All posts by Andrew Arensburger

Reading Martin Gardner Pays Off

(Or: Life Imitates Logic Puzzle)

Lately, to measure out water for coffee, I’ve been filling whichever mug I intend to drink from, and pouring it into the coffee maker. That way, I know there’s the right amount.

This morning, I was making coffee for the drive in to work, and noticed that I had poured coffee from a regular mug, rather than the larger travel mug I was going to use. I wasn’t going to upend the coffee maker over the sink to empty the water and start over. I could have just estimated how much more water I needed to add, but came up with a cleverer solution, below the flip.

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Welcome, del.icio.us Readers!

So I took a glance at the web server log, and found that my old article
How Not to Embarrass Yourself In an Argument With an Atheist somehow managed to make its way to http://del.icio.us/popular/.

So take a load off and stay a while. There’s beer and sodas in the fridge.

Oh, and a lot of people commented that the study I mention at the end of that piece is bogus. I don’t remember which study it was, nor could I find it now if I tried, but I’m not at all surprised that it turned out to be flawed. If it hadn’t, it would’ve been huge news.

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The Price of Congressmen

I wrote earlier
about my dismay at finding out just how cheap some of the whores on Capitol Hill are. Rasmussen Reports

on what people think congressmen cost.

Half of all Americans believe it takes a contribution of at least $50,000 to influence a Congressman or Governor. That includes 27% who believe the price of influence begins with at least $100,000.

A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 24% believe influence can be obtained with a $1,000 or $10,000 contribution. Twenty-six percent (26%) are not sure.

The survey also found that just 11% believe that they could get their Congressman to change his or her position on an issue for a $1,000 contribution.

Unfortunately, Rasmussen is a polling organization, so they only report on what people think congresscritters cost. Maybe Consumer Reports can investigate and tell us how much they really cost, and which ones provide the best value for money.

Time-Related Things I Never Want to See In A Perl Script Again

I got stuck debugging someone else’s Perl code today, and it was chock-full of the sorts of things that annoy the piss out of those of us who know better.

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ID vs. Methodological Naturalism

Andrew Rowell at ID In the UK
writes:

The basic articles of faith for a methodological naturalist go
something like this:

We have found excellent naturalistic explanations for many
phenomenon [sic] in nature.

Therefore

we believe every phenomenon in nature will have a naturalistic
explanation.

Therefore

we make it a strict rule that science is exclusively the study of
possible naturalistic explanations for what can be observed in the
universe.

Rowell has it exactly backward. Scientists don’t pledge a blood oath
to preserve the purity of science’s precious bodily naturalism.
Rather, if you’re trying to figure out how the world works,
methodological naturalism works, and nothing else even comes close.

Not heated argument.

Not listening to the most senior researcher present.

Not quoting Aristotle.

Not divine inspiration.

When scientists investigate natural phenomena, they look for natural
explanations because that’s the only method we as a species have come
up with that works worth a damn.

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Happy Steak and Blow Job Day!

Happy
Steak and Blow Job Day,
guys.

Poly Punctuation

Hey, kids! Spot the punctuation error in
this National Review article
by Stanley Kurtz:

polyamory has much greater potential appeal [than polygamy], and poses a much deeper danger to the American family […]. Take away the stigma against multiple-partner marriage, and our larger family system will be profoundly weakened.

Yes, you got it: he put a period at the end, when obviously he should have used a colon and one or more explanatory clauses.

I’ve often seen the same mistake in articles against gay marriage. Right-wingers tell us that all sorts of things will happen if gay marriage (or, in this case, polyamory) is legalized. But with the exception of a few slippery-slope arguments, sometimes involving
box turtles, they never get around to telling us exactly why these things are bad.

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Advice for Christian Parents

John Wilkins has
a good piece:

Don’t try to make everything a religious matter. There’s nothing religious about plumbing, for example. Likewise, science, sports, and dress sense. People can in fact like Korn and still be Christian (although I do not think they can like Korn and still have taste). There is no “Christian” or “Satanic” music, only music that is turned to a purpose.

But go read the whole thing.

I note that he specifically addresses Christian parents. Presumably that means it’s still okay to indoctrinate children into
FSMism.

Scientists, Before and After

This
is pretty cool: 7th-graders’ drawings and descriptions of scientists, both
before and after meeting some real scientists at
Fermilab.

“We pay the teachers’ salary…”

One argument that crops up from time to time in anti-evolutionist circles is, “Teachers should teach Intelligent Design if that’s what the community wants. We pay the teachers’ salary, after all.”

I’ve finally put my finger on what was bugging me about this. It’s exactly the same as saying, “My doctor should tell me those chest pains are just gas, not cancer. I pay his salary, after all.”