lol, brb

lol, c u l8-r

goddidit

Phew, I thought that only happened to me.

Good luck!

Good luck with the talks, and in the mean time, get some science done.

Anybody know if Science blogs has any nuclear physicists, engineers, or anybody who works in the hard sciences?

William, what kind of troll are you; biology/chemistry/non-nuclear physics aren't consider hard science anymore while engineering is?

Physiologists - PhysioProf, Orac
Biochemists, Molecular and Cellular Biologist - ERV, PZ Meyers
Chemists - Janet D. @ ethicsandscience
Physicists - Ethan Siegal @ startswithabang (astrophysicist), and several more in different fields

Don't worry. Half of us can't access the site anyway. It's the perfect time to not blog.

Abbie, it's well known that all the really good results come in at the last moment. You have to lose all hope before experiments work :)

No, some biologists conduct hard science. Even Popper thought so.

@Cheng Vang: small correction. Orac is a MD(surgeon)/researcher, not a physiologist.

Anyway, ignore Willie. He's redundent.

I was going by the field in which they received their doctorates; Orac got his Ph.D in cellular physiology (yes, I am aware he is a surgical oncologist but I do recall reading that he has his own research lab too) and Janet D. got her Ph.D in physical chemistry but holds a tenure position as a professor of philosophy.

As for William, you might be able to argue that some fields of biology aren't hard science such as animal behavior, ecology, and paleontology. But come on, you're asking for hard science in the blog of a biochemist/virologist. If biochemistry isn't the 'hard science' of the biology field, then what is?

Cheng Vang, at the time I was hoping to read some science blog posts by somebody with credentials in the fields about the Japanes earthquake v. various possible explainations, as well as relative benefits and risks of various nuclear reactor designs.

Sadly, such scientists aren't very important in the liberal athiest versus conservative christian debates, which might explain why scienceblogs doesn't seem to have any.

Ethan Siegel at 'startswithabang' is an excellent blogger that blogs about the how/why of physical science. In addition to being one of the few bloggers that actually tried explaining to Bill O'reily during the 'tides goes in tides comes out' fiasco about why and how such a phenomenon occurred, he also blogged about the 'why' of Earthquakes in response to the Japan incident.
Various other bloggers have extensively blogged on the issue of nuclear reactor's possible impact on health such as Elizabeth Grosman at 'thepumphandle'.
Lastly, it seems your point was to discredit Scienceblog as a bias liberal atheist agenda based blog. Thus you tried to paint the picture that you were just a curious reader wanting information on a contemporary issue, but such information is unavailable because the liberal atheist Sciblog is so bias that said contemporary issue is swept under the rug (which was not the case).
But lets assume Sciblog is a liberal atheist blog, does your counter conservative Christian blog like Sciblog have a list of writer spanning various different academic fields and in addition to that have nuclear physicists WITH NOTHING TO DO WITH SUCH EXPERTISE, just sitting in front of a computer all day; thus proving the conservative Christian side a more credible side? I think not.

There are some pretty random abstracts among the Keystone posters and talks - freeze-thawing XMRV and an incredibly vague gene expression talk that seems to have nothing to do with retroviruses...

But lets assume Sciblog is a liberal atheist blog, does your counter conservative Christian blog like Sciblog have a list of writer spanning various different academic fields and in addition to that have nuclear physicists WITH NOTHING TO DO WITH SUCH EXPERTISE, just sitting in front of a computer all day; thus proving the conservative Christian side a more credible side?

My counter blog would be a blog by scientists with no litmus religious or political agenda, not the opposite agenda of almost every blog I've seen here.  One that, for example, had a nuclear physicist or engineer who had a post on LFTR reactors in the context of safety in light of events in Japan.  That is, the blogger might have a strong bias in his field, but he's not trying to convince me that God is the refuge of the unintelligent superstitious masses in posts (as if great scientists in history didn't  make great advances in science despite their own superstitious or even downright ludicrous ideas.) 

Bloggers here seem to be exhibit views similar to the views caricatured in the Beware The Believers YouTube video.  

