you can't always tell the designer labels from the faux

It occured to me today that the proponents of intelligent design (generally "conservatives", whatever that means) are also largely propents of the free market. So while "randomness" (i.e., absence of design) is insufficent to create a physical world, it is sufficient--indeed, is superior--as a way to create an economic system. (Maybe "create" isn't the right word here.) There is no contradiction here--just a curiousity. I'm surprised that no one else has picked up on it.

Perhaps there is more to randomness than we think. The brain, the mighty seat of human intelligence, seems to operate on certain physical processes that are in some sense random. Now I don't know much more about what it means to be random than I do what it means to be intelligent; both are mysterious phenomena. But if we stipulate that (a.) our brains are what make us intelligent, and (b.) our brains depend in part on "random" physical processes, perhaps we can conclude that randomness and intelligence are not ultimately incommensurable. Funny that we should spend so much energy in fierce debate over ideas so poorly understood. Why, after all, can't evolution be intelligent?

i read somewhere that you can't believe anything you read

I devote this blog to the examination of the many excesses of verbal extravagence. If the frequency of my postings is in any way limited it will not be because these excesses are in short supply, but rather that my time is. But I think I ought to record my observations for posterity. I also think that, at least for me, writing is rather good for the soul.

I heard the other day that in such-and-such a city, the second most common cause of death for young people ages 10-25 was gunshot wounds inflicted by handguns. This was supposed to frighten us, of course, but I took it as rather good news. We have done such a good job, through vaccination and other means, of eliminating diseases such as measels, polio, rubella, etc, that in order to die some one has to run you over with a car or shoot you with a gun. Break out the champagne.