I gotta get my shit together

I'm one of the weblogs of the week at Pharyngula. Geez. I better put something good up here. Something science-y. Preferably creationist bashing-y. My friend Daniel Hanks has sent me this link from the great state of South Carolina. The Headline is:

'More scientists question theory of evolution'

Fair enough. Lots of chemists and physicists don't have a clue about evolutionary biology. They can question all they want. But unfortunately, this questioning leads to this sort of sentiment:

"Highlighting this phenomenon is an event planned for this summer at the Palmetto Expo Center — an "Uncommon Dissent Forum: Scientists Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing." Nine speakers, all of them Ph.D's, are scheduled to make their case before an anticipated crowd of up to 1,500 people.

'I think that if there's this much questioning going on by people who hold scientific degrees in these fields, what is the average layperson supposed to do except to try and make some sense out of these two camps?' said Lewis Young, a Greenville businessman who set up the conference."

This is scary. I think it's scary when otherwise pretty smart people use their scientific authority to motivate their religious causes. Because that's what it amounts to. These people are Christians, no doubt, that don't take the time to learn evolutionary biology and/or to learn a little about the philosophy of science. They are motivated by their religious beliefs, not by a concern with gaining knowledge about the world.

I think Billy 'god did it' Dembski is really just an evangelist in mathematician's clothing and his psuedo-scientific ID work is just a way to 'fight the good fight' for Jesus. What? You haven't accepted Jesus Christ into your life? Well that's the only way you can truly live a fulfilled life. God loves you and he gave us his only son so that we may attain happiness in this world and eternal life in heaven. What? You think there isn't a whole lot to recommend belief in god in our world? What? You find it far more reasonable to explain things naturalistically? You don't like unnecessarily inflated metaphysics? Well, says Billy, did you know that you can't explain everything so naturalistically? Did you know that you might have to inflate your metaphysics in order to make sense of your hand, and flagella, and rough endoplasmic reticula, and hexose transporters? They're all little machines you know. Dynein arms for fuck's sake! Clearly god made dynein arm!

Sorry. Got a little carried away there. I suppose the article made me think more about Dembski and how much I absolutely loathe him. Not only is he dishonest, really really dishonest, but he's blinded by his religion. He keeps grasping at straws. The same arguments in more sophisiticated language. Oooooooooooo...an equation. He must know what he's talking about. Anyway, I'm pretty sure ID folks are blinded by their faith. Pushing ahead in spite of being absolutely and utterly wrong, and shown to be wrong over and over and over and over. But they have the ear of the public. Of the mostly RELIGIOUS public. "Yeah, good idea," so says the religious public, "let's teach the controversy."

Well, first off, Dembksi's a mathematician, not a biologist. He seems to intimate (and this is one of his tactics, to intimate, not to be clear and direct) that modern day evolutionary biologists think that mutation and natural selection are the only important and efficacious evolutionary 'forces'. Secondly, he apparently isn't even a very good mathematician. Thirdly, and most importantly for my current rant, he is a pretty serious christian. Oftentimes in his blog he refers to some theologian or some such nonsense that had a big influence on him. And he went through a pretty serious new-pope-approving phase at his blog. Here is a link to his posts as sorted by his 'religion' category.

While I'm certainly no fan of fallacious ad hominem arguments, I'm pretty much done pointing out the shortcomings in ID reasoning. It's been done. Again and again and again. It doesn't seem to matter. People don't want to spend a little time (ok, maybe a lot of time) to learn about evolution. More importantly, they don't seem to want to believe the proper authorities, i.e. the people who spend the time thinking about evolution. They hear Dembski or Behe speak and say, "Oh, yeah. Eventhough I don't know a thing about evolutionary biology, that mathematician and that molecular biologists sure seem to know what they're talking about. Let's teach the controversy."

If I want to know how to reconcile evolution with religion, I might just ask ol' Billy (probably not actually, but I'm trying to make a point here), but if I want to know about the modern day theory of evolution, he is pretty much the last person I'm going to ask. Also, eventhough he has a PhD. in philosophy, from the University of Chicago no less, one of the better philosophy of science departments in the country, I doubt he took many courses in the philosophy of science. I'd like to ask him about demarcation criteria and see what he has to say. Clearly he doesn't subscribe to any of the mainstream criteria...if he did he certainly wouldn't think ID is science! I wonder what he thinks of Lakatos?

Anyway, I think I'm more interested in trying to understand exactly what motivates people like Dembski to do what they do. What motivates them to keeping pushing forward? I think this is the important question now.

I also think it might be a good tactic to discredit the ID proponents. Treat them like an object of study. A lab rat. A particularly complicated experimental organism. Have anthropologists write papers about them. Hire Jane Goodall to follow Dembski around all day. See what makes him tick. Write up papers with catchy titles like: 'Pathological Religious Idiot's Disease in ID Proponents: a case study of Billy Dembski'.

beer and fishin', it's a wonderful life for me

So I returned from my many missions triumphant. I was tired, but I was triumphant. Many breweries were seen, many industry folks talked to, many beers consumed, many flies cast. Because I'm going to write up the Michigan beer trip for Indianabeer.com, i'm not going to post much here about it. But when it's up on the site, I'll post a link.

As for trout fishing in central PA, it was awesome. I absolutely love central PA. I went to college there. The landscape is unlike any where else in the world. Parts of Virginia and West Virginia approximate it, but they're not the same. The ridge and valley province may not have the biggest, most striking mountains, but it is beautiful...and it has some of the best trout fishing on the east coast. In fact, central PA's trout waters are literally world famous. This is due mainly to the karst topography (limestone). Most of the creeks in central PA are limestone spring fed. Keeps the water chemistry just right for trout and the temperatures low.

We stayed at 'Rough and Rustic', a little camp/school/environmental center run by Frank Angelo. He is a character. He is an incredible fisherman. He is apparently pretty famous in the fly fishing industry and quite well connected. He is 1/4 American Indian and talks about it constantly. He is also a christian and kept saying things like 'that's just how god made them' or 'god's beautiful creation' etc. It pissed me off. But it's not like he was ramming it down our throats or anything. Regardless, great fisherman. If you're ever at the Harrisburg Outdoor Show, he's the one casting flies into that little cup from 50 feet away. It's impressive. He also has about 200 beautiful acres in western Synder County. He has as casting pond with lots of bluegill and bass (we all caught a bass out of it!) and middle creek runs through his property. He also has as cabin circa 1790s that he lives in and we stayed in. It was pretty cool.

Here is a pic of some Jack-in-the-Pulpits we saw on his property.



Anyway, the first day we fished Middle Creek, a smallish river in western Snyder county. We hooked up with several fish and we all 'landed' one trout. My brother got a 10-12 inch brown, I got a 12-14 inch rainbow and my dad got a 10-12 inch trout of some sort. I can't tell by the picture. There was a nice mayfly hatch, small cream midges, about size 16, and the fish were really rising for them.

Here's a pic of my father fishing on Middle Creek with Frank. It's nice fishing with a guide because they tell you where to catch fish AND they give you flies and TIE THEM ON!



Here's my brother Adam's first fish:



And my rainbow:



Here's another pic of my dad fishing Middle Creek.



And here's Frank with dad's ONLY trout of the trip!



And here's a good shot on Middle Creek with a very pretty sky:



Here's a pic of the beautiful central PA sky:



Here we are back at Frank's place. He had 3 snow geese that were incredibly loud and obnoxious. He also had two canadian geese that had babies just a couple days ago.



So then on Thursday we went to fish THE Penn's Creek. Probably the most famous trout river in PA if not the east coast. They are most famous for their green drake hatch (a mayfly) that we missed by only about a week. Penn's Creek is really pretty. It's very rural. The best fishing is at the end of Penn's valley from Poe Paddy state park to about 10 miles downstream.

Here is a good 'River Runs Through It' picture of my brother Adam on Penn's creek.



And another of Adam on Penn's:



And another nice shot of the one cloud we saw all day:



And from left to right, my brother, my dad, and myself.



Now my brother caught a 10 inch rainbow and I caught a 15 inch brown on Penn's, but we didn't get any pictures. I know know, but really, we did. There was a really nice light cahill and olive caddis hatch happening and the fish were rising, but not very aggresively. They are notoriously picky on Penn's Creek. You really have to match size and color closely. I had a #14 caddis on and was getting nothing, I moved to a #16 and BAMB!, big hit, broke my line!

