jimmydasaint

Dear rigney, I'm afraid I don't buy any of the OP, or the intention behind it. If you are trying to fly the flag for the USA and its 'humanitarian' ventures into other countries then I don't buy it either. IMHO, 21st century wars will be all fought for control of dwindling natural resources. I have also heard Professor Gray echo this worldview: Link I find it highly unlikely that the leading military and economic powers of the world venture into adventures in other countries merely to distribute humanitarian aid and to spread the message of democracy as you seem to be hinting. I am a British patriot but I can see the wrong in my country and will speak out about it, as a true patriot should; not to blindly support the drama of Public Relations (a euphemism for propaganda) that pervades all popular Western media. I don't know why this post was made in the 'Ethics' section but if you want to discuss ethics then please comment on the following, which relates to our jolly adventures in Iraq (unedited to avoid quotemining): John Pilger Freelance Journalist

I'm afraid that I left this topic sizzling for a bit too long and I hope that it is not over-cooked or overlooked. However, for what it is worth, I agree that discrimination on the basis of ability is not illegal and that women are finally given equal rights under the aegis of the law. However, in sports, my point was that we may be giving women equal rights to compete in curling, climbing or underwater hockey (whatever that is) and that we set up separate teams for soccer, despite the possibility that some women may have a similar ability to men in soccer. Moreover, I believe that if we discriminate on the basis of ability, then should we separate black and white 100m sprint athletes on the basis of different ability ranges? I don't actually recall the last time a white athlete actually broke the 100 m record in my recent lifetime. Bottom line is: are we just metaphorically patting women on the ass and saying: 'There there dear, don't worry your pretty little head, we'll set up different competitions just for you...' I think Butters and others are being intellectually honest in saying that women and men are NOT equal due to obvious biological differences. However, if women do not want to be discriminated against, they only have to appeal to the UN Charter for Human Rights and, IMHO, they have a pretty good case for demanding more equality. Certainly start with prize money for the same sport, where there is a startling disparity.

From what I understand presently, and this is tenuous knowledge, neurons come in three types: sensory, interneuron (relay neurons in the UK) and motor neurons which are in contact with muscle or glands. Some neurons are covered in a fatty non-conducting substance called myelin which speeds up the electrical impulses carried by neurons. The presence of myelin speeds up the impulses in comparison to neurons that have no myelin. Correct so far? My problem is that I want to be exact about which neurons are myelinated in the body and which are not. Therefore I need more expert help, a reference or two... and where else could I go to except here? Neurons

What about 'Man DNA Yourself - Decoding Revolution!' It's a bit crude but can be read as 'Man, do you know yourself - the coding revolution' I take it that they need a good slogan for Science Clubs, or am I totally wrong? It comes from the Socratic adage (or attributed to Socrates): 'Man know thyself.'

I didn't know where to post these thoughts, but I have been pondering on this for a while. If we believe that women have equal rights to men, then why are they in separate competitive sports, locally, nationally or internationally (e.g. Olympic Games). Are we acknowledging that they are not as physically strong as men and making the choice for them to separate them, which is a gender apartheid; or are we being condescending in being 'gentle' with them? For example, should women be able to compete with men in track and field events on an equal basis? In addition, would large team sports like football or baseball not be more interesting when women and men compete together? Certainly, team showers at the end of the game would be far more interesting... Any views?

Getting back to the O.P., are there people without a conscience? Or people who can suppress their conscience so that the death of millions would bother them less than a slight headache? Is conscience inherited or learned, or both?

cipher510, you can contact the lead scientists directly if you like. Best wishes for the future. Contact ICR London but ask to speak to Dr Kevin Harrington directly and ask for his advice. It is probably best not to direct any enquiries to the switchboard operator.

Good point. There seem to be small scale trials as the following news article indicates: Link However, note that it is not a single 'bullet' therapy but used in combination with other cancer therapies. Moreover, the relapse rate seems to be also quite low: Link

I think this post needs clarification, if I read it correctly. Listen to the main part of the tune and replace 'durunt, durunt, durunt, durunt, durunt' by 'dead ant', 'dead ant', 'dead ant'....I can't believe that I am trying to explain the Pink Panther tune or if I understood your post Moontanman.

