Religion
drorzel | October 11, 2009Over at Physics and Physicists, ZapperZ notes a fairly useless interview with Guy Consolmagno, and suggests some alternative questions:
1. How old do you estimate the universe to be based not only on your observation, but also the consensus among astronomers? Would this be contrary to the biblical interpretation on the age of the universe? What about the Young Earth's interpretation of the age of the universe?
2. What is your view of the treatment received by Galileo by the church? {Oh c'mon, you knew that one was coming, didn't you?}
These would be better questions than what was asked in…
drorzel | September 29, 2009I've grown thoroughly disgusted with most of the science-vs-religion stuff in blogdom, mostly because my views on the matter are kind of moderate, and don't fit well with the rather extreme positions taken by most of the bloggers and commenters who focus on this issue. This dooms me to either being ignored, or called names as some sort of collaborator, and I have better ways to spend my time, so I've pretty much given up on being an active part of those... discussions.
I do occasionally feel guilty, though, as if I'm letting down my side (well, my part of the squishy middle) by not speaking…
drorzel | September 19, 2009Josh Rosenau is thinking from California about the role of analogy and metaphor in arguments. This follows from a series of posts arguing with Jerry Coyne et al. about the usual science vs. religion stuff. The analogy thing comes in because in the first post, he made reference to Slacktivist's excellent post about vampires and crosses, saying:
Vampires don't exist, and slacktivist makes it absolutely clear that he knows this. But telling stories about vampires is a great way to convey certain truths about the world we all live in. These aren't truths that science can independently verify, but…
drorzel | September 17, 2009Theorem: The worthiness of a blog post on a political or social topic is inversely proportional to the number of times derisive nicknames are used to refer to the author's opponents.
drorzel | September 14, 2009Over in Twitter-land, Eric Weinstein is visiting the AMNH at the same time as a bunch of Orthodox Jews, and takes the opportunity for a little Q&A:
Me: Excuse me, but how is the phylogenetic tree reconciled with Torah.
Modern Orthodox Man: Lorentzian time dilation. It's a head hurter.
This is an interesting attempt to square the six-day creation story with modern science, and raises one obvious question: How fast must God have been moving for the six days of creation to last 13.7 billion years?
This is veering into Built on Facts territory, but the relevant formula is:
For six days (5.…
drorzel | July 28, 2009There's an interesting report at Inside Higher Ed today on a study of religiosity and college. Some of the results will probably come as a surprise to many people around ScienceBlogs:
# The odds of going to college increase for high school students who attend religious services more frequently or who view religion as more important in their lives. The researchers speculate that there may be a "nagging theory" in which fellow churchgoers encourage the students to attend college.
# Being a humanities or a social science major has a statistically significant negative effect on religiosity --…
drorzel | July 15, 2009I am a fan of the New York Giants.
I believe that they can win every game they play. I hope that they will win every game that they play. I get emotionally involved in their games to such a degree that my heart pounds and I get short of breath when they face a critical play in the fourth quarter. I yell at the tv, though I know that they can't hear me. When something goes wrong, I will punch things and curse. When they win, I will stay up late to watch highlights of a game I just watched.
I will re-arrange my schedule so as to be able to watch their games as they happen. If I can't manage…
drorzel | July 5, 2009A reading from the Book of Genesis:
1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make plastic cups that can stack atop one another. And let us make them of many colors, lo, for that would be cool.
4 And they said, Go to, let us stack our cups to make a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us put a duck upon the top, because ducks are pretty neat.
5 And SteelyKid came down to see the city and the…
drorzel | June 26, 2009Chris Mooney has an explanation of the "accommodationist" position that deserves better than to be buried in a Links Dump:
I don't see a need to pry into how each individual is dealing with these complicated and personal matters of constructing a coherent worldview. Rather, from a political and public perspective, I want them all to integrate modern science into that worldview. And, from a civil libertarian perspective, I don't want their religion telling me what to do. (Especially interfering with my access to alcohol on Sundays!)
Insofar as I'm an accommodationist, then, it's not because I…
drorzel | June 23, 2009Chris Mooney has found new digs, and, revitalized by the more congenial atmosphere, has been taking up the science vs. religion fight again. Yesterday, he had a post asking what can be done to get moderate scientists more involved in the argument over whether science and religion can coexist:
At the same time, though, let's face it-in the science blogosphere, we don't hear a lot from the "silent majority." Rather, and admittedly with some important exceptions, we hear from the New Atheists.
Yet I am arguing on behalf of the silent majority, and that is what keeps me going. So my question is…
drorzel | April 28, 2009My major "service" activity at work is involvement with the Minerva program, which attempts to blur the line between academic and residential life. I enjoy this because it gives me the opportunity to work closely with students outside a narrow academic context, and I've been very impressed with the creativity and responsibility of the students involved.
