Jeff's Lunchbreak

Sorry for not making a post last week, but I was on vacation with my family (who am I apologizing to? I don't have any regular readers). So, here's a short post to make up for not having one last week, and I'll try to write up something else before the end of the week.

Actually, this is just quick follow up to the post about Massai Barefoot Technology Shoes. I mentioned in the beginning of that post that it was in a pharmacy where I originally saw those shoes. To be exact, the pharmacy was Harvest Drug & Gift. I'd already intended contacting them about the shoes before visiting their website, but once I did actually visit the site this past Monday, I saw just how prominently they were displaying MBT shoes. So, I sat myself right down and wrote them an e-mail, copied below.

I recently visited your store and saw the MBT shoes you had on display. They piqued my interest, so I did a little research about them. Admittedly, I'm neither a doctor nor a scientist, but from the information I could find, I did have some concerns regarding these shoes. I would assume that as doctors, your primary concern is the well being of your patients, so I thought you might be interested in what I found.

I have a detailed write-up of what I found on my personal website at:
[link - I included the actual url in the letter, but it's so long it screws up the formatting on this page.]

Here are the major points:

• MBT shoes do show promise, but the studies to date have only been preliminary - more follow up studies are needed to confirm their efficacy.
• There haven't been enough clinical studies done with these shoes to identify possible negative side effects.
• Anecdotal evidence suggests that there are serious side effects possible from long term use of these shoes.
• One study which examined relieving knee pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis did not find a big difference between MBT shoes and "conventional" New Balance sneakers.

In light of the anecdotal evidence suggesting negative side effects, the lack of clinical studies addressing the issue, and considering that at least one study found significantly less expensive shoes accomplishing nearly the same results, I would suggest being very cautious in recommending these shoes to your customers, and possibly even recommending that they only use the shoes under the guidance of a physician or physical therapist (as was suggested by one therapist quoted in one of the articles I found). Perhaps you already do counsel your customers in such a way, or do have some warning signs posted that I missed, in which case this e-mail is completely unnecessary. Or perhaps you know of some studies which do address side effects, in which case I'd be grateful if you could pass them on to me so that I could update the article on my website.

Sincerely,
Jeff Lewis

If I hear anything back from the pharmacy, I'll post it on this blog. But seeing as how it's been a couple days already without even an acknowledgement of receipt, I'm not holding my breath. Maybe I'll try snail mail if I don't hear back from them within a couple weeks.

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, Aug 8 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I was at the drug store the other day waiting on a prescription, when I noticed people trying on some funny shapped shoes that had curved soles. So, I walked over to the display and took a closer look. They were called MBT shoes, which stands for Massai Barefoot Technology, and are made by the company, Swiss Masai. They had hand-out brochures, so I took one to read while I was waiting. (Note that I will refer to the company as both MBT and Swiss Masai in this essay, as it appears that the company does the same on their website.)

For some of the research for this entry, I used MBT's website. It's an annoying, flash laden site that doesn't let you just sit and read about the technology, without having some java script decide you've spent enough time on that section and then brings up something else. Also, I couldn't find some of the statements on the website that first caught my eye on that brochure - so if you go to visit the site looking for them, you may not find them, either.

Anyway, there are a couple issues I want to discuss in this entry - briefly, whether or not these shoes have anything to do with "barefoot technology," and then in more depth, whether or not these shoes might actually have some therepeutic value.

I realize now as I'm getting ready to post this entry, that it's grown longer than I'd originally anticipated, so I'll get right to the point up front, before addressing the details. MBT shoes do show promise for treating certain conditions. However, there is anecdotal evidence that they can cause significant negative side effects. Additionally, there are not enough clinical studies addressing their efficacy or possible side effects.

Continue reading "Massai Barefoot Technology Shoes" »

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, Jul 26 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

On the ride in to work this morning, I was listening to NPR as normal, and they were interviewing a couple people about NASA funding, Greg Easterbrook and NASA Administrator, Michael Griffin. Michael Griffin made a few comments that were so stupid, I had a hard time believing I'd caught his name right. After all, it's always a little tough to catch who they're interviewing when you pick up in mid stream, and when you're driving and have to pay attention to the other cars on the road more than the radio, but I checked the NPR website, and sure enough, I got it right.

Now the interview was about a lot more than just global warming, but it was one of the topics they brought up. Here's part of the transcript from NPR's website, with the interviewr's questions in bold, and Griffin's responses following.

It has been mentioned that NASA is not spending as much money as it could to study climate change — global warming — from space. Are you concerned about global warming?

I'm aware that global warming exists. I understand that the bulk of scientific evidence accumulated supports the claim that we've had about a one degree centigrade rise in temperature over the last century to within an accuracy of 20 percent. I'm also aware of recent findings that appear to have nailed down — pretty well nailed down the conclusion that much of that is manmade. Whether that is a longterm concern or not, I can't say.

So, he acknowledges that this is a real phenomenon, that people are responsible for it, and that it's already had a measurable effect. But then in the next breath says he's not sure if it's a longterm concern. Whaaaa?

Do you have any doubt that this is a problem that mankind has to wrestle with?

I have no doubt that … a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take.

