ORNITHOSAURUS

The University of Southampton has caused to be produced a reptilian remake of the famous phony ape-to-man graphic, this time to reinforce the determinedly held nonsensical notion that dinosaurs ‘evolved’ into birds.

Anything that is going to take fifty million years to do needs a fair amount of persistence, a hundred or more times the vision of our current world leaders, and a bloody good reason for doing.

Palaeontologists are notorious for gathering piles of old bones, forcing them together and, with the aid of metal armatures and hundredweights of plaster of Paris, creating Mesozoic muppets or things that are half dog, half dinner.

The jolly old Smallfilms-style archaeopteryx was half bird, half pterodactyl, and not a little half-baked. His long search for a mate would have made a moving episode of ‘Walking with Disney’. He could have succeeded in the last reel, and they could have given birth to an egg with a little lion stamped on it. But he won’t do for the modern computer-generated world.

There have been too many things in the past that were half and half.

Scientism won’t give up its quest to prove Darwin wasn’t even slightly mistaken until it does for all of us in the process.

This handy, and comparatively harmless, graphic clearly shows how the drawing evolves from a lizard thing into a little tweety bird.

Clever old mindless and accidental evolution usefully, if somewhat long-windedly, modified the heavy, scaly lizard into something that wouldn’t break a bird-table. Its balancing tail shrivels away, its weakest features (spindly arms) become magnificent multi-directional wings – and, by these clever ruses, ornithosaurus is able to avoid the asteroids that fall from the sky to explain the disappearance of its non-feathered friends, and figure out how and why to fly to freaking Africa!

Pull the other one – it’s got scales on.

From BLINDED WITH SCIENCE available from The Book Depository

MESOZOIC MIX-UP

As production of this book nears its closing stages, I’m pleased to learn that that amorphous and indefinable entity, the ‘Scientific Community’ has found itself able to restore existence to the brontosaurus.

You might think a creature anything up to a hundred feet in length, whose tail was capable of breaking the sound barrier, would be an unlikely candidate for hide & seek, but we’re here witnessing another miracle of the new godhead – the ability to create and uncreate at will, as long as you don’t mention creation.

Not that long ago in a very long scheme of things, Bronty was dinosaurus non grata, a SORNed saurian. So how did he manage to overturn the ‘scientific’ verdict?

He was first discovered by palæontologists alongside another swamp-dweller of similar proportions. Both creatures’ skeletons were fairly complete, but both were lacking their heads.

It’s probably best not to dwell on how they lost them. What we do know is how they acquired replacements: the palæontologists stuck some on from other creatures.

Thus the specimens were exhibited, transfixed and transplanted long enough to enter the minds of the general public and Ray Harryhausen.

The two differed in the way things tend to, especially when they have had to ‘evolve’ from a whelk or a fungus into something the size of Tesco’s.

Probably because of the noise no one had heard it make with its tail, or perhaps because it lived on a diet of vegetables, the marketing department christened one ‘thunder lizard’, or brontosaurus.

The other composite was distinguished by the title, apatosaurus, meaning ‘deceptive lizard’. In what way deceptive is not clear. Did it pretend to be a lizard, or pretend not to be one? Can something be deceptive without something or someone to deceive? There seems not to be a corresponding classification for ‘deceived palæontologist’.

As it turned out, Bronty was actually the more deceptive of the two, appearing to be just another apatosaur, so he was air-brushed out of prehistory and the world became a poorer, and still less accurate, place.

Bronty was dead, but he wouldn’t (probably couldn’t) lie down. Non-existent though he was declared to be, he remained a children’s favourite and the one with the star quality – even with his new pin-head, which was apparently so short on grey-matter that he needed a second brain at the other end of his body, like a pantomime horse.

For his come-back this partnership has also been dissolved.

So good old Bronty is not only restored to us, he’s got a new solo act and is lighter headed. He still holds his thunder-producing tail in the air for no better reason than that he is forbidden by the aforementioned ‘community’ to float it on the abundant water with which he was surrounded in life.

He’s not taking any chances. He knows from experience that what ‘science’ giveth it is just as ready to taketh away.

From BLINDED WITH SCIENCE available from The Book Depository

AS IF

 

It seems we ‘evolved’ a big brain so we could delude ourselves that we are conscious. But, if we weren’t conscious in the first place, the delusion would be wasted on us. And if we were not, and are not, conscious, what the hell would it matter?

The logic is not merely flawed, it’s non-existent.

Why would Dawkins’s ‘lumbering robots’ need all his beloved science, and why would he need to pontificate or write books if there was no one on the receiving end?

