{"id":740,"date":"2019-04-29T17:30:44","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T23:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=740"},"modified":"2019-04-27T16:06:41","modified_gmt":"2019-04-27T22:06:41","slug":"truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=740","title":{"rendered":"Truth!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[To follow The Ewellogy<\/em><\/strong>, please click on Leave a Comment<\/em><\/strong> above, fill in your name and email, and check the box: Notify me of new posts by email<\/em><\/strong>. If your comment is, “Notify me,” it won’t post publicly. If you don’t start to receive the blog by email right away, please write to me at bob@ewell.com, and I will see that you get on the list.] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday<\/a> I wrote about the math competition I help judge every year, and the emphasis was on the futility of trying when you don’t know what you’re doing, when you haven’t trained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, the competitors were unusually verbose. Some years, those who have no idea how to solve the problems don’t write many words. This year, there were a plethora of words on papers which received no credit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why didn’t they receive credit? Because nothing they said was true or relevant to the problem. And mathematics is one of the few arenas left in the world of education where we don’t have to reward students for trying or for writing a bunch of nonsense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mathematics is still concerned with truth. And when we look at papers, they are coded so we don’t know the students’ names. Not their names, not their race or gender or age or grade. We are concerned only with the truth of what’s written there. Students’ sincerely believing that their answers are correct doesn’t make them correct. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dr. Alexander Soifer, founder and primary problem creator of the Soifer Mathematical Olympiad looking at a top paper with me. My friend and fellow believer Shane enters test scores into the computer. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Friday I saw some of the most beautifully written solutions, neat, organized, demonstrating, for example, how to get those 10 numbers that I wrote about yesterday equal. Unfortunately, good mathematics proves that they can’t be made equal under the processes we gave them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is truth in a world that doesn’t believe in facts or believes in “alternative facts,” or among people who believe that all religions are essentially the same. Either Pilate’s view of the world is true or Jesus’. Either Jesus is the Truth and the Son of God or he’s not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then Pilate said to him, \u201cSo you are a king?\u201d Jesus answered, \u201cYou say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world\u2014to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.\u201d Pilate said to him, \u201cWhat is truth?\u201d (John 18.37, 38, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus said to him, \u201cI am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.\u201d Philip said to him, \u201cLord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.\u201d Jesus said to him, \u201cHave I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, \u2018Show us the Father\u2019? (John 14.6 – 9, ESV) <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I wrote about the math competition I help judge every year, and the emphasis was on the futility of trying when you don’t know what you’re doing, when you haven’t trained. This year, the competitors were unusually verbose. Some years, those who have no idea how to solve the problems don’t write many words. … Continue reading Truth!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8X9bo-truth","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":744,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions\/744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}