Happy 199th birthday, Charles Darwin!

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
[b]What are you doing for Darwin Day?[/b]

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I thought I'd just see how things evolve.

That also makes it Abe Lincoln's 199th birthday. But ironically enough I am I reading the second volume of Janet Browne's biography on Darwin (The first was Charles Darwin: Voyaging; the second in Charles Darwin: The Power of Place)

I agree with completely with this quote by philosopher Daniel Dennett:

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If I were to give a prize for the single best idea anybody ever had, I'd give it to Darwin for the idea of natural selection – ahead of Newton, ahead of Einstein. Because his idea unites the two most disparate features of our universe: The world of purposeless, meaningless matter-in-motion, on the one side, and the world of meaning, and purpose, and design on the other. He understood that what he was proposing was a truly revolutionary idea.

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But that's my bias.

It's Abe's birthday. It's a close relative's birthday. It's the anniversary of another close relative's death. And now I find out it's also Charles Darwin's birthday.

Eventful day!

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
And I'm reading her much more compact and accessible Darwin's Origin of Species: A Biography, in which she remarks:

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I haven't decided if I should read that afterwards, but Browne is a great writer so I probably will.

I am going to spend the day wondering how his ancestors can be so narrow minded.

I think I'll observe Darwin Day by bringing back a long-forgotten family tradition. I'll grow a tail and climb a tree.

nazisociopaths???? Definitely in the wrong forum.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
[b][url=http://www.darwinday.org/englishL/home/2008.php]What are you doing for Darwin Day?[/url][/b]

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Plagiarizing my Grandfather's work.

I never know what to make of those Gosh-aren't-they-dum statistics. I mean, what would [i]you[/i] say to some stranger who phoned you to ask, "Do you think the earth revolves around the sun?"

I would say, "Earth...?"

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
[b] The answer is ignorance - and Americans may be no more ignorant about evolution than they are about other aspects of science. According to surveys conducted for the National Science Foundation over the past two decades, more than two-thirds of adults are unable to identify DNA as the key to heredity. Nine out of 10 Americans - nearly 63 years after the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima - do not understand what radiation is or its effects on the body. One in 5 believes that the sun revolves around the Earth.[/b]

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Ignorance? Not complete loss of faith in authority figures, and a concurrent loss of interest in what it is they have to teach, valid or otherwise?

I would say the era of science was ushered in as the great tool that would salvage mankind. At this time interest in science, and the authority that it imbued, both in those who taught it, and those who followed its teaching. Science, and rationalism have failed to provide, and what results is a great deal of cynicism, nor does education, in and of itself, necessarily guarantee an improvement in the daily life of the individual.

To say that people don't know a lot about evolutionary theory because they are ignorant of evolutionary theory (more or less the thesis of the above quoted statement) is essentially tautological.

My view is that people have lost faith in authority, both scientific, and faith, per se.

[ 17 February 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

No. Your article states there has been a 10% decline in the number of people who can be shown to believe in fundamental Christian theological ideas, such as the creation of the earth. This demonstrates a continued loss of Christian ideological supremacy.

I suggest, that even when you include the increase in the number of people who are religious who believe in non-Christian religious teachings that this means that the number of "believers" is probably static, in a statistical sense, throughout the population.

I suggest that your assertion that people in the US are just as convinced of Christian teachings, now as they were 30 years ago is false and the appearance to the contrary is probably due to the powerful position the Christian church holds within the establishment, and its consequent ability to promote itself so that they can create the appearance of dominance.

Appearing dominant is fundamental to propogating conformity.

[ 17 February 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by rabbelious:
[b]The truth is the ONLY AUTHORITY is what is proven by fact, observation and reason in the area of action leading to consequence per the laws of nature or "creation" for the religiously inclined.[/b]

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What, and whose truth, would you be talking about here being the only authority? And what actions and what consequences?

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[b]The mistake is intellectual lazyness [/b]

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I can see what you are saying, as it is happening with your post.

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[b]and BELIEVING those false authorities who misrepresent truth and claim that their OPINION is TRUTH. [/b]

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As opposed to believing your authority and your claims to know the truth, about whatever it is you are talking about?

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[b]There is a very large difference between rejecting those wielding false authority and the truth they misrepresent.[/b]

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Sure wish you had made it clear as to what truths and authorities you are speaking about.

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[b]I call this EXPERTITIS - a deadly social disease.[/b]

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I think I would rather have experts trained to have some degree of impartiality advising me as opposed to personal opinion, or let's say religion.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]

Ignorance? Not complete loss of faith in authority figures, and a concurrent loss of interest in what it is they have to teach, valid or otherwise?

I would say the era of science was ushered in as the great tool that would salvage mankind. At this time interest in science, and the authority that it imbued, both in those who taught it, and those who followed its teaching. Science, and rationalism have failed to provide, and what results is a great deal of cynicism, nor does education, in and of itself, necessarily guarantee an improvement in the daily life of the individual.

To say that people don't know a lot about evolutionary theory because they are ignorant of evolutionary theory (more or less the thesis of the above quoted statement) is essentially tautological.

My view is that people have lost faith in authority, both scientific, and faith, per se.
[/b]

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Science isn't the problem, it never was, it's the claims made in the name of science by vested interests and how they too often apply its products that's wrong.

I get it, but seen some of the debates over science and religion here get stuck over just those small points. The dominant culture of one or the other get taken as its nature, parallel arguments that go right past each other.

Darwin isn't that big of a deal

Your welcome, but seriously, for those who lost all sense of processes and becoming, of seing things in circles and cycles, of simply understanding the immenance of the world and the universe which is the case of the forever stunted judeo-platonic west I can see why darwin is a down right religious experience to some. To the chinese and the indians at their zenith or more immediate existing peoples such as native americans he would have been an interesting variation on what they already knew.

Mike, your pronouncement is simply incorrect.

The "Origin Of Species" is anti clyclical, it actually specifies path following, in the mathematically technical sense of the term.