Obama's speech to the National Academies of Science

The president spoke to the NAS today, and he made some great promises: increases in funding for science and science education, an investment in training new teachers in science and math, a political commitment to get better advising in science untainted by ideology. He specifically promised 3% of the GDP to go to research in science and technology.

Listen to it in an NAS podcast, or read the transcript. It's a good speech, except for the very last line, which was incredibly stupid…but I'll overlook it as a mindless platitude.

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That last line qualifies as nothing more than a punctuation mark in our current tradition of political speechmaking. Sad that it should be so, but, absent corroborating woo, nothing to worry about.

IMHO, of course.

I haven't had a chance to study the speech yet, but 3% GDP for S&T research sounds fabulous.

Platitudes suck. Besides, Defender of the Faith was the title of the guy who lost in the Revolution.

I have a dream that one day we can listen to a national policy speech without having to hear silly meaningless figures of speech.

I know, it's just a dream. Now back to my regularly scheduled reality.

I haven't listened to it yet, but I am sure I know what that last line must be...the eternal political cliche.

By wet_bread (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

"God bless you and may God bless the United States of America." And be sure to tip your waitress...

I know it's just pro forma in U.S. politics, but I always hear it as "Never mind what I just said about science and education and rationality, we need to embrace superstition."

I'm happy to see Obama pushing for increases in research spending, but I think it's a bit much to say that spending as percent GDP has steadily declined since the high point. More like sporadically increased and decreased, trending lower. I believe it's increased somewhat in recent years, especially for the NIH.

It's a bit silly to argue, too, that the high point is necessarily the proper standard. For one thing, spending on science doesn't involve just government spending, and government spending often includes military research, whose impact in the civilian sector is disputed.

That said, I'm glad he recognizes the importance of federal support for science (including evilution). Invoking god might might make such an increase in secular spending (some of which causes IDiots to whine) go down better, so I wouldn't be too hung up on it.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com6mb592

Excellent speech (minus the last line). In my dreamworld, we, as a country, return to the world stage as a respected member and become a beacon to reason and scientific discovery. I can dream.

Yes, "God bless America" needn't be an overtly religious statement, PZ.
I think of it more as an acknowledgment that if there is a God, he should be blessing America.
Of course, you could disagree with that, if you're from Canada, which is a better place all around.
But Obama's not.

I'll chalk it up to Obama tossing a bone to the religious nutbags after having laid out a feast for scientists and rational Americans. Let them have their bone.

As Bill noted in comment #1, it's hardly more than standard punctuation to close any political speech, lest the Religious hoards storm the White House and demand that Obama be burned at the stake. It's almost like writing, "Dear ___," and "Sincerely, _____" in a letter, even though you do not think that the recipient is dear, and you are anything but sincere in your writing. :D

I really hate that phrase. It's such a cheap trick. The religious love to hijack normal interactions with the goal of proselytizing.

He did throw in a zinger about faith towards the end. Unless he left out saying it, and it's only in the transcript.

Probably saying god bless America at the end is just easier to do than putting up with the howl that would erupt if he didn't.

By Patricia, OM (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I'll put up with the gawd bless America routine if it results in a second term. Then it might get interesting.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Surely, if anyone actually meant anything by that god-crap, they be asking for the god-thing to benefit the whole world, not just their own country. I mean, that's feckin' selfish, eh!

By Richard Harris (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Hey, if all we have do is to hear a two-second throwaway line in return for a rational science policy, I'm good with that!

Yes, "God bless America" needn't be an overtly religious statement, PZ. I think of it more as an acknowledgment that if there is a God, he should be blessing America.

Hmm... except for that to be convincing it would have to be "Gods bless America" otherwise he's at least making the explicit religious statement that (the god called) God is to be taken more seriously than the Olympians.

It's a fact that Obama is a Christian and I am sure he means every word of that last sentence.

A while back my blog referenced a YouTube video of the last third of Obama's victory speech at Millennium Park in Chicago. I found it interesting that the youtube.com poster edited off that last line of his speech which said the same thing.

Personally I would like to hear "God bless America, and God bless the rest of the world" at the end of a speech some day.

I'll chalk it up to Obama tossing a bone to the religious nutbags after having laid out a feast for scientists and rational Americans. Let them have their bone.

I think you would be wrong to do so. Obama himself is a believer, a Christian, and says that at the end of every speech. I wish someone would haul him aside and impress upon him that, while he is entitled to his personal beliefs, to utter that line publicly in his role as President is to endorse religion, and while the establishment clause doesn't strictly apply to the President, his endorsement certainly goes against its intent.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I have no problem with it. I'm no Christian but he is. Yes I'd rather he not, but it serves a purpose as long as all he's doing is saying it at the end of a speech and then not following it up with jamming it into every aspect of his presidency as a governing principle.

nothing's sacred: "I think you would be wrong to do so. Obama himself is a believer, a Christian, and says that at the end of every speech."

Great minds think a like (wink).

Obama himself is a believer, a Christian, ....

Mebbe so. I don't for a moment doubt the honesty or sincerity of Obama's public professions of belief... but I do question the depth and robustness of his religion: He has cultural and personal-history reasons to attach himself to the Christian tradition (as he himself has discussed in his books), but frankly, he's too damned smart to fool himself forever.

In any case...

...and says that at the end of every speech.

...so what? So does pretty much every other American politician, and pretty much everyone who gives any sort of speech (whether political or not) ends with some sort of benedictory formalism wishing the audience well. When Murrow signed off with "good night, and good luck," do you think he was thereby endorsing superstition?

The thing that bums me out the most is that this whole thread — on a science blog, no less — has focused on that throwaway line and not on the fact that we have a president who actually supports frickin' science!

Personally I would like to hear "God bless America, and God bless the rest of the world" at the end of a speech some day.

Why Stimpy? Who the fuck are you to tell your god what to do, and why is he such a fucking asshole that he won't bless anybody unless he's told to?

Personally, I'd like you people to think about what you're chanting for once in your fucking lives.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

The thing that bums me out the most is that this whole thread — on a science blog, no less — has focused on that throwaway line and not on the fact that we have a president who actually supports frickin' science!

Yeah ... so how do you think spending on science should be prioritized?

he's too damned smart to fool himself forever.

I'm usually impressed by your comments Bill, but not this time. Many smart people spend their entire lives as Christians.

...so what?

Uh, so you apparently didn't read the comment I responded to, which interpreted it as specific to this occasion.

The thing that bums me out the most is that this whole thread — on a science blog, no less — has focused on that throwaway line and not on the fact that we have a president who actually supports frickin' science!

Good to see you went back to being intelligent.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Sorry, I sneezed, and Obama was just being polite.

By The United Sta… (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

The thing that bums me out the most is that this whole thread — on a science blog, no less — has focused on that throwaway line and not on the fact that we have a president who actually supports frickin' science!

Amen (he he he).

I am so THRILLED about this, I friggin' love it any time Obama talks about science. He always seems to get it absolutely right. I cannot wait to see the state of the US and of science in 4 or 8 years!

Great minds think a like (wink).

Both geniuses and fools think that 1+1=2, fool.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Whatever about that closing line - it was a great speech. The really notable moments were about things like reducing carbon pollution 80% by 2050 or the ARPA-E initiative. Compared to that, "God bless America" wasn't even a blip on my radar.

In a 5,000 word speech full of big proposals and important ideas about restoring science to its rightful place, 12 words were wasted on a throwaway non-sequitur. That's a pretty damn good batting average if you ask me.

I am amazed at how we are willing to accept the "god bless america" bull when often we hang on a single sentence (or word) of other speeches that Obama has made.

His simple referencing of "non-believers" was a MAJOR point that we all thought of as positive (heck, it made headlines in USA Today, NY Times, etc.)- you don't think the opposite is now going to be held on to? The other side is going to point out how he saved the most important thing for last and will hang on a single line. We got one f#$king hyphenated word ("non-believers"). They got a whole sentence and at one of the most memorable parts of the speech!

Having said all that, I think he is simply pandering and has played religious out of need (it does appear necessary to be religious to be president).

Brownian,

You have a good point. Personally, while I believe God exists, I don't think God answers prayers. So that phrase would be meaningless from that respect. However, one of the things that toubles me is the United States' narcissistic foreign policy. I'd like to see some acknowledgement that the rest of the world is important too.

The thing that bums me out the most is that this whole thread — on a science blog, no less — has focused on that throwaway line and not on the fact that we have a president who actually supports frickin' science!

Not surprising at all. The rest, we all agree with, enthusiastically. The only thing to really talk about is the part we don't.

He always seems to get it absolutely right.

Ok, so you're an absolutist. Got any other good ones?

Personally, when I here statements like that, I naturally think - the sooner god fucks america, the better.

Obama says in the speech that science can't replace morals and ethics. People say that a lot and it never makes sense to me. If morals and ethics are human behaviors and human behaviors are the end products of evolution, then science has ALREADY told us more than we knew about those things. Why couldn't more research into what causes morals and ethics tell us more about those things? It seems like such an arbitrary distinction.

By TheNaturalist (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I am sure he means every word of that last sentence.

But what is it that he means? It it isn't even grammatical.

My point was that he doesn't just say it as "a bone to the religious nutbags", but is himself a religious ... well, something. There's a lot of cognitive dissonance in this place; people (including myself) have a lot of trouble understanding how intelligent people can be religious ... somethings who utter such meaningless drivel, and so we tend to focus only on the nutbags, or assume that the religious are entirely nutbags.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

"And we have watched as scientific integrity has been undermined and scientific research politicized in an effort to advance predetermined ideological agendas."

Side swipe at the likes of Texas Board of Education maybe?

"Under my administration, the days of science taking a
back seat to ideology are over."

GW Shrub smacked down...methinks?

"To undermine scientific integrity is to
undermine our democracy."

ID and Creationist spam...?

"I want to be sure that facts are driving
scientific decisions – and not the other way around."

Admonishment to Global warming combatants....?

Me also thinks that 'Barry' is not quite the Christian the Christians want!

By Strangebrew (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

OK. Back on track then. Very stirring and ambitious. An excellent start.

I like "I am announcing the appointment of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology." About friggin' time. I wonder if they will open and close their meetings with a prayer?

PZ, please forgive the president for his final platitude. Look what he has to put up from Notre Dame University. If I were him, I wouldn't accept the invitation to give the commencement speech there. Cardinals and Bishops are roundly criticizing him because of his stance on abortion. The university doesn't deserve to have him speak there.

Sarnia: "I am amazed at how we are willing to accept the "god bless america" bull"

Damn right. I'm more than happy to trade one "god bless America" for

Under my administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over. Our progress as a nation – and our values as a nation – are rooted in free and open inquiry. To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy.

and

we will devote more than three percent of our GDP to research and development.

and

scientific discovery ... holds a promise like no other area of human endeavor.

and on and on.

Seriously -- this was a fantastic speech. Compared to what came before it, the last line barely registered.

Obama says in the speech that science can't replace morals and ethics. People say that a lot and it never makes sense to me. If morals and ethics are human behaviors and human behaviors are the end products of evolution, then science has ALREADY told us more than we knew about those things. Why couldn't more research into what causes morals and ethics tell us more about those things?

Uh, why are you equating learning about things with replacing them? Science can tell us a lot about the psychology of our emotions, but it can't replace our emotions.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

PZ, looking over your comments again, you have forgiven him already.

he's too damned smart to fool himself forever.

I'm usually impressed by your comments Bill, but not this time. Many smart people spend their entire lives as Christians.

Thanks for the conditionally kind words... I think. Believe it or not, I actually thought about this very objection as I was writing. But really smart people who are also abidingly religious are often (though not, I admit, always) inculcated with religious belief by their families or cultures. Obama, OTOH, was not subjected to Christian indoctrination as a child, but instead came to religion as an adult "seeker." I suspect the answers he's seeking are really more matters of personal identity than spirituality... that his quest is, at the end of the day, more an intellectual one than an emotional/spiritual one. Thus, I have (you should pardon the expression) faith that his clearly superior intellect will win out in the end.

I could be wrong about all that, but that's my best synthesis of what I've read and heard by and about him WRT to religious belief.

...so what?

Uh, so you apparently didn't read the comment I responded to, which interpreted it as specific to this occasion.

I just don't agree that it's actually occasion-specific. This sort of thing is always "tossing a bone to the religious nutbags." Maybe that's a tiny bit more important in a speech about science, but it's really always the same: Saying "God bless" at the end of a speech has no more to do with anyone's true religious feelings than wearing an FSM-damned flag pin on a lapel does with anyone's true patriotism; it's just cheap insurance against the nattering nabobs of right-wing nutbaggery.

Not surprising at all.

Because you set it up. Rather than ignoring the mindless platitude, you drew a big honking red arrow pointing at it. Everyone immediately rushed to the bottom of the transcript to confirm what they figured you meant, and then that was all that was on their minds.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Presidents an politicians have been saying "God bless America" for years. Did God ever bless America even once? Any evidence of it? Of course not. You would think people would learn. Dumb Americans.

However, one of the things that toubles me is the United States' narcissistic foreign policy. I'd like to see some acknowledgement that the rest of the world is important too.

Yes, on that we agree. (I also think 1+1=2, but I don't know where that leaves me.)

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Talk's cheap...

D'Oh!! I must've misspelled "blockquote" in my last (@42); obviously, the third- and second-to-last paragraphs should've been blocked.

PZ:

The only thing to really talk about is the part we don't [agree about].

Fair enough. I just find it wearing on occasion that we hairless apes are so consistently more willing to fight over the 1% we don't share than celebrate the 99% we do.

Not, of course, that I'm innocent of joining in the fight, eh?

I suspect the answers he's seeking are really more matters of personal identity than spirituality

I think this is blindingly obvious from Dreams From My Father (an excellent book, by the way.) But I also think even that way of looking at it is still too polite: I don't believe he's sincerely religious at all. What he is, is an ambitious politician in a country that still demands this kind of lip service.

I further think, in a Machiavellian vein, that this is quite forgivable as long as he delivers the goods. I have a lot more problems with his eternally compromising moderatism than I do with his rhetorical genuflections.

By Steve LaBonne (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I have (you should pardon the expression) faith that his clearly superior intellect will win out in the end.

Yes, I think it is indeed faith, rather than being grounded in evidence.

I just don't agree that it's actually occasion-specific.

Bill Bill Bill. I don't agree either; that was my whole point. Sheesh. Again, I responded to someone who made it specific to this context, by noting that he always says it.

This sort of thing is always "tossing a bone to the religious nutbags."

Sigh. Did you read my later post? It's more than that, because Obama himself is a "religious nutbag". Except that's a mistake to think that it's only nutbags to whom the bone is being thrown, unless you want to characterize every religious person, including Obama, Ken Miller, Paul Wellstone, Martin Gardner, etc. etc. as nutbags.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I don't believe he's sincerely religious at all.

You and the people at Free Republic.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

You and the people at Free Republic.

Was that intended to be a serious comment? If it was, get help.

By Steve LaBonne (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

@40

"Uh, why are you equating learning about things with replacing them? Science can tell us a lot about the psychology of our emotions, but it can't replace our emotions."

Because it's a short trip from science to technology. You don't think a better understanding of how morality works could have any impact on what sorts of moral systems we have in the future? I'm not saying that science will somehow morph into ethics and morality, but it could radically alter the form it takes in the future.

By Anonymous (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I just find it wearing on occasion that we hairless apes are so consistently more willing to fight over the 1% we don't share than celebrate the 99% we do.

We only agree on 98.5% of things, jerk!

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Was that intended to be a serious comment?

Yes. How about Michelle? Is she faking it too?

If it was, get help.

The help is needed by those suffering from such severe cognitive dissonance that they must deny various realities. Obama's god-belief, as irrational and bizarre as it is, as much a consequence of his search for identity as it is, permeates his behavior.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Yes. How about Michelle? Is she faking it too?

What the hell does Michelle have to do with it? I don't know or care about her beliefs. As far as Barack goes I have the evidence of HIS OWN BOOK, which in my opinion makes it quite clear that the real attraction of Jeremiah Wright's church for him was the cultural one of helping him to connect with the African American experience.

I know smart religious people. You don't appear to be one of them.

By Steve LaBonne (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I'm not saying that science will somehow morph into ethics and morality

No of course you're not, when you're now saying something very different from what I responded to.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I know smart religious people. You don't appear to be one of them.

Indeed I'm not; I'm not religious at all, idiot.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I stand corrected, but as a result I'm only the less clear exactly what you're on about. I don't know why it's so important to you to believe that Obama is really religious; the contrary proposition is of no particular importance to me, it just happens to be what I think is actually the case based on the available evidence.

By Steve LaBonne (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I stand corrected

My ID and saying that I have trouble understanding how intelligent people can be religious and referring to god-belief as bizarre and irrational apparently weren't clues.

I'm only the less clear exactly what you're on about.

I just noted why you are unclear about things.

I don't know why it's so important to you to believe that Obama is really religious

It's only important to me to get things right.

it just happens to be what I think is actually the case based on the available evidence.

You are very selective about the evidence. As I said, his religion permeates his behavior, including not just how he has spent his life, who he married to, and how he is raising his children, but how he frames issues.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

The idea that Obama is a closet atheist seems just as ridiculous to me as the idea that he is a secret Muslim.

By Feynmaniac (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

nothing's sacred's original comment in #50 was:

I don't believe he's sincerely religious at all.

You and the people at Free Republic.

Steve LaBonne immediately (#51) replied:

Was that intended to be a serious comment? If it was, get help.

Look at the link given in #19.

It's got such gems as "He grew up saying “allahu akhbar”, but not that." and "He knows the call to prayer in Arabic." Yes, I'm sure that nothing sacred made a perfectly serious comment.

By 'Tis Himself (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

The idea that Obama is a closet atheist seems just as ridiculous to me as the idea that he is a secret Muslim.

I don't think he's an atheist; I suspect he's one of the many vaguely "spiritual" people, but not especially Christian, nor a serious believer in a personal God of the big-daddy-in-the-sky-who-answers-prayers variety.

By Steve LaBonne (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

A few religiously deluded might be slowly changing their jaundiced opinions about him maybe...now it is a case of claiming him for one of their own...and maybe it suits those of no-religious delusion but with an anti-Obama stance to paint him as one of theirs and so it goes!

What is rather more important is that he does not seem to allow his...theist/atheist tendencies to get in the way of extremely important and far reaching decisions...

No one with a comprehensive jeebus complex makes a speech like that...that is serious secularism right there!

By Strangebrew (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

That last line about god blessing was really fucking unnecessary.
Politicians really need to become aware that they are pandering automatons and most of the time it is not needed.

At root, science forces us to reckon with the truth as best as
we can ascertain it. Some truths fill us with awe. Others force
us to question long held views. Science cannot answer every
question; indeed, it seems at times the more we plumb the
mysteries of the physical world, the more humble we must be.
Science cannot supplant our ethics, our values, our principles,
or our faith, but science can inform those things, and help put
these values, these moral sentiments, that faith, to work
– to feed a child, to heal the sick, to be good stewards
of this earth.

Key: science can inform those things. Science cannot supplant our ethics. Ethics is the study of how human beings ought to behave towards one another. A scientific knowledge of human biology can inform that study, but cannot supplant it, because they are subjective. Faith is a cherished belief in anything. I believe in human rights. That is a matter of faith. Civil liberties do not come from natural law. They come from ethics. They come from tradition married to reason. They do not come from an empirical investigation of the natural world. But a scientific investigation of human biology, again, can inform the debate over human rights.

I fail to see how Obama has offered any solace to irrational relgious beliefs that imprison man in perpetual infancy and barbarism. Yeah, except God Bless America - a statement utterly devoid of any content. Who gives a shit?

Nothing Sacred:

No doubt by the end of this post, I will have permanently destroyed your former notion that I was intelligent (if I haven't already done so, that is); somehow I'll have to bear the shame.

I just don't agree that it's actually occasion-specific.

Bill Bill Bill. I don't agree either; that was my whole point.

Well, if you recall, I hadn't originally thought we disagreed on that point... until you called me out on it.

As for...

It's more than that, because Obama himself is a "religious nutbag".

...after I'd read this far I was all prepared to dispute this, pointing out that not all believers are "nutbags" (at least not by any useful definition of the term "nutbag"), but...

Except that's a mistake to think that it's only nutbags to whom the bone is being thrown, unless you want to characterize every religious person, including Obama, Ken Miller, Paul Wellstone, Martin Gardner, etc. etc. as nutbags.

...it turns out that not only do you already know that, but you specifically include Obama in your counter-examples. I guess I'm just too neutron-star-dense to understand why your above comments aren't self-contradictory.

Suffice it to say that I stand by my own comments, whether or not you think they appropriately respond to yours.

Steve:

I suspect the answers he's seeking are really more matters of personal identity than spirituality

I think this is blindingly obvious from Dreams From My Father (an excellent book, by the way.)

Indeed, that's what I had in mind. Actually, I haven't read Dreams, but I was aware he'd said something like this from seeing excerpts and reviews. I have read (listened to, actually; BO is a great reader) The Audacity of Hope, in which he covers some of the same ground.

Brownian (@53):

ROFL, asshole! ;^)

By Bill Dauphin (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

The points about support of science and the indications of a solid direction opposite of Bush's policies are the important take-home message.

Everyone needs to acknowledge that and think about how to actually implement the support for science into reality. There's a lot of catching up to do after eight years of neglect.

The last line was partly just a platitude and partly a bone thrown at the 25% who are still hard-core Bush supporting Republicans.

Bottom line: we who support science need to do everything we can to work WITH the Obama Administration and to help them implement policies and ideas that help the U.S. regain its standing in research and also policies like science education that will keep the public engaged and involved in science.

