Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Popular Mechanics sorts through the hype about hybrids.
Alex Beam agrees with me about BHL.

Monday, January 30, 2006

The BBC talks about scientists and autism:

They are skilled at analysing systems - whether it be a vehicle, or a maths equation - to figure out how they work.

But they also tend to be less interested in the social side of life, and can exhibit behaviour such as an obsession with detail - classic traits associated with autism.

Why are they even related? Why can't someone be skilled at both detailed analysis and social interaction?
Congress is doing something right.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Winning the lottery will not solve your problems.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

I've been meaning to say something about Google sticking to its principles in the States but deciding to be evil in China. Instapundit has more.
Torture is always wrong, on the cover of Christianity Today. Andrew Sullivan has thoughts.

Friday, January 27, 2006

It's fun to think about, but comparing college professors to Wal-Mart stockers is just a little bit over the top.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Where's George was just a moderately clever idea until somebody used it to model the spread of epidemics.
When Daniel Dennett, Frank Furedi and Neil Davenport offer comments on religion, they each feel the need to point out their own secularism, as if that is the only way that they will be taken seriously. Davenport gives us a patronizing defense of religion; it's "primitive" and pathetic but really harmless:

Religion isn't 'the root of all evil' as such, but a primitive attempt to understand what it is to be human.

Furedi's piece is definitely worth reading, as he notes a real problem with the way the left relates to religion. Dennett (who I've mentioned here) makes the common error of misunderstanding what faith means. Like Sam Harris, he seems to think it is some way of holding to facts without evidence, because obviously anyone who used evidence and reason would agree with him.
Watched Good Night and Good Luck last night and ran into this interesting (though lengthy) bit of background on Edward Murrow today. An excerpt:

The idea that, in taking on McCarthy, Murrow was “standing up to government” greatly oversimplifies the issue. He was able to stand up to a Senate committee chairman because a federal regulatory agency had pushed CBS and other broadcasters to organize themselves so that Murrow’s doing so was possible.

Nicholas Lemann's argument is that deregulation is what has made television the wasteland we see today.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Which countries are most optimistic about their economic future?
Adam Cohen is worried about the tyranny of the majority. Glenn Reynolds is worried about the corruption of the majority. Reynolds thinks that what happened to the Liberals in Canada could happen to the Republicans in the States; Kathryn Joyce, in a perfectly titled article, has different concerns about what happened in Canada.
Good news, and also kind of cool.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Several things about this post by Professor Bainbridge are interesting, but what struck me are these statistics on the political leanings of American faculty which (he says) are from the LA Times:

The Democratic advantage by department in 1999 English: 35 to 1 History: 17.5 to 1 Biology: 4 to 1 Engineering: 3 to 1 Computer science: 2 to 1 Chemistry: 1.5 to 1 But in agriculture, Republicans held a 1.3-1 edge.

What makes scientists more conservative than their colleagues?
As Bill Sjostrom notes, the issue of the political speech of religious leaders is a tricky one, and where you stand often depends on what political opinions are being expressed. As long as churches have tax-exempt status they should not be politically active as institutions, but there are serious free speech issues if you prevent Pastor Bob from going to a bar and saying "I think John Underhill would be a good mayor."
A survey in the UK asked teenagers why they did not want to be scientists. One response:

Because they all wear big glasses and white coats and I am female.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Ken Alexander's assessment of education may be right:

the impossibility of both situations (teaching high school and having hallowed university halls graced by students lacking essential skills) has reached a crisis point.

But I'm not sure his idea of how to fix it is so great:

As part of the exit criteria from high school, all students should be paraded down to the cafeteria, given five or six sheets of blank paper and two hours, and told: "Okay, one of the entrance requirements to university and college is a ten-paragraph essay on the colour red. Take your time."

It is also perhaps worth pointing out that he's talking about Canada, but you wouldn't know that if he didn't tell you. It seems the plight of education is nearly as bad under the enlightened Paul Martin as it is under the ignorant George W. Bush.
Maybe I should take up smoking.

Friday, January 20, 2006

In the New York Times, Charles Marsh says American evangelicals - and he counts himself in that group - have traded honesty and conviction for political power.

There is no denying that our Faustian bargain for access and power has undermined the credibility of our moral and evangelistic witness in the world.

Pointing to the Iraq war, he emphasizes that the church should be truly global and not tied to any narrow national interest.
When Carl Swanson says that Bernard-Henri Levy "is not a man particularly encumbered by modesty" I want to stand up and clap. A good journalist, and a good writer in general, disappears behind the subject matter that he or she writes about. BHL's articles in the Atlantic, ostensibly about America, were actually obsessed with something else - BHL himself.
A new cartoon has (finally) appeared at Myopia.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

The BBC interviews Michael Griffin, the head of NASA.
Ah, France, that magical land of diplomatic finesse and military restraint.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

So far, mathematicians have been predicting protein structure from amino acid sequence slowly and inaccurately, but cheaply, while biochemists have been actually measuring the structure even more slowly and at enormous expense. This news is good for everybody, especially the biochemists.
Instapundit and his wife talk about men, women, relationships, and how feminism has ruined it all for everybody.
There are good leftists and bad leftists in South America. Guess which category Hugo Chavez is in?

