The US is the most barbaric nation in the history of the known universe.
Even if one totals deaths from US interventions, the amount of people the US has killed still trails behind the Soviet Union and far behind China under Mao. I am in no way defending American foreign policy, but the figures do not show the US to be the most barbaric regime in history.
Did I say it was? The OP claimed that Iran has never gone from musing about violence to directly supporting violence. I corrected him. The shady foreign police acts of the US have nothing to do with it.
None of what you say contradicts my point, that Ahmadinejad isn't really in charge. And as much as he likes to play the violent demagogue, many analysts find that Khamenei and his advisors keep cool and don't intend to bring the country into a nuclear holocaust.
People who pray every night that the world and all humanity be annihilated in a cleansing fire, so that they may finally dominate the world with a global christian theocracy lead directly by their god made manifest.
Cite for the cleansing fire claim? I don't deny that evangelical Protestantism drives a great deal of American politics, but your assertion doesn't at all square with the beliefs of the denominations widely represented in government.
If you were truly informed on the Iranian situation you'd know that Ahmadinejad, though holding the title of president, is not the supreme ruler of Iran. He must answer to other people, and he does not have control over the military. While he's probably a nutjob, he can't singlehandedly plunge Iran into a war against the wishes of others.
I know people like to portray them as crazies and always extract the most radical-when-translated-and-taken-out-of-context quotes about how these countries/groups of people want nothing more than to wipe Israel and the US off the map, but I find it hard to believe that the leaders of such countries have any serious plans to this effect. I'm sure it drums up some good publicity in certain mainly arab nations, but every politician likes to talk big, few like to ask a country to pay for a dangerous and expensive war with a nearby nation.
Iran has been bankrolling Hezbollah for years and years now. I agree that starting a nuclear war isn't very likely, but the Iranian regime has gone beyond mere rhetoric into driving violence.
The OP asked if any scientists question evolution. A person employed in a scientific field in a university meets the general definition of "scientist". Nowhere did I say that the man in question is right or wrong, I simply answered the OP's question.
The thing about rights is that they are NEVER given or granted by a government. Rights are inherent.
So people claimed during the Enlightenment. But they also believed that rights were inherent because they were granted to every human being by a Creator. In contemporary society, when people are less likely to believe in a "magical sky fairy", there isn't such a convenient basis for natural rights. If there are no objective moral values, as has been argued by many proponents of Utilitarianism and taken up by popular thinkers like Dawkins, then it's hard to say that there could be objective rights.
Did you read the article? It discusses flying cellular towers and other such connectivity solutions. That's not shadily exploiting a back door. It's like walking to your house and noisily building you a new front door.
Then either you are saying that everyone must go on to a university education, or you are saying that independent thinking should be encouraged only in a subset of the population.
Evolutionary biology should be taught exactly as it is understood and known by those who have actually entered and studied the field
If you suggest we should blindly accept authority like that, then it's hard to compete with the religious members of the community who will point to their own authorities.
Instead of only providing children with facts that must be learned because someone else said so, it would be healthy to encourage a more Socratic approach to science. If teaching them facts equips them for the workforce, teaching them to question everything equips them for self-realization and happiness.
...don't believe in the theory of evolution at least in principle?
Pretty much everyone believes in evolution in general, but plenty of people believe the view of evolution taught in public schools tends to be oversimplistic. One one hand, you do have theists who believe that "irreducible complexity" necessitates a helping hand at stages instead of the blind process typically presented as Darwin's breakthrough discovery. Behe's Darwin's Black Box. Now, one can fairly view that as dressed-up Creationism, but it is written by an actual biochemist. Then there's the completely non-theistic views that oppose the simplistic account, such as Gould's punctuated equilibria.
The challenge in discussing evolution in public schools is presenting evolution as an uncertain field in a way that drives inquiry, contributing to a healthy development of scientific thinking among the populace, as opposed to closing minds which ID and Creationism advocates usually seek. It's a hard balance to get right.
We're losing certain kinds of jobs, while the nature of our workforce is changing. Smart kids will be entering into the medical field as the coming increase of retirees is going to place a heavy demand on medical trades.
Yeah? And what about the dumb kids, the bulk of the workforce? Not everyone is cut out for educated fields. As long as the US had a manufacturing base, there was plenty of repetitive, monotonous work for the average man.
Contemporary chemistry sets might not encourage you to kill insects or blow stuff up, but chemistry sets are still around. I just went to Amazon and did a search for "chemistry set" and the very first one (the Thames & Kosmos beginner set) even guides kids through working with electricity. Indeed, in general this set doesn't look any more tame than what I had growing up in the 1980s.
If chemistry sets today are less popular, blame parents. But parents who are clued-up and want to introduce their children to the scientific process still have the possibility of buying these sets.
She's not a politician, she's a celebrity. She is no more qualified to be a politician than Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ciccolina.
