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Albatrossity2



Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 24 2010,21:01   

Seems as good a place as any to post this.

My Amazon review of Robert Richards book on Haeckel has attracted an IDiot who is claiming that modern textbooks have the original Haeckel drawings. After a bit of taunting, he posted a list of books where He (or some other idiot he is quoting) claims that this figure appears. I've got some of them, and he's wrong about those. But I don't have all of them. So if any of you have a collection of old textbooks, take a peek at his list and let me know if he is right about that figure being in any of them!

thanks

Dave

--------------
Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind
Has been obligated from the beginning
To create an ordered universe
As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.
                        - Pattiann Rogers

   
Bjarne



Posts: 29
Joined: Dec. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 25 2010,07:23   

Quote (Bjarne @ July 06 2010,22:45)
Quote (Kattarina98 @ July 06 2010,13:41)
Quote (Bjarne @ July 05 2010,16:46)
Hmm, this might be the perfect birthday present for my dad. Though € 50 is a bit much for a comic book for my taste. Is it worth the money?

I think it is - it's huge, approximately 20 by 30 cm, elegant lay-out, expensive paper, and the drawings are real artwork.

Thanks. Its now definitely on the list of possible presents. :)

Bought it for him and it really makes a great appearance. Unfortunately, I've hadn't heard yet, if he liked it.

   
Kattarina98



Posts: 1267
Joined: Sep. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 25 2010,10:50   

Quote (dvunkannon @ Aug. 24 2010,15:37)
Bottom line - Jews have had a consistent understanding of the age of the earth since the beginning of rabbinic Judaism (at least). I'm not a student of historical Christian eschatology, but I've never heard of the idea that Christian authors have continually redefined what 6000 years means so that their own times were always just shy of 6000.

You have a point, I should have given more information. So here goes:

325 Council of Nicea: Eusebius of Caesarea presented his chronology which was based on Flavius Josephus, Julius Africanus (a Christian, born ca. 160) and the Septuagint. In 395, St. Jerome translated Eusebius's book and the Bible into Latin, and thus determined the style for official chronology for the next 1,400 years.
The first part of the Septuagint, the Pentateuch, contains the genealogy of the Hebrew tribes, starting from Adam and Eve.
Quote
For Eusebius and all future chronologists, these explicit life spans were always the starting point.

While Josephus Flavius in his Antiquities had used only the Bible, Julius Africanus had used the Bible, comparing it to Greek, Egyptian, and Persian sources.
Quote
Julius's first task was to determine how much time had elapsed from the birth of Adam, which was five days after the beginning of Creation, to the Deluge, or Noah's Flood. Using the ages of the descendants of Adam detailed in the aSeptuagint, Julius determined that the rains started 2,261 years after Creation. He believed that the Flood lasted twelve months, thus the year 2262 marks the beginning of the post-Flood period.
The next chapter in the Chronologia covers the period from when Noah first stepped off the ark to when the great father of the Jews, Abrahem, entered the Promised Land. Julius calculated that this period lasted another 1,015 years. So Abraham crossed the Euphrates River into Canaan in the year 3277. By Julius's reckoning, Abraham represented the twentieth generation after Adam. ...
From Exodus on, Julius's chore became more difficult because the Book of Moses, which had paid such close attention to the ages of the Hebrew forefathers, comes to an end. Not to be deterred, Julius calculated that 585 years separated the Ten Commandments and the dedication of the great Jewish temple in Jerusalem, built by King Solomon, bringing the chronology up to the year 429. ... Finally, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in the 5,500th year after Creation.
Julius brought his Chronologia up to A.D. 221, the year he completed his book ... stating that Jesus Christ was born five and one-half millennia after the beginning of time. This was significant, because Julius was not simply writing a world history with a focus on dates. In fact, his real purpose was to give context to biblical prophesy. He was most concerned with predicting the second coming of Christ, the thousand-year reign described in the Book of Revelation, ...

