The starting point of the Gaia hypothesis is Lovelock's observation that Life can profoundly alter the environment in which it exists, which provides a "signature" for Life. On a lifeless planet, such as Mars or Venus, the atmosphere will be roughly at chemical equilibrium (i.e. chemically stable), because any reaction that could take place will do so and nothing will replenish the consumed elements. So you only end up with inert, equilibrium atmospheres. But on planets with a biosphere, the living organisms (which are self-maintaining, energy-absorbing, far-from-equilibrium chemical reactions and constantly produce new chemicals which would not be expected to appear spontaneously) will alter their environment to the point that the atmosphere will be far from equilibrium itself.
Look at the Earth: its atmosphere is packed with oxygen. Now this is clearly not a stable situation. If all life disappeared from Earth, the oxygen would quickly react with any component it could find (by oxydizing them !) and after a few million years the atmosphere would lose virtually all of its O2. The massive presence of oxygen in the atmosphere is the signature of a similarly massive non-equilibrium process at work, which is likely to be (and indeed turns out to be) Life.
This insight in itself was novel and interesting. The problems started when Lovelock began to talk about Gaia as follows :
a complex entity involving the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.
This is utter BS. Evolving biospheres do not "seek" any "optimal environment for life on this planet". Any newly evolved species will gladly poison the entire planet if it can enhance its own chances of survival by doing so (the fact that it may itself fall victim to it later on being no obstacle).
And you know how we know that ? We know that because it has actually happened, at least twice. It happened once with the invention of photosynthesis, through which some bacterial algae enhanced their own fitness by pumping out massive amounts of a deadly poison (oxygen) into the atmosphere. Look up for "Oxygen holocaust" (a term coined by Lovelock's friend Lynn Margulis, IIRC). It turned out that life was so flexible that it managed to adapt to the poison and exploit its properties - but there was no fundamental necessity that it would manage to do so. Had the poison been too violent, blue algae (which ironically cannot stand oxygen themselves, and nowadays only exist in secluded, anaerobic environments) could well have killed off the majority of the biosphere.
And now it is happening again: a certain species is releasing massive amounts of toxic chemicals in the environment to enhance its short-term well-being. And who is saying so ? Well, surprise, Sir Lovelock himself. How ironic !
Evolution is not guided by any well-meaning, optimum-seeking principle. It is perfectly possible for an evolutionarily stable strategy to drive a species (and, why not, the entire biosphere) straight into extinction. The reasonm wh the current environment seems eerily well-suited for Life is that modern living creature evolved specifically in adaptation to this environment ! The original Gaia theory was essentially a classic example of final-causes reasoning: noses are remarably suited to the bearing of glasses, therefore we have noses so that we can put glasses on them. Aristotle could be forgiven for thinking like this, but not a 20th century scientist.
Lovelock later toned down his claims and came back to more realistic rethorics, but there's a reason why he's still viewed with suspicion by much of the scientific establishment.
If you're for IP then you're for the complete control over a work by the owner of that work.
And if you're for "normal" property, then you're for the complete control over a physical item by the owner of that item. To follow on your example, if someone is having a heart attack and theirs friends ask if they can use your car to drive him to the closest hospital, obviously you'll just have to say "uh, no, that's MY car, that's MY petrol, I paid for it, get lost". Cos you see, obviously that's what "property" means. If you don't feel that way then obviously you don't support property, so stop using the term !
Even today the US is disproportionately footing the bill for the collective defense of western nations from Iran...
Iran ? Are we talking about the same Iran in which the US (with help from the Brits, admittedly) ousted a democratically elected leader and instated a dictatorial monarchy, starting a chain of events which would later lead to the revolution of 1979 and the triumph of the Mollahs ?
The only hope of cutting defense spending that the US topple almost every non-deomcratic regime on the planet and replace them with European style democracies.
This makes a lot of sense, but next time, how about doing that in a way which doesn't allow a bunch of bloodthirsty fanatics to successfully portray themselves as the champions of Muslim resistance against the "invader", thereby giving them a huge boost in exposure, recruits and funding ?
No one is denying the efforts consented by the US. The problem is that, at least in the Middle East, these efforts were consitently misguided and have consistently backfired in ugly ways. From WW2 to present, the history of US involvement in Middle East affairs can be described as one long catastrophe. That's why Europeans are not feeling really safe in the shadow of W's America.
It is amazing that switzerland apears to have a larger crime rate then the US.
