politics

Manichean? Again?

80 Comments

Are we all going to have to be subjected to the word “Manichean” again?

In his debate roundup, Lambert notes that:

And Andrew Bolt responds to the debate by defaming me, calling me “vituperative, deceptive, a cherrypicker, an ideologue, a misrepresenter and a Manichean conspiracist only too keen to smear a sceptic as a crook who lies for Exxon’s dollars”.

When my eyes encountered the word “Manichean”, I thought “Oh heavens! Are names of Catholic heresies the new ammunition of climate blog wars?!” (As some of you know, Michael Tobis flung the word Manichean around recently. )

If we are lucky, Bolt’s use doesn’t portend bloggers linking the Albigensian, Pelagian, or Zoroastrian heresies to the climate debate. If they start to do that, everyone is going to have to need a quick reference guide to all the Roman Catholic heresies so they can be te first to link something like the Gnostic heresy to climate change.

80 thoughts on “Manichean? Again?”

  1. If you look at a short span of (cherry picked) temperature it can give the appearance of going up quickly, but this is an illusion, hiding it’s true nature.
    Docetism?

  3. It does not seem to mean anything, who were the “Manichean Conspirators” (not sure what conspiracist means presumably someone who engages in conspiracism and conspiracizes a lot). Is it just meant to sound nasty?

    I could only find one reference to : “Manichean Conspirators”

    “As examples of this conspiracy he has cited the spread of the “false” notion that Alexander the Great actually conquered Persia (1343 Å ./1964; cf. ḠaffārÄ«; ḤāmÄ«), the conquest of Persia by the Arabs in the 7th century, the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, and all rebellious movements in medieval Islamic Persia. The primary mechanism on which the Manichean conspirators relied was repeated distortion of every calendar system, in order to confuse and divert the course of history (1331 Å ./1952, pp. 10-13; 1343 Å ./1964, pp. xxviii-xxix).”

    Hmm, not sure where that fits in.

    Alex

  4. From time to time, I’ve mulled over previous efforts to establish truth by consensus at a council and the Council of Nicaea springs to mind. Wikipedia:

    The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia (present-day Ä°znik in Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in A.D. 325. The Council was historically significant as the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom

    The heresy in question seems to have been none of the above, but Arianism (from Arius) .

  5. Manichean is a word that poorly educated people use when they try to impress other people. Those of us who actually had to study the various heresy’s can spot this a mile away. As a Pelagian I must say that these people are responsible for their own actions and they can’t blame it on any original stain. On odd days of the week my soteriology swings anti nomian.

  6. Steve–
    I believe arms were broken and eyes blacked at the council of Nicea. Also, Constantine “the enforcer” sent troops to regions that continued to embrace the Arian heresy.

  7. So is an atheist more or less reviled by the consensus than a heretic? I want to know just in case the consensus folks figure it is time to start executing people who don’t agree with them.

  8. steve–

    As a Pelagian I must say that these people are responsible for their own actions and they can’t blame it on any original stain.

    As an anti-pelagian Augustinian, my sister would suggest that, absent the grace of god, these people just can’t help themselves. Those who manage to avoid using the word should not pride themselves on their superiority because we all know the feat of not flinging around words like “manichean” is only possible to those who god has blessed with the ability to avoid this sort of silliness.

    I, like you is a pelagian, and pat myself on the back each time I can manage to write or utter a sentence that does not contain unnecessarily obscure words like “Manichean”, or “Sabellianism”. (Opps! I fell. No sin of pride for me today.)

  9. A promising theory, Lucia! Gnostics of course considered their holy knowledge to be available only to the initiated, and in this sense would’ve fit right in at the CRU. And IIRC, the ruthlessly suppressed Gospel of Philip contained a version of the Sermon on the Mount which included the words “blessed are the stickmakers, for they will be called sons of God”. Or something like that…

  10. I don’t think you can call Zoroastrianism a heresy; it was a separate religion that predated Christianity by several centuries. Of course it was Manichean in it’s outlook, so it does deserve a mention here.

