BS: I Love this Idea

Subject: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 03:44 PM

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/381444899/pri-studio-360

Does beauty and reward drive evolution?

Do cultures create their own evolution beyond survival of the fittest
but survival of more beauty and art?



I explore ideas from npr broadcasts from 360.org. to TED talks and more.

Sometimes being human blinds us to the actual spectrum of communication

One of my experiences I never talk about is communication with animals.

A cat owner knows the slow closing of ones eyes to reassure the trust of a cat. Dog lovers now many other means of communication.

I have found ways of sharing comfortable moments with storks in the wild, deer, even Dolphins and snakes. People who dismiss these claims haven't learned to set their humanness aside.


If you have been introduced to ideas that inspire a second look but

are still on the fringe in this day and age you could list them here

without judgement, except for our resident comedians

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 03:54 PM

Oh, dear. This brings to mind the plumage of male birds so as to get the attention of the females...says more about me than it does about the subject. Pretty feathers though.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 04:04 PM

Presumably, evolution , in the sense of how things work out. There seems to be a number of vids crop up on Facebook of animal and human interaction. If we need to put aside our humanness , I wonder if they are putting aside their beastiness to interact with us !

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Janie
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 04:32 PM

What we put aside is our mistaken belief that we are not part of the animal kingdom, and therefore beasties ourselves.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 04:34 PM

"If we need to put aside our humanness , I wonder if they are putting aside their beastiness to interact with us !" Pete, 7 Seven Stars

I think there is little doubt of that. I suspect that some animals spend a good share of their lives trying to figure out how to get to our level. I further suspect that their aim has to be downward rather than upward.

Thanks, Donuel. This is an interesting idea.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 04:39 PM

That sounds likely Pete.

Another idea;

Now that most people have a camera available everywhere, where are the remarkable ufos?   Where are the multiple perspective photos?
By Pete's deduction perspective the ufos would know of their mass detection and avoid this deliberately.
It is easier to assume the phenomena is not as we may have thought.
Either the universe has expanded to non visitation distances or they did not exist at all which is what I SAID 35 YEARS AGO as a person on a UFU radio panel.

I'm hoping I am wrong.

If there is a cost risk decision to be made by aliens we may be decidedly too dangerous.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 05:26 PM

The esthetic philosophers who see cross over consciousness have much to offer.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 05:39 PM

The Hopi religious idea to walk in beauty comes to mind.

Truth beauty beauty truth.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 06:30 PM

Evolution doesn't involve reward at all, as it's blind. As for beauty, my take on the role of evolution is that it has proceeded for four billion years (a terrifying fact not understood at all by people of religion) from the very origin of life to the complexity and diversity of life on earth that we're privileged to be a part of. From that diversity comes the beauty, and the way I see beauty is that it is the natural product, the synergy if you like, of form and function. Look at a flower close up. You can either ditch your mighty intellect and see God, or you can marvel at the billions of years of evolution that have not only made that flower so perfectly fit for purpose but have also made it look so aesthetically pleasing that the greatest artists that have ever lived can hardly do it justice in spite of its simplicity. A curious, wide-eyed seven-year-old sees it more perfectly, more unaffectedly, than even a Michelangelo or a Constable, and those blokes would, I'm creating, have agreed with me there. That's what I call beauty. And, by the way, you can't do both. They are mutually exclusive, despite the pleadings of the softly-softly religious.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 06:34 PM

Thank you, oh so helpful autocorrect. "I'm creating" was meant to be "I'm certain."

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 06:42 PM

God's Auto correct

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 07:14 PM

DNA has an auto correct

The internet would not work without a code auto correct.

Whether or not it belongs to God is up to you.

Beauty is probably a self determining aspect of evolution in a stable environment.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 07:31 PM

You look at a living thing, or a small part of a living thing, a flower for example, and you think you see an intrinsic beauty in its form. But you may be wrong. You need to look deeper, to use your intellect, to tie in that surface beauty with the function of the part. You then develop a depth of appreciation of true beauty that is far deeper, far more multifaceted and far more satisfying. Appreciation of beauty can come straight away from your first confrontation with the beautiful object in front of you, but to go deeper you then have to take it from there, using your knowledge, your intellect and your experience, which, hopefully, will have been honed. Using your knowledge, intellect and experience is a skill that can only come from education, and certainly not the kind of "education" that insists on Godly interventions in everything.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: olddude
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 08:32 PM

Women all get prettier at closing time

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 08:51 PM

I look at a flower and I know what I see, including that its color is different for the bee which is who the flower wants to please most for reproduction.

The bee sees in a higher blue ultra violet spectrum than I do.

Next the most pleasing aroma is an ability that the flower needs for even more rewarding qualities appreciated by more than just bees.

For reasons the flower does not understand it will self select evolutionary changes based on the success of the flower based upon its habitat. This is a form of species differentiation.

Flower consciousness may effect its own evolution but not in the way we can think about this. Consciousness is from the inside out and the outside in. Not from the God perspective in.



(rewording of Steve's post from my perspective.)

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 09:27 PM

The flower isn't trying to please. It's ruthlessly expending energy on producing colour pigments and scents, both of which cost the plant dearly In terms of energy and materials, in order to effect successful sexual reproduction. The flower itself is but a small component of the plant body. Talking of flowers effecting evolution is rather like saying that testicles do it too. They probably don't have as much fun as we do, but that hasn't stopped them from doing it even after hundreds of millions of years.

Last week I bought a cheap UV torch. It's opened up a whole world of observation. I point it at flowers and lichens on the wall. Stunning. "Chisels men's hands to magnify..."

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 09:55 PM

The perception of beauty (and other aesthetics) is a universal gift tendered among units of consciousness (high or low) whether human or otherwise engaged. I suspect there are things about humans that cetaceans find beautiful, and perhaps bees may seem beautiful to flowers, or big dogs to little dogs or even, in a frisson-inducing sort fo way, to possums.

A lot of this is intuitive, since the ordinary frameworks of human beauty gifting don't quite work for other organisms. But outside of that framework, it is still quite the commodity exchange.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 11:25 PM

Steve Shaw says: ...As for beauty, my take on the role of evolution is that it has proceeded for four billion years (a terrifying fact not understood at all by people of religion) from the very origin of life to the complexity and diversity of life on earth that we're privileged to be a part of. From that diversity comes the beauty, and the way I see beauty is that it is the natural product, the synergy if you like, of form and function. Look at a flower close up. You can either ditch your mighty intellect and see God, or you can marvel at the billions of years of evolution that have not only made that flower so perfectly fit for purpose but have also made it look so aesthetically pleasing that the greatest artists that have ever lived can hardly do it justice in spite of its simplicity. A curious, wide-eyed seven-year-old sees it more perfectly, more unaffectedly, than even a Michelangelo or a Constable, and those blokes would, I'm creating, have agreed with me there. That's what I call beauty. And, by the way, you can't do both. They are mutually exclusive, despite the pleadings of the softly-softly religious.

Can't quite figure out how it's impossible to see both God and the marvels of evolution. It seems to me that if we are able to look at something from a variety of perspectives, including the perspective of various schools of philosophic and religious thought, that our appreciation should be broader.

If we rule out any school of thought, we limit our perspective.

I also can't figure out why it might be that people of religion cannot appreciate evolution, for however long it has gone on.

And what things are mutually exclusive?

And who are these "softly-softly religious"? I take it that Mr. Shaw posits that the only true religion is fundamentalism, since he cannot accept the idea that religious people may be every bit as intellectually competent as he believes himself to be.

