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Code Review and the King James Bible

Mar 28

Posted by Carl Drews in Books, Carl, Culture, Faith, History, Technology | No Comments

I am a big fan of code review! Whether the software is written in Java, C++, Python, or (shudder!) Fortran, code review serves a number of important purposes in an organization that develops software. When I worked at Smarttalk.com we used a system of code review designed to produce high-quality code quickly. Here were the steps:

  1. When a developer thinks he/she is done with a single code module (one source code file), that developer calls for a code review. The broadcast e-mail and meeting invitation must go out no less than 48 hours before the scheduled review, so the other developers have at least 48 hours to look over the code before the meeting. You can schedule a code review for 3:00 pm on Thursday as long as you click on the Send button by 2:59 pm on Tuesday (and there were a few of those).
  2. The software developer can invite anyone they want to the review, but at least one participant must be at the Senior level. Go ahead and invite your friends! There was some worry about people only inviting people who would be favorable to them, but we quickly learned this principle: Friends don’t let friends write bad software. You are more likely to accept constructive criticism from your friends than from people you don’t get along with.
  3. A quorum is three people: the developer and two other software engineers, one of whom must be at the Senior level. The code review works better with about 4-5 people.
  4. The code file to review must be less than 1,000 lines long. Generally the other developers retrieve the code from the repository.
  5. The meeting will not last longer than 1 hour. If the code review runs overtime, the participants adjourn and re-schedule.
  6. The goal of the code review is to improve the code. All our jobs depend on producing and marketing high-quality software, and it is in everyone’s best interest for the code in the repository to work well and be easily maintained.
  7. Everyone is nervous at first about their work being reviewed, and for this reason there is a Moderator. The moderator makes sure everyone stays on track, watches out for criticism that is not helpful, and ensures that the experience is professionally positive for the developer. The moderator has the power to kick someone out of the meeting if they are being arrogant or derogatory. I never saw that happen, though – usually it is enough to remind someone that the goal of the code review is to improve the code.
  8. Everyone at the review sits around a table with a listing in front of them. The listing is printed with line numbers for easy reference. The developer begins with a brief explanation of the purpose of the code.
  9. The developer leads everyone else through the code, page by page, or subroutine by subroutine. Everything is fair game for improvement. The reviewers speak up in they have comments on a certain section. If not, the review moves on.
  10. It is great for less experienced programmers to attend! They can learn a lot from someone else’s code. Often they make very worthwhile contributions by requesting more extensive comments for some algorithm that is not clear. Sometimes you get people who just watch out for uniform spacing or lines longer than 80 characters. Those people contribute something positive to the process.
  11. Everyone looks for adherence to the coding standards.
  12. Sometimes design flaws are caught in a code review. The script has to sanitize input for web security. The code has to handle Unicode characters. Sometime a subroutine is just too long!
  13. Reviewers can suggest tests that might produce a failure, if they suspect a bug. The developer makes a note of those and will verify later that the software operates correctly, or fixes the bug if it does not.
  14. If extensive changes are requested, then another code review will be scheduled when the first round of changes are complete. This is rare. Even if there are lots of comments, usually the revisions take only a few days to complete.
  15. After the review: When the developer completes the requested changes to the software, he/she adds a note to the header comments of the file saying that the code was reviewed on that particular date by the following people (full names). Then the developer may check in the code, and move on to another file.

The developer under review gets completed feedback in 49 hours. I’m sure our loyal Funmurphys readers can add to this process and improve it. Tweak it for your organization. Remember that the primary purpose of code review is to improve the code. A secondary purpose is to provide on-the-job training for the more junior programmers. From time to time people will see a clever way of doing something, or suggest one, and notice code overlap that can be eliminated.

Those should be reasons enough for any professional software developer to conduct code reviews. But suppose you are out there thinking, “I’m a good engineer! I’ve written code for years, it’s well tested, and there are only a few minor bugs in my work. I’m good! I don’t need code review. It’s just a waste of my time.” Yeah, you’re kind of arrogant, but you have a right to be.

Here’s why you should request and schedule code reviews on your own code. Because someday, when you least expect it, someone else will come along and have to maintain or extend your code. And yeah, they won’t be as smart as you. They won’t understand your brilliance. They won’t take the time to read through your code and figure out how it’s carefully designed to work. What they will do is go to your boss and say the following: “This code that YourName wrote is dog poop! (but they won’t say ‘poop’)! I can’t follow it at all. This code has to be completely re-written!”

Then your boss will be faced with a dilemma. She knows you are a good software engineer and you write good code. She has not heard any problems with your code until now. But the new person is so insistent that your code is dog poop, that it has to be thrown out and re-written from scratch, and the new person uses lots of CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation marks and derogatory language in his e-mail complaint. I have seen this happen. What should your boss do?

