The unemployment rate for electrical engineers is up to 7%, compared to 5.8% for everyone else in the USA. This is the first time I can remember that EE unemployment was higher than the average. In part, thank the California Democrats who brought us so many H-1B workers.

I am glad to see that Google has finally upgraded Blogger. This is my first post under the new software. Just testing.

High functioning autism

The NY Times has an article about adults who suddenly discover that they are mentally retarded. Often it happens after they have a child diagnosed with autism. Then they watch the movie Rain Man and think that they must have some hidden genius-level talents.

It goes on to say that some marriages have been improved by wives gaining an understanding of how their husbands are mentally defective. Here is an example:

"She'll say something about how terrible her clothes look," Mr. Jorgensen explains. "I'll say, `Yes, honey, those are terrible-looking clothes,' when really she's wanting some affirmation that her clothes don't look terrible."

This is really wacky. It is the wife who is confused about whether she wants an opinion or a compliment, and who lacks basic communication skills. Diagnosing autism in kids is a big fad, and now it seems to be spreading to adults. The movie Rain Man did not help, as it was a truly terrible movie.

Conventional wisdom says that Kerry's war record is a big plus for him. After all, he is a war hero, credited with 20 or 30 kills personally. But after watching him on ABC Good Morning America, I think that he is very weak on the issue. He is still lying about throwing his medals away. And worse, we still don't know where he stands -- is he proud of those medals, or is he ashamed of them?

I am having trouble with my other blog site. For now, you can access it here.

Google Blogger now has new features, for free. I have been posting elsewhere, but I plan to try out the new features.

Because of BlogSpot bugs, I am moving my blog to http://schlafly.net/blog/.

You get spam for the the Nigerian advance fee scheme? I get so much that I am inclined to block any email that has anything to do with Africa. According to this story, the spammers have cheated people out of $85M.

With all the talk about how terrible it is that innocent people may have been scheduled to be executed, remember this: There is no example in modern USA history of an innocent man being executed. Sure, it could happen. When it does, the anti-death-penalty will raise that example in every debate. But so far, it hasn't happened.

Blogger has been buggy lately. If this page has had problems for you, it is because of software and servers outside my control. I am currently investigating switching to other blogging systems, but all the ones I've looked at so far have other problems.

Meanwhile, I am having to replace my Microsoft mouse. Maybe I've had bad luck, but I've had problems with every Microsoft mouse I've ever used. I've never had trouble with mice made by Logitech and others.

The San Jose Mercury News showed a graph of the state budget on the front page today. It explains the California budget crisis better than anything. (I'd give the link, but the paper has a terrible web site.)

The graph shows Calif. revenues and expenses at about $60B in 1996, and growing rapidly. Then in 1999, at the peak of the dot-com boom, the state got a huge windfall in revenues. Immediately afterwards, state expenses accelerated upward sharply. Then in 2000, the dot-coms collapsed, and revenues leveled off. But expenses continued to skyrocket for a couple of years, reaching $105B. Now the state has a huge deficit.

Now the governor is announcing budget cuts and tax increases. It is obvious that he has been extravagantly overspending for 2 years, and postponing the pain until after all the guilty parties could be re-elected in Nov. 2002.

Too bad the Republican challenger Bill Simon wasn't smart enough to expose what Gray Davis was doing. That chart should have been on his campaign materials, as it shows how completely irresponsible Gray Davis has been.

Because we have had deficits for a couple of years, the debt is now about $35B, as I understand it. And this does not even include the billions of dollars that Gray Davis has wasted in his re-regulation of the electric utilities.

The Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show had more gadgets bridging the gap between TV and computers. But I still don't see much that would be useful to me.

I'd like a small box for about $300 with:

• audio-video inputs
  
• audio-video outputs
  
• hardware MPEG 1,2,4 encoder and decoder
  
• 100Gb hard disk
  
• firewire or USB2 access to hard disk
  
• maybe a remote control for easier playback
  

This is similar to a Tivo or ReplayTV box, except that I really don't need the program guide, monthly service contract, tuner, set-top box controller, etc. I would like to easily plug the box into my PC to view a program on my PC, or to write a video recording to a CD-R or other medium, or transmit it on the internet.

