Henry Imler July 24th, 2008

Basketawful :: 2007-08 NBA Worsties: Part 5 – In part five of their ongoing series on the worst and most hilarious of the NBA last season.  Lots of youtube clips of absolutely hilarious stuff, such as Kobe nailing an old woman with a towel and Dirk bringing out the “Short-Bus” slam among others.  If you are a basketball fan and don’t mind some crude humor at times, I highly recommend checking out this post, series, and blog.

Popular Science :: Why is it So Hard to Wake Up in the Morning? – So I shouldn’t sleep in on the weekends?  Darn.

New Scientist :: Magnetic Slingshot Creates Aurora on Earth

Get Rich Slowly :: The Dirty Secrets of Debt Reduction (and What to Do About Them) – Whether you are looking to build wealth or use your wealth to empower the powerless, everyone needs to get their money situation in order.  J.D., over at Get Rich Slowly talks about what got him into debt in the first place and what he had to do to get out of it.  Read this if you are A) in the same boat, B) getting out on your own for the first time, or C) are human.

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Henry Imler July 21st, 2008

I like the way Peter Enns articulates the problem of myth and biblical studies:

The Following is from Page 40 of Inspiration and Incarnation:

Christians recoil from any suggestion that Genesis is in any way embedded in the mythologies of the ancient world.  On one level this is understandable.  After all, if the Bible and the gospel are true, and if that truth is bound up with historical events, you can’t have the beginning of the Bible get it so wrong.  It is important to understand, however, that not all historians of the ancient Near East use the word myth simply as shorthand for untrue, made-up, [or] storybook.  It may include these ideas for some, but many who use the term are trying to get at something deeper.  A more generous way of defining myth is that it is an ancient, premodern, prescientific way of addressing questions of ultimate origins and meaning in the form of stories: Who are we?  Where do we come from?

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Henry Imler June 16th, 2008

While part of me agrees with the above picture, I have to also vehemently disagree.  The further you get from "purity" the closer you get to real people.  I am thinking of history, religious studies, etc…  Perhaps what I am trying to say is that dirty has value as well as purity.  This is part of my newfound problem with philosophy and philosophers.  Philosophy is a nice set of tools and ways to conceive the world.  However, I’d rather go build something with my tools rather than spend all day polishing my nice toolbox.  (With that said, I have and will always have a deep love for math.)

• Humor , Philosophy , Religion , Science
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Henry Imler June 16th, 2008

Mental Floss Blog :: Battlestar Galactica vs. Star Trek - I love me some sci-fi comparisons. Scott Miller looks at how BSG differs from STNG. Star Trek explores our hopes and dreams, a vision of why humanity wants to be; while Battlestar Galactica explores our flaws and our realities, a vision of what humanity is. It is a really good read. While you are at it, check out the following peices of lesser quality:

• The Fascist Ideology of Star Trek: Militarism, Collectivism, & Atheism
• Firefly, the anti-Trek

Wikipedia :: The Resoration Movement - When is a denomination not a denomination? When it says denominations are morally wrong, as the body of Christ is to be a unified body. This is the religious tradition in which I grew up. There are three wings of this denomination movement:

1. Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
2. Churches of Christ (a cappella)
3. The (instrumental) Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ

I link to this movement because it came up several times this past week in our 14 hour van rides. One of my friends, has some history in the Churches of Christ (a cappella) movement and I have a long history in the Independent Christian Churches movement. I often get blurry when recalling the differences between thevarious movements within the larger Campbell-Stone movement. As I was telling some of my friends in the van, I really like most of what the C-S movement has to say on paper, but I have huge problems with the application of those values and secondary beliefs.

