A woman interviewed by WBRZ said her son, a deputy at the [New Orleans] prison whose family is among the hostages, told her that many of the prisoners have fashioned homemade weapons. Her son had brought his family there hoping they would be safe during the storm.

August 30, 2005 -- The Rev. Al Sharpton was in such a hurry to get out of President Bush's neighborhood that his driver blew past a deputy sheriff at 110 mph and then led troopers on a nine-mile Texas chase before pulling over, authorities said... Maupin [Sharpton's driver] was clocked at 110 mph in a 65-mph zone on Interstate 35 about 40 miles south of Dallas after leaving activist Cindy Sheehan's peace rally near Bush's Crawford ranch. Maupin then evaded the deputy sheriffs' efforts to get him to pull over...

Sharpton told The Post yesterday there was no chase and steered the conversation away from Maupin's arrest and toward the deputies' handling of the situation.

Both major political parties have a problem with their approach toward religion, in the eyes of many Americans. More than four-in-ten say that liberals who are not religious have too much control over the Democratic Party, while an almost identical percentage says that religious conservatives have too much influence over the Republican Party.

The public also has distinctly different perceptions of both parties when it comes to dealing with religion and personal freedoms. By a wide margin – 51% to 28% – the GOP is seen as the party most concerned with protecting religious values. By a nearly identical margin (52%-30%), the Democratic Party is perceived as most concerned with protecting the freedom of citizens to make personal choices.

Yet the Democrats’ strength in this area is overshadowed by a sharp erosion in the number of Americans who believe the party is friendly toward religion. Only about three-in-ten (29%) see the Democrats as friendly toward religion, down from 40% last August. Meanwhile, a solid majority (55%) continues to view the Republicans as friendly toward religion.

However, independents are more critical of the influence of religious conservatives on the Republican Party than they are of the influence of secular liberals on the Democratic Party. Most independents (54%) think religious conservatives have too much influence over the Republican Party, while fewer, 43%, think secular liberals have too much sway on the Democratic Party.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, conducted July 7-17 among 2,000 adults, finds deep religious and political differences over questions relating to evolution and the origins of life. Overall, about half the public (48%) says that humans and other living things have evolved over time, while 42% say that living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. Fully 70% of white evangelical Protestants say that life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time; fewer than half as many white mainline Protestants (32%) and white Catholics (31%) agree.

Despite these fundamental differences, most Americans (64%) say they are open to the idea of teaching creationism along with evolution in the public schools, and a substantial minority (38%) favors replacing evolution with creationism in public school curricula. While much of this support comes from religious conservatives, these ideas – particularly the idea of teaching both perspectives – have a broader appeal. Even many who are politically liberal and who believe in evolution favor expanding the scope of public school education to include teaching creationism.

The survey also finds that while large majorities of Americans say that parents, scientists and school boards all should have a say in how evolution is taught in schools, a plurality (41%) believes that parents – rather than scientists (28%) or school boards (21%) – should have the primary responsibility in this area.

I don't find it particularly encouraging that 64% of the survey respondents favor teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools, and that 38% favor replacing evolution with creationism. The Creation account in the book of Genesis so obviously did not happen that it is absurd to think that it is something that should be taught in science classes. There are some people who think that extraterrestrial beings built the Egyptian pyramids, but that does not mean that such an explanation should be taught in social studies classes in order to provide students with an alternative point of view about the pyramids.

As an atheist, I know that there is a knee-jerk tendency to view Bible believing Christians as ignorant and dumb, but I know that is not necessarily the case. People can be intelligent and brilliant about many things, and yet be found wanting in certain subjects or areas. A look at any of my report cards from junior high and high school would show very high marks in social studies and barely passing grades in math and science.

But with the United States facing growing challenges from India, China and elsewhere, we cannot afford the luxury of dumbing down our science curriculums by including things in them that have no scientific basis in fact. If someone wants to believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, while regrettable, is his or her right, but to expect that school curriculums should teach the Creation account in Genesis as a viable explanation is clearly wrong.