If we divide ourselves against the Obama administration, the alternative is more Republicans ----- and their disastrous anti-science policies. By the way, I actually supported Republicans in some elections between 1990 and 2000. Not anymore!

By trained entomologist (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Obama spoke at some length about his own religious views in this 2004
interview
from Beliefnet.

To me he seems on the very reasonable end of the faith spectrum, and especially unconcerned with matters of dogma.

By Sacoglossan (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

#66

Suppose we had a neuron-by-neuron understanding of how morality arises from the activity of the brain. We might discover that ethics aren't subjective at all, but that there is a normal range of variation like other traits.

You mentioned civil liberties: that notion might arise from some mechanisim that calculates whether or not a particular action is just.

An understanding of that mechanisim would certianly change the study of how people "ought" to behave because such knowledge would allow us to predict whether or not people will precieve a particular action as "just" or "not just".

To get really far out, you might be able to write a program that creates a maximally "just" system of ethics calculated entirely from the structure of the brain. It would be maximally just in the sense that it would SEEM maximally just to people.

Now you may say that this is just another case of empirical data informing our ethics and not actually replacing it (even if that informing is done by a computer algorithm). That's sort of a trival observation and I don't think that that's what Obama meant.

I think Obama meant that faith, ethics etc. are ineffable and that science dosen't have much to say about them. It smacks of Gould's non-overlapping magisteria to me. In fact I'm quite certain that we could construct a scientific description of why some things strike us as moral whereas others do not and where the variation in conceptions of morality comes from.

By TheNaturalist (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

As far as Barack goes I have the evidence of HIS OWN BOOK

A single book is not very good evidence. Remember, you're arguing on a website dominated by teh evil atheists. If we accepted the evidence of a single book, Pharyngula would be a very different place.

I have read (listened to, actually; BO is a great reader) The Audacity of Hope

Oh, snap!

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I follow a simple rule: if someone says they are a Christian, then I will simply accept the fact that they are a Christian.

Obama is a Christian. Speculating that he might be a secret infidel means nothing if he isn't willing to come out and simply state the fact.

Sacoglossan- thanks for the link, I agree with your characterization and it's pretty much what I meant above. In the interview as well, the specific invocations of Christianity seem to me more rhetorical (and politically advisable) than deeply felt amid the more ill-defined "higher power" talk which is, I think, where he's really coming from. (As is the case with a large number of what Heddle would call "cultural Christians".)

By Steve LaBonne (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

If we accepted the evidence of a single book, Pharyngula would be a very different place.

Heh. Yes, but extreme wingnuttery aside, it hasn't yet been hypothesized that Obama never existed and is a composite of several mythic and historical figures, or taken for granted that his memoirs were written and edited for hundreds of years after his death by thousands of people who never could have known him anyway. ;-)

Many of us have talked to plenty of people with belief systems very much like the one Obama displays in that interview. People who can't understand how you can "not beleve in
anything" but who, when pressed, show no actual commitment to any specific religious doctrine (whatever their "cultural" religion may be) but fall back on the usual "but surely there must be SOME higher power" stuff.

By Steve LaBonne (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Heh. Yes, but extreme wingnuttery aside, it hasn't yet been hypothesized that Obama never existed and is a composite of several mythic and historical figures, or taken for granted that his memoirs were written and edited for hundreds of years after his death by thousands of people who never could have known him anyway. ;-)

The Bible is Jesus' memoirs?! Christ, he got cranky in his old age, didn't he?

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I do want to make it clear, by the way, that I'm not particularly criticizing Obama about this. Plenty of people who occupy the kind of halfway house I described will call themselves Christians (mutatis mutandis for other communities) as a matter of cultural identification and to fit in, without even having to worry about the political considerations Obama has to deal with. And this position, little though I may admire it intellectually, is surely greatly preferable in its practical effects to religious dogmatism.

By Steve LaBonne (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I, for one, think the last line is a simple case of Obama trying to stop the people who only just brought themselves to vote for him from having their conscience use the excuse of "OMG, he's a closet atheist!" against him.

Anyway, other than that, the speech was typically good, and he said all the right things!

And that's why I'm announcing today that states making strong commitments and progress in math and science education will be eligible to compete later this fall for additional funds under the Secretary of Education's $5 billion Race to the Top program.

I think that the people of Texas, etc., really need to get those twits putting anti-science legislation out the way or they're going to lose out. (Nice political strategy, come to think of it.)

By Heraclides (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

May God bless you. God bless the United States of America.

That's really annoying. Why invoke a magic fairy in a speech about science?

Didn't anyone tell Obama the NAS is 93% atheist?

May God bless you. God bless the United States of America.

Mr. President, there's no excuse for this bullshit. You're the President of the United States, not Preacher of the United States.

Chuck:

I fail to see how Obama has offered any solace to irrational relgious beliefs that imprison man in perpetual infancy and barbarism. Yeah, except God Bless America - a statement utterly devoid of any content. Who gives a shit?

Agreed. Watch the hands, not the mouth. If Obama spews the occasional god-platitude while successfully dealing with shortfalls in science funding, I'll learn to live with it. I don't even particularly care whether his religiosity is real, or for show. As long as he continues to undo some of the worst abominations of the previous administration, and as long as he does what he says he's going to do in speeches like this, he's got my vote.

#79 - yes, this is better than mandating standards. Have schools get a bonus for high scores in math and science. It is, after all, the American way!!

So Obama is either easily deluded or a bald face liar?

Neither of those possibilities fill me with anything but embarrassment for a country like ours. I mean, the best we can do is either a liar or a deluded mind?

Yikes.

By Scott from Oregon (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

You're a fine one to talk, troll, being both of those things yourself.

The religious loon trolls are at least intermittently entertaining. The libertrolls are just boringly stupid.

By Steve LaBonne (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Epikt@82 is spot on, I think. Obama is shepherding a herd of cats remarkably well, while giving his opponents very little to complain about without looking insane.

The fact is an investigation into a particular physical, chemical, or biological process might not pay off for a year, or a decade, or at all. And when it does, the rewards are often broadly shared, enjoyed by those who bore its costs but also by those who did not.

And that's why the private sector generally under-invests in basic science, and why the public sector must invest in this kind of research -- because while the risks may be large, so are the rewards for our economy and our society.

Perfect preemptive rebuttal to the inevitable republican/libertarian call for private sector/free market funding.

@40: While I don't think that science can replace morality, it can certainly change its applications. It wasn't so long ago that educated people believed that animals, people with mental problems or learning disabilities, and even babies couldn't feel pain. Our treatment of these groups has certainly changed thanks to new knowledge.

Well, crap.

I love everything he's said...

but then he starts talking about teaching credentials.

In general, a great idea. However, I'm a history degree-holder whose taught science for 4 years, spending the last two as a Teacher of the Year nominee and also teaching a dinosaur-themed 8th grade elective on evolution as a side.

I love and understand the material and I'm effective. I hope I'm not feeling the walls closing in, now.

By Dinosaur Teacher (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Yes, I'm sure that nothing sacred made a perfectly serious comment.

Indeed it was. I certainly don't think, and didn't say, that Steve believes everything about Obama that the freepers do, but they share a view of him as a Machiavellian who is lying about his beliefs for political purposes, a view not well grounded in evidence. Now Steve is saying he "suspects" that Obama is not a Christian, not even a believer in a personal god, but also not an atheist, so he must be a believer in a non-personal god; but he's not even "sincerely religious". It's a bizarrely specific yet incoherent position on Obama's beliefs. I'll stick with "suspecting" that he's a Christian who actually believes in the divinity of Christ; he's not the first non-Christian who later became one; he's not even the first otherwise intelligent one.

No doubt by the end of this post, I will have permanently destroyed your former notion that I was intelligent

Bill, I think you're grossly confused on this occasion, but it's pointless to try to disentangle it. I look forward to more of your sensible contributions in the future.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

One small, attempt, Bill:

I guess I'm just too neutron-star-dense to understand why your above comments aren't self-contradictory.

It seems that, today at least, you're too neutron-star-dense to understand the use of scare quotes to indicate that there's something invalid about the applicability of the quoted phrase.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

I mean, the best we can do is either a liar or a deluded mind?

which one are you, Scott?

It seems that, today at least, you're too neutron-star-dense to understand the use of scare quotes to indicate that there's something invalid about the applicability of the quoted phrase.

The thing about scare quotes is that they don't really work when what's inside them is an actual quotation from a comment you'd already referred to.

"You keep using those punctuation marks; I do not think they mean what you think they mean."

By Bill Dauphin (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

The thing about scare quotes is that they don't really work when what's inside them is an actual quotation from a comment you'd already referred to.

That's quite mistaken. And nonsensical, unless by "don't really work" you mean "I personally don't understand how to interpret it". Scare-quoted words and phrases are actual quotations; as I just said, the scare quotes are used to show that the quoted words are improperly applied by those who use them unquoted. For instance, when a wingnut refers to Obama's socialist agenda, a sensible person offering a rebuttal might refer to Obama's "socialist" agenda. In this case I scare-quoted "religious nutbags" because Obama is addressing (or pandering to, if you prefer), the entire religious population, not just nutbags.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Heraclides @79, that sentence caught my eye too. I had visions of certain School Boards of Education in a torment of indecision over whether to keep trying for ID or to go for the money, but probably trying to figure out how to do both!

By bassmanpete (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

P.S.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes#Usage

Writers use scare quotes for a variety of reasons. When the enclosed text is a quotation from another source, scare quotes may indicate that the writer does not accept the usage of the phrase (or the phrase itself)[3], that the writer feels its use is potentially ironic, or that the writer feels it is a misnomer. This meaning may serve to distance the writer from the quoted content.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

P.P.S. Both in #35, and in #49 where I scare-quoted "religious nutbags", I made it very clear what my point was ... that the "nutbag" part is a mischaracterization. So, Bill, it's hard to figure how my use of square quotes "don't really work" or how you could think I was contradicting myself by giving examples of religious non-nutbags, but like I said, it's pointless to try to disentangle it. Still, I offered my "small attempt", but did not expect a surprisingly (from you) illiterate response.

By nothing's sacred (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

OK, so maybe I'm old but scare quotes might also be interpreted as "quotation marks". Go figure. Sometimes, a person familiar with old timey grammatical rules might use the same marks that express derision or sarcasm to acknowledge that they are quoting another person.

By Anonymous (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

we have a president who actually supports frickin' science!

I dunno — the previous guy fricked science pretty thoroughly, and the guy before him was probably quite interested in the science of frickin'

By Emmet, OM (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

nothing sacred:

This is actually getting a little silly, and I won't waste any more electrons on it after this comment... but as it happens, I'm a professional editor, so I'm perhaps not quite as entirely clueless about the subtleties of punctuation usage as you might imagine.

The thing is, if you want your punctuation usage to be understood as colloquial, it needs to be clear that it's not the standard usage. I wasn't disputing what scare quotes1 mean (though your own wikipedia reference points out that they may mean any of a variety of things); rather, I was saying that when the contents of quotation marks can easily be interpreted as a straightforward quotation, you can't count on them being read as scare quotes in the first place. Think of it as a sort of Occam's Razor of quotation marks: Absent clear evidence to the contrary, the most parsimonious interpretation of quotation marks is that they mark quotations.

And remember, this is a remote medium: I can't actually see you making air quotes with your fingers when you post.

For instance, when a wingnut refers to Obama's socialist agenda, a sensible person offering a rebuttal might refer to Obama's "socialist" agenda.

If that referred to a generic claim that Obama had a socialist agenda, it would read as disavowing that claim, I agree. If, OTOH, it referred to a specific comment that had already been quoted (in a straightforward way) several times in the ongoing conversation, it would read as simply meaning "that's someone else's word, not mine," and approval, disapproval, or other commentary would depend on the rest of the context.

In this case I scare-quoted "religious nutbags" because Obama is addressing (or pandering to, if you prefer), the entire religious population, not just nutbags.

In this case, the phrase religious nutbag was part of a line that each of us had quoted (in the straightforward sense) at least once previously. You had been arguing fairly vehemently that Obama is a true believer, and you had made it clear you are not a believer. In that context, it was not at all clear your statement that "Obama himself is a 'religious nutbag'" was intended ironically (and in fact your use of italics in that specific way seems to suggest the opposite). I take you at your after-the-fact word regarding what you intended, but on its face that looks like your own opinion, with the quotes simply indicating that you've borrowed some words to help make your point.

But enough of this pedantic syntactical nuance2. As I said before, even if you think my comments were somewhat oblique to your own points, I stand by them on their own merits. When I said...

This sort of thing is always "tossing a bone to the religious nutbags."

...I meant that the rhetorical formalism of ending a speech with some form of "God bless" is entirely independent of whether or not the speaker is truly a believer, and also independent of the content or occasion of the speech. I thought I'd been clear about that in the rest of that paragraph:

Saying "God bless" at the end of a speech has no more to do with anyone's true religious feelings than wearing an FSM-damned flag pin on a lapel does with anyone's true patriotism; it's just cheap insurance against the nattering nabobs of right-wing nutbaggery.

Not wearing a flag pin doesn't mean you're not a patriot, and wearing one doesn't necessarily mean you are one. It only means you know that people are expecting it, and that some of them will freak out if you don't meet their expectations. In this connection, your constant reiteration that Obama really is a believer was oblique to my point.

As to the comment that first got you all concerned about my rapidly declining intellect, my assertion that Obama is "too damned smart to fool himself forever"... well, I agree with PZ's "simple rule" (note: there's a use of quotation marks that you might be tempted to categorize as scare quotes, but which is in no way intended to disavow or belittle the words quoted) @72 that if Obama says he's a Christian, he's a Christian. I have consistently said I think he's sincere in his statements, and I don't harbor any notion that he's a "secret infidel."

But the thing is, I've been the sort of believer that he reveals himself — in his books, speeches, interviews, etc. — to be. I was raised without any indoctrination (my parents were purely social Episcopalians, and there was never any God-talk around the house), and as a young man searching for cosmic meaning... for community... for cultural relevance... I found myself drawn to a series of Christian churches. I tried for years to be a good Christian, and to be open to the sort of divine presence my friends and ministers claimed to experience. But eventually even poor benighted lil' ol' me turned out to be too damned smart to fool myself forever.

I'm quite sure Obama is smarter than I am, which is why I'm so confident he'll come to the same conclusion someday. In the meantime, it seems clear that he's a seeker and a questioner, rather than a dogmatic absolutist, so I don't fear that his religious beliefs will manifest themselves in tyrannical ways.

1 Actually that term is a bit of a misnomer itself, IMHO, since frequently the quotation marks simply indicate a coined, metaphorical, or slang usage, rather than the sort of Machiavellian rhetoric the word scare suggests.

2 I'll note that all this nuance is precisely why my publishing group strictly reserves the use of quotation marks for actual quotations (in the main text that is; we also use them for certain kinds of titles in bibliographical references): In technical work, you want to avoid leaving things open to interpretation.

By Bill Dauphin (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Brownian said,

Who the fuck are you to tell your god what to do, and why is he such a fucking asshole that he won't bless anybody unless he's told to?

-Brilliant-

Thanks for the huge belly laugh!

If Obama could have ended his speech with that logic he'd be golden!

By Ranger_Rick (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Since early Bill Clinton, I've recorded presidential speeches then I mash them up and change their words around so they sound like hideous demons, then right at the end I record a huge sneeze, followed by their God Bless. Bush was great because he would actually say 'god bless you'

Cheap joke but it always gets a laugh.

I don't believe that BO says "God Bless America" because he is a christian, which he probably is. BO says "God Bless America" because he is a politician.

If I may interject: I see the reflexive "God bless America" phrase as not necessarily reflecting a belief in a literal, personal God. Rather, for those who don't believe in such a God, it's a figure of speech; it expresses goodwill towards America, not obeisance towards a deity.

Likewise, here in the UK, many atheists and agnostics (including myself) are perfectly willing to sing "God save the Queen". It doesn't mean I believe in a "God" in the sense that the word is conventionally understood. But the key theme is goodwill towards HM the Queen (and towards the commonwealth of nations which she represents), and when we sing "God save our gracious Queen", we merely express a desire that Providence or Fate will bring good times on our country.

Obama is a practising Christian; but he has already gone out of his way to make clear that he respects the opinion of non-believers and those who adhere to non-Christian religions, and I'm sure he wouldn't use the phrase unless he thought it was capable of meaning something to all Americans.

(It's a lot better, in that regard, than "In God We Trust" - which cannot be interpreted other than as a simple, unequivocal assertion of belief in a deity. But that rather silly motto, being only fifty years old, was invented during the McCarthy era to try and weed out "atheistic Communism". IMO it should be removed from the currency and replaced with "E Pluribus Unum", the much older motto used by the Founding Fathers.)

Walton, "God bless America" is completely different than "God save the Queen." There is no tradition of it here. I know the song is older, but the political mantra is a completely new invention within the last few decades and everybody here knows it's a nod to the new political power of the Evangelical church. No coincidence that the song was entirely obscure before the 70s. For my part I had never heard it before in my life until September 2001, so for a while I thought Celine Dion wrote it.

You say even atheists sing "God save the Queen." Well that right there should tell you it's completely different. No one who does not believe in God says "God bless America."

I can see that you're trying to be charitable, but you're talking about a culture you really don't understand all that well.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

@84:Lord,Liar,Lunatic perhaps? LOL

By the way,am I the only one who felt like singing "Lord I Lift Your Name On High" while reading that speech?Damn fine fellow that Obama,if you ask me.

By Anonymous (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

IMO it should be removed from the currency and replaced with "E Pluribus Unum", the much older motto used by the Founding Fathers.)

The coins do at least include the Latin motto. Goes well with the fasces on the dime's reverse.

Next time you come to the US, pull out a coin and ask some random people what "E Pluribus Unum" means, on the pretense that you're British and unfamiliar with our conventions.

Some dispiriting percentage will reply "It means 'In God We Trust'" and you will wish you could click your heels to go back to Oxford.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

You dummies. LET him say "God bless you and God bless the United States of America." Yeah, its dopey and a platitude but if it makes the blue-haired ladies in Kansas and Iowa support Obama and it causes absolutely no policy change by Obama himself, who cares?

Personally I would like to hear "God bless America, and God bless the rest of the world" at the end of a speech some day.

That would be an improvement, but it feels a little clumsy to me. Maybe "God bless America, and God bless all people"?

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

The coins do at least include the Latin motto. Goes well with the fasces on the dime's reverse.

Next time you come to the US, pull out a coin and ask some random people what "E Pluribus Unum" means, on the pretense that you're British and unfamiliar with our conventions.

Some dispiriting percentage will reply "It means 'In God We Trust'" and you will wish you could click your heels to go back to Oxford.

I actually think it's an excellent motto (E Pluribus Unum, that is), as the sentiment "From Many, One" represents America's heritage as a nation of immigrants, and its unique ability to unify disparate people under one national loyalty. It's certainly a lot less partisan than "In God We Trust". Even for those who do trust in "God" (in some form or another), I don't see why they need every banknote in the country to remind them of it.

Strictly speaking, I don't think we have a national motto in the UK; the closest thing is Dieu et mon Droit ("God and my Right", referring to the Divine Right of Kings), the motto of the Royal Family in England (but not in Scotland) which appears on the national coat of arms. But very few people are actually aware of it.

Questions:
Why do you all depend on the government for encouragement towards scientific discovery? Is it all due to your self interest and financial and "professional" security and next years paycheck?

Perhaps causal relationships surround this paradigm.

Do you really believe you can uncover the fact that there is no intelligence and planned purpose behind cell specialization?

You need some more money to figure it out?

Why do you all have such a hangup on what other people have
discovered and believe, which is that there IS a devine life force.
Some call it GOD. Good Orderly Direction.

By A Plus Coder (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

TRIVIA- eplurubus unum is also a Jamaican motto and is
printed on their money in English. "Out of Many People, One"

Petzl, you are right on the money (pun intended).
Obama using that cliche' isn't going to cost the vote of any atheist I know, but it's good for bringing more than a few in, especially among the independents, who decide the election.

extreme wingnuttery aside, it hasn't yet been hypothesized that Obama never existed and is a composite of several mythic and historical figures,

Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, the clone of Malcolm X, the robot Kennedy, the zombie Roosevelt, the horn of Farrakhan, the cryogenically preserved brain of Saul Alinsky, and the spirit of the black panther.

Barack Hussein Obama -- if that is his real name -- man or myth?

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

Hey I also noticed I never got a response to this many months ago:

Maybe you all could sit back for a moment, and listen to the streaming ribbon harmonics of Alex Zivojinovich's guitarwork in
Rush's Limelight, and conceptualize the electronics flow through the manipulating amplification circuitry from the magnetic flux variations sourced by the metal strings across magnets and the sound reproduction circuitry and transducers, the brains it took to discover the abilities to manipulate such physical phenomena using earthly elements, and then get back to us on how we all evolved from primitive nutrient pumps, made of other earthly organic elements, millions and millions of years ago.

I realize abiogenesis isn't your strong point PZ, and I really hope the word genesis doesn't disturb you.

By APlusCoder (not verified) on 27 Apr 2009 #permalink

@113: it would help if you explained what if anything about music is supposed to be _incompatible_ with evolution. You're apparently starting from the assumption that physical evolution couldn't possibly lead to guitar playing. Since we know (from biology) that we evolved and we know (from observation) that we're capable of music, the rational conclusion is that evolved organisms are capable of music.

Are you claiming to be made of something other than elements? Silly person.

By Stephen Wells (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Why do you all depend on the government for encouragement towards scientific discovery?

say, while you're constructing strawmen, could I get you to do a few balloon animals?

