Couple things

Here is another interesting article about global warming, http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/ .

Earlier this week I read a great article at Christianity Today by William Lane Craig related to philosophy and the existence of God. Its long but really interesting; I recommend it.

A while back I wrote a little satirical post called "An Emergent Teaches Math". It must have been late at night because it made me laugh at the time. I never really finished it and therefore did not ever publish it. It was not intended to be mean, just a silly little satire to make a point. Some of the things that Craig said in his article seemed to affirm the point I was making and therefore reminded me of the unposted post. So, after you read Craig's article, then just for fun, here is "An Emergent Teaches Math"...

"Good morning fellow travelers. Today I'll be facilitating a conversation about an idea known as the Pythagorean Theorem. I had hoped that we could continue all sharing our stories of how we came to be math students. However, my department head was rather disturbed that no one scored higher than 62% on the last examination.

"Now, now, let's not be judgmental. I tried to tell him that he is just being an old fashioned linear thinker and that he really does not understand how to function in the post-modern world. But for now, he is the boss, so we need to explore this concept.

"The Pythagorean Theorem is a formula that applies to right triangles. A right triangle is a triangle that contains one angle of 90 degrees and two lesser angles that add up to 90 degrees (he displays one on the camera projector). Of course, you might not be comfortable with that. I guess there are a couple of things you might do. You could go down to Starbucks and begin a discourse about what a right triangle ought to be. Or if you don't have that much time, you could just recalibrate your protractor so that you have 90 degrees at any point you are comfortable with.

"The sides of the right triangle that form the 90 degree angle are called legs and the side opposite the 90 degree angle is considered the hypotenuse. The hypotenuse is the longest side. The Pythagorean Theorem gives us a way to find the length of one side if the other two sides are known. Specifically, it says that the sum of the squares of the legs is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. We represent it as a²+b²=c² . Where a and b are the lengths of the legs and c is the length of the hypotenuse."

The class practices the formula a time or two and then little Johnny has a question. He says, "Mr. Teacher, you said we could recalibrate our protractor to make 90 degrees something we are comfortable with?"

"Yes Johnny."

"So, what if I were, say, I don't know, designing a bridge and I was using triangular shapes to determine various areas under the bridge and then I wanted to use the Pythagorean Theorem to determine the heights of the supports. With me? Good. But if I wasn't comfortable with the constraints of 90 degrees so I changed my protractor to suit me, wouldn't the supports end up being the wrong height? and then the bridge would not connect properly, and there could be a big waste of materials or worse, we could end up with an unstable bridge and people could die?"

"Well Johnny, I suppose that's one scenario. You've obviously only experienced a strictly Euclidean metaphysic. You're being a little arrogant to think that there is only one way of looking at things. You need to open your mind to what others on your journey may be comfortable with...