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jrosenhouse | May 30, 2015After writing yesterday's post, I found I was still muttering about Michael Ruse's paper. So I thought to myself, why should I just rant here at the blog? How about I get down to business and write a proper journal article about it?
Mentally I started doing just that. To my surprise, I found the article practically writing itself. I quickly had an outline of what I wanted to say, started composing paragraphs, and thought about various books and articles I would want to cite. I started to get excited. Figured I could toss it off in a week, and then get back to my various other unfinished…
jrosenhouse | May 29, 2015Philosopher Michael Ruse has an article in the current issue of the academic journal Zygon. It is called, “Why I Am an Accommodationist and Proud Of It.” In it, he proposes to defend the notion that science and religion are simply independent of one another, and therefore cannot really be in conflict.
The article is not freely available online, but I will transcribe a few bits as we go. It is nothing that Ruse hasn't been saying for years, however. The paper goes on for fourteen pages, but it is ultimately nothing more than God of the gaps stuff. There are certain questions that science…
jrosenhouse | May 28, 2015Jerry Coyne is is on tour for his new book Fact Versus Faith: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible. That title's a little vague. What do you suppose the book's about?
It turns out that he was making a stop in Washington DC. Since that's not so far from my digs in Harrisonburg, I decided to go. Then again, much as I love Jerry, DC is far enough so that I wouldn't make the drive just to see him. So I found someone to proctor the exam I was giving in my summer course, and decided to make a whole day of it.
Of course, since this is a post about Jerry Coyne, I feel honor bound to show…
jrosenhouse | May 24, 2015I'm a little pressed for time today, so for this week's chess problem I've selected one of those old-fashioned efforts whose only point is a shocking key move. The following position was composed by Sam Loyd in 1868 and calls for mate in two:
Of course, white's force is so overwhelming that were this a normal game he could quickly force checkmate in a few moves. However, there is only way to accomplish mate in two, and that is by starting with 1. Kc4!.
Boom! White unpins the black rook and exposes himself to checks. Even better, this is a waiting move. White threatens nothing, but…
jrosenhouse | May 24, 2015In less happy news, there is this:
John Forbes Nash Jr., a mathematical genius whose struggle with schizophrenia was chronicled in the 2001 movie “A Beautiful Mind,” has died along with his wife in a car crash on the New Jersey Turnpike. He was 86.
Nash and Alicia Nash, 82, of Princeton Township, were killed in a taxi crash Saturday, state police said. A colleague who had received an award with Nash in Norway earlier in the week said they had just flown home and the couple had taken a cab home from the airport.
Nash won the Nobel prize in economics for his work on game theory, but he also…
jrosenhouse | May 24, 2015A large majority of voters have approved gay marriage:
Ireland's citizens have voted in a landslide to legalize gay marriage, electoral officials announced Saturday--a stunningly lopsided result that illustrates what Catholic leaders and rights activists alike called a “social revolution.”
Friday's referendum saw 62.1 percent of Irish voters say “yes” to changing the nation's constitution to define marriage as a union between two people regardless of their sex. Outside Dublin Castle, watching the results announcement in its cobblestoned courtyard, thousands of gay rights activists cheered,…
gregladen | May 19, 2015Just a pointer to my latest post on 10,000 Birds exploring recent research in which scientists created a GMO chicken with the normal bird beak replaced with the terrible face of the ancient thunder lizards! Well, not exactly, but sort of. Click here to read all about it!
jdupuis | May 19, 2015A bit unusually for me, I'm reviewing a novel as part of my Reading Diary series. Usually the closest I'll get to a novel is a fictionalized science graphic novel of some sort, kind of like the Survive! series or Lauren Ispsum.
But no, this ain't one of those. It's a good old fashioned novel.
OK, it's a climate change fiction novel that's kind of like an Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell romantic comedy but starring Seth Rogan and Jennifer Lawrence. Set on a community college campus, it has a bit of a feel of The Absent-Minded Professor or even The Nutty Professor for the cli-fi set.
So what have…
jrosenhouse | May 17, 2015This week we have a straightforward direct mate problem for you. It was composed by Raffi Rupin in 1961, and calls for mate in four:
A quick look at the diagram shows that white has three potential mates that almost work: Ra3, Nc5, Ra7. Currently, though, none of these work. The rook on b3 is pinned by the black bishop on g8, and therefore cannot move. The c5 square is covered by one of the black rooks, while the a7 square is covered by the other.
So, black currently has everything covered. But he's stretched pretty thin, meaning that white may be able to contrive a decoy.