I can get all of the above in a PC or Mac with a TV tuner card, but that is also overkill. I just want a simple appliance for recording digital video in a convenient and uncrippled manner.

Andy sends this:

Here is my final exam for my Critical Thinking in Science course. I've taught 21 homeschooled students in this course, and most will ace this exam. I doubt top college students could score even a 70% on it.

CRITICAL THINKING: SCIENCE FINAL EXAM
Test conditions: You can use any written or electronic resources. Assistance by other persons is only allowed to clarify meaning.

Multiple Choice (2.4 points each, for a total of 60/100 points):

1. The oldest discovered writing is:
(a) about 5,500 years old.
(b) about 10,000 years old.
(c) about 50,000 years old.
(d) about 1 million years old.

2. What do the Piltdown Man and the Haeckel embryo drawings have in common?
(a) They were innocent mistakes by evolutionists, who corrected them quickly.
(b) They reflected the advance of science by evolutionists honestly searching for the truth.
(c) They won Nobel Prizes.
(d) They were frauds that evolutionists refused to removed from textbooks for many decades.

3. Who declared, "These lower races … are psychologically nearer to the mammals (apes or dogs) than to civilized Europeans; we must, therefore, assign a totally different value to their lives."
(a) Attila the Hun, a brutal warrior, in 450.
(b) Ernst Haeckel, the German Darwinist recently featured in many American textbooks, in 1904.
(c) George Washington, the first American President, in 1795.
(d) Napolean, the French emperor, in 1810.

4. The Toutle River canyon of Mt. St. Helen's, similar to the Grand Canyon on a smaller scale, was formed by a flood:
(a) in a single day in 1982.
(b) over a three-month period in 1982.
(c) over a three-year period from 1979 to 1982.
(d) over a 10,000-year period so that erosion had time to occur.

5. "Survival of the fittest" is flawed because:
(a) Everyone survives.
(b) It is circular because the "fittest" are defined as those that survive.
(c) It contradicts itself.
(d) It appeals to emotion.

6. The eminent evolutionist Dr. Colin Patterson did not include any transitional forms in his 1978 book Evolution because he admitted that:
(a) there were too many to choose from.
(b) transitional forms, which Darwin said were essential to his theory, have never been found.
(c) pictures of transitional forms are difficult to reproduce
(d) everyone knows that transitional forms must exist so there was no reason to include them.

7. A "materialist" insists that magnetism guides migration, even for butterflies, because:
(a) magnetic detectors have been discovered in the brain of a butterfly.
(b) magnetism guides human movement also.
(c) science has disproved all other possible causes, including design.
(d) materialists reject intelligent design and believe only in material-based causes.

8. The countries having the highest and lowest levels of belief in evolution are:
(a) Most (evolution belief): former Communist East Germany. Least: United States.
(b) Most: Poland. Least: England.
(c) Most: United States. Least: France.
(d) Most: Mexico. Least: Canada.

9. The evolutionary claim that simpler species transformed by themselves into more complex and more ordered species is contrary to the following scientific facts:
(a) mutations are harmful, not beneficial.
(b) The Second Law of Thermodynamics holds that disorder increases over time.
(c) the world is sparsely populated, making it practically impossible for mutated species to find and mate with each other.
(d) all of the above.

10. "Critical thinking" requires:
(a) questioning experts.
(b) skepticism of claims motivated by personal gain.
(c) demanding public access to data behind research claims.
(d) all of the above.

11. Which of the following scientists rejected evolution and accepted Biblical creation?
(a) Lord Kelvin, the great physicist and designer of the first successful transatlantic cable.
(b) Louise Pasteur, ranked as the greatest chemist and microbiologist.
(c) James Maxwell, ranked with Isaac Newton among the greatest physicists.
(d) All of the above.

12. Six leading scientists in England, including the eminent physicist Sir Fred Hoyle, studied the Archaeopteryx fossil and concluded that:
(a) it is a transitional form.
(b) it is a fake.
(c) it is not a transitional form, but represents an authentic species.
(d) none of the above.

