Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism will soon be out in paperback!
I was honored to contribute a chapter (co-written with Wesley Elsberry) to this book, which also features chapters by Taner Edis, Matt Young, Gert Korthof, David Ussery, Ian Musgrave, Alan Gishlick, Niall Shanks, Istvan Karsai, Gary Hurd, Mark Perakh, and Victor Stenger. The book's editors were Matt Young and Taner Edis, and it was published by Rutgers University Press. (For more information about the book, see here.) I was pleased to see that it sold much better than expected (but alas, I don't get any royalties) --- so well that Rutgers has decided to release a paperback version.
This version sells for only US $24.95, and you can order it at amazon. Buy a copy, and donate it to your local public library!
Postscript: I just learned that an even better deal is available from the Rutgers University Press website: you can get a copy for just $19.96.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Courses Have Consequences
John Tibbits, president of our local community college, Conestoga College, is all upset because McMaster's new satellite medical school will go in a new downtown Kitchener campus of the University of Waterloo, and not at Conestoga. In an article in our local paper, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, he suggested the decision was not "rational" or "logical".
Is it possible that Conestoga didn't get the new medical school because they have a history of offering courses that endorse quack therapies, such as HOLI8170 (Reflexology) and HOLI8120 (Therapeutic Touch)? Or because they have a history of offering courses that tout pseudoscience, such as META0110 (Psychic World), META0130 (Advanced Psychic World), and META0060 (Reincarnation - Who Were You?)?
I'm sure many of Conestoga College's courses are not as wacky as these, and most are probably very helpful to the people who take them. But courses have consequences. If your curriculum contains nutball entries, and you offer them year after year even after people have complained, don't be surprised if some legitimate scientists and physicians don't want to be associated with you.
Is it possible that Conestoga didn't get the new medical school because they have a history of offering courses that endorse quack therapies, such as HOLI8170 (Reflexology) and HOLI8120 (Therapeutic Touch)? Or because they have a history of offering courses that tout pseudoscience, such as META0110 (Psychic World), META0130 (Advanced Psychic World), and META0060 (Reincarnation - Who Were You?)?
I'm sure many of Conestoga College's courses are not as wacky as these, and most are probably very helpful to the people who take them. But courses have consequences. If your curriculum contains nutball entries, and you offer them year after year even after people have complained, don't be surprised if some legitimate scientists and physicians don't want to be associated with you.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Does the God of the Bible Exist? - A Debate Report
I attended the February 11 debate sponsored by the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge-Guelph Humanists. It was entitled "Does the God of the Bible Exist?" and featured Chris diCarlo of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology versus Scott Wilkinson, pastor of the New Creation Reformed Presbyterian Church.
The debate was held as a "Darwin Day" feature which, to my mind, was an unfortunate choice because of the implication that evolutionary biology is for atheists only. Here is my report on the debate, with my own rebuttals in italics and red.
Pastor Wilkinson started the debate by disputing the definition of "faith" as "belief in the absence of evidence". He said that the bible says that faith is knowledge based on reason, on evidence. Next, he disputed the view that scientific evidence is the only legitimate evidence. Many things, he said, are known and proven, but not based on science. Four of them are the existence of numbers, the laws of logic, morality, and personal self-consciousness. He stated that the belief in naturalism is not based on evidence and claimed that scientific knowledge is actually based on men. Is science based on evidence you personally have seen and tested? he asked. He quoted Guth to the effect that scientific phenomena are not directly observed.
He then claimed that the Christian god is an objective reality which is empirically provable, and unbelief is inexcusable. The Christian world view is true because its negation is impossible. He presented an argument which he called the "transcendental argument": the laws of logic are necessary for all rational argument. Therefore, you must maintain that the laws of logic are real and invariant. But in a materialist world there cannot be laws of logic because logic would be contingent and not universal.
Next, he claimed that materialists have a problem with induction. They observe phenomena and deduce rules, but this assumes the uniformity of nature (future will be like the past), and there is no logical justification for induction.
Finally, he said that in a materialist worldview, there is no objective view of right and wrong.
I thought many of these points were very weak. While it is true that some Platonic philosophers maintain that numbers have an independent existence, this is not agreed to by all philosophers, and it's certainly not "known and proven" as Wilkinson asserted.
It's true that we often use "laws of logic" when we argue. For example, when one reasons about mathematical objects, one uses rules such as "either the proposition A holds, or its negation holds". But, in fact, we don't have any guarantee that this kind of reasoning will never lead to absurdities such as 1 = 0. For Gödel proved that any sufficiently powerful mathematical system is either inconsistent or incomplete, and furthermore we can't carry out a proof of consistency within that system. (We might be able to in some more powerful system.) I think most mathematicians believe that mathematics is consistent but incomplete, but we don't actually know for sure. It could well be that the "laws of logic" lead us to unresolvable contradictions.
Wilkinson referred repeatedly to the "laws of logic" as if these have some independent existence. But it seems likely to me that the mathematical rules we think of as "laws of logic" are just models of physical existence, and those models may not accurately reflect the complexities of the world. For example, consider the propostion "electron e is at position p at time t". Can this really be said to have a single truth value, true or false? Or how about the proposition "Mary is a good person"? Maybe Mary pays her taxes, but once beat her husband. Can she really be said to be either "good" or "not good"? Furthermore, mathematicians have explored other kinds of logics, such as multi-valued logic, and fuzzy logic, and so I don't think there is one set of "laws of logic" agreed on by all people. After all, the continuum hypothesis is independent of set theory, so we can, according to our preference, choose it to be either true or false.
My view of the "laws of logic" are that they are a useful abstraction that has often proved reliable in the past in many situations. But they don't need to be elevated to "universal" or "immutable" in order to be useful, and we need to recognize their limitations.
I also don't see any problem with the fact that induction can't be justified through logic alone. Why should this trouble us? Most of our knowledge is empirical, not derived through logic. In the absence of other evidence, rough uniformity of the future against the past seems like an entirely reasonable assumption.
Wilkinson seems unaware that morality can be investigated through the scientific method. As for "personal self-consciousness", Wilkinson seems unaware of the work of Gordon Gallup, who devised a scientific test for animal self-consciousness.
Finally, I strongly dispute the characterization of science as "based on men". Yes, it is true that I have not personally performed experiments in subatomic physics that verify the existence (say) of positrons. But anyone with a university or even high-school science education will, in fact, have performed many experiments verifying many aspects of science. The thing that makes science different from religion is that its conclusions are, in principle, verifiable by everyone with enough interest and time. And furthermore, science is self-correcting in a way that religion is not. Really fundamental results are verified over and over by different teams, each with a strong incentive to prove the other guys wrong. The history of science shows this self-correcting aspect clearly (consider the case of N-rays).
Chris diCarlo spoke next. He said his presentation would be divided into four parts:
1. He said he was an "agtheist", that is, someone who is atheistic towards all known religions, but agnostic on the question of whether the universe itself came into being through an intentional act. As for what can be known about god, he pointed to the paradox that the more you say about god's attributes (omniscience, omnibenevolence, etc.) the more inconsistencies develop. His view is that god was fashioned by people to provide (a) an explanation of causality in nature (b) a guide for moral behavior and (c) the illusion of immortality.
2. He argued that we evaluate whether something constitutes "knowledge" based on criteria such as consistency, coherence, simplicity and reliability.
At this point Prof. diCarlo's time was up, so he saved points 3 and 4 for later, and the cross examination began.
Prof. diCarlo asked Pastor Wilkinson, "How old do you think the universe is?" Wilkinson replied that he agreed with everything in the bible, and based on the biblical account, the universe is 6000-10000 years old. Wilkinson argued that the scientific view of the age of the earth is based on naturalism and the uniformity of nature (radioactive decay rates are unchanged). But the very existence of logic and the scientific method assumes god exists and endowed nature with uniform laws, so this argument is self-defeating for the materialist. He quoted Patricia Churchill (I think he meant "Churchland") as saying that reason has developed only because it has survival benefit. Thus, in the evolutionary view, logic is geared towards survival and not truth claims. Atheists support abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia.
The scientific method certainly does not assume that god exists; it is completely silent on the question. We date the earth as 4.6 billion years old not because we assume that decay constants are really constant, but because we have good reason to think so: experiments were done early in the history of radioactivity to try to influence decay rates through explosions, changes of temperature and pressure, inducing strong magnetic fields, etc., but only very small changes were observed. See Dalrymple's book, The Age of the Earth. So I think it is dishonest of Wilkinson to maintain that decay rates are unchanged is merely an assumption.
In any event, it is Wilkinson who is maintaining that the uniformity of nature is only explicable to the theist, so as a theist, he should be more convinced by uniformitarian arguments than the atheist. Thus, his argument is self-defeating.
The second part of his claim is a reworked version of Plantinga's argument against evolution: evolution only endows us with reason enough to reproduce efficiently. But then we have no reason to trust our mental faculties that came up with the theory of evolution. I find this argument silly, because it assumes a certain black-and-white view of our mental faculties: either they are entirely reliable, or they are not to be trusted at all. No one who has read history can believe that man is never capable of folly; the whole history of the world is the history of folly. And yet an evolutionary development that gave us an entirely bogus picture of the world would not likely ensure survival. So I think we can provisionally trust in our reason, but always be alert to the ways it may deceive us.
Prof. diCarlo spoke again. He said it was epistemically irresponsible to believe in the Christian god, since the evidence we have is not sufficient for the claim. He went on to his point 4:
4. The inherent tension in belief of the god of the bible: (a) the tension between an all-powerful, all-knowing god, and human free will (b) specifying one particular god among an indefinite choice is divisive and leads to conflicts (c) the tension between human biology and the doctrines of Christianity, e.g., masturbation and (d) the problem of evil. (He put up a slide with a picture of the tablet that would normally have the 10 commandments on it, but instead had "Thou shalt not masturbate". This was pretty funny, especially because when it was Pastor Wilkinson's turn to speak, the slide stayed up behind him.)
Pastor Wilkinson spoke again. In the materialist world view, he claimed, there was no objective standard of morality, or right and wrong. No god implies no morality. Hitler based his world view on Darwin's view of natural selection. If the materialist world view is correct, there is nothing wrong with Hitler's murders. Evolutionary biologists agree that the theory of evolution arose because people want to get away from traditional sexual morality (he quoted Huxley).
Next, there was some final cross-examination. Prof. diCarlo got Wilkinson to admit that God hates all believers in other religions except Wilkinson's brand of Christianity. In particular, Wilkinson explicitly stated that God hates Muslims! Now that was a rather explosive claim, but entirely missing from the Record's account of the debate by religion reporter Mirko Petricevic. I have observed that Petricevic constantly slants his coverage to favor the religious point of view, and this is just another data point.
Prof. diCarlo also made some effective points about the incompatibility of the Christian god with human free will. The Christian god's view of us is the same way: since his is omniscient and created the universe, he already knew 14 billion years ago whether we would be saved or not. We can do nothing to defeat his knowledge and so don't have free will. He made an analogy with the movie "Jaws": you can watch it as many times as you like, but the shark always dies at the end. God watching history unfold is the same. Pastor Wilkinson had no good response to this argument.
In his closing remarks, Pastor Wilkinson made the point that only Christianity, among all religions, must be true because in no other religion is there justice. In particular, Islam does not provide justice for evil deeds during life. But I felt he contradicted himself, since he made two claims: Christianity provides justice, but one can also be saved if one repents on one's deathbed. In other words, Hitler could be in heaven if he repented and asked god's forgiveness at the last moment. So how is that justice?
At this point the debate ended, and I will now give some comments without resorting to red and italics.
First, both speakers had polished presentations. Pastor Wilkinson's closing remarks, in particular, were an earnest sermon about man's need for Christianity, and they were well-received by many of the believers in the crowd. Prof. diCarlo's brand of sardonic humor succeeded in making many points, particularly about Wilkinson's condemning Jews, homosexuals, and Muslims to hell.
On the other hand, both speakers could have addressed the other's arguments in more detail. It was almost as if we had two parallel presentations which, despite the opportunity for cross-examination, didn't interact all that much. Prof. diCarlo, for example, never really addressed Pastor Wilkinson's point about the "laws of logic", which was really his main argument. Also, while I admired his wit and intellect, I felt Prof. diCarlo sometimes came across as a little too flippant and arrogant. It sometimes seemed like he treated the audience as a philosophy class where he was the instructor.
After the debate, I asked Pastor Wilkinson the following question: "You say the earth is 10,000 years old. Yet there are ice cores in Antarctica that give an unbroken record of 190,000 years. How do you explain this?" He had no good answer, mumbling about "uniformity" and "assumptions". But the ice core record we have agrees with data in the recent past, and there is no reason to believe it does not actually represent a record of history. When pressed, he suggested a comet might have exploded in the atmosphere and just happened to put down a series of layers that exactly correspond to our historical record. But, of course, this is just pure fantasy. Where is the evidence for this comet? How did it happen to put down a series of layers that exactly matches our historical records? I made the point to him that no thinking person is going to subscribe to Wilkinson's version of Christianity if it causes him to deny the evidence of his own senses.
For me it was an entertaining evening, but probably not one that changed many minds.
The debate was held as a "Darwin Day" feature which, to my mind, was an unfortunate choice because of the implication that evolutionary biology is for atheists only. Here is my report on the debate, with my own rebuttals in italics and red.
Pastor Wilkinson started the debate by disputing the definition of "faith" as "belief in the absence of evidence". He said that the bible says that faith is knowledge based on reason, on evidence. Next, he disputed the view that scientific evidence is the only legitimate evidence. Many things, he said, are known and proven, but not based on science. Four of them are the existence of numbers, the laws of logic, morality, and personal self-consciousness. He stated that the belief in naturalism is not based on evidence and claimed that scientific knowledge is actually based on men. Is science based on evidence you personally have seen and tested? he asked. He quoted Guth to the effect that scientific phenomena are not directly observed.
He then claimed that the Christian god is an objective reality which is empirically provable, and unbelief is inexcusable. The Christian world view is true because its negation is impossible. He presented an argument which he called the "transcendental argument": the laws of logic are necessary for all rational argument. Therefore, you must maintain that the laws of logic are real and invariant. But in a materialist world there cannot be laws of logic because logic would be contingent and not universal.
Next, he claimed that materialists have a problem with induction. They observe phenomena and deduce rules, but this assumes the uniformity of nature (future will be like the past), and there is no logical justification for induction.
Finally, he said that in a materialist worldview, there is no objective view of right and wrong.
I thought many of these points were very weak. While it is true that some Platonic philosophers maintain that numbers have an independent existence, this is not agreed to by all philosophers, and it's certainly not "known and proven" as Wilkinson asserted.
