Awesome.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Things that don't happen
I hear quite frequently from Creationists that one of the reasons they know evolution can't happen is because no one has ever seen a new "species" in the making from evolution. Of course, this completely belies their ignorance on what a "species" is. They seem to think that to constitute a different species it has to be difference on the order of "cats and dogs" which, as anyone that actually passed high school biology and remembers their taxonomic classifications, is more on the order of differences between orders (and we shouldn't see those changes on such short time spans, which is where the fossil record comes in).
Yet Creationists sill claim that speciation just never happens. If pushed on it, they'll redefine species to be "kinds" which has no useful definition and allows them to endlessly push the goalposts to whatever they want.
Meanwhile, in categorically useful land where definitions actually work and make sense, yet another species has been caught in the act of diverging thanks to sexual selection. We'll just toss that on the list of speciation events Creationists claim don't exist.
Meanwhile, yet another event that Creationists promised would never happen has occurred. Nearly 3 years ago, at Behe's lecture, he claimed that evolution could not account for systems coming together to form a new system because, if each system had evolved independently, the bits that allowed each to work would be so different, they would be incompatible to the point that they could never come together.
Of course, this happens all the time where diseases jump between species. Just this past week, Behe's impossible scenario happened: H1N1 was contracted by a cat. According to Behe, such improbability means that this event must have been "intelligently designed". God must hate cats.
Yet Creationists sill claim that speciation just never happens. If pushed on it, they'll redefine species to be "kinds" which has no useful definition and allows them to endlessly push the goalposts to whatever they want.
Meanwhile, in categorically useful land where definitions actually work and make sense, yet another species has been caught in the act of diverging thanks to sexual selection. We'll just toss that on the list of speciation events Creationists claim don't exist.
Meanwhile, yet another event that Creationists promised would never happen has occurred. Nearly 3 years ago, at Behe's lecture, he claimed that evolution could not account for systems coming together to form a new system because, if each system had evolved independently, the bits that allowed each to work would be so different, they would be incompatible to the point that they could never come together.
Of course, this happens all the time where diseases jump between species. Just this past week, Behe's impossible scenario happened: H1N1 was contracted by a cat. According to Behe, such improbability means that this event must have been "intelligently designed". God must hate cats.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Teaching - 11/5: Test Fail
I gave my algebra class their first test today. (Quizzes are given after every chapter, tests every 3-4 and are cumulative).
The high score was an 85%. Most students failed.
Not a pleasant situation as an instructor. Now I'm forced to explain to the administration why students can't perform well.
The first answer is, as I've mentioned before, my students have very diverse math backgrounds. Yet the book I'm following doesn't even take for granted that they do have a background. There's an entire section on adding and subtracting whole numbers! The students seem to do ok with that, but still, many can't figure out what to do when signs are combined (ex: 3+(-4)). If they can, then they get lost if you put more than one operation in a row.... even though there was an entire section on Order of Operations and every one of them knows the mnemonic device for it.
Fractions? Forget it.
There's an entire section on how to add fractions and other rational numbers, yet when I asked them to add 1/6 and -2/3, most just added across the numerator and tried to add the denominators. Most of those that did the adding right managed to still screw the sign up.
A problem on an equation with absolute values? Even after I had, just the day before, stressed that they had screwed it up on their homework and really needed to study it; Even after I explicitly stated the 3 steps necessary to solve one; Even after having a review sheet of concepts to study; One student could solve it.
I even had a problem on there that was directly out of something we'd done in class and was also in the book. Not even different numbers. It was asking for which operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), the set of positive integers was closed. One student had this right. One other just wrote "yes" for all of them (which was half right since its closed for addition and multiplication).
*headdesk*
They've had homework over this too. Which brings me to the second reason nearly half the class is failing: Students seem to think that homework is optional and not doing it doesn't impact their grade.
I kid you not.
I actually had a student be surprised when I reminded him that not doing homework means you're losing points and that I'd gone though how grading was done the first day of class and even handed them a syllabus with the grading scheme on it. Of course, this was the same student that tried to argue with me that he could use a calculator on the test 5 minutes after I had told the entire class that calculators weren't allowed.
So reinforcing the material via homework was obviously not being done. Thus, to try to (a) improve grades and (b) help them study in a constructive manner (as opposed to flipping through, looking at pictures and thinking they know it like I know many students do), I offered to let any student that had missing homework assignments turn it in today for full credit. Wow! What an offer!
Only one student handed in anything, and it was 5 problems he'd scribbled down in the 5 minutes before class, four of which were wrong.
But my niceness didn't even stop there. I gave them a large notecard on which they could write anything they wanted and use it on the test. Half the students didn't even take advantage of this.
At this point, I'm starting to feel that the old adage is true: You can't fix stupid.
So where to go from here?
Well, I plan on calling some parents tonight. Sadly, probably the only thing I'll really be able to do is allow them to make up the lost points somehow, by correcting the problems they missed and also requiring them to go through the book and determine what skills were necessary for each problem, what section that skill came from, and find a problem from the homework that used the same skills. That should teach them.... but I doubt it will.
For reference here is a copy of the test (.pdf file).
The high score was an 85%. Most students failed.
Not a pleasant situation as an instructor. Now I'm forced to explain to the administration why students can't perform well.
The first answer is, as I've mentioned before, my students have very diverse math backgrounds. Yet the book I'm following doesn't even take for granted that they do have a background. There's an entire section on adding and subtracting whole numbers! The students seem to do ok with that, but still, many can't figure out what to do when signs are combined (ex: 3+(-4)). If they can, then they get lost if you put more than one operation in a row.... even though there was an entire section on Order of Operations and every one of them knows the mnemonic device for it.
