Wishing you a merry Christmas

Growing up in Australia, Christmas was rather different from what it is here in USA. We would hear about a “white Christmas”, but it never snowed in Perth. The dominant color for Christmas was blue, as with a blue sky. It can be unpleasantly hot, as it is summer in that part of the world.

My earliest memories of Christmas were of a hot meal — I think it was roast lamb. But after a few years, it changed to salads as more fitting to the summer weather. There was usually a family get together, and many a family cricket game. I did not much care for cricket.

Last year, for Christmas, I posted Tim Minchin’s song “White Wine in the Sun”, because it reminded me of the summer Christmases of my younger years.

This year, I’m not doing anything much special for Christmas. For me, it is just another day of the year.

Dembski is still missing the point

Hmm, I haven’t posted anything here for a while. And it is even longer since I last posted something about the Intelligent Design movement.

William Dembski now has a second edition of his book “The Design Inference” and this time Winston Ewert is listed as a co-author. I have not read the book. But I have read the excerpt that was posted at the Evolution News blog. And, from that excerpt, we can already see some of the ways that Dembski and Ewert are misunderstanding the theory of evolution.

Randomness

There are two common misunderstandings of evolution that we see coming from anti-evolutionists. The first of these has to do with the role of randomness.

The theory does talk of random mutations. The anti-evolutionists tend to see this as something like coin tossing, and having the good luck to come up with a suitable result. You can see this kind of thinking in Dembski’s subtitle “Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities”. What Dembski argues, is that the probabilities are too small, and therefore there must have been a design.

That’s not how I look at random mutations.

David Berlinski on mathematics

I follow the Evolution News blog on my RSS reader. They have frequent posts, but I usually just skim through them and don’t read them in detail. The blog is an outlet of The Discovery Institute, a notorious anti-evolution group.

Three days ago, I noticed their blog post:

• Iterations of Immortality

It is written by David Berlinski, and presents his view of mathematics.

I did not just skim through this post. I found it interesting. I actually disagree with a lot of what he writes, but it is nevertheless quite interesting.

Calculus and algorithms

The calculus and the rich body of mathematical analysis to which it gave rise made modern science possible, but it was the algorithm that made possible the modern world. They are utterly different, these ideas.

Berlinski is using “algorithm” to refer to our computer programs. These have, indeed, revolutionized our society. But it is not the algorithm alone that has given us modern information technology. Our information based society is heavily dependent on fiber optic networks. And it is the wave equation to governs the light transmission in optical fibers.

The wave equation is a differential equation. It depends on the calculus. The algorithm has not displaced the calculus. Rather, it has supplemented it.

Biology

Berlinski goes on to talk about biology. He sees life as algorithmic, with a new creature arising by algorithmic procedures from the DNA. But here I again disagree. A new life arises from a process of development. And yes, the DNA is part of that. But the developing organism is connected to a world, and this development depends on trial and error methods used by the growing organism.

Intelligence

He goes on to talk about intelligence. And here I can agree that there is intelligence in all of life. He mentions the paramecium as an example. I would probably mention plants as examples. Too often, there’s tendency to attribute intelligence only to humans and deities. Berlinski does not make that mistake.

He does not give a clear account of what we mean by “intelligence.” But then nobody does. He seems to see intelligence in the computer, and he mentions computational theories of mind. This is another place where I disagree. I am a skeptic of the idea of the brain as a computer.

Summary

I recommend that you read Berlinski’s blog post. It does not require advanced knowledge to read it. And it is well written. You may find that you agree with some parts and disagree with others. But go ahead and see what he has to say.

Pat Robertson obit

My mother taught me that if I cannot say anything nice about a person, then I shouldn’t say anything at all.

I won’t be saying anything at all about Robertson.

Notes:

It has been a while since I last posted. So this was just a short post to let people know that I still exist. Yes, I’m getting older, which is why I have slowed down a lot.

A Merry Christmas to all

We will be having a white Christmas this year, with the severe winter storm that is now hitting the Chicago area.

I grew up in Australia (near Perth) where Christmas is during summer. I remember those sunny hot Christmas days. A cool salad was more appropriate for Christmas dinner than was a roast turkey.

I have previously posted a video of Tim Minchin’s “White wine in the sun”. It gives a different meaning to “white Christmas” and one that fits my own childhood experience. It isn’t religious, but you don’t have to be religious to enjoy Christmas.

Best wishes, everyone.

Creationists

It’s a while since I last posted. I’m getting older and I guess I am slowing down.

I participate in several online forums, where creationists are showing up. The way that they argue is somewhat interesting, even if depressing.

In general

Creationists are not all alike. Most Christians are probably creationists of some kind. But the creationists who show up on Internet forums are not typical.

