Imperial Physics Interview / Religion Debate

Two relatively bloggable things happened yesterday so I’ll make some attempt to reconstruct them here in words.

Imperial Physics Interview

I think I’ll do what Farhan did last year in the spirit of open source (kinda) and say something about my interview.

I arrived at 12:30 in time for the tour after just about managing to find the mysterious room 306 (hidden in a sort of conference room). There was someone who had made it all the way from Poland for this and various people who had made arduous journeys from all over the country, so I almost felt guilty about having had such an easy trip – 20 minutes on the No 10 down HSK. We got given a general walk round and free lunch (always a good thing) and were even (jokingly) offered a pint by the tour guide before our interviews!

The 12 of us with interviews that day were split up into three groups of four – I was interviewed with the three others applying for the four-year ‘Physics with Theoretical Physics’ course. We were first all sat together and had the course run past us – it all sounds pretty awesome with ‘complex analysis’ and ‘mathematical analysis’ both being taught in the first year (GL said once the sign of a good maths course is mathematical analysis being taught in the first year). We all went off for a quick (free) tea session in the lunching area (I was hoping to catch some of the ion trapping people from my work experience but they had probably by then left) during which we discussed relativity and space-time diagrams and the concept of ‘now’ which was pretty interesting.

Then we were all sat outside the room and were called in individually for interview. I was the last (a consequence of alphabetical ordering) and the people who went before me seemed to find it OK – one said she had to sketch ’some graph’ and explain ’something physics-ey’ and everyone seemed to have got two questions – so I didn’t think it would be too bad.

So I went in and immediately saw a Newton’s cradle sitting on the desk in front of my interviewer. Her research interest was quantum gravity and was being shadowed by someone who was interested in explosions and generally breaking things Mythbusters style, which is cool. She didn’t mention my personal statement at all and just asked me why I wanted to do physics (as opposed to maths) and why I wanted to go to Imperial. I said I liked being able to see concepts happen in real life, to which she pointed out relativity isn’t exactly the average real life situation. I said something about being able to touch and feel and see stuff in action, and applying maths to stuff and seeing it work, which she seemed satisfied with – ‘I know exactly what you mean’.

She then gestured towards the pad of paper and asked me to differentiate 2^x. Following standard procedure I just rearranged it into e^xln2 and differentiated that, though I didn’t / forgot to turn (ln2)e^xln2 back into (ln2)2^x at the end. She seemed happy and said ‘yup that’s right’ then asked me whether I knew what the thing on the desk was. I successfully identified it as a Newton’s cradle and explained that each collision is elastic and that this results in the inboud ball stopping and the next one going forwards with the same velocity as the inbound one, etc, with some support from a fumbling demonstration.

She then asked me a question about a ping pong ball and a golf ball being dropped such that the former is directly over the latter from 1m, and she asked me how high the ping pong ball would bounce. I invoked the coefficient of restitution and said let the velocity at the bottom be v. Golf ball bounces, goes up with v. Ping pong ball bounces against this, goes up with 3v. Invoking conservation of energy twice the answer came out to be 9m – which was right, apparently. That’s quite high…

She then asked me how long it takes a photon to get from when the universe became transparent to now. I looked confused and for some reason tried to resist the temptation to ask ‘from whose frame of reference?’, though it turned out that’s what the question was asking. I drew a space-time diagram and made a pretty dreadful estimate of the age of the universe [my estimate turned out to be about the age of the earth; note to self: learn some of these numbers sometime...] and asked for clarification on the question. She said it was a trick question and said it’s about frames of reference, at which point I realised it was indeed a relativity question and said ‘zero’ with a slightly botched-up explanation using t = yt’ [note to self: try to remember which side y is on!]. I guess I should have drawn the thing with the axes changing angle on the space-time diagram but nvm…

At the end she said she can’t tell me whether I have an offer and if so it will be with an A* (I *think* I heard that correctly, and it’s possible ‘further maths’ was mentioned in the same sentence – so that was a bit of a surprise). Apparently the school wrote me a good reference, which is good.

EDIT: should probably also say offers/rejections in several weeks

It was all over by 5pm as promised so I had some time to kill before the religion debate at 6:45 (next part of this topically bimodal post).

Intelligence Squared Debate: Religion

More specifically the motion was “The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world”. Matthew, Theo and I, the proud founders of the SPS Sceptic Society, were once again reunited to watch Christopher Hitchens (Writer, broadcaster and polemicist, author of the bestselling book “God is not Great”) and Stephen Fry (Actor, author, comedian and television presenter) debate against Archbishop John Onaiyekan (Roman Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria) and Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe (Conservative MP and Catholic convert) (descriptions taken from the I² page). As always I tried to write some notes – here they are in pretty condensed form. {curly brackets} indicate words external to what the speaker said, e.g. comments. I’ve also abbreviated names slightly, and nothing is word-for-word

1st speaker: Archbishop – For

• General stuff about his father and him and all his family being Catholic {Matthew suggested this sounded like the start of a sermon}
• Questioned what sort of ‘force’ the debate was about. He thinks the ‘force’ is a spiritual message, spread around the world, and the force is what this message teaches etc.
• Comments about the sheer size of the ‘force’
• Said that if you ask anyone in Nigeria they’ll tell you the Catholic church is a force for good {according to WJB if you ask 80% of people in Europe they’ll tell you that only GM food has DNA…}
• Quotes statistics about what {I would describe as satisfied customers}
• {Actually I have to say, it did sound like a sermon}

2nd speaker: Hitchens {to much applause!} – Against

• Started with some witty banter
• Said the opposition should have started with a list of apologies {to much applause}
• Started listing crimes against humanity the Catholic Church has committed {a couple were incorrect I think, and also the debate is the present – lots of his examples were from centuries ago. Still valid though, as we will see later}
• Child abuse – the church tried to excuse itself for it instead of apologising
• Said something about antisemitism {lots of audience tuts}
• Religion goes against the method of free thinking and scepticism
• Quote’s Stephen Fry’s situation {Fry turned out to be a really strong speaker because of this later}
• Talked about the ’sale’ of remuneration – paying for people to pray for you
• {I thought Hitchens would be stronger – he was, of course, as always pretty harsh and blunt, but he wasn’t as fired up as he was in some of his previous debates}