Part of the program is also to get faculty involved, and this runs into more problems. The biggest of which is probably a mismatch between the time scales on which students and faculty operate. If you try to get faculty to do something in the…
drorzel | March 29, 2009I was rather surprised when Friday's quick post about Tolkien spawned a lengthy comment thread full of people arguing against the suggestion that The Lord of the Rings is affected by Tolkien's Catholic faith. I'm no Tolkien scholar, but my impression of the field is that this is simply not a controversial statement, that there is ample material in the reams of letters, early drafts, and other background material showing that this is the case.
On reflection, it seems that there are two things going on here. One is that some people seem to think that a book cannot be said to contain Christian…
drorzel | February 2, 2009In Friday's installment of his ongoing examination of Left Behind: The Movie, Fred Clark points out some gaps in the movie-Antichrist's plan, where it departs from the loopy prophetic cosmology of the Left Behind books. He then notes how they could've done better:
If Team Nicolae had really done their homework, they'd have consulted with groups like the Canaan Land Restoration of Israel, Inc., to make sure they had all their ducks in a row before trying to launch their apocalypse. The frustrating thing for Nicolae at this point has to be that it's already too late for him to get in touch with…
drorzel | January 21, 2009Lots of people are giving Obama props for the shout-out to atheists in his inaugural address, but I'm deeply concerned about what he said. Or, rather, what he didn't say:
We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers.
Where are the Buddhists? He left out a major world religion!
"Oh, well, what harm can it do?" you may be thinking. "There aren't that many Buddhists in the US, after all, and they're not really concerned with worldly things." This is a dangerously naive view of the world.
If pop culture teaches us anything, it's don't mess with the Buddhists.…
drorzel | January 7, 2009In the uncomfortable questions thread, David White asks:
Ever entertained the notion that attacks on true science from the muscular political creationism/ID lobby might be vitiated by exposure of their great and inexplicable theological flaw (gasp!) dating all the way back to William Paley?
Not really, no. Because, you know, there are only so many hours in the day.
I don't mean to be rudely dismissive of David's thesis, which is laid out at length on his own blog, and is detailed and well argued. The thing is, though, the political problem of creationism has relatively little to do with…
drorzel | December 29, 2008I was on Baby Duty today, so I spent some time listening to Bloggingheads dialogs, including Kerry Howley and Richard Rodriguez:
There's a lot of good stuff in here, but I almost hesitate to post about it, because it's practically guaranteed to bring out the worst sorts of commentary. There's a bunch of stuff about race, gender, and identity which was really interesting, but will undoubtedly set "Uncle Al" off. The biggest problem, though, is that the most interesting comments had to do with religion.
Rodriguez spends a bit of time talking about Catholicism in comparison to evangelical…
drorzel | October 22, 2008Inside Higher Ed this morning has a story about a mock trial to be held at Northern Kentucky University:
The trial centers around the termination of fictitious biology teacher Susan Scott (a traditionally trained evolution adherent), who according to her complaint, encouraged students to "explore creation theories." Scott, who will be played by Simon Kenton High School teacher Heather Mastin, is suing the fictitious Chandler County School Board for wrongful termination and seeks reinstatement, compensatory damages and a judicial declaration that the school board violated her First Amendment…
drorzel | October 20, 2008Checking in from Cairo, Senior Uncertain Principles Middle East Correspondant Paul Schemm, with a wire story titled "Ultraconservative Islam on Rise in Mideast":
Critics worry that the rise of Salafists in Egypt, as well as in other Arab countries such as Jordan and Lebanon, will crowd out the more liberal and tolerant version of Islam long practiced there. They also warn that the doctrine is only a few shades away from that of violent groups like al-Qaida -- that it effectively preaches "Yes to jihad, just not now."
In the broad spectrum of Islamic thought, Salafism is on the extreme…
drorzel | October 12, 2008Some time back, I saw Brother Guy Consolmagno talk at Boskone, and said "You know, I should invite him to campus." For those who don't recognize the name, he's an SF fan and an astronomer (well, planetary scientist) who also happens to be a Jesuit brother. He works at the Vatican Observatory, where he is the curator of the Vatican's meteorite collection.
After we were on a panel together last year, I asked him if he'd be interested in giving us a colloquium talk sometime, and he said yes. We exchanged a few emails, and settled on October 9, namely, this past Thursday, when he was going to be…
drorzel | September 20, 2008After five long years, Fred Clark has reached the final pages in his exhaustive deconstruction of Left Behind (fittingly enough, they include a phone call). If you would like to see the beginning, the first few pages are here, but the series really starts with Left Behind Is Evil.
Fred's analysis has run to much longer than the original book, but it's probably more entertaining (somebody really ought to collect the posts all together and have it printed up at Lulu-- far worse things have been done with print-on-demand). In addition to being funny and insightful, these posts are a great…