JillSwift

I am surprised this oldie hasn't been posted yet: POLITICS: From the words "poly", meaning many, and "ticks", a blood sucking parasite.

You best point the claim out, then, because reading over the thread again I can't find it.

Straw man, no claim was made that it's impossible to disagree. Straw man, no claim was made that any stance should be taken on faith. Internally conflicting argument. If a definition is arbitrary then a definition can not be used to defend a position - because it is arbitrary. Ad hominem, implying he's crazy does not invalidate his argument. What it's called is a quibble. It is a set of privileges given to a couple who commit to a long term relationship, relative to their bond of trust (that is, being allowed to legally make medical decisions for one another, joint finances and real-estate business, taxation, etc.) The state chose to call this social contract a marriage, and as such the term is secular in this context (not only are definitions arbitrary, but a word can carry multiple definitions).

Wait, mannequins? I thought Bascule meant "dummy" as in "we found a dummy willing to be lobbed off a ramp."

Oh my goodness gracious that page is one of the best examples I've ever seen of words that don't mean much of anything. More than solid science, critical thinking skills are what's needed to take that page apart. One primary thing to note about what they're up to, is they carefully make no claims. For instance: This sounds impressive, but what they're saying is, there's no research to back their claims, and all they have going for them is that others have "used it therapeutically", which leaves any level of success unclaimed while sounding like it's an established therapy. It's bunk not just because of the pseudoscience, but because they're clever little liars.

But rude to mention. =>.>= =<.<= ==;

Point taken, and a "True that". To be fair, though "Slipstring Drive" is such a Star Trekkie sounding name. Gotta give points for that.

Yay pedantry! Yeah, and that speculation is itself fought with interesting problems of its own. That is, if QE can allow us to move information across space like that, is the rebuilt "you" really you, or a perfect duplicate of you with the original you now annihilated? And given that at our scale it would be an unnoticeable difference, does it matter? Haha, get it? Matter?

Sorry hon, wish it were so. But, just because we can imagine it does not mean we can do it. As we currently understand the cosmos, faster than light travel just doesn't look feasible - if any of the ways around relativity work out to be true - or possible - if those ways around relativity turn out to be untrue.

My statement was a truncated "right to equal treatment under the law". Equal treatment under the law is something we've already established in the US as a basic human right.This argument was part of women's suffrage, and the desegregation of African-Americans and their suffrage as well. There are times when following preference is rational. Hiring a person with better qualifications is rational. Choosing who you generate relationships with is rational. Being rational is recognizing reality and acting on it. However, there are also times when following preferences is irrational. Preventing two women from marrying and getting the same privileges granted by the state as a man and a woman would should be done because... what? Where is the reason? Being irrational is ignoring reality in favor of emotional response. So, again, what are the secular, rational arguments against allowing gay marriage?

One of the great misunderstandings of evolution is twofold: The moment of speciation is not a clear one. Taxonomy and species are far, far fuzzier concepts than you would expect, anyway. (No pun intended, I don't mean all species have fuzzy fur.)

That other's civil rights are also being violated isn't relevant. That's why I called it a red herring, it's a distraction from the point. Each is unjust on its own; both the infringement of the right to bear arms and right to equal treatment.

Sorry. I was woefully unclear.Your argument meets my criteria for proper, just treatment. But, as these civil contracts are currently called "marriage licenses", this same institution should be available to all without bias no matter the name it is given. I posit this is because there is no secular, rational reason to deny us the privileges available to straight couples. That's a very wiggly red herring you have there.

Well, likely explanations can be ferreted out, but wihout actual evidence, nothing conclusive can be said, and is really just speculation. Your ideas about what may have generated your own ghost story are rational and likely, given they stick within known mechanisms and phenomena. However, precisely what it was that made it happen we can't really know in the scientific sense. Evidence is everything, and one person's perception (or even several people's perceptions) isn't evidence. That's the hardest part of science to tackle, for me, being able to say "I don't know."

Seperate-but-equal didn't work with the african-americans, why should it work with us homosexuals? If you're going to offer a government institution, it must be offered equally. This is why abskebabs's argument that government should have never gotten involved in the first place is so strong. Really, even in the case of incest, unless tangible harm to others can be proven to a reasonable degree, why not poly marriage and incestuous marriage? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged And what secular, rational reasons might those be? And why do their desires trump the desires of their adult children? Even if so, how is this a reason to prevent these relationships culminating in marriage? As such, laws also change. Prior unjust law is not basis for current unjust law. Other's biases are not a defense of our own biases. Other's unjust laws are not an excuse for our own unjust laws. Wow. That really glosses over some major stuff. Like massacring of whole tribes of Indians, slavery of both Indians and blacks, segregation, no sufferage, limited rights for women... integration and equality has always been something that has had to be fought for, it was never granted. Yes. So?

I think the question needs to be a bit more specific. abskebabs argument against the government being involved in marriage at all is strong, but kind-of beside the point. This is the question, as I see it. Given that government offers benefits to couples choosing to live in a committed relationship, Given that the conditions of those benefits are conferred without much definition of purpose, Given that same-sex couples are choosing essentially the same committed relationship, What reason outside religious or biased discrimination is there to prevent conferring those benefits to same-sex couples? I don't accept the argument that marriages "traditionally" about one man and one woman, because tradition changes, and it's not a valid excuse for continuing practices in itself - for instance it's tradition in some parts of the world to mutilate the genitalia of girls to prevent them from being able to have sex until marriage and prevent sex from being pleasurable to them. Tradition is insufficient to defend such barbarity. Similarly but at a far less drastic scale, tradition is insufficient to defend bias against homosexuality. Also, the tradition itself is based on an irrational bias against homosexuality at its root. I reject the argument that marriage is for and about the production of children, as straight couples who are infertile or have no intent of producing children still get the benefits of marriage. What secular and relevant reason is there to disallow same sex marriage with above givens in mind?

Yay! Hugs all around! == I promise not to start out with "Well, you all suck!"

Can someone please tell me what the requirements are to be allowed to post in the politics forum? A subject near and dear to my lil heart is being discussed and I'd like to know if there's any hope of being able to participate before it peters out.

I acknowlege your feeling on the subject. Yes, people sure do use the word. Evidence thus far suggests it's not an unsolvable puzzle. No evidence thus far otherwise. That gives us a comfortable level of certainty.

The structure of the determining events have to make sense. A person's survival instinct is part of that structure. No. "Fate" is not only fairly vague as a term, it comes with the baggage of intent. Connotation is as important as definition. Why are you expecting conclusion? As I said, the point in pointing out the article is that the scientific method is being brought to bear on the mechanics of the mind. That is, science is perfectly capable of explaining free will, or discarding the concept, by way of evidence. I did not say that it already has made those explanations.

Aww poo. No one picked it up for the US at all? What I know of Darwin's relationship with is wife is pure wonderful love story. I was really looking forward to seeing this movie in a theater, and seeing something of Darwin on a level other than his science. Though you have a point, iNow, if they took the old artistic license too far again. It'd be another case of "U-571".

My objection to "meant" is that it requires intent. The cosmos has no intent. Determined by initial structure, sure. Intended, not so much. Before the big bang? Is that like what's further north than the north pole? The example is not in the article, it is the article. We're applying the scientific method to uncover the mind's mechanics. In this stage of the process, we're examining our meager evidence to try an ferret out if there is free will or determinism or some combination of the two. (Or something else entirely, though the article doesn't mention that.) You sense that because it happens plenty often. Or the only possible outcome, if so determined by that first millisecond of the big bang. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Please pardon my pedantic-ness: Science as a method isn't interchangeable with "truth". It's how we discover truth. Science is actually incapable of explaining phenomenon that can't be rigorously studied, like individual experiences. As in Dr. Syntax's story, he had an experience that we can not study, and so can never be explained with the scientific method. And that experience is definitely real and true (setting aside the possibility of a lie). What may not be real and true is the explanation of the events. For instance: "A ghost moved the bowl." Is probably not true or real. This explanation is untestable, though. "The bowl actually moved around the table." May be misinterpreted visual data. This doesn't change that the experience is real. This observation is also untestable. "I wiped down the table." In the context of the anecdote, a good idea. However, depending on variables we'll never have the chance to examine, wiping the table may have made it possible for the bowl to move about on the wet surface with greater efficiency. Again, we'll never be able to test this. So, the experience Dr. Syntax has was "real", insomuch as it was something he experienced, and for him perfectly "true". What actually happened to cause this experience, we can't ever know. The evidence is long gone.

"Meant" by whom? Really, that does not follow. It's hard not to see deterministic elements in the human mind. People can be astonishingly predictable, especially in groups, strongly suggesting that at least some behavior is deterministic. At the same time, similar people in similar situations can make choices that are totally dissimilar. Either way, the article was only meant to demonstrate that science is perfectly capable of explaining free will - assuming we have free will. It's a very basic exploration of what we know, and where that evidence is leading us, and how we're gathering evidence, and what those critical of the methods have to say. It doen't draw any conclusions outside of the comparisons of deterministic minds vs free will. Science is a method - an epistemology. It is not the accumulated information. Also, as a method, it also re-examines the pool of information gathered for errors. Claims (popular or otherwise) that are in error would be, eventually, uncovered and rejected in favor of theory that actually fits known fact. It happens all the time. Should the evidence take us there. Or is this an argument from consequence?

Sez you! I am totally intolerant of intolerance! Additionally, I find myself very intolerant of bacterial tolerance. =(o.0)= I am in such a conundrum.

It seems we may have a new understanding of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, and it involves nitric oxide (NO). http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nitric-oxide-helps-antibiotic-resistance Neato.