History and Philosophy (often of Science)
jlynch | March 25, 2007
Events
1958 - The United States Army launches Explorer III.
Births
1516 - Conrad Gessner, Swiss naturalist
1698 - Václav Prokop Diviš, Czech theologian and natural scientist
1859 - Adolf Hurwitz, German mathematician
1875 - Max Abraham, German physicist
1905 - Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist
1911 - Bernard Katz, German-born biophysicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1913 - Paul ErdÅs, Hungarian mathematician
1916 - Christian B. Anfinsen, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
1938 - Anthony James Leggett, American physicist, Nobel…
jlynch | March 24, 2007
Events
1655 - Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christian Huygens.
1979 - The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.
1992 - Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returns to Earth after a 10-month stay aboard the Mir space station.
Births
1539 - Christopher Clavius, German mathematician
1800 - Heinrich von Dechsen, German geologist
1863 - Simon Flexner, American pathologist
1884 - Georges Imbert, Alsatian chemist
1946 - Maurice Krafft, French vulcanologist
1952 - Antanas Mockus,…
jlynch | March 24, 2007Dembski seems to think Darwin was a racist when it came to the "careless, squalid, unaspiring" Irish. Pat Hayes points out Dembski's selective quotation of Darwin and John Wilkins applies the coup de grace. I hope these aren't the "research" methods that Dembski is teaching to his students at his little bible school.
jlynch | March 23, 2007
So what are these?
Events
1882 - Robert Koch announces the discovery of the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis (mycobacterium tuberculosis; seen above
in culture).
1965 - Ranger 9, equipped to convert its signals into a form suitable for showing on domestic television, brings images of the Moon into ordinary homes
Births
1490 - Georg Agricola, German scientist
1809 - Joseph Liouville, French mathematician
1820 - A. E. Becquerel, French physicist
1834 - John Wesley Powell, American explorer and environmentalist
1884 - Peter Debye, Dutch chemist, Nobel laureate
1893 - Walter Baade,…
jlynch | March 22, 2007March 23rd
Births
1638 - Frederik Ruysch, Dutch physician and anatomist
1749 - Pierre Simon de Laplace, French mathematician and astronomer
1754 - Baron Jurij Vega, Slovenian mathematician, physicist, and artillery officer
1769 - William Smith, English cartographer (see above) and "Father of English Geology"
1881 - Hermann Staudinger, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
1882 - Emmy Noether, German mathematician
1907 - Daniel Bovet, Swiss-born scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1912 - Wernher von Braun, German-born physicist and engineer
1933 - Philip…
jlynch | March 21, 2007Events
1960 - Arthur Leonard Schawlow & Charles Townes receive the first patent for a laser.
1997 - The comet Hale-Bopp has its closest approach to Earth.
Births
1868 - Robert Millikan, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1931 - Burton Richter, American physicist, Nobel laureate
Deaths
1772 - John Canton, English physicist
1840 - Ãtienne Bobillier, French mathematician
1924 - William Macewen, Scottish surgeon
jlynch | March 20, 2007Following on from earlier postings (here, here and here) what follows is the fourth and final part of the talk. Enjoy!
Creation History?
To emphasize my assertion of the danger of Creationism to nonscientific areas, it is worth noting that Creationist scholarship outside the sciences is equally as suspect as their science (as will be demonstrated in later chapters). If Creationists wish to write textbooks, they are likely to contain gross errors, sloppy scholarship and indeed blatant deception. I have already mentioned their treatment of Darwin, and the origins of Marxist thought. Morris'…
jlynch | March 20, 2007March 21st
Births
1768 - Joseph Fourier, French mathematician
1932 - Walter Gilbert, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1656 - James Ussher, Irish Anglican archbishop who claimed the universe was created in 4004 BCE
1762 - Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, French astronomer
1795 - Giovanni Arduino, Italian geologist
1980 - Peter Stoner, American mathematician, astronomer and Christian apologist
jlynch | March 19, 2007Following on from parts one and two, here is the penultimate portion of the talk.
The Binaries of Creationism and The Long War
To many Creationists, Darwin "merely revived ancient paganism, clothed in apparently sophisticated modern apparel, but underneath there was still the same old pantheistic materialism of antiquity", a modern day form of the "evolutionism" of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, and others.
This amalgamation of very divergent philosophies and belief-systems is highlighted by Morris' assertion that "if the universe was not created by a transcendent Creator God […
jlynch | March 19, 2007March 20th
Events
1916 - Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.
1987 - The Food and Drug Administration approves anti-AIDS drug AZT.
Births
1735 - Torbern Bergman, Swedish chemist
1879 - Maud Menten, Canadian biochemist
1895 - Fredric Wertham, German-born psychologist
1904 - B. F. Skinner, American psychologist
Deaths
1727 O.S. - Sir Isaac Newton, English physicist
1878 - Julius Robert von Mayer, German physician and physicist
1899 - Franz Ritter von Hauer, Austrian geologist
1940 - Alfred Ploetz, German physician, biologist, and eugenicist
1983 - Ivan Matveyevich…
jlynch | March 18, 2007Following on from yesterday's section, Here's the second installment.
Creationism, Cultural Politics and Clashing Ideologies.