Update 3... reader Rich Sinda says,

We could decide to remove creationism from schools and lack a fundamental philosophical study in our schools and miss a chance to teach students to apply philosophy beyond the classroom. We could decide the opposite and possibly retard the learning process for children about to enter a free market where they will suffer for their lack of scientific knowledge. The final lesson to the children will be final and succinct no matter which way we choose. Big ideas, hard problems, and philosophical enigma's solutions are found in only one place -- the government. We will teach them that the only solution is a big one that must necessarily effect every child. We can at the same time teach them that federalism is an anachronism and that power is better used by the federal government rather than the states or the people. This isn't a question about religion, but a question freedom.

Update 4... reader Gerald P. Hanner says,

You could make the claim that Genesis is a description of the evolution of the solar system -- or the universe, for that matter -- if you don't take it literally. Genesis says that God brought light into being (and you could see for a frigg'n mile, as we used to irreverently say as teenagers), it doesn't say a word about the details of such an event. Likewise, all of the other acts of creation, which, in broad strokes, generally follow what the geological and paleontological records show to be course of development life has taken. Again, Genesis simply says it happened; there is not a word as to how it happened. Neither, unless you're taking it literally, does Genesis say much about how long that process took.

My observation is that most of the supporters of creationism tend to view God as a Las Vegas magic act: poof and something appears from out of nowhere. That view should not be taught as an alternative to the theory of Evolution. You know as well as I do that a theory, scientific or otherwise, is simply an explanation of how something works based on incomplete evidence. An accepted scientific theory is one that works well enough that accurate predictions can be made from its basis. Like economics, evolution is not one of those things where you can run controlled experiments and replicate them; and given the seemingly random nature of evolution, I doubt that any responsible scientist is willing to make a prediction as to what follows next in the evolutionary chain of events. On the other hand, pointing to the evolution of any species, for example, honeycreepers in Hawaii, or the pollinator of the Christmas Star Orchid of Madagascar, adaptations can be deduced. In the case of the Christmas Star Orchid, Darwin himself predicted its pollinator (it turned out to be a Hawk Moth species) although he never actually saw one or knew with certainty of its existence.

The whole argument over the existence of God is a philosophical one at best. You can look at the evidence and take your pick from competing theories. Anyone who makes a categorical declaration based on incomplete evidence has departed science for the metaphysical realm. I recall reading recently that some elderly economist (if I recall correctly) had arrived at the conclusion that there really is a God -- but God is not the interventionist one that most religions depict. Is he correct? None of us knows. After death more might be revealed -- or maybe not. In any event, who among the living would know, and what difference does it make?

Update 5... reader Don Noone adds,

“By a nearly identical margin (52%-30%), the Democratic Party is perceived as most concerned with protecting the freedom of citizens to make personal choices.”

Choices such as buying an SUV that gets 14 mpg if I want, or not relinquishing my home to a private developer at the, um, request of municipal politicians, or yanking my kid from a failing public school or buying just the kind of firearm that I want, or erecting a 25 foot tall Santa Claus on my lawn, or having a delicious meal of spotted owl, not being able to buy catastrophic health coverage similar to term life, or or or…

I'm a Christian (Lutheran) who believes creationism is hogwash. Indeed, there are many stories in the Bible that are probably untrue, and when it comes to predictions, the Bible is full of nonsense [see Revelations].

There is a difference, however, between being a Bible-worshiper and a true Christian. Christianity teaches a system of ethics and values that has proven, over many generations, to be both healthy and generous to its adherents. It is not a perfect religion and Christians are no more perfect than any other people, but we do try to live up to admirable ideals and we have been reasonably successful in that effort.

Another of the great religions of the world is currently undergoing a frightening unheaval that threatens much of the world. As any honest Christian historian could tell you, we've been there, done that.

Finally, I would urge you not to put all of your faith in science. As you really ought to know, science gets it wrong at about the same rate religions do, and often with similarly disastrous results. Think about it.

