[ExI] How not to make a thought experiment

[spike]

	...On Behalf Of John Clark

	...I must confess to being a little disappointed in Extropians
because I seem to be the only one who sees how important Evolution is...
John K Clark  


John you speak great blammisphies!  I practically worship evolution.  Or so
I am told by the religionistas.

This is my contribution to your meme: one knowns not misery and cognitive
dissonance until one has been an avid observer of wildlife *without*
Darwin's dangerous ideas.  In my own misspent youth, not really knowing
anything about evolution, I struggled to understand how these observations
could even be possible.  They didn't talk about Darwin in the public schools
in those days, not even in the biology classes.  I listened carefully in
biology, always enjoying it, actually reading the textbook even, but I sure
do not recall any discussion of evolution.  My first real exposure to the
notion was from Carl Sagan's Cosmos, in my third year of college.  (!) One
just cannot get nature without the concept of evolution.

Those who have always assumed evolution may not realize what it is like to
be an observer of the wilderness without the knowledge of evolution.  

Learning of Darwin was like being intellectually born again, and doing it
right the second time.

spike