Category: Mathematics
What algorithms can’t figure out and why
| November 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Mind, Naturalism |
Jonathan Bartlett, Research and Education Director of the Blyth Institute, asks, Who needs wisdom? if We’ve got algorithms! ? In our increasingly digital society, the algorithm seems set to replace wisdom in human reasoning. While we are seeing some pushback against the movement to “algorithmicize” everything, few lay out explicitly the limitations as well as […]
Berlinski and Denton, agnostics who doubt Darwin, offer their reasoning
| October 21, 2018 | Posted by News under Design inference, Genetics, Intelligent Design, Mathematics |
David Berlinski and Michael Denton feature in a podcast: For Berlinski, a mathematician and author of The Deniable Darwin, the problem is quantitative and methodological. For Denton, a geneticist and author of the new Discovery Institute Press book Children of Light: The Astonishing Properties of Light that Make Us Possible, the problem is empirical. Don’t miss […]
J. P. Moreland on claims we know better than we know science truths
| October 7, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Ethics, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Philosophy, Science |
Youth speaker Sean McDowell interviews J. P. Moreland on his new book, Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology: J.P. Moreland is one of the 50 most influential living philosophers. He’s also a colleague and friend of mine at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. He has spent his career writing largely […]
New Scientist on the glitch at the edge of the universe
| October 4, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Mathematics |
The constant 1/137 may be variable after all. This immutable number determines how stars burn, how chemistry happens and even whether atoms exist at all. Physicist Richard Feynman, who knew a thing or two about it, called it “one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no […]
Why proving the Riemann hypothesis matters
| September 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Philosophy |
Prime numbers are the “building blocks for larger numbers”: The Riemann hypothesis is a statement about a mathematical curiosity known as the Riemann zeta function. That function is closely entwined with prime numbers — whole numbers that are evenly divisible only by 1 and themselves. Prime numbers are mysterious: They are scattered in an inscrutable […]
At Aeon: Do philosophy and math still need each other?
| September 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Philosophy |
One question is whether people are looking for logically certain answers any more: Whereas mathematics seeks precise and certain answers, obtaining them in real life is often intractable or outright impossible. In such circumstances, what we really want are algorithms that return reasonable approximations to the right answers in an efficient and reliable manner. Real-world […]
The Scientist tries to come to grips with the Mortarboard Mob problem
| September 29, 2018 | Posted by News under academic freedom, Culture, Intellectual freedom, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Peer review |
We outlined the story of how a mortarboard mob hounded out of the journals a paper by a respected mathematician that had passed peer review for fear of “repercussions” (= the hell they themselves would go out and raise). The paper was about “greater variability in various traits among males than females of many species, […]
Prime numbers are not “nearly as scattershot” as previously thought
| September 11, 2018 | Posted by News under Chemistry, Design inference, Intelligent Design, Mathematics |
From researchers at Princeton: The seemingly random digits known as prime numbers are not nearly as scattershot as previously thought. A new analysis by Princeton University researchers has uncovered patterns in primes that are similar to those found in the positions of atoms inside certain crystal-like materials. The researchers found a surprising similarity between the sequence of […]
Silenced! Selectivity too close to truth?
| September 9, 2018 | Posted by DLH under academic freedom, Culture, Education, Free Speech, Human evolution, Mathematics, Natural selection, Peer review, Popular culture, Probability, Science, Mathematics, Philosophy and (Natural) Theology, Society |
Should science pursue truth regardless of consequences? Or must we succumb to political correctness? Must selectivity of females always equal males? Consider: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole – by Theodore P. Hill “In the highly controversial area of human intelligence, the ‘Greater Male Variability Hypothesis’ (GMVH) asserts that there are […]
Professor: Maths should be a movement against “objects, truths, and knowledge”
| August 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Education, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Naturalism, science education |
Same ”Mathematx” prof, same bilge, more publicity, but no action: A U.S. professor who teaches future public school teachers will “argue for a movement against objects, truths, and knowledge” in a keynote to the Mathematics Education and Society conference this coming January, says her talk description. “The relationship between humans, mathematics, and the planet has […]
Will increasingly sophisticated computer simulations “end” theoretical physics as we know it?
| August 29, 2018 | Posted by News under Computing, AI, Cybernetics and Mechatronics, Cosmology, Mathematics, Physics |
Hossenfelder: Perhaps one day, rather than doing calculations, we will just use observations of simplified systems to make predictions.
You think the SJW war on engineering is a joke…
| August 21, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Engineering, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Naturalism |
And that is your mistake. A look at how social justice warriors have penetrated the soft underbelly of engineering: Engineering education has been infiltrated by a “phalanx of social justice warriors” who are steadily corrupting the field, according to a Michigan State University professor. “They have sought out the soft underbelly of engineering, where phrases […]
The war on math and science spreads to engineering
| August 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Engineering, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Naturalism |
It’s a good thing that we don’t need bridges and buildings to be stable: Professional engineers are expressing befuddlement over unsubstantiated scholarly accusations that the field’s licensure exam is biased against women. Women are 11.6% less likely to pass. The agency that administers the exam—the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES)—also pushed […]
Progressive war on science takes dead aim at math
| August 17, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Mathematics |
Recently, we noted the peculiar state of affairs by which atheists, who appear to dominate Top Science, have disproportionately progressive views and yet seem oblivious to the current progressive war on science. Here are two more shots at math: Rochelle Gutiérrez Title: Mathematx: Towards a way of Being The relationship between humans, mathematics, and the […]
Which side will atheists choose in the war on science?
| August 13, 2018 | Posted by News under Atheism, Culture, Mathematics, Science |
From Denyse O’Leary at MercatorNet: In June, I wrote a piece here at MercatorNet, “A shambolic atheist community faces some tough choices,” reflecting on the discontent of some members of that community. It attracted a good many comments and at least one riposte shortly afterward. The riposte garnered 114 comments too. Clearly, the piece struck […]
Mind of the Maker spotlights mathematics as evidence for design in nature
| August 5, 2018 | Posted by News under Books of interest, Intelligent Design, Mathematics |
A recent book, Science and the Mind of the Maker: What the Conversation Between Faith and Science Reveals About God , by Melissa Cain Travis might be of interest. According to one of the Amazon reviews, One of the areas in the book that is unique and very interesting is the discussion about mathematics. The […]
Octonions: Do eight-dimensional numbers underlie the universe?
| July 21, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Physics |
From Natalie Wolchover at Quanta: Complex numbers, suitably paired, form 4-D “quaternions,” discovered in 1843 by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton, who on the spot ecstatically chiseled the formula into Dublin’s Broome Bridge. John Graves, a lawyer friend of Hamilton’s, subsequently showed that pairs of quaternions make octonions: numbers that define coordinates in an […]
Vid: Fisher’s Darwinian theorem disproved in conference paper
| July 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Mathematics |
William Basener writes to say, I posted a conference presentation I gave on my work with John Sanford on the Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection with Mutations, posted on YouTube here. The talk was the keynote address at the International Conference on Ecology, Ecosystems, and Conservation Biology, in Toronto Canada (a fairly small but fully […]
Will President Dutarte have to resign? Mathematician Euler offered an equation taken as proof of God
| July 14, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mathematics, theism |
Recently, Philippines president Rodrigo Dutarte threatened to resign if anyone could prove that God exists. It turns out that the great mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) offered a proof of the existence of God. Today, Euler is considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. His interests covered almost all aspects of mathematics, from geometry […]
At Vox: The number zero is weird
| July 8, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Philosophy |
From Brian Resnick at Vox: Zero is in the mind, but not in the sensory world,” Robert Kaplan, a Harvard math professor and an author of a book on zero, says. Even in the empty reaches of space, if you can see stars, it means you’re being bathed in their electromagnetic radiation. In the darkest […]
