Intelligent Design: Coming To A State Legislature Near You

Cousin Jethro wrote:

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Exactly the problem: Hubbard called it, "cultural lag." As I've said way earlier in the thread, we have human representatives on this planet showing/demonstrating from Stone Age(s) through Space Age(s)-- and in that recent case of the Astronautess chasing after a love-rival: Stone Age and Space Age -- shown simultaneously from within the same person..."The young man dashed down to his horse, jumped upon it, and rode off in all directions at once..." as the old saying goes

Chimney wrote:

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One might go further and call it evolutionary lag, as the same fundamental drives are operating today as existed in the common ancestor with chimps, evidenced by very similar social behaviours in our cousins today. Yet those behaviours were not preserved unless they were indeed pro-survival, and most of them remain so even today.
In darker moments one sees the glorious promise of future undermined and destroyed by the robust and savage forces from which enlightenment was a momentary departure, unsustainable because it defied the relentless and cruel logic of nature, and imprinted only by training on minds just capable of absorbing it over the rough and ready wiring of their evolutionary machinery.
Does our defiance triumph, setting us free from the monster, or does tribal primitivism win in the end, as it always has? Perhaps we have one shot at this, no more...if humanity has to go through another bout of dark age barbarism, there will never be the resources in the ground to build another industrial base. Perhaps it really is, now or never.
Wow, that all sounds melodramatic. But then, some things really are.

shinningelectr0n wrote:

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I'll repeat myself here and say again that it is paramount that we seed our species further into the Universe. If earthbound cultures should fall into a retrograde pattern of Allah freaks and Christian zealots where every women is barefoot and pregnant inside the cave, a chance remains that nobler heads would prevail elsewhere inside Creation. We might lose Earth yet gain or at least maintain a foothold to the stars. Off-world colonization would be hedging our bets and spreading risk instead of leaving human survival heading towards a do-or-die scenario.

Chimney wrote:

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I agree with you entirely and have always held that view. When one mistake can wreck your whole patch, the patch has become too small.

Cousin Jethro wrote:

Chimney wrote: "Wow, that all sounds melodramatic. But then, some things really are."
There is a successful formula for melodrama; as an aside, Dr. Goebbels' PhD was in Theater History and his thesis concerned German Romanticism...some of which generated the successful formulas of modern melodrama -- as well as some rather painful political conditions & situations

Cousin Jethro wrote:

Aside: those Indian gods and goddesses of multi-armed appearances -- they seem to be the emblem of multi-tasking ..

Cousin Jethro wrote:

Aside: those Indian gods and goddesses of multi-armed appearances -- they seem to be the emblem of multi-tasking -- it could be helpful to be like them whilst taking a shower...two hands soaping the back brush, two hands working the foot brush, two hands holding one's ears, so as not to hear one's own singing...

shinningelectr0n wrote:

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Imagine getting bitch-slapped by one of those Indian goddesses.

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shinningelectr0n wrote:

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Imagine getting bitch-slapped by one of those Indian goddesses.

Noodly James wrote:

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I can think of something else........never mind.

Noodly James wrote:

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I can think of something else........never mind.

Cousin Jethro wrote:

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If you follow the story of Shakti-Paravati's bath, you find that it can get gruesome, even for the kids, like Ganesha -- you have to remember that some of those arms-hands may be brandishing swords, etc.

shinningelectr0n wrote:

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Strange stuff, cutting off a guy's head and replacing it with an elephant's. That part of the story reminds me of an episode in my own life. In typical husbandly fashion, I am sometimes irritated by my wife's placing of little knick-knacks throughout the house. It used to be my routine to rise at 3AM for 6AM work having to drive long distances. As you can imagine, 3AM is not a time of day for gaiety. My focus at that time is singular and dead serious. One morning, to my chagrin, I found that she had earlier placed a potted plant on the bathroom window shelf level with my right ear. As I sat contemplating last night's supper and its passing, I casually raised my right arm to scratch my ear. In doing so, I clipped that flower pot causing it to fall first onto my knee and then to the floor where the contents separated cleanly from pot. Oddly enough, the top half of the root ball remained intact but the lower half disintegrated into a mess atop the carpeted floor. Not wanting to wake her, I retrieved one of those mechanical broom sweeps to quietly lift the mess from the floor. Next, I set the remains of the plant with its root ball back into the pot. Horrors! The plant sat so low in the pot that it seemed to be hiding as it barely peered at me over the edge. Thinking quickly, I rolled up a large wad of bathroom tissue to place inside the pot, raising the plant up to a proper level. I then left for work. Later in the day, we spoke by phone and she excitedly described to me the weirdest horticultural event of her life. As she watered the plant on the bathroom window sill that morning, it quickly began sinking deeply into the pot - like it was alive. It spooked her and she just couldn't stop talking about it. Later that evening, I surreptitiously snuck into the bathroom and refilled it with the real thing. I never told her about any of my experience. She later wondered why the plant rose back up and remained there.

Chimney wrote:

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All manner of designed creatures can be imagined, and many would be pretty formidable. Often what is missing from the world is as informative as what exists.
So we see that evolution could not co-opt the best structural forms from all over the animal kingdom and collect them into a particular creature. Each species' forward transformation space is limited to what can emerge in useful tiny steps from existing structures, ever plodding forward.
Given the right starting beliefs, humans can be very gullible to the apparency of miracles...I hope your wife does not look over your shoulder on these posts and discover your trickery. It would be so disappointing.

shinningelectr0n wrote:

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My trickery is not well polished yet. I have yet to successfully pull a rabbit out from a hat or twenty dollar bills at will from my pockets.
Your observation regarding the limited wiggle room for each species is interesting. I wonder, though, about us. Has our intellect been inflating our wiggle room and are those small, plodding steps increasing geometrically?
Faced with recent discoveries that blur distinctions between us and other animals, we've been pushed to search, almost embarrassingly, to redefine ourselves in the all-encompassing context of evolution. Maybe our uniqueness lies with a future evolutionary process of limitless, ever-expanding conical expansion while the other creatures are left to trace out random trees and branches, many with dead-ends.

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shinningelectr0n wrote:

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My trickery is not well polished yet. I have yet to successfully pull a rabbit out from a hat or twenty dollar bills at will from my pockets.
Your observation regarding the limited wiggle room for each species is interesting. I wonder, though, about us. Has our intellect been inflating our wiggle room and are those small, plodding steps increasing geometrically?
Faced with recent discoveries that blur distinctions between us and other animals, we've been pushed to search, almost embarrassingly, to redefine ourselves in the all-encompassing context of evolution. Maybe our uniqueness lies with a future evolutionary process of limitless, ever-expanding conical expansion while the other creatures are left to trace out random trees and branches, many with dead-ends.

Chimney wrote:

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Yes...the first innovation taken to extremes in humans was the development of culture - a form of environmental adaptation not reliant on the timescales and vagaries of natural selection. Humans could adapt to different environments in a matter of months, not generations...
Looking forward, the opportunity in theory to adapt and correct our own physiques at the genetic level, both as opportunity and as antidote for the humane tendency we have to preserve our weaker companions. So perhaps this experiment in transending the often cruel dictates of evolution will be a success.
Whether it is or not, I think the trajectory is about to change in very fundamental ways...

shinningelectr0n wrote:

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Is that last statement a cynical one about nuclear war and social/religious upheaval? Or is it just an observation regarding the state of our intellectual prowess in the animal world?