I'm learning my third modern language currently (English, German, French). I'm on my second and third dead language as well (Latin, [classic] Greek, [classic] Hebrew). But I agree with you. Modern translators suck horribly. I'm tempted to throw in a few things to this to see what pops out... I do have my Biblia Hebraica around here somewhere...
Considering that it is one's insurance that pays to "fix one up" rather than the rest of the population, who cares if a biker decides to not wear a helmet. It's a stupid decision, but it doesn't make the roads any "safer" for anyone else.
It is similar for driving drunk. Those who know it's a bad decision don't do it. Those who don't care will still do it. It is not acceptable to penalize those who do make good decisions because there are some (many?) who don't. Government regulation is not the same as a kindergarten classroom.
Music is an a priori object. It becomes a "playlist" through the transcendental unity of apperception whereby it it is passed through the 12 categories of intuition as well as space and time before being able to be experienced by the self. Music as an a priori object can never be experienced in itself; in other words, we can never really listen to Music-in-itself without already having interpreted it through the 12 categories. This is roughly similar to Heidegger's idea of "thrown-in-the-music-ness," which I will not discuss currently because, like really noisy music, it makes my head hurt.
1) Condense complex material into soundbytes, short phrases, and witty jokes.
2) Keep discussion and lecture floating around those tidbits of information.
3) Expect students to read textbook(s) and link reading assignments to tidbits in lecture.
4) Make tests that revolve around above-mentioned tidbits, thus reinforcing the simple view.
Hmmm...where did things break down? I'm sorry, but one cannot reduce something like "religion" in Sociology or Anthropology to a five word definition, let alone expect such a definition to be helpful to a learner. Cliff Geertz has one of the most concise definitions and it's easily 40 words long....and it is solidly based in Victor Turner's concepts of communitas, society, and ritual. One can always go to another school of thought and find yet another definition that is equally acceptable and yet contains radically different points. Reducing religion to "belief in at least one deity" isn't a good definition, so why use it in a PowerPoint presentation where students will most likely think that the words in the presentation are the keywords they should learn and the definitions they should associate with those keywords. It's like saying "PC" and assuming "Windows XP/Vista" (*ahem* Apple).
I'm pretty sure this is under the "a true geek would do..." thread as well. I definitely wasn't talking about the average Joe Sixpack who uses Comcast/Verizon and doesn't even know what MTA stands for.
I think that term papers are great for courses where the subject matter cannot be boiled down to "A, B, C, or D" while maintaining integrity of understanding. For instance, One could easily devise a multiple-choice examination on the theological beliefs of Hinduism (e.g. "Which of the following best describes the Neo-Vedanta notion of jivanmukti?...."), but that doesn't necessarily mean that the student understands the material, whereas a term paper requires more interaction with the material than zombie memorization.
I have found that as one progresses academically (i.e. graduate work and beyond), the term paper is much more common and required. In my master's program, every single course required at least a term paper--some only required a term paper (one's entire grade being based on 15 pages one wrote and is graded by someone who has a doctorate in the field) while others also required other work as well (generally either more smaller papers or 1-2 in-class examinations that had in-class 2-3 page essays). I couldn't conceive of a multiple-choice/true-false type test being an acceptable replacement for a graduate student's thesis/dissertation and/or comprehensive exams (which are generally like term papers done in the span of 4 hours). I don't think I would willingly accept one's academic credentials if one's graded work excluded any kind of term paper or long-term project. Sure, I wouldn't expect a term paper from an undergraduate taking an introduction to algebra, but I would definitely expect it from anyone who is taking an upper-level undergraduate course in their major or any kind of graduate-level course. There really isn't any substitute to a good term paper.
I think the problem lies with the concept that "everybody should go to college." With everyone needing to go to college, there is very little worth to an undergraduate degree (try getting a job as a psychologist with only a BA/BS in the field). In many cases, the undergraduate degree has become what a high school diploma was 20 years ago. It'll be strange when that standard becomes a graduate degree (Master's and/or Doctorate) for all fields. It already is for many professional fields (e.g. psychology).