    As for Constantine the Enforcer after Nicaea, he really didn’t do too much to the Arians. Connie was all about keeping things peaceful. It wasn’t until about 381 that Theodosius started to seriously enforce the ban on Arianism. I always thought it funny that one of the most incomprehensible of the early Christian schools of thought, the position espoused by Nicaea, is the one that won in the end. Arianism was appealing because it made sense to the common people.

    I loves me the history of the ancient church.

  13. “I don’t think you can call Zoroastrianism a heresy; it was a separate religion that predated Christianity by several centuries.” Indeed, and Zoroastrianism is believed by some scholars to have made quite a substantial contribution to Judaism, via the Babylonian captivity. And there is no need to worry about the Albigensians – they were all slaughtered by a Roman Catholic crusade, poor souls.

  16. Umberto Eco’s novel Baudolino has a particularly amusing part near the end when the protagonist travels to a land where different groups believe in the different heresies. I should reread it some time…

  17. How about the statistical mechanics version of Pelagianism: It’s possible for a human to be without sin, but, like entropy reversing, the probability is vanishingly small.

  20. Isnt there a version of Godwins law for anybody who mentions Eco.

    And since I was raised in Dutch reformed Grand Rapids, as a kid I dwas raised on all sorts of wonderful debates I even read Calvn’s institutes, whew) My favorite

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Calvinist-Arminian_Debate

    Now, when you go to some of the original texts of these discussions the language used is quite interesting ( like calling your opponents dogs and pigs.. hmm I should go find some to make sure I remember that correctly )

  21. For those who keep track of these things, Homoousians are orthodox. But what kind of Arians? Homoiousians, Homoians or Anomoians? Can we be a bit more specific?

  24. It is a matter of Grace, which is freely given, does not depend on our merits, inclines without necessitating, and is always efficacious. We must live in hope, and honor its marks where we see them.

  25. Jeepers after reading these comments, I cannot decide whether I do not have to go to Church tomorrow or I need to go to confession for having had heretical thoughts.
    Personally I am with Steve Mosher on this one. Funny how the Church took umbrage at good old Pelagian: They had to outlaw him because it would have been a bit hard to run an organization without control of the coin of the realm, i.e., Grace. Pelegian kind of removed the need for a middleman. I learned my theology from the de la Salle Brothers through the palms of my hands.

  28. Philemon: It’s funny, isn’t it, how heresies split and kept splitting. I think it’s due to the difficulty the early church scholars had in coming up with a cogent argument about the nature of the Trinity; the whole concept was spun virtually out of thin air but became a matter of life or death very quickly.

    But orthodoxy won, thanks to the strong support of the state. To bring the analogy home, the warmists will never have the same kind of support the Nicaeans had; the situation is different; Obama can’t send in troops to enforce orthodoxy. So the heresies won’t be stamped out.

  30. Baa Humbug (Comment#33364)
    February 13th, 2010 at 6:52 pm

    ooops I’m sorry, I stumbled into a church. I was looking for Lucia’s Blackboard.

    Nah, just a bunch of heretics. 😉

  31. This is all very illuminating- I always thought “Manichean” meant someone who came from Manchester.

  33. “It is a matter of Grace, which is freely given, does not depend on our merits, inclines without necessitating, and is always efficacious. We must live in hope, and honor its marks where we see them.”

    michel,

    Awesome 🙂

    Andrew

  35. Is it because Steven Mosher is untainted by original sin that he does not seem to seek salvation in blind faith in CAGW and the IPCC?

    Has anybody calculated whether the large carbon release by burning at the stake is offset by elimination of future carbon footprint contributions by the deceased heretic? Somebody at RealClimate probably knows.

  36. I have enough trouble keeping track of all the modern heretics and charlatans running loose in climate science today, let alone all the ones from the past.

  37. We don’t need to know our heresies, when we’re already being offered indulgences so we can buy our way to Heaven.

  38. I’d like to subject you to yet another use of manichean. 🙂

    Following links from the Niche Modeling blog, this morning I came across a relatively new paper by Demetris Koutsoyiannis, “A random walk on water”
    http://www.itia.ntua.gr/getfile/923/3/documents/hessd-6-6611-2009-print.pdf In this paper he has a toy model of a hydrological system to illustrate his points.