The rise of the professional politician, who needs an armload of qualifications before he is welcome in office, is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they established a country in which the political process was open to all (well, except slaves and women). Many early congressmen were pretty simple folks, not much more clued-up than Palin.
At least some of these tombs predate Muhammad by centuries. Saudis have never had much interest in such sites, and there is a sense that nothing good can come from the era they term jahilia ("ignorance"). Most archaeological study of pre-Islamic Arabia is carried out by Europeans and North Americans.
It's important for workers to speak the local language not just to make things easier for their employers, but also so that they are aware of their rights.
When I moved to Finland a few years back, I initially despaired that even lowly jobs required a decent knowledge of Finnish, but when I reached relative proficiency in the language and started working in blue-collar part-time work to put myself through grad school, I was happy that I could understand the rights gained for me and my colleagues in collective bargaining between the union and my employer (every worker has these rights, even if they aren't a union member).
But an immigrant who doesn't speak the local language can be exploited mercilessly by his employers.
Back in the 1990s, there certainly seemed to be an expectation that Antarctica would open up Real Soon Now. Kim Stanley Robinson, for example, wrote a novel predicting great polemics over resource rights and environmental impact; the continent would be sort of a prelude to his imagined colonization of Mars.
Over a decade later, nothing has really changed down there. The exploitation of Antarctica is like workable fusion power or the Singularity: always years away.
The curious thing about many of Europe's "right-wing" parties is that they are really only on the right when it comes to immigration and cultural issues. Many nonetheless support a strong welfare state, which puts them squarely on the left. So even with the rise of the new European right, I'd say Europe continues to be tilted considerably more to the left than the US.
E17 and EFL are complete rewrites and date from long after the writing of GNOME. There is no code left from the versions of Enlightenment that predate GNOME.
While I can't entirely join in with those who claim that Assange is a media whore, Ellsberg's low-key style in releasing the Pentagon Papers certainly makes him look all the more respectful. I'd recommend reading his memoirs for a portrait of a truly committed and sincere American citizen.
Sadly, as I've gotten older, I've come to realize that American history isn't a straight path of progress, but a cycle of ups and downs. The gains we got in the late 1960s and early 1970s in weakening undemocratic power structures are pretty much all gone now.
While the philosophers of religion were scratching their navels and gazing into their butts about whether a person who died on the Moon would go to the same heaven or hell as someone on Earth, the scientists sent a man there - and brought him back.
The tradition of the self-examined life is often pointed to as the key to Western civilization. It is what has led us to make the achievements we have. It's thus sad to see that just because of whizbang technology, you're prepared to throw out a mighty heritage.
Science and technology can be great, but they are not a panacea. They do not solve ethical conundrums, or metaphysical questions that intrigue all (And before you make some amateur claim that Utilitarianism is the scientific approach to ethics, no two people entirely agree on a particular Utilitarianism). Philosophy is inescapable. It is an inherent part of human lives even after we've landed on the moon.
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Even if one totals deaths from US interventions, the amount of people the US has killed still trails behind the Soviet Union and far behind China under Mao. I am in no way defending American foreign policy, but the figures do not show the US to be the most barbaric regime in history.
Did I say it was? The OP claimed that Iran has never gone from musing about violence to directly supporting violence. I corrected him. The shady foreign police acts of the US have nothing to do with it.
None of what you say contradicts my point, that Ahmadinejad isn't really in charge. And as much as he likes to play the violent demagogue, many analysts find that Khamenei and his advisors keep cool and don't intend to bring the country into a nuclear holocaust.
None of those posts represent the denominations most represented in the US government.
Cite for the cleansing fire claim? I don't deny that evangelical Protestantism drives a great deal of American politics, but your assertion doesn't at all square with the beliefs of the denominations widely represented in government.
If you were truly informed on the Iranian situation you'd know that Ahmadinejad, though holding the title of president, is not the supreme ruler of Iran. He must answer to other people, and he does not have control over the military. While he's probably a nutjob, he can't singlehandedly plunge Iran into a war against the wishes of others.
Iran has been bankrolling Hezbollah for years and years now. I agree that starting a nuclear war isn't very likely, but the Iranian regime has gone beyond mere rhetoric into driving violence.
The OP asked if any scientists question evolution. A person employed in a scientific field in a university meets the general definition of "scientist". Nowhere did I say that the man in question is right or wrong, I simply answered the OP's question.
So people claimed during the Enlightenment. But they also believed that rights were inherent because they were granted to every human being by a Creator. In contemporary society, when people are less likely to believe in a "magical sky fairy", there isn't such a convenient basis for natural rights. If there are no objective moral values, as has been argued by many proponents of Utilitarianism and taken up by popular thinkers like Dawkins, then it's hard to say that there could be objective rights.
