Ringer

You also have to take into account things like how you are introducing the substance, in cases of pharmaceuticals, such as ingestion, inhaling, etc. Chemicals that are introduced directly into the blood stream will take effect faster than, say, ingesting it. Again if you're considering pharmaceuticals you also have to take into account tolerance of the drug. So there is no absolute value of what volume of whatever chemical will definitely kill, though, like was said before, the chemicals used in executions are fairly reliable and thought to be virtually pain free.

I agree that knowing the errors, if they're not just typos and such, could be illuminating to future research. But the problem is not being aware that there could be errors in the papers, not even on the online journals. 18% retractions for ambiguous reasons and up to 8% for unknown reasons. I don't like the idea that I read and cite a paper that was retracted without me being aware or, if I am aware, without knowledge of what the problem with the paper was. It could be because of a typo that has nothing to do with the results, yet I no longer want to use the paper because I'm no longer sure how reliable it is.

I have had chronic migraines since I was around 5 years old. The only thing that I have found works consistently is going to sleep. Although this has caused problems with work and school at times, if I don't do this I will start throwing up and ending up being completely useless from the pain. I don't know how bad your headaches get, but if they are like mine all I can do is sleep it off. There are also some medicines that help at times, I'm prescribed to Imitrex nasal spray, but most are not OTC. Some things that people have told me to try to help are exercise, caffeine (as is in most OTC migraine medicines), apple juice, orange juice, stop drinking cokes, and the like. I don't know how these are supposed to help but it is what some doctors have told me to try.

That's part of my point of ambiguity of some of the retractions, I never said there was anything wrong with retraction. The title of the thread was pretty much from the website. The issue I have is the reasons behind the retractions, whether it is because of increasing mistakes, increasing fraud, etc. That was my point, I said nothing about the infallibility of science, of which there isn't such a thing. Do you not think that subscribers to journals should be made aware of these papers and the cause of retraction? If it was, in fact, a clerical error or something more dubious I would like to know. Also, it points out that even some of the articles that have been retracted are still being cited, I can't remember the exact paper they mention, and about half was actually using it as a reliable source. [edit] I realize that I meant to put a question mark in the title. Failing to do this may make this thread seem more like a statement saying that there is, in fact, fraud happening. I meant this to be framed in the form of a question, if this is the cause of misunderstanding I apologize.[/edit] ! Moderator Note Fixed

I was reading an article in Retraction Watch about the rise in paper retraction. I was wondering two things really: A.) Do you believe this to be because of stronger self policing, more people lying, etc. http://pmretract.heroku.com/byyear ; a nice graph illustrating the trend from the site B.) Do you think that publications are doing all they should be to make sure their readers know about these retractions. I think it's good more retractions are happening, if only because it shows an attempt to keep people honest. But at the same time the ambiguity with which some of the retractions happen is troubling. If mistakes were made I believe these mistakes should be openly revealed so others don't make those mistakes. Not only that, but keeping those withdrawn papers on websites and not immediately notifying subscribers about the retraction is disturbing.

So you agree your argument had no basis? I just gave you examples, as well as moontanman's point of slavery, of how they change. Examples of killing babies, slavery, war, rape, etc show how morals and values do change. I would say that certain emotions don't change, but the values associated with those emotions do change all the time. One the grounds that the assertion is the basis of this entire thread. That is a nicely circular argument.

Personally I wouldn't take that theory seriously until: A.) It was shown lower class people are having more children now than in times before (I would assume this is false since working class families have tended to have more children to work). B.) You can prove that because these people with lower socioeconomic status are inherently less likely to be able to learn. C.) What culturally underdeveloped means D.) Why they are unable to conceive their lives as a planned project. In every study I've read the average IQ has increased over time, see the Flynn Effect, so where are you getting the idea that the average IQ will inevitable decline.

The evidence of infanticide is not immoral could be that it is a valid form of population control, babies with obvious deformities couldn't survive in the society were this is being practiced, a family can't afford a child, etc. I don't believe any of these to be that far fetched. I think all of us would be dead if we gave up gravity. The laws of gravity ending would be far more destructive than random killing of babies, its not murder unless it's illegal. I don't see what you're arguing, you say killing babies and gravity is like comparing apples to oranges, so are you saying that morality isn't science?

That doesn't mean killing all babies is wrong. It doesn't really prove anything. Descartes said that the only thing we can be certain of is that we are thinking. No it doesn't, that's why it is necessary to test and retest hypothesis. If it presupposes integrity we'd take people on their word How are they provisional and morals are not? Moral values change all the time. The cherub's job in Jewish theology was to take the souls of aborted babies, and other things, because abortion was an accepted method of population control. No, one of the first things professors teach is that science always has a margin of uncertainty. You are arguing that morality has a certain value but can give no value to it. That is the point is that it isn't scientific because it can't be quantified. There are places and times were killing children was morally acceptable, but there has never been a society where gravity doesn't have an effect.

(p+q)^2 = 1 or p^2+2pq+q^2=1 where p is the frequency of dominant alleles and q is the frequency of recessive alleles. A quick google search will lead you here.

I think he was saying the the wrongness of killing babies can't be quantified or observed as of now, to the point of mississippichem of neuroscience, not that killing babies isn't wrong. Also, I beat my fiancee since we aren't married yet.

I suppose that could be the case, but in my theology course it was not about whether it was true or not; it was about the meaning and implications that religion has upon society. This doesn't seem to me like it is not to be taken seriously. Why would you not take seriously the study of a philosophical stand just because you don't believe it. As an example, I'm sure most everyone has had to take an ethics course. Some of the things studied in my ethics courses I thought was ridiculous that people believed it, such as absolute relativism. Although I'm sure there were things that most students, as well as the professor, thought were not to be taken seriously they were still important to be taught if only for their implications. Or think of Freud; he was a quack, but he had a large impact on how we think of the subconscious. Although his teaching shouldn't be taught as factual information, it is interesting to look at it in a historical light and how it changed how we thought about the mind.

