Continued Response

Reme,

Good argument. This was well reasoned and more compelling. Let me see if I can respond where I thought necessary.

A) Peer Reviewed Journals:

I'm glad we're on the same page with peer-reviewed journals. I'll make note again that most of them aren't on the internet, which would mean that the study you referenced would only be sampling a minority of what's available (and the more technologically savvy minority). Also, I think it's worth pointing out that we don't have the key words used for this particular survey of articles, which leaves us with the question of whether or not those key words were biased.

However, let's say I concede to you that the survey was entirely fair and unbiased. Let's say I also ignore that there might actually be articles which present DATA disputing global warming, but no OPINION, which then would leave them in the category of “no position” even though they ought to be counted in the “against” category. Still, let's concede those points and move on.

Where does that leave us? With a tally of 928 to 0.

Let's put it up again all big and bold:

928 to 0.

Stunning, ain't it? Sure. Stunning.

But what's wrong?

You have taken this number to be firm support of your position. I mean, look, it's:

928 to 0.

Obviously, this kind of consensus can not be argued with. Correct?

I admire your dogged determination to hunt down these kind of facts, but you missed the subtle suggestion these numbers present.

This study tells us not that there is a debate, not that some people disagree, but that there is ABSOLUTELY NO OPPOSITION.

Tell me, on what subject have you ever found that there is no opposition whatsoever? Give me a subject where if we tallied the populace you would find absolute agreement with a grand whopping total of ZERO dissent.

Reme, there are scientists publishing papers right now who claim Einstein's Theory of Relativity is wrong. The single greatest theory in scientific history, proposed by the most brilliant mind of the 20th century, and if you did a tally of scientific papers today you might find (making up a number here) a vote of

928 to 6.

But there would be that six.

An absolute donut hole of opposition should not cause you to jump for joy. It should make you wrinkle your brow, at the very least. More likely, it ought to send a small shiver down your back.

I've said it before: this is not a debated issue. The real debate in scientific circles died out a long time ago. And when debate vanishes, when it shrinks to zero, it is most assuredly NOT because everybody agrees, but because the opposition is being suppressed.

And suppression is always wrong. As Voltaire famously said: “I don't agree with a word you say, but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it.”

928 to 0.

It ought to worry you.

B) Misrepresentation:

Yes, indeed, there will be examples of scientists misrepresenting data to further their own agendas. I think you might be further enlightened if you look up the history of Michael Mann, who published the infamous “hockey-stick” graph in a 1998 issue of Nature magazine. It was this graph, and Mann's work, adopted by the IPCC which caused a major rolling wave in the whole global warming argument. Mann's work, later discredited, has been rejected now by the IPCC, but only after they prominently used it and displayed it for six years.

The point, again, and as it will continue to be, is that there is bad science on both ends.

It also, however, is my not-so-subtle hint that one shouldn't trust the conclusions or the infallibility of the IPCC, no matter how many scientists they have in their ranks.

C) My Point Regarding Consensus:

You are correct in pointing out that consensus on the issues I mentioned have changed, and that yes they have changed because of scientific discoveries (although I would argue the greater measure of change came not from science but from social and political revolutions for certain examples).

The point I was making, though, was subtle. I will restate it. Consensus, as a basis for argument, is worthless and meaningless. It may be right. It may be wrong. In either case, it does not matter, because simply because large numbers of people believe something to be true does not make it so.

Consider that our current consensus could change, and we could revert to the belief that certain races are inferior to others. This could become a wide spread consensus. It would not make it true. And it would not change the facts. That is why we must use facts as the basis of argument, and not opinion.

D) Fear:

Now, here is where I'm going to take you to task, because I have grown intolerably weary of this particular facet of the global warming argument: the argument that we must ACT NOW OR ELSE.

This is absolutely the vilest basis for persuasion known to man, for it makes no appeal to reason or to logic, but rather appeals to one thing and one thing only: fear. It claims legitimacy not through good, solid thinking, but through a desperate appeal to the emotions, emotions which serve only to cloud rational thought.

