Over the course of time I think Google’s library scanning project will prove to be a greater gift to mankind than YouTube.
Reading a book is like having a long conversation with the author. A long conversation is a gift, as my wife has been teaching me. William Cowper said in his poem entitled Conversation; “… and Conversation in its better part, may be esteemed a gift.”
A children’s story about a talking dog, Martha Blah Blah, reminds us of the power of literacy in a funny way. “When the current owner of the soup company breaks the founder’s promise to have every letter of the alphabet in every can of soup, Martha, the talking dog, takes action.”
Read a good book to your children today, or let them read The Important Book to you (it’s all about having a conversation) … and in all your reading, don’t forget the most important book … and thank God for the gifts he gives us every day.
Creating new stuff isn’t easy. Meticulous and beautiful designs don’t just happen by accident. Computer programs don’t write themselves. However, some scientists (like Richard Dawkins) theorize that DNA wrote itself. So, if you follow that theory, you can Twine your PC to some random Twitter feeds, go to the beach all afternoon, and when you get back, your new Ruby on Rails program will have written itself. Try explaining that one to your boss. Or better yet, find some VCs who will invest in it. (The only catch is that they might have to wait billions and billions of years for the ROI). That plan might work for you… but for programmers looking for some good advice today, you might want to check out StackOverflow.com (a new advice service for programmers) — from Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood.
Back to the Planet – After a flaming descent, and a “scary crash landing”, Korean, Russian, and American astronauts are glad to be back on planet earth after a visit to the International Space Station. Yi So-yeon, a nano-technology engineer from Seoul, Korea — spent 11 days in space. Peggy Whitson had been gone for 192 days (and needed help walking), and now Peggy holds the American record for most days lived in outer space — 377 days.
The new movie – Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed – from Premise Media, starring Ben Stein, asks an interesting question about scientific inquiry (asking questions) in the modern era. Can scientists ask questions without fear of being censored, ridiculed, ostracized, told to shut-up, or expelled? Is there still freedom of speech and academic freedom? Why are some scientific inquiries being censored on college campuses today?
From what I understand, the film asks some hard questions about university life in the Neo-Darwinian era.
It’s interesting that the film was released in theaters yesterday (April 18, 2008) — since 126 years ago (April 19, 1882) Charles Darwin died.
Darwin had studied medicine at Edinburgh University in 1825. According to an Encyclopedia Brittanica article about Charles Darwin “Edinburgh attracted English Dissenters who were barred from graduating at the Anglican universities of Oxford and Cambridge” and “Darwin heard freethinkers deny the Divine design”. However, some speech “was officially censored” and “was considered subversive”. The EB article goes on to state that “Darwin was witnessing the social penalties of holding deviant views.”
Today, we are witnessing a kind of “reverse reactionary apartheid” and prejudice against anyone who appears to be “Anti-Darwinian”. This whole thing seems a lot more like a high-school food fight, then a mature scientific discussion. Why is inquiry being stifled? Maybe these scientists (the ones being expelled from colleges and universities) are not really “Anti-Darwinian”. Maybe they want to be like Darwin, and have the academic freedom to ask intelligent questions. Is that OK with you?
I went into the screening bored. I came out of it stunned.
Ben Stein’s extraordinary presentation documents how the worlds of science and academia not only crush debate on the origins of life, but also crush the careers of professors who dare to question the Darwinian hypothesis of evolution and natural selection.
Stein asks a simple question: What if the universe began with an intelligent designer, a designer named God? He assembles a stable of academics — experts all — who dared to question Darwinist assumptions and found themselves “expelled” from intellectual discourse as a result. They include evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg (sandbagged at the Smithsonian), biology professor Caroline Crocker (drummed out of George Mason University), and astrophysicist Guillermo Gonzalez (blackballed at Iowa State University).
… this documentary purporting to examine the issue of freedom of expression in the debate between the competing arguments of “intelligent design” and Darwinism squanders the potential fascination of its topic with its simplistic, heavy-handed approach.
Frank, I think you missed the point! How would you make a documentary that American young people will actually watch? If it wasn’t hard hitting would people even watch it? The American school system has been doing such a good job of dumbing people down, that we sometimes have to shock people to get them thinking again. The movie was supposed to be a defibrillator for the brain.
Amusingly, Stein asks people how the first cell came to be. None of the scientists could give him a straight answer. Dawkins himself admits he doesn’t know and that no one else does, either — but postulates that aliens could have brought life to this planet, and then postulates that another alien civilization could have brought life to that planet, and so on. He then concedes that one entity could have been the original source … but insists that entity could not possibly have been God. For this he gives absolutely no evidence at all, relegating it as a belief system somewhat akin to Scientology.
In fairness to Stein, his opponents have hardly covered themselves in glory. Evolutionary biologists and social commentators have lately taken to answering the claims of intelligent-design boosters not with clear-eyed scientific empiricism but with sneering, finger-in-the-eye atheism. Biologist P.Z. Myers, for example, tells Stein that religion ought to be seen as little more than a soothing pastime, a bit like knitting.
Shawn Barr said the movie did not live up to the criticisms thrown at it by the media:
The main focus of the movie is the question of academic freedom. By interviewing scholars who have been discriminated against because of their ID or faith views, Stein shows a form of bigotry in academia. Critics say these people had other issues affecting their job performance and scholarship. Of course that is the approach each institution representative took. How could they say anything else?
Iowa State University though actually admitted that eliminating a professor for his ID views was a part of their intent. Being an alumnus, I’m duly glad they were honest, and disappointed with their treatment of Gonzalez: a physics professor. One reason they may have been so honest is the existence of emails documenting the concern over his ID views. Whether or not there were other issues with his tenure, ID was certainly one of them.
Shawn Barr does make a good point about academic bigotry at Iowa State University in the case of Guillermo Gonzalez, and something worth investigating a little deeper. (It seems like they were singing a different song. It would be interesting to know the chronology of events.) According to a World Net Daily news article about Guillermo Gonzalez, published back on Feb. 7, 2008 (Regents reject tenure request without evidence, testimony) :
The school has continued to deny the handling of Gonzalez’ case was related to his support of ID, even though the Des Moines Register documented e-mails that confirmed Gonzalez’ colleagues wanted him flushed out of the system for that reason.
Was Gonzalez somehow derelict in publishing 350 percent more peer-reviewed publications than his own department’s stated standard for research excellence? Or in co-authoring a college astronomy textbook with Cambridge University Press? Or in having his research recognized by Science, Nature, Scientific American and other top science publications?
One of Gonzalez’ research papers had 153 citations listed; another had 139. This is a LOT of citations for an assistant professor up for tenure.
The movie seeks to ‘expose’ the bias in modern science against the concept of ‘Intelligent Design’. While the movie successfully accomplishes not only this, but also films Richard Dawkins making a case for Intelligent Design…
Here’s a piece is called “Guitar Drifting” – perhaps a reference to car drifting.
This great music video of the amazing guitar player Andy McKee has racked up an incredible 13,101,129 views on YouTube (as of 18-Apr-2008). Nonetheless, there are still a few billion people who have not yet seen or heard this incredibly gifted guitarist. And yes, you really should see him perform on video, or on tour, to get a deeper understanding and appreciation for his wonderful guitar hammering style.
Until recently, Andy was just a great guitarist (from Topeka, Kansas) that most people would never hear about. But now Andy is another great example of a talented, and persistent musician, who successfully used the power of the Internet to bring his music directly to the people. Quoting from Andy’s website:
Andy McKee is one of the world’s finest acoustic soloists. After receiving over 20 million views collectively for his Youtube videos which were posted by the independent record label “Candyrat”, Andy’s success is a testament to the changing nature of the music industry as well as people’s desire for something new and interesting to listen to. At one point, Andy held the #1, #2 and #3 positions for Top-Rated Videos of all time on the hugely popular website. His videos are still among the highest rated on Youtube. Consequently, Andy has performed to sold out shows all over the world.
Andy’s teenage influences from Dust In The Wind; attending a guitar clinic by acoustic master Preston Reed (when Andy was 16), and sudden rise from obscure guitar teacher to international guitar phenomena is chronicled in a November 2007 Lawrence.com article.
