John Cuthber

This thread keeps reminding me of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=438UKM1Av1g

Miser, As iNow says, you should change your attitude and learn how to debate science properly. Alternatively, you can carry on as you are, and I will keep laughing at you (at least until you get chucked out of the forum). Your decision.

There's still an overestimation of the "benefits" of guns. We don't know what the criminal would have done in the absence of the gun. About 10 years ago someone threatened me with a knife and demanded that i gave him my wallet. I told him to fuck off and he did; he ran away. If I had had a gun I'd probably have drawn it and the guy would, presumably, have fled in that scenario too. But the pro gun lobby would say that the gun saved the day even though what actually saved the day was that the thief knew that it's easy enough to find another potential victim, and very dangerous to actually get into a fight, even if you are the one with the knife. Many, if not most, attackers are cowards. They run off if you pull a gun on them- but they would possibly run off if you hit them with a rolled up newspaper. So, counting instances where a criminal ran away when someone pulled a gun is an overestimate of the benefit of guns. Also, the page Moontanman cited says "Although gun ownership costs more money than simple measures such as locking doors, having neighbors watch one's house, or avoidance behaviors such as not going out at night, it costs less than buying and maintaining a dog, paying a security guard, buying a burglar alarm system, or relocating one's residence to an area with less crime." which misrepresents the effect of guns. A guy who is thinking of breaking into your house will look at it first. If he sees a bell-box or hears a dog he will probably choose another house. Those things are real deterrents. But, until he breaks in and you confront him, he doesn't know whether you have a gun or not- so it's not a deterrent. To compare a guard dog with a gun is so inappropriate that I wonder if he's doing it dishonestly. At best, he's doing it unwisely. He also says "Another way of approaching this issue is to ask people how they would feel if guns were eliminated. If widespread gun ownership was currently making people feel less safe, then eliminating guns should make them feel more safe. An August, 1994 Gallup poll asked: "Suppose a law were passed which you were certain would remove all handguns from the possession of all citizens other than the police. Would you feel more safe, less safe, or wouldn't it make any difference?" While 32% said they would feel more safe, 41% said they would feel less safe, and the remainder felt it would make no difference. Since there are more who would feel less safe than who would feel more safe, the net effect on the population as a whole of eliminating guns would be to make the population feel less safe." Hang on- we are not talking about feelings here. The kids in Newtown don't just feel dead. So talking about how a bunch of people think they would feel (which is a guess anyway because they have never been in that situation) doesn't really tell you anything. Questions like "Does having a gun in your house make you feel more safe from crime, less safe, or doesn't it make any difference?" are no better. (Though it would have been interesting to repeat the survey but ask the question "Given that a gun in your house is much more likely to kill a member of your family than a criminal, Does having a gun in your house make you feel more safe from crime, less safe, or doesn't it make any difference?") I really don't think that a poorly produced web page carries the same weight as a peer reviewed research paper.

I'm waiting for someone to suggest arming the children.

But you did, in the opening post and as I pointed out (Post 19 I think) you were simply flat wrong to do so. The comments about our mothers are plainly baseless. So was this assertion "As we progressed through discourse, those questions were more or less answered." from post 32 This, from post three is wrong on two counts "Now femininity can be defined roughly as a high deposit of fat to musculature ratio. Because fat has been found to break apart testosterone* (because you just redefined old as feminine) And perhaps most importantly, the whole thread is based on an assertion by someone who is well known for getting things wrong so the whole thing is baseless.

I guess it didn't occur to you that he and I are asking the same questions because they are the sort of questions that any scientist should ask. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to answer the questions.

Some of you might find this informative http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9715182 in précis "For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides."

