Chris Ray - October 4th, 2009 in Commentary 9 votes Vote Up! Vote Down!

Theology, like all religious institutions, demands respect where none is earned. Historically they serve only the functions of defending dogma to no one in particular, providing cover for the rare believer who comes to doubt the various absurdities of his faith, and of optimistically regurgitating the failed arguments of previous theologians. There is nothing here with which to engage. There is no novelty among them to treat with new counterarguments.

Sami Snyder - August 18th, 2009 in Commentary 6 votes Vote Up! Vote Down!

“Look! It’s PZ!” Cheers went up and applause ensued. PZ Myers finally arrived at the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. This was the first time the famous (or infamous) blogger had ever visited the place that defied his field of study, accepting only microevolution, but vehemently denying macroevolution. Like everyone else, I wanted a picture with the atheist icon and somehow managed to get one. The place buzzed with excitement. However, as I looked around I realized that although PZ was important, he wasn’t nearly as important as what he had done. When I pulled into the parking lot for the “museum” what I saw amazed me. Two extremely long lines…of non-believers. There was also a fairly large group of more that had already received their ticket, an “I was [...]

Punk Teacher - August 15th, 2009 in Commentary 2 votes Vote Up! Vote Down!

 
Who is the Punk Teacher?
 
I decided to create the pseudonym “Punk Teacher” first and foremost so that I could write frankly about my new teaching career without risking drama, or worse, my job.
 
I am literally started my teaching career this year, summer 2009. My first experience was doing about a month of student teaching with Latino 5th graders who had failed my state’s standardized test.
 
I am completely thrilled to be a teacher. It is my dream career. Yet there are a lot of problems with the educational system, and I have no intention of turning a blind eye. In fact I think my perspective is uniquely honed in such a way as to cut through bullshit in a refreshing and relevant way.
 
Even in my limited experience I already have much [...]

John Ray - August 10th, 2009 in News 8 votes Vote Up! Vote Down!

That’s the title of the Organizations & Market post referencing this latest New York Times piece. We here in humanities land love to hear that our math can be useful math too. Hot on its heels comes this great crash course in Bayesian reasoning – required reading for every student interested in, well, doing probabilities right.
One of the common refrains in my field is that failures of Bayesian reasoning are behind lots of our errors of reasoning in general – Linda the Feminist Bank Teller and the Asian Disease framing problem immediately come to mind. Consider the first problem:

Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in [...]

Chris Ray - August 9th, 2009 in News 5 votes Vote Up! Vote Down!

The BBC reports:
The England team has withdrawn from the World Badminton Championships in India because of “a specific terrorist threat” made by extremists.
The eight-strong squad pulled out of the tournament, which starts on Monday in Hyderabad, after reports of threats by Muslim extremists Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Lakshar-e-Taiba has shown that, sometimes, terrorism does work.
I cannot fault the English team here for cowardice, and in fact I commend their courage in acknowledging that the safety of their players is more important to them than the interests of whatever groups own and profit from the team. In fact, the failures involved in this event (the failure of Indian society to cultivate and protect a humanist ethos, the failure of the Muslim intelligentsia to combat fundamentalism, the failure of the British and Indian governments to ruthlessly [...]