A paradox of atheism

Ben Stein's documentary Expelled, about the censuring of scientists who speculate about intelligent design, was on cable this weekend. I had it on while I was doing some work on my laptop. Toward the end of the film, Stein interviewed the famous atheist Richard Dawkins, and asked him how life began. Dawkins conceded that no one knew, but said it was possible that some advanced civilization elsewhere in the universe had initially seeded life here on Earth¹. Stein was too satisfied with this admission of the possibility of some form of intelligent design by Dawkins to ask the more interesting follow up questions. For example, if some alien civilization seeded life here, who seeded life there -- or is it turtles all the way down²?

¹This idea was dramatized, in Epcot Center fashion, in one of the favorite movies of occasional commenter Y./The Rivers.

²You could raise the same objection about theistic or deistic explanations, as Bertrand Russell did in his quote on that Wikipedia page, but the point -- and the paradox -- is that atheists still end up faced with incredible stories to explain enduring mysteries. How fun can Flying Spaghetti Monster mockery be when your alternative explanation is space aliens?

More on the Obama Transition

In his New York Times column on Sunday ("Everybody's Business: Obama's Team Isn’t Exactly a Break With the Past"), Ben Stein was cautiously optimistic about President-elect Obama's economic picks overall, but had this to say about Obama's pick for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner:

During the presidential campaign, I heard Mr. Obama talk many times about “change you can believe in.” But what does Mr. Geithner have to do with change?

He’s the pre-eminent careerist of old-time finance, and a basic part of the team that got us into this mess. He was pro-deregulation for most of his career. He went along with failing to rescue Lehman Brothers, a decision now generally considered a catastrophic mistake. He led the Federal Reserve Bank of New York while money-center banks made lethal mistakes of faulty risk management — and he did zero to stop it, as far as is known.

In what sense is he “change you can believe in”? How is he part of the solution, not part of the problem? I know he is a protégé of Robert E. Rubin. But isn’t Mr. Rubin himself the essence of the Washington-New York finance axis of power? He was a fine Treasury secretary while the tech boom made all things new, but Citigroup hasn’t exactly thrived during his tenure. Again, where is the change?

In his column in Monday's Financial Times ("Bernanke and the risk of deflation"), Clive Crook asks who, among Obama's economic picks, will actually be in charge:

He has put together a superbly talented team, but with so many strong-willed members one wonders who is in charge. Lawrence Summers at the National Economic Council? Timothy Geithner at the Treasury? This potentially unstable new duumvirate immediately aroused speculation about Mr Bernanke’s future influence and likely tenure at the Fed – an unhelpful development. If this were not complicated enough, next came the announcement of a new Economic Recovery Advisory Board, headed by none other than Paul Volcker.

Mr Obama has emphasised that he will be in command. He better had be. Yet it remains to be seen whether he can control this group of eminences and communicate his policy with sufficient authority. Unlike John McCain, Mr Obama never boasted of his ignorance of economics but the new president is no more master of these issues than his former rival. Boldness seldom comes out of committee, nor does forthright explanation. He is going to need a chief of economic policy – and it would be good if that person, and everybody else, knew who it was.