Why have paintings, sculpture, radio, television, theatre or clog-dancing if no one is conscious of any of it? – and why keep harping on about evolution and brains and psycho-rot and big bangs and god particles if there is no one to convince?

If we were not conscious, it wouldn’t matter what we were not conscious of. Even if Dawkins’s little genes are mysteriously endowed with the consciousness and self-will denied to us, why would we need to be consulted, never mind deluded?

The whole rigmarole is not a rational attempt to understand, but a cockamamie construct designed to actively rob the human race of its individuality, free-will and potential.

MIND OVER MATTER

If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter

The old joke actually expresses a blindingly obvious truism that is missed by many toilers after enlightenment through science; especially those whose capacity for thinking themselves ever deeper has led them to conclude there is no such thing as consciousness.

Baldly stated, without consciousness there would be no science. If you rule out the awareness and the faculties for thinking and evaluation, you rule out the very basis and possibility of the ideas and experimentation that have brought us to wherever it is we stand today in relation to the scientifically modelled world around us.

Every atom, every rock, every stream, every star and every universe between here and not here is meaningless, unorganised, insignificant and indicative of entirely nothing until someone with the capability and impetus to observe and evaluate it applies such meaning or significance to it.

Consciousness alone sets out to impose order on randomness and chaos. Only consciousness cares. Such order exists not at all until it is so imposed. Conscious units can argue themselves blue in the physiological face about whose imposed order is the order of the day, but all order is the application of theory, viewpoint or understanding to that which is inherently chaotic and without advertised purpose.

Missing this point, it is possible for scientific theorisers to decide which bits of the chaos they accept, or feel themselves able to explain, and in so doing  create a skewed reality for those who will blindly believe anything as long as it is spoken with, or backed up by, accepted ‘authority’.

Only thus is it possible for the ruling consciousnesses to convince them that they are not conscious, despite the fact that, by whatever mechanical means information and experience reaches them, it still, ultimately, has to impinge upon their consciousness to make any difference.

Someone might tell you what you think you perceive is an illusion borne of ‘brain activity’. Illusory or not, it is you, as a conscious individual who is experiencing it.

The lie that consciousness does not exist may seem as idiotic as the old joke, but it is no laughing matter in a world where dogmatic science rules – especially where it rules in the service of those with no fellow feeling. The stimulus response principle serves those who would rule and poison us very well, but edits out a crucial factor.

The stimulus is not the cause, but the response.

People are not a generality. They are individual consciousnesses, capable of their own unique emotional and intellectual responses.

One man’s girlfriend leaves him. He hurts, but he understands. There are more fish in the sea.

A second man’s girlfriend leaves him. Life is not worth living. He turns to drink or drugs and lets it ruin the rest of his existence.

A third will not allow the girl to leave and uses threats of violence to get her back or to try and prevent the possibility that she will form another relationship elsewhere.

Identical stimulus, multiple responses. There are many millions of other variations – as many as there are bereft boyfriends.

We are able at this time to see how a relatively new ‘science’ sets out to impose order without understanding of this simple truism. Psychology is an enormous edifice built on fictional entities – the id, the ego, the censor and so forth. None of these is identifiable or definable by any scientific method – they are not even neologisms for new discoveries. They are part of a mythical pantheon upon which the subject draws for spurious credibility.

Actually it has none. It is not a science but a meaningless and mostly useless construct. But it is far from alone in being a created subject in which an interest group can claim esoteric knowledge. Such fraudulence has gone on since time immemorial, and persists as much in the realms of so-called ‘science’ as ‘religion’ or the ‘paranormal’.

It has been a conscious effort of material science to divide human perception into these arbitrary categories – to define which belief is right belief and where the boundary of ‘normal’ is to be drawn. Neither of these is a path to truth or understanding and only the denial of consciousness can make it seem so.

Blinded With Science can be purchased from The Book Depository

KIA STONIC: What’s not to like?

 

Stonic 'First Edition'

After exhibiting commendable restraint through the alternating thirty and forty limits from Heathfield to Punnets Town, Three Cups Corner is the signal for all those going into Battle to cut loose for the rollercoaster ride along the near Alpine connecting ridge road.

White vans, agricultural vehicles and home-going workers hurtle confidently and apparently safely through hills and valleys, long straights and s-bends, squeaking past oncoming drivers with the opposite goal in mind.

Some cars are better suited to this adventure than others. Few make it a real pleasure and one such is the Kia Stonic.

If you drive a lot of different cars, getting used to a new one doesn’t usually take too long, although it might be a while before you really drive it to its best advantage. I’ve remarked before how easy it is to feel at home in Kia models. Everything seems to be where you would wish to find it (with the exception of bass and treble settings on the test car’s radio), so all controls not only fall easily to hand, but respond in a natural and comforting manner.

I initially drove Stonic at a UK presentation in its ‘First Edition’ - i.e. upper spec - version, and was immediately impressed by its poise and balance. There are some fine roads in and around Newbury and the Oxfordshire border and the car made the best of all of them.

Styling, as we have come to expect from the Korean firm, is distinctive and exudes a real presence. Slightly curving the forward edge of the bonnet works well and slightly reduces the vertical dimension of the ‘shark mouth’ grill. The two tone colours of the example I drove lend further distinction to the car, though these are not to be found on the ‘2’ model I’ve been living with this month.

Visibility is another plus point, with no enormous A-pillars to dodge around to view the outdoors.

On a journey from Kent to Gloucester by way of Watford, Stonic demonstrated what an easy car it would be to live with. Frugal on fuel, more than able to keep up with other traffic and hardly ever out of sixth gear, it scores as highly on the mechanical end as the matters of comfort and convenience. Even overtaking manoeuvres can be achieved without the necessity to change down in many cases thanks to the seemingly never ending supply of torque from the 1.6 diesel engine and the perfectly mated box.

I remember when 10:1 was a high compression ratio for a family motor. Nobody talks about it any more, and the amount of pressure under which modern engines operate is best not thought about on a daily basis, but we can only imagine what it takes to produce 260 foot pounds of torque from 1500 revs upwards.

Along with other manufacturers, much of Kia’s attention has been on the stiffening of the passenger compartment. As I explained earlier (see Body Torque in the Randle Report archive), there has been a long history of compromise between suspension and torsional rigidity. As tolerances in build quality can be more finely tuned, so the suspension set up can really come into its own. And Kia have gone the extra kilometre to refine ride and handling for European expectations.

Stonic 1.6 CRDi '2'

Especially in the handling department, this has been a total success. Ride wise slightly less so on the test car with the ghastly potholed thoroughfares of Cheltenham causing no little disturbance to car and occupants. Miracles are not to be expected, of course, and Cheltenham is about as bad as it gets. I wonder if Gold Cup racegoers realised they’d need to be going over the jumps before they clapped eyes on a horse.

Meanwhile, back on the road to Battle, I’m leading the charge into an s-bend when a misguided game bird breaks cover from the woods on the right and runs out into my path. A glance in the mirror and I have time to stop, let him finish his crossing and get back up to speed without inconveniencing the next car through the bend.

It helps that, in the tradition of great front-wheel-drive cars, Stonic can be taken up through the gears without losing its sense of direction.

Over the brow of the next hill and there’s a lorry parked facing me. The oncoming carriageway is clear as far as I can see, so I keep up the momentum and sweep past the obstruction. However, the lorry is also parked directly opposite a side lane from which, with perfect timing, emerges one of those people who only look one way before pulling out.

I’ve long since given up attempting to use modern car horns. You usually have to hurl yourself at the steering boss with enough force to set off the airbag to get any response from them and, since the advent of multiplex wiring, by the time they manage some kind of squeak you are probably already at home in bed.

So it was a case of getting through the narrowing gap while it still existed, and all of Stonic’s systems - chassis, steering, gearbox and engine - delivered what was needed, still leaving time to flash warnings at the now swiftly oncoming traffic.

Passenger and luggage spaces are all very adequate, and the extra height granted to the suv concept makes entering, leaving and loading easier than ever. Four hours at a stretch was comfortable in the car without any stiffness or after effects, and Kia’s unique seven year warranty could help you get very attached to it indeed.

At this writing, the on the road price for the Kia Stonic CRDi ‘2’ is £17,795.

Manufacturer site: www.kia.com/UK

IN SEARCH OF DARWIN - THE MAN BEHIND THE ISM

Dave Randle

Despite the perpetual bandying about of his name by those for whom it is a talisman of good faith and often a professional credential, Darwin the man tends to remain a sort of eminence grise in the public mind.

An ardent Christian and believer in godliness, his faith was to be tested, perhaps to destruction, and certainly edited out by those to whom it was an embarrassment and practical inconvenience.

A bizarre outcome of this is that the old boy himself now comes across as someone immortal, invisible and universally wise.

We know he had a big beard, and that he was lampooned mercilessly by the press for allegedly saying people and monkeys were related - indeed that we all ‘evolved’ from simian forebears. What he actually said is to be found in his books, thankfully, so it is still possible to consult his real thoughts and the progress of his investigations.

What a lot of people seem to think he said has much more to do with ringmasters such as Huxley who turned those investigations into a circus act and caused to be created the iconic ape to man cartoon whose pictorial sleight of hand not only continues to deceive, but which has spawned ever more publicity-hungry ringmasters and more unlikely sequences that depend on it utterly for their apparent credibility.

Darwin’s family home, Downe House is now in the hands of English Heritage. Set in the exquisite Kent countryside to the west of Sevenoaks, it provides a rare tangible sense of its erstwhile owner, largely thanks to sympathetic management that enables it to both retain its character and something of the timelessness of its Victorian heyday. Visitors can still sit on the terrace and contemplate the big questions. In fact, seating is provided in almost every space in the house - a rare boon that could well be emulated by other visitor attractions.

Passing through the obligatory shop (I bought a coaster with the Huxley graphic on it) and up the one-way stairs, one is led into an introductory room in which Darwin’s work is set in its historical context in a clear and well-constructed wall display that even gives fair credit to contemporaries such as Wallace and Lamarck; the latter, whose ideas Darwin supported, getting away without any of the vitriol and ridicule often reserved for him by those who have discovered or formulated nothing of value.

On the opposite wall, a monitor runs a loop of testimonials from English Heritage bigwigs and TV pundits on what Darwin means to them.

All agree that he was a ‘very nice man’. In contradistinction to the received picture of bluff and disciplinary Victorian fathers, all are at pains to confirm that he was the perfect dad, involving his numerous children in his discoveries and experiments and remaining even tempered in all circumstances.

That other very nice man of science, Sir David Attenborough, explains that before Darwin the subject of biology was in disorder. There was no want of discoveries or theories, but there was no unifying plan that could be called upon to turn the ragbag into whole cloth. Physicists had their measurements, chemists their tables. The science of nature shared their abhorrence for vacuums, so Darwin’s proposals and extrapolations rushed in to fill the void.

He was helped not a little in this regard by having a visible (and amenable) means of support. Earning a living had never crossed his mind, his father being both able and willing to subsidise him in all endeavours, including his specimen collecting voyagings on the Beagle, during which he seemed to get through a surprising amount of money considering the uncivilised or at least uncommercialised nature of many of the ship’s ports of call. Both applying for more and getting the dosh to him were no small enterprises in themselves in those times.

Lord Bragg chooses Darwin’s work with earthworms as his special achievement. The dogged way in which he unravelled and recorded the systems and the scale of these creatures’ apparently selfless contribution to the lives of other forms, not least thee and me, is unquestionably a high point in biological endeavour.

The worms don’t get much out of it, apart from a face-full of dirt. But their service to us is incalculable.

Working in the days when ‘all creatures great and small’ were created and animated by God, it was easy for Darwin to see the interdependence, the symbiosis that consisted of each in the service of all - an eco-system in modern parlance - but a system, whatever you call it. The enormity of this was naturally a source of major irritation to those looking for a science they could control; one that put man in his place.

Darwin was not postulating a materialist world in which man sprang from the earth, but his ‘natural selection’ suggested automaticity, something driven or modified by reaction rather than causation and this was enough to build on for those without their fellows’ best interests at heart.

Then tragedy struck. The Darwins’ eldest daughter, Annie was taken from them. There was nothing more that could possibly be done by materialist science. Darwin was desolated, and his accustomed scientific rationality, not surprisingly, compromised. If God existed, how could he let this happen? What we now know as the Stephen Fry Computation: If there is an immortal, etc. author of the universe, his, her or its concerns would surely be those of a television personality.

As Sir David hinted in the film, any system for the fledgling science was better than no system, and a system that could devolve responsibility and sentience to something mindless and automatic best of all. It can’t be laid at Darwin’s door that misinterpretation and corruption of his work would be used to give spurious legitimacy to the tyranny of Neo-Darwinists, whose nonsense evolves the fattest and ugliest in all things from banks to corporations to governments and the UN, and is really just fascism and eugenics dressed up as science.

Down House still has something of the old man’s spirit. Undistracted by games and projects to overstimulate and patronise children, there remains sufficient of the calm atmosphere of this former home to tune into.

Darwin was clearly a careful man; an observer not given to jumping to conclusions, and someone who didn’t need to dance to the tune of the food or pharmaceutical mafias to obtain funding. He could take his time and observe what was before him - for long hours.

As Lord Bragg suggests, his work on earthworms was far more valuable than that on evolution. It demonstrated symbiosis, to someone who took the time and trouble to look, the way in which life supports life through all its forms.

I think he would be genuinely distressed by the rape and slaughter that is done by people who don’t even begin to grasp the empty tautology of ‘survival of the fittest’, those who take it to mean a few predatory lunkheads will inherit the earth when they’ve gobbled up everyone else.

You can get close to the man’s mind by reading his work. But you get closer to his spirit by visiting Down House.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/home-of-charles-darwin-down-house/

UNWELCOME BREAKS

by Dave Randle

Whether because ‘tiredness kills’, as the signs have it, or because it is again necessary to charge up our ravening electric vehicle, we are more and more dependent on motorway services for our succour and sustenance.

If not the oldest profession, feeding travellers is a long established and happily symbiotic activity that, over the centuries, has responded to the specific needs of our methods of travel.

The Inns that served the pedestrian pilgrims and drovers, those on horseback and the carriage trade have adapted and survived or slipped into history on roads that have become byways to the barren non-stop motorways of today.

Those roads themselves were once the trunk roads of the country, the primary network connecting vital centres through the constant rumble of lorries and coaches. Inns and pubs along the way couldn’t always offer much in the way of parking for these vehicles and were limited in their opening hours, so ‘transport cafés’ began to spring up offering tea, something a bit like coffee and food that could be cooked and delivered quickly to fit in with people’s schedules.

Often regarded as ‘greasy spoons’, they none the less provided freshly cooked ingredients and chips made from actual potatoes.

More civilised ‘family friendly’ roadside food stops began to join them - Little Chef and Happy Eater offered similar fare but dripping free and identifiable from a photograph.

The arrival of motorways brought another element. Motorway services inevitably have an armlock on the traveller. Once you’re in the system, you can’t go wandering off. You have to have what you’re given at prices based on ‘take it or leave it’.

For a long while, at least what you were given was suitable to purpose. You could normally get a hot meal and the chance to sit and let the asphalt in your mind unwind. A breakfast or some kind of mid-Atlantic ‘brunch’, half a chicken with chips and gravy - even a decent pie. If all you wanted was a tasteless, salt-free egg and cress sarny, you could have that too. And there was even the option of grilled floor-scrapings in a bun for those with their hats on backwards.

Not all were consistent by a long way. There was a Granada on the M1 where I don’t think they ever washed the dishes. And anyone who offered to buy you lunch at Clackett Lane should have been given an ASBO. But, when you began to tire of the middle lane, or the Jeremy Vine show came on, you could usually be sure of some refreshment, some boost of protein, something heartwarming and substantial to fortify you before you repassed all the wide loads and logisticians you left behind you before the retreat.

When all my family was gathered together at a safe distance in Devon, Fleet Services was almost a second home. Ideally placed on the M3 to celebrate another lifetime on the A303 and the plain sailing of the M25 and M20 in prospect. A man can dream.

It used to be run by an outfit called ‘Welcome Break’ and very welcome it usually was.

Then, suddenly, we arrived there on a particularly bloody and hot journey to find the place taken over by aliens. Totally shattered and levels at zero, we made our way to the accompaniment of irritating music from one purveyor of toxic chemicals to another. Where once had been dining areas, now were bare tables occupied by bloodless souls eating crud out of cardboard. Some had been allowed plastic forks, but all were being treated as if they had learned their table manners from old PG Tips adverts.

I needed sustenance, and I needed it then, but I almost ran the risk of sleep or unconsciousness to return to the road to salvation.

How have we come to this? I have since had the misfortune to visit other disservices on the motorway network no better than Fleet.

At the time, I accepted defeat and, after thoroughly examining all the available ‘products’, I settled for some KFC chicken. We used to buy pots of this when we came out of clubs at midnight and had lost all sense of judgement. They had a cheap deal they called a ‘standard’. I used to order a ‘substandard’, which was even cheaper and didn’t have one of the more lamentable ingredients. Never knew what any of it tasted like and usually woke up the next morning for work with a breaded chicken drumstick up my nose.

All the staff at Fleet are American-speaking Chinese and very anxious to serve. I could not fault the politeness with which my waitress (if that’s the word - maybe she’s a grillista) explained that I was not entitled to a plate, a knife and fork, salt and pepper or, clearly, anything with which I could do any imaginable damage - even to the chicken. A drink to go with it was off-the-boil water with a teabag on a string in a cardboard cup. Squash it yourself, top it up with disgusting see-through skimmed milk and throw the whole bloody thing in a bin, from whence it will presumably be recycled into toilet paper.

I shudder to think what visiting French people make of it all. Their side of the Channel, you can be sure of something freshly cooked and nutritious almost anywhere, including services on the autoroutes for less than ten of their strange euros.

Regarding the fare to be confronted in these parts, one imagines them inquiring: ‘Does one eat it, or has one eaten it already?’