Ummm, I'm not sure about you, but I can access my home computer nicely through SSH and check my email from anywhere. Sure, it's nice to have a webmail interface, but I hate using my server space for email. And, If one was really interested in having that sort of accessibility just simply get a nice mail system running on a home computer that gets email via POP from Verizon/whoever and has its own webmail interface (e.g. getting an MTA running on a home computer with Apache and PHP running Squirrelmail or the like and having a dynamic DNS service)? It's a bit more complex to get running, but it gets the best of both worlds: email on your computer and easy accessibility.
That doesn't affect my point. As I used with the example of cancer, using the overarching term is fine in some situations, but in others it is not. Let's take another example: atomic structure. Even though earlier scientists and chemists thought that the atom was the smallest structure, later chemistry has shown this to be incorrect. Is using "atom" incorrect? No. But when the discussion is particularly about atomic charge, the discussion ought to use "protons" and "electrons" more often than "atom." Does that mean I think we should ditch using "evolution"? No. Does that mean we should use the most accurate term whenever possible, especially in academic settings? Yes. Does that mean I agree or disagree with the study? Not really. My point (which was that the study failed to find many uses of the word "evolution" possibly because more specific words were used to describe the specific processes instead of evolution and yet did not count these as that was beyond the focus of the study) was simply that a second study using the same data source looking for more specific words may have had very different results.
And, for the record, this is why I hate doing continental philosophy with people whose background is in more analytical fields: they see everything as black-and-white.
If you check out the Dept of the Treasury site (particularly here), you'll find that "In God We Trust" was not officially adopted as the national motto until 1956. It had been around much longer than that (since the 1860s on the two-cent coin), but the above quotation is strictly a part of the Star Spangled Banner, and not an official declaration.
Thank you for the biochemistry lesson, but it is beside my point. I am not arguing that there are more bases than what are known, but rather that there are different processes of "evolution." When describing the thing from a telescopic standpoint (which is fine for non-academic blurbs as well as academic overviews), using "evolution" is fine. When describing things from a microscopic point of view, however, "evolution" is inappropriate because there is (generally) a more specific word or phrase that describes the exact process in question. I have no idea how you got from my analogy with the grammatical constructs of noun cases to biochemical bases.
When you are wrong, you have the option to admit it (which might earn you the respect of people who value honesty) or you can keep arguing and running away from what you wrote (which won't).
Go (re-)read my first comment. Then, realize it wasn't contra TFA, but rather a totally different and novel point.
micro from the Greek word meaning "small." cosmos from the Greek word meaning "world." A microcosm is a small subsystem that is part of a larger one. I am using it in much the same way that Deleuze uses micropolitics to refer to a molecular understanding of things (particularly, in this case, with fascism and capitalism) from his (and Gauttari's) two-part Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Oh, and if you'd have checked the dictionary, you'd have found it.
Avoiding the exact type of change to its genome also helps spread misconceptions. When talking about language, saying "object" is an acceptable generic term (especially in English), but it is misleading as their are different types of objects: indirect (dative), direct (accusative), possession (genitive), prepositional, etc. I want to be as specific and accurate as possible when writing academically--and I think "scientists" should as well.
You said "lack of usage of evolution is primarily because it's a general term". The implication is that they were using less "general" terms. They're not; in fact they're using more vague terms.
I am unsure of this as the study dealt directly with the word "evolution" and apparently more generic words. I don't think it counted words and phrases that may have been more specific. To use an example, if the study was about "eastern religions," particularly Hinduism, I don't think they would have counted "Vedic rituals" even though they would have counted "Hinduism," "eastern religion," and "polytheism."
No, quite untrue. You really don't understand evolution. Evolution is the process of selection of variations; mutation is just one of many ways variation can arise. Most mutations are counter-survival.
I understand that quite well. Mutation is a simple enough word that most people will recognize and it has a more specific meaning. It would be better to describe the particular "selection of variations" at the microcosmic level--especially in academic settings--rather than use the macrocosmic "evolution"--which is fine in non-academic settings.
When my doctor comes to me and tells me, "Look man, you've got cancer," I don't wan't him to stop there. I want to know what form(s) of cancer I have, where I have them, etc. When a biologists writes about evolutionary processes, he should be specific as to which process and where. He shouldn't be using "evolution" when there is a more appropriate word. OTOH, he should use "evolution" if it is the most appropriate word. Let's leave the oversimplification to the news media.
If my original comment was construed as an attempt to bring politics or religion into the fray, my apologies as that was not my goal.