It's true that we often use "laws of logic" when we argue. For example, when one reasons about mathematical objects, one uses rules such as "either the proposition A holds, or its negation holds". But, in fact, we don't have any guarantee that this kind of reasoning will never lead to absurdities such as 1 = 0. For Gödel proved that any sufficiently powerful mathematical system is either inconsistent or incomplete, and furthermore we can't carry out a proof of consistency within that system. (We might be able to in some more powerful system.) I think most mathematicians believe that mathematics is consistent but incomplete, but we don't actually know for sure. It could well be that the "laws of logic" lead us to unresolvable contradictions.
Wilkinson referred repeatedly to the "laws of logic" as if these have some independent existence. But it seems likely to me that the mathematical rules we think of as "laws of logic" are just models of physical existence, and those models may not accurately reflect the complexities of the world. For example, consider the propostion "electron e is at position p at time t". Can this really be said to have a single truth value, true or false? Or how about the proposition "Mary is a good person"? Maybe Mary pays her taxes, but once beat her husband. Can she really be said to be either "good" or "not good"? Furthermore, mathematicians have explored other kinds of logics, such as multi-valued logic, and fuzzy logic, and so I don't think there is one set of "laws of logic" agreed on by all people. After all, the continuum hypothesis is independent of set theory, so we can, according to our preference, choose it to be either true or false.
My view of the "laws of logic" are that they are a useful abstraction that has often proved reliable in the past in many situations. But they don't need to be elevated to "universal" or "immutable" in order to be useful, and we need to recognize their limitations.
I also don't see any problem with the fact that induction can't be justified through logic alone. Why should this trouble us? Most of our knowledge is empirical, not derived through logic. In the absence of other evidence, rough uniformity of the future against the past seems like an entirely reasonable assumption.
Wilkinson seems unaware that morality can be investigated through the scientific method. As for "personal self-consciousness", Wilkinson seems unaware of the work of Gordon Gallup, who devised a scientific test for animal self-consciousness.
Finally, I strongly dispute the characterization of science as "based on men". Yes, it is true that I have not personally performed experiments in subatomic physics that verify the existence (say) of positrons. But anyone with a university or even high-school science education will, in fact, have performed many experiments verifying many aspects of science. The thing that makes science different from religion is that its conclusions are, in principle, verifiable by everyone with enough interest and time. And furthermore, science is self-correcting in a way that religion is not. Really fundamental results are verified over and over by different teams, each with a strong incentive to prove the other guys wrong. The history of science shows this self-correcting aspect clearly (consider the case of N-rays).
Chris diCarlo spoke next. He said his presentation would be divided into four parts:
- What can be known about God?
- Such beliefs fall short of what we call "knowledge".
- It is epistemically irresponsible to believe in a universe specially created by the Christian god.
- Gods are no more real than the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus.
1. He said he was an "agtheist", that is, someone who is atheistic towards all known religions, but agnostic on the question of whether the universe itself came into being through an intentional act. As for what can be known about god, he pointed to the paradox that the more you say about god's attributes (omniscience, omnibenevolence, etc.) the more inconsistencies develop. His view is that god was fashioned by people to provide (a) an explanation of causality in nature (b) a guide for moral behavior and (c) the illusion of immortality.
2. He argued that we evaluate whether something constitutes "knowledge" based on criteria such as consistency, coherence, simplicity and reliability.
At this point Prof. diCarlo's time was up, so he saved points 3 and 4 for later, and the cross examination began.
Prof. diCarlo asked Pastor Wilkinson, "How old do you think the universe is?" Wilkinson replied that he agreed with everything in the bible, and based on the biblical account, the universe is 6000-10000 years old. Wilkinson argued that the scientific view of the age of the earth is based on naturalism and the uniformity of nature (radioactive decay rates are unchanged). But the very existence of logic and the scientific method assumes god exists and endowed nature with uniform laws, so this argument is self-defeating for the materialist. He quoted Patricia Churchill (I think he meant "Churchland") as saying that reason has developed only because it has survival benefit. Thus, in the evolutionary view, logic is geared towards survival and not truth claims. Atheists support abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia.
The scientific method certainly does not assume that god exists; it is completely silent on the question. We date the earth as 4.6 billion years old not because we assume that decay constants are really constant, but because we have good reason to think so: experiments were done early in the history of radioactivity to try to influence decay rates through explosions, changes of temperature and pressure, inducing strong magnetic fields, etc., but only very small changes were observed. See Dalrymple's book, The Age of the Earth. So I think it is dishonest of Wilkinson to maintain that decay rates are unchanged is merely an assumption.
In any event, it is Wilkinson who is maintaining that the uniformity of nature is only explicable to the theist, so as a theist, he should be more convinced by uniformitarian arguments than the atheist. Thus, his argument is self-defeating.
The second part of his claim is a reworked version of Plantinga's argument against evolution: evolution only endows us with reason enough to reproduce efficiently. But then we have no reason to trust our mental faculties that came up with the theory of evolution. I find this argument silly, because it assumes a certain black-and-white view of our mental faculties: either they are entirely reliable, or they are not to be trusted at all. No one who has read history can believe that man is never capable of folly; the whole history of the world is the history of folly. And yet an evolutionary development that gave us an entirely bogus picture of the world would not likely ensure survival. So I think we can provisionally trust in our reason, but always be alert to the ways it may deceive us.
Prof. diCarlo spoke again. He said it was epistemically irresponsible to believe in the Christian god, since the evidence we have is not sufficient for the claim. He went on to his point 4:
4. The inherent tension in belief of the god of the bible: (a) the tension between an all-powerful, all-knowing god, and human free will (b) specifying one particular god among an indefinite choice is divisive and leads to conflicts (c) the tension between human biology and the doctrines of Christianity, e.g., masturbation and (d) the problem of evil. (He put up a slide with a picture of the tablet that would normally have the 10 commandments on it, but instead had "Thou shalt not masturbate". This was pretty funny, especially because when it was Pastor Wilkinson's turn to speak, the slide stayed up behind him.)
Pastor Wilkinson spoke again. In the materialist world view, he claimed, there was no objective standard of morality, or right and wrong. No god implies no morality. Hitler based his world view on Darwin's view of natural selection. If the materialist world view is correct, there is nothing wrong with Hitler's murders. Evolutionary biologists agree that the theory of evolution arose because people want to get away from traditional sexual morality (he quoted Huxley).
Next, there was some final cross-examination. Prof. diCarlo got Wilkinson to admit that God hates all believers in other religions except Wilkinson's brand of Christianity. In particular, Wilkinson explicitly stated that God hates Muslims! Now that was a rather explosive claim, but entirely missing from the Record's account of the debate by religion reporter Mirko Petricevic. I have observed that Petricevic constantly slants his coverage to favor the religious point of view, and this is just another data point.
Prof. diCarlo also made some effective points about the incompatibility of the Christian god with human free will. The Christian god's view of us is the same way: since his is omniscient and created the universe, he already knew 14 billion years ago whether we would be saved or not. We can do nothing to defeat his knowledge and so don't have free will. He made an analogy with the movie "Jaws": you can watch it as many times as you like, but the shark always dies at the end. God watching history unfold is the same. Pastor Wilkinson had no good response to this argument.
In his closing remarks, Pastor Wilkinson made the point that only Christianity, among all religions, must be true because in no other religion is there justice. In particular, Islam does not provide justice for evil deeds during life. But I felt he contradicted himself, since he made two claims: Christianity provides justice, but one can also be saved if one repents on one's deathbed. In other words, Hitler could be in heaven if he repented and asked god's forgiveness at the last moment. So how is that justice?
At this point the debate ended, and I will now give some comments without resorting to red and italics.
First, both speakers had polished presentations. Pastor Wilkinson's closing remarks, in particular, were an earnest sermon about man's need for Christianity, and they were well-received by many of the believers in the crowd. Prof. diCarlo's brand of sardonic humor succeeded in making many points, particularly about Wilkinson's condemning Jews, homosexuals, and Muslims to hell.
On the other hand, both speakers could have addressed the other's arguments in more detail. It was almost as if we had two parallel presentations which, despite the opportunity for cross-examination, didn't interact all that much. Prof. diCarlo, for example, never really addressed Pastor Wilkinson's point about the "laws of logic", which was really his main argument. Also, while I admired his wit and intellect, I felt Prof. diCarlo sometimes came across as a little too flippant and arrogant. It sometimes seemed like he treated the audience as a philosophy class where he was the instructor.
After the debate, I asked Pastor Wilkinson the following question: "You say the earth is 10,000 years old. Yet there are ice cores in Antarctica that give an unbroken record of 190,000 years. How do you explain this?" He had no good answer, mumbling about "uniformity" and "assumptions". But the ice core record we have agrees with data in the recent past, and there is no reason to believe it does not actually represent a record of history. When pressed, he suggested a comet might have exploded in the atmosphere and just happened to put down a series of layers that exactly correspond to our historical record. But, of course, this is just pure fantasy. Where is the evidence for this comet? How did it happen to put down a series of layers that exactly matches our historical records? I made the point to him that no thinking person is going to subscribe to Wilkinson's version of Christianity if it causes him to deny the evidence of his own senses.
For me it was an entertaining evening, but probably not one that changed many minds.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Tucson - Day 5
Last night, some visitors from home arrived, and today we'll all go together to see more of the gem and mineral show.
One of the visitors is Peter Russell, curator of the Earth Sciences Museum at the University of Waterloo -- a place well worth a visitor if you are ever in southern Ontario. He's looking for new specimens for the Museum, so the first place we'll go is the InnSuites Hotel on Granada, which is sort of a mecca for fossil dealers.
In the fossil ballroom there, you can find all sorts of fossils and fossil-related items. Beware: some of the prices are rather high! One ballroom dealer was selling opalized Cleoniceras ammonites from Madagascar for $150, but you can get a whole flat of similar ones for the same price a few blocks away, at the Ramada Inn.
One thing I really liked was a giant fossil palm tree from Wyoming, but unfortunately the owners would not allow me to put a picture on my blog. You'll have to make do with this spectacular opalized ammonite from Alberta. The picture doesn't show the scale, but this thing is about the size of a laundry basket:
Gem quality opalized ammonite is known as "ammolite" in the trade, and there is a semi-secret procedure for stabilizing it and making it suitable for jewelry.
Of course, the InnSuites is not just fossils. Konstantin Buslovich of Phantom was selling this beautiful heliodor (a variety of beryl, the same family as aquamarine and emerald) from Ukraine, a steal at only $9300. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my $10,000 bill.
Outside the InnSuites, in a huge tent to the west, we found the Granada Avenue Mineral Show. A giant triceratops skull guards the entrance to the street. Here it is ferociously munching down on an unsuspecting van:
This show consisted of only five dealers, but one of them, Aurora Mineral Corp., had this really spectacular quartz geode, larger than a refrigerator:
This will be my last post from Tucson. Tomorrow I have to pack and get ready to head back home. Hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did!
One of the visitors is Peter Russell, curator of the Earth Sciences Museum at the University of Waterloo -- a place well worth a visitor if you are ever in southern Ontario. He's looking for new specimens for the Museum, so the first place we'll go is the InnSuites Hotel on Granada, which is sort of a mecca for fossil dealers.
In the fossil ballroom there, you can find all sorts of fossils and fossil-related items. Beware: some of the prices are rather high! One ballroom dealer was selling opalized Cleoniceras ammonites from Madagascar for $150, but you can get a whole flat of similar ones for the same price a few blocks away, at the Ramada Inn.
One thing I really liked was a giant fossil palm tree from Wyoming, but unfortunately the owners would not allow me to put a picture on my blog. You'll have to make do with this spectacular opalized ammonite from Alberta. The picture doesn't show the scale, but this thing is about the size of a laundry basket:
Gem quality opalized ammonite is known as "ammolite" in the trade, and there is a semi-secret procedure for stabilizing it and making it suitable for jewelry.
Of course, the InnSuites is not just fossils. Konstantin Buslovich of Phantom was selling this beautiful heliodor (a variety of beryl, the same family as aquamarine and emerald) from Ukraine, a steal at only $9300. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my $10,000 bill.
Outside the InnSuites, in a huge tent to the west, we found the Granada Avenue Mineral Show. A giant triceratops skull guards the entrance to the street. Here it is ferociously munching down on an unsuspecting van:
This show consisted of only five dealers, but one of them, Aurora Mineral Corp., had this really spectacular quartz geode, larger than a refrigerator:
This will be my last post from Tucson. Tomorrow I have to pack and get ready to head back home. Hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did!
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Tucson - Day 4
For those who haven't been to the Tucson gem and mineral show, here's a brief description.
As I mentioned before, it's not just one show, it's actually dozens. There are shows devoted to fossils and minerals, shows for gemstones, jewelry shows, bead shows, and shows for native American artifacts. Some are retail, some are wholesale only, and some are a mixture of both. Although I've attended the show 3 times since 2002, I've still only visited a small portion of what there is to see.
Some shows take place in hotel rooms. The dealers sleep and display in the same room. When they wake up in the morning, the beds are made, personal items are put away, and the minerals come out. Many people display their minerals on the hotel room beds and tables, and some have displays on tables outside the room.
Other shows take place in the Tucson Convention Center, or in the large tent across the street.
Shows definitely have their own character. For example, among mineral shows, the one at the Westward Look is for very high end collectors, those that don't bat an eye at paying four or five figures or more for a single specimen. Below that in average specimen cost are the shows organized by Marty Zinn, at venues like the Inn Suites Hotel and Clarion. And even below that are the shows along the freeway, such as at the Howard Johnson's, and the show at Tucson Electric Park. Many dealers head for the cheaper shows to pick up items that they then resell for twice the price (or more) at their own shows.
Here's an example. Among meteorite aficionados, the iron meteorites from Campo del Cielo in Argentina are held in low regard, in part because they are so common. They are probably the cheapest meteorites in price per gram. A dealer named "Giroldi" was selling them at the Howard Johnson's, with literally hundreds of specimens available. Here he is, posed with one of the largest pieces:
Later, I saw exactly the same meteorites for sale by meteorite dealers at the Inn Suites for twice the price. The lesson is that if you head down here, you might want to check out the cheaper shows first to see what the prices are.
I didn't spend much time at the show today. Instead, I went hiking with an old friend and colleague from Tucson.
It's been extremely dry here in the Southwest; the last significant precipitation in Tucson was almost a year ago. Normally Mt. Lemmon, to the north of Tucson, has a ski season, but not this year, since there is no snow.
