Today in Ill-Posed Questions: Is Marriage Still Relevant?

M’colleagues and I at Interrobangs Anonymous are big fans of Jian Ghomeshi, so it’s not at all meant as a snipe at him or his work in general when I say that I’m a bit disappointed in the debate he had on Q asking whether marriage is still a relevant institution. The debate was broadcast about two weeks ago, but I’ve spent the past bit traipsing around various parts of Canada for Christmas, so I’m just getting this all down in electrons now. The audio (~20 minutes) is at the link, and this post will probably make considerably more sense if you listen to it first.

The debate had Iris Krasnow arguing that marriage is still a relevant institution, and Russell Smith arguing against it. Karsnow’s arguments centred on interviews with women she did for a book she wrote on women’s roles in marriage; she cited that the majority of the women she talked to spoke highly and longingly of marriage and long term commitment. Smith’s central argument was that there are no legal teeth in marriage that enforce commitment, especially considering that there is a significant divorce rate, and that the benefits of marriage are not meaningfully dependent on having signed a certificate. I personally am solidly in Smith’s camp on this issue — I have no intention of marrying, and many of my thoughts on marriage were mirrored by points he brought up. In that light, then, I have some specific beefs both with arguments put forward by Krasnow, and also some glaring omissions on everyone’s part (though obviously not every aspect of the question can be covered in 20 minutes).

My principal objection is that the debate (and Krasnow’s argument in particular) focused almost entirely on the relevance of marriage in individual partnerships, rather than how we as a society collectively treat the institution. While an individual marriage is very personal and the parameters of it are particular to the individuals involved, marriage as an institution has more depth and complexity than just being a sum of components. As such, how we regard marriage as a society is not informed just by our individual experiences with marriage (either directly or by proximity to others), but also how we perceive the institution as a whole, with all the legal and economic considerations that it entails. The legal considerations were touched on in passing in the debate, but the considerable economic considerations were nearly entirely ignored.

This is shortsighted; expounding that marriage is a relevant institution simply because 90% of USians will get married at some point in their lives (as Krasnow does; the figure in Canada appears to be around 85%) misses much of the picture as to why people get married. Leaving aside that Krasnow’s argument is based on a rosy-glassed romantic view of marriage, which she later says is not the basis of a marriage, insisting that a social institution is culturally relevant without exploring why people opt into it is toothless. There are still plenty of economic and codified social benefits to marriage, including the oft-cited (and much dismissed by the insistently rosy-glassed among us) things like tax incentives, increased availability of pooled resources like health benefits, and next-of-kin status in the event of hospital stays.

Millie at Persephone: The Ontario Election

It’s been a bit since I put my political hat on around these parts, though that’s not indicative of my level of hat usage in general, and so I’ve now got a weekly Canadian politics column over at Persephone! This week I’ve got a post up about the Ontario election that’s happening on Thursday, and while it’s been a total snoozefest for the most part, it’s not been totally uneventful. I’m hoping for a Liberal minority and a Liberal-NDP coalition (oh noez! I used the C word!), and fortunately that’s not looking improbable at this point. Have a read, and then let me know, Ontarians — who’re you voting for and why?

The Evolution of a Pageant Queen

The Rocket Scientist and I watched the Miss USA pageant. What can I say? I enjoy a good sparkly dress and The Simpsons was a rerun. While I’m not going to say that the program was interesting (because it wasn’t), I was very intrigued when I learned one of the questions asked in the pre-competition interviews: Should evolution should be taught in schools?

Neutrality is the name of the beauty pageant game on controversial issues, and that’s how most contestants answered. However, their neutral responses were so full of mis-information that the women came across sounding ill-informed with respect to evolution and the alternatives they were using as comparison. Embodying a culturally-esteemed standard of beauty is no excuse for ignorance.

Putting aside my frustrations that every contestant adopted the false dichotomy that the opposite of evolution is Judeo-Christian creationism, and that none of the women appeared to understand that the U.S Department of Education has declared that “students may be taught about religion, but public schools may not teach religion,” what made me sad was the contestants’ scientific illiteracy. 

For example, take Angelina Kayyalaynen, Miss Washington’s, answer:

Facts should be stated and we should know the facts as to how the world evolves because it does. But as far as when it comes to little theories and what not, you should probably want to stay away from those. I believe in the truth and the truth only, not somebody’s, you know, imagination or hope of what not so I think facts not theories should be taught.

There’s also Kia Hampton, Miss Kentucky’s, response:

I do feel that evolution shouldn’t be taught in schools because there’s…so many different definitions, like how do you teach a child the true meaning of evolution when so many different cultures have their different beliefs and sciences have their different theories…

Finally, Keeley Patterson, Miss Mississippi:

I think evolution should be taught as what it is. It’s a theory, so I don’t think it should be taught as fact, but I do think our children should know the theories.

In each of these responses, the contestants completely misrepresented the concepts of scientific”fact” and “theory.” So here are some working definitions for next year’s contestants and the rest of us:

• Scientific Fact: A scientific fact is any observation that has been repeatedly and independently confirmed, accepted as true, and has not been refuted.