And this is the important bit:
Quote
Julius predicted that the present world would continue until the year A.D. 500 - 6,000 years after Creation. ... All future chronologists would calculate the earth's age to be 6,000 years at the time of the Second Coming. ... James Usher would date the beginning of the world at 4004 B.C.; this gave him nearly 350 years until the end of the sixth millennium.

In the next paragraphs Repcheck describes the Talmud, much like you did.
Then he talks about the obvious problem arising with the Second Coming never taking place when predicted:
Quote
Julius's and Eusebius's careful works would be the benchmarks for alll future chronologists; ... But, their successors would continually push back the end of the 6,000 years, as each threshold for the Second Coming neared. St. Jerome, Eusebius's translator, was the first to practice this form of recalculation; he placed the birth of Christ at 5,2000 years since Creation, putting off the end of the sixth millennium until A.D. 800. This kind of fudging was easily done because there was enough uncertainty in the original figures to allow for reinterpretation. The remaining chronologists were consistent in putting off the end of the sixth millennium until a couple of hundred years after their own deaths.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire many new chronologies cropped up.
Repcheck mentions the most important authors: Isidor of Sevilla, Bede the Venerable, Joachim of Fiore, Otto of Freising, Martin Luther.
Quote
... he made a significant adjustment for the end of the sixth millennium ... this giving his Protestant followers nearly 500 years to prepare for the return of Christ.

More chronologists: James Ussher, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton.

I hope I have quoted and interpreted Repcheck faithfully.

--------------
Barry Arrington is a bitch.

  
Kattarina98



Posts: 1267
Joined: Sep. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 25 2010,10:52   

Quote (Bjarne @ Aug. 25 2010,07:23)
Quote (Bjarne @ July 06 2010,22:45)
Quote (Kattarina98 @ July 06 2010,13:41)
 
Quote (Bjarne @ July 05 2010,16:46)
Hmm, this might be the perfect birthday present for my dad. Though € 50 is a bit much for a comic book for my taste. Is it worth the money?

I think it is - it's huge, approximately 20 by 30 cm, elegant lay-out, expensive paper, and the drawings are real artwork.

Thanks. Its now definitely on the list of possible presents. :)

Bought it for him and it really makes a great appearance. Unfortunately, I've hadn't heard yet, if he liked it.

Please tell me when you hear from him.

--------------
Barry Arrington is a bitch.

  
Kattarina98



Posts: 1267
Joined: Sep. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 25 2010,10:56   

Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 24 2010,21:01)
Seems as good a place as any to post this.

My Amazon review of Robert Richards book on Haeckel has attracted an IDiot who is claiming that modern textbooks have the original Haeckel drawings. After a bit of taunting, he posted a list of books where He (or some other idiot he is quoting) claims that this figure appears. I've got some of them, and he's wrong about those. But I don't have all of them. So if any of you have a collection of old textbooks, take a peek at his list and let me know if he is right about that figure being in any of them!

thanks

Dave

Over at UD, IDiots GEM of TKI and gpuccio made this claim, referring to a list made by Casey Luskin. When pressed to provide evidence, it turned out that no matter what image you use - photos or modern drawings - it is always Haeckel's drawing. Would you like me to find the relevant comments?

--------------
Barry Arrington is a bitch.

  
Albatrossity2



Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 25 2010,11:07   

Quote (Kattarina98 @ Aug. 25 2010,10:56)
Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 24 2010,21:01)
Seems as good a place as any to post this.

My Amazon review of Robert Richards book on Haeckel has attracted an IDiot who is claiming that modern textbooks have the original Haeckel drawings. After a bit of taunting, he posted a list of books where He (or some other idiot he is quoting) claims that this figure appears. I've got some of them, and he's wrong about those. But I don't have all of them. So if any of you have a collection of old textbooks, take a peek at his list and let me know if he is right about that figure being in any of them!

thanks

Dave

Over at UD, IDiots GEM of TKI and gpuccio made this claim, referring to a list made by Casey Luskin. When pressed to provide evidence, it turned out that no matter what image you use - photos or modern drawings - it is always Haeckel's drawing. Would you like me to find the relevant comments?

