Mr. Dawkins - Are you going to insist on continuing to be an uncompromising asshat to those who disagree with your opinions and beliefs, or have you finally recognized both the irony of such a tactic, and the fact that it's far easier to attract flies with honey...
Indeed; calling an M.A., D.Sc, Oxford emeritus fellow an 'asshat' certainly does drip with the honey of cordiality.
...400 genes is so much complex to be generated by luck or by mutation from nothing.
You really need to read Dawkin's "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution." He walks you through the steps from primordial soup to humans.
If evolution "evolves" creatures with time in response to changing environments , why are sharks and alligators still around essentially unchanged for millions of years?
You answered your own question. Creatures 'evolve' with time, in response to changing environments. If their environments don't change much (as with the hermit crab) or their current structure is successful at eating and breeding, there is no evolutionary pressure for their structure to change.
...I'm genuinely interested in the scientific explanation (or theory) of why homosexuality occurs
My guess is that it's a form of population control. Rats go spontaneously gay in overcrowded living conditions.
Additionally, one (human) study found that gay men, had, "on average 1.32 older brothers compared to heterosexual men, who had an average of 0.96 older brothers."
That makes sense from a "selfish gene" standpoint; the older brother would be carrying roughly the same code as the younger brother, and in overcrowded conditions, it would be less efficient for them to be competing with their brothers to inseminate the same females.
A characteristic of God is that He has some attributes that are infinite. He exists infinitely past and future (the Alpha and Omega), knows all and so forth. Yet, when challenging religious concepts of god(s), atheists insist on treating god(s) as finite beings subject to approximately the same limitations as humans. Why do atheists pick and choose the characteristics of god(s) when trying to discredit religion?
Imagine you are playing a chess game. Your opponent says that you get one move, and your pieces have normals moves. But, when it is your opponent's turn, he says he gets 10 moves in a row, and every one of his pieces can move like a queen.
One of the most egregious examples of this is when creationists try to prove their point.
Their initial claim is that a complex creature (like a human) requires a more complex creature to 'design' them. Fine. That's the rule you want to play by, fine.
Then, often in the same breath, they claim that their god (apparently a very complex creature) doesn't require a more complex creature to have 'designed' him.
So, which is it? Do complex creature require a more complex creature to 'design' them, or not?
And just saying, "That's the magical part! We get to break the rules!" doesn't cut it. You need to play by the same rules.
How many books does Richard Dawkins needs [sic] to make to disprove religion? A lot. But there's only one book that says God exists and there are three versions (tora, new testament and Qoran).
By that logic one could say:
How many copies of religious books are needed to advertise god? 100 million copies of the Bible are given away every year. 30 million copies of the Koran are given away every year.
How many copies of a book does it take to disprove god? Only 2 million Total (not annual) sales of Dawkins "The God Delusion" (in English)
...any other president could have rolled into office and twiddled their thumbs for 4 years and right now we'd have similarly unemployment and a lot more money in the bank.
Dr. Dawkins, (This is a strict science question - nothing to do with religion) I was wondering if you noticed the structural disparity between female and male gonads?
Specifically, that the female (ovaries) are positioned up inside the body, well protected from attack and injury, and separated physically (laterally.) As opposed to the male (testes) which are exposed to thermal influences, chemical attacks, trauma (even while doing something as benign as running, climbing, etc.)
My hypothesis is that this is actually an evolutionary design feature that works like this:
That this design increases the rate of mutation when the group is less well adapted to the current environment.
In an environment that is benign to the group, the males receive less trauma, and the rate of mutation is low.
In an hostile environment, the testes are exposed to more trauma, which produces a higher rate of mutation, in the assumption that we may need more mutational changes to make the environment more tolerable to us.
Consequently, once we have adapted to that new, formerly hostile, environment, the mutation rate would drop down again.
Meanwhile, the females are the carrier of the original code, and the males that mutate in a positive way (vis-à-vis the new hostile environment) are rewarded with breeding/passing on the new, beneficial trait.
Looking at the original Star Trek series I find it interesting that they've got faster than light travel and transporters, but most of their computers don't have screens...
It depends on the imagination of the predictor.
If you look at Stanley Kubrick's 1968 "2001" you'll see them reading/watching news off what could easily be an iPad. And the ship is controlled by voice recognition.
If you really want your mind blown, read Sir Francis Bacon’s "The New Atlantis"
“Carriages without horses.” “Ships without sails.” “Boats for going under water and brooking seas.” “Mechanically made silks, linens and tissues.” recording studios “Glass of divers kinds, among them some metals vitrificated.” "great and spacious houses where we imitate and demonstrate the meteors." (planetarium) grafting and inoculating of trees, fruits and flowers “prolonging of life and the curing of some diseases by refrigeration.” (cryogenics) "we make observations otherwise unseen in the blood and urine." (microscopes)
And Sarah Palin never said she could see Russia from her house...
