blue_cristal

Thank you, Molecule.

If non-conductor materials like a rubber or glass rod have no free electrons then why they get charged with friction ? Is it due induction ( atomic polarization ) or something else ?

I found an interesting article about eugenics: http://alexdracon.blogspot.com/2011/08/eugenics-throwing-out-baby-with-baths.html What do you think about the ideas expressed in this article?

Aren’t banks supposed to check every penny that comes in and comes out ? Yesterday afternoon I went to my bank ( I have been client of it for 13 years ) and I withdrew £ 200. I received 10 notes of £20.Then I took 5 of these notes and I added pocket small change in order to pay my Visa debt ( £ 104 ) in the same bank and then I kept the remaining 5 notes. During the night I went to the mall to buy food. The amount was £ 63.75 and I gave 4 notes of £20 to the cashier. She found out that one of the notes was false and I had to replace it ! I really feel outraged! It is the first time in my entire life that a bank gave me false money ! Since my knowledge on legal matters is far from satisfactory, I am not sure what would be the wiser move. I am not sure if I should report it to the police or just go straight to the bank, complain about it and demand the replacement of the false note. Before I take any action, I use to imagine the possible outcomes. So here are some of the possibilities: First one: after my complaining, the manager nicely apologizes and replaces my money. Second one: the manager is callous and indifferent and says that I should have examined every note to see if they are OK. Since I didn’t do it when I just received the money from the cashier I have no right to complain. But as far I know nobody suspects the reliability of the banks money. How many bank clients examine note by note or coin by coin to find out if they are all genuine before leaving the bank ? So, I would be grateful for any wise advice from those who have more experience with banks and legal matters. What should I do ( obviously is not worth taking a lawyer, his services would cost far more than £ 20 ) ?

I found an interesting video that reveals the “dark side” of human reproductive strategies. What is your opinion ?

LOL.... Since when criticism is a question ( sometimes, it can contain some challenging questions but this is not its main attribute )? Criticism is just an rational objection or rational judgemental analysis of a set of ideas.

…until some people started losing track on what and who they should reply to and delaying a lot to find out that "YT" means YouTube. But I concede, "YT" could also being interpreted as YT2095. By the way, YT2095, you did not reply to my criticism to your signature ( the Einstein's quote ). Why ?

How that can be if I am even quoting swansont in my reply ( post #44 )? Is there some epidemy of visual blindness in here ?

YT2095, are you sure that you did not drink something today ? My comment about the link was an answer to swansont’s post, NOT to you. My comment to you was just a criticism on your Einstein’s quote ( signature ).

And who said that it is a link ? I am criticizing your Einstein's quote.

"Science without religion is lame.” Einstein. Science do fine without religion. Actually, religion was (and still is ) an obstacle to science most of the time. You see, intelligent people also can say incredible bullshit. Our brain has a lot of specialized and compartmentalized neural circuitries. We can be a genius in a mental faculty and an idiot in another one. “Religion without science is blind." Einstein. Religion is based on blind faith ( dogma ) therefore it is blind WITH or WITHOUT science. In the past, the church supported science for while because they thought that science could prove the existence of god ( hahaha...) Instead, scientific findings started demolishing religious dogmas. Then the Church immediately started persecuted scientists and undermine science. So, as you can see, this is yet another Einstein’s bullshit.

Yep, Pat’s videos are my preferred ones in the YouTube. He usually makes good points with an articulate and crystalline clarity. Why didn’t you provide the link straight from YT ? Here it is: And if you want to see all his videos, go here: http://youtube.com/subscription_center?s=ywRyNIU2Dxs However, it is a shame that he seems to lack a solid scientific background. He seems to have an artistic side. He consider himself a comedian ( indeed ). Regarding MMM, he is not originated from an English-speaking country. Neither I, so I understand his problem. That is the reason for his preference for written text than voiced communication. But I think that his best videos are these: 1) “BEING ATHEIST IS NOT ENOUGH” 2) “Sexual Behavior - Rape , Cheating , Gold-digging ,etc” http://youtube.com/watch?v=As49mSwIWWw

No really. Actually the myth or even the “sacredness” of “absolute tolerance” is a dangerous and delusional fallacy. If you are tolerant to people who are radically intolerant, they might take full advantage of your tolerance and kill both, you ( and all unconditionally tolerant people ) and completely destroy the social contract based on tolerance. In other words, absolute tolerance is self-destructive. So is absolute freedom. Therefore tolerance and freedom should not cross a line where they become self-destructive.

Then keep it. That is what we call free thinking and free choice.

Why strong atheism ? He simply proposes to question anything that lacks scientific evidence. He does not propose a rigid belief of non-existence of gods. This would be an unverified belief. Any rigid belief without evidence is a dogma. Hum... 1) Anti-Dogmatism is more explicit than the term "sceptic". 2) I have the impression that sceptics are too much linked with a position that question only things that are not compatible with the established science. With such conservative position they may end up opposing new ideas and new paradigms in science. In other words, they might contribute for scientific dogmatism.

