One year ago I purchased a used 2005 Suzuki Verona with about 40,000 miles on the odometer. Because of the low mileage and less than seven-year age of the car, many of its parts remained under the power train warranty. However, I have discovered that getting Suzuki to perform a needed warranty repair is extremely difficult, very expensive, and has left me wondering if Suzuki is manipulating their customers in order to cover up serious safety issues arising from design flaws.
A risk in buying any used car is being saddled with someone else's lemon. My Verona is certainly a lemon. I understand now why Suzuki stopped making Veronas. The car has been nothing but trouble since I bought it. Over the past year, there has not been a period of longer than two weeks without the check engine light coming on and staying on for several days at a time. During those intermittent periods of engine trouble, the car hesitated when I stepped on the gas and then either suddenly accelerated or stalled. Needless to say it was challenging and dangerous to drive.
However, diagnosing and fixing the problem proved difficult. My mechanic did the obvious-replaced the spark plugs, located and replaced a defective ignition coil, changed an O2 sensor-but nothing solved the underlying problem of hesitation followed by either a sudden acceleration or a stall. My mechanic eventually realized that the problem was with the on board computer that controlled the operation of the engine. Every time the check engine light came on the diagnostic codes from the computer were different and contradictory.
His recommendation to replace the computer was both good news and bad news. The bad news: it is a $1000 part. The good news: it is still under warranty. However, my mechanic cannot perform warranty repairs, those can only be done by Suzuki dealers. My trip to a Suzuki dealer turned into an expensive and time-consuming odyssey that raised troubling questions about the company and its products.
The closest Suzuki dealer to my house in Reisterstown, Maryland, is Adams Suzuki, located in Fallston, Maryland, about 40 miles away. After a hair-raising drive-the car stalled at most of the red lights along the way-I arrived and explained that my mechanic had recommended a new computer installation to solve the engine problems. The service manager received the car and told me that I would be called after they did their own diagnostics.
The next day I was told that the wiring harness needed to be replaced. This is an expensive part ($597.15) and labor-intensive repair ($227.50), for a total of $876.38 after taxes and waste disposal fees were included, and the warranty does not cover the parts and labor. The engine and computer are warranted, but conveniently for Suzuki, not the wires connecting them. The dealer said the computer worked properly. I asked the service manager how she knew that the computer worked. She said that the computer would not generate diagnostic codes at all if it didn't work, an assertion my mechanic says is false. However, the dealership provided me with no other option but to replace the wiring harness. I reluctantly agreed, although I said that if a wiring harness replacement did not fix the car's problem I would expect my money back.
In the mean time I rented a car so that I could commute to work. Two days later on a Thursday, the dealer called me back to say that Suzuki had sent them the wrong wiring harness and that the repair would be delayed another two days. I said that I would be out of town for the next week, and I would pick up the car on the next Thursday morning (one week later).
The following Thursday morning I called, only to find out the repaired had just been started. The car would be ready Thursday afternoon, which forced me to spend more money on a rental car so that I could get to work. I asked for a 10% discount on the repair to offset the added expense. The service manager's reply was no. She said that it was not her fault that Suzuki shipped the wrong part the week before.
I picked up my car that Thursday evening and paid the $876.38. The car continued to hesitate and then lurch forward, although no stalls occurred. The check engine light came back on before I arrived home. I returned to complain. This time the computer diagnostic codes indicated a vacuum leak that the dealership claimed to have repaired about 30 minutes later. I again asked about the reliability of the computer, and I was assured that it worked. I was not charged for the repair because the manager said moving parts around during the wiring harness repair could have caused the leak.
I drove away and traveled about 3 miles before the check engine light came on again. I returned and this time the computer diagnostic codes indicated a problem with an O2 sensor, a part that I knew had been recently replaced. This time I spoke directly to the service technician who told me that O2 sensors fail frequently on Veronas, even relatively new ones. But, when I asked what was wrong with the O2 sensor, he discovered that the computer codes kept changing. First the O2 sensor was completely dead, then it was good, then it was sensing a "lean" mixture, then a "rich" mixture. I argued that a computer spitting out bad codes was a more likely explanation for the problem than an O2 sensor cycling between all four possible states.
But, the service technician told me that Suzuki's instructions were not to replace computers, even when that appeared to be problem, but instead to replace wiring harnesses. I asked why Suzuki was so convinced that the wiring harness was bad. He explained that the original wiring harness had design flaws that caused the wires to corrode and form intermittent connections that could cause the same kind of problems as a malfunctioning computer.
The technician said that the service department would provide an estimate for a new O2 sensor. But, I said I wanted the computer replaced before I agreed to spend any more money. If the computer spits out bad codes, I could replace parts one at a time forever. After all, there are hundreds of possible diagnostic codes the computer can generate. Reluctantly, the dealership agreed to order a new computer and replace it under the warranty agreement.
I returned a fourth time when the new computer arrived to have it installed. I have not had any problems with the car since the computer was replaced. The O2 sensor appears to work fine. Needless to say the $876.38 I spent on the wiring harness repair has not been refunded. The dealership argues that it was still necessary, and since the car did not stall afterward, the new wiring harness resulted in some improvement.
However, the experience raises some deeply troubling questions about Suzuki. If the original wiring harness design is indeed defective, it should be recalled. There is no question my car was dangerous to drive given its propensity to either lurch forward or stall when pressing the gas pedal. It appears that rather than issue a recall, Suzuki is instructing its dealers to replace the wiring harness and bill the customer for the expense, before doing needed warranty repairs.
I would not have traveled to a dealer 40 miles away for a non-warranty repair. My mechanic could have replaced the wiring harness cheaper, faster, and closer to my house. I would not have had to make four round trips (320 miles total) to the dealer and spend a total of $235.55 on rental cars to get to work. But my mechanic correctly diagnosed the problem as a bad computer and recommended that I have it fixed under the warranty. Between the repairs, rental cars, and travel expenses, I spent over $1100 on what should have been a no-cost warranty repair.
The car definitely needed a new computer. I still don't know if the car needed a new wiring harness, but if Suzuki is correct that it did, that raises deeply troubling questions about the safety of Suzuki products and integrity of its management. If it did not need a new wiring harness I should get my money back.
The sequence of events leads me to believe that I was a victim of a bait and switch. I brought the car to a Suzuki dealer for a needed warranty repair. But, before Suzuki would honor the warranty, the company insisted on selling me an expensive non-warranty repair. If the wiring harness repair was necessary because of possible design flaws, the part should be recalled. Suzuki should not be insisting that customers pay for its replacement before agreeing to do necessary warranty repairs.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011
The Republican Party: In The Twilight Zone
The ability to assert two mutually exclusive statements, as both being true, has been a requirement in politics for some time. But the cognitive dissonance within the Republican Party has gone off into the twilight zone.
The Republicans have threatened to not raise the federal debt limit unless the Democrats agree to substantial cuts in spending. This is equivalent to threatening to end a hostage standoff with a nuclear weapon. Obviously the United States government cannot default on its debt obligations because the worldwide economic catastrophe that would result would make the 2007-08 financial crisis look insignificant in comparison. A threat that can never be executed isn’t much of a threat at all.
