The Relationship Between Science And Religion

Religion is spiritual and pedagogical
Science is secular and methodological.
The latter enhances hermeneutical thought,
The former gives meaning that some scientists sought.
Though Science’s tacit dimension does surely exist,
There need not be religion for it to subsist.
Philosophical men have wondered long,
Where the dialogue would best belong.

To ethical insight both now may lay claim.
Their paths did differ, but results are the same.
There is a problem in inferring from is to ought.
But it doesn’t have to conflict with the god that you’ve got.
Advances in theory and knowledge lead to mental satisfaction,
Whether or not you believe in divine interaction.
There is virtue in humanism you cannot ignore,
It produces Ten Commandments, minus four.

I am an Atheist that Advocates Agnosticism

The paradox:
Assume:
-There is a God that is omnipotent and omniscient
-God created all things via ordained natural laws
-Sin exists, and is not in accordance with the values of God
-God wants us to be happy, and happiness is the aim of human existence
-God punishes sinners
Conclusions from those assumptions:
-No observation of nature can be inconsistent with the existence of God
-The original conditions of the universe were set such that there would eventually be organisms aware of that being (the Anthropic Principal) and God knew this.
-Natural laws cannot be violated from within the system; one may only be placed in situations in which separate natural laws, as they have been artificially divided,
-Randomness is an illusion: knowing all of the laws and the precise position and velocity of all particles and energy negates Heisenberg’s uncertainty principal.
-Free will is an illusion: one cannot act except in accordance with natural laws whether we are aware of them or not, except in the instance of divine intervention/ miracles.
-Paradox 1: The act of sinning is therefore in accordance with and is the product of God’s natural laws, but not in accordance with God’s values.
-God knows and has always known who will and will not sin
-While Jesus could have made a difference, God still knows in advance who will and will not sin, and sin still exists.
-The rejection of Jesus as lord and savior is the invisible and unconscious consequence of natural law.
-Paradox 2: God wants us to be happy but knowingly predetermined via his non-negotiable natural laws that some would sin and therefore suffer.
-If it is therefore part of God’s values that a certain acceptable percentage not be happy, and increased happiness (though perhaps not as great as the sinless) can be attained by that percentage by continued or greater discontinuity with God’s values (e.g. via hedonism), then there is no incentive for that percentage to reduce their sin
-Paradox 3: God does not like sin but knowingly created a system by which a positive feedback loop increases it.

Calvin and Hobbes

Seems Familiar

Irony of Ironies

Sometimes the validity of Gelnaw's Law washes over me, hitting me like a wave during fair weather. Other times, it's like a tsunami. Two excellent examples: I have my ornithology Lab final next week. To study for this I need my bird book (which I haven't been using too much until now). The other night, I discovered it was missing, completely gone, as though it evaporated into the ether. In response, I went to the library and picked up a book that is actually superior. After that, I went to the zoology museum and low and behold, there was my lab book. Wow, that's like three distinctly ironic moments in one story.
Ok, now for the second example. Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. I am an American and so typically I try to do a little something for the holiday. This year I think I'll go hungry. Why? Because I'm completely out of money from my "this is not rent money" account. I recalled seeing my ballance in Denver and still having a fair amount of money. Yesterday I tried to buy fries ($2.05 CAD) and my card was declined, so I guess registering for the GRE kind of ate into that. I actually have a fair bit o' savings (thanks to Mom and Dad) but that's locked in a savings account in California and I discontinued the checking account there because I didn't want to pay a monthly fee. Foresight would have been great there. Ok, so what do I have for rations? A single potatoe, half a bottle each of mustard and ketchup, 1/5 of a bottle of ranch dressing, 1/10th of one onion, a life saver candy, 1/4 sac of flour, and 1/2 bag of brown sugar. What a Thanks Giving feast that'll make, yum! Ok, so maybe I should use some of the cash I've got for groceries. Though I think I'll have some trouble stretching $3.21. Well, Happy Thanks Giving!

GRE

Well, I spent $40 USD but It think its worth it. I postponed when I'm taking the GRE. The other day I realized that I wasn't writing it on the thrid but on the second. The second is also the day of my Ornithology Lab final. I just figured that I didn't have enough room in my brain for over 250 birds, how to recognize them, where they live, what they sound like AND the antonym of Sedulous. I've been studying for the GRE but I just don't think that it would be worth the money to write it when I've got bird info filling up all the precious little grey matter I have left. So now I'm writing it on Monday the 13th. 11 more days to study (and I don't mean 11 days to procrastinate) won't hurt either.