It is the same appeal used by the doomsayers who claim the world is at an end and have been claiming so in every era since the crucifixion.

It was the same appeal that sent America into mindless and endless war, and has sent countless other countries into countless other conflicts.

It is the same base and dehumanizing appeal that causes ignorant white parents to grasp the hands of their children when a black man walks by.

It is, sadly and pathetically, the appeal that won over California voters on Prop 8 and thus denied good, decent Americans their civil right to marriage and equality.

If I look over the course of your arguments thus far, many of them have been faulty, weak and illogical, but all of them are arguments widely swallowed by the masses, and the people swallow them for one reason: fear.

What I hope for here is that you will make a compelling and convincing appeal that has nothing at all to do with fear and emotional hysteria. As I said before, if your conclusions are accurate and your argument sound, then it should be just as accurate and sound in the full light of day as it will be huddled in the dark corner shrouded in a robe of fear-mongering.

Off from that particular soap-box...

E) Media:

Your statement that you don't believe the mass media is pushing the global warming agenda says either that you don't pay attention to the mass media or...well, actually, that's about all it can mean. Check out the major news television shows and let me know when they run a story against global warming. Let me know when an anchor even hints that global warming isn't real.

I won't hold my breath.

F) Lobbying in Washington:

Lobbying. Yes, the oil industry lobbies intensively. And they put out huge sums of money.

You know who puts out more money lobbying than anyone else? The American Medical Association.

You know the most powerful lobbying group in Washington DC? The AARP.

I'm not denying the influence of money, but I think it might do Americans some good if they had a better understanding of the lobbying process. There's more to it than evil deals done behind closed doors, and the truth is the majority of that money is thrown around to advance positive aims...like benefits for tobacco farmers and better wages for oil workers.

Furthermore, making the accusation that the oil industry spends millions of dollars lobbying in Washington in an effort to deny global warming is a gross misunderstanding of the political structure. A lobbyist would not be employed doing this.

What would actually happen is the oil industry would put forward experts to testify in congressional hearings regarding issues of climate change, and these experts would lay out their case (supporting the oil industry, no doubt).

It is in congressional hearings where the oil industry's influence would be felt in regards to disproving or refuting the claims of global warming supporters. But in lobbying? Not likely. Lobbyists have much more specific and direct agendas which involve policy and law, not scientific debate.

G) Solar Radiation:

I'm not sure exactly where you took your data considering solar radiation, but since your initial statistic regarding solar energy and its fluctuation since 1750 is inaccurate, I would question the rest of it as well.

I would point you to the work of SK Solanki, who presented an article called “Solar Variability and Climate Change: is there a link?” is Astronomy & Astrophysics. His work clearly shows fluctuations and increases in solar irradiation during the time period we're discussing, and shows a corresponding correlation with increased temperatures on Earth.

Solanki does not conclude that they are a cause and effect system, but notes the correlation. He also notes that his data does not account for a sudden spike in temperature for which there is no spike in solar irradiation, a spike he believes is caused by greenhouse gases.

However, that spike does not occur until 1980, a statistic not correlating to the general global warming argument.

To say that various models can't account for change in temperature without including greenhouse gases is a rather misleading statement, since there HAS BEEN an increase in greenhouse gases. There's no debate there. So any logical model would include those gases as part of the overall effect.

We're not debating whether there's more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere or not. We're debating their effect.

H) Pseudoscience:

As for pseudo-science. Pseudo meaning false. False science are those fields of study and theory which masquerade as legitimate science but underneath are anything but. Imagine science as a set of clothing. Anyone can put them on, but that doesn't mean you're a scientist underneath.

The dangers of pseudoscience are many, but they all stem from the fact that people trust and believe scientists. People give weight to even the slight opinions of scientists, because we imagine their opinions to be backed by science. The authority we give scientists is much like the authority people gave to the Church in the medieval era, for in our own culture science has toppled religion as the main pillar of truth.

