No Such Agency: Yes We Scan

[packsaddle]

The Founding Fathers knew full well the hypocrisy of the document at the time, but sold out to the southern states insisting on slavery or they wouldn't have backed the revolution. I believe it was Jefferson who said something about having a wolf by the ears in reference to the problem.

 

Prior to Darwin? Heck, he stole every one eles's ideas for his book. Wallace came up with the idea and coined it survival of the fittest to explain why the superior species were able to progress and not be "set back" by the inferiors. The concepts of evolution go way back to the Greek and Roman times in some form or another. Most of the ideas that philosophically formulated about evolution appeared in the time period between 500 BC and BC. Darwin took/stole credit for a lot of other people's philosophies. Aristotle, Plato and Socrates all philosophized on the subject.

 

`We are united in the belief that Iraq's aggression must not be tolerated. No peaceful international order is possible if larger states can devour their smaller neighbors.'' - One can't express anti-Darwinism any better than that. Quote taken from the Bush speech you are referring to.

 

"Saddam Hussein is literally trying to wipe a country off the face of the Earth." Tyrannical Darwinism once more cited.

 

"We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective -- a new world order -- can emerge: a new era -- freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony. A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we've known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak. This is the vision that I shared with President Gorbachev in Helsinki. He and other leaders from Europe, the Gulf, and around the world understand that how we manage this crisis today could shape the future for generations to come."

 

One one puts the comment back into the context it was taken out of, one can see it is very anti-Darwinian.

 

Karl Marx was the one who wrote in Das Kapital about how to "speed up" evolution through revolution and anarchy. (Class-Darwinism)

 

Hitler, simply put it into practice with his whole premise of how superior the Aryan Nation was above all others. (Racial-Darwinism)

 

The new world order Bush is referring to is not the one you are suggesting. Instead it's based on the Judeao/Christian dynamics of world peace through cooperation and welfare for all, not the imperialism and conquest of one's weaker neighbors.

 

The principles promoted by Darwin are also the same ones promoted by Rome as it, too, tried to rule the world by militaristic imperialism. Greeks with Aristotle, Plato and Socrates also had the same ideals. Just doesn't work, "The meek shall inherit the world", and it's interesting, the meek are still around in spite of the destructive philosophy of survival of the fittest.

 

Stosh

 

Quite right, Moggie. I don't know where Stosh gets this stuff sometimes...Wallace wrote nothing of the sort. But thanks, you beat me to it. You have to understand that much of what Stosh presents is from some alternate universe.

 

As for the issue of slavery, the 'three-fifths' compromise came AFTER the revolution. Oops, sorry, I keep forgetting....alternate universe.

[Stosh]

"Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-acting process would necessarily improve the race, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain -- that is, the fittest would survive. Then at once I seemed to see the whole effect of this..." Alfred Russel Wallace, MY LIFE, (London, 1905), p. 362

 

"...the whole method of species modification became clear to me, and in the two hours of my fit I had thought out the main points of the theory. That same evening I sketch out the draft of a paper; and in the two succeeding evenings I wrote it out, and sent it by the next post to Mr. Darwin." Wallace, THE WONDERFUL CENTURY, p 140

 

"Suddenly it occurred to the feverish naturalist in a lightning flash of insight that Malthus' checks to human increase... must, in similar or analogous way, operate in the natural world as well...

It was Darwin's unpublished conception down to the last detail, independently duplicated by a man sitting in a hut at the world's end." Eiseley, "ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE", p. 80.

 

My universe has libraries, that have books.

 

Stosh

 

http://www.crf-usa.org/black-history-month/the-constitution-and-slavery

[Moggie]

"Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-acting process would necessarily improve the race, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain -- that is, the fittest would survive. Then at once I seemed to see the whole effect of this..." Alfred Russel Wallace, MY LIFE, (London, 1905), p. 362

 

"...the whole method of species modification became clear to me, and in the two hours of my fit I had thought out the main points of the theory. That same evening I sketch out the draft of a paper; and in the two succeeding evenings I wrote it out, and sent it by the next post to Mr. Darwin." Wallace, THE WONDERFUL CENTURY, p 140

 

"Suddenly it occurred to the feverish naturalist in a lightning flash of insight that Malthus' checks to human increase... must, in similar or analogous way, operate in the natural world as well...

