see, the third question is what i think the first question was trying to get at. and, to address the point i think it's important to recognize that some people that claim to hold a scientific worldview have only a limited understanding of it, and do in fact take it on authority. if you're somebody like dawkins, you might not realize that, because you're just not really exposed to it.

we could speak of the age of the earth, for example. some monk or something calculated it was 6000 years based on the bible, and we ridicule this as preposterous. but, to the average person, the calculation that it is 4.5 billion years old based on the calculations of some geologist or something is not any less authoritative. the monk claims his calculation is based on the evidence in the bible, and he can lay it out with perfectly valid rules of inference. the geologist claims his calculation is based on the evidence in the quarry, and he lays out with the same rules of inference. the differentiation is consequently not actually a discussion of evidence, but a discussion of what evidence is and which evidence is more convincing. they are both basically inferences.

if you understand a little about geological processes, and why digging down a certain way can allow you to estimate how old some rock is by comparison to the rock around it, you're doing science on inferences on empirically gathered evidence. but, if you're reading it out of a book, and you don't have a clue about any of that, then you're not truly interpreting it differently than a kid in sunday school. if anything, the biblical inference is a lot easier to actually understand.

she wasn't able to articulate herself well, and i think that's why the decision was made to move on. but, i think this is kind of an example of the ivory tower not being able to see outside of itself. it's unfortunate, but she is making a valid point: most people are only able to interpret science as a system of statements that they don't fully understand the reasoning behind, and are forced to leave their derivation to experts and then put faith in the veracity of the conclusions of those experts. appeals to the contrary are themselves a sort of faith-based reasoning. and, so, for many people, science becomes just another type of religion.

there's another point to bring up about axiom systems. it's not valid for the entirety of science; it's more about the more obscure theoretical reaches. the classical v. modern physics part is a good way to discuss this. you can do most classical physics with your bare hands; you throw something at a wall and you measure it, or whatever. experiments, observations, results. that's what science is supposed to be, right?

but if you look at relativity, it doesn't work like that. it's an axiomatic system. light shalt move at c in all inertial reference frames. there shalt be no particle that moves faster than c. light shalt have no mass whatsoever. [these are equivalent statements]. and, yes, it's a reasonable assumption, and i offer no empirical contradiction, but put this in your pipe: i don't believe the third assertion. now, what? then i have little faith in the absolute truth of your deductions, even if i'll admit they're probably pretty close.

i'm not going to argue that that brings religion from the brink; rather, i'm going to argue that it puts a lot of what we call science in the realm of what should be called philosophy. kant be damned; it's not how science is supposed to work. and, doing science like this really opens up a lot of valid space for attack.

i'm not convinced that that is what she was getting at, but the truth is that this line between something that is a story and something that makes predictions isn't quite as clear as is being suggested. it's just....

don't look at religion in a better light because of this. rather, be more critical of what we allow ourselves to call science.

so, i'll be watching brookings institute videos while i eat lunch for the next few weeks. let's see how this goes.

i understand what the brookings institute is and why it's going to present certain narratives that may be a little bit elastic regarding certain facts, so let's take a step back here.

let's begin by acknowledging that, regardless of the facts that followed, saddam was very useful to the united states in the 1980s, because he launched an absolutely brutal war against the iranians on their urging. now, skip forwards a few decades and realize that the geo-strategic aim of installing a shia leadership in iraq was to attempt to create competition for control over shia islam. there was no deficit of voices at the time that pointed out that this was naive. but, the intent was that iraq would compete with iran for influence and if they got into a firefight here or there, hey, nobody in the state department is crying about it.

rather, what happened was that the shi'ite leadership in iraq valued co-operation with other shi'ite powers, in competition with sunni powers, over competition with each other. oops.

so, at the time [things have changed a lot in the last year], you had americans going after maliki for not being "inclusive", which is a type of code that means to say that he's not doing what he was supposed to do. he was supposed to be fighting with iran, not working with it. in reaction to this failed policy, you've got saudi-backed militants running in, trying to take him down and put their own guy in place. of course, we blame it on him for not doing what he's told, rather than on ourselves for following through with a policy that was widely panned as naive.

so, what happens when you partition the state? what you do is relinquish the opportunity for saudi-influence in the shia areas, as well as the kurdish areas. further, you permanently move the front in the saudi-iranian proxy war away from the iran-iraq border and into the middle of iraq. that sounds like a great idea - if you're iran. it doesn't sound like such a great idea if you're saudi arabia.

the only way the saudis can regain their influence is if they put a sunni back in charge of a unified state. for that reason, partition will remain anathema to us policy - it would be forfeiting the most valuable parts of iraq to iran.

so, how do you fix this, then?

well, at the moment, it appears that the saudis have settled upon ethnic/religious cleansing as the preferred solution. there's obviously some problems with that tactic; although, if it continues, the harsh truth is that it may do the job.

personally, i'm in favour of regime change in saudi arabia followed by the saudis relinquishing their desire for control, but that's easier to suggest in the abstract than it is to put in place.

but, i do think the analyst is at least right in suggesting that there's not an easy answer and that there's no real end to this conflict in sight.

all these comments are just greek to me. but, here's something that gets through translation:

how long will we believe in a light so dim?
time is all we have.
so, take the time to make the time.

truer words have never been spoken.

he's being careful to keep to a specific narrative; and these are some pretty pointed questions, which he did a good job of deflecting. they start off by asking him about the supposed incoherence of american mideast policy, and rather than answer it he gives them a history lesson. but, then he gets peppered with questions about ramifications of that supposed incoherence, and he just keeps changing the topic to fit the narrative. you know, you expect this from a state department briefing, but it kind of brings up the question: what was brookings hoping for, here? did you expect this guy to answer a question like that?

in fact, american policy in the middle east may seem impossible to unravel from a distance, but it's very easy to understand (and often easy to predict) if you understand the basic principle, which is to maintain as many divisions as possible. it's not divide and conquer, really. it's divide and subdue. the aim is to ensure strong bilateral relations with each and every state that ensures they all remain reliant on america in isolated and unique ways (they don't want multiple states bringing the same concerns at the same time), and then to encourage conflict amongst all the players in such a way that ensures they're all fighting each other, but prevents any from establishing a regional hegemony. so, they may arm both sides in the isis conflict, as they armed both sides in the iran-iraq war. so long as they are constantly fighting each other, and nobody can ever win, they are all equally in the position of accepting american hegemony. it is only when a specific state actor rejects hegemony that a serious conflict erupts to reinforce it. he kind of got to that a little, when he talked of the relationships between egypt, israel, turkey, iran and the saudis.

so, these arrangements appear bizarre - but it's because there's this unquestioned assumption, which murphy did much to perpetuate, that america desires an end to conflict, that they want certain actors to be victorious, that they want stability and peace,etc. it is the opposite that is true. that's why some people take it upon themselves to call america the great satan, after all.

in truth, putting aside colourful language, it's more comparable to the strategy that byzantine rome used against the tribes to their north, which prevented constantinople from being sacked for a good thousand years. i remember reading through that stuff and just being floored by the tactics, and how they consistently squirmed their way out at the last minute, due to finding some way to pit some barbarian against some other barbarian. it is quite truly the case that the romans held out in a castle by the sea for so long because they were constantly outsmarting their enemies, in ways their enemies often didn't even realize.

it's delicate. and it's often brutal. but it's not complicated, if you get it.