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Science

Video Dr. Richard Dawkins On Education, 'Innocence of Muslims,' and Rep. Paul Broun 862

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In this video interview (with transcript), Dr. Richard Dawkins discusses religious exceptionalism with regard to the teaching of evolution, and the chilling effect of fundamentalism on the production of scientists and engineers. He says, "I can think of no other reason why, of all the scientific facts that people might disagree with or disbelieve, [evolution] is the one they pick on. Physics gets through OK. Chemistry gets through Ok. But not biology/geology, and I think it's got to be because of religion." He also addresses the recent comments from Rep. Paul Broun, who denounced evolution and the Big Bang theory as "lies straight from the pit of hell," and the recent Innocence of Muslims video that led to unrest in various parts of the world. "Freedom of speech is something that Islamic theocracies simply do not understand. They don't get it. They're so used to living in a theocracy, that they presume that if a film is released in the United States, the United States Government must be behind it! How could it be otherwise? So, they need to be educated that, actually, some countries do have freedom of speech and government is not responsible for what any idiot may do in the way of making a video." He also has some very insightful comments about religion as one of the most arbitrary labels by which people divide themselves when involved in conflict. Hit the link below for the video.

Slashdot: In a recent Gallup poll, it's been shown that the American population has shown no change over the past thirty years in their acceptance of evolution as truth. Why do you think that is?

Dr. Richard Dawkins: Well, I'm aware of that. It's a disturbing fact. This is Gallup poll results. It's slightly unfortunate in a way, that the way that they phrased the question in that particular Gallup poll is to say, on the one hand, mankind was created more or less in its present form some time during the last 10,000 years. Or.. the right answer.. evolution. Or, God had nothing to do with it. And, that "God had nothing to do with it" kind of puts people off. Nevertheless, that's the way Gallup phrased it. And, you're right that the poll hasn't changed. It's somewhere between 40%, 45% consistently.

I think religion is to blame. I mean, I can think of no other reason why, of all the scientific facts that people might disagree with or disbelieve, this is the one they pick on. Physics gets through OK. Chemistry gets through OK. But, not biology/geology and I think it's got to be because of religion.

Slashdot: Is that something you think can be easily remedied through education?

Dawkins: It should be. Education is the answer to the problem. I think that scientists are somewhat to blame for not getting out more and bringing their subject to people. So, I think we're not entirely blameless of that. The evidence is absolutely clear, isn't it? No doubt about it. It's not the sort of thing that one can be at all doubtful about, once you've seen the evidence. And, clearly, most people haven't seen the evidence. You've only got to talk to people who call themselves creationists to realize they haven't the faintest idea what the evidence is, or indeed, what evolution is.

Slashdot: Do you think there's a better way that people could be shown what the evidence is?

Dawkins: Well, there are books. There are plenty of television documentaries. There are plenty of websites that you can go look up Q & A and things. There's quite a lot of stuff out there. I'm not quite sure what that better way would look like, but I'd be grateful for any suggestions.

Slashdot: Earlier this year, the Tennessee State Legislature passed a law [allowing] public schools to teach the controversy with regard to evolution, global warming and a few other scientific theories. Much more recently, Representative Paul Broun, a Republican in Georgia, said that evolution, embryology, the big bang theory--are "lies straight from the pit of Hell." How does that tie in with the educational aspect? It seems to me, you're working at two problems. You have students who are not educated, with respect to evolution, the big bang theory, and similar things. And, those students grow up to be voters and legislators, who are now contributing the the problem.

Dawkins: It's very evident that Representative Paul Broun is uneducated, ignorant, probably stupid, too, which is very sad. It's very sad that somebody as ill-qualified to hold high office as that has been elected. There was a rather amusing tweet I saw on Twitter, which went something like this. "Doctor, you say that brushing teeth is a good way to keep them healthy. I say smearing them with chocolate is. Let's teach the controversy!" And the fact is, there is no controversy about evolution. It's a fact, demonstrated beyond all possible doubt by scientific evidence. Every qualified person who looked at the evidence agrees that it's an absolutely secure fact. There is no controversy to teach.

Slashdot: What is the effect, do you think, of this unwillingness to commit to science, on the production of scientists and engineers. In other words, if you suddenly could wave a magic wand and solve all these issues, do you think we would see more engineers and scientists come out of this country?

Dawkins: Yes. I mean, it's an odd fact that the United States is, beyond any doubt, the preeminent scientific power in the world. No doubt about it. Measure it with Nobel Prizes, with numbers of scientific papers published, and so on. It is the world leader. Yet, at the same time, it's being dragged backwards by nearly 50% of the population, who are anti- intellectual, anti-education, despise people who have education, and it's a big problem. Fortunately, the 50% who are doing the right thing are so good that they are still pulling the country in the right direction.

Slashdot: Is it important to focus on the United States and similar countries in this matter? Or, for example, South Korea recently had a win, actually, in which they kept the teaching of creationism out of their school textbooks. Is it more important to focus on the larger, more established educational systems, or to get into the smaller ones before that?

Dawkins: Yeah. I wouldn't say more important, but it sort of hits one in the gut, rather, that a country like the United States, which is so ahead of the field in half the country should be so way backward in the other half. It does rather stand out like a sore thumb in world statistics, but it's still important to teach in other parts of the world. Particularly, the Islamic part of the world, which is shrouded in darkness, really, educationally speaking, in this field.

Slashdot: Speaking of which: the recent controversy over the "Innocence of Muslims" video. Could you talk a little about that, and what you think the repercussions it's had throughout the world?

Dawkins: I've only seen the trailer for that video. It's quite astonishingly badly done, as everybody agrees. So, the fact that the Islamic propagandists decided to pick on that one is extremely unfortunate. They should simply have ignored it. Everybody else would have ignored if they had. So, that's a deplorable incident. On the other hand, freedom of speech is very important. Freedom of speech is something that Islamic theocracies simply do not understand. They don't get it. They're so used to living in a theocracy, that they presume that if a film is released in the United States, the United States Government must be behind it! How could it be otherwise? So, they need to be educated that, actually, some countries do have freedom of speech and government is not responsible for what any idiot may do in the way of making a video.

Slashdot: I want to read a quote from an article you wrote earlier this year. You said, "My point is not that religion itself is the motivation for wars, murders and terrorist attacks, but that religion is the principal label, and the most dangerous one, by which a "they" as opposed to a "we" can be identified at all." Now, nations can be conquered and nationalities can be merged. Racism is slowly getting eroded by education. Do you feel that religion can be educated in a similar way?

Dawkins: The context of the quote which you just read out was probably Northern Ireland, where I had been upbraided for suggesting that the Northern Ireland Conflict is about religion. People said, "no, no, it's about politics. It's about economics. It's about centuries of oppression." Which it is. But, when one group is said to be oppressing another, there has to be some label by which the groups can identify themselves. Now, in countries where there are racial differences, like South Africa, it's easy to see which group you belong to. In countries like Belgium, where there's a linguistic friction between those who speak French and those who speak Dutch, once again, language is the barrier, is the label by which people can identify the "them" or "us." But, in Northern Ireland — and I think probably in the Indian subcontinent — the predominant label, by far, is religion. So, that's how people identify the "them" and "us."

If you think about it, it's not surprising, because psychologists have shown that if you take, for example, children, and give them arbitrary labels — you arbitrarily divide the children into two halve — and give these ones orange t-shirts and those ones green t-shirts, and give them various other labels, they will develop loyalties to those of their own labeled group. And that happens very quickly. Now, if you imagine that you set up a rule, such that oranges only marry oranges, and greens only marry greens, and children of orange couples only ever go to orange schools, and children of green couples only go to green schools, and you carry that on for 300 years, what have you got? I mean, you've got a deep, deep division in society. And if it's possible for one of those two groups to oppress the other economically, they will. And then you'll get all sorts of vendettas and feuds developing.

Part 2 of this video will be coming soon.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Dr. Richard Dawkins On Education, 'Innocence of Muslims,' and Rep. Paul Broun

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25, 2012 @10:23AM (#41765199)

    Since he retired from "Family Feud", I thought he had passed. Good to know that he is still around.

  • Theocracies (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thedonger ( 1317951 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @10:29AM (#41765315)

    The problem I see with Islamic theocracies - compared to the US constitution saying that we are endowed with unalienable rights by our creator - is that they get their laws from their god, not their rights. The are therefore free to trample on the rights of the individual in the name of their god. In the US, we are free to act like fools in the name of our god.

    Rep. Broun needs to learn than belief in god and even Christianity does not mean the big bang or evolution are wrong. One cannot snap their fingers and make a cake; the ingredients must be mixed together and have heat applied. Why should god be able to circumvent the rules just because his cake is the universe?

    • Re:Theocracies (Score:5, Insightful)

      by venicebeach ( 702856 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @10:42AM (#41765523) Homepage Journal

      Rep. Broun needs to learn than belief in god and even Christianity does not mean the big bang or evolution are wrong. One cannot snap their fingers and make a cake; the ingredients must be mixed together and have heat applied. Why should god be able to circumvent the rules just because his cake is the universe?

      I think the obvious answer to that would be because he makes the rules.

      But more importantly, while you are right that Christianity in the general sense is not incompatible with these two scientific theories, certainly a literal interpretation of the Bible is incompatible. You'd have to do some pretty liberal stretching of Genesis to make it fit what we know about evolution. It's a pretty serious problem for Christians that their infallible sacred text contains bad theories about the natural world.

      Note to future religious text writers: stick to unfalsifiable metaphysics and moral advice.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Jessified ( 1150003 )

        Note to future religious text writers: stick to unfalsifiable metaphysics and moral advice.

        So much win

      • Re:Theocracies (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Baloroth ( 2370816 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @11:09AM (#41766017)

        You'd have to do some pretty liberal stretching of Genesis to make it fit what we know about evolution. It's a pretty serious problem for Christians that their infallible sacred text contains bad theories about the natural world.

        Not really. You see, the way the entire Bible is written, the "literal" meaning isn't as simple as taking the meaning of the individual words and putting them together, and the Bible (from the very beginning of Christianity) has always been looked at that way. For example, if I say someone has the "heart of a lion", I don't mean their ventricular structure is that of a feline animal. Similarly, in Genesis when they list the "days" and the creation of the world, it's an attempt at describing what happened in basic human terms. There couldn't even have been a proper "day" before the creation of the sun. The creation of "light" before the sun/stars is usually taken to be, on the literal level, not referring to electromagnetic waves, but to angelic beings (and the separation of angels and demons).

        In other words, it isn't a scientific text, and shouldn't be read as one. It isn't even trying to describe science, and it's a serious misreading of it to think it is. It's like reading the Iliad as a history book, and complaining about the inaccuracies. That's completely missing the point. Thinking you know better than the Bible because you know more science than it does is not impressive, because the Bible was never trying to describe science.

        To take a more modern example: it's like the people who complain about the unscientific nature of lightsabers in Star Wars. Congratulations on being a pedant (or, if you're George Lucas, introducing midichlorians in an attempt to be "realistic" and ruining the series), but Star Wars was never about the science. Science is nearly the last thing it is about (and in that way, it's pretty similar to the Bible, and yes I did just compare the Bible to Star Wars).

        • Re:Theocracies (Score:5, Insightful)

          by bledri ( 1283728 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @11:31AM (#41766483)

          In other words, it isn't a scientific text, and shouldn't be read as one. It isn't even trying to describe science, and it's a serious misreading of it to think it is.

          That's all well and good, now how do we get my fellow citizens to stop voting for idiots that believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, that the US is a Christian nation, and that Satan (or God) created the earth with fossils in place to confuse (or test) people's faith?

          • by jthill ( 303417 )

            Personally, I believe Jesus often used the word "poor" to encompass more than pecuniary deficits.

