How is largely non-beneficial mutation scientifically incompatible with "the biggest con ever foisted on mankind" when coupled with natural selection, in it's normal sense? I thought that was already the consensus of must biologists et al.? I know that the idea of beneficial mutation was, at one point touted as a possibility, but I didn't think it had any credibility.
Most importantly, why is 'evolution' a con because of this theory?
Big retailers like Tower Records going out of business
I'd heard that Tower records went bust because supermarkets like walmart started cutting prices on popular cd's to the extent that they were actually taking a slight loss, and then to compensate slightly raising the prices (a cent or so) on the high demand, low yield items, like groceries.
I don't have a source for this because I saw it on the tv. however, it seems to fit with the cd prices i've started to see in UK supermarkets in the last five years. Granted, this new competitor doesn't specifically target Tower records more than any other music vendor, so maybe there was a degree of complexity to their bunkruptcy beyond this, however, if it's true, I'd like to know why they went after the cd industry with such ferocity, as opposed to any other. Maybe it was just the next in a long line.
Filesharing, iTunes etc. may have come just in the nick of time for those of use that like more variety in music than your next-door neighbour's teenage daughter..
Things which are un-PC or controversial are not 'automatically' humorous. There is an elegance and wit to well-done un-PC humour which empowers the "can he say that?" factor with genuinely funny material. Watch, for example, Ricky Gervais or Larry David's humour, and contrast it with the infamous racist rant of Michael Richards.
The original post was far from funny, and categorising anyone who disagrees with you as "PC pushing humorless crybabies" says a lot more about you than the people you're trying to insult.
1)As I understand it "atheist fundamentalism" is a misnomer. You can't be fundamentalist about a lack of belief, it requires a positive proposition. Otherwise you have nothing to be fundamental about.
2)Saying things like "teenagers living in their parents basement" does not help an argument. You can put you hands over your ears and believe that that the entirety of your opponents belong to this demographic if you wish. The 'argument' in that statement is that "[they] do not understand [therefore they think it] must be wrong."
Fine. Make me understand. I'm all ears. I understand fairly complex aspects of science, art, literature and the rest of life's rich tapestry, if religion has anything to offer me, i'm yet to hear it, and i've been looking at it pretty hard.
3) A generalisation of 2) Again, tell me the reasons. Tell me why society should embrace religion. Fundamentally, it IS irrational. You cannot come to religion by rationality, if you can, please feel free to prove it to me. That's what rationality is.
As for the 'tooth fairy' comment, Bertrand Russell was a Rationalist and he compared God to a chocolate teapot. Make of that what you will, I'm sure you'll have a difficult time convincing anyone who understands rationality to be religious.
4) Criticising religions and wanting to wipe them out are not one and the same. It's a common tactic in arguments to paint the other side as the extreme extension of what they are saying.
5) This is only plausible to psychopathic dictators.
In my opinion, your comment contains within it much more wisdom than the parent, however it is unlikely you'll be modded up due to the well known slashdot cynical-of-authority bias.
Of course, being cynical is not inherently a bad thing when dealing with politicians, but being bias to the point of generalising them all stifles healthy debate and creates an atmosphere ripe for extremism. Most political extremes of the 20th century used perceived public discomfort of the ineffectiveness of the current politicians and pushed their own black-and-white arguments as a sign of 'strong leadership', that will steer people away from the demons and shadows that their propoganda creates.
Anyone who thinks i'm overreacting need look no further than the modern day BNP to see evidence of a party with an economically and socially idiotic philosophy attempting to trade on the fear of 'weak' policitians trying to turn Britain 'foreign'.
So, paint me as naive if you want, i'd rather have a healthy debate with people -politicians or otherwise- based on reason, logic and evidence rather than just whiney generalisations about a democratic country's politicians or, worse, its society itself.
Yeah, I can't claim to have any tie to the event(s) bar enjoying reading about it and, as a Londoner, taking some pride in the spirit of multi-culturalism within it.