• Scientific Theory: A scientific theory is not a guess or a hunch. It’s a substantiated, supported, and documented explanation for scientific facts and observations. Scientific theories connect all the facts about a topic, providing an explanation that fits all the observations and can be used to make predictions. In science, “theory” is the explanation.

Biologist and author Stephen Jay Gould explained these concepts beautifully in his 1994 essay “Evolution as Fact and Theory“

In the American vernacular, “theory” often means “imperfect fact”–part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess…If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can’t even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it?

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don’t go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s in this century, but apples didn’t suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

Moreover, “fact” doesn’t mean “absolute certainty”; there ain’t no such animal in an exciting and complex world.

While winner of Miss USA, Alyssa Campanella, Miss California, did state that:

I was taught evolution in high school. I do believe in it. I’m a huge science geek…I like to believe in the Big Bang Theory and, you know, the evolution of humans throughout time.

even her use of the word “believe” is inappropriate. Well-established scientific concepts aren’t open for belief the way personal opinion is. But, in the end, the fact that she accepts the tenants of evolution is beside the point.

The point is, there’s no excuse for any of us to be scientifically illiterate. Political, economical, medical and educational policies are made every day that are based on scientific information and that affect us all. This is a discourse we need to participate in, but we can’t participate if we don’t know what’s being said. Understanding and accepting a common language allows us to question, debate and decide, and I’ll be damned if I let you use poor and incorrect words to support your argument.

So here’s my official offer to teach a crash-course in scientific language to next year’s Miss USA contestants. My fee: one hour of getting to wear the big crown.

Well.

See all that orange? That’s the NDP sweeping over 100 seats in the House of Commons, shattering their previous record of 43 seats back in the 1980′s when Ed Broadbent was leader. See all that blue? That’s a Conservative majority. I’m staggered at the decimation of the Bloc (Duceppe, their leader, lost his seat to the NDP) — as of 12:30 on Monday night, they had 2 seats and were leading in a third (in a tight race with the NDP candidate). The Liberal vote completely collapsed, falling to a new record low, and there’s some surmising (I think correctly) that a lot of right-leaning Liberals voted Conservative at the last minute, perhaps in reaction to the sudden rise of the NDP. I’m very pleased that Elizabeth May won her seat — she’s the first Green Party MP to be elected, and hopefully this will give the Greens some more legitimacy in the eyes of the country and the press.

It’s late, and I’ll have (much) more to say about this later, but while I’m thrilled that my party did so well, and that for once my vote actually helped elect someone (in a former Liberal stronghold, no less), I’m very, very worried that our petty would-be dictator now has a majority which he can use to decimate the country. This is going to be a rough four years for Canada to weather.

Voting Day!

Canadians, if you do nothing else today, please go vote! Your employer is legally required to give you three consecutive hours off in order to go vote, and they can face stiff penalties if they don’t. Here’s the Elections Canada page with information about what kind of ID you need to have to vote. If you’re a student, here’s some information about where you can vote (if you’re living in a different place than your official residence). This election has certainly been interesting, with the NDP surpassing the Liberals in most polls (and taking the lead in Quebec). A lot of people don’t vote because they think their vote won’t do anything, but all bets are off in this election — so go vote and prove the people who say that Canadians don’t care about our government wrong.

Margaret Atwood on the Election

As always, the Great and Powerful Atwood is spot on.

I started pulling out quotes from Margaret Atwood’s latest opinion piece on the upcoming election in The Star, but I was copy and pasting the whole article, so just go and read it for yourself.

Alright, one quote:

On women: plain speaking, no double-talk. This government is deeply traumatized by women’s reproductive organs. At the G20, Harper claimed to be concerned about “maternal and child health,” noting that “500,000 women die each year in pregnancy and 9 million children die before the age of five.” But his government is defunding Planned Parenthood, an international organization that works with the poorest and most marginalized women and children to improve their survival chances. (Yes, I know, Bev Oda says she just hasn’t got around to the Planned Parenthood application for the past 18 months; but as Miss Manners says, no answer is an answer.)

Why First-Past-The-Post Voting is A Bad Metaphor (and Undemocratic)

Illustrator Claire has a stellar set of drawings about why using a horse-racing metaphor for the electoral process (in Britain or in Canada) gives the current voting system a legitimacy that it really shouldn’t have. Here’s the first panel — click here (or the picture) for the whole post.

In other political news, the NDP has about equal support as the Liberals, now, especially in Quebec and the West (!). If we had a sensible voting system, then this would mean something useful, but since it’s likely spread out over a range of ridings, it may not. This is not a fair

Follow-up to Millie’s Previous Post

For the past three elections, the University of Guelph has, in an attempt to get more students to vote, had an advance poll open on campus in the student centre, so it’s easily available and accessible. In previous elections this has happened without incident, and been very successful. The poll was held yesterday, since it’s close to the end of the semester and students are starting to leave, and turnout was very high (around 700 students, which was higher than the target set by the university’s [awesome] president, who then got his face painted blue). Near the end of the voting, though, Michael Sona, the communications direction for the Conservative candidate in Guelph (Marty Burke) interrupted the voting, claimed the poll was illegal, and attempted to grab the ballot box.

