SCIENCE LEADS YOU TO KILLING PEOPLE? If this quote is accurate, Ben Stein has completely lost it.

UPDATE: Related thoughts at ChicagoBoyz.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Steve Poling emails:

You cited Derb’s quote by Ben Stein and suggest he’s lost it. I’d like to offer a brief apology (in the Socratic sense).

In the last century, we saw several governments adopt the notion that they, the government, were ultimate. Mr. Stein accurately identifies one of them, risking Godwin’s law. Meanwhile, Russian and Chinese governments were responsible for murdering millions of their citizens. The same century saw the Tuskegee experiment and other eugenics mischief under the banner of what Francis Schaeffer (franky’s dad) termed “Sociological law.” All these crimes were RATIONALIZED using science.

You’ll see this common theme running throughout Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism.” I disagree with Mr. Goldberg’s thesis, finding the common thread true of both Communist and Fascist and American Progressive mischief is a rejection of transcendent absolutes. “If there are no absolutes, then the state is absolute,” said Francis Schaeffer.

But the root problem has to do with human nature and Lord Acton’s dictum, power tends to corrupt. Since the people running the gas chambers in Germany were philosophically naturalists who dressed in lab coats while spouting pseudo-science, I don’t think Mr. Stein’s curse lands upon true scientists, but at relativists who see nothing larger than their own personal grasp on power and no transcendent checks upon its exercise.

The American Constitution is as close as this world is likely to see. I see it as a legacy of Deist and Christian framers who looked outside government for absolutes to serve as checks upon government. However, since all text is subject to interpretation, that legacy is endangered by judicial activism… Sorry to have wandered so far afield. Francis Schaeffer made the same mistake when he contemplated these things immediately after the Roe v Wade decision.

However, the absolutes vs relativism question seems to lie underneath Mr. Stein’s remarks. If just want to make him a straw man, and find an excuse to ignore everything else he says, you can frame his remarks as mere obscurantism. However, if you want to constructively engage the problems which have nettled this world for the last century or so, you might want to consider relativism’s baleful influence on Western Culture.

Auschwitz was not conceived as science, nor was it impelled by science, or scientists. The Holocaust was not a scientific endeavor, but had its roots in the Nazis’ unscientific loathing of the Jews. The Nazis did try to dress up that loathing in scientific dress, but that was a propaganda move, not science. (Indeed, Nazi science, for the most part, was dreadful science, made up by people to suit their preexisting beliefs without actual resort to the scientific method.) One can argue quite compellingly against moral relativism without engaging in raw intellectual dishonesty. Stein’s approach, however, seems more worthy of a Michael Moore. And in this spirit, do read what Jay Manifold has to say at the ChicagoBoyz link above. And here’s a somewhat related post from a while back.

MORE: Ed Morrissey comments: “I found a lot to recommend about Expelled, but this leaves me wondering if Ben Stein missed the point of his movie. Science does not lead to Dachau; ideology perverting science led to Dachau.. . . How could Stein say this without a hint of irony? The best themes in Expelled take Academia to task for the same destructive sin.”

STILL MORE: In the comments at ChicagoBoyz, David Foster writes:

I’ve enjoyed a lot of Stein’s writing, and it saddens me to see him descending to this nuttiness.

“the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed”…surely Stein knows that the concentration camps were run by the SS, 99% of whom were not scientists. While it is true that the Nazis employed chemists for nefarious purposes, it is also true that the Nazis employed musicians to help hide from inmates the true purpose of the camps. Would Stein also assert that music is evil?

Good point, exposing just how cheap Stein’s cheap shot was.

HEH: Berkeley College Republicans apply for same protest privileges as Code Pink.

Related: Military moms crash Code Pink dinner.

OOPS: Hillary blasts Bush for not stopping a project her husband approved.

VIDEO: A Top Gun weekend.

GAY PATRIOT REPORTS ON Pansy-Gate.

MILEAGE TEST: Diesel vs. Hybrid SUVs.

IN THE MAIL: David Runciman’s Political Hypocrisy: The Mask of Power, from Hobbes to Orwell and Beyond. Seems timely. But then, the subject is evergreen. . . .

OLIVER KAMM: “Even many supporters of his own Labour Party will be glad if London mayor Ken Livingstone loses Thursday’s election – and gladder if he departs public life altogether.”

STEVE GILL: Obama gets a do-over. I think he’s taken real damage, though.

GAIL HERIOT: “If you have ever wondered why colleges and universities seem to march in lockstep on controversial issues like affirmative action, here is one reason: Overly politicized accrediting agencies often demand it.”

She thinks the Education Department needs to rein in the American Bar Association. I don’t really understand why the ABA is in the accreditation business to begin with. (Via The Volokh Conspiracy). Here’s a question — and it’s a real question, because this isn’t my area of the law. If, as it seems, the ABA is pressuring schools to violate the law in the name of diversity, why isn’t it vulnerable to a civil-rights conspiracy claim? And couldn’t such a claim be brought by students who are not admitted to schools of their choice because of affirmative action? Is this more of a stretch than some of the other civil rights claims that are brought in the context of admissions, etc.?

