1. PZ Myers - Expelled from Expelled

Comment #200703 by Naturalist1 on June 28, 2008 at 6:16 am

Just a side note. On the evening CBC news here in Canada the other night Expelled bought an advertising slot for the release of this propagandist movie. The style of the movie ad was the same as any other "Blockbuster" about to be released here in Canada. They are spending serious $$ on this: a 30 second ad on CBC News isn't cheap.

2. Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech

Comment #192279 by Naturalist1 on June 12, 2008 at 4:27 pm

Thought I would repost my response to a recent previous thread on this same MacLeans article. This is serious stuff here in Canada. I would also point out that these various "Tribunals" have a 100% conviction rate at both the provincial and federal levels! Thats right....no one has ever walked away from one of these things after being accused unscathed.
This still stands:
This is Rex Murphy..one of our most respected journalists weighing in on the topic. He has this segment every thursday night on The CBC National News. He takes aim at the various Canadian Human Rights tribunals specifically pointing out that these actions are FREE of charge (taxpayer funded)to the plantiff and ruinously expensive for the defendant. His target is the vary Mark Steyn/McLeans Magazine action at issue here.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xaQiGnR2Xw0

3. Loyal to Its Roots

Comment #191369 by Naturalist1 on June 10, 2008 at 6:00 pm

A very interesting and I believe related explaination for some of these ideas-observations are found in Richard's The Selfish Gene, Chapter 6 on Genesmanship where he describes the concept of Kin Altruism. Could these principles have application in the plant world as well?
It would be nice if Richard would weigh in on this one.

4. Darwin still causing waves after 150 years

Comment #188716 by Naturalist1 on June 4, 2008 at 12:11 pm

JLD Calgary...This site is just an excellent overview of current evolutionary knowledge,Very easy to understand.
University of California-Berkeley: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php
enjoy,
Darrell

5. 'Uncontacted tribe' sighted in Amazon

Comment #186700 by Naturalist1 on May 31, 2008 at 6:12 am

Good Morning All...I'm with Carole on this one..Would like to hear what our Prof. Dawkins has to say. There have been so many good points made here on this one. Of particular interest are the metaphors of Star Treks fictional diplomatic philosophy, aka The Prime Directive being made. It is really rather nice to see a thread underway with so little BS in it. Much of what has been discussed went through my mind not long after seeing the TV coverage of these indigenous people.
Two more brief points:1. Is there anyone in this forum who is an Anthropologist...would like to hear from them. and: 2. Let us all hope these people are not cursed with having oil or any other valuable mineral on their land.

6. Mark Steyn vs. the 'Sock Puppets'

Comment #185813 by Naturalist1 on May 28, 2008 at 4:34 pm

Good Evening everyone...Couldn't let this one go by without a small contribution...there has been a lot of Canada Bashing here..and as a citizen of our not so perfect confederation I would like to add this video clip.
This is Rex Murphy..one of our most respected journalists weighing in on the topic. He has this segment every thursday night on The CBC National News. He takes aim at the various Canadian Human Rights tribunals specifically pointing out that these actions are FREE of charge (taxpayer funded)to the plantiff and ruinously expensive for the defendant. His target is the vary Mark Steyn/McLeans Magazine action at issue here. Enjoy:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xaQiGnR2Xw0

7. Non-religious summer camps develop niche

Comment #184283 by Naturalist1 on May 24, 2008 at 9:56 am

Comment #3 by Mordacious...
Rob...you are absolutely right on the friggin' money! Thats all we really have to do...offer our children scientific explainations and if we can't explain it to them...encourage them to seek a logical answer for themselves...always question..EVERYTHING! And yes..atheism does become apparent to them..without indoctrinating them into anything.
I have done the same thing with my daughter having raised her myself. Now at age 19 to hear her satirize the evangel-crazies from American tv is an absolute riot..."What wooooood Jeaaaaaasus do 'bout this?"..makes us both crack up.
All this while giving her a sense of respect for all people.
This entire article and responses have just made my day.
Thank you all FROM Canada.
Darrell

8. Top billing for platypus at end of evolution tree

Comment #177770 by Naturalist1 on May 9, 2008 at 4:52 pm

Hey Mordacious1...it's me again. Incidentally...my name is Darrell.I like this stuff too and am about half way through Richard's "The Selfish Gene"...written in 1976 it was sooooooo far ahead of it's time. All this stuff is proving just how much of a visionary our Prof. Dawkins is.
There was recently an article posted on this site which really explains a lot about all of this common ground genome among vastly different species business. Just friggin' fascinating!
http://richarddawkins.net/article,2539,Regulating-Evolution-How-Gene-Switches-Make-Life,Scientific-American
Have a great day.