Did you read the article? It discusses flying cellular towers and other such connectivity solutions. That's not shadily exploiting a back door. It's like walking to your house and noisily building you a new front door.
Then either you are saying that everyone must go on to a university education, or you are saying that independent thinking should be encouraged only in a subset of the population.
If you suggest we should blindly accept authority like that, then it's hard to compete with the religious members of the community who will point to their own authorities.
Instead of only providing children with facts that must be learned because someone else said so, it would be healthy to encourage a more Socratic approach to science. If teaching them facts equips them for the workforce, teaching them to question everything equips them for self-realization and happiness.
Pretty much everyone believes in evolution in general, but plenty of people believe the view of evolution taught in public schools tends to be oversimplistic. One one hand, you do have theists who believe that "irreducible complexity" necessitates a helping hand at stages instead of the blind process typically presented as Darwin's breakthrough discovery. Behe's Darwin's Black Box . Now, one can fairly view that as dressed-up Creationism, but it is written by an actual biochemist. Then there's the completely non-theistic views that oppose the simplistic account, such as Gould's punctuated equilibria.
The challenge in discussing evolution in public schools is presenting evolution as an uncertain field in a way that drives inquiry, contributing to a healthy development of scientific thinking among the populace, as opposed to closing minds which ID and Creationism advocates usually seek. It's a hard balance to get right.
Yeah? And what about the dumb kids, the bulk of the workforce? Not everyone is cut out for educated fields. As long as the US had a manufacturing base, there was plenty of repetitive, monotonous work for the average man.
Contemporary chemistry sets might not encourage you to kill insects or blow stuff up, but chemistry sets are still around. I just went to Amazon and did a search for "chemistry set" and the very first one (the Thames & Kosmos beginner set) even guides kids through working with electricity. Indeed, in general this set doesn't look any more tame than what I had growing up in the 1980s.
If chemistry sets today are less popular, blame parents. But parents who are clued-up and want to introduce their children to the scientific process still have the possibility of buying these sets.
The rise of the professional politician, who needs an armload of qualifications before he is welcome in office, is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they established a country in which the political process was open to all (well, except slaves and women). Many early congressmen were pretty simple folks, not much more clued-up than Palin.
At least some of these tombs predate Muhammad by centuries. Saudis have never had much interest in such sites, and there is a sense that nothing good can come from the era they term jahilia ("ignorance"). Most archaeological study of pre-Islamic Arabia is carried out by Europeans and North Americans.
Did anyone else read that tweet in an excruciatingly exaggerated swish accent?
It's important for workers to speak the local language not just to make things easier for their employers, but also so that they are aware of their rights.
When I moved to Finland a few years back, I initially despaired that even lowly jobs required a decent knowledge of Finnish, but when I reached relative proficiency in the language and started working in blue-collar part-time work to put myself through grad school, I was happy that I could understand the rights gained for me and my colleagues in collective bargaining between the union and my employer (every worker has these rights, even if they aren't a union member).
But an immigrant who doesn't speak the local language can be exploited mercilessly by his employers.
Back in the 1990s, there certainly seemed to be an expectation that Antarctica would open up Real Soon Now. Kim Stanley Robinson, for example, wrote a novel predicting great polemics over resource rights and environmental impact; the continent would be sort of a prelude to his imagined colonization of Mars.
Over a decade later, nothing has really changed down there. The exploitation of Antarctica is like workable fusion power or the Singularity: always years away.
The word "fifth" doesn't really count here, as <th> is a digraph representing a different sound than <t> alone.
The curious thing about many of Europe's "right-wing" parties is that they are really only on the right when it comes to immigration and cultural issues. Many nonetheless support a strong welfare state, which puts them squarely on the left. So even with the rise of the new European right, I'd say Europe continues to be tilted considerably more to the left than the US.
E17 and EFL are complete rewrites and date from long after the writing of GNOME. There is no code left from the versions of Enlightenment that predate GNOME.
While I can't entirely join in with those who claim that Assange is a media whore, Ellsberg's low-key style in releasing the Pentagon Papers certainly makes him look all the more respectful. I'd recommend reading his memoirs for a portrait of a truly committed and sincere American citizen.
Sadly, as I've gotten older, I've come to realize that American history isn't a straight path of progress, but a cycle of ups and downs. The gains we got in the late 1960s and early 1970s in weakening undemocratic power structures are pretty much all gone now.
The tradition of the self-examined life is often pointed to as the key to Western civilization. It is what has led us to make the achievements we have. It's thus sad to see that just because of whizbang technology, you're prepared to throw out a mighty heritage.
Science and technology can be great, but they are not a panacea. They do not solve ethical conundrums, or metaphysical questions that intrigue all (And before you make some amateur claim that Utilitarianism is the scientific approach to ethics, no two people entirely agree on a particular Utilitarianism). Philosophy is inescapable. It is an inherent part of human lives even after we've landed on the moon.