Phi for All

You joined and made this your first post, and your username is "Erudite"? That's funny*. Thanks! And welcome! * Although it would have been funnier, given the section this is in, to have said, "2 Bad", or perhaps "2(Bad)".

It's not hard to see how far we've come from creatures like this to walking erect. It didn't happen at a stroke.

You have an obligation to back up assertions with evidence when asked. From your link, regarding the scientific qualifications of the author: In other words, Perry is not a scientist. When a scientist says one can "think of DNA as an instructional script", he IS using analogy, LITERALLY. You use an unqualified source to say it's not an analogy, then you try to sneak past a quote from a reputable scientist who clearly claims it IS an analogy. Cheap trick, and very intellectually dishonest. Again, a clear use of analogy. Scientists often make the mistake of using analogy to make things clearer to an uneducated audience. Unfortunately, it's often these very analogies that get quoted and misrepresented, both by the innocently uninitiated and by those with a purposely devious agenda.

! Moderator Note illuusio, the Speculations forum has specific rules you are failing to follow. You have been asked for information multiple times and are not providing it. Each time you are asked for something specific, you reply with something vague. This thread is on it's 6th page and it's clear that the people interested in helping you are getting very frustrated. You need to provide what is being asked, or you need to tell why you can't provide it. Please comply with the rules or the thread will be closed. If you have a problem with this modnote, please report this post and state your reasons why, or PM a staff member. Do NOT discuss this modnote in this thread.

Space ≠ Spacetime. Time ≠ Spacetime. LOL, Pawel Kolasa!

But the forces are exerted on different objects. The size of the force on the fly equals the size of the force on the train, and the direction of the two forces are opposite as well. The train is affected by the fly's force in a very small way, and the fly is affected by an opposite and equally very small portion of the train's force. I have a T-shirt like this.

Just so we don't have to close this thread for violating our rules (Section 2.3aii), no one is going to tell you how to kill someone with a knife. Period. Please don't ask about that anymore. That said, do you think killing someone for robbery is justice? Did the robber have a gun? If so, a knife is a poor choice of weapons for an offensive strike. Also, a pocket knife is not a good weapon at all. It can be used for slashing if the blade is long enough (which usually makes it an illegal concealed weapon) but stabbing with it is likely to close the blade down on your own fingers. If it has a locking blade it could be used, but again it's a poor choice against a person with a gun in their hand.

I'm going to say you should have money AND food to stay healthy. Also, make sure you don't eat your money, since that's not good either.

Are you more interested in flora or fauna? Land or marine? Do you like research or were you thinking about applying biology to a different field (working with yeasts could land you a QC job at a brewery!)? Are you going for the B.S. or do you have plans for an M.S. or Ph.D.?

Perhaps you're right and my mechanic is overcharging me, but if so please don't tell me by how much until I've already paid him. Perhaps you're right and that is arsenic in my potato salad, but if so please don't stop me until I've eaten it.

Perhaps this was Pelosi's attempt to avoid the inevitable quote mining we've come to expect from the GOP. If you really stop to think about it, it's a very proper, logical response. Was she really supposed to reduce a huge document down to a digestable sound byte that may have been misleading in it's simplicity? After the Bush administration, I think we owed the whole world some apologies. Bush's "power means never having to say you're sorry" attitude was extremely undiplomatic. There's a big difference between seeming strong and being barbaric. When in Rome... Do you think the same about the traditional Japanese bow? Not every culture shakes hands, and diplomats learn very quickly not to offend. Do you think these cultural greetings are akin to kneeling before a superior? I assure you, they aren't. Both Bush presidents used to kiss the Saudis. Why doesn't that bother you? Sorry, but this one sounds like a partisan complaint. If the guy you like did the same thing, he'd be "outsmarting" the guy you hate. But with Obama, you call it "browbeating". I don't want to take things off-topic for all these issues, but I do think it's important to show you how many other perspectives there are to these issues. One man's "genuflecting" is another man's greeting.

Well, the two aren't really the same, are they? If I'm reading a scientific article, I'm not really expecting to have any input at all, unlike a science discussion forum. I personally don't think discussions proceed much when devolving into complaints about criticism. The vast majority of ideas don't work, and it doesn't help anyone to linger longer on those that start out flawed. If the person with the idea can take the criticism on board and work with it to hone future presentations, everyone benefits. And there's always the danger of lending tacit support when you don't point out flaws and someone else takes flawed information as supported theory.

