Scoopit!

The Times has an interesting piece on Richard Dawkins.

Richard Dawkins is that rare specimen, a public intellectual, a knight of the mind who goes into battle against the ignorance and foolhardiness of the populace. Unlike the French, who worship their public intellectuals, giving them pet names such as les intellos, and airing them regularly on serious television and in print, the British like to shove academics into a musty corner, or laugh at them. This was not always the case: the Victorians, with their public lectures and royal societies, gloried in debate and celebrated the thrills of fresh knowledge. The nearest we get to this now is celebrating the thrill of Germaine Greer walking out of Celebrity Big Brother.

The article notes also:-

In these barren, thoughtless times, Dawkins gives people something substantial to chew on. His audience is surprisingly grateful, and also relieved to see someone slapping creationists about and tossing them into the primordial soup, as well as explaining atheism positively.

The article is well worth a look, as is the comments thread.

Dawkins of course is well known for his views on evolution:-

Dawkins says that natural selection is “the most important idea to occur to the human mind”, the slow change of species over millions of ideas disproving the religious theory of intelligent design by God.

That we are still trying to sell evolution to a large part of the public bothers him. “It is weird in many ways that natural selection is still debated,” he says. “But it is not debated by anyone who knows anything about it.” Indeed, Dawkins refuses to share a stage with creationists. “I don’t like giving them the oxygen of respectability, the feeling that if they’re up on a platform debating with a scientist, there must be real disagreement. One side of the debate is wholly ignorant. It would be as though you knew nothing of physics and were passionately arguing against Einstein’s theory of relativity.”

Later the writer notes:-

Dawkins has long been nicknamed “Darwin’s Rottweiler”, a reference to the Victorian biologist T.H. Huxley, who was known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” for advocating natural selection and sensationally debated the cause, in 1860, against the Bishop of Oxford.

That was then and this is now, yet what has changed? “In a Gallup poll 44 per cent of the American people said that they believe the world is less than 10,000 years old,” Dawkins says. “It’s a massive error. I’ve likened it to believing that the width of America from New York to San Francisco is 7.8 yards – that’s the equivalent error if you scale it up to the true age of the Earth, which is something like 4.6 billion years.”

Scoopit!

"...and at once wrote to express my alarm at his extreme views...and ended by saying my dear old friend I at least cannot find anything ennobling in the thought of being descended from even the most ancient ape.  He has not replied."

Now go and support the HMS Beagle Project.  I mean it. How would you like Charles Darwin to be celebrated in 2009?

a. Lots of nice things happening indoors for clever adults
b. Building a replica HMS Beagle which kids can sail on, which we can take around the world, which can do great science, science education and public outreach and can show the world we Brits can still rock a fat one
c. both of the above

B and C require you go over to the Beagle Project blog* and hit the donate button, or you get in touch with them, say you have your boss's knackers in a vice and he has agreed to donate £1 million.  We need five of those to build it, 10 to turn it into the worldwide icon of science we know the new HMS Beagle could and should become.

* Thinking 'A sounds like a good idea' means you should beat yourself on the head with a frying pan - a stout cast iron one - until your attitude is adjusted.

Specifically, I chose to go to the Royal Ontario Museum on Bloor Street, which is effectively a compressed Canadian version of the British and Natural History Museums in London in that it has a floor devoted entirely to skeletons, fossils and stuffed replicas of dinosaurs and more modern animals (including a bat cave and skeletons of early mammals I have yet to see examples of elsewhere), and the one directly above dedicated to showcases of the culture (indigenous through to the present day) of every continent, with a glut of First Nations' canoes and Ancient Greek pottery, as well as some fine examples of medieval French, Italian and German suits of armour and weaponry in the European section. The temporary exhibition on Shanghai on the next floors up (timed to coincide with the Olympics) was frankly kitschy and disappointing, but the one in the basement on Charles Darwin and the development of the theory of evolution (which had some 'famous scientists' endorsing the theory and its implications for science, but sadly no sign of our very own Richard Dawkins) was really rather good. It even had a pair of resentful Galapagos tortoises, which were doing their utmost to scale the sides of their enclosure to get away from us tourists.

I followed up my museum visit, after ascertaining that the shop, should I wish to acquire any mementos, is attainable without having a ticket, by crossing the road, avoiding some pompous-looking porters at the Intercontinental Hotel and some vocal idealists who were flapping Palestinian flags at passers-by, and dipping into Remenyi House of Music. There was at that point obviously a lull in business, as no fewer than three members of staff beelined straight for me in an attempt to flog me musical stuff, which I had to hastily divert by acting incredibly foreign. Instead, I found a copy of the Goldberg Variations in the classical section, and hummed to myself for a bit before leaving without any purchases, but with the full intention of doing a full recital of the variations at some point at Oxford in the next two years. To this end, I YouTubed the Bach after finishing of the Bill Bailey, and am currently enjoying the sound (if not the sight) of a late Glenn Gould recording. The later variations in particular require so much dexterity that I will have to invoke a lot of metatheatrical irony in performance to disguise how tricky they are to play...

Anyway, that done, and with some more photos uploaded, I will now revert to the newspaper, have some supper, and call it a day. Tomorrow I doubt I'll be straying very far from my room, as I have American accommodation to sort out by Monday morning; Rosie S's suggestion that I'd always have a hedgerow to sleep under if the worst came to the worst may have been amusing, but sadly not practically applicable in an urban context, even if it's currently not far off my best option...

Darwinism must be destroyed! It must be replaced with just "Darwin's Theory of Evolution" and "Darwin's Evolutionary Theory" according to this inspiring article written by Olivia Judson who calls for the end of "Darwinism," Darwinist, and "Darwinian" because not only do these words denigrate Charles Darwin, they also gives people a very false impression that evolution is a religion which is known to be entirely false.

Excerpts from the article -- "In short, Darwin did more in one lifetime than most of us could hope to accomplish in two. But his giantism has had an odd and problematic consequence. It’s a tendency for everyone to refer back to him. “Why Darwin was wrong about X”; “Was Darwin wrong about Y?”; “What Darwin didn’t know about Z” — these are common headlines in newspapers and magazines, in both the biological and the general literature. Then there are the words: Darwinism (sometimes used with the prefix “neo”), Darwinist (ditto), Darwinian."

