After returning from the Intl Coral Reef Symposium, let me reflect on a few things. This quadrennial meeting of the world's top marine scientists deal with issues ranging from how corals can breathe to the long term effects of global warming on the carbon cycle. But the symposium ended with the REAL SYMPOSIUM. The Floridian hosts of the meeting reminded that this event was a real symposium. It was on the last night that truth was revealed. Notwithstanding the scientific issues raised during the day, the night defined what a symposium is all about. The word symposium is derived from the Greek "symposion", which is a bacchanalian night were truth was supposed to be spoken ( I wonder if the Greeks were prone to drunken riots?!?). The Romans gave us the aphorism "Vino veritas" but the their equivalent of symposium was the more formal and somewhat churchy "convivium". (from where we get the ecclesiastical term "convocation"). Well the coral reef s...
"It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved" - Galileo