            The right-wingers have given organized social hierarchy a bad name where not an outright vile stench. Douglas Adams had a good point: if they're obsessed and we're not, they win. I've noticed the figure 29% turning up repeatedly as the baseline fanatic vote, there's no need to, umm, get obsessive about obsession, they can be managed with a very dilute version if we can just get our act together and somehow mak

      • Re:Theocracies (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Ogi_UnixNut ( 916982 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @11:11AM (#41766063) Homepage

        But more importantly, while you are right that Christianity in the general sense is not incompatible with these two scientific theories, certainly a literal interpretation of the Bible is incompatible. You'd have to do some pretty liberal stretching of Genesis to make it fit what we know about evolution. It's a pretty serious problem for Christians that their infallible sacred text contains bad theories about the natural world.

        But who on earth is silly enough to take the bible literally? I was brought up a Christian, and not once did anyone tell me that the bible is a literal documentary on events, but rather a collection of stories written after they happened (especially the old testament, which is basically cobbled together from bits of the torah, and some other things). I've also not met a single Christian who takes the bible literally (and I even went to Sunday school).

        The stories are a bit like the Greek myths, they have a moral or ethical point behind them, but in many cases they were written in such a way that your average peasant could understand 2000 years ago. We've developed much since then, and it would be lunacy to take their interpretation of the word of god as the literal truth.

        Don't stick all Christians under your definition, personally I suspect that the Bible literalists are a predominantly American creation, for reasons that are beyond me to be honest...

      • Re:Theocracies (Score:5, Insightful)

        by alexgieg ( 948359 ) <alexgieg@gmail.com> on Thursday October 25, 2012 @11:21AM (#41766265) Homepage

        You'd have to do some pretty liberal stretching of Genesis to make it fit what we know about evolution.

        Not really. The creation account in Genesis has been understood by knowledgeable Bible followers as not literal since at least the 1st century BC by reading into it a mythic description of Platonic archetypes. These can, in turn, be easily made compatible with modern hard sciences, either directly or via some of its derivative versions, such as Aritotle's. So much so, in fact, that any Christian who follows some version of Aristotle's philosophy, meaning most Catholics and a ton of historic Protestants, don't mind evolution at all, ditto most branches of Judaism, the older Islamic ones etc. What doesn't necessarily mean they profess belief in it, only that they don't mind either way, as it just isn't an important subject.

        The problem you guys have there in the USA with your Bible Belt Christian fundamentalists and related nutjobs is that most of its pastors, priests, reverends or whatever the favored term is nowadays are philosophically illiterate.

      • But more importantly, while you are right that Christianity in the general sense is not incompatible with these two scientific theories, ...

        Actually, there is one incompatibility problem, which I haven't heard anyone of the religious folks address: at least in Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism humans are different from animals, because they have souls. It means that somewhere in the course of evolution there was a leap that made human-like monkeys different from "real humans" that have souls. There is no evidence that suggests this leap happened.

        It is interesting though, that in some religious countries (Russia comes to mind) there is no cl

    • Re:Theocracies (Score:5, Insightful)

      by number6x ( 626555 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @10:48AM (#41765617)

      The 'Inalienable rights' statement is in the Declaration of Independence, not the constitution.

      'Creator' or 'God' is not mentioned in the constitution. Article IV does state :

      "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

      And, of course, the first amendment states:

      "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

      Besides, fundamentalist christians should have no problem with a seperation of church and state. The bible explicitly tells them to render unto rome what is rome's and to god what is god's. I'm sure every last fundamentalist preacher and religious order in America voluntarily pays taxes, even though they are exempt by law. If they don't render unto the government what is due, they are not following the word of god and are hypocrites. I'm sure none of them ever do anything hypocritical!

  • by daveewart ( 66895 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @10:31AM (#41765335)

    Was there nowhere quieter to record? Piped music, other people chatting and moving about etc. A shame...

  • by concealment ( 2447304 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @10:33AM (#41765383) Homepage Journal

    religion as one of the most arbitrary labels by which people divide themselves when involved in conflict

    He's got it backward here -- it's one of the least arbitrary labels, since it reveals what underlying philosophy and values we stand for. It's similar to wars breaking out between existentialists and determinists, but we've found more interesting ways to encapsulate those philosophies in mythological symbolism.

