Why is pi irrational?

October 10, 2016 • 1:27 pm

π, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, is an irrational number, which means it can’t be written as a fraction a/b, where a and b are integers. That means that, unlike decimals like 1/4, or 0.25, or repeating decimals, like 1/3 or 0.33333333, it neither terminates nor repeats. It goes on forever without repeating itself: 3.1415926. . . . ad infinitum.

Now you can prove that pi must be irrational; Wikipedia gives six explanations, and I’ll put one video proof below.  All of these proofs depend not on the geometry of a circle, but on the fact that pi appears in certain trigonometric relationships.

What I think is weird is not pi’s irrationality itself, but simply the fact that a ratio that so important for geometry turns out to be an irrational number. Why couldn’t it be THREE? As Jason Rosenhouse pointed out a long time ago, the Bible implies that it is three, showing that God was ignorant. And you may be aware that at the end of the 19th century, the Indiana state legislature considered (but rejected) a bill including an assertion that the value of pi was 3.2.

The answer whyπ is irrational is, I suspect, simply “that’s the way it is.” But if there’s some proof out there that the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, based on the geometry alone, must be irrational, I’d like to know about it.

And I’m a bit surprised that nobody uses the irrationality of π as an inexplicable fact about mathematics that implies the existence of God.  And then the astute theomathematician could bring up the square root of two. . .

Regressive Monday. 1. University tells students what phrases they can and cannot use

October 10, 2016 • 11:00 am

James Madison University (JMU) is in Harrisonburg, Virginia, not far from Washington, D.C. It  is, I believe, the intellectual home of Jason Rosenhouse, author of the estimable EvolutionBlog, and I wonder what he thinks about this report from Law Newz.  What’s happened at JMU is that “student leaders who participated in freshman orientation” (presumably those responsible for such orientation) were given a 7-page guide of “dumb things to say”: phrases that are awkward, unwise, or could be construed as bigoted or as microaggressions.

The guide, called “35 dumb things well-intentioned people say: Surprising things we say that widen the diversity gap by Dr. Maura Cullen”, is online here, and of course was first revealed by a right-wing site, The College Fix. (When will Leftist papers start taking notice of the Speech and Behavior Police proliferating in American and UK universities?) The Fix reports this:

The list was apparently derived from Dr. Maura Cullen’s book 35 Dumb Things Well-Intended People Say: Surprising Things We Say that Widen the Diversity Gap.

The existence of the handout was first revealed by The College Fix.  James Madison University spokesman Bill Wyatt told the online news outlet “this was just an exercise, prior to orientation, to get our volunteers to understand how language affects others. The list was not distributed to our first-year students nor were the volunteers instructed not to use the phrases.”

However, some of the JMU orientation handout materials obtained by the website appear to contradict some of Wyatt’s claims.  A document titled “Building an Inclusive Environment” that was included with the list of phrases handout pointedly reminds orientation leaders that they have a duty to “create a safe an inclusive environment for your first year students” and instructs them to use the list of phrases “as a resource to help accomplish this goal.”  The document also instructs orientation leaders to “take some time to reflect on your prejudices and biases, and how that might affect your interactions with students.”

And here’s the list of phrases to be avoided:

1. “Some of my best friends are …”
2. “I know exactly how you feel.”
3. “I don’t think of you as …”
4. “The same thing happens to me too.”
5. “It was only a joke! Don’t take things so seriously.”
6. What do ‘your’ people think.”
7. “What are you?” or “Where are you really from?”
8. “I don’t see color” or “I’m color blind.”
9. “You are so articulate.”
10. “It is so much better than it used to be. Just be patient.”
11. “You speak the language very well.”
12. Asking black people about their hair or hygiene.
13. Saying to LBGTQ people “what you do in the privacy of your own bedroom is your business.”
14. “Yes, but you are a ‘good’ one.”
15. “You have such a pretty face.”
16. “I never owned slaves.”
17. “If you are going to live in this country, learn to speak the language!”
18. “She/he is a good person. She/he didn’t mean anything by it.”
19. “When I’ve said the same thing to other people like you, they don’t mind.”
20. Calling women “girls, honey, sweetie pie” or other familiar terms.
21. When people of color say, “It is not the same thing.”
22. When people of faith say, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”
23. When white men say, “We are the ones being discriminated against now!”
24. Referring to older people as “cute.”
25. Asking a transgender person, “What are you really? A man or a woman?”
26. Referring to the significant other, partner, or spouse of a same gender couple as their “friend.”
27. “Why do ‘they’ (fill in the blank) always have to sit together? They are always sticking together.”
28. “People just need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps.”
29. People with disabilities are “courageous.”
30. “That’s so gay/queer. That’s so retarded.”
31. “I don’t see difference. We are all part of the same race, the human race.”
32. I don’t care if you are pink, purple or orange, I treat all people the same.”
33. Asking a transgender person, “Have you had the operation.”
34. Saying to a Jewish person, “You are so lucky to have ‘your’ Christmas spread over a week!”
35. “Here’s another book on political correctness.”

