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News Briefs 14-10-2009

Rick had almost recovered from his embarrassment over the Jackson Jive bruhaha, when along came the dwarf race. Now he’s too distraught to do today’s news. 😉

Quote of the Day:

Most of us think of our DNA as sort of locked in our body, waiting to be passed on to our children, but in fact your DNA at every moment is interacting with your environment, interacting with every bite of food you take, interacting with your thoughts, your feelings, and various things, so when you take a bite of food, literally, the information — beyond the calories in the food — goes right into your cells, into your DNA, and switches on genes, or turns off genes based on what information is in that food.

Dr. Mark Hyman

  1. Creationism as Pseudoscience
    How are we now defining the term “creationism”? It seems that there has been a tendency, recently, to associate the word “creationism” with “theism”. That is to say, if one believes in God, any god, or even more than one god, that person is automatically a creationist. This is a bit of a generalized view, as not every theist believes in the instantaneous creation of human, animal and vegetable kind. Yes, there are those who subscribe to literal translations of one holy text or another. And yes, some of these people reject evolution outright – contrary evidence be damned (literally). But the core of the creationist view, as I understand it, is that life began here on earth (and maybe elsewhere as well) not by accident, but by design. The shape of that life at the exact moment of its spawning is, I think, the starting point for science. Before this point are mostly whys, which science has proven to be notoriously bad at answering:

    Q: Why do we love? A: Chemicals, hormones, etc.
    Q: Why do we live? A: To make babies.

    Answers such as these seem Cartesian in approach:
    Love is chemicals and hormones, yet it is at the same time the RESULT of those things? Isn’t that a bit like saying that rain is rain, and rain falls from the sky because it is rain?

    Beyond the first link of the grand chain of life is a great host of “hows” – which science has proven to be fairly GOOD at answering. In other words, it has “tentatively” (I am loathe to use the term “definitively” in all matters of science given its loathsome habit of destroying and rebuilding its most hallowed tenets) proven that the “how” of man’s current condition is a matter of gradual metamorphosis; a reaction to external stimuli and internal mutation over long periods of time. This proves that a chain exists from point A to point B. But it does not, however, prove that the first link at point A is anchored to randomness.

    Therefore, I am a little perplexed at the newest science fad: God-bashing. Well fine, bash him if you must. But is it really necessary to declare every theist a whackjob kook or, worse yet, a pseudoscientist? Fanatical disbelief can be just as scary as fanatical belief…

    1. Nice bit of word-smithing
      Very well said, Shovelbum. I am in agreement that we tend to fall into these things more as a trendy thing than because there is any real benefit to the human condition.

      Speaking of God; belief and disbelief require the same processes asking the same questions. The differences are not organic… they are entirely abstract.

      Cheers!

  2. Half of old people don’t talk about it
    Re: Half of young people claim they are happiest online.

    Just a note to the desk’perts out there…

    People like me, way too old to know everything anymore, use the internet regularly. In fact, music and other items from the 60s and 70s don’t have lawyers and RIAA roaches hanging all over them. The black market for things like Alice Cooper and Iron Butterfly is wide open… nobody cares.

    Oh… and you can get an autograph from a guy in Grand Funk Railroad, just by asking.

    But of course… Geritol is still so expensive that I have to eat cat food to afford my nightly fix :p

    1. Cat food!
      I bought a large bag of tins of the stuff today (for the cat), but as there was no meat in my shopping trolley perhaps the check-out chick thought I was buying the cat food for myself!

      Then again …. it does smell pretty good, and certainly wouldn’t be as tough as some of the meat that’s for sale! Will have to give this matter some serious consideration.

      Regards, Kathrinn.

      P.S. It’s amazing what older folk actually know that youngsters think isn’t possible.

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