Drinkin' With the Profs

Ok, so last night there was a little seminar for students in Dr. lamoureux's science and religion class to learn about evolution. For this special event, Dr. Michael Caldwell was called in to help explain some of the concepts to people who have clearly never had any biology in their lives. Brilliant people I'm sure, but just no biology. Some of their questions such as "so did it go fish then monkeys then us?" only go to support my suggestion that if I have to take calculus and chemistry and English as a Paleo student, then Math, Chemistry and English majors should be forced to take at least one course of biology and one course of geology. Biology for Beginners and Rocks for Jocks. I think that this teaching method alone will go a long way to clear up the widespread misonception that "there is no evidence for evolution." Furthermore, I think that if the anti-evolution comunity is going to be so outspoken and actively recruit followers, then the evolution community ought to do the same. By the way, this has absolutely nothing to do with my religious views, I don't have problems with people who are religious and accept evolution, I just think that ignorance is perhaps the largest stumbling block in the path of the biological sciences.
After the Seminar, the profs, a bunch of paleo students and one non-paleo student went out for beers. I'd didn't pay for a single beer the whole night, and that's all right by me. I look forward to the day when I have the financial freedom to do the same for some of my students. Lamoureux, Caldwell and I had some interesting religious discussion. Basically it boiled down to accepting that we three are men of very strong belief. Caldwell and I just believe in one less god that Lamoureux does.
I also greatly appreciated the opportunity to pick Caldwell's brain about the issues with improving the Paleo program here at the U of A. From what i gather, the biggest stumbling block there is insurance. Want to take students into the field for a field school? Well, if you have more than 15 students, you would need a bus with a certified driver. Under 15 people and you need a 15 passanger van, for which you need someone with a class 4 liscence. How about if you want to teach students how to manage collections or museums, or prepare fossils for study? Well there's a limited amount of time in the curriculum, and letting students with potentially no experience handle fossils is an insurance nightmare.
On another note, I also figured out that being a man of such strong convictions, and therefore a very high level of confidence, is sexy to women. Without going into too much detail, a young lady with whom I have history, and who is currently dating someone else, had no trouble expressing the fact that she still has feelings for me. Woot! Then I figured it out; on the previous occasion that she had expressed such feelings, I had engaged in intense discussion with someone on the subject of politics. I had suspected previously that the power of word and mind were the attracting force, but last night provided supporting evidence. Of course, she was pretty drunk on both occasions, so I think it's important not to read too much into things. Also, just for clarification's sake, although she expressed feelings, we didn't do anything as the result. I know that she's seeing someone else, and I have much too strong of a superego to allow myself to overpowered by the id. That is to say, I could not ethically do anything with her. Were she my girlfriend, I would not tollerate her expressing such feelings to other men. It's the whole catagorical imperative thing. Wow, who knew I'd actually use anything from my ethics class.

SVP

SVP was great this year. As usual I missed a few of the morning talks because I was sleeping off some of the drinks from the night before. Paleo conferences are most certainly not places to get some sleep. Or rather, they aren't if you're a paleontologist. I could imagine a lot of people falling fast asleep in the dimmed halls while someone spouted jargon way above their heads. Thankfully though I was quite enthralled by the lectures and now have a much clearer idea of what I'm doing with all of this dino and bird data that I've collected. It boils down to: I have so much more to do. There was a couple of fellows who modeled the craniofacial ontogeny of the allosaurs using simple linear regression of measurements that they took using calipers. They took alot more measurements than I have, but I think that I'll take their 50 some odd different variables and apply it across taxa in order to get a better picture of the evolution of these animals. Either that or I could just use image analysis software to plot the change in shape of these skulls. In either case, I'll then use Finite element analysis to plot the amount and area of strain on the bones in the skull in a 3-D computer model based on ct scans, and see how the forces are transmitted and how it changes with a change in each of the measured variables. Then, using the concept of functional domains in the skull, I'll determine how those changes in force distribution effect each of the domains. Then if I figure out how growth rates are involved (within a phylogenetically independent context), I'll have a pretty good Idea how these animals are evolving and about the multitudinous tradeoffs involved during evolution. It'll boil down to a hell of a lot of multiple linear regressions, resulting in a model that will probably have about 50 dimensions. This way, if I ever get a partial skull, I'll be able to predict all kinds of crap about the rest of it, without ever seeing it. People with think I'm crazy and say that no-one can possibly predict all of that because of a cumulative effect of all of the deviations in the data away from an exact line. Then I'll avoid making sense out of my statements by referring them to information that they would have already known or predicted on their own and stroll out amidst a hail of questions, angry shouts and calls from starry eyed undergrads.
The last part I embellished on a bit, but I don't think that it's an unreasonable prediction.