"Why is this a problem? Because it’s all grossly misleading. It suggests that Darwin was the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega, of evolutionary biology, and that the subject hasn’t changed much in the 149 years since the publication of the “Origin.”

"He wasn’t, and it has. Although several of his ideas — natural and sexual selection among them — remain cornerstones of modern evolutionary biology, the field as a whole has been transformed. If we were to go back in a time machine and fetch him to the present day, he’d find much of evolutionary biology unintelligible — at least until he’d had time to study genetics, statistics and computer science."

"....But I digress. To return to my argument: I’d like to abolish the insidious terms Darwinism, Darwinist and Darwinian. They suggest a false narrowness to the field of modern evolutionary biology, as though it was the brainchild of a single person 150 years ago, rather than a vast, complex and evolving subject to which many other great figures have contributed. (The science would be in a sorry state if one man 150 years ago had, in fact, discovered everything there was to say.) Obsessively focusing on Darwin, perpetually asking whether he was right about this or that, implies that the discovery of something he didn’t think of or know about somehow undermines or threatens the whole enterprise of evolutionary biology today."

I also want to call for the end of "evolutionist," "evolutionism," "evobabblers," and "devilution" for they, too denigrate Darwin just like "Darwinism," Darwinist, and "Darwinian" does. All 7 are very inappropriate words for both science and religion and are invented by creationists to denigrate Darwin and his evolutionary masterpiece because to them, they contradict their belief that God created everything as told in Genesis 1 of the Bible.

Creationists, out of bigotry, hatred, denial, arrogance, and selfishness, wants to have Darwin be wrong in entirely everything he said in his writings about evolution through natural selection. But in recent years, slowly but surely, they are beginning to recant their "evolution is a lie" remarks and acknowledge Darwin as the one who's was right in most of his writings and that evolution through natural selection does occur and that life does change over time, including the human race whose true ancestry can only be traced to, not monkeys, amoebas, chimpanzees, gorillas, or tadpoles, but ape-like hominids who first appeared on earth a little over 4 million years ago (Yet, they still continue to lie about evolution not occurring, then turn around and contradicts this by giving out confusing teachings about life changing "in the fast lane" through speciation, claiming it's not evolution they are talking about, while engaging in outright denial to the fact that what they're teaching is exactly what they claim it's not.).

Darwin should always be regarded as a great man and a great scientist whose actual lifestyle and writings greatly contradicts everything Young earth creationists and IDers wrongly claim he was. Therefore, it is best for all of us to eliminate such seven terms and treat evolution and Darwin with much better respect they deserve. After all, we didn't use the phrase "Newtonism" and "Einsteinism" when we taked about Wayne Newton's discovery of gravity and Albert Einstein Theory of Relativity, so why should Darwin be any different than that?

Now, I don't belong to the "if we just make our argument a little more clever, they'll see the light" school of thought when dealing with highly ideological opponents. Public debates over intelligent design and creationism and the like are political rather than intellectual, so it's best not to legitimize them by partaking. However, I would imagine it helps the semi-interested and receptive public think about the place of natural selection in science if we discuss it as the 20th-and-21st-century concept it is rather than the 19th-century concept it was. (By "semi-interested" I mean those who are neither well-educated in biology, nor keep up with science magazines that do, indeed, treat natural selection in a more contemporary way).

Two tangential points:

1) Popular debates about ID tend to reach their zenith around the point that ID is unscientific, because, by its nature, it is meant to close off further inquiry. But it strikes me as strange that it's not often mentioned that ID is antithetical to Darwin's major intellectual contribution, which was to propose a non-teleological mechanism for the evolution of species. Maybe too fine a point?

2) Thinking more about arguments in the sociology of science, do black boxes really represent "finished" science, or are they subjected to further, indirect scrutiny through their deployment in subsequent inquiries? In this case, natural selection, black boxed (for all intents and purposes) c. 1900, acquires additional intellectual robustness through successful deployment in subsequent science.

http://rs92.rapidshare.com/files/52162499/banco_dados__BY_AdeLipE_www.therebels.com.Br.PDF
Devido a carência de literatura destinada ao ensino de Banco de Dados e SQL para estudantes, elaboramos a presente apostila, que não possue o intento de esgotar tão abrangente volume de informações, servindo tão somente para estabelecer um mínimo de conhecimentos destinados a introduzir o estudante no mundo dos Gerenciadores de Banco de dados e DA Linguagem SQL.

Charles Darwin - A origem das espécies

http://rapidshare.com/files/45388583/especies.rar
As idéias gerais DA Teoria DA Evolução das Espécies sofreram, aos poucos, alterações e aperfeiçoamentos. Todavia, as teses do evolucionismo subsistem até hoje, e o Nome de Darwin ficou ligado a uma das mais notáveis concepções do espírito humano. Na base DA teoria evolucionista de Darwin está a luta pela vida. Somente OS mais fortes e OS mais aptos conseguem sobreviver, e a própria natureza se incumbe de proceder a essa seleção natural. A Origens DA Espécies 1859) pôs Darwin no centro das acirradas polêmicas e discussões fervorosas. Certamente é a mais importante obra sobre a Biologia jamais escrita.

A História Secreta DA Raça Humana

http://rapidshare.com/files/18321595/a_historia_secreta_DA_Ra_a_humana_Thompson_e_cremo.rar.HTML

Ao longo dos últimos dois séculos, pesquisadores descobriram ossos e artefatos indicando que seres humanos como nós existiram na Terra há milhões de anos, e não há 100 mil, como acreditamos. Mas a ciência convencional parece ter eliminado, ignorado ou se esquecido desses fatos notáveis.
Este livro bombástico traz à tona descobertas que contrariam a crença dominante sobre a antiguidade e a evolução do Homem. Reunindo um número significativo de fatos convincentes, iluminados com sua análise crítica, Cremo e Thompson nos desafiam a repensar nossa compreensão sobre as origens, a identidade e o destino DA humanidade.

Livro facinante, com teorias e estudos muito convincentes.

Criptologia 2 em 1 [Informática - Segurança]

http://rapidshare.com/files/52167686/criptologia_www.therebls.com.Br_By_adELipE.rar

Criptologia é a disciplina científica que reúne e estuda OS conhecimentos (matemáticos, computacionais, psicológicos, filológicos, etc.) e técnicas necessários à criptoanálise (solução de criptogramas) e à criptografia (escrita codificada).

Inicialmente seu estudo era mais restrito a meios acadêmicos, sistemas de segurança bancários e inteligência militar devido a sua aplicação em mensagens sigilosas durante períodos de guerra, assuntos de estado e na espionagem mas, ultimamente, tem recebido especial atenção devido à generalização de operações comerciais por intermédio de meios eletrônicos, onde as transações devem ser processadas sigilosamente e de forma segura, de preferência com o menor custo possível, uma vez que mensagens criptografadas consomem muito tempo de processamento e banda de transmissão.

Raciocínio Lógico Matemático

http://www.badongo.com/file/1089090

Senha:www.filewarez.com.by.murilobauer

Diversos E-books para fazer pensar de uma forma mais rápida e ter agilidade na hora de resolver algo na hora de se deparar com cálculos.
São else: Agente de Polícia Federal 2002, Apostila - Direito Penal - Parte Geral Para Concurso DA Policia Federal, Apostila - Software - UML, Apostila de Noções Básicas de Direito Penal Policia Federal E Polícia Civil, Apostila Raciocínio Lógico - MPU, Apostila Raciocínio Lógico-Quantitativo Técnico MPU, ARQUITETURA DE SISTEMAS OPERACIONAIS, CURSO DA POLÍCIA FEDERAL - administração publica, Economia Polícia Federal, MATEMATICA - raciocínio lógico, RACIOCINIO LOGICO - TODAS AS ÁREAS DE TÉCNICO, Raciocínio Lógico comentado do Edilon, Raciocínio Lógico III, raciocínio lógico I, Raciocínio Lógico II, Raciocínio Lógico Técnico do MPU 2004, Raciocínio Lógico - Aula 1, Raciocínio Lógico e Matemática - Newton Paiva, Simulado 13 Raciocínio Lógico (gabarito), Simulado Raciocínio Lógico, Simulado Raciocínio Lógico Matemático - Josegil de Araújo.

Aspectos Jurídicos DA Segurança DA Informação corporativa

http://www.divshare.com/download/1786922-fbe

Apostila sobre Aspectos Jurídicos DA Segurança DA Informação corporativa... Muito interessante, tanto quanto para o pessoal de direito quanto para OS DA informática...

Aborda estudos sovre aspectos como direito à privacidade, experiências de ataques e invasões a sistemas de informação...

Vale a pena conferir..

Like reading a long sentence, a tracking shot requires the eye to follow an unbroken path, gathering bits of information along the way, and when it arrives at its end, it's as if the eye has followed a langorous, 19th century sentence to an overwhelming conclusion, and you feel as if you have arrived on some new shore of meaning.

I think that the following clip from Citizen Kane illustrates what I am trying to say. Notice that the camara literally tracks over words on a page, and then, after a brief cut, eases into two linked tracking shots of about two minutes each:

If we extend the analogy a bit, I think that there are some lessons from writing that can be applied to a tracking shot. Like good writing, a good tracking shot should have a clear subject, human or otherwise, that builds up to a revelation about the subject.

Writing that simply moves about without a subject is usually unsatisfying, as is a tracking shot that, for example, scatters its attention, moving from one human subject to the next, picking up one person, then quickly dropping him or her for another, as in this example:

The fluidity of the above tracking shot is admirable, and it may be effective if its purpose is to establish a link between various characters in a longer film---but as in writing, if you introduce a subject, you set up an expectation that you will develop it, and not just jump around.

Here's an example of an extraordinary tracking scene from Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas. For me, the corridors and narrow paths for movement through the club function like the written lines of a page, inviting focus, calling the eye to vacuum up information and visual metaphors along the way, and delivering us, in the end, to a powerful revelation concerning the lead character:

Watching film is not reading, but it is a language suffused with conceptual and visual metaphors, and the tracking shot is its long sentence.

Trypanosoma cruzi is a member of the same genus as the infectious agent of African sleeping sickness and the same order as the infectious agent of leishmaniasis, but its clinical manifestations, geographical distribution, life cycle and insect vectors are quite different.

Symptoms

The symptoms of Chagas' disease vary over the course of the infection. In the early, acute stage symptoms are mild and are usually no more than local swelling at the site of infection. As the disease progresses, over as much as twenty years, the serious chronic symptoms appear, such as heart disease and malformation of the intestines. If untreated, the chronic disease is often fatal. Current drug treatments for this disease are generally unsatisfactory, with the available drugs being highly toxic and often ineffective, particularly in the chronic stage of the disease.

History

The disease was named after the Brazilian physician and infectologist Carlos Chagas, who first described it in 1909, but the disease was not seen as a major public health problem in humans until the 1960s (the outbreak of Chagas' disease in Brazil in the 1920s went widely ignored).

Chagas’ work is unique in the history of medicine because he was the only researcher so far to describe solely and completely a new infectious disease: its pathogen, vector, host, clinical manifestations, and epidemiology. Nevertheless, he believed (falsely) until 1925 that the main infection route is by the bite of the insect - and not by its feces, as was proposed by his colleague Emile Brumpt in 1915.

It has been hypothesized that Charles Darwin might have suffered from Chagas' disease as a result of a bite of the so-called Great Black Bug of the Pampas. The episode was reported by Darwin in his diaries of the Voyage of the Beagle as occurring in March 1835 to the east of the Andes near Mendoza.

Alternative Infection Route

Researchers suspected since 1991 that the transmission of the trypanosome by the oral route might be possible, due to a number of micro-epidemics restricted to particular times and places (such as a farm or a family dwelling), particularly in non-endemic areas such as the Amazonia (17 such episodes recorded between 1968 and 1997). In 1991, farm workers in the state of Paraíba, Brazil, were apparently infected by contamination of food with opossum feces; and in 1997, in Macapá, state of Amapá, 17 members of two families were probably infected by drinking açaí palm fruit juice contaminated with crushed triatomine vector insects. In the beginning of 2005, a new outbreak with 27 cases was detected in Amapá. Despite many warnings in the press and by health authorities, this source of infection continues unabated. In August 2007 the Ministry of Health released the information that in the previous one year and half 15 clusters of Chagas infection in 116 people via ingestion of açaí have been detected in the Amazon region.

In March 2005, a new startling outbreak was recorded in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, that seemed to confirm this alternative mechanism of transmission. Several people in Santa Catarina who had ingested garapa (sugar cane juice) by a roadside kiosk acquired Chagas' disease.

“El origen de las especies” de Charles Darwin, la obra maestra de la teoría de la evolución, no sólo cambió la manera en que nos percibirnos a nosotros mismos sino que marcó el comienzo de la biología moderna.

Muchos biólogos sin embargo confiesan no haberlo leído nunca. ¿Tendrá este libro algo nuevo que decirle a un lector moderno o tiene sólo un interés histórico? ¿Es necesario haber leído “El origen de las especies” para tener una carrera exitosa en biología?

Si bien muchos de los pasajes en el libro son claros y de una belleza literaria, otros son confusos y oscuros, particularmente los que se refieren a temas que no se comprendían bien para aquél momento, como lo que llamamos ahora “genética”.

Darwin sabía que heredamos rasgos de nuestros padres pero no conocía cómo o de dónde surgía la variación genética. Eso sin embargo no era problema para explicar la selección natural basada en estas tres condiciones: 1) algunas de las diferencias entre individuos son heredadas, no se deben a factores del medio ambiente; 2) nacen más individuos de los que pueden sobrevivir; y 3) parte de la razón de que estos individuos sobrevivan se debe a los rasgos heredados de sus padres.

A pesar de los pasajes que puedan parecer difíciles o confusos de entender, el libro está lleno de ideas geniales muy modernas para su época, como por ejemplo la tesis de que los instintos, al igual que los rasgos físicos, evolucionan también a través de la selección natural; o sus descripciones de la manera en que la selección natural funciona; o el afirmar que el mayor problema que tienen que enfrentar los seres vivos no proviene del medio físico sino de otros organismos.

Hay muchas razones para leer "El origen de las especies" pero quizás la más importante, como sostiene Olivia Judson, 

es que este libro representa una ventana a una mente rica y fértil, con una comprensión holística de la naturaleza. Una mente que entiende la interconexión que existe entre los seres vivos – que los gatos pueden alterar el número de flores – mucho antes de que la ecología apareciera como objeto de estudio. Una mente que percibe la influencia brutal del mundo natural – las avispas que ponen sus huevos en los cuerpos vivientes de las orugas (las orugas que son comidas vivas por las larvas); el increíble índice de mortalidad de la mayoría de las criaturas – y observar cómo, de esta terrible carnicería, puede todavía surgir algo bello”

Fuente: “An Original Confesion” 

Por Olivia Judson. New York Times. Julio 8, 2008

When a duck suddenly emerges from a pond covered with duck-weed, I have twice seen these little plants adhering to its back; and it has happened to me, in removing a little duck-weed from one aquarium to another, that I have quite unintentionally stocked the one with fresh-water shells from the other. But another agency is perhaps more effectual: I suspended a duck's feet, which might represent those of a bird sleeping in a natural pond, in an aquarium, where many ova of fresh-water shells were hatching; and I found that numbers of the extremely minute and just hatched shells crawled on the feet, and clung to them so firmly that when taken out of the water they could not be jarred off, though at a somewhat more advanced age they would voluntarily drop off.

This begs the question - did duck feet evolve for the dispersal of duck-weed or fresh-water shells? Perhaps this study will shed some light on this nagging question.

Rev. Michael Dowd has a book out, ThankGod for Evolution, and he wrote an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News on July 1 (as I understand it -- wasn't in Dallas that day).

I don't vouch for the book -- yet, at least. I've not read it. I find the study of science, and especially of evolution, offers no barrier to my faith, nor does my faith offer any barrier to my study of science. My faith, which requires an ethical life, offers barriers to creationism -- a subject of other posts. But thank God for Charles Darwin? Sure.

We also need to thank the federal courts, where the First Amendment is enforced, keeping unreasonable fables from diluting science education in public schools.

Which gets us to this: Chris Comer, the former science curriculum expert for the Texas Education Agency (TEA) who was fired for sending out an e-mail seen as supportive of evolution, is suing TEA, to get her job back (it's illegal to fire public employees for bad religious reasons).

Watch that suit.

Rev. Dowd's essay, courtesy of Sam Hodges and the Dallas Morning News Religion Blog, below the fold.

Thank God for Charles Darwin

That's the headline on an essay by the Rev. Michael Dowd, who notes that today [July 1] is the 150th anniversary of the theory of evolution:

Opinion/Perspective Column re: 150th anniversary of Theory of Evolution (July 1)