We headed for the San Pedro River, the valley that is to the southeast of Tucson. This is an area that is famed for birding because it is one of the few places where there is running water. We got a late start, so we didn't see too many interesting birds. But I did notice how dry it was. Normally the cottonwoods would be much greener this time of year.
As I mentioned before, it's not just one show, it's actually dozens. There are shows devoted to fossils and minerals, shows for gemstones, jewelry shows, bead shows, and shows for native American artifacts. Some are retail, some are wholesale only, and some are a mixture of both. Although I've attended the show 3 times since 2002, I've still only visited a small portion of what there is to see.
Some shows take place in hotel rooms. The dealers sleep and display in the same room. When they wake up in the morning, the beds are made, personal items are put away, and the minerals come out. Many people display their minerals on the hotel room beds and tables, and some have displays on tables outside the room.
Other shows take place in the Tucson Convention Center, or in the large tent across the street.
Shows definitely have their own character. For example, among mineral shows, the one at the Westward Look is for very high end collectors, those that don't bat an eye at paying four or five figures or more for a single specimen. Below that in average specimen cost are the shows organized by Marty Zinn, at venues like the Inn Suites Hotel and Clarion. And even below that are the shows along the freeway, such as at the Howard Johnson's, and the show at Tucson Electric Park. Many dealers head for the cheaper shows to pick up items that they then resell for twice the price (or more) at their own shows.
Here's an example. Among meteorite aficionados, the iron meteorites from Campo del Cielo in Argentina are held in low regard, in part because they are so common. They are probably the cheapest meteorites in price per gram. A dealer named "Giroldi" was selling them at the Howard Johnson's, with literally hundreds of specimens available. Here he is, posed with one of the largest pieces:
Later, I saw exactly the same meteorites for sale by meteorite dealers at the Inn Suites for twice the price. The lesson is that if you head down here, you might want to check out the cheaper shows first to see what the prices are.
I didn't spend much time at the show today. Instead, I went hiking with an old friend and colleague from Tucson.
It's been extremely dry here in the Southwest; the last significant precipitation in Tucson was almost a year ago. Normally Mt. Lemmon, to the north of Tucson, has a ski season, but not this year, since there is no snow.
We headed for the San Pedro River, the valley that is to the southeast of Tucson. This is an area that is famed for birding because it is one of the few places where there is running water. We got a late start, so we didn't see too many interesting birds. But I did notice how dry it was. Normally the cottonwoods would be much greener this time of year.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Tucson - Day 3 - Interview with Steve Smale
Stephen Smale is a world-famous mathematican and winner of the 1966 Fields Medal, mathematics' highest award. He's also a famous mineral collector, with one of the world's best private collections, and he has a new book coming out in April, featuring his collection. I had the chance to sit down with him this morning at his room at the Westward Look Resort and talk about politics, mathematics, and minerals. A Recursivity exclusive!
I've transcribed our discussion from a cassette tape. I've rearranged the discussion a bit, omitted some parts that were inaudible on the tape, and removed some others, but other than that, this transcription is more or less verbatim.
JOS: You were actively involved in protests against the Vietnam War at Berkeley. I'd like to know if you see any parallels between that time and now.
SS: Yeah, sure. Iraq has quite a bit of parallels with Vietnam.
JOS: Have you been moved to react in any manner?
SS: No, I'm not an activist these years. I was in a demo in Chicago, an anti-war vigil in Chicago, and I still have some activist friends. You know, a little bit. I'm not an activist, although my sympathies are with Cindy Sheehan.
JOS: I know that at one point you were working on your autobiography, and you completed a chapter or so. But then I came across the biography by Batterson. Do you still plan to work on an autobiography?
SS: No. With that book out, I don't think so. I published something called "Some autobiographical notes" - I think it's in my collected works. If it's not there, it's certainly in the volume for my 60th birthday. I think Batterson used those notes since they were already published when he wrote the book.
But after that book he's written... He really did a good job on it. He's very thorough, scholarly and accurate.
JOS: So, are you happy with the Batterson biography?
SS: Yes, I am. Especially from the point of view of being very accurate, careful, and documented. He doesn't in fact, indicate how careful he is. I mean, so many of his quotes are taken from taped interviews. He doesn't say that anywhere! He should, because people would then realize the authenticity of it. But, you know, the quotes are taken in general from taped interviews, and he has the tapes, so he has very thorough documentation. So from that point of view I think it's great.
In general. There's a couple of things that maybe... you know, he approached me like a mathematician in some sense. In some sense, I see myself a little more broadly as a scientist, not just a mathematician.
JOS: In the past, you've spoken enthusiastically about computer science and the challenges it brings to mathematics. Are you still enthusiastic along those lines?
SS: Yes, my main job is in a computer science institute.
JOS: Yes, at Toyota Technological Institute.
SS: Yes, that's the place, it was founded by computer scientists, it's a computer science institute.
But I do have a little different point of view from the computer science community. And I even have some conflicts with the computer science department at the University of Chicago and Toyota.
To oversimplify it, I come from the more continuous version of science and mathematics. Computer scientists tend to come from the discrete tradition. And you know, that brings us to some different points of view. My own conflict there is that the computer science department in which I am in is very narrowly focussed, in seeing so much of the science in terms of the discrete computer science tradition. So there have been some conflicts over hiring people.
I like to hire people that have a more deep mathematical perspective, not necessarily mathematicians, in fact not mathematicians, usually physicists who have a very good, sound training in mathematics. I wanted to hire this person to be an assistant professor, and I was voted down. So there are these kinds of conflicts. You know, I see myself criticizing the mathematics community and similarly the computer science community, and I think any similar community, as too much narrowly focussed around a tradition, and not understanding things happening outside of it.
JOS: I see that some of your latest work is on evolution of language, and also one of your open problems for the new century is on the limits of intelligence.
SS: That's the problem that I work on all the time now, for five years. We call it learning theory. It talks about the fundamental problems of intelligence and learning, both from the human and machine side. A lot has been happening in this area, called learning theory.
JOS: The limits of intelligence is a very deep problem. It's not going to have a quick solution.
SS: Right. (laughs) Right. But you know, learning theory is the closest part of a solid science dealing with both.
JOS: Since the word intelligence has come up, I can't resist asking your opinion of the intelligent design movement, if you've followed it at all.
SS: I don't follow it. You know, I'm pretty negative about it, about the religious basis of science. I don't pay much attention to it.
JOS: Let me ask you about electronic journals. That's a development that's happened in the last 10 years that's really grown. Do you think it's a positive development?
SS: Yeah. But I don't think of it too much in those terms. I just think in general the computer, the transmission of information via Internet, is a revolution, a change in the way one thinks about libraries and information and research. It affects me a huge amount. I don't hardly ever use libraries nowadays. I used to use libraries, 30 years ago, intensively. I used to just, you know, browse in libraries a huge amount. Now I browse on the Internet.
So I wouldn't want online journals to be the main focus. You need to think in the more broad sense. I use Google, not online journals. When I want to find something I want to learn about, I use Google. Sometimes Google, sometimes Google Scholar, sometimes other things, but I start with Google, type in a few keywords. So that's quite a revolutionary way of researching, doing research in science
JOS: Do you think that in the future it will be mostly preprint archives, with no refereeing process, and people decide the quality on their own, or is there still a place for peer review?
SS: (Laughs) Well, there's probably some place for peer review, yeah, I think there is. Getting some feedback is important. When I was young, peer-reviewed papers were the main method, and now. But it's been gradually happening, even before internet, preprints were more and more common, and finally internet. But you know, when I was a student, preprints were very rare.
JOS: Maybe we could turn to minerals now. Do you think being a mathematician influenced you strongly in becoming a mineral collector, or is it more or less coincidental?
SS: Oh, I don't know. I wouldn't say either. Maybe coincidental is closer. I don't believe much in coincidences, you know, there is a background. It started with Clara, and with my father, who bought me a mineral.
I don't see collecting as too close to mathematics. There is a kind of beauty I find in minerals, like I say in my new book, the beauty of natural crystals. So I support the beauty more than the scientific side. In my book I say, this is not a scientific book. It's not an art book either. But it's closer to an art book than a scientific book. And I don't follow the mathematics of crystallography.
JOS: Did you ever collect in the field?
SS: No, I never collect in the field. I've been in some mines. I don't purchase things so much, I trade.
JOS: On your website you say that in 1969 it was possible for a person of
moderate means to assemble a mineral collection that would rival those of museums. Do you think that's still true?
SS: Probably. Mineral museums don't really have the resources. Individuals have more money to spend each year for minerals than museums. Museums sometimes have endowed mineral collections, but if they're not careful, they get sold away. So, you know, you can compete with museums for minerals. Museums are occasionally endowed, like the one in Houston.
JOS: What do you think of that book, Masterpieces of the Mineral World?
SS: It's good, it's a good book. It's a very good book. Yeah. But you know, I have some issues with the book. First of all, it doesn't give enough credit to the main contributor, Jeff Scovil, in the book itself. So there was a big outcry about that and eventually they added something. The book itself just has a small mention, a note.
You know, our book is going to be a lot better as far as the processing of photographs. We do it in Germany, not in Asia. And we pay a lot more attention to processing the photo. I mean it's the difference between the Mineralogical Record. We have a picture there, you probably saw it, every month, every issue, which I think is not too good. Yeah, it's better than most magazines, but it's not nearly as good as extraLapis. You know extraLapis?
JOS: Yes.
SS: There they have a very, very good photograph reproduction, it's accurate. So our book is being published by extraLapis. Their first book, actually.
JOS: Congratulations.
SS: So we put a lot of effort into it. We've gone through each photograph from the printer this week, looking very carefully at the color tones and accuracy with the editors of extraLapis. It's something that has not been done with photographs in the Mineralogical Record. They're sloppy at the Mineralogical Record. I mean, they're better than most magazines.
Back to the Houston book, that did suffer because they didn't have the contrasting tones and accuracy, so the minerals don't stand out on the page. It's not bad, it's one of the best books. The best book is Bancroft, Gem and, uh.
JOS: Gem and Crystal Treasures.
SS: Yeah, I think that's the best book.
JOS: I notice that at shows, older people predominate. Do you think the hobby is dying?
SS: No, no, I don't think so. The big show here is dominated by younger people, in my opinion. At the shows, all the big names are young. Big dealers, big collectors. Stuart Wilensky, Rob Lavinsky. All the big dealers are young. They're driving the whole Internet market. I don't see too much of the people out on the floors at shows. I don't know if their age has changed. Certainly there are some aspects that younger people may not be interested in as much as they were 30 years ago. Rocks shops have been replaced by shows and the Internet. But I see many of the dealers, they're young, very forceful people. They're all in their 30's. Rob Lavinsky, he's probably 30 by now.
JOS: I know that for a while the Blue Cap tourmaline you were famous for was one of your favorites. What's one of your current favorites?
SS: It's not a question of a single piece. Phosphophyllite. Jeremejevite. Aquas and tourmalines are some of the best.
JOS: There's a nice phosphophyllite in the Masterpieces book.
SS: Yeah, it's good. I like ours quite a bit better, though. Theirs is restored. That's one reservation I have about their book, they put in repaired and restored pieces without saying they were repaired or restored.
When people are selling, they're better about it. But in the Masterpieces book, they should have said repaired or restored.
JOS: Thank you very much.
SS: Thank you.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Tucson - Day 2
Still here in Tucson at the mineral and gem show.
I started this morning at the Smuggler's Inn, far on the east side of town. This show is dominated by the large number of foreign dealers, particularly from China and Russia. If you're looking for fluorite, wolframite, cinnabar, scheelite, or blue apatite, this is the place for you.
For me, some of the nicest specimens here were the large green fluorites from Hunan province. Here a gentleman from the Huanqiu Crystal Mineral Museum is holding one:
One of the nice things about the show is meeting people you've read about before in places like the Mineralogical Record. Here's the legendary Alfredo Petrov, a specialist in Bolivian minerals:
After a few hours at the Smuggler's, I went on to the Inn Suites. First, it was off to say hello to Richard Sittinger, who runs the Mineral of the Month Club. He seemed pretty busy!
Next, I stopped in to see Bill and Anne Cook of Virgin Valley Sales, who always have a large number of rare and unusual minerals for sale.
Now for the minerals. Here's a spectacular amazonite and smoky quartz from The Collector's Edge.
And here's a beautiful smithsonite from the same dealer:
Dilermando Rodrigues de Melo kindly posed with this amazing pink glassy kunzite from Minas Gerais:
And Vasconcelos Brazil had this spectacular large quartz cluster for sale. Note my cell phone at the lower left for scale.
Many meteorite dealers have rooms at the Inn Suites. Mike Farmer is one of the most famous meteorite hunters; he had a new lunar meteorite, which he kindly posed with:
Lunar meteorites are chunks of the moon that have been knocked off by an impact. They float around in space for a while and sometimes eventually hit the earth, but it takes a trained eye and laboratory analysis to recognize them (we know from the Apollo missions what moon rocks look like). And here's the meteorite by itself:
There was also a reception in honor of Steve Arnold, a meteorite hunter who found the new main mass of the Brenham, Kansas pallasite this fall. Here he is with this 640 kg specimen:
Pallasites are stony-iron meteorites that consist of olivine crystals floating in a matrix of iron-nickel. They are believed to be parts of asteroids where the mantle and core meet.
Signing off for now - more tomorrow.
I started this morning at the Smuggler's Inn, far on the east side of town. This show is dominated by the large number of foreign dealers, particularly from China and Russia. If you're looking for fluorite, wolframite, cinnabar, scheelite, or blue apatite, this is the place for you.
For me, some of the nicest specimens here were the large green fluorites from Hunan province. Here a gentleman from the Huanqiu Crystal Mineral Museum is holding one:
One of the nice things about the show is meeting people you've read about before in places like the Mineralogical Record. Here's the legendary Alfredo Petrov, a specialist in Bolivian minerals:
After a few hours at the Smuggler's, I went on to the Inn Suites. First, it was off to say hello to Richard Sittinger, who runs the Mineral of the Month Club. He seemed pretty busy!
Next, I stopped in to see Bill and Anne Cook of Virgin Valley Sales, who always have a large number of rare and unusual minerals for sale.
Now for the minerals. Here's a spectacular amazonite and smoky quartz from The Collector's Edge.
And here's a beautiful smithsonite from the same dealer:
Dilermando Rodrigues de Melo kindly posed with this amazing pink glassy kunzite from Minas Gerais:
And Vasconcelos Brazil had this spectacular large quartz cluster for sale. Note my cell phone at the lower left for scale.
