I hate christmas music. Especially that song where that guy sings "and my eyes light up like a christmas tree!!" I really hate that song. I also hate all the fascistic whining by christians about the use of "Happy Holidays." I hate when my uncle conflates Al Gore with some psychotic leftwinger who wants to sterilize herself. "Scientists thought the world was flat, but they were wrong" is not a valid statement.
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place
via FoxyTunes
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
My Top 10 Favourite Albums, Evar
10. Pulp - Different Class
9. Massive Attack - Mezzanine
8. Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
7. Pixies - Dolittle
6. Radiohead - Kid A
5. The Beatles - The White Album
4. Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right To The Children
3. John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band
2. Radiohead - In Rainbows
1. Radiohead - OK Computer
Honorable Mentions: Plaid - Double Figure, Nirvana - Nevermind, NOFX - The Decline, Downtempo, Shoegaze, Glitch Electronica.
9. Massive Attack - Mezzanine
8. Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
7. Pixies - Dolittle
6. Radiohead - Kid A
5. The Beatles - The White Album
4. Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right To The Children
3. John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band
2. Radiohead - In Rainbows
1. Radiohead - OK Computer
Honorable Mentions: Plaid - Double Figure, Nirvana - Nevermind, NOFX - The Decline, Downtempo, Shoegaze, Glitch Electronica.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
An Open Letter to "Father" Jonathan Morris
Jonathan Morris-
I have to say, I am a bit tired of your - and the Pope's, in his recent encyclical - classification of Hitler as an atheist.
First of all, Stalin and Mao, as well and Marx himself, were certainly atheists. I would not go as far as to say that Stalin and Mao are in any way representative of atheism (since atheism, in itself, espouses no doctrine) or even Marxism, but I will grant that they were atheists, that they did commit atrocities. You're right that this fact should not be pushed aside by atheists, and I myself find it troubling. It shows that atheism, in itself, is not a cure-all for irrationality, and it shows that atheism should not be the central focus of the so-called "New Atheism." I would suggest that, Mirroring the multitude of theistic religions, there are a number of non-theistic "religious ideaologies" ranging from benign new-age spiritualism, to dangerous personality cults and non-theistic millennial belief structures, like Marxism. It is clear from reading their books that authors like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or Christopher Hitchens do not espouse a thoughtless atheism. The atheism they profess is not a profession at all. It is simply the rational result of scientific skepticism. Scientific skepticism requires that all beliefs and prejudices be rigorously scrutinized. Proper beliefs are those based on evidence; beliefs that do not withstands scrutiny are either discarded or placed in limbo until new evidence is available. Very few people are entirely immune to prejudices, but scientific skepticism, as a system is. It is the only cure for for violent irrationality, religious or secular. This is why Christopher Hitchens is so fond of saying that it would be impossible to find a totalitarian state based on the precepts of people like Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, or Spinoza. Regardless, to many observers, it may seem that the central point of the "New Atheist" movement is the promotion of atheism. The existence of monsters like Stalin and Mao suggests to me that the "New-Atheists" should attempt to focus more on the promotion of reason, evidence, and scientific skepticism.
Now on to Hitler. Hitler murdered several million people, and certainly his blight on history raises many questions about human nature, about what it takes for a person to have so little regard for human life. That being true, his world view is of interest to everybody. It would be interesting to know what made Hitler tick, what aspects of his life drove him to do what he did. Since we can't posthumously psychoanalyze the man, most of this will always be a mystery. Barring actual quotations, any serious attempt to draw lines of causality between any aspect of his world view and his is actions futile. So even if Hitler were an atheist, there would be no reason to think this had any bearing on his decision to do what he did - unless he explicitly said so. At any rate, there is no evidence to suggest that Hitler was even an atheist and thus no evidence to suggest that his atheism led him to commit atrocities. The only evidence we have of Hitler's anti-Christian sentiment comes from one source called Table Talk. In it, Hitler is alleged to have said things like "Christianity is an invention of sick brains" and "The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death." These quotes do not suggest atheism and, while they seem to be anti-Christian, the rest of Table Talk suggests that by "Christianity" Hitler meant the Catholic Church, as evidenced here:
Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism the destroyer. Nevertheless, the Galilean, who later was called Christ, intended something quite different. He must be regarded as a popular leader who took up His position against Jewry. Galilee was a colony where the Romans had probably installed Gallic legionaries, and it's certain that Jesus was not a Jew. The Jews, by the way, regarded Him as the son of a whore-- of a whore and a Roman soldier. The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St. Paul. He gave himself to this work with subtlety and for purposes of personal exploitation. For the Galiean's object was to liberate His country from Jewish oppression. He set Himself against Jewish capitalism, and that's why the Jews liquidated Him. -Hitler [Table-Talk, p. 76]
You and the Catholic Church may wish to equate all opposing viewpoints with "heresy" and "atheism," a tradition that may be as old as the church itself, but wishing does not make it so. Non-Christian does not equal atheist, nor does Non-Catholic. As it turns out, while Hitler remained recognized as a Roman Catholic throughout his life, his actual belief system seems to have been some sort of synthesis of racist Aryan nationalism and, in very broad terms, Christianity. Even in Table Talk, the book used to "prove" Hitler was an atheist, Hitler expresses a form of Christianity, and an admiration for a fellow anti-Semite, Martin Luther. As the previous passage suggests, He contrasts Catholicism, which he sees as being related to Judaism and Bolshevism, with his conception of "true" Christianity, saying "Christ was an Aryan, and St. Paul used his doctrine to mobilise the criminal underworld and thus organise a proto-Bolsevism." He continues, saying "Luther had the merit of rising against the Pope and the organisation of the Church. It was the first of the great revolutions. And thanks to his translation of the Bible, Luther replaced our dialects by the great German language!" This may not be the Christianity that you subscribe to, but Christ was certainly a central figure for Hitler.
In Table Talks, Hitler even denounces atheism:
"We don't want to educate anyone in atheism." Table-Talk [p. 6]
"An uneducated man, on the other hand, runs the risk of going over to atheism (which is a return to the state of the animal)..." Table-Talk [p. 59]
I must reiterate that this is the source that apologists always refer to when attempting to prove that Hitler was an atheist. Outside of Table Talk, we see much of the same - though, without the explicit anti-catholic proclamations. The Nazis espoused a sort of non-denominational Christianity termed "Positive Christianity," and Hitler styled his public image as a sort of vigilante for Christ. In Mein Kampf he writes, ""The folkish minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's words be desecrated." He expresses this sentiment again:
"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
and again:
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people."
So please, get your facts straight. Hitler was not an atheist and he certainly was not a scientific skeptic. He was a true believer, just like Osama Bin Laden, the pope, and, at least in that regard, yourself. His irrational beliefs in nationalism, in racialism, and in his position as a fighter for god were, if not the cause, enablers that he used to justify his vile actions.
In reason,
Sean Bernhoft
I have to say, I am a bit tired of your - and the Pope's, in his recent encyclical - classification of Hitler as an atheist.
First of all, Stalin and Mao, as well and Marx himself, were certainly atheists. I would not go as far as to say that Stalin and Mao are in any way representative of atheism (since atheism, in itself, espouses no doctrine) or even Marxism, but I will grant that they were atheists, that they did commit atrocities. You're right that this fact should not be pushed aside by atheists, and I myself find it troubling. It shows that atheism, in itself, is not a cure-all for irrationality, and it shows that atheism should not be the central focus of the so-called "New Atheism." I would suggest that, Mirroring the multitude of theistic religions, there are a number of non-theistic "religious ideaologies" ranging from benign new-age spiritualism, to dangerous personality cults and non-theistic millennial belief structures, like Marxism. It is clear from reading their books that authors like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or Christopher Hitchens do not espouse a thoughtless atheism. The atheism they profess is not a profession at all. It is simply the rational result of scientific skepticism. Scientific skepticism requires that all beliefs and prejudices be rigorously scrutinized. Proper beliefs are those based on evidence; beliefs that do not withstands scrutiny are either discarded or placed in limbo until new evidence is available. Very few people are entirely immune to prejudices, but scientific skepticism, as a system is. It is the only cure for for violent irrationality, religious or secular. This is why Christopher Hitchens is so fond of saying that it would be impossible to find a totalitarian state based on the precepts of people like Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, or Spinoza. Regardless, to many observers, it may seem that the central point of the "New Atheist" movement is the promotion of atheism. The existence of monsters like Stalin and Mao suggests to me that the "New-Atheists" should attempt to focus more on the promotion of reason, evidence, and scientific skepticism.
