(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space: see if you can guess which Doctor Who monster the design of which this 1913 sculpture inspired.

Flattering Year of Intelligent Tigers review. :)

The Media Matters Action Network site debunks various US political bs.

Questions Darwinism cannot answer. Still stuck on design, I think, but nonetheless raises some interesting points. (Another handy lesson from Paganism: universe first, gods second! :)

Comments

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Gimme a K, Gimme an R, Gimme a U, Gimme an L, Gimme an E, Gimme an M, and that spells... Disaster! =:o>

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Give that man a prize!

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

*baffled*

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Anagrams are a hobby of mine...

[antiwesley.livejournal.com]

*rips off the rubber mask to reveal Old Man 'Taters Hem*

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

oh, I see. Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

[iblis-kukl.livejournal.com]

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

I was with him most of the way, but this para made me headdesk:

"The problem I face is weariness with science-based dialogue partners like Richard Dawkins. It surprises me he is not chided for his innate scientific conservatism and metaphysical complacency. He won't take his depiction of Darwinism to logical conclusions. A dedicated Darwinian would welcome imperialism, genocide, mass deportation, ethnic cleansing, eugenics, euthanasia, forced sterilisations and infanticide. Publicly, he advocates none of them." (Italics mine)

There is nothing logical about conflating a belief about how things work in nature, with a belief about how people ought to choose to behave.
- It is perfectly possible to believe God exists, and yet choose either to worship him or not to. Neither choice of action follows automatically from the belief about what *is*.
- It is also perfectly possible to believe that the natural way of things is for one's life to continue automatically from today into tomorrow, and yet choose suicide first thing after dinner... or not.
- It is equally perfectly possible to believe that evolution works and is sufficient to explain the development of life thus far, and yet choose either to go with the flow, or not to be its puppet any longer; that nature is thus far red in tooth and claw, but that it has thereby given us a brain that can now choose *either* to continue in like vein or to be meek and mild. The latter is Dawkin's position, and he's explained it quite well on several occasions.

[nexstarman.livejournal.com]

Drathro

[zombie-buddha.livejournal.com]

That article on Darwinism is awful. It says more about the author than about Dawkins that he thinks a morally honest biologist would welcome imperialism, genocide, mass deportation, ethnic cleansing, eugenics, euthanasia, forced sterilisations and infanticide.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Darwin's been presented as justification for most of those, of course, but the does author seem to be confusing "Social Darwinism" with Darwinism. Possibly the extract is unhelpfully abbreviating his argument. Possibly not.

[zombie-buddha.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to what interesting points you felt the article raised? It seems to me that the gist of it was 'evolutionary biology doesn't teach us moral lessons', which is one of those statements that is both true and intensely stupid.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in the middle ground Frame seems to be clumsily groping for.

What are those existentialist quotes all about!

The idea of continuous creation interests me (compare and contrast with, for example, the "Darwinian pool table", in which God sets up the universe but then lets it run without interfering) - there's a gay-friendly church in the states which maintains that God hasn't finished speaking the Word yet, that there's more to come.

The idea that convergence suggests some sort of design is very interesting too, although I want to see exactly what Conway says - I suspect Frame may have fallen into ye olde teleological fallacy.

And the question "why is there something rather than nothing" always grabs my brain and bounces it around my skull. :)

ETA: I was right - the full text does makes more sense, particularly of Frame's harsh remarks about Dawkins.