3rd speaker: MP – For

• Claims Hitchens misrepresented the Catholic Church {sarcastic applause from Hitchens!}
• Picked up on Hitchens talking about the past, not present
• Picked up on antisemitism thing
• Quotes WWII – helping Jews
• Quotes christians having to renounce faith to join SS {considering Nazism was pretty anti-christian anyways I don’t think this is a particularly valid point}
• Torture – last time’s standards were different so everyone was guilty, not just the church {Fry and the audience tear this apart later}
• Talks about child abuse – church ‘powerless’ to do anything, magistrates etc. also at fault
• Charity – $Bns given to charity {I wonder how much this is in comparison with the church’s wealth…}
• Hope argument – church gives hope to people
• she said ‘I knew condoms would come up’ – tried to make a joke of it {general audience tuts, someone shouted “how dare you laugh at that!”}

4th speaker: Fry – Against

• Started completely differently from Hitchens – said he’s fine with people believing and seeking enlightenment etc. – shows no hostility towards them
• Attacked MP’s point about past vs present – MP basically said ‘history is not important, so let’s forget about it’
• Talked about purgatory, people paying to bypass purgatory / go to heaven; referenced South Park’s version of purgatory (!)
• Quotes ‘outside the church, there is no salvation’ being used to excuse horrific deeds
• Church commands people to be ignorant, prevents them thinking for themselves
• Catholic Church deems itself the only owner of the truth and bullies people into believing
• Current Pope on child abuse: “We do not have the power of a nation” <- yes you do
• Commented on women’s equality
• Apparently the pope wrote a letter / made an announcement to child-abusing priests: [paraphrasing] “do not talk to the police, keep it secret, talk to me instead”. Pope claimed solution is to stop “homosexuals from entering the church”
• {either Hitchens or Fry made this following point} The church ’sentenced’ one child-abusing priest to ‘a lifetime of prayer’ instead of several months / years in prison
• Church doesn’t need to exacerbate existing gay stigma
• Stephen Fry said: “I find it ridiculous that I am being called a perv by such extraordinarily sexually dysfunctional people” {*huge* applause + laugh, proposition looking really pissed off}
• Pope spread false lie that condoms makes AIDS spreading worse – instead of making useful suggestions
• church obsessed with sex. Comparison with food – church equivalent of anorexic and obese {more huge audience support}
• Proposed solution: pope gives back all of Vatican’s wealth to those from whom the church has stolen {even more audience cheer}

Before the debate the audience had pre-voted thus:
FOR: 678
AGAINST: 1102
ABS: 346

Questions

• Catholic Church broke 5 UN conventions on child abuse – should not be allowed to get away with this
• To Archbishop: Q “which Catholic policy are you most ashamed of?” A “I am ashamed of none of them”
• To proposition: “do you need the Vatican’s wealth?”
• To proposition on torture: “even though the standards of the time are xyz, isn’t the truth of the Church doctrine ‘eternal’?”. Church had changed mind on slavery for example. Seems like church in constant state of limbo. MP says “limbo = ’second light’” – {only huge audience groan in entire debate}

Conclusions

Stephen Fry

• MP groaning: “I knew condoms etc would be brought up” – a bit like a burglar groaning in court “I knew my burglary would be brought up” {audience cheer}
• Constantly wasted opportunity for Catholic church to do something by giving away lots of its wealth – until then, not force for good

MP

• Reason for people having children in Nigeria is they need someone to look after them when they are old {relevance?}
• Says no statistical evidence for condoms preventing AIDS {so pope justified in spreading lies?? Theo and I agree she’s crazy}

Hitchens

• Thoughtcrime argument – catholic church essentially enforcing regime of thoughtcrime

Archbishop

• Basically said history doesn’t matter again {even though point previously successfully rebutted by Fry}
• Said he cares about his own relatives and he is happy for them to be Catholic etc. {urgh. There were two parents who fed their baby a litre of salt to punish it. I’m sure they cared about their kid, they just didn’t know giving it salt would be a bad idea. This point isn’t really valid.}

After the debate the results were thus:

FOR: 268
AGAINST: 1862
ABS: 334 {I think – it might have been 34. Can’t check by adding up since audience size was changing throughout debate}

Stephen Fry was a ridiculously strong speaker in this – even stronger than Hitchens, and despite my weak preconception that the Catholic church wasn’t doing much good, after this debate I am now quite convinced that it’s, if anything, a force for evil. Fry shouted twice (or even thrice) in that – he really is passionate about this topic.

Other highlights include us spotting Derren Brown in the audience and a priest in the audience standing up and totally siding with Stephen Fry.

EDIT: whenever I mention the ‘church’ I mean the Catholic church, just to avoid any confusion. As Fry pointed out, he has nothing against Quakers, for example.

John Polkinghorne at St Paul’s

John Polkinghorne's signature on The God Delusion

On Friday, Halley Soc welcomed Dr John Polkinghorne to St Paul’s to talk on how science and religion work together. Lest this post turn into an enormous dissertation I will attempt to digress as little as possible from what he said, and merely restate some of his main arguments (the things that I wrote down) and explain why I think he’s wrong. All quotations are paraphrased since I didn’t write down every word he said. Apologies if I’ve misinterpreted some of the things he said.

He began by stating that religion is a search for truth, and that both science and religion rely to an extent on belief:

Both science and religion are a search for truth, and both rely on motivated belief

In my opinion, while science is a genuine search for truth, religion is in many cases the opposite. Looking at evidence, God seems to be no more than a convenient gap-filler for what humans do not know. When Pasteur turned up, disease was no longer a manifestation of God’s wrath but merely the action of millions of tiny microbes, and was treated with medicine instead of prayer. On the subject of belief, while science relies on believing measurements made by humans and machines, religion relies mostly on what a book full of contradictions is interpreted to say – which seems to be just about everything.

He subsequently said something about religion being a human version of science:

Science treats humans as objects. Humans are obviously not objects, thus need something else: religion

I think humans are objects. Just because we classify ourselves as intelligent life with complex emotions, we are governed by exactly the same laws as everything else. Emotions are simply manifestations of neurones firing and hormones and chemicals being released in the body (I’m no biologist but I’m pretty sure it’s something along those lines). However complicated the brain is, I believe there’s nothing to separate the mind from the brain than a different paradigm – fundamentally the mind is a function of the state of the brain. Humans are objects after all. Saying they are different things are a bit like saying the Newtonian paradigm contradicts the Hamiltonian one.

