Sea Shells

[poliphilo]

Explain to me again why we have winter and summer.

It's because the earth tilts on its axis as it flies round the sun and, um, er, something like that...

Sherlock Holmes pretended not to know even that the earth went round the sun. He didn't want to clutter up his peerless brain with useless information.

It amazes me the things scientists say they know. Like the age of the universe and the size of it and all that stuff about black holes.

I take these things on trust, just as I used to take things on trust from bishops and theologians.

I feel uneasy sometimes about being so scornful of creationists. Could I convincingly expound Darwin's Theory of Evolution? Could I fuck!

If Newton said he was like a man picking up shells on the edge of a vast ocean, what does that make me?

I know this, that and the other. Or think I do. Most of it at second-hand.

The leaves turn brown. The air smells cold...

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was watching a programme about black holes.

The arguments about what happens inside a black hole aren't so far from patristic debates about the nature of angels and involve concepts all but impossible to visualise or otherwise imagine.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I am fascinated by how much supposedly objective science is influenced by the zeitgeist - looking over Darwin I was surprised at how chauvanistic he was.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

That's something I've never heard said before. Our society goes in awe of the man. We tiptoe round his reputation- rather as religious people tiptoe round their popes and prophets- but most of us (and I include myself in this) have never actually read him.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Check the ascent of man. It is full of 'proof' at how the lower orders are suited to their role in society because they have larger hands than the intellectual classes. He was surprised at how intellegent the Fijians seemed and he was acually quite larmarkian. This is not to deny the value of his ideas but I think Dawkins et al ignore a lot.