument are presented as though they have equal weight. This is usually false. As Zimmer says: "Justice holds a balance in her hand, but balance is not what she seeks. Instead, she weighs the evidence to see which way it tips". Absolutely.
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The Scales Of Justice
One response to “The Scales Of Justice”
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Dear Geoff,Would it please be possible to know your e-mail address? I am working on a project I would very much like you to be involved in.Please contact me at champeau@agoravox.com and I will get back in touch with you.Regards,Guillaume
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The Definition of Marriage
I see that Mick Hartley, over at his blog, has also commented on Peter Tatchell’s piece in the Guardian. Unlike me, he doesn’t find the argument compelling, and the reason boils down to "if the definition of marriage is that it is between two people of different sex, then how can it be between two people of the same sex?" Sigh. As Norman Geras points out, this is really a form of question begging.Sorry to point yet again to the pragmatic Dutch, but faced with the dilemma of how to open up marriage to same sex couples, they had two choices: set up a parallel set of laws to govern the civil marriage of same-sex couples, or gasp, change the definition of civil marriage to open it up to same-sex couples. They chose the simpler and fairer way. As it says on the Ministry of Justice web site:The registered partnership was introduced in 1998. Since then, same-sex couples can already regulate their relationship legally in a way that is in most respects equivalent to a marriage. And yet it was decided to open the institute of marriage to two women or two men. The basic tenet of equal treatment was decisive in this. For many people, marriage simply holds special value and carries a certain symbolism. People may wish to confirm a relationship in precisely this manner. And there is no reason to exclude same-sex couples from this.
That last sentence is worth re-reading: "And there is no reason to exclude same-sex couples from this". A refreshing recognition that inclusion is better than exclusion.
3 responses to “The Definition of Marriage”
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I think and hope that much of this argument is really definitional, an exercise in comparative semantics or whatever. The definition of "marriage" is not in the hands of the church, the heterosexual or the gay community, or the Pope, or bus drivers in Luton. It will over the next few years mean what it will mean. The lexicographers from the OED will tell us what the common useage is. And the Church of England can make whatever decrees it likes, but it cannot alter the common useage of words.What matters is that if two adults wish to declare and celebrate a deep and permanent relationship it is clear they should be able to do so and that the same rights should apply whatever their sexual status.Soon it will, I hope be irrelevant. We all celebrated Chris Smith’s courageous declaration all those years ago. Nowadays, most people have forgotten which politicians are gay. It is and should be a total irrelevance.I hope and beleive that in the next few years, this question will also become a matter of irrelevance.My one concern as a doctor is that I have a sigificant number of unmarried patients who care for an elderly mother/father. They would now seem to be in the ludicrous situation that, to protect themselves against death duties (and in London you pay death duties on something not much bigger than a telephone box), they will have to go through the charade of some sort of marriage/declaration of civil partnership or whatever. This starts to become absurd, and rather lampoons any concept of marriage, whoever it may be bewteen.I guess it will sort itself out in time.
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Yes, Dr. C., I agree with you that it should all become irrelevant, but I think it’s going to take time, and will never be totally accepted by everybody. Re death duties – I agree that it’s a scandal for family members who are not connected by marriage. Once again, the pragmatic Dutch seem to have got there first. In January 2002 they introduced the concept of "Fiscal Partners" – designed precisely to lessen the death duties burden in cases such as those you mention.
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Yep. I sometimes wonder why we don’t all live in Holland. Such a low profile country for some reason and yet such incredible tolerance. The way that young children are introduced to sex education/contraception an a very early age is a role model to all of us – and leads to a lower abortion rate, higher age of marriage etc etc and is so much healthier. We were trying to persuade the headmistress of a local girls shcool to let the health visitors go in to talk to the 11 year olds about contracepion and chlamydia – she would not hear of it, not becuase she was against it (she wasn’t) but because the parents objected. Girls should not learn about chlamydia and "that sort of stuff" until they are at least 16.Well, I suppose you needn’t know about anything until you have got it!! Give me strenght!!Wouldn’t happen in Holland.
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How Does A World End?
I mentioned one virtual world – WoW – a couple of days ago. Now comes news that another virtual world – Asheron’s Call – is about to die. The game’s owners will pull the plugs on its servers at the end of the month. Wired has a bittersweet article about the demise of the world.Wired has another article on the theme of "all things must pass" – the Bay Area NeXT Group is closing its doors. The NeXT computer was a machine that was ahead of its time – too far ahead as it turned out. It was a computer that I lusted over, but could never hope to have. Still, the ghost of NeXT lives on – in the Mac OS X operating system.Leave a comment
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The Fascination of Pi
I came across a number of mentions of Pi today. First, Neatorama tips its hat to people who memorise Pi, including Daniel Tammet, who has recited Pi to 22,514 decimal places. Second, I was listening to Kate Bush’s latest double CD, Aerial, which has a song about Pi on it. In it, she recites the decimal places of Pi. Sounds bizarre, but it works. However, Simon Singh, in the Telegraph today, points out that Kate gets it wrong – she misses out 22 digits in the middle of the string. Something that Daniel would never do…Leave a comment
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The Iliad
Nope, not Homer’s epic poem, but an electronic book reader due to be released in 2006. Could be interesting to watch out for.Leave a comment
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IDiocy Thrown Over The Cliffs Of Dover
I see that the judge has ruled in the Dover school board case in the US. And has said that Intelligent Design (ID) has no place in the science curriculum. Quite right too. The 139-page ruling from Judge Jones contains some rather direct language as well:To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.(hat tip to Pharyngula for highlighting the above)But I fear that the forces of irrationality are not going to retreat into the shadows as a result of this. It’s quite depressing to read some of the comments on the BBC’s Have Your Say bulletin board on this story. All the usual crap is there: "Evolution is ‘just a theory"; "Students need to taught both sides of the story"; "Prove to me that God does not exist", etc. etc. Some folks never bother using the brains that evolution has given them.Leave a comment
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Civil Partnerships
With all the news from the UK about the establishment of civil partnerships, it’s very easy to miss one thing in all the current euphoria. And that fact is nailed very succinctly by Peter Tatchell in today’s Guardian. The core of it is simply this:While this milestone is a cause for celebration, it also has a downside. For the first time in modern British legal history, instead of repealing discrimination parliament has reinforced and extended it. Civil partnerships are for same-sex couples only. Straights are excluded. Conversely, marriage remains reserved for heterosexuals, to the exclusion of gays. The differential treatment of hetero and homo couples is enshrined in law. Welcome to segregation, UK-style.He’s absolutely right. And while people may talk of ‘gay marriage’, it quite clearly isn’t. Once again, I am pleased to live in the Netherlands, where the pragmatic Dutch recognise three forms of a couple living together: informal co-habitation (perhaps with a legal agreement entered into by the individuals concerned), registered partnership, and full civil marriage. All three forms are open to both different-sex and same-sex couples.One response to “Civil Partnerships”
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Thanks for the comment on my blog entry (I will ammend it). I was unaware that the UK had made such a mistake with passing a law that should have been so trivial.
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“Any Policy Will Sometimes Lead To Errors”
So sayeth the shoe-shopping Secretary of State of the US, Condoleezza Rice. Here’s an example. Do as you would be done by, Ms. Rice.Leave a comment
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The Gay Community
The title of this post is meant to be ironic – since I don’t really believe that there is such a thing as "the gay community", any more than there is a "left-handed community". It’s a convenient label for folks to use – a form of shorthand that immediately conjures up, for good or ill, some aspects of people who belong to a particular group.As an illustration, take the story in today’s Observer: Gays Who Shape Our New Britain. Reading the thumbnail sketches of the 20 individuals named does not give me a sense that they all belong to a "gay community" – they are simply 20 talented individuals who have stamped their mark on UK society in a variety of areas, and who happen to be gay. It’s interesting that even in 2005, the Observer notes that they had to drop three people from the list because the people concerned are unwilling to be known publicly as gay. I bet I know who two of the three are; the "senior government adviser" I have no idea about, because I have no knowledge of political circles.Today’s Observer turns out to be a veritable convoy of gay buses, all turning up at once. As well as the article mentioned above, there’s also a piece from Adam Mars-Jones on Brokeback Mountain and an article from Sir Elton John.Mars-Jones dissects Hollywood’s uneasy relationship with gays very well (for a wider trawl through Tinsel Town’s history, I can thoroughly recommend Vito Russo’s Celluloid Closet, a book that unfortunately stops at 1980 because of Russo’s untimely death). Mars-Jones is right to be suspicious of Hollywood. If you want to read a full-fledged rant on this topic, then I can heartily recommend Charles Karel Bouley II’s bucketful of bile in The Advocate. He hits the target fair and square.Finally, Sir Elton’s piece surprised me with its considered, and activist, nature. Perhaps I’m guilty of using shorthand labels a bit too readily myself, and pigeon-holing Sir Elton merely as a disgustingly rich drama queen celebrity. He’s more than just a one-dimensional caricature – just like the rest of us humans.Leave a comment