He used this argument to create an argument about beauty, specifically music:

When we hear music, we hear its beauty, and can appreciate that. This implies there is something other than science, and we call this other thing God

As above, beauty and emotions relating to it are merely functions of the brain, abstractions relating to certain neurones firing. Beauty is not an inherent part of the universe – we merely interpret it to be.

He then said that science and religion help each other:

Science helps religion by telling the world how the world works, about truth

‘Truth’ is the exact word he used (I wrote it down enclosed in quotation marks). If science tells religion the truth, his first statement must be false: religion can’t be told the truth and come up with it at the same time. More importantly and indeed disturbingly, he insists that religion can explain evolution:

God made the world so that creatures can evolve: rather than making homo sapiens with five fingers he created a world in which life can make itself. Life evolved from a ready-made world

Apparently it is more likely that we are living in a computer simulation than in a ‘real’ world (c.f. several New Scientist articles). So God is a computer programmer with a genetic algorithm. In a way I can believe that, after reading the articles. There’s still no justification for practising religion though – merely believing in a probability of there being a form of ‘god’, and only tenuously.

He then said Newton is proof of God:

Evolution cannot explain Isaac Newton: there is absolutely no evolutionary benefit for humans to be able to understand the cosmos

I think he’s made a mistake here. Of course there’s no evolutionary benefit for the ability to understand the universe and invent calculus, just as there’s no evolutionary benefit for a dolphin to be able to jump through hoops (I’m not intentionally comparing Newton to a dolphin). What allowed Newton to discover his laws was his intelligence and a high degree of intuition, undeniably qualities beneficial to an animal; qualities which enable it to survive better.

He fell back again to a beauty argument:

Science and Maths are beautiful: Mathematical equations and the way everything fits together is just so beautiful that it cannot exist without God. Quoting Wigner, ‘Mathematics is so unreasonably effective’. God must have made it that way

Personally I think there are three good reasons why science and maths yield such beautiful equations. The first is statistics. It is statistically likely that there will exist some beautiful equations, and some not so beautiful ones. Beautiful ones include e^iπ+1=0. Not so beautiful ones include the quadratic formula, or indeed the quartic formula. The second reason is that science and maths are based on very simple rules which can themselves be described as beautiful. Simplicity of certain solutions and results stem from the fact that the basis is fundamentally simple – there are many hidden fundamental underlying patterns interspersed throughout the sciences, which means you tend to end up with something quite nice. The third reason is that aesthetics are a human invention. Beauty doesn’t really exist – humans just assign that quality to certain things. So saying beauty proves god is circular: “God made man to invent beauty to prove God”.

The last part of his talk involved a well-known argument for intelligent design:

Life as we know it can’t exist without the parameters of our universe.

I have all sorts of objections to this and could get into the anthropic principle and keep going forever. He said ‘life as we know it’, citing specifically carbon-based life. He also said if those parameters were tweaked just slightly, we couldn’t exist. It’s possible though that a radical change in one or more of the parameters might still yield intelligent life. Who knows, that life might not even need photons.

Someone asked a question about the multiverse theory, a popular method to get round this problem. He replied that this is too speculative an idea. I asked whether he thought, if the idea of multiple universes (a part of many theories such as M-theory and the many-worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics) was too speculative, that God is too speculative. He said something about there being evidence for God and none for multiple universes. I asked him what he thought of David Deutsch’s idea that quantum computing is evidence for the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics as the computing power is too great to come from one universe. His reply:

I think it’s perverse for David Deutsch to say such a thing. All you need is the Copenhagen interpretation

So multiple universes are ridiculous to even consider, but God is; and spooky action at a distance is fine?

Many things he said contradict things I believe and conclusions I have come up with. I remain no more convinced that religion is worth practising and that God exists. Furthermore, after all this argument why theology in general is maybe a good idea, he became specifically Anglican, a branch of religion that requires him to believe all sorts of ridiculous assertions made by the bible. He said he has his reasons but wasn’t prepared to delve into them with the little time that he had. My suspicion is that he and I will never agree. But to commemorate the occasion (a famous person coming to St Paul’s), I managed to get his signature on my copy of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion in which he is (probably) referred to as a crackpot (image is at top of post, and on my Flickr photostream). Score…

๏̯͡๏﴿

Brent Roos: A Short but Amusing Story

I suppose when you create a blog you’re signing up to being exposed to the blogosphere in all its glory, including the bloggers who really don’t deserve to be heard. Unfortunately there are some of us, me included, who find some of the stuff people say irresistibly funny; I hope you share my sense of humour .

Brent's Avatar

Many of you reading this may be acquainted, at least in passing and/or by word of mouth, with the story of a certain extreme nationalist American blogger by the name of Brent Roos who has recently attempted to lay comment-waste to this blog. So I reckon he deserves a post of his own for his efforts. His online presence took the form of a curious persona who seems extremely religious (Christian), extremely right-wing (neither of the US candidates were good enough for him. Neither was my – apparently insufficient – distaste of Communism in China, for that matter) and notoriously rude. As it turns out, it all made for quite a good laugh. Perhaps I should start from the beginning…

Some time ago I wrote a blog post on global warming. I thought it would end up passing by the blogosphere with little comment. My expectations were, I thought, confirmed until fairly recently when I was in China and had just blogged about the whole experience. The first thing I noticed when I next logged on was that this apparently crazy person had written a few quite aggressive comments.

Brent on Shanghai:

So, how’s the communism there? Funny how you mention magnificent things that put you in awe, but seem to forget to ever mention the horrific human atrocities by the communists there who have killed tens of millions of people — whose only crimes were wishing freedom.
Personally, I would never step foot in China. But then again, I loathe the communist.