Even for those who do trust in "God" (in some form or another), I don't see why they need every banknote in the country to remind them of it.

Of course, but that's not why it's there. Like every public declaration of faith, it means no more than "I'm better than you."

Whether "you" are the Stalinist Soviet or the American atheist, the white liberal Christian or now the black liberation theology minister, or the Muslim Minnesotan, the details don't really matter; you're lesser.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Music, certainly ours ears ( sensory mechanisms, yes, mechanisms ) decipher a nice range and can equate pleasantry with music, and also can equate different styles to a broad spectrum of other feelings.
I ( scientific engineer ) recognize the complixities in such mechanisms, and their possible origin of creation, their networked ( to the brain ) function, and disfunction. Their beauty and purposeful design.

You? call me silly all you wish. I know what I see. I know what you don't.

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Why do you all have such a hangup on what other people have
discovered and believe, which is that there IS a devine life force.
Some call it GOD. Good Orderly Direction.

Why?

Because I just want to have hot gay buttsex without spiritual accountability.

Of course.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

@117: your delusions are irrelevant. You're looking at evolved function and seeing design: your problem, not mine.

Speaking purely for myself (a Briton): Fuck God Save the Queen. Boring tune, disgusting call for special treatment for an over-privileged, reactionary anachronism and it means the anthem has to change with the gender of the monarch (fuck it even more if and when it becomes "God Save the King" for any of the first 3 in line). Anyone that can sing it without embarrassment (or without substituting "team" for "queen" before the football) is a cringing, wannabe-feudal sycophant.

But, as it happens, I kind of agree that the "God" part is purely for show. I'd even not mind having "Jerusalem" stand in for a national anthem for English (as opposed to British) sports (it even has the advantage that NOBODY thinks the religious aspect of it is true).

TRIVIA- eplurubus unum is also a Jamaican motto and is
printed on their money in English. "Out of Many People, One"

It's also the motto of Benfica football club (of Lisbon). It's a good, flexible motto.

Music, certainly ours ears ( sensory mechanisms, yes, mechanisms ) decipher a nice range and can equate pleasantry with music, and also can equate different styles to a broad spectrum of other feelings.

And this couldn't have evolved, why?

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

In other words, i find so much of the content of this spillage here to be missing an important dimension, and you all purposefully do it, all call it in the name of science, and in the name of rational thought.
GOD created all that we discover through science, we are lead to the mathematical equations that describe our universal laws, lead through insights, with our own sensory mechanisms aiding, our brains analytically weighing in.

I find you all purposefully deceiving yourselves, thinking this is all a randomly generated world that just happened to develop by chance, denying all the miracles of life, beauty and colorful complexity, that through feedback, all compliments one another in some obvious or obscurely mysterious way. Apparently you all just think that a cell from an egg, or seed, just migrates to it's planned final stage of purpose is not orchestrated by design, it an evolved pre-programmed trait arrived at through empirical trial and error. Break your finger, watch it heal. Tell us what feedback lead to that action. Survival? Did you command the healing?

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

"Because I just want to have hot gay buttsex without spiritual accountability."

What a fucked up animal.

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

What's fucked up is that you're such a gullible homophobe you actually fell for it.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

AminusCoder won the prestigious redundancy award for being the 10,000th commenter to ask:

Why do you all have such a hangup on what other people have discovered and believe, which is that there IS a devine life force.

Well Yee Haw for the Dee Vive but nobody here gives a shit about that. You and everybody else can believe whatever you want to as long as all faith based doctrine:

1. Is not taught to young children in public schools.
2. Does not force a moral code on any citizen, we already have moral codes starting with the Constitution on down through municipal safety statutes.
3. Does not work in concert with gov't using tax monies.
4. Basically just keep your bullshit to yourself, because we don't want to hear it, and it has no place in the governance or regulation of the public affairs of citizens.

there's about ten more, but you get the idea

GOD created all that we discover through science, we are lead to the mathematical equations that describe our universal laws, lead through insights, with our own sensory mechanisms aiding, our brains analytically weighing in.

*citation needed*

What a fucked up animal.

Irony FAIL.

Apluscoder, so far, scores 0.3 Timecubes

"What's fucked up is that you're such a gullible homophobe you actually fell for it."

Fuck you asshole, why must you insert homo sexuality into a serious discussion? Because it's your defect of choice I must now assume.

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

This reminds me why I don't enjoy discussing things
with close minded assholes.

Later all.

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Break your finger, watch it heal. Tell us what feedback lead to that action. Survival? Did you command the healing?

I'm sure God commanded it. I'm sure God directed the movements of each and every protein and mineral. And the fall of every sparrow and so on.

Because it sure as hell couldn't have resulted from natural selection. Who's doing the selecting? Is "nature" thinking? Lol you atheists!

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

deluded fool being deluded @ 123,

I find you all purposefully deceiving yourselves, thinking this is all a randomly generated world that just happened to develop by chance, denying all the miracles of life, beauty and colorful complexity, that through feedback, all compliments one another in some obvious or obscurely mysterious way

YAWN.
Oh,and what's this feedback you speak of?
And by the way,nobody is denying"the miracles of life,beauty and colorful complexity",we are just not claiming that they are the result of some mysterious POOF event.

By Rorschach (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Fuck you asshole, why must you insert homo sexuality into a serious discussion? Because it's your defect of choice I must now assume.

It's not a defect.

I brought it up because it's always a pretty good bet that a conservative Christian such as yourself hates gay people.

Best to just have you discredit yourself openly.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

How are these proteins and minerals synthesized?
What instruct them to concentrate on the broken bone?
What knows it's broken? The brain instructs the repair, right?

How is the acid in your stomach synthesized?
What instructs your stomach lining to replace itself?

Through Natural Selection? What a cop the fuck out.

You all are hopelessly caged.

By APlusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

It's not a defect...

Okkkaaaaayyyyy.

Very rational I must say.

LOL

C'aio ya all gaping assholes. goodbye. Now I know why.

By APlusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I've just read the transcript, and I thought it was amazing. I'm aware that refusing to argue about the 1% puts me off topic, but I'd rather talk about the content.

I've been trying to remember when a political leader has made a speech like this about science in, say, the last decade. I can't come up with one. It's usually empty waffle, with no financial commitment and the promise of yet more quangos to waste the money before it ever has a chance of reaching those who might actually be able to use it.

We're a decade behind globally on stem cell research, thanks to GWB. Now the US is coming on board again - but there will only be time for a brief handshake before everyone gets back down to work!

It's going to be terrific.

By Tassie Devil (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

APlusCoder,

I'll answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine.

First one: did you vote for Barack Obama or John McCain, if neither then which one would more closely represent your views?

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

How are these proteins and minerals synthesized?
What instruct them to concentrate on the broken bone?
What knows it's broken? The brain instructs the repair, right?

How is the acid in your stomach synthesized?
What instructs your stomach lining to replace itself?

Through Natural Selection? What a cop the fuck out.

We know the answer to these questions,all of them.Science has answered all these questions a long time ago.Noone told you?

By Rorschach (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

This thing thinks that your brain directs fracture healing? Wow, that's incredibly ignorant. _and_ it has that obsession with anuses that so distinguishes the closeted homophobe.

I'm sure it will be back, to gesture at another pile of Christmas presents and insist that Santa Claus is real.

What does this mean?

"We're a decade behind globally on stem cell research, thanks to GWB. Now the US is coming on board again - but there will only be time for a brief handshake before everyone gets back down to work!"

You don't work with other scientists around the world?
Or is it they don't want to work with you?
What breakthroughs have they discovered that are a decade ahead?

GWB prevented you from discovering things and practicing science?
Really? You all need a fresh baby stem cell to work?

What a load of crybaby shit.

Gay Gaping Assholes.

By A Plus Coder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

AplusCoder | April 28, 2009 6:31 AM:

Fuck you asshole, why must you insert homo sexuality into a serious discussion? Because it's your defect of choice I must now assume

I think anyone who puts 'fuck', 'ass', and 'insert' so close together must be terribly, terribly lonely.

What knows it's broken? The brain instructs the repair, right?

FAIL
You really don't have to know much to know that the central nervous system has very little role in bone healing. You wouldn't even have to have ever read book. You could have learned that from ER.

Through Natural Selection? What a cop the fuck out.

On it's own it actually would be a cop out. Fortunately hundreds of very intelligent, well-informed experts have devoted their lives to working out the details of exactly how natural selection did these things and gathering evidence for or against the various hypothesis (and all hypotheses that aren't founded on natural selection get royally shafted by the weight of evidence). So the actual answer is "Short version: natural selection, Long version: read a fucking book".

minerals synthesized?

Look up* the word "mineral" and then look up "natural selection." Then please come back and enlighten us with respect to what a mechanism that's part of a biological theory has to do with mineral genesis.

*and for the love, please somewhere other than Wikiblabbia or dictionary.com.

"We know the answer to these questions,all of them.Science has answered all these questions a long time ago.Noone told you?"

Bullshit. Even you can't tell us.

By APlusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

For pity's sake, coder, just buy yourself a buttplug and have done with it. We don't need your repressed desires spattered all over this blog.

Look up* the word "mineral" and then look up "natural selection." Then please come back and enlighten us with respect to what a mechanism that's part of a biological theory has to do with mineral genesi

Perhaps you misunderstand, ( which is usually the case )

How does our cellular bodies know what minerals and proteins to synthesize from ( our ingested requirements ) for what purpose, and how, from the one cell we came from, do constructed organisms
come to have all the different materials that make up the creature to start with.

Fine, if you're happy calling it natural selection and and evolved
state of being, then fine, I was to at one time.

Unfortuantely I've moved on, and am subjected to all you pious idiocy.

By Anonymous (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

apluscoder:

FYI

'We' sometimes includes people who aren't american.

'We' sometimes means the global scientific community.

Which, for obvious reasons, excludes you.

By Tassie Devil (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Look up* the word "mineral" and then look up "natural selection." Then please come back and enlighten us with respect to what a mechanism that's part of a biological theory has to do with mineral genesi

Perhaps you misunderstand, ( which is usually the case )

How do our cellular bodies know what minerals and proteins to synthesize from ( our ingested requirements ) for what purpose, and how, from the one cell/seed we come from, do constructed organisms
come to have all the different materials that make up the creature to start with.

If you're happy calling it natural selection and an evolved
state of being, then fine, I was to0 at one time.

Unfortunately I've moved on, and am subjected to all you pious idiocy.

You all are impossible to discuss things with unless I happen to
'agree' with you. So sad.

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Speaking purely for myself (a Briton): Fuck God Save the Queen. Boring tune, disgusting call for special treatment for an over-privileged, reactionary anachronism and it means the anthem has to change with the gender of the monarch (fuck it even more if and when it becomes "God Save the King" for any of the first 3 in line). Anyone that can sing it without embarrassment (or without substituting "team" for "queen" before the football) is a cringing, wannabe-feudal sycophant.

I agree that the tune is boring, but on every other point I disagree with you entirely. To see the monarchy as nothing more than a reactionary holdover from feudalism is, with all due respect, absolutely ridiculous. My loyalty to the Queen stems not from any kind of feudal sentiment, nor from any kind of principled belief in the "Divine Right of Kings" or in the hereditary principle.

Rather, it stems from the fact that she is the symbol of our country and our society, just as the Stars and Stripes or the Constitution is for Americans. When Americans pledge allegiance to "the flag of the United States", they are expressing their allegiance to what the flag stands for - American values and the American way of life - and their respect for those who have suffered and died for those values. Similarly, when I took my oath of allegiance to the Queen* when I joined the OTC, I wasn't, in my own mind, pledging to obey every future monarch's personal whim; I was pledging allegiance to the British constitution, reified in the person of the Sovereign.

This may all sound like poetic tripe. And in a sense, it is; there's no particular reason why the members of the House of Windsor should symbolise our nation or command our allegiance. The hereditary principle is arbitrary. But it works. The great strength of a hereditary head of state is that s/he is uniquely independent from politics; and it works well for our country. It can work well in other countries too: Juan Carlos I of Spain single-handedly transformed his country from a reactionary Catholic dictatorship into a modern, secular capitalist democracy.

The British monarch is not a God-appointed ruler, and, unlike some of her ancestors, she doesn't claim to be. Rather, she exercises certain state functions on our behalf by the common consent of the people. And she does a damn good job of it; and until we end up with an insane or incompetent monarch (which is certainly possible), I think any move to abolish the monarchy would simply be sacrificing an effective and well-liked institution for the sake of pure ideology.

*"I, [name redacted], swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors and that I will as in duty bound honestly and faithfully defend Her Majesty, her heirs and successors in person, crown and dignity against all enemies and will observe and obey all orders of Her Majesty, her heirs and successors and of the generals and officers set over me."

But, as it happens, I kind of agree that the "God" part is purely for show. I'd even not mind having "Jerusalem" stand in for a national anthem for English (as opposed to British) sports (it even has the advantage that NOBODY thinks the religious aspect of it is true).

Ha, true. Indeed, the only people I've ever known to oppose the singing of Jerusalem are C of E vicars, for precisely that reason (i.e. if taken literally, the words are a load of tripe. But then, so is much of the Bible, so I don't think they have any right to complain.)

Fine, if you're happy calling it natural selection and and evolvedstate of being, then fine, I was to at one time.

You may have been happy "calling" what was happening natural selection, but you have made it clear that you never actually had the slightest understanding of what evolutionary biology involved or even of basic anatomy. If you weren't so clearly ignorant of basic science you would be much more credible criticising it.

To quote that great molecular biologist, Yoda: Do, or do not; there is no "know". These fundies all have such terrible difficulty grasping that there isn't any knowledge or intent in biochemistry.

How do our cellular bodies know what minerals and proteins to synthesize from ( our ingested requirements ) for what purpose, and how, from the one cell/seed we come from, do constructed organisms
come to have all the different materials that make up the creature to start with.

Get yourself a basic Physiology book,and you will find that all your questions have long been answered.
Not by the bible,but by science.

By Rorschach (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

"Get yourself a basic Physiology book."

I have, and no, they have not. Why the hell do you think you all want to do more stem cell research if it's all been figured out long ago?
What a dipshit. Perhaps I think slightly deeper than you.

Clueless.

"I think anyone who puts 'fuck', 'ass', and 'insert' so close together must be terribly, terribly lonely."

See what you all are obsessed and distracted with?

It poisons the mind.

By A Plus Coder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Hey Matt Heath, Tell us what you know of electronic signal communication and how bio-chemical systems use them to communicate homeostasis throughout an organisms body.

Then tell us how this evolved into that vast network it is today in the human body, say from a squirrel like creature, you know what i'm talking about.

Then tell us from what base materials are used to construct it and maintain it. And then tell us what's the next development in the evotionary cycle to improve upon it.

By APlusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Yawn, an ignorant godbot who thinks he knows more about science than real scientists. And wonders why he gets slapped down? We know the score idiot. His questions are irrelevant, and evidence is there in the form a million or so scientific papers backing evolution directly and indirectly. Science will not and cannot use your god. And your god doesn't exist, and your bible is fiction. Deal with the truth elsewhere.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I am a real scientist.

How old are you Nerd Redhead? 22?

By APlusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

GWB prevented you from discovering things and practicing science?
Really? You all need a fresh baby stem cell to work?

What a load of crybaby shit.

Gay Gaping Assholes.

Hey Walton!

This anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-science, loyal Bushie is the future of the Republican party and your coalition partner. Stand proud.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Why don't we have the coder explain, say, the Lac repressor system. At the moment it seems to think that bodies use electronic signals for homeostasis. Hint: unless you are the Terminator, this is not true.

Why the hell do you think you all want to do more stem cell research if it's all been figured out long ago?

LOL
It would be funny if it wasnt so sad.BTW,didnt you say you were leaving?
Stem cell research is not done to figure out minerals and protein synthesis moron,how uneducated are you??
And no,natural selection does not tell the stomach lining to replace itself.
*Sigh*

By Rorschach (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Notice the obsessive dwelling on gayness ^

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Walton, I don't want to derail this too far; there is a real argument to had, I don't doubt but in the comments of blog post we'll probably only have a disagreement. The "Monarch as symbol" fails for me because what a hereditary Head of State symbolizes (to me) is primarily the strong lording it over the weak (also it's no secret that if not a "divine right to govern" she does believe she has a some kind of sacred duty to reign and right to be consulted, which is divine right lite). The "Queen as ceremonial figure" always seems weaker than her supporters think because, while she personally may be rather skilled at it, she takes her husband with her. Also the fact is that in case of hung parliament she is actually rather powerful (as her Governors General have shown themselves to be in her dominions several times); this is not OK in a democracy.

But I don't actually expect to convince you of that. You've probably heard it before from republicans in JCR anyway. In any case I don't think a republic is a great priority; the Burkean argument you mention of "wait for a bad king before we ditch them" has a bit of truth in it. Mostly I was just venting, because I hate that bloody song. It's just too boring. I honestly think it must suck the motivation out of the national sports teams to have to hear it.

APlusCoder, if you are a scientist (which I doubt), you will know that for you to propose god for anything, you must first demonstrate the existence of god with good, hard physical evidence. Show us the physical evidence for god that will pass muster with scientist, magicians, and professional debunkers as being of divine, and not natural, origin, or lose the idea of your imaginary deity. Welcome to real science.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

"Stem cell research is not done to figure out minerals and protein synthesis moron,how uneducated are you??"

Are you serious? Cell specialization is the HALLMARK of stem cell research dimwit. And to figure out what direct cells specialization ( you know, how to grow a new kidney from your own cells ) you need to know what drives the synthesize of the materials needed.

Maybe you need to bump your head a couple more time.

We can manipulate this all we want, we just unfortunately
will never really have the capacity to create it.

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I'm not anti-gay, and I'm definitely not anti-science.

I just don't appreciate assholes like yourself.

And I'm a registered Independent and didn't vote, asshole.

Perhaps you get offended when someone points out your defect?

I have defects myself, so don't feel ashamed.

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Perhaps you get offended when someone points out your defect?

I have defects myself, so don't feel ashamed.

Trust me. I have more defects (physical and mental) than you could possibly begin to imagine.

And I wasn't abusing you personally. I was quoting from strange gods before me (who doesn't like me any more than he likes you, and has been repeatedly accusing me of misogyny, callousness and cowardice for some months).

Do you have a point APlusCoder? You just seem to be spewing nonsense, like thinking you are smarter than us.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I think it morphed from "scientific engineer" to "scientist" because it thinks it speaks with more authority that way. Funny, if not so tragic. I'm betting we have another electronics engineer with delusions of competence.

Hey RedHead, can you see Gravity, can you see magnetism? No, but you can see there effects. What I find interesting is that living creatures and the force behind them, manifested in so many different and complex ways, and the obvious intelligence, is
completely overlooked by you and many 'scientists' as not guided and directed by a force greater than all of us.

I know it's a personal journey of discovery, I believe it's meant
to be that way. They say coincidence is GOD's way of remaining anonymous.

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Notice none of these 'scientists' never ever answered the questions posed. Some failed attempts, and then the old 'get a book'.

Nothings changed.

Bye Bye.

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

And then tell us what's the next development in the evotionary cycle to improve upon it.

From this one sentence we can gather everything we need to know about A Plus Coder's understanding of evolution.

Ah, AplusCoder, liar, bullshitter, and non-scientist. Science has no use for your imaginary friend. We will not make use of him. And your failure to show the physical evidence says you are a delusional failure yourself. Go learn how real science works. And if you don't believe gravity works, jump off a high bridge.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Waste of time,this one is.....His brain is long gone.

By Rorschach (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

RedHead says
"And if you don't believe gravity works, jump off a high bridge."

Where did I state that it doesn't?

You call me delusional?

Wow.

Fuck you to think YOU speak for science.

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

AplusCoder, you just speak for the deluded. Believing in fairies, pixies, and god, all of which have no physical evidence. And I do speak for science when I say science cannot use god as an explanation or result of an observation. So science ignores god, which appears to be your problem. Science ignores your imaginary friend, which is why you are deluded. Your imaginary friend.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Let's hope not.

Sounds like you and poor Meghan McCain are in for some depressing demographic surprises.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1018/democrats-post-gains-in-affiliation-ac…

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/12/are-republicans-still-national-p…

The Republican party is (frighteningly quickly) becoming the party of old rural people.

Because of the US primary system, this produces a death spiral. As the dwindling party's demographics become more specific, they tend to choose candidates who are more and more ideologically pure, having less and less to in common with the swing voter in the general elections.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/land-of-thousand-liebermans.html

Probably you have heard calls for a "return to conservative principles" and thought that sounded promising. Nope. It's just the gibberings of the 2006-2024 party's death spasms.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Hilarious.

This probably happens all the time, but I'm just noticing it. Actual real scientists who don't flaunt their ignorance, cluelessness, and even stupidity, make reasonable points or refute stupidity with ease by using a few facts and the simplest of logic. At some point they may note in passing that they are actually professional scientists.

Cut to loser/wanker/dumbass trolls like HaplessCoder. Miasma of stupid masquerading as a jumble of letters gathered into word-like clumps. But: "I am a real scientist" impressed him way back when. As a godbot, this seeming appeal to authority was simply too impressive not to imitate, hence they quote: "I am a real scientist, " somewhere amidst their idiocy, thinking it like a trick or magic spell or prayer.

Maybe HaplessCoder is recalling a quote from somebody who said things like "all babies are natural scientists."

HaplessCoder, please change your 'nym to CluelessBaby and stop pretending to knowledge. Your clueless words reveal your loserhood. Oh, and stop posting until you get a bit more understanding.