It is well known Switzerland (like Sweden and other similar "socialists" countries) has a higher *reported* crime rate than the US. It is also well-known that this does not show a difference in actual crime rate, but in willingness to report crime.
Check out the stats for crimes which are (more or less) reliably estimated, such as homicides.
So you might ask, how come that you can find such damning data on a site called "gunowner.org" ? And how can they use them to support the idea that gun control = higher crimes ? Easy: they conflate homicides with suicides ! When you add suicides to homicides, you find fewer victims in the US than in other countries ! Ergo, gun control kills people, QED !
The crackpots who put this page up also seem to think that Hitler and Stalin's genocides should be included in crime statistics. Apparently this brings homicide rates in Europe to about 400000/year (yup, 400K) over the last 70 years, which clearly indicates that European gun control laws kill people !
Thomas- PS: Not that those stats should be taken as gospel or anything. If Denmark has 5 times as many homicides as France, I'm the Pope.
The state IS inequality... it is by it's very nature and structure a system of hierarchy and authority, and so increasing the power and resources of the state can only increase inequality and subjugation.
Did he create something of actual value? No, of course not. Did he create the perception of value? Definitely
Sometimes I wonder if there is a fundamental law of nature which prevents geeks from even touching an economics textbook.
Of course he created value. He created a way for his customers to make their products known to a wide audience. Some people purchased said products, thereby increasing both their and the companies' utility. Apparently you are falling for the delusion that because the "thing" he created is entirely immaterial, it doesn't exist.
That's up there with "information wants to be free" and "artists can make money on touring and merchandising, why should I pay just to listen to their songs ?" (cos you know, it's not like Lee Hazlewood or Francis Lai ever created any value at all, since they hardly ever performed their own songs !).
1) The (gaullist, center-right) government proposes a bill which implements the EU directive on copyright. The proposed bill is essentially a DMCA-light: circumvention of copy-protection devices is forbidden, but the copy-protection systems must allow for legally recognised exceptions to copyright (such as private copies for personal of family use). Note that making a small number of private copies is explicitly legal in France, and we already pay a tax on blank media for this.
2) Two "députés" (representatives), from the main centre-left and centre-right parties, introduce amendments to the effect of mandating "global licensing": introduce a tax on broadband internet access (about 5 to 9 euros per month), in exchange for making unlimited, not-for-profit filesharing legal. The product of this tax is then redistribute to artists (how ? nobody knows). The government voices its opposition to the amendments.
3) The amendments are adopted. This is a very rare event: many members of the gaullist party voted against the wishes of the gaullist government. All parties were divided on the issue, but in the end a majority of lawmakers present at the time supported the amendments. This unexpected rebellion indicates widespread discontent from lawmakers about the bill.
4) The government makes it clear that it wants the amendments rescinded. As the Minister for Culture said, "with the global license system, no one has found an acceptable system of redistribution (for the money collected through the tax)". Media publishers in general oppose the amendments. Artists and rights-collecting societies (French equivalents for the RIAA) are divided, with a majority against them. Consumer associations, however, express clear support.
5) Although the amendments were adopted, the law itself will only be voted on in a few days. In the meantime, the government is expected to exert pressure on the lawmakers (at least on those of the center-right party) to make them reject the amendments. So no, sharing copyrighted material is not yet definitely legal in.fr, and there will probably be some changes in the law before the definitive version is passed. I wouldn't want to bet money on the final outcome.
You elected him because you were scared. Scared people do not act rationally. People who live in mortal fear choose the guy who talks and acts like a strong leader, regardless of the consequences.
Israelis vote for Ariel Sharon (a guy who's ready to wage war forever to keep East-Jerusalem and the main settlements in the west bank, even though most Israelis are not) because he shows "strength" against terrorists. Palestinians vote for Hamas (the guys who convinced Israelis that every Palestinian spends every waking minute devising new and interesting ways to kill Jews) because they showed "strength" against the occupier.
Americans voted for Bush because he showed "strength" against "terror" (a codeword meaning "all those dirty Arabs who don't like America"). "Bin Laden attacks us ! Quick, let's invade Iraq !" The obvious non-sequitur was quite simply disregarded, and countries which tried to point it out (such as France and Germany) were rewarded with the worst campaign of hate ever launched against allied countries.
Man is not a rational animal. Man is an animal capable of being rational, when they want to. People like Bush (or Ahmadinejad, for that matter) illustrate the gap between those two very different concepts.
