194–5
of mousetrap 182, 193; see also evolution: of technology
and mutation 186
‘only a theory’ 32
organic compared to technical 202–5
and recombination 186, 195
and religion 318
of technology 181–4, 189, 190, 193–5, 197–205 passim; see also evolution: of mousetrap
two levels of 184
‘waste products’ from 193
of writing and telecommunication 201–2
exaptation 189–90, 192, 197
extelligence 256, 309, 310
faith, see belief; religion
Fallacy of Fine-Tuning, The (Stenger) 288
Favareau, Donald 79
Fedkin, Alexei 132n
Fermi, Enrico 19
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope 129
Feynman, Richard 73, 158, 168–9
Figments of Reality (Stewart, Cohen) 63
Finland, creation myths of 101
flagellum 190–1
Flamingo’s Smile, The (Gould) 197
flat Earth, see Earth: shape of
Flat Earth Society 106, 108
see also Earth: shape of
Flatland (Abbott) 212–13, 218, 223
Flatterland (Stewart) 212n
forces of nature, four basic 19
fossil record 179, 180
at Burgess Shale 184–5, 203
Fourier, Joseph 161
Fowler, William 287
Freedom Evolves (Dennett) 76
Freud, Sigmund 80
Friedmann, Aleksandr 238, 241
Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric 240
Future Shock (Toffler) 184
Galápagos Islands 7
Galileo 20, 310
gamma rays 126–8
Gardner, Marshall 111
Gardner, Martin 261
Gauss, Carl Freidrich 213–14, 215, 223
Geb 97
see also gods/goddesses
general semantics 262
General Synod 23
general system theory 262
Genesis, and the Big Bang 50
genetic assimilation 195
geodesics 222, 240
Gervais, Ricky 322–3
Gervais, Will 263
global warming, see climate change
God 64, 124, 159, 180, 251, 263, 264
and American economy 126
British Humanist Society’s campaign concerning 252
differing ‘wishes’ of 321
Gallup poll on 61
‘is good’, and moral argument 307–8
ontological argument for 311
and probability 266–7
silence of (silentio dei) 320–2
and slavery 157
see also belief; Higgs boson; religion
God particle, see Higgs boson
God Particle, The (Ledermann) 159
gods/goddesses:
Atlas 48
Cantzicnal 53
Chaac 53
Egyptian 52
in Egyptian hieroglyphs 26
Geb 97
God, see God
God N 54, 55
Hari 57
Hathor 100
heavenly bodies seen as 25, 97
Hobnil 53
Hosanek 53
Ilmatar 101
Iroquois 52
Isis 52
Krishna 57
Mayan 53–4
and natural phenomena 124, 258
Nut 97
One Death 54
Osiris 52
Pangu 101
Pauahutun 53
Ra 97, 100
Saccimi 53
Selene 130
Seth 52
Seven Death 54
Shu 97
Thor 124, 129
Thoth 100
Vishnu 57
Xmucane 54, 55
Xpiyacoc 54
see also belief; religion
Gold, Thomas 239
Goldilocks zone 296, 298
Gosse, Philip 62n
Gould, Stephen Jay 184–5, 189, 197
GPS 32
Graham, Angus 98
gravity 19
on Roundworld 3
Great Pyramid of Khufu 47
Greece:
centre of natural philosophy shifts to 99
cosmology of 99–101
Griffith, Ralph 57
Halley, Edmond 111
Hammurabi 98
Hampden, John 106
Hari 57
see also gods/goddesses
Harivamsa 59
Harrison, M. John 162n
Hartle, James 227
Hathor 100
see also gods/goddesses
Hawking, Stephen 62, 159, 227, 239
Hell 111
Hertog, Thomas 227
hieroglyphics 25, 29, 97, 201
Higgs boson 19–22, 23, 28, 37, 158–60
discovery of 20, 158
as God particle 159–60
see also particles
Higgs, Peter 20
High-z Supernova Search Team 243
Hinduism:
and cosmic egg 101
and elephant/turtle myths 55–7, 59
and Ocean of Milk 57
and Shamballa 111
Hinton, Charles Howard 212–13
Hitchens, Christopher 324
Hobbes, Thomas 157
Hobnil 53
see also gods/goddesses
Holberg, Ludvig 112
Hollow Earth, The (Bernard) 112