Your boss has to evaluate the complaint. Your boss has to examine the code you wrote with a fine-toothed comb, checking if you are correct or if the new guy has some validity to what he says. Your boss has to call a technical review at which your detractor will be the star witness. You can’t defend yourself very well since you have moved on to another part of the project. You’re under suspicion. Unless . . .

Unless there is a short section in the header saying the following: This code was reviewed on March 28, 2010 by the following people: Ashley Adams, Bob Biltmore, Charlie Chang, and Debbie Dumas. When your boss finds that comment in the code, her course of action is simple: “Sorry, Mr. New Guy, but this code was reviewed by the software development team and found to be acceptable. You can suggest some improvements, but we are not throwing it out and re-writing the whole thing from scratch. If you cannot understand some else’s code, we will send you back into circulation and hire someone who can.”

Yes, code reviews can be held to Cover Your Anatomy. It’s not a great reason to do them. If the good reasons above are not sufficient to urge you to do code reviews, perhaps this bad one will. Enough said.

Now let’s turn back the clock 400 years to post-Elizabethan England, during the reign of King James I. He decided to produce a new translation of the Bible, the Authorized Version that would bear his name. Alister McGrath has written a great book about this period, which you should stop reading this blog to go out and buy, then come back here. The book is “In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How it Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture” (2001). The translators worked in teams. On page 187 we read this account of the actual translation process:

The translation in King James’ time took an excellent way. That part of the Bible was given to him who was most excellent in such a tongue (as the Apocrypha to Andrew Downes), and then they met together, and one read the translation, the rest holding in their hands some Bible, either of the learned tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, etc. If they found any fault, they spoke up; if not, he read on.

When I read this excerpt I laughed out loud. These guys are doing a code review! They used the same process 400 years ago to produce a good translation of the Bible that we use in modern times to produce good software! They all sat around a table and checked up on each other’s work. When the King James translators found a discrepancy, they worked together to resolve the problem That’s just what we do, too! I am sure that nobody at Smarttalk or any other software company set out to emulate the King James Bible scholars. But we have hit on the same process to produce a high-quality product.

This does not mean that the King James Bible is a perfect translation; the McGrath book documents a few errors that were corrected later. Another example is Hebrews 11:3 in the King James Version, which reads as follows: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” But the Greek word used for ‘worlds’ there is Aion (Strong’s Concordance G165), and should be translated into English as ‘eons’ or ‘ages’. God’s word of command caused huge spans of time to come to pass, as well as physical worlds. The KJV is not perfect. Nevertheless, if people are still using my code 400 years from now, my descendants should be very proud!

Maybe someday I will compare and contrast the process of code review with the peer review conducted by scientific journals.

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Academic and Choral Achievement

Dec 14

Posted by Carl Drews in Carl, Culture, Education, Faith, History, Music, Science, Technology | No Comments

Here is an update since Kevin updated the blogging software. In May 2009 I graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a Master’s degree in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. Wow, five years is a long time! There were quite a few speeches during the graduation ceremony, but I didn’t mind a bit! It took a lot of work to get to that ceremony, and I just sat there in the sunshine with my Master’s robe and mortarboard cap and drank it all in. John Roberts (a CNN correspondent) gave an inspiring address about making your dreams come true. When you come up against a wall, this is your opportunity to show the world how much you want something. If you want your goal bad enough, you will go over, under, around, or through the wall to reach your goal! I feel that I have so much potential, and opportunity, and rich possibilities ahead of me. I don’t ever want to lose that feeling. My sister and family came to see the graduation. Maybe someday when my kids get frustrated with school and homework and term papers and exams they will remember the bagpipes and the funny academic gowns and their Daddy graduating and they will understand that it’s all worthwhile.

Kevin, I don’t know if you wrote a thesis when you got your Master’s degree from Stanford University, or if the co-terminal program had some other option. I wrote a 110-page thesis describing my research and model results:

Title: Application of Storm Surge Modeling to Moses’ Crossing of the Red Sea; and to Manila Bay, the Philippines

Abstract:
Storm surge occurs in low-lying coastal areas when strong winds blow the sea surface up onto the land. The resulting inundation can pose a great danger to lives and property. This study uses an Ocean General Circulation Model and the results from a mesoscale atmospheric model to simulate storm surge and wind setdown. Two case studies are presented. A reconstruction of the crossing of the Red Sea by Moses and the Israelites, as described in Exodus 14, shows that the eastern Nile delta of Egypt matches the Biblical narrative and provides a hydrodynamic mechanism for water to remain on both sides of the dry passage. The vulnerability of Manila Bay and the surrounding areas to a Category 3 typhoon is evaluated and shows that the simulated surge heights depend heavily on the wind direction and the coastal topography.

