Watson on the Bridgewater Treatises
In today's reading from Peter Watson's Ideas (New York : HarperCollins, 2005), the discussion turned on the idea, dawning in the first half of the 19th century, of the Earth's great antiquity. Geology was in the earliest stages of understanding the formation of the Earth, fossils of animals not like those of the day were starting to be understood as earlier forms long extinct, Noah's flood was coming to seem ever less likely, or even possible, as an historical event, and the bones of Neanderthals were discovered and recognized as related to modern humans.
In other words, the Biblical story of creation and its chronology of the Earth's history was being severely undermined and the cracks seemed to be spreading irreparably. This was the impetus for "The Bridgewater Treatises":
There were, however, a number of last-ditch attempts to marry the biblical narrative with the flood [pun almost certainly intended!] of scientific discoveries, and these culminated in a series of papers that became known as the Bridgewater Treatises. This strange and to the modern reader, deadly series was commissioned by the will of the Reverend Francis Henry Egerton, eighth earl of Bridgewater, a noble clergyman who had always neglected his parish assiduously and who died in 1829. Lord Bridgewater charged his executors, the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of London, and the president of the Royal Society, with the duty of selecting eight scientific authors, each from a main branch of the natural sciences, who were capable of demonstrating "the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation; illustrating such work by all reasonable arguments, as for instance, the variety and formation of God's creatures in the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms…." The eight 'scientific' authors chosen in fact comprised clergymen, physicians and geologists. None of them said anything that much advanced the debate but the very existence of the series showed how far some people were prepared to go to try to keep science in its place. Among the arguments used were the view that the universe is so improbable statistically that 'divine direction' must be at work, and that our world is so benevolent that it can only have been made by God–examples included the observation that fish have eyes specially suited to marine vision, that iron ore is always discovered in the neighbourhood of coal, by means of which it can be smelted, and so on. In the final treatise, Dr Thomas Chalmers insisted that the very existence of a conscience among men, the very notion of morality, was 'conclusive evidence of an exquisite and divinely established harmony….' [pp. 636–637]
I don't know that I was surprised, but I was quite interested to learn about the Bridgewater Treatises and what we might call the great antiquity of modern arguments used by religious apologists.
You did notice, I'm sure, the idea that "the universe is so improbable statistically that 'divine direction' must be at work", which has been very popular with modern biblical creationists, currently known as intelligent-designers, who delight in expending a great amount of effort in scholastic pursuits to calculate a very large number that they are convinced represents the improbability of their own existence, thus demonstrating its improbability. This, they believe, is an unassailable proof of their existence of their creator-god.
Not only that, but you also noticed, I'm sure, that bit about how perfectly "designed" is the natural world. Iron always found near coal sounds pretty persuasive to me, right up there with corkscrew flagella and the ever popular appeal to the eye.
How interesting, then, to discover that some of their favorite arguments against evolution–and thus against science itself–all predated the widespread acceptance of the idea of evolution, not to mention evolution by natural selection. Arguments in search of a target or the evolution of the so-called debate about evolution? Neither really speaks well in favor of the apologists and their creativity.
And then, for extra credit as it were, a surprisingly modern argument against atheism: that without God there can be no morality, indeed, no idea even of morality. That argument had long been discredited already.
Perhaps someday these tired and empty ideas will stay on the trash-heap of history where they belong, although it might not happen soon. Even Bridgewater's posthumous wish has its own modern analogs–witness the Templeton Prize:
Just as knowledge in science, medicine, cosmology and other disciplines has grown exponentially during the past century, the Templeton Prize honors and encourages the many entrepreneurs trying various ways for discoveries and breakthroughs to expand human perceptions of divinity and to help in the acceleration of divine creativity.
The prize is the legacy of Sir John Templeton, a man of obviously traditional ideas and with too much money that he couldn't take with him. The prize is "a sum in the amount of £820,000 sterling", "awarded annually on the decision of a panel of judges from the major religions of the world today."
Kinosian on Quantum Butterflies
Every now and then I come across a sentence or two of such breathtaking new-agey, pseudo-scientific gobblety-gook that–well, it takes my metaphorical breath away and I am rendered speechless.
Ecce:
We've all heard the adage if a butterfly flaps its wings in Hong Kong, there's a hurricane in Manhattan. Today, quantum physics says yes, the world is kept spinning by an unending energy spiral intermingled and never lost.
[from Janet Kinosian, "Wide Awake In America", Huffington Post, 4 March 2007.]
Thuggy Projection
A couple of nights ago I wanted to read something not too taxing and reliably satisfying. I had a newish Spenser novel by Robert B. Parker handy, so that was the choice. I admire Parker's prolific output, his plots that do not get by on stereotypes and cliché, and it doesn't hurt that I can read his books faster than any others.
This passage caught my attention. Spenser has followed to a parking garage the body guard of a person of interest. He'd like to talk to the body guard, but the body guard's attitude gets in the way and needs adjusting first. Spenser obliges.
He tried to move past me to the elevator. I moved and blocked him again.
"How'd you happen to hook up with Alderson?" I said.
He took two handfuls of my jacket up near my neck.
