What an outstanding article!!! I love this and am printing it as a fantastic resource to back me up when I try to explain vaccines to people who don't "think". Thank you.
Nice historical allegory for the current powers-that-be, whose authoritative fiat censors legitimate dissent.
Pedantic footnote: I’ve read that Pythagoras proposed the heliocentric model circa 200 years before Aristarcus, but I would have to check classical sources before I could PROVE P’s precedence..
Thank you for this inspiring article and, again the opportunity for reflection. It seems to me that the only way to resolve the state of our world will be through the spiritual evolution of the human being, especially towards the opening of the mind and a sincere search for the truth
I'm no scholar, but I suspect Linnaeus, too, would have found Darwinism untenable -- assignment to Man on a branch of an animal tree is likely the work of Darwin.
-- Fun thing happened at work: one of my fellow cashiers is named Linnaea -- I told her that to remember her name, I had to think of Karl von Linne (Carolus Linnaeus, the inventor of the binomial classification of living things). She answered: "I was named after him".
I was not taught to be suspicious of evolutionary theory from the Vatican or any sectarian pulpit. When first introduced to the controversy, I had believed vaguely in a presumed amalgam of special creation and evolution.
When I delved into the argument (and I think one of Darwin's books is titled something like: "One Long Argument"), it was really my first glimpse into the history and philosophy of any science. And the discovery was thrilling.
There's no time now for delving into the history and philosophy of science -- the Shire is burning, and with it, all the books. But to enjoy such study, it helps to enjoy the swiping away of cobwebs and the demolition of card houses.
One doesn't have to "have religion" to question Darwinism, or any other sect of evolutionary theory. Invertebrate taxonomists are among the most dedicated opponents of a natural science turned theoretical, and I don't recall any but one objecting out of religious grounds; a friend who left this earth a couple of decades ago -- the world's authority on North American Tephritidae (big fruit flies, the males of which strut around like peacocks).
And there is dissension among invertebrate taxonomists, too! I happened to spend a couple of afternoons in the laboratory of a coleopterist, whose own specialty was a genus of beetles typically smaller than the head of a pin. He patiently showed me the evolutionary micro-tree (necessarily enlarged) behind contemporary schemes of classification, much as an organic chemist would jot down the schema of a reaction. On the reference shelf of this contemporary laboratory were volumes extending in antiquity to the pre-Darwin 18th century -- and in the explanation of the kind scientist, I could smell the burning of those books.
To undertake any real study in the history and philosophy of science requires some sense of satisfaction in the destruction of a priori assumptions. I don't mean to pontificate, that just seems like the only way to enjoy the time spent. One of my favorite books is Ludwig Edelstein's "Ancient Medicine". There's no time for you to either to find or to read it, but it's remarkable that in his first essay on the Hippocratic Oath, upon demonstrating his discovery that there was no historical Hippocrates, and that it's not really an oath, he makes some form of apology to the reader for not having been able to find the man after whom his essay was titled. When I hear brave opponents of the c*vid regime refer repeatedly to a Hippocratic Oath, I can't see that there is any use in pointing out Edelstein's essay. Philosophy is blood-sport and I am happy to have bled even a little beside real heroes.
There's no time to study "Creation Science", Darwin looks great on a T-shirt, as does Einstein, but every second grader is supposed to understand Darwin -- or his descendants -- while Einstein is the province of a handful of initiates. And I have seen Einstein's work criticized, too.
"Physics is much too difficult for physicists" -- David Herbert, quoted in "Galileo Was Wrong".
I have to go now, but I leave you with a quote from the God-scoffing Mark Twain, also supplied by the Roman Apologists who put together "Galileo Was Wrong":
"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact".
I too question the emergence of life on this planet from a primordial soup for reasons other than an allegiance to some kind of religious doctrine that professes a creationist view. While I believe that evolutionary pressures are ever present and have likely given rise to traits and some new species, the evolutionists have to contend with the near impossibility of a molecule or sets of molecules that are capable of self-reproduction appearing de novo. Here's a great explanation of the problems in organic chemistry that "chance" had to overcome:
But there doesn't have to be a white bearded creator involved either. Given the fact that we have only recently been able to build machines that can fly or can split atoms, we still are able to tinker with the genetics of what is around us, and with some success. One would guess that if there were civilizations out there who have gone interstellar, they probably had the technology to do a lot more than create knock out mice and seedless watermelons.