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Warning – Kangaroo Ahead
A motorist in Friesland (part of The Netherlands) collided with a kangaroo yesterday. The kangaroo was killed, and the motorist surprised. Quite what a kangaroo was doing roaming around in Friesland has not yet been established. If there’s more than one, perhaps the authorities ought to be thinking of a Dutch version of the Australian warning sign.Leave a comment
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The Dutch Media Are Revolting…
… against the introduction of the new spellings in the Dutch language. The Dutch Language Institute published the latest official dictionary of the Dutch language in October. As from next August, it is supposed to become the basis of the language of the government, public authorities and schools. But now, a powerful section of the Dutch media, including the leading newspapers, have rebelled and announced a boycott. They are objecting to what they see as abitrary changes in spelling. Suzanne Weusten, deputy editor of the Volkskrant is reported as saying: "Doubtless there are rules [for the changes], but who in godsname can remember them all?" Folkus Jensma of the NRC Handelsblad adds: "We already make enough mistakes in the paper, with this new spelling it will only get worse".Speaking as someone who has extreme difficulty with the language as it now stands, I suspect that I will be echoing the sentiment of Folkus Jensma.Leave a comment
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Neck Stretching For Fun
Sayuri turns up another Odd Thing From Japan: a neck stretcher. Perhaps there’s a market for it with the Padaung tribe?Leave a comment
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Bill Hill
I’ve mentioned Bill Hill before. He’s a typographer who works for Microsoft, and is always fascinating to listen to. He’s back again on Channel 9 with other members of his team talking about the new fonts that are being designed for Vista – the next version of Windows.Bill makes the point that for 500 years, font design has been dictated by the practicalities of the printing press. Now we are at the stage where people will increasingly read text from a screen, rather than the printed page. That change in medium will influence the design of fonts. Interesting stuff.Leave a comment
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Ursula K. Le Guin
There’s a good article by Maya Jaggi in today’s Guardian profiling the writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Le Guin is one of my favourite writers (at the last count I had 28 of her books in my library). Good to know that, at the age of 76, she’s still writing.Leave a comment
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XS4ALL: 4, Scientology: 0
The Dutch Supreme Court has today dismissed all claims brought by the Church of Scientology against XS4ALL and Karin Spaink. This legal case has been going on for 10 years, but finally, justice has been done.Leave a comment
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Update: The Murder Victim Arrives
Following on from my "Justice is Done" entry, I now hand you over to the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam to learn the latest in this ongoing saga… If you want to see the video of the arrival then go here (in Dutch).Leave a comment
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What’s The Internet For?
Well, one answer comes from this catchy little number… I’m afraid it’s got an earworm that will ensure that you probably find yourself humming the tune despite yourself. (hat tip to Gizmodo UK)The World of Warcraft is an amazing Internet-based phenomenon in its own right. There are supposedly 4.5 million players in this virtual world. Personally, I have enough difficulty anchoring myself in my own reality without wanting to spend hours/days/weeks pretending to be in another. The attraction seems to have passed me by. Mind you, some people apparently insist on dragging more of their world with them into WoW, and this has been a step too far for some.Leave a comment
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Guidance For Gaijin
There’s a short video doing the rounds that supposedly introduces foreigners to the mysteries surrounding the eating of Sushi in Japan. It becomes pretty clear that it’s a joke – along the same lines as telling a foreign visitor to London that it is customary to shake hands with fellow passengers on the Tube. Still, it’s worth a look.Sayuri, over at the Odd Things From Japan blog, clears up some of the confusion…Leave a comment
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Seiko Disaster Radio
Here in The Netherlands, the disaster warning sirens are tested at midday on the first Monday of every month. In the event of a real disaster striking, we’re all supposed to go indoors, shut all doors and windows, and tune into local radio for more information. Since the disaster may involve loss of electricity, the advice is to have a battery-powered radio on hand.Japan is another country where they have a disaster warning system in place, because of earthquakes. Now those nice people at Seiko have come out with a handy-dandy portmanteau device combining a battery-operated radio, clock and torch (flashlight to you speakers of American). Hey, Seiko, perhaps there’s another market for this here in The Netherlands… Mind you, the best sort of design for a device like this is to have it powered by clockwork with a winding crank. Batteries run down…Leave a comment
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