jrosenhouse | June 25, 2008Theistic evolutionists have a bumper crop of books to choose from this summer. I've already reviewed Ken Miller's new book Only a Theory. Michael Dowd's Thank God for Evolution! is on deck in my “To Read” pile. The subject for today, however, is Karl Giberson's Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution. Giberson is a professor of physics at Eastern Nazarene College.
The curious thing about the book is that Giberson actually says very little about how to be both a Christian and an evolutionist. Most of the book is given over to covering the standard topics in this area…
jrosenhouse | June 24, 2008Over at Slate, Christopher Hitchens provides some much needed pushback against the deluge of Tim Russert hagiography:
Last on the list of miracles (and do please beware anything that comes in threes) was the apparition of a huge and beautiful rainbow arcing over the Potomac as the mourners came up to the Kennedy Center rooftop for a reception. In the words of NBC News executive Phil Griffin, “After the magical experience of this service, to come out and see the rainbow and Luke at the bottom of it made the last dry eye weep.” It was further pointed out that the last song at the memorial…
jrosenhouse | June 23, 2008The new issue of New in Chess magazine arrived in my mailbox this weekend. It contains an article by British grandmaster Daniel Gormally about what it is like to be addicted to the Internet Chess Club. I know the feeling well, and can affirm that this is only a small exaggeration:
Wake up around 2 pm. Blearily switch on your computer. Check your e-mails, no new e-mails. Open ICC. Check who's online. Immediately experience frustrsation as when you type '1' (the comand to enter the one-minute pairing pool) you are left waiting for a game. Experience withdraweal symptoms (sweaty palms,…
jrosenhouse | June 23, 2008George Carlin was absolutely the very best stand-up comedian in the history of the business. Only Robin Williams in his prime was even in the same league. I have quite a few of his albums, and I find I can still listen to them with pleasure even though I have most of the routines memorized. The cadence of his voice and the strength of his writing make them enjoyable even long after their impact as humor has worn off. You will learn more about good teaching from observing his technique than you ever will in a teaching seminar or education course. The New York Times has a good article…
jrosenhouse | June 21, 2008I have spent the last few days working my way through Ken Miller's new book Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul. (OAT) Short review: Worth reading, but also a bit disappointing. Now for the long review:
My first published piece of writing on evolution was a review of Miller's book Finding Darwin's God, (FDG) for Skeptic magazine. My reaction to the book was probably typical among atheists. The first half of the book is a masterful smackdown of creationism and intelligent design. Miller's arguments were clear and convincing, and written in graceful prose that was a…
jrosenhouse | June 21, 2008Thanks to David Killoren for directing me to this excerpt from Bloggingheads. Science writers John Horgan and George Johnson spend a few minutes disucssing the Monty Hall problem. Johnson recently reviewed Leonard Mlodinow's book The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, which contains an explanation of te problem. After Johnson gets frustrated trying to explain the problem to Horgan, the following exchange takes place:
Johnson: I thought I understood this when I wrote the review. It's already eluded me again.
Horgan: This is like explaining the two-slit experiment in quantum…
jrosenhouse | June 20, 2008That's the title of an interesting article from the current issue of The Atlantic, written by Nicholas Carr:
Over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn't going -- so far as I can tell -- but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spend hours…
jrosenhouse | June 12, 2008I'm going to be hitting the road this weekend for one of my periodical tours of some of the great highways in the Northeast. I'll be visiting the 'rents at my New Jersey office, will jaunt on up to Brooklyn to see big bro and the niece and nephew, and will probably putter around Princeton for an afternoon or two, being sure to take advantage of their most excellent math library. Regular blogging will resume at the end of next week.
jrosenhouse | June 10, 2008Here's a delightful article from today's New York Times:
The operation in the private clinic off the Champs-Elysees involved one semicircular cut, 10 dissolving stitches and a discounted fee of $2,900.
But for the patient, a 23-year-old French student of Moroccan descent from Montpellier, the 30-minute procedure represented the key to a new life: the illusion of virginity.
Like an increasing number of Muslim women in Europe, she had a hymenoplasty, a restoration of her hymen, the thin vaginal membrane that normally breaks during the first act of intercourse.
“In my culture, not to be a…
jrosenhouse | June 10, 2008It seems giraffes are now considered kosher:
I don't know how this escaped me, but a rabbi named Shlomo Mahfoud (which sounds like a made-up name, in the “Zohan” sense) has declared that giraffe meat is kosher. This must come as a huge relief to the vast Jewish population of the Serengeti.
So what were the issues in reaching this decision?
