MonDie

I know... I think I found the reason for my problem with making Network Manager accessible without root privelages. Network Manager still accesses my own wireless network automatically, but I can't change networks, and I can't reconnect to the usual network after getting off of it. I guess I'll just have to see what it does when I'm away from home.

More specifically, the faulty notion is that there is some objective criteria for determining what is good or "better." Benevolence is a subjective idea: If someone has faith that there is an omnipotent, omnibenevolent god, they must also have faith that this world is the best it can be. Not that it will be the best that it can be, but that it is the best it can be right now. However, by this logic, a lack of faith is shown by any attempt to improve your current condition. A faithful peron cannot not love because god loves them; cannot eat because god feeds them; cannot pee because god empties their bladder for them; etc. If god does not do any of these things for them, they are content with the pains because they have faith that the pain is just a manifestation of god's love. Gives a whole new meaning to "God, I have to pee," doesn't it?

Ahh, there we go. Genetic drift can result from the bottleneck effect and the Founder effect. The Founder effect is part of what I was talking about with "transitional environment." (NOTE: "transitional environment" is not a formal biology term) So, does genetic drift result in more unique combinations of genes? In a larger population, there may be just as many mutations, but it is unlikely that those mutations will recombine because they are dilluted by (and competing with) all the common traits. Also, does a lower reproductive age result in greater genetic drift? If that's all Behe meant, I might need to explain what I am talking about. In example one, the stone bridge could stand on block 1&2, 1&3, or 2&3, thus the demands for the function aren't very specific. I am talking about something that has specific demands, the specifity of which makes them hard to meet. Here is an example. A blunt object is something that can be useful, but the demands for the function are vague. There are tons of things that can serve as blunt objects. On the other hand, something like a flagellum has more specific demands, which means there are fewer "stepping stones" that could lead to that function. We might expect such structures to appear during times of genetic drift.

Just an ameuter speculating. My knowledge of evolution isn't that great, so my proposals might have been proposed already. One classic example of supposed irreducible complexity was the flagellum. Since then, we've learned of a simpler structure that could have been a stepping stone to the flagellum. Still, there is probably a relationship between (1) the likeliness of a functional thing evolving and (2) the specifity of the requirements for the function. That's when I wondered what population variables would impact the likeliness of such "complex" structures appearing. First of all, each population of bacteria contains TONS of viable individuals. This could definitely give those "complex" structures better chances. Thus the appearance of a "complex" structure (the flagellum) in bacteria shouldn't be surprising. With the rest of this post, I will propose other variables that will be more controversial. Suppose E, N, and W are various mutations that, when appearing together in a single organism, form KNEW, a "complex" structure. K is a trait that is already widespread. KNEW has better chances of appearing at times when E, N, and W are relatively more advantageous. One problem is that we don't know anything about E, N, or W. Despite this, there are ecological and anatomical variables that might help any new mutations, including E, N, and W. Hypothetically, such variables effect how genetically diverse a population is. The first variable is reproductive age. My reasoning goes like this. If the reproductive age is later in the lifespan, mutants are less likely to survive to the reproductive age. In such a situation, new mutations will be whiped out before they can appear in many generations/recombinations. On the other hand, a population with a lower reproductive age should be more genetically diverse (testable prediction!). I call the second variable transitional environment. My reasoning goes like this. When the environment is changing rapidly or a new environment is being colonized, the widespread traits are no longer advantageous, thus competition is less of a problem for mutants. Thus the population will temporarily be more diverse (testable prediction!).

Maybe not. Try looking at it this way. Now the answers are: 1) 50 50 2) 1/3 2/3 split between GB and GG. Why does #2 come out to a 1