Referencing Jonathan Bartlett’s “Doing the impossible: A step-by-step guide,” mathematician and Darwinian Jeffrey Shallit huffs,
I suppose it’s not so remarkable that creationists can’t do mathematics. After all, almost by definition, they don’t understand evolution, so that alone should suggest some sort of cognitive deficit. What surprises me is that even creationists with math or related degrees often have problems with basic mathematics. …
First, Bartlett calls polynomials the “standard algebraic functions”. This is definitely nonstandard terminology, and not anything a mathematician would say. For mathematicians, an “algebraic function” is one that satisfies the analogue of an algebraic equation. For example, consider the function f(x) defined by f^2 + f + x = 0. The function (-1 + sqrt(1-4x))/2 satisfies this equation, and hence it would be called algebraic.
Second, Bartlett claims that “every calculus student learns a method for writing sine and cosine” in terms of polynomials, even though he also states this is “impossible”. How can one resolve this contradiction? Easy! He explains that “If, however, we allow ourselves an infinite number of polynomial terms, we can indeed write sine and cosine in terms of polynomial functions” …
If one allows “an infinite number of polynomial terms”, then the result is not a polynomial! How hard can this be to understand?
Jeffrey Shallit, “Why Can’t Creationists Do Mathematics?” at Recursivity/Freethought Blogs
We are told that Bartlett will answer shortly.
See also: Doing the impossible: A step-by-step guide Jonathan Bartlett: Often, in life as in calculus, when our implicit assumptions as to why something can’t be done are made explicit, they can be disproven
and
Walter Bradley Center Fellow discovers longstanding flaw in an aspect of elementary calculus. The flaw doesn’t lead directly to wrong answers but it does create confusion.
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Why can’t evolutionists do science? They definitely don’t understand the concept…
Infinite number of terms not a polynomial? That’s just dumb, even by normal calculus-class methods. Calculus teachers always emphasize that you can’t reach infinity, so limits are “approaching a really large number.” A polynomial with a really large number of terms is still a polynomial. Poly means many, for heavens sake.
Funny that Shallit thinks that you have to be a Darwinist to understand math since Darwin himself did not understand math (in fact he found it to be ‘repugnant’)
I guess according to Shallit’s criteria of “anyone who doubts Darwin is automatically disqualified from understanding math”, then that must mean that Wolfgang Pauli, Murray Eden and Gregory Chaitin don’t understand math either:
Of course, there are some who may dare say that it is Shallit himself, since he believes in Darwinism, is the one who does not really understand math.
David Berlinski: https://infogalactic.com/info/David_Berlinski
those who do understand NDT Darwinism know it is a failed hypothesis morphed into a faith based doctrine, so being good at math might provide cover for the flawed hypothesis.
while the mantle of science is within ID, the highest probability ID is w/in YeC and one need only know basic math to see why the empirical observations can all add up w/in YeC and falsify all deep-time dependent scientific hypotheses and assumptions.
one might conclude Darwinists are more foolish than the average third grader and have more faith in NDT than the Pope has in YeC.
reference the YeC Moshe Emes series for Torah and science alignment.
There is considerable irony here. ID people do the detailed math to show that Darwinism cannot work for the major changes attributed to it. Yet Darwinists either refuse to look at the math, or do their own handwaving, without serious math, to “explain” how their theory manages to perform the magic. Math helps to disprove Darwinism, yet a Darwinist complains that we can’t do math?
it seems that Shallit missed recent David Gelernter article.
Alright, Gelernter is not a real creationist, but he is no longer a Darwinist.
David Gelernter, professor of computer science, Yale University
“Giving up Darwin” (May 2019)
https://www.claremont.org/crb/article/giving-up-darwin/
Yes, but we all know that Shallit’s materialist fundamentalism drove him barking mad years ago.
polistra- polynomials have a finite number of variables and coefficients. As you said, poly means many. And infinity > many, infinitely greater, even.
Barry:
Mathematics shouldn’t exist in a materialistic world. Shallit lives in constant conflict with hisself.
By accepted mathematical definition, a polynomial has a finite number of monomial terms with positive or zero exponents. Wikipedia writes, “a polynomial can either be zero or can be written as the sum of a finite number of non-zero terms.” A power series, which is an infinite series, such as that for sine or cosine, is not a polynomial.
