Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Handing School Administration to the Courts

    In a previous post I mentioned that the proposed Academic Chaos Bill here in Florida was cowardly in that it created a very confused situation which others would have to navigate. The Florida house analysis of the bill says much the same thing:

    Finally, if a principal, the district school superintendent, or the school board determine that the information a teacher is presenting is not objective, relevant, or scientific, then the administration must prove its case prior to any action against a teacher. This may result in case-by-case determinations which, based on the propensities of the science teachers in the district, may prove frequent and challenging. This bill will affect costs of administering the science curriculum and, although indeterminate, may increase litigation expenses for the school district. (page 4, source: here, hat tip: Florida Citizens for Science Blog)

    With this clear analysis provided to the legislators, there is every reason that any who vote in favor should be made to regret their decision. They have chosen a few political points over the good of the children of Florida, and if they are not stopped, will have put a great burden on teachers, principles, and administrators throughout the state.

    Hopefully, since the house voted out an amended version, this thing can be killed at least for this session.

  • More on the Original Text

    I’m not going to link to every post in Tim’s series, but he has just posted his first substantive one, and I’d like to note a couple of things and then quote part of one paragraph.

    If you read his first post you will know that Tim is planning to make an argument for the reliability of the original text of the New Testament. Now depending on just what he means by “original” that could vary from difficult to impossible. In fact, he has taken on a difficult, but in my view not impossible task because he understands the nature of the task.

    Responding to a claim that it is futile to try to reconstruct the first century text, he says:

    . . . Most assertions, scientific, theological, or otherwise, are hypotheses, attempting to explain as much of the evidence as possible. One theme we will come back to again and again is that possibility is not the same as probability. That a hypothesis exists at all is not an argument in favor of its viability. That a hypothesis cannot be proven 100% true by reason or evidence does not mean that it can’t be maintained with a reasonable degree of certainty.

    That is absolutely correct, and something that needs to be said repeatedly. People are constantly asking for absolute certainty in historical matters, and it cannot be provided. The only way we could be completely certain about the original text of the New Testament would be to actually have the autographs. Then we could compare what we have to them. As it is, we will always be dealing with probabilities.

    But we must resist the temptation to assume that a probability is the equivalent of the absence of knowledge. We live with probabilities every day. Right now I’m using my computer even though I know there’s a 30% chance of thunderstorms. I’m generally protected, but in our worst storms I will shut the system down. I’m quite functional even though I don’t have absolute certainty.

    With that, I look back at the earlier part of Tim’s post. My only problem here is not with the data, which he summarizes quite well, but with the context. I think it is very difficult for laypeople to understand the meaning of these manuscript numbers. They sound impressive, but what do they mean? That requires some context in terms of how many manuscripts we normally have for ancient documents (many less), and just what one can do with manuscripts.

    Herewith a quibble. Manuscripts are weighed, not counted, and that can mentally skew these numbers. Those approximately 5,500 mss are not all of equal weight. At the same time they do have some weight, which it is easy to forget when one is busy weighing fragmentary papyri and key early manuscripts.

    In any case, I’m enjoying reading Tim’s series, and look forward to continuing. I have also demonstrated my verbosity, having written at least as many words commenting on Tim’s post as he put into it. It is unlikely, however, that at half a century I will change that much!

  • Defending the Originals

    Keep an eye on if i were a bell, i’d ring for more on this. He just attended a conference and has those intellectual juices flowing.

  • Notes on Scot McKnight – Teaching the Bible to Emerging Generations

    Gavin has his rather useful sounding notes here. There are many aspects of postmodernism, especially as it looks when it gets to where I live, but there’s also a great deal of good in it. This is some of the good.

  • Threads Comment Policy

    I was going to update it to emphasize comment moderation, but I see I already did that. The key point to note here is that I use comment moderation with as careful of filtering as I can. Inevitably it catches legitimate comments and puts them in the moderation queue. Since I work in front of my computer normally at least 10 hours a day, moderation is usually very fast. I do sleep at night, however, so it takes a bit longer!

    The bottom line on my comment policy is that if you’re talking about the subject, it’s hard to get deleted. But if you can’t insult me without constant use of the f-word, your comments won’t be kept here. Polished insults are acceptable, and often even get me to laugh.

    I’m copying the policy here, with some emphasis added:

    I have resisted posting a comments policy, because I pretty much allow any comment except for obvious spam and things that would be illegal. I don’t delete comments for criticizing me or my positions.

    Recently, however, I have had an influx of spam, and posters should be aware that I have added a substantial number of terms to my moderation list. This means that inevitably some comments will be held for moderation. I will get to them as soon as I can. Thus far, the vast majority of legitimate comments are still getting through.

    Other than eliminating the spam, I do intend to keep an open comment and trackback policy, which is simple. I will remove any spam comments, any comments which are illegal or advocate illegal activities, any comments which are likely to get me sued, and any comments that threaten the family nature of this blog. In the last category I include posts that use excessive profanity, “excessive” being my subjective judgment. That does mean that comments can be insulting and quite annoying, but I prefer to keep the discussion out in the open where I can. On the other hand, abusive posters need to learn how to insult without resorting to profanity to any substantial degree.

    The only comments I have removed thus far have been spam. I do, however, reserve the right to interpret my rules according to my own subjective judgment.

    You can read it again here at its normal location.

  • XVIVO Claims Copyright Violation in Expelled!

    As has been previously reported by a number of bloggers, XVIVO believes that Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed has infringed on their copyright by using portions of their video The Inner Life of a Cell.

    In a letter demanding that this material be removed prior to the movie’s release, and threatening legal action if it is not, David Bolinsky, XVIVO LLC partner and medical director, said:

    It has come to our intention that Premise Media and Rampant Films has produced a film entitled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which is scheduled for commercial release and distribution on April 18, 2008. To our knowledge, this film includes a segment depicting biological cellular activity that was copied by computer-generated means from a video entitled The Inner Life of a Cell. XVIVO holds the copyright to all the models, processes, and depictions in this video, and has not authorized Premise Media or Rampant Films to make any use of this material.

    It looks like there is enough copying just in the promotional material that XVIVO believes it has grounds for this action.

    It is just too ironic that a movie produced to tell us about the moral problems of atheism and “Darwinism” includes plagiarized material. Just amazing.

    Stay tuned. Perhaps folks were expelled for plagiarism, and not for creative ideas!

    Note: As I was putting in the link to the earlier article from ERV above, I note that ERV also has the full letter posted. So if you want more than my snippet go there. Come to think of it, go there anyhow. It’s a great blog.

  • Science Panel in Tallahassee

    And a stellar one it is. This discussion is sponsored by Florida Citizens for Science. You can find details here.

  • New Poll: Who Does God Hate?

    With the number of posts on this topic, I’d like to get an idea of how readers of this blog think or feel about God and hate.

    You’ll find the poll in the right sidebar. Please feel free to comment either here or on the poll page itself. I suspect this one needs a comment or so!

  • Bible Reading Poll

    I think it’s about time to change polls, so here are the results of the last one:

    What is your most common reason for reading the Bible (i.e. the one that causes you to spend the most time reading)?

    Selection Percentage Votes
    Devotional 23% 8
    Guidance for a specific personal situation 6% 2
    Ethical guidance 3% 1
    Learning correct doctrine 14% 5
    Hearing God speak 40% 14
    Historical or technical interest 9% 3
    I don’t read the Bible 0% 0
    Other (please comment) 6% 2
    35 votes total

    There were three comments left:

    From Gideon on March 17, 2008 at 1:34 am.
    to find out how to do good. Not that I am
    good, but I want to know what is
    “biblically good”.

    Joh 5:29 NETB … the ones who have done what is good to the resurrection resulting in life, and the ones who have done what is evil to the resurrection resulting in condemnation.

    From Mark Thompson on March 4, 2008 at 2:14 am.
    I ticked hearing God speak, but to be more correct I would add ‘as man understood at that time and place’

    From Philo on February 19, 2008 at 11:09 am.
    “What is your most common reason for reading the Bible (i.e. the one that causes you to spend the most time reading)?”

    For its poetry.

    I was interested in how many chose “hearing God speak” and I wonder how many of those would agree with the second comment made by Mark Thompson.

  • Three Reasons Florida’s Academic Chaos Bill is Bad

    Of course, I refer to the misnamed Academic Freedom Bill.

    Yesterday I blogged rather angrily about this bill advancing. Why is it that this bill makes me angry and caused me to call certain legislators liars? I want to be brief, for once in my life.

    1. The bill is deceptive.
      The entire opposition to the Florida science standards was religiously based. The one group which claims not to be religiously motivated is ID supporters, and the sponsors claim this bill is not about ID. So what exactly does the bill accomplish? Its sponsors would have us believe that it prevents persecution, but if you eliminate all these options, then what is left? Science was always permissible!
    2. The bill is cowardly
      By being vague, the sponsors allow themselves to lie about the content, but they also leave teachers and school administrators to interpret. Someone well down the chain of command is going to have to put their neck in the guillotine in order to discover just what this bill means. Will it be a teacher who believes he can teach creationism, yet finds himself fired? Or will it be an administrator who fires a teacher because she reads the bill as limiting the academic freedom to science, yet ends up in court because someone disagrees but nobody knows. The legislators are trying to pass responsibility to the local level.
    3. Even if it was a good bill based on its content, it is micromanagement.
      There is a Board of Education to make decisions about schools. Having decisions made by the people designated to make them ensures responsibility. This bill creates chaos in the classroom, and likely in various school boards around the state. But do the legislators care? No, they just want to pander–or appear to be pandering–to certain voters with a bill they know is no good.

    That’s why this bill makes me angry and why I referred to sponsors as liars. Just because the lies are standard political lies doesn’t make them any more moral.