Fractions? Forget it.
There's an entire section on how to add fractions and other rational numbers, yet when I asked them to add 1/6 and -2/3, most just added across the numerator and tried to add the denominators. Most of those that did the adding right managed to still screw the sign up.
A problem on an equation with absolute values? Even after I had, just the day before, stressed that they had screwed it up on their homework and really needed to study it; Even after I explicitly stated the 3 steps necessary to solve one; Even after having a review sheet of concepts to study; One student could solve it.
I even had a problem on there that was directly out of something we'd done in class and was also in the book. Not even different numbers. It was asking for which operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), the set of positive integers was closed. One student had this right. One other just wrote "yes" for all of them (which was half right since its closed for addition and multiplication).
*headdesk*
They've had homework over this too. Which brings me to the second reason nearly half the class is failing: Students seem to think that homework is optional and not doing it doesn't impact their grade.
I kid you not.
I actually had a student be surprised when I reminded him that not doing homework means you're losing points and that I'd gone though how grading was done the first day of class and even handed them a syllabus with the grading scheme on it. Of course, this was the same student that tried to argue with me that he could use a calculator on the test 5 minutes after I had told the entire class that calculators weren't allowed.
So reinforcing the material via homework was obviously not being done. Thus, to try to (a) improve grades and (b) help them study in a constructive manner (as opposed to flipping through, looking at pictures and thinking they know it like I know many students do), I offered to let any student that had missing homework assignments turn it in today for full credit. Wow! What an offer!
Only one student handed in anything, and it was 5 problems he'd scribbled down in the 5 minutes before class, four of which were wrong.
But my niceness didn't even stop there. I gave them a large notecard on which they could write anything they wanted and use it on the test. Half the students didn't even take advantage of this.
At this point, I'm starting to feel that the old adage is true: You can't fix stupid.
So where to go from here?
Well, I plan on calling some parents tonight. Sadly, probably the only thing I'll really be able to do is allow them to make up the lost points somehow, by correcting the problems they missed and also requiring them to go through the book and determine what skills were necessary for each problem, what section that skill came from, and find a problem from the homework that used the same skills. That should teach them.... but I doubt it will.
For reference here is a copy of the test (.pdf file).
I smell the smelly smell of something smelly....
In local news, a high school sophomore teacher not to far from St. Louis is returning to his classroom after being put on paid leave for giving an optional homework assignment for students to read an article on homosexuality in animals which, he claimed (at least according to the article), "challenged Darwin's theory of sexual selection". The reason he was put on leave was because someone complained it wasn't "age appropriate".
*blink*
What age is sex ed taught in Illinois? I know here in St. Louis, I first encountered it in fifth grade, but only so far as the whole, "Your body will start undergoing changes." Freshman year in high school, we covered more complete sex ed involving contraceptives, which is generally when sexual orientation is taught (although I can't recall it being in the curriculum I went through).
So.... Freshman comes before sophomore....
Explain to me again how this isn't "age appropriate"?
Something's not adding up here. I suspect there's another reason.
And who is it that wouldn't want students to know that homosexual behavior has been observed in at least 1,500 species including exclusive homosexual parings?
Oh yes. People that want to bury their kids heads in the sand and pretend that homosexuality doesn't occur outside of sinful humans. I have a sneaky suspicion that this is the real reason for complaints and that the "age appropriateness" is just a shield for the typical bigotry.
But what the hell is the teacher trying to do with the claim that it "challenged Darwin's theory of sexual selection." It may very well do so, but so what?
It's bizarre how so many people seem to think that Darwin was the first, last, and only theorist on evolution and selection.
Well, I guess it's not bizarre. It's the same phenomenon as trying to deny homosexuality in animals: They can cite what "Darwin didn't know" and feign ignorance to the last 150 years just as they can claim "Homosexuality is an abhorrent human phenomenon" and then feign ignorance to all the obvious claims to the contrary.
*Sigh*
This willful ignorance is depressing.
*blink*
What age is sex ed taught in Illinois? I know here in St. Louis, I first encountered it in fifth grade, but only so far as the whole, "Your body will start undergoing changes." Freshman year in high school, we covered more complete sex ed involving contraceptives, which is generally when sexual orientation is taught (although I can't recall it being in the curriculum I went through).
So.... Freshman comes before sophomore....
Explain to me again how this isn't "age appropriate"?
Something's not adding up here. I suspect there's another reason.
And who is it that wouldn't want students to know that homosexual behavior has been observed in at least 1,500 species including exclusive homosexual parings?
Oh yes. People that want to bury their kids heads in the sand and pretend that homosexuality doesn't occur outside of sinful humans. I have a sneaky suspicion that this is the real reason for complaints and that the "age appropriateness" is just a shield for the typical bigotry.
But what the hell is the teacher trying to do with the claim that it "challenged Darwin's theory of sexual selection." It may very well do so, but so what?
It's bizarre how so many people seem to think that Darwin was the first, last, and only theorist on evolution and selection.
Well, I guess it's not bizarre. It's the same phenomenon as trying to deny homosexuality in animals: They can cite what "Darwin didn't know" and feign ignorance to the last 150 years just as they can claim "Homosexuality is an abhorrent human phenomenon" and then feign ignorance to all the obvious claims to the contrary.
*Sigh*
This willful ignorance is depressing.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
A Response from George_Tr
George has replied, but for whatever reason, he decided not to do so in the post created specifically for him. Rather, he posted in the Big Bang - 4 Common Misconceptions post from over 3 years ago. So it doesn't get lost, I'll repost and respond to it here:
George's next claim is a very typical creationist strawman: Without God, there is no order and everything is left to random "chance".