Actually, it’s interesting to track where the federal largess that the Republicans so bitterly complain about goes. A USA Today article on April 25 ranks states in order of government benefits received. Heavily Republican states that voted for McCain in the 2008 presidential election tend to rank high on this list, meaning that they receive more government benefits than most states. For example, West Virginia ranks number 2. Some followers that voted Republican, with their rankings in parenthesis, are Kentucky (8), Mississippi (11), Arkansas (12), Alabama (14), and Louisiana (17). Why are the Republicans in those states so opposed to the benefits that they receive? Maybe they should be careful what they wish for.
On that note, I wish Ayn Rand were alive and giving interviews on her economic and philosophical theories. She is a cult figure in the Republican Party, especially among the Tea Party wing, for her advocacy of unfettered capitalism and ethic of rational self-interest. A new movie has just been released based on her novel Atlas Shrugged in which the capitalists are the heroes.
Actually, Ayn Rand, a Russian Jew who emigrated to the United States at the age of 21, was a committed atheist who opposed all forms of religion. To her, valid knowledge arose only from sense perceptions and human reason. She rejected all claims of knowledge obtained outside of the senses, such as divine revelation. It’s hard to imagine her going very far in today’s political climate as a Republican or a Democrat.
Although, some Republicans simply ignore inconvenient historical facts about their heroes. Maybe Republican Congresswoman and Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann could re-write Rand’s biography in the same way that she re-wrote American history in a recent speech. She stated in regards to the U. S. Constitution that: “the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.” Actually, many of the founders, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves. Not until after the Civil War, nearly 100 years later and long after the founders were dead, was slavery abolished.
On the other hand, if Ayn Rand did endorse Republicans her religious views might not matter. The Reverend Franklin Graham in an interview with Christine Amanpour says that Donald Trump could become his “candidate of choice” for president because “the more you listen to him, the more you say to yourself, you know, may be the guy’s right.” This was said in the same interview that Graham questioned Obama’s Christian faith. There was no discussion of Trump’s faith. Franklin Graham has since been clarifying his comments. I would advise him not seek help from John Kyle’s press agent for issuing clarifications.
John Kyle stated on the Senate floor that “well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does” relates to abortion. When called out on that obvious falsehood, his office released a statement that “his remark was not meant to be a factual statement.” I checked the definition of the noun “lie” at dictionary.com and found this definition: “a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.” In other words, according to John Kyle’s office his statement on the Senate floor was a lie. Evidently John Kyle must have realized this too because he clarified his clarification by stating that he “misspoke.” As to the earlier statement released by his office, he said: “"That was not me - that was my press person.”
The upcoming presidential contest should be a great event for comedy writers. Unfortunately it’s going to be a very bad contest for the electorate who will have to listen to all this nonsense.
The Republicans have threatened to not raise the federal debt limit unless the Democrats agree to substantial cuts in spending. This is equivalent to threatening to end a hostage standoff with a nuclear weapon. Obviously the United States government cannot default on its debt obligations because the worldwide economic catastrophe that would result would make the 2007-08 financial crisis look insignificant in comparison. A threat that can never be executed isn’t much of a threat at all.
Actually, it’s interesting to track where the federal largess that the Republicans so bitterly complain about goes. A USA Today article on April 25 ranks states in order of government benefits received. Heavily Republican states that voted for McCain in the 2008 presidential election tend to rank high on this list, meaning that they receive more government benefits than most states. For example, West Virginia ranks number 2. Some followers that voted Republican, with their rankings in parenthesis, are Kentucky (8), Mississippi (11), Arkansas (12), Alabama (14), and Louisiana (17). Why are the Republicans in those states so opposed to the benefits that they receive? Maybe they should be careful what they wish for.
On that note, I wish Ayn Rand were alive and giving interviews on her economic and philosophical theories. She is a cult figure in the Republican Party, especially among the Tea Party wing, for her advocacy of unfettered capitalism and ethic of rational self-interest. A new movie has just been released based on her novel Atlas Shrugged in which the capitalists are the heroes.
Actually, Ayn Rand, a Russian Jew who emigrated to the United States at the age of 21, was a committed atheist who opposed all forms of religion. To her, valid knowledge arose only from sense perceptions and human reason. She rejected all claims of knowledge obtained outside of the senses, such as divine revelation. It’s hard to imagine her going very far in today’s political climate as a Republican or a Democrat.
Although, some Republicans simply ignore inconvenient historical facts about their heroes. Maybe Republican Congresswoman and Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann could re-write Rand’s biography in the same way that she re-wrote American history in a recent speech. She stated in regards to the U. S. Constitution that: “the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.” Actually, many of the founders, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves. Not until after the Civil War, nearly 100 years later and long after the founders were dead, was slavery abolished.
On the other hand, if Ayn Rand did endorse Republicans her religious views might not matter. The Reverend Franklin Graham in an interview with Christine Amanpour says that Donald Trump could become his “candidate of choice” for president because “the more you listen to him, the more you say to yourself, you know, may be the guy’s right.” This was said in the same interview that Graham questioned Obama’s Christian faith. There was no discussion of Trump’s faith. Franklin Graham has since been clarifying his comments. I would advise him not seek help from John Kyle’s press agent for issuing clarifications.
John Kyle stated on the Senate floor that “well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does” relates to abortion. When called out on that obvious falsehood, his office released a statement that “his remark was not meant to be a factual statement.” I checked the definition of the noun “lie” at dictionary.com and found this definition: “a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.” In other words, according to John Kyle’s office his statement on the Senate floor was a lie. Evidently John Kyle must have realized this too because he clarified his clarification by stating that he “misspoke.” As to the earlier statement released by his office, he said: “"That was not me - that was my press person.”
The upcoming presidential contest should be a great event for comedy writers. Unfortunately it’s going to be a very bad contest for the electorate who will have to listen to all this nonsense.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Closing My Bank of America Account: The Parable of the Ungrateful Servant
"Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king, who wanted to reconcile accounts with his servants. When he had begun to reconcile, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But because he couldn't pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and kneeled before him, saying, 'Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!' The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.
But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him one hundred denarii, and he grabbed him, and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!' "So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will repay you!' He would not, but went and cast him into prison, until he should pay back that which was due. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told to their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him in, and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me. Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?' His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due to him." Matthew 18:23-35
I thought about this parable from the Gospel of Matthew as I closed my Bank of America account at the start of the New Year. I had a long-time checking account (for more than a decade) in which I had dutifully kept the $750 minimum balance to avoid a monthly maintenance fee. In December I received a statement that showed $14 missing. At that point I read more carefully the letter I had received from Bank of America on new fee structures. It explained that to avoid a $14 monthly fee I now needed a $1500 minimum balance. I did not like either choice-paying the $14 per month or adding another $750 to the minimum balance.
It is bad enough that the interest banks pay on deposited money is negligibly small. Now you must provide the bank with large amounts of free capital or your deposited money will be appropriated. Prior to the 2008 financial crisis, institutions such as Bank of America generated large amounts of revenue from usurious interest rates on credit cards and hefty fees for overdrafts and late payments. However, new laws forbidding some of the more egregious practices have sharply curtailed that revenue stream, so banks are instituting new fees to make up the difference.