13. Limestone is formed from sea life. Its existence at all elevations and all parts of the world demonstrate that:
(a) every part of the world has been completely flooded.
(b) only some parts of the world were flooded and they must have moved to other parts of the world.
(c) only some parts of the world were flooded and the limestone must have spontaneously generated in other parts.
(d) we do not know, but the world could not have been flooded because evolution must be true.

14. The theory of relativity represents:
(a) an ongoing effort to tailor a theory to fit emerging data.
(b) a slight modification of Newton's theory of physics.
(c) application of the insights of astrology to physics.
(d) a mathematical system based entirely on two assumptions of unproven validity.

15. Testability and falsifiability are essential elements of what qualifies as scientific. The following satisfy the requirement of falsifiability and thus can be considered scientific:
(a) the claim that life exists in outer space.
(b) the claim that black holes exist in outer space.
(c) the claim that a species once evolved from a simpler ancestor.
(d) none of the above.

16. In the famous double-slit lamp experiment, photons are propelled towards two slits before landing on a screen on the other side. The position of the observer:
(a) cannot affect the result because science does not care if someone is watching.
(b) cannot affect the result because photons lack intelligence.
(c) does affect the result depending on whether the observer detects which slit each photon passes through.
(d) none of the above.

17. Materialists reject which of the following in physics:
(a) action-at-a-distance, utilized by quantum mechanics and Newton's theory of gravity.
(b) gravitons, which are undiscovered agents of gravity in the theory of general relativity.
(c) black holes, predicted by the theory of general relativity.
(d) the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

18. Most current scientific dating techniques, including the popular Carbon-14 test, estimate the age of material by measuring the amount of a key element in it. The accuracy of these techniques is based on three basic assumptions that:
(a) we somehow know the initial level of the key element in the material.
(b) there has been no contamination affecting that level over time.
(c) rates of decay of the key element have been forever constant.
(d) all of the above.

19. The following argument is flawed for the reason given:
(a) "It rained after the rain dance, and therefore rain dances cause rain." Flaw: circular?
(b) "You must believe this. Everyone does." Flaw: non-sequitur?
(c) "You must believe this. The newspaper said so." Flaw: over-reliance on authority?
(d) "I need to do my homework. So give me a candy bar." Flaw: begging the question?

20. The Nash Equilibrium in the Prisoners' Dilemma is:
(a) neither prisoner confessing.
(b) only one prisoner confessing.
(c) both confessing.
(d) there is no Nash Equilibrium in this situation.

21. A card with both sides black is put in a hat with a card with one side white and one side black. One of these cards is pulled at random from the hat. Its front side is black. The chance that its backside is also black is:
(a) 1/3
(b) 1/2
(c) 2/3
(d) 1

22. In connection with the famous Scopes Trial in Tennessee in 1925,
(a) evolutionists proved their theory and won the case.
(b) Hollywood truthfully recounted what happened.
(c) John Scopes was imprisoned for teaching evolution.
(d) evolutionists lost the case, Tennessee remains relatively free of evolution indoctrination, and Gore's home state elected Bush as President.

23. Evolutionists redefined "evolution", which previously meant an evolving process, to mean:
(a) a specific process by which disorder can convert to order.
(b) a specific process by which simplicity can convert to complexity.
(c) "change over time," which occurs without any evolving process, such as Creation.
(d) "change over time," which adds greater clarity to Darwin's definition of "evolution".

24. The claim that the world is the product of pure chance is:
(a) something that is a realistic possibility.
(b) disproved by the world's overwhelming beauty, because beauty cannot result from pure chance.
(c) something that cannot be rejected by reason.
(d) none of the above.

25. Charles Darwin claimed that every living species, including whales, evolved. He asserted that the ancestor of whales was:
(a) sharks.
(b) dolphins.
(c) black bears swimming in the sea with their mouths open.
(d) none of the above.

