What is the EU?

The Brits voted in the referendum whose question was clear: should the UK stay in the EU or leave?

After they voted, many went to the Internet and typed on Google:

"What it the EU?" 

That is to say, they had no clue what they were voting for. And then they typed: "What will happen if we leave the EU?"

Are we surprised? No. Many voters, far more than the small margin between the leave/stay outcome, have no clue what they're voting for. They're just following, like sheep, someone who's shouting. They listen to the one who's shouting louder. They only thing they don't do is think.

So, whoever says that the people of the UK decided that UK should leave the EU is wrong. Many of them didn't decide. They just voted at random, influenced by demagogues. Nothing special with the UK, of course. It would have been the same in many countries. Many people vote for reasons unrelated to what the actual vote is for. Unless we take into account these random, uninformed, votes, the result is not correct. We need to allow for the probability that a voter acted under the influence, some influence.

Searches for "what is the eu" and "what is brexit" spiked in the U.K. after polls closed [Google Trends via NPR]

New Christian film: "The Lock In"

First of all, about the concept of "lock in":

A sleepover party, usually held in a public place such as a church or school, in which the participants are not allowed to leave until the next morning.

Indeed, churches (in the US, of course, but I wouldn't be suprised if it happens in  churches of the American/lunatic type  in Sweden too) have lock ins for teenagers. For example, the Springfield Church of Christ is one of them: they lock the kids in for a weekend and, among other things, they

set aside time for small group devotions and bible study, incorporating games such as "find that verse" or other Bible trivia.

And, now, there is a new movie out, "The Lock In", a Christian film, produced by some kind of American Baptist Church, a film that teaches the horror of porn. It teaches that watching porn is a danger to one’s mortal soul. The working premise is that the devil and other demons lurk inside women's genitals.

The film introduces us first to the idea of the church lock in, terrifying in its own right. A group of teens lock themselves in a Baptist church overnight with an old pastor. Fun times ensue. We’re then shown a cast of unlikable Christian teens: Justin, the almost unseen cameraman, filming the lock in because why not? Blake, the rowdy, outrageous ringleader who just wants to have a good time. Nick, the lovelorn lead we’re supposed to relate to. And Jessica, the target of Nick’s insatiable lust. The three boys, thinking it would be hilarious, bring a dirty magazine they found into the church. This lets the Devil in. The Devil then traps the hapless Scooby Gang alone in the church and fucks with their recording capabilities until they go insane. Why? Because porn.

The story here is that the footage was found (and edited) by some church pastors and was so horrifying that they immediately resigned to go sell insurance instead. This horrifying imagery includes a trash can falling over on its own, a shot of a dark hallway suddenly getting kind of yellow, a strange “Braugh!” sound coming from somewhere off-screen (about four times), and the four leads sitting on the floor talking about how they like to look at porn at home. Oh, a random child also appears and makes the same “Braugh!” sound, causing our heroes to run frantically and then spend three minutes recapping what we just saw (they do this a lot).

It goes without saying that the movie, as a movie, is total crap. Everything about it is terrible. I have not seen it, but I read the reviews, here, here, here, and here. Oh yes, and here is a review from the Christian Film Database site (which finds nothing wrong with the film, of course.) Nevertheless,

‘The producers of the film hope that not only will it be entertaining, it will also be used as a tool for conversations about the dangers of pornography and the importance of being aware.’

P.S. If you like Christian films, there seems to be many of them. For instance,  "Harry Potter: A Spirit Conspiracy?" (Harry Potter is a seducing spirit as prophesied of in the Bible),  "The Visitation" (miracles performed by a charismatic guy),  "The Sins of the Fathers" (where one has to decide whether the dreams of a woman are spiritual or not), "The Last Messengers" (disasters happen everywhere, and then Christ appears). In view of all this wealth, "The Lock In" may not be the worst film of all.

Statistics Workbook for Dummies

Some time ago, I came across a book titled "Statistics Workbook for Dummies". The for-dummies series is well-known and is supposed to be a series of popular math/science/etc books. But this book is, really, for morons, written by morons. On page 102 of the book, the central limit theorem is "explained" or "motivated" thus:

Of course, this is misleading and is not an explanation of the central limit theorem at all.

