1. Competition, Not Climate Change, Led To Neanderthal Extinction, Study Shows

Comment #312650 by qomak on January 5, 2009 at 9:21 am

Sky is falling; throwing trillions of dollars towards hysteria and not even utilizing the very scientific method used to discredit religious people, is not intelligent by any design.

Except that scientists do not say that.

And why don't we get to see these models in public, with the data being input and where the data was gleaned from?

Why isn't there more transparency?

Argument from ignorance. Just like any other area of science, climate research is very transparent.

The answer: nowhere, because to do so is to reveal the sham as a scam.

Yeah, right. Except that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that it is (very) likely that GW is man-made.

Comments of Richard S Courtney

Richard S. Courtney: A scientific nobody with 0 publications.

Hockey Stick Debunked

A professor of mathematics and economy. How nice.

On the other hand, there is overwhelming consensus among the climate scientists:

http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html

2. Competition, Not Climate Change, Led To Neanderthal Extinction, Study Shows

Comment #311517 by qomak on January 3, 2009 at 3:16 pm

GW deniers, educate yourselves:

http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v14n01_human_induced_climate_change.html

3. We can't hide in our labs and leave the talking to Dawkins

Comment #292114 by qomak on November 27, 2008 at 4:33 am

Fine, although we have nothing to do with violence or military, let's call ourselves "militant atheists". But for the sake of fairness, let's call everyone who is passionate about their philosophy "militant":

Militant Secular Humanist
Militant Atheist
Militant Jew
Militant Christian
Militant Muslim

While I get mildly annoyed when grouped as "militant atheist", the religious people will be instantly outraged if we called them "militant"; I wonder why (just a rhetorical question though, everyone knows why).

4. Research sheds light on benefits of multiple mates

Comment #288358 by qomak on November 21, 2008 at 4:25 pm

Females of most species, including many mammals, mate with multiple partners. The driving forces for this practice, known as 'polyandry', have been a mystery for evolutionary biologists for decades. This research suggests that polyandry could be the result of females adapting to avoid producing offspring carrying selfish genetic elements that reduce male fertility.

A while back I finished reading "Dr. Tatiana's sex advice to all creation" (which is a marvellous read) and in there many theories have been explained. In fact, avoiding mating a male with crippling genes is mentioned many times, for instance in the case of the bees, if I remember correctly.

The rest of the article was more interesting though.

5. Islamic Theologian's Theory: It's Likely the Prophet Muhammad Never Existed

Comment #285103 by qomak on November 16, 2008 at 5:50 pm

Decius:

Read the rest of the wiki article where you copy-pasted the info on John Wansbrough. His ideas are at minority. Furthermore, even some of his supporters do not deny that Muhammad existed.

6. Islamic Theologian's Theory: It's Likely the Prophet Muhammad Never Existed

Comment #285099 by qomak on November 16, 2008 at 5:45 pm

Sorry, which part of "The most credible source of information for the life of Muhammad is the Qur'an." and "There are no contemporary sources" you don't understand?

So your argument is since there is no accurate source on the life of the Muhammad, he does not exist?

Furthermore, you are doing something peculiar here. Just because a source has inaccurate parts does not mean it is completely invalid. For example, Herodotus mentions the size of the Persian army at the battle of Thermopyle to be over 5 million. A figure which is totally ridiculous. However, historians do not throw Herodotus out the window completely.

Any ways, I would like to see some references to serious scholars who claim Muhammad did not exist. I did my part of the citation game. From what I have seen, the general agreement among is that he existed.

7. Islamic Theologian's Theory: It's Likely the Prophet Muhammad Never Existed

Comment #285085 by qomak on November 16, 2008 at 5:21 pm

Is that all you have got?

I pasted a response from one of the critics cited by *you* in the wiki article that *you* provided. Right now, it appears that it is *you* who has no references to back up the claim that there are many serious scholars who say Muhammad probably did not exist.

My position is clear: the significant majority of the scholars do not doubt the existence of Muhammad as a central figure in Arab peninsula during such and such period.