Now I agree that nearly all of these phrases are not ideal things to say, and many are downright offensive. The student guidesheet explains why. I’ve chosen four that I think are less offensive than others:

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The ones that bother me most are the ones that find offensiveness in statements like “I don’t see color” or “we’re all the same.” To me, that was once the ideal of an egalitarian society, and so it was to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who wanted people judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I suspect that Dr. King would have approved of being able to overlook someone’s ethnicity or race and treat everyone as equals.

Things are different now. It’s considered offensive to say that you don’t see color. Why? Because, with identity politics, color is considered part of a “life experience” that cannot and should not be dismissed.  But what are you supposed to say if you’re really color-blind in this way? “Yes, I see your color and I am a bad person for being a racist and discriminating on that basis?” The “dumb” statements almost force one to recriminate oneself for bigotry.

My main objection, though, is this: colleges should not be in the business of telling students what or what not to say in the interests of amity. Is it really “free speech” for a college to pass out handouts like this, and police language in a university?  I don’t think so.  It’s the College of Life that will teach students what things foster good social interaction and what things don’t. Here James Madison University is not just acting in loco parentis, but in loco societas (pardon my Latin).

If free speech is truly to be valued in a university, they should not issue guidelines about what or what not to say. After all, where are JMU’s instructions about not calling Jews “kikes” or Mexicans “beaners”? Shouldn’t the students know that, too? Of course they should, but they learn it from interacting with others, not as a diktat handed from above.

And if you think this is a good idea, go read about what happened a year ago when Harvard University tried to foist “social justice placemats”, showing Officially Approved Words and Behaviors, on its students. Here’s what they looked like:

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CoyneFest this Friday and Saturday

October 10, 2016 • 9:45 am

Final announcement: a symposium on speciation featuring some accomplished evolutionists, will be held this Friday and Saturday morning at the University of Chicago in honor of my termination of doing science. I’ve given the schedule before (go here), but here’s the poster, which I like a lot.

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Everyone’s welcome, and it’s free. There are places to buy lunch, and there will be coffee and goodies during the breaks.

 

Two creationists and an anti-“scientism” advocate write in

October 10, 2016 • 9:00 am

This is just a small selection of some recent comments that didn’t make it below the fold, but are being displayed in prime time here. I can either ban the writers (creationists and science-dissers usually get automatic bans), or can moderate them and let you do battle. Remember, though, that the chances they’ll change their minds is exactly ZERO, and I don’t really like the “chew toy” approach to comments.

All comment are reproduced exactly as submitted.

First, we have a comment from reader “Bill” In reply to jaxkayaker on the post “Evolution denialism by Pence“. I put this one first because the comment about bacteria, bananas, and horses is hilarious (my emphasis):

when you say evolution is true what are talking about? You mean all of what some scientists claim is true without a doubt? Yes, bacteria mutates but it is still bacteria. It is not a horse or a banana. You don’t see it changing all you can do is assume or guess but certainly you cannot fault somebody for questioning it or doubting it. I do understand that the fossils we have show from primitive to more recent depending on how far you dig but I do not see how that proves or even implies common ancestry. So some evolution that we observe is obviously true but going back from the beginning of life is a stretch.

Here we have the usual “we have microevolution but not macroevolution”. The response to that, or to the Ray Comfort claim that we need to see macroevolution happening in real time, is that such a claim is fatuous. First, we do see macroevolution in the fossil record and “Bill” admits it (“I do understand that the fossils we have show from primitive to more recent depending on how far you dig”). This is the slam-dunk refutation of the “microevolution happens but not macroevolution” claim. As for seeing a bacteria evolve into a banana in real time, well, that’s just idiotic.

The claim that we can see change from primitive to more recent forms in the fossil record is true: we have such progressions showing early mammal-like reptiles evolving into reptiles, theropod reptiles evolving into birds, and land-dwelling artiodactyls evolving into whales. (There are many more, as you can see in WEIT.) What Bill doesn’t realize is that this progression does gives evidence for common ancestry, for the earlier versions of these transitional forms resemble more strongly the proposed common ancestor. Early feathered dinosaurs evolved into more-feathered, flying dinosaurs (aka birds), and that gives evidence that modern reptiles and birds share a common ancestry. Early hominins are more like arboreal, small-brained primate ancestors than are later hominins. It’s not rocket science to see that the nature of transitional forms over time gives evidence for common ancestry, but I guess Bill isn’t close to being a rocket scientist.

