Ringer

There usually isn't a way to deal with this kind of believer. Sadly the human mind is wonderful at having a belief and being able to rationalize everything. If you have tried to convince them and they refuse to have an open and honest discussion you have two options: 1.) leave the conversation with both of you being amazed at how wrong the other one is 2.) accept that you are going to make them extremely angry and let loose. I grew up in a Creationist area with a Creationist family and when I was younger I happily went with 2 more often than not. Now I only do this if there are others around who may be able to look critically at their own beliefs. An example was when my uncle was telling me how I was going to hell for not accepting every word of the Bible as literally true and accepting evolution. Since his daughters were there (and I was young and annoyed) I asked how much he was going to charge for his daughters if they got raped (note that this is a horrible way to go about it). I didn't talk to him for a couple of years, but one of my cousins now has a happy interest in all things science. I doubt I caused it, but I like to think I helped sow a small seed of critical thought.

Doesn't matter if they use braille or not, visual input is not necessary. Not to mention the ridiculous number of abstractions that can trigger responses. Really all you are saying is when we encounter a word that is associated with a sense it may cause a response in that sensory area. As Ophiolite said it's true, but trivial. All languages are phonetic (except sign languages), what you're referring to is English's orthography being a fuster cluck of irregular multigraphs.

I'm not knowledgeable of the relationship between ACTH and cortisol but it looks like a simple does response curve of cortisol regulation of ACTH. So sensitivity may by indicating the plasma concentration of ACTH needed to create a response of cortisol(or the amount of cortisol necessary to regulate ACTH to normal levels depending on what the relationship between the two is). Responsiveness may be talking the concentration of ACTH in which there is an initial increase in cortisol levels and the concentration of ACTH where both cortisol levels and ACTH levels normalize. I don't know if this helps because I'm not familiar with the metabolic pathways of those two hormones, but that's what it seems like to me when I look at the chart.

It's a bit more complicated than how this makes it seem. First is that Huntington's disease is defined by probability for some types of mutation of the gene, while some mutations are virtually guaranteed. Also, incestual relationships can risk higher genetic disorders, but that to is based on probabilities and the amount of relatedness (everyone is a bit related). But as the population rises the amount of interrelatedness will decline because there will be more genetic variation to choose from (on average), even though that assumes non-isolation between sub-populations. As for increasing risk of genetic diseases, one of the big causes of that is better medicine and less social stigma (this is a good thing, don't want it to seem like I think we shouldn't help people) so people with genetic disorders are reaching breeding age and having children. But a larger population allows for a better 'cushion' when recessive genetic disorders are present.

You may have a fundamental misunderstanding of the creationist mindset

They are powerful motivators, but that isn't positive reinforcement. I'm not saying things like that don't play a role in how religions grow either. Positive reinforcement just doesn't work on feelings and motivations (at least not in traditional behaviorist language). I would agree with this as well. I'm not saying that there are not a wide variety of different things play a role in religion's beginning and continuing influence, I just don't see how conditioning played a role in religion's origins (not its continuing existence, because there is a lot of negative reinforcement to pressure one to be/stay religious). I'd be happy to change my opinion, but I can't think of a good reason to believe religion began from a similar situation of the Skinner experiment on superstition.

Even though I agree religion is a man made entity the example of Skinner showing superstition arise doesn't show that that's how religion arose, positive reinforcement doesn't even make sense as an explanation because there isn't a behaviorist reward. More likely examples of how religion may have arose would be as a form of explaining the unknown like people blaming ghosts for noises in their houses. Or perhaps as a way for people to control others (though IMO it's unlikely religion started this way, it may have been a side effect).

At one point every time I clicked on a a subforum it would download a file simply called download without a file extension. It's fine now though

Always remember that species is the only 'real' category (and even that is pretty fuzzy), every other category is one of convenience. So just because what we would label as angiosperms didn't exist before a certain point doesn't mean that species with angiosperm like qualities wouldn't be around before that. Indeed, if there weren't gymnosperms with some angiosperm like qualities then there would have been nothing to give rise to the group angiosperm.

Obviously something fundamentalist atheists thought up to make these claims look silly.

Even if it were simply a hijacked response, it doesn't alter the idea of evolutionary selection towards domestication. Unless I'm misunderstanding your point. . .

Anything that has could be considered extinct due to evolving into a new species couldn't truly be verified. That's why there is a tendency to say 'so and so' was more like the common ancestor and not 'so and so' WAS the ancestor. So even if there was that dichotomy of extinction it couldn't be verified, so I doubt it would be systematically useful.

I've never really seen a problem with children watching horror movies as long as the parent is willing to put up with the child being scared afterwards.

IIRC there was recently a cross species implant that didn't have any drastic problems with rejection. I'll try to find the source if I can remember later today,

What's a fundamentalist atheist? Someone who REALLY doesn't believe in a god?

Here is a discussion of some of his stuff over at JREF: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=259321

His claims of afterlife/paranormal are just like those of every other person with paranormal claims. His only difference is that he's a lawyer and falls back on an argument from authority of what evidence is, i.e. he thinks what he believes courts accept as evidence = scientific evidence.

I've done a little research staining lamprey retinal cells during different stages of development. We were supposed to continue and do comparative staining with various actinopterygians, but the PI decided he didn't feel like continuing.

Tunicate larva have a dorsal hollow nerve cord as larva and lose it during metamorphosis.

You could always try to adjust the pH or water % to a range where the contamination won't grow. My university has a huge problem with mold getting in everything so every set of plates I make I leave one or two uninoculated and wrap it with parafilm to see if the contamination was due to my screw up or it happened after inoculation.

All vertebrates have spinal cords, dorsal hollow nerve cords are a characteristic of chordates which all vertebrates are.

Sometimes I restrain myself, usually not unless my wife gives me the 'don't do it' look. The main reason why is to see if I can successfully argue against what they bring up. Real experience is the best teacher. If I do want to avoid it I ask them if I could change their mind during the discussion. Usually they say something that says they won't, so I say the discussion is pointless and move on. I live in the US bible belt, so I know the feeling. There are always others with the same feelings, sometimes it's just damn hard to find them.

Well, since both are voltage gated neither would close so there would be a constant flow both in and out, I don't have the time to look up the concentration gradient vs. voltage gradient @ equilibrium. But they would eventually reach equilibrium, +/- variation due to Na+/K+ pump. I agree that the choices seem to be worded oddly. An action potential, by definition, couldn't fire normally without returning to resting potential. I would say it would need to be #2, but as I said before I'm not going to figure out the equilibrium of the membrane.

Because it's not a debate about what science is correct, we already know that so scientist vs. scientist does nothing to educate the public. The purpose for these debates is to show people who may never have heard what science actually is what science is all about, and why Creationism isn't science. It's about planting the seed of curiosity, not to 'prove' evolution is true. Again, it's not about being anti-religious, it's about being pro-science. I have never argued with a Creationist actually thinking I would change their mind, I argue with Creationists so the people listening can see how much rubbish it is.