I never used Bing to search for deals. I always went to the site directly, added the product to the cart, closed the window, then went back to the site through Bing's cashback program. That way I never get artificially raised prices (I always double-checked) and get cashback. I've saved hundreds of dollars using Bing's cashback. The best was buying giftcards (to stores I normally shop at like Sam's Club) on eBay and getting >15% cashback. That way I saved money on normal purchases.
It is good news. This also points out some of the inconsistencies in politics. Apparently it's okay to privatize space flight but not health care and social security etc...
Let me just put forth a hypothesis: What if porn consumption is a significant factor in sexual abuse (i.e., the viewing of porn leads to an increase in sexual abuse)?
I'm not saying this is the case but it is possible. Anyone have research data either for or against this hypothesis?
Why can't they do both? I don't see how they are mutually exclusive categories. If South Africa wants to filter porn that does not exclude them from also working on the AIDS problem. Governments can focus on more than one thing (usually).
Equating all psychologists with psychoanalysts is highly inaccurate. Psychoanalysts are a rare and dying breed (the last stronghold is in the NE states, specifically in NYC). Psychoanalysts are to psychologists as alchemists are to chemists. There is much to criticize psychology about but people are far different than planets. In psychology, for the most part we cannot run the same type of studies with the same level of control that other scientists can. I happen to do neurobiological psychology research (with a lot of physics and math) but working with people is complicated.
There are just as many conservatives who are "liberal" in their thinking as liberals. Conservative vs. liberal political ideology have nothing to do with open-mindedness or eclectic thoughts. To extend your thoughts: if conservatives think everything is peachy (are optimistic about the present) the way it is and that old ways are best then liberals think the world is not peachy (are pessimistic about the present) and that new ways are best. This means that conservatives are happy/content now but liberals are happy/content in the future (again, I'm just providing a corollary to your black and white stereotyping of liberals and conservatives).
I think it is rare to have a conservative who is not open to new ideas, they just believe that traditions provide a secure foundation for society and are reticent to change. Liberals want to change and want to eschew the traditions of the past.
Besides, in my experience (I know that anecdotes do not mean much), the conservatives I know are much more open-minded than the liberals I know. I know some truly open-minded liberals and some truly open-minded conservatives but on average, by experience, and in practice, the conservatives I know personally are less dogmatic than the liberals I know.
Further, there is some evidence that conservatives are more open to reading opposing viewpoints from theirs than liberals are: "People with stronger party affiliation, conservative political views, and greater interest in politics proved more likely to click on articles with opposing views, according to the Ohio State study." (source: http://www.livescience.com/culture/090608-media-message.html).
But that's just my experience and opinion, take from it what you will.
It does stink but you can actually use a Mac for 5 years versus needing a 3 year replacement with Windows boxes (I know a lot of people go longer than that but 3 years is really about optimal in the Windows world versus about 5 years in the Mac world). Sure we all might like a new Mac more than every 5 years but 5 year old Macs by and large work great and don't seem super slow. A 5 year old Windows computer (even if you optimize it regularly) will seem very slow. Apple's updates to its OS speeds up the computer while Microsoft's slows computers down.
You might not be able to overdose (although I'm sure someone can) but LSD does result in "bad trips" for a significant proportion of people. The psychological trauma can last for years. You cannot prevent a bad trip, they can hit people using LSD at random. LSD is not benign, no drugs are (note: "if used responsibly and in good company" - the key is that drugs are almost never used responsibly, at least illicit drugs are usually not; that's not just because they are illegal either, although that does factor in to their abuse. Alcohol is not illegal but it is abused widely; same with tobacco). Responsible use is better than irresponsible use but no use is better than any use (IMO).
Further, if a phobia/disorder is not debilitating enough or interfering with your day to day functioning then it technically is not a disorder; it cannot really be diagnosed and coded and treated because it is not interfering with your life. So technically, a phobia is not a disorder until it sufficiently interferes with your life or bothers you enough that you are worried about it. I'm not contradicting your post, I'm agreeing with you; I'm just pointing out that a phobia really is not a disorder until it interferes sufficiently with your life (in thoughts, emotions, or actions).
It's a fallacy to argue for blatant sex or sexual apps just because there are violent apps. Sex is wonderful but porn is a distortion of sex. It is a commercialization and twisting of something good. Just because sex is good does not make porn good - Steve Jobs was not commenting about sex, he was commenting about porn (not all sex in media is porn but again, the issue is porn, not sex - this distinction is not just semantics). You have no leg to stand on if you argue that porn is good but violence is bad.
The only logical solution to your argument is to both pull the violence and keep the porn out. You might not see anything wrong with porn but many of us do. Someone else might see nothing wrong with violence but you clearly do. So, we should just take it all out, not switch out the violence for sex (porn). See, that's logic.:)
Or you could say that defense spending saves lives - it depends on your perspective. Yes, defense spending results in killing people but it also saves people.
Just because they never found the WMD does not mean they did not exist. We know they existed at some point (at least in the 1980s and 1990s) but if they really were all destroyed is anyone's guess.
That tim-taylor link was pretty good but you misunderstood the results. He does not conclude that "if one twin is gay, the probability of the other being gay is around 55%". I don't know where you got that statement. Here is what he concludes:
"The studies summarised are of inconsistent quality, with biased and limited samples." "Even if we just consider the less selective reports, there is still considerable debate as to how much the results of any twin study can tell us of the relative strengths of genetic and environmental factors." "Even twins separated at birth have shared the prenatal environment of the uterus, which, according to recent theories, may have a critical role in the development of sexual orientation (see next section). Therefore, if separated identical twins show concordance for a particular trait, this cannot, in practice, be directly attributed entirely to their shared genes." "From the data reviewed in this report, it seems reasonable to conclude that male homosexuality, or, at least, some 'types' of male homosexuality, are under some degree of genetic control, although various problems with this data prevent more precise conclusions from being drawn. Little can be said of the origins of female homosexuality."
The author of that article had the same conclusion that I had in my post - that the evidence is still unclear. There is some evidence but we shouldn't jump to conclusions.
I agree that psychology has some issues (as does every branch of science) but I am interested in why you think psychology studies into homosexuality are questionable (I think many of them are but I'm interested also in general why you think psychology research is so bad). This is also a little funny because the Seattle-PI article you linked to was about research done by a psychologist!:)
However, as someone who is a neuroscientist (technically neuropsychology but I am primarily doing neuroimaging and neuroanatomy research; my publications tend more toward medical and neuroscience journals than psychology journals), I feel I have some authority to criticize neuroscience research (how did you like that appeal to authority logical fallacy?!). I've read a ton of junk neuroscience research. Neuroscience is still really new as a field. Even the very "biological" neuroscience research can be iffy. There are a lot of good studies out there but there are a lot of not very good studies. What is even worse is journalistic science reporting. I'd be pretty hesitant to believe anything written about science by the AP (such as your Seattle-PI link) without reading the actual article first. I've read some good AP science articles but I'm just cautioning to be wary.
I'm not discounting biology, I think it plays a significant factor. I simply have yet to read research that reliably demonstrates that homosexuality is mainly biological. Even that National Article of Science article referred to in the Seattle-PI article had Beta (regression) values of only about.1 (which is pretty small). It is significant but the sample size was large.
Why I downplayed genetics and biology in my original post (other than the fact that the research is still not convincing - like I said, some studies show a biological effect, others do not) is because I'm tired of seeing people misrepresent genetic and biological research as saying things the authors never intended to say. For example, that Seattle-PI article's headline is "Study Suggests Homosexuality Begins In The Womb" but the author in his paper only says, "The most consistent biodemographic correlate of sexual orientation in men is the number of older brothers (fraternal birth order)." Basically, number of older brothers is the most consistent biodemographic predictor but it still only has a Beta predictive value of 0.1. That's a minor effect, all things considered.
I think the best research is in neuroscience (at least relative to psychology), which is one reason I do neuroscience more than psychology, but like I already wrote, I have not read very convincing research yet and I've done pretty exhaustive lit reviews of the topic.
Those numbers are really high and probably are not correct. A large twin study (Bailey et al. Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2000)) found that there was a concordance of about 20% (that means both twins were homosexual) for monozygotic twins raised in the same home. There was basically no concordance between dizygotic twins. Here is one conclusion from the Bailey article: "In contrast to most prior twin studies of sexual orientation, however, ours did not provide statistically significant support for the importance of genetic factors for that trait. This does not mean that our results support heritability estimates of zero, though our results do not exclude them either. Our findings are also consistent with moderate to large heritabilities for both male and female sexual orientation, and the confidence intervals of our estimates include estimates from earlier studies".
This is only one study but it had the best methods of the various studies I read. The authors say that they cannot rule out heritability but from what they found, environment and personality traits were significant predictors.
The authors found that, yes, fraternal twins are more likely to be both homosexual but when you account for environmental/personal non-biological factors, the significance of biology mostly washes out. Again, this study was with twins who grew up together (which means that they should have higher rates of homosexuality than twins raised apart).
Here's a quote from a large twin study article: "In a large representative sample of adult Australian twins, we found consistent evidence that familial factors influence sexual orientation and two related traits, childhood gender nonconformity and continuous gender identity. It was difficult, in general, to disentangle genetic and shared environmental contributions to the familial variance, though childhood gender nonconformity was significantly heritable in both sexes. Multivariate analyses showed that familial factors were important causes in the covariation among the three traits, and provided some support for genetic factors per se. The multivariate analyses, as well as examination of the distribution of sexual orientation, provided evidence that male and female sexual orientation should be analyzed separately and probably require different theoretical accounts. As is clear from the confidence intervals of the univariate parameter estimates, however, only fairly general statements about genetic and environmental influences can be made with confidence." (Bailey et al. Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2000)).
This means that environment is hard to distinguish from genetics. In any case, the authors found that genetics played less of a role that behavioral factors.
Here's a reference stating that (in the author's opinion) research articles before 1995 into homosexuality and genetics had some serious flaws (McGuire. Is Homosexuality Genetic?. Journal of Homosexuality (1995)) - I believe that the author believes that homosexuality is genetic, he just did not like the previous studies.
Here are some more references: Buhrich, N., Bailey, J. M., & Martin, N. G. (1991). Sexual orientation, sexual identity, and sex dimorphic behaviors in male twins. Behavior Genetics, 21, 75–96.
Hamer, D. H., Hu, S., Magnuson, V. L., Hu, N., & Pattatucci, A. M. L. (1993, July). A linkage between DNA markers on the X chromosome and male sexual orientation. Science, 261, 321–327.
Just to add a little to your response.
At best - yes I've read the actual studies myself - genetics and biology account for about 20% of the variance in homosexuality (and about 50% of studies find that genetics is a significant factor in homosexuality and 50% do not). In other words, even assuming that studies that show a significant biological contributor to homosexuality (that also assumes that biology predated the attitudes/feelings/behaviors) that either biological factors that we do not understand yet or, more likely, psychosocial factors are responsible for one being homosexual.
This means that things in people's lives - choices they made or things that happened to them and how they reacted to those things - are mainly responsible for homosexuality. Biology plays a role, just as it does in just about everything, but it is not the main "cause" (if we want to use that word) of homosexuality.
If anyone wants citations, I can look them up. Just respond to this post and I'll get back to you.
Yes, but the scout shooting merit badges teach proper gun safety (which no video game really does) and you are not shooting at living things (real or virtual). Maybe I've just missed the complaints but I've never read a complaint against violent video games because they "train young people how to operate weapons." The complaints I've read are more like "the kids are exposed to violence and gore" for hours on end" which exposure can desensitize kids (and adults) to violence or "children might imitate the violence in violent games [by acting out more aggressively".
I am a psychologist. One thing we know quite certainly is that when kids are exposed to violence, they will (not all kids of course, but statistically speaking) act more aggressively. This research goes back to the 1950s and has been replicated over and over. Research specifically with violent games shows the same thing. When viewing violence, people do become desensitized to violence.
Shooting guns isn't violence. Shooting guns at things can be (it depends on the thing and it depends on a person's attitude when shooting). Besides as someone who was a scout and is still involved in scouting, I can say that with shooting merit badges you spend most of your time learning how to care for and safely operate guns and not a lot of time shooting. Games do not teach gun safety but scouting does.
I'm not doubting your Norway bit but generally the recession was worse in Europe than in the U.S. It is also recovering more slowly than the U.S. is, at least according to this article (it might require a subscription but if you do a Google News search of the article's title and then click on the link, you can see the article for free): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304159304575183971423482364.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel
Here's a selection from the article: "In a survey this week, The Wall Street Journal asked forecasters: Which major region is likely to be the biggest drag on global growth this year? Forty-six chose Europe, seven Japan. Not one picked another region. 'Europe is driving along the edge of the Grand Canyon,' one said. 'It's all downside risk.' "Economists at the Institute of International Finance, a group of international banks, recently made the first 'meaningful upward revision' to their global growth forecast in six months, citing 'more robust' home-growth demand in the U.S., Japan and emerging markets. For much of Europe, though, they see domestic demand as 'worryingly lackluster.' Michael Mussa of Washington's Peterson Institute for International Economics think tank, though more optimistic than most of his forecasting peers, said last week, 'Western Europe is the one region where the recession proved significantly worse than I anticipated in April [2008] and where the extent of recovery so far has been disappointing.'"
I've read a number of articles from many different sources that all basically say the same thing: the EU is coming out of the recession more slowly than the rest of the world.
Your post was one of the most insightful I've read on Slashdot in a while. Maybe it's because you sound like someone with epistemology training.
I know a number of very intelligent people who care very little about either the big bang or evolution and thus know quite little about them; they are concepts that have little perceived effect on day-to-day life and are thus not important. This holds true for many scientists who do not do research in either field so they don't apply.
The other side is that I know a lot of very intelligent people who either do not know about or do not care about the philosophy of science and they assume that our current scientific method is the only valid way to seek truth when it is not. In fact, our current scientific method technically is not interested in truth, it is interested in facts; facts != truth. Facts might be true but truth is a different matter (that's a discussion for philosophers).
You didn't support your premise of "No. Not in regards to scientific issues."
Someone can very well understand the "science" of something and refuse to accept it. Science is not perfect, it never claims to be (forgive the anthropomorphism of science) - although some people do claim that science is perfect. Science is ever changing, which is why someone might understand the science behind something and still not accept it.
Your example of refusing to accept that the earth is not the center of the universe is not sufficient to contradict the parent poster. Something is a fallacy if not all consequences or conclusions of the logical premises are valid or true. You tried to refute the parent's post by including all "scientific issues" (since you didn't specify conditions or limitations on that term). This means that your argument is destroyed any time there are disagreements in science, which happen all the time.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe they fixed it now. It works in Chrome without changing anything.
I never used Bing to search for deals. I always went to the site directly, added the product to the cart, closed the window, then went back to the site through Bing's cashback program. That way I never get artificially raised prices (I always double-checked) and get cashback. I've saved hundreds of dollars using Bing's cashback. The best was buying giftcards (to stores I normally shop at like Sam's Club) on eBay and getting >15% cashback. That way I saved money on normal purchases.
It is good news. This also points out some of the inconsistencies in politics. Apparently it's okay to privatize space flight but not health care and social security etc...
Let me just put forth a hypothesis: What if porn consumption is a significant factor in sexual abuse (i.e., the viewing of porn leads to an increase in sexual abuse)?
I'm not saying this is the case but it is possible. Anyone have research data either for or against this hypothesis?
Why can't they do both? I don't see how they are mutually exclusive categories. If South Africa wants to filter porn that does not exclude them from also working on the AIDS problem. Governments can focus on more than one thing (usually).
Equating all psychologists with psychoanalysts is highly inaccurate. Psychoanalysts are a rare and dying breed (the last stronghold is in the NE states, specifically in NYC). Psychoanalysts are to psychologists as alchemists are to chemists. There is much to criticize psychology about but people are far different than planets. In psychology, for the most part we cannot run the same type of studies with the same level of control that other scientists can. I happen to do neurobiological psychology research (with a lot of physics and math) but working with people is complicated.
Which is exactly why it was bad. :)
There are just as many conservatives who are "liberal" in their thinking as liberals. Conservative vs. liberal political ideology have nothing to do with open-mindedness or eclectic thoughts. To extend your thoughts: if conservatives think everything is peachy (are optimistic about the present) the way it is and that old ways are best then liberals think the world is not peachy (are pessimistic about the present) and that new ways are best. This means that conservatives are happy/content now but liberals are happy/content in the future (again, I'm just providing a corollary to your black and white stereotyping of liberals and conservatives).
I think it is rare to have a conservative who is not open to new ideas, they just believe that traditions provide a secure foundation for society and are reticent to change. Liberals want to change and want to eschew the traditions of the past.
Besides, in my experience (I know that anecdotes do not mean much), the conservatives I know are much more open-minded than the liberals I know. I know some truly open-minded liberals and some truly open-minded conservatives but on average, by experience, and in practice, the conservatives I know personally are less dogmatic than the liberals I know.
