Phi for All

And I don't know why Ophiolite keeps strawmanning the whole problem. I, too, respect his opinion, usually. I think the staff has sufficiently mentioned that we're human, we're volunteers, we're capable of mistakes, we can sometimes jump too hard on bad science, etc, etc, etc. I obviously can't talk to him about this, since he doesn't recognize that we've done this, and instead we get to fuck ourselves for a month. Meanwhile, the REAL objection from staff remains unanswered. I, for one, don't appreciate the way The Angry Intellect gets to make accusations, hard accusations, without showing anything to support them. When does that become fair, or even scientific? I don't appreciate that Ophiolite thinks any of the staff should just roll over and say we're guilty of what the OP says, and allow him a summary judgement based on... his word alone. We've made mistakes, we know that. We'd just like to know which of our mistakes have prompted all this harsh judgement. Wasn't that clear? As Hyper says, we talk extensively about moderation, and we're always looking for ways to be better about how we enforce the rules the site owners have put in place. The rules are the easiest part to enforce; they're pretty cut and dried. Any other moderation we do is to nudge discussions towards productivity, so they don't get mired in baseless claims, fallacious logic, or soapbox preaching. And frankly, we've been trying to step up the quality a bit this year. We want to attract people who want to talk about science, real science, mainstream science. We're always going to have the popsci crowd trying to overturn all the hardest parts of science so they can suddenly become the knowledgeable ones, and hopefully those folks will be open-minded enough to allow discussions here to broaden the accurate bits, and pare away the misunderstanding. We want the site to have value, and rigor in enforcing our rules helps keep discussion productive. This isn't a site for everyone, and we want it to be a site where explanations are held to higher standards, where unsupported accusations, innuendo, and generalizations have no merit.

I think the smart taxes and regs, coupled with the surge of industry and infrastructure projects, plus the promise of education for soldiers, the idea of uniting the States with highways, middle class tourism, and a whole slew of other things made possible by Ike's brilliant balance of foreign and domestic policy, are what makes the 50s an iconic time for many Republicans. It was a time when their values matched their leadership. It was a time when people had an overall better level of prosperity. So I don't understand why so many would like to build on a foundation like that, but insist that today's Republican leadership has any interest in anything Eisenhower did to make this country great. It's almost like they're taking the best parts of Ike's work, removing them and replacing them with bigger government, world-policing, responsibility to corporate citizenship, and a preference for unmatched wealth at the expense of the lower and middle classes. I hate to see Ike's party being represented by a clown balloon filled with hot air and empty promises.

IOW, "I'm not going to show any examples of why I'm accusing you of being self-righteous pricks, because my saying so is enough. In fact, what I say is the truth, so you're automatically lying. I've made up my mind and won't be swayed by anything you say." Is this your scientific argument?

So if I erect sheets of plastic, and prick holes in their stiff fronts, it's rendering rather than puncturing? Either way, it's hard on the plastic.

Yeah, Ike was POTUS when I was born. Would you have voted for Ike? My father really liked him, but hated Nixon, and so became a Democrat when Nixon ran. He got to say I-told-you-so when Watergate happened. Ike seemed to make it all work, and we had less extreme ends in prosperity, more people doing well all around. Even with his taxes and regulations of extreme wealth, business flourished and people could afford to buy the things they worked to make. Ike held to the Republican plank of NOT growing the federal government, and only one president has come close to being as tight-fisted as he was with taxpayer dollars. Ike understood that programs like Social Security and Minimum Wage were not only important financially to the country as a whole, but invested Americans with strength in themselves and hope in the future for their families. Would you have voted for Ike? He just seems like so much more of a respectable, representative Republican candidate than Trump could ever hope to be. And there's nobody in the Republican party who even mentions Ike anymore. I thought he truly made being a Republican something proud. Why do Republicans dislike Ike so much, and why are they willing to follow someone like the Donald?

! Moderator Note Strike that. Do NOT feel free to advertise anything here. It's against the rules you agreed to when you joined. We discuss science here. No more commercial links please.

Did you vote for Ike?

Did swansont really need to, after I did just that? Wouldn't you have thought that a bit heavy-handed, having two mods make the same challenge? Let's think about this, please. I understand where you're coming from, but I'm reluctant to admit I've been one of the staff The Angry Intellect is accusing of being unfair, especially when it's all just hand-waving. How is it a kneejerk response to ask someone to back up an accusation of being a poor moderator? Why would you expect me not to ask for clarification and example? I propose I will never be the better-than-that moderator you are wishing for. Tacit approval of blanket condemnation is just not in my wheelhouse.

