Cap'n Refsmmat

Which pundits are doing this? As far as I know, they're throwing atrocities at one another as examples of why we should or should not paint crosshairs on Congress members who vote the wrong way on health care reform. I haven't seen anyone go "and if we had government-run health care, Giffords would be left to die on the sidewalk!!!!!" or whatever. If it does turn out that Loughner is schizophrenic or delusional, you can't pin blame on anyone. On the other hand, if it turns out he read some (right- or left-wing, either works) pundit shouting "stop the health care bill at all costs!" and went and shot someone to pull it off, well, perhaps the pundit was shouting too hard...

I think it's too early to see. We'll see in the coming days if investigators determine his motivation and what contact he's had with other political groups. People may be tempted to blame it on Palin and her map, but we don't yet know if the guy even knew the map existed, or whether he followed Palin or any other political leader when planning the attack.

I thought this was particularly ironic.

Perhaps the world would be a better place if everyone were required to put error bars in their statements.

Whole-universe inflation in the early universe is supported by cosmic microwave background measurements, which would show anomalies from inhomogeneities in inflation.

Likewise, quantum effects establish a range of effects which have no known causes. I find it odd and unsupported to claim that all known effects have causes.

Is it? In searching the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, I can't find any consensus on causality -- there's even discussion of backward causation (i.e. future causing past events) being logically plausible.

There was a new press conference this morning. Check the CNN article I linked.

I think we can safely move on with the original topic now. CNN is reporting that Giffords is able to communicate with doctors, despite the bullet having "traveled through the left hemisphere of her brain from back to front": http://edition.cnn.c...dex.html?hpt=T2 Encouraging, though I doubt she'll be going back to Congress in the foreseeable future. The New York Times ran a profile of the shooter today, and suggested he may have been schizophrenic: If that's true, it's hard to say anything can be blamed for the shooting besides his own mental state. If he was delusional, anything could be the cause.

You're the one claiming that everything needs cause and/or beginning, and trying to apply it to the same period.

I think ydoaPs was pointing out the discrimination carried out by others, rather than trying to discriminate himself. Americans seem to associate terrorism exclusively with Muslim extremists. Also, he's not Yoda.

I think this answers the question: http://xkcd.com/638/

You argued that everything has beginnings. I pointed out that they don't, because of conservation laws, and that nothing in fact begins or ends, so your initial claim that material "must have a beginning" because of overwhelming evidence is wrong. My answer does nothing to address how the universe came into existence (or how it has stayed in existence infinitely) because no answer is yet known. I'm sure you're aware that there are many theories involving a cyclical universe, and the evidence has yet to point strongly in one direction or another. A wise atheist would merely say "eh, I dunno" when asked about the beginning of the universe. That is not a double standard.

I think you have it reversed; the theories the LHC intends to test have implications for how the Big Bang may have occurred, rather than the other way around. The evidence the LHC provides will determine whether the assumptions are false or defective.

A materialist believes in the laws of conservation of matter and energy. Beginnings don't have to enter into it.

That's scheduled for sometime this year -- probably around April, if you believe their estimates.

It wasn't really an explosion. It was an expansion. Space was smaller back then. It wasn't an explosion that started in one tiny point in space -- space itself was incredibly tiny, and the explosion encompassed all of space that existed.

Are we trying to judge their reasons, or just elucidate them? I'd imagine that much of the hatred stems from perceived Western meddling in Middle Eastern affairs. Here's a writeup by a Brown University professor: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/publications/Oppose.htm

That is exactly true for alternating current. Direct current is a real current flow, though.

Depends on whether you're talking about alternating or direct current. Direct current relies on the speed of the electrons. Alternating current, however, moves at the speed of electric field propagation through the wire; because each electric charge is accelerating, it emits an electromagnetic field that propels the other electrons in the wire. Electromagnetic fields travel at the speed of light. Perhaps an analogy would help. Suppose I have a solid steel bar and I push on the end, so that it slides through an opening. The rate at which it passes through the opening depends on how hard I push it. However, if I hit the bar with a hammer, the force is transmitted from my end to the far end incredibly rapidly -- at the speed of light. The atoms I hit push on the atoms next to them, which push on the next atoms, and so on, all through electrostatic forces, which travel at light speed. Of course, you can also point out that the average speed of a single electron in an alternating current wire is 0, since it oscillates back and forth... If you know differential equations, here's how I learned AC current speed: http://farside.ph.ut...ves/node37.html (disclaimer: I'm not entirely certain of my description of how AC currents work)

http://archive.scienceforums.net/crackpotBingo.php

The allegations against Wakefield are not against his statistics but suggest that he misrepresented the health of his patients -- for example, claiming that five children's problems began with the vaccine, when medical records show that they existed long before. Also, the vaccine court has ruled in several recent cases related to autism that thiomersal vaccines do not cause autism, so the institutional power is shifting. It's my understanding, however, that Wakefield managed to continue a career despite losing his medical license and having his famous study retracted. I believe he ran a clinic for autistic children in Texas somewhere, though he has since resigned, and still maintains a following among anti-vaccine people. I suspect he'll be able to make a living by writing a book or two, appearing at conferences and giving speeches. I mean, look at Kevin Trudeau. He's repeatedly been sued by the FTC for fraud and false advertising for his Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About (among other things), and he still puts out new books and programs, and people buy them. Being labeled fraudulent hasn't slowed him down yet.

We'd have listened if you'd have given us experimental evidence. Shouting a lot and saying various physicists are idiots will not convince us.

Since "Just the Facts" doesn't seem to be interested in providing factual evidence (i.e. experiments) in support of his theory, speculations rule #1 applies. I think we're done here.

So, no, you don't want to cite an experiment. This discussion has no point. An oligarchy, yeah.