That makes a certain amount of logical sense. The way you have phrased it, it also sounds like common sense, which may or may not actually matter - good rhetoric does not always make a good argument.
But logical and scientific principles are not exactly the same things here.
There's a number of reasons within the scientific method for thinking that stem cell research on fetal sources would give society valuable tools for fighting various diseases - but those reasons rise only to hypothetical status - that is they individually deserve to be called hypothetical, but don't have nearly enough supporting facts to deserve to be called theoretical. Part of the problem here is that the pro-fetal stem cell research side has talked about it as though there's strong, well established theoretical underpinnings for it producing really significant results of tremendous value to society, which we can't get from other sources such as umbilical cord tissues or adult stem cells. There have been too many claims that fetal research will eventually cure all cancers and other methods simply won't, or will, at the very least, take many times as long to get the same results.
To make such claims justifiably, we would have to know a lot of things we just surmise, such as that certain hypothetical models of the effects of lengthened telomere accumulation were better than other models, all coming from established scientists with solid reputations.
There's probably some real negative costs to society in being asked to decide whose science is better, ahead of normal processes of peer review and reproducing experiments or devising the new ones needed to settle which models have better predictive power.
It's not that this 'undermines' Darwin, or that Darwin was 'wrong' about genes, but Evolutionary theory is a hybred. It combines Darwin's insight that natural pressures can select a subset of each generation to differentially reproduce, and Mendel's genetics. When Darwin proposed Natural Selection, he made predictions, such as that whatever mechanisms Heredity used, those mechanisms could not allow for unlimited blending of traits. Mendel's experiments showed how there could be non-blendable control mechanisms at the heart of the reproductive process. It's not just that mutation is a requirement along side natural selection to have the whole theory of Evolution, but that one of Darwin's conditions is the code being occasionally mutated must be a code that doesn't allow more than, at most, very limited blending. So, a non-Mendelian form of genetic transfer doesn't necessarily support Darwin's idea of how selection can work to produce long term changes, and if it doesn't, you can't (or shouldn't) call what's happening in such cases 'evolution'.
You're making a seldom stressed point: usually, it's mentioned how people in more primitive times wanted certainty so they coined such things as religions - seldom does anyone point out that modern lifestyles are a powerful motivator for people to put at least as great a premium on certainty as any peasant of the middle ages felt.
Roman Catholic dogma doesn't really date back to the 7th century though. There's certainly some truth to that view, often an uncomfortable lot for many modern Catholics from what I've seen, but a lot of dogma got locked into place only during the counter-reformation (Council of Trent 1545-1563 a.d.), and not earlier. For a couple of other exceptions, one of the big reasons for the formation of the Anglican church (aside from Henry VIII's ego) was that St. Patrick of Irish fame was a Bishop in the 5th century and most of his writings were overidden by Roman Catholic councils made up entirely of Italian clergy about the 10th century, in ways that arguably meant Patrick was both a saint and a figure whose actual opinions were mostly considered heretical. A second exception is priestly celibacy, which only became fixed doctrine about 300 years after the point you are describing as pretty damned static.
For a lot of people who are theoretically educated enough to see the differences between science itself and magic, the problem is that progress (scientific progress or plain old progress) is seen as part of something that works like magic (and like magic in fantasy novels), or technology and science are seen as interchangeable.
Evolution requires that there be variation in individuals, and that there be selection. If the selection rate is such that species organize as fuzzy sets where most individuals are typical and only a few are seriously atypical, then there can be variations within (definable) populations. If the selection rate changes enough, just how fuzzy species membership is becomes an open topic - no one is really sure just how much individuals in a species could vary without the species becoming extinct. Mutation without selection is also possible - see stochastic mutation examples. If this theory is organizing a bunch of the alternative cases to the classic case of evolution modeled on whole species population changes, into a cohesive set of cases with common underlying properties, then yes, it's significant. Maybe not revolutionary, but pretty damned significant.
Darkroom photography verifies this. 'Glacial' Acetic Acid is used in developing and fixing photographic film, and particularly silver halide based prints. Normally, it is kept heavily refrigerated between uses to slow evaporation and keep it at the right concentration, and it not infrequently gets cold enough for bits to solidify and float on top. Home photographers, who often left bottles sitting in their darkroom fridge for months, tended to notice sizeable bits more than pros who went through whole bottles in days, and it was some of these amateurs who tried thawing out just the frozen bits, and by proving they worked at the same speed in film processing, showed they were at least roughly the same concentration as the liquid chemical, and were not acetic acid depleted, near pure water ices.
Of course, now that practically nobody actually develops film anymore, what was once well known chemistry for amateur hobbyists becomes unverified rumor to a new generation.
The biggest reason for refunds is the Earned Income Credit. it's a replacement for older welfare systems, and it means there are fewer incentives to not work and just drift on welfare. (fewer, not none). Most US poor are either working or legally disabled. While the EIC isn't all that well implemented, it's probably better for the country as a whole than the system which preceeded it.
The second biggest reason for refunds is people don't try to adjust their withholding so as not to give the government a free loan until they file. Some people actually regard withholding as the only way they can save a large sum each year, which is really saying they lack the discipline to open a savings account with that money instead. It's normal in the US for essentially the same reasons not planning for retirement or not having rainy day savings is pretty normal in the US too.
'Most' people can't even file on an EZ. Either they have something that legally requires at least a 1040-A or better to report, or they would benefit greatly from claiming something such as Earned Income Credit, the Child Care Credit, or itemizing on Schedule A. Here's a common list of some other reasons even some low to moderate income people either can't legally file EZ, or would lose serious cash if they did:
Education Credits (either the Hope Credit, or the Lifetime Learning Credit, or the straight Tuition and Fees deduction will take a filer off the EZ)
1st time home buyer's credit (currently, this will require the taxpayer to not only skip the EZ, they will have to skip electronic methods and file on paper, and the wait time is currently above 14 weeks.).
The Adoption Credit.
Employee business expenses.
A 401 K on their W-2 (code D in box 12).
A 'Cafeteria' health plan on their W-2.
Advance EIC payments on their W-2.
Compensation for Moving Expenses on a W-2.
Any of over 3 dozen other codes in box 12 or 14 of a W-2.
Getting more than 400 dollars income as non-employee compensation.
Renting out real estate.
Recieving a Royalty payment.
Owning a Farm.
Being a Commercial Fisherman (unless you can afford to pay in a high bracket in good years without using income averaging, which is probably only literally impossible for 60% or so, just incredibly onerous and disadvantagious for the rest)
Taking money out of a pension, resulting in a 1099-R being issued.
A split custody agreement as part of a divorce.
Being an Injured Spouse (most commonly, this happens where one party to the marriage owes child support and the other one doesn't want to share responsibility for it. That alone affects a lot of newly married couples, but you have to keep filing darned extra forms over and over).
Being an innocent spouse (if you want to know the difference between innocent and injured, look it up, I don't want to give the impression that the tax code really is difficult just because there is a separate IRS publication relating to this point alone).
Being in a divorce, where the other person picks a filing status that forces you into itimizing even if it's less advantagious for you than just taking the standard deduction. This is not a choice, and you don't get any option to do the EZ at a cost of forgoing some deductions, the law says you will file Schedule A, and you will take what is left after the other party files as your itimized deduction, even if it's flat out ZERO.
Being the victim of a casualty loss or theft loss.
Being the victim of a major medical crisis that has resulted in tremendous out of pocket expenses (we are talking $4,500 or so out of pocket for a single filer, to maybe twice that for MFJ.).
There's probably 10 more cases just for low income filers that I'm not remembering, for example getting Combat Pay can make it very fiscally unwise to file on an EZ, but I don't recall offhand if there is an absolute requirement to go to at least the 1040-A in all cases. There are also a bunch of situations where State tax forms affect all this, so filing EZ at the federal level means you can't file correctly at the state level, or you need to file EZ and lose some money there to do better on your state forms, or vice versa.
As the categories I've mentioned should show, its unlikely that 'most' people can file just a 1040-EZ and still comply with the law. The percentage that can do it legally is itself less than half the total taxpayers.
As to whether tax forms are difficult:
IRS publ 587: Business Use of Your Home: 33 pages.
publ 583: Starting a Business and keeping records: 27 pages.
publ 535: Business Expenses: 47 pages.
publ 463: Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car expenses: 56 pages.
That's the minimum law the IRS theoretically expects you to be familiar
The IRS timeline on direct deposit is officially 8 to 15 days from acceptance of the return. Timeline if the IRS can't do direct deposit is 3 to 4 weeks for a paper check. A lot of the people looking for a quick loan should be much more patient, but I have a bit more time in as a preparer than a year, and I would have to say that the average wait they are trying to reduce is quite a bit more than a week. By the IRS's own rules, it can really never be a week or less. I don't like to see people wanting a RAL because they don't have a bank account, and they are being dunned for existing debts or their car broke down again, or something like that, but the banks offering the RALs are no worse than the other banks and financials that have put many of these people in desperate straits in the first place, and if the tax preparer follows the law, the clients get several reminders that the RAL is costing them a high annual equivalent interest, they have the option to just file direct to the IRS, they will have to repay the loan if the IRS doesn't send all their money, and so on. From what I've seen these clients are being burned worse by the various check into cash and rent to own places than at tax time, not that that means the RAL system is always good.
Much less than half my clients want refund anticipation loans. I've got a high percentage who simply can't do their returns (Unless you count something like being technically able to pay 300$ for a professional class in California's Edge of the Water rule before they file this year as meaning technically they could do their own). I've got a dozen clients a year who need to file either injured spouse or innocent spouse forms, 2 dozen who have to report capital gains, foreign income or foreign taxes, and the like, and probably a dozen who actually already got a letter from the IRS.
we don't even have a free, official online tax-filing website.
www.irs.gov - look for links to free online filing right on the IRS's main page. By the way, I AM a paid preparer, and if you'd walked into my office or called with that question, I would have given you the same answer, and if you were there in person, I would have clicked the link and showed you. I'm assuming you are a US citizen since you specifically said IRS. Most preparers I know feel the same way - if you can do it right yourself, by all means go for it. I have had some very good clients who came to me specifically to learn how to deal with a new situation so they could go back to filing it themselves the next year.
The IRS says that persons filing by the free services frequently make mistakes that are immediately detected (such as claiming a child that has already been claimed by someone else if you go by SSN) about 8% of the time. They see transcription errors on paper copies much more frequently than that, possibly as high as 25%. The filers also usually wait a week or more before they check back and find out they need to correct anything. So no, the government doesn't think more free filing would save the IRS tons of money, or even a little. It's not because we have lobbied them into it, it's because they have run the numbers, and even the fly by night firms generally have much better accuracy than what they see from people filing themselves. A paid tax preparer who made as many mistakes per form as the typical on line filer does would be barred by the IRS for 10 years from being a paid preparer, after their very first year.
My firm will also check a personally filed return for accuracy. The first year we offered that, over 3/4s of the returns brought in had mistakes that made a difference on the bottom line, and the majority of those mistakes were hurting the filer financially. In that sense, you are correct, if more people did it themselves, the IRS would get tons of extra money. But either it's not money the law says they should collect, or it would come from penalties, not taxes.
You do know, both of you, that the form you fill out is the W-4. That's where you set the projected exemptions that will be used to set withholding. The W2 just reports after the fact, it doesn't make anyone adjust anything in advance.
And yes, you can change it multiple times during the year. I have clients who set their withholding during the early months high, then check their numbers about June and add exemptions or stop having additional amounts withheld to try and target very close to zero either back or owed. Some of them tweak the numbers again about September. I even have one client who does a second W-4 every October, just so that November and December, he gets his full paycheck and the extra goes to Christmas shopping. Then December, he does another to set things back for January.
Yes, you're not seeing the huge problem, but it definitely exists. I'm a professional tax preparer as one of my trades. This year, I have done or assisted on over 50 EIC forms so far for people in the range where Earned Income Credit applies and every single one of them has triggered additional IRS mandated questions, usually three or more per case. Questions such as "You are claiming a child under six - who takes care of that child while you are at work?" or "Your self employed income form shows less than typical expenses - have you accounted for all schedule C related expenses?"