The central limit theorem is a theorem in mathematics which has some physical consequences. Its proof requires some mathematics and cannot be fully understood without it. Can it be explained, however, to a non-specialist? Sure, but the explanation is not as trivial as the phrase above suggests. For those who want to apply the central limit theorem, understanding what it is about is essential. Like many other "popular" books in mathematics, statistics, phsysics, science, ... this one makes a bad job. Not surprising. It's one of many many others.

But the problem, you might think, is that the book is, indeed, for dummies. After all, it says so in its title. So, you might think, if you go to the university and take a statistics class in a "quantitative department" (by this I mean, mathematics or engineering or physics, or some other department which does not shy away from mathematical symbols....) you will understand the central limit theorem. Wrong. I have seen generations of students graduate from various reputable "quantative departments" who never learn a proof of the central limit theorem nor what the theorem is about. What is the problem? Well, many of the people who teach that stuff do not know themselves what mathematics is about and yet insist in teaching mathematics. Amazing as it may sound, it is not far from the truth.

Summary: "Statistics Workbook for Dummies" is doing a bad job but this bad job is not much worse than the job being done in many self-proclaimed reputable universities.

Making fun of geocentrists (and flat-earthers)

I admit it I find it amusing to be making fun of "scientists" who are trying to prove stupid things. What is extremely interesting is to see the responses of them and their followers. My favourite crackpots are the self-proclaimed geocentrists. Their head is someone called Robert Sungenis who paid some money to a place called Calamus Extension College offering degrees (by correspondence) on Holistic Studies, Homeopathy, Contemporary Spirituality, Regression and Reincarnation Studies, etc.,  and obtained a PhD in geocentrism!

Armoured with the panoply of such advanced studies, he started a mission: to prove that the Earth does not rotate and that it is fixed at the centre of the Universe!

He has even written a "scientific" book titled Galileo Was Wrong described in this way:

Galileo Was Wrong is a detailed and comprehensive treatise that demonstrates from the scientific evidence that heliocentrism (the concept that the Earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun) is an unproven scientific theory; and that geocentrism (the view that the Earth is in the center of the universe and does not move by either rotation or revolution) is not only supported by the scientific evidence but is admitted to be a logical and viable cosmology by many of the world's top scientists, including Albert Einstein, Ernst Mach, Edwin Hubble, Fred Hoyle and many more.

I admit that I secretly enjoy seeing the reaction of those lunatics. I wrote about them before, and did manage to attract the attention of Sungenis himself. But when I pointed out his qualifications he kept silence. I, too, would be ashamed to be associated with Calamus Extension College.

Map of the Square and Stationary Earth, by Orlando Ferguson (1893)

There used to be many people believing that the Earth is flat (i.e. approximable by a manifold with zero curvature). I quote from wikipedia on their beliefs at the beginning of 20th c.:

Wilbur Glenn Voliva, who in 1906 took over the Christian Catholic Church, a Pentecostal sect that established a utopian community at Zion, Illinois, preached flat Earth doctrine from 1915 onwards and used a photograph of a twelve mile stretch of the shoreline at Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin taken three feet above the waterline to prove his point. When the airship Italia disappeared on an expedition to the North Pole in 1928 he warned the world's press that it had sailed over the edge of the world. He offered a $5,000 award for proving the Earth is not flat, under his own conditions. Teaching a globular Earth was banned in the Zion schools and the message was transmitted on his WCBD radio station.

Unfortunately, they have been in rapid decline ever since.  They established a Flat Earth Society in 1956 and made some hilarious remarks:

The idea of a spinning globe is only a conspiracy of error that Moses, Columbus, and FDR all fought… If it is a sphere, the surface of a large body of water must be curved. The Johnsons have checked the surfaces of Lake Tahoe and the Salton Sea without detecting any curvature.

Nowadays, there is a certain Daniel Shenton who proclaims that nobody has proved that the world is not flat:

I haven't taken this position just to be difficult. To look around, the world does appear to be flat, so I think it is incumbent on others to prove decisively that it isn't. And I don't think that burden of proof has been met yet.

Flat Earth: A 1922 illustration from the Swedish and Norwegian magazine Allers Familj-Journal.

Holy fish

Talking about animals, and having read this about fish, I remembered last September's story about the holy Swedish salmon or Jesus fish, as it was baptized.