Thanks. I think I found it here. If there is another discussion I missed, I'd appreciate hearing about that as well!

--------------
Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind
Has been obligated from the beginning
To create an ordered universe
As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.
                        - Pattiann Rogers

   
Kattarina98



Posts: 1267
Joined: Sep. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 25 2010,11:18   

Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 25 2010,11:07)
 
Quote (Kattarina98 @ Aug. 25 2010,10:56)
 
Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 24 2010,21:01)
Seems as good a place as any to post this.

My Amazon review of Robert Richards book on Haeckel has attracted an IDiot who is claiming that modern textbooks have the original Haeckel drawings. After a bit of taunting, he posted a list of books where He (or some other idiot he is quoting) claims that this figure appears. I've got some of them, and he's wrong about those. But I don't have all of them. So if any of you have a collection of old textbooks, take a peek at his list and let me know if he is right about that figure being in any of them!

thanks

Dave

Over at UD, IDiots GEM of TKI and gpuccio made this claim, referring to a list made by Casey Luskin. When pressed to provide evidence, it turned out that no matter what image you use - photos or modern drawings - it is always Haeckel's drawing. Would you like me to find the relevant comments?

Thanks. I think I found it here. If there is another discussion I missed, I'd appreciate hearing about that as well!

On UD, there was the thread Blind Guides.

--------------
Barry Arrington is a bitch.

  
Albatrossity2



Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 25 2010,11:34   

Quote (Kattarina98 @ Aug. 25 2010,11:18)
Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 25 2010,11:07)
 
Quote (Kattarina98 @ Aug. 25 2010,10:56)
   
Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 24 2010,21:01)
Seems as good a place as any to post this.

My Amazon review of Robert Richards book on Haeckel has attracted an IDiot who is claiming that modern textbooks have the original Haeckel drawings. After a bit of taunting, he posted a list of books where He (or some other idiot he is quoting) claims that this figure appears. I've got some of them, and he's wrong about those. But I don't have all of them. So if any of you have a collection of old textbooks, take a peek at his list and let me know if he is right about that figure being in any of them!

thanks

Dave

Over at UD, IDiots GEM of TKI and gpuccio made this claim, referring to a list made by Casey Luskin. When pressed to provide evidence, it turned out that no matter what image you use - photos or modern drawings - it is always Haeckel's drawing. Would you like me to find the relevant comments?

Thanks. I think I found it here. If there is another discussion I missed, I'd appreciate hearing about that as well!

On UD, there was the thread Blind Guides.

Thanks

Looks like pretty much the same list!

--------------
Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind
Has been obligated from the beginning
To create an ordered universe
As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.
                        - Pattiann Rogers

   
Kattarina98



Posts: 1267
Joined: Sep. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 25 2010,12:09   

Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 25 2010,11:34)
 
Quote (Kattarina98 @ Aug. 25 2010,11:18)
 
Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 25 2010,11:07)
     
Quote (Kattarina98 @ Aug. 25 2010,10:56)
     
Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 24 2010,21:01)
Seems as good a place as any to post this.

My Amazon review of Robert Richards book on Haeckel has attracted an IDiot who is claiming that modern textbooks have the original Haeckel drawings. After a bit of taunting, he posted a list of books where He (or some other idiot he is quoting) claims that this figure appears. I've got some of them, and he's wrong about those. But I don't have all of them. So if any of you have a collection of old textbooks, take a peek at his list and let me know if he is right about that figure being in any of them!

thanks

Dave

Over at UD, IDiots GEM of TKI and gpuccio made this claim, referring to a list made by Casey Luskin. When pressed to provide evidence, it turned out that no matter what image you use - photos or modern drawings - it is always Haeckel's drawing. Would you like me to find the relevant comments?

Thanks. I think I found it here. If there is another discussion I missed, I'd appreciate hearing about that as well!