For this very reason speaking in the name of science comes with a grave responsibility. Science speaks with authority, and it's authority comes from it's successes, which have been many. All those successes, however, rise up from the same foundation: logic, rationality, reasoning, unbiased and testable experiments. If you are going to speak in the name of science, then, you need to be working from that same foundation.

Pseudoscience, however, does not. It uses the pulpit of science to forward arguments and systems of belief that have no grounding in rationality or logic, testable hypotheses or reason.

A fine example is the Space Alien Abduction theory. There is no evidence to support it, no logic behind its argument, no testable hypothesis, and no rational reasoning to explain the basis of its debate. And yet there are thousands of pseudoscientists using the name of science to forward their ideas about Space Alien Abduction. They print books and newspapers, have their own television and radio shows, and their followers number in the millions.

And, in some cases, they have developed cults, as the Hailey's Comet cult did at the end of the millennium. They committed mass suicide, believing the alien gods had come round again to take their souls to heaven, or Mars, or whatever.

Pseudoscience poses a dangerous threat to our democracy, for reasons Sagan outlines clearly in his book. You should read it. After finishing this book my junior year in high school I said if there was one book I thought every high school student should have to read it would be DHW.

As to how pseudoscience relates to our discussion here, I will argue that the claims of global warming experts are pseudoscientific, based on faulty science and false logic masquerading as the real deal. What I have argued for from the start, and will continue to here, is for a better case, a clearer argument, and the use of real science to get a solid and accurate picture of what we're dealing with.

Because until we do, we will be making all of our decisions based upon a misguided and fundamentally inaccurate understanding of our world. This kind of decision making undermines our democratic system. In most cases it is merely costly, in some cases devastating, but in all cases dishonest.

A Response for Reme (which was too long to post on her blog)

Reme,

Thank you for taking obvious time out of your day to make such a thorough response. I appreciate it. Also, forgive me if my own responses to you are not as fast as one might expect. As I was telling your sister, the amount of time I have to blog these days is severely limited.

Part One: Answers to Your First Post

Let's see if I can shed some light.

About false logic:

Actually, the syllogism you used is an example of false logic. Logic is actually a school of study (probably you know this) and as such it has its own set of rules and definitions. There are many such false logical arguments. Some of the specific examples are as follows:

Ad hominem
Affirming the consequent
Argument by dismissal
Exception that proves the rule
Non sequitur

There are, literally, thousands.

If you would like to further your understanding of Logic as a science, there will be a section on it in your library. At Eastern, the three shelves we have on Logic are in with books on Psychology and Philosophy.

So, when I stated that your argument was false logic, I was in fact using a very specific definition, a definition understood and accepted as a beginning point for any logical argument. I was not, as you put it, playing word games.

However, it is important that we understand a fundamental difference between word games and proper definition. You are beginning the statement of your case by defining terminology. This is very good, but I could also make an accusation that you are simply playing word games, games that will suit your argument. While I would be wrong, it is still an accusation I could make.

The point is that we must always be wrestling with exactly what we mean, exactly what the definitions are, because unless we agree on those definitions we may not be talking about the same thing. In the future then, should I point out some issue of terminology or language, please do not think I am merely playing games. I actually would find that rather insulting, because the truth is that I am as interested in the outcome of this debate as you are. It is as important to me as anyone. To assume I am playing games is to ignore the deadly seriousness I am bringing to the table.

Yes, I recognize that your post was about definitions.

However, it is also about laying the foundation of your argument. I bring up the issue of the limits of your data to point out that there is a crack in that foundation. You need to be aware of that, and you need to acknowledge it, because your conclusions will eventually have to deal with a problem in the foundation.

This is one of the key problems with your argument, and it will continue to be critical as long as you remain convinced that one position is correct, the other is wrong, while at the same time claiming to be “weighing out the different sides.” It is easy to be critical of something you don't believe. It is much more difficult to be critical of your own assumptions. It is most difficult of all to see all arguments dispassionately, with a full lack of bias, and to judge those arguments according to their merit and not to what you would like to believe.