I decided to shop for a new bank and I was struck by some advice given while conversing with a local businesswoman. "Never do business with a bank that has more than three branches. Banks with three or less branches are too small to be of much value to bigger banks, so there is little risk of a buyout." On hearing this advice, I remembered that I had never opened an account at Bank of America. I opened an account at a large regional bank that was bought by Bank of America. The same is true of another bank I do business with-M & T. I originally opened an account with First Maryland Bank, which was bought by All First, which then disintegrated in a currency trading scandal and was acquired by M & T.
I went to Farmers and Merchants, a small community bank with only three branches, all in northwest Baltimore County. They offered me totally free checking with no minimum balance. I opened a new account and the next day went to Bank of America and closed my account before any additional fees could be assessed.
There are, of course, some tradeoffs with switching to a small local bank. I can only visit the bank when I'm near my house, not anywhere in the country, which was the case with Bank of America. I can only have free use of an ATM machine at one of those three branches, anywhere else I have to pay a transaction fee. But, with proper planning and use of the Internet-even small banks offer online banking-these inconveniences should not be much of an issue. I have to ask myself, is $14 x 12 months, or $168 per year worth it for the additional accessibility Bank of America offers. I would never have the need to use ATMs far away from my house often enough to justify paying $168 per year to access Bank of America's nationwide ATM network. If I have to do that occasionally, I'll pay the $2 transaction fee.
When I closed my account at Bank of America, the manager noted that I had been a long-time customer and asked my reason. I told her that I was unhappy with the new fees being imposed. I said that it reminded me of the parable of the ungrateful servant. She didn't seem to understand the biblical reference. She handed me the cash for the remaining funds in my account and had me sign for it. No counter offer or apology for the new fee structure was made.
Bank of America and the other large banks created an unsustainable business model that generated revenue from high fees and usurious interest rates on high-risk loans. When the model failed they were shielded from the market consequences with billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts on the condition that they end many of the practices that caused the failures. But it appears that rather than comply with the intentions of the new law, Bank of America is looking for loopholes in order to revive their old business model.
Of course, the large banks insist that even though they are exempt, all their customers should abide by the rules of the market place. That being the case, I think we the customers need to shop more for banking and ignore much of the slick marketing. We also need to overcome our inertia and be willing to change banks when market conditions change. It is easy to close an account and open a new one at another institution.
Ask yourself, if I were shopping for a bank today and considering all the available options, would I choose the bank that I currently have? If the answer to that question is no, then it is time to change banks. Look around and you will find many community banks and credit unions that offer excellent services at fair prices.
When I think about it, there is really no reason for Bank of America and its ilk to even be in business. In fact, if not for the billions of dollars in bad debt forgiven by the taxpayers, they would not be in business. But, Bank of America was not about to forgive the new fees they were imposing on me. It is time for customers to stop paying for all the lunacy and take their business elsewhere.
But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him one hundred denarii, and he grabbed him, and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!' "So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will repay you!' He would not, but went and cast him into prison, until he should pay back that which was due. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told to their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him in, and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me. Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?' His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due to him." Matthew 18:23-35
I thought about this parable from the Gospel of Matthew as I closed my Bank of America account at the start of the New Year. I had a long-time checking account (for more than a decade) in which I had dutifully kept the $750 minimum balance to avoid a monthly maintenance fee. In December I received a statement that showed $14 missing. At that point I read more carefully the letter I had received from Bank of America on new fee structures. It explained that to avoid a $14 monthly fee I now needed a $1500 minimum balance. I did not like either choice-paying the $14 per month or adding another $750 to the minimum balance.
It is bad enough that the interest banks pay on deposited money is negligibly small. Now you must provide the bank with large amounts of free capital or your deposited money will be appropriated. Prior to the 2008 financial crisis, institutions such as Bank of America generated large amounts of revenue from usurious interest rates on credit cards and hefty fees for overdrafts and late payments. However, new laws forbidding some of the more egregious practices have sharply curtailed that revenue stream, so banks are instituting new fees to make up the difference.
I decided to shop for a new bank and I was struck by some advice given while conversing with a local businesswoman. "Never do business with a bank that has more than three branches. Banks with three or less branches are too small to be of much value to bigger banks, so there is little risk of a buyout." On hearing this advice, I remembered that I had never opened an account at Bank of America. I opened an account at a large regional bank that was bought by Bank of America. The same is true of another bank I do business with-M & T. I originally opened an account with First Maryland Bank, which was bought by All First, which then disintegrated in a currency trading scandal and was acquired by M & T.
I went to Farmers and Merchants, a small community bank with only three branches, all in northwest Baltimore County. They offered me totally free checking with no minimum balance. I opened a new account and the next day went to Bank of America and closed my account before any additional fees could be assessed.
There are, of course, some tradeoffs with switching to a small local bank. I can only visit the bank when I'm near my house, not anywhere in the country, which was the case with Bank of America. I can only have free use of an ATM machine at one of those three branches, anywhere else I have to pay a transaction fee. But, with proper planning and use of the Internet-even small banks offer online banking-these inconveniences should not be much of an issue. I have to ask myself, is $14 x 12 months, or $168 per year worth it for the additional accessibility Bank of America offers. I would never have the need to use ATMs far away from my house often enough to justify paying $168 per year to access Bank of America's nationwide ATM network. If I have to do that occasionally, I'll pay the $2 transaction fee.
When I closed my account at Bank of America, the manager noted that I had been a long-time customer and asked my reason. I told her that I was unhappy with the new fees being imposed. I said that it reminded me of the parable of the ungrateful servant. She didn't seem to understand the biblical reference. She handed me the cash for the remaining funds in my account and had me sign for it. No counter offer or apology for the new fee structure was made.
Bank of America and the other large banks created an unsustainable business model that generated revenue from high fees and usurious interest rates on high-risk loans. When the model failed they were shielded from the market consequences with billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts on the condition that they end many of the practices that caused the failures. But it appears that rather than comply with the intentions of the new law, Bank of America is looking for loopholes in order to revive their old business model.
Of course, the large banks insist that even though they are exempt, all their customers should abide by the rules of the market place. That being the case, I think we the customers need to shop more for banking and ignore much of the slick marketing. We also need to overcome our inertia and be willing to change banks when market conditions change. It is easy to close an account and open a new one at another institution.
Ask yourself, if I were shopping for a bank today and considering all the available options, would I choose the bank that I currently have? If the answer to that question is no, then it is time to change banks. Look around and you will find many community banks and credit unions that offer excellent services at fair prices.
When I think about it, there is really no reason for Bank of America and its ilk to even be in business. In fact, if not for the billions of dollars in bad debt forgiven by the taxpayers, they would not be in business. But, Bank of America was not about to forgive the new fees they were imposing on me. It is time for customers to stop paying for all the lunacy and take their business elsewhere.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Political Posturing: Misdirection with Numbers
I've written a lot about misdirection with numbers in consumer advertising. But, the political posturing seen in Congress over the past two months takes misdirection with irrelevant numbers to a whole other level.
