Do you believe that evolution is capable of producing homosapiens from single cell organisms? Nobody contests so called micro evolution, natural selection, or that incremental beneficial mutations can aggregate. The question is whether there are any irreducibly complex organisms. The existence of even one would imply intelligent design. This heated debate has been going on for quite some time, and I don't feel the need to rehash this here. It wouldn't work even in principle, because even if I could find something, your response would be that research is in progress, and that I shouldn't invoke God to fill gaps in current scientific knowledge. So what is there to talk about?

Let's consider this more abstractly. Evolution means that complex life = simple life + chance. The real question here is, essentially, chance vs design. There's no question that chance plays a significant role in how our universe functions, and it's also correct to point out that given enough dice rolls, literally anything is possible, regardless of the odds. How many dice rolls have there been? Infinite? But let's imagine I could calculate numerically the cumulative probability of everything coming into existence. That is, a number that represents something like "royal straight flush given 1000 randomized hands", or "amazing universe given 1000 trial universes". At what percent would you personally start believing in God? If I said the universe was only 1% probable without God, would you believe? I don't see how there's any justifiable cutoff except identically 0% or 100%. Until you tell me your cutoff and how many dice rolls you believe have happened, I don't see any point in talking about whether the odds are low or high. So what else is there to talk about?

There's another direction this discussion can go. Evolution, in some sense, is about how complex life came from simple life. Let's define this to be a "layer" in the universe and call it biology. Evolution starts by assuming simple life, but where did that come from? This represents another layer in my way of classification, which I'll call chemistry, and contains the question of abiogenesis. In this layer, you must throw out natural selection, since obviously molecules don't "reproduce with random mutations". How do you initiate the reproductive step? Chemically speaking, it's hard to imagine. There have been some experiments regarding electric arcs creating amino acids, but how do you marshal proteins to form life? Assuming an infinite number of molecular collisions, sure, you would eventually aggregate that first simple organism. Or maybe there's some incubator planet somewhere with ideal conditions, and life hitched a ride to earth. On the other hand, you might argue that the abiogenesis step was taken by the designer, before turning over those creatures to natural selection. We see here the same chance versus intelligent design conflict that we saw in the layer above, the same discussion about probability applies, and there's a similar lack of concrete arguments we can make.

There's a layer below that, which I'll call physics. Scientists tell us that there are a handful of freely adjustable parameters in the universe that have no known derivation, the charge of an electron is an example. It is clear that only certain ranges for these parameters are suitable for a life sustaining universe. Of course, we may find dependencies between the known parameters which would reduce the number of independent parameters, but do you have reason to believe that the number of independent parameters could be reduced to 0? As with chemistry, there is no natural selection, but now there's no known mechanism for these parameters to change at all. Some have proposed "multiverses" as an explanation, that many universes have come into existence, that the parameters take different values in each universe, and we happen to live in the one with suitable values for those parameters. As I've stated above, given an infinite number of dice rolls, anything is possible. Or you can argue that this universe was designed.

There's a layer below that, let's just call this one statistics. What does "probability" mean? You can not have "chance" without having a distribution from which you can draw random values. Six sided dice have a 1/6 probability for each of the sides being on top. This is distribution is called a uniform distribution (because the probability is uniform across all possibilities). Well what is the distribution from which those universal constants are drawn? Consider electric charge, the current value is 1.6e-19. Each universe must assign a value for that charge by sampling from some charge distribution. It would seem that a uniform distribution is impossible, because that would require the possibility of enumerating all the possible values. That is, since it seems there's an infinite number of values, the probability of any particular value would be 1/infinity = 0%. A gaussian distribution (aka normal distribution) could work, but a gaussian requires 2 parameters: the center of the distribution, and the width of that distribution. So let's argue that chance produced a gaussian distribution, which could produce our universe, granted all the other assumptions we've discussed so far. Or you could argue that the distribution for sampling electric charge was chosen by a designer.

There's a layer below that, let's call this one induction. In the previous layer, we accidentally went from one parameter to two, making it worse for the proponent of chance. But let's ignore that, and focus on an even worse problem: for we must now propose more parameter generation mechanism(s). Well, the center and the width could themselves be generated through the multiverse mechanism, just as charge was. The question now is how were the center and width chosen? Either they were designed, or they were produced by a random distribution. If you pick random distribution, then you invoked the inductive step which will generate an infinite number of layers.

