Thank you very much TFF; I have my work cut out for me now....
I did get to the speech on Friday afternoon. Saturday evening I posted a few comments about the talk on the article's blog.
~ "It was a very interesting lecture, and a good example of how you can prove just about anything with statistics."
More later... maybe.
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...on a tangentially related note (speaking of religious nuts and science wonks):
E. O. Wilson, renowned evolutionary biologist and the father of sociobiology, spoke at the dedication of a "biophilia center" named in his honor. The Florida Education Channel has a video of this speech...
http://www.fec.tv/ProgramDetails.aspx?pID=3567...that I just caught most of.
Dr. Wilson is always such a joy to listen to--and always brings a few tears to my eyes--as he brings up images of life's granduer and breadth... and detail, as well as images of several very different futures for humanity... and the creation in general.
I think it was on Charlie Rose (PBS-TV) that I first heard Dr. Wilson speak at length. He had just come out with his book,
The Creation. I suppose it was that show--and that book (and my own long education that allowed me to so fully appreciate his message)--that set me on this path of trying to rescue humanity's future.
His basic message--or last best hope--is to combine the powerful knowledge of science with the powerful passion of spirituality (often organized as religion) in a desperate attempt to get us through this looming bottleneck of civilization's current century.
Successfully emerging from that bottleneck would lead us into a relative paradise for all, but that is threading a fairly narrow window. An only slightly larger window sees us--and the rest of this corner of creation--limping along for centuries more. Outside of that window are the more unpleasant possibilities and consequences of any bottleneck.
Please check out the new E. O. Wilson Biophilia Center, and see what you can see of the creation's future:
http://www.eowilsoncenter.org
