I have always been a huge fan of Sci-Fi books. The genre has been around for better than a hundred years now having been pioneered by the likes of HG Wells and Jules Verne in the late 19th century. Remarkably even today Verne's and Wells' timeless stories of alien invasion and deep sea adventure continue to captivate the insatiable ranks of fandom. The books stand head and shoulders above the movies that have been made from them. There are a few exceptions but most sci-fi fans are ultimately disappointed by the efforts of Hollywood in the sci-fi arena.
Here is a list of the top 100 Sci-Fi books of all time - I have put in bold the ones I have read and I have given them my own 5 star rating guide. There are quite a number of great books that don't appear here and a number of top-notch authors (namely Ben Bova & Anne McCaffrey) who are missing all together - so we may all take umbrage with this list but it was the best I could find. One way or another we all have a lot of good reading ahead...
1 Frank Herbert Dune ****
2 Orson Scott Card Ender's Game *****
3 Isaac Asimov Foundation
4 Douglas Adams Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
5 George Orwell 1984 ****
6 Robert A Heinlein Stranger in a Strange Land ***
7 Aldous Huxley Brave New World
8 Arthur C Clarke 2001: A Space Odyssey
9 Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
10 Isaac Asimov I, Robot
11 Robert A Heinlein Starship Troopers
12 William Gibson Neuromancer
13 Larry Niven Ringworld ****
14 Philip K Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
15 H G Wells The Time Machine ****
16 Arthur C Clarke Childhood's End ****
17 Arthur C Clarke Rendezvous With Rama
18 Dan Simmons Hyperion *****
19 H G Wells The War of the Worlds ***
20 Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five
21 Orson Scott Card Speaker for the Dead
22 Joe Haldeman The Forever War
23 Robert A Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
24 Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles
25 Neal Stephenson Snow Crash
26 Ursula K Le Guin The Left Hand of Darkness
27 Niven & Pournelle The Mote in God's Eye ****
28 Madeleine L'Engle A Wrinkle In Time
29 Orson Scott Card Ender's Shadow
30 Philip K Dick The Man in the High Castle
31 Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
32 Frederik Pohl Gateway *****
33 Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon
34 Neal Stephenson Cryptonomicon 1999
35 Walter M Miller A Canticle for Leibowitz
36 Roger Zelazny Lord of Light
37 Jules Verne 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ***
38 Isaac Asimov The Caves of Steel
39 Alfred Bester The Stars My Destination
40 John Wyndham The Day of the Triffids
41 Stanislaw Lem Solaris
42 Kurt Vonnegut Cat's Cradle
43 Philip K Dick UBIK
44 Isaac Asimov The Gods Themselves
45 Mary Shelley Frankenstein
46 Michael Crichton Jurassic Park
47 Robert A Heinlein Time Enough For Love
48 Isaac Asimov The End Of Eternity
49 Kurt Vonnegut The Sirens of Titan
50 Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon the Deep
51 Alfred Bester The Demolished Man
52 Kim Stanley Robinson Red Mars
53 Niven & Pournelle Lucifer's Hammer ****
54 L Ron Hubbard Battlefield Earth *****
55 Ursula K Le Guin The Dispossessed
56 Philip José Farmer To Your Scattered Bodies Go
57 Iain M Banks Player Of Games]
58 Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale
59 Greg Bear Eon ***
60 Gene Wolfe The Shadow of the Torturer
61 Jules Verne Journey to the Center of the Earth
62 Iain M Banks Use of Weapons
63 David Brin Startide Rising
64 John Wyndham The Chrysalids
65 Harry Harrison The Stainless Steel Rat
66 Philip K Dick The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch
67 Robert A Heinlein The Door Into Summer
68 Connie Willis Doomsday Book
69 Michael Crichton The Andromeda Strain ***
70 H G Wells The Invisible Man
71 Peter F Hamilton The Reality Dysfunction ***
72 Neal Stephenson The Diamond Age
73 William Gibson Burning Chrome
74 Arthur C Clarke The City and the Stars
75 Carl Sagan Contact **
76 Mark Twain A Connecticut Yankee in KA's Court
77 Robert Louis Stevenson Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde 78 Clifford Simak Way Station
79 Robert A Heinlein The Puppet Masters
80 David Brin The Uplift War
81 Audrey Niffenegger The Time Traveler's Wife
82 Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars
83 Ursula K Le Guin The Lathe of Heaven
84 Robert A Heinlein Citizen Of the Galaxy
85 George R Stewart Earth Abides
86 Robert A Heinlein Have Space-Suit - Will Travel ***
87 John Varley Titan ***
88 David Brin The Postman
89 C S Lewis Out of the Silent Planet
90 Philip K Dick VALIS
91 Robert A Heinlein The Past Through Tomorrow
92 Greg Bear Blood Music
93 Theodore Sturgeon More Than Human
94 William Gibson Pattern Recognition
95 Clifford Simak City
96 John Brunner Stand on Zanzibar
97 E E 'Doc' Smith Grey Lensman
98 Stanislaw Lem The Cyberiad
99 Pat Frank Alas, Babylon ****
100 Roger Zelazny This Immortal
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Friday, May 12, 2006
The Time Traveler Essay: A Must Read
Please take the time to read this essay (it is admittedly quite long, but it really is worth it). It is chilling and poignant. This fictional encounter with a Time Traveler from the near future reads like a novel because it it written by a novelist who engages speculative fiction based on historical realities that he cites at the end of the piece. In the past many furturists have been off the mark by a long shot, but in my opinion the speculated future in this essay is not only possible but probable.
If you take nothing else from reading this please realize that all this navel gazing by the media and the Democrats is going to get us all killed. George W. Bush is not the enemy - he is, in fact, one of the only world leaders who gets it...
DAN SIMMONS - Time Traveler Essay
If you take nothing else from reading this please realize that all this navel gazing by the media and the Democrats is going to get us all killed. George W. Bush is not the enemy - he is, in fact, one of the only world leaders who gets it...
DAN SIMMONS - Time Traveler Essay
Friday, May 05, 2006
Why Won't You Die?
Socialism Keeps Hanging On
There's a scene in one of the Batman movies where Twoface (played by Tommy Lee Jones) cries out in despair "Why won't you die?!" Time after time The Batman escapes death to become the arch villan's worst nightmare - again and again. Well, it seems that the caped crusader has something in common with the ideology we know as socialism.
I am considered an ardent right-winger by the people who know me best, but what I actually am is an fanatical anti-socialist. I am as puzzled by the seemingly universal appeal of socialism as I am by those who think Meg Ryan is a fine actor. Maybe it's because the people who embrace socialism are so put off by the seeming immorality of the profit driven capitalist they see portrayed on TV and in the movies. Somehow they believe that a cradle-to-grave nanny-state is more righteous than selfish profiteering from one's own talent and hard work. In fact, it is the secular socialist that refuses to be judged in moral terms for virtually anything. We are just supposed to ignore the fact that socialism in practice is an abject failure because the socialists have nothing but the purest intentions in theory. That is, of course, the height and depth of socialist hypocrisy.
In a fascinating piece on TCS Daily Lee Harris asks "Why Isn't Socialism Dead?" Harris illustrates my previous point with apt definition of the socialist dreamer:
Utopian socialists love to dream up ideal schemes for organizing human life; they engage in wishful politics, and design all sorts of utterly impractical but theoretically perfect social systems, none of which has the slightest chance of ever being actualized in concrete reality.
The problem is that we live in the real world, not someone's fantasy of how social systems "should" be. The leftist believes that man is inherently good and will look out for the benefit of the "community" if it were not for the unfair and unjust society that capitalism has created. The rest of know that most people will look out for their own self interest when push comes to shove. It's called human nature. Europe is dying because of the self-hatred socialism produces. Follow anything commetator Mark Steyn writes on the demographic plight white Europeans find themselves in. It is the secular socialism of the me generation that will see Europea as we know disappear before the end of this century. Can American self hatred be far behind?
Bottom Line:
Markets as free from government interference as possible are the best hope for human dignity and success. Populism contains only empty promises because there is nothing to build a wealth foundation on for the average Joe. Ask yourself why the average Cuban is dirt poor and Fidel Castro has billions? For better or worse capitalism offers the most for the most.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr writes:
The market economy has created unfathomable prosperity and, decade by decade, century by century, miraculous feats of innovation, production, distribution, and social coordination. To the free market, we owe all material prosperity, all leisure time, our health and longevity, our huge and growing population, nearly everything we call life itself. Capitalism and capitalism alone has rescued the human race from degrading poverty, rampant sickness, and early death.
