G-d Created Evolution

So I’ve been thinking a little bit about evolution.

And I don’t see any contradiction between evolution and creation.

In fact, G-d created evolution!

You see, in His infinite wisdom and love, G-d made his creations with the ability to change over time. 

We are not static creatures, but we are able to evolve, adapt, transform, and grow ourselves, our species, and our world over time. 

But, but, but…there are fossils hundreds of millions years old…how could G-d have created the world less than 6,000 years ago?

Well, who says G-d created the world at time horizon zero–if the world was fully formed with trees and plants, and fish, birds, animals, and people–then these could all have had age associated with and built into them already. 

Boom…G-d just created Adam and Eve–was that from the point of conception, day of birth, or fully grown adult?  Similarly, how old is the tallest mountain or the fullest forest when it was created? 

Time is not a function of G-d who is timeless. 

And the formed world appears at the blink of G-d’s eye and it can disappear that way too. 

Similarly, we learn in the Bible how G-d created the world in 6 “days” and rested on the 7th, but who says a day is literally that.

Couldn’t a day as in 1, 2, 3, etc. be phases of creation…where a day could be anything from a split second to a millennium or even a hundred million years.

To the G-d who Was, Is, and Will Be–what is a day, but a span of infinitesimal to infinite time to create His children and the world to teach and grow them. 

We are here in a infinite universe enveloped by the love of a limitless G-d. 

Evolution is no more a constraint on G-d then time or space is–to the contrary, evolution is a blessing of G-d that lets things develop and mature from the image of G-d to the imagination of His mind’s glory. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Big Mouths Alert

So I took this photo in the Museum of Natural History. 

As you can see, this hippopotamus has quite a big mouth. 

He is also not alive and is behind a glass-enclosed case for viewing. 

To me this screams that those with big mouths often don’t end up well. 

I remember a relative of mine used to bluntly call it, “being full of sh*t.”

Whether these people are in politics, your neighborhood, bullies at work and school, or even those in the fake news media…they have become all to somewhat frequent.

Sure there are other animals with small mouths in the same situation, but the hippo truly is a decreasing and vulnerable species.

And like it’s neighbor in the museum, the dinosaur–another one who has a big mouth–that ended up extinct, the prospects for talking big, but accomplishing little is sort of part of the character. 

The hippopotamus is mostly a herbivore–it has a big mouth and some big sharp teeth, but it mainly eats humble plants and doesn’t pursue the hunt of the big game and eat lots of red meat. 

Listen, big mouths can still be highly dangerous–words are powerful and can do a lot of damage. 

But overall “talk is cheap,” especially when people focus on words and not good deeds and who don’t have the right intentions. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

A Trip To The Science Museum

We went to the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Discovery and Science—it was quite impressive.

Outside, where you enter, there is a huge clock -tower contraption with overhead slides and rolling balls, and water turning wheels on the side—it’s a “what is it” (exactly) moment and you know you’re there. 

We hit the space exhibits first—I entered a simulator for a jet fighter cockpit, managed to take off with relative ease, but soon crashed, flipping it upside down—oops a little too much thrust.

The NASA exhibits were cool such as the MARS rover and colony mockups. And the Styrofoam wings that you can put on in a wind chamber and see how aerodynamically you are (or are not) was fun. 

Next up was the medical exhibits—we put together a puzzle of full body x-rays (“the shin bones connected to the…”), maneuvered a Da Vinci surgical robot arms, and zapped tumor cells with a mock laser.  

Oddly placed but interesting was the Gecko exhibit—with different colorful species hanging upside down and sideways with their suction cup feet. Couldn’t help thinking, which of them had been selling car insurance on those always-on Geico commercials or maybe this is the place they send them when they don’t perform on cue? 

Going through the exhibit on levers and pulleys, I used between 1-6 pulleys to lift a large stack of cinderblocks—and for the fewer pulleys, I thought good thing I had some Wheaties in the morning for breakfast, so I wouldn’t be embarrassed pulling on the ropes. 

