Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics, who was an Augustinian friar, was not as lucky. He died in relative obscurity, his genetic experiments ridiculed by the scientific community in the Austro-Hungarian Empire where he lived. Apparently, the biologists then found it difficult to give credit to the idea that a friar could discover something of scientific importance.

I used to think they were parables. Now I believe they are not only parables, but fragments of real history--fragments which God has purposely preserved.

When satellite photography, a few years ago, revealed a lost riverbed under the Arabian desert, flowing from the high country in SW Arabia, across the peninsula and out toward the Gulf--it has been named the Kuwait River--it blew my preconceptions to smithereens. The Bible preserves the memory of such a river; it is one of the Rivers of Eden, along with the Tigris and Euphrates. (Incidentally, the Bible preserves the pre-Sumerian name of the Tigris.)

Scientists say the Kuwait River dried up and was buried several thousand years before recorded history began. And yet it is described in Genesis! How could that be?

Not forgetting Father Roger Boscovich, considered to be the father of modern atomic theory

Bishop Robert Grossteste, an Englishman, wrote the steps of scientific method in the 13th century and is one of the first western thinkers to argue that natural phenomenon can be described mathematically

Franciscan Father Roger Bacon became among the first thinkers to use experiments.

Father Nicholas Zucchi, a 17th century Italian Jesuit, invented the reflecting telescope

Jesuit Father Francesco Lana-Terzi, is considered the fathers of aeronautics.

Father Nicolas Steno founded modern geology.

Also:

St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas both held that faith and science are complementary, and

<There's something distasteful in making animals perform for the amusement of humans. >

Evolution is usually associated with Paleontology, the study of prehistoric life; and virtually all paleontologists are also evolutionists. Among clergymen who went into this field, the most notorious (in his lifetime) was the Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, discoverer of the Peking Man (Homo erectus in China).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:P...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:P...

In this Homo erectus specimen, notice the absence of frontal bossing, resulting in prominent supra-orbital ridges and relatively smaller braincase, and the prognathic maxillary, zygomatic, and mandibular bones.

These characteristics were even more prominent in the earlier Homo habilis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:H...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:H...

And more so in Australopithecus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A...

and Pan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:C...

I believe that in the medieval ages of Europe, the contemplative life of the monastic orders institutionally gave rise to top rate scholars. Many of these monks were also tasked to preserve literature (technical, scientific, legal, governmental, and virtually everything else that had survived the collapse of the Roman Empire) from the ancient Greco-Roman civilization. They probably contributed much to the rise of today's modern civilization.

Smiling Out Loud. (",)

Most of the scientists whose names you posted above were outright priests. So I decided to check how many of them are there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...

Quite a lot!

Wish to offer a Happy Thanksgiving!

<Anne McCaffrey, Author of ‘Dragonriders’ Fantasies, Dies at 85>

<shivasuri4> the term Bandar-log was used by Rudyard Kipling, as the name of the monkey troop in his 'Jungle Book', so it's fairly well-known outside of Hindi. :)

<Divers* Posters>: Thanks for the interesting discussion!

*not a typo, a reference to Pratchett. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_...

A general article on human evolution. Note the genus Homo part. Apparently, there were several co-existing Homo sapiens subspecies until several tens of thousands of years ago.

Homo sapiens idaltu (160,000 years ago) so far is the most ancient modern-looking human.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/...

4289. Pronunciation of Alekhine’s name (C.N. 4284)

<From Avital Pilpel (Haifa, Israel):

‘Some evidence of Alekhine being annoyed at the pronunciation “Al-OKCH-in” – though without any reference to this being the “Jewish” pronunciation – is a paragraph on page 17 of the January 1972 issue of the Israeli magazine Shachmat, in a report on the Alekhine Memorial Tournament (my translation from the Hebrew):

“Al-YEKCH-in and not Al-OKCH-in [The spelling of the two pronunciations differs in Hebrew. A.P.]. In Hebrew (and other languages) the wrong pronunciation (and spelling) of the ex-world champion’s name took root for some reason. Alekhine’s own insistence on the right pronunciation can be demonstrated by the fact that, if someone asked on the telephone, “Can I speak with A.A. Al-OKCH-in?”, Alekhine would reply, “there is no such person, there’s Al-YEKCH-in”. (This is what Lev Lubimov writes in his book In Exile. During his years as an émigré from Russia the writer would often meet with Alekhine.) It is corroborated too by chess players who knew Alekhine, and if anybody needs more proof, in English the name is written ‘Alekhine’. It seems to us that the evidence is conclusive on this question.” Can anyone give chapter and verse from the Lubimov book?’>

Incidentally, someone sent me a PM (yes, a Prime Minister) on Youtube named <Richard Kappel>, and his purpose was to congratulate me on having the good sense to work with a <Kappel> (you, in this case). He didn't mention me having the good sense to work with a <Richard>, however.

Actually I may be misremembering his first name. Maybe I'll check... later.

heh

4304. Pronunciation of Alekhine’s name (C.N.s 4284 & 4289)

<From Martin Weissenberg (Savyon, Israel):

‘In an article on Alekhine at the Chess Café Hans Kmoch recalled:

“... Alekhine used to get angry if his name was pronounced Al-YOH-khin, the way Russians sometimes pronounced it. The correct Russian pronunciation, he said, was Al-YEH-khin, explaining that the name was derived from that of a <<<tree (‘alyesha’)>>> that grew abundantly near one of his family’s estates. ‘Al-YOH-khin’, he claimed, was a Yiddish distortion of his name, like Trotsky for Troitsky or Feigl for the German Vogel. But strangely, no-one whom I ever heard pronounce the name Al-YOH-khin was Jewish.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SY1...

<Homo sapiens idaltu> very interesting, but the article notes that only <skulls> were found, not whole skeletons. I wouldn't take the reconstruction of their whole physique in that demo too seriously on that basis. ;)

<Jess> thanks for unearthing those resources! Could I ask you to post them to my Alekhine video comments too, plz? =)

<QUESTION: Are you "pro parentheses" or "anti parentheses"?>

Yes, I am strongly in favor of "letting" your parents write your thesis. It's good for their education.

It also leaves you more time to play blitz.

Q.E.D.

Thanks for pointing this out. Whoever the artist was, he or she obviously had the idea (true or not) that these ancient humans had impressive physique.

Whatever their physique was, ancient hominids in the Pan to Homo lineage probably had only one regular, but terrifying enemy.

The Leopard. Stealth combined with power.

Among African big cats, it is the leopard that regularly dines on primates. I have read somewhere that in some parts of Africa, nearly a third of a typical leopard's kills are primates.

The leopard is in fact the modern chimpanzees' only one feared regular enemy (probably also the occasional lion).

http://carnivoraforum.com/index.cgi...

I imagine that until ancient humans learned to use throwable weapons, getting ambushed by a leopard was the most terrifying experience our individual ancestors (and any other primate) faced.

It's hard for us living in the safety of civilization to imagine being attacked by such a proficient killer as the leopard. Here is a video of a leopard attack on a primate.

The Original Human Language Like Yoda Sounded - Some, like English, use subject-verb-object (SVO) ordering, as in the sentence "I like you." Others, such as Latin, use subject-object-verb (SOV) ordering, as in "I you like." In rare cases, OSV, OVS, VOS and VSO are used. http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com...

Study Finds the Key to Language: How Humans Form Sentences - While vocabulary is accessed along the lower pathway, the meaning of combinations of words is accessed along the upper one.http://www.livescience.com/17225-st...