I think that the new denomination, ANTI-DOGMATISM, is more encompassing in questioning unverified claims and blind and rigid beliefs than atheism. Because it questions all dogmas and unverified beliefs, not just the religious ones. You can watch a brief explanation of that in this video:

Yep. But hopefully he is not excessively mad.

His insight that the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism are DEATH CULTS because their belief systems strongly devaluate and degrade life as mere "sinful and unworthy" phase destined merely to test followers’ total obedience and blind faith to a supernatural dictator. The consequence of this dangerous mindset is that their followers frequently even desire death as a mean to reach the “heaven” quickly. They even long for the realization of the biblical apocalyptic "prophecy" that says that humanity is meant to be wiped out. Can you imagine if one of these groups of sinister mad fanatics put their hands in nuclear weapons or other powerful means of mass destruction ? They would like to materialize their self-fullfilling prophecy.

You can watch it here:

I notice recently that there is a frightening new trend in some young people who are adopting twisted Social-Darwinist ideas or even Nazism. Actually, it is even more distorted and sinister than the former Social-Darwinism and mixes with a warped Nietzscherian phylosophy . They got this distorted notion that “Natural Selection” is about going on rampage killing people based on some ill personal criteria or at random because they consider themselves “superior” to the majority and hate them. However these people have no real knowledge about the modern Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution or how natural selection really works. Recently, a young man from Finland went to his school with a gun and killed five boys, two girls and the headmaster. I just found an interesting video in the YouTube that makes a sharp criticism on this new dangerous ideological trend. It is called “A lesson of Natural Selection to Social-Darwinists and Nazis”:

We already know that almost every human physical or mental traits obeys a bell curve of distribution in the population. That means that humans vary in both, physical and mental attributes. However, I have heard mainly three types of opinions about those differences. The first one is very unrealistic and it is based almost on just wishful-thinking, pure belief and no evidence. It claims that all people are “equal” and that the different levels of intelligence are due to the fact that some people are privileged and get a fine education while others get a poor education. If that was true how they would explain that siblings that belong to the same social class, same family and receive the same education end up with different IQs ? And even worst, how they would explain that some people originated in low social classes and had unprivileged education showed high IQ and made great achievements in their lives –and- conversely there are people from upper classes who are underachievers and have mediocre IQ despite receiving privileged education? The second type of opinion is: People are born with different genes for intelligence ( or types of intelligence ) and their upbringing and type of education has little influence to the outcome. The third kind of opinion is: Yes, people are born with different intellectual potentials ( due their genes and their particular biologic development ) but also the type of education that they receive has a significant influence to the outcome. The scientific evidence that I know favours the third opinion. However, in societies with almost homogeneous types of educational systems, the differences of outcome should be logically related to their genetic and biologic developmental differences. In developed countries like UK , most people ( middle class ) receive almost the same type of education ( with he exception of the upper class ) and yet only a minority has high levels of all types of intelligence ( logic-mathematic, creativity, intuition, etc ). Only a minority have interest on matters that demand high intellectual skills like scientific investigation, inventions, philosophy, mathematics, fine arts, etc. 1) In your opinion, in an almost homogeneous educational system, which factors contribute the most for the generation of this small elite of intellectuals ? Genetic and biologic developmental differences –or- different types of upbringing and educational models? 2) If you consider that both genetic/developmental and upbringing/education influence the outcome, which percentage you credit to each of them accordingly to your educated guess or reliable evidence ?