Let me repeat that: the communications director of a Conservative candidate attempted to take a box of ballots.

I should perhaps remind you that this was the university that started the Vote Mob phenomenon which is being replicated on campuses across the country. I should perhaps also mention that Guelph as a city usually votes Liberal, but in the last election the Liberal candidate beat the Conservative candidate by only a slim margin. U of G is left-leaning and politically engaged. You do the math.

The Conservative party is now calling for the none of the votes cast at this ballot to be counted, saying that it was unsanctioned (regardless of the fact that an Elections Canada official has verified that this is the third year of this special poll, and that special polls are used to reach populations with traditionally low voter turnout) and there were partisan election material at it, which is a violation of the Canada Elections Act. Obviously I was not there, but the first argument has no basis that I can see, and I have doubts about the second, because that’s not exactly an obscure part of the Elections Act, and I can’t imagine that either the University or Elections Canada would not ensure that the poll didn’t break the law. Even if there’s any merit to their argument (which I don’t think there is), instead of just filing a legal complaint, an unauthorized, partisan worker ATTEMPTED TO TAKE A BOX OF BALLOTS.

This is TOTALLY unacceptable. Lead Now has a petition up demanding that the Conservatives drop their challenge, and I strongly encourage all of you Canadians to sign it, and everyone (Canadian or not) to pass it around.

Here’s the petition, and here’s the Guelph Mercury article detailing what happened. EDITED AT ADD: Elections Canada has said that the poll was valid and the ballots will stand.

Thanks very much to RK who left the petition link in the comments! She also left this hilarious picture of Stephen Harper surrounded by upset children as an antidote to all the rage:

Millie Can’t Not Talk About Politics Anymore

I know that most of you probably aren’t Canadian, or care about Canadian politics, but it’s halfway through the campaign and while I’m amazed I’m managed to keep politics off the blog for this long, my tongue hurts from the biting. Of course, I speak only for myself and not the other Interrobangs, and, full disclosure, I (strongly) support the NDP. I have virtually nothing good to say about Harper and his government, and if anyone gives two hoots about it I’d be happy to discuss it further (this post is mainly a link dump). The debates were on Tuesday and Wednesday; if you want to watch them the CBC has the full video.

(For the non-Canadians in the audience: the NDP [New Democratic Party] is Canada’s left-wing party, which has never formed government but has been influential in minority government situations like the one we’ve just had. The Liberals are a centrist party, and power oscillates between them and the right wing Conservatives, led by Stephen Harper who’s been in power for five years with three minority governments. Harper’s government was found in contempt of Parliament for lying to Parliament about some budgetary figures, though this is frankly just the icing on the multi-tiered cake of a long line of travesties of democracy and good government. Note that before this, no government in the history of the Commonwealth had ever been found in contempt of Parliament — this is a big deal.)

So here’s some groups, sites, and tools to help you vote. Note that all of these are either non-partisan or anti-Conservative — your political stripe is your beeswax and that’s fine, but from my perspective Harper and his government need to be turfed immediately and resoundingly (though sadly the resoundingly bit is unlikely to happen).

• CBC’s Canada Votes Page
• Elections Canada
• The Globe and Mail’s Compare the Platforms page (with links to all five of the major platforms)
• The Defeatist — bilingual analysis blog
• Open Parliament — compiles information about MPs voting records and contributions to the House of Commons (not so much relevant now since there’s no sitting Parliament, but a fantastic resource nonetheless)
• Project Democracy — Strategic voting information
• Swing 33 and Catch 22 — strategic voting in a few tight races.
• Vote Pair — A site for organizing a vote swap, when your preferred party has no hope of winning your riding.
• Lead Now — a youth voter advocacy group.

And if you’re looking for reading material, here’s some election-related articles (many about why Harper needs to go) in no particular order.

• Sh!t Harper Did
• Canada watches its democracy erode.
• Transcripts of Rick Mercer’s recent rants
• What are Canadians really afraid of when it comes to crime?
• University of Guelph students’ Vote Mob (which was taken as a protest by the Conservatives)
• Elizabeth May has been barred from the televised leaders’ debates, and her court challenge was thrown out (in spite of teh fact she was invited to the debates in the last election).
• Stephen Harper does not want you to vote
• How can Conservative senators look themselves in the mirror?
• Which Canada will you vote for?
• Arcade Fire urges Canadians to not vote for Harper.
• Harper’s campaign screening is un-Canadian, says Ignatieff.
• The Harper Government meme tumblr.
• Contemplating the unthinkable Harper majority.
• Stephen Harper’s previous endorsement of coalitions when he wasn’t in power.
• Trading public safety of gun registry for political gain.
• Per vote subsidies? We don’t need no stinkin’ per vote subsidies!
• Conserving Canada or a Conservative Canada?

Closer to the election I’ll post a “this is what you need to vote” post, because there’s often lots of a confusion especially with students about what’s needed and who’s eligible to vote where. I’m more than happy to discuss politics further if you’re curious — if you want to take it off the blog, feel free to email me at the blog address.