The Discovery Institute Should Hire This Guy

The Discovery Institute should hire this guy, because he makes about as much sense as Bruce Chapman.

Why Build When You Can Rent?

A few years ago, some robins built a nest on our front porch, above the house light. It made it a little inconvenient, because everytime we came in and out, the robin would startle and fly off. After the baby robins hatched, we left the nest in place.

This year some mourning doves decided it was cheaper to move into this already-constructed nest instead of building their own. The mother dove is remarkably hard to startle, especially compared to the robin.

Authoritarian High School Superintendent of the Month

North American high schools are not places where free speech and criticism of authority are welcomed. Instead of teaching lessons about free speech, free expression, the Bill of Rights, and the Charter of Rights, principals and superintendents routinely impose arbitrary rules and punishments.

This month's Authoritarian Creep award goes to South Shore Regional School Board Superintendent Nancy Pynch-Worthylake from Nova Scotia, for suspending student William Swinimer for five days for wearing a shirt that said "Life is wasted without Jesus".

Swinimer's t-shirt expresses a moronic and wrong sentiment, and he sounds like the typical evangelical jerk who can't keep quiet about his own "good news". But when he says, "I believe this is worth standing up for — it’s not just standing up for religious rights, it’s standing up for my rights as a Canadian citizen; for freedom of speech, freedom of religion", he's absolutely right.

Superintendent Pynch-Worthylake could have turned this into a teaching moment. She could explain that in a multicultural society there will be people who assert that their religion is the only valid one, and that's the way life is. She could explain that the Charter guarantees "freedom of thought, opinion, and expression", and even though she disagrees with Swinimer's sentiment, she defends his right to express it in a non-disruptive way. Instead, she took the authoritarian route. Shame on her.

Christians Lose Special Rights; Respond With Threats

This is old news, but 2 weeks ago a local public school board here in Ontario finally ended the practice of distributing Gideon Bibles to students.

It should have been a no-brainer. Nothing prevents parents who want Bibles for their own kids from buying them, or asking the Gideons to supply a copy for free. Nothing prevents students from reading the Christian bible in their school library or elsewhere. But the local school board has no business distributing the holy book for one particular religion in the exclusion of all other religions.

How did some local Christians respond? "Several trustees received threats and hate mail, much of it anti-immigrant." Yes, that's exactly what Jesus would have wanted, I suppose.

Kudos to members of the local Christian community who spoke up against the hate.

Islam is So Weak, It Must Be Protected by Law

You can tell a religion can't stand up to criticism when its adherents have to resort to blasphemy laws to protect it.

That's the case with Islam. The film actor and comedian Adel Imam was recently sentenced to jail in Egypt for movies where he parodied conservative Muslim beliefs.

I won't be visiting Egypt anytime soon.

New Crank Proof of P = NP

For your reading pleasure, here is a new proof that P = NP. It contains other delights, such as a "nontrivial counterexample to Cantor's diagonal argument": a veritable garden of crankiness.

Friday Moose Blogging

Scientist at Work talks about moose populations in Isle Royale:

"Do they wonder why they suffer? Do they linger a few moments longer before getting up again and then sigh before plowing through the snow for another bout of foraging? Moose certainly have thoughts, and some we understand — the fear of being chased by a wolf, the pleasure of eating fresh blue-bead lilies in the spring. But our knowledge about the content of most moose thoughts — thoughts that are as real as any of my mine — lie at the fuzzy boundary between inference and imagination."

Religious Quiz

See if you can do this one WITHOUT google or other reference aids.

What alleged event from religious history does this bronze panel depict, and in what city in New York state is it located?

Periodic Table Goodness

Forget the stupid bell. Next time you're in Waterloo, Ontario, stop by the CEIT building on the campus and visit this awesome gigantic mural of the periodic table. It's so big that I found it really hard to photograph.

Sculptor of Rusty Junk Wins Award

This rusty piece of junk is, believe it or not, an award-winning piece of public sculpture that is the most prominent feature of a major downtown square in Waterloo, Ontario.

It is entitled "Waterloo Bell - Bell for Kepler" and was created by Royden Rabinowitch. Recently Rabinowitch accepted the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for this and other work - an award that carries with it a cash prize of $25,000.

Here is how Rabinowitch described it: "The sculpture’s 3 stacked, major segments simultaneously appear to float and be at risk of falling down. They resemble someone attempting to stay in balance." No, it resembles a rusty piece of junk from a disused factory.

This has got to be one of the ugliest and most unappealing pieces of public art I've ever seen. Let's get rid of it.

Public Institutions Try to Avoid Giving Out Contact Information

One thing that really drives me crazy is trying to contact anyone who works in government or the civil service. In many jurisdictions, it seems like they do their best to keep all kinds of contact information (such as name, phone number, or e-mail address) secret from the public.

An example is our local public high school, the Waterloo Collegiate Institute. This high school is paid for with our provincial tax dollars; yet you will look in vain for the e-mail address of anyone who works there. I tried just now to get a work e-mail address for the webmaster over the phone, but no one would give it to me! This is insane.

Contrast that with the University of Waterloo. Not only are addresses and phone numbers available everywhere, there's even a web app to make finding this information easy.

This reminds me of the story about fire stations after the telephone was invented. Some refused to have telephones installed, saying that if they were to do so, people would constantly be calling them and they wouldn't have the time to put out fires.

I would favour a provincial or federal law saying that all civil servants and others paid with tax money must have their work phone number and work e-mail address posted in an easily-accessible place on the institution's web page.