Many meteorite dealers have rooms at the Inn Suites. Mike Farmer is one of the most famous meteorite hunters; he had a new lunar meteorite, which he kindly posed with:
Lunar meteorites are chunks of the moon that have been knocked off by an impact. They float around in space for a while and sometimes eventually hit the earth, but it takes a trained eye and laboratory analysis to recognize them (we know from the Apollo missions what moon rocks look like). And here's the meteorite by itself:
There was also a reception in honor of Steve Arnold, a meteorite hunter who found the new main mass of the Brenham, Kansas pallasite this fall. Here he is with this 640 kg specimen:
Pallasites are stony-iron meteorites that consist of olivine crystals floating in a matrix of iron-nickel. They are believed to be parts of asteroids where the mantle and core meet.
Signing off for now - more tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Tucson - Day 1
I'm down in Tucson, Arizona, visiting the annual Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. Actually, it's several dozen different shows, each with many, many dealers selling rocks, minerals, gems, fossils, meteorites, jewellery, and more.
I'm really tired, because while I made a short connection at O'Hare yesterday, one of my bags didn't, so I ended up spending another two hours in the Phoenix airport waiting for it to catch up with me.
Today, I spent the whole day at one of the Arizona Mineral and Fossil Shows, at the Clarion Hotel on Alvernon. Lots of very beautiful minerals, most out of my price range! In fact, I'd like to title this day "in quest of the 6-figure specimen".
To start off with, this past summer there was a nice find of amethyst at Jackson's Crossroads in Wilkes County, Georgia, and they were available at Mountain Gems and Minerals. The color is really good, but as you can see, I'm still only at 4 figures.
Gold, of course, is always good for a nice price, and this native gold from Mineral Exploration Services at Lehigh Minerals is no exception. But we're still only at 4 figures.
Next, I was off to see Jordi Fabre at Fabre Minerals, one of Spain's premier dealers.
He had some really beautiful items, including this aquamarine in the high 4 figures.
Another nice piece was this rhodochrosite from the classic ___location of the Sweet Home Mine, from Isaias Casanova at IC Minerals. Amazing color!
To get to 5 figures, I went to Matrix India, where M. F. Makki had this really gigantic green apophyllite on stilbite from Momin Akhada, near Rahuri, Ahmednagar District, Maharashtra State, India. These deposits are often found when wells are being dug.
It's hard to tell from the photo, but this specimen is the size of a small refrigerator!
But to get to 6 figures, I had to go to Ausrox, where an amazing Pakistani aquamarine was on sale for $100,000. A little out of my price range!
Whew, all those expensive minerals have me exhausted. Now it's time to go see some rare ones.
The goal of the species collector is to have an example of every known mineral. Since there are more than 4,000 minerals currently known, with dozens of new ones found each year, this can be a real challenge. Luckily, at Tucson there are people to help.
Tony Nikischer runs Excalibur Mineral Corporation. He brought over 3100 different species to Tucson, and was kind enough to let me look through his flats of rare minerals. He also does mineral analysis, and edits Mineral News. There's even a mineral named after him! Here's his smiling face:
And another nice gentleman is Dr. Jaroslav Hyršl, co-author of the wonderful reference book Minerals and Their Localities. He's also got lots of rare species, mostly from Europe, and is very knowledgeable and friendly.
Well, that's all for today. Stay tuned, I may have some surprises later.
I'm really tired, because while I made a short connection at O'Hare yesterday, one of my bags didn't, so I ended up spending another two hours in the Phoenix airport waiting for it to catch up with me.
Today, I spent the whole day at one of the Arizona Mineral and Fossil Shows, at the Clarion Hotel on Alvernon. Lots of very beautiful minerals, most out of my price range! In fact, I'd like to title this day "in quest of the 6-figure specimen".
To start off with, this past summer there was a nice find of amethyst at Jackson's Crossroads in Wilkes County, Georgia, and they were available at Mountain Gems and Minerals. The color is really good, but as you can see, I'm still only at 4 figures.
Gold, of course, is always good for a nice price, and this native gold from Mineral Exploration Services at Lehigh Minerals is no exception. But we're still only at 4 figures.
Next, I was off to see Jordi Fabre at Fabre Minerals, one of Spain's premier dealers.
He had some really beautiful items, including this aquamarine in the high 4 figures.
Another nice piece was this rhodochrosite from the classic ___location of the Sweet Home Mine, from Isaias Casanova at IC Minerals. Amazing color!
To get to 5 figures, I went to Matrix India, where M. F. Makki had this really gigantic green apophyllite on stilbite from Momin Akhada, near Rahuri, Ahmednagar District, Maharashtra State, India. These deposits are often found when wells are being dug.
It's hard to tell from the photo, but this specimen is the size of a small refrigerator!
But to get to 6 figures, I had to go to Ausrox, where an amazing Pakistani aquamarine was on sale for $100,000. A little out of my price range!
Whew, all those expensive minerals have me exhausted. Now it's time to go see some rare ones.
The goal of the species collector is to have an example of every known mineral. Since there are more than 4,000 minerals currently known, with dozens of new ones found each year, this can be a real challenge. Luckily, at Tucson there are people to help.
Tony Nikischer runs Excalibur Mineral Corporation. He brought over 3100 different species to Tucson, and was kind enough to let me look through his flats of rare minerals. He also does mineral analysis, and edits Mineral News. There's even a mineral named after him! Here's his smiling face:
And another nice gentleman is Dr. Jaroslav Hyršl, co-author of the wonderful reference book Minerals and Their Localities. He's also got lots of rare species, mostly from Europe, and is very knowledgeable and friendly.
Well, that's all for today. Stay tuned, I may have some surprises later.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Provo Daily Herald Kicks Buttars
Utah state senator D. Chris Buttars is at it again.
Buttars is the blockhead who planned to introduce a bill mandating the teaching of "divine design" in Utah schools, but withdrew under criticism. Now he's introduced Utah Senate Bill 96, which demands, among other things that "instruction to students on any theory regarding the origins of life, or the origins or present state of the human race, shall stress that not all scientists agree on which theory is correct."
But why stop there? After all, some scientists don't agree with relativity theory, either. Why should Einstein get a monopoly in Utah schools?
Thankfully, some people in Utah are standing up to this kakocrat. An editorial in the Provo Daily Herald is right on the point: "House should reject creationism bill". And the Salt Lake Tribune says the bill "[belittles] evolutionary principles in favor of an unwritten but clearly religious view of a very narrow kind".
Utahns, call your state senator today and state your opposition to this stupid and dishonest bill.
Buttars is the blockhead who planned to introduce a bill mandating the teaching of "divine design" in Utah schools, but withdrew under criticism. Now he's introduced Utah Senate Bill 96, which demands, among other things that "instruction to students on any theory regarding the origins of life, or the origins or present state of the human race, shall stress that not all scientists agree on which theory is correct."
But why stop there? After all, some scientists don't agree with relativity theory, either. Why should Einstein get a monopoly in Utah schools?
Thankfully, some people in Utah are standing up to this kakocrat. An editorial in the Provo Daily Herald is right on the point: "House should reject creationism bill". And the Salt Lake Tribune says the bill "[belittles] evolutionary principles in favor of an unwritten but clearly religious view of a very narrow kind".
Utahns, call your state senator today and state your opposition to this stupid and dishonest bill.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Time Travel
I am travelling in time this weekend.
The Time Tunnel has just been released on DVD, and for a few hours it is 1966 and I am nine years old again, anxiously looking forward to another Friday night on ABC with our little black-and-white television set. Where will Doug and Tony end up this time? Will they ever get home?
Vietnam was just something grown-ups were arguing about. The wonders and terrors of sex were a long way in the future. Our astronauts were practicing for the moon, and I couldn't wait for them to get there. Munich was six years away and unimaginable.
I was still reading The Happy Hollisters, but the magic was beginning to wear off. I didn't want to be Ricky any more, but Pete seemed much too old. And besides, something new beckoned: I had discovered chemistry.
Every day after school I'd head down to the basement, to make blue ink, or an exploding volcano, or turn water into wine. I ran electricity through water and made test tubes full of hydrogen and oxygen, then mixed them together and exploded them with a match. I put too much silver nitrate down the sink and ruined the porcelain. Once day I got a brilliant idea to make a hydrogen blowtorch, and probably would have lost an eye if I hadn't been wearing glasses. My parents never heard about that episode.
I raced through Glenn Seaborg's inspiring account of how he discovered elements beyond uranium. Science was the answer to the world's problems, I was sure. Science would take us to the stars, provide free power, and cure our diseases.
In real life, I am nursing a cold, watching the episodes on DVD with my children, one of whom is the same age I was in 1966. The cheesiness of the plots and the crappy movie sets don't bother us. My kids feel the same wonder at the possibility of zipping through the ages as I did.
I know it's 2006 in real life, but in my head it's forty years ago. My father is still alive, with a mind undamaged by Alzheimer's, and ready to answer my questions. Is time travel really possible, Dad? Will there be bases on the moon when I grow up? Will I go there? Will you come with me, Dad?
Who says you can't travel in time?
The Time Tunnel has just been released on DVD, and for a few hours it is 1966 and I am nine years old again, anxiously looking forward to another Friday night on ABC with our little black-and-white television set. Where will Doug and Tony end up this time? Will they ever get home?
Vietnam was just something grown-ups were arguing about. The wonders and terrors of sex were a long way in the future. Our astronauts were practicing for the moon, and I couldn't wait for them to get there. Munich was six years away and unimaginable.
I was still reading The Happy Hollisters, but the magic was beginning to wear off. I didn't want to be Ricky any more, but Pete seemed much too old. And besides, something new beckoned: I had discovered chemistry.
Every day after school I'd head down to the basement, to make blue ink, or an exploding volcano, or turn water into wine. I ran electricity through water and made test tubes full of hydrogen and oxygen, then mixed them together and exploded them with a match. I put too much silver nitrate down the sink and ruined the porcelain. Once day I got a brilliant idea to make a hydrogen blowtorch, and probably would have lost an eye if I hadn't been wearing glasses. My parents never heard about that episode.
I raced through Glenn Seaborg's inspiring account of how he discovered elements beyond uranium. Science was the answer to the world's problems, I was sure. Science would take us to the stars, provide free power, and cure our diseases.
In real life, I am nursing a cold, watching the episodes on DVD with my children, one of whom is the same age I was in 1966. The cheesiness of the plots and the crappy movie sets don't bother us. My kids feel the same wonder at the possibility of zipping through the ages as I did.
I know it's 2006 in real life, but in my head it's forty years ago. My father is still alive, with a mind undamaged by Alzheimer's, and ready to answer my questions. Is time travel really possible, Dad? Will there be bases on the moon when I grow up? Will I go there? Will you come with me, Dad?
Who says you can't travel in time?
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Local Bigot Headed for Ottawa
Voters in my neighboring riding of Kitchener-Conestoga have elected a local bigot, Harold Albrecht, as their representative in the Parliament of Canada. Shame on them.
For those who read our local paper, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, Albrecht is infamous for a series of misinformed and nasty rants against sex and gay marriage. Here is a selection:
In an opinion piece published in the Record on October 29, 1993, Albrecht falsely claimed that "An analysis by researchers at the University of Texas estimates that when condoms are used, the risk of acquiring HIV from an infected partner is 31 per cent over a year's time. This study was reported in the Journal of Social Science and Medicine in June 1993."
Albrecht was evidently referring to this paper: Susan C. Weller, A meta-analysis of condom effectiveness in reducing sexually transmitted HIV, Social Science and Medicine 36 (12) (1993), 1635-1644. It's clear Albrecht never read the article, because he gets the title of the journal wrong: it's not the Journal of Social Science and Medicine, but simply Social Science and Medicine.
More importantly, Albrecht seriously misrepresented the conclusions of the Weller study. In the abstract, Weller concludes that "condoms may reduce risk of HIV infection by approximately 69%." A casual reader might think Albrecht is right, since 100% - 69% = 31%.
He's not. Albrecht is mixing up apples and oranges. The 69% figure of Weller represents the reduction in risk associated with using a condom. Let's say that the risk of getting HIV from an infected partner over one year's time without a condom is 10% (Weller's 1993 meta-analysis found figures varying from 4% to 19%). Then a 69% risk reduction means that with a condom, the risk of contracting HIV from an infected partner in one year decreases to about 3%. And 3% ain't 31%. Albrecht is either misinforming us, repeating misinformation, or innumerate -- not the best resumé for somebody headed to Ottawa to run things.
Furthermore, one should note that in 1999 Weller disavowed her 1993 study (see here), admitting that her earlier result was "was flawed because it aggregated studies with varying definitions of condom use, directions of transmission, study designs and types of index cases." In the newer paper [Karen R. Davis and Susan C. Weller, The Effectiveness of Condoms in Reducing Heterosexual Transmission of HIV, Family Planning Perspectives 31 (6) November/December 1999] Weller concluded that if one always uses a condom, the rate of transmission is 0.9 per 100 person years, or about 1% -- a far cry from Albrecht's 31%. (I'm not claiming Albrecht should have known in 1993 about a 1999 study, just showing his figures are all wrong.)
Albrecht next went on to claim "At a 1991 national conference on HIV held in Washington, D.C., none of the 800 sexologists raised a hand when asked if they would trust a thin rubber sheath to protect them during intercourse with a known HIV-infected person." This claim appears to be plagiarized practically verbatim from a 1992 fund-raising letter from known liar James Dobson. I doubt this incident ever happened. But even if it did, so what? All other things being equal, I wouldn't hold a gun to my head and pull the trigger, if it contained 100 empty chambers and 1 bullet. But, of course, all other things aren't equal. The Weller figures are for sex with a known HIV-positive partner, whereas what Albrecht is really getting upset about is teens having sex with other teens. Guess what? The HIV-infection rate among teens in Canada is quite small, so their risk of contracting HIV using a condom is much, much less than 1% in a year.
Albrecht then said, "Small wonder, when you consider that the human immunodeficiency virus is 1-25th the width of sperm and can pass easily through the smallest gaps in condoms." This claim is truly moronic. After all, water molecules are even smaller than viruses, but they don't seem to pass so easily through a condom. The World Health Organization debunks Albrecht's claim, stating that "Laboratory studies have found that viruses (including HIV) do not pass through intact latex condoms even when devices are stretched or stressed." Who are you going to believe, a prestigious non-partisan health group, or a bigoted fundamentalist?
Finally, Albrecht concludes with this admonishment: "Some of our brightest and best young people are being placed in a position of grave danger by being fed half-truths which, by simple mathematical deduction, are also half-lies." Pretty ironic, considering all the misinformation Albrecht was dishing out.
