[extropy-chat] Try hard des Chardonnay

[Damien Broderick]

At 12:20 PM 3/5/2005 -0800, Mike Lorrey wrote:

>The fact is that some of the best science in history has come from
>religious people: Mendel's research in plant genetics (he was a monk),
>des Chardins Omega Point Theory (long before the modern transhumanist
>movement)

Ha ha ha ha!

Well, that gave us all a happy laugh, didn't it, little ones?

All together, now, children (I know it's hard, but you really have to try):

The man's name was *not* `des Chardin'.

The man's name was not even `de Chardin'.

The man's name was `Teilhard de Chardin'.

The way we say this is `Father Teilhard.'

We pronounce it a funny way: `Tay-are'.

Now, children, you have just heard that Père Teilhard's ideas are among the 
best science in history. But I'm sorry to say that his very silly and empty 
suggestion, which he called `radial' and `tangential energies', are really 
among the worst ideas in scientific history. If you wish to know more, read 
Sir Peter Medawar's very funny and very cruel and very famous essay on this 
confused priest and his version of Naturphilosophie. You will find it 
conveniently at 
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Medawar/phenomenon-of-man.html .

Damien Broderick