A Conservative Idea We Can All Agree With

Stop The Elitist Wealth Transfer Program

We were told that other people would spend our money more wisely than us. We were told that they would use it to create jobs and make us all better off. We were told it would expand our economy. But it hasn’t happened that way. The Reagan-Bush tax cuts transferred over a trillion dollars from the middle class to the wealthiest 3% of Americans. 95% of Americans have seen their income stagnate since the Reagan and Bush “tax cuts” increased the tax burden on the middle class. Meanwhile the wealthiest have seen double digit increases in their earnings and the economy has floundered. A robust and prosperous middle class is the backbone of our economy. Reagan and Bush have proven that “Trickle Down” does not work, and it is time to return to tax policies that benefit all Americans, not just the wealthy elites. This chart shows the average increase in income for different groups under Republican and Democratic administrations.

Source: Larry M Bartels. Chart by Catherine Mulbrandon, VisualizingEconomics.com

Clearly Democratic policies benefit all Americans while Republican policies primarily benefit the wealthiest.

The following charts show how the growth rate of the economy has fallen since the Reagan-Bush tax cuts were introduced in the early eighties (Top Marginal Tax Rates only apply to that part of income that exceeds $20,000 per week).

Source: The Rag Blog

Notice the downward trend in GDP growth under Republicans from 1980 to 1992 as money moved out of the middle class. Clinton stabilized the economy but could not generate significant growth because of deep reductions in the purchasing power of the middle class. The Bush tax cuts created an artificial bubble, but it accelerated the transfer of wealth from the middle class which assured its subsequent collapse starting in 2004. Clearly, tax cuts to the wealthiest wage earners actually slow economic growth. The wealthy invested selfishly in high risk, artificial instruments (i.e. derivatives) that did not create jobs. They did create the financial bubble which, when it finally burst, left the middle class burdened with debt.

This transfer of wealth has also enormously increased the power of the wealthiest Americans. The wealthy are using their money to control the political debate in this country. The elites funnel millions into campaigns for politicians who will make sure that the top 1% will continue to earn 80% of the income in this country. They control the media so well that a majority of the people are unaware that Obama has reduced taxes for 95% of Americans. The alleged grass roots “Tea Party” was created by, and is controlled by, wealthy elites using sham organizations with populist sounding names to hide the true source of their funding. Tea Party participants repeat what they have been told - that taxes are excessive and out of control - and are unaware that the US has one of the lowest overall tax rates among industrialized nations.

It is time to restore balance, reinvigorate the middle class, and make sure the richest earners contribute fairly to the system that creates their wealth. Incomes at the highest levels actually increase faster under a balanced system that benefits all Americans equally.

Is “Right to Life” an Ethical Position or a Political Tool?

I have enormous respect for those who oppose abortion because they truly accept that the sanctity of life overrides all other arguments. Very few people actually live up to this standard. In my experience, most people who use the sanctity of life as a rationale to oppose abortion readily abandon it when it is politically expedient to do so.

Those who truly embrace the sanctity of life as the overarching argument oppose the death penalty in all cases. Yet most Right to Lifers are able to rationalize that their definition of justice or their ideas about deterrence take precedence over the sanctity of life. Or they turn logic upside down by claiming executions confirm the sanctity of life! We know innocent people have been executed, that it is applied unevenly to different races, and there is no clear, uncontested evidence that the ritual killing is a more effective deterrent than less drastic measures. Some people believe the Right to Life does not apply to some types of people convicted of some crimes.

When the US invaded Iraq, a sovereign country that was not an immanent threat to the US, it used military techniques that were bound to kill innocent civilians. Estimates are that between 100,000 and 300,000 innocent civilians have died as a result of this US war of choice. President Bush, who is a Right to Lifer when it is convenient, refused to count, or even acknowledge, the civilian casualties. Some people believe the sanctity of life does not apply to civilians in countries whose government might remotely be a threat to the US.

Although there have been hundreds of deaths in US mining disasters over the past 30 years, few occurred in unionized mines, because unions put the safety of miners first and will walk off the job if safety rules are not followed. Some mine owners spare no effort to keep unions out of their mines and give generously to politicians who work to weaken safety regulations and inspections, leading to hundreds of needless deaths. Many Right to Lifers support the mine owners’ efforts to avoid safety regulations. Some people believe the sanctity of life is less important than profits.