In 1995, Albrecht wrote a nasty opinion piece against Planned Parenthood, snidely suggesting it should change its name, and false claiming "The work of Planned Parenthood has very little to do with planning." Actually, most of their work, from workshops to condom distribution, concerns planning.
In 2002, Albrecht wrote an opinion piece in which he claimed "Child pornography is considered to be an art form". Nothing supporting this bizarre claim was advanced. He also took objection to a local performance of Puppetry of the Penis, saying "I appeal to Kitchener council to "close the lid" and cancel this event." I'm sure that when Albrecht gets to Ottawa, we can expect similarly stirring defenses of freedom of expression.
In 2003, Albrecht produced one of his most despicable rants, this time against gay marriage. He said "If one is truly committed to the marriage vows of fidelity, these same-sex marriages would succeed in wiping out an entire society in just one generation. So much for a bigger family." What ignorance! I have two relatives in a same-sex marriage, and they are happily raising two children with no infidelity involved. (I leave it for those with an outlook slighly broader than Albrecht's to figure out how.)
He went on to say "Nature alone points to the ridiculous "wisdom" of calling these relationships marriage. Thankfully, only a very small percentage of people will fall for this thinking -- but the ongoing damage to future generations will reveal this "wisdom" to be yet another step away from the beautiful relationship that God has created and defined so clearly."
And "Marriage is God's idea, not man's; therefore, He alone has the authority to redefine it."
Somebody needs to tell Albrecht that his god seems to have lots of weird ideas. For example, in Leviticus 19:19 god tells us that we can't wear clothes that have two different kinds of material. In Leviticus 20:18, we are told to deport any couple that has sex during the woman's menstrual period. Just because his god makes these weird demands, doesn't mean that they are binding on the rest of us.
Gentle readers of this blog, have you noticed the common thread running through all of Albrecht's rants? Yes, it is sex. The man truly hates it. He must really be obssessed with sex, considering how many of his published pieces deal with it.
So how did my neighbors elect this nasty bigot to Parliament?
Here's how: the Conservatives hid him from scrutiny. From the Record, January 20 2006:
Harold Albrecht, a Conservative running in Kitchener-Conestoga who is known for his views against gay marriage, was hustled away from reporters and into a banquet-hall kitchen yesterday where handlers refused to bring him out.
"He's in a meeting,'' a Tory official insisted, pushing a door closed as Albrecht stood next to empty dish racks.
In today's National Post Father Raymond J. De Souza claimed that Stephen Harper's "caucus is the most intellectually principled and serious in several generations". Albrecht's misrepresentations and bigotry, documented here, belie that claim.
For those who read our local paper, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, Albrecht is infamous for a series of misinformed and nasty rants against sex and gay marriage. Here is a selection:
In an opinion piece published in the Record on October 29, 1993, Albrecht falsely claimed that "An analysis by researchers at the University of Texas estimates that when condoms are used, the risk of acquiring HIV from an infected partner is 31 per cent over a year's time. This study was reported in the Journal of Social Science and Medicine in June 1993."
Albrecht was evidently referring to this paper: Susan C. Weller, A meta-analysis of condom effectiveness in reducing sexually transmitted HIV, Social Science and Medicine 36 (12) (1993), 1635-1644. It's clear Albrecht never read the article, because he gets the title of the journal wrong: it's not the Journal of Social Science and Medicine, but simply Social Science and Medicine.
More importantly, Albrecht seriously misrepresented the conclusions of the Weller study. In the abstract, Weller concludes that "condoms may reduce risk of HIV infection by approximately 69%." A casual reader might think Albrecht is right, since 100% - 69% = 31%.
He's not. Albrecht is mixing up apples and oranges. The 69% figure of Weller represents the reduction in risk associated with using a condom. Let's say that the risk of getting HIV from an infected partner over one year's time without a condom is 10% (Weller's 1993 meta-analysis found figures varying from 4% to 19%). Then a 69% risk reduction means that with a condom, the risk of contracting HIV from an infected partner in one year decreases to about 3%. And 3% ain't 31%. Albrecht is either misinforming us, repeating misinformation, or innumerate -- not the best resumé for somebody headed to Ottawa to run things.
Furthermore, one should note that in 1999 Weller disavowed her 1993 study (see here), admitting that her earlier result was "was flawed because it aggregated studies with varying definitions of condom use, directions of transmission, study designs and types of index cases." In the newer paper [Karen R. Davis and Susan C. Weller, The Effectiveness of Condoms in Reducing Heterosexual Transmission of HIV, Family Planning Perspectives 31 (6) November/December 1999] Weller concluded that if one always uses a condom, the rate of transmission is 0.9 per 100 person years, or about 1% -- a far cry from Albrecht's 31%. (I'm not claiming Albrecht should have known in 1993 about a 1999 study, just showing his figures are all wrong.)
Albrecht next went on to claim "At a 1991 national conference on HIV held in Washington, D.C., none of the 800 sexologists raised a hand when asked if they would trust a thin rubber sheath to protect them during intercourse with a known HIV-infected person." This claim appears to be plagiarized practically verbatim from a 1992 fund-raising letter from known liar James Dobson. I doubt this incident ever happened. But even if it did, so what? All other things being equal, I wouldn't hold a gun to my head and pull the trigger, if it contained 100 empty chambers and 1 bullet. But, of course, all other things aren't equal. The Weller figures are for sex with a known HIV-positive partner, whereas what Albrecht is really getting upset about is teens having sex with other teens. Guess what? The HIV-infection rate among teens in Canada is quite small, so their risk of contracting HIV using a condom is much, much less than 1% in a year.
Albrecht then said, "Small wonder, when you consider that the human immunodeficiency virus is 1-25th the width of sperm and can pass easily through the smallest gaps in condoms." This claim is truly moronic. After all, water molecules are even smaller than viruses, but they don't seem to pass so easily through a condom. The World Health Organization debunks Albrecht's claim, stating that "Laboratory studies have found that viruses (including HIV) do not pass through intact latex condoms even when devices are stretched or stressed." Who are you going to believe, a prestigious non-partisan health group, or a bigoted fundamentalist?
Finally, Albrecht concludes with this admonishment: "Some of our brightest and best young people are being placed in a position of grave danger by being fed half-truths which, by simple mathematical deduction, are also half-lies." Pretty ironic, considering all the misinformation Albrecht was dishing out.
In 1995, Albrecht wrote a nasty opinion piece against Planned Parenthood, snidely suggesting it should change its name, and false claiming "The work of Planned Parenthood has very little to do with planning." Actually, most of their work, from workshops to condom distribution, concerns planning.
In 2002, Albrecht wrote an opinion piece in which he claimed "Child pornography is considered to be an art form". Nothing supporting this bizarre claim was advanced. He also took objection to a local performance of Puppetry of the Penis, saying "I appeal to Kitchener council to "close the lid" and cancel this event." I'm sure that when Albrecht gets to Ottawa, we can expect similarly stirring defenses of freedom of expression.
In 2003, Albrecht produced one of his most despicable rants, this time against gay marriage. He said "If one is truly committed to the marriage vows of fidelity, these same-sex marriages would succeed in wiping out an entire society in just one generation. So much for a bigger family." What ignorance! I have two relatives in a same-sex marriage, and they are happily raising two children with no infidelity involved. (I leave it for those with an outlook slighly broader than Albrecht's to figure out how.)
He went on to say "Nature alone points to the ridiculous "wisdom" of calling these relationships marriage. Thankfully, only a very small percentage of people will fall for this thinking -- but the ongoing damage to future generations will reveal this "wisdom" to be yet another step away from the beautiful relationship that God has created and defined so clearly."
And "Marriage is God's idea, not man's; therefore, He alone has the authority to redefine it."
Somebody needs to tell Albrecht that his god seems to have lots of weird ideas. For example, in Leviticus 19:19 god tells us that we can't wear clothes that have two different kinds of material. In Leviticus 20:18, we are told to deport any couple that has sex during the woman's menstrual period. Just because his god makes these weird demands, doesn't mean that they are binding on the rest of us.
Gentle readers of this blog, have you noticed the common thread running through all of Albrecht's rants? Yes, it is sex. The man truly hates it. He must really be obssessed with sex, considering how many of his published pieces deal with it.
So how did my neighbors elect this nasty bigot to Parliament?
Here's how: the Conservatives hid him from scrutiny. From the Record, January 20 2006:
Harold Albrecht, a Conservative running in Kitchener-Conestoga who is known for his views against gay marriage, was hustled away from reporters and into a banquet-hall kitchen yesterday where handlers refused to bring him out.
"He's in a meeting,'' a Tory official insisted, pushing a door closed as Albrecht stood next to empty dish racks.
In today's National Post Father Raymond J. De Souza claimed that Stephen Harper's "caucus is the most intellectually principled and serious in several generations". Albrecht's misrepresentations and bigotry, documented here, belie that claim.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Christianity and Computer Science
In this post, I'll review Thomas VanDrunen's essay, "How is God's Creativity Manifested in Computer Science?", from the volume Not Just Science. (For an introduction to my reviews of this book, go here.) VanDrunen is an associate professor of computer science at Wheaton College.
Like the other essays in Not Just Science, VanDrunen's contribution is arranged around a series of questions. In addition to the question of the title, the following questions are listed:
As you can see from reading the questions, there is a real disconnect between VanDrunen's title, which asks about God's creativity, and the content of the chapter, which barely addresses that question.
This essay is easily one of the most fatuous in Not Just Science. For one thing, there is the level of exposition, which seems geared to the 4th grade level. For another, the scholarship is deficient. VanDrunen seems unaware that Donald Knuth, Turing award winner and author of the multi-volume work, The Art of Computer Programming, has written a book, Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About, on the religion-computer science connection. While I can't whole-heartedly endorse Knuth's book, at least it offers a novel perspective.
Now, back to the essay. VanDrunen starts off by using an analogy of water flowing in pipes to model electronic circuits, and gives a very cursory explanation of how circuits can be used to perform addition.
Next, he uses a parking meter as a simple model of computation, and brings in the notion of finite automaton. So far, nothing at all about Christianity or "god's creativity", but he does produce the following misleading statement: "There are more powerful models [than finite state machines] that each involve some structure to store an infinite amount of information, and these are often more useful for describing modern computers with their massive capacity." Clearly, VanDrunen has a Turing machine in mind here. But as I emphasize to my student in CS 360 every term I teach it, a Turing machine does not store an infinite amount of information. While it is true that a Turing machine has an unbounded tape as storage, at each step of the computation, only a finite number of cells have been accessed; the rest are all blank. So it is misleading to imply that a Turing machine stores an infinite amount of information; it would be more correct to say that its storage capacity is unbounded.
Next, VanDrunen asks "What are the limitations of computer science?" Oddly enough, the answer says nothing about limitations at all; it is simply a description (and a poor one, at that) of the standard algorithm for determining the distance from a source vertex to all other vertices of an edge-weighted graph.
In the next question, VanDrunen finally gets around to some theological content. In the course of discussing the travelling salesman problem (for which we currently have no efficient algorithm), he says
My reaction to this is bewilderment. Do you really need to be a Christian or a theist to realize that humans are limited? Or that there are some problems computers will never solve? After all, it was Alan Turing, an atheist, who gave the first example of an unsolvable problem, the halting problem for Turing machines. And how exactly do Christians believe that their god "allows for progress of human knowledge" or "restricts it"? Do they think their god actively intervenes on a daily basis, ensuring that some scientific experiments work out, while others don't? What kind of science does God encourage, and what kind does he discourage? What, precisely, does he not want us to know?
In the next question, the ungrammatical "What are the limitations of benefit?", VanDrunen repeats the tired maxim, "The computer is nothing more than a tool." I'm not sure exactly what he means by "nothing more". Yes, a computer can be viewed as a tool, but could it be more? Could computers interact with people in much the same way that people do? Can a computer compose genuinely good music? Paint a great painting? Write a terrific poem? Have feelings? Write a better essay than VanDrunen's?
In the last question, VanDrunen observes that "many of the first to experiment with computing machinery were also intently involved with Christian apologetics". No examples are provided, except perhaps "Fredrick [sic] Brooks", author of The Mythical Man-Month. But even if this claim is true, so what? Many of the first to experiment with computing machinery were not involved with Christian apologetics, such as Alan Turing. What conclusion does VanDrunen want us to draw?
As I alluded to earlier, I think there are many questions where Christianity (or religion, more generally) could intersect with computer science. For example, studying finite automata suggests the question, are people deterministic finite automata? If so, what implications does this have for the Christian view of free will? Studying randomized algorithms suggests the question, can people make truly random choices? Does free will depend on randomness? Studying growth rate of functions raises the question (after Knuth), is it possible that God (if he exists) is finite and very large, but not infinite? Studying artificial intelligence raises deep questions about the origin of creativity and the uniqueness of humans. Is the human mind a computer? Will computers ever achieve a level of intelligence we would recognize as equivalent to humans? Could a computer have a soul? If computers behave just like people, are they entitled to the same rights as people? And so on. But none of this is addressed by VanDrunen.
In pointing out that computer science could raise interesting challenges for Christianity, I don't want to suggest that there is much in the other direction. The implications that VanDrunen draws are so puerile that they might suggest that Christianity has virtually nothing to say of any interest about computer science.
VanDrunen's essay is worse than most in this volume, but unfortunately typical in the shallow way it grapples with the issues. Reading it brings to mind Mark Noll's quip, "The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind."
Stay tuned for reviews of more essays in this book.
Like the other essays in Not Just Science, VanDrunen's contribution is arranged around a series of questions. In addition to the question of the title, the following questions are listed:
- Can a machine perform logic?
- Can a pipe and gate machine do math?
- Can a machine remember information?
- Can a machine remember instructions?
- What are the limitations of computer science?
- What are the limitations of computation?
- What are the limitations of benefit?
- What does the existence of computers say about human creativity?
As you can see from reading the questions, there is a real disconnect between VanDrunen's title, which asks about God's creativity, and the content of the chapter, which barely addresses that question.
This essay is easily one of the most fatuous in Not Just Science. For one thing, there is the level of exposition, which seems geared to the 4th grade level. For another, the scholarship is deficient. VanDrunen seems unaware that Donald Knuth, Turing award winner and author of the multi-volume work, The Art of Computer Programming, has written a book, Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About, on the religion-computer science connection. While I can't whole-heartedly endorse Knuth's book, at least it offers a novel perspective.
Now, back to the essay. VanDrunen starts off by using an analogy of water flowing in pipes to model electronic circuits, and gives a very cursory explanation of how circuits can be used to perform addition.
