Since I'm struggling with part 2 of my Science and Faith entry, I thought I'd post a little comic relief.
My wife and I are jointly owned by three cats, all of which I brought to the marriage. We generally keep the family-room furniture covered with old sheets to keep the fur off, and uncover it when we have company. The cats have learned too, when the furniture is covered they can go up on it, when it's not they can't, so when the covers are off they tend to stay off.
Last Saturday my wife had a luncheon for a few women she works with. I was going to try out the rifle I got for Christmas, but it was too cold so I did what any red-blooded American male would do when confronted with a house full of women, I stayed at my workbench in the basement working on my model trains. So anyway, off came the sheets from the funiture, so the cats stayed off. Then my wife put a tablecloth on the dining-room table, a nice dark brownish-red one, at which point Snoball (guess what color she is!) realized that the table was covered so it must be OK for her to go up there. My wife described her as lounging in the middle of the table. Since none of the cats generally go up on the table, we decided she must have thought it was OK because there was a cover on it.
It's hard to be too upset when they're following the rules as they understand them.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Friday, February 17, 2006
Science and Faith - Part 1
For those of you who don’t know me well (which is about two-thirds of my regular readers, the other third being my wife) I’m a Christian. I’m also quite well versed in the “hard” sciences (physics, astronomy, geology, some biology, and a little chemistry). Some people find it hard to rationalize faith with science. I believe this inability is a direct result of a misunderstanding of science.
Science deals exclusively with what can be consistently measured in the universe. If it can’t be seen and measured it doesn’t belong in the realm of science. If someone else, following the same procedure as I do, can’t get the same results as I did it’s not science.
Modern people don’t understand how radical the scientific method was when it was first proposed. I’ve read that at one time mathematicians were debating at length over whether the weight of an object had any effect on how fast it would fall under gravity. Some argued that the acceleration of gravity was independent of mass, some argued that a heavier object would fall faster. Then a man by the name of Galileo did something that was so completely unheard of that the mathematicians must have gaped in wonder, he actually took two iron balls, one considerably heavier than the other, to the top of the Tower of Pisa, and dropped them to see what would happen. I’ve personally seen similar tests done in Physics classrooms, and the results were always the same as what Galileo got, the two objects hit the ground at the same time. (Interestingly, one of the astronauts who landed on the moon brought a hammer and a feather with him and dropped them. In the absense of air the hammer and feather hit the ground at the same time too.)
Let’s set up a simple experiment to use as an example. Let’s say I am going to take a marble and drop it from the roof of my house and measure how long it takes to hit the ground. So I need a marble, and a stop watch and my house. I can use a tape measure to determine how high the marble will be when I drop it, and I can calculate how long it should take to hit the ground. I can then use a stop-watch to measure how long it actually does take. I ignore anything that doesn’t affect the outcome of the experiment, I don’t care what color the marble is or what day of the week it is. So I climb up on the roof, drop my marble, and a seagull swoops down, grabs the marble in mid-air, and carries it away. He drops the marble ten minutes later, at which point it hits the ground. Do I claim that it took the marble ten minutes to hit the ground? I do not, because the seagull wasn’t part of the experiment.
Pay attention now, this is important. If I perform this experiment a hundred times, or a thousand, or a million, and hundreds of other people perform exactly the same experiment thousands or millions more times, and in no case does a seagull swoop down and grab the marble, does that disprove the existence of seagulls? It does not, for exactly the same reason, seagulls aren’t part of what we’re measuring.
Science, by definition, is repeatable, it deals with the general case. Science can say that, given a set of conditions (for instance height from which the marble is dropped) we expect a certain set of results (time to hit the ground). If something else comes into the system (like a seagull) the results are unusable.
So, the science of medicine can tell us that if a person has a particular disease he or she will probably die within a certain amount of time. Medicine can tell us that there is no known cure for such a disease. Then God can swoop in and perform a miracle and heal the person. This doesn’t discount the value of medical science, nor do people who are not healed miraculously disprove the existence of God. God exists outside of our universe, He is unpredictable (God works in mysterious ways) so His actions cannot be accounted for in science.
This is part one of this topic, where I’m trying to lay some groundwork. In part two I intend to deal with some issues where faith and science collide and hopefully make some sense of the issues. If you have any such issues you'd like to see discussed let me know in the comments.
Science deals exclusively with what can be consistently measured in the universe. If it can’t be seen and measured it doesn’t belong in the realm of science. If someone else, following the same procedure as I do, can’t get the same results as I did it’s not science.
Modern people don’t understand how radical the scientific method was when it was first proposed. I’ve read that at one time mathematicians were debating at length over whether the weight of an object had any effect on how fast it would fall under gravity. Some argued that the acceleration of gravity was independent of mass, some argued that a heavier object would fall faster. Then a man by the name of Galileo did something that was so completely unheard of that the mathematicians must have gaped in wonder, he actually took two iron balls, one considerably heavier than the other, to the top of the Tower of Pisa, and dropped them to see what would happen. I’ve personally seen similar tests done in Physics classrooms, and the results were always the same as what Galileo got, the two objects hit the ground at the same time. (Interestingly, one of the astronauts who landed on the moon brought a hammer and a feather with him and dropped them. In the absense of air the hammer and feather hit the ground at the same time too.)
Let’s set up a simple experiment to use as an example. Let’s say I am going to take a marble and drop it from the roof of my house and measure how long it takes to hit the ground. So I need a marble, and a stop watch and my house. I can use a tape measure to determine how high the marble will be when I drop it, and I can calculate how long it should take to hit the ground. I can then use a stop-watch to measure how long it actually does take. I ignore anything that doesn’t affect the outcome of the experiment, I don’t care what color the marble is or what day of the week it is. So I climb up on the roof, drop my marble, and a seagull swoops down, grabs the marble in mid-air, and carries it away. He drops the marble ten minutes later, at which point it hits the ground. Do I claim that it took the marble ten minutes to hit the ground? I do not, because the seagull wasn’t part of the experiment.
Pay attention now, this is important. If I perform this experiment a hundred times, or a thousand, or a million, and hundreds of other people perform exactly the same experiment thousands or millions more times, and in no case does a seagull swoop down and grab the marble, does that disprove the existence of seagulls? It does not, for exactly the same reason, seagulls aren’t part of what we’re measuring.
Science, by definition, is repeatable, it deals with the general case. Science can say that, given a set of conditions (for instance height from which the marble is dropped) we expect a certain set of results (time to hit the ground). If something else comes into the system (like a seagull) the results are unusable.
So, the science of medicine can tell us that if a person has a particular disease he or she will probably die within a certain amount of time. Medicine can tell us that there is no known cure for such a disease. Then God can swoop in and perform a miracle and heal the person. This doesn’t discount the value of medical science, nor do people who are not healed miraculously disprove the existence of God. God exists outside of our universe, He is unpredictable (God works in mysterious ways) so His actions cannot be accounted for in science.
This is part one of this topic, where I’m trying to lay some groundwork. In part two I intend to deal with some issues where faith and science collide and hopefully make some sense of the issues. If you have any such issues you'd like to see discussed let me know in the comments.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Random Snowy Thoughts
The area I live in (Bergen County, NJ) got nailed by a good old fashioned Nor'Easter over the weekend that dumped a couple feet of snow on us. Nearby NYC recorded the largest single-storm snowfall ever recorded, almost 29 inches (although I was sure there was one ten or so years ago that topped 30 inches). I spent a good part of my day yesterday moving snow around, shovelling out the cars, clearing the sidewalks (and since I live on a corner I have twice as much sidewalk as my neighbors), and raking snow off part of the roof that's got a mild pitch so it tends to form ice dams. Advil is my friend today.
Since this is a rant outlet for me: The town Department of Public Works (DPW) is responsible for plowing, salting, sanding, etc. Since I live on a small side-street I don't expect to get plowed early. We finally got a plow Sunday afternoon, and only then did I go out and finish clearing the driveway. An hour or so later DPW sent another plow that actually left the road looking worse than it did before, and of course plugged up my driveway again. I did get a little lucky though, on the side of my house the plows often run right along the curb and throw the snow up onto my sidewalk.
The snow in NYC where I work is the usual post-snowstorm color, a brownish grey sludge. Anyone who describes someone as "pure as the driven snow" has never seen snow that's been driven over.
I've noticed that the ability of an individual to drive in snow decreased with the size of their SUV. Hint: Four-wheel-drive won't help your two-ton monster stop, so please don't drive 75 mph when the road is snow covered. Someone I care about may be in the car you ram into.
Whenever we have a snowfall like this I wonder if it would be a good idea to buy a snow-blower. The only problem is that I'm terminally cheap, and snow blowers in the price range I'd be willing to pay only handle up to eight or ten inches of snow. Honestly, I can generally handle that much snow with my shovel. I can't see spending $1,000 or so on something I'll probably only really need every two or three years.
I'm fairly handy, mechanically. I used to work with a guy who was, to say the least, not mechanically inclined. He decided to buy a snow-blower, so he sought my advice. The blower he bought had an electric starter, you'd plug it in, start it, then unplug it and go blow snow. He didn't understand why it also had a pull rope, until I explained that if it stalled at the far end of your property it was probably easier to pull the rope to restart a hot engine than to walk it all the way back to the electrical outlet. He also asked me about the chute on top that directs the snow, asking which way he should point it. I told him that depended on where he wanted the snow to go, left or right. He asked if he could point it straight back, to which I replied "(Name withheld to protect the dopey) you'll be standing there!"
