JillSwift

To be honest, the folks getting negative rep on subjects that are far more concrete than politics would probably just explode in the politics forum. It is my (not too) humble opinion that things are well set as they are.

Actually, Firefox 3.5.3 has few dependencies, and runs right out of the package on Ubuntu 8.04 - so it should be as easy on Mint. You can get the tar.bz2, unpack it somewhere in your home directory, then make a link to "firefox" on your desktop, allowing you to run ff3.5.3 at will. It will use your current prefs and update your plug-ins. It's not the best way to go about it, but it works.

I keep seeing people make this claim that there are "things not approachable by science". What things would these be? Correlation is not causation. It may sometimes be suggestive of it, but it is no guarantee. As such, it proves nothing and as evidence it is weak. We can seek evidence for a causative link, but if none is found the answer is certainly not to drag in another entity like "mystical involvement". That would be like noticing the correlation between rivers direction of flow and down hill, then attributing it to "river spirits". If no evidence for a causative link is found, the answer may well be that the correlation is happenstance. If the correlation continues with 1 to 1 certainty and no causative link is evidenced, then new hypotheses are needed, based on evidence gathered. Perhaps the link will not be found, but it will never be because the scientific method failed us, rather because we lack the skill, knowledge, or technology to find it.

This made me think of how bad it would be, on a public relations level, if some physicist working on the LHC or other really big collider said: "We'll get this running and producing results this year if it's the last thing we do." Gotta watch those turns of phrase.

Keep in mind news loves scary stories - they sell more ads that way. Causation hasn't been established in that death, only correlation. Always keep an eye on anyone who is feeling off colour. Though it's far more likely she's feeling off because of a simple environmental/plant allergy or minor bout of a few too many bacteria on something she ate and is so nothing much to worry about, it's so little effort to keep an eye that it's worth it for those very rare times when it turns out to be something more serious. In the end, don't sweat the HPV jab itself. Statistically the odds are vastly in her favor.

Okies. It's prior experience in conversing with folks in these situations. "Worry about how the laws will effect them" when pressed becomes "I don't want to change". It's their system, and they want to keep it theirs blemishes and failings be damned. Well thank goodness. I cant' argue that it happens - I was usually the one everyone hated because I'd prod them about their paperwork, so I'm familiar with the phenomenon. But, given the fact that being required to keep books in a proper, functional way would vastly improve their ability to do "the good work", I still boggle at the resistance to actually having such rules imposed. More so that the organizations regularly fail to impose those rules on themselves.

*shrug* It's just how I see it. It's a quibble. =o.0=Do you really think that they are absolved of responsibility for their crummy bookkeeping and the effect that had on folks just because there was no law about it?

This is why I find the resistance to "ObamaCare" in favor of these "faith based" programs to be facepalm worthy. It's not the faith... well, it might be, but not directly. One of the facets of my old career put me in direct contact with these sorts of programs. So far as i could tell, none were being abused, but they were run horribly enough that they may as well have been. Promises were made and then reneged on because the books were a mess. Folks were persued for bills the program was supposed to handle, but made some error in the paperwork. Accidental over-payments made a mess of every following case. Icky. What kills me is how well these programs could adapt to become a really fabulous addition to the proposed national system. Community "cafeteria fund" style resource with far simpler bookkeeping and pay grants that would cover all the little things that can pile up on folks dealing with illness and injury. Why anyone would resist a positive move in favor of such a mess, I can only guess.

*facepalm*

Phfft. : AfqDVP_0O0c

Just to illustrate a point germane to politics in general and this topic in particular... Assume: We all agree that people are more important than cars. Possible conclusion 1: People can cross the street at will, people in cars yielding to them. Drivers failing to yield will be consequenced for failing to follow the rules. Possible conclusion 2: Crossing the street at random points puts people in danger from passing cars, whose drivers may not be paying sufficient attention. Solution: Provide specific places and conditions when a pedestrian may cross the street. A jaywalker will be concequenced for failing to follow the rules. Funny how the same intent to make people more important than cars can lead to such dramatically different conclusions. Ferreting out the optimal method for achieving a goal ain't easy.

There have been a few studies about this question. Here's one that I find especially intriguing: Study: calm people are liberal, skittish are conservative

I bet the Mayans never predicted a silly squabble over sports coverage.

The water was put there by NASA when they were faking the moon landings.

Supergrub is great for this.

Oh, I see; You're pulling in ideas the study isn't concerned with. What was being revealed by the study was children's ability to think about what others were thinking about. The moral issues were the catalyst and weren't being tested. The twist in the story where the sandwich is replaced by accident is "known" only to the child and not to the first "pirate". This is what brings out whether or not the child could "put him/herself in the shoes of the pirate". What the study showed was that the younger children made their moral judgment based on what they knew. As the children grew older, their moral judgment started to include the idea that the person being judged wasn't aware of the same facts - in short, the child could better think about what the first pirate was thinking. This same effect was shown in the magnetic disruption tests of adults. When that part of the brain was disrupted, it was more difficult to think about what another was thinking, and so the judgments were more often being made from thier own knowlege of the situation - i.e. they couldn't consider that the other person was unaware of their mistake because they didn't have the information the judging adult did.

And no one said it would. Not really. From where I stand, you appear not to know what evolution is. Here's a nice little primer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vss1VKN2rf8

No, no! Thank you for allowing me to yet again demonstrate my proclivity for contributing to topic drift.

Um... That your subconscious "has your back"?

Huh? Everybody who uses props as part of their storytelling is a "fibber"? Which is actually the point - to isolate the knowledge of the events in the story so the children would be less likely to insert prior knowledge/expectation. In what way? None. The published study says these are all "fresh" kids - meeting the research team for the first time. Can you suggest a way that the authority of the storyteller would have affected the answers to her questions? Would they assign a different meaning to the outcome has the researcher had little authority over having much? If so, why? This is why we have to have a large sample size. Again, these questions are negated by a large sample size, and the fact there were more than just the project lead doing the stories and interviews. The result of a single child's answers are meaningless, the video showed only examples of the methodology. Get into about a thousand samples, and you have a meaningful pattern going there. Then you add the corroborating evidence: The FMRI studies of children. The magnetic pulse interference tests of the adults. The results of the study seem very solid to me because she followed a very rigorous methodology, and found corroborating evidence through other studies that also has rigorous methodologies. Most importantly, her findings were peer reviewed, and some of her studies have already been repeated. Ignoring my apparent "argument from authority" there, if you think you've found a real hole in her methodology, I'd love to see it actually explored - that is, give us a mechanism or phenomenon can be tested that would bias the findings. "What if" style questions are interesting but don't actually provide much to go on.

Yeh sure, rub your experience with peer review in muh face That would have gotten me, I thought it was just shiny pavement.

Hehe. Here I thought, what with answers being given, there was some other meaning for "indicator" that I wasn't aware of. Ok, I'll ask: Indicator of what? Gimmeh sum contekst!

Sort of. I wasn't aware of a lot of these studies. I'm impressed with how far along we actually are in figuring out the "parts of our sum". Not to say we don't have a very long way to go yet. Some things notably missing from the puzzle that intrigue me: The development of specific dogmas among religions. For instance, why is hell a "lake of fire" rather than a "chamber of torture devices"? The nature of the change from animistic to theistic, where applicable. The mechanism behind polytheism to monotheism. (Always struck me as weird, why give up the big family for the single father?)

Naturally, CharonY. It's what you don't see that should worry you.

I am unaware of any evidence to support the rather extraordinary claims they are making about what amounts to listening to their bad synthesized music. What they are selling has been around a long, long time. One would think if there was anything to it, there would be something in the journals about it. I say, get some nice techno/electronica from iTunes and enjoy the "binaural beats" they provide. It may or may not improve your brain, but it will at least sound good.