CDarwin

And then of course Super Tuesday, February 5th. That will decide the nominations. Or maybe the fact that she is a strong candidate with an efficient campaign apparatus in a state where "nice" doesn't matter as much as it did in Iowa. I will join in the cynicism a bit and comment that McCain drawing so many independents away from the Democratic primary might have had some effect in swinging the vote to Clinton. Obama does much better among independents than any other Democrat and they constituted a solid portion of his voters in Iowa. Clinton does better among the party-faithful Democrats.

Mine weren't! Woot. I will be sure to make sure everyone I know knows this.

I've been thinking about getting a little Jesus fish to put on my backpack with it. Sort of a statement. Not that pins and bumperstickers are quite the most effective place to publish scientific or religious opions.

There's a whole other discussion right there over whether multiregionalism is bunk. I tend to think it decidedly is.

It would burden anyone without low enough income to qualify for the prebates who spends a relatively large proportion of their income on consumer goods and not in investments. In other words: the middle class.

Does anyone here have a Darwin fish on their cars? I've got two pins, one that I bought myself and one that I got for Christmas which currently adorns my backpack. I must say, however, that my opinions on it are mixed. I find a lot of people find it really offensive. I didn't expect that. I saw it as a somewhat appropriate symbol: Darwinians, in a southern high school at least, are in respects reminiscent of the early Christians in pagan Rome. It pokes fun at overt pop religiosity and the sort of smug superiority that motivates people to appropriate an ancient symbol of persecution to prove their sanctimony on their bumpers. I've been accused of mocking early Christians, but does the modern Jesus fish not belittle them much more insidiously? That said, I certainly don't want to be confrontational on something like this. That serves no purpose. So what do you feel about the Darwin fish? Here's one take: http://www.uga.edu/columns/991025/campnews.html

Way to steal my thunder, Pangloss.

This article in the Newsweek addresses what Ron Paul might be a harbinger of. I just read that today and found it quite interesting. You can see some real parallels between Ron Paul and Ralph Nader. If Nader had of run the first time in the blog age, his fate might have been quite different.

Maybe not New Hampshire libertarians. It's a conservative-leaning state, especially for New England.

Well, uhm... thank you.

*Whimper, whimper* My Biden... He had the Mo Joe... I seriously did expect him to do better than that. Its just the dangblasted media. Hillary and Obama have so monopolized the press that Biden, who was a legitimately strong candidate, got shut out. If this had been a typical election cycle he would have been a front runner from the beginning. But alas... I have to point to the experience in Tennessee in 2004 again. We came this close to electing a black Democrat to a US Senate seat (now Ford is teaching at Vanderbilt). I'd say this country is a lot more ready for a black man than a white woman. You also have to consider that A) Hardcore racists don't vote Democrat in the first place, and B) Some of the most "racist" states (Southern states) also have some of the largest African American populations. No, Obama probably won't win Idaho. But neither would any Democrat. But anyway, my for-what-its-worth prediction for New Hampshire: Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Richardson; McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Paul, Guilliani. I'm most equivocal on Clinton/Edwards and Huckabee/Paul. I think Paul might really surprise us with a third place finish. That's a pretty libertarian state. I also put Huckabee up higher than the polls show him because he's both got momentum and has some libertarian credentials that might serve him. If I'm right I'll eat... well I don't have a hat. I'll eat a glove or something.

Then you gut the entire point of public education and public funding for research. But you might want to do away with those anyway. Although, I wonder if government should be validating things like libertarianism or democracy or any other theories.

In retrospect, perhaps putting Israel there was a bad idea. It's not as though we can dismantle the country and move it to Madagascar now, though.

Even if NYC is slightly anti-Guilliani, would the upstate be sufficient to balance the state in favor of him? I'm not really sure. I don't know much about New York politics. He would probably win Tennessee, especially versus Hillary. Certainly versus Hillary.

Volcanoes that trigger the massive releases of CO2 can create long term warming. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19626330.400-mass-extinctions-the-armageddon-factor.html

Probably. But the current system is fundamentally geared away from the public welfare. The incentives are for drug companies to develop medications that treat the symptoms of long-term illness which are far from necessarily those society needs the most. A case in point is the current lack of new antibiotic classes that are leading to the drug-resistant bacteria crisis. Antibiotics are expensive to create and generate low returns. I'd rather a few companies get over payed occasionally than risk a second plague because of my faith in free-market capitalism. But this isn't really on topic...

Why thank you, and yes. The beans are integral are they not? I knew it was spelled some way. My first thought was the way the country was spelled.

But Gigantopithecus doesn't resemble bigfoot in anything but being (supposedly) large. We're not even sure how big it was, and it size has probably been over-estimated. The fact that all large primates that we do know well don't resemble bigfoot should count as evidence against it, by your logic. I'm not saying it's bad logic; I hadn't thought of that, really. Thank you. The only point I'm trying to make is that there is good evidence concerning bigfoot and that the weight of it points away from its existence. I could absolutely be wrong. I'm not sure how rhetorical you're being. Native Americans didn't descend from Peking Man. I think you probably know that and are making a point.