And Ludwig von Mises writes:
The capitalistic economic system, that is the social system based on private ownership of the means of production, is rejected unanimously today by all political parties and governments. No similar agreement may be found with respect to what economic system should replace it in the future. Many, although not all, look to socialism as the goal. They stubbornly reject the result of the scientific examination of the socialistic ideology, which has demonstrated the unworkability of socialism. They refuse to learn anything from the experiences of the Russian and other European experiments with socialism....
...an economic arrangement which is assumed to represent a compromise solution, the "middle-of-the-road" between socialism and capitalism. To be sure, there is no intent to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Private property will be permitted to continue, although directed, regulated and controlled by government and by other agents of society’s coercive apparatus. With respect to this system of interventionism, the science of economics points out, with incontrovertible logic, that it is contrary to reason, that the interventions, which go to make up the system, can never accomplish the goals their advocates hope to attain, and that every intervention will have consequences no one wanted.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr continues:
After Mises wrote this, fascism tightened its grip in Italy, and the Third Reich began its program of extreme interventionism, militarism, and protectionism in Germany. The New Deal came to the U.S., and the entire era ended in world war and holocaust. How much has changed, really, in 71 years? The hatred of markets must be countered by defenses of freedom in every generation. Our lives depend on it.
So I ask again - Socialism - Why won't you die?
CW
There's a scene in one of the Batman movies where Twoface (played by Tommy Lee Jones) cries out in despair "Why won't you die?!" Time after time The Batman escapes death to become the arch villan's worst nightmare - again and again. Well, it seems that the caped crusader has something in common with the ideology we know as socialism.
I am considered an ardent right-winger by the people who know me best, but what I actually am is an fanatical anti-socialist. I am as puzzled by the seemingly universal appeal of socialism as I am by those who think Meg Ryan is a fine actor. Maybe it's because the people who embrace socialism are so put off by the seeming immorality of the profit driven capitalist they see portrayed on TV and in the movies. Somehow they believe that a cradle-to-grave nanny-state is more righteous than selfish profiteering from one's own talent and hard work. In fact, it is the secular socialist that refuses to be judged in moral terms for virtually anything. We are just supposed to ignore the fact that socialism in practice is an abject failure because the socialists have nothing but the purest intentions in theory. That is, of course, the height and depth of socialist hypocrisy.
In a fascinating piece on TCS Daily Lee Harris asks "Why Isn't Socialism Dead?" Harris illustrates my previous point with apt definition of the socialist dreamer:
Utopian socialists love to dream up ideal schemes for organizing human life; they engage in wishful politics, and design all sorts of utterly impractical but theoretically perfect social systems, none of which has the slightest chance of ever being actualized in concrete reality.
The problem is that we live in the real world, not someone's fantasy of how social systems "should" be. The leftist believes that man is inherently good and will look out for the benefit of the "community" if it were not for the unfair and unjust society that capitalism has created. The rest of know that most people will look out for their own self interest when push comes to shove. It's called human nature. Europe is dying because of the self-hatred socialism produces. Follow anything commetator Mark Steyn writes on the demographic plight white Europeans find themselves in. It is the secular socialism of the me generation that will see Europea as we know disappear before the end of this century. Can American self hatred be far behind?
Bottom Line:
Markets as free from government interference as possible are the best hope for human dignity and success. Populism contains only empty promises because there is nothing to build a wealth foundation on for the average Joe. Ask yourself why the average Cuban is dirt poor and Fidel Castro has billions? For better or worse capitalism offers the most for the most.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr writes:
The market economy has created unfathomable prosperity and, decade by decade, century by century, miraculous feats of innovation, production, distribution, and social coordination. To the free market, we owe all material prosperity, all leisure time, our health and longevity, our huge and growing population, nearly everything we call life itself. Capitalism and capitalism alone has rescued the human race from degrading poverty, rampant sickness, and early death.
And Ludwig von Mises writes:
The capitalistic economic system, that is the social system based on private ownership of the means of production, is rejected unanimously today by all political parties and governments. No similar agreement may be found with respect to what economic system should replace it in the future. Many, although not all, look to socialism as the goal. They stubbornly reject the result of the scientific examination of the socialistic ideology, which has demonstrated the unworkability of socialism. They refuse to learn anything from the experiences of the Russian and other European experiments with socialism....
...an economic arrangement which is assumed to represent a compromise solution, the "middle-of-the-road" between socialism and capitalism. To be sure, there is no intent to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Private property will be permitted to continue, although directed, regulated and controlled by government and by other agents of society’s coercive apparatus. With respect to this system of interventionism, the science of economics points out, with incontrovertible logic, that it is contrary to reason, that the interventions, which go to make up the system, can never accomplish the goals their advocates hope to attain, and that every intervention will have consequences no one wanted.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr continues:
After Mises wrote this, fascism tightened its grip in Italy, and the Third Reich began its program of extreme interventionism, militarism, and protectionism in Germany. The New Deal came to the U.S., and the entire era ended in world war and holocaust. How much has changed, really, in 71 years? The hatred of markets must be countered by defenses of freedom in every generation. Our lives depend on it.
So I ask again - Socialism - Why won't you die?
CW
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
In Search of... New Music
I am going nuts trying to find new music and new artists lately. It used to be that I could go out on the Internet to certain mp3 download sites and find something new and original that really excited me. I was primarily interested in finding high-quality unsigned artists and bands.
The best site for a while was the original MP3.com. Unfortunately once it became rock solid technologically and had developed a host of excellent services for artists and users alike it became the target of lawsuits. In particular the RIAA and a number of high profile artists came down on it like a ton of bricks.
Weakened financially by the lawsuits, MP3.com was eventually acquired by Vivendi Universal in May of 2001 for $372 million in cash and stock. Vivendi didn't understand what it had which led to difficulties growing the service and so it was eventually dismantled and sold off. All of its assets including the URL and logo were sold to CNET in 2003.
The rest of the story is very sad. It has become just another vehicle for promoting the same crap the record companies have been throwing at the radio stations for the last ten years. There have been a few sites that have tried to re-create the beauty that was MP3.com like Garageband.com and SoundClick.com . These sites, despite being well done, have not captured the imagination and frankly the quality of artists the way the original MP3.com did. To put it bluntly there is a lot of garbage out there.
In one sense having the traditional music industry weed out the junk was a valuable service but unfortunately the urban hip-hop and rap culture has so dominated the airwaves that the truly good melody-based music only occasionally eeks out.
I am just not interested in hip-hop or rap. I'm not crazy about country music either but I like some of it a lot.
I gravitate toward Power Pop, Hard Rock, Album Orientated Rock, Blues, Alternative, Progressive Rock, Power Ballads, Big Band sound and some Latin Rock and Reggae too... I have been trying to get into Christian Rock and I must say I think the "music" part is very good but the lyrics are just too sappy for me. There are a few artists that get the message across in a subtle and effective manner, but most go overboard with the hallelujahs.
That leads me to the Grand Daddy of them all - Classic Rock. I love Classic Rock, but face it, I heard it all before. I want something new.
Here a couple of new bands and artists I have come across lately:
Blue Merle
Carbon Leaf
8 Stops 7
Howie Day
Keane
Snow Patrol
Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments or e-mail me at willrocc@msn.com
CW
The best site for a while was the original MP3.com. Unfortunately once it became rock solid technologically and had developed a host of excellent services for artists and users alike it became the target of lawsuits. In particular the RIAA and a number of high profile artists came down on it like a ton of bricks.
Weakened financially by the lawsuits, MP3.com was eventually acquired by Vivendi Universal in May of 2001 for $372 million in cash and stock. Vivendi didn't understand what it had which led to difficulties growing the service and so it was eventually dismantled and sold off. All of its assets including the URL and logo were sold to CNET in 2003.
The rest of the story is very sad. It has become just another vehicle for promoting the same crap the record companies have been throwing at the radio stations for the last ten years. There have been a few sites that have tried to re-create the beauty that was MP3.com like Garageband.com and SoundClick.com . These sites, despite being well done, have not captured the imagination and frankly the quality of artists the way the original MP3.com did. To put it bluntly there is a lot of garbage out there.
In one sense having the traditional music industry weed out the junk was a valuable service but unfortunately the urban hip-hop and rap culture has so dominated the airwaves that the truly good melody-based music only occasionally eeks out.
I am just not interested in hip-hop or rap. I'm not crazy about country music either but I like some of it a lot.
I gravitate toward Power Pop, Hard Rock, Album Orientated Rock, Blues, Alternative, Progressive Rock, Power Ballads, Big Band sound and some Latin Rock and Reggae too... I have been trying to get into Christian Rock and I must say I think the "music" part is very good but the lyrics are just too sappy for me. There are a few artists that get the message across in a subtle and effective manner, but most go overboard with the hallelujahs.
That leads me to the Grand Daddy of them all - Classic Rock. I love Classic Rock, but face it, I heard it all before. I want something new.
Here a couple of new bands and artists I have come across lately:
Blue Merle
Carbon Leaf
8 Stops 7
Howie Day
Keane
Snow Patrol
Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments or e-mail me at willrocc@msn.com
CW
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Dawkins, Darwin and Designers
Food for Thought...
One of the most fascinating things about the endless debate over embracing the Darwinist view as opposed to a "designed" view of existence is the aspect of human consciousness. Why is it that human beings seek to "understand" the meaning and purpose of life? Is there a reason to be - or not to be? Why do we exist at all? (Do animals ask themselves these questions???) Is life, the universe and our personal existence really pointless - utterly meaningless? If it is, why can't mankind just accept it? Is the search for a creator simply a coping mechanism to enable our feeble minds to be a peace with the unexplainable?
I just finished a fine Sci-Fi novel by Dan Simmons called "Hyperion" and there was one concept that the author explored that really got me thinking. In the novel some 800 years into the future mankind had spawned fully conscious AI (artificial intelligence). AI went on to secede from the Hegemony of Man to act as an independant entity neither beholden to nor controlled by mankind. Is this remotely possible in our future? I submit that it is and the implications are mindbending.
As you know we already have computers that can mechanically out perform human beings hands down in computaional terms. We have even designed computers that can play and beat some of the greatest chess players in the world. Chess being a challenging game that requires forethought, strategy and cunning - concepts heretofore reserved for the thinking brain. (Animals possess these attributes, think of a lion pride on the hunt... ) We - mankind - are the creators of these machines. How long before a cyber-brain is capable of creating it's own machines and systems?
According to people like Ray Kurzweil and Stephen L. Thaler we are a lot closer than you would imagine. Kurzweil, an inventor and businessman is the author of the book "The Singularity Is Near" where he explores the coming of the end of the division between the biological entity and the machine entity. Thaler is the founder of an incredble company that uses as the basis for its product line artificial neural networks. He envisions a world consciousness stemming from the collective power our interconnected world where the sum of all human knowledge would be readily accessable. In short AI is near. What does it ultimately mean for mankind and our future?
In the Simmons novel AI had progressed so far beyond the humans that had created (designed) it that it strongly debated the possibility of a forced extinction of all of humanity. What a quandry! Destroy your own designer...
Bring On Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is often referred to as Darwin's Rottweiler due to his rather emphatic defense of Evolution and Natural Selection. I find him absolutely fascinating and find it rather hard to shoot holes in his proclamations. He is a relentless warrior against a theistic view (of anything). In my heart I am a believer in a Creator in the form of the Triune God (God - the Father, Jesus - God made into a man and the Holy Spirit - God inside man). Though I rarely feel I have the mastery of either subject to be able to adequately debate a Dawkins follower I can't simply let it go either. The arrogance and absolutism of most Darwinists is maddening.
So when Dawkins claims, as he does here...
Not only can natural selection mimic design; it is the only known natural process that can mimic design. And now, here is the most difficult thing that I wish people understood. True design can never be an ultimate explanation for anything, because the designer himself is left unexplained. Designers are statistically improbable things, and trying to explain them as made by prior designers is ultimately futile, because it leads to an infinite regress.
... I feel that his circular logic is lacking something fundamental. He is basically restating the classic conudrum: which came first the chicken or the egg?
Dawkins goes on the summarize:
So distant are many people from understanding this, they seriously believe that the existence of functional improbability is evidence in favour of intelligent design - the greater the improbability, the stronger the evidence. Truly, the precise opposite is the case. I wish that more people understood this.
The TechnoCore spawned by AI in the Simmons novel it knew its initial designer - humans, but did it need to know what designed human beings? Or what designed the Creator of humanity? Can it destroy humanity and not destroy itself?
Can we destroy God and not destroy ourselves? Probably not.
If we remove the spiritual, soul searching aspect of humanity would we really be human anymore? Sure, biologically we would still be homo sapiens but rather than shedding the usless appendage of faith we would be removing that which makes us uniquely human, the very thing separates us from the cave man. The endless search for knowledge and understanding is really a search for God.
That only brings us to another quandry which is - what about the cave man? Why, where, when did humanity biologically and spiritually stop being the "cave man"?
I turn your attention to this item from GodAndScience.Org which seeks to square the known paleoarcheology with the Bible...
The creation account of man in Genesis 1:26-27 states, "Let us make (asah) man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created (bara) man in his own image, in the image of God, he created (bara) him; male and female he created (bara) them."
Like I said - food for thought
CW
One of the most fascinating things about the endless debate over embracing the Darwinist view as opposed to a "designed" view of existence is the aspect of human consciousness. Why is it that human beings seek to "understand" the meaning and purpose of life? Is there a reason to be - or not to be? Why do we exist at all? (Do animals ask themselves these questions???) Is life, the universe and our personal existence really pointless - utterly meaningless? If it is, why can't mankind just accept it? Is the search for a creator simply a coping mechanism to enable our feeble minds to be a peace with the unexplainable?
I just finished a fine Sci-Fi novel by Dan Simmons called "Hyperion" and there was one concept that the author explored that really got me thinking. In the novel some 800 years into the future mankind had spawned fully conscious AI (artificial intelligence). AI went on to secede from the Hegemony of Man to act as an independant entity neither beholden to nor controlled by mankind. Is this remotely possible in our future? I submit that it is and the implications are mindbending.
As you know we already have computers that can mechanically out perform human beings hands down in computaional terms. We have even designed computers that can play and beat some of the greatest chess players in the world. Chess being a challenging game that requires forethought, strategy and cunning - concepts heretofore reserved for the thinking brain. (Animals possess these attributes, think of a lion pride on the hunt... ) We - mankind - are the creators of these machines. How long before a cyber-brain is capable of creating it's own machines and systems?
According to people like Ray Kurzweil and Stephen L. Thaler we are a lot closer than you would imagine. Kurzweil, an inventor and businessman is the author of the book "The Singularity Is Near" where he explores the coming of the end of the division between the biological entity and the machine entity. Thaler is the founder of an incredble company that uses as the basis for its product line artificial neural networks. He envisions a world consciousness stemming from the collective power our interconnected world where the sum of all human knowledge would be readily accessable. In short AI is near. What does it ultimately mean for mankind and our future?
In the Simmons novel AI had progressed so far beyond the humans that had created (designed) it that it strongly debated the possibility of a forced extinction of all of humanity. What a quandry! Destroy your own designer...
Bring On Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is often referred to as Darwin's Rottweiler due to his rather emphatic defense of Evolution and Natural Selection. I find him absolutely fascinating and find it rather hard to shoot holes in his proclamations. He is a relentless warrior against a theistic view (of anything). In my heart I am a believer in a Creator in the form of the Triune God (God - the Father, Jesus - God made into a man and the Holy Spirit - God inside man). Though I rarely feel I have the mastery of either subject to be able to adequately debate a Dawkins follower I can't simply let it go either. The arrogance and absolutism of most Darwinists is maddening.
So when Dawkins claims, as he does here...
Not only can natural selection mimic design; it is the only known natural process that can mimic design. And now, here is the most difficult thing that I wish people understood. True design can never be an ultimate explanation for anything, because the designer himself is left unexplained. Designers are statistically improbable things, and trying to explain them as made by prior designers is ultimately futile, because it leads to an infinite regress.
... I feel that his circular logic is lacking something fundamental. He is basically restating the classic conudrum: which came first the chicken or the egg?
Dawkins goes on the summarize:
So distant are many people from understanding this, they seriously believe that the existence of functional improbability is evidence in favour of intelligent design - the greater the improbability, the stronger the evidence. Truly, the precise opposite is the case. I wish that more people understood this.
The TechnoCore spawned by AI in the Simmons novel it knew its initial designer - humans, but did it need to know what designed human beings? Or what designed the Creator of humanity? Can it destroy humanity and not destroy itself?
Can we destroy God and not destroy ourselves? Probably not.
If we remove the spiritual, soul searching aspect of humanity would we really be human anymore? Sure, biologically we would still be homo sapiens but rather than shedding the usless appendage of faith we would be removing that which makes us uniquely human, the very thing separates us from the cave man. The endless search for knowledge and understanding is really a search for God.
That only brings us to another quandry which is - what about the cave man? Why, where, when did humanity biologically and spiritually stop being the "cave man"?
I turn your attention to this item from GodAndScience.Org which seeks to square the known paleoarcheology with the Bible...
The creation account of man in Genesis 1:26-27 states, "Let us make (asah) man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created (bara) man in his own image, in the image of God, he created (bara) him; male and female he created (bara) them."
The words in parentheses are the ancient Hebrew words that are translated into English as the word create. The Hebrew definitions19 of these words have direct bearing on this discussion.
Asah - to make, create. It is used in the sense of fashioning an already created object.
Bara - to create, bring about, to bring into existence out of nothing. Indicates a new creative act not a refashioning of an existing object.
The creation of man is described using two different verbs in the Hebrew. One verb (asah) means to fashion using a substance already in existence. The other verb (bara) means to bring something into existence that never existed before. This accounts for man's connection to the animal kingdom, and his biochemical and morphological similarity to other primates.20 This also considers his unique qualities, such as awareness of absolute right and wrong, concern about death and beyond, a tendency towards worship of that which is outside of nature, and self-awareness. These spiritual qualities cause man to bear God's image, and give man his unique standing among all living creatures in the animal kingdom.
Biblical dating of man's origins using genealogies in Genesis puts his first appearance at tens of thousands of years ago, but no later. These genealogies are incomplete but adequate for their intended purposes in the text. The biblical account describes humans as originating from a single geographical region. Moreover, it requires the sudden appearance of modern man in the fossil and archeological record and no clear connection with any other bipedal primate. (This does not mean that man does not share anatomical or biochemical features in common with hominids, but rather that there is no clear evolutionary connection to other hominids.)
Like I said - food for thought
CW
Hypocrisy Abounds
Watching Senator Chucky Schumer (D-NY) grandstand on the current gasoline prices is enough to turn my stomach. All across the country politicians - primarily Democrats - are staging events at gas stations to emphasize the pain American motorists are suffering, and the hypocrisy is neck deep. These phony baloneys then slink off to get into their SUV's to travel one block back to their offices.
They are demanding that the oil companies answer for the obscene profits they are realizing due to the current squeeze on localized supplies. The global supply is very tight as well but the problem we are experiencing now has more to do with politicians than with the oil business itself. Boutique fuels, as they are called, required in many parts of the country for air quality reasons have the effect of disrupting local supplies. This is especially true in the transistion period from winter to summer blends. Add to this the terrible energy bill passed last year and viola, a crisis to politicize.
Besides the usual refrain that it's all "Bush's fault" (everything is) they are screaming about the oil companies and their record profits. My research tells me that a maximum of 9% of a gallon gas is profit for the big bad oil companies. Historically for any enterprize a profit of 6% is considered a success. So, yessir indeed the oil companies are a success. My research also shows that the governement - state and local - realize at least a 14% profit from each gallon. In some states it can be as high as 20%. Of course these governmental entities do practically nothing for that money outside of regulatory and compliance tasks. Guess what? If the bottom fell out on prices and the oil companies profits dry up ( and it has happened before) the good 'ol government would still realize 14% + profits - taxes are a fixed component in the cost of a gallon of gas.
These lying political opportunists have not only stood in the way of increasing domestic drilling and refining that would at least marginally protect us from localized price flucuations thay have consistantly piled on the taxes as well.
So shut up Chucky! You make me sick.
CW
They are demanding that the oil companies answer for the obscene profits they are realizing due to the current squeeze on localized supplies. The global supply is very tight as well but the problem we are experiencing now has more to do with politicians than with the oil business itself. Boutique fuels, as they are called, required in many parts of the country for air quality reasons have the effect of disrupting local supplies. This is especially true in the transistion period from winter to summer blends. Add to this the terrible energy bill passed last year and viola, a crisis to politicize.
Besides the usual refrain that it's all "Bush's fault" (everything is) they are screaming about the oil companies and their record profits. My research tells me that a maximum of 9% of a gallon gas is profit for the big bad oil companies. Historically for any enterprize a profit of 6% is considered a success. So, yessir indeed the oil companies are a success. My research also shows that the governement - state and local - realize at least a 14% profit from each gallon. In some states it can be as high as 20%. Of course these governmental entities do practically nothing for that money outside of regulatory and compliance tasks. Guess what? If the bottom fell out on prices and the oil companies profits dry up ( and it has happened before) the good 'ol government would still realize 14% + profits - taxes are a fixed component in the cost of a gallon of gas.
These lying political opportunists have not only stood in the way of increasing domestic drilling and refining that would at least marginally protect us from localized price flucuations thay have consistantly piled on the taxes as well.
So shut up Chucky! You make me sick.
CW
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
I've Got a Gas Problem...
No, not the one my kids talk about...
Having been fortunate enough to drive a company vehicle for 10 years in an earlier "profession" I fell out of the habit of checking gas prices as I passed various stations throughout the day. In the years that have ensued since leaving that job I never really paid much attention to temporary price hikes - but lately it has gotten out of control. In St. Paul we are approaching $3 a gallon for regular unleaded. I am starting to get angry about it. Someone has to answer for this!
Looking at the usual subjects it doesn't take long to figure out that it is special interests groups once again exerting undue influence in DC. Why those rat-bastard oil companies... Oh wait, not them? Then those devious, price gouging OPEC nations again... Um, not them either? Surely, it's the President's friends at Enron... No, out-of-business, you say. Then who?
Well, we can thank the US Congress for the extremely flawed energy bill they passed last year. By throwing a bone to the ethanol industry (read: farmers) without building in an orderly transition away from a potentially dangerous chemical called MTBE used as an oxygenate in many regions of the country, Congress has literally caused the price spikes we are seeing today. When adding this stupidity on top of the left's vitriolic road blocks to adding domestic capacity in drilling and refining there is plenty of blame to go around.
The President can also take the heat for signing this turd just so he can say he passed an energy bill. If anyone really wonders why President Bush is polling so low then one doesn't see the inverse relationship between his poll numbers and the cost of a gallon of gas. The Repulicans can crow about this wonderful expanding economy but Bush will only get credit when gas is back down below $1.99 a gallon. Then there's that disingenuous jack-ass party called the Democrats who act like the energy situation in this country is by no means their fault. Ha!
There is no question that the oil business is governed by the global markets and what the President and Congress and even the big, bad oil companies do individually do not by themselves cause these painful price hikes but they have certainly not helped. President Bush has halted shipments to the strategic reserves in order to keep more oil on the market, this should help some.
Unless China and India suddenly stop expanding their economies then the only thing that will really help in the short term is more production. That means more drilling and refining while we wait for the great technological breakthrough that will spell the beginning of the end for the oil age. The sooner the better - for both.
CW
Having been fortunate enough to drive a company vehicle for 10 years in an earlier "profession" I fell out of the habit of checking gas prices as I passed various stations throughout the day. In the years that have ensued since leaving that job I never really paid much attention to temporary price hikes - but lately it has gotten out of control. In St. Paul we are approaching $3 a gallon for regular unleaded. I am starting to get angry about it. Someone has to answer for this!
Looking at the usual subjects it doesn't take long to figure out that it is special interests groups once again exerting undue influence in DC. Why those rat-bastard oil companies... Oh wait, not them? Then those devious, price gouging OPEC nations again... Um, not them either? Surely, it's the President's friends at Enron... No, out-of-business, you say. Then who?
Well, we can thank the US Congress for the extremely flawed energy bill they passed last year. By throwing a bone to the ethanol industry (read: farmers) without building in an orderly transition away from a potentially dangerous chemical called MTBE used as an oxygenate in many regions of the country, Congress has literally caused the price spikes we are seeing today. When adding this stupidity on top of the left's vitriolic road blocks to adding domestic capacity in drilling and refining there is plenty of blame to go around.
The President can also take the heat for signing this turd just so he can say he passed an energy bill. If anyone really wonders why President Bush is polling so low then one doesn't see the inverse relationship between his poll numbers and the cost of a gallon of gas. The Repulicans can crow about this wonderful expanding economy but Bush will only get credit when gas is back down below $1.99 a gallon. Then there's that disingenuous jack-ass party called the Democrats who act like the energy situation in this country is by no means their fault. Ha!
There is no question that the oil business is governed by the global markets and what the President and Congress and even the big, bad oil companies do individually do not by themselves cause these painful price hikes but they have certainly not helped. President Bush has halted shipments to the strategic reserves in order to keep more oil on the market, this should help some.
Unless China and India suddenly stop expanding their economies then the only thing that will really help in the short term is more production. That means more drilling and refining while we wait for the great technological breakthrough that will spell the beginning of the end for the oil age. The sooner the better - for both.
CW
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