Whoah, I'm dizzy from that change in direction. In that first section I quoted, he admits that the current climate change is caused by people, and then here, one question later, he says we don't have the power to keep the climate from changing. And then he has the gall to say that people that want to stop human induced climate change are being arrogant! That's like someone going around and intentionally starting forest fires, and then when the firefighters show up, he calls them arrogant for assuming that potential future residents might not want trees in their back yard.

Look - it's not like the current situation is a natural phenomenon that we want to stop. Noone's suggesting something like stopping plate tectonics because we happen to like geography the way it is. The fact of the matter is that this is a human caused phenomenon, and the rates of change are going to be much higher than most times in that "millions of years of history" Griffin referred to. Sure, life on this planet will continue, and humanity will most likely make it through, too, but unless we start taking some drastic action now, it's going to be one hell of a ride before things settle out.

This was good timing. When I checked Pharyngula today, there was an entry about a new site devoted to answering climate skeptics. Go check it out to see some responses to common arguments. And don't forget to check out RealClimate, either, which has much more actual data.

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, May 31 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, the grand opening of the Creation Museum is scheduled for this coming Monday, May 28th. I've blogged about this once before, lamenting the fact that $27 million was being wasted on this shrine to ignorance, but I figured that with the opening day approaching, it was worth making another post on this topic (and maybe get included in the upcoming Creation Museum Carnival, update - it's here).

There are two problems I had with this entry - the first being that this is a museum that I've never visited and that hasn't even opened yet. Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis (AiG), the organization running the museum, even wrote a short entry on his blog the other day, Name-calling against Creation Museum, whining about this very issue. That isn't really all that big of a deal, though. Since this museum is being run by AiG, I'm assumimg that everything in the museum is going to be consistent with the AiG website. I wouldn't imagine that there are any new, ground breaking arguments being unveiled in this museum that AiG hasn't already put up on their website. The real problem, is that AiG is such a reposity of stupidity, it's hard to narrow down your focus to one manageable topic.

I'd been planning on writing a blog entry about a certain topic for a while now, so I might as well use this opportunity to do it, and that is to state a simple rule of thumb for dealing with creationists. Anytime somebody tries to use the Second Law of Thermodynamics to refute evolution, you should realize you're dealing with somebody who doesn't understand science or who is a liar. If it's a website, you should save yourself the time, and just leave and go look somewhere else. This may seem like a bit of an ad hominem attack, and maybe it is a bit, but life is short. You shouldn't waste your time dealing with idiots and liars. Maybe, just maybe, a website that uses the Second Law of Thermodynamics this way will have some thought provoking arguments, but it almost certainly won't be because the person running the website understood the science - they got lucky (in the same way as a million monkeys at typewriters would eventually reproduce Shakespeare), or they parroted it from somewhere else. But in any case, especially under the liar scenario, you'd have to really be careful to figure out just what you could trust from that source, and you'd be much better going somewhere more reputable.

And guess what, AiG has a page all about it, The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Answers to Critics. It's a little hard to figure out if it's based on ignorance or dishonesty. I'd guess a little bit of both, considering the author, Jonathan Safarti Sarfati, was competent enough to get a PhD. But the rule of thumb still applies - stay way from AiG if you're looking for good information.

This paragraph added 2007-05-24 After reading this, I'd imagine some people would think this rule of thumb could be even easier - anytime you're dealing with a creationist at all, you should realize you're dealing with someone who doesn't understand science or who is a liar. And, that could be true for the most part, but it's possible that creationists could be people that understand science, but haven't studied evolution/biology in particular, and don't actually know all the evidence in support of evolution, or that they have such strong faith, the evidence wouldn't matter to them, anyway. This misuse of the Second Law has nothing to do with fossil evidence, genetic evidence, or faith - it's just a complete misapplication of a scientific theory that should be obvious. So, that's why I still use this rule of thumb - it's not arguing over the interpretation of evidence (which still puts creationists on shaky ground), it's getting things wrong right from first principles. Creationists that use the Second Law of Thermodynamics argument really are the bottom of the barrel.

Continue reading "Creation Museum/Creationist Rule of Thumb with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics" »

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, May 23 | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

Ray Comfort was one of the reasons that originally inspired me to start this blog. A guy at a flea market gave my wife and I a Comfort CD, and when we listened to it, the arguments in it were so horrible, I just had to vent somewhere. So, I wrote one of my first blog entries. Well, over the past couple weeks, Comfort's been making waves in the blogosphere, so I thought I'd add my two cents.

To give a quick background - Ray Comfort and his (hmm, sidekick is too demeaning, but I don't think he's an equal partner, so maybe...) protege, Kirk Cameron, of Living Waters Ministries (and also The Way of the Master website), challenged the originators of the Blasphemy Challenge, the Rational Response Squad, to a debate, wherein, according to the Christian News Wire, Comfort and Cameron "offered to prove God's existence, absolutely, scientifically, without mentioning the Bible or faith." I was hoping it was going to be better than the argumentum ad bananum, but unfortunately, it wasn't (in either the humurous sense or the actually making a good argument sense).

The televised, edited version of the debate should air tonight on ABC's Nightline, but there's already a clip on YouTube. Admittedly, the clip was put together by people sympathetic to the Rational Response Squad, and not Comfort and Cameron, but after listening to Comfort on that CD I mentioned above, I doubt he had any better arguments than what that video shows. Anyway, the televised version will be aired tonight, so if Comfort & Cameron did put forth any better arguments, they'll be made public soon.