Holy Swedish Salmon

A fisherman in Gothenburg caught this salmon and started shouting out of religious joy. A certain Mr Ludwigson was summoned and verified the holiness of the fish: "I've been in this business for 30 years and have never seen anything like it." The salmon was initially scheduled for a holy supper. But then this was deemed a sacrilege. So a tour of it was planned. First in Malmö were it was put on display in the supermarket. Then in Gothenburg for public viewing at the Nordstan shopping center. I don't know what happened after that.

Swedes are supposed not to be too religious. But, especially in Uppsala, there are many fundametalist Christians, e.g., pentecostals, and mormons and what have you. Once in a while, they appear at the center of town and if you happen to pass by you feel like you're in a bible belt. They preach and shout and try to convert and proselytize and so on. Once in a while you also find some crazy religious acts too. The worst of those fundamentalist Christians are in par with their American peers. In fact, they are the same. This is religion imported to Sweden from the Bible belt.

What's next in the holy fish business? The Atlantic flounder is commonly known as Helgeflundra in Swedish (i.e., Holy Flounder). Despite its name, there is no known report of it appearing with a holy sign. Perhaps it'll come next. This is my prophesy.

Emails from a disturbed individual

Everyone in academia has, from time to time, received mails from people who make extraordinary claims. Recently, I received at least 2 emails from a person called Thierno M. Sow claiming:

The goal of [my paper] is to prove the ABC Conjecture, the Beal Conjecture, the Goldbach Conjecture, the Riemann Hypothesis and the Twin Primes Infinity.

Take a look at the paper he sent me (and others) to see that he is, most likely, a disturbed individual. I am not a psychologist, but it is rather clear that this person suffers from some disorder. His paper contains "mathematics" and "chemistry" and claims to have solved some of the most difficult problems. All in 12 pages. Oh yes, it is also devoted to the memory of Nelson Mandela!

Page 1 of Sow's paper

Page 11 of Sow's paper

Pet care after the Rapture

Yesterday, I became aware of an organization called After the Rapture Pet Care. They state [underlining is mine]

As the Apostle Paul describes in Thessalonians [...], at some point in the future Jesus will come in the air, catch up the Church from the earth, and then return to heaven with the Church. This is known as the Rapture and it will be glorious. But what of our pets? Who will take care of our pets when we’re gone?

Carol began recruiting other non-Christian animal lovers nationwide to volunteer to take care of left-behind pets if the Rapture occurs.

I believe we’ve come up with a plan that is affordable, unique, Biblical and practical.

Our non-Christian administrators will activate our rescue plan.

I found it so hilarious, that I wrote a message for them on their site. It was immediately removed (this is called Free Speech as practiced by Christians). My message went like this:

This is funny from all points of view, and so typical of Christian Americans. As Christians (Christian fundamentalists, in fact), you believe that this Rapture will happen ... tomorrow. (It does not occur to you it may happen in 12 thousand years.) You also believe that you will go to heaven whereas the others, including your pets, will remain on the earth. (How stupid can that be?) As Americans, you believe that money will solve everything. (It doesn't occur to you that money may be worth nothing in 12 thousand years, not does it occur to you that, maybe, just maybe, the Rapture will destroy the monetary balance on the planet.) Oh, yes, you also believe that it is dollars that will be traded after the Rapture. But, as someone of your kin said, "blessed are the poor in spirit."

It takes a low intelligence person to believe in this literal intepretation of the Rapture. But it takes an abysmally low intelligence person to think that post-Rapture monetary system is inevitable. I don't know if these people think of god as the god of the bible or as this god.

P.S. They are not the only ones. Here are a couple of other post-rapture pet-care organizations:
eternal-earthbound-pets.com
postrapturepetcare.com/
 

Disney World and the Holy Land Experience

Orlando, Florida, is well-known for Disney World. But there is another, more recent, equally interesting amusement park. If you happen to visit Orlando, you shouldn't miss the Holy Land Experience. They are very close to one another (20 minutes by car). You can have a full experience of both sites within the same day.

I would like to make some comparisons between the two amusement parks and see how similar they are and how by visiting one without the other you certainly miss something. For complete experience and fun, visit both.

