09.27.09
Posted in Evolution at 11:58 am by nemo
Dawkins complains so haughtily of those who reject evolution, but if evolution and Darwinism are confused, and if Darwinism is a bungled theory, then we should be glad for the resistance.
1.2.4 Botched Theories And The Coefficient Of Murder
Let us look at this implication of the Oedipus paradox, and consider the ethics involved in the assertion of evolutionary, and indeed, ethical theories, seen in a definable ‘coefficient of murder’ associated with the theory. The option to ‘act according to the law of evolution’, survival of the fittest, natural selection (death of the competitor) informs the agent, who proceeds to violent means, sure in his rejection of ethics of the grounding in science of biological law. Unscrupulous warmongers are handed a gift of legitimation by Darwin’s shortsighted theory. To inject the theory of natural selection into the culture of his time without any specification of the domains of its application was the source of the hopeless confusion that arose in Darwin’s wake, leading to the entanglements of Social Darwinism. Herbert Spencer is partly to blame here, but he never proposed the facts of social competition as a universal explanation for evolution.
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Posted in Evolution, Science & Religion at 11:55 am by nemo
Another Dawkins book revieiw: FROM DARWIN TO DAWKINS: Evolutionary evidence may be falling on undeveloped ears
Dawkins complains of the percentage that rejects evolution, but has not Darwinism in its aggressive promotion and deceptions been its own worst enemy? And the Darwinian take, confused with the whole of evolutionism, can’t even produce a theory of ethics. Why should the innocent public not turn elsewhere?
But he also hopes that the fact that people just aren’t “getting it” is at least partially due to errors of omission on his part, derived from his assumption (oops!) that evolution, as first described by Charles Darwin in the 19th century, and magnificently elaborated upon by generations of subsequent thinkers, was so profoundly obvious, such a forehead-slapping “ah hah” moment, that the actual hard scientific evidence that continues to be amassed in its support need not be elaborated upon in the popular media.
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Posted in Evolution, Kant at 11:49 am by nemo
Visions of a Ghostseer: all of the problems of the Darwin debate were highlighted decades before Darwin, by the philosopher Kant. And in fact the source for his critiques goes back still further to the mid-eighteenth century with his ‘Visions of a Ghostseer’
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Posted in Booknotes, Evolution at 11:31 am by nemo
From UD: Excerpted from The Greatest Show on Earth Richard Dawkins 2009
In this statement Dawkins protests the claim for a ‘gap in the record’ with respect to the Cambrian.
The issue is not a gaps problem, but simply explaining how the Cambrian fits into standard Darwinism: it looks like evolution, but not the Darwin variety.
“It would be so nice if those who oppose evolution would take a tiny bit of trouble to learn the merest rudiments of what it is that they are opposing.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Science & Religion at 11:27 am by nemo
by Seyran Ates – guardian.co.uk
from dawkins site
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/sep/26/germany-now-human-rights-religion
Worldwide, women and children are among those most affected by human rights abuses; women and children make up the majority of victims of domestic violence; it is mainly women and girls who are deprived of an education, or even denied an appropriate position in the labour market despite a good education; political opportunities for women are still minimal, despite active and passive suffrage. This is the case regardless of culture or religion. In this sense, achieving gender equality is one of the greatest political challenges of our century.
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Posted in Evolution at 11:22 am by nemo
Religion and Science 101: Intelligent Design
Some in the scientific community have been quick to call intelligent design just a new form of creationism. In a way, there is some truth to that. Intelligent design is a theory that works with creationism but there is much more to it than that. Intelligent design however is not in and of itself religious. Intelligent design is a way of addressing the issue that science can not. Evolution simply can not answer the question of how it all started.
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Posted in Evolution at 11:18 am by nemo
Weeds That Reinvented Weediness: New Research Sheds Light On Origins And Success Of Flowering Plants
ScienceDaily (Sep. 5, 2009) — Flowering plants are all around us and are phenomenally successful. But how did they get to be so successful and where did they come from?
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Posted in biology at 11:16 am by nemo
Secrets Of The Sandcastle Worm Could Yield A Powerful Medical Adhesive
ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2009) — Scientists have copied the natural glue secreted by a tiny sea creature called the sandcastle worm in an effort to develop a long-sought medical adhesive needed to repair bones shattered in battlefield injuries, car crashes and other accidents.
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Posted in global warming at 11:15 am by nemo
Our Changing Climate
Climatologists Forecast Completely New Climates
September 1, 2007 — Geographers have projected temperature increases due to greenhouse gas emissions to reach a not-so-chilling conclusion: climate zones will shift and some climates will disappear completely by 2100. Tropical highlands and polar regions may be the first to disappear, and large swaths of the tropics and subtropics will reach even hotter temperatures. The study anticipates large climate changes worldwide.
