1. Premier debates with Dawkins

Comment #273537 by sent2null on October 28, 2008 at 8:54 pm

As I listened to this guy slowly annoy Richard with his obtuse mental process. I had flashbacks of Sarah Palan trying to answer questions extemporaneously when pressed lightly by Katie Couric(sp?).

The thing with so many "believers" is they absolutely are sure (as Richard stated in exasperation) that what they belief is the truth. Unlike a person of science who will give up their belief the moment data contradicts it (and be proud of that act) "believers" will be proud about dying while still believing something for which they have loads of contradictory evidence! A curious inversion of perspective! I usually begin an attack on religious talking points by making the case that neither I nor they can be certain of our current set of beliefs BUT that my beliefs are based on experiments that I can perform myself (or by proxy through others) as opposed to taking the word of bits of paper written thousands of years ago. If this doesn't shine the light of interest in their eyes I switch the subject...I have no patience for stupidity, nor do I believe that we should be tolerant of it.

2. Bill Heine interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #268421 by sent2null on October 21, 2008 at 8:03 pm

Am I the only one that laughed almost from the moment the Islamic proselyte started with his reasons for respecting his delusion to the end ???

Wow..

"other prophet and A-la"

"you should go to have more study"

"No body will accept that you make a mickey about Koran and holy prophet and islam, nobody, nobody,nobody"

The pinnacle of religious eloquence folks!

3. When Atheists Attack

Comment #251698 by sent2null on September 22, 2008 at 12:55 am

@Steve Zara

Curious, why did you go back to the "incogniticon" (it is thus coined!) ?
I had become rather used to seeing your glasses and well coiffed goatee next to your normally lucid posts.

4. Closest Look Ever At Edge Of A Black Hole

Comment #244500 by sent2null on September 9, 2008 at 12:06 am

All the joking aside (you guys are nuts!)

Is scientific discovery awesome or what ?

5. Palin's Church May Have Shaped Controversial Worldview

Comment #242464 by sent2null on September 3, 2008 at 7:48 pm

Just in case the republicants actually pull the hat trick of the millenium and actually win this election. I am going to need to set up living arrangements for when I leave...

Normandy here I come!

@Ole

I am quite alarmed at how many times the right wing people that I communicate (all male) mentioned their attraction to this woman as if it were some relevant criteria to her possibly being a good president. I guess I would be shocked to find out how many conservatives have made this lascivious correlation. The sad thing is, being attracted seems to be enough reason to vote for her over Obama who (from the policy positions held)is light years ahead of her in every way.

6. Is the Universe Actually Made of Math?

Comment #219458 by sent2null on July 27, 2008 at 2:20 am

Re. 56 Count von Count

Oops! I think you meant i^2 is -1. =)

Doh! Of course I did...that's what I get for typing without proof reading!

7. Red hot enlightenment led me to believe in one fewer god

Comment #218966 by sent2null on July 25, 2008 at 11:07 pm

@284

"As for beautiful faces, I'll go with Salma Hyak, Catherine Zeta Jones, and Monica Belucci...in no particular order. "

You've got some good taste there Christopher. ;)

8. When too much Rapture is barely enough

Comment #205736 by sent2null on July 7, 2008 at 6:42 pm

@zenmite

I did some reading and indeed it would seem Akhenaten predated the Zoroastrians with a pure "one god" philosophy. I was familiar with Akhenaten as the "heretic king" but I'd not previously researched the details of his attempt to eliminate all other deities. (I thought he was okay with certain lesser deities which apparently isn't the case)

It would appear that the monotheistic idea goes back even further than I had thought in the hands of the ancient Egyptians (which significantly predate the Judeo Christian God) gotta love history!

thanks for the information

9. When too much Rapture is barely enough

Comment #204675 by sent2null on July 5, 2008 at 1:34 pm

This is all irrelevant. Having a discussion on the illogical conclusions of the Judeo Christian ideas of rapture is like discussing the details of just what the bad tactics were used by the rebel alliance on Degeba...it doesn't change the fact it is all fiction.

This reminds me of an argument between two comic book fanboys, vehemently defending their positions over who is stronger the Hulk or Superman. Lots of hot air expended with the result of nothing gained for humanity. Although I see the importance of confronting such believers I think it is a stronger tactic to oppose the veracity of the entire foundation rather than attack the internal inconsistences. (which are legion beyond words)

The stupidity of such arguments needs to be undermined by revelation of the more important facts such as:

1) The Judeo-Christian God was manufactured by Semetic cultures just about 2,500 to 3,000 years ago by people just like every other "God".

2) The similarities of the stories between the JC God and others in neighboring regions are extremely high.

3) The origins of monotheism (the "one god" belief) did not originate with the JC God, you need to move over to the East a few thousand miles and go back in time about 1,000 years to find that event in the Zoroastrian Azura Mazda God.

4) Many religions have after life beliefs, there is nothing unique about the JC one (other than its unfortunate spread over the globe due to particular political and geographic dashes of serendipity) that makes its after life belief any more real than any of the others, others that still outnumbers the JC God exceedingly if number of dedicated proselytes is considered.


All these are facts derived from archeological, religious and historical evidence that anyone can confirm, it falls on the believers of any given religious story to find evidence to substantiate their view outside of their Holy Books. Just as asserting that George Lucas original screen play for Star Wars is not proof that "the force exists!" so is it equally ludicrous to assert that any particular God creation/rapture story is a fact because the books written by the believers assert it as so. If the simple logic of this can't be grasped by anyone then they are bringing a level of intellectual dishonesty to the debate that is not worth confronting in my view. Better to steer them to the facts that we know and have them argue against what is known. The minds of such people are so far gone in their belief that any concession to their view, even on a hypothetical basis to try to demonstrate inconsistencies is one they cherish because they feel in so doing you are granting their view some element of legitimacy.

Arguing on the grounds of known facts requires that our command of the facts is greater than their command of their fantasy but that is not too difficult considering how ignorant about history, archeology and science in general most believers tend to be.

10. God hates Mars

Comment #199483 by sent2null on June 25, 2008 at 8:22 pm

If only the analysis being done on that ice would reveal some form of alien microbial life to have this idiot eat his words straight.

Of course even if it did happen tomorrow "Nasa confirms life on Mars!"

this guy would claim we put it on Mars or that it traveled there from Earth. If you believe in an infinitely powerful cosmic puppet master that knows all, then anything else is easy to believe in by comparison.

11. Award-winning comedian George Carlin dies

Comment #198390 by sent2null on June 23, 2008 at 6:01 pm

I am still laughing at al-rawandi's comment in the first post on this page. Though I wouldn't wish death on anyone if there was a need to trade, I'd probably make that one (Cook for Carlin) as well. ;)

To paraphrase a line from one of the best sci fi movies of the last 40 years:

The light that shines twice as bright, burns half as long and Carlin has burned so very very brightly.

He will be missed.

12. Bright Chunks At Phoenix Lander's Mars Site Must Have Been Ice

Comment #196965 by sent2null on June 20, 2008 at 6:18 pm

a geologist was pushing the theory that the earth was formed with the oil already there, like iron, etc. He said it wasn't decayed anything. I thought it was BS at the time but a lot of people took him seriously. Ever hear of this?

I just read about it actually, after consulting the wikipedia page for petroleum. It mentions the theory of abiogenesis as a source of petroleum but mentions it only has a minority of proponent geologists in the west. The article below mentions The widely held consensus by geologists is the biogenic cause.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

A critical quote:

There is no direct evidence to date of abiogenic petroleum (liquid crude oil and long-chain hydrocarbon compounds)

though the article goes on to cite pros and cons to the theory.

13. Bright Chunks At Phoenix Lander's Mars Site Must Have Been Ice

Comment #196937 by sent2null on June 20, 2008 at 4:03 pm

Re: comment 196718 by Vaal

Now, we can just look at pictures taken of Mars and Saturn on the Internet every day, images that you could hardly have conceived of, and just take it for granted. What a wonderful time to be alive!

I agree it is a great time to be alive, though I go one step beyond just looking at those amazing images. I've been collecting the very highest resolution images from the Hubble Space Telescope for the last few years. At a cost of several billion dollars of our taxes I sure have every right! Of course my reasons are simply to satisfy the intense love of astronomical imagery I've always had since I was a boy. There are some equally high resolution and eerie images of various vistas on Mars taken by Spirit and Opportunity available at the NASA web site. I have downloaded many of these as well. I've printed out a few of the Hubble images to huge sizes (20" x 30") and well, let us just say my eyes watered when I was looking at the Sombrero Galaxy M104 in its spectacular detailed glory.

http://hubblesite.org/

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/entire_collection/pr2003028a/

(11472 x 6429) 73megapixels of glory!

14. Bright Chunks At Phoenix Lander's Mars Site Must Have Been Ice

Comment #196932 by sent2null on June 20, 2008 at 3:50 pm

Re: Comment #196683 by FightingFalcon


Channeling MPhil for a bit here (MPhil you know we lubs ya!) and exercising an element of pedantry with regard to your comment.

That would mean there are dead dinos on another planet!!

Oil is what you get when you subject dead sea life (plankton and other ocean critters mostly) to intense pressures and millions of years of sedimentation just off the oceanic coasts. However, during the time (the Carboniferous) that the layers we call oil are dated to, there were no Dinosaurs! (That age predates the first Dinosaurs by about 100 million years)

FYI

(Of course it would still mean living things once died and were pressurized if we were to find any oil on Mars..so your point is valid, if factually skewed. ;) )

15. Science teacher dissed evolution

Comment #196921 by sent2null on June 20, 2008 at 3:29 pm

Well at least the moron has finally been ripped from his pulpit.

Ah the depths to which delusion will bring a Man!

16. Is the Universe Actually Made of Math?

Comment #195803 by sent2null on June 18, 2008 at 8:46 pm

Re: Count Von Count 14:

The Pythagorean example sort of fails since there is significance to that negative value it is the same length that you would get if you did a point translation about one of the corners of the door that intersects the hypotenuse of the triangle, as an origin. The negative c is the solution to the problem if the a and b sides were both negative, or more practically on the other side of the "origin" point. I get the point you were trying to make though, perhaps an example using imaginary numbers would have been more fitting!

i is imaginary and i^2 is 1, good luck trying to ascribe physical significance to that but it can't be stressed how critical imaginary numbers are to so many areas of modern engineering.

Not to dive head first into the meat of the discussion regarding math being the language of reality (I've always innately felt this was true) I'll say that the idea of a "God" as a creative force that might be sentient but not cognizant of its work is not one I wince from. I could accept an absent minded God:

' a Giant in another dimension sneezed and 10 centimeters from his nose was born our Universe'

: does that make our Universe a theist one? If we are to accept the plausibility of multiverse theories over those of the theists that postulate a controlling conscious God for our Universe, we have to accept the possibility of what these theories predict. If Universes are born and die in an infinite foaming of space not unlike the Planck scale undulations we know occur in our space time, then it is possible that there was a "God", in this thought experiment it was completely oblivious of its creation just as we are oblivious of the riot of particle creation we engender as we wave our hands in the wind and give birth to a billion trillion virtual undulations in space time.

Is this absent minded type of God possible?? yes, but extremely unlikely. If universes can be born in the random "nothing" of space, which is far more numerous in expanses away from any sentient beings (like ourselves) then near them, then it is more likely that(away) is where most of them will spontaneously be born. In no way aided by an absent minded and oblivious "God". In fact it seems in the limit as the number of created universes in the multiverse goes to infinity, the probability of an absent minded sentient creating any single universe goes down to zero.

Though I have none of the skill to explore rigorously the veracity of what is conjectured above, it seems intuitively that the probability of a God ..even an absent minded creator one, approaches zero if the infinite multiverse concept is correct. Given the fact of no evidence at all to support the cognizant and watching theist God the only other alternative, there is something delightfully ironic about that to me. ;)

17. Scientists confirm that parts of earliest genetic material may have come from the stars

Comment #192981 by sent2null on June 14, 2008 at 11:32 am

@qomak comment 15:

Does anyone know why it is hard for uracil and xanthine to have been formed in the primordial sea?

Do not assume that because the materials in question had sources that were extraterrestrial that those same materials could not have been produced terrestrially. It might have taken longer given the nature of their constituents (the carbon variety for example) but that doesn't mean it would have been impossible to form on Earth.

It would only make sense that much of the early building blocks of the chemistry for life's
formation entered the Terran cook pot from space. As the planet accreted from the previous nebular cloud materials which contained a rich soup of elements many of them already forming simple compounds in space, it necessarily played the role of cosmic beaker for the chemistry of life.

The idea is old, confirmation of it is the new part.

18. As the world becomes smaller, the need to understand each other's faith grows

Comment #192954 by sent2null on June 14, 2008 at 10:32 am

Tangentially related, an excellent talk on the many real origins behind religious thought given by Jared Diamond.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th7CFye03gQ&feature=related


I also say let us learn about religion and its very non divine history in detail...the more people do this the more they will realize they have been sold smoke for sunshine.


enjoy

19. Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

Comment #192298 by sent2null on June 12, 2008 at 6:02 pm

forgive me if someone already said this but:


DUH!

Though the reasons put forward by the researcher may be suspect this really should be obvious. I also don't like the use of this thing called "IQ"...the science of intelligence studies is in bad need of rigorous methods to isolate variables, many of the guys who've been doing it are IMO piss poor experimentalists when it comes to the task. At least from the papers in the area that I've read.

20. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #191789 by sent2null on June 11, 2008 at 6:16 pm

@Count von Count message 291:


Navier-Stokes! Non linear partial differential equations extraordinaire! I do recall having much fun solving differential equations but it got less fun when trying to extract the necessary initial conditions to solve partials! That is when the engineers mind starts to fry big time! Though it is amazing how pivotal that form of equations are to so many phenomena, turbulence, fire, smoke in gases and liquids. I am a big computer graphics research follower and I've been collecting the papers produced by the guys that simulate these phenomena in the latest Hollywood blockbusters. I seriously considered going into the area but got side tracked into other types (web application framework, content management and collaboration) of programming instead, there are some really ingenious simplifications of the NV equations used to reduce the complexity of calculating the complex patterns that can arise so as to preserve the look without replicating the mathematical complexity. Over a year ago I had a binge of level set papers which generate partial differential equations, and have been used to generate brilliant solutions to real time dynamic water simulations (something that was very difficult just 10 years ago). These methods have been influential in finally realizing cost effective and large scale (from a movie production stand point) photo real fire, gas and liquid effects (Pirates of the Caribbean, Perfect Storm, Poseidon..etc) You might find the area interesting, the work these guys are doing is a beautiful mix of aesthetic engineering and mathematics glued together with programming! So few people realize just how practical the mathematics behind those equations have been, that practicality is literally on screen when ever you go to watch the latest sci-fi block buster!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_set_method

(Be sure to go to the referenced links at the bottom ,Ron Fedkiw's site is a must ..I think I downloaded EVERY video on the site when I first discovered it over a year ago, It shows quite elegantly the complexity that can be captured in liquids of different viscosity by use of the level set method.)

21. Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind

Comment #191364 by sent2null on June 10, 2008 at 5:22 pm

Don't know about the German but I've definitely heard the word "kluge" used to describe a haphazardly put together circuit or piece of software in engineering as the article suggests.

22. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #191361 by sent2null on June 10, 2008 at 5:04 pm

Count von Count,

thanks for the compliment..it means all the more that you are the PHD candidate in math and not I. Though I came close to getting a degree in physics I instead opted for the more immediately practical (by virtue of its lucrative nature for those of less than brilliant ability in theoretical physics) Electrical Engineering! Okay, my fellow Engineers may want to hoist me to a mast for that statement but I do respect the work of the theoreticians to such a degree as to envy their powers of concentration on these matters. My eyes glaze over after about 30 minutes of staring at wave equations or playing with bra's and ket's in quantum mechanics (how I passed both courses in it is still amazing to me even today 10 years on from the event) My "thing" is engineering, that I get and can do without fatigue for hours on end. Advanced Physics I like to get an understanding of what is going on from the birds eye view and that is good enough for me, the rigors of the details exceed my skill and patience.

What is your concentration for your Phd degree ? it has been a while since I investigated the frontiers of mathematics research.

23. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #191190 by sent2null on June 10, 2008 at 10:57 am

Yes, within space time is an important point to make. The untested ideas of extra dimensions put forward by string theories may throw some interesting twists into the mix but I doubt much would change, energy would simply commute between dimensions and still sum to zero over the properly chosen reference frames. In this case "reference frame" being more than just an Einsteinian "event" (3 space 1 time) but the more inclusive higher dimensional events that may exist. I am awed by the apparent symmetry between energy on large and small scales at least as it would appear if we are to accept inflation (and the idea of an infinite multiverse) as plausible. Many key breakthroughs have been made in physics by observing symmetries and simply filling in the bits theoretically then making predictions that panned out in experiment. The prediction and discovery of the positron by Dirac as well as many later sub atomic particles were done precisely by using theoretical observations from symmetry ...it would be the ultimate coup if we could make such a connection on the scale of eternity (whatever it may be) itself!

I've only read one Greene book (the first) and I don't know a single serious modern science enthusiast that hasn't read Hawking's Brief History of Time at least twice! I am not familiar with Hartle however, what do you recommend? Though I dare say I'd get to reading it this decade if I were to purchase it tomorrow, I am still only on page 77 of The God Delusion!! and I bought the book almost 3 years ago. Busy..busy..busy...

Regards,

24. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #191172 by sent2null on June 10, 2008 at 10:12 am

vertigo25 wrote:

Let's put aside the fact that I've never heard an atheist or scientist claim that the Universe came about randomly from nothing...

I happen to be both so let me be the first. ;) It is a demonstrable fact that some things can indeed come from "nothing". The best example is the zero point energy that is practically seen as the Casimir effect between two plates in *empty space*. The answer comes from realizing that we live in a quantum world, one of probabilities not certainties. The equations that govern particle behavior (to unheard of accuracy)dictate the probable emergence of particle pairs in empty space at zero temperature (absolute zero). Virtual particles they are called, however they can become very real if an event interrupts the annihilation that would normally attend their creation. The problem that people have in understanding the meaning of "nothing" is that the very concept is relative to time and energy because we are embedded in a space time. Thus over sufficiently long or short periods of it the meaning of "nothing" varies. The equations are commutative across energy as long as all the energy of the system is allocated for over any given time of observation. In the case of virtual particle predicted by mathematics, their effects measurable by experimentation, "nothing" depends on when you are doing the observation, pre spontaneous creation? post creation? or post annihilation. The concept of "nothing" is itself transitory. The intrinsic importance of this realization was put home by Steven Hawking when he conjectured his Black Hole radiation theory. It has as a lynch pin the idea of virtual particles undergoing asymmetrical annihilation on either side of a black hole's event horizon as the cause of the eventual dissipation of the black hole.

Another amazing fact, it is believed that the sum total of all energy in the universe is a big fat zero. It is theorized that as the universe expands the existing energy will dissipate to the point that it is on the level of the quantum fluctuations at which point it will be practically "nothing". Us, the Earth , the Carbon, Iron, Oxygen and Nitrogen that make up planets and nebula of the galaxy, the entire universe is nothing more than the remnants of an energy echo sent 13.5 billion years ago in the initial bang. The evolution of the universe is an expression of that energy as it evolves over time, if it is true that the Universe will continue to expand and in fact accelerate with age it will accelerate to a state of "nothing". Over the arch of observation that attended its creation, expansion and evolution and eventual death in a cold whimper it will be conserving energy as over that arc the sum of what was and what was not will still be zero. Incredibly cool isn't it? Recent evidence suggests that our Universe may have been created in a process called Inflation (theorized by Andre Linde in the early 80's) the idea is that our universe is a bubble in an ever roiling multiverse infinitely extended, a white noise of universes being created, evolving and dying forever...not unlike what we see in the zero point energy, an endless roiling of empty space. The beauty of this symmetry of the immensely large and the immensely small is hardly an accident in my view.

So something (virtual particles) can indeed come from "nothing" (empty space) and elicit real effects (Casimir Effect , dissolving black holes) on the Universe. In this, the physics definition of "nothing" is statistically the white noise of the zero point energy, which is as "nothing" as anything can get in space time. When I first learned of this correlation between reality and the equations of quantum mechanics I had one of the most incredible feelings in my life, that the probabilistic equations could give rise to such a prediction (vacuum fluctuations) of the very base nature of space itself was astonishing to me.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_point_energy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_radiation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluctuations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commutative_law

25. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #191152 by sent2null on June 10, 2008 at 9:46 am

wow...

I knew I was in for a waste of 10 seconds when I got to...

One of the beautiful aspects of self evident truths is that they can be proven on both the simplest and the most complex of levels.

If $hite had a verbal form, that would be it. That whole sentence is such hollow bull that it succeeded in souring my countenance as I clicked down the page angry that I read even a sentence of the tripe. You would think that "writers" of this ilk have absolutely no access to the massive stores of information on the internet.

Especially as it regards, loooooong dead and refuted claims for the existence of a conscious watching deity Like the force, self delusion is strong in so many.

I am done.

26. Albinos, Long Shunned, Face Threat in Tanzania

Comment #190254 by sent2null on June 8, 2008 at 4:15 pm

phil rimmer wrote:

Yes but there is more to it. A specific superstition takes hold because someone lies about it for personal gain.

It would be nice if this were true but it is not, superstition can take hold from and I posit has taken hold from what people believe to be true. There is no need for outright deception if the believer is already self deceived by their faulty interpretation of what they might have observed. A glaring and obvious example from our past, the observation (clearly confirmed on a daily basis) that the sun does indeed go round the Earth. This obviously false conclusion is one that is very difficult to prove were we to eliminate our knowledge of the methods and history behind showing that it was indeed false. The strength of conviction of those that believed that the Earth was the center and the sun moved about it was a sincere one and fostered countless disputes as a result. It is entirely possible that many other beliefs sprang from individuals trying to explain away things they simply didn't understand without a hint of deceit in their attempt to convey what they think they saw to their mates. If only it were as easy as purposeful deceit being the cause of superstitions spread.

27. John McCain: America a Christian nation, needs Christian president

Comment #190234 by sent2null on June 8, 2008 at 3:20 pm

@Phil Rimmer,

This is off topic to the current thread, your avatar...spooks the hell out of me every time I look at it. First, who the hell is it? The grain and black and white reminds me of some old silent film from the teens of the last century. Just really weird...would like to know the story behind the image.

thanks

28. The Great Evangelical Decline

Comment #189645 by sent2null on June 6, 2008 at 9:42 pm

A moment of silence brethren for the decline in the number of evangelists...

...

...


Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehawwwww!!!!!!


What a moment it is! It should be obvious that my lamentations are quite false and boldly so. I think the internet is only going to accelerate the decline as people who would other wise be subject to information only from their small local community and the strong peer pressures those communities place, are now able to reach out to individuals with similarly questioning minds online. The internet and the ubiquity of access to information is going to spur revolutions in human interaction that we barely can surmise. If it can do its part to hasten the obliteration of religious belief, it can't happen fast enough.

29. Put a Little Science in Your Life

Comment #188264 by sent2null on June 3, 2008 at 2:35 pm

I love telling people science facts that they probably never thought about or never knew just see their reaction and spark a discussion different from the mundane topics of entertainment (which I am ashamed to say I know entirely too much about), sport(which I am proud to say I don't know much about) or politics (in which I've grown entirely sick of seeing the regurgitation of lies that attends each political cycle).

I recently wrote a post about the wonder that science has inspired in me and what I have done to try and allow the spreading of truth to be an easier task at my blog.

http://sent2null.blogspot.com

30. Character Attacks: How to Properly Apply the Ad Hominem

Comment #187830 by sent2null on June 2, 2008 at 7:43 pm

I held my tongue long enough...

clodhopper, message 13

what on Earth is that in your profile picture???

It looks like a person in a giant black rubber suit with a massive distended belly. If that is what I am looking at.....why?????

I fear I will have difficulty getting to bed now that I've seen it.

31. Senate bill allows display of Lord's Prayer, 10 Commandments

Comment #186506 by sent2null on May 30, 2008 at 12:32 pm

Unbelievable, the creationist history revision campaign continues on silently in states that are still a few decades behind the rest of us for the most part. I don't envy your position Annabanana of being one of the few of a rational bent to inhabit one of those curious lands. ;)

A question that is begged is what purpose does it serve to tie these obvious religious statements into our secular government? I can see no other purpose than to try and strip it of its secularism, a move that has been slowly progressing for almost 150 years now. (since the fervor of religiosity that hit the country post Civil War)

It sure doesn't help that the cause of the religious and those who claim christian origins for the foundation of our government is bolstered by the anti-Muslim climate that suffocated the country post 9/11.

It seems there is nothing like a tragedy to get Americans to cling quite literally to their Guns and their religion. (call me an Elitist all you want..it is true!)

32. Storm erupts over 'virginity' divorce

Comment #186502 by sent2null on May 30, 2008 at 11:44 am

Kevy34,

Nice sarcastic way to describe the pre- revelation problem The other week I had the joy of engaging a couple of Jehovah's witnesses that made the mistake of coming to my home to "spread the word" as they put it. Inside of 15 minutes of calm rational discourse on my part, I succeeded in having them run off convinced that I was the devil. I mentioned the pre-revelation problem and they only responded with confused silence...might that have been the seed of reason planted and ready to sprout??? Who knows , but I sure had fun sowing the seeds of doubt in their minds. ;)

33. Storm erupts over 'virginity' divorce

Comment #186451 by sent2null on May 30, 2008 at 9:54 am

Pattern Seeker wrote:

BTW- What's in your peace pipe?

ha ha, nothing at all...I use it simply as a symbol. Though I'd gladly substitute a nice mug of beer for the empty pipe to make sure you mates get something out of the exchange though!

34. Storm erupts over 'virginity' divorce

Comment #186366 by sent2null on May 30, 2008 at 8:11 am

At the risk of being stoned by the overwhelming consensus that the French court decision was wrong. I'll say that if you look at it from purely a contract position, the man was told that she was a virgin prior to the marriage. If his marriage to her was preconditioned by that statement being true, then the fact it was false is grounds for a fraud in the marriage. In the US courts "fraud" is commonly used as a basis for declaration and granting of divorces.

Even though it involves Muslims, if it were important to you that you marry say a person who had no kids and after doing so you find out that they materialize a few from a previous union would that potentially push you to a divorce? Let us keep Love out of the equation for a bit, just look at it dispationately...I think if you do that you see it isn't as cut and dried as many seem to think. Now all that said, if the reasons for this particular annulment have a base of religious inspiration that is unfortunate BUT the strictly secular nature of rulings from the court (and in particular the French court which prides itself on its secular rulings) would force it to decide based on purely on the idea of contractual violation (fraud) rather than the underlying potential religious motive of the Man seeking the annulment.


Peace pipe guys?

Disclaimer: Edited 2 minutes after first post.

35. Geeks and Guinness: the formula for sexy science

Comment #183950 by sent2null on May 23, 2008 at 9:23 am

steve kap wrote:

these genes are still in the cell after they do their good job, and once the human reaches adulthood, this complicated cascade is still going on.

That is a big assumption that I've not read any confirmation for, do you have any references to any? I have read a few papers on the effects of telomere length reduction over time as an organism ages, and also of promoter region methylation , which also increases with age. Additional free radical action is said to exacerbate or cause both conditions. These are known events that silence the expression of genes. Some have theorized that methylation that is not triggered by the system to normal developmental cycles could lead to deleterious effects in the organism. Many papers actually show a correlation between cpg island methylation and the onset of cancers. Think what would happen if a few genes instrumental for producing an enzyme that regulates the production of a brain neurotransmitter could give rise to some of the brain pathologies we see in the aged. Or imagine how such silencing could destabilize cellular chemistry to also inhibit or accelerate various protein and enzyme production. I can't say that I've even seen a paper that espouses what you assert, that essentially developmental cycles go from "pushing" life up to "pulling" it down once those cycles are complete. If this were a dominant reason for aging , why then is there an increase in junk in the cells as we age? Why does the efficiency of all the tissues reduce, it seems to me that only changes that take previous gene expression cycles and break them prematurely or cause them to run amok (cancers) could lead to the systemic reduction in cellular efficiency that attends aging.

As a software engineer I see amazing parallels between the life cycle of a running application and that of a living organism. In many ways they are identical in construction, particularly object oriented designs. Applications die in one of two ways, either the code encounters and internal condition that halts execution or (and this is the most common one) a perfectly running application builds up "junk" in memory as objects are allocated and not deallocated, I think the same thing happens in our cells. In application code, the architect is tasked with ensuring that object allocations are cleaned up after the desired action is performed, in the cell similar development cycles do cleaning. If these encounter damage (methylation, free radicals) then the system degrades. In applications, the open references to the old objects take up precious memory and therefore reduce the available memory for executing new code or creating new objects and this reduces the performance of the application. As more object references accumulate eventually memory runs out and the application halts. (dies) We call this slow process of memory loss a memory leak and I am pretty sure biological aging has an analogous driver (and as I said what I've read so far does not contradicts the idea)

A test for the hypothesis would be the discovery of a variation in life time by varying the rate of cellular processes (akin to slowing down the number of object creations in a program) biologically this can be accomplished by reducing caloric intake, and sure enough studies have shown this increases the life cycle of the organism. Interestingly a correlation exists in computer applications, a memory leak is only as fast as the application is tasked to invoke the object invocations that are not being de allocated. The faster these actions are requested (akin to the cell using the incoming ingredients from the blood to derive energy (through mitochondria) build enzymes and proteins) the faster the application will halt. I can't see any other mechanism to explain this variability, especially not the reversal of early stage developmental cycles. Though I don't discount the possibility, the evidence seems to support a greater importance on destabilization with time in the machinery of the cell. Even then the destabilization would not be caused by existing gene cycles continuing on, under normal circumstances these undergo methylation (they are stopped) after they are finished. However, free radicals could affect existing genes in currently unknown ways to reverse early stage action...but I haven't read a single paper that shows this.

I must admit I haven't read a paper on aging in a while (need to hit the PLOS) but from my previous research this seemed to be the general direction of the ideas. I'd be interested to read the papers confirming your contention.

Links:

Did a quick set of google searches and came up with several papers but nothing ties aging to continuing developmental cycles as you suggested.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0002143

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0020115 (telomere reduction with aging)

http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0020026 (methylation effects)


http://www.nature.com/onc/journal/v22/n6/abs/1206123a.html (full pdf, cpg methylation and cancer)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-radical_theory

http://biosingularity.wordpress.com/2007/04/10/its-never-late-to-reduce-calorie-intake-and-slow-aging/

36. Sun's properties not 'fine-tuned' for life

Comment #183948 by sent2null on May 23, 2008 at 9:22 am

eol

37. Sun's properties not 'fine-tuned' for life

Comment #183786 by sent2null on May 22, 2008 at 8:18 pm

Don_Quix wrote:

Or scores of other possibilities. Take your pick. ;)

And that is precisely the problem with trying to answer the Fermi paradox with the Drake Equation. There are factors that simply were not put into the mix when that equation was postulated. A good example is the possible effects of gamma ray burst events in the early galaxy. How those bursts might have laid the foundations or destroyed the emergence of life at an earlier stage we have no idea. Also, remember that the Galaxy has evolved to its current metal heavy state. As the early large giants died, they expelled their nuclear wastes (li,be,b,c,o..etc.) into the Nebula that we can see today forming new systems. Thus, planets containing sufficient chemistry to have the possibility for forming our kind of life must have been accreted around systems formed in these previously expelled elements. That date limits the formation of any complex chemistry based life to just about when our Sol system started forming about 5 billion years ago. It seems to me that we aren't being inundated by signals for a very simple reason, that it is only a relatively recent event on a galactic scale that any life is reaching our level of intelligence.

Keep in mind also how many times the chance for intelligent life evolving was erased by "the rock". Take your pick, our planet has been devastated by extra planetary mass extinctions at least 3 times in the last billion years. How frequent are these devastation on average for systems in other parts of the galaxy? How does stellar density effect the likelyhood for cataclysmic life restarting impacts? All of these factors are ones we simply haven't answered or even approximated yet and are not represented in the Drake equation.

I wrote a tangential post about the possible consequences of GRB events and the evolving galaxy just the other day, it is an excerpt from an email conversation I had with a colleague back in 2006, some here might find the points raised interesting.

http://sent2null.blogspot.com/

38. In God's Name

Comment #183005 by sent2null on May 21, 2008 at 7:57 am

DavidSJA wrote:

This is what I meant by you cannot fight the conviction and belief: you will not change the believer's mind. However, you can fight the outcomes of those beliefs and you fight expose the beliefs for what they are in the wider social context, and we absolutely should be doing that. I hope I am not being too optimistic when I say that I think that when society sees the beliefs for what they are that they will treat them with the contempt they deserve.

As a former believer I can say the only way to approach the problem is by slow and deliberate education. I am trained as a scientist and have done engineering or programming my entire career. I also was raised by a devout mother under evangelical protestant flavor of religion while being sent to catholic school for elementary. The interaction with the different faiths forced me to confront the differences early on yet it still took me 20 years to finally grow bold enough to realize that there are no watching Gods. The main reason had to do with the fact that I wasn't really applying my rational mind, the mind of science to my religion. I bought the lie that religious faith was outside of scientific analysis, it was only when I started to think more about it scientifically (around the time of a death in the family) that I started to research the history of religion and then was able to push my concept of a God further into irrelevance. By the dawn of the new millennium I realized what faith I had previously was totally gone, I wish that I did have a colleague who I could have argued with these issues over but I knew few people that were willing to discuss their faith or lack their of. I did my own research and convinced myself that "faith" was both irrational and non-empirical and that as a scientist I must accept the preeminence of the data. I can see the process of educating people into enlightenment will vary with the person but I truly believe all (baring the truly mentally disabled) can be convinced with enough time. Of course we may not have time, as was pointed out...the religious breed like rabbits, left alone even a secular society that allows freedom of religion will eventually become dominated by religious ideas (case in point what happened to the US over the last 200 years)

A truly secular government must not simply close its eyes to religion by saying "we take no position" it must say outright "we take the position of evidence" and act so that evidence is the ultimate determinant of any decisions enacted by that government. I agree with Richard completely when he says there should be more study of religion in school. All public universities should be forced to have a "religious history" elective to illustrate the story of the creation , evolution and adaptation of religious ideas over the entire planet over time. One of the biggest aides to my rejection of faith was a non western history course I took in college. I was amazed by the similarities between the stories of creation in Egypt, Babylon and regions in the near east that were dominant before the emergence of the Jewish nation. It forced me to ask the questions that allowed me to realize the Bible wasn't zapped down to Earth as if teleported from God (as many believers accept since they otherwise have no historical context for its creation!), it was compiled over time by hundreds of individuals with specific agendas, specific desires and similar culture. It only made sense that it would call the Jews chosen as they wrote it. As I learned about the origins of other religions the same patterns arose, selfish reasons for creation, an expression of an entire cultures ego. A manifestation of their sense of self importance after having some success in surviving this world.

One thing I think most humanists have in common is an insatiable desire to get information across multiple sources. Many of us no more than a little about history, anthropology, geology, biology, chemistry and physics. The ability to realize certain truths can only come once one has the experience from all these different areas. A metaphor to describe it, how a mountain range looks will vary depending on your elevation. Your ability to describe it will vary with where you have been on it, the same is true with regard to the landscape of different "mountains" that form the areas of knowledge that overlap in order to reveal the truths of reality. How many of us would really think it obvious that the Earth revolves about the Sun and not visa versa? It took thousands of years to prove this idea (which admittedly itself is thousands of years old) which is literally contradicted by "evidence" of the sun rotating around our seemingly fixed position. It took a description of planetary orbits (Kepler), observations and calculations of acceleration (Galileo) and then of gravity itself(Newton) to fully show that the heliocentric model was the correct one. Just as obvious it is that the Earth moves today with these tools it was obvious and accepted that the Sun moved in the past, the difference in conviction is in the tools. If we provide the tools we can change convictions but as mentioned earlier it will take time.

Do we have it?

39. Geeks and Guinness: the formula for sexy science

Comment #182629 by sent2null on May 20, 2008 at 5:13 pm

steve kap wrote:

2) Your idea, that aging is due to some lose of efficiency over time, thats not well accepted in the scientific community. Most believe that aging has to do with development, that is, genes that have positive effects in the early stages of development may have negative effects in later stages. Kind of an evolutionary cul-de-sac.

I should have clarified what I meant by lose efficiency, the over all result is that on a macroscopic level (failed bone replacement, failed skin regeneration, increased heart muscle rigidity...etc.) but on the microscopic level the idea is that junk builds up in the cell and eventually clogs the works. This could account for changes in cell chemistry that modify enzyme and protein production in deleterious ways that then give rise to the macroscopic failures we associate with aging. Though free radical damage over time could contribute to direct DNA damage that leads to slow systemic failure I doubt there is any in born mechanism that leads to the break down on a macroscopic scale. It sounds like what you are describing is cellular apoptosis which is a microscopic process of senesence and is indeed recognized as a primary method of gene triggered death of cells but that is very different from the slow process of systemic death that we call aging. The recent reports on increased life times for mice and other organisms by simply changing their diet points to a large factor having to do with the "machinery" of the cell rather than any triggered changes by the genes.

40. Geeks and Guinness: the formula for sexy science

Comment #182397 by sent2null on May 20, 2008 at 12:02 am

What specific aspects of De Grey's ideas do you find are un-scientific or lack science Szkeptik?

The recent advances (regeneration of skin in mice, affects on aging of calorie restriction in rats..etc.) in pinning down the cellular destabilization that attends aging seem to point toward exactly what he's been saying. I see no reason to think we can't live continuously extended lives, should we figure out how to repair or replace what needs repairing before it kills us, do you doubt we will ever have this knowledge? If so, keep in mind that today we have the knowledge to build incredibly complex chips with millions of microscopic circuit components. I see the job of reverse engineering biology, now that we actually are deciphering the code will be much easier precisely because biology will only need to be reverse engineered. We have the blue prints (DNA) and the finished products (organism) we just need to figure out the encodings and then determine where they lose efficiency over time ie. "age" Mind you I am looking at the problem from the perspective of an electrical engineer and software designer, a perspective I think that has been sorely lacking in the realm of biology (no disrespect intended to any biologists reading that have tried to bridge the gap) In our realm we have to design systems from components and we usually don't have a ready made example of the construction that we can use to figure out how best to write our code or design our circuits.

The task of deciphering our biology will and has been difficult but the rate of advance is rapid, actually faster than I thought 8 years ago when I seriously started thinking about these ideas. What mostly stands in our way is a mountain of difficult computations that simply need more computer horse power thrown and them and that continues to come at about the rate that Moore predicted still.

I am interested to read what your specific objections are..

41. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #172524 by sent2null on April 29, 2008 at 4:55 pm

Regarding the comment time outs.

I'd pull out my hair if I had any over this issue, in the early days I'd lose comments due to time outs more often than is acceptable, but I have since come into the reflexive habit of doing a "ctrl A , ctrl C" just before submitting the comment. The timeout on the session is amazingly (seems like 5 minutes) short and as someone mentioned, for this site (at least the commenting system) is not really needed.

42. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #172520 by sent2null on April 29, 2008 at 4:50 pm

How any human being could accept this madness inspired by religious insanity any where in the world and explain it away as a part of "culture" that needs to be respected in any way is beyond me.

Stone age behavior based on misogyny, sexism, ignorance and stupidity rolled up into one. I am sitting here literally and viscerally enraged, but what can I do? What can we truly do to shake the disease that makes the actions taken by this "father" from the minds of future generations? It is a sad and pathetic story, a killing over nothing but the belief that some sick twisted religiously sourced concept of "honor" is being upheld...and a mother who refused to accept it in hiding for her own life after she divorced the "father" who killed her daughter.

43. Science Debate 2008

Comment #161149 by sent2null on April 15, 2008 at 12:37 am

Kintaro_crab

To use blockquotes the correct syntax is:

< blockquote> stuff here < / blockquote>

(remove spaces before "b" and it should render as)

stuff here

The start and close tags must match (in your example you had a typo on the "qoute" start tag..which is the wrong tag to boot!)

44. 'Expelled' ripped off Harvard's 'Inner Life of the Cell' animation

Comment #159249 by sent2null on April 11, 2008 at 6:36 pm

Oh I knew I was in for some fun reading when the email started with :

"To the anti-ID community which is giving XVIVO support in our ideological battle against the microcephalic apostates of "Intelligent Design""

I laughed uncontrollably at that bold section, the rest was just icing. The record of the ID-iots plagiarism is plain for all to see.

45. Commentary: Democrats finally getting religion on religion

Comment #157945 by sent2null on April 9, 2008 at 8:00 pm

RE: 23. Comment #157919 by Swedgin on April 9, 2008 at 6:27 pm

Swedgin Now that I see the image of Ian McShane playing the absolutely riveting antagononist from the HBO defunct drama Deadwood. Your name makes sense, may it be a reference to the characters name (Al Swerengen) as it was pronounced by the amiable but feisty Chinese pig keeper and periodic human body disposal technician, Woo?

If so, my hats off to you for having been a fan. I had considered it one of the two best dramas (the other being "The Wire") on HBO during its time until it was so abruptly canceled. I gather the musical and poetic delivery of the 18th century prose was simply far above the heads of most 21st century American audiences. An absolute shame.

46. Pastor attacks scientist's talk

Comment #154858 by sent2null on April 3, 2008 at 8:31 pm

babrock

I was convinced by my own enlightnement that the biggest barrier to people realizing that there are no gods is in their fear of the purposeless life they feel they will lead if there are no gods. Forget the fact that they are in fact atheists to belief in every other God or variant of a God that are believed to be real by Billions of other humans. Their fear is rooted in a personal despair that is summed up simply by what is the meaning of my life now?

Few people sit back to ask them this question when not buffeted by the context of a theistic belief system. For a theist, "knowing" that there is a cosmic puppet master in the sky is actually a comfort. It allows them to explain away the capricious acts of people and nature as part of "god's will" without probing deeper. It takes energy to probe these questions and you and I and many others who have prized rational thinking have realized. As with all forms of energy, the cost of expenditure retards the act...especially when the energy requires deep thought piecing together knowledge from seemingly disparate areas of human endeavor.

I can not say I would be an atheist/strict scientific agnostic today if it were not for my innate desire to seek knowledge in multiple areas. I was reading Encyclopedia's for fun at 7, I was programming in basic at 11, for me it was natural and normal to seek constant mental stimulation, but the cold fact is most people aren't like me or us in this hunger for knowledge.

Their ability then to synthesize a world view that is correlated more closely to "the truth" of what this all means is necessarily much reduced compared to us. This is true even if we as individuals have only a partial understanding of the many areas that we've investigated. I wrote a blog post that describes the importance of mastering multiple mountains that explains the advantage of acquiring multi-disciplinary data points. I think the only way to lead our friends and family who are steeped in the world of hocus pocus into the light is by slow careful exposure to the wonders of knowledge from the many different areas that we have acquired. Trying to point out the ridiculousness of their views directly doesn't work no matter how innocuously we present the argument (as Dawkin's IMO is such an expert at doing...most times. ;)), the shield of faith (and fear) is strong. I've embarked on the task with about a half dozen friends who are slowly coming around (I know because they now seek my out to ask questions and "debate") lucky for them I am a very patient teacher. ;)

As for the OP, oh well...

My blog post:
http://sent2null.blogspot.com/2008/02/mastering-multiple-mountains.html

47. Beware the Believers

Comment #153405 by sent2null on April 1, 2008 at 12:59 pm

419. Comment #153350 by Steve Zara on April 1, 2008 at 12:12 pm
avatarComment #153115 by agg

That is actually rather beautiful. I want one!

I'll have to second Steve's opinion. The evolving "jesus fish" with bling does look good!

Unfortunately, all the actual jewelry that I could find with a google search returned items that were amazingly obnoxious, with a huge "darwin" spelled out in the core. As seen here...

http://www.prankplace.com/darwinfish.htm?KBID=1163

Not nearly as pleasing as agg's rendition. You could try getting http://www.jacobandcojewelry.com/">Jacob the Jeweler to craft one for you Steve, at a price. ;)

48. Beware the Believers

Comment #152999 by sent2null on March 31, 2008 at 8:21 pm

RE: 382. Comment #152769 by Spinoza on March 31, 2008 at 2:16 pm
avatar

It is demonstrated here among individuals who prize them selves as rationalist and empiricist.

Just noticed this little gem of an oxymoron. Not meaning to insult the person who said it, but that is a contradiction in terms.

That would be me Spinoza, and yes I was using the colloquial version ( I am an engineer not a philosopher!) of the term "empiricist" but you still couldn't help pushing the pedantry.

oh well!

49. Beware the Believers

Comment #152697 by sent2null on March 31, 2008 at 11:12 am

Re: 358. Comment #152472 by khafre78 on March 31, 2008 at 5:52 am

Wow this is still going on..Khafre78, I pointed out a few pages ago that the misunderstandings are due to different grasp of the grammatical and cultural devices of hip hop/rap but people still look for conspiracy theories. Rather than question their understanding of the art, they assume they "get it" and conclude that their interpretation must be right. Though it seems the views backing "pro rational" seem to be dominating the ID conspiracy views, it is ironic to an extreme that so many stick to convoluted explanations of out of context and misunderstood aspects of the video/rap to create their theories...just like what the religious do.

This brings a very interesting point to the for, that all it takes is the slightest out of context read of a bit of real data for the human imagination to run free beyond empirical evidence into the land of unrestrained hypothesis. It is demonstrated here among individuals who prize them selves as rationalist and empiricist. It should not surprise us one bit that so much of the world is steeped in religious belief if we rationalists find it so difficult to gain consensus on something as material as deciphering poetry. It would be nice for the author to come out and state their intent once and for all just to put this discussion to rest, but I gather they may not even be aware of the beast that they have stirred from its slumber!

50. Beware the Believers

Comment #151974 by sent2null on March 29, 2008 at 8:12 pm

start PSA


Reading the reaction to this piece of rap satire brings a few things to mind. First, there seem to be several views on its purpose all correlated to the various levels of misunderstanding on the part of the viewer of the genre of rap.

I'd like to say to all who think this video is planted by a pro ID shill, that they are wrong. The only qualifications I can bring to back my assertion are that I was listening to rap before it was rap. (hip hop) It just so happens I was born and raised in NY where hip hop was invented during the late 70's to 80's, I experienced the full flowering of the genre. Having been the first of the MTV generation my musical tastes are expansive, from Liszt to LL Cool Jay. ;) I've also dabbled in putting together my own raps as a teen and college student, just for fun. I am sure many of the viewers who were raised during the same time as I can attest to having done the same. That said, this rap and video is quite clever in its presentation and I can see how the rapid delivery of the lyrics at some points could be cause of the misunderstandings of the uninitiated. However, there isn't a single area that can be even implied to back a pro ID view when analyzed in context with the rest of the song and video. The need to interpret the work in context is a hallmark of many forms of lyrical poetry, it was true of Shakespeare's poetry, it was true of Dante's poetry and is true of modern day rap today. It is easy to get the wrong meaning out of it if you miss the associated context and/or you aren't familiar with the common rap devices (grammatical styling..etc).

I suggest to all the confused, a study of the lyrical and symbolic(the chains with dollar signs have nothing to do with the scientific method representing dogma or having an agenda as TwiddleFlare stated earlier) devices commonly used in the genre, after that you can watch it again with the scales of ignorance pealed from your eyes and the result will leave no doubt as to which side it defends and which side it defames. If you understand it and you are a rationalist , you will find it funny. If you understand it and you are a creationist, you will hate it.

The few claims I've seen that this form of expression have no merit simply because some viewers lack understanding of its intent are unwise. Most of us had a hard time getting around Shakespearean prose the first time we came across it but the patient among us didn't call it rubbish and say it made no sense simply because we could not understand it. We learned the grammatical devices of the Bard and teased out the meaning of his prose. Though modern day rap is not Shakespeare it is similar in that complex elements are relayed using unfamiliar grammatical devices and clever metaphors, but like Shakespeare these devices have a stable structure that allows well written raps to be easily decoded by those that know how. ;)

end PSA