The key…
jrosenhouse | May 11, 2015Philosopher Graham Oppy, whose book Arguing About Gods is well worth reading, has written an interesting survey of work by atheist philosophers over the last sixty years. Here's a taste:
The last sixty years have been a very fertile period for academic atheist philosopher critiques of theistic arguments. Among large-scale works that have attempted to establish that theistic arguments are unsuccessful—i.e. not such as ought to persuade non-believers to change their minds—we should certainly mention: The Existence of God (Wallace Matson, 1967), The Miracle of Theism (John Mackie, 1982),…
jrosenhouse | May 10, 2015I have been shamefully derelict in my Sunday Chess Problem responsibilities. But that ends now! To get us back into the swing of things, I have selected one of my own. The following diagram calls for selfmate in five:
This was published in the June 1992 issue of the British Chess Magazine. It later received a commendation in the tourney award.
Recall that in a selfmate, white moves first and forces black to give checkmate in no more than the stipulated number of moves. Black, for his part, does everything in his power to avoid giving checkmate. It's a complete inversion of normal…
gregladen | April 30, 2015Michael Halpern, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and climate scientist Michael Mann have written an editorial for Science, "Transparency and harassment."
Open records laws hold Universities and other public institutions accountable, protecting against biasing influences such as we might see from funding sources. (See: Cry for me Willie Soon).
Over the last couple of decades, interpersonal conversations among researchers have shifted from the milieu of vibrating air molecules in a room (or transformed into electrical signals and transferred over a phone) to electronic form. Today, a…
jdupuis | April 30, 2015This roundup includes reviews of a bunch of recent and not-so-recent reading about Canadian politics, in particular the Harper government and how it controls information. Some of the books are pretty directly related to science policy and some, not so much. These are all worth reading, some kind of overlap while others present fairly unique approaches. All were useful to me in my long term interest and work around Canadian science policy and in understanding the current Canadian Conservative government's anti-science attitudes. All are solid additions to the growing body of work on the…
gregladen | April 28, 2015A group of scientists attending a major conference get together in a bar. They talk, but they agree on nothing because they are critical academics. The server comes along to take the beer order and says, "I noticed you all are constantly arguing. What are you arguing about?"
"Sensitivity," one of them says. "It is the number of degrees C the Earth's surface will warm with a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. Is it 2, 3, 4? ... We cant settle on a number"
The server considers their plight for a moment. Suddenly, she rips several sheets out of her order book and hands one to each of the…
jrosenhouse | April 27, 2015It's been very hectic around here recently. In addition to the usual end of semester craziness, there's been one thing after another to fill my time. The book I've been editing forever had a major deadline last Monday, which pretty well killed that weekend. This past weekend was occupied by the MAA section meeting in Roanoke, VA, which I decided fairly last minute to attend.
Of course, it hasn't been all stress and hard work. My birthday was yesterday (I'm 42!), and since yesterday was also the day of the semester-ending math department picnic, everyone sang me happy birthday. But…
gregladen | April 26, 2015Just so you know. This is not something where you watch the first minute and get it and go "oh that's funny" or not and them move on. The plot is complex you must watch it until the very very end or don't bother. Just sayin' this because people seem to not do that a lot. Not a good way to go through life.
Anyway, watch this. Be prepared to ROFLYAO.
jdupuis | April 24, 2015This one's pretty funny, if only in the so-funny-it-hurts category. I'm one of those dinosaurs that tends to actually want to own a good part of the culture I consume, books and music mainly more than TV or movies.
Enjoy the squirmy discomfort of this one.
Local artist paid with, dies from, exposure
TORONTO - In the early hours of yesterday morning, local artist Sue Jolley was found dead of exposure mere days after being paid with the same.
“We’re all shocked by this, but contrary to popular belief we were paying her quite well,” said H&M Canada representative Lawrence Pike, who had hired…
gregladen | April 23, 2015I once knew a young woman who was in high school and shall remain nameless. One day I picked her up at school to drive her home, and asked how she was doing.
"Depressed, actually," she said.
"Why, did something go wrong at school?"
"Kinda," she replied. "The social studies teacher was out today."
"That's terrible, he must be a great teacher and stuff."
"No, he's average. But whenever they can't find a substitute the always show the same movie, and we watched it again today."
"That's depressing, watching the same movie over and over."
"No it's not if it is a good move. The movie itself is…
jdupuis | April 23, 2015There's kind of two theories of the web. The first theory is that it's the best thing ever, the culmination of human civilization, incapable of being anything negative in anyone's lives. Proponents of this theory can't stand it when anyone says anything mean about the web (or usually any technology) in public or especially online.
The other theory is the chicken little theory. According to this theory, the web (and usually any technology) is the reason the world is going to hell in a hand basket. All the bad things in the world are because the web is disrupting science and art and culture.…
gregladen | April 23, 2015I've written here about some of Bjorn Lomborg's work, generally critical of it. But the Abbot Government in Australia apparently likes what Lomborg is doing well enough to have earmarked $4 million (in some currency or another) to ensconce a version of his academically questionable enterprise right in the middle of Australian academics.
I would like to write this up for you so you can learn all you need to learn about it, but Graham Readfearn has already done an excellent job reporting this. I strongly urge you to go and read: Australian taxpayers funding climate contrarian's methods with $4m…