Lee Strobel is an idiot

So, I mentioned awhile back that I’m reading “The Case for a Creator” by Lee Strobel, who also wrote such books as “The Case for Faith” and “The Case for Christ,” two very popular books on the college scene in such “black and white” groups as CCF and Campus Crusade…

Anyway, so I saw this book at Barnes and Noble and couldn’t help but buy it since it was that trendy author writing about two things I’m interested in: God and science. Thus far (and, granted, I’m only 80 pgs into it…), the book is worthless. Strobel uses “evidence” out of non-evidence. For example:

“The problem with irreducibly complex systems is that they perform no function until all the parts are present and working together in close coordination with one another. So natural selection cannot help you build such systems; it can only preserve them once they’ve been built. And it’s virtually impossible for evolution to take such a huge leap by mere chance to create the whole system at once.” — pg 79

Why not?! The chances of being struck by lightening once, surviving, and then getting struck again in the exact same location as before isn’t likely, but it’s still possible. How do you know it isn’t possible? And now to the whole “evidence by non-evidence” point:

“This is not an argument from ignorance…we’re not inferring design just because the naturalistic evolutionary theories all fail to explain information. We infer design because all those theories fail and we know of another causal entity that is capable of producing information – namely, intelligence. Personally, I find this to be a very strong argument indeed.” — pg 78

Oh really! All those theories fail? Do you know how science works, Mr. Strobel? You know there is no such thing as “proof” in science? That’s because any evidence can come along and change the way we we all see the world. You assume that since we don’t understand a few facets of the world around us, we must assume that “intelligence” as we know it must be involved. We thought the world was flat until we found evidence to support that it’s round. We thought the universe revolved around Earth until we found that Earth revolves around a star…that is one of infinite stars in the rest of the universe. The “intelligence” you’re talking about is human intelligence. God is all-knowing, thereby presenting an entirely different type of intelligence from what we have experienced. Frankly, Mr. Strobel, you don’t know anything about science if this is the “evidence” you’re presenting. You shouldn’t be writing books about things you apparently know nothing about.

The point of all this is: humans understand absolutely nothing about the “known” universe. We don’t know how God works. We don’t know how it was all done. To quote the common phrase, “we don’t know jack.” How can we assume to know how it all works? Isn’t it possible that there are other universes parallel to our own that have completely different physics to our own? How about another planet out there that has beings built out of neon rather than carbon? Or perhaps even that on some planet on some distant galaxy, a milk cow won an election against someone looking strangely like George W. Bush. Frankly, we don’t know. I can’t prove that these things aren’t happening because, well, because it can’t be proven.

Much like Strobel can’t prove anything he’s putting forth in his book. Know why? Well, because “evidence by non-evidence” isn’t evidence at all. It’s ignorance.

God vs Evolution

“There are gaps in science everywhere. Are we to fill them all with divinity? There were gaps in Newton’s universe. They were ultimately filled by Einstein’s revisions. There are gaps in Einstein’s universe, great chasms between it and quantum theory. Perhaps they are filled by God. Perhaps not. But it is certainly not science to merely declare it so.”
— Charles Krauthammer, Time Magazine, August 8, 2005

I posted another essay posted in the “Articles” section above…check it out…

There seem to have been more than a few articles about this subject over the past few weeks. There’s a show that’s going to be on the History Channel on August 7th called “Ape to Man: The Evolution of Evolution,” indicating that interest in the subject is still as strong as ever.

We talked about teaching intelligent design (……creationism…) in our public schools in my Evolutionary Thought class this past semester and came to the conclusion, much like anyone who knows anything about science, that it’s a dumb idea. It’s one thing to teach it in a Catholic high school, but to teach it in our public schools is entirely wrong. What happened to a separation of church and state?

Anyway, it’s a good essay…check it out…

Current TV

Many of you heard about Al Gore, et al. purchasing a TV news network last year and developing a news channel developed at younger audiences, known as Current TV. Yahoo! News says that the channel is targeted at “Internet-savvy viewers 18 to 34 years old” and features “professionally produced segments and viewer-produced videos running from a few seconds to 15 minutes in length,” known as “pods.”

I’m very happy that there’s a new channel out there (although, we don’t get it in St. Louis, sadly…) providing news to a youth-targeted audience. Many people my age get their news from the Daily Show more than they do from any other source…this is great, ’cause it’s an awesome show, yet it still leaves much to be desired. Also, and perhaps more important, this station will have a more liberal bias than all of the other 24-hour news networks.

…let the games begin. 😉

I’m poor now…

…or something like it… As some have heard, Brooke and I got a car…a 2003 Hyundai Elantra GT…had 30,000 mi on it, so it’s somewhat used (more of a “program car,” technically), but in great condition and we got an incredible deal on it, so it was hard to pass it up. But yeah, we’re hoping this car will last us a good 5 years until I’m in the workforce (…assuming that ever happens…).

Otherwise, 3 weeks are done in my first of four lab rotations…things are going quite well, actually… As of last Thursday, we finally got the camera system to work properly such that it can record a signal sent on axons in the turtle cerebellum…which rocks tremendously, considering that I’ve spent 3 weeks on it… 😛 Anyway, I think this grad school thing will work out alright as long as I stick with it…I guess that means I’ll have to study, too…grrrrr…

I'm poor now…

…or something like it… As some have heard, Brooke and I got a car…a 2003 Hyundai Elantra GT…had 30,000 mi on it, so it’s somewhat used (more of a “program car,” technically), but in great condition and we got an incredible deal on it, so it was hard to pass it up. But yeah, we’re hoping this car will last us a good 5 years until I’m in the workforce (…assuming that ever happens…).

Otherwise, 3 weeks are done in my first of four lab rotations…things are going quite well, actually… As of last Thursday, we finally got the camera system to work properly such that it can record a signal sent on axons in the turtle cerebellum…which rocks tremendously, considering that I’ve spent 3 weeks on it… 😛 Anyway, I think this grad school thing will work out alright as long as I stick with it…I guess that means I’ll have to study, too…grrrrr…

Politics = Dumb

So yeah, as Mike has similar posting on his blog today, but there are some real shenanigans going on over “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” recently… Essentially, there are a bunch of folks (mainly Republicans and old people…but not entirely…) getting pissed off about “GTA” and its violent content, not to mention the sexually explicit material that’s also included. Mike cites an article at ABC News mentioning how a grandmother is suing Rockstar Games (the publisher) because she bought “GTA” for her 14-year-old grandson without knowing about the violent/sexual material portrayed within. In a second article, which I posted in my “Articles” section, Steven Johnson has an editorial about how dumb Hillary Clinton’s attack on video game manufacturers is equally as stupid…this one was published by the LA Times. In that one, he discusses how activities like football are arguably more dangerous and violent than video games, which can instead be therapeutic for youngsters.

First of all, Johnson is entirely correct: video games today are helping develop cognitive skills, strategy and hand-eye coordination much more than the games of old (i.e. Monopoly, Cutes and Ladders, etc.). A parent today can play a board game against their child relatively easily, but if you drop them into “Halo 2,” they’ll get schooled quickly. Secondly, these games all have ratings on their packaging. A kid can’t just go into a store and buy the games rated “Mature;” a parent/adult has to do it. “Oh, I didn’t know it would have that terrible material in it,” the parents say… Well, maybe they could have read the packaging, researched the game on the internet, asked other parents, etc. before purchasing the game for their child and then complaining about it. Thirdly, these parents that are complaining are the ones who are already relying on video games and TV to babysit their kids. Maybe if they’d actually spend some time with them…you know…go to a park and throw a baseball or something…they wouldn’t spend all their time playing video games…or perhaps they could play some of these games with the kids so they know you’re taking an interest in their lives, rather than just assuming that the TV is cheaper than paying someone else to watch your kids while you avoid taking responsibility for their lives and how they’re raised… Why not stop blaming the media/TV/video games for your screwed up kids and try making a difference yourself in their lives, eh?

Just a thought…

…busy, busy, busy…

Yeah, I’ve been pretty busy lately… This past weekend, Brooke and I drove to Sedalia for Anne Gumbel’s wedding…it was lovely, of course, but I didn’t get to see as many folks (i.e. Alex, Gavin, Jess, etc.) as I would have wanted to. Tony was along, so that was semi-entertaining… 😛 On Sunday, Brooke and I went with my parents to Lohman and showed some wedding pictures to my grandmas. I think they were happy to see us…but probably somewhat amazed by the technology I brought along (they’ve never seen a laptop, so far as I know…). I’m close to getting some pics up on the wedding website for download, but for now, many of them are viewable through this part of my website.

Otherwise, Brooke and I are looking into replacing one of our cars in the near future, I’m thinking… Both our cars are over 100,000 miles and we’ve had some issues with Brooke’s car recently, so it may be wise to get a better, lower-mileage car to use for driving to Columbia and Hannibal… So yeah, if you know of any cars under 50,000 miles that don’t cost too much and are semi-reliable, lemme know… 😛

But yeah, St. Louis is treating us well… Still keeping busy at work, but not doing anything particularly special right now. We got another shipment of turtles in today, so we’ve got more to “play” with in the coming weeks…hard to believe that tomorrow marks the halfway point of my summer lab rotation…

…on the other hand, Thursday marks my first payday…w00t… 😀

Wedding Pictures

So Nathan has been uploading to my Gmail drive all day and I’ve got some pictures, but it’s moving rather slowly…by the end of the weekend, I hope to have many of them posted online somewhere…it’ll probably be early next week before they’re up on the wedding website in a download-able fashion… As you may have noticed, the pictures I post in my Photos section aren’t able to be downloaded (easily), but the ones I’ll post on the Wedding Website will be sized for download and can be printed at Wal-Mart or something…

Enjoy…I’ll post more as I receive them…

Scotty…beamed up for good…

James Doohan, of Star Trek fame, died today at the age of 85 battling Alzheimer’s disease and pneumonia. He will be missed, of course; the man did Star Trek conventions up until last August, which is crazy considering how old the man was. He was a testament to what Star Trek means to a lot of us fans out there, and to the rest of humanity.

New Section, etc.

So yeah, today was pretty good… I went by the Employee Health center and they said I officially don’t have tuberculosis…woo hoo… For some odd reason, SLU makes all its employees take a TB test every year…I guess if I don’t have to pay for it, I don’t really care… Anyway, after that I went to work and saw a Master’s thesis defense, which was relatively interesting…I guess it’s good to see what research counts as Master’s degree material…didn’t seem too hard…hehehe… 😛 After that, Dr. Ariel ended up leaving early, which meant I got to leave early too… I went by EB Games and got a used copy of “X-Men: Legends” for Gamecube, which I’m quite pleased with so far. Should keep me entertained for the rest of the summer, certainly…

Other than that, I have started a new section of the website titled “Articles” (link’s up at the top, yo…). I’m intending this as a place to post things like…well…like the editorial I posted there by Paul Krugman, who writes for the New York Times, among other periodicals/books. This editorial is essentially about why politics shouldn’t dictate what is taught in our schools…and I agree with it wholeheartedly…which is why I posted it… 😛

Anyway, check that page from time to time…I’ll post other stuff there, too…eventually…