Except that now "evolution" has been identified as having multiple parts to it: mutations, etc. Using evolution to describe these processes is like saying "turn on the computer" to describe the processes and subprocesses a computer performs in order to arrive at a place for user input (there's the POST, the bootloader, the kernel layer, HAL layer, etc). Sure it's acceptable, but it's not the most accurate. We can play language-games all we want, but they don't change the fact that even in its restricted, "scientific" usage, "evolution" is still a fairly vague term that refers to a whole group of processes, much like a class or order refer to a whole group of species in contemporary taxonomy. We should use "evolution" over "emerge" and the like when appropriate, but more importantly, we should always use the most accurate, most appropriate term, even when that means using something other than "evolution." If there's an article discussing genetic mutations, then use "mutation" to refer to the process, not "evolution."
Did you read my comment? I did not say that "emerge" was a better word to use. For the record, "mutation" would be a more specific term than "evolve", as would others. "Emerge," "spread," and the like are not acceptable words for description. But, we don't have to word counts for the more specific words, as it appears the study focused on "emerge," "spread," "gradual change," "evolve," etc and not on the more specific words that describe the processes that make up "evolution."
Nope. It was placed on coined currency around the time of the Civil War by the request of many Americans who found religious fervor. It became standard in 1938. Then in 1956 (Thanks, McCarthy), it became a motto of the USA. The US Treasury has a page on it.
Oh, and the scientific community's lack of usage of evolution is primarily because it's a general term. It's like using the word "Hinduism" when talking about the Vedic traditions that were precursors to modern Hinduism....or like using "science" to refer to a subset of empirical sciences (say, Chemistry)....or using "philosophy" to refer to a subset of it (e.g. 20th century post-structuralism). "Evolution" is a fine word for the masses, but when someone learned is supposed to be specific, a vague word isn't the best choice. It has nothing to withing appealing to religion any more than it is appealing to middle school math teachers. But isn't that what Slashdot is all about?
I think you are overlooking one thing: most of these people that believe God wrote the Bible also believe that God directed the human authors to write every single letter, stroke, and accent mark--in the Hebrew and Aramaic (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament). The humans who "wrote" the Bible, from this point of view, were more like transcriptionists than actual authors. Then, these same people, by adhering to Scottish Common Sense Realism, believe that every single point of transmission of this text was divinely guided so that there was little-to-no corruption between the earliest manuscripts we have and the originals that are (possibly forever) lost. In addition to that, they then argue that the differences we do have between the earliest manuscripts is little enough that we can extrapolate what the originals had (and therefore, have a perfect copy of the originals that God wrote through the transcriptionist authors). Finally, these people then argue that by taking reducing the text to a set of words, they believe that we can get a nearly perfect (if not perfect) translation of the text, because even though the Hebrew word Adam is used to signify an individual as a name, it should always mean "man" and nothing else. So, the English version we read is perfect, in their eyes, as coming straight from God's proverbial mouth.
I think we may be confused here. Fundamentalism, as a historical movement, was very isolationist, focusing on a "literal" reading of the Bible and was a reaction to the then developing concept we now call "evolution." It was as much of a political movement (think William Jennings Bryant, the Scopes/
Dayton trial, etc) as it was a theological/religious one (think premillenialism, William Jennings Bryant [again], the end of the Old Guard at Princeton, etc). But that movement practically died out by the 1930s in America (and even earlier everywhere else).
Now, we have a nice movement some (e.g. Olivier Roy, Mark Juergensmeyer, etc) would consider neofundamentalism and is a more general concept that crosses religious boundaries (so we can see the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Moral Majority in America, as well as retroactively, Wahabbi, etc) . In that case, however, it's not about being "tolerant" to others because, from this mindset, those others are wrong and there can be no other conclusion if one "objectively" (or the other catch-phrase is "scientifically") look at the "facts." Pay no attention if the "facts" change (as they do) because the "facts" are already pre-determined by the this breed of fundamentalism's beliefs. And this is where it is most bothersome because religious faith should never be about "scientific" (i.e. observed phenomena) as it almost always posit a metaphysical reality (gods, heavens, life-after-death, rebirth, etc) that lies beyond the reaches of what can be observed and quantified using empirical methods. As Kierkegaard wrote, an approximation of history is insufficient for one's eternal happiness (it.s in the beginning of his Concluding Unscientific Postscript...vol 12.1 of the Princeton edition Hong and Hong translation).