"You gonna move, or am I gonna move you?" he said.
He was a big guy, bigger than I was., but jacket grabbing is an amateur move, and I suspected he'd gotten by much of his tough guy life on being big rather than skillful.
"Okay," I said, "Okay. I'll move."
He grunted and shoved me scornfully away and started past. I kicked both his ankles out from under him and he went down sideways and hard on the cement floor of the parking garage. I stepped back and waited. It took him a minute.
"You tripped me," he said. "You fucking sissy."
"Sort of," I said.
It took him a minute but he got his feet under him and got up and charged me. I moved a little and steered him past me and into the trunk of a car parked next to his. He grunted and steadied himself against the car. The impact had set off the car alarm and the horn began honking rhythmically.
"Stand still," he said. "You fight like a fucking girl."
"You think?" I said.
[Robert B. Parker, Now and Then (New York, G.P.Putnam's Sons, 2007, p. 157.]
Have you ever noticed how conservatives, religious fanatics, and other thugs tend to excuse their own shortcomings by accusing their opponents of the same thing?
Of course, with the current political-campaign season, this effect has been much on display, but it certainly isn't restricted to campaigning politicians.
It's been universally recognized, for instance, that as soon as the Bush Administration accuses some political opponent of doing something heinous, we know just what the Bush Administration has been up to. A ready example: Bob Wilson and Valerie Plame became traitors because the Bush Administration uncovered Plame's undercover status because Wilson irritated them. Saddam Hussein, waterboarding, global warming, election fraud–just a few of the phrases that bring to mind not-so-clever and not-so-subtle misdirection by the White House thugs.
The group whose antics seem most familiar to me, of course, are the religious-fanatic, anti-gay crowd. They have exceedingly vivid imaginations and are able to project a great many of their own shortcomings onto their gay targets. Intolerant? "Gay people," they say, "are intolerant of other viewpoints!" Puhlease. "Gay people recruit!" although said fanatics operate far more church "school" classes for the indoctrination of youngsters than gay people do. "Gay people want to destroy marriage!" Well, look at the maps to discover where divorce is most popular.
I'm not sure I understand the root cause of this thuggy projection technique, although I think it's probably a combination of 1) moral dissonance–the thugs usually seem aware of their own failings; and 2) a childish sort of cookie-jar defense–"I didn't break it! It fell and broke itself."
The sensible person's response to such misdirection, something like jaw-dropping stunned silence or else a cartoon-like "arrrggh!", doesn't really accomplish much, except maybe to amuse the thug. That's not terribly satisfying, nor terribly productive, but I don't have any good suggestions. Maybe Spenser exhibits some of the more useful tactics.
Park's Leap-Day Look at Science & Non-Science
Bob Park seems reinvigorated by all the science-silliness and some non-silliness going on that he reports in the latest (29 February) edition of "What's New". (Subscription information here.) Between feeling lazy and amused, I decided to include it all!
1. FENCES: SOMETHING THERE IS THAT DOESN’T LOVE A WALL.
Technology makes us arrogant. A 28-mile pilot project for a high-tech "virtual fence" south of Tucson, which cost $100M, is now acknowledged to be a failure. The history of the world is a story of fences that failed: the Great Wall of China, the Red Sea, the Berlin Wall, Robert McNamara’s electronic wall dividing Vietnam, followed by the horror of Agent Orange. Securing the 2,000 mile border was expected to cost $7.6B; the estimate will now go up. But desperate people will find a way in spite of obstacles. By contrast, the border with Canada remains unsecured. Why would Canadians want to come here? About 200,000 illegal immigrants enter from Mexico each year. For $7.6B we could pay them $38,000 each to stay in Mexico. We would all be better off.2. EVOLUTION: THE GOOD NEWS IS FROM FLORIDA.
Last week WN reported the happy news that the Board of Education had approved science standards that call for teaching "the scientific theory of evolution." As Harold Kroto, 1996 Nobel Prize and professor of chemistry at Florida State, put it, "The phrase 'scientific theory' gives us the leverage to differentiate between theories that are supported by evidence and those that aren’t." It also pleased a conservative legislator who was happy it wasn’t called a "scientific fact." Scientists should make it a point to distinguish between "scientific theory" and biblical revelation, which is "not even a theory." It never ends; legislation is now being considered that would allow criticisms of evolution to be taught.3. CREATIONISM: THE BAD NEWS IS FROM TEXAS.
A strong editorial in today’s issue of Nature warns that the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), which moved from San Diego to Dallas last year, has applied to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for the right to grant online master’s degrees in science education. An advisory board has recommended acceptance. Founded by Henry Morris in 1972, the ICR regards the Bible as an inerrant source of scientific and historical fact. The Board had been expected to vote on the application in January, but requested additional information. The vote is now expected at the boards 24 April meeting. Steven Weinberg, Physics Nobel 1979, who five years ago defended the rights of Texas school children to learn the natural laws that govern our existence http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN03/wn091903.html , has urged the board to deny accreditation to the Creation Research Institute. Every Texas scientist should do the same.4. PEW FORUM: THE U.S. RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE.
Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, the Pew survey finds a changing landscape. More than a quarter of Americans have left the faith they were born in. Americans who are unaffiliated with any religion have seen the greatest growth in numbers as a result. Catholicism has experienced the greatest net losses. Is there any indication that Americans are becoming more rational? Perhaps. About a fourth of those who are unaffiliated describe themselves as atheist or agnostic.
In: All, Current Events, It's Only Rocket Science
DeGeneres on Lawrence King's Murder
Ellen DeGeneres made a statement on her television show about the murder of Lawrence King, an eighth-grader in Oxnard, California. He was killed by a fellow student who apparently objected to King's saying he was gay, and to King's gender expression. It's a story that should leave homophobes in stunned silence at where their hatred has taken them and this country.
Thoughtfully, Andy at Towleroad transcribed her statement, which I think is worth repeating in its entirety:
"On February 12th, an openly gay 15-year-old boy named Larry who was an eighth-grader in Oxnard, California was murdered by a fellow eighth-grader named Brandon. Larry was killed because he…was gay. Days before he was murdered, Larry asked his killer to be his Valentine.
"I don't want to be political. This is not political, I'm not a political person, but this is personal to me. A boy has been killed and a number of lives have been ruined.
"And somewhere along the line the killer Brandon got the message that it's so threatening and so awful and so horrific that Larry would want to be his Valentine that killing Larry seemed to be the right thing to do. And when the message out there is so horrible that to be gay you can be killed for it, we need to change the message.
"Larry was not a second class citizen. I am not a second class citizen. It is okay if you're gay. I don't care what people say. I don't care what people think. And I know there are entire groups of people who face discrimination every single day and we're a long way from treating each other equally. All of it is unacceptable. All of it. But I would like you to start paying attention to how often being gay is the punchline of a monologue. Or how often gay jokes are in a movie. And that kind of message — laughing at someone because they're gay — is just the beginning. It starts with laughing at someone, then it's verbal abuse, then it's physical abuse, and then it's this kid Brandon killing a kid like Larry.
"We must change our country and we can do it with our behavior, we can do it with the messages we send our children, we can do it with our vote. This is an election year and there's a lot of talk about change. I think one thing we can change is hate. Check on who you're voting for, and does that person really truly believe that we are all equal under the law? And if you're not sure, change your vote. We deserve better. My heart goes out to everybody involved in this horrible, horrible incident."
Andy's blog article ("Ellen DeGeneres on Lawrence King: We Must Change Our Country") has, at the end, a number of links to his coverage of Lawrence King's murder.
[Update a few hours later:]
The segment has appeared at YouTube, and I wanted to help it get more views:
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Science-Book Challenge Update
I just finished reading Edward O. Wilson's The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth. My book note is here. It was a charming little book, oddly written in quasi-epistolary, addressed to a generic Southern Baptist pastor. It's more or less a series of essays recounting reasons why humankind might wish to forestall its current headlong rush to kill off Earth's species of animals and plants with such unseemly haste. I found it appealing and interesting but oddly naive in tone.
The Science-Book Challenge 2008 is about two months old now, one-sixth elapsed. Currently we have 11 challengers that I know about; you can find them listed on this Science-Book Challenge page along with links to their book notes as they appear. So far there are six new book notes under the auspices of the Challenge, very nearly what we'd expect for the average rate over the course of the year.
As long as it's 2008 it's not too late to join the Challenge. Click the tablet at right to read the amazingly undemanding rules, sign on or remain anonymous, but start reading!
In: All, Books, It's Only Rocket Science
Millet's Oh Pure and Radiant Heart
I have finished reading Lydia Millet's Oh Pure and Radiant Heart (Brooklyn, New York : Soft Skull Press, 2005; 489 pages). I'm pretty sure that I chose to read it because of a recommendation by Mel at The Indextrious Reader, but now I can't find a link.*
I read a lot of novels but, to be fair, they're mostly mystery novels and not what you might label modern novels. I don't mean avant garde or experimental, just exhibiting a modern, perhaps even post-modern, sensibility. Millet's novel I'm thinking is, indeed, a modern novel. Although the narrative is largely single-threaded and chronological, the texture is on the nubby side and I have to admit that it took me awhile to pick up the rhythm of her writing voice. Once I did I enjoyed the reading of the book immensely, but it took awhile to catch on and, even once I did, the reading was not speedy. That latter effect was caused by the lovely poetry of Millet's writing (usually blurbed as "lyrical") that, nevertheless, leaves one reading carefully and slowly.
It's a story about Ann and Ben; she's a librarian, he's a gardener, and they lead a perfectly normal life together in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They're thinking about having a baby. Ben wonders whether they have relationship problems, because Ann sometimes seems a bit distant, even before the guy with the automatic weapon came into the library where Ann works and accidentally shot himself to death, leading Ann to take some time off.
But it's not as though she doesn't have anything to keep her busy. See, not long before that incident in the library, and for no explicable reason, three physicists intimately associated with the creation of the atomic bomb — J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and Enrico Fermi — suddenly appear in modern time, in Santa Fe. The last thing they remember is the Trinity test — the first explosion of a fission device — despite which it seems that their 1940s selves continued on in their existence, but no matter. They don't arrive together but they soon find each other and end up in Ann's care. She becomes quite attached to them, and feels responsible; Ben does too, despite his better judgement and Szilard's abrasive personality.