No. Not even a little bit. The very laws of the universe create selection effects which creates what George and other Theists perceive as "design". In reality, it doesn't take God to create stars. It takes gas, gravity, energy, and fusion. All of these are addressed in a high school science class. But although George (and Creationists in general) try to imply they "study" science, they somehow missed out on these fundamental concepts. So I'll say the same thing about George as I say about Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. George doesn't know jack about science. All he seems to know is a pale imitation; a distorted strawman; but he wouldn't know a logically consistent hypothesis that's testable, let alone a well established theory if it bit him in the ass.
I'm glad George has realized just how silly his several church groups are, but it's important to turn that introspection inward as well. He critically analyzes their claims, but has obviously not even attempted a fairly basic one on his own as I did in my last post. Instead, he's adopted rational crutches that enable his own delusion as he reveals by trying to claim "Metaphysics" has a role in making "sense of this bizarre system of things." Sadly, metaphysics, like all pseudo-sciences, completely fails to deliver when held up against real scrutiny. It sounds good, but it's all gibberish. Just like Schroeder's books.
But instead of trying to analyze his own views, he seems more interested in preaching to "satanists and witches or warlocks." Perhaps someone should tell him that the Harry Potter series is fiction too.
So George, I think we can have an intelligent discourse too. But only if you're going to drop the sidestepping, address the points I've made, and honestly acknowledge them. So far, you've failed on all three points. Come back and try again.
Hi Jon, Hope you have some time to read or review Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder's books.First off, George hasn't responded to any of the claims I've raised and even pointed out specifically at the end of my post. Instead, he pulls a Gish Gallop by pointing me at 3 whole book to read without even bothering to summarize the arguments. As it turns out, I have a fairly long reading list and I'm not really interested in adding Schroeder's books to it since my my last post, I addressed one of the arguments he posted and showed the absolutely gaping hole in it. If a central premise to an entire book is that flawed, I'm not really interested in reading any more.
1. Genesis & The Big bang
2. The Science Of God
3. The Hidden Face oF God
I have read all three; you may want to adjust some of your comments after reading them. I have studied and read many great writer/Scientist on some mind numbing but necessary Space/Time/Matter subject. You have done a fine job in defining your views here. My contention is when you dismiss God from Creation; all that is left is for chance to make everything in several billion years be exactly right to the pico second or less. If any of them failed we would not be here or anywhere.
Oh yes, String Theory and Oscillating universe or multiverses are interesting new areas too, i was puzzled about branes for a while but starting to grasp it now.
I am fifty six yrs old now, have been reading and learning on the same subjects with a passion since i was about 7 or 8 yrs old. My passion for Science is tempered only by that for God and Jesus Christ now. I'm not one of the starry eyed christian of any church system, but a hearer and doer by Jesus power of the Word. Being a believer was not my choice, but it seems that my life was prepared for this by the voracious appetite for Science.
Been in & out of several church groups, they all are either too good (not) thier claim; or so closed minded, a jack hammer could not open their minds eye. Only God Will in time; same for many athiests and agnostics, not to mention the satanists and witches or warlocks.
Intellegence, Metaphysics and Science need to work hand in glove to make sense of this bizarre system of things. I think we can have an intelligent discourse even if we differ in conclusions.
George Tr.
George's next claim is a very typical creationist strawman: Without God, there is no order and everything is left to random "chance".
No. Not even a little bit. The very laws of the universe create selection effects which creates what George and other Theists perceive as "design". In reality, it doesn't take God to create stars. It takes gas, gravity, energy, and fusion. All of these are addressed in a high school science class. But although George (and Creationists in general) try to imply they "study" science, they somehow missed out on these fundamental concepts. So I'll say the same thing about George as I say about Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. George doesn't know jack about science. All he seems to know is a pale imitation; a distorted strawman; but he wouldn't know a logically consistent hypothesis that's testable, let alone a well established theory if it bit him in the ass.
I'm glad George has realized just how silly his several church groups are, but it's important to turn that introspection inward as well. He critically analyzes their claims, but has obviously not even attempted a fairly basic one on his own as I did in my last post. Instead, he's adopted rational crutches that enable his own delusion as he reveals by trying to claim "Metaphysics" has a role in making "sense of this bizarre system of things." Sadly, metaphysics, like all pseudo-sciences, completely fails to deliver when held up against real scrutiny. It sounds good, but it's all gibberish. Just like Schroeder's books.
But instead of trying to analyze his own views, he seems more interested in preaching to "satanists and witches or warlocks." Perhaps someone should tell him that the Harry Potter series is fiction too.
So George, I think we can have an intelligent discourse too. But only if you're going to drop the sidestepping, address the points I've made, and honestly acknowledge them. So far, you've failed on all three points. Come back and try again.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
An Invitation to George_Tr
The other day with the big Twitter "No God" bit, I responded to several Twitterers (is that the correct term?) silly claims. In particular George_Tr posted the bit from Psalms 14:1 about how a foolish man says in his heart there is no God. I responded by pointing out a wise man says it in his head (you know, where rational place and all that takes place).
George then responded back saying that the word of man is foolish, so I pointedly reminded him of one of the dumbest claims in the bible: Pi = 3 (I Kings 7:23).
George ignored this and started making several claims, like "intelligence is in the smallest particle yet studied". I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. Particles are intelligent? Or that they show signs of an intelligent designer? Well, ID/Creationism fails utterly, so either way, it's a stupid comment on his part.
He then stated: "I dare any man to scientifically disprove Gen 1:1-31".
