Pound Sand Or Breathe Sand?

 https://www.livescience.com/space/extraterrestrial-life/alien-life-may-evolve-from-radically-different-elements-than-human-life-did

While the article is thought-provoking and might be useful to a science-fiction author, it's pretty thin on facts and very thick on speculation.

For example,  it's true that it is often pointed out that because it also allows for four covalent bonds, silicon might be an alternative to carbon based life.  However, the fact that silicon is extremely common here on earth and yet somehow we are carbon based, suggests it simply is not suitable.

Why not? First of all if you use oxidation in order to provide energy to your living organism, oxidized carbon yields carbon dioxide. A gas. Easy to respirate.

If you oxidize silicon, you get silicon dioxide. Sand. It's a little hard imagine a living being which will  breathe oxygen in and breathe out sand. 

(Yes, there were anoxic lifeforms before we evolved to depend on oxygen, but oxygen provides a highly efficient and effective basis for a metabolic system.)

Furthermore, the covalent bonds formed by silicon are more fragile than those of carbon. That is enough in itself to make life based upon silicon difficult to maintain, but it also means that lengthier and more complex molecules are formed with carbon which could not be formed ot maintained by the substitution of silicon. 

As for the other autocatalytic chemical systems that were studied, that's way beyond my level of knowledge, but I have some hesitations there too.

If life is so incredibly common in the universe, why is it that of the three planets which are terrestrial in nature and found in our solar system's Goldilocks zone, only earth is clearly teaming with life? One out of three makes it sound like life is actually rather rare and unlikely. 

Still, it does make for fun speculation. Hal Clement was noted for his interesting alien life forms in his science fiction novels. I think I need to go back and reread some of those; it's been a few decades.

Uber Unter?

 

https://apple.news/AAkvWOSwAQhK81rgSKdOqdg

This article makes the point that I've been trying to make for quite a while. Neanderthals and humans are both very skilled and competent  species, but they are far from identical. The difficulty is due to the teeter totter problem. Neanderthals were originally regarded as genuinely subhuman and then, when we finally realized that this belief was unfair and  inaccurate, we tried to balance that error by piling assertions on the other side that are equally baseless; insisting Neanderthals were just like us.

All this does is result in huge piles of errors on both sides of the teeter totter. 

This Neanderthal expert raises some interesting points that I have not previously known. 

>“Look carefully at Neanderthal tools and weapons. They’re all unique. Study thousands and you’ll find each is completely different. My colleagues never realised that. But when I did, I saw there was a deep divergence in the way Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals each understand the world. 

...Of course, compared to a gorilla we have more creativity and skills. It gives us a certain image of ourselves– one of superiority. But what happens if we compare ourselves to something far closer – something far more like humanity, although different, that only disappeared 40,000 years ago?” Imagine, he suggests, how differently we’d see ourselves if confronted by hyper-intelligent aliens.

... “Their tools and weapons are more unique than ours. As creatures, they were far more creative than us. Sapiens are efficient. Collective. We think the same, and don’t like divergence. 

...“Neanderthals vanished, I think, because of high human efficiency. And this efficiency now threatens to destroy us, too. That’s what’s killing the planet’s biodiversity.”

...Over millennia, humankind has also developed an advanced, impressive technology and culture, of a type Neanderthals could never have imagined. “So while there is something dangerous in our nature, as a collective we can control and reshape it. Understanding this is the key to humanity’s future. Because if we don’t think carefully, next time it won’t be Neanderthals that our efficiency destroys, it’ll be humankind itself that’s the victim.”<

 I do disagree with the conclusion he made that suggests we might have been inferior to Neanderthals in creativity. We were superior to Neanderthals in networking and in working as a cohesive group.

For example, Neanderthals lived in small groups, did not have trade routes, and the small groups in which they lived were frequently heavily  inbred.  You could say that we were simply better at networking while they were better at surviving in individualistic small groups.

As far as creativity goes, compare what passes as  Neanderthal art with human art. One may or may not be art at all.  It is very hard to tell. The other clearly speaks for itself.

