#52787: Jeremy — 12/07  at  11:08 PM
Of course, there's even creationist mathematics: http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/2005/08/math_for_believ.html
There is also this crazy paper, which concludes with the following astonishing claim:

In the future, creationism might be useful in answering questions in mathematics that
have eluded all attempts at formal proof. One specific example is the hypothesis that nondeterministic
computability in polynomial time implies deterministic computability in polynomial time (the P = NP conjecture). Creationism would seem to respond to this conjecture in the negative, because God as a free agent is not bound by deterministic methods. Further investigation is needed.

#52794: — 12/07  at  11:32 PM
It's true. Take historians, for example. We've all heard about Holocaust "revisionism" and that sort of thing, and we Americanists in particular have been fighting off the Founding-Fathers-as-born-again-Christians thing for awhile. But as the Fundamentalists gain strength, we'll see it elsewhere. Initially it'll be a fiercer version of what we already get from the Right: Vietnam as "noble cause" lost by the media and hippies, and howling silence about the Philippines or Guatemala or Panama etc etc (imperialism is such an ugly word...),the immoral Sixties, black people *liked* slavery and the Civil War wasn't about that anyway, the long history of Welfare State evils, how the labor unions had it coming, blah blah blah as infinitum. But it'll get worse, I suspect. Are we prepared to fight against people who see the Hand of God in all history? Who insist all languages sprouted from Babel, who ignore all those cultures that existed before the flood and yet still existed afterward, unaffected, and belive that all human history is no more than 6000 years long? I'm not entirely unconvinced that, after evolutionary biology, we're next. Maybe I'm crazy, but crazy things are happening as we speak.

#52798: — 12/08  at  12:22 AM
Believe me, going after the social studies curriculum is par for the course here in Texas. Indeed, our state board of education just severed ties with the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) because "NASBE holds to the notion that the phrase 'separation of church and state' accurately summarizes the Bill of Rights ... [SBoE member Terri] Leo says the Texas Board of Education voted not be associated with an organization that chooses to perpetuate a myth. She says she disagrees with NASBE's continued promotion of "misinformation" and its lack of concern with the actual language found in the Bill of Rights and other First Amendment rights."

By way of context, it's worth noting that the current President of NASBE is a member of the Utah SBoE and the two Central area directors are from Ohio and, notably, Kansas. In other words, the Texas SBoE has decided that Utah, Ohio and Kansas aren't right-wing enough.

#52806: — 12/08  at  02:50 AM
As a pedantic note on a pet peeve of mine: to say that the Civil War was "about slavery" is, at best, an exaggeration. The economic and political pressures behind the Civil War had been building up since the 1830s; the growing political power of the North (as well as questions of federate vs. confederate government), coupled with economic factors, such as tarriff systems designed to benefit the industrialized North, all contributed to the North-South schism which eventually erupted into war. Slavery was an issue, but only because of its economic dimension -- Southern states relied on slave labour for their plantations, while the industrialized North was based on wage labour -- with, of course, resulting political implications. The decision to secede, however, was not directly linked to slavery, nor was the response of the Northern states. In fact, on July 25, 1861, the US Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson resolution which stated that the war was not being waged to end slavery (essentially an attempt to prevent more slave states from seceding.) Furthermore, the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves within Confederate territory recaptured by Union forces, not within the Union itself (or in any states that might have decided to voluntarily rejoin the Union).

Otherwise, I agree with what you say.

#52807: — 12/08  at  03:03 AM
The creationist math "paper" deserves a read. In it, we learn, among other things, that mathematical operations are both bound and unbound by logical axioms:

"Mathematics follows the rules of logic
because God is logical."

However,

"God, not proof, establishes the truth of a
statement."

What I can't figure out from this is whether God really can force a four-sided triangle into existence or not. On the one hand, God is logical. On the other, logic has no meaning outside of God, therefore, the logic used to construct the proof is unnecessary. God does not need mathematical proofs.

#52809: — 12/08  at  03:05 AM
Yes, Sedeer, but note also that the Confederate Constitution was essentially identical to the U.S. Constitution except for its explicit recognition of slavery.

Back on topic, I forget where I saw a link to a religious type taking aim at Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle as a dangerous source of fuzzy thinking (probably here, perhaps at Bad Astronomy). If they go after Werner, they'll come for Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem next.

