Comments by flobear

1. Palin's Church May Have Shaped Controversial Worldview

Comment #241999 by flobear on September 3, 2008 at 9:44 am

Oh gosh. My pour country! Is there any chance of reversing our war of independence? Perhaps Canada will annex us? Any takers? Anyone?

2. Beetle drive

Comment #239247 by flobear on August 29, 2008 at 10:05 am

Carto: But evolution generally does reach the optimal survival solutions provided those solutions are viable.

Well, evolution will gradually approach a local maxima (optima?), but I believe it's inaccurate to say "optimal." Unless there is a gradual pathway of steady improvement towards having the horns be penises as well, I'm afraid the beetle will be stuck in its current configuration. Dawkins' "Climbing Mt Improbable" covers this wonderfully.

cobra: You could substitute any zealously dogmatic group ... Catholics? Israelis? Protestants?

I think you mean "orthodox Jews", not Israelis. Israelis can't really be called a "zealously dogmatic group." Also, they're quite secular - especially compared to the US.

3. Congresswoman Slams Religious Right's Assault on Science's 'Edgier' Side

Comment #225776 by flobear on August 7, 2008 at 11:12 am

The Bush administration appointed not just one, but two people to direct the Office of Family Planning who are opposed to birth control, they would be horrified.

Wait, there's an government Office of Family Planning!? That's double un-good.

4. Interview with Paula Kirby on 'The Right Hook'

Comment #224976 by flobear on August 6, 2008 at 4:14 am

Great job Paula. Keep up the good work. I agree with most of the comments that your calm unaggressive style was simply perfect. Although the priest got more time, I think it was because he rambled a lot and didn't get his point across very quickly.

5. Do they really think the earth is flat?

Comment #224307 by flobear on August 4, 2008 at 12:58 pm

Apathy: WHY would we set up such a conspiracy, to what end or purpose would lying about the shape of the Earth serve

Obviously to make money. The oil companies are making a fortune making planes fly and cars drive in arcs instead of straight lines.

Aegis: I made the logo for this site, for filthy lucre

Heck, I'd be their spokesperson if it paid well.

6. Richard Dawkins branded 'secularist bigot' by veteran philosopher

Comment #223270 by flobear on August 1, 2008 at 11:11 pm

The whole enterprise of The God Delusion was not... an attempt to discover and spread knowledge of the existence or non-existence of God but rather an attempt ... to spread the author's own convictions in this area.

This doesn't even make sense. Doesn't this apply to um... every single non-fiction book ever? How can anyone write something besides their own convictions?

7. 'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution

Comment #223151 by flobear on August 1, 2008 at 3:25 pm

phil: Thanks for the explanations.

cerad said:

Folks, lets try to remember that atheists are expected to exhibit a certain amount of skepticism.

True, but we can still be excited and skeptical at the same time.

8. 'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution

Comment #223107 by flobear on August 1, 2008 at 1:24 pm

Anyone have any idea how this is different than just electrolyzing water by applying a high voltage?

9. A third of Muslim students back killings

Comment #219908 by flobear on July 27, 2008 at 6:35 pm

The problem seems to be getting worse and worse.

I recommend the book "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books" by Azar Nafisi. It's a nonfiction account of a university professor's experience teaching English in Tehran. It is truly frightening how radical Islam took over the educated university student population. Perhaps it's not true that if we just educate people they won't be immune to the effects of religion (or perhaps just Islam).

10. Texas Fiction Science

Comment #219039 by flobear on July 26, 2008 at 6:53 am

What would really be useful is if the higher learning institutions started to get involved. They've been completely silent as far as I can tell.

Wouldn't it have a persuasive effect if, say, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, etc. all said they would be less likely to accept students into their science programs from states that interfere with the teaching of evolution?

If the US academics are concerned with the direction science is taking then they should mobilize and at the very least, make a statement.

11. Ten Commandments' of race and genetics issued

Comment #213076 by flobear on July 18, 2008 at 5:58 am

The phrase "All races are created equal" is a play on the famous statement by Thomas Jefferson that "all men are created equal." It's in the Declaration of Independance. Most Americans will be familiar with that statement, though I suspect it was a bit of an oversight considering the international community.

One other note:

a multidisciplinary group â€" ranging from geneticists and psychologists to historians and philosophers

What, no theologians? Who will defend human dignity!? http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=d8731cf4-e87b-4d88-b7e7-f5059cd0bfbd

12. Anti-Darwinists turned away by Israeli academia

Comment #212370 by flobear on July 17, 2008 at 5:15 am

I know a lot of people on this forum dislike Israel, but this article is a testament to the fact that, unlike their neighbors, they have a lot of things right in their country.