It doesn't take much. The order is way off. To show that, let's take a look at the order in Genesis. The very first thing it claims happened is the earth was watery and formless.
From what we know about how planets form, they are rocky messes initially. Water is only later condensed once the temperature drops enough for it to condense. Additionally, it might be seeded from comets.
Next, light is created. Given we can see light from further distances than 5 billion ly, we know light's been around longer than the Earth. Thus, light should have come earlier, but the Bible gets it WRONG.
The light is separated from darkness. This is just a backwards and naive description of things. "Dark" is just an absence of light just like how "cold" is an absence of heat. Separating the two just doesn't really make sense since they're really different sides of the same thing. At best we could say this had something to do with the era of recombination, when the universe was finally rarefied enough for photons to travel freely making the universe inhomogeneous enough to have a distinction. Either way, this was well before the Earth (or any water) existed.
On day 2, God puts in a real hard days work and separates the atmospheric water from the ground water. In other words, He let evaporation happen (or condensation). Real hard work there. But again, if it were watery (which is a pretty clear description of liquid state as opposed to vapor which would be "mist") then God just did something He already did. Unless He didn't, in which case there's a contradiction.
Day 3 comes and there's suddenly flowering plants. Keep this in mind. I'll bring it up again in a minute.
Day 4 and the Sun turns on. Seriously? Plants existed before the Sun? How much more wrong can you get?! Sorry, that should have been way earlier. Later on day 4 God creates all the other stars. No. Wrong again. Star formation is an ongoing process. Some of the stars that existed are dead. More are being created now. To say they were all created at the same time, especially after is just wrong.
On day 5, there's creatures in the water and birds. Independently, these are right relative to one another. Life in the oceans is at least 3 billion years old. Birds, only ~150 million years old. Looks like the bible is just plain off by a factor of 100. Meanwhile, remember those flowering plants from day 2? In reality, they showed up 425 million years ago. So they should be somewhere on this day. They don't.
Day 6 is pretty vague so it can pass for sheer inability to place.
So let's actually try to these events in the proper order. I'll use the numbering system from the website I linked:
2 - Light: Shortly after the Big Bang lots of photons (light) everywhere
3 - Separation of light and dark : Recombination, light travels freely creating distinction between them.
11 - Stars: Initially, there was no heavy elements, so planets will have to come later.
9 - Sun: The solar system begins forming with the proto-Sun at its center.
1 - Earth beings to condense: Indistinct at this point, but not "watery" as the Bible describes.
4/5/6 - Formation of atmosphere, oceans, and shaping of early continents.
10 - Moon: Best theory is that a Mars sized impactor hit us after the Earth was formed to make the moon.
12 - Water Creatures: Little bitty microorganisms probably.
14 - Land Animals: After the water creatures evolve, they come to land.
7 - Flowering Plants: You know, the ones with seeds and fruit.
13 - Birds: Evolved from dinosaurs after all.
15/16 - Humanity: Sexes evolved simultaneously after all.
(NOTE: I left 8, the Garden of Eden out of this list since there's no evidence to suggest it existed as described in the Bible, and it was conjecture to be in that order on the part of the authors anyway)
So it's pretty clear the order of Genesis is flat out wrong. Forget the 1 day = billions of year garbage. Even if you mess it about, the order isn't even close. Unless, of course, your idea of counting goes 2, 3, 11, 9, 1, (4/5/6), 10, 12, 14, 7, 13, 15/16. If it is, I think preschool is the appropriate place for you.
This whole time I'd been asking George for some evidence on his part instead of bald faced, hollow claims. After all, he kept asking me to "disprove Genesis". I think I pretty conclusively have here. I backed up my claim. When I reminded him that he was really the one with burden of proof (since he's making the positive claim of existence), he balked and replied, "GOD Has no burden of proof, you need to prove your negative declarations."
In other words, he refuses to accept the terms of a fair argument and asks me to do the logically impossible (prove a negative).
His only bit of support came as this response: "This from 1 of Your peers; Read Gerald L Schroeder, PHD MIT Genesis & The Big Bang"
I searched for the book and the best I seem to be able to find is this summary. Essentially, Schroeder seems to claim that he can claim the 1 day = billions of years because time can be relative. Of course, if you know relativity, this would require God to be zipping around the universe at damn near the speed of light. In other words, a supernatural creator that can do whatever He wants decides to limit himself to the relativistic constraints of the universe in order to induce time dilation and play games with units of time for His special project to figure out.
*Blink*
I'm going to call a spade a spade here: That's stupid.
Especially since for most of the time, God was directly working in and on the Earth. In other words, He was bound to the same inertial reference frame. The whole argument crumbles. I won't bother going through the archaeological points since that's not my cup of tea. Additionally, even if we decided for whatever reason this was possible it doesn't mean it's probable or even credible. After all, there could be a teapot in orbit around the sun. But just because the laws of gravity allow for it, doesn't mean we should believe it or worship it.
Regardless, Schroeder's arguments don't work, so I'll expect George to replace them with something with some meat.
George then said, "160 characters is just enough for topic Overview, stop hiding your inability to produce; U have nothing."
Well George, I agree. 160 characters is too short. So come on over here and we'll hash this out paragraph style.
And by the way, I've produced: As I responded in my tweet, the order of Genesis is WAY off. Above is the full explanation of why.
Your only "evidence" can't hold up to itself, so I'll expect better. And no more of the shifting of burden of proof or other logical fallacies please. That's just pathetic.
PS: George, from your Twitter picture, you look a lot like Morgan Freeman. And we all know Morgan Freeman played God in Bruce Almighty. Not relevant to any of this, but I still found it amusing!