Perhaps we could just set up a barrier requiring minimal familiarity with the theory being threatened, which would entail all sorts of factual knowledge, difficult mathematics and so forth, as in the old Far Side cartoon in which prospective monsters encounter a sign reading "You must be at least this tall to attack the city."

#52812: — 12/08  at  03:58 AM
The math paper is definitely worth a read. For a laugh, have a quick look at their journal:

http://www.acmsonline.org/journal2005.htm

From "Reflections Upon the Relationship Between Mathematical and Biblical Truth":

Both God and the ultimate scope of mathematics are unfathomable. Though gifted and industrious individuals
have discovered many and varied mathematical truths throughout the millennia, the limitations of human reason in
such pursuits have been glaringly evident. Fermat’s Last Theorem baffled mathematicians for 350 years; the status of
Euclid’s Parallel Postulate, for nearly two millennia. And how little is known now in comparison to what remains to
be known! The truth about the Goldbach and Twin Prime Conjectures has eluded mathematicians for centuries, and
will, perhaps, for centuries to come. As a complete understanding of mathematics is beyond the intellectual grasp of man,
so is God in His transcendence

#52816: Alon Levy — 12/08  at  04:12 AM
Perhaps we could just set up a barrier requiring minimal familiarity with the theory being threatened, which would entail all sorts of factual knowledge, difficult mathematics and so forth, as in the old Far Side cartoon in which prospective monsters encounter a sign reading "You must be at least this tall to attack the city."

What do you mean?

#52819: — 12/08  at  04:55 AM
What do I mean? I'm sorry to have made such a lame attempt at a joke. The attacks upon the citadels of scientific achievment have been laughably weak, so far. The creationists still wield signs proclaiming that the second law of thermodynamics prohibits evolution, when their interpretation of it goes so far as to prohibit life. So far it hasn't been enough to go outside, point at the sun, and note that our planet isn't a closed system to make them go away.

At times I think it would be particularly amusing to watch the biblical literalists go after quantum mechanics, that vale from which no one returns without having been driven mad. It's one thing to insinuate that evolution deniers ought ethically to abstain from vaccines, another to demonstrate to a non-believer that the computer under their fingertips depends on tunneling electrons and routine (but brief!) violations of expected particle behavior.

In other words, they have no idea of how anything works and they don't consider it important to remedy their ignorance. Dinosaurs could not be expected to read a sign saying "You must be this tall..."

#52821: — 12/08  at  05:40 AM
More generally, and more encouragingly, perhaps, it would do the zealots no good to assert that their computers and the internet are purely God's work (pace Clarke and any sufficently advanced technology). Quite apart from the pornography is the problem that most of the development happened within recent memory and without conspicuous divine intervention.

It's more convincing to offer a kitten and say "God did it" than to do the same with a computer running Windows.

#52825: Alon Levy — 12/08  at  06:36 AM
Speaking of Windows, this operating system (if you can call it operating...) provides conclusive evidence that if God created computers, then its level of competence is lower than Bush's.

#52828: — 12/08  at  08:06 AM
I don't wish to be the bearer of bad tidings, but even the Bible is not off limits for these madcap zealots:

Inscrutable Malignity- the New Controversy

Millions of Americans are following the unfolding drama in Dover, a struggle to claim the minds of our schoolkids. Largely ignored by the media is a new struggle- over their hearts. Supporters of "Inscrutable Malignity" are demanding a place in Sunday school for their ideas, which call into question many core beliefs of Christianity.

The recently established Discrepancy Institute is spearheading the drive to change the curricula. In a recent interview, we asked Institute spokesman John East what its aims were. "Look, everyone knows that God is supposed to be good. And everyone knows that He's done some really mean stuff. I mean, it just doesn't jibe- you don't need to be a rocket scientist to see that something's fishy here". When asked about the Neotestamentalists who claim that God has "cleaned up his act a lot" since the Olden Times, East replied: "What about that fig tree that Jesus wasted? You call that the act of a benevolent God?"

Many Christians are opposed to the teaching of Inscrutable Malignity in their churches, saying there's no Scriptural evidence for it. Bob Patterson, picking up his daughter Suzy after Sunday school, said "Well, if God says He's good, then all that mean stuff must be good too, somehow". Suzy Patterson added "If I can't believe God, like, who can I believe? Not my Dad, who lied to Mom about..." Unfortunately, the interview was cut short by Mr. Patterson, who grabbed his daughter and rushed off saying "I have a roast in the oven".

