(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

Stumbled across a Web site which proclaims: "Evolution has a major negative impact on society. Please fight it. Find an alternative." (Erm... genetic engineering?)

Part of the site's argument: the miraculous properties of iron, without which we wouldn't have steel-reinforced concrete (it can't be a concidence that the type of steel used to reinforce concrete expands at the same rate as concrete!), car engines, and loudspeakers. In fact, if you ask me, it's surprising the Bible doesn't make more of these technological necessities. (Of rust, the site notes, and I quote: "There is probably a benefit to this feature, but the author cannot think of one at present.") Moreover: "Where would civilization be today without the plough, axe and saw?" I mean, what other metals could you possibly make those tools from?

The writer has an honours degree in physics and teaches the subject in high school.

What I'm actually trying to work out is whether you could make a battery before the iron age.

Comments

[hnpcc]

"Evolution has a major negative impact on society. Please fight it. Find an alternative."

ROTFL!! Link?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Oh, all right. Here:

http://quark.physics.uwo.ca/~harwood/

Look under "Writings".

The page is very old - I can't help but wonder if Mr Harwood even knows his ancient scribblings are still there!

[hnpcc]

Thank you!

Especially for:

There are numerous examples of scientific discoveries that have ethical or moral issues linked to them: nuclear weapons, creating black holes, cloning, nerve gases, tasers, land mines, the internet & pedophiles, etc.

This is going to keep me entertained at work for quite a while... :-)

[hnpcc]

Most recent date on the scribblings page is July 2007. He knows.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

BWA

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I just worked out a use for rust! I'm patenting it under the name of "haemoglobin". :D

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[travlr1.livejournal.com]

Actually, isn't the development of some or any kind of technology an external evolution? I mean we are developing, externally, "extra things" that we didn't have before? If a fish develops legs, how is that any different than people in planes? Are they trying to make an argument for or against technology, here?

And how do you "fight" evolution? If it is a flow of time + change within organisms in adaptation to its environment, then wouldn't the resistance to adaptation = death? In this respect, again, aren't tools an adaptation to the environment? Resistance, in this respect, is futile.

Oh, and look to the Baghdad Battery for info, though, I think that's after the iron age, isn't it???

The Baghdad Battery

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

There's a piece of iron in the )^*(_^* thing!

Although I suppose there was a bit of iron floating around before the technical Iron Age... maybe I'll stretch it.

[jblum.livejournal.com]

And how do you fight evolution?

Ask DEVO!

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Off topic: Seen this one?
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/xkcd_rss/118676.html?style=mine

Back on topic:
Nearly lost my temper at work tehother day. Guy perusing the "Spiritual" section brings one of the Bibles over to where I'm working, starts a very unsubtle line of 'evangelism' with the question "do you read much?"

Quite aside from the fact that atempting to engage workers in what's probably/hopefuly going to be a long discussion while they're beign paid to do something else is, well, *theft*... after a couple of obvious lurches in the directionof his intendedtopic, he trotted out the old "Do you know what the word 'theory' means? Like when they talk about 'the theory of evolution'? It means something that's made up, it isn't proven!"

I barely kept my temper in and said "No. It. Doesn't. That is NOT what the word means."

Managed after a few more exchanges to get across to him that I would *love* to discuss this (and tell him how despicable it is that someone supposedly fighting on the side of he who self-identfied with 'The Truth' can lead off with such an outright falsehood... No I didn't say any of that. =:o{ ) if I was on my own time, I was supposed to be *working*. Cheeky bugger still proceeded to tie up my time foracouple of minutes with questions about other books, though.

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

I wonder if these people refuse to get in a plane because "aerodynamics is just a theory"...

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

There's a bumper sticker (T shirt, mug etc etc) which says: EVOLUTION IS JUST A THEORY LIKE UH GRAVITY

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

The silly thing is... I used to do the stuff he's doing. I used to (occasionally, and always with trepidation) attempt to evangelise to strangers, where the opportunity presented itself. It's not, in and of itself, a bad thing to want to do, or to try to do... But there's a right time, a right place, a right *opportunity*... and in any given situation, a gazillion and one ways to screw it up. He didn't get any of the former right, and out of all of the latter - aside from the obvious "don't push it if the person has already given you the hint that they're not interested" (which he barged straight through without appparently noticing) - he picked the one that to me personally is like a red rag to a bull: *Dishonesty* in evangelism is an absolute 100% no-no.

Oh, and there was the line I forgot, just after the "Do you read much?", was "Do you notice how people don't really like to think about things these much days...?"

I could have taken issue with "these days", and pointed out how there has *always* been a majority of the population who don't have either the time or the training to "think about things much", except for where their next meal is coming from and how to get their hands on it. I could have pointed out that I know many, many people who who *do* like to think about things, who absolutely love to do so in fact, and that's why many of them became (or at least have tried to become) that category of person called "scientists". Or I could have just been really mean and said "What, you mean like creationists?"

But he hadn't actually mentioned evolution at that point, so I'd have been jumping the gun. I just knew it was coming... Something about the very measured, pedantic tone that said "I am here o tell you the truth that you and all other people who don't agree with me are sadly too dim-witted to have realised." =:o{

God, the whole thing's got me so depressed. *This* is so many people's experience of "Christians". We're such and anaemic bunch that even our fundamentalists don't do anything exciting like bomb people, they just go around being really snotty and superior and talking down to other people for being so *silly* as to not see things their way... =:o\

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Example works so much better than preaching. (You and other Christians have set some good examples in this very LJ. :) Alan Watts tells the story of how the Samurai became Buddhists. The Zen monks didn't try to teach them anything; they just weren't afraid of death. So the samurai realised they'd be a lot better off if they knew what the monks knew. :)

[hnpcc]

But there's a right time, a right place, a right *opportunity*... and in any given situation, a gazillion and one ways to screw it up.

Oh yes. Worst experience of being evangalised at I've had? Riding home late from a crap day at work on my bike. Idiot girl called to me to stop - not surprisingly I thought there was a problem I hadn't noticed with the bike so I did. Then she started off with "have you heard about Jesus?"

I was ready to deck her. ("Does this have anything to do with my bike?") Surprisingly I managed not only to not do that but also not to swear at her. Time and place people, sheesh.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

You have to be a public librarian.

Am I right?

I've had this happen to me too. Thank god I went into medical librarianship.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Close! Bookshop assistant. =:o>

He may not have expected a 43 year old man stuck in such a lowly job to have had a university education, of course... [UNDERCOVER SMART GUY IS WORKING UNDERCOVER]

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

"It means something that's made up, it isn't proven!"

"Oh, MYTHOLOGY, I thought you said theory there for a moment."

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

Yeesh. Sounds to me like this person doesn't know what evolution is!

What their argument actually seems to be about (or would be if it weren't total nonsense) is the anthropic principle, which can be argued with or without evolution.

[jebni.livejournal.com]

OMG, like, it leads to NUDITY!

[ajponder.livejournal.com]

I think I can get away with this extract - can't even remember where I got it from now. Also note the second bit about electroplating. So you might be stretching it a bit but some uses would be easier to get away with than others.
Prehistoric batteries Clay jar with iron rod surrounded by copper cylinder. When filled with vinegar + an electrolytic, solution produces 1.1 volts DC (circa. 250 BC to 640 ADO).It is believed that the Parthians who ruled Baghdad (circa 250 BC) used batteries to electroplate silver. The Egyptians are said to have electroplated antimony onto copper over 4300 years ago.