I met Steve, who along with his twin brother Robert, were the twins responsible for the connection between b12 and homocystiene urea back in 1980. He took megadoses of b12 and b6, and didnt have the retardation associated with the disease, although he did have the sparse hair and elongated bones. His identical twin was retarded - he didnt take the B vitamin supplements.
He showed me articles about his brother and himself in journals and texts in the UNE library in 1980, and the journals included reports on his "treatment" and how by heeping the levels of (as I recall) pyridoxine hyrocloride up it pushed the reaction to produce less homocysteine and more cysteine. He had regular blood tests to check that he wasnt accumulating homocyctiene in the blood. I recall him saying that his brother would be the last homocycteine urea sufferer to have the retardation, and although his brother died (he couldnt communicate a kidney infection to his carers), he was proud that the two of them were able to hgbe part of finding the cure.
Looks to me that Metabolite didnt do a very good literature search. I wonder how the shareholders would feel to know that research $$$$ were spent reproducing 1960's and 1970's research?
Someone mod this guy up! This is the most correct and succint answer to the question asked I've seen. Ultimately, nothing matters if you don't play what people want to hear, and song choice will overcome B-grade equipment (but not C-grade!) everytime.
I understand and tend to agree with your statement, yet given the propensity for teenagers to "minimise" the downside of things (such as drinking till you puke for example) I believe that a somewhat harder line is required. But that's just based on my having been a teenager a long long time ago. Back then there was plenty of evidence that over-indulgence in the Gold-Topped Mushroom could cause all sorts of bad things to happen, and there was plenty of evidence that "too much" was a random variable, but we still went on shroom parties. Graeme Freeman was still in hospital then, and is still in hospital topday. We focused on the uncontrollable laughter and the cosmic piccys, not the psychosis and jumping in front of cars believing they were unicorns come for us to ride...
Your comments have been forwarded to the platypuses, and you are now on their hit list - you do realise they have venomous spurs? One of the basic rules we teach our kids here in Oz is "Don't taunt platypuses". And "Only taunt wombats when it's not the mating season, as wombats are especially dangerous during the mating season.".
Why do you Americans read religion into everything? For all your talk about "seperation of Church and State", everytime someone talks about your rights and constitution it seems to become a discussion about religion. This is not a religous issue, but a moral and public health issue. Keep a perspective man.
Whilst, I don't think prohibition and censorship are the sharpest tools in the drawer of moral standards control, I can see what to me are strongs points to object to here.
As the parent of 5 kids, I don't really want them having the idea that casual, porn movie styled sex parties are a good thing for the 16 year old. Yeah, so 16 year olds are having sex, I know that, and some of them are probably pretty promiscuous, and I realise that in some communities (some small towns come to mind) pretty much all the teenagers are into each other a lot.
But I'm not convinced that's how most teenager's are having sex. I think a lot of them are fumbling, kinda scared sorta things, like the guy above posted. A friend of ours has a 14 y.o. who just had sex the first time the other week. She told her mum, and she reckons it was a horrible horrible thing. I don't think her experience was that unusual.
As a parent I'd rather my kids have sex with fewer people, and it mean more, and be done for more than a cheap thrill. There's no way I can believe that these kids will be responsible with condoms. When I was a teenager in the 70s, we heard about people with herpes, but very few people died of STDs.
The question is whether it would be possible to express the story and plot without sending kids the message that that was what constitutes "normal" sexual behaviour. I'm not saying that sex orgies arnt normal by the way (that's another question entirely), just that it's not normal 16 year old behaviour.
Some might question why concerned parents let their kids watch these shows. That's another question again, but it might be part of the cultural trend to use TVs as child minders. Hmmm.... would people think that footage was suitable for a child-minder to show kids?
If anyone is interested, here's one of the really nasty "errors", and what's really worrying, what the typical response to it was...
We start with 2 dogs, these dogs have a short hair gene (h) and a long haired gene(H), so both dogs have [hH] genes. Supposedly this means they have "medium length" hair (it was actually like "obviously they will have medium length hair")
Now these two dogs breed and have the typical Mendelian proportions of offspring:
[hh], [hH], [hH], [HH]
Along comes the ice age, and as a result all except the long haired dog ([HH]) die off, so now all dogs have [HH] genes!
See? Natural Selection means a loss of information! How can new species eveolve if the amount of information is decreasing?
On pointing out to Gary Bates that that isnt actually how it works (there's all sorts of problems, not the least being: Dominance/recessive relations, the risk of homozygous re-inforcement of negative traits, the existance of other genes and alleles that will favour shorter hair resulting in a more diverse mix, the likelihood that in other regions short genes will survive to mix back into the long hairs after the Ice Age passes - you can add your own I'm sure!), he admited that it was "simplified for the un-educated" but that it had been put together by "two PhD Biologists in Brisbane".
Now I have a problem with believeing that any PhD Biologist with a degree from a reputable school would make such a model and say it's indicative of how it works, unless they deliberately decided to "neglect" to mention all sorts of issues that are covered in High School.
And here's the real danger these people pose! My Pastor, Shane, didnt appreciate me pointing out the errors in the hairy dog model. "It's what I remember from High School" he said. Other people around him agreed. Yes, he remembered the picture of Mendelian Inheritance, but he didnt recall the correct interpretation (and probably never did understand it). As a result he sees a picture that IS familiar, and accepts the psuedo-science bull that goes with it.
It was Gary Bates doing his travelling show spruiking his book "Alien Invasion: the Link between Evolution and the UFO Controversy" (I may have the title wrong!).
I saw him at the Parkwood Church of Christ on a Wednesday night about 2 weeks ago. He's part of the team that publishes "Creation" magazine.
