Argument from Migraine

I am having a really bad migraine now. I was thinking about the existence of certain types of pain when it serves no purpose. A decaying tooth aches, which tells us that something must be done about it. If the decaying tooth never ached, it could lead to death. But a migraine serves no purpose.

I think this is a fine example against intelligent design. How is it then explained by evolution you may ask. Migraine sufferers have very high sexual desire than the normal populations. Migraine sufferers have procreated more progeny than the rest of the population without the trait. Thus migraine sufferers survived. And the disease remains in the species.

Theists are going to argue that “God has a plan for my greater good” and that is why I am having a migraine. They will ask you picture a parent who inoculates or allows a painful surgery on his/her children although it is painful. They argue that God is like that.

But when a child suffers from pain, any decent parent would try to comfort the child. So likewise God should also try to comfort me. God is not just any decent parent, he is the standard of decency.

So shouldn’t we expect more comforting from the God if the theists were right?

IMINNTU

I have got into NTU-Georgia Tech Integrated programme in Infocomm. Under this integrated programme in Computer Science, I will graduate with a Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Science) from NTU’s School of Computer Engineering and a Master of Science (Computer Science) from Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. The duration of the entire course is about 4 years.

NTU continues to rank among the world’s best, according to the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES). In the league of the “World’s top 100 in technology”, NTU advanced from 33rd position in 2004 to 26th in 2005, to 15th in the 2006 ranking exercise, where it outperformed well-known technology universities such as Melbourne University, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Ecole Polytechnique and University of Michigan. In 2007, THES placed NTU alongside the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in international ranking.

Georgia Tech is one of the U.S.’s premiere research universities. Ranked eighth among U.S. News & World Report’s top public universities, Georgia Tech’s 17,000 students are enrolled in its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Georgia Tech is among the nation’s top producers of women and African-American engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

I have applied for a National Infocomm Scholarship by the Singapore iDA which can fund this integrated programme. iDA is offering up to 100 scholarships over 5 years, starting in 2007, to students with excellent scholastic abilities and a strong track record of co-curricular activities. The National Infocomm Scholarship offered by iDA aims to build a pool of infocomm professionals taking leadership positions in the industry. The scholarships, each worth about S$170,000, cover full tuition fees for the entire duration of the programme, as well as annual allowance, hostel fees, and return airfare.

If I get the iDA scholarship (highly unlikely) I will have to work in one of their companies for 6 years. But studying with an iDA scholarship in NTU & Georgia Tech is cheaper than studying in NUS without the scholarship.

But studying at NUS can probably (more likely) get me a Bachelor’s degree in Computational Biology & Applied Mathematics, following which I will be able to pursue a PhD. in an American university. Although PhDs have stipends, NUS degree will probably have to be funded through study loans. Study loans can fund 100% of my tuition fees and will get me an additional pocket money of 300$ per month. Moreover study loans do not have bond periods.

So I guess, as of now, going to NUS is more profitable.

IMINUS

I’ve been accepted into the School of Computing in the National University of Singapore. Among the different degrees offered in the school , a Bachelor of Computing in Computational Biology and a Double Degree in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics are my favorites. I am planning to ask them whether it is possible to get into a Double Degree in Computational Biology and Applied Mathematics.

Update: Toh Mui Kiat, Manager, Dean’s Office (School of Computing) tells me:

This combination will fall under unstructured Double Degree Programme(DDP) and students must complete between 60 to 80 MCs before they can apply for DDP and their CAP must be at least 4.00 to be eligible to submit an application to us for the host faculty to consider.

Meanwhile, 100 year old NUS was found to be the 19th best university in the world according to Times Higher Education Supplement, which places Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi at the 57th position and University of Edinburgh (Charles Darwin studied there) at the 33rd position.

In the field of Biomedicine, which includes Computational Biology, NUS is placed at the 9th position but Massachusetts Institute of Technology is only at the 13th position.

These positions are determined by the number of patents held by the University faculty & students, and the quality of staff.

Warren vs. Harris

There is an excellent debate.. or should I say inter-world view dialog here. Here are some of my plagiarized thoughts about it:

I believe the value of these debates should not be judged on some kind of win/loose basis. The value is that the arguments against religion are being made in a forum that is accessible to the population in general. When possible, the religions use their substantial political power to keep people from hearing any dissent. Part of the reason so few people admit to pollsters that they do not believe is that they do not know where the line is. People often say they do not believe in the conventional personal deity, but do not consider themselves to be atheists.

As time goes on, and Sam does more of these, I am looking forward to more and more sticky questions. I would have liked to ask Warren, “when Jesus was preaching, why didn’t he say ‘Blessed are those who absent themselves from rats, for the fleas of rats may carry plague.’” Just think of how much death and suffering of the innocent would have been avoided in future generations by these simple words. Or how about, “Energy is mass times the speed of light, times again, the speed of light, but thee shall make no weapon of this.” Were these words written in scripture, although it may have taken a while, there would be no religious doubt today.

Warren talks about the arrogance of Sam’s position on evolution. I would like him to put himself in the position of someone who goes before a great religious council stating that he has found that the sun does not go around the earth, as described in their scripture, but rather the earth both spins and goes around the sun. In this situation, Warren would be told he is arrogant. How could he deny what is written, and anyone can see happen every morning? Had he gone up into the heavens and seen it himself? What about all the art and poetry about the sunrise and sunset? Isn’t it worth believing so we can have such creativity? Does he really want to live in a world where the living god Amun-Ra does not exist? I suspect Warren would consider himself just the way Sam considers himself, not arrogant, just wondering if it really is worth his time to talk to these closed minds (ie idiots).

Update on the Matthew-Luke contradiction

Recap: Matthew’s List of ancestors from King David to Jesus has only 28 ancestors, whereas Luke’s list of ancestors from King David to Jesus has 43 ancestors. Both lists share only 6 names. This contradiction is resolved by bible historians by assuming that Luke’s list belongs to Mary’s ancestors and that Matthew’s List belongs to Joseph’s ancestors. Although Luke’s list does not explicitly mention Mary, the fact it is Mary’s list, is explained by noting that to Jewish customs did not mention women in a list of ancestors. Other circumstantial evidence includes the fact that Luke gospel was written from the point of view of Mary.

New thoughts: The Hebrew Bible places David’s reign from around 1005 BCE until around 965 BCE. This makes the average age of procreation of male ancestors of Joseph in the Matthew’s list around 34 to 35 years. And the average age of procreation of male ancestors of Mary in the Luke’s list around 22 to 23 years. Those values do not look abnormal, and hence aids the conjecture that Matthew’s list belongs to Joseph and that Luke’s list belongs to Mary.

Elitist crap

Back in India, if the lesser males like me, talk about cricket in a social group, the topic would intentionally be converted by the more alpha males into something obscure in cricket, like about a relatively unknown cricket star, or about an obscure acronym that governs an little known rule in cricket. People like me were outcasts when it comes to the national sport which only the elite would play and talk about. I remember physical education instructor; he would only let the alpha males get the proper practice in the game. Lesser mortals like me were made fun of for playing indoor games like chess. Personally, I had always wanted to teach south Asians a lesson in humility when it comes to this elitist crap known as cricket and this world cup proved out to be the right time..

With a population as that of China, India has less than a hundredth of the total Olympic medals in China. Shame on you, Indians! You thought having darker skin means you are more macho.. and that all fair skinned losers were not good at sports!.. HAHA! This world cup has proved all the hype about Indian cricket was just a lot of elitist crap!