Which is fine, if that's your thing, but a better domain name would be labs.com, short for liberal atheist science bloggers.  

I'd prefer science blogs that attempted to dispel or examine critically an idea found among the illogical left that AGW is responsible for the recent Earthquake, or even more ludicrous, a secret Illuminati plot involving HAARP being employed as an Earthquake machine--as opposed to, say, discussing the evidence for the confluence of ring of fire geology and lunar orbits--or, the lack of evidence in support the idea a lunar effect.

Replace last "as opposed to, say," with "or"

To put it in different terms, the answer to journalism found at the likes of the New York Times or MSNBC is not Fox, but The Wall Street Journal.

... From Linnaeus to Newton, all creation scientists are only renowned today not for what they believed in, but what they have accomplished scientifically. Such accomplishment was made independent or only when they rejected/ignored their religion.

Also, I don't know where you get the idea that the left thinks anthropogenic global warming is responsible for the earthquake or that it was some conspiracy. If that is the idea of the left (which is not), it isn't what is promoted here by any blogs I've read recently.

You cannot blame scienceblog for not having your preferred writer (who would be extremely specialized in a very small area that would be very in demand in the job market right now) on their team; don't pretend like you are an inquiring mind when in your own post you've admitted to preferring bias over people being critical of your beliefs. This is scienceblog, not "William's Personal Blog".

You want a nuclear physicist commenting on an issue you want to hear about? Go google it, if such a search yield no results, pay a nuclear physicist to speculate on such an issue if you find it so interesting.

Such accomplishment was made independent or only when they rejected/ignored their religion.

Diversion from the point I made, which could be stated another way:  science blogs would be more apltly described as "liberal athiests hoping their scientific credentials magically make their liberal atheist views more persuasive" and not simply concerned with sharing science.   

Scientists often have goofy ideas about the very models they contributed.   The utility of a model is a separate issue from what it's discoverer or inventor might think about it.  Units of charge exhibit a force, even if many investigators thought it did so instantaneously at a distance.   Models of planetary orbits were useful even if investigators thought  planets consciously follow the law of their orbits, or that the solar system was geocentric.  But only in the land of liberal atheist science blogs should potential scientists be vetted based on whatever superstitious beliefs the potential scientist might hold.  

Oliver Heaviside seemed to agree with T.H. Huxley, from what I have gathered, while James Clerk Maxwell did not, on the issue of weather or not there was a God.  That did not prevent T.H. Huxley and Clerk Maxwell from working together editing encyclopedia articles, and it did not prevent Clerk Maxwell and Heaviside from respecting each other's scientific work.  (Though Heaviside did have his share of difficulties dealing with the scientific establishment of the time.)

Indeed, my study of the history of science is that the most profound leaps in science were not made because of the scientific establishment, but in spite of it.  The S.E. is fine when it comes to making incremental progress, but obstinate to oblivious when it comes to recognizing great leaps.

You're a freaking idiot; you took the same point that I made, told me I was making a diversion, and then basically repeated and presented the same point I was making as if you've made a contrary argument. This display of idiocy ends our little exchange, good bye.

Whatever, I'm just glad to know one science blog reader agrees.

So will you speak to persuade biologist professors to be content to have their students simply explain the theory of evolution, and stop insisting that they also profess to believe the theory that human beings have descended from beasts is absolutely true?

Because, as far as I can tell, the only religious war going on in "science" (biology) is against possible scientists who might also have some goofy (to atheists) ideas about God ultimately being behind the nature we all observe.

Yet, history has shown science has not suffered despite the existence of some scientists with tangentially related but ultimately unscientific thoughts. Indeed, if such scientists had been expelled, ostracized, or otherwise marginalized from the academy, it is not a stretch to think science would have suffered.

Now, if I can only get you to agree that scienceblogs, with its liberal, atheist viewpoint, isn't doing science any favors when it deigns to speak for science, and with its noticable lack of intellectual diversity.

I don't agree with you, not at all, you must be delusional.

To say that the theory of evolution holds true for accounting for all biodiversity EXCEPT for us humans is an idiotic attempt at rationalization. We are not special, the mechanism for evolution for all life on Earth applies to us, which is simply (in short) random mutation and natural selection. That was how evolution was taught to me in my introductory zoology class, and that was how it was taught to me in an upper division evolutionary and systematics course (which also taught that humans didn't just descend from 'beasts', WE ARE 'BEASTS'!). Just like all living extant organisms today, we are the product of accumulated mutation that have been natural selected for by the environment, no exception.

You prided yourself on your knowledge of the history of science, yet you don't know jack squat about it mister. Religion and the religious belief of people have always IMPEDED science in the past. For example there was George Cuvier, the father of today's comparative anatomy who denied that evolution could ever be possible (instead he promoted the illogical theory of 'catastrophism'). There was Richard Owen (the man accredited with coining the term dinosaur) who believed religion should guide and override scientific research. To do this he misrepresented evidence to garner support, and support he did receive in the forms of money and land grant from the theocratic monarchy until Huxley exposed him as the religious fraud that he was. Then there was all the geologists who went to find evidence of a global flood, only to fail miserably because there never was a global flood like their religion said until one geologist accredited with being the father of modern day geology found that there never was a global flood, but instead a global ice age.

So STFU you dumbass; Jeezus! its like you have no shame in making shit up as you go along.

So will you speak to persuade biologist professors to be content to have their students simply explain the theory of evolution, and stop insisting that they also profess to believe the theory that human beings have descended from beasts is absolutely true?

Just as soon as you stop beating your wife, Willy.

To say that the theory of evolution holds true for accounting for all biodiversity EXCEPT for us humans is an idiotic attempt at rationalization.

I thought I was dealing with a sentient being. But now it's clear you're operating under sophomoric understandings of theory, truth, reality, and belief. Apologies.

Then there was all the geologists who went to find evidence of a global flood, only to fail miserably because there never was a global flood like their religion said until one geologist accredited with being the father of modern day geology found that there never was a global flood, but instead a global ice age.

I'm not sure if you've ever seen a photograph of Earth from space, but you might want to look for one. It looks like we just got over a flood yesterday, as Abbie can tell you she learned when she lost her debate with Dr. Charles Jackson.

Wally. Dude.

This is a little creepy: http://www.youtube.com/user/Wwallace67#p/a/u/1/sF2Aa_SudC0

Not surprising that it would be viewed that way by people who watch MSNBC and think New York Times editorials are profound. But then again, traditional families, girls playing with dolls, boys playing with cap guns, Ronald Reagan, Apple Pie, automobiles, incandescent lights, fossil fuels, agricultural fuels, nuclear energy, and the U.S. flag frighten such people.

Another thing that is not surprising, is ignoring the points and focusing on something else. It's what you people do.

WW @ 27:

But then again, traditional families, girls playing with dolls, boys playing with cap guns, Ronald Reagan, Apple Pie, automobiles, incandescent lights, fossil fuels, agricultural fuels, nuclear energy, and the U.S. flag frighten such people.

And that illustrates the point perfectly. Wally really believes such nonsense, in exactly the same sense that a completely untreated psychotic really believes that the voices and hallucinations are real. My favorite example of this was the Expelled episode wherein he tried to explain to PZ what actually happened at the theater that kicked PZ out, when PZ was physically present and Wally was not.

There's no real reason to try and engage him, any more than there is to engage Mabus, because he doesn't function in everyone else's reality. So, ignore him, make fun of him, insult his parentage, whatever. He will always imagine he wins arguments, while the online record shows him as pathetically inept.

My favorite example of this was the Expelled episode wherein he tried to explain to PZ what actually happened at the theater that kicked PZ out, when PZ was physically present and Wally was not.

Interesting that you bring this up, because I always love to share the facts of the matter. I had an email invitation, and I know what the word RSVP was (look it up in a dictionary if you do not). PZ declined to produce his invitation, which suggests that he was not invited. He never asserted that he was invited, and, by any reasonable person, seemed to gain entrance to the theater by gaming the RSVP system. To attend the private showing.

And PZ booted me from his blog for arguing about it with his readers (or his sockpuppets).

Furthermore, Glen Davidson was, before the Expelled expulsion of PZ, agitating PZ's readers to game the RSVP system on PZ's and, I think, other blogs. These are all facts. I was banned from PZ's blog for pointing out inconvenient facts on his blog, which he found tedious.

To be honest, in hindsight, I do wonder if this was all a publicity stunt on the part of Expelled, with PZ's and RD's cooperation. Also, it is hard to imagine that the evolanders were so daft that they actually thought the Beware the Believers video was produced by anybody other than the people behind Expelled--but they publically professed a belief that it was against Expelled.)

Later, soon after the theater incident, PZ gamed a teleconference system of a teleconference about the film by the producers of the film, and spoke during the conference call. This behavior caused some people on PZ's side (some blogger named Atheist mother, for example) to turn on PZ.

On a more serious but separate note. If ERV finds the videos disturbing, for whatever reason, all she has to do is say the word via email, and the videos come down (though one may go back up after being reworked to address her identity and/or safety concerns). As one moves up in the world of science and/or academia, it is understandable why one might want to better partition his or her online blogging from her career. However, that being said, I don't think she cares, and probably tolerates it for the lulz.

Was that for me, Willy? If so, you missed the mark a little. I don't recall ever reading a New York Times editorial. I might have, but if I did, it wasn't profound enough to be memorable. I definitely haven't ever watched MSNBC. I'm from a wonderful traditional family, played with cap guns, don't have strong views on fossil fuels, and am probably pro nuclear energy. I eat apple pie, drive a car, and use incandescent lights. Not too sure what agricultural fuels are. Is that everything? Oh, wait. Ronald Reagan might scare me.

So overall, an epic profiling fail. NJ, I won't write him off as quickly as you do (not that I blame you). Imagine you were given Wally's list of views to defend in a debate. I can't see it going very differently. He seems selectively rational, which is pretty much what to expect in such a situation.

Also, the Beware the Believers video was just magical. If it was the Expelled folks, then it is their finest contribution to humanity.

Re: "ignoring the points". Could you point me to a (reliable) link verifying the "Mother of all mammals" claim about the Morganucodon?

Could you point me to a (reliable) link verifying the "Mother of all mammals" claim about the Morganucodon?

I don't have a link, but the people who make the claim cite: The Mother of All Mammals Marjorie Mathews, Smithsonian magazine, Nov. '03, p.44. It doesn't show up in the online version, however, so you may have to go to the library.

Previous comment held in moderation has a link. Here is another. morganucodon oelheri

Ye I saw the first one. Was hoping for something a little more informative. Library isn't really an option where I'm from. Where was the geyser in the video going with the whole Morganucodon thing?

I guess it would have ended with a variation of Wilberforce's legendary question to T.H. Huxley, seeking to find out if was through Huxley's mother or father Huxley claimed descent from apes. Or he may have been counting on the audience's preference to trace their lineages through Adam to God, instead of through the Smithsonian's lizard rat.

Lol. Do you trace your lineage through Adam to God?

I have not watched the preview. I do have to admit that if PZ Myers is in the film, and the film was not restricted to members of the clergy, PZ should have been allowed to enter, *if* he registered here: http://rsvp.getexpelled.com/events/events/rsvp/202

Interesting how Wallaids story has changed since then...

For the record, I did receive an invitation to a later one - verbally, from my step-father, an elder at a local church, who knew of my interest. I went to the same site that Wally admitted was legit. It was quite clear that this was not just for clergy, but for anyone interested. When I showed up, it was confirmed that it was canceled, supposedly due to death threats. Wesley Elsberry was going to the same showing as me.

And I love how he claims hindsight wrt a publicity conspiracy. Actually, that was his original argument. It was only a few days later that he changed his mind as to the legitimacy of the RSVP.

My documented family tree doesn't go back that far.  It doesn't even get back to the time of Noah, let alone the time of Jesus.

What about you?  Any plans to add Grandma Morgie to your family tree?  Hang her portrait on the wall, between your portraits of Lucy and Piltdown man?

If it's in a caption on the Smithsonian's photograph, it has to be true, right?

As for the early Comments on PZ, that will teach me to follow the crowd.

>What about you? Any plans to add Grandma Morgie to your family tree? ... If it's in a caption on the Smithsonian's photograph, it has to be true, right?

I'll wait until it says so on wikipedia.

>My documented family tree doesn't go back that far...

But, minus the details, you think Adam is your (and everyone else's) ancestor? If it's in the bible, it has to be true, right?

If it's in the bible, it has to be true, right?

Unlike those who put their faith in science, I can honestly, immediately, and unequivocally say "no."

So you respond to the rhetorical flourish, but not the actual question. Minus the details, do you think Adam is your (and everyone else's) ancestor? Why evade? Are you undecided?

So...What's untrue in the bible, William?

Pi is not 3. For most purposes, Pi as 3 is a pretty good number, though. Better yet, people in the know realize that for most Earth bound problems involving Pi, 22/7 is a great value.

Are you undecided?

I'll restate what I already said: I don't have data. However, if you check your wikipedia, they might point to sundry scientific estimates of the most recent common human ancestor, which vary from 6000/7000 BC to sometime early AD.

My turn: I want to know if your photo of Lucy is to the left or right of Piltdown man.

The left, at least until I took down the pic of The Man in '53.

>However, if you check your wikipedia, they might point to sundry scientific estimates of the most recent common human ancestor, which vary from 6000/7000 BC to sometime early AD.

I hope you don't mind if I rephrase my question: do you think Adam is your (and everyone else's) ancestor, and is also the first human?

This makes the MRCA irrelevant, since there were certainly humans that existed earlier. So you still don't have data, but wiki puts Mitochondrial Eve around 200 000 years ago.

So Adam liked experienced women. Don't judge.

As asked, no.

Ok, great. Do you think we have non-human ancestors?

I'm just trying to find out exactly where the disagreement is. You could save me some time, if you feel inclined, since you probably have a better idea of my beliefs than I do of yours. I'm sure you've articulated your position before, but I'm relatively new here.

Ben, I think that WW doesn't know what he believes. He has to wait until someone he respects, like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin tells him what he believes. All he knows it isn't whatever someone who reads books, does research and writes papers thinks.

Ben, I think that WW doesn't know what he believes. He has to wait until someone he respects, like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin tells him what he believes.

You do realize, deadalus2u, that ben is the guy who wants to wait to see something on wikipedia before he believes it.

The irony.

Yes willy, and unless something is on Conservepedia and not believed by the "reality based commnity" you won't believe it.

Strange.

Well, what can I say? I have a stringent threshold for belief :)

You didn't say whether you believe we have non-human ancestors though. So, do you?

I don't know your anncestors, but if you say they weren't human, who am I to doubt it.

Well done. But do you think you had an non-human ancestors?

I am very skeptical of the power of evolution to create new advanced species from primitive ones. Indeed, given the macro theory of evolution's utter inability to quantitatively predict the future in meaningful and surprising ways, such skepticism is not unreasonable.

E.g., a nice, falsifiable, and scientifically quantifiable prediction, such as: species X will evolve into species Y between N and M generations in environment E, and will have characteristics C that differ from X's characteristics by D, with a probability of P greater than 0.95.

I'm still waiting for a real scientist to come in and help out. I understand that genetics, for example, has had some physicists come in and help, but no unifying mathematical theory has yet resulted, from what I gather.

And don't give me that "you can't have a unifying mathematical theory in biology because it is random" crap. The motion of gas molecules is random. Electron orbits are random. Thermal noise is random. But we can still make quantitative predictions about the future in these other fields.

The Macro theory of Evolution is nothing more than a story that fits a sparse historical record. It is more well-known than other contemporary advances in science. E.g., I dare say Darwin is more well-known than James Clerk Maxwell, not because he was a greater scientist--he was not--but because people like T.H. Huxley found in Darwin a thorn to goad what he viewed as the unenlightened masses. Such motives continue to exist in PBS documentaries, where evolution and climate change are gratuitously shoehorned into just about any topic, as though it were propaganda.

In any event, stories are fun to think about, but it takes more than a story and more than Wikipedia or scientific consensus to sway me, as consensus has proven, historically, to be a poor indicator for reality.
Put forward some falsifiable predictions about future species and I'd start to take it more seriously.

Maxwell put forth his theory. It took some number of years to corroborate it experimentally. But his theory, formed before quantum physics, is still there--a pillar of science for the future to marvel upon.

If you're looking for respect for your views, do the hard work, like Maxwell, Heaviside, Hertz, et al. did.

Oh, for dog's sake. I will regret feeding this troll, but for the benefit of any casual passers-by who might think WW has a point:

Let's begin with an analogy. If my weatherman can't tell me, with probability greater than 0.95, exactly what the temperature will be on my birthday in 2012, what shape the clouds will be, whether and how hard it will rain, how hard the wind will blow, from which direction, etc., then meteorology is nothing more than a religion and is a "poor indicator for reality."

WW would have us know all of the following, simultaneously:

1. Which mutations will occur, and when, and to which germ-line DNA molecules in which individuals
2. Which individuals carrying those mutations will not have the bad luck to be born in a brief time of environmental inhospitability (drought, higher-than-usual numbers of predators, flood, whatever)
3. How many offspring each individual will have, for all the generations required in this model, and which of them will survive to adulthood
4. Exactly how each mutation in genotype affects phenotype
5. Exactly how genetic drift will affect the frequency of each new mutation
6. Exactly how a population will be split into two or more, and when, and which individuals will find themselves on which side of the divide, and which alleles they all carry
7. Which individuals will mate with which. For plants, which grains of pollen will find their ways to which flowers
8. Exactly how each player in an ecosystem (other species, predators, prey, water, climate, ...) will affect the breeding, feeding, and just general which-way-do-I-turn-now behavior of each individual

And those are just the ones I happened to think of in the time it took me to type this comment.

If WW cared about science, he would understand that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle alone prevents just number 1 above.

But in WW's world, we don't know this because biologists are lazy. Fuck you and your preening ignorance, WW.

If physics knows so much about how my car gets from place to place, then why couldn't it predict that I would run into that tree?!?!

PHYSICS IS A SHAM

Shoot, didn't mean to doublepost. I only hit "Post" once, too. Stupid Droid. ANOTHER FAILURE OF PHYSICS AND ENGINEERING

scientific consensus to sway me, as consensus has proven, historically, to be a poor indicator for reality

I think you got some bait in your switch there.

>I am very skeptical of the power of evolution to create new advanced species from primitive ones...

That's nice. But do you think you have non-human ancestors?

Let's begin with an analogy.

Nice story, bro

@WW:

I am not your "bro," and take it that you do not have a substantive response.

Does he ever?

@minimalist:

No, he doesn't. I fed the troll only for the benefit of passers-by, and see no reason to continue.

I â¦take it that you do not have a substantive response.

Regarding #55, in response to #54: your inability to accurately read a situation is curious, if not feigned. You made a statement on how complicated biology is and how difficult it would be to make scientific predictions about the future, while completely ignoring my prophylactic:

And don't give me that "you can't have a unifying mathematical theory in biology because it is random" crap.

I laughed at you. I am still laughing at you.

I fed the troll only for the benefit of passers-by

More humor fodder: just in case somebody googles "evolution lol brb."

If you're really concerned about passer-bys, you should expand your concern for those passer-bys who are able to recognize your (possibly feigned/possibly authentic) obliviousness to what exactly you're responding to, and your straw man argumentation and false summaries of my stance, as though it were difficult for your hypothetical passer-bys to scroll back up one comment and read what I actually wrote. Anyway, if that's all you got, I'm not concerned about passer-bys going your way. You've impressed the fanboys, but we already knew that's not difficult.

Why the reluctance to answer my question? Do you think you had any non-human ancestors?

what exactly you're responding to

A self-infatuated douchenozzle who vastly overrates his understanding of biology science anything at all?