On UD, there was the thread Blind Guides.

Thanks

Looks like pretty much the same list!

Some pictures here:
You need to scroll down a bit.

--------------
Barry Arrington is a bitch.

  
dvunkannon



Posts: 1377
Joined: June 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 25 2010,13:16   

Quote (Kattarina98 @ Aug. 25 2010,11:50)
Quote (dvunkannon @ Aug. 24 2010,15:37)
Bottom line - Jews have had a consistent understanding of the age of the earth since the beginning of rabbinic Judaism (at least). I'm not a student of historical Christian eschatology, but I've never heard of the idea that Christian authors have continually redefined what 6000 years means so that their own times were always just shy of 6000.

You have a point, I should have given more information. So here goes:

325 Council of Nicea: Eusebius of Caesarea presented his chronology which was based on Flavius Josephus, Julius Africanus (a Christian, born ca. 160) and the Septuagint. In 395, St. Jerome translated Eusebius's book and the Bible into Latin, and thus determined the style for official chronology for the next 1,400 years.
The first part of the Septuagint, the Pentateuch, contains the genealogy of the Hebrew tribes, starting from Adam and Eve.
 
Quote
For Eusebius and all future chronologists, these explicit life spans were always the starting point.

While Josephus Flavius in his Antiquities had used only the Bible, Julius Africanus had used the Bible, comparing it to Greek, Egyptian, and Persian sources.
 
Quote
Julius's first task was to determine how much time had elapsed from the birth of Adam, which was five days after the beginning of Creation, to the Deluge, or Noah's Flood. Using the ages of the descendants of Adam detailed in the aSeptuagint, Julius determined that the rains started 2,261 years after Creation. He believed that the Flood lasted twelve months, thus the year 2262 marks the beginning of the post-Flood period.
The next chapter in the Chronologia covers the period from when Noah first stepped off the ark to when the great father of the Jews, Abrahem, entered the Promised Land. Julius calculated that this period lasted another 1,015 years. So Abraham crossed the Euphrates River into Canaan in the year 3277. By Julius's reckoning, Abraham represented the twentieth generation after Adam. ...
From Exodus on, Julius's chore became more difficult because the Book of Moses, which had paid such close attention to the ages of the Hebrew forefathers, comes to an end. Not to be deterred, Julius calculated that 585 years separated the Ten Commandments and the dedication of the great Jewish temple in Jerusalem, built by King Solomon, bringing the chronology up to the year 429. ... Finally, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in the 5,500th year after Creation.
Julius brought his Chronologia up to A.D. 221, the year he completed his book ... stating that Jesus Christ was born five and one-half millennia after the beginning of time. This was significant, because Julius was not simply writing a world history with a focus on dates. In fact, his real purpose was to give context to biblical prophesy. He was most concerned with predicting the second coming of Christ, the thousand-year reign described in the Book of Revelation, ...

And this is the important bit:
 
Quote
Julius predicted that the present world would continue until the year A.D. 500 - 6,000 years after Creation. ... All future chronologists would calculate the earth's age to be 6,000 years at the time of the Second Coming. ... James Usher would date the beginning of the world at 4004 B.C.; this gave him nearly 350 years until the end of the sixth millennium.

In the next paragraphs Repcheck describes the Talmud, much like you did.
Then he talks about the obvious problem arising with the Second Coming never taking place when predicted:
 
Quote
Julius's and Eusebius's careful works would be the benchmarks for alll future chronologists; ... But, their successors would continually push back the end of the 6,000 years, as each threshold for the Second Coming neared. St. Jerome, Eusebius's translator, was the first to practice this form of recalculation; he placed the birth of Christ at 5,2000 years since Creation, putting off the end of the sixth millennium until A.D. 800. This kind of fudging was easily done because there was enough uncertainty in the original figures to allow for reinterpretation. The remaining chronologists were consistent in putting off the end of the sixth millennium until a couple of hundred years after their own deaths.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire many new chronologies cropped up.
Repcheck mentions the most important authors: Isidor of Sevilla, Bede the Venerable, Joachim of Fiore, Otto of Freising, Martin Luther.
 