The thesis document is published electronically by ProQuest, and anyone can download the PDF for a fee and read it. I classified the thesis under Biblical studies in addition to Physical oceanography and Atmospheric sciences. It would be cool to hear a little bell every time someone reads my thesis, but scientific publishing has not reached that stage yet.

I also made the national news for having sung in the Boulder Messiah Sing-Along for 17 consecutive years now. On November 3, 2009 the Associated Press published a news story on Messiah Sing-Along events, featuring the Boulder Messiah Chorale and Orchestra. Hallelujah for Handel’s ‘Messiah’ is by reporter Ann Levin. I am the Enthusiastic Choir Member in the story. If that link ever ceases to work, you can Google for: “Carl Drews” Messiah. Nobody has recognized me on the street yet (“Hey, you’re that Messiah choir dude!”), but it is nice to see that our sound is gone out into all lands, at least electronically.

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Movie Review of “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”

Apr 22

Posted by Carl Drews in Faith, Movies, Science | 1 Comment

Last night I went to see Ben Stein’s film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” at my local hexadecaplex. For $9.75 I got to see a terrible movie, and you got this review. I recently served as a guest speaker for an adult Sunday School class entitled, “The Harmony of Faith and Science” at a local Christian church, so this topic is fresh in my mind. I brought a clipboard with me and did my best to take notes in the dark: 5 pages of notes, and 3 more afterwards out in the cinema lobby.

The “Expelled” movie starts right off with an amateurish cinematic device: displaying old black-and-white newsreels of bad historical events while the narrator intones something you’re supposed be scared of. The opening sequence features the construction of the Berlin Wall. Throughout the movie we see clips of tanks, guns, Nazi soldiers, fistfights, a condescending school teacher, even Eddie Haskell beating up The Beaver! – flashing up on the screen whenever Ben Stein talks about Something Bad. When the film makes claims of repression and academic unfairness, you can bet that another old newsreel with scratchy sound is coming. My audience even laughed at a guillotine coming down on an empty block, it was so ridiculous! These clips are a childish device for trying to convince people. I don’t know why anyone over the age of 10 would fall for them.

Anyone expecting a Christian movie here will be disappointed. By my count Jesus is only mentioned in a background song, and the word “Christ” is spoken once. The Bible is mentioned a couple of times, but the Book is never opened. God is mentioned a fair number of times, but mostly in the general sense. The movie contains no in-depth discussion of God’s revelation in the Bible or in the person of Jesus Christ.

The movie reviews at Wikipedia and Scientific American are scholarly reviews, with proper citations and clear reasoning. They leave you with the unfortunate impression that “Expelled” is in the same class of scholarship. But make no mistake – “Expelled” is a really bad movie! Even those bad reviews make the movie sound more sophisticated than it really is. Think of Ben Stein blundering his way through a series of interviews and you’ll have a better idea of what “Expelled” is about.

The movie makes some astoundingly wrong claims. David Berlinski states, “We don’t even know what a species is!” Huh? What has he been reading? A speciesis “often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are often used, such as based on similarity of DNA or morphology.” It is true that species distinctions are sometimes fuzzy, but this fuzziness is evidence for evolution. Berlinski is citing evidence for evolution in the very act of denying that there is any.

I was amused to see how the filmmakers used bad lighting and unusual camera angles to make Richard Dawkins look like a vampire. Dawkins The Vampire appears throughout the movie, the very embodiment of all that is evil in modern science. He even gets his own theme music; my fellow movie-goers were very polite not to holler out “Don’t go in there!” Dawkins The Vampire is extremely useful to Ben Stein for creating Outrage, and this is the same use that creationists have for him.

“Expelled” attempts to make the usual creationist connection between “Darwinism” and atheism. This is bunk. Looking for theology in Origin of Species is a bit like looking for fishing techniques in the Gospels; you can find valid information, but it’s obvious that the main message is something else. Nevertheless, here is how Charles Darwin closed his Sixth Edition:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

The “Creator” is Darwin’s reference to God in the Victorian language of his time. Darwin may be a Deist or an agnostic, but the theological view expressed here is certainly not atheism.

If anyone cares what Adolf Hitler said, here is a quotation from Mein Kampf regarding God:

Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord (Adolf Hitler, 1943, in Mein Kampf. Translated by R. Manheim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Volume 1: A Reckoning, last sentence of Chapter 2: Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna).

If this blog were a Ben Stein “documentary” we would zoom in on the words “Almighty Creator”, like he does with a quotation by Thomas Jefferson. However . . .

I need to review an important concept for everyone’s benefit: The Christian Church does not formulate doctrine based on the views of Adolf Hitler. The Church does not derive its position on biological evolution by examining the views of Adolf Hitler. The Church does not take a stance on homosexuality based on what Adolf Hitler did. The Church does not learn about the Creator based on what Adolf Hitler wrote, either in a positive or a negative sense. I hope that’s clear now. And by the way, checking against Mein Kampf is not part of the scientific peer-review process either.