The plot develops in madcap and picaresque fashion from there, but to say more might ruin the fun and surprises. Szilard is manipulative and on a mission. Oppenheimer is willing to be manipulated because he feels, at best, ambivalent about the bomb. Fermi is mostly confused and anxious. I liked the way all the characters developed.
Their story read to me like an allegory of how scientists who love science and who have strong ethical centers (except maybe Szilard!) could have nevertheless ended up creating the nuclear bomb. They overlooked so much for working on the sweet problem. As Millet wrote it:
In had been out of the question, Ann saw, for the physicists of the Manhattan Project to abandon their good idea before they had followed it as far as they could. They were men on a road with no choice but to walk it: they only wanted to keep going.
And they adored the idea, pursuing it with a devotion they never considered could be anything but virtuous. With their minds they had fastened onto a secret, which went on and on forever and had never before been known. [p. 54]
Peppered throughout the book are little signposts pointing towards bits of reality, ideas on the map near where the plot was passing. Things like this:
Five percent of people killed in wars at the end of the nineteenth century were civilians. In World War One this percentage rose to fifteen, and by World War Two it was sixty-five.
This was nothing compared to the wars of the 1990s. By that time the percentage would grow to ninety. [p. 231]
This paragraph from near the end expresses some new-found wisdom of Oppenheimer's. The remark about how "it was nothing to what his worst had been" is certainly a theme of the book, and the image of the gangs of boys kicking puppies seemed unusually apposite to me.
He [Oppenheimer] could shed everything now because in the end there was nothing more for him, he had done his best and finally it was nothing to what his worst had been. He could almost laugh now at the smallness of his good intentions, how paltry they had been against his mischief and the mischief of the neighborhood boys he had played with. He thought of Groves's fat, smug face and the beady homespun ignorance of Truman. Governments were gangs of boys, he thought, roaming the best neighborhoods and kicking puppies with their steel-toed boots; but their henchmen in the private sector were far, far worse. What a fool he had been: but all men were fools. His problem was to know it. [p. 474]
After I was finally making headway with the book and enjoying reading it, my biggest anxiety was that the author, who successfully created quite a plot pile-up for the climax very near the end of the book, might not find a satisfying way to end it all. I'm happy to report that she did, at least in my estimation.
In the end I'd say I liked the book, but I'm not sure I can guess who else might.
———-
* If my memory is almost accurate, Mel, can you locate the link where you discuss the book so I can include it?
Bodin on Heliocentrism
After Copernicus published De Revolutionibus in 1543, acceptance of the idea that the Earth orbited the Sun was neither immediate nor universal. Some appealed to common sense:
No one in his senses, or imbued with the slightest knowledge of physics will ever think that the earth, heavy and unwieldy from its own weight and mass, staggers up and down around its own centre and that of the sun; for at the slightest jar of the earth, we would see cities and fortresses, towns and mountains thrown down.
— Jean Bodin (1529–1596), quoted in Peter Watson, Ideas, (New York : HarperCollins, 2005), p. 517
Isn't it interesting how some common sense becomes uncommon.
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science
Park on UFOs
On 1 February 2008, Robert Park (in his What's New) reported this incident:
OTHER DIMENSIONS: THE GOVERNMENT’S UFO COVERUP.
I was invited this week to join a panel of "experts" on "It’s Your Call with Lynn Doyle," an Emmy Award-winning, viewer-interactive news talk show on the Comcast Cable Television Network. The subject was "Are we alone?" The object was to increase advertising revenue by pandering to a public that lives in a mythical world.I was the token scientist; Ted Schick, a philosophy professor from Muhlenberg, was the other rationalist. Then there was a delusional M.D. who saw lights she couldn’t explain over Phoenix, and the delusional head of the Paradigm Research Group, devoted to exposing the imaginary UFO cover-up.
But the "experts" hardly mattered; the stars were the callers, with tales of strange lights and space aliens who can walk through walls. Is that really possible? "Of course it is," a caller explained, "quantum physics has proven it." The aliens, another cautioned, may be in another dimension – "there are eleven you know." What have we done?
As we know, the lack of evidence just proves there's a conspiracy. I do wish someone would explain to me how the existence of aliens is proved by quantum physics, but I'm afraid I probably wouldn't understand.
In: All, Curious Stuff, It's Only Rocket Science
I Hear from Chris Dodd
You may recall that earlier in the Democratic primaries I supported the campaign of Senator Chris Dodd. Today I got an email from Dodd that I thought I would share:
Dear Jeff,
We have been through a lot in this past year and your friendship and support have meant so much to me. That is why I wanted to let you know of my decision to endorse a Democratic candidate for President – and that I have decided to support Barack Obama.
We all understand how much is at stake in this election and that it is more important than ever that we put a Democrat in the White House.
And while both of our Party's remaining candidates are extremely talented and would make excellent commanders-in-chief, I am throwing my support to the candidate who I believe will open the most eyes to our shared Democratic vision.