Essay Questions (10 points each, for a total of 40/100 points):

Write about 50 words each in response to the questions below:

A. Common claims by evolutionists are: (i) everyone believes in evolution; (ii) science magazines, museums and professors accept evolution; (iii) the enormous commonality and diversity in life demonstrate evolution; (iv) over billions of years, it must have happened; (v) no one has ever disproved evolution; and (vi) evolution, defined as "change over time," is a fact. Explain the flaws in each statement.

B. Pick two or three specific political issues and describe how belief in evolution can influence viewpoints on those issues.

C. Do you think the world is more like a work of art or more like a working machine? Describe artistic aspects of the world that you particularly like, and how they contradict evolution.

D. In the 1970s, scientists predicted that oil would run out in a few decades. Were they right? Explain. Are scientists typically held accountable for false claims or predictions? Provide and explain possible motivations for scientists to predict falsely that oil would run out soon.

Extra Credit (5 points each, for a maximum total of 15 extra points):

E. Assume that (i) there are three gas stations at a major intersection with each attracting 1/3 of the customers; (ii) each currently sells gas at $1.40 per gallon; and (iii) the lowest profitable sales price for them would be $1.36 per gallon. One gas station owner went on vacation for a month. How do you think the other two owners will adjust their price for that month? Explain their options and how they will decide to maximize profits.

F. List and discuss several examples of how the world seems to have been created in a way that only humans (and God) appreciate. Does this indicate design or pure chance?

G. What is the harm in promoting or teaching false scientific claims? Are people hurt by it? Does it prevent or delay real advances in science? Explain your answers with examples, if possible.

This Daniel Patrick Moynihan article says:

President Truman was never told of the Venona decryptions. It gives one pause to think now that all Truman ever "learned" about Communist espionage came from the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee, the speeches of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, and the like.

This is amazing to me. It is scandalous enough that the American public was never told about the Venona decryptions. The Russians were apparently tipped off in 1948, and by 1950 the NSA uncovered the spy who told the Russians. After 1948, no more of the Russian communications were decrypted by the US. So why the secrecy, if the Russians knew and nothing more was being decrypted? And why wasn't this important enough to tell the President of the USA?

Berkeley mayor Tom Bates has pled guilty to stealing and trashing 1000 copies of the Berkeley daily paper. He did it right before the election because it endorsed his opponent. I think that Berkeley was outraged because he just threw the papers in the trash, instead of recycling them.

The World Church of the Creator is in the news, for its kooky racist views and for an accusation of soliciting murder. This detail caught my attention -- a judge has ordered the church to give up its web site because some other church called Church of the Creator claims a trademark!

Andy still advocates his non-materialism.

Re: materialism, Joe wrote, "Why believe in any scientific experiment? After all, they all are materialistic."

They aren't. Most of the truly great scientific advances have been from rejecting materialism, not insisting on it.

Newton's action-at-a-distance in describing gravity required rejecting materialism, to the dismay of many then and now. Yet to this day no one has demonstrated a materialist explanation, not even under general relativity.

Adam Smith's invisible hand and Ronald Coase's theorem reach far beyond materialism for their insights.

QM, and its prodigious fruit (computers, lasers, amplifiers, etc.) are built on a rejection of materialism. The double-slit lamp experiment, voted by physicists as the greatest of all time, disproves pure materialism. In response, materialists simply ignore it rather than search for further insights that it may yield.

Joe wrote, "At what point does Andy just say 'Sorry, we have in this particular case something that is obviously unexplainable by the scientific method, so let's go on to another question, because we have a stone wall here that we can in principle never get through?' Sounds like migration of birds may well be one of these mystery areas."

No, I don't agree. Migration should and will be understood far better than it is now, but only by looking beyond materialistic approaches like magnetism. I'm sure glad Newton wasn't a materialist and was able to accept action-at-a-distance. Aren't you?

Re: the lobster/magnetism grad project, I wrote, "the grad student should test lobster movement under a 100 or so different magnetic fields, and see if there is any correlation."

Roger replied, "I bet he did do it 100 times."

I doubt it. I'm happy to review the data, but I bet they're never released for scrutiny. The grad student says nothing about testing lobster movement under 100 different magnetic fields. He talks about only two or so different magnetic fields.

