"Painius" wrote in message
g.com...
| My dearest Robert,
|
| "Robert Myers" wrote in message...
| ...
| On Aug 25, 5:37 am, Terje Mathisen "terje.mathisen at tmsw.no"
| wrote:
| MitchAlsup wrote:
| On Aug 23, 2:25 pm, Robert wrote:
|
| Does that mean that every day, in every way, the world *isn't*
getting
| better, and better and better--even though the areal density of
| transistors doubles every two years? :-(
|
| Based on the number of people who are willfully ignorant these days,
| no.
|
| Willfully ignorant seems right, particularly in the US.
|
| I believe that there has never before in the history of the continent
| been so many people who insists on closing their eyes to all scientific
| evidence, just so they believe in a literal reading of some particular
| Old Testament stories about the age of the Earth (& Universe?). :-(
|
|
| I think it would be wrong to single out religious people.
|
| People in every aspect of life at every conceivable level of education
| believe all kinds of myths, some of them quite dangerous. Some of the
| most dangerous propagators of unfounded myths are in possession of
| "Nobel" prizes in economics. A truly alarming number are part of the
| national security establishment of the United States. Others are
| running maniacal sovereign states with consciously delusional shared
| national beliefs.
|
| To bring the discussion somewhat back on topic, I credit two things
| with at least partially curing me of credulousness: learning modern
| physics and working with computers. Modern physics has taught me that
| the apparently unbelievable or extremely counterintuitive cannot be
| dismissed out of hand. Working with computers has over and over
| again persuaded me that the last hypothesis that anyone (sadly,
| including me) will accept to explain puzzling results is often that
| they are hanging onto some critical but incorrect and unexamined
| assumption.
|
| Robert.
|
| P I T A P I T A P I T A P I T A P I T A P I T A P I T A
|
| Good for you Robert ! At least there is one person in this
| world who seems to be on the right track. G
|
|
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion