You know, back in the Clinton Administration, they once had this little get-together with Al Gore where they showed off a possible new design of a triangular plane - basically converting a "tube with wings" into one big wing. Now, I guess, we can convert it into one big tube, which then converts into one big wing... and I call dibs on the window seat when they invent that plane!



...Hehe, I also just saw an episode of "Thunderbirds" on TV, which had subtitled commentary which said that the writer of the Thunderbirds was always interested in new forms of technology and travel, and would put new gadgets into his show for International Rescue to use that weren't in existence yet. I wonder what he'd make of this?

One reason darwinism is different from, eg,

physics is that it does not predict outcomes.

Or, to be more precise, it predicts just about

every physically possible outcome will be tried

at least once.



I like to use the example of limbs. Across the

animal kingdom you find examples with every

integer value from 0 up to around 27, then a

gap till around 60, then spotty occurrences up

to about 200.



The gliding snake might perhaps be considered

a non-integer value of limbs, functionally,

anyway.



This is, of course, a very powerful argument

against intelligent design.

WHO WAS SHOWING THUNDERBIRDS?

Harry:



Yes, the Darwinian "prediction" that everything will be tried is an effective argument against every other system. It's also what makes it a faith rather than a science. But we're gratified you found a replacement faith.

Can flying pigs be far behind?

oj - Starz has been showing Thunderbirds A LOT over the past 4 weeks

Ah, you fell into the trap, Orrin.



Darwinism does make verifiable statements, eg, acquired characteristics are not heritable. These can be tested.



The demand that darwinism make predictions that are unnecessary to it is where the physicists (particularly among scientists) and the irrationalists show their lack of understanding.



If you don't set out to do something, you cannot fail.

Hi Harry. With respect to acquired characteristics, some can
be inherited - e.g. see Lamarck's Signature
by Edward Steele. Immune system changes appear in the germ-plasm. So far, it doesn't look to be a major player, but who knows. Rupert Sheldrake reports others in a book I just know you'll hate: The Presence of the Past
. I also think of the Baldwin Effect as forwarding an acquired characteristic.



Darwinism does indeed make a few predictions, but it seems to be a 'third rate theory'; i.e. a first rate theory predicts things, a second-rate theory forbids things, and a third rate theory explains things after the fact.

You're right about Sheldrake.



My physics adviser makes the same point, and goes even further, stating just last week that physics is the only "real" science because it is the only one that makes iron predictions.



This smacks to me of neo-Platonism, that there is some hierarchy of real and realer sciences. As a pure materilist, I don't think so.



Science is the study of nature. Nature is what it is. Pretty arrogant of us to make invidious comparisons about how parts of it work.



Orrin might take small comfort, by the way, in the fact that darwinism is antideterminist. Many people are confused about this, but it would be absurd to say that the rabbit dodges the fox by leaping left or right based on quantum factors.



Yet whether he dodges left or right can affect the entire future outcome of life.



Biology truly is weird. Much weirder even than relativistic or quantum physics or whatever amalgam of the two contradictory explanations turns out to be better.