The View from Bologna

Bringing Intelligent Design to the Italians

Last Friday saw a much heralded episode of current affairs talk show Otto e Mezzo, focussing specifically on Intelligent Design and the (supposed) debate between proponents of creationism and evolution. It's title was the lofty 'inchiesta su dio'.

The direction of the programme was interesting. First of all, as is often the case, on the panel of important minds invited to discuss the issue, out of 6 only one was a woman. Surprising? No. Dissapointing? Yes.

The programme was based around a documentary filmed in the United States by Stefano Pistolini, entitled 'ID non vuole dire Idiota', or 'ID doesn't mean Idiot'. With extensive interviews with various representatives of the Discovery Institute, repeatedly in the documentary Pistolini wondered mournfully to himself why there was such intollerance amongst the scientific community, why the refusal to engage with a valid competing theory of how life has developed on the planet? He ends up the documentary in that bastion of scientific thought, the Vatican, where he interviewed Fr. George Coyne, the then official astronomer of the Holy See - who, to be fair, spoke eloquently within his framework as a man of faith. A religious man who has openly said that Intelligent Design should not be considered as science - because God and Creation are, in effect, beyond scientific explanation - is held as the epitome of liberal thought. The scientific world is, in this framework, elitist, iliberal, and arrogant.

The problems with the documentary were evident. Close collaboration with one of the leading (and heavily funded) bodies proposing creationism, and an almost complete absence of the scientific counter-arguments. For example, Richard Behre was interviewed at length, and spoke of his theory of 'irreducible complexity', with the example of the bacterial flagellar motor. It wasn't mentioned that his theory of irreducible complexity has been challenged extensively and discredited - something described at length in Richard Dawkins polemic The God Delusion. The documentary focussed on the famous court decision of Judge John E. Jones, who ruled in Pennsylvania that Intelligent Design could not be taught in schools as science, without focussing equally on the scientific testimony that led him to his decision. A clear, and to this monkey's mind false, message was sent out - Intelligent Design is a valid theory that has been censored by a dogmatic and intollerant scientific establishment.

In the studio discussion things moved up a gear, with the programme's host Giuliano Ferrara working himself up into a lather about these scientists who believe we're just a step away from the monkeys (and what is so wrong with that, this monkey asks).

And as the documentary credits rolled, a 'special thanks' to the Discovery institute passed by benignly on the screen.

There's gold in them thar young-earth hills...

Enough already

Hopefully the last posting about Luciano Moggi, ex sports director of Juventus. Almost simultaneously with the publication of the last posting, on sports ethics, news reports came in that Moggi's scheduled lecture to students in a school in Agropoli has been cancelled. The reason? Apparently threats had been received by the school, and thus they thought better of the event.

This monkey is, of course, against violent supression of sports lectures (whether the violence is real or imagined), but the last word on these sorry episodes goes to one of the students at the school in Agropoli. When interviewed about the whole affair, she commented: "We study economics here. I would have preferred a lecture from an economist."

Today's Lesson - Sports Ethics

When writing my last post, about Luciano Moggi, I had yet to come across the news that Moggi has been invited to address students at a technical institute in Agropoli, a city in the Southern region of Campania. The theme for the day - Sport's Education.

Afterwards he will inaugurate a Luciano Moggi Juventus fan club. La Repubblica tells us that there are already four other fan clubs dedicated to him.

The organiser of the events in Agropoli (to take place on 9th of February), Sergio Vessicchio, told journalists that the events were part of an effort to "finally prove false the equation that Luciano Moggi equals calciopoli. The ex Juventus director was the victim of a system designed to bring to its knees one club only: Juventus".

One wonders what Moggi's lesson will be to the students. Perhaps a beginner's guide to how to deal with referees who don't show respect.

In the meantime, it appears that Mediaset, Berlusconi's TV network (which places a huge emphasis on football, in particular on its new subscription channels), has filed a suit against the Italian Football league, calling for a reduction in the fees for TV rights to games in Italy's Serie A.

The suit alleges that, "examining various official parameters, it's objectively demonstrable that the retrocesion [of Juventus] and the penalties meted out ... have produced a strong loss of interest in Serie A"

It should be noted, of course, that one of Berlusconi's other business interests is A.C. Milan, which was one of the teams at the heart of calciopoli. So, your team brings the game into disrepute, and you file suit against the institution that (only after much political and public pressure) enforced the rules. A genius move, that perhaps Prof. Moggi can add to his lecture list.

Moggiopoli - Word of 2006

Nominated by a group of Academics, and voted for by the public, Moggiopoli is the proper noun of the year for 2006. The competition is designed to recognise the word that has imposed itself most during the year, taking into account its originality, significance, the fantasy with which it was created, or for the events (happy or sad) that it reflects.

There was scarce fantasy or originality involved when the Italian media coined the phrase 'Moggiopoli' during the year. The phrase related directly to the then Juventus football club sports director Luciano Moggi, and the widening match fixing scandal which saw four Serie-A clubs named and shamed, and punished - at least theoretically.

Little fantasy was involved as since the 1990's Tangentopoli scandals, which rocked the political system, any public act of dodginess involving more than two people immediately gets tagged, as if on a production line, with an 'opoli'. Tangentopoli loosely translates as Bribeville, with tangenti being the equivalent of the 'little brown envelope' passed on to the political powers-that-be. So the football scandal, also dubbed 'calciopoli' stood for Moggiville or footballville - two equally sad and predictable places.

So the word won not for fantasy, one presumes, but rather for the deep impact the scandal supposedly had on the nation's psyche. In truth, though, one suspects that a football 'opoli' had to win for form's sake - much the same as Juventus have to win, regardless of whether their players have managed to triumph on the pitch*.