But now Scripturalists are under fire from a new theory- Irrepressible Complicity. Theologian Michael Buhu, the chief architect of IC , explained it for us: "As many people have pointed out over the years, for instance Dick Dudkins in The Angry Watchmaker, it doesn't make sense that a loving God could have done all the nasty things the Bible says He did. There must be malevolent Beings behind Him, telling Him what to do, or maybe just pinching Him and making Him pissed, or killing heathens themselves while His Back is turned. We don't really know how it works, but the Neotestamentalists are obviously barking down the wrong barrel".

Some have leveled criticism at Buhu, saying that his position is not based on Scripture, but on his own religion. When asked about this, he replied "I've never made any bones about being a Carrotstick. I believe in the Easter Bunny, and that She painted eggs to redeem us. Do you think it's just a coincidence that She appears just when Jesus is ressurected? But just because She is my personal Designer doesn't have any effect on the theory of Irrepressible Complicity. The signs of complicity in the Bible cannot be repressed- everywhere you see the pawprints, I mean the finger or tentacle prints, of Other Beings."

Where all this will end up, no one can predict. Jenny Flecked, mother of two children, told us "Well, my kids came home from school today with stickers in their biology books." She opened her son Adam's book and showed us the trial text from the Flagellants, which read:

Dinosaurs are Darwin's trip
But only God can make a whip

Ms. Flecked sighed and said, "I'll be happy if Inscrutable Malignancy isn't any worse than this".

Your reporter, zilch

#52833: wolfangel — 12/08  at  08:30 AM
Even linguistics is not safe!

The bulk of [the Wrathful Dispersionists'] case against evolutionism, though, is based on the notion of irreducible perversity. For example, they argue that the sheer alienness of Basque—its apparent lack of any resemblance to any other living language—could only have come about by deliberate, wrathful (and, the Babelists would add, divine) intervention. Similarly, they claim that the notorious "ruki rule" in Sanskrit (/s/ becomes retroflex in the environment of /r/, /u/, /k/, or /i/—a "calculatedly chaotic conglomeration comprising two vowels, a rhotic, and a surd") is so arbitrary and so confusing that it must have been the conscious invention of someone who was absolutely determined that Sanskrit should be thoroughly incomprehensible to native speakers of any other language, such as Finnish.

Most evolutionists have been reluctant to dignify WD by arguing against it, although a few have pointed out that while evolutionary models make a few wrong predictions, WD makes no predictions whatsoever, and others have taken on the ruki rule question, pointing to the feature [+high] as a potential means of herding the offending segments into a natural class. Much of the public opposition to WD, however, has come in the form of parody. In particular, a satirical Web-based grassroots pseudo-cult has grown up around the theory that all modern languages were in fact "shat out of the arse of the Flying Stratificational Grammar Monster," with adherents claiming to have achieved enlightenment upon being "touched by His Boolean Appendage" or "washed in the blood of Sydney Lamb."

#52836: — 12/08  at  08:38 AM
My impression is that the most prominent shot across the separationist bow in recent years is Separation of Church and State published by Havard University Press a couple of years ago and written by Philip Hamburger, John P. Wilson Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Is he a creationist?

#52845: — 12/08  at  08:59 AM
Hi Sedeer,

I admit being guilty of simplification for the sake of effect. You are right, of course, to say the Civil War was a result of a lot of things, slavery being only one of them. I always tell my students to remember that a) abolitionists were uncommon and hated in much of the north, at least until late, b) "antislavery" doesn't equal "supportive of equal rights" for most, and c) the becomes "about slavery" mostly because the North realizes that destroying slavery will be required to break the South's back and prevent any recurrence of the schisms that facilitated the war. Crittenden-Johnson, etc, is evidence of this, as you say. I admit that the "industry vs. agriculture" thing strikes me as a bit oversimplified too, because it tends to omit the moral dimensions of slavery entirely. These, while perhaps not the only issue, are still vital. Seems to me it's hard to explain John Brown, Bleeding Kansas, the deep hatred of fugitive slave laws, etc. by "system" arguments alone.

But -- this was not my point. What I was railing against is basic Lost Cause-ism, this tendency on the part of modern Confederate apologists to say the Civil War was a glorious fight by Southern heroes in defense of states' rights and agrarian life (nevermind all those plantations...) - the "I'll Take My Stand" argument, so to speak (at least regarding the agrarian part). To say the Civil War was "about states' rights" is as much a simplification and exaggeration, I think you'd agree, as saying it was "about slavery." But that's exactly what we hear from the Fundamentalists, who tens to read back their own modern government-hating conservative ideology into the history of their forebearers.

