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POPSRobert Bateman in Russia Another environmentally themed work is Castor Canadensis, in which Bateman depicts “a very frightened and angry beaver” standing in the middle of a highway. “It could be about to get run over by a big machine, which is a symbol of what’s happening to wildlife in Canada.”
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POPSCharles Darwin film ‘too controversial for religious America’ Afraid of controversy? This country has been mired in controvery for ages. Movieguide.org is the source of the controversy in this instance. Describing Darwin as "a racist, a bigot and an1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder" only proves their own bigotry and intolerance for any belief not their own. To say Darwin’s theory is ‘half-baked’ when supported by insurmountable scientifically backed evidence while only ‘faith’ backs up their belief is pure religious zealotry. To condemn Darwin’s theory as ‘half-baked’ while zealously clinging to faith without scientific proof is amazingly short-sighted. I am not condemning believers, I am a believer myself, but to ridicule another person’s belief because it is different is hateful, extremely narrow-minded and very un-Christian.
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POPSWalking away from cancer More: And maybe that’s why I walk. As I prowl my quiet town at twilight, I feel as if I’m saying: “I’m still here … I’m still here.”
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POPSSeamus HEANEY, Word Smith, Today, 70 years Young On Monday, 13 April RTÉ lyric fm will premiere three pieces specially commissioned by RTÉ Performing Groups from Rachel Holstead, Kevin O'Connell and Ian Wilson for the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet. A new RTÉ Television 'Arts Lives' documentary, 'Seamus Heaney: Out of the Marvellous', will be screened on RTÉ One on Tuesday, 14 April. On RTÉ Radio there will be a non-stop, 12-hour broadcast of Seamus Heaney reading his 11 poetry collections on RTÉ Radio 1 Extra, available on LW, DAB, Online and UPC Channel 940. Full details on these programmes and other events are available on the specially commissioned website: www.rte.ie/heaneyat70.
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POPSRage Against the Art Gene On the other hand: Stephen Jay Gould. Until his death in 2002, he stood as one of the great champions and evangelists of science, as well as one of the most exacting critics of its tendency to overreach. According to Gould, life's history needs to be understood not just as the result of natural forces explicable by science, but also of contingency: strange, unplanned events that change the course of everything that follows. The arts, likewise, may be one of the many adaptively useless byproducts of a complex brain that evolved to perform other tasks. something rings false in the overriding impression created by evolutionary esthetics: that a mental trait is ennobled when we supply it with Darwinian roots. Gould, the self-described "naturalist by profession, and a humanist at heart," knew the opposite to be true. An interesting debate, one that surely is only beginning as we enter this era of progress...
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POPSSomething Darwin didn't know Darwin's commitment to weighing the facts, even when the topic was an emotional one, would serve competing advocates of science and religion well as the world celebrates the great naturalist's 200th birthday today. Darwin's humility in the face of insufficient evidence -- his willingness to say "I don't know" -- is as important a lesson as any to be found in biology texts today.
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POPSOn the Origin of Species
A must read. "the Struggle for Existence amongst all organic beings throughout the world, which inevitably follows from their high geometrical powers of increase, will be treated of. This is the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. This fundamental subject of Natural Selection" "namely, that each species has been independently created - is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable" The first of our six abridged extracts; can't wait for the res
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POPSCivil Disobedience Great commentary - it shows how amazing it is that our national government has just continued to grow and expand for more than 100 years, and our rights have been eroding rather than being protected.
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POPSChurch apologises to Charles Darwin over theory of evolution But Dr Brown says everyone makes mistakes, the church included. "When a big new idea emerges that changes the way people look at the world, it's easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights,'' he writes.
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POPS-Are Humans Destroying the Planet's Web of Life? Very sobering, disturbing article. Just put global climate disruption aside and think about what we humans are doin to the life in the oceans and the air and land, the forests, the over fertilizing, the plastics...it's abominable and has to be changed or we die.
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