Einstein vs Professor

My father (who is a lawyer by trade, as will later become relevant) recently got a facebook, and he posted this video to it.



I didn't know whether this was true or false, but I had suspicions about it. It sounds like one of those crappy e-mail urban legends, like the Declaration of Revocation of Independence, which occasionally purports to have been written by John Cleese. Luckily I was able to get to the bottom of this, and I went ahead and posted a comment:

ME

Interesting and insightful, but fictional.
http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp

But that was not the end of it. Oh, far from it.What follows is the discussion we had.

DAD

Interesting comment from Snopes. The author asserts that the story is "false," which is a positive statement of fact.

The evidence for the verdict, however, is that there is no record of the event ever having occurred in any Einstein biography or literature.

Is that proof that the story is false?

Or, does the Snopes author base her conclusion on her belief that if she cannot find any historical record of something, it must not have happened?

ME

Oh, come on.

Does it prove conclusively that the story is false? No. Negatives can't be proven, as you well know. Does it sufficiently demonstrate the improbability of the story to such an extent that they can comfortably assert its falsehood? Sure. And a convincing, evidence-supported narrative for how the story came about has been provided. This isn't a criminal trial. We don't need "beyond reasonable doubt" as our standard for evidence because we're not confronting the ethical concern of potentially punishing an innocent. Here, the gradation of probability matters.

It's fiction. It's also a misrepresentation of Einstein who, by more reliable historical accounts, was so woefully inarticulate as a child that he was thought retarded and who, by the way, went to a Catholic elementary school, rendering the premise of the atheist teacher situation even more improbable.

It's really annoying how in so many discussions concerning religious issues, all sides attempt to claim Einstein as their own (sort of like how a lot of political discussions eventually devolve into Hitler comparisons, a phenomenon known as Godwin's Law). During his adult life, he usually described himself as a Spinozist, and was highly annoyed when others would miscategorize his religious beliefs in an attempt to prove some kind of point (as though it would!). Doubtless he would be even further annoyed by this ad.

DAD

First, your point about "an appeal to Einstein" is well taken; it is a classic argumentum ad verecundiam (or appeal to authority) which is a well-recognized logical fallacy.

Having said that, it does not dispose of the child's response to the professor. Assuming arguendo that the account is entirely apocryphal with regard to Einstein, you don't really need the child to be Einstein for the child to get the better of the professor.

Third, I disagree with the breadth of the Snopes author's definition of faith. She says that faith involves only those propositions that cannot be proved. In fact, many people have faith in things that could very well be proved, although the "believer" is completely ignorant of the basis or process of the proof.

Consider flight, for example. Most airline passengers have no idea how or why an airplane takes off, flies, or lands. Yet they have faith in the technology of the aircraft and the skill of its crew. That's faith-- not because these processes are incapable of proof, but because the "believer" is almost entirely ignorant of the physical principles involved.

Using the author's definition of faith, by the way, wouldn't evolution be an article of faith?

Certainly there can be no absolute scientific proof of evolution. There may be evidence to support it, but there was plenty of evidence to support geocentrism before Copernicus and Galileo, no?

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. "By faith he received power to generate, even though he was past the normal age--and Sarah herself was sterile--for he thought that the one who had made the promise was trustworthy." (Heb. 11:1)

ME

The conversation between the child and the professor is a rather unsophisticated discussion of the problem of evil on both sides. It's no Karamazov, but it doesn't need to be. It's a commercial. So I don't really care so much about the content of the argument as I do the way it's being presented. Appealing to an urban myth as though it were a fact is an appallingly stupid way of making a point about what should and should not be taught in schools.

I also care nothing about the Snopes author's pontification on the nature of faith. Frankly I skimmed the article to get the gist of the Einstein debunking. But I suppose if you take that definition literally then perhaps you have to classify all inductive reasoning as faith. And you do have to classify trust in airlines, evolution, gravity, and frankly, the existence of, say, Kelly, as faith, because none of these things can be proven conclusively and we can always come up with a crazy, unfalsifiable science-fiction. Go ahead, Hume does.

But as you rightly point out, the Snopes author has a poor definition of faith. Even though Airline passengers can't explain how the plane works, they at least have a concept that air accidents are relatively unusual, which is grounded in objective statistical reality. We still have serious questions about how evolution works, but it is observable at the microscopic scale and follows from sound logic that is strongly supported at the macroscopic scale by the fossil record. Gravity is an observable phenomenon that has never served us wrong, although we still haven't managed to integrate it unto a general unified theory of reality. We've all known Kelly for years and she behaves like a real person with consciousness. Although we cannot conclusively demonstrate that she is not an extremely sophisticated automaton, it is highly improbable.