Consider all the indignation mustered on the Senate floor last month over the $8 billion in earmarks in a proposed bill. Let's put that number into perspective. The federal budget deficit hit a record $1.4 trillion last year. Eliminating the $8 billion in earmarks trims the deficit by 0.6%. While earmarks might be an unseemly practice, the dollar amounts are insignificant.
President Obama's federal pay freeze will save $60 billion. It's great political theater to require federal workers to tighten their belts along with the rest of the citizenry. But, that number is only 4.3% of the deficit.
In the mean time, Congress reached a painful "compromise" with a bill in which each side got what they wanted and no one had to pay. Republicans got their tax cuts while Democrats got their spending programs. In other words, voters have a choice between tax-and-spend Democrats or borrow-and-spend Republicans. It is no wonder that voters are angry. Most of us think that the word "compromise" means that each side has to give up something. This isn't a compromise at all.
To solve the government's fiscal problems will require looking at the numbers that matter, in particular the large numbers. As large it might sound, $10 billion is no longer a large amount of money in Washington. In fact $100 billion is no longer that large an amount. The significant amounts are measured in trillions of dollars and saving that kind of money requires overhauling programs that no one wants to touch.
The Bowles-Simpson commission made a sincere effort to propose significant deficit reduction, and few politicians of either party have embraced their proposals. Notice that their proposal will not eliminate deficits, just stabilize the problem. Their recommendations include:
* Reducing the yearly increases in Social Security
* Increase the retirement age
* Raise the Social Security contribution ceiling
* Eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction
* Raise the federal gas tax
* Increase Medicaid co-pays
These are just a few examples from a long list of recommendations, but what they all have in common is that no politician would ever dare support any of these actions. Unfortunately, these are the programs that soak up most of federal expenditures. I think Peter R. Fisher said it best in a 2002 speech when he was Under Secretary of the Treasury.
"Think of the federal government as a gigantic insurance company (with a side line business in national defense and homeland security) which only does its accounting on a cash basis - only counting premiums and payouts as they go in and out the door. An insurance company with cash accounting is not really an insurance company at all. It is an accident waiting to happen."
-Peter R. Fisher
Under Secretary of the Treasury
Remarks to the Columbus Council on World Affairs
Columbus, Ohio
November 14, 2002
Meaningful deficit reduction can only occur if we make an honest appraisal of where the bulk of the money actually goes. It isn't spent on the programs that Congressmen complain loudest about. In Peter Peterson's book Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
, he wrote: that the parties have mortgaged our future "with reckless tax cuts, out-of-control spending, and Enron-style accounting." He wrote that warning in 2004- six years ago-and the problem has only gotten worse.
In Peterson's moral structure, it is unconscionable to leave this enormous debt to our children. Each generation should pay for its own expenses and excesses. Actually, I find it the height of hypocrisy that the attitude of our political leaders towards money goes against everything financial principle we seek to instill in our children. Lessons on delaying gratification in order to save and invest, so that resources will be available for unforeseen problems, are apparently lost on politicians.
The real problem is the constant framing of political debate in terms of absolutes. In today's hyper-partisan climate you are either for or against Social Security, for or against Medicaid, for or against taxes. Actually you can be for and against all of these things. There is no reason that we can't have Social Security, Medicaid, and taxation, as long as all the costs are within reason. In other words, we need to make real compromises, not fake compromises for the sole purpose of political theater.
Joseph Ganem is a physicist and author of the award-winning The Two Headed Quarter: How to See Through Deceptive Numbers and Save Money on Everything You Buy
Consider all the indignation mustered on the Senate floor last month over the $8 billion in earmarks in a proposed bill. Let's put that number into perspective. The federal budget deficit hit a record $1.4 trillion last year. Eliminating the $8 billion in earmarks trims the deficit by 0.6%. While earmarks might be an unseemly practice, the dollar amounts are insignificant.
President Obama's federal pay freeze will save $60 billion. It's great political theater to require federal workers to tighten their belts along with the rest of the citizenry. But, that number is only 4.3% of the deficit.
In the mean time, Congress reached a painful "compromise" with a bill in which each side got what they wanted and no one had to pay. Republicans got their tax cuts while Democrats got their spending programs. In other words, voters have a choice between tax-and-spend Democrats or borrow-and-spend Republicans. It is no wonder that voters are angry. Most of us think that the word "compromise" means that each side has to give up something. This isn't a compromise at all.
To solve the government's fiscal problems will require looking at the numbers that matter, in particular the large numbers. As large it might sound, $10 billion is no longer a large amount of money in Washington. In fact $100 billion is no longer that large an amount. The significant amounts are measured in trillions of dollars and saving that kind of money requires overhauling programs that no one wants to touch.
The Bowles-Simpson commission made a sincere effort to propose significant deficit reduction, and few politicians of either party have embraced their proposals. Notice that their proposal will not eliminate deficits, just stabilize the problem. Their recommendations include:
* Reducing the yearly increases in Social Security
* Increase the retirement age
* Raise the Social Security contribution ceiling
* Eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction
* Raise the federal gas tax
* Increase Medicaid co-pays
These are just a few examples from a long list of recommendations, but what they all have in common is that no politician would ever dare support any of these actions. Unfortunately, these are the programs that soak up most of federal expenditures. I think Peter R. Fisher said it best in a 2002 speech when he was Under Secretary of the Treasury.
"Think of the federal government as a gigantic insurance company (with a side line business in national defense and homeland security) which only does its accounting on a cash basis - only counting premiums and payouts as they go in and out the door. An insurance company with cash accounting is not really an insurance company at all. It is an accident waiting to happen."
-Peter R. Fisher
Under Secretary of the Treasury
Remarks to the Columbus Council on World Affairs
Columbus, Ohio
November 14, 2002
Meaningful deficit reduction can only occur if we make an honest appraisal of where the bulk of the money actually goes. It isn't spent on the programs that Congressmen complain loudest about. In Peter Peterson's book Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
, he wrote: that the parties have mortgaged our future "with reckless tax cuts, out-of-control spending, and Enron-style accounting." He wrote that warning in 2004- six years ago-and the problem has only gotten worse.In Peterson's moral structure, it is unconscionable to leave this enormous debt to our children. Each generation should pay for its own expenses and excesses. Actually, I find it the height of hypocrisy that the attitude of our political leaders towards money goes against everything financial principle we seek to instill in our children. Lessons on delaying gratification in order to save and invest, so that resources will be available for unforeseen problems, are apparently lost on politicians.
The real problem is the constant framing of political debate in terms of absolutes. In today's hyper-partisan climate you are either for or against Social Security, for or against Medicaid, for or against taxes. Actually you can be for and against all of these things. There is no reason that we can't have Social Security, Medicaid, and taxation, as long as all the costs are within reason. In other words, we need to make real compromises, not fake compromises for the sole purpose of political theater.
