Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
I've been forced to broaden my horizons in my PhD pursuit. That's because, although I've done coding since I was eighteen, I've had to acquire a deeper understanding for two things: linear algebra and numerical methods. It's no understatement to say that both of these are at the core of the advances wrought by computerisation, …
Continue reading "Sometimes It Pays to Give Your Professor a Little Attention"
Although it's been out there for a long time, these days the clash between religion and science has been especially heated. The simplest way to solve the problem would be to cancel elections and let the self-proclaimed know-it-alls run the show. In this way they could ignore the religious "masses" and insure the continuity of …
Continue reading "If You Really Want to Get Into Trouble, Read the Mediaevals"
And some will admit it: Many more in the Republican Party love using this line, "I'm not a scientist." Marco Rubio, John Boehner, and Rick Scott, have all used versions of this line to dismiss climate change science or promote creationism. In 2012, asked how old Earth is, Rubio repeated, "I'm not a scientist," twice. …
There's always something going on out there, and in the last couple of weeks one of those somethings has been the flap over the musician Michael Gungor's post on the age of the earth: Do I believe God exists? Yes.Do I believe Jesus is the Son of God? Yes.Do I believe that Scripture is God-breathed …
In response to one of my pieces related to climate change, my persistent commenter had this to say: My impression is that “you people think science is a religion” is an accusation made against the secular by a small segment of the religious, that tiny sub-group who think of themselves as “the religious.” I’d think …
Continue reading "Scientific Authority and Logical Fallacies"
In early February we were regaled by a debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham over "creationism vs. evolutionism" which attracted more attention than it deserved. I'm tempted to move on about this except for this fawning piece in the New Republic (lefties can certainly be sycophants when the situation calls for it, something Barack …
Continue reading "My Thoughts on Bill Nye, the (so-called) "Science Guy""
(Note: the Markov chain example starts about halfway through the post). One of the issues that the Roman Catholic Church wrestles with on an ongoing basis concerns the status of those politicians which a) profess and call themselves Roman Catholics yet b) show that they do not ascribe to the teaching of the Church in …
It's Forrest Mims: Forrest M. Mims III '66, "the Country Scientist," has written more than 60 books, mostly technical tomes on electronics, some in various editions and in two or more languages. His total sales exceed 7 million copies. He is probably best known for his hand-lettered and illustrated Getting Started in Electronics, published by Radio Shack in …
Continue reading "The Best Selling Aggie Author: A Controversial Christian"
In view of yesterday's debate on the subject, this, which is the postscript for University of Texas at El Paso math professor Granville Sewell's book Analysis of a Finite Element Method: PDE/PROTRAN: As I begin my 12th year of work on TWODEPEP (now PDE/PROTRAN ), I am intrigued by the analogy between the 11 year …
Continue reading "Granville Sewell on the Weaknesses of Darwinism"
This from Rusty Signor, current President of the Pile Driving Contractors Association and President of TX Pile, LLC, in the current issue of Pile Driver: In my last message, I ended with a different, more positive view on the news in our current world situation. This time, I am going to do another first: a …
Positive Infinity 