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Comments by ThoughtsonCommonToad


301. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160945 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 3:11 pm

I use it in the sense of common to all. So not to sound too fluffy but there could be the presence of certain moral impulses that are universal to all humans on which to build (using the principle of consistency) a framework for morality.

302. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160936 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 3:00 pm

It's the right response if I'm wrong I wish to know. Yes there will be variation but that doesn't exclude universals as far as I can see. Generative grammar is an analogy.

303. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160932 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 2:51 pm

Evolutionary psychology is very fruitful and interesting, and it can explain *why* we behave in certain manners; but it cannot explain how we *should* behave. And this is what 'human rights' seeks to do.

Exactly but I repeat:
If you apply consistency there can be a human morality. When we more fully understand our impulses we can discover truly objective human universals on which to build a human morality

304. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160930 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 2:49 pm

Should you wish to continue living in that "glorious past", do so properly, without the "mod-cons" current western society has offered mankind. Should you actually live that way, i.e. believe what you say, then I would have no argument with you, because you are actually putting your ethics in this case where your mouth is.
However you are using a computer and the Internet, so you are not actually putting your 18th Century ethics where your mouth is.

Non-sequitur.

Whereas I agree with you that humans are nothing more than sophisticated animals, the fact you can condone such action astonishes me (unless you are playing devils advocate here).
Should you be of breeding age, and have the fortune to have produced an offspring, male or female, how can you still feel the same way? Would you condone your son engaging in coitus with a child? Would you condone your child daughter engaging in prostitution, and act as a pimp?
No he is simply discussing moral relativism and objective morality I'm sure he still helps old ladies cross the street

You can act outraged but it serves no purpose. Henri as far as I can tell is having a detached discussion on morality.

305. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160913 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 2:37 pm

If you apply consistency there can be a human morality. When we more fully understand our impulses we can discover truly objective human universals on which to build a human morality.

306. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #160899 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 2:28 pm

Indifference is in fact something that can't be defended against. I think this is where Hitchens comes from. The only choice if you wish to survive is to murder people who are indifferent murderers.

307. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160890 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 2:21 pm

Fallacious reasoning. Lions and killer whales do not possess what humans do: intelligence and culture.


Actually he is right. And what you give is a matter of definition. Where he is wrong is that there can be no human morality. I think the principle of consistency allows that there can.

308. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160884 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 2:13 pm

Principles such as equality, freedom, concern and sympathy for others, can be shown to be consistent with certain feelings, such as you own wish to be cared for, for example, that privilege is far more likely to be born than earned so an argument for privatisation of necessities is a shaky argument etc, but if a person has different feelings then these principles are meaningless. If you care about the human race surviving then certain things follow from that.
It is a fairly conservative conclusion that humans by and large share the same feelings considering our commonality.

309. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160873 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 1:57 pm

Yes Henri true. Nothing is either right or wrong. However we can have a nice academic discussion on the morality and we come up with the fact that there is no objective morality and it is a matter of emotion. However one caveat. Humans share commonalities.

310. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160861 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 1:43 pm

I'm neither a cultural relativist or multiculturist



AND

Human rights are not actually universal, but particular to the modern-age West. In a few hundred years they will pass.


Is that not a contradiction?

311. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160858 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 1:35 pm

We are all human and therefore share a common human nature. To allow cultural constructs to suppress basic common human desires is immoral. You seem to think that "those backwards brown folks are too primitive for our enlightened freedoms". That is sir, hideously racist and bigotted.

312. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160851 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 1:28 pm

You commentators here are being very naïve: you cannot judge another culture from your own culture's perspective.

'Human rights' is just a western notion that, like 'God', cannot be proven.


If our western god-like notions, and our white male science told us of a coming earthquake it would be immoral not to tell the inhabitants of the earthquake zone that it was coming, even if the cultural elders believed that the fairy queen had not informed them of this event.

We assume with enlightenment comes the desire for equality and freedom etc, basically fundamental human rights. To not give people the information, the means to realise this is immoral.

Your blinkered by relativism and multiculturalism.

We are all human and therefore share a common human nature. To allow cultural constructs to suppress basic common human desires is immoral. You seem to think that "those backwards brown folks are too primitive for our enlightened freedoms". That is sir, horrifically racist and bigotted.

313. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #160818 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 12:30 pm

Some of Chomsky's best work is his critique of the media, remember he is a professor of linguistics, that skill comes in handy when analysing the news media itself.


