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April 14, 2007

Intelligent Evolution

Lee Emmerich Jamison

Albert Einstein was famous for his use of mind experiments, little mental models and scenarios set up to explore ideas.  Let's try one here.

Imagine that you are a benign sentient microbe.  You and a social network of your friends live in a human brain, each of you able to observe the actions of at most fifteen or twenty neurons.  As individuals you would be able to observe the firing of these neurons.  As a group you might be able to ascertain that there is an order to the "universe" of the vast organism comprised of your, and their, neurons.  Would you, or all of you together, be able to detect the intelligence of the larger organism?

No.  Undoubtedly you would not.

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February 27, 2007

Ownership and God

On Friday we were able to go out to see a production of Archibald MacLeish's "J.B.", a modernized version of the story contained in the biblical Book of Job.  With due consideration given to the fact that the production was put on by Huntsville's First Christian Church it was quite good.  There was nothing amateurish about the effort and it was possible for us to think about the really radical message that comes to us from one of the oldest books in the Bible.

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February 23, 2007

On "Christian" Leaders

Lee Emmerich Jamison

Austin columnist Dave McNeely, writing on the relative Christianity of our national leaders a couple of years ago, really pulled my chain. More recent efforts by Texas Governor Rick Perry to force the mechanisms of government to pursue his personal vision of medical beneficence have further highlighted this issue.  The notion that truly Christian leaders would not restrain or even reduce government spending on programs aimed at relief for the "poor" and "under-privileged" is so flawed and is such a staple of misguided liberal rhetoric that it cannot go unaddressed.

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February 07, 2007

Evolution and the Mind of God

Lee Emmerich Jamison

A peculiar inconsistency reigns in the worlds of politics and religion.  In America the religious right too frequently eschews the concept of evolution as a fact in the development of species while embracing it in the economy.  On the other hand the other end of the politcal spectrum wholeheartedly endorses evolution among species while decrying it as a form of economic dynamism. 

What goes here?

It is fairly simple, really.  Neither side knows what the heck they are talking about.

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February 05, 2007

Omnipotent God

In view of the previous entry it seemed a good moment to repeat an article written about two years ago about the nature of faith for those willing to let God be God. Read on-

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Presence at the Creation

Lee Emmerich Jamison

See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20070205/cm_usatoday/thebiblevsscience;_ylt=AmmfS.FR5eNgew05F8sK0G3MWM0F;_ylu=X3oDMTA3YWFzYnA2BHNlYwM3NDI-

There apparently is a controversy about whether the shops at the Crand Canyon should offer for sale books giving a creationist point of view abou the creation of the Grand Canyon itself.  Gee...

I find both creationists and those who get all hot and bothered about them rather humorous.  In the story referenced above what is referred to as a "protesting group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an alliance of scientists, land managers, environmental advocates and others, calls it distressing that the park service is not sticking to pure, mainstream geology in the information it dispenses at the Grand Canyon.", as the story states.  The overwhelming body of publications offered at the canyon shops support the prevailing scientific view.  Why on Earth are they so upset?

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