As fantastical as it seems it's a better hypothesis than the scientists and apologetics have to offer.
I'm aware we bear some semblance to monkeys, and they, to one another, but I gave my Cambridge Philosophical Dictionary to my son, who in turn gave it away -- since the assault on mankind, I don't have money to replace it.
I could not survive a philosophy class, but read Plato & the pre-Socratics with some attention, though in translation. Please expand on "ontological lostness" when convenient, while I turn to my father's Webster and maybe to the compact OED. Paper documents are a thrill to peruse.
great article, thank you! my French cousin called me a 'platista' the other day, for pointing out some of the arguments supporting a geocentric viewpoint and, in tandem with that, the possibility that we live on a flat eart (plane). "the" truth is probably somewhere in the middle, it's what we do with our views that's relevant.
Say on. I prefer geocentrism, but the Flat Earthers make some nice sundials. Have you read "Galileo Was Wrong . . And So Was Einstein" by Sungenis and Bennett? It's a refreshing read.
intuitively I like the geocentric model, it aligns perfectly with what we see ('the sun comes up....'). Galileo's house-arrest was the equivalent of a slap on the wrist by the Church, in a time where the Inquisition murdered hundreds upon hundreds of civilians accused of heresy. thank you for the reference, will look it up. best wishes for the New Year :-))
Ask anyone why ships appear to disappear over the globe horizon you will get non-science parroted answers. Ask people if airplanes go faster when flying eastward than westward they will say yes and parrot false "science" about rotation of the earth.
Ask jet pilots the science as to why they never have to account for the curvature of the earth and can assume everything is stationary and flat.
Explain the science of water ALWAYS finding its LEVEL and then ask the science for how this does not apply to the bodies of water around the world.
Gyros are another conundrum.
Then buy a P1000 camera and take it to the coast where you can view oil platforms 30 to 50 miles away. Now explain how this is possible with curvature of 8 inches per mile squared.
The Earth is not what we think. I don't have the science and model at the current time. I can tell you that it's not what we have been told.
I prefer geocentrism to flat earth, and I treasure the story of the Pythagorean wells being used to determine that the world is spherical. But I hear in your closing statement an echo of one by Socrates: "The world is not as the cartographers tell us". That's the paraphrase of a translated Platonic dialog the name of which I can't remember, but having held on to it for half a century, well, here it is; it's for you.
Apologies -- the wells observed during solstice may have been the work of Archimedes and friends, not Pythagoras. And the Platonic dialog was likely "Phaedo".
Not much has changed. The masses take it as a matter of faith that masks and vaccines are effective and ended the pandemic. No amount of scientific evidence will sway their beliefs.
True, Michelle, but those of us who are capable of presenting proof should still present the correct science. Where would we be if Copernicus and Galileo had given up because no one was convincible? As far as I'm concerned, I'm writing my proofs for future generations who look back on this and wonder what people were thinking.
Reid, I do believe we are correct with our interpretation of what is observed, yet there are so many who think we are wrong. Four hundred years ago we needed a breakthrough to irrefutably demonstrate to all that Galileo and Copernicus were right.
The bulk of humanity implicitly trusts the authorities who are lying and refusing to have any kind of open discussion (as you yourself are well aware). The CDC will never admit that they are wrong, just like the Church wouldn't. If there were to be a breakthrough now, what would it be? Where would it come from?
"But this apparent economy of the Copernican system, a propaganda victory that the proponents of the new astronomy rarely failed to emphasize, is largely an illusion."
-- Thomas Kuhn
"We occupy a unique position in the universe, analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a central Earth . . . This hypothesis cannot be disproved."
-- Edwin Hubble
If these aren't misquotes, what do they suggest? Pope Carl would have had them burnt at the stake.
Here is another thought provoking essay which might suggest that the exposing of the conflict of interest you mention isn't going to happen anytime soon.
All I meant was that from the Prophets, to Socrates and to the Gulag, it comes with certain risk. Recall that, while I do read a lot, I have not managed to pass either a philosophy or a literature class. And I'm terrified of syllogisms.
Stalin was a seminary drop out; and I believe Darwin, too. Pol Pot had been a Bhuddist monk and Mao, a classically trained poet. When they go south, they really go.
An entomologist, in playing a trick on a digging wasp for study, moved her quarry a few inches each time she disappeared into her burrow to check for pests before dragging it in. After a couple of times, she stared at the place it had been, and wiped her eyes. No point in recounting that story -- it's not an "idee fixe" I just think of it often.
But I'm as bad a taxonomist as any monkey -- slightly better at drawing.
You deserve a more careful response to your last post, but it will take me awhile to discern the core of what you're writing about and to frame meaningful questions -- today is "Christmas Eve" for us, business with family, festivity, &c.
I haven't read Dune, either. A friend, who loved the book, made comment on David Lynch's maligned 1984 masterpiece, "Dune": "It's a good movie, but it's not at all like the book".
Only after thirty five years, and through the magic of multiple YouTube viewings of that six minute clip: "He who controls the spice controls the universe", have I been able to discern Lynch's direct commentary on the hospital state in "East Coker, IV" of Eliot's "Four Quartets" in Baron Harkonnen's hospital throne room.
I can hardly tolerate science fiction, myself, except through the lens of Kubrick or Lynch. And I could never pass either a literature or a philosophy class. But to enjoy Milton during quiet moments in a locked psychiatric unit, well, I suppose that's a "pass" of some kind.
My generation gave up memorizing poetry after I finished fifth grade -- California schools, likely sooner -- but some of Eliot I have memorized, and after a few decades, some of the more difficult passages have begun to make sense.
What an outstanding article!!! I love this and am printing it as a fantastic resource to back me up when I try to explain vaccines to people who don't "think". Thank you.
Nice historical allegory for the current powers-that-be, whose authoritative fiat censors legitimate dissent.
Pedantic footnote: I’ve read that Pythagoras proposed the heliocentric model circa 200 years before Aristarcus, but I would have to check classical sources before I could PROVE P’s precedence..
Thanks for another thoughtful and timely essay.
Thank you for this inspiring article and, again the opportunity for reflection. It seems to me that the only way to resolve the state of our world will be through the spiritual evolution of the human being, especially towards the opening of the mind and a sincere search for the truth
Outstanding and worthy effort, sir! Perfectly drawn analogy to our times, and I learned a lot too!
great thoughts! check out "Wagging the Moondoggie". really rather eye-opening, and on a par with your theme here.
Yes it's good but this is the pinnacle - American Moon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpuKu3F0BvY
I'm no scholar, but I suspect Linnaeus, too, would have found Darwinism untenable -- assignment to Man on a branch of an animal tree is likely the work of Darwin.
-- Fun thing happened at work: one of my fellow cashiers is named Linnaea -- I told her that to remember her name, I had to think of Karl von Linne (Carolus Linnaeus, the inventor of the binomial classification of living things). She answered: "I was named after him".
I was not taught to be suspicious of evolutionary theory from the Vatican or any sectarian pulpit. When first introduced to the controversy, I had believed vaguely in a presumed amalgam of special creation and evolution.
When I delved into the argument (and I think one of Darwin's books is titled something like: "One Long Argument"), it was really my first glimpse into the history and philosophy of any science. And the discovery was thrilling.
There's no time now for delving into the history and philosophy of science -- the Shire is burning, and with it, all the books. But to enjoy such study, it helps to enjoy the swiping away of cobwebs and the demolition of card houses.
One doesn't have to "have religion" to question Darwinism, or any other sect of evolutionary theory. Invertebrate taxonomists are among the most dedicated opponents of a natural science turned theoretical, and I don't recall any but one objecting out of religious grounds; a friend who left this earth a couple of decades ago -- the world's authority on North American Tephritidae (big fruit flies, the males of which strut around like peacocks).
And there is dissension among invertebrate taxonomists, too! I happened to spend a couple of afternoons in the laboratory of a coleopterist, whose own specialty was a genus of beetles typically smaller than the head of a pin. He patiently showed me the evolutionary micro-tree (necessarily enlarged) behind contemporary schemes of classification, much as an organic chemist would jot down the schema of a reaction. On the reference shelf of this contemporary laboratory were volumes extending in antiquity to the pre-Darwin 18th century -- and in the explanation of the kind scientist, I could smell the burning of those books.
