Is Evolution a Dangerous Idea? If so, why?

Pooo, Spendi, if that is the only explanation you can come up with, I just wry sadly at the paucity of it.

As to illustrate how poor that argument is, I can imagine the ancient Egyptians working at the CERN...

My summary of Wiker in one sentence is as follows.
"Darwin , a born and advancing atheist was merely a plagiarist of all the previous theories of evolution, which, upon closer inspection really arent worth doody anyway"

I thought I was honest and fair for far more than that...

Can you give me one possible way we could find out what existed before the universe ? We might formulate a theory, but how would we ever confirm anything about it ? There are already philosophies about how the universe might have been created...the merging of dimensions, the boiling out of matter into 3 dimensions...but how do we ever know which is more accurate ? There is no evidence of what was before...it could have been anything.

You would have watched space shows where ships go faster than light...well it is impossible for anything made of matter to go faster than the smallest matter known...light. In fact it is not matter as it has no mass. Every time something accelerates it accrues matter. Upon reaching the speed of light, it has infinite mass. This is a barrier to keep things apart. Without it we would all be in the same lump. Existence would be impossible. Going back in time, we have the other barrier, the creation of the universe. We will never cross these barriers. Sad, but true.

Consider the elusive tachyon. Do you deny that there is a possible path to determine whether this particle exists? Can we say with certainty that its merely a figment of our collective imaginations?

Either you are splitting hairs or your imagination is like the one the doctors of the beginning of the 20th century : You cannot travel at more than 60 mph because you'll asphixiate.

What's the point of discussing something like that?

Again, how can you say "never"? Never refers to the past, nobody can say never when it comes to the future...

Yes. We can't see it or sense it except as an effect registered in our instruments which is not proof something exists but only proof that there is an effect which we have imagined something causing and which we then give a name to as if giving the name to it brings it into existence as something other than a happening in our brain which is the only place it can exist.

If the search for it provides incomes and status for those who find the work of providing the facilities, the power and the security for conducting the search too demeaning to their self esteem we might well conclude that a new priesthood is arising speaking incomprehensibly and making their own TV programmes using comforting tones of voice, Christian music and virtual reality visual aids cobbled together on a computer for the amusement of the millions of couch potatoes sat in their little boxes imagining themselves to be improving their minds.

Francis--I hardly think that what "one of the doctors of the beginning of the 20th century" had to say, assuming one did, is of the slightest significance.

60 mph is hardly comparable with 299, 792, 458 x 60x 60 m per hour.

He was likely jesting anyway or warning poetically of the danger to life and limb of faster motor vehicles: a not unreasonable warning given the statistics of vehicle accidents since those days.

Not "one of the doctors", "doctors of the beginning ..."

~~~

One of the great things about science is that there is always something new to learn.

I don't believe there could have been more than one Beth. I even doubt that.

Skiiers could go a lot faster than 60 mph even in those days.

What was the best thing you learned in the last year Beth?

It seems to me that you, Spendi, as well a Ionus, have taken this matter too much lightly than it deserves.

I'd say, in the context we are talking, that it is of the highest significance.

It's par with assertions like "Science will never know.."

Can't you see the parallel?

No. I can't.

Hmmm, it can be a way of evading the question.

I'll not insist, then..

I can't really see the slightest significance in what happened before, during (an infinitissemal instant) or after the BB. Apart from this part of the after and the future.

I don't think science will ever know. Even if they came out and said they did with computer models and fancy explanations on the telly I still wouldn't believe them. I'll say "never".

I don't think the British Medical Association having said, which it wouldn't have done, that people would be asphyxiated at above 60 mph is of any significance either.

No--I don't see the parallel.

I don't know how near to the "origin" science will ever get. They have certainly gotten much closer already than a person might have dreamed not so many generations ago. Naysayers notwithsatnding. Not that it alters the findings of evolutionists, whatever they find. That life evolves is not conjecture. What we do with our knowledge of the universe and life is what is important. Do we cower in bunkers and try to shut it out, or do we stand up boldly and see how far we can go? As Cyrano said of Cervantes' windmills - They can fling us into the mire. Or up, among the stars.

I'm convinced that your answer is just a rhetorical one and, as so, I leave it for what it's worth..

You can say that about most answers if you had a mind to. I can't see there's much else I could have said.

There's a middle way Ed. Cowering under bunkers when necessary and seeing how far we can go when that seems worth trying. It's not one extreme or the other. It's a crappy choice up to the stars or in the ****. What do we do when we get up to the stars? Cyrano was no Cervantes. Nabokov wrote a good book about Dom Quixote.

Are you saying that Science should proceed unrestrained?

You must really be joking, Francis. Try to postulate a method that would give Science an answer to what happened to set a singularity into motion. Go ahead try it. If you can posit something, it would be just a philosophical guess, and then, Francis, if you are honest, you would be forced to admit that the cause of the "singularity " was caused by ?.

What is a gobshite? If the great guru says that there are many gobshites on these posts, I will not argue with him since he is the great guru--infallible and all knowing even though someone one indicated that he was evidently senile, But I don't believe that--great gurus are never senile, Old gurus never die, they simply fade away!