Quote
... he made a significant adjustment for the end of the sixth millennium ... this giving his Protestant followers nearly 500 years to prepare for the return of Christ.

More chronologists: James Ussher, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton.

I hope I have quoted and interpreted Repcheck faithfully.

Thanks, Kattarina.

I looked into Repcheck's book via Amazon, and I have to say I am not impressed. His description of the creation of the Septuagint is sheer fantasy at times.

Quote
When Ptolemy II came to power, a standard version of the Hebrew Bible did not exist, the Holy Scriptures varied from tribe to tribe and were largely based on oral tradition.


What varied was the choice of books, not the content of each book (except for those books composed very recently - after the Babylonian Exile). The content of the Torah, the first five books, was very well established.

There were no more 'tribes' of Jews by this period. All Jews were (are) either from Judah or Levi (the priests and Levites). As a class with ritual and teaching roles, the priests and Levites lived completely intermingled with the other Jews.

A very large oral tradition did exist - the case law of the Jewish legal system for the most part. That is quite separate from the texts under discussion which were translated.

Repcheck correctly states that the Pentateuch covers from Creation to the death of Moses, though he wrongly calls it the Book (singular) of Moses. But later he says the Book of Moses ends with the Exodus, skipping three and a half books (and 70 odd years), and says this is a problem for Julius Africanus. Whatever Africanus' problems were (being off in his chronology by over thousand years by the birth of Abraham - and that was supposed to be the easy part!), Repcheck has his own problems understanding the Bible.

Similarly, he writes,
Quote
Just as Hebrew prophesy had its greatest flowering during the decades the Jews were enslaved by the Babylonians, the centuries after the fall of Rome represented another great flowering.


Umm, no. Repcheck conflates prophecy and eschatology. In the Jewish tradition, prophecy ends with destruction of the First Temple, and there is a very clear distinction between the kinds of texts produced before and after this event (especially if the second half of Isaiah is re-attributed to a later writer). What did 'flourish' was the Daniel and several books left out of the canon such as Enoch and Jubilees that had eschatological sections.

Repcheck's thesis in this section is easy for a secular reader to buy into, but his breezy retelling and attribution of motive are to my mind untrustworthy based on what I know about some of the material.

--------------
I’m referring to evolution, not changes in allele frequencies. - Cornelius Hunter
I’m not an evolutionist, I’m a change in allele frequentist! - Nakashima

  
Kattarina98



Posts: 1267
Joined: Sep. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 25 2010,14:12   

Quote (dvunkannon @ Aug. 25 2010,13:16)
(snip)
Repcheck's thesis in this section is easy for a secular reader to buy into, but his breezy retelling and attribution of motive are to my mind untrustworthy based on what I know about some of the material.

Well, I'm a secular reader, and though I am interested in history of religions, I read this book to learn about Hutton and his era.
Repcheck's main interest is to show the intellectual climate that made it difficult for Hutton to publish his theory - some decades ago heretics still suffered capital punishment in Scotland.
So if Repcheck misrepresented the part you mentioned we still do not know if the same goes for Christian chronology. I can't imagine he simply invented its history, especially its repeated recalculating.
I have half a mind to contact Heddle - besides browsing the net, of course, or going to the library.

--------------
Barry Arrington is a bitch.

  
J-Dog



Posts: 4402
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 25 2010,15:06   

Kattarina,

Quote
I have half a mind to contact Heddle


And as a Calvinist, he knows you are pre-ordained to contact him about this!

--------------
Come on Tough Guy, do the little dance of ID impotence you do so well. - Louis to Joe G 2/10

Gullibility is not a virtue - Quidam on Dembski's belief in the Bible Code Faith Healers & ID 7/08

UD is an Unnatural Douchemagnet. - richardthughes 7/11

  
Kattarina98



Posts: 1267
Joined: Sep. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Sep. 27 2010,11:15   

It's arrived!!!111one!