holograms 226–7
Homo sapiens 4, 61
Hooke, Robert 21
horse, evolution of 179–80
Hosanek 53
see also gods/goddesses
House of the Turtles 53
How the Mind Works (Pinker) 81
Hoyle, Fred 239, 287–9
Hubbard, L. Ron 261
Hubble, Edwin 236–8
human genome 15
Humason, Milton 237
Humboldt, Wilhelm von 58
Hume, David 63–4
Hundred Proofs the Earth is Not a Globe, A (Carpenter) 106–7
Huxley, Thomas 62n
hyperbolic plain 227
hypersphere 217–19, 238
hypotheses 32
Icosaméron (Casanova) 112
ideograms 202
Ilmatar 101
see also gods/goddesses
Inconsistency of Modern Astronomy …, The (Rowbotham) 105
Indian Rationalist Association 319
Indicopleustes, Cosmas 102
infinite progression 63–4
infinite regression 1
see also causality
inflation field 243
intelligent design 156, 180–1, 186–7, 316–17
and bacterial ‘motor’ 190–3
and flagellum 190–1
and irreducible complexity 191–3
see also creationism
internet 87, 311
and extelligence 256, 310
and HTML 87
Isaac Newton: A Biography (More) 50n
Isidore of Seville, Bishop 103
Isis 52
see also gods/goddesses
isotopes 17
Jackson, Andrew 111
James, William 62n
Jillette, Penn 324
Johansen, Hjalmar 111
Joly, John 35
Jones, Judge John 316–17
Journal of a Voyage to New York in 1679–80 (Danckaerts) 51
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 294
Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Verne) 113
Journey to the Earth’s Interior, A (Gardner) 111
Judaism, Poland 260
see also belief; religion
Jung, Carl 80, 188
Kalevala 101
Kant, Immanuel 236
Kauffman, Stuart 182, 195
Kelvin, Lord 35
Khepri 26
Koreshan Unity Society 109–10
Korzybski, Count Alfred 262
Kragh, Helge 288
Krishna 57
see also gods/goddesses
Kurma/Kurmaraja 56
Labadists 51
Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste 194–5
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) 15–16, 158–9, 223
cost of 16
and court injunctions 46
reasons for constructing 19, 20
Leavitt, Henrietta 236–7
Ledermann, Leon 159
Lemaître, Georges 238–9
Leviathan (Hobbes) 157
Leya, Inigo 132n
Life’s Solution (Conway Morris) 184
light, wave–particle argument concerning 28
Light (Harrison) 162n
Linnaean Society 106
Livio, Mario 288
Locke, John 55, 157
logical inference 32
London Hydraulic Power Company 84
Lopez, Liliana 127
Lorenz, Edward 76
Lovell, James 95
Luminet, Jean-Pierre 221, 240
Lundmark, Knut 237
McBride, James 111
MacNab, Robert 190–1
magic 70–1
technological 71, 81
Magnus, Ludwig 110
Maha-padma 56
Mahabharata 58
Manhattan Project 14–15
Marsh, Othniel 179n
mathematics:
of deterministic chaos 76
as enabler of quantitative inferences 32
Mathematics of Life (Stewart) 132
Matzke, Nicholas 192
Maxwell, James Clerk 36
Maya 53–5
Mayan calendar 262–3
memes 258–9
Mesopotamia 98
Messier, Charles 236
Midsummer Night’s Dream, A (Shakespeare) 6
Milgrom, Mordehai 245–6
Milky Way 97, 100, 236, 281
see also cosmology
Miller, Jay 51
Miller, Stanley 135
mind–matter duality 79, 80
Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) 245
MokeyGod 294
monotheism 311–13
Moon:
and Copernican cosmology, see under cosmology
Earth’s distance from 30
as god 25
landings on 15, 95–6
origin of 129–33
and Ptolemaic cosmology, see under cosmology
see also cosmology
Moore’s Law 183, 205
More, Louis Trenchard 50n
Morris, Desmond 72
Morrow, Ulysses Grant 109
Mount Meru 56
mousetraps, evolution of 182, 193
see also evolution:
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