PhDP

I think there's more people "registered" as christians, but more practicing muslims. Technically, my parents, and most of my friends are "catholics", my father even had the privilege of been harassed by nuns because he was left-handed. Anyway, very few of them actually believe in god, they're CINO (Catholic In Name Only). The pattern is similar through Europe, the actual number of practicing christians in rich countries is very low (with the notable exception of the U.S., of course).

I'm not sure to understand Dan Rather's example (or even why it is an exception), the teacher is an individual, he has the right to his opinions. This is clearly not a case of the state taking the side of a religion over another. Whether they're "supporting" Christians or Atheists, I still don't see the point.

Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe.; ...and it has nothing to do with the "far-left", most of the judges who voted on this were nominated by republicans. The resolution 847, in itself, is not unconstitutional but, with the notable exception of (4), all the points made in the resolution could be made about any other religions. Islam isn't one of the "great" religions ? Bigotery is O.K. against atheists ?

Utterly useless. Even if it's not unconstitutional, it clearly goes against the spirit of the first amendment.

Even if it was proven to be effective, and I don't think this proof has been made, there's still at least two problems. First, well, there's the Geneva convention. It's illegal to torture prisoners of war. What kind of message the U.S. administration is sending ? Don't torture our guys, but if we need to, we'll torture your guys, well, because they're *bad* ? Also, again, I think the U.S. should take into consideration the impact of waterboarding on its reputation. "Reputation" isn't an abstract concept, it has concrete consequences. The Iraq war has been used by terroritsts to increase recruitment. Of course, this is nothing compared to the Iraq blunder, but it's part of a general pattern of arrogance from the current U.S. administation and it will help terrorists achieve their goals. From a purely utilitarian perspective, even with absolutely no considerations for the victims of torture, I doupt this is worth it for the U.S.

It shows "Paul" is more of an ultraconservative than anything else. Political globalization is, in my opinion, profitable for humanity as a whole. And more to the point, it's probably unstoppable.

CDarwin, I agree with the first part of your message (except the part about Sarko), and I also agree partially with; No evidences for A has been presented, and B; why should we ? Some liberals are supporting Chavez, big deal. However, I do care about how some word like "liberal" are exported, I think it's too easy to make associations based on nothing, it's the good old "Hitler was conservative"/"Communists were Atheists" trick, and now, Chavez is a "liberal", and this one is not even remotely true by any serious standard (anyway, I don't know any). You really have a strong tendency to use direct and indirect personal attacks. More than half your answer was just whining against the left and things that have nothing do to with my questions. Discussion would be easier without all those diversions. And do you really think the Nolan chart, and other systems create by political scientists are just "politically correct, Oprah-approved conditions, overseen by Howard Dean and approved by MoveOn.org" ? Did I ever quoted these people/groups ?

Pangloss, I said you were doing an argument from selective observation, and what is your answer; I’m repeating; I never said Hugo Chavez wasn't not on the left when it comes to economy. In terms of economy, he does support many policies espoused by American liberals. In terms of civil liberties/traditions, he's much closer to American conservatives. Although, in both cases, I think the comparison is quite weak. I completely reject the notion that there are enough similarities between the political landscapes of North America and South Ameria to justify a comparison with American liberals & conservatives. And anyway, the distinction between "liberals" and "conservatives" is increasingly about so-called "social issues". I would really like to have a direct answer on this; was Stalin "liberal" ? Is Garry Kasparov a "conservative" ? I mean, the guy is clearly conservative, he supports free trade and the free market, he's some sort of revolutionary conservative, in short, he's a living oxymoron, that is, if we try to export the terms "liberals" and "conservatives" to Russia. What about Kim Jong-il ? He's pretty conservative, for a liberal... I'm 100% certain the black & white, "liberals v. conservatives" duality can't be exported to other regions of the world. Chavez's ideologies must be understood within the framework of South American politics. If some American liberals want to support him, that's their problem, but he's not a liberal. I'm not doing this, I'm not denying that some liberals support him; honestly I don't really care about what they are doing. Still, I think the actions of a couple of actors hardly justify your argument about the "support from the political left". It might be true, but I would like to see evidences. What I really find outrageous is your attempt to portrait Chavez as a "liberal".

Pangloss, Of course he's from the left in terms of economy, but I can't think of a single classification of political philosophies where Chavez would be close to "liberals" (in the American sense). In the Political Compass, he would be from the Authoritarian Left corner ("liberals" = Libertarian Left, "conservatives" = Authoritarian right), same thing for the Nolan chart, Greenberg & Jonas' model or the Inglehart chart. You're making an argument by selective observation, why don't you take a look at some other aspects of his political philosophies ? oh my, he's against abortions, he must be a conservative, right ? There's no way even a simplistic system of classification would allow you to make such a comparison, it's just as absurd as like saying Stalin is "liberal" and Kasparov "conservative". I think we can best describe his ideology as left populism, but it has very little do to with the liberals of the U.S., it's a strange mixture of outdated socialist economic policies, capitalist opportunism, social conservatism and a manichean foreign policy. It's not supported by anything either. Who cares about what a couple of actors are doing ? How many democrats in the senate support Chavez ?

Chavez, a liberal ? Pure Nonsense. What I find particulary disturbing is that many conservatives are bashing Chavez because he's not a social liberal and his foreing policy is based on a manichean view of the world. Sounds familiar ? Of course, he's on the left when it comes to the economy (but not as much as some might think), but liberals in the U.S and most of Europe are generally much less inclined to support the kind of populism/authoritarism espoused by Chavez than conservatives. ... do you have something serious to back this claim ?

Then Obama is 100% sure to win. Oprah knows.... "The Secret" (which, of course, is based on Quantum Physics). I'm curious to see if Obama can really beat Clinton. I was just reading J.Toobin's "The Nine"; Americans can't elect another republican, not only because Bush was one of the worst president the U.S. ever had, but also because it would change the legal landscape of the country. I suspect that most democrats don't really care about the differences between Clinton and Obama, let's face it; most are just trivial. If Obama shows that he's gaining ground on Clinton, and if polls show that Clinton will lose in the general election, I guess many moderate Clintonites will change their vote (I know I would).

Democrats should have had to guts to oppose this stupid war in the first place. They didn't... They were probably afraid to look "unpatriotic", in the end, they were simply short-sighted. It's really great so see that so many people are willing to do stupid things just to avoid this kind of label, it makes me think of high school were there was tons of rules to leans to avoid the dreaded "gay" label. When it was clear that it was a mess, they started putting everything they got in the anti-war effort... Which is also clearly short-sighted, I mean, yea, the rationale for the war was bad, yea, it's not going very well, does it mean America should get out and leave the Iraqi with the mess the invasion has created ? What a solid argument... ...Populism.

I knew that, I'm mostly looking for undergrad students with some training in science. I also don't have my degree yet, I graduate in 2008.

I really doupt making incest illegal had any effect.

I would like to find a bunch of motivated (and serious) people and then we could look at what can be done. Of course, it's very interesting to have someone with a formal training in biochemistry.

That would be a nice idea, I really miss this part of the forum. Some discussions were really interesting.

haha, same thing here

I doupt there's one single cause of "morality", but I think most of it is maintained by self-interest, but I also think several byproducts of evolution are involved. In fact, I already made my point about this a long time ago, when there was a philosophy forum...

Hillary & McCain. I'm surprised that so many people voted for Ron Paul, I thought most people here were born after the civil war

Hello I'm thinking about creating an online group of undergrad biology/mathematics students to create projects in theoretical/mathematical biology (I'm not talking about statistics; stats are well established in biology). The fact is, there are so many opportunities to use mathematics in biology, sometime, even basic models have not been analysed. But most biologist have little training in maths, and they often make simple mistakes (the worst part; it gets published). It's not really better in mathematics departments; very few have researchers interested in biology. So, there are very few opportunities for undergrad student, at least in many universities, to do research in biomaths/theoretical biology. This is a little odd; so many articles in biology journals rely on maths. On the brighter side, because researches in those domains don’t require much equipment, and because many subject have barely been explored, it's a fertile ground for undergrad research projects. Of course, many aspects of biomaths/theoretical biology have been analysed by many scientists, and it would be hard for a bunch of undergrad to do research without spending an unrealistic amount of time. On the other hand, many models have not been analysed by anyone, there's just not enough people with the proper training to do this job. I don't want to create a monolithic group where everyone would do the same thing; I would like to simply assemble many motivated undergrads, with different backgrounds, it could be biologists with little training in maths, or mathematicians with little training in biology. Motivated people. Anyone could discuss project ideas, and teams could be assembled on specific projects, with the objective of publishing, of doing serious research. Of course, if would also be an opportunity to learn and to share knowledge, articles, et cetera... I know if I'm looking for people with true hybrid training in biology and mathematics, I won't find many. But I know many biologists have read articles in journals and are frustrated by their inability to understand the maths behind theory, and I'm sure many mathematicians would like to find new opportunities. I really think people don't realize how much work there is to be done in this domain. I've recently submitted a "Letter to the Editor" after I saw that a model, published in 3 serious journals (including "Science" and "PNAS") had a serious construction flaw (it's not even a matter of opinion and interpretation; it's just plain incoherence that can be demonstrated with basic algebra). I would really like to have some feedback on this idea, and anyone interested can contact me by email or MSN (it's the same GMAIL address).

I read few evidences here that masturbation was adaptive; it might very well be a by-product. Not necessarily. Fitness is the contribution made to future generations; it's possible to have a higher fitness with fewer offspring and lower survival rates.

Not with humans. Dogs have evolved very specific traits which make human-dog communication easy; Hare, B., & Tomasello, M. (2005). Human-like social skills in dogs? Trends in Cognitive Science, 9, 439-444

Nobody here has the time (or interest) to write a complete rebuttal of a complete book, but if you point out an argument we can talk about it, although I doubt it would be supported by serious references. I would suggest, however, that you read a basic book about evolution, I don't see the point of reading a "criticism" of evolution if you don't know what is criticised.

Of course Africans are not as smart as we are, and Floridians are not as smart as New Yorkers, it's all about money, health, climate (cold climate = higher average IQ) and other factors... However, there's little evidence that "blacks" have lower IQ because of their genes, Watson, of all people, should know this. All the studies in which environmental factors were neutralized failed to prove any significant difference between the average IQ of "blacks" and "whites"l

Not really. Dogs like to interact with human, it's in their gene, wolf are not really interested.