I highlight it here because if you can not acknowledge the flaws in your own argument, then your judgment will not be sound.

(As an aside, I fully disagree that if your logic makes no sense your argument can still be true. This is a kind of “ends justify my means” way of thinking. If your argument is true, then you should be able to reason to it logically. You should be able to account for the flaws. You should be able to hold it to the same standard science holds everyone else to. Unless of course you think your argument is somehow special, and should therefore not be tested as strenuously.)

This is the case for any and all arguments, and it is worth noting that all theories have flaws. The best theories are ones which account for those flaws the best...not the theories which pretend the flaws don't exist or that the flaws are meaningless.

It is not at all surprising you can't find a cohesive argument against climate change. I would argue you can't find a cohesive argument for it either, but I simply want to point out here that climate cuts across dozens of different specialties, and we are therefore talking about the work of thousands of scientists and researchers the world over. There is no real, working mechanism for the work of all these individuals to come together and compose one all-inclusive argument.

Also, and perhaps just as important, there is absolutely no political gain these days in arguing against climate change. The media has convinced everyone that our “house in on fire,” and anyone who says otherwise faces two dangers: first, to be called dirty names and associated with the oil industry, and the second (a far more real and critical danger), to have their funding cut. ALL scientists know exactly who is funding them and exactly what those people want to hear.

Are most “deniers,” as you call them honestly convinced that global warming is a socialist scam? I think you know propaganda when you hear it.

I suppose we could agree that the majority of people on either side are simply idiots, so completely asinine as to believe whatever the media tells them to believe. I doubt you'd find much difference between “believers” and “deniers.”

It would be better to understand the “deniers” as skeptics. Perhaps the true skeptics are only a minority of the opposition, but I would say that of the skeptics most of them are fully rational people, intelligent and incisive, and that their arguments are compelling even though they are not popular.

I have not read the work of Mr. Watts (or if I have I have forgotten it). I commend you on your detailed analysis of his background and, at least some, of his work.

However, I should caution you from this point forward that relying on any data you find on the internet is extremely suspect. Scientists don't publish on the internet (or, rather, where they do publish, you will have to pay for it...and heftily). They publish in academic journals the public never sees. The real work being done on this subject and all others is printed in places you are never likely to know, never likely to hear of, never likely to come across.

Unless, of course, you were a scientist.

And no, Scientific American and Discover magazine do not count. They are not considered scholarly journals. You nee to remember the purpose of popular science magazines. They are designed for the masses. Everything you read there is watered down and, sadly, in a number of cases, entirely inaccurate regarding the work and data that exists (the same phenomenon can be seen on television, where “science and history” channels devote much of their time to showing how “science” has proven biblical miracles or the existence of Bigfoot).

So, yes, Mr. Watts is probably, to be put it rather unkindly, full of shit. Then again, perhaps he's not. Either way, he's not publishing in peer-reviewed scientific journals, which means that his work and therefore his conclusions are suspect.

It also means, however, that if you wish to present a coherent case based on the actual work being done, you will need to be reading something other than what you find on the internet.

I have not read Mr. Keleman's article, but I trust your reference is an accurate portrayal. However, there are two points worth noting, not one.

First, what Mr. Keleman's statement articulates, that dishonest practice in the scientific community will endanger a scientific theory, because people will be likely to question and disbelieve the results.

Second, and what I pointed to earlier, is that such dishonesty exists on all sides.

Supports of the climate change argument as you state it generally accuse all skeptics as people who have sold out to the oil industry. And then follows the assumption that, somehow, supporters are incapable of the same kind of mistake.

In reality, dishonesty, manipulation, and unethical practices are found on all sides. We need to remember that all of us our human, and as such capable of making the same mistakes, and the same rationalizations to justify those mistakes.

