Ken Watts's blog

I picked the word "mull" for a variety of reasons, some sensible and some whimsical.

Mulled drinks are on the whimsical side: mulled cider, mulled wine, glogg, etc. And, since I'm launching the site in the midst of the holidays, which are a traditional time for such things, I'd like to invite any of you who have a favorite mulled drink recipe to send it in.

All you have to do is click on the Submissions link in the footer at the bottom of this page, and you'll get a form where you can type, or paste your favorite recipe.

I'll post as many on the site as I can. I can't make promises, because I'm new at this, and have no idea whether I'll get a trickle or a flood. If I get enough, I may even run a contest, and let you vote for your favorites.

Forty, fifty years, and I still remember the sunset, the color of the sea.

And Charlie...

I want to tell you a story.

Part of it is mine, and part is only mine to tell.

Don't ask why it happened this way.

Don't ask how I know.

You might as well ask why a baby smiles—how the right woman brings meaning with her, like a shawl.

It's magic, that's all.

Like yesterday.

Like everything.

Like the color of the sea.

Picture this.

Sea and sky, as far as the eye can see. Clouds tinged with sunset, salt in the air, the lap of a wave, the cry of a gull, silence.

A young male dolphin, smooth skin gleaming, comes out of the water—quick, clean, alive— hangs for a moment against the sunset, then plunges back into the waves.

Into the thick green reaches of the deep, a liquid space where you hear the rocks, the seaweed, the fish—hear them more clearly than you can see.

You push downward, your fins driving you into darkness, into pressure, right through a school of bass. Nothing else matters, nothing. You push as far as you dare, past coral, past rocks, and when you've reached your absolute limit, you turn in a nice broad circle to maintain your speed and drive upward again.

This time the pressure of the sea is behind you, the urgency in your lungs drives you, every muscle, every sinew, strains for the surface and beyond. You fasten on the light with your mind, reel it in, drive yourself upward with fins, with torso, and it rushes closer, closer, and still you push until you think you will burst, and then… You break through, into the light, into the sky.

You soar higher, cleaner, freer than ever, and you know.

It is going to happen.

And another...

Good point. There is a kind of difference between the evidence for an atom and the evidence for evolution. For one thing, it's impossible to see an evolution—because evolution is not an object, but a process. (One could say the same about atoms, actually, but that's another conversation.)

But there's more similarity than we might think at first glance. We don't really see an atom on the screen of an electron microscope—we see a pattern of light and dark, which we interpret as an atom, because of our theory, and the mounting evidence which supports it.

On the other hand, if we took the time and trouble to study fossil records, biology, geology, etc, we would be able to "see" evolution in the physical evidence. The problem with the "theory" of intelligent design is that it isn't a theory anymore, because there is no conceivable evidence that could prove it right or wrong.

There was a time when creationism was a theory, when it claimed real, verifiable, consequences that could be tested in the real world. Our whole theory of geology was built on it at one time, as was our theory of species.

But it turned out that when we looked at the geological record, and the fossil record, etc. that all life did not appear six thousand years ago in the middle east, and a great flood would not explain the physical geological evidence. The theory was proved wrong.

What remains is a general explanation that "God did it." which no evidence can contradict and which is the theoretical equivalent of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

This is not an argument against God, by the way, only against the silliness of trying to make a scientific theory out of a theological idea that has nothing to do with science.

A reader writes:

This may make my point better than I did. Knowledge about the real world consists entirely of theories, which we have more or less evidence for. We can't prove, absolutely, that gravity will always work—because absolute proof belongs to abstract subjects, like mathematics. But the evidence from our past experience is so strong that we are quite willing to walk around without tethers.

I've been having a discussion on email lately with a friend. I have the highest regard for him, and I hope he feels the same about me. We get along well in person; partly, I think, because we never talk about politics or religion.

On e-mail, however, we can't seem to agree on anything, even on what we don't agree about, or why we don't agree.

It's as though we lived in two different worlds, and in a way I suppose we do. Our world is as much a function of our worldview as it is of our experience, and my friend’s worldview and mine are separated by an enormous chasm.

I've been peering into that chasm lately, trying to discover its nature. I'm interested partly because I used to stand on the other side—not far from where my friend stands now. [read more]