Today I had a rather later start than usual, being on a day's holiday. Originally the
plan had been for a weekend away caravaning, but things didn't go
quite as we'd hoped. But I still took the holiday, and after a spot
of brekkie I took "Furry Face TM"
for the sort of walk we used to do back when I was on three-day
weeks. We went through the Bowens Field wetlands to Viccie Park and
on to Singleton Lake. The weather forecast hadn't been good, and we
did get rained on for five minutes. However the rain soon let off,
and we even found one of the two munzees in Singleton. Mind you the
other one still has me foxed.
Once home I went through
my letter rack. There wasn't much of note there; mostly bills for the
next year. I did the monthly accounts. On the one hand I've had a pay
rise. On the other hand I have to spend more on petrol now that I'm
doing five day weeks. The extra money from the pay rise is almost
exactly equal to my increased petrol costs. Ho hum...
I was going to mow the
lawn; it was raining. I was going to repair the tent poles; I needed
a hacksaw. So I had a bite of lunch and watched more lame 1960s
Doctor Who and a documentery about Queen until the Rear admiral
arrived to collect some odds and ends.
I then spent half an hour
on sax practice. Or to be more precise I spent five minutes on sax
practice and twenty five minutes stopping my dog from howling along.
I then had another look for a hacksaw, and having found one I managed
to fix those tent poles.
The rest of the afternoon
was spent bashing my head aagainst a brick wall solving geo-puzzles,
and then I went round to McDonalds wheere I met the Rear Admiral and
Stevey for some McTea. From there it was on to astro club. We had a
huge turnout and a guest speaker.
I have mixed feelings
about guest speakers.
On the one hand its good
to get an expert lecturer in. On the other hand these so-called
experts are often little more than people like me who've taken the
trouble to research astronomy on Wikipedia and then put on a show for
a bemused public. I much prefer the astro club to have lectures from
our own members.
Tonight's talk had been
billed as being on exo-planets; a fascinating topic. The speaker
however announced he wasn't going to talk about exo-planets; he was
going to talk about how unlikely it is that the human race and the
planet Earth exist at all. It could have been interesting...
Whenn discussing a rather
esoteric and complex subject some speakers try to illuminate and
elucidate. Some try to blind with science. Some endeavour to baffle
with bullsh*t. Personally, when I'm lecturing I like to think that
people are listening to what I am saying, and if anything is
complicated, then that I have conveyed the salient points in a way
that people can understand.
I could see the eyes of
many of the club members glazing over as tonight's speaker droned on.
He presented random
speculation after random speculation as established and proven
facts. His fundamental arguments and reasoning were factually wrong
on at least three seperate key issues. And in the question and answer
session after the lecture he contradicted what he'd said earlier with
nearly (but not quite) every answer he gave.
I can't help but feel
that the misconceptions presented about living things and living
ecosystems would have been blown out of the water by a two-minute
discussion with a professional life-scientist. Perhaps as a
professional life-scientist I should have said more; but I felt it
would be bad form to have one of the most prominent club members
present vociferously arguing with the speaker.
It was a shame that the
speaker then went on to plug his latest book. Yet another book which
has the age-old argument back to front. It's not amazing that the
human race exists despite all the vagaries of the Earth's multi
billion year history. We are here precisely because of the specific
vagaries of the Earth's multi billion year history. And had things
been different, then humanity would be different.
Had the moon not been
present, or had the solar constant not been quite so constant, or had
the ice ages been more intense then maybe we would now be twelve feet
tall on average; or green skinned and photosynthetic, or intelligent
octopi.
Normally after an astro
club meeting the club's Facebook page is alive with comments about
how well the evening's talk went down. Tonight - not a sausage...
which is a shame.
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