Evolution quotes: Arguments 4 May 20125 May 2012 Arguments have no chance against petrified training; they wear it as little as the waves wear a cliff. Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court Humor Quotes
Quotes Mill on species and Kinds 21 Dec 201121 Dec 2011 … every Kind (and a species must be a Kind) is distinguished from other Kinds, not by any one attribute, but by an indefinite number. Man, for instance, is a species of the genus animal: Rational (or rationality, for it is of no consequence here whether we use the concrete or the… Read More
Administrative Happy Solar Festival 21 Dec 2009 So, I am moved from Sydney to Brisbane, but as yet have no internet at home. I must therefore steal some of my GF’s in order to wish you all a wonderful solstice for tomorrow, and sundry other religious and ethnic festivals that may fall on or about that date…. Read More
Humor You want nonconformity? 17 Jul 2007 You Are 94% Non Conformist You’re incredibly strange. And a weirdness like yours takes skill to cultivate! No one really understands you. And you’re cool with that. You just hope you never have to understand them! Are You a Nonconformist? Via Larry via Mike, both of whom I beat hollow… Read More
I’d like to think that Twain knew that waves wear cliffs, and that the analogy is apt in the description of how long it takes to change those with petrified training by rational argument.
Typically, waves don’t do much erosion. It is the sediment carried in suspension by the water that does the eroding as a rule.
Well, of course you can like to think whatever you like to think. But geologists don’t think that the time required to erode a cliff counts as a long time. The Phanerozoic, now, that’s a pretty long time.
Geologists think “sudden” events take tens of thousands of years. Traffic cops think a sudden stop takes less than a few seconds. Depends very largely on who you are being taken to task by. I think Twain’s views are nearer the traffic cop’s.
They make it change form over time but in the moment and context the landscape seems literally solid, unchanging, unyielding and obviously so, as everyone sees the same thing from the same literal perspective i.e. standing at the edge of a cliff convinced that the ground will hold and history will not drag them down to the abyssal plain.
Jeb: …but in the moment and context the landscape seems literally solid, unchanging, unyielding … Not if you grew up on the coastline where I grew up it doesn’t! Collapsing cliffs is a regular part of life and awareness! Whole villages disappear into the sea within living memory. “You can still hear the church bells ringing when the tide rolls in!”
Small N.E fishing village for me perched on a cliff face between arable farming land and the north sea. Only time cliff went down was when a neighbour found whale amber; stuck it in his shed sent it off for testing. It was not amber but the explosives from a w.w.2 mine. Street was sealed of, army turned up slung it in the back of land-rover and blew a very large impressive chunk of a large cliff face. Great place to be as kid North sea in full storm, spent hours staring at it as a kid in wonder . “the bells”. I also rather like the old folk under the sea myths, and sea beans and fairy eggs as the congealed blood and vital organs of these folk and monsters that haunt the depths.
Jeb says: “everyone sees the same thing from the same literal perspective i.e. standing at the edge of a cliff convinced that the ground will hold and history will not drag them down to the abyssal plain” Unless someone pushes them off. One day I’ll work out how to put quotes in nice little boxes.
To indent quotes, either highlight the text you want to quote and click on “Reply”, or the manual way is to type the HTML code “blockquote” in angle brackets thus: ⟨blockquote⟩ and finish the text to be quoted with ⟨/blockquote⟩ before typing your response.
“One day I’ll work out how to put quotes in nice little boxes.” Useful if you are dyslexic I find, helps with short term memory issues. But then that term covers a wide spectrum and everyone will be different in how the work and think. “Unless someone pushes them off.” Indeed, when you think and have to learn differently it does upset people, particularly many working in education as they are generally ignorant with regard to the issues. Gets worse the further you advance as more interest is shown in how you research and order thought and my mind does not work by putting things into nice little boxes. But I am use to being viewed as stupid and facing snide remarks for the manner in which I work, no longer has any effect, I am not stupid and I have every right to do what I love doing and I am not trying to force my opinions on anyone else, had to put up with people doing that to me for years and it is somewhat ignorant. My introduction to history that started me thinking more seriously and systematically about the subject was reading the archeologists Leslie Alcock; shifting sands, was the metaphor he used in an introduction.