John Lennox, his aunt Matilda (and her pies), and Creationism

There are religious folk, like George Pell, who was my previous post's subject, who are decent enough to suggest (or appear to be doing so) that one cannot approach religion through science, that it is beyond it, something else, etc., although they fail to suggest what this something else is. Bill Hick, of Revelation TV is such a decent chap. He has all kinds of crazy beliefs, but he doesn't say that they are the result of a scientific process.

There are others, however, like John Lennox, Oxford Professor in Mathematics (Algebra), who are trying hard to justify religion through Science. In doing so, they use their scientific hat to appear that their arguments come straight from the centres of their prestigious scientific academic establishments. It is easy: most laymen have no idea what's going on in the Oxford Mathematics Department, neither do they know whether Lennox knows Quantum Mechanics or General Relativity. All that Lennox has to do is to pretend that his religious argument comes straight from his "academic works". People will buy that, even if he will never explicitly say so.

I have been in two talks by Lennox (one was a monologue, and the other a debate with Christopher Hitchens), both in Edinburgh. On both occasions he used the following argument, a version of the Pie Argument, as anadder calls it:

My aunt Matilda bakes a wonderful pie. I have two friends, a physicist and a chemist. I ask the chemist to analyse the pie and he tells me, very precisely, of the chemical composition of every part of it. I ask the physicist, who reveals to me all kinds of scientific facts about the pie. But then I ask both of them: "why did aunt Matilda bake the pie?" None of the two can answer the question. No matter how hard they try to analyse the pie, scientifically, they will never be able to answer the question.

(Ergo, god exists; but Lennox, being smart enough, leaves this conclusion to the audience.)

Bravo Lennox! What a wonderful argument. Even a child can come up with a better one.

Again, however, what Lennox's fallacy is, is that he is trying to attach a purpose to the baking of the pie, a purpose which is contained within the pie itself! For better analysis of this stupidity, read anadder.

Let me add that Lennox has declared himself not a creationist, not an intelligent designer. He does not, he appears to be saying, sympathize with these fundamentalists. And yet, this year, Lennox accepted the Phillip Johnson award. Philip Johnson is one of the most despicable creationists. His achievements include: he rejects evolution; he thinks that god can be explained scientifically; he is an AIDS denialist; he fires people who don't agree with him; he suffers from islamophobia; he is, in fact, one of the founders of the intelligent design movement--a creationist spin-off; he is advisor and co-founder of the discovery institute (also known as dishonesty institute); he supports teaching of creationism in public schools. More on Phillip Johnson, here.

Now, how can one reconcile (i) accepting an award that bears the name of one of the most vicious creationists and (ii) claim that you do not support creationism? I'd be really ashamed.

Equinox, or how to define things properly

Google reminded me of Equinox today.

Equinox is defined as a point on the trajectory (and hence a point in time) of the Earth around the Sun at which the line L joining the Sun and the Earth and the axis A around which the Earth revolves are perpendicular to one another. Since A remains, approximately, fixed in space, it turns out that there are exactly two equinoxes (a simple consequence of the intermediate value theorem for continuous functions).

Compare this simple definition with the one given on Wikipedia:

An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun, the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator. The term equinox can also be used in a broader sense, meaning the date when such a passage happens. The name "equinox" is derived from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night), because around the equinox, the night and day have approximately equal length.
At an equinox, the Sun is at one of two opposite points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator (i.e. declination 0) and ecliptic intersect. These points of intersection are called equinoctial points: classically, thevernal point and the autumnal point. By extension, the term equinox may denote an equinoctial point.
An equinox happens each year at two specific moments in time (rather than two whole days), when there is a location (the subsolar point) on the Earth's equator, where the center of the Sun can be observed to be vertically overhead, occurring around March 20 and September 22 each year.

Such a simple concept, but such a convoluted definition. No wonder that many people have little understanding of trivial facts, such as the equinox.

Of course, we should not forget that the definition above will not satisfy some creationists, for whom the Earth does not move, because--they claim--the Vatican believes the same thing, and because their religious texts say so (blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; Matthew 5:3).

P.S. The Earth's rotational axis, denote by A above, is not really fixed but moves very very slowly. So slowly that it takes 26 thousand years to complete a cycle. Today, A points towards the star Polaris (the commonly known Northern Star), but 10 thousand years ago it did not. This phenomenon is known as precession of the equinoxes because, as a result of it, the equinoxes change very very slowly too. It was described by the ancient astronomer Ptolemy, about 2000 years ago, who attributed it to Hipparchus who was born 200 years before Prolemy.