9. Citing Faith, Bush Defends War Actions

Comment #177088 by Naturalist1 on May 8, 2008 at 2:26 pm

Mordacious1...hmmmm...villagers with torches?...really?...hadn't thought of that. I recind my previous post in the interest of safety.

10. Citing Faith, Bush Defends War Actions

Comment #176991 by Naturalist1 on May 8, 2008 at 12:33 pm

Mordacious1...you should invite Dr. Dawkins or Dr.t Hooft or Christopher Hitchens(especially Hitchens) to speak at one of those hundreds of churches. Think of the possibilities!

11. Citing Faith, Bush Defends War Actions

Comment #176926 by Naturalist1 on May 8, 2008 at 10:52 am

This just scares the daylights out of me. They don't realize they are in a race to the bottom. Last night I had the opportunity to attend a lecture at The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo On. Canada given by Dr.Gerard t Hooft, 1999 Nobel Laureate in Physics. The title of his talk was, "Science Fact-Science Fiction". He talked about what the LHC will accomplish this summer, the future of space travel, communications, nano technology etc...a very good and at times very humourous talk.
At the end during question period a young woman stood up and asked him, " In all that you have talked about..What scares you the most?"
His answer was rather surprising...He said.."That how religious the United States is becoming...This I do not understand." Then he briefly continued about how irrational this is. The room was silent.

12. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #171432 by Naturalist1 on April 28, 2008 at 1:38 pm

Bluebird...Thank you for clarifying and posting the article about the chimps using spears...It was the one to which I was refering.

13. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #171420 by Naturalist1 on April 28, 2008 at 1:33 pm

Mitchell. Read Scientific American March 2007. In this issue is an amazing article titled, "How Smart Are Ravens?". How smart?..really smart! Mechanical problem solving ability. Yes...they have an IQ beyond dolphins and are second only to primates.

14. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #171145 by Naturalist1 on April 28, 2008 at 10:35 am

Yes..Very cool photo. It reminds me of the story about a year ago where chimpanzies were observed using a spear to kill a small squirrel for supper. One could argue that they had seen men use a spear for a similar purpose and were just mimicking us...I don't think so..they took it one step further. The thrilling part was that the chimps had figured out how to sharpen the thing! This of course implies the huge abstraction that they had learned how to manufacture the spear and had devised a way to do it by rubbing it on a stone. They had not yet figured out to throw the weapon..they were using it as a cudgel..stabbing the squirrels. I just love whenever anything like this regarding other species surfaces.

15. Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital

Comment #167051 by Naturalist1 on April 23, 2008 at 3:10 pm

Perhaps they should all read some science....specifically...Pharmacology..and look up...sildenafil citrate..AKA Viagara. This might just make those "Tiny" problems go away. Thanks for the good laugh everyone....

16. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160780 by Naturalist1 on April 14, 2008 at 11:41 am

Hello ThoughsonCommonToad...my name is Darrell. Could you please explain further what you mean't by:

The problems will only ever start to be tackled when the poisonous doctrine of multiculturalism dies a very belated death.

17. Expelled producers accused of copyright infringement

Comment #158454 by Naturalist1 on April 10, 2008 at 2:42 pm

This is too funny....Not that it means anything in actual fact...but...wasn't it their revered Moses who said,"Thou shalt not steal"? Laughing my ass off....hope they get sued for a Bizillion dollars.

18. Supreme Court to consider Ten Commandments vs. 'Seven Aphorisms'

Comment #153494 by Naturalist1 on April 1, 2008 at 2:02 pm

drbreakfast: You said,"But this seems like a great opportunity to raise public awareness of how this is NOT a Christian nation." If you please, I would like to learn more about this. How could this opportunity be utilized?
Thank you,
Darrell

19. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #150096 by Naturalist1 on March 26, 2008 at 12:59 pm

The Happiest of birthdays to you professor Dawkins..we are glad you are out there! You have opened many eyes..in most entertaining ways. Many happy returns of the day to you sir!
I shall hoist a glass to you tonight!
Darrell Cadieux
Cambridge, Ontario,
Canada

20. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #99378 by Naturalist1 on December 16, 2007 at 1:52 pm

For all the criticism I have seen in this thread about Newton..yes he was a bit of a nutjob...I point out that the great man actually invented modern physics. For that I thank him for ushering in the Enlightenment and allowing me to actually be able to prove things mathematically.
As for the Christmas thing...There has almost always been a feast or festival in almost all cultures around the time of the solstice. The Christians stole the date from a previous pagan festival to make it more palatable to the general Roman population.
My favourite is the Pagan festival of "Yalda". These smart people figured out that the days started to get longer again (around the 23rd-25th)...Thus, they celebrated the fact in this "Religious" holiday that they would once again have crops! That they would survive! Imagine...A religious holiday tied to an actual physically verifiable fact involving their "Earthly" survival.
Merry Yalda Everybody!
Darrell

21. Christopher Hitchens and Bill Donohue on Mother Teresa

Comment #66565 by Naturalist1 on August 30, 2007 at 12:48 pm

He kept refering to Hitch as a "Dogmatic Atheist"...he really just doesn't get it...does he.

22. They let anybody onto the faculty at Oxford nowadays

Comment #61108 by Naturalist1 on August 3, 2007 at 4:49 pm

Hello everyone..I found this very interesting, that as a side note to the statement,"I think Richard Dawkins approaches the question of whether God exists in much the same way as if he'd approach the question of whether there is water on Mars. In other words, it's something that's open to objective scientific experimentation." as quoted by Mr. McGrath.
It just so happens that tomorrow morning Aug.4th,the Phoenix Mars Lander is being launched from Cape Canaveral. The purpose for the mission is to land on the northern polar region of Mars to prove that the ice cap we observe (that would be evidence Mr. McGrath) does in fact contain water at the surface and below the surface in the permafrost. This is hilarious irony...Makes me just shake my head a bit.

23. The Out Campaign

Comment #60001 by Naturalist1 on July 31, 2007 at 12:00 pm

Good Afternoon Everyone...And thank you Dr. Dawkins for posting this.
There has been much said in this thread about the following statement: "I don't think any books from Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Stenger, Hitchens, Sagan, et al, will overcome the embedded generation's brainwashing as children." It is so ingrained into so much of our culture...As a demonstration, this appeared on the front page of today's National Post...one of Canada's National Newspapers. Read what Walmart is doing.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=99e72fc4-7b85-42b2-bd70-de0eff519de8
Leave it up to Walmart...they will sell these things like hotcakes. The target is the wallets of people with small children. Look at these dolls..they are so very Disneyish in appearance.
This genuinely appalls me..

24. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50532 by Naturalist1 on June 18, 2007 at 3:42 pm

Re:Comment #2:Diplo...Thank you Diplo...could not have said it better myself!
I only wish some of the American Christo..Fascist Nazis would read some of the wonderful points made on this website.

25. For God's Sake

Comment #31593 by Naturalist1 on April 13, 2007 at 12:00 pm

Enty...comment #10..I don't know where you are located...but perhaps a little info for you. Here in Canada we currently have a Homophobic, Going to Church Every Sunday, "Born Again" Prime Minister who has been known to end his speeches with,"And God Bless Canada". Sound familiar? The Christian Right in Canada pulls this guy's chain here too. And..he is about to call a general election and will probably win a majority government this time....Scary.

26. Praying for the Apocalypse

Comment #30760 by Naturalist1 on April 9, 2007 at 5:45 pm

Just read the article...Yes...They really are that nutty! Dr. Dawkins summed it up very well in his quotation from Voltaire on page 306 of TGD, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."