I've found that you can get ID people to come to some kind of sense by simply demonstrating to them that ID is contrary to scripture, and requires a God who is not omniscient nor omnipotent, and (which is the clincher) makes errors.
Now these people will tend to go back to hard-core creationism once they realise ID is a crock, but that is better than that horror mix of mythology and pseudo-science called ID. Pure Theology wins against ID every time in my opinion, as at least it is internally consistent, and doesn't try to deceive and pervert.
I had the displeasure of sitting through a seminar by some ID people the other week. The demonstrations, which were prepared by "PhD Biologists" had all kinds of factual errors, lies-by-ommision and misdirection. There is no way that I can accept that God's Message is spread by the deliberate use of lies, so I have to come to the conclusion that the ID people (and the publishers of "Creation" magazine) are doing the work of someone other than God as I know him.
I know many Christians who believe that ID is probably some kind of scheme to erode Christian values, as well as to make Christians seem ridiculous and hence to invalidate their other statements. I can't say that's my view, but it is that of many.
I have to wonder how what I believe can possibly result in us being in deep shit. I find your comment very very odd.
As to whether I personally believe that God took chromosomes 2 and 3 from the pongoid apes and caused a "transcription error" to give rise to the human karotype is completely beside the point. The real question is whether an omnipotent God could do such a thing if he wished.
As an example of such an event actually occuring, in the early 1970's there was a sheep farm run by Richard and Beryl Lanyon about 12 miles north of the town of Boort in Central Victoria Australia. They had poll dorset sheep and a few goats, including one very smelly billy goat. This goat was quite odd, as he used to chase the ewes when they were in heat.
One morning Richard was feeling a bit crook, so Beryl went out to the fields to check on the lambing. She found a few very odd looking "lambs". Back at the house she discovered that Richard had been killing these every season for the last 2 or 3 years. Beryl however insisted that these creatures be allowed to survive.
Once they grew it was pretty obvious that they were some kind of goat/sheep hybrid. The very very unusual thing was that they bred true - they were fertile, and had baby fertile geeps for progeny, and not goats and sheep or mules.
Many geneticists declared this was of course impossible and was all some kind of wierd publicity stunt, as goats and sheep have different numbers of chromosomes. In 1973 or 1974 (It was a while back...) a New Zealand researcher found that the Billy goat was a mutant and had less than the usual 60 chromosomes, and one half of its' sperm had the right number of chromosomes to combine with the ewes.
Note that there's a terribly incorrect mention of this in the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep#Hybrids_with_go ats . The fact is that for many years these creatures were kept in the local nature reserve which was a region between Lake Boort and Little Lake Boort, and contained by an irrigation channel from the Loddon Valley Irrigation Scheme. The animals were also shown at the Royal Melbourne Show in 1973 or 1974, along with the billy goat. The goat became somewhat famous as he had to be shampooed several times a day to try to contain his musk, which overpowered the already quite smelly goat shed.
I heard that Dick and Beryl eventually killed the goat and all the geeps when it was pointed out to them that they demonstrated the possibility for new species to arise via mutations. They were terribly devout and conservative baptists, although lovely people. I spent quite a lot of time living on their farm with them whilst my Mum was in hospital in 1973.
Even today, Darwin's attempt to explain the origins of man aren't very accurate with his book, Origins_of_Species.
I assume you've never actually read the book, because Darwin doesnt address the origins of Man in The Origin of Species. He does point out the morphological similarities between Man and the higher apes.
If you want to read Darwin's ideas about Human Evolution then you should read "The Descent of Man" where he demonstrates that sexual selectiona nd the competition that entials are sufficient to account for Human diversity as observed 2 centuries ago.
I have to stress that at no pont in Darwin's writings did he address the question of the Origin of Life.
1. Everywhere in nature, the double helix DNA works the same way. To mate, animals must have the same number of 'rungs'. But man has 46, and ape has 48; humans have #2 & #3 bonded together. Nowhere else in nature are rungs "bonded" like this. We're just not the same, but we appear similar, visually.
No, there is no such requirement in order to mate. There are any number of websites that demonstrate mating between different species. To mate and have functional and fertile progeny, that's another thing however. I'd like to point out that as you said, Humans have 2 chromosomes from apes bonded together, which is simply a transcription modification.... I assume that God can allow the telomeres to unfold differently if He wishes?
And regarding your points about ID, well, in the opinion of myself, and many of the memebrs of our Church, ID is one of the greatest threats to Christianity in many many years. ID requires that God be an imperfect being, that creation be imperfect and that he makes mistakes. My God does not make mistakes, therefore ID did not happen.
Finally I'd like to refer you to St Augustine, who made the point that when experience and scripture seem to be in conflict, it's always that we have mis-interpreted scripture.
Why do they always want a Word version of your resume? When I was last looking and got contacted, I'd just point them to my online resume. It seemed to drive them crazy. Why? They still could've copied-and-pasted it into a new Word doc, and saved it off. Or was it about me not specifically sending it to them? As if that constituted an implicit contract or something, or my consent that they submit my resume all over town?
I asked this question of a recuitment firm once, and I was told it was because they have some funky VBA macros that do sorting, categorisation and job matching.
This might explain why I get offers from them as a DBM when my qualifications are as a mathematician, an ecological modeller at that. It seems that if you have "wierd" qualifications, but a high GPA (seven in my case) you just get all the DBA jobs.
Now although a DBA might make OK $$$, I could imagine nothing worse as a job as far as I'm concerned. The fact that they can read my CV, with all the awards, prizes, scholrships etc in it for Mathematics yet just offer me DBA jobs suggests that they never read the things, they just believe the results of their matching software.
