You are thinking with your emotions, not logic. That's the point, Spock. Why is murder unethical, why is rape unethical, why is thievery unethical? You can logically get a nice justification for all three, but ethics and logic aren't related. Logic's great for some things, not too hot for others. What's illogical is not knowing where and when to apply logic.
We know that babies start to be self aware around the age of 2 Citation needed. We don't give rights based on ability, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a world where what you were capable of determined your legal status. We tried that once or twice, wasn't pretty. Even if babies weren't sentient, that still wouldn't make it ethical.
My sperm one day could also become human, does that make masturbation a crime if I don't make every attempt possible to fertilize an egg?? Is a woman committing murder because she doesn't attempt to get pregnant every period?? You seem to come from the RIAA school of thought. Is not buying something stealing? Gametes != zygotes, comparing them is a straw man. A good arbitrary point for when a zygote forms is, well, when it forms. Not, the question then is, is a zygote human? Well, human is human. Time is irrelevant in that factor.
It's all arbitrary depending on your beliefs, since there are no scientific or legal definitions for a soul. There is also no scientific definition of right or wrong; this is not a scientific debate. Science is applicable only in its own realm; in this case, serves merely as a deviation from the real issue.
Seems that people are more than willing to argue against abortion when they don't have to support the child in the end. Yeah, and people are more likely to argue against the death penalty when they don't have to house the criminals. What's your point?
Since embryos can be frozen for years, it should be based on physical development, not length of time. No, it should be based on humanity. What is human? I would propose that human is anything that can now, will be able to, or has been able to answer that question for itself, assuming average capabilities.
That kind of abuse of power being supported by Western countries almost unanimously is an injustice that gives legitimacy to the terrorists. I was going to say something to the effect of "would you support Native American attacks against all other groups of Americans (e.g. you)? After all, we aggressively built settlements on their land" but logic isn't going to work here, is it? Nothing gives legitimacy to intentionally targeting and slaughtering innocents (and then cheering about it, like the terrorists [note the lack of parenthesis] have done), and it's sad that some people think it does. My mind is boggled by the sheer ignorance of your post.
Oh, no birthright? What about the Israelis who were born there, do they have a birthright to the land they were born on? Fact: there are people being born in Israel. Therefore, it is now their home. Whether or not they originally had a right to the land is irrelevant. If this were not the case, why aren't you telling 300 million Americans to get off stolen land that they 'have no birthright to?'
I don't disagree that oil should be on the way out, but at the moment we still need and use it, and due to the current political issues with oil, I'd much rather be depleting a cheap domestic supply than the alternative. If we don't use this one, we'll simply use another one. The way I see it we should drill there and get the oil, but still focus on the development of alternate fuels. Hopefully, by the time this supply's running low, there will be a viable substitute. Then again, if oil's cheap it might take some of the pressure off alternate fuel research, but I'd hope people aren't that short-sighted.
What I love about the Flamebait mod is that it tells me that somewhere out there, someone knows I'm right, doesn't like it, but cant' come up with a suitable counterpoint. Nice.
Even Dawkins admits that, strictly speaking, he's an agnostic. Agnosticism is the belief that we don't have the means to find evidence for or against anything commonly labeled theistic. This is correct, we currently do not have the means. Dawkins preaches that there is nothing in the universe that is commonly described as theistic. Since he's trying to take it from a scientific standpoint, this is scientifically short-sighted, as he's making the claim that science won't progress to that point; luckily the philosophy and media-whoring (used mostly to peddle his latest book) came before science got involved. It doesn't sound like agnosticism to me.
They gave a small amount of cash ($14 USD) to some people to see how they would behave, and now they're claiming they found a gene that's partly responsible for the actions of famous dictators and mass murderers. They're reading a heck of lot into this, aren't they? Who's to say that, for example, short AVPR1a genes aren't a trait of a particular group of people in the region who are just a bit more strapped for cash. Yeah, I just pulled that example out of the usual place, but it'd be nice if people would actually run their hypothesis through a few more tests before making such bold claims. Then again, I guess those grant checks don't write themselves...