I'm not even focused in that area, rather I do mostly corporate and a ultra-specialization involving royalties received by estates of deceased authors. I see these EIC cases mostly only because I instruct 2nd and 3 year preparers who have to deal with them.
Answering these sort of questions means being able to say, for example, "In home daycare conducted during evening to midnight shift hours produces few food and drink expenses compared to the daytime hour equivalent and does not normally require the taxpayer placing their vehicle into business service. These factors make business expenses low." I really can't see most of these clients claiming successfully that they are familiar enough with overall small business trends and average expensing issues that they could make that claim for a legal record, even if they somehow knew it applied to them.
By what we are seeing this early in the tax season, the government has a very great deal it doesn't know, it wants to know it all, and if you are an average lower income filer claiming the Earned Income Credit and you do it via a free online service, your chance of being audited this year just jumped from less than 0.5% to about 7%, possibly higher. In my worst nightmare interpretation of what I'm seeing, the government is emplacing all the preparatory mechanisms needed to declare 5 or 6 million poor people felons by about next November, although a lot of politicans and IRS administrators are assuring people the response is going to be a lot more reasonable than that.
The IRS was originally told to focus on EIC fraud specifically by the 2004 congress, and it's just now really ramping up. At that time, EIC fraud was rated as second to business form fraud, at about 1/4 of the total damages to the tax base for business fraud. People can argue about why the congress in that year demanded renewed focus on the less serious source of fraud rather than the greater one, but that's not why I bring this up. Simply, the government now needs money more seriously than before, and escalating efforts to detect the number one type of fraud are an obvious way to close the tax gap, so even if the IRS is not doing this to small business filers yet, it will very likely come next year or 2012 at the latest.
There's a similar problem for people claiming the 1st time homebuyer's credit, in that the IRS has repeatedly revised the filing requirements to get more documentation, to where now the taxpayer will probably have to provide at least five additional documents to file the credit correctly. Taxpayers may have to wait until they have updated both their driver's liscence and vehicle registration to reflect the new address, and get a certificate stating the home is safe for occupancy on top of the deed and mortgage documents. I'm wondering right now what happens if the taxpayer doesn't drive, and has bought a previously occupied home, where the state doesn't normally do a habitability inspection. It seems likely at least some people who bought a home based on this credit will have a very hard time getting all the forms the IRS now wants.
By the way, for the situations such as you describe in your post, there's a major downside. For example, if the government has records that show you sold stock, they will consider it equally authoritative that you had zero basis
The reason monopoly matters, is it's a precondition for success at anticompetitive or abusive conduct.
Imagine a situation where somebody makes a threat against another person, specifically a threat to beat them up bare handed. If the person making the threat is an 87 lb., wheelchair bound person with a known heart condition, threatening a normally healthy adult who could evade the attack by simply walking away, what does the law say about the normally healthy person claiming they were so threatened they had to draw a pistol and empty it into their 'assailant'? Now, let's flip the situation - the person making the threat is a 245 lb. linebacker, he has already picked up a 2x4 with nails in it, and he is blocking the only exit. What does the law say now?
Monopoly is somewhat like that - it's a claim that the business had the power to be able to act badly successfully, when without that power, whatever it was doing doesn't need the law to stop it, because it would have failed, or done so much damage to the company that it wouldn't have been worth it. If a company with a 5% market share tells vendors "We won't give you a discount rate unless you don't bundle our competition." the vendor laughs and walks off. At 80% or more, apparently they give in. The law doesn't need to act in the first case - a threat that has no teeth resolves itself.
In the theoretical free market, everyone has perfect knowledge of the values involved. For example, the person signing a mortgage knows everything relevant to the same extent as the bank issuing it. Obviously, that fits your shades of grey model. When a state, for just one example, makes efforts to require people with inside knowledge to reveal it to the people they are negotiating with, that is actually a move towards a perfect free market. Let me repeat that for the people who think they are capitalists but are really Mercantilists or something - State involvement is a fundamental method of getting and preserving free markets, not an anti-market force.
The theory behind antitrust law is the government has to step in when a monopoly is being abused, not merely because it exists. This can include both situations where a monopoly is damaging other businesses and, alternatively, where it is damaging the public at large.
Microsoft's influence over the hardware market might be considered an example of damage to other businesses - either established businesses such as Gateway or AMD, or possible startups we may have never heard from. This story, on the other hand, is about a case of possible damage to the public, and has little or nothing to do with the other possible abuses.
Many of the EU/Microsoft claims have involved damage to other businesses. They don't really prove anything about what Microsoft has done to the public one way or another - this claim has to stand or fall on its own. France's publicising the vulnerability is a move to provide more perfect knowledge, so it's arguably an effort towards a more perfect free market. In fact, it's up to the people criticising France to show how there's a flaw in the action - it's normally what a State should do, some would argue what a State is required to do, and moves things closer to a free market, unless there is a substantial falsehood in France's claim.
The whole Skynet metaphor is becoming part of the problem. Real robotics is nowhere near Terminators, but it doesn't need to be. Fears of creating unstoppable battledroids are eclipsing the more real fears of simply adding another destabilizing system to the warfare environment. Many battlefield robotics implementations well within the current state of the art look like they will become another scourge like landmines. Not an unstoppable threat, not even all that influential in combat against decently trained and equipped human troops, but instead systems fairly cheap compared to their infrastructure damage potential, very indescriminate in their targeting, and a hazard well after formal hostilities have ended. Weapons systems that are high on collateral damage to civilians and for that very reason tend to trigger asymmetric warfare responses.
That's an old Seinfield punchline, not a psychological slip offering insight into the poster's character. Sometimes a post is just a post, as Freud sort of said (and yes, that pun is fully intentional).
Basically, any nation that starts a nuclear war against either the USA or Russia, without being able to win a decisive victory, loses everything. If they manage to destroy say, 30, 40, or even 50% of either superpower's population and assets, they just provide the justification for an absolutely overwhelming retaliatory strike.
Remember US history for the 1940's. The US declares war on Japan, with an immediate demand for unconditional surrender, and publicly announces that this is the only thing they will accept. The War declaration in Congress makes this a binding matter on the executive branch, that the US will not accept a conditional surrender except by direct order of the President.
The following are a few of the publicly expressed remarks of the time, generally approved by the majority of Americans listening:
"By the time we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell."
