I read that line and immediately pictured astronomers flying around randomly.
Then I imagined a silly thought experiment. If a bunch of non-Einsteinian gravity astronomers were in an elevator and it dropped, would they just fly/bump around the elevator in random directions?
While I understand your points, I don't know that they're the whole story. Recently I attended the Brown Symposium at Southwestern Univ., where the subject was Gross National Product vs. Gross National Well-being. Two psychologists, a neuroscientist, and a Harvard economist all reported findings from research in their respective fields that showed while religion is not necessary for happiness, happiness is more frequently correlated with religious faith. (This religious aspect was *not* a major focus of the symposium, it just happened to show up along with a ton of other research they presented.) This has resulted in increased scientific study of religion, to see what aspects of it are bringing about this result. So science is actually finding the investigation of religion more useful than they previously did. Interestingly, they also found that happiness was positively correlated with self-aware, self-reflective people; happiness does not come to the blind, un-examined life.
Your description of god is what theologians refer to as the "god of the gaps" - the god who shows up in places we can't explain or don't understand yet. Theologians would laugh anyone out of the room, religious or not, who proposed such a conception of god. But there are plenty of intelligent, science-friendly and even science-educated people who believe in a much more active god. These people don't find evolution a demotion. Those who, from their scientific background, understand an observer to be necessary for the universe to exist, are seeing a very present, interactive "god" who may or may not be the God of Abraham and the prophets, but is certainly present and essentially involved. Those religious people who think of god as having a dimensional perspective beyond our time (C.S. Lewis, for example), and therefore able to see where evolution might go, don't see evolution as a demuotion but as a vivid expression of creativity and power. And what about the significant minority who are not only unafraid of science, but actually came to their faith *because* of science (C.S. Lewis, again)?
God is not an explanatory hypothesis, and religious people do not cling to god because they want an explanatory hypothesis. Their reasons are many and varied, some good and some appalling, but the god of the gaps is not the focus of their faith.
Really scary is that TV shows seem to promote this kind of behavior. Law & Order, CSI, and others show police regularly asking for privacy-betraying, civil-liberty-infringing information without warrants, and occasionally threaten disruption of business, etc., when they are resisted. Citizens who cooperate with the police sans warrants are shown as good, supportive characters.
While the shows may be doing this to avoid having to include getting a warrant in the plot line, the message to the millions of viewers is that warrants are technicalities which don't really have a serious purpose. Simply because this is done by networks and not the government doesn't mean it doesn't have a propaganda-like influence.
I was given a project manager role at Nortel in 2000, and tried to implement some of this. It was virtually impossible; people did not want to (a) change their existing habits or (b) admit their were improvements to be made. While initially management and some on the team liked the ideas, implementing them was virtually impossible. Those who had to address the actual issues simply refused to do what was necessary. They said "yes" in meetings and went right back to the old work.
As a project manager over people in multiple departments and multiple locations, with hiring control over none, I was helpless without the support of executive mgmt, and they of course told me implementing the changes in question was my job. Which it was, but without power, a title is worthless.
Amen! I'm struggling to get into a similar place. Reduce my debt, reduce my consumer footprint, improve my health and reduce my contributions to the medical establishment, etc.... My husband and I own our cars outright, own our house (a very modest place in Central Texas), and are striving to eliminate our remaining debts.
It's difficult, but debt has been one of the plagues of my life, simply through circumstance, not extravagance. I'm going to make it stop.
Yes, that was my first thought. Aren't browsers supposed to attempt to be as compatible as possible to enhance their appeal? Isn't that why people change browsers? This is what happens when a company simply assumes they own the market.
I was one of those people who was completely tense regardless of my posture. Wrist supports, keyboard changes, height adjustments, etc., didn't help, since the tension was always there regardless of the posture. It had reached the point I had sharp, constant pain in my arms and hands from nerve impingement by my muscles. It was being treated as RSI and not getting better, even on huge amounts of muscle relaxants.
In my mid-30s I started actively working on this using imagery (for example, imagining tension washing away when showering), breathing relaxation techniques, and regular massage the first year or so. Massage sounds expensive, I know, but cutting out fast food gave me enough money to manage it at least once a month. Now I'm 40 and formerly constant pain is no longer there at all, except during particularly stressful times. I don't need muscle relaxants any more. Perhaps this might help you?
If everybody paid their bills when they could, and communicated with their creditors when they couldn't, collection agencies would go out of business, too.
Sadly, I've done both with little success. I was laid off once (no severance, no savings due to medical bills) and immediately contacted Citibank about my MC and Visa accounts. The amounts were small (about $300 and $400, respectively) and I'd been paying on time since I got the cards a year earlier. I was told that I couldn't combine or delay the payments since I owed too little, and that the late fee would not be waived because they couldn't combine or delay the payments. In other words, keeping my debt to a minimum with Citibank actually worked against me.