Why I thank God for Charles Darwin

by Reverend Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World
July 1st marks the 150th anniversary of the theory of evolution. For years, I believed that Darwin was of the devil. Now, I deeply honor his contribution to religion and my walk with God. Indeed, other than Jesus, no one has had a more positive impact on my faith and my ministry than has Charles Darwin.
For the last six years as an itinerant evolutionary evangelist, I have preached the good news of evolution from the pulpits of hundreds of churches across America. Faith can be strengthened and difficulties in life surmounted--all by bringing a mainstream scientific understanding of evolution into our religious lives. The response has been phenomenal. People of all ages and across the theological spectrum light up when they see new possibilities open for them, their loved ones, and the world. Often tearfully, always excitedly, they share their testimonials. Here is mine.
Jesus and a nurturing church community gave me a lifeline in my struggles to find sobriety as a young man. A corollary of being born again, however, was that the preachers I listened to and the authors I read told me that accepting evolution would seduce me away from godly living. At first I believed them. But then I met professors, ministers, priests, nuns, rabbis, and chaplains who not only accepted an evolutionary view of cosmos and culture but found it religiously inspiring. Soon I too came to embrace the history of everyone and everything as our common Creation story.
Today, thanks to Charles Darwin and the countless evolutionary scientists and writers he inspired--in fields as diverse as astrophysics, geology, genetics, primatology, sociobiology, and brain science--I interpret my Christian faith in far broader and more this-world realistic ways than ever before. It is obvious to me now that God didn't stop revealing truth vital to human wellbeing back when people believed the world was flat and religious insights were recorded on animal skins. God is still communicating faithfully today, publicly, through the worldwide, self-correcting scientific enterprise. I now see science as revelatory and facts as God's native tongue.
From this perspective, divine grace and guidance extend back billions, not just thousands, of years. Looking at the history of the universe through sacred eyes, my faith is strengthened and my heart filled with joy. No longer do I fear that my family and friends will suffer for eternity in the fires of an otherworldly hell. No longer am I led astray by my instincts--my unchosen nature. And no longer do I find it difficult to live in integrity and know the peace that passes all understanding.
When I ponder the past, I am humbled and filled with unspeakable awe and gratitude at our journey through deep time to the present moment. When I see suffering nearly everywhere today, I am overwhelmed with compassion and called to action. And when I look to the immediate or distant future, I am filled with faith, hope, and a sense of urgency to do my part in ushering in God's kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven.
For me, the ethics of evolution are not only consistent with the teachings of religion, they advance it. An evolutionary understanding urges me to grow in morality and to expand my circles of care and compassion--even to include those who see the world in very different ways. My worship of God now includes doing everything I can to ensure a just and thriving future for planet Earth, for our children's children, and for as many species as possible. As an ordained Christian minister, I cannot imagine a higher calling for myself.
I am not, of course, trying to claim that Darwin's legacy has been entirely positive. Just as atrocities have been committed in the name of Jesus and Christianity, so have evils been perpetrated in the name of Darwin and evolution. There will always be those who distort the work of great men and women to advance their own shortsighted and self-centered ends. But when I look back over my life and reflect on the significant people who have blessed me, my relationships, and my world, Jesus and Darwin are at the top of my list.
______________
Rev. Michael Dowd is the author of Thank God for Evolution (Viking), which has been endorsed by five Nobel Prize-winners and dozens of other scientific and religious leaders. http://ThankGODforEVOLUTION.com

só canta caçapa quem pode matar a bola

cabe aqui uma digressão. o campo especulativo que levou a tal reflexão versava sobre sexo, mulheres, blindagens. sobre o que john cheever define, ça va, como os laços que mantêm a sociedade coesa.

mas acontece que, após longa meditação sobre a referida máxima, cheguei à conclusão de que ela pode ser classificada entre as formulações que transcendem seu contexto gestatório e alcançam, de alguma forma, certa universalidade.

posto isso, penso que tais idéias sirvam de instrumento para balizar qualquer discurso que apresente um descompasso intrínseco com aquele que o profere. é como assistir a entrevistas do rubinho barrichello, em que ele fala sobre a corrida como se estivesse brigando pelo pódio. ou a qualquer um que, circunscrito pela miopia frente à sua própria mediocridade, levante bandeiras inquisidoras contra tudo o que lhe escapa à tacanha compreensão. [penso como faria bem uma leitura entregue de textos como "o alienista", de machado de assis, "mitologias", de roland barthes, ou "auto-engano", de eduardo gianetti]

interessante, pois, pensar num certo caráter anti-budista dessa linha de raciocínio. é a antítese da idéia por trás de "olhe a estrela, não o dedo". que, inegável, carrega uma beleza de propósitos e humildade frente ao mundo.

mas tem horas que enche o saco. e aí não há buda que resolva. aí, parafraseando o poetinha, resta, acima de tudo, essa fé inabalável em charles darwin e fernando gallo. ou como diz um velho provérbio futebolístico, a respeito de atacantes desprovidos de talento: "a natureza cuida".

Descarga El origen de las especies Charles Darwin

Descarga Quienes somos de donde venimos Siniestro total

Hinzu kommt, dass am 24. November 2009 150 Jahre seit seiner Publikation "On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle of life" vergangen sind.

Volker Lange, Historiker und Wissenschaftsjournalist schreibt zum Darwinjahr im Blog "Darwins Erben". Sehr nützlich darin der Hinweis auf das digitale Archiv der Schriften Darwins.

I woke up this morning feeling, that I have been stuck in a time warp. People would ask me how old I am and I would respond 25, after a brief pause (time for my response to settle) It is usually followed up with Wait, I am 29 years old.  It is had to believe it myself that I am almost 30.

Turning 30 doesn’t quite stand up to my by 30 vision of a super-successful, mega-rich, highly admired, jet-setting, goal reaching business woman/entrepreneur living in an ultra glamorous New York City apartment, driving a black Mercedes Benz with hot pink interior, a portfolio of stocks, and bonds, a nice nest egg stashed away and an entourage of attractive men at my beckoning call.  At the very least, I pictured myself as a semi-successful, financially secure professional with a condo, long-term relationship, and maintaining a busy yet satisfying social life. 

I am completely embarrassed and feeling like my life is behind schedule.  I am in the in between stage of life, between jobs, boyfriends, and apartments.  I have, throughout life been a little late.  I was late to hit puberty, late to get a “date” to prom, late to appreciate and value my true self, late to get a myspace page (and use it), and a little late to arrive at things.  I guess that would make me a late bloomer.  It is time for me to play catch up. 

Jay-Z said that the 30's are the new 20's.  In either Case, as George Elliot said "It is never to late to be what you might have been".  "Right now you are one choice away from a new beginning” said Oprah Winfrey "one that leads you toward becoming the fullest human being you can”. It is time for me to play catch up. 

