[net.origins] Vast Schools of Red Herring

mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (08/26/85)

In article <14600042@hpfcrs.UUCP> lief@hpfcla.UUCP writes:

>     By the way, could you give me the calculations and physics involved
>in explaining to me why the bumble-bee can fly?  Or why man uses less than
>1/6 th of his brain?  Or perhaps share with us the chemical formula and
>the synthetic equations needed to produce life from non life?  Perhaps
>give us the calculations that tell us why this planet has an atmosphere
>of Nitrogen and Oxygen and the others don't.  How about using the "TOOLS
>OF PHYSICS" to tell me why I am writing this?

The flight of bumblebees involves non-steadystate aerodynamics; why don't
you consult experts rather than challenge us less-than-amateurs.

We routinely rearrange life in ways that ten years ago were barely
conceived-of; all the evidence suggests that the chemical understanding
needed to produce, say, a virus is simply a matter of time and sufficient
compute power.

Meteorologists now seem to have some vague notions about how we get
different atmospheres.

Physics is quite obviously not interested in psychology, which has any
number of explanations of why you choose to write this.

Of these four rhetorical questions, the first one has a well-known answer
(among the experts).  The other three represent areas where science has not
progressed as far.  Yet.  It is the glory of science, after all, to
progress. (Who am I quoting?) The curious thing that the asking of them is
actually thought to have accomplished something.  I, as a hard-core
theological evolutionist, see no contradiction in the notion that God has
created all these things through quite ordinary science.

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe

  The wind blows where it pleases