Further, there is some evidence that conservatives are more open to reading opposing viewpoints from theirs than liberals are: "People with stronger party affiliation, conservative political views, and greater interest in politics proved more likely to click on articles with opposing views, according to the Ohio State study." (source: http://www.livescience.com/culture/090608-media-message.html).
But that's just my experience and opinion, take from it what you will.
It does stink but you can actually use a Mac for 5 years versus needing a 3 year replacement with Windows boxes (I know a lot of people go longer than that but 3 years is really about optimal in the Windows world versus about 5 years in the Mac world). Sure we all might like a new Mac more than every 5 years but 5 year old Macs by and large work great and don't seem super slow. A 5 year old Windows computer (even if you optimize it regularly) will seem very slow. Apple's updates to its OS speeds up the computer while Microsoft's slows computers down.
You might not be able to overdose (although I'm sure someone can) but LSD does result in "bad trips" for a significant proportion of people. The psychological trauma can last for years. You cannot prevent a bad trip, they can hit people using LSD at random. LSD is not benign, no drugs are (note: "if used responsibly and in good company" - the key is that drugs are almost never used responsibly, at least illicit drugs are usually not; that's not just because they are illegal either, although that does factor in to their abuse. Alcohol is not illegal but it is abused widely; same with tobacco). Responsible use is better than irresponsible use but no use is better than any use (IMO).
Further, if a phobia/disorder is not debilitating enough or interfering with your day to day functioning then it technically is not a disorder; it cannot really be diagnosed and coded and treated because it is not interfering with your life. So technically, a phobia is not a disorder until it sufficiently interferes with your life or bothers you enough that you are worried about it. I'm not contradicting your post, I'm agreeing with you; I'm just pointing out that a phobia really is not a disorder until it interferes sufficiently with your life (in thoughts, emotions, or actions).
It's a fallacy to argue for blatant sex or sexual apps just because there are violent apps. Sex is wonderful but porn is a distortion of sex. It is a commercialization and twisting of something good. Just because sex is good does not make porn good - Steve Jobs was not commenting about sex, he was commenting about porn (not all sex in media is porn but again, the issue is porn, not sex - this distinction is not just semantics). You have no leg to stand on if you argue that porn is good but violence is bad.
:)
The only logical solution to your argument is to both pull the violence and keep the porn out. You might not see anything wrong with porn but many of us do. Someone else might see nothing wrong with violence but you clearly do. So, we should just take it all out, not switch out the violence for sex (porn). See, that's logic.
Or you could say that defense spending saves lives - it depends on your perspective. Yes, defense spending results in killing people but it also saves people.
Just because they never found the WMD does not mean they did not exist. We know they existed at some point (at least in the 1980s and 1990s) but if they really were all destroyed is anyone's guess.
The best study I found was about 20%.
That tim-taylor link was pretty good but you misunderstood the results. He does not conclude that "if one twin is gay, the probability of the other being gay is around 55%". I don't know where you got that statement. Here is what he concludes:
"The studies summarised are of inconsistent quality, with biased and limited samples."
"Even if we just consider the less selective reports, there is still considerable debate as to how much the results of any twin study can tell us of the relative strengths of genetic and environmental factors."
"Even twins separated at birth have shared the prenatal environment of the uterus, which, according to recent theories, may have a critical role in the development of sexual orientation (see next section). Therefore, if separated identical twins show concordance for a particular trait, this cannot, in practice, be directly attributed entirely to their shared genes."
"From the data reviewed in this report, it seems reasonable to conclude that male homosexuality, or, at least, some 'types' of male homosexuality, are under some degree of genetic control, although various problems with this data prevent more precise conclusions from being drawn. Little can be said of the origins of female homosexuality."
The author of that article had the same conclusion that I had in my post - that the evidence is still unclear. There is some evidence but we shouldn't jump to conclusions.
I agree that psychology has some issues (as does every branch of science) but I am interested in why you think psychology studies into homosexuality are questionable (I think many of them are but I'm interested also in general why you think psychology research is so bad). This is also a little funny because the Seattle-PI article you linked to was about research done by a psychologist! :)
.1 (which is pretty small). It is significant but the sample size was large.
However, as someone who is a neuroscientist (technically neuropsychology but I am primarily doing neuroimaging and neuroanatomy research; my publications tend more toward medical and neuroscience journals than psychology journals), I feel I have some authority to criticize neuroscience research (how did you like that appeal to authority logical fallacy?!). I've read a ton of junk neuroscience research. Neuroscience is still really new as a field. Even the very "biological" neuroscience research can be iffy. There are a lot of good studies out there but there are a lot of not very good studies. What is even worse is journalistic science reporting. I'd be pretty hesitant to believe anything written about science by the AP (such as your Seattle-PI link) without reading the actual article first. I've read some good AP science articles but I'm just cautioning to be wary.
I'm not discounting biology, I think it plays a significant factor. I simply have yet to read research that reliably demonstrates that homosexuality is mainly biological. Even that National Article of Science article referred to in the Seattle-PI article had Beta (regression) values of only about
Why I downplayed genetics and biology in my original post (other than the fact that the research is still not convincing - like I said, some studies show a biological effect, others do not) is because I'm tired of seeing people misrepresent genetic and biological research as saying things the authors never intended to say. For example, that Seattle-PI article's headline is "Study Suggests Homosexuality Begins In The Womb" but the author in his paper only says, "The most consistent biodemographic correlate of sexual orientation in men is the number of older brothers (fraternal birth order)." Basically, number of older brothers is the most consistent biodemographic predictor but it still only has a Beta predictive value of 0.1. That's a minor effect, all things considered.
I think the best research is in neuroscience (at least relative to psychology), which is one reason I do neuroscience more than psychology, but like I already wrote, I have not read very convincing research yet and I've done pretty exhaustive lit reviews of the topic.
Those numbers are really high and probably are not correct. A large twin study (Bailey et al. Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2000)) found that there was a concordance of about 20% (that means both twins were homosexual) for monozygotic twins raised in the same home. There was basically no concordance between dizygotic twins. Here is one conclusion from the Bailey article: "In contrast to most prior twin studies of sexual orientation, however, ours did not provide statistically significant support for the importance of genetic factors for that trait. This does not mean that our results support heritability estimates of zero, though our results do not exclude them either. Our findings are also consistent with moderate to large heritabilities for both male and female sexual orientation, and the confidence intervals of our estimates include estimates from earlier studies".
This is only one study but it had the best methods of the various studies I read. The authors say that they cannot rule out heritability but from what they found, environment and personality traits were significant predictors.
The authors found that, yes, fraternal twins are more likely to be both homosexual but when you account for environmental/personal non-biological factors, the significance of biology mostly washes out. Again, this study was with twins who grew up together (which means that they should have higher rates of homosexuality than twins raised apart).
Here's a quote from a large twin study article: "In a large representative sample of adult Australian twins, we found consistent evidence that familial factors influence sexual orientation and two related traits, childhood gender nonconformity and continuous gender identity. It was difficult, in general, to disentangle genetic and shared environmental contributions to the familial variance, though childhood gender nonconformity was significantly heritable in both sexes. Multivariate analyses showed that familial factors were important causes in the covariation among the three traits, and provided some support for genetic factors per se. The multivariate analyses, as well as examination of the distribution of sexual orientation, provided evidence that male and female sexual orientation should be analyzed separately and probably require different theoretical accounts. As is clear from the confidence intervals of the univariate parameter estimates, however, only fairly general statements about genetic and environmental influences can be made with confidence." (Bailey et al. Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2000)).
This means that environment is hard to distinguish from genetics. In any case, the authors found that genetics played less of a role that behavioral factors.
Here's a reference stating that (in the author's opinion) research articles before 1995 into homosexuality and genetics had some serious flaws (McGuire. Is Homosexuality Genetic?. Journal of Homosexuality (1995)) - I believe that the author believes that homosexuality is genetic, he just did not like the previous studies.
Here are some more references: Buhrich, N., Bailey, J. M., & Martin, N. G. (1991). Sexual orientation, sexual identity, and sex dimorphic behaviors in male twins. Behavior Genetics, 21, 75–96.
Hamer, D. H., Hu, S., Magnuson, V. L., Hu, N., & Pattatucci, A. M. L. (1993, July). A linkage between DNA markers on the X chromosome and male sexual orientation. Science, 261, 321–327.
Just to add a little to your response. At best - yes I've read the actual studies myself - genetics and biology account for about 20% of the variance in homosexuality (and about 50% of studies find that genetics is a significant factor in homosexuality and 50% do not). In other words, even assuming that studies that show a significant biological contributor to homosexuality (that also assumes that biology predated the attitudes/feelings/behaviors) that either biological factors that we do not understand yet or, more likely, psychosocial factors are responsible for one being homosexual.
This means that things in people's lives - choices they made or things that happened to them and how they reacted to those things - are mainly responsible for homosexuality. Biology plays a role, just as it does in just about everything, but it is not the main "cause" (if we want to use that word) of homosexuality.
If anyone wants citations, I can look them up. Just respond to this post and I'll get back to you.
You do not have to complete that requirement; you must complete five of nine and that is merely one of the nine.
Yes, but the scout shooting merit badges teach proper gun safety (which no video game really does) and you are not shooting at living things (real or virtual). Maybe I've just missed the complaints but I've never read a complaint against violent video games because they "train young people how to operate weapons." The complaints I've read are more like "the kids are exposed to violence and gore" for hours on end" which exposure can desensitize kids (and adults) to violence or "children might imitate the violence in violent games [by acting out more aggressively".
I am a psychologist. One thing we know quite certainly is that when kids are exposed to violence, they will (not all kids of course, but statistically speaking) act more aggressively. This research goes back to the 1950s and has been replicated over and over. Research specifically with violent games shows the same thing. When viewing violence, people do become desensitized to violence.
Shooting guns isn't violence. Shooting guns at things can be (it depends on the thing and it depends on a person's attitude when shooting). Besides as someone who was a scout and is still involved in scouting, I can say that with shooting merit badges you spend most of your time learning how to care for and safely operate guns and not a lot of time shooting. Games do not teach gun safety but scouting does.
I'm not doubting your Norway bit but generally the recession was worse in Europe than in the U.S. It is also recovering more slowly than the U.S. is, at least according to this article (it might require a subscription but if you do a Google News search of the article's title and then click on the link, you can see the article for free): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304159304575183971423482364.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel
Here's a selection from the article: "In a survey this week, The Wall Street Journal asked forecasters: Which major region is likely to be the biggest drag on global growth this year? Forty-six chose Europe, seven Japan. Not one picked another region. 'Europe is driving along the edge of the Grand Canyon,' one said. 'It's all downside risk.'
"Economists at the Institute of International Finance, a group of international banks, recently made the first 'meaningful upward revision' to their global growth forecast in six months, citing 'more robust' home-growth demand in the U.S., Japan and emerging markets. For much of Europe, though, they see domestic demand as 'worryingly lackluster.' Michael Mussa of Washington's Peterson Institute for International Economics think tank, though more optimistic than most of his forecasting peers, said last week, 'Western Europe is the one region where the recession proved significantly worse than I anticipated in April [2008] and where the extent of recovery so far has been disappointing.'" I've read a number of articles from many different sources that all basically say the same thing: the EU is coming out of the recession more slowly than the rest of the world.
Your post was one of the most insightful I've read on Slashdot in a while. Maybe it's because you sound like someone with epistemology training.
I know a number of very intelligent people who care very little about either the big bang or evolution and thus know quite little about them; they are concepts that have little perceived effect on day-to-day life and are thus not important. This holds true for many scientists who do not do research in either field so they don't apply.
The other side is that I know a lot of very intelligent people who either do not know about or do not care about the philosophy of science and they assume that our current scientific method is the only valid way to seek truth when it is not. In fact, our current scientific method technically is not interested in truth, it is interested in facts; facts != truth. Facts might be true but truth is a different matter (that's a discussion for philosophers).
You didn't support your premise of "No. Not in regards to scientific issues."
Someone can very well understand the "science" of something and refuse to accept it. Science is not perfect, it never claims to be (forgive the anthropomorphism of science) - although some people do claim that science is perfect. Science is ever changing, which is why someone might understand the science behind something and still not accept it.
Your example of refusing to accept that the earth is not the center of the universe is not sufficient to contradict the parent poster. Something is a fallacy if not all consequences or conclusions of the logical premises are valid or true. You tried to refute the parent's post by including all "scientific issues" (since you didn't specify conditions or limitations on that term). This means that your argument is destroyed any time there are disagreements in science, which happen all the time.
Anyway, the parent is correct.