Probability. Remember?

This has gone way off topic. But I'm fine with you making evolution potshots as long as they're better potshots.

(I mean, not that I've ever heard any decent evolution potshots, and believe me I've tried. But maybe you've got something.)

DAD

Kelly exists.

Not sayin' her existence explains the presence of evil in the world or anything...

But I was there at 2:59 pm on Feb. 6, 1991, so I don't need to rely on Descartes, St. Paul, or Einstein on this one.

ME

Q.E.D.

The fact that he resorted to an irrelevant joke means I won, doesn't it? I think I'm going to count it as a win.

tawm.net no more

This blog is no longer tawm.net.

tawm.net now refers to my tumblr page, and this blog is rebranded as "The TawmBlog."

I highly recommend that, if you are subscribed to this feed, you unsubscribe and subscribe to the RSS feed for tawm.net.

There will still be content posted here, but it will also be cross-posted to tawm.net, so that means that this rss feed will either be inconplete or redundant (depending on whether you are subscribed to the other feed).

That is all!

Recent happenings

It's been a while since I've put anything here, but hey, new song.

That's right, I did a trock song in Videobloggery. Just watch it below.



Hopefully before to long I'll get back to more blogging and The Cloister Room...

Pascal's Wager and Volitional Belief

It's a bit unusual for me to blog about something like this, but why the hell not?

Pascal's Wager is sometimes called a proof of God's existence, but that's not really what it presents itself as. It's more of a thought experiment, and it goes a little something like this, in my own words:

Maybe we can't prove that God exists. But even so, it's better to believe in him just in case. There are four possible scenarios:

	you believe	you disbelieve
God exists	REWARD	PUNISHMENT
God does not exist	null	null

Obviously, then, believing in God is the right choice. It rules out the possibility of a negative outcome, leaving only positive and neutral.

There are problems with this thought experiment (or whatever we want to call it). They are obvious and they are not very interesting. Note the either-or proposition of God's existence, which does not allow for the fact that the god (or gods!) that exist might not be the one you believe in. And then there's the assumption that God rewards belief and punishes disbelief (which is kind of a silly thing to assume).

And then, of course, there's the fact that it's not a logical proof for God's existence, just a recommendation that you hedge your bets and choose to believe.

Again, not that interesting, and kind of obvious.

The interesting thing, in my opinion, is the notion that you can choose to believe in God. Can you choose to believe in anything? Because I sure can't. I believe those things that seem true to me and I do not believe those things which seem untrue to me. I can't just choose to believe that the sun will not rise tomorrow. Nor can I choose to believe that God does or does not exist.

Now, there's a pretty neat trick that human beings do called "lying to ourselves." You know what I'm talking about. You've done it before, and you've frustrated your loved ones. And you've been frustrated when your loved ones did it. The way this works is not so much by choosing to believe things, but rather choosing to alter our on mental filters. You can choose to ignore certain information, which has a bearing on a particular belief. In that way, you can trick yourself into "believing" whatever you want. It's called intellectual dishonesty.

By doing this, someone who really, deep down in their gut, believes in the existence of God, can trick themselves into believing that God does not exist, and vice versa. But I'm really not so much interested in the big question of God's existence as I am in the relationship between belief and the will.

I suppose I don't really have much of a point other than to muse on the issue. So I'll just sort of trail off here.

Decemberists at Newport and thoughts on The Hazards of Love

Music reviewing isn't really my usual thing, but I've got something to say, dammit, and say it I shall.

Last weekend was the Newport Folk Festival, which was celebrating its 50th year and featured a whole lot of good bands. I went with my sister and one of her friends, mainly to see the Decemberists, a favorite band of mine. If you're not familiar with the Decemberists, they're a folk rock band from Oregon that's heavily influenced by the tradition of English folk. A lot of their songs are stories about characters, and feature a verbose and anachronistic lyrical style that forms a large part of the band's charm.

One of the most prevalent themes in their music is tragic love. For examples, give a listen to "We Both Go Down Together," a song about a suicide pact between lovers, or "O Valencia!" which is a fairly standard Romeo and Juliet tale.

Incidentally, both of those songs were performed at the Newport Folk Festival, along with two all-new, never-before-performed-in-the-US songs, and a few songs from their new album The Hazards of Love, which is an album-length folk rock opera.

I had been a little worried that their entire set would be from The Hazards of Love, since their recent tour has featured a set list composed of just the tracks from that album in order, telling the complete story. I hadn't heard that album yet, and so a concert with all those songs and none of my favorites would have left me cold. But after hearing the songs performed at the concert, I immediately purchased the album from iTunes when I got home, so impressed was I with what I heard.

Now, I must admit that initially I was a little underwhelmed by the album on first listen, because while the songs were good, they did not benefit from the energy of the live show, and so I did not immediately fall in love wit the album. But on repeat listens, I have appreciated the album a lot more, and I've grown obsessed enough with it that I'm literally having trouble listening to anything else.

The Hazards of Love follows a trend in the work of singer/songwriter/frontman Colin Meloy toward long, epic song suites based in folk legend tropes. The 18-minute single The Tain in 2004 was one step in this direction, and the 2006 album The Crane Wife featured two such epic songs, "The Island" and the three parts of "The Crane Wife." The Hazards of Love seems the natural progression from those earlier works. By no means is it a particularly complicated (or even very specific) story, but it is touching in its own tragic way, and getting a sense of the narrative is absolutely key to the enjoyment of the album.

The story follows four characters. The lovers, Margaret and William, meet when Margaret helps a wounded fawn, which turns into a man by night: William. Margaret becomes pregnant with William's baby, which leads her to run away from home and also causes a disagreement between William and his mother the forest Queen. Soon after, the villainous Rake kidnaps Margaret and William must rescue her. I mentioned it was a tragedy, and I assure you it doesn't end well. The music incorporates a mix of folk and prog rock styles, and a few different vocalists, with Meloy playing both men and guest vocalists Becky Stark and Shara Worden portraying Margaret and the Queen respectively.

The long story, which requires some attention to follow, is probably why I didn't enjoy the album so much on my first listen, and it improved on later listens. I think this may be the most impressive album to date, but I don't think I want to see another one like it. I hope that Meloy returns to the shorter, lighter songs that made me fall in love with the band in the first place. If the songs the band played at Newport are any indication, that's just what they're doing, thankfully.

Oh, and by the way, some kind soul has uploaded the two brand new songs to youtube, so give them a listen: "Down by the Water" and "Rox in the Box". I'm a fan. Also, during the middle of their set, specifically during A Cautionary Song, most of the band came out into the audience to give a humorous reenactment of Bob Dylan's infamous 1965 performance at Newport. Luckily, that's up on youtube as well. I couldn't see it from my spot in the crowd but as they came out into the crowd they did walk literally right in front of me (just inches away, really) so that was kind of cool.

If you're a fan of the Decemberists highly recommend that you give The Hazards of Love a listen, or even a few listens. If you've nto familiar with them, however, then I'd recommend that you listen to some of their other, less ambitious, more accessible material. Personally, while I'm glad that the band didn't perform The Hazards of Love in its entirety at Newport, I'd be curious to hear it performed live, just to find out what the experience is like.

Oh, and sadly, I left the festival early and so I missed the big finale where a bunch of people (including Meloy and Ben Kweller and others) joined Pete Seeger on stage for This Land is Your Land. Ah well. I'll probably lie and tell my grandkids I was there.

Brief thoughts on Dollhouse: Epitaph One

The above tweet was my initial reaction to Epitaph One, the unaired, thirteenth episode of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, which it seems everyone on the Internet but me loves.

I'll be posting a (far) more in-depth look at Dollhouse later this week (or possibly next week), but for now here's a comment I posted on the appropriate post over at Whedonesque:

Honestly, I thought it was awful. I don't want to piss in anyone's lemonade, but I hated it so much it made me not want to watch season 2. I've calmed down and decided that I will give season 2 a try after all, but I still didn't like this episode.

I'm not going to go too much into why I hated it. Suffice it to say I thought it was a mess of half-baked ideas that were dropped on us all at once, when a slow build over the course of several seasons would have been so much more satisfying. But I think I understand why Joss did it the way he did. It just wasn't for me. I'm going to write up a longer, more specific review for my own blog later this week.

I'm a little disappointed that I'm one of the very, very few people that feels this way. It makes me feel like I must be crazy. But hey, different people like different things. That's what makes fandom interesting. I'm just glad that Joss is doing work that so many people can enjoy, even if I'm not one of those people.

My upcoming post will discuss not just Epitaph One, but the entire first season of Dollhouse, especially the "season finale," Omega. Whether I'll have anything to say about the unaired pilot, I'm not sure, as I've not seen it yet. Expect that very long post to go up sometime before the end of next week.

Planet of the Dead liveblog on 7/26 at 7:45 PM Eastern

On Sunday, July 26 at 7:45 PM Eastern, I will be hosting a liveblog during BBC America's first airing of Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead, here at tawm.net. You can join me and a bunch of other Doctor Who fans for a live discussion of Planet of the Dead as it happens on air. The chat will open early so people have time to arrive and say hi, then we'll watch the episode until its conclusion at 9:15 and stick around afterward for some discussion.

If you'd like to join us but don't get BBC America, feel free to bring along whatever copy of Planet of the Dead you have and we'll tell you when to start and stop to compensate for the commercial breaks and stay in sync with us.

Thanks to Chip from the Two Minute Time Lord podcast for this lively idea. His Torchwood: Children of Earth liveblogs were great fun. Unlike Chip's liveblogs, this liveblog will take a relaxed attitude toward spoilers as I'm assuming most of us have seen it already. The CoveritLive liveblog service makes it really simple which allows us to focus on having a good time.

I hope you'll join us! Just visit tawm.net at 7:45 and you'll find the liveblog.

UPDATE
Obviously, the liveblog has already happened. Here for archival purposes is what we all had to say.

Doctor Who: The Forgotten.

Just fyi, a review for "Doctor Who: The Forgotten", a graphic novel by Tony Lee and Pia Guerra (among others) has been posted at Behind the Sofa.

Some three months after the book's release.

Ah well. Better late than never.

Catch it here.

Thoughts on the Doctor Who re-numbering

There's been a lot of talk lately on Twitter about the numbering of the upcoming 2010 series of Doctor Who. According to Doctor Who Magazine, the series will be produced and promoted as Series One, which is a surprise as many fans were expecting it to be called Series Five. And there's a minority of fans who would prefer it to be called Season (or series) Thirty-One, continuing the numbering scheme of the classic series. My comment to Chris in a recent videobloggery aside, I'm not one of those who insists on continuing the numbering of the classic series, except in the service of a cheap joke.

It's a brave choice to start the numbering over again, and I think I support it. As I said on Twitter, a while back, I like the way it shatters the dichotomy between the new and the old. It does risk confusing some viewers, but honestly I think we should give the viewers a bit more credit. I think the vast majority of viewers are either (a) so casual that they honestly couldn't care less about numbering or (b) invested in the show enough that they'll understand what's going on with the numbering reset: Russell T Davies' take on the program is over and Steven Moffatt's new direction for the show has begun. And when Moffatt leaves, they may well start back at 1 with someone else.

Perhaps most importantly of all, keeping the numbering in the low single digits has the important effect of welcoming new viewers. While a number like 31 (and even five) is potentially alienating to new viewers, "Series One" makes it clear that new viewers are definitely welcome to start watching the program without worrying about the years and years of continuity they've missed. Keep in mind: Doctor Who is for everyone, not just the hardcore fans.

There is, of course, the danger that some fans will take the reset as an invitation to leave the program, as though the show they loved is over and this is a new one, as Chip mentioned in his recent episode of his Two-Minute Time Lord podcast, but I honestly don't think this is a major issue. Those fans who want to stop watching the show will stop watching it regardless of what the number is. And those fans who have opinions about the numbering will merely call this Series Five, or Season Thirty-One, or the 2010 Season.

Personally, I'll be using the terms "Season x", "Davies Series x", and "Moffatt Series x". But numbering schemes like this are for the existing fans, and this change is for the benefit of potential new fans. And it's always good to have more of those.

Oh, and by the way, the current specials are "Davies Series 4b" for me. Come on, fandom, it's not that hard!

Videobloggery: Tom's Off Day

Chris did not sing a song.

Neither did I.



Comment and whatnot over on youtube!

The Cloister Room 001

In case you weren't aware, I now host a podcast called The Cloister Room. It's about science fiction with a focus on Doctor Who.

Episode 000 and Episode 001 are now up. 000 is a pilot episode, and 001 is about the recent rumors about a Doctor Who feature film.

Hope you enjoy them.

Wedding pictures on flickr

I went to Cape Cod for the weekend to attend my aunt's wedding. Whilst there, I took some crappy cellphone pictures. Here's links to the photo sets:

	Photos from the Wedding
	Photos from the Reception
	Photos of my cousin Riley taken the following day

New videobloggeries!

Good lord I've been neglecting this, haven't I?

Here are the last few editions of videobloggery:

CHRIS:


ME:


CHRIS:


ME:


And we are now up to speed!

Torchwood: Children of Earth

This week is Torchwood week. On BBC One, an episode of the new five-part Torchwood: Children of Earth is being aired each weeknight. In the US, you can catch them on BBC America frm July 20-24, but I'm watching them in sync with the UK airdate to review them for Behind the Sofa.

