New lakeview red stunt

Yesterday. Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

Bike Ride...

Well yesterday we got in a 12.82 mile ride on Lake View 1&2.  It was a great ride and they have done some more work to those trails and we found several new “Red” sections to the trails that had some crazy new stunts. Our total ride time was about 1’45 minutes. We hooked up with some people there that had never ridden those trails so it was a good time for them as well. My knees are very sore today but it is worth it. Not too bad after being off for 3 weeks.  I kept up cardio in the gym where I work out and I had already ridden 16.2 miles this week so I am very happy with all of that.   Have a good day…

 

RMStringer

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You have no conscience and it seems you never will - Cyberaktif

 

Morning Ride!!

I am off to ride at Pocahontas Park! We are going to ride Lake View 1&2 which will be a 12 mile ride. It is my first ride in a month due to all the traveling that we have been doing…I can’t wait!

 

 

RMStringer

********************

IMBA Member: Dec 2007

 

Thought for today...

The war on terror would be 'won in large measure by forces you do not know about, in actions you will not see and in ways you may not want to know about.' Buzzy Krongard CIA pg245 'Blackwater' Posted via my LGVX8600 phone.

National Aquarium in Baltimore

National Aquarium in Baltimore, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

Baltimore Weekend 2.1.2008

This is an Australian Mud-Skipper. It remindes me of the Muddy Mud-Skipper show that was on Ren&Stimpy...

A Sunspot in the New Solar Cycle.

2008 February 6


Credit & Copyright: Greg Piepol

Explanation: A new cycle has begun on our Sun. Over the past year, the Sun's magnetic field has reset and now a new 11 year period is beginning. Pictured above in a specific color of light emitted by hydrogen is sunspot 10982, one of the first sunspots of the new solar cycle. The two dark lines visible just above and to either side of the bright sunspot are cool filaments held aloft by the Sun's magnetic field. Hot and cold regions are shown as regions of relative light and dark, respectively. A solar cycle is caused by the changing magnetic field, and varies from solar maximum, when sunspot, coronal mass ejection, and flare phenomena are most frequent, to solar minimum, when such activity is relatively infrequent. Solar minimums occurred in 1996 and 2007, while the last solar maximum occurred in 2001. Of course, tomorrow's annular solar eclipse is mostly for penguins.

What is your opinion?
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Could Superman Get Cut by a Lightsaber?

This is very interesting...
I thought that some of you might like to know this!~

It’s a question that sounds like something that characters in a Kevin Smith movie would debate for a solid hour of a movie, but fortunately Gizmodo’s crack team of sci-fi and superhero geeks have put their heads together to come up with an answer so we all can rest a little easier.

Yes
• If the lightsaber crystal was green, like green kryptonite, or if they actually used kryptonite as the crystal, then Superman would melt like a hot knife through even hotter dog droppings.
• Superman’s been injured by lasers before (see most aliens he’s fought), so an extremely focused laser like a lightsaber could possibly hurt him if applied directly to the skin for a long enough time.
• If he were under the effects of kryptonite, when even bullets can hurt him, then a lightsaber could definitely chop off parts of his body.

No
• What type of radiation does the lightsaber emit? It’s light, and Superman gets power from the sun, so the lightsaber could be a refreshing lamp.
• It would just burn off his clothes, like in Superman 2, but it wouldn’t hurt him.
• He uses lasers (his own heat vision) to shave himself, so the best the lightsaber could do would to singe his chest hair, or give him a nice shave down there.
• Jedis can’t actually cut through “everything” with the sword. Example: the big huge door in Episode I. They had to jam in their lightsabers and “melt” a doorway inside the door. The sword was fast to go into the door because they applied all the force to the tip, but was slow cutting because the Jedis are only so strong. Picture you cutting through a watermelon. In the same principle, a lightsaber technically might be able to cut through Superman, but there’s nobody strong enough to force it through. Unless you somehow get the Hulk to use a lightsaber. But the Hulk doesn’t exist.

Verdict: Superman wins!

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Sunset on the lake...

This was taken off of Woolridge going across Swift Creek Reservoir this evening. Look at the reflection of the clouds on the water...

Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

Before the storm...

Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

Thought for today...

A stranger should be well-mannered...Fallujah proverb pg48 'Blackwater' Posted via my LGVX8600 phone.

Im starting this book.

I have several going at the same time.
From RMStringer

Dorey Park in eastern Henrico County.

I would love for this park to reopen. I also want to go and check it out even if it is "closed"

Plan could reopen park trail to riders

Club, county work to repair Dorey paths damaged by storm

 

Chris McMillan, 30, a member of Mid-Atlantic Off-Road Enthusiasts, rides his mountain bike at Dorey Park in eastern Henrico County. The club is working toward an agreement with the county to restore mountain bike trails in the park.
Photo By: JOE MAHONEY/TIMES-DISPATCH

By WILL JONES

TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Mountain-bikers looking to pump their pedals in Henrico County might end up at Dorey or Deep Run parks if they read trail reviews on the Internet.

But according to the county parks department, Henrico has mountain-bike trails only at Dorey -- and they've been closed for several years.

That could change under a proposed arrangement between Henrico and the Richmond area chapter of the Mid-Atlantic Off-Road Enthusiasts.

Last week, the Board of Supervisors agreed to have the county pursue an agreement with the 80-member club to restore trails at Dorey that were closed after being damaged by Hurricane Isabel in 2003.

Richmond MORE, which has done similar, no-cost work at the James River Park System in Richmond, advocates for trails that are designed using methods that limit ongoing maintenance, erosion, tree damage and other impacts.

MORE members say the demand for trails is evident by the unsanctioned, or "social," paths that are worn in Henrico's parks.

"The proof is in the park," said Greg Rollins, trail advocacy director for Richmond MORE and a resident of western Henrico. "If the users weren't asking for it, the leaves would fall on the trail, and the trails would go back to nature."

Henrico discourages the creation of social trails in its parks, but officials say the problem is difficult to control.

Board of Supervisors Chairman David A. Kaechele said working with Richmond MORE makes sense because of the proliferation of informal trails, including at the Twin Hickory Park site, which hasn't yet been developed.

"It expands the uses of the park for different people's interests," he said. "That's what they're there for."

Many of Henrico's parks have wide, relatively-flat, paved trails for joggers, cyclists and parents with baby strollers.

But mountain bikers crave a more extreme experience.

"They don't give the feeling of being in the woods," Rollins said of the wide paths. "The closeness of the trees gives you the feeling of speed."

Several miles of mountain-bike trails were built at Dorey about seven years ago with help of a state grant.

The trails, designed for beginner and intermediate riders, are officially closed, but they've gotten some continued use, based on trail reviews posted by riders at www.mtbr.com.

Rollins said Richmond MORE doesn't endorse social trails, and he sees them as a problem in all county parks. The club had proposed working with Henrico to design trails at Dorey and Deep Run, but the supervisors agreed to proceed at only Dorey despite liability concerns by County Manager Virgil R. Hazelett.

In 2000, a mountain-biker became a quadriplegic after crashing into a ravine at Poor Farm Park in Ashland while participating in a class sponsored by Henrico. Henrico later paid $1 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the rider, Barry Fountain, according to officials.

Richmond MORE's $1 million-per-accident insurance policy covers any trails built by the club, Rollins said. If all goes well at Dorey, the club hopes to design trails at Deep Run and elsewhere.

"We feel it's baby steps," he said.
Contact Will Jones at (804) 649-6911 or wjones@timesdispatch.com.

--
RMSTringer
+++++++++++++++

Some Baltimore Pics...

Sun reflection...


Neat reflection...


Statue in the Inner Harbor Park...


I took all of these with my cam phone. I hope to have some better pics uploaded this week.

What is your opinion?
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Over the weekend...