That's correct. What Palin said (in interview, to 'prove' her international policy experience) was: GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of this state give you? PALIN: They're our next door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.
I don't know who you're responding to with the rest of that. Are you are misquoting things just so you can correct them?
Here's a bone: "Mitt Romney would be a horrible president." Abraham Lincoln -- 1862
I'm pretty sure somebody said it was "bee throw up." Maybe you eat vomit, but for me, "throw up" is a waste product.
This is true for everything you eat: nothing grows seeds, fruit, flesh or whatever with your appetite in mind.
Actually, a lot of fruits and vegetables have evolved to be deliberately attractive to eat by humans and other animals, so they can spread the seeds in their fæces.
If Gore had won, I guess President Lieberman would be leading us to defeat in Iraq right now.
If Gore had won, we probably wouldn't even be in Iraq right now. We would be generating our own solar, and wind energy; and we wouldn't give a crap about Middle East oil anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
The obvious next step beyond randomly generated journal submissions is, of course, randomly generated Slashdot comments.
Wait, you mean all Slashdot comments aren't randomly principled goldfish?
Mr. Dawkins - Are you going to insist on continuing to be an uncompromising asshat to those who disagree with your opinions and beliefs, or have you finally recognized both the irony of such a tactic, and the fact that it's far easier to attract flies with honey...
Indeed; calling an M.A., D.Sc, Oxford emeritus fellow an 'asshat' certainly does drip with the honey of cordiality.
...400 genes is so much complex to be generated by luck or by mutation from nothing.
You really need to read Dawkin's "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution."
He walks you through the steps from primordial soup to humans.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ancestors-Tale-Pilgrimage-Evolution/dp/0618005838
My girlfriend sent her daughter to bible camp. When she came back she told me that she likes Jesus more than me.
Did she explain that Jesus was the camp's Latin dance instructor?
If evolution "evolves" creatures with time in response to changing environments , why are sharks and alligators still around essentially unchanged for millions of years?
You answered your own question.
Creatures 'evolve' with time, in response to changing environments.
If their environments don't change much (as with the hermit crab) or their current structure is successful at eating and breeding, there is no evolutionary pressure for their structure to change.
...I'm genuinely interested in the scientific explanation (or theory) of why homosexuality occurs
My guess is that it's a form of population control.
Rats go spontaneously gay in overcrowded living conditions.
Additionally, one (human) study found that gay men, had, "on average 1.32 older brothers compared to heterosexual men, who had an average of 0.96 older brothers."
That makes sense from a "selfish gene" standpoint; the older brother would be carrying roughly the same code as the younger brother, and in overcrowded conditions, it would be less efficient for them to be competing with their brothers to inseminate the same females.
How do you have knowledge on a subject when you don't have any beliefs in it?
What an odd question.
That's like saying, "How can you think that Pinocchio is fictional, if you think that Pinocchio is fictional?"
By that standard, no one who studies any 'fictional' field (art, movies, novels, television, music) could 'know' anything about their field.
A characteristic of God is that He has some attributes that are infinite. He exists infinitely past and future (the Alpha and Omega), knows all and so forth. Yet, when challenging religious concepts of god(s), atheists insist on treating god(s) as finite beings subject to approximately the same limitations as humans. Why do atheists pick and choose the characteristics of god(s) when trying to discredit religion?
Imagine you are playing a chess game. Your opponent says that you get one move, and your pieces have normals moves. But, when it is your opponent's turn, he says he gets 10 moves in a row, and every one of his pieces can move like a queen.
One of the most egregious examples of this is when creationists try to prove their point.
Their initial claim is that a complex creature (like a human) requires a more complex creature to 'design' them. Fine. That's the rule you want to play by, fine.
Then, often in the same breath, they claim that their god (apparently a very complex creature) doesn't require a more complex creature to have 'designed' him.
So, which is it? Do complex creature require a more complex creature to 'design' them, or not?
And just saying, "That's the magical part! We get to break the rules!" doesn't cut it. You need to play by the same rules.
How many books does Richard Dawkins needs [sic] to make to disprove religion? A lot.
But there's only one book that says God exists and there are three versions (tora, new testament and Qoran).
By that logic one could say:
How many copies of religious books are needed to advertise god?
100 million copies of the Bible are given away every year.
30 million copies of the Koran are given away every year.
How many copies of a book does it take to disprove god?
Only 2 million Total (not annual) sales of Dawkins "The God Delusion" (in English)
Not the Japanese. They love Mech stuff.
You can buy your own mech now. With that extra $1.3 million you have laying around:
http://suidobashijuko.jp/#bto
...any other president could have rolled into office and twiddled their thumbs for 4 years and right now we'd have similarly unemployment and a lot more money in the bank.
By "any other president" do you mean Bush?