And get this...I was all sad because Indiana isn't exactly world class trout fishing, but then I found out the southernmost trout stocked stream in the state is only 20 minutes away!! I'm going today.

it's really not that powerful

My last post, about a powerful tactic for battling creationists, even with it's kick-ass title and really long quote, is really not so good. I've thought more about this 'tactic', and I think it's flawed. Big time. But I don't have time to say why right now. Because get this:

Tomorrow, I'm off on a 4 day trip around Michigan...to visit breweries. Holy crap. Bells, Arcadia, Founders...I don't know which ones exactly, but I hope these three. That is some good freakin' beer for sure. Maybe we'll hit some Northern Indiana breweries too? 3Floyd's? I don't know. You see, I am going on this trip courtesy of World Class Beverages...in the capacity of beer writer. That is pretty cool.

THEN...the fun does not stop. I'll be back in town just in time for Arrogant Bastard Sunday at Encore Cafe. I wrote up a little piece for Indianabeer.com about Encore and it's 2$ arrogance. What a freakin' deal.

THEN...the real fun begins! On Monday I'm off to Pennsylvania to see my family and hopefully my friends...and go fly fishing for three days in Central PA. That freakin' rules. My brother, father and I will be fishing with a guide. That rules. We're probably going to catch some nice trout. I love trout. Not to eat, but to look at and fish for. I want to go native Brookie fishing, in the small mountain streams, just because it is so appealing aesthetically, eventhough it's very hard fishing what with the low hanging trees and all.

My life sucks.

So looks for pictures and stuff from these trips in about 10 days or so.

Until then, this is Matthew D Dunn, blogger extraordinaire signing out.

a very powerful tactic for arguing against creationists

I've found myself arguing against a couple people, usually just playing devil's advocate, who claim that evolution is no good. I argue that really, evolutionary biologists use the same methods of inference that people use in everyday life. They are just more rigorous and exacting and repeated, many many times.

Here's an excerpt from a great blog post:

"Well," John will answer, in his well-rehearsed manner, "that's not the same thing. You see, if you want to call that evidence, you could only call that indirect evidence. It's there but, as I said, no one actually saw how it got there. Without actual eyewitnesses, without someone directly observing it, then it just isn't science, it's faith." At which point, the student will nod and slowly sit down, but perhaps with just a hint of hesitation, as if there's something about that explanation that bothers him, he just can't put his finger on it.

And John will take a few more questions, thank his audience, accept their applause and accolades and head out, feeling quite pleased with himself for another successful talk. But this time, it's going to be different. This time, John's life is about to get bent in an ugly new direction.

It's a Saturday night and John's just finished another creationist gig at the local community college. It's been a long day and he's just turning down the alley behind his house, driving up to his rear driveway, turning in and ... John notices immediately that his back door is open. That's odd -- he's pretty sure he locked it before he left.

As he pulls in completely, the awful truth becomes obvious. One of the lower window panes in the open door is smashed in. Before his car has even come to a full stop, John is out and running up the back walk, fearing the worst. And the worst is exactly what he finds.

As he pushes the door open further to enter the kitchen, he can see the damage. His microwave is missing. As is his cappuccino machine -- his new cappuccino machine that was on back-order for three months. His heart sinking by the second, John stumbles through the kitchen into the living room to find more of the same.

Stereo system: gone. His beautiful, new plasma screen TV: gone. As are all of his CDs and DVDs, camera equipment, ... all gone. Going from room to room, John can only resign himself to the obvious. He ends up in his bedroom and, in a state of shock, calls the police.

"Hello," he hears, "police department. Sergeant York speaking."

"Hi," mumbles John, "I'd like to report a burglary. My TV, my stereo, all kinds of stuff ... gone. Everything. Can you get someone out here right away?"

"Whoa, slow down," says the good sergeant, "back up a bit. How do you know you've been burglarized? Let's not jump to any conclusions here."

"Well," says John, collecting himself and feeling just a bit irked by the officer's tone of skepticism, "I just got home, the back door was open, the window pane was smashed, and lots of my stuff is missing! So can you send someone out? Maybe they can find some clues as to who did this."

"Well," says the sergeant off-handedly, "did anyone actually see this happen? I mean, do you have any actual eyewitnesses?"

"What?!", yells John. "What do you mean, did anyone actually see this? Of course not! I just got home, my door was smashed in and most of my stuff is gone! No, there were no witnesses! What the hell kind of question is that?!" bellows John in a decidedly un-Christian tone of voice.

