Daily Archives: February 8, 2009

Born to Be—Born Again?

New Scientist has a clearly written, highly interesting, article on the scientific hypothesis that religious belief may be strongly supported by biologically-based mental habits (such as the tendency to attribute movement, like the rustle of a bush, to intention on the part of some … Continue reading

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Richard Dawkins v. John Keats: Does Science “Conquer all mysteries by rule and line” and “Unweave a rainbow”?

In John Keats’s “Lamia” are these lines (231-238), cautioning against a too-eager reductionism, and recalls Wordsworth’s assertion that “we murder to dissect”: There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull … Continue reading

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When Was Darwin Born?

Thursday, February 12, 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Darwin was born on February 12th, 1809, the same year that Lincoln and Edgar Allan Poe were born. 2009 also marks the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s … Continue reading

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“What the Zen Teacher Said” (A Poem by Santi Tafarella)

                Though mists of morning go gently whirling,   they’ll soon be worming in granite cracks.   And there they’ll freeze, with night expand,   in stony-love untie old bands   and apple- split your rocks

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