Intelligence, Math and Field

Posted on January 25, 2012
Filed Under Cognative Science, Science | 1 Comment

Razib has up a really interesting post on different fields and how intelligent people are in those fields. Specifically he focuses in on verbal skills and math skills on the GRE tests.  The graph of verbal vs. math was quite interesting – especially with physicists out in the corner. More interesting to me was the comparison between how biased towards one or the other one was versus intelligence. (Be careful not to confuse the graphs – I embarrassed myself doing that)

Physicists are surprisingly good in the verbal area. Not the top but quite high.  I’m not sure why that is. My theory is that the way physicists solve problems ends up utilizing a lot of verbal rather than mathematical reasoning. Typically the hard part in physics is figuring out the problem so you can make it mathematical. The math phase is often the easiest part. (To a physicist anyway)

Better to Be an Adulterer than a Mormon?

Posted on January 19, 2012
Filed Under Politics, Religion | 6 Comments

A lot of people are discussing Francis Beckwith’s comments at Patheos about how evangelicals are not so subtly saying it is better to be an adulterer than a Mormon. It’s a great post and takes a line of thought I’d never even considered before. A few quotes:

 


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Pew Mormon Study

Posted on January 12, 2012
Filed Under Religion | 2 Comments

PewThe internet has been ablaze today with the latest Pew Forum Survey on Mormonism. BCC has up a discussion of the report and also live blogged the conference call at Pew.

As I mentioned in the BCC thread a few things seem really off. They have the rate of self-identification as Mormon at nearly 2% whereas previous self-identification studies such as the 2008 ARIS one had us at 1.4% (and fairly consistently over the last 20 years). I’d discussed that back a few years ago.

The population rate isn’t the only head scratcher though. They have the rate of people attending church at least weekly as 77% which is better than what most wards claim as their attendance. Tithing paying is listed at 79% which seems astoundingly too high. (I think the Church lists it at less than 50%) There are a few other head scratchers. Why for instance do only 94% of self-identified Mormons think Monson is a prophet? While that’s a high figure for any survey I’d think that to self-identify as Mormon would entail that acceptance. The only thing I could think of was that some other Mormon faiths such as fundamentalists or RLDS were picked up in the survey. (Pew said there were very few non-LDS but it’s hard to know what that constitutes)


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New Years Resolutions

Posted on January 2, 2012
Filed Under Philosophy, Religion | 4 Comments

I’ve got a few New Years resolutions. Normally I hate such things but this year I want to get back into my more academic studies. I’ve been so busy the past years that things have fallen farther and farther behind.

My first big resolution is to get caught up on my reading of Object Oriented Philosophy. Primarily reading Adam Miller’s book (which is probably closest to my own views judging by past discussions) and then Levi Bryant’s recent book Democracy of Objects. I’d read the past year or so several of Graham Harman’s books but was so swamped with other tasks I don’t think I’d read them with the rigor they deserve. However I also found that the key issues I saw weren’t addressed that well so I think going with Adam’s and Levi’s might be better. Which isn’t to disparage Harman’s – just that I suspect the other variety gets at the issues I see important a little better.

Now I just have to find where I put the e-book of Adam’s work.
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The Problem of Extra-Semiotic Entities

Posted on November 29, 2011
Filed Under Derrida, Peirce | 3 Comments

I fully confess that I may be reading Derrida through too Peircean a lens. I can but say that if I do it is a fruitful way to read. Given that the following excerpt from Kelly Parker’s excellent The Continuity of Peirce’s Thought might be in order.

 


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Harman on Derrida’s Realism

Posted on November 29, 2011
Filed Under Derrida, OOP | Leave a Comment

Sorry I’ve not posted for so long. I’ve just been too ridiculously busy. I did want to draw your attention to an interesting post of Graham Harman on Derrida’s realism. I wish I had time to comment on it.