    This dichotomous logic is typically combined with a manichean perception, in which the deterministic
    part supposedly represents cause-effect relationships and reason and thus is physics and science (the “good”), whereas randomness has little relationship with science and no relationship with understanding (the “evil”). The random part is also characterized as “noise”, in contrast to the deterministic “signal”. “Noise” is a contaminant that causes uncertainty, a kind of illness that should be remedied or eliminated.

  39. in addition to learning how to absorb sentences each with three ideas, a benefit of reading Edward Gibbon is realizing that people who saw things as I thought I did were identified as heretics at Nicea. It was nice to find company.

    We need to be especially careful at the reconstitution of state religions lest we be officially left outside – “in the pay of big oil.”

    Not Mazola, likely.

  40. Sorry to be off-topic here…
    I just heard someone quoting Phil Jones, who supposedly said that the temperatures during the medieval warm period may well have been warmer that they are today. Is this really news and does anyone know what Jones really said and where?
    Thanks.

  41. Re: denny (Feb 14 09:59),
    In a recent interview by the BBC ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm ), Phil Jones said many things that fall in line with the sorts of opinions we have been reading here, at climate audit etc. He even worded them in ways that don’t sound like they came out of PR office trying to maintain focus on the talking points of the more catastropist of warmers.

    For example, the answer to

    A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

    Boils down to:

    So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.

    No reframing to explain that the question is bad and that what you really meant to ask was…”blah, blah, blah”, so the answer to “blah, blah, ” is “talking point I want you to hear.”.

    More gremain to your question, the BBC interview includes this:

    G – There is a debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was global or not. If it were to be conclusively shown that it was a global phenomenon, would you accept that this would undermine the premise that mean surface atmospheric temperatures during the latter part of the 20th Century were unprecedented?

    There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.

    Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm that today, then current warmth would be unprecedented.

    We know from the instrumental temperature record that the two hemispheres do not always follow one another. We cannot, therefore, make the assumption that temperatures in the global average will be similar to those in the northern hemisphere.

    So, Jones didn’t say that “the medieval warm period may well have been warmer that they are today”. However, he also doesn’t say we know it was warmer than today. (This is an important point given some rhetoric on blogs, and forums.) Jones doesn’t seem to be suggesting that he has any doubts about Mann’s work or even any paleo work. He appear to only be saying that we can’t know what the SH was doing at the time.

  43. denny (Comment#33421) February 14th, 2010 at 9:59 am

    “Sorry to be off-topic here…
    I just heard someone quoting Phil Jones”

    Yes, Phil Jones confessed to the BBC. The british papers are all over it.

    It seems while there is talk of various heresies one of the high priests has embraced ‘reformation’.

  45. Lucia,

    It is important to note that Jones appear to be advocating the position that SteveMc has taken for years – something that is truly ironic given the history.

  47. Lucia,

    I’d be interested to see what type of correction for autocorrelation Jones used in the “no (significant) warming since 1995” line. :-p

    Interestingly, if the 1995-2009 trend is 0.12 +/- > 0.12, it would also mean that its not inconsistent with the IPCC projections via his math!

  48. Zeke,

    Look at the modern SH trends:
    http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/jonescru/graphics/glnhsh.png

    The SH has not warmed as much as the NH and seems to cool off much more quickly when the PDO shifts.

    More importantly, if you sampled the data one every 20-50 years which is all resolution you can get with many types of proxies you would likely find no evidence of warming in the SH which would lead one to conclude that this warming episode is strictly a NH phenomena.

  49. Raven,

    Oceans, thermal inertia, etc.

    The interesting MWP question is what forced it? Were warm European temps due to internal heat transfers (ala PDO on steroids) or some external forcing? Unfortunately, we don’t have good records of solar forcings at the time, though given our current best-guess at the magnitude of the climate response to solar variations it would have to have been a pretty significant change in solar output (by our standards, at least). We can mostly rule out orbital variations, since those are predictable. What other exogenous forcings do we have to work with? And if it was endogenous, why would we expect the entire earth’s surface to experience the same effects?