Hi Paralith You misunderstood him a little bit. This is not exactly what he said. He was cautious. He actually said “PROBABLY ( which means that he proposed it just as a hypothesis, not a verified fact ), ONE of the reasons ( which imply that it does not necessarily mean that it is the main reason ) is because males have no physical means to immobilize the females and rape them. They have no arms or hands to grasp the female and they have almost equal body size.” Secondly, “nasty” opportunist sexual behaviour like cheating exist even in the most sexually loyal animals. That means that a degree of opportunism still has an adaptive value. Listen what this scientific article says: “Researchers studying the evolution of monogamy once had a straightforward task: Find those members of the animal kingdom that form lasting pair bonds--and then figure out why fidelity is in each mate's interest. But in recent years that task has grown complex. Genetic studies of organisms from birds to gibbons to rodents have revealed that some of the offspring raised by those seemingly attached parents are in fact fathered by different males. Even among those paragons of pair loyalty, the bluebirds, it turns out that the female slips away for brief liaisons with other males. Yet the two parents continue to work together to raise the young. "The first thing you have to understand is that social monogamy, where you've got a pair bond, is not the same as genetic monogamy," says Stephen Emlen, an evolutionary behavioral ecologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Indeed, genetic, or sexual, monogamy appears to be the exception rather then the rule among pairs in the animal kingdom.” Read more here: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/281/5385/1982?ijkey=PfyWjTitnJtdU But I agree with you that the strong need for cooperation under harsh survival conditions is the main strategy. I would make a small critique in this comment. You are forgetting the possibility of the descendents of the rapist opportunist male being raised by committed males ( males who formed a loyal and stable pair ) who then think that all descendants are their own. So the descendants resulting from this opportunist behaviour have a good chance of surviving thanks their “duped” non-biological fathers. But, probably such strategy happens mostly on species where the male has means to grasp and immobilize a female and has bigger strength ( orangutans, chimpanzees, etc ). However, dolphins males ( not having arms and hands ) use a males cooperative strategy to rape a female. The other male (s) obstruct her movement with their bodies. Additionally, even in the most sexually loyal species, females occasionally betray their committed males, as the article above explains. In humans, about 1 in 10 children are raised by non-biological fathers, which show a significant rate of female cheating behaviour. Yes, I mostly agree with you, SkepticLance. However, I think you missed the possibility of an occasionally rapist male being a strong alpha-male in the tribe and commanding his personal “army” and people too scared to oppose his whim. In some cases, these strong alpha-males had / have even a "harem" of females ( not all of them consensual on this relationship ). Daphniadance, “ ad hominen ” arguments are not rational and nor scientific arguments. (Wikipedia: An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to an irrelevant characteristic about the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim.) If there is not a genetic component to rape, how do you explain that a) this sexual behaviour exist in so many species ? b) and, especially, this sexual behaviour exist in our close evolutionary “cousins”, the orangutans and chimpanzees ? (In the orangutans case, rape seems to be even the preferred behaviour in some ages) A scientific article says: "Males are not successful in attracting sexually receptive females until they receive their cheek pads. Between the ages of 10 and 15 the males resort to "forceful copulation" (rape). " http://www.geocities.com/bioeureka/orangutans.htm See also this YouTube video: c) this sexual behaviour is significantly frequent in humans despite strong social repression ? d) it is even more frequent in relation to the women of a enemy tribe or country when men of another tribe/country win them in a battle or war ? Forget rape. Even open normal consensual sexual behaviour is repressed in some human societies in some degree and in some situations. You are confusing an innate behaviour that manifests less frequently thanks to social repression as being the behaviour of a “minority” when actually most people have it but only few dare to transgress repressive social mechanisms. You have not the faintest idea on how evolution works. Have you ? It takes thousands or even millions of years for a discrete behaviour to evolve. The pills were invented just some decades ago, how do you expect they would significantly influence human evolution in such short period of time ? How can it be an environmental cause if the social environment strongly represses and punishes rape instead of encouraging this behaviour ? First of all, most of psychology is not even science. A lot of claims are based on pure subjective assumptions and even strongly influenced by ideological bias and agendas. Secondly, show me scientific articles of serious scientific psychologists giving evidence that most of human rapes are about “power”. The explanation that it is purely about “power” is the most absurd non-sense ever fabricated. It is unbelievable how so many people bought into it. ( well, in some countries, most people also believe in angels and demons… ). Countless animal species use rape as reproductive strategy and they do not even have any notion of “power” as meant by humans. This is a vague and highly subjective comment. What are these “different motives” and what is the scientific evidence for them ? Being humans, conscious beings, they frequently add a conscious effort to satisfy un UNCONSCIOUS IMPULSE / URGE ( instinct ). But in this case the conscious effort is subordinated to their instinct and not the other way around. So what ? Secondly, there are a lot of animal species ( probably the majority ) where the females choose the males with better resources. Therefore there is a strong innate origin for "gold-digging". What ??? Are you saying that a behaviour that uses sexual intercourse and may end up impregnating a female has no means to propagate the species ? ( actually you should say "propagate the genes" ). This is as “clever” as saying that a food not eaten properly ( with a dish, fork and knife ) is not absorbed by our intestines. LOL.. Easy: Any behaviour that cannot have its normal outlet suffers distortions. For example, in prisons, due the lack of women, some men resort to raping other men. Secondly, if a person is homosexual then he/she obviously would rape someone of the same sex.

DrDNA, by chance, aren't you one of those individuals who are scared of their own shadow ? hehe...

There is a video that despite aiming lay people and using an accessible language, it provides a basic understanding about the biology and evolutionary psychology of human “nasty” sexual behaviour: rape, sexual predation, cheating, gold-digging, etc http://youtube.com/watch?v=As49mSwIWWw&mode=related&search= ( Use the Pause button in this video in order to read it at your own pace. It is a bit speedy. )

There is good video in the YouTube about dogmatic beliefs: