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Jolene Handy's avatar

Tell me of the waters of my homeworld, Mike. Fantastic new season start, thanks a million for the shout-out! And so glad Bettys is doing well :)

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Mike Gibb's avatar

Arghhhh ... nooooo!!!! This would (had I the requisite hardware) have been brilliant to take part in.

Romanticsm (nature exceeds our ability to understand; gasp in awe!) vs the Enlightenment (all happiness and knowledge is within the grasp of rational beings; education and reason offer us the key to both).

Spoiler: I lean towards the second of these, but awe can be compatible with Enlightenment values. After giving a good example of William Paley's Blind Watchmaker argument ("if walking on a moor, I found a stone, I would not think any more about how it came to be there, but if I found a pocket watch, I would deduce that such an object required a maker. The existence of something like the human eye similarly tells us that there must be a Maker"), Richard Dawkins writes, in his book The Blind Watchmaker: "I hope that the reader is as awestruck as I am and as William Paley would have been by [echo location in bats]. My aim has been in one respect identical to Paley's aim. I do not want the reader to underestimate the prodigious works of nature...". Dawkins' driving force has been wonder, and the need to understand.

Awe is good, awe with comprehension is better (so definitely looking forward to the coming series!!!)

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