{"id":122,"date":"2006-08-18T10:35:36","date_gmt":"2006-08-18T10:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scientopia.org\/blogs\/goodmath\/2006\/08\/18\/a-crank-responds-georgie-boy-and-his-scientific-proof-of-god\/"},"modified":"2006-08-18T10:35:36","modified_gmt":"2006-08-18T10:35:36","slug":"a-crank-responds-georgie-boy-and-his-scientific-proof-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/18\/a-crank-responds-georgie-boy-and-his-scientific-proof-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"A Crank Responds: Georgie-Boy and his "Scientific Proof of God""},"content":{"rendered":"

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.
\nThis is how he describes this blog:
\n>This website is an example of how some math teachers are thinking and teaching
\n>your children. In general, this website is a Good Math, Bad Math web. On this
\n>web, debunking creationism is listed under the bad math category. So, your
\n>children are most likely taught by atheists. Is this what parents want?
\nIf 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.
\nBut 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.
\nFirst: Creationism is *not* the only possible theistic belief system.
\nSecond: 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.
\nThird: I’m not an atheist.
\nHe follows that intro with an interesting nonsequitur:
\n>Mathematicians review my suggestion to restudy mathematics. First, they do not
\n>believe that humans might be living on other planets. You might agree with them
\n>but my scientific proof requires other planets to maintain human life
\n>eternally. Apparently, the reviewers believe that the evening stars are merely
\n>lights as the ancients thought. How mindless. When seeking the effects of a
\n>proven God, planet earth is not the first planet that has humans and will not
\n>be the last planet that has humans.
\nFascinating 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”.
\nAs 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!)
\n>… But, the author gripes because my book must
\n>be purchased to determine what I say. Yet, mathematicians make and sell books
\n>regularly.
\nYes, 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
\nthe author.
\nFor example, the other day, I wrote about Grigory Perelman’s proof of the Poincare conjecture. It’s available online for anyone who wants it:
\n* The entropy formula for the Ricci flow and its geometric applications<\/a>
\n* Ricci flow with surgery on three-manifolds<\/a>
\n* Finite extinction time for the solutions to the Ricci flow on certain three-manifolds<\/a>
\nOr 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.
\nHow 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.
\nMathematicians 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.
\nGeorgie-boy doesn’t do anything like that. If you want to see his wonderful, world-changing proof, you have to pay him for it.
\nFinally, he gets around to addressing my criticism of his *math*.
\n>The author focuses on the concept of infinite, but does not seem to understand
\n>the great mathematician, Georg Cantor, who discovered the transfinite numbers.
\n>Instead, the author (1) plays with Aristotle’s potential infinity, which Cantor
\n>calls the mathematical or bad infinity, (2) plays with ‘infinity by division,’
\n>which is a verb that defined the atom for the ancients atomists, (3) plays with
\n>’infinity by addition,’ which applies to Cantor’s transfinite numbers, and (4)
\n>plays with surreal numbers in which infinity becomes a real number. I would
\n>throw John Conway’s surreal numbers into the circle file. Then, the author
\n>charges me with saying that God is a number infinity. At no time have I ever
\n>gave God a number because. God is not a number. God’s oneness opposes the
\n>universes’ manyness and thus precedes all finite and infinite numbers that will
\n>ever be found in the universe.
\nWhy 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?!
\nOh, 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.)*
\n>My suggestion to restudy mathematics is a serious matter because I discovered
\n>the first scientific proof of God. I conclude that this discovery has vast
\n>potentials in mathematics and all sciences. With this proof, big changes can be
\n>expected.
\nYes, 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.
\n>… For instance, Cantor’s transfinite numbers must be developed by our
\n>mathematicians so we can understand the universe’s atoms, the cosmology of God,
\n>and the cells of all the living bodies. Unfortunately, the atheistic
\n>mathematicianc believe that we live only in world of numbers. The theory of God
\n>will not go away during the life of any person. Today’s mathematicians have a
\n>choice to work with 85% of the people in the USA who believe in God. On the
\n>other hand, they can live privately ‘in their box of finites.’ I hope to
\n>convince ‘the majority’ in the USA that the field of mathematics is falling
\n>apart and must thus be reformed but also expanded considerably.
\nYeah, we need to start studying transfinite numbers, because *nobody* has been studying anything like that. (Except, of course, for thousands of number theorists.)
\nAnd 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?
\nAnd 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?!
\nWhy, nothing can save us except Georgie-boy!
\nAs long as we send him some cash.
\n[georgie]: http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/goodmath\/2006\/07\/restudying_math_in_light_of_th.php
\n[georgie-comments]:http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/goodmath\/2006\/07\/restudying_math_in_light_of_th.php#comment-194071
\n[georgie-responds]: http:\/\/georgeshollenberger.blogspot.com\/2006\/08\/what-mathematicians-are-teaching-your.html
\n[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
\n[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
\n[annalen]: http:\/\/www.wiley-vch.de\/publish\/en\/journals\/alphabeticIndex\/2257\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4lzZS-1Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}