Specifically, there have been 3 in my lifetime (47 years). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United_Kingdom with a total death toll of 46. Mean death rate practically 1 per year, or about 0.02 per million per year By comparisson, lets have a look at some of the big US states. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United_States tells us that Texas, which has roughly half the population of England + Wales has a death toll of 113 for the same period so that's roughly 4 times as many on a per capita basis. California- again a smaller population than the UK has a death toll of 87 Once again, more dead from a smaller population. New York did quite well, only 20 dead among a pop of 20M so roughly 1 per million over 47 years. Only slightly worse then E+W. Florida didn't have any (which seems odd to me). But, as has already been shown, the death toll in the states is generally higher. Mass shootings are comparatively rare. While they get lots of media attention, they are not the cause of most of the shootings. Fewer guns means less cases of friends getting into a petty fight and settling it with guns rather than fists.It means fewer instances of kids getting hold of guns and shooting their mates while playing. Seriously, no sane individual really wants to kill someone. The only thing guns are really good at is killing people. So no sane individual has a valid need for a gun. Why do you give guns to people who don't seem to be sane?

Could you try that again please or have you got your grammar checker set to "Yoda" again? What are you trying to say? are you saying that it's fortunate that some people don't understand stats? Is it unfortunate that some people think that all these dead children is a fair price to pay for the right to have the illusion of protection? Perhaps you think it's unfortunate that I haven't seen many guns.

But no cigar. You seem to be talking about this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tired_light which is already known to be wrong.

He may well mean methanal also known as formaldehyde. Activated charcoal will absorb it but it's much better to get rid of whatever is creating it. Fresh, this may sound like a silly question, but what is the weather like? If it's cold then that will often mean that the air is dry. That could cause a sore throat or make it worse.

1 It's not getting "fixated on semantics" to ask you wtf you are on about. 2 There seems little evidence that you have the ability to carry on a sensible discussion of science. 3 She's still dead, thanks for asking.

I was looking for an image of a T shirt with "the voices made me do it" as a response to the idea of a "dialoge" with God, but I found this which makes the point even better http://raichious-muffin.deviantart.com/art/The-voices-made-me-do-it-340469585 Seriously, talking to God is bad enough, but if you think he's talking back that's clearly defined as "broken" Here "F06.0 Organic hallucinosis A disorder of persistent or recurrent hallucinations, usually visual or auditory, that occur in clear consciousness and may or may not be recognized by the subject as such. Delusional elaboration of the hallucinations may occur, but insight is not infrequently preserved." from here http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/bluebook.pdf

I'm waiting for the pro-gun lobby to suggest that the schoolchildren should have had guns so they could shoot back. Rigney, do you understand that massacres like that are rare? That means they don't affect the stats much So, you don't actually have a point. Nor did you have one about narcotics, nor did you have one about that Telegraph article. (BTW, you may not realise this bu tthe Telegraph is considered rather right wing so their point of view on law an order may be a bit biased) For the record, there are very few guns in the UK. The only ones I have seen in my 47 years have been owned by the police or army. Most of the guns that are here are used by criminals (obviously) but their targets are other criminals. Every now and then some poor soul gets caught in the crossfire. The police generally manage to track down the shooter and they end up in jail. That Washington post article is remarkable. It tells me that about 10% of your population thinks that felons and the mentally ill should have guns too. It looks like any sort of regulation would be a good start.

Guns have been substantially banned in the UK. It's possible. It's obviously a whole lot more difficult when there are more of them to start with, but just because something is difficult, doesn't mean it's not worth trying. The stats still show that if you buy a gun it is more likely to kill one of your family than an intruder / burglar/ whatever. All you buy is the illusion of security. If that message were widely accepted then a whole lot of guns would be recognised as a threat and disposed of. Most of the 3E8 guns are not owned by "bad guys". They are owned by people who don't realise that, when things go wrong, owning a gun doesn't generally help.

Asking what you think you mean by masculine and feminine isn't derailing the topic. Without that data it was never "railed" in the first place. Since you have now confirmed that you don't really know, it's difficult to see this thread getting anywhere.

"nor do I think we should try anyway, but surely there's something we can do to help improve matters. This is the 7th mass shooting this year alone" How many does it take before you do think someone should try? It's not going to be easy, but surely it's worth trying before you give up.

The comparison between guns and cars is deeply flawed because cars are designed and built to move people an stuff around whereas guns are designed to kill people. Banning cars would gravely inconvenience a large number of people. It would make some people's lives near impossible. Banning guns would spoil a relatively small number of people's fun. As I see it, one of those is a valid price to pay for not killing a couple of dozen school kids from time to time.

He says he doesn't understand why there's a flaw in the argument that, if you outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns. Which means he's an idiot because nobody is seriously considering disarming the police. If he has that poor an understanding of the issues (and he's prepared to say so on TV) why is he given airtime? EDIT It gets worse. I didn't know who the guy was so I looked on wiki where I found this evidence concerning his views on science. "Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers, talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed ... that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science—in my opinion, this is just an opinion—that’s where science leads you. Crouch: That’s right. Stein: ... Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people. Crouch: Good word, good word."

"You guys aren't anything different from Bishops who did not wanted to look through the telescopes and let go their beliefs, right? Its atheists who are showing double standards." Not only is this demonstrably wrong, but it has nothing to do with the points I raised. Asking for information is the exact opposite of refusing to look through the telescope. Saying that science is not looking into consciousness is simply not true. (Edited to sort out the formatting which had gone haywire.)

If the theist scientist have the answer why don't they publish it? "Anyone who has studied molecular neurobiology knows that there is no place for such a model in the physiology of the human brain" Clearly nonsense. Since nobody (yet) has a valid claim to understand the brain, they can't say what it doesn't do. And I'm still wondering if you would take the shotgun test? "Academy of parapsychology and medicine" I think there's a thread here somewhere debating whether psychology is a science, yet you think it's legitimate to cite parapsychology as evidence. Do you expect to be taken seriously?

Gas viscosity barely depends on pressure (For an ideal gas the effect of pressure is exactly zero). Also, the damping will be due to the viscosity of the water, rather than the air.

Doh! One day I will learn to read. If you can get nitric acid then you can use that to etch silver.

Stop selling ammunition. I'm not saying it entirely stops the problem, but it sure helps and you need help.

At about six and a half minutes into the video he says something that's plainly wrong. He says that "we" scientists" assume that matter is not capable of consciousness That's plainly wrong. I assume it is capable - as long as it's arranged correctly. That's why my brain - which is made of matter is aware that it is my brain and made of matter. It's not the first thing he gets wrong and I don't know if it's the last because I stopped watching. What would be the point? he s basing his argument on a false premise so it van't be a valid argument. The idea that he is trying to put forward is that we can't explain consciousness within science because we are making the wrong assumption. In fact we don't make that assumption so his point is invalid. He is trying to make the analogy with old astronomy where, because they thought the Earth was the centre of the universe, we couldn't explain the movements of the planets. Once you ditch that assumption, the planets behave just as you would expect. That's true enough- but in order to ditch that belief, we also had to ditch the reason for that belief: it had been told to us by an old book. If you say that consciousness is not a function of the matter and arrangement of the brain, then you have to accept that being shot in the head won't affect consciousness. It's funny that they don't seem willing to do that experiment. Finally there's one obvious comment to make about the idea that "What is consciousness?" is one of the "Questions which atheistic scientists sidelined and ignored.". It's a flat out falsehood. It's just not true. Science is working on it. OK , we have yet to get there but that's just a comment on the current state of knowledge. Two hundred years ago we hadn't eliminated smallpox and we had, at best, a shady idea of how we might. Now we can say that that problem is solved. It may be two hundred more years before we sort out the nature of the mind, but that doesn't mean we need to resort to magic explanations of it- it just means we have to say that it's a work in progress (at the minute). But let's be absolutely clear on this. It simply is not true to say that science has ignored the question. Saying otherwise is either remarkable foolishness (in not having checked) or a lie.