Neither species can really be considered as superior to the other in general, but only in certain particulars. We were better at adapting as we were generalists. The history of extinction shows that the more highly adapted and specialized a species becomes, the more successful it will be in that specific set of circumstances for which it has adapted. But it is equally true that the more adapted it is to a specific set of circumstances, the less it is likely to be able to survive change. Generalists adapt and survive. Specialists die out in the face of change.

Unfortunately, I must agree with him that our efficiency and  capacity to network and control our environment, forcing it to adapt to us rather than the other way around, has caused us endless grief and may yet cause us to inflict even greater harm upon ourselves. 

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN

 

An interesting discussion with my friend Bobby, which I am re-posting here because I think it’s interesting.

Hey Jim! How are you feeling after the booster of covid juice?

My friend, J, whose philosophies have driven him into a bout of nihilism, is struggling to find why anything matters. I briefly shared with him my personal 'aesthetic case' for meaning and significance in the world, basically that human being is an interesting phenomenon in the universe and could 'look' a lot of different ways - some 'better' than others and we influence that in some way.

It may be good fodder to chat about sometime -

He replied this morning clarifying his meaning of 'purpose' as meaning "to what end?" I replied:

-

I just saw your clarification, "to what end?" This is the right question to focus on precisely because I believe it's the wrong question we all hold.

"To what end?" showcases our expectation that the universe is teleological; it, and stuff among it, is designed according to purpose and if it doesn't, it is arbitrary. This, I believe, is a grave error we have all adopted since Aristotle asserted it as one of reality's four causes. It also allows the notion of an ultimate purpose, which drives smart men to nihilism, partly because answering with God doesn't solve the arbitrariness. Plato had Euthyphro underscore this. 

My view:

If the universe is computational in nature, then the question isn't "What is?" but "What's happening?" It views each moment of reality as a frontier of cycles of computation, processing forward. Reality describes a generative, self-evolving engine. A lot of stuff looks like it stays the same because some computation ensembles generate an equilibrium state, locations of homeostasis. Likewise, interacting frontiers can render new niches of reality for other computations to exploit, generating stuff that never was.

I think for us humans, our instincts to create and protect some stuff and stop others who'd impair that stuff betray our Aristotelian philosophies, and that's good. When we, say, want to stop the Woke or Puritanical Religiosos from infecting culture, for example, we see their potential impact on a destiny yet to be made. We see ourselves on the frontier of human being continually being written. I think this is right. 

I see you as a distinctive hypothesis of human being; your each enactment in the world entails your distinctive signature that just may become indelible upon the next cycles. 

And, those early humans who lacked these instincts never arrived. Nature selected them out. We are the inheritors of the instincts that change the future. We matter.

So, for me, when considering Purpose, instead of asking "to what end?," the question I prefer to ask is, "What's next?"

My reply:

Interesting problem and interesting timing. First, I have been a bit down from the second shot, though it didn’t hit me as hard as the first vaccination.

As for the problem of what’s the meaning of existence? Very interesting question. I’m going through a tough period right now for a wide variety of reasons. Much of which is that my life went so utterly differently than I planned and intended it to be.

I had a very difficult night last night struggling with those feelings. Most animals are well content with their existence is as long as they are comfortable and fed. That is enough. We humans seek a deeper meaning. You’re right that Aristotle made it a critical part of our general philosophy, but after all, he was just reflecting the reality of the human brain. We are so good at seeking patterns that we seek patterns and meaning in everything, including our own lives.

When we lived in Oklahoma, which means I was either five or six, I had a terrible meltdown and I remember standing in the doorway of the bedroom shouting at my mother, “I wish I’d never been born.”

The woman was shocked that a child so young saying that and told me, “But then you wouldn’t be here.  There wouldn’t be a you. And I said,”Yes that’s what I wish.”

I understood full well what I meant, but I didn’t know how to articulate it at that young age.