And you do know there is "a lot more money in the bank" right now?
http://images2.dailykos.com/i/user/3/Dow_4-year-high2.jpg
Dr. Dawkins,
(This is a strict science question - nothing to do with religion)
I was wondering if you noticed the structural disparity between female and male gonads?
Specifically, that the female (ovaries) are positioned up inside the body, well protected from attack and injury, and separated physically (laterally.) As opposed to the male (testes) which are exposed to thermal influences, chemical attacks, trauma (even while doing something as benign as running, climbing, etc.)
My hypothesis is that this is actually an evolutionary design feature that works like this:
That this design increases the rate of mutation when the group is less well adapted to the current environment.
In an environment that is benign to the group, the males receive less trauma, and the rate of mutation is low.
In an hostile environment, the testes are exposed to more trauma, which produces a higher rate of mutation, in the assumption that we may need more mutational changes to make the environment more tolerable to us.
Consequently, once we have adapted to that new, formerly hostile, environment, the mutation rate would drop down again.
Meanwhile, the females are the carrier of the original code, and the males that mutate in a positive way (vis-à-vis the new hostile environment) are rewarded with breeding/passing on the new, beneficial trait.
I thank you in advance for your comments...
Anyone with an open mind will see that God is really the only rational, logical explanation.
Anyone with an open mind will see that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is really the only rational, logical explanation.
FTFY
Dawkins was an amateur compared to Spitzer.
Yes, Spitzer was the genius who proposed that, "...highly motivated gay and lesbian people could change their sexual orientation."
I'm sure he knows more about evolutionary biology than Dawkins
Obama... ...thinks he's going to deliver them to some Nirvana of some sort- free from all suffering and, I dunno, rainbows and ponies or something.
Rainbows would be nice, but I'm just happy that he's pulling us out of the crap-hole Bush drove us into.
Ooops. Sorry. Didn't mean to use the 'B' word. "The president who must not be named"
Looking at the original Star Trek series I find it interesting that they've got faster than light travel and transporters, but most of their computers don't have screens...
It depends on the imagination of the predictor.
If you look at Stanley Kubrick's 1968 "2001" you'll see them reading/watching news off what could easily be an iPad. And the ship is controlled by voice recognition.
If you really want your mind blown, read Sir Francis Bacon’s "The New Atlantis"
“Carriages without horses.”
“Ships without sails.”
“Boats for going under water and brooking seas.”
“Mechanically made silks, linens and tissues.”
recording studios
“Glass of divers kinds, among them some metals vitrificated.”
"great and spacious houses where we imitate and demonstrate the meteors." (planetarium)
grafting and inoculating of trees, fruits and flowers
“prolonging of life and the curing of some diseases by refrigeration.” (cryogenics)
"we make observations otherwise unseen in the blood and urine." (microscopes)
...all back in 1626!
Mobile phones. Even as recently as 1980, when cellphones were already a reality, nobody saw the ubiquitous pocket phone coming.
1980?
How about Dick Tracy in 1946?
http://f00.inventorspot.com/images/Dt2wrr.jpg
"Mormon fuck."
Of course, the intellectual capacity of the leftist drone on full display.
Thank you for proving my point.
You left out:
"...moron Mormon fuck."
Let's give him credit for cute alliteration.
... Obama wants to make you broker!
Hey - nobody makes us broker than Republicans!
http://www.poolepartners.com.au/images/stories/March_2012/Dow_Jones_Historical_Chart_5_Year.png
"Terrorism is not just people who kill human bodies, but who kill human feelings as well.
By this standard, every girl who ever rejected me for a date is a terrorist.
And Sarah Palin never said she could see Russia from her house...
That's correct. What Palin said (in interview, to 'prove' her international policy experience) was:
GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of this state give you?
PALIN: They're our next door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.
I don't know who you're responding to with the rest of that. Are you are misquoting things just so you can correct them?
Here's a bone:
"Mitt Romney would be a horrible president."
Abraham Lincoln -- 1862
You see how well business flourishes under a Democratic president! That wasn't luck.
Under Bush, everything went to shite!
It is not a waste product.
Nobody said it was.
I'm pretty sure somebody said it was "bee throw up." Maybe you eat vomit, but for me, "throw up" is a waste product.
This is true for everything you eat: nothing grows seeds, fruit, flesh or whatever with your appetite in mind.
Actually, a lot of fruits and vegetables have evolved to be deliberately attractive to eat by humans and other animals, so they can spread the seeds in their fæces.
If Gore had won, I guess President Lieberman would be leading us to defeat in Iraq right now.
If Gore had won, we probably wouldn't even be in Iraq right now.
We would be generating our own solar, and wind energy; and we wouldn't give a crap about Middle East oil anymore.
What's Mitt offering again?
No abortion! Even if you've been raped!
Tax cuts for the rich!
Outsourcing American jobs overseas!
No bailouts for American companies!
No pullout from Afghanistan!