Whilst there's a string of "Jack Chick" and "please get a life" posts following the parent, there is an issue worth looking at here.
Most people don't realise that one of the 3 designers of d&d was actually a minister (I think it was episcopalean, so insert obligatory joke about small boys here...), I can't recall his name right now (probably because I havent had my nd coffee and it's only 6:30am here). Be that as it may, let me tell you about a true story from the early 1980s..
insert TARDIS noises...
I started playing D&D (actually a totally bastardised version, as all we had for rules was about 50 pages photocopied from GMG and PG) in 1980, at Uni. During the 1980/81 long break, I told a good friend (a young lady I'd known for about 6 years, that is, since I was about 13) about it, and she thought it seemed a great thing.
Many (!!)years passed, and in 1986, circumstances were such that she actually managed to play with us. By that time we'd "graduated" to Rolemaster, but that doesnt dilute what follows. She rolled up a character (an evil caster) and eagerly joined in the game. Within 5 minutes she looked all confused. "What's the problem?" "When do we start sacrificing animals and stuff?" I had a moment of insight. "You mean like you want to kill real animals here and now, in Steve's living room?" "Oh, do we wait till night time to do that?" It was quickly explained that really the game was just a grown up version of "let's pretend". She was not convinced, but afeter the game session she told me that she'd got the impression form the media that it involved real satanic rituals and medieval witchcraft. She ended up eing a good player, and staying with the campaign for about 3 years.
Now this girl had a completely wrong idea about RPG due to certain right-wing extremists, and as she was one of those extreme rebel type people she thought D&D would be a great evil and anti-establishment thing. I have to wonder how many of these people that "go off the deep end" with RPG also start with a wrong idea what it's about, and don't get it straightend out? Like the Pastor's son I met once who told me he'd love to play D&D because it stood for everything his dad didn't like.
Although the image of Microsoft Executives returning $100 notes to the wild for them to run free has a kind of warped appeal, surely you mean that they lose over $100 per unit?
Let me assure you that there's plenty of people that would sign up at the drop of a hat for experimental surgery if there was reason to believe there was any chance of improvement. I have Chronic Pain in my right shoulder, and all the Orthopeadic Surgeons and Pain Specialists are in agreement that at this time there's nothing medicine can do except possibly make it worse, or maybe not make it worse but destroy the movement I have left, yet without helping with the pain.
I'd seriously consider anytyhing with a better than 15% chance of improvement (as there's a better than 85% chance that anything "traditional" they could try would make things worse!).
It was incredibly disappointing discovering that the Korean Stem Cell research was faked, as all the experts thought that was where my cure would lie somewhere in the next 8 years.
I think it can easily be misleading to blindly consider "economic growth" as the sole measure of the success of a political economy. For example, for much of the last 4 years Australia has had a much higher growth rate than America, when expressed as a percentage of GDP. Yet in terms of absolute dollars, America has vastly bigger growth, simply by being a larger economy. Part of this is of course simply a matter of scale - you have 240 million people I believe, whilst we can just manage 20 is we consider all the ex-pat kiwis who live here!
Another factor might be that the US economy has had abut 400 years to develop (I believe - I'm not that in touch with US history), of which there has been over 200 years as a national identity. We Federated 1901, and at the absolute earliest you couldnt consider us to have had any kind of economy or national identity was in the 1850s, and that's really stretching things, as even in 1898 it was not certain that either Queensland or Western Australia would be a part of the federation.
An interesting set of statistics are what the infant mortality rate is, %age of population living below the poverty line, %age with secured retirements etc, %age risk of violent crime, percentage population or subgroup that is jailed at any time (and of course Stalin set the "standards" for that).
Is the real measure of success to be measured by the power of the economy, or by the health, safety and security of its' citizens? I guess that's the real question. The Capitalist seems to believe that with a powerful economy the other things will follow, whilst the Socialist believes that without the latter 3 factors, the first doesnt matter that much.
As for reading material, I'd suggest you look around www.gov.au, and look for "centerlink" of "department of social security" for some information as to how Social Support systems can work in practice in a socialist country. For papers on modern socialist theory you might want to look at the Evatt Foundation as a starting point at http://evatt.org.au/
3 - Other post was right - American are personally very generous. It's not necessarily that Americans believe that other shouldn't be helped, it's that Americans believe the gov't shouldn't be the one helping them. Belief in small gov't entails fighting against socialism - but the motivating factor may have nothing to do with greed or selfishness.
Look up Liberatarian Socialism sometime. The features that are relevant to your comment are (i) abolition of middle tier givernment (i.e. States) (ii) reduction of Federal Government (leaving Miltary, Foreign Affairs and Uniformity of Standards, such as medicine and education _standards_), (iii) increase in Local Government, so that towns/counties/shires can shape their policies and laws to suit that regions needs and wants and (iv) use of real-time elctronic media to allow plebescite rulings on all policy decisions.
This is possibly the "smallest" you'll get with Government, and not have anarchy. Note that Government has close to no power whatsoever, all power is vested in the people, yet people only have to deal with issues that are relevent to them and their surroundings. It also very agressively rewards competetion in industry and production.
As an analogy do you just put a quadrapalegic on bed rest for the rest of their life - or put them through physical therapy to maximize their remaining potential while augmenting it with additional technological help (motorized wheelchair, etc.)
You are saying that the Capitalist puts the "quadrapalegic on bed rest for the rest of their life"? Socialist systems as found today (such as Sweden or Australia) certainly provide "physical therapy to maximize their remaining potential while augmenting it with additional technological help (motorized wheelchair, etc.)". An example is my Mother-in-law, who lost both legs to diabetes. She spent 6 months in a rehab hospital (provided by Government for free to her), learning how to cope with no legs (training and therpists provided by Government), and has two wheelchairs provided by Government (not gold plated ones, but very functional).