My Anglican church uses the Bible to determine doctrine, and the Bible alone. Anglican Article Six states: “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.” So what does the Bible say? Here are some verses from Genesis 1:

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

The Bible describes the earth as God’s agent of creation – the earth brings forth life at God’s command. This picture is in accordance with a theistic view of evolution, or BioLogos if you prefer the terminology of Francis Collins. Kenneth Miller also holds this view. Genesis 2 emphasizes that life is ultimately made from dirt, which is also in accordance with biological evolution.

Ben Stein raises the possibility that Christianity and evolution are compatible, citing the positions of the Catholic Church and most Protestant denominations, then quickly discards the notion based on quotations by Dawkins The Vampire and a reporter (with glasses; I didn’t catch his name). I don’t know why any Christian would expect theological truth to come out of Richard Dawkins’ mouth. But Stein gets the brief quotes he wants and then quickly moves onward, but not so quickly that he can’t mention the term “liberal Christians”. Later Count Dawkula reads through a list of insulting terms for the God of the Old Testament.

I simply can’t believe the claims of academic unfairness in “Expelled” without further investigation. The movie quickly and firmly establishes its non-trustworthiness through the use of those interspersed newsreel clips. If Ben Stein will do that, he’ll do anything. Here in Boulder we are familiar with the recent case of Ward Churchill, and we know that there is often a large discrepancy between why a person says he was fired and what his employer says. I’m not going to sit there in a movie theater and say, “Gosh this is a “documentary”! Everything must be true!” I recommend reading the Wikipedia article for more information.

During many interviews it’s obvious that the film editors have selected certain short film segments from a larger interview to make that person look bad or stupid. If the subject rubs his nose during the interview you’re sure to see that clip. Ben Stein acts needlessly stupid and looks bored during most interviews. Is this some kind of clever interviewing technique? A particularly stupid comment from Stein is, “I thought science was determined by the evidence, not by the courts!” Kitzmiller vs. Dover did not decide a scientific question; it decided that Intelligent Design could not be taught in the public schools.

There were two people in the film for whom I have great respect: Alister McGrath and John Polkinghorne. McGrath is the author of an excellent book about the King James Bible that you should read. He delivers a convincing and well-deserved criticism of Dawkins The Vampire. The Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne is a Physicist and an Anglican priest. Elsewhere Polkinghorne has stated: “As all sensible people know, scientific Evolution is completely compatible with Christianity: so is Gravity, Relativity (and the rest of Physics, Chemistry and Biology for that matter).” Stein claims that nobody he interviewed believes that evolution and faith are compatible, but that’s obviously not true.

The tour of the Nazi medical facility at Hadamar was sobering. Ben Stein exploits this event by prompting the tour guide to connect it with Darwinism. The only substantial connection between Darwin and Hitler was to interview Richard Weikart and talk about his book From Darwin to Hitler. But anti-Semitism existed for centuries before Darwin! Even Ben Stein concedes that “Darwinism does not automatically equate to Nazism, but was used to justify it.” And Hitler was a psychopath who would twist any “hodgepodge of ideas” to suit his purposes.

Eugenie Scott comes across pretty well, despite the best efforts of Stein and the film editors. They do manage to show that she has a messy desk. There is very little of substance in this movie.

I was surprised to see Michael Behe, the Apostle of Intelligent Design, neither featured nor even mentioned in the “Expelled” movie. Perhaps he was not invited to appear in the film, or he wisely decided not to have anything to do with this farce.

I expected that the “Expelled” movie would make me angry. Instead, I was chuckling as I left the theater. I was chuckling at how pathetic the movie was! “Expelled” might become a cult film someday: “How Not To Make A Documentary”, or “How To Make A Totally Unconvincing Movie While Looking Like A Buffoon”. “Expelled” is just a terrible movie!

At the very end Ben Stein confronts Dawkins The Vampire one final time. It’s hard for me to believe that Count Dawkula, as smart is he is supposed to be, did not see that he was being set up to be the villain. But that’s exactly what happens. Count Dawkula also fell for the oldest interviewer trick in the book: Stein remains silent, and the evil Count thinks he has to fill in the awkward silence with something. So Count Dawkula rambles into speculation about how if there were intelligent designers who designed this planet, they must also have evolved. But it’s mostly incoherent. Score one for Ben Stein.

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An Unforgiving God

Apr 21

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Faith, National Politics | No Comments

Eamon Fitzgerald reflects on the Pope’s visit to America :

Yes, of course, many crimes have been committed in the name of God, but no Christian leader was ever as barbaric as Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao, or Pol Pot or Saddam. Those monsters were not constrained by a moral order based on the dominion of a forgiving God. They were God. They were unforgiving.