All my childhood I was torn by the fact that the world was such a vile horrible place and I didn’t want to live in such a vile horrible place. It was also during that period in Oklahoma that I first suddenly realized that I was going to die and it was evitable and it was no escaping it.  That despair was the most significant contributing factor.  This is the sort of thing that usually gets to a person in their 20s or 30s. But for me it when I was five or six.

Even I remember the moment it happened. I was dreaming one of those very vivid dreams I’ve had all my life which are so real that they are as real as any other memory.  Dreams I called dreamtime dreams in my own distorted version of the indigenous religion of Australia. In the dream there was a beautiful hill, which I was gazing down upon from above, as a group of mourners were going up carrying a casket. And I knew in the dream that I was dead. They were burying me. Two beautiful angels came down from heaven to carry my soul up to heaven because that’s what I’ve been taught happened, They reached down to hug the soul drifting up from the coffin. And nothing happened. They reached down to strain and struggle, but nothing happened. There was no soul. They turned to heaven and I woke up in terror.

Young as I was, I realized that if I had never been born I would never exist and then I would never have to go to the horror of getting old and dying. Of course, it was also clear to me that it was too late. I wasn’t suicidal. After all, I feared dying. However, if I had never been born, I wouldn’t be there to be afraid.

As a parent now after all these years I realize how hard this must have been my mother, especially since she had told us when we were older that she was never supposed to have another child. The doctors had told her not to. My brother’s birth had been difficult for her and she was told not to take the risk of getting pregnant again.

(Interesting side story there because I think this contributed to her poor relationships with both my brother and me when we became adults. I think she wanted to take the chance to have another child because she was rather desperate to have a girl. This would explain how she could turn away from her sons and toward their first wives, and at the same time reject their second wives. Her first daughters-in-law became the girls she always wanted.)

So with this despairing situation so critical a part of the human psychology, we all seek to have some meaning and purpose in this horrible existence. We feel lost and desperate. However, as you pointed out, if we could only be warriors for God fighting a mighty battle suddenly we are incredibly significant and powerful beings.  Joining a religion is like joining a militia. Suddenly you’re not a nobody or a loser, you are part of the glorious crusade to… fill in the blank.

The other side of it is that if you do accept the universe as a material reality in which the random fluctuations of probability and chance rule, then what’s the point of our existence? Even if you were William Shakespeare or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, what does it all matter a million years from now?  Or two million. Or one billion. Or many trillion after the heat death of the universe?

I’ve struggled with that issue and answered it in various ways at different times of my life. Ultimately what I’ve come to conclude is that you simply must create your own meaning. The happiness and joy you feel is real. It may be fleeting, but it is real. So are the pain and grief. The function, the purpose we have is to make the world as much a better place as much and as much more enjoyable a place as we can. Not just for ourselves and our own, but for everyone. All right, in a billion years who will remember? Nevertheless, we added to this cold and indifferent universe, even if for a brief time, real joy, real pleasure.

From many this will not be enough.  However, I think it must be enough.

Let me repeat once again that if we are highest perfection in this world that God could create then God is an incredibly bad creator and we are an incredibly hideous failure.

On the other hand, if we are apes who have risen up by pulling on our own evolutionary bootstraps, what we have accomplished is remarkable and we have reason to be proud of it.

Of course, I would rather be part of a great heroic crusade and lived my life as I intended it, but even if those options had been accomplished, would it really matter in the history of the universe? There really aren’t any good answers, except that everyone must make their own sense of purpose and reality. One of the reasons I am offended by what I refer to as the fundamentalist evangelical atheists is that they insist on taking away the comfort that some people have found. They want to strip them of their meaning of life because the crusading atheist extremist is seeking his own meaning by destroying the meaning of others.

I doubt this will be of any help to anyone. It’s just the story of how I worked things out.   However, I think you’ll find it interesting.

Let me end by noting that, for all the depression, trouble, and stress that I sometimes feel, when I’m with my family or friends and times are good, life is joyful and beautiful and very worth living.  At those times there is no question in my mind.  It is good to be alive. It is good to be here.

There’s a reason that I enjoy the philosophy of Epicurus and the book of Ecclesiastes.

