jrosenhouse | September 15, 2008The Anglican Church has decided to apologize to Darwin for the rude manner in which their nineteenth century forebears responded to evolution. That's decent of them, I suppose.
Spearheading the effort is Malcolm Brown, Director of Mission and Public Affairs. In this article, entitled “Good Religion Needs Good Science,” he makes his case for the compatibility of evolution and Christianity.
Alas, it is a sadly typical, and poorly argued, representative of the genre. Here's the opening:
The trouble with homo sapiens is that we're only human. People, and institutions, make mistakes and…
jrosenhouse | September 12, 2008Brain Greene had a useful op-ed in yesterday's New York Times. He's discussing all the fuss about the Large Hadron Collider:
After more than a decade of development and construction, involving thousands of scientists from dozens of countries at a cost of some $8 billion, the "on" switch for the collider was thrown this week. So what we can expect?
The collider's workings are straightforward: at full power, trillions of protons will be injected into the otherwise empty track and set racing in opposite directions at speeds exceeding 99.999999 percent of the speed of light -- fast enough so…
jrosenhouse | September 12, 2008I liked Matt Damon even before this, but now I am definitely going to see any movie he is in:
I think there's a really good chance that Sarah Palin could be President, and I think that's a really scary thing. Because I don't know anything about her. I don't think in eight weeks I'm going to know anything about her. I know she was a mayor of a really, really small town, and she's governor of Alaska for less than two years. I just don't understand, I think the pick was made for political purposes, but in term sof governance it's a disaster. You do the actuary tables there's a one out of…
jrosenhouse | September 10, 2008Yes, another political post. What can I say?
Here's Michael Kinsley providing still more evidence that the Sarah Palin seen on television and discussed by the media bears little resemblance to the Sarah Palin that has been governing Alaska for the last two years:
Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn't a journalist and has never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey. Although Palin praised John McCain in her acceptance speech as a man who puts the good of his country ahead…
jrosenhouse | September 8, 2008Here's the latest bit of wisdom from Sarah Palin:
McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, speaking in Colorado Springs, Colo., said Fannie and Freddie had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” The companies, however, aren't taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization.
It is appalling, of course, that Ms. Palin was unaware of a basic fact central to what is likely to be one of the major economic issues of the next few years. But this sort of gaffe is entirely typical among Republicans, who speak…
jrosenhouse | September 4, 2008Anyone surprised by how the Republican Convention is going?
The McCain campaign to this point has been nearly one hundred percent negative, and the convention has continued that trend. There are several reasons for this. One is simply that they have nothing to run on, having made a hash of everything they have touched for the last eight years. But the main reason is that mindless venom is something that comes naturally to the leaders, strategists and pundits in the Republican Party.
It has become a cliche of modern political life that Republicans “play the game” so much better than…
jrosenhouse | September 4, 2008I've already received quite a few submissions for the big Carnival of Evolution. Alas, I have also received a few submissions which, while good, were outside the parameters of what I had in mind. So let me offer two clarifications:
I'm looking specifically for writing first posted on blogs. One of the main purposes of the Carnival is to provide publicity for good writing at undeservedly obscure blogs.
I'm looking for recent writing, say, within the last two months.
Sorry if these points weren't clear with the initial announcement. I appreciate all the submissions. Keep 'em coming!
jrosenhouse | September 2, 2008In a number of recent posts I have remarked that when it comes to Biblical analysis, I think the young-Earthers have more going for them than is sometimes acknowledged. I have also commented that I have been generally unimpressed with the more highbrow sorts of Biblical exegesis I have seen with regard to the text of Genesis. Let me give you an example.
I just finished reading a book called Is God A Creationist?, an edited anthology of essays published in the eighties defending various sophisticated approaches to Genesis. One of the contributors was Owen Gingerich, a professor of Astronomy…
jrosenhouse | September 2, 2008Good news! Thanks to the pioneering efforts of Daniel Brown, there is now a Carnival of Evolution. Better news! I will be hosting the next installment. So send your best evolution related writing to me at rosenhjd@jmu.edu. I'm looking for good, original writing on anything related to evolution, so make sure you proofread your stuff before sending it to me. It's always nice to give a little link love to undeservedly obscure bloggers, so here's your chance to get some publicity. The deadline will be September 14.
jrosenhouse | August 30, 2008Time to wrap this up. So here are a few more interesting moments from the conference.
