Thursday 27 October 2005

Re the works of Phillip Johnson ("Intelligent Design")

Johnson and his work seem to me to be entirely discredited. He had limited credentials to undertake the work in any case.

The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth?
www.talkdesign.org/faqs/johnson.html

A Militant Dilettante in Judgment of Science
www.talkreason.org/articles/johnson.cfm

Critiques of Anti-Evolutionist Phillip Johnson's Views
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/johnson.html

Darwin on Trial: A Review
www.ncseweb.org/resources/resources/165252685546.asp

Origin of the Specious
reason.com/9707/fe.bailey.shtml

Phillip Johnson's dishonest quote
www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb04.html#run

Darwin on Trial, Johnson on Trial
home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho14.htm

Intelligent Design: An Ambiguous Assault on Evolution
www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050922_ID_main.html

The Newest Evolution of Creationism
www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html#overview


In the first one, you will notice that there was every chance for Johnson to put his point of view in the face of criticism that renders his book largely worthless and he did not.

In the second and third, there is a detailed criticism of Johnson's work. His bias is clear. He had a chance to answer this criticism but has not.

In the fourth, Johnson is criticised for redefining terms to suit his argument. Again, he has had a chance to rebutt this argument but has chosen not to discuss his work openly.

... and so on

Wednesday 26 October 2005

Poem: Egrets (which sounds like Regrets)

Egrets

Once as I travelled through a quiet evening,
I saw a pool, jet-black and mirror-still.
Beyond, the slender paperbarks stood crowding;
each on its own white image looked its fill,
and nothing moved but thirty egrets wading -
thirty egrets in a quiet evening.

Once in a lifetime, lovely past believing,
your lucky eyes may light on such a pool.
As though for many years I had been waiting,
I watched in silence, till my heart was full
of clear dark water, and white trees unmoving,
and, whiter yet, those thirty egrets wading.


-- Judith Wright, Birds (1962), aka Thirty Egrets Wading

Thursday 20 October 2005

Boldly Dying?

I present the following extract from Yahoo's online answer to the question below.

Does anyone else get a sort of mental jarring sensation, akin to missing a step?
Whatever happened to Eliot Ness after the trial of Al Capone?
... Mr. Ness finally met his match in the infamous Cleveland Torso Murderer. Ness never successfully nabbed the Torso Murderer, who decapitated and de-limbed at least twelve unfortunate souls. He later decamped to Washington, D.C., where he headed the Diebold Safe Company before making an unsuccessful run for Cleveland mayor in 1947 ...
One wonders what might have been found inside some of those safes. Do any readers consider this might throw any light on the recent bad odour around the Diebold Co in relation to US election machines?

Wednesday 19 October 2005

I am A Camera says:
I have an early digital camera, the Nikon Edsel*. It records the images on punched cards, so I have to keep the pictures small. This picture is stored on 105 punched cards.

... I do like to push the envelope of... erm... envelopes.

www.flickr.com/photos/iamacamera/50746736/in/photostream/

[Remembering what "gomi" means, see Origomi's images ( www.flickr.com/photos/origomi). Still, I like the patterns.]

[* Hmmmmmm ]


The Museum of Unworkable Devices
www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/unwork.htm
This museum is a celebration of fascinating devices that don't work. It houses diverse examples of the perverse genius of inventors who refused to let their thinking be intimidated by the laws of nature

Wednesday 12 October 2005

Flickr; and Mirror Imaged Sculptures

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

inspiredbydante.home.att.net - also d.j.keller.home.att.net

The Seven Deadly Sins Interactive Sculpture Series

(Lust, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, Envy, Pride, Wrath)
The sculptures are exhibited with mirrors and the viewer, looks through the mask to visualize his or her pure eyes through the mask. The mask becomes a metaphor for the body or outer shell, and the eyes reveal the soul or inner self. This interaction with the sculpture makes a very intriguing and thought provoking experience because the viewer BECOMES part of the sculpture.