Providing insurance to everyone is not the answer. Reducing the cost of health care is the answer. So that a procedure that once cost 10x what a poor family could afford is now only 5x what they can afford? Unless you can really drop the cost, it doesn't make any difference to the lowest income brackets.
The real big problem is the lack of competition and choice that allows all kinds of health care providers -- from drugs to machines to hospitals -- to jack up the cost of health care. While that may work in theory, the problem with that idea is that it will very likely result in low and high quality care determined by wealth. Normal and inferior goods are fine for luxury items, but not for life.
Anyway, an economy is most productive when its labor force is taken care of. What helps the individual helps the whole, which in turn helps the individual.
No, just an abortion clinic or two Yeah? And eco-terrorists have a thing for blowing up labs every now and again. Does that mean that environmentalism is bad. Of course not. Do a few loons blowing up abortion clinics made Christianity bad? Of course not.
No, but they've come pretty close. As a Christian, I think those guys are asses. Don't try to paint a whole group with the idiocy of a few.
In my defense, I think the GP mixed and matched facts and stuck them to Newton, so I didn't know which one he was referring to. I assumed it was Galileo because his Catholic interaction is more widely known than Copernicus's because of the house arrest thing. Of course, since he was also talking about Earth not being the center of the universe, I guess he could have been referring to Copernicus. Maybe the post was intended to be a joke that no one got?
I agree that loosing the 'babes' is a good thing. Sex sells, but it also waters down what I'm really watching for: expensive toys breaking other expensive toys in the coolest possible manner. I assume that most people were watching for the same reason, not to see the cheerleaders.
The burden of proof rests on anyone claiming something they can't prove. For example, I claim that there in a God beyond the laws of science. Can I prove it? No, not really. I can say we all have a good time at various church events, and that, in my belief, it would be eternally beneficial to believe this way, but I can't, nor do I claim to, really be able back my statements with hard scientific proof.
Now, you're claiming that there is absolutely nothing beyond what we can presently observe. Well, that's pretty short-sighted, isn't it? People used to claim that man would never reach the moon because they couldn't presently see it happening. You're saying that there is no, say, fourth dimensional being (or whatever) out there based on no proof. Its like claiming that the world isn't a brain in a vat scenario. There's no proof, no evidence whatsoever, for or against the idea. If someone claims either way, that person needs to provide evidence of it, and at the present time, that evidence is nonexistent.
That's the the parent poster was getting at. I have no proof for my beliefs, you have no proof for yours. Is there an invisible pink unicorn beside me right now? Maybe, I don't claim there is or isn't. If I do start claiming either way, I either need proof, or I'm taking its existence or lack thereof on faith. With respect to the unicorn, I'm agnostic. If I were to say I was atheistic with respect to the unicorn, I'd have to develop a method of proving that there is absolutely nothing there, in no way shape or form, and quite frankly, that's impossible. Likewise, if I claim it's there, and search for it but don't find it, there's always going to be the possibility that there's some method of finding it I haven't tried. Either way, I'm not likely to definitively prove anything.
IMHO, the universe is a pretty big place, and we haven't even seen a fraction of a percent of whats out there. An irrational belief that there is something else out there has a lot higher chances of being right than a belief that there's not anything else out there. The only current truly logical belief, I must admit, is agnosticism, which people tend to confuse with atheism. I'm not going to tell you what to believe, but if you're going to talk about the burden of proof, you're either agnostic or illogical.
These are students, and therefore dirt poor Unlikely. I can't remember where I read it originally, but a quick Google search brings up a report with details of a study of top universities. Turns out in the top 146 universities, 74% of the students are from the top economic quartile, 17% from the second, 6% from the third, and 3% from the last. I don't know how egalitarian Canada's top collages are, but if they're anything like the ones here in the States, it is unlikely that the average student is dirt poor.