We saw the light, followed the example of our American brothers (well, distant cousins) and decided to scrap that satanic contraception/abortion stuff and embrace "abstinence" instead.
Obviously the Lord was so pleased with our faith that despite our steadfast commitment to chastity he allowed us to multiply without limits ! I understand that virgin-births became the most popular reproduction method for humans about two years ago and keep increasing exponentially. Or at least that's what they say at orphanages.
People claim to be experts all the time, and they lie or misinform out of ignorance; it's not a new phenomenon.
Imagine that self-appointed expert Joe X. Pert publishes an article in El Reg in which he announces to a dumbfounded audience that according to recent top-secret research, Papa Smurf eats babies.
Papa Smurf can go to court, sue Joe X. Pert (and quite possibly The Register), force them to issue a public retractation and obtain damages. That's called "responsibility".
Now imagine that self-appointed expert Joe X. Pert goes to some cybercafe, connects to Wikipedia and anonymously edits the Papa Smurf entry, claiming that according to recent top-secret research, Papa Smurf actually does eat babies.
Now all the Papa Smurf can do is wait for someone to correct it (apparently in the case of Mr. Siegenthaler it took 4 months...), or find someone to correct it for him (hoping that no one reverts it), and he can't drag anyone to court to force them to "put up or shut up".
That's called "absence of responsibility". AKA a smear-machine's wet dream.
Patrick Le Lay, chairman of TF1, the most-watched TV channel in France:
"TF1's business [is] to help Coca-Cola sell its products... What we sell Coca-Cola is available brain time. For an advert to be effective, the viewer's brain has to be available. Our programmes are made so that their brain becomes available, that is to say to entertain them, make them feel relaxed to get them ready between two commercials."
I've never seen a Pakistan-made car, or TV-set, or camera...
No, but you've definitely seen some Pakistan-made clothes. Now what was the main export of the Asian "Dragons" in the early phase of their development, and what is the main export of China today ? (tick.. tick.. tick..)
Of course, Pakistan is an unstable dictatorship with about a quarter of its territory living under State-subsidised anarchy (they call that "tribal zones"). Factor in rampant fundamentalism and you get remarkably un-ideal conditions for succesful development.
You forgot the killing detail: people resurrecting the dead without any independent source confirming this little detail. We're talking Hellenistic Near East here, an educated world with Greek-speaking scholars in every borough. And none of them cared to take note that there was this guy going around, and the blind saw, and the dead lived. Josephus, who could almost count the lice on the head of Cyrus, barely mentions the guy as Yet Another Religious Agitator.
I'm all for religious poetry or art (cf the amazing "Lazarus" by Khalil Gibran), but as far as my left hemisphere is concerned, the BS detector is reaching Himalayesque levels.
Oh, BTW, lest we be accused of Christian-bashing: did you know that apparently Muhammad is supposed to have cut the fscking MOON in half at some point ? No mention of this little trick in any contemporary account either - Persian, Chinese, Indian, Hellenistic (including Egyptian) and Western astronomers apparently went on a collective strike just that night.
300 10-year-olds from neighboring areas? Any variation in a sample that size is just signal noise. The genetic->IQ link has always been a contentious subject... This is only fuel for the fire.
The study does not seem to mention whether social factors were taken into account.
I live in a quarter which is inhabited both by locals (who are rather poor and have a low level of education) and students (who are usually well-off and often come from various parts of the world). If you uperformed the same kind of study here, you would definitely see a dichotomy between a "high IQ" and a "low IQ" class. You would also certainly find that the "lower IQ" class seems to be correlated with genes that identify the local population. Which is exactly the kind of results that this study found.
Anyway the journalist's spin on this is ridiculous (" a significant step toward understanding the genetic basis for intelligence.") This is not a "clever gene", this is a "dunce gene", a genetic variation which seems to make people dumber (if causal links are ever demonstrated). Everybody knows that certain genetic defects can have a severe impact on intelligence. The question of a comprehensive genetic basis for intelligence is orthogonal to this.
and in the interim, some people will inadvertently get a "bargain" they didn't realize.
And when they get caught with a $5 digital camcorder and they tell the judge "Honest your honor, I have no idea where that came from", who the hell is gonna believe them ?
I'm sure they'll be very grateful for the "fun" they get in their pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Now managing, configuring and upgrading missile system will be so complicated and time-consuming that missile-based wars will become essentially impossible ! Three cheers for Lockheed-Martin and Linus !
Are you suggesting that the esteemed 'McMaster' university, CA, (or its 'McProfessor' of 'McAnthropology') might be less than reputable? Or that the name Gigantopithecus blackii (="Great big black thing"?) might not have been agreed upon by the wider anthropological community?
I know you were trying to be funny, but for those who might not get it...
1) Yes, McMaster is a reputable university
2) Gigantopithecus Blackii = Black's giant ape (i.e. giant ape discovered by some dude called Black). Why exactly scientific Latin feels the need to use 2 i's when only one is required (genitive singular of the -O declension) is beyond me.
I know the parent was being funny, but on the contrary, eggs cost between US$10,000 to US$50,000.
In the US.
I'm curious to why they didn't just purchase the egg themselves instead of having one of the lab assistants to donate.
Because they needed (and used) hundreds of them. And because apparently they had many anonymous volunteers who gave them eggs *free*.
The fact that Korean scientists had access to a large number of voluntary donations is one of the reasons why they are so far ahead of any competition in human cloning research.
Now of course if these coercion stories are true, that's another matter entirely.
Slashdot Mirror
The starting point of the Gaia hypothesis is Lovelock's observation that Life can profoundly alter the environment in which it exists, which provides a "signature" for Life. On a lifeless planet, such as Mars or Venus, the atmosphere will be roughly at chemical equilibrium (i.e. chemically stable), because any reaction that could take place will do so and nothing will replenish the consumed elements. So you only end up with inert, equilibrium atmospheres. But on planets with a biosphere, the living organisms (which are self-maintaining, energy-absorbing, far-from-equilibrium chemical reactions and constantly produce new chemicals which would not be expected to appear spontaneously) will alter their environment to the point that the atmosphere will be far from equilibrium itself.
Look at the Earth: its atmosphere is packed with oxygen. Now this is clearly not a stable situation. If all life disappeared from Earth, the oxygen would quickly react with any component it could find (by oxydizing them !) and after a few million years the atmosphere would lose virtually all of its O2. The massive presence of oxygen in the atmosphere is the signature of a similarly massive non-equilibrium process at work, which is likely to be (and indeed turns out to be) Life.
This insight in itself was novel and interesting. The problems started when Lovelock began to talk about Gaia as follows :
a complex entity involving the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.
This is utter BS. Evolving biospheres do not "seek" any "optimal environment for life on this planet". Any newly evolved species will gladly poison the entire planet if it can enhance its own chances of survival by doing so (the fact that it may itself fall victim to it later on being no obstacle).
And you know how we know that ? We know that because it has actually happened, at least twice. It happened once with the invention of photosynthesis, through which some bacterial algae enhanced their own fitness by pumping out massive amounts of a deadly poison (oxygen) into the atmosphere. Look up for "Oxygen holocaust" (a term coined by Lovelock's friend Lynn Margulis, IIRC). It turned out that life was so flexible that it managed to adapt to the poison and exploit its properties - but there was no fundamental necessity that it would manage to do so. Had the poison been too violent, blue algae (which ironically cannot stand oxygen themselves, and nowadays only exist in secluded, anaerobic environments) could well have killed off the majority of the biosphere.
And now it is happening again: a certain species is releasing massive amounts of toxic chemicals in the environment to enhance its short-term well-being. And who is saying so ? Well, surprise, Sir Lovelock himself. How ironic !
Evolution is not guided by any well-meaning, optimum-seeking principle. It is perfectly possible for an evolutionarily stable strategy to drive a species (and, why not, the entire biosphere) straight into extinction. The reasonm wh the current environment seems eerily well-suited for Life is that modern living creature evolved specifically in adaptation to this environment ! The original Gaia theory was essentially a classic example of final-causes reasoning: noses are remarably suited to the bearing of glasses, therefore we have noses so that we can put glasses on them. Aristotle could be forgiven for thinking like this, but not a 20th century scientist.
Lovelock later toned down his claims and came back to more realistic rethorics, but there's a reason why he's still viewed with suspicion by much of the scientific establishment.
Thomas-
If you're for IP then you're for the complete control over a work by the owner of that work.
And if you're for "normal" property, then you're for the complete control over a physical item by the owner of that item. To follow on your example, if someone is having a heart attack and theirs friends ask if they can use your car to drive him to the closest hospital, obviously you'll just have to say "uh, no, that's MY car, that's MY petrol, I paid for it, get lost". Cos you see, obviously that's what "property" means. If you don't feel that way then obviously you don't support property, so stop using the term !
