Success and Mediocrity

One frequent request that I receive as feedback from my students in general--and in particular, from the ones in the lowest level courses--is that I work more examples in my lecture classes. They also want an "example test," by which is meant a version of the test to be given out before the test, which differs at most in altering numbers or minor details in the tests. And finally, they want tests which adhere closely to the exact set of examples worked in class, or at most to the exact homework problems assigned. In the labs, they often want to see specific grading rubric for lab reports before handing in the reports. 

I dislike accommodating all of these requests for several reasons: physics is not meant to be reduced to merely copying off the professor's works and calling it one's own--nor should this be the norm of (m)any other academic disciplines. A part of education in general, and the introductory physics courses in particular, is learning how to problem solve, how to think critically, and for that matter how to acquire, evaluate, and even synthesis knowledge. With a lot of work, most students are capable of these things, and a few will actually thrive when pushed to do them.

The lab rubrics are a simple case in point. When I make a rubric, it is for the sake of being consistent in my grading from one report to the next (or from one instructor to the next, as I co-teach some labs). The rubric is based on the instructions for the lab, but it is not meant to be the be-all, end-all of a "good" lab report. In fact, I have read some very mediocre-quality reports which would otherwise excel against any pre-made rubric but for a "catch-all" writing quality/quality of the report grade. The rubric reduces the idea of writing up the methodology and results (and any analysis done upon or conclusions drawn from said results) into a narrow checklist. Yes, the checklist is easier to grade, but the students are able to learn considerably less from it.

Unfortunately, the standards set by acquiescing to these requests--let us see the test before seeing the test, grade the lab before grading the lab--is that while the grades in the class may be higher, they also mean much less than they otherwise would. Our students will be "successful," and yet they will all be mediocre. They will have missed the opportunity to fail and then learn from their failures--some of them don't do this much anyway--and at the same time, the top quartile is then robbed of its opportunity to excel.

---

Image generated by Google's Gemini AI

Ashes, Ashes

 Today is Ash Wednesday, and so begins another Lent. I was reminded last Sunday our pastor that in giving something up, the point is not to prove that I can do without it, but instead to allow the longing for it to turn to prayer. Prayer is something that we could all spend more time in doing: I've taken to praying frequently for my family and a few specific friends. Perhaps this time of Lent can be a reminder that I should pray, not only for today's daily bread, but in gratitude for all the bread of my yesterdays.

The Mute Speaking in Tongues

Speaking in tongues is a possible charism* which we may receive from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, though as St. Paul says, it is not given to all but to some. Pentecostals in general, and "Oneness" Pentecostals** in particular, seem to have latched onto this one gift and made it the ultimate sign of the working of the Spirit, to the extent that it seems to have become a major point in their theology that this is a necessary sign of a believer's salvation.

I have a few thoughts on this, but there is one that is in a sense wanting to be written down, even if in a disorganized manner. This is the problem of mute (and, I suppose, deaf) people's speaking in tongues. There is a distinction made (by Pentecostals and other Charismatics alike) between glossolalia and xenoglossia/xenolalia, with the former being maybe more correctly interpreted as "ecstatic utterance."

Back to deaf and mute people: how can either practice "speaking in tongues?" I have seen the answer returned that this could involve simply making "gibberish sounds" or "speaking in tongue via signing." This seems a reasonable interpretation, but on the other hand, it seems to me that there is something just "off" from this explanation. I can't put words to it (ironic, I know), but there seems to me to be a problem in all this: perhaps that, if "signing" is a form of speaking in tongues, it just seems odd to me that only the deaf and the mute would be moved to this, that those who can speak normally speak aloud (or quietly in their heads) in tongues, but do not seem to sign in tongues as well.

---

*The gifts of the Holy Spirit include: counsel, piety, knowledge, understanding, wisdom, fortitude, and fear of the Lord. I'm using the word gift or charism here in the sense of 1 Corinthians 12:4-11. Perhaps "charism" is a better term here than gift, therefore.

**Other Pentecostals, such as Assemblies of God, do not take this to necessarily be a requisite for salvation, though they still emphasize it.

Three Errors About the Trinity

 The stated belief of most Christians is that God is a Trinity: three distinct persons united as one God. Thus, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. The Father is not the Son, the Sone is not the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not the Father (nor vice-verse). Catholics would add that this is a mystery: we can know that this is true, it has been revealed to us as true through Tradition and the Church's teaching authority. Most other Christians--C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christians" (whether Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican, or other ecclesial communities) would agree with these ideas; they might say with Peter Kreeft that while we cannot fully understand the Trinity, it makes the most sense out of the data (truths about God revealed to us, e.g. in Scripture).

There are, nonetheless, several errors about the Trinity, a few of which have appeared in one form or another as being among the larger and more widespread or pernicious of heresies. I want to mention three such errors in this post.

The first error is that the Trinity is a belief in three different Gods. Thus, a form of polytheism. This error would make God less than all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing, as the three Gods might strive against each other: a three-person version of the early Gnostic and Manichaen heresies. I don't think that this error is especially common in a formal sense (it quickly becomes untenable), but it may be materially present in the ways that many Christians (Catholic or otherwise) interact with God practically.

The second error is that there are not indeed three persons, but only three modalities, three ways in which God presents Himself to us (or, more insidiously--three ways in which God has presented Himself to us...so far!). This error is Modalism or Sabellianism (the latter named after the third-century bishop who taught this idea, largely in response to other errors of his day). Modern days "Oneness" Pentecostals embrace a version of this error, and it perhaps will be making its way through the "Holiness" Pentecostal ranks by contact osmosis. Pentecostalism is one of the fastest growing Christian sects, and Oneness Pentecostals are themselves growing rapidly as a sect. Among other things, they teach that Jesus is God's name, and that Father, Son, Holy Spirit are different offices of the one God named Jesus*; this is analogous to how most Mere Christians would consider God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. As a consequence, the Oneness Pentecostals do not baptize using a Trinitarian formula ("I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"). 

The third error is related to the first: there are three divine persons, but they are not coequal. Hence, the Father might be greater than the Son and the Spirit. All three are divine and participate in being God, but not all three to an equal degree. The pagan Plotinus taught a version of this in conceiving of a divine trinity, and one of the great heresies--Arianism and its offshoots--likewise allowed for Christ to be divine yet lesser that the Father.

---

*It seems odd to me that God's "true" name means "YHWH is Salvation" or "God is Deliverance," since this means that God's true name (and hence nature) is thus dependent on the existence of an other to save.

Corrective Thomism

Ten or fifteen years ago, had you asked me about what kind of philosopher I was, I might have replied "I'm a Thomist" or maybe (more modestly but also more accurately) "I'm an amateur Thomist." Today, if you asked me the same question and I was in a reflective enough state of mind to answer rightly, I might reply that I am a "corrective Thomist."

What I mean by this response is not that I am a particular type of Thomist, e.g. a neo-Thomist or a scholastic-Thomist or an Aristotelian-Thomist; rather, I look to St. Thomas* to help correct my philosophy when I become aware of disagreement or error between us. The same may be said of my theology, in some sense. Thus, I need not know everything that St. Thomas teaches as a philosopher or as a theologian; I need not even agree with everything I do know of what he teaches--but when I encounter a disagreement, I try to take it very seriously and to discover whether this means I have an error in either my reasoning or the principles, axioms, or evidence from which I reason. Saint Thomas was not infallible, of course, but when I encounter a disagreement between us, I may then suspect that my conclusions are on less stable ground than I might have previously supposed.

Thus, I do ask at times "What would St. Thomas conclude here?" as a means of approaching what is likely true in this case.

I suppose that in another sense, my theology might be said to be "corrective Catholic." I strive to think as the Church does, often miss the mark, but take the teachings of the Church to be corrective in such a way that if I am made aware that there is a disagreement between what I believe and what the Church teaches, then I need to stop and discover where I have gone astray. Is the disagreement in conclusion running afoul of an actual dogma, of a doctrine, or merely of a pious opinion? Even the lattermost of these should give me some pause.

There is, indeed, one more important question still: what does God say is true here? What might the Father reveal? What might Jesus, the Son, teach? To what conclusion may the Holy Spirit lead me**?

---

*Primarily, St. Thomas, but there are other reliable guides of course. He draws on many of them, and other stand upon his shoulders in turn.

**As a faithful Catholic, I would note that the Holy Spirit primarily leads us through the Church, offering the most direct correctives through the Church's infallible dogmas.

A Decade

 I was looking at the time stamps on this site. Yes, it's been a decade and maybe more since I have posted anything here or elsewhere (unless you count my "work" blog, but that is a different story). A lot has changed in that time. My family has grown, and we have experienced joy, loss, sorrow, and hope. I have a few wonderful children here, and many more that I have not met and whom I hope to meet in the hereafter. I have gone through an entire cycle of starting as an assistant professor, earning tenure, and leaving for a new job. I'm now an associate professor at a Catholic university, for what it is worth. The unfortunate rise of generative AI has ruined much of the internet, and while there remain a number of people still writing online, it seems to me that many more have given up.

What brings me back, after all this time? And why here, as opposed to my older more established blogs (or, to creating a new one)? My original blog still exists, but in an un-accessible state. I think I can go in and get the best of my posts form it (I can access the blog's editor), but it is not really accessible to the internet at large anymore. My other project blog--Nicene Guys--is not accessible. I may ask the friend why build the back-end whether he still has the old posts, but I don't have any plans to re-constitute it. And I have considered creating a new blog--it has been a decade, after all, and so revisiting this one seems like an odd choice. I have considered two titles (Passing the Fruits, or After the Chores Are Done). Perhaps I will visit these, and perhaps if I sustain work here, I may transition to those instead.

I've been wanting to take this back up for some time, but the timing hasn't been good. There have been some doubts: will I be able to sustain this, will it really make the world a better place? And what should be the scope? For now, I want to keep the scope relatively limited, mostly short posts to be written with a short time. Let's see where it takes me.

A part of why I am here, hopefully with more regularity, is that my wife has been encouraging me to get back into doing this. It's a sort of self-care, I suppose, but she is much more supportive of my writing again than she was when I stopped. Our family is in a different place, I suppose, and hopefully for the better. Here's to more decades, I suppose.

The Electoral College

I read two interesting reactions to the election of Donald Trump this morning: the first is a reaction to the Left's non-violent reaction, the other is actually a less common reaction from the Left. Suffice it to say, I think that the former is basically correct as far as it goes, and that the latter basically draws the wrong conclusion to this election. I will look at the former now, and the latter in a future post.

First: a defense of the electoral college, by Mr. Jason Willick of the American Interest. He brings up four points in defense of the electoral college:

Presidential election 2016 results by county and vote share. Source.

1. Changing the rules of an election also changes both the impetus for voting and the strategy pursued by the candidates. Thus, Mr. Trump would have spent more time and effort campaigning in rural and blue-collar California, Illinois, and even New York if only the popular vote mattered, whereas Clinton might have made more visits to Houston, Atlanta, etc. Indeed, I suspect that Trump would have actually done more to advertise earlier in this scenario (for example, Hillary Clinton's ads were frequently heard on the radio where I live about two months before the election; I don't think I ever heard a Trump ad).
2. Attempting to scrap the electoral college is a waste of energy that could be used to reform it instead. I actually don't think this is a good argument for why the college shouldn't be eliminated, but it is a decent argument from a practical standpoint for why people shouldn't try to remove it. The gist is that there are too many states with too much to lose if the college goes away, with only a few large-population (and largely blue) states gaining anything, so it is difficult to imagine getting the requisite 38 states to sign off on this Constitutional amendment. Again, I think that this is not a very good argument because it is less a defense of the college than a plea against the difficulty in removing is, and it may not even really dissuade people from trying (which is the main point of the argument).
3. The electoral college is what makes the presidential election an actual national election. At this point, the shift is from left vs right to nationalist vs cosmopolitan/internationalist (or so his argument goes). More importantly, the divide is largely between highly populated (but geographically concentrated) urban areas and large but sparsely populated rural areas. Thus, in a popular election, the impetus might be for the Democrat/urban candidate to focus exclusively in getting high turnout in their mega-cities. The rest of the country--including large swatch of "not-flyover" states, would be ignored. Having grown up in the rural part of a blue states whose policies were almost always dictated by the population of the one large city and maybe two or three medium-sized towns), this especially resonated with me. On a national scale, the problem is even worse, since a coalition of  very few large urban areas (New York, Philadelphia, Boston, DC, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Twin Cities, Detroit, Houston, Atlanta, Miami) could very rapidly supply a majority (or plurality) of the population. Indeed, this is a majority which is completely out of touch with smaller metro areas like Montgomery, Topeka, Boise, Amarillo, and even Kansas City or Pittsburgh, let alone the truly rural areas.
4. The electoral college is one way of forcing coalition-building. This is a sort of continuation of the previous point, but it also gets into the fact that under a winner-take-all poplar election, some third-party candidates would actually maybe be stronger (they no longer have to win states). Indeed, one possible outcome is that we could regularly see people elected by winning 30-35% of the popular vote--a point which again feeds into the third point above. To quote from Mr. Willick's article,
   

   The winner-take-all Electoral College system creates major obstacles to third-party presidential candidacies. Scrapping it would lead to stronger third-parties vying for the presidency, as these parties wouldn’t need to win any states to register on the electoral scoreboard. As a result, it’s possible that no candidate would come close to getting a majority of the popular vote. America could then regularly end up with plurality presidents with support from thirty percent (or less) of the voting public. Parliamentary systems manage this problem by requiring coalitions to form a government. The party that wins the most votes in the first round doesn’t immediately win power; it must create a coalition with other parties so that together, they represent a majority. (In a number of European countries, far-right parties are kept out of power despite having a plurality of popular support because the governing coalition excludes them). In America, there is no such mechanism. Popular vote champions looking to avoid minor plurality presidencies (the legitimacy of which might also be challenged on democratic grounds) would need to also seek to implement a runoff election or else scrap the entire U.S. Constitutional structure.

    I actually think that strengthening the third parties and weakening the two major parties is not a bad thing. However, I also think that Mr. Willick's prediction may be the opposite of what actually happens. To whit, look at the vote totals for Gary Johnson and Jill Stein (and the "others") in "safe" states vs "swing" states. A voter who does not expect his vote to influence the election one way or another is more likely to vote for his favorite candidate (even if said candidate is in a third party) than the one whom he considers be the lesser of t two evils who is likely to actually win. I suspect that in a close election year, the third parties would actually win fewer popular votes, thus adding a false sense of popular mandate to the eventual winner.
   

Presidential election 2016 results by county and vote share. Source.

Three of these four points argue that abolishing the electoral college could have either bad or at best unpredictable results. Certainly, the party establishment types living in the heart of a major metropolitan area will disagree with me there, at least if they favor gut reaction to prudence. Certainly, the New York or DC elite would be perfectly content to rule over the people in the hinterlands--right up until those people decide that they are no longer interesting in playing by the rules of a system which seems rigged against them by people who disdain them and who seem actively wish to destroy their ways of life. This is, by and large, the reason why enough electors have ultimately supported Trump rather than Clinton.

How Much Hypocrisy in 140 Characters

Good advice, but the person giving it doesn't believe it.

Hypocrisy is Hillary Clinton's telling people to have respect for "laws, institutions, and basic human rights and freedoms." She has respect for none of these things, but it is in her on best interests that everybody else (mostly) does so. In her world, Laws are for little people, and she has been part and parcel of an administration which has been systematically seeking to undermine both secular (marriage) and religious institutions and to trample on basic rights (e.g. to life) and freedoms (e.g conscience liberties).

This is real hypocrisy. It also goes to show that just because a statement is hypocritical does not make the statement false--we should have respect for laws and institutions, for duties and responsibilities and the rights and freedoms and privileges that they entail. Society breaks down and civilization passes from decadence to collapse when we don't.

Also, for those who missed it because they get their news from social media and the Daily Show, there has been an attempted military coup in Turkey.

I Don't Often Swear in Writing

When I do, it is generally justified. Thus: WTF is wrong with these people?

Irony is using Batman to question a person's maturity.

Stump Seech

The candidate who gives this stump speech--and who actually means it and backs it up by his actions and policy proposals--would get my vote in a heartbeat (heavily excerpted):

The crisis in our land is a crisis of truth. Let me repeat that. The crisis in our land is a crisis of truth....

The last eight years have seen an ever-accelerating push from our government for an agenda that is—let’s be frank about it—deranged. Social institutions of all kinds are breaking down, foreign policy is in disarray, racial and cultural tensions are suddenly at the boil, and we find ourselves hurtling through increasing social chaos toward complete disaster. It didn’t begin eight years ago, but the derangement has accelerated dramatically over the last eight years.

That is why you are here. You have known, in your minds and hearts, that many of the developments in our nation are deranged. But when you have turned to the usual places for help in applying the brakes, your voice is unheard. Those who listen least are in that bloated bureaucracy we call the federal government. Indeed, the current administration has gone out of its way to push for, and celebrate, our social derangement as though this is what you want. The Democratic candidates have been arguing strenuously over which of them is more committed to this derangement. This is no longer a surprise. The surprise is that the apparent Republican candidate has spent his entire life aiding and abetting the Democrats and their agenda of social derangement....

The crisis in our land is a crisis of truth. We are being told to believe things that are obviously false—things that cannot possibly be true—and to accept that the most obviously true things are false.... And yet, when you protest, you are bullied with name-calling and threats. You are told you are an irrational bigot.... And yet, when you protest, you are threatened with fines and legal actions for failing to fall in line....

What has produced the America that we know and love? What kind of America causes the world to flock to its shores in joy and hope?

It is an America that values the truth above all.

Listen to what the other candidates say; more importantly, look at what they do. Is any other candidate interested in this America? Is any other candidate interested, even the slightest bit, in the truth?

I am. And if this is the America you want, let me be your champion this November. Together, we can make America her truest self.

Unfortunately, neither of the frontrunners is this candidate. Nor, for that matter, is the "darkhorse" third party candidate Gary Johnson of the Libertarian party. And don't even get me started on the other third party candidate who draws substantial numbers in polls--with or without Bernie Sanders on the ticket.

Safe

Pro-abortion folks like to say that they want abortions to be safe (for the mother, anyway). "Safe" abortions in "safe" abortion facilities: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Especially in light of Kermit Gosnell, or Whole Women's Health v Hellerstedt.

Two Day, Two Decisions

The Supreme Court of the United States has made (or sustained) two anti-life decision in the last two days. The more widely publicized decision was declared on Monday, striking down the Texas laws placing restrictions of abortion mills in the state. That law would have closed most (though not all) of the mills in the state--though it would not have prevented new mills from opening which met the restriction in the law.

The second decision was made on Tuesday, and was in fact a decision to decline to hear a case. This was a case which also have direct bearing on the rights of conscience, which are at least hypothetically protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution (a document for which the Left has had no use in general of late). This is a case whose decision should have been obvious from the get-go. The State of Washington insists that all pharmacies must be made to dispense (abortifacent) morning-after and week after "contraceptive" pills; some pharmacists--and indeed, some entire pharmacies--have declined to do so, because it violates their consciences to do so. This is a religious liberty issue to the extent that many of these consciences are religiously formed. The teaching of, for example, the Catholic Church in this matter is pretty clear, especially with regard to week-after pills after which fertilization has almost certainly occurred if their is to be a pregnancy at all.

In this case, the Court did not impose a new law by judicial fiat, but rather refused to hear a case which has been wrongly decided (by the always suspect Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals). There were three dissenters form this refusal: justices Alito, Thomas, and Roberts (the only three remotely objective justices left on the court). They wrote:

This case is an ominous sign. At issue are Washington State regulations that are likely to make a pharmacist unemployable if he or she objects on religious grounds to dispensing certain prescription medications. There are strong reasons to doubt whether the regulations were adopted for—or that they actually serve—any legitimate purpose. And there is much evidence that the impetus for the adoption of the regulations was hostility to pharmacists whose religious beliefs regarding abortion and contraception are out of step with prevailing opinion in the State. Yet the Ninth Circuit held that the regulations do not violate the First Amendment, and this Court does not deem the case worthy of our time. If this is a sign of how religious liberty claims will be treated in the years ahead, those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern…. Ralph’s has raised more than ‘slight suspicion’ that the rules challenged here reflect antipathy toward religious beliefs that do not accord with the views of those holding the levers of government power. I would grant certiorari to ensure that Washington’s novel and concededly unnecessary burden on religious objectors does not trample on fundamental rights.”

Also worth noting are the background to this case and the circumstances under which the law was passed:

Margo Thelen, Rhonda Mesler, and the Stormans family have worked in the pharmacy profession for over seventy years. When a customer requests an abortion-inducing drug, they refer the customer to one of over thirty pharmacies within five miles that willingly sell the drugs. For decades, this has been standard pharmacy practice, has been approved by the American Pharmacists Association, and has been legal in all 50 states.

But in 2007, Washington adopted a new law making referrals for reasons of conscience illegal. The law was passed in a cloud of controversy, with then-Governor Christine Gregoire threatening to terminate the State Pharmacy Commission and replacing Commission members with new ones recommended by abortion-rights activists. The law leaves pharmacies free to refer patients elsewhere for a wide variety of reasons related to business, economics, and convenience—but not for reasons of conscience. Because of the law, Margo Thelen lost her job, Rhonda Mesler was threatened with losing hers, and the Stormans family faces the loss of its pharmacy license.

The burning times continue apace.