Re: virus: In Defense of Relativity

John Steele (john_steele@fsti.com)
Sun, 17 Mar 1996 12:27:31 -0600

>I enjoyed the uplifting words about relativity and the description of
>frantic efforts of the irrational to protect their turf.
> I have only the most casual acquaintance with Einsteins theory but if
>I remember it correctly the fact that light is bent by gravity was
>predicted by him and verified in the sixties on a Gemini mission. What
>is exciting to me about this is that his theory had it's origin in
>"thought experiments" a technique employed by many authors of
>evolutionary books. Freud used the same method to develop his theories.
>The power of rational thinking is one of the great wonders of the
>world. The defensive algorithm's ( arguments always ending with the
>bible) used by the religous to avoid thought are scary.

I share your concerns, although I consider the theory of evolution a more
profound and important body of work than the theory of relativity,
(perhaps because it't easier to grasp.)

I work with a fellow who is one of the smartest people I've ever met, yet
he is also a Creationist. It baffles me how someone so intelligent can be
so willfully ignorant, and dismissive of whole fields of scientific
inquiry, such as palentology, genetics and biology.

And it's not as if his area of expertise was in the romanitics or
humanties either - he's a software engineer, as am I, (by which I mean
that his work requires him to take a rational approach to problem
solving).

It seems that in certain things he is willing to just close his mind off
from any dissenting evidence. (Evolutionary theory goes _way_ beyond mere
theory nowadays - it is as close to a law of nature as you can get.)

And as you have pointed out, he is not alone. I am staggered by the
number of people who reject evolution in the US.

John

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