Quads Hoedown

Mary and I went to the Stanford Quads Challenging Plus hoedown on September 23. There is a
photo album from the hoedown. Someone took this photo of Mary and me round dancing. Cool!

Happy anniversary to us

Monday was our seventh wedding anniversary. Mary and I celebrated by going to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Our favorite rides are the Giant Dipper (roller coaster) and the Space Race (bumper cars mounted on large inner tubes so they really bounce). We also went on the Haunted House ride, and we played a round of miniature golf, which Mary said she really hates, but only when it becomes competitive. So we didn't even keep score, which is probably just as well because she would have beat my pants off.

Then we went to Logos, my favorite Santa Cruz used bookstore. We didn't find any books, but I did buy a relaxing CD of Laurence Juber playing Beatles tunes, and another CD by Martin Simpson, which I haven't listened to yet.

We ended our day at the Crow's Nest, our favorite restaurant in Santa Cruz. They always do a fantastic job of accomodating our food allergies. And they have creme brûlée for dessert, which meant we had no room left to make our usual stop at Marianne's for ice cream on the way out of town.

Oh, well. I think Mary is going to sign us both up for Weight Watchers soon anyway ...

Stanford Scholars use x-rays to read hidden text in Archimedes manuscript

After more than 1,000 years in obscurity, the last unreadable pages of the works of mathematician Archimedes are being deciphered, thanks to the X-ray vision at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center.

Letter by letter, ancient Greek that was hidden for centuries by neglect, damage and abuse is being revealed by a powerful X-ray light emitted by the synchrotron at SLAC, then transmitted to computer screens for analysis by an international team of scholars.

The discovery is giving researchers the most complete record since the Middle Ages of the works of the legendary mathematician, who famously exclaimed "Eureka!" upon discovering how to measure volume while sitting in his bathtub.

Only faint outlines of Archimedes' words and diagrams can be seen by the unaided eye. First copied in 975 A.D. by a Christian monk onto goatskin parchment, the work has barely survived fire, water, acid, mold, wax, glue and even forgery.

But the synchrotron's X-ray is able to detect the iron in the ancient ink, causing it to fluoresce. In work guided by Stanford physicist Uwe Bergmann, the X-ray creates patterns of electronic signals, which are converted by computer into shades of gray, readily recognizable as Greek characters.

Preliminary interpretation of the text offers several new insights into the mind of Archimedes, who lived in the 3rd century B.C.

For instance, it suggests that he understood and set rules for infinity, previously considered a problem too difficult for ancient Greek mathematicians. It also contains a treatise on combinatorics, a field of problem-solving now used in computer science.

https://www.slac.stanford.edu/gen/com/slac_xrayimaging.html

God by the Numbers

Three numbers in particular suggest evidence for God's existence. They are 1/10¹⁰¹²³, 10¹⁶², and e^πi.

The fine-tuning of the four physical forces and the presence of one habitable planet are just two of the components that would go into a formula to predict the probability of a life-supporting universe. Oxford professor Roger Penrose discusses it in his book The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind. Penrose says the number is 1 in 10 to the 10 to the 123.

The second number that points to God comes from the field of biology. William Dembski, in The Creation Hypothesis, suggests the following argument. The odds against getting 1,000 beneficial mutations in the proper order is 2¹⁰⁰⁰. Expressed in decimal form, this number is about 10³⁰¹. 10³⁰¹ mutations is a number far beyond the capacity of the universe to generate. The chance of getting 1,000 beneficial mutations out of all the mutations the universe can generate is 10¹³⁹ divided by 10³⁰¹, or 1 chance in 10¹⁶².

A mathematics professor at MIT, an atheist, once wrote this formula on the blackboard, saying, "There is no God, but if there were, this formula would be proof of his existence."

e^πi + 1 = 0

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/003/26.44.html

What is an evangelical?

My good friend Bill M is helping contact pastors regarding the Harvest Crusade that will take place in San Jose later this year.

He said he is contacting pastors of "evangelical" churches. I asked him what is an "evangelical" church. We tossed it back and forth for a while, but we didn't really come to a firm decision. In the end, we decided that pastors of non-evangelical churches would probably "self-select out" of involvement in the Harvest Crusade. That is, pastors that choose to be involved are probably evangelical, and pastors that choose not to be involved are probably not evangelical.

It can be confusing. "Evangelical" is not the same as "fundamentalist" is not the same as "right-wing" is not the same as "moral majority" (or whatever they like to call themselves these days). And some churches that call themselves evangelical, like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, might have their evangelical credentials questioned others in the movement.

