The Blind Watchmaker

I recently stumbled across this video on YouTube, and I just had to share it! Basically it is a very impressive way of tearing down the horrible straw man argument the creationists insist on using; namely the Watchmaker analogy. They claim that something as complex as a watch couldn't have come about by pure chance... it is fit for a purpose, and so has clearly been designed. Therefore there must be a watchmaker. The term Blind Watchmaker was used by Richard Dawkins in his eponymous book, where he essentially argued that the watchmaker in the analogy was blind (perhaps more metaphorically so, in that he lacks foresight and the ability to plan), and that he just tried various combinations, and whatever works, he keeps.

The video linked below goes one step further - it uses a computer program to simulate basic clockwork organisms, and lets them evolve based on their ability to tell the time. After a few hundred generations, we see complex pieces of machinery evolve, even though there was no design involved - just random variation in the population, and a selective pressure to be as accurate as possible.

Watch, marvel and enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0

Twitter

I must admit I was quite sceptical about Twitter, which is the main reason it took me so long to get an account; but now that I've been tweeting for some time, I must say I really like it. In many ways it is more of a revolution in communication than the blog was. A blog post often contains a kernel of some substance which the author must have thought about for a while, and you can usually tell that a lot of consideration has gone into crafting the post, wording it just so, getting the right information across in the right way and so on. Even if the author didn't have a blog, whatever seed of thought gave rise to the post would most likely have taken root somewhere else, and somehow worked its way out of its creators mind - be it in written text, in conversation or expressed more abstractly. In short, what people express in blogs they would have said regardless of blog ownership. Not so with Twitter. A typical tweet contains only a throwaway remark the author would probably never have bothered to express in any more coherent form - and that means Twitter is a repository of all those thought that would otherwise have vanished into the aether. A rather fascinating thought, I think... Perhaps I should tweet it.

Also, my Twitter page is twitter.com/Cithoge. Come read my incoherent thoughts ;)

Worst Cold Ever!

I have just triumphantly emerged from my own Cold War (see what I did there?), and I have to say, that was probably the worst cold I have ever had. I spent a whole week at home; alternating between sleeping and dozing in front of the telly. Not a bad way to spend a week, really; apart from the agonising headaches and muscle pains, of course. Anyway, I'm back on my feet now, and happily blogging away. I think there's a certain inertia involved in blogging - once you get going, it's hard to stop; but if you do - if you take too long a break between posts, you'll never get going again. So this post may not look much to the world, but it's my way of getting blogging momentum going again. Terminal blogging velocity - here we go!

The moment of truth

This is it. This post will set the tone for the rest of this blog. In your first post you can say and do almost anything you like; people will understand. "He's new to this - let's give him the benefit of the doubt". Your second post is where you nail your colours to the mast - from here on out all posts must, in some way, follow on from this one. Will I turn this blog into a narcissistic display of inane monologue centred around the trivialities of my life; or will I use it as an on-line analogue of Speakers' Corner, where I can preach from my cyber-soapbox? This is the time to decide.

Actually, it's not. It's late, and I'm tired. The anticlimax be damned; I'm off to bed.

So it begins...

A blog, huh? Didn't see that one coming, did you? You can be forgiven for being surprised - after all, my opinion of blogs to date has been somewhat scathing. I have, however, decided that if you can't beat'em, you'd better join them - which is exactly what I've decided to do. I will create a blog where I will ramble on about anything and everything that takes my fancy. This is my corner of the limelight, and, in true blogger tradition, I intend to squander it with inane posts. Ha! That ought to show them...

Perhaps I should start with and explanation of the name of the blog, and the URL. Cithoge is taken from the book Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor. The quote goes like this:

His apparent fear of daylight and love of the darkness led some of the imaginative to call him 'a cithoge'; a weird supernatural of Irish legend, the child of a faerie and a mortal man, possessed of the power to curse and conjure.

It instantly struck a chord with me, and when I later needed a username for a forum somewhere, Cithoge seemed as good a choice as any. Now I've grown quite fond of it - and what better way to express this than using it for my blog!

'Echoes of Silence' is just a phrase that struck me once - the oxymoronic nature of it seems fitting enough. It also has a nice 'koan' feel to it; perhaps foreshadowing the absurd, yet thought-provoking posts to come? Only time will tell...

Anyway, this is enough rambling for the opening post - there'll be plenty of time for that later. Welcome to the blog - make yourself at home!