Brent on global warming:

Blah, blah, blah…. 2008 is the coldest year in a decade. This is nothing more than alarmism and fear-mongering. 30 years ago it was global cooling.
As far as oil is concerned, if not for the fearmongering, we would be drilling for much more oil here in the states. We are the only country on the planet which has restricted itself from it’s own natural resources to the extent that we have.
What is taking place here is not unlike many of the other institutions that the government has seized over the last several months and years. They have seized the media, the banking/mortgage industry, now the auto industry, etc. The energy industry is more global so they cannot just simply seize that. So instead, they reinvent it, claiming that the current system IS GOING TO KILL US ALL!!!!! In other words, this is a takeover…wake up! We are becoming a socialist country right before our eyes. Granted, there are many who want this, because it is far easier to let the government take responsibility for your life, than to do it yourself. If you do it yourself, the only one you can blame when you fail is yourself, however, without failure, there comes no success.
All of the fancy words are crap when you finally get to the point. Global warming/cooling/climate change/enter fearmongering buzzword here/ is total crapola. Don’t believe the hype sheeple…

I attempted to be civilised while smiling to myself:

Brent,
I, and pretty much all scientists, still think the evidence points towards a long-term upwards trend in temperatures. The point I’m trying to press though is that the solution should no longer lie in this religious instinct of humans to make themselves suffer through deprivation and force others to do likewise. As Steven E Landsberg quite aptly put in his book The Armchair Economist, eco warriors are nothing more than irrational idiots who will do all sorts of unspeakable things just to get a few energy-saving bulbs into a house while completely ignoring the fact that the production of the wretched things is (supposedly, according to their own models of carbon dioxide and warming) far more detrimental than the gases emitted in the production of the electricity required to run the average 150W bulb. Children are growing up feeding on this propaganda, learning that electricity = oil = global warming = bad. Eco warriors are literally putting words in children’s mouths from birth, preventing them from making their own informed decisions on such hugely important matters. Fundamentally, I disagree with the eco-warrior doctrine: ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. I disagree with them. But what I disagree with even more (believe it or not) is outright cynicism. I like to think of myself as a sceptic, someone who follows the doctrine that through doubt the truth may be obtained. I don’t think much truth may be obtained from simply assuming everything the media says must be false (although I would probably be surprised if I actually tested that).
Is it a safe bet that you supported McCain? I think in that case that you and I will just have to agree to disagree on a load of things. Drill baby drill is not going to cut it. However irrelevant the oil situation is to the environment, I still believe abusing it remains a bad idea (for reasons outlined in the post).

At which point Brent became even more manic:

I’m not a Republican if that’s what you have assumed, nor am I a Democrat (Republicrat/Demlican). There were other candiates (good ones who care about America and the Constitution) you know.

It’s hilarious to me that you *think* that there is a shred of difference between Clinton/Bush/McCain/Obama despite the fact that most of their policies are identical on paper and are bought and paid for by many of the same corporate lobbyists. You have been duped!

It’s also hilarious to me that you think that you are so much smarter than I. I’m above your black vs. white mentality. I see everything through a crystal clear lens, while you observe things through the clouds of emotion. I’m really glad you feel good about what you’re doing. Unfortunately, it is a bit sad that you are totally wasting your life on bunk science.

This is a takeover, and you are on board whether you know it or not. By the way, it is completely untrue to say that ALL scientists agree. It is only the ones who like working, as the honest ones are being blacklisted by the rest of the Marxists who intend to carry out the New World Order –Clinton/Bush/McCain/Obama are all involved. Wake up!

Unsure of what to do (whether to laugh out loud or feel vaguely offended) I sent the link to a friend who, rather to my surprise, posted a prompt riposte:

Heh, thats what I love about the internet, the sheer comedy of the right wing nutters who comment on blogs. Ok, lets give this a quick look through:
Blah, blah, blah[his riposte begins to shatter Bryant’s article from the first 3 words, giving an example of the incisive wit]…. 2008 is the coldest year in a decade. [not true, especially in the ice caps] This is nothing more than alarmism and fear-mongering.[what a ridiculous oversimplification, at least respect the majority of the world’s scientists enough to give their theorems serious consideration] 30 years ago it was global cooling. [what’s your point? You give no evidence to discredit cooling, it just shows that the earth’s temperature is very fragile and volatile, and that human’s can effect it]
As far as oil is concerned, if not for the fearmongering [that’s two words], we would be drilling for much more oil here in the states. [try telling that to Alaskan inhabitants who do everything they can to prevent it] We are the only country on the planet which has restricted itself from it’s own natural resources to the extent that we have. [Britain has huge coal and sizable oil reserves, but doesn’t use them because secondary and tertiary industries are more profitable and less destructive, America is well advised to do so also]
What is taking place here is not unlike many of the other institutions that the government has seized over the last several months and years.[is the earth’s climate an institution?] They have seized the media [the same media that is constantly attacking the Bush administration?], the banking/mortgage industry[you mean giving it 700 billion dollars to help it out? Would you rather they let it rot?], now the auto industry, etc. [that is collapsing on its own accord] The energy industry is more global so they cannot just simply seize that. So instead, they [is the US government the only body claiming that global warming is happening? Until recently they were one of the only major powers to deny it!] reinvent it, claiming that the current system IS GOING TO KILL US ALL!!!!! In other words, this is a takeover…wake up! [you are obviously not clouded by emotion...] We are becoming a socialist country right before our eyes. [mm, if everybody would just see sense and spend all their money on fuel until they become impoverished, Capitalism would flourish, right?] Granted, there are many who want this [ooh, nice move, lets blame the communists to deflect the focus on the fault of the average american], because it is far easier to let the government take responsibility for your life, than to do it yourself. [how did we get here from climate change?] If you do it yourself, the only one you can blame when you fail is yourself, [is the Government banning people from polluting? No! Is it trying hard to look at alternate energy sources? Yes, how is this an attack on liberalism?] however, without failure, there comes no success. [that’s nice...]
All of the fancy words [that you don’t understand] are crap when you finally get to the point. Global warming/cooling/climate change/enter fearmongering buzzword here/ is total crapola. [in your learned and well researched opinion that flies in the face of the 95% certainty by the UN’s IPCC that climate change is anthropogenic Where did you get your PhD again?] Don’t believe the hype sheeple[witty play on words mixing sheep with people?]…

After a torrent of e-hostility from Brent and the substantial mirth that brought me and my friends, a couple of us decided to actually visit his site and discovered he really was as crackpot as we thought. He supported Israel’s invasion of Palestine on the grounds of, of all things, religion. He classified Linux-users as Communists. He decided the world isn’t overpopulated and that anyone who thinks it is ought to be banished to Siberia (well, something to that effect). Anthony began posting sarcastic comments on his site under the alias “Bryant Dory”, to which Brent replied seemingly incognisant that they really were meant to be sarcastic:

It’s almost as if your comment is satirical … [insert accusation of being communist]

Unfortunately I can’t remember any of these comments and they are unavailable to me to [Ctrl+C] [Ctrl+V] as, seemingly after he realised how stupid he’s been, Brent finally locked down his site with a password.

