Remember my post several weeks ago about [“The First Scientific Proof of God”?][georgie] The author, Georgie-boy Shollenberger popped up [in the comments yesterday][georgie-comments], and posted [a response][georgie-responds] on his blog.
This is how he describes this blog:
>This website is an example of how some math teachers are thinking and teaching
>your children. In general, this website is a Good Math, Bad Math web. On this
>web, debunking creationism is listed under the bad math category. So, your
>children are most likely taught by atheists. Is this what parents want?
If this blog is indeed an example of how math teachers are thinking and teaching, then I’m very flattered. I’m not a teacher, but I would very much *like* to be one; if my writing works well for teaching math, then that means I’m doing a good job.
But the second part: does “debunking creationism” imply atheism? For a guy who purports to have made the greatest discovery in the history of the world; and who claims to show why both math and logic need to be reexamined from their very roots, this is a pathetic claim.
First: Creationism is *not* the only possible theistic belief system.
Second: Creationism is *bad* theism. It consists of throwing away math, logic, science, and reason all in an effort to support a bizarre and unreasonable interpretation of one poorly translated religious text.
Third: I’m not an atheist.
He follows that intro with an interesting nonsequitur:
>Mathematicians review my suggestion to restudy mathematics. First, they do not
>believe that humans might be living on other planets. You might agree with them
>but my scientific proof requires other planets to maintain human life
>eternally. Apparently, the reviewers believe that the evening stars are merely
>lights as the ancients thought. How mindless. When seeking the effects of a
>proven God, planet earth is not the first planet that has humans and will not
>be the last planet that has humans.
Fascinating though process there, huh? I criticize him for sloppy mathematical arguments, and therefore “I do not believe that humans might be living on other planets”, and I “believe that the evening stars are merely lights”.
As a matter of fact, I *don’t* believe that there are humans living on other planets. But how one can conclude from my criticism of his math that I think “evening stars are merely lights”? (Or that I believe that humans don’t live on other planets, for that matter? Just because I *do* believe that humans don’t live on other planets doesn’t mean you can conclude that from my criticism of his sloppy math!)
>… But, the author gripes because my book must
>be purchased to determine what I say. Yet, mathematicians make and sell books
>regularly.
Yes, mathematicians make and sell books. But I’ve yet to see a major mathematical discovery that you could *only* see if you were willing to pay
the author.
For example, the other day, I wrote about Grigory Perelman’s proof of the Poincare conjecture. It’s available online for anyone who wants it:
* The entropy formula for the Ricci flow and its geometric applications
* Ricci flow with surgery on three-manifolds
* Finite extinction time for the solutions to the Ricci flow on certain three-manifolds
Or Conway’s surreal numbers? Yes, he wrote an [excellent book][onag] on them. He also made information on them widely available to all sorts of people. He showed them to Don Knuth, who wrote [the first book][knuth-book] on them. There’ve been articles on them all over – from Marvin Gardner in Scientific American to random people on personal websites. He didn’t demand that everyone give him money to see his work.
How about Einstein? He published relativity in a physics journal called “[Annalen der Physik][annalen]”. At the time, there was nothing like the internet, and scientists pretty much always published in journals (as they continue to do today). Annalen does *not* pay the authors of papers; it’s available in *every* major university library; and you are permitted to make personal copies of articles from it for academic use.
Mathematicians and scientists publish articles and books – but we don’t expect (or even particularly want) to be able to restrict access to our ideas *only* to people willing to give us money to see them.
Georgie-boy doesn’t do anything like that. If you want to see his wonderful, world-changing proof, you have to pay him for it.
Finally, he gets around to addressing my criticism of his *math*.
>The author focuses on the concept of infinite, but does not seem to understand
>the great mathematician, Georg Cantor, who discovered the transfinite numbers.
>Instead, the author (1) plays with Aristotle’s potential infinity, which Cantor
>calls the mathematical or bad infinity, (2) plays with ‘infinity by division,’
>which is a verb that defined the atom for the ancients atomists, (3) plays with
>’infinity by addition,’ which applies to Cantor’s transfinite numbers, and (4)
>plays with surreal numbers in which infinity becomes a real number. I would
>throw John Conway’s surreal numbers into the circle file. Then, the author
>charges me with saying that God is a number infinity. At no time have I ever
>gave God a number because. God is not a number. God’s oneness opposes the
>universes’ manyness and thus precedes all finite and infinite numbers that will
>ever be found in the universe.
Why did I talk about Aristotle’s potential infinity? Because Georgie-boy *specifically claims that mathematicians use Aristotle’s infinity*. Infinity by addition and infinity by division are the two forms of infinity discussed by Aristotle. The horror! The horror! I actually *criticized* Georgie-boy by *addressing his arguments*! Oh, will my unfairness and unreasonability never cease?!
