Creationists Try to Do Mathematics - Again

It's always amusing when creationists try to do mathematics.

At the recent very silly Engineering and Metaphysics conference, there were at least three different talks with mathematical content.

But the funniest by far was by Eric Holloway, whose masterful work I admired once before. You can watch Eric

• claim that intelligent design will revolutionize all human thought
  
• shamelessly promote Dembski's "complex specified information", without mentioning that this bogus concept has been debunked in detail
  
• claim that physics deals with only two kinds of "agents"
  
• claim that a "search process" is not an "algorithm" - and then later talk about "search algorithms" (!)
  
• confuse the complexity classes NPC and EXPTIME
  
• claim that all polynomial-time algorithms depend on "incrementally find[ing] better solutions"
  
• confuse finding solutions with maximizing a function
  
• claim that the travelling salesman problem can be solved in polynomial time (at 19:14)
  
• claim that humans can solve the travelling salesman problem in linear time
  
• repeat Stephen Meyer's lie that "only intelligent agents create information"
  
• claim that "clouds" have "no information" (and hence imply that weather prediction can be done without any information at all!)
  
• claim that a specific instance of a maze can be changed, by removing a wall, into an NP-complete problem - thus making two fundamental errors in one sentence
  

All good stuff! You can see why creationists have to set up their own parallel pseudoscience conferences, because junk like this would be laughed out of any real scientific or mathematics conference.

Robot Repair Store, Pittsburgh

Here are some photos from Fraley's Robot Repair in Pittsburgh. I highly recommend this place if your robot needs some tuning up. The service is excellent and the prices are reasonable.

Gee, It's Warmer in Buffalo Than I Thought

From The Weather Network website today:

Charlie Went Through the Dryer

Son #2 put his Charlie Card (the electronic card that lets you ride on Boston public transit) through the dryer.

Twice.

Believe it or not, it still works.

An Academic Challenge

Today I saw the following poster at MIT:



This is the brainchild of the folks at phdchallenge.org. They want someone to get the phrase "I smoke crack rocks" into a scientific paper before December 1 of this year.

But someone at the challenge must have been smoking something, because in the FAQ, they say, "If your potential contest entry contains at least 90% of the words from challenge phrase, you may still submit it. For example, for the 2010 PhD Challenge, submissions containing the phrases I SMOKE CRACK and SMOKE CRACK ROCKS are valid and would be considered in the final judging." They seem to think that 75% is greater than or equal to 90%.

My Sabbatical Project

Now that the contract has finally been signed, I can reveal my sabbatical project:



Oxford University Press will be publishing my latest book, An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers and Zombies. This is a revised edition of the classic text of Hardy and Wright, modified to include new results in algebraic number theory and zombiosis. I am particularly proud of the new chapter that discusses Wiles' proof of Fermat's last theorem, which has a short section mentioning how Wiles was able to defend himself from a zombified Ken Ribet using the Tate module and a meat cleaver.

This is just one of a series of new editions of classic mathematical books that have been updated for the 21st century. I am really looking forward to the updated version of Constance's Reid's book, entitled David Hilbert: Vampire Slayer.

(Hat tip: A. L. and A. S. for the graphic.)

Ten Reasons Why Darwin's Birthday is Better than Christmas

Charles Darwin's 200th birthday is today, and 2009 is also the 150th anniversary of the publication of his most famous work, The Origin of Species. In honor of this event, I've put together the following list of reasons why Darwin's birthday is better than Christmas:

10. There's no pressure to buy anyone a gift on Darwin's birthday.

9. Nobody puts a tacky copy of The Mount in Shrewsbury on their front lawn on Darwin's birthday.

8. Understanding evolution doesn't make you feel morally superior to everyone else.

7. Nobody sings "The Little Drummer Boy" on Darwin's birthday.

6. Darwin wasn't conceived by deity rape.

5. Nobody thinks Darwin was right about everything.

4. Supermarkets stay open on Darwin's birthday.

3. You can actually learn something by reading Darwin's writings.

2. The Pope stays quiet on Darwin's birthday.

And the number one reason why Darwin's birthday is better than Christmas:

1. Charles Darwin actually existed and was born on February 12, 1809.