    • He's got it backward here -- it's one of the least arbitrary labels, since it reveals what underlying philosophy and values we stand for.

      Its pretty much as arbitrary as most other identity labels; it is neither "one of the least arbitrary" (as you put it), or one of the "most arbitrary" (as TFS -- incorrectly, incidentally, as the transcript shows -- characterizes Dawkins position. Dawkins, characterizes identity labels in general as arbitrary, and characterizes religion as both "the principal" label used i

    • since it programs what underlying philosophy and values we stand for.

      For a website with so many coders, it should be obvious all religious texts are Basic HomoSapiens software hacks.
      Viral reproduction, root access(Externalized authority), disabling malware-detectors(Will believe bullshit), it's all in there. Suxnet.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25, 2012 @10:41AM (#41765513)

    have been both a Christian and an Atheist at different points in my life, so have a different perspective than most. Folks like Dawkins tend to be the loudest, but are the most ineffective at changing mids. If I were writing a play book for the Atheist movement, I would instruct all influential Atheists to model Michio Kaku. Dr. Kaku rarely strays into religous discussion, may make peripheral comments but doesn't seek to create a lot of controversy. Instead, he sticks to the main points of what he is proficient at and gives people, even those who are Christian or Muslim, someone to want to emulate. It becomes apparent that he is a non-believer in God, but doesn't alienate those who begin with a diferent viewpoint. Focus on living the life you should and people will follow.

    I'd make a similar argument to Christians. Don't try to be like Ann Coultier or Rush Limbaugh. Like your lives like Mother Teresa who instructed people "to find your own Calcutta". Focus on living the life you should and people will follow.

    -- MyLongNickName
    (Slashdot keeps logging me out when I leave the main page)

    • by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @11:00AM (#41765809)

      I'd make a similar argument to Christians. [...] Like your lives like Mother Teresa

      FYI, not everyone holds MT in saintly regard.

      (I don't know enough about her to have an opinion on it.)

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25, 2012 @11:01AM (#41765833)

      for goodness sakes, do not try to live your life like mother Theresa.

      There's already enough suffering in the world

    • by i kan reed ( 749298 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @11:14AM (#41766129) Homepage Journal

      I cannot believe the kind of false equivalency you just shoved out there. You just compared Dr. Dawkins who publishes well researched biological and philosophical books and levels disagreements with the religious against Coulter who literally calls for the outright slaughter(on multiple occasions) of those she disagrees with, and Limbaugh who makes a profession out of repeatedly misrepresenting facts. That's completely unreasonable.

      You make it seem like having publicly stated atheist opinions is somehow equally vitriolic as calling for the murder of those you disagree with. This is why people like Dawkins speak out, because right now, its perfectly acceptable to equate atheists with monsters.

  • by swb ( 14022 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @10:44AM (#41765565)

    ...because you'd sound pretty fucking crazy sitting in a flying airplane denying Newtonian physics and most every man-made object in the modern world relies on chemistry to make it -- plastics, composites, even metals.

    Those two fields start out so far ahead in working, every day examples of their basic truths that challenging their more exotic variants seems risky and many of them are too complex for the drooling religious zealots to even begin to criticize.

    Evolution doesn't have those kind of concrete, hands-on examples in every day life (well, OK it does, but...). To most people it's been distilled down to MAN USED TO BE A MONKEY AND GOD DIDN'T CREATE HIM BECAUSE THERE IS NO GOD AND THAT MEANS GAY MARRIAGE IS OK and they just can't accept that.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25, 2012 @10:46AM (#41765597)

    I don't think it is. In his own book, The God Delusion, he gives an example of a PhD Paleontologist who ignored all his education so that he could believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible.

    Then there are the folks, like my father in law (BSME Texas A&M) who will say that current evidence _may_ show that humans evolved on this planet but one day there will be evidence that shows that we were put here. I am not joking or exaggerating. He uses science's own thinking to "show" that they may be wrong.

    All the education in the World will not change the opinion of someone who puts their fingers in their ears and yells, "La la la la la la la ...".

