Quote of the Day 7.27.12

"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”

Robert A. Heinlein

It's now known as "you didn't build that".

Joke of the Day

"Guy goes into a bar in Louisiana where there’s a robot bartender! The robot says, “What will you have?” The guy says, “Whiskey.” The robot brings back his drink and says to the man, “What’s your IQ?” The guy says,” 168.” The robot then proceeds to talk about physics, space exploration and medical technology.

The guy leaves, . . . but he is curious . . . So he goes back into the bar. The robot bartender says, “What will you have?” The guy says, “Whiskey.” Again, the robot brings the man his drink and says, “What’s your IQ?” The guy says, “100.” The robot then starts to talk about Nascar, Budweiser, the Saints and LSU Tigers

The guy leaves, but finds it very interesting, so he thinks he will try it one more time. He goes back into the bar. The robot says, “What will you have?” The guy says, “Whiskey,” and the robot brings him his whiskey. The robot then says, “What’s your IQ?” The guy says, “Uh, about 50.”

The robot leans in real close and says, “SO, . . . you people . . . still happy . . . with Obama?”

Shameless stolen from dashdaily.com

The Conversion of Edward Feser

Contemporary Philosopher and author, Edward Feser, documents his somewhat lengthy conversion from Atheism in his blog post, the Road From Atheism. Feser's conversion was out of what he considered to be rational necessity as he came to more clearly understand the Theist arguments (largely Aristotle and Thomasian), rather than the superficial understanding and summary dismissal given them by most Atheist philosophers.

Sartre's Conversion

Atheist and Existentialist Jean Paul Sartre lost his Atheism in the last years of his life, starting as early as 1974. His writings were influential in the 20th Century Atheist movement. His equally Atheist mistress, Simone de Beauvior, came to revile him as a "senile traitor" after his death in 1980. But Sartre's turnabout essentially revoked all his prior philosophy, as he came to this published conclusion:

"I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here: and this idea of a creating hand refers to God."

This presages the conversion of another influential 20th Century Atheist, philosopher Antony Flew, some three decades later. Flew also was reviled with similar epithets of "senility", rather than an actual assessment of his new position.

H.T. to Physicalismisdead

A BioEngineered Jellyfish

I love it when science and engineering are done properly. By properly I mean focused on actual facts and not on ideology. There is a hint in the text of the issues that were encountered and dealt with in developing this breakthrough technology. I hail this achievement, and I wish that I had been there to participate in it. What a rush it must have been to first observe the successful resulting motion of this invention.

Quote of the Day 7.24.12

“You know the formula: m over nought equals infinity, m being any positive number? Well, why not reduce the equation to a simpler form by multiplying both sides by nought? In which case you have m equals infinity times nought. That is to say that a positive number is the product of zero and infinity. Doesn't that demonstrate the creation of the universe by an infinite power out of nothing? Doesn't it?”
Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point (Urbana-Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press, 2001), 135. From here.

Defintion of infinity:

m/0 = ∞

Multiply both sides by zero:

(m/0) * 0 = ∞ * 0

On the left, the zero in the numerator cancels the zero in the denominator, leaving:

m = ∞ * 0

Therefore, something, m, comes from nothing, with the leverage of infinite assistance.