I am going to watch the video. I will say that given that Haught is a Roman Catholic, it's very likely that he's a theistic evolutionist of some variety. If that's not the case, then he's going against his own church's teachings. That's not necessarily a problem per se, but siding with pseudoscience against your church is a special kind of obtuse that would make even Ken Ham blush.
One thing, though: The suffix "-ism" is derived from a Greek declension which forms abstract nouns from verbs. No more, no less. People outside the US (especially in the UK, where classical education isn't shunned) tend not to have a problem with words like "Darwinism" (despite "Darwin" not being a verb). After all, by your definition, "autism", "heroism", "truism", "euphemism", "magnetism", "mechanism" and "astigmatism" aren't -isms, either.
I haven't watched the video yet, but according to his Wikipedia page, Haught is an evolutionist. I don't see what anachronistic fossils would do to his position.
Why not use a tool like science, when it is there, and it makes predictions about the world? Something religion never has done.
That's a category error, but it's an understandable one since people like Haught often make the same error.
The purpose of religion isn't to make predictions about the natural world, though it has historically been forced into doing that in the absence of anything better. Its primary evolutionary "purpose" (with the caveat that nothing that arises by evolution can properly be spoken of as having a "purpose") is organise individual organisms into a superorganism, just like a beehive or ant colony. It also collates and curates observations about human nature, the existential questions that humans ask, elaborately worked-out thought experiments in human psychology, and even provides some well-tested suggestions as to what to do about it all.
As an added bonus, it provides monumental works of art as a byproduct. Something that science has never done.
I dislike him because he's a manipulative lying douche whos got a bunch of ignorant people like you wrapped around his finger.
I dislike Larry Flynt because he's a tasteless moron who, single-handed, reduced the quality of print publishing to the level of the truly stupid and gave satire a bad name. However, what he published was perfectly within his legal rights, and he did the right thing by defending them.
The very notion of "tolerance" presupposes the existence of something which you, personally, detest. And the very notion of "free speech" presupposes the existence of speech or speakers of which you personally disapprove. Otherwise, it means nothing.
Like you (I'm willing to bet), I haven't seen the debate. Unlike you, I'm unwilling to draw a conclusion as to what was actually covered in the debate.
Having said that, we can make an educated guess rather than rely on stereotypes. Looking up John Haught's wikipedia page was helpful. It seems that as far as scientific facts go (e.g. evolution, modern cosmology etc), Haught and Coyne basically agree. The debate was over whether science and religion were "compatible"; presumably, if you could be a scientist and religious.
Nobody disputes that there are many religions for which it's essentially impossible. However, there are perfectly reasonable definitions of "religion" for which this is clearly true. There are plenty of religions which don't have the "imaginary friend" property, for example. This includes some nonstandard variants of the Abrahamic religions, as well as many of the dharmic religions. The devil is in the details.
And having said all that, even if I were an accomplished public speaker, I wouldn't want go give a speech advocating that water is wet in front of Jerry Coyne's fanboys. That'd be a horrible experience.
Well, my country's media never reported about the nonviolent resistance movement that arose against Chinese occupation. Rather, it only reports about the gun nuts. As a result, the nonviolent resistance movement gets slowly more marginalised and the gun nuts get larger and stronger in the world's public eye. Eventually, the gun nuts get so strong that they start running for local office and, because they're the only ones who seem to be able to get their faces in the world's media, they start winning elections.
Now we have two entrenched sides to a dispute: batshit crazy gun nuts on one side, and oppressive totalitarian bullies on the other side. Asking me which side I sympathise with is like asking me if I sympathise more with Hitler or Stalin in WW2.
What you can do is the only thing that reliably lowers the birth rate: Educate women and girls.
In some places places like Japan and Australia, there are more deaths than births. Japan's population is shrinking. Australia's would be too were it not for immigration.
I do admit that when it goes over the magic $1 billion mark, it sounds like a lot. Last year's budget, 750 million, didn't sound like nearly as much.
Having said that, the reality is that it is far more expensive to establish weights and measures today than it was 200 years ago, because lots more things have to be measured (e.g. fundamental physical constants, x-ray absorption of pure elements) and to a far higher precision, and the requirements are only getting more demanding as time goes on.
Let me ask you this: why do you HATE your fellow Americans so much that you are so willing to take what they worked to earn and give it to those who, far too often, have not worked to better their own situation?
In Australia, most non-mature-age students who start postgraduate degrees attended private schools. But most non-mature-age students who complete postgraduate degrees attended public schools.
The way your country was initially, people didn't elect senators. This was changed because state legislatures were too lethargic and corrupt to handle the job of producing senators.
I point this out because moving things from the federal level to the state level does not always imply "a more direct democracy". Sometimes you need to move control up the levels of government to get closer to democracy.
Exactly. There is no such thing as a self-made person in the United States because of the common benefits that everyone enjoys. Taxation is merely the cost of living in civilised society. That a lot of your tax dollar is misspent is undeniable, but irrelevant.