I got a job about three weeks later, and got paid in another two weeks. By this time I'd incurred late fees on both cards. I sent as much as I could afford to each (minimum payments) but this of course did not stop the late fees. I tried to catch up one card and skip a month on another, but this was nearly impossible since they told me I to catch up I needed to pay the late fees as well. Plus, once I went past a certain amount of time I began getting harrassing calls.
This was my first experience with collections, back in 1990, and it burned me on the entire experience.
It took 4 years to pay off those debts, and I incurred nearly as much as I owed in late fees along the way. I wasn't blowing them off, either; I took two lower-paying jobs ASAP to be able to continue to pay my monthly bills and long-term debts. So I no longer buy into the "just do the right thing and it'll be okay" attitude. Mine is now do the right thing and hope for the best, because you certainly can't expect the corporations to return the favor.
My spouse (who holds a PhD in religious studies from UVA) sent the following to school board head Kathie Johnstone, which I found a good overview of the problems with the sticker.
The sticker in the Cobb County science books to the effect that "evolution is a theory, not a fact" is highly misleading, indeed mistaken, but not for the reasons one might think. As the word is used in science, "theory" is not the same as "hypothesis". To the contrary, a theory represents the highest level of certainty currently available to a discipline. Hence, we speak of "quantum theory" in physics without any hint that this is just a guess, or is in some way not a fact. Indeed, data are not just raw input but are "theory-laden". That is, the theory is what determines what counts as a fact in the first place. So it makes no sense to say that something is only a theory, not a fact. One could say "evolution is only an hypothesis, not a theory" or, equivalently, "evolution is only an hypothesis, not a fact", but this would be false. Evolution, in the scientific community, is a theory, not an hypothesis. To be sure, theories may change or be replaced. Phlogiston theory was the science of its day, but was replaced by oxidation theory. Evolution may someday be replaced. But that can be said about any current scientific theory whatever.
Despite all this one could continue to maintain the theory/fact distinction, but in that case the logic of the position would entail having a sticker to the effect that "Relativity is only a theory, not a fact," that "Genetics is only a theory, not a fact," and that "Plate tectonics is only a theory, not a fact." Of course, this would be ridiculous, but at least it would have the virtue of consistency. Perhaps it is the singling out of evolution to tar with the brush of "theory not fact" when no other theories are required to have such a disclaimer that made the religious basis of the sticker so transparent to the court, giving the lie to the school board's patently disingenuous statement that "The textbook stickers are a reasonable and evenhanded guide to science instruction and encouraging students to be critical thinkers."
The Smithsonian also has a good image.
Personally, I think it's a brilliant interpretation of a very old design. Anyone who's read about the Burgess shale and the pre-Cambrian extinctions knows the variety of structure that was lost. (S. J. Gould's Wonderful Life is a great read.) This is a useful, inventive translation of old structure into modern use. What a great source for inspiration.
Slashdot Mirror
That's close to negligent homicide; I just died laughing :-)
I read that line and immediately pictured astronomers flying around randomly.
Then I imagined a silly thought experiment. If a bunch of non-Einsteinian gravity astronomers were in an elevator and it dropped, would they just fly/bump around the elevator in random directions?
While I understand your points, I don't know that they're the whole story. Recently I attended the Brown Symposium at Southwestern Univ., where the subject was Gross National Product vs. Gross National Well-being. Two psychologists, a neuroscientist, and a Harvard economist all reported findings from research in their respective fields that showed while religion is not necessary for happiness, happiness is more frequently correlated with religious faith. (This religious aspect was *not* a major focus of the symposium, it just happened to show up along with a ton of other research they presented.) This has resulted in increased scientific study of religion, to see what aspects of it are bringing about this result. So science is actually finding the investigation of religion more useful than they previously did. Interestingly, they also found that happiness was positively correlated with self-aware, self-reflective people; happiness does not come to the blind, un-examined life.
Your description of god is what theologians refer to as the "god of the gaps" - the god who shows up in places we can't explain or don't understand yet. Theologians would laugh anyone out of the room, religious or not, who proposed such a conception of god. But there are plenty of intelligent, science-friendly and even science-educated people who believe in a much more active god. These people don't find evolution a demotion. Those who, from their scientific background, understand an observer to be necessary for the universe to exist, are seeing a very present, interactive "god" who may or may not be the God of Abraham and the prophets, but is certainly present and essentially involved. Those religious people who think of god as having a dimensional perspective beyond our time (C.S. Lewis, for example), and therefore able to see where evolution might go, don't see evolution as a demuotion but as a vivid expression of creativity and power. And what about the significant minority who are not only unafraid of science, but actually came to their faith *because* of science (C.S. Lewis, again)? God is not an explanatory hypothesis, and religious people do not cling to god because they want an explanatory hypothesis. Their reasons are many and varied, some good and some appalling, but the god of the gaps is not the focus of their faith.