"Now, calm down," says the sergeant, "it's like this. Used to be, when we got a call like this, we'd be right out, do stuff like take pictures, dust for fingerprints and all that; scientifically, you know. But -- and here's the funny thing -- turns out that's not science at all. Turns out that, unless you have an eyewitness -- you know, someone who actually saw all this happen -- it's not really science. So, sorry to say, we can't help you out there. I mean, we could come out and poke around but, it not being science and all, it wouldn't really do a whole lot of good."

"Are you serious?!?!" screams John into the phone. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! There's piles of evidence all over the place! Hell, I'm standing in my bedroom and I can see a fingerprint on my dresser from here! Are you telling me there's nothing you can do with that?!"

"Well," says the sergeant, "sure, that's evidence. But seeing as no one actually saw how it got there, it's only what you'd call "indirect" evidence. So it doesn't really help."

"You're crazy!" John is now seriously losing it, and he can't believe he's having this conversation. "Where in God's name did you get these idiotic ideas?!"

"Oh, my son explained this whole science thing to me. Turns out that, a couple weeks ago, he went to see this local religion creationist guy at his church, and this guy was a right smart fellow -- explained how science works and that how, unless you have a direct witness observation and like that, well, it just isn't science anymore. Once I figured that out, heck, it sure eased up my workload. So, make a long story short, we'd like to help but, science being what it is and all, it would be kind of irresponsible to be passing judgement without any eyewitnesses. I hope you understand."



I usually find myself arguing against the slightly more sophisticated claim that because we can't explain some phenomena naturalistically, we have the right to explain it supernaturally. Of course there is the issue of the designer being some alien or something, but then you run into the problem of what designed the alien etc...ultimately you run into god...let's be honest. Anyway, I say, when you lose your car keys, you really have no idea where they went, you look everywhere, you try to explain it with every 'naturalistic' method you can, but you still can't find them so you go about getting a new set of keys, you don't say, damn, those key stealing gremlins that live in a parallel universe jumped planes of existence and stole my keys. NO. I think this is tantamount to what modern day ID proponents are doing.

female orgasm

The NY Times published a story tonight about Lisa Lloyd's (my advisor-probably-to-be) new book on the evolution of the female orgasm, or her 'orgasm book'. I think it's a pretty good piece. The prose is a little awkward at times and the quotes are poorly managed, but all in all I think they do Lisa justice, or at least as much justice as can be done in a 2 page newspaper article.

The two pictures from the article are a little wild though. There's this weird picture:



Then there is this very serious and scholarly picture with the folders etc. It's like she's almost scowling at the critics. Although Lisa's hair does look very nice. It's also kind of ironic (intentionally?) that the picture was taken directly in front of the Kinsey Institute.

my new photoblog

Yes yes yes, more blogging. See some of my favorite pictures over at my new photoblog.

It's still very much under construction and it doesn't seem to work very well with Mozilla, at least the cool front page, so check it out with Internet Explorer to get the full effect.

Also, really big pictures so dial-up will be excruciatingly slow I think...like 4 minutes a page or something.

I think all creationists should read hasok chang

Hasok Chang wrote this book: Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress

It's all about how humans came to agree that the freezing point of water is 32 degrees F and the boiling point is 212 degrees F. Trust me, it wasn't easy. Read the book and see for yourself. There was lots of starting from not much of anything and pulling up on your bootstraps. Anyway, there were lots of 'tactics', common to all of science, that were used to make temperature THEORY. Things like consilience of inductions, or in Hacking speak, stability across many modes of perception, or Chang has a similar idea about lots of different ways of measuring temperature all point to the same freezing and boiling point...or something like that.

Anyway, this comic got me thinking about it in light of the currently raging creationism debates. Our current THEORY of temperature was built up using the same methods of inference that have built up evolutionary biology.



Of course there are some concerns about the unity of science here, i.e. to what extent can we say the same methods of inference are used across all the sciences and should we judge their value by analogy between sciences? I need to talk to Jordi Cat.

See the whole cartoon here. And thanks to Pharyngula for the pointer.

hilarious creationists

I just can't stop 'blogging' tonight. This just made me laugh and laugh so I thought I should put it up here.

