mooeypoo

Not that I mind sharing credit, but it was I who raised the issue of the google ads. What we could do is put them between the forums. I don't think it's horribly distracting, and we could fit more than one. Not horrible. As for where to put them in a thread-view, maybe between the black-area (logo part) and the thread itself. It's not percfect but it works. Otherwise, we can put it on the side, vertically instead of horizontally (like in gmail). I don't think it is that bad to have it next to the logo, honestly.. and if we don't want it there, we should find something else to put there.. it'll be a bit empty. ~moo Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Yah, I'll work on it when I am done with my QM exam. Oh, and I showed the logos to a good friend of mine who's a professional designer. She liked them, but she said something that I agree with completely: We should choose *either* the orbitals, *or* the integral. Putting them both into one logo makes the logo too cramped and messy, as if we couldn't decide which of them we want. I agree. And I still like the biohazard more

For the sake of branding our *proper* url, I think having "ScienceForums.net" somewhere is much more important than people immediately recognizing "SFN". If we had the sfn.com or .net address, then we'd be having a different discussion, but since we don't, it's more important for people to remember 'scienceforums' and we can have a bit more leeway in how the abbreviation looks. That said, I kinda liked the S^F=N one and the "biohazard" one more, but we can also make the integral more curly and maybe more "s-like". I am not too much in love with the 'golden ratio' idea. It reminds me too much of the pseudoscience that accompanies it. Yeah, I know it's the pseudoscience that stole the real symbol, but still. I am not sure I like it. How do you guys like the color-scheme and font-styles of my set of logos? I wouldn't mind taking the golden-ratio idea and wombel's tweak and play with them with the color scheme and stylized "SCIENCEFORUMS.NET" I made. Of course, in terms of the competition, the credit with remain with toastywombel and tomgwyther (hence, if those are chosen, you guys will get the shirt! ). I'm just wondering if - in case you guys like it - I can make all the ideas under the same relative 'style' of color-set, so when we judge the ideas they are all equally suitable to the new design. ~moo

Electrons. I can take them off:

Less balance. Okay, how's this:

I have to say, I don't like the lens flare idea.. Today's style of logos is sharp, and the lens flare makes it blurry. Also, it makes it a problem to plug it into different colors or play with it (every time you want to insert it on another color, you need to re-make the background). How 'bout we put the lens flare further out on the logo bar? So it makes the background less 'boring' but keeps the logo clear and crisp? Examples: Or, without one: Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedBRW, guys, don't forget that there nees to be room for the google ads.. so whichever logo we choose, this is more like how it's going to look (minus the colors we will likely adjust): and

I took a few ideas from Cap'n and from toasty and combined them together, see how you like this one: And another tweak:

May I ask, iNow, seeing as it seems I'm not the only one noticing this change in your debate methodologies -- what happened? I'm just curious.

You're not. I agree that unsupported opinions should be called out and challenged. I think they should be done in a civil manner. What keeps frustrating me is that it seems *THIS* particular point keeps getting lost. Over and over again. As if the point about civility means I disagree on the point made. Amazing. ~moo

Right, but at some point you find some sort of measure that is GENERALLY agreed upon, even if not *everyone* agrees on it. But then who decides which of the cases is okay to perform abortion (like in the case of the rape) and which aren't? By what measure? We need to find something when we talk about these issues because it *does* seep into laws. So.. what's the measure? Having a trial whenever a woman wants an abortion, and then decide if she can or can't have it? Week 12 is first trimester. Week 24 is second trimester. I tend to agree with you on this one. First trimester okay. Second trimester a bit riskier, hence I'm not sure I'd be giving it COMPLETELY to the woman. In Israel we have abortions but we also have an abortion committee. Abortion is legal under certain circumstances (read through them, I have a feeling you might agree with them all) and after those, you have a committee that will check and see if an abortion is needed. Practically, most women who go to the committee are getting an "okay" for the procedure, but the 'extra' step creates a situation where abortions aren't a default position, or the "natural" and "easy way out". I'm not ENTIRELY for those committees, but they're better than having no abortion, in my opinion. I am curious to know what you think of that idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Israel#Circumstances_under_which_abortion_is_legal That's fair enough. I respect that position. ~moo

I guess so. My disagreement wasn't on the fact there was a generalization, it was on how broad the generalization was compared to the conclusion that was drawn. Not all of them (Genesis is a good example; Chapter 1, 2 and 3 each tell a completely different story of creation, quite obviously not written by the same author). But some of them, yes, that's probably because some were evenetually put down on paper by the same author. So the contradictions are due to different authors, and hence different perspectives. And, by the way, remember that translations (specially the KJV) are, in themselves, interpretations. So they tend to be SLIGHTLY BIT *LESS* contradictory than the original, because the people who translated nitpicked what could be 'vague' meaning and made it a more suitable strict word. It's worse in the original I don't understand what you say here. You mean the problem is that religions is rationalized, or you mean problems arise WHEN religion is rationalized? Yep that's a rationalization, isn't it? Depends WHICH! I studied the bible for 12 years in a secular context. While we did absolutely talk about the religious implications, we also analyzed it in terms of the text, the references to the time, the literary value, etc. Those are actually EXTREMELY interesting, and they don't ignore context. I recommend anyone and everyone to do that. The biblical stories are very interesting once you give up trying to manipulate your brain into fitting them to reality literally. ~moo

Thanks, Severian, I thought that, but I wanted to make sure I understand your position. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged I've been thinking about this point, Severian. You're making a good argument (I disagree with it, but I can see your point, and it seems to be consistent, which is what we are looking for). However, I have a question for you: If you believe that these issues are a delicate balance, that is -- that the issue of 'killing the fetus' (immoral) is weighed against some other aspect (like 'ruining the woman's life' or 'forcing her to have her rapist's baby', or 'inconvenience', etc), and each of those is weighed independently to get some conclusion as to whether or not it is moral (as a bottom line) to balance the "lesser of two evils" as you call them, then wouldn't you agree that this is a subjective definition? That is, what you see as the lesser of two evils might not be what I see as the lesser of two evils. If your belief is that if the 'balancing act' produces the conclusion that the 'lesser of two evils' is to abort the pregnancy, then how would you define this process of figuring this 'lesser' to be? If it's a general opinion, then if a woman who weighs the situation and decides that the lesser of two evils is abortion, would you not agree it's her right to choose so? (And I agree with you that the matter *should* be weighed. It's not my opinion that abortion should be an 'easy' or the 'default' position. The decision whether or not to abort a pregnancy is something that SHOULD come after considerable thought. The question is, though, what happens if this consideration leads to a conclusion that differs than yours? Your definition is subjective, and in the case of then throwing these type of arguments on whether or not society should grant these rights to the woman or "protect the women from themselves" (ie, not let them have that choice because it's immoral) how can we make this distinction?) ~moo

Perhaps, but in *THIS* forum, we go by rational explanation of opinions. We aren't a political forum, we're a science forum with a political section. We opened it out of request of the users, with CLEAR instructions that we only do that to conduct rational debate. If you debate here, you should support your claims. Otherwise, people will call you out on unsupported claims. Period. We are, in this aspect, different than other political forums. As the saying goes: Take it or leave it. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Look. The moderators are not all-seeing. Moreover, many moderators prefer sticking to the science sections here and not debate in the politics section, which is really a 'bonus' extension to the SFN forums. So, if you see people who consistently refuse to support their claims or excessively and repeatedly use logical fallacies, your logical course of action is to REPORT IT, so the moderators see it and deal with it. We are dealing with it when we see it. Just look through the forum and see for yourself. If you have any specific arguments that you think weren't run right, then please, use the report button. We deal with EVERY report we're getting. We might argue on it and decide that the report is wrong, and we might decide it deserves some action, whatever the severity of that action be. Help us out and use the report button. ~moo