8. Islamic Theologian's Theory: It's Likely the Prophet Muhammad Never Existed

Comment #285076 by qomak on November 16, 2008 at 5:05 pm

decius:

The wiki article, lists Patricia Crone as one of the opponents who doubts many aspects of early Islam. However, even she does not deny the existence of a central figure:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/faith-europe_islam/mohammed_3866.jsp

There is no doubt that Mohammed existed, occasional attempts to deny it notwithstanding. His neighbours in Byzantine Syria got to hear of him within two years of his death at the latest; a Greek text written during the Arab invasion of Syria between 632 and 634 mentions that "a false prophet has appeared among the Saracens" and dismisses him as an impostor on the ground that prophets do not come "with sword and chariot". It thus conveys the impression that he was actually leading the invasions.

9. Islamic Theologian's Theory: It's Likely the Prophet Muhammad Never Existed

Comment #285072 by qomak on November 16, 2008 at 4:54 pm

root2squared:

There are two biased sides regarding Islam: Muslims and Christians. We rightfully are suspicious of Muslims flaunting their certainty of various historical claims regarding Muhammad; however, we must be equally suspicious of Christians claims regarding Islam as well. After all, they are all equally biased.

decius:

Wikipedia's article, while being by no mean authoritative, sums up the state of the relevant research and provides the name of the scholars who have doubted the existence of Mohammed or conspicuous parts of his popular biography, and the authenticity of Hadiths and Q'ran.

The wikipedia article is very low quality. The fact that it provides the "names" of people doubting the existence of Muhammad is also meaningless. Creationists list a bunch of names supporting their point of view as well.

If you are genuinely interested, the legwork is for you to be done. Your personal incredulity means zero.

I have done my legwork. If you study the sources, the picture is very clear. Muhammad was an ambitious cult leader, Quran was his dribble that partially also narrates the various events during his life. There are Quarnic passages where God tries to moderate the disputes between Muhammad and his wives. There are other verses where Muhammad is trying to justify his own contradictory statements from the Meccan period. These are all pieces of evidence for his existence.

Now, if you want to discuss the authenticity of Hadiths or other stories about Muhammad, I really have no debate with you. There are so many stories which are obvious false, for instance, the story of Muhammad being able to see behind his back is clearly false. However, when you put everything together, it is very difficult to deny that there was a central figure who united the arab tribes.

10. Islamic Theologian's Theory: It's Likely the Prophet Muhammad Never Existed

Comment #285060 by qomak on November 16, 2008 at 4:27 pm

Have a look at this article, please.

You are aware of the differences between doubting "historicity" and non-existence right?
Furthermore, you should be able to do better than a wikipedia page which is riddled with contributions from both blind Muslims and Christians.

11. Islamic Theologian's Theory: It's Likely the Prophet Muhammad Never Existed

Comment #285051 by qomak on November 16, 2008 at 4:06 pm

Nonsense, there is no contemporary evidence for the existence of Mohammed.
You couldn't choose a worse comparison.

There is no "contemporary" evidence for evolution either. I would like to know what exactly do you mean by contemporary evidence. The fact that somebody united the fragmented Arab society is undeniable. You might question certain stories about Muhammad, as many of them are questionable, but the fact that he existed cannot be historically denied.

Furthermore, the Quran itself is essentially a personal diary of Muhammad himself. It almost perfectly matches the various events (wars, treaties, etc.) mentioned by eyewitness accounts. The gap between the time that such accounts were written is too small to propose all such events were exaggerations and myths.

12. Islamic Theologian's Theory: It's Likely the Prophet Muhammad Never Existed

Comment #285047 by qomak on November 16, 2008 at 3:51 pm

Sorry, but this is ridiculous. He is a fringe, the equivalent of a biologist denying evolution. Muhammad existed, somebody united the bloody tribes of ancient Mecca and Medina, or are we to assume that the subsequent occupation of Persia, Egypt and Syria by unified arabs was also a myth?

He was struck, he says, by the fact that the first coins bearing Muhammad's name did not appear until the late 7th century -- six decades after the religion did.

I don't know much about the Muhammad coins but given the fact that Muslims get pissed off about any drawing of Muhammad, I wouldn't be surprised if no Muhammad coin were ever issued.

13. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #275649 by qomak on October 31, 2008 at 10:46 am

Titania:
Steve, I'm sure Sarah Palin will be honored.


Sure, we can say we dedicated 10,000 posts to her incompetence and then ran out of space on the server.

14. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #274167 by qomak on October 29, 2008 at 5:03 pm

Poor guy ... he is ignorant and stupid.

15. Richard Dawkins embarrassed after death and subsequent resurrection

Comment #274150 by qomak on October 29, 2008 at 4:46 pm

Funny but the ending sucks. If Richard Dawkins gets magical powers, I am pretty sure the first thing he would do is to do some scientific testing to figure out the extent, power and the range of his abilities.

Even in the most ridiculous fantasies, magical powers have limits and are governed by some law. What writer does not appreciate is the power of scientific process in knowing the unknown behind any such laws.

16. Interview with Richard Dawkins on fairy tales and retirement

Comment #273450 by qomak on October 28, 2008 at 5:27 pm

Richard Dawkins:

Some people feel it is obvious that the death penalty deters murder. Some people feel it is obvious that violence on television and in computer games incites violence. Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. Same with children and magic. I don't care what you feel, and I don't care what I feel. I want to see the evidence. Please stop telling us what you feel. Please stop telling us what your intuition is. Your intuitive feelings are of no interest whatsoever, and nor are mine. I don't give a bugger what you feel, or what I feel. I want to know that the evidence shows.

Thank you Richard, it was well said. We don't need more opinions, we need more evidence, we need more references.

This is the right type of response but unfortunately, it has the potential to sound harsh and unhelpful. I hope that people will realize that there is nothing personal here.

17. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #271968 by qomak on October 26, 2008 at 8:27 pm

Laurie:

Ah, shit, I fell for that.
Regarding Nick Cave, come on, his "O'malley's bar" where the guy slaughters a whole bunch of people with graphic description is seriously fun.

18. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #271914 by qomak on October 26, 2008 at 6:32 pm

Laurie:

Kylie Minogue??? Come on! You can much better than that aussies.

P.S: At least that guy Nick Cave is much better.

19. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #271907 by qomak on October 26, 2008 at 6:06 pm

This is an old issue but I just read it. Anyways, apparently McCain is also anti-science.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/10/08/mccains-planetariophobia/

20. Countdown: Palin Wants To Help Special Needs Kids By Doing Away With Science

Comment #271660 by qomak on October 26, 2008 at 9:54 am

Astonishing:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/25/palin.tension/index.html

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate.

...

out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

...

They insisted that she needed time to be briefed on national and international issues and on McCain's record.

"Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic," said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the "hardest" to get her "up to speed than any candidate in history."

No comment needed ...

21. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #270937 by qomak on October 25, 2008 at 12:48 am

Back to Sara Palin, we know she is stupid, we know she is a creationist, we know she is a dishonest power-hungry bastard and we all know she is against science. And now she's openly saying that, totally unbelievable.

See Pharyngula:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/10/sarah_palin_ignorant_and_antis.php

And here is what Palin said:

Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You've heard about some of these pet projects they really don't make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.

Yes, that idiot, that fucking moron actually said that. I hereby declare, anyone who hears that and still insists that she is a good candidate is a fucking idiot. A fucking clueless idiot.

22. Mapping a clan of mobile selfish genes

Comment #270664 by qomak on October 24, 2008 at 12:09 pm

Steve, I have to say I totally enjoy how you dissect these amateur philosophers.

23. Dare we stand up for Muslim women?

Comment #270572 by qomak on October 24, 2008 at 9:52 am

and the "walking on the siraat" test.

I'm curious, why did that frighten you? According to the dogma, the siraat bridge becomes as narrow as a thin thread for sinner and really freaking wide for the true believers.

24. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #270568 by qomak on October 24, 2008 at 9:44 am

It's those reactions that DarwinsPitbull is going for. He provokes people so that he can victimize himself here and feel better about himself and where he stands. It's not an uncommon tactic.

He needs to help himself believe that liberals are as evil as fringe right-wing rhetoric claims, so he tries to elicit emotional responses by making insulting and extraordinary claims about all liberals. It says a lot more about him than it does about those who respond to him.

Well said. I gave him many opportunities to engage in constructive discussion and he avoided almost all but instead chose to jump at "emotional" responses. Then I gave up the discussion with him.

If he wants to fool himself into believing that Palin is really competent and McCain is this big maverick who by no means has leeched off his father's and grandfather's influence and popularity, then I have no reason to stop him.

Just like religion, apparently, it is a lie that keeps him happy.

25. Dare we stand up for Muslim women?

Comment #270558 by qomak on October 24, 2008 at 9:31 am

how can one separate the cultural mysogyny from the specifically islamic religious misogyny'

You cannot separate religion from culture; to them, their culture is all backed by religion and their religion is heavily influenced by culture.


This article really makes me sick. Abrahamic religions (with Islam currently the most vile of them) have been the greatest enemy of women. I sometimes wonder how women can subscribe to these dogmas given their terrible track record in subjugating and enslaving women.

26. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #270228 by qomak on October 23, 2008 at 9:20 pm

Honestly - looking at the media in the UK and Germany (Germany being where I grew up and live), it's an entirely different approach. Same with the election process and especially the formation of opinion and the media's role.

Exactly. Another tell-tale sign that US will continue to elect incompetent leader and continue to lose its dominance in science, economy and military power in that order.

27. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #269023 by qomak on October 22, 2008 at 2:11 pm

Goldy:

Then there's the vast unwashed that just cannot get any sort of qualification due to a lack of intelligence....

*cough* Sara Palin *cough*

28. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #268740 by qomak on October 22, 2008 at 8:13 am

Tyler:

Ahem, 2000 election, ahem, Florida, ahem, Jeb Bush, cough, cough.

You shouldn't bring this up. This has been explained:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD3bmKFSX44

29. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #268721 by qomak on October 22, 2008 at 7:27 am

Al:

Khomeini was definitely an interesting character, a great asshole but interesting one nonetheless. If I remember correctly, Fallaci described him as one of the most charismatic old men she had seen.

By the way, the ad on craiglist on Palin was priceless. I forwarded it to all my friends.

30. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #268711 by qomak on October 22, 2008 at 7:13 am

RNC shells out $150K for Palin fashion

What? Somebody paid 150K for the shit she is wearing? I guess next you're telling me the bathrobe Khomeini used to wear costs 150K too.

31. The soul? It may all be in your mind

Comment #267875 by qomak on October 21, 2008 at 7:55 am

J.C. Samuelson:

Aside from the somewhat obvious pandering, it remains a possibility (for supernaturalists) that the brain is "acted upon" by an external, divine force. How do we know, the religionist might ask, the brain is the origin of these effects, and isn't prompted by a divine influence beforehand? Such things fall into the same category as god; neither provable nor disprovable. It just depends on an individual's willingness to ask the question, 'How much evidence is enough for me to change my mind?' that determines whether they'll accept the implications for faith.

They can't and that's the amazing part. Take a look at this amazing documentary:
Brain Story

In one scene, surgeons are operating on a patient's brain. Amazingly, the patient is awake. Far from being a cruel joke, she is awake for a very good reason. The surgeons want to map out which part of her brain is active in language activities so that they can minimize the damage done to the important parts of the brain.

Now, the truly fascinating part. They ask the patient to count, say from 1 to 10. Next, they apply light electrical signal to parts of the brain. If they choose the right location, the patient will freeze and will get stuck say at number 7. As soon as the charge is removed, she is able to continue counting. There is no divine effect, there is nothing beyond matter. The effect is undeniable and the consequences to the dual thinking are devastating.

Edit: Added the link.

32. The soul? It may all be in your mind

Comment #267868 by qomak on October 21, 2008 at 7:41 am

Oystein Elgaroy:

I don't think it is that simple. Dualism is not required by, for example, the New Testament where resurrection seems to be physical, not just spiritual.

Yes that's true but resurrection is not the only crucial part of religion. For instance, in Islam not only the resurrection is physical, even the heaven itself is physical (clearly, you cannot enjoy the virgins if you don't have a body) but no one denies that Islam is dead without soul.

Same is true for Christianity. For example, the concept of the judgment day is utterly destroyed without soul. All major religions (to be fair let's just say Christianity and Islam) preach that the thieves and dishonest people will not enter heaven (there are some complications but that is the general message). But a truly honest guy can lose his honesty in a car accident with a brain damage. There are many cases where a damage to the frontal lobe can alter one's personality. How is God supposed to judge now the dishonest person? If there is a soul which captures the "essence" of a person, what happened to the soul after the crash?

Similarly, all major religions depend heavily on an interpretation of the free will which depends on the existence of the soul. By this interpretation, "soul" is the "thing" which gives us free will. Personally, many times I've seen it to use as some form of separation between humans and "animals".

Without soul all these concepts break down.

The bottom line is there are many religious people who believe in evolution but I have yet to see one theist who confesses all we have is material and everything is inside our brain. If it is difficult to reconcile evolution and religion, it is ten times more difficult to reconcile lack of soul with religion.

P.S: It would be nice to know what people like Miller or Collins believe though. My bet is Collins believes there is a soul. I'm not really sure about Miller though.

33. The soul? It may all be in your mind

Comment #267841 by qomak on October 21, 2008 at 6:31 am

I always wondered why Richard Dawkins tries to attack religion through evolution and the contradiction with creation stories. It is not a strong attack since the religious side can simply claim those stories are metaphors. For similar reasons, discussion of big bang, multiple universes or infinite regress is also a bit useless.

To shoot religion in the heart we simply need to attack the soul and as Paul Bloom shows this is *very* easy. After all, all the things that we need to study are right in front of our eyes. Specially with the recent developments in brain mapping, we can trace brain activities on-line with great accuracy. All these results show that there is no such concept as soul and all human activities and feelings are the result of this lump of matter in our heads. That's the biggest killer machine for religion.

Religion can survive without a creation story but it cannot survive if we show everything about humans is material. Religious people really need soul to make sense of God's judgment, heaven, hell, life after death and most of the religious concepts.

Take Catholics for instance. Pope officially embraces evolution but adds that God is responsible for the "evolution" of the "soul". We need to kill the soul not just the creation story.

34. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #267608 by qomak on October 20, 2008 at 8:23 pm

MaxD:

Yes, saw that a few days ago and that line was absolutely fabulous. Rarely pwnage had been delivered so swiftly.

35. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #267459 by qomak on October 20, 2008 at 3:10 pm

Wow, totally ridiculous.
Look at the front page at FauxNews:

http://www.foxnews.com/

"Obama, who has downplayed relationship with domestic terrorist William Ayers, gave a glowing endorsement of his book in the Dec. 21, 1997 Chicago Tribune."

Translation: Obama liked his book therefore they must be good friends, after all, the only reason to like a book is the author's credentials.

36. A 'values' voter speaks her mind on Obama

Comment #267447 by qomak on October 20, 2008 at 3:02 pm

On the issue of standards for voting, there is another point: most likely she is paying taxes and thus she *must* have a say on how the government deals with it, no matter how ridiculous those opinions might be.

37. Beyond Belief 3: Candles in the Dark

Comment #267365 by qomak on October 20, 2008 at 1:36 pm

Very nice videos.

As always, I really enjoy listening to Ramachandran.

38. Death for apostasy?

Comment #267086 by qomak on October 20, 2008 at 7:41 am

Well, grand ayatollah Montazeri (once designated successor to Khomeini and according to some the most high ranking cleric in Shia Islam) has declared that if an apostate genuinely rejects Islam (based on evidence and such) then he cannot be killed.

Ali Goma, the grand mufti of Egypt also declared something similar.

These are small steps but ones in the right direction. Although, to be fair, these two are the *only* cases that I know where a high ranking muslim cleric has declared fatwas against killing the apostates.

39. Death for apostasy?

Comment #266877 by qomak on October 19, 2008 at 7:59 pm

On Islam and the possibility of reform, there is something that many miss.

There has been many schools of thought in Islam, influenced by all sorts of philosophies (e.g., Greek). So even from the beginning, Islam was open to reform. The problem was (and is), most of these were declared heretical by the dominant version and thus shut down and killed. A very few have survived, though, for example the Shia brand. Even today, all the existing Islamic dictatorship continue to shut down the branches of Islam they see as heretical.

The point is if we can manage to protect muslims against themselves by preventing the slaughter of minority views by the mainstream version, there is a good chance that many alternate views will emerge and hopefully, the general direction will be toward less aggressive versions of Islam.

40. Death for apostasy?

Comment #266869 by qomak on October 19, 2008 at 7:36 pm

I have several friends and family members who are non-believers and apart from some efforts to return them to the straight and narrow or at least go through the motions of religious observance, they have not come into any physical danger.

She is confusing many issues. On her side, there is rarely systematic attempts by islamic governments to kill all the apostates. So, as an apostate, if you mostly keep to yourself, you would be safe.

On the ugly side, the picture she is trying to convey is truly ridiculous. As far as I know, almost all major schools of thought in Islam require some form of Fatwa or ruling to kill an apostate. In other words, killing a lot of apostates, will require lots of paperwork and nobody seems to like paperworks.

On the other hand, to be an apostate and to come to the attention of the Sharia rulers equals death. For instance, that is how hundreds and thousands of communist Iranians were killed some time after the Islamic revolution.


Edit: for clarity.

41. God is not the enemy of reason

Comment #266349 by qomak on October 18, 2008 at 5:44 pm

He says God is not the enemy of reason and I agree; It's hard to be enemy of anything if you don't exist.

42. In conversation with... a computer program

Comment #266345 by qomak on October 18, 2008 at 5:33 pm

Noooooo, the great contributions of AI does not include cheesy Elbots, it includes things like SAT solvers. ARGH.

43. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #265305 by qomak on October 16, 2008 at 12:06 pm

I thank you all posters for reading the garbled output of the spam-bot stevenb40 formerly known as Joe Morreale.

Unfortunately, due to some programming error, the IQ variable of the bot was set to 40, instead of 140 meaning the spam-bot can neither read nor comprehend. Please do not waste your valuable time responding to or even reading its output.

Thank you.

44. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #263761 by qomak on October 12, 2008 at 4:18 pm

DP:

If I am not mistaken, the "list" of your abstract objective qualifications for presidency is the following:

As for president, all the things you mentioned are important to me. I would like them to be smart, have experience, have good judgment, be a good person or have a good character, and be a patriot.

That is a terribly vague answer. That is not objective at all. You provide no way of measuring the intelligence, or the experience, or the character. They are open to interpretation and subjective judgments of your brain.

Besides, the list if very general and terribly unhelpful. You will not find a single person who would like a dumb employee. No where you will see an ad for a "dumb" janitor for example; however, the requirements on the intelligence for a janitor is completely different than for say a CEO.

Where are your objective standards for arguably the most important job in United States of America?

45. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #263632 by qomak on October 12, 2008 at 5:12 am

I find it funny how all you people keep responding to me and then say you are not wasting your time anymore. Then you continue to respond to me. HAHA

I simply see this thread coming up in the recent comments list so I tend to check it every few days. Unfortunately, it is mostly devoid of any serious debate, people repeating the same things to you and you are not getting them.

But at any rate, I see as usual you have ignored the juicy part of my post, perhaps thinking objectively is too much for you.

To reiterate, why don't you provide an abstract list of bare minimum qualifications on intellect, character, experience, ... of a candidate so we may have a discussion on those abstract concepts. At the moment it is clear that any discussion on these particular candidates will be met by your mental dissonance with no hope of progress.

46. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #263542 by qomak on October 11, 2008 at 4:50 pm

DP:

I would call him a anti-american socialist who likes to hang around terrorists. See thats worse then "ol'Barry".

And lose our hope that you will one day open your mind to reality.

Seriously, you have failed to provide a single coherent and intelligible argument on why Palin is a good choice.

You have been wooed by her charisma and attracted because of your strong dislike of Obama. Apparently for you the cognitive dissonance is so great that you are forced to convince yourself that Palin is a good candidate, despite her glaring deficiencies. For instance, the mediocre experience of both Palin and Obama is interpreted differently: for Obama under the negative label of "lack of experience" for Palin under the "positive" label of "not from Washington". This is an alarming sign that your brain is failing to provide you with a logical decision.

It is obvious that you cannot feel this. It is obvious that to you, your opinions are coherent and devoid of any contradictions. Unfortunately, almost anyone else can see through your delusions.

I am not sure how to get through to you anymore. As you are aware, the world is full of such deluded minds and there is little justification for me to waste my time arguing with an anonymous poster with such condition.

But, I'll just say this. I would like to hear your abstract list of qualifications for a candidate. Provide a minimum list of qualifications (on intelligence, experience, character, ...) that a candidate must possess before being acceptable candidate. Then provide another to label the candidate good. And another to label him/her excellent.

For example, for me, one bare minimum condition is to be say at the top 0.01% of the population from intellectual perspective, proved by succeeding in highly competitive intellectual tasks. Once I have such an objective standard, I cannot be easily fooled by the candidate's personality or charisma. So, have you done the same? Can you do the same? Can you prove to us that we are not wasting our time with yet-another closed-minded individual?

47. Math Skills Suffer in U.S., Study Finds

Comment #263459 by qomak on October 11, 2008 at 7:25 am

This is my point. It would take a whole lot more for America (and other Western countries) to lose their appeal. This is not an excuse to be complacent, but I think it provides some perspective on the issue.

I was not suggesting anything dramatic will happen in the future. American university can be losing their appeal gradually, very slowly to notice at each single year.

We must be able to detect such possible future trends. As other countries continue to pour more money into their research, it will be more difficult for American universities to keep the dominance. It might not happen in ten years, but over one or two generations the effect would be obvious.

Even before, there were many scientific areas where American/western European universities were not dominant. This is true for many areas in math. The legendary figures of discrete mathematics, were mostly Hungarian, specially in external combinatorics.

These are just alarm signs that something about American education system is failing.

for another alarm sign just look at the fields medal winner, the most prestigious award in Mathematics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal

48. Math Skills Suffer in U.S., Study Finds

Comment #263450 by qomak on October 11, 2008 at 6:10 am

Their culture is not as open or conducive to research as America's (or any Western country, for that matter). Girls, especially, are not treated with equal respect, regardless of how good they are at math.

America has nothing to really worry about except maybe losing some pride. Regardless of how stupid Americans are supposedly becoming (as this article would imply), the rest of the world still goes there to learn. Go figure.

I wouldn't be that confident. For example, I attended an important algorithm conference last month where a girl (not Chinese) won the best student paper award ... and she is doing a postdoc in China.

I think you are missing the point which is if America fails to grow native talents and relies on foreign minds immigrating to US, then it is only a matter time when other countries start fighting for their share of imported minds.

49. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #263446 by qomak on October 11, 2008 at 5:38 am

What the fuck is wrong with America?
Who are these people?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/10/mccain.crowd/index.html

50. Math Skills Suffer in U.S., Study Finds

Comment #263311 by qomak on October 10, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Wow, I'm surprised to see an article about International Mathematics Olympiad. I almost made it to IMO 1999. Good old days and I remember the tough problem of 1996 (although there was another seriously tough one at 1998).

About the article, I completely agree. I have seen US books and they are terrible. Apparently, education in US means dumbing down the material so that everyone can go home and play a video game.