Silly observational question: When I eat chilly, my nose waters. I have to eat it with a box of facial tissues. Does anyone have any idea why that is? Is it the spices?

You have the point right there, and then you drop it. The fear isn't that Paul will force his moral agenda on everyone else. It is what his adherence to Creationism in what he calls a "scientific debate" (implying his conviction is on what he believes to be scientific grounds) suggests about Paul's willingness to honestly approach expert opinion and empirical evidence (which as an OB-GYN, he should be familiar with). That has implications far beyond science policy, and it is a valid reason for pause. Here's a relevant commentary by Lawrence Krauss from the New Scientist, if anyone is interested: A Science-Literate President Please If it isn't embraced and well-funded by the private sector, that's none of the governments fault. Either the private-sector doesn't see it to be economical to fund such research, or is just doesn't realize it is. Make your pitch to Merck, not the US voters. There are many instances when research has to be undertaken for the public welfare but isn't necessarily profitable for companies. I personally think there should not only more government funding for research, but actually more government control in the form of grant-based incentives to drug companies. If it was realistic, I don't think it would be a terrible idea to decouple drug development from the market entirely, and reward companies with grants for the development of drugs based on their worth.

Obama/Edwards would be a good ticket. I don't know how important the geographic factor really is, though. Two "Southern boys" won it in 1992, and does anyone even know where Chaney is from? I don't think being black will hurt Obama in the South as much as being a Democrat, either, really. Harold Ford Jr. came within a hair of winning Tennessee in 2004, you will recall, and only he lost because Corker convinced enough people that Ford was a liberal. I'd say the South is much more ready to elect a black man as President than a (female) Clinton right now. So the ticket might end up being determined more on the basis of Party unity than geography. If Obama wins, he might reach out to Clinton or a Clintonian as a running mate just to pacify that faction.

The role that Presidents actually have in affecting the evolution education issue is over-estimated. After all, the judge in the Dover case was a Bush appointee, and Federal appointments are about the only place where Presidents have real influence. From a pure policy angle, it really is, as Huckabee describes it, a non-issue. However, for someone with the level of education Dr. Paul has, denial of evolution shows a willingness to abuse and ignore science. That is legitimately disturbing. Ron Paul really scares me, to be honest. He's as bad an ideologue as Bush, except he replaces neoconservativism with libertarianism and xenophobia. What I've seen of Creationism is that it tends to consist of one part faith, two parts ignorance, and seven parts arrogance (it's a drink mixed on the decimal system, ok?). If Ron Paul can convince himself he knows better than science about evolution, that he can convince himself he knows more than any person about any issue. That's the attitude that screwed up Iraq. Darwin, I'm feeling verbose today.

Bigfoot is said to be a North American Gigantopithecus. Thus, any evidence that suggests that Gigantopithecus couldn't match the descriptions of bigfoot constitutes evidence against it, at least as described. Exhibit A): The secure link between Gigantopithecus and the the Sivapithecid apes, which were non-bipeds and relatives of the modern Orangutan. Bigfoot is described as a biped. It would have had to have evolved a remarkably human-like mode of locomotion completely independently, which no other large primate (see the gorilla or the extinct Archaeoindris) done. In both those cases, the adaptation evolved was knucklewalking. Exhibit B): The teeth of Gigantopithecus. They're huge, and show clear adaptations for masticating heavy, fibrous foliage. Bigfoot is described as interested in and consuming meat. Gorillas, which have dentition much less specialized than Gigantopithecus, develop severe heart and cholesterol problems if they regularly consume even small quantities of meat, and shun it in the wild accordingly. They're just not adapted for it, and Gigantopithecus wouldn't have been either. Exhibit C): The climate of northern North America and the experience of past primate extinctions both constitute evidence. The notion that Gigantopithecus "escaped" the changing climate in the late Pleistocene by fleeing to North America across a land bridge is based on an erroneous understanding of the concept of a refugia. By-in-large, and on a large scale, species survive climate change either because they adapt to their local conditions or they've previously colonized regions where the local conditions don't change. There would have been no reason for Gigantopithecus to move north into inhospitable Siberia and across a land bridge which it would have had to do to make it to North America. And accordingly, all the Gigantopithecus fossils that have been discovered have been from South Asia. Ok, say you want to abandon the notion that Bigfoot is a remnant Gigantopithecus. Then it would have to have had ancestors (most plausibly hominid ancestors from Africa) that left no trace in the fossil record as they evolved across Asia, up into Siberia, and down into North America. Admittedly, you're on better ground here. Bigfoot is supposed to be rather ecologically insignificant, rare, and occurring in extremely low densities. Those would contribute to a scanty fossil record. But why on earth should you think bigfoot exists in the first place except for eyewitness descriptions? Here evidence that bigfoot fits the description of the product of cultural imagination come into play in suggesting it's bunk. Either way, you don't necessarily have to prove a negative to find evidence that leads to a negative conclusion. What I cited constitutes good evidence.

No, option two is that there is "No Evidence." There is evidence that suggests that bigfoot doesn't exist.