To depart from Scripture at any point is neither safe nor right. Joubert 2012 p. 81 Answers in Genesis (AiG) is one of the two major young earth creationist (YEC) organizations in the world, the other being the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). Answers in Genesis is an apologetics (i.e., Christianity-defending) ministry dedicated to enabling…
Author: Kenneth
Cat owner, educator, learner
How does a double boiler work? Phases and phase transitions in the kitchen
Phases of matter and chemical mixtures Under most normal circumstances, chemical compounds exist in one of three states or phases: solid, liquid, and gas. At normal atmospheric pressure, there is a specific temperature at which a given substance will transition from one phase to another. Many substances in the kitchen which are solid at room…
“Can a whole country have main character syndrome?”
This is a quote from YouTuber Emma Thorne in her video Evangelical Conspiracy Movie: Trump 2024 Recap, referring to the United States. Thorne herself is from the UK. Main character syndrome is an informal, nonscientific term to describe someone who thinks of their life like a story in which they are the main character. In…
Pathological mathematics
Logic sometimes breeds monsters. Henri Poincaré In math, we often speak of things being “nice,” “well behaved,” “elegant,” or even “beautiful.” The flip side of this is those things in math which often remain in shadow: the unfriendly, the unruly, the awkward, and the ugly. In some cases, inelegant solutions are apparently unavoidable. In other…
Where credit is due
Over time, I have become increasingly opposed to the idea of intellectual property. It is something I have been thinking about for a while, but recent open questions related to generative AI have brought this to the forefront of my mind. In particular, what I have been thinking about recently is that what copyright law…
Gnostic apatheism
There is a common model of belief about god that places a person’s belief on a 2D plane with one axis for belief and another axis for knowledge. The vertical axis represents degree of belief in the existence of god. The horizontal axis represents the degree to which one claims to know that their belief…
The legend of Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist who is famous for two things: inventing dynamite and establishing the Nobel Prize. Nobel observed that nitroglycerin, an explosive available at the time, was too volatile to handle safely and caused many accidental deaths. He discovered that by getting nitroglycerin to soak into diatomaceous earth (a kind of fine…
Circumstances beyond our control
There are two mistakes people can make about their circumstances. The first is blaming circumstances for things that are actually under their control, and the second is denying the ways in which circumstances limit what they are capable of. I have written in past blog posts about freedom and free will. I generally follow the…
Video share: The Genius of Weak Forms
For and four aren’t pronounced the same.
Probability estimation vs probability calculation
If I take the bus downtown today, what are the chances I’ll run into my friend (let’s call her Alice)? Suppose I’m on the bus for an hour. According to the local metro, there are approximately 31 people using a single bus per hour of operation. Assume that during the hour I’m on the bus…
thoughts on mind 