It was Darwin's unpublished conception down to the last detail, independently duplicated by a man sitting in a hut at the world's end." Eiseley, "ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE", p. 80.

 

My universe has libraries, that have books.

 

Stosh

 

http://www.crf-usa.org/black-history-month/the-constitution-and-slavery

Er... Herbert Spencer 1864 Principles of Biology

"This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."

Further what Darwin went on to suggest that it was not survival of the fittest that supported his concept of natural selection but rather survival of the good enough.

 

Cheers

 

Gareth

[packsaddle]

"Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-acting process would necessarily improve the race, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain -- that is, the fittest would survive. Then at once I seemed to see the whole effect of this..." Alfred Russel Wallace, MY LIFE, (London, 1905), p. 362

 

"...the whole method of species modification became clear to me, and in the two hours of my fit I had thought out the main points of the theory. That same evening I sketch out the draft of a paper; and in the two succeeding evenings I wrote it out, and sent it by the next post to Mr. Darwin." Wallace, THE WONDERFUL CENTURY, p 140

 

"Suddenly it occurred to the feverish naturalist in a lightning flash of insight that Malthus' checks to human increase... must, in similar or analogous way, operate in the natural world as well...

It was Darwin's unpublished conception down to the last detail, independently duplicated by a man sitting in a hut at the world's end." Eiseley, "ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE", p. 80.

 

My universe has libraries, that have books.

 

Stosh

 

http://www.crf-usa.org/black-history-month/the-constitution-and-slavery

Thanks again to Moggie for being there at the proper moment. Stosh, even the passages you quote above show that Wallace did NOT originate the idea of 'survival of the fittest' but most likely he 'borrowed' the idea from Spencer especially since he wrote those things long after Spencer actually coined the phrase.

 

But the last lines also put the lie to another of your claims, namely, "Prior to Darwin? Heck, he stole every one eles's ideas for his book. Wallace came up with the idea and coined it survival of the fittest..."

 

Your claim that Darwin stole the idea from Wallace is simply outrageous. And the quote you provided clearly states that Wallace "...independently duplicated..." the idea. Theft? Hardly. It was a good idea that was inevitably going to be articulated by thoughtful persons and it just happened to be articulated by two of them in this case. In your universe, you should find what Huxley wrote about the situation....HE actually mediated between Darwin and Wallace in order to get proper credit to both. And while you're at it, find out what Wallace had to say about it. Read on.....

[Stosh]

Wallace wrote his letter to Darwin in February of 1858, Darwin wrote ORIGIN in 1859 and Spencer in 1864.

 

Henry Fairfield Osborn, longtime director of the American Museum of Natural History, said, "When I began to the search for anticipations of the evolutionary theory... I was led back to the Greek natural philosophers and was astonished to find how many of the pronounced and basic features of the Darwinian theory were anticipated even as far back as the seventy century B.C." (Osborn, FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN, p. xi) So, the Greek idea of tyrannically ruling the world had it's basis well established well before social-Darwinism raised it's ugly head up yet again in the 20th century.

 

Sounds like a lot of plagiarism going on for a long time. And to plagiarize Greek philosophy and mythology for scientific purposes has always left me skeptical of any form of "scientific" Darwinianism.

 

"I was then [February 1858] living at Ternate in the Moluccas, and was suffering from a rather severe attack of intermittent fever, which prostrated me every day during the cold and succeeding hot fits. During one of these fits, while again considering the problem of the origin of species, something led me to think of Malthus' Essay on Population...." (Alfred Russel Wallace, THE WONDERFUL CENTURY: ITS SUCCESSES AND ITS FAILURES (New York, 1898), p. 139. A fit of malarial fever produced the concept? Quite a scientifically based breakthrough wouldn't you say?

