lucem ac tenebras

O mais extraordinário nesta curiosa história do "Magalhães" não é o facto deste dito instrumento de aprendizagem estar cheio de erros mas sim o facto de, aparentemente até agora, mais ninguém ter notado que ele estava cheio de erros. Será que este instrumento de aprendizagem não está a ser usado como instrumento de aprendizagem?

Euro 2008: Caneira quer qualificação e boa campanha na fase final
15.11.2007 - 17h58 Lusa, PUBLICO.PT

Destaque noticioso da RTP para hoje:

Sócrates diz que nova ponte sobre o Tejo aproxima Norte e Sul

Os meios de comunicação social estão tão despidos de autonomia que, mais cedo ou mais tarde, vamos ter de assumir que eles não são mais do que locais onde as diversas forças políticas, económicas e sociais colocam as suas informações.
Sócrates não apresenta novidades, não trás novas políticas, não responde a polémicas, diz, aquilo que os políticos dizem, as banalidades da vida, e uma dessas banalidades é transformada na notícia mais importante to dia (a única com que somos confrontados quando abrimos a página da RTP)

"According to Aquinas the meaning of Scripture is very far from self-evident and we must often interpret in the light of other truths if a literal interpretation is really and flatly contradicted by an obvious fact we can only say that the literal interpretation must be a false interpretation but the fact must really be an obvious fact and unfortunately nineteenth century scientists were just as ready to jump to the conclusion that any guess about nature was an obvious fact as were seventeenth century sectarians ready to jump to the conclusion that any guess about Scripture was the obvious explanation. Thus private theories about what the Bible ought to mean and premature theories about what the world ought to mean have meat in loud and advertised controversy especially in Victorian time and this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of science and religion. But Saint Thomas had scientific humility – he did not like a modern specialist study the worm as if it were the world but he was willing to begin to study the reality of the world in the reality of the worm. He Aristotelian simply meant that the study of the humblest fact will lead to the study of the highest truth."

Chesterton – The Dumb Ox

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear!

Emily Dickinson

Sobre o caso Afinsa.
O "caso" interessa-me muito pouco, não sou investidor e estes negócios passam-me ao lado... mas, há algo de interessante nos comentários das pessoas.
Não sei se deva rir ou chorar mas pelo menos agora entendo a razão de tanto insucesso à minha volta. Confrontadas com um problema, uma parte substancial dos meuis compatriotas opta por esconder a cabeça na areia e choramingar acerca do país, dos bancos, da Europa, do mundo e tudo o resto… Em vez de se associarem para defenderem direitos, em vez agirem concretamente no mundo que nos rodeia, preferem seguir a moda das conspirações… A verdade é que para um perdedor todos os ganhadores à sua volta devem parecer conspiradores…

A história de sempre:

World’s media duped over “pyramid” find, experts claim

Updated May 8, 2006
Special to World Science

The world’s newspapers and other media outlets have been duped into reporting claims that evidence of a pyramid has turned up in Bosnia, a group of archaeologists says.

Last month, major news organizations worldwide reported that archaeologists had unearthed stone slabs that they described as part of an ancient pyramid buried under a huge hill in Bosnia-Herzegovina. World Science also carried a brief article on the claims.

The find, if real, would represent the first known stepped pyramid in Europe.

But a group of experts say they’re shocked that so many prominent news organizations have fallen for the story.

They say the reports would have people believe, absurdly, that Stone-age humans built a pyramid bigger than any in Egypt.

The critics add that the project’s director is an amateur who compares himself to Indiana Jones and believes human ancestors inhabited a distant star cluster. They also warn that the excavation could damage real archaeological relics at or near the site.

Some of the doubts are to be detailed in an article in the upcoming July/August issue of Archaeology, a magazine of the Boston-based Archaeological Institute of America.

The claim, “which is simply not possible, has been accepted as a major discovery,” the magazine’s executive editor Mark Rose, himself a trained archaeologist, wrote in magazine’s current online edition at www.archaeology.org. “How could this happen?”

The answer, Rose wrote, may be that the tale seemed to fit a storyline that journalists and editors love: “amateur/maverick confounds establishment with great discovery.”