November 18, 2009
Category: Miscellaneous
My calculus students had a test yesterday. Having now graded them I understand, like never before, the meaning of the word “futility.” Their logic is not like our Earth logic.
My future elementary school teachers had their test today. About forty minutes in to a fifty minute period, as I was begininning to get nervous that no one had yet handed it in, one of my students asked if I was angry at the class when I wrote the exam. Everyone else then noted they were wondering the same thing. Get the idea?
At least we get a week for Thanksgiving, starting at the end of business on Friday. I'll be visiting the 'rents in New Jersey, then the cousins in Pennsylvania on Thanksgiving day. I'll be making the guacamole. Three mashed Hass avocadoes, Two roughly chopped Roma tomatoes, One finely diced rib of celery, One finely diced jalapeno pepper, A handful of chopped cilantro, The juice of one lime, salt and curry powder to taste. Combine. You are not ready for anything so delicious. Just make sure you have thick chips.
Sadly, blogging is going to be low priority until I return. See you then!
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:36 PM • 10 Comments
Category: Politics
Sarah Palin's new book does not contain an index. So Christopher Beam, writing at Slate made one for her! Not that you were planning to read the book anyway, but this will save you the trouble.
If for some reason you want to know more about the book, have a look at the review in The New York Times. For example:
Elsewhere in this volume she talks about creationism, saying she “didn't believe in the theory that human beings -- thinking, loving beings -- originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea” or from “monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.” In everything that happens to her, from meeting Todd to her selection by Mr. McCain for the Republican ticket, she sees the hand of God: “My life is in His hands. I encourage readers to do what I did many years ago, invite Him in to take over.”
Personally, I tend to see her extraordinary success, out of all proportion to her abilities, as further evidence that there is no God. Po-TAY-to, Po-TAH-to.
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:20 PM • 7 Comments
November 12, 2009
Category: Religion
Here's a delightful article from the Washington Post:
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.
Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.
“If the city requires this, we can't do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that's really a problem.”
Actually the city is saying that if you receive public money you can not discriminate against homosexuals. But I appreciate the clear implication that religion and anti-gay animus go hand in hand.
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 3:11 PM • 16 Comments
November 11, 2009
Category: Anti-Creationism
Remember that trip to the Creation Museum during the big paleontology conference this summer? Linda Vaccariello has a lengthy, and pretty good, article about it in the current issue of Cincinnati Magazine. Here's a nugget I liked:
Looking over the exhibits in the Dinosaur Den, we learn that the flood killed all the dinosaurs except for the ones on Noah's ark. “But their days were numbered,” the signage explains ominously. What happened? Here, the museum makes a rare admission of uncertainty. But it does present a tantalizing possibility: “Dragons could have been dinosaurs,” the sign says.
That's right. Evolution is only a theory. But God's Truth is supported by . . . dragons.
Snarky!
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:19 PM • 44 Comments
November 10, 2009
Category: Literature
I already made my trip out to Barnes and Noble today to pick up Stephen King's new novel Under the Dome. I have not been this excited about the release of a novel in quite some time. No doubt I am setting myself up for a disappointment, but I think this will be a long-awaited return to form for King.
I have been a diehard Stephen King fan since before high school. His ouvre includes several slam-dunk masterpieces: The Shining, The Stand, Firestarter, Different Seasons, It and Needful Things, along with quite a few others that were merely very good: Carrie, The Dead Zone, Christine, Misery, The Eyes of the Dragon and The Green Mile. Most of his novels not included here were also quite good, of course.
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:25 PM • 16 Comments
Category: Anti-Creationism
John Lynch has an important essay in the current issue of the Newsletter of the History of Science Society. I'm sure we are all familiar with creationist abuses of science and philosophy (not to mention their abuses of common decency and basic integrity), but their comparable abuses of history often fly under the radar. Mind you, the problem is not simply that creationists routinely get their facts wrong. It is that their whole approach to the subject is rather blinkered:
In short, anti-evolutionist historical scholarship accurately mirrors creationist scientific work in being directed at the true believers rather than the academic community. The temptation may thus be for professional historians to ignore their claims - a temptation that I feel must be rejected. As historians, we have a social duty to correct error and over-simplification where it is foisted on the public by politically and religiously motivated individuals, and this responsibility goes beyond what sociologist and ID sympathizer Steve Fuller has dismissively seen as “catching the errors” of the creationists. There is something far more fundamental at stake. At a time where historians have eschewed Whig or “Great Man” histories, anti-evolutionists are presenting their “Not-So-Great Man” view of Darwin. They misrepresent the very nature of historical enquiry; they manipulate history until it risks becoming a mere shadow of the rich and intricate tapestry that it is.
The immediate context for this is the several recent attempts by ID folks to draw simplistic, straight-line paths between Darwin's ideas and the actions of the Nazis.
It really is impressive how creationiss manage to get everything wrong. I recommend reading the whole essay.
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:39 PM • 11 Comments
November 6, 2009
Category: Mathematics
Seriously! Go have a look.
It seems my book The Monty Hall Problem: The Remarkable Story of Math's Most Contentious Brainteaser made the list! And to think I wasn't planning to do a blog post today.
Browsing through the other entries, it looks like my reading list just got a bit longer. (Of course, they will have to get in line behind Stephen King's forthcoming magnum opus, coming out on Tuesday. But that's a different post...)
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:57 PM • 23 Comments
November 5, 2009
Category: Religion
Update, 7:32 PM I have revised portions of the second vignette in response to the first comment below.
Via Josh Rosenau I came across this post from Todd Wood. Wood is an unabashed young-Earth creationist. What makes him considerably more interesting than most YEC's is that he sometimes writes things like this:
Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well. (Bold face in original)
Richard Dawkins could not have said it better.
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:28 PM • 66 Comments
November 3, 2009
Category: Miscellaneous
For anyone who has access to a print edition of The New York Times, today's crossword was constructed by my cousin Barry Boone! I believe this is his fourth puzzle for the TImes. It has an election day theme, so go have a look.
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:52 PM • 7 Comments
November 2, 2009
Category: Evolution
Michael Ruse has a very bad op-ed in The Guardian. Jerry Coyne and P. Z. Myers have already laid into him (here and here respectively), but why should they have all the fun? Ruse writes:
If you mean someone who agrees that logically there could be a god, but who doesn't think that the logical possibility is terribly likely, or at least not something that should keep us awake at night, then I guess a lot of us are atheists. But there is certainly a split, a schism, in our ranks. I am not whining (in fact I am rather proud) when I point out that a rather loud group of my fellow atheists, generally today known as the “new atheists”, loathe and detest my thinking.
Amateur hour.
A while back I was a counselor at a summer camp, keeping an eye on a group of rowdy nine year olds. One of the kids was taunted relentlessly by the others for his incessant whining. He did not help his cause by answering such taunts with, “I don't whine!” said in a pathetically whiny tone of voice.
If you have to tell people you are not whining, you're whining.
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 8:40 PM • 55 Comments