The term fundamentalist refers to churches who believe the Bible is totally without error. These include most Pentecostal and Baptist churches.

The term moral majority refers to churches who oppose abortion and homosexuality. It includes some non-evangelical Christian churches, for example Catholics, and some non-Christian groups, for example Mormons.

The term right-wing refers to churches who align themsevles with right-wing political ideals. This goes beyond "moral majority" politics because it includes support for defense and war, support for the death penalty, opposition to immigration, and other right-wing political ideals.

But the term evangelical does not allow such a simple definition. Some would try to say that any church that believes in the gospel is evangelical. But many non-evangelical churches, like Episcopal, Methodist, and Catholic, believe in the gospel. And they believe in preaching the gospel. And they would like to think of themselves as evangelical, even if they are excluded by other churches that
call themselves evangelical.

Historians David Bebbington, Mark Noll, and George Rawlyk have identified four characteristic marks of "evangelicalism":

1. a stress on conversion, 
2. a focus on Christ's redeeming work as the core of biblical Christianity, 
3. an acknowledgment of the Bible as the supreme authority, and 
4. an energetic and personal approach to social engagement and evangelism.

I'd say that overall this is a reasonable starting point for a definition. But it does seem to work by principle of exclusion. In other words, it defines evangelicalism by contrasting it to what it is not.

The focus on Christ's redeeming work excludes some groups that would like to call themselves Christian, such as Unitarians, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

The acknowledgement of the Bible as supreme authority is a device that goes back to the reformation of the 1500's, designed specifically to exclude Catholics.

The stress on conversion is the requirement that is most germane to the upcoming Harvest Crusade. Why would a group that doesn't believe in conversion support an outreach that attempts to convert people? It may surprise you that some Christian groups do not overtly believe in conversion. Many groups believe in catechism ... that is, if you teach the gospel to children and young adults, they will "grow into" a relationship with God, without the need for any conversion experience. Gerberding, in /The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church,/ (Lutheran Publication Society, 1887) says exactly this.  (The book is available online through Project Gutenberg.) In general, Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican/Episcopal churches do not believe in conversion. Reformed and Presbyterian churches claim to believe in conversion but many do not act like it ... and some extreme Calvinist churches say that "choosing Christ" is impossible because predestination requires that Christ choose you instead.

Personal social engagement and evangelism seems to exclude just about everyone. Most Christians believe in personal engagement but do not practice it. Most conservative Christians (those who believe in a personal relationship with Jesus) claim to believe in evangelism but few practice it. Most liberal Christians (those who believe in living like Jesus did) believe in social engagement but not evangelism. Only missionaries get even close to doing this.

But maybe that's the point. It's not enough to just have a personal relationship with Jesus, one must also "be Jesus" to the world without. And it's not enough to want to live according to the ethical ideals of Jesus, one must also have the personal relationship with Jesus that makes that kind of lifestyle possible.

(The Christianity Today article is about Richard Baxter;  it is worthwhile in and of itself, and it describes these four characteristics of evangelicalism as they were displayed in Baxter's life.)

Gene variants make women see red

Women see one color differently than do men: red. She sees crimson, burgundy, and tomato. He sees red. Just plain ol' red. Why? It turns out there's a perfectly good reason why men can't see what is so obvious to women: the many variations--some subtle, some bold--of the color red. Reuters reports that researchers from Arizona State University in Tempe have determined there is a gene that allows us to see the color red, and that gene comes in a high number of variations. Because the gene sits on the X chromosome--and women have two X chromosomes and so two copies of this gene, compared with only one for men--the gene aids women's ability to perceive the red-orange color spectrum. The study findings were reported in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

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A new gene study may help explain why she sees crimson, vermillion and tomato, but it's all just red to him.

In an analysis of the DNA of 236 men from around the globe, researchers found that the gene that allows people to see the color red comes in an unusually high number of variations. And that may be a boon to women's color perception in particular, study co-author Dr. Brian C. Verrelli told Reuters Health.

That's because the gene, known as OPN1LW, sits on the X sex chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes, one from each parent, while men have one X and one Y chromosome. Because women have two different copies of the "red" gene, the fact that the gene can have so many variations means it may especially aid women's perception of the red-orange spectrum.

Past research into color-vision genes has focused largely on variations related to color blindness. The red gene routinely swaps bits of genetic material with its neighbor on the X chromosome, the "green" gene. Sometimes this exchange goes wrong and results in a defect that causes color blindness.
An estimated eight percent of men are color-blind, while few women have the condition because the odds are they will have at least one good copy of the red and green genes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3929071.stm