The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0880 Wednesday, 4 October 2006
[Editor's Note: Since I published the initial submission, members here
have the opportunity to respond. However, I object to several of these
postings on the grounds that one is too personal and not addressed to the
actual post and that others simply are not relevant to the mission of the
list. Please, in the future, members should strive to avoid making empty
attacks on others and submitting extraneous materials to the list. -HMC]
[1] From: R. A. Cantrell <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Oct 2006 11:03:41 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
[2] From: Arthur Lindley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Oct 2006 18:05:06 +0000
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
[3] From: John W. Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 03 Oct 2006 18:55:20 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
[4] From: Dan Smith <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 4 Oct 2006 10:28:59 +0100
Subj: RE: SHK 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
[5] From: John Webb <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 4 Oct 2006 13:54:41 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: R. A. Cantrell <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Oct 2006 11:03:41 -0500
Subject: 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
>I have no desire at all to look into this, but someone with more stomach
>might.
That's a load off everyone's mind.
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Arthur Lindley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Oct 2006 18:05:06 +0000
Subject: 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
As Huxley probably said on a similar occasion, 'God deliver us!'
Arthur
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: John W. Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 03 Oct 2006 18:55:20 -0400
Subject: 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
>From principles of geometry to ..., the authors portray the depth,
elegance, clarity and
>pure cleverness of a universe designed to nurture the intelligent life
that one day would
>discover that design.
>
>I have no desire at all to look into this, but someone with more stomach
might.
Judging from "principles of geometry" above, they are not merely
anti-science, but also thoroughly heretical. Too mephitic for my middle.
"...meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning
simply because we prefix to them the two other words 'God can.'"
-- C. S. Lewis
"'...But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, too, made me sure
you weren't a priest.'
"'What?' asked the thief, almost gaping.
"'You attacked reason,' said Father Brown. 'It's bad theology.'"
-- G. K. Chesterton
"If, however, we consider the matter aright, since power is said in
reference to possible things, this phrase, 'God can do all things,' is
rightly understood to mean that God can do all things that are possible;
and for this reason He is said to be omnipotent."
-- Thomas Aquinas
Or, to bring things round to blank-verse drama, if not exactly
Shakespeare,
"God is a man,
And can defend His honour, being full-grown
In wisdom and in stature. We need not
Play nursemaid to the Babe of Bethlehem...."
-- Dorothy L. Sayers
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dan Smith <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 4 Oct 2006 10:28:59 +0100
Subject: 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
Comment: RE: SHK 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
>someone with more stomach might
Believe not all; or, if you must believe,
Stomach not all. (A&C 1763)
Dan Smith
[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Webb <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 4 Oct 2006 13:54:41 +0100
Subject: 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0871 Intelligent Design and Shakespeare
Many discussions about Intelligent Design in the popular press grossly
misrepresent modern science.
One of the best, and most intelligent, presentations was a series of
recent TV programs by Sir Martin Rees, titled "What We Still Don't Know".
There's a program website here:
http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/W/what_we_still_dont_know/arewereal.html
Sir Martin Rees is the Astronomer Royal, and President of the Royal
Society:
http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/staff/mjr/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Rees
Until 1991, Martin Rees was Pluminan Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge.
It was a former holder of that position, Sir Fred Hoyle, who made the
discovery that energy levels in Beryllium atoms had very specific values,
such that, if they had been slightly different, "we couldn't be here".
Hoyle's conclusion was "this can't be an accident". In 1983, Hoyle wrote
one of the first popular books proposing Intelligent Design, titled "The
Intelligent Universe".
About Fred Hoyle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle
Since then, a catalogue of further "anthropic coincidences" has been
discovered:
http://www.novanotes.com/jan2003/anthcoi.htm
The central scientific question is "is the world real?", and the
scientific answer is "we don't know". (Though some students of the
humanities might claim that they do know the answer.)
All of the considerations above approach this question from the large
scale viewpoint of cosmology. There is also a way of looking at similar
issues from a micro quantum-mechanical viewpoint. This was the subject of
a recent book by Micheal Frayn, titled "The Human Touch". Review in The
Times, 16th September 2006:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,923-2358208.html
Here's another article about Micheal Frayn from The Sunday Times, 17th
September. SHAKSPERians might like this one. It begins "What does a
playwright know about our place in the cosmos. Rather a lot, as it
happens".
Article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2361030.html
There is also a lot of material in Shakespeare which illuminates this
question, ranging from Prospero's "cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous
palaces, the great globe itself... we are such stuff as dreams...";
considerations of all the world being a stage, with its players having
their various entrances and exits (just as the people we know enter and
leave our own consciousness); to Bottom's Dream and references to Platonic
philosophy in MSND; etc.
_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>
DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions
expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor
assumes no responsibility for them.
