Phi for All

Did you say "President Obama is the President" when the GOP screwed the country over in their efforts to deny his presidency?

I wrote a lot of words about what I believe, and none of them was exactly like this, so no. I think supernatural claims are an extremist offshoot of some evolutionary traits that helped humans a great deal. We learned to imagine things that aren't there, and while it helped us survive sneak attacks from lions in the shadows, it also gave us sky gods and spirits who make it rain. Some people have taken their imaginations to the extreme. However, no matter how Iron Age ignorant the practice is, in many of its forms religion is harmless as practiced. It would only become dangerous if taken to the extreme by zealots who felt everyone was trying to suppress their beliefs entirely, like if someone were to ban religion. Trust me, this is one of those issues where it sounds good to stamp out the practice for the good of all, but in practice it would backfire in ways you can't foresee. Careful here, I'm going to use another limited analogy, and I didn't want to throw you, but it's like lying. Lying is something you might think should be banned, but it's actually a pretty important marker in human development. When human children learn to lie, they're learning how to predict the future and insure a better outcome based on present actions. For most people, banning lying might be a horrible blow to their development, done for altruistic reasons. Some people might be better people because of their religion, and we just have no way to know. If you banned religion, you'd find a whole bunch of people who were keeping it together mentally because of it, and they'd no longer have a reason for hope. It's not rational, but as we've seen in this thread, forcing people to be rational rarely works.

Human intelligence/consciousness/sapience is an emergent property made up of many seemingly unrelated elements. A major element was manual dexterity with an opposable thumb, and the opportunities for investigation, trial, and error that presupposes, so I'm not sure how a dolphin could be conditioned similarly. Ditto for using fire to cook food that changed our physiology to allow us far greater environmental versatility than a chimpanzee. Can you genetically alter a creature so it has more of a trait that was developed so intricately? Human intelligence owes much to our skills in communication and cooperation. How do you genetically induce such things? I would think there are too many markers that can't be artificially created, but incredulity is all the argument I have at present.

You claimed that because some people don't want to ban religion that they must want it to stay, that they must want to keep it. That's either a strawman of the stance, or it's a false dilemma, both of which are logical fallacies, a bad place to build an argument. I don't participate in religion, and I know the only way to cure the ignorance it fosters is education, not denial. I can show why religion isn't necessary and hope to teach some reasoning ability, but if I just tell someone they can't worship the way they like they'll most likely get angry and dig in their heels and refuse to take the information in (much the way you're doing). It's an emotional stance, like the one you've taken against it. Your solution is neither reasoned nor reasonable, so in the end it's just as ignorant of reality as religion is.

Strawman. If you offer to burn my house down to kill the termites and I refuse, are you going to claim I must want the termites to stay? Yours is obviously an emotional stance you haven't reasoned out yet, and I think you should do that soon.

It helped that the screenplay was based on an earlier work and co-written by Arthur C. Clarke. Movies based on any of the hard SF writers should be scientifically accurate.

So we should ban the military as well as religion, right? And nobody ever blew themselves up for politics, right? 5. Reality TV. 4. Deep-fried butter. 3. Murdering abortion doctors because they kill babies. 2. Electing a billionaire businessman POTUS. 1. Banning religion.

! Moderator Note It's not off-topic to ask you what you're substituting for an accepted mechanism other than just waving your hands. "It can't" is NOT an argument. If you can't offer evidence to support and clarify your anti-mainstream position, I have to move this to Speculations. Let's see some science.

I am all for the freedom of thought. BUT in light of recent and historic atrocities credited to political people does any one think politics should be banned globally? The military? Chiropractors?

From the professor at American University who has predicted the winner of each presidential election since 1984, Trump will be impeached: http://www.salon.com/2017/05/24/listen-they-probably-are-going-to-find-impeachable-offenses-predicts-professor-on-donald-trump/

I met a NASA director last September who is involved as a contractor with Spaceport America down in Las Cruces, NM. They're closed to visitors currently, but they're a great venue for space geeks looking for amusement.

I arranged the experiment differently. After forgetting the shot one year and being sick for six days, I decided to get them every year, and haven't been sick with flu since. It costs nothing, and they couldn't make it any easier. Incredulity is a poor place to start an argument, but I find it hard to give your experienced stance much weight when every medical professional in my life (oh yes, dentist too) tells me to get a flu shot. When even my profit-focused insurance company is happy to fork over some preventative coverage so there's not even a co-pay (if that's all I'm there for), the evidence seems overwhelmingly clear, when you look at it rationally and reasonably.

What's to puzzle? RNs with those views become ex-RNs. The system works.

What do you base "did so well" on? It's certainly not based on mortality rates. Do you really think vaccinations make no difference to the quality of life, as well as its length?

! Moderator Note This is a science discussion forum. Thanks for the excerpt from the relevant link, but we also need a direction for discussion. Can express in your own words what you'd like to talk about in relation to the quoted material?

You wait and see. It starts with government mandated vaccinations, then people start getting the idea government is a good thing, and might actually help. They start caring about their family's health, and contributing to the greater good, and pretty soon you can't sell any cigarettes and Big Macs and reclining couches. The whole economy goes right in the toilet. I give Italy five, maybe six years tops.

I'm a proponent of using Medicare as a universal insurance pool, but I thought the ACA was much more successful than most give it credit for. Good article here: http://www.cbpp.org/research/health/census-data-show-historic-coverage-gains-in-2014

! Moderator Note Please, this is a discussion, and questions have been asked of you. Answer them as best you can, but please don't tell people they have to confirm what you're saying by searching for themselves. They're asking you these questions. Also, please support your ideas with evidence, otherwise this would be preaching, and against our rules.

Your question poses the argument that it's wrong not to let the developer of a theory discuss it on a science discussion forum. I agree with that argument, but that's not what happened here, therefore the argument is fallacious. I can assure you that this is called a strawman. Whether or not you agree is superfluous, since the goal of informing you about what really went on with the member in question has been reached.

If you think about it, it's the same appeal to hypocrisy that the Soviets perfected. "Sure I lied, but she did too." It completely ignores the ratios involved.

Strawman argument. He wasn't "discussing his own theory", he was interjecting it into someone else's mainstream thread, thus hijacking the discussion over to his unsupported ideas. It's the equivalent of getting everyone to the table to discuss the moon's gravitational influence on Earth tides, and having someone interject with a personal "theory" about green cheese having negative mass. It's simply not the place for that idea.

But you found it in 3 minutes, which is probably a Homework Help record. If the OP won't pat you on the back for an ASAP like that, I will.

Sorry, I meant to include a specific link to Whataboutism. It's a Soviet-style appeal to hypocrisy fallacy.

But if we choose science, we get reasonable explanations, and the fun comes along automatically. You have fun.

As I understand it (Delta1212 mentioned it earlier), the information Trump shared with Russia could be traced back to an asset we shouldn't want Russia knowing about (and really had no right to endanger). For that alone, he should offer an apology. It has nothing to do with anyone keeping their traps shut. He made it easier for Russia to pinpoint an Israeli intelligence asset. Very bad. It was also a huge blunder to give up such a valuable bit of intel for nothing, and it's not the first time he's done it. I thought negotiation strategy was supposed to be a strong point? Brilliant dealmaker? AHCA anybody? He doesn't seem to be a very good negotiator. He spurns best practices even in the fields where he claims expertise, and he doesn't deal with people as partners. He bulldozes in an attempt to get the most in the moment, with no attention to relationships and the hard work it takes to maintain them.