Nature's Children

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Mark
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Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:56 am

in progress
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larry cottrill
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by larry cottrill » Wed Apr 09, 2008 3:12 pm

Now my complaint is that librarians have a lot more time for research than I do ;-)
"Do not let yourself be deceived, great intellects are skeptical." (Friedrich Nietzsche)
But all the most admired people of faith have been skeptical. I have no great reason to respect the beliefs of someone who is (purely grasping for an example) Presbyterian because his father, mother and grandparents were, and that's what he's always been taught. You are not really a person of faith unless you have had to struggle with it. Easy belief is nothing but naivete or wishful thinking.
"And I contend that all people are really theists."
I have been told that moments before a plane crash, no one onboard is an atheist. Seeing how people flee death or cling to life, it seems more accurate to say that just before death, no one is a theist. (Herb Berg)
That is a prejudiced assessment. Plenty of people have faced certain death without fear, and many with actual anticipation, as testified by those present in their last moments. A famous example would be the "four chaplains" of WWII (representing Jewish, Catholic and Protestant belief, incidentally) who tossed their life vests to other sailors and died holding onto each other as their ship went under. There is no religious stigma attached to the right of self-preservation; the question is what you're willing to balance it against.
“Every religion in the world believes that every other religion is superstition. And they’re all correct.” — Bob Avakian
Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias said something like, If you can intellectually tear another man's religion to shreds, it simply means that you have failed to understand it. I don't consider "other religions" to be superstitions -- that (to me) could only mean they are based on nothing. I just consider them to be wrong, because they are in the business of providing the tools necessary to evade the real issue. What I have to guard against is any belief system that advocates striving to make myself acceptable to God. Any religion of works is anti-Christian at its core, regardless of what it calls itself.

L Cottrill

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Re: Nature's Children

Post by larry cottrill » Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:29 pm

Mark wrote:Even though Kepler was religious, the concept he presents is still telling. If you explain an event as a miracle, then you don't have to explain it at all. ... There are still primitive naked people on this earth running around having their peculiar beliefs and superstitions. Are their explanations of the world any less valid if we are accepting miracles?
But that presumes we all accept 'miracle' to mean something that is conceptually inexplicable. Though conventional, that's not an adequate definition for the kind of "miracle" that is meant in this discussion. It seems to me that a miracle must be an intelligently directed action whose source and mechanism are without discernible physical evidence. Viewed in that way, it becomes easy to see how a phenomenon might be unanimously accepted as a miracle or not, depending on the era and culture in which the observers are living.
"The truly important non-rational element in Kepler's work is his Christianity. Kepler's extensive and successful use of mathematics makes his work look 'modern', but we are in fact dealing with a Christian Natural Philosopher, for whom understanding the nature of the Universe included understanding the nature of its Creator."
This doesn't really make him much different from later comers like Faraday (the "Father of Modern Physics") or George Washington Carver (whose work saved Southern US agriculture from disaster). Believing that God is behind it all doesn't pervert how you search for truth. Carver was brilliant in his discovery of how crop rotation can revitalize depleted soil to make it productive again. But he would have been happy to point you to the exact Old Testament chapter and verse where the practice is prescribed (as one of the 613 or so "Laws of Moses").
In the second edition of the book, which he wrote when he was fifty, he stated that such souls "do not exist" and added:

"If we substitute for the word "soul" the word "force" then we get just the principle which underlies my physics of the skies...For once I firmly believed that the motive force of a planet was a soul...Yet as I reflected that this cause of motion diminishes in proportion to distance, just as the light of the sun diminishes in proportion to distance from the sun, I came to the conclusion that this force must be something substantial-"substantial" not in the literal sense but...in the same manner as we say that light is something substantial, meaning by this an unsubstantial entity emanating from a substantial body."
Here he gets shockingly close to a "unified field theory" -- the elliptical orbits that Kepler is so famous for discovering are only possible in a field that obeys an "inverse square law" -- which applies equally to electromagnetic radiation from a point source in space. Amazing.
"In fact, this belief system was so ingrained that even scientists themselves often fell prey to it. The most illustrative case is that of Johannes Kepler, who was convinced that the universe had to be arranged according to some grand scheme, and that the teachings of astrology were largely correct. In keeping with these ancient beliefs Kepler searched for a simple geometric model of the universe, largely ignoring the evidence to the contrary. Kepler's was a common dilemma faced by the thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The ancient traditions exercised a strong pull on many scientists, who often allowed the supposed authorities of the past, or even simply the spirit of the past, to cloud their judgment and limit the progress made by their work.
True enough. Kepler started with the belief that the planetary orbits MUST be perfect circles because of the perfection of divine design. What he found was that God doesn't draw the plan of the universe with a compass, but with forces, masses, distances and velocities.
"Throughout the seventeenth century, despite the breakthroughs made in astronomy and physics, most Europeans retained a belief in astrology, ghosts, and magic. German princes often relied on court astrologers as their closest advisors. Indeed, even Johannes Kepler sought to confirm the power of astrology with the results of his work, though he proved unable to do so."
The post-Copernicans, including Kepler, became convinced that the layout of the planets in their respective distances from the sun approximated the layout of frequencies comprising a musical scale. The orbits of the planets, if viewed from a point on the orbital plane a great distance out, will have angular velocities that graph very close to sine waves. Obviously, the farther out from the sun, the lower the frequency of these waves. The juxtaposition of these waves, being thought of as a play of ever-changing harmonies, was known as the "music of the spheres", a phrase that was still in wide use (though somewhat more poetically) down through the late 1800s.

L Cottrill

Mark
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Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:03 pm

Crystal balls in the sky.

"In his first reply to reporter questions about the Reagan's use of astrology, and the story that he might actually have been picked as Vice President by an astrologer, Bush actually defended the practice. "I don't know about that," he said. "But I will tell you one thing: There are two edges to this sword. There are a helluva lot of people across this country that read these columns. Otherwise they would not be in the papers." Later after many more astrology questions, Bush then running for President himself, reconsidered his position declaring that he never read an astrology column and wouldn't know where to find one in a newspaper."

"Astrology was only a part of Reagan's interest in things unseen. He was openly known to be very interested in anything occult including UFOs, lucky numbers, astrology, lucky coins, and ghosts. Even small things bothered Reagan such as a house that Reagan friends purchased for the Reagans at 666 St. Cloud in Bel Air, California. When Reagan found out the address, paperwork was immediately started to change the address to 668 St. Cloud. He was, according to Reagan's Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver, "incurably superstitious. If he emptied his pants pockets you would always find about five good lucky charms that people had sent him."
http://www.presidentialufo.com/sydney_o ... rology.htm

"This was more than a charming eccentricity shared with the 50 million or so other Americans who, casually or in dead earnest, look to the alignment of the stars for guidance. As White House chief of staff for two years, before he was forced to resign in February 1987, Regan was in a position to see how the First Lady's faith in the astrologer's pronouncements wreaked havoc with her husband's schedule. At times, he writes, the most powerful man on earth was a virtual prisoner in the White House."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 89,00.html
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Superstition Confessional

Post by larry cottrill » Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:23 pm

Ha ha. Back when I was into diving, underwater oxygen cutting, etc. I always carried a World War I English penny that I had found one day in a parking lot when I was attending Drake University. I made sure I had this on my person any time I went under water, also had it in my pocket for flying, I believe. I think it was lost somehow before I ever learned to drive.

Not astrology, but superstition, which got honorable mention earlier.

(WARNING - PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL STOCK EXPRESSION FOLLOWS)
Of course, that was before I became a Christian.

L Cottrill

Mark
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Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:00 pm

Comments from a viewer.

"Dawkins: You obviously know nothing about evolution"
Haggard: really? or maybe you haven't met the people I have!

err... ted... seriously, you realise you are talking to arguably the most prominent authority on modern evolution right?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VhcScBdnEhY
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Mark
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Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:03 pm

My PSA for today. Of gyres/vortexes/vorticies. I was watching some show yesterday which was much more visually intriguing than my presentation here. I was wondering if those birds could eat any more plastic???
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/ ... cNov03.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKd5HSGC ... re=related

Interesting thoughts on nurdles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJvifVrG ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVwuPSLx ... re=related
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Mark
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Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Sun Apr 13, 2008 9:49 pm

Just a few paragraphs from one of the above links I thought was worth reading in case some missed it.

"But after our success with the race we were feeling mellow and unhurried, and our vessel was equipped with auxiliary twin diesels and carried an extra supply of fuel. So on the way back to our home port in Long Beach, California, we decided to take a shortcut through the gyre, which few seafarers ever cross. Fishermen shun it because its waters lack the nutrients to support an abundant catch. Sailors dodge it because it lacks the wind to propel their sailboats."

"I often struggle to find words that will communicate the vastness of the Pacific Ocean to people who have never been to sea. Day after day, Alguita was the only vehicle on a highway without landmarks, stretching from horizon to horizon. Yet as I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean, I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic."

"It seemed unbelievable, but I never found a clear spot. In the week it took to cross the subtropical high, no matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere: bottles, bottle caps, wrappers, fragments. Months later, after I discussed what I had seen with the oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, perhaps the world's leading expert on flotsam, he began referring to the area as the "eastern garbage patch." But "patch" doesn't begin to convey the reality. Ebbesmeyer has estimated that the area, nearly covered with floating plastic debris, is roughly the size of Texas."
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/ ... cNov03.htm
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Mark
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Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:35 am

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Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:51 pm

A few sifted ideas because the article was kind of long ...

"It took Kruskall and her team two years to crack the riddle. In the end
they discovered that Jane is a chimera, a mixture of two individuals -
non-identical twin sisters - who fused in the womb and grew into a single
body. Some parts of her are derived from one twin, others from the other.
It seems bizarre that this can happen at all, but Jane's is not an
isolated case. Around 30 similar instances of chimerism have been
reported, and there are probably many more out there who will never
discover their unusual origins."

