Pluraferoj

About Several Things

Personal News, Lamarckian Evolution, Roundup, 50th Anniversary

By John Taylor; 2007 August 04

Personal News

It was a very hot day yesterday but it did not lay me out as it would have a year ago. Here is what I did.

In the morning I got caught up in organizing, correcting and editing work for the Black Hole I am currently calling People Without Borders. Then I did my daily couple of hours table tennis practice while listening to audio books in the garage. The two books currently being audited are "Darwin and Evolution," and "The Wisdom of Your Cells," by Lipton. The themes of these books mesh closely together so I am profiting by listening to a chapter from one, then a chapter from the other.

More on that presently.

Then Tommy wanted to go to the pool, so we biked there and swam in Lion's Park Pool for an hour and a half. Then he wanted to run up and down the big hill in the park, so I did too, once, then we biked home. Mom was off to work, and Tommy, who recently took the top bunk from Silvie and has been waking early, had a long nap. I had to wake him for soccer, then drive him, Silvie and his buddy, also named Tommy (he is of Irish descent, Tommy Flannigan), to their game. My Tommy was goalie for the first half and defense for the second. They did unusually well for this losing season, only losing by 2 to nothing. They have not scored a goal all season, and there has been lots of practice for a goalie like Tommy. Right afterwards I challenged the three of them, Silvie, Thomas and Tommy, to a "kids versus Dad" match using a lighter than regulation soccer ball, and I lost 10 to 3. Then before bed I lost another mini Dad versus kids rematch in the corridor outside our bedrooms. I lost again.

Oh, did I mention we do not have air conditioning? The coolest place of refuge is the garage, where I listened to those audio books. If I read the above list of activities a year ago, I would not have believed it possible that I could summon up so much energy. Thank you God, and gazpacho soup, too.

Lamarckian Evolution

The first audio book is a basic history of science, the story of how Charles Darwin and other theorists, from archaeologists to ornithologists to economists came up with the present theory of evolution. The latter, Wisdom of Your Cells, is a startling book that, among other things, argues that Lamarck was right in the first place, that he was slandered and caricatured by his opponents for political rather than scientific reasons, and that the new science of epigenetics is vindicating his idea that organisms actively change their genes. It is like anything else, you talk about something, and no matter how theoretical you think you are, you end up talking both religion and politics. There is no getting around it. If you doubt, check out the Icon Books "Introducing Mathematics."

Similarly, evolution, born in the age of racism and European colonialism, was a political more than a scientific choice. Lamarck held that nature is inherently cooperative and that groups make more of a difference to our development than individuals. On the other side, Darwin's camp saw nature in terms of male domination and hierarchy, as a continual struggle for reproductive dominance. Who do you think is going to win out when Europe holds the land mass of the entire planet in its white, male little hands? Needless to say, the choice, as it turns out, had little to do with how nature really works. The result, aside from a huge slap in the face to truth, is the present failure of medicine, where doctor caused morbidity is the leading cause of death.

Roundup

Man, it is hot today too, and I have run out of gazpacho. I will have to put all my energy into shopping for veggies and preparing a new batch. So, let us do a roundup.

Thanks to Jim Styan for this link, to: "Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen." This presentation not only gives a concise summary of the progress of the planet over past decades, it also demonstrates the kind of thing I would like to see Baha'i speakers doing with their presentation software.

http://www.okananter.com/wordpress/?p=21

Thanks to Doug for pointing me to this remarkable robot builder in China: Mr Wu's Robot Revolution,

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13251033,00.htmlChinese Rickshaw Robot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hop387b2nw

If you get igoogle, as you definitely should as your homepage, install the gadget "World Sunlight Map." It depicts a realistic, real-time graphic of the planet with day and night displayed as dark and light areas. I have stopped looking at the world, and time, in the same way since I put it onto the center of my homepage. Right now, in summer, the dark area looks like a giant Pacman swallowing up half the planet. In the day, even at noon, the consuming monster is only a few hours away from enveloping me in utter nothingness. It is frightening. Complete obscurity, darkness, invisibility. Night no longer seems that benign, sleepy-time thing, "knitting up the raveled sleeve of care," that it always seemed, now I feel I must do something with my day fast, before that raven void eats us all.

For those who do not subscribe to Google Alerts, here is a gossipy article about prominent Toronto area Baha'i and former ABM, Jack Lenz, author of the Coke ditty, “If I could teach the world to sing;” It is called “Go big or go home” and is in the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070801.wlenz01/BNStory/Entertainment/home

The NSA of Canada has written reminding us that August 12th will be International Youth Day. This year's theme is "Be Seen, Be Heard: Youth Participation for Development." They write: "Such an occasion offers the Baha'i Community a unique opportunity to acknowledge and share what the Baha'i youth and their friends are doing to participate in development."

Fiftieth Anniversary

Joe pointed out to me that this fall marks the fiftieth anniversary of the passing of Shoghi Effendi. I agreed with him that it would be a shame to let that anniversary pass by unnoticed, even though the Guardian himself abhorred any kind of hero worship or celebration of his anniversaries. On the other hand, we Baha'is of today are like that young girl in Blackboard Jungle, singing, "To Sir, with Love." He took us from loosely knit groups to a world-embracing Administrative Order of consummate perfection. Who can estimate how much we owe him? So let me confine my remembrance to the following observation, starting with prophesy.

"There shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit. The Spirit of Yahweh shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Yahweh." (Isa 11:1-2, KJV)

Baha'is put great store in this prophesy of the coming of the Bab and Baha'u'llah. The salient effect of the “wisdom” and "spirit of counsel" predicted is an end to obscurantism, a dislike of secrecy, a love of equality and freedom of speech. Studying the history of the Ministry of the Master, again and again you see Him sacrificing what would for most Westerners be way too much practical benefit and efficiency for the sake of letting individuals and communities have their own head, for egalitarian, open sharing of counsel.

Thus it is ironic that the enemies of the Faith have switched back and forth over the past century from complaints that Baha'i institutions are obscurantist to being organized at all, then back again. It is over-organized, then it is not organized enough. Now, when bounds to discussion are drawn, they harp on how oppressive the institutions are in curtailing "civil rights" of malcontents. Which is why I feel moved to repeat the following observation about Shoghi Effendi, which I have cited here several times in the past. Here is a fitting memorial to think over as we mark the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the beginning, the completion of his Mission in this world,

"... Shoghi Effendi discusses the affairs and conditions of the Cause with astonishing openness and frankness; he does not like secrecy and told us many times that this openness, frankness and truthfulness among the friends constitutes one of the great remedies for many of our difficulties, and he sets us the example of free and open consultation, with a modesty and simplicity which one must see in order to appreciate because it is foreign to our American temperament; he invites suggestions and consultation from the visiting friends and from those around him. He listens to every suggestion with the utmost courtesy and seriousness and brings to bear upon it the light of his wonderful lucid mind, his clear all-comprehensive thought, his powerful and penetrative judgment." (May Maxwell, quoted in Ugo Giachery, Shoghi Effendi - Recollections, 190)