Pat, people in India and elsewhere are usually more tolerant of religious and atheist/evolutionary views compared to Americans. I see the same butterflies that you do and I am completely convinced that evolution by natural selection, with a little bit of genetic drift once in a while, has shaped their, as you put it, “design” (I would call it their structure). But that’s all right because my personal experience, thinking, worldview and training are different than yours. As long as we all appreciate beauty of butterflies and can have a fruitful discussion about what Indian butterflies are and do, I think it matters little what you personally believe in. Tolerance, understanding of and respect for alternative views in a social group like this is the key to sharing ideas and information in a productive way. I am sure that many, if not most, butterflyindia members are religious to some degree, but evolution has never been controversial on this group.
BTW, Ashwin, your email was thoughtful and detailed, as always. I have been somewhat dormant on this group for a while because of my work. I have finished a couple of papers on mimicry and population dynamics of Western Ghats butterflies, and preparing to write some more, so am very busy nowadays. I do quickly scan through all the emails, though, and I will jump in whenever something of my interest happens. With best wishes, Krushnamegh. ------------------------------------------------- Krushnamegh Kunte, PhD Post-doctoral Research Fellow FAS Center for Systems Biology Harvard University 52 Oxford St Northwest Lab Room 458.40-3 Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Ph: (617) 496-0078 Cell: (512) 577-1370 Fax: (617) 495-2196 Email: [email protected] Other emails: [email protected], [email protected] Personal website: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~kunte/index.htm Indian Foundation for Butterflies: http://ifoundbutterflies.org/ Google profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/krushnamegh ------------------------------------------------- ________________________________ From: Pat <[email protected]> Reply-To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2011 21:07:30 -0500 To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [ButterflyIndia] Re : Lets do something for Butterfly India - Critique Part 1 There have been times when someone has made a reference to the theory of evolution, always in a positive light. I haven't said anything because even though I disagree with evolution, discussions always seem to turn out with animosity and hostility. So I'm mentioning it in passing. Any person who is at all familiar with butterflies should easily develop a sense of the phenomenal engineering and design of a consummate artist, who designed these wonderful flying flowers. There is no way random destructive processes could have done it. That's my 2c worth. As I have mentioned, I have photos of Indian butterflies, but they were all taken in captivity. I have asked if anyone wanted to see these, but nobody responded, so I assume not. Since I don't live in India, I can't capture them in the wild. Krushnamegh graciously offered to identify any I don't know. So far, I have been able to identify most. But I will take him up on his offer if I get one that stumps me. People have graciously invited me to come visit. Unfortunately, that kind of travel is expensive and beyond my budget. So I am just sitting here enjoying everyone's photos. Happy New Year to everyone. Pat Goltz Arizona USA Ashwin Baindur wrote: Dear friends, Nelson's email suggests its time for introspecting. I'm so glad he has written. I do feel that the group is caught in a kind of limbo - "post image, identify, appreciate, next image..." ButterflyIndia is meant to be a group where information on butterflies is exchanged. The exact charter is : " This list is started to popularize butterfly watching in a serious way. * Anything to do with Indian Butterflies * General articles on butterflies. * Checklists * Id questions * Pictures * Host Plants, Pupa, Larva information * URLs of interesting pages * Report articles/ books published on butterflies from India/outside. * Limmericks and poems on butterflies !!!!! " The focus is meant to be balanced and creative, all encompassing and offering something for one and all. But is this happening? The majority of posts are about : * I shot this butterfly, look at it! * I shot this butterfly, what is it? * Social messages. Few messages are about any of the items listed in the charter above except pictures and ids. People coming here for learning more do not find easy means or resources to learn from. People coming for intelligent debating of issues do not find any arguments whatsoever. People coming for interesting information almost do not find anything at all! There is simply too little of this to hold the interest in the long run. We have had a few successes - our group meets have been great successes, budding photographers have developed their interest first in photography and then in natural history, the new image sets of life-histories is something we can all be proud of - but what part of this success is due to group support and facilitation and what part to their own energy and drive? I suspect the answer to be a humbling one. Our laurels (successes) are too few to rest on. Coming to the focus of Nelson's memo - images. It is very important to have photos displayed and for ids to be given. That is required to attract people. But we need to give them wholesome fare to develop their knowledge, curiosity and interest after that. Just few odd images without all the things mentioned above wont keep subscribers, or rather they will skim the list of posts, see one or two and ignore the rest. Mind-numbing repetition is one reason for some of us being warnocked. It is futile to expect a steady stream of remarks on photographs. Unless they illustrate an issue or bring in a point to discuss - so many photographs do not provoke anyone to comment at all. Here I differ from Nelson - he feels we need more images to keep the group alive. I say we if we are to make our group lively and interesting, we need more of people giving writeups, limericks, urls, suggestions, checklists etc etc. My kudos to Nelson for bringing up the need for introspection and improvement. BTW - Lack of responses to Nelson's and my posts will prove the exact points we are making. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur -- Enjoy
