Really? And just how many scientists do that? I'm sure you can come up with the standard examples (Hubble, Penrose) but since you have tarred the majority of scientists with that brush, time to back it up, I want to know the percentage of scientists whoa assume they are experts in fields not related to their area of expertise.
And yet the statistics still show conception from rape and conception under consensual circumstances are sufficiently close as to be statistically indistinguishable.
Except that that was only half of the issue. Because this comes out of a discussion about rape and abortion, and since both Akin and Ryan are cosponsors of amendments that would withdraw Federal funding for abortions based on the "kind" of rape, I don't think you can just pretend that Akin is a lone nutball. I don't think you have to be Sherlock Holmes to draw a line between Akin's ludicrous statements and the amendments that he and Ryan had cosponsored. This is giving us a window on the kind of bizarre logic and myths being invoked by the social conservative wing of the GOP, and since some other prominent Republicans are on record repeating almost the same claim as Akin, I'd say the GOP has some fucking morons trying to concoct policies around abortion and women's rights based on shamefully idiotic bullshit.
Akin will ultimate take the bullet for this stupidity, but you can't tell me he is the only anti-abortion Republican who doesn't believe in magic powers of rape victims to fend off rapists' sperm.
This is a close race where the Democrat is losing. While yes, among the social conservative this is likely being applauded, ultimately Akin had their vote already, so what counts will be the on-the-fence voters who might have voted Democrat last time but who were likely moving over to Akin. It is this group that you have to worry about, and they are likely those great unwashed politically centered voters who might, say, disapprove of abortion, but who probably are not going to give their vote to a guy whose knowledge of human reproduction appears to be the equivalent of a pre-pubescent child and who wants to slice and dice which rape victims were raped or raped raped.
The difference in likelihood of pregnancy from a single act of coitus due to consensual sex and rape seem to sit within a point or two of each other (both around 5%). This tells me at least that, statistically speaking, the odds of getting pregnant, whether forced or willing, is little different. In every possible way Akin is wrong.
The statistic demonstrates that there is no difference in rates of pregnancy for a single act of unprotected sexual intercourse... period. So, from a statistical point of view, Akin's claim is rubbish. Then there are the obvious issues with Akin's knowledge of human reproduction, as in the guy is a fucking idiot who appears to have a knowledge of reproductive processes on par with a child in the single digit age range.
And then there's the very troubling reality of how Akin (and presumably Paul Ryan, who has been his close ally in trying to limit Federal money in abortions) views women in general.
An excellent observation. It's absolutely fascinating to me that the GOP's social conservative line isn't all that far from the hard-line Islamist line that a female victim of rape somehow actually was responsible for that rape and really it's more a situation of fornication, rather than violence.
There are some truly disturbing people filling up the hard-right ranks of the Republican party, and considering that Paul Ryan is a co-sponsor of amendments that seem to stem from this very kind of thinking, it certainly shines a new light on Ryan as well.
But it is a math issue. Akin has made the claim that somehow women who are raped can fend off pregnancy. So, there is a solid claim here that can be investigated, and before one starts pondering the means by which women can prevent rapists' sperm from fertilizing their ova, it seems useful to investigate the rates of pregnancy from rape.
Actually, what I find interesting is that I've read in various places that the odds of pregnancy from a single act of coitus is somewhere around 5%, so if 5% for rape is the statistic, then, from a purely biological point of view there is little difference in fertilization rates between consensual unprotected coitus and forced coitus.
Well, there's the little matter of that bill to restrict Federal funding for abortions, based in no small part of kinds of rape (ie. violent vs. statutory) that Akin and Ryan co-sponsored. While Ryan can't really be held to account for Akin's apparently first grade understanding of female reproduction, the fact is that both men are close allies when it comes to how the Federal government should define rape. Ryan isn't in the center of the target, but he's certainly somewhere on it.
And what kinds of messes do certain Continental European countries create? Germany, France and Switzerland are major arms exporters. Believe me, Europe causes its fair share of misery and woe, and on the scales of history, has caused more misery than war than any other bit of geography I can think of. No one needs to be lectured by Continental Europe on how to behave.
Amen. Nothing kills productivity like frequent meetings. Nothing worse than a manager who wants to find out how the team is doing by getting everyone together for an hour. "How's it going, Mr. Manager sir. It isn't because you keep dragging us into fucking meetings."
War is still very possible for two major reasons: Religions don't like democracy, and autocracies don't like democracy. As long as there are Religions with political power, war is possible. As long as there are nations in which the People are not the masters of their Government, war is possible.
Even the beginner student of history understands that wars are almost inevitably economic in nature. Religion is a useful tool, but I doubt there are more than a handful of wars throughout history whose underlying causes were religious. Even the Crusades, whatever the high flying religious rhetoric used to justify them, were more about Western and Central European Princes getting a piece of the action in one of the most important trade corridors in the world.
