#natural

I wonder if we are seeing a return to the object in the science-based museum. Since any visitor can go to a film like Jurassic Park and see dinosaurs reawakened more graphically than any museum could emulate, maybe a museum should be the place to have an encounter with the bony truth. Maybe some children have overdosed on simulations on their computers at home and just want to see something solid--a fact of life. ↗

— Richard Fortey

#museums #natural-history #life

In thinking about these questions I have been stimulated by criticisms of the prevailing scientific world picture... by the defenders of intelligent design. Even though writers like Michael Behe and Stephen C. Meyer are motivated at least in part by their religious beliefs, the empirical arguments they offer against the likelihood that the origin of life and its evolutionary history can be fully explained by physics and chemistry are of great interest in themselves. Another skeptic, David Berlinski, has brought out these problems vividly without reference to the design inference. Even if one is not drawn to the alternative of an explanation by the actions of a designer, the problems that these iconoclasts pose for the orthodox scientific consensus should be taken seriously. They do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met. It is manifestly unfair. ↗

— Thomas Nagel

#evolution #id #intelligent-design #macroevolution #materialism

Once bitten twice shy? Sure, but... why not get a bigger dog and bite them back? ↗

— A.A. Bell

#bell #bit #comedy #crime #dogs

No one stays the same, David. Everything you are is a direct result of something that's affected you in your past, whether it was horrible or wonderful -- no one has the right to destroy themselves because they can't deal with the pain. You have to learn from it. It's not over--the good in your life--it's not over until your dead. ↗

— A.M. Hudson

#supernatural #vampire #life

To be honest, I wasn't a sci-fi geek at all. But I do love a good sci-fi film, especially one that can really take you away. And I read some reality-bending novels growing up, like stuff by Vonngeut, so I already had one part my brain open to the unnatural and unusual, and it's generally fun to venture into that world and film in it. ↗

— Olivia Thirlby

#away #brain #especially #film #fun

The great charm and comfort of the system is, that its affects are palpable within a week of trial, which creates a natural stimulus to persevere for few weeks more, when the fact becomes established beyond question. ↗

— William Banting

#becomes #beyond #charm #comfort #creates

It is this conception of the unity of the human career which is perhaps the greatest achievement of historical study, since it gained a place analogous to that of natural science. ↗

— James H. Breasted

#analogous #career #conception #gained #greatest

Man may be considered as having a twofold origin - natural, which is common and the same to all - patronymic, which belongs to the various families of which the whole human race is composed. ↗

— Adam Clarke

#common #composed #considered #families #having

It is not impossible to think that the minds of philosophers sometimes act like those of other mortals, and that, having once been determined by diverse circumstances to adopt certain views, they then look for and naturally find reasons to justify these views. ↗

— Morris Raphael Cohen

#adopt #been #certain #circumstances #determined

The recent 'panic' to control greenhouse gas emissions and billions of dollars being dedicated for the task has me deeply concerned that US, and other countries are spending precious global funds to stop global warming, when it is primarily being driven by natural forcing mechanisms. ↗

— Diane Douglas

#billions #concerned #control #countries #dedicated