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Further, the analogy you give with racism doesn't quite cut it for me. If there were real, tangible differences between blacks and whites (and not just something trivial like skin color or hair texture), then I would argue these differences do need to be taken into account when we decide how we're going to treat one group or the other. The reality is that such differences are miniscule at best, so we (or I, at least) will treat blacks and whites and any other race of people as moral equivalents.

IMM, I'm curious at what point you draw the line. Surely if animals are our moral equals, you'd extend the exact same moral protections you'd give to humans, no? Would you save a deer from a mountain lion? I'd say it would be morally negligent not to attempt to save a human who was assaulted by a mountain lion, but I'd probably do nothing to save the deer -- the justification for the latter being more ecological than moral. But if deer are our moral equals, then why not extend the same moral protection? I think consistency is a good thing to have in any moral system, but I acknowledge that my moral interests will clash, and that at some point I have to give way for one over the other. This is implicit in even the most staunch animal-rights activist. Did you strain the last carrot you ate to ensure you didn't ingest any nematode worms? Do you boycott purified drinking water because zooplankton died during the purification process? You may think I'm nitpicking, but these are some of the extremes that a Jainist might go through to minimize animal suffering, and unless you do same, the Jainists have you beat for moral consistency. That said, I do value the lives of animals and even plants. But we need to take other, non-moral factors into consideration: that there are heterotrophic life forms (including us) that destroy other lives in order to maintain their own, that the ecology of some animals essentially relies on them being exterminated in droves (particularly creatures like mice that follow an r-strategy of population growth), and the fact that humans are the only creatures that are capable of bettering the planet for all parties involved. All of these non-moral factors need to be taken into consideration before we simply decide animals are our moral equivalents. A lemming left to its own devices will uselessly give its life to a bottom of a cliff -- if we can take the little critter and do beneficial scientific research with it, it will have given its life to something a bit more worthwhile.

Fair enough. We all lose our cool at some point. You're one of the few people that acknowledge it, and that is commendable. I've given animal rights quite a bit of thought. As a postbac in biochemistry making a career switch to the health professions (M.D. or Pharm.D., haven't decided), I've already killed a number of lab animals. Of course, I do not take such affairs lightly, and I treat these animals with the utmost respect and humanity, and not simply because a life sciences ethical committee is watching my back either. These animals are so heavily anesthetized by the time they are euthanized, that I hesitate to even say they are in a "vegetative" state -- even a vegetable is capable of responding to external negative stimuli or environmental stresses. My moral system is heirarchical (I could elaborate its structure further, but this post will get quite lengthy), and although I believe we have a moral responsibility to the animals, I believe that our responsibility to other humans trumps that. You can view this as an inconsistency, but I view it as a simple acknowledgement that we are restricted to finite resources. You cannot feed the hungry if you yourself are starving to death. We are the stewards of the planet, and we need to be in optimal shape ourselves so that we can extend further protection to the animals. Paradoxically, this will involve sacrificing some animals so that our knowledge of medicine will increase, but this is not just for our benefit -- this is for the long-term benefit of animals as well, since we will be acquiring further knowledge of veterinary science. If there was a way for medical knowledge to increase without this sacrifice, I'm in favor. If there were a way for a surgeon to develop manual dexterity without cutting up an animal, I'm all in favor. But until these methods are developed, I hold that it is still morally obligatory for us to minimize human suffering first, before that of the animals. In any event, I'm always curious about other people's views. When I have the time, I'll pick up a copy of the animal ethics books you mentioned here. I'm always looking for a good read anyhow, and I'm not afraid to be proven wrong, though I doubt a few books'll change my career path.

I have pet cats. I feed them lots and lots of dead pig, cow, chicken and tuna. I could probably feed them vegetables, but then that'd be "experimenting" on them, and we can't have that.

Well aside from the false dichotomy fallacy of assuming that homosexuality must be caused entirely by either genetics or environment, rather than some combination of the two with some confounding factors thrown in for good measure, I'd really like to see these religious apologetics sites explain how homosexuality occurs in animals. Do gay animals get abused? Do they grow up in broken homes?

The book read like a plot out of a very typical, moderately-budgeted Hollywood suspense flick. Although this was the reason I didn't think the book was that great, it's also the reason I suspect so many people loved it. In any event, regarding the alleged "facts" of the book, there really is a Priory of Sion, but it's a real-life scam. One of the founding members of the group admitted that the group was created as part of an elaborate ruse in the mid-20th century, yet Brown puts it into his novel as though the group has had its roots and connections to the grail going back ages. But again, this book is fiction and should be acknowledged as such. I just singled out the Priory bit because Brown put it in his intro as part of the "factual" elements of the book.

It just struck me as particularly hilarious that you pointed out astrology as a high point of an ancient civilization's progress.

A biological construct can only be characterized as "irreducibly complex" if you assume what it was designed for. There is no reason to assume design. To use the infamous mousetrap analogy, a mousetrap is "irreducibly complex" only if you assume its purpose is to catch mice. But unfortunately, this ignores the fact that an organism will tend to make do with what nature has provided it. If, instead of receiving a full blown mousetrap, an organism had just the spring, it wouldn't be able to catch mice, but there's still plenty that can be done with a spring such as using it to jump, or absorb shock, or whatever else have you. All other things equal, this may give the organism an evolutionary advantage over organisms that don't have springs, and now the species is one step closer to the complete mousetrap.

I would've said Louis Pasteur' date=' but a) he didn't really prove it was impossible; he only demonstrated a very particular way that won't work, and b) the year 1800 rules him out as well. That question doesn't even make sense. What bottom?

Well, an IDist (Stephen Meyer) did get published in a journal -- The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The article is primarily a review of the literature (mostly Creationist "literature" as well as references to Meyer's other works), rather than field or lab research demonstrating something substantive. The article hasn't fared very well under scrutiny, but shortly after its publication, it was hailed by its supporters as proof of ID's scientific legitimacy. The full article can be found here. A critical review, here.

Yup. "[intelligent Design] is the greatest case of false advertising I've seen since I sued the movie 'The Never Ending Story.'" -Lionel Hutz, attorney at law.

I don't think that means we shouldn't investigate further. Moore is complaining, and he anticipates that there will be some who will respond to his complaints with "now is not the appropriate time to complain." So he's responding with "do not listen to [those] who say we can discuss all this later."

It's very straightforward why it's hard to believe that Atlantis was as advanced as that Walt Disney movie made it seem, and that some of Atlantis's defenders would have you believe. Plato mentioned specifically that the Atlanteans were defeated in war by the Athenians. So unless you believe it is reasonable that an army of sandal-clad spear throwers can take down a great space-faring civilization with the latest in laser-beam weaponry and massive, armored battle titans, you may want to reconsider what you think of Atlantis's technological sophistication.

He's falsely equivocating his different usage of the terms "fact" and "proof." Science makes inductive inferences that can be regarded as factual knowledge, but provisionally and subject to the availability of new information. When he later states that these facts must have "true proof" and "the absence of doubt," he has pulled a sleight of hand in swapping out inductive for deductive inferences. The rest of his argument falls apart accordingly. You'd be hard-pressed to make the case that all knowledge should be denied if we cannot have omniscience, since even the claim "all knowledge is impossible" is itself a knowledge claim. Well, he didn't really use science to disprove science at all, but if he actually did, then his proof is undermined by his own admission via the stolen concept fallacy.

I believe people should be free to engage in all forms of consensual, adult sexual relations. Aside from hetero- and homosexuality, this includes, but is not limited to, polygyny, polyandry and incest. Note that this does not include beastiality (unless you can really prove the animal consented -- doubtful), and does not include sex with minors. Although a minor can technically "consent," I regard their "consent" to be as meaningless as their signature on most contractual agreements. Note furthermore, that this does not mean I approve or endorse any of the above sexual activities. I believe people should be free to do it and not be thrown in jail or harassed or ridiculed for it; doesn't mean I believe they should do it. How's that for extreme? Oh, and I can't stand fire-and-brimstone religious types either (Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jesse Helms, Jimmy "I would know the prophet Mohammed was a pervert because I'm one and it takes one to know one" Swaggart). I don't really consider that extreme though, because just about all moderate religious people I know can't stand them either.

Here in California, the power companies have a program whereby a solar panel on your house would feed energy back into the power grid if you generated excess power, so there's no need to get batteries. Excess power you generate and feed into the grid also go into lowering your energy bill, which is a nice bonus. Sounds easy, but there are some complications. Consider that not everyone lives in a sunny area. I spent a month in Seattle in summer, and I am not engaging in hyperbole when I say I never once saw the sun over that city. Also consider that many people live or work in high rise buildings and apartments that consume a lot of power, but offer very little surface area for collecting solar power, so there will still be a need for non-solar energy sources.

The "intellectual" creationists usually quote Michael Behe or William Dembski. The less sophisticated "intellectual" creationists will regurgitate Behe's mousetrap analogy (a mousetrap is specifiably complex; removing just one of its components would cause the entire function to fail, ergo it must've been Intelligently Designed, many biological constructs fit this bill). Nevermind that the whole notion of specified complexity presupposes teleology in order to prove teleology -- begging the question is the least of this analogy's problems. The more sophisticated creationists will regurgitate Dembski's (mis)use of the No Free Lunch Theorem (which states that no algorithm can outperform any other algorithm when averaged across all fitness functions). Dembski thinks this implies that an evolutionary algorithm of mutation and selection (or genetic drift or anything else you want to add to the mix) cannot outperform an algorithm of blind chance. This is a misinterpretation of the theorem that one of the theorem's coauthors (David Wolpert) has pointed out to Dembski. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF011_2.html Dembski wrote an entire book entitled No Free Lunch, and the entire thesis of his book is refuted by one of the premise's coauthors -- how humiliating. I'd resign into a life of obscurity if that happened to me, but Dembski and other Creationists have no shame. It's a quest to save hellbound souls, not a quest for objectivity in science.

The covariance of two independent random variables X and Y is zero. Cov(X, Y) = 0 The correlation coefficient of two random variables X and Y is: p = Cov(X, Y) / (Var(X)*Var(Y))^0.5 Thus if two random variables X and Y are independent, their covariance is zero, and so is their correlation coefficient p.

This reminds me of a documentary I once watched in which a commentator asserted, "Heisenberg tells us that particles are not 'things,' but rather, they are nothing more than probabilistic tendencies." If there's one thing about Werner "Uncertainty" Heisenberg that I'm certain about, it's that he said no such thing.