Tea at Trianon: To the Garden of Eden and Back

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, April 9, 2010

To the Garden of Eden and Back

A new look.

The biological phenomenon called epigenetics has been known since the 1970s, but for unexplained reasons, not really discussed at large till recently. Keeping epigenetics obscure may have served a purpose – to advance and maintain the fading idea of Darwinian biology. Darwinian evolution demands millions of years for mutations to occur, whereas epigenetics is now.

Brantigny said...: Are you aware of the Mitochondrial DN: Eve gene.
It seems that tehre is a gene which is only passed through females and judging the mutation it has been determined that it came from a single woman. Therefore the Eve gene.

" Ultimately, every person alive today has inherited their mitochondrial DNA from one single great-great-great-. . .-grandmother, nearly 200,000 years ago." Openheimer

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/eve.html

Richard; April 9, 2010 at 2:57:00 PM EDT
Julygirl said...: From what I have read, Darwin differentiated between organisms adapting to changing environments, and/or filling niches by adapting to them ("survival of the fittest, from Natural Selection and Evolution. Not that I am defending Darwinism, but it never seemed to me that he lumped these various phenomena under one process as appears to be indicated by the article.; April 10, 2010 at 8:46:00 AM EDT