Early Thoughts on #Brexit and Islamic Appeasement

10 Tidbits of Recent Concern

 

Hello Dear Readers…

This morning I am researching what is happening overseas. Curious, yes of course, but the way things go…if England is affected by something, there is a strong possibility that America will feel repercussions. I feel like if we research we will be better prepared to handle any outcomes.

That being said, there is much information available online. What can a reader trust? Personally, I trust no one. I find “truth” by comparing numerous articles and looking for similarities. Because, frankly, there is no hard “truth,” only subjective interpretation.

What can we really know?

1. That’s a hard one. However, one must be steadfast. Opinion cannot be accepted as it varies per person. “Facts” cannot be praised because they were ultimately written by a person. If every event has at least two sides to the story — or fifteen sides in the quantum world — then reading a story is not going to assist that much in “truth finding.”

2.  There is one thing I can extend a gram of “trust” to, and that is historical themes. A theme does not depend on opinion, it is a trend in history. Cliches are annoying but some are right – history does in fact repeat itself. Not in the sense that each event replays continuously, but in the way that humanity moves in a zigzagging pattern much like evolution. We go out with our ideas, but when the ideas don’t work, we come back home to sort out a new plan.

3.  Considering recent European events with this train of thought, I do not think that it is unexpected that Britain left the EU. I am not taking either side – I do not know their politics enough to cast judgment. What I am saying is that the trend of the EU was progressive – they tried to bring democracy and drop walls. However, reality did not embrace theory. What looked good on paper did not stand up well in the here and now. Historically, the reasonable action is to withdraw – “go home” and lick one’s wounds, and then…develop a new method.

4.  Taking history into account, there are time periods that act as a “reply” for past occurrences. Currently, the entire world is trying to figure out what to do about the Islamic culture. On my small scale, my advice is education. I’ve said it before and will repeat it here:  Educate the youth in hopes of securing a better future. First off, introduce them to Darwinism, Biology, and Genetics. Science confronts life situations with empirical data. Certain cultures refuse to read any book that is not religious. This is a huge misstep. Human thought, expression, and consciousness expands at escalated rates. Yet, some people do not know “science is real.” Some people fail to notice the damages brought on by incest, or marrying one’s cousin.

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5.  When I think about “historical replies” I cannot help but land on the dangers of appeasement, or giving in to a “bullying” force who issues demands for a select group. Uncontrollably, the image of Hitler comes to mind. It makes me uncomfortable because I saw comments yesterday that Atheist sites were being taken down from social media. The motivation:  Islamic culture. Supposedly, since the Muslims find Atheists offensive, the Atheist viewpoint is restricted. How is that just?

6.  Ah, it is most definitely not just. I find sporting events offensive, but does that mean that the sporting industry should be dismantled? Nope — it means that I make the personal choice to not watch sports.

7.  Social media should include all aspects of human preference. The moment one group limits another indicates that the first believes they are “better” than the rest. Guess what…we are all humans. We are all species. Not a single one is better than another. We are all forms of life. Darwinism illustrates the connection of species. If all cultures accepted scientific evidence then much of belief’s illusions would fade away.

8. Western culture is filled with individuals. Individualism is our bag. However, older cultures still operate under collectivism. Huge difference. Here is another historical theme – Individualism developed out of the Enlightenment. In America, we recognize the Enlightenment era as sloughing off tired beliefs that no longer rang true because of the empirical evidence presented by science. Collective societies have not learned Enlightenment lessons – they refuse to read or accept the science. So why, for Reason’s sake, would progressive thought kneel to backward society?

9.  Society cannot give in to backward demands. Society strives for the betterment of the human race just like evolution. Or it should. Religion and Science are expressions of human thought. One relies on belief, the other on empirical evidence. The individual gets to decide which one speaks louder to them. What’s important is that each person should have the right to choose for the self.

10. I am not religious. I prefer understanding reality through science. However, I see value in both as dependent on the person. Humans should be able to believe whatever they want to believe, or believe nothing and look for knowledge. The point is that it is personal preference. I think if everyone recognized the effort it takes in constructing the self, we could realize that each person has a great task before them. Each person is in charge of their own reality, and nobody…nobody…has any right to limit individual growth.  –Not a government, not a Union, not a Culture, not a Religion, not even Science.

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What a Week: Research Splendor, Texts, Interview

Traces of Connectivity

Researching Darwinism and the Alice texts this week, I came across a slang terminology that applicably embodies half of my theory<>…so very exciting. Also reading Alice beyond Wonderland ed. Cristopher Hollingsworth and The Selfish Gene by the great Richard Dawkins, but today I need to do a lil research assistance for a fellow scholar. The topic is political {gnashing-of-teeth} so I approach with caution – timidly toting Max Weber’s Essays in Sociology. The Capstone is progressing, and I am enjoying the process. Again, I apologize for not disclosing these amazing concepts I’m working, but I cannot take my info public until the end of session (August).

Interview with Earl Pereira from The Steadies

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My editorial internship with Punchland.com proved positive this week with an exciting opportunity to chat with Earl Pereira from The Steadies. Click HERE to read the full interview, “Silver Lining Sensation:  Love Revolution by The Steadies,” and listen to their contagiously-happy tracks. What brings me extra <smiles> is that The Steadies incorporates positivism with music. As followers may note, my #PursuitofOptimism research has been lacking since the project was rejected as Capstone theory. Picturing positive vibes pinging off Pereira recharged the authority of optimism. I’ll make sure to visit the group today with an up-lifiting update, inspiring poem link, and band website. Listening to this album invokes reggae-beach-happiness. My fav track:  “Phoenix.” Check out The Steadies latest video below to energize your weekend.

“Take Me Home” by The Steadies from Love Revolution:

 

Picture and video c/o @TheSteadies

Was Einstein dependent on Darwin?

If Darwin did not discover and publish Origins of Species would Einstein still have came onto his Theory of Relativity?

That is an interesting question with two possible answers. On one hand, Darwin was not alone; nor was his idea singularly unique. Gavin DeBeers wrote “Biology before the Beagle (1964)” to demonstrate that Darwin did not pluck his theory of evolution through natural selection from the recesses of his unique mind or thin air. Darwin was a detailed natural philosopher – nearly obsessive compulsive – who categorized animals and plants. Wallace’s discovery encouraged Darwin to publish so that Darwin would still receive credit, which rather implies that Wallace was onto the same research trail. Not to mention that Lamarck published Philosophie zoologique in 1809, developing a “theory of ‘transformism’ or evolution, which he was the first to do, invoking descent of species during long periods of time from other species, so that the Animal Kingdom could be represented by a genealogy of branching lines, the last branch being that of man.”[1] Lamarckism did not flourish like Darwinism did though, perhaps much can be said for Huxley’s support. William Paley wrote “Natural Theology (1802)” to illustrate life according to the workings of a clock – dependent on a watchmaker. But Darwin found causation for adapted species due to Paley’s description of the select workings of the clock pieces and the altered methods in which species was able to adapt to different surrounds. Paley called to attention the human eye, and he claimed it was created specifically by the Creator to grant vision. The same eye, though, he noted, adapted differently for fish that lived in the water; it was still an eye, but the eye was changed.[2] Scientists, other than Darwin, worked on evolutionary concepts.

On the other hand, if we were to consider that evolutionary theory had not happened, that the concept of biology had not been founded, and religion still held the final authority…then no; I do not think Albert Einstein would have been able to come up with the Theory of Relativity because I do not think the collective consciousness (or ability to develop advanced concepts) would have began to form. In a very reduced example, I think I understood this course because I took Evolution of Life and Intelligence, which is basically the “Darwin course.” When I began, I was terrified because I am not a scientist. I read many articles. I watched videos and listened to lectures. The more I submersed myself in the concepts, the more I was able to understand. I think the large lessons learned, namely through the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, was to question, to think, to experiment and see what all humans can do – because we are changing, and the more we learn, the more we evolve.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beer, Gavin De. “Biology before the Beagle (1964).” Darwin: A Norton Critical Edition, Texts, Commentary. 3rd ed. Ed. Philip Appleman. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. pp. 41-44.