Really scary is that TV shows seem to promote this kind of behavior. Law & Order, CSI, and others show police regularly asking for privacy-betraying, civil-liberty-infringing information without warrants, and occasionally threaten disruption of business, etc., when they are resisted. Citizens who cooperate with the police sans warrants are shown as good, supportive characters.
While the shows may be doing this to avoid having to include getting a warrant in the plot line, the message to the millions of viewers is that warrants are technicalities which don't really have a serious purpose. Simply because this is done by networks and not the government doesn't mean it doesn't have a propaganda-like influence.
LOL! Like the Dilbert - an old one, back in the 90s, I think - where marketing decides the best UI is an On/Off button, and nothing else....
Of course, my inability to spell simple words ;-)
in the above post undermines it somewhat
I was given a project manager role at Nortel in 2000, and tried to implement some of this. It was virtually impossible; people did not want to (a) change their existing habits or (b) admit their were improvements to be made. While initially management and some on the team liked the ideas, implementing them was virtually impossible. Those who had to address the actual issues simply refused to do what was necessary. They said "yes" in meetings and went right back to the old work.
As a project manager over people in multiple departments and multiple locations, with hiring control over none, I was helpless without the support of executive mgmt, and they of course told me implementing the changes in question was my job. Which it was, but without power, a title is worthless.
Very, very vexing.
Logical. Flawlessly logical. I'm going to go do my bit to save the planet right now!
Amen! I'm struggling to get into a similar place. Reduce my debt, reduce my consumer footprint, improve my health and reduce my contributions to the medical establishment, etc.... My husband and I own our cars outright, own our house (a very modest place in Central Texas), and are striving to eliminate our remaining debts.
It's difficult, but debt has been one of the plagues of my life, simply through circumstance, not extravagance. I'm going to make it stop.
Yes, that was my first thought. Aren't browsers supposed to attempt to be as compatible as possible to enhance their appeal? Isn't that why people change browsers? This is what happens when a company simply assumes they own the market.
I was one of those people who was completely tense regardless of my posture. Wrist supports, keyboard changes, height adjustments, etc., didn't help, since the tension was always there regardless of the posture. It had reached the point I had sharp, constant pain in my arms and hands from nerve impingement by my muscles. It was being treated as RSI and not getting better, even on huge amounts of muscle relaxants.
In my mid-30s I started actively working on this using imagery (for example, imagining tension washing away when showering), breathing relaxation techniques, and regular massage the first year or so. Massage sounds expensive, I know, but cutting out fast food gave me enough money to manage it at least once a month. Now I'm 40 and formerly constant pain is no longer there at all, except during particularly stressful times. I don't need muscle relaxants any more. Perhaps this might help you?
If everybody paid their bills when they could, and communicated with their creditors when they couldn't, collection agencies would go out of business, too.
Sadly, I've done both with little success. I was laid off once (no severance, no savings due to medical bills) and immediately contacted Citibank about my MC and Visa accounts. The amounts were small (about $300 and $400, respectively) and I'd been paying on time since I got the cards a year earlier. I was told that I couldn't combine or delay the payments since I owed too little, and that the late fee would not be waived because they couldn't combine or delay the payments. In other words, keeping my debt to a minimum with Citibank actually worked against me.
I got a job about three weeks later, and got paid in another two weeks. By this time I'd incurred late fees on both cards. I sent as much as I could afford to each (minimum payments) but this of course did not stop the late fees. I tried to catch up one card and skip a month on another, but this was nearly impossible since they told me I to catch up I needed to pay the late fees as well. Plus, once I went past a certain amount of time I began getting harrassing calls. This was my first experience with collections, back in 1990, and it burned me on the entire experience.
It took 4 years to pay off those debts, and I incurred nearly as much as I owed in late fees along the way. I wasn't blowing them off, either; I took two lower-paying jobs ASAP to be able to continue to pay my monthly bills and long-term debts. So I no longer buy into the "just do the right thing and it'll be okay" attitude. Mine is now do the right thing and hope for the best, because you certainly can't expect the corporations to return the favor.
She replied only, "Thank you for your input."
The Smithsonian also has a good image. Personally, I think it's a brilliant interpretation of a very old design. Anyone who's read about the Burgess shale and the pre-Cambrian extinctions knows the variety of structure that was lost. (S. J. Gould's Wonderful Life is a great read.) This is a useful, inventive translation of old structure into modern use. What a great source for inspiration.