HE’S CERTAINLY RIGHT: Obama says rivals Clinton, McCain pandering on gas tax.

UPDATE: Tom Friedman:

Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.

But here’s what’s scary: our problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite.

Read the whole thing.

CHINA WILL LOVE THIS: Ahead of Olympics, Congressman Pushes ‘Global Online Freedom Act’.

IS IT A TREND? Another professor sues students, though at least this time it’s not over course evaluations. Still seems unthinkable — but, then, so did the idea of students suing professors, until recently.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse: “Suing students! It seems unthinkable. But this is the direction we head when free speech and academic freedom lose their grip on us.”

AN INTERVIEW WITH LIBERTARIAN TRANSHUMANIST (though he doesn’t like that word) philanthropist Peter Thiel.

AT IOWAHAWK, advice to the lovelorn.

WHILE EVERYONE WAS TALKING ABOUT JEREMIAH WRIGHT YESTERDAY, John McCain was unveiling his health care plan.

Megan McArdle was on the conference call and observes: “The plan’s heart is mostly in the right place: break the link between employment and health care, make the plan revenue neutral (ish), change Medicare reimbursement so that we pay for results rather than procedures.” But, she observes: “The senator is proposing one thing that I think is a terrible idea, pharmaceutical reimportation. Naturally, this is the part of his health care plan with the highest probability of passage.”

THOUGHTS ON THE NEED TO increase oil supplies. But while some are taking the issue seriously, Congressional Democrats (and, as we can see from the item below, some Republicans) are not. I’d like to think that they’re just down with the Malcolm Forbes plan, but I kind of doubt their motivations are that sophisticated.

YOUR CONGRESS HELPS MAINTAIN HIGH GAS PRICES:

In an interesting tussle, a virtually unnoticed clause was added almost at the least moment to a US energy bill that bars the government, in particular the Department of Defense, from using Alberta crude because it is deemed unconventional and too dirty.

A provision in the US Carbon Neutral Government Act incorporated into the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 act effectively bars the US government from buying fuels that have greater life-cycle emissions than fuels produced from conventional petroleum sources.

The United States has defined Alberta oilsands as unconventional because the bitumen mined from the ground requires upgrading and refining as opposed to the traditional crude pumped from oil wells.

California Democrat Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Republican Tom Davis added the clause.

Thanks, guys. I’ll remember you whenever I fill up. Some cynics might suspect a corrupt motive:

Wihbey underlines Saudi Arabia and Canada were direct competitors for the biggest customer: the US. David Kirsch, head of Oil Markets PFC Energy, says that “In the US mid-continent, the penetration of oilsands crude is deep, they are increasingly competing with the long haul crude from the Middle East. Until recently we saw a Saudi domination, but now it is becoming a Canadian affair.” And that’s why the Saudis are starting to play hardball, claimed Wihbey.

“They’re playing hardball … then all of a sudden this legislation pops in, literally a month after these statements were made in November,” noted Wihbey.

But I’m sure it’s just a sincere concern for the environment. I had missed this story, and I suspect most people did. Via Jerry Pournelle, who observes:

The easy way to make ethanol is to import sugar from Brazil and use that. Of course we don’t and won’t do that.

The easy way to bring oil prices down is to drill offshore and on the North Slope. Of course we don’t do that.

The easy way to bring electricity prices down (you can make fertilizer with electricity) is to build nuclear power plants, expensive but cheap compared to wars. Of course we won’t do that.

And why won’t we?

UPDATE: Environmentalists are indefatigably trying to block this new source of energy:

Alberta’s oilsands came under fire in Washington, D.C. yesterday, with environmentalists protesting the visit of deputy premier Ron Stevens and demanding a ban on “dirty oil” be enforced.

The National Resource Defense Council, which claims 1.3 million members across the U.S., [NOTE: I think they mean the Natural Resources Defense Council] bought an ad in the widely read Capitol Hill Roll Call newspaper, featuring a Maple Leaf oozing oil.

If we really do see seven-dollar gas by 2012 as some are predicting, we’ll know who to blame. On the other hand, here’s some good news:

Alberta expects a U.S. working group to classify the province´s oilsands fuel as a conventional resource to exempt it from tough new restrictions on imports, provincial envoy Gary Mar said Tuesday.

It certainly should.

LOSING WEIGHT with a treadmill desk. Some jobs already feel that way. . . .

COMMON GROUND: “We’re all law professors: me, Glenn, Obama…”

HAPPENINGS AT BERKELEY: Muller scoops Leiter! With exclusive pic!

TIGERHAWK: “American society has made process as important as outcome, and it is sucking the energy out of us.”

MICKEY KAUS keeps bringing up the John Edwards / Rielle Hunter story. Does he think there’s a chance Edwards might get back in the race?

JEREMIAH WRIGHT: Once Obama’s “spiritual adviser,” and “mentor,” now a guy he’s barely met!