I used to do a real neat graphical demonstration in calc class (using a graphing program) about how every partial sum of the power series for cosine was a polynomial whose graph paralleled the cosine graph for a longer and longer distance before the polynomial diverged off to infinite y-values. For instance, the simple parabola y = 1 – x^2/2! (the first two terms of the power series) nestled nicely into the “bump” the cosine curve makes at x = 0, and could be used to approximate cos x for very small values of x. If you then add the next term in the power series, you get a 4th degree polynomial that nestles above the curve, the next 6th degree polynomial below the curve, etc. But the power series itself is not a polynomial.
Barry
Barry
Can we assume that you were just joking with the first comment?
Although the probabilities against Darwinian processes generating functional proteins and/or functional information are devastating in and of themselves,,,
For instance, as the following article states, “the possibility of finding even one that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,,
And as the follow up article to the preceding paper stated, “There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,”
Although the probabilities against Darwinian processes generating functional proteins and/or functional information are devastating in and of themselves, far more problematic for Darwinists is the fact that immaterial information is now shown to be its own distinct physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ fashion with matter and energy, is, directly contrary to Darwinian presuppositions, a completely separate entity that can exist independently of its representation on a material substrate.
In the following 2010 experimental realization of Maxwell’s demon thought experiment, it was demonstrated that knowledge of a particle’s location and/or position converts information into energy.
And as the following 2010 article stated about the preceding experiment, “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,”
And as the following 2017 article states: James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,,
quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,,
Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
Again to repeat that last sentence, “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,”
Think about that statement for a second.
These experiments completely blow the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinian evolution, (presuppositions about information being merely ’emergent’ from some material basis), out of the water, and tie the creation of information directly to the knowledge of the ‘observer’ in quantum theory.
In other words, contrary to the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists, information, particularly this ‘thermodynamic positional information’, is now experimentally shown, via quantum information theory, to be its own distinct physical entity that, although it can interact with matter and energy, is its own independent, ‘non-local’ beyond space and time, entity that is separate from matter and energy. On top of all that, this ‘thermodynamic positional information’ is found, via quantum information theory, to be “a property of an observer who describes a system.”
In other words, Intelligent Design, and a direct inference to God as the Intelligence behind life, (via infinite regress to the omniscient Mind of God), has, for all intents and purposes, achieved experimental confirmation.
Of note to the “infinite regress” to the omniscient Mind of God,,
Thus Shallit, and all the other Darwinian blowhards, can blow their own horns all they want about how much smarter they are than the rest of us who believe in God, but, as far as empirical science itself is concerned, Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework are now shown to not even be on the correct theoretical foundation in order to properly understand molecular biology in the first place.
Specifically, the present finding that ‘non-local’ quantum coherence/entanglement is ubiquitous throughout molecular biology is simply devastating to the entire reductive materialistic foundation that Darwinian evolution rests upon.
And whereas atheistic materialists are at a complete loss to explain how particles can be instantly correlated in molecular biology, on the other hand Christian Theists readily have a beyond space-time, matter-energy, cause that they can appeal to in order to explain the pervasive quantum non-locality within molecular biology :
Reposting from the thread on calculus texts:
a bit of cross threading?
Yes, because this OP is actually about Shallit’s article, and the subject of “what is a polynomial” came up here also, so what I wrote in the other thread is more appropriate here.
Darwinists always argue their case by insulting the opposition. They only offer facts to support their insults.
SmartAz It’s not just darwinists it’s any arrogant fool that thinks they can’t be wrong, They get puffy when they are questioned and they start tossing out insults to make themselves feel better, it’s not that they are an expert, clearly Jeffrey is not one of those experts
@ AaronS1978 –
The curious thing about this is I’m not entirely sure why Shallit is even in the conversation. Perhaps just a personal grudge? Not really sure. I find it odd that he didn’t even really comment on the meat of the article – using mathematics to teach students about wider areas of life. Just a pedantic quabble.
What’s weirder is he doubled-down on an earlier time when he also decided I was wrong, but in that case he wasn’t right in some pedantic sense, he was just plain wrong. Not sure why he keeps bringing that up.
Just as a note, in his previous fact-check of me, Shallit said:
Here, Shallit doesn’t realize that a proof is equivalent to a computer program, and “checking a proof” is equivalent to running a computer program to completion. This falls into the land of the halting problem. If the proof contains infinite loops, the proof-checker will not know, and will not be able to complete the proof-checking. So, here, the fact that is “true but lacking a proof” (the type of idea that Shallit agrees is not possible to check) is the fact that the proof is wrong.
Here’s an example. This is a proof that there exists positive even numbers that are not divisible by two (an obviously false statement):
Definition: a number N is not divisible by 2 if N modulo 2 is 1.
Definition: the first positive even number is 2.
Definition: the next even number after N is N + 2.
(1) Let x = 2.
(2) Let y = x modulo 2.
(3) If y is equal to 1, the proof is complete.
(4) Add 2 to x for the next even number.
(5) Go to step two.
A naive automatic proof checker will not be able to determine that this proof is false. Now, as rational human beings, we can find ways to show that this proof is false a priori. It is theoretically possible to encode those *specific* reasons into a proof-checker. However, there are an infinite number of ways to be wrong in this cyclical way, and you can’t encode them all into a proof-checker. Therefore, even if you fix the problem for this particular proof, the general problem will remain.
Aarin1978
I think we can each name at least three ID supporters here who this describes to a tee. And you aren’t one of them.
I know we can name thousands, if not millions, of evos who fit Aaron’s description. Every evo who has ever lived fits that bill. The question is why? Not one can even test the claims of blind watchmaker evolution.
“Every evo who has ever lived fits that bill.”
I can witness to this. There may be exceptions, but I have not encountered any.
They are programmed with some talking points. As far as evolutionists thinking past that goes, it doesn’t happen(in my experience with evos).
Andrew
Default Darwinist position: When you can’t argue facts, argue semantics.
Despite Shallit’s cheap shots, I don’t see anything about the actual topic of his post that has anything to do with creationism, or Darwinism, or anything other than just math.
hazel, Shallit is just another very desperate loser.
Sorry Hazel – simply associating Shallit’s approach to that common to Darwinists. Not attempting to claim he is one, or that his particular response is related to evolution. Just pointing out the commonality of how many “experts” react to ideas they don’t like.
There is no fossil without millions of years worth of gaps, no transitional fossils, no negative mutations. So much for the fossil’s telling a story, but they still point to fossils to show Darwin at work.
The e coli long-term evolutionary experiment wrapped up after 3 decades a couple of years ago. This was the equivalent of 1,000,000 years for man. They gave up, since they knew they would never find that magical mechanism at work. There was no macro-evolution discovered. Macro-evolution has never been witnessed in nature.
Positive mutations are required for Darwin to be right. There has never been one positive mutation witnessed in nature.
So, a math professor relies on a complete lack of evidence to support his belief in Darwin and he has the nerve to call out those that disagree with him.
The funny thing, BobRyan, is that I wasn’t even talking about Darwinism (or creation). I was simply trying to inspire people to think about mathematics in a deeper way. I didn’t even think it was controversial.
Is this OP referring to something posted in this website: freethoughtblogs.com ?
Here’s what they say:
Wow! That’s quite a collection of blogs.
Let’s see how they do in the Alexa ranking (last 90 days):
FTB…….134,079…….DN…….43.2 K
That compares to
Google…………………1……….unchanged // Google
Bing…………………29………UP 12 // Bing
MSFT…………..32………UP 3 // MSFT
FB………………..4…………DN 1 // Facebook
YH……………….10………..DN 1 // Yahoo!
AMZ……………..11………..DN 1 // Amazon
MIT…………….592…………….DN 178 // MIT
H………………956……………DN 170 // Harvard University
UF………………4,308………….DN 1.08 K // UF
D………….3,571…………UP 834 // Disney
EN………..139,980……..DN 15.6 K // Evolution News
BG……………….819…….UP 34 // BibleGateway
AiG…………37,623……..DN 4.31 K // Answers in Genesis
RTB…………343,682………..UP 36.6 K // Reasons.org