Month: September 2014

Neil deGrasse Tyson doubles down

By Dad

On Tuesday, September 30, 2014

I recently wrote about Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “selective misremembering” of quotes to support some of the pseudo-facts he regularly tries to foist on an oblivious public. He got called out on it in a couple of articles at the Federalist, but instead of acknowledging his error, he decided it was a good idea to double down with additional foolishness. The latest chapter in this continuing saga is chronicled over at the Christian Post in a great little article explaining that he absolutely remembers hearing the quote and even wrote it down at the time, but there is no record anywhere nor does Tyson produce any evidence. Here is a good quote that describes this particular abuse.

Jonathan Alder, Johan Verheij memorial professor of law and director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation at Case Western University School of Law, has been writing about the controversy for The Washington Post blog The Volokh Conspiracy, and described the situation this way: “What is really so ‘mysterious’ is why Tyson finds it so difficult to confess error and pretends that Bush’s 2003 remarks were only just-now discovered. … Yet if this is the source of the quote, then nearly everything else Tyson claimed about it and its significance is false (as is the account of the quote’s provenance he gave last night).”

He has not apologized yet for this particular offense, but is “looking for a good medium & occasion.” If he ever gets around to it, maybe then he can start on some of the other ones described so helpfully in the Federalist article.

Betty Blonde #174 – 03/17/2009

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Be wary of Biology professors at University of Washington if the rest of them are anything like this guy

By Dad

On Monday, September 29, 2014

In Christianity, Education

Commie professor alert!* I just sent Kelly (UW graduate student) a note that said, “http://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2014/09/david-barash-speaking-with-authority-on-what-he-knows-next-to-nothing-about/ — Don’t take Biology at UW. You might get that guy.”

She wrote back and said, and I quote exactly, “ha ha i won’t” with precisely that punctuation and capitalization.

I fear for the reputation of the graduate schools at UW. While there is a certain amount of hipness associated with IM’ing people with little regard for grammatical convention, I do not get why people like the good Biology professor do not realize how foolish they look (and actually are) in making outdated, absurd, discredited philosophical, historical, and theological statements outside their area of expertise. Tom Gilson over at ThinkingChristian explains in painstaking detail (see the linked article) why this is so ridiculous. It seems like it has reached epidemic levels amongst atheists credentialed in one area (Biology, Physics, Zoology) and an abysmal lack of knowledge and training in the areas on which they are opining (Philosophy, History, Theology). Here is a snippet, but I recommend you read the whole thing. And while you are out it check out the blog; there is always something interesting going on there, too.

In his Talk, [David Barash] also says,

Adding to religion’s current intellectual instability is a third consequence of evolutionary insights: a powerful critique of theodicy, the scholarly effort to reconcile belief in an omnipresent, omni-benevolent God with the fact of unmerited suffering…. The more we know of evolution, the more unavoidable is the conclusion that living things, including human beings, are produced by a natural, totally amoral process, with no indication of a benevolent, controlling creator.

He does not say, “I have observed and reflected on animal pain and death as a biologist, so therefore I am qualified theologically to pronounce every explanation for the goodness of God to be inadequate.”

*Just kidding. I WISH that guy was at UW or ASU. I would have a ton more interesting material if he was. On the other hand, Lawrence Krauss of ASU got his hat handed to him in debate with William Lane Craig at NCSU for much the same reason that David Barash has clowned himself, so maybe there is hope for good material at the kids’ new schools.

Tom Cornsweet

By Dad

On Monday, September 29, 2014

In Science, Technology, Work

The chief scientist at my current job is a really nice guy named Tom Cornsweet who has spent a very long career studying human vision and developing tools to measure and analyze it. You can see his Wikipedia page here and a visual effect named after him called the Cornsweet Illusion here. A couple of days ago he lent me the seminal text book he wrote titled Visual Perception. The copyright date was 1970 and Tom says that, of course, technology and understanding have moved on since then, but it still provides a pretty good description of what we know about how people see. I am really looking forward to reading it. Visual Perception by Tom Cornsweet I work closely with Tom as part of a team that is implementing his “vision” of an instrument to help ophthalmologists and optometrists do their work better. It is a joy to work with him and I am learning a lot about how humans do the things I have spent my career trying to do inside computers.

Betty Blonde #173 – 03/16/2009

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Grandma Conchita gets on the plane in Monterrey

By Dad

On Saturday, September 27, 2014

Grandma Conchita goes to North Carolina Tio Lauro checks Grandma Conchita in at the airport in Monterrey. She arrives tonight to stay with us in Raleigh until the end of the year. We are very thankful she can come.