Anti-abortionists have passed dozens of laws to try to reduce abortions. All these laws are aimed at controlling or humiliating pregnant women. None of them empower women to prevent pregnancies. Laws require women to view anti-abortion literature, to undergo (and watch) invasive procedures for viewing the fetus, to have their sexual history posted on line, and to inform their parents if they are under 18. These laws, at best, produce only a short term reduction in the number of abortions. Interestingly, there is virtually no emphasis on making fathers responsible for supporting their children or posting their sexual history on line.

Study after study after study has shown that comprehensive sex education reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted diseases (some of which are deadly). Sincere Right to Lifers will support mandatory

Comprehensive sex education classes as a requirement for high school graduation,
Condom dispensing machines in all high schools and youth centers, and
Public service ads promoting responsible sexual behavior on prime time TV.

These measures would prevent far more abortions than all those coercive measures combined. Yet some argue that parents have the right to control what their children are exposed to, or what they are taught about sex, and so they object to mandatory sex education. Others argue against these programs because teenagers engage in sex earlier after such programs (about 6 months earlier on average). Some people believe that the right of parents to control their children is more important than saving lives and preventing abortions.

The vaccines against the human papillomavirus (HPV) help prevent cancers associated with HPV infection and therefore save lives. To be effective it must be given before exposure to HPV, which essentially means before the onset of sexual activity. Some argue against giving this vaccine to their children because it may give the appearance of encouraging sexual activity or promiscuity. Some people believe the sanctity of life does not apply to women whose sexual life offends them.

If you condone ritual killings because they might deter crime, or you condone the slaughter of thousands of innocent people because of a remote threat to the US, or you believe the rights of parents to control their children’s education is more important than preventing pregnancy, death, or disease, or you would deny the HPV vaccine to girls because you think it is immoral, then you have no right telling a woman she can not decide to have an abortion. You are a hypocrite who ignores the sanctity of life when it is inconvenient to your politics. And you have no decency if you humiliate women for making choices you disagree with.

The sanctity of life argument fails completely in those cases where the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. Even when medical science knows that both mother and fetus will die without an abortion, or where treating the mother will kill the fetus, some people insist that it is unethical to sacrifice the child to save the mother. Many reasonable people accept that there is a strong ethical argument for choosing the course that preserves the most lives.

There are those who insist that if people obeyed their particular religion’s sexual edicts (no sex outside marriage, only for procreation, or what ever), then there would be no STDs or abortions. While technically true, this is a deeply flawed argument because it denies human nature. Throughout human history societies have had sexual taboos, and in every society those taboos are frequently and repeatedly violated. Sex is a powerful, innate biological drive. As the Victorians and Shiites proved, suppression only leads to obsession. Even in societies that proscribe the death penalty for behavior deemed deviant, people still transcend the rules. No one has a right to deny opportunities to women because of their own religious sexual beliefs.

An abortion is a terrible ordeal and an extremely difficult choice for a woman to make. As a society we are hypocrites if we do not preserve the right of women to make that choice, but we must also do everything we can to empower women to avoid the necessity of that choice. Failure to do so is a failure to honor the sanctity of life.

How Republicans Became Politically Correct Supporters of Islamic Supremacy

The doomsayers are right: The End Is Near! How else can we explain Rush Limbaugh becoming a proponent of Political Correctness and the Republicans, en masse, allying with Islamic Supremacists?

The essence of Political Correctness (PC) is the concept that some speech is so offensive to certain self-absorbed individuals that it must be suppressed. The self-proclaimed right to not be offended supersedes the constitutional guarantee of free speech. I, along with Rush and many people on the political Right, have long ridiculed this concept. For example, when students in Gilroy, CA wore American flags and made provocative comments during Cinco de Mayo celebrations, many of us defended their actions.

But many people defend PC when it comes to religious beliefs and feelings. Even those who ridicule PC when it is invoked by Liberals have been critical of actions that raise religious ire(from Bill O'Reilly, to Gary Nodler, to British Midland Airline). In most European nations it is a crime to promote Holocaust denialism. Many countries have passed or reaffirmed anti-blasphemy laws. Where were the protests, among the Right, when people were jailed for publishing articles claiming the Holocaust was a hoax? Who complained when publishers backed out of book deals because some Muslims said they’d be offended by the book? Why wasn’t News Corp secretly underwriting the costs for protests against Ireland’s new blasphemy law?