This is a comment that was posted on Bill Dembski's blog about his debate with Michael Ruse on Nightline a couple days back.

I guess it's a joke...?

"Good work pointing out that ID is a big tent that accomodates everyone except secular humanists. Also you made the opponent look like the one with the agenda for attacking your particular religious faith instead of your math. ID, like any hypothesis in science, stands or falls by its merits, not by the personalities of those who support it. Your opponent was all ad hominem and no substance whatsoever. Absolutely fantastic.

It also helped that the opponent was an unkempt slob with a funny accent while you looked like a clean cut American. The Church of Darwin is going to have to come up with some better representatives. Someone should tell them the hippy movement is over. And when are they going to learn they’ll never win by attacking Christians in a country that’s 80% Christian? It really makes me wonder how those guys ever got advanced degrees. Obviously common sense wasn’t a prerequisite. :-)

Way to go."

'Dude, I gotta go to bed...

...I've been doing nothin' all day.'

--Ryan Mills-Knapp, noticeably drunk

one bourbon, one scotch, one Tennessee whiskey, one Irish Whiskey, one beer

Greg Brown's voice makes me happy

And so does this picture.

the duhks

I done sar an incredible music show at the Bluebird last night. The Duhks all the way from Winnipeg Canaidia. They rocked it out. They have attained a new level of synthesis that, at least to my ear, has moved beyond 'newgrass' etc. They have some reggae feel, of course the bluegrass sounds and tempos, gaelic reels and jigs, latin percussion, complete with whistle, and a wonderful lead singer and rip-your-head-open powerful harmonies.

Of course it is all pop music more or less, but by far the most complicated, textured and interesting pop music I've ever heard. Thank god for the Duhks. I bought one of their CDs. It also didn't hurt that the Bluebird had $3.50 DFH 60 minute drafts either.

Here is a picture of their concert poster that I ripped off the wall last night.

pictures from around campus...and vike-rock reconsidered

Here are some neat pictures I took on campus yesterday. It was a beautiful day. Good temperature.

Also, be on the lookout either tomorrow or the next day for an example of vike-rock. Hopefully you will not be disapointed. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to post an MP3 here so you can check it out.

MO...don't go

Gwenn, at Callaway Electric Co-op in Fulton, MO, said to my friends that are about to settle in that fine state, in response to:

Friends: "We're moving here from Pennsylvania."

Gwenn (crinkling her face): "Why in the sam hell would you do that?"

Cheers.
Matthew

vike-rock

You figure it out.

So my friends Chris and Michelle stopped out last night on their way to settle on a new house in Fulton, MO. Chris got a tenure track job there at Westminster College in the Math department. We rocked it out, went to Colossal Damages (falafel sandwiches), and then rocked it out some more. We're pioneering a new musical genre: vike-rock. Yes. I require that it's hyphenated.

Here are some pictures.

This is a man selling roses on Kirkwood last night.



Here is Chris standing against the crayon mural from our party on Friday. My pictures from that suck so I'm not going to post them.



This is the dude who makes my Colossal Damages on Saturdays. He's pretty cool.



Here is Chris preparing to rock out some vike-rock.

Finals: finally the end of the semester

Here are some funny essay responses that were received by myself and my housemate this semester:

-Question: Why is demarcation important?

Answer: 'Demarcation is important because we need criteria to discern between actual science and pseudo science. Without it, any theory/hypothesis that appears to be scientific could be called so, and then we'd all be screwed I guess.'

-Question: Put the following argument in standard form supplying any missing premises.

'Grandpa, are you a good shot with that rifle?'
'Does a bear shit in the woods?'

Answer: 'If a bear shits in the woods, it will not moving during the shit period (missing premise). If a bear (or object) is not moving, he is a good shot. If a bear shit in the woods, he is a good shot.'

debaucherationizing

Well, today is the 8th anniversary of Brian's 21st birthday. Last night, we went out on the town and celebrated.

It was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures.

Here is the birfday boy himself at the office lounge. That other person is JennyB.



Here is a similar shot that captures both Brian's boyish good looks and JennyB's statuesque profile and beautiful hair.



The good doctor CAM.



Keep it down Brian.



Here is Dr. Melinda Fagan and Cesare 'Galileo is my dad' Pastorino. Melinda was really a handful all evening.



This is me. Fight the power.



Geez JennyB, settle down. I didn't mean it like that.