Now to put it a bit more poetically,

The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

-- Omar Khayyam

Submit And Comply

D:  Yes the first time I heard the saying "defund the police" I thought how stupid can we be. A gift to the law and order conservatives. A realignment of priorities is necessary but why label it in such a stupid way.  

S:  I agree with you. It was an unfortunate phrase to begin with and the dems should have replaced it with a more appropriate term. 

The liberal left is touting what extreme ideas? Health care for all isn't extreme. Having a minimum wage that keeps up with the cost of living isn't extreme. Welcoming immigrants and those escaping persecution in their homelands isn't extreme. Using some of the funding for local police departments to add professional mental health assistance isn't extreme. Enabling all US citizens to vote in elections, regardless of where they live, isn't extreme. Please explain this to me.

Me: The right has gone totally insane and completely addicted to extremism. The left is beginning to flirt with extremism again. Main stream left-wing thought remains main stream where as main stream right wing thought has become the lunatic fringe (but the fringe no longer). Defund the police. Social justice re-defined as reparations when the first term is positive and the second term is threatening to millions of Americans.  White privilege when what you really mean is human rights.

Attacking Obama for saying something rational and reasonable. Hypersensitivity to any interaction between whites and blacks (Which is often grossly misinterpreted). Micro aggressions. Cultural appropriation. An entire zoo of exotic and frankly ridiculous hypersensitivities masquerading as social justice. The entire social justice warrior movement.

I agree the left wing ideas are still primarily main stream. The problem I’m seeing and find very disturbing Is the growing acceptance of ridiculous positions. They are still on the fringe, but they are moving to the main stream. Slowly, but steadily.

Here is an example or two of that extremism. Quite some time ago a woman on a small boat notified the Coast Guard that a pod of whales had surfaced around her and her group. They were in a small boat surrounded by massive marine animals and there was serious fear that they would swamp the boat. She was notifying the Coast Guard that they might require rescue, please be ready. This was exactly the correct thing to do. There is nothing to criticize about this action. And yet all over the left-wing media she was reported as another horrible white person attacking whales because they were whales in the ocean! This was utter nonsense. Everyone who attacked this woman owes her a sincere apology.  She was not a super racist. She was a rational, reasonable human being taking rational, reasonable precautions against a very real danger to the life and safety of her self and those on her boat. But to the left wing extremists this was another example of insane white woman attacking… Etc. ad nauseaum.

Second example: I recently read an article in which a Black man said White people are really offending Black people by being nice to them. Yeah. That’s right. His classic example was that he and his family were in a public pool and an older white man said it’s so nice to see you having such fun with your family. I like seeing happy families, or words to that effect. The author took this to mean Black people are usually horrible to their families so it’s nice to see a Black man being nice to his kids for a change. That is not what the man said. There is a sick troubled person who is being very racist in the story. It is not the White man. I have had people compliment me on my tight relationship with my son.  I don’t even remember what race the various people were, because race wasn’t an issue. They just thought it was really nice to see a father and son so close.

This is left wing extremism. You can’t be nice to Black people because that’s an insult. But you can’t ignore Black people because that’s an insult. And you can’t criticize Black people, even if they actually deserve it as human beings, because that’s racism.

Main stream left-wing positions are reasonable and rational. But the fringe on the left wing is growing slowly and steadily. It moves at almost a glacial pace, but glaciers are incredibly powerful and incredibly dangerous.

S:  Sorry Jim. I don't agree this time. I couldn't find the facebook responses to the woman but fear of whales swimming around under the whale watching boat just doesn't lend itself to racism. I would like to see the responses to her. As far as being nice goes, there is a difference between being friendly and being condescending. We weren't there. We don't know.

Me:   When I read the article he made no comment about being condescending he simply said the man complemented him. That’s it and then he went on to say that white people should not complement Black people unless they have done something extraordinary.  That’s what he actually said.  Other articles and commentators have said the same thing.  Some have even declared being complimented for an everday good act is mentally damaging to Black people (that was in the Washington Post!). 