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Reader “John” tried to leave this comment on my post “Reflections on the tenth anniversary of The God Delusion“:

Why do you try so hard to disprove God with this far fetched lunacy. We can not have evolved the odds of winning the lottery every week for you life time are more likely.
If you really were as well educated as some of you think you are, you would question the lodgic of this theory.
You are too amazing to have evolved.
Come up with something better.

“You are too amazing to have evolved” would make a nice creationist tee shirt. I can’t resist adding that although this comment needs no refutation, were the reader educated, he or she would be able to write and spell properly.

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Reader “Blackstone” tried to leave this comment on my post “Second most popular TED talk of all time, on power posing, disavowed by senior author“:

Enlightenment methodology applied to human psychology, society and spirituality is farcical and worse than useless — it is a weapon of mass destruction.

The universe revealed by science is a bleak wasteland of atoms in a void that offers humanity no hope, no meaning and no guidance. Scientism applied to human beings is leading to mass depression, drug addiction, obesity, techno-idolatry and other symptoms of the massive spiritual void created by the Enlightenment cult. This cult has terrorized mankind long enough; it’s time to reign [sic] them in and end their reign of terror!

Indeed, “Blackstone” is right in one way: the universe itself, as revealed by science, offers humanity no hope, meaning, or guidance—for that kind of guidance can come only from humans themselves, not from the laws of physics. (I’d add, though, that the Universe offers meaning by revealing the working of physical law and its consistency over time and space.) As for scientism causing mass depression, drug addiction, obesity (really??), techno-idolatry and other horrors of secularism, well, that’s just wrong. Scientism is a canard anyway, as even secular countries like Denmark and Sweden aren’t grossly dysfunctional.

But let’s check one claim: that atheistic countries (I take “scientism” as being correlated with “atheism”) tend to be countries with more obese inhabitants. Here are maps from a 2014 survey by the World Health Organization showing the degree of obesity in different countries (first men and then women. The lighter yellow countries are those with few obese people, and obesity increases as one goes from yellow to orange to red:

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Not much data here to show a correlation between scientism and obesity, except insofar as sub-Saharan countries are religious, as we know, and also less obese. But that’s because they don’t have enough food! And look at atheistic China—inhabitants skinny as rails. In contrast, look at the U.S.—the most religious of First World countries—compared to Northern Europe—far more atheistic. Except for the UK (too many chips and beer!), the U.S. and Canada (too much poutine!) are fatter than the inhabitants of nearly every European country! Mexicans, religious as they are, should surely be skinnier than Americans and Canadians, but the women aren’t. And the biggest exception is the Middle East and North Africa. especially for women: deeply religious Muslims and yet still prone to obesity. I had no idea that Saudi, Iraqui, Egyptian, Tunisian, Algerian, Iranian, and Turkish women were that overweight. Remember, too, that women tend to be more religious than men in the same country, and so should be skinnier.

Now I haven’t plotted a correlation between obesity and unbelief among countries, but if one exists, and I doubt it, then it would surely be mediated through poverty: poor countries tend to be more religious, and poor countries tend to have fewer obese people. It’s not the secularism that causes obesity, it’s the higher well-being, which, by and large, is correlated with nonbelief.  The U.S. would be a glaring exception to the “secularism causes obesity rule”, for we’re religious and overweight.

But let’s leave aside the stupid claims about the perfidies of scientism. The US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Russia, and the Middle East need to slim down. 25% of the population being obese is surely a serious public health problem; but it’s one that “scientism” can help solve!

Readers’ wildlife photographs

October 10, 2016 • 7:30 am

Jeffrey Lewis sent us some photos from Bonaire, and there will be more. The subjects are diverse! His notes are indented.

Perhaps hese aren’t up to the normal quality of your Reader’s Wildlife photos, but perhaps the subject matter will make them worthwhile since underwater photos seem to be rare in the series.  These were all taken on a family vacation to Bonaire, an island in the Caribbean just off the coast of Venezuela.  It’s a special municipality of the Netherlands – almost but not quite a normal municipality.  It’s a rather small island, only 114 square miles, with a population of around 17,500.  Its main claim to fame is in being one of the premier locations for shore diving, with many reefs close enough to shore that they’re easy enough to swim to without having to use a boat.  In addition to all the open water scuba diving & snorkeling that we did, we also explored the island itself, including a tour in some of the island’s caves, and a kayaking trip through mangroves.

Unidentified species of Chiton in tide pool. Class:  Polyplacophora. I found this little guy out in the tide pools behind the house we were renting.  He was out of the water when I saw him. [JAC: These are very cute molluscs.]

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Possibly a young Sally Lightfoot Crab (Grapsus grapsus) in a tide pool. It looks similar to photos I found online identified as young Sally Lightfoot Crabs, but the coloration’s not quite the same.  I don’t know how much variation there is within the species.