Heeb reports that the tall, spotted, long-tongued African ungulates have been declared kosher by Israeli Rabbi Shlomo Mahfoud. JTA affirms that since giraffes have cloven hooves and chew their cud, they are totally kosher.
JTA also explains that eating…
jrosenhouse | June 9, 2008From Robert Novak's column in today's Washington Post:
Shortcomings by John McCain's campaign in the art of politics are alienating two organizations of Christian conservatives. James Dobson's Focus on the Family is estranged following the failure of Dobson and McCain to talk out their differences. Evangelicals who follow the Rev. John Hagee resent McCain's disavowal of him.
The evangelicals are not an isolated problem for the Arizona senator. Enthusiasm for McCain inside the Republican coalition is in short supply. During the four months since McCain clinched the nomination, he has not…
jrosenhouse | June 8, 2008Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Wheaton College English Professor Alan Jacobs argues that religion is overrated as a social force. My SciBling Razib has already written a lengthy response.
Jacobs gets down to business in the third paragraph:
Of course, I can't universalize my own experience -- but that experience does give me pause when people talk about the immense power of religion to make people do extraordinary things. When people say that they are acting out of religious conviction, I tend to be skeptical; I tend to wonder whether they're not acting as I usually do, out of…
jrosenhouse | June 7, 2008Here's an interesting essay from Michael Ruse, published in the Georgia newspaper the Rome News-Tribune:
So why should we take the idea seriously? Why should we ever think that it could ever be much more than a “theory,” meaning an iffy hypothesis like speculations on the Kennedy assassination? Why should we ever agree that evolution is a “fact”?
Darwin realized full well that often we don't have direct evidence, but that doesn't stop us from talking about facts. Indirect evidence can be overwhelming. It can trump direct evidence even! Take a murder, or some other crime against the person.…
jrosenhouse | June 7, 2008An interesting article from today's New York Times:
The rapper RZA, a founder of the Wu-Tang Clan, sat in a suite on the 48th floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel overlooking Central Park, staring at a chess game through a pair of sunglasses. His hand was frozen a few inches above the board as he looked for a strategy to thwart his opponent.
Chess has long had an important role in the aesthetic of the Wu-Tang Clan, which has songs about the game. In “'The Wu-Tang Manual,” a 2005 book about the group and its members, RZA (pronounced RIZ-a) wrote that chess is part of the Wu-Tang essence “…
jrosenhouse | June 5, 2008Here's the Hamas Deputy Minister of Religious Endowment exposing a heretofore unexpected Jewish threat:
“There are also theories that were invented by non-Jews, but they disseminate them, knowing that they are scientifically false, such as the theory of Darwin. Darwin was not Jewish, but they exploited his theory. Even though new Darwinist theories have appeared, they spread the original theory, because the concept of 'survival of the fittest' serves their colonialist needs.”
This will come as news to Rabbi Natan Slifkin, whose endorsement of evolution led certain Orthodox rabbis to declare…
jrosenhouse | June 5, 2008Here's the latest from William Dembski:
Colorado Governor Bill Ritter's signing of a transgender anti-discrimination bill points up the lunacy that ensues in a world without design.
He then links to this article by Ross Kaminsky in the right-wing magazine Human Events.
I have no comment on whether or not this is a good bill, since I have not read it and know about it only from Dembski's post. It sounds fine in principle, but Kaminsky raises some interesting practical issues in his article. Human Events is not a publication I trust, however, especially not on issues like these.
But perhaps…
jrosenhouse | June 5, 2008The New York Times provides an update on the latest shenanigans of the ID folks:
Now a battle looms in Texas over science textbooks that teach evolution, and the wrestle for control seizes on three words. None of them are “creationism” or “intelligent design” or even “creator.”
The words are “strengths and weaknesses.”
Starting this summer, the state education board will determine the curriculum for the next decade and decide whether the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution should be taught. The benign-sounding phrase, some argue, is a reasonable effort at balance. But critics say it is a…
jrosenhouse | June 3, 2008Looks like an exciting weekend in our nation's capitol. The sevetneenth edition of the World Humanist Congress will be in Washington D.C. from June 5 to June 9. I think I can be persuaded to go check it out! Click Here for all the details.
jrosenhouse | June 2, 2008Be sure to have a look at the crossword puzzle in today's New York Times. It's the bestest, most awesomest crossword ever!
Actually, I haven't seen it yet. The Times does not make their crosswords freely available online (is there no end to their treachery?). And it's not so easy to find a print edition of the Times here in Western Virginia. The university library gets it, but some days, like today apparently, they are a little slow getting the paper down to the periodicals room.
The way I know it is such a supremely magnificent puzzle is that it was constructed by my cousin Barry. So…