George then responded back saying that the word of man is foolish, so I pointedly reminded him of one of the dumbest claims in the bible: Pi = 3 (I Kings 7:23).
George ignored this and started making several claims, like "intelligence is in the smallest particle yet studied". I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. Particles are intelligent? Or that they show signs of an intelligent designer? Well, ID/Creationism fails utterly, so either way, it's a stupid comment on his part.
He then stated: "I dare any man to scientifically disprove Gen 1:1-31".
It doesn't take much. The order is way off. To show that, let's take a look at the order in Genesis. The very first thing it claims happened is the earth was watery and formless.
From what we know about how planets form, they are rocky messes initially. Water is only later condensed once the temperature drops enough for it to condense. Additionally, it might be seeded from comets.
Next, light is created. Given we can see light from further distances than 5 billion ly, we know light's been around longer than the Earth. Thus, light should have come earlier, but the Bible gets it WRONG.
The light is separated from darkness. This is just a backwards and naive description of things. "Dark" is just an absence of light just like how "cold" is an absence of heat. Separating the two just doesn't really make sense since they're really different sides of the same thing. At best we could say this had something to do with the era of recombination, when the universe was finally rarefied enough for photons to travel freely making the universe inhomogeneous enough to have a distinction. Either way, this was well before the Earth (or any water) existed.
On day 2, God puts in a real hard days work and separates the atmospheric water from the ground water. In other words, He let evaporation happen (or condensation). Real hard work there. But again, if it were watery (which is a pretty clear description of liquid state as opposed to vapor which would be "mist") then God just did something He already did. Unless He didn't, in which case there's a contradiction.
Day 3 comes and there's suddenly flowering plants. Keep this in mind. I'll bring it up again in a minute.
Day 4 and the Sun turns on. Seriously? Plants existed before the Sun? How much more wrong can you get?! Sorry, that should have been way earlier. Later on day 4 God creates all the other stars. No. Wrong again. Star formation is an ongoing process. Some of the stars that existed are dead. More are being created now. To say they were all created at the same time, especially after is just wrong.
On day 5, there's creatures in the water and birds. Independently, these are right relative to one another. Life in the oceans is at least 3 billion years old. Birds, only ~150 million years old. Looks like the bible is just plain off by a factor of 100. Meanwhile, remember those flowering plants from day 2? In reality, they showed up 425 million years ago. So they should be somewhere on this day. They don't.
Day 6 is pretty vague so it can pass for sheer inability to place.
So let's actually try to these events in the proper order. I'll use the numbering system from the website I linked:
2 - Light: Shortly after the Big Bang lots of photons (light) everywhere
3 - Separation of light and dark : Recombination, light travels freely creating distinction between them.
11 - Stars: Initially, there was no heavy elements, so planets will have to come later.
9 - Sun: The solar system begins forming with the proto-Sun at its center.
1 - Earth beings to condense: Indistinct at this point, but not "watery" as the Bible describes.
4/5/6 - Formation of atmosphere, oceans, and shaping of early continents.
10 - Moon: Best theory is that a Mars sized impactor hit us after the Earth was formed to make the moon.
12 - Water Creatures: Little bitty microorganisms probably.
14 - Land Animals: After the water creatures evolve, they come to land.
7 - Flowering Plants: You know, the ones with seeds and fruit.
13 - Birds: Evolved from dinosaurs after all.
15/16 - Humanity: Sexes evolved simultaneously after all.
(NOTE: I left 8, the Garden of Eden out of this list since there's no evidence to suggest it existed as described in the Bible, and it was conjecture to be in that order on the part of the authors anyway)
So it's pretty clear the order of Genesis is flat out wrong. Forget the 1 day = billions of year garbage. Even if you mess it about, the order isn't even close. Unless, of course, your idea of counting goes 2, 3, 11, 9, 1, (4/5/6), 10, 12, 14, 7, 13, 15/16. If it is, I think preschool is the appropriate place for you.
This whole time I'd been asking George for some evidence on his part instead of bald faced, hollow claims. After all, he kept asking me to "disprove Genesis". I think I pretty conclusively have here. I backed up my claim. When I reminded him that he was really the one with burden of proof (since he's making the positive claim of existence), he balked and replied, "GOD Has no burden of proof, you need to prove your negative declarations."
In other words, he refuses to accept the terms of a fair argument and asks me to do the logically impossible (prove a negative).
His only bit of support came as this response: "This from 1 of Your peers; Read Gerald L Schroeder, PHD MIT Genesis & The Big Bang"
I searched for the book and the best I seem to be able to find is this summary. Essentially, Schroeder seems to claim that he can claim the 1 day = billions of years because time can be relative. Of course, if you know relativity, this would require God to be zipping around the universe at damn near the speed of light. In other words, a supernatural creator that can do whatever He wants decides to limit himself to the relativistic constraints of the universe in order to induce time dilation and play games with units of time for His special project to figure out.
*Blink*
I'm going to call a spade a spade here: That's stupid.
Especially since for most of the time, God was directly working in and on the Earth. In other words, He was bound to the same inertial reference frame. The whole argument crumbles. I won't bother going through the archaeological points since that's not my cup of tea. Additionally, even if we decided for whatever reason this was possible it doesn't mean it's probable or even credible. After all, there could be a teapot in orbit around the sun. But just because the laws of gravity allow for it, doesn't mean we should believe it or worship it.
Regardless, Schroeder's arguments don't work, so I'll expect George to replace them with something with some meat.
George then said, "160 characters is just enough for topic Overview, stop hiding your inability to produce; U have nothing."