Well, it's supposed to turn warm later in the week. I'm glad we got the basement waterproofed last year, since normally this much snow melting would give us a nice pond in the basement. I'm working on a couple entries that are just about ready.
Since this is a rant outlet for me: The town Department of Public Works (DPW) is responsible for plowing, salting, sanding, etc. Since I live on a small side-street I don't expect to get plowed early. We finally got a plow Sunday afternoon, and only then did I go out and finish clearing the driveway. An hour or so later DPW sent another plow that actually left the road looking worse than it did before, and of course plugged up my driveway again. I did get a little lucky though, on the side of my house the plows often run right along the curb and throw the snow up onto my sidewalk.
The snow in NYC where I work is the usual post-snowstorm color, a brownish grey sludge. Anyone who describes someone as "pure as the driven snow" has never seen snow that's been driven over.
I've noticed that the ability of an individual to drive in snow decreased with the size of their SUV. Hint: Four-wheel-drive won't help your two-ton monster stop, so please don't drive 75 mph when the road is snow covered. Someone I care about may be in the car you ram into.
Whenever we have a snowfall like this I wonder if it would be a good idea to buy a snow-blower. The only problem is that I'm terminally cheap, and snow blowers in the price range I'd be willing to pay only handle up to eight or ten inches of snow. Honestly, I can generally handle that much snow with my shovel. I can't see spending $1,000 or so on something I'll probably only really need every two or three years.
I'm fairly handy, mechanically. I used to work with a guy who was, to say the least, not mechanically inclined. He decided to buy a snow-blower, so he sought my advice. The blower he bought had an electric starter, you'd plug it in, start it, then unplug it and go blow snow. He didn't understand why it also had a pull rope, until I explained that if it stalled at the far end of your property it was probably easier to pull the rope to restart a hot engine than to walk it all the way back to the electrical outlet. He also asked me about the chute on top that directs the snow, asking which way he should point it. I told him that depended on where he wanted the snow to go, left or right. He asked if he could point it straight back, to which I replied "(Name withheld to protect the dopey) you'll be standing there!"
Well, it's supposed to turn warm later in the week. I'm glad we got the basement waterproofed last year, since normally this much snow melting would give us a nice pond in the basement. I'm working on a couple entries that are just about ready.
I've Been Tagged
MorningGlory tagged me with this, and since she's one of my faithful readers I'll do my best:
4 Jobs I Have Held In My Life: College Assistant; Night Adjunct Computer Lab Technician; Computer Programmer; Consultant
4 Places I Have Lived: Mariner's Harbor, Staten Island, NY; West Brighton, Staten Island, NY; Clifton, NJ, River Edge, NJ. Given that I've had a total of five addresses in my entire life, this wasn't easy.
4 TV Shows I Love To Watch: Mail Call; Mythbusters; any NY Jets game; I used to love Junkyard Wars but it doesn't seem to be on anymore
4 Websites I Visit Daily: http://www.boortz.com ; http://www.theothersideofkim.com ; http:// www.railroad-line.com ; http://www.thehighroad.com
4 Favorite Foods: My wife's meatloaf ; steak ; grilled porkchops ; anything chocolate
4 Places I Would Rather Be Right Now: Home; Aruba; Dominica; Norweigian Dawn
4 People I am tagging: Honestly, any blogger I read regularly either already got tagged or wouldn't respond, so I'll just have to pass on this. One of the downsides of being among the last people to get tagged.
4 Jobs I Have Held In My Life: College Assistant; Night Adjunct Computer Lab Technician; Computer Programmer; Consultant
4 Places I Have Lived: Mariner's Harbor, Staten Island, NY; West Brighton, Staten Island, NY; Clifton, NJ, River Edge, NJ. Given that I've had a total of five addresses in my entire life, this wasn't easy.
4 TV Shows I Love To Watch: Mail Call; Mythbusters; any NY Jets game; I used to love Junkyard Wars but it doesn't seem to be on anymore
4 Websites I Visit Daily: http://www.boortz.com ; http://www.theothersideofkim.com ; http:// www.railroad-line.com ; http://www.thehighroad.com
4 Favorite Foods: My wife's meatloaf ; steak ; grilled porkchops ; anything chocolate
4 Places I Would Rather Be Right Now: Home; Aruba; Dominica; Norweigian Dawn
4 People I am tagging: Honestly, any blogger I read regularly either already got tagged or wouldn't respond, so I'll just have to pass on this. One of the downsides of being among the last people to get tagged.
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