In terms of the Dole, you'll find that very few Socialist countries just put people on the Dole and leave them there these days. Usually, after a period while the unemployed person is given the chance to find their own work (8 to 12 weeks maximum), they are offered training in Job Seeking Skills, new work skills (such as re-training for those whose industries are disappearing, such as letterpress printers being trained in DTP for example), with rather nasty penalties being accrued for failing to attend these courses.
I believe in equality of opportunity - not in equality of outcomes.
Surely you are not claiming that all socio-economic groups in the US have equal access and opportunity to education, health and legal representation?
I'm not claiming that Socialist systems are perfect. You only need look at Stalinist USSR, or the Khmer Rouge in Kampuchea to see that it is possible, even probable, that a Socialist system without democratic checks and balances can become a dictatorship that encourages mediocrity. But you arguments are specious, and are essentially regurgitated propaganda (which is not your fault, after all you probably had it forced down your throat during the Cold War). Look at how Marxist theory has developed and been superseded by less idealist socio-politrical models since the 1960s and you'll see that in many counties it works, and works well.
Consider also the "Higher Taxes!" screaming that many ardent anti-socialists talk about. In most cases these taxes are paying for services that you would otherwise be paying for directly out of your own pocket, such as health, medicine, pharmaceuticals, education, transport, law enforcement, culture (museums, art galleries, concerts-in-the-park, religion [yes, here in Socialist Australia Churches get grants from Government, not all Socialist systems have that "opiate of the masses" claus] and so on) for example
I applaud you for doing something. As a citizen of a "socialist country" (Australia) who has had the interesting experience of living in the US, I have to say that I found the lack of a safety net, the levels of poverty, and the general view of the =well-off that it wasnt their problem quite disturbing.
I was shocked by the number of beggars in the "rischest country in the world", as have been many of my compatriots who have also lived in the US. I found the common attitude that being poor or under-priviledged is your own fault to be extremely disturbing. There seems to be an attitude of "anyone can climb beyond his origins in the USA" which doesnt seem to be based on reality. It certainly seemed that if you were born or lived in the wrong suburb, were of the wrong ethnic background, had poor parents or a similar dis-advantage, then only the exceptional managed to avoid being trapped in poverty for life.
Quality of education in the US is based on the wealth of your suburb. Without the efforts of philanthropists there is simply no way that any but a lucky or extra determined few will gain the education needed to avail themselves of the "opportunities" your society offers.
Quality of health care is another thing I was amazed by. It is a principle of this country, that if the population has good, affordable health services then the loses due to sickness will be minimised, and as a result productivity and standard of living will rise. In the USA, even much of the rather expensive health plans seem to be focused on providing health care only in the most extreme caes of need. And the price of medications is shocking.
Having lived in "pinko socialist" country, and having lived in the "land of the free", I'll choose my higher taxes in order to ensure my children's future, rather tand take a huge bet on a risky gamble like you Americans have to do.
I've agonised about answering these sort of questions to an AC, as my answers could identify me, and I'm not sure I want that. If someone wants to offer me a job or talk about employment, well that would be excellent. Let me know and I'll setup a yahoo mailbox.
(i) I'm Australian, so Oz, NZ and Britain I guess.
(ii) Started a PhD, but left to get a job. My degrees are in general science and "applied" maths.
(iii) Other than doing tests and exams? I seem to be able to explain maths and science to people quite well. I can usually see how to find solutions to problems - note that this is not the same as solving the problems (which I can sometimes do - I can often identify the method to use even when I don't have the skills to use or apply that method.). I can often see through the bullshit and identify what the real question is. Note that these 3 attributes are pretty much what it takes to do exams really well.
(iv) Everything interests me to a point. Am I passionate about anything? Sometimes, for a while. One of my friends tells me that I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I'd love to know enough to be able to solve practical problems, like feeding the hungry, or improving health in general, without raping the planet or exploiting the poor.
(v) And this point is perhaps where my problem with work really lies - I don't really know! When the tests I talked about above were complete, the OT who was dealing with my case said "we'll send you back to University, as anything we could find for you to do would bore you to tears". Thus they removed me from the ranks of the Unemployed (thus being a "case solved" from his perspective), and I entered the ranks of Uni Student at the age of 30. I quite enjoyed maths at school and uni, but jobs where you do that seem to be scarce - either you need to have more maths than I possess (as some engineers have, or actuaries have), or else "maths jobs" seem to be things like "bank teller" etc as far as I can tell.
(vi) I seem to be able to pick jobs that are (1) run by fools or (2) are run by scammers or (3) just arn't sustainable. Typical of me, I seem to be unable to sucessfully choose a job that has a future. Once again, the difference between "measured intelligence" and the kind of "smarts" that really matter appears to be what really matters here. My jobs have ended because (1) I've realised that my employees are really cunning scammers, who are using the presence of a "really smart person" as a tool to suck investors etc in, (2) The employer realises that being a "super smart person" does not imply "a person who can magically pull profit out of a hat" and as such was really not a good hire in the first place. The rest of my jobs have been for companies that have folded.
It's actually pretty depressing having people say "You could get a good job anywhere, doing anything" when it simply isn't the case. Perhaps there's some truth to the stereotype of the "genius" who is incapable of tying his own shoelaces (although I can tie my shoelaces!).
I did the WAIS/R first, at age 14, got 160ish (wasnt told exactly, but was 5 sigmas above mean), again at 24, got 179 raw, then SB at 26 and got "over 200, probably between 210 and 215". Tester said I could do more and get more precise, but I really couldn't (and still can't) see the point. I can't tell you what forms they were, as I was made to do the tests by the CES (Unemployment Office for you people in the wrong countries) due to my long term unemployment, and I wasn't very interested in them. I knew what the tests would show, and I knew it wouldnt help me get or hold down a job.