It is for this reason that science aims always for unbiased and rational thinking. It is why we must subject our theories to the most rigorous testing. Why we must avoid false logic. Why we must not turn away from the holes in our argument, but attack them with great vigor to see if they bring our theories crumbling down.

It is, obviously, why I have great trouble with your already-made-up mind. If you are honestly seeking the truth, your mind will be open. If you have made up your mind, you are merely seeking consensus.




Part Two: Answers to Your Second Post

First, I think we need clarifications.

Your comparison of NASA's data and God confuses the line between belief and faith. I may have faith in God, which is not reliant upon actual data. This is part of the definition of faith, that there is no actual evidence. But belief is different. Yes, I can “believe” in NASA's data.

You bring up the issue of whether such data is accurate, which you and I both agree that it is (or, at least, that it is most likely to be so). However, you once again make a false logical conclusion. You suppose that because the data is accurate the conclusion must also be so. This is, to put it mildly, ridiculous.

Let me offer a ridiculous example. Someone goes onto my roof with a sprinkler and turns it on. I look outside and see water falling and the ground wet. There is absolutely no question that, yes, indeed, water is falling and the ground is wet. My facts are accurate. I conclude that it is raining. Except, in fact, it is not. My conclusion is wrong even though my data is correct.

The fact that I agree with NASA's data does not mean I must also agree with NASA's conclusion.

Let me give another example to illustrate why. NASA points to an increase in CO2. It extrapolates on all the effects of CO2 increase, one of which is a heightened increase in temperature (how increased...well, who knows, but an increase). NASA makes a conclusion that CO2 has caused climate change and that is all there is to it.

Except, another scientist points out that in the same time period we have seen an increase in sun spot radiation and solar flares, which also causes temperature increase.

And another scientist points out the growth of cities and the increase of ambient heat, which also causes temperature increase.

Is NASA's conclusion wrong?

Actually, we don't know if it is or not. Because NASA has not accounted for all the data in our example. It has only studied one part of the whole.

Understand, I use this example as merely a tool to point out that focusing on one element and only one will lead you to making conclusions that do not account for all the data. And a compelling argument must account for them.

Yes, belief is relevant to policy making, but I think it would do you a world of good to re-read this particular paragraph and then perhaps cross-reference it with some Calvinist sermons. The language you use here is entirely self-righteous, and the tone is eerily similar to those hellfire/brimstone speeches about how God is real whether you believe in Him or not, so the pious must save the disbelievers from damnation, even if they don't want to be saved.

No, I wasn't intentionally laying some trap for you. And, in fact, you will not hear me arguing for balance in scientific debates. I do not believe in balance in science.

A lot of people think there should be balance, that we should, say, teach all sides of an issue. For example, that we should teach Creationism along with evolution. This is patently absurd. We do not teach the theory that the Earth is flat along with the knowledge that it is round. Balance, in science, is overrated.

However, once again you have confused the issue. No, we should not be looking for balance. And you are correct that science is not a democracy. But then you seem to invalidate that very concept when you say that science has come to a consensus on climate change (as if there had been some sort of vote, some sort of record with which to validate your claim of consensus in the first place). You continue to give validity to the concept that because a lot of people believe something it must be true.

Science is not about consensus. I can not stress this enough. This is exactly why we don't need balance in science. Because science does not seek consensus. It seeks truth.

At some point you will have to let go of the concept that just because all the “leading scientists” you hear about agree about climate change that their conclusions must be true.

There was consensus that blacks were not even human.

There was consensus that a woman's brain was inferior to a man's brain.

There was consensus that the Sun rotated around the Earth.

There was consensus that Newton's theories of gravity were accurate.

There was consensus that species were immutable.

As far as science goes, consensus is worthless. And people pointing to consensus as the basis of an argument are (once again) making a false logical argument. It is nothing more than a curtain to hide behind because you have not made a better argument.

Milling on Mill

At home over the break I had an interesting discussion with Maddie concerning equality among the sexes in the Mormon church. Within the Mormon church, if I understand this properly, the highest levels of power are not available to women. It's a boys club up at the very top, and like many who have come before them the Mormons have justified this arrangement by declaring this the Will of God.