Joseph Ganem is a physicist and author of the award-winning The Two Headed Quarter: How to See Through Deceptive Numbers and Save Money on Everything You Buy
Friday, December 31, 2010
Save Big by Saving Small
With the New Year upon us, the number of media stories on financial planning is exceeded only by the number on weight-loss. Most of us don't need sweeping changes to our finances. However, identifying and avoiding small-dollar losses can add up over the course of a year. Here are some small ways to save big.
Compare weight not size. For food items, large containers often cost more than small ones. But, frequently the actual amount of food in the big container is the same or only slightly more than the smaller one-usually not enough more to justify the higher price. Compare the price per pound-in small print-when you shop, not the large-print price per container.
Buy only the amount of food that you need. Bulk purchases to "save money" can actually cost more when items are thrown out after spoiling. When you shop, ignore the suggested number of items to purchase. Signs created by retailers, such as "2 for $5," or "4 for $10," are for their convenience, not yours. In most instances a purchase of a lesser number of items will be automatically pro-rated at the register. If that doesn't happen, buy from a different store.
Consider the total cost of a purchase rather than just the price. Long distance drives to chase sale prices can cost more for gas than you save on the purchase. Visit ComputeGasSavings to determine how far you should drive for a lower price. Even chasing down low-price gas can get expensive. At $3 per gallon and climbing, driving long distances, or idling your car in long lines to save a few cents per gallon on gas, can cost more than the savings.
Start a savings fund for home and vehicle repairs. Because few people budget for these recurring expenses, most are forced to pay with credit. Paying cash for needed repairs is much cheaper than accumulating credit card interest. Look over your repair receipts for the past couple of years to get a feel for how much you spend. It could easily be $1200 to $1800, over the course of year. That averages to $100 to $150 per month. Start setting aside $100 per month now for repairs so that you are financially prepared for these "emergencies."
Ask your insurance agent how much you would save by increasing your deductibles. Over the long run it might be cheaper to pay out-of-pocket for life's little mishaps than to pay extra year-after-year for a low deductible. Would you pay for a small repair (less than $500) on your own rather than report it to your insurance company and risk a rate increase? If the answer to that question is yes, your deductible should be $500, not the standard $250 that comes with most policies.
Avoid Extended Warranties. Almost all electronic devices and appliances become obsolete before they break down. Lots of people have stories to tell about an extended warranty on a new purchase that proved valuable. But, these same people forget about the dozens of problem-free devices that they have bought through the years. A 10 to 20% extra surcharge on each item for an extended warranty added up to far more than the cost of that one repair. If you make it a rule to always decline extended warranties, you will save more than enough money in the long run to pay for the few repairs that you actually need.
Increase your retirement contribution the next time you receive a raise. Put half of the additional income into your retirement account. You will save on taxes, increase your future retirement income, and still see more money in your paycheck.
In fact, if you examine some of the small ways to save money that I've mentioned, it's possible that you could find $100 per month of unnecessary expenses. That is the equivalent of a raise that could be set aside and invested for the future.
Joseph Ganem is a physicist and author of the award-winning The Two Headed Quarter: How to See Through Deceptive Numbers and Save Money on Everything You Buy
Compare weight not size. For food items, large containers often cost more than small ones. But, frequently the actual amount of food in the big container is the same or only slightly more than the smaller one-usually not enough more to justify the higher price. Compare the price per pound-in small print-when you shop, not the large-print price per container.
Buy only the amount of food that you need. Bulk purchases to "save money" can actually cost more when items are thrown out after spoiling. When you shop, ignore the suggested number of items to purchase. Signs created by retailers, such as "2 for $5," or "4 for $10," are for their convenience, not yours. In most instances a purchase of a lesser number of items will be automatically pro-rated at the register. If that doesn't happen, buy from a different store.
Consider the total cost of a purchase rather than just the price. Long distance drives to chase sale prices can cost more for gas than you save on the purchase. Visit ComputeGasSavings to determine how far you should drive for a lower price. Even chasing down low-price gas can get expensive. At $3 per gallon and climbing, driving long distances, or idling your car in long lines to save a few cents per gallon on gas, can cost more than the savings.
Start a savings fund for home and vehicle repairs. Because few people budget for these recurring expenses, most are forced to pay with credit. Paying cash for needed repairs is much cheaper than accumulating credit card interest. Look over your repair receipts for the past couple of years to get a feel for how much you spend. It could easily be $1200 to $1800, over the course of year. That averages to $100 to $150 per month. Start setting aside $100 per month now for repairs so that you are financially prepared for these "emergencies."
Ask your insurance agent how much you would save by increasing your deductibles. Over the long run it might be cheaper to pay out-of-pocket for life's little mishaps than to pay extra year-after-year for a low deductible. Would you pay for a small repair (less than $500) on your own rather than report it to your insurance company and risk a rate increase? If the answer to that question is yes, your deductible should be $500, not the standard $250 that comes with most policies.
Avoid Extended Warranties. Almost all electronic devices and appliances become obsolete before they break down. Lots of people have stories to tell about an extended warranty on a new purchase that proved valuable. But, these same people forget about the dozens of problem-free devices that they have bought through the years. A 10 to 20% extra surcharge on each item for an extended warranty added up to far more than the cost of that one repair. If you make it a rule to always decline extended warranties, you will save more than enough money in the long run to pay for the few repairs that you actually need.
Increase your retirement contribution the next time you receive a raise. Put half of the additional income into your retirement account. You will save on taxes, increase your future retirement income, and still see more money in your paycheck.
In fact, if you examine some of the small ways to save money that I've mentioned, it's possible that you could find $100 per month of unnecessary expenses. That is the equivalent of a raise that could be set aside and invested for the future.
Joseph Ganem is a physicist and author of the award-winning The Two Headed Quarter: How to See Through Deceptive Numbers and Save Money on Everything You Buy
Friday, November 19, 2010
Distorting Science: BP's Buy Out
An investigation by the Mobile Press-Register revealed that BP has offered lucrative contracts to scientists engaged in research on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. According to one source, BP attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at an Alabama university. The Press-Register reported that the contract "prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years."
I find this a disturbing development in the ongoing oil spill catastrophe because it will allow BP to pretend that it is doing science, when it is not. Employing scientists for private purposes is not a new practice. Nor is the act of keeping data and results proprietary. Many scientists work for private companies and must uphold the terms of the contract agreed to by both parties. Open sharing of information is often not desirable because companies that invest in research should be the first to benefit from the results.
However, conclusions drawn from proprietary data are not necessarily scientifically valid. BP's contract is a deliberate attempt to control the publication of data on the effects of the Gulf oil spill, while at the same time invoking scientific authority for the conclusions obtained from the research. This is not how the scientific method works, and to pretend otherwise is dangerous.
The act of employing scientists to take data, publish results, and interpret findings, does not necessarily mean that valid scientific conclusions will result. Scientists are fallible human beings, prone to error and motivated, in part, by their own beliefs, prejudices, self-interests, and parochialisms. In other words, the work of science is hampered by the same human foibles that plague all human endeavors.
But in the past few centuries science has advanced at a remarkable rate because its method has a self-correcting mechanism built in. Scientists throughout the world usually work independently and openly share ideas and results. Independence and openness are two features of the scientific method that are little appreciated, but essential to scientific advancement. By reviewing and checking each other's work, scientists uncover errors and biases. Over time evidence accumulates to support valid results and interpretations. Ideas that are wrong get culled and eventually become relegated to the history books.