Since 1999 Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the Islamic Council have been pushing the UN to adopt an anti-blasphemy law. Their proposed resolution would outlaw any speech or action deemed offensive to Islam. When other religions complained, it was broadened to include offense to other religions as well, but its primary objective is to make any criticism of Islam illegal. The US has opposed this resolution, as must all freedom loving people.

For perspective, here are some of the things Muslims in the West find offensive:
• Walking dogs in front of a mosque
• Public swimming pools not segregated by sex
• Eating in front of Muslims during their Ramadan fast
• Publishing books tracing the historic evolution of the Koran

On September 11, 2001 a group of political zealots carried out terrorist actions against the US to further their political goals. They were Muslims who believed their political agenda was consistent with their religious beliefs, but their action was a political action against the perceived mistreatment of Muslims and US/Israeli policies. It a great national shame that our violent, knee jerk response to these events has resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims, has played into the hands of our enemies, and has inspired more Jihadists than al-Qaeda ever could.

Now our Republican zealots are embracing Political Correctness by objecting to a planned Muslim Community Center in Manhattan because its location, 6 blocks from the former World trade towers and 2 blocks from the edge of “Ground Zero” is offensive to some people. If this building is blocked by such sentiment it will boost the efforts of the Islamic Supremacists to outlaw all speech and actions that are deemed offensive. The Wahibiists couldn’t find a better ally in their quest for dominance than the Republican party. In fact, given that Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns 10% of News Corp (FOX), and FOX has beaten the drum to make this a national story, this is clearly a conspiracy to trick Americans into supporting the Wahibiist goal of elevating “freedom from offense” to a human right that transcends all others.

Nowhere in our Constitution are American’s rights suspended because exercising them would be offensive or unpopular. Vigorous defense of rights in such situations is what makes us a strong and vibrant country and an inspiration to most of the world’s people. A true American response to this building is to embrace it while still exercising all our freedoms around it. We can walk our dogs in front of it. We can proselytize to their patrons, and wear bikinis or dress in drag while at it. We can put up signs and murals critical of Islam. We can hold religious events in the streets around it. The Westboro Baptist Church can picket it, if they like. This is America.

But we must not give in to hatred and bigotry. And we must not fuel the Islamic Supremacist’s campaign to silence criticism of their beliefs.

Mosque of Intolerance

Certain extremists, with the help of the media, have created a controversy over plans to expand a Moslem community center a couple of blocks from the former World Trade Center. Although these groups are unabashedly Islamophobic, a large part of their argument is that building an Islamic center that may be partially visible from a few locations on the upper floors of the commercial buildings that may be built on the “hallowed ground” of the 9/11 site will be offensive to some people. It is claimed that the proponents are being insensitive to the feelings of the families of the 9/11 victims and Americans in general. There is a reason this argument resonates with a large numbers of political pundits, the media, and the population as a whole (70% of Americans oppose the project).

There is an increasingly contentious debate about how far society and individuals can or should go in regulating speech and behavior that is deemed “offensive” by some group. Fatwas against authors, violent attacks on cartoonists, laws against head coverings, laws against holocaust denial, and demonstrators at military funerals have all forced upon us a public debate about to what extent, if any, do people have a right to restrict acts they find offensive. A surprising number of people, across the political spectrum, believe that speech should be restricted if it might hurt someone’s feelings. I, and others, believe that no one should be silenced because others are offended by what they say or do.

The later half of the century saw an explosion in “Conspiracy Theories”. By distorting and filtering facts and torturing logic and reason, a core of rabid believers could be created for any idea, no matter how absurd. The government is covering up the truth about UFOs, JFK’s assassination, and Elvis’ death, don’t cha know. Certain Christian and Islamic fundamentalists began promoting the idea that the Holocaust never happened, that it was a made up story by the Jews to take over the world. The Holocaust deniers published books to support their fantasies. They made speeches and gained supporters. Their denials understandably offended many people. Ultimately laws were passed throughout Europe making it a crime to publish or make public speeches promoting the denialist claims. These laws are an affront to the concept of freedom of speech, and they play into the hands of religious fundamentalists.