I think his online existence was met with some hostility, as a Google search for his name yielded these two results on the first page of results:
# Who in the hell is Brent Roos
# Brent Roos Barked at Me and I Barked Back
Someone even called him an ‘arsehat’…

So in conclusion, seriously, if you’re reading this, thank you Brent for supplying us with such entertainment. It’s been a great laugh and I hope you regain enough courage to the internet at some point in the future. xx

Brent's locked down site

Surviving Black Ice on Bike

I present you with my new God Hypothesis: if and only if God exists, he is far from benevolent. It would appear the legendary Pure Mathematician Godfrey Harold Hardy agrees: “Another example of [Hardy] trying to fool God was when he went to cricket matches he would take what he called his “anti-God battery”. This consisted of thick sweaters, an umbrella, mathematical papers to referee, student examination scripts etc. His theory was that God would think that he expected rain to come so that he could then get on with his work. Since Hardy thought that God would then have the sun shine all day to spite him, he would be able to enjoy the cricket in perfect sunshine” (Toller made me aware of this; quotation taken from here). God, in order to spite me, over the last two weeks has strategically placed black ice in exactly the same spot of road causing me to fall spectacularly on both occasions causing grievous (= light) damage to my elbow followed by my face, as some sort of obscene joke.

Click for original image

In fairness I shouldn’t be blaming some being who was invented a long time ago and exists solely in books. The real reason is that my bike’s tyres were worn almost smooth by regular trips to Richmond Park over the Summer and Autumn. But as Winter is setting on, a relatively high tyre pressure (pumped up in the hope of improved speeds) and non-grippy road (rather than mountain-biking) tyres are hardly ideal for the conditions. So I decided to do some research on how not to die at the hands of Winter, squashed between a bus and a centimetre of ice. I’ve organised my incoherent thoughts into a list of tips for anyone who is, like me, foolish enough to attempt to overcome whatever God throws at him, including icy road conditions. Since my expertise with ice cycling is evidently somewhat lacking, I’ve nicked half of these from different sources.

Technique

Keep upright and turn slowly

Both times I fell it was because P was too great; too great to be resisted by friction (F). To minimise this you want to minimise the torque created by N and W, i.e. minimise the angle theta: keep as vertical as possible as increased torque increases the effect of P. You also need to slow down (as Dr Zetie has just taught us, centripetal acceleration v^2/r where r is the curve radius and in this case it is provided by friction – if friction isn’t enough to resist the centrifugal force created by high-speed turns, God wins and you fall). I’ll shut up about Physics now.

Brake gently

This might seem obvious but it’s actually even worse than you might think. Friction with the ice when braking melts some of it creating water, which on ice is amazingly ‘fail’ at friction. Bad.

Brake with rear wheel

When you brake, torque makes the bike lean on its front wheels, so if that front wheel locks you’re screwed. Don’t brake with it. Braking with the rear wheel is also great for skidding down icy hills (apparently).

Let the bike get it

If it does come to it and you’re about to crash, a friend of mine advises you just throw the bike at whatever you’re going to hit and either land on it or hit the ground at a much reduced velocity. Not sure how good this advice is, but it’s probably a good idea on the personal safety front. Maybe not for other road users or indeed the bike…

It’s also better to get scrapes than go head-first into a solid object – I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure grazes heal faster than fractures.

Ride the gravel

There tends to be a load of crap at the side of roads, especially gravel which is great for cyclists when the rest of the road resembles an ice-rink. Snow is also better than ice.

Kit out your bike

Use studded tyres

These are the best tyres for grip in icy conditions. Also consider chaining your tyres.

Click for original image

Lifehacker also did a post on it.

Also, slightly underinflating car tyres helps for low-grip surfaces. Presumably the same applies for bikes, especially for wide tyres.

Dress for the Arctic

Wear an anti-God outfit complete with crash-helmet so you’ll just bounce if you hit the road.

- -

Hopefully when I try (most of) this next week I won’t die in the process. And don’t blame me if you do attempt it all and still get hit by a bendy-bus after skidding into the middle of a road.

Most of these ideas and images came from here.

Click for original image

Hitchens v Dawkins

It may strike one as a strange pair to pit against each other: the two are leading religious sceptics, battling shoulder to shoulder against the forces of stupidity, misunderstanding and retardation of scientific progress – they generally tend to be on the same side. However I feel their styles when debating are very different and it’s worth making some comparisons. I’ve known about Dawkins and his struggle against insanity for a long time; I’ve read his books (well, got about half way through one of them to be precise) and watched some of his debates (specifically the one against Lennox) and have quite a good picture of him. I thought he was alone in this world until someone told me about Christopher Hitchens, another religious sceptic with similar aims, and have only recently taken the initiative to watch his debate with Boteach. The two debates contrasted starkly.

For one, the opponents were very different in nature. Dawkins had the misfortune to be debating against an apologist, a supposedly religious person who seems to have no real convictions about anything. Lennox was perfectly happy (I seem to remember) to agree the bible is … dubious in nature. Lennox is an adamant supporter of science. I seem to remember the two energetically agreeing with each other on some things, particularly where the acceptance of Science came in. Boteach on the other hand was amazing. The sheer incorrectness of his arguments amazed me. The fact that he was bold enough to make such ungrounded assertions in public amazed me – it was almost embarrassing to watch! Boteach is a creationist: in other words, he is an anti-scientist. His arguments about evolution were so warped, jaded and universally and categorically wrong that it made me cringe to have to listen. He also seemed to rest half his arguments on the fact that religion is a more palatable concept. What utter rubbish, and what joy it brought me to watch a master pick it apart in as pseudo-polite yet also gleefully rude manner as Hitchens. It also made Hitchens’ life a lot easier – picking apart arguments made by a jittering idiot is always easy. Believe me, I do it myself, though not quite as well.