"I hate Japs! I'm telling you men, that if I met a pregnant Japanese woman, I'd kick her in the belly!"
Both by Fleet Admiral William "Bull" Halsey
You'll note that Halsey is quite clearly talking Genocide as an acceptable response. He got promoted after that.
During the 70's the Soviet Union conducted top level strategic simulations exercises (sit around a table style war games scenarios) with its general staff. One of the noted outcomes of those was that, whenever scenario casualties exceeded the roughly 20 million from WW2, someone on the staff spotted and mentioned that fact, and commanding generals and admirals almost invariably swiftly urged the politbureau to immediately allow retrofitting of cobalt jackets on nuclear devices and permission to deploy them specifically against civilian population centers, or the release of weaponized smallpox or anthrax to the front lines for field artillary use, or other such acts. The Soviet Union's analysis was that, in a real war, once casualties reached about 20 million, there was a better than 50-50 chance command would stage a coup if civilian authorities didn't approve all the most extreme measures in the Soviet arsenal, and an even higher likelihood they would give orders to totally exterminate the enemy population bases with them if they got the means to do so. Whether they would have been so determined to take it into runaway mode in a real war is, of course, speculative, but there's certainly at least some chance.
Of course you can compare the US government to the PRC. You won't necessarily decide that the US is making all the same mistakes as China, and you might find yourself praising at least some US political decisions before you are through, but you, or anyone else, can, and should, compare the US's actions, good or bad, with any historical alternatives you think are relevant. Compare the US and China for this round of climate change hearings, or compare China now with the US at Kyoto, or compare whatever you think is most likely to keep either nation from making more mistakes. My first comparison is the relative risks for critics look greater for a person living in China at the time, but recent stories about jailed whistleblowers in the US financial industry make me think there's some unfair risk even in the USA.
I'm reasonably sure the health (the general health, not just the 'orgonocephalic' health) of a tube sock full of mice goes down when they are strapped to a ferret. While the ferret will promote blood flow, this will be one way flow, not circulation. Alternately, the health of a ferret will decrease if it is strapped to Zombie Dr. Reich. That's probably the cephalic effect you were thinking of.
Permanently ensuring he isn't dreaming any more is not a scientific experiment, as it is impossible to reproduce whatever results you get, (especially if waking him up causes the universe to cease to exist). You may, however strap him to a board and administer appropriate dosages of phenobarbitol, morphine, and polysorbate 60, then draw off blood samples at regular intervals. As a control, please make sure he has not been used for cosmetics testing prior to your procedure.
When someone simply holds an opinion, maybe even based on some subset of all known facts, that there is no God, that isn't by itself a religion. But the claim that Atheism as a formal, organized opinion isn't a religion is a different position. If you look at these threads on Slashdot, they start off about subjects such as sciences, and sooner or later, fanatics for both sides start arguing about God. While personally, I don't think I'm a fanatic, and you probably don't think you are either, I admit there are religious fanatics galore on my side. On your side, you have a bunch of Atheist religious fanatics, whether you acknowledge them or not. I'm talking about the Atheists who post the "everybody who isn't a moron knows that Atheists are superior." type remarks. Notice that we have some of that 'intelligence is the absence of religion' part right above this thread.
This sort of atheism is a religious belief system, as in: "My Atheism proves I'm smarter, and my being smarter justifies my Atheism." That's the exact same mechanism as "Of course the Bible was written by God, it says so right in the Bible." Your movement has its ignorant and abusive people who rely on circular logic and cliches to justify their opinions rather than any acts of reason. Your fanatics behave just as badly as our fanatics. You even have organized spokespersons who claim to speak for you. You may find some of them distasteful, or think that they are wrong, but if you are a typical rational atheist you tolerate them, just as many Christians tolerate Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson even while disagreeing with much of what they espouse. What makes your beliefs a religion is you have plenty of religious fanatics, just as we do.
Because men have copies of every gene found in women, it's quite possible males brains include all the pathways found in women's brains, male biochemistry includes all the chemical responses that are part of female emotions, and so on. (Of course, this is on a statistical average basis, not an individual one, since no individual has all the working versions of all genes. Still, men, since they have genes on the y chromosome that are simply not found in women, have biological structures in their brains built by those genes, plus they get one set of the genes found on the x chromosome with whatever effects on the brain, glands, and peripheral nervous system those have - ergo biology tells us that men in the aggregate can actually fully understand women, but women simply cannot fully understand men, even if they try as a large group.
As proof of this, I understand women so well I know in advance exactly what my ex-wife would think of this idea, which is why I'm going to let someone else tell her.
The real question is, can anything in the quantum world really involve a non-rational number (or even a non-terminating decimal)?
Take a simple circle. A mathematical perfect circle is effectively a polygon with an infinite number of sides, and pi is infinite because of this same fact. A 'circular' object in the real universe has faceted sides, each of at least the lengths between adjacent atoms. (It's also 'fuzzy' when measured at that scale, and part of that is also QM). The whole concept of Planck length dictates minimum distances, angles and such, and objects have granularity that means an infinite number of facets or an infinitely dividable curve isn't part of the real universe.
So, isn't what's been discovered here an expression of the golden ratio to only some finite number of decimal places?
Sanity has never been part of the US patent process. Here's some pre-computer examples.
1. An inventor was able to patent a design for mule shaped bookends, while another was denied a patent on a mule shaped balloon. The Patent Office ruled that sawing a brass mule in half was non-obvious and original, while blowing up a rubber mule wasn't. In a similar area, dying coal blue wasn't novel, but dying coal blue with your company logo was.
2. Aspirin was patented well after a similar process for making Salicylic Acid on an industrial scale was. The office decided, with no precidents, that making the same chemical in pure enough form that it was safe for medicinal use was novel. When challenged on it, the USPO said they were going through a bottle a day deciding patent claims and were not about to reject rewarding this claim no matter what the law said.
3. A patent was once denied on a chemical process because that chemical was already mentioned in industry literature from more than a year before. The problem? What the literature said was: "It is impossible to synthesize chemical X. No one will ever do it."
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That makes a certain amount of logical sense. The way you have phrased it, it also sounds like common sense, which may or may not actually matter - good rhetoric does not always make a good argument.