I'm deeply proud to be the first 2008 Democratic presidential candidate to endorse Barack Obama. He is ready to be President. And I am ready to support him – to work with him and for him and help elect him our 44th President.
Put simply, I believe Barack Obama is uniquely qualified to help us face this housing crisis, create good jobs, strengthen America's families in this 21st century global economy, unite the world against terrorism and end the war in Iraq – and perhaps most importantly, call the American people to shared service and sacrifice. In this campaign, he has drawn millions of voters into politics for the first time in their lives and shown us that we are united by so much more than that which divides us.
That is why I believe the time has come for Democrats to come together as a Party and focus on winning the general election. The stakes are too high not to.
The last seven years have been as difficult as any I can remember. More than ever, we need a President who will inspire us to take part in the political process and change our country's path.
Today, when we need it most, we are hearing a new call from Barack Obama. And I hope you, like me, will answer it in the affirmative.
Please get involved in Barack Obama's campaign now: http://action.barackobama.com/doddsupporters
Sincerely,
Chris Dodd
Paid for by Chris Dodd for President, Inc., PO Box 51882,
Washington, DC 20091, Info@ChrisDodd.com
(I have no particular comment about Dodd's letter, but I am curious about where this persistent idea came from that somehow the nomination is supposed to have been settled by now and that it is imperative that the national campaign begin before the nominating convention. Has everyone forgotten what traditionally happens at the nominating convention? Things like nominating a candidate, kicking off a national campaign….)
(Now that I think about it, I've been surprised throughout the primary season at the depths of some people's complaints about disenfranchised Florida "voters", superdelegates stealing their "vote", etc. People seem not to realize that primaries are run by political parties as part of their nominating process, and governed by the rules established by the parties. They are not national elections.)
How to Please Picky Eaters
Hidden amongst my recent email was one sent from one of the larger service providers that puts its own little advertising at the end of each email.
The email itself came with a few attached photographs of a reasonably tasty-looking naked man.
At the bottom of the email was this message:
"Ideas to please picky eaters."
I was vaguely titillated by the coincidence.
In: All, Faaabulosity, Laughing Matters
Beard of the Week XXXIII: A Fresh Perspective
This week's beard belongs to Albrecht Dürer, easily in my top-10 of most extraordinary artists ever. This amazing self-portrait was painted when the artist was 29 years old, in the year 1500. Is it symbolic that Dürer paints himself in this remarkably self-possessed, self-confident pose, looking directly at the viewer? It's also interesting that he paints himself more as an aristocrat rather than with the commonly affected palette in hand, as a painter. What is the power in this painting that makes it feel so much as though it communicates directly with the viewer across the more than five centuries since Dürer painted it. Honestly, it creates for me a frisson that very few works of art manage to do.
Dürer was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1471 (21 May), and he died in Nuremberg, Germany in 1528 (6 April). He did not stay his entire life in Nuremberg, but it seems that it was his center and he returned there after his various excursions to Italy and the Netherlands. He was a master of drawing, painting, printmaking, and engraving. He helped develop the newly emerging technique of perspective. He died relatively wealthy, apparently making his money from his prints, for which he was justly celebrated across Europe. (The Wikipedia biography of Dürer is nicely done; I also enjoyed the biography and the lovely images of stamps featuring works by Dürer on this page from Art History on Stamps.)
This page from WebMuseum, Paris has a nice collection of images, some biography, and a useful discussion of his portraiture. I don't see much point in trying to name any particular favorites, although this self-portrait I certainly put on his list of masterworks. Also famous, and for good reason, are his smallish, early watercolors "A Young Hare" and "The Large Turf". Both are breathtaking in their amazing realism, yet they go beyond mere realism and seem to breathe with a vitality beyond what any photograph could conjure for these subjects.
When we were in Rome in 2001, we happened upon a small exhibit concerning prints and printmaking through history, and there we saw some Dürer first hand. There was a copy of his notorious print of a Rhinoceros (notorious for being notably inaccurate, apparently drawn from a verbal description of the first rhino to arrive in Europe). We also saw two amazing "oversized" woodcuts (describing them as "oversized" seems such an understatement!) "The Triumphal Arch and the Large Triumphal Carriage of Maximilian I", which are discussed at some length, along with some remarkable photographs of the works, on this page.
Seeing these things first hand was quite an experience that still feels very close to me.
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Laughing At Creationists
Thanks to blogger Tinyfrog* I now know about a series of short videos that go under the collective title "Why do People Laugh at Creationists?" Apparently they were written, produced, and presented by a YouTube user named Thunderf00t.
I am delighted to point them out because 1) they get across some terrific scientific ideas, at the same time that 2) they are very funny. If you ask me, what's more fun that science fun, especially when it can be had at the expense of self-important, self-delusional creationists?
Here are two examples, the first and (so far) last one in the series–I expect there will be more. They give a good flavor of what your typical "Why do People Laugh at Creationists?" video has on offer, so you'll want to do some self study if you find these appealing.