Well George, I agree. 160 characters is too short. So come on over here and we'll hash this out paragraph style.
And by the way, I've produced: As I responded in my tweet, the order of Genesis is WAY off. Above is the full explanation of why.
Your only "evidence" can't hold up to itself, so I'll expect better. And no more of the shifting of burden of proof or other logical fallacies please. That's just pathetic.
PS: George, from your Twitter picture, you look a lot like Morgan Freeman. And we all know Morgan Freeman played God in Bruce Almighty. Not relevant to any of this, but I still found it amusing!
Teaching - 10/22
For those that haven't noticed the change in my bio off to the right, I've been teaching Algebra & Computers at a small private school here in St Louis. So far, it's been a wonderful experience.
Not to say there haven't been challenges.
In my Algebra class, many of the students are on very different levels. I have two that have had the benefit of a good math background. Five have a very spotty background. They know the techniques, but aren't nearly proficient enough to see when to apply them. My last student in that class (yes, there's only eight) lived in Israel for five years and went to a very religious school which essentially stopped math at a 5th grade level. There's no understanding of fractions from him, and most of the other students, although they have a basic understanding of what they are and what they're supposed to do with them, the deeper understanding of them (fractions are really division, division of fractions is multiplication of the inverse [which is true in general but especially useful for fractions], etc....) is lost on them. They know how to changed a mixed number to a fraction in a/b form, but not why they do anything they do.
Another frequent issue is classroom control. Many of the students there are from out of state and live in dormatories together. Thus, there's the expected friendships and rivalries. And of course, all that gets dragged into the classroom. Out of class discussions become in-classroom discussions as soon as I'm having to take time out of the general lesson to drag up the student who can barely add. And as anyone whose been in charge of a class can tell you, getting students to drop the side conversations when it's time to get back to work is difficult at best. Nor is it just the students chatting that suffer. Other students inexorably get drawn in.
Yesterday, this problem came to a head. The students had just come back from a 2 week vacation, so I expected a bit of extra energy, but during my Computers class (we're doing keyboarding), several students couldn't focus for more than a few seconds. My general strategy for the class is that they get 5 points every day just for showing up and doing their work. If they misbehave and aren't working, they lose points. Yesterday, four students out of 13 lost all their points for the day, and one continued to be so disruptive that I had to remove him from the class.
It's not something I really enjoy having to do, and such extreme measures are something I very rarely do. While teaching at KU, there were several clear instances of people "working together" in which one person did all the work and the other got a free ride. But I prefer to work things out without having to resort to disciplinary measures (although there was an instance with one student that was so blatant, what with him copying answers from someone else when I was standing 3 ft away and later with him claiming to have observed the sunset every Wednesday for the semester as part of his final project when weather isn't that kind in Kansas and he claimed to have started 2 weeks before the assignment was given, that I had to press for academic misconduct). But sadly, it looks like the students in my classes have shown they are so incapable of handling the privilege to chat while working that I'm going to have to enforce a strict no talking policy.
*Sigh*
Not that I haven't made my own mistakes. Just last week, I was trying to add some numbers that I didn't want to trust myself to do in my head. So I did it on the board. Wrong.
28.3
-56.1
_____
Easy problem, right?
I thought so. You just add up the columns!
3 - 1 = 2
8 - 6 = 2
2 - 5 = -3
so -32.2.
Wrong.
Except that you can't do that do that when you'll need to borrow from the hundreds column that isn't there. I'd kinda though it didn't seem right, but I did another problem in my head (20 - 50 = -30) to try to test it before I started. And it works in some special scenarios, but in general it doesn't. DOH!
That's what I get for trying to do addition like that without a calculator for probably nearly the first time in a decade without looking over things a bit more first.
Not to say there haven't been challenges.
In my Algebra class, many of the students are on very different levels. I have two that have had the benefit of a good math background. Five have a very spotty background. They know the techniques, but aren't nearly proficient enough to see when to apply them. My last student in that class (yes, there's only eight) lived in Israel for five years and went to a very religious school which essentially stopped math at a 5th grade level. There's no understanding of fractions from him, and most of the other students, although they have a basic understanding of what they are and what they're supposed to do with them, the deeper understanding of them (fractions are really division, division of fractions is multiplication of the inverse [which is true in general but especially useful for fractions], etc....) is lost on them. They know how to changed a mixed number to a fraction in a/b form, but not why they do anything they do.
Another frequent issue is classroom control. Many of the students there are from out of state and live in dormatories together. Thus, there's the expected friendships and rivalries. And of course, all that gets dragged into the classroom. Out of class discussions become in-classroom discussions as soon as I'm having to take time out of the general lesson to drag up the student who can barely add. And as anyone whose been in charge of a class can tell you, getting students to drop the side conversations when it's time to get back to work is difficult at best. Nor is it just the students chatting that suffer. Other students inexorably get drawn in.
Yesterday, this problem came to a head. The students had just come back from a 2 week vacation, so I expected a bit of extra energy, but during my Computers class (we're doing keyboarding), several students couldn't focus for more than a few seconds. My general strategy for the class is that they get 5 points every day just for showing up and doing their work. If they misbehave and aren't working, they lose points. Yesterday, four students out of 13 lost all their points for the day, and one continued to be so disruptive that I had to remove him from the class.
