Remarks on science and Christianity - two

[fpb]

There is a sense - and this is what I want to show in this article - that the two sides are talking past each other.

Comments

[fishlivejournal]

It is a mistake to judge any visionary by the standards of the discoveries they've made: it can take generations to unravel the implications of the discovery. Yes, the Plato who wrote The Republic can live long enough and mature enough to write The Laws, but this is rare. So yes, you show some of the holes in Darwin's beliefs, and yes, the flaws are obvious: but they weren't obvious until they were pointed out

Most insightful thing I've read by you

[joetexx]

It follows that any scheme whatsoever to artificially foster and create genius is certain not only to fail but actually to achieve its opposite - a world of conformity, idle minds, and failed ideas. That is because nobody can envisage in advance the right combination of suitable talents with suited cultural and social circumstances; to do so would be to be able to forecast cultural and social trends a lifetime away. The minds that will be bred by such programs will be trained to deal with society and culture as they were when the program was first envisaged, or indeed when its inventors were children or young men, and therefore inevitably out of synch with the world as it will be when they bear fruit. What can be done is cultivate competence. Raise a thousand skilful musicians, and one of them may grow to be Beethoven, or at least Toscanini; try and raise a thousand musical geniuses, and you are certain to produce a thousand loquacious but rather