 

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) http://www.uwmc.uwc.edu/geography/demotrans/malbox.htm

 

So, what I see we have here is a mixture of Greek mythology and philosophers, theologians and atheists battling it out over what we are led to believe is a "scientific theory". And I'm the one that lives in an alternative universe?

 

So while we debate who said what first, it doesn't answer the question of Bush's comments. Was the New World Order alluded to by Bush, one of independent free nations where rule of Law supplants the rule of the jungle where the strong protect the weak? or one where one government rules over all and as Marxian/Malthusian ideology goes with survival of the fittest, (Bush's rule of the jungle) where the weak are exterminated and one country is free to attack the weak?

 

Sorry, but coming from a different universe than yours, it is difficult to buy into such an obvious butchering of scientific protocol and it's abuse on the world of civilization. I still kinda like Bush's New World Order over that of Darwin's creation. Nothing out there convincing me of ever changing my mind. I kinda like my universe where people cooperate, tolerate, and build a better world order over wars, destruction and the quest of the fittest to rule over or exterminate the less fortunate.

 

Sorry, I still think the ideals of Judeo, Christian and Muslim principles still hold sway over mythology, pantheism and Darwinism. Must be my professional theological and semi-professional historical backgrounds holding me back.

 

Stosh

 

 

 

[skeptic]

You guys sound like the two Eagle Scout jambo leaders I had in 1960 arguing as to who was the better scout(er) based on how many and what merit badges they had. Both had in excess of sixty or seventy. Meanwhile, the other leader, who never went beyond Tenderfoot, was the one we all liked the best and went to for most things. Frankly, most of the discussions (??) lately have become pretty tedious. While I am at it; Kudu, can you please find something else to complain about and quit the incessant 1916 gripe? I do have to give you credit for finding some really novel ways to sort of connect anything and everything to the idea that somehow National is out to destroy BSA and that anything they do is designed to do that.

 

I am on Medicare with VA backup, so I am not worried too much. Also live in California, and our system is working fairly well. Wow; a state run program. Seems to me that as someone pointed out, the issues are partly due to the Fed's being unprepared to have to run more than half the country. They naively thought most states would run their own as was initially intended, with Fed's as backup. Oh, did we mention that most of the states not doing their own also have the highest percentages of people without proper coverage?

 

I woke up grouchy this morning. Having back issues and I am just "old". So I'll go back to worrying about my own unit and council issues for a while.

[packsaddle]

Skeptic, I'm completely comfortable with the fact that I know very little about religion. But Stosh, he seems to think he does know something about science. And I disagree.

 

Stosh, you didn't provide any qualification to your use of 'new world order'. Here's what you wrote: "Individual freedoms have no place in the New World Order..."

 

I just noted that Bush also had a New World Order. In fact, it's the last one I've heard anyone speak of. I didn't criticize him. If anything Bush's version seemed to conflict with what you wrote...but of course, as I mentioned, you provided no qualification. I didn't pass judgment. Perhaps there was no conflict in your alternate universe.

 

I do credit the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Egyptians, many others with the wonderful ideas that led to modern science. Of course, just like today, they had some very wrong ideas along with the ones that have stood the test. Some of the wrong ones were part of religious faiths and since you mention the term that I am not allowed to mention, some of those incorrect ideas that were once matters of faith are ones that you seem to view as 'myths'.

Regardless, if malarial fever, or ergot-infected grain stored in Middle Eastern granaries caused hallucinations that inspired new ideas, I'm good with it whether those ideas are supernatural forces doing supernatural things to people, or if they're merely new insights that can be tested in science. But while the entirety of the historical pageant of man leads in different ways to where we are now, only one of those two sources of inspiration is related to science. I guess the supernatural IS a sort of alternate universe.

 

P.S. Skeptic, I hope things go better for you today, and that your back improves. I know how painful that is.

[Stosh]

Skeptic, I'm completely comfortable with the fact that I know very little about religion. But Stosh, he seems to think he does know something about science. And I disagree.

 

-- I never stated I knew that much about science. But I do know about theology. Evolution is a philosophical/theological issue wrapped up in pseudo-scientific terminology. Thus I don't have to know all that much about science.

 

Stosh, you didn't provide any qualification to your use of 'new world order'. Here's what you wrote: "Individual freedoms have no place in the New World Order..."

 

-- Yep, civilization are the laws based on morality for the community of people. Morality are the norms for the betterment of all, not just a few who feel they are better or above the law. Yet I have no problem with people expressing their individuality within that community, especially when the results have a positive effect on others around them. When their individuality has a negative effect, I have problems with that. If a person figures out how to make a bazillion dollars so that a bazillion others can make a living. No problem.

 

I just noted that Bush also had a New World Order. In fact, it's the last one I've heard anyone speak of. I didn't criticize him. If anything Bush's version seemed to conflict with what you wrote...but of course, as I mentioned, you provided no qualification. I didn't pass judgment. Perhaps there was no conflict in your alternate universe.

 

-- No conflict of thought in my universe.

 

I do credit the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Egyptians, many others with the wonderful ideas that led to modern science. Of course, just like today, they had some very wrong ideas along with the ones that have stood the test. Some of the wrong ones were part of religious faiths and since you mention the term that I am not allowed to mention, some of those incorrect ideas that were once matters of faith are ones that you seem to view as 'myths'.

 

-- There are plenty of atheist and religious scientists on both sides promoting science. Some on both sides were wrong. It would seem that science has no relevant correlation to pure science which seeks answers to the natural world. Toss in religion to the mix and science seems to take a back seat in the process.

 

Regardless, if malarial fever, or ergot-infected grain stored in Middle Eastern granaries caused hallucinations that inspired new ideas, I'm good with it whether those ideas are supernatural forces doing supernatural things to people, or if they're merely new insights that can be tested in science. But while the entirety of the historical pageant of man leads in different ways to where we are now, only one of those two sources of inspiration is related to science. I guess the supernatural IS a sort of alternate universe.

 

-- phi·los·o·phy n. pl. phi·los·o·phies 1. Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.

2. Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.

3. A system of thought based on or involving such inquiry: the philosophy of Hume.

4. The critical analysis of fundamental assumptions or beliefs.

5. The disciplines presented in university curriculums of science and the liberal arts, except medicine, law, and theology.

6. The discipline comprising logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology.

7. A set of ideas or beliefs relating to a particular field or activity; an underlying theory: an original philosophy of advertising.

8. A system of values by which one lives: has an unusual philosophy of life.

 

Whoever and however a bit of wisdom comes to mankind is irrelevant. It's there, it's hypothetical and it is up science to validate. However, based on logical reasoning is definitely not the same as pure scientific empirical methods.

 

It would seem that all 8 rely on a belief system in one form of another rather than empirical proofs. That puts it more in the theological arena rather than scientific. To say evolution which is based on ancient philosophies is scientific is simply bogus. Scientists do great at providing empirical proofs of many once philosophical ideas. That's their job. They have been working on the natural world since day one. Great strides in science have resulted in a ton of beneficial things for mankind. However, touting philosophical or theological ideas as science just doesn't cut it in my universe. Using such destructive techniques, claiming scientific proof, to harm other is really not my cup of tea either.

 

Stosh

 

 

[packsaddle]

You have an opinion about an idea that you don't understand. You don't understand how it works today and you evidently don't understand how the idea was formed.

 

I do agree with you about one thing: touting philosophical or theological ideas as science IS bogus, hence my objection to teaching creationism in a science class. But I, who AM a scientist and a biologist at that, disagree with your denunciation of my field as 'bogus'. I do understand you have that opinion. I also understand that your opinion is grounded in ignorance. I just don't agree with it.

[Stosh]

You have an opinion about an idea that you don't understand. You don't understand how it works today and you evidently don't understand how the idea was formed.

 

I do agree with you about one thing: touting philosophical or theological ideas as science IS bogus, hence my objection to teaching creationism in a science class. But I, who AM a scientist and a biologist at that, disagree with your denunciation of my field as 'bogus'. I do understand you have that opinion. I also understand that your opinion is grounded in ignorance. I just don't agree with it.

As I have said all along, neither theory is provable, both based on a belief system, and both are subject to interpretation. No conclusive evidence has been proven either way, that's why it has and will until some future time it remains myth, theory, hypothesis, philosophy, theology, or whatever one wishes to define it. The only thing everyone has determined, it has not been proven by empirical science. If it had, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

 

Stosh

[berliner]

"This is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend ..."

[h=2]Edward Snowden says he is willing to cooperate with investigations into NSA spying. At a meeting with a German lawmaker in Moscow, he reportedly suggested he would be open to coming to Germany, and complained of a US "campaign of persecution." Berlin has at least signaled readiness to talk.[/h]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-931237.html

 

Against a backdrop of fraying ties between the US and many of its allies, sympathy is growing within Congress for European outrage at NSA spying activities. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is due to visit Europe to help address concerns about American surveillance.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-931618.html

 

[Stosh]

"This is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend ..."

[h=2]Edward Snowden says he is willing to cooperate with investigations into NSA spying. At a meeting with a German lawmaker in Moscow, he reportedly suggested he would be open to coming to Germany, and complained of a US "campaign of persecution." Berlin has at least signaled readiness to talk.[/h]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-931237.html

 

Against a backdrop of fraying ties between the US and many of its allies, sympathy is growing within Congress for European outrage at NSA spying activities. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is due to visit Europe to help address concerns about American surveillance.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-931618.html

I'm a child of the Cold War, spying has been going on my whole life, it's nothing new. Remember, outside the US, they don't have to buy into the mainstream media politics. They just keep playing hardball and Obama got caught with his hand, arm and maybe his head in the cookie jar. He can cover up his scandals inside the US by ignoring them, but outside is a whole different story.

 

Stosh

[berliner]

"This is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend ..."

[h=2]Edward Snowden says he is willing to cooperate with investigations into NSA spying. At a meeting with a German lawmaker in Moscow, he reportedly suggested he would be open to coming to Germany, and complained of a US "campaign of persecution." Berlin has at least signaled readiness to talk.[/h]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-931237.html

 

Against a backdrop of fraying ties between the US and many of its allies, sympathy is growing within Congress for European outrage at NSA spying activities. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is due to visit Europe to help address concerns about American surveillance.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-931618.html

Haha good one jblake: I am from West Berlin, the center of the spying universe. I grew up about 2-3 miles from Glienicker Bruecke, where they always exchanged the spies and U2 pilots. Berlin is where the CIA dug a tunnel under the Iron Curtain to tap into russian phones.

 

Funny thing about this story: Chancellor Angela Merkel loves to ignore things, or at least try to. She is one lousy politician if you ask me. So when it first leaked a not-so-well liked Minister was sent forward to declare the NSA scandal as closed and over and not important and hush hush ... and only about 2 months later after it is reveiled that Merkels phone is tapped does the german goverment have to start acting, having lost face already.

So now everyone one is like "OMG I cant believe it ... "

Days later it is revealed that the german spies didnt know their own goverment was spied on (failure LOL) but it turns out parts of the

programs or techniques used by the NSA was actually made/engineered by germans.

So the germans didnt know anything because the germans built part of it. Funny.

Reminds me of Assed: Nobody knew how or where he made all the chemical weapons, just the german companies that sold him the ingredients ...

 

 

I am so fed up with all this BS.

 

The Truth is out there. Trust no one.

[berliner]

Oh yeah: what the NSA is doing now was done by the Stasi, the communist East German Secret Service that ceased to exist in 1989.

The parllels arent even funny anymore.

[Stosh]

Oh yeah: what the NSA is doing now was done by the Stasi, the communist East German Secret Service that ceased to exist in 1989.

The parllels arent even funny anymore.

I'm thinking that when Moses sent the two spies into the Promised Land to check it out, he set a precedent that everyone afterwards has followed. This stuff has been going on for 4,000 years and now people are surprised? Yeah right. OSS, KGB, NSA, U2, Enigma,...? ring any bells?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_agencies

 

Smoke and mirrors people, nuttin' but political smoke and mirrors. Well, at least until two or three black Escalades show up outside your front door.

 

Stosh