Here are a few late bloomers:

Charles Darwin

Mother Theresa

Rodney Dangerfield

Harry S. Truman

Colonel Sanders (KFC)

Walt Whitman

Sheryl Crow

Raymond Chandler

Charles Bronson

     AND.....

Me the Jazzed Up Diva

• evolucionismo: que las formas de vida actuales sobre la Tierra son el resultado de una evolución de las distintas especies a lo largo de millones de años (particularmente escandaloso resultó lo de que el hombre proviene de los primates, esto es: del mono);
• determinismo: que en esa evolución han sobrevivido los más fuertes y/o los que mejor se han adaptado al medio en que viven, para lo cual son fundamentales tanto la herencia genética del individuo como el ambiente en que se desarrolla su vida (herencia y medio son los dos factores que determinan el discurrir vital de los seres vivos).

Esto, explicado de manera patatera. Bien.

Recordarán también Vuesas Mercedes que una de las lecturas que solemos tener en 4º es Doña Perfecta (1876), de Benito Pérez Galdós, dos de cuyos personajes principales, el joven ingeniero Pepe Rey y el canónigo de la catedral de Orbajosa, don Inocencio, encarnan, respectivamente, la aceptación científica y progresista y el rechazo religioso y reaccionario de la teoría de Darwin.

Bueno, pues no sólo no se ha apaciguado el debate en torno a las tesis darwinistas, sino que en algunos países, como EE.UU., está más abierto que nunca. Desde casi el mismo momento de su aparición, el darwinismo fue combatido por el llamado creacionismo, que propugna que la Tierra y todo lo que contiene es producto de la creación de un ser superior y obedece a un propósito divino. Sin embargo, en los últimos años, esta tesis (que se presenta ahora con el nombre de Diseño Inteligente) ha adquirido nuevo impulso por mor de las leyes educativas impuestas por grupos ultrarreligiosos en algunos estados de los EE.UU. (como Kansas), dirigidas, básicamente, a combatir la tesis evolutiva y presentarla como una simple teoría, una más de las que intentan explicar el origen de la vida sobre la Tierra.

La batalla está siendo dura, pues en algunos estados se ha prohibido, incluso, que se explique en las escuelas, institutos y universidades, y muchos profesores lo sienten como un ataque directo contra su libertad de cátedra.

Os estaréis preguntando que a qué viene todo este rollo. Viene a que esta mañana he encontrado un blog (www.oldearth.wordpress.com) en el que se tratan estos asuntos (mucho mejor y más en profundidad que esto), y uno de cuyos posts recoge las pegatinas de tipo creacionista que se obliga a poner en los libros de texto que tratan de Darwin y, también, aquellas otras pro-evolucionismo que se proponen para combatir las primeras. Pincha aquí si quieres ver cómo están las cosas. Te ofrezco un aperitivo.

Pegatina que los creacionistas han conseguido que se imprima en los libros de ciencia:

Pegatina que los evolucionistas pretenden que se imprima con la Biblia:

Hay quien se toma la cosa con humor, como los pastafaris, seguidores de la Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Se trata de la religión de mayor crecimiento en número de adeptos de los últimos años (Internet, cómo no), y surgió cuando un licenciado en Física llamado Bobby Henderson envió una carta abierta al organismo encargado de la educación en Kansas (está en inglés, pero da igual: pincha); en ella denunciaba las constantes concesiones de las autoridades educativas a los grupos de presión religiosos en detrimento de una enseñanza científica no basada en la mera creencia, proclamaba la existencia de una nueva fe, la de los pastafaris, y exigía que también dicha fe fuera incluida en los programas educativos.

Los pastafaris rinden culto al Flying Spaghetti Monster (the FSM), que es «volador, omnipotente, invisible y muy poderoso» (así es definido en el Evangelio Pastafari), y cuya apariencia, inspirada en las rastas de Bob Marley, es la de una buena ración de espaguetis omnipotentes con dos enormes albóndigas sagradas:

El FSM creó el mundo (una montaña, cuatro árboles y un enano) en un día, empleó otros tres en crear el resto del universo y se pasó descansando los tres restantes.

Para un buen pastafari, los piratas son seres sagrados: proclaman que el llamado calentamiento global está en relación directa con el brutal descenso del número de piratas que surcan los siete mares desde 1800 (el ser humano comparte el 95% del ADN con los primates y el 99, 9% con los piratas).

Un buen pastafari considera sagrado el viernes.

En cuanto a la vida del más allá, lo más destacado es que en el Cielo de los pastafaris hay volcanes de cerveza en todo cuanto abarca la vista y una fábrica de strippers.

Si queréis saber más, podéis encontrar todo lo relacionado con la Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster y los pastafaris en www.venganza.org, de donde he sacado este texto que, mal que bien, os traduzco:

Aunque ha llevado una existencia secreta durante cientos de años, la Iglesia del Monstruoso Spaghetti Volador [Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Church of the FSM] ha salido a la luz pública cuando esta carta se publicó en mayo de 2005.

Con millones, si no miles, de devotos seguidores la Iglesia del MSV está ampliamente considerada como una religión legítima, incluso por sus oponentes -una mayoría de cristianos fundamentalistas que han aceptado que nuestro Dios tiene las pelotas más gordas que el suyo.

Algunos alegan que la Iglesia es simplemente un experimento, una sátira, para ilustrar que el Diseño Inteligente no es ciencia, sino una pseudociencia manufacturada por los cristianos para imponer el Creacionismo en las escuelas públicas. Esa gente se equivoca. La Iglesia del MSV es real, totalmente legítima, y promovida por una ciencia exigente. Cualquier cosa que se entienda como humor o sátira es pura coincidencia.

Sé bienvenido.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed into law a bill that would essentially allow the injection of religion into public schools, particularly the science classroom. If a teacher finds evolution objectionable he or she is free to water it down with a shot of creationism, whether it be the fire and brim stone variety of Young Earth Creationism (YEC) or the more modern argument of Intelligent Design (ID). Come to think of it, teachers could offer any number of alternative arguments. Who's to stop them now? How about a little Scientology for the students? Space aliens populated the Earth...L. Ron Hubbard said so.