Basically, the "scientific" argument Comfort put forth in the debate boils down to this - paintings must have painters, buildings must have builders, etc, etc; therefore creation must have a creator, i.e. God. That's just a horrible analogy. For one thing, all he's doing is listing things with known intelligent agents directly responsible for them, then listing those intelligent agents, and then somehow makes the jump that the universe must therefore have been created by an intelligent agent. The problem is, not everything we see was directly created by an intelligent agent. Many things, even ordered structures such as snowflakes and other crystals, or structures that appear intentional, such as the Old Man of the Mountain, are certainly the direct result of natural, unintelligent processes. So from that aspect of it - no, not everything must have an intelligent creator.

Another problem with Comfort's analogy, is that even though the same word, "create," can be used for all the things he's describing, it really is describing a different concept in the human vs. divine cases. All the human examples he gave were the result of physical entities merely rearranging materials that they already have to work with from their environment, while the divine creation of the universe was a supernatural agent creating all matter out of nothing. It's a big jump to go from the first to the second, since they aren't really the same thing.

Thirdly, even if Comfort's analogy could somehow be taken as proof of a god, it does nothing to prove the existence of the God of the Bible - it could just as easily be applied to Zeus. And finally, by Comfort's reasoning of everything requiring a creator, you're left with the question of where God came from in the first place. (I know, I know - it's not turtles all the way down; God is infinite, and doesn't need a creator; or else, He created time, so it's meaningless to ask what came before Him.)

Anyway, whether you believe in God or not, Comfort & Cameron's argument was far from a proof, and certainly not a scientific proof, for any god, let alone a proof for the Christian God. Don't use their silly, simplistic arguments to try to convince anybody of anything.

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, May 9 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I'm late in getting to this like just about all my other blog posts, but... About a month ago, I made an entry about a then upcoming Intelligent Design event in Dallas. Well, Zachary Moore of the blog, Goosing the Antithesis, attended the event and wrote a 6 part series about it. Apparently, it was as bad as I would have thought it to be. Here are the links to the entries:

Darwin vs. Design: Lee Strobel
Darwin vs. Design: Jay Richards
Darwin vs. Design: Stephen Meyer
Darwin vs. Design: Michael Behe
Darwin vs. Design: Questions and Answers
Darwin vs. Design: Final Thoughts

Jason Rosenhouse of EvolutionBlog attended the Darwin vs. Design conference in Knoxville, which was apparently very similar. He gives his take on the event in a two part series:

Darwin and Design in Knoxville, Part One
Darwin and Design in Knoxville, Part Two

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, May 8 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day I wrote that my daughter no longer believes in the Easter Bunny, and this week she finally got around to admitting that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy aren't real, either. I guess I'll have to keep an eye on her the next few days to make sure she doesn't go on a murderous rampage.

Man, after reading that and a few other of Jack Chick's tracts, it's scary to think there's somebody so demented to come up with that stuff, and even scarier to think of the number of people who buy his products.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, May 4 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Reading a recent entry on Pharyngula, I came across a quote from Kirk Cameron that struck me (not because it was Kirk Cameron saying it, but because the topic is a typical view), "Atheism has become very popular in universities--where it's taught that we evolved from animals and that there are no moral absolutes. So we shouldn't be surprised when there are school shootings." Well, the school shooting part's a complete non-sequitir. But I do want to take a look at the moral absolute parts in a bit more detail. There seems to be a sense among many Christians in this country that morals are absolute, and moral relativism is a bad, bad thing.

Now, I'll admit right up front that philosophy isn't my area of expertise, so perhaps my Wikipedia informed definitions of moral absolutism and moral relativism is leading me astray, but it certainly seems to me that most of our morals are relative, and not absolute. Even for Christians, when you look at the 10 commandments, the ones that deal with how to treat other people can all be looked at on a relative basis.

Honor your father and your mother.

You shall not kill [sometimes translated as murder].

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.

I guess Christians could still argue that certain actions besides those listed above are inherently good or bad, but the Christian basis for good or bad a lot of times simply boils down to "God said so," but this doesn't say that the actions themselves are inherently good or bad. For a popular example, look at eating kosher foods. Before Jesus, it was apparently immoral to eat non-Kosher foods, but now, because of the New Covenant, non-Kosher foods (like shrimp) are on the menu. So, there was nothing inherent in the action that was moral or immoral, just whether or not God said it was okay. To insist on moral relativism absolutism, when it seems that even God himself can change his mind, seems like a pretty strong stance to take.

A lot of Christians in this country today argue that morals are absolute, but it seems to me that the morality of an action really must be determined in context, and that most people usually do judge actions that way. To insist on complete moral absolutism seems a bit silly.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Apr 27 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was a little late in hearing about this, and then it took me a little while to blog about it, but I recently learned that there's going to be an Intelligent Design event not too far from me at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Not too surprisingly, the anthropology, geology, and biology departments at the university weren't too happy about it, and all sent letters to the school administrators expressing their dismay. The administrators responded with their own statement, part of which said, "Although SMU makes its facilities available as a community service, and in support of the free marketplace of ideas, providing facilities for those programs does not imply SMU's endorsement of the presenters' views."