(In this particular case, the Mormons site that Jesus was a man, and his twelve disciples were all men. Thus, as is obvious to anyone with half a brain, if God had Wanted women in charge, He Would Have Chosen A Women...apparently, God voted for Barack. Booya!)

The discussion circled around and around for a while, but what disturbed me most was that Maddie did not seem to feel that this state of affairs placed her in any unfair position. She had merely accepted what the men of her church had told her, which was that her place, As A Woman, was not at the top, but rather in the home. The fact that attaining a position at the top is barred to her didn't seem to strike her as unjust or as a sign of a lack of freedom.

I remember at one point scoffing at her arguments for why Women Have Their Place, and telling her specifically that everything she was saying were the very lies men had created to keep women where they wanted them. It was rather hard to explain, but her arguments were obvious to me, as a man, because I understood them as the arguments I knew a woman would listen to and believe.

I want to try and be clear, because what I'm saying is something men almost never admit to women. Men have lies we tell women (most of them so second nature now we actually believe them ourselves). And the lies we tell are for a specific purpose: to get what we want. Further, we tell these specific lies because we know they work.

I'll circle back to this, but the reason I bring it up here is that I came across a reading which actually made the very point I was trying to make to Maddie. Roughly 150 years ago the philosopher John Stuart Mill (one of the originators of utilitarianism) wrote an essay called The Subjection of Women. And in this essay Mill lays out his thoughts about how women have become unequal in society and why their eventual equality will be good for all mankind.

Mill's influence on Western thought is huge, as he was one of the original writers trying to form a theoretical basis for the ideas and applications of democracy. The very concepts we have today about freedom, liberty and individuality come largely from a small group of writers, and Mill was one of them. Often, today, reading Mill's work we find nothing considerably reactionary, and it is hard to remember that at the time Mill was writing of individual freedom and the right of the individual to be independent of his nation state no one had ever claimed such a thing before.

As to Mill's thoughts on women's equality, they were largely lambasted and attacked at the time. But they serve my purpose here, so I will quote at length:

“All causes, social and natural, combine to make it unlikely that women should be collectively rebellious to the power of men. They are so far in a position different from all other subject classes, that their masters require something more from them than actual service. Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments.

All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a favorite. They have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear; either fear of themselves, or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to effect their purpose.

All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of the other. All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and all the current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections. And by their affections are meant the only ones they are allowed to have—those to the men with whom they are connected, or to the children who constitute an additional and indefeasible tie between them and a man...

And, this great means of influence over the minds of women having been acquired, an instinct of selfishness made men avail themselves of it to the utmost as a means of holding women in subjection, by representing to them meekness, submissiveness, and resignation of all individual will into the hands of a man, as an essential part of sexual attractiveness.”

Mill's argument is more than saying that women ought to be equal to men because they can do anything a man can. His argument is rather more radical. Mill is directly stating the fact that men have been lying to women for so long and so completely and totally, that they have shaped female character into exactly what they wanted it to be.

Mill identifies what is the greatest danger in slavery. Not in enslaving someone physically, through force, but in enslaving their mind. Mill sees this quite clearly, and it is worth pointing out that Negro slaves in America eventually understood the same thing, which is why they worked tirelessly to educate themselves, because only through their minds could they become truly free.

While much of the inequality of Mill's time has disappeared on the march to our own day, the pernicious effects of men's lies to women are still pervasive, and they are still powerful, and not just within the Mormon church.

It is worth asking how much of the feminine character is truly a natural quality of womanhood, and how much of it is simply what men want women to be, and thus have trained them to be.

For example (an argument Maddie made to me): do women truly have a more natural bond to their children than men, and thus are better at raising children? Is this a truism?

Or is it possible that the concept of a woman's “natural” ability is simply the end result of a package of lies men have sold to women for centuries, thus allowing the man to go about his business and leave the children to the woman?

