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A hedonic resource
Blog Archive
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2009
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September
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- 'A country rapidly passed through...'
- Freedom Days
- The Perfect Bookshop?
- Peter de Vries
- The Convivial Ukulele
- As It's Saturday...
- A Thankyou
- A Good Year for the Spiders
- News from Mercia
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- Where Would Jesus Shop?
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- How Paleoanthropology Works
- Men - Make an Effort!
- A Pudden's End
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- Hunting of Snark
- A Masterclass in Identification
- Keith Waterhouse
- An Invaluable Public Service
- On Falling
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September
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About Me
- Nige
- Nige, who, like Mr Kenneth Horne, prefers to remain anonymous, was also a founder blogger of The Dabbler and a co-blogger on the Bryan Appleyard Thought Experiments blog. He is the sole blogger on this one, and his principal aim is to share various of life's pleasures. These tend to relate to books, art, poems, butterflies, birds, churches, music, walking, weather, drink, etc, with occasional references to the passing scene. His book, The Mother of Beauty: On the Golden Age of English Church Monuments, and Other Matters of Life and Death, is available on Amazon or direct from the author.
Henry Gee points out that this is Not So Much 'News' as 'Olds'.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave - that compounds the idiocy of the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's really about "How News Works".
ReplyDeleteFrom the scientists point of view
ReplyDeleteOr, less politely
ReplyDeleteApologies if it was here or on Bryan's site that I first saw it, but this recalls one of the best scientific headlines ever: "Mankind Older Than Previously Believed".
ReplyDeleteFor Darwinist-torturers, there are few things more fun than cross-examining on what I call "The Great Trek" out of East Africa. It is holy writ for the faithful, but it is a most fantastic tale, redolent of Genesis and a lot of other creation myths. How much is true I have no idea, but the belief is so ingrained that it seems to rest as solidly as cement pylons on a handful of very widely dispersed skulls and the absence of a coherent alternative explanation. These skulls are like the carefully guarded sacred relics in medieval cathedrals and monasteries.
Hear hear Peter - BBC TV even sent that tiresome 'Dr Alice Roberts' round the world 'in the footsteps' of these humanoids emerging from Africa, as it was a travelogue! The absurdity was apparent at every turn, but of course no one said so...
ReplyDeleteI always knew you two would get along.
ReplyDeleteNige/Brit, I haven't been able to find it on YouTube, but Monty Python once did a screamingly funny send-up of Thor Heyerdahl that featured scientists trying to discover the route a dumpy middle class couple from Slough took for a picnic and the professional controversy that emerged over which motorways they used. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI could go on for ages about how implausible it all seems when one actually tries to imagine how it happened. Objections abound, but the most striking one is why none of them, despite being confronted by mountains, starvation, oceans, frigid conditions, etc. ever appear to have used their heads and turned back to that paleontological Eden known as a the savaanah. Were angels guarding the gate or something? Nope, they just sat on their butts and waited patiently for survival adaptations to take hold. Talk about faith.
Well the idea is that it was a spread rather than a trek.
ReplyDeleteThere are, after all, people in Africa.
ReplyDeleteAnd after all, even if you believe in Adam and Eve, there would have to be some kind of a spread from wherever they were (unless you thought that africans and europeans were different species, I suppose, in which case you'd be in all kinds of hot water.)
ReplyDeleteAnd after after after all, look at how America was populated from the East coast westwards in virtually no time at all.
ReplyDeleteMind you, Okies and New Yorkers really are different species.
ReplyDeleteWell, I've enjoyed this conversation. Cheers guys!
ReplyDeleteAnd after after after all, look at how America was populated from the East coast westwards in virtually no time at all.
ReplyDeleteUh, Brit, we are talking about the story of human biological evolution, are we not? Survival imperatives 'n adaptations 'n stuff. I'm not sure the covered wagons that went down the Oregon Trail count as Darwinism-in-action. Although, as we both know folks who insist Darwinism explains English poetry and Corvette design, maybe they do.
But yeah, there are lots of people all over the world, some moving, some not, some trekking, some spreading and we're talking about huge swaths of time, so I guess the story must be true. Gosh, I really do love science.
Darwinism explains English poetry = absurd overstretch.
ReplyDeleteHomo sapiens originated in Africa = reasonable theory.
You've got to give and take a bit Peter.
Brit, weren't you just this week joining the chorus against those who equate scepticism with denialism? Of course it is a reasonable theory. Astrology and the four humours were also reasonable theories, and, in fact, I'm not convinced they have been as 100% debunked as the boffins say. But we aren't being faced by diffident experts cautiously offering up reasonable theories. We're faced with screechers yelling: "Evolution is a fact, you stupid man!". I find that both insulting and a grand opening for humour as their neurotic compulsion to fill out the narrative leads them to ever-higher levels of implausability and absurdity.
ReplyDeleteAnd let's not forget that the tale of "The Great Spread" (See, I can compromise) is not a history of conscious, intentional exploration, settlement and discovery, but of the physical evolution of homo sapiens as a result of unconscious survival imperatives. It's not meant to explain how and why we discovered farming and swords, but rather why some of us have blue eyes or oriental features.
Once commented that a woman had a great spread, actually I meant the table, not her spacial occupancy, invites were somewhat sparse thereafter.
ReplyDeleteHow did a bunch of Georgean stuff turn into yet another, we wuz/wuznot gunk, at one time gripe?
Personally I believe bugger all unless that bloke in the daft sweaters from time team tells me it's so.
Or Bill Oddie.
Wise words Malty - and welcome back, if I haven't already said so - and thanks, Brit and Peter and everyone, for upping my comment count a treat - I'd have joined in but for an all-day NigeCorp workstorm.
ReplyDeleteI believe Peter Simple had a character who was convinced the Welsh were Aztecs who'd made their way across the Atlantic in stone canoes...
I suppose the thing for the Wise Skeptic is to pick your scoffs judiciously, lest you be taken for a Crank.
ReplyDeleteIf you just blanketscoff, you're just as much a fanatic as those you claim to Skept about.
Nige:
ReplyDeleteServes you right for musing: "I sometimes wonder where the butterflies came from."
No blogger is safe from a religion/science hijack. The only defence is to divert to anti-Americanism.
Just two belated comments to make.
ReplyDeleteAll you need to know about the rationale for treks can be found in Watership Down.
I won't hear a word said against the delightful Dr Roberts. She is an ornament to our screens and I put my gallant sword at her service. And just think, without the idea of the trek we wouldn't have seen her in all those delightful beach locations.