From Knowledge to Wisdom

Evolution and Genesis

A while ago in the corner of Facebook where I hang out a wave of "25 random things about me" passed through. People posted a list of things about themselves as a means of getting to know their Facebook friends. Among my 25 things I wrote:

"I think that someday we will understand how evolution and Genesis fit together."

That triggered some reactions, so I promised to expand on the thought.

Intro

In my personal epistemology I make a distinction between knowledge known by the rational mind and truths known by the spirit. The former is the scope of the science and logic, the latter falls outside the scope of science and logic. For science, spiritual truths are irrational beliefs. So it is difficult to have a dialogue between science and faith.

Evolution

Since the Scientific Revolution our knowledge of the universe has been exploding through application of the scientific method, logic, reasoning and mathematics. So we can explain more and more about how the universe works and we have applied that knowledge to the development of all kinds of technologies that have been both improving and destroying the way of life of millions of people.

Time Travel

Been time travelling.

My parents, in their nineties, are preparing to move from the family homestead of more than fifty years, to an apartment. My mother is boasting that she has not thrown out even a bus ticket since 1950. So I joined my brother and sister in getting some momentum into the process of emptying the house. My childhood and teenage years were in that house in that city. But that is a lifetime ago. Going back there raises so many memories that it is like going back in time. An effect reinforced by all the junk, stuff, books and memento's being brought to the surface. (My mother presented me with a fairly comprehensive collection of my artwork from primary school. A salutary confrontation.)

And the journey was seamlessly handled by the interconnecting components of the travel machine. Rather like the round green door of Bilbo's house, from which the road leads down and onward to a myriad places, the travel machine begins at the bus stop two minutes walk from my house. The bus stopped to pick me up on time at 13:54 on Friday and delivered me in eight minutes to the intercity station. As I ascended to the platform the intercity to the airport rolled in. Just time to grab a cappuccino from the Kiosk before the train departed - the marketing machine nibbled at me "normal cappuccino, sir, or would you like the winter cappuccino with a hint of cinnamon?".

There were only a few students in the afternoon train. Having been visiting university open days with Sophie in recent weeks, my mind has been wandering over the choices I made at that age. Another aspect of the time travel effect. I passed the time on the train with the opening chapters of "The Time Traveller's Wife".

Scary Bad News

Despite the fact that my family classify me as a "doom and gloomer", I actually think that I have a naive optimistic view of the world. That partly comes from being a baby boomer - growing up in the fifties and sixties of the 20th century, it seemed that the normal course of events in the world was for things in general to get better. In the UK we had free schooling, free healthcare from the National Health Service and in the sixties The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Radio Luxembourg and stereo record players. And it was possible to hitch-hike from my home in Edinburgh to the south of France.

The only serious doom and gloom bit that I recall was a few days around the Cuban Missile Crisis when I was outside school looking up at the sky and wondering whether there were actually US and Soviet nuclear bombs being delivered over our heads by ICBM. Well, of course, there was the assassination of John Kennedy. That was a serious break in the everything gets better all the time trend.

Anyway, three news items last weekend put me into a doom and gloom perspective on world affairs:

The Bush regime has the characteristics of a Mafiosi organization Jan Tromp, the Volkskrant's correspondent in the USA, is moving on after four years. He had a feature article in Saturday's paper that was an inventory of evidence of the corrupt, secretive, deceptive, anti-democratic and illegal activities of the Bush regime. Now, of course, we knew this already. Ages ago I joined the kids on a Stop Bush demo.

kinda self-explanatory.    Originally uploaded to Flickr by jillwrites.com.

But, somehow, the extensive matter of fact inventory of known evidence wiped away all hope that somehow things might come right in the USA, in the end.

Karwan and Ruth, Ruth and Karwan

Updated 2007-07-22

We recently paused at an important family milestone. On 30th June our daughter Ruth and her betrothed, Karwan, were married. The ceremony was in Amsterdam.

Family of the bride and groom came from far and wide - Italy, Poland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Switzerland. And many friends from Amsterdam, Eindhoven and elsewhere joined the celebration.

It was a special celebration in many ways - Ruth is the first of our children to marry. The bride and groom chose to give the ceremony and programme its own unique form. Most significant is their choice to marry as an expression of their commitment to one another at a time when it seems marriage is out of fashion and only indulged in by people in their thirties.

It was a civil marriage ceremony according to Dutch law, but around the legal process there were many elements reflecting the diversities of culture and world-views coming together in this union.

For several years both Karwan and Ruth have been active in the International Socialists. The choice of location for the ceremony reflects their world-view and historical awareness. The ceremony opened with an introduction to the building by their friend Maina. Catherine, sister of the bride, was master of ceremonies for the occasion and provided translation from Dutch to English where necessary.

Maina explained that De Burcht had been designed by Berlage at the end of the 19th century for the Diamond Workers Labour Union. At that time the diamond industry was the second most important industry in Amsterdam, with 10,000 employed. However the workers had not been strongly organized, being split along religious, Jewish and Christian, lines. Eventually a general strike took place involving all those engaged in the industry. Out of that strike the Diamond Workers Labour Union was established and Berlage, himself a socialist, had designed this building for them. The building now functions as a museum of the labour union movement.

Summer Balloons

Summer is here! I've just seem my first hot air balloons of the year. They drifted right over my house. One very low and the other quite high, right overhead.

You hear them first. We had just gone outside when I heard the familiar dragons roar of the hot flame and looked around to locate it. Dogs barked in the neighbourhood, disturbed by the strange thing in the sky.

Ever since we came to live in The Netherlands I have associated hot air balloons with summer evenings. In previous lifetimes we lived in coastal areas of the English speaking islands and I don't think I ever saw a hot air balloon. But here on continental Europe, safely in from the coastline, hot air balloons appear on summer evenings when the wind goes almost still and it's light till late.

So I take these as heralds of the real summer.

It is raining again

Here in The Netherlands we had 44 days without rain. Instead we had seemingly endless bright sunny days and temperatures way above normal. This week it is raining again and the plants in my garden are growing like crazy.

I love these plants that catch droplets in the fibres on the surface of the leaves. They remind me of a poem that I learned from the poet in my youth when I was hitch hiking south from my home in Edinburgh, Scotland. It went something like this:

Great tae be hunderds a' burds,
'n set 'n trees
'n wash w're nebs i' rainy leaves.

My 24 Hours of Flickr day

I joined the "24 Hours of Flickr" group and set out to shoot a photo journal of my day on 5 May 2007. It was a rather ordinary Saturday. No special appointments.

After the usual getting up and dressed stuff I went on my shopping bike to the supermarket and my favourite bakers for a few breakfast supplies.

In the Netherlands 5th of May is the day on which liberation from the German occupation at the end of the Second World War is celebrated. So there were national flags hanging out on some houses. On 4th May the dead of that and other wars are remembered. So there were some flowers at the village war memorial. This part of The Netherlands was liberated in September 1944 as US and British troops fought their way north in operation Market Garden. Two soldiers died in Nuenen and there are war graves in nearby villages where many more a buried.

The Basics of Life

Four weeks ago, about lunchtime on Saturday, I was driving across town to pick up my wife from her Aglow meeting and listening to a discussion on the radio about our healthcare insurance system. We have a new insurance system in NL that is supposed to be more effective as it is driven by market forces. A director of one of the insurance companies said that the next great step forward should be the creation of a market in the delivery of the healthcare itself. His discussion partner, a socialist politician, responded that this was nonsense, maybe for people with a long-term condition some choice of healthcare provider would be useful, but if you have an accident or a heart attack you have to get quickly to the nearest hospital and all hospitals must be good.

Within half an hour an ambulance arrived for my wife who had slipped and fallen in her meeting room and was stuck on the floor in pain. The first question the ambulance crew asked was, "Which hospital do you want to go to?" How do you make that choice, lying on the floor in pain with a suspected fracture of something? Anyway, E. came up with the answer  "St Anna".