Disney World	Holy Land Experience
You can see parades of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and other well-known characters	You can see parades of Romans and Jesus
You can have ice cream, pop corn and Dr pepper	You can have ice cream, pop corn and Dr pepper
You can experience Jesus' birth (Christmas)	You can experience Jesus' crucifixion (Easter)
You will cry out of joy	You will rejoice by crying
Walt Disney was a Christian Jew-hater	Marvin Rosenthal was a Jew and now a Christian

People who visit the Holy Land Experience are reported to have a life-changing experience. They can witness what is in the Bible, daily, and quite accurately.
People who have visited Disney World have also had wonderful experiences. They can witness what is in the cartoons and see Mickey Mouse alive.

European Comission's blunder

As "a Nadder" puts it, the following video is a hilariously inept and patronising ad by the European Commission, "trying" to encourage women to pursue careers in science. It's so inappropriate that makes you wonder if those guys have any brains at all. Here it is:

So not just Sweden, but the whole Europe is obsessed with gender. They try to come up with quick and dirty fixes for, say, the discrepancy between the number of women and men in the university (or in engineering, science,...), that the results are often so demeaning to the women themselves, let alone that it is more scientific to watch MacDonald's hamburger ads than the video above. Just plain stupid.

Happy New Year 2012 (the end of the world is nigh!)

I wanted to collect some of the stupidities around regarding the common perception amongst many that 21 December 2012 will be the (new) end of the world. But I can't. It is too ambitious of a project. There is no end to stupidity. According to some count, there are 600 thousand web pages devoted to the 2012 phenomenon. If you have nothing else to do (and why should you, if you believe that the world will end soon), you can start reading.

Recall, however, that the end of the world has been set and reset many times. It was 2000. Then it was 2001. Then it was 2011. Now it is 2012. For a larger list of the end of the world dates, see here. For example, according to the Talmud, the world will end in 2240.

There are all kinds of versions of 2012-phenomenon idiots. Many are the  conspiracy theorists: the government doesn't want you to know that the world will end. Others are geometrically-oriented: we are entering the 4th dimension. Then there are the alarmists: they don't tell you that things are going to take place for sure, but they want to make you feel fear. The amount of excrement is endless.

As for books, there are plenty. Enough to fill a bookstore. Sample titles: The Everything Guide to 2012; The Mystery of 2012; How to Survive 2012; The Mayan Prophesies for 2012; Fractal Time [sic]; 2013: Envisioning the World after the Events of 2012; ... There is even the Complete Idiot's Guide to 2012. (As if the "Complete Idiot" adjective was needed...)

Nah, I give up. I can't waste time on s**it.

Happy New Year!

Those silly pseudo-scientists

Listen to this guy, John Lennox, explaining why science cannot explain everything. His argument is this:

Someone makes a cake (it is his aunt, Matilda). The chemists can tell what elements the cake consists of. The physicists can tell the particles comprising the atoms in the cake. The mathematicians can describe the equations of motion of these particles. But can we assert that the cake was completely explained? Suppose we ask the experts why the cake was made. They can't tell! But, aunt Matilda can! Of course she can, because she made the cake herself.

I've heard this fellow use this idiotic argument several times in the past. Live. With this argument, he wants to "prove" that science has its limits. And, therefore, he implies that (his) god exists.  Go figure.... The sad thing is not that John Lennox is (was) a mathematician (he is now a priest) at Oxford. It is that he has followers...

There is no limit to human idiocy: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." (Einstein)

Swedish tabloid on mathematicians and gods

Earlier this year, some guy called Marcus Birro wrote a silly article in a Swedish tabloid called Expressen, where, among other things, he tells us that he couldn't undestand why use symbols instead of numbers in school, that he doesn't like mathematicians because they sit down all day doing nothing, that they have no feelings, and that, therefore (!!!), god exists.

I sent him the following email:

From: Takis Konstantopoulos

Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 7:00 PM

Subject: matematik och gudar

To: marcus.birro@expressen.se

Mr Birro,

I "read" your article in Expressen, as far as I could understand it via google-translate. You are, actually, so very wrong about your impression of what a mathematician is. Mathematics is much more than what you learned in high school. Most likely, your teachers were pretty bad, uninspiring, boring,... just as many mathematics schoolteachers world-wide. They gave you the impression that doing mathematics with numbers is not the same as doing mathematics with letters. You do not understand that 1, 2, 3, and so on, are mere symbols, just as a, b, c. You do not understand that mathematics is not about numbers. You also do not understand what a proof means. I do not blame you. I also do not understand how DNA works, because I lack knowledge of biology and chemistry. However, I do understand that molecular biologists are not spending their time merely memorizing the sequence of atoms comprising a DNA molecule. Just as I understand that a journalist doesn't, simply, take a piece of gossip he or she has heard from his or her buddies and write an article about it. I'm afraid you have not done your homework and are simply expressing an opinion which is the equivalent of shouting slogans in a football match.