No linguistics has no connection at all as far as I can see. He critiques the media by showing their omission. That's the irony in Steve's critique.

314. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160789 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 11:47 am

Naturalist1 aka Darrell. I think this article illustrates my point

http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,2247,Why-multiculturalism-must-be-abandoned,Johann-Hari

In short merely that diversity is not something to be preserved or respected when it violates basic human rights. "But its your tradition".

315. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #160777 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 11:38 am

Perhaps, but I think it is very important. It is the question of how does one determine the veracity of experts in a subject. I do sense a worrying tendency in some quarters (and not just in terms of politics) to pick an expert who is one of us. Want to push global warming aside as not that vital to deal with? Pick Bjorn Lomborg. Dislike the US government foreign policy? Pick Noam Chomsky. Want to support the Iraq war but still feel reasonably left-wing? Pick Christopher Hitchens. This applies to science to: want a physicist who will make you feel comfortable about the fine-tuning issue? Pick Victor Stenger. Want some naughty mention of the "God" word in your physics, while remaning atheist? Pick Paul Davies.


Yes Steve but is not this so self-evidently obvious it is a truism that is barely worth repeating.

I should soon switch back to the issues of Chomsky's actual arguments, although that could lead to a fractal discussion of arguments within arguments within arguments, going into ever finer detail about who said what and when.


Actually if it's Chomsky's actual arguments then it will lead to a discussion of Chomsky's arguments.

Perhaps I was foolish to have mentioned this at all.


No, merely that you have so far only asserted widely rehearsed slander, without evidence, that has been dealt with. Srebenica and the fence, Al-Shifa and some other, as yet ellusive omissions.

316. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #160729 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 10:25 am

Actually Al I think your profiling rather than being racist.

317. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160723 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 10:19 am

Castes are common throughout the world and throughout history. The problems will only ever start to be tackled when the poisonous doctrine of multiculturalism dies a very belated death.

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

Comment #160479 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 6:33 am

Charlie Brooker - The 10 biggest cocks in advertising

And another Brilliant

Charlie Brooker. Fantastic

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

Comment #160474 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 6:26 am

Someone once said If you want to get rich, start a religion. How about just peddling the most stupid bullshit you can think off and dressing it up with sophistry.
Ahh bloody tautologies I hate repeating myself. (pun intended!)

320. A New Flea

Comment #160466 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 14, 2008 at 6:10 am

According to Wikipedia Keith Ward was once a lecturer in Logic at Glasgow. So how is it possible for him to utter these gems (tip of the hat to mmurray).

What the Bible Really Teaches: A Challenge for Fundamentalists (2004)

"I am a born-again Christian. I can give a precise day when Christ came to me and began to transform my life with his power and love. He did not make me a saint. But he did make me a forgiven sinner, liberated and renewed, touched by divine power and given the immense gift of an intimate sense of the personal presence of God. I have no difficulty in saying that I wholeheartedly accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior."

AND

"There may be discrepancies and errors in the sacred writings, but those truths that God wished to see included in the Scripture, and which are important to our salvation, are placed there without error. ... The Bible is not inerrant in detail, but God has ensured that no substantial errors, which mislead us about the nature of salvation, are to be found in Scripture"


Why always white noise?

321. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #160088 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 13, 2008 at 3:57 pm

Steve a quote from chomsky you might find interesting

I think studying science is a good way to get into fields like history. The reason is, you learn what an argument means, you learn what evidence is, you learn what makes sense to postulate and when, what's going to be convincing. You internalize the modes of rational inquiry, which happen to be much more advanced in the sciences than anywhere else. On the other hand, applying relativity theory to history isn't going to get you anywhere. So it's a mode of thinking. I try, at least -- with what success; others have to judge -- to [apply] the mode of thinking that you would use in the sciences to human affairs.

You said somewhere, I think in this new book on power, "You can lie or distort the story of the French Revolution as long as you like and nothing will happen. Propose a false theory in chemistry and it will be refuted tomorrow."

Yes, that's the kind of thing I mean. Nature is tough. You can't fiddle with Mother Nature, she's a hard taskmistress. So you're forced to be honest in the natural sciences. In the soft fields, you're not forced to be honest. There are standards, of course; on the other hand, they're very weak. If what you propose is ideologically acceptable, that is, supportive of power systems, you can get away with a huge amount. In fact, the difference between the conditions that are imposed on dissident opinion and on mainstream opinion are radically different.

322. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #160083 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 13, 2008 at 3:48 pm

Cartomancer

That's quite a slur against the profession of academic historians if you think about it. Suddenly scientists are able to think rationally and dispassionately about the evidence in front of them but historians are not?

Take Vietnam how many people have heard about the My Lai massacre. Heres an anecdote from Howard Zinn
What we saw in Vietnam was horrifying, and obviously it was horrifying even to GIs in Vietnam, because they began to come back from Vietnam and to oppose the war and to form Vietnam Veterans Against the War. So, you know, we saw villages, as far away from any military target as you can imagine, absolutely destroyed, and children killed�"and their graves still fresh�"by American jet planes coming over in the middle of the night.

You know, when I hear them talk about John McCain as a hero, I say to myself, oh, yes, he was a prisoner, and prisoners are maltreated everywhere, and this is terrible, but John McCain, like the other American fliers, what were they doing? They were bombing defenseless people.

And so, yes, Vietnam is something that, by the way, is still not taught very well in American schools. I spoke to a group of people in an advanced history class not long ago, a hundred kids, asked them, "How many people here have heard of the My Lai Massacre?" No hand was raised. We are not teaching Vietnam. If we were teaching the history of Vietnam as it should be taught, then the American people, from the start, would have opposed the war, instead of waiting three or four years for a majority of the American people to declare their opposition to the war.

323. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #160068 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 13, 2008 at 3:34 pm

Andrew Marr and Chomsky. Shows the problem of consensus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSuaGIKTaEA

As to scientific consensus I may have been to rash. The Blank State etc.

324. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #160055 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 13, 2008 at 3:18 pm

I treat issues like this the same way as scientific controveries. I try and sample views from the consensus.

That would seem a good analogy, science is in the consensus so why not in the media? Its like saying Chomsky is equivalent to ID proponents in the evolution "debate". It would seem a good way to approach History.
Unfortunately the media and intellectuals who write history are systematically biased in favour of power. So consensus in media is essentially what people want you to hear.
For example consensus teaches us Mother Teresa and Ghandi are at the summit of morality (when the opposite is true), that Churchill is a hero and the US is a benevolent force for good.

The fence issue is a perfect example of this.

325. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #160046 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 13, 2008 at 3:05 pm

Yes I agree Steve but the interview covers all the ground being discussed about Kosovo and the issue you specifically cite about the "fence" is dealt with in part 3, its less than 5 minutes long and answers your questions. The thing about Chomsky is there is barely anything he says that is not provided with a footnote to the source.

Plasticity
It is without doubt more destructive numerically. Moral equivalence is a way to prevent criticism.

Chomsky explains why he doesn't rail against other forms of injustice

...suppose we were in Russia in the 1980s and some dissident was criticizing the Russian invasion. Well, a commissar could have stood up and said, "Look, why are you criticizing the Russian invasion? Why aren't you criticizing what the Afghans are doing to each other?" Yeah, that's a standard commissar line. We know what to think about it. You and I are responsible for what you and I can do -- and what we do. We have no moral responsibility for what other people do that we can't effect. We may hate it but we can't do anything about it. Like, we could have a debate, a discussion right now about the crimes of Genghis Khan. And we might be correct about it. It would have no moral value whatsoever.

326. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #159912 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 13, 2008 at 11:43 am

3. The third lot are those who argue for a particular, revealed religion: Christianity, Islam, whatever, with Holy Book, rules, an interventionist God, etc. Shades into Dr Benway's Biblebots, who are the most unreachable. But many in this category could be asked to ponder on such crucial questions as 'why is your holy book uniquely true?' and 'why is your revelation so late and narrowly restricted in such a vast universe?' Possibly more effective than nitpicking bible quotations?

You "attack" them on their own ground. Show them biblical contradictions, idiocies, fallibility etc. Tell them to read Bart Ehrman. Not many religious believers are persuaded by epistemological arguments. Get them on their own ground. Get them to question themselves. Ultimately all persuasion is self-persuasion.

327. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159895 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 13, 2008 at 11:07 am

Yes Frankus1122 Thank You. I've fixed the link

328. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159866 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 13, 2008 at 9:28 am

If corporate destruction of the world is so self-evident, you would have no problems coming up with other examples, would you?


Thank You.

A corporation is a legal person (abuse of the 14th Amendment set up to protect slaves) , if we treat it as such it is a psychopathic person. By law, a corporation can only consider the interests of their shareholders. It is legally bound to put its bottom line before everything else, even the public good.
Sweatshops, pollution, health, the suppression of studies that show products to be unhealthy e.g smoking, countless medicines, the creation of diseases so drugs can be marketed. Healthcare in general. The privatisation of natural resources google privatisation of rainwater in Bolivia for example, or take villages in Africa that can't get access to water because they have to pay to use the well, so they die. Marketing Campaigns that manipulate children. In the US, the Supreme Court ruled that anything alive can be patented except a human being. The media is censored. American corporations role in Nazi Germany (IBM and the holocaust). I can go on and on.

Watch this for an education

329. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159846 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 13, 2008 at 8:37 am

FightingFalcon I shall give you another well thought out objection. Global Warming. There are issues that are too big, too important to allow Ayn Randian self interest to rule.
You only have to open your eyes to see the destruction and devastation that chasing profits has caused throughout the world, throughout history.

330. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159689 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 12, 2008 at 9:18 pm

We don't have blind faith in corporations. We believe that human beings have the fundamental right to keep whatever money that they make through honest and legal dealings. I have no particular love for Exxon but I recognize the fact that they have the right to keep their profits. They have no responsibility toward anyone or anything other than to make money. That's why they exist - for no other reason do they operate. Corporations exist solely to provide a product that the general population wants. Should a company provide that product in an unsatisfactory manner or the product is no longer required, the customer moves on.
The freedom fallacy of unrestrained capitalism. Please you actually believe this?

331. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #159687 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 12, 2008 at 9:00 pm

OK, I will then. Chomsky's ludicrous claim that the USA bombing of a pharmaceuticals factory in Sudan in 1988 was in any way equivalent to the Al-Quaida attack on the Twin Towers

Srebrenica has gone you've been proved to be utterly wrong and merely repeating propaganda. Now you resort to unfounded assertion. I have already given you the quote where Chomsky makes the comparison. I will give it to you again:
Or take the destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, one little footnote in the record of state terror, quickly forgotten. What would the reaction have been if the bin Laden network had blown up half the pharmaceutical supplies in the U.S. and the facilities for replenishing them? We can imagine, though the comparison is unfair, the consequences are vastly more severe in Sudan


With Chomsky it is all selective reporting and emphasis. He is a propagandist.

Personally, I think he is actually worse for that. It would be more honest he came out with definite statements rather than hiding his prejudices. I have to admit that I don't like Chomsky very much because of this. Even though I disagree with him, I prefer the open and honest Hitchens approach.
Steve you are a propagandist oh wait I can't say that I need to provide evidence to back up such a claim.

And Steve if you have time watch this interview with Chomsky on Serbia, Kosovo, Yugoslavia etc You'll find it answers a lot of your questions even this one
I have yet to get around to looking things up. As I remember it was partly an issue about whether or not a concentration camp was a concentration camp. At one point there was even a claim that people had confused which was the inside and outside of a "fence".
in part 3. It goes to show that you can't trust what you read in the mainstream press, and I'm willing to bet your a guardian reader, it comes up for particular criticism regarding the issue of the "fence". Read Manufacturing Consent, study media omission (something you accuse Chomsky of).

332. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159540 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 12, 2008 at 12:43 pm

Mark Smith Couldn't have put it better myself ;)

333. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159527 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 12, 2008 at 12:09 pm

I don't want people to remain committed to a false position simply because one of the spokesmen for 'the other side' is perceived to be insulting them about their intelligence.
If they have read his book and they think there intelligence is being insulted then fine that implies something. If they just want to be satisfied by hearsay that atheists are evil then again that implies something.
Atheism should not be marketed, spun or anything else. Why? Because it isn't anything.

334. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159520 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 12, 2008 at 11:52 am

Intelligence is basically the ability to understand, learn and create. Simple.
IQ correlates with these abilities. IQ scores however

The unreliability of IQ tests has been proved by numerous researchers. The scores may vary by as much as 15 points from one test to another, while emotional tension, anxiety, and unfamiliarity with the testing process can greatly affect test performance. In addition, Gould described the biasing effect that tester attitudes, qualifications, and instructions can have on testing. In one study, for example, ninety-nine school psychologists independently scored an IQ test from identical records, and came up with IQs ranging from 63 to 117 for the same person.

While we are on IQ, the Worlds Smartest man with an IQ of 195 Chris Langan (although he is not Kim Ung Yong has the highest IQ of 210) has an article about the limits of the scientific method.

335. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159519 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 12, 2008 at 11:46 am

I do worry that he puts some people off atheism with this approach.

Who cares? Atheism doesn't sell anything. Its not a religion. We don't have to follow a code. Atheism is a philosophical position, the only correct one to take on the existence of God based on current evidence. There is no such thing as putting people of atheism.

336. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159515 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 12, 2008 at 11:37 am

Francis Collins argument is as follows
"If you see a man drowning in a river, even if he is a stranger you still have the urge to save him. Evolution can not explain this as its only purpose is to propagate genes."

Paraphrased from an interview with Charlie Rose. Its interesting, Francis Collins is shown up to be simply ignoring the counter arguments and classifies atheism as "the certainty that there is no god". Hmmmmmmm no most atheists are a 6 on Richards scale. He shows up unbelievable ignorance in this interview.

337. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #159503 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 12, 2008 at 10:49 am

This is Chomsky on Kosovo and Milosovic

You seem to have side stepped the issue you were supposed to answer, namely about the Srebrenica massacre. The sources you provide are Hitchens criticisms of Chomsky which centre around "...a bizarre claim by Chomsky regarding a US attack on Sudan."

Bizzare? Here are Chomsky's actual words on the matter from his book of interviews 9-11

Or take the destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, one little footnote in the record of state terror, quickly forgotten. What would the reaction have been if the bin Laden network had blown up half the pharmaceutical supplies in the U.S. and the facilities for replenishing them? We can imagine, though the comparison is unfair, the consequences are vastly more severe in Sudan


I agree hero worship is a problem. Is Chomsky flawed? Does he "squint? I'll let him explain in his own words.
suppose we were in Russia in the 1980s and some dissident was criticizing the Russian invasion. Well, a commissar could have stood up and said, "Look, why are you criticizing the Russian invasion? Why aren't you criticizing what the Afghans are doing to each other?" Yeah, that's a standard commissar line. We know what to think about it. You and I are responsible for what you and I can do -- and what we do. We have no moral responsibility for what other people do that we can't effect. We may hate it but we can't do anything about it. Like, we could have a debate, a discussion right now about the crimes of Genghis Khan. And we might be correct about it. It would have no moral value whatsoever.

338. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #159447 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 12, 2008 at 8:06 am

Steve Zara

Comment #158234 by al-rawandi

Is there any example of this "squinting"?

Wasn't there some issue with Kosovan deaths and concentration camps?

Al-Rawandi
I am not sure. You are the one who said he is "squinting" mentally. That would be your burden to carry.

Steve Zara
No, Chomsky did more than that. He did not just defend someone's right to publish. He backed the views himself, and his opinion in various correspondence and interviews, including in The New Statesman.


OK so we've been given a source at last. That source shows up this quote with regards to Srebrenica
"So later they added charges [against Milosevic] about the Balkans, but it wasn't going to be an easy case to make. The worst crime was Srebrenica but, unfortunately for the International Tribunal, there was an intensive investigation by the Dutch government, which was primarily responsible - their troops were there - and what they concluded was that not only did Milosevic not order it, but he had no knowledge of it. And he was horrified when he heard about it. So it was going to be pretty hard to make that charge stick."


Inoculatedcities
Steve as much as I enjoy the discussion I am finding it irritating that you never back up your assertions with any evidence whatsoever. If you have evidence that Chomsky "backed the views himself" please do post because I've been following these matters for some time and have never come across this mythical alleged oft-referenced "evidence" (and nor has anyone else). It seems far more likely to me that you are repeating some slander that you read elsewhere, but certainly not read in anything written by Chomsky himself. If I'm wrong prove it with sources.


Steve Zara
I realise it is irritating, and I apologise. However, the discussions on this are only a quick google search away


A quick google search provides no sources. It provides the Open Letter to the Ordfront where Chomsky refutes distortion and assertion wrapped in attack on Johnstone.

The whole "issue" revolves around the semantics of the word genocide. From the letter, which a quick google search can provide although I actually provide my sources because then I can be fact-checked and not get away with unfounded assertion.

A final comment on "genocide." People are free to use the term "genocide" as they please, and to condemn Racak and Srebrenica, say, as genocidal if they like. But then they have a simple responsibility: Inform us of their bitter denunciations of the incomparably worse "genocide" carried out with the strong backing of the US and UK at the very same moment as Racak.


So Chomsky, possibly the best single resource for recent history, has been dismissed by Steve because Steve asserts that he "squints", then when asked to provide evidence of said squinting responds with "Wasn't there some issue with Kosovan deaths and concentration camps?". This may seem like an overreaction but repetition of propaganda and sleaze that are presented as critisms of Chomsky's work without foundation annoy. And ironically can be cleared up with a quick google search

339. Lungless frog discovered in Borneo

Comment #158913 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 11, 2008 at 7:02 am

Speaking of Lungless frogs in Borneo only 38% of Britons believe in God
http://www.secularism.org.uk/only38ofbritonsbelieveingod.html

340. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #157863 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 9, 2008 at 4:10 pm

Craig Venter must not have persuaded Richard about the futility of population genetics etc

341. Biologists Take Evolution Beyond Darwin Way Beyond

Comment #156098 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 6, 2008 at 5:41 pm

It is of course difficult to imagine how language did evolve. For example imagine offspring that had the brain function that has a complete generative grammar. This is not advantageous until the trait is present in a large number of people, i.e a few generations down the line. Then this becomes an advantage and one group would be selected over another. It would be an example of speciation I suppose. I get the feeling there is something I'm missing however as these questions are so simple.

342. Fleabytes

Comment #156084 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 6, 2008 at 4:40 pm

I've just found this
http://www.rzeppa-vs-dawkins.com/

343. Biologists Take Evolution Beyond Darwin Way Beyond

Comment #156060 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 6, 2008 at 3:07 pm

If I could ask my question again because I have a genuine misunderstanding. A trait that is only advantageous at the group level, for example the ability for heightened communication, would allow one group who possessed the ability, to be selected over another group who did not have this ability. The selection would still be at the level of the gene, the traits aren't passed on by magic, but its advantage would only be at the level of the group.
Is this an example of selection that works above the gene level or not?

344. Biologists Take Evolution Beyond Darwin Way Beyond

Comment #156015 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 6, 2008 at 1:44 pm

Something such as language, where it is only useful in a group, while it still would have to be selected at the gene level, it would be groups that would be selected, as having advantage over other groups because of their heightened ability to communicate. Is this not a distinction worth making?

EDIT: Essentially a trait that is only advantageous at the group level

?

345. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #156007 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 6, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Professor Dawkins said the threat of extinction was real and very disturbing.

"Humans may be unique in having the consciousness and ability to look into the future. Ninety nine per cent of species have become extinct. I don't think there has been a mechanism by which a species took steps to halt a headlong rush to extinction."

Considering there is no quote to support the description of Dawkins saying that the threat of extinction was real and very disturbing I doubt he actually said it in the terms reported. The quote that follows actually says nothing about the threat of extinction for our species, it says quite the opposite actually, that humans have a unique capacity in that they can see future problems and act before things become a problem. This is unique to humans and a cause of great hope.

346. Biologists Take Evolution Beyond Darwin Way Beyond

Comment #155933 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 6, 2008 at 10:47 am

Something such as language, where it is only useful in a group, while it still would have to be selected at the gene level, it would be groups that would be selected, as having advantage over other groups because of their heightened ability to communicate. Is this not a distinction worth making?

EDIT: Essentially a trait that is only advantageous at the group level

347. Expelled Overview

Comment #155737 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 5, 2008 at 1:05 pm

Steve Zara

I have to say I am highly sceptical of this. Do you have a reference?


Pinker has a whole lecture on the fact that the average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is a whole standard deviation above the average.

I reference the link again Pinker: Jews, Genes and Intelligence

If that link ever decays http://www.cjh.org/programs/programarchives.php

348. Fleabytes

Comment #155735 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 5, 2008 at 12:56 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rez1B2MJaYs&feature=related

Hitchens v Hitchens if anyone is interested. They talk about the war in Iraq and then God.

And this lecture by John Maynard Smith, completely irrelevant to the first point but its John Maynard Smith. The Origin of Life

349. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #155716 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 5, 2008 at 10:41 am

Pascal's Wager question
Has anyone ever told a Christian that the parable about the vinyard workers means that a death bed conversion is all you need?

350. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #155345 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 4, 2008 at 11:08 am

Must rush

Wasn't that the last on your list al?
10) I am busy and have to leave.

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