Wernher von Braun and Intelligent Design in the '70s

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Sand
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23 Jul 2010, 1:37 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
David Catchpoole wrote:
The lion that wouldn’t eat meat

First published:
Creation ex nihilo 22(2):22–23
March 2000
by David Catchpoole

Earlier this century, A female African lion, born and raised in America, lived her entire lifetime of nine years without ever eating meat.1 In fact, her owners, Georges and Margaret Westbeau,2 alarmed by scientists’ reports that carnivorous animals cannot live without meat, went to great lengths to try to coax their unusual pet (‘Little Tyke’) to develop a taste for it. They even advertised a cash reward for anyone who could devise a meat-containing formula that the lioness would like. The curator of a New York zoo advised the Westbeaus that putting a few drops of blood in Little Tyke’s milk bottle would help in weaning her, but the lioness cub refused to touch it — even when only a single drop of blood had been added.

The more knowledgeable animal experts among the many visitors to the Westbeaus’ 100 acre (40 hectare) ranch also proffered advice, but nothing worked. Meanwhile, Little Tyke continued to do extremely well on a daily diet of cooked grain, raw eggs and milk. By four years of age she was fully grown and weighed 352 pounds (160 kg).

As Georges Westbeau writes, it was ‘a young visitor’ to Hidden Valley ranch who finally put his mind at ease in response to the question of how Little Tyke could be persuaded to eat meat (thought to be essential for carnivores to survive):

‘He turned to look at me with serious eyes, then asked, “Don’t you read your Bible’? I admitted I didn’t read it as much as I probably should. He continued, “Read Genesis 1:30, and you will get your answer.’ At my first opportunity I got my Bible and turned to the passage he had indicated. To my astonishment, I read these words: “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.’

The owners of Little Tyke, though apparently not Christians, were so reassured by this that they no longer worried about her refusal to eat meat, and turned their attention instead to refining her ‘vegetarian’3 diet further, learning of new grains to add to the lioness’s food. These numerous grains were ground and stirred together while in the dry state, then cooked and mixed with the milk and eggs. The lioness was fed this mixture each morning and evening, and sometimes at midday as well. (To condition her teeth and gums — as she steadfastly refused all offers of bones to gnaw — Little Tyke was given heavy rubber boots to chew on, which generally lasted about three weeks.) The lioness not only survived on this diet, she thrived. One of America’s ‘most able zoo curators’ apparently said that the lioness ‘was the best of her species he had ever viewed.’

As well as Little Tyke, the Westbeaus cared for a menagerie of other animals at their ranch. A large number of the many visitors to Hidden Valley were motivated by the prospect of seeing ‘the lion that lives with the lamb’ — a situation similar to the prophecies of Isaiah 11:6. The sight of the lioness living placidly alongside sheep, cattle, and peafowl made a profound impression on many visitors. Television footage4 and newspaper photos of Little Tyke also moved many people, such as one who wrote, ‘Nothing has made me happier than your picture of the lion and the lamb. It has helped me believe in the Bible.’

In the light of Little Tyke’s situation, along with anecdotes of other carnivorous animals surviving on vegetarian diets,5 it is certainly easier to relate to the Genesis account of animals living solely on plants before Adam’s Fall.6

Mr Westbeau’s observation of the lioness that ‘To condition her stomach she would spend an hour at a time eating the succulent tall grass in the fields’, is also a vivid reminder of the prophecies of Isaiah 11:7 and 65:25, ‘… the lion will eat straw like the ox.’

References and notes

1. Westbeau, G., Little Tyke: the story of a gentle vegetarian lioness, Theosophical Publishing House, IL, USA, 1986. (Information is drawn from pp. 3–6, 17, 32–35, 59–60, 113–114.)
2. The lioness had been given to the Westbeaus as a badly mauled one-day-old cub, by the zoo where her mother was kept. The mother had killed all cubs from her four earlier pregnancies immediately after birth. This time though, anxious zoo attendants were standing by, ready to scramble to rescue the offspring at the moment of delivery. With ‘Little Tyke’ they succeeded — but not before the mother’s quick and powerful jaws had injured the cub’s right front leg.
3. Many people would include eggs in ‘vegetarian’ diets today, if unfertilised, as no killing of animals is involved. Though it seems unlikely that eggs (or milk for adult animals) were part of the pre-Fall diet, the point to note here is that lions do not need meat to survive. Many plants are now extinct; it is highly likely that there were very rich protein sources in the pre-Fall / pre-Flood plant kingdom.
4. Sadly, while in Hollywood for filming of a nation-wide television broadcast, Little Tyke contracted pneumonia, and she died a few weeks later.
5. While living in Indonesia in the 1980s, several families told me that they never fed meat to their pet dogs — though it is possible that bones might have been present in the scraps fed to them. Other reports suggest that this is a widespread phenomenon in that country.
6. The Bible does not give us details of how the change from plant-eating to meat-eating has occurred after the Fall; one possibility is by divine ‘redesign’. Hence, even if lions today did need meat to survive, it would not invalidate Genesis. See Creation Ministries’ The Creation Answers Book for a fuller discussion.


You have clearly identified yourself. I can make no further comments.



Sand
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23 Jul 2010, 1:39 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
David Catchpoole wrote:
The lion that wouldn’t eat meat

First published:
Creation ex nihilo 22(2):22–23
March 2000
by David Catchpoole

Earlier this century, A female African lion, born and raised in America, lived her entire lifetime of nine years without ever eating meat.1 In fact, her owners, Georges and Margaret Westbeau,2 alarmed by scientists’ reports that carnivorous animals cannot live without meat, went to great lengths to try to coax their unusual pet (‘Little Tyke’) to develop a taste for it. They even advertised a cash reward for anyone who could devise a meat-containing formula that the lioness would like. The curator of a New York zoo advised the Westbeaus that putting a few drops of blood in Little Tyke’s milk bottle would help in weaning her, but the lioness cub refused to touch it — even when only a single drop of blood had been added.

The more knowledgeable animal experts among the many visitors to the Westbeaus’ 100 acre (40 hectare) ranch also proffered advice, but nothing worked. Meanwhile, Little Tyke continued to do extremely well on a daily diet of cooked grain, raw eggs and milk. By four years of age she was fully grown and weighed 352 pounds (160 kg).

As Georges Westbeau writes, it was ‘a young visitor’ to Hidden Valley ranch who finally put his mind at ease in response to the question of how Little Tyke could be persuaded to eat meat (thought to be essential for carnivores to survive):

‘He turned to look at me with serious eyes, then asked, “Don’t you read your Bible’? I admitted I didn’t read it as much as I probably should. He continued, “Read Genesis 1:30, and you will get your answer.’ At my first opportunity I got my Bible and turned to the passage he had indicated. To my astonishment, I read these words: “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.’

The owners of Little Tyke, though apparently not Christians, were so reassured by this that they no longer worried about her refusal to eat meat, and turned their attention instead to refining her ‘vegetarian’3 diet further, learning of new grains to add to the lioness’s food. These numerous grains were ground and stirred together while in the dry state, then cooked and mixed with the milk and eggs. The lioness was fed this mixture each morning and evening, and sometimes at midday as well. (To condition her teeth and gums — as she steadfastly refused all offers of bones to gnaw — Little Tyke was given heavy rubber boots to chew on, which generally lasted about three weeks.) The lioness not only survived on this diet, she thrived. One of America’s ‘most able zoo curators’ apparently said that the lioness ‘was the best of her species he had ever viewed.’

As well as Little Tyke, the Westbeaus cared for a menagerie of other animals at their ranch. A large number of the many visitors to Hidden Valley were motivated by the prospect of seeing ‘the lion that lives with the lamb’ — a situation similar to the prophecies of Isaiah 11:6. The sight of the lioness living placidly alongside sheep, cattle, and peafowl made a profound impression on many visitors. Television footage4 and newspaper photos of Little Tyke also moved many people, such as one who wrote, ‘Nothing has made me happier than your picture of the lion and the lamb. It has helped me believe in the Bible.’

In the light of Little Tyke’s situation, along with anecdotes of other carnivorous animals surviving on vegetarian diets,5 it is certainly easier to relate to the Genesis account of animals living solely on plants before Adam’s Fall.6

Mr Westbeau’s observation of the lioness that ‘To condition her stomach she would spend an hour at a time eating the succulent tall grass in the fields’, is also a vivid reminder of the prophecies of Isaiah 11:7 and 65:25, ‘… the lion will eat straw like the ox.’