Incidentally, the job of the NIST is explicitly authorised in section 8 of the US Constitution. It's not often that Ron Paul makes a proposal that goes against strict constitutionalism, but there you go.
These agencies should be on the State level not the Federal level.
Does anyone honestly think that it would be better if there were 50 different measurement standards bodies instead of just the NIST? It's bad enough getting a product certified for North America, Europe and China. Imagine having to get it certified by every US state separately.
What I'm saying is that a single-event forced redistribution of wealth would only raise the standard of living temporarily.
When women entered the workforce, families started earning a lot more, which made them better off for a while. Then prices readjusted. Today, single-income families are essentially priced out of the property market in most places.
What this means is that if you repeatedly cut the top 1% down to the mean and distribute it among everyone else, it doesn't take long before you have dramatically increased the overall standard of living.
Errr... no. What happens is that people who sell things profiteer off the windfall. The cost of living increases to the point where the poor are still poor and the middle class are still middle class. That is precisely what happened when women entered the workforce in a big way in the 1970s.
You have a five-figure user id, so you're probably Gen X. If your parents owned the house you grew up in, chances are good that you couldn't afford to buy it today.
Since you asked so nicely, I have the most common brand of phone in Australia. Quick run-down, looking at all of the brand names on it and in the documentation:
Nokia - Finland
Symbian - UK
ARM - UK
Carl Zeiss AG - Germany
And while it's not the most common, but the application on it I use the most:
You may have noticed that it's not very much Halloween stuff. In Melbourne, where I live, there are something like 20,000 expatriate Americans. I imagine that the proportions are probably similar in other capitals. My wife is one of them (though she doesn't "do" Halloween).
I guess my question is: Do you believe in multiculturalism, or don't you?
If everyone was doing Halloween, that would be one thing. But a dozen pumpkins in a cheap cardboard stand isn't exactly cultural imperialism.
Not quite. The one that David Gulpilil's character danced around was indeed Muchea. All of the others are post-Mercury era: Carnarvon was built for Gemini, and Orroral Valley, Honeysuckle Creek and Tidbinbilla were built for Apollo. And, of course, Tidbinbilla is the only station still open.
Slashdot Mirror
He's a young-Earth creationist. Admittedly, that's only one of his "theories", but it's not a good sign.
I am going to watch the video. I will say that given that Haught is a Roman Catholic, it's very likely that he's a theistic evolutionist of some variety. If that's not the case, then he's going against his own church's teachings. That's not necessarily a problem per se, but siding with pseudoscience against your church is a special kind of obtuse that would make even Ken Ham blush.
One thing, though: The suffix "-ism" is derived from a Greek declension which forms abstract nouns from verbs. No more, no less. People outside the US (especially in the UK, where classical education isn't shunned) tend not to have a problem with words like "Darwinism" (despite "Darwin" not being a verb). After all, by your definition, "autism", "heroism", "truism", "euphemism", "magnetism", "mechanism" and "astigmatism" aren't -isms, either.
I haven't watched the video yet, but according to his Wikipedia page, Haught is an evolutionist. I don't see what anachronistic fossils would do to his position.
That's a category error, but it's an understandable one since people like Haught often make the same error.
The purpose of religion isn't to make predictions about the natural world, though it has historically been forced into doing that in the absence of anything better. Its primary evolutionary "purpose" (with the caveat that nothing that arises by evolution can properly be spoken of as having a "purpose") is organise individual organisms into a superorganism, just like a beehive or ant colony. It also collates and curates observations about human nature, the existential questions that humans ask, elaborately worked-out thought experiments in human psychology, and even provides some well-tested suggestions as to what to do about it all.
As an added bonus, it provides monumental works of art as a byproduct. Something that science has never done.
I dislike him because he's a manipulative lying douche whos got a bunch of ignorant people like you wrapped around his finger.
I dislike Larry Flynt because he's a tasteless moron who, single-handed, reduced the quality of print publishing to the level of the truly stupid and gave satire a bad name. However, what he published was perfectly within his legal rights, and he did the right thing by defending them.
The very notion of "tolerance" presupposes the existence of something which you, personally, detest. And the very notion of "free speech" presupposes the existence of speech or speakers of which you personally disapprove. Otherwise, it means nothing.
Like you (I'm willing to bet), I haven't seen the debate. Unlike you, I'm unwilling to draw a conclusion as to what was actually covered in the debate.
Having said that, we can make an educated guess rather than rely on stereotypes. Looking up John Haught's wikipedia page was helpful. It seems that as far as scientific facts go (e.g. evolution, modern cosmology etc), Haught and Coyne basically agree. The debate was over whether science and religion were "compatible"; presumably, if you could be a scientist and religious.