So if it comes down to Trump and Sanders, are you going to vote Party?

Do you have the same problem we do with social services, where the conservatives that get into power dismantle everything the liberals build up while they were in power, then point and laugh and call the programs feeble, and need even more cutting?

So you get to accuse with no supportive evidence? Sort of a head-you-win, tails-we-lose situation? Perhaps this might have something to do with my serious attitude problems. It seems very angry, but not intellectual. You placed that in your profile, so between pushing your blog, and wanting SFN to lower it's standards for rigor to suit you, it seems like you're all about agenda, and nothing to do with the science. I think this is the part you don't understand.

So Trump is your guy?

So 20 atheists are supposed to pray for something, and you think that will show something? You don't think that's absolutely worthless since few Christians would consider it valid for atheists to pray?!

I don't know what that means. It seems a very vacuous thing to say in this context. Is this humor? I don't get it. Sometimes your posts seem like you're filling the silence with talking, but since you're typing, and capable of editing, it seems weird. Sorry, just an observation.

The point may be valid, but it's being used to stab people who hardly deserve it. Please show where we've jumped all over someone with less than 20 posts for no decent reason. Please show how rigor in our explanations, and enforcing rules, even with newcomers, is detrimental to the site. Please show how The Angry Intellect's central point is being violated by current Moderators. I'm willing to leave my position if you can show me evidence that I've unfairly treated newcomers.

Is this what happens when a Christian's doctor tells them "It's not just in remission, your cancer is gone!" Because they often attribute stuff like that to their god, working through their doctor, giving her/him that extra ooomph-nipotence that turns a good prognosis into a great one. You should tell these people it's all in their minds.

Sorry, but that's a waste of time. If it doesn't work, you get to say we needed more people. You'll always be able to say we need more of something, people, faith, incense, whatever. Because the religious explanations are always vague enough to provide sacred wiggle room to cover any lack of omnipotence. An experiment to test amputation healing through faith needs numbers. It's got to be huge. It's got to be committed. It's got to be the focused "power" of prayer cast on a single person who has lost a limb, begging the Christian God to intercede and give this worthy person back his limb. When this doesn't work, I fully expect the ultimate blame for failure to rest on the subject. All those Christians couldn't be ineffective, so it will eventually occur that the subject wasn't worthy. And we're back to square one.

By acknowledge, do you mean the brain mislabeling your thoughts as actual sounds? Because they aren't, so any acknowledgement that they are by the brain must be mis-attributed. Your thoughts are often considered a voice in your head, but nothing about them goes through the auditory system. I've heard sounds I mis-attributed to something else (drape-pull clicking against the wall sounded like high heels walking outside), but I don't think I've ever "heard" something my mind made up that couldn't have gone through the normal auditory process. For instance, does a war veteran, thinking about/ "hearing" gunfire in his mind, ever think it was a real gunshot, and duck for cover? If a student thinks about a bell ringing, does he start to leave class early? Or do we understand these sounds are just our thoughts?

I think this is a very important distinction. When we claim our officials are being bribed and are corrupt, but they don't go to jail, we kind of assume they are above the law (can't fight City Hall, and all that). But that's not really true. The laws have been re-written to encompass what they're doing as legal, and that's what we need to focus on. The officials aren't above the law, the law exempts them from scrutiny by declaring what they do is legal. Fix the system so it takes care of these instances.

Excuses, excuses, etcetera, ad infinitum. How about you just pray for the poor soul, worldwide, because he's also a Christian, and would really like to get back the leg that got blown off when he saved those orphans and missionaries from getting hit by the evil train piloted by an evil atheist? How many people would pray for this guy now, how many would have the faith to try, just try?

Have every Christian on the planet simultaneously pray/ask for a specific amputee to regain their lost limb.

! Moderator Note The above was merged from its own thread into this one.

But does that corruption warrant a comparison with third world countries? Or dictatorships? I think that was swansont's point, that perhaps these comparisons are stretched with only corruption to go on. And we don't meet the other criteria either (unless obesity is a third world disease). IOW, there's not enough evidence that we're there yet. It would seem we have to torture the definition of third world country in order to get it to fit the US either potentially or currently.

Is this for homework? It seems like a very googleable subject. Or are you looking for answers beyond respiration and photosynthesis?

! Moderator Note Are we done with the original OP topic? I'd like to close this when we are, otherwise we'll get all kinds of stretching-the-analogy-too-far replies, based on the title.