Steampunk Hits the Mainstream

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Mathematical Objects

Think too hard about it, and mathematics starts to seem like a mighty queer business. For example, are new mathematical truths discovered or invented? Seems like a simple enough question, but for millennia, it has provided fodder for arguments among mathematicians and philosophers.

Those who espouse discovery note that mathematical statements are true or false regardless of personal beliefs, suggesting that they have some external reality. But this leads to some odd notions. Where, exactly, do these mathematical truths exist? Can a mathematical truth really exist before anyone has ever imagined it?

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An Evolutionary Psychologist's Take on Akrasia

The problem is that evolution failed to realize that remembering goals is not like recognizing objects. When your brain sees a lion, the thing to do is to decide, lickety-split, to get out of the way. Run first; ask questions later. We're programmed for just that kind of split-second decision; just about every creature on the planet is built such that it can identify things like predators and prey very rapidly. We're not programmed to remember precise episodes from the past. Why not? Because remembering the exact date on which you last saw a lion is not particularly helpful when you're trying to get out of the way. Alas, evolution didn't have the foresight to realize that different kinds of tasks require different kinds of memory, and it used the same basic sort of memory for everything, not just for remembering what lions and tigers look like (in which general tendencies suffice) but also for cases -- like tracking our goals -- where a bit more precision would have been helpful.

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Philosophy Club: Coffee Talk Friday, 4/25, in New Location!

All are invited for a bit of caffeinated conversation!

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Of Weird Computers and Cool Research

Network World ups the ante by listing 25 innovative University IT research projects.

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"Expelled" Review

Mixing physical apples and metaphysical oranges at every turn, “Expelled” is an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike. In its fudging, eliding and refusal to define terms, the movie proves that the only expulsion here is of reason itself.

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Evolution Myths

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Announcements: Distinguished Lecturer Series, Barbara Forrest

Dr. Forrest was a key expert witness in the Dover Case and co-authored Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design with biologist Paul R. Gross.

Dr. Forrest will lecture this Friday, 4/18, at 3:30 p.m. in the Harte Research Institute (HRI) Room 127.

“Inside Creationism's Trojan Horse: A Closer Look at Intelligent Design”

In 1996, the Discovery Institute, a conservative Seattle think tank, established its Center for Science and Culture. From this obscure organization, which is the headquarters of the intelligent design (ID) creationist movement in the United States, have come virtually all of the major creationist flare-ups in the last twelve years. Although its proponents present ID as a new "scientific paradigm," it is the direct descendant of the "scientific creationism" of the 1980s. Discovery Institute creationists and their supporters are attacking both state science standards and local science curricula. Using seemingly harmless code language, they are disguising their effort to get ID into public school science classes as an "alternative" scientific theory. They insist that students must be taught the "controversy" surrounding evolution, which requires teaching the "strengths and weaknesses" of "Darwinism." However, the movement's leaders themselves define ID in religious terms and have admitted the scientific sterility of their program. Nonetheless, they continue to execute their "Wedge Strategy," which is nothing less than a plan to completely undermine both public school science education and the constitutional separation of church and state.

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Doing Before Deciding

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The Unpredictable Trajectory of Science and Technology

It's not just us mortals, even scientists don't always grasp the significance of innovations. Tomorrow's revolutionary technology may be in plain sight, but everyone's eyes, clouded by conventional thinking, just can't detect it. "Even smart people are really pretty incapable of envisioning a situation that's substantially different from what they're in," says Christine Peterson, vice president of Foresight Nanotech Institute in Menlo Park, Calif.

So where does that leave the rest of us?

In technological Palookaville.

Science is becoming ever more specialized; technology is increasingly a series of black boxes, impenetrable to but a few. Americans' poor science literacy means that science and technology exist in a walled garden, a geek ghetto. We are a technocracy in which most of us don't really understand what's happening around us. We stagger through a world of technological and medical miracles. We're zombified by progress.

Peterson has one recommendation: Read science fiction, especially "hard science fiction" that sticks rigorously to the scientifically possible. "If you look out into the long-term future and what you see looks like science fiction, it might be wrong," she says. "But if it doesn't look like science fiction, it's definitely wrong."

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