To undertake any real study in the history and philosophy of science requires some sense of satisfaction in the destruction of a priori assumptions. I don't mean to pontificate, that just seems like the only way to enjoy the time spent. One of my favorite books is Ludwig Edelstein's "Ancient Medicine". There's no time for you to either to find or to read it, but it's remarkable that in his first essay on the Hippocratic Oath, upon demonstrating his discovery that there was no historical Hippocrates, and that it's not really an oath, he makes some form of apology to the reader for not having been able to find the man after whom his essay was titled. When I hear brave opponents of the c*vid regime refer repeatedly to a Hippocratic Oath, I can't see that there is any use in pointing out Edelstein's essay. Philosophy is blood-sport and I am happy to have bled even a little beside real heroes.
There's no time to study "Creation Science", Darwin looks great on a T-shirt, as does Einstein, but every second grader is supposed to understand Darwin -- or his descendants -- while Einstein is the province of a handful of initiates. And I have seen Einstein's work criticized, too.
"Physics is much too difficult for physicists" -- David Herbert, quoted in "Galileo Was Wrong".
I have to go now, but I leave you with a quote from the God-scoffing Mark Twain, also supplied by the Roman Apologists who put together "Galileo Was Wrong":
"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact".
Who classified us as a "species"?
Thank you for the thoughtful commentary.
I too question the emergence of life on this planet from a primordial soup for reasons other than an allegiance to some kind of religious doctrine that professes a creationist view. While I believe that evolutionary pressures are ever present and have likely given rise to traits and some new species, the evolutionists have to contend with the near impossibility of a molecule or sets of molecules that are capable of self-reproduction appearing de novo. Here's a great explanation of the problems in organic chemistry that "chance" had to overcome:
https://mitteldorf.substack.com/p/the-origin-of-life?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web
But there doesn't have to be a white bearded creator involved either. Given the fact that we have only recently been able to build machines that can fly or can split atoms, we still are able to tinker with the genetics of what is around us, and with some success. One would guess that if there were civilizations out there who have gone interstellar, they probably had the technology to do a lot more than create knock out mice and seedless watermelons.
As fantastical as it seems it's a better hypothesis than the scientists and apologetics have to offer.
I'm aware we bear some semblance to monkeys, and they, to one another, but I gave my Cambridge Philosophical Dictionary to my son, who in turn gave it away -- since the assault on mankind, I don't have money to replace it.
I could not survive a philosophy class, but read Plato & the pre-Socratics with some attention, though in translation. Please expand on "ontological lostness" when convenient, while I turn to my father's Webster and maybe to the compact OED. Paper documents are a thrill to peruse.
great article, thank you! my French cousin called me a 'platista' the other day, for pointing out some of the arguments supporting a geocentric viewpoint and, in tandem with that, the possibility that we live on a flat eart (plane). "the" truth is probably somewhere in the middle, it's what we do with our views that's relevant.
Say on. I prefer geocentrism, but the Flat Earthers make some nice sundials. Have you read "Galileo Was Wrong . . And So Was Einstein" by Sungenis and Bennett? It's a refreshing read.
intuitively I like the geocentric model, it aligns perfectly with what we see ('the sun comes up....'). Galileo's house-arrest was the equivalent of a slap on the wrist by the Church, in a time where the Inquisition murdered hundreds upon hundreds of civilians accused of heresy. thank you for the reference, will look it up. best wishes for the New Year :-))
Ask anyone why ships appear to disappear over the globe horizon you will get non-science parroted answers. Ask people if airplanes go faster when flying eastward than westward they will say yes and parrot false "science" about rotation of the earth.
Ask jet pilots the science as to why they never have to account for the curvature of the earth and can assume everything is stationary and flat.
Explain the science of water ALWAYS finding its LEVEL and then ask the science for how this does not apply to the bodies of water around the world.
Gyros are another conundrum.
Then buy a P1000 camera and take it to the coast where you can view oil platforms 30 to 50 miles away. Now explain how this is possible with curvature of 8 inches per mile squared.
