jrosenhouse | June 27, 2009Had a great time in Cincinnati, and will be doing a couple of posts about it shortly. In the meantime, how about some cat pictures to tide you over.
Here's Emily in a pensive mood:
And here she is on her favorite bookshelf:
Here's Big Ol' Isaac engaged in a favorite activity:
And here he is having declared victory over my backpack. For some reason both cats really like to sit there:
jrosenhouse | June 21, 2009Tomorrow I will be leaving for sunny Cincinnati, Ohio to participate in the 9th North American Paleontological Convention. On Thursday I, along with fellow Panda's Thumbers Art Hunt and Richard Hoppe, will be participating in a panel discussion on “Countering Creationism.” Of course, I will be sure to emphasize that the really important thing in countering creationism is to try to offend as many religious people as possible. Browsing through the program reveals that the two big Thursday talks before our panel are from Ken Miller and Eugenie Scott. Should be interesting!
Alas, I don't…
jrosenhouse | June 21, 2009Meghan McCain appeared on Bill Maher's show the other night. One of the other guests was Democratic strategist Paul Begala. The following exchange took place:
McCAIN: The Obama administration really has to stop completely blaming everything on its predecessor, completely. And I'm really sick of hearing, oh, we were handed this we were handed this. I know. Everyone knows. But we need to move on.
MAHER: Do you think that's what Obama is doing?
McCAIN: I do, to a degree.
BEGALA: Not to enough of a degree, Im sorry. Not nearly to enough of a degree. Ronald Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter…
jrosenhouse | June 18, 2009In 2002 I attended an ID conference near Kansas City. Among the speakers was philosopher J. P. Moreland. During his talk he unleashed a broadside against Michael Ruse, accusing him not only of perjuring himself during the famous 1981 Arkansas creationism trial but also of having publicly admitted to his misdeeds.
I had an audio recording of the talk and wrote to Ruse to ask him about it. I transcribed Moreland's exact statement and asked Ruse if he had admitted any such thing as was being alleged. Ruse flatly denied Moreland's assertion and was kind enough to give me a quote to use in…
jrosenhouse | June 17, 2009It doesn't happen often, but there are times when MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews really comes through. Here he is commenting on the difference between Obama's handling of the aftermath of the Iranian elections and the reaction of his Republican critics:
MATTHEWS: What strikes me, David and Bob, is the difference between the president, who is being very calm and not jumping up and down, and those on the right who are hitting the idiot button right now. And the idiot button is the one often pushed by Sarah Palin, but this week by John McCain and others.
They're all jumping at-Mitt Romney.…
jrosenhouse | June 15, 2009A relative of mine just sent me the following brainteaser. Since it never hurts to flex one's mental muscles, I thought I'd pass it along:
It is the month of August; a resort town sits next to the shores of a lake. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.
Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 dollar bill on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.
The hotel proprietor takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to…
jrosenhouse | June 11, 2009Ken Miller has now weighed in with a lengthy post criticizing Jerry Coyne's views on the compatibility of science and religion.
Since most of Miller's essay is focused on specific statements made by Coyne I won't go point by point through it. I suspect Coyne will post his own reply at his blog, and I look forwrad to reading it. I'll just comment that in certain places I think Miller has a point (I think Coyne is mostly right about the big picture, but there are certainly places where I wish he would have expressed himself differently.) In other places I think Miller is not presenting Coyne…
jrosenhouse | June 10, 2009Jerry Coyne has posted his thoughts on the subject of methodological naturalism. Here's a sample:
I am a methodological naturalist, but I don't think that all supernatural claims defy scientific analysis. Moreover, I don't see that the methodological/philosophical distinction has a lot to do with the dissonance between faith and science. The real dissonance, as I have repeatedly emphasized, is between the scientific acceptance of only those claims adjudicated by empirical investigation, and the religious acceptance of “truth” claims that are discovered by revelation (or instruction by one…
jrosenhouse | June 9, 2009I had not intended to go another round with Chris Mooney. But since his latest post mentions me specifically, and does so in a very unfair way, I feel compelled to respond.
Chris has decided that Jerry Coyne is confused about the distinction between methodological and philosophical naturalism. In my last post I pointed out that Coyne wrote, in his New Republic essay:
Scientists do indeed rely on materialistic explanations of nature, but it is important to understand that this is not an a priori philosophical commitment. It is, rather, the best research strategy that has evolved from our…
jrosenhouse | June 6, 2009Encouraging news from Newt Gingrich:
Two leading voices of the Republican Party's evangelical wing visited Rock Church on Friday for a forum aimed at recapturing some of the movement's political momentum.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee urged Christians to get involved in politics to preserve the presence of religion in American life.
“I think this is one of the most critical moments in American history,” Gingrich said. “We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism.”
There are worse things to be surrounded by.…
jrosenhouse | June 5, 2009Chris Mooney has posted his latest salvo in his ongoing discussion with Jerry Coyne. Sadly, I think he has muffed it pretty badly.
