Bad Math
goodmath | June 18, 2006I was glancing at the comments on the post that I linked to about "0.999...=1". And one of them was such a wonderful example of crap numerology, which I enjoy laughing at, that I just had to repost it here:
VERY GOOD.
But there's a couple tricks
you missed.
First, simple pattern
completion
1/9 = .11111---
2/9 = .22222---
3/9 = .33333---
4/9 = .44444---
5/9 = .55555---
6/9 = .66666---
7/9 = .77777---
8/9 = .88888---
and therefore by logical
extension
9/9 = .99999---
but of course, 9/9 = 1.
And then there are the
SPIRITUAL implications
.9 a soul
+ .09
+ .009 adding experience
+ .0009
+ .00009…
goodmath | June 17, 2006Finally, I have found online, a copy of the magnificent culmination of the 20th century's most ambitious work of mathematics. The last page of Russel and Whitehead's proof that 1+1=2. On page 378 (yes, three hundred and seventy eight!) of the Principia Mathematica.. Yes, it's there. The whole thing: the entire Principia, in all of its hideous glory, scanned and made available for all of us to utterly fail to comprehend.
For those who are fortunate enough not to know about this, the Principia was, basically, an attempt to create the perfect mathematics: a complete formalization of all things…
goodmath | June 16, 2006Right after finishing my post about how Dembski has convinced me that he is not a competent mathematician, I find PZ linking to a Panda's Thumb post about Dembski, which shows how he does not understand the meaning of the mathematical term "normalization".
Go look at the PT post: Something rotten in Denmark?
Is this guy really the best mathematician the ID folks have available to represent them?
goodmath | June 16, 2006I was recently sent a link to yet another of Dembski's wretched writings about specified complexity, titled Specification: The Pattern The Signifies Intelligence.
While reading this, I came across a statement that actually changes my opinion of Dembski. Before reading this, I thought that Dembski was just a liar. I thought that he was a reasonably competent mathematician who was willing to misuse his knowledge in order to prop up his religious beliefs with pseudo-intellectual rigor. I no longer think that. I've now become convinced that he's just an idiot who's able to throw around…
goodmath | June 12, 2006While perusing my sitemeter stats for the page, I noticed that I'd been linked to in a discussion at creationtalk.com. Expecting amusement, I wandered on over to see who was linking to me.
Someone linked to my index of articles debunking Dembski and Berlinski. The moderator of the creationtalk forum responded to my series of articles on information theory and Dembski with:
No offense to you or him, but his arguments kind of suck. I looked at his response to Behe on IC, and Dembski on Specified Complexity , to Behe's he didn't refute it, and to Dembski's his only arguement was basically…
goodmath | June 10, 2006 One of my favorite places on the net to find really goofy bad math is Answers in Genesis. When I'm trying to avoid doing real work, I like to wander over there and look at the crazy stuff that people will actually take seriously in order to justify their religion.
In my latest swing by over there, I came across something which is a bizzare argument, but which is actually interesting mathematically. It's an argument that the earth (or at least the milky way) must be at the center of the universe, because when we look at the redshifts of other objects in the universe, they appear to be…
goodmath | June 6, 2006I've gotten an absolutely unprecedented number of requests to write about RFK Jr's Rolling Stone article about the 2004 election.
RFK Jr's article tries to argue that the 2004 election was stolen. It does a wretched, sloppy, irresponsible job of making the argument. The shame of it is that I happen to believe, based on the information that I've seen, that the 2004 presidential election was stolen. But RFK Jr's argument is just plain bad: a classic case of how you can use bad math to support any argument you care to make. As a result, I think that the article does just about the worst thing…