It's not something I really enjoy having to do, and such extreme measures are something I very rarely do. While teaching at KU, there were several clear instances of people "working together" in which one person did all the work and the other got a free ride. But I prefer to work things out without having to resort to disciplinary measures (although there was an instance with one student that was so blatant, what with him copying answers from someone else when I was standing 3 ft away and later with him claiming to have observed the sunset every Wednesday for the semester as part of his final project when weather isn't that kind in Kansas and he claimed to have started 2 weeks before the assignment was given, that I had to press for academic misconduct). But sadly, it looks like the students in my classes have shown they are so incapable of handling the privilege to chat while working that I'm going to have to enforce a strict no talking policy.
*Sigh*
Not that I haven't made my own mistakes. Just last week, I was trying to add some numbers that I didn't want to trust myself to do in my head. So I did it on the board. Wrong.
28.3
-56.1
_____
Easy problem, right?
I thought so. You just add up the columns!
3 - 1 = 2
8 - 6 = 2
2 - 5 = -3
so -32.2.
Wrong.
Except that you can't do that do that when you'll need to borrow from the hundreds column that isn't there. I'd kinda though it didn't seem right, but I did another problem in my head (20 - 50 = -30) to try to test it before I started. And it works in some special scenarios, but in general it doesn't. DOH!
That's what I get for trying to do addition like that without a calculator for probably nearly the first time in a decade without looking over things a bit more first.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Movie Review - Where the Wild Things Are
Where the Wild Things Are is one of those movies that you just wonder how it can be a movie. The book that inspired it doesn't even have a dozen sentences, so how can it be made into a major motion picture? I was really eager to see how this all played out (so eager that my girlfriend and I have been working on a Max style wolf suit for her Halloween costume). Thus, a midnight showing was in order.
If you've read any of the reviews of it one of the things they always say is this isn't a typical movie. One review I saw before the movie, said it abandoned the typical idea of a story arc. I don't think that's entirely true. There's definitely the exposition, rising action, a (weak) climax, and then an ending.
Another notable feature of most reviews is that, although the book was intended as a children's book, the movie isn't for children. It's about being a child. Although I'd say this theme is present in the original book (hidden as the satisfaction of knowing that your family is always your family and you'll have a proverbial hot supper waiting for you), the idea of what it means to be an adolescent child is much more deeply explored.
One of the first childhood themes that's explored is the strange notion of fun children have at play violence. In the "real world" it's Max having a snowball fight with his sister and her friends, which is all well and good. Until they crush his igloo. In the "wild things world", it's throwing dirt clods at one another's heads. It's fun until someone hits someone else too hard at which point there's a tense scene followed by some somber reflection. The movie doesn't really say that such playing is bad, but makes the definite point that it's easy to go over the line. Where that line is, it implies, is different for each person and can change on a whim.
Another topic that's hit is the desire for companions. In the real world, Max longs to have the friend that he (apparently) used to have in his older sister, before she started hanging out with other friends. Additionally, this movie makes Max's mother out as a single mother seeing new men which also sets Max off. In Wild Thing Land, one of the wild things is hurt by his friend leaving him as well. As Max tries to use his regal status to patch up a relationship between two of the wild things (Carol and KW), he realizes that it's silly of them to expect the other to "belong" solely to them. While we'd prefer it, it's not something we can always control.
Control is the other major theme this film seemed to touch on. While Max is at school, his teacher tells him that one day, the Sun will die and swallow up the Earth. Of course, that only matters if we don't kill ourselves off from global warming, nuclear wars, pollution, or disease. Max doesn't seem to think too much about this, but mentions it to his wild thing foil (Carol). Later, Carol remarks that, on top of all the other things he has to worry about, now he has to worry about the Sun dying. ARGH! The absurdity of worrying about such things, is highlighted, and ever so subtly, its implied that we should learn to accept the things we cannot change.
But enough about all the themes. Regardless of whether or not you're thinking about it, this movie has a lot of emotion to it. The acting is absolutely top notch. Humor is extremely well woven in and this film has some absolutely wonderful lines ("He's a boy pretending to be a wolf pretending to be a king").
It's certainly a movie I'll be buying once it's out.
If you've read any of the reviews of it one of the things they always say is this isn't a typical movie. One review I saw before the movie, said it abandoned the typical idea of a story arc. I don't think that's entirely true. There's definitely the exposition, rising action, a (weak) climax, and then an ending.
Another notable feature of most reviews is that, although the book was intended as a children's book, the movie isn't for children. It's about being a child. Although I'd say this theme is present in the original book (hidden as the satisfaction of knowing that your family is always your family and you'll have a proverbial hot supper waiting for you), the idea of what it means to be an adolescent child is much more deeply explored.
One of the first childhood themes that's explored is the strange notion of fun children have at play violence. In the "real world" it's Max having a snowball fight with his sister and her friends, which is all well and good. Until they crush his igloo. In the "wild things world", it's throwing dirt clods at one another's heads. It's fun until someone hits someone else too hard at which point there's a tense scene followed by some somber reflection. The movie doesn't really say that such playing is bad, but makes the definite point that it's easy to go over the line. Where that line is, it implies, is different for each person and can change on a whim.
Another topic that's hit is the desire for companions. In the real world, Max longs to have the friend that he (apparently) used to have in his older sister, before she started hanging out with other friends. Additionally, this movie makes Max's mother out as a single mother seeing new men which also sets Max off. In Wild Thing Land, one of the wild things is hurt by his friend leaving him as well. As Max tries to use his regal status to patch up a relationship between two of the wild things (Carol and KW), he realizes that it's silly of them to expect the other to "belong" solely to them. While we'd prefer it, it's not something we can always control.
