Re: One John Lennon, with sound bites

The Cavern Rat wrote:

How utterly pompous you go today-what's eating you.

I may be pompous, but I'm damn good-looking, so it all balances out.

Why do you have
too say "It doesn't make a big difference in my life," ? Do you fear
we'll mark
our RMB journals-'tisk-tisk-tisk'

No, because someone basically asked me whether it would. When people ask things of you, the common practice is to respond with something called an 'answer'. It's not that difficult, actually. I'm getting quite good at it -- I almost fit in among the humans sometimes.

In this case, though, it seems he got all his background information off
the back of a cereal box, as he clearly doesn't understand the first
thing about how evolution is even supposed to work.

Why don't you go out on a limb like Lennon did? Because your a
conforming sheep Sean.

Yeah. I *conform* to the philosophy of accepting basic scientific truths about our planet that are as close to certain facts as anything in science ever was, and not kowtowing to the Creationist bullies by saying they're 'just theories, and there's another way of looking at it.'

Yes, there is another way of looking at it. Of course, it's an illogical way that was basically demonstrated with about 90% evidential certainty to be absolutely incorrect a century and a half ago, and has only been confirmed to be wrong by more billions of different lines of factual evidence since then. Darwinian evolution is not a 'belief'; it is a demonstrated fact that is fundamental to the very nature of all life on Earth, and we're pretty damn sure will continue to be fundamental even to any life we eventually discover elsewhere.

The descent patterns of different organisms have been thoroughly mapped in excruciating detail by a trillion different people's hard work over the centuries since biology has become a science. These people did not make up all these phylogenetic clades -- groups of common descent -- that we use to classify living things now. They are demonstrable facts.

Sure, evolution is an 'interpretation'. You know what else is an interpretation? That written and photographic evidence, the testimony of over six billion eyewitnesses, and the fact that your own brain remembers you existing yesterday demonstrates that the universe existed before today. Evolution by natural selection is no less certain a fact than that. And if you're not convinced THAT'S a fact, you probably have bigger things to worry about than biology or religion.

Do monkeys have a self/spirit? Answer that. Do they live again? Do you
have a self/spirit that lives again? You don't know do you.

No, I don't know the answer to meaningless questions. You got me there.

If you asked ten people in a room what they meant by such vague, nebulous terms as 'self' and 'spirit', you'd get back seventeen times pi different opinions. There is no scientific answer to the question because there is no *logical content* to the question. Your terms are not analysable categories, because no one can adequately and consistently explain what it even means.

So why are
you living right now in the present time and not one of those past
humans dead now...

Again, no logical content whatsoever to the question. I'm living now because I'm me, and therefore I'm only gonna experience the lifetime of, guess who, me. By definition, everyone perceives themselves as living in the present, no matter when the present is.

You might as well ask why Earth is the third planet from Sol instead of the fifteenth planet from Wolf-359. The only rational answer is, 'Well, if we were the fifteenth planet of Wolf-359, we would be asking ourselves why we're not the third planet from Sol.' And, of course, we'd probably call all four of those bodies totally different names.

There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be. Hey, did someone say that in a song once?

--
--Sean
http://spclsd223.livejournal.com/

House: Only one man left in the bullpen, and he throws like a girl.

Cameron: I hate sports metaphors. [walks away]

House: [yelling] Give her the high hard one!
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Universal Mind
    ... We don't yet occupy a planet which has half ... >> the conditions to exist which brought about life on this planet. ... >the laws of physics. ... evolution will continue for all time as long as the basic conditions ...
    (sci.logic)
  • The increasing polarization of the discussion
    ... I reflected about the unity of life and the possibility that life is ... body of this being covering the whole planet), surely not all powerful, etc etc. ... and produce species after species this would not invalidate evolution. ... Our works, for instances flying machines, evolve too. ...
    (sci.skeptic)
  • Re: Evolution is NOT random
    ... that planet will be different. ... The species of life will be different because that planet and its sun ... evolution is random. ... Meteors striking the earth are part of the tape of life. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: The Grand Unified Theory! C and C Please!
    ... classical and living worlds ... This is an abstract description of how evolution ... :> of "Life" comes to mind. ... All the primary variables are complex. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: History Channel special on astrobiology
    ... evolution is only concerned about life after abiogenesis makes no sense at ... were living things has nothing to do with evolution. ... that abiogenesis is ...
    (talk.origins)
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