Re: GR, Roger wrote, "No doubt he is assuming that part of GR is true. You think that gravity goes faster than light?"

If he assumes GR is true, then he has circularity in his logic and his conclusion is not meaningful. As to my own view, I think 100 years of searching for gravitons without success means they likely do not exist.

Meanwhile, observed data contradicting GR are unpursued. See, e.g., this 1998 story in the Economist documenting data conflicting with GR, apparently without any follow-up by scientists: "A tiny error in the paths of two spacecraft may require the rewriting of some of the laws of physics" (I can circulate full article if interested.)

I can't figure out what Andy means by materialism. If he means the use of physical experiments, then all scientific advances have accepted materialism. If by materialism, he is referring to the distinction between matter and fields, and you think that fields are more fundamental than matter,
then I guess I agree and so would most physicists.

The technology for isolating gravitons does not exist.

What does he mean by "observed data contradicting GR are unpursued"? You can goto to any theoretical physics conference or journal, and find lots of people who think that GR needs to be modified in some way. They would love to find some data that shows GR wrong in some way. No one has found any yet.

Andy responds:

Roger wrote, "What do you mean by materialism?"

It is well-defined. It is the doctrine that all phenomena can be explained by matter. Accordingly, materialists reject action-at-a-distance and ignore the double-slit experiment. Materialists insist that magnetism must explain migration, and that gravitons must exist. They believe that evolution must have occurred.

Roger replied, "What do you mean by that [observed data contradicting GR are unpursued]? You can goto to any theoretical physics conference or journal, and find lots of people who think that GR needs to be modified in some way. They would love to find some data that shows GR wrong in some way. No one has found any yet."

There's plenty of data contradicting GR, starting with the article I forwarded last time. The problem is not lack of conflicting data, but an inability to "modify" GR in a sensible way. Unlike Newtonian mechanics, GR is a mathematical system based on two assumptions incapable of easy modification. If you have seen ideas about how to modify the two assumptions underlying GR, I'd love to hear them.

I don't follow. A magnetic field is not considered matter. So explaining migration by means of magnetism is not explaining it with matter.

My recollection is that in Wheeler's big fat GR textbook, maybe a quarter of the book was devoted to various modification of GR that have been proposed.

Actually, there is some data contradicting GR. In the last couple of years, astronomers have become convinced that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. This is contrary to GR, and people think that it must be explained by some modification of GR.

This story explains how the NY Regents exam promised to stop censoring famous literary passages, but they're still doing it. Apparently real literature just isn't sufficiently politically correct.

I just watched a PBS show on the Venona project. It was a repeat from last year.

At the end, it is very careful to say that Venona does not vindicate Sen. McCarthy. It says: "Ironically, there is no evidence that Senator Joseph McCarthy, who smeared hundreds of innocent people as Soviet spies, ever heard of the Venona project. ... As far as we can tell, of all the people that McCarthy named as possible Soviet agents, only a tiny, tiny handful, perhaps two or three, are revealed in Venona."

I thought that the complaint against McCarthy was that he refused to reveal his list of suspects. Did he really accuse 100s of innocent people of being Soviet spies?

Here is someone who thinks that Venona vindicates McCarthy.

Gumma responds:

McCarthy never smeared even ONE innocent person as a Soviet spy or Communist. Not one! If you think there was one, name him!!

When he talked about lots of Communists, he was talking about State Dept lists to which he did not have access to the individual names. No one was smeared by this. There is plenty of proof that there were lots of Commies in the State Department.

He named lots of people who were real spies, such as the one in the Gubmet printing office who had accesss to printing our code books.

It is a total non sequitur to say that because McCarthy didn't know about Venona (nobody did!) or that the people he named were not also mentioned in Venona, that proves some defect in McCarthy.

A reader writes that he has personal knowledge of McCarthy falsely calling someone a communist on the floor of the Senate. I guess this will take some more research.

A couple of mathematicians, Benoit B. Mandelbrot and James A. Yorke, just won the Japan Prize. The prize seems to be mainly for popularizing the terms fractal and chaos. It seems like an odd choice. There are hundreds of mathematicians with more substantial contributions.