The key difference between the two debates I think is the sceptics’ method of argument. Dawkins brought much science into it: he tried to use his knowledge of biology and physics to construct clear and rigorous scientific assertions to back up his arguments. I suspect it didn’t work so well for that debate – Lennox’s scientific leaning helped him get round the problem of having a stereotypical-religious-nutter image and he was able to discuss the science intelligently and make non-stupid points, part of the whole apologist guise. He also knew when to agree with Dawkins and which religious anti-science arguments to avoid (the ones which are clearly wrong such as those that attempt to dispute evolution). Dawkins’ book also draws heavily on current and past scientific research and his arguments are constructed intelligently from there. Hitchens on the other hand almost ignored science in his debate against Boteach. After all, as he said right at the beginning, he thinks it is so utterly clear religion is false that it’s pointless arguing over its verity; why bring in science? Instead he concentrated his energy on trying to prove why religion is pernicious, why be believes religion is actively harmful to the world and why it is outrightly contrary to everything human progress holds dear. Perhaps this is a better way of debating: the average religious nutter (Boteach included) will try desperately in an attempt to seem intelligent to find some loophole in science that creates a crack of uncertainty in which God may reside and at the same time dig for himself one heck of a hole in which to reside himself. Hitchens knew Boteach was going to make a stupid argument about science – why not let him introduce the incorrect pseudo-science and watch the show?

Another difference, certainly taking those two debates as examples, was the ‘niceness’ of our two heroes. Dawkins really did his best to be nice. He spoke fairly kindly about Lennox, was considerate when making arguments making an effort to confine his counter-arguments to the topic rather than making the other look like a fool. I was almost ashamed that he was too apologetic – he didn’t seem assertive enough. Lennox grabbed the wrong end of the stick when it came to faith – he completely misinterpreted the concept of what faith means and asked Dawkins whether he has faith in his wife, of which Dawkins really didn’t make much of a meal. Hitchens on the other hand was outrightly nasty right from the beginning, making the ensuing exchanges so much more interesting. He began with such a delightfully contemptuous tone that Boteach was enraged to the point of incoherence (maybe his incoherence was due to something else, who knows), and had such an obviously disgusted attitude towards religion that I really believe his anti-belief rubbed off on the audience. Even the title of his book, ‘the Missionary Position’, reflects the hilariously contemptuous nature of his methods of setting out arguments. His tone and hatred are truly in tune with mine (well, maybe not hatred) of religion. I really don’t see any reason to be polite about such things, and Hitchens really has the right idea as far as I’m concerned.

Overall I think I personally prefer Hitchen’s way of debating: loud and clear. Both clearly believe religion is pernicious, and quite rightly too. It’s damaging both mentally, physically and economically … but that’s for another blog post. Dawkins however attempts to intellectualise arguments too much. It is impossible to debate a true religious nutter by employing reasoning – the opponent simply will not understand. If he is convinced enough about the existence of God to debate against a sceptic he clearly has no concept of logic and as an utter inability to follow logical thoughts and mathematically accurate arguments, so why bother? But either way, I wish them both the best of luck in their anti-religion campaigns. Whatever the case, religion is wrong, stupid, pernicious, but above all, funny, and I’m glad both have picked up on the last one.

Science and Religion Debate (St Paul’s Cathedral)

I attended the debate titled ‘The Battle for Truth? The Science-Religion Debate’ at St Paul’s Cathedral on 7 Oct 2008 and rather enjoyed my evening. The panel consisted of four high-profile guests who discussed for 90 minutes the relationship between science and religion. The speakers were (straight from the site):
- Nancy Cartwright FBA is Professor of Philosophy at the London School Economics and the University of California, San Diego. Her books include How the Laws of Physics Lie and The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science.
- Nicholas Lash was for twenty years Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. His publications include The Beginning and End of ‘Religion’ and ‘Where Does The God Delusion Come From?’
- John Milbank is Professor of Religion, Politics and Ethics and Director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at Nottingham University. A leading figure in the Radical Orthodoxy movement and author of the highly influential and controversial Theology and Social Theory.
- Roger Trigg is Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Theology at Oxford University and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Warwick University. Among his many publications are Rationality and Science: Can Science Explain Everything?

I heard it mumbled near the beginning that the debate was funded by the Templeton Foundation hence I approached the entire event with a certain degree of scepticism; nevertheless, here are my thoughts on the debate. I can’t remember which panellist said what, so forgive my vagueness. I’m also fairly sleep deprived as I write this so please forgive excessively blunt and/or blatantly wrong points that my fingers might have unwisely typed.

They began with a discussion on the definition of Science, a sensible starting point I thought. Unfortunately most of the propositions for a definition didn’t work in my opinion. Someone suggested the definition of a science as a discipline in which predictions are made very precisely and empirically, to a high degree of precision. However one might consider the Quantum side of things in which according to Werner Heisenberg, it is actually a law of nature that velocity and position of a particle cannot both be measured exactly; all you get is a probability distribution, or the wave function. This means the prediction of where a photon will be in t seconds’ time ends up as a probability distribution rather than a coordinate, and while one can argue that this model does make very precise predictions – things like the shapes of interference patterns can be calculated exactly, the whole idea of discoveries in Physics actually proving it impossible to give precise predictions is unsatisfactory given the very criterion of precise predictions. Another idea put forward was that of falsifyability – the definition of a science is one which yields falsifyable results. This definition was less usable – my view on this is that theories in experimental sciences are only as good as the data. Newton had a good theory which was blown out of the window by the arrival of Einstein’s theory of relativity. The famous constant (whose name I have forgotten) whose value has changed continually over the years through changes in calculations using Feynman’s Sum over Histories approach is key to what I think is a closer definition of an experimental science: a discipline which yields predictions based on models which are improved over time as more and better data is collected. It sounds terrible and it probably is, but it’s my best attempt at midnight.

