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August 2006 |
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Tuesday 2006-08-22
My parents recently came to visit our
daughter,
bringing cards and presents from several of their friends.
One of them is called Dorothy Tinman. We were very
disappointed not to receive anything from
her friends Toto Scarecrow and Munchkin Wickedwitchofthewest.
("I say, I say, I say, where do you go to weigh a pie?")
Tuesday 2006-08-15
Page changed: index.html
New child!
Sunday 2006-08-06
Gosh, how come the creationists haven't spotted this one?
History has built irreducible complexity
and variety into the bounteous world of organisms.
(Emphasis mine.) Of course, what Stephen Jay Gould meant by that
phrase, in his essay "Red wings in the sunset", has absolutely
nothing whatsoever to do with what
Michael Behe
meant when he used the same phrase several years later. Gould meant
only that the world is too complicated to be fully described by
simple "monistic" schemes like
Abbott H Thayer's
theory that all animal colouration serves the purpose of camouflage.
(Gould's essay appears in "Bully
for Brontosaurus", published in 1991; it first appeared
in 1985
in Natural History
magazine. "Darwin's black box"
was published in 1996. I wonder whether Behe had read Gould.)
Saturday 2006-08-05
McCaughan's Law of Customer Centredness: Whenever any measure
is described (by a corporation to its customers) as "for your
security" or "for your convenience" or anything of the kind,
the real reason for the measure is "for our profit margins"
or "for our convenience".
Case in point: on aeroplane flights you're likely to hear
some spiel along the following lines: "Attention, please.
Here is an important security announcement. For reasons of
security, you must remain within the class of seating for
which you hold a ticket. If you attempt to enter any other
class of seating, our staff will direct you to return to
your own class. Thank you for complying with this important
security measure." Security. Ri-i-i-ight. Real reason:
maintaining the distinction between seating classes, so as
to increase the feeling that the more expensive seats are
exclusive and desirable.