NOVA

One of the reasons that I don't mind not having an expanded TV selection is the PBS channel and its programming. Between this free tv and not as free internet, I don't feel like I need to pay that extra bill for internet every month. Those activities provide me enough entertainment to fill my days.

I just finished watching an episode of NOVA that dealt with evolutionary genetics. Apparently evidence has shown that most development of life depended on when an activator gene told your body to grow what. From this, it can be shown how the finches on the island that Darwin studied can be different and have the same genus and such. From this it can be inferred as to how all land based forms came from a fish that developed strong enough limbs to escape to land to be safe from prey. This also explained how our brains are as developed as they are. Nearly half of the start stop activators in our DNA are based or centered around brain development. The NOVA epsiode said we a monkey has 1 different gene from a chicken that controls brain development, whereas we humans have 18. I found this all very interesting, but I have to reflect on a topic I have been reading lately.

I started reading a book about a New York guy who decides to live as close to the Bible as he can for a whole year. I haven't finished the book yet, but it is very good. He finds the rules and so forth in the Bible that should be practiced. The part that I have found the most interesting is the rules that people follow because they are in the Bible. The most common answer is that they are done because they are in the Bible and God must have a reason for including them. As a Christian, I am not as obligated to follow the rules as the Jewish followers are. Since Jesus's death was the ultimate sacrifice in our eye's, we aren't obligated to blow a horn at the end of the month and or bind money and the ten commandments to our bodies. The author considered himself an agnostic, and has not quite found himself a true believer in God as from what I have read so far. The author has found praying to be quite useful, which I should probably be doing more of in his model or any fashion anyways.

The conflicting ideal here is that God created all of life in the form that it is in today. Science is working hard to disprove this based on the findings from the NOVA program. I am not sure which side of this argument I am on at this moment. I don't think it is impossible for God to have set up all this evidence that we are finding. The techniques we use to date the rock materials indicates things are much older than the beginning of life as described in the Bible.

times typed "oftern"-0