Grad school and homeschool are about learning. Traditional high school and undergraduate degrees are about grades.

By Dad

On Saturday, September 27, 2014

The kids made the transition from homeschool to community college four years ago, then on to big state university two years after that. We are now engaged in an on-going conversation about the differences between their undergraduate work and the work they have been given in their first year of graduate school. We are slowly arriving at the conclusion that the types of focus and goals of their graduate school work is much more similar to their homeschool experience than to their undergraduate school experience.

It seems like the goal of the community college and big state U is to give a common set of instructions and work requirements to all the students with grades as a way to determine whether any of it stuck. It is easy to understand why it is done that way. Almost everyone who gets an undergraduate degree has a common core of material they have to learn, then within disciplines there is another big chunk of classes all the students have to take, so it would be nigh unto impossible to deliver those classes in any other way in a traditional college/university setting.

The difference between that and homeschool/grad school is that there are usually one or two individuals ready, willing, and even desirous to tailor the materials for each individual student to a specific end. In the case of the grad students it is his major professor. For the homeschool student it is the parents. Both of the kids were given difficult preliminary research tasks and a handful of classes for their first semester. Their classes are more focused on getting concepts and materials to them so they can perform their research tasks. Grades are a part of it, but really, the thing on which everyone is focused is to achieve a level of understanding that will allow them to perform their research; i.e., learning.

Just like grad school, learning rather than grades is the primary goal almost all homeschool programs. That is the way it should be. Technology is changing the way undergraduate education is delivered. In virtually every case, the most effective tools are the ones that promote learning and close the feedback loop for error correction rather than just prepare a student to regurgitate facts or memorize processes for solving chemistry and math problems.

Betty Blonde #172 – 03/13/2009

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Is Information the Fundamental Substance?

By Dad

On Thursday, September 25, 2014

In Christianity, culture, Science

Several years ago, I described a theory to the kids that makes the proposition that the smaller the things we are able to see the more it looks like that matter is really just thought. That is, the closer we look into what makes up electrons, neutrons, protons, and other subatomic particles the more that it looks like there is not substance to the substance of matter. I am not really sure whether that is something I just read in the cheesy science fiction novels that I voraciously read starting back in the late sixties and running into the nineties.

Now, it turns out that there might have been some truth to the speculative stories I told to the kids. In William Dembski’s third scholarly monograph, Being as Communion, he makes a strong case for the idea that the information and not matter is the fundamental substance of reality from which everything is made. Dembski is highly qualified to make this case. He has earned PhD’s in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and Philosophy from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and has spent his life investigating the role of information and design in God’s creation from the perspectives of both science and philosophy.

His first two books, The Design Inference, and No Free Lunch laid the ground work for this third very important work that makes the case that information that must have come from an intelligent designer is required for all things material and life in particular to exist. From the pre-release reviews, it appears that some of the mathematics in the book are not for the faint of heart, but the book as a whole is tractable in the sense that a layman can get the big picture. That being said, the laymen might be best served to just skim the deep math that gives the minutiae that makes the technical case.

I have ordered the book and plan to review it here after I have taken the time to read through it.

Betty Blonde #171 – 03/12/2009

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Heading to work on my birthday

By Dad

On Wednesday, September 24, 2014

The down side is that all I got to do in terms of celebration was to have a breakfast croissant at the Sheetz by the airport in Raleigh. The upside as that we will do a better job when I get back home in a week and a half. It is really not so bad. I might be in Prescott and Lorena at home in North Carolina soon to be with her mom, but I will be able to do a preliminary birthday dinner with Christian in Tempe before we go to meeting tonight.

Betty Blonde #170 – 03/11/2009

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Is America thinking about God again?

By Dad

On Tuesday, September 23, 2014

In Christianity

I ran into an article the other day titled It Turns Out Colleges Aren’t Actually Atheist Factories. The article basically says that a long time ago, if you went to college, there was a greater likelihood that you would “disaffiliate” with whatever religious institution with which you participated. It appears that is no longer true. The quote I liked the best in the article was from the last paragraph:

There are a lot of sociological factors at work here, but all of them puncture the stereotype of perniciously secular higher education. Clearly, those God-defying philosophy professors need to work a little harder if they want to build their armies of atheist young people.

It is implied that while fewer people are going to church, that does not mean they do not, at least nominally, believe in God. This is not one of those articles that talks about increased spirituality. This article is about the more specific and much more hopeful subject of the belief in God. There is a good argument to be made for the idea that the mainline denominations have turned into pop-culture clubs that are more interested in “spirituality” than the more specific and hopeful idea that there is a God and he is worthy of worship. I am not a big fan of the organized church or mushy, new-age spirituality so this is quite a positive development.

Betty Blonde #169 – 03/10/2009

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An article on the ignorance and evil of Marxist Feminism and Women’s Studies programs

By Dad

On Monday, September 22, 2014

In culture, Politics

There is little doubt that radical aspects of some stripes of feminism have done great damage to American society. There has been some pretty serious push-back against much of this ideology, not only by the likes of constitutional lawyer Phyllis Schlafly, but even by many avowed feminists intellectuals like Camille Paglia and Christiana Hoff Sommers. I ran into an incredible article titled Marxist Feminism’s Ruined Lives that starkly addresses this. It is on the evils of a particularly insidious variety of feminism called Marxist Feminism. This article is a must read for anyone with school age daughters. It was written by Mallory Millet, the sister of one of a radical feminist “intellectual” named Kate Millet who authored a notorious screed on feminism titled Sexual Politics.

Mallory spent years as an ex-pat in third world countries and it opened her eyes to the frivolity and evil of the Kate’s ideology. She was stunned when she finally returned to the United States and learned what Kate was doing. The following is part of a prayer-like question and response heard by Mallory at a “consciousness-raising” event to which Kate invited her on her return to the United States:

“And how do we destroy the American Patriarch?” she replied.
“By taking away his power!”
“How do we do that?”
“By destroying monogamy!” they shouted.
“How can we destroy monogamy?”

Their answer left me dumbstruck, breathless, disbelieving my ears. Was I on planet earth? Who were these people?

“By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution and homosexuality!” they resounded.

Mallory thoughts on hearing this mantra are telling:

… I had seen factory workers and sex-slaves chained to walls.

How could they know? Asia is beyond our ken and, as they say, utterly inscrutable, and a kind of hell I never intended to revisit. I lived there, not junketed, not visited like sweet little tourists — I’d conducted households and tried to raise a child. I had outgrown the communism of my university days and was clumsily groping my way back to God.

How could twelve American women who were the most respectable types imaginable — clean and privileged graduates of esteemed institutions: Columbia, Radcliffe, Smith, Wellesley, Vassar; the uncle of one was Secretary of War under Franklin Roosevelt — plot such a thing? Most had advanced degrees and appeared cogent, bright, reasonable and good. How did these people rationally believe they could succeed with such vicious grandiosity? And why?

This article is a must read for anyone who has daughters heading off to college–especially to Women’s Studies programs. There is much to conclude from Mallory’s observations and she has many observations. One of the scariest one’s is this:

By the time Women’s Studies professors finish with your daughter, she will be a shell of the innocent girl you knew, who’s soon convinced that although she should be flopping down with every boy she fancies, she should not, by any means, get pregnant. And so, as a practitioner of promiscuity, she becomes a wizard of prevention techniques, especially abortion.

The goal of Women’s Liberation is to wear each female down to losing all empathy for boys, men or babies.

Please read the whole article.

Betty Blonde #168 – 03/09/2009

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Neil deGrasse Tyson and Cosmos

By Dad

On Sunday, September 21, 2014

I have never been much of a fan of Mark Twain, but he came up with a pithy quote now and again. One of my favorites is apropos to a large category of pontifications emanating from celebrity “scientist” Neil deGrasse Tyson.

The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.

It is easy to be irritated by Tyson and not just because his style is so grating. Last week, Sean Davis over at the Federalist website calls out Tyson in a couple of articles titled Super Scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson Doesn’t Understand Statistics and Did Neil deGrasse Tyson Just Try to Justify Blatant Quote Fabrication? I especially liked the header text on the first article, “Bro, Do You Even Science?” and the subtitle on the second, “If Neil deGrasse Tyson is an honest broker, why do the facts in his stories keep changing.” These are a great pair of articles and I recommend you read them both. Here is a quote that captures their flavor (go to the original article to access the links in the quote):

So, contrary to what Tyson claimed about how nuanced and subtle and unique and contextual his presentation last week was, we have evidence that he’s been recycling the same tired trope and same non-existent quotes for years. Like this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one. The most baffling aspect of the whole thing, though, is why he feels the need to manufacture proof of how journalists and politicians are bad at math. Of course they’re bad at math. Of course they’re not very bright at a whole host of things.

Proving that water is wet, however, should not be this difficult. All you need to do to prove that politicians are stupid is pay attention. Or, if that’s too hard, you can spend 5 seconds on Google. Likely fewer if you know what you’re doing.

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s participation in the Cosmos television series is bad enough that the Discovery Institute has felt compelled to engage with his prevarications or misrememberings or whatever they are. They started with a series of articles, but it has gotten so bad they have decided to write a book. It is really that bad and, based on history, this new Cosmos will most probably make it into the government school system just like the old one. This is another great reason to homeschool.

Betty Blonde #167 – 03/06/2009

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Lorena and I visit the Duke Ambulatory Surgery Center

By Dad

On Friday, September 19, 2014

(10:00 am) I flew back to Raleigh yesterday so I could be with Lorena to get three very impacted wisdom teeth removed. They will put her under to do the surgery. We were told it is a fairly routine procedure that will take about an hour. This is the first time we have had an event like this so there is a little bit of apprehension, but it is nothing like some of our dear friends who are currently going through more onerous procedures. We will keep you posted.

(11:00 am) I just left Lorena with the anesthesiologist after speaking to the surgeon. He decided we should do this as a two step process so there will be at least one more surgery after this one. Because there is an issue with one of the teeth, the doctor will just take that one to maintain focus on the problem area and reserve the other two teeth and perform some repair on a second pass depending on what he finds. I am now outside in the waiting room. They will page me when it is over and are ready for me to go back in.

(11:30 am) My beeper just went off and I was the surgery had started, the first incision had been made and everything was going just fine.

(12:30 pm) Lorena is out of surgery. We will not know what happens until the material around the removed tooth can be evaluated. Lorena will need to have a bone graft (from the hip) to replace some of the material eaten away by the cyst. So, as soon as the information comes back, the surgeon will know how invasive the work needs to be, then we will schedule a second surgery and that should be it. She will need to go on a liquid diet (zero chewing) until the next surgery is complete. They will call me to be with Lorena in just a bit when she recovers from the anesthesia.

(2:20 pm) We are out and headed home. More in a bit.

(5:30 pm) At home after picking up prescriptions for pain and infection. We also stopped by Harris-Teeter to pick up a ton of excellent non-chew foods. We are now in waiting mode to find out when Grandma Conchita can get here and what the lab report says so we can learn about the next steps.

Betty Blonde #166 – 03/05/2009

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Unusual story/video about learning for its own sake

By Dad

On Wednesday, September 17, 2014

I do not want to give too much away about this video. It is SUCH an unusual video. It is about a choice to dive into the deep end of the pool and do something out of the mainstream in the name of learning–not in the name of formal school, in the name of learning. I want to make these kinds of choices about learning until the day that I die. A link to the article that goes along with the video is here.

Update: Ruthie found this other great version of the story that has additional commentary and interview footage:

Betty Blonde #165 – 03/04/2009

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Should we move to Portland

By Dad

On Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Our last visit to Oregon gave us great pause about whether or not we should move back there. We have been gone for seven years now. We felt somewhat estranged from Oregon in general and Portland in particular. It has been difficult to put our finger on the reticence we feel about moving back, but it is definitely there. There are several smaller things that, on the surface might give us reason to prefer where we are now over Oregon. The reality is that, for us, they are minor considerations. The weather is a lot better in Raleigh–mild all year long (like Portland), but with many more days of sunshine. The metropolitan area around Raleigh features three truly superior National Research Universities while Portland features a pretty good, not great, but pretty good Regional University. All of the ones listed are better than any universities Oregon has to offer. There are lots of little things like that, but they are not the reasons that hold the most sway.

I am pretty sure both the culture in Oregon has shifted as have our cultural preferences. For all its hipness, Portland just seems more intolerant and coarse than other places where we have an opportunity live. I do not really believe the quality of writing or the truth of the content in the New York Times is very high, but they recently published an article about Portland titled Will Portland Always Be a Retirement Community for the Young? It captures a view of a part of the Portland reality that rings true. The certainly did not capture the whole reality, the nuances of old Oregon culture being so divorced from contemporary Portland culture, it would be hard for anyone to understand. Still, it is quite a good article that I recommend to anyone considering a move to, not just Portland, but Oregon in general. The description of Portland in this article is probably quite attractive to many, but does a good job of explaining why we are not so interested in moving back.

We are still in the throes of making a decision. We know we have to move West both for family and work. We are just happy that Raleigh, North Carolina is such an awesome place to live while we work through it.

Betty Blonde #164 – 03/03/2009

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Feliz Cumpleaños México and Vanesa!

By Dad

On Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Luis Leonardo y Fanny -- Dia de Independencia 2014 Today is Independence Day in Mexico. Our Luis Leonardo and Fanny (nephew and niece) dressed up to celebrate a school yesterday. Just as important is that Lorena’s best buddy, Vanesa, from our days in Florida celebrates her birthday on the same day. ¡Viva México!

Software Thursday at the Raven

By Dad

On Friday, September 12, 2014

While my family might think I spend ALL my time working when I am in Prescott, it is not entirely true. This video WAS taken while I was at work. Every Thursday (the day is actually malleable–sometimes it falls on Friday) is called “Software Thursday” and we spend it eating dinner and talking shop at a place called the Raven. If we hang around long enough, there is live music and sometimes it is pretty good.

Betty Blonde #163 – 03/02/2009

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Now that I actually have something to write…

By Dad

On Tuesday, September 9, 2014

That often hear refrain that “getting old is not for the faint of heart” is coming home to roost. I have good stuff backed up and no time to write about it. Dental issues, health issues (nothing serious), travel, work, and kids (even though they are now both over 2000 miles away) have conspired to cause me to put up placeholder posts talking about about things that require now thought and little time. I never thought I would write about my health complaints, but now that I am a little older and it is about MY health issues, it seems like a much worthier topic than when someone else was complaining. So, what you get today, is pretty much nothing because I can write fast. Still, there is good stuff going on so I will look forward to the (very soon) time when I have time to write something thoughtful.

Betty Blonde #162 – 02/27/2009

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After much travel…

By Dad

On Monday, September 8, 2014

We are finally home. I worked in Prescott and Portland for two weeks with a church convention in between at Boring, Oregon. Lorena flew out to Seattle to drive down to with Kelly and Christian flew up from Tempe for the convention, too. We all ran like crazy the whole time, now, finally, we are all back to home and work at a little saner pace. We will all continue to travel some through the end of the year, but then Lorena plans to go back to college with about a half or three-quarters load so she finish up. Our house is still on the market, but the buying season is pretty much over and we are not sure if we want to sell anyway. At least now we will have time to reflect on that to figure out what we are supposed to do. I am going to start trying to get together with my regular lunch buddies, Troy, Igor and a few others.

Kelly and Christian are hard at it now in their schoolwork. Both of them have fairly large projects that, hopefully will lead to refereed journal articles. I have a possible new volunteer project with an old buddy of mine from UTEP who is now a college professor in Electrical Engineering at New Mexico Tech. It would be fun if I could contribute to something there.

Betty Blonde #161 – 02/26/2009

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Christian’s birthday present and Lorena gets started

By Dad

On Friday, September 5, 2014

In Education, Family

Christian's BS Applied Math diploma Christian starts his last year as a teenager today. A couple of days ago he received the final piece of paper from his time at NCSU. There is no longer any official connection to NCSU. He is officially and completely graduated. I get to run down to Tempe today after work to bring him the computer he purchased with part of his ASU grant. The computer he bought for NCSU died a couple of months ago and he has been limping along with an ASUS tablet/laptop that is awesome, but not really powerful enough for his current work.

Lorena heads down to Wake Tech Community College today to figure out exactly what she needs to do to finish her degree. She is not very far away and we have had such joy with higher education in North Carolina it seems like a shame no one is affiliated there any longer. It will be good to remain in that world for a few more semesters. We will be able to get all those great student discounts for a little while longer.

Betty Blonde #160 – 02/25/2009

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One of my favorite feminists: Christina Hoff Sommers

By Dad

On Thursday, September 4, 2014

The really odd part about all this is that I actually have more than one favorite feminist. Unlike many feminists, Christina Hoff Sommers tries to get her facts right and calls to account those who do not. Here is one of her great quotes about a textbook author who refused to get her facts right:

“Law students will now be treated to another round of Elvis sightings parading as scholarship.”^[citation]

Now she has published a list of feminists myths at the Time (normally liberal rag) website. It is titled 5 Feminist Myths That Will Not Die and is a must read for those who, like most of us, are regularly harangued with feminist canards.

Betty Blonde #159 – 02/24/2009

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