Nobody disputes that there are many religions for which it's essentially impossible. However, there are perfectly reasonable definitions of "religion" for which this is clearly true. There are plenty of religions which don't have the "imaginary friend" property, for example. This includes some nonstandard variants of the Abrahamic religions, as well as many of the dharmic religions. The devil is in the details.
And having said all that, even if I were an accomplished public speaker, I wouldn't want go give a speech advocating that water is wet in front of Jerry Coyne's fanboys. That'd be a horrible experience.
Well, my country's media never reported about the nonviolent resistance movement that arose against Chinese occupation. Rather, it only reports about the gun nuts. As a result, the nonviolent resistance movement gets slowly more marginalised and the gun nuts get larger and stronger in the world's public eye. Eventually, the gun nuts get so strong that they start running for local office and, because they're the only ones who seem to be able to get their faces in the world's media, they start winning elections.
Now we have two entrenched sides to a dispute: batshit crazy gun nuts on one side, and oppressive totalitarian bullies on the other side. Asking me which side I sympathise with is like asking me if I sympathise more with Hitler or Stalin in WW2.
What you can do is the only thing that reliably lowers the birth rate: Educate women and girls.
In some places places like Japan and Australia, there are more deaths than births. Japan's population is shrinking. Australia's would be too were it not for immigration.
I do admit that when it goes over the magic $1 billion mark, it sounds like a lot. Last year's budget, 750 million, didn't sound like nearly as much.
Having said that, the reality is that it is far more expensive to establish weights and measures today than it was 200 years ago, because lots more things have to be measured (e.g. fundamental physical constants, x-ray absorption of pure elements) and to a far higher precision, and the requirements are only getting more demanding as time goes on.
Let me ask you this: why do you HATE your fellow Americans so much that you are so willing to take what they worked to earn and give it to those who, far too often, have not worked to better their own situation?
You're still talking about North Dakota, right?
In Australia, most non-mature-age students who start postgraduate degrees attended private schools. But most non-mature-age students who complete postgraduate degrees attended public schools.
Make of that what you will.
The way your country was initially, people didn't elect senators. This was changed because state legislatures were too lethargic and corrupt to handle the job of producing senators.
I point this out because moving things from the federal level to the state level does not always imply "a more direct democracy". Sometimes you need to move control up the levels of government to get closer to democracy.
Exactly. There is no such thing as a self-made person in the United States because of the common benefits that everyone enjoys. Taxation is merely the cost of living in civilised society. That a lot of your tax dollar is misspent is undeniable, but irrelevant.
Incidentally, the job of the NIST is explicitly authorised in section 8 of the US Constitution. It's not often that Ron Paul makes a proposal that goes against strict constitutionalism, but there you go.
These agencies should be on the State level not the Federal level.
Does anyone honestly think that it would be better if there were 50 different measurement standards bodies instead of just the NIST? It's bad enough getting a product certified for North America, Europe and China. Imagine having to get it certified by every US state separately.
Nobody is also forcing you to enjoy liberty or pursue happiness.
(P.S. You are not my authority.)
You can have your hoverboard right after they start making pavements out of rare earth magnets.
Gxoju gxin dum gxi kontinuas, pro tio ke cxio devas fortransi.
It depends how it's done. Many record holders develop new algorithmic or implementation techniques in the process, and that's actually very useful.
What I'm saying is that a single-event forced redistribution of wealth would only raise the standard of living temporarily.
When women entered the workforce, families started earning a lot more, which made them better off for a while. Then prices readjusted. Today, single-income families are essentially priced out of the property market in most places.
Errr... no. What happens is that people who sell things profiteer off the windfall. The cost of living increases to the point where the poor are still poor and the middle class are still middle class. That is precisely what happened when women entered the workforce in a big way in the 1970s.
You have a five-figure user id, so you're probably Gen X. If your parents owned the house you grew up in, chances are good that you couldn't afford to buy it today.
By the way, you should familiarise yourself with what the boxes look like so that if you see one, you can report them for wiretapping.
Since you asked so nicely, I have the most common brand of phone in Australia. Quick run-down, looking at all of the brand names on it and in the documentation:
And while it's not the most common, but the application on it I use the most:
So I appreciate the offer, but I'm good.
You may have noticed that it's not very much Halloween stuff. In Melbourne, where I live, there are something like 20,000 expatriate Americans. I imagine that the proportions are probably similar in other capitals. My wife is one of them (though she doesn't "do" Halloween).
I guess my question is: Do you believe in multiculturalism, or don't you?
If everyone was doing Halloween, that would be one thing. But a dozen pumpkins in a cheap cardboard stand isn't exactly cultural imperialism.
Parkes also wasn't fully operational at the time of Glenn's obit.
Not quite. The one that David Gulpilil's character danced around was indeed Muchea. All of the others are post-Mercury era: Carnarvon was built for Gemini, and Orroral Valley, Honeysuckle Creek and Tidbinbilla were built for Apollo. And, of course, Tidbinbilla is the only station still open.