Yesterday, my wife looked over my shoulder and saw this:

“Oh! It’s beautiful homework,” she exclaimed. It does seem impressive.

Like my yellow highlight color, we would do board work with yellow chalk. One glorious day, in the same yellow-chalked-equipped building but a different classroom, a history professor of mine walked into class a few minutes late, picked up a piece of chalk, snarled at it, threw it into the wall across the room whereupon it dissolved into sharp, white bows of dust. He swung around and proclaimed, “This is ridiculous. I can’t work with white chalk.” He then stalked out of the classroom. This 30-second whipsaw left us temporarily stunned. He never came back that day. We waited for ten minutes, and then left. I knew he was gone as soon as the chalk exploded into dust.

You may recognize the name; my wife attends the same institution of higher learning. A complete coincidence. Contemporary art historians have no influence in matters of science. WashU was just the closest train stop.

I’ve enjoyed the last two and a half years of earning money, reading whatever the heck I want, not taking tests, puttering around in the evenings, and in general flaunting the non-academic life. At least I get to keep the money.

Will Andy Montgomery ’99 overtake Dave Peterson ’94 for the No. 3 most connected? Can Aaron Mesh ’04 stay on top of Heather Rantal ’02 for the 2nd Most Viewed? Will Justin Johnson ’03 continue his surprise push for the most connections? Stay tuned as the drama unfolds over the weekend…

7:13PM 2 Live Crew and David Beckham? I think someone hacked in to Nathan Brinkerhoff ’02′s account. I’ll still accept his offer of friendship.

7:24PM Some movement around the Nos. 5-8 Most Viewed spots. Justin Johnson ’03 knocks up 3 more spaces to No. 5, displacing Dan Wykoff ’01 to No. 6 and Rachel George ’00 to No. 8. Developing…

8:01PM For the record, the top 5 Most Connected are Josiah Roe ’03 with 111, Justin Johnson ’03 with 97, Andy Montgomery ’99 with 73, Dave Peterson ’94 with 68, and Heather Rantal ’02 with 67.

The top 5 Most Viewed are Josiah Roe ’03 with 311, Aaron Mesh ’04 with 200, Heather Rantal ’02 with 198, Andy Montgomery ’99 with 155, and Justin Johnson ’03 with 144.

I am not friends with Dave and Heather. Yet.

9:05PM The kitchen dishes are now resting in their washed state. Back at scotsalumni.org, the top 3 Most Connected continue to pull away from the rest of the pack, each gaining three. I have no life. I am No. 11 Most Viewed.

It’s probably my wife hitting refresh.

Saturday
1:02AM I just finished two exclusive interviews with No. 1 and No. 2 Most Viewed, Josiah Roe ’03 and Aaron Mesh ’04. This was possibly related to popping out to Hoppy’s, the local pub, for a few pints with them. Mesh, who claims the amazing connection to view ratio of 23:210, attributes his fame thus: “Other people find me intriguing, but I do not find them likewise.” Cutting words from a fascinating man. Josiah showed good graces to his challenger for the Most Connected title, noting that he and Johnson have been engaged in an running email conversation about their relatively diverse group of friends. Apparently, the disjunct betwixt their respective supporters looms large. A good thing, I say, for the College’s promotion. But will these fond words fend off the cutthroat competition for No. 1? Stay tuned…

10:48AM I resisted the urge to update what effect the night owls on the west coast were having when I turned over in bed at 4AM. But I’m awake now and your morning update is forthcoming.

11:12AM Many Bothans died to bring us this information…
The top three in each category are still unchaged, with Josiah still on his pedal-to-the-metal pace. The biggest gainer in Most Viewed appears to be Andy Montgomery ’99, hit up 34 times during the night. On the Most Connected leaders, there’s a developing movement for No. 3, again the spot held by Mr. Andy Montgomery ’99. He sits with 78 at the spot, while Heather Rantal ’02 and Dave Peterson ’94 are nipping at his heels with their respective 73 and 72.

Next I’ll take a look at the developments amongst the lesser lights on the leader boards, as well as engage in some wanton speculation as to who the most addicted users of this thing are. My analysis may surprise you…

3:25PM Okay, I confess, I don’t have any wanton rumors or wild innuendo to spread about the level of addiction to this thing. Just trying to build suspense from update to update.