World's Worst Journalist Continues Her Streak

Denyse O'Leary, the world's worst journalist™, continues her streak at Uncommon Decent with a posting that shows that she thinks that philosopher Hilary Bok is a man.

Really, you have to work at it to be this bad at your job.

Silly Philosopher Admired by Even Sillier Philosopher

How nice! Philosopher Bradley Monton, who doesn't really understand the problems with intelligent design, is pleased that Alvin Plantinga (author of one of the dumbest arguments against naturalism ever constructed) likes his book.

Well, of course, Brad! The useful idiot: an atheist who thinks there's something to intelligent design! What's not to love?

(Don't bother trying to leave comments at Monton's blog. He certainly doesn't allow that!)

Friday Moose Blogging

What to do when someone finds an exceptionally large and beautiful moose?

Why, kill it, of course.

Humans are really a violent species.

Robot Repair Store, Pittsburgh

Here are some photos from Fraley's Robot Repair in Pittsburgh. I highly recommend this place if your robot needs some tuning up. The service is excellent and the prices are reasonable.

Chemistry Quiz

I invented the chemical process by which a formerly expensive metal became commonplace. They erected this statue in my honor, cast in the metal I helped popularize. Who am I, and where is this statue?

When Geese Attack...

This is the result.

Hat tip: Jason K.

Congratulations to Bill Dembski!

Bill Dembski has a new job as the "Phillip E. Johnson Research Professor of Science and Culture" at the Southern Evangelical Seminary. I know all readers of this blog will join me in congratulating Prof. Dembski in obtaining this position, for which he is most suited.

Southern Evangelical Seminary's doctrinal statement says "We believe in the special creation of the entire space-time universe and of every basic form of life in the six historic days of the Genesis creation record. We also believe in the historicity of the biblical record, including the special creation of Adam and Eve as the literal progenitors of all people, the literal fall and resultant divine curse on the creation, the worldwide flood, and the origin of nations and diverse languages at the tower of Babel." I wonder if Prof. Dembski will be required to recant his belief in an old earth?

David C. Levy Should Not be Allowed Anywhere Near an Institution of Higher Learning

In the Washington Post, some moron named David C. Levy opines:


An executive who works a 40-hour week for 50 weeks puts in a minimum of 2,000 hours yearly. But faculty members teaching 12 to 15 hours per week for 30 weeks spend only 360 to 450 hours per year in the classroom. Even in the unlikely event that they devote an equal amount of time to grading and class preparation, their workload is still only 36 to 45 percent of that of non-academic professionals. Yet they receive the same compensation.

This guy is the president of some education group? And a former Chancellor at the New School? He shouldn't even be allowed near a university.

Anyone who thinks that the time spent in a classroom dominates the activities of a university or college professor is a moron. For each hour that I teach, for example, I spend 2-4 hours preparing - and that's for a course I've taught many times. Add in constructing assignments & course web pages, marking, helping students during office hours, and a conservative estimate is that the work needed for a 3-hour class is something like 10-15 hours per week. Now, how about creating new courses or revising old ones? Teaching a course you haven't taught before takes something like 10-12 hours preparation per lecture, at a minimum.

Then there are all the other activities: advising students, serving on committees, giving public lectures, and so forth. And I haven't even mentioned research: believe it or not, even at small colleges some faculty do research.

Yet David C. Levy thinks faculty members' workload is "36 to 45 percent of that of non-academic professionals". Get real.

Charles Rice: Question and Answer Session

There was a brief question-and-answer session after the main talk, which was unfortunately dominated by two questioners. I didn't take detailed notes. Again, my comments in brackets.

First questioner: "So, isn't the Enlightenment really another Dark Age for Catholics"?
Rice: Yes. Our culture has lost its mind. You should pray the rosary. One of the things we are missing is an appreciation of spiritual reality. We are more than material beings. We know this because we can do two things that a material being cannot: abstraction and reflection. An abstract idea does not exist in the material world. [Pure assertion. There is no reason why a "material being" could not abstract or reflect, and there is good evidence that some animals can do abstraction and reflection.]

Another questioner: The bible approves of slavery. Doesn't that make God unjust?
Rice: Slavery in the bible means something different from the slavery we think of today.

After the lecture was over, Rice suggested he would take additional questions informally. I approached him and tried to ask about a passage in his book, 50 Questions on the Natural Law. The passage in question reads:

"It would make no more sense to force a day-care center to hire an acknowledged or practicing homosexual than it would to make a bank hire an acknowledged or practicing thief."

Holding a copy of the book, I said, "I understand why a bank would want to not hire a thief, because a thief might steal from the bank. But why would a day-care center want to not hire a gay person?"

Rice responded, "Read the book." I replied, "I have. But it's not clear. What is the rationale you are implying?"

Rice said, "Look, I already said I'm not going to answer any questions on that topic." I replied, "It's a shame you don't have the courage of your convictions to defend your views." Rice began to look rather annoyed.

Rice said, "At least you bought my book." I said, "No, I borrowed it from the library." And that was that.

[In my view, a scholar has an obligation to defend his published views in his area of expertise. I don't know why Rice refused to do so; perhaps it is because the passage is indefensible. Even if he didn't want to do so last night, Rice could have said something like, "I don't want to get into that here, but if you give me your e-mail address, I'll address your question later." But he didn't. In my mind, he has spectacularly failed his obligation as a scholar.]

By the way, news reports say that Rice will give a secret, by-invitation-only seminar for faculty today and teach a philosophy class. In the past, these additional seminars have been publicized and available for everyone who is interested. But not this year. I guess the Pascal lecture committee would rather have secret seminars away from people who might dare to ask inconvenient questions - which Rice probably would refuse to answer, anyway.