We made a trip to Baltimore Maryland for a Cheering Contest. We have been doing lots of traveling as of late but now we will be home for a few months before out next trip. I took a bunch of pics with the cam phone and have loaded them on my Fickr page. We went to the Inner Harbor in Baltimore

We did a 4 ship tour, The U.S.S. Constellation, The USCGC Taney, Chesapeake Lightship, The USS Torsk (submarine) plus The Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse, and i have some pics of them. We went to the Baltimore Aquarium and it was AMAZING! I have been to several aquariums around the country and this one was the best. We ate at the Hardrock Cafe and went to several stores around the harbor. The city was very clean and i was really impressed with it. If you get a chance, go and see it for yourself!


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If you Smell What Ba"Rock" Obama is Running For!!

Is it just me or has anyone noticed how much The Rock and Brarck look and sound alike? Take when Ba"Rock" gets to pitching his campaign speaches and when the Rock gets to saying his tel tel sayings...

Let em know what you think about the two of them..

Here are a few examples:
The Rock:




Ba"Rock" Obama:






What is your opinion?
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We won!

Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

Finished!

All done!
From RMStringer

Getting Ready

Cheer Curls...
From RMStringer

What I am reading today...

Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

I am Pissed!!

In our neighborhood there are no loose dogs running around. Our neighbors have a dog that is in a fenced area and our other neighbors have a dog that they keep in their garage and sometimes let it run in the back yard.  Our houses are about 15 feet apart on either side of our home.  I walked out to put the trash in the can that is located between our homes and found dog poop all over the ground near my trashcan.  Read what I said in the sentence before, We have no loose dogs.  They must keep it in the garage and the feel the need to sweep the poop right out the garage door that is located directly across from my trashcan.   That PISSES me off to no ends and I take the snow shovel and I scoop it right back into their yard.  I have done it several times now and I guess that they don't get the picture.  Please do not be trashy and keep their crap in their yard and not mine!

 

RMStringer

#################

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start,

anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." - Author Unknown

 

Hollywood Walk of Fame?

How the hell does or is Miley Cyrus even close to getting a star?  Actors and Actresses go their whole life without getting a star until they are dead and she at all of what 15 is about to get one?  What a load of crap!!  Those stars used to mean something like you were an established actor, not some tween star from the Dumnsey channel.  That just pisses me off to no ends.   It just goes to show you the state that Hollywood is in.

 

RMStringer

+++++++++++++++++++++++

"We are all geniuses when we dream"

- E.M. Cioran

 

Martha's Gingerbread Bi#$h

My friend has a new blog that he is working on. It is called " Martha's Gingerbread Bit#$" It is a general interest blog with neat articles, so please go and view it.

Thankx,

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Religious Shift...

It has been my experience that if you don't grow or change that you die. Take for instance the Catholic Church. Nowhere in the Bible does it say you cannot marry. Then take for example all of the issues with homosexual priests over the last 40+ years. This happens few and far between in Protestant religions of the world. I am a Methodist. It is a centrist religion as is many others like Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Baptist to a lesser extent. When I was in high school, the UMYF (United Methodist Youth Fellowship) was very crucial to me as it was a place to go and be with other teens in a safe environment. Many teens attended and it was held at different people’s houses every week and at the church on Sunday Evening.

You have to bring Religion to the people and relate it in a way that they can understand! Hellfire and Brimstone Baptist sermons are just not current to today’s populace. That is why I feel that many of the “Community” Churches are growing much more than say the Baptist Religion. Tell me where in the Bible it says that you can’t dance. We held dances after the football games and all the Baptist kids attended them as well as any other religion that we had in town. The Methodist Religion is growing by leaps and bounds due to the fact that they offer more to the people and the teen population. The Methodist Church we attend has a youth group that is well over 100+ teens that go to it. They have events that happen during the week and on Sunday evening. They have a youth band that performs at the church. You see? Bring something to the people and you have their attention. You have a safe haven for the youth that are the life-blood of the church for the new century. Without a strong youth program, the church will wither away, not grow, and finally die. I have seen it happen to many “back woods” churches as well as it can happen to city churches. I talked to a preacher over the weekend about this issue and he told me something very startling. He said that the Methodist Churches in that area were dieing due to them not changing with the times. The area is Southeast Texas, which is not the norm that I have seen but then I have not been in that area for many years, so I tend to believe him.

I guess what I am trying to convey is that if Religion as a whole does not grow and change to meet the times it will be a dead entity. I have dealt with many religious people in my time on earth, from religious fanatics to the atheist. People who try to push their religion on me, even though they mean well, turn me off to what they are saying. I can see that they try to “help” me, but some things I need to find out for myself, or ask the questions and not have their views pressed upon me. Likewise, nonreligious persons need not apply either. I believe what I believe and don't need your rhetoric either. People who spout off to be “holy” and if we place our faith in them surly fall just as Oral Roberts, Swaggart and Jim Baker. They lose their cred by being mightier than thou and condemning you for your view for they are the Religious Right or far Left and not centrist. just a few thoughts of mine.

Well, I am off for I have a few things to take care off around the house…

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Thought for today...

Christianity proposes to endow the individual with an eternal happiness, a good which is not distributed wholesale, but only to one individual at a time. !Postscript! Soren Kierkegaard 1846 Posted via my LGVX8600 phone.

Thought for today...

The systemic Idea is the identity of subject and object, the unity of thought and being-Idealism- Existance, on the other hand, is their separation-Existentialism- !Postscript! Soren Kierkegaard 1846 Posted via my LGVX8600 phone.

MC 900 Ft Jesus - While the city sleeps (1990)

I light the fires while the city sleeps...

Max Graham- Owner of a Lonely Heart (2005)

The original track was played by "Yes" in 1984 from the album 90125. It is a classic track and this mix is not to bad.

BT - Flaming June (1997)

When this hit the clubs, it was on full force!! He was/is Progressive Trance even though he has far surpassed that genre. BT is an incredible artist. I have all of his albums and he is one artist that i support.

Faithless - Insomnia (1995)

Tearing off tights with my teeth...I cant get no sleep!!

Enigma - Sadeness (1990)

He was the first artist to break this style of music onto the mainstream. Sandra is the girl singing the female vocals.

Enigma- Push the Limits (2000)

The full length track is awesome! The intro to this track is called "The Gate" it is taken from the album "The Screen Behind The Mirror" I have been a big fan of Enigma since they first came out.

Depeche Mode - Clean (1990)

This reminds me of Nacogdoches Texas...SFA GO Jacks!!

Depeche Mode - Barrel Of A Gun (1997)

Flood did the production on this album

Depeche Mode - Stripped (1986)

This is one of my favorite videos from DM!!

Depeche Mode - It's No Good (1997)

What a great track and good video!

Mahnahmahnah!

I just love this!!!

Update...

We have been on the road a lot as of late.  Two weeks ago we were in Charlotte North Carolina for a Cheer contest.  Last weekend we were in Texas for 4 days for a wedding.  I am tired but I have still been going to the gym. I have not been able to ride my mountain bike and I miss it.  I hope to be able to ride in the next two weeks. I have been reading an Anthology of Soren Kierkegaard as of late as you have seen the “Thoughts For The Day” posts that are quotes from the book.   It is some interesting reading to say the least.  I am also reading a book by Neil deGrasse Tyson called “Death By Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries.”  It is a very good read! Tyson has a unique ability to break down complex principals where the everyday reader can understand them.  Well, I need to go. So have a good evening!

 

RMStringer

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood

over questions of reality and illusion.

I know this: if life is an illusion, then I

am no less an illusion, and being thus, the

illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I

love, I slay, and I am content.

(Robert E. Howard, Queen of the Black Coast, Weird Tales, May 1934)

 

Thought for today...

The minds of men so often yearn for might and power, and their thoughtr are constantly being drawn to such things, as if by there attainment all mysteries would be resolved. Philosphical Fragments -A- Soren Kierkengaard 1844 Posted via my LGVX8600 phone.

Thought for today...

Is an historical point of departure possible for an eternal consicious: how can such a point of departure have any other than a mere historical interest: is it poss to base an eternal happiness upon historical knowledge? Fragments Of Philosophy-Soren Kierkengaard 1844 Posted via my LGVX8600 phone.

My window seat...

Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

Last week...Cheer contest

Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

Breakfast...Pecans!

Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

The Captian...

Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

Morality Play?

I live in America. It used to be at one time the greatest place on earth to live. Now Rape, Robbery, and Violence like Pastor John C. Hagee in San Antonio said one day; they are the norm on the TV and the Evening News. Is America the fabled Babylon? I think so. With the evening news being about Brittany Spears and her latest romp; where is the real news? We have a whole generation of little girls that want to be like her. We have a whole generation of boys dressing like they are from prison with the saggy pants that do not fit them. Urban music is the programming media for the next generation. The media is owned by corporations and they filter what we hear and see, only letting out what is in their best interest. The declining morals of our society have been occurring for many years but I think it can be traced to a critical point when Madalyn Murray O'Hair filed suit to stop prayer in school.

We used to be a God fearing society, that is no longer the case. The United Stated was founded on Biblical Principals and we have gotten away from them; it is expressed in the moral decay that we are experiencing in our society. With our nation being flooded by illegal immigrants and the business relocating to foreign countries, what will keep us afloat? Where else in the whole world can you go and have a baby and it become a citizen with all the benefits of a true American? Nowhere ELSE! I would go back to the isolationist principals of the early 1920s through the 1940s that lead us to another war. For if we do not look out for ourselves, then who will?

We were once the shining star in the world. Now no country, save a very small few, are our friends. We try to stand for all that is good and right but clearly fall on our faces. The level of decay we are facing is in my opinion paralleled only by Rome before its fall and decay. Where else in the world will more people vote for a singer on TV than will vote for the Presidential Elections? Only in a culture, so decadent as ours can that luxury be had. People use TV as a way to escape from their real duties. People use TV as a baby sitter instead of raising their children like in days past. TV is not the answer.

Do I claim to be any better? No, I struggle each and every day to make myself better and to try to rise above the quagmire of moral morass and decay that infest the country that we live in. I am no crusader like in the days of old. I am just one voice against the ever increasing wash of white-noise generated in cyberspace.

What is your opinion?
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Before a cold front...

Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

Neil deGrasse Tyson...Another Essay

The Perimeter of Ignorance
A boundary where scientists face a choice: invoke a deity or continue the quest for knowledge
by Neil deGrasse Tyson
From Natural History magazine — November 2005

Writing in centuries past, many scientists felt compelled to wax poetic about cosmic mysteries and God's handiwork. Perhaps one should not be surprised at this: most scientists back then, as well as many scientists today, identify themselves as spiritually devout.

But a careful reading of older texts, particularly those concerned with the universe itself, shows that the authors invoke divinity only when they reach the boundaries of their understanding. They appeal to a higher power only when staring into the ocean of their own ignorance. They call on God only from the lonely and precarious edge of incomprehension. Where they feel certain about their explanations, however, God gets hardly a mention.

Let's start at the top. Isaac Newton was one of the greatest intellects the world has ever seen. His laws of motion and his universal law of gravitation, conceived in the mid-seventeenth century, account for cosmic phenomena that had eluded philosophers for millennia. Through those laws, one could understand the gravitational attraction of bodies in a system, and thus come to understand orbits.

Newton's law of gravity enables you to calculate the force of attraction between any two objects. If you introduce a third object, then each one attracts the other two, and the orbits they trace become much harder to compute. Add another object, and another, and another, and soon you have the planets in our solar system. Earth and the Sun pull on each other, but Jupiter also pulls on Earth, Saturn pulls on Earth, Mars pulls on Earth, Jupiter pulls on Saturn, Saturn pulls on Mars, and on and on.

Newton feared that all this pulling would render the orbits in the solar system unstable. His equations indicated that the planets should long ago have either fallen into the Sun or flown the coop-leaving the Sun, in either case, devoid of planets. Yet the solar system, as well as the larger cosmos, appeared to be the very model of order and durability. So Newton, in his greatest work, the Principia, concludes that God must occasionally step in and make things right:

The six primary Planets are revolved about the Sun, in circles concentric with the Sun, and with motions directed towards the same parts, and almost in the same plane. . . . But it is not to be conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to so many regular motions. . . . This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

In the Principia, Newton distinguishes between hypotheses and experimental philosophy, and declares, "Hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy." What he wants is data, "inferr'd from the ph¾nomena." But in the absence of data, at the border between what he could explain and what he could only honor-the causes he could identify and those he could not-Newton rapturously invokes God:

Eternal and Infinite, Omnipotent and Omniscient; . . . he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. . . . We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final causes; we admire him for his perfections; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion.

A century later, the French astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Simon de Laplace confronted Newton's dilemma of unstable orbits head-on. Rather than view the mysterious stability of the solar system as the unknowable work of God, Laplace declared it a scientific challenge. In his multipart masterpiece, Mécanique Céleste, the first volume of which appeared in 1798, Laplace demonstrates that the solar system is stable over periods of time longer than Newton could predict. To do so, Laplace pioneered a new kind of mathematics called perturbation theory, which enabled him to examine the cumulative effects of many small forces. According to an oft-repeated but probably embellished account, when Laplace gave a copy of Mécanique Céleste to his physics-literate friend Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon asked him what role God played in the construction and regulation of the heavens. "Sire," Laplace replied, "I have no need of that hypothesis."

* * *

Laplace notwithstanding, plenty of scientists besides Newton have called on God-or the gods-wherever their comprehension fades to ignorance. Consider the second-century a.d. Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy. Armed with a description, but no real understanding, of what the planets were doing up there, he could not contain his religious fervor:

I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace, at my pleasure, the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch Earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia.

Or consider the seventeenth-century Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, whose achievements include constructing the first working pendulum clock and discovering the rings of Saturn. In his charming book The Celestial Worlds Discover'd, posthumously published in 1696, most of the opening chapter celebrates all that was then known of planetary orbits, shapes, and sizes, as well as the planets' relative brightness and presumed rockiness. The book even includes foldout charts illustrating the structure of the solar system. God is absent from this discussion-even though a mere century earlier, before Newton's achievements, planetary orbits were supreme mysteries.

Celestial Worlds also brims with speculations about life in the solar system, and that's where Huygens raises questions to which he has no answer. That's where he mentions the biological conundrums of the day, such as the origin of life's complexity. And sure enough, because seventeenth-century physics was more advanced than seventeenth-century biology, Huygens invokes the hand of God only when he talks about biology:

I suppose no body will deny but that there's somewhat more of Contrivance, somewhat more of Miracle in the production and growth of Plants and Animals than in lifeless heaps of inanimate Bodies. . . . For the finger of God, and the Wisdom of Divine Providence, is in them much more clearly manifested than in the other.

Today secular philosophers call that kind of divine invocation "God of the gaps"-which comes in handy, because there has never been a shortage of gaps in people's knowledge.

* * *

As reverent as Newton, Huygens, and other great scientists of earlier centuries may have been, they were also empiricists. They did not retreat from the conclusions their evidence forced them to draw, and when their discoveries conflicted with prevailing articles of faith, they upheld the discoveries. That doesn't mean it was easy: sometimes they met fierce opposition, as did Galileo, who had to defend his telescopic evidence against formidable objections drawn from both scripture and "common" sense.

Galileo clearly distinguished the role of religion from the role of science. To him, religion was the service of God and the salvation of souls, whereas science was the source of exact observations and demonstrated truths. In a long, famous, bristly letter written in the summer of 1615 to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany (but, like so many epistles of the day, circulated among the literati), he quotes, in his own defense, an unnamed yet sympathetic church official saying that the Bible "tells you how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."

The letter to the duchess leaves no doubt about where Galileo stood on the literal word of the Holy Writ:


In expounding the Bible if one were always to confine oneself to the unadorned grammatical meaning, one might fall into error. . . .
Nothing physical which . . . demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words. . . .
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

A rare exception among scientists, Galileo saw the unknown as a place to explore rather than as an eternal mystery controlled by the hand of God.

As long as the celestial sphere was generally regarded as the domain of the divine, the fact that mere mortals could not explain its workings could safely be cited as proof of the higher wisdom and power of God. But beginning in the sixteenth century, the work of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton-not to mention Maxwell, Heisenberg, Einstein, and everybody else who discovered fundamental laws of physics-provided rational explanations for an increasing range of phenomena. Little by little, the universe was subjected to the methods and tools of science, and became a demonstrably knowable place.

* * *

Then, in what amounts to a stunning yet unheralded philosophical inversion, throngs of ecclesiastics and scholars began to declare that it was the laws of physics themselves that served as proof of the wisdom and power of God.

One popular theme of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the "clockwork universe"-an ordered, rational, predictable mechanism fashioned and run by God and his physical laws. The early telescopes, which all relied on visible light, did little to undercut that image of an ordered system. The Moon revolved around Earth. Earth and other planets rotated on their axes and revolved around the Sun. The stars shone. The nebulae floated freely in space.

Not until the nineteenth century was it evident that visible light is just one band of a broad spectrum of electromagnetic radiation-the band that human beings just happen to see. Infrared was discovered in 1800, ultraviolet in 1801, radio waves in 1888, X rays in 1895, and gamma rays in 1900. Decade by decade in the following century, new kinds of telescopes came into use, fitted with detectors that could "see" these formerly invisible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Now astrophysicists began to unmask the true character of the universe.

Turns out that some celestial bodies give off more light in the invisible bands of the spectrum than in the visible. And the invisible light picked up by the new telescopes showed that mayhem abounds in the cosmos: monstrous gamma-ray bursts, deadly pulsars, matter-crushing gravitational fields, matter-hungry black holes that flay their bloated stellar neighbors, newborn stars igniting within pockets of collapsing gas. And as our ordinary, optical telescopes got bigger and better, more mayhem emerged: galaxies that collide and cannibalize each other, explosions of supermassive stars, chaotic stellar and planetary orbits. Our own cosmic neighborhood-the inner solar system-turned out to be a shooting gallery, full of rogue asteroids and comets that collide with planets from time to time. Occasionally they've even wiped out stupendous masses of Earth's flora and fauna. The evidence all points to the fact that we occupy not a well-mannered clockwork universe, but a destructive, violent, and hostile zoo.

Of course, Earth can be bad for your health too. On land, grizzly bears want to maul you; in the oceans, sharks want to eat you. Snowdrifts can freeze you, deserts dehydrate you, earthquakes bury you, volcanoes incinerate you. Viruses can infect you, parasites suck your vital fluids, cancers take over your body, congenital diseases force an early death. And even if you have the good luck to be healthy, a swarm of locusts could devour your crops, a tsunami could wash away your family, or a hurricane could blow apart your town.

* * *

So the universe wants to kill us all. But let's ignore that complication for the moment.

Many, perhaps countless, questions hover at the front lines of science. In some cases, answers have eluded the best minds of our species for decades or even centuries. And in contemporary America, the notion that a higher intelligence is the single answer to all enigmas has been enjoying a resurgence. This present-day version of God of the gaps goes by a fresh name: "intelligent design." The term suggests that some entity, endowed with a mental capacity far greater than the human mind can muster, created or enabled all the things in the physical world that we cannot explain through scientific methods.

An interesting hypothesis.

But why confine ourselves to things too wondrous or intricate for us to understand, whose existence and attributes we then credit to a superintelligence? Instead, why not tally all those things whose design is so clunky, goofy, impractical, or unworkable that they reflect the absence of intelligence?

Take the human form. We eat, drink, and breathe through the same hole in the head, and so, despite Henry J. Heimlich's eponymous maneuver, choking is the fourth leading cause of "unintentional injury death" in the United States. How about drowning, the fifth leading cause? Water covers almost three-quarters of Earth's surface, yet we are land creatures-submerge your head for just a few minutes, and you die.

Or take our collection of useless body parts. What good is the pinky toenail? How about the appendix, which stops functioning after childhood and thereafter serves only as the source of appendicitis? Useful parts, too, can be problematic. I happen to like my knees, but nobody ever accused them of being well protected from bumps and bangs. These days, people with problem knees can get them surgically replaced. As for our pain-prone spine, it may be a while before someone finds a way to swap that out.

How about the silent killers? High blood pressure, colon cancer, and diabetes each cause tens of thousands of deaths in the U.S. every year, but it's possible not to know you're afflicted until your coroner tells you so. Wouldn't it be nice if we had built-in biogauges to warn us of such dangers well in advance? Even cheap cars, after all, have engine gauges.

And what comedian designer configured the region between our legs-an entertainment complex built around a sewage system?

The eye is often held up as a marvel of biological engineering. To the astrophysicist, though, it's only a so-so detector. A better one would be much more sensitive to dark things in the sky and to all the invisible parts of the spectrum. How much more breathtaking sunsets would be if we could see ultraviolet and infrared. How useful it would be if, at a glance, we could see every source of microwaves in the environment, or know which radio station transmitters were active. How helpful it would be if we could spot police radar detectors at night.

Think how easy it would be to navigate an unfamiliar city if we, like birds, could always tell which way was north because of the magnetite in our heads. Think how much better off we'd be if we had gills as well as lungs, how much more productive if we had six arms instead of two. And if we had eight, we could safely drive a car while simultaneously talking on a cell phone, changing the radio station, applying makeup, sipping a drink, and scratching our left ear.
Stupid design could fuel a movement unto itself. It may not be nature's default, but it's ubiquitous. Yet people seem to enjoy thinking that our bodies, our minds, and even our universe represent pinnacles of form and reason. Maybe it's a good antidepressant to think so. But it's not science-not now, not in the past, not ever.

* * *

Another practice that isn't science is embracing ignorance. Yet it's fundamental to the philosophy of intelligent design: I don't know what this is. I don't know how it works. It's too complicated for me to figure out. It's too complicated for any human being to figure out. So it must be the product of a higher intelligence.

What do you do with that line of reasoning? Do you just cede the solving of problems to someone smarter than you, someone who's not even human? Do you tell students to pursue only questions with easy answers?

There may be a limit to what the human mind can figure out about our universe. But how presumptuous it would be for me to claim that if I can't solve a problem, neither can any other person who has ever lived or who will ever be born. Suppose Galileo and Laplace had felt that way? Better yet, what if Newton had not? He might then have solved Laplace's problem a century earlier, making it possible for Laplace to cross the next frontier of ignorance.

Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance. You cannot build a program of discovery on the assumption that nobody is smart enough to figure out the answer to a problem. Once upon a time, people identified the god Neptune as the source of storms at sea. Today we call these storms hurricanes. We know when and where they start. We know what drives them. We know what mitigates their destructive power. And anyone who has studied global warming can tell you what makes them worse. The only people who still call hurricanes "acts of God" are the people who write insurance forms.

* * *

To deny or erase the rich, colorful history of scientists and other thinkers who have invoked divinity in their work would be intellectually dishonest. Surely there's an appropriate place for intelligent design to live in the academic landscape. How about the history of religion? How about philosophy or psychology? The one place it doesn't belong is the science classroom.

If you're not swayed by academic arguments, consider the financial consequences. Allow intelligent design into science textbooks, lecture halls, and laboratories, and the cost to the frontier of scientific discovery-the frontier that drives the economies of the future-would be incalculable. I don't want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don't understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don't understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. An anthology of his "Universe" columns will be published in 2006 by W.W. Norton.


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Another Quote...

Preliminary Expectoration

"Faith therefore is not an aesthetic emotion but something far higher, precisely because it has resignation as its presupposition; it is not an immediate instinct of the heart, but is the paradox of life and existence."

"A purely human courage is required to renounce the whole of the temporal to gain the eternal; but this I gain, and to all eternity"

Fear and Trembling by Sören Kierkegaard 1843

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Thought for today...

Spirituality speaking, everything is possible, but in the world of the finite there is much which is not possible. Fear and Trembling 1843: Soren Kierkengaard Posted via my LGVX8600 phone.

Emigrate - New York City

I just heard this on the radio down in Charlotte North Carolina. The station was New Rock 106.5FM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigrate
Emigrate is the name of a band led by Richard Z. Kruspe, guitarist and founder of Rammstein.

Thought Of The Day...

Walter Kaufmann described Existentialism as, "The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life.



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