Nazis trained dogs to read and speak. And the existence of God.

I still can't believe they actually tried to do it.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8532573/Nazis-tried-to-train-dogs-to-talk-read-and-spell-to-win-WW2.html 

But I guess it makes sense, in a misguided sort of way.  If you don't believe that there is a fundamental difference between animals and people in a religious sense, for example, that people are children of God, while animals are creations of God, and if you don't have a good grasp of modern evolutionary science, which would also indicate the impossibility of training dogs to talk (without theoretical genetic mutations), then you might think... hey, dogs are smart.  Let's teach them language. 

Picture from: http://www.jeffbaj.com/2010_07_01_archive.html (on a blog titled: reflections of God)
I think the funny thing is the major error in Hitler's mind wasn't that he overestimated the intelligence of dogs, but rather, he severely underestimated the intelligence of humans. 

For me, one of the best evidences that God exists is us ourselves.  No dog, ape, or parrot will argue the issue with me.  There have been lots of studies by people to show how smart animals are.  Many of these studies focus on chimpanzees or bonobos, on the assumption that, because they are our closest genetic relative, they may be more intelligent than other species.  But I think most of the studies that show their increased intelligence could be replicated in other animals. 

As I read through the original article about what these dogs could do, as far as tapping out words and that, and I think it's a lot like the ape studies with talking apes.  If you really get into it and look at the communication abilities in context, you find a giant gap in speech, language, and cognition.  Does anyone really expect to find otherwise?

Image from; http://emergingsoul.com/blog/2011/01/21/marriage-your-presence-is-your-present-to-each-other/
So this article about the Nazis training dogs to speak is done by Brits, as far as I can tell.  Probably not a coincidence, as the obvious implication is that the Nazis and Hitler weren't very smart after all.  All the exceptional technological innovation that they had, and yet, here they are, trying to train dogs to speak. 

All the scientific advancement that we have today, and as far as I can tell, there is nothing at all that indicates that God doesn't exist.  It might be said that there isn't any that He does exist either... and then I think we get into probability theory over mountains of inconclusive but probable evidence, in my view. 

Ha! More Ligers!

Not only are there two baby ligers in the Beijing zoo, they're being nursed by a female dog.  What kind of record does that break?  The link is here: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=711&sid=15675450  Why, I remember the first set of liger cubs that I raised...  back in 'Nam.  Anyway... I have to find and post my pictures of ligers now... 

I can't remember where these two pictures came from... if you go to google images and search for "ligers" they'll show up.  I think this one's name is 'hercules' or 'conan' or some similar name.  In case you haven't noticed, many adult ligers have gigantism...  Seriously. 

Oh, here's the dog that's nursing the surviving ligers.  The picture is from the KSL article.  In case you think this is all a joke, here's the wikipedia article about ligers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger  And, as everyone knows, wikipedia is NEVER wrong.  Actually I shouldn't say anything bad about wikipedia.  Wikipedia is awesome.  I was alive back in the day before all this stuff was on the internet, and if you wanted to know something, you had to look at the family set of encyclopedias or the dictionary or whatever.  Seriously, wikipedia is one of the best things since... the wheel.  Only a slight exaggeration.

Apparently, ligers aren't always sterile, which is good to know.  And Shasta was a ligress born in Salt Lake City's Hogle zoo. 

Anyway, ligers are cool.  And not just for Napoleon Dynamite.  For everyone.  Yep. 

 

God of the Gaps

From my old Myspace blog From November 25th, 2008

About eight years ago I was very interested in how science and religion interact, and I was looking at science critically. I'm not at all critical of science, though obviously some people do use science wrongly to get desired results, or make conclusions from what they can see of science without proper evidence.

I was watching NOVA and they were talking about dark energy. The theory was that the big bang created this rapid expansion, and the laws of nature that we know would dictate that this expansion would slowly decrease in velocity, eventually stopping and falling back inward towards the beginning point. What goes up must come down, after all. The evidence shows that actually there is no sign of a decreasing velocity of expansion, and there is a little bit of evidence of an increase of velocity instead. This is explained by dark energy, which is the unknown force that is causing this. I thought to myself that, call it what you will, this is something that God is doing.

As I learn more, though, I understand that the idea that God's power is manifested in this dark energy is really a misunderstanding about what God does. Things become better understood through science every day. Science is simply a system of learning through evidence what is observed and how it works. Eventually, dark energy will be understood. Just like gravity, light, relativity, DNA, atoms, etc. Would this mean that it was not God after all?

We often think of God as doing everything that we do not understand, and nothing that we do understand. This is the God of the gaps. We know that two dogs mate, and the female is inseminated, and then the puppies are born. We think that, because we understand the process, it is not God's doing. But I think that these things are God's doing. If God created all things, didn't he create the puppies? Below are some verses that have informed my understanding.

D & C 59:21 And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments.

Mosiah 4:9 Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.

John 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Moses 6:63 And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me.