Perhaps you misunderstand, ( which is usually the case )

Sure; always possible.

How does our cellular bodies know what minerals and proteins to synthesize from ( our ingested requirements ) for what purpose,

But it seems unlikely in this case. Again I would refer you to my previous comment.

I am a real scientist.

What was the date of your most recent publication?

Cannabinaceae ?

Did you have something scientific to say?

Apparently the degrading has begun. Doesn't take long.

Of course this is precluded by ignoring the questions.

By APlusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

apluscoder does not know about hormonal/chemical feedback systems? I suppose as some evolution deniers deny that a half of an eye is better than than no eye at all, they also deny that hormonal systems can start out simple and become complex through time and natural selection influences.

And yes, everyone who is saying that apluscoder is ignorant about well supported answers to her/his questions are correct. That is the bad news, her/his ignorance. The worst news though, is despite the fact that s/he has the intelligence to leave their ignorance behind, the bet is on that they won't. They are hijacked by the human propensity to see intention when there is none and the pernicious influence of religion which fans this inclination to an screaming ignorant pitch.

And I wasn't abusing you personally. I was quoting from strange gods before me (who doesn't like me any more than he likes you, and has been repeatedly accusing me of misogyny, callousness and cowardice for some months).

Walton, I'm surprised. Sure, on an absolute scale, I'm not exceptionally fond of you, but I like you immeasurably more than this pile of shit.

My complaints about you can be summed up pretty much in this: despite my entreaty to you several weeks ago to look up "male privilege" and learn what it means, specifically to learn how it's different from me saying that you're not allowed to have opinions about anything that affects a woman's life, you haven't fucking bothered. So you continue to work from a perspective of unexamined male privilege, and... well let's see if you can guess what happens then in a society that is misogynist by default.

I've taken care to distinguish your cold contempt from burning rage. And no I don't think the two are equally horrible.

So here we have AplusCoder who openly, casually and very actively hates gay people:

It poisons the mind.

Gay Gaping Assholes.

Perhaps you get offended when someone points out your defect?

Notice the obsessive dwelling on gayness ^

It's not a defect... Okkkaaaaayyyyy. Very rational I must say. LOL

C'aio ya all gaping assholes. goodbye. Now I know why.

Because it's your defect of choice I must now assume.

What a fucked up animal.

And you, Walton, due to your unexamined straight privilege, become apologetic with the homophobe and try to get all buddy-buddy, instead of doing the decent thing and calling him out for being a hater.

I wonder if you can put yourself in my shoes and imagine how that feels.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Of course this is precluded by ignoring the questions.

Well, some of what you have written so far, for example:

How do our cellular bodies know what minerals and proteins to synthesize from

has required me asking you questions back (which you haven't answered) rather than answering them, because some of the questions you've asked don't make a lot of sense.

Of course this is precluded by ignoring the questions.

And you sidestepped the big all important question of physical evidence for your imaginary deity. And you will constantly sidestep it since there is none. If you believe in imaginary things, things that only exist between your ears, you are a delusional fool, and there is absolutely no reason for us to take you as anything other than a fool. Which we both know. Begone ignorant godbot.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Logicel ?

What religion is that? i don't go to church so maybe you can scientifically tell me how you arrived at this conclusion.

Dumbass fake.

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Logicel ?

What religion is that? I don't go to church so maybe you can scientifically tell me how you arrived at this conclusion.

Was it through your hormones?

Fake Fraud.

Heh. Morphing FAIL.

Redheady denies there is a Life Force.

Heart pumps beating 100,000 times a day.
Eyes continually feeding information to the brain.

Cells dividing and dying.

Feedback Systems Supporting Life.

Birth. Will to survive, motivation, happiness, sadness, disappointment, joy. Feelings of Accomplishment.

Ever felt that?

By AplusCoderer (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

strange gods before me

is a hater in disguise, projecting their hate upon others.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Walton, I'm surprised. Sure, on an absolute scale, I'm not exceptionally fond of you, but I like you immeasurably more than this pile of shit.

Thanks. I'll consider that a compliment.

My complaints about you can be summed up pretty much in this: despite my entreaty to you several weeks ago to look up "male privilege" and learn what it means, specifically to learn how it's different from me saying that you're not allowed to have opinions about anything that affects a woman's life, you haven't fucking bothered. So you continue to work from a perspective of unexamined male privilege, and... well let's see if you can guess what happens then in a society that is misogynist by default.

On the contrary, I would be the first to admit that there is a cultural and institutional sexism in our society - which works both ways. Women (especially women in public life) are judged on physical appearances, and sexually objectified, in a way that men generally are not; the way female politicians are treated by the media is a prime example of this (notably, the way that so many men on both sides of the political spectrum, last year, thought it was acceptable to refer to Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin as "bitch"). I think this kind of conduct is oppressive and wrong, and that people who do it should be called out (as, on this site, they generally are). Similarly, I also think men suffer from society's expectations; heterosexual men are expected to display certain outward traits of masculinity (physical aggression, liking sports, drinking to excess, etc.) and are mocked, especially as children and teenagers, if they don't live up to these standards.

So I certainly don't deny that our society is institutionally sexist. I do, strenuously, deny that government ought to engage in "positive" discrimination (i.e. open discrimination against men) in order to redress gender imbalances in certain professions. But that's a different matter.

And you, Walton, due to your unexamined straight privilege, become apologetic with the homophobe and try to get all buddy-buddy, instead of doing the decent thing and calling him out for being a hater.

Other people are already calling him out, so I felt there was little need for me to do so. But since you ask, I think his abusive comments towards gay people are unacceptable, inflammatory, and inappropriate for civilised discussion, and I don't doubt that, if he keeps it up, he will be banned for disrupting the forum.

And how do you even know I'm straight? When have I mentioned sexual orientation at all?

@192: google for "vitalism" and understand that everything you describe proceeds without any "life force" whatsoever. It's all physical, baby, which makes it _real_.

Oh good, let's have a substantive debate about that.

Explain specifically how calling gay people "defective," and hurling insults about "gay gaping assholes" is not hateful and homophobic.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

AplusCoder, still no proof for you deity. What a delusional ignorant fool, as showing physical evidence for your imaginary friend is the first step to scientific acceptance. Questions are meaningless when you ask them inanely and stupidly as you have. Time for you to fade into the bandwidth.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Apparently hate speech regarding "believer's of faith"
or "christians" is perfectly acceptable.

And really, wasn't it you that started all this with an obscene,
rude and crude response to my questions?

Yet you call yourself adults? Pathetic.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

"Explain specifically how calling gay people "defective," and hurling insults about "gay gaping assholes" is not hateful and homophobic."

It's called lashing back in defense.

I'm sorry if this offended you, but i was offended first.
And I stand by my statement that it is an unnatural defect.
Because, scientifically, it is.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

APC, still no evidence for your imaginary deity. If you are a delusional fool, which you acknowledge by your belief in god, then we have every right to treat you with the scorn you deserve on a scientific/atheist blog. You are the fool. Time to go back to your basement. Your mommy is calling.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

To AplusCoder, amateur troll, who squeaks:

They say coincidence is GOD's way of remaining anonymous.

Then "they"--and you--are profoundly stupid. How this asinine statement passes as some kind of explanation in your "mind" is testament to your childish delusions.

By castletonsnob (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Because, scientifically, it is.

Could you please explain to me how something that occurs in, for example, dolphins, is an "unnatural defect" as you assert in comment #199?

Sure, dolphins have defects too.
Simple.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Thanks. I'll consider that a compliment.

Not the first one I've given you, and here's one that wasn't backhanded: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/right_wing_inanity.php#comme…

So I certainly don't deny that our society is institutionally sexist.

Well, when I mentioned male privilege a few weeks ago you reacted as though I was touched by the Holy Ghost. So forgive me if I'm not exactly convinced that you're well educated on the concept.

And how do you even know I'm straight? When have I mentioned sexual orientation at all?

That's just my gaydar. I can dredge up some comments from last summer that sent strong implications that way. If I'm wrong and you're closeted gay or bi, then you're still passing as straight and collecting the £200 privilege.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

AplusCoder, comment #150, wrote:

Perhaps you misunderstand, ( which is usually the case )

Perhaps you'd like to clarify this comment? I was under the impression that comment #144 was my first communication to you. Please identify where else I have misunderstood you.

Or perhaps you were saying that I usually misunderstand in general? Misunderstand exactly what? Other people's comments? That's certainly possible. Could you cite some of my comments where this is the case, so I can be sure you and I are on the same sheet of music?

Notice how it's ignoring the science challenges? Very weak, this troll.

(Note: the idea of trolling is to cause maximum annoyance with minimum effort. Unfortunately for trolls on Pharyngula, they wind up expending considerable effort and create nothing but amusement and contempt.)

Sure, dolphins have defects too.

Dolphins have defects that are unnatural? Okay, we need to start further back, I think. What is your operational definition for "natural?" What is your operational definition for "unnatural?"

Other people are already calling him out, so I felt there was little need for me to do so.

It appeared to me that you felt the need to set aside yourself and him as united against a common enemy. You don't have to care about me personally, but be aware how what looks like coalition-building might appear to other gay readers of this blog.

Thanks for the clarification. Straight privilege is exactly what I mean when you say you didn't feel the need to bring it up until asked. That's not an insult, just a notice.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Well, when I mentioned male privilege a few weeks ago you reacted as though I was touched by the Holy Ghost. So forgive me if I'm not exactly convinced that you're well educated on the concept.

That's not because I'm unaware of what it is, but because I don't believe that it really exists in the sense that you mean it. As I made clear, I think there is a certain amount of ingrained sexism in our society, but that this sexism works both ways; there are some traits which are seen as characteristically "female" and others as characteristically "male", and both genders are measured and judged against certain stereotypes.

Do women suffer a disadvantage in politics? Yes, certainly; and that's something which requires a major cultural change in order to fix. But this doesn't mean they're disadvantaged, and men are advantaged, in every area of life. Look at war, for example. Historically, when a country is in a state of total war, men have been drafted; and those who escaped the draft, or refused to serve for any reason, were treated as cowards by the general populace. By contrast, women have (to my knowledge) never been drafted in any nation except Israel; and there is no particular stigma, even in a time of major war, attached to a woman failing to serve in the military (indeed, many jurisdictions don't even allow women to serve in the military). This is a clear example of a cultural expectation being placed on men which is not placed on women.

Likewise, men in positions of care and trust, especially over children, are treated with a lot more suspicion than are women in the same position. If you're a male teacher working with young children, you have to take a great deal of care in order to avoid being labelled a paedophile; and if anyone in your charge levels any accusation against you, however groundless, your professional reputation is instantly destroyed and you are, essentially, deemed guilty until proven innocent. Even in commercial workplaces, it's a lot easier for a man to be accused of sexual harassment, and for his career to be ruined without any evidence, than for the same thing to happen to a woman.

So while I think there is a lot of sexism in our society - and I've spoken out here before against the porn industry, against objectification of women, and against the kind of misogynistic insults often directed against women in public life - I think it affects men just as adversely as it affects women. What we need is a broader cultural recognition that everyone - man or woman - is an individual, with the right to define themselves and their own identity however they wish, without being judged against some arbitrary traditional gender stereotype.

It's called lashing back in defense.

I'm sorry if this offended you, but i was offended first.

That's a particularly dense concentration of lies. You aren't sorry. And you weren't lashing back in defense.

I did not attack Christianity in this comment, in fact, what I said was standard Christian apologetics: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/obamas_speech_to_the_nationa…

You aren't offended by what I said. You're offended that I exist.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

It appeared to me that you felt the need to set aside yourself and him as united against a common enemy. You don't have to care about me personally, but be aware how what looks like coalition-building might appear to other gay readers of this blog.

Well, I apologise (to you, and any other gay readers who might be interested). I wasn't intending to build any sort of "coalition"; he hasn't said anything so far which I agreed with, or, indeed, anything particularly intelligent or interesting. He's done nothing, in fact, except attack homosexuals and call everyone an "asshole" repeatedly. I won't give a damn if he gets banned.

strange gods before me

Fuck off asshole.

And I mean asshole. Waste disposal orifice.

Next time a stranger asks you a question in person, reply with:

"Because I just want to have hot gay buttsex without spiritual accountability."

See how they respond.

Coward.

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Wow Walton, way to stick up for yourself.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

a piss code @173 said “Bye Bye.”

Since then (c.30 comments when I compose this) it's posted c.8 additional comments, c.27% of the total during that interval, all of which ignore the questions asked of it since #173, and many of which hurtle what can be seen as insults. Albeit, credit where credit's due, this one hasn't STARTED whinging in CAPS with lots of EXCLAMS!!!!1!! And, also to its credit, it seems to be familiar with the concept of paragraphs and sentences.

It does seem to have the delusions, absence of evidence, and paranoid down pat. But, whilst perhaps necessary, that's insufficient. You've really got to do better to be taken seriously as a troll around here.

APC is still a Xian apologist with no evidence. Makes him appear to be the idiot he is. You don't find god in the gaps of scientific information. That is where science is looking and will fill in eventually. The only gaps are in the godbots head where they believe in deities inspite of absolutely no physical evidence.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

This is going to be a longer conversation than just this one thread.

I think it affects men just as adversely as it affects women.

Patriarchy hurts men too. I directed you to Pandagon way back when, so that you could get a decent perspective on precisely this.

But the effects are not "just as adverse." That's like saying institutional white supremacy hurts white people just as badly as it hurts people of color.

So for example in the UK working men make over 20% more than working women. http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1…

Where's the equivalent institutional sexism against men? Where's the equivalent of all those lost wages and passed-over promotions? I don't have to tell you that for the average person in Western society, their personal economics are the single most influential issue on both freedom and quality of life.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Hey Nerd, you keep saying this stuff, over and over, like you're trying to convince yourself, or others.

Better recharge your batteries.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

It's called lashing back in defense. I'm sorry if this offended you, but i was offended first.

An eye for an eye, is that right? Is that what your Lord and Savior has taught you? Tsk.

And I stand by my statement that it is an unnatural defect. Because, scientifically, it is.

It occurs in nature, so how can it be unnatural? And what makes it a defect? People used to believe that left-handedness was a defect, or that closely-spaced eyes indicated criminal tendencies. Scientifically, how is your bigoted stance any different from those?

By the way, the sum of your comments thus far indicate that you think "scientific" is synonymous with "the way things look to me." Mere common sense led people to believe that the flat earth was at the center of the universe (which was itself little more than a dome studded with bright lights).

#129:

This reminds me why I don't enjoy discussing things with close minded assholes.Later all.

O_o

Bye.

#136:

C'aio ya all gaping assholes. goodbye.

Bye.

#173:

Nothings changed. Bye Bye.

Uh... G'bye?

#193:

[sgbm] is a hater in disguise, projecting their hate upon others.

LOL! Go back and read your own comments, then come back and say that with a straight face and a clean conscience. Betcha can't.

#203:

Simple.

Indeed.

Of course this is precluded by ignoring the questions.

Huh? You complain about something by pointing out that it was prevented from happening?

They say coincidence is GOD's way of remaining anonymous.

"They" also say that simple-minded platitudes like that are man's way of reconciling a dearly-held irrational belief with the complete lack of evidence to support that belief.

APC you keep implying your imaginary friend exists. I'm just showing you how stupid you sound to people who know better. Your god doesn't exist until you show the physical evidence. Which you are incapable of doing. That makes you a liar and bullshitter.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Well, I apologise

It's cool. It was a misunderstanding.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Kseniya Hey what's up cherry picker.

Scientifically unnatural?
"It occurs in nature, so how can it be unnatural?"

So you believe there are no defects in nature?
You don't know why it's a defect?
You need me to explain?

Are you capable of rational thought?

Please. Figure it out, use you're analytical skills,
or develop some.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

So for example in the UK working men make over 20% more than working women.

That's affected by any number of factors. More women in the UK - as that article specifically acknowledges - choose to work part time. I personally know many women who had full-time careers and could have continued in such careers, but moved to working part-time after they had children. Why they choose to do this is up to them; it's certainly not a matter for the State to remedy. It's a personal choice made by those women. I have yet to see any evidence that any significant number of employers are reluctant to hire or promote competent women (and, indeed, the fact that many women do get to the top shows that there is no insuperable barrier).

unnatural implies deviation from the norm, by the way.

Perhaps you all think your evolving.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Next time a stranger asks you a question in person, reply with:

"Because I just want to have hot gay buttsex without spiritual accountability."

See how they respond.

Coward.

Oh, then you'd absolutely love me in person.

Typing gives me a chance to think twice and moderate what I say.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Still no signs of analytical/scientific thinking form Apluscoder. He is a real dunderhead. God doesn't exist old chap, and making noises like god is the only explanation is very tiring to us real scientists. Your mommy is calling. Go back to your basement and tin foil hat.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

So you believe there are no defects in nature?

This doesn't answer Kseniya's question, nor does it address my previous comment on this issue. But I fully suspect that you know that...

You need me to explain?

That would be terrific. Please do. But first, please define "natural," "unnatural," and "defect."

Is anyone else amused that this guy's idea of a riposte is "use you're analytical skills"? With mipsrints like that your code must be a _joy_ to debug... assuming you actually do any coding, of course.

For what it's worth: if _nature_ contains _defects_ then the _defects_ are _natural_ not _unnatural_. That would be an application of analytical skills.

Hey Nerd, Do you believe you sound smart?

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Walton, look up Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and then tell me with a straight face that you're sure nothing similar is happening in the UK.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Hey Nerd, Do you believe you sound smart?

Compared to your woo and godbotting, I sound like a genius. The easiest way for you to sound smart is to shut up. But then, the weak of mind, especially due to believing in imaginary beings, never understand that.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

"For what it's worth: if _nature_ contains _defects_ then the _defects_ are _natural_ not _unnatural_. That would be an application of analytical skills."

And would be ignorantly, patently, and applicably false.

Un-natural

# Inconsistent with an individual pattern or custom.
# Deviating from a behavioral or social norm: an unnatural attachment.
# In violation of natural feelings; inhuman.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Walton: you wrote this:

"I have yet to see any evidence that any significant number of employers are reluctant to hire or promote competent women"

This seriously does bear on the issues raised on previous threads regarding your life experience or lack thereof. You are a student. You are male. You are not yet twenty. What _you have yet to see_ is not the same as _what there is_. Sorry if that sounds blunt but you _keep doing this_.

And if you think the UK's gender pay disparity is due to women doing more part-time work then you have not even being looking at the stats; the issue is that women doing the same job with the same responsibilities and the same qualifications are getting paid less.

Apluscoder,

See how they respond.

Tell me, how do you think they'd respond?

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Since gayness is, for gay people, consistent with their individual pattern or custom, in keeping with their behavioural and social norms, and consistent with their natural feelings, the coder's point remains unmade.

Hee hee, troll baiting is fun.

I love trolls like coder. They work so hard at destroying their religion, same as the repubs who reacted to their defeat at the polls by "thinking" the solution is to be MORE conservative. More stupid, at louder and louder decibel levels. Yeah, that's the ticket.
My very favorite thing is to let idiots like coder shriek. As loud as they can.

When it comes to wiping out their idiotic ideology, they do all the heavy lifting for you.

So bring it, baby. Don't disappoint. *kisses*

Hey Rick, what's my religion?

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Hey Rick,

Can I shriek like Perez Hilton? Please?

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Un-natural

Just curious: what's your source for this defintion?

# Inconsistent with an individual pattern or custom.

You mean a "particular" pattern, or a patten exhibited by an individual?

# Deviating from a behavioral or social norm: an unnatural attachment.

Uh, how do you get away with having the word you're defining in the definition?

# In violation of natural feelings; inhuman.

It would be good to have your definition of natural to compare to this...

So then what papers can you point me to that define what behavioral/social norms for dolphins are, such that you can confidentally say that the occurrence of homosexual behavior is a "deviation" from those norms?

Hey Rick, what's my religion?

The brand doesn't matter, just the belief in imaginary deities.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I think "self-worship" would cover it, based on evidence thus far.

So here we are boiled down to the usual to suspects.

Religion and Homosexuality.

How wonderfully scientific.

I gotta block this fucked up site.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

"I gotta block this fucked up site."

Promises, promises.

Perhaps this one is just trolling for a hook-up. It says it's leaving (numerous times) and now says it will block out this site. Yet it doesn't leave. I say it needs some time in a leather bar to meet the person it is pining for. Projection and unfulfilled desire are all over its postings.

@241: YOU brought up planned specialization and divine life force in about your first comment herein.

I _told_ it to obtain some modern gratification technology but it wouldn't listen.

"Pregnancy testing UK businesses," Croner, 16 September 2004 http://www.onrec.com/newsstories/5039.asp

Thousands of new sex discrimination claims could be just around the corner after a new poll found that more than four-fifths of the UK’s HR professionals believe bosses automatically think twice before employing women of ’childbearing age.’

The online poll by Croner, one of the UK’s leading providers of business information and advice, was carried out after the widely reported comment of Godfrey Bloom, of the UK Independence Party, that: "No small businessman with a brain in the right place would hire a lady of childbearing age".

There you go. In the UK over 80% of people working in Human Resources -- these are the people responsible for hiring -- say that men are preferred hires over women of childbearing age.

No more bullshitting about lack of evidence, now. Take a single elective introductory course in women's studies and you'll have access to all the evidence you could ever want.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Wow. I posted my last (@99) just before 3:00 am; I come back just 6 hours letter, just to see in what stimulating new fashion I've been slapped around, only to find that the thread has doubled in size and completely changed in character! Anyone who doesn't believe in evolution need only read Pharyngula! ;^)

Walton—

@109:

I actually think it's an excellent motto (E Pluribus Unum, that is), as the sentiment "From Many, One" represents America's heritage as a nation of immigrants, and its unique ability to unify disparate people under one national loyalty.