I will not try to comment on your opinion of god or gods. (Who knows how many there are?) Your proof of existence of gods is that mathematicians are useless. How absurd!  Think a little bit, if you can, and see how unsubstantiated your claims are. I can tell you that no mathematical formula can measure what is happening in my heart when reading a poem of Cavafy, just as no formula can measure what is happening in your heart when you read a poem by Dan Andersson (in your words). But this is neither an argument against mathematics, nor an argument for the existence of gods, my friend. What is happening in our hearts, the love you feel for your children, is what is happening in other primates' hearts too. Being the product of a complicated evolution, which is beyond your understanding (and mine, for that matter), love and hate, and the ability to write silly articles like the one you did, emotions and feelings keep us alive and can be explained via chemistry and physics and biology and neuroscience. But you have to be patient for science to evolve too. And also try very very very hard to understand (some) science and learn (some) mathematics.

The easy solution is to say "gods exist and therefore this explains the love I feel". And you think you're done. This is the lazy approach. Just as the fact that I need an incredible amount of training in order to play a little piano piece well, so you too (and everybody who is outside a field) need a lot of training in science and mathematics in order to be able to understand why letters and numbers can express human thought and lead to a proof. However, even though I do not have the time (or ability) to learn piano like, say, Andrei Gavrilov, I can and do appreciate not only his playing, but also his effort and thinking. Why? because I can compare judiciously. Likewise, even though you may have no time (or ability) to learn any mathematics, you can, with a bit of effort and comparison and extrapolation, appreciate something which lies beyond your sphere of understanding.

Just try it. You can.

And then you can correct your article.

Sincerely,

Takis Konstantopoulos

He hasn't replied to me. I wonder why.

What's happening to the creationist "Dr" Sungenis?

I'm wondering what's going on these days with those creationists who believe that the universe turns around them. They are called geocentrists and it seems that one of their chieftains is "Dr" Robert Sungenis. I have no idea what his motives are (other than sheer idiocy) to claim that the Earth is still. I became aware of this species last year, when I said "damn! I missed the conference" and then posted about them here, here and here.I was fortunate enough to attract the attention of "Dr" Sungenis who kindly wrote to me:

Takis, Robert Sungenis here. Here's a good way to prove your point: since you are a "professor of science," give us just one proof of heliocentrism, and we'll go away. Promise. Make sure the proof is one that can hold up under scrutiny, because we are going to run it through scientific rigor to make sure you're right and then post it on your blog. By the way, the earth is round. Perhaps you can start your proof from there. Looking forward to hearing from you.

 When I pointed out to him that his label "Dr", well, is not quite what it says,

I took a look at your credentials here and here. You tried to study in accredited institutions but you were rejected. You then found a non-accredited institution, Calamus Extension College, which offers degrees (by correspondence) on such crackpottery subjects as Holistic Studies, Homeopathy, Contemporary Spirituality, Regression and Reincarnation Studies (!!!), Parapsychology, Metaphysics, Hypnotherapy, Healing Studies, Transpersonal Psychology (including reincarnation, psychosynthesis and spirit release), Esoteric Studies, and Consciousness Studies, among others. Every possible bogus subject is mentioned. I have never seen a place offering so much junk altogether. You got your PhD from this institution in 2006 on geocentrism. Your credentials are not just zero, but negative: anyone who comes in contact with subjects such as the ones mentioned above is probably brain-damaged. Despite the very likely fact that you do not know elementary algebra, you have the guts to speak about Relativity in relation to your theological claims. How can anyone understand, not relativity, but even elementary Euclidean geometry, with a degree from Calamus Extension College? Impossible!

he stopped talking to him. Imagine, a degree from Calamus Extension College who is used as evidence of one's ability to support elementary Newtonian mechanics concepts. As I said, impossible. Show me one person from Calamus Extenstion College who can solve a first order linear differential equation in one dimension, and I'd be really surprised.

Yesterday, I watched a little video from youtube, where Sungenis and another religious guy attack one another because they are both Christian, but each claims that the other person is not the right kind of Christian. At some point, the other guy tells Sungenis "you believe whatever the Catholic church tells you". "Yeah", replies Sungenis, "because that is the authority". From the whole dialog, it appears that Sungenis just bows to whatever the Catholic church tells him, because, in his words, it is an established authority for 2000 years. He says that he"has the "right pedigree" [sic] (by being a member of an authority organization), whereas the other Christian does not (because he only reads the bible).

Finally, I'd like to point out the interesting review of a talk that Sungenis gave. The review is by Flora, but I first saw on Gem Newman's Winnipeg Skeptics page,

Revised date for the end of the world

My third posting on this idiocy, but I can't help it. It IS funny:
Mr Harold Camping who predicted that the end of the world would take place on 21 May 2011, has now revised his opinion. He claims that the world DID end on 21 May 2011 (did you notice?) but that was a "spiritual" end:

“I was truly wondering what is going on. In my mind, I went back through all of the promises God has made, all of the proofs, all of the signs and everything was fitting perfectly, so what in the world happened? I really was praying and praying and praying, oh Lord, what happened?” 

 He continued by saying that the real end will be on 21 October 2011.

If he was the only idiot in the world claiming all that crap, nobody would raise an eybrow. The problem is that he has many followers. These morons, not only go around shouting, demonstrrating, and looking for attention, but also support Camping financially.  (In 2009, he reported $18.3 million in donations and assets of more than $104 million, including $34 million in stocks.) He was asked whether he would return the money to his followers. He replied thus:

"We’re not at the end. Why would we return it?" 

Indeed, indeed. The guy plans to return the money AFTER the end.

Why are there so many idiots? Why is there such a great stupidity in the world? Can it be explained scientifically? What makes one want to be a sheer moron? Camping could very well be smart: after all, he makes millions from his followers. But why are there followers in the first place? There are so many people in the world who cannot think independently but want a father-figure, someone to obey. This figure could be a businessman (like Camping), or a politician, or a king, or a god, etc.

I think that the major success of all totalitarian regimes lies not so much in the power of the dictators but in the sheer obedience of a large fraction of people. And when I say "totalitarian regime", I also speak metaphorically. I refer not only to a dictatorship, but also to religion, to an organization, to an  institution, etc.

There must be some kind of explanation for the need of people to submit themselves to mental or physical slavery and behave moronically. Some day we'll understand. And, perhaps, we can find a cure (for those who wish to be cured of their stupidity.)

Today, 21 May 2011, is the end of the world

I mentioned this again last year. Brief review: Mr Harold Camping "proved", using "mathematics", that the world is scheduled to end today. Indeed (Camping claims), Jesus was crucified on 1 April 33, and, since then, there have passed 722500 days. But 722500=(5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17). And, according to Camping and the Bible, 5=Atonement,  10=Completeness and 17=Heaven. This argument allowed him to draw the conclusion that the world ends today.

So, hurry up and do your shopping before it's too late. I have to finish a presentation on Lévy processes, but I'm not too motivated.

As for the last picture, my readers will probably recall that Stephen Hawking is not always right. I had pointed out that Pierre Brémaud's scientific predictions differ from those of Hawking when it comes to serious matters, like aliens contacting humans.

The Earth is still, and other creationistic crackpottery

Creationism comes in many forms. These people take a book, called תּוֹרָה, written long time ago by various tribes in the Middle East, containing collections of random stories, and want to use it as proof (or at least as evidence) of scientific facts. For instance, in one of the chapters of that book, we read [Psalm 19:5-7]:

⁵ It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
   like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
⁶ It rises at one end of the heavens
   and makes its circuit to the other;
   nothing is deprived of its warmth.  

⁷ The law of the LORD is perfect,
   refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
   making wise the simple.

This thing was written some 3 thousand years ago and is supposed to provide evidence of geocentrism, i.e. that the Earth is the center of the universe and that it doesn't move or rotate.

An organization, called Catholic Apologetics International, consists of people who believe in these things and claim that good Catholics should understand that the Earth is still. (Bad Catholics can ignore this.)

Via Pharyngula, I was made aware of the Fixed Earth page. They go a little bit further claiming that not only the Earth does not rotate, but that it is only a few thousand years old, and that homo sapiens appeared right from the start, without any biological evolution. Oh, by the way, (their particular version of) god (but not the gods of other religious folk) exists.

As I said, creationism comes in many flavours, ranging from sheer nonsense as the above to more sophisticated-looking versions of it, such as intelligent design. The latter kind of creationists are using pseudo-mathematics to prove that god exists.

Galileo was wrong. Vive la Bible! [Part II]

Several months ago, I posted something cynical about a conference organised by geocentrist creationists. It is unbelievable that such idiots can exist. Religion and irrational thought produces all kinds of vegetables. Unfortunately.

The particular movement is headed by a certain Robert Sungenis, who believes that

physics and the Bible prove that the sun and all the planets orbit the Earth and that the Earth does not rotate. In support of his beliefs, Sungenis published the book Galileo Was Wrong in the hope that people will "give Scripture its due place and show that science is not all it's cracked up to be."

This guy lives in the US where he can find lots of similarly-minded deluded morons who "believe" that the earth is still and the centre of the Universe. There are other idiots who believe that the earth is a few thousand years old. Others, believe that the earth is flat. Others believe that the people who wrote the Quran were engaged in embryology. The amount of stupidity in this world is unbounded.

I was reminded of this nonsense this morning, thanks to James B. Phillips who posted the following in my blog:

James said...

Childish name calling is the typical caliber of those who offer their non-substantive denigrations of geocentrism. Often they mock religion in general and Christianity in particular -- the very same people who make a god of and place their materialistic blind faith in science which has a history of making countless errors.

Most moderns who reject geocentrism do so out of an ignornance of the true science involved and or because they are philosophically pre-disposed to refuse to accept the possibility of a God who not only has placed our earth at the center of the universe, but who actually has the entire matererial universe go around that heavaenly body which Jesus Christ lived on in the flesh some 2000 years ago.

See www.galileowaswrong.com and galileowaswrong.blogspot.com.

James B. Phillips 

The reason that the world is full of problems is because there are uneducated, deluded, irrational individuals like the aforementioned individuals. They pose a threat to civilisation itself because they can easily attract supporters who are ready to believe anything irrational as a substitute for possible real problems. People use irrational behaviour as a drug. And these people are as dangerous as drug dealers. Perhaps more so.

Creationist mathematics

I wrote a couple of days ago about creationists and the like. Today I want to give an example of their scientific stupidity by pointing out one of their latest articles on infinity. I first read it in Recursivity.

Creationists have a presence on the Internet via the site "Uncommon Descent". People like Dembski often write stupid articles trying to prove that gods (they call them intelligent designers) exist. In this article, Robert Sheldon writes:

For example, take the number line from 1 to ∞. It’s infinite of course. But now divide every number by the largest number on the line, and we have mapped the entire number line into the fractions between 0 and 1. 

What the hell does he mean by "divide by the largest number"? He may have heard that the transformation x → 1/x maps (0,1] onto [1, ∞) but he hasn't quite understood this high school concept.

So the rational numbers contain the entire integer number line between 0 and 1, and the rational numbers go up to infinity too. 

Excuse me? The rational numbers contain what? The... integer (?) line? And how does this follow from the above?

Then the rational numbers are at least ∞² bigger. (Yup, I’m being sloppy, because Cantor also showed how to map x²–>x, so instead of calling it ∞², he called it ℵ₀ cardinality where integers and rational numbers have the same size infinity.)

Here he is, again, completely off. So much so that it smells from quite far.

[The cardinality of the irrrationals] really is bigger [than the cardinality of the rationals], and Cantor called it ℵ₁ cardinality.

Mr Sheldon, go do your homework before you write anything on infinities.

Now if you are like Cantor's left wing critics, then arbitrary things must be random. It is a peculiar property of atheists that they all worship the god of Chance. It would seem possible that they might worship Lady Luck instead, but no, Xaos, Random Chance, must remain the king of the modernist pantheon. So this contingency drives them bonkers.

This is so funny! Left wing critics of Cantor? Atheists worshipping the god of Chance? What about communists? Homosexuals? Liberals? Punks? People with tattoos? (I think the latter folk don't like Cantor either.)

This is the kind of "mathematics" typically used by creationists. The religious folk will, at the same time, applaud them because, in their eyes, they are oh so sophisticated!

For another example of creationist maths look here.

