This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Biological determinism is, in its essence, a theory of limits. It takes the current status of groups as a measure of where they should and must be ... We inhabit a world of human differences and predilections, but the extrapolation of these facts to theories of rigid limits is ideology.
Nearly anyone in this line of work would take a bullet for the last pregnant dodo. But should we not admire the person who, when faced with an overwhelmingly sad reality beyond and personal blame or control, strives valiantly to rescue whatever can be salvaged, rather than retreating to the nearest corner to weep or assign fault?
A goal of a base on the Moon by 2020 and of a manned landing on Mars by 2025 would re-ignite the space program and give it a sense of purpose in the same way that President Kennedy’s Moon target did in the 1960s. A new interest in space would also increase the public standing of science generally.
Hence is the ground for the immutability of God. As he is incapable of changing his resolves, because of his infinite wisdom, so he is incapable of being forced to any change, because of his infinite power. Being almighty, he can be no more changed from power to weakness, than, being all-wise, he can be changed from wisdom to folly, or, being omniscient, from knowledge to ignorance. He cannot be altered in his purposes, because of his wisdom; nor in the manner and method of his actions, because of his infinite strength. Men, indeed, when their designs are laid deepest and their purposes stand firmest, yet are forced to stand still, or change the manner of the execution of their resolves, by reason of some outward accidents that obstruct them in their course; for, having not wisdom to foresee future hindrances, they have not power to prevent them, or strength to remove them, when they unexpectedly interpose themselves between their desire and performance; but no created power has strength enough to be a bar against God. By the same act of his will that he resolves a thing, he can puff away any impediments that seem to rise up against him. He that wants no means to effect his purposes cannot be checked by anything that riseth up to stand in his way; heaven, earth, sea, the deepest places are too weak to resist his will.
Desire | Folly | Good | Means | Nature | Neglect | Perfection | Presumption | Will |
Traditional explanations for stasis and abrupt appearance had paid an awful price in sacrificing the possibility of empirics for the satisfaction of harmony. Eventually we (primarily Niles) recognized that the standard theory of speciation—Ernst Mayr's allopatric or peripatric scheme—would not, in fact, yield insensibly graded fossil sequences when extrapolated into geological time, but would produce just what we see: geologically unresolvable appearance followed by stasis. For if species almost always arise in small populations isolated at the periphery of parental ranges, and in a period of time slow by the scale of our lives but effectively instantaneous in the geological world of millions, then the workings of speciation should be recorded in the fossil record as stasis and abrupt appearance. The literal record was not a hopelessly and imperfect fraction of truly insensible gradation within large populations but an accurate reflection of the actual process identified by evolutionists as the chief motor of biological change. The theory of punctuated equilibrium was, in its initial formulation, little more than this insight adumbrated.
Distinction | Events | History | Order | Principles | Time | Vision | Understand |
What encouragement could there be to lift up our eyes to one that were of one mind this day and of another mind to-morrow? Who would put up a petition to an earthly prince that were so mutable as to grant a petition one day and deny it another, and change his own act? But if a prince promise this or that thing upon such or such a condition, and you know his promise to be as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, would any man reason thus? because it is unchangeable we will not seek to him, we will not perform the condition upon which the fruit of the proclamation is to be enjoyed. Who would not count such an inference ridiculous? What blessings hath not God promised upon the condition of seeking him?
If self-denial be the greatest part of godliness, the great letter in the alphabet of religion, self-love is the great letter in the alphabet of practical atheism. Self is the great antichrist and anti-God in the world, that sets up itself above all that is called God; self-love is the captain of that black band: it sits in the temple of God, and would be adored as God. Self-love begins; but denying the power of godliness, which is the same with denying the ruling power of God, ends the list.
Beginning | Dishonor | Duty | Enemy | Friend | God | Justice | News | Object | Perfection | Punishment | Sin | Wickedness | Will | God |
It is a vain charge men bring against the divine precepts, that they are rigorous, severe, difficult; when, besides the contradiction to our Savior, who tells us his “yoke is easy” and his “burthen light,” they thwart their own calm reason and judgment. Is there not more difficulty to be vicious, covetous, violent, cruel, than to be virtuous, charitable, kind? Doth the will of God enjoin that that is not conformable to right reason, and secretly delightful in the exercise and issue? And, on the contrary, what doth Satan and the world engage us in, that is not full of molestation and hazard? Is it a sweet and comely thing to combat continually against our own consciences, and resist our own light, and commence a perpetual quarrel against ourselves, as we ordinarily do when we sin?
Body | Folly | Life | Life | Man | Nature | Perfection | Power | Regard | Sense | Soul | Wisdom | World |
One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.
Nothing | Perfection | Universe |
I abhor unjust war. I abhor injustice and bullying by the strong at the expense of the weak, whether among nations or individuals. I abhor violence and bloodshed. I believe that war should never be resorted to when, or so long as, it is honorably possible to avoid it. I respect all men and women who from high motives and with sanity and self-respect do all they can to avert war. I advocate preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor.
Business | Civilization | Evil | Fanaticism | Fighting | Force | Individual | Life | Life | Men | Organization | People | Perfection | Power | Prowess | Qualities | Valor | Valor | Work | Business | Govern |
Ted Sorensen, fully Theodore Chalkin "Ted" Sorensen
During my 11 years with JFK, my most important national contributions — advising him on civil rights, on the decision to go to the moon and especially on the Cuban missile crisis — did not center on the speechwriting.
An old man with his feet before the fire, in robes of green, in garments of adieu.
Vision |
War is not merely justifiable, but imperative upon honorable men, upon an honorable nation, where peace can only be obtained by the sacrifice of conscientious conviction or of national welfare.
Admiration | Business | Consequences | Enemy | Excess | Greed | Man | Perfection | Policy | Property | Regard | Slander | Wealth | Slander | Business |
We've been caught up in a mechanistic world, because what we make, makes us. We make the automobile, the automobile makes us. We make an industrial economy, the industrial economy makes us. We are now in a weird dream world of industrial technological imagination. Who would be so destructive to the very basis out of which we exist, that we spoil our water and our air? For what? To invent an industrial economy. We are so brilliant scientifically and so absurd in any other way. We are into a deep cultural pathology -- in ordinary language, we are crazy. To think that we can have a viable human economy by destroying the Earth economy is absurd.
Consciousness | Earth | Glory | People | Perfection | Reading | Relationship | Rights | Universe |
Theodore Cuyler, fully Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
I never knew a child of God being bankrupted by his benevolence. What we keep we may lose, but what we give we are sure to keep.
Vision |
Both education and religion need to ground themselves within the story of the universe as we now understand this story through empirical knowledge. Within this functional cosmology, we can overcome our alienation and begin the renewal of life on a sustainable basis. This story is a numinous revelatory story that could evoke the vision and the energy required to bring not only ourselves but the entire planet into a new order of magnificence.
Diversity is the magic. It is the first manifestation, the first beginning of the differentiation of a thing and of simple identity. The greater the diversity, the greater the perfection.
Alienation | Education | Energy | Life | Life | Need | Order | Religion | Story | Universe | Vision | Understand |