What? Ann Coulter Is A Dark Ager!?
Oh boy, I'm in trouble now. Luky is hard at watching COSMOS. He's been talking about it for days, and not only did the 25th Anniversary broadcast premier last night on the Science Channel, but they are showing the first two episodes of the series yesterday and today. I think they go to one episode per week starting next Tuesday night at 9:00 EST.
Luky stayed up to watch while I went to bed halfway through episode one last night. I figured I'd catch both hours again today - and besides, I own them on video. The whole thing is more meaningful to Luky - after all, he's not even eight human years old - he was 17 and a half years from being born when the series originally aired on PBS.
Episode 2 - "One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue" - is about the origins of life. As Sagan says, the arguments and evidence for evolution are unambiguous.
I told Luky I thought it was really odd that Darwin and Wallace did all the work almost two millennia ago, in the early to mid-1800's, and discovered the mechanism for evolution and the origin of species, and we still have people arguing against teaching that science in schools. It's almost like we desire ignorance.
Luky calls them "Dark Agers." He says it all happens for the same reason humans vote the way we do. Humans are afraid of truth.
"That's a little harsh," is my comment.
Of course, Luky is always the gentleman and never expresses things (like I do) in a manner to intentionally offend . . . heck, it's not really a desire to offend - it's just that I've lost my Rock 'n' Roll chops these days and have to do something to raise the temperature.
Anyway, Luky was quick to point out the segment in the first episode of COSMOS where Sagan describes the well-known, well-documented story of Eratosthenes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes) who, about 250 years before the birth of Jesus, not only deduced that the Earth was round, but very accurately measured its circumference.
"And though YOU," Luky sort of grows at me with his enthusiastic disdain . . . he means 'mankind' when he says 'YOU' with that kind of emphasis . . . "had that knowledge way back then, your 'explorers' were still begging kings and queens for ships to go prove it fifteen hundred years later!
"Why?" he continued. "Because you elected ignorance."
"Yes," I was feeling a little defensive, "don't forget that back then the politics and the church were very close together - people got their heads removed for thinking or saying heretical things."
Luky just smiled at me. I could tell he was expecting me to connect the dots . . . like, for example, Ann Coulter's 2003 book, "Treason," really should have been called, "Heresy"!
I guess my frustration just comes out sometimes . . . "Hey, we're only human beings! What do you expect!?!"
Luky just shakes all over. Malamute undercoat goes floating off like dandelion seeds. He straightens himself and sniffs the air, and then looks around for four-legged females as if I weren't even there!
Luky stayed up to watch while I went to bed halfway through episode one last night. I figured I'd catch both hours again today - and besides, I own them on video. The whole thing is more meaningful to Luky - after all, he's not even eight human years old - he was 17 and a half years from being born when the series originally aired on PBS.
Episode 2 - "One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue" - is about the origins of life. As Sagan says, the arguments and evidence for evolution are unambiguous.
I told Luky I thought it was really odd that Darwin and Wallace did all the work almost two millennia ago, in the early to mid-1800's, and discovered the mechanism for evolution and the origin of species, and we still have people arguing against teaching that science in schools. It's almost like we desire ignorance.
Luky calls them "Dark Agers." He says it all happens for the same reason humans vote the way we do. Humans are afraid of truth.
"That's a little harsh," is my comment.
Of course, Luky is always the gentleman and never expresses things (like I do) in a manner to intentionally offend . . . heck, it's not really a desire to offend - it's just that I've lost my Rock 'n' Roll chops these days and have to do something to raise the temperature.
Anyway, Luky was quick to point out the segment in the first episode of COSMOS where Sagan describes the well-known, well-documented story of Eratosthenes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes) who, about 250 years before the birth of Jesus, not only deduced that the Earth was round, but very accurately measured its circumference.
"And though YOU," Luky sort of grows at me with his enthusiastic disdain . . . he means 'mankind' when he says 'YOU' with that kind of emphasis . . . "had that knowledge way back then, your 'explorers' were still begging kings and queens for ships to go prove it fifteen hundred years later!
"Why?" he continued. "Because you elected ignorance."
"Yes," I was feeling a little defensive, "don't forget that back then the politics and the church were very close together - people got their heads removed for thinking or saying heretical things."
Luky just smiled at me. I could tell he was expecting me to connect the dots . . . like, for example, Ann Coulter's 2003 book, "Treason," really should have been called, "Heresy"!
I guess my frustration just comes out sometimes . . . "Hey, we're only human beings! What do you expect!?!"
Luky just shakes all over. Malamute undercoat goes floating off like dandelion seeds. He straightens himself and sniffs the air, and then looks around for four-legged females as if I weren't even there!
posted by RAM at 12:41 PM
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