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Here is a Catholic perspective on the firing of Prof. Josh Hochschild from Wheaton College. Interestingly, Carl Olson seems to agree that Catholicism is actually in conflict with Wheaton's mission, something I denied.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Episcopalians are the good guys, the American Family Association are the bad guys, and the media is clueless and ignorant. How could I not like this post at the Revealer?
For Martin Luther King day, another story of why government surveillance of its citizens is bad news. And why it's nothing new.
Challenges to school voucher programs in Florida and Milwaukee. In Milwaukee, the superintendent of the public schools says this:

That competitive nature has raised the bar for educators in Milwaukee to provide a good product or they know that parents will walk.

What makes me a fan of school vouchers is two things: the current public education system is failing and we need to try something, and inner-city blacks are largely in favor of vouchers.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

This the funniest blond joke that I've heard in a long time.
It's not about nuclear weapons or Islamic fundamentalism. The crisis in Iran is about oil, of course.
Yet another post about the Edge question; some of my earlier comments are here. David Gelernter has a good question about the information age. Paul Davies and Gregory Benford both discuss global warming, and since Benford is more optimistic, I like his comments better.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Ben Macintyre's piece in the Times of London made me laugh, especially:

If Jesus was such a public danger, why did the priests need him to be identified? Jerusalem had a small population; the man claiming to be the Son of God was surely known by sight to just about everyone; plus, it was dark, and he was wearing a halo.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Even if Clinton did it too, it's still illegal. Meanwhile, David Kahn notes that reading other people's mail is nothing new.
Though I can hardly disagree with it, an article like this comes around every six months or so and the world stays pretty much the same.
Leonard Susskind has a new book in which he discusses the anthropic principle and intelligent design.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

At the BBC is this report about popular perceptions of science, the funding and grant process, and other aspects of science in the messy real world.
China will continue to try and to fail at suppressing expression and information, says Howard W. French.
A British officer criticizes the U.S. Army's performance in Iraq, but doesn't say the troops should just leave. Michael Schwartz agrees with part of that.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

There are a lot of answers to the Edge question, so I should be allowed at least one more post discussing them (earlier ones are here and here).

Philip Zimbardo offers an at once depressing and optimistic look at the human condition, one that rings true and that echoes the sentiment in the quotation at the top of this page. Diane F. Halpern suggests, without meaning to, that moral considerations can outweigh scientific ability and personal choice.

Michael Shermer wins the sound bite award: "Where goods cross frontiers, armies won't." And W. Daniel Hillis wins the honesty award.
Joe Kaplinsky says we have a good chance of surviving and thriving, despite the doomsayers.
Certainly someone could, and should, do a careful and intelligent critique of the words and deeds of Rod Parsley. This, however, is so far from intelligent and careful that it's shameful.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Alvin Kimmel offers an insider critique of the Episcopal Church at Pontifications, saying that the ECUSA is a "boutique church" concerned with selling itself to the elite. This argument probably has more truth than I would like to admit; in particular, I'm probably guilty of saying things like this:

We’re more intelligent than the Southern Baptists and have better taste than the Catholics. Now this is a product we can sell!
Sometimes science can be both fascinating and disturbing. I hope the grad students who decapitate mice get paid more than I do.
James Carroll connects Iran's nuclear program to the holocaust to Ariel Sharon to Bush's war in Iraq.
The January Devlin's Angle discusses infinity and trees.

Monday, January 9, 2006

Deborah Lipstadt really believes in free speech.
I haven't seen "The Book of Daniel", and I'm not likely too, but Diane Winston claims that depictions of religious figures in the media will inevitably disappoint us because of our high expectations. I think this explains only part of why the media's portrayals of clergy are always negative.
This article (link is for subscribers only, a friend was kind enough to email me the text) in the Wall Street Journal discusses the firing of Prof. Josh Hochschild from my alma mater following his conversion to Catholicism.

I never had Hochschild as a professor, but I have an enormous amount of respect for his colleague Jay Wood, who is quoted briefly in the article and whose sentiments I agree with:

Describing his ex-colleague's conversion as "a real act of intellectual and spiritual courage," philosophy professor W. Jay Wood says Wheaton could enhance its quality by "expanding the extent to which it draws on evangelicals within the major Christian traditions -- Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant."

After all, even Mark Noll, Wheaton's star scholar, says the reformation may be over.

What bothered me the most about the descision to fire Hochschild (which happened over a year ago, despite the recent dateline in the Journal) was that he was still willing to sign the college's statement of faith. Wheaton's president, Duane Litfin, denied that he could do so:

Wheaton's 12-point statement doesn't explicitly exclude Catholics. But its emphasis on Scripture as the "supreme and final authority" and its aligning of Wheaton with "evangelical Christianity" were unmistakably Protestant, Mr. Litfin wrote to Mr. Hochschild in late 2003. Because Catholics regard the Bible and the pope as equally authoritative, a Catholic "cannot faithfully affirm" the Wheaton statement, he continued.