I would not think that the Divinity punishes naughty thoughts. We are, after all, causative agents. You can think all day about what you could do to your friend's girlfriend but, IMHO, you cannot be punished until you take it to the physical stage. Severian has made an excellent point. If agnostic atheists ignore their own moral code, do they also not believe in it, or are they immune to the standards that they desire from believers?

John B, you have articulated an argument with a piquant wit and the use of colourful wit that gives this thread a whole new flavour and lustre. In fact it is one of my favourite posts and I have duly honoured it by adding to your reputation. Your humour has amused me. I have to clarify that I admire the ability of Americans to come up with new and inventive pejorative words. However, I have also seen an English mother use the word f@@k in a supermarket as a noun, verb and adjective and subject of a single sentence, when she was reprimanding her hapless child, so we are not immune to linguistic inventiveness ourself are we?

It is sad but true Marat, that you have exposed the hypocrisy of followers of the major world religions. However, this logically does not preclude the existence of 'gold standards' of morals, but the spiritual weakness of the followers. The believers believe they will be forgiven every sin and this eases the conscience somewhat. However, my own personal, independent, belief is that sins are only forgiven up to a point. For example, you can maintain a facade of being a good believer whilst being severely envious of a work rival. In this example, you can deliberately and maliciously undermine your rival and then ask for forgiveness on the day that you attend your Church/Mosque/Synagogue. To my way of thinking, God may forgive the occasional straying of that person, as long as the person then returns to the correct behaviour delineated by his/her faith. Sticking to the example, if the person then decides to continue maliciously 'stitching up' their rival and asking for forgiveness, they are missing the point of contrition and returning to the correct behaviour. My own logic cannot allow that the person who is malevolent to others whilst claiming to be a good believer will be continuously forgiven. It would mean that God is unjust in favouring a continually straying believer above a 'morally upright' non believer. God cannot be unjust, and IMHO, the believer will reach a point beyond which he/she cannot return back to the 'correct' path. At that point, they have gone astray. I cannot subscribe to the belief that God became man out of love and then sacrificed His life to forgive all Christians of their sins for all time. It defies my sense of logic and forces me to consider a more spiritual-deistic hybrid explanation for the meaning of life and the purpose of humanity.

All in good fun, if not in good taste... Folks, I thought I was reasonable well acquainted with the vagaries of the English language until I read the term 'asshat' in this Forum. The only time I have seen anything that resembled this mythical 'asshat' was when I saw aliens from Star Trek. Which of the following is the best 'asshat?' Is it the guy on the right in this image? or these guys? Note the groove on the lower forehead. To my mind, these guys come the closest: The Americans have a tendency to create new and ever-inventive insulting phrases from swear words, e.g. f---wad. What on Earth does that mean? Have you guys destroyed the English language, or made it more inventive? And can anyone tell me more of your American insults.

I have gathered what I deemed to be the salient parts of the article below: Article This is an absolutely fascinating field of study, no doubt. It would be useful to have an epigenomic study, or an epigenetic map of the ant genomes at the level of vital genes, for example, to study histone protein modifications or methylation patterns, and to examine their effects. It almost seems to be Neo Lamarckian, in the sense that the switching of genes 'on' or 'off' by factors that are not DNA based has a huge effect on the development of ant behaviour. IIRC, there was a longitudinal study on the 'happiness' of people whose forefathers had experienced starvation and those whose forefathers were well fed with a balanced diet. Guess which set of people were more likely to be mentally content? My problem is that you have several layers of complexity involved and that gene interactions are likely to have several effects rather than a single cause leading to a single effect. I think this is called pleiotropy and, IMHO, it will be difficult to unravel all the effects of genes on each other before looking at epigenetic effects. Great find Genecks and it deserves more replies really.

I don't know how much of the report can be backed up with solid data, apolo1512, but this link has more detail: Link

Hang on folks! I thought urea, made by kidneys, from excess amino acids, and excreted from the body in urine, was quite poisonous. Moreover, I thought urea was, by far, in the greatest concentration as a solute in urine. Link However, to answer my own point, it is probably likely that it is too dilute to cause problems.

I think n-i is following the following definition of materialism per se: Link He/She is, de facto, following the meaning that approximates to economic or materialistic consumerism, which I can infer from the O.P. Moreover, his/her definition of secularism also needs a bit of definition and I think the O.P. refers to the first definition: Link So n-i's definition of secularism points to a society or way of living which does not need to derive its education or moral character from religion. I had no idea what pragmatism meant until I read the following definition (no. 2) and I found out that it was a philosophical movement: Link or: Link I think the reason secularism was mentioned as an over-arching theme was that it subsumes the two further concepts of economic consumerism and also pragmatism. This is not my view as a process of deductive reasoning but it may serve to explain why n-i was expressing personal views in that form in the O.P.

I agree with this pithy and witty reply, and acknowledge the sound sense of the previous posts. However, remember that people also look back at past weather patterns and start to wonder if there is a 'natural' cycle at work rather than AGW. For example I listened to a BBC Radio 4 programme which recounted that British inhabitants in the medieval ages enjoyed wine from home grown grapes and a warmer climate than today. IMHO, the past cycles of temperature fluctuation are another puzzling factor for the skeptics. For example, this article states the following: IPCC Working Group

Brave and up-front so I guess it deserves a straight answer 'n-i'. Firstly, as you acknowledged, there is no generic scientific proof of the existence of God. So the premise of the O.P. then has to be modified. The title should be: ' What indirect and generic supporting statements can you make to indicate the existence of God? I will take it as granted that the Abrahamic God is the same for Jews, Christians and Muslims. [1] IMHO, the development of conscousness in humans to the point that it can think about thought and can approach a higher reasoning and understanding than other species (so far) would be one of my choices as an unlikely evolutionary event [2] IMHO the development of language in humans is a complex event which linguists cannot agree upon, let alone scientists [3] IMHO the development of a living baby from a single cell with gene interactions that would make a supercomputer puzzled is a difficult phenomenon to explain except in a piecemeal manner by developmental biologists [4] IMHO the fact that all living things die, but especially that all humans will die, and that religions tell us that the point of a death is for a trial of deeds committed whilst on Earth during our time as causative agents [5] IMHO the puzzle about why the values are as they are for fundamental forces of nature and why the masses of protons, neutrons and electrons are as they are. In short, these are not proofs. They are puzzles for a person who is drawn to reflection and drawn to faith. They will be meaningless to people who reject faith because the scientific process is still gathering evidence for past events and that process is not yet complete. Does it satisfy me personally? Yes it does. There are question marks and every scientific process I investigated as a past research scientist some 20 years ago, ended in a question mark - a mystery. I still have doubts about the existence of God, but I choose to live with them in hope for the future, and in fear of a bad future after death. But a bit of hope is better than none.

I agree with you here, if I read your post correctly. IMHO, we imagine that what our senses tell us is real. However, I cannot see that we know the true nature of reality. So the materialism, and cause and effect relationships, provide a most compelling 'idea' of reality. It is so compelling that the scientific method is built around providing sound hypotheses. These hypotheses can provide a way to an objective truth which is also very compelling; in fact so compelling that most scientists will not look for another model of reality. For example a manufactured reality is not even considered because it is outside the scope of materialistic science. By this, I mean that if God made us enter a superbly created 3D/4D virtual reality which locked on to us at birth and from which we could not escape until death, why would anyone need anything except for their virtual reality 'machine?' Lives could be lived; and fulfilling lives lived within the 'machine.' Is there room for doubt? Yes. But I consider that God would not leave us without revelations and apostles. As you have correctly stated, the Bible is a book of ethics (as are the Koran and Torah) not a book of science and should be read as a source of metaphor and allegory which guides the reader towards a better life. Good thread, it has taught me something new (about postulates)

An anecdotal reply, which is by no means scientific or evidence of any sort. I had the good fortune of being to teach identical twin boys who 'evolved' to form different friendship groups in the same classes. One of the boys became a visual bias learner whilst the other had a kinaesthetic learning bias, by virtue of adopting the traits of their different groups of friends. I found it quite interesting at the time. learning styles

This answer may suffice mate. However, a quick websearch would have given you a good answer as well. People lived in times where they believed that old underwear or clothes would, under the correct conditions generate mice or flies by 'spontaneous generation.' Spontaneous Father of Micro

pioneer - sensible comments. However, bear in mind that scriptural exegesis is not likely to be regarded as proof by the majority of the sfn members here. So, to my mind, it restricts debate to science AND religion and not science VS religion, which is the way believers seem to see it. Why quote from scriptures which have been tampered with and do not seem divine as a consequence? Cap'n - I intend to report inappropriate postings in this Forum far more often. Thanks.