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Dear
All--
Having
started this thread back in November, I feel incumbent to weigh in on its
relevance to Paleonet.
I just
attended a wonderful symposium at Yale, dedicated to Dolf Seilacher, entitled:
Evolving Form and Function: Fossils and Development. While the symposium
was populated by remarkable contributions from evolutionary biology and
paleobiology on this topic, informal conversations (none of which was initiated
by me!) during coffee breaks and dinner kept turning toward Creationism/ID,
indicating that ID and the attack on Evolution is a worthy topic of conversation
amongst people interested in paleontology and evolution. Furthermore,
Dolf's own closing remarks mentioned ID and how we must continue discussing and
challenging this attack on science. Thus, its relevance, no matter how
uncomfortable it may make some feel, is quite real.
Just
as I do not open or read messages on topics that I am not that interested in, I
would recommend that others do the same for ID. The attack on Evolution in
the US is a real threat to our science and to thinking people around the
world. It is my hope that people who do not suffer this same circumstance
find some sympathy and perhaps offer some support or suggestions as to how to
combat it. We are, after all, part of the same community, which is without
borders.
Lisa
Dear PaleoNetters,
Sandy Leo has hit the nail right
on the head. A subject is ‘on topic’ if messages keep being posted. If it is
‘off topic’ nobody replies. After all, PaleoNet is not an
organisation like GA or BGS, it is us! Therefore what interests some of us is
‘on topic’, no matter how obscure or annoying to others. If any or all
of us were allowed to proscribe particular topics, then PaleoNet would be
the lesser for it. If you are not interested in a particular topic, don’t
whinge about it, just use the bloody delete key! Have those who whinge about
particular topics ever stopped to consider that what they are whingeing about
may be very pertinent to someone’s livelihood? Have they ever thought that
their most treasured interest may be as boring as chiropteran excrement to
others! It all gets down to tolerance; a commodity much too rare in today’s
world.
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Dr John R.
Laurie
Petroleum
and Marine Division
GEOSCIENCE
AUSTRALIA
GPO Box 378
Canberra ACT
2601
Australia
Tel: (02) 6249
9412; Fax: (02) 6249
9980
E-mail:
John.Laurie@ga.gov.au
Street
Address:
Cnr
Jerrabomberra Avenue & Hindmarsh
Drive
Symonston ACT 2609
ABN 80 091 799
039
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