401. Beware the Believers

Comment #152204 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 30, 2008 at 12:37 pm

Some may have pointed this out already but this is promotion for expelled. The "machine" is the machine that expels scientists who question Darwinian natural selection.
TAKE A LOOK AT THIS SCREENSHOT

mikes

Dembski had a simular video by the guy that did those JibbaJab Bush flash videos way back when. This Dicky Dawkins one has the same style and production value. Someone paid for this or had access to resources and staff that have a history of producing flash animation.

402. Beware the Believers

Comment #152196 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 30, 2008 at 12:13 pm

bitbutter
I agree it is funny. It's like Morecambe and Wise, Larry Sanders, The Office, Curb Your enthusiasm. Its the kind of humour that takes your perception of a famous persona and inverts it or distorts it.

403. Beware the Believers

Comment #152174 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 30, 2008 at 10:58 am

Richard Dawkins
South Park just enjoy playing with taboos. Surely it's funny to see anyone buggering a bald transvestite? Well that's their rationale anyway.

As to the connection with Sam. I would doubt anything specific. I imagine they arbitrarily chose uniforms for each of you that resembled the types of clothes and jewellery worn by rappers.

404. Beware the Believers

Comment #152164 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 30, 2008 at 10:12 am

It could have zoological explanation Steve. A form of display like a Gorilla beating its chest.

405. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #150337 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 26, 2008 at 6:07 pm

"Ah, my birthday. Normally I'd put on a festive hat and celebrate the fact that the Earth has circled the Sun one more time; I really didn't think it was going to make it this year, but darn it if it wasn't the little planet that could all over again."
- Gregory House from TVs House MD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qRUaEwB1Bw

406. Two More Fleas

Comment #149459 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 4:12 pm

Please are you a parody?

407. Two More Fleas

Comment #149455 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 4:08 pm

The mistakes with your grammar, they are too perfect to not be deliberate. Surely a parody? Are you clearmind?

408. Two More Fleas

Comment #149451 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 4:03 pm

I never know whether these people are parodies or not.

409. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149450 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 4:01 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUeoem1gR3s
'Biblically Correct" Tour Guides For Jesus!!

Shows how dishonest, or just wilfully ignorant, fundamentalists can be.

410. Expelled Overview

Comment #149431 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 3:42 pm

Brendan Flowers the lead singer of The Killers is a devout Mormon.
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1877695,00.html

411. Wicked untruths from the Church

Comment #149427 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 3:37 pm

justdust

If you have religious faith - can you have a personal conscience? I would not vote for any MP of any persuasion if they were going to be voting on my behalf based on their religious beliefs - where does it stop?

412. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149416 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 3:23 pm

Riley

The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.

The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to HIV.

413. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149395 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 2:48 pm

It was a trick question. I expect such a stupid answer from vulgar reductionists such as yourself.

People who read poetry and listen to music want the experience, not your "explanations". Explanation is not always what people always seek, that was the point of my post.

414. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149390 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 2:39 pm

Swifty32661

Your claim of love to your wife is not at all the same as "knowledge of the world", and you damn well know that.

Scientifically prove that I am not thinking about how stupid your comment is.

You obviously can't, and it's as ridiculous as asking science to scientifically prove that you love your wife.

"well, you can't prove love, are you saying that doesn't exist??"

415. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149381 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 2:24 pm

Bonzai
The mode of thinking could be applied. If a piece of poetry evokes feelings x and y etc that's completely subjective and not open to interrogation (at the moment). Claims of the nature that "Shakespeare's prose is Bacon-esque in its exactitude" or something similarly inscrutable can be analysed used the scientific mode of thinking. Offer up evidence etc. I think that mode of thinking can be applied to almost anything. It is essentially don't make unfounded, inconsistent claims.

416. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149371 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 2:16 pm

clodhopper good one.

I can imagine a time in the future when it could possibly be possible. If we get a full understanding of what 'love' is and could submit your brain and physiology to some kind of 'interrogation'. That's one she'll have to take on faith for now ;). But not a moderate wishy-washy faith. Full balled fundamentalist immutable faith.

EDIT: Am I still in peril?

417. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149366 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 2:11 pm

Quine I can remember when I came across that in Misquoting Jesus. It didn't disappoint. Still a good story nonetheless.

418. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149360 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 2:05 pm

Science uses the scientific method and the restraints of falsifiability etc. Everything else that claims knowledge of the world without submitting itself to interrogation by the scientific method of inquiry can safely be ignored. The description seems to fit the development of religions, except something like Scientology which is just downright dishonest.

419. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #149351 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 1:49 pm

What is religion? Well I like the way chomsky defines it:

"As for religion being "a part of every observable society," if what is meant is that every society we know has sought to find some explanation for matters of deep human concern that we do not begin to understand (death, the origins of the universe, etc.), that's doubtless true. If one wants to call the constructs developed "religion," OK. I don't see what that implies, apart from the fact -- I presume it is a fact -- that people seek answers to hard questions, and where understanding reaches limits (very quickly, in most areas), they speculate, construct myths, etc. To draw conclusions about "human nature" from historical constructs of dominant societies in the past few thousand years seems to me quite a stretch."
- Noam Chomsky

So how am I dishonest if I knowingly interpret the bible because I genuinely believe that the Bible is meant to be understood in its proper context?

420. Wicked untruths from the Church

Comment #149278 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 11:35 am

The three areas where Mr Brown said there would be free votes during the passage of the bill through the Commons are:

* Preventing fertility clinics from refusing treatment to single women and lesbians - under current legislation clinics must take account of the welfare of the unborn child including "the need for a father". This will be replaced by the "need for supportive parenting".

* Creating a child with the correct tissue match to save a sick brother or sister.

* Creating so-called hybrid animal/human embryos to aid stem cell research.

421. Wicked untruths from the Church

Comment #149274 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 11:26 am

Leviticus, is devoted to nothing else. "Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you," said the Lord, ruling out lobster. Nor could you partake of "the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat".

422. Wicked untruths from the Church

Comment #149266 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 25, 2008 at 11:07 am

It is not a vote of conscience. conscience, from L. conscientia "knowledge within oneself, a moral sense,". These people are not contemplating their own navels they reflexively going with Mr. Infallible.
The cabinet members who are catholic. Ruth "Opus Dei" Kelly, Des Brown and Paul Murphy. I think Des Brown has said he's going with the bill. The others haven't said.

423. Discussion on PZ Myers being expelled from Expelled

Comment #148977 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 24, 2008 at 8:12 pm

The image to the side is from The New Mexico Connection to "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"

They look similar?

This is the Mark Mathis who wrote the books. The same guy?

Here's another picture of him as an extra in The Astronaut Farmer

Mathis Media
"[The Media] repels people because they're scared to death of making a mistake and looking stupid"

424. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148947 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 24, 2008 at 5:54 pm

The image to the side is from The New Mexico Connection to "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"

They look similar?

This is the Mark Mathis who wrote the books. The same guy?

Here's another picture of him as an extra in The Astronaut Farmer

Mathis Media
"[The Media] repels people because they're scared to death of making a mistake and looking stupid"

425. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148943 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 24, 2008 at 5:40 pm

426. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148919 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 24, 2008 at 4:05 pm

The historian Niall Ferguson argues that:

[The 20th century] was also an age poisoned by an idea: the idea of irrevocable racial differences. Above all it was an age of struggle between decaying old empires and predatory new 'empire-states'. Who won the war of the world? We tend to assume it was 'the West'. Some even talk of 'the American century'. But for Niall Ferguson the biggest upheaval of the twentieth century was the decline of Western dominance over Asia. Drawing on history, economics and evolutionary theory, The War of the World is a revolutionary new interpretation of the modern era.

Published on the eve of the twentieth century, H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds (1898) is much more than just a seminal work of science fiction. It is also a kind of Darwinian morality tale, and at the same time a work of singular prescience. In the century after the publication of his book, the nightmarish scenes Wells imagined became a reality in cities all over the world - not just in London, where Wells sets his tale, but in Brest-Litovsk, Belgrade and Berlin; in Smyrna, Shanghai and Seoul.

Invaders approach the outskirts of a city. The inhabitants are slow to grasp their vulnerability. But the invaders possess lethal weapons: armoured vehicles, flame throwers, poison gas, aircraft. They use these indiscriminately and mercilessly against soldiers and civilians alike. The city's defences are overrun. As the invaders near the city, panic reigns. People flee their homes in confusion; swarms of refugees clog the roads and railways. The task of massacring them is made easy. People are slaughtered like beasts. Finally, all that remains are smouldering ruins and piles of desiccated corpses.

All of this destruction and death Wells imagined while pedalling around peaceful Woking and Chertsey on his newly-acquired bicycle. Of course (and here was the stroke of genius), he cast Martians as the perpetrators. When such scenes subsequently became a reality, however, those responsible were not Martians but other human beings - even if they often justified the slaughter by labelling their victims as 'aliens' or 'sub-humans'. It was not a war between worlds that the twentieth century witnessed, but rather a war of the world.

427. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148901 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 24, 2008 at 2:20 pm

Just closing the Bold tag

428. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148876 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 24, 2008 at 12:37 pm

The historian Niall Ferguson argues that:

[The 20th century] was also an age poisoned by an idea: the idea of irrevocable racial differences. Above all it was an age of struggle between decaying old empires and predatory new 'empire-states'. Who won the war of the world? We tend to assume it was 'the West'. Some even talk of 'the American century'. But for Niall Ferguson the biggest upheaval of the twentieth century was the decline of Western dominance over Asia. Drawing on history, economics and evolutionary theory, The War of the World is a revolutionary new interpretation of the modern era.

Published on the eve of the twentieth century, H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds (1898) is much more than just a seminal work of science fiction. It is also a kind of Darwinian morality tale, and at the same time a work of singular prescience. In the century after the publication of his book, the nightmarish scenes Wells imagined became a reality in cities all over the world - not just in London, where Wells sets his tale, but in Brest-Litovsk, Belgrade and Berlin; in Smyrna, Shanghai and Seoul.

Invaders approach the outskirts of a city. The inhabitants are slow to grasp their vulnerability. But the invaders possess lethal weapons: armoured vehicles, flame throwers, poison gas, aircraft. They use these indiscriminately and mercilessly against soldiers and civilians alike. The city's defences are overrun. As the invaders near the city, panic reigns. People flee their homes in confusion; swarms of refugees clog the roads and railways. The task of massacring them is made easy. People are slaughtered like beasts. Finally, all that remains are smouldering ruins and piles of desiccated corpses.

All of this destruction and death Wells imagined while pedalling around peaceful Woking and Chertsey on his newly-acquired bicycle. Of course (and here was the stroke of genius), he cast Martians as the perpetrators. When such scenes subsequently became a reality, however, those responsible were not Martians but other human beings - even if they often justified the slaughter by labelling their victims as 'aliens' or 'sub-humans'. It was not a war between worlds that the twentieth century witnessed, but rather a war of the world.

429. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148678 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 23, 2008 at 3:31 pm

Very good. I wonder how the Stork question went down?

On a side not, does anyone know when Richard and PZ Myers discussion will be posted?

EDIT:Does anyone else think that the rule of no such thing as bad publicity applies? It does the cause of intelligent design harm no doubt, but who seriously thinks that was the film-makers main motivation? Who thinks the passion of the Christ's main motivation was to show Jesus' suffering and condemn the Jews? $$$?

430. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148569 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 23, 2008 at 10:08 am

Check out Price Equation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_equation

Incidentally this equation was the inspiration for a recent film

WAZ (should be W delta T)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804552/

431. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148521 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 23, 2008 at 8:47 am

I like the way Chomsky defines religion

"As for religion being "a part of every observable society," if what is meant is that every society we know has sought to find some explanation for matters of deep human concern that we do not begin to understand (death, the origins of the universe, etc.), that's doubtless true. If one wants to call the constructs developed "religion," OK. I don't see what that implies, apart from the fact -- I presume it is a fact -- that people seek answers to hard questions, and where understanding reaches limits (very quickly, in most areas), they speculate, construct myths, etc. To draw conclusions about "human nature" from historical constructs of dominant societies in the past few thousand years seems to me quite a stretch."
- Noam Chomsky

432. It looks like Man crucified

Comment #148504 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 23, 2008 at 8:18 am

Lacking any agreed ten commandments of liberal values today, they know not what they believe in. But they at least know it's not God. Railing against the spectre of religious fundamentalism gives the New Atheists a sort of phantom philosophy to hold on to.

433. It looks like Man crucified

Comment #148502 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 23, 2008 at 8:12 am

Why now?

434. Fleabytes

Comment #148371 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 22, 2008 at 6:59 pm

Superstition is superstition with the potential for horrific consequences depending on time and space. Hitchens answer to Sam Harris in The Four Horsemen Video about Islam being the most dangerous religion is informative.

435. Discussion on PZ Myers being expelled from Expelled

Comment #148360 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 22, 2008 at 6:09 pm

I agree with Steve. Animations like this promote the idea of design in a lay audience.