The next thing they moved on to talking about really upset me. The panel members took it upon themselves to contemplate the limitations of the utility of science to make predictions in context of a ‘real life’ situation. One even had the cheek to argue that since experiments are often conducted in situations very different from real life (at 3 Kelvin or 500 atm for example) the results is useless. Experiments are always performed under strictly controlled conditions which are recorded along with the results of the experiment. It’s true a single one of such experiments alone are useless: the result may be spurious, and context is different from real life. So that’s why scientists take repeats, and conduct the same experiment, changing only one condition at a time, to get results which can be extrapolated, effectively a model, which can be applied to real life situations. Experiments conducted in unrealistic conditions are far from useless. And I haven’t even mentioned ‘thought experiments’ and other more exotic practicals. A panellist later questioned the logic of science, and pointed out that it is based on experiment therefore isn’t logical. As I have already argued, science is about building better and better models of reality based on data, and doing so in a highly rigorous fashion; there is nothing illogical about taking data and formulating a theory from it.

The focus then shifted to God. Dawkins argues in his book, The God Delusion, that there is no evidence for God. One of the panellists rejected this argument on the grounds that if this is taken to be true there would be no conceivable evidence which would prove the existence of God. Clearly the panellist never finished Dawkin’s book as this is covered in exquisite detail which I refuse to reproduce here owing to time pressure, sleep deprivation and copyright issues.

A panellist then quoted (I think it was a quotation at least), ‘everything is not like things’ and made a point about it which I can’t remember. The audience then posed a question about ‘militant rationalists’ and the unconditional rejection of creationism. I’d actually say there is good enough reason for anyone to believe in creationism of some form or other, particularly the computer simulation version (covered in the New Scientist in enormous detail about five years ago when I was in prep school), so I agree with the panel on this one, that the education system should remain open-minded about ‘unconventional’ ideas.

A question was then raised about the place of uncertainty in religion and science. A panellist made a case (without much explanation come to think of it) for religion bringing people more into contact with reality than avoidance thereof and quickly changed the subject to science treating all objects as ‘things’ without reverence for significance, another thing I had issues with.

The question was raised about the separation of science and religion and the effect of that on each. According to a panellist, religion and blind faith is engrained in human nature therefore should not be ignored or marginalised. Agreed: it should be incorporated into social models of irrationality.

There was then some discussion about the famous ’spooky action at a distance’ quirk with quantum entanglement being incompatible with the panellists ideas of first principles of science and the possibility that Quantum Physics has raised more mystery than solution. I’d argue that it’s experimentally well demonstrated that photons and electrons and indeed other tiny particles can act as both waves and particles, and that the theoretical Schrodinger’s cats (WordPress is not on talking terms with umlauts) would both decide their ‘death status’ at the exact same time. However uncomfortable one might be with these results, they are unfortunately reality, and Physics cannot be blamed for discovering such inconvenient truths. The same panellist also rejected relativity for its warping of time. The prediction of time warping is not intuitive, but from all the evidence we have gathered, is true (to a greater extent). String theory was also heavily criticised, and I suspect the panellist would have liked to call it ‘fantasy’ but instead opted for a more long-winded description of his grievances. This was fortunately rebutted by Nancy Cartwright who argued that the logic and maths behind string theory satisfy criteria for ‘good theology’ (yes, the panellist who had grievances is a theologian), and hinted at the presence of some hypocrisy. The response to that rebuttal was something vague about the definition of ‘truth’ and a clearly desperate argument that the uncertainty in quantum mechanics leaves space for God.

Overall, Cartwright was the panellist I thought made the most sense. Her ideas were clearly put forward and were the most ’scientific’ in my opinion. Milbank can also be accredited with the most nonsensical arguments of the day, with his accusations of Science being illogical owing to its data coming from reality and rant about science being useless because experiments are often taken out of context. I’m sure he had great points made up in his mind, but linking lack of logic to basing theories on reality confirmed my scepticism of theologians’ logical abilities.

Vegetarianism

Following a recent talk organised by Sceptic Soc, a society I co-founded, here’s my take on it. I obviously can’t cover all the many aspects of the issue so here’s a response to what was mentioned in the talk and ensuing discussion.

The main argument put forward was the economic one – the whole argument about each kilogram of meat requiring countless gallons of water and stacks of food to grow, while millions are starving in Africa. It’s true that meat production is hugely inefficient, however I do wonder why vegetarians believe that by depriving themselves of all meat, the suffering they incur on themselves, their friends and family is worth less than the infinitesimal benefit to people in Africa. What’s wrong with depriving themselves of just a bit of meat? Let’s take a look at a diagram:

Assuming the law of diminishing returns is true: if vegetarians eat enough meat to make them OY happy (maximum possible) – let’s say eating that much meat is of maximum utility to the person. Africa consequently gets minimum food. But almost the same utility (OC) can be achieved by eating much less meat, giving Africa OD food – much more. So I can understand the logic behind limiting intake of meat. what I can’t understand is what happens when vegetarians eat O meat. Africa gets OX food, but all one needs to do is deprive Africa of a tiny amount of food to provide just a bit more meat to vegetarians. This might be just half a steak every weekend, but is nevertheless still some meat. The utility this gives to vegetarians is huge, since it is a very rare luxury for them. So by depriving Africa of BX food, the vegetarians get OA utility. One would have to be very concerned indeed for Africa to create such misery for oneself by not eating any meat when by just eating a tiny amount of meat and having a tiny effect on Africa, personal happiness is increased so greatly.

The argument that one should be prepared to kill one’s own meat is also flawed. As pointed out by Dr Zetie, killing meat is incredibly messy (disembowelling hares etc.) and doing something like killing a cow requires tools that most of us simply haven’t got, although a taser in combination with a large knife might work.

The religious argument was also put forward. I guess I’ll always have to differ with religious vegetarians as I just personally find religion as a list of rules to be obeyed blindly nonsensical. The apparently famous quotation ‘only fools argue whether to eat meat or not’ was used – I personally believe that it’s more intelligent and less foolish to debate about it before making a decision than just accept it and say ‘God said so’. The same religion on the other hand believes each animal has a soul and that each soul is part of God’s big soul and by killing any soul you’re damaging God and therefore yourself since your soul is also part of God. Maybe this makes perfect sense to some people, but I personally can’t see myself buying this idea.

Overall, I think it’s true that by reducing meat consumption the world can dramatically change the distribution of food and help countries which really need it. But vegetarianism, with its inconsistent treatment of fish (if anything fish is more in danger than other animals) and dubious religious links is just not for me. Besides, even on a serious note, meat is very, very tasty and nobody should be forced to live without ever having eaten meat.