Really? I think it's an excellent motto, too, but to me the sentiment has always indicated, in addition to the tolerant blending of immigrant heritages, primarily a social synthesis of individuals into a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts... a society. Without mentioning by name the ideological kudzu vine that sometimes overwhelms these threads, I had thought this sort of societal synthesis was anathema to you.

@151:

Rather, [my loyalty to the Queen] stems from the fact that she is the symbol of our country and our society, just as the Stars and Stripes or the Constitution is for Americans. When Americans pledge allegiance to "the flag of the United States", they are expressing their allegiance to what the flag stands for

But you don't need the Queen for that sort of symbol, because you already have a flag, which is all you really need (just ask Eddie Izzard1), and the Magna Carta.

@194:

And how do you even know I'm straight? When have I mentioned sexual orientation at all?

Interesting comment. I recall that on at least one occasion (and more than one, IIRC), you've decried sexual passion as a socially destructive force that we'd be better off without, and you have sometimes seemed to be holding your own sexuality at arm's length... but I confess that I, too, had made the (possibly erroneous and certainly unfounded) assumption that it was hetero sexuality you were pushing back against.

I've often said I'm about as LGBT-friendly as a middle-aged, middle-class straight white guy can be, but I'm afraid that even so, when I hear sexual "hoofbeats" I still think horses, not zebras.

Unless, of course, the stripes are really flamboyant! ;^)

1 I couldn't preview this video from my work computer; I hope it's what I think it is.

Dream on K,

Woman are THE most beautiful creatures on the planet.

And Josh

What do my questions have to do with religion?

I'm in search of the force behind living organisms.
You know - the creation of life, and all.
Kind of like Bio Logos.

And no-one here shares any idea what I refer to.
Yet calls themselves scientists, then craftfully
tries to degrade.

It's fucked up.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

In the UK over 80% of people working in Human Resources -- these are the people responsible for hiring -- say that men are preferred hires over women of childbearing age.

Well, of course. That, in fact, is the fault of government. If a female employee becomes pregnant, her employer has to give her statutory paid maternity leave, and isn't allowed to fire her. Therefore, if you're employing someone, you won't want to run the risk that she will become pregnant and you will have to give her a lengthy period of paid holiday, while, of course, also paying someone else to take over her job. Naturally, this is a strong disincentive to employing women of child-bearing age, particularly among small businesses which simply can't absorb the cost.

(Perhaps an alternative would be for the State, rather than her employer, to cover a woman's cost of living during her maternity leave? That way, pregnancy would be less economically disastrous for employers, while the woman would still get the same benefit.)

No Apluscoder, several of us are working scientists, with many years of experience (30+ in my case). You just appear to someone who learned a couple of things and thinks they can bamboozle the experts. The chances of that happening are the same as you proving the existence of your god in the next five minutes.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I'm in search of the force behind living organisms.

Okay, I can concede that perhaps "life force" isn't a thinly veiled reference to a god if you can define what you mean by a "force behind living organisms." What does that mean?

@248: try looking for leprechauns or the pumpkin fairy instead.

Apluscoder:

Humor me by considering a hypothetical situation. Suppose biology achieved abiogenesis. Suppose further that cosmology demonstrated beyond doubt that there were a large ensemble of universes, most of which were dead, and that purely by chance, the laws of physics in this one favored the development of life. Suppose all this were demonstrated beyond doubt (as in fact it could be). Would you stop believing in God? In your "life force"?

By a_ray_in_dilbe… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Ah Nerd, so you're 30, that makes sense now, I guess, I thought you were younger though, by the use of the mommy phraseology.

LOL

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I think we have a wooist on our hands.

Walton, you're kind of implying that an absence of paid maternity leave would _improve_ women's prospects of employment equality. Your evidence, if you would be so kind? And a substantive response to the Leadbetter vs. Goodyear Tire Company case?

Ah Nerd, so you're 30,

30+ years of experience as a scientist does not a 30-year-old person make...

Apluscoder, wrong as usual. But then, that is expected with illiterates like yourself. I got my PhD 30+ years ago, and have worked in science ever since. So I know when you claim to scientific, but are presenting a pile of doo-doo. Which is all you have presented to date. We are going to need the big pitchfork and trebuchet to clean up after you. Your maturity is in doubt, since, if you were truly adult you would have vanished a while back.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

It can't even _read_, can it?

I have many gay friends who appreciate women aesthetically. They still hang out in leather bars. I think William S. Burroughs is the greatest 20th century writer in the English language, but I'm not taking up heroin addiction anytime soon. I'm convinced current troll has deep unquestioned issues.

Well, of course. That, in fact, is the fault of government.

I see your reflexes are in fine shape.

You realize the maternity laws have not existed since time immemorial.

To say it's all "the fault of government" you'd have to show that women and men were hired at equal rates before the maternity laws.

This should be interesting.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Regarding #261.

I think we can safely say:
Check.

*waits expectantly*

SAWells

It can't even _read_, can it?

Apluscoder is a truly dazzling display of intellectual incompetence isn't he . . .

I don't think I've seen anything quite like him since the Kenny era!

By Lilly de Lure (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

"most of which were dead, and that purely by chance, the laws of physics in this one favored the development of life. Suppose all this were demonstrated beyond doubt (as in fact it could be). Would you stop believing in God? In your "life force"?"

No it wouldn't, as there are many levels to the complexities of life that point back to some sort of intelligence.

You here, are looking at the physical plane, and yet, perhaps 1 out of a gazillion planets orbiting a heat source with water could support "life", in many different forms, terra-formed, let's say.

Then one must ask, why is man so intellectually superior to all the other creatures on this planet? What is it that makes man want
to learn and know more and more? And why is man inquisitive?
Why does man where clothes?
And why does man have an emptiness that is difficult to make
content? Why are some self-destructive? Why are some loving.
Did man really evolve from a squirrel like primate that was preyed
upon by birds? Birds? oh never-mind birds. Or Fish? or both!?
Or primitive bi-valved nutrient pumps! (without brains, eyes,
or ears..or fingers, or voiceboxes (of course) )

What is the best ingredient to pursue for a contented life?
Charity, helpfulness, productivity, accomplishment?

What drives us, and how did we get here, and why do many
of the questions mankind asked thousands of years ago still
get asked today, and why do some of the answers from thousands
of years ago still work today.

And have you ever considered the informational clutter we get
sometimes let ourselves get subjected can pollute our clarity
of thought, and ability to get in touch with, Mother Nature?

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

To your aside:

(Perhaps an alternative would be for the State, rather than her employer, to cover a woman's cost of living during her maternity leave? That way, pregnancy would be less economically disastrous for employers, while the woman would still get the same benefit.)

It's a good idea. You sound like Tony Benn.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Why do you all depend on the government for encouragement towards scientific discovery?

For the same reason you are able to post comments on this website: because the public sector is much better than the private sector at funding science.

Music, certainly ours ears ( sensory mechanisms, yes, mechanisms ) decipher a nice range and can equate pleasantry with music, and also can equate different styles to a broad spectrum of other feelings.
I ( scientific engineer ) recognize the complixities in such mechanisms, and their possible origin of creation, their networked ( to the brain ) function, and disfunction. Their beauty and purposeful design.

You? call me silly all you wish. I know what I see. I know what you don't.

I agree. We don't see music. We HEAR it.

This reminds me why I don't enjoy discussing things
with close minded assholes.

You're the homophobe, you're the one with the closed asshole... I mean you're the one who's the close minded asshole.

@Matt Heath:

Speaking purely for myself (a Briton): Fuck God Save the Queen. Boring tune, disgusting call for special treatment for an over-privileged, reactionary anachronism and it means the anthem has to change with the gender of the monarch (fuck it even more if and when it becomes "God Save the King" for any of the first 3 in line). Anyone that can sing it without embarrassment (or without substituting "team" for "queen" before the football) is a cringing, wannabe-feudal sycophant.

Hear, hear!

@Walton:

Rather, it stems from the fact that she is the symbol of our country and our society, just as the Stars and Stripes or the Constitution is for Americans. When Americans pledge allegiance to "the flag of the United States", they are expressing their allegiance to what the flag stands for - American values and the American way of life - and their respect for those who have suffered and died for those values. Similarly, when I took my oath of allegiance to the Queen* when I joined the OTC, I wasn't, in my own mind, pledging to obey every future monarch's personal whim; I was pledging allegiance to the British constitution, reified in the person of the Sovereign.

The monarchy may symbolize Britain for you, but it doesn't symbolize Britain to me. The values of the Windsors don't represent my values, or the values of most people I know. They don't represent me.

And our constitution sucks by the way. We are perhaps the most illiberal system of governance in the Western world.

The hereditary principle is arbitrary.

It's not arbitrary, it's discriminatory. Non-protestant? Female? Non-Windsor?

But it works.

So we should tolerate racism in society similarly because it works?

Gee, let's all have benevolent dictators! Just because the current monarch seems like a nice old lady, doesn't mean that the next one won't be a Stalin.

I also don't buy that it does actually work, by the way.

The great strength of a hereditary head of state is that s/he is uniquely independent from politics

So they claim.

And this is a strength how exactly?

Juan Carlos I of Spain single-handedly transformed his country from a reactionary Catholic dictatorship into a modern, secular capitalist democracy.

A country with a monarchy is not a proper democracy, and while Britain is most certainly modern and capitalist, it is most certainly not secular. To me that makes Britain not much better than a Protestant dictatorship.

Oh, by the way, yes Juan Carlos I is better than Franco (who incidentally chose Juan Carlos to be the king), but if being better than Franco is a sign of competence in your book, then your argument is not very strong at all.

The British monarch is not a God-appointed ruler, and, unlike some of her ancestors, she doesn't claim to be.

This is bullshit. The Queen is known as, "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith", and she is also head of the Church of England.

Rather, she exercises certain state functions on our behalf by the common consent of the people.

WTF? When did she get our consent?

until we end up with an insane or incompetent monarch (which is certainly possible)

I see Charles the Third going on a crusade against GM food and in support of alternative medicine such as homeopathy.

I think any move to abolish the monarchy would simply be sacrificing an effective and well-liked institution for the sake of pure ideology.

Democracy is such a terrible terrible ideology, don't you think?

Seriously, aren't you supposed to be a libertarian? Way to stand up for libertarian values.

I stand by what I've said countless times before, the monarchy is not "well-liked", the only reason we still have it is because while the little Englander readers of the Daily Mail like the monarchy, those that would be predisposed to want to get rid of it, are, for the most part, suffering from apathy over the whole issue due to being alienated from politics.

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Apluscoder, wrong as usual. But then, that is expected with illiterates like yourself. I got my PhD 30+ years ago,"

I was joking you stupid psuedo scientific fuck.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

APlusCoder:

Through Natural Selection? What a cop the fuck out.

You all are hopelessly caged.

Right. "My very favorite sky-fairy did it!" is, of course, not a cop-out, but a Revealed Truth. I guess you have to be a "scientific engineer" to understand these things.

Epikt

Maybe the squirrels running around in my backyard will someday be your friend too. Then you all can hang out together.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

And if you think the UK's gender pay disparity is due to women doing more part-time work then you have not even being looking at the stats; the issue is that women doing the same job with the same responsibilities and the same qualifications are getting paid less.

Exactly.

Now, can anyone tell me if the current Equalities bill going through Parliament will address this or not?

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Apluscoder, still no point, still no science, still no evidence, still showing yourself to be an idiot. Yawn, just another boring woo filled troll.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

And our constitution sucks by the way. We are perhaps the most illiberal system of governance in the Western world.

I agree that it leaves much to be desired - the present system (intentionally) places virtually no restraint on the power of Parliament and thus, effectively, on the power of the government of the day. And it provides no protection for individual rights against the democratic majority. Nor does it allow those who don't adhere to either major party to have any real influence in the political process.

I would suggest the introduction of a codified constitution, with an enumerated Bill of Rights similar to that in the US Constitution. I would also propose open primaries for the selection of parliamentary candidates, so as to break the power of the party whips in the House of Commons and give the voters, not party officials, the choice over who holds office. And I'm in favour of altering the appointment process for the House of Lords (perhaps making it more like Seanad Eireann in the ROI) and giving it more substantive powers.

But I point out that none of these things is inherently incompatible with a monarchy - look at Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands, constitutional monarchies whose constitutions have most of the above features.

Really, we don't have a "monarchy" in Britain at all. We have a crowned republic. There is no substantive difference between our system and those with an ceremonial non-executive president (such as Germany, India or the Republic of Ireland).

But if you really find the hereditary principle so offensive, I wouldn't object to changing the system (after the death of the present Queen) to indirect election of a monarch for life. (There is precedent for having elected monarchs; the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is one of the best historical examples, and modern-day Malaysia and Samoa also have elected constitutional monarchs.)

Democracy is such a terrible terrible ideology, don't you think?

Seriously, aren't you supposed to be a libertarian? Way to stand up for libertarian values.

Why do you conflate democracy with libertarianism? I do not believe in democracy as an ideology. It presupposes that the majority have a right to enforce their will on the minority. I believe in the sovereignty of each individual, not in the sovereignty of the collective.

Democracy is desirable only because it allows us to remove leaders without the bloodshed of civil wars or assassinations. Whether our elected leadership "represents" the populace (insofar as any person can ever really "represent" thousands of unique, distinct individuals with their own views) is completely irrelevant.

Alex Deam said:

I see Charles the Third going on a crusade against GM food and in support of alternative medicine such as homeopathy.

Agreed - much as I rather like the Queen personally, part of me rather wishes she'll retire as soon as poss.

Her son's reign is likely to become just far too entertaining to miss - unless he learns that his job as a constitutional monarch essentially boils down to keeping his mouth shut and waving a lot.

By Lilly de Lure (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Then one must ask, why is man so intellectually superior to all the other creatures on this planet?

Because intelligence tends to be an exclusive niche; for an example see the extinction of Homo neanderthalensis at the hands of Homo sapiens.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Fuck this stupid ass troll.

Get lost dipshit.

Apluscoder is not doing so well at demonstrating that intellectual superiority, is he? I've met orangutans with better reasoning skills.

Agreed - much as I rather like the Queen personally, part of me rather wishes she'll retire as soon as poss.

I possibly should clarify - I know that British Monarchs do not generally retire, but only pass on their thrones when they die.

It's just that as I said I'm rather fond of Lizzie Windsor as a person.

Hence, although I would find the fireworks that are currently likely to mark Charles III's reign an entertaining spectacle, I really don't wish for the current queen to die any time soon, hence the retirement wish.

By Lilly de Lure (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Nerd,

Yawn, just another boring woo filled troll.

Dunno about the woo, it might be troll-poeing, but otherwise spot-on; not much of a specimen really.

By John Morales (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Any progress on that definition of "natural?"

Hey Rev,
Well, the energy is transformed within the organism, through
energy that has been inducted.

Barb's sees it, or excuse me, hears it.

Sounds like I'm leaving behind a bunch of frustrated apes.

Good.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

It makes less and less sense every time it posts. Has to be deliberate. Or on drugs? It's like the energy is transformed within the organism, man... I need Cheetos.

Natural?

Like "natural" peanut butter?

Sorry josh gotta move on, hope you get a chance to
figure it out. Appreciate your congeniality though,
but the rest of this atmosphere is socially polluted.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

How can we miss you if you _won't leave_?

Sam,
No idea what a biological transducer is?

Cheetos are real healthy, brain food.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Here's some help shithead:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1566331

Browner MF, Fletterick RJ.

Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco 94143-0448.

A transducer is a device that receives energy from one system and transmits it, often in a different form, to another. Glycogen phosphorylase receives information from the cell or organism in the form of metabolic signals. The energy associated with the binding of these ligand signals is integrated and transmitted at an atomic level, allowing precise adjustment of the enzymatic activity. Understanding this elegant allosteric control has required several different approaches, but the structural requirements of allostery are being defined.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Apluscoder, So, from your answer, I would conclude that your belief in God/life-force/etc. is not rooted in empiricism. Rather, you find inspiration for your belief in the world around you.

The thing that you need to realize is that science has done a very good job of coming up with answers to questions, and it may very well provide answers to all of them someday--cosmology, abiogenesis, belief in God, sense of wonder, the blue-light-and-tunnel near-death experience... It may be that God is not strictly necessary to explain anything. The question you have to ask yourself is whether this would stop your believing in God or diminish the joy you find in that belief. At the same time, you need to realize that others may reach the opposite conclusion for reasons just as valid as your own.

Believing in the god of the gaps is a perilous journey of faith, because the gaps will always get smaller.

By a_ray_in_dilbe… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Hey Rev,
Well, the energy is transformed within the organism, through
energy that has been inducted.

Barb's sees it, or excuse me, hears it.

That sound you heard was my point flying over your head.

what a bunch of fucking lightweight shriekers.

Begging me to live.

Here's your wish come true.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

but the rest of this atmosphere is socially polluted.

Religionist sprays homophobia all over the room.

Religionist then complains that something smells like shit.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

SAWells, it's just baseline trolling.

High-level trolls actually make arguments and try to start flame wars, these lowbies just want to be noticed and are too dull-witted to be embarassed by their stupidity.

By John Morales (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

It can't spell, it can't read, it confuses induction, transformation and transduction, and its insults become less imaginative with every passing moment. Ho hum.

I'm a biophysicist: I can recognize your bullshit without even trying. At least try to be more original.

Small bet: it _still_ won't leave.

God of the cracks. God of the crevices.

Begging me to live.

I'd be willing to observe a moment of silence, should you change your mind.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Yawn, ever hear of biological metabolism? That is, the chemical reactions that take the energy in food and converts to energy for biological species, but, while doing so, obeys the laws of thermodynamics? Nothing special happening, just a series of chemical reactions.
Likewise, plants and aglae build up chemicals from simpler molecules using the energy from light. At no time is there a lapse in the laws of thermodynamics. There is no such thing as life force until you demonstrate it with hard physical evidence. And do so by publishing your data in the peer reviewed primary scientific literature. So Apluscoder, either cite your paper, or run along like the fool you are.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Biological metabolism? No what is that? Never heard of it. LOL

And for you strange gods before me
I imagine you're perfect and full of sunshine.

Sam's a BioPhysicist? No Sam's a liar.

Biological induction makes no sense to you in terms
of energy conversion?

Need some help with that or haven't you gotten that far

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

And still nothing from the have nothing woomeister. Not even a citation showing the laws of thermodynamics are violated by a life force. Yawn, boring troll, should be banned for being boring. Boring. Boring. Boring. Boring...

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Who the fuck is Sam?

Fuck off Nerd, get out of the lab and grow up.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Sam is you SAWells, whatever that is, your pompous name??

Some really deep thinkers here. High School Caliber.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

God of the cracks. God of the crevices.

This is a strange commentary on your ability to think.

You believe that since science 'explains' how something
happens, that that means that what, there is no creative
intelligent force behind it?

Very superficial.

Nicely coined term of defense though.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Agreed - much as I rather like the Queen personally, part of me rather wishes she'll retire as soon as poss.

Her son's reign is likely to become just far too entertaining to miss - unless he learns that his job as a constitutional monarch essentially boils down to keeping his mouth shut and waving a lot.

I think I read somewhere that Charles said he was going to be more outspoken than his mother. Don't think he used quite that phrasing, but that was what it implied.

Regardless, it will be fun when/if he becomes king, because Ben Goldacre will effectively become "His Majesty's Opposition".

@Walton #273, I agree with pretty much most of what you said, but just a couple of points:

Really, we don't have a "monarchy" in Britain at all. We have a crowned republic. There is no substantive difference between our system and those with an ceremonial non-executive president (such as Germany, India or the Republic of Ireland).

I know what you're trying to say here, and I agree with it, in that the Queen uses very minimal powers, and that most of her powers are actually exercised by the Prime Minister, and not by her. However, I find the theoretical possibility of her exercising these powers troubling, however unlikely. And yes, the fact the Prime Minister is the one who exercises these powers is more troubling in a practical sense to me. The power to declare war should be given to Parliament, for instance.

Oh, and I can't stop sniggering at the idea of a "crowned republic"!

But if you really find the hereditary principle so offensive, I wouldn't object to changing the system (after the death of the present Queen) to indirect election of a monarch for life. (There is precedent for having elected monarchs; the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is one of the best historical examples, and modern-day Malaysia and Samoa also have elected constitutional monarchs.)

I can't be bothered to look up those monarchies right now, but I will say this about the idea of an "elected monarchy". For me, if I was in charge of reforming how this country worked, whether we have a monarchy or not would be the last thing to be looked at. Other things, like an entrenched constitution, separation of powers (and church and state), amongst others are far more important. I think since abolishing the monarchy would be politically difficult, having a referendum every four years at the start of a new parliament on whether the people want a monarchy would be good enough for me.

Why do you conflate democracy with libertarianism? I do not believe in democracy as an ideology. It presupposes that the majority have a right to enforce their will on the minority. I believe in the sovereignty of each individual, not in the sovereignty of the collective.

Forgive me, but I was under the impression that since libertarians are not necessarily anarchists, then they don't support the complete abolition of government. So then, how does a libertarian propose what minimal government they might believe in, if not by democracy? You say that libertarianism is all about the sovereignty of the individual, which seems reasonable from what I know of libertarianism, but surely you agree that sovereignty of the collective is still better than sovereignty of one specific individual (monarch)?

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Apluscoder, still no point, still no science, still no evidence. Yawn. BBOORRIINNGG.

