State Constitutional Amendments

For those of you in California you may have heard about this or even had the First Presidency letter read in your ward, but for those of you who don’t know, in California, Arizona and Florida there are constitutional amendments that are going to be voted on sometime soon to ban homosexual marriage. The Church is stepping up efforts to support the passing of the amendments and is actively trying to get the members to do the same. Here is a link to the Church commentary on it on the Church website.

If you want to read a technical legal interpretation of what is going on in Arizona and California my dad has a blog where he is commenting on this (if you want to comment on his site you can, his site is open for comments and he would enjoy it). He give a good legal explanation of the legal precedent used by the California Supreme Court in support of homosexual marriage and also the legal precedent used by the Arizona Supreme Court against homosexual marriage.

What it comes down to is that in California the Supreme Court ruled that the rights of the individual are the foundation of society and that the family, and marriage, is something in addition to the individual and that marriage and family have no legal status above and beyond that given to things such as jobs, contracts and clubs. Thus in California rights belong only to the individual and the individual has no inherent duty or obligation to society other than their own self-interest.

In Arizona on the other hand, the Supreme Court has ruled that the family and marriage between a man and a woman is not a legal entity and does not and is not subject to the same legal parameters as a contract or any other type of legal arrangement, because the family is the fundamental and basic unit of society. Thus the courts and the law do not have jurisdiction to change the status of marriage, but the government does have the obligation and the interest to preserve the family. My dad included a quote from the case in Arizona that I found very interesting.

“Nevertheless, the state is also vitally concerned with the establishment of marriages because marriage is a relationship in which "the public is deeply interested, for it is the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress." Nelson, 604 F.Supp. at 593 (quoting Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190, 211, 8 S.Ct. 723, 729, 31 L.Ed. 654 (1888)).” Moran v. Moran, 188 Ariz. 139, 933 P.2d 1207 (App. 1997)

So if you want to look over any of the legal arguments used in California and/or Arizona you can consult my dad’s site. He has all the info and links there if you want to read over it. I think that this would help put things in perspective and if you want to know what is going on with the debate the Church links and my dad's blog can help with all the info and commentary.

Evolution and Adaption

I think that in talking about evolution we must separate evolution into two distinct categories: One, evolution dealing with the adaptation of single organisms or species to a change in the environment (hereafter referred to as adaptation) and; Two, the process which life came to be on this planet through traditional ideas of natural selection (hereafter referred to as evolution). (Note the careful distinction that I make. I will make use of these definitions through out.)

Adaptation is a proven fact and has been well documented and studied by biologist, bacteriologists and pharmacologists all over the world. A problem arises when people observe adaptation and assume that it instantly proves or at least infers evolution. They argue that if species can adapt to changing situations then over time preferable arrangements of chemicals gave rise to life and life adapted and evolved until it reached its present state. Of course people who hold to creationism reject the conclusion and because they reject the conclusion they are “forced” to reject the evidence. The problem with inferring evolution from adaptation is that you run into the very real possibility of having a fallacious argument. In logic this type of fallacy can fall into two different categories, either “Proof by Example” or “Affirming the Consequent” (note: don’t get the idea that these are two names for the same thing, they are two very different fallacies, but the argument can fall under both fallacies). It is left as an exercise to the reader to figure out how these two fallacies apply (hey, I can’t give all the answers). I should point out that even when an argument is fallacious it may still be true (there are some technicalities involved here).

Also from a purely empirical viewpoint, the question has to be asked “Did you actually sit there and observe evolution?” The answer is obviously “No.” So by the basic tenants underpinning all the assumptions of science you cannot argue for evolution, until you actually observe it. Adaptation on the other had is indisputable.

I should at this point, point out that there are some rather convincing arguments founded on good science for the earth being the age they claim it to be (several billion years old). Having actually (meaning personally) measured the half life of elements and successfully calculated the half life with close agreement to the measurements I have to admit from personal observation that the dating of certain objects is based on good science that it cannot rationally be disputed. On the other hand, trying to understand the whole history of the earth and trying to conclude that life came about through evolution, just by looking at a small (yes small, despite the fact that some will say “Huge! Ginormous!”) collection of fossils is like trying to infer the structure and organization of the bureaucracy of the East India Trading Company by looking at a cup of tea.

So where do I personally stand? I am a very strong empiricist and it makes absolutely no sense to “explain” something that has not been observed. Does that bother me (that I can’t explain it)? No. (If that bothers you, then try understanding strict empiricism first and then talk to me about it.)

Sudoku: Ah the Possibilities

Recently my roommate and I were wondering how many different Sudoku puzzles it is possible to make. We first figured out one square of 3x3 and went on to the 9x9. The 3x3 gives 9! and the 9x9 gives 9!*8!*7!*6!*5!*4!*3!*2!*1!, or 1,834,933,472,251,084,800,000 (1.83 e 21) different possibilities. (Nick raised the objection that in our calculation we did not account for the 3x3 rule (A number can only appear once in a 3x3 square) but after a little thought we think that the 3x3 rule is automatically satisfied if the column and row rules are satisfied (which we based our calculations on). So for calculation's sake we will make that assumption until further outcome of that debate.) Now that is just the number of ways a single puzzle can be filled. Several different puzzles can be made from the same arrangement of numbers by excluding different numbers.

During my public speaking class I found that the easy Sudoku in the paper has 40 numbers of the 81 possible, the moderate has 36 and the hard has 32. From there it starts getting messy. If we just consider the easy puzzles that will give us 3.987 x 10^44 different puzzles ( that comes from 81!/((81-40)!40!)*1.83 e 21). I could give exact numbers here but at the moment I'm thinking "what's the point". So the lesson here is, they have plenty of possible Sudoku puzzles to make, so they will most likely not run out of them.