Rambling Rebuilder

23 May 2006

Coulter for President

got my spine, got my orange crush.

21 May 2006

Do Darwinian Assumptions produce bad science ?

Johnson argues. It forces biologists to accept even weak theories so long as they are naturalistic. Darwinism itself is the prime example. Observational evidence cited for Darwinism consists of minor variations, akin to those routinely produced by farmers and breeders. For example, in a New York Times article, Jonathan Weiner describes a study of Darwin's famous finches: The finches' beaks grew larger in dry seasons, when the seeds they eat were tough and hard, but grew smaller again after a rainy season, when tiny seeds became available once more. This is evolution happening "before [our] very eyes," Weiner writes.

But as Johnson points out, it is precisely the opposite. The change in finch beaks, he argues, is a minor, cyclical fluctuation that allows the finches to adapt and survive. Translation: It's a small adjustment that allow finches to stay finches. It does not demonstrate that finches are evolving into another kind of bird, nor that they evolved originally from another kind of organism. It's odd that a mechanism permitting an organism's major features to remain unchanged should be cited as evidence for a theory of limitless change.

Moreover, the naturalistic assumption compels biologists to ignore the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design that can be read right off the face of nature. It seems intuitively obvious that eyes are designed for seeing, ears for hearing, and fins for swimming. Even dyed-in-the- wool atheists such as Dawkins acknowledge the prima facie evidence of purpose: his definition of biology is "the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." The goal of Darwinism is to demonstrate that, contrary to appearances, these complicated things are really the product of random changes and natural laws.

But a century and a half after Darwin, that goal has not been reached. (The scientific failures of Darwinism are discussed at length in Johnson's first book, Darwin on Trial, and outlined only briefly here.) The meager factual basis for Darwinism makes plausible Johnson's thesis that the major reason for the theory's dominance is not science but philosophy: It reassures secularists that they don't have to worry about a Creator.

Cite

20 May 2006

Can Science get Free from Atheism

Dennett claimed that Darwin had shredded the credibility of religion and was, indeed, the very “destroyer” of God. In the question session, philosophy professor Jeff Jordan made the following observation to Dennett, “If Darwinism is inherently atheistic, as you say, then obviously it can’t be taught in public schools.”

“And why is that?” inquired Dennett, incredulous.

“Because,” said Jordan, “the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution guarantees government neutrality between religion and irreligion.”

Dennett... leaned back against the wall, and said, after a few moments of silence, “clever.”

After another silence, he came up with a reply: He had not meant to say that evolution logically entails atheism, merely that it undercuts religion. Jeff Jordan’s question underlines how the self-appointed defenders of the scientific method are trying to have it both ways. Don’t allow religious philosophy to intrude into biology classrooms and texts, they say, for that is to soil the sacred precincts of science, which must be reserved for hypotheses that can be rigorously tested and confronted with data.

Cite

19 May 2006

What do documented Observsations Tell us ?

just what would biological history have been like if left to natural phenomena without God's participation? If God had created a lifeless world, even with oceans rich in amino acids and other organic molecules, and thereafter had left matters alone, life would not have come into existence. If God had done nothing but create a world of bacteria and protozoa, it would still be a world of bacteria and protozoa. Whatever may have been the case in the remote past, the chemicals we see today have no observable tendency or ability to form living cells, and single-celled organisms have no observable tendency or ability to form complex plants and animals. Persons who believe that chemicals unassisted by intelligence can combine to create life, or that bacteria can evolve by natural processes into complex animals, are making an a priori assumption that nature has the resources to do its own creating.

Cite

18 May 2006

Movie Review, Silent Hill

Horror, 2 out of five Bricks.

Movie reminds me of what the Sixth Sense would have been like , if Shymalan had just gotten over a destructive and torrid 7 week love affair with Krista Grotte.

I constantly felt like I had seen the movie before. The deja vu resulted because I had lived with a room-mate for 2 years who played
the video game to death, pardon the pun. The slashing doesnt start till the last 15 minutes, really. Up until then its a moody suspense piece, well done. The murders arent that gory, because the deaths are done CGI. I never got the feeling that the actresses were actually doused with buckets of chicken blood, like in days of old.

I became irked again and again at the complete lack of common sense of the mother figure,
but then I remembered that's how horror films have to work. People walk right into danger,
their cell phones dangling unused at their waist. Its part and parcel of the genre, I forgot.

Standard Issue Apology: It was Brick Muppets turn to pick the movie.

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spoilers follow.

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you were warned.

I think that anyone who is inside the town of Silent Hill after sundown dies and wakes up as a ghost. IMHO The poisonous gases of the mine fires kill you with vividly evil hallucinations.

Everyone who lives inside the town 24/7 is actually a ghost,
even when they appear to shoot or kill each other, they are just ghosts banishing each other back to hell. You can't die in Silent Hill, you're dead already.

Only if you go into Silent Hill on a rainy day, or a windy day, and do not stay after sundown do you remain truly alive. The sherriff and the husband do this.

The mom is dead (and therefore a ghost) after the mutants claw her and she wakes up to the Johnny Cash song. The little girl is dead, and therefore a ghost, way earlier, right after the car wreck.

The female cops been dead for years, and is a ghost. Same with the crazy mom with grey hair.

But the director is good, and using the same tricks as in Sixth Sense, you are not sure who's a ghost till the last 3 minutes,
maybe not even then.

15 May 2006

8 )

Good Day !

Recent Rose Garden Pictures from Huntington Park

07 May 2006

My Personal Magic Card

Made for me by Doctor Anomaly
Hero:MtG

01 May 2006

Books of the Month for May

Spiritual Gifts 19 - Wagner

Gospel of John ***

Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham - Myra/Shelley

27 April 2006

US-58 to Scotland Neck, then to Hampton Roads

Return to Tidewater via Scotland Ferry

19 April 2006

Fire Fire Fire

rebuilder actually rebuilding

then I got to burn the junk and scrap wood. Joy !

Interstates Bore Me To Death

Traveled US-Fifty Eight to Visit Miss Vikki in Tennesee.

Now if you're zooming down the dreary old interstates you miss things like this.

Beaver Chewed Tree.

11 April 2006

Idealist Job Fair

Dc trip

Washington District of Columbia

Tue Apr 11 2006

George Washington University

Went to GWU-DC and looked for charitable jobs. Regrettably I qualify for few.
will pursue getting back into the computers field (ugh)
Only for the money I keep telling myself.

03 April 2006

Beauty in the Deli

Had dinner with my Cousin Jack the other day. What was that I asked him ? He had ordered Ensalata Caprese, I think he called it. So I snapped a picture of it and informed him that it may have been ensalata to start with, but now its fine art.