Off to SVP

Well, once again SVP time is here. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I hop on a plane, then a nother plane and eventually get to Denver, Colorado. This year is a bit different. I have a real purpose for being there. No, I'm not presenting. I'm schmoozing. This year I have to convince a prof through charm and wit that they can't live without me as a grad student. I even got a haircut for the occasion.

What a Load Off

Well, I'm done with my midturms. Wow, that's a relief. Since I don't have to study, I can relax and spend some time celebrating the accomplishment of finishing exams. Now all I have to do before I leave for SVP on tuesday is: wash my laundry, get a hair cut, pack, analyze about 3 dozen bird skulls in scion image, write the introduction, procedure/methods and results of an ornithology paper, do 3 or 4 hours of solid bird watching (for which I must borrow some binoculars), but a GRE book, confirm my flight with the airline, finish my botony labs for next week, read up for what I'll be talking with people about at svp, analyze and plot my dinosaur data (and probably formalize a methods section for that too), arrange for a ride to the airport, print out pertinant application information for my prospective grad schools, arrange for someone in my lab to take pictures of the dead raptors that they're getting in on wednesday and arrange for my ornithology lab partners to not get totally lost on our project that is due that day after I get back. Well, is that all! I could probably get most of that done by tonight!

How to Annoy a Prospective Grad Advisor

Try this out: while sending out a mass e-mail to get a feel for who is accepting grad students and who isn't accidentally forget to change the name at the top of two going to the professor with rather famous research. If he has his own agent, is a national geographic explorer and his is a houshold name in your field, or if he has recently published a paper in Nature that you'd like to base much of your research on and you get it completely wrong, it tells him that you're clearly not paying attention when it comes to such important matters as Grad School Applications.
Dr. s Sereno and Erickson, if you read this; I'm sorry.

The Idiots Guide Reptilian Braincase Anatomy

Dispite the title, I have no intention of explaining the anatomy of the reptilian braincase here. Rather, I would like to call for an idiots guide to it. I've been reading and re-reading Rieppel & Zaher's (2000) paper as well as papers on amphisbaenids, and gekkonids and their respecive brain cases. So far I have this to say: It's a small wonder that when a person achieves the supreme enlightenment of being able to understand this stuff in detail, his or her grey matter doesn't liquify and shoot out their eyes like science fair volcanoes.
The one solace that I have found is that someone else understands that this stuff is really complicated and has attempted to dumb it down to the level of your average, soon to be graduating, university biology student. The site Palaeos has a section specially dedicated to the braincase.
I don't know who wrote it, but whoever he or she was, that person is a genius; not so much for their clear understanding of the braincase, but because of such great lines as:

Braincase terminology is somewhat fractal. Each level of obscure anatomical referents turns out to be made up of parts and variants with even more eldritch anatomical names. Just as the essentially Greek braincase regions are made up of little Latin structures, there is probably an entire vocabulary of component substructures which is represented in Babylonian pictograms, the true meaning of which is revealed only to a secret hereditary caste of anatomical hierophants.

It seems to be one of those unwritten rules of paleontology that no one illustrates a mammaliform in occipital view.

While Bob is not a creature of towering intellectual prowess, we nonetheless value his companionship because of his congenial disposition and straightforward anatomy.

