In My Memory

Merry Christmas darlings and darlingnettes!

My vote goes to John E. Jones III for defending science in the Dover PA trial Next, my vote goes to Claire Rind and Peter Simmons, quoted via IgNobel, for:

I've been following this trial from the beginning, and I'm happy to report a victory for science: Heres the decision in the judges own words: Notice the words in bold, here is what the creationist organization Discovery Institute says about the ruling: Activist judge, eh? Are they talking about the same John E Jones, the conservative Christian district court judge appointed by George W Bush? If there is any better proof that the words "activist judge" are really just codewords for "disagrees with me", I havent seen it But anyway, yay science!

What would you rate the following sources: - The Daily Show with John Stewart - The O'Reilly Factor with some fat boob - Blogs

Then pretty soon we'll be overrun by those DAMN DIRTY APES! What if your friends and family get you gifts that you really hate this Christmas?

Ali Algebra, Ameica is Hitler?

TheDMan, Hmmmm... I'd probably take lots of pictures of them and put my hands all over them I'm very extroverted, I enjoy telling stories, and I LOVE to talk to people I've never met before. But I dont think I really have a pre-planned way of talking to people who I know are shy, but I'd probably find a way to make them laugh, or maybe bake them cookies.

A quick search at the Newsweek website comes up with nothing. So far, I've only seen the story circulate among very conservative blogs who believe in the omnipotent presence of a "liberal media", I think the story might be an urban legend. Try contacting Snopes.com, maybe they'll reply back.

Agnostic,

Pangloss, According to one of your previous sources, they stay in tents and sleeping bags. For all intents and purposes, those immigrants are homeless, and I really dont think it would it would appropriate to force a half million people into tents. I stick with my previous assessment, that would just be cruel. At the moment, I know at least 28000 homes have been destroyed in Katrina, and 350000 in total after the other hurricanes (source) - so, at the very least, unless we give away 350000 free houses, there is no possible way I can think of to return these families back to New Orleans without diminishing them to a seriously low low quality of living. Employment has been weak after Katrina, its impact on jobs all over the US has even been famously named the "Katrina effect", but thats besides the point. I'm not denying that some of the lost jobs after the hurricanes will be filled by former evacuees themselves, but its very unreasonable to expect that all 500000 people should be content to manual labor. Some people are just unfit to do these jobs, like elderly people or teens who used to make a living by waiting tables, some people dont like doing work that might be dangerous. Thats not the same thing as being too good for a job. And what about those US$15 and US$17 roofing jobs that are being taken up by all the illegal aliens? Heres what they are doing: From Chron.com - Hispanics doing much of the cleanup in New Orleans: In other words, illegal immigrants are working in terrible conditions for low pay, not the dream jobs that everyone wishes they could have. To use the words of an article which debunks those urban myths' date=' "Everything was embellished, everything was exaggerated"; and another article on various myths about crimes in Atlanta (some are true, some arent). And if you dont mind Wikipedia articles, see Wikipedia - Hurricane Katrina: And finally, if that isnt enough, see the article from the Houston Chronicle with the salient title Crime epidemic here nothing more than rumors. As usual, stories and urban myths circulate by word of mouth, email, and telephone, but they have no substance. Ignoring everything above, you've said over and over again that all the evacuees are refusing to get jobs at your expense, but I dont think thats true. See USAToday: Evacuees finding jobs far away from New Orleans, it seems like some are resettling in other states, and many want more than anything to find jobs. They dont seem to have any intention of freeloading off of you, nor does it seem like they are going to be doing so indefinitely. That seems to break down the entire foundation of your "prima facie case" that you tried to set up in your opening post. Speaking from personal experience, I'm not in New Orleans, but I did live in Florida for 10 years. Theres been at least one or two times that I've been a hurricane evacuee for weeks, I can tell you first hand that it isnt a fun experience in the least to be living in a small hotel or a recreation center, and its not a vacation to have no job. If the people in New Orleans are like me, the one thing that you want the most is to have a job and pick up where you left off.