  50. Zeke,
    The thermal inertia argument applies no matter what the cause of the warming. I also think that argument is a reasonable explanation for the slow SH response but that argument also means we should expect the MWP SH to exhibit similar behaviour (i.e. if the MWP was equivalent to today then the MWP SH response should not be as clearly expressed in the proxies).

    As for plausible causes: I think clouds are central to whatever happened. Everything from volcanoes to cosmic rays to vegetation seems to have some effect on clouds so it is not unreasonable to suggest that these different factors combine to produce a long term change in average cloud cover.

  51. Catholic heresy?

    Manicheanism

    EtymologyFrom the Persian prophet Manes

    [edit] Proper nounWikipedia has an article on:
    Manicheanism
    Manicheanism

    (philosophy) A dualistic religious philosophy having elements of Zoroastrian, Christian, and Gnostic thought.
    (philosophy) A dualistic philosophy that divided the world into essentially good and essentially evil.

  52. I’d avoid any triumphalism folks. If Jones has found common ground with some of the positions espoused by people, then a nice thank you is in order. End of story.

    CS Lewis wrote another interesting book. mere christianity.
    Perhaps a good analog..

  53. Manichean? Not at all.

    The conspiracy has been traced back to Dr. Fu Manchu.

    “Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, … one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present … Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man. –The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu”

    Chu on that Lambert.

  54. Pelagius said, “Those who are unwilling to correct their own way of life appear to want to correct nature itself instead.”

  55. Steve McIntyre writes in Comment#33328:

    From time to time, I’ve mulled over previous efforts to establish truth by consensus

    And yet SmC has frequently stated that if he were in a position of authority on AGW, he would be guided by the opinions of bodies like the IPCC. ‘Truth” cannot be established by consensus but then science is not about “truth”. It is about creating useful theories. In the case of AGW this is about theories that can be used to guide policy.

    Mann’s theories are not useful because they do not agree with established mathematical theories. How are mathematical theories established. They are established by formal proofs but they are accepted by a consensus among mathematical authorities. The problem with AGW is not that “truth” is being established by consensus but that many other collateral issues have been bound up with it. Some proponents use AGW as a means to establish humanity’s proper place in the Earth ecosystem. Some opponents see AGW as a stalking horse for the big government that they oppose.

    Copenhagen did not fail because of the Emails. It failed because the sides made themselves irreconcilable. Form what I have seen of the reaction, the Emails have had a salutary effect on the debate. Each side has seen itself warts and all. Each side now seems to be ready to accept the fact that they do not possess the “truth” and that humanity faces a decision that may have critical ramifications. I hope that we are able to take advantage of this moment and have no more cries of “fraud” or “denial”.

  56. “have no more cries of “fraud” or “denial”

    I’m afraid this is wishful thinking, TAG. As long one side desires to be irreconcilable, there will be no reconciliation. Global Warming/Climate Change was created for just that purpose… to divide and keep dividing, identify opponents and make targets out of them. Do you think AGW’s proponents are just going to decide this afternoon not to do this anymore?

    Andrew

  57. Of course considering that the NH has 90% land it may just be possible that Anthropogenic warming is NOT global and may be confined to NH. This may be the case for the medieval warming period as well (That is land effect). In fact even current RSS and UHA shows no warming for the SH. Also as I understand NH and SH air masses dont mix that much. Maybe Roger Pielke is correct when he says there may be a anthpogenic land effect, of course it may just be a natural land effect. To be noted is the fact that the temp latitudes are moved roughly 10 degrees south in the NH as compared to SH (north)

  58. steven mosher (Comment#33426) “Surely the northern hemisphere can be used as a proxy for the southern hemisphere”

    If you look at the wind and ocean circulation patterns you will see that there isn’t really all that much coupling across the equatorial zone.

    The average monthly temp of NH varies about 12.5°C over a year; while the Southern hemisphere’s temperature varies by about 5°C. (Ref: http://www.palisad.com/co2/eb/eb.html )

    The different land/sea ratios appear to result in different climate sensitivities. For example “Is There a Global Warming Signal in Hemispheric Temperature Series?” by Stern DI and Kaufmann RK in 1999 found a rise for doubling of CO2 of 1.2422 K for the southern hemisphere and 2.0476 for the northern hemisphere (1.6449 K global — spurious resolutions to 0.0001 from the original article …).
    http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:F0MwQeMTMdQJ:web.bu.edu/cees/research/workingp/pdfs/9903.pdf+Detecting+a+Global+Warming+Signal+in+Hemispheric+Temperatur+filetype:pdf&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AHIEtbTv_DWrvK3TFwqdf4IdxFh1ZKYA2Q

  60. “Over the last 20-year period, CRU’s budget has been an average of £800,000 per annum which comes from various sources, mainly research grants but also from the European Union and from the US Department of Energy, which has helped fund Prof Jones’ work.”

    http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/02/global-warming-fraudsters-bilked-eu-us-for-800000-annually-for-last-20-years/

    Someone floated this idea as a possibility:

    “The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (commonly referred to as RICO Act or RICO) is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. RICO was enacted by section 901(a) of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (Pub.L. 91-452, 84 Stat. 922, enacted October 15, 1970). RICO is codified as Chapter 96 of Title 18 of the United States Code, 18 U.S.C. § 1961–1968. While its intended use was to prosecute the Mafia as well as others who were actively engaged in organized crime, its application has been more widespread.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act

    Just throwin’ ideas out there. 😉

    Andrew

  61. Wow!

    I haven’t heard this many references to apocryphal christian credos as current personal conviction since the last lecture I listened to of Houston Smith! I had NO idea that there were so many in our cherished little climate community who were cognoscenti of dissident christian dogma. Who knew?!

    There is of course a perfectly legitimate and more applicable [though non-philosophical] use of the word “Manichaean” – at least in my dictionary – which is: “of or characterized by dualistic contrast or conflict between opposites,” and which makes at least some sense in this situation. There is also a vague negative connotation that has become attached to the word that can be cashed in on by anyone who uses it [much like ‘deniers’ is used today] , which may or may not be the case here. I seriously doubt that Mr. Bolt was commenting on the metaphysical underpinnings of the current climate change debate as a historico/temporal resonance of ancient Iranian gnostic religions in reference to Mr. Lambert. I think he was just being mean.

    The point, or one of many possible points, that I think we have missed in our exuberance to express our penchant for edifying our friends is how very much like something contagious words and language can behave. These buzzwords and bits of jargon spread through communities, cultures and societies very much like a virus, but the part that is ‘catching’ about them is rarely the meaning or stricter agreed upon definition. Usually it turns out to be a more outlying connotation that matches some strange semantic receptor in our personal system of fears and prejudices that is the hook that catches us. Rare after all is the philologian who when he come across a new word, “bildungsroman” for instance, is so lit with enthusiasm for the word-in-itself that he feels compelled to rush out and inform all of his friends about his discovery. Fortunately YOU don’t have to humor ME.

    Another point might be how easy it is to “hear” with our prejudices and either make the mistake of confusing the more general meaning for the more specific or the more specific meaning for the more general case [though not necessarily the more ORIGINAL case], as seems to be happening here. A REALLY interesting question might be what prejudices are really getting tapped into here?

    Or maybe we’ve all got it wrong and Lucia was just being ironic.

  62. “The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

    Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.”

    Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html

    So that what’s AGW turns out to be. A clown with a messy desk.

    Andrew

  63. As a skeptic and now denier, I will put to you a new proposition that the warmistas may be partially correct. That is that the northern hemisphere holds 90% of people and land and that possibly there may be anthropogenic warming in the NH. Refer to Roger pielke Sr re land use. Its possible but I doubt it. Would like to hear comments on this. I am sure that if Lucia did an analysis of NH temps ONLY they would fit the IPCC proyections. (In sure bugs would love it LOL)

  66. Stephan (Comment#33467)-With regard to NH temps, they certainly show more warming. This is partly to be expected due to the greater land area and the tendency of land to warm faster than the oceans.

    However, it is possible that some of this differential is also related to land use and or the effects of, say, black carbon aerosols, especially the albedo effect on snow and ice.

    It is worth noting that greenhouse warming should, some think, manifest in the cold, dry air masses in winter over land areas-especially Siberia and Northwestern North America’s great Anticyclones, along with Antarctica. The warming in the Arctic ocean would tend to be boosted by the ice albedo feedback regardless of the cause, but in those areas the dry winter air has a very weak natural greenhouse effect.

    Well, see for yourself what the GISS data does:

    http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b370/gatemaster99/GISSNHCOLD.png

    http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b370/gatemaster99/GISSNHWARM.png

    If you want some references for actual papers:

    Balling, R.C., Jr., et al., 1998, Analysis of winter and summer warming rates in gridded temperature time series. Climate Research, 10, 138.

    Michaels, P.J., et al., 2000. Observed Warming in Cold Anticyclones. Climate Research, 14, 1–6.

  67. Given the flames that Andrew Bolt gets being burned at stake would probably be a relief.

    …give me warming, just not yet. Are carbon credits indulgences? Maybe Steve MK can pin theses on Pachauri’s front door.

  68. My esteemed colleague Bolt, an agnostic who runs a busy newspaper website read by many of various non-trendy shades of belief or unbelief, was presumably taking exception in his comment on Manicheanism to the practice of so many AGW advocates here in Australia – extricating themselves from any awkward questions by demonising the questioner for being an agent of, or being influenced in unspecified ways by: oil companies, tobacco companies, the flat earth society, holocaust deniers, and any other insult that can be pressed into service. Most of these AGW zealots clearly think of themselves as liberals (Australians would say leftist – liberals here are the conservative party). Yet their manner of conducting their cause is utterly illiberal. They are an unedifying aspect of our climate debate. They could also be viewed as empirically problematic for pelagianism.

    David Elder, protestant.

  72. Of course, it’s snowing again here.

    If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was in Narnia during the reign of the White Witch.

    Big Al must’ve been one of her advisers. (The Gore Effect, you know)

    Andrew

  74. Lucia:
    In case you did not know it, many of the larger cities in England and Scotland have two football teams: One nominally for Protestants and one for Catholics. Local derby games are also marked by large amounts of very unChristian behavior. There is absolutely no turning of the cheek.

  76. lucia:
    As always, you ask an excellent question. Atheists root for no one. Moslems root against whomever the Hindus root for, and vice versa – both preferring cricket in any case. Jews obviously root for the underdog? Does that answer your question?

  78. Steven Mosher,

    The dog and pig thing probably comes from a literal translation of the German insult Schweinehund. I picked a link for the common misspelling, Schweinhund, because it has a quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. According to the link, it’s now used more in the UK than it is in Germany.

  79. I’m very pleased to have contributed to rescuing the word “Manichean” from obscurity. To me, though, it is most useful in contrast with the alternative “Augustinean” as propounded by Norbert Wiener. Again, Wiener’s relevant paragraphs from “The Human Use of Human Beings”:

    The scientist is always working to discover the order and organization of the universe, and is thus playing a game against the arch enemy, disorganization. Is this devil Manichean or Augustinean? … The difference between these two sorts of demons will make itself apparent in the tactics to be used against them. The Manichean devil is an opponent … who is determined on victory and will use any trick of craftiness or dissimulation to obtain this victory. … On the other hand, the Augustinean devil, which is not a power in itself, but the measure of our own weakness, may require our full resources to uncover, but when we uncover it we will in a certain sense have exorcised it, and it will not alter its policy on a matter already decided with the mere intention of confounding us further. …

    As to the nature of the devil, we have an aphorism of Einstein’s, “The Lord is subtle, but He isn’t simply mean.” …

    This distinction between the passive resistance of nature and the active resistance of an opponent suggests a distinction between the research scientist and the warrior or the game player. …

    The scientist is thus disposed to regard his opponent as an honorable enemy. This attitude is necessary for his effectiveness as a scientist, but tends to make him the dupe of unprincipled people in war and politics. It also has the effect of making it hard for the general public to understand him, for the public is much more concerned with personal antagonists than with nature as an antagonist.

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