But logical and scientific principles are not exactly the same things here.
There's a number of reasons within the scientific method for thinking that stem cell research on fetal sources would give society valuable tools for fighting various diseases - but those reasons rise only to hypothetical status - that is they individually deserve to be called hypothetical, but don't have nearly enough supporting facts to deserve to be called theoretical. Part of the problem here is that the pro-fetal stem cell research side has talked about it as though there's strong, well established theoretical underpinnings for it producing really significant results of tremendous value to society, which we can't get from other sources such as umbilical cord tissues or adult stem cells. There have been too many claims that fetal research will eventually cure all cancers and other methods simply won't, or will, at the very least, take many times as long to get the same results.
To make such claims justifiably, we would have to know a lot of things we just surmise, such as that certain hypothetical models of the effects of lengthened telomere accumulation were better than other models, all coming from established scientists with solid reputations.
There's probably some real negative costs to society in being asked to decide whose science is better, ahead of normal processes of peer review and reproducing experiments or devising the new ones needed to settle which models have better predictive power.
It's not that this 'undermines' Darwin, or that Darwin was 'wrong' about genes, but Evolutionary theory is a hybred. It combines Darwin's insight that natural pressures can select a subset of each generation to differentially reproduce, and Mendel's genetics. When Darwin proposed Natural Selection, he made predictions, such as that whatever mechanisms Heredity used, those mechanisms could not allow for unlimited blending of traits. Mendel's experiments showed how there could be non-blendable control mechanisms at the heart of the reproductive process. It's not just that mutation is a requirement along side natural selection to have the whole theory of Evolution, but that one of Darwin's conditions is the code being occasionally mutated must be a code that doesn't allow more than, at most, very limited blending. So, a non-Mendelian form of genetic transfer doesn't necessarily support Darwin's idea of how selection can work to produce long term changes, and if it doesn't, you can't (or shouldn't) call what's happening in such cases 'evolution'.
You're making a seldom stressed point: usually, it's mentioned how people in more primitive times wanted certainty so they coined such things as religions - seldom does anyone point out that modern lifestyles are a powerful motivator for people to put at least as great a premium on certainty as any peasant of the middle ages felt.
Roman Catholic dogma doesn't really date back to the 7th century though. There's certainly some truth to that view, often an uncomfortable lot for many modern Catholics from what I've seen, but a lot of dogma got locked into place only during the counter-reformation (Council of Trent 1545-1563 a.d.), and not earlier. For a couple of other exceptions, one of the big reasons for the formation of the Anglican church (aside from Henry VIII's ego) was that St. Patrick of Irish fame was a Bishop in the 5th century and most of his writings were overidden by Roman Catholic councils made up entirely of Italian clergy about the 10th century, in ways that arguably meant Patrick was both a saint and a figure whose actual opinions were mostly considered heretical. A second exception is priestly celibacy, which only became fixed doctrine about 300 years after the point you are describing as pretty damned static.
For a lot of people who are theoretically educated enough to see the differences between science itself and magic, the problem is that progress (scientific progress or plain old progress) is seen as part of something that works like magic (and like magic in fantasy novels), or technology and science are seen as interchangeable.
Evolution requires that there be variation in individuals, and that there be selection.
If the selection rate is such that species organize as fuzzy sets where most individuals are typical and only a few are seriously atypical, then there can be variations within (definable) populations. If the selection rate changes enough, just how fuzzy species membership is becomes an open topic - no one is really sure just how much individuals in a species could vary without the species becoming extinct.
Mutation without selection is also possible - see stochastic mutation examples.
If this theory is organizing a bunch of the alternative cases to the classic case of evolution modeled on whole species population changes, into a cohesive set of cases with common underlying properties, then yes, it's significant. Maybe not revolutionary, but pretty damned significant.
Darkroom photography verifies this. 'Glacial' Acetic Acid is used in developing and fixing photographic film, and particularly silver halide based prints. Normally, it is kept heavily refrigerated between uses to slow evaporation and keep it at the right concentration, and it not infrequently gets cold enough for bits to solidify and float on top. Home photographers, who often left bottles sitting in their darkroom fridge for months, tended to notice sizeable bits more than pros who went through whole bottles in days, and it was some of these amateurs who tried thawing out just the frozen bits, and by proving they worked at the same speed in film processing, showed they were at least roughly the same concentration as the liquid chemical, and were not acetic acid depleted, near pure water ices.
Of course, now that practically nobody actually develops film anymore, what was once well known chemistry for amateur hobbyists becomes unverified rumor to a new generation.
The biggest reason for refunds is the Earned Income Credit. it's a replacement for older welfare systems, and it means there are fewer incentives to not work and just drift on welfare. (fewer, not none). Most US poor are either working or legally disabled. While the EIC isn't all that well implemented, it's probably better for the country as a whole than the system which preceeded it.
The second biggest reason for refunds is people don't try to adjust their withholding so as not to give the government a free loan until they file. Some people actually regard withholding as the only way they can save a large sum each year, which is really saying they lack the discipline to open a savings account with that money instead. It's normal in the US for essentially the same reasons not planning for retirement or not having rainy day savings is pretty normal in the US too.
'Most' people can't even file on an EZ. Either they have something that legally requires at least a 1040-A or better to report, or they would benefit greatly from claiming something such as Earned Income Credit, the Child Care Credit, or itemizing on Schedule A. Here's a common list of some other reasons even some low to moderate income people either can't legally file EZ, or would lose serious cash if they did:
Education Credits (either the Hope Credit, or the Lifetime Learning Credit, or the straight Tuition and Fees deduction will take a filer off the EZ)
1st time home buyer's credit (currently, this will require the taxpayer to not only skip the EZ, they will have to skip electronic methods and file on paper, and the wait time is currently above 14 weeks.).
The Adoption Credit.
Employee business expenses.
A 401 K on their W-2 (code D in box 12).
A 'Cafeteria' health plan on their W-2.
Advance EIC payments on their W-2.
Compensation for Moving Expenses on a W-2.
Any of over 3 dozen other codes in box 12 or 14 of a W-2.
Getting more than 400 dollars income as non-employee compensation.
Renting out real estate.
Recieving a Royalty payment.
Owning a Farm.
Being a Commercial Fisherman (unless you can afford to pay in a high bracket in good years without using income averaging, which is probably only literally impossible for 60% or so, just incredibly onerous and disadvantagious for the rest)
Taking money out of a pension, resulting in a 1099-R being issued.
A split custody agreement as part of a divorce.
Being an Injured Spouse (most commonly, this happens where one party to the marriage owes child support and the other one doesn't want to share responsibility for it. That alone affects a lot of newly married couples, but you have to keep filing darned extra forms over and over).
Being an innocent spouse (if you want to know the difference between innocent and injured, look it up, I don't want to give the impression that the tax code really is difficult just because there is a separate IRS publication relating to this point alone).
Being in a divorce, where the other person picks a filing status that forces you into itimizing even if it's less advantagious for you than just taking the standard deduction. This is not a choice, and you don't get any option to do the EZ at a cost of forgoing some deductions, the law says you will file Schedule A, and you will take what is left after the other party files as your itimized deduction, even if it's flat out ZERO.
Being the victim of a casualty loss or theft loss.
Being the victim of a major medical crisis that has resulted in tremendous out of pocket expenses (we are talking $4,500 or so out of pocket for a single filer, to maybe twice that for MFJ.).
There's probably 10 more cases just for low income filers that I'm not remembering, for example getting Combat Pay can make it very fiscally unwise to file on an EZ, but I don't recall offhand if there is an absolute requirement to go to at least the 1040-A in all cases. There are also a bunch of situations where State tax forms affect all this, so filing EZ at the federal level means you can't file correctly at the state level, or you need to file EZ and lose some money there to do better on your state forms, or vice versa.
As the categories I've mentioned should show, its unlikely that 'most' people can file just a 1040-EZ and still comply with the law. The percentage that can do it legally is itself less than half the total taxpayers.
As to whether tax forms are difficult:
IRS publ 587: Business Use of Your Home: 33 pages.
publ 583: Starting a Business and keeping records: 27 pages.
publ 535: Business Expenses: 47 pages.
publ 463: Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car expenses: 56 pages.
That's the minimum law the IRS theoretically expects you to be familiar
The IRS timeline on direct deposit is officially 8 to 15 days from acceptance of the return. Timeline if the IRS can't do direct deposit is 3 to 4 weeks for a paper check. A lot of the people looking for a quick loan should be much more patient, but I have a bit more time in as a preparer than a year, and I would have to say that the average wait they are trying to reduce is quite a bit more than a week. By the IRS's own rules, it can really never be a week or less.
I don't like to see people wanting a RAL because they don't have a bank account, and they are being dunned for existing debts or their car broke down again, or something like that, but the banks offering the RALs are no worse than the other banks and financials that have put many of these people in desperate straits in the first place, and if the tax preparer follows the law, the clients get several reminders that the RAL is costing them a high annual equivalent interest, they have the option to just file direct to the IRS, they will have to repay the loan if the IRS doesn't send all their money, and so on. From what I've seen these clients are being burned worse by the various check into cash and rent to own places than at tax time, not that that means the RAL system is always good.
Much less than half my clients want refund anticipation loans. I've got a high percentage who simply can't do their returns (Unless you count something like being technically able to pay 300$ for a professional class in California's Edge of the Water rule before they file this year as meaning technically they could do their own). I've got a dozen clients a year who need to file either injured spouse or innocent spouse forms, 2 dozen who have to report capital gains, foreign income or foreign taxes, and the like, and probably a dozen who actually already got a letter from the IRS.
we don't even have a free, official online tax-filing website.
www.irs.gov - look for links to free online filing right on the IRS's main page. By the way, I AM a paid preparer, and if you'd walked into my office or called with that question, I would have given you the same answer, and if you were there in person, I would have clicked the link and showed you. I'm assuming you are a US citizen since you specifically said IRS. Most preparers I know feel the same way - if you can do it right yourself, by all means go for it. I have had some very good clients who came to me specifically to learn how to deal with a new situation so they could go back to filing it themselves the next year.
The IRS says that persons filing by the free services frequently make mistakes that are immediately detected (such as claiming a child that has already been claimed by someone else if you go by SSN) about 8% of the time. They see transcription errors on paper copies much more frequently than that, possibly as high as 25%. The filers also usually wait a week or more before they check back and find out they need to correct anything. So no, the government doesn't think more free filing would save the IRS tons of money, or even a little. It's not because we have lobbied them into it, it's because they have run the numbers, and even the fly by night firms generally have much better accuracy than what they see from people filing themselves. A paid tax preparer who made as many mistakes per form as the typical on line filer does would be barred by the IRS for 10 years from being a paid preparer, after their very first year.
My firm will also check a personally filed return for accuracy. The first year we offered that, over 3/4s of the returns brought in had mistakes that made a difference on the bottom line, and the majority of those mistakes were hurting the filer financially. In that sense, you are correct, if more people did it themselves, the IRS would get tons of extra money. But either it's not money the law says they should collect, or it would come from penalties, not taxes.
You do know, both of you, that the form you fill out is the W-4. That's where you set the projected exemptions that will be used to set withholding. The W2 just reports after the fact, it doesn't make anyone adjust anything in advance.
And yes, you can change it multiple times during the year. I have clients who set their withholding during the early months high, then check their numbers about June and add exemptions or stop having additional amounts withheld to try and target very close to zero either back or owed. Some of them tweak the numbers again about September. I even have one client who does a second W-4 every October, just so that November and December, he gets his full paycheck and the extra goes to Christmas shopping. Then December, he does another to set things back for January.
Yes, you're not seeing the huge problem, but it definitely exists. I'm a professional tax preparer as one of my trades. This year, I have done or assisted on over 50 EIC forms so far for people in the range where Earned Income Credit applies and every single one of them has triggered additional IRS mandated questions, usually three or more per case. Questions such as "You are claiming a child under six - who takes care of that child while you are at work?" or "Your self employed income form shows less than typical expenses - have you accounted for all schedule C related expenses?"
I'm not even focused in that area, rather I do mostly corporate and a ultra-specialization involving royalties received by estates of deceased authors. I see these EIC cases mostly only because I instruct 2nd and 3 year preparers who have to deal with them.