Pangloss, It would be easier for these former residents to move back if they had a home to move back to. I'm interested to know where you got your information from that these people dont want to take jobs. After that, I'd also be interested to know what kind of high-paying jobs are available. At the moment, I cant really think of anything outside of stringing up electrical lines, mechanics, masonry, and hospital work that would qualify as "high paying", but these kinds of jobs obviously arent available to anyone who doesnt have the technical expertise. The other kinds of jobs available require a lot of physical labor, where its likely people work long hours for low pay, and that kind of work that might be unavailable to some men, most women, and teenagers. I think maybe you think its too easy for these to get a job when it really isnt. This is one of the most heartless things I've ever heard. Its like your uncle is celebrating the deaths of 1000+ and happy that 28000 families lost their homes, like he really believes that each and everyone of these people got what they deserved? The worst part is that your uncle tries to justify this by pointing out the crime rate, but that isnt true. The crime rate after Katrina was sensationalized and vastly overblown, see http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9503449/ . So, the comment doesnt have any justification, its just cruel. And Pangloss, I think you of all people should recognize that the citizens of New Orleans are still citizens, and they deserve at least a heated room and a place to sleep as much as anyone else. To gloss over this by calling it a "government handout" when these people have no homes to back to misses the point - these people are disaster victicms, and as soon as they are evicted, they are officially homeless. I have never heard in my entire life disaster relief called a "government handout".

Bettina, Theres theory that if something cant be found on Google or Wikipedia, then it probably doesnt exist anywhere in the universe. *cue "The More You Know" logo*

This is just an awkward fascination of mine, but I almost always find people let the most strange things pile up in an around their desk. I know for a fact my dad keeps a framed picture of R2D2 next to baby photos, and someone I work with loves to drip candle wax in colorful patterns all over his desk for reasons only the divine goddess could know. Heres some things I have: - a pink stegosaurus beanie-baby on my monitor, his special power is proofreading spreadsheet formulas and being adorable - a really odd book on how Jesus will rapture the earth in the year 2012 that my mom gave to me as (I hope) a joke - a sketch of Hello Kitty that is obviously in my handwriting, but I dont remember where it came from Your turn, what are those odd things on your desktop?

Sickmusic, No, natural selection is not clairvoyant. I'm not really sure if there is a way to answer your question, because essentially you're question has more to do with a nuance of language rather than an issue that has to do with evolution itself. Here is an example of our awkward English language for comparison: imagine that you tell your friend that you had just "fallen deeply in love", your friend looks at you confused and says "impossible! You can fall in mud, but you cant fall into 'love'! And if you are so 'deep' in love, tell me how deep in centimeters please, and tell me what shape the love was that you 'fell' in" - naturally, your friend has taken the nuances of language to seriously and pulled some rather absurd conclusions out of it.

The Tree, I'm not sure if I'm an "expert" per se. I used to seriously study religion (limited to Christianity) and philosophy (bioethics, political philosophy, and a scant amount of metaphysics) - I'd always wanted to be a writer or influential philosophy, or even a professor of philosophy. But before I could complete my studies, I just couldnt pay for the classes. And when I figured that I'd never have a career that would make those degrees useful, I dropped religion and philosophy all together except as a hobby. So, I'm not an "expert" for the sake that I have a lot of missing gaps that you shouldnt see in a professional, which would make me a faux philosopher with awkward specialized knowledge at best (for instance, I know about ancient Ugarit texts that revealed new knowledge of the Caananite mystery religions which probably no one outside of a few academics even know about, yet I have a real deficiency in embarassingly simple things that Logic 101 students out to have a good handle on like first-order predicate calculus ). But if you like my posts so much, I would be so happy to be a resident Religion/Philosophy expert Best wishes! In My Memory

JohnB, Just to clarify IMM' date=' should that phrase read "then we [i']can[/i] have no argument with[/i'] racists...."? Meaning that if a person supports one form of sexism or racism, it is illogical to decry another group for having the same attitude? It should say "then we have no argument against racists...". And yes, if you support sexism or racism, then it would be impossible to criticize other forms of prejudice without unforgivable ethical inconsistency. (Oh, and I should add: I have a very very bad habit of revising my writing several times to get the ideal forcefulness of argument and voice, but I admit to being the worst proofreader in the world especially of my own writing. Probably in 95% of my posts, I leave out whole words and phrases when trying to revise my posts for better clarify. Its so bad that I often have to run my posts through a text-to-speech program and edit 5 or 6 times just to be sure that my writing is intelligible ) Pangloss, I'm not that tied with the animal-right, I only have 1 year of membership in the Animal Liberation Front to claim in my name

IMM for president '08! *ahem*... there is no reason why women shouldnt be president or hold high office. A persons sex is no guide to their abilities, and to pretend that it is would be fundamentally no different than racism. If we believe that it is defensible to give preferencial consideration to certain groups for irrelevant characteristics like happening to belong to certain sex, then we have no argument racists who believe we should give preferencial consideration to the interests of people who happen to be members of their own race. The basic idea is that the difference between the sexes (or races for that matter) is just a statement of fact without any moral connotations, therefore there is no logically compelling reason to assume that the given factual difference justifies any difference in the amount of consideration we give to those peoples needs or interests. This is a basic ethical imperative called the principle of equal consideration of interests, such that we would be acting unethically if we gave unequal consideration to two groups of people who differ only with respect to sex. I remember listening to a sexist rant about why he wouldnt vote for a woman president, and I think he was being completely honest in his opinions as he rambled almost every stereotype in the book. "Women presidents on their periods would start wars!" "Women are emotional, not logical." "Women are 'naturally' not as smart as men." "Women dont have to defend their country so they would start more wars." "God made women to be submissive to men, not the other way around." It was both sickening to listen to, and really laughable as the sexist fit the stereotypical profile of a self-righteous ignorant redneck with heavy southern drawl.

Pangloss, Bigger than taking advantage the suffering of thousands to our own political ends? No. Budullewraagh, these assumptions may have been infantile had they actually been made It probably isnt so much that "he's a Republican"' date=' but it has much more to do with Lee's words "[i']I don't find it too far-fetched that they tried to displace all the black people out of New Orleans.[/i]". According to rumors, Lee's movie is supposed to document the governments engineered disaster to destroy black homes (what else is implied by the words "displace black people out of New Orleans"?). Even if "just because he's a Republican" isnt necessarily the case, it certainly wouldnt be a step up (if the rumors are true) to claim that Bush and Co. deliberately planned the destruction of black homes.

I've always been fascinated by the roles of Democrats and Republicans virtually flipped 180 degrees (several times) in the last few years. A few examples I've been pondering without really putting the effort into to flesh out in greater detail: - Racism: Consider a chief complaint that liberals have about Republicans, that they are nationalistic, hateful, bigoted, and racist. But that hasnt always been the case, in fact the pre-1967 the Democrats held the Solid South, and in fact many pre-1967 Democrats were members of the KKK. Now, the previously solidly Democratic South is solidly Republican, and the previously bigoted Democrats are now solidly pro-minority rights. - Role of Government: The catch phrase to describe the bloated role of government Democrats used to ensdorse is "cradle-to-grave assistance", however the Republicans have recieved much criticism for attempting to micromanage peoples lives (especially where sex and right to life is concerned). - Civil liberties: Where the Republicans chastised FDR for relocating Japanese-Americans into internment camps, only 50 years later the Democrats would chastise Bush for relocating Arab-Americans into Gitmo Bay. - Free market: Traditionally, the Democrats have been economic left-wingers and until the 1940s Democrats strongly supported an isolationist economic policy. However, that has sense switched, notably in the comparing how Clinton did so much more for unbridled free trade than his tariff loving antecedents. (I'm not so sure isolationism is partisan, there are prominent isolationists from all spectrums including Ralph Nader, Justin Raimondo and Pat Buchanon.) - War: Democrats were the subject of stark criticism for their unilateralist / interventionist foreign policy, especially in the Vietnam War (<-- huge can of worms opened). Now, the Republicans have taken that role. - Unity: Pre-1967 Democratic Party was rife with disunity, factions, internal disagreement, disorganized, it came to the point where the party was so violent and unpredictable that the party was about to implode on itself. However, today, while the Democrats really dont stand for anything except to oppose the Republicans, there is relative consistency. Republicans on the other hand have seen increasing disunity, especially as the Radical Right has hijacked the Republican party, the party will continue to lose support of its fiscally conservative members (in fact, the intense social conservativism of the Reagon Administration drove me to switch parties from a card-carrying Republican to a registered Green, which is a Libertarian who likes the environment and doesnt come off as a shrill as Randroids). I'm not sure where the parties are going to go in the future. Maybe in 50 years, the Democrats will be staunchly anti-abortion and the Republicans will be advocates socialized medicine?

I stumbled into my career like this: The first classes I started to take were courses in philosophy, but I ran out of money to pay for books and classes. I realized that I couldnt get a job without practical experience, I had to learn how to buy only second-hand essentials from thrift stores and garage sells. One day when browsing through a garage sell, I found a book on the basics of investing and microeconomics and decided that I had no better way to make money. My first stock purchase was US$30, which I turned in US$35 (after comission), and I felt so proud of myself Then I realized I was an investor.

Demosthenes, Its what makes me cute and lovable All the best! Everyone else, Thank you for your comments, this thread has been informative and even fun. I think everything that needs to be said has been said, so until another thread is derailed to talk about veganism ... Kindest regards, In My Memory

Mokele, Even if it comes to the same ends (that being a dead mouse), the moral differences are vastly different because hawks and snakes cant make ethical decisions about killing, (most) human beings can. From Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation" (p 277): The idea that identical ends having different moral implications is a non-controversial part of your everyday moral reasoning, and its very simple to demonstrate: we excuse a young child for setting something on fire that we would never excuse an adult for the same action, it doesnt matter that both actions result in the same burned down house. Obviously, this should answer your second question "does the motivation of the predator really matter" - yes it does. I dont know what you mean by "two universal uncertainties" (unless you are implying an afterlife). But, with exception to cases of euthanasia, do you think a human being could get away with killing another human if they did so painlessly? I think you would agree that its probably less unethical to anesthetize someone before hand, but you would not be able to condone the killing. If that makes sense to you, then try to imagine how I, as someone who reasons that animals are the moral equals to human beings, would see the scenario you put together? Tell that to the ethics committees who are worried about environmental variation between humans but not between species. In any case, I'm sure you would reject your own statement outright if the hundreds of lives sacrificed were humans, and in an appeal to most peoples sense of "inherent value" I also speculate that you would probably find that the moral worth of a human beings life is not diminished by his or her usefulness to medical researchers. (I apologize if I come off as a brick wall.) Demosthenes, Post #41: Post #70: Before you accuse me of inconsistency, you have to know what I've actually said. I've stated for the entire time in this thread that two things fundamentally matter when you consider the moral worth of any organism: whether the being feels pain and whether it has an interest in continued existence. Obviously, when you consider the moral worth of an organism, you have to take into account its capacity to suffer and its interest in continued existence at the same time - this is the reason why I've stated a few times in this thread that it is obviously wrong to torture something to death, but slightly less unethical to kill it painlessly against its interests. Obviously, there are implications that unnecessary suffering + killing are the worst things you bring upon an organism, unnecessary suffering alone or unnecessary killing alone is unethical to a lesser extent. You'll not find in any post I've ever written advocating "life is valuable in itself" or anything to that effect, in fact you'll notice that I've been consistent that destroying life isnt wrong in itself, but rather the action is wrong because it systematically violates all of the interests a being may have in continued existence, fulfillment of future goals, future happiness, etc. However, as in the case of plants and protists, if the organism cannot feel pain or if there are no interests, then there is nothing to consider morally, implying that it isnt wrong in itself to kill plants and protists. Although it hasnt been relevant to the thread, you've picked up on a few allusions to euthanasia, I think it should be no surprise that in some circumstances I would find it more ethical and humane to euthanize something painlessly rather than see it in a prolonged state of agony where there is no possibility for relief. Now we should be on the same page with one another, it should be evident that in so far as my veganism goes I am fully consistent. Again' date=' this means nothing if the animal is not aware.[/quote'] I dont understand. Are you saying animals dont feel pain? Darling, you've missed my point entirely, because your response is essentially a red herring to shift discussion away from the actual moral rightness or wrongness of experimenting on retarded humans over to humans sentimental attachment to cute and furry things. This is exactly what you said animal rights supporters do in your posts #46 and #54. AL, I agree, if there was no pain or death to take into account, I would not object to human or animal experimentation. Unfortunately, based on your earlier comments in Post #71 "giving tumors to mice to learn more about how cancer works is something else entirely" clearly implies that the kind of experimentation you are talking about does involve suffering and eventual death. Also, I'm not sure if I feel comfortable with your answer that we should appoint a parent to make the decisions of severely retarded infants - I agree with you in principle, but you havent stated that there would be any moral difference involving experiments resulting in suffering and death between severely retarded infants and animals. Instead, your later comments "equate the mouse's life experience with the human's life experience" necessarily shift the focus from severely retarded infants to fully rational humans, such that it isnt actually clear whether you find my comment "willing to perform his experiment on a retarded human infant at a similar mental level of an animal" reasonable or not. Its a very salient point, because the willingness to perform on experiments on animals but not on humans of equivalent capacities demonstrates an unjustifiable form of discrimination - I just dont have any other conclusion to come to when we have two groups of organisms whose mental levels are equal, but one of those groups is ever the subject of experimentation. (At the very least, I suppose it could be suggested that a severly retarded infant has experiences "greater" than that of any rat, but that is certainly contentious.) In terms of mental capacities, if someone wanted to weigh the benefits of experimenting on a rat or a severely retarded infant, there is a callous justification that these test subjects can be mass produced in a Brave New World kind of way (or in the way that we already breed animals), and that it could imply providing direct answers about helping the human race rather than using animals and speculating how similar the effects would be in humans. But, as mentioned, many people would find this utterly nihilistic and abomidable whatever the medical benefit would be. This kind of reasoning serves as my primary opposition against animal testing, and to date I've never heard an explanation for why its wrong (however, its only been a few times that I've seen people say they would have no problems with using infants as experimental subjects, but object for the sake that we just dont have enough of them - certainly that makes the ethic consistent in experimentation, albeit as utterly repulsive as genocide.) Its a generally simple viewpoint to understand, that a beings moral worth is determined by the morally relevant properties they really have, and not relevant to their species membership, so that consistency demands that we treat all of the beings with equal consideration. Generally, I find the justification for animal experimentation "they are so much like us" wholly undermines the justification for not giving animals moral consideration "they are so unlike us" is specific to animals, but for the most part the justifications against animal experimentation are the same justifications against experimentation on unwilling humans or infants at a similar mental capacity. Aside from typing more excepts out of my books on animal rights, I'm not sure I can say much more on the subject without becoming tirelessly repetitive.

AL You would be surprised how often I'm asked on what basis animal testing would be justified. I have a nearly canned response to this: because a retarded human infant possesses no characteristics fundamentally greater than any non-human animal, then all I have to ask is whether the experimenter is willing to perform his experiment on a retarded human infant at a similar mental level of an animal. If the answer is no, then the experiment would obviously not be justified to perform on an animal. Presumably, based on your comment that you wouldnt approve of experimentation on apes and chimpanzees (perhaps because they have the relevant mental characteristics), you would find this to be a reasonable starting point. I personally find that, in the grand scheme of things, the case for animal medical research - the kind that requires some amount of pain to relieve the pain of many others - is stronger than the case for eating animals or cosmetic testing. That isnt to say that the case is sufficiently strong to make it the right thing to do, but just stronger. Probably, this is going to come off completely morbid to you, but I want to assure you that it isnt my intention: if medical research to cure diseases is necessary, truly necessary to an extent that it requires lives to be destroyed, then on what basis do we have to infect more animals with cancers and rare diseases to test on them when we already have human subjects with those cancers and diseases to test on? I try not to make that comment completely arbitrarily, but its based on my recollection of several medical experiments that required inducing heat stroke in animals (by trapping them in heated boxes for hours) to reconfirm the techniques of treating heat stroke already in use on humans. This implies that if the ends of medical research is supposed to be to relieve more pain than is caused, then my suggestion (however morbid) is the logical end to the basis "relieving more pain than is caused" - the case for human experimentation can now be argued to have a more sufficient ethical imperative than animal experimentation. (I'm not saying that I advocate actually doing this because I find it frightening - there could be methods such as tissue cultures and computer modeling that might be better -, but merely pointing out how a consistency in ethics would lead us to this conclusion.)

Whap, If this is what Gaia theory is based on, then its adherents overlook a really elementary error. Enter the fallacy police: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/composition.html http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html#composition http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/skepticism/blfaq_fall_composition.htm