The Times UK Online :: Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol - The first line gives me great hope: “Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide ‘renewable petroleum’” What?! Wait, even if this is as good as they promise, isn’t it just more of the same environmentally devastating oil? Nope, for “[t]he company claims that this “Oil 2.0” will not only be renewable but also carbon negative – meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.“

I am all down for stuff like this. As a matter of fact, I think I remember reading about the early phases of a similar project in Discover a few years ago: Anything Into Oil. While it is great to see the progress made on this front, pessimism rises within me. As my buddy Jake Jones put it when I emailed this article to him, “that is pretty cool. I wonder how long it will before the big oil companies buy the tech and screw it all up.”

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Henry Imler March 27th, 2008

^{This will save us.}

You know how it is theoretically possible to create a mini-black hole with a powerful enough particle accelerator? You know how there is also a chance that these mini-black holes, if created might not just evaporate away? You know how we are building a particle accelerator powerful enough to make these things in theory?

Well those people are being sued until we can know for sure that humanity won’t die because some scientist accidentally made a non-evaporating black hole on our planet.

Doomsday Fears Spark Lawsuit.

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Henry Imler March 18th, 2008

Author Arthur C. Clarke dies

Clarke, thanks for the good books! My favorite parts of 2010 were Clarke’s descriptions of the indigenous population o Jupiter and the attack on the Tsien.

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Henry Imler February 26th, 2008

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Henry Imler February 23rd, 2007

Spear-wielding chimps snack on skewered bushbabies

In a revelation that destroys yet another cherished
notion of human uniqueness, wild chimpanzees have been seen living in
caves and hunting bushbabies with spears. It is the first time an
animal has been seen using a tool to hunt a vertebrate.

Man is a rational animal, is he not? Rationality has often been how
we have separated ourselves from the animals, justifying our use of
them. After all, animals only work off of instinct, whereas us humans
with souls are rational. So, what do we do if animals are seen to be
rational as well? Since rationality has been the evidence of souls in
humans, would we then need to graft souls onto animals?

I don’t think one can hold to the “Man is a rational animal” as a
distinction between humans and their rights and aminals with their
lesser rights.

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Henry Imler February 2nd, 2007

When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up–for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground– then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. (Gen 2.5-8)

I am unconvinced with the literal version of Genesis one and two. There are lots of issues here, none of which I want to explore here in depth, at least in the post. There is no way that the earth was created in six 24-hour periods about six or seven thousand years ago. The empirical evidence simply does not support that conclusion. The particulars do not make sense either. Where did the light come from in Gen 1:3? It was not from Sola, because Sola is formed several days later in Gen 1:14, nor was it from God, because it would have always been there. Then there is the minor issue of there being two creation stories back-to-back. In the first one, man is formed after the plants are brought forth; while in the second, man is crafted before the plants. In addition, in the Gen 2 creation story, the text says that the creation of the heavens and earth only took one day.

There have been many a word typed and shouted in trying to formulate a picture of science that admits a young earth and a consistency between the stories in Genesis one and two. However, I have not heard a version that can successfully do this. What is my larger worry here? That, by maintaining these views, the church is driving people away from the good news of Jesus Christ.

In light of this, the first two stories in Genesis, in the whole Bible are myths and not literal word-for-word accounts of what physically happened. What do I mean by myth? I am not typing of a made up story that are completely false. Instead, I refer to a story, not an historical account, one that is true on one or several levels, even though it is not a historical “video-camera” account of what happened.

Ok, if the two stories are logically inconsistent and, based on the empirical evidence that we have, also not consistent with the leading theories of the origin and development of the universe and earth; then what do we do with them?

As I have stated before, I favor the divine fiat theory. I came across five other views over at Open Source Theology. Here are the five other ways to view this problem: Open Source Theology:: Genesis 1 as “True Myth”.

1. Genesis 1 fits within a literary genre of creation myths, but only Genesis 1 gets the story right.
2. Genesis 1 is a myth that eventually proves to be verifiable as truth.
3. Genesis 1 is a myth whose truth is to be found in the moral and metaphysical lessons it teaches.
4. Genesis 1 is a myth written by God.
5. Genesis 1 is part of an all-encompassing myth created by God that includes not just the Biblical text but also the “real world.”

They discuss these alternatives and talk a lot about the notion of real myth and what that means. I would recommend checking the article out and I hope you either share how you view the creation stories here or over there. I think this issue is of tremendous value and needs to be reconciled with our larger world-views. I maintain that both the earth is as old as it seems and that God inspired a true writing of Genesis one and two. Now, how exactly that works out, I don’t know - but damn I want to know.

LINKS:

• Open Source Theology:: Genesis 1 as “True Myth”.
• Answers in Genesis
• Institute for Creation Research
• Young-Earth Arguments: A Second Look

This is cross posted at Theology for the Masses.

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Henry Imler November 22nd, 2006

The answer: No… well, sort of. Here is how I got there. So, are Science and Religion opposed? No, they are not. In fact, they often work(ed) together. Religion is very much in the business of explaining reality. In doing so, they co-opt the science that makes the best sense to them. For example, Aquinas used Aristotle and Christianized him to the point to which the Catholic church made his science official Church dogma. Recent creationists try to use science that seems to agree with their aims to refute the science that does not. Hubble’s discovery of the motion of the galaxies was a boon to the hopes of creationists in general because the subsequent Big Bang theory implied there was a creator behind it, whereas the Steady State theory needed no such “ummph” to get it started. Now, the question is, are the creationists and atheists doing good science? I’ll leave this one with a quote from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.

I hear often the complaint that Science presupposes Naturalism. This is because Science simply does not concern itself with God. It measures; it devises theories; it explains. Science does an excellent job telling us:

• Who?
• What?
• When?
• How?

What it does not do is tell us why. Whats that? Do I hear an objection?

Wait a second Henry. Science tells me why water boils when it reaches 100°C!

Well, you see, it does not give us the meaning of why water boils when it does. Instead, it really tells you how water boils. Take any scientific question - or historic, for that matter. The same thing applies every time. The historian can assign meaning or significance to his or her narrative, but at that point, they are not really doing exact and pure history. They are grafting interpretations onto the text. Not that doing that is bad, but it is not pure history.

Religion, on the other hand, gives us this why that Science lacks by Science’s very nature.

So, are Religion and Science opposed? Yes. But only in their subject matters. Sir William Bragg put it best:

“Religion and science are opposed . . . but only in the same sense as that in which my thumb and forefinger are opposed - and between the two, one can grasp everything.”

This is how I can have a keen interest in both Religion and Science. I yearn to understand how the world works and why the world works.

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Henry Imler November 14th, 2006

Growing up in the current government run education system, the history of science is presented as a grand accent up the slope of knowledge, with only one grooved path traveled. However, when looked at outside of the popular story we are told in our youth, the picture diffuses. At first glance, nothing clear comes into view. At times it seems that our current body of accepted knowledge is indeed an accumulation of previous thoughts; at other times, the path seems to twist and turn, split off into multiple segments only to unite later, and sometimes the path even backtracks. This is hardly the glossed-over golden staircase of one’s youth. What does it matter, the nature of the path? Why can we not be satisfied with where we are and continue upward? |inline

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Henry Imler November 8th, 2006

This post is an attempt to flesh out Edward Said’s postcolonial theory of Orientalism:”(When set off in italics, the term “Orientalism” will refer to the book by Said, when merely capitalized; it will refer to Said’s theory.)”:. It has drawn from Said’s best-known work, Orientalism and incorporated several articles written in response to or are reviews of the work. These articles included “Orientalism Reconsidered” by Edward Said, and “Review of Books: Orientalism” by C. Earnest Dawn. These articles were utilized to help add clarity to a complex theory.

The four central claims of Orientalism are as follows. First, while Orientalism presents itself as an objective field of study, it was used to justify the political domination of the East by the West. Secondly, Orientalism was actually more about defining itself through the mirror of the East than it was about objectively studying it :”(The very terms “East” and “West” are rejected by Said as valid descriptions; however, they will be used as terms of convenience for the purposes of this paper.)”:. Third, points one and two are produced and reinforced by viewing the Orient as a homogenous group. This essentialist thinking was a false way of viewing people groups and their culture. Said also rejects the validity of the terms Orient and Occident, but employs them because this is how the argument has been framed by the Orientalists:”(Edward Said, “Orientalism Reconsidered,” Cultural Critique, No. 1, 1985, p. 90. )”:. Lastly, the Orientalist scholars are the product of the system they come from. Due to this, they cannot help but to misrepresent the “Other.” Therefore, what is needed is for the subaltern to speak for itself. Continue Reading »

• Ethics , Science
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Henry Imler September 18th, 2006

In the latest issue of Discover they did a little proof that 0.99999… does equal 1. This is how they did it.

1. Take .999999 (repeating) to equal x.
2. Take x times 10 equals 10x
3. So 10x = 9.9999999
4. 10x - x = 9x
5. 9x = 9 (9.999999…. - 0.99999…. = 9)
6. Therefore, x = 1 and .99999….

Crazy, no?

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Henry Imler September 17th, 2006

In the latest issue of Discover they did a little proof that 0.99999… does equal 1. This is how they did it.

1. Take .999999 (repeating) to equal x.
2. Take x times 10 equals 10x
3. So 10x = 9.9999999
4. 10x - x = 9x
5. 9x = 9 (9.999999…. - 0.99999…. = 9)
6. Therefore, x = 1 and .99999….

Crazy, no?

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Henry Imler August 23rd, 2006

SCIENTISTS say they have found a way of creating stem
cells without having to destroy human embryos, which has caused
widespread ethical concern.

Neat.

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Henry Imler August 17th, 2006

Came across some interesting oil articles, TV shows and radio shows about how to fix our energy dependence.

The CEO of Jet Blue, David Neeleman has an interesting proposal on how to make Coal to Oil work and make us oil independent in ten years. Here is some free audio
from the Glenn Beck program where the CEO of Jet Blue describes how it
could work. It is a 500 billion dollar project, but it might work. The
part where he describes how it might work from a dollars and sense
stand point is very interesting.

Scientific American just came
out with an issue that discusses how we can implement hydrogen,
nuclear, and several newer technologies. I would encourage you to pick
up the current issue.

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Henry Imler August 16th, 2006

And then there were Twelve: The new definition of a planet is as follows:

A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient
mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it
assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in
orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet.

I like this because there is a formal definition that we can agree
on and go forward with. The sentimental side of me wants there to only
admit the “cool” planets, you know, ones with rings, ones that are
huge, ones that could harbor life, and so on. But, in reality, I think
that the self-gravitational and the non-satellite are good criteria.
So, that allows for Xena, Charon, Ceres.

Xena is the newest planet discovered and put pressure on the
community to come out with a better and universal definition of a
planet. Ceres is the largest asteroid and I guess was believed to be a
planet for a long time. Charon a planet? Isn’t it the moon of Pluto? I
thought the new definition discluded Charon. However, is now a planet
because the center of gravity of its revolution around Pluto does not
lie inside Pluto. Because of this, Charon is not really a satellite of
Pluto, they are a bi-planetary system.

Update: The Scientific American Blog as some suggestions for amending the planetary deffinition, adding geologic activity to the list.

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Henry Imler July 18th, 2006

Not really. But, we may be on the verge of a new scientific paradigm according to the August issue of Discover Magazine. Newton’s law of gravity
accurately describes almost all of gravitational phenomena. Take the
orbits of the planets. Bodies that are closer to the sun should orbit
faster than bodies further out. This matches our observation. Newton’s
laws have been fantastically successful in describing natural
phenomena, outdone only by Einstein’s General Relativity.
However, not all is well. A while ago people noticed that the stars
closer to the center of galaxies do not orbit faster than stars that
are far away from the center of galaxies. In order to get around this
problem, astronomers have suggested all sorts of ad-hoc solutions, the
most successful of which is injection of dark matter
into the universe. However, this solution seems very muddy and ad-hoc,
breaking from the beautiful simplicity that usually accompanies science.