"Jane's body was made up of two genetically distinct types of cells.
There was only one conclusion: Jane was a mixture of two different people."

"For some reason, cells from only one twin have come to dominate
in Jane's blood - the tissue used in tissue-typing. In Jane's other
tissues, however, including her ovaries, cells of both types live amicably
alongside each other, hence the apparently impossible genetics of her
three sons. One came from an egg derived from the twin whose cells
dominate Jane's blood, while his two brothers came from eggs derived from the other twin's cells."

"But what about a case where the father was a chimera? "You could imagine that you could rule out a person who is in fact the father," she says. This is especially plausible if one cell line always comes to dominate in the blood, as happened with Jane. Animal studies of chimerism suggest that this is indeed common."

"In fact, some researchers now think that most of us, if not all, are chimeras of one kind or another. Far from being pure-bred individuals composed of a single genetic cell line, our bodies are cellular mongrels, teeming with cells from our mothers, maybe even from grandparents and siblings. This may seem a little shocking at first. The thought of playing host to cells from other people may offend your sense of individuality. But you may have those outsiders to thank for keeping you healthy."
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Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:54 am

{Triumph of the medieval mind}

"Modern science began several hundred years earlier than we have come to imagine. It got going in the twelfth century — and with it, the long-standing rift between reason and faith."

"But William of Conches could not countenance a Creator who was constantly intervening in the world. He saw the Universe as a divinely wrought mechanism: God simply set the wheels in motion. It is in the twelfth century that the first references to the Universe as machina begin to appear."
"William of Conches didn't try to deny God's absolute power; he argued that it wasn't the issue. "Certainly God could make a calf out of the trunk of a tree, as country bumpkins might say, but did he ever do so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so."3 Adelard of Bath, another Chartres student, agreed: "I do not detract from God. Everything that is, is from him, and because of him. But [nature] is not confused and without system, and so far as human knowledge has progressed it should be given a hearing. Only when it fails utterly should there be recourse to God."

"Adelard's book Quaestiones Naturales reveals a mind full of curiosity about the world. Why do some animals see better at night? Why don't babies walk as soon as they are born? Why can sound pass through walls? In addressing these questions, he offers perhaps the most elegant and dignified defence of science ever written: "If we turned our backs on the amazing rational beauty of the universe we live in, we should indeed deserve to be driven therefrom, like a guest unappreciative of the house into which he has been received."4

"These things were said by deeply devout men in an age that could not contemplate a world without God. How narrow and theologically immature they make the dogmas of contemporary religious fundamentalists seem by comparison."
"By making God a natural phenomenon, the medieval rationalists turned Him into an explicatory contingency for which there has since seemed ever less need. By degrees, such secular learning was found to have so much explanatory power that it rivalled, rather than rationalized, theology itself. The consequent rift between faith and reason has now left traditional religions so compromised they are susceptible to displacement by more naive and dogmatic varieties."
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 2816a.html
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Jim Berquist
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Aluminum Foil Hat Time?

Post by Jim Berquist » Sat Apr 19, 2008 4:46 pm

I knew that they knew to much about me! :roll:
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Mark
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Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Sat Apr 19, 2008 8:52 pm

"Many companies, including Wal-Mart, Metro, Tesco, Procter and Gamble and Gillette, have already started tagging items in stores in the United States and Europe. And the companies making RFID tags still plan to help their customers tag every shampoo bottle, soda can and milk bottle that rolls off the assembly line."
"No company, however, has deployed devices that will kill the tags at checkout."
"Wal-Mart has been especially cagey about its in-store tests. It has shunned publicity and notified shoppers only vaguely that they are being tracked."
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/ ... 3/11/61264
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stoprfid-logo.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-freq ... tification
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RFID tags

Post by Jim Berquist » Sun Apr 20, 2008 12:16 am

I have other concerns with the Tags or Rather Tag Readers at the door.! :roll:

Please Note this is a True B.S. Story! :D


One day I was at Wal-Mart and checked out the Pet department.

They had a type of Guppies for sale I had never seen before the most cool Cobalt Blue .

I purchased two females and one male to see if I could breed a bunch in my spare tank.

Transporting them home I did everything I knew how to get them home with out stress. I Kept them out of the sun, Placed them in the cooler I keep in the van for groceries.. Summer time I do this all the time.

I got them home , floated them in the tank for 30-40 minutes in the bag so not to temp shock them.

one hour later I check on them and all are DEAD! Crap, bag them back up take them back for replacements.

Same procedures and one hours later all are DEAD!

Again I take them back and this time the clerk as me what I thought was a weird question.



She ask, You didn't walk through the Scanners with them , Did You?

I said of course I did, How else would I get out of the store?

She said , Next time hold them up above the Scanners or walk around them, the greater should have told you that!

The Scanner Wigs them out some how she says!

Yea I know How It Wigs Them Out! It's Micro Waves that fry the little critters Brain. :shock:

How Good Is That For You?????????????????????

No Wonder you get the Willies walking through the Damn Things! EaaaH?
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