CDarwin

I refer back to my earlier remark. If the religious conservatives, perhaps the best organized block of people in the American political sphere, couldn't mount an effective boycott of Wal-Mart, could bloggers really do it?

The premise of my question here is fairly simple. One of the basic ways drugs are evaluated is to see if they work better than a placebo. It strikes me, then, that the placebo might be of some use. Many traditional medicines rely heavily on this in fact, and practitioners are quite up front about that. So why shouldn't Western medicine take similar advantage of the power of human perception? Are there circumstances where subscribing a medicine with no actual medicinal properties (a sugar pill, basically) would be perfectly appropriate and the best for the patient?

I came across this in one of the 'letters' written to the New Scientist in March 8th's issue. It's a response to an article I don't recall in much detail, to be honest, but was apparently someone arguing for the existence of infinite universes. I thought this was a pretty ingenious little refutation. But is it just a word game or do the physics actually work here?

Well being as Wal-Mart's profits come from just about everyone... Maybe we should team up with all the people boycotting Wal-Mart because they said "Happy Holidays."

There's a real swelling of nationalist sentiment in China right now. Boycotting the Olympics wouldn't just piss off the bureaucracy that runs the country, it would anger a lot of individual Chinese too. What would China's incentive to "clean-up" be if there was an Olympic boycott? Example after example has shown that isolating a regime rarely brings change. In most every circumstance, it just feeds into the paranoia of the propaganda and drives the people even more into the nurturing bosom of the state. If you want to see China turn into a giant North Korea, do things like boycott the Olympics.

I can actually find that statistic too. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA111.html That's an old poll, and I'd be interested to see an update. I'm not sure if that number of non-evolutionists would go up or down. I've been scanning through these polls, and I'd really like to draw attention to this one: That 29% is hope. Those are the ones that we can do something about.

Mm, I would take issue with that. In the US the ID sympathetic are at most a majority and at least a strong plurality, as demonstrated by numerous polls. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/22/opinion/polls/main657083.shtml http://www.pollingreport.com/science.htm I don't think a global poll has ever been done, but considering the shoddy nature of science education most places outside of Western Europe, I'd say scientifically silly and inaccurate ideas about the origin of the universe analogous to Christian Creationism persist pretty widely. Not that people aren't entitled to their myths (and I even use the term respectfully). If you want to believe some way about the universe in the face of evidence, then that's perfectly fine. I disagree and think that's a crumby way to live but I'm not going to go busting your door down and throwing empiricism in your face. It's the hypocrisy, dishonesty, and total lack of respect for my convictions in the power and worth of science that the Creationism movement displays that 'really grinds my gears,' as it were.

Would this be a collaborative thing? I think I could perhaps contribute bits and pieces to an evolution or maybe a geology one of these things, but I'm sure I couldn't write a whole one.

Richard Dawkins is definitely a fun read.

Obama/McCain; how's that for a dream ticket? He would make a good Secretary of State or of Defense. I can actually see that maybe potentially at least being offered by Obama. Maybe. I don't think he would accept, though. Perhaps this is a perverse sort of way of looking at it, but McCain has been a really good senator. I'd almost be reluctant to take him out of the Senate and put him in a presidency where he might not be as effective.

Since I can't really think of any out-and-out Hillary fans that post regularly on here, I'll play the apologist. Clinton used (excessively) flowered language to describe something she did, and then got trapped by it. I don't have any data on it, but I would hypothesize that considering the volume of statements any candidate makes in an election cycle, you could find similar instances of statements like that going back hundreds of years if you really looked. Does it indicate Machiavellian duplicity? Sure. But it doesn't necessarily mean she'd make a bad president. I can personally think of examples from the FDR administration of similar creativity ("I just want to appoint more judges to take a load off the old ones. Honest!").

Well, that depends on how you want to define "conservative." Many of the social programs Sarkozy is parring down have been in place since the Louis's. "Conservative" French sentiment is to want to keep them and the laid-back, inefficient way of life they support. In fact many of Sarkozy's harshest critics come from the most Conservative (Sarkozy's party, of course) parts of the country. Sarkozy is a Reagan-Thatcheresque economic reformer (or liberalizer, to further confuse the terminology). In France, with its anciently paternalistic government, that's more radical than "conservative." The French can be a little prudish about how they expect their public figures to behave, too, in a sort of don't-ask-don't-tell way, and so the marital adventures don't help.

I puts France on (the appearance at least) of higher ground. That gives it more plausible sway in negotiating.

I think you're just trying to play anti-PC crusader. Ignorant discussion does not equal candid discussion.

Well the whole point is political. I don't seriously think France is really going to start launching missiles at anyone, so the actual danger they still pose isn't precisely the issue. Even the appearance of disarmament is positive internationally for efforts with countries such as Iran.

Ah, that might be something.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7308563.stm When I read this I had think "Wow, that is a really good idea. Finally, someone in the West is making a sane foreign policy move." This is just one more reason why I like Sarkozy. These are the steps that smaller nuclear powers need to be taking toward disarmament and non-proliferation. Now I just want to see if the UK leadership has the guts to do the same. What do you think?

I actually have the book that cartoon cites, Scott M. Huse's The Collapse of Evolution. It was with my father's college books apparently It's a fun read, I must say.

There is an interesting psychological experiment there. Too bad Cap'n ruined it.

I've heard of him from Panda's Thumb. My guess is that they knew he was coming to do a story and so someone had a picture.

Physia, tell me you didn't get that from a MySpace bulletin.

This is a subject I'll admit I don't know a lot about. I've read various places that the technology now available to drill is very low impact and could be used without any significant ecological damage. I do recall a cartoon from back when this issue was hot that I thought made a fair point. If I can recall it had the US on an ark while the Flood was proceeding and they were preparing the drill through the bottom of the ark (i.e. drilling in ANWR to make gasoline to contribute to global warming). That's one of my favorite political cartoons. So what do you think about this? Is it ecophilia gone amok or does drilling really present a great enough danger to the Arctic (or to us) that it shouldn't be done?

I don't "write off" dragon stories either in a dismissive sense. They indicate something interesting about the human view of nature. Dragons (and their similar legends) combine contrasting images that rarely exist together in nature. In one part you have the sneaky, repulsive serpent and in the other a wild, untamed beast. There's nothing that quite combines those connotations as well as a giant reptile. It's no wonder cultures all over the world developed stories about them. I'm not a big fan of the "kernel of truth inside every legend" hypothesis. It neglects the human imagination. Some "dragon" stories probably were inspired by encounters with actual giant reptiles, but its more than possible that a great number of them just developed spontaneously.

I heard an interesting quip on NPR today half asleep going to school. Someone pointed out that the 18th century context of "bearing arms" certainly wasn't deer hunting. It implies a martial state. Thus, the 2nd Amendment barely even addresses the current gun control arguments, because they are almost always couched in the terms of common, civilian use.

I'd heard about Fitzpatrick's research too. When Berger discovered the Palau specimins he was basically just vacationing there, so he doesn't really have any history with the site. It's no surprise that he might jump to a conclusion without a full consideration of other finds that might have been made there.