Relativity Lectures at Cambridge

I’ve just returned from one of the most interesting and insightful lecture series I have ever attended. They were mostly on special relativity, and, of course, in Cambridge. Lectures took place at the McCrum Lecture Theatre (Corpus Christi College), where Stephen Hawking recently unveiled the famous ‘Grasshopper Clock’:

Unfortunately reflections in the daytime, lack of a tripod at night and lack of patience on my part made it a difficult subject to photograph. It was built by the genius Dr John Taylor, and is entirely mechanical. Instead of hands it has lights which move round, but instead of using an array of LEDs, it’s actually a disc with 61 slits behind another disc with 60 slits. The entire thing is backlit, and by rotating the back disc slightly, slits on the front face appear to light up in quick succession, going round the face (clockwise) – a mechanism which, while probably actually rather common, I personally think is a work of engineering genius. The grasshopper at the top opens and closes its mouth while doubling up as an escapement mechanism – hence its name, the chronophage. Apparently it strikes hours by dropping a chain into a coffin, maybe in a metaphorical and literal attempt to ‘wake the dead’.

Dr Taylor’s genius extends also to the making of kettles: instead of using a spring-loaded switch or bimetallic strip, which owing to the high currents involved would not be ample to protect the switch from damage from electrical arcing, he came up with the wonderful idea of using a bimetallic dome, which, owing to the huge amounts of stress that would have to build up before it flips inside out (breaking the circuit), does so very quickly, reducing arcing to a minimum. Apparently he has now made a billion kettles, hence is presumably stinking rich, and deservedly so!

The lectures themselves were (fortunately) highly mathematical in nature. We explored the Lorentz factor in many of its different uses (t = yt’; x=(1/y)x0 etc… [super- and subscripts are hard in WordPress]), covering even areas such as the relativistic Doppler shift, simultaneity and Lorentz transformations, testing my Summer-holiday-decayed and sleep-deprived mathematical skills to the limit. What I was really pleased about was that we were encouraged to examine the proofs and algebra with rigour, making sure we understood the fundamentals before just sticking numbers into equations. And I finally got my question about the twins-paradox-in-reverse ‘paradox’ resolved!

We also started with some estimation problems – plugging estimated numbers into formulae to guess things like fuel efficiency of jumbo jets, resulting in very good examples of ‘garbage in garbage out’ situations. Later there was also a lecture on spin (cross products of vectors which my school disgracefully leaves until after GCSE to teach; angular momentum, torque, etc; and spin on particles such as electrons).

And not only were the lectures interesting, but the people who attended were some of the most inspiring, interesting and genuinely intelligent people I have ever met. They were (of course) all strong in Physics, Maths and general Sciences, and the academic atmosphere made for some really interesting discussions over lunch – mainly the rants of a fellow antitheist who somehow managed to reference the Casimir effect, Quantum Physics, Quantum tunnelling, M Theory and the multiverse theory in a 15-minute time interval without apparently stopping for breath while still making sense.

All in all, I found it a very worthwhile experience, and certainly a welcome break from performing titrations at school.

Anonymous against Scientology

Everyone knows about Scientology, hailed by many as the most ridiculous ‘religion’ around, although I’d personally refer to it as a cult, and a very expensive one to join at that. The religion has been accused of murdering its members (Lisa McPherson being a notable example), stalking, following and harassing John Sweeney and ripping off those enticed into their elaborate hierarchical scam.

In response, Anonymous was founded, originally a unit of hactivists working off IRC channels, hence the name of their project: Project Chanology; a group of politically motivated hackers who take a lead role in disabling Scientology websites through DoS attacks with some historical success.

Originally I was pro-Anonymous all the way. I saw Scientology as the most nonsensical scam ever concocted and felt an irresistible moral urge to support Anonymous in any way I could. I printed posters, posted on forums and even participated in some IRC chats. However there came a point when I realised that actually Scientology is, in a rather subtle way, the foundation of a very important benefit to society and something which should be developed to fulfil its full potential. Here is my reasoning:

After many years of watching governments fail at scientific issues and reading articles about cases of extreme financial illiteracy and stupid decisions made by bankers, I have grown to appreciate a real need for a tax on stupidity. People who simply cannot work out that, on a £10K salary, whatever banks may tell them, buying a £500K house is just not a good idea are being given an unreasonable amount of sympathy by the imbeciles in our beloved government, and bankers who invent things like ARMs for subprime borrowers get bailed out by the very same government when the idea unsurprisingly fails spectacularly. At risk of sounding like the Daily Mail, I’d say that the cost of such stupidity is being covered by the government, and thus ultimately paid for by tax payers, many of whom are very intelligent people who, owing to this intelligence, are having a generally positive effect on the entire country.

To make an audacious sweeping generalisation, I’d also say joining the cult of Scientology is equivalent to a statement to the world about one’s IQ – or lack of it. To believe blindly in the most fantastical science fiction ever written surely reflects badly on one’s intelligence? I would argue that only the most stupid, misguided or spectacularly ignorant people in the world would believe in something like Scientology, and since they pay a premium for membership of this society, this sounds like exactly what I was suggesting the creation of in the previous paragraph.

Of course, as it stands at present, some changes need to be made. Anonymous suggested Scientology be stripped of its status as a tax-free religion, and quite rightly too. My view is that it should be turned into a company with shares – I’d definitely buy a large stake in it – or even be bought over by the government, a worthy investment which would constitute some government income: a stupidity tax. If this system is integrated it would be the end of high taxes and the beginning of a new era in which not being stupid actually reduces tax and in which, as a result of natural selection, the average intelligence of an entire country (or even world) will increase to a level of mental competence at which people can think for themselves and refuse to believe things blindly and moronically.

— DISCLAIMER —
The views expressed in this post are highly exaggerated for the sake of irony and sarcasm; in other words, don’t take this too seriously – I certainly didn’t, hence the ridiculous and probably fallacious nature of many of my arguments.

Religion: in pictures

I recently stumbled upon a website full of cartoons about faith, and I have linked some of my favourites here – these ones most accurately reflect my own attitude towards religion and faith (and related politics). The original website is here.
NB: the pictures are all copyrighted, as detailed on the site linked to above.

In no particular order: