Last week Mitt Romney, in a speech on religion, said that “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom.” Or, as I like to put it, “Religion iff Freedom.” This bothered me more than a little bit, until I realized that I could turn it into an empirical question. Or a least a question where I could make a plot! Below is a plot of importance of religion in people’s lives versus their political freedom for a 39 countries:
Continue reading “Plotting Religion iff Freedom”
Presidential Candidate's Science, Technology, and Energy Positions
There’s a new initiative to get a presidential debate on issues of science and technology: Science Debate 2008 (list of supporting Important People (capital letters) and bloggers (no capital letters).) I’m all for the idea, since I know little about the candidates positions related to science and technology. Which of course, is a bad excuse, and thus led me to try to dig deep into the intertubes and see if I could find a list of the candidates positions on science and technology.
Continue reading “Presidential Candidate's Science, Technology, and Energy Positions”
Religion iff Freedom
Compare and contrast and compare and constrast.
John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1960:
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute–where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote–where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference–and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
Mitt Romney, December 6, 2007:
Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.
Thomas Jefferson, in a letter, 1802:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.
Bonus points if you can connect the later quote to the context of the second quote in one historic moment.
Dr. StrangeArmitage
Am I the only one who thinks Richard Armitage (watch the whole thing at your own sanity’s sake)
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=XdwBR44aeBs[/youtube]
sounds just like General ‘Buck’ Turgidson from “Dr. Strangeloveor: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”:
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=HgyjlqhiTV8[/youtube]
? “Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!”
Pardon the Interuption
But the president of the United States of America really pisses me off. Okay, and now back to your regular scheduled program: “Extreme Hidden Subgroups.”
Update: If, like me, thinking about this only makes you angry, a great therapy is to read Chad’s Bush Commutes Pluto’s Sentence.
Vote You Silly Americans, Vote!
American politics? Best summed up by the Simpsons:
Kang (disguised as Bob Dole): Abortions for all
(Crowd boos)
Kang: Very well, no abortions for anyone.
(Crowd boos)
Kang: Hmm… Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!
(Crowd cheers and waves miniature flags)
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vote. Why should you vote? More wisdom from the Simpsons:
Marge: I still don’t understand why we have to build a ray gun to aim at a planet I’ve never even heard of.
Homer: Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos. (he is whipped by an alien)
You don’t want to be enslaved by aliens, now, do you?
Update: Just in case this election threatens to send you into a bout of depression, I highly recommend, this laughing baby
Did He Just Say "Quantum Coherence"?
As noted by JoAnne at Cosmic Varience, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy took emailed questions about last night’s comments concerning science funding made by U.S. President George Bush in his state of the union speech. Not since Al Gore explicitly mentioned quantum computers have quantum computers made it so close to the spotlight! In particular we read:
Collin, from Chicago writes:
What is the White House definition of ‘Basic Science’ the funding of which the president proposed to double in 10 years? For example, does the definition (and proposed doubling) include particle physics? What about nano technology? And a mission to Mars? Thanks.
John Marburger
The American Competitiveness Initiative identifies three priority agencies that are critical to basic research in the physical sciences that provides the foundation for future economic competitiveness. Areas like nanotechnology, information technology, materials science, and quantum coherence will be an important part of the initiative. Particle physics and space exploration are important, but not necessarily a focus of the Initiative.
Quantum coherence. That’s like almost quantum computing, right? (My favorite description along those lines are the words “quantum manipulation”…reminds me of someone trying to manipulate someone else’s wave function.)
On the same topic, you can find, here a press conference with a few more details. My favorite part of that press conference is
Q Is our Secretary of Education ill-equipped to help her own daughter with algebra? (Laughter.)
SECRETARY SPELLINGS: There’s the point, Ken. We need a math initiative for grown-ups like me. I’m going to see you like that, Elaine. (Laughter.)
Lincoln Rolling In His Grave?
Warning! Politics ahead! I try to avoid it at all costs, but some Fridays, I just can’t take it. Senstive eyes need not continue reading, although graduate students with loans might be tempted to take a look, irrespective of their taste or distaste for politics.
Continue reading “Lincoln Rolling In His Grave?”
Who Will Program the Quantum Computers?
Quantum computers can break many of today’s modern public key cryptosystems. Hence there are lots of three and four letter agencies in governments around the world who are very interested in getting a quantum computer built. (If we put our paranoid hats on, we can ask: are there any countries that are pursuing a secret project for quantum computing? Is it beyond possibility that China, for example, has a secret quantum computing project, and that they will beat the rest of the world to building a quantum computer? Could this be the next Sputnik? OK, enough paranoid mode!) What will the sensitive nature of quantum computers current killer application, breaking public key cryptosystems, mean for researchers in quantum computation? Will it mean that the first large scale quantum computers, when they are built, will have restricted access? Will all hell break loose once quantum computers which can break today’s public key cryptosystems? I’m not just thinking about spy versus spy schemes, but instead, I’m thinking about financial transactions, online use of credit cards, and the whole of the electronic economy. Sometimes it feels like it is a shame that the main attention grabbing algorithm for quantum computers is factoring. Other times, I think about the above line of reasoning, as it scares the bejesus out of me.
How will we make the transition from a world where public key cryptosystems are no longer secure? Will we use the unbroken cryptosystems (lattice based, and linear decoding based?) which have drawbacks which are fairly severe? Will we install quantum key distribution into our networks? And will this transition be gradual, or will it hit like a shockwave, as serious size quantum computers get built over a short span of time?
Interestingly, I don’t think the quantum computing community has had a serious dialogue about these issues. At least not that I know of. Sure we talk about these things over lunches in quantum groups around the world, but is there any consensus over how the public quantum computing community should deal with these issues?
Dean of Evolution
OK, so I know I said no more politics. But opening the paper every morning and seeing a new pro-intelligent design politician blather at the mouth (today was John McCain’s turn), it’s good to see another famous political blatherer actually blathering something sensible. So I present, via Pharyngula, via “Face the Nation” Howard Dean:
Mr. Harris: Were you troubled by President Bush’s endorsement that intelligent design should be taught alongside the evolution to schoolchildren?
Dr. Dean: The president has been anti-science for a long time. This is the most antiscientific regime that I’ve seen in America in my lifetime. I’m a trained physician, as you’re aware. I’m insulted by that. It’s going to harm America. What serious business is going to invest in America if a scientific education is influenced by politics? Science ought to be taught as science. If you want to teach religion, that’s a separate debate. But science should be taught as science.
Schieffer: What is intelligent design? What do you think of that idea?
Dr. Dean: I think it’s a religious idea. And actually, Einstein thought that there was some merit to it. Who am I to question Albert Einstein? But that is not–a religious idea is different than a scientific design. The idea that–and I don’t think science and religion are incompatible. That’s the thing that amazed me about this. You don’t have to disbelieve evolution in order to be a religious person. So I don’t understand why these folks continue to try to have this debate. But the truth of the matter is, intelligent design is a religious perception and a religious precept. That’s fine. That should be taught wherever religion is taught, if that’s the desire of those people who are religious.
Science is science. There’s no factual evidence for intelligent design. There’s an enormous amount of factual evidence for evolution. Those are the facts. If you don’t like the facts, then you can fight against them. The Catholic Church fought against Galileo for a great many, many centuries. But it never pays to ignore the facts. Reason we’re in trouble in Iraq right now, president didn’t care what the facts were. Reason we have a $7 trillion, almost $8 trillion national debt, president didn’t care what the facts were. The facts matter. The truth is, you can’t run a business, a state, a country or a family if you don’t care what the facts are.
Not perfect, but hell I’ll take anything I can get these days.