Surprisingly, one of the nicest dedications I've seen to it was in a Terry Pratchett book (one of the ones with the Ankh-Morpork "Watch" (police)) in which he, very eloquently, describes a similar event which happens in Ankh-Morpork (an allegory for London), and then about the understated, inclusive approach to patriotism inherent within such an event, which seems to have so much more dignity than the ridiculous flag-waving of the middle-classes every time a sports event rolls round in modern Britain.
Anyway, it's worth a read, if you're interested (can't remember which one it is of the top of my head, but the whole Diskworld series is pretty fun as a sort of not-too-taxing "comfort" read, and the blurb will tell you which specific one i'm talking about..), but I'm even further off-topic now. To paraphrase JD Salinger, things tend to get a lot more interesting when you get off-topic though.
2) You are an asshole and have no valid contribution to science other than yammering about sentence structure and grammar; things scientists don't give a fuck about because any reasonable human being can pull an idea out of a hat and see the idea for what it is, gram crackers and spelking aside and felch fests that assholes like you tend to dwell on spppellleing and irreleyvant shit, it's the idea, and not the delivery.
That's the most agressive agreement with someone i've ever seen.
Between the article and the summary, there seems to be some confusion between 'No record label' and 'download only'. Not helped by the BBC article saying
Until 1 January, an artist needed to release singles on CD or another physical format - and therefore have a record deal - to qualify for the chart."
Didn't "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley (who did have a record deal) get to No. 1 (UK) last summer on downloads only? So is the January 1st date that the article is referring to 2006? (which, according to the summary is last week. Man, 2005 dragged on and on.)
What's this based on? The only uses of nationalism I've heard is as a synonym for patriotism and/or as a misguided belief in a country's indigenous populace having innate character traits (widely used in History in academia in this sense). Where does Government come into it?
Reminds me of the headline in the Evening Standard (London's "Quality" Newspaper) a few days ago.
For those among us who've never visited London, the Evening Standard plasters it's headlines all over billboards outside any shop which sells it's paper and on street vendors outside tube and train stations.
On Wednesday this read "HEALTH ALERT ON MARS BARS".
The story? Mars will soon be putting nutrition information on it's packaging.
Why do I get the feeling that anyone with the werewithal in great britain to fight this stupidity has already emigrated to the US? Every single day it's more nonsense like this from across the pond.
Yeah, uh, Slashdot probably isn't the best place to build up an impression on a country's society. Any country: from the UK and the USA to Iran and China, does not amount to the sum of it's un-enforceable laws and the opinions of some teachers/politicians etc.
Oh, and will you people please read another fucking book apart from 1984.
Drug companies spend far more money on advertising than they do on research and development.
Are the drug companies spending money on advertising for fun, or is it with the aim of producing a return? Presumably, they are aware of the economics of their field and know the balance for return on R + D, and return on advertising. Also, genuine question, do you have the figures to verify this statement? I have an interest in this anyway, so i'm not just trying to undermine your argument.
economics is not a science and is not necessarily the best model for health care.
Do you have an alternative? It seems to work quite well. As someone who worked for some time in a pharmacy, there seems to be a proliferation of drug treatments at the moment, not for trivial things either. There are, it is true, some tricks that have been used to preserve patents by businessmen trying to protect their interest in the face of losing patents to generic production, but from what i've seen, it's rare. Certainly in the time that i was working there, some significant drugs went off-patent and the entire supply switched to generic (the doctors are well aware of the difference. Some people will try to claim that doctors are ignorant. They're just not.)
Do you think if it was government-led, that they would just give away the drugs they'd spent billions developing? I wish there was an ideal middle ground between generating revenue for R + D and being able to sell it at a price which does not exclude the third world, everyone in the world does. But if there is one, i'm yet to hear it, so it seems to be a case of continue as we are, regulate where we can and hope that charity etc. makes up some of the difference.