Ultimately it just proves that I am very good at IQ tests, and absolutely nothing more.
The only thing it seems to be really good for is pissing off people who think IQ is important and that they are somehow superior because they have IQ in the 120-140 range.
I'm a kind of freak I guess, I have eidetic memory, I've hardly ever got below 90% in anything that has exams. But I'm totally incapable of doing terribly much that's practical or useful, none of my "ideas" have ever been more than stupid dreams.
I can sometimes "accidently" find really good and clever solutions to problems, but I can only do it consistently in an exam environment. As I result my worth to an employer is pretty low in most jobs - they usually want someone who can be consistently OK, or even good (if they're very lucky!), not (rarely) sporadically brilliant.
I was once told by a Uni lecturer that the perfect job for me was working for someone who was a kind of gambler, who was willing to pay me to sit and do whatever I wanted, and take a long odds bet on me producing an idea that would change the world. I haven't found that job yet though - I suspect they're pretty scarce.
I have to agree with you. My IQ is around 210-215 on Stanford-Binet, I have a University Medal, won various prizes and scholarships, and have never managed to hold down a real job for over 5 years, even though I'm over 40.
I've probably spent about 15 years since 1980 on the Dole.
I reckon I'd be set if I could get a job doing the one thing I know I'm really really good at - doing IQ tests, and other kinds of "mental parlor tricks".
[troll mode on]BTW, Kuhn was full of shit. Great way to get someone to notice you, to write a series of papers that barely make any sense, yet flatter those who make the decisions as to whether you are "good" or not. He'd of made an excellent Real Estate, Used Car or Insurance salesman in my opinion. His re-definition of epistemology ultimately delivered nothing of benefit except to a few academics who could sit around deconstructing the creative and inventive processes, thus insuring security of tenure. [troll mode off]
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He showed me articles about his brother and himself in journals and texts in the UNE library in 1980, and the journals included reports on his "treatment" and how by heeping the levels of (as I recall) pyridoxine hyrocloride up it pushed the reaction to produce less homocysteine and more cysteine. He had regular blood tests to check that he wasnt accumulating homocyctiene in the blood. I recall him saying that his brother would be the last homocycteine urea sufferer to have the retardation, and although his brother died (he couldnt communicate a kidney infection to his carers), he was proud that the two of them were able to hgbe part of finding the cure.
Looks to me that Metabolite didnt do a very good literature search. I wonder how the shareholders would feel to know that research $$$$ were spent reproducing 1960's and 1970's research?
Someone mod this guy up! This is the most correct and succint answer to the question asked I've seen. Ultimately, nothing matters if you don't play what people want to hear, and song choice will overcome B-grade equipment (but not C-grade!) everytime.
I understand and tend to agree with your statement, yet given the propensity for teenagers to "minimise" the downside of things (such as drinking till you puke for example) I believe that a somewhat harder line is required. But that's just based on my having been a teenager a long long time ago. Back then there was plenty of evidence that over-indulgence in the Gold-Topped Mushroom could cause all sorts of bad things to happen, and there was plenty of evidence that "too much" was a random variable, but we still went on shroom parties. Graeme Freeman was still in hospital then, and is still in hospital topday. We focused on the uncontrollable laughter and the cosmic piccys, not the psychosis and jumping in front of cars believing they were unicorns come for us to ride...
Your comments have been forwarded to the platypuses, and you are now on their hit list - you do realise they have venomous spurs? One of the basic rules we teach our kids here in Oz is "Don't taunt platypuses". And "Only taunt wombats when it's not the mating season, as wombats are especially dangerous during the mating season.".
Why do you Americans read religion into everything? For all your talk about "seperation of Church and State", everytime someone talks about your rights and constitution it seems to become a discussion about religion. This is not a religous issue, but a moral and public health issue. Keep a perspective man.
Some of the fringe religions who believe that include Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity.
As the parent of 5 kids, I don't really want them having the idea that casual, porn movie styled sex parties are a good thing for the 16 year old. Yeah, so 16 year olds are having sex, I know that, and some of them are probably pretty promiscuous, and I realise that in some communities (some small towns come to mind) pretty much all the teenagers are into each other a lot.
But I'm not convinced that's how most teenager's are having sex. I think a lot of them are fumbling, kinda scared sorta things, like the guy above posted. A friend of ours has a 14 y.o. who just had sex the first time the other week. She told her mum, and she reckons it was a horrible horrible thing. I don't think her experience was that unusual.
As a parent I'd rather my kids have sex with fewer people, and it mean more, and be done for more than a cheap thrill. There's no way I can believe that these kids will be responsible with condoms. When I was a teenager in the 70s, we heard about people with herpes, but very few people died of STDs.
The question is whether it would be possible to express the story and plot without sending kids the message that that was what constitutes "normal" sexual behaviour. I'm not saying that sex orgies arnt normal by the way (that's another question entirely), just that it's not normal 16 year old behaviour.
Some might question why concerned parents let their kids watch these shows. That's another question again, but it might be part of the cultural trend to use TVs as child minders. Hmmm.... would people think that footage was suitable for a child-minder to show kids?
Hmm, yes, they make the Bullshit go away. Now let me just go and watch my betamax video, whilst listening to my 8-track...
We start with 2 dogs, these dogs have a short hair gene (h) and a long haired gene(H), so both dogs have [hH] genes. Supposedly this means they have "medium length" hair (it was actually like "obviously they will have medium length hair")
Now these two dogs breed and have the typical Mendelian proportions of offspring:
[hh], [hH], [hH], [HH]
Along comes the ice age, and as a result all except the long haired dog ([HH]) die off, so now all dogs have [HH] genes!