No time for tardmining for the next two days.

--------------
Barry Arrington is a bitch.

  
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Sep. 27 2010,13:36   

Quote (Kattarina98 @ Sep. 27 2010,09:15)
It's arrived!!!111one!

No time for tardmining for the next two days.

Must go order now.  :D

   
Lou FCD



Posts: 5455
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 22 2011,18:14   

This afternoon I became the proud new owner of these oldies.



Quote
From left to right:

Birds of Massachusetts and other New England States, Vol. I, by Edward Howe Forbush and illustrated with color plates from drawings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes for the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture, 1925.

American Mammals, Their Lives, Habits, and Economic Relations, by W. J. Hamilton Jr. of Cornell University, First Edition, Fourth Impression, 1939.

Everyday Problems in Biology, by Charles J. Pieper, Wilbur L. Beauchamp, and Orlin D. Frank, 1932 and 1936.

Charles Darwin, Autobiography and Letters, Edited by his son Francis Darwin, 1893.


And in that same order, I paid $10, $6.55, $3, and $5. The Everyday Problems is in rough shape but I love the names all written into it, with "Wilmington High School". The others might be 3 or 4 years old for the condition they're in.

It was a good day at the local bookstore.

--------------
“Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas?

Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend

   
dvunkannon



Posts: 1377
Joined: June 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 30 2011,13:21   

http://www.amazon.com/What-Re....0511594

Morris and Ham's Excellent Adventure! They have found their core audience - the preliterate and impressionable.

--------------
I’m referring to evolution, not changes in allele frequencies. - Cornelius Hunter
I’m not an evolutionist, I’m a change in allele frequentist! - Nakashima

  
fnxtr



Posts: 3504
Joined: June 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 30 2011,19:36   

Quote (dvunkannon @ Nov. 30 2011,11:21)
http://www.amazon.com/What-Re....0511594

Morris and Ham's Excellent Adventure! They have found their core audience - the preliterate and impressionable.

Gotta love those reviews. Not that the fools who want this book for their kids are ever going to read them. :-/

--------------
"[A] book said there were 5 trillion witnesses. Who am I supposed to believe, 5 trillion witnesses or you? That shit's, like, ironclad. " -- stevestory

"Wow, you must be retarded. I said that CO2 does not trap heat. If it did then it would not cool down at night."  Joe G

  
noncarborundum



Posts: 320
Joined: Jan. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 02 2011,14:15   

Quote (fnxtr @ Nov. 30 2011,19:36)
Quote (dvunkannon @ Nov. 30 2011,11:21)
http://www.amazon.com/What-Re....0511594

Morris and Ham's Excellent Adventure! They have found their core audience - the preliterate and impressionable.

Gotta love those reviews. Not that the fools who want this book for their kids are ever going to read them. :-/

From the reviews:
Quote
Bravo! In the world of children's books, this is the biggest thing since Dr. Seuss.
An utter game-changer.
This book is so ground-breaking that it inspired me to put together a detailed children's "pop-up" book based on Leviticus and Deuteronomy--and one that chronicles the events of Passover. After all, dinosaurs existed during these events--and yet sadly, have been excluded from these stories by the recklessness and thoughtless of godless historians, scientists and archaeologists. These stories need to be told WITHOUT SUCH INTELLECTUAL BIAS.
Here's where I'm going with this:
I'm thinking that it would be entertaining and informative for the kids to see dinosaurs eating the Egyptian first-born (Exodus never SAYS that dinosaurs didn't eat them), and perhaps to have a T-Rex giggling in the background as homosexuals and disobedient children are being stoned. We'll throw in a few koalas, kangaroos and other marsupials in, too. (Because of course, they didn't wind up in Australia out of NOWHERE, did they?)
After all, if you don't provide accurate historical evidence in the context of God's love, you may as well be the Devil himself.
If this goes as well as I think it will, I plan on releasing a similar rendition of the Book of Revelation.
Remember: we DO need to teach our children the truth--and we need to do this immediately and without any rational thought, lest their minds be poisoned by reason, science, and facts.
God bless.

A masterpiece of snark.

--------------
"The . . . um . . . okay, I was genetically selected for blue eyes.  I know there are brown eyes, because I've observed them, but I can't do it.  Okay?  So . . . um . . . coz that's real genetic selection, not the nonsense Giberson and the others are talking about." - DO'L

  
fnxtr



Posts: 3504
Joined: June 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 11 2012,13:20   

I'm in the middle of "Point" by Thomas Blackthorne, aka John Meaney.  Just wondering how well he's known across the pond.  It's like a William Gibson / Robert Ludlum collaboration, with the British penchant for dark introspection, like Aldiss and Orwell.

--------------
"[A] book said there were 5 trillion witnesses. Who am I supposed to believe, 5 trillion witnesses or you? That shit's, like, ironclad. " -- stevestory

"Wow, you must be retarded. I said that CO2 does not trap heat. If it did then it would not cool down at night."  Joe G

  
Schroedinger's Dog



Posts: 1692
Joined: Jan. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 13 2012,05:23   

Received my (signed, bwahahaha) copy of 50 Voices of Disbelief. Gonna run through it!

--------------
"Hail is made out of water? Are you really that stupid?" Joe G

"I have a better suggestion, Kris. How about a game of hide and go fuck yourself instead." Louis

"The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is that vampires are allergic to bullshit" Richard Pryor

   
Amadan



Posts: 1337
Joined: Jan. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 13 2012,08:53   

Anyone read Snuff?

What did you think?

--------------
"People are always looking for natural selection to generate random mutations" - Densye  4-4-2011
JoeG BTW dumbass- some variations help ensure reproductive fitness so they cannot be random wrt it.

   
Schroedinger's Dog



Posts: 1692
Joined: Jan. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 13 2012,11:03   

Quote (Amadan @ Jan. 13 2012,15:53)
Anyone read Snuff?

What did you think?

I did, and I loved it. Really enjoyed the growing relationship between Vimes and Willikins.

I thought Pratchett may have lost it a bit with Unseen Academicals (too messy for me, close to the first books) but with Snuff, I really felt he got a hand on his material.

And Goblins? Yeah!!!

--------------
"Hail is made out of water? Are you really that stupid?" Joe G

"I have a better suggestion, Kris. How about a game of hide and go fuck yourself instead." Louis

"The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is that vampires are allergic to bullshit" Richard Pryor

   
Amadan



Posts: 1337
Joined: Jan. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 13 2012,16:16   

Quote (Schroedinger's Dog @ Jan. 13 2012,17:03)
Quote (Amadan @ Jan. 13 2012,15:53)
Anyone read Snuff?

What did you think?

I did, and I loved it. Really enjoyed the growing relationship between Vimes and Willikins.

I thought Pratchett may have lost it a bit with Unseen Academicals (too messy for me, close to the first books) but with Snuff, I really felt he got a hand on his material.

And Goblins? Yeah!!!

I got if for Hogwatch (tee hee!) and was very disappointed. Laboured humour, what looked like desperate attempts to include familiar tropes, and a general lack of the don't-blink-now scene switching that was so much part of the fun in the earlier books.



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"People are always looking for natural selection to generate random mutations" - Densye  4-4-2011
JoeG BTW dumbass- some variations help ensure reproductive fitness so they cannot be random wrt it.

   
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 13 2012,17:41   

Quote (Amadan @ Jan. 13 2012,06:53)
Anyone read Snuff?

What did you think?

I have read it twice now. The second reading was better. I think Pratchett was cramming too much happening at too many locations. I did not like the more assertive Williams. I really like the late implications re:Nobby and possible hereditarty influences.  

As a point of reference, my All Time favorite disk world was "Thief of Time."