Noamzur: Good job digging that up. Funny sometimes how small the world is.

13. Man Sues Church Over 'God Injury'

Comment #209791 by flobear on July 13, 2008 at 11:05 am

I was trying to think of something funny to say about this article but nothing really tops the event itself. It stands on its own.

14. Forget not to smite

Comment #209619 by flobear on July 12, 2008 at 8:39 pm

Laurie:

I believe it's smotified.

15. Weak US dollar hits papal profits

Comment #208837 by flobear on July 11, 2008 at 9:43 am

Well I guess there's some good news about the falling US economy. On the other hand, this is partly due to the increase in the price of oil. Probably the money is simply diverted from the Vatican to Saudi Arabia.

If the choice is between (a) people that get really really angry and complain a lot about stolen crackers or (b) people that murder Dutch film directors and suicide bomb discos I'm going with option (a).

edit: not there's an actual choice to be made but still...

16. Flatfish Fossils Fill In Evolutionary Missing Link

Comment #208366 by flobear on July 10, 2008 at 9:49 pm

...answered a question that initially stumped even Charles Darwin.
...A slightly asymmetrical skull offers no advantage.

Right, the fossil record shows that the change was gradual. But what was the reason? What's the answer to the question? How does a slightly asymmetrical skull offer an advantage?

17. Religious bigotry upheld in court

Comment #208071 by flobear on July 10, 2008 at 2:48 pm

This implies that someone can opt out of something encompassed by their job description because it offends their religious sensibilities.

I think that's actually the precedent in the USA. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're a medical doctor I think you can decline performing an abortion or prescribing birth control.

18. Atheism on the buses

Comment #207334 by flobear on July 9, 2008 at 2:13 pm

Dhamma: Only problem is - Someone actually would take it down.

Yeah, you're probably right. Either someone would rip it down (if it wasn't painted on) or they'd threaten boycott/lawsuits.

How about:

"If god were real, why doesn't he remove this sign himself?"

or on the more sarcastic side:

"If god were real, he'd cause his followers to threaten boycott or legal action to have this sign removed"

19. Atheism on the buses

Comment #207188 by flobear on July 9, 2008 at 9:27 am

How about:

If god were real, he'd take this sign down.

20. Atheist soldier sues Army for 'unconstitutional' discrimination

Comment #207158 by flobear on July 9, 2008 at 8:59 am

Well, I guess if you want to send poorly educated teenagers over seas to die for oil, it helps to have them stamped out of the same religious mold. Soon going to war will be our national pastime. Move over baseball.

21. Origin of the Novel Species Noodleous doubleous: Evidence for Intelligent Design

Comment #205718 by flobear on July 7, 2008 at 5:59 pm

Seeing one species of pasta tightly embraced within the pocket of another makes me feel all funny inside. I... don't know if it's.... right.

22. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #205613 by flobear on July 7, 2008 at 2:04 pm

I raped a number of girls to secure the funds I needed for my book. It comes with the territory.

Nice. By the way, did you scour the internet for flat-earth images? If so, you can rest assured there won't be any that are accidentally fishing hooks.

23. When too much Rapture is barely enough

Comment #204599 by flobear on July 5, 2008 at 10:33 am

How did our species make it this far?

24. Does the Pope wear Prada?

Comment #204562 by flobear on July 5, 2008 at 8:28 am

Jenfla: Having grown up in the Catholic faith, the one thing that I have always actually enjoyed about the faith was the art, the iconography... the esthetics.

That's interesting. Having grown up in the Jewish faith I always thought of the Catholic iconography and aesthetics as kind of weird and creepy. I occasionally go to Catholic churches for weddings and funerals. I have always thought it bizarre how much they gesticulate and move in unison during their solemn rituals; what weird clothes the priests wear and their obsession with dark imagery of Jesus being tortured on the cross. I suppose as an atheist I am more keenly aware of it all. It just seems so archaic and cult-like. When I sit there, looking at the faces of all the people with their heads bent in prayer, I often find myself wondering what is going on inside their heads and I wonder what argument, what tone of voice, what facial expressions I'd have to use to snap them out of it all.

25. New Zealand man sells his soul to 'Hell'

Comment #203720 by flobear on July 3, 2008 at 12:27 pm

Would the transfer of a soul be a taxable exchange in the US? Would someone have to report it to the IRS? Perhaps capital gains tax will be applied after a re-sale.

26. Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill

Comment #198514 by flobear on June 24, 2008 at 7:26 am

My favorite is when people need to add *sarcasm* at the end of their post to spell it out for people.

Yeah, that's really clever. *sarcasm*

27. The Expelled Evolutionist

Comment #189115 by flobear on June 5, 2008 at 1:36 pm

Teachers should have the right to teach what they believe is right, even if it runs counter to the scientific mainstream.

Is being an idiot a right? I guess it is. I don't have any ethical problems with idiots as long as they are not teaching my children about science.

edit: So I guess these people wouldn't mind a Muslim science teacher explaining that the Koran is the ultimate truth about the universe. Seriously, these arguments are so inane I can't believe they're spoken by actual adults.

28. Animal Science Without Evolution

Comment #184777 by flobear on May 26, 2008 at 6:39 am

Couldn't seem to find any comments on the book on Amazon.

Here's the link to the book I found.

http://www.amazon.com/Apologia-Apologia-Young-Explorer-Exploring-Apologia-Land/dp/1932012850/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211808818&sr=1-1

Is this a different version?

29. New Tool To Understand Evolution Of Multi-domain Genes Developed

Comment #182100 by flobear on May 19, 2008 at 8:15 am

Good job CMU!

<--- CMU Alum

30. Mayor challenges pope during Genoa visit

Comment #182093 by flobear on May 19, 2008 at 8:07 am

The pro-abortion mayor...

Uh... don't they mean "pro-choice"? Maybe this is an Americanism but saying "I'm pro-abortion" is kind of like saying "I'm pro-slaughter" instead of "I like steak."

31. The Stupidity of Dignity

Comment #179140 by flobear on May 12, 2008 at 6:49 pm

Wonderful article. I always enjoy listening to Pinker's interviews or reading his articles.

32. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178397 by flobear on May 11, 2008 at 10:56 am

This is why he's a Professor of Public Understanding of Science.

33. I Am Evolution

Comment #178390 by flobear on May 11, 2008 at 10:43 am

I think one of the reasons scientists find it so difficult to write beautifully in defense of evolution is that they're just completely befuddled at the disbelief.

Also, their training and experience does not equip them to handle those with intentional and determined ignorance.

34. My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #177235 by flobear on May 8, 2008 at 7:46 pm

I think it's particularly poor taste to publicly compare a Rabbi to Hitler and I don't blame Shmuley for being upset. It's a common joke on the internet that to win any argument you only need to compare someone to Hitler. I know, I know, Richard didn't exactly say he held Hitlers opinions, but seriously this is still an ad hominem attack. I wish RD had simply apologized.

35. School bars same-sex partners at formals

Comment #161456 by flobear on April 15, 2008 at 10:07 am

They shouldn't even be having those dances in the first place. Imagine! Young girls and boys fraternizing with each other. The whole thing sounds like an invitation for the devil. What they should do is replace the event with an abstinence education seminar and throw in some brain gym for good measure.

36. Science Debate 2008

Comment #161096 by flobear on April 14, 2008 at 7:42 pm

I don't care if they remember much of high school biology or not. What matters is if they hire a good science adviser and listen to them. What matters is if they trust scientific evidence for what it is. What matters is if they accept scientific consensus and act upon it.

37. British schools are falling for the pseudoscience of Brain Gym. Why fill kids' heads with nonsense?

Comment #160743 by flobear on April 14, 2008 at 10:49 am

Elles: In the US, an 'A' is the best grade. I'm guessing it's not where you're from, right?

38. British schools are falling for the pseudoscience of Brain Gym. Why fill kids' heads with nonsense?

Comment #160616 by flobear on April 14, 2008 at 8:30 am

From Cartomancer:

he links to a Paxman interviewing the bloke from this Brain Gym thing. Paxman don't take no shit.

Wow, those videos were painful to watch.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if those exercises actually DID improve performance in students. Everyone knows it's important to take short breaks when working for a long time. Obviously if you're stuck inside listening to a boring teacher drone on about FSM knows what, you'll need a break as often as you can get one.

Why schools can't just implement stretching periods or calming exercises and call it just that is beyond me.

On the other hand, this may be a brilliant way of identifying inept educators. I mean, emotional centering? electrical balancing? who could possibly believe that?

39. 'Darwin chip' brings evolution into the classroom

Comment #158083 by flobear on April 10, 2008 at 4:00 am

DasSquid: Thanks for the explanation. Without it I wouldn't have been able to understand the original article (or at least the parts I read).

I was able to learn that the ligase itself is made of RNA, and that replication does not occur until a promoter region has been attached to it. The "good" ligases are better at attaching this promoter region to themselves. Once the promoter region is attached, other enzymes in the mixture do the replication part.

This stuff is simply amazing! To me, it is such a shame that people cannot see the elegance and beauty of this process. Even when it is demonstrated so perfectly, there are people who refuse to just look!

I wish there was a realize-I'm-being-stupid button on people's foreheads. Right in the middle of their denial you could smash the button *wham!* and then they'd realize...

40. 'Darwin chip' brings evolution into the classroom

Comment #157925 by flobear on April 9, 2008 at 6:50 pm

Computer scientists and engineers have been doing this for a while now - trained artificial neural networks, trained hidden markov models, multi-agent systems, etc...

I'm an engineering PhD student. We regularly use genetic algorithms to solve some problems in our lab. Basically the algorithm creates a population of solutions, sees how well each one fits the selection criteria and then creates a new population by randomly mutating the best "hits".

I must admit though, I don't quite understand the biology that's going on here. How do the better ligases get selected for and replicated? Also, is there mutation going on here or just the variance of the original population? Anyone care to illuminate me?

41. Darwin told us so: Researcher shows natural selection speeds up speciation

Comment #154317 by flobear on April 3, 2008 at 5:17 am

Interesting article, though I can't say I completely understand it.

To those who've commented that this helps our argument against ID'ers or fundies I personally don't agree. If the millionth piece of evidence didn't alter their irrational belief, neither will the million and first.

42. Iowa county board gives initial OK for ghost hunters to investigate asylum

Comment #151380 by flobear on March 28, 2008 at 3:27 pm

epeeist: Why are they looking for ghosts in such a new building?

epeeist: America might be young by European standards, but we have increased paranormal effects due to the prevalence of Native American burial grounds. What else would make those people insane?

43. Report: 32% Of Prayers Deflected Off Passing Satellites

Comment #146974 by flobear on March 19, 2008 at 3:45 pm

Man that's funny.

zoomlines: a bowflex is an all-in-one gym that lots of people buy but no one uses.

44. Sci-fi guru Clarke to have secular funeral

Comment #146956 by flobear on March 19, 2008 at 3:22 pm

I've been a long time admirer of Clarke's books. He was one of many influences that led to my career in science. I'm glad he wants a secular funeral. They're so much more meaningful.

45. Atheists An Increasingly Outspoken Minority

Comment #129620 by flobear on February 19, 2008 at 11:39 am

"Where do you place your trust in times of need? Where do you place your hope in the time of a crisis of confidence?" Hanson said.

Yes, this question is certainly ill conceived. When people are in dire straights, when it seems that there is no way out, when their very lives are at stake, this is the time when they are most likely to behave irrationally. No wonder, when people are in these situations they grasp wildly for any possible assistance, real or otherwise. The question then becomes "who do you turn to when you are most likely to behave irrationally?" Many people cry out for a deity. Obviously this doesn't prove anything.

46. New meat-eating dinos identified

Comment #126931 by flobear on February 14, 2008 at 2:09 pm

Great stuff.

movingshadow: would it have been so hard to say "therapod" instead of meat eating dino?

I wouldn't have known what a therapod is!

47. Christopher Hitchens Debates Timothy Jackson

Comment #122680 by flobear on February 5, 2008 at 7:40 pm

I don't know how everyone can make it to the end of these debates. The fallacies Timothy Jackson utters feel like physical blows. The most frustrating part of these debates is that inane arguments come faster than Hitch can refute them. Still, Hitch always does a bang-up job.

Keep on them Hitch!

48. Atheists to celebrate at Darwin Day in Coconut Creek

Comment #121819 by flobear on February 4, 2008 at 7:51 am

I'm going to celebrate Darwin Day by sacrificing a few Christian babies to our non-god and using their blood to make Darwin cookies. Nothing special, just a normal, wholesome atheist family affair.

Epinephrine: I celebrate pi day

Ooh. There's a Pi day? Who are we supposed to sacrifice for that?

49. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #118919 by flobear on January 31, 2008 at 6:55 am

My heart goes out to that poor Afghan student. Just terrible.

For those of us in the USA, here's how to contact your state representative. I plan on doing so and will encourage everyone I know to do the same.

https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

50. Mixing Mammals

Comment #115600 by flobear on January 24, 2008 at 11:43 am

What, exactly, is the purpose of this experiment?

I'm not a biochemist, but I believe historically, scientists were mostly concerned with mutations in the actual genes themselves. In this paper perhaps they were trying to show that a mutation in the regulation of a gene (which occurs in a location outside the gene) is just as important.

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