As to the claim about religions not liking democracy, that is pretty absurd. Modern democracy first began to grow in Protestant states, and that has economic underpinnings as well, as Protestantism was a useful tool for many European princes to break the political bonds with the autocratic Catholic Church. The growing mercantile classes, particularly in England, Scotland and the Low Countries, espoused forms of Protestantism very friendly to the notion of a thrifty sober working class, and it is this class that battled against the autocratic leanings of Absolute Monarchy (with all its Medieval and unspoken Medieval Catholic underpinnings), ultimately, in Britain at least, leading to one of the great revolutions in history; the Glorious Revolution which saw the Bill of Rights, 1689 enacted into law (and in one fashion or another inherited by pretty much all of Britain's former colonial holdings). This had solid Protestant underpinnings, so I would hardly say religion is an anathema to democracy.
In the end even the Catholic Church ended up heavily liberalizing, though it has a far uneasier alliance with democracy than Protestantism generally does.
As to autocratic states, well, they have little trouble doing business with democracies providing said democracies stay out of their internal affairs. China has no problem with Western democracy, since both have found a path by which everyone can make lots of money. Again, economics rules everything.
How about the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko? We can go on all day. Russia didn't become some nice delightful place governed by law abiding men just because the USSR collapsed.
No state is permitted to violate the Establishment Clause. This has been dealt with nearly a quarter century ago. It's unlikely banning evolution being taught in class in and of itself violates the Establishment Clause, but the minute they try to teach Creationism or ID, they'd better get ready to lose in court, and up paying out taxpayer money in damages to some atheist and his or her kids.
I'd like to see them provide a theory that's even testable. The first requirement of a hypothesis is that you can at least imagine some way of testing it. "God did it" is fundamentally untestable. An omnipotent being could do anything it pleased, and thus is compatible with all potential observations, and is thus you could imagine no test that would prove or disprove God's hand in any event; whether it be evolution or the fact that I tied my shoes this morning. Invoking God means you lose all explanatory power, whatever it is you allege you're trying to explain.
Darwin may have started out that way, but most certainly in his later years he slipped in somewhere between agnosticism and atheism due to the death of his daughter, which hit him very hard. I don't know how much evolution played into it, probably not in a direct fashion.
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Really? And just how many scientists do that? I'm sure you can come up with the standard examples (Hubble, Penrose) but since you have tarred the majority of scientists with that brush, time to back it up, I want to know the percentage of scientists whoa assume they are experts in fields not related to their area of expertise.
Judging by the number of engineers who espouse Creationism, I'm not sure they're that much better than the folks already in office.
And yet the statistics still show conception from rape and conception under consensual circumstances are sufficiently close as to be statistically indistinguishable.
Except that that was only half of the issue. Because this comes out of a discussion about rape and abortion, and since both Akin and Ryan are cosponsors of amendments that would withdraw Federal funding for abortions based on the "kind" of rape, I don't think you can just pretend that Akin is a lone nutball. I don't think you have to be Sherlock Holmes to draw a line between Akin's ludicrous statements and the amendments that he and Ryan had cosponsored. This is giving us a window on the kind of bizarre logic and myths being invoked by the social conservative wing of the GOP, and since some other prominent Republicans are on record repeating almost the same claim as Akin, I'd say the GOP has some fucking morons trying to concoct policies around abortion and women's rights based on shamefully idiotic bullshit.
Akin will ultimate take the bullet for this stupidity, but you can't tell me he is the only anti-abortion Republican who doesn't believe in magic powers of rape victims to fend off rapists' sperm.
This is a close race where the Democrat is losing. While yes, among the social conservative this is likely being applauded, ultimately Akin had their vote already, so what counts will be the on-the-fence voters who might have voted Democrat last time but who were likely moving over to Akin. It is this group that you have to worry about, and they are likely those great unwashed politically centered voters who might, say, disapprove of abortion, but who probably are not going to give their vote to a guy whose knowledge of human reproduction appears to be the equivalent of a pre-pubescent child and who wants to slice and dice which rape victims were raped or raped raped.
The difference in likelihood of pregnancy from a single act of coitus due to consensual sex and rape seem to sit within a point or two of each other (both around 5%). This tells me at least that, statistically speaking, the odds of getting pregnant, whether forced or willing, is little different. In every possible way Akin is wrong.
I'm trying to sort out here whether you think abortion for victims of rape should be disallowed because of falling birth rates in the West or not.
The statistic demonstrates that there is no difference in rates of pregnancy for a single act of unprotected sexual intercourse... period. So, from a statistical point of view, Akin's claim is rubbish. Then there are the obvious issues with Akin's knowledge of human reproduction, as in the guy is a fucking idiot who appears to have a knowledge of reproductive processes on par with a child in the single digit age range.
And then there's the very troubling reality of how Akin (and presumably Paul Ryan, who has been his close ally in trying to limit Federal money in abortions) views women in general.
An excellent observation. It's absolutely fascinating to me that the GOP's social conservative line isn't all that far from the hard-line Islamist line that a female victim of rape somehow actually was responsible for that rape and really it's more a situation of fornication, rather than violence.
