Oh, the writers of the Secrets of the Dead segment on witches made no bones about the fact that it was LSD. During the 1960s, I came up with LSD as a cause for the events at Salem and told a friend who said that theory had been bandied about for some time.
Over the years, there have been many Salem theories, including jealousy between families and a desire for more property. I think that, like all human activities, there were many causes. Certainly religious fervor was an element, but what happened at Salem was intense and, I think, unique for the New World. Other factors had to have intensified the situation and LSD seems a good candidate, based on the big picture.
------------------
Speaking of big pictures, returning to DDT:
gungasnake -- Thank you for answering my question. However, math is not science itself but a tool used by scientists.
I would guess that you would discredit a theory that lays the blame for the increased incidence of Asperger's Syndrome on neurological damage done by insecticides and other sorts of chemicals. I don't. We are cavalier about our use of neurotoxins. While intent does not mitigate guilt, Carson's intent was to stop damage. The world is a poorer place in terms of species of non-human animals than it was during my childhood in the 1950s. It is poorer than it was when I moved into the house in which I live, just 20 years ago. I still have a garden but the number of bees and the variety of bees that visit it are far fewer.
I'll opt for fewer but healthier children and abundant bees -- although it may too late for either. As for malaria, little or nothing is being done to develop a vaccine against it. American drug companies do not see a viable market for such a drug. Capitalism has become a rampaging monster.
Re: 10 Most Harmful Books of the 19th, 20th C.
plainoldme wrote:This belongs under the aegis of politics...How do you feel about this list?
Right-wingers: I ask that you keep your rhetoric respectful.
For you to assume that it's us who would show bad manners is in and of itself disrespectful.
Brandon -- You're wrong. One of the threads here on A2K was just closed because of obscenities posted by Lash, a conservative. When we were on abuzz (you're an abuzz veteran, aren't you?), I spent some time recording which side (left or right) lobbed the first insult and the right was EIGHT TIMES more likely to insult than the left. Finally, other participants on this forum have noted that several of the righties here are on the attack. In fact, it was recently pointed out by a diligent reader when I was insulted on a thread.
Gunga -- Two thoughts:
1.) DDT and other insecticides do not remain in place in the environment and do not biodegrade, but remain active and wash into the water supply.
2.) While your objections to evolution do not seem to be religious in nature (thankfully), what do you have to say about the fact that whales and dolphins were once "dog-like" land mammals who evolved/adapted to live in the sea?
plainoldme wrote:Gunga -- Two thoughts:
1.) DDT and other insecticides do not remain in place in the environment and do not biodegrade, but remain active and wash into the water supply.
The fact that DDT does not degrade is its chief virtue. That makes it many times more affordable than any other way to protect humans from malaria, and in the third world particularly, that is a major, major consideration.
plainoldme wrote:
2.) While your objections to evolution do not seem to be religious in nature (thankfully), what do you have to say about the fact that whales and dolphins were once "dog-like" land mammals who evolved/adapted to live in the sea?
There is no plausible way to evolve either baleen or whale sonar.
There is no way in which a creature with doglike or bearlike teeth which was used to catching and eating fish with those teeth could start to strain for plankton, nor is there a way in which it could live while its teeth were in any sort of a process of turning into whalebone.
Likewise whale sonar has to work 100% on the first day that any sort of a doglike or bearlike creature goes into deep water. Hippos for instance manage fairly well in rivers and lakes but you don't see them in deep/open water because they know exactly how long they'd last in deep water. They'd be totally blind in open water just like we are and an effortlessly free meal for any marine predator which wasn't blind in deep water.
Basically, whales did not evolve or adapt to live in deep water; they were genetically re-engineered to live in deep water, and then PUT in deep water.
Gunjasnake wrote
Quote:Basically, whales did not evolve or adapt to live in deep water; they were genetically re-engineered to live in deep water, and then PUT in deep water.
By who, the Vogons? This sounds like something written in one of the non-mentions dangerous books of the 19th and 20th century--I refer, of course, to the five books of "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy.
Rap
gungasnake wrote:plainoldme wrote:
2.) While your objections to evolution do not seem to be religious in nature (thankfully), what do you have to say about the fact that whales and dolphins were once "dog-like" land mammals who evolved/adapted to live in the sea?
There is no plausible way to evolve either baleen or whale sonar.
There is no way in which a creature with doglike or bearlike teeth which was used to catching and eating fish with those teeth could start to strain for plankton, nor is there a way in which it could live while its teeth were in any sort of a process of turning into whalebone.
Likewise whale sonar has to work 100% on the first day that any sort of a doglike or bearlike creature goes into deep water. Hippos for instance manage fairly well in rivers and lakes but you don't see them in deep/open water because they know exactly how long they'd last in deep water. They'd be totally blind in open water just like we are and an effortlessly free meal for any marine predator which wasn't blind in deep water.
Basically, whales did not evolve or adapt to live in deep water; they were genetically re-engineered to live in deep water, and then PUT in deep water.
Nonsense, whales and dolphins are mammals that have evolved into their current forms.
McGentrix wrote:
Nonsense, whales and dolphins are mammals that have evolved into their current forms.
That's a hell of an argument there...
gungasnake, you've tripped yourself up, a little bit. as rap points out, "re-engineering" seems to require two different engineers. wouldn't you concede that the existence of two separate creators is at least as unlikely as evolution by natural selection? or if it's the original creator who does the re-engineering, aren't you implying that the creator is learning as he goes along?
gungasnake wrote:McGentrix wrote:
Nonsense, whales and dolphins are mammals that have evolved into their current forms.
That's a hell of an argument there...
An argument is not needed. Nothing I say will change your mind, so there is no point in discussing it really. Die hard creationists see the world the way they want to see it and no amount of evidence to the contrary will matter.
Just know that all mammals have common ancestors and that all the mammal species walking the earth are a direct result of evolution.
John Stuart Mill's
On Liberty in the same top 20 as Hitler's
Kampf and Marx's
Manifesto. I guess that's what you get when the right-wing-nuts read ...
Oh, and Keynes made the top 10! I guess that explains why President Bush's last two chief economic advisers are both Keynesians.
Thomas wrote:Oh, and Keynes made the top 10! I guess that explains why President Bush's last two chief economic advisers are both Keynesians.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Thomas -- touche! As I said above, Friedan and Keynes were misrepresented in the little blurb.
Gungasnake -- Do you treat your yard with Chemlawn or something similiar? How do you feel about your kids or grandkids running barefoot in the grass? Do you hate third world people enough to spray their lands with DDT just because it doesn't biodegrade?
McGentrix -- We agree on something! Yes, there is no point in presenting more information, like the posibility that eyes evolved from light sensitive cells. Oops! I didn't just write that, did I?
plainoldme wrote:Thomas -- touche! As I said above, Friedan and Keynes were misrepresented in the little blurb.
Gungasnake -- Do you treat your yard with Chemlawn or something similiar? How do you feel about your kids or grandkids running barefoot in the grass? Do you hate third world people enough to spray their lands with DDT just because it doesn't biodegrade?
I and a number of my friends are in danger of west Nile disease as we speak because of mosquitos in the area near our tennis courts. Give me five gallons of DDT and I'll spray the area right now. I'd fifty times sooner take my chances with DDT than with west Nile.
Well, there are things you can plant that discourage mosquitos. There are things you can wear to protect yourself. One of the problems with your spraying DDT is that you will poison people who want nothing to do with insecticides. Even someone as conservative as you can not possible believe you have the right.
It is true that some people are more apt to be bitten by mosquitos than others -- my former husband has psoriasis and no mosquito ever bit him, while every time I go outside, a mosquito dinner bell is rung. I will burn citronella candles on my patio if I want to have the evening meal outside but I never use bug zappers or spray. When the mosquitos are too much, I go in. I do not feel West Nile is a threat.
Do you know the history of the transplanting of the West Nile carrying mosquito? It is just another of those sad tales where commerce, run amok, had brought the beasts to the other side of the planet and they've flourished.
My garden is completely organic. Never used fertilizer or insecticides or herbicides.
plainoldme wrote:McGentrix -- We agree on something!
and earlier in this thread, McGentrix grudgingly admitted that blueveinedthrobber made him laugh. as Rodney King said, can we all get along?