Brantley is the fucking man. I mean, look at that jacket.



Awwwww. One of the two senior members of the Vibratory Motion Council (VMC) and the birfday boy.



The last shot of the evening. It makes me kind of sick thinking about it right now actually.



Possibly the greatest photograph ever taken. If you can't tell, Brian just bit me on the tit. It hurt. And apparently didn't taste very good either.



The two senior members of the VMC sealin' the deal.



This is the second greatest photograph ever taken.



Everybody relax. It's just vibratory motion.

stupid fucks and their homophobia

When I read this article I got very angry. It made me want to physically hurt this man. I know this is unreasonable and tantamount, in some sense, to what he is doing, but still...I couldn't help it. I was surprised at how worked up I got. I mean, I got more worked up than when I read Billy Dembski's stuff...and that's hard to match! I bet this guy is also a creationist schmuck, but at least he is probably just a retard. You know, isn't malliciously manipulating the literature on evolution to his ends. He's probably too stupid to understand it and rather simply blindly asserts that gays are bad for the country and evolution didn't happen.

I got this here link from Brian Leiter's blog.

another blog called 'song of myself'

Clearly I'm not as clever as I thought I was. But let's be honest...what the fuck else is new?

I stumbled upon, literally, not using that new fandangled search engine, this blog called 'Song of Myself'. Apparently we both like Whitman but that's about where the similarities stop. I'm a huge fan of one space after every comma and two spaces after every period.

I'm also not a religious nutjob.

This is from that other 'Song of Myself' blog:

"Homsexuality is immoral,pre-marital sex is immoral,abortion is immoral.Gay marriage is a terrible threat to the American way of life and traditional marriage.It should be banned."

i am weak...I can't help it

Well, more interesting stuff with Bill Dembski. How long did I last without mentioning him?? A couple days? Shit. Oh well.

I posted another comment to a post in his blog where he misrepresents Michael Ruse (which is easy to do honestly). The first line was "Please don't delete this. Respond to it."

Hopefully he will.

Anyway, did you know that Rick Santorum is writing the forward to the Phillip Johnson festschrift? The one edited by Dembski? Well, the forward is hilarious. What an idiot. I have reproduced it below...perhaps illegally? My favorite part is the last paragraph where he says that Johnson has fought to "return science to a sure philosophical grounding in the nature of things as they really are."

Hey, I'm all about the noumenon, I'l be honest, but this just sounds funny.

From here:

"Foreword
By Senator Rick Santorum
This volume celebrates Phillip Johnson’s leadership in the Intelligent Design (ID) movement Scholars who have known Phil best and worked with him most closely assembled in April of 2004 at Biola University to present him with a collection of papers in his honor. I wish I could have been there to offer my congratulations and thanks in person. Instead, I have the privilege of writing this brief foreword from Washington.

Since the publication of Darwin on Trial more than 10 years ago, Phillip Johnson has provided extraordinary leadership for an extraordinary cause, namely, to rid science of false philosophy. The importance of the cause is clear: what could be more important than showing that only a shallow, partisan understanding of “science” supports the false philosophy of materialist reductionism, with its thoroughly unscientific denial of formal and final causes in nature and its repudiation of the first cause of all being? As the decline of true science has been a major factor in the decline of Western culture, so too the renewal of science will play a big part in cultural renewal.

Johnson’s extraordinary leadership also is clear: rather than fall into the trap of building a cult of personality around himself and his own considerable talents, he has instead helped raise up and promote a whole group of intellectual leaders in the cause of scientific renewal. This kind of selfless Christian leadership is a shining example to us all, young and old.

Speaking of the young, I personally wish to commend Phil for the great help he has given me in my efforts to inject a renewed and unbiased understanding of science and its practice into the curricula of our public schools. There is much more for us to do, but working with Phil’s colleagues at Seattle’s Discovery Institute, we have begun the difficult fight for removing the stranglehold of philosophical materialism on textbook science.

Phil, I congratulate and praise you for your tireless work to return science to a sure philosophical grounding in the nature of things as they really are. Please know that during your Biola celebration, I was with you and your colleagues in spirit. As much as I was delighted when I first heard about this celebration in your honor, I am again delighted now that the proceedings from that celebration have appeared in book form.

Senator Rick Santorum
R-Pennsylvania
Washington, DC"