Control is the other major theme this film seemed to touch on. While Max is at school, his teacher tells him that one day, the Sun will die and swallow up the Earth. Of course, that only matters if we don't kill ourselves off from global warming, nuclear wars, pollution, or disease. Max doesn't seem to think too much about this, but mentions it to his wild thing foil (Carol). Later, Carol remarks that, on top of all the other things he has to worry about, now he has to worry about the Sun dying. ARGH! The absurdity of worrying about such things, is highlighted, and ever so subtly, its implied that we should learn to accept the things we cannot change.
But enough about all the themes. Regardless of whether or not you're thinking about it, this movie has a lot of emotion to it. The acting is absolutely top notch. Humor is extremely well woven in and this film has some absolutely wonderful lines ("He's a boy pretending to be a wolf pretending to be a king").
It's certainly a movie I'll be buying once it's out.
You missed a bit there....
An hour or so ago, #No God became one of the hottest topics on twitter. Even now, it's still raking up nearly 200 tweets/minute.
The tweets by the believers are funny. Full of Pascal's Wagers, and uniqueness = magic man done it. You know. The usual.
But just as it got started, Twitter sent the entire tag down the memory hole. It's still there of course, but they banned it from their Trending Topics list.
Of course, many of the people posting on the #No God were posting the cute "Know God - No Peace; No God - Know Peace" phrase. So even know, the topic continues going strong. Just under the Know Peace tag.
Oops. They missed a bit there....
The tweets by the believers are funny. Full of Pascal's Wagers, and uniqueness = magic man done it. You know. The usual.
But just as it got started, Twitter sent the entire tag down the memory hole. It's still there of course, but they banned it from their Trending Topics list.
Of course, many of the people posting on the #No God were posting the cute "Know God - No Peace; No God - Know Peace" phrase. So even know, the topic continues going strong. Just under the Know Peace tag.
Oops. They missed a bit there....
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Going after the frauds
Here's a story that makes me happy: A fraud selling useless herbal remedies, claiming they could cure cancer has been charged with fraud after taking in $1 million from people, some of whom ended up dying.
And what sorts of idiots lapped this up?
The faithful of course.
And what sorts of idiots lapped this up?
The faithful of course.
Victor Stenger Lecture
Last night, I attended a lecture by Victor Stenger on his new book The New Atheists. After listening to his talk, I'm still not entirely sure what the book is supposed to be about. How "New" atheists are defined? Their arguments?
For those not familiar with Stenger, he was a physicist who did most of his work during the explosion of knowledge on particle physics. His physicist nature was completely apparent during the lecture. He tended to pause while he caught up with his thoughts (either that or figure out where he was on his notes). He rambled onto side topics. And although it wasn't obvious while he was standing behind the podium, when he came to the front of the stage to answer questions, he revealed that his pants trim was flipped. Very physicsy.
The material of the talk was very boring. If you've read any books by any of the new atheists, you've heard it all before: They think religion isn't just silly, it's harmful. Stenger vaguely hit on some of the points hit on by other new atheist authors, but his delivery was so poor, it wasn't worth listening to if you've read
any other books, or even hung out on the web for a few weeks.
Another odd point was that Stenger claimed "humans will never leave the planet." He made the point that space just isn't friendly to us. To hope that we'll ever find another planet fine tuned enough for us is pretty silly. Of course, Stenger ignored the possibility that we may fine tune it for ourselves. Meanwhile, I agree with Stenger that this does reveal that this does make a pretty good case against a creator; Why create an entire universe that's inhospitable for the (supposedly) most important creations in it. It doesn't jive. Regardless, the whole point was pretty negative. No wonder theists don't like us atheists. Reality can be a downer.
The question session was pretty dismal too. The dumbest question there was from an obvious theist asking the age old, equivocation question: Don't "laws" imply a lawmaker. This was probably the best answered question since Stenger, as a physicist could point out that these universal laws are simply by-products of the non-preferentiality of the universe (ie, if you don't have a preferred direction in the universe, conservation of momentum can be derived from this).
The same asker also asked how we can be "sure there is something rather than nothing?"
*Blink*
Has he bothered looking around?
For those not familiar with Stenger, he was a physicist who did most of his work during the explosion of knowledge on particle physics. His physicist nature was completely apparent during the lecture. He tended to pause while he caught up with his thoughts (either that or figure out where he was on his notes). He rambled onto side topics. And although it wasn't obvious while he was standing behind the podium, when he came to the front of the stage to answer questions, he revealed that his pants trim was flipped. Very physicsy.
The material of the talk was very boring. If you've read any books by any of the new atheists, you've heard it all before: They think religion isn't just silly, it's harmful. Stenger vaguely hit on some of the points hit on by other new atheist authors, but his delivery was so poor, it wasn't worth listening to if you've read
any other books, or even hung out on the web for a few weeks.
Another odd point was that Stenger claimed "humans will never leave the planet." He made the point that space just isn't friendly to us. To hope that we'll ever find another planet fine tuned enough for us is pretty silly. Of course, Stenger ignored the possibility that we may fine tune it for ourselves. Meanwhile, I agree with Stenger that this does reveal that this does make a pretty good case against a creator; Why create an entire universe that's inhospitable for the (supposedly) most important creations in it. It doesn't jive. Regardless, the whole point was pretty negative. No wonder theists don't like us atheists. Reality can be a downer.
The question session was pretty dismal too. The dumbest question there was from an obvious theist asking the age old, equivocation question: Don't "laws" imply a lawmaker. This was probably the best answered question since Stenger, as a physicist could point out that these universal laws are simply by-products of the non-preferentiality of the universe (ie, if you don't have a preferred direction in the universe, conservation of momentum can be derived from this).
The same asker also asked how we can be "sure there is something rather than nothing?"
*Blink*
Has he bothered looking around?
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