Independence and openness are qualities not typically valued by businesses, or for that matter governments and churches. In fact, these institutions tend to regard open sharing of information and independent questioning of established precepts as existential threats. But, these institutions often invoke scientific authority to buttress their own self-serving claims.
But, you cannot have it both ways. Scientific "authority" derives from a method that self-corrects because of a tradition of independent researchers openly sharing information. You cannot take away this part of the method and still claim that you are doing science.
Science is a method for interrogating nature. While people might answer questions incorrectly, nature never does. In fact nature never makes mistakes in the human sense of that word. Natural laws are obeyed at all times, and the natural laws are blind to human concerns.
To date, science has been a remarkably successful human endeavor, but we should not take for granted the continued advancement of science. Especially while the benefactors of science attack it. The recent phenomenon of people choosing scientific beliefs that are consistent with their choice of church, or career, or political party is deeply troubling. Obviously nature has no affiliation with any churches, corporations, or governments.
But, more and more, we see organizations of various types cherry-picking data to advance their own agendas. BP will be very careful in regards to the proprietary data it releases, in the same way that pharmaceutical companies are very careful about the results of drug studies that they release. Creationist/intelligent design advocates are quick to point out any problems with evolution theory, while ignoring reams of supporting evidence. In the United States, belief in global warming now falls along party lines, a situation that could not possibly occur if people were independently evaluating the evidence.
In fact, it would be remarkably coincidental if natural phenomena just happened to perfectly align with the economic self-interests of a particular group. Such a coincidence is highly unlikely. In the aftermath of the space shuttle Challenger disaster, the physicist Richard Feynman noted that political pressures contributed to the disastrous decision to launch that day. He warned: "Reality must take precedence over public relations because nature cannot be fooled." It is a warning we should all keep in mind.
Joseph Ganem is a physicist and author of the award-winning The Two Headed Quarter: How to See Through Deceptive Numbers and Save Money on Everything You Buy
I find this a disturbing development in the ongoing oil spill catastrophe because it will allow BP to pretend that it is doing science, when it is not. Employing scientists for private purposes is not a new practice. Nor is the act of keeping data and results proprietary. Many scientists work for private companies and must uphold the terms of the contract agreed to by both parties. Open sharing of information is often not desirable because companies that invest in research should be the first to benefit from the results.
However, conclusions drawn from proprietary data are not necessarily scientifically valid. BP's contract is a deliberate attempt to control the publication of data on the effects of the Gulf oil spill, while at the same time invoking scientific authority for the conclusions obtained from the research. This is not how the scientific method works, and to pretend otherwise is dangerous.
The act of employing scientists to take data, publish results, and interpret findings, does not necessarily mean that valid scientific conclusions will result. Scientists are fallible human beings, prone to error and motivated, in part, by their own beliefs, prejudices, self-interests, and parochialisms. In other words, the work of science is hampered by the same human foibles that plague all human endeavors.
But in the past few centuries science has advanced at a remarkable rate because its method has a self-correcting mechanism built in. Scientists throughout the world usually work independently and openly share ideas and results. Independence and openness are two features of the scientific method that are little appreciated, but essential to scientific advancement. By reviewing and checking each other's work, scientists uncover errors and biases. Over time evidence accumulates to support valid results and interpretations. Ideas that are wrong get culled and eventually become relegated to the history books.
Independence and openness are qualities not typically valued by businesses, or for that matter governments and churches. In fact, these institutions tend to regard open sharing of information and independent questioning of established precepts as existential threats. But, these institutions often invoke scientific authority to buttress their own self-serving claims.
But, you cannot have it both ways. Scientific "authority" derives from a method that self-corrects because of a tradition of independent researchers openly sharing information. You cannot take away this part of the method and still claim that you are doing science.
Science is a method for interrogating nature. While people might answer questions incorrectly, nature never does. In fact nature never makes mistakes in the human sense of that word. Natural laws are obeyed at all times, and the natural laws are blind to human concerns.
To date, science has been a remarkably successful human endeavor, but we should not take for granted the continued advancement of science. Especially while the benefactors of science attack it. The recent phenomenon of people choosing scientific beliefs that are consistent with their choice of church, or career, or political party is deeply troubling. Obviously nature has no affiliation with any churches, corporations, or governments.
But, more and more, we see organizations of various types cherry-picking data to advance their own agendas. BP will be very careful in regards to the proprietary data it releases, in the same way that pharmaceutical companies are very careful about the results of drug studies that they release. Creationist/intelligent design advocates are quick to point out any problems with evolution theory, while ignoring reams of supporting evidence. In the United States, belief in global warming now falls along party lines, a situation that could not possibly occur if people were independently evaluating the evidence.
In fact, it would be remarkably coincidental if natural phenomena just happened to perfectly align with the economic self-interests of a particular group. Such a coincidence is highly unlikely. In the aftermath of the space shuttle Challenger disaster, the physicist Richard Feynman noted that political pressures contributed to the disastrous decision to launch that day. He warned: "Reality must take precedence over public relations because nature cannot be fooled." It is a warning we should all keep in mind.
Joseph Ganem is a physicist and author of the award-winning The Two Headed Quarter: How to See Through Deceptive Numbers and Save Money on Everything You Buy
Friday, October 1, 2010
Atheism, Creationism, and Tautologies
Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking was back in the news this month as co-author of a new book titled: The Grand Design
. He and collaborator Leonard Mlodinow set out to answer three central questions in science: Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? Why this particular set of laws and not some other? That's an ambitious agenda for a single volume, but the newsworthiness of the book was its assertion that no creator was necessary for the universe. Hawking writes that "the universe can and will create itself from nothing."
The publicity surrounding that assertion reminded me of a famous quote from the nineteenth century French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace who also wrote a book on the laws of the universe. He presented the book to the emperor Napoleon who said to him: "M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator."
Laplace answered: "I had no need of that hypothesis."
When Napoleon told Joseph-Louis Lagrange, another renowned mathematician of the time, what Laplace said, Lagrange replied: "Ah, it is a fine hypothesis; it explains many things."
After reading The Grand Design, I can't help but think that nothing has changed in the two centuries since this back-and-forth between Napoleon and the mathematicians. Explaining the universe without God is about as futile as explaining the universe with God. To assert that the universe creates itself from nothing, Hawking and Mlodinow appear to lapse into the same kind of tautology that creationists use to defend their beliefs.
A tautology is a statement that is true by definition and therefore provides no real explanation or insight. The Christian understanding of God, in the words of the Nicene Creed, is that God is the "creator of all that there is." This statement alone provides no insight on the mechanisms or motivations for creation.
Scientists have sought to understand the mechanisms for creation, and in doing so have amassed enormous amounts of evidence that the Earth and its inhabitants did not simply come into being over a one-week time span 6000 years ago as creationists believe based on their literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. But, a creationist will argue that none of this evidence matters because God, as the omnipotent creator of all that there is, could just as well have created the "appearance" of an older Earth and evolutionary processes. This is a tautology because the creationist position is unassailable. All evidence that does not support the creationist's views can be dismissed as part of God's creation.
In Ken Miller's book, Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution
, he likens the belief that the universe was created with "the appearance of age," to a belief in God as a charlatan. Miller is a committed Christian who believes in God, not in spite of evolution, but because of evolution. In Miller's view, the process of evolution is awe-inspiring. In response to creationists, Miller writes that a God that has negated science by "rigging the universe with fiction and deception" is not a plausible divine being. To Miller, embracing the God of creationists is to "reject science and worship deception itself."
But, the model of a universe devoid of God presented in The Grand Design falls into a tautological trap akin to creationism. The "M-theory" Hawking and Mlodinow advocate allows for the existence of innumerable universes each with different laws of physics. To explain why our universe is so remarkable, they resort to a decades-old idea known as the "anthropic principle." The essential idea is that of the multitude of universes that can exist, only a tiny fraction of them have physical laws that allow us to evolve. Therefore our existence as observers means that our particular universe must appear to us as special in extraordinary ways.
Whether the alternative universes exist in parallel or sequentially is not important because other universes are inaccessible. The universe is by definition "all that there is." And this is the tautology that Hawking and Mlodinow fall into: To say that anything that could possibly happen actually does happen in alternative universes, is an unassailable position. For example, it is a tautology to say that I write this blog entry or I do not write this blog entry. To say that I write this blog entry in one universe and do not write this blog entry in another universe, explains nothing. Saying that both events happen but in different universes is wordplay, not physics.
Hawking and Mlodinow cite the implausible values for the fundamental constants in physics as evidence for their anthropic argument. It is a great mystery in physics as to what determines the values for the fundamental constants. The basic forces in nature and the elementary particles that form all matter, possess intrinsic properties that to date have no theoretical explanation. The electron, which is a fundamental particle that determines how atoms interact chemically, has an intrinsic mass, electric charge, magnetic moment, and angular momentum. These values are measurable, and essentially define the particle because electrons have no discernable size or internal structure.
What is especially striking is that all electrons are identical. Nature does not make defective electrons. Apparently every electron that there ever was, or ever will be, has the exact same physical properties. Electrons are identical to the point of being indistinguishable from each other. It is impossible to ever label or tag an electron, and the fact that no single electron can ever be distinguished from all the others in the universe, has profound consequences when formulating the physical laws that govern electrons.
The precise values for the physical attributes of an electron are among the fundamental constants in nature that can only be measured. No theory accounts for their values, but it appears that these values must be set very close to what they actually are in order for our species to have evolved. Because the "M-theory" that Hawking and Mlodinow advocate allows for many possible universes, each with different fundamental constants, they contend that all these universes exist and we just happen to be the observers in a universe with fundamental constants that allow us to observe.
In other words, M-theory doesn't explain the values of the fundamental constants. It just says that if you roll the die an infinite number of times, a universe with our fundamental constants will eventually appear. That is not a theory in the scientific sense of the word because it doesn't predict anything about the actual universe we observe.
Physicists have long hoped that a unified theory of all the forces in nature (Theory of Everything) will predict the values for the fundamental constants. In other words, the mathematics would predict the existence of particles, such as electrons, and the mathematical solutions would provide numerical results for the electron's physical attributes that would agree with what we know about electrons.
Such a theory remains elusive so let me make my own tautological statement. A future Theory of Everything will either predict the values for the fundamental constants or it will not. If it does, physicists will find the theory extraordinarily elegant, and theologians will say that God intended our existence by establishing physical laws at the moment of creation that allowed us to evolve. If the theory does not predict the values for the fundamental constants, physicists will keep puzzling on the issue and theologians will say that God intended our existence by choosing values for the fundamental constants that allowed us to evolve.
Either way scientists and theologians will agree that God is a hypothesis that cannot be tested. There comes a point in theology where you just have to believe that the universe has a higher purpose and meaning, even if that meaning is not readily discernable. There comes a point in physics where you have to say: "that is just the way things are" because explanations through causation have to stop at some point.
My own view is that humans might not be evolved enough to comprehend a Theory of Everything. There is no reason to believe that the human brain is the pinnacle of evolution because there is no reason to believe that the evolution of intelligence will not continue long into the future. On an evolutionary time scale the human species, Homo sapiens, has not been around all that long. Modern humans have only existed about 100,000 years, which is an insignificant amount time compared to the hundreds of millions of years that evolutionary processes have shaped species on the planet. What might brain structures and intelligence look like 100 million years from now?
As I write this paragraph my dog lies patiently at my feet waiting for me to get up and do something of interest to her, such as work in the garden where she can enthusiastically contribute by chasing the various critters that inhabit our yard. My endless fascination with pixilated patterns of light on a computer screen has no meaning to her. I sometimes say to her that if she could do calculus, or edit and proof my writing, she could do work that would be of real use to me. She listens to me attentively, as she does everything I say, wags her tail, and maintains her vigil.
Of course, I could talk to my dog all day about advanced calculus, unified theories of physics and their theological implications, and she would listen attentively and understand nothing. We know that this is not the fault of the dog. A dog does not possess the brain structures to process the concepts needed for language, mathematics, or theology. Nor does a dog have the life span humans require to learn advanced concepts in all these subjects.
But those facts about dogs leave open the possibility that far into the future, another species, with a more advanced brain structure, might have similar things to say about humans. Will they say that the species, Homo sapiens of the Holocene epoch, figured out many important concepts in physics, but lacked the brain structure needed to understand the math required for the Theory of Everything?
A central tenet of Christianity is that God created humans in God's image. As a result the human striving to understand the natural world (God's creation) is a quest to know God. It also follows that how humans treat other humans is a reflection of our relationship with God.
But, all around I see humans creating God in the image of humans. Much of the evil done in the name of God, that atheists cite to disparage theists, arises not from believing in God, but from anthropomorphizing God. Humans have created innumerable images of God that for most part depict God as acting and thinking like humans. But, the sheer scale and grandeur of the universe is evidence that a creator God is unimaginably extravagant and inventive. I would be careful about concluding that humans are the endpoint in the creative process.
Joseph Ganem is a physicist and author of the award-winning The Two Headed Quarter: How to See Through Deceptive Numbers and Save Money on Everything You Buy
. He and collaborator Leonard Mlodinow set out to answer three central questions in science: Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? Why this particular set of laws and not some other? That's an ambitious agenda for a single volume, but the newsworthiness of the book was its assertion that no creator was necessary for the universe. Hawking writes that "the universe can and will create itself from nothing."The publicity surrounding that assertion reminded me of a famous quote from the nineteenth century French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace who also wrote a book on the laws of the universe. He presented the book to the emperor Napoleon who said to him: "M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator."
Laplace answered: "I had no need of that hypothesis."
When Napoleon told Joseph-Louis Lagrange, another renowned mathematician of the time, what Laplace said, Lagrange replied: "Ah, it is a fine hypothesis; it explains many things."