The one genuinely interesting talk I attended had nothing to do with science at all. It was entitled “A Critique of the Precreation Chaos Gap Theory,” and was delivered by John Zoschke, a pastor from Kansas. Zoschke was keen to refute one particular form of the Gap Theory, which, in an attempt to reconcile Genesis with the long ages revealed by geology, inserts a long gap of time between two of the early verses in Genesis. (Which two depends on the particular version of the Gap Theory under consideration…
jrosenhouse | August 29, 2008By now I'm sure you have heard that John McCain has chosen Alaska governor Sarah “Teach the Controversy” Palin to be his running mate. I think The New Republic has the most sensible take, by Peter Scoblic:
But surely a campaign that has been charged with being too naive to manage rogue state dictators can have a bit of fun with the idea that a one-time Miss Congeniality could effectively face down Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Kim Jong Il. Surely, Obama's “eight is enough” quip ought to apply not only to President Bush's economic and foreign policy travesties, but to the elevation…
jrosenhouse | August 29, 2008This article, from Mother Jones, has some smirk-worthy quotable bits. It's subject is the recent convention of the Fellowship of Christian Magicians:
To demonstrate one of his favorite bits of legerdemain, Laflin selects a boy named Drake and asks him to mark a quarter. "This quarter represents Drake's life," announces Laflin, delivering a stream of well-rehearsed patter. "Now, it's a treasure, isn't it?" He places the coin in a small box, and retrieves a silver cube, which, he says, represents God's will for Drake's life. "Would you like to know what's in the cube?" Laflin asks. Drake nods…
jrosenhouse | August 27, 2008The big Monty Hall book is working its way through production. Just received the proposed catalog copy on my destined for a Pulitzer masterpiece. Seems my book is, among other things, “light-hearted yet ultimately serious.” Why yes, come to think of it, I suppose it is!
But we're having a little trouble coming up with a mutually agreeable subtitle. My editor suggested, "Mathematics's Most Perplexing Brain Teaser.” I'm not so sure. “Perplexing” is not my favorite word in the world. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. And I don't like making nouns that end in s possessive. How do you…
jrosenhouse | August 26, 2008Here are a few more vignettes from the big conference.
A fellow named Mark Matthews gave a presentation arguing that the Earth was located at or near the center of the universe. Most of the talk was given over to a discussion of the so-called “Fingers of God.”
According to the ever-useful Wikipedia:
Fingers of God is an effect in observational cosmology that causes clusters of galaxies to be elongated in redshift space, with an axis of elongation pointed toward the observer.[2] It is caused by a Doppler shift associated with the peculiar velocities of galaxies in a cluster. The large…
jrosenhouse | August 24, 2008An interesting exchange took place during the Q and A of a talk entitled “Georgia Public School Board Members' Beliefs Concerning the Inclusion of Creationism in the Science Curriculum.” The speaker was Kathie Morgan of LIberty University.
The talk itself was unremarkable, even by the crushingly low standards of creationist scholarship. The premise was that there are ways of bringing creationism into the classroom, in the form of supplementary materials beyond what the state requirements mandate, that do not run afoul of any Supreme Court rulings. Morgan and her colleagues decided to…
jrosenhouse | August 21, 2008As the Beijing Olympics comes to a close, let us take a moment to congratulate the United States Team for their third place finish in the recently completed International Mathematical Olympiad, held in Madrid. The U.S. Team included Alex Zhai, who obtained one of only three perfect scores in the entire competition.
China placed first, Russia took second. If you're feeling ambitious, go have a look at the problems (PDF format). Congratulations to the team!
jrosenhouse | August 21, 2008Only time for quick blogging today, so go have a look at Peter Buckland's interesting post in response to my reports of the big creationism confab. Here's a taste:
That stereotype exists, but it's not nearly complete as I have surely learned by attending local Science and Religion forums at a local church. Most people are interested and thoughtful. There's a lot of thought.
It's just bad thought.
Well said!
jrosenhouse | August 20, 2008Some of the comments to my posts on the creationism conference reminded me of a scene from the movie Heat, released in 1995. Al Pacino played Vincent Hannah, a detective for the LAPD investigating a crew of professional bank robbers. Robert DeNiro played Neil McCauley, the leader of the crew. (Short review: Pretty good movie, but marred somewhat by being too long and by Pacino's occasionally cartoonish overacting. Better the second time through, since you know when you have to pay attention.)
Roughly two-thirds of the way through the film Hannah knows everything about McCauley, but does…
jrosenhouse | August 20, 2008My account of the big creationism conference will resume shortly, but I really must take time out to discuss this article by Brian Hayes of American Scientist. He is discussing the Monty Hall problem, you see.
The story begins with this earlier article by Hayes. He was reviewing the recent book Digital Dice: Computational Solutions to Practical Probability Problems, by Paul Nahin. Having enjoyed Nahin's previous book Duelling Idiots and Other Probability Puzzlers, I suspect this new one is worth reading as well.
Hayes writes:
The Monty Hall affair was a sobering episode for probabilists.…
jrosenhouse | August 18, 2008Here's a picture to warm your heart:
It comes from the closing presentation of the conference, entitled “The Creation Model: It's Past, Present and Necessary Future,” by Andrew Snelling. Here's another one:
Guess I should stop worrying. Actually, the best moment in Snelling's talk came later. Ever wondered where to locate the real problem with modern creationism?
What if there was absolutely no evidence that the universe was young? No scientific evidence the universe was young. Would you still believe that it was young? Why? Because God's word teaches it. That's the only…