There's an interesting parallel between Mr. Shaw's absolutism, and that of religious fundamentalists. Both think that their own perspective is the only one that can possibly be valid. Rather limited and narcissistic, dontchathink?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 05:50 AM

Yes.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 06:31 AM

Well, Joe, you're the man who sees God in the stars. You may claim that you know the science of stars as well as the finest astrophysicist, and you may well do for all I know. But your in-depth knowledge should teach you that the stars, wondrous and beyond human scale that they are, are still functioning parts of the universe, no more or no less than that pile of mud at the roadside or the stuff you flush down the lavvy. You don't look at a turd, I presume, and claim to see God. If not, though, given your approach, why not?

The only truth you will find is the truth that can come from genuine scientific endeavour. Sneaking an impossible God into any explanation of just about anything is dereliction of intellect. That's what limits you and what narrows your thinking. And I must have told you at least a million times, or twenty, or maybe about eight, that trying to sneak God into evolution means two things: you don't understand what evolution is, and you are ignorantly trying to turn the theory on its head.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 07:13 AM

Steve
I see a bit of ultra violet light because of my blue eyes and ancestry.
Folks like me were used to spot the ultra violet signals from German subs. Have you noticed that flowers have entirely different markings and patterns in the ultra violet range?

Joe,
perhaps you cold compromise and modify your God rhetoric into one of Gaia. Gaia refers to an interconnectedness more complex than we can imagine and a memory that is possibly older than 4 billion years.

Amos
Perhaps somewhere in the DNA of a flowering plant is the gene that remembers the benefits of an insect long extinct that has the memory for adaptation if ever needed again. Perhaps even the lack of aesthetics is an adaptation for survival. Take for example the arachnids. Spiders are life forms a mother could love but are more intimidating to human consciousness than most lifeforms.
Intuitive or subjective knowledge may never be proven or objectified by its very nature, which should be a comfort to religionists, but it is a quantum uncertainness that is part of the fabric of reality.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 09:18 AM

Arachnids have been around for at least 420 million years and are one of the most diverse orders of living things. I've trained myself to ditch the anthropocentric view of what constitutes aesthetics when it comes to spiders and start from scratch. As most UK spiders are harmless, there's little risk in getting upclose and personal with them, with a hand lens for example, or by zooming in on them with your camera on the macro setting. They are actually extremely beautiful, especially when you consider that synergy of form and function I mentioned. Observing their predatory and self-defence tactics is a real treat, and what could be more aesthetically pleasing than the backlit dew-laced web of an orb-web spider on a sunny autumn morning?

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 09:32 AM

I suppose if you take god to mean "a convenient word to describe our puzzlement at what we don't see the reason for," then the wonders of the universe are truly, as you say, God.

The snag is, rather than a word to fill in the gaps in human knowledge, your God construct is developed into a sentient being that thinks and makes arbitrary decisions. That alone disassociates him with evolution.

That's before we note that evolution is an observable, measurable set of conclusions to a working hypothesis whereas religion is whatever suits your purpose for it to be.

Me? I couldn't ascribe wonders of the universe or dog shit to a man made convenience but others can. No matter, evolution suggests you or your descendants may soon.

Want job security? Train as a civil celebrant. Growing market.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 09:40 AM


I suppose if you take god to mean "a convenient word to describe our puzzlement at what we don't see the reason for," then the wonders of the universe are truly, as you say, God.

I suppose so.
The snag is that no-one here does that.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 09:48 AM

No one?

If? Did you read the if? I put it so Christians could feel they are part of the discussion.

I think you'll find real Christians have a habit of saying "God did it." Ditto most religions.

You really haven't thought this religion thing through, have you Keith?
😹😹😴

Thou shalt not comprehend (mis trans)

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 10:34 AM

Anyone who thinks that God created anything at all is inserting him rudely into a place that contravenes science. In effect you're saying that you're so uncertain about science that a far more outlandish explanation for everything is more likely. Or, in extreme cases, certain (see pete). It's a denial of reason and a scuppering of intellect. You see God as a better explanation for the existence of everything than the one that science provides. And it really is either-or, regardless of Joe's protests. There has never been the slightest hint, looking at the inexorable progress of science over millennia, that there is any natural phenomenon that can't eventually yield to scientific explanation, given sufficient time and the exponential continuation of that progress. The only phenomena that can never yield to science are the fake ones placed beyond science by religion.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 11:22 AM

In effect you're saying that you're so uncertain about science that a far more outlandish explanation for everything is more likely.

No we are not.
Most Western Christians do not believe in creation as a magic trick.
We accept evolution and cosmology.
A minority, like Pete, also know all about evolution and cosmology, but are not convinced by it.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 01:03 PM

"We"

"Western"

"Cosmology"

Wonderful words that just trip out of your keyboard.

Calling pete a "minority" isn't exactly a "Christian" gesture either.😹 Considering churches are shutting at fast rate and more people go to car boot sales on a Sunday than church, I'd be careful about use of the word "minority" if I were you.

I slipped in the word "cosmology" there because a recent Sky at Night repeated Carl Sagan showing a photo of a blue speck, taken from Voyager, from the orbit of Saturn that was earth, and the sum total of everything we boast of as being special, put into real perspective.

No. Reality is far more wondrous than any constraining religious nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 01:29 PM

I'm afraid that saying you don't believe in creation as a magic trick goes no way at all to reconciling a God who made everything (see mainstream texts such as catechisms) with evolution. You either hold with the science or you believe in God the creator. They are entirely different, incompatible explanations for how we got here. Try to combine them and the science falls. Unless you really want to ditch reason and your intellect, I suggest you look at which one has more evidence going for it.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 01:48 PM

....annnnnd the usual suspects have hijacked the thread. It was sweet while it lasted, though.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 02:17 PM

This from Donuel further up the thread:

"Now that most people have a camera available everywhere, where are the remarkable ufos? ...

Either the universe has expanded to non visitation distances or they did not exist at all ...

I'm hoping I am wrong.

If there is a cost risk decision to be made by aliens we may be decidedly too dangerous."

Thinking about 'UFOs' and aliens recently, this occurred to me:

Although some of us may think we're 'Masters of the Universe' we actually inhabit an infinitesimally tiny bubble in space-time. Only at this end of the time dimension have we even begun to understand our place on this planet and the wider Universe, to develop the technology to communicate via radio waves and other electromagnetic media, leave this planet and explore the Solar system etc., etc. Interstellar travel may or may not be possible (it appears to be impossible at this point in history) but, the way things are going, we may not have enough time to develop it even if it is possible. We're destroying the biosphere, contained within the spatial dimensions of the 'bubble', at a ferocious rate of knots. We've probably only got a handful of generations to go before we render ourselves extinct.
Now what if technological 'civilisations' are rare (certainly, solar systems like ours appear to be rare) and only crop up every few million years, develop sophisticated science and technologies at the very ends of their time dimensions, destroy their biospheres and become extinct? Perhaps a technological civilisation existed around 50 million years ago in our part of the Galaxy and another one won't be along for another 20 million years. If that were the case, we'd probably never know about them - especially if they never had time to develop interstellar travel.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 02:23 PM

Well, evolution is still to the fore in the thread. We can still argue about beauty if you like! To paraphrase Richard Dawkins, billions of years of evolution have resulted in such complexity, diversity and beauty that, in a certain kind of vulnerable mind, there is the illusion of design. Whilst there are strong religious vibes on this board, it's inevitable that the conflict between science and faith will be argued about. I don't know whether I'm one of your susoects, but I've posted in this thread about evolution, the need for evidence and beauty, several times, and I've done without insulting anyone. How's that?

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 02:33 PM

well, sometimes I have trouble getting out of my own way too, if I'm honest.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 02:53 PM

Regarding aliens.

Either they do exist or we are the only planet in the universe with sentient beings. It has to be one or the other. Either scenario is fascinating....

The idea of missing each other's civilisations has interesting precedents in deep sea lava cones where biospheres exist in isolation until the lava stops flowing.

Regarding God vs normal people. Have a word with the moderators. Every thread set up to point and laugh at our resident brethren gets deleted. If the moderators left us alone to play, this wouldn't happen.

Anyway, I too was talking about evolution.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 06:26 PM

"Can't quite figure out how it's impossible to see both God and the marvels of evolution."

Well you can do if you like, but what you can't do is see God IN the marvels of evolution. If you try to do that, evolutionary theory collapses about your ears. Integral to evolutionary theory is that there can have been no kick-start, no underlying driving force, no directional impetus and no design. As for seeing God, I'm interested in seeing your evidence for that.

"It seems to me that if we are able to look at something from a variety of perspectives, including the perspective of various schools of philosophic and religious thought, that our appreciation should be broader."

Quite so, but if one of those perspectives is entirely false to begin with your appreciation will be skewed and made narrower. Use of intellect comes in choosing your perspectives carefully.

"If we rule out any school of thought, we limit our perspective."

By ruling out false schools of thought, we broaden out our perspective. That's what we call science.

"I also can't figure out why it might be that people of religion cannot appreciate evolution, for however long it has gone on."

You can, but it requires you to entirely sideline God for the duration of your appreciation if you're to understand evolution as well as admiring its products.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 06:28 PM

And now, on this chilly evening, I'm taking my new UV torch out for a stroll in the garden.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 06:33 PM

Speaking of god and ufo's, Mitt Romney is still doing his anti campaign tour. Mormons are still unsure who they want for Prez.

I never really associated god with creation.

If I think of space I think of space time gravity.

If I think of the god concept I think of creation and destruction along the lines of Shiva.

The universe is thick with amino acids. Finding a habitat for amino acids to form proteins is just a numbers game. Space RNA is not impossible in an asteroid left behind from the destruction of a civilization so remarkable all our imaginations put together could not believe how beautiful.
I think of the god concept first as a destroyer then some creation from other places and times. Entropy is the game at this time in the Universe.


Life arising in an elderly universe might arise much more quickly with all the former life debris scattered widely through the universe.
Pan Spermia may actually become more powerful as time goes on.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 07:08 PM

Why no ufo's?
Maybe they got the e mail from Steve Jobs that the I phone monitor photo apps are now available for upload, so visitation is no longer needed for the planet Earth.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 07:20 PM

It's hard to see how life debris in an entropic universe could really do anything useful (except for hugely exciting our imaginations if we ever found it), considering the light years of travel between suitably benign environments and the harsh realities of eons spent in space which would seem to be inimical to delicate organic molecules. It would be nice to have the evidence but much too fanciful an idea that it could seed life all over again. I've never bought into that notion, though who knows. From Mars, maybe, just about... On the other hand, it's a good bet that the conditions under which life may have originated on earth (which I tend to think was the case) are replicated billions of times over in the universe. Now I do like that idea. I also wouldn't mind betting that life elsewhere would almost certainly be carbon-based and dependent on liquid water, and would be subject to some form of evolution by natural selection. It's worked so well on Planet Earth that, well, can you really think of a better plan?

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 08:26 PM

Was there ever a single even remotely convincing photo of a UFO? Or a ghost? Or the Loch Ness Monster? I don't think so. Back to that pesky evidence thing again. Set the bar high, let's say scientifically high, and, sadly, we haven't got any for UFOs, ghosts or the monster.




Or God.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 11:02 PM

All I said was that it is not impossible. Galaxies used to be much smaller which is good for the pan spermia proposition.

As a hypnotist and science enthusiast I used to visit Alan Hynek, astrophysicist, professor at Northwestern, ufo researcher and stooge for Project Blue Book at his Evansville home.

You are asking the right person about photographic evidence and experiential evidence. I did ufo radio shows out of Rochester NY as the skeptic who demanded extraordinary evidence. I interviewed or hypnotized hundreds of self proclaimed ufo witnesses for a local interest group etc etc.

'Remotely convincing' is a very low standard so I would say yes to that. The detailed Swiss photos; fake. Gulf Breeze; fake, Hudson valley; not fake but no detail. etc.