I have seen a young woman college-age attacking a young man because his hair was in cornrows. That was a micro aggression. He was confused. He had no idea what she was talking about. Cultural appropriation and micro aggressions are usually simply being accepted by society. If we apply both concepts we must eliminate all rock ‘n’ roll music. It’s a combination of micro aggression and cultural appropriation against Blacks, Europeans, people from Appalachia, and you can go on and on identifying offended groups. This is not micro aggression.   This is both hybridizing cultures and accepting each other.

Tolerance goes both ways. If we look for trouble we will invariably find it. Just as conspiracy theorists invariably find proof that their conspiracy is real. It comes down to there’s a tiny bit of proof which I will wildly exaggerate, therefore I’m right or there’s no proof which just shows how powerful they are in covering up the truth.

You know me. I just can’t stand extremism. Even if the extremists agree with me they just should never carry the position to extremism.

Oh, and the comments attacking the woman specifically

referred to her as a White woman “Karen” who was treating whales like White women treat Black people.  Try Seth Myers, Amber Says What.  She was not alone in making a racial issue of this.

Let’s end on a cheerful note!

Read this link.

https://vinepair.com/wine-blog/the-first-wine-label-was-invented-in-egypt/

Fit As A ...

https://slate.com/technology/2020/01/darwin-competition-collaboration-evolutionary-biology-climate-change.html?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=1348bf2cbd-briefing-dy-20200127&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-1348bf2cbd-44635989

I have a couple of problems with this otherwise interesting article.

First, let’s be clear that John Gould, not Charles Darwin, identified these various birds as all finches.  The article mistakenly declares that, “… Darwin noticed small variations in the beaks of a few finches, unlocking, we are told, the mystery of life’s variation over time and space.”  In fact, Darwin erroneously believed that the birds were different species and not all finches.  It was only after ornithologist Gould corrected him, that Darwin was able to make his insightful deductions.

Second, the article’s statement that, “Scientists are slowly understanding collaboration’s role in biology, which might just help liberate our collective imagination in time to better address the climate crisis”, ignores the fact that some scientists realized that cooperation was an excellent example of fitness from the very inception of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

The article is correct, of course, in stating that many Western scientists have been very slow to recognize this essential element.  This is especially true of non-scientists who prefer the non-Darwinian concept developed by Spencer which has been mislabeled “social Darwinism”.

However not all scientists were so foolish.  There were always those who were more clear sighted, especially those not quite so prejudiced by the heavily colonialist and racist attitudes that were normative in Western 19th century culture, who realized that fittest did not automatically mean most brutal and most exploitive.

The most famous example being a Russian prince.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/slate.com/technology/2012/10/evolution-of-cooperation-russian-anarchist-prince-peter-kropotkin-and-the-theory-of-mutual-aid.amp

> Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of Species sparked major battles. The most famous may have been between science and religion, but there were disputes within science as well. One of the most heated was whether natural selection favored cooperative or competitive behaviors, a battle that still rages today. For almost 100 years, no single person did more to promote the study of the evolution of cooperation than Peter Kropotkin.

Kropotkin traveled the world talking about the evolution of cooperation, which he called “mutual aid,” in both animals and humans. Sometime the travel was voluntary, but often it wasn’t: He was jailed, banned, or expelled from many of the most respectable countries of his day. For he was not only the face of the science of cooperation, he was also the face of the anarchist movement. He came to believe that his politics and science were united by the law of mutual aid: that cooperation was the predominant evolutionary force driving all social life, from microbes to humans. 

... He challenged Darwin’s followers, most notably Thomas Henry Huxley, and their claims that natural selection almost always led to competition. Yes, Kropotkin admitted, sometimes that happens, especially in the tropics, but mutual aid was just as common, if not more so. <

Ultimately Krepotkin agreed with the point of the first article.  We must learn to cooperate in order to better solve the problems of humanity.

