Darwinism vs Conservationism

Today I was pondering something that has been on my mind for about a year now, so I decided to get it down on pen and paper... er... on pixels... So if you read this just to see what I did at work yesterday or what I did on the weekend, you might as well skip over this one as it is just my ranting about so-called "experts."

One cannot fully support both Darwinism and Conservationism simultaneously.

That really sounds quite controversial at first when you read it, but if you take a step back for a moment, maybe you'll see what I am getting at...

Darwinism, or for the sake of making my point a little better to read, Natural Selection, thrives on the idea of "survival of the fittest." If Rat A and Rat B both are subjected to the same environment and contract the same disease, and Rat A survives while Rat B dies, then according to Natural Selection, the gene pool has been strengthened by the rat with the stronger genes (Rat A) surviving, and the weaker genes (Rat B) dying off, eventually producing a species of rat immune to the disease. So effectually, Darwinism promotes the strong surviving whilst the weak dies off, creating a healthier gene pool.

Conversely, Conservationism thrives on the idea of preserving life. A true conservationist will administer medicine to Rat B to conserve life. A better illustration would be an endangered species; suppose a beaver dam is built and changes an ecosystem. Creatures dependant on the river will have to make some changes, and in the event that they can't adapt to the newly created pond, they will likely die. In history, Darwinists believe that this caused some species to die out, while other species survived and came out stronger for it. Herein lies the problem: As a species is beginning to die out, making way for the stronger species, the true conservationist is obliged to intervene and save the weaker species from extinction, using the loss of the species as a worse outcome than the emergence of a stronger species.

I am getting a little long-winded, I know, so the above can be summed up in one simple phrase:

Darwinists (Natural Selection) rely on the weaker species dying off.
Conservationists (Environmentalists) rely on saving the weaker species.

The two are complete polar opposites!

It is for this reason that I scoff at environmentalists who are such huge proponents of Darwinism-- the very ideals they believe in totally contradict their perfect picture of life.

a visit from Corrie

During the weekend I got to enjoy a visit from my cousin Corrie. Corrie is an English teacher in Mongolia, and she was able to have a long layover in Seoul on the way back to Mongolia after going to a conference and having a vacation in Thailand.

My morning on Saturday started dark and early as I got up to go to the airport, but unfortunately not only did my ride to the bus stop oversleep, but I did too. My goal was to get to the bus by 6, but he called at 6:37 to tell me he had overslept. Fortunately it wasn’t a big deal as the bus at 7 got me there before 8, so Corrie only had to wait an hour for me at the airport, during which time she got some needed rest.

On the bus back to Seoul, I casually pulled out my copy of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “The Brothers Karamozov” and asked if she had ever read it. She laughed and proceeded to pull the same edition of the same book out of her own bag! We thought this was hilarious, so she took out her camera and took a picture of us holding up our books. Our opinions of the book were similar, though slightly reversed; I like all of what I’ve read so far, but I like the beginning the best, while she likes the book but thought it had a slow beginning. In either case, it is an excellent book.

After getting back to Uijeongbu, we went to Deanna’s apartment and stayed there for a couple hours so Corrie could settle down and get refreshed after her flight before we sent to Spaghetti House, a local Italian place we really like because you can design your own pasta. We were there with Deanna’s roommates, Sue and Janet, before we (Corrie, Deanna, and I) departed for Seoul.

After an hour-long train ride to Seoul, we found ourselves at Gyeongbokgung (Gyeongbok Palace), the primary palace that was used by Korean royalty. (Following the Japanese invasion of 1910, Korea is no longer a monarchy, and only a few distant relatives are left from the royal family.) We got to the palace in the middle of a changing-of-the-guard ceremony, so the timing was excellent. Corrie got several good pictures, though her batteries were dead and she was trying to squeeze what little life out of them that was left. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the palace and at an adjacent museum.

After our visit to the palace, we went to Insadong, an outdoor/indoor market, where we shopped around for a little bit before we went to Coldstone Creamery. It was Corrie’s first time eating Coldstone’s icecream, so now she can say that her first time there was in Korea.

Following the icecream, we all were a bit tired and went back on the train to Uijeongbu to Deanna’s apartment where we played some Guitar Hero and hung out for the rest of the evening. I walked Corrie to my pastor’s house where she was staying and then went home.

The next day was not as eventful; we met at church, and after the service, we went back to Deanna’s place and just watched TV and talked until I had to go on post to fold the flag at the end of the day. We didn’t really have time to go anywhere since I had to be back, and it was good for Corrie to get a relaxing “chill” day anyways.

It was really nice to see her, and she was able to meet Deanna for the first time, so it was a really fun weekend.

Games

I just got home at around 10 pm and realized that this is perhaps the earliest I've been home in a long while, excluding Wednesdays when I don't see Deanna. Usually I leave there at 10 or later (depending on how badly I rationalizing staying another 5 or 10 minutes) and then get home and finish some of the wind-down time that I spend online each day. I do it then because I usually skip some or all of it to get to Deanna's before it gets to late as she is waiting on me so we can eat. So on the average night I get home at 10:30ish and am ready for bed a little after 11, except for the nights when I call home, when I end up going to bed later at 11:30. Getting up around 5 am most mornings makes it difficult at times, so while I would not voluntarily trade my longer evenings for some shorter ones and more sleep, my fatigued body is thanking me anyways.

Two nights ago I stayed up late at Tom Vasel's house to watch him and Sam Healey record the latest episode of The Dicetower, a podcast on board games and other related topics. I will be coming on the show this summer, so I wanted to see them do one recording to see what it is like and be mentally prepared for what the process is like before I actually sit down and do one. It was very entertaining, and I actually discovered that I enjoyed the show much more in person despite its increased length-- since they were recording, it was longer as I was there during any breaks or editing needing to be done. I was also very happy when Sam sat down with a pad of paper and told me all the games listed were games he is getting rid of. I bought one of the games from the section he was selling and picked out several of the games he was giving away for free, and the next night I was delighted to see one of his kids walk in our gaming area holding a big stack of games for me. Upwords was perhaps the only conventional game I got, though the Lord of the Rings edition of Risk is still a version of a conventional game. The other games were what I like to call unconventional-- meaning they aren't your average Parker Brothers game, but rather they bring gaming to a different level. It is kind of like comparing your average 50's science fiction TV show with one of the many shows to come in all the decades since... the modern "unconventional" board games are a completely different breed and are often a much higher quality, both in game play and in components.

So now my game collection has grown like a pack of tribbles over the past few months, and in the next couple of weeks will be growing even more as a large order of small to mid-sized games will be arriving in the mail. I plan on buying a few more games as well before I come home, though I may have them just shipped straight home instead of to here because most of them won't be played until I get home anyways.

Some of the games that I have played that I recommend for someone that has never played "non-conventional" games are:

• Ticket to Ride (with or without the 1910 expansion)
• Settlers of Catan
• Carcassonne (several variations of this... all but the Carcassonne: New World)
• Dominion
• Colosseum
• Mystery of the Abbey (similar to Clue)
• Memoir '44

All of those are fairly simple, though if you play with a gamer it might help. They are all also great family games. Right now I have Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, and Castle Carcassone, but I plan on buying most of the rest in the not-t00-distant future.