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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>natasha@natasha.cc<br><b>>…</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p>Quoting spike <<a href="mailto:spike66@att.net">spike66@att.net</a>>:<br><br>><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span> Darwin is god.<o:p></o:p></p><p><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span>And what about Mendel?<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I am a big fan of Mendel too. {8-]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>>…</span>Bty, if evolution as progress suggests a self-directed evolution, then where do you place Darwin<span style='color:#1F497D'>. </span>Natasha<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>It would take me a while to list all the reasons why I think so highly of Darwin, but I will just touch on a couple points. We have science popularizers who are not professional scientists themselves, but who are dedicated enough to learn and understand the state of the art in some science, then explain it to the rest of us. Good examples would be Ed Regis, James Gleick, our own Damien Broderick. There are top shelf scientists who cannot write their way out of a wet paper sack, such as, Murray Gell Mann for instance and plenty of others. But in this short life, we are given a few soaring talents who are both top scientists and excellent writers: Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, for instance, but Darwin was the best of the best.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Consider the lyrical beauty of the last paragraph in Origin of Species:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='background:#FFFCF6'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#333333'>It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows… <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='background:#FFFCF6'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#333333'>Whoooooo! Now THAT is writing! Now watch how the master reels it in:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='background:#FFFCF6'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#333333'>There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#333333'>The poetic beauty! That passage soars with eagles! That man really had it all: expressive writing skills, observational talent, patience, persistence, self-discipline, generosity with credit, attentiveness to minute detail, brilliant intuition, creativity, courage, love of truth, every good thing I can imagine a science writer having, he had all that and much more of it than anyone else.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#333333'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#333333'>spike<br><br><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#333333'><br clear=all><br><br></span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>