> But what Kropotkin cared about more than anything was that understanding mutual aid in animals might shed light on human cooperation and perhaps help save humanity from destroying itself. Whether that happens remains to be seen. <

The important point here is to recognize that survival of the fittest means exactly that. Survival of those most fit to survive. Being fit to survive may or may not be related to cooperation. It may or may not be related to fierceness.  Fitness depends upon the environmental circumstances in which an organism is set.  

For example, complex life is all eukaryotic life. And what is a eukaryote? It’s a cell that has a nucleus and other organelles contained within it. So how did that situation evolve?  It is widely accepted that symbiosis between a bacterium and a procaryote occurred, probably by accident.  Possibly by one eating the other and failing to digest it!

In other words, all complex life is based on two formerly competitive lifeforms learning to cooperate. Survival of the fittest. Survival of the most cooperative.

The Flying Giraffe

So today I learned why pterosaurs could get so much larger than birds. I wondered about that. How could it be that an Azdarchid like Quetzalcoatlus could be the size of a giraffe (!!) while the largest bird was much, much smaller.

I’ve been watching presentations by the Royal Tyrell Museum and found one on pterosaurs.  It turns out that birds are stuck using only their two hind limbs to leap into the air to begin their flight. This limits them. They only have two legs to accomplish sufficient heights to begin flapping. If the hind legs get stronger so they could leap higher, it would add weight and that would require a stronger stroke and larger wings for flapping, which would require more muscle, which would add more weight… this works up to a certain point, but after that you just can’t balance the ratio of the weight to be overcome with the wing load. Eventually the situation degrades into a positive feedback loop.  Birds can only get so big and still be able to fly.

Pterosaurs, however, walked on all four limbs as modern bats do when they are on the ground. And like modern bats, the evidence is that they used all four legs to push themselves up into the air. So the muscles of the wings did add weight, but they also provided extra strength to the wings. This allowed them to leap higher into the air, and still maintain an adequate wing load. They could grow to the size of a giraffe and still fly.

(So why can’t bats get that big? It is peoposed that the answer is due to the fact that bats simply can’t find enough food if they get much larger.  That does not mean that, in the future, bats might not evolve to be as big as, well, a giraffe.)

I found this to be a very satisfactory explanation. I love it when science manages to answer a perplexing question.

I remember teaching science class. I always told the children science was like a never ending mystery story. Every time a mystery was solved it opened up the door for more questions to be answered. It’s one of the things I most love about science. One of the greatest mysteries which fascinated my generation when we were children was how the dinosaurs died out. Paleontologists were also obsessed with the problem, but never could come up with a good answer. A new hypothetical solution would be proposed every few years, only to be quickly be debunked by other scientists.

I remember my excitement when the now accepted impact proposal was first made by Luis Alvarez. Watching it slowly become more and more proven and finally accepted was intellectually exciting and engaging. So also with the mysterious moving rocks of Death Valley or the mystery of how a bumblebee could fly. On the one hand it’s very sad to see the mystery solved, but on the other hand it’s so exciting to learn that there is indeed a resolution and watch the process of that resolution being calculated and determined, and to see how it is finally proven.

My inability to function mathematically put an end to childhood dreams of a scientific career, but my love of science continues.

Unfortunately, I cannot figure a way to post the illustration here. But if you will Google simply three words you’ll get to see it. Type in azdarchid, giraffe, man: and you will see an amazing picture.

Mainlining Creationism

https://quillette.com/2019/09/09/david-gelernter-is-wrong-about-ditching-darwin/

If you are unfamiliar with the efforts of religious extremists to force their views upon the American public, this is an article well worth reading. The arguments being debunked here are yet another attack on reality. Yet another attack on science. Yet another refusal to acknowledge facts.

Creation “Scientists” are a strange and distasteful mishmash of true believer, outright liar, and astoundingly gullible fool. As with all addicts, one can only hope that eventually they will reach such a wretched level that they finally become disgusted with their acts of self degradation and turn away from their addiction.

It is a sad and forlorn hope.

Nevertheless, I must greatly respect and admire those open minded clear thinkers who continually expose themselves to these diseased minds in the effort to at least prevent the spread of the plague, even if curing those already afflicted is unlikely.

