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bonnyjars

Listed below are comments made by bonnyjars between Thursday, 22nd January 2009 and Tuesday, 19th May 2009.

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Do hunter-gatherers have it right? 10:33pm on 19 May 2009 If Professor Dawkins is right (and echoed by David Attenborough in "Life of plants") we humans had no choice in the matter of turning to farming. Wheat has made itself one of the dominant species in the world (to say nothing of turkeys.) Standage and Diamond are merely pointing out that their domination has been at our expence
Attenborough on Darwin 2:48pm on 10 Feb 2009 Post # 30 said

""Debates on evolution theory often annoyingly lead to an 'Evolution' vs 'Creationism' argument." That's true but only when creationists join in."

Looking at the debate it is noticible that the early posts were definitely raising the issue. But they were predominantly anti creationism, anti religious. It didn't need the creationists to join in to become polarised. It is not only creationist who twist the data and report what they want to hear.

But, in fact that should hardly be surprising to anyone. The paradigm under which we all operate is not that of science operating under the burden of disproof but rather of science finding ways to make the data fit the paradigm. It is quite clear that the 'big' parts of the model are not up for rational discussion. Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Evolution, to name just three are not up for grabs. It is inconceivale to suggest that they might be and if anyone does question them then scorn is pured upon their intelectual ability and often on their moral culpability.

I am not standing anywhere in this debate. I am merely pointing out that the paragraph above could easily be rewritten - indeed it already has been rewritten frequently - with the three centres replaced by religion generally and christianity in particular, creationism and Intelligent design

Until people are prepared to question their basic presuppositions then the debates between the "sides" can go nowhere because no one is being very honest. In no way am I denying that I too am a child of this age and as such I accept that science works but I do not raise it to the level of a religion with unquestionable in the sense of "can not be questioned" assumptions.
New BBC weather site launched 12:44pm on 07 Feb 2009 The main site still links to 'old' weather site

John
Caption Competition 5:01pm on 22 Jan 2009 I know the Antarctic is breaking up, but I didn't expect ice up here

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