Edited by Dr.GH on Jan. 13 2012,15:53

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"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

   
Schroedinger's Dog



Posts: 1692
Joined: Jan. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 14 2012,04:22   

My favorite is "Nightwatch". Maybe this might explain why I enjoyed "Snuff" so much. I am really attached to Sam Vimes, and to a lesser extent, Willikins (Jingo FTW!).

I think Sir Pterry has become more complex in his plots and character developments. I guess I've adapted to it...

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"Hail is made out of water? Are you really that stupid?" Joe G

"I have a better suggestion, Kris. How about a game of hide and go fuck yourself instead." Louis

"The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is that vampires are allergic to bullshit" Richard Pryor

   
Kattarina98



Posts: 1267
Joined: Sep. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 14 2012,11:53   

I've got two favourites, "Nightwatch" and "Unseen Academicals". I never saw why people would go all excited about football (soccer for the yanks) until I read "Unseen Academicals".

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Barry Arrington is a bitch.

  
dvunkannon



Posts: 1377
Joined: June 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 15 2012,08:02   

Quote (Schroedinger's Dog @ Jan. 14 2012,05:22)
My favorite is "Nightwatch". Maybe this might explain why I enjoyed "Snuff" so much. I am really attached to Sam Vimes, and to a lesser extent, Willikins (Jingo FTW!).

I think Sir Pterry has become more complex in his plots and character developments. I guess I've adapted to it...

Nightwatch, +1

I hadn't read any Pratchett before this book. I think I picked it up in an airport before a long flight. Huge mistake, never slept, couldn't stop reading it. Great book.

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I’m referring to evolution, not changes in allele frequencies. - Cornelius Hunter
I’m not an evolutionist, I’m a change in allele frequentist! - Nakashima

  
dvunkannon



Posts: 1377
Joined: June 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 15 2012,08:23   

Just finished David Deamer's First Life.

The main point of the book is to expound on Deamer's theory that lipid based vesicles were important to OOL.

Having read a lot of pop sci literature (Zimmer, Ridley, etc.) it shows that Deamer is a working scientist, not a professional writer. At times the book felt padded by reviews of everything from the Big Bang onward, and an explanation of what name comes first in an article reference. And there was a fair bit of chemistry porn, in which the author gives a bit too much detail on lab procedures.

Deamer's take home message is that OOL requires some minimum complexity, and most scientists are not willing to attempt the messy experiments necessary. In a football analogy, grant funded science is a "three yards and down" ground game, and OOL needs some Hail Mary passing.

His last chapter describes his ideal update of the Miller-Urey experiment. It's big, throws a lot into the mix, and would cost a couple million to run. At the same time, he acknowledges that it would have to run over and over, with multiple changes in atmosphere, temperature, pressure, etc. which would increase the cost. But at the same same time, he mentions that robotic experimentation runs hundreds of experiments at the same time. However, the two ideas never connect - that you have to reduce OOL experiments to something that can be done on a microfluidics chip in large batches.

Recommended.

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I’m referring to evolution, not changes in allele frequencies. - Cornelius Hunter
I’m not an evolutionist, I’m a change in allele frequentist! - Nakashima

  
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 15 2012,10:40   

Quote (dvunkannon @ Jan. 15 2012,06:23)
Just finished David Deamer's First Life.

I also liked Deamer's book. I have been a "fan" of sorts for years. His membrane research is the link between stochatic reactions to metabolism.

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"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

   
Kattarina98



Posts: 1267
Joined: Sep. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 31 2012,11:35   

Baby Jesus finally delivered my Christmas present:
Evolution's Witness - How Eyes Evolved
Ivan R. Schwab, Oxford University Press 2012
306 pages, 28,5 x 22 cm

Easy to navigate contents pages, generous index


I have had a first quick look at it; it is definitely layperson friendly. Lots of pictures, too.







(my images not to scale)

Soon I'll be able to tear kairosfocus to shreds when he comes up once again with his doubts about the evolution of the eye.

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Barry Arrington is a bitch.

  
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