> ...every one of those arguments has been soundly rebutted over the past few decades...I suspect he, like all ID advocates, is susceptible to religious blandishments, immunizing him against the scientific truths that rebut faith. And so he asks us, “How cleanly and quickly can the field get over Darwin, and move on?” The answer, I suggest, is “We don’t need to.” < And the most apropos excerpt of all, > Rebutting such arguments is a perpetual and tiresome battle, useful only for those sporting open minds rather than religious blinkers. <

Well said, Professor Coyne. Well done.

On Abiogenisis And Creationism

Philosophers comprise a group in which I feel I belong. Having said that, It should be noted that I think that not all philosophers were terribly wise. In fact, I must conclude that a great many were willfully, and quite deliberately, self-deluded. One can only conclude that they are, after all, merely human.

For example:

"Let's say you're walking around and you find a watch on the ground. As you examine it, you marvel at the intricately complex interweaving of its parts, a means to an end. Surely you wouldn't think this marvel would have come about by itself. The watch must have a maker. Just as the watch has such complex means to an end, so does nature to a much greater extent. Just look at the complexity of the human eye. Thus we must conclude that nature has a maker too."

So declared William Paley in one of the most famous procreationist arguments in all of human history.  These words are used again and again today, indeed, ad nauseam,as an acid test, an undeniable proof that abiogenesis and evolution could not possibly be correct, that science itself must be merely a religion -- and a foolish one at that.

But it should be noted that Mr. Paley missed a few points. This is what he should have said:

"If you're walking along and see a watch, you know it must have had a creator. Looking how complicated it is! See how it has exactingly machined parts...it had to be carefully manufactured. This is especially confirmed when you see the watch having sex with a female watch. Then, when she has a litter of little baby watches, you see how they are preyed upon by…Grandfather clocks? Only a few of them survive…Oh, that's right. Living things are very, very different from watches."

 How odd that  Mr. Paley never noticed these details.

William Paley was an idiot.

After thoughts on creationism.

I know I can be quite sharp, even acerbic, in my criticisms of creationists, but it should be noted that what I am primarily opposing is the hypocrisy, intellectual deceit, and spiritual failures of so many in that community.

Again and again one is presented with an endless series of individuals who first proclaim that the one and only test of truth is the Bible. Then they proceed to torture, chop up, and superglue together a hideous Frankenstein Monster of “evidence” and “facts” to support their positions.  The resulting creation is so pitiful that it cannot even be brought to life. It can only lie there and rot.

I've listed three points that I find particularly offensive; hypocrisy, intellectual deceit, and spiritual failure. I will take a look at each one of these individually.

Hypocrisy.  

We are presented time and again with a declaration that the only the test of truth which is acceptable is absolute faith in the Bible. Blind, unquestioning faith in the Bible. Then the individual attempts to create a whole network of physical evidence to support their supposedly faith based position.  

Epistemology is a philosophic term which relates to the nature of human knowledge. That is to say, what can we humans know, and how can we know it? If your epistemology is faith, then it is faith which is relevant to any discussion. The facts are irrelevant.  Either your faith is complete and sufficient or it isn’t.  This both begins and ends any and all discussions. You have declared that the truth has been revealed to you by a higher authority, that you accept that, and that is all there is to say.  

To add a series of complicated and deeply flawed arguments regarding objective reality to this argument is to say that you lied, and were in fact being profoundly hypocritical, when you said that faith was all that mattered.

Intellectual deceit.

The supposed facts and evidences which are presented are ludicrous, when they are or are not outright lies and deliberate falsehoods.  Endless ridiculous exaggerations and other distortions of what scientists and students of science actually believe constitute a mainstay of creationist apologists.  One particular extreme individual reported on his website that Darwin thought that men and women lived side-by-side as separate species for millions of years before they finally evolved sex. He declared “Darwinists” thought that men and women prior to that reproduced by fission.  When this error was pointed out to him in no uncertain  terms by a critic, he pulled that statement off his website and then posted another one declaring “Darwinists” believe that elephant males and females had lived for millions of years… Etc. etc.

