I didn’t know until I read this article.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Rudy Giuliani tried to find peace with a restless bloc of the Republican Party Saturday, telling religious conservatives not to fear him for his stand on issues such as abortion or expect he would change purely for political advantage. The GOP presidential candidate won praise for simply showing up before an audience that has been casting about for the best social conservative in the Republican field. But two former governors, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, shared the limelight with the former New York mayor, handily winning the top two spots in a straw poll of “values voters” conducted by the conservative Family Research Council. Giuliani sought common ground with Christian conservatives by casting himself as an imperfect man who has asked for guidance through prayer. He recalled crossing himself during his first day of law school after 16 years of attending Catholic schools. He offered assurances that despite his support for abortion rights, he would seek to lower the number of abortions. He pledged that if elected, he would appoint conservative judges, support school choice and insist on victory in Iraq – all issues important to the audience at the Values Voter Summit. ( ED NOTE: “School Choice” is a euphamism for illegal private school voucher schemes)… “My belief in God and reliance on his guidance is at the core of who I am, I can assure you of that,”
Tell that to the people that live in the Sahara desert by choice.
The diversity of life is often driven by the environment and Earth has some wide diversity of environments that has driven changes in species. Of course, environment alone isn’t the only selector of genes.
We aren’t likely to see as many changes as a species until we make a radical change. Humans are a pretty climate tolerant species, but there are places we cannot live without technology. Our brains (specifically our technology) allow us to better adapt our environment to us – unusual for animals. Our medical technology keeps genetically “unfit” genes (ones that natural selection would otherwise have culled) in our genome allowing their genes to be propagated to future generations. In ways we’re guiding our own evolutionary future, but I’m not going to say we have the power to stop it entirely.
Assuming we survive the violent religious and political struggles that threaten to destroy us, our descendants a million years from now are very unlikely to be “human” by biological terminology today.
Concerning future and/or impending causes of extinction, there’s a great chapter discussing these very things in a book entitled:
“A short history of nearly everything” by Bill Bryson. There are a large number of events looming on the horizon.
Actually, the whole book is pretty interesting.
As to your being optimistic, I’m reminded of a quote which read (unfortunately I can’t remember to whom it should be attributed) that says “Optimists just don’t have all the facts”.
666,
I have a copy of that book! I’ve read some of it but wasn’t happy with the christian slant that kept rearing its boring head. Next time I dig it out I’ll take another look.
rna2,
yeah, I remember that slant but ignored it in order to get at the other nuggets the book provided. It’s kinda like life in general around here (where I currently live), you keep having to look out for the piles of crap in order to avoid them and still find a clear path to where you’re going.
From 666: “Optimists just don’t have all the facts”.
This reminds me of someone I used to work with who often said “Imagine the worst case scenario, then bet on it.”
Thanks for the book suggestion. I will add Bryson’s book to my amazon wish list.
Bob,
I don’t know if I’d bet on it but rather try to be prepared for it!
As far as Bryson’s book, I found it at the public library (in case you might not want to buy it).
Have you ever seen a horse cock? Now why would you want to do that to your wife?! To make her scream is NOT an answer