Please read my post on The Las Vegas Stylings of Science before you read this one–it relies on it heavily.

In January 1991 I heard Al Gore give his Global Warming talk. It was in PowerPoint then too. It was at a meeting of environmental statisticians in New Orleans. Of course, then, Brother Gore’s hockey stick graph was a little shorter and we had not had the hot 90’s to add to his arsenal. Read the rest of this entry »

A pause before I hit Global Warming. I’ve had some exchanges with others who seem to misunderstand what Intelligent Design (ID) is. ID is not just the idea that there is a creator behind the universe. ID is a fundamentalist Christian backdoor attempt to get their version of creationism taught in the schools gussied-up to look like Science. It is not a science and doesn’t even come close, but they are loud and have deep pockets—a dangerous combination anytime. Read the rest of this entry »

Getting at what Science is exactly, has not exactly been easy. I introduced Early Wittgenstein last entry so let me start with him again, but with an idea from his later period (but keep in mind the point in my last blog: there are things science can’t touch. This blog is about the things it can). Read the rest of this entry »

It seems hard to reconcile with everything you know is right, but I was once a scoutmaster. Not long mind you. After my first summer camp and the boys all came back without merit badges and believing in evolution and global warming I was quickly called to be the High Priest quorum instructor. You can tell what kind of scoutmaster you were by where you end up after. Good ones are immediately called to be Bishops and Primary teachers. Other kinds land in High Priests where they can’t do much damage. Read the rest of this entry »

I find the Lamanite-DNA question, like, sooo boring.

Consider this : You are only related to your children by half. They only share a half of your DNA. Your grandchildren, half of that again or about a fourth. You loose your genetic contribution to the future at a rate of about 2^N where N is the Nth generation down your line of descendents. So after about 25 generations, or around 625 years, your contribution is only about 1/33,000,000. Because our DNA has about 3,000,000,000 base pairs, and only 0.1% of that varies among humans (the rest are the exact same sequences (which is why we all sort of look alike)). This implies that you will have descendents with no detectable signature of your varying DNA. Read the rest of this entry »

This entry was precipitated by Gary over at the No Death Before the Fall blog. Obviously I don’t need to point out that Gary and I disagree. Actually, I like his blog and he makes an interesting foil for my thought. I find it useful in exploring how things need to be clarified in the debates about a faithful view of evolution. While I disagree completely with his outlook, I do think discussion is important and opposing views can often end up coming to some sort of dialectic synthesis. There are points on which we agree–Creation, Fall, Atonement for example. I will, however, continue to bicker about the details. Read the rest of this entry »

The promise held in each Boy’s Life magazine was something I eagerly awaited for each month when I was a young man of eleven or twelve. It was not the articles (which I never read); it was not the jokes in the back (which I did read). It was the advertisements in the back that opened a world of possibilities that set my imagination running wild. For example, you could order x-ray glasses that would let you see through things (even clothes!). Read the rest of this entry »

Optometry is supposed to be a science. But it is not. No dear reader it is a primitive branch of phenomenology. And as such I am calling on the help of phenomenologists everywhere to rescue this orphan child of human thought. I’ve suspected there was something wrong for a long time. Visiting the optometrist has always filled me with dread. A deep, soul sucking dread—the kind of angst reserved for archetypal fears and terrors. Why you ask? Why fear these kindly men and women who want nothing more than to improve your eyesight and give you confidence as you navigate through life’s visual hazards and joys? It’s because they strip me of science. They leave me naked on the rack of moribund uncertainty. Read the rest of this entry »

(Note: All place names have been translated from Adamic to Modern 21st Century English).

Noah stared at Japheth in horror. His voice shook a little, “What do you mean an Opossum escaped at our last stop?” Noah was angry. “YOU KNOW ALL THE MARSUPIALS ARE SUPPOSE TO GET DROPPED IN AUSTRAILIA!.” It was another blunder in a long series of blunders. Sailing around the earth dropping off the animals in their appropriate habitat had been hard, and he only dimly understood why it had to be done, but a marsupial in North America was going to get him in trouble. Read the rest of this entry »

I keep hearing that fossils came from some other creations out there in the far reaches of space–that our Earth is a conglomerate of the remnants of these previous creations. My kids have actually heard this in seminary. Apparently the story goes something like this: God made lots of worlds though special acts of creation. Then to make this Earth he took all these other creations and put them together into this one. This story is nice because it explains how come we have fossils millions of years old on a earth that is just a few thousand years old. It answers the age old question, “How do we get rid of Godless evolution.” So dinosaurs lived in these extra solar planets which furnished the material for this earth. The great thing about armchair speculation like this is that you don’t have to deal with any messy things like data and evidence. Read the rest of this entry »