Mordehai Milgrom
thinks he has the answer, although he may not know why… yet. He has
reworked Newton’s second law, F=ma (force equals mass times
acceleration) to F=ma²/a₀ (Force equals mass times acceleration squared divided by a new constant, a₀). Since I am not a physics or math major, I can not explain it better than the Discover article or the wikipedia article on MOND.
What is important is that it accurately describes the motion of objects
on large and small scales. What Milgrom does not know is why the new
law is so, just that it solves the rotation-curve problem.

What am I getting at? If you have read Thomas Khun’s work, he
thought that the progression of science was a series of paradigm
shifts. People would find a theory that accurately described the
observed phenomena. That theory would cement itself and all problems
would be explained through that theory. People would begin to work on
problems on the fringe of the theory and find inconsistencies. They
would then add-in ad-hoc solutions that kept the theory propped up
since it explained everything else so very well. Eventually the system
would collapse under the weight of these ad-hoc solutions and a new,
much simpler theory would replace it, one that accounted for all the
observed phenomena and the inconsistencies of the old system of thought.

I think that MOND might be the beginning of a new shift. There has
been advancement on explaining the theory in terms of a much larger
scientific theory. A colleague of Milgrom’s, Bekenstein,
wrote a paper called “Relativistic Gravitation Theory for the MOND
Paradigm” that formulates that much larger framework that is needed for
a paradigm shift. This new theory, called TeVeSe (tensor, vector,
scalar) is currently being compared to dark matter theories to see
which is the better theory.

Very interesting stuff.

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Henry Imler May 25th, 2006

The following is a sketch of Revolution, as presented by Anthony Alioto in my Philosophy of Revolution class at Columbia College.

What is Revolution? Some maintain that is it a new change, a return to an older system. Others maintain that is a clean break with the past. Many revolutionary leaders have taken the second view.

It is necessary to distinguish rebellion from revolution. Rebellion is remembered as an event within a system, while revolution fundamentally changes the system. A paradigm shift, if you will.

6 Traits common to revolutions:

1. The Idea and the faith in it.
   • i.e. the sun is the center of the system.
   • from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.
2. The faith is first held in the minds of the intellectuals and it sounds almost like a religious faith.
   • Marx
   • Galileo
3. Simple message and slogans - the revolution spreads through effective propaganda.
   • Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
   • Peace, Land, Bread
   • Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to loose but your chains and the whole world to gain!
4. Heavy use of symbols
   • Fire - burns the old system away and provides the energy for the new system. There is a bit of the phoenix myth present here.
   • The circle - used in the revolutions that talk about bringing about a return to the old utopia.
5. The Prometheus myth - the primal act of throwing off the unjust authority.
   • Prometheus brought fire from the gods to man. This was against the will of the gods and Prometheus was eternally punished for this.
6. The Pythagoras myth - a secret society of revolutionaries. They alone see the reality beneath the surface.
   • Smoke filled rooms filled with men discussing the needs of the revolution

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Henry Imler May 23rd, 2006

Scotsman.com News - International - Creationism dismissed as ‘a kind of paganism’ by Vatican’s astronomer

BELIEVING that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday.  Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.

He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because it harked back to the days of "nature gods" who were responsible for natural events.

Well said. Religion and science are not opposed to each other. Science helps us learn about the phenomenumenal world and religion talks about the noumenal world. To quote Sir William Bragg:

Religion and science are opposed … but only in the same sense as that in which my thumb and forefinger are opposed - and between the two, one can grasp everything.

P.S. This post was cross-posted at Hundie Jo dot com and the Mass Theology.

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