Answering these sort of questions means being able to say, for example, "In home daycare conducted during evening to midnight shift hours produces few food and drink expenses compared to the daytime hour equivalent and does not normally require the taxpayer placing their vehicle into business service. These factors make business expenses low." I really can't see most of these clients claiming successfully that they are familiar enough with overall small business trends and average expensing issues that they could make that claim for a legal record, even if they somehow knew it applied to them.
By what we are seeing this early in the tax season, the government has a very great deal it doesn't know, it wants to know it all, and if you are an average lower income filer claiming the Earned Income Credit and you do it via a free online service, your chance of being audited this year just jumped from less than 0.5% to about 7%, possibly higher. In my worst nightmare interpretation of what I'm seeing, the government is emplacing all the preparatory mechanisms needed to declare 5 or 6 million poor people felons by about next November, although a lot of politicans and IRS administrators are assuring people the response is going to be a lot more reasonable than that.
The IRS was originally told to focus on EIC fraud specifically by the 2004 congress, and it's just now really ramping up. At that time, EIC fraud was rated as second to business form fraud, at about 1/4 of the total damages to the tax base for business fraud. People can argue about why the congress in that year demanded renewed focus on the less serious source of fraud rather than the greater one, but that's not why I bring this up. Simply, the government now needs money more seriously than before, and escalating efforts to detect the number one type of fraud are an obvious way to close the tax gap, so even if the IRS is not doing this to small business filers yet, it will very likely come next year or 2012 at the latest.
There's a similar problem for people claiming the 1st time homebuyer's credit, in that the IRS has repeatedly revised the filing requirements to get more documentation, to where now the taxpayer will probably have to provide at least five additional documents to file the credit correctly. Taxpayers may have to wait until they have updated both their driver's liscence and vehicle registration to reflect the new address, and get a certificate stating the home is safe for occupancy on top of the deed and mortgage documents. I'm wondering right now what happens if the taxpayer doesn't drive, and has bought a previously occupied home, where the state doesn't normally do a habitability inspection. It seems likely at least some people who bought a home based on this credit will have a very hard time getting all the forms the IRS now wants.
By the way, for the situations such as you describe in your post, there's a major downside. For example, if the government has records that show you sold stock, they will consider it equally authoritative that you had zero basis
The reason monopoly matters, is it's a precondition for success at anticompetitive or abusive conduct.
Imagine a situation where somebody makes a threat against another person, specifically a threat to beat them up bare handed. If the person making the threat is an 87 lb., wheelchair bound person with a known heart condition, threatening a normally healthy adult who could evade the attack by simply walking away, what does the law say about the normally healthy person claiming they were so threatened they had to draw a pistol and empty it into their 'assailant'? Now, let's flip the situation - the person making the threat is a 245 lb. linebacker, he has already picked up a 2x4 with nails in it, and he is blocking the only exit. What does the law say now?
Monopoly is somewhat like that - it's a claim that the business had the power to be able to act badly successfully, when without that power, whatever it was doing doesn't need the law to stop it, because it would have failed, or done so much damage to the company that it wouldn't have been worth it. If a company with a 5% market share tells vendors "We won't give you a discount rate unless you don't bundle our competition." the vendor laughs and walks off. At 80% or more, apparently they give in. The law doesn't need to act in the first case - a threat that has no teeth resolves itself.
In the theoretical free market, everyone has perfect knowledge of the values involved. For example, the person signing a mortgage knows everything relevant to the same extent as the bank issuing it. Obviously, that fits your shades of grey model. When a state, for just one example, makes efforts to require people with inside knowledge to reveal it to the people they are negotiating with, that is actually a move towards a perfect free market. Let me repeat that for the people who think they are capitalists but are really Mercantilists or something - State involvement is a fundamental method of getting and preserving free markets, not an anti-market force.
The theory behind antitrust law is the government has to step in when a monopoly is being abused, not merely because it exists. This can include both situations where a monopoly is damaging other businesses and, alternatively, where it is damaging the public at large.
Microsoft's influence over the hardware market might be considered an example of damage to other businesses - either established businesses such as Gateway or AMD, or possible startups we may have never heard from. This story, on the other hand, is about a case of possible damage to the public, and has little or nothing to do with the other possible abuses.
Many of the EU/Microsoft claims have involved damage to other businesses. They don't really prove anything about what Microsoft has done to the public one way or another - this claim has to stand or fall on its own. France's publicising the vulnerability is a move to provide more perfect knowledge, so it's arguably an effort towards a more perfect free market. In fact, it's up to the people criticising France to show how there's a flaw in the action - it's normally what a State should do, some would argue what a State is required to do, and moves things closer to a free market, unless there is a substantial falsehood in France's claim.
The whole Skynet metaphor is becoming part of the problem. Real robotics is nowhere near Terminators, but it doesn't need to be. Fears of creating unstoppable battledroids are eclipsing the more real fears of simply adding another destabilizing system to the warfare environment. Many battlefield robotics implementations well within the current state of the art look like they will become another scourge like landmines. Not an unstoppable threat, not even all that influential in combat against decently trained and equipped human troops, but instead systems fairly cheap compared to their infrastructure damage potential, very indescriminate in their targeting, and a hazard well after formal hostilities have ended. Weapons systems that are high on collateral damage to civilians and for that very reason tend to trigger asymmetric warfare responses.
That's an old Seinfield punchline, not a psychological slip offering insight into the poster's character. Sometimes a post is just a post, as Freud sort of said (and yes, that pun is fully intentional).
Basically, any nation that starts a nuclear war against either the USA or Russia, without being able to win a decisive victory, loses everything. If they manage to destroy say, 30, 40, or even 50% of either superpower's population and assets, they just provide the justification for an absolutely overwhelming retaliatory strike.
Remember US history for the 1940's. The US declares war on Japan, with an immediate demand for unconditional surrender, and publicly announces that this is the only thing they will accept. The War declaration in Congress makes this a binding matter on the executive branch, that the US will not accept a conditional surrender except by direct order of the President.
The following are a few of the publicly expressed remarks of the time, generally approved by the majority of Americans listening:
"By the time we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell."
