Is Evolution a Dangerous Idea? If so, why?

Now that is where i think you are wrong. If any science doesnt have in its context room for a discussion on the relevancy of philosophy/religion and its application to their work, then scientists run the risk of being a complete Doctor Frankenstein with the exclusion of Mary Shelley to write a happy ending.

I went out of my way Ed to say this--





Pope's beautiful image will be relevant to all future science and not only today's. It is the essence of the debate and always will be unless science takes over everything and burns it.

You have not offered one scintilla of evidence that I was wrong about Tristram Shandy. The assertion suffices of course.

At the moment of the hero's conception we find Mrs Shandy remarking to Mr Shandy--"Pray, my dear. . . have you not forgot to wind up the clock?"

I submit that the quote is quite sufficient to ensure that the book Mr Jefferson spoke so highly of is not to be found in a school library in the US, leaving out the multitude of other reasons.

There are three words in Mr Jefferson's remark I draw your attention to. They are "particularly", "best" and "ever". If you hang on Mr Jefferson's words then hang on those three. We have to assume he chose his words with care as a legalist and a politician. And that he was catching Rabelais, Cervantes and Burton in the net as they are the principle inspirations of Sterne as he would obviously have known. And I daresay none of those are in the school libraries in the US either.

Hence my smirks when you evolutionists start ranting about the "truth" being taught in your schools.

On what point was I "wrong"?

Hint, Its not the version from "A Wrinkle in Time"

April Fools are terminated here at 12,00 hours. It is now 16,29.

"While pensive Poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep."

Alexander Pope. The Dunciad.

"I made shoes for everyone, even you, while I still go barefoot."

Bob Dylan. I and I.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5UmbIMTFTs&feature=related

I was stood next to the cameraman on the very turf where Jackie Milburn played.

"But greedy that its object would devour,
This taste the honey, and not wound the flower:"

Alexander Pope. An Essay On Man.

"As I walked out tonight in the mystic garden,
The wounded flowers hanging on the vine."

Bob Dylan. Ain't Talkin'.

I took this post of yours, spendi, from the Dream thread:
@farmerman,

I'd start eating lettuce butties fm if I was you. And reading pastoral poetry.

That evolution science is bothering your noddle.

Gratuitous, ungracious, mean spirited - Fat lot of good Pope did you.

I was trying to help fm have sweeter dreams. Both methods I recommended have their adherents. That dream he had was a bit heavy.

I appreciate poets and the lofty ideals of great thinkers. Thing is, you cannot separate us from science using such. With no evolution, Pope and Zimmerman would not exist. To everything there is a season and all that good crap.

I'm not trying to separate us from science. Perish the thought.

Really. Tell me how much you appreciate the study of evolution.

I think in evolutionary terms. It's not for everybody. That's for sure. It's a very severe doctrine.

There are about 20 million kids in grade school. That adds up to a lot with IQs above 140.

Every doctrine has its severe side. I used to sit in church listening to the minister tell how hellfire and damnation turned on a whim of a jealous god. A woman shorted the church at the collection box and the god she worshipped struck her dead on the spot, according to one I listened to. I watched a minister 'expel a demon' from a man. I find it much more elevating and awesome to learn how life changed over the eons, all the good and bad of it. It is for the humans to learn from their bad experiences and make something good. Children are generally conned and frightened by the parents. That is the main reason many recoil from learning about the natural world through science.

Jesus Christ . . . the gobshite Spurious once again succeeds in suckering all of y'all into discussing what he wants to discuss, rather than the topic.

Hell went out a long while ago Ed. Dante made the idea look ridiculous. So did James Joyce. Taking the piss out of Heaven is a popular theme.

I know shorting the collection is a bit low but it's not a capital offence.

And psychiatry is all about expelling demons.

Darwinianism is so obvious. It's limiting. It's interesting for a short while. About 10 minutes. To build a career on it is stretching it further than knicker elastic will go. And I think that a false impression can be given in terms of time.
As Darwin often reminds his readers the time is "unimaginable". And it is. But it's very tempting to think you can imagine it.

I know people who won't watch nature programmes. They find them horrible. I have felt it myself. Nature's ghastly.

I saw a movie on Sky Arts of Rubinstein playing Grieg's piano concerto with Previn conducting the LSO backing him. How does a brain and fingers do that? That's awesome to me. Nature has nothing to compare with it.

And landing on the moon and going for a ride in a buggy. Gee!!

Us Christians are wonderful. At our best I mean. When we are behaving like Christians.

The story of God stopping Abraham killing his son was a fable told to stop human sacrifice. People thought their Gods were wanting human sacrifice before that story. Here was a God that didn't.

Apparently, you believe that if one accepts evolutionary science, it becomes the end all, be all of a person's life. There are of course religious persons who accept evolution for a fact, but we aren't concerned with them on this thread, particularly. Knowing there is evolution certainly reinforces my atheism, but I would be an atheist if Darwin and his ideas had not yet happened. There is absolutely no cause to accept faith based religion. Humans all over the world arrive at ethical solutions in their lives, millions of them without Christianity. Same with atheists. Atheists are a product of their environment as well as their genes. I am a southwestern mostly white man and I reflect this land and the people. But I have been for the greater portion of my time 'alienated' in society - another factor. I believe in altruism. I appreciate literature and art. I don't consult some evolutionary 8 Ball before making a choice, and atheism does not turn me away from tradition and love of humanity. I am no model that others could or would choose to follow, but, then, why would somebody choose your model?

I was making the case that atheism would empty all the pubs Ed.



In order to make pubs thriving businesses. Obviously.

As I said at first, Ionus covered the other stuff and there seemed little point in going over the ground he had covered so efficiently.

Do you know what aethism means Ed ? Because it takes just as much faith to be aethist as it does to be a believer. Perhaps you mean agnostic ? Or can you prove the non-existence of God ?

JBS Haldane, the famous scientist, wrote-"The Universe is not just strange, it is stranger than we can imagine." That is why so many brilliant Physicists are agnostic. They realize that as theories such as "string theory" are advanced, more questions about the Universe are created.

Damn MASSAGAT ! I cant believe you used the C word (created). The righteous shall burn your body to purify you from the taint of religion. I am surprised they havent already descended, foaming at the mouth and screaming impure ! Before they want to castrate you in a scientific unemotional manner so there will be no more like you, change it to read "They realize that as theories such as "string theory" are advanced, more questions about the Universe are evolved (not created ...no...definitely not)".

Wonderful, Ionus. Created can be a loaded word, no? But, if I may, I am still reeling from some of my reading( this may reveal my lack of sophistication in the sciences but I do not hold any degrees in Physics.).

Note:
from a wonderful book--"The Canon" by Natalie Angier

P. 28

quote

"Ephemera, however, are all relative, When Physicists, with the aid of giant particle accelerators, manage to generate traces of a subatomic splinter called a heavy quark, the particle persists for a picosecond before it decays adiew...During its picosecond on deck, the quark completes a TRILLION tiny orbits."

I submit, Ionus, that in a Universe where such a thing occurs, anything is possible.