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Posted in Evolution at 11:13 am by nemo
Woody Plants Adapted To Past Climate Change More Slowly Than Herbs
ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2009) — Can we predict which species will be most vulnerable to climate change by studying how they responded in the past?
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Posted in Evolution at 11:11 am by nemo
Sheep Shed Light On Personality Differences
ScienceDaily (Sep. 26, 2009) — The team led by Denis Reale, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at UQAM and Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Ecology, recently completed a study showing the link between personality, survival and reproductive success in male bighorn sheep.
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Posted in General at 11:09 am by nemo
Eco bulbs: How I found the light
While greening his house, Alok Jha became an eco-lightbulb obsessive. The result? All his lighting is now low-energy – and he’s managed to slash his electricity bills by 60%
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Posted in In the News at 11:01 am by nemo
Published on Sunday, September 27, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Obama’s LBJ Moment
by Harvey Wasserman
Lyndon Johnson was once on the verge of becoming one of America’s greatest presidents.
But with a single wrong turn into Vietnam, LBJ plunged himself and the nation into a ghastly tragedy that still makes us all weep and bleed.
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Posted in you've got mail at 10:56 am by nemo
RG mail
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/25/AR2009092503854.html?hpid=topnews
Many Health-Care Workers Required to Get Vaccines
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 26, 2009
With the H1N1 pandemic spreading rapidly, hundreds of thousands of doctors, nurses, orderlies and other U.S. health-care workers for the first time are being required to get flu shots, drawing praise from many public-health authorities but condemnation from some employees, unions and other critics who object to mandatory vaccination.
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Posted in you've got mail at 10:54 am by nemo
RG mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/a-hostile-takeover-of-zionism/article1302318/
Globe and Mail September 26, 2009
A hostile takeover of Zionism
Israel is teetering toward theocracy, with the rise of the Haredim
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Posted in you've got mail at 10:53 am by nemo
RG mail
http://www.truthout.org/092109I?n
Can the Townhallers Be Left, Rather Than Left Behind?
by: Dean Baker,
t r u t h o u t: September 21, 2009
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Posted in you've got mail at 10:51 am by nemo
RG mail
http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3993
ZNet September 24, 2009
The Mystique of “Free-Market Guy” Obama
If Obama is radical about anything, it’s about NOT rocking corporate boats.
That’s why he received more Wall Street funding than any candidate in
history and why – before he was a front-runner in early 2007 – he was
raising more money from the biggest Wall Street banks than even Hillary
Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, presidential candidates from New York.
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Posted in you've got mail at 10:49 am by nemo
RG mail
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/6234829/Irans-second-uranium-enrichment-plant-may-have-made-Israeli-strike-less-likely.html Daily Telegraph 26 September 2009
Iran’s second uranium enrichment plant may have made Israeli strike less likely
The disclosure that Iran has secretly been operating a second uranium enrichment plant may perversely have reduced the likelihood of an Israeli military strike against Tehran’s nuclear installations.
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Posted in you've got mail at 10:48 am by nemo
RG mail
2002-07 | National Union of Public and General Employees
Top 1% got 2/3 of all U.S. income gains
http://www.nupge.ca/node/2544
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Posted in you've got mail at 10:45 am by nemo
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/science/earth/27waste.html
September 27, 2009
Smuggling Europe’s Waste to Poorer Countries
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
ROTTERDAM, the Netherlands – When two inspectors swung open the doors of a battered red shipping container here, they confronted a graveyard of Europe’s electronic waste – old wires, electricity meters, circuit boards – mixed with remnants of cardboard and plastic.
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09.26.09
Posted in Evolution at 5:11 pm by nemo
Kirk Cameron Defends Attack on ‘Species’
It is a pity that this critic cannot show any disciple and must confound his gesture with creationist confusion.
What a waste! The public needs careful criticism of Darwinism.
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Posted in General at 3:43 pm by nemo
Darwin’s Darkest Hour: Nova Darwin program, coming in October, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/
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Posted in Evolution at 3:33 pm by nemo
The Evolution of Freedom
Reductionist evolutionism can never get human evolution right, because that must show how ‘freedom evolved’, and that can’t be a deterministic process.
…as one historian of evolution has put it[Loren Eiseley], echoing Wallace, “Here at last volition has taken its place in the world of nature.”
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Posted in Booknotes at 12:23 pm by nemo
Some links on Against The Modern World, a book discussing the legacy of the Traditionalists and Rene Guenon.
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Posted in Evolution at 11:56 am by nemo
From The Evolution Conspiracy: Must Everyone Accept Evolution?
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Posted in Evolution at 11:55 am by nemo
The Shiva Seal
Humanity has forgotten its evolutionary origins, and the source of its religions. How could yoga have arisen in the descent of man?
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