I really want Arthur Sulzberger Jr.'s newspaper—which he's corrupting and perverting—to go directly out of business.

Wage trends

Who would have thought that your conservative Editorial Page would come to the defense of economist and liberal Paul Krugman? That's just what happened in an Aug. 25 editorial, "The fact on wage trends." The editorial accuses me of "stridency" and of making errors in the use of economic statistics in one of my series of critiques of Mr. Krugman published on National Review Online.

The Washington Times is being very generous to Mr. Krugman, considering he once called the newspaper "the administration's de facto house organ" in a column titled "Feel the Hate."

The thrust of your editorial was that Mr. Krugman raised a valid and alarming issue when he pointed out in a recent New York Times op-ed that "adjusted for inflation, average weekly earnings [through June] have been flat for the past five years." According to the editorial, it was "strident" of me to ask the New York Times to publish a correction of Mr. Krugman's statement, though the editorial admits that earnings have grown 0.5 percent — they have not, in fact, been "flat."

Is 0.5 percent close enough to "flat" so that the matter is too trivial for America's "newspaper of record" to correct? The Washington Times editorial thinks so, and ordinarily that might be right. But not when it comes to Paul Krugman. A former Enron adviser, Mr. Krugman's columns in the New York Times are littered with lies, errors, distortions and misquotations, many designed to suggest that the economy is in crisis, and thereby to discredit the Bush administration's policies. I've deeply documented this in two-and-a-half years of columns at National Review Online and on my blog.

Even the New York Times' own ombudsman declared that Mr. Krugman has a "disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers." So I don't feel I'm being strident when I ask that he be required to say "almost flat" instead of "flat" — because that's the truth.

Is it too strident to point out that The Washington Times itself has erred? Three times the editorial wrongly claims (and again on Sunday) that the production or nonsupervisory workers to whom Mr. Krugman's "flat" earnings statistics apply "comprise about 80 percent of the employed labor force." This is simply not true. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that produces the weekly earnings statistics, they apply to private sector workers only. They comprise 63 percent of the employed labor force, not "about 80."

The editorial also erred when it faulted me for citing the five-year 9.6 percent growth in real disposable income, claiming that it is in fact 8.5 percent through the first quarter of 2005. The Bureau of Economic Analysis, the agency which publishes these statistics, is constantly backward-revising them. In fact, 8.5 percent is the correct number today — and 9.6 percent was the correct number when I cited it in June.

The editorial takes me to task for claiming that real disposable income is "comparable" to the average weekly earnings cited by Mr. Krugman, as though I were glossing over the methodological differences between the two series. They are indeed different in various ways, but I stand by my view that they are comparable — both statistics are ways of looking at how much money working Americans earn. There are others I could cite too, each different but all comparable — and all showing better earnings growth than the one cited by Mr. Krugman.

Mr. Krugman deliberately cited the statistics showing slower growth, because those help him discredit the administration's economic policies. And he made the statistics seem even worse by failing to put "flat" five-year growth into historical context. Real average weekly earnings have fallen considerably since their peak in the mid 1970s. The average five-year period since June 1975 has seen a decline of 2.1 percent. Even literally flat growth is better than that. But that good news is not mentioned or analyzed — not by Mr. Krugman, and not by The Washington Times.

I applaud the Editorial Page for wanting to take an unflinching look at seemingly negative economic statistics and for encouraging a conversation about how to improve economic performance. The editorial is right about one thing: "Expressing concern does not make one a liberal class warrior." But I never said it did. And no good cause is served by looking only at the most pessimistic statistics, papering over the deceptions of America's most dangerous liberal pundit and unfairly nit-picking an earnest conservative critic.

DONALD L. LUSKIN
Chief Investment Officer
Trend Macrolytics
Menlo Park, Calif.

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By the way, about that error in which the Washington Times claims that production workers make up 80% of the employed work force -- they made it again in another editorial on Sunday. That makes four.

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 8:49 AM | link    

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 8:41 AM | link    

Sunday, August 28, 2005