For now, I'll just take that statement at face value, and assume that SMU would also lend its facilities to the KKK, holocaust deniers, or flat-earthers. After all, it's in the interest of the "free marketplace of ideas," right? What I'd rather focus on in this entry is the response by William Dembski. For anyone who's followed Intelligent Design (ID) at all, Dembski's name should be very familiar - he's one of the main ID "theorists," a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, and has become infamous for his use of information theory to try to support intelligent design.

Part of Dembski's response was, "Doesn’t the 'M' in SMU refer to 'Methodist' and aren't Methodists believers in God? Is SMU's anthropology department committed to hiring anti-God faculty?" Okay, I know that for most, ID really is religiously motivated, and I've heard that proponents had been slipping more recently, but isn't the standard line still supposed to be that ID is a purely scientific concept (oops, I mean, "theory"), and that the identity/intentions of "the designer" are irrelevant to detecting design. I mean, haven't people (like Dembski himself) even said that the designer could be sufficiently advanced aliens? Nice to see that they're finally dropping the facade and just coming right out and saying that it's religious. I'd be willing to bet, though, that all those believers in theistic evolution would be a little upset at being called "anti-God."

Anyway, I'm tempted to actually go see this conference, just to see what it's like (in a slowing down to see a car wreck kind of way), but two hours away is just a little too far to go. Plus the fact that they're actually charging for tickets, and there's no way I'd ever give any money to support these hucksters.

Addendum: I forgot to mention this originally, but I just wanted to make it clear. Even if you ignore that ID is religiously motivated and just look at it scientifically, it still has no real evidence to back it up, and shouldn't be taken seriously. Just go browse Talk Origins for some of the evidence for evolution, or better yet, just go read some science magazines.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Apr 6 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On my main site, I've written twice before about people trying to use the Bible as a justification to ban gay marriage. I just came across a supposed open letter that covers it much more humorously than I ever could. The letter is addressed to Dr. Laura Schlessinger, in response to some statements she made on her radio program. To help make it easier to check the Biblical passages, I've made them links to the appropriate chapter in the New Internation Version.

(Apparently, I've been living in a cave. When I looked this up on Snopes to try to figure out who was the original author so I could either link to them or credit them, I found that this letter's been circulating since at least 2000. But whether or not this letter is real or was ever sent, the content is still good.)

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination…End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan,
unknown

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, Jan 31 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I recently had an e-mail correspondence with a creationist, whch I mentioned in my latest update, which led me to post parts of it as a new essay on my main site, Confidence in Historical Knowledge. There were other parts of that e-mail correspondence that I thought were pretty good, but a little more controversial than my normal fare for my main site, and a little bit off topic from the rest of that essay, so I decided to post them here on my blog, with a few changes from the original e-mail.

One issue that's common is to conflate multiple topics, which really aren't all that related, such as the big bang and evolution of life. This is especially common among people who reject the science on religious grounds, since religious creation stories commonly account for the creation of the universe and everything in it (and since I live in the predominately Christian U.S., this usually means people looking at the creation story of Genesis). But these really are separate concepts in science. Look at it this way - the big bang occured somewhere around 14 billion years ago. Our species has been around for around 100,000 to 200,000 years. To put that in perspective (using the 200,000 year figure), humans have been around for 1.43e-5 the time since the big bang. (Note that I'm referring to when the big bang occurred, and not calling it the beginning of the universe. Big bang theory describes what happened after that moment, not how everything got there in the first place. Who knows, the universe could be thousands of times older than the time since the big bang, existing in some state that we don't know about.) The United States is 200 years old, so the U.S. has been around for 1e-3 the time of humans. In other words, the origin of humanity and the big bang are so far removed, that trying to equate the two is even worse (by 2 orders of magnitude) than trying to equate the origin of the U.S. with the origin of humanity. They should be treated as separate events.

Another point I want to address is directed at the Christians who reject science about the past because it conflicts with their interpretation of the Bible. I've even received an e-mail in response to other essays I've posted on my website, stating, "There is only one historical account of origins events and that is the Bible which claims that the only eye-witness to the events is God."

I will address this in two ways. First, the Bible is not the only proposed historical account of origins. Most religions have their own explanations. Just look at the appropriate Wikipedia page - there are dozens just on there.

The second thing I want to say on this, is even if you accept the Bible as being true, it is only one source of evidence, and still open to interpretation. The most famous example of this is Copernican astronomy, and in particular the conflict between the Catholic church and Galileo. Based on their observations, scientists put the sun at the center of the universe, and said that the earth orbitted it. The church, using numerous Biblical passages as support, said that the Earth was the center of the universe. (Neither party was right, but science was on its way to getting at the right answer, and was at least more accurate than the church.) Nearly all Christians today would say that the Catholic church was wrong, and were misinterpreting the Bible. That may be the case, but it shows the problem in relying on only one source of evidence.

As two other examples, look to the germ theory of disease, and slavery in the American south. The germ theory of disease - that disease are caused by infectious agents, was initially rejected by many, on the grounds that diseases were punishments sent by God, and of course they could find the passages to back up that claim. (See this post from The Panda's Thumb.)