Coyne, of course, can take care of himself. I am inserting myself into this discussion simply because I think this is an important and interesting topic. So let's have a look.
The trouble starts early in Mooney's post when he writes:
I believe the central reason we have such massive problems with the teaching of evolution to be precisely this--millions of America believe, incorrectly, that they must give up their faith in order to learn about it or accept it.…
jrosenhouse | June 4, 2009I have a cat named Isaac who is currently tipping the scales at around twenty pounds. In an attempt to control his weight I feed him light cat food (Science Diet, to be exact), and give him the absolute minimum he will let me get away with.
A number of people have suggested getting a laser pointer. Kitty sees the red dot on the ground and goes a little crazy trying to catch it, thereby getting his heart rate up and burning a few calories. So I finally got around to buying one. Brought it home. Isaac greeted me at the door (he's very sweet). Pulled out the pointer and tried it out.…
jrosenhouse | June 3, 2009Another little blogfracas has erupted on the subject of accommodtaionism between science and religion. Chris Mooney, channeling Barbara Forrest, reiterated the standard complaints against those of us who argue that science and religion generally, and evolution and Christianity in particular, are not compatible. The specific target of his ire was Jerry Coyne's recent, largely negative review of the current accommodationist books by Ken Miller and Karl Giberson. Coyne has replied in some detail to Mooney. Mooney has now posted two partial replies to Coyne here and here, and has promised…
jrosenhouse | June 2, 2009Looks like Richard Dawkins has a new book coming out. It's called The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence For Evolution. I can't wait to read it!
But wait a sec? Didn't Jerry Coyne just write that book? Yes, I believe he did. It was called Why Evolution is True. No subtitle needed; the title pretty much says it all.
BOOK FIGHT!
Dawkins certainly wins round one: Better title. Why Evolution is True sounds like the start of a philosophical discussion. The evidence Coyne meticulously documented is not the reason why evolution is true. It is merely the reason we are confident that…
jrosenhouse | June 1, 2009Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He is also a contributor to the crazy right-wing website Town Hall, which does not bode well for anything he writes.
Let's have a look at his latest offering:
Recently, I received a rare student complaint over an e-mail I had sent to all my classes. In the e-mail, which welcomed all of my students back for a new semester, I characterized myself as an “outspoken Christian professor.” I admitted that I had been critical of some aspects of Darwinism and that I saw my students as more than mere “random…
jrosenhouse | May 18, 2009One of the nice things about summer vacation is the chance to visit beautiful and scenic locales. Like Bowling Green, Kentucky. That is the home of Western Kentucky University, which in turn is hosting the 22nd Annual Cumberland Conference on Graph Theory, Combinatorics and Computing. Figured I'd drop in, give a talk, see some old friends, and do some serious hanging out. Sadly, this means I will be out of town for the rest of the week and therefore will not be blogging. Regular blogging will resume upon my return.
Who knows? Since I'm going to be in-state I just might stop off at my…
jrosenhouse | May 15, 2009Jeffrey Shallit was kind enough to mention my book over at his blog. He writes:
A pleasant surprise arrived in the mail today: Jason Rosenhouse's new book, The Monty Hall Problem. I read a first draft of the book and found it excellent.
The second draft is even better, thanks in large part to Jeffrey's heroic proofreading efforts.
Alf van der Poorten says that the definition of a good book is that it mentions you. Under that criterion, this is a very good book indeed, as I appear on the back cover, giving the book an endorsement.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in probability…
jrosenhouse | May 14, 2009Update, 10:27 pm: It turns out the book is available for sale right now! So go buy one right this very second! Don't know what that June 4 date was all about...
And it's a good one! The official release date for the Big Monty Hall Book (BMHB) is June 4, but some review copies have already gone out. One of those went to Peter Flom, who is a diarist for Daily Kos. You can find the full review here.
Flom writes:
I'll mention right up front that the book was sent to me by Oxford University Press, it's called the Monty Hall Problem, the author is Jason Rosenhouse, it's due out in…
jrosenhouse | May 14, 2009You remember the story, don't you? On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart did a segment showing how thoroughly inept CNBC had been in the build up to the big recession. The segment was very funny and painfully true, which led to it getting a lot of play. One small piece of the segment dealt with Jim Cramer, who bombastically assured his viewers that Bear Sterns was fine just days before it collapsed completely.
Cramer then decided that this was all about him and started trash-talking Stewart in various media outlets. Initially he also tried to deny some of his earlier statements, but Stewart…
jrosenhouse | May 13, 2009Jerry Coyne has a post up on the subject of whether a highly-intelligent, self-aware species is the inevitable end result of the evolutionary process. He begins:
Over at that hilarious goldmine of accommodationism, Francis Collins's BioLogos website (generously supported by The Templeton Foundation), they have posted an answer to the question, “Did evolution have to result in human beings?” Now if you know anything about this history of faith/science accommodationism, you know that the answer has to be “yes”, at least if you construe the question to mean “Did evolution have to result in a…