Three Words for My Singing in Church

Apr 1

Posted by Sean Murphy in Faith, Fun | No Comments

  1. Awful
  2. Offkey
  3. Sprechstimme

A more succinct definition from the Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary: A vocal style in which the melody is spoken at approximate pitches rather than sung on exact pitches

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Merry Christmas

Dec 24

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Faith | No Comments

Merry Christmas!

Why have a merry Christmas? God loves you. No matter what, God loves you.

Merry Christmas!

Edwards on Evolution

Jun 6

Posted by Carl Drews in Faith | No Comments

Just because a Democrat says it, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.

There are ongoing debates among the Presidential candidates; so far it has been the Democrats and the Republicans separately, among themselves. As the field winnows down the two parties will debate each other and any viable third-party candidates. In the wake of those debates some short interviews have appeared as video on CNN.com and other news sites. CNN.com hosted an exchange between reporter Soledad O’Brien and North Carolina Senator John Edwards (Democrat) on the topic of evolution. With great difficulty I have transcribed the conversation from the video feed, just one of the public services we provide to you here at FunMurphys.com.

Soledad O’Brien: There was quite a little dust-up that the Republicans had in their debate over the question of evolution. So I’ll put the same question to you. Do you believe in evolution or do you believe in creationism?John Edwards: I believe in evolution.

O’Brien: What do you say to all the people – and there are millions of people – who go to church every Sunday, and who are told very clearly by their pastors, that in fact – the earth was created in six days that – that it’s about creationism. Are those people wrong? Are their pastors wrong?

Edwards: First of all, I grew up in the church, and – I grew up as a Southern Baptist, was baptized in the Baptist Church when I was very young – teenager at the time – and I was taught many of the same things. And I think it’s perfectly possible to make our faith, my faith belief system, consistent with a recognition that there is real science out there, and scientific evidence of evolution. I don’t think those things are inconsistent. And I think that a belief in God, and a belief in Christ in my case, is not in any way inconsistent with that.

O’Brien: There are people who say, well it’s actually – isn’t it mutually exclusive? I mean, either man was created by, you know, Adam’s rib, or in fact, that man came, evolution-wise, from apes. Aren’t the two mutually exclusive?

Edwards: No, I don’t think they are. Because the hand of God was in every step of what’s happened with man. The hand of God today is in every step of what happens with me, and every human being that exists on this planet.

Transcribed from CNN.com: June 5, 2007.

I like the answer that John Edwards gave. Despite being limited to only a few seconds, he gave a coherent answer affirming that God can and does work His will through processes that we can investigate using the scientific method. Edwards could have elaborated further on how he came to that belief, how he understands the accounts in Genesis 1 and 2, but in a forum like this he has to sum it all up in a few sentences. He politely and firmly rejected the false choice that Soledad O’Brien presented; that one has to choose between either creation by God or biological descent from apes. Nicely done, John!

Soledad O’Brien made two major mistakes in the short exchange. The first mistake was her apparent ignorance of the fact that there are other millions of people who believe in God and accept the scientific theory of evolution. For example, on April 6, 2007 Dr. Francis Collins recently published a commentary on CNN.com entitled “Why this scientist believes in God”:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/index.html

Collins is the director of the Human Genome Project. He believes in Jesus Christ and in evolution, and his head does not explode. There are many others, and it’s odd that O’Brien seems to be unaware of them. Maybe she’s simply doing her job as a journalist by asking provocative questions.

O’Brien’s second mistake was in asserting that man was created from Adam’ rib. According to Genesis 2:21-23, it was Eve alone who was created from Adam’s rib. Adam and all the animals in Genesis 2 were created from dirt, from the “dust of the ground” if you prefer the poetic phrasing. O’Brien’s garbled statement of creationism there can only be attributed to confusion within young-earth creationism itself; Genesis 1 states in verses 11, 20, and 24 that the earth produced life in response to God’s spoken command; the plain reading of Genesis 2:7 implies that God collected a lump of clay in His hands, formed it into the shape of a bipedal hominid, and breathed into the mouth opening. The original clay was then transformed miraculously into Adam’s heart, lungs, liver, bones, muscles, and so on. So which is it – indirect creation by the earth at God’s command, or direct creation by animating clay? O’Brien evidently did not know.

The account in Genesis 1 is consistent with a theistic understanding of evolution, and with Edwards’ final statement. God directs “natural” processes in ways that we do not understand. More creation detail is given in Genesis 2, but the ultimate source of living material is dirt, and that is also what the theory of evolution states. Sure, it would have saved lots of confusion if Genesis had mentioned a few intermediate steps between the “soupy seas” and human beings. It would have save lots of confusion if Genesis had stated that the earth is a sphere, and that it orbits around the sun. I believe the Author of Genesis has concentrated on the spiritual message, and has let us figure out the scientific details later.

