jrosenhouse | June 13, 2012You know that long-running Gallup poll about evolution and creationism, the one that has consistently shown that support for creationism has been in the mid forties for the last thirty years or so? Well, the latest numbers are out, and they are not good news. The creationism number, which was at an all-time low of 40% two years ago, is now all the way up to 46%. Theistic evolution is down from 38% to 32%, while atheism went from 16% to 15%. That six percentage point jump for creationism and corresponding drop for theistic evolution could well be a blip in the data, but it is significant…
jrosenhouse | June 11, 2012Scot McKnight, a Professor of New testament at Northern Seminary in Illinois, has posted a review of the Big Evolution/Creation Book. He describes it as “a good read,” though it is hard to pick out one quote that perfectly summarizes his reaction to it. So go have a look for yourself. You don't want to be the last one to read it!
jrosenhouse | June 11, 2012Still no word on when the commenting issues will be resolved. Hopefully soon. But I did want to poke my head up long enough to warn you away from seeing Ridley Scott's Alien prequel, Prometheus. Really, really bad. This one's going to be on a lot of ten worst lists at the end of the year.
When I see movies in the theater, I usually stick to action, horror or sci-fi. Which is to say that I see a lot of bad movies. But even so it is pretty rare that I completely hate a movie. No matter how asinine the story or hackneyed the dialogue, I can usually find something to like. Perhaps there's…
jrosenhouse | June 7, 2012By now I'm sure you have heard that Ray Bradbury has died. I can't say that I was ever a huge Bradbury fan. I recall being a bit bored with Farenheit 451 when I tried reading it in middle school, but I was probably a little too young to appreciate it. I enjoyed The Martian Chronicles, though I read it so long ago that I only remember bits and pieces of it today.
But I did have a chance to see Bradbury speak when I was in college, and he said something that didn't mean much to me at the time, but which now has considerable resonance. You see, I am the sort of writer who is constantly…
jrosenhouse | June 7, 2012The commenting problems are proving harder to fix than I expected. The overlords have assured me that this is a high priority problem and that they are working on it. Apparently there is only one other blog around here that has been similarly affected. I don't want to return to regular blogging until the commenting issues have been fixed, since without comments it feels like I'm just talking to myself.
But just to make it clear that I'm still around, here's an amusing logic puzzle from Raymond Smullyan, from his book Forever Undecdied. Recall that on the island of knights and knaves,…
jrosenhouse | May 31, 2012After some nervous moments, Viswanathan Anand defeated Boris Gelfand to keep the title of World Chess Champion. When the classical games resulted in a tie (one win for each with ten draws), the match was decided via a mini-match of four rapid games. All four of the games were exciting and hard-fought, with neither player making the most of his chances. The first game was a draw after Anand mishandled what was probably a winning position. Game two was a real barn-burner. First Anand seemed to be winning easily. Then Gelfand showed some impressive bishop-fu to take over the advantage.…
jrosenhouse | May 30, 2012A while back P. Z. Myers posted an essay entitled, “You Want Evidence That Religions is Bad for the Species? OPEN YOUR EYES.” Myers was replying to an earlier essay by David Sloan Wilson. Here's an excerpt from Myers:
Whenever I hear that tripe about the beneficial effects of religion on human cultural evolution, it’s useful to note that the world’s dominant faiths all hardcode directly into their core beliefs the idea that women are unclean, inferior, weak, and responsible for the failings of mankind…that even their omnipotent, all-loving god regards women as lesser creatures not fit to…
jrosenhouse | May 30, 2012I have now done three posts since the migration, but I have not received any comments. Now, the first entry was a chess post, and I'm used to not getting any comments on those. I raised an eyebrow when I got no comments on the House post, surely I'm not the only one around here who enjoyed the show? But when I didn't get any comments on my science/religion post, then I decided something must be wrong. So I tried to post a comment of my own, but it did not allow me to do so. It pretended to allow me; I typed in my comment and my information, and clicked on “Submit Comment,” but then…
jrosenhouse | May 29, 2012If the assertion, “Science and religion are incompatible,” simply means, “It is highly unreasonable to accept simultaneously the claims of modern science and the claims of traditional Christianity,” then I agree with it. The trouble is that the word “incompatible” is vague. People often take it to mean something like “logically contradictory,” and I do not agree that science and religion are incompatible in that sense.
For this reason I prefer to avoid the language of compatibility/incompatibility, and talk instead about “tensions” between science and traditional faith. When I am feeling…
jrosenhouse | May 28, 2012As we continue to get caught up on the most important issues of the past week, we really should take note of the final episode of House.
The first episode I ever saw was Season Two, Episode 19, entitled “House vs. God.” The patient of the week was a fifteen-year old faith healer who claims to be in direct communication with God. House thinks that's ridiculous, but it soon appears there might be something to it. The patient seems to know things he could not possibly know. And shortly after the faith healer touches one of Dr. Wilson's cancer patients, her tumor shrinks measurably. Even House…
jrosenhouse | May 28, 2012It's time to stop sulking about the various headaches caused by the migration and get back to blogging. I managed to get the banner the overlords sent me to load properly, so that seems like some sort of victory at least. Alas, there doesn't seem to be much space between the base of the banner and the top of the first post. Does anyone know if there is a simple way for me to fix that?
Anyway, let's dip our toes into the water by getting updated on the big World Chess Championship. We last tuned in at the halfway point. Six games played out of twelve, six draws. Five boring draws.
But…
jrosenhouse | May 21, 2012ScienceBlogs is moving to a new publishing platform this evening. As of 7:00 tonight, any comments left here will not be transferred to the new site. Regular blogging will resume as soon as the transfer is complete. Sorry about the inconvenience.
jrosenhouse | May 19, 2012Hikaru Nakamura has won the U. S. Chess Championship by a full point. It was a dominating performance, capped off with a stunning win with black, in the penultimate round, against the other pre-tournament favorite Gata Kamsky. This is Nakamura's third title. So, congratulations to him.
Today's tactical exercise comes from the tenth round game between Kamsky, playing white, and the struggling Yasser Seirawan. It's white to move:
The position looks a bit dicey for black, with white's rook eying his king down the half-open g-file. White's pieces seem well-placed for a king-side attack. His…
jrosenhouse | May 19, 2012I had a pleasant trip down to Richmond on Wednesday. I spoke to a small crowd of twenty people about evolution and creationism and all that jazz. I think most of the audience was to the left of me on these issue. Whenever I said something about evolution challenging religion it was all smiles and encouragement. When I said something about how many religious folks have made their peace with evolution, suddenly everyone was sucking on lemons. At any rate, I felt a little cheated that I did not have any frothing creationists giving me grief during the question period.
The talk itself, alas, will…
jrosenhouse | May 18, 2012More precisely, if we say that theistic evolution is a form of intelligent design, then we have to stop saying that intelligent design is a form of creationism.
Over at HuffPo, Victor Stenger writes:
But when surveys ask moderate Christians what they really believe, they all say that evolution is God-guided. Well that's not Darwinian evolution. That's intelligent design. There's no guidance in Darwinian evolution. It's all accident and natural selection. In particular, and this is what is unacceptable to all Christians and just about every other religion: humanity is an accident. Start up…
jrosenhouse | May 17, 2012When MSNBC fired Keith Olbermann and replaced him with Lawrence O'Donnell, I was a bit annoyed. But now that Olbermann had crashed and burned over at Current TV, and O'Donnell has turned into a pretty effective pundit, I have changed my mind. For an example of why I like O'Donnell so much, consider this depressingly accurate tirade about the Newsweek cover with the headline, “The First Gay President.”
“We live in a wicked stupid country, okay,” O'Donnell said. “This is a country that believes, in a very substantial proportion, that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Huge number, millions and…
jrosenhouse | May 17, 2012The World Championship continues to be a snooze. Five games down, five draws. Only one game has made it past the thirtieth move. Both players seem very hesitant and completely uninclined to take any risks. Still seven games left, though, so we will see what happens.
Happily, the U. S. Championship continues to produce one nail-biter after another. Today's tactical exercise comes from the game six match-up between Gregory Kaidanov as white against Robert Hess as black. As you can see, we have a rather unusual material balance:
If you remember your basic point-counting (Pawn=1, Bishop and…
jrosenhouse | May 15, 2012Sometimes I wonder what the mailman thinks of me. One day he's delivering the new issue of Free Inquiry, the next he's leaving something from Creation Ministries International.
The latest missive from CMI contains a lengthy pamphlet advertising their forthcoming Creation Superconference. Of course, having been to the Creation Megaconference at Liberty University back in 2005 (as described in the first section of the BECB), a Creation Superconference doesn't seem so impressive. Still, just browsing through the pamphlet made me feel that old familiar itch. Is it worth a visit? After all,…
jrosenhouse | May 14, 2012This coming Wednesday, May 16, I will be speaking at the Library of Virginia. I will be discussing my book Among the Creationists Refreshments go from 5:30-6:15. The talk will go from 6:15-7:15, with the plan being to speak for thirty minutes, and then take questions for the remaining time. Then there will be a book signing afterwards.
Hope to see you there!
jrosenhouse | May 14, 2012Economist Robin Hanson poses an odd challenge to atheists:
A few days ago I asked why not become religious, if it will give you a better life, even if the evidence for religious beliefs is weak? Commenters eagerly declared their love of truth. Today I'll ask: if you give up the benefits of religion, because you love far truth, why not also give up stories, to gain even more far truth? Alas, I expect that few who claim to give up religion because they love truth will also give up stories for the same reason. Why?
One obvious explanation: many of you live in subcultures where being religious…