During and prior to the U.S. Civil War, many southerners used the Bible as a justification for slavery. I won't say much on this, other than to direct readers to this page at ReligiousTolerance.org, which quotes several prominent figures from that era, and has further links to the relevant scripture passages.

I bring up these examples not to show that the Bible is definitely wrong, but to show that people's interpretations of the Bible can be wrong. So, even if you do consider the Bible to be accurate, should you reject scientific theories based on your interpretation of the Bible, or should you incorporate scientific knowledge, to aid you in your interpretation of the Bible? What if Genesis was meant to be read allegorically, or figuratively?

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Dec 8 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Man, this is just depressing - a $25 million creationist museum being built in Kentucky. I know America still has a lot of creationists, and most of them are sincerely trying to do what they think is best, but still - $21 million dollars was donated to build a museum dedicated to ignorance, to ignoring actual scientific evidence in favor of accepting a story created thousands of years ago by a bronze age tribe. There were even two donors that gave a million a piece. What a waste. I know $21 million is just a drop in the bucket compared to the global economny, but just imagine what could have been done if this money had instead been donated to worth while causes - funding medical research, buying food or medicine for poor regions or building infrastructure in those regions, or even giving it to real museums, or countless other causes. Instead, $25 million has been wasted on building an institution dedicated to perpetuating ignorance.

I can't help but comment on the closing quote from the article, where John Morris states, "Americans just aren’t gullible enough to believe that they came from a fish." Of course not. They're just gullible enough to believe the tripe you're telling them.

Oh well, on the other hand, it cost $155 million just to make the movie, Alexander, and that money certainly could have been put to better use, too.

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, Aug 2 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, I'm a day and a half late in writing about this on my blog, but I still want to comment on it (You can read a few of my initial reactions in the comments over at TerrapinTables). It just really, really pisses me off that Bush has vetoed this law.

Here's the analogy I thought of to explain it. Imagine you see somebody fall into a flooded river (to really pull at your heart strings, you can imagine it's your own child). This river's pulling them away pretty fast. There's a guy on a bridge down stream with a rope. Now, if he throws the rope, there's no guarantee that the person in the river will be able to get it and hold on. And, there's always the possibility that the person may get rescued by someone else. But what would you think if the person on the bridge decided to not throw the rope at all?

That's basically what Bush just did. Embryonic Stem (Es) cells are not a guaranteed cure, and there are other lines of research that may lead to treatments for some of the diseases that currently look like they may be treated by ES cells, but why would somebody decide to maintain a ban on such a promising avenue of research?

And this isn't just some hypothetical, intellectual excercise. There are millions of people suffering from diseases and conditions for which ES cells might lead to a viable treatment. How many of them are going to die or suffer needlessly, because he vetoed this bill. If Bush went around randomly killing a person every day for the rest of his time in office, we'd call him a murderer. But if he vetoes a bill that in the end will lead to even more people's deaths because of lack of treatments, we call it politics.

Finally, this whole thing is asinine, because the bill proposed using embryos that were slated for destruction, already. These embryos are going to be flushed down the toilet, whether or not this bill was passed. Why not use them for research before that happens? What a f-in' waste.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Jul 21 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Other people have coverred the probability arguments against evolution, already, but I'd like to cover it from the viewpoint of an aerospace engineer. Specifically, while reading this essay, I read the line, "The numbers just don’t match up — the universe would have to be much, much older than it is for random mutations to have produced that variety of life that we see on earth," with a link to this article.

I compare these types of arguments to the one that says bees can't fly. Most people have probably heard this before, but to explain it to those that haven't, if you take standard aerodynamic theory and do a rough back of the envelope calculation applying it to a bee, you could come up with the conclusion that bee's can't fly. For the size of their wings, and the speed that they move them at, the theory predicts a lift that would actually be less than the weight of the bee.

I'll be honest, I've never actually gone through this calculation. What's the point, when you know that bees can fly, and I'm not really concerned with designing bees, anyway. But supposing I did go through with the calculation and it did predict that bees couldn't fly, would it then make sense to say that, indeed, bees can't fly? Of course not. Observation tells us that bees fly - the error would be somewhere in my theory or calculations (applying steady state, high Reynolds number aerodynamics to a non-steady state, low Reynolds number application, for those interested), but that's exactly what these probability arguments are. Evolution has occured. There's enough evidence that it's not really a question. If you have a theory that says that evolution couldn't have occurred, either you've made a mistake in your calculations or assumptions, there's a problem with your theory, or perhaps, bees can't really fly, after all.

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Apr 4 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just the other day, I received an e-mail forward of a story written by a Christian about a supposed exchange he had with a Muslim about the Islamic attitude towards infidels. The basic gist of the story was to illustrate how superior Christianity is compared to Islam, and how intolerant Muslims are of others. The entire e-mail, interspersed with my comments and corrected for the formatting errors that come about with multiple forwards, is available below the fold.

Continue reading "E-mail Forward- Allah or Jesus?" »

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Mar 28 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The new NSF report on Science and Engineering Indicators 2006 has been released. Below are the results of the "Scientific Understanding" section. While there has been some improvement, the results are still depressing. The numbers in the table are the percentage of people that responded correctly, while the correct answer is listed in parentheses after the question.