On the one hand I’m one of those who think Derrida’s a realist but I don’t think that ends up being that informative a description unless one unpacks what one means by realism. Harman brings up the issue of the self-identical which certainly is a big deal in many forms of realism. I do think that the issue of identity doesn’t work in Derrida the way it does in most realisms. So I’d not want to say Derrida is realist of the sort one typically finds in the Anglo-American traditions. I personally do think he’s a realist of the sort one finds in the pragmatic traditions — although even there sometimes the pragmatists are described as attempting to find a third way between the twin poles of realism and idealism. (See for example David Hildebrand’s Beyond Realism and Anti-realism) So I’m not committed to the terminology and I acknowledge the danger of falling prey to a naive realism.


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Knowledge and the Dogmatism Paradox

Posted on October 7, 2011
Filed Under Epistemology, Peirce, Philosophy | 2 Comments

Really interesting post up by Richard at Philosophy Etc. It’s basically about a problem regarding new evidence against something you know.

If I know that h is true, I know that any evidence against h is evidence against something that is true: so I know that such evidence is misleading. But I should disregard evidence that I know is misleading. So, once I know that h is true, I am in a position to disregard any future evidence that seems to tell against h. (Gill Harman, Thought 148)

Richard goes on to give some good rejoinders against the paradox. The usual one is to say that evidence has to be considered in terms of time. So at the time of new evidence the total evidence has to be considered when determining if someone knows something.


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Inequity & Mormonism

Posted on September 28, 2011
Filed Under Religion | 27 Comments

The recent Harper’s article suggesting Mormons have a mindset of seeking after gold and riches irked a lot of people.  (See for instance this post by Russell Fox) Frankly I don’t think the article deserves much consideration. It’s just poorly researched and sourced with some mind bogglingly dumb connections made.

I am intrigued though by the claim that Mormons are wealth seekers. I think that a worry about this is actually a pretty large concern among Mormons. After all one of the obvious things that Chris Lehmann missed in his article was that Mormon scripture constantly warns of seeking after riches. (Seriously – this is one of the main messages of the Book of Mormon) It’s a pretty constant theme in Mormon lessons. While it’s undeniable that some Mormons do get caught up in greed the fact is that Mormons have a complex relationship with wealth.

One way of considering the issue is by breaking down the way wealth is distributed amongst Mormons.


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Religion, Autism and Cognitive Style

Posted on September 21, 2011
Filed Under Religion, Science | 9 Comments

Razib has a slew of fantastic posts on religion today. Most of it is just going over some studies that have been discussed at quite a few blogs. The first post, “Atheism as Mental Deviance” (he’s using that term technically) deals with the recognition that autistics are more apt to be atheist than normal. Honestly I was surprised that it wasn’t more pronounced. I’d lay good bets (and Razib appears to agree) that the kind of literalism one finds among fundamentalists also tends to be higher among autistics.

Razib unexpectedly got a lot of flack for the post (he is after all an atheist) and did a followup on what atheism and autism may have in common. The basic idea is that the kinds of intuitions held by those on the autistic spectrum (including very high functional autistics – i.e. the majority of scientists) tend to not lead to a belief in God. This opposite to most autistic like cognitive styles (i.e. the very social) tend to believe in God more.


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Academic Freedom

Posted on September 13, 2011
Filed Under Free Will, Science | 5 Comments

I tend to think that academic freedom as idealized is a big myth. I found this comic today that seems to express part of my view. (The other part being all the politics at many universities)


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Laser Fusion

Posted on September 9, 2011
Filed Under Science | 4 Comments

Sorry for no OOO posts yet. I want to really understand it before putting my foot in my mouth.

In the meantime I saw a link to the BBC story about laser fusion over at Slashdot today. Interestingly this is what I worked on back in my days at LANL. It seems to me that these stories tend to focus so much on the physics that they ignore a lot of the big engineering problems of positioning your fuel such that lasers can hit it and produce a symmetrical implosion. That’s fine when you’re just working on one pellet at a time. However even if you solve the physics problems and manage to scale the energy up a few orders of magnitude you still have the problem of how to build a reactor with the technology. It seems to me no one has come close to cracking that nut.