What I would like to do, though, is provide a space in the comment section for you to make a clean breast of any guilt that you may have in regards to scotsalumni.org. Are you compulsively checking to see if a certain enemy has signed up? Have you arranged your browser windows so that you can see the new logins as they enter? are you spamming the entire alumni group with invitations to your obscure special interest group? This is a safe, loving, caring place for you. This is not a place to bluster, but to fall on your knees and cry. I can’t remember any more Donovan Graham quotes, but you get the idea. I await your confession with ready understanding and forgiveness.

3:35PM I would also like to note the presence of my wife, Elissa Weichbrodt ’04, at No. 17 Most Connected. And that I am currently beating Rebekah Foreman ’04 by almost 30 views for No. 12 Most Viewed.

6:34PM Three big developments to note. First, Andy Montgomery ’99 finally succombed to the connection machine that is Heather Rantal ’02, giving her the No. 3 most connected position. Heather’s march is looking pretty serious, and although she has not extended the offer of friendshipt to your humble author, I do expect that she will make a strong challenge to Messeurs Josiah Roe ’03 and Justin Johnson ’03.

Second, two big gainers made their mark today. Rachel Wantanabe ’04 has been steadily marching up the connections list. This morning she cracked the top ten, and she currently sits at No. 7. The other noteworthy nobleman is the upstanding Nathan Brinkerhoff ’02, who has moved No. 7 most viewed. Nasty as he wants to be…

Sunday
12:34AM The top 25 Most Connected welcomes Katie McClellan ’01 and Currie Bishop ’02. I’m not sure who dropped off to make space for them, but they’re in at No. 22 and No. 18 conversely. Justin Johnson ’03 is beginning to leverage his connections to rise in the Most Viewed rankings, currently at No. 3 and within 9 views of Aaron Mesh ’04. If anyone cares, I moved up a notch to No. 12. I have no idea why. I feel like the prettiest girl at the dance. More updates tomorrow. The dead horse is not yet beat. Goodnight.

9:26PM Justin reported this afternoon that the site is down. As a side note, I don’t know what to call this thing, so I either refer to it with vague nouns and pronouns (eg “the site” or “it”), or by the URL (eg scotsalumni.org). Does anyone have a servicable name for this thing? Covenant College InCircle Social Network Portal does not count.

Continuing off point, I obviously had more important things to do this afternoon than check the site or blog about it. Like reading _Rolling Stone_ and watching the afternoon MLS match (FC Dallas v Kansas City Crew. Two goals in extra time. Dallas pulls out the home win and remains undefeated, playing laudable style).

I just checked, and the site is up right now. You may continue your obsessing.

Monday
8:16PM Well, now that the “I’m Having Amazing Sex Now That I’m Married” group has been summarily banned, I’m calling it a blight. Erm, night.

Noel,

Welcome to Scots Alumni!

The diverse and special qualities that made you an ideal candidate for acceptance into Covenant College create the atmosphere of Scots Alumni, making it one of the most powerfully connected online communities in the world.

Gee. Thanks.

If you’re in, befriend me, assuming the college lets you in and allows you to do such a thing. Who is the lackey that calls the shots on the content and features allowed for this? My degrees aren’t modifiable, nor listed. My phone number was eerily pre-filled, as was my spouse. Neat, but kind of creepy too.

There is a science–religion conflict

• Science performs a doxastic job of religion (answers the same questions as religion)
• Who are we
• Where do we come from
• Is there hope?
• Conflict is in naturalism and evolutionary theory (or any other science)
• You cannot sensibly accept both naturalism and evolution
• Naturalism is stronger than atheism. Atheists aren’t necessarily naturalists.
• Exemplary naturalists
• Sagan, Gould, Armstrong, Darwin (later), Dewey, Russell, Dennett, Atkins, Dawkins

