Apple Town Prince

[Update: If anyone has a link to the video/audio transcript please post in the comments]

Last night I attended the debate at Stanford between Christopher Hitchens and Jay Richards. The topic was “Atheism vs Theism and the Scientific Evidence of Intelligent Design” which I felt was a little too broad for a meaningful debate.

My heart at first sank when I saw Jay Richards. He has hair reminiscent of an early Abba member or a really blonde version of the BeeGees. He looked as though he had just put away his surfboard and strolled into the debate. Christopher Hitchens came slouching in making every effort to look like a disenchanted intellectual who is angry with the world but is sustained daily by his special breed of cynicism.

Christopher Hitchens opened for the first 14 minutes and unleashed his standard diatribe against ‘religion’. He seemed a little unprepared but is clearly a gifted rhetorician and quite capable of thinking on his feet. He didn’t say much new and his style was well captured by a later comment from Jay Richards: “A sneer is not an argument and insults do not constitute evidence”. His main argument was that if the world was designed by a creator, it was not a benevolent creator. He frequently resorts to this argument despite it clearly not belonging in a debate on Atheism vs Theism. (Just because one doesn’t like God, doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist).

Jay Richards had the floor for the next 14 minutes and presented a rational, well-thought out argument for theism. He had 6 main points (and a seventh which he added later)

1. Moral truth – we all know what it is, the question is where did it come from and atheism has no answer to that. This issue was half-heartedly contested by Hitchens and a question from the audience regarding an evolutionary explanation for morality.
2. A finely tuned universe – basically a brief overview of the anthropic cosmological argument (every physical constant finely tuned for mankind and unlikely to have occurred by chance). Hitchens seemed to feel that the fact that the Andromeda galaxy will be obliterating earth in 5 billion years refutes this argument. Unfortunately his argument went along the lines of: “What kind of cruel god would allow this?”
3. A beginning to the universe in a finite past – therefore something caused the universe which must be God. He used the phrase “resting point” for the basis of a theistic belief and asked what the basis for atheism was. This is a fairly strong argument. Granted, there are theories which postulate an eternal universe but those seem to be less accepted these days.
4. Irreducible complexity - he didn’t get into details but cited the bacterial flagellum and asked why it’s obvious that Mt. Rushmore was ‘designed’. This argument obviously runs the risk of each instance of irreducible complexity being knocked down with subsequent research (a point which Hitchens noted). I spent many years doing research on genetic algorithms in computer science and this argument does accord with my experience of computer simulations.
5. Materialism – the atheist, materialist philosophers all conclude that consciousness is an illusion and feel that this is problematic. For most people, a purely material view of the world leads to a conclusion which seems incompatible with experience. Obviously this is not a proof for the existence of God but Richards’ point was that our subjective experience is more consistent with a theistic philosophy.
6. Free will – it’s incompatible with a mechanistic worldview. Hitchens’ bizarre response was that if free will was given to us then it can’t be free will.
7. The origin of biological information (added towards end of debate). They touched briefly on the direction of entropy but unfortunately nothing conclusive from either side. (I’d like to challenge some of the atheists who really know their biology to read this book and provide a rebuttal to the main thesis of the book in the comments below.)

Richards ended with the question: which worldview (atheism or theism) best accomodates all the above observations?

Hitchens then had 4 minutes to respond and, to my mind, did not answer one of the points that Jay Richards had made. For the rest of the debate he attempted to generalize from particular observations (how can we think Mohammad really made a midnight ride into the sky on his horse, how can anyone believe in a God who demands that we kill our children (Abraham/Isaac), genital mutilation in the name of religion, to his point that God does not exist. Along the way he attacked Mormonism, Islam, Catholicism, etc.

Jay Richards maintained his composure admirably, was exceptionally well-informed on every topic while still being likeable, charitable, and theologically rigorous. 

Hitchens’ hubris appears to know no bounds. When asked whether he thought he was more intelligent than everyone else who believes in God he said: “Yes. And the polls suggest that I am too” (!)