Maliciously and deliberately misstating your opponents’ positions in order to make your opponent sound ridiculous is intellectual dishonesty in its most blatant form.  There are many more examples of deliberate lies and deceit spread by these individuals, but I don’t care to go into them in great length at this point. If you are interested go to YouTube, type in creationists and debunkers, and you will find an amazing list which is stunning in its breadth.

Spiritual failure.

This may sound identical to the first point, but it differs in that hypocrisy is to be found in your relationship to others (“I say this, but do that.“) while spiritual failure is deeply personal.  The individual claims that faith is all that matters to him, yet feels he must desperately thrash about to create some mishmash supposedly empirical evidence to shore up his shaky position.  He does this because he knows his own position is not believable—not even to himself.  Having loudly declared himself to be a man of faith, he then demonstrates that he has no real faith at all.

I will never agree with creationism. I think it’s silly superstition. I think it’s a serious misinterpretation of the meaning and purpose of the Bible and religion in general. Nevertheless, I will respect the moral, intellectual, and spiritual honesty of an individual that says faith is what I have, faith is all I need, that is the end of the discussion.

As I have been watching creationists on YouTube I did see one for whom I have this respect. He said flatly that he knows all the evidence shows that he is wrong.   He then went on to say that he believed in creationism because the Bible said so and his test of truth was faith in the Bible.

I think he is terribly wrong and very misguided, but I am compelled respect his honesty.

Darwin's Doubts

Smithsonian magazine posted an article about a letter from Darwin on the New Testament. The brief 

letter states: 

     

                  Private

Nov. 24 1880
Dear Sir,
I am sorry to have to
inform you that I do
not believe in the Bible
as a divine revelation
& therefore not in Jesus
Christ as the son of God.
Yours faithfully
Ch. Darwin

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/letter-about-darwins-belief-god-just-sold-nearly-200000-180956726/#oD515Tuf2v32b8b9.99

Interesting, but only tantalizing.  No clear answers.  Was Darwin, like Jefferson, a philosophic ( though not religious) Christian?  Was he fully agnostic?  A reluctant atheist?  A complete nonbeliever?  We know he felt that if there was a God, He was beyond human comprehension, but did he believe at all?  We still do not know.

"On the other (hand), I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical."

Yes, not necessarily...but...What could you believe, Dr. Darwin?  What were your hopes?

The world wonders.

Nature Red In Tooth And Claw

Tennyson's pre-Darwin observation on the struggle for survival is on target today. We have moved into the new home and we love it here, but there are still so many things to do. Everyone's overwhelmed and struggling hard to keep going and in the midst of this the children are forced to deal with their mother's battle to survive.

In the past few days she has been in and out of surgery several times with no surgery actually performed. As far as I can tell the problem is at once simple to state and very difficult to resolve. It seems that the situation entirely a matter of playing the odds. 

The MERSA in her leg is continuing to spread and cause more and more damage.  The terrible choice is to remove the leg or let the MERSA eventually kill her. However, her heart is in such bad condition that the anesthesiologist does not want to put her under for fear that she will die as a result.

So what is worse? What is the best bet for her to survive? It really isn't all that clear.  The kids are very upset with the hospital, understandably so. But I think the doctors are truly doing their best. The surgeon wants that leg removed so that he can control the infection. But when they bring her into the operating room the anesthesiologist sees that she is not in condition to survive being rendered unconscious. As horrible as it is for everyone, I hardly think the doctors are being callous about this. Instead, I expect they are agonizing over this terrible decision.

We have just heard that she is going into surgery once again. Whether the surgery will actually be performed and whether she will survive it are open questions.

To get back to Tennyson, when we look at the world we see its beauty. That beauty is real. But we usually neglect to see the ugliness that lies underneath it. We struggle and we do our best we try to find what joy and happiness we can. We are not wrong to do so. But the brutality of the battle to survive is always ready to make itself known.