When Salomon Rushdie published his fictional work “Satanic Verses”, some Moslem clerics were so outraged that they issued a fatwa calling for his death. This sent Rushdie into hiding and greatly increased sales of a mediocre work. It offended some Moslems because he dared to discuss the the Koranic verses that cause so many problems for the Moslem apologists (the ones where Mohamed appears to be channeling the devil, not Gabriel). Incredibly, many people in the West criticized Rushdie for going too far and offending Moslem sensibilities, rather than staunchly defending free speech and freedom of expression. Moslems point to the European laws against holocaust denial to support their outlawing of Rushdie’s fictional work.

When Danish paper Jyllands-Posten published a cartoon showing Muhammad wearing a bomb in his turban the Islamic world was worked into a frenzy of offense by a few clerics (who lied and manipulated the crowds by including drawings they made up in the list of allegedly offensive publications). Their outrage caused the cartoons to be far more widely circulated. Many people were killed in the riots that followed. Many western news outlets, including Fox news, cowardly refused to republish the offending cartoon because they didn’t want to offend Moslem sensibilities.

In 2004 filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was stabbed to death following a fatwa against him because he produced a film ("Submission") critical of the Islamic treatment of women. Since that time the publishing of numerous books and articles about Islam have been cancelled or delayed because the publishers were threatened by groups claiming the work was offensive. Authors have been arrested and beaten. The western press, including Fox, have either not reacted to this outrageous suppression of freedom or supported it in the interest of avoiding offense.

Now we have an Islamic group preparing to build an Islamic community center two blocks from the 9/11 site. It may be partially visible from the new buildings at the 9/11 site once they are completed. Some people find this offensive, and islamophobe Pamela Geller has been exploiting feelings about 9/11 to generate opposition to the Islamic center. Yet the proponents have refused to validate that offense by changing their plans. It is understandable that all those groups and individuals who have kowtowed to Islamic sensibility over the past dozen years are now upset because the Moslems refuse to reciprocate. The refusal to yield to their offended feelings is, I am sure, what infuriates the center’s opponents the most.

Perhaps now they understand that it is very bad policy to have speech and actions limited by any group’s emotional reactions. People do not have a right to not be offended by someone else’s speech (or dress, or activities). This is be a virtually impossible goal since someone is bound to be offended by almost anything. Many atheists, for example, are offended by public display of crosses. Does that mean they should be banned in public? Of course not.

If the accomodationists want to match the radical Islamists for intolerance, they could respond to the proposed Islamic Center by making veiled threats about “2nd amendment” solutions and picketing at the site carrying pictures of Timothy McVeigh.

Here’s how I would respond: Erect a billboard (or paint a mural on the side of a building) in full view of the center, and between the center and the 9/11 site, with Kurt Westergaard's cartoon of Mohamed on it. It would be a great lesson in tolerance for everyone. Maybe some of those organizations that opted for accommodation in the past would help support it…

Martin Gardner (1914 - 2010)

Martin Gardner has died.

He was my introduction to critical thinking. When I was in high school I looked forward each month to his Mathematical Games column in Scientific American magazine. He used puzzles and games to teach complex subjects and make math fun.

He had an amazing career. Despite never taking a math course after high school he became proficient in many mathematical techniques. He single handedly made mathematical puzzles popular and taught generations of Americans to think logically. I learned many problem solving techniques from Gardner’s columns and books.

His reviews in Scientific American also introduced me to some of my favorite books and authors and to Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

Douglas Hofstadter, who I learned of from Gardner, said “He is totally unreproducible -- he was sui generis -- and what's so strange is that so few people today are really aware of what a giant he was in so many fields -- to name some of them, the propagation of truly deep and beautiful mathematical ideas (not just 'mathematical games', far from it!), the intense battling of pseudoscience and related ideas, the invention of superb magic tricks, the love for beautiful poetry, the fascination with profound philosophical ideas (Newcomb's paradox, free will, etc. etc.), the elusive border between nonsense and sense, the idea of intellectual hoaxes done in order to make serious points (for example, one time, at my instigation, he wrote a scathing review of his own book 'The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener' in 'The New York Review of Books', and the idea was to talk about the ideas seriously even though he was attacking the ideas that he himself believed in), and on and on and on and on. Martin Gardner was so profoundly influential on so many top-notch thinkers in so many disciplines -- just a remarkable human being -- and at the same time he was so unbelievably modest and unassuming. Totally. So it is a very sad day to think that such a person is gone, and that so many of us owe him so much, and that so few people -- even extremely intelligent, well-informed people -- realize who he was or have even ever heard of him.”

James Randi, who I learned of from Gardner, said, “That man was one of my giants, a very long-time friend of some 50 years or so. He was a delight, a very bright spot in my firmament, one to whom I could always turn with a question or an idea, with any strange notion I could invent, and with any complaint or comment I could come up with….He was such a good man, a productive and useful member of our society, and I can anticipate the international reaction to his passing. His books – so many of them – remain to remind us of his contributions to us all. His last one was dedicated to me, and I am just so proud of that fact, so very proud…It will take a while, but Martin would want me to get on with my life, so I will."

Richard Dawkins, who I learned of from Gardner, said, “Martin Gardner (1914-2010) was one of the great heroes of the American sceptical movement. He also helped generations to enjoy the fascination of mathematics, in his long-running 'Mathematical Games' column in Scientific American. During his last year I was privileged to visit him, in his retirement home in Norman, Oklahoma. He was old and frail, but immensely lively, and brimming with youthful intelligence and curiosity. His room was filled with puzzles and illusions, with which he delighted in teasing me.”

We have lost a bright light and he will be missed. The world is a better and wiser place because of him.

Exposing the Climate Change Lies

Maybe you’ve seen the headlines:

• Hacked emails show scientists suppressed evidence that contradicts claims of global warming.
• Scientist admits there has been no global warming since 1995.
• Scientist retracts paper on rising sea levels due to error.
• Satellite measurements show the Greenland ice pack thickening.
  

Is it true? Have the 95% of climate scientists who believe the Earth is warming due to human activity been lying to the public, or are they simply incompetent and untrustworthy?

It was Mark Twain who noted, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” Actually, it’s the global warming deniers that have been lying and deliberately deceiving the public. Science is a messy process, and it’s complicated. There are disagreements, errors, and personality conflicts. But science has self correcting methods to work through our human imperfections and arrive at the only accurate descriptions we have of the real world. Let’s look at the truth behind the headlines.

The hacked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit clearly show an attempt to prevent the publication of some papers the email author believed were wrong. Questioning each other’s work is an inherent part of the scientific system. Scientists expect, and encourage, critical, but dispassionate, analysis of their work from other scientists. Sometimes it becomes personal, however. The stolen emails reveal an ugly personality clash and unscientific animosity between researchers. The emails show that scientists are subject to human failings, but they do not show the suppression of scientific results. Not only were the two papers discussed in the emails published in scientific journals, they were also included in the IPCC’s report.

When scientists answer questions they are often very careful and use exact meanings to their words. This tendency can be exploited by global warming deniers to distort scientists’ meanings by carefully wording questions to them. That’s what happened when Phil Jones appeared to deny there has been evidence of warming since 1995. Climate data such as average annual temperature is highly variable. Statistical techniques, such as least squares fits, have to be used to show the real trends in the data (scientists even have techniques for measuring how “reliable” an apparent trend is). Global warming deniers know that, even though there has been measurable warming since 1995 (0.12 degree Celsius per decade) the “reliability” of the trend is low. That’s why they specifically ask about warming since 1995, not 1994 or any other year from which the “reliability” is much higher. The global warming deniers are being dishonest because in the same interview in which Phil Jones admitted the warming trend since 1995 does not meet the 95% confidence test, he repeatedly said he believes the evidence for human caused global warming is real and overwhelming. But all the global warming deniers reported was the one statement about uncertainty in the limited interval from 1995.

When Mark Siddall et al published a paper in Nature Geosicience estimating much lower sea level rising (7 - 82 cm) from global warming than other estimates, the global warming deniers praised it (links now missing or broken) and claimed it showed that the other scientists were being alarmists (despite the fact that its publication disproved their claim that alternative view points are never published). As is often the case in science, however, some scientists found a flaw in Siddall’s analysis. When they communicated their findings to Siddall, he acknowledged his error. When he corrected his analysis and recalculated he found that his estimates were far too low, so he retracted his paper. Note that he voluntarily retracted his paper because his new calculations showed much greater sea level rising than his original paper. Yet the paper’s withdrawal was touted by global warming deniers as proof of their denial of warming, exactly the opposite of the reason the paper was withdrawn.

Does satellite data show that the Greenland ice sheet has not shrunk in area? Yes. But the mass of the ice sheet is a function of both area and thickness. The satellite data in this report cannot measure thickness along the coast, as the report authors clearly stated in the original paper. For some reason these facts are missing from this report. Multiple other methods have clearly shown that the ice sheet is thinning at the edges and is losing mass. So once again the Global warming deniers misrepresent what a scientific report actually says and completely ignore all contrary evidence.

Global climate change is a complex subject which is being actively investigated by experts using tried and true methods to tease out the truth. Time and again we have seen that those who are not scientific experts, and who are committed to defending predefined conclusions, have misled the public by misrepresenting the science. Global warming is a great challenge. The Global warming deniers are pessimists who see only the negative consequences and have no faith in the ability of the US to rise to the challenge. Global warming is actually a huge opportunity. Those who rise to it will develop new resources, processes, and techniques. The Global warming deniers, by creating confusion and doubt, are delaying that progress and making it more likely that we’ll be buying technological solutions from other countries rather than selling them to the world.

Global Warming Denier Crock of the Week

The difference between climate skeptics and climate deniers

Nobody Says Science Knows Everything

Disclosure: what follows was only partly written be me. Most of it was kludged together from other writers I cut and pasted from the internet over the past year. Unfortunately I have lost track of the original authors.

Nobody says science knows everything, but it is the only reliable way to know anything.

Mathematicians long ago proved that science can never know everything (Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem). Yet today, some theologians, new agers, and under informed pundits attempt to discredit science by pretending that science claims that it can know everything, proving only that they don’t know much at all about science or knowledge.

Few will admit that they prefer their religious account over its rivals because it's a better story than all the others - they always argue that their story is true. Yet the silly christian apologist who spouts something facile along the lines of "I believe in the genesis account because it is such a magnificent and awe-inspiring story" is really saying "I think that magnificence and awesomeness of narrative are what determines the truth value of a hypothesis".

We still follow the age-old quest. We still seek after the truth. But over the centuries we've developed and discovered ever more effective methods to determine what is true. Those methods are now called science. We have sharpened, refined and regularized how we approach the quest, and it has paid massive dividends. Not only are we closer to knowing what the world is really all about, we know a lot more about what it means to know, and how certain we can be in any of our knowledge.

Science is the only “way of knowing” that is self-reflective, that applies its methods to itself, that measures its own performance and uses the result to improve itself. If a religious story’s revealed truth conflicts with reality it is the apologists job to explain away the conflict, not to measure it and use it to improve the utility of the story. Acupuncturists never measure pain response vs. needle depth or position and publish updated pressure point maps. Applied kinesiologists explicitly deny the muscle changes they feel subjectively can be measured objectively. And so it goes with every system of knowledge that rejects natural laws.

Yes, scientific narratives should replace supernatural narratives in the minds of mankind - though they should replace them not because they are better stories but because they are actually true. We can still retain the religious narratives, ghost stories, and magical tales as evidence of the workings of the human mind and the history of cultural diversity, but in a very real sense they have failed utterly to do the job they were created for - explaining how the universe came to be the way it is and guiding us in getting the most from it as we build our lives.

The religious, new agers, psychics, and ghost whisperers will claim that gods, spirits, and ghosts exist outside the natural world (Steven Gould's non-overlapping magisteria). I'll concede the point. Science can only deal with the natural world, and it is the only reliable tool we have for examining the natural world. The supernatural, by definition, is not part of the natural world. Science is silent on anything and everything that is separate from the natural world. You can say anything you want about supernatural agents and realms, and science will not, cannot, contradict you. The problem is that sooner or later supernaturalists make statements about the natural world: prayers and/or spells work, ghosts can communicate with the living, the mind can move material objects, Tarot cards can predict the future, etc. Anything that affects the real world is subject to scientific investigation. And science, despite many efforts, has failed to verify a single effect that is not explained by natural means.

It is not true, as many supernatural apologists claim, that science is blind (close minded) to evidence that contradicts its laws and theories. The questioning of itself is a hallmark that distinguishes science from all other endeavors. Finding contrary evidence and proving existing models wrong is an acheivement that makes careers and advances knowledge. The same people who claim science is closed minded also claim that science is unreliable because it is always changing. It can't be both, and the fact that it is constantly improving by adapting to new evidence is one source of its great success in explaining the natural world.

Nobody says science knows everything, but it is the only reliable way to know anything.