Next, he uses a parking meter as a simple model of computation, and brings in the notion of finite automaton. So far, nothing at all about Christianity or "god's creativity", but he does produce the following misleading statement: "There are more powerful models [than finite state machines] that each involve some structure to store an infinite amount of information, and these are often more useful for describing modern computers with their massive capacity." Clearly, VanDrunen has a Turing machine in mind here. But as I emphasize to my student in CS 360 every term I teach it, a Turing machine does not store an infinite amount of information. While it is true that a Turing machine has an unbounded tape as storage, at each step of the computation, only a finite number of cells have been accessed; the rest are all blank. So it is misleading to imply that a Turing machine stores an infinite amount of information; it would be more correct to say that its storage capacity is unbounded.
Next, VanDrunen asks "What are the limitations of computer science?" Oddly enough, the answer says nothing about limitations at all; it is simply a description (and a poor one, at that) of the standard algorithm for determining the distance from a source vertex to all other vertices of an edge-weighted graph.
In the next question, VanDrunen finally gets around to some theological content. In the course of discussing the travelling salesman problem (for which we currently have no efficient algorithm), he says
Stubborn problems like this are what drive human curiosity, but they can also be humbling reminders of human limitations. Christians can bring a perspective to a field like computer science, remembering that it is God who allows for progress of human knowledge and He who also restricts it. Just as humans are limited, so are the machines they build. There are some mysteries that will never be fathomed; there are some problems that computers will never solve.
My reaction to this is bewilderment. Do you really need to be a Christian or a theist to realize that humans are limited? Or that there are some problems computers will never solve? After all, it was Alan Turing, an atheist, who gave the first example of an unsolvable problem, the halting problem for Turing machines. And how exactly do Christians believe that their god "allows for progress of human knowledge" or "restricts it"? Do they think their god actively intervenes on a daily basis, ensuring that some scientific experiments work out, while others don't? What kind of science does God encourage, and what kind does he discourage? What, precisely, does he not want us to know?
In the next question, the ungrammatical "What are the limitations of benefit?", VanDrunen repeats the tired maxim, "The computer is nothing more than a tool." I'm not sure exactly what he means by "nothing more". Yes, a computer can be viewed as a tool, but could it be more? Could computers interact with people in much the same way that people do? Can a computer compose genuinely good music? Paint a great painting? Write a terrific poem? Have feelings? Write a better essay than VanDrunen's?
In the last question, VanDrunen observes that "many of the first to experiment with computing machinery were also intently involved with Christian apologetics". No examples are provided, except perhaps "Fredrick [sic] Brooks", author of The Mythical Man-Month. But even if this claim is true, so what? Many of the first to experiment with computing machinery were not involved with Christian apologetics, such as Alan Turing. What conclusion does VanDrunen want us to draw?
As I alluded to earlier, I think there are many questions where Christianity (or religion, more generally) could intersect with computer science. For example, studying finite automata suggests the question, are people deterministic finite automata? If so, what implications does this have for the Christian view of free will? Studying randomized algorithms suggests the question, can people make truly random choices? Does free will depend on randomness? Studying growth rate of functions raises the question (after Knuth), is it possible that God (if he exists) is finite and very large, but not infinite? Studying artificial intelligence raises deep questions about the origin of creativity and the uniqueness of humans. Is the human mind a computer? Will computers ever achieve a level of intelligence we would recognize as equivalent to humans? Could a computer have a soul? If computers behave just like people, are they entitled to the same rights as people? And so on. But none of this is addressed by VanDrunen.
In pointing out that computer science could raise interesting challenges for Christianity, I don't want to suggest that there is much in the other direction. The implications that VanDrunen draws are so puerile that they might suggest that Christianity has virtually nothing to say of any interest about computer science.
VanDrunen's essay is worse than most in this volume, but unfortunately typical in the shallow way it grapples with the issues. Reading it brings to mind Mark Noll's quip, "The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind."
Stay tuned for reviews of more essays in this book.
Christianity and Science
I am currently slogging my way through Chappell and Cook's book, Not Just Science: Questions Where Christian Faith and Natural Science Intersect. It's not a pleasant experience, for a variety of reasons that will become clear, but it does reveal a lot about the mindset of evangelical Christians.
Not Just Science is a collection of short essays written by a variety of Christian authors, mostly professors at Wheaton and Calvin Colleges. The topics include cosmology, philosophy, geology, mathematics, and computer science. The essays are in a sort of catechism format, arranged around a series of questions and answers.
There are some things right about the book. The authors take a generally skeptical line about intelligent design, which is refreshing. They are not as dogmatic or intolerant as some, and they seem generally willing to cite books and papers that argue from a non-theistic or atheistic perspective. Many authors appear somewhat informed about the topics they write on (in contrast to others working on the Christianity-science turf, such as the appallingly ignorant Denyse O'Leary). That much is welcome.
On the other hand, there are many things wrong: the utter vacuity of some of the essays, the juvenile tone of others, the poor editing that leaves some sentences hanging in thin air, and the lack of an index. The main problem, however, is that the authors don't really confront the hard problems that science poses for religious belief. For example, did the alleged miracle of the Resurrection violate physical law? More generally, how should we understand the relationship between our current model of the universe and Christian miracles? Why is it that the miracles of 2000 years ago seem so rare today? Was Jesus haploid or diploid? If the Christian god is outside the universe, how precisely does he intervene inside it? Was Jesus a miracle worker or a clever conjurer? Does archaeology suggest the Bible is not inerrant? Are religious claims subject to scientific scrutiny? Why does the account in Genesis differ so much from what we know about cosmology? None of these questions is really addressed.
In the next few weeks, as time permits, I'll be addressing individual essays in this book. The first will be about computer science, my own field. Stick around for the fun.
Not Just Science is a collection of short essays written by a variety of Christian authors, mostly professors at Wheaton and Calvin Colleges. The topics include cosmology, philosophy, geology, mathematics, and computer science. The essays are in a sort of catechism format, arranged around a series of questions and answers.
There are some things right about the book. The authors take a generally skeptical line about intelligent design, which is refreshing. They are not as dogmatic or intolerant as some, and they seem generally willing to cite books and papers that argue from a non-theistic or atheistic perspective. Many authors appear somewhat informed about the topics they write on (in contrast to others working on the Christianity-science turf, such as the appallingly ignorant Denyse O'Leary). That much is welcome.
On the other hand, there are many things wrong: the utter vacuity of some of the essays, the juvenile tone of others, the poor editing that leaves some sentences hanging in thin air, and the lack of an index. The main problem, however, is that the authors don't really confront the hard problems that science poses for religious belief. For example, did the alleged miracle of the Resurrection violate physical law? More generally, how should we understand the relationship between our current model of the universe and Christian miracles? Why is it that the miracles of 2000 years ago seem so rare today? Was Jesus haploid or diploid? If the Christian god is outside the universe, how precisely does he intervene inside it? Was Jesus a miracle worker or a clever conjurer? Does archaeology suggest the Bible is not inerrant? Are religious claims subject to scientific scrutiny? Why does the account in Genesis differ so much from what we know about cosmology? None of these questions is really addressed.
In the next few weeks, as time permits, I'll be addressing individual essays in this book. The first will be about computer science, my own field. Stick around for the fun.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Blowhard of the Month: David Warren
I recently had the misfortune to stumble on a really revolting corner of the web, the not-so-modestly-named DavidWarrenOnline. Warren appears to be a journalist, and for the Ottawa Citizen, no less -- a newspaper that, back when Peter Calamai worked there, was sometimes worth reading. Judging from their employment of Mr. Warren, however, the Citizen has sunk into a swamp from which it will not soon recover.
Explore that website and you will find the very worst sort of ignorant bigotry: screeds against gay marriage, the validity of human-caused global warming, and (big surprise) evolution, all served up with a really insufferable helping of religious smugness. And the writing! I was raised by newspaper reporters, who never missed an opportunity to tell me how my writing could be improved. But it appears Mr. Warren received no similar assistance. His columns frequently wander and maunder, heading this way and that, but never actually arriving anywhere. Who in their right mind would give this supercilious dolt a weekly column?
If you, too, want to suffer as much as I did, you can start with four of Mr. Warren's columns about evolution. In his December 29 2004 column about Homo floresiensis, he reveals his doubts that it is a new species of the genus Homo. Informed doubt would be welcome, but Mr. Warren's doubts aren't based on anything more scientific than the fact that he once saw a woman in Calcutta about the same weight "and only slightly taller" than H. floresiensis. He then reveals that he suspects all hominid species are just varieties of Homo sapiens, and quotes one of his readers as saying, "Evolution? Probably a pile of crap. It seems to spring from the same faulty thinking reservoir as Marxism and other failed ideological constructs of the early 20th century." Dee-lightful!
In his next column, Warren says that " 'evolution' is not a science but an ideology a quasi-religion a colossal scientistic put-on; that 'evolutionary science' is a cant expression a pretence unworthy of a scientific researcher." (For some reason, all of Warren's columns before April 23, 2005 are missing commas. Perhaps someone bought him a big box of commas last May.) Not a single example is proffered to support this bizarre claim. He also says that "science cannot even tell you how a species is defined". I guess Warren has never heard of the "biological species concept" -- an idea taught in every introduction to evolutionary biology course. And yes, I am aware that the BSC is not universally applicable, but that is because biology, dealing as it does with billions of interacting complex systems, is not always clean and simple. I bet Mr. Warren cannot give a definition of "newspaper" that is universally applicable, but that doesn't prevent him from writing for one.
Warren also repeats the creationist lie that speciation has not been observed. Even the most cursory of searches would have led him here and here, where enough speciation events are provided to convince any reasonable person. If Mr. Warren is not a creationist, as he claims, why does he behave exactly like one?
In his third column Warren treads the same familiar ground again, claiming that "If [evolution] didn't exist biological inquiry would not be slowed in any way. It might even be accelerated." That is like saying, "If 1 equalled 2, mathematical inquiry wouldn't be slowed; it might even be accelerated." Yes, indeed, if one starts with a counterfactual premise, one can certainly prove anything.
But let's be charitable for a moment, and assume that what Warren really meant to say is that evolution is not germane to biological inquiry. That will certainly be news to those researching AIDS, bird flu, or working on reconstructing evolutionary trees, or trying to understand invasive species, or studying antibiotic resistance.
In Warren's fourth column, he discusses the discovery of Repenomamus giganticus, a carnivorous Cretaceous mammal. Here is Warren is all his self-satisfied ignorance:
As anyone familiar with the existing evolutionary charts will know a powerful warm-blooded mammal has no business being found in the early Cretaceous strata of about 130 million years ago. Especially one with a clearly organized carnivorous set of teeth like R. gigantus -- or like his smaller cousin R. robustus with the trademark slightly-displaced mammalian stomach and a little dino he just ate ripped up inside. Mammals of that epoch are supposed to be tiny mole and shrew-like jobs subsisting on seeds and insects....
It wouldn't necessarily bother the "Darwinists" theoretically if the whole evolutionary sequence were turned upside down: for the "theory" doesn't predict anything. It only explains things after the fact.
Now, PZ Myers has already explained why Warren and the creationists he echoes are talking out of their hats. But some additional points are worth considering:
First, note that Warren gets the name wrong: he calls it Repenomamus gigantus, whereas the correct name as published in Nature, is Repenomamus giganticus. This is pretty good evidence that Warren is getting his account from secondary sources (which frequently got the name wrong), rather than reading the original account. But you know, those smug and busy journalists just don't have the time to check the primary source.
Second, the very first paragraph shows that Warren doesn't have any idea what he was talking about. As the article in Nature clearly states, the largest previously known Cretaceous mammal was the size of an opossum, not a "tiny mole and shrew-like job".
Third, Warren brings up the old falsehood about evoution not making any predictions. Even the most cursory examination will show this is wrong. Consider, for example, Alexander's prediction of what a eusocial mammal would look like. Many other examples are known.
All this ignorance coupled with arrogance means that Warren is my nominee for Blowhard of the Month. (Readers, feel free to nominate additional names deserving of this accolade.) Now, after four columns of this tripe, do you think readers of the Citizen kept quiet? Of course not. According to Warren's own account in the Idler, readers sent in objections in droves. What was Warren's reaction? Did he back down, admitting that perhaps his knowledge of evolution has a few gaps and holes?
Of course not -- blowhards never concede anything. Instead, he crowed that "I took care not to write anything that would be scientifically naïve". Yeah, right. And, of course, he repeated the tired old "Evolution has grown into a rival religion" line.
A couple of weeks ago, Warren reflected for a second time on his experience of critiquing something he knows very little about. He labeled the criticism he received as "hatemail" [sic]. (Blowhards have trouble distinguishing the two.) He then implied that evolution "is a more dangerous enemy than twisted Islam over the longer run." What a public service Mr. Warren offers: Run, quick! Here comes the local evolutionary biologist!
Finally, Mr. Warren leaves us with this thought:
The popularity of "Intelligent Design" is growing because it offers a way for science to get out of the face of religion. This is also why the Darwinoids hate and fear it: because the whole point of their Darwinism is to get in the face, of Christianity in particular. “ID" uses exactly the same fact-sets as all the biological disciplines; it merely leaves God to open minds, rather than consciously trying to “eliminate that hypothesis”. In time it will prevail, for the truth always does.
Arguing with pompous blowhards like Mr. Warren is a waste of time. He can't be convinced of any error, because he already knows the Truth. Facts aren't important.
As an ironic postcript, I recently learned that the Ottawa Citizen was founded by Elkanah Billings, one of the originators of Canadian paleontology. I wonder what Billings would have thought of the Citizen pushing the smug ignorance of Mr. Warren.
Explore that website and you will find the very worst sort of ignorant bigotry: screeds against gay marriage, the validity of human-caused global warming, and (big surprise) evolution, all served up with a really insufferable helping of religious smugness. And the writing! I was raised by newspaper reporters, who never missed an opportunity to tell me how my writing could be improved. But it appears Mr. Warren received no similar assistance. His columns frequently wander and maunder, heading this way and that, but never actually arriving anywhere. Who in their right mind would give this supercilious dolt a weekly column?
If you, too, want to suffer as much as I did, you can start with four of Mr. Warren's columns about evolution. In his December 29 2004 column about Homo floresiensis, he reveals his doubts that it is a new species of the genus Homo. Informed doubt would be welcome, but Mr. Warren's doubts aren't based on anything more scientific than the fact that he once saw a woman in Calcutta about the same weight "and only slightly taller" than H. floresiensis. He then reveals that he suspects all hominid species are just varieties of Homo sapiens, and quotes one of his readers as saying, "Evolution? Probably a pile of crap. It seems to spring from the same faulty thinking reservoir as Marxism and other failed ideological constructs of the early 20th century." Dee-lightful!