If that were the case, people wouldn't be in court for displaying the Ten Commandments in front of courthouses. There'd still be prayer in schools, no "cussing" on TV/Radio, etc. There's too many things that have happened (or not, whichever the case may be) that goes against the idea that RR are in any form of substantial power, besides them being loud and obnoxious enough to get media coverage.
The fact that the President of the US supports the RR and is a card-carrying member doesn't put them "in power." It gives them a voice, but most groups have a voice in the production of laws via Congress, the SCOTUS, etc.
You can't group the people against.xxx as being RR if they're either about God or money. Those are two very different things here.
And no, the discussion should not be entirely about technical merit, but also economics, as that is what will be affected by it. We can leave God out of it, but money is built into the system. It's called "capitalism." That's not to say that the RR is not vocal about things, but very few pay attention to them. Your last sentence is proof of it. If the RR were in power (or, to quote you, controlling "my current rightwing christian government"), then we wouldn't have Stern, Playboy, Hustler, Spice, or freeanimalsex.com. They may be kicking and screaming, but nobody in control of the situation is really listening to them, let alone agreeing with them. The reason why Stern is under pressure by the FCC is because he walks a very fine line between what is and isn't acceptable by the FCC for the mediums he broadcasts on. So, stop blaming the children screaming in the back of the car for something happening against their permission. Do you honestly think ICANN is going to reject.xxx because Falwell or Robertson were screaming on their TV shows, from their pulpits or soapboxes? I didn't think so.
That's bull. Blaming this on the religious right is about as bad as comparing something current to a fascist state in the earlier part of this century. It's not always the RR fighting these things against the rest of humanity. If the rest of the world really cared what Jerry Falwell that much, we would never have seen Howard Stern OnDemand, the Spice Channel, the Playboy Channel, or any other venues of the adult industry. Blaming it on a minority of religious zealots is a cop-out designed to obscure one's own lack of knowledge. Stop scapegoating and get on with it.
And, just to point out that I'm not strictly flaming, I do agree with your first two sentences. A.xxx domain won't solve everything (and if it did, the RR would back it up because then they can configure their filters to block out one TLD and call it a day), but it may be at least a step in the right direction. Where it will fail, however, is where groups/organizations aren't really "in" the adult industry, but are marketing/selling/advertising that type of product. They'll probably want to be a.com,.net, or.org, depending on the group because they don't want to directly associate with the adult industry, but do want to make money off of similar products.
The Authorised Version (i.e. what some refer to as the KJV) was translated primarily from the Textus Receptus, one of the manuscripts found earlier on in time. The Hebrew Bible (i.e. OT) was translated primarily from the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew/Aramaic texts). Beside that, however, the AV translators did follow the Latin Vulgate for clarification. Modern scholarship, however, tends to use one of two major critical editions of the Greek NT (which are edited and modified every decade or so by the leading Greek and NT scholars such as Scott McKnight) and sometimes even varies between the two, as well as noting major variations in the text (which is why one can see things like the Amplified Bible which just exaggerates this aspect to an extreme). The Hebrew Bible is generally translated from the Masoretic texts (but most translators pay attention to variant texs, as well as the various talmuds and early Jewish commentaries).
And, to get to the GP's question, there are some paraphrase "translations" which take an already translated Bible (such as the NIV) and make some changes to it (and come up with the TNIV, NIrV, etc). Personally, i'd recommend going with a translation that is more conservative/traditional while based on the critical texts (i.e. other texts found more recently that seem to be more authentic--however they determine that--that the TR of the AV). One that fits that criteria is the NRSV, although it is sometimes pretty formal in its language. There's a particular version of it (The New Interpreter's Study Bible) which does a good job with clarification/translation notes (and it has some non-canonical texts [from the standard American Protestant perspective). If you're interested in reading in plain English (with some decent prose) and don't care too much if the translator takes liberty with nuances in words (such as the Greek Middle Voice), then Eugene Peterson's The Message does a pretty good job of "contemporary English." I wouldn't recommend it 500 years from now (as the language changes), but it seems to be the most solid translation (as opposed to paraphrase) in plain English.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm learning my third modern language currently (English, German, French). I'm on my second and third dead language as well (Latin, [classic] Greek, [classic] Hebrew). But I agree with you. Modern translators suck horribly. I'm tempted to throw in a few things to this to see what pops out... I do have my Biblia Hebraica around here somewhere...
