Keith Lockitch — VOICES for REASON

There has been a lot of commentary recently on the relevance of Atlas Shrugged to our economic woes and our government’s response. But the novel’s relevance to current issues extends far beyond the financial crisis.

Consider the phenomenon of Earth Hour, which takes place this Saturday (March 28), and which I criticized in a recent op-ed. During Earth Hour, participating cities turn off the lights of major skylines and landmarks to signal a commitment to fighting climate change. In my article I discuss why I think this is a travesty.

So how does this relate to Atlas Shrugged?

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President Obama has finally done something good! On Monday, he signed an executive order rescinding the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. The order reverses a policy imposed by President Bush in 2001, forbidding scientists receiving federal research funds from creating and studying new lines of embryonic stem cells.

The Bush ban was driven by religious opposition to this crucial area of medical research, and has been a major obstacle to progress toward cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Bush even used his first presidential veto a few years ago to block Congress from removing his funding restrictions. Obama’s decision defangs this faith-based assault on science.

Now just to be perfectly clear, I am not praising the use of federal tax dollars to fund scientific research. (I think all research should be privately funded.) What I’m praising is the fact that this crucial area of research will no longer be hampered by state-enforced religious dogmas. As Yaron Brook said at the time of the Bush veto:

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Yaron Brook and I are scheduled to speak at the International Conference on Climate Change sponsored by the Heartland Institute. The conference brings together scientists, economists, policy analysts and politicians who are critical of the claims of catastrophic global warming.

The main point we’ll be stressing is the importance of identifying the philosophy underlying environmentalism.

Why is it that environmentalism is so convincing to so many people? Read the rest of this entry »

If there is one lesson we should take from our current economic troubles, it is the destructiveness of government intervention aimed at manipulating the market. As my ARC colleagues have been arguing, this is the real cause of the collapse in the housing and financial markets–not “free markets run amok.”

Yet, what do Obama’s plans for energy policy consist of? Massive government intervention aimed at creating non-market outcomes.

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I wrapped up my speaking tour of the South last Thursday by giving my Darwin talk at UNC, Charlotte. It was a very nice way to celebrate Darwin’s 200th birthday, although nobody brought any cake, unfortunately. I even managed to attract a few student supporters of “intelligent design,” which made for a lively Q&A session after the talk.

One audience member asked an interesting question, which I thought was worth blogging about. He asked, in essence, why can’t creationism coexist with evolution? Aren’t they just two different perspectives on the same question, each with its own merits?

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There is a growing tradition of celebrating Darwin’s birthday as an occasion to promote science and reason.

 Why Darwin as opposed to, say, Isaac Newton? (Well, we do celebrate on Newton’s birthday, but only by coincidence: he was born on December 25th!)

 I think Darwin’s birthday is an important occasion to celebrate in the spirit of fighting back against the anti-science, anti-reason viewpoint put forward by creationism and its evolutionary descendant, “intelligent design.”

 Ayn Rand certainly reacted with a fighting spirit when she encountered creationism in the early ’80s. In a 1981 talk at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston (“The Age of Mediocrity,” published in The Objectivist Forum), she explained the philosophic roots of creationism’s attack on science. Commenting on its threat to science education, she said:

To claim that the mystics’ mythology, or inventions, or superstitions are as valid as scientific theories, and to offer this claim to the unformed minds of children, is a moral crime.  

In the face of that moral crime, it is an act of justice to celebrate a man who worked so hard to advance human knowledge and who exemplifies the rational pursuit of truth.

I’ll be speaking on Darwin and evolution at four college campuses next week. I’m looking forward to meeting the students and hearing their comments and questions about this important scientist and the discoveries he made.

We’ve timed the speaking tour to culminate on Darwin’s 200th birthday:

• On February 9, I’ll be at the University of Texas, Austin.
• On February 10, I’ll be at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
• On February 11, I’ll be at the University of Georgia, Athens.
• On February 12, I’ll be at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

If you’re local, come check it out!

Here is the talk description:

The theory of evolution is often disparaged by its opponents as being “just a theory”–i.e., a speculative hypothesis with little basis in hard, scientific facts. But this claim carries with it the implied accusation that Charles Darwin was “just a theorist”–i.e., that he was merely an armchair scientist and that his life’s work was nothing more than an exercise in arbitrary speculation. A look at Darwin’s pioneering discoveries, however, reveals the grave injustice of this accusation. Darwin was not “just a theorist” and evolution is not “just a theory.” In this talk, celebrating the Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s masterpiece On the Origin of Species, Dr. Lockitch explores Darwin’s life and work, focusing on the steps by which he came to discover and prove the theory of evolution by natural selection.

More information on the ARC website. (Registered users can watch a video of the talk. I also have an article based on the talk in The Objective Standard.)

The economic pain we’re all feeling right now is nothing compared to the pain we would feel if we adopt green energy and climate policies that restrict fossil fuel consumption.

There is a close relationship between the use of energy and a healthy economy, as highlighted by this New York Times story, “Oil Demand Down; 1st Time Since ’83.”

Global oil consumption will drop this year for the first time since 1983, as an economic downturn in the West and slower growth in China cut fuel demand…

The International Energy Agency, an adviser to industrialized nations, said on Thursday that it projects worldwide demand to fall by 200,000 barrels a day, to 85.8 million barrels a day, in 2008….

The Energy Department said earlier this week that global consumption would probably fall by 450,000 barrels a day in 2009, the first time in more than 30 years that demand will decline for two consecutive years.

Energy is the motive power that fuels production and trade. When economic activity slows, so does energy demand. But what people really need to recognize is that it goes the other way too. Imposing restrictions on the use of energy–as would occur under a system of carbon regulation–would choke off the economy’s fuel and shut down productive activity.

For one thing, a recession is a temporary downturn; we can expect that once the economy picks up again, producers will increase their demand for energy toward renewed growth and prosperity. Also, nobody sets out to cause a recession. There’s no excuse for the devastation wreaked by the political leaders, Fed Chiefs, and sundry economic Czars and bureaucrats who caused our current mess, but one can, at the very least, assume they didn’t intend to ruin the economy. But if we voluntarily adopt green policies that force cutbacks in energy, the result would be a self-inflicted depression–or worse–that would cause economic pain for as long as the policies are in place.

This recession, with all its grim news of job loss and economic hardship, should be seen as a cautionary tale against coercive energy and climate policies.