O’Brien mentioned the six days of creation, from Genesis 1. Although young-earth creationists insist that that the Hebrew word “yom” must be interpreted as a 24-hour day, that meaning is not the only meaning in either ancient Hebrew or modern English. Genesis 2:4 uses “yom” to refer to the entire creation week. Modern people who say “Back in my day…” are not referring to a single 24-hour day. The sun does not even appear to mark the “days” until day 4 (Genesis 1:14); is there some angel carefully marking the cosmic time to be sure that God’s marvelous acts of creation do not overlap 24 earth hours? (No!) Furthermore, the six “days” of creation, so important in Genesis 1, are not even mentioned in Genesis 2 after verse 3. If the “days” of Genesis 1 are so important, then why doesn’t Gensis 2 state that most of it happened on day 6? There is no Biblical requirement for the “yoms” in Genesis 1 to be strictly 24-hour days.

Soledad O’Brien was quite correct in asserting that some Christian pastors are teaching quite clearly that the earth was created in 6 24-hour days; or much worse, that belief in creationISM is a requirement of Christianity. One of those pastors is Dr. Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In the August 15, 2005 issue of TIME Magazine he stated on page 35, “For one thing, there’s the issue of human ‘descent’. Evangelicals must absolutely affirm the special creation of humans in God’s image, with no physical evolution from any nonhuman species.” (And don’t bother quibbling about the term “Evangelicals”; he obviously means the right kind of Christians. On today’s blog he further states: “To be human is to be a limited creature — and Christians understand that those limitations are not the accidental byproducts of evolution. To the contrary, these limitations represent the intentional will of the Creator.”)

Christianity is defined by the Bible, not by extra-biblical pronouncements from theologians. John 3:16 states the formula for salvation: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Romans 10:9 further states: “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” It’s a lot about Jesus and nothing about biology!

Attempting to change the definition of the Christian faith is a grave sin. God anticipated this situation 1,900 years ago, when He directed St. Paul to write in Galations 1:6-9: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” NIV

Dr. Mohler is wrong, and so is any other pastor or priest who tries to make rejection of evolution a requirement of the Christian faith. It’s not all about creationism. It’s all about Jesus! Jesus Christ the Son of God, crucified for our sins and miraculously risen from the dead. That’s what John 3:16 says. That is the Christian Gospel.

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Breaking Up Is Easy; Dividing Up Is Hard

Jan 10

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Faith | No Comments

As a learned laywer once told me: Divorce is simple; the property settlement is hard. The Episcopalians seems to be learning that truth nowas the jockying for property ownership is starting to turn ugly.

I’ll offer just one bit of advice for those who are leaving the ECUSA for its abandonment of biblical teaching: The church is not the building the congregation meets in, the church is the congregation (and in a larger sense, all of us Christians). New buildings can easily be built by vital congregations; moribund congregations can’t support oversized buildings and a mostly empty building provides mute testimony for those who have ears for such things.

I understand the desire to continue to worship and fellowship in the same place you always have, but what is the witness that you stood firmer on the property than the teaching? If it comes to it, let the building be a millstone around the ECUSAs neck. What is the market for old church buildings? What will the witness be if the ECUSA keeps you out but sells the property either to another congregation or to a developer? If you really want it badly enough, you might be able to buy it back from the ECUSA rump in a couple of years. A few years of exile in the desert might even do your congregation some good as it helps you focus on Jesus and not the distractions of this world.

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Merry Christmas!

Dec 24

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Faith | No Comments

I’m wishing you a Merry Christmas!

And if you celebrate something different this time of year, then may you find the joy and satisfaction in that celebration.

And if you don’t celebrate anything this time of year, then Merry Christmas!

Hark the herald angels sing “Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild God and sinners reconciled”
Joyful, all ye nations rise Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim: “Christ is born in Bethlehem”
Hark! The herald angels sing “Glory to the newborn King!”

Christ by highest heav’n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris’n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”

—- Charles Wesley

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Dobson, Seipp, and HPV Vaccination

Oct 2

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Economics, Faith, Science | No Comments

Cathy Seipp is a smart person, so why does she her analysis of the response to an HPV vaccine stumble so badly?

First off, she claims that certain religious fanatics are attacking the new vaccine for HPV:

One of the first things I had my 17-year-old daughter do when she began college this fall was make an appointment to get the new anti-HPV (for “Human Papillomavirus”) vaccine at the university’s student health center. HPV is the sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer, and the new vaccine (which in my view should only be celebrated, as should all medical progress) has been attacked by religious fanatics almost as soon as it was introduced. “Why, this will only encourage young girls to have sex!” Or so that kind of thinking goes — if you can even call it “thinking.”

OK, what is Focus on the Family’s position? Oddly enough, they have a .pdf position statement on their web site:

Recognizing the worldwide detriment to individuals and families resulting from HPV, Focus on the Family supports and encourages the development of safe, effective and ethical vaccines against HPV, as well as other viruses. The use of these vaccines may prevent many cases of cervical cancer, thus saving the lives of millions of women across the globe. Therefore, Focus on the Family supports widespread (universal) availability of HPV vaccines but opposes mandatory HPV vaccinations for entry to public school. The decision of whether to vaccinate a minor against this or other sexually transmitted infections should remain with the child’s parent or guardian. As in all areas of sexual health and education, Focus on the Family upholds parents’ right to be the primary decision maker and educator for their children. The use of these vaccines should involve informed consent for parents as well as education for both parents and youth regarding the potential benefits and risks of the vaccine. In making this decision, parents should consider the following:
* No vaccine is 100% effective against disease;
* There are more than one hundred sub-types of HPV and the current vaccines being tested are effective against, at most, four of these;
* The sub-types of the virus that these vaccines protect against are the cause of most but not all cases of cervical cancer;
* The possibility of HPV infection resulting from sexual assault, including date rape;
* The possibility that young persons may marry someone previously exposed to and still carrying the virus;
* The HPV vaccines do not protect against other STIs or prevent pregnancy;
* The HPV vaccines do not, in any circumstance, negate or substitute the best health message of sexual abstinence until marriage and sexual faithfulness after marriage.

Hmm, how about Family Research Council:

The Family Research Council welcomes the news that vaccines are in development for preventing infection with certain strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV). We also welcome the reports, like those we’ve heard this morning, of promising clinical trials for such a vaccine. Forms of primary prevention and medical advances in this area hold potential for helping to protect the health of millions of Americans and helping to preserve the lives of thousands of American women who currently die of cervical cancer each year as a result of HPV infection. Media reports suggesting that the Family Research Council opposes all development or distribution of such vaccines are false….

We will also continue to take an interest in the activities of the pharmaceutical companies, the federal and state governments, and of the medical community, as vaccines for HPV are approved, recommendations for their use are developed, and their use is implemented. In particular, we encourage follow-up studies to determine whether use of the vaccine has any impact on sexual behavior and its correlates, such as rates of other sexually transmitted diseases or rates of pregnancy.

We are particularly concerned with insuring that medically accurate information regarding the benefits and limitations of an HPV vaccine is distributed to public health officials, physicians, patients, and the parents of minor patients. It is especially important for those parties to understand that such a vaccine:

* will not prevent transmission of HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases, of which there are many;

* will not prevent infection with other strains of HPV, of which there are also many;

* will not prevent infection with all of the strains of HPV that cause cervical cancer;

* and lastly, will not eliminate the need for regular screening.

We recognize that the most current immunological studies suggest that these vaccines would be most effective in pre-adolescents. Our primary concern is with the message that would be delivered to nine- to twelve-year-olds with the administration of the vaccines. Care must be taken not to communicate that such an intervention makes all sex “safe.” We strongly encourage the health care community to clearly communicate the medically accurate fact that only abstaining from sexual contact with infected individuals can fully protect someone from the wide range of sexually transmitted diseases.

However, we also recognize that HPV infection can result from sexual abuse or assault, and that a person may marry someone still carrying the virus. These provide strong reasons why even someone practicing abstinence and fidelity may benefit from HPV vaccines.

Because parents have an inherent right to be the primary educator and decision maker regarding their children’s health, we would oppose any measures to legally require vaccination or to coerce parents into authorizing it. Because the cancer-causing strains of HPV are not transmitted through casual contact, there is no justification for any vaccination mandate as a condition of public school attendance. However, we do support the widespread distribution and use of vaccines against HPV.

Vaccination at the beginning of adolescence may provide a unique opportunity for both health care providers and parents to discuss with young people the full range of issues related to sexual health. We would encourage this committee to recommend that policy-making bodies, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, should develop and formalize clinical counseling interventions directed toward sexual risk elimination strategies for pre-adolescents. Such strategies could be incorporated into anticipatory guidance protocols. Such a strategy would also mirror the risk elimination messages presented to adolescents regarding tobacco, alcohol, and drug usage, and youth violence prevention. This risk elimination message is the best form of primary prevention youth can receive.

Both health care providers and parents should reinforce the fact that limiting sexual activity to the context of one faithful and monogamous long-term relationship is the single most effective method of preventing all sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancies, and the whole range of negative psychological and social consequences that can result from sexual activity outside marriage.

OK, how about Jerry Falwell? Silent on the issue.