At every layer, there is a contest between chance and design. Are you going to invoke chance on every layer, all the way down? I do not see how you can construct our universe without invoking an infinity somewhere, or some other irrational concept. A scientist will simply respond by asking for money to do more research, but I'm sure it's clear that you'll run out of money long before you ever get enough answers, even if such answers are available to be discovered.

There are a variety of similar inductive arguments I could compose, but in a sense they all boil down to a simple question of whether there exists an "explanation which can explain itself".

I'm getting tired of going to funerals. Since 2007, I've been to 6: NT, MM, VW, ES, BL, DE from my church, plus one for my grandma. They were all elderly, so none of their deaths were tragic. But all the same... I'm getting tired of funerals. Please stop dying!

A little bit at a time, all my grad school projects are getting wrapped up, my paper was accepted... and other things are getting taken care of... so now I have more and more free time on weekends. I'm discovering that I don't really know what to do with it. I don't even know what I *want* to do with it because I never really took the time to develop any hobbies. Of course, my computer & the internet are happy to fill any free time, mocking my decision not to own a TV. I can run through the list of things that I could maybe do... but then I remember why I don't really want to do it. But should I force myself to do things I'm not really interested in? I suppose the typical solution is to get married... but then I remember why I'm not particularly interested in that right now.

It's a strange and unexpected dilemma.

I don't like taxes... obviously... but I was hoping to get a bigger refund this year than I did. Oh well. At least it was easier this year for federal taxes than ever before because I could use the IRS's free website:
https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/
to do it. Of course it takes just as long to work out the details, and figure out what to put in each box... but at least it was minimally complicated. I've found that software like TurboTax does more for you, but it's more complicated because they make you think you can get all these exemptions or whatever, but when you look into it, you don't qualify.


Today was an interesting day. Two people from my church renewed their marriage vows today, in celebration of their 25th wedding anniversary. I can't think of any other time I've been to one. During the service, I realized just how special this. It's incredibly easy for a young couple to stand up and take vows. All they need is bravery. But it takes commitment, hard work, and self-sacrifice to preserve your vows. In a world where everything increasingly feels cheap, disposable, self-gratifying, and therefore ultimately meaningless, I've realized that sustained marriages are one of the few things that are intrinsically valuable, even when considered for their own sake. So I think vow renewals should be a more common celebration, among those who care.

This last trip to Seattle, the trip itself, was frustrating, with lots of little things that added up.

1) I drove myself to LAX, however, my clothes weren't quite dry, so I left my house a bit later than I wanted, and then even though Google predicted fast driving the whole way there, I hit traffic after downtown.
2) I parked in LAX's lot C. However, I missed the turn in, so I drove past it, and turned around. I didn't realize until it was too late that I was in right-turn-only lanes...
3) My flight itinerary listed both American and Alaska airlines, so I went to the terminal for the top listed one, only to discover I needed to go to the bottom listed one. This meant I had to walk counter clockwise (against the bus routes) to my actual terminal.
4) I didn't know my way around the seattle airport, and I couldn't find *any* information desks, guards, official looking people to ask. I ended up asking someone who was sorting luggage in a corner where to go.
***
5) I walked down to the lobby of my hotel to get on the 4:30 am shuttle. It seemed impolite that even though I was the 4th or so person there waiting, the other people all filled the van leaving no room for me. Fortunately, the shuttle driver agreed to do another round without making me wait until 5 am.
6) There were two security lines to get through the screening in Seattle, and they looked identical, so I picked one. It turned out the other line went 3 times faster because there were two guys working that line, and only one guy for our line, which we had to share with the "special privileges" line. So 2 guys for the other line, and 2 lines for our one guy. I told the guy that they should warn people that this line is 3 times slower, and he responded in what I felt was a sarcastic way "oh, i didn't know that", so I responded "sure you didn't", and then he said "I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean". I probably shouldn't have said anything at all, because that converted slight injury into personal insult, setting me on edge all day.
7) Then we went up to the x-ray lines. You can pick what line to join, but because of the poor layout, you don't recognize that the 1st two lines are significantly slower than the ones further down. So guess which one I picked.
8) Then standing in line, a security guard put two flight attendants on the conveyor belt before me. The guy cracked a joke for my benefit about how they were fast so it shouldn't matter to me. But jokes have the opposite effect on someone who's edgy.
9) Then the guy monitoring the x-ray machine told me to take my flipflops out of the bucket, so I did and proceeded to fold them together. He then told me to lay them flat, so I dropped them and sort of flattened them out. He noticed that I was huffy, so it felt like he was goading me when he repeated several times to be sure they were flat.
10) So I walked to the gate, and they started boarding right away, "rows 15 and higher". Somehow, it felt like it was taking longer than normal because the lady was asking almost everybody to see if their carry-on met the guidelines. So I stood there waiting a long time before the final 5 rows (including mine) were invited to board. When finally she scanned my ticket, she noticed that I wasn't smiling or whatever, and she asked something like "how are you" and I didn't answer. So then she asked me if everything was ok, and I mumbled yes, which she probably didn't hear. So now I feel guilty for not being more cheerful.
11) I step into the plane and see that of the remaining rows, 1/3 of the seats are already full of people who don't look like they had a reason to board early.
12) When I get to the shuttle stop, I have to wait ~30 minutes for a shuttle to stop. And it's not like they weren't there, it's that whenever the Lot C buses were close, there were always other shuttles (which nobody was getting on) blocking the way. This meant that none of them actually stopped.