Anyway, not picking a fight, just clarifying a point.

#52872: — 12/08  at  10:06 AM

As a pedantic note on a pet peeve of mine: to say that the Civil War was "about slavery" is, at best, an exaggeration.

Perhaps, but the belief that the Civil War was about slavery was quite widespread during the Civil War. I believe the Vice President of the Confederacy gave some kind of speech circa-1861/1862 where he declared that slavery was to be the 'cornerstone' of the new Confederate States of America. This was actually a huge embarrassment to Jefferson Davis, since he'd been trying to maintain an image that the guiding idea behind the South's secession was really 'state's rights'. Declaring it really was about having slaves made it much harder for the South to get help from some of the more enlightened nations of Europe, who otherwise would have loved to see the US split up.

BIG OT digression...

#52879: Keith Douglas — 12/08  at  10:10 AM
Snitting, the bit about "creationist logic and math" actually has a precedent. Descartes, for example, thought that God could have rendered mathematical truths other than what they are. Leibniz, slightly more moderate, thought that various mathematical axioms like those of Euclidian geomtery could be demonstrated within a proper metaphysics.

#52891: — 12/08  at  10:39 AM
badJim,
I appreciate your point (and joke). One of our national newspapers, the National Post, regularly prints articles that support ID. This attracts the ignoramuses to the letters page, where they keep saying the same-old-shit, the 2nd LOT being the favourite. Of course, the last letter i saw was written by someone so dumb he called it the FIRST law of thermodynamics. Even in Waynes World, the guitar store was a Stairway to Heaven-free zone. There should be a Godwin-type rule regarding the 2nd LOT. In an discussion of evolution vs Creationism, cite the 2nd law = automatic loss.

#52911: — 12/08  at  11:45 AM
Keith Douglas,

I guess a remaining question is whether God is forced to obey the laws that were laid down by him/it in the beginning, that is, the manifestation of his logical nature, or if he can change the rules as he goes along. If that is so, the universe no longer acts according to his nature, which is to be logical. Right?

#52981: — 12/08  at  04:09 PM
If I might add one voice to the "they're going after my specialty too" crowd:

Politics also happens to be a field of social science, we even have journals and textbooks and theories and everything.

And the fundamentalists were taking over our field long before they set their sights on all the others. Have some sympathy

#52992: nonclassical — 12/08  at  05:11 PM
Well, I'm a mathematician, not a social scientist, but I have questions that a social scientist might be best equipped to consider:

Has the preference for simple authoritative answers and the rejection of analytical reasoning been increasing in recent years, or does it just seem that way because of how it shows up in the media? Is there any way to measure the numbers of people involved?

And if simplemindedness has indeed been increasing, what is causing the increase? Is it one of the side-effects of television? Is it being promoted by politicians who hope to profit from ignorance and confusion?

#53025: — 12/08  at  10:01 PM
nonclassical:
I don't want to hijack this thread so I will keep this brief. When asked why he was voting for Bush, a voter replied, "He is the kind of guy I can sit in a bar and have a beer with."
Enough said.

#53026: — 12/08  at  10:06 PM
How soon before Home-Ec(onomics) requires burkas be worn by all female students?

MYOB'
.

#53047: — 12/09  at  06:25 AM
Bokanovsky Process:
You're right, of course, that attempting to characterize the Civil War as purely a "states' rights" issue would be an oversimplification. It just bugs me to see such a complex issue so often reduced to a single, simple, one-word explanation ("slavery"), especially since that reinforces the glorified, mythical, "fighting-for-freedom" past of the US. Anyway, I didn't really want to hijack this thread.

nonclassical:
I'm not a social scientist, so I'm not going to try to offer a thorough answer to your question. Briefly, though, I think it's more than a side-effect of television; in my opinion it's part of the passive consumer mindset demanded by modern, rationalized societies.

In a similar vein, I've also noticed that people tend not to argue; I often take extreme positions in the hope of drawing someone into an argument only to find them retreating behind "I respect your right to have an opinion". I've never understood why respecting someone's right to an opinion seems to necessitate not challenging that opinion. Somehow modern cultural relativism has led to "right to have an opinion" and "right to be considered right" getting confused. Everyone has a right to an opinion and a responsibility to defend it.