Posts Tagged science

This is a 2005 piece published by NewScientist.com and authored by Debora Mackenzie is an interesting read. I have often wondered where the world is heading towards.

ACROSS the world, millions of people feel threatened. They sense a dangerous enemy at the gates, committed to values and beliefs they fear and despise, and ready to impose its alien ideology on their government, their life and their children’s futures.

Is that a threat you recognise? If so, then you know how religious fundamentalists feel. To them, the secular world of the early 21st century is a threat to all they hold most dear. In response, increasing numbers are joining militant religious groups and living, voting and battling for their beliefs. Like it or not, they already outnumber the secular rationalists whose thinking underpins today’s western urban societies. And their numbers are growing by the day. What will that mean for the world as the 21st century unfolds? (more…)

I am grateful to Isa Daudpota for providing this translation by Jalaluddin Rumi’s verses that elaborate on the theory of evolution:

I have experienced seven hundred and seventy mounds.

I died from minerality and became vegetable;

And from vegetativeness I died and became animal.

I died from animality and became man.

Then why fear disappearance though death?

Next time I shall die

Bringing forth wings and feathers like angels;

After that soaring higher than angels-

What you cannot imagine, I shall be that.

Isa further writes in a recent piece on Darwin’s birthday: (more…)