PZ Myers. 2006 Jan 08. Bronowski's Birthday. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/bronowskis_birthday/>. Accessed 2006 Feb 13.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Sunday, January 08, 2006
Bronowski's Birthday
There's a fine testimonial to Jacob Bronowski at the Thumb. I recall watching every episode of his series, The Ascent of Man, way back in high school—he was much better than Sagan, I thought. Excellent stuff, and here's a great quote from the old man:
On the contrary, [Bronowski answered] it is those who appeal to God and special creation who reduce everything to accident. They assign to man a unique status on the ground that there was some act of special creation which made the world the way it is. But that explains nothing, because it would explain everything; it is an explanation for any conceivable world. If we had the color vision of the bee combined with the neck of the giraffe and the feet of the elephant, that would equally be explained by the “theory” of special creation.
Yet we do not have those features, and we do not believe they are biologically compatible. Therefore, our criterion of what is compatible sets a limitation on an acceptable explanation. That is why I say that to call in a special or miraculous act of creation reduces every conceivable world to accident.
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I think it is worse. Creationism also say that the random execution yet _had to be_ executed, or the god would have been out of work.
That the forces of evolution have led to life on this world, as opposed to say the moon, is neither completely accidental nor entirely certain. That life itself has developed to what it is today, is as Bronowski said, neither completely accidental nor entirely certain.
That is both the fact and the beauty that creationism tries to murder, by design.#: Posted by on 01/08 at 01:09 PM -
I was lucky enough to have a Social Studies teacher in High School that showed 'The Ascent of Man' in class.
Jacob Bronowski's passion is as deeply moving and spiritual as any religious plea. Those remain very special days for me( priceless understandings I aquired then). Bronowski is almost immediately what I think of when I recall high school!#: Posted by on 01/08 at 05:52 PM -
If you guys want to see the Ascent of Man again (I have watched it many times, and I cannot do anything but sing its endless praises) it is available on DVD in the UK (through the UK Amazon) or for everyone for download on various bittorrent sites. It's pretty easy to find. I make it a point of sharing it with as many people as possible due to its status as the single best thing ever placed on television. And PZ, I will gladly make you a copy of my DVD's if you wish!
#: Posted by on 01/08 at 10:37 PM
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By coincidence, the book recently surfaced in our house (if you ever saw the size and chaos of our domestic library, you'd understand what I mean by "surface", and why even largish hardcovers can disappear for years). It's got a sequence of frames from that moving scene where Bronowski dips his hands into the mud of Auschwitz. I recall watching much of the series, though can't recall a great deal of it now. <sigh> Yet another book I should re-read......
The book was a Xmas or birthday gift that year (1973 or thereabouts?), and was one salvo of an on-going conflict between me (a newly-minted young fundamentalist) and my agnostic father (yes, my teenage rebellion took a very unconventional form). I wasn't quite stupid enough to buy into the whole YECist line, but I wasn't quite comfortable with evolution either -- especially when couched in progressivist terms. I think my Dad read more into the term "Ascent" than was perhaps there -- he had some vaguely progressivist-vitalist notions, which I think he got from G.B.Shaw. He was just old enough to have been influenced by the remnants of the vitalist tradition.#: Posted by on 01/09 at 11:10 AM