The minerals, gems, fossils, corals, and dinosaur displays were somewhat meager, but were nicely laid out and a decent representation to get the idea.  

There was also an Imax theatre with a 3-D movie and those crazy glasses you have to wear to watch these—but the cartoon playing wasn’t the action and adventure I was looking for. 

One of the exhibits’ I enjoyed the most was the fish—of all types—some favorites were a huge purple-like lobster, the playful otters, the bobbing water turtles and many others.

We also stood inside a mammoth replica of a shark and took turns hanging out of its mouth—and feeling what it was like to be Jonah and the whale.

There was also a weather news station, where you get to playact newscaster, and we used the TV cameras and tele-prompters to give updates of everything from hail storms to wild fires—now, I know how they always seem to know jusst what to say and when–so perfectly. 

Another cool display had to do with sustainability and the environment—with a robot sitting in the middle of piles of trash and recyclables—not sure why he was there though—was he trying to decide what to recycle and reuse?

I don’t believe that I saw anything significant on alternative energy or on general computers and the Internet—and if there wasn’t anything particualr on these, I would definitely like to see them added.

Overall, good job Ft. Lauderdale—worth the trip—and thank you for spreading a love of science with all. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Asteroid Killer–That’s A Relief!

For those of you who have seen any of the numerous movies about asteroids hitting Earth–such as Armageddon, Deep Impact, and Asteroid to name a few–you know that in most cases this is considered an Extinction-Level Event (ELE).In other words, what the impact of the asteroid and the resulting tsunamis do not destroy, the dust and debris causing a deep freeze over the earth will. This would be like the Ice Age, although this time, we would be the dinosaurs!

However, a new supercomputer at Los Alamos National Lab running 32,000 processors has been able to demonstrate our ability to explode a 1 megaton nuke near the asteroid on a trajectory with Earth and literally blow it to smithereens.

The shock wave from blast would smash the composite rocks of the asteroid against each other, and this would shatter them, and disrupt the pending destruction here on Earth.

All this talk about destroying Asteroids makes me remember back to when I was a kid and used to play this Atari game called Missile Command, where we would shoot down thermonuclear missiles–they could’ve been asteroids for all we knew–before they hit us.

However, in the game, you eventually missed–and your base stations and ability to shoot were destroyed after being overcome by the number of incoming missiles–that was certainly a bummer, even though the game was fun especially with friends.

I am relieved to see the new simulations and projections that indicate that given enough warning, we have the ability to take down an incoming asteroid.

Life imitating art–I certainly hope Los Alamos’s new calculations are right and that if and when the time comes, we can get a very good shot at it!

>AOL DNR

Aside from the new digs, AOL has put a long-whiteboard along the hallway with the phase “AOL is cool.”

But as the article says “Nothing is less cool than professing one’s coolness, of course, especially if you’re an Internet dinosaur evoking a bygone era of dial-up modems.“

AOL was one of the hottest tech stocks in the 1990s, only to go down in one of the worst mergers in history to Time Warner.

AOL’s market capitalization peaked in December 1999 at $222 billion and now is at $2 billion.

In 2002, AOL Time Warner was forced to write-off goodwill of $99 billion–at the time, the largest loss ever reported by a company.

Let’s face it, AOL is not the same company it once was–it has become a shadow of its former self.

And it is flailing, trying desperately to reinvent itself, most recently with its purchase of The Huffington Post.

In my mind, one of the big problems is that rather than recognize that AOL is over, dead, kaput, and that it taints whatever it touches, it just keeps reaching out to more and more victims.

AOL needs to shut down as its former self and restart under a new name with a new identity for the new technology world it is entering a decade later!

If it really wants to “expunge the ghosts and start fresh” then it needs to relinquish the past including the AOL moniker and become a new company for a new age.

Dial up modems are long gone and not missed, thank you.

(Source Graphic: Wikipedia)

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