I agree. When media whores like Dawkins can't go five minutes without rambling something about how science disproves all religions in their entirety and that people who still believe in those them are the cause of everything from war to famine to bad breath, its no wonder the public and science aren't mixing so well, especially in this field. I happen to be a religious person, and I consider myself educated in science fairly well, but when I see books like 'The God Delusion,' I've gotta wonder how a religious person not versed in science would react to that. Not well, I'm guessing. Then when I read people's comments on Slashdot about how Christians (or whoever) are teh stupid for believing in the 'invisible man in the sky,' as many so eloquently put it, I wonder how many of them parrot that crap to people they meet offline, because being an asshole tends to be counterproductive. They make scientists look bad, they make atheists look bad.
The problem, IMO, is that some people see it as an us-them situation. They see themselves, then they see scientists as arrogant know-it-alls. That doesn't just affect evolutionary science, it affects all ares of science. Defusing that would be a start, but first everyone has to grow up, chill out, and (in the case of assholes) shut up, especially with the whole anti-religious shtick.
Religion and ignorance have lost ground, while knowledge and understanding have gained. Nice false dichotomy you've got going there. It's not uncommon for them to be present together, but religious belief is not synonymous with ignorance, nor is it the opposite of knowledge and understanding. Religion causes ignorance like flies cause garbage; directly linking religion to ignorance is as dumb as Jack Thompson directly linking video games to murder.
Many non-religious populations have the same problem. Rather than blaming it on belief in the 'man in the sky,' why not attribute it to the fact that society simply doesn't but enough emphasis on intellectualism in lieu of picking scapegoats?
One of them (O. ficus-indica) is edible, but since I just got it about a year ago as unrooted pads, really I don't know how often it will set fruit. If you really want to know, you can ask people wiser than myself on this forum or this one. If you didn't already know, you can also eat the young pads of some Opuntia species, provided you've passed them under a flame to burn off those darned glochids.
For office plants, I'd suggest getting something cooler than a philo to keep your aloe company, like maybe a nice Haworthia (an Aloe relative). I've never tested this out, but they are supposed to be able to thrive in relatively low light conditions, like an office, and thanks to their small size, they're space conservant. My favorite member of the genus is H. limafolia (especially the rarer nigra and varigate forms). An office cactus might become light stretched and sickly unless you've got a corner cube with a window, but it never hurts to try. There are lots of cool and moderately easy things to try growing; my personal favorite are succulent members of the Euporbia genus, and the Haworthia mentioned above, but there are also nice genera like Echeveria, Crassula, Gasteria, Aeonium, Senecio, Pachypodium, Kalanchoe, Aloe (there are way cool things out there besides aloe vera), and in the cactus family, Mammillaria, Lobivia, Austrocylindropuntia, Tephrocactus, Oreocereus, Myrtillocactus, Hylocereus, Pereskiopsis, and many others.
All those genera have some species that are easy to grow, provided they're kept dry between their weekly, biweekly, or monthly waterings, depending on species and season (except Pereskiopsis and, to a lesser extent, Hylocereus, jungle cacti that don't mind being wet). If they're too wet they will rot, the number one killer of potted cacti and succulents. If you decide to try your hand at them, don't worry if you rot a few; everyone does. Many of them can be found at your local Lowes, Home Depot, or Wal-Mart, probably in crappy soil with a flower glued to them dying from lack of/too much water and not enough light. Worst case scenario you're out a few bucks, best case you've made yourself a lifelong friend.
They might need to be rotated between work and a window at home every now and again, depending on how much much light they're getting, but I guarantee your cube will look better if its loaded with spiky, colorful, and otherwise strange plants that look like they came from another planet.
If you can't grow anything, I suggest you get an Opuntia. I haven't watered a few of mine since early December, and they're fine. Of course, the glochids will make your life miserable if you touch them, but they're still pretty cool and most species are fairly easy to grow (not all easy though; O. microdasys and some others can be hard). As long as the soil drains and drys quickly, you don't overwater it, and it gets enough light, pretty much anyone can grow one. If you can't grow an Opuntia, you probably can't grow anything. Everyone on Slashdot should have an Opuntia.
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Oh, no birthright? What about the Israelis who were born there, do they have a birthright to the land they were born on?