Part 1 sets the tone by looking at some ridiculous "scientific" statements that come out of the mouth of a very self-important creationist:
Part 17 is a brilliant essay on the success of science as the mother of technology, science as a dispassionate but brutal meritocracy, and science as the subject that should be taught in science classes:
All of Thunderf00t's (the "0" in "foot" is a zero, btw) videos are listed here. There are a number of other videos contributed by Thunderf00t that I haven't screened yet, but it looks like hours of good, clean, scientific fun.
Have fun and learn some real science!
———-
* Who thanks some others in his posting YouTube videos: Why do people laugh at creationists?
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Laughing Matters
Earthrise
This remarkable image of the Earth rising over the lunar horizon is actually what it seems to be. It is a frame captured from an HDTV video taken on 7 November 2007 by the Japanese KAGUYA spacecraft, which is currently orbiting the Moon on a surveying mission. They tell us that the Earth is seen rising over a spot that is near the south pole of the Moon.
The KAGUYA Image Gallery, the source of this image (click on "HDTV"),* is a delight to look through; every click brings more remarkable sights and insights.
I first learned about the KAGUYA image from this Science@NASA feature for 20 February 2008: "Who's Orbiting the Moon?". It gives a nice run-down of all the missions from various countries that already have satellites orbiting the Moon, or will soon.
———-
* I have cropped the image and reduced it substantially so that it will fit in these narrow confines. Visit the website to find the incredibly large, incredibly high-resolution original image.
In: All, Eureka!, It's Only Rocket Science
Ceci N'est Pas Une Blog
This is a blog posting about itself. According to my blog-software statistics, this is my one-thousandth posting since the first one I posted on 18 October 2004.* To be honest, I'm a bit surprised that I'm still writing here regularly three-plus years later. Evidently it works for me somehow.
I've noticed that one-thousand is an accepted milestone at which one is to reflect, look back, and perhaps look forward. Well, you can look back as easily as I can, and I don't see much reason to try predicting the future since we're going to go through it together anyway. Therefore I thought this article should be about itself.
Or, rather, the topic is things that are about themselves. So called self-referential (SR) things.
I believe that my introduction to SR things, at least as an idea, came when I read Douglas Hofstadter's remarkable book "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid". The book was published in 1979; my book of books tells me that I finished reading it on 17 August 1986, but I expect that that date is the second time that I read the book. I can remember conversations I had about the book taking place about 1980–and I didn't start keeping my book of books until 1982.
Broadly speaking, GEB was about intelligence–possible consciousness–as an emergent property of complex systems or, in other words, about how the human brain can think about itself. Hofstadter described the book as a "metaphorical fugue" on the subject, and that's a pretty fair description for so few words. Most of his points are made through analogy, metaphor, and allegory, and the weaving together of several themes. All in all, he took a very indirect approach to a topic that is hard to approach directly, and I thought it worked magnificently. In a rare fit of immodesty, I also thought that I was one of his few readers who would likely understand and appreciate the musical, mathematical, and artistic approaches he took to his thesis, not to mention how each was reflected in the structure of the book itself–a necessary nod to SR, I'd say, for a book that includes SR. There were parts of it that I thought didn't work so successfully as other parts, but I find that acceptable in such an adventurous work. (The Wikipedia article on the book manages to give a sense of what went on between its covers, and mentions SR as well.)
The SR aspect comes about because Hofstadter feels that it may be central to the workings of consciousness, or at least central to one way of understanding it, which shouldn't be too surprising since we think of consciousness as self-awareness. Bringing in SR for the sake of consciousness then explains why Kurt Gödel should get woven into the book: Gödel's notorious "incompleteness theorems" is the great mathematical example of SR, not to mention possibly the pinnacle of modern mathematical thought.
Gödel published his results in 1931, not so long after Alfred Whitehead and Bertrand Russell published their Principia Mathematica (1910–1913). Their goal was to develop an axiomatic basis for all of number theory. They believed they had done it, but Gödel's result proved that doing what they thought they'd done was impossible. How devastating! (More Wikipedia to the rescue: about Whitehead & Russel's PM, and about Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems.)
Gödel's result says (in my words) that any sufficiently complex arithmetical system (i.e., the system of PM, which aimed to be complete) is necessarily incomplete, meaning that there are self-consistent statements of the system that can be made that are manifestly true but yet are unprovable within the system, which makes it incomplete, or that there are false statements that can be proven, which makes it inconsistent. Such statements are known as formally undecidable propositions.
This would seem to straying pretty far from SR and consciousness, but hold on. How did Gödel prove this remarkable result?# The proof itself was the still-more remarkable result. Gödel showed how one could construct a proposition within the confines of the formal system, which is to say using the mathematical language of the arithmetical system, that said, in effect, "I am a true statement that cannot be proven".
Pause to consider this SR proposition, and you'll see that either 1) it is true that it cannot be proven, which makes it a true proposition of the formal system, therefore the formal system is incomplete; or 2) it can be proven, in which case the proposition is untrue and the formal system in inconsistent (contradictory). Do you feel that sinking, painted-into-the-corner feeling?