Oh, and why would he throw Conway’s surreals in the trash? Who knows? It’s particularly interesting the way that he juxtaposes Cantor and the transfinite numbers in defense of his ideas, while tossing Conway and the surreals into the trash. Because, you see, the surreals are based *on the same concept of ordinals* as the transfinite numbers. *(Note: the previous paragraph originally had a typo; where it currently says “transfinite numbers”, I originally repeated “surreal numbers”. Thanks to commenter “Noodle” for the catch.)*
>My suggestion to restudy mathematics is a serious matter because I discovered
>the first scientific proof of God. I conclude that this discovery has vast
>potentials in mathematics and all sciences. With this proof, big changes can be
>expected.
Yes, his theory has *vast potential*. It’s going to change the world! It’s going to revolutionize all of math and science! And all you need to do to learn about it is: **buy his book**! Because he won’t tell you about it otherwise.
>… For instance, Cantor’s transfinite numbers must be developed by our
>mathematicians so we can understand the universe’s atoms, the cosmology of God,
>and the cells of all the living bodies. Unfortunately, the atheistic
>mathematicianc believe that we live only in world of numbers. The theory of God
>will not go away during the life of any person. Today’s mathematicians have a
>choice to work with 85% of the people in the USA who believe in God. On the
>other hand, they can live privately ‘in their box of finites.’ I hope to
>convince ‘the majority’ in the USA that the field of mathematics is falling
>apart and must thus be reformed but also expanded considerably.
Yeah, we need to start studying transfinite numbers, because *nobody* has been studying anything like that. (Except, of course, for thousands of number theorists.)
And we need to stop being atheists (even when we aren’t), because the existence of god means, ummm, well, ummm…. Not very much in terms of math?
And mathematics is falling apart! Just because we’ve managed to accomplish trivial little things like proving the Poincare conjecture and Fermat’s last theorem; characterizing the fundamental limits of mathematics, and silly things like that means *nothing*. Mathematics is falling apart! Who can save us?!
Why, nothing can save us except Georgie-boy!
As long as we send him some cash.
[georgie]: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/07/restudying_math_in_light_of_th.php
[georgie-comments]:http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/07/restudying_math_in_light_of_th.php#comment-194071
[georgie-responds]: http://georgeshollenberger.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-mathematicians-are-teaching-your.html
[onag]: http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=goodmathbadma-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1568811276&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000&bg1=ffffff&f=ifr
[knuth-book]: http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=goodmathbadma-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0201038129&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000&bg1=ffffff&f=ifr
[annalen]: http://www.wiley-vch.de/publish/en/journals/alphabeticIndex/2257/

Yesterday, I posted [this article][bozo] about the bozo who didn’t like his college calculus course because it wasn’t Christian enough. One of the commenters pointed out that there’s actually a site online where a college professor from a Christian college actually has [a collection of “devotionals”][devotional] to be presented along with the lecture in a basic calculus course.
They’re sufficiently insane that I have to quote a couple of them. No comment that I could possibly make could add anything to the sheer goofiness of these.
For the lesson on “Function Operations”:
>**God’s Surgical Improvements of our Actions**
>
>Genesis 50:15-21, Romans 3:9-10, 21-24
>
>One of the more horrible images in the book of Genesis is that of Joseph being
>sold by his brothers into slavery. This type of hate turned into evil act is a
>common occurrence in our world, too. In the Genesis situation, though, we are
>given the gift of 20-20 hindsight because we know the end of the story. God
>used the brothers’ evil action to prevent starvation of the descendants of
>Abraham. Joseph says, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for
>good. ..” [Gen. 50:20] In the same way, God makes our unrighteous actions
>righteous through Christ. He surgically improves our actions to his own
>purpose.
>
>This idea of twisting something from one form into another is what happens when
>function operations work on elementary functions. You can start with two
>ordinary benign functions, the reciprocal function 1/x and sin(x), say, and put
>them together. Depending on how you put them together, you can create
>something interesting and easily understood, like sin(x)/x, or something with
>wild behavior, like sin(1/x). Either way, you have twisted one object into
>something very different.
For the lesson on the Limit definition of the derivative:
>**Secant Lines and Sanctification**
>
>Ps. 119:33-40
>In differential calculus we study how a slope of a linear function can be
>generalized to the slope of a function whose graph is curved, creating the
>derivative of the original function. The definition of derivative uses a
>sequence of lines (secant lines) drawn through two points on a function that
>are approaching each other and a single point on the function curve. The
>derivative value or tangent line slope is defined to be the limiting slope
>value of this sequence of secant lines. (See the figures below.)