436. Discussion on PZ Myers being expelled from Expelled

Comment #148327 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 22, 2008 at 4:29 pm

When is the whole discussion being uploaded. I'm in a frenzy of anticipation

437. Fleabytes

Comment #148319 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 22, 2008 at 4:08 pm

It's also a truism to say there are other things that influence people other than religion or belief in God. You are arguing about a very specific kind of non-specific believer. I'm sure some exist but I wager that there are far more murkies who believe in god and that god and the bible have a big influence than your murkies for who god is superfluous a metaphor and meaningless.

438. Fleabytes

Comment #148300 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 22, 2008 at 3:31 pm

influenced by your prior experience with people and practical considerations

439. Fleabytes

Comment #148285 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 22, 2008 at 2:46 pm

Finally, I don't think having a belief in God means you are categorically incapable of carrying out evidence based thinking. Indeed most "murky religious people" are rational on most decisions where such thinking is required.

440. Fleabytes

Comment #148279 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 22, 2008 at 2:25 pm

Suppose you are a punk who wants to beat up on some gays I don't think the thought of whether you will get absolved at confession on Sunday would even enter into your calculation.

441. Fleabytes

Comment #148264 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 22, 2008 at 1:44 pm

Bunting is post-modernism personified. It is the post-modern critique of science that allows murkiness. Why are you not a murky? Because you know that it is an untenable position and that you have interrogate your views with the scientific mode of thinking. Murkiness and post-modernism are one and the same.

442. Fleabytes

Comment #148253 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 22, 2008 at 1:19 pm

The whole idea that subjectivity has any value is the main tenet of post-modernism.

Reality is a story. All reality exists, not objectively--out there--but in the mind of those who perceive it. Nobody's version of reality can claim to have more objective authority because all versions are merely human creations.

443. Fleabytes

Comment #148251 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 22, 2008 at 1:12 pm

I am talking about the fact that Murkies exist in the huge numbers they do, as a result of a post-modern education system. The media is full of murkies and their ideas will not be confronted for generations because the leading opinion setters are murkies themselves. Murkiness will not disappear until the scientific method, critical thinking and human fallibility are foundational to education.

444. Fleabytes

Comment #148233 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 22, 2008 at 12:10 pm

Whatever "God" represents for them.

"Key Postmodern Educational Concepts

A key word to learn when trying to understand postmodern education is constructivism. Constructivism is the main underlying learning theory in postmodern education. The basic idea is that all knowledge is invented or "constructed" in the minds of people. Knowledge is not discovered as modernists would claim. In other words, the ideas teachers teach and students learn do not correspond to "Reality," they are merely human constructions. Knowledge, ideas and language are created by people, not because they are "true," but rather because they are useful.

Reality is a story. All reality exists, not objectively--out there--but in the mind of those who perceive it. Nobody's version of reality can claim to have more objective authority because all versions are merely human creations.

No, we're not kidding.

The implications of this view of knowledge are staggering, as Ruth Zuzovsky points out:

"Another major feature of this tentative, relativist, and instrumentalist [pragmatic] concept of knowledge is the equal worth of knowledge constructed by the learner, the teachers, or the scientists." [emphasis ours]

If no one's knowledge is necessarily true, everything changes. Now the question of what counts as "knowledge" to be taught in the schools is not a matter of objective evidence or arguments, but rather a matter of power. Those who have the power can make sure their constructs are the ones that dominate the curriculum, while other opposing viewpoints are at least partially suppressed, ignored or "marginalized." "

445. Discussion on PZ Myers being expelled from Expelled

Comment #148190 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 22, 2008 at 9:45 am

This is a short clip from an upcoming 90-minute discussion between PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins.

446. The atheist delusion

Comment #147487 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 20, 2008 at 3:59 pm

sidfaiwu
I like the way Chomsky defines religion:

"As for religion being "a part of every observable society," if what is meant is that every society we know has sought to find some explanation for matters of deep human concern that we do not begin to understand (death, the origins of the universe, etc.), that's doubtless true. If one wants to call the constructs developed "religion," OK. I don't see what that implies, apart from the fact -- I presume it is a fact -- that people seek answers to hard questions, and where understanding reaches limits (very quickly, in most areas), they speculate, construct myths, etc. To draw conclusions about "human nature" from historical constructs of dominant societies in the past few thousand years seems to me quite a stretch."
- Noam Chomsky

447. The atheist delusion

Comment #147074 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 19, 2008 at 6:36 pm

Ah well dug out geojim. I have however seen the exact quote Dawkins uses in a couple of books of quotations I own. I'll try to provide references.

edit: Google Book Search turned up the following
The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations By Charles Bufe cites Jefferson's Bible

The Character of Thomas Jefferson: As Exhibited in His Own Writings By Theodore Dwight

Views of Religion By Rufus King Noyes

Thomas Paine: The Apostle of Liberty by John Eleazer Remsburg

That Unknown Face of Christianity
By Yashodharman

One cites Jefferson's Bible but I've searched and couldn't find the reference. Lots seems to be distortions of that letter. I'm impressed by your dedication.

Here's a link where you can search all of Jefferson's work.

Seach Jefferson's Work

Hope that helps.

448. God's cure for gays lost in sin

Comment #147040 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 19, 2008 at 5:41 pm

I've posted Richard Dawkin's take on the evolution of homosexuality before. It seems relevant to do so again:

Daily Telegraph: "Could a gay gene really survive?" (16th August, 1993), reproduced below.

Genes that predispose a significant minority of men to homosexuality raise a Darwinian puzzle. If homosexual men rarely father children, homosexual genes should dwindle to the low frequency expected from recurrent random mutation, a frequency below one in a million. Even if Kinsey's estimate of one in ten is high, there can be no doubt that the abundance of homosexual men is too great to have stemmed from recurrent mutation alone.

As long as the (always implausible) social science orthodoxy was maintained that homosexual inclinations were entirely made, not born, there was little problem. The recent demonstration that, not for the first time, the politically correct is factually incorrect, changes all that. Moreover, contrary to two Letters to the Editor of this newspaper, the evidence that the 'gay' gene lies on the X chromosome (which a man receives only from his mother, and cannot pass to his sons) provides no let-out. A man passes his X chromosome to all his daughters and, on average, a quarter of his grandsons. Any gene that reduces a man's daughters is subject to strong negative selection. It should, other things being equal, disappear.

When Darwinians are challenged by some seemingly un-Darwinian fact of human life, they often invoke the distortions of civilization. Why have we a taste for sugar when it rots our teeth? Because civilization blunts the cutting edge of natural selection, and in our ancestral past sugar was too scarce to do anything but good. Darwinians have framed similar theories about homosexuality: forget the ephemera of modern life, how might homosexual genes have fared during all those millennia on the African savannah?

Some of these theories note that genes have different effects in different contexts. Genes that promote homosexuality in, say, bottle-fed individuals might foster some advantageous trait in breast-fed individuals. Before the teated bottle was invented, the gene would not have surfaced as a gene 'for' homosexuality at all. It would have been a gene 'for' something quite different, perhaps resistance to a virus. Obviously I name 'bottle' and 'virus' only for the sake of argument. The general point is that the effects of a gene may depend upon context. As a special case, they may depend upon which other genes are present in the body. Homosexuality may therefore manifest itself in some individuals, as a spinoff from a gene's positive selection because of its desirable effect in other individuals. A particular version of this theory postulates a gene that causes homosexuality in males but a completely different, beneficial, effect in females.
Another theory, the 'sterile worker,' starts from the well-understood observation that worker bees, ants, wasps, termites and naked mole-rats divert their energy and time away from reproduction and towards the welfare of their young collateral relatives. Perhaps Pleistocene children, while their macho fathers were away hunting, were left under the protection of a gay uncle? The uncle's genes, including those promoting homosexuality, would have a good chance of being reproduced by the children whom he protected as surrogate father.

Incidentally the newly discovered 'gay gene', being on the X chromosome, could be shared by a maternal uncle's nephews (and nieces) but not by a paternal uncle's nephews. It is tantalising to recall the anthropological finding that, in those many societies where uncle replaces father as economic and protective guardian of a child, it is universally the mother's brother not the father's brother. Admittedly, this "mother's brother effect" already has an alternative Darwinian explanation.

In any case, the sterile worker theory doesn't explain why the uncles, in addition to refraining from normal masculine activities, should enjoy making love to men. Indeed one might think that, left in camp with the women, there is another obvious way in which they could benefit their genes, over and above caring for their nephews and nieces. This brings me to my own favourite, the 'sneaky male' theory.

In harem-based species, like some seals and deer, a minority of males monopolises the females, leaving a surplus of bachelors. Those supernumerary males that have no hope of displacing a harem-master sometimes specialise in an alternative, 'best of a bad job,' strategy: sneaking quick copulations with females while his back is turned. Genes promoting sneaking skills are passed on, in parallel with genes promoting the dominant male skill of bashing up other males.

You can tell harem species by their sexual dimorphism - males larger than females. Humans are less dimorphic than elephant seals (a dominant bull typically outweighs 14 females) but dimorphic enough to suggest at least some legacy of harem-based history. Clandestine matings with females may have provided the only route for surplus bachelors to pass on their genes. Their skills may have included lulling harem masters into a false sense of security, and now here is the point. A genuine preference for other males might well carry more conviction than a simulated indifference to females. By analogy, women frequently remark that they feel 'secure' in the company of homosexual men, and monarchs have staffed their harems with eunuchs. Incidentally, experts doubt the widely-promulgated story that the Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim was so jealous of a rumoured liaison between a eunuch and an unidentified odalisque that he drowned his entire 280-strong harem in the Bosporus. In any case homosexual men are not eunuchs and they can fertilise women. According to the sneaky male theory, their homosexual orientation gained them privileged access to women and a minority stream of homosexual genes prospered.

Explanations buried in Pleistocene history are always less convincing where reproduction, rather than survival, is at stake. Early death may have been largely abolished nowadays, but genes still vary in their ability to get themselves reproduced. If a homosexuality gene lowers its own probability of being reproduced today, and yet still abounds in the population, that is a problem for commonsense as much as for Darwin's theory of evolution. And, intriguing as several of these theories may be, I have to conclude that it remains a problem.
http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/FAQs.shtml

449. Full house captivated by atheist Dawkins' take on religion

Comment #147032 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 19, 2008 at 5:37 pm

The circumcision debate is unfortunately led by people who essentially are against it because of principles (don't hurt children, don't choose for them) rather than looking at evidence.

When I was sixteen, the regent decided that it was time that I became a man. In Xhosa this is achieved through one means only: circumcision. In my tradition an uncircumcised male cannot be heir to his fathers wealth, cannot marry or officiate in tribal rituals. an uncircumcised Xhosa man is a contradiction in terms, for he is not considered a man at all but a boy. For the Xhosa people, circumcision represents the formal incorporation of males into society. It is not just a surgical procedure, but a lengthy and elaborate ritual in preparation for manhood.
…
The night before the circumcision, there was a ceremony near our huts with singing and dancing. Women came from the nearby villages and we danced to their singing and clapping. As the music became faster and louder, our dance turned more frenzied and we forgot for a moment what lay ahead.
At dawn, when the stars were still in the sky, we began our preparations. We were escorted to the river to bathe in its cold waters, a ritual that signified our purification before the ceremony. The ceremony was a midday and we were commanded to stand in a row in a clearing some distance from the river where a crowd of parents and relatives, including the regent, as well as a handful of chiefs and counsellors, had gathered. We were clad only in our blankets and as the ceremony began, with drums pounding, we were ordered to sit on a blanket on the ground with our legs spread out in front of us. I was tense and anxious, uncertain of how I would react when the critical moment came.
…
To the right, out of the corner of my eye, I could see a thin, elderly man emerge from a tent and kneel in front of the first boy…The old man was a famous ingcibi, a circumcision expert … who would use his assegai to change us from boys to men in a single blow.
Suddenly I heard the first boy cry out, 'Ndiyindoda!'('I am man') … There were now two boys before the ingcibi reached me, and my mind must have gone blank because, before I knew it, the old man was kneeling in front of me. I looked directly into his eyes….Without a word, he took my foreskin, pulled it forward, and then, in a single motion, brought down the assegai. I felt as if fire was shooting through my veins; the pain was so intense that I buried my chin in my chest. Many seconds seemed to pass before I remembered the cry, and then I recovered and called out 'Ndiyindoda!'.
I looked down and saw a perfect cut, clean and round like a ring.

450. Full house captivated by atheist Dawkins' take on religion

Comment #146816 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 19, 2008 at 12:59 pm

I always love quotations with [sic], they are powerful put-downs, and each [sic] cuts like a knife. I should have proof read my post, damn!

Leaving aside for the moment the breath-taking philosophical and religious ignorance, the factual falsehood, and the overwhelming intolerance for free thought expressed here, what is strikingly clear is that anyone who doesn't educate their children in accordance with ThoughtsonCommonToad's worldview is guilty of child abuse. Anyone who doesn't teach their children that the scientific method is infallible, is absolute Truth, and is the only method of evaluating truth claims known to humanity is guilty of a crime and should be removed from society with the full force of the law. As I sit in my son's bed and type this while he sleeps, I have shivers running down my spine!

child abuse to tell your children that they don't have to justify what they think and believe, just that believing it is enough

child abuse to tell your children something is true when there is no way to know this

the only method of evaluating truth claims know[sic] to humanity, the scientific method, shows Christianity to be demonstrably false.