Of course, it's the self-reference that causes the whole formal system to crumble. Suddenly the formal system is battling a paradox hemorrhage that feels rather like the Liar's Paradox ("All Cretans are liars") meets Russell's own Barber Paradox ("the barber shaves all those in the town who do not shave themselves; who shaves the barber?"). When these things hit my brain it feels a little like stepping between parallel mirrors, or looking at a TV screen showing its own image taken with a TV camera: instant infinite regress and an intellectual feeling of free-fall.
Does Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems and SR have anything to do with consciousness? Well, that's hard to say, but that wasn't Hofstadter's point, really. Instead, he was using SR and the Incompleteness Theorems as metaphors for that nature of consciousness, to try to get a handle on how it is that consciousness could arise from a biologically deterministic brain, to take a reductionist viewpoint.
At about the same time I read GEB for the second time, I remember having a vivid experience of SR in action. I was reading a book, Loitering with Intent, by the extraordinary Muriel Spark (about whom more later someday). It is a novel, although at times one identifies the first-person narrative voice with the author. There came a moment about mid-way through the book when the narrator was describing having finished her book, which was in production with her publisher, how she submitted to having a publicity photograph taken for use on the back jacket of the book.
The description seemed eerier and eerier until I was forced to close the book for a moment and stare at the photograph on the back jacket. It mirrored exactly what had happened in the text, which was fiction, unless of course it wasn't, etc. Reality and fiction vibrated against each other like blue printing on bright-orange paper. It was another creepy hall-of-mirrors moment, but also felt a moment of unrivaled verisimilitude. I think it marked the beginning of my devotion to Dame Muriel.
And that's what this article is about. I suppose I could have used "untitled" as the title, but I've never figured out whether "untitled" is a title or a description. I think "undescribed" might be a still-bigger problem, though.
Now, on to the one-thousand-and-first.%
———-
* You'll notice that neither the first nor the thousandth have serial numbers that correspond; the first is numbered "2", the thousandth is numbered "1091". Clearly I do not publish every article that I begin, evidently discarding, on average, about 9% of them. Some get started and never finished, and some seem less of a good idea when I'm finished with them than when I started.
# And please note, this is mathematically proven, it is not a conjecture.
% I've been reading stuff lately that described how arabic numerals were only adopted in the 15th century; can you imagine doing arithmetic with spelled-out numbers! Not only that, but before the invention of double-entry bookkeeping–also in the 15th century–and sometimes even after, business transactions were recorded in narrative form. Yikes!
In: All, Books, It's Only Rocket Science
Total Lunar Eclipse, 20 February
Before I forget to mention it, this item is from NASA's Science News service:
On Wednesday evening, February 20th, the full Moon over the Americas will turn a delightful shade of red and possibly turquoise, too. It's a total lunar eclipse—the last one until Dec. 2010.
They have more on the eclipse here, with times indicated (totality: 10:01 to 10:51 pm EST).
I hope it's not cloudy tonight, although it doesn't look promising here at the moment with full cloud cover and snow flurries. I'd hate to miss it–2010 seems so far away.
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
The Prime Mammal
I love reading Daniel Dennett. His voice, his pace, his examples, his metaphors, his ideas all seem tuned exactly to my taste. One of his books that I read last year–for which I finally finished my book note–was Freedom Evolves (New York : Viking, 2003, xiii + 347 pages). I was not as dazzled by it as I was by Darwin's Dangerous Idea, but I don't think that marks a deficit.
Here's a left-over excerpt that introduced a humorous idea with a serious mission, and presents an example that keeps cropping up surprisingly often in modern political discourse.
Beware of Prime Mammals
You may think you're a mammal, and that dogs and cows and whales are mammals, but really there aren't any mammals at all–there couldn't be! Here's a philosophical argument to prove it.
- Every mammal has a mammal for a mother.
- If there have been any mammals at all, there have been only a finite number of mammals.
- But if there has been even one mammal, then by (1), there have been an infinity of mammals, which contradicts (2), so there can't have been any mammals. It's a contradiction in terms.
Since we know perfectly well that there are mammals, we take this argument seriously only as a challenge to discover what fallacy is lurking within it. Something has to give. And we know, in a general way, what has to give: If you go back far enough in the family tree of any mammal, you will eventually get to the therapsids, those strange, extinct bridge species between the reptieles and the mammals. A gradual transition occurred from clear reptiles to clear mammals, with a lot of hard-to-classify intermediaries filling in the gaps. What should we do about drawing the lines across this spectrum of gradual change? Can we identify a mammal, the Prime Mammal, that didn't have a mammal for a mother, thus negating premise (1)? On what grounds? Whatever the grounds are, they will be indistinguishable from the grounds we could also use to support the verdict that that animal was not a mammal–after all, its mother was a therapsid. What should we do? We should quell our desire to draw lines. We don't need to draw lines. We can live with the quite unshocking and unmysterious fact that, you see, there were all these gradual changes that accumulated over many millions of years and eventually produced undeniable mammals.
Philosophers tend to like the idea of stopping a threatened infinite regress by identifying something that is–must be–the regress-stopper: the Prime Mammal, in this case. It often lands them in doctrines that wallow in mystery, or at least puzzlement, and, of course, it commits them to essentialism in most instances. (The Prime Mammal must be whichever mammal in the set of mammals first had all the essential mammalian features. If there is no definable essence of mammal, we're in trouble. And evolutionary biology shows us that there are no such essences.) [pp. 126–127]
The search for the Prime Mammal can easily be seen as the basis of many arguments against Darwinism favored by creationists, for example. The fruitless search for a "missing link" that would "prove" evolution is essentially a prime-mammal argument — what was the creature that came immediately before the first human, would be one way to put it. There are other forms, too, like "what was the first eye like?", or even "which came first: the chicken or the egg?" Discussion of evolution seems to abound with prime-mammal situations.
But prime-mammalism doesn't stop with evolution; it's a concept that gets applied in many forms. It's the hazard that's showing up as anti-abortionists try to get their way by claiming they can spot the moment when an egg and a sperm create a "person". Of course, prime-mammalism is not their only problem, since they've painted themselves into their corner with the notion of "ensoulment", which creates a distinct problem for them, ultimately, since there is no soul. Pretty good, though, introducing the soul: prime-mammalism and essentialism all rolled up in one!
It can be difficult to see through the prime-mammal argument in its many guises, but that ability can save a lot of time wasted in specious arguments and self-delusion.
Was Mary a Woman of Authority?
Chris at Americablog passes along ("Religious high school refuses female referee") this little absurdity. Quoting a story from Sports Illustrated:
The Kansas State High School Activities Association said referees reported that Michelle Campbell was preparing to officiate at St. Mary's Academy near Topeka on Feb. 2 when a school official insisted that Campbell could not call the game.
The reason given, according to the referees: Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs.
Is it just me or is the incident even more ridiculous when we note that the school, St. Mary's Academy, is named for Mary, generally thought to be a woman?
Beard of the Week Special: Valentine's Day 2008
The beards in this special edition BOW belong to yours truly, Jeff (on the right), and his beloved partner, Isaac (on the left). Bill will recognize this photograph, because he took it.
The occasion was our first night in Rome on our trip in April 2007. To celebrate our arrival we had dinner al fresco at our favorite spot
I believe I told the story before about how our previously favorite restaurant, Trattoria da Guiseppe, had been transformed into Trattoria Cecio since our visit only a year previous. It's a heart-wrenching, heart-warming story of food found, food loved, food lost, food regained. If I haven't, I'll tell it later. Anyway, in this photo we are at the beginning of our meal with some sense of foreboding but before the full unfolding and subsequent resolution of the drama.
As I remember it, I was having the Ensalata di Mare (an arrangement of cold seafood, with things like pickled squid and sardines, with a sprinkling of olive oil) and Isaac was having Gnocchi a Quattro Fromagi. The Gnocchi we treated as one of their signature dishes, it was so good. What Bill was having is harder to say–it looks like an antipasto arrangement of cheese and sausages. You can see from the way I'm holding our camera that I probably just took a picture of my salad. Yes, we are both of such an age that eating is easier while wearing reading glasses; for some reason, guiding blurry food to one's mouth is a great challenge.
Anyway, the whole point of this Valentine's Day Special BOW was just to give Isaac a virtual kiss and say thanks for being mine these past 15+ years. Here's hoping that we're not even a quarter the way through yet.
In: All, Beard of the Week, Personal Notebook
GetPercent
The website GetReligion discusses press coverage of news stories about religion, and how well they exhibit an understanding of the religious issues involved. Their name comes from the idea that "The press…just doesn't get religion."
Well, in this little example I'm afraid there's a bit of a need for some GetMath. In a story called "Define social justice — give at least one example", Mark Stricherz is discussing a story about Jeremiah Wright Jr., the pastor of the church Barack Obama belongs to. I have no issues with the analysis, just with this excerpt
As Ramirez noted, plainly but aptly,
"Obama was one of the thousands who joined Trinity under Wright’s leadership. When Wright became Trinity’s pastor in 1972, the church had 85 members. Today, Trinity has a congregation of 8,500, with more than 80 ministries, making it one of the largest and most influential black churches in the nation."
In other words, during his tenure Wright’s congregation increased by more than 1,000 percent.
Of course, one notes that Wright's congregation increased by well over well over 1,000%. In fact, it increased by 10,000%. In other words, it increased by a factor of 100.
To move from a fractional factor, say 0.45, to an expression in percent, one multiplies by 100. Thus, 0.45 of something is also said to be 45% of that something. To move from an expression in percent to a decimal fraction, divide the percent figure by 100. Thus, 32% of something is 0.32 times that something.
This works even if the fractional part is greater than the something being compared to, it's just that the decimal expression is greater than 1, and the percent expression is greater than 100%. This general expression
where 
is the percent expression, 
is what I've called the fractional part, and 
is the amount being compared to, works regardless of whether the "quantity" is greater than or less than the "comparison" value.
So, in Mr. Wright's case, his congregation, in going from 85 to 8,500 increased by a factor of 100, or by
I expect Mr. Stricherz knows this and simply mistyped, but it did provide me an excuse for a little pedantic moment of the type I love so much.
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science