The Soggy Spaniel

Although it's been out now for 13 years, The God Delusion    by Richard Dawkins still sets the standard for 21st century atheist polemics. Both lionized by atheists and demonized by some believers, he is deserving, I think, of neither. I've followed Dawkins for a while, mostly because of his particular pronouncements on the "improbability" of God. This thought intrigued me, because as someone  who has studied advanced probability (all right, I took a senior level math course in college), I was curious how that improbability was determined, and the methodology behind it. Dawkins's argument appears in Chapter 4, and reduces to this: 1. The origin of life is an extremely improbable event. (on that we all agree). 2. The history of life has been an inexorable progression from simple to complex. (conceded by most, except for young earth creationists). 3. Darwinian evolution is the one thing we know that builds increasing complexity over time. (highly tendentious...

The State of the Evangelical Mind Reflections on the Past, Prospects for the Future  Edited by Todd C. Ream, Jerry A. Pattengale, and Christopher J. Devers Intervarsity Press, Dec 11, 2018

"Do not be wise in your own opinion." Romans 12:16 Breaking news! Most of us think we're smarter than most of us. In recent surveys, 65% of Americans rate themselves more intelligent than average. Furthermore, we are often quite certain in our beliefs. But is that confidence warranted?

Can you define envy? Is envy bad? Would you know if you had it?

Most of us think we are better than most of us. As a consequence, we are sometimes tempted to advertise our moral superiority through public expression. This is known as “ moral grandstanding ”. There’s nothing wrong with issuing public moral pronouncements; it’s not merely a right, but sometimes a duty. The issue here is motive. It is grandstanding when the real motive is to assert our virtue, regardless of whether it is also done to support a cause. With human behavior, often more than one motive is in play.

It is early spring of 1943. The Axis powers are beginning to crumble against the massive and unrelenting Allied onslaught. Plans for the imminent invasion of Sicily are underway, establishing a base for the invasion and liberation of continental Europe. Meanwhile, back at US military intelligence, a tightly knit group of outliers have been poring over captured Nazi military communications. They conclude that Berlin is a Potemkin facade – the entire brain trust of the Nazi war machine is hiding away in the Canary Islands. “That is their true vulnerability,” they determine. "Capture the Canaries, and victory is assured."

Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray   by Sabine Hossenfelder. Basic Books, June 2018. Reviewed by Steven Willing, MD ________________ “Physical laws should have mathematical beauty”. Paul Dirac, Nobel Laureate* ___________________ Way back in 1973, the world of theoretical physics reached a dead end. That year marked the last successful prediction of any elemental particles - the top and bottom quarks - which were experimentally verified in 1995 and 1977 respectively. (The Higgs boson, finally detected in 2012, had been predicted in the 1960’s). Since then, there has been no successful prediction that would supersede the standard model.   

Here, as anywhere, the wisdom of the great C. S. Lewis should be taken to heart: "There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. .. It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind...which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption ."  C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory. [italics added]

A glimpse of current literature regarding the benefits of monogamy: Effects on adults What Do We Know About the Link Between Marriage and Health? Journal of Family Issues 31(8):1019-1040, 2010 : §   “Marriage reduces depression” §   “Unmarried adults are more likely to drink, use marijuana, and drive recklessly” §   “Married men and women experience lower mortality at every age relative to those who remain unmarried or lose their spouse through widowhood or divorce” §   “A number of rigorous studies reveal that marriage can also lead to better general physical health and better outcomes for some specific health conditions, including arthritis, hypertension, and heart disease” The impact of polygamy on women's mental health: a systematic review | Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences 22(1):47-62, 2013 “Individual studies report a higher prevalence of somatization, depression, anxiety, hostility, psychoticism and psychiatric disorder in polygynous w...

It is a conundrum why so many similar sounding words have paradoxically different meanings. Here is a guide to help you.

Tuesday morning, 9:07 a.m. In the not too distant future:

In the realm of logic there is a principle known as the fallacy of the false dilemma. The rules of logic are violated when a complex question is restricted to an arbitrary number of answers, typically just two.

Question: How does a procrastinating, crowd-averse father get his family from Edwards, CO into the path of totality for the 2017 total eclipse? Via Denver and I24? Heaven forbid! Back roads to Casper? No rooms or campsites for 50 miles in any direction.