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Diane,
Wow--that is a terrific post--you should speak up more often!!
Thanks for sharing
--Dabney


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Diane Trefethen" <tref@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <Ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 8:49 AM
Subject: Re: [RC] Cloning horse


> Something I like to do when emotionally stirred to jump on any bandwagon, 
> especially one proclaiming that the sky is falling, is to try to view the 
> question from as truly a dispassionate position as possible.
>
> Every era has its changes.  Since the beginning of recorded history, 
> humans have invoked the wrath of the Gods with their presumptuousness. For 
> every profound new thought, for every stroke of genius, for every step 
> away from the past, there have been foretellers of doom.  Histories of the 
> rebelliousness of youth written in ancient Latin speak as clearly to the 
> issues of emerging into adulthood today as they did then.  The Spanish 
> Inquisition tortured and killed people who spoke of different ideas and 
> the witches of Salem fared no better.  That Earth was not the center of 
> the universe was blasphemy, electricity was magic, hypnotism was Satanic 
> demonism and in the 1950's, it was widely held that the discovery and 
> implementations of our then current understanding of atomic theory would 
> lead us directly into WW III and totally wipe out all life.
>
> And yet... we are still here.  Better than just still here, we are 
> incredibly better off than was humanity 5000 years ago.  While many bemoan 
> the cruelties and avarice of segments of today's world, consider... all 
> the real problems facing us... hunger, disease, early death, hatred, 
> cruelty... are old, not new.  The difference is that once virtually ALL of 
> us were at the mercy of these tortures while now, through our 
> presumptuousness, billions of us live in a world where we are comfortable 
> enough to take time to appreciate life, explore the known and the unknown, 
> think, dream, play.
>
> Is the future safe and assured?  Will Islamic Jihad triumph? Will the 
> Internet ever be safe?  Will cloning become a "normal" method of 
> reproduction? We don't know.  But if we step back and ask ourselves if, in 
> the grand scheme of things, have we overcome frightening new concepts and 
> put them to use for the betterment of our world, I think the answer is yes 
> and that suggests that our current dilemmas, as threatening as they are, 
> present us with yet more opportunies for a better world.
>
>
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