If this were solely an issue of scientific observations or the veracity of hypotheses, it is doubtful that the Creation/Evolution debate would inflame such passions. While purely scientific controversies excite the scientists within the respective fields, they rarely make headlines, and never become part of legislation, or rulings of the Supreme Count. It is clear that what is being argued about here, at least as far as the ICR is concerned,
is the status of biblical…
jlynch | March 17, 2007March 18th
Events
1906 - Traian Vuia flew a self-propelled heavier-than-air aircraft which took off without any external means
1909 - Einar Dessau uses a short-wave radio transmitter becoming the first radio broadcaster.
1965 - Aleksei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space
Births
1602 - Jacques de Billy, French mathematician
1640 - Philippe de la Hire, French mathematician and astronomer
1690 - Christian Goldbach, Prussian mathematician
1858 - Rudolf Diesel, German inventor
1905 - Thomas Townsend Brown, American scientist
1907 -…
jlynch | March 17, 2007Nearly ten years ago I started a book on Creationist misuse of intellectual history. I never finished it, which is probably for the best. The file is unfortunately MIA and all I have remaining was a section that I turned into a talk that I gave at ASU in 1999. Over the next few days, I'll be posting the text of that talk. Enjoy and feel free to comment.
"Pithecophobes of the World, Unite!"
Revisionist 'History' and Creationist Rhetoric.
"This monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of permissiveness, promiscuity, pills, prophylactics, perversions, pregnancies, abortions, pornography,…
jlynch | March 16, 2007March 17th
1764 - Death of George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, English astronomer
1780 - Birth of Thomas Chalmers, Scottish pastor, social reformer, author, and scientist
1782 - Death of Daniel Bernoulli, Dutch-born mathematician
1834 - Birth of Gottlieb Daimler, German engineer and inventor
1846 - Death of Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician and astronomer
1853 - Death of Christian Doppler, Austrian physician and mathematician
1870 - Birth of Horace Donisthorpe, British entomologist
1881 - Birth of Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
1950 - Researchers…
jlynch | March 15, 2007March 16th
1750 - Birth of Caroline Herschel, German-born English astronomer
1789 - Birth of Georg Simon Ohm, German physicist
1794 - Birth of Ami Boué, Austrian geologist
1859 - Birth of Alexander Stepanovich Popov, Russian physicist
1867 - First publication of an article by Joseph Lister outlining the discovery of antiseptic surgery, in The Lancet.
1918 - Birth of Frederick Reines, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1925 - Birth of Luis E. Miramontes, Mexican chemist, co-inventor of the combined oral contraceptive pill
1926 - Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket…
jlynch | March 15, 2007March 15th
1713 - Birth of Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, French astronomer
1813 - Birth of John Snow, English physician
1854 - Birth of Emil Adolf von Behring, German physician; Nobel laureate
1890 - Birth of Boris Nikolaevich Delaunay, Russian mathematician
1898 - Death of Henry Bessemer, English metallurgist
1920 - Birth of E. Donnall Thomas, American physician, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1930 - Birth of Zhores Ivanovich Alferov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1962 - Death of Arthur Compton, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
2004 - Announcement of the discovery of…
jlynch | March 13, 2007March 14th
1835 - Birth of Giovanni Schiaparelli, Italian astronomer
1854 - Birth of Paul Ehrlich, German scientist, Nobel Prize laureate
1879 - Birth of Albert Einstein, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1882 - Birth of Waclaw Sierpinski, Polish mathematician
1995 - Death of William Alfred Fowler, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
jlynch | March 12, 2007March 13th
1720 - Birth of Charles Bonnet, Swiss naturalist and writer
1733 - Birth of Joseph Priestley, English scientist and minister
1781 - William Herschel discovers Uranus.
1781 - Charles Messier publishes final catalog of Messier objects.
1781 - Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovers tungsten.
1784 - Birth of Jean Moufot, French philosopher and mathematician
1855 - Birth of Percival Lowell, American astronomer
1899 - Birth of John Hasbrouck van Vleck, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1925 - The Butler Act in Tennessee prohibits the teaching of evolution. This would lead to the Scopes…
jlynch | March 12, 2007March 12th
1824 - Birth of Gustav Kirchhoff, German physicist
1838 - Birth of William Perkin, English chemist
1863 - Birth of Vladimir Vernadsky, Russian mineralogist
1907 - Birth of Dorrit Hoffleit, American astronomer
1925 - Birth of Leo Esaki, Japanese physicist, Nobel laureate
1991 - Death of Ragnar Granit, Finnish neuroscientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
jlynch | March 10, 2007March 11th
1811 - Birth of Urbain Le Verrier, French mathematician
1822 - Birth of Joseph Louis François Bertrand, French mathematician
1870 - Birth of Louis Bachelier, French mathematician
1880 - Birth of Harry H. Laughlin, American eugenecist
1910 - Birth of Robert Havemann, German chemist
1920 - Death of Julio Garavito Armero, Colombian astronomer
1915 - Birth of JCR Licklider, computer scientist and internet pioneer
1955 - Death of Alexander Fleming, Scottish scientist, Nobel laureate
1920 - Birth of Nicolaas Bloembergen, Dutch physicist, Nobel laureate
1921 - Birth of Frank Harary,…