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Going OOO

Posted on August 31, 2011
Filed Under OOP, Philosophy | 7 Comments

So I’ll have a series of OOO posts starting hopefully tonight. My apologies on the delays. We had some big contracts at work I had to deal with and didn’t feel alert enough to dare write on philosophy.

I’ve been reading Graham Harman’s Guerrilla Metaphysics. It’s a good book.  I actually like it much better than his Latour book, Prince of Networks. Some of you might recall I’d written on that prior to getting so busy. It put me in some hot water since there were two key issues that I simply read poorly and Harman (correctly) took me to task on the issue.  (That said I still think the key points weren’t presented too clearly) The issue of time in Harman is still something I’m confused on so I’ll try to avoid writing on that. I do wish I’d read Guerrilla Metaphysics prior to taking on Prince of Networks though. I think I’d have found Prince much more understandable had I done that.

In addition to Harman’s books, Adam Miller kindly gave me a copy of the proofs for his forthcoming book Speculative Grace: An Experiment with Bruno Latour in Object-Oriented Theology. In some ways it’s taking on OOO via the same route Harman does – via Latour. However on some key issues Adam goes a different direction. Adam presented a few early versions of some chapters last year to LDS-Herm that I quite enjoyed. My sense is that Adam and I tend to approach things in a pretty similar fashion so I’m eager to read his book. I want to finish Harman’s stuff first. (Which I’m sure will provide an interesting contrast with Adam’s stuff)


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Global Warming and the Right

Posted on August 22, 2011
Filed Under Politics, Science | 11 Comments

OK, I promise I’ll be back to technical philosophy later tonight. I just wanted to promote two great blog posts about the Republican party and Global Warming. The first is from The Volokh Conspiracy while the second is Megan McArdle commenting on that post. Believe it or not Republican darling Chris Christie dared speak in favor of global warming belief. Inexplicably many people started calling him a RINO. The problem is that all these people have unfortunately bought into the idea that if one buys into global warming that somehow inevitably one ought combat it the way Al Gore wishes to. It’s very unfortunate and I think ultimately a reaction against Al Gore. (i.e. Al Gore’s attempts to promote knowledge of global warming actually caused a huge backlash because of who he was)

Anyway let me quote from Jonathan Adler’s post:


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Beckwith on Mormonism and Natural Law

Posted on August 20, 2011
Filed Under Philosophy, Religion | 6 Comments

Francis Beckwith has an article up on Mormonism and Natural Law. Take a look at it. It’s interesting in that he’s trying to defend Mormonism against certain charges – especially in the political arena where Romney is assumed to be the de facto nominee. (Although it may be a little early to say that – let’s see how Perry shapes up)

I’m not convinced natural law of the Catholic variety really is that big a part of Mormon thought although it’s definitely possible to read Mormon thought in those ways. Certainly various Mormons have done so. I think Beckwith does get at the real divide at the end — most Mormons don’t see the universe ultimately as ontologically created from nothing by God but rather something co-existing with God. So God as lawgiver is much more an organizer of pre-existent matter and a persuader of co-eternal intelligences. That is the real divide between Mormon thought and the rest of Christianity is the rejection of creation ex nihilo.

To me the most interesting bit of Beckwith’s article though is this little snippet.


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Evolutionist Cartoon

Posted on August 19, 2011
Filed Under Politics, Religion, Science | 9 Comments

There’s been an interesting graph making the rounds of Twitter and various blogs today. You’ve probably seen it. It’s from the web comic Calamities of Nature. It’s just a graph of belief in evolution versus per capita gross domestic product. It then has a fit for the data using an equation of the form y = A ( 1 – B/x ). Now I get the point the author was making and perhaps even agree with it to a certain extent. I think it’s fairly biased by the data he used. The data itself comes from a poll by Jon D. Mill which became an article in Science article. (I managed to find the raw data at Data 360) I thought it was interesting how biased towards Europe it was. Canada isn’t in the dataset nor is Mexico or many other countries. It’s basically an analysis of Europe with the US thrown in as an outlier — which seems fairly misleading even if you are (like I) pretty sympathetic to the point being made.


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