Basically there were two messages: one hopeful; and one of despair (he mentioned sex and schadenfreude as his two purposes for living), futility and constant railing against a God who doesn’t exist. Atheism, to my mind, has always been deficient on the inspiration front and it seems a shame to spend one’s allotted time fighting the God you don’t believe in.

It seems as though the tide might finally be turning. If things improve steadily over the next few years and Iraq eventually returns to a normal, functioning, semi-democracy, will you admit that it was worth it? Or will the cost in American lives still have been too high?

I have long held that one of the pillars of long term investing success is not lining the pockets of mutual fund managers. Matthew Hougan recommends an extremely simple, low cost portfolio with a blended expense ratio of 0.148%.  This would represent an excellent start for any beginner investor. I haven’t calculated the blended expense ratio of my recommended portfolio but it is probably close to 15bp and slightly more complex.

First Things has a great article on the intersection of science and faith. Definitely a great read.

If you’re interested in the topic, I highly recommend the book: “The Anthropic Cosmological Principle“.

If you haven’t watched the documentary on Fermat’s Last Theorem you should set aside 45 minutes as soon as you can. The documentary is a splendid testament to what happens when passion and perseverance are coupled with a stunningly sharp mind. Here are some notes from the producer:

There is a brilliant genius from the past who solves an apparently impossible problem. He dies without revealing the solution. This becomes buried treasure, and every subsequent mathematician goes in search of it. There are heroes, villains, rivals, rich prizes, a duel at dawn, a suicide and an attempted suicide, but after 300 years the problem remains intact. The greatest minds on the planet failed to solve it. Undaunted, however, a young boy promises to devote the rest of his life to solving this notorious problem. After thirty years he suddenly identifies a strategy that might work. For seven years he works in secret. He reveals his proof, only to learn that he has made a mistake. He hides away again, humiliated and ashamed, but he returns a year later, this time triumphant. The problem has been solved. His journey is over.

The documentary was about mathematics and mathematicians, but it was also about childhood dreams, ambition, obsession, passion, failure and triumph. Not surprisingly, there was a time when one of the Hollywood studios put in a serious bid to make a feature film, but somewhere along the line the project faded away.

The emotion of the documentary is clear from the first minute. The opening sequence shows Professor Andrew Wiles recalling the moment when he realised that he had solved Fermat’s Last Theorem and achieved his childhood dream. The memory is so moving that he begins to stumble over his words. He then pauses, takes a breath, tries to continue, but eventually he is overcome with emotion and turns away from the camera. There are other moments in the programme that are equally emotional.

I particularly like the final comments from Iwasawa, the Japanese mathematician who came up with the conjecture which was necessary to prove the theorem.

It is rare to read a book that has the potential to change one’s entire worldview. This weekend I read Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome. The author is John Sanford, a professor of genetics at Cornell University, inventor of the gene gun, and holder of 25 patents. His essential thesis is that a blind evolutionary process could not have produced humans from single cell organisms. He gives a multitude of cogent arguments why this is so.

Moreover, he makes a very compelling case that, in fact, mutation and natural selection are actually degrading the genome to such an extent that humans will eventually go extinct. The simple reason is that each generation introduces at least 100 mutations which are both deleterious (degrade the genome) and near-neutral (unlikely to be removed by natural selection). The cost of natural selection would have to be extraordinarily high to remove such a large number of mutations from the gene pool. In addition, the rare beneficial mutations are also near-neutral and consequently impossible to select for.

A lot of this resonates with my experience with genetic algorithms where the vast majority of the population has to be wiped out at each generation to prevent non-useful mutations from multiplying.

What I find fascinating, though, is that everyone I have spoken to about this book immediately dismisses it because it “sounds like Creationism”. Perhaps secularism really has risen to the level of a religion: steeped in dogma and unwilling to confront facts.

Am I the only one who has lost patience with the atheists? Apart from the fact that the abolition of theism would leave them without a worldview, most of them spend their time carping from the sidelines but refuse to put together a credo for examination.

In the New York Times’ review of Christopher Hitchens’ book, ‘God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything’, the reviewer makes the following astonishing point:

And all the logical sallies don’t exactly add up to a sustained argument, because Hitchens thinks a sustained argument shouldn’t even be necessary and yet wouldn’t be sufficient. To him, it’s blindingly obvious:

Of course, when Christopher Hitchens thinks that a debate doesn’t require “sustained argument” because “it’s blindingly obvious” then the NYT describes the book as “serious and deeply felt”. The review continues:

 … the great religions all began at a time when we knew a tiny fraction of what we know today about the origins of Earth and human life. It’s understandable that early humans would develop stories about gods or God to salve their ignorance. But people today have no such excuse. If they continue to believe in the unbelievable, or say they do, they are morons or lunatics or liars.

Well I guess that settles it. The apotheosis of two thousand years of human experience is the acknowledgement of our prior ignorance and an embrace of our new enlightenment.

Destruction is certainly part of the creative process but at some point I wish the high priests of atheism would assemble and thrash out a manifesto. That way the rest of us can comment. And write witty, engaging books without regard for reason and substance.

Buffett’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholders is always compelling investment insight. His 2006 letter contains this gem:

In 2006, promises and fees hit new highs. A flood of money went from institutional investors to the 2-and-20 crowd. For those innocent of this arrangement, let me explain: It’s a lopsided system whereby 2% of your principal is paid each year to the manager even if he accomplishes nothing – or, for that matter, loses you a bundle – and, additionally, 20% of your profit is paid to him if he succeeds, even if his success is due simply to a rising tide. For example, a manager who achieves a gross return of 10% in a year will keep 3.6 percentage points – two points off the top plus 20% of the residual 8 points – leaving only 6.4 percentage points for his investors. On a $3 billion fund, this 6.4% net “performance” will deliver the manager a cool $108 million. He will receive his bonanza even though an index fund might have returned 15% to investors in the same period and charged them only a token fee. […]

Its effects bring to mind the old adage: When someone with experience proposes a deal to someone with money, too often the fellow with money ends up with the experience, and the fellow with experience ends up with the  money.

I have written about this broad daylight heist before but it continues to astonish me that people aren’t aghast at the inequity of the system.

I am sitting in my hotel room looking over the Las Vegas Convention Center where hundreds of thousands of global citizens are thronging the cavernous halls. It is easy to lose perspective when you are down there, pressed on all sides by televisions and cell phones and audio equipment and pimped-out cars and computer games.

Back in my hotel room, though, the thought occurred to me, as it does every time I come to CES, that there is a vast difference between life and technology. Technology only provides the infrastructure for life. We still have to provide the rest: the creativity, the relationships, the laughter, the intimate connection. As far as I can tell almost every gadget in those halls serves either to bring us entertainment or to make us more efficient. But at times I wonder whether it is possible for technological progress to increase our entertainment. Was an hour of ‘I Love Lucy’ on a 27″ black and white TV that much less entertaining than ‘Heroes’ on a 102″ plasma screen?

And how much more efficiency or productivity are we really gaining from technology these days? The limiting factor in the information age seems to be the rate at which we can absorb and process new information in our finite brains. There seems to be very little left to automate in my life.

As I write, the Apple hordes are ecstatic over the announcement that Steve Jobs will produce a phone just for them. A bigger screen on a trendier phone will not make us any more likely to pick it up and call the person in our life who yearns to hear from us, to connect with us, to hear again that we love them. Or will it?

The advent of Christmas is always a great time to count your blessings and review your charitable giving. I highly endorse Opportunity International. They make a significant difference in the lives of the poor by loaning them capital with the training and spiritual support that they need to lift themselves out of poverty. Opportunity is close to making their millionth loan to the poor. The average first time loan amount is $84 and the loans have an astonishing repayment rate of 98%. Best of all, it’s a gift that keeps on giving as your contributions are recycled again and again as Opportunity builds up a larger and larger base of capital to loan out.