The Earth is not what we think. I don't have the science and model at the current time. I can tell you that it's not what we have been told.
I prefer geocentrism to flat earth, and I treasure the story of the Pythagorean wells being used to determine that the world is spherical. But I hear in your closing statement an echo of one by Socrates: "The world is not as the cartographers tell us". That's the paraphrase of a translated Platonic dialog the name of which I can't remember, but having held on to it for half a century, well, here it is; it's for you.
Apologies -- the wells observed during solstice may have been the work of Archimedes and friends, not Pythagoras. And the Platonic dialog was likely "Phaedo".
Not much has changed. The masses take it as a matter of faith that masks and vaccines are effective and ended the pandemic. No amount of scientific evidence will sway their beliefs.
True, Michelle, but those of us who are capable of presenting proof should still present the correct science. Where would we be if Copernicus and Galileo had given up because no one was convincible? As far as I'm concerned, I'm writing my proofs for future generations who look back on this and wonder what people were thinking.
Reid, I do believe we are correct with our interpretation of what is observed, yet there are so many who think we are wrong. Four hundred years ago we needed a breakthrough to irrefutably demonstrate to all that Galileo and Copernicus were right.
The bulk of humanity implicitly trusts the authorities who are lying and refusing to have any kind of open discussion (as you yourself are well aware). The CDC will never admit that they are wrong, just like the Church wouldn't. If there were to be a breakthrough now, what would it be? Where would it come from?
"But this apparent economy of the Copernican system, a propaganda victory that the proponents of the new astronomy rarely failed to emphasize, is largely an illusion."
-- Thomas Kuhn
"We occupy a unique position in the universe, analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a central Earth . . . This hypothesis cannot be disproved."
-- Edwin Hubble
If these aren't misquotes, what do they suggest? Pope Carl would have had them burnt at the stake.
Look for my response above.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you, and I do as often as I can. It just seems to be a hopelessly uphill battle.
You, me, and others are up to the challenge. Don't give in to them. I know you won't.
Indeed!
Here is another thought provoking essay which might suggest that the exposing of the conflict of interest you mention isn't going to happen anytime soon.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/capitalism-cannot-turn-into-anything
And then there is THIS hahahahahaha
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/indiamoon_feat.jpg
As if
I can't continue this thread.
All I meant was that from the Prophets, to Socrates and to the Gulag, it comes with certain risk. Recall that, while I do read a lot, I have not managed to pass either a philosophy or a literature class. And I'm terrified of syllogisms.
Stalin was a seminary drop out; and I believe Darwin, too. Pol Pot had been a Bhuddist monk and Mao, a classically trained poet. When they go south, they really go.
An entomologist, in playing a trick on a digging wasp for study, moved her quarry a few inches each time she disappeared into her burrow to check for pests before dragging it in. After a couple of times, she stared at the place it had been, and wiped her eyes. No point in recounting that story -- it's not an "idee fixe" I just think of it often.
But I'm as bad a taxonomist as any monkey -- slightly better at drawing.
I lack the critical tools to comment; I'm an inductive sort of a fellow.
You deserve a more careful response to your last post, but it will take me awhile to discern the core of what you're writing about and to frame meaningful questions -- today is "Christmas Eve" for us, business with family, festivity, &c.
I haven't read Dune, either. A friend, who loved the book, made comment on David Lynch's maligned 1984 masterpiece, "Dune": "It's a good movie, but it's not at all like the book".
Only after thirty five years, and through the magic of multiple YouTube viewings of that six minute clip: "He who controls the spice controls the universe", have I been able to discern Lynch's direct commentary on the hospital state in "East Coker, IV" of Eliot's "Four Quartets" in Baron Harkonnen's hospital throne room.
I can hardly tolerate science fiction, myself, except through the lens of Kubrick or Lynch. And I could never pass either a literature or a philosophy class. But to enjoy Milton during quiet moments in a locked psychiatric unit, well, I suppose that's a "pass" of some kind.
My generation gave up memorizing poetry after I finished fifth grade -- California schools, likely sooner -- but some of Eliot I have memorized, and after a few decades, some of the more difficult passages have begun to make sense.
My life is Christ.