After reading The Grand Design, I can't help but think that nothing has changed in the two centuries since this back-and-forth between Napoleon and the mathematicians. Explaining the universe without God is about as futile as explaining the universe with God. To assert that the universe creates itself from nothing, Hawking and Mlodinow appear to lapse into the same kind of tautology that creationists use to defend their beliefs.
A tautology is a statement that is true by definition and therefore provides no real explanation or insight. The Christian understanding of God, in the words of the Nicene Creed, is that God is the "creator of all that there is." This statement alone provides no insight on the mechanisms or motivations for creation.
Scientists have sought to understand the mechanisms for creation, and in doing so have amassed enormous amounts of evidence that the Earth and its inhabitants did not simply come into being over a one-week time span 6000 years ago as creationists believe based on their literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. But, a creationist will argue that none of this evidence matters because God, as the omnipotent creator of all that there is, could just as well have created the "appearance" of an older Earth and evolutionary processes. This is a tautology because the creationist position is unassailable. All evidence that does not support the creationist's views can be dismissed as part of God's creation.
In Ken Miller's book, Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution
, he likens the belief that the universe was created with "the appearance of age," to a belief in God as a charlatan. Miller is a committed Christian who believes in God, not in spite of evolution, but because of evolution. In Miller's view, the process of evolution is awe-inspiring. In response to creationists, Miller writes that a God that has negated science by "rigging the universe with fiction and deception" is not a plausible divine being. To Miller, embracing the God of creationists is to "reject science and worship deception itself."But, the model of a universe devoid of God presented in The Grand Design falls into a tautological trap akin to creationism. The "M-theory" Hawking and Mlodinow advocate allows for the existence of innumerable universes each with different laws of physics. To explain why our universe is so remarkable, they resort to a decades-old idea known as the "anthropic principle." The essential idea is that of the multitude of universes that can exist, only a tiny fraction of them have physical laws that allow us to evolve. Therefore our existence as observers means that our particular universe must appear to us as special in extraordinary ways.
Whether the alternative universes exist in parallel or sequentially is not important because other universes are inaccessible. The universe is by definition "all that there is." And this is the tautology that Hawking and Mlodinow fall into: To say that anything that could possibly happen actually does happen in alternative universes, is an unassailable position. For example, it is a tautology to say that I write this blog entry or I do not write this blog entry. To say that I write this blog entry in one universe and do not write this blog entry in another universe, explains nothing. Saying that both events happen but in different universes is wordplay, not physics.
Hawking and Mlodinow cite the implausible values for the fundamental constants in physics as evidence for their anthropic argument. It is a great mystery in physics as to what determines the values for the fundamental constants. The basic forces in nature and the elementary particles that form all matter, possess intrinsic properties that to date have no theoretical explanation. The electron, which is a fundamental particle that determines how atoms interact chemically, has an intrinsic mass, electric charge, magnetic moment, and angular momentum. These values are measurable, and essentially define the particle because electrons have no discernable size or internal structure.
What is especially striking is that all electrons are identical. Nature does not make defective electrons. Apparently every electron that there ever was, or ever will be, has the exact same physical properties. Electrons are identical to the point of being indistinguishable from each other. It is impossible to ever label or tag an electron, and the fact that no single electron can ever be distinguished from all the others in the universe, has profound consequences when formulating the physical laws that govern electrons.
The precise values for the physical attributes of an electron are among the fundamental constants in nature that can only be measured. No theory accounts for their values, but it appears that these values must be set very close to what they actually are in order for our species to have evolved. Because the "M-theory" that Hawking and Mlodinow advocate allows for many possible universes, each with different fundamental constants, they contend that all these universes exist and we just happen to be the observers in a universe with fundamental constants that allow us to observe.
In other words, M-theory doesn't explain the values of the fundamental constants. It just says that if you roll the die an infinite number of times, a universe with our fundamental constants will eventually appear. That is not a theory in the scientific sense of the word because it doesn't predict anything about the actual universe we observe.
Physicists have long hoped that a unified theory of all the forces in nature (Theory of Everything) will predict the values for the fundamental constants. In other words, the mathematics would predict the existence of particles, such as electrons, and the mathematical solutions would provide numerical results for the electron's physical attributes that would agree with what we know about electrons.
Such a theory remains elusive so let me make my own tautological statement. A future Theory of Everything will either predict the values for the fundamental constants or it will not. If it does, physicists will find the theory extraordinarily elegant, and theologians will say that God intended our existence by establishing physical laws at the moment of creation that allowed us to evolve. If the theory does not predict the values for the fundamental constants, physicists will keep puzzling on the issue and theologians will say that God intended our existence by choosing values for the fundamental constants that allowed us to evolve.
Either way scientists and theologians will agree that God is a hypothesis that cannot be tested. There comes a point in theology where you just have to believe that the universe has a higher purpose and meaning, even if that meaning is not readily discernable. There comes a point in physics where you have to say: "that is just the way things are" because explanations through causation have to stop at some point.
My own view is that humans might not be evolved enough to comprehend a Theory of Everything. There is no reason to believe that the human brain is the pinnacle of evolution because there is no reason to believe that the evolution of intelligence will not continue long into the future. On an evolutionary time scale the human species, Homo sapiens, has not been around all that long. Modern humans have only existed about 100,000 years, which is an insignificant amount time compared to the hundreds of millions of years that evolutionary processes have shaped species on the planet. What might brain structures and intelligence look like 100 million years from now?
As I write this paragraph my dog lies patiently at my feet waiting for me to get up and do something of interest to her, such as work in the garden where she can enthusiastically contribute by chasing the various critters that inhabit our yard. My endless fascination with pixilated patterns of light on a computer screen has no meaning to her. I sometimes say to her that if she could do calculus, or edit and proof my writing, she could do work that would be of real use to me. She listens to me attentively, as she does everything I say, wags her tail, and maintains her vigil.
Of course, I could talk to my dog all day about advanced calculus, unified theories of physics and their theological implications, and she would listen attentively and understand nothing. We know that this is not the fault of the dog. A dog does not possess the brain structures to process the concepts needed for language, mathematics, or theology. Nor does a dog have the life span humans require to learn advanced concepts in all these subjects.
But those facts about dogs leave open the possibility that far into the future, another species, with a more advanced brain structure, might have similar things to say about humans. Will they say that the species, Homo sapiens of the Holocene epoch, figured out many important concepts in physics, but lacked the brain structure needed to understand the math required for the Theory of Everything?
A central tenet of Christianity is that God created humans in God's image. As a result the human striving to understand the natural world (God's creation) is a quest to know God. It also follows that how humans treat other humans is a reflection of our relationship with God.
But, all around I see humans creating God in the image of humans. Much of the evil done in the name of God, that atheists cite to disparage theists, arises not from believing in God, but from anthropomorphizing God. Humans have created innumerable images of God that for most part depict God as acting and thinking like humans. But, the sheer scale and grandeur of the universe is evidence that a creator God is unimaginably extravagant and inventive. I would be careful about concluding that humans are the endpoint in the creative process.
Joseph Ganem is a physicist and author of the award-winning The Two Headed Quarter: How to See Through Deceptive Numbers and Save Money on Everything You Buy
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