There are some truly disturbing people filling up the hard-right ranks of the Republican party, and considering that Paul Ryan is a co-sponsor of amendments that seem to stem from this very kind of thinking, it certainly shines a new light on Ryan as well.
But it is a math issue. Akin has made the claim that somehow women who are raped can fend off pregnancy. So, there is a solid claim here that can be investigated, and before one starts pondering the means by which women can prevent rapists' sperm from fertilizing their ova, it seems useful to investigate the rates of pregnancy from rape.
Actually, what I find interesting is that I've read in various places that the odds of pregnancy from a single act of coitus is somewhere around 5%, so if 5% for rape is the statistic, then, from a purely biological point of view there is little difference in fertilization rates between consensual unprotected coitus and forced coitus.
Well, there's the little matter of that bill to restrict Federal funding for abortions, based in no small part of kinds of rape (ie. violent vs. statutory) that Akin and Ryan co-sponsored. While Ryan can't really be held to account for Akin's apparently first grade understanding of female reproduction, the fact is that both men are close allies when it comes to how the Federal government should define rape. Ryan isn't in the center of the target, but he's certainly somewhere on it.
Try a nice Dutch company, Trafigura, which got caught dumping toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, poisoning thousands.
Let's compare meaningful value.
If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
If Exxon-Mobil stops pumping out oil and refining gas, diesel and jet fuel, what's the worst that will happen?
I'm thinking maybe the metric being invoked here is inadequate to describe the two companies relative importance and thus their ultimate value.
And what kinds of messes do certain Continental European countries create? Germany, France and Switzerland are major arms exporters. Believe me, Europe causes its fair share of misery and woe, and on the scales of history, has caused more misery than war than any other bit of geography I can think of. No one needs to be lectured by Continental Europe on how to behave.
Amen. Nothing kills productivity like frequent meetings. Nothing worse than a manager who wants to find out how the team is doing by getting everyone together for an hour. "How's it going, Mr. Manager sir. It isn't because you keep dragging us into fucking meetings."
Even the beginner student of history understands that wars are almost inevitably economic in nature. Religion is a useful tool, but I doubt there are more than a handful of wars throughout history whose underlying causes were religious. Even the Crusades, whatever the high flying religious rhetoric used to justify them, were more about Western and Central European Princes getting a piece of the action in one of the most important trade corridors in the world.
As to the claim about religions not liking democracy, that is pretty absurd. Modern democracy first began to grow in Protestant states, and that has economic underpinnings as well, as Protestantism was a useful tool for many European princes to break the political bonds with the autocratic Catholic Church. The growing mercantile classes, particularly in England, Scotland and the Low Countries, espoused forms of Protestantism very friendly to the notion of a thrifty sober working class, and it is this class that battled against the autocratic leanings of Absolute Monarchy (with all its Medieval and unspoken Medieval Catholic underpinnings), ultimately, in Britain at least, leading to one of the great revolutions in history; the Glorious Revolution which saw the Bill of Rights, 1689 enacted into law (and in one fashion or another inherited by pretty much all of Britain's former colonial holdings). This had solid Protestant underpinnings, so I would hardly say religion is an anathema to democracy.
In the end even the Catholic Church ended up heavily liberalizing, though it has a far uneasier alliance with democracy than Protestantism generally does.
As to autocratic states, well, they have little trouble doing business with democracies providing said democracies stay out of their internal affairs. China has no problem with Western democracy, since both have found a path by which everyone can make lots of money. Again, economics rules everything.
How about the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko? We can go on all day. Russia didn't become some nice delightful place governed by law abiding men just because the USSR collapsed.
Tell that to Alexander Litvinenko.
Paying taxes is an obligation of a citizen, and has been for somewhere between six and ten thousand years. Don't like it, move to Somalia.
No state is permitted to violate the Establishment Clause. This has been dealt with nearly a quarter century ago. It's unlikely banning evolution being taught in class in and of itself violates the Establishment Clause, but the minute they try to teach Creationism or ID, they'd better get ready to lose in court, and up paying out taxpayer money in damages to some atheist and his or her kids.
I'd like to see them provide a theory that's even testable. The first requirement of a hypothesis is that you can at least imagine some way of testing it. "God did it" is fundamentally untestable. An omnipotent being could do anything it pleased, and thus is compatible with all potential observations, and is thus you could imagine no test that would prove or disprove God's hand in any event; whether it be evolution or the fact that I tied my shoes this morning. Invoking God means you lose all explanatory power, whatever it is you allege you're trying to explain.
Darwin may have started out that way, but most certainly in his later years he slipped in somewhere between agnosticism and atheism due to the death of his daughter, which hit him very hard. I don't know how much evolution played into it, probably not in a direct fashion.
Every day I miss Asimov a little more...
The North would not have had unrestricted access to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. I think you need to take the long view.
http://www.talkorigins.org/
Either you're a liar or an ignoramus. Your choice, but what you wrote is false.