A COMMON sense critic of scientific pretensions, who has wit, sanity and elevated moral intelligence all wrapped up in one person, would likely be difficult to ignore.
Such a person is Mary Midgley, dubbed by the Guardian, UK as “the most frightening philosopher in the country” — and today nearly 10 years later, at age 91, she is still receiving accolades, and taking no prisoners.
We discovered this totem-toppling English moral philosopher by chance through a brief, unassuming comment she posted in the “Letters” section of the January 3-9, 2009, NewScientist — signed simply “Mary Midgley, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.”
Her logic appeared seamless, and upon mulling her 257 insightful words over a week of lunch breaks, her ideas also felt convincingly Theosophical — indeed, strongly Blavatskian.
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Please Note: This post was updated and republished at:
Mary and Goliath
While this is a wonderfull article, full of thoughtful items with obvious work for which I am grateful, I will debate that intelligent design, nature being aided, as portrayed by HPB is significantly different from the present day institute and promoters of “intelligent design” ! This is why the court stopped those promoters from putting their junk in the public schools. It was a backdoor approach to promoting creationism, and christianity. The courts saw through the chirade.
Warmly and kindly,
Gary Barnhart, Elgin Texas
We agree, Gary, and thank you. Blavatsky does have a much broader view of Intelligent Design than the Creationists, but it was not to that issue the video was chosen. It was only to show the strength of the arguments based on observable evidence. Her view is epitomized in this quote from the SD 2:732 –
“… there are certainly ‘designers,’ though these are neither omnipotent nor omniscient in the absolute sense of the term. They are simply Builders, or Masons, working under the impulse given them by the ever-to-be-unknown (on our plane) Master Mason — the One Life and Law.”