Oh, dude. Discussion is like conversation. A wall o' text is like someone who won't let you get a word in edgewise, and it makes it really difficult to get to the meat of the topic. And when you're basically complaining with a wall o' text, you're making a lot of eyes glaze over. No offense, just sayin'. Don't conflate refutation with ridicule. Especially here, we make a distinction between attacking the person and attacking the idea the person has. We don't allow the former, and the latter is just part of the process. I seriously don't see the point of everyone else walking on eggshells to protect one person's ego. I think it's much more efficient for the one person, the person with the idea, to grow a thicker skin, and realize that it's not personal when someone criticizes their idea.

! Moderator Note Even though this topic seems to start with invoking Godwin's Law, please keep all comments civil and on topic. Thanks!

This tells me all I need to know about your arguments. If you truly "know the talkorigins arguments" and think ANYTHING from AnwersInGenesis is more plausible, there is nothing I could say that you wouldn't dismiss with the kind of intellectual dishonesty and rigor-free reasoning used at the AIG site. Imo, there is no other place on the web where so many people who haven't bothered to understand science regularly ridicule it.

That particular thread is under review, since it basically invokes Godwin's Law right at the OP. Learn what censorship really means. Please forgive us for taking a bit long to figure out how to pre-warn people not to simply flame you for comparing today's scientists with Hitler and the Nazis. Your obsession with all things Greek and Nazi Germany is already starting to wear thin with some members, based on the many comments and complaints we've gotten. Edit to add: Review complete, thread re-opened.

Maybe it was just some old shoe polish. [/greatest straight line EVER]

We shared your findings with the scientific community and they demanded more evidence. So we brought in a team of experts and also determined there is bear hair stuck in the bark of the nearest trees, the tracks around the area are from a bear and the tracks lead to a nearby stream that has berry bushes along its banks and the remains of fish that have been caught and eaten near the bear tracks. One of the experts heard a roar, set up some recording equipment and was able to record another roar that all of our experts agree was made by a bear. Moontanman's dad claims that Sasquatch sound just like that, and he still says the experts are wrong.

If you believe you have the clap, you can get a Peter Pan at your doctrine's office.

I'm sure you feel the same way about Nobel prize winners. Athlete's only offer entertainment after all, at amateur and professional levels both. Nobel prize winners often advance the global society, and work as hard as any athlete. Or do you think only physical pursuits are worth your special interest?

My personal favorite is the path of the laryngeal nerve. Goes from the brain to the larynx in the throat (which is a pretty straight shot and a short distance in most vertebrates), and while it serves a purpose, the nerve's path goes way down into the chest and loops under the aorta, then back up again to the throat. In giraffes, it's like 15 feet long! The single best example of why ID is wrong, imo. It just happened to get caught that way when we evolved from a small fish when the heart got rearranged by selective pressures and a gill function got taken over by a need to make sounds. Not chance, natural selection.

Doesn't it make sense that a much less sophisticated nucleic acid existed before DNA? Early life didn't need sequences with so much structural purpose. Life started simple and evolved to current complexities over billions of years, we have observed the evidence of this. Since you capitalized KNOW, you should learn something else about science. It's not about KNOWING or PROOF, it's about the explanation that's best supported by reliable evidence. Again, you really should learn more about the things you ridicule with such fervor.

From your link, the first one, not the redundant second one: Taxes on income do NOT equal punishment, so I call BS. Substitute "NFL Players" for "Olympians" and you can see how the rest of the claim is also BS. And who is Mark Rubio to claim "We can all agree"? This whole thing is a blatant political maneuver. I would sooner exempt non-commissioned military personnel from income taxes before I'd advocate it for Olympic athletes. Btw, if you read the study all this was based on, the taxes on the actual medals themselves are $236, $135 and $2 respectively. Hardly a "punishment" that needs yet more new legislation and additions to the tax codes. Just more hand-waving to make us forget Wall Street crimes, the economy and unemployment.

Here at SFN, we recognize that if you call someone stupid, it's a personal attack, and is against the rules. Calling someone's idea or claim stupid is perfectly OK as long as you can show why you think so. Please don't take attacks against your ideas personally, they aren't meant that way and they aren't insults. I guess the best advice is lighten up AND toughen up.

So, is the reason it's not considered a true flash mob because the act they performed wasn't pointless? Then I agree with the title, I want more like this.