h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Speaking of bald - I'd sure like to know the thinking that went into that one


...oh wait - you said ribald didn't you?




never mind.

"Though iof course we would spend alot of time in the dark...unless the god had designed the Earth to not revolve but always have one side always towards the Sun and one side dark(where all the rhubarb would be grown. "

I have a mental image of constant holy wars raging on the border where God's chosen people try to defend the light side against God's forsaken people on the dark side

Is it true that the human knee is very badly "designed"? I think I remember hearing this, but it might have been that it was badly designed *for* something - football, rugby etc rather than badly designed in general.

Lets consider what other (probably greater) writers and thinkers have come up with:

Terry Pratchett's Discworld has golems - artificially created made of clay beings that had no need for sleep or eating or reproducing or breathing. They would work endlessly and tirelessly to achieve whatever goal was given to them. They lived forever.

"Is it true that the human knee is very badly "designed"?"

Yes, but that's true of a lot of the human musculo-skeletal system.

We're not that far removed from quadrupeds, and the mechanical stresses on a highly-evolved quadruped skeleton come on completely different places than if you take that basic planform and fiddle about with it a bit to produce a biped.

As I'm typing I'm thinking theropod dinosaurs did bipedal locomotion MUCH better than we do. Consider Deinonychus, the "velociraptor" of Jurassic Park - those things could MOVE, run and jump far faster and higher than a human, but that was partly because their evolutionary line had been bipedal for tens of millions of years. Even now, we're the only primarily bipedal primate, and we've only been tottering around upright for less than ten million years. It's hardly surprising we've not ironed out the kinks yet.

The problem comes from the fact that we're having to make do with joints that evolved to work in different ways. The knees are a case in point - you hardly ever see a monkey or ape knee locked out, they're always bent. We spend a lot of time with our legs basically straight - the wrong way, really.

Again - I can't help thinking our knees bend the wrong way and we'd be better off walking like dinosaurs. Seems to work for the ostrich...

It's just yet more evidence that we're definitely NOT "designed". We're cobbled together from monkey parts. If we were "designed", we'd WORK better.

Golems are from Jewish myth originally Bea.

There you go, I nver knew about Golems' Jewish origins! See what you learn on hootoo.

So do any other religions or cultures have created beings?

For your information and greater enjoyment, may I point out what I had previously considered obvious: most of what Terry Pratchett writes about is not original. What he writes is original, but almost everything included in his books is a reference, tribute, pastiche, cross-pollination or otherwise influenced by something else. The sheer density of reference can, in some cases, be staggering, and you wonder how, in less than one lifetime on earth, he can possibly have had time to read everything he refers to.

Google "annotated Pratchett" to get an idea of what you've been missing. It may surprise you.

One man's obvious is another woman's "well I never knew that!"

I'm willing to admit that I don't know everything and am happy to be elucidated.

Please don't think I'm setting myself up as someone who gets every reference, or even realises that some things are references. I'm as avid a follower of the annotations as there is. I just thought you'd like to know about the Annotated Pratchett File (now at version 9.0) to increase your enjoyment. The only thing I considered obvious was that in Pratchett, there is a huge amount of reference to other works of literature and other media, and that if Pratchett covers a concept, it's not usually something he's made up, it's usually something he's crafted from one or more outside influences.

Thanks

I've only started reading Pratchett (yeah yeah, late starter..) so that'll be useful and interesting.

So, back on topic - what other religions, cultures, authors etc have either invented or adapted artificial life forms?

Maybe we wouldn't have such a physical presence but be more a sentient mass, able to manipulate the environment by thought alone?

i was watching some bill hicks today and i wondered...

if all matter is energy are we living one life as the imagination of ourselves?

...and not 'locked out' us using human cells etc to forward the search for diseases and conditions he decided to give us?

or, if he had used intelligent design wouldn't he have 'locked out' the possibility of us 'messing with the building blocks of life' and 'playing him'?

scheeewing!

Stars.

(Actually, this is probably the wrong thread - is there a thread for "things that seem very odd if you do believe in ID"?)

Anyhoo, why would God make all those billions and billions of stars? Just for us to admire on a clear evening? But sure we can't see most of them.

One erason could be that if the sky was totally black it would probably drive people mad...the counter argument here is: well, then why didn't the god wire the human brain so they wouldn't go mad.

>if he had used intelligent design wouldn't he have 'locked out' the possibility of us 'messing with the building blocks of life' and 'playing him'?<

It's impossible to stop people altogether, but we probably invalidated the warranty when we started fiddling.

>why didn't the god wire the human brain so they wouldn't go mad?<


I often ask myself the same question.

It is if you are a god who can create the universe from nothing...though judging by some of the examples here...he wasn't particularly good at the job!