The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

971. REAGANISMS

“You know why it’s called horse sense—they don’t bet on people.”

“Ask an atheist who’s just had a great meal if he believes there’s a cook.”

“A protest march is like a tantrum only better organized.”

“Beware of those who fall at your feet. They may be reaching for the corner of the rug.”

“Some people want to check govt. spending and some people want to spend govt. checks.”

Excerpt From: Reagan, Ronald. “The Notes.”

972. “PROGRESS” “In the lexicon of American advertising, “new” is practically a synonym for “improved.”

Celebration of the new over the old easily translates into celebration of the young over the old, of young people over old people. The cult of youth, the celebration of youth for youth’s sake, is more pervasive in the United States than in any other country I have visited. In American cities, I often see billboards promoting plastic surgeons who promise to make you look younger. I have rarely seen such billboards in the United Kingdom or Germany or Switzerland.

When the culture values youth over maturity, the authority of parents is undermined. Young people easily overestimate the importance of youth culture and underestimate the culture of earlier generations. “Why should we have to read Shakespeare?” is a common refrain I hear from American students. “He is so totally irrelevant to, like, everything.

[Modern] “Progress” means, in the final analysis, taking away from man what ennobles him in order to sell him cheaply what debases him.”

Excerpt From: Sax, Leonard. “The Collapse of Parenting.”

973. THAT’S RANDOM “Why do we attribute so much importance to “sports momentum” when it’s mostly fiction? Psychology offers an explanation. People tend to ascribe patterns to events. We don’t like mystery. We want to be able to explain what we’re seeing. Randomness and luck resist explanation. We’re uneasy concluding that “stuff happens” even when it might be the best explanation.

What’s more, many of us don’t have a firm grasp of the laws of chance. A classic example: On the first day of class, a math professor asks his students to go home, flip a coin 200 times, and record the sequence of heads and tails. He then warns, “Don’t fake the data, because I’ll know.” Invariably some students choose to fake flipping the coin and make up the results. The professor then amazes the class by identifying the fakers. How? Because those faking the data will record lots of alternations between heads and tails and include no long streaks of one or the other in the erroneous belief that this looks “more random.” Their sequence will resemble this: HTHTHHTHTTHTHT.

But in a truly random sequence of 200 coin tosses, a run of six or seven straight heads or tails is extremely likely: HTTTTTHHTTTHHHHHH.

Counterintuitive? Most of us think the probability of getting six heads or tails in a row is really remote. That’s true if we flip the coin only 6 times, but it’s not true if we flip it 200 times. The chances of flipping 10 heads in a row when you flip the coin only 10 times are very low, about 1 in 1,024. Flip the coin 710 times and the chances of seeing at least one run of 10 straight heads is 50 percent, or one in two.” Excerpt From: Tobias Moskowitz & L. Jon Wertheim. “Scorecasting.”

974. DO MORE “Go the extra mile. It is not crowded.” — Unknown

975. THAT’S EASY! “In the Moscow circus a beautiful woman lion tamer would have a fierce lion come to her meekly, put his paws around her and nuzzle her with affection. The crowd thundered its approval. All except an Armenian who declared, “What’s so great about that? Anybody can do that.” The ringmaster challenged him, “Would you like to try it?” The Armenian’s reply came back: “Yes, but first get that lion out of there.”

Excerpt From: Hodgin, Michael. “1001 Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking.”

976. “Great things never came from comfort zones.” — Unknown
977. FORGIVENESS NOW POSSIBLE In anguish over the ravages of civil war, President Abraham Lincoln declared a National Fast Day on March 30, 1863:

“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”

Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”

978. GOD AND NAZIS “How can I believe in God after the Holocaust?”

“God permitted the Nazis to murder six million Jews because it is a fundamental tenet of Judaism that God gives people moral freedom. Human beings are as free to build gas chambers as they are to build hospitals.

God constructed a world in which people choose to do good or evil. To construct one in which people could do only good, God would have to destroy the world in which we now live and create something entirely different.

We live in a world in which people can do unbelievably beautiful or unbelievably horrible things to other people. And if those horrible acts argue against the existence of God, then the beautiful acts must argue for God’s existence.

If one is to abandon faith in anything after the Holocaust, it would be far more rational to abandon faith in the inherent goodness of mankind. To abandon faith in God while retaining faith in humanity may be emotionally satisfying, but it is not logically compelling. God never built a gas chamber, and He has told us not to. Humans who loathed this God built the gas chambers—to destroy the people who revealed this God to mankind.”

Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”

979. LENDER OR BORROWER? “Borrowers were expected to pay interest (a concept which was probably derived from the natural increase of a herd of livestock), at rates that were often as high as 20 per cent. Mathematical exercises from the reign of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC) suggest that something like compound interest could be charged on long-term loans. But the foundation on which all of this rested was the underlying credibility of a borrower’s promise to repay. (It is no coincidence that in English the root of ‘credit’ is credo, the Latin for ‘I believe’.)”                                                                                                                                                                                        Excerpt From: Ferguson, Niall. “The Ascent of Money.”
980. A BETTER MOUSETRAP  “An irreducibly complex system is a system containing several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to its basic function, and where the loss of any single part causes the system to cease functioning. A simple illustration of an irreducibly complex system — a common mousetrap.

The mousetrap that one buys at the hardware store generally has a wooden platform to which all the other parts are attached. It also has a spring with extended ends, one of which presses against the platform, the other against a metal part called the hammer, which actually does the job of squashing the mouse. When one presses the hammer down, it has to be stabilized in that position until the mouse comes along, and that is the job of the holding bar. The end of the holding bar itself has to be stabilized, so it is placed into a metal piece called the catch.

If one piece of the trap is missing, then it won’t perform at all.

Here’s the problem: according to Darwin, each piece of the mousetrap must be useful in and of itself in performing its function. If the purpose of a mousetrap is to catch mice, then what good is a block of wood (platform) or an isolated spring?

This same line of thinking concerning the mousetrap can be applied to the eye. What good is a retina by itself? Or, ocular muscles without a lens? As an irreducibly complex system, the eye must come as a package deal or it wouldn’t be useful. Yet, according to Darwin the eye could not come as a package. If it did, it would violate the very criteria he established for his theory (that living structures had to be capable of evolving in small incremental steps; Darwin said that if a big jump in evolution occurred such that a complex structure “came as a package,” that would be evidence of a miraculous act of the Deity).”

Excerpt From: Moreland, J.P. “Love Your God with All Your Mind (15th anniversary repack).”

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

961. CONSISTENCY “A resident in a seaside hotel breakfast room called over the head waiter one morning and said, “I want two boiled eggs, one of them so undercooked it’s runny, and the other so overcooked, it’s about as easy to eat as rubber; also grilled bacon that has been left on the plate to get cold; burnt toast that crumbles away as soon as you touch it with a knife; butter straight from the deep freeze so that it’s impossible to spread; and a pot of very weak coffee, lukewarm.”

“That’s a complicated order, sir,” said the bewildered waiter. “It might be a bit difficult.”

The guest replied, “Oh, but that’s what you gave me yesterday!”

Excerpt From: Hodgin, Michael. “1001 Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking.”

962. PARENT AUTHORITY “The most popular TV shows of the 1960s through the 1980s consistently depicted the parent as the reliable and trusted guide of the child. That was true of The Andy Griffith Show in the 1960s; it was true of Family Ties in the 1980s. But it’s not true today. Looking through the list of the 150 most popular TV shows on American television right now, I did not find one that depicts a parent as consistently reliable and trustworthy.

It’s tough to be a parent in a culture that constantly undermines parental authority. Two generations ago, American parents and teachers had much greater authority. In that era, American parents and teachers taught right and wrong in no uncertain terms. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love your neighbor as yourself. Those were commands, not suggestions.

Today, most American parents and teachers no longer act with such authority. They do not command. Instead, they ask, “How would you feel if someone did that to you?” The command has been replaced by a question.”

Excerpt From: Sax, Leonard. “The Collapse of Parenting.”

963. POPULISM From a May 26, 1792, let­ter from U.S. Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Alexan­der Hamil­ton to Vir­ginia of­fi­cial Ed­ward Car­ring­ton:

“On the whole, the only en­emy which Re­pub­li­can­ism has to fear in this Coun­try is in the Spirit of fac­tion and an­ar­chy. If this will not per­mit the ends of Gov­ernment to be at­tained un­der it—if it en­gen­ders dis­or­ders in the com­mu­nity, all reg­u­lar & or­derly minds will wish for change—and the dem­a­gogues who have produced the dis­or­der will make it for their own ag­gran­dize­ment. This is the old Story.

If I were dis­posed to pro­mote Monar­chy and over­throw the State Gov­ern­ments, I would mount the hobby horse of pop­u­lar­ity—I would cry out usurpa­tion—danger to lib­erty etc. etc.—I would en­deavor to pros­trate the National Gov­ern­ment—raise a ferment—and then “ride in the Whirl­wind and di­rect the Storm.”

— Wall Street Journal 3-9-16

964. PEERS “The more uncertain people are—and the higher the stakes involved—the more vulnerable they are to the sort of cue taking that leads to herd behavior. That’s why teenagers are presumably more likely to succumb to peer pressure than adults. They have less experience to draw upon when evaluating the pros and cons of conforming, and the stakes are higher.”

Excerpt From: Belsky, Gary. “Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to Correct Them.”

965. TYRANTS “It is in con­nec­tion with the de­lib­er­ate ef­fort of the skill­ful dem­a­gogue to weld to­gether a closely co­her­ent and ho­mo­geneous body of sup­port­ers that the third and per­haps most impor­tant neg­a­tive ele­ment of selec­tion en­ters. It seems to be al­most a law of hu­man na­ture that it is eas­ier for peo­ple to agree on a neg­a­tive pro­gram—on the ha­tred of an en­emy, on the envy of those bet­ter off—than on any pos­i­tive task. The con­trast be­tween the “we” and the “they,” the com­mon fight against those out­side the group, seems to be an es­sen­tial ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit to­gether a group for com­mon ac­tion. It is con­sequently al­ways em­ployed by those who seek, not merely support of a pol­icy, but the un­reserved al­le­giance of huge masses. From their point of view it has the great ad­van­tage of leav­ing them greater free­dom of ac­tion than al­most any pos­i­tive pro­gram. The en­emy, whether he be in­ter­nal, like the “Jew” or the “ku­lak,” or ex­ter­nal, seems to be an in­dis­pens­able req­ui­site in the army of a to­tal­i­tar­ian leader.”

— Friedrich Hayek, “The Road to Serf­dom” (1944)

966. MARCH MADNESS “Sports gamblers are fooled by momentum. Colin Camerer, a Caltech professor of behavioral economics, found that winning and losing streaks affected point spreads. Bets placed on teams with winning streaks were more likely to lose, and bets placed on teams with losing streaks were more likely to pay off. In other words, gamblers systematically overvalued teams with winning streaks and undervalued those with losing streaks.

Excerpt From: Tobias Moskowitz & L. Jon Wertheim. “Scorecasting.”

967. BIBLE VOTER’S GUIDE For whom should you vote? Read Psalm 15.

— Dave Berry

968. WONDERFULLY MADE “Human eyes are composed of more than two million working parts and can, under the right conditions, discern the light of a candle at a distance of fourteen miles. The human ear can discriminate among some 400,000 different sounds within a span of about ten octaves and can make the subtle distinction between music played by a violin or viola. The human heart pumps roughly one million barrels of blood during a normal lifetime, which would fill more than three supertankers.”

Excerpt From: Moreland, J.P. “Love Your God with All Your Mind (15th anniversary repack).”

969. I’M OUT ON BOOKS!

– 42% of college grads never read another book after college.

– 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.

– Reading one hour per day in your chosen field will make you an international expert in 7 years. (robertbrewer.org)

970. ALL THERE IS? “Those who believe that this life is the only reality are likely to be led to one or more of three negative conclusions about life:

1: Hedonism, If this life is all one has, then it is quite logical to live a life devoted to self-gratification.

2: Utopianism. Idealistic people who believe that this life is all there is reject hedonism. But they may embrace a far more dangerous ideology—utopianism, the desire to make heaven on earth. Hence the attraction of utopianism to so many twentieth-century radicals who have rejected Judaism and Christianity.

In light of the hells on earth that secular Utopians have produced, it is clear just how important the deferring of Utopia to a future world is. Had people like the Bolsheviks and millions of other secular radicals not tried to create heaven on earth, they would not have created hell here.

3: Despair. In light of the great physical and emotional pain that so many people experience, what is more, likely to induce despondency than believing that this life is all there is? The malaise felt by so many people living in modern Western society is not traceable to material deprivation but, at least in part, to the despair induced by secularism and its belief that this world is all there is. That is why peasants with religious faith are probably happier than affluent people who have no faith (and why more affluent secularists, not the poor, are generally the ones who start radical revolutions).”

Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”