Continue reading "Science and Engineering Indicators 2006" »

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, Mar 2 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Thanks to Pharyngula, Uncertain Principles, and Gene Expression over at Science Blogs for pointing this out.

Here's an interesting article in the Washington Post, written by some guy named Richard Cohen, who basically says that algebra is a worthless topic to most of the population, excluding the technical people who are going to need it for their careers. He argues that it shouldn't be a requirement for people to graduate from high school, which I think is just plain stupid.

Continue reading "What Is the Value of Algebra?" »

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Feb 17 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

This is an excerpt from another entry on this blog. The original entry was so long that I wasn't sure people would read the whole thing, so I've decided to pull out the best parts into their own entries.

My wife and I recently went on a medical mission trip to Guatemala. Since it was a mission trip, pretty much everybody that went was a pretty devout Christian. And it seemed like a big part of the reason that many of these people went was to do God's work to help these people. So obviously, religion can inspire people to do good things. I think I had the most liberal interpretation of the Bible of anybody there (see my Bible Interpretation Essay), and that most of those people accepted the Bible as a divinely inspired book. Like I said, this is a topic I've been thinking a lot about, recently, so seeing all of these people going to Guatemala to help so many strangers made me think that maybe I'd been thinking too harshly about religious fundamentalism, if it creates good things like this. But then, towards the end of the trip, we learned about all the mudslides Hurricane Stan had caused in that country, and about a bad earthquake that had just hit Pakistan (and don't forget that Hurricane Katrina had just caused all of that devastation in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast), and it got the people to discussing those natural disasters. And what seemed to be the consensus was that the Bible talks about the end of the world coming, and these were just signs. And that really bothered me. It's a type of complacency - natural disasters happen, it's God's will so there's nothing we can do about it. What about global warming? We're screwing up the planet right now, and hurricane seasons are just going to get worse. Maybe this was just an anomolous year (random variability is going to make some years have more hurricanes than others), or maybe it was a symptom of global warming. Why not try to figure out the real reason - maybe we'll be able to change something to prevent this from happening in the future, or maybe we'll be able to predict these things better so that we'll be able to get people out of harm's way. But to just pass it off as God's will really irritates me.

So, after that conversation, it got my head back out of the clouds. Religion can inspire people to do good things, but I think that fundamentalism, or extremism in any sense, is bad. Let me repeat that, so that you don't skim through and miss it - the religious fundamentalism in our country right now is bad. You may say that you believe in Christ, but your actions are harmful. In the past, fundamentalism has lead to the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, all of the fighting in Ireland, and countless other evils. The bad things that have been done in the name of religious fundamentalism (not religion in general, but fundamentalism) more than outweight the good things that have come out of it. So, be religious, but don't abandon sense and reason.

Posted by Jeff on Monday, Feb 6 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is an excerpt from another entry on this blog. The original entry was so long that I wasn't sure people would read the whole thing, so I've decided to pull out the best parts into their own entries.

Yet again, watching T.V. with my wife, we saw a show on the National Geographic Channel, Is It Real? (which is turning out to be one of my favorite shows, by the way). This particular episode dealt with exorcisms. Actually, at the time of writing this, if you go to National Geographic's Video Archive, and do a search on "exorcism," you can find a short clip from the episode. And really, I don't know exactly how many people are buying into this, but from the video clips you could see on the show, there were some pretty big crowds at the services of one particular exorcist, Bob Larson.

While I was watching this man perform his exorcisms, I was struck by one thing, before they ever even introduced the skeptics (so I don't think I was being biased by their views), and that was how much the whole thing looked like stage hypnosis. There was the preacher, up at the front of a big crowd, with his "patient" there with him, and he kept talking to "the demons" possessing these people. I mean, the susceptibility of the human mind to the power of suggestion is a lot greater than most of us would like to believe. And it's not necessarily stupid people (Nobel laureate Richard Feynman discusses being hypnotized by a stage magician in one of his books), it's just that certain people have a disposition towards being hypnotized. So, I told my wife that's what was going on, and lo and behold, a few minutes later when National Geographic showed the experts, that's exactly what they thought was going on.

Continue reading "Exorcism, Homeopathy and Alternative Medicine" »

Posted by Jeff on Monday, Feb 6 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

This is an excerpt from another entry on this blog. The original entry was so long that I wasn't sure people would read the whole thing, so I've decided to pull out the best parts into their own entries.

I was watching TV one night with my wife, and I can't remember what channel or show it was that we were watching, but at the time, some book called Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About by Kevin Trudeau was the second best selling book in America, followed behind Harry Potter. Since I first saw that, while channel surfing I've seen Kevin Trudeau numerous times either being interviewed legitimately about his book, or more often on an infomercial in a staged interview trying to sell his book. Apparently, he's doing rather well. when I first checked the New York Times Best-Seller Lists this past August, the book was at the number one spot for hardcover advice. When I checked again at the end of October, 2005, the book was still at that spot. And really, it just amazes me how he can do so well.

Continue reading "Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About" »

Posted by Jeff on Monday, Feb 6 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

This is an excerpt from another entry on this blog. The original entry was so long that I wasn't sure people would read the whole thing, so I've decided to pull out the best parts into their own entries.