But iNow, you're not just a big boy (who can handle and avoid someone else's traps), you're also an extremely intelligent, very resourceful debater. Bringing it back to rationality and, as some say, "pwning" the debate through rational argument, is SO MUCH more effective, specially as these threads stay forever on google searches (and we do see traffic here from google.. quite a lot). We're not talking about the others at the moment. Believe it or not, the moderators are not a solid unit, we argue among ourselves as well about methodologies used by certain members in certain threads before we decide what to do with it. This is meant to make sure we all keep ourselves balanced regardless of personal beliefs. However,you're the one who opened *this* thread at the moment. You presented a strawman to draw out a trap for other users. Nice for you, but you missed your own point as I called you out on it now. And I am trying to see if we can, perhaps, gain back the old iNow, the one whose methods of 'pwning' an irrational argument were known to be witty, resourceful, full of the no-question links and totally pseudoscience-crushing. This was much more effective, much more interesting, and created much more challenging debates than the current in-your-face, I-dont-care-what-you-think-I-know-I'm-right, do-your-own-research, youre-all-idiots iNow that we tend to see lately. Bring back the wittiness, get rid of the snappiness. You'll be surprised how many people you might start to convince. Is that too much to ask? ~moo Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Actually, that would be the definition of belief, not of opinion. But regardless, just like I said to iNow, I will say to you: We are a science forum. The rules here are of rational debate and of evidence-based reality. That's how *our* politics forum is different from *other* politics forum. Our politics forum is an "extra" to this forum, and it follows the same mentality. We are a science forum, we go by rules of evidence and rationality. We avoid logical fallacies, we call out unsupported claims. What you deduce out of the evidence is then your right to hold as opinion, but in THIS PARTICULAR FORUM, we require rationality. And evidence. And supported claims. If you can't handle supporting your opinions with factual claims, then you should go to another politics forum. ~moo

If that's your only response, you should consider leaving this forum.

That's an unfair representation. You're not being chastised for challenging unsupported opinions, iNow, you're beign chastised for the *way* you choose to challenge the opinions. I, too, challenge unsupported opinions. But the main problem I encounter when I try to point out that the attitude you choose to take in 'calling out' members, is that you immediately go on the defensive, followed by an offensive, which causes the threads to just degrade into anger, personal attacks and away from a rational debate. The irony here is that I tend to agree with many of what you say, iNow, but the attitude you sometime take causes me to move away from you, not because I disagree with what you say, but because I disagree with the way you say it. It makes it hard for me to support your opinion when you choose to attack people instead of continuing on a proper debate. I know that things can be frustrating; they're frustrating to me too. But we both chose to participate in this forum, knowing that there are people here who disagree with us. The point of this forum is to conduct rational debates with the people we disagree with - sometimes strongly so. I take it as a challenge. As a way to improve my debating skills, as a way to learn what the people I disagree with think, how they rationalize their arguments, and what can be effective in arguing back to them. When I visit a forum that's purpose is more 'debunking' psuedoscience/religious-topics, or when I go to an atheist forum, my attitude might be different. If any psychich, for instance, 'dares' come into an anti-pseudoscience forum, then it's on him. He walks into a dangerzone, and he will probably be blazed. But this isn't an atheist forum. It's not an anti-pseudoscience forum. It's a science forum. We define ourselves as arguing rationally with people who probably don't really know why things are wrong. While in something like Dawkin's forum the people who argue against the mainstream belief are usually strong believers. They're usually people who won't be convinced by logic. Ridicule (as much as I, PERSONALLY, don't believe in it) is understandable. This isn't the case in this forum, though. We get more people who don't know better, either as active participants of the debate, or random readers. We can't use the same methods we use to argue amongst ourselves than we do in front of them. It defies the point. Instead of convincing them, we show ourselves as the arrogant pricks our opponents claim we are. You are not being chastised for challenging unsupported beliefs, iNow. We all challenge unsupported beliefs; D H does that often in the physics section regarding many a-pseudoscience "theories". Swansont calls out people's unsupported claims in psuedoscience and in physics. I call out people in Pseudoscience. This is a science forum. We require rational debates, not unsupported preaching. But DH, swansont and myself (and the others) give the people a chance. We go into a debate trying to imagine the other person as someone who is just confused, or someone who might say what he says because he never heard anything better. We start from a fair perspective - if we discuss rationally, we might actually have a nice discussion. We only move on to the more "attacking" attitude (either more forceful arguments or requesting other moderators to intervene) when we see the other person is not cooperating, the argument has lost its rational basis and there's no use to continue arguing. Because htat' the point of THIS SPECIFIC FORUM. You have no idea how frustrating it is for me to step away from arguments you are making, iNow. I agree with many of them, but your attitude tends to be so far out there "in your face" to the opponent, that I rather step away from the argument entirely, because I feel that if I don't, the argument will become one about attitude rather than about what actually matters (the opinions and facts themselves). So please. Please. Stop saying we chastise you for calling out people. We really don't. We chastise you for having a very specific attitude that doesn't belong in *THIS* forum. It might belong in Dawkin's forum. It might belong in the JREF forum. They are both excellent forums, but they're not us, and their purpose is different, and hence their method of debating these particular things is also different. I wish we could go back to the old times, iNow, where you, I, and few others, totally and completely show unchallenged-opinions to be wrong by discussing the RATIONALITY of them, rather than by going into an offensive, transforming the thread into an insult fest, confusing new-members into thinking that we're the pigheaded irrational stuckup people, and ruining it for our own side. Just think about it, please. ~moo

Fair enough. I have to say, it's the best explanation I've heard from "pro-life" proponents who also support the death penalty. Just wondering, then -- for you, then, the problem with abortion isn't so much about the 'when does the fetus can be called human-life' but rather more about the weight of the inconvinience to the woman's life vs. the potential life of the fetus? I mean, do you put a limit on when the abortion is moral and when it's not in terms of how soon it's done? Example: If the woman takes one of those "morning after" pills - meant to technically kill off a fertilized egg, just in case -- is that still, under your consideration, an immoral abortion (because it could've been a child)? and if not, then when does this issue begin? And lastly, if the consideration is a comparison between the 'inconvenience' of the woman versus the right to life of a potential child (of the fetus), then what are your thoughts on abortion following a rape? To me, this is an extreme case of where this consideration is reversed (not sure I'd define the pregnancy in that case as 'inconvenience', either.. it's quite more). Would that reverse your decision, too, in that particular case? ~moo

It's destroying her life. Some people would say it's not far from it, depending on the situation. But no, it's not killing. On the other hand, the alternative to death penalty isn't releasing the killer to kill again, and so it's not like we are facing the decision of "either we kill or he will kill", do we? It's more of a potential-damage issue. Isn't it?

I'm sorry, I saw this in the "Death Penalty" thread and had to ask Severian: Replace "Death Penalty" with "Abortion" - is it not the same principle? How 'bout this, then: "I think abortions are very similar. Killing the fetus is wrong, but letting it destroy the woman's life is more wrong". All I did was replace "Death Penalty" with "Abortion". It's also worth noting that in the death penalty, there's absolutely no argument about whether or not we kill human life (sentient, adult, etc), while it seems that in various stages of pregnancy, this is more vague. Why, then, would this principle apply to the death penalty but not abortion?

Actually, i tried to make the integral thinner.. unsuccessfully. I think this is better?

thanks toasty, I think your idea is great I just wanted to see stuff that are different than the one we have.. just.. test Anyways, ydoaps asked for a slightly different version, here it is:

But it's more accurate Bad analogy. What I'm saying is that you can't say that all over the world it's wet when it's only raining in 2 places. No, you can say that in general, Americans are getting fatter, but then you can't say that as a result we should devise a rule stating all Americans are to be put on a diet. Generalizations are useful, up to a point, and only when we know we're generalizing. So this started when a generalization was made about the trend that led Christianity be affected by atheism. However, clearly, Christianity isn't affected much by atheism if you look at homosexuality, abortion, marriage and evolution studies. Yes, generalizations can be very useful, specially when you analyze history. You talk about nations (which is a generalization) and populations (another generaliations) and cultures (same) and religions, etc etc etc. You generalize, but you do it to make a point, and you do it *while aware* that you're generalizing. In light of this, we can make some bit-more-useful generalizations: Evangelicals seem to be moving AWAY from the 'effects' of atheism, publicly and privately. Catholics seem to move along with atheism as the pope announced support to evolution and there are some lighter (not so "anti" spirited) talks about some aspects of homosexuality. However, the above two statements are, in themselves, generalizations. Not all evangelicals fit the first statement and not all Catholics fit the second one, but the trend is a bit more visible in each, so the generalization is somewhat helpful. But when you generalize Christianity in general, as a whole, when it has faiths that *disagree* with one another, you lose the point you're trying to make. You're taking it a bit too far, towards the ridicule even (it's called 'Reductio ad absurdum'), but that's not what I was saying. I'm not saying that you shouldn't use generalizations at all. I'm saying the one you're using generalizes too many distinct groups with distinct historical paths and distinct beliefs. You can't raelly look at the general trends in a belief system of several groups that have DIFFERENT belief systems. You can generalize things that are similar to check for similar aspects. For instance, if I want to check weights of humans in some area, I can group humans in that area. Because I test for an attribute that they all have. I can say, then, that Americans get fatter. If I want to be a bit more useful, though, and see why that happens, I will group these by smaller distinctions. Say, by gender. I will then say that American men are fatter than American women (I just invented this for the sake of the example, don't treat it as a fact). It's still generalizations, but now it's for a different purpose. Then, I can be even more specific and measure by ages, genders and more specific locations. So while it's true that newspapers would usually choose to present these analyses with the generalized, bombastic caption of "AMERICANS ARE---", the serious studies usually group them by more useful groups that can actually provide means for drawing conclusions and trends. You will be hard pressed to find a study about obesity that did *not* separate its participants at the very least by gender. Again. All religious texts from the three monotheistic judeo-christian-islamic religions have both awesome-nice-nifty-moral-cutsey things in them as well as horrific-immoral-genocidal-xenocidal-violent things in them. If you want to talk about what the bible/quran/OT/NT says, you shouldn't nitpick the good stuff and leave otu the bad stuff. Jesus said to love thy neighbor, but he also said "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" (Matthew 10:34). Theologians can choose to excuse these statements,but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist and should be ignored. It's also not the only statement of that sort in the NT. Sure, whatever works for you. The problem only starts when these rationalizations and explanations come on the expense of others. Like gay marriage. Liek abortions. Like death penalty. You may agree or disagree with each and every one of them, but if the reasons are religious, then you should expect that others rationalize same religion differently and find different meanings to agree on, or disagree on. That's how religious streams are formed. Hm. That's interesting. I spent 12 years studying the OT in hebrew/aramaic, but only got into the NT recently, and not too deeply. I'm going to have to find more time to read it and about it. ~moo

That is a strawman, and quite an annoying one at that. Neither Cap'n nor I said that the couples who lost fetuses (feti?) didn't CARE, we said that they care for OTHER REASONS. Please, jryan, ridiculing a strawman version of our statements will not help make your point. You are again moving the goal post. *YOU* are the one who introuced "tragic". We showed you how 'tragic' is an inconsistent term to use to separate loss of life and 'tragic loss of life' in terms of the morality of abortions. What you did is misrepresent our answer so you can ridicule it. As a result, this: Is a strawman, an appeal to ridicule and a shift of the goalpost. Are we going to discuss rationally or not? ~moo

Really, Severian? Is it because your 'morality' is based on scriptures, or is it because you know StrontiDog personally and judge his morality compared to yours on an actual objective measure? ~moo

I think it's very natural that cultures in general are affected by the cultures they mingled with, and religion isn't any different. My only point was that in order to analyze what trends and influences a religion was under, you have to really look at its history, and in the case of Christianity, the different denominations have different histories, and often different cultural aspects that affected them. Grouping it all under one name won't really help seeing what affected the religion, it will just make the judgment skewed by having the person(s) analyzing fall into confirmation bias. By the way, <nitpick>You mean Synagogues? </nitpick> But other than that, what do you mean the 'letters to the gentile churches' in the bible? What letters? ~moo

Let's be honest here, please. All the religions you pointed out have lovely things in their teachings along with absolutely horrid things in their teachings. They are all subject to their time (1000+ and 2000+ years ago) where slavery was accepted, violence within tribes was a matter of life, and "tough love" in the form of physical violence was just dandy when it came to children. If anyone chooses to take these teachings and reinterpret them so that they fit our current time, that is their choice, and it is absolutely their right. If after such reinterpretation the conclusion is leaning towards the more beautiful parts, then all my respect to ya'. But let's not be hypocritical here. The fact a modern religious person might choose to follow the good-teachings of a religion and shove aside the bad-teaching of the religion does not mean the religion itself is preaching goodness and love and harmony. Islam, Judaism and Christianity preach some love and harmony, and a lot of war and vengeance. If you choose to follow this in modern time or if you choose to reinterpret it in light of modern morality, that's your right. These teachings are still there, and in all these religions there are streams who choose to interpret their teaching literally and *keep* those warlike violent immoral teachings. ~moo