My new niece

Anastasia - 12 hours old
Originally uploaded by Mister Tim

Isn't she beautiful? This is Anastasia Grace, born last night to my brother Tim and my lovely sister-in-law Tegan.

Matt and I are very excited to be an uncle and aunt for the first time, and we can't wait to meet this gorgeous new addition to our family.

Congratulations Tim and Tegan, and welcome to the world Anastasia!

Vital stats:

3.895kg (8.6 pounds), 51cm long, head circumference of 36cm.

More JAS Classics

From another meeting with my supervisor:

People are dumb... You're going to meet a lot of people who heave their heads up their bums, pardon the expression, about historiography.

There's more to natural philosophy than meets the actor's eye.

The idea is that it's not just the ideas.

There be Jesuits there! I shouldn't go there if I were you!

It's so "yesterday" to think about mathematical sciences. Like there would have been a modern world if there hadn't been any mathematical sciences and scientific revolution, if it had all been natural history. For Christ's sake. It's just they don't know anything. They don't want to.

Opinions and arguments

Update: My letter was published! Here's what my supervisor had to say about one of the correspondents:

I think that [he] may have been (maybe still is) an ultra green goon who used to be tied up with the STS (Science and Technology Studies) criminals and leftwing ratbags at Wollongong.

Hmm...

---

John Lennox, an Oxford mathematician and philosopher of science, is currently in Sydney making several appearances for the Centre for Public Christianity, EU and National Science Week. I've met him once at a conference, where he was supporting Intelligent Design in the midst of an unfriendly audience (in a fairly theoretical, speculative, "let's just think about this" kind of way), and he seems a nice and very interesting guy. I don't agree with everything he says (I'm not terribly sympathetic to Intelligent Design) but I thought his opinion piece in yesterday's SMH was spot on.

I was not so keen on the responses today from Vic Stenger and Paul Gittings, so I wrote a couple of letters to the editor. They probably won't get published, so I'll post them here instead, in the tradition of Andrew's Daily Vowel Movements.

The first is a response to Vic Stenger's opinion piece, "Science demands that seeing is believing."

Vic Stenger (“Science demands that seeing is believing”, August 19) claims that science can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that God doesn’t exist, and yet also states that science cannot be used to answer purely metaphysical questions. He argues that if God exists, evidence of his intervention in creation should be seen in our study of the natural world. However, a scientist and philosopher such as Stenger should be aware of the principle of underdetermination. For any evidence we collect about nature, we can develop multiple theories to explain it. Scientific data cannot necessarily decide between theories – these decisions are based on other criteria, such as simplicity, elegance and coherence. As John Lennox (“Why not every scientist worships at Darwin’s feet”, August 18) pointed out, scientific evidence alone cannot adjudicate between naturalism and theism. For a theist, science involves understanding the world and the processes by which God created. But the belief in God comes from outside science, and so does an assumption that there is no God.

The second is in response to Paul Gitting's letter about John Lennox.

Paul Gittings (Letters, August 19) writes that theism says “I don’t know, I don’t want to understand, I just want to be happy in my irrational beliefs.” Can he really believe this of an Oxford professor of mathematics and philosophy of science?

It really seemed to me that both Stenger and Gittings just weren't getting what Lennox was saying. Nowhere in the opinion piece did Lennox come out in support of Intelligent Design, nor did he promote any kind of "god of the gaps" theory. He wasn't arguing that positing God as creator solves any problems currently unresolved by science. Rather, he pointed out that, as an underlying assumption about the world, theism (assuming an intelligent creator) is no more faith-based than naturalism (assuming that everything in the universe came about by purely natural means).

Update: I received an email to say that my letter had been shortlisted for publication in tomorrow's Herald. Just don't know which one...

The War on Terror

Our lovely sister Lynley bought us the War on Terror board game as an engagement present earlier this year. I'm very happy to say that the last time we played, despite Matt turning terrorist and attempting to wipe out all that was good and democratic in the world, my pink empire prevailed and I won the game. I'm not usually all that competitive, but I'm still really stoked about winning - I'm not usually good at strategy games, and given that this game is like a cross between Risk and Settlers of Catan, I surprised myself!

Anyway, it's quite a fun game but apparently not as innocent as I had thought...

The wonderful boys in blue of the Kent constabulary decided to confiscate three copies of War on Terror from activists at this year's Climate Camp at Kingsnorth Power Station. Apparently the EVIL balaclava could be used to commit criminal acts... It's official, our board game is dangerous. Lots of journalist types decided to write about our game getting confiscated rather than the impending doom that is climate chaos and our government's inability to do shit all about it.

Read more here.



This is a photo of Matt in the "evil balaclava" taken the first time we played the game by my brother Tim, a very talented photographer.

A Mere Christian

I currently attend an Anglican church, but I would not call myself an Anglican. I used to attend a Baptist church, and I was baptised, by full immersion, as a believer, at age 12, but I would not call myself a Baptist.

I am a Christian, a Mere Christian, of no other Religion; and the Church that I am of is the Christian Church… But must you know what Sect or Party I am of? I am against all Sects and dividing Parties…

- Richard Baxter, Church History of the Government of Bishops, 1680

The Omnivore's Hundred

From Laura's blog.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating (I italicised - couldn't figure out strike-through on blogger!)
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (Clay?)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant (Well, an SMH hatted restaurant.)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Aldridge

Continuing on from yesterday's post about changing my name...

My supervisor was also commenting that "Aldridge" sounded very American upper class - "The Aldridges of Boston" or something like that. He thought it might have been a Mayflower name, but after a quick Google search, I can't find any evidence of that.

However, Aldridge is a town in England, which Matt and I visited while we were over there. We were hoping to get a photo of the newest Aldridge in front of a nice "Welcome to Aldridge" sign, but we couldn't find one. We asked at a shop, and apparently touched on a sore point - the shop keeper was just reading over the minutes of a council meeting about trying to get such a sign!



Interestingly, Aldridge is in Walsall, which is where my grandfather was from. So, in becoming an Aldridge by marriage, I've really just returned to my roots!



Update: I think my supervisor was confusing "Aldridge" with "Alden" - John Alden was a character in a poem called The Courtship of Miles Standish. He mentioned this story, and the possibility that there was a John Aldridge involved, but sadly it was John Alden.

Hilarious!

I wonder if I can work an excuse like this into my review next week?

The last time I studied Malebranche’s Reserche de la Verite was back in the mid-sixties. I was mistakenly given credit for French competence as my dissertation topic was Duhem, but I never managed to find the building where the course on non-fiction French was held. The only English translation of Malebranche back then was the seventeenth century one. At UT Austin it was kept in the rare book room at the top (26th) of the library. While dutifully studying it I heard a drum beat and looking out the window I saw a procession far below carrying a coffin. I went down to find out what was going on. It turned out to be an anti-war demonstration, which I joined and never went back. Well, not quite. In August 1966 I planned to return, but a friend (who, being a native Texan, took assassinations and mass murders in stride as an everyday thing in those days) casually told me I probably should delay my visit, as about 50 people had been shot and a score had been killed. This was the famous Texas Tower Sniper, and the library was closed off after he was killed above the 26th floor. That’s my excuse for not grasping Malebranche in graduate school.

as well as I should have.

Long time, no post

Before I can post a real post, I figure I should at least make a brief comment about the fact that I've been gone so long. Wedding, honeymoon, conferences, settling into married life... It's been an insanely crazy couple of months.

Strangely enough, I post more when I'm working harder on my PhD, so perhaps now that I'm starting to get back into the swing of things, I'll post here more regularly...