Now on to Hitler. Hitler murdered several million people, and certainly his blight on history raises many questions about human nature, about what it takes for a person to have so little regard for human life. That being true, his world view is of interest to everybody. It would be interesting to know what made Hitler tick, what aspects of his life drove him to do what he did. Since we can't posthumously psychoanalyze the man, most of this will always be a mystery. Barring actual quotations, any serious attempt to draw lines of causality between any aspect of his world view and his is actions futile. So even if Hitler were an atheist, there would be no reason to think this had any bearing on his decision to do what he did - unless he explicitly said so. At any rate, there is no evidence to suggest that Hitler was even an atheist and thus no evidence to suggest that his atheism led him to commit atrocities. The only evidence we have of Hitler's anti-Christian sentiment comes from one source called Table Talk. In it, Hitler is alleged to have said things like "Christianity is an invention of sick brains" and "The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death." These quotes do not suggest atheism and, while they seem to be anti-Christian, the rest of Table Talk suggests that by "Christianity" Hitler meant the Catholic Church, as evidenced here:
Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism the destroyer. Nevertheless, the Galilean, who later was called Christ, intended something quite different. He must be regarded as a popular leader who took up His position against Jewry. Galilee was a colony where the Romans had probably installed Gallic legionaries, and it's certain that Jesus was not a Jew. The Jews, by the way, regarded Him as the son of a whore-- of a whore and a Roman soldier. The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St. Paul. He gave himself to this work with subtlety and for purposes of personal exploitation. For the Galiean's object was to liberate His country from Jewish oppression. He set Himself against Jewish capitalism, and that's why the Jews liquidated Him. -Hitler [Table-Talk, p. 76]
You and the Catholic Church may wish to equate all opposing viewpoints with "heresy" and "atheism," a tradition that may be as old as the church itself, but wishing does not make it so. Non-Christian does not equal atheist, nor does Non-Catholic. As it turns out, while Hitler remained recognized as a Roman Catholic throughout his life, his actual belief system seems to have been some sort of synthesis of racist Aryan nationalism and, in very broad terms, Christianity. Even in Table Talk, the book used to "prove" Hitler was an atheist, Hitler expresses a form of Christianity, and an admiration for a fellow anti-Semite, Martin Luther. As the previous passage suggests, He contrasts Catholicism, which he sees as being related to Judaism and Bolshevism, with his conception of "true" Christianity, saying "Christ was an Aryan, and St. Paul used his doctrine to mobilise the criminal underworld and thus organise a proto-Bolsevism." He continues, saying "Luther had the merit of rising against the Pope and the organisation of the Church. It was the first of the great revolutions. And thanks to his translation of the Bible, Luther replaced our dialects by the great German language!" This may not be the Christianity that you subscribe to, but Christ was certainly a central figure for Hitler.
In Table Talks, Hitler even denounces atheism:
"We don't want to educate anyone in atheism." Table-Talk [p. 6]
"An uneducated man, on the other hand, runs the risk of going over to atheism (which is a return to the state of the animal)..." Table-Talk [p. 59]
I must reiterate that this is the source that apologists always refer to when attempting to prove that Hitler was an atheist. Outside of Table Talk, we see much of the same - though, without the explicit anti-catholic proclamations. The Nazis espoused a sort of non-denominational Christianity termed "Positive Christianity," and Hitler styled his public image as a sort of vigilante for Christ. In Mein Kampf he writes, ""The folkish minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's words be desecrated." He expresses this sentiment again:
"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
and again:
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people."
So please, get your facts straight. Hitler was not an atheist and he certainly was not a scientific skeptic. He was a true believer, just like Osama Bin Laden, the pope, and, at least in that regard, yourself. His irrational beliefs in nationalism, in racialism, and in his position as a fighter for god were, if not the cause, enablers that he used to justify his vile actions.
In reason,
Sean Bernhoft
Monday, December 10, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Of Beavers and Other Aquatic Mammals
I find the transition of animals from terrestrial to aquatic to be absolutely fascinating. At first it seems impossible - how could a land mammal evolve into a massive blue whale? Far from impossible, this has actually happened more than once - in at least 4 independent occasions! Whales evolved from hooved, wolf-like predators. Dewgongs and Manatees are most closely related to elephants. Pinnipeds(seals) are most closely related to Bears, and evolved from some carnivorous proto-bear. Lastly, otters have evolved from from proto-weasels - while remaining nearly physiologically identitcal to weasels!
