Are gods a delusion?

John Lennox is a mathematician from Oxford (UK). He likes to attack the so-called "new atheists" and defend the idea that Christianity is rational. He is just finishing up a tour of North America. This video is a recording of a talk he gave at a church in the Toronto suburbs on March 14, 2015.

It's quite similar to the presentation he gave a few days later at the University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada). Jeffrey Shallit went to that talk (bless his heart) and reports on the major fallacies and distortions [John Lennox - Talk #1: "Do Science and God Mix?"]. As you watch the video you'll see that John Lennox is a very good speaker. He sounds very, very, convincing in the tradition of many other religious Oxford professors and even atheist ones like Richard Dawkins.

As you listen and watch, you gradually come to the realization that the lecture is all about Irish charm and humor. Most of his arguments don't make any sense as we know from listening to them many times over the past few decades. How many times have we heard the argument that so-and-so Nobel Laureates were Christians so science and religion must be compatible?

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Apparently it really is impossible to teach Intelligent Design Creationists about evolutionary theory

Last week I asked an important question, "Is it impossible to educate Intelligent Design Creationists on evolutionary theory?.

The reason I asked is because in spite of our best efforts over several decades, the Intelligent Design Creationists still don't understand modern evolutionary theory. We see this all the time whenever they start criticizing evolution. It gets them into all sorts of trouble, especially when we debate junk DNA.

Many of their objections to evolution would be easily answered if they only understood that there's more to evolution than natural selection and the appearance of design. They would understand why Michael Behe is wrong about the edge of evolution, for example, and why their pseudoscientific probability calculations are nonsense. They can't possibly understand molecular evolution and phylogenetic trees based on sequences unless they understand that it has almost nothing to do with "Darwinism" and the appearance of design.

Do offensive pictures justify violence?

This video raises many complicated issues. It's a confrontation between students and anti-abortion protestors on the University of Oregon campus on March 10, 2015.

Most of the buzz on the internet is about the first policeman who tried to defuse a potentially violent confrontation by telling the main protestor that he did not have the right to free speech on a private university campus. He almost succeeded in getting the protestor to hide his offensive signs.

When the sargeant showed up, he overruled his officer and told the protestor he could display his signs and stay on the campus. I agree with the sergeant but I have a great deal of sympathy with what the first policeman was trying to do.

How do Intelligent Design Creationists interpret "extraordinary evidence"?

Marcello Truzzi was one of the founding members of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). Back in 1978 he said, "An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof." Carl Sagan popularized this idea as "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

The basic idea has been around for centuries.

We often use this saying when we encounter gullible creationists making extraordinary claims. For example, a few weeks ago Vincent Torley claimed that back in the 1600s a monk named St. Cupertino was routinely seen to fly through the air on numerous occasions [see What counts as "evidence"?].

Casey Luskin agrees with Lawrence Krauss ... teach the controversy

Casey Luskin suggests that we should teach science properly [How Should We Teach Evolution?].

Science education theorists agree that students learn science best when they learn about arguments for and against a particular concept. A 2010 paper in the journal Science observes that "[c]ritique is not, therefore, some peripheral feature of science, but rather it is core to its practice." The paper found that students learn science best when they are asked "to discriminate between evidence that supports ... or does not support"4 a given scientific concept.

Science education is about teaching students the facts of biology, but also about teaching them how to think like scientists. When students are told that Darwinian evolution is a "settled theory" or that there "is no controversy over evolution," that not only misinforms them about debates taking place among scientists, but it fails to teach students how to use critical thinking on these important scientific questions. When evolution advocates demand that students should not learn about scientific weaknesses in evolution, the real losers are the students who are denied opportunities to learn about all of the evidence and are prevented from studying different legitimate scientific viewpoints regarding Darwinism.

I agree with Luskin and Krauss.

They disagree about the probable outcome of this kind of education but let's put it to the test.

If we did, I predict that Casey Luskin will be sorry he ever mentioned critical thinking.

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Lawrence Krauss advocates "teaching doubt"

There's a robust pedagogical literature on misconceptions and how difficult it is for educators overcome them in the classroom. The current overwhelming consensus is that you have to address those misconceptions head-on and show why they are wrong. You are doomed to failure if you just try to correct misconceptions by teaching the correct idea in the hope that students will see the light all by themselves.

That's why you must "teach the controversy." This applies in spades to the evolution/creation debate. You can't expect creationists to abandon their misconceptions about evolution if all you do is expose them to the latest information about evolution and evolutionary theory. They are already armed with all kinds of objections, rationalizations, and misconceptions about evolution and they'll listen politely while saying to themselves that it's all a bunch of lies.