I don't know, looking back through my list, it seems like most of them were my fault. So maybe I was just extra tired, maybe I was having problems because I was doing things a bit differently for the first time (e.g. driving to Lot C). But I don't like that emotional state I found myself in, where once you're in it everything that happens feels like an insult.

I've been thinking about something recently. Let me start by inviting you to type "war on " into a google search box, and see what it recommends you fill in. I see:

war on drugs

war on terror

war on poverty

war on christmas

as the first 4 hits. How well have we done on these battlefronts? Drugs are still with us (and some are becoming more legal). We've knocked down some gov'ts, but there are still lots of terrorists. There are more poor people because of the recession, and given obvious economic trends, the US probably has a lot further down it will go. Atheists still don't care about the "true meaning" of Christmas, and Christians still don't care what atheists think about Christmas.

Sometimes criticism is good for you.

When I submitted my paper, the one that sums up most of my grad research, the reviews I got were a bit disheartening. One reviewer said it was "of some interest", and the other reviewer sounded mad, thinking I'd ripped off his ideas. Today, I finally sat down to modify my paper to address their comments. Some of it was simply rephrasing some things which weren't clear, careless, or familiar, etc, but it turns out that the criticisms highlighted the differences between the methods I developed, and those of other research groups... in ways that seemed clear to me, but now that I have to go and emphasize them more, my paper seems... more important. Of course, that doesn't mean that the other people are going to all of the sudden drop what they're doing and do it my way, but... one can hope! The moral of the story is that the criticism served to strengthen my discussion and results.


However, I experienced a first this week. A friend of mine had posted a facebook status which was, I thought, disingenuous. In my view, his status boiled down to taking a position (which doesn't bother me), and saying that the opposing position has no argument (which does bother me). In my experience, everybody has *some* justification for believing as they do. You might not agree with their arguments, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to say the other side has nothing. For example, a guy on the internet said something like "there is absolutely no reason to prohibit gay marriage". Well, I demonstrated that there *is* at least one reason, even within the context of his libertarian viewpoint. So my belief is that every position is nuanced in some way, and people who behave as if their position isn't nuanced are typically trying to manipulate you. So what did I do? I challenged my friend's facebook status, just like I had a previous one of his which was even worse in this regard. And so he's the first person who's defriended me based on an argument. I sent him a message basically saying I was sorry, and I didn't hear back. I guess I expected more from a phd who likes to argue. I don't understand, I would think that if someone was brave enough to post confrontational messages on their facebook status would be willing to defend his point of view, and the two of us could possibly come to a renewed understanding of the nuances. I would think that these kinds of people would recognize that sometimes criticism is good for you.