Beavers, a semi-aquatic rodent, are also way sweet. They are second only to humans in the extensiveness of their terra-forming. They live in complex lodges, in ponds tailored to their liking. A lot of what they do is very instinctual - running water triggers an instinct to create dams, which can also be stimulted by the mere sound of running water - experimenters have found that they will pile sticks around speakers emitting said sounds. Man, I wish I was a beaver.
Here is an artists rendition of some proto-whales:
pakicetus.
ambulocetus.
kutchicetus.
rodhocetus.
basilosuarus(this name is a misnomer, as the fossils were originally/erroneously thought to belong to an aquatic reptile).
I think the rest of the steps can be easily imagined.
Beavers, a semi-aquatic rodent, are also way sweet. They are second only to humans in the extensiveness of their terra-forming. They live in complex lodges, in ponds tailored to their liking. A lot of what they do is very instinctual - running water triggers an instinct to create dams, which can also be stimulted by the mere sound of running water - experimenters have found that they will pile sticks around speakers emitting said sounds. Man, I wish I was a beaver.
Here is an artists rendition of some proto-whales:
pakicetus.
ambulocetus.
kutchicetus.
rodhocetus.
basilosuarus(this name is a misnomer, as the fossils were originally/erroneously thought to belong to an aquatic reptile).
I think the rest of the steps can be easily imagined.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Matthew Kirchner
There is a guy who writes for he 49er at my school, who is probably completely insane.
His contributions can be found here.
Read them for a laugh. The article on "god given torture" is particularly confused.
His contributions can be found here.
Read them for a laugh. The article on "god given torture" is particularly confused.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Anthem
I read Anthem, by Ayn Rand today. It was ok, but it was also sort of shite. In the words of Jim Callahan (of Phenomenon fame), I think Ayn Rand is something of "ideological bigot." I do find the individuality thing, and the self, and freedom, quite appealing - but I do think there is room there for empathy, and a sense of "We"-ness (Not to mention, self-interest tends not to be rational, and the Ego has wreaked plenty of havoc on others). I much prefer "Harrison Bergeron"(sp?), We, 1984, and Brave New World. But still, it was pretty good - and, as an added bonus, I now know exactly where one of the quotes from Arthur's profile comes from.
Anyway. I like reading, I should do it more often. I read Anthem in a few hours, while hanging out at Starbucks(fitting, I know). I also started to read the Crying of Lot 49, which I am unsure about. It seems like it might be good, but it took a while to get into the rhythm of the writing. There was a weird sex scene.
I'm not very excited to go to school tomorrow.
Anyway. I like reading, I should do it more often. I read Anthem in a few hours, while hanging out at Starbucks(fitting, I know). I also started to read the Crying of Lot 49, which I am unsure about. It seems like it might be good, but it took a while to get into the rhythm of the writing. There was a weird sex scene.
I'm not very excited to go to school tomorrow.
Being an atheist...
is boring. So, i've decided to convert to Mormonism. Soda is bad for a person anyway, and I always wanted to go to Utah.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
The Sentence Game
The "Sentence Game" (also known as "Eat Poop You Cat"), is like the game "Telephone," except on the internets. One person writes a sentence, and another person draws a picture of the sentence. The next person has to write a sentence based solely on the previous picture, and so on. Much fun ensues.
edit: source images are gone. Bah. But seriously, it is a fun game.
edit: source images are gone. Bah. But seriously, it is a fun game.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
In Rainbows review
I wrote this for the student newspaper, but it didn't get printed. I'm a fan boy.
Radiohead
In Rainbows
9.8
For many fans, waiting for a new Radiohead album is like being a seven year old on Christmas Eve, with the anticipation stretched across nearly five years. For the most obsessive fans, this interim period marks a distinct chapter in life, making the stakes high and leaving a lot of room for disappointment. Fortunately, Radiohead’s In Rainbows does not disappoint.
Rainbows starts off with a bang, as Radiohead albums do. “15 Step” is Radiohead at their most joyful, its combination of tribal beats and Jonny Greenwood’s subtle but melodious guitar line make this track infectious. Next comes “Bodysnatchers,” a relentless interplay of scathing guitars growl while Thom Yorke’s urgent, paranoid vocals struggle to assert that “he’s alive,” that he’s “seen them coming.” This song will literally push you backwards
After “Bodysnatchers,” the mood of the album changes dramatically in the direction of masterfully crafted and intimate beauty that is simultaneously sparse and lush. Yorke’s delicate vocals on “Nude” and “Arpeggi’s” slow-burning drive will trigger your endorphins and send shivers down your spine. The crescendo of “All I Need” is exceptionally strong, even for Radiohead who has made a living off of unconventional rising song structures.
There are two wholly new songs on Rainbows and both tracks stand out. “Faust Arp” is a mesmerizing two minutes reminiscent of Elliott Smith or even the Beatle’s “Julia.” “Reckoner” contains some of Yorke’s most impressive falsetto, beautiful orchestration, and a hypnotic guitar line. It is a fan favorite and one of the Radiohead’s most impressive moments.
The weakest track on Rainbows is “House of Cards,” a reggae influenced pop song which drones on for too long and drenches Yorke’s otherwise pristine vocals in heaps of reverb. But where “House of Cards” falters, “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” triumphs. This rock song, though tamer than “Bodysnatchers,” rounds out the album nicely. At the climax, Yorke’s voice and his intriguing lyrics switch from collected to clamorous, leading into the haunting funeral dirge that is “Videotape.”
“Videotape,” though different from the lauded live version, perfectly encapsulates the mood of the entire album: best likened to reconnecting with an old friend, or recalling a lost loved one. The experience doesn’t always line up with your expectations, but it is warm and pleasant with a tinge of sadness. Rainbows represents Radiohead’s strongest collection of songs since OK Computer, and their most cohesive album since Kid A.
I have an Idea...
For a science-fiction book, and I want everyones opinions. But, I don't want to publish it here, lest a more ambitious man than I beats me to it. Ask me about it, and I will tell you. Feedback = love.
this word document was titled "werwerwer!"
If I didn't BS my papers at the last minute, they could be so much better...
Sean Bernhoft
Dr. Lee Salinas
Personality and Social Behaviors
Normative and Informative Social Influences are a Threat to Science and Reason
As a materialist and a soft determinist, I am of the persuasion that all aspects of both men and women are essentially a function of the physical world. Genes – replicators that dictate our height, skin color, eye color, mental predispositions, and virtually all traits besides those that rely directly on environmental factors – are chosen for us by Darwinian natural selection. Basically, everything about the human species is determined by the environment. Every choice anyone ever makes relies on the gray brain matter that makes that choice; every choice anyone ever makes is the causal result of a purely physical factor. That being true, it is no surprise that the way people behave relies heavily on example. Normative influences, which is essentially the need to “fit in” to social in groups, and Informational social influences, which is the tendency to behave like those who we believe have authority, shape much of the behavior of the human animal. Humans – through natural selection – have the genetic predisposition to seek the familial comfort of in-groups, and to give credence to authoritarian figures. These can be explained simply enough: as Richard Dawkins, naturalist and author of The Selfish Gene, put it, young children who test the hypothesis “do not swim in the crocodile infested water” do not contribute often to the gene pool, while the former can be explained through the reproductive benefit of kin reciprocity. While these traits have their uses (I concede that the human would be an entirely different animal without them), I would like to show that, through the use of personal and second hand examples of informational and normative social pressures, a different evolved capacity is more important to the survival of the human species in the modern age: Reason.
Normative social influence, as explained above, is the tendency for people to conform to the norms of their social groups. For instance, and American would tend to do American things: they wear American clothes, they eat American food, they adopt an American religion, and everyone knows that it is “American” to hate the French. This is all well and fine for benign things, like wearing certain clothes or eating certain foods, but these sorts of in-group traits provide the differences required to create xenophobia and out-group hostility. I have seen examples of this in my own life. To explain, when I was growing up, the group that I fell into was a family group. To become a Bernhoft, I had to do the things that other Bernhofts Did. I adopted the religion of my family, I spoke like my family, and I defined myself in the terms of my family. I grew up in white-bread conservative
The difference between normative influences and informational ones is subtle, but there is a difference. Informational influences are influences on human behavior by people who are assumed to know the right way to do things, in other words, it is an appeal to authority. For an example of this, I needn’t look further than the experience of dining at a fancy restaurant as a young child. Since, to the untrained eye, the etiquette of dining is at best confusing at worst absurd, the only good way to determine which fork is meant for salad is to learn by example. To solve this dining dilemma, rather than look to my sister or my cousin, I would look to the person of authority, namely, my parents. While I could rail on about not only the absurdity but the implications of “etiquette” (it really is nothing more than a haughty attempt by the privileged to separate themselves from the have-nots), the problem with informational social influences and appeal to authority is much more dire. The fact is, that people do not deserve to be emulated simply because they have an air of authority. Authority and respect ought to be earned, and the consequences of following suit just because you think someone has a authority can be grim. The common defense for war criminals of Nazi Germany is: “I was just following orders.” Ideally, every action taken should be the result deliberation and the weighing of evidence.
To conclude, normative and informational social influences had their time and place, but it is not hear and it isn’t now. As rational beings, we have a responsibility to marginalize these influences on ourselves, and to make decisions based on evidence. Otherwise, we will be easily controlled (for good or evil), and we will remain mired with hatred and divisiveness.
Intelligent Design
I wrote this a while ago, in response to a friend on the internets:
As far as Intelligent Design goes, I wouldn't be so sure about what can and cannot happen as a result of natural processes. Just because it seems like something has a low probability of happening doesn't mean there has to be a designer. It is a damn big universe, and as far as we know earth is the only planet with life on it. Creation “scientists” like to throw around figures about the vast unlikelihood of life to form at random as “evidence” for a designer. Sure our existence is unlikely, but there is a lot of room for error when a galaxy contains billions of stars, each with its own planetary systems. We're the lucky ones. To say that our unlikely existence must be the result of a designer is kin to saying that every time a man or woman is dealt a royal flush, the dealer must have stacked the deck. For every time a royal flush is dealt, there is something around 649,749 hands that aren't royal flushes. I don't know what the odds of life developing on a planet and evolving into human beings are, but it is very likely that there are enough dead planets to accommodate without the intervention of any sort of divine being. Let’s look at the facts: The Milky Way galaxy alone has 200-400 billion stars. We'll say the average number of planets around each star is nine, since that is how many there are around the Sun, which is an average sized star. That means there is something like 1.8-3.6 trillion planets. So the earth is one planet out of something like 1,800,000,000,000-3,600,000,000,000 planets all of which are part of one galaxy (and there are many, many more galaxies) that is 13.6 billion years old, and it happened to be one out of however many billion that had all the conditions necessary for life. Four some-odd billion years ago, the earliest life forms, or proto-life forms, devloped and there has been a snowballing effect ever since. Jackpot. One mustn't underestimate the power of a long time line and a whole lot of variables.
I'm no scientist, so lots of estimation. I think it gets the point across, though. I thought poker was a good analogy.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Hello, World
I started this blog because I wanted to be cool like Alan, Susan, and Roy. I would also like to tell you all a story about myself:
I think that tests and exams should be tools to gauge how much a person knows, so I am generally opposed to teacher-sanctioned "cheat sheets." Usually when a cheat sheet is allowed, I engage in silent protest by not making one. On one particular occasion, in my high school chemistry class, a teacher of mine, Mr. Camiling, attempted to force everyone to create a one page cheat sheet by allotting class time for that specific purpose.
Being a principled person, I refused to create a cheat sheet for myself and wrote myself a letter instead. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the letter. On the day we created it, we had to turn our cheat sheets in to Mr. Camiling. He passed them back out on the day of the test and collected them when we were finished. From what I recall, it was addressed to "Sean on the day of the final" and signed "Sean from two weeks ago."
I filled a page front and back explaining to myself how I thought tests should test your knowledge, not what you can copy from the book. I apologized to myself in case I had had a change of heart, and reassured myself that I would do well. I hoped for my sake that I had studied. In The end, I am pretty sure I aced the test.
At the time, I thought this was the most hilarious thing ever. I still think it is pretty damn funny.
I think that tests and exams should be tools to gauge how much a person knows, so I am generally opposed to teacher-sanctioned "cheat sheets." Usually when a cheat sheet is allowed, I engage in silent protest by not making one. On one particular occasion, in my high school chemistry class, a teacher of mine, Mr. Camiling, attempted to force everyone to create a one page cheat sheet by allotting class time for that specific purpose.
Being a principled person, I refused to create a cheat sheet for myself and wrote myself a letter instead. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the letter. On the day we created it, we had to turn our cheat sheets in to Mr. Camiling. He passed them back out on the day of the test and collected them when we were finished. From what I recall, it was addressed to "Sean on the day of the final" and signed "Sean from two weeks ago."
I filled a page front and back explaining to myself how I thought tests should test your knowledge, not what you can copy from the book. I apologized to myself in case I had had a change of heart, and reassured myself that I would do well. I hoped for my sake that I had studied. In The end, I am pretty sure I aced the test.
At the time, I thought this was the most hilarious thing ever. I still think it is pretty damn funny.
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