The other day, I received a religious e-mail that was pretty disturbing. Basically, it links separation of church and state with the September 11th terrorist attacks, then goes on to say that the world's going to Hell in handbasket because of our Godless ways. I think it's scary the type of mindset it takes to write that type of e-mail, believe it, or forward it on to people.

Continue reading "Scary Religious E-mail" »

Posted by Jeff on Monday, Feb 6 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ever since I've gotten caught up in reading a lot of the debate between science and ID/creationism, I've noticed that many people try to use public opinion polls to say that ID or creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the science classroom. And ever since the Dover trial decision, I've read quite a few more articles using that argument, so I thought that I'd briefly address it.

Trying to base science curricula off of the public's understanding of science is just plain silly. Yes, we live in a democracy, so people should have a say in things that go on in our country. Unfortunately, most people don't have a good understanding of science. In 2001, the National Science Foundation conducted a Survey of Public Attitudes Toward and Understanding of Science and Technology. A summary of some of the findings are copied below.

Just look at some of those results, and not just the ones about evolution. They clearly show that a lot of people really don't know much about science. I mean, one in four people thought that the Sun goes around the Earth, half of the people surveyed didn't realize that electrons were smaller than atoms, and nearly half of the people didn't know that it takes a year for the Earth to go around the Sun. If this is American's understanding of basic, simple scientific facts, why should we rely on public opinion polls when it comes to teaching ID alongside evolution, or creationism in science at all, even ignoring the separation of church and state. School curricula should be determined by experts in the fields.

Really, if there's one thing that these public opinion polls tell us, it's where the weaknesses are in our science education system that need to be addressed. If our education system's so bad off that only half of Americans accept evolution, we obviously need to do a better job of teaching it (and apparently a whole bunch of other areas, as well).

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Jan 17 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day, I did something that maybe I shouldn't have. I struck up a conversation with a couple co-workers about Intelligent Design. We kept it friendly enough. They already know my religious/scientific opinions, and I already knew theirs, so there weren't any heated arguments. I was just interested to see how fundamentalists felt about Intelligent Design, and about the judge's decision in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Board of Education case.

Here's why I was curious to their opinion. It seems to me that if you're going to reject evolution on religious (Christian) grounds, it's because you believe in basically a literal interpretation of the Bible. i.e. that the creation story in Genesis is accurate. If you don't believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible (i.e. you believe in a figurative, allegorical, historical or some other interpretation), then there shouldn't be any religious reason to reject evolution. So I wondered, if you hold to a literal interpretation of the Bible, what would be your take on Intelligent Design? A lot of the ID proponents claim that ID is really science, and that they're just trying to point out evidence of an intelligent designer. They stress that they're not trying to support the Bible. Further, some of the evidence that they use goes against a strictly literal interpretation of Genesis, such as using the Cambrian "Explosion" of 500 million years ago. Really, it makes me wonder why ID is so popular. It's bad science, as evidenced by its overwhelming rejection by the scientific community (not just lack of acceptance, which would characterize most new theories, but actual rejection), and, from a fundamentalist viewpoint, it's bad religion, because it's counter to a 6 day creation.

So, when I brought it up to those co-workers that ID goes against a literal interpretation of Genesis because it allows for the Earth being billions of years old, they got kind of wishy washy on the age of the Earth. Their reply was something to the effect of, "A day in the life of God is like a thousand years to man," so how can we be sure how long the days in Genesis actually were. My first thought was, wow, so the Bible's only literal when it's convenient; otherwise, it's open to interpretation. But then I decided to look into it a little further. Maybe there was something to their line of argument. After a little research, I found people who said that in the original Hebrew, the word used for "day" in Genesis could be translated as either day or age, and that maybe age was the word that should be used there. This, or the day to a thousand years argument my coworkers used, actually turn out to be pretty popular arguments. So, I went back and took another look at Genesis, and, well, these day-age interpretations just don't make any more sense.

More below the fold.

Continue reading "Problems With Day-Age Interpretation of Genesis" »

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, Dec 22 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I've been thinking of writing about Intelligent Design for awhile. With yesterday's ruling on the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Board of Education case, I figured that now was a good time to make a few comments. But it's a big topic, and lot's of bloggers already cover it in great detail, so I'll try to keep this entry relatively short and just say a few comments relevant to the Kitzmiller case.

A lot of people seem to be focusing on calling Intelligent Design a form of creationism. I think that's missing the point. If you go ahead and call it science, like the Discovery Institute and other ID proponents would like, then Intelligent Design is just plain bad science, or at the best, fringe science rejected by the scientific community at large. ID proponents like to compare this to Galileo, or other people whose ideas weren't accepted by the mainstream right away. A good rebuttal to this argument is on Respectful Insolence, which he calls the Galileo Gambit. Here's one of my favorite quotes from that entry, which Orac was actually himself quoting from the book, Why People Believe Weird Things, by Michael Shermer, "For every Galileo shown the instruments of torture for advocating scientific truth, there are a thousand (or ten thousand) unknowns whose 'truths' never pass scientific muster with other scientists. The scientific community cannot be expected to test every fanstastic claim that comes along, especially when so many are logically inconsistent." In other words, fringe science usually remains fringe science because it just plain isn't true. The few that actually become mainstream (like Galileo) do so based on the strength of their evidence.

Should we really be expected to teach in public school science classes an idea that's just plain bad? Some people like to invoke public opinion polls, saying how many people think ID should be taught alongside evolution. I think that's a horrible idea. For any particular subject area, curriculum should be determined by experts in that field, not the general public. I think the fact that so many people in the U.S. doubt evolution is all the more reason to teach it in school. The lack of acceptance is not due to lack of evidence or the fact that evolution doesn't/hasn't occured, it's due to lack of education. It's a problem that needs to be fixed, not an indicator that evolution shouldn't be taught as confidently as we teach other scientific theories (like gravity, germ theory, atomic theory, etc.) To put this in another way, you always read about those polls that say how poorly people do on geography, not knowing where certain countries are located or even not knowing whether certain countries exist. People usually take that as an indicator that we need better education in geography - it doesn't make them question whether said country actually exists. Why should it be different with evolution?

And to touch briefly on the "Teach the Controversy" mantra, high school science class isn't the place to do it, any more than history class is a place to question the holocaust, or math class is a place to question number theory. We're trying to give the students a solid foundation of knowledge. While we should promote critical thinking, at that point, with the limited scientific knowledge the students have, it's a waste of time, actually more than that, I'd consider it a disservice, to present students with a good theory and a bogus theory, and ask them to pick which one they think makes more sense. In that type of high school environment, I doubt many math students would buy into imaginary numbers or general relativity.

One of the things that bothers me about the pro-evolution side of the debate is overstressing the "naturalistic" nature of science. Granted, that's probably the best way to go about science, but if it were up to me, I'd like to change the definition to something more like "determining through the study of evidence the most likely explanations to observed phenomenon." It would be about trying to determine the truth, whether or not it can be explained in a naturalistic manner. In other words, if there were strong evidence that indicated a supernatural cause to a phenomenon, that evidence shouldn't be ruled out strictly because it's supernatural. That being said, there are reams of evidence available backing up much of evolutionary theory, and I personally don't see how any supernatural causes would have to be invoked to explain evolution, but I still think it's a bit close-minded to rule out a whole class of possible causes just because they aren't natural. To put it maybe in slightly better words, science should be evidence based, no matter the source of the evidence, as long as the evidence is credible.

Anyway, the above paragraph was just a preamble to this one. Many of the comments I've seen floating about since yesterday's decision are that "Darwinists" (going by that terminology, I guess I'm a Wrightist, since I'm an aerospace engineer) are clinging so desparately to evolution because they need an explanation that doesn't involve the supernatural. I think those types of arguments are a bunch of hooey. People like evolution because it's the best explanation of the evidence, whether you consider supernatural explanations or not. Just like I don't need to invoke the supernatural to explain how airplanes fly, because fluid dynamics and physics do a good job of explaining it. Just take a look at Talk Origins for a sampling of the pro-evolution evidence available. If you don't like Talk Origins, just spend some time reading some science magazines. Evolution just fits all of the data that we have available.

Anyway, a lot of this was more support of evolution than refutation of ID, but that's just the way it turned out.

Update 2007-02-28: Yeah, this is pretty late to make an update, but I just went back through and read this entry, now that I've studied this issue a little more, and see an area where I made a mistake - naturalism. Science operates by methodological naturalism (as opposed to metaphysical naturalism), which basically just means studying evidence. If you want to say ghosts were the cause of something, that's fine as a scientific theory, as long as you present some evidence for it. So, it's technically true that science operates via naturalism, and that this doesn't necessarily rule out mechanisms that people would normally consider "supernatural." Still, I think it's misleading to the general public, and the pro-reality side would be better served by stressing that science is "evidence based," no matter what the source of the evidence.

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, Dec 21 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm a nerd. Just about anybody who knows me is aware of that fact. It means that at any given moment, I'm likely to be thinking nerdy, technical things. I bring this up to explain this next sentence I'm about to write. The other day, I was thinking about tree ring dating, or dendrochronology, and wondering how far back people have been able to date things using that technique. dendrochronology is based on the simple premise of counting tree rings to figure out how old a piece of wood is. A fancy trick that you can use to extend your dates, since the rings show patterns based on varying conditions from year to year, is to match up one of those patterns on one tree with the same pattern on an older tree.

So, I did a Google search on "tree ring oldest date" to see what I could find, and the second entry that Google returned to me was this page on Answers in Genesis, a site run by a bunch of people who hold to a literal interpretation of the Bible. Why, when I'm looking up something scientific, is the second best result from Google a page by young earth creationists? (It reminds me of another time when I looked up "electron probability cloud," and the first result on Google was this creationist page. What does the Bible have to do with particle physics?)

If that was the whole story, I probably wouldn't have even bothered to write a blog entry. It would have been an annoyance, but not much else. But there's more. When I do Google searches, most of the time I don't really look at the url of the page before clicking on it. So, even though I wouldn't normally go visit the Answers in Genesis site on purpose, I clicked this link to take me there. Once I realized what site it was, I thought, what the hell, as long as I'm here, I might as well read what they have to say. Their basic problem was that if Noah's flood occurred around 4350 years ago, and tree ring dating indicates trees older than that that weren't disturbed by a worldwide flood, then there's got to be a problem somewhere. And obviously, they blamed the science.

The article put f