>
> Figure 1 : Secant line between 1 and 1.8
> Figure 2 : Secant line between 1 and 1.5
> Figure 3: Tangent line to f at x=1
>
>Once a person has been called to be a Christian, we are redeemed by Christ but
>not released from following the law of God. We are justified once but continue
>with the process of sanctification for the remainder of our lives. This
>sanctification process is like the limit process of the secant lines
>approaching the tangent line. There is one distinction between the concepts of
>sanctification and secant line limits, however. In the mathematical contexts,
>we accept results that are “sufficiently close,” results that are in an
>epsilon-neighborhood of the desired quantity. While in our quest for
>perfection, the “better” we get the further we realize we are from satisfying
>all aspects of the law.
Ok, just one more. This one just about had me rolling on the floor! For the lesson on the chain rule:
>**Chain Reactions**
>
> 1 Corin 5:16-21
>
>Once students have seen the chain rule for differentiation of composed
>functions, it is natural to extend the chain rule to nested functions, where
>there is more than two functions that are composed. Fun problems to
>investigate are ones that are repeated applications of the same function. Try
>differentiating tan(tan(tan(tan(tan x)))) or ln(ln(ln(ln(ln(ln x))))), for
>example. Working your way from the outside to the inside yields a derivative
>which is product chain of related functions.
>
>In a similar way, when we interact with other people there is a chain reaction
>to our behavior. Most people believe that abused children are more likely to
>become abusers themselves someday, for example. Less dramatic behavior also
>can have a reaction that extends beyond the initial engagement. A popular
>Warner Brothers film of 2000 “Pay it Forward” (based on a novel with the same
>name by Catherine Ryan Hyde) depicts how a chain of reactions to an initial act
>of kindness can change an entire community. Christians need to be specially
>mindful of this chain reaction, since we are ambassadors for Christ. Our
>verbal and nonverbal witness can yield unexpected results, especially under the
>influence of the Holy Spirit.
This, apparently, is how “real” Christians are supposed to teach math classes. I seriously wonder how they have time to actually cover the *math* in class if they spend time on this gibberish!
[bozo]: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/08/math_is_bad_because_it_isnt_ch.php
[devotional]: http://www.trnty.edu/faculty/robbert/SRobbertWebFolder/ChristianityMath/Calculus.html#Chain

By way of Pharyngula, I saw something that I simply had to repeat here.
Every august, James Kennedy – a thoroughly repulsive ultra-fundy preacher from Coral Ridge Ministries – runs a conference called “Reclaiming America for Christ”. At this years conference, he featured a speech by Paul Jehle about “Evaluating your Philosophy of Education”.
Jehle is… umm… how do we say this politely?….
Ah, screw it. Jehle is a fucking frothing at the mouth nutjob lunatic asshole.
His basic argument – the argument that he *expects people to take seriously* – is that *everything* is either christian or non-christian. And if it’s non-christian, then christians shouldn’t look at it, listen to it, or study it. And you can’t *ever* make anything that started out non-christian christian.
How far does he go with this? Pretty damned far. Right into the domain of this here blog. In his talk, he uses the following story as an example:
>I was taking calculus. I was a mathematics major and I was at a Christian
>college that was called Christian, but was not Christian….
>
>I asked a question to my calculus professor: “What makes this course distinctly
>Christian?” He stopped. He said no one has ever asked that question before…
>
>He said, “Okay, I’m a Christian; you’re a Christian.”
>
>I said, “That’s not what I asked! What makes this calculus course distinctly
>Christian? What makes this different from the local secular university? Are we
>using the same text? Yes. Are you teaching it the same way? Yes. Then why is
>this called a Christian college and that one a non-Christian college?”
Yeah. Seriously. **Math is Bad**, because it’s *not explicitly christian*. I mean, it uses *zero*, which was invented by a *hindu*, and brought to europe by *muslims*. Algebra was invented by muslims! The word “algorithm” comes from the name of a *muslim* mathematician!
Uh-oh… I just realized that the alleged “Doctor” Jehle has a very serious problem. The way that we geeks heard his talk to write about it is because it was *digitized* – using a thoroughly non-christian technology – and posted on the *internet*, which is built using those non-christian *algorithms*. And to quite Jehle himself:
>But the issue is you cannot combine something by its nature which is pagan and
>built on humanistic principles and make it Christian by a magic wand.
So the internet, and computers, and digital recording, and the data compression that makes streaming audio work – they’re *non-christian*. And you cannot combine something non-Christian with something Christian.