</sarcasm>
Thomas-
Even today the US is disproportionately footing the bill for the collective defense of western nations from Iran...
Iran ? Are we talking about the same Iran in which the US (with help from the Brits, admittedly) ousted a democratically elected leader and instated a dictatorial monarchy, starting a chain of events which would later lead to the revolution of 1979 and the triumph of the Mollahs ?
The only hope of cutting defense spending that the US topple almost every non-deomcratic regime on the planet and replace them with European style democracies.
This makes a lot of sense, but next time, how about doing that in a way which doesn't allow a bunch of bloodthirsty fanatics to successfully portray themselves as the champions of Muslim resistance against the "invader", thereby giving them a huge boost in exposure, recruits and funding ?
No one is denying the efforts consented by the US. The problem is that, at least in the Middle East, these efforts were consitently misguided and have consistently backfired in ugly ways. From WW2 to present, the history of US involvement in Middle East affairs can be described as one long catastrophe.
That's why Europeans are not feeling really safe in the shadow of W's America.
Thomas-
It is amazing that switzerland apears to have a larger crime rate then the US.
It is well known Switzerland (like Sweden and other similar "socialists" countries) has a higher *reported* crime rate than the US. It is also well-known that this does not show a difference in actual crime rate, but in willingness to report crime.
Check out the stats for crimes which are (more or less) reliably estimated, such as homicides.
This site http://www.gunowners.org/sk0703.htm apears to say that gun ownership has the oposite effect in crime
Well, coincidence, right in the middle of this page there is a big table that gives you precisely these statistics ! How convenient !
Annual homicides per 100K inhabitants :
Switzerland: 2.7
Denmark: 4.9
France: 1.1
Israel: 1.4
Japan: 0.6
U.S.: 7.4 (tadaam !)
So you might ask, how come that you can find such damning data on a site called "gunowner.org" ? And how can they use them to support the idea that gun control = higher crimes ? Easy: they conflate homicides with suicides ! When you add suicides to homicides, you find fewer victims in the US than in other countries ! Ergo, gun control kills people, QED !
The crackpots who put this page up also seem to think that Hitler and Stalin's genocides should be included in crime statistics. Apparently this brings homicide rates in Europe to about 400000/year (yup, 400K) over the last 70 years, which clearly indicates that European gun control laws kill people !
Thomas-
PS: Not that those stats should be taken as gospel or anything. If Denmark has 5 times as many homicides as France, I'm the Pope.
If they live through that then they should be placed in a real live jail and periodically offered counterfeit parole papers to sign.
And when they get raped, it should be with counterfeit condoms.
Thomas-
The state IS inequality... it is by it's very nature and structure a system of hierarchy and authority, and so increasing the power and resources of the state can only increase inequality and subjugation.
Somalia, Northern Pakistan, Eastern Congo: Good.
Sweden, Japan, South Korea: Bad.
Wow.
Thomas-
The expression "All men are created equal" comes from the 1st article of the French "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen", now the basis for the Universal Human Rights Declaration:
"Tous les hommes naissent et demeurent libres et egaux en droits."
"All men are born and remain free and equal in rights."
The sentence is to be understood in the context of the French Revolution, as a rejection of the concept of hereditary aristocracy.
Thomas-
Did he create something of actual value? No, of course not. Did he create the perception of value? Definitely
Sometimes I wonder if there is a fundamental law of nature which prevents geeks from even touching an economics textbook.
Of course he created value. He created a way for his customers to make their products known to a wide audience. Some people purchased said products, thereby increasing both their and the companies' utility. Apparently you are falling for the delusion that because the "thing" he created is entirely immaterial, it doesn't exist.
That's up there with "information wants to be free" and "artists can make money on touring and merchandising, why should I pay just to listen to their songs ?" (cos you know, it's not like Lee Hazlewood or Francis Lai ever created any value at all, since they hardly ever performed their own songs !).
Thomas-
A short summary of events:
.fr, and there will probably be some changes in the law before the definitive version is passed. I wouldn't want to bet money on the final outcome.
1) The (gaullist, center-right) government proposes a bill which implements the EU directive on copyright. The proposed bill is essentially a DMCA-light: circumvention of copy-protection devices is forbidden, but the copy-protection systems must allow for legally recognised exceptions to copyright (such as private copies for personal of family use). Note that making a small number of private copies is explicitly legal in France, and we already pay a tax on blank media for this.