Already I hear the women hollering: But I DO feel more connected to my children! I AM the more natural caregiver! It IS in my nature!

And yet is this not the very belief you have been told to hold dear all of your life? Is this not what you have been told for so many years is what defines you as a woman?

I will tell you here and now, as a man, that this is without question a wonderful lie we men want you to believe. Hell, we men want to believe it ourselves, and indeed we do. We've been saying it for so long no one even questions it any longer. It is considered truth.

But I know many men who are the equals of their wives at parenting. And I know a considerable number of single fathers who are excellent parents, as good as any woman. And, in spite of the common saying, exceptions do not prove the rule, they show that the rule is false.

Women, I find, tend to have a hard time digesting this argument. I imagine this arises because they do not wish to fathom the extent of the lies they have been told, and, in many cases, they do not wish to believe such dishonesty can be found in the men they love. Women know so many “nice” men, who would never tell such lies.

Sadly, this line of thinking is wrong. Much like telling a fifteen year old girl that the boy she is in love with thinks about her naked (no, he's a nice boy!) and wants to have sex with her (nice boys don't have such dirty thoughts), I will tell you that yes, good and decent men lie to women (although I'll extend the caveat that they often don't even realize their doing so, if that makes you feel any better).

But women need to get over their squeamishness about recognizing that they've been lied to, and that the lies are effective. Very, very effective. Because the final thing I told Maddie is perhaps the most true.

Men will not give up power.

Power, as history shows us, is not willingly relinquished. Women, if they want equality, must take power from men. We will not give it up without a fight, and we will not turn it over simply because you ask nicely. We will not, in fact, turn it over even if you demand it. You must take it.

Until women do, they will continue to be the unequal citizens they are.

A Compendium of New Year's Resolutions

I, Tyler Miller, resolve to put my mind, body and soul to the following tasks:

Call my friends more often.

Watch less television.

Read more news, whether in print or on the Kindle, and on the overall promote high quality journalism.

Drink more wine, thus furthering the endeavors of honest, decent grape-farmers worldwide.

Read more science fiction, specifically the collected stories of J.G. Ballard and the Dangerous Visions anthologies edited by Harlan Ellison.

Watch The Proposal, at the behest of my best friend, who claims the film breaks the boundaries of its basic Sandra Bullock, chic-flick formula and is therefore a quality film worth two hours of my life.

Write something worth reading.

Seduce Penelope Cruz.

Control myself in the presence of Republicans by reminding myself they are an extinct species and they just don't know it yet.

Stop feeling guilty for mentally humming along to Fergie's "Mary Jane Shoes," because man is powerless in the face of a catchy tune...Ohh, my Mary Janes...

Drink more green tea by telling myself that two billion Chinese people can't be wrong.

Seduce Natalie Portman.

Listen to every Bruce Springsteen album in order from Greetings from Asbury Park through to Working on a Dream, in a single day.

Ride my Harley every day of the summer, thus doing my part in promoting further global-warming and all around bad-assness worldwide.

Recycle something, starting with something small, like a bottle cap, as a concession to society's insistence that the size of my eco-footprint is a reliable measure of the blackness of my soul.

Watch more of the films of Tinto Brass in an attempt to further understand his philosophy that "While a woman's face may be deceitful, an ass never lies."

Seduce Scarlett Johansson.

Test my theory that three people really can fit easily in the trunk of my car.

Gather a sizable pile of Twilight novels, light them on fire, and blame it on the spontaneous combustion which happens when you keep the passion of young girls locked within the chastity of decayed morality and bad prose.

Watch the films of Meryl Streep in an attempt to identify the most outrageous line the woman ever uttered (current contenders: "It was hot as a stiff cock." from Julie and Julia and "I like a lot of semen." from It's Complicated).

Further extrapolate on my theory that had F. Scott Fitzgerald lived he may have ranked out as a better writer than either Hemingway or Faulkner.

Seduce Olivia Wilde.