It bothers me a great deal that the administration would decide who can and cannot "faithfully affirm" a statement of faith. This action and others like it on the part of Litfin tend to instill fear and stifle individuality, something that is already problematic at Wheaton.

For all that, Litfin has surprised me as much with his good decisions as with his bad ones, and the Journal's characterization of him is unfair. They mention that he was a "minister from an evangelical church in Tennessee" before becoming college president, without bothering to note that he holds a PhD from Oxford. And so continues the grand media tradition of assuming that all Christians are uneducated southern country bumpkins.

Sunday, January 8, 2006

A great article at Reason about the politicization of science. Excerpt:

Not surprisingly, when a scientific finding doesn't support their policies or programs, both sides suspect that it has been "politicized." In this case, "politicized" means disagrees with what we good people want.

It also mentions the faulty science that led to the deadly decision to ban DDT, one of my pet subjects.

In a similar vein, Stuart Derbyshire argues that Bush is not the only one waging a "war on science."
This editorial in the International Herald Tribune is interesting, but I have to wonder where all their data comes from; how do you get good abortion statistics in a country where it's illegal?
The Economist has an interesting article about pranks, urging readers to nominate "the finest prank in history."

Saturday, January 7, 2006

As I read more answers to the Edge question I have more thoughts. I still like the applied mathematician in that what he says is intriguing, but I have convinced myself it's not true. My favorite answer for today comes from Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, who says about his dangerous idea:

It consists in pointing out that the imperial free market wears no clothes — it does not exist in the first place, and what passes for it is dangerous to the future well being of our species.

I also wonder what is meant by "dangerous." Most people seem to be proposing a scary idea rather than a dangerous one; the winner in this category is Jeremy Bernstein who comes up with a completely new reason to lose sleep. The only person giving a dangerous idea in the I-might-lose-my-job-for-saying-this sense is Steven Pinker.

I would like Bart Kosko to be more (mathematically) precise about what he's talking about. It might be right, and it might be important, but he might just be spouting garbage.
Pat Robertson gets more ridiculous each day, giving me another reason to be ashamed. Thankfully, he's getting well-deserved criticism from the people who should be critizing. "Growing isolation from mainstream American evangelicalism", indeed.

David Corn has more to say.

Friday, January 6, 2006

A new chord in John Cage's masterpiece has sounded.
The Guardian gives yet another reason I'm ashamed to call myself a Christian. David Corn's reaction is appropriately nasty, except that he quotes this sentence from the Guardian article

Fundamentalist Christians believe that in order for Jesus to return, two preconditions are Jewish control of the land of Israel and the conversion of the Jews to Christianity.

without the key word "fundamentalist", which is irresponsible.

Thursday, January 5, 2006

The International Herald Tribune is hitting the Ukraine-gas-Putin story pretty hard. This editorial summarizes the situation pretty well, claiming that Putin's use energy as a political weapon undermines his international credibility. Celeste A. Wallander focuses more on what it means for the rest of the world in terms of energy security. And Anatol Lieven says the crisis illustrates how "the West's strategy toward Ukraine has been founded on a bizarre illusion."
Norman Solomon suggests some New Year's resolutions for the news media. I am tempted to suggest some resolutions for Norman Solomon and Alternet.

Wednesday, January 4, 2006

Though it's cheezy and sentimental, I admit I like this story from Real Live Preacher, mostly because it puts the Episcopal Church in a positive light.
Scientific American reviews Daniel Dennett's new book, Breaking the Spell, which is an attempt to explain how religion arose historically and sociologically. This is a pretty hot topic lately, with David Sloan Wilson (Darwin's Cathedral), Paul Bloom (Descartes' Baby), and Jesse Bering all having something to contribute. The SciAm reviewer says about religion

One of the most powerful fixations, and one that may have Dennett flummoxed, is that it is sacrilegious to question your own beliefs and an insult for anyone else to try.

No religious person I know thinks this; questioning your own beliefs is honest and allowing others to do so is stimulating.
Keith Devlin discusses the Monty Hall problem yet again.
This article in the Village Voice is bad enough that even Jeff Sharlet calls it what it is.
The Edge has posted answers to the 2006 Edge question, "What is your most dangerous idea?" Many of the responders (Susan Blackmore, Paul Bloom, Rodney Brooks, Keith Devlin, John Horgan, Todd E. Feinberg, Thomas Metzinger, John Allen Paulos, V.S. Ramachandran, and probably others) offer something along the lines of the idea that there are no souls and no God, everything is a materialistic accident. The response by Sam Harris is a pretty good summary of his book The End of Faith; if you read the response you can skip the book. So far my favorite response is from Steven Strogatz, who is, of course, an applied mathematician.
Joseph Loconte has advice for the religious left and the religious right.