More Dinosaur News

It seems that there has been alot coming out of Liaonang, China lately. Earlier this month was the anouncement of a tyrranosaur with feathers, and now a new troodontid with a birdlike resting pose and a fossil "bird embryo" (shell not actually found). The new troodontid is what especially interests me. I don't consider the birdlike pose to be anything particularly special. People have acceped for a while now that dinosaurs such as this one were warm blooded and feathered, so it is no surprise to me that it would have tucked its head under its "wing" to stay warm. It's long tail is also curled around its body. What interests me about it is, as usual its braincase. You should see this thing. From the dorsal surface, the dermatocranium (all you can see of the brain case) looks exactly like a blown up version of Archaeopteryx's. Also, the little guy has a very Archaeopteryx look in genral to the whole head. Very exciting. I bet that if someone were to do a CT scan of this sucker they'd find even more similarities.
The other group that this individual strongly reminded me of was the ornithomimosaurs. In fact, until I saw the teeth, my first reaction was to call it an ornithomimid. I've heard talk lately of placing the troodontids as a sister group to ornithomimids as opposed to the dromaeosaurs and the birds as a sister group to both of those. I have no problem with that. There seem to be alot more troodontids in the literature lately than dromaeosaurs, so I feel that this sort of response is expected. Everyone want's their specimen to be the closest to birds.
One thing I found currious about the article was that it described the dinosaur as having a proportionately small head. Ok, maybe short, but not small. Head is about half the length of the torso and most of that is brain case. They made a comment that the reduction in size was crucial for flight and is responsible for alot of the other features associated with early birds. Well Duh!!! I've been saying that for over three years now! From allometry we know that the brain has to become proportionately larger compared to the body size as the size of the animal decreases. Having a larger, heavier brain just means that you have to shorten and lighten the rest of your face so it doesn't make you front heavy!

THE project

A 6 inch stack of photocopied or printed primary literature,
80 scanned and captured images,
34 usable taxa,
comprising 8 major groups
and 4 recognizable morphological groups,
measured for over 50 variables
to produce over 2000 pieces of raw data,
filtered to produce 38 informative variables,
then analyzed to produce 190 pieces of basic statistical information
and 703 pairwise plots as a preliminary test of correlation
from which at least 6 groups of complexly interrelated variables have been found
by 1 student
who is only 1/2 done
and receiving 0 university credit for it.

A belief System in Crisis

Atheists as a whole are in trouble. We're already the minority, but I've noticed something quite dramatic that I'd never quite noticed before: There is a major shortage of good looking female atheists. If you are an atheist and consider yourself decent in the looks department; then you are a rare exception my friend. Do not misconstrue my statement to mean that I think there are a bunch of good looking male atheists. I have no idea; I'm not looking for those. I appear to be one of two atheists in the evening section of my science and religion course. The other one is female, but as shallow as it sounds, I wouldn't want to date her. However, there are a few really good looking catholic girls in the class. What's kept me from asking them out? You can't start a relationship on the basis of a difference in fundamental beliefs; it just wouldn't work. Ok, maybe there is some girl out there who would think it cool to go out with an epistemological bad boy, but I've never met her. Unfortunately though, no matter who I'm talking to, religion always seems to come up early; perhaps I lead the conversation that way, but I can't help it; being an atheist is part of my identity. I've been defending it so long that I really can't imagine not getting into regular discussions on the topic.
Anyway; if you're a female atheist (or don't mind an atheist fellow), happen to read obscure blogs and are easy on the eyes: drop me a line.

Wanderlust

Far away places with strange-soundin' names
Far away over the sea
Those far away places with the strange-soundin' names
Are callin', callin' me
Goin' to China or maybe Siam
I want to see for myself
Those far away places
I've been readin' about
In a book that I took from the shelf
I start gettin' restless whenever I hear
The whistle of a train
I pray for the day I can get underway
And look for those castles in Spain

They call me a dreamer, well maybe I am
But I know that I'm burnin' to see
Those far away places with the strange-soundin' names
Callin', callin' me
(I pray for the day when I'll find a way
Those far away places to see)
Those far away places with the strange-soundin' names
Callin', callin' me

Early mid-life crisis

Twenty years from now

you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do

than by the ones you did do.

So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.

Catch the trade winds in your sails.

Explore. Dream. Discover.

(Mark Twain)

The very knowledge of this is enough to give anyone an early mid-life crisis. Discovering it on your own is even worse.

Don't Fence Me In (Cole Porter)

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above,
Don't fence me in.
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love,
Don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze,
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in.

Just turn me loose,
let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies.
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise.
I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
And I can't look at hovels and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in.

Experiment failed

My experiment in not having a tv has failed. I haven't had a tv for a month and I'm no better student now than when I had one. Instead of plopping myself down infront of the little glowing box I find other distractions; like reading books on how to be a hermit by people who've been dead for 50 years. I go dancing, check my e-mail about 50 times per day, go to bed early and generally procrastinate. Now Midterms are upon me and I'm completely skrewed once again. The moral of this story is, that while it may seem to the casual observer that I'm getting more done, what I'm really doing is finding different ways to procrastinate.

Field Trips

This weekend went fairly well. On Friday I hung out with Dan Gregorash and Kirsten (don't know her last name) and watched some of the best of SNL. On Saturday, the U of A paleontological society went to Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park and we looked for dinosaur bones. We found a fair bit. It was mostly hadrosaur bits though a couple of people found Albertosaur tooth fragments. One fellow even found a nice little microsite that yielded a number of Albertosaur tooth fragments, a champsasaur vert, several hadrosaur teeth, ossified tendons and a partial raptor claw. Since its a provincial park we left everything where we found it. Perhaps some year the society should arrange with a rancher to look in the badlands on his property so that we can keep the fossils.
On Sunday, I woke up at 4 am to go bird watching with my Ornithology class. We went to the beaver hill banding station where we defrosted and put up mist nets to catch passerine birds. A net left up over night even caught a great horned owl. We also went to several marshes in the area to check out the waterfowl. All in all, the weekend went pretty well.

Not Again

In today's opinion section of the Gateway there is a rather long article on why human beings are no longer evolving. I see this turning into another creation/evolution debate in the opinion section. There was one last year and it was stupid and banal then and I imagine that this one will be just as annoying. I have decided to nip this in the bud, try and stop it before it gets going. My technique will be to divert the argument. The title of the article is "Sadly, you're going to have to settle for one penis." Therefore I could talk about how placental mammals and birds are actually relatively unusual in the vertebrata for having a single penis. Never mind the fact that the majority of fish and amphibians lack such an organ all together, actually, the majority of species actually have a double wang. Snakes and lizards have a double johnson known as the hemipenis. Marsupials such as your friend and mine the common opossum (Didelphis virginiensis) have a bifurcate penis. I don't know of anybody who has examined the monotreme member but I imagine that since most of its characters are intermediate between the reptile and mammal condition, that they too would have paired parts too. Even sharks are doubly endowed. Although they lack a true penis, they have structures called claspers which they use for the transfer of gametes to the female (most fish don't have internal fertilization like sharks).

Another topic that I think I prefer is to refute several of the key points in his article. For example, the author claims that there is no longer differential reproduction in humans. Well this is simply not true. Stupid and ignorant and poor people have way more kids than the well educated. Affluent people tend to know already that bringing another child into the world is just cruel (to the child and to everyone else). I'm not saying here that being poor, stupid or ignorant means that you are necessarily the other two (I've met some well educated people in my life that are real idiots), but there is a definite correlation. Granted, stupid people do tend to eliminate themselves from the gene pool from time to time (see the Darwin Awards) but it doesn't make up for the sheer volume of kids they keep pumping out. If ignorance is bliss, then sheer stupidity must be orgasmic. As for the poverty factor, its a simple matter of compensation. In the past it was: when times are hard, the more kids you pump out the more likely a couple of them will survive. Now practically all of them are surviving and competing amongst themselves for the same resources, therefore perpetuating the cycle. But what about the genetic factor? For evolution to take place you need to have a genetic reason for increased fitness. Well, I hate to sound bigoted here, but due to their socioeconomic position, ethnic minorities tend to have a ton of kids. For example in California, there is a huge Mexican population. Because they are forced into low paying jobs, they can't afford proper schooling (educational funds distributed based on the income of the neighborhood) and so they have two strikes against them. Also because most Mexicans are also Catholics, they're already predisposed to produce prolific progeny.

Now I don't want some Catholics commenting on the site about how every sperm is sacred or some 6 day, young earth, I-don't-give-a-rat's-ass-what-the-evidence-is Creationist trying to shoot down evolution. If you want to talk about those things, you can bite my child hating, tailless mammalian butt!