Fact: there are people being born in Israel. Therefore, it is now their home. Whether or not they originally had a right to the land is irrelevant. If this were not the case, why aren't you telling 300 million Americans to get off stolen land that they 'have no birthright to?'
I would like to add that there's also this passage describing infinity via the distance between east and west.
I don't disagree that oil should be on the way out, but at the moment we still need and use it, and due to the current political issues with oil, I'd much rather be depleting a cheap domestic supply than the alternative. If we don't use this one, we'll simply use another one. The way I see it we should drill there and get the oil, but still focus on the development of alternate fuels. Hopefully, by the time this supply's running low, there will be a viable substitute. Then again, if oil's cheap it might take some of the pressure off alternate fuel research, but I'd hope people aren't that short-sighted.
What I love about the Flamebait mod is that it tells me that somewhere out there, someone knows I'm right, doesn't like it, but cant' come up with a suitable counterpoint. Nice.
And all this time I though it was the mustache.
They gave a small amount of cash ($14 USD) to some people to see how they would behave, and now they're claiming they found a gene that's partly responsible for the actions of famous dictators and mass murderers. They're reading a heck of lot into this, aren't they? Who's to say that, for example, short AVPR1a genes aren't a trait of a particular group of people in the region who are just a bit more strapped for cash. Yeah, I just pulled that example out of the usual place, but it'd be nice if people would actually run their hypothesis through a few more tests before making such bold claims. Then again, I guess those grant checks don't write themselves...
Anyway, an economy is most productive when its labor force is taken care of. What helps the individual helps the whole, which in turn helps the individual.
In my defense, I think the GP mixed and matched facts and stuck them to Newton, so I didn't know which one he was referring to. I assumed it was Galileo because his Catholic interaction is more widely known than Copernicus's because of the house arrest thing. Of course, since he was also talking about Earth not being the center of the universe, I guess he could have been referring to Copernicus. Maybe the post was intended to be a joke that no one got?
Eh, whatever.
Newton != Galileo. I know they looked a lot alike, but trust me, they were different people.
I agree that loosing the 'babes' is a good thing. Sex sells, but it also waters down what I'm really watching for: expensive toys breaking other expensive toys in the coolest possible manner. I assume that most people were watching for the same reason, not to see the cheerleaders.
-1, Troll. For all those times when you don't agree, but just can't seem to logically defend your position.
The burden of proof rests on anyone claiming something they can't prove. For example, I claim that there in a God beyond the laws of science. Can I prove it? No, not really. I can say we all have a good time at various church events, and that, in my belief, it would be eternally beneficial to believe this way, but I can't, nor do I claim to, really be able back my statements with hard scientific proof.
Now, you're claiming that there is absolutely nothing beyond what we can presently observe. Well, that's pretty short-sighted, isn't it? People used to claim that man would never reach the moon because they couldn't presently see it happening. You're saying that there is no, say, fourth dimensional being (or whatever) out there based on no proof. Its like claiming that the world isn't a brain in a vat scenario. There's no proof, no evidence whatsoever, for or against the idea. If someone claims either way, that person needs to provide evidence of it, and at the present time, that evidence is nonexistent.
That's the the parent poster was getting at. I have no proof for my beliefs, you have no proof for yours. Is there an invisible pink unicorn beside me right now? Maybe, I don't claim there is or isn't. If I do start claiming either way, I either need proof, or I'm taking its existence or lack thereof on faith. With respect to the unicorn, I'm agnostic. If I were to say I was atheistic with respect to the unicorn, I'd have to develop a method of proving that there is absolutely nothing there, in no way shape or form, and quite frankly, that's impossible. Likewise, if I claim it's there, and search for it but don't find it, there's always going to be the possibility that there's some method of finding it I haven't tried. Either way, I'm not likely to definitively prove anything.
IMHO, the universe is a pretty big place, and we haven't even seen a fraction of a percent of whats out there. An irrational belief that there is something else out there has a lot higher chances of being right than a belief that there's not anything else out there. The only current truly logical belief, I must admit, is agnosticism, which people tend to confuse with atheism. I'm not going to tell you what to believe, but if you're going to talk about the burden of proof, you're either agnostic or illogical.
