I've enjoyed reading The GOD Argument: The Case Against Religion and for Humanism, in spite of the fact I disagreed with much of what author A. C. Grayling wrote. As I asserted in my earlier blog about the Scopes Monkey Trial, Professor Grayling is an excellent writer. At times, his book forced me to exercise the little grey cells in my head quite vigorously. For example, at first I couldn't figure out why Professor Grayling described the problem as 'logically impossible' when he wrote: Consider the sentence, 'I can trisect a Euclidean angle using only ruler and compass.' This is a grammatical and even in one sense an intelligible sentence, but it claims something that is logically impossible to do -- and therefore to think. I must confess that relatively simple sentence initially befuddled me. After all, I could envision drawing a two-dimensional right angle with a horizontal line intersecting a vertical line at 90 degrees, and then trisecting it at 30 and 60 degrees rather easily with a compass. However, I sensed that I was missing something that must be obvious and could not be understanding the problem correctly, if what Professor Grayling wrote was true. And my instincts were correct. It turned out the operative word in that deceptively simple sentence was 'Euclidean' -- apparently referring to a three-dimensional angle, like what you would find in the corner of a room formed where two walls meet. Then I realized what Grayling must have meant, and he's right: the task is impossible to perform using only a ruler, pencil and compass. On the other hand, … [Read more...]
Coaching change
So, you're a Georgia fan who's tired of the underachieving football program, huh? After all, the Georgia coach has been on the job for THIRTEEN whole years and still hasn't won a national championship, has he? Enough of this mediocrity! This is big boy, SEC football. In this conference, it's always, what have you done for us lately? Don't believe me? Just ask Gene Chizik... So what if our coach has won a couple of measly SEC championships for Georgia up to this point in his coaching career? That simply isn't good enough. Look at the bigger picture -- we've been in a championship drought for the last few years now. Our coach has, gasp! a losing bowl record. Can't win the big game anymore. And we're talking about big-time college football at a prestigious university. We deserve a championship team. This sort of incompetence simply cannot be tolerated. We have every right to expect to expect our football team to win at all costs. No matter what. It shouldn't matter that we demand more discipline of our players than our competitors. As alumni, we want to be proud and brag our players are smarter, better people...as long as they win, too. Surely you will concede that our program seems to be headed in the wrong direction. The SEC competition is only getting stronger, while our team seems to be regressing...so enough already! Just get rid of the guy, okay? Congratulations! You just fired Vince Dooley, the greatest coach in Georgia's history, three years before he led Georgia to the 1980 national championship. This is exactly why you should … [Read more...]
Ranking SEC football coaches
If I'm ever going to be objective about where Mark Richt stands as a head coach among his peers in the SEC, today would be the day. My rose-colored glasses may finally be a little dirty after yesterday's depressing loss to the archrival Yellow Jackets. Georgia blew its football game against Georgia Tech yesterday in heartbreaking fashion, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory after they seemed to have won the game by scoring a touchdown with only 18 seconds left in regulation. Yesterday's loss was almost as bad as the infamous Prayer at Jordan-Hare last year. Inexplicably, coach Richt called for a pooch kick on the subsequent kickoff, afraid that Georgia Tech might manage a long return for a touchdown if we kicked deep. The shorter squib kick gave the Yellow Jackets excellent field position, and just enough time to run one play that gained just enough yardage for their kicker to attempt and make the longest field goal of his career, with literally inches to spare. With that fateful decision, Richt only managed to delay the inevitable winning touchdown, scored by Georgia Tech during their first possession of overtime. Truthfully, Georgia had no business being in position to win the game at the end. They were thoroughly outplayed by the Yellow Jackets for the entire second half. Tech managed to take the lead with about five minutes left in the game, and should have iced it after the receiving team failed to field the ensuing kickoff, giving the Yellow Jackets possession deep in the Bulldog territory. However, they fumbled the ball when they could … [Read more...]
A red-faced blue nation
Recently a friend of mine referred to me as a journalist and a political writer, but I am neither. Normally I would have been very flattered, if it weren't for my extremely low opinion of contemporary journalism. First and foremost, I am a novelist who writes detective fiction. I have also written several nonfiction books, and, of course, I blog here at my website. The more liberal members of my family seem to think I'm some rabid right-wing Republican who has been brainwashed by Rush Limbaugh. I do admit that I enjoy listening to Limbaugh's show occasionally. I think he can be pretty funny, and admire Rush for overcoming some really serious adversity -- the total loss of his hearing, and somehow managed to continue his career, with the help of a cochlear implant. I also think he's very smart, patriotic, and quite entertaining. But I don't agree with everything Rush says. Just most of what he says, and practically everything he says about liberal politicians. I don't really consider myself a Republican -- I'm more of a Libertarian who tends to vote Republican in most major elections, but certainly not someone willing to write checks to help fund the party. Currently, I don't make enough money that I feel like I can afford to throw any of it away on a political party. After all, my wife and I are about to be hit hard by Obamacare. I am not a person who refuses to vote for a candidate simply because they are a Democrat. In fact, I've voted for more than one common sensical Democrat in my career as a voter. I believe the last one was Zell Miller. Most … [Read more...]
The truth about the Scopes Monkey trial
I've been reading A. C. Grayling's most excellent book titled The GOD Argument -- after all, I don't have to agree with the man's opinions to admire his talent as a writer -- and a realization suddenly struck me, sort of like a bolt of lightning. Another article I've been working on and will publish soon discusses the some of the more interesting topics in Grayling's book, in much greater detail. For the remainder of this article, I'd like to focus attention on just one particular thing Grayling said in his book that I found to be very questionable. Then I plan to connect my observations on this comment to my own personal moment of revelation, that "lightning bolt" moment I mentioned in the first paragraph. Beginning on page 108, Professor Grayling wrote: Since the humiliating defeat of the literal six-day creationist lobby in the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 in Tennessee, religious groups have become increasingly sophisticated in their efforts to promote the idea that the universe and life in it were made by an intelligent agency, just as a carpenter makes a table; except that whereas a carpenter has his planks and nails to hand when he starts, the mega-carpenter did not have any materials ready beforehand, but made them too, from nothing. When I first read the passage above, I thought, huh? That paragraph is clearly giving the reader the distinct impression that the Scopes Monkey trial was an overwhelming victory for the Darwinian theory of evolution, and nothing less than a crushing defeat for young earth creationism. The problem with the impression … [Read more...]