Were the wound really that deep then perhaps the fallout from the scandals would have been greater. Fans of the clubs involved (Juventus, A.C. Milan, Firenze, and Lazio) will all whinge, predictably, that their clubs were penalized, but all the penalties imposed over the summer had been lightened considerably over the starting months of the football championships. Sure, none of them will win Serie A this year, but all things considered that is the least one should have expected from the punishments, not the most.

Juventus have turned their penalty into a blessing, fighting their way back up in Serie B to an almost certain re-qualification into Serie-A at the end of the season. These plucky lads will have only missed out one year in the top league, and the story will no doubt turn into an epic film-for-tv within a year or two. Winning the actual games involved in this promotion battle is, it seems, a formality - with at least two games so far involving clamorous refereeing decisions which, at best, highlight a system of widespread incompetence that by chance always benefits Juventus*.

And what of Luciano Moggi, the man at the center of the scandal? Well, he left Juventus as the scandals broke. He was excluded from taking any part in the beautiful game for the next five years, by the sentence issued from the special tribunal set up to investigate the scandal. This monkey would bet (if betting weren't a mug's game, as aptly illustrated by 'calciopoli') that, just as the penalties imposed upon the teams have been lightened, so to will 'Lucky' Luciano's - either that or he will be 'rehabilitated' into a political party.

Football, in Italy, has achieved quasi-religious status because it manages to mirror society. Putting Moggiopoli and Tangentopoli alongside each other illustrates this well.

• Tangentopoli exploded, as if out of nowhere, revealing confirmation of what everyone seemed to already know - corruption was rife in Italian politics.
• Moggiopoli exploded as if out of nowhere, revealing confirmation of what everyone seemed to already know - match fixing and corruption was rife in Italy's Serie A



• Craxi took the unusual defence in parliament (before exiling himself from the legal process to his villa in Tunisia) of declaring himself guilty, along with the entire political system. He defined bribery as "the cost of politics".
• Silvio Berlusconi, owner of A.C.Milan ( and also a friend of Craxi's, whose business interests flourished under Craxi's government), said when Milan were entangled in 'Calciopoli' that 'Either everyone is guilty, or no-one'.



• Conspiracy theories arose almost immediately about the timing and beneficiaries of Tangentopoli. It was pointed out repeatedly, for example, that while the Socialist party was decimated by the scandals, its larger left-wing rival, the PCI (the communist party of Italy), remained relatively unscathed
• Internazionale Milan has been on the receiving end of many scathing comments as it heads towards an almost certain Serie-A title, in the absence of Juventus and with a points-penalised A.C Milan unable to make up the difference

The main difference between the two scandals, apart from their importance - yes, I do believe that corruption of the governing democratic system is more important than the corruption of a sport, however popular and lucrative it may be - is the rehabilitation period. Moggi has been banned from participating in Football for five years, but already has a commentary column in a national newspaper, and occasionaly appears as a pundit on sporting programmes. Craxi remained a virtual pariah until after his death, and is still far from fully rehabilitated into the nation's favour. This weekend, though, his son and daughter, both political representatives now in their own right, will hold an annual commerative service for their father where a left-wing government minister, for the first time, will attend. Revision of Craxi's role, despite his conviction (he was sentenced in absentia), seems probable.

This monkey reckons that, five years from now, Moggiopoli will be recognised by linguists as the moment when 'opoli' tagged onto a term ceased to mean scandal, and started to mean 'the diplomatic and temporary exit from public life, awaiting favourable conditions for return'

*It's only fair to point out that one of these 'lucky' incidents where incorrect refereeing decisions gave Juventus a victory was in the Juventus vs Bologna match. Bologna had a valid penalty denied, while Juventus had a phantom goal awarded...

Waking up European

On the first of January, fifteen clandestine immigrants being held in the Ragusa centre for temporary permanence (cpt)*, a secure unit, received a visit from an envoy from the city's police headquarters.

This would, in the normal course of events, probably be the first step in deportation. Instead the official came bearing papers that would recognise these 15 as European citizens, entitling them to roam freely in Italy.

Our immigrants in question were Romanian and Bulgarian citizens. Overnight they went from being locked up, in what are effectively prison camps*, to being card-carrying Europeans.

Liberated from the cpt, our proud Europeans, though, face an uphill struggle to general acceptance. In the same newspaper that reported the cpt story, there ran the following three headlines:

"Romanians no longer clandestine. There are over 400 thousand in Italy now" "Milan also puts up a wall against the Rom [Roma gypsies]" and "Security alert from the police 'More and more gypsies in the North'".

There are plenty of angles from which to cover the story of Romania and Bulgaria's entry into the EU - business opportunities, culture, history, you name it. Instead, predictably, the newspapers have chosen to focus on gypsies and crime waves.

Credit where credit is due, though, La Repubblica does find a small space to quote sociologist Marzio Barbagli: "Just as happened in the two years following every regularisation, the number of crimes committed by Romanians and Bulgarians should diminish with their entry into the European Union". 6 lines out of a two page spread - that should balance things out.

Hats off to Horatio Morpurgo who, in our very own Three Monkeys Online, casts the Romanian entry into Europe in a very different light.

*To label the CPT's dotted around Italy as prison camps may seem excessive, but under three different administrations these camps have been off limits to journalists and impromptu inspections. They have been criticised by those inspectors who do manage to get a look in, and in certain cases the administrators have been accused of exploitation (both fiscal and physical) of those in their custody. An Espresso journalist took the extraordinary step of getting caught with a group of immigrants picked up entering Italy illegaly from Libya, just to get a peek inside the camps. His reportage was shocking, but neither Berlusconi or Prodi's governments have taken steps to open the cpt's up to transparent scrutiny.