And APC, I am working in the lab and writing a report today. You are just a minor break in the workload. You are worth no more effort than that. If you don't like being mocked, you have the option of ceasing to post here. I recommend that you use that option, as nobody will believe a word you say. You have already been shown to be an idiot. Further posts on your part will only confirm that.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

You're all stupid. I'm leaving.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Jeebus, this clown makes Rooke look like a rocket scientist.

Where's the piddle pads?

It makes less and less sense every time it posts. Has to be deliberate. Or on drugs?

Worse - it's on God.

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

"Apluscoder, still no point, still no science, still no evidence. Yawn. BBOORRIINNGG."

Speak for yourself, this is basically all you've said this morning.

If you're unable to understand my point, why do you want me
to leave so badly? Is it because you're not inquisitive or
interested? Sorry pal no matter how hard you wish, evolution
has not been proven, nor has a creater been dis-proven.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I mean it. Buncha high schoolers.

I'm a scientist. I mean, an engineer.

You're so closed-minded.

I'm leaving for reals, yo.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

How come you all want me to leave? Is it because I'm blowing your little minds?

I'm for sure leaving, but that's because you guys have nothing to offer me.

Expect another comment on why I'm leaving right now in another few seconds.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

You believe that since science 'explains' how something
happens, that that means that what, there is no creative
intelligent force behind it?

Well it doesn't mean that in the sense of logical implication, but if we have an explanation of something in purely natural terms which is well supported by evidence then appealing to an outside source intelligence is roughly as justified as appealing to an invisible pink unicorn (or to pick a truly ludicrous object for reductio ad absurdm appealing to the God of the Bible).

In any case expecting intelligence as such to be an important factor in the universe at large is such tiresome human narcissism: "What must be running the universe is something with this O So Important trait that we humans have". It speaks of a rather sad lack of imagination not to be able to conceive of a universe nothing like you (well avoiding the obvious snark about "lack of intelligence" nothing like you).

Are you implying that engineers are not as smart as "scientists"?

LOL. Yes, of course theoretical hypothesis are so practically
applied. Especially the one regarding 'evolution'.

We need to disparage those Engineers !

Let's call it the Salem hypothesis!

OMG that's special. Insecure little scientists.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

evolution has not been proven

Whoa there, sport. We don't prove things in science. We disprove them. Given what you wrote in comment #158, surely you know that, right? This sentence here was just a typo?

Man, why are you guys such assholes? I've already made three comments detailing your uselessness and how I'm never coming back to this stupid site, and yet you treat me like some sort of pariah.

Did I mention I'm an engineer? Think about fingers (if you dare open your minds to the truth) and how we have ten of them, yet two are thumbs. And what is ten plus two? Twelve. And who had twelve disciples? Try reading a (Good) Book instead of this bullshit site.

I'm leaving. To do engineering.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

OMG that's special. Insecure little scientists.

I thought you were a scientist. No, what was it? Oh, yes, a "( scientific engineer )".

Anyways, you're an asshole, apluscoder, and if you're a representative of the kind of thinking on this site, then I'm leaving.

Right.

Now.

And.

Never.

Coming.

Back.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Yawn, still no science, still no citations, still no evidence. All APC can do is talk in circles..circles..circles..circles. That is boring.

Since APC has nothing to offer, he should just fade into the bandwidth. But that would require a brain, which appears to be missing...

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Matt, most all of science is observation, interpretation, formulation of equations to describe characteristics and processes, of the world around us. It is no more than that, along with the engineering that flows out of our discoveries. We are an
extension of what is first made through creation, no more.

Can you provide us an equation for use to describe evolution,
and how it can be applied in real life, today?
( other than the popular 1+1=3 )

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Seriously, I'm going, unless you explain to me how X could have arisen by chance. Because books on evolution don't exist.

Also, evolution has never been proven. As a scientist, I can say that. Also, I'm an engineer.

But you guys are positively closed-minded. And assholes. Speaking of which, can't you go one moment without bringing up your homosexual perversions?

Fuck you all; I'm leaving.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Hey Brownian, are you an expert spell checker too?

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Apparently Brownian believes that Engineers are disqualified from being scientists.

That sounds like discrimination, doesn't it?

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

APC, still no citations for your idea. Still no evidence. Inane questions are neither. Show the information. We've seen other boring idiot types who can't think their way out of a wet paper bag with a tear in it before. And you are dumber than they are.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Hey Brownian, are you an expert spell checker too?

Real adult. It's like a playground in here. And you call yourselves scientists?

I'm leaving.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

We are an extension of what is first made through creation, no more.

I'll take bald assertions for $400, Alex.

Got anything to back that up, sport?

Apparently Brownian believes that Engineers are disqualified from being scientists.

I believe that they're not to be capitalised as a group.

Still nothing to say but playground insults. Man, this site is full of assholes.

I'm leaving. And never coming back. Unless it's to remind you that I'm leaving.

Sayonara, chumps.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Yeah stu, God's in my back pocket. Here, see?

It's a theory, based on observation, similar to the speculative theory of evolution.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Nope, engineers are not scientists.
What's more, software "engineers" are not Engineers.
And I'm leaving too; right now!!

By Choo-Choo-Charlie (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

It's a theory, based on observation, similar to the speculative theory of evolution.

Yeah, so there.

As a scientist PLUS engineer, I can assure you I know what all the above words mean.

I'm leaving. Yawn.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Nope, engineers are not scientists.

Really? Why ? Because we're useful and not dependent
on universities and government?

You really make me less impressed the more I see and hear.

Scientists 20 years ago had more credibility than you do today.

BTW I asked whether Engineers could 'become' scientists.

What does that take? A special session with the Prof?

Playing doctor to get your PhD? A semester in Greece?

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I'm coding right now, and I can assure you that none of the code I'm writing right now got there by chance. How could it?

I'm going. What a useless site.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

what a bunch of fucking lightweight shriekers.

Begging me to live.

Here's your wish come true.

Can it be? Did he really just grant us all our wish?

@318: You talking to me? How the fuck does that relate to anything I wrote?
Anyway I'm not actually a biologist and unlike you will admit I know less about biology than biologists do. I certainly don't think engineers are less smart than scientists but if you can't see that they - and mathematicians like myself - are less good at science than scientists than scientists, then you are less smart than almost anyone. To know about biology, anyone half smart listens respectfully to the biologists, such as PZ, and puts little importance on the screeds whiny ideologues, such as you.

Now that's a good reason why I don't have to do your imbecilic challenge. But you know what? I will do it. Because I have respectfully listened to and read the words of people who have bothered to study what they are talking about, I know that the Price equation describes that action of natural selection in a way that accurately explains and predicts the accumulation of complexity in biology and beyond. Behold, a single equality in applied probability, your Creator.

Apluscoder, #326: Yeah stu, God's in my back pocket. Here, see?

Actually that makes much more sense than most of what the godbots spout.

Just sayin'.

By Chiroptera (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Still no evidence, no citation, no nothing. That's it, Apluscoder is nothing but nothing! We have him figured out. Just blankness.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Unfortunately the Price equation is a sad attempt at curve fitting
to legitimize your fraud. I could just as easily devise an equation
that would provide a correlation with intelligent design and the
development of a dragonfly. This would be disingenuous.

Perhaps you can show us an application of it.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Can you provide us an equation for use to describe evolution,
and how it can be applied in real life, today?

Maybe you should read up on a fellow named Ronald Fisher, an arch Darwinian, who came up with most of statistical mathematics.

( other than the popular 1+1=3 )

We travel in very different circles.

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Scientists 20 years ago had more credibility than you do today.

Exactly. Name one fucking thing that 'scientists' have done in the last 20 years. I'll bet you can't. Why, when I turn on the radio I even hear songs from 1989. Thus, the world hasn't changed. So much for 'science'.

You guys are actually getting stupider in my eyes as you type, and I should know because I'm and engineer AND a scientist. (So, uh, ignore the earlier part about scientist being useless. I only meant scientists who aren't me. Because I'm one. And an engineer. I know what science is.)

Useless liberals.

I'm leaving.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Apluscoder, You're not very good at this, are you? I mean, you're getting all hot and bothered and losing your cool. It doesn't exactly do your side credit, does it? It looks as if you've never thought about most of this stuff.

Moreover, claiming that you are a scientist and then claiming you are an engineer and then being unable to respond analytically to any of the arguments...well, it doesn't really enhance your credibility. So, if you are a scientist, maybe you can tell us what your specialty is. Or, you can admit you lied. That'd be fine, too.

By a_ray_in_dilbe… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

This is fun. I was missing the many posts and comments on UD about how only those ignorant of ongoing science can think properly about that science.

Sure, APC isn't able to go through all of the permutations possible under that scenario, but he sure has asserted his ignorance. Like we had any doubt about that.

I'm out of this thread (probably) with this blurb. I just had to reminisce about all of the "we're ignorant and proud of it" claims that we've heard before.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592

APC, still no evidence for your imaginary deity. Still no evidence for your inane idea. Still no citations of the scientific literature to back up your inane idea. And you want a scientific argument with us? We are waiting for you to prove yourself. So far, squat, nothing, nada...

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

engineers are not scientists.
Really? Why ? Because we're useful and not dependent on universities and government?

Yeah, you got it; that's why. You can look it up in the dictionary: a "scientist" is defined as "one who is useless; one who is dependent on universities and government."
But I guess you already did look it up.

OK, now I'm leaving, and I mean it! For real!

assplus is a creationist! dipshit.

I could just as easily devise an equation that would provide a correlation with intelligent design and the
development of a dragonfly.

Oh, please try. Go for it, you engineer-scientist you! Shower us with your magnificence.

When I asked for evidence, I didn't mean for you to give me evidence that I don't like.

So, provide just one equation that explains evolution. (Not the Price equation; I don't like that one.)

Just one.

So much for your 'speculative' theory.

Boy, you guys are stupid. Zero evidence.

I'm leaving.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Random aside: how seriously are we supposed to take someone oblivious to the fact that he's being mocked and even continuously parodied for the past several hundred posts?

I have a BS & MS degree in Electronic Engineering.

I must be very stupid.

Especially to hang out here.

Emperical Study Complete!

No signs of intelligent life.

Bye =D

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

And I hate scientists.

Even though I am one. And an engineer. A software engineer. PLUS a scientist. Did you miss that part?

I'm leaving.

I have a meeting.

About science. And Engineering.

So stupid. 50 years ago, when I was an engineer and a scientist as well, people weren't as stupid. You should be ashamed.

I'm leaving.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Unfortunately the Price equation is a sad attempt at curve fitting
to legitimize your fraud. I could just as easily devise an equation
that would provide a correlation with intelligent design and the
development of a dragonfly. This would be disingenuous.

Perhaps you can show us an application of it.

Yes, I shall. Behold, the application of the Price equation... evolution!

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

believes that Engineers are disqualified from being scientists.

They absolutely aren't disqualified from being scientists. But if an engineer (or anyone else, for that matter) isn't doing* science, then I for one don't consider them scientists. Now that's just my opinion, and it's worth what an opinion is worth, but as a scientist I suspect I'm qualified to hold this opinion**.

*~conducting systematic studies of natural phenomina that at the very least include recording observations and ideally involve testing hypothesis and communicating the results to others.
**where's Therion?!

Emperical Study Complete!

No signs of intelligent life*

* Except for possibly Josh.

Bye =D

By AplusCoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Assplus seems familiar. I think he's a programmer for building models physicists or something.

I repeat: Good-bye forever!

Curve fitting!? It was logically derived from first principles before ever being tested against anything in nature (which empirical test it then passed with flying colours). There is nothing further from curve fitting than that. Calling a logical necessity "curve fitting" is the point where you officially became too silly for me concern myself with.

On the other hand, I'll point you to an application (one that even such a philistine hater of "pure" science as you've shown yourself to be ought to be able to appreciate), since both the mathematician and the science fan in me think the Price equation is pretty cool. How about a metric arse-load of google scholar hits for
price equation epidemiology
?

I have a BS & MS degree in Electronic Engineering.

Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! The degree comparison pissing contest game. I love this one. Can I go next?

this thread needs more bacon

Rev. = Wisdom

'nuff said.

Yawn, an engineer? Meh. Engineers can still use the scientific method. A method which has worked very well for a couple of hundred years, and has advanced humankind. Compared to godbotting, which holds back humankind. Not much choice if we want to keep advancing humankind. Science works b------!

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Rev. said "this thread needs more bacon"

With all due respect, apluscoder looks pretty crispy about now.

By a_ray_in_dilbe… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I think he's a programmer for building models physicists or something.For physicists or of physicists? The latter would be a pretty cool research project.

Nerd,

Tell us how science has advanced humankind.

Then tell us whether Kindness has or has not advanced humankind.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Ha. I'm sure he's modeling their life force.

I have a BS & MS degree in Electronic Engineering.

And PZ has a PhD, and he probably enjoys using bacon as a sex toy on your mum. Is this a competition? How does your degree in Electronic Engineering qualify you to diss evolution?

I must be very stupid.

Congratulations, the first step is admitting you have a problem. Now come back before you relapse.

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I was asked what my education was in dumb fuck Alex scientist LOL Quick study...

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Vaccines!

We win.

Tell us how science has advanced humankind.

Then tell us whether Kindness has or has not advanced humankind.

Ah, so it was Kindness that cured polio? I never knew that. Is that them perfound nawledge ya gets in an EE BS & MS?

For physicists or of physicists? The latter would be a pretty cool research project.

It would be pretty cool, but also very easy. I mean physicists don't exactly show much variation now do they?

(I can get away with this derogatory pun because I am actually studying physics)

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I have a BS & MS degree in Electronic Engineering

Which in this discussion is worth less than being a biology undergraduate.

science has advanced humankind

Depends on what definition of advancement you're using. But assuming one, then GM foods.

Then tell us whether Kindness has or has not advanced humankind

There's a rather notable lack of kindness in humankind, and I can't say as it's done any more than balance, occasionally, the malice.

Tell us how science has advanced humankind.

This wasn't addressed to me, but if it had been I'd reply that I think the accumulation of any and all knowledge advances humankind. I think with every kernel of knowledge we possess, we are slightly ahead of where we were before we had that kernel in our cache. Keep in mind, however, that this is just another opinion.

Apluscoder, #360: Then tell us whether Kindness has or has not advanced humankind.

I bet a Christian would answer, "no, it has not." Since most of the ones I've seen seem to avoid kindness.

Just sayin'.

By Chiroptera (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Apluscoder fulminates: "Tell us how science has advanced humankind."

3 minutes to total meltdown.
2:59
2:58
2:57
.
.
.

By a_ray_in_dilbe… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

So kindness has no place in the advancement of mankind?

Kind of obvious from this community.

I in no way was trying to make them comparable.

Failure in your analysis.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Then tell us whether Kindness has or has not advanced humankind

Shouldn't we perhaps first answer the question of whether or not humankind, as a collective, actually exhibits enough kindness to make this even worth thinking about?

I repeat again: Good-bye, forever!

Do you think his head will explode? I love it when their heads explode, don't you?

2 minutes to total meltdown.
1:59
1:58
1:57
.
.
.

By a_ray_in_dilbe… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Not sure whether that was at me or not, but still:

So kindness has no place in the advancement of mankind?

Well, it's certainly not necessary, nor sufficient. In fact, if we did away with kindness, and stuck to pure efficiency (and some related measures), we could probably 'advance' humankind even faster than we are now.

Ladies and gentleman, I believe we have just been presented with incontrovertible evidence for the existence of animated dog vomit.

All praise the Life Force!

...animated dog vomit...

Nah! This guy's dumber than owl shit.

By a_ray_in_dilbe… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Failure in your analysis.

Jebus, this from APC? His series of posts is a failure of analysis. But then, what can one expect from an idiot who is delusional.

APC, your impotent god isn't needed for anything, especially not kindness, which comes out of humans caring for other humans. Which does not equate to your god, who is such an amoral warlord he makes the godfather capo look benevolent by comparison. Read your bible. We have.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Ladies and gentleman

There's only one? Who is it?

Errmm... Oh. That.

I suggest we take a vote!

There's only one? Who is it?

Josh, possibly. Haven't you been paying attention?

And now, I repeat yet again: Good-bye! Forever!!

I in no way was trying to make them comparable.

Of course you weren't. Except that you totally were:

Tell us how science has advanced humankind.

Then tell us whether Kindness has or has not advanced humankind.

I hope your engineering is better than your logic. Or memory. Or manners.

Walton,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/aug/21/gender.pay

American women working full time earn about 77% of the salaries of men working full time, Babcock said. That figure does not take differing professions and educational levels into account, but when those and other elements are factored in, women who work full time and have never taken time off to have children still earn about 11% less than men with equivalent education and experience. ...

The traditional explanation for the gender differences that Babcock found is that men are simply more aggressive than women, perhaps because of a combination of genetics and upbringing. The solution to gender disparities, this school of thought suggests, is to train women to be more assertive and to ask for more. However, a new set of experiments by Babcock and Hannah Riley Bowles, who studies the psychology of organisations at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, offers an entirely different explanation.

Their study found that men and women get very different responses when they initiate negotiations. Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this study found that women's reluctance was based on an accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalise women who asked for more. The perception was that women who asked for more were "less nice".

"What we found across all the studies is that men were always less willing to work with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than with a woman who did not," Bowles said. "They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed mum. But it made no difference to the men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate." ...

While both men and women were penalised for negotiating, Bowles found that the negative effect for women was more than twice as large as that for men. ...

In a final set of studies, Bowles's team had 367 volunteers play the role of job candidates and left it up to them to decide whether to ask for more money than they were offered. Women were less likely than men to negotiate when they believed they would be dealing with a man, but there was no significant difference between men and women when they thought a woman would be making the decision. The applicants, in other words, were accurately reading how males and females were likely to perceive them.

"This isn't about fixing the women," Bowles said. "It isn't about telling women, 'You need self-confidence or training.' They are responding to incentives within the social environment."

I expect you will now insist that this is merely the fault of each and every individual woman in the world for not personally overcoming the institutional sexist discrimination against them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2006/sep/05/highereducation.uk1

Discrimination plays a significant role in the pay gap between men and women scientists working in UK universities, according to new research carried out at the University of East Anglia.

Sara Connolly, of UEA's school of economics, has undertaken research that reveals for the first time what proportion of the pay disparity is due to women being younger, more junior or employed in different types of institution or subject areas. Her preliminary results suggest that almost a quarter (23%) of the pay gap is "unexplained" and may be due to discrimination against women.

"This confirms what many working women scientists have long felt," said Dr Connolly. "My research provides sound facts and figures, rather than anecdotal evidence and hearsay, which I hope will be used to develop and implement effective policies to tackle this problem."

Hard numbers, relatively large ones, for a phenomenon you claimed does not exist. Just how oblivious are you? There's a good case to be made that this ignorance and indifference on your part is a result of your cold contempt.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Not new.
And I'm not actually commenting.

Therefore, goodbye!

I am SO out of here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1488437.stm

Thirty years after the Equal Pay Act, women are still getting paid less than men - resulting in a financial deficit that could add up to as much as £250,000 over a lifetime.

On average, for every £1.00 a man earns, a woman gets only 82p across both the public and private sectors. ...

Critics say this is just unacceptable and want the law to have more muscle.

They point to the length of time it takes for cases to be settled, often up to two years.

With the help of the Equal Opportunities Commission, Sarah Daly successfully took her former employer to a tribunal, after she realised she was being paid £4,000 less than a male colleague doing the same job.

But it took 18 months for her case to settled out of court.

"You've got to be quite confident. It was the anger that kept me going because you have to be quite sure you want an answer from them - because they can argue all sorts of irrelevant reasons for why you get paid the amount you do," explained Sarah Daly.

No response from you on Ledbetter, so there's another example to bring it home.

What can be done about this?

Here's something. http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKTRE53Q4GF20090427?sp=true

Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:59pm BST LONDON (Reuters) - British companies will be forced to reveal pay gaps between men and women under draft legislation published on Monday.

The Equality Bill, which has been attacked by employer groups as unnecessary bureaucracy during a downturn, also bans age and social discrimination.

The government hopes to have the Bill enshrined in law by early next year.

Equalities Minister Harriet Harman said the law contains a power compelling firms with 250 people or more to conduct a pay audit each year and publish the results.

The government hopes businesses will volunteer to perform the audit, but wants progress made by 2013 or it will make them mandatory.

Harman said the law would help remove secrecy around the issue of pay discrimination, where research has shown that women are paid more than 20 percent less than male colleagues.

The legislation will ban secrecy clauses that stop work colleagues comparing salaries, and trade unions would be able to use the information in pay bargaining, Harman said.

But no, according to you there's no role for the state here. So I guess you won't be supporting the Equality Bill. Because there's no such thing as patriarchy or male privilege and sexism hurts men and women exactly equally.

(How anything so complicated could ever apply equally to two groups, just by chance, defies all odds. Given that there are economic and other benefits for one group to subjugate the other, the extraordinary claim would be how it doesn't happen. But we aren't dealing with probability theory here, just ideology. It's important for you that male privilege not exist, ergo male privilege does not exist.)

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I was asked what my education was in dumb fuck Alex scientist LOL Quick study...

I think this is addressed to me, but not even a quantum computer could crack that mess of a "sentence". What does it mean?

I must stand in solidarity with my compatriots who are leaving this thread. Goodbye. Goodbye forever!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Don't leave us PZ. We need your atheistic bacony wisdom!

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Apluscoder posted 62 times, more or less continuously, between his pretentious argumentum ex Lifeson post at 0556 EDT and his most recent post at 1324 EDT. And what, besides dog vomit, has he brought to the table?

So long, farewell
Auf Weidersehen, goodbye

Goodbye...
Goodbye...
Goodbye...

And what, besides dog vomit, has he brought to the table?

WHERE'S MY BACON?!

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I am not even a scientist and can tell that A-minus is an idiot. Who doesn't "believe" in evolution - therefore I am sure he never gets flu shots, and indeed should not be allowed to have them.

Oh, and I am leaving this website forever. You are all closeminded dingleberries. I am really going now.

Besides I have to watch Arlen Specter's press conference. Whoo Hoo!

I'm really going now.

By Lee Picton (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

A quick sermon on Kindness:

Kindness is important. When two men meet somewhere, both lonely and sexually frustrated, and consensually agree to pleasure each other such that each of them achieves orgasm, mutually reducing their loneliness and sexual frustration, are they not being Kind to each other? I, Jesus Christ, say they are. They are being very Kind to each other.

Is it Kind to describe their Kindness to each other as a "defect"; to insult them by calling them "unnatural" and "defective"? I, Jesus Christ, must disagree. That is not Kind at all.

I have spoken. Amen.

Yours in me,
Jesus Christ

PS: I must leave now and never return.

By Jesus Christ (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I must leave now and never return.

What... Again?

Josh, possibly.

A gentleman? What?

That's it. I'm out of here.

On the other hand, APC has managed to derail any substantive discussion of any kind on this thread. How about a Pres. who not only can pronounc "nuclear" but also actually supports science.

Let's hear it for the Pres!! and his soon to be 60-40 majority in the Senate!!

By a_ray_in_dilbe… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Toota'loo fruitcakes.

So who wants to believe kindness has never saved lives, or advanced
humankind just as vaccines have?

Who here thinks kindness doesn't matter?

Who here know that kindness reflects kindness, just like
ugliness reflects ugliness, as we've all seen demonstrated here
by the queers? PZ, are you queer too?

AbioGenesis, BioLogos, Good Day.

P.S. Yes, summation-wise curve fitting, and optimization.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Yes, let's hear it for Prez-O. The Bush administration spent eight years indulging in shameless subversion of the science advisory process. Those days are at an end.

Again, nothing of intelligence from APC. Yawn. Boring, boring twit. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

@Jesus Christ:

Well, that was a short second coming..

On the other hand, APC has managed to derail any substantive discussion of any kind on this thread. How about a Pres. who not only can pronounc "nuclear" but also actually supports science."

Really? I derailed it? Talk to your queer friends about that.

Here are what my opening questions were:

Questions:
Why do you all depend on the government for encouragement towards scientific discovery? Is it all due to your self interest and financial and "professional" security and next years paycheck?

Perhaps causal relationships surround this paradigm.

Do you really believe you can uncover the fact that there is no intelligence and planned purpose behind cell specialization?

You need some more money to figure it out?

Why do you all have such a hangup on what other people have
discovered and believe, which is that there IS a devine life force.
Some call it GOD. Good Orderly Direction.

Here's the reponse:

Ugly, sick, deviant, unkind, unnatural, response.

By Anonymous (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

He's back, as we knew he would be.

So who wants to believe kindness has never saved lives or advanced humankind just as vaccines have?

"Never"? I doubt anyone will ever claim that. Do you think that kindness can accomplish what vaccines cannot?

Who here thinks kindness doesn't matter?

Who ever claimed it didn't? What's your point? Or are you simply erecting some flimsy strawmen you can knock down?

Let me guess: You're steering this towards the argument that altruism can only have a divine origin.

Who here know that kindness reflects kindness, just like ugliness reflects ugliness, as we've all seen demonstrated here by the queers? PZ, are you queer too?

LOL! What a cluelessly self-unaware hypocrite you are, Mister Little Ugly Mind.

Hey Nerd, I've offered plenty more than you have.

Must be working real hard on that research, huh?

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Yes, kindness does matter. And queers demonstrate that kindness reflects kindness. You are so right. They fit their curves together optimally. That is wise.

PZ is kind, but he is not queer.

PS: Good-bye, forever. I am leaving.

By Jesus Christ (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Who here know that kindness reflects kindness, just like
ugliness reflects ugliness, as we've all seen demonstrated here by the queers?

You owe me a new irony meter, you homophobic sack of shit.

Hey Nerd, I've offered plenty more than you have.

Not that I've seen. Just the usual vague woo stuff that we have come to expect from the deity believing segment who post here. Actually taking a stand and presenting real evidence that could be refuted? No signs of that.
Oh yes, I got my lab work done and half the report finished. You have delusions of grandeur on top of delusions of deities.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Ugly people PZ. Ugly. I would think you deserve better.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Hey Nerd, I've offered plenty more than you have

Ah yes, if there ever was proof that quantity does not equal quality...

Yes, some people do indeed make ugly, sick, deviant, unkind, unnatural, responses to homosexuals. That is sad.

I am giving you a new commandment to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.

Amen.

Yours in me,
Jesus Christ

I must go now.

By Jesus Christ (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

So who wants to believe kindness has never saved lives, or advanced humankind just as vaccines have?

Who here thinks kindness doesn't matter?

Which was not the question you initially asked.

Who here know that kindness reflects kindness, just like ugliness reflects ugliness, as we've all seen demonstrated here by the queers? PZ, are you queer too?

Neither reflection occurs by necessity. Kindness can beget ugliness and ugliness can beget kindness. And I don't know about everybody else, but I certainly find you queer.

AbioGenesis, BioLogos, Good Day.

P.S. Yes, summation-wise curve fitting, and optimization

Hm - suitable seed for a random number generator, but not very demonstrable of intelligence.

I'm leaving.

4eva.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I'm late with this but, hell, I've been out. I do have a life.

Walton and strange gods before me,

In the UK the government does cover most of the costs of statutory maternity pay. The employer pays it up front and then most companies reclaim 92% of what they've paid out. Very small companies - the ones not big enough to have staff dedicated to such tasks - claim 100% PLUS another 4.5% to compensate for the additional costs!

Now, how long before someone cries that this is unfair, discriminatory against men or not an appropriate use of taxes?

By maureen Brian (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

awww assplus... did you run out of lube? back to borrow some?

Did I mention I'm leaving?

Asspluscodhead is a twit. You deserve better, PZ.

Ugly.

Real ugly.

I'm leaving.

Bye.

Miss me yet?

No?

Then goodbye.

By Brownian, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

got a teleprompter boys?

Stu, through empirical observance, I've determined many here
do not deserve my efforts towards kindenss, which leads to
the fact that I could give a flying fuck what you think of me.

I'm reflecting back the hostility I have caused through
confrontation. Apparently some don't like what I say,
want me leave. And one uses passive/aggressive posts in
an attempt to muddle my message. Bravo, nice tactics.
You all profess to be in search of the truth? I don't think so.
You're an embarrassment.

Engineers are much more aware of what it takes to make systems
operate than do scientists, because scientists aren't required
to build large scale inter-operable systems. Perhaps that's what
explains the Salem Hypothesis.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Boohoooo. Whaaaaa. Blah blah blah. Poot.

Multiple resurrections by the Christman!

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

AplusCoder is only here to stroke his ego by pulling everyone's chain. He is yet another 14yr-old 4chan refugee who just wants to show how clever he is by fooling others into thinking he is serious. Nothing he said represents his true beliefs, they are merely fabricated to create the most chaos he can. Just ignore the little turd.

Apluscoder:

Here's the reponse:

THE response. The only response. Uh-huh. And you accuse others of cherry-picking?

Your lack of self-awareness continues to astound. And while you still haven't figured out what that response really meant, you had no qualms whatsoever of using it as an excuse to get your full-blown homophobe on from that point forward.

Dminuscoder @ #348:

I have a BS & MS degree in Electronic Engineering.

Oh, then I suppose you can tell us how all the resistors in a series circuit know they need to have the same current flowing through them and agree on that current, yet the same resistors in parallel have the audacity to ignore this rule and equalize voltage instead?

Or how the electrons traveling through a capacitor know how to charge it up?

Or how a transistor knows to allow current through only when a voltage is applied correctly?

Or how a diode knows which way it's supposed to conduct?

Or how a transformer magically gets a current flowing in a circuit with no direct connection?

There MUST be some magical, intelligent force informing all these components of what they're supposed to be doing. Because the mere physical properties of matter can't possibly have anything to do with it. I mean, there's no possible way a difference in the concentration of elements like silicon, germanium, and boron could alter the electrical properties of a material. There's no way a current traveling through a coiled wire could create a magnetic field that induces a current in another coil. How can Ohm's Law work without anyone to enforce it? Who will punish those naughty electrons if they don't do what they're supposed to?

Your electronics textbook is a tissue of lies! It must be fairies herding the electrons with their magic wands!

By phantomreader42 (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

More null words from APC that amount to nothing. And he wonders why he meets "hostility". Put out your ideas with scientific evidence to back them up, and you will get no hostility, but be prepared to defend your ideas against rebuttal with evidence and reason. Keep hiding but claiming ideas, you pay for being coy with "hostility". And guess which option you picked APC?

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Engineers are much more aware of what it takes to make systems
operate than do scientists, because scientists aren't required
to build large scale inter-operable systems. Perhaps that's what
explains the Salem Hypothesis.

Jesus was a carpenter, not an engineer.

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. “Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. “Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. “Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Also, lubrication is indeed an important part of Kindness.

Amen.

Yours in me,
Jesus Christ

I will be going now. I may be some time.

By Jesus Christ (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

"AplusCoder is only here to stroke his ego by pulling everyone's chain. He is yet another 14yr-old 4chan refugee who just wants to show how clever he is by fooling others into thinking he is serious. Nothing he said represents his true beliefs, they are merely fabricated to create the most chaos he can. Just ignore the little turd"

Steve

Is this how you brainwash your fellow followers? Tell them how
and what to think? Brilliant.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

So is "I'm leaving", the new "Happy Monkey"?

Yet another non-informative post by APC. The consistency of his avoidance is not to be admired.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I'm gone.

Do you miss me?

Why are you addressing me, since I'm not here?

I died in 1996, so I've never been here. Plus, I'm never coming back.

*********************************************************

OK, so I'm actually back, when I said I probably wouldn't be. This quantum duality purportedly exhibited by this troll intrigues me, though. And I only said "probably." He's one of the most funs ignoramuses we've had here for a long time.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592

phantomreader4

I've never witnessed a more superficial description of EMF.

Can you explain magnetism and EMF? Did you that use the shit out
of but in reality don't exactly know it's actually origin?

Yes we've devised all kinds of valves and controls to harness
electricity, using earth elements in brilliant ways. Our
minds ability to do this is remarkable, and they laws that
electricity obeys are invaluable, however theirs always the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which does at times, keep
things interesting.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Is this how you brainwash your fellow followers? Tell them how
and what to think? Brilliant.

Nowhere did I tell anyone what to think.

Jesus was a carpenter

This is true. I did indeed work with wood.

Amen.

Yours in me,
Jesus Christ

I shall leave now, and not return.

By Jesus Christ (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

It was the kindest thing you could do for him PZ.

By Patricia, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Jesus never finished my deck! Always thought he was a con-man.

Yawn, two more wasted posts. He almosts sounds as incoherent as Silver Fox into his wine.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Stu, through empirical observance, I've determined many here do not deserve my efforts towards kindenss

How mighty Christian of you.

which leads to the fact that I could give a flying fuck what you think of me.

Really? You're spending an AWFUL lot of time here.

I'm reflecting back the hostility I have caused through confrontation.

Confrontation? Here's your first comment on this thread:

Maybe you all could sit back for a moment, and listen to the streaming ribbon harmonics of Alex Zivojinovich's guitarwork in Rush's Limelight, and conceptualize the electronics flow through the manipulating amplification circuitry from the magnetic flux variations sourced by the metal strings across magnets and the sound reproduction circuitry and transducers, the brains it took to discover the abilities to manipulate such physical phenomena using earthly elements, and then get back to us on how we all evolved from primitive nutrient pumps, made of other earthly organic elements, millions and millions of years ago.

That's not confrontation, that's

A) Proof that you have poor taste in music
B) You're bong water-guzzling incoherent and
C) A moron.

Apparently some don't like what I say

Dude, you're not saying anything coherent. Arguments from ignorance and pouting is all. Say something substantive and it will be addressed.

want me leave.

Actually, you degenerated into cheap entertainment about a 100 posts ago. That you STILL don't realise this is pathetic, pathological and very, very telling.

And one uses passive/aggressive posts in an attempt to muddle my message.

State your message coherently and we'll address it.

You all profess to be in search of the truth?

No, it's bacon and lesbians. Do try to keep up, sport.

Engineers are much more aware of what it takes to make systems operate than do scientists, because scientists aren't required to build large scale inter-operable systems.

And that would mean something if life was built. Hint: it isn't. Your confusion (and misguided sense of having any applicable knowledge) obviously stems from complete cluelessness about biology and evolution. Which is a plus, I guess.

"Intelligent Designer" @ #17:

Personally I would like to hear "God bless America, and God bless the rest of the world" at the end of a speech some day.

strange gods before me @ #108:

That would be an improvement, but it feels a little clumsy to me. Maybe "God bless America, and God bless all people"?

Have either of you seen Chris Rock's movie "Head Of State"? Very much the same sentiment ("god bless America, and everybody else"), to spit in the face of his right-wing asshat opponent with his narcisistic nationalist god.

By phantomreader42 (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Stu! Damn it. Don't let him in on the joke. Sheeesh.

Ah life isn't built or constructed, or systematically maintained.

Sure stu whatever you say.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Stu, you forgot beer. Bacon, lesbians and beer there ya go.

By Patricia, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink
Jesus was a carpenter

This is true. I did indeed work with wood.

Amen.

Yours in me,
Jesus Christ

I shall leave now, and not return.

Wait, Jesus! I am in need of a spice rack, and was wondering if I can employ your services to construct one for me. Your advert in the Yellow Pages described your skills as "omnipotent" (whatever that means), but you refuse to work with nails, because of some phobia. This seems unusual for a carpenter, and it must make your trade quite difficult.

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Okay, I call bullshit on that last post. Who's impersonating? I mean, really:

Did you that use the shit out of but in reality don't exactly know it's actually origin?

Happy hour started early, I see.

Yes we've devised all kinds of valves and controls to harness electricity,

...and I call bullshit on any EE education whatsoever, let alone a BS, let alone an MS. "Valves"? Fucking "valves"?

however theirs always the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which does at times, keep things interesting

Stop using big words you do not understand. It's a lot less embarrassing that way.

Apluscoder:

Engineers are much more aware of what it takes to make systems operate than do scientists, because scientists aren't required to build large scale inter-operable systems. Perhaps that's what explains the Salem Hypothesis.

No. What explains the Salem Hypothesis is that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

You deal with design all the time - design of man-made systems, not the apparent design of evolved biology - and yet you have the hubris to believe the your profession explains more about biological systems than can be explained by the study of biology itself. Please! Step back from your own self-pride and think about what you're really claiming here.

(Commenting Hint: It's not necessary to use carriage returns when typing in a text-box, unless you want a hard carriage return.)

FWIW, I deal with design all the time in my profession, too.

Slightly OT, but are you aware that (most) men process women's voices - but not men's - with the same part of the brain they use to process music? What might this suggest?

Also OT, but speaking of music, here's an interesting article: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12795510

Steve: I've told him twice now -- doesn't seem to faze him one bit. The self-reflection is weak in this one.

yes, a transister is a valve, a vacuum tube is a valve.

Electricity flows down the path of least resistance, just
like water/plumbing.

This confuse you?

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Ah life isn't built or constructed, or systematically maintained.

Yes it is, but by chemical processes that evolved over billions of years. No need for imaginary deities posited by delusional fools like you APC. Your delusional god is a useless thing, unneeded for any task.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Hey Nerd did you evolve out of mom in 9 months? Then evolve severals years into a geek and then evolve further into a somewhat of a thinking adult?

Were you not constructed from one cell, through the DNA information stored in that cell, dividing into the complex being of many if
not hundreds of different materials, within months?

Or did that take millions of years?

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Dminuscoder @ #435, on my declaration that magical faries must direct electrons:

I've never witnessed a more superficial description of EMF.

I'm glad you feel that way, because it's YOUR description. It's the same damn thing as your vitalist nonsense, just applied to a different field. You dismiss my deliberately absurd description of basic electronics, yet can't manage to see the point about your unintentionally absurd babbling about biology.

Thank you for admitting that you can't explain how magical fairies make electrical circuits run. If you have the slightest capacity for understanding or honesty, you'll stop asking how magical fairies make living things run.

Of course, since you've gone so far out of your way to show how dense you are, I know you won't even consider for a second how idiotic your claims are. So I'm leaving.

By phantomreader42 (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

BLOCKQUOTE FAIL!

Stu, you forgot beer. Bacon, lesbians and beer there ya go.

But the beer is for the lesbians.

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

The ignorance is strong in this one.

phantomreader42

Fair enough, however I really haven;t suggested there is some kind of fairly directing every system in a biological organism. I've only suggested that they all have been intelligently designed to have function, have symmetry, dexterity and presence and purpose.

But then that's falling on deaf ears.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

SAWells @ #171, on Dminuscoder:

I think it morphed from "scientific engineer" to "scientist" because it thinks it speaks with more authority that way. Funny, if not so tragic. I'm betting we have another electronics engineer with delusions of competence.

Actually, I suspect he's lying about even the engineering degree. Lying about scientific credentials is a common practice among creationists. Even if the degree is real, he's obviously deluded and full of himself trying to use it to declare his authority on biology. And he still can't explain how the magic fairies direct the electrons!

And on that note I'm leaving. :P

By phantomreader42 (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Electricity flows down the path of least resistance, just
like water/plumbing.

This confuse you?

Well it confuses me, because it's total crap.

Electric current flows wherever there's a potential difference. Where there's higher resistance, there's less current that flows, but not zero, because current can flow in more than one direction!

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Steve_C
The ignorance is strong in this one.

Have you ever witness the eyeballs forming in a fetus?

Have you ever wondered what is instructing these events?

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

yes, a transister is a valve, a vacuum tube is a valve.

Functions AS a valve, not IS a valve, you utter ignoramus.

Also, "growing" is something entirely different than "evolving". Just for laughs, can you give us a one-sentence definition (in your own words) for "evolution"?

Were you not constructed from one cell

No. Once cell divided, then those cells divided, et cetera. Your implied external actor in "constructed" is a very childish attempt at begging the question.

What the fuck? A VALVE IS A VALVE FUCKHEAD.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Apluscoder, you have a point to your inanity? Everything evolved. All devoplement is encoded into the genes. What part of that needs imaginary deities? None of it. It is all chemical reactions. Period. Until you show the scientific evidence otherwise. We are waiting for your real physical evidence, not inane stupid idiotic questions from a weak mind.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

phantomreader42

Fair enough, however I really haven;t suggested there is some kind of fairly directing every system in a biological organism. I've only suggested that they all have been intelligently designed to have function, have symmetry, dexterity and presence and purpose.

Fairies can't be intelligent. Thanks for killing my childhood.

You're just a fairyist, aren't you?!

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Fetus Fairies!!! Duhhhhh.

And APC, if you are trying to posit your deity, you must first show the physical evidence for your deity outside of what you are trying to explain with that deity. That evidence is still not shown. Like all liars, you avoid the truth.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Nerd,
You must be very busy, what are you working on?

How and why hair follicles die, and how to prevent it?

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

dminuscoder @ #457:

Fair enough, however I really haven;t suggested there is some kind of fairly directing every system in a biological organism.

Oh, so do you admit that your babbling about "life force" is just as absurd as tiny fairies directing electrons with magic wands? It's the same principle, the attribution of intelligent agency to a process that is expicable by simple cause and effect. It's stupid anywhere it's applied.

I've only suggested that they all have been intelligently designed to have function, have symmetry, dexterity and presence and purpose. But then that's falling on deaf ears.

Did you ever consider that maybe, just maybe, the reason your assertion isn't being taken seriously is that you haven't offered the slightest speck of evidence to back it up? Biologists have been studying living organisms for a long time. They've learned a lot about how they work. What makes you think you're qualified to declare that every single biologist on the planet is deluded or lying? Without the slightest speck of evidence, without any understanding of the field or any interest in learning? All while babbling that things can happen in nature yet still be "unnatural".

But then, you obviously can't understand the problem with your astounding ignorance and arrogance, so I'm leaving.

By phantomreader42 (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

I'm trying to work out if a valve fuckhead would be a good thing...

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Aha! An argument!

I've only suggested that they all have been intelligently designed to have function, have symmetry, dexterity and presence and purpose.

Why would that be? What proof do you have of this?

phantomreader42

Actually, I suspect he's lying about even the engineering degree.

Probably. I've never heard an EE use the third-grade phrase, "path of least resistance." I have to admit, though, that I don't know any EEs from Liberty University.

I've determined many here
do not deserve my efforts towards kindenss [...] I'm reflecting back the hostility I have caused through
confrontation.

Yeah, sure - you're just a victim of the mean people here. Let's see what your posts have to say about that:

05:38 EDT - Why do you all have such a hangup [starting off weak]
05:56 - I realize abiogenesis isn't your strong point PZ, and I really hope the word genesis doesn't disturb you. [At only your second post, and already going off! You must have seen all that hostility coming, and decided to pre-empt it, eh?]
06:11 - I know what I see. I know what you don't
06:23 - In other words, i find so much of the content of this spillage here [...] I find you all purposefully deceiving yourselves
06:26 - What a fucked up animal
06:31 - Fuck you asshole, why must you insert homo sexuality into a serious discussion? Because it's your defect of choice I must now assume
06:34 - This reminds me why I don't enjoy discussing things
with close minded assholes
06:39 - Through Natural Selection? What a cop the fuck out.

You all are hopelessly caged.
06:42 - C'aio ya all gaping assholes
06:51 - [nothing to see here]
06:58 - Perhaps you misunderstand, ( which is usually the case ) [...] Unfortunately I've moved on, and am subjected to all you pious idiocy
07:11 - [nothing here either]
07:14 - How old are you Nerd Redhead? 22? [could be legitimate..]
07:16 - Notice the obsessive dwelling on gayness
07:21 - Maybe you need to bump your head a couple more time
07:24 - I just don't appreciate assholes like yourself [...] and didn't vote, asshole [...] Perhaps you get offended when someone points out your defect?
07:31 - completely overlooked by you and many 'scientists'
07:34 - Notice none of these 'scientists'
07:38 - Fuck you to think YOU speak for science
08:00 - Did you have something scientific to say?
08:18 - Dumbass fake
08:27 - [nothing here #3]
08:30 - strange gods before me

is a hater in disguise
08:36 - Yet you call yourself adults? Pathetic.
08:40 - And I stand by my statement that it [being gay] is an unnatural defect.
Because, scientifically, it is.
08:45 - [nothing here #4. Directly, anyway.]
09:15 - Fuck off asshole.

And I mean asshole. Waste disposal orifice. [...] Coward.
09:17 - Wow Walton, way to stick up for yourself.
09:29 - Hey Nerd, you keep saying this stuff, over and over, like you're trying to convince yourself, or others.

Better recharge your batteries. [although I agree it has gotten annoyingly repetitive - half marks then.]
09:36 - Hey what's up cherry picker [...] Are you capable of rational thought?

Please. Figure it out, use you're analytical skills,
or develop some.
09:39 - unnatural implies deviation from the norm, by the way.

Perhaps you all think your evolving. [implied insults count too]
09:42 - Hey Nerd, Do you believe you sound smart?
09:48 - [nothing here #5.5]
09:58 - [ditto - #6.5]
10:01 - [wow, a run on NOT being insulting - #7.5]
10:05 - I gotta block this fucked up site.
10:19 - And no-one here shares any idea what I refer to.
Yet calls themselves scientists, then craftfully
tries to degrade.
10:27 - I thought you were younger though, by the use of the mommy phraseology [thus, we discover 07:14 was NOT legitimately not an insult]
10:42 - [Surprisingly, actually tried (and failed) to answer something, but only ended up doing a Gish Gallop of Egnorance - #8.5]
10:46 - I was joking you stupid psuedo scientific fuck.
10:53 - Maybe the squirrels running around in my backyard will someday be your friend too. Then you all can hang out together.
11:10 - Sounds like I'm leaving behind a bunch of frustrated apes.
11:13 - the rest of this atmosphere is socially polluted.
11:16 - [nothing notable, although that might just be a failure to make a good insult - #9.5]
11:18 - Here's some help shithead
11:21 - what a bunch of fucking lightweight shriekers
11:40 - Sam's a BioPhysicist? No Sam's a liar. [...] Need some help with that or haven't you gotten that far [as an aside, I still haven't seen that he understands the diff between induction and transduction]
11:50 - Fuck off Nerd, get out of the lab and grow up.
11:52 - Sam is you SAWells, whatever that is, your pompous name??

Some really deep thinkers here. High School Caliber.
11:55 - This is a strange commentary on your ability to think. [...] Nicely coined term of defense though [in which APC misses the point entirely]
12:06 - Is it because you're not inquisitive or interested? [meh, half points, APC can do better - #10]
12:12 - Yes, of course theoretical hypothesis are so practically
applied. Especially the one regarding 'evolution'. [...] OMG that's special. Insecure little scientists.
12:23 - ( other than the popular 1+1=3 )
12:26 - Hey Brownian, are you an expert spell checker too?
12:28 - Apparently Brownian believes that Engineers are disqualified from being scientists.

That sounds like discrimination, doesn't it? [yep, trying to start a false fight counts]
12:34 - Yeah stu, God's in my back pocket. Here, see?
12:41 - Really? Why ? Because we're useful and not dependent
on universities and government?

You really make me less impressed the more I see and hear.

Scientists 20 years ago had more credibility than you do today.

BTW I asked whether Engineers could 'become' scientists.

What does that take? A special session with the Prof?

Playing doctor to get your PhD? A semester in Greece?
12:48 - Unfortunately the Price equation is a sad attempt at curve fitting to legitimize your fraud. [meh - not really worth counting - #11]
13:00 - I must be very stupid.

Especially to hang out here.

Emperical Study Complete!

No signs of intelligent life.
13:05 - Emperical Study Complete!

No signs of intelligent life
13:13 - [nothing here - #12]
13:17 - dumb fuck Alex scientist
13:24 - So kindness has no place in the advancement of mankind?

Kind of obvious from this community.
14:34 - Toota'loo fruitcakes. [...] Who here know that kindness reflects kindness, just like ugliness reflects ugliness, as we've all seen demonstrated here by the queers? PZ, are you queer too?
14:44 - Hey Nerd, I've offered plenty more than you have.

Must be working real hard on that research, huh?
14:29 - Ugly people PZ. Ugly. I would think you deserve better.
14:59 - got a teleprompter boys? [...] I've determined many here
do not deserve my efforts towards kindenss [...] You all profess to be in search of the truth? I don't think so.
You're an embarrassment.
15:10 - Is this how you brainwash your fellow followers?
15:15 - Did you that use the shit out
of but in reality don't exactly know it's actually origin?
15:27 - Sure stu whatever you say
15:33 - This confuse you?
15:36 - Hey Nerd did you evolve out of mom in 9 months? Then evolve severals years into a geek and then evolve further into a somewhat of a thinking adult?
15:42 - [nothing here #13]
15:45 - Steve_C
The ignorance is strong in this one.
15:48 - What the fuck? A VALVE IS A VALVE FUCKHEAD.

So, out of a fuckton of posts, you've managed about 13 that weren't in some way insulting or otherwise nasty. Suuuure, you're just the victim here..

Again, avoiding doing anything that might cause you to be refuted, like showing evidence for your imaginary god. Question mean nothing. You need to show positive proof for your ideas, and you have nothing. We are waiting for your evidence, which is not found in the form of a question, but rather something published in the scientific literature.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Good grief! This has got to be the worst chowder head we've had in weeks. He must have escaped the dungeon.

By Patricia, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

phantom, there are biologists that do believe there's more
to it than 'evolution'. And many times they are excommunicated.
I happen to think alot of it is due to funding and job security.
To deny that aspect is to deny reality.

There are many medical doctors who also believe there is something
more than evolution at play, i imagine you all would treat them
with the same rebellious ferver.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

What the fuck? A VALVE IS A VALVE FUCKHEAD.

Okay, let me try this a little simpler for you: a valve has moving parts, a transistor does not.

Where did you say you got your EE degrees from?

Apluscoder

yes, a transister is a valve, a vacuum tube is a valve.

A "transister?" From a scientific engineer with not only a BS, but an MS in electronic engineering?

Or is that what you call your brother since her sex change?

If you actually have the degrees you claim, you're the Tacoma Narrows Bridge of engineers.

phantom, there are biologists that do believe there's more to it than 'evolution'. And many times they are excommunicated.

Sure, and I have a bridge over the East River for sale...

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

stu, A transistor doesn't have moving parts?
Really?

Better think a little bit harder on that one.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

there are biologists that do believe there's more
to it than 'evolution'. And many times they are excommunicated.

Name one.

Apluscoder you need to think a bit more about evidence. You have shown none. Just insane question. Show your evidence, starting with the physical evidence for your deity. Until that is done, you can go nowhere as he doesn't exist.

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

In defense of APC, vacuum tubes are sometimes called valves.

/tubeAmpBuff

I'd have to google it, why, you denying it?

It's all about money and flow. It's the thing you know.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Let's put it this way. I don't want a doctor looking for divine intervention on my behalf.

there are biologists that do believe there's more
to it than 'evolution'. And many times they are excommunicated.

POPE IN INTELLIGENT DESIGN BIOLOGIST EXCOMMUNICATION SHOCKER!

CATHOLIC BIOLOGIST IS NEW GALILEO!

POPE BANS EXORCISM!

'CRACKERS AREN'T REALLY FLESH' SAYS POPE!

POPE TO WORLD: 'ALTAR BOYS ARE NOT TOYS'!

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

More vague nonsense. Yawn. Boring, boring, boring.
As the old commercial said, "Where's the evidence?"

By Nerd of Redhead, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

dminuscoder @ #452:

yes, a transister is a valve, a vacuum tube is a valve.
Electricity flows down the path of least resistance, just
like water/plumbing.

"I've never witnessed a more superficial description of EMF." :P

Okay, that's not ENTIRELY true. But not since elementary school, at least.

The "path of least resistance" bit isn't at all accurate, it's really only useful for teaching kids not to stick paperclips in electrical sockets or fly kites into powerlines. If electricity really followed the path of least resistance, a parallel circuit would be impossible, since current would only flow down one branch. More current flows down the path with the lowest resistance (ignoring other characteristics for simplicity), but as long as there are multiple viable paths for current, some is going to flow down each one. It's only when the difference in resistance between paths is multiple orders of magnitude that only the "path of least resistance" is relevant.

And the transister thing is taking an analogy too seriously. Thinking of a transistor as similar to a valve can be a useful analogy, but analogies do not define reality.

By phantomreader42 (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

In other news. He who's craziness can not be named but he REAAAAAAAAAAAALLY likes depeche mode is emailing me again.

But have you got your FINALLY yet?

And I'm quite disappointed. First, despite that dipshite saying I was going to get even worse than you, he hasn't e-mailed me a fecking thing! I'm not a Happy Mon—Ape.

Second, a piss code isn't any good at trolling at all, is it?

Which one is the crazier loony? The batshite Canadian or a piss code? (To make it fairer, let's try to ignore that the goofball in the North is probably certifiable.) a piss code is at least a bit more varied than the great northern goof, but beyond that it's hard to see much difference.

Rather embarrassingly, both appear to be, or at last to have been, in the computing/IT industry—also my profession—but, based on the posts so far, both completely lack any demonstrated reasoning ability. As such, I (would like to think) neither is in the least representative. Other than, perhaps, as examples of Teh Magic Women in Teh Sky™ do to you.

there are biologists that do believe there's more to it than 'evolution'. And many times they are excommunicated.

Actually, I'd agree with you. Many times they aren't, of course (look at Behe), but indeed, spouting woo without anything to back it up is hardly helpful to anyone's career in biology.

Otoh, I can't imagine why anyone with as little evidence for his statements as APC has deserves to be considered a biologist. Indeed, it's pathetic (if tolerable when properly compartmentalized) in an engineer, if he truly is one.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592

Glen

stu, A transistor doesn't have moving parts?
Really?

Better think a little bit harder on that one.

Oh you sad, sad little man. Okay:

1) What parts are moving?
2) Do you stand by your statement that a transistor IS a valve?
3) Why is life intelligently designed? What makes you think so?

1) What parts are moving?

1) The electron(s) stu, that complete the circuit at the base,
allowing the flow.

2) Do you stand by your statement that a transistor IS a valve?
2) Yes.

3) Why is life intelligently designed? What makes you think so?
3) Because there is functional design and order, and an instruction set within the DNA that guilds development and
further, monitors systems, using feedback, to act upon setpoints.
I could go on for days, but brievity here as I'm off to a landscaping class.

By Apluscoder (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Walton and strange gods before me,

In the UK the government does cover most of the costs of statutory maternity pay. The employer pays it up front and then most companies reclaim 92% of what they've paid out. Very small companies - the ones not big enough to have staff dedicated to such tasks - claim 100% PLUS another 4.5% to compensate for the additional costs!

Thanks for clearing that up, maureen Brian.

By strange gods b… (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

dminuscoder @ #475:

phantom, there are biologists that do believe there's more
to it than 'evolution'. And many times they are excommunicated.
I happen to think alot of it is due to funding and job security.
To deny that aspect is to deny reality.

Ah, I see you've seen Expelled! *jazz hands*

Dminuscoder, you're trying to dodge the demand for evidence of your claims by invoking dishonest creationist propaganda. You're declaring there's a secret cabal among biologists to enforce orthodoxy through control of funding. You're claiming that all of science is a vast conspiracy to sap and impurify your precious bodily fluids.

YOU are the one denying reality. What's next, claiming the Jews did 9/11 with help from the Underpants Gnomes? Are you gonna say the moon landings were hoaxes perpetrated by Bigfoot? Declare President Obama is a robot operated by the Illuminati?

I'd ask you to provide evidence of scientists being "excommunicated" because they "believe there's more to it than 'evolution'." But I know you don't have any evidence, and you'll flee in terror from the request, throwing up a smokescreen of absurd accusations and baldfaced lies to cover your retreat.

So I'm leaving. :P

By phantomreader42 (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

dreikin #472:

Nice compendium. Our Coder is a real charmer. I think it's worth revisiting his very first query, which he firmly believes was reasonable and polite:

Why do you all depend on the government for encouragement towards scientific discovery? Is it all due to your self interest and financial and "professional" security and next years paycheck?

Is it just me, or does that question (and those that follow it) not drip with disdain for research scientists? Does it not openly imply that "you all" are simply riding the gravy train, and that your interest in scientific discovery finishes a distant second to your financial and (note the disrespect of the scare quotes) "professional" security?

You're on Shawn Otto's email list too? ;-)

Who isn't? Everyone who signed the online petition for a science debate is on it.

But what is it that he means? It it isn't even grammatical.

What? Of course it is. Present subjunctive. Like "if there be" or "[I wish that] Britannia rule the waves". It's just more archaic than "may God bless America" (…where may is in the present subjunctive).

English has plenty of almost extinct grammar like that.

we merely express a desire that Providence or Fate will bring good times on our country.

For that, you have to "merely" believe in "Providence or Fate"… what if you don't? I mean, what if you apply Ockham's Razor to quantum mechanics and conclude that quantum random is true random?

Anyone that can sing it without embarrassment (or without substituting "team" for "queen" before the football)

ROTFL! Day saved. :-D

How are these proteins and minerals synthesized?

Well, duh. Didn't you learn protein synthesis in school? Then look it up. Even Wikipedia helps. Same for biomineralization.

In the end, it all comes down to electrostatic attraction and repulsion.

What instruct them to concentrate on the broken bone?

It's not instruction, it's a mechanism.

What knows it's broken?

It's not knowledge, it's a mechanism. An automatism. There is no consciousness involved here. Really, just take a biology textbook and look it up. Might take a few hours. Are you capable of reading for three hours straight?

The brain instructs the repair, right?

WRONG!

The brain has nothing to do with it, except for registering the pain. Take someone brain-dead and break their finger; it will still heal if they're on life support.

How is the acid in your stomach synthesized?

In the cells of the stomach lining there's an enzyme that pumps H+ ions across the cell membrane. That's acid. To compensate for the positive charge, those cell membranes also contain Cl- channels; in sum, hydrochloric acid. Extremely simple.

What instructs your stomach lining to replace itself?

Nothing. It's just cell division that is kept going by a hormone called a growth factor, and by "kept going" I mean that the hormone almost literally presses a switch on the cell membranes.

Sometimes I think everyone should get half a bachelor's degree in molecular biology.

Really, it's as described in comment 153.

C'aio

Simply ciao. Italian ci is pronounced sort of like a Spanish ch, then comes an [a] sound, and then an [o] sound. In sum, a bit like "ouch" backwards. Again: extremely simple. :-)

The great strength of a hereditary head of state is that s/he is uniquely independent from politics;

Come on. Any elected president who isn't the head of government can do that. You went on to say that yourself in comment 273.

The British monarch is not a God-appointed ruler, and, unlike some of her ancestors, she doesn't claim to be.

It does still say "D G" on her coins, though.

Hey Matt Heath, Tell us what you know of electronic signal communication and how bio-chemical systems use them to communicate homeostasis throughout an organisms body.
Then tell us how this evolved into that vast network it is today in the human body, say from a squirrel like creature, you know what i'm talking about.

For fuck's sake, all this stuff is fucking identical in all mammals, barring details like that interleukin-12 or whichever it was triggers the production of two different G immunoglobulins in humans and mice.

Then tell us from what base materials are used to construct it and maintain it.

What about food?

And then tell us what's the next development in the evo[lu]tionary cycle

There is no cycle! Evolution is not predictable! Mutations are not predictable, and how the environment changes isn't predictable enough either!

Why do you make stuff up and then base your questions on it? I mean, what next? Will you ask us why Napoleon crossed the Mississippi?

I am a real scientist.

What have you published?

"Stem cell research is not done to figure out minerals and protein synthesis moron,how uneducated are you??"

Are you serious? Cell specialization is the HALLMARK of stem cell research dimwit. And to figure out what direct cells specialization ( you know, how to grow a new kidney from your own cells ) you need to know what drives the synthesize of the materials needed.

What utter, utter nonsense. Again that phenomenon of making stuff up and then building on it.

Protein synthesis and biomineralization have been figured out. That is not cell specialization. What stem-cell research is trying to figure out is which signals (hormones in the widest sense) trigger which cells to synthesize which proteins (switch on which genes) under which conditions. That is horribly complicated, and while a lot has been figured out here, too, a lot remains to be understood.

Also, that word "hallmark"… I don't think it means what you think it means.

What I find interesting is that living creatures and the force behind them, manifested in so many different and complex ways, and the obvious intelligence, is completely overlooked by you and many 'scientists' as not guided and directed by a force greater than all of us.

"Obvious"? You've been looking at this way too superficially.

(And stop hitting Enter at random.)

They say coincidence is GOD's way of remaining anonymous.

Isn't that special pleading?

Redheady denies there is a Life Force.

Heart pumps beating 100,000 times a day.
Eyes continually feeding information to the brain.
Cells dividing and dying.
Feedback Systems Supporting Life.
Birth. Will to survive, motivation, happiness, sadness, disappointment, joy. Feelings of Accomplishment.
Ever felt that?

Yes, and? Where's the mystical supernatural Life Force in that?

Next time a stranger asks you a question in person, reply with:

"Because I just want to have hot gay buttsex without spiritual accountability."

See how they respond.

Your sarcasm detection device is still on guarantee. Try to get it repaired.

# Deviating from a behavioral or social norm: an unnatural attachment.

Uh, how do you get away with having the word you're defining in the definition?

That's not a definition, it's an example of how that particular usage of the word is applied. The whole thing is quoted from a dictionary.

What FminusCoder hasn't noticed is that dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. They don't define words, they explain for which meanings which words are used in which ways.

for an example see the extinction of Homo neanderthalensis at the hands of Homo sapiens.

Which is at present completely unsupported by the generally very sparse evidence. It's at least as likely that the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum is to blame (…while not much better supported, because there just isn't much evidence to start with).

The thing that you need to realize is that science has done a very good job of coming up with answers to questions, and it may very well provide answers to all of them someday--cosmology, abiogenesis, belief in God, sense of wonder, the blue-light-and-tunnel near-death experience...

The light is very easy to explain: it's what vertebrate eyes do when the oxygen runs out. Seeing dark, you see, is actually an effort (for vertebrates).

You believe that since science 'explains' how something happens, that that means that what, there is no creative intelligent force behind it?

It means that the hypothesis that there is a creative intelligent force behind it is unnecessary.

I have to go and will get to comment 264 later. Someone posted a link to tvtropes.org, and I wasted half of the day there! Never do that again.

By David Marjanović, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

Valve is valid name for vacuum tube, more commonly used (AFAIK) in British English than USAian English.

I'm curious what parts of a valve / vacuum tube, or of a transistor, move. I presume a piss code is referring to the electron cloud? Or maybe, in the case of valves, the low pressure gas (it's never a true vacuum albeit very low pressure valves exist). In either case it should return its alleged EE degrees for gross stupidity.

Physically, of course, valves and transistors are not very similar at all, either in construction or principles of operation. They can perform similar functions, but accomplish the function in rather different manners. As an (alleged) EE, a piss code should know that. It might, and it might even be able to explain the difference in a coherent fashion, but based on its (lack of) communication skills so far displayed, I'm not counting on it.

And when is it going to leave? It keeps saying it's leaving, but doesn't. Can we put in a new order to Trools'R'Uzz and get a better model?

And a nice little blockquote fail to go with the submission timeout. Yay. See you soon.

By David Marjanović, OM (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

1) What parts are moving?

1) The electron(s) stu, that complete the circuit at the base,
allowing the flow.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Are you claiming that a wire contains moving parts because electrons move through it too? If so, what do you call a wire when there's no circuit and therefore no moving electrons? When a transistor's not being used, does that mean it's not called a transistor anymore?

By Alex Deam (not verified) on 28 Apr 2009 #permalink

[On transistors]

The electron(s) stu, that complete the circuit at the base, allowing the flow.

And where do these electrons go? Might they even, oh, I don't know, leave the transistor? To be replaced by others?

Is water part of a water pump?

Do you stand by your statement that a transistor IS a valve?
Yes.

Just curious: in your world, what's a resistor?

Because there is functional design and order

Such as?

and an instruction set within the DNA

DNA is not an instruction set. You're really, really, really into moronic analogies, aren't you?

that guilds development

No it doesn't.

monitors systems

No it doesn't.

using feedback, to act upon setpoints.

No it doesn't.

Your "understanding" of life, evolution and biology is laughably simplistic -- below high-school 101, really. I strongly suggest you stick to landscaping.

Because there is functional design and order, and an instruction set within the DNA that guilds development and
further, monitors systems, using feedback, to act upon setpoints.

Yes my nipples are very functional.