In Reply to: re: re: re: re: re: circulated to all the other examiners posted by Parent on February 24, 2009 at 20:09:37:

(I)am NOT a teacher and (I) never have been - (I)hate the brats so (I) would be a very BAD teacher. And in case you are worried neither am (I) a litter warden nor a film producer. (I) Refuse to use total txt spk dough.

Sorry if my teacher ridiculing a stupid student distracted you but the idea was to point out that the rubbish posted by AL is Dark-Ages-Salem-style-Witch-Burning-at-the-Stake stuff - Ignorance masquerading as 'science'. And (it is) as wrong now and as dangerous as it was in the Dark Ages and the Spanish Inquisition. The Earth still revolves around the sun. The sun still rises in the west most mornings at least - according to theory of Galileo, the heretic, recently pardoned by the infallible you know who.

Guantanamo may be about to be closed but the intellectual Gauntanamo espoused by our friend AimsearChaite is definitely from the dark side of the intellectual spectrum.

They had measured the diameter of the Earth almost a Millenium before Galileo was accused of heresy by the establishment. The Earth is still round and it still rotates around the sun on the outer edges of the Milky Way.

Today on RTE radio we hear that bishops, as patrons of the vast majority of our schools, have the sole legal responsibility for the care of your children aged from 4 to 12 at our schools. (I know you are in the US so you may want to podcast this interview from Morning Ireland (24-Feb-2009). They want to have just a 'guideline' approach to protecting your children. They want each bishop to sign this voluntary set of guidelines - these are the 'guidelines' written by the self-same bishops. In order to absolve their brothers of their legal responsibility for protecting children from sexual or other abuse?

So it seems we are still in the Dark Ages of Ignorance. It is only a guideline that our children should be protected from sexual abuse? Bishops seem to think it's optional? So far onl one known child procreated by an Irish bishop in recent times. Que?

Darwin was religious. He and his wife had 10 children - how many of the Holy Joes protesting about 'evolution' here and promulgating a literal interpretation of the bible have managed to have any children at all never mind 10? Would Darwin have been happy with a guideline approach to protecting his many children? Darwin came to the conclusion that a God had kickstarted a process at the origin of the universe and everything followed from that. Elegant and neat and beyond human comprehension. His wife was a bit worried about it all but she had supported him throughout his long career allowing him to elaborate the theory of natural selection.

He was awarded the Gold Medal (not the God Medal) by the Royal Society for an academic treatise on barnacles. Barnacles are those tiny humble white crustaceans that prevent you from slipping when walking on rocks at the seaside when you are searching for that perfect spot to watch the sun sink into the sea. Billions of them per beach put there by God. (I have a theory that the earth rotates from right to left and that the sun always appears to sink in the west just about sunset when things get dark. But (I) could be wrong and (I) prepared to be persuaded that it actually sets in the East if you can do the necessary experiment.)

But did you know that Darwin's best selling work during his life was a real cash-cow tome dealing with worms and how to make compost? Green techonology is back in again 150 years later!

My favourite Darwinian observation; One that I remember from the Voyage of the Beagle, is his painstaking unearthing of a bolt of lightening that turned sand on a beach in South America into glass. He dug it out to reveal the path of the electrical discharge as it zigzagged down earthing into the sand on a Patagonian beach. (Okay it may not have been Patagonia - it may have been tierra del fuego even - but bear in mind this is all from memory not from google - (I am) too lazy to use google but refuse to use txt spk.)