Word: phenomena
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Emmerich brings Dawkins to task for speaking as if genes were conscious, scheming entities. Dawkins does so, but he also consistently reminds the reader that this is just a metaphor that he uses to elucidate the phenomena he is discussing. At one point he admonishes himself and the reader "not to get carried away with subjective metaphors." I suppose if Dawkins had been acquainted with the average Crimson writer he would have put a large sign on the book saying "WARNING: Metaphors contained within. Those who have trouble distinguishing between concrete and figurative language should avoid this book...
Scientific discoveries belong to the public as well as to science. What the public does with them is the responsibility of society as a whole. It is as absurd to blame scientists as it is to praise them for social phenomena. If we pursued that form of logic, we would find ourselves making Thomas Edison a national hero for describing the nature of electricity, and then trying him posthumously for the deaths of all people who were ever electrocuted...
...Gaslight Phenomena, the exhibit of kinetic light sculpture by Alejandro Sina at the Institute of Contemporary Art until May 1, is just that kind of art. It is fun to be hypnotized by the pieces that whirl in intricate patterns, to touch the "Touch Bulbs" and to gaze at the gently swaying hanging pices...
Sina, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT since 1973, has been experimenting with gas discharge light phenomena. In his sculpture he has managed to use his knowledge of chemistry and physics perhaps less usefully, but certainly more aesthetically, than his colleagues in the scientific departments...
...almost struck by lightning on a South African golf course. (Presumably he avoided other unimportant violence in the area, which the space-conscious Enquirer issue fails to mention: like terrorist violence, Soweto riots, and other events irrelevant to our lives.) There are other goodies too: deaths by freezing, psychic phenomena, and this week's cure for cancer...