And why, exactly, would it not be considered alive?

I don't understand why he quits just because he doesn't agree with the philosophy. There are plenty of philosophy classes that professors teach that they don't personally believe in, and there are plenty of atheistic people study religion. I guess I don't see the difference in teaching a philosophy of religion class and not being religious, and teaching a course on post-modernism and not being a post-modernist. It's a field of study, he wasn't a pastor or anything.

What do you mean especially rare, it could be you only remember those cases because they surprised you. It's sort of a confirmation bias, you remember the special exceptions and ignore those who had not made an impact. If you look at the average child most can't even do algebra when they are going into middle school. I don't believe that our school systems are THAT messed up that they can't teach algebra in the prime of mathematical learning. Of course I could be wrong I just haven't seen any studies or personally experienced anything that would make me believe that excelling at calculus, or any higher math, should be simple for children in that early stage of development.

Don't you wish your molecular biology was taught like this. Personally, I find it funny as hell.

Piaget only studied his own children for his developmental theories. There is no study that I've seen that age has a lot to with inability to learn math except a study that said it is very difficult for children under a certain age, I think around 11, to learn algebra or any other abstract mathematics. This is thought to be due to that their abstract reasoning abilities aren't developed enough to truly understand the methodology of the math. That was about 4 years ago I read that so I'm not really sure. But there are plenty of people who are older and gain mathematical knowledge easily, I would assume more than there are children who learn it easily. The reason you hear about the children learning these things at a young age and becoming amazingly proficient is the same reason you hear about people jumping out of planes and surviving, because it's amazing not because they are the norm and we should all be able to do this.

That's tautological and isn't really saying anything. I think the problem you are having is assuming that without cells something wouldn't be alive, but if it did all these things without cells than why would it not be alive? If it did grow, reproduce, etc without the use of cells it would still be considered alive; it just would not have any sort of cellular structure. Hard to really imagine what that would be like, but so was DNA before its structure was discovered.

I don't really know what you mean by this. A cell is the most basic object the meets all criteria for life. Something is living if it reproduces, develops, self-regulates, and some others that I can't think of for some reason. If something was discovered that met the criteria for life and was not made up of cells as we know them cell theory would be falsified. How, then, is it not a theory?

A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on a photo-safari in africa. They drive out on the savannah in their jeep, stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars. The biologist : "Look! There's a herd of zebras! And there, in the middle : A white zebra! It's fantastic ! There are white zebra's ! We'll be famous !" The statistician : "It's not significant. We only know there's one white zebra." The mathematician : "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is white on one side."

divide them, you will get the percentage in decimal form

Well he never really says he doesn't know; he says it doesn't matter whether or not he knows. Which I think is a good point. He might well know how the tides work and refuses to get into how they do because Bill will keep throwing examples out there until he finds one that the guy doesn't know. If he does know I think he had a good strategy; if he doesn't why should he? Why should an atheist be expected to know more about science than the average person. Everyone is ramming him for not explaining it, but no one else is willing to do the same. It's not because you don't know, presumably, it's because it's a stupid question. If that is why you don't explain you could be taking the same stand as this man did. This man's goal was not to say science trumps religion but to inform people about atheism and show they are not alone, as he put it. He may not have wanted to get into a science v. religion debate. If he is ignorant of the physics of the tides, who cares. I could only give a brief description on how the moon and Earth's gravity interact, most people probably can't even do that, and I'm fairly well versed in certain scientific areas. He never says he doesn't have faith because of his understanding of physics, so why would it be shameful for him not to have an answer to a physics problem to respond to the god did it. Personally I think his answer of it doesn't matter was better than if he had answered the question.

I've also read that there are some theories that laughter was a reaction to play attacks (tickling). This allows children to play roughly while knowing neither are being hurt. This also helps play a role in our social hierarchy, if you are comfortable with someone it's easier to laugh etc. Obviously this is very speculative but it's an interesting perspective.

What makes you arbitrarily decide what body types count? What about fat/skinny, tall/short, strong/weak, dark/light. All of which should be a sexual orientation according to my recently decided standards. The fact is you can't arbitrarily decide what constitutes orientation. Sexual orientation is defined as"sexual attraction to one's own sex (homosexual), to the other sex (heterosexual), to both sexes (bisexual), or lack of sexual interest to either sex (asexual)."* Again, just deciding what you think the basic look is to fit your opinion doesn't mean it's true. Yes everyone has a preference of age and sex, but they have a preference for everything mentioned above as well, so why is it that it is only those two things. Sexual orientation is not about the age of the cause of attraction, but the gender. There are not as many objective differences between adults and children as men and women. I can almost guarantee that any difference you give I can give one that is as objectively different between two people of the same sex and age. It's only simple and plain because you are assigning labels at will and deciding what words mean. It's easy to make things simple when you assign your own categories. Why is it obvious. I can both see when a child, male or female, will grow up to be attractive, although it is an assumption, and when a male is attractive. I want to have sex with neither of these but that doesn't mean that no one will have an attraction to what I see as potentially attractive. You need citations because your presumptions are neither common knowledge nor an agreed upon notion. Citations would help people take you more seriously. *Baur, Karla & Crooks, Robert. Our Sexuality

Here's a draft of the paper if you haven't read it. I just now found it and have to go to bed, winter break's over, so if anyone reads it don't spoil the ending.