The argument

• Cognitive Faculties
• Eg perception, sympathy, induction
• Theists expect cognitive faculties to be mostly reliable
• Aquinas: “In the image of God in virtue of having an intellect…an image that includes an intellect is most able to imitate God…rational creatures attain a representation of that type…He understands, and so do we”
• Is there a problem of reliability for the naturalist who thinks that our cognitive faculties are the result of a blind process of random mutation?
• Dawkins: “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”
• Plantinga: Dawkins is wrong
• The ultimate purpose of our cognitive faculties is not true belief, but maximal fitness.
• P. Churchland:
• Natural selection doesn’t care what you believe. It simply penalizes maladaptive behavior with death, and rewards adaptive behavior with survival
• Darwin say a problem here
• Argument from Conditional Probability: P (A / B)
• Argument in Brief: Are our cognitive faculties are Reliable (> 75%) given Naturalism and Evolution
1. P (R / N & E) is low
2. If 1 is true, then someone who believes N & E has a defeater for R.
3. If you have a defeater for R, then you have a defeater for any belief produces by your cognitive faculties, then you have a defeater for all your beliefs
4. IF you have a defeater for all beliefs, you have a defeater for N & E.
5. Therefore, N & E is self-defeating.
• Darwin’s Doubt, Developed
• Behavior & belief are related
• Two possibilities for this relationship
• Semantic Epiphenomenalism (SE)
• Epiphenomenalism: Beliefs don’t cause behavior.
• Semantic E: Belief is a Longstanding neural event with two properties:
  • NP: Electoral-chemical or neural-physiological properties (number, signals, state, etc)
  • Content: Belief of proposition P
• Beliefs cause behavior not by virtue of Content property, but NP property.
• Example from Dremski: Soprano hits high C, glass shatters. Content or meaning of the sound doesn’t matter. Physical properties of the note causes behavior.
• P (R/N & E & SE) is low
• Both Content & NP cause behavior (~SE)
• P (R/N & E & ~SE) is not much higher.
• Regarding SE: Theorem of total probability
• P (R / N & E) = [P (R/N & E & SE) * P (SE / N & E)] + [P (R / N & E & ~SE) * P (~SE / N & E)]
• Example: [.1 * .8] + [.9 * .2] = .26
• Regarding ~SE, here are some analogies
• Suppose we invent God thanks to wish-fulfillment. If wish-fulfillment beliefs are likely false, those beliefs have a defeater.
• Cartesian Evil Genius: if the evil genius causes all my beliefs, those beliefs have a defeater.
• Returning to N & E, those beliefs have a defeater.
• It is irrational to believe N & E.
• If you accept N & E given P (R / N & E) is low, you have a defeater for any belief you may hold.
• So, you have a defeater for N & E.
• Therefore, N & E is irrational.
• Therefore, there is a religion–science conflict: that between Naturalism and Evolution
• One who is torn between Naturalism
• If I accept naturalism, I have good reason to be agnostic about naturalism
• The traditional theist has no reason to disbelieve cognitive faculties produce true belief. If she believes in evolution, then she believes in an intelligent designer.

Questions

• Evolutionists doesn’t care if P is low; “hurray we won the lottery!”
• Any defeater of this type is susceptible to that objection.
• Theists don’t object to arguments that God is highly improbable by saying hurray we won the lottery.
• What about Clarkian occasionalism?
• Occasionalism can only apply to theists.
• If you try to defeat naturalism using Occasionalism, you must appeal beyond theists.
• How do you handle other causes of adaptation (hedonistic, etc).
• Given N, SE is highly probable.
• But then your beliefs are improbable
• As long as you take a materialist position, you are susceptible to this problem, no matter the motivator of adaptation.
• Can naturalists give arguments that our cognitive faculties are reliable?
• How would you do that? You can’t, because any argument presupposes such faculties are reliable.
• “If a man’s honesty were called into question, it would be ridiculous to refer to the man’s word whether he be honest or not. The same absurdity there is in attempting to prove by any kind of reasoning that our reasoning is not fallacious.”—Reid
• On the average and aggregate, our faculties appear to be reliable.
• But that doesn’t help. Sociological investigations don’t confirm anything because my cognitive faculties aren’t reliable.
• Basically, without reliable faculties you fall into solipsism, no matter what “external” confirmation you get.
• Does the acceptance of your argument depend on the P of theism?
• Doesn’t seem to be. It is just a defeater for N & E.
• The P (fine-tuned universe / N & E) is low
• P (fine-tuned / T) is high

[Update]: Gillikan posted his notes to the same lecture early this morning.

Method

• Philosophers like to talk about method
• So do scientists
• It’s admired just as much as guessing

A True Conflict between Religion & Science

• Evolutionary Psychology
• Understand all distinctive features of humans in terms evolutionary origin.
• Art, humor, play, poetry, love, religion, et al are understood in terms of evolution
• “This particular trait arose {suddenly | gradually} by random mutation, it was then found to be adaptive and adopted for further evolution by natural selection”
• Examples
• A bad explanation for religion: As prey, the switch from prey to predator resulted in a celebration. Religion is that celebration.
• Better explanation: Religion is a spandrel of rational thought. Natural selection encouraged the development of natural thought. Attempt to acquire non-existent goods by negotiating with nonexistent supernatural beings. (R. Stark later became a Christian and now teaches at Baylor)
• Michael Ruse: The group with moral intuitions will do better. However, there is no such thing as
• Herbert Simon
• D. S. Wilson: “see if the detailed properties of Calvin’s Church [in Geneva] can be interpreted as adaptation to its environment.” The aims and goals of the Church are provided by evolution.
• Plantiga interjects: I believe that I live in Indiana because that’s what is the case. There’s no goal in my belief. What’s up, Reid.
• Freud: Religion isn’t a dysfunction of cognitive faculties, but those faculties don’t function as to produce true beliefs.
• Plantiga:
• Why do scientists come up with theories incompatible with Christian belief?
• Belief in atheism
• Methodological naturalism
• Science proceeds as if God is not a given
• The data set for a proper scientific theory can’t refer to God or employ what one knows or thinks one knows by way of revelation
• Proper scientific theory can’t refer to God or employ what one knows or thinks one knows by way of revelation
• The background information for a proper theory can’t include propositions entailing the existence of God or employ what one knows or thinks one knows by way of revelation.
• Scripture Scholarship
• Traditional Biblical Commentary
• Tries to explain what the Word of God means.
• Take for granted divine revelation
• Once you figure out what God is saying, God is not required to defend it.
• Historical-Critical Biblical Scholarship
• An Enlightenment project
• Understand the Biblical books from reason
• Does not assume divine revelation
• Proceed with biblical criticism in a scientific manner
• Two ways to be scientific in regard to scripture scholarship
• Troeltschian
• God never does anything specially.
• Duhemian
• Use only evidence or beliefs everyone accepts.
• Defeaters for Christian Belief
• Suppose Christians are committed to a high view of science. Further suppose that science opposes Christian belief. Does that constitute a defeater for Christian beliefs? What should the reaction be?
• No.
• Traditional Christians think they have a source of warranted belief (faith and testimony). Such sources require the defeater to argue that they are wrong.
• Science is already a part of a Christian’s evidence base. So some part of my evidence base says that some other part of my evidence base is unlikely.
• eg the sources of information about you whereabouts are both memory and what people tell you and video surveillance. That these accounts differ does not mean that my belief about where I was is defeated.
• Analytic epistemological logic mumbo-jumbo.

Questions

• Should METHODOLOGICAL NATURALISM be fought in courts?
• The Dover case relied on expert witnesses, philosophers of science, who said that science requires METHODOLOGICAL NATURALISM, and that science make empirically verifiable propositions.
• I am so going to sue somebody and then claim that the defense of a settlement in my favor ruining the defendant is dependent on economics being a science, and that it cannot do so under the Dover case.
• Should Dembski’s quasi-methodological naturalism be accepted?
• Yes. Except that since Christians have a bigger set of beliefs, they should be coming up with explanations that include elements of that larger set.
• Should biblical scholarship be treated the same as Shakespearian scholarship?
• Questions of authorship, diverging accounts, etc do not present a problem to for Christian belief.
• Metaphor of an archer.
• Yes, accept. But Christians should do splience, using the empirical method and Christian beliefs to arrive a explanation that incorporate the elements of their evidence base.
• Okay. Where’s the beef?
• There may not be a difference between science and splience. But there are projects that arise from Christians beliefs, and we should pursue those projects. Atheism produces unique results, so should Christianity.
• Response to methodological naturalism’s use of Occam’s Razor type arguments against Christian’s evidence base.

Last week I noticed iTunes introduced https://deimos.apple.com/WebObjects/ITCSBrowse.woa/wa/Browse?destination=StanfordPublic”>a selection of class lectures from Stanford profs, along with other silly university marketing content. I listened to a discussion on whether philosophy is the handmaiden or queen of the sciences with Peter Godfrey-Smith, guesting from Harvard University. Not a terribly stimulating session, but the potential is there for exposing your pedagogy and advancing your thinking in a way that is both hip and accessible.

Stanford is the first university to take advantage of Apple opening up iTunes for free hosting and distribution of college/university content. Josiah, I know that you were working on something like this for some Covenant faculty. Perhaps a setup like Profcast could assist in getting that off the ground–between Profcast and the new iTunes U, you have the recording, editing, hosting, and distribution of content, close to maximally automated.