Considering that it is one's insurance that pays to "fix one up" rather than the rest of the population, who cares if a biker decides to not wear a helmet. It's a stupid decision, but it doesn't make the roads any "safer" for anyone else. It is similar for driving drunk. Those who know it's a bad decision don't do it. Those who don't care will still do it. It is not acceptable to penalize those who do make good decisions because there are some (many?) who don't. Government regulation is not the same as a kindergarten classroom.
Music is an a priori object. It becomes a "playlist" through the transcendental unity of apperception whereby it it is passed through the 12 categories of intuition as well as space and time before being able to be experienced by the self. Music as an a priori object can never be experienced in itself; in other words, we can never really listen to Music-in-itself without already having interpreted it through the 12 categories. This is roughly similar to Heidegger's idea of "thrown-in-the-music-ness," which I will not discuss currently because, like really noisy music, it makes my head hurt.
1) Condense complex material into soundbytes, short phrases, and witty jokes. 2) Keep discussion and lecture floating around those tidbits of information. 3) Expect students to read textbook(s) and link reading assignments to tidbits in lecture. 4) Make tests that revolve around above-mentioned tidbits, thus reinforcing the simple view. Hmmm...where did things break down? I'm sorry, but one cannot reduce something like "religion" in Sociology or Anthropology to a five word definition, let alone expect such a definition to be helpful to a learner. Cliff Geertz has one of the most concise definitions and it's easily 40 words long....and it is solidly based in Victor Turner's concepts of communitas, society, and ritual. One can always go to another school of thought and find yet another definition that is equally acceptable and yet contains radically different points. Reducing religion to "belief in at least one deity" isn't a good definition, so why use it in a PowerPoint presentation where students will most likely think that the words in the presentation are the keywords they should learn and the definitions they should associate with those keywords. It's like saying "PC" and assuming "Windows XP/Vista" (*ahem* Apple).
I'm pretty sure this is under the "a true geek would do..." thread as well. I definitely wasn't talking about the average Joe Sixpack who uses Comcast/Verizon and doesn't even know what MTA stands for.
I think that term papers are great for courses where the subject matter cannot be boiled down to "A, B, C, or D" while maintaining integrity of understanding. For instance, One could easily devise a multiple-choice examination on the theological beliefs of Hinduism (e.g. "Which of the following best describes the Neo-Vedanta notion of jivanmukti?...."), but that doesn't necessarily mean that the student understands the material, whereas a term paper requires more interaction with the material than zombie memorization. I have found that as one progresses academically (i.e. graduate work and beyond), the term paper is much more common and required. In my master's program, every single course required at least a term paper--some only required a term paper (one's entire grade being based on 15 pages one wrote and is graded by someone who has a doctorate in the field) while others also required other work as well (generally either more smaller papers or 1-2 in-class examinations that had in-class 2-3 page essays). I couldn't conceive of a multiple-choice/true-false type test being an acceptable replacement for a graduate student's thesis/dissertation and/or comprehensive exams (which are generally like term papers done in the span of 4 hours). I don't think I would willingly accept one's academic credentials if one's graded work excluded any kind of term paper or long-term project. Sure, I wouldn't expect a term paper from an undergraduate taking an introduction to algebra, but I would definitely expect it from anyone who is taking an upper-level undergraduate course in their major or any kind of graduate-level course. There really isn't any substitute to a good term paper. I think the problem lies with the concept that "everybody should go to college." With everyone needing to go to college, there is very little worth to an undergraduate degree (try getting a job as a psychologist with only a BA/BS in the field). In many cases, the undergraduate degree has become what a high school diploma was 20 years ago. It'll be strange when that standard becomes a graduate degree (Master's and/or Doctorate) for all fields. It already is for many professional fields (e.g. psychology).
Ummm, I'm not sure about you, but I can access my home computer nicely through SSH and check my email from anywhere. Sure, it's nice to have a webmail interface, but I hate using my server space for email. And, If one was really interested in having that sort of accessibility just simply get a nice mail system running on a home computer that gets email via POP from Verizon/whoever and has its own webmail interface (e.g. getting an MTA running on a home computer with Apache and PHP running Squirrelmail or the like and having a dynamic DNS service)? It's a bit more complex to get running, but it gets the best of both worlds: email on your computer and easy accessibility.
At the bottom, though, is Siva (or Visnu or Krsna or Durga or Brahman or....).
That doesn't affect my point. As I used with the example of cancer, using the overarching term is fine in some situations, but in others it is not. Let's take another example: atomic structure. Even though earlier scientists and chemists thought that the atom was the smallest structure, later chemistry has shown this to be incorrect. Is using "atom" incorrect? No. But when the discussion is particularly about atomic charge, the discussion ought to use "protons" and "electrons" more often than "atom." Does that mean I think we should ditch using "evolution"? No. Does that mean we should use the most accurate term whenever possible, especially in academic settings? Yes. Does that mean I agree or disagree with the study? Not really. My point (which was that the study failed to find many uses of the word "evolution" possibly because more specific words were used to describe the specific processes instead of evolution and yet did not count these as that was beyond the focus of the study) was simply that a second study using the same data source looking for more specific words may have had very different results. And, for the record, this is why I hate doing continental philosophy with people whose background is in more analytical fields: they see everything as black-and-white.
If you check out the Dept of the Treasury site (particularly here), you'll find that "In God We Trust" was not officially adopted as the national motto until 1956. It had been around much longer than that (since the 1860s on the two-cent coin), but the above quotation is strictly a part of the Star Spangled Banner, and not an official declaration.
Thank you for the biochemistry lesson, but it is beside my point. I am not arguing that there are more bases than what are known, but rather that there are different processes of "evolution." When describing the thing from a telescopic standpoint (which is fine for non-academic blurbs as well as academic overviews), using "evolution" is fine. When describing things from a microscopic point of view, however, "evolution" is inappropriate because there is (generally) a more specific word or phrase that describes the exact process in question. I have no idea how you got from my analogy with the grammatical constructs of noun cases to biochemical bases.
When you are wrong, you have the option to admit it (which might earn you the respect of people who value honesty) or you can keep arguing and running away from what you wrote (which won't). Go (re-)read my first comment. Then, realize it wasn't contra TFA, but rather a totally different and novel point.
micro from the Greek word meaning "small." cosmos from the Greek word meaning "world." A microcosm is a small subsystem that is part of a larger one. I am using it in much the same way that Deleuze uses micropolitics to refer to a molecular understanding of things (particularly, in this case, with fascism and capitalism) from his (and Gauttari's) two-part Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Oh, and if you'd have checked the dictionary, you'd have found it.
Avoiding the exact type of change to its genome also helps spread misconceptions. When talking about language, saying "object" is an acceptable generic term (especially in English), but it is misleading as their are different types of objects: indirect (dative), direct (accusative), possession (genitive), prepositional, etc. I want to be as specific and accurate as possible when writing academically--and I think "scientists" should as well.
You said "lack of usage of evolution is primarily because it's a general term". The implication is that they were using less "general" terms. They're not; in fact they're using more vague terms. I am unsure of this as the study dealt directly with the word "evolution" and apparently more generic words. I don't think it counted words and phrases that may have been more specific. To use an example, if the study was about "eastern religions," particularly Hinduism, I don't think they would have counted "Vedic rituals" even though they would have counted "Hinduism," "eastern religion," and "polytheism." No, quite untrue. You really don't understand evolution. Evolution is the process of selection of variations; mutation is just one of many ways variation can arise. Most mutations are counter-survival. I understand that quite well. Mutation is a simple enough word that most people will recognize and it has a more specific meaning. It would be better to describe the particular "selection of variations" at the microcosmic level--especially in academic settings--rather than use the macrocosmic "evolution"--which is fine in non-academic settings.
When my doctor comes to me and tells me, "Look man, you've got cancer," I don't wan't him to stop there. I want to know what form(s) of cancer I have, where I have them, etc. When a biologists writes about evolutionary processes, he should be specific as to which process and where. He shouldn't be using "evolution" when there is a more appropriate word. OTOH, he should use "evolution" if it is the most appropriate word. Let's leave the oversimplification to the news media. If my original comment was construed as an attempt to bring politics or religion into the fray, my apologies as that was not my goal.
Except that now "evolution" has been identified as having multiple parts to it: mutations, etc. Using evolution to describe these processes is like saying "turn on the computer" to describe the processes and subprocesses a computer performs in order to arrive at a place for user input (there's the POST, the bootloader, the kernel layer, HAL layer, etc). Sure it's acceptable, but it's not the most accurate. We can play language-games all we want, but they don't change the fact that even in its restricted, "scientific" usage, "evolution" is still a fairly vague term that refers to a whole group of processes, much like a class or order refer to a whole group of species in contemporary taxonomy. We should use "evolution" over "emerge" and the like when appropriate, but more importantly, we should always use the most accurate, most appropriate term, even when that means using something other than "evolution." If there's an article discussing genetic mutations, then use "mutation" to refer to the process, not "evolution."
Did you read my comment? I did not say that "emerge" was a better word to use. For the record, "mutation" would be a more specific term than "evolve", as would others. "Emerge," "spread," and the like are not acceptable words for description. But, we don't have to word counts for the more specific words, as it appears the study focused on "emerge," "spread," "gradual change," "evolve," etc and not on the more specific words that describe the processes that make up "evolution."
Nope. It was placed on coined currency around the time of the Civil War by the request of many Americans who found religious fervor. It became standard in 1938. Then in 1956 (Thanks, McCarthy), it became a motto of the USA. The US Treasury has a page on it. Oh, and the scientific community's lack of usage of evolution is primarily because it's a general term. It's like using the word "Hinduism" when talking about the Vedic traditions that were precursors to modern Hinduism....or like using "science" to refer to a subset of empirical sciences (say, Chemistry)....or using "philosophy" to refer to a subset of it (e.g. 20th century post-structuralism). "Evolution" is a fine word for the masses, but when someone learned is supposed to be specific, a vague word isn't the best choice. It has nothing to withing appealing to religion any more than it is appealing to middle school math teachers. But isn't that what Slashdot is all about?
I think you are overlooking one thing: most of these people that believe God wrote the Bible also believe that God directed the human authors to write every single letter, stroke, and accent mark--in the Hebrew and Aramaic (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament). The humans who "wrote" the Bible, from this point of view, were more like transcriptionists than actual authors. Then, these same people, by adhering to Scottish Common Sense Realism, believe that every single point of transmission of this text was divinely guided so that there was little-to-no corruption between the earliest manuscripts we have and the originals that are (possibly forever) lost. In addition to that, they then argue that the differences we do have between the earliest manuscripts is little enough that we can extrapolate what the originals had (and therefore, have a perfect copy of the originals that God wrote through the transcriptionist authors). Finally, these people then argue that by taking reducing the text to a set of words, they believe that we can get a nearly perfect (if not perfect) translation of the text, because even though the Hebrew word Adam is used to signify an individual as a name, it should always mean "man" and nothing else. So, the English version we read is perfect, in their eyes, as coming straight from God's proverbial mouth.
I think we may be confused here. Fundamentalism, as a historical movement, was very isolationist, focusing on a "literal" reading of the Bible and was a reaction to the then developing concept we now call "evolution." It was as much of a political movement (think William Jennings Bryant, the Scopes/ Dayton trial, etc) as it was a theological/religious one (think premillenialism, William Jennings Bryant [again], the end of the Old Guard at Princeton, etc). But that movement practically died out by the 1930s in America (and even earlier everywhere else). Now, we have a nice movement some (e.g. Olivier Roy, Mark Juergensmeyer, etc) would consider neofundamentalism and is a more general concept that crosses religious boundaries (so we can see the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Moral Majority in America, as well as retroactively, Wahabbi, etc) . In that case, however, it's not about being "tolerant" to others because, from this mindset, those others are wrong and there can be no other conclusion if one "objectively" (or the other catch-phrase is "scientifically") look at the "facts." Pay no attention if the "facts" change (as they do) because the "facts" are already pre-determined by the this breed of fundamentalism's beliefs. And this is where it is most bothersome because religious faith should never be about "scientific" (i.e. observed phenomena) as it almost always posit a metaphysical reality (gods, heavens, life-after-death, rebirth, etc) that lies beyond the reaches of what can be observed and quantified using empirical methods. As Kierkegaard wrote, an approximation of history is insufficient for one's eternal happiness (it.s in the beginning of his Concluding Unscientific Postscript...vol 12.1 of the Princeton edition Hong and Hong translation).
If that were the case, people wouldn't be in court for displaying the Ten Commandments in front of courthouses. There'd still be prayer in schools, no "cussing" on TV/Radio, etc. There's too many things that have happened (or not, whichever the case may be) that goes against the idea that RR are in any form of substantial power, besides them being loud and obnoxious enough to get media coverage. The fact that the President of the US supports the RR and is a card-carrying member doesn't put them "in power." It gives them a voice, but most groups have a voice in the production of laws via Congress, the SCOTUS, etc.
You can't group the people against .xxx as being RR if they're either about God or money. Those are two very different things here.
And no, the discussion should not be entirely about technical merit, but also economics, as that is what will be affected by it. We can leave God out of it, but money is built into the system. It's called "capitalism." That's not to say that the RR is not vocal about things, but very few pay attention to them. Your last sentence is proof of it. If the RR were in power (or, to quote you, controlling "my current rightwing christian government"), then we wouldn't have Stern, Playboy, Hustler, Spice, or freeanimalsex.com. They may be kicking and screaming, but nobody in control of the situation is really listening to them, let alone agreeing with them. The reason why Stern is under pressure by the FCC is because he walks a very fine line between what is and isn't acceptable by the FCC for the mediums he broadcasts on. So, stop blaming the children screaming in the back of the car for something happening against their permission. Do you honestly think ICANN is going to reject .xxx because Falwell or Robertson were screaming on their TV shows, from their pulpits or soapboxes? I didn't think so.
That's bull. Blaming this on the religious right is about as bad as comparing something current to a fascist state in the earlier part of this century. It's not always the RR fighting these things against the rest of humanity. If the rest of the world really cared what Jerry Falwell that much, we would never have seen Howard Stern OnDemand, the Spice Channel, the Playboy Channel, or any other venues of the adult industry. Blaming it on a minority of religious zealots is a cop-out designed to obscure one's own lack of knowledge. Stop scapegoating and get on with it. And, just to point out that I'm not strictly flaming, I do agree with your first two sentences. A .xxx domain won't solve everything (and if it did, the RR would back it up because then they can configure their filters to block out one TLD and call it a day), but it may be at least a step in the right direction. Where it will fail, however, is where groups/organizations aren't really "in" the adult industry, but are marketing/selling/advertising that type of product. They'll probably want to be a .com, .net, or .org, depending on the group because they don't want to directly associate with the adult industry, but do want to make money off of similar products.
The Authorised Version (i.e. what some refer to as the KJV) was translated primarily from the Textus Receptus, one of the manuscripts found earlier on in time. The Hebrew Bible (i.e. OT) was translated primarily from the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew/Aramaic texts). Beside that, however, the AV translators did follow the Latin Vulgate for clarification. Modern scholarship, however, tends to use one of two major critical editions of the Greek NT (which are edited and modified every decade or so by the leading Greek and NT scholars such as Scott McKnight) and sometimes even varies between the two, as well as noting major variations in the text (which is why one can see things like the Amplified Bible which just exaggerates this aspect to an extreme). The Hebrew Bible is generally translated from the Masoretic texts (but most translators pay attention to variant texs, as well as the various talmuds and early Jewish commentaries). And, to get to the GP's question, there are some paraphrase "translations" which take an already translated Bible (such as the NIV) and make some changes to it (and come up with the TNIV, NIrV, etc). Personally, i'd recommend going with a translation that is more conservative/traditional while based on the critical texts (i.e. other texts found more recently that seem to be more authentic--however they determine that--that the TR of the AV). One that fits that criteria is the NRSV, although it is sometimes pretty formal in its language. There's a particular version of it (The New Interpreter's Study Bible) which does a good job with clarification/translation notes (and it has some non-canonical texts [from the standard American Protestant perspective). If you're interested in reading in plain English (with some decent prose) and don't care too much if the translator takes liberty with nuances in words (such as the Greek Middle Voice), then Eugene Peterson's The Message does a pretty good job of "contemporary English." I wouldn't recommend it 500 years from now (as the language changes), but it seems to be the most solid translation (as opposed to paraphrase) in plain English.