Quote Originally Posted by ThisYouWillDo View Post
Are you saying beauty is about symmetry or that it is symmetry. The experiment seems to suggest the latter, and I reject that. Also, it doesn't account for the fact that I think wifey is ugly and Thorne thinks she's beautiful. And it seems to me that handsome men have more asymmetrical faces while pretty women have symmetrical ones.
I think you will find that the majority of people tend to find things which are symmetrical to be more beautiful than things which are not. But this is by no means definitive. That's why I say it is subjective. And yes, men and women, perhaps because of gender differences or differences in upbringing, do tend to have differing concepts of beauty.
As for your wife (and I apologize in advance to the lady), if you were to show me a picture of her, or even if I were to meet her socially somewhere, I might indeed find her attractive, even beautiful. But I am looking solely at her appearance, while you are seeing her with the eyes of familiarity. And it is true that "familiarity breeds contempt." You have had to live with her for some number of years, perhaps you've had to deal with her lackadaisical housecleaning, or dealt with her foul language, or are just plain sick of smelling her farts all night long, as I'm sure she is sick of smelling yours! I'm sure that at one time you must have considered her beautiful, or you wouldn't have married her. You had to "learn" to think of her as ugly. (Again I apologize to her. I don't know her, have never seen her, everything I said is for illustrative purposes only, there's not a grain of truth in it. I'm sure she never farts.)

No, no, no! That's quite wrong (apart from the "arrogant" bit) - I am arguing that science does not know everything. I am trying to counter the suggestion that everything can be explained by science now, or at some time in the future. Currently (I am told), science regards atoms as "unknowable".
It's true, science does not know everything. Probably never will know everything. But religion knows nothing, cannot prove anything, and is based upon supposition and guesswork rather than facts. And calling something a miracle just because science cannot explain it doesn't make it so.