What is real are a scant few videos and film in NASA archives. Private photos from airline passengers are real but blurred beyond recognition

Back to Alan Hynek, he never saw a ufo.

I have seen a fireball, colorful comet, lunar impact backlit by eclipse and a gold colored mars at its closest orbit for 30,000 years.

But I have never in real time both heard and seen a ufo at the same time.

But that wasn't really your point was it.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 11:26 PM

1950 photos over DC are real and so are the Dropa photos.
Moon Pidgeon video is real but people want to see a conventional vehicle like a saucer instead of phenomena that we do not understand.

The Belgian flap is something for you to contemplate.

and lastly

The God photo at Fatima is real but it is a sunset.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 15 Mar 16 - 03:16 AM

Why is it now automatically assumed that "UFOs" (i.e. vague blurs in various photos and videos and questionable 'witness' statements) are alien visitors. Surely, there must be other possibilities?

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 15 Mar 16 - 03:32 AM

"All I said was that it is not impossible. Galaxies used to be much smaller which is good for the pan spermia proposition."

Or larger. Depending upon whether your subscribe to hierarchical or monolithic collapse models of galaxy formation.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 15 Mar 16 - 03:48 AM

Either way, galaxies haven't exactly been at the "swing a cat" level of proximity whilst ever they have been individual galactic clusters.

All this alien talk does need a slight grammatical correction. When you look up at the sky, try saying "I wonder if aliens were living there?" rather than "are."

(Note to self. Must inform Devon and Cornwall Police that the elderly gentleman wandering round back gardens with a coloured torch is mostly harmless.)

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Mar 16 - 04:03 AM

Steve,
You either hold with the science or you believe in God the creator.

Most Christians have no problem reconciling the two.
The problem is entirely with you!

Is your case that Christians must not believe in evolution and cosmology?
Sorry but we do, just like you.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 15 Mar 16 - 06:41 AM

I think you'll find, KAoH, that it's that word "believe" that is the sticking point. Followers of religion choose to "believe" (in often preposterous things) whilst scientists are, or are not, convinced by evidence.

As I've often said to Pete, religious faith is the fervent and unquestioning belief in something invisible for the existence of which there's no evidence - the very antithesis of science. That's why the two can't be reconciled.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 15 Mar 16 - 07:09 AM

On the contrary Musket, we see galaxies in very close proximity, we see them merging, we se them stripping bits off each other due to tidal forces, we see them stripping gas out of each other, we see them accreting gas from the spaces between them. But the spaces between the stars are vast compared with the sizes of the stars themselves (as you can see by looking up, apart from the sun we can resolve no star except by combining the signals from telescopes as an interferometer). So two galaxies can pass right through each other and no stars will hit. They will slow each other down though due to dynamical friction.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Mar 16 - 07:11 AM

Back down to our evolving Earth life forms.

Can the individual effect evolution independent of environmental changes?

The answer is yes.

We can turn on old genes in storage that have not been used in millennia.

We can change our chemical programing from our exogenetic ability in one short lifetime from a source directly outside our DNA.

Deliberately or not we can alter DNA WITH A VIRUS "SMOGGLER".


So when Steve asks what does our imagination see as a way of spreading life through the universe I would have to say a simple RNA virus would do the trick.

That little speck of inanimate life that is both dead and not dead.

If we ever look close enough to find microscopic space virus' we will find the near microscopic mustard seed that can grow into a mighty life process.

At any place in time it would seem you do not need intact DNA for life.

Subject: RE: BS: I Love this Idea
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 15 Mar 16 - 07:46 AM

On the contrary Dave. Even when the Milky Way and Andromeda have the eventual waltz their trajectories suggest, my cat swinging test still holds. And that was in respect of any idea of panspermia. Galaxies within a cluster, stars within a galaxy, planets within a star system.... It's only scale that differs. Galaxies passing through each other are still component far enough apart for the panspermia idea to be effectively dismissed.

Keith is as ever confusing believing with belief. I keep telling him this religion lark is too complicated for him. Stick to crosswords.