National Abstinence Clearinghouse? OK, I admit I’m not a member and don’t want to join so I can’t actually see what’s in their resource library, but here are some titles:

07.05.2006 More on HPV and Condoms
06.29.2006 HPV Vaccine: How Much Will it Cost?
06.21.2006 HPV Vaccine: Progress, But the Battle’s Not Over Against HPV
05.24.2006 HPV Vaccine Clears FDA Hurdle
04.26.2006 Data from Eight Collected Studies Shows Enormous Risk of Cervical Cancer from HPV
04.07.2006 New Way to Encourage Someone to Test for STD
04.05.2006 Teens and STDs: A New Message for a Healthy Millennium

Call me crazy, but it strikes me that they are in line with Focus on the Family, not opposed, and I’m assuming their position is best summed up by “HPV Vaccine: Progress, But the Battle’s Not Over Against HPV”.

Now perhaps these organizations have all moderated their opposition after the FDA approved it and I’m (admittedly) late to the party. But that isn’t what is claimed. Now to be sure there may be some people out there actually flat out opposed to the HPV vaccine who are Christians, but I’m sure not seeing some movement by any influential organization.

But it doesn’t end there. Ms. Seipp continues:

This naturally brought out all the true believers in hordes — many of whom insisted that my comparison of vaccines that prevent disease to locked doors that prevent burglars is wrong, wrong, wrong. I don’t see why. Some of these people insist the analogy is flawed because airbags and seatbelts encourage people to drive more recklessly, not less.But while it’s true there are some studies that indicate improved safety features in cars do make some people feel inoculated against road hazards and so more likely to speed, what about people like me? I never speed and haven’t had a traffic ticket in 26 years — pretty much what you’d expect from a typical Volvo-driving fuddy-duddy…whose seatbelts always fastened, and whose car has airbags.

It’s true my analogy about burglars and disease may be imperfect, but it’s nevertheless essentially true. One person, for instance, said I should have used the example of theft insurance instead of locked doors. But I don’t see why. Vaccinating against disease and locking your doors against burglars both recognize that we live in a world where bad things can happen even if we don’t deserve them. Recognizing that fact no more encourages promiscuity than locked doors encourages burglary; both are simply precautions.

Now let’s take up the question of whether or not reducing the risk associated with a behavior increases the incidence of said behavior. That is the what is claimed again by Ms. Seipp as the religious fanatic’s objection to this vaccine.

So her analogy is that since locking your doors at night doesn’t encourage burglars, making sex less risky won’t encourage sex. There are two problems that make her analogy a non-sequitor. The original is about how your ability to lower the risk of your behavior to yourself encourages you to do more of that behavior. The analogy is about how your ability to (1) increase the risk of (2) someone else’s behavior doesn’t encourage them. Gee, when you get to stand the other person’s points on their heads, you can easily refute them.

Now a reader tries to rescue her “One person, for instance, said I should have used the example of theft insurance instead of locked doors. But I don’t see why.” Here’s why: the analogy becomes just because you have theft insurance [lower the risk] you don’t stop locking your doors at night [risky behavior]. The reason you should use it is that it actually conforms to the logic of the objection. I have to admit I don’t have data, but I’d say there are more people who would take less precautions with their property knowing they would be paid for a loss than there are who would take more.

But I don’ have to think too hard about this, because we already have data about this very effect, and Ms. Seipp cites it – anti-lock brakes and airbags have made people feel safer, so we have engaged in riskier driving behavior to the point we are no safer, and even less safe than before. So we have valid evidence that low and behold, if you lower the risk of a certain behavior, people will do more of it.

And how does Ms. Seipp respond to actual real hard data? Anecdote. Hey I own a safe car and I don’t engage in risky behavior. OK, what does that have to do with the measurement of real behavior by real people? Yep, none.

As far as Ms. Seipp’s analogy, how about we ask the question, if burglars were given a “get out of jail free” card that really worked, even if only once, would they commit more or less burglary? I don’t have to think too hard about that one.

But one has to ask, so what? As far as I can tell, what Focus on the Family and Family Research Council are warning against is a false sense of security – that is they don’t want the message to be that because of this vaccine, sex has been rendered safe and complication free. Kind of like, just because you lock the front door everynight, don’t think you can’t be burglarized.

A better response would be that given all of the factors that go into becoming sexually active, the risk of HPV is pretty far down the list and is just not very significant, and that the risk that young girls would misjudge and take this vaccine as a license for risk free sex could be overcome through the proper education — which sound a lot like the positions take by those religious fanatics at FOTF and FRC.

So what did I learn from reading Ms. Seipp in this case? Nothing about so called religious fanatics. But I did learn that even smart, reliable people goof: they don’t accurately represent other people’s positions, they don’t reason well, they dismiss data if it disagrees with their opinion, and in general can just go off half-cocked. And yes, I’m sure if you were a glutton for punishment and went through my archives you could find similar problems from time to time.

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