    Religion is all about people's emotional "thinking". When you ask a believer, their "proof" of God or whatever eventually boils down to a feeling. They "know" He exists and by "know" they're talking about their feeling.

    It's that irrational trap humans fall into all the time and they confuse it with rational thought.

    • by slim ( 1652 )

      Human beings are good at putting up mental walls, in order to ignore necessary contradictions in their thinking.

      That's why it's possible to have geologists doing mainstream work, while simultaneously believing in creationism. They just put up a barrier in their heads, and don't think about both things at once.

      I do genuinely wonder how many religious people, at some level, know that their "belief" isn't true, but behave as if it is, because they feel the world is a better place if everyone acts as if it's tr

    • If you haven't seen it, search out Asimov's essay, The Relativity of Wrong. It says a lot about how people fall into this line of thinking (science was wrong before, over and over again, so it's probably wrong now too) and does a good job pointing out the absurdity of it in a way that most people can understand. The zinger that most sticks with me has always been "When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was a sphere, they were wrong too. But if you think th

  • Dawkins generally (Score:4, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @11:50AM (#41766823) Journal

    I find his comments to be interesting and insightful, but there's a sort of "why aren't people as smart as me?" arrogance behind it all.

    I guess there's no reason someone can't be right AND insufferable.

    It's altogether too easy (and becoming a little tiresome) to point at the excesses of religion and say "look how stupid that is". One can also point to the ample number of murders committed with guns and knives, yet it would be asinine to suggest that guns and knives are therefore valueless.

    PERSONALLY, I suspect that religious faith has lost its attraction to the West largely because we have little to fear. We eat well, we live long mostly-healthy lives, we have comprehensive social systems that by and large will care for us regardless. We have little expectation that a passing famine, plague, or war will kill us, our children, or our community. Why would we NEED Faith or hope that a Supreme Being has some sort of great plan to explain some horrific tragedy we've suffered?

    It's when life hands us inexplicables that we (as a species) resort to (as Dawkins might put it) contrived systems of belief, in order to try to put a human-comprehensible face on the unfeeling universe. Voltaire would call it Pangloss.

    I don't know that this is bad. Genuine hope is a significant predictor of success in otherwise-hopeless situations. Faith can be a moral rudder in times of chaos and change. Sure, it can be (and has been) abused as a justification for horrible conduct and brutality. But it seems to me that humans in general are capable of ample brutality with or without the pastiche excuse of religious doctrine, so I'm hard put to BLAME such conduct on Faith.

  • by Mick D. ( 89018 ) on Thursday October 25, 2012 @12:12PM (#41767251) Homepage Journal

    Back when the Tunisian uprisings started, and then started in Libya and Egypt the crowds on the street were carrying around posters of Mark Zuckerberg because Facebook would let them communicate and coordinate and let the world know what was going on. That was a full embrace of freedom of speech, and I even started to build a Twitter encryption tool to help make it even easier to for people to communicate freely (More complete projects have come out since *).

    This was also right around the time of the State Dept WikiLeaks reveal, and instead of talking about how we need to encourage freedom of speech, and the press and assembly, Secretary Clinton made a big speech about the primary and absolute need for elections for a democratic transition in these countries. The ground could have been laid then that this was an expression of the peoples rights and take it as an opportunity to have an open accepting forum of competing ideas and that it was OK to have disagreeing views as long as everyone could express themselves.

    Instead we got badly run elections more than a year later with the military pushing people around, and women mostly shut out of the process. And, no automatic thinking that uncomfortable ideas can at least be heard. As long as you have freedom of speech you can try to change the system. When that is gone certain changes become impossible. It was a huge missed opportunity to change attitudes about speech.

    (*) My project was mostly done over a hackathon weekend and is on github: https://github.com/YasminApp/yasmin-client [github.com]
    Others include CryptTweet which needs improvement but is workable here: http://plexusproject.org/ [plexusproject.org]
    And SilentCircle which is targeting a different user group https://silentcircle.com/ [silentcircle.com]

Those who do things in a noble spirit of self-sacrifice are to be avoided at all costs. -- N. Alexander.

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