References and notes

1. Westbeau, G., Little Tyke: the story of a gentle vegetarian lioness, Theosophical Publishing House, IL, USA, 1986. (Information is drawn from pp. 3–6, 17, 32–35, 59–60, 113–114.)
2. The lioness had been given to the Westbeaus as a badly mauled one-day-old cub, by the zoo where her mother was kept. The mother had killed all cubs from her four earlier pregnancies immediately after birth. This time though, anxious zoo attendants were standing by, ready to scramble to rescue the offspring at the moment of delivery. With ‘Little Tyke’ they succeeded — but not before the mother’s quick and powerful jaws had injured the cub’s right front leg.
3. Many people would include eggs in ‘vegetarian’ diets today, if unfertilised, as no killing of animals is involved. Though it seems unlikely that eggs (or milk for adult animals) were part of the pre-Fall diet, the point to note here is that lions do not need meat to survive. Many plants are now extinct; it is highly likely that there were very rich protein sources in the pre-Fall / pre-Flood plant kingdom.
4. Sadly, while in Hollywood for filming of a nation-wide television broadcast, Little Tyke contracted pneumonia, and she died a few weeks later.
5. While living in Indonesia in the 1980s, several families told me that they never fed meat to their pet dogs — though it is possible that bones might have been present in the scraps fed to them. Other reports suggest that this is a widespread phenomenon in that country.
6. The Bible does not give us details of how the change from plant-eating to meat-eating has occurred after the Fall; one possibility is by divine ‘redesign’. Hence, even if lions today did need meat to survive, it would not invalidate Genesis. See Creation Ministries’ The Creation Answers Book for a fuller discussion.


You have clearly identified yourself. I can make no further comments.



iamnotaparakeet
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23 Jul 2010, 1:45 am

Sand wrote:
I can make no further comments.


Unfortunately that is both not true (since the word "can" refers to ability) and would nevertheless include the implication that it is for this subject alone even if you had used the word "wont" instead of the inaccurate word "can".



Macbeth
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23 Jul 2010, 6:06 am

Worrying how many man-hours of time have been wasted studying this rubbish in such intricate detail that could have been spent in more important studies.

It reminds me of the "Star Trek vs Star Wars" arguments in the level of frothing and detail, which is sad because when people do THAT argument they get accused of being sad losers, but the people researching why Lions could be turned into rabbits by God are supposed to be serious academics.

@Sand.. maybe..er..plants were made of meat pre-fall?


_________________
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart,
that you can't take part" [Mario Savo, 1964]


iamnotaparakeet
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23 Jul 2010, 7:25 am

Macbeth wrote:
Worrying how many man-hours of time have been wasted studying this rubbish in such intricate detail that could have been spent in more important studies.

It reminds me of the "Star Trek vs Star Wars" arguments in the level of frothing and detail, which is sad because when people do THAT argument they get accused of being sad losers, but the people researching why Lions could be turned into rabbits by God are supposed to be serious academics.

@Sand.. maybe..er..plants were made of meat pre-fall?


Just to spurn you:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNxhrPaaCA4[/youtube]



Sand
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23 Jul 2010, 7:48 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
I can make no further comments.


Unfortunately that is both not true (since the word "can" refers to ability) and would nevertheless include the implication that it is for this subject alone even if you had used the word "wont" instead of the inaccurate word "can".


My wording is quite accurate. Over the course of my experience I have, for personal purposes, found it useful to create a scale of communicability. The low end of the scale is a doorknob. This represents a point of zero potential in commenting, no matter what the doorknob chooses to propose.The next step up is an apple. Apples are almost as unreachable as doorknobs but at least they are alive. I have tentatively accepted a banana as possibly a bit more attainable in conversation but I have had no real success here yet so it is still very theoretical. I use a cricket as my next point since I have discovered that chirping at crickets does evoke some kind of reliable response. From here we proceed up the scale through goldfish, sardines, chickadees, sparrows, telemarketers, seagulls, policemen, dogs or cats (which do equally well), theologians, and so forth through several types of humans. Of course, there are many empty spaces inbetween that I have not had the opportunity to fill but I do have some success with several types of humans. In the light of our recent conversation you place somewhere between a banana and a cricket and since crickets have been more responsive in general you have, so far, appeared to be more intelligent than a banana but I am willing to have doubts about how much more. I'll let you know where exactly you should be placed when I finally do get some coherent response form the banana. I appreciate your interest.



iamnotaparakeet
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23 Jul 2010, 9:56 am

Sand wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
I can make no further comments.


Unfortunately that is both not true (since the word "can" refers to ability) and would nevertheless include the implication that it is for this subject alone even if you had used the word "wont" instead of the inaccurate word "can".


My wording is quite accurate. Over the course of my experience I have, for personal purposes, found it useful to create a scale of communicability. The low end of the scale is a doorknob. This represents a point of zero potential in commenting, no matter what the doorknob chooses to propose.The next step up is an apple. Apples are almost as unreachable as doorknobs but at least they are alive. I have tentatively accepted a banana as possibly a bit more attainable in conversation but I have had no real success here yet so it is still very theoretical. I use a cricket as my next point since I have discovered that chirping at crickets does evoke some kind of reliable response. From here we proceed up the scale through goldfish, sardines, chickadees, sparrows, telemarketers, seagulls, policemen, dogs or cats (which do equally well), theologians, and so forth through several types of humans. Of course, there are many empty spaces inbetween that I have not had the opportunity to fill but I do have some success with several types of humans. In the light of our recent conversation you place somewhere between a banana and a cricket and since crickets have been more responsive in general you have, so far, appeared to be more intelligent than a banana but I am willing to have doubts about how much more. I'll let you know where exactly you should be placed when I finally do get some coherent response form the banana. I appreciate your interest.


When I post articles in response to people, it is usually when I would like to give them a response but am too tired to properly formulate one myself (that along with the general feeling of despair associated with the knowledge that all of my words will be scrutinized for opportunities of ridicule.) If you mean by "responsiveness" how much I agree with you, then you'll only find me to be responsive when there is something which we mutually agree upon. If your scale of "responsiveness" relates to how willing a person is to budge from what they already think, then consider where you would lie within your own scale.



Sand
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23 Jul 2010, 10:29 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
I can make no further comments.


Unfortunately that is both not true (since the word "can" refers to ability) and would nevertheless include the implication that it is for this subject alone even if you had used the word "wont" instead of the inaccurate word "can".


My wording is quite accurate. Over the course of my experience I have, for personal purposes, found it useful to create a scale of communicability. The low end of the scale is a doorknob. This represents a point of zero potential in commenting, no matter what the doorknob chooses to propose.The next step up is an apple. Apples are almost as unreachable as doorknobs but at least they are alive. I have tentatively accepted a banana as possibly a bit more attainable in conversation but I have had no real success here yet so it is still very theoretical. I use a cricket as my next point since I have discovered that chirping at crickets does evoke some kind of reliable response. From here we proceed up the scale through goldfish, sardines, chickadees, sparrows, telemarketers, seagulls, policemen, dogs or cats (which do equally well), theologians, and so forth through several types of humans. Of course, there are many empty spaces inbetween that I have not had the opportunity to fill but I do have some success with several types of humans. In the light of our recent conversation you place somewhere between a banana and a cricket and since crickets have been more responsive in general you have, so far, appeared to be more intelligent than a banana but I am willing to have doubts about how much more. I'll let you know where exactly you should be placed when I finally do get some coherent response form the banana. I appreciate your interest.


When I post articles in response to people, it is usually when I would like to give them a response but am too tired to properly formulate one myself (that along with the general feeling of despair associated with the knowledge that all of my words will be scrutinized for opportunities of ridicule.) If you mean by "responsiveness" how much I agree with you, then you'll only find me to be responsive when there is something which we mutually agree upon. If your scale of "responsiveness" relates to how willing a person is to budge from what they already think, then consider where you would lie within your own scale.


Since I have no problems at all communicating with myself I am off scale. Please be assured my system is rather rough and the placement scalewise is only relative to the responses I receive. If my information is taken seriously and considered in the light of generally accepted understanding of the mechanics of how the world functions then my scale is responsive to that. When the responses I receive are so far out of rational consideration that they have no relevance to rational consideration the scale placement reflects that. This is, of course, a very personal evaluation and my past experience in our exchanges indicate my evaluations are totally rejected in your viewpoint so you certainly should feel no emotion as to my outlook since it is entirely worthless in your eyes. If it is any comfort, my evaluation of your opinions are very much in the same area as most of the business, financial and governmental people who are currently running the world.