Although Torchwood has in the past been mediocre at best, this new series really is fantastic. You can find links to the the reviews in this post, which I'll be updating as I post them. Some of the reviews have spoilers, but the first one doesn't.

Torchwood: Children of Earth

• Day One
• Day Two
• Day Three
• Day Four
• Day Five

Videobloggery: Tom Sings a Doctor Who Song

Chris did an excellently amusing Twilight review and also a hilarious song.

So I responded with a song of my own. I'm rather proud of it:



Comment and rate over on Youtube!

Duncan Jones's Moon is Rising, or some such silly title

Just a quick post:

I recently joined my buds Steve, Samy, Chris, and NOT Golden for a rather long drive to see a film called Moon, directed by Duncan Jones (AKA "Zowie Bowie", son of David Bowie) and starring Sam Rockwell.

The film was absolutely excellent and I can't help but tell the world. Hence the blogging.

I won't be doing a full fledged review, because there's not much I can tell you about this movie that wouldn't spoil it for you. But I do want to deliver my strong, strong recommendation that you go see if it's playing in a cinema hear you (a list of cinemas and dates for those cinemas is over here). Keep checking as the list updates, because hopefully it'll be rolling out to more cities.

To give you an idea of what the film's about, it stars Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, the sole crewman of a mining facility on the moon. His only company is an artificial intelligence named GERTY, who communicates with the voice of Kevin Spacey and a smiley avatar. Sam's three-year contract is almost up, and he's eager to get back home to his wife and daughter. But... well, I won't say much more. I'll let you find out for yourself when you see the movie.

The trailer can be found here. If that doesn't get you excited then you have no soul.

Go see it!

Videobloggery: No Fish on Youtube!

Chris's video went up a bit late, but mine is on time:



Can't wait for the Twilight videos next week!

Please comment, rate and subscribe.

Videobloggery: It's Business Time

Chris began his punishment, but he has no idea what lies in store for him when he uncovers his true punishment!



Please, please, please comment and rate. I will love you forever.

Why I Suspect Karen Gillan is Romana

My insinuation on Twitter that the Doctor's new companion for 2010 will be a Time Lady was half-joking, but of course that means it is half serious.

Karen Gillan, who is 21, will be playing the companion to the Eleventh Doctor, portrayed by Matt Smith, the youngest actor ever in the role at 26. news is weeks old, of course, but it's something that people are still buzzing about. Personally, despite the fact that I know nothing about her except that she's gorgeous, I have some reservations about the casting choice myself. This is for two reasons: First, that I fear a TARDIS full of youngsters will be overpowered by youthful romantic angst and sexual tension, and second that I was hoping that the show would be going in a bold new direction, and a young female companion is hardly that.

But that changes if she's not human.

Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but I have a feeling that there's something significant about the fact that we haven't heard anything about what the character's name is yet. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I tend to think that something is being kept from us, that a name would blow wide open. Which is why, to return to the point, I think she might be a Time Lady, specifically one of the two we know.

I'd really be more willing to wildly speculate that it's Romana before Susan. Bringing back the Doctor's granddaughter now, with the youngest Doctor ever, is perhaps a bit too bold. Romana, on the other hand, would be another story. My tweet got a response from @dubbayoo, AKA Chris, one of the hosts of the podcast Radio Free Skaro. "Definitely get a Romana II vibe off her." I agree. And that's not all I'd like to get off her (okay, fine, no more of that). Not only does she seem a fit for the character (pictured at left played by Lalla Ward in the character's second onscreen incarnation), but I think the time is right for Romana to return. That would take the show in a direction it hasn't been in quite some time. The interesting thing about the dynamic between the Doctor and Romana is that, unlike the Doctor's companions from Earth, Romana doesn't need to have everything explained to her by the Doctor. In fact, it's often the other way around. It seems to me that every newly-announced companion is touted as "finally the Doctor meets his equal." Romana would be the only really genuine fulfillment of that promise, and it would be a great way to start the new era of the show off with something truly different from what's come before.

Is this idle speculation, signifying nothing? Probably. Okay, definitely. But regardless of what Karen Gillan turns out to be, I guess I should give her, and Matt Smith, and Steven Moffat, the benefit of the doubt with regard to the show's new beginning. While I'm sure I'll be sad to see the end of the David Tennant/Russell T Davies era this winter, I also can't wait to see what's in store next spring.

Videobloggery: The Machine Apocalypse

FINALLY, Chris posted a videobloggery, and a damn good one.

I, of course, had to respond in kind.



Drop your comments and ratings over there.