Titmouse, Woodpecker, Intelligent Design, "Black Smokers", Dr. Ian Malcolm, and God (Part 1)
Looks like I've got a "two parter" here... The first has a couple of pictures of a titmouse and a Downey woodpecker. It also holds the start of a discussion concerning the existence of God. (We like to think big.) But first the birds...
Yes, we've been playing with the NovaBird again. The flesh is weak.
A few posts ago, reader Gerry asked where do birds go in inclement weather. (You can read my response here.) The photo below shows a Downey seeking shelter from the storm, (as Dylan might say).
This is the same birdhouse we built last year. (See parts 1 and 2 of that build.)
I guess that probably the best answer to Gerry's question is that birds (like life) find a way to survive... Anyway, on a broader scale, perhaps Dr. Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum) put it best in the movie "Jurassic Park"... In his defense of his theory that an all-female population of dinosaurs could somehow still breed, he replied, "No, I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way." And that takes us to our coffee-table chat... Does God exist? (We have a rather large coffee table.) The argument that follows is from an agnostic engineer (me). Let's come at this with three simple assertions, and a final conclusion....
The first assertion has to do with the assumption that something fairly complex started this universe about 13.7 billion years ago, (see Wikipedia - "Age of the universe"). Read that the "Big Bang". Yup, the majority of the scientific community now agrees that roughly 13,700,000,000 years ago, some hot, dense, nondescript, non-temporal "primordial goop" coalesced to an infinitely small state, and kablooey! All space, matter, and time as we know it entered the picture.
That's all we have time for tonight campers... Tune in next time for more photos, and a debate that's sure to raise St Anselm...
See you by those ontological feeders,
CapeCodAlan
P.S. Read Part 2 of this thread here.