Creationists and similarly-minded religious imbeciles should leave mathematics for mathematicians and scientists. Instead, they should just go to their church to light a candle or whatever their particular religion tells them to do.

Galileo was wrong. Vive la Bible!

Damn! I missed the conference. It took place on 6 November 2010. Just a couple of weeks before my visit to the U.S. Otherwise I would have gone to learn the truth: the Earth is at the center of the Universe, as proven by scientific experiments (e.g., reading the Bible carefully in ancient Hebrew).

http://galileowaswrong.com/galileowaswrong/

According to Dr. Robert Sungenis,

Scientific evidence available to us within the last 100 years that was not available during Galileo's confrontation shows that the Church's position on the immobility of the Earth is not only scientifically supportable, but it is the most stable model of the universe and the one which best answers all the evidence we see in the cosmos.

The consequences are amazing. One of them is, surely, that aliens will reach us soon, since we are the center of the Universe and they surely are looking for it too.

Christine O'Donnell

Today  I saw, on the front page of the German newspaper, "Die Welt" the picture of  a woman, called Christine O'Donnell, together with an article titled "a quite normal American". Not having followed the latest developments of American politics, I was ignorant about her existence. The article starts as follows:

Christine O'Donnell is Republican and the number two in the ultra-conservative Tea Party. She hates communism and Selbstbefriedigung. She knows witches well and once had a date on a satanic Altar. But let us not forget: She is a candidtae in the the midterm elections for Congress. She has become a nightmare for the Democrats. Mrs. O'Donnell said simply of herself: I'm a normal American. The people on the street are enthusiastic.

 Who? What? I don't know her. I don't understand German that well. Did I understood incorrectly? Ok, she hates communism, she is super-conservative, she sounds like Sara Palin, but what? She knows witches? She dated a satan? Is she an idiot?

So, let me go ask a German colleague. (I'm in Oberwolfach, for a mathematical workshop.) "What's Selbstbefriedigung?", I ask. The German colleague smiles, hesitates to answer, and I tell him that I saw it in front of Die Welt. He then explains: "Selbstbefriedigung means to satisfy yourself... sexually..." 


Oh, is that so? So I translate again:

Christine O'Donnell  hates communism and masturbation.

 What is this? Is she a complete idiot? Why does Die Welt feel that this statement is so important that it appears on its front page? Is this woman even worse than Palin? Can that be?

So I checked. Indeed, my suspicions are true. She hates communism. She condemns masturbation as sinful. She does not accept the theory of Evolution. She hasdated or been a friend of people who practiced witchcraft. She is against abortion. And the list goes on...I won't give links because the Internet is littered with her portraits; and they're neither pretty nor funny.

She is a normal American. She expects to be elected by people who have the same values. There are, apparently, many--too many--of them.

Here is the transcript from a very recent debate between Christine O'Donnell (republican candidate), Chris Coons (democratic candidate) and two moderators. I learned it through Evolutionblog. That she is an idiot can be witnessed from the following excerpt:

BLITZER: Let's give you a chance to respond to some of the things she said because in a television appearance back in 1998 on Bill Maher's show you said evolution is a myth. Do you believe evolution is a myth?
O'DONNELL: I believe that the local -- I was talking about what a local school taught and that should be taught -- that should be decided on the local community. But please let me respond to what he just said.
BLITZER: We'll let you respond but answer the question. Do you believe evolution is a myth?
O'DONNELL: Local schools should make that decision. I made that remark based on --
BLITZER: What do you believe?
O'DONNELL: What I believe is irrelevant.
BLITZER: Why is it irrelevant?
O'DONNELL: Because what I would support ...
BLITZER: Voters want to know.
O'DONNELL: What I will support in Washington, D.C. is the ability for the local school system to decide what is taught in their classrooms and what I was talking about on that show was a classroom that was not allowed to teach creationism as an equal theory as evolution. That is against their constitutional rights and that is an overreaching arm of the government. But, please allow me at least the full minute to respond to what he said because he said these statements that we made should be taken into consideration when casting your vote. So then I would be remiss not to bring up the fact that my opponent has recently said that it was studying under a Marxist professor that made him become a Democrat. So when you look at his position on things like raising taxes, which is one of the tenets of Marxism; not supporting eliminating death tax, which is a tenet of Marxism -- I would argue that there are more people who support my Catholic faith than his Marxist beliefs, and I'm using his own words.