This bill is unfortunate for Louisiana since its students have a history of being ranked near the bottom in math and science skills. The New York Times reported on a 1991 Federal Math Survey: 

States in the South and notably poor states did worst, with Louisiana earning the lowest average and Washington, D.C., scoring even lower.

Governor Jindal reported in a speech from March 31, 2008:

Unfortunately, we still rank among the worst in the country when it comes to students’ reading and math scores... flexible funding of $20 million can be used by school districts to recruit teachers in subjects where we consistently lag behind, such as math and science.

So Governor Jindal isn't doing Louisiana's students any favors with this bill. Violating the separating of church and state is bad enough, but wasting valuable classroom time with pseudo-scientific garbage is shameful. Clearly, the politicians of Louisiana would rather use public education as a political chew toy than take it seriously. The only ones benefiting from this bill are ultra-religious rabid dogs.       

For a more in depth report of Bobby Jindal's pathetic views go here. He actually said:

I don’t think students learn by us withholding information from them. Some want only to teach intelligent design, some only want to teach evolution. I think both views are wrong, as a parent.

Is creationism withheld from students? Isn't it everywhere in society? Children are exposed to religious views at home, at church, and though the media. The only exposure most ever will get to real science is in the science classroom. And now that's being eroded.

I found all of the stuff that I had packed sitting on my desk, and I mean all of it. A huge pile of stuff. I got most of it put away, and then we moved onto the filing. There were approximately 35 boxes of it, packed full. Not small ones, either – each of them is about 1 1/2 metres long, half a metre wide and the same deep. That's a lot of filing, I'll tell you right there.

I then spent most of the day teaching other people how to use the phone system and new photocopier-printer-fax-scanner thingie. This despite having only this morning been taught how to use them myself by the ICT people. Further real work was prevented by my database playing up. On the plus side, I do have a new computer, factory fresh. On the negative, so does everyone else, so I also spent a long time setting minor problems to rights with them, too... All in all, it's been a busy day, but satisfying in a way: we're completely moved into the fancy new building on the business park, and while the office is open plan and shared with other teams, by the time they move in, we'll have been there months already and will have superiority and they'll have to adapt to us, rather than the other way around. Office politics are always much more acute in local government because you really have to work at being fired and so we have more time to dick around. Heh-heh.

I'm still working on the bit about I Am Legend, but will have it soon.

In other news - the most popular search term for me right now is Charles Darwin, and untold numbers of people are looking at the birthday post I did way back when. And I have no idea why.

Speaking of searches, one of my most popular terms is dinosaur noises. Whoever is consistently searching for dinosaur noises and finding me, I salute you - your nutty persistence is a testament to human weirdness. As strange as that is, it pales in comparison to the newest persistent search term, which is pirate noises. The third most popular weird search is donkey in a bathtub and variations thereupon.

You people are weird.

On my film list recently: The Evil Dead, The Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness. Look forward to reviews, campers.

The gist of the story is that a ragtag bunch of pirates known only by their attributes (the Pirate Captain, the pirate with the scarf, the pirate with the accordion) join Charles Darwin in adventure to take on the Bishop of Oxford with his trained ape, the Man-Panzee.  And from their it gets rather absurd.  I enjoy the silly adventures and the even more ridiculous footnotes.  I suspect it very easily can be seen by someone with different tastes as stupid, but to each their own.

A lot of reviews compare The Pirates! with Monty Python and Douglas Adams.  That's because Gideon Defoe is British and writes funny things.  I would say instead that this book is reminiscent of Tom Holt, who is yes, British and yes, writes funny things like The Portable Door.

Defoe, Gideon.
The pirates! : in an adventure with scientists / Gideon Defoe.
London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004.
135 p. : ill., maps ; 17 cm.

]]> http://undergroundnetwork.wordpress.com/?p=147 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:25:12 +0000 underground http://undergroundnetwork.wordpress.com/?p=147

Unfortunately this is a common argument, devoid of historical support and logical reasoning. It is argued, usually in response to those who point out the many killed in holy wars, that atheistic leaders have killed more than religious ones. Evil dictators are bought forward as examples of what happens when society rejects religion and secularism takes hold. Although many theists employ this tactic, it does appear a ploy by the more conservative, as an underhand way of undermining secularism, freedom from religion and separation of the church and state, and in place installing theocracies (or at least religion based regimes) in western countries. Although many tyrants are put forward as examples, possibly the most common one is Adolf Hitler. And just like Christians try to claim Albert Einstein (and even sometimes Darwin!?), Hitler is cast off as an atheist. But was he?

Whereas Christians will claim that the Nazis were secularists and Hitler was an atheist, there is significant evidence to counter this assertion. The Nazis certainly had elements of Catholic, Lutheran and Pagan traditions in their ideology. The soldiers’ belts were indeed inscribed with “Gott im uns” (God with us). Hitler was born and raised a Catholic and never renounced his faith. Although he did rally against established religion, particularly in his later life, this was arguably because he saw it as a threat to his totalitarian regime. While I don’t think any historians will outright say he was definitely a Christian, he does mention his faith and religion regularly in speeches and writings.

Hitler in 1914 after hearing about declaration of WWI :

“I sunk down on my knees and thanked Heaven out of the fullness of my heart for the favour of being permitted to live in such a time”

Hitler in 1922 speech:

“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognised these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth, was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the lord at last rose in his might and seized the scourge to out the temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognise more profoundly than ever blood upon the cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be created, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice…And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.”

Hitler in 1925 speech:

“The first thing to do is to rescue [Germany] from the Jew who is ruining our country…We want to prevent our Germany from suffering, as another did, the death upon the cross.”

Mein Kampf 1925

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”

"The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys his work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will."

Hitler to Gerhard Engel:

“I shall remain a Catholic forever.”

Hitler in 1933 speech:

“We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that is not merely with a few theoretical decisions: we have stamped it out.”

