Lice offer clues to origin of clothing

USA TODAY ^ | 8/18/2003 | Tim Friend

[js1138]

I have learned you can be educated, but still not be to intelligent!

I guess we're lucky that some of us aren't to educated.

[PatrickHenry]

Oh, yes, let us thank Him for head lice, Gonorrhea ...

You've had an active social life.

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks for the ping to this creepy-crawly thread.

[js1138]

There's a Monty Python song about this. Unfortunately it is too gross even to think about, much less post. Anyone who thinks life before Tide and automatic washers was better than now should read some accounts of the lice leaving the clothing of recently dead people. but not before supper.

[PatrickHenry]

Just in case ....

[DittoJed2]

Where you and I diverge is on the Evolution/Communism thing. You seem to view Darwin and evolution as the beginning of the end for enlighted, moral civilization, while I think Marx, class struggle, and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" are the true dangers.

What I would say is that Marxism is atheism. It had its rise in the 1800s just as evolution's popularity did and both share common ancestry of the skeptics dating back to Rene Descartes (who threw out everything he know and sought to restructure his thought processes based upon only that which was incontrovertable "I think, therefore I am" being his main starting point).

Marxism and Darwinism are two different animals. Of course, the Communist Manifesto and many of Marx and Engel's writings occurred well prior to Darwinism. Marxism isn't necessarily incompatible with Darwinism (as much of it would be with Christianity) but it doesn't borrow its main thoughts from Darwin.

That was one of the points I was trying to make on the other thread. I wasn't calling anyone on the thread a Nazi, nor was I inferring that Darwinism would naturally lead to Nazism. What I was trying to say is that Darwinism provided fertile soil in which Nazi-like beliefs flourished. Kip Kinkle, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold all claimed Darwinian beliefs as the basis for some of their actions. NOTE: THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT EVOLUTIONISTS' ONLY LEGITIMATE PATH IS TOWARDS TOTALITARIANISM OR TERROR. I am simply saying, that these groups found grounding for their beliefs in the teaching of Darwin and especially his followers such as Huxley (major racist). Darwin was relatively speaking not as racist as many of his contemporaries. But social Darwinism had it roots within the idea that caucasians were more highly evolved than negros. (Strongly taught by Huxley and others, more mildly inferred by Darwin). Still Darwin did not say that forcing Natural Selection was a desirable option.

Today, Evolutionists are in the same boat as those who had rejected Scripture in the 1800s. When God is not the captain of your boat, then man decides. There is no philosophical framework within Darwinism to allow for any man's preference to supercede anothers. Hitler felt that Aryan or "mostly Aryan" preference for pure blood should prevail and that he could force natural selection. The school killers were much the same, one of them shooting a black boy because he was viewed to be less evolved and inferior. Yet, evolutionists can also legitimately claim a preference to do what helps the species survive. Or, choose any political ideology he/she wishes. They can't say the others are right or wrong, because such things can't exist without a firm moral law brought about by a higher authority. They can say this is what our society prefers and we disagree with your society for X reasons.

Thinking of the implications of worldviews is a very interesting subject. Very few people actually sit down to consider their own. Many live life with blatant contradictions (such as the person who believes there are no moral absolutes- and believes that to be absolutely true).

Thanks for the ping. DJ2

[mtbopfuyn]

Lice are obligate parasites of humans, meaning that they can't survive on any other host species

Strange that other animal species have lice, not just humans.

Here's a good one. Anyone who has an old (2-3 years or so) Hartz dog shampoo bottle, go look at the back which states it will kill lice. I suspect they had to change the label recently because parents might use it on their kids' heads as a cheaper and effective alternative to Rid.

[Right Wing Professor]

There is no philosophical framework within Darwinism to allow for any man's preference to supercede anothers.

That is because Darwinism is not, and nor does it pretend to be, a system of ethics. One could equally say that calculus does not give us a moral basis for our actions.

[Aracelis]

Exactly what are you implying???

[DittoJed2]

Calculus does not try to get rid of the moral law-giver. It does not presuppose a world without a creator.

Think about our founders. Even they knew that the rights we have as Americans could never be considered without the foundation of them being given to us by our Creator. Not all of them were Christians. Several were deists who discounted miracles. And yet, the only way to claim unalienable rights was if they were given to us from above. You destroy that foundation, and you have rights given and taken away by preference.

[js1138]

What I was trying to say is that Darwinism provided fertile soil in which Nazi-like beliefs flourished...

I don't suppose an economy in which people carried around bucketloads of worthless paper money provided any of the fertilizer for Nazism, not did Tsarist oppression feed the birth of Communism.

[js1138]

Calculus does not try to get rid of the moral law-giver. It does not presuppose a world without a creator.

Calulus is not science. The science of physics does presuppose a world quite different from that supposed by biblical literalists.

[DittoJed2]

I don't suppose an economy in which people carried around bucketloads of worthless paper money provided any of the fertilizer for Nazism, not did Tsarist oppression feed the birth of Communism.

js1138, you show me one spot where I said that Darwinism caused Communism or even contributed to it. As a matter of fact, I just said the opposite. They grew up next to each other but were separate (if compatable) movements. After you are done with this, please review what I said about Nazism. Did I anywhere say that Darwinism was the sole cause of Nazism? The Germans carried around wheelbarrows full of useless money. Likewise, Hitler was born in a time of antisemitism. Many things gave rise to Hitler. But his Darwinistic philosophy was also A contributor.

Thomas Huxley wrote: "No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favor, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successively with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried on by thoughts and not by bites." (Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews, 1871)

In an atmosphere such as this, how can anyone argue with a straight face that Hitler wasn't influence by Darwinism? Again, I did not say that Darwinism CAUSED Nazism. Hitler was a demonic lunatic. But it contributed to it.

For more on racism and evolution. Again, Darwin's racism was mild compared to his successors. And scientists today can legitimately reject those claims. However, to ignore the legimate path that those claims and the claims of his successors took in the development of movements such as Nazism is intellectually dishonest.

[DittoJed2]

Yeah, and quantum physicists are suggesting we are all just holograms. So?

[js1138]

...you show me one spot where I said that Darwinism caused Communism or even contributed to it. ...

Then give me one good reason for bring up Nazism on a thread about body lice.

[js1138]

Physicists are allowed to engage in wild speculations, so long as they do the math. Science is about speculation --followed by math.

[DittoJed2]

If you will look at what I was responding to, the topic was regarding the political philosophy of Communism and its relationship to Evolution. It isn't hard to follow the line of thinking on why I answered the way I did. It was a legitimate offshoot of a previous discussion. Period.

[DittoJed2]

And Christian philosphers are allowed to speculate on the relationship between ideologies, as long as we can back it up.

[balrog666]

Your post is a response to a non-sequitur retread repost by f.Christian which has nothing to with God's Creation of lice and other parasites.

[DittoJed2]

philosophers.