Sunday, April 23, 2017

Getting to the Science March.

Drove from Stroudsburg, PA to mother’s house near Philadelphia.  Caught a chartered bus nearby at 5AM to RFK Memorial Stadium and from there,the Metro to the gathering place by the Washington Monument.  Tagged along throughout the day with two nice women, a  young pussyhatted librarian and an older teacher, her friend.  As an engineer, I think I was the closest thing to a scientist on the bus.  Walking along the route from the Metro to the Sound Stage, I saw this guy who was there for the Scientism March.  His left sleeve affirmed “facts>beliefs”.  Not my gig, but these days a good dollop of this stuff goes with the territory.  I call it Saganism.  Passed by a small group carrying creationist posters that I didn’t understand.  More on the atmosphere and speakers later.

13 comments:

  1. My cousins are in the sciences. Pretty much devotees of the Amazing Randy and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But I'll trust their set of facts over some KJV fundiegelical who thinks the earth is flat. Looking forward to your report.

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    1. I don't get the Flying Spaghetti Monster thing. But I work in a science field and definitely am not a young earth creationist. I never did think that there was a contradiction between belief in God and evolution. If anything evolution emphasizes God's creative power.
      Yes, definitely looking forward to Stanley's report.

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    2. Isn't the Flying Spaghetti Monster an offshoot of the Creeping Meatball? Or am I showing my age?

      I do have to say this, though, Stan. I don't happen to believe 186,000 mile per second. Hay-ell, that is faster than a bullet. If light was going that fast, you couldn't see it. And this here theory of gravity. If it were true, the whole universe would have landed on us by now.

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  2. Actually, Tom, one of the speakers, I can't remember, talked of the "pull of gravity". And I remember thinking, "No, it's proper to say it's just following a geodesic path in curved spacetime". I shouldn't be too snobby, though. I never did master General Relativity but it's on my bucket list.

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  3. Flying Spaghetti Monster: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Flying%20Spaghetti%20Monster

    Whole different deal than creeping meatball: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=creeping%20meatballism

    Tom, you old yippie, you!

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    1. Jean, Thank you for the clarifications. You shoulda seen my bell bottoms.

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  4. Stanley, did you see Bill Nye?

    The Catholic version of creationism = intelligent design. B16 was a big proponent of it but it's also not true. Jesuit Vatican astronomer George Coyne said it wasn't science and was fired by Benedict.

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  5. Depends on what's meant by intelligent design. If it's just a retrofit of Genesis but it took a little longer, no, I don't accept that. But if it didn't involve God's intelligence in a more intimate way than just pitching a bunch of energy out for the Big Bang, I don't accept that, either.

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  6. The best epigraph I saw from the March(es) (I wasn't on one) was, "No Planet B."

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  7. Be a while before my next installment. Good thing I stayed at my mother's after the Science March. My mother got a clot in her leg. I surmised what it was from the symptoms and got her to the hospital where they removed it. If I wasn't here, she probably would've toughed it out like she did her heart attack, toward no good end.

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  8. Stanley, I'm sorry to hear about your mother's blood clot. Good thing you were there. Prayers sent for her healing.

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  9. As Katherine wrote - hope your mom gets better.

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  10. She's doing a lot better, thank you for your prayers. Tonight, my 98yo Aunt Loretta who lives with my mother had to be taken to the same hospital. Urinary tract infection. The real problem is dealing with changing the living situation which has been going downhill with stubbornly independent old people. Now I need to go into a well deserved sleep.

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