Would you be the exhibit?

The evidence of decline is the hostility to the silly harmless act.

Actually, at the college and post-college level, the US is still the world leader in math and science education. Our students are 'behind' coming out of high school (due to terrible educational oversight by unqualified persons that hamstrings our middle and high school teachers), but colleges continue to jump the gap, largely due to the passion and creativity for excellence in science and teaching by professors, and the lee-way to explore in both these areas upheld by academic institutions.

There is a reason a lot of the worlds top students try to come to the US for college... and also a reason that, as of late, they are itching to go back home after they get their excellent education...

lol

I've been around the block too many times for you to offend me.

I forgot an apostrophe, that all ya got ??

Wookied on phonics wookied for me.

Well said JoeTheSciencePro, hkdakota jump back in your box. Oh wait, you never got out.

I'm here,

what a weak and juvenile response. Just because you think its cute does not make it so. Those that decide your future might not agree with you or want to hire you.

I'll stand with hk.

Ron and hk, have either of you taken a quantum physics class ? Is your position- "we are behind in math and science because of this type of teaching ? What idea was the prof trying to communicate ?

Just NBC taking a cheap shot to sell ad revenue by misrepresenting what actually happened. Most folks won't see past the word stripped.

I think if a student needs his or her "attention grabbed," perhaps that student isn't well-suited for college.

What ever happened to paying attention and learning for the sake of self-improvement and the pursuit of knowledge?

Matt,

Well stated.

The prof is not just grabbing student's attention. He is conveying a message.

John, quantum mechanics is not "completely random," but rather, obeys probabilities. Completely random would imply that all occurrences have equal probabilities, but in quantum mechanics, things like Boltzmann distributions take over.

-but it does have to do with probabilities, not complete uniformity ?

Take a watch completely apart, put all the parts in a box and start shaking it. When all the parts assemble themselves together to make a working watch, call me. You will then have proven to me that evolution is possible.

Thank you, sir, for making my point more effectively than I ever could!

Making the point that you are beyond stupid to believe in evolution? I'll accept that.

Read it and and weep:

The Mathematical Impossibility of Evolution

According to the most-widely accepted theory of evolution today, the sole mechanism for producing evolution is that of random mutation combined with natural selection. Mutations are random changes in genetic systems. Natural selection is considered by evolutionists to be a sort of sieve, which retains the "good" mutations and allows the others to pass away.

Since random changes in ordered systems almost always will decrease the amount of order in those systems, nearly all mutations are harmful to the organisms which experience them. Nevertheless, the evolutionist insists that each complex organism in the world today has arisen by a long string of gradually accumulated good mutations preserved by natural selection. No one has ever actually observed a genuine mutation occurring in the natural environment which was beneficial (that is, adding useful genetic information to an existing genetic code), and therefore, retained by the selection process. For some reason, however, the idea has a certain persuasive quality about it and seems eminently reasonable to many people—until it is examined quantitatively, that is!

For example, consider a very simple putative organism composed of only 200 integrated and functioning parts, and the problem of deriving that organism by this type of process. The system presumably must have started with only one part and then gradually built itself up over many generations into its 200-part organization. The developing organism, at each successive stage, must itself be integrated and functioning in its environment in order to survive until the next stage. Each successive stage, of course, becomes statistically less likely than the preceding one, since it is far easier for a complex system to break down than to build itself up. A four-component integrated system can more easily "mutate" (that is, somehow suddenly change) into a three-component system (or even a four-component non-functioning system) than into a five-component integrated system. If, at any step in the chain, the system mutates "downward," then it is either destroyed altogether or else moves backward, in an evolutionary sense.

Therefore, the successful production of a 200-component functioning organism requires, at least, 200 successive, successful such "mutations," each of which is highly unlikely. Even evolutionists recognize that true mutations are very rare, and beneficial mutations are extremely rare—not more than one out of a thousand mutations are beneficial, at the very most.

But let us give the evolutionist the benefit of every consideration. Assume that, at each mutational step, there is equally as much chance for it to be good as bad. Thus, the probability for the success of each mutation is assumed to be one out of two, or one-half. Elementary statistical theory shows that the probability of 200 successive mutations being successful is then (½)²⁰⁰, or one chance out of 10⁶⁰. The number 10⁶⁰, if written out, would be "one" followed by sixty "zeros." In other words, the chance that a 200-component organism could be formed by mutation and natural selection is less than one chance out of a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion! Lest anyone think that a 200-part system is unreasonably complex, it should be noted that even a one-celled plant or animal may have millions of molecular "parts."

The evolutionist might react by saying that even though any one such mutating organism might not be successful, surely some around the world would be, especially in the 10 billion years (or 10¹⁸ seconds) of assumed earth history. Therefore, let us imagine that every one of the earth's 10¹⁴ square feet of surface harbors a billion (i.e., 10⁹) mutating systems and that each mutation requires one-half second (actually it would take far more time than this). Each system can thus go through its 200 mutations in 100 seconds and then, if it is unsuccessful, start over for a new try. In 10¹⁸ seconds, there can, therefore, be 10¹⁸/10², or 10¹⁶, trials by each mutating system. Multiplying all these numbers together, there would be a total possible number of attempts to develop a 200-component system equal to 10¹⁴ (10⁹) (10¹⁶), or 10³⁹ attempts. Since the probability against the success of any one of them is 10⁶⁰, it is obvious that the probability that just one of these 10³⁹ attempts might be successful is only one out of 10⁶⁰/10³⁹, or 10²¹.

All this means that the chance that any kind of a 200-component integrated functioning organism could be developed by mutation and natural selection just once, anywhere in the world, in all the assumed expanse of geologic time, is less than one chance out of a billion trillion. What possible conclusion, therefore, can we derive from such considerations as this except that evolution by mutation and natural selection is mathematically and logically indefensible!

This is a perfect example of the gross misuse of mathematics. It is a modified version of the following argument, which is more obviously flawed without all the window dressing:

If you shuffle a standard deck of cards, there are 52! possible permutations of those cards, which comes out to roughly 8 times 10 to the 67th power. That is an unbelievably large number; so large, that if you could shuffle the deck a thousand times every second, each possible permutation of the cards would occur roughly once in 2.56 times 10 to the 57th years. The probability of any single ordering of the cards is so small, it is essentially zero. [This is MUCH smaller than your quoted probability of one chance in a billion trillions.] Therefore, we must not be able to shuffle cards - or better yet, decks of cards must not exist.

Events with incredibly small probabilities clearly can and do sometimes occur. Decks of cards exist, and every time we shuffle one, we create one of those permutations. If the incredibly tiny probability of humans evolving as we did had not occurred, we wouldn't be here to calculate that probability and question our existence - and perhaps, a 3-armed, 12-fingered creature would be wondering if it evolved, or if some supernatural power created it.

What you fail to consider is that this astronomically small chance would have had to happen for every single organ in the human body, and then even more astronomically for them to all somehow come together in an organized sequence to have a functioning human being. Add to that the fact that somehow two separate sexes would have had to evolve with different sexual functions and differing reproductive organs that somehow just happen to work together to procreate the two separate sexes that happened to evolve to start with and you have a theoretical impossibility. And that is just for humans. Also in the equation are plants, animals and every other living organsism that exists. The plants must give out oxygen for us to breathe in while we sustain them with the carbon dioxide we exhale. And that is just touching the surface of the complexity of planet Earth, not to mention the billions of stars and the entire universe that also exists and would have had to evolve with the same astronomical chances. Any body that believes this is even possible is either a compulsive optimist or completely stupid.

If the incredibly tiny probability of humans evolving as we did had not occurred, we wouldn't be here to calculate that probability and question our existence - and perhaps, a 3-armed, 12-fingered creature would be wondering if it evolved, or if some supernatural power created it.

If we follow your logic, then why did we stop physically evolving? Are you under the premise that in another million years or so, human life as we know it will have taken on another form completely and people will not resemble anything like we do today? If so, what proof of this can you provide? Shouldn't we be seeing a visible pattern of physiological changes as time goes on? And, if this is the case, how is it even possible to have a consistent biological DNA that allowed scientists to clone Dolly the Lamb, for instance? If everything happens so randomly, cloning would not even be remotely possible.

Ran out of time after my edit. To quote:

The probability of any single ordering of the cards is so small, it is essentially zero. [This is MUCH smaller than your quoted probability of one chance in a billion trillions.] Therefore, we must not be able to shuffle cards - or better yet, decks of cards must not exist.

How in the name of sense do you come to the conclusion that since the probability of any single ordering of cards is essentially zero that we should not be able to even shuffle the cards or they must not exist? WTH???????

If the incredibly tiny probability of humans evolving as we did had not occurred, we wouldn't be here to calculate that probability and question our existence - and perhaps, a 3-armed, 12-fingered creature would be wondering if it evolved, or if some supernatural power created it.

That statement is complete circular logic.

Back on topic: He stripped with his back to the students? Why so modest?

What is your interest?

Sarcasm. What I really would like to have seen would be for all the women to follow suit.

And yet employers are impressed by a Columbia degree.

Time for a new icon? Perhaps this will do...

http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/pcimages/PC/003/web/PC003821.jpg

Yes - rather over the top, but he did get their attention didn't he? Only problem is that it doesn't sound like he created any profound insight for his students. He just looked stupid on Youtube.

Yes, this video is the total of his teachings to this class. They are making courses so much shorter these days ?

I love it when applied through things like density functional theory and hybrid functionals... the whole Hartree-Fock approach is a little too computationally taxing for me.

Oh, but we want all of our teachers to be the same, all of our ideas to be the same, and all of our presentations to be the same. There will be no tolerance of any deviation, because it is certain all kids learn in the same manner and they are all the exact same- or should be. We will have none of that stinkin' diversity.