See? Natural Selection means a loss of information! How can new species eveolve if the amount of information is decreasing?
On pointing out to Gary Bates that that isnt actually how it works (there's all sorts of problems, not the least being: Dominance/recessive relations, the risk of homozygous re-inforcement of negative traits, the existance of other genes and alleles that will favour shorter hair resulting in a more diverse mix, the likelihood that in other regions short genes will survive to mix back into the long hairs after the Ice Age passes - you can add your own I'm sure!), he admited that it was "simplified for the un-educated" but that it had been put together by "two PhD Biologists in Brisbane".
Now I have a problem with believeing that any PhD Biologist with a degree from a reputable school would make such a model and say it's indicative of how it works, unless they deliberately decided to "neglect" to mention all sorts of issues that are covered in High School.
And here's the real danger these people pose! My Pastor, Shane, didnt appreciate me pointing out the errors in the hairy dog model. "It's what I remember from High School" he said. Other people around him agreed. Yes, he remembered the picture of Mendelian Inheritance, but he didnt recall the correct interpretation (and probably never did understand it). As a result he sees a picture that IS familiar, and accepts the psuedo-science bull that goes with it.
I saw him at the Parkwood Church of Christ on a Wednesday night about 2 weeks ago. He's part of the team that publishes "Creation" magazine.
Now these people will tend to go back to hard-core creationism once they realise ID is a crock, but that is better than that horror mix of mythology and pseudo-science called ID. Pure Theology wins against ID every time in my opinion, as at least it is internally consistent, and doesn't try to deceive and pervert.
I had the displeasure of sitting through a seminar by some ID people the other week. The demonstrations, which were prepared by "PhD Biologists" had all kinds of factual errors, lies-by-ommision and misdirection. There is no way that I can accept that God's Message is spread by the deliberate use of lies, so I have to come to the conclusion that the ID people (and the publishers of "Creation" magazine) are doing the work of someone other than God as I know him.
I know many Christians who believe that ID is probably some kind of scheme to erode Christian values, as well as to make Christians seem ridiculous and hence to invalidate their other statements. I can't say that's my view, but it is that of many.
Because when your teacher taught you that, he was wrong. Now of course we can see he was visionary. Soon he'll be just a forerunner.
As to whether I personally believe that God took chromosomes 2 and 3 from the pongoid apes and caused a "transcription error" to give rise to the human karotype is completely beside the point. The real question is whether an omnipotent God could do such a thing if he wished.
As an example of such an event actually occuring, in the early 1970's there was a sheep farm run by Richard and Beryl Lanyon about 12 miles north of the town of Boort in Central Victoria Australia. They had poll dorset sheep and a few goats, including one very smelly billy goat. This goat was quite odd, as he used to chase the ewes when they were in heat.
One morning Richard was feeling a bit crook, so Beryl went out to the fields to check on the lambing. She found a few very odd looking "lambs". Back at the house she discovered that Richard had been killing these every season for the last 2 or 3 years. Beryl however insisted that these creatures be allowed to survive.
Once they grew it was pretty obvious that they were some kind of goat/sheep hybrid. The very very unusual thing was that they bred true - they were fertile, and had baby fertile geeps for progeny, and not goats and sheep or mules.
Many geneticists declared this was of course impossible and was all some kind of wierd publicity stunt, as goats and sheep have different numbers of chromosomes. In 1973 or 1974 (It was a while back...) a New Zealand researcher found that the Billy goat was a mutant and had less than the usual 60 chromosomes, and one half of its' sperm had the right number of chromosomes to combine with the ewes.
Note that there's a terribly incorrect mention of this in the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep#Hybrids_with_go ats . The fact is that for many years these creatures were kept in the local nature reserve which was a region between Lake Boort and Little Lake Boort, and contained by an irrigation channel from the Loddon Valley Irrigation Scheme. The animals were also shown at the Royal Melbourne Show in 1973 or 1974, along with the billy goat. The goat became somewhat famous as he had to be shampooed several times a day to try to contain his musk, which overpowered the already quite smelly goat shed.
I heard that Dick and Beryl eventually killed the goat and all the geeps when it was pointed out to them that they demonstrated the possibility for new species to arise via mutations. They were terribly devout and conservative baptists, although lovely people. I spent quite a lot of time living on their farm with them whilst my Mum was in hospital in 1973.
If you want to read Darwin's ideas about Human Evolution then you should read "The Descent of Man" where he demonstrates that sexual selectiona nd the competition that entials are sufficient to account for Human diversity as observed 2 centuries ago.
I have to stress that at no pont in Darwin's writings did he address the question of the Origin of Life. 1. Everywhere in nature, the double helix DNA works the same way. To mate, animals must have the same number of 'rungs'. But man has 46, and ape has 48; humans have #2 & #3 bonded together. Nowhere else in nature are rungs "bonded" like this. We're just not the same, but we appear similar, visually.
No, there is no such requirement in order to mate. There are any number of websites that demonstrate mating between different species. To mate and have functional and fertile progeny, that's another thing however. I'd like to point out that as you said, Humans have 2 chromosomes from apes bonded together, which is simply a transcription modification.... I assume that God can allow the telomeres to unfold differently if He wishes?
And regarding your points about ID, well, in the opinion of myself, and many of the memebrs of our Church, ID is one of the greatest threats to Christianity in many many years. ID requires that God be an imperfect being, that creation be imperfect and that he makes mistakes. My God does not make mistakes, therefore ID did not happen.
Finally I'd like to refer you to St Augustine, who made the point that when experience and scripture seem to be in conflict, it's always that we have mis-interpreted scripture.
I asked this question of a recuitment firm once, and I was told it was because they have some funky VBA macros that do sorting, categorisation and job matching.
This might explain why I get offers from them as a DBM when my qualifications are as a mathematician, an ecological modeller at that. It seems that if you have "wierd" qualifications, but a high GPA (seven in my case) you just get all the DBA jobs.
Now although a DBA might make OK $$$, I could imagine nothing worse as a job as far as I'm concerned. The fact that they can read my CV, with all the awards, prizes, scholrships etc in it for Mathematics yet just offer me DBA jobs suggests that they never read the things, they just believe the results of their matching software.
Doesn't everyone who runs Solaris replace large chunks with GNU anyway?
Most people don't realise that one of the 3 designers of d&d was actually a minister (I think it was episcopalean, so insert obligatory joke about small boys here...), I can't recall his name right now (probably because I havent had my nd coffee and it's only 6:30am here). Be that as it may, let me tell you about a true story from the early 1980s..
insert TARDIS noises...
I started playing D&D (actually a totally bastardised version, as all we had for rules was about 50 pages photocopied from GMG and PG) in 1980, at Uni. During the 1980/81 long break, I told a good friend (a young lady I'd known for about 6 years, that is, since I was about 13) about it, and she thought it seemed a great thing.
Many (!!)years passed, and in 1986, circumstances were such that she actually managed to play with us. By that time we'd "graduated" to Rolemaster, but that doesnt dilute what follows. She rolled up a character (an evil caster) and eagerly joined in the game. Within 5 minutes she looked all confused. "What's the problem?" "When do we start sacrificing animals and stuff?" I had a moment of insight. "You mean like you want to kill real animals here and now, in Steve's living room?" "Oh, do we wait till night time to do that?" It was quickly explained that really the game was just a grown up version of "let's pretend". She was not convinced, but afeter the game session she told me that she'd got the impression form the media that it involved real satanic rituals and medieval witchcraft. She ended up eing a good player, and staying with the campaign for about 3 years.
Now this girl had a completely wrong idea about RPG due to certain right-wing extremists, and as she was one of those extreme rebel type people she thought D&D would be a great evil and anti-establishment thing. I have to wonder how many of these people that "go off the deep end" with RPG also start with a wrong idea what it's about, and don't get it straightend out? Like the Pastor's son I met once who told me he'd love to play D&D because it stood for everything his dad didn't like.
Although the image of Microsoft Executives returning $100 notes to the wild for them to run free has a kind of warped appeal, surely you mean that they lose over $100 per unit?
I'd seriously consider anytyhing with a better than 15% chance of improvement (as there's a better than 85% chance that anything "traditional" they could try would make things worse!).
It was incredibly disappointing discovering that the Korean Stem Cell research was faked, as all the experts thought that was where my cure would lie somewhere in the next 8 years.
Another factor might be that the US economy has had abut 400 years to develop (I believe - I'm not that in touch with US history), of which there has been over 200 years as a national identity. We Federated 1901, and at the absolute earliest you couldnt consider us to have had any kind of economy or national identity was in the 1850s, and that's really stretching things, as even in 1898 it was not certain that either Queensland or Western Australia would be a part of the federation.
An interesting set of statistics are what the infant mortality rate is, %age of population living below the poverty line, %age with secured retirements etc, %age risk of violent crime, percentage population or subgroup that is jailed at any time (and of course Stalin set the "standards" for that).
Is the real measure of success to be measured by the power of the economy, or by the health, safety and security of its' citizens? I guess that's the real question. The Capitalist seems to believe that with a powerful economy the other things will follow, whilst the Socialist believes that without the latter 3 factors, the first doesnt matter that much. As for reading material, I'd suggest you look around www.gov.au, and look for "centerlink" of "department of social security" for some information as to how Social Support systems can work in practice in a socialist country. For papers on modern socialist theory you might want to look at the Evatt Foundation as a starting point at http://evatt.org.au/
This is possibly the "smallest" you'll get with Government, and not have anarchy. Note that Government has close to no power whatsoever, all power is vested in the people, yet people only have to deal with issues that are relevent to them and their surroundings. It also very agressively rewards competetion in industry and production.
As an analogy do you just put a quadrapalegic on bed rest for the rest of their life - or put them through physical therapy to maximize their remaining potential while augmenting it with additional technological help (motorized wheelchair, etc.)
You are saying that the Capitalist puts the "quadrapalegic on bed rest for the rest of their life"? Socialist systems as found today (such as Sweden or Australia) certainly provide "physical therapy to maximize their remaining potential while augmenting it with additional technological help (motorized wheelchair, etc.)". An example is my Mother-in-law, who lost both legs to diabetes. She spent 6 months in a rehab hospital (provided by Government for free to her), learning how to cope with no legs (training and therpists provided by Government), and has two wheelchairs provided by Government (not gold plated ones, but very functional).
In terms of the Dole, you'll find that very few Socialist countries just put people on the Dole and leave them there these days. Usually, after a period while the unemployed person is given the chance to find their own work (8 to 12 weeks maximum), they are offered training in Job Seeking Skills, new work skills (such as re-training for those whose industries are disappearing, such as letterpress printers being trained in DTP for example), with rather nasty penalties being accrued for failing to attend these courses.
I believe in equality of opportunity - not in equality of outcomes.
Surely you are not claiming that all socio-economic groups in the US have equal access and opportunity to education, health and legal representation?
I'm not claiming that Socialist systems are perfect. You only need look at Stalinist USSR, or the Khmer Rouge in Kampuchea to see that it is possible, even probable, that a Socialist system without democratic checks and balances can become a dictatorship that encourages mediocrity. But you arguments are specious, and are essentially regurgitated propaganda (which is not your fault, after all you probably had it forced down your throat during the Cold War). Look at how Marxist theory has developed and been superseded by less idealist socio-politrical models since the 1960s and you'll see that in many counties it works, and works well.
Consider also the "Higher Taxes!" screaming that many ardent anti-socialists talk about. In most cases these taxes are paying for services that you would otherwise be paying for directly out of your own pocket, such as health, medicine, pharmaceuticals, education, transport, law enforcement, culture (museums, art galleries, concerts-in-the-park, religion [yes, here in Socialist Australia Churches get grants from Government, not all Socialist systems have that "opiate of the masses" claus] and so on) for example
I was shocked by the number of beggars in the "rischest country in the world", as have been many of my compatriots who have also lived in the US. I found the common attitude that being poor or under-priviledged is your own fault to be extremely disturbing. There seems to be an attitude of "anyone can climb beyond his origins in the USA" which doesnt seem to be based on reality. It certainly seemed that if you were born or lived in the wrong suburb, were of the wrong ethnic background, had poor parents or a similar dis-advantage, then only the exceptional managed to avoid being trapped in poverty for life.
Quality of education in the US is based on the wealth of your suburb. Without the efforts of philanthropists there is simply no way that any but a lucky or extra determined few will gain the education needed to avail themselves of the "opportunities" your society offers.
Quality of health care is another thing I was amazed by. It is a principle of this country, that if the population has good, affordable health services then the loses due to sickness will be minimised, and as a result productivity and standard of living will rise. In the USA, even much of the rather expensive health plans seem to be focused on providing health care only in the most extreme caes of need. And the price of medications is shocking.
Having lived in "pinko socialist" country, and having lived in the "land of the free", I'll choose my higher taxes in order to ensure my children's future, rather tand take a huge bet on a risky gamble like you Americans have to do.
(i) I'm Australian, so Oz, NZ and Britain I guess.
(ii) Started a PhD, but left to get a job. My degrees are in general science and "applied" maths.
(iii) Other than doing tests and exams? I seem to be able to explain maths and science to people quite well. I can usually see how to find solutions to problems - note that this is not the same as solving the problems (which I can sometimes do - I can often identify the method to use even when I don't have the skills to use or apply that method.). I can often see through the bullshit and identify what the real question is. Note that these 3 attributes are pretty much what it takes to do exams really well.
(iv) Everything interests me to a point. Am I passionate about anything? Sometimes, for a while. One of my friends tells me that I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I'd love to know enough to be able to solve practical problems, like feeding the hungry, or improving health in general, without raping the planet or exploiting the poor.
(v) And this point is perhaps where my problem with work really lies - I don't really know! When the tests I talked about above were complete, the OT who was dealing with my case said "we'll send you back to University, as anything we could find for you to do would bore you to tears". Thus they removed me from the ranks of the Unemployed (thus being a "case solved" from his perspective), and I entered the ranks of Uni Student at the age of 30. I quite enjoyed maths at school and uni, but jobs where you do that seem to be scarce - either you need to have more maths than I possess (as some engineers have, or actuaries have), or else "maths jobs" seem to be things like "bank teller" etc as far as I can tell.
(vi) I seem to be able to pick jobs that are (1) run by fools or (2) are run by scammers or (3) just arn't sustainable. Typical of me, I seem to be unable to sucessfully choose a job that has a future. Once again, the difference between "measured intelligence" and the kind of "smarts" that really matter appears to be what really matters here. My jobs have ended because (1) I've realised that my employees are really cunning scammers, who are using the presence of a "really smart person" as a tool to suck investors etc in, (2) The employer realises that being a "super smart person" does not imply "a person who can magically pull profit out of a hat" and as such was really not a good hire in the first place. The rest of my jobs have been for companies that have folded.
It's actually pretty depressing having people say "You could get a good job anywhere, doing anything" when it simply isn't the case. Perhaps there's some truth to the stereotype of the "genius" who is incapable of tying his own shoelaces (although I can tie my shoelaces!).
Ultimately it just proves that I am very good at IQ tests, and absolutely nothing more.
The only thing it seems to be really good for is pissing off people who think IQ is important and that they are somehow superior because they have IQ in the 120-140 range.
I'm a kind of freak I guess, I have eidetic memory, I've hardly ever got below 90% in anything that has exams. But I'm totally incapable of doing terribly much that's practical or useful, none of my "ideas" have ever been more than stupid dreams.
I can sometimes "accidently" find really good and clever solutions to problems, but I can only do it consistently in an exam environment. As I result my worth to an employer is pretty low in most jobs - they usually want someone who can be consistently OK, or even good (if they're very lucky!), not (rarely) sporadically brilliant.
I was once told by a Uni lecturer that the perfect job for me was working for someone who was a kind of gambler, who was willing to pay me to sit and do whatever I wanted, and take a long odds bet on me producing an idea that would change the world. I haven't found that job yet though - I suspect they're pretty scarce.
I've probably spent about 15 years since 1980 on the Dole.
I reckon I'd be set if I could get a job doing the one thing I know I'm really really good at - doing IQ tests, and other kinds of "mental parlor tricks".
[troll mode on]BTW, Kuhn was full of shit. Great way to get someone to notice you, to write a series of papers that barely make any sense, yet flatter those who make the decisions as to whether you are "good" or not. He'd of made an excellent Real Estate, Used Car or Insurance salesman in my opinion. His re-definition of epistemology ultimately delivered nothing of benefit except to a few academics who could sit around deconstructing the creative and inventive processes, thus insuring security of tenure. [troll mode off]