"I hate Japs! I'm telling you men, that if I met a pregnant Japanese woman, I'd kick her in the belly!"
Both by Fleet Admiral William "Bull" Halsey
You'll note that Halsey is quite clearly talking Genocide as an acceptable response. He got promoted after that.
During the 70's the Soviet Union conducted top level strategic simulations exercises (sit around a table style war games scenarios) with its general staff. One of the noted outcomes of those was that, whenever scenario casualties exceeded the roughly 20 million from WW2, someone on the staff spotted and mentioned that fact, and commanding generals and admirals almost invariably swiftly urged the politbureau to immediately allow retrofitting of cobalt jackets on nuclear devices and permission to deploy them specifically against civilian population centers, or the release of weaponized smallpox or anthrax to the front lines for field artillary use, or other such acts. The Soviet Union's analysis was that, in a real war, once casualties reached about 20 million, there was a better than 50-50 chance command would stage a coup if civilian authorities didn't approve all the most extreme measures in the Soviet arsenal, and an even higher likelihood they would give orders to totally exterminate the enemy population bases with them if they got the means to do so. Whether they would have been so determined to take it into runaway mode in a real war is, of course, speculative, but there's certainly at least some chance.
Of course you can compare the US government to the PRC. You won't necessarily decide that the US is making all the same mistakes as China, and you might find yourself praising at least some US political decisions before you are through, but you, or anyone else, can, and should, compare the US's actions, good or bad, with any historical alternatives you think are relevant. Compare the US and China for this round of climate change hearings, or compare China now with the US at Kyoto, or compare whatever you think is most likely to keep either nation from making more mistakes. My first comparison is the relative risks for critics look greater for a person living in China at the time, but recent stories about jailed whistleblowers in the US financial industry make me think there's some unfair risk even in the USA.
I'm reasonably sure the health (the general health, not just the 'orgonocephalic' health) of a tube sock full of mice goes down when they are strapped to a ferret. While the ferret will promote blood flow, this will be one way flow, not circulation. Alternately, the health of a ferret will decrease if it is strapped to Zombie Dr. Reich. That's probably the cephalic effect you were thinking of.
Uhm, that's how to deal with an aggressive large dog, until you find a club.
Come to think of it, this might work for the original poster too.
Permanently ensuring he isn't dreaming any more is not a scientific experiment, as it is impossible to reproduce whatever results you get, (especially if waking him up causes the universe to cease to exist). You may, however strap him to a board and administer appropriate dosages of phenobarbitol, morphine, and polysorbate 60, then draw off blood samples at regular intervals. As a control, please make sure he has not been used for cosmetics testing prior to your procedure.
When someone simply holds an opinion, maybe even based on some subset of all known facts, that there is no God, that isn't by itself a religion. But the claim that Atheism as a formal, organized opinion isn't a religion is a different position. If you look at these threads on Slashdot, they start off about subjects such as sciences, and sooner or later, fanatics for both sides start arguing about God. While personally, I don't think I'm a fanatic, and you probably don't think you are either, I admit there are religious fanatics galore on my side. On your side, you have a bunch of Atheist religious fanatics, whether you acknowledge them or not. I'm talking about the Atheists who post the "everybody who isn't a moron knows that Atheists are superior." type remarks. Notice that we have some of that 'intelligence is the absence of religion' part right above this thread.
This sort of atheism is a religious belief system, as in: "My Atheism proves I'm smarter, and my being smarter justifies my Atheism." That's the exact same mechanism as "Of course the Bible was written by God, it says so right in the Bible." Your movement has its ignorant and abusive people who rely on circular logic and cliches to justify their opinions rather than any acts of reason. Your fanatics behave just as badly as our fanatics. You even have organized spokespersons who claim to speak for you. You may find some of them distasteful, or think that they are wrong, but if you are a typical rational atheist you tolerate them, just as many Christians tolerate Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson even while disagreeing with much of what they espouse. What makes your beliefs a religion is you have plenty of religious fanatics, just as we do.
Because men have copies of every gene found in women, it's quite possible males brains include all the pathways found in women's brains, male biochemistry includes all the chemical responses that are part of female emotions, and so on. (Of course, this is on a statistical average basis, not an individual one, since no individual has all the working versions of all genes. Still, men, since they have genes on the y chromosome that are simply not found in women, have biological structures in their brains built by those genes, plus they get one set of the genes found on the x chromosome with whatever effects on the brain, glands, and peripheral nervous system those have - ergo biology tells us that men in the aggregate can actually fully understand women, but women simply cannot fully understand men, even if they try as a large group.
As proof of this, I understand women so well I know in advance exactly what my ex-wife would think of this idea, which is why I'm going to let someone else tell her.
Do I see anything? Yes, I'm THAT damned nearsighted, you insensitive clod!
The real question is, can anything in the quantum world really involve a non-rational number (or even a non-terminating decimal)?
Take a simple circle. A mathematical perfect circle is effectively a polygon with an infinite number of sides, and pi is infinite because of this same fact. A 'circular' object in the real universe has faceted sides, each of at least the lengths between adjacent atoms. (It's also 'fuzzy' when measured at that scale, and part of that is also QM). The whole concept of Planck length dictates minimum distances, angles and such, and objects have granularity that means an infinite number of facets or an infinitely dividable curve isn't part of the real universe.
So, isn't what's been discovered here an expression of the golden ratio to only some finite number of decimal places?
Sanity has never been part of the US patent process. Here's some pre-computer examples.
1. An inventor was able to patent a design for mule shaped bookends, while another was denied a patent on a mule shaped balloon. The Patent Office ruled that sawing a brass mule in half was non-obvious and original, while blowing up a rubber mule wasn't. In a similar area, dying coal blue wasn't novel, but dying coal blue with your company logo was.
2. Aspirin was patented well after a similar process for making Salicylic Acid on an industrial scale was. The office decided, with no precidents, that making the same chemical in pure enough form that it was safe for medicinal use was novel. When challenged on it, the USPO said they were going through a bottle a day deciding patent claims and were not about to reject rewarding this claim no matter what the law said.
3. A patent was once denied on a chemical process because that chemical was already mentioned in industry literature from more than a year before. The problem? What the literature said was: "It is impossible to synthesize chemical X. No one will ever do it."