There are of course dozens of other quotes in which he derides religion. It appears he was very anti-Christian establishment, although it appears did believe in Jesus and followed “Positive Christianity”. Whilst I acknowledge that as a deceptive politician Hitler may have used religion for political gain, Catholicism played a large part in the party’s ideology, as did Pagan rituals and the anti-Semitic ravings of Martin Luther. As history John Toland said in his Adolf Hitler: The definitive Biography, at the time of the final solution Hitler was:

“Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of god. The conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of god – so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty.”

Goering once described Hitler, “only a Catholic could unite Germany.”

Although he may have been many things, he was not an atheist. To claim that secularism or atheism account for the actions of the Nazis is disingenuous at best. He may not have Catholic, Christian, or subscribed to anyone one religion, he certainly drew spiritual inspiration from several faiths and religious traditions. Anti-Antisemitism, for example, has it roots centuries before Darwin, based mainly around the Christian claim that the Jews killed their messiah. It was only 40 years ago that the Vatican removed the charge of deicide against the entire Jewish people!

Pol Pot and Stalin, among others, may have very well been atheists, but there is no evidence to prove their lack of religion led to their crimes. (Those of you about to say nihilism - let me direct you here.) They certainly did not kill in the name of no god! As Richard Dawkins puts it: “Individual atheists may do evil things, but they don’t do evil in the name of atheism”. They may, however, do such things in the name of dogmatic doctrinaire systems, such as communism and fascism. Bertrand Russell rightly groups Communism with other religions in Why I am not a Christian. Fascism and Communism become religious cults, with strict dogma, infallible leaders and notions of utopia. This is not secular humanism or atheism. Atheism is the belief there is no god. Nothing more. Secularism is the desire to keep institutions and government free from superstition, requiring all in these spheres to appeal to empirical evidence to support their arguments and actions. This does not mean that people can not practice what they choose, but only that the decisions made by leaders be subject to the sort of reasoned scrutiny not allowed in theocracies.

So should Atheists still point to religion as the cause or conflict and mass murder? Why of course! Because holy books actually ask for their followers to wage these conficts. Followers of Christianity and Islam, for example, are asked to kill non-believers! Gods are evoked in battle, and martyrdom promised to ease the fear of death. By contrast, as Dawkins says, “Why would anyone go to war for the sake of an absence of belief”?

Would it not be expected that hell would be, mind the use of the word, demonised? Just like during the Cold War, where both the USA and USSR postured themselves as more powerful and more virtuous than their opponent, heaven and hell would be the same. Propaganda served to rally the citizens behind each superpower, to create an unwavering belief that their nation was superior to their sick, immoral adversary. Could it not be plausible that heaven may not be all its cracked up to be, and that perhaps hell is as nice a place to spend all eternity. Perhaps the devil, portrayed in the bible as the epitome of evil, a harnesser of hate, a malevolent torturous being, would be favourable towards those who shunned the blind faith of religion. As God’s staunchest opponent, would the devil not appreciate those who caused his followers the most strife in the material realm?

So Pascal, if you were alive for me to debate with you, I urge you to enjoy your eternity with a god who professes to condone gang rape of virgins, genocide, slavery, sexism and racism. Don’t let me stop you from having a good time. As for me, who can be certain? I must say I do look forward to meeting Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins and other fascinating individuals who share my abominable views on humanity, religion and the universe!

Click the link. Within its rather austere presentation you can catch just a whiff of the human drama. Here it is, in the very oblique terms that Darwin's interlocutors (some would say, his defenders) used to describe the three documents reaching the Linnean. The three men, Lyell, Hooker, and Bennett, organized the package with Darwin's two pieces -- a draft excerpt of a planned longer exposition and a summarized letter to Harvard's Asa Gray -- coming first, with Wallace's finished essay bringing up the rear. They defended this rather odd presentation with this argument:

So highly did Mr. Darwin appreciate the value of the views therein set forth, that he proposed in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, to obtain Mr. Wallace’s consent to allow the Essay to be published as soon as possible. Of this step we highly approved, provided Mr. Darwin did not withhold from the public, as he was strongly inclined to do (in favour of Mr. Wallace), the memoir which he had himself written on the same subject, and which as before stated, one of us had perused in 1844, and the contents of which we had both of us been privy to for many years. On representing this to Mr. Darwin, he gave us permission to make what use thought proper of his memoir, &c.: and in adopting our present course, of presenting to the Linnean Society, we have explained to him that we are not solely considering the relative claims to priority of himself and his friend, but the interests of science generally; for we feel it to be desirable that views founded on a wide deduction from the facts, and matured by years of reflection, should constitute at once a goal from which others may start, and that, while the scientific world is waiting for the appearance of Mr. Darwin’s complete work, some of the leading results of his labours, as well as those of his able correspondent, should together be laid before the public.

History has mostly judged this arrangement to be fair; certainly, Darwin was the center of both the intellectual creation and the human infrastructure that propelled development of the theory in whose origin Wallace shared.

(To get a sense of just how much Darwin did to foster a world-wide evolutionary endeavor, troll through his correspondence here. Scientific knowledge has always flowed through both formal and informal networks -- I'm still waiting for Simon Shaffer to publish his wonderful essay "Newton on the Beach" to have a compact demonstration of just how extensive this was at the birth of modern science -- but I'd like to know of any more formidable web-spinner, as able to draw together both facts and people as our man Darwin. I can think of none.) (Maybe Erdős -- but, cowering as I am at the prospective onslaught of outraged mathematicians, Darwin's doings were more important.)

But even so, a day late, I'd like to tip my hat once again to Alfred Russel Wallace, a truly great naturalist, able, with Darwin, to interpret what he had seen into the foundations of the most important scientific idea since Newton's, and a generous man.

Also, on all of this, read this post by Carl Zimmer in his new blog home at Discover Magazine. He takes the time to propagate the debunking one of the most persistent Darwin myths, that "the Devil's Chaplain" so feared the religious implications of his theory that he refused to publish for decades. Not so -- and Zimmer tells you why. (This is by way of a long h/t to Zimmer for the reminder of the anniversary, and to hope he enjoys his new blog-digs.)

Image: Ernst Haeckel, plate from his 1905 collection Wanderbilder, from an 1882 painting.  Source:  Wikimedia Commons.