Paley, William. “Natural Theology (1802).” Darwin: A Norton Critical Edition, Texts, Commentary. 3rd ed. Ed. Philip Appleman. New York:  W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. pp. 41-44.

Picture c/o:  http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0a/0f/1a/e3/cosmocaixa-barcelona.jpg

[1] Gavin DeBeers, “Biology before the Beagle,” p. 34.

[2] William Paley, “Natural Theology (1802),” p. 43.

Darwinism: the Most Revolutionary Movement in Science

Which scientific revolution incurred the most change?

While revolutions in thought were present in chemistry, cosmology, geology, and physics, the most altering discoveries were in biology via Charles Darwin’s considerations for evolution through natural selection and adaptation of species. The fundamentals of evolutionary thought seized society with an urgency to unite scientific theory with everything, applying direct causation via biological matter to reality. Darwin’s dangerous ideas disrupted the religious hold on society by preferring scientific method and empirical evidence to scholastic considerations of the Golden era. Bowler and Morus said, “The original Darwinian revolution turned out to be only a transition to an evolutionary interpretation of an already-existing worldview based on faith in the idea of progress as the product of divine providence or of nature’s laws.”[1] Darwinism, and later biology, oriented the human being as an organism victim to alteration by its environment to encourage continuation of species. However, it would not be until the twentieth-century that society adapted the notion of the effects of a nurturing environment as able to improve the nature of humans. Victorians believed: “Environmental effects are powerless to alter the characteristics inherited by the child from its parents,”[2] but genetic discoveries would reveal the human ability to adapt based on external factors incorporated through experience.

 

Yes, cosmology demonstrated a scientific revolution. Astronomers of the 1930s agreed about the shape of the universe, but instead of considering the system as static they saw it as dynamic or a universe that was producing energy; Bowler and Morus said, “No longer was the galaxy that human beings inhabit to be considered as the center of the universe.”[3] The Milky Way was one of a number of other galaxies; much like humans were not unique creations but evolved animal species, the universe resided in one galaxy of many of galaxies. Bowler and Morus said, “From that perspective, the transformation might certainly be regarded as truly revolutionary in the same sense that the Copernican revolution was.”[4] Early twentieth-century held a revolution in the understanding of space and time. Relativistic physics replaced Newtonian theory, Bowler and Morus said, “…replaced with the standpoint that time and space were relative to the position and velocity of the observer.”[5]

 

In “The Elegant Universe” PBS Nova discussed Quantum Theory, a possibility that multiple realities existed in different dimensions of time. Based on statistical data, Quantum theory dealt with extremely small matter, atomic elements of protons and the nucleus, that Einstein’s theory of gravity did not effect or relate.[6] Modern scientists, since the 1970s, developed String Theory to unite “heavy” science with small science. Working with the stuff of Einstein’s dreams, as inspired by his notebooks and personal record, Alan Lightman wrote Einstein’s Dreams to illustrate the creative spirit of the famous scientist. Einstein questioned everything, and while he did not agree with quantum theories, Lightman showed that Einstein thought more than one possibility could exist. 14 April 1905: “Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.”[7] And later, on 14 May 1905: “There is a place where time stands still. Raindrops hang motionless in air. Pendulums of clocks float mid-swing. … Pedestrians are frozen on the dusty streets, their legs cocked as if held by strings.”[8] Einstein allowed room for the possibility of alternate time and space, but he rejected quantum theory. Is his rejection due to gravity not be unified? What would Einstein have thought of String theory?

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bowler, Peter J. and Iwan Rhys Morus. Making Modern Scienc: A Historical Survey. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2005.

“The Elegant Universe.” PBS Nova, 10 Aug 2014. YouTube.com. Online video. 25 Jan 2016.

Picture c/o:  http://c8.alamy.com/comp/AJA5JD/the-survival-of-the-fittest-application-of-darwinism-in-the-21st-century-AJA5JD.jpg

[1] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 161.

[2] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 158.

[3] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 286.

[4] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 286.

[5] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 287.

[6] PBS, “The Elegant Universe.”

[7] Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams, p. 8.

[8] Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams, p. 8.