One version of creationism would be for the creationist to say that God created the world that we see as we look around. So if the world that we see appears to be 4 billion years old, then God created the world 4 billion years ago. And if the world that we see appears to use evolution to maintain biodiversity, then God created evolution as a way of sustaining the biosphere.

I do not have any serious arguments with that kind of creationist. As an agnostic, I don’t know whether or not there is a God behind all that we see. And it really doesn’t matter to the science.

Anti-evolutionists

The anti-evolutionists are the problematic creationists.

Of course some people may have doubts about evolution. It can be difficult to follow the science and the evidence, so I’m not at all concerned about people who are having doubts. It is certainly possible to live a reasonably normal life while doubting evolution.

The problem is not with the doubters. It is with those who actively oppose evolution.

What is intelligence?

People often talk about intelligence, but it is hard to say what it is. We measure IQ (Intelligence Quotient), but it isn’t entirely clear what that is measuring. This is illustrated by the Flynn Effect, which shows that IQ seems to be increasing over time. Some people have suggested that IQ is sensitive to culture, and I’m inclined to agree with that.

So what is intelligence? In this post, I shall give some of my own opinions. I don’t think there is a consensus answer to the question.

Biology and intelligence

I am inclined to think of intelligence as biological.

Take a pot plant on your window sill, and rotate it around. The plant will begin to change its growth patterns toward the new direction of light. The pot plant appears to have the ability to change its behavior so as to adapt to changes in the environment. Mechanical objects don’t do this.

Progressive Christianity

My main intention, in this post, is to link to two recent posts that seem worth reading. Both posts were on the “Progressive Christian” channel at Patheos.

The first of those posts is by James McGrath:

• Who is the Founder of Progressive Christianity?

When growing up as a young Christian, I saw Jesus as taking liberal and progressive positions. And James pretty much agrees with this. It always seems strange to me that most American Christians are so conservative. They could not have gotten that conservatism from reading the Gospels. Even the early church practiced a form of Christian communism. There are still modern progressive Christians, with Martin Luther King having been just one example. Yet most American Christians seem very conservative and seem hostile to the liberal ideas that Jesus taught us.

The link blog post goes into some of the history of this. Or, as the summary by James McGrath puts it:

TL; DR: The core of Christianity was progressive from its beginning, and today’s progressives continue that tradition.

The Establishment Clause

The second post I want to highlight, is by Fred Clark:

• No one expects, etc.

That title is weird. The post is really about the establishment clause of the first amendment to the US. Constitution, and about why it is so important.

Some people seem to think that there is a tension between the establishment clause (often described as separation of church and state), and the freedom of religion clause. Recent supreme court decisions have use the freedom of religion clause to override some decisions based on the establishment clause.

Fred argues, correctly in my opinion, that there is no tension. The establishment clause is an integral part of freedom of religion. If the state can impose religious requirements, then that imposition is against freedom of religion.

Fred Clark on the culture war

I was not intending another post so soon after my last one. But then I read Fred Clark’s latest post at his “Slacktivist” blog. It is brilliant.

• The anti-culture ‘culture war’

My apologies that his actual post is on Patheos, which means that it is loaded with far too much advertising. But it is still worth reading.

Fred goes after the religious right, that grossly immoral minority that had the gall to refer to itself as “the moral majority”. To illustrate, here is a sample paragraph:

“Winning” power politics in opposition to public opinion — in opposition to the will of the majority of citizens and voters — isn’t a “culture war.” It’s simply the denial of democracy. The “Christian Right,” in other words, is exploiting the undemocratic features of our politics to impose undemocratic results on everyone else.

Please take the time to read that entire post. It hits hard, and is on target.

Marbury vs. Madison was wrongly decided

Back in 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, I had a mixed reaction. On the one hand, I liked the idea that women should be able to make their own choices on abortion. On the other hand, it seemed to me that the court had made a mistake and that this was a serious overreach.

Part of my concern, at that time, was that the states were considering the question. And Roe v. Wade shutdown those normal political processes whereby a people can settle such hard questions. For the main part, the American people came to accept Roe v. Wade, although there was some political objection which seemed mainly religious. But now, in its recent Dobbs v. Jackson decision, the court has thrown out the original Roe v. Wade decision and has once again short circuited normal political processes. This has thrown the nation into turmoil.

I’ll note here, that I am not a lawyer. The USA was established as a system of representative government. The legislators were supposed to be ordinary citizens. It was never intended as a system of rule by lawyers. So ordinary people ought to have a say in government.

Marbury v. Madison

Marbury v. Madison was an historic case. It was not so much the question being resolved that made it historic. It was historic, because it is the case where the Supreme Court in effect claimed the right to be the final decider of what is constitutional. And it is that aspect of the case that I am questioning.

As far as I can see, the constitution does not give the supreme court the authority to decide what is constitutional.