You need to show them why the idea of a 6000 year old Earth is wrong and why it's foolish to say there are no transitional fossils.

Lawrence Krauss makes the case in The New Yorker [Teaching Doubt].

One thing is certain: if our educational system does not honestly and explicitly promote the central tenet of science—that nothing is sacred—then we encourage myth and prejudice to endure. We need to equip our children with tools to avoid the mistakes of the past while constructing a better, and more sustainable, world for themselves and future generations. We won’t do that by dodging inevitable and important questions about facts and faith. Instead of punting on those questions, we owe it to the next generation to plant the seeds of doubt.

This approach works in most of the Western industrialized world but it probably can't work in America. That's because Americans have set up a system where you can't challenge religious beliefs in public schools because it's a violation of their Constitution. That's to bad because it means that science teachers can't do their job.

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IDiots say that evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Over on the main "science" blog of the Intelligent Design Creationists, that famous scientist, kairosfocus, says on Piotr (and KS, DNA_Jock, VS, Z et al) and “compensation” arguments vs the energy audit police ..., quoting that other famous scientist Granville Sewell,

The discovery that life on Earth developed through evolutionary "steps," coupled with the observation that mutations and natural selection -- like other natural forces -- can cause (minor) change, is widely accepted in the scientific world as proof that natural selection -- alone among all natural forces -- can create order out of disorder, and even design human brains, with human consciousness. Only the layman seems to see the problem with this logic. In a recent Mathematical Intelligencer article ["A Mathematician's View of Evolution," The Mathematical Intelligencer 22, number 4, 5-7, 2000] I asserted that the idea that the four fundamental forces of physics alone could rearrange the fundamental particles of Nature into spaceships, nuclear power plants, and computers, connected to laser printers, CRTs, keyboards and the Internet, appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics in a spectacular way.

There's obviously a problem. The IDiots have to believe and trust one set of scientists and not another.

Since the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, the Second Law of Thermodynamics must be wrong.

Stupid chemists.

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Photo credit: Aubrey Hirsch

The University of Toronto ranks 16th in the world!

The latest Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings for 2015 are out [The World Reputation Rankings]. This ranking list universities by their academic reputation. It has little to do with undergraduate education, which in most cases, is just an important sideline for these universities.

The University of Toronto ranks #16 on this list. I mention this because many people in the USA are unaware of the quality of universities in other countries. They will not be surprised to learn that Harvard is #1 but do they know that Cambridge is #2 and Oxford is #3?

Canada has three universities in the top 40 (McGill #35 and the University of British Columbia #37 are the other two). Our population is 35 million.

The USA has twenty-one universities in the top 40. It's population is 320 million.

The United Kingdom has seven in the top 40 with a population of 65 million.

It won't be long before China takes over.

It seems pretty obvious that the number and quality of universities is proportional to the wealth and the population of countries in the "Western" English-speaking world. It is not obvious that any one country can claim to be better than the others at fostering good universities. If you had to pick a country, it looks like the United Kingdom would be the clear winner.

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Is it impossible to educate Intelligent Design Creationists on evolutionary theory?

We all know how much creationists like to label their opponents as "Darwinists." What you don't know is that many of us have spent decades trying to teach creationists about modern evolutionary theory and why is is much more than just mutation plus natural selection. Some Intelligent Design Creationists seem to get it but then they quickly revert to the old rhetoric.

So, the question is whether the Intelligent Design Creationists really understand modern evolutionary theory or not. If they do, then they must be lying when they claim that it's just natural selection and "Darwinism." It can't be excused as ignorance in that case. Alternatively, if they don't understand modern evolutionary theory then they must be stupid.

Which is it?

A physicist tries to understand junk DNA: Part II

Yesterday I posted some comments on a blog post by physicist Rob Sheldon [A physicist tries to understand junk DNA ]. My comments were based on what I had seen on Uncommon Descent but it turns out that was only a summary of a longer post that appeared on Evolution News & Views (sic): More on Junk DNA and the "Onion Test".

The longer post doesn't add very much to the argument but it does have something interesting at the bottom. Here's what Rob Sheldon says about the Onion Test and junk DNA.

A physicist tries to understand junk DNA

Rob Sheldon has a PhD. in physics and a M.A. in religion.¹ With two strikes against him already, he attempts to understand biology by discussing evolution, junk DNA, and the Onion Test [Physicist suggests: “Onion test” for junk DNA is challenge to Darwinism, not ID]. As you might imagine, posting on Uncommon Descent in support of Intelligent Design Creationism leads directly to strike three.

The Onion Test was created by Ryan Gregory in 2007 [The Onion Test] and published in the scientific literature by Palazzo and Gregory in 2014. It goes like this. Take your favorite hypothesis suggesting that most of the DNA in the human genome is functional and use it to explain why the onion, Allium cepa, needs a genome that is five times larger than the human genome. Then explain why closely related species of onion need twenty times more DNA than humans.

Learn to think like a scientist

There's a course at MIT (Boston, USA) called "7.00x Introduction to Biology - The Secret of Life." It's a very popular MOOC (online course). Here's the trailer for the course. In it, Eric Lander tells you that if you take his introductory biology course you will learn to think like a scientist and you will be able to understand the latest breakthroughs.


Here are the week one lectures that focus on biochemistry. I don't have time to go through it all but check out the description of ATP beginning at 2:13. This is not how good teachers explain the importance of ATP in the 21st century but it is how it was taught 40 years ago.

Get a job as a dissertation writer

Jerry Coyne has found a posting for a job in Toronto [see Dissertations for sale!]. You can see the original at: Dissertation Writers wanted for Work from Home Position. It's suitable for retired professors and post-docs who can't get any other job.

We are a medium sized, cloud-based consultancy headquartered in New York, but with consultants spread across the globe, from Asia to South America. We primarily handle Academic Consulting for Doctorate level clients, and we currently have several job openings in the Academic Research department.

Job responsibilities:
Your main responsibility will be to assist our clients in conducting the research needed needed to complete their theses, dissertations, or journal articles, and then writing drafts for portions of those documents, such as a Literature Review, Introduction or Discussion chapters.

The job will involve communicating with clients by email and by phone to understand their specific needs, provide suggestions on how to improve their research, and finally write a draft of the document itself. It will also involve engaging in ongoing discussions with clients after the first draft, and revising/rewriting the document to our clients' satisfaction.

*This is strictly a work-from-home position*, and any applicant should view this as a strong incentive.

Please note that this is a *full-time position*.

Requirements:
- Applicants must possess a meticulous nature and an extremely high attention to detail.
- A very positive and upbeat attitude (particularly as relates to phone calls and email communication with clients).
- Native English speakers only.
- A 4-year college degree is an absolute must, preferably from a well-known university.
- Ghostwriting or Technical Writing experience is desired, but not a must.
- Tutoring and/or research experience is also a bonus.

Compensation:
Compensation for the successful applicant is very generous. As we expect very few applicants to have directly applicable work experience in this field, there will be an extensive training program before the candidate is taken on in a more permanent capacity. Training will be paid, at USD 4,000/month, and is projected to last 3-4 months. Following successful training, pay will be USD 85,000 - USD 100,000/year.

I've chaired quite a few Ph.D. exams for humanities students and I reckon I could bang out a pretty good thesis in a few months.

As for journal articles, the ENCODE Consortium could hire me for $8000 per month.

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Here's a good example of a tenured professor who should be fired

I am a staunch defendant of academic freedom but tenure doesn't protect you from gross misconduct. Here's an example where a Professor of Philosophy at UNC faced dismissal hearings and, wisely, decided to resign. I'm betting that ethics wasn't her specialty.

Why did she resign? Read about it at: Jan Boxill, implicated in UNC scandal, resigns.

Apparently Boxill was counselor to the women’s basketball team and she participated in a scheme to give athletes decent grades in "courses" that didn't exist or required minimal work. Some of the courses were in African and Afro-American Studies (AFAM) and some were philosophy courses.

[The Provost's] letter to Boxill said there was "compelling evidence that over a period of several years you knowingly participated in grossly improper practices in your roles as a member of the faculty and an academic advisor to student athletes."

The letter, released Thursday, accused Boxill of several acts of misconduct:

▪ Requesting that AFAM employees provide specific grades to students.

▪ Steering athletes to AFAM courses that she knew were not overseen or taught by faculty, required only a paper and were graded by former office manager Deborah Crowder.

▪ Editing and writing portions of text inserted into the papers of the students she tutored.

▪ Allowing students to enroll in independent study classes in philosophy that required little academic work.

Bye-bye Boxhill.

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How to promote science according to new AAAS CEO Rush D. Holt

As the name implies, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a group of American scientists dedicated to "advancing" science. It was formed in 1848 and over the years it has evolved into a sophisticated lobby for advocating and defending science funding as well as an organization that promotes science to the general public. It publishes several journals, including Science and Science: Translational Medicine.

The new CEO and Executive Publisher of Science is Rush D. Holt, Jr.. He is the son of a former United States Senator (Rush D. Holt Sr.). Rush D. Holt Jr. obtained a Ph.D. in physics in 1981 and taught courses in physics, public policy, and religion at Swarthmore College from 1980 to 1986. He is a Quaker.