In his next column, Warren says that " 'evolution' is not a science but an ideology a quasi-religion a colossal scientistic put-on; that 'evolutionary science' is a cant expression a pretence unworthy of a scientific researcher." (For some reason, all of Warren's columns before April 23, 2005 are missing commas. Perhaps someone bought him a big box of commas last May.) Not a single example is proffered to support this bizarre claim. He also says that "science cannot even tell you how a species is defined". I guess Warren has never heard of the "biological species concept" -- an idea taught in every introduction to evolutionary biology course. And yes, I am aware that the BSC is not universally applicable, but that is because biology, dealing as it does with billions of interacting complex systems, is not always clean and simple. I bet Mr. Warren cannot give a definition of "newspaper" that is universally applicable, but that doesn't prevent him from writing for one.
Warren also repeats the creationist lie that speciation has not been observed. Even the most cursory of searches would have led him here and here, where enough speciation events are provided to convince any reasonable person. If Mr. Warren is not a creationist, as he claims, why does he behave exactly like one?
In his third column Warren treads the same familiar ground again, claiming that "If [evolution] didn't exist biological inquiry would not be slowed in any way. It might even be accelerated." That is like saying, "If 1 equalled 2, mathematical inquiry wouldn't be slowed; it might even be accelerated." Yes, indeed, if one starts with a counterfactual premise, one can certainly prove anything.
But let's be charitable for a moment, and assume that what Warren really meant to say is that evolution is not germane to biological inquiry. That will certainly be news to those researching AIDS, bird flu, or working on reconstructing evolutionary trees, or trying to understand invasive species, or studying antibiotic resistance.
In Warren's fourth column, he discusses the discovery of Repenomamus giganticus, a carnivorous Cretaceous mammal. Here is Warren is all his self-satisfied ignorance:
As anyone familiar with the existing evolutionary charts will know a powerful warm-blooded mammal has no business being found in the early Cretaceous strata of about 130 million years ago. Especially one with a clearly organized carnivorous set of teeth like R. gigantus -- or like his smaller cousin R. robustus with the trademark slightly-displaced mammalian stomach and a little dino he just ate ripped up inside. Mammals of that epoch are supposed to be tiny mole and shrew-like jobs subsisting on seeds and insects....
It wouldn't necessarily bother the "Darwinists" theoretically if the whole evolutionary sequence were turned upside down: for the "theory" doesn't predict anything. It only explains things after the fact.
Now, PZ Myers has already explained why Warren and the creationists he echoes are talking out of their hats. But some additional points are worth considering:
First, note that Warren gets the name wrong: he calls it Repenomamus gigantus, whereas the correct name as published in Nature, is Repenomamus giganticus. This is pretty good evidence that Warren is getting his account from secondary sources (which frequently got the name wrong), rather than reading the original account. But you know, those smug and busy journalists just don't have the time to check the primary source.
Second, the very first paragraph shows that Warren doesn't have any idea what he was talking about. As the article in Nature clearly states, the largest previously known Cretaceous mammal was the size of an opossum, not a "tiny mole and shrew-like job".
Third, Warren brings up the old falsehood about evoution not making any predictions. Even the most cursory examination will show this is wrong. Consider, for example, Alexander's prediction of what a eusocial mammal would look like. Many other examples are known.
All this ignorance coupled with arrogance means that Warren is my nominee for Blowhard of the Month. (Readers, feel free to nominate additional names deserving of this accolade.) Now, after four columns of this tripe, do you think readers of the Citizen kept quiet? Of course not. According to Warren's own account in the Idler, readers sent in objections in droves. What was Warren's reaction? Did he back down, admitting that perhaps his knowledge of evolution has a few gaps and holes?
Of course not -- blowhards never concede anything. Instead, he crowed that "I took care not to write anything that would be scientifically naïve". Yeah, right. And, of course, he repeated the tired old "Evolution has grown into a rival religion" line.
A couple of weeks ago, Warren reflected for a second time on his experience of critiquing something he knows very little about. He labeled the criticism he received as "hatemail" [sic]. (Blowhards have trouble distinguishing the two.) He then implied that evolution "is a more dangerous enemy than twisted Islam over the longer run." What a public service Mr. Warren offers: Run, quick! Here comes the local evolutionary biologist!
Finally, Mr. Warren leaves us with this thought:
The popularity of "Intelligent Design" is growing because it offers a way for science to get out of the face of religion. This is also why the Darwinoids hate and fear it: because the whole point of their Darwinism is to get in the face, of Christianity in particular. “ID" uses exactly the same fact-sets as all the biological disciplines; it merely leaves God to open minds, rather than consciously trying to “eliminate that hypothesis”. In time it will prevail, for the truth always does.
Arguing with pompous blowhards like Mr. Warren is a waste of time. He can't be convinced of any error, because he already knows the Truth. Facts aren't important.
As an ironic postcript, I recently learned that the Ottawa Citizen was founded by Elkanah Billings, one of the originators of Canadian paleontology. I wonder what Billings would have thought of the Citizen pushing the smug ignorance of Mr. Warren.
Friday, January 06, 2006
The World's Worst Memes
Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. Roughly speaking, a meme is a small unit of culture, like the four thematic notes "da-da-da-daaa" of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Dawkins noted that memes are analogous to genes, and Susan Blackmore expanded upon this observation in her 1999 book The Meme Machine.
Memes are contagious, and spread from mind to mind almost like viruses. Some memes, like "Look both ways before you cross the street", are evidently beneficial to the minds they inhabit. Some are probably neutral, like Jimmie Walker's "Dy-no-mite!" or the chorus of "Who Let the Dogs Out". But many memes, while possibly beneficial to individuals, seem positively harmful to understanding the world and to society as a whole. They get repeated because minds have some sort of affinity for them, when even a small amount of reflection will show they are false.
I have in mind memes such as
These are usually uttered with complete self-satisfaction, as if the fatuous speaker believes himself endowed with some extraordinary sagacity the rest of us lack.
If, say, you're on a plane and your seatmate utters one of these, you can deduce with almost complete certainty that the person saying it is a zombie, one whose mind has been taken over by a meme that is doing its utmost to spread itself. Don't waste time arguing with such a person, because it is hopeless. Just exchange seats with someone a few aisles away.
Idiotic memes are nothing new. Gustave Flaubert wrote a Dictionnaire des idées reçus as an appendix to his novel Bouvard et Pécuchet in which he presented hundreds of what I might call "conversational response memes": if someone mentions X in a conversation, you should immediately say Y. Does someone mention architects? You should immediately say "Architects? They're all stupid, they're always designing houses and forgetting to put in the staircases!"
One characteristic that seems to help memes succeed is rhyme. Everybody knows "A stitch in time saves nine", even if they can't explain what it means. "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" spawned an hilarious take-off by the cartoonist Bernard Kliban -- the caption is "An apple every eight hours keeps three doctors away". I don't know why human minds have affinity for rhymes (Mark Turner could probably tell me), but a rhyme has the power to make a bad meme more attractive. For example:
What are the world's worst memes? I've mentioned a few already, but here's one: "Evolution is only a theory." In just five words, the speaker demonstrates they (i) don't know what a theory means in scientific parlance; (ii) don't understand that evolution has roughly the same status in science as the germ theory of disease, or the heliocentric theory of astronomy; (iii) don't know a single piece of the multiple, independent lines of evidence amassed in support of evolution. So much revealed in such a short saying!
I now open up the floor to your suggestions. What are the world's worst memes? Go ahead, give me the really bad ones -- the ones that are so bad, so breathtakingly fatuous, that just to utter one is to be classified as an idiot.
I'd be particularly interested in dumb memes that rhyme.
Memes are contagious, and spread from mind to mind almost like viruses. Some memes, like "Look both ways before you cross the street", are evidently beneficial to the minds they inhabit. Some are probably neutral, like Jimmie Walker's "Dy-no-mite!" or the chorus of "Who Let the Dogs Out". But many memes, while possibly beneficial to individuals, seem positively harmful to understanding the world and to society as a whole. They get repeated because minds have some sort of affinity for them, when even a small amount of reflection will show they are false.
I have in mind memes such as
- "The Constitution protects freedom of religion, not freedom from religion."
- "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
- "If it saves even one life, it's worth it."
- "God loves you."
These are usually uttered with complete self-satisfaction, as if the fatuous speaker believes himself endowed with some extraordinary sagacity the rest of us lack.
If, say, you're on a plane and your seatmate utters one of these, you can deduce with almost complete certainty that the person saying it is a zombie, one whose mind has been taken over by a meme that is doing its utmost to spread itself. Don't waste time arguing with such a person, because it is hopeless. Just exchange seats with someone a few aisles away.
Idiotic memes are nothing new. Gustave Flaubert wrote a Dictionnaire des idées reçus as an appendix to his novel Bouvard et Pécuchet in which he presented hundreds of what I might call "conversational response memes": if someone mentions X in a conversation, you should immediately say Y. Does someone mention architects? You should immediately say "Architects? They're all stupid, they're always designing houses and forgetting to put in the staircases!"
One characteristic that seems to help memes succeed is rhyme. Everybody knows "A stitch in time saves nine", even if they can't explain what it means. "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" spawned an hilarious take-off by the cartoonist Bernard Kliban -- the caption is "An apple every eight hours keeps three doctors away". I don't know why human minds have affinity for rhymes (Mark Turner could probably tell me), but a rhyme has the power to make a bad meme more attractive. For example:
- "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."
- "Jesus is the reason for the season."
What are the world's worst memes? I've mentioned a few already, but here's one: "Evolution is only a theory." In just five words, the speaker demonstrates they (i) don't know what a theory means in scientific parlance; (ii) don't understand that evolution has roughly the same status in science as the germ theory of disease, or the heliocentric theory of astronomy; (iii) don't know a single piece of the multiple, independent lines of evidence amassed in support of evolution. So much revealed in such a short saying!
I now open up the floor to your suggestions. What are the world's worst memes? Go ahead, give me the really bad ones -- the ones that are so bad, so breathtakingly fatuous, that just to utter one is to be classified as an idiot.
I'd be particularly interested in dumb memes that rhyme.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Tony Auth on Dover
Tony Auth of the Philadelphia Inquirer has this take on the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. I love the expression on the land fish's face.
I am an Observer of the Legal Scene - Who Knew?
It's like this, see? I was, like, reading Amy Knight's How the Cold War Began: The Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies, y'know. And all of a sudden, the wording seemed sort of familiar, y'know? So I, like, looked in the endnotes and found this on page 335:
As one observer of the Canadian legal scene expressed it: "Stringent libel laws may have made sense five hundred years ago, when British royalty wanted to stop the nobility from duelling by giving them a legal remedy against character slurs. But we don't live in the time of Henry VII any longer." Jeffrey Shallit, "It's Time to Reform Canadian Libel Law," http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/libel3.html.
Gosh. Me, an "observer of the Canadian legal scene". Who'd a thunk it?
Seriously, though, if you want to read a professional's opinion of Canadian libel law, read Kimberley Noble's Bound and Gagged: Libel Chill and the Right to Publish, not my little opinion piece from our local paper, the Record. Noble persuasively makes the case that the reason there is so little investigative reporting in Canada is Canada's restrictive libel law. For another example that makes Noble's case, see here.
As one observer of the Canadian legal scene expressed it: "Stringent libel laws may have made sense five hundred years ago, when British royalty wanted to stop the nobility from duelling by giving them a legal remedy against character slurs. But we don't live in the time of Henry VII any longer." Jeffrey Shallit, "It's Time to Reform Canadian Libel Law," http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/libel3.html.
Gosh. Me, an "observer of the Canadian legal scene". Who'd a thunk it?
Seriously, though, if you want to read a professional's opinion of Canadian libel law, read Kimberley Noble's Bound and Gagged: Libel Chill and the Right to Publish, not my little opinion piece from our local paper, the Record. Noble persuasively makes the case that the reason there is so little investigative reporting in Canada is Canada's restrictive libel law. For another example that makes Noble's case, see here.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Is Methodological Naturalism Warranted?
I got this message from a colleague who is a devout Christian:
If the American science community agrees with [Judge John Jones III in the Dover case] then American science is not the search for truth. Instead it is some sort of search for the best explanation that fits some preconceived notions. Whether the notions are religious or secular, theistic or atheistic, I think that attitude will ultimately cripple scientific endeavor, just like religious restrictions did in the middle ages. Yes, atheistic assumptions have advanced science quite well but can you prove they are necessary to science and take precedence over ultimate truth?
I find so much to disagree with in just one paragraph!
First, science isn't the search for truth, and I don't know any scientists or philosophers of science who think it is. Science is about modelling the natural world with models that are necessarily imperfect. Newton's laws are good approximations, not truth; they were refined by Einstein to better, but still incomplete, models.
Second, I don't think science has "preconceived notions", at least not in the way my colleague means. Science uses a certain method of inquiry, to be sure, and that method consists of pieces such as hypotheses, experiments, theories, testability, repeatability, peer review, and a reliance upon evidence. Praying for revelations or appeals to dogma are not part of the scientific method, but neither are bingo, choral music, or playing frisbee. Could there be important aspects of the world that only prayer could reveal? Or only bingo could reveal? Perhaps, but I personally don't see any at the moment. Nothing is preventing religious scientists from getting information through revelation; science simply demands that there also be some hard evidence for any resulting claims. Ramanujan claimed he got revelations from the Hindu goddess Namagiri, but that didn't stop mathematicians from appreciating his results, finding his mistakes, and providing proofs for the correct results.
As Stephen Weinberg has remarked, "The fact that Newton and Michael Faraday and other scientists of the past were deeply religious shows that religious skepticism is not a prejudice that governed science from the beginning, but a lesson that has been learned through centures of experience in the study of nature."
Third, I don't think science makes "atheistic assumptions". I have yet to open a science textbook and find the statement "There are no gods". Rather, science is non-theistic; that is, it proceeds without making claims about gods or lack thereof. I think the record shows pretty clearly that when religion enters the practice of science, the result is really bad science. To see just one example, look at the grotesque Bible Codes phenomenon.
Finally, I don't see any need to prove that methodological naturalism is necessary to science. I am perfectly willing to argue empirically that methodological naturalism has served science well, and those advocating adding supernatural causation to science have yet to show any benefit to science. When they do, give me a call.
If the American science community agrees with [Judge John Jones III in the Dover case] then American science is not the search for truth. Instead it is some sort of search for the best explanation that fits some preconceived notions. Whether the notions are religious or secular, theistic or atheistic, I think that attitude will ultimately cripple scientific endeavor, just like religious restrictions did in the middle ages. Yes, atheistic assumptions have advanced science quite well but can you prove they are necessary to science and take precedence over ultimate truth?
I find so much to disagree with in just one paragraph!
First, science isn't the search for truth, and I don't know any scientists or philosophers of science who think it is. Science is about modelling the natural world with models that are necessarily imperfect. Newton's laws are good approximations, not truth; they were refined by Einstein to better, but still incomplete, models.
Second, I don't think science has "preconceived notions", at least not in the way my colleague means. Science uses a certain method of inquiry, to be sure, and that method consists of pieces such as hypotheses, experiments, theories, testability, repeatability, peer review, and a reliance upon evidence. Praying for revelations or appeals to dogma are not part of the scientific method, but neither are bingo, choral music, or playing frisbee. Could there be important aspects of the world that only prayer could reveal? Or only bingo could reveal? Perhaps, but I personally don't see any at the moment. Nothing is preventing religious scientists from getting information through revelation; science simply demands that there also be some hard evidence for any resulting claims. Ramanujan claimed he got revelations from the Hindu goddess Namagiri, but that didn't stop mathematicians from appreciating his results, finding his mistakes, and providing proofs for the correct results.
As Stephen Weinberg has remarked, "The fact that Newton and Michael Faraday and other scientists of the past were deeply religious shows that religious skepticism is not a prejudice that governed science from the beginning, but a lesson that has been learned through centures of experience in the study of nature."
Third, I don't think science makes "atheistic assumptions". I have yet to open a science textbook and find the statement "There are no gods". Rather, science is non-theistic; that is, it proceeds without making claims about gods or lack thereof. I think the record shows pretty clearly that when religion enters the practice of science, the result is really bad science. To see just one example, look at the grotesque Bible Codes phenomenon.
Finally, I don't see any need to prove that methodological naturalism is necessary to science. I am perfectly willing to argue empirically that methodological naturalism has served science well, and those advocating adding supernatural causation to science have yet to show any benefit to science. When they do, give me a call.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
On Not Admitting You Are Wrong, or What Dembski and Wolfram Have in Common
Science often depends on experiments, and experiments are notoriously prone to error. Even if the experiment's results are correct, the conclusions may be wrong. And even if the experiment and conclusions are correct, they may represent only part of the truth. Sometimes scientists are simply wrong, and they need to admit it. While they don't do experiments, a similar obligation falls on mathematicians.
Most mathematicians and scientists recognize this obligation. In 1989, for example, the mathematician I. J. Good published a corrigendum to one of his previous papers. This wouldn't be noteworthy except that the paper he was correcting was published in 1941, nearly 50 years before.
Unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way. A classic case is that of René Blondlot (1849-1930), a French physicist who believed he had discovered a new kind of radiation, which he called "N-rays" in honor of Nancy, his native city. You can read about this case in Walter Gratzer's book The Undergrowth of Science, and I am following Gratzer's account here.
N-rays, Blondlot said, had all sorts of unusual properties. They could go through paper, wood, quartz, and mica, but not water or rock salt. They were emitted by animal and plant tissue. When N-rays hit the human eye, people could see better. Some other physicists confirmed his results, and found other strange properties of the rays. Blondlot's results were often based on very subjective data, such as a line of glowing phosphor increasing or decreasing in brightness based only on visual observations.
However, others failed to confirm his results, notably German physicists such as Heinrich Rubens, Otto Lummer, and Paul Drude, and English physicists such as Lord Rayleigh, Lord Kelvin, and William Crookes. Nationality began to influence the controversy: one Blondlot supporter later claimed the Germans could not detect the effect of the rays because "their sensibilities were inferior and were further blunted by their bruish diet of beer and sauerkraut" (Gratzer, p.20).
Ultimately, N-rays met their scientific death when R. W. Wood, a Johns Hopkins physicist, visited Blondlot's laboratory. In a 1904 letter published in Nature, he made a devastating revelation. While observing an experiment in a dark room in which the N-rays were refracted by an aluminum prism, Wood surreptitiously removed the prism from the apparatus. The French experimenters, unaware of Wood's actions, went on describing exactly the same phenomena as before.
But Blondlot and many of his supporters did not concede. One French scientist, Turpain, attempted to reproduce Blondlot's results, failed, and submitted his results to Comptes rendus for publication. They were rejected by the editor who said, "Your results can be explained simply by supposing that your eyes are insufficiently sensitive to appreciate the phenomena." (Gratzer, p. 21) Turpain replied, "If N-rays can only be observed by rare privileged individuals then they no longer belong to the ___domain of experiment." (ibid) When Blondlot died in 1930, his posthumous papers showed he continued to believe in and experiment on N-rays for many years after Wood's debunking.
The case of N-rays is a spectacular example of a failure of a scientist to admit he was wrong. Even in this case, though, science's self-correction won the day. After Wood's debunking, N-rays vanished from the scientific literature.
Blondlot's tale is a cautionary one. By contrast, I offer a case where the proper behavior was displayed, from Richard Dawkins' 1996 Richard Dimbleby lecture:
A formative influence on my undergraduate self was the response of a respected elder statesmen of the Oxford Zoology Department when an American visitor had just publicly disproved his favourite theory. The old man strode to the front of the lecture hall, shook the American warmly by the hand and declared in ringing, emotional tones: "My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years." And we clapped our hands red.
Admitting you are wrong is a basic part of the mathematical and scientific ethic. In the days of the Internet, mea culpas can be more public and more effectively distributed then ever before. For both of my published books, for example, I maintain public errrata pages. The errata and addenda for my 1996 book now take up ten pages!
But not everyone agrees. Take two controversial books published in the last few years: A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram, and No Free Lunch, by William Dembski.
Wolfram's book was published in 2002. Roughly speaking, the main thesis is that even very simple interactions give rise to complex phenomena that are hard to predict. Over 1280 pages, this thesis is developed and applied to many different areas, including mathematics, physics, economics, and biology; it is touted as a genuine revolution in science. Critics, generally, speaking have not been kind. (See here for a compendium of many different reviews.) I find the book interesting, with many fascinating digressions. The pictures are nice. But the importance of the main thesis is wildly overstated, and Wolfram never really gives a formal definition of "complex" that would satisfy a mathematician or physicist; rather, he relies on an informal definition of complexity based on appearance to the human visual system. If he did use a more formal definition -- let's say Kolmogorov complexity -- then his claims become incoherent, trivial, or wrong.
Dembski's book was also published in 2002. Dembski defines a new kind of complexity, which he calls "specified complexity" or "complex specified information". He then discusses properties of this measure, which he claims satisfies a law called "The Law of Conservation of Information", and concludes that specified complexity cannot be generated by natural causes. He then finds specified complexity in biological structures such as the [sic] bacterial flagellum, and concludes the flagellum cannot have arisen through natural causes. Needless to say, most reviewers have not been kind to Dembski either. (See here for some reviews.) Like Wolfram, Dembki's definition of complexity suffers from subjectivity, as it depends critically on the knowledge base of the observer. When one tries to make the definition more precise, Dembski's claims become incoherent, trivial, or wrong.
The analogy between the work of Wolfram and Dembski is imperfect. Wolfram, for example, has a genuine record of achievement, winning a MacArthur "genius" grant, and creating the software system Mathematica. Many of his papers continue to be cited by scientists and mathematicians. By contrast, Dembski, though possessing numerous degrees, has had a negligible impact on mathematics and science.
Nevertheless, there is one thing they have in common, and this brings me back to the start of this entry. Neither Wolfram nor Dembski have seen fit to make available errata pages for their books. In this, they fail in their intellectual obligation. Back in October 2002, I sent Wolfram a list of various errata in his book. Eventually one of his assistants acknowledged the errors, but Wolfram has never made them public. (Some of them can be seen here, due to the persistence of Evangelos Georgiadis.) Considering the extensive web presence for A New Kind of Science, surely an errata page is not asking too much.
Similarly, in April 2002 I sent Dembski a review in which I pointed out many mistakes in No Free Lunch, but Dembski only acknowledged one of these errors publicly and it took him three years. (My review later appeared in the journal BioSystems.)
Both Wolfram and Dembski seem to be taking a page from Canadian feminist Nellie McClung, who reportedly said, "Never retract, never explain, never apologize –- get the thing done and let them howl!" This might be a good motto for a social activist, but for a scientist or mathematician it is a dereliction of duty. If you want to be taken seriously when you're right, it's a good idea to be upfront about it when you're wrong.
Most mathematicians and scientists recognize this obligation. In 1989, for example, the mathematician I. J. Good published a corrigendum to one of his previous papers. This wouldn't be noteworthy except that the paper he was correcting was published in 1941, nearly 50 years before.
Unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way. A classic case is that of René Blondlot (1849-1930), a French physicist who believed he had discovered a new kind of radiation, which he called "N-rays" in honor of Nancy, his native city. You can read about this case in Walter Gratzer's book The Undergrowth of Science, and I am following Gratzer's account here.
N-rays, Blondlot said, had all sorts of unusual properties. They could go through paper, wood, quartz, and mica, but not water or rock salt. They were emitted by animal and plant tissue. When N-rays hit the human eye, people could see better. Some other physicists confirmed his results, and found other strange properties of the rays. Blondlot's results were often based on very subjective data, such as a line of glowing phosphor increasing or decreasing in brightness based only on visual observations.
However, others failed to confirm his results, notably German physicists such as Heinrich Rubens, Otto Lummer, and Paul Drude, and English physicists such as Lord Rayleigh, Lord Kelvin, and William Crookes. Nationality began to influence the controversy: one Blondlot supporter later claimed the Germans could not detect the effect of the rays because "their sensibilities were inferior and were further blunted by their bruish diet of beer and sauerkraut" (Gratzer, p.20).
Ultimately, N-rays met their scientific death when R. W. Wood, a Johns Hopkins physicist, visited Blondlot's laboratory. In a 1904 letter published in Nature, he made a devastating revelation. While observing an experiment in a dark room in which the N-rays were refracted by an aluminum prism, Wood surreptitiously removed the prism from the apparatus. The French experimenters, unaware of Wood's actions, went on describing exactly the same phenomena as before.
But Blondlot and many of his supporters did not concede. One French scientist, Turpain, attempted to reproduce Blondlot's results, failed, and submitted his results to Comptes rendus for publication. They were rejected by the editor who said, "Your results can be explained simply by supposing that your eyes are insufficiently sensitive to appreciate the phenomena." (Gratzer, p. 21) Turpain replied, "If N-rays can only be observed by rare privileged individuals then they no longer belong to the ___domain of experiment." (ibid) When Blondlot died in 1930, his posthumous papers showed he continued to believe in and experiment on N-rays for many years after Wood's debunking.
The case of N-rays is a spectacular example of a failure of a scientist to admit he was wrong. Even in this case, though, science's self-correction won the day. After Wood's debunking, N-rays vanished from the scientific literature.
Blondlot's tale is a cautionary one. By contrast, I offer a case where the proper behavior was displayed, from Richard Dawkins' 1996 Richard Dimbleby lecture:
A formative influence on my undergraduate self was the response of a respected elder statesmen of the Oxford Zoology Department when an American visitor had just publicly disproved his favourite theory. The old man strode to the front of the lecture hall, shook the American warmly by the hand and declared in ringing, emotional tones: "My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years." And we clapped our hands red.
Admitting you are wrong is a basic part of the mathematical and scientific ethic. In the days of the Internet, mea culpas can be more public and more effectively distributed then ever before. For both of my published books, for example, I maintain public errrata pages. The errata and addenda for my 1996 book now take up ten pages!
But not everyone agrees. Take two controversial books published in the last few years: A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram, and No Free Lunch, by William Dembski.
Wolfram's book was published in 2002. Roughly speaking, the main thesis is that even very simple interactions give rise to complex phenomena that are hard to predict. Over 1280 pages, this thesis is developed and applied to many different areas, including mathematics, physics, economics, and biology; it is touted as a genuine revolution in science. Critics, generally, speaking have not been kind. (See here for a compendium of many different reviews.) I find the book interesting, with many fascinating digressions. The pictures are nice. But the importance of the main thesis is wildly overstated, and Wolfram never really gives a formal definition of "complex" that would satisfy a mathematician or physicist; rather, he relies on an informal definition of complexity based on appearance to the human visual system. If he did use a more formal definition -- let's say Kolmogorov complexity -- then his claims become incoherent, trivial, or wrong.
Dembski's book was also published in 2002. Dembski defines a new kind of complexity, which he calls "specified complexity" or "complex specified information". He then discusses properties of this measure, which he claims satisfies a law called "The Law of Conservation of Information", and concludes that specified complexity cannot be generated by natural causes. He then finds specified complexity in biological structures such as the [sic] bacterial flagellum, and concludes the flagellum cannot have arisen through natural causes. Needless to say, most reviewers have not been kind to Dembski either. (See here for some reviews.) Like Wolfram, Dembki's definition of complexity suffers from subjectivity, as it depends critically on the knowledge base of the observer. When one tries to make the definition more precise, Dembski's claims become incoherent, trivial, or wrong.
The analogy between the work of Wolfram and Dembski is imperfect. Wolfram, for example, has a genuine record of achievement, winning a MacArthur "genius" grant, and creating the software system Mathematica. Many of his papers continue to be cited by scientists and mathematicians. By contrast, Dembski, though possessing numerous degrees, has had a negligible impact on mathematics and science.
Nevertheless, there is one thing they have in common, and this brings me back to the start of this entry. Neither Wolfram nor Dembski have seen fit to make available errata pages for their books. In this, they fail in their intellectual obligation. Back in October 2002, I sent Wolfram a list of various errata in his book. Eventually one of his assistants acknowledged the errors, but Wolfram has never made them public. (Some of them can be seen here, due to the persistence of Evangelos Georgiadis.) Considering the extensive web presence for A New Kind of Science, surely an errata page is not asking too much.
Similarly, in April 2002 I sent Dembski a review in which I pointed out many mistakes in No Free Lunch, but Dembski only acknowledged one of these errors publicly and it took him three years. (My review later appeared in the journal BioSystems.)
Both Wolfram and Dembski seem to be taking a page from Canadian feminist Nellie McClung, who reportedly said, "Never retract, never explain, never apologize –- get the thing done and let them howl!" This might be a good motto for a social activist, but for a scientist or mathematician it is a dereliction of duty. If you want to be taken seriously when you're right, it's a good idea to be upfront about it when you're wrong.
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