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American Flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber) flying over ocean:

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Snowy egret (Egretta thula):

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Bonaire Whiptail Lizard (Cnemidophorus murinus). It’s called the Bonaire Whiptail Lizard, but it’s found on a few islands in the Netherlands Antilles, including Curaçao.

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Green Iguanas (Iguana iguana):

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Donkey (Equus africanus asinus). Donkeys were brought to the island by the Spanish, and have been roaming wild for a few hundred years.

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Dracula’s Cathedral. There’s actually no wildlife in this photo.  It was just a very interesting room in the cave.

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Cave scorpion: Unidentified species of tailless whip scorpion. Order: Amblypygi. We found this guy in one of the caves of Bonaire.  We also saw a bat and a shrimp in one of the freshwater pools, but my pictures of those didn’t turn out.

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There was a magnificent sight that occurred at night, but which I was unable to capture because my camera wasn’t good enough.  There’s a type of crustacean known as an ostracod.  Many species produce bioluminescent chemicals that they use for predation defense, but some species in the Caribbean use the chemicals for an amazing mating display.  Here’s an interesting article on ostracods, explaining what they are and the mating display in more detail:

That article also contains a video of bioluminescent animals that contains a clip of an ostracod display.  Unfortunately they’re not the species from Bonaire, but from a different spot in the Caribbean where they behave slightly differently and their display looks slightly different; but this still gives a pretty good sense of what it looked like.  The ostracod part starts about 30 seconds in.  Here’s a direct link to the video, which should jump directly to the segment with the ostracods:

Monday: Hili dialogue

October 10, 2016 • 6:30 am

It’s October 10 2016, and, ironically, National Tic Tac Day (did Trump declare this or something?). It’s also World Mental Health Day and World Homeless Day. On this day in 1871, the Great Chicago Fire, started in a barn (supposedly by a lantern kicked over by Mrs. O’Leary’s cow) ended after two day. By October 10, the fire had gutted 9 km² of Chicago and left 100,000 people homeless. On this day in 1938, Chamberlain continued his spineless capitulation to Hitler, allowing der Führer to annex the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. And, in 1971, London Bridge, sold to the Americans and moved to the U.S., opened in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

Notables born on this day include Henry Cavendish (1731), Thelonious Monk (1917), and Julia Sweeney (1959). Those who died on this day include Jack Daniel (yes, that Jack Daniel; 1911), Edith Piaf (1963), both Yul Brynner and Orson Welles (1985), and Joan Sutherland (2010).  Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, like Sherlock Holmes in His Last Bow, senses an ill wind blowing from the East. Look at that face!

Hili: I have a feeling that a New Era is coming.
A: I’m afraid of it too.
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In Polish:
Hili: Mam wrażenie, że nadchodzi Nowa Era.
Ja: Też się tego boję.

Tonight’s debate

October 9, 2016 • 6:13 pm

UPDATE: And so the madness begins. From CNN:

Donald Trump made a surprise appearance with women who in the past have accused Bill Clinton of inappropriate sexual activity.

The women are expected to attend Trump’s debate with Hillary Clinton, which is airing on CNN at 9 p.m. ET. The town hall forum is co-moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

What kind of moron could possibly think that trotting out those women could help him?

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The mere thought of having to watch tonight’s debate makes me ill. There will be a lot of yelling, Hillary Clinton will bring up Trump’s latest idiocies early and often, Trump will be expected to show contrition (he will, but he won’t mean it), and it’s going to be a reality show of the worst type. I got my absentee ballot today and will mark it for Clinton (and other Democrats) tomorrow.

Given that my vote is as good as cast, I’m not sure what reason I’d have to watch the debate. Entertainment? None for me there. Information about the candidates’ stand on the issues? If you expect that, you don’t know the political climate.

Seriously, the thought of watching this is nauseating, and so I won’t. But I’m putting up this post so that readers who do—and I don’t fault you for it—can weigh in as the “debate” progresses, and perhaps give a final evaluation. Or, if you’re like me and not watching, go ahead and predict what you think will happen.

As for me, I have 500 pages left in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Evolution denialism by Pence

October 9, 2016 • 11:15 am

Here’s a tw**t by Seth MacFarlane, who’s apparently famous but about whom I know nothing. Yes, I’m a cultural numbskull, but what’s important here is the point: Republican VP candidate Mike Pence is a straight-out evolution denialist. It flummoxes me that someone can be completely oblivious about the evidence for evolution yet be considered qualified for public office.

https://twitter.com/SethMacFarlane/status/784935271955562496

Here, from Right Wing Watch, is Pence denying evolution on the floor of the House in 2002. I’m stupefied that someone would declare this publicly. Of course, what he’s doing is mischaracterizing the word “theory,” as so many creationists do. This is an ignorant man.

I’m also surprised that no reporter has apparently asked any candidate if they accept the truth of evolution. I think that would be a good question, though of course many Republicans already deny it, so it wouldn’t be a game changer.