I would argue that one of the fundamental aspects of religion is EXACTLY for controlling the masses, historically. I can see no greater tool for making sure your neighbour does not impose on you than writing a document which advocates the morality which you mention and, in order to make sure it spreads, by presenting it in a format such as the Bible: full of exciting, moralistic stories to appeal to a wide audience, with infallible, omnipotent heroes and villains that are just as absolute.
In modern times, with most modern western countries advocating a clear seperation of church and state it is true that religion only affects those who choose to follow it, however, it is not long ago that religion DID have a wide-reaching, politically stifling effect into most corners of society, and continues to do so in many countries. To return to the original reason for our debate, it is a fear of a return to this that makes atheists become militant about religious intolerance (please note: I am not actively advocating intolerance on either side, and i would hope that you find my arguments support this, however in terms of the intolerance on the atheist 'side', in the words of Chris Rock re: OJ Simpson "I'm not saying he should have killed her. But i understand.")
I guess the whole debate comes down to a belief of whether you feel religion to be a cynical form of manipulation, or whether you believe it to be a search for God. I believe the former because I can see no evidence for the latter but plenty of evidence for the former. It validates the latter to discuss religion as a whole perhaps more than it should because the search for a (non-specific) "God" is more reasonable than all Religions actually are, as they not only have tagged any such potential God as their own but also have attached many sub-clauses to him/her and his/her opinions that he may have, should he exist.
Anyway, I have to go home now, but I have enjoyed debating with you, thanks for not degenerating the discussion into a "nah nah atheists are worse" type conversation.
No. I'm not going to become embroiled in a chicken-and-egg argument on the state of religion, humanity and intolerance. I have not got sufficient anthropological, socialogical or psychological evidence and neither do you. No-one does, so please stop presenting your view of humanity as fact.
Additionally, all major religions are already inherently a political agenda. It contains within it a power struture and a manifesto for controlling people according to a given doctrine. In this, it does not need to be "co-opted", it just needs to be reinforced.
It is always amazing that people with religion are required to tolerate those without, but those without religion don't have to do the same.
Those without religion do not purport to have any kind of 'authority' over others, unless it's based on reason.
From Thomas Hardy to the Beatles to Dogma there are a million examples in the last century alone of religious people being intolerant of anything which even hints at atheism, or mocks/insults their religion. I have no idea how you've managed to construe it as the other way round except, perhaps, in the very small world of slashdot users.
Access, as in access to the content. You want SciFi's content, you have to pay SciFi to access their content. That's why it costs more if you have more channels.
*blink*
Wasn't that his point? That the ISP analogy rather falls apart when you pay FOR THE CONTENT seperately, why does that not fund the content directly?
you don't know anymore than what was TOLD TO YOU[...]Germans were the bad guys... do I know that for fact? No.
You know those pictures and videos of little jewish children being put on trains to gas chambers and then being killed? And then, on the liberation, the pictures of the mass graves, containing people of all ages?
That's what told me they were the fucking bad guys.
OK, you're right: I did misinterpret your argument as a genuine defence of religious thought rather than a criticism of clumsy argument tactics.
In general, I agree with you about arguing such issues with delicacy where necessary, however in my experience I have seen more examples of delicate, tactful arguments from Atheist/Agnostics based on reason than I have from Religious quarters so i tend to feel more sympathetic towards the Atheist side (aided by my own Atheist beliefs..) A problem with Religions is that they tend to have a built in self-defence mechanism against weak arguments from their own side, which fosters over-confidence : Do not question God's word.
Their impact on religious belief is essentially nil.
Sorry, is your argument then that Religious *belief* has had 4000 years worth of influence on Religious *culture*? i'm genuinely intrigued, because i must admit I was arguing about a more generalised view of "culture" (I suppose Western culture. I don't feel qualified to talk about any other..) and to make such a statement as the one you made above, combined with the one about religious people pointing to 4000 years of culture as a defence...well, it seems a little simplistic.
by the way: i don't want to seem rude but the rest of your post was about the scientific acheivements of people who I claimed had a great effect on our culture (read "Western culture" not "religious culture"). I'm not sure if that was for my benefit, but I am aware of their achievements. It's why i used them as examples. Apologies if it was for the benefit of the general reader.
Then they are put out when the theists counter that 4000 years of history, culture, philosophy, and tradition not to mention personal belief and spirituality undergird their position.
Do you think that if any of the philosophers who, historically, were so torn about the existence of god were alive now, that they would still be in the same position, with Science at the stage it is?
Do you realise that the majority of our current cultural influences were dictated by people who QUESTIONED the thousands of years of historical religious "facts": be they Darwin, Galileo, Copernicus, Russell etc.? That the very people who fought to provide us with the culture of "evidence" rather than simply sitting back on our laurels and believing what the nearest priest was saying have had an infinitely more profound effect on culture than any religious figure, barring the ones that were already written into the various religous texts?
Atheists are "put out" when they asked for the existence of God and are pointed to history, culture et al. for the same reason I would be put out if I went to a comedy show and was shown an empty stage (to use your name against you..) Yes, this may have been built to house comedy, that's quite an acheivement, this structural design.
But it's not what i asked for, and its not what you promised..
Slashdot Mirror
How is largely non-beneficial mutation scientifically incompatible with "the biggest con ever foisted on mankind" when coupled with natural selection, in it's normal sense? I thought that was already the consensus of must biologists et al.? I know that the idea of beneficial mutation was, at one point touted as a possibility, but I didn't think it had any credibility.
Most importantly, why is 'evolution' a con because of this theory?
I'd heard that Tower records went bust because supermarkets like walmart started cutting prices on popular cd's to the extent that they were actually taking a slight loss, and then to compensate slightly raising the prices (a cent or so) on the high demand, low yield items, like groceries.
I don't have a source for this because I saw it on the tv. however, it seems to fit with the cd prices i've started to see in UK supermarkets in the last five years. Granted, this new competitor doesn't specifically target Tower records more than any other music vendor, so maybe there was a degree of complexity to their bunkruptcy beyond this, however, if it's true, I'd like to know why they went after the cd industry with such ferocity, as opposed to any other. Maybe it was just the next in a long line.
Filesharing, iTunes etc. may have come just in the nick of time for those of use that like more variety in music than your next-door neighbour's teenage daughter..
The original post was far from funny, and categorising anyone who disagrees with you as "PC pushing humorless crybabies" says a lot more about you than the people you're trying to insult.
1)As I understand it "atheist fundamentalism" is a misnomer. You can't be fundamentalist about a lack of belief, it requires a positive proposition. Otherwise you have nothing to be fundamental about.
2)Saying things like "teenagers living in their parents basement" does not help an argument. You can put you hands over your ears and believe that that the entirety of your opponents belong to this demographic if you wish. The 'argument' in that statement is that "[they] do not understand [therefore they think it] must be wrong."
Fine. Make me understand. I'm all ears. I understand fairly complex aspects of science, art, literature and the rest of life's rich tapestry, if religion has anything to offer me, i'm yet to hear it, and i've been looking at it pretty hard.
3) A generalisation of 2) Again, tell me the reasons. Tell me why society should embrace religion. Fundamentally, it IS irrational. You cannot come to religion by rationality, if you can, please feel free to prove it to me. That's what rationality is.
As for the 'tooth fairy' comment, Bertrand Russell was a Rationalist and he compared God to a chocolate teapot. Make of that what you will, I'm sure you'll have a difficult time convincing anyone who understands rationality to be religious.
4) Criticising religions and wanting to wipe them out are not one and the same. It's a common tactic in arguments to paint the other side as the extreme extension of what they are saying.
5) This is only plausible to psychopathic dictators.
Of course, being cynical is not inherently a bad thing when dealing with politicians, but being bias to the point of generalising them all stifles healthy debate and creates an atmosphere ripe for extremism. Most political extremes of the 20th century used perceived public discomfort of the ineffectiveness of the current politicians and pushed their own black-and-white arguments as a sign of 'strong leadership', that will steer people away from the demons and shadows that their propoganda creates.
Anyone who thinks i'm overreacting need look no further than the modern day BNP to see evidence of a party with an economically and socially idiotic philosophy attempting to trade on the fear of 'weak' policitians trying to turn Britain 'foreign'.
So, paint me as naive if you want, i'd rather have a healthy debate with people -politicians or otherwise- based on reason, logic and evidence rather than just whiney generalisations about a democratic country's politicians or, worse, its society itself.
I knew this day would come.
Surprisingly, one of the nicest dedications I've seen to it was in a Terry Pratchett book (one of the ones with the Ankh-Morpork "Watch" (police)) in which he, very eloquently, describes a similar event which happens in Ankh-Morpork (an allegory for London), and then about the understated, inclusive approach to patriotism inherent within such an event, which seems to have so much more dignity than the ridiculous flag-waving of the middle-classes every time a sports event rolls round in modern Britain.
Anyway, it's worth a read, if you're interested (can't remember which one it is of the top of my head, but the whole Diskworld series is pretty fun as a sort of not-too-taxing "comfort" read, and the blurb will tell you which specific one i'm talking about..), but I'm even further off-topic now. To paraphrase JD Salinger, things tend to get a lot more interesting when you get off-topic though.
Mods, do your worst..
That's the most agressive agreement with someone i've ever seen.
Didn't "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley (who did have a record deal) get to No. 1 (UK) last summer on downloads only? So is the January 1st date that the article is referring to 2006? (which, according to the summary is last week. Man, 2005 dragged on and on.)
What's this based on? The only uses of nationalism I've heard is as a synonym for patriotism and/or as a misguided belief in a country's indigenous populace having innate character traits (widely used in History in academia in this sense). Where does Government come into it?
"Pedantry: stupidity that read a book"
For those among us who've never visited London, the Evening Standard plasters it's headlines all over billboards outside any shop which sells it's paper and on street vendors outside tube and train stations.
On Wednesday this read "HEALTH ALERT ON MARS BARS".
The story? Mars will soon be putting nutrition information on it's packaging.
Tabloid journalism. What would we do without it?
Every time '1984' gets mentioned - 1 shot. THAT Ben Franklin quote - 1 shot. Feel free to add your own, meme's don't count.
Yeah, uh, Slashdot probably isn't the best place to build up an impression on a country's society. Any country: from the UK and the USA to Iran and China, does not amount to the sum of it's un-enforceable laws and the opinions of some teachers/politicians etc.
Oh, and will you people please read another fucking book apart from 1984.
Are the drug companies spending money on advertising for fun, or is it with the aim of producing a return? Presumably, they are aware of the economics of their field and know the balance for return on R + D, and return on advertising. Also, genuine question, do you have the figures to verify this statement? I have an interest in this anyway, so i'm not just trying to undermine your argument.
economics is not a science and is not necessarily the best model for health care.
Do you have an alternative? It seems to work quite well. As someone who worked for some time in a pharmacy, there seems to be a proliferation of drug treatments at the moment, not for trivial things either. There are, it is true, some tricks that have been used to preserve patents by businessmen trying to protect their interest in the face of losing patents to generic production, but from what i've seen, it's rare. Certainly in the time that i was working there, some significant drugs went off-patent and the entire supply switched to generic (the doctors are well aware of the difference. Some people will try to claim that doctors are ignorant. They're just not.)
Do you think if it was government-led, that they would just give away the drugs they'd spent billions developing? I wish there was an ideal middle ground between generating revenue for R + D and being able to sell it at a price which does not exclude the third world, everyone in the world does. But if there is one, i'm yet to hear it, so it seems to be a case of continue as we are, regulate where we can and hope that charity etc. makes up some of the difference.
In modern times, with most modern western countries advocating a clear seperation of church and state it is true that religion only affects those who choose to follow it, however, it is not long ago that religion DID have a wide-reaching, politically stifling effect into most corners of society, and continues to do so in many countries. To return to the original reason for our debate, it is a fear of a return to this that makes atheists become militant about religious intolerance (please note: I am not actively advocating intolerance on either side, and i would hope that you find my arguments support this, however in terms of the intolerance on the atheist 'side', in the words of Chris Rock re: OJ Simpson "I'm not saying he should have killed her. But i understand.")
I guess the whole debate comes down to a belief of whether you feel religion to be a cynical form of manipulation, or whether you believe it to be a search for God. I believe the former because I can see no evidence for the latter but plenty of evidence for the former. It validates the latter to discuss religion as a whole perhaps more than it should because the search for a (non-specific) "God" is more reasonable than all Religions actually are, as they not only have tagged any such potential God as their own but also have attached many sub-clauses to him/her and his/her opinions that he may have, should he exist.
Anyway, I have to go home now, but I have enjoyed debating with you, thanks for not degenerating the discussion into a "nah nah atheists are worse" type conversation.
Additionally, all major religions are already inherently a political agenda. It contains within it a power struture and a manifesto for controlling people according to a given doctrine. In this, it does not need to be "co-opted", it just needs to be reinforced.
Those without religion do not purport to have any kind of 'authority' over others, unless it's based on reason.
From Thomas Hardy to the Beatles to Dogma there are a million examples in the last century alone of religious people being intolerant of anything which even hints at atheism, or mocks/insults their religion. I have no idea how you've managed to construe it as the other way round except, perhaps, in the very small world of slashdot users.
Access, as in access to the content. You want SciFi's content, you have to pay SciFi to access their content. That's why it costs more if you have more channels.
*blink*
Wasn't that his point? That the ISP analogy rather falls apart when you pay FOR THE CONTENT seperately, why does that not fund the content directly?
Yeah, more generalisations are the best way to see the "truth". Give me a break.
What, and risked getting hugged by that Cameron creep?
Not enough money in the world..
You know those pictures and videos of little jewish children being put on trains to gas chambers and then being killed? And then, on the liberation, the pictures of the mass graves, containing people of all ages?
That's what told me they were the fucking bad guys.
In general, I agree with you about arguing such issues with delicacy where necessary, however in my experience I have seen more examples of delicate, tactful arguments from Atheist/Agnostics based on reason than I have from Religious quarters so i tend to feel more sympathetic towards the Atheist side (aided by my own Atheist beliefs..) A problem with Religions is that they tend to have a built in self-defence mechanism against weak arguments from their own side, which fosters over-confidence : Do not question God's word.
Sorry, is your argument then that Religious *belief* has had 4000 years worth of influence on Religious *culture*? i'm genuinely intrigued, because i must admit I was arguing about a more generalised view of "culture" (I suppose Western culture. I don't feel qualified to talk about any other..) and to make such a statement as the one you made above, combined with the one about religious people pointing to 4000 years of culture as a defence...well, it seems a little simplistic.
by the way: i don't want to seem rude but the rest of your post was about the scientific acheivements of people who I claimed had a great effect on our culture (read "Western culture" not "religious culture"). I'm not sure if that was for my benefit, but I am aware of their achievements. It's why i used them as examples. Apologies if it was for the benefit of the general reader.
Do you think that if any of the philosophers who, historically, were so torn about the existence of god were alive now, that they would still be in the same position, with Science at the stage it is?
Do you realise that the majority of our current cultural influences were dictated by people who QUESTIONED the thousands of years of historical religious "facts": be they Darwin, Galileo, Copernicus, Russell etc.? That the very people who fought to provide us with the culture of "evidence" rather than simply sitting back on our laurels and believing what the nearest priest was saying have had an infinitely more profound effect on culture than any religious figure, barring the ones that were already written into the various religous texts?
Atheists are "put out" when they asked for the existence of God and are pointed to history, culture et al. for the same reason I would be put out if I went to a comedy show and was shown an empty stage (to use your name against you..) Yes, this may have been built to house comedy, that's quite an acheivement, this structural design.
But it's not what i asked for, and its not what you promised..