I agree. When media whores like Dawkins can't go five minutes without rambling something about how science disproves all religions in their entirety and that people who still believe in those them are the cause of everything from war to famine to bad breath, its no wonder the public and science aren't mixing so well, especially in this field. I happen to be a religious person, and I consider myself educated in science fairly well, but when I see books like 'The God Delusion,' I've gotta wonder how a religious person not versed in science would react to that. Not well, I'm guessing. Then when I read people's comments on Slashdot about how Christians (or whoever) are teh stupid for believing in the 'invisible man in the sky,' as many so eloquently put it, I wonder how many of them parrot that crap to people they meet offline, because being an asshole tends to be counterproductive. They make scientists look bad, they make atheists look bad.
The problem, IMO, is that some people see it as an us-them situation. They see themselves, then they see scientists as arrogant know-it-alls. That doesn't just affect evolutionary science, it affects all ares of science. Defusing that would be a start, but first everyone has to grow up, chill out, and (in the case of assholes) shut up, especially with the whole anti-religious shtick.
Many non-religious populations have the same problem. Rather than blaming it on belief in the 'man in the sky,' why not attribute it to the fact that society simply doesn't but enough emphasis on intellectualism in lieu of picking scapegoats?
One of them (O. ficus-indica) is edible, but since I just got it about a year ago as unrooted pads, really I don't know how often it will set fruit. If you really want to know, you can ask people wiser than myself on this forum or this one. If you didn't already know, you can also eat the young pads of some Opuntia species, provided you've passed them under a flame to burn off those darned glochids.
For office plants, I'd suggest getting something cooler than a philo to keep your aloe company, like maybe a nice Haworthia (an Aloe relative). I've never tested this out, but they are supposed to be able to thrive in relatively low light conditions, like an office, and thanks to their small size, they're space conservant. My favorite member of the genus is H. limafolia (especially the rarer nigra and varigate forms). An office cactus might become light stretched and sickly unless you've got a corner cube with a window, but it never hurts to try. There are lots of cool and moderately easy things to try growing; my personal favorite are succulent members of the Euporbia genus, and the Haworthia mentioned above, but there are also nice genera like Echeveria, Crassula, Gasteria, Aeonium, Senecio, Pachypodium, Kalanchoe, Aloe (there are way cool things out there besides aloe vera), and in the cactus family, Mammillaria, Lobivia, Austrocylindropuntia, Tephrocactus, Oreocereus, Myrtillocactus, Hylocereus, Pereskiopsis, and many others.
All those genera have some species that are easy to grow, provided they're kept dry between their weekly, biweekly, or monthly waterings, depending on species and season (except Pereskiopsis and, to a lesser extent, Hylocereus, jungle cacti that don't mind being wet). If they're too wet they will rot, the number one killer of potted cacti and succulents. If you decide to try your hand at them, don't worry if you rot a few; everyone does. Many of them can be found at your local Lowes, Home Depot, or Wal-Mart, probably in crappy soil with a flower glued to them dying from lack of/too much water and not enough light. Worst case scenario you're out a few bucks, best case you've made yourself a lifelong friend.
They might need to be rotated between work and a window at home every now and again, depending on how much much light they're getting, but I guarantee your cube will look better if its loaded with spiky, colorful, and otherwise strange plants that look like they came from another planet.
..or you could educate them instead of locking up everyone who doesn't live up to your standards, but that wouldn't satisfy you elitism, would it?
If you can't grow anything, I suggest you get an Opuntia. I haven't watered a few of mine since early December, and they're fine. Of course, the glochids will make your life miserable if you touch them, but they're still pretty cool and most species are fairly easy to grow (not all easy though; O. microdasys and some others can be hard). As long as the soil drains and drys quickly, you don't overwater it, and it gets enough light, pretty much anyone can grow one. If you can't grow an Opuntia, you probably can't grow anything. Everyone on Slashdot should have an Opuntia.