March 5, 2010
Category: Mathematics
From Yahoo News:
To shed light on why humans often fall short of the best strategy with this kind of problem, scientists investigated pigeons, which often perform quite impressively on tasks requiring them to estimate relative probabilities, in some cases eclipsing human performance. Other animals do not always share the same biases as people, and therefore might help provide explanations for our behavior.
Scientists tested six pigeons with an apparatus with three keys. The keys lit up white to show a prize was available. After the birds pecked a key, one of the keys the bird did not choose deactivated, showing it was a wrong choice, and the other two lit up green. The pigeons were rewarded with bird feed if they made the right choice.
In the experiments, the birds quickly reached the best strategy for the Monty Hall problem - going from switching roughly 36 percent of the time on day one to some 96 percent of the time on day 30.
On the other hand, 12 undergraduate student volunteers failed to adopt the best strategy with a similar apparatus, even after 200 trials of practice each.
It is a pity I did not have this paper in time for the big book. It would have been perfect!
The 12 undergraduates described here seem to have performed exceptionally badly. Other such experiments have shown higher rates of people learning the correct solution after repeated trials, as I describe in Chapter Six of the book. Still, ninety-six percent is pretty impressive.
The technical paper, published in The Journal of Comparative Psychology, has been printed out and is now sitting on my desk. Now to find time to read it!
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:10 PM • 1 Comments
March 4, 2010
Category: Religion
Before leaving behind Denis Lamoureux's book I Love Jesus and I Accept Evolution, there is one lengthy excerpt I would like to present. If I presented only a small portion of this you would think I was taking it out of context. If I paraphrased it you would not believe me. I will simply have to present the whole thing, as a painful illustration of the sheer depths to which special pleading can aspire.
Here is Lamoureux's explanation of why God of love would do his creating through a cruel and wasteful process like evolution. I promise you I am not making this up.
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 8:15 PM • 27 Comments
Category:
In my recent post on Interpreting Genesis, one of the commenters suggested to me the writing of Denis Lamoureux as a good example of defending a non-literal interpretation of Genesis. A quick visit to Amazon revealed that his big book on this subject, Evolutionary Creation, was over four hundred pages long and was quite expensive. Happily, last year Lamoureux, who is a professor of science and religion at the University of Alberta and holds doctoral degrees in dentistry, theology and biology, published a Cliff's Notes version of his book called I Love Jesus and I Accept Evolution. I purchased a copy and have now read it.
Short Review: I don't think I'll be reading the longer version. Lamoureux's arguments are very unconvincing.
Longer review below the fold.
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:28 PM • 8 Comments
February 24, 2010
Category: Evolution
Browsing through Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth the other day I came across the following sentence: “The slow drifting apart of South America and Africa is now an established fact in the ordinary language sense of `fact', and so is our common ancestry with porcupines and pomegranates.” Elsewhere, in a discussion of human breeding efforts, Dawkins refers to “cows, cabbages and corn.”
I know I have seen this sort of thing many times before. That is, using alliterative organism names to make some point about universal common descent. Here's another example, this time from YEC Don Batten: “Do accidental copying mistakes add the complex genetic information needed to transform microbes into mollusks, mites, mangoes, magpies and mandkind?” This is from his contribution to the YEC anthology, In Six Days: Why 50 Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation.
I'd like to collect as many instances of this as I can, both from evolutionists and creationists. If you know of any good (or not so good) examples, no matter how obscure, let me know. Thanks!
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:43 PM • 25 Comments
February 18, 2010
Category: Religion
Via Jerry Coyne I came across this essay regarding the interpretation of Genesis. (Click here for Part One of the essay.)
The article is by Kenton Sparks, a professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University. His argument will be entirely familiar to connoisseurs of this issue. The Bible, you see, was never intended to teach us science. Augustine and Calvin understood that if the Bible conflicts with well-established scientific truths, then it is our understanding of scripture that must yield. Modern creationists err in treating Genesis like a science textbook, and would do better to adopt the attitude of Augustine and Calvin..
The “Genesis is not a science book” canard is one of the more annoying cliches of this genre. As a way of salvaging any notion of the inerrancy of scripture it falls short. It also represents a serious misunderstanding of how YEC's view the matter.
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:56 PM • 238 Comments
February 9, 2010
Category: Anti-Creationism
Writing in the religious journal First Things University of Delaware physics professor Stephen Barr lays into the ID Movement. Here's the first paragraph:
It is time to take stock: What has the intelligent design movement achieved? As science, nothing. The goal of science is to increase our understanding of the natural world, and there is not a single phenomenon that we understand better today or are likely to understand better in the future through the efforts of ID theorists. If we are to look for ID achievements, then, it must be in the realm of natural theology. And there, I think, the movement must be judged not only a failure, but a debacle.
Preach it, brother!
Sadly, much of what comes after this most excellent opening is not very persuasive. Let us take a more detailed look:
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:03 PM • 109 Comments
February 8, 2010
Category: Religion
I am currently reading the book Believers: A Journey into Evangelical America by Jeffery Sheler, published in 2006. There is a chapter about Wheaton College in Illinois, which is generally considered one of the best, if not the best, evangelical college in the nation. Sheler recounts part of a conversation he had with Dorothy Chappell, dean of natural and social sciences.
“Our students are recognized as among the best,” she said. “That must say something about our program. We don't teach Christian science here. We teach science, period. It's the same science as the University of Illinois teaches, or the University of Chicago.”
Sounds good, but things soon start getting weird.
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 12:21 AM • 49 Comments
February 4, 2010
Category: Religion • Science
In a couple of recent posts I have mentioned the book Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion edited by Ronald Numbers. Since I have now finished reading it, I figure it is time for a proper review.
Short review: Mixed. As a compendium of interesting facts about the history of science and religion the book works rather well. The myth/reality format, however, is not always successful.
Longer review below the fold.
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 8:15 PM • 28 Comments
February 1, 2010
Category: Evolution • Religion
Blogging will continue to be sporadic for a while, sorry about that. But having dragged myself down to Washington D.C. last weekend to see the new movie Creation, I figured I should at least get a blog post out of it.
Short review: Excellent! Completely engrossing, and historically accurate on the important things.
Longer review, and minor spoilers, below the fold.
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:45 PM • 59 Comments
January 22, 2010
Category: Religion • Science
Here's a quote from the book Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion:
In Augustine's influential view, then, knowledge of the things of this world is not a legitimate end in itself, but as a means to other ends it is indispensable. The classical sciences must accept a subordinate position as the handmaiden of theology and religion -- the temporal serving the eternal. The knowledge contained in classical sciences is not to be loved, but it may legitimately be used. This attitude toward scientific knowledge cam to prevail throughout the Middle Ages and survived well into the modern period. Augustine's handmaiden science was defended explicitly and at great length, for example, by Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century, whose defense of useful knowledge contributed to notoriety as one of the founders of experimental science.
That's historian David Lindberg. For the record, the “myth” he was addressing was, “That the Rise of Christianity was Responsible for the Demise of Ancient Science.” But that's not really what interests me about this.
Read on »
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:52 PM • 50 Comments
