George Will Doesn't Do Logic

There are just two things I want to draw your attention to. I'm going to hold off on commenting about the new Pope until I see what he does. But expect a guest blog on the subject in the next couple of days from my new partner, Zola.

First, George Will continues to embarrass himself with his sloppy reasoning. In his op-ed, he argues that Europe is "destroying" itself by its lack of his faith. The crisis is not a spiritual but a demographic one. Europe is the most secular region on earth, and as such it has the lowest birthrate. The declining population is putting severe strain on the welfare state and necessitating the importation of millions of muslims.

Now assuming that low population growth and immigration is a bad thing, AND that present trends will necessarily continue, Will might have a point. But did you catch the logical error he made? Will just assumes that secularism causes lower population growth. But correlation is not causation. The secularism-population relationship is probably an example of what we call a spurious correlation. It's like saying that since short skirts are common when the stock market is doing well, short skirts cause the stock market to rise.

There is in fact a third factor which causes both phenomena: education. Europe is the best educated region on earth, and education tends to lead to less religious enthusiasm and less reproduction. So unless the pseudo-intellectual Will wants Europe to get dummer, there isn't much to be done.

On another subject entirely, take a look at this article on the willingness of employers to regulate blogs by their employees. Pretty scary stuff. You know, when the Republicans used to talk all the time about "freedom" they never mentioned that Corporate America does a hell of a lot more to restrict our personal liberties than the U.S. government ever has. Maybe it's time for Democrats to start talking about workplace democracy and workplace rights. I suspect people are tired of being treated like objects by their employers.