2) Two "députés" (representatives), from the main centre-left and centre-right parties, introduce amendments to the effect of mandating "global licensing": introduce a tax on broadband internet access (about 5 to 9 euros per month), in exchange for making unlimited, not-for-profit filesharing legal. The product of this tax is then redistribute to artists (how ? nobody knows). The government voices its opposition to the amendments.
3) The amendments are adopted. This is a very rare event: many members of the gaullist party voted against the wishes of the gaullist government. All parties were divided on the issue, but in the end a majority of lawmakers present at the time supported the amendments. This unexpected rebellion indicates widespread discontent from lawmakers about the bill.
4) The government makes it clear that it wants the amendments rescinded. As the Minister for Culture said, "with the global license system, no one has found an acceptable system of redistribution (for the money collected through the tax)". Media publishers in general oppose the amendments. Artists and rights-collecting societies (French equivalents for the RIAA) are divided, with a majority against them. Consumer associations, however, express clear support.
5) Although the amendments were adopted, the law itself will only be voted on in a few days. In the meantime, the government is expected to exert pressure on the lawmakers (at least on those of the center-right party) to make them reject the amendments. So no, sharing copyrighted material is not yet definitely legal in
Thomas-
You elected him because you were scared. Scared people do not act rationally. People who live in mortal fear choose the guy who talks and acts like a strong leader, regardless of the consequences.
Israelis vote for Ariel Sharon (a guy who's ready to wage war forever to keep East-Jerusalem and the main settlements in the west bank, even though most Israelis are not) because he shows "strength" against terrorists. Palestinians vote for Hamas (the guys who convinced Israelis that every Palestinian spends every waking minute devising new and interesting ways to kill Jews) because they showed "strength" against the occupier.
Americans voted for Bush because he showed "strength" against "terror" (a codeword meaning "all those dirty Arabs who don't like America"). "Bin Laden attacks us ! Quick, let's invade Iraq !" The obvious non-sequitur was quite simply disregarded, and countries which tried to point it out (such as France and Germany) were rewarded with the worst campaign of hate ever launched against allied countries.
Man is not a rational animal. Man is an animal capable of being rational, when they want to. People like Bush (or Ahmadinejad, for that matter) illustrate the gap between those two very different concepts.
Thomas-
Any recommendations where one can still live free and unobserved in a non-nanny state?
I hear the government of Somalia is remarkably unintrusive.
More seriously, people who equate this EU bill with 1984 either haven't read the bill, or (more probably) haven't read 1984.
Thomas-
We saw the light, followed the example of our American brothers (well, distant cousins) and decided to scrap that satanic contraception/abortion stuff and embrace "abstinence" instead.
Obviously the Lord was so pleased with our faith that despite our steadfast commitment to chastity he allowed us to multiply without limits ! I understand that virgin-births became the most popular reproduction method for humans about two years ago and keep increasing exponentially. Or at least that's what they say at orphanages.
Thomas-
People claim to be experts all the time, and they lie or misinform out of ignorance; it's not a new phenomenon.
Imagine that self-appointed expert Joe X. Pert publishes an article in El Reg in which he announces to a dumbfounded audience that according to recent top-secret research, Papa Smurf eats babies.
Papa Smurf can go to court, sue Joe X. Pert (and quite possibly The Register), force them to issue a public retractation and obtain damages. That's called "responsibility".
Now imagine that self-appointed expert Joe X. Pert goes to some cybercafe, connects to Wikipedia and anonymously edits the Papa Smurf entry, claiming that according to recent top-secret research, Papa Smurf actually does eat babies.
Now all the Papa Smurf can do is wait for someone to correct it (apparently in the case of Mr. Siegenthaler it took 4 months...), or find someone to correct it for him (hoping that no one reverts it), and he can't drag anyone to court to force them to "put up or shut up".
That's called "absence of responsibility". AKA a smear-machine's wet dream.
Thomas-
Patrick Le Lay, chairman of TF1, the most-watched TV channel in France:
"TF1's business [is] to help Coca-Cola sell its products... What we sell Coca-Cola is available brain time. For an advert to be effective, the viewer's brain has to be available. Our programmes are made so that their brain becomes available, that is to say to entertain them, make them feel relaxed to get them ready between two commercials."
Nothing to add.
Thomas-
Sources: Original French, English version
C-x RET C-\
;)
Thanks for reminding me why I'm not an Emacs user
just by downloading that and adding this to your ~/.Xdefaults: (unreadable gibberish follows)
Oh, thanks also for reminding us just how much the X font system sucks.
Thomas--
I've never seen a Pakistan-made car, or TV-set, or camera...
No, but you've definitely seen some Pakistan-made clothes. Now what was the main export of the Asian "Dragons" in the early phase of their development, and what is the main export of China today ? (tick.. tick.. tick..)
Of course, Pakistan is an unstable dictatorship with about a quarter of its territory living under State-subsidised anarchy (they call that "tribal zones"). Factor in rampant fundamentalism and you get remarkably un-ideal conditions for succesful development.
Thomas-
You forgot the killing detail: people resurrecting the dead without any independent source confirming this little detail. We're talking Hellenistic Near East here, an educated world with Greek-speaking scholars in every borough. And none of them cared to take note that there was this guy going around, and the blind saw, and the dead lived. Josephus, who could almost count the lice on the head of Cyrus, barely mentions the guy as Yet Another Religious Agitator.
I'm all for religious poetry or art (cf the amazing "Lazarus" by Khalil Gibran), but as far as my left hemisphere is concerned, the BS detector is reaching Himalayesque levels.
Oh, BTW, lest we be accused of Christian-bashing: did you know that apparently Muhammad is supposed to have cut the fscking MOON in half at some point ? No mention of this little trick in any contemporary account either - Persian, Chinese, Indian, Hellenistic (including Egyptian) and Western astronomers apparently went on a collective strike just that night.
Thomas-
300 10-year-olds from neighboring areas? Any variation in a sample that size is just signal noise. The genetic->IQ link has always been a contentious subject... This is only fuel for the fire.
The study does not seem to mention whether social factors were taken into account.
I live in a quarter which is inhabited both by locals (who are rather poor and have a low level of education) and students (who are usually well-off and often come from various parts of the world). If you uperformed the same kind of study here, you would definitely see a dichotomy between a "high IQ" and a "low IQ" class. You would also certainly find that the "lower IQ" class seems to be correlated with genes that identify the local population. Which is exactly the kind of results that this study found.
Anyway the journalist's spin on this is ridiculous (" a significant step toward understanding the genetic basis for intelligence.") This is not a "clever gene", this is a "dunce gene", a genetic variation which seems to make people dumber (if causal links are ever demonstrated). Everybody knows that certain genetic defects can have a severe impact on intelligence. The question of a comprehensive genetic basis for intelligence is orthogonal to this.
Thomas-
and in the interim, some people will inadvertently get a "bargain" they didn't realize.
And when they get caught with a $5 digital camcorder and they tell the judge "Honest your honor, I have no idea where that came from", who the hell is gonna believe them ?
I'm sure they'll be very grateful for the "fun" they get in their pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Thomas-
And you say they aren't nerds?
I think it depends on whether "that other editor" is Emacs or ed.
Thomas-
and disdain for other people.
:D
You mean you're leaving the US for Canada ?
Thomas-
Now managing, configuring and upgrading missile system will be so complicated and time-consuming that missile-based wars will become essentially impossible ! Three cheers for Lockheed-Martin and Linus !
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd1105.gi fThis is the reason why
Thomas-
Are you suggesting that the esteemed 'McMaster' university, CA, (or its 'McProfessor' of 'McAnthropology') might be less than reputable? Or that the name Gigantopithecus blackii (="Great big black thing"?) might not have been agreed upon by the wider anthropological community?
I know you were trying to be funny, but for those who might not get it...
1) Yes, McMaster is a reputable university
2) Gigantopithecus Blackii = Black's giant ape (i.e. giant ape discovered by some dude called Black). Why exactly scientific Latin feels the need to use 2 i's when only one is required (genitive singular of the -O declension) is beyond me.
Thomas-
I know the parent was being funny, but on the contrary, eggs cost between US$10,000 to US$50,000.
In the US.
I'm curious to why they didn't just purchase the egg themselves instead of having one of the lab assistants to donate.
Because they needed (and used) hundreds of them. And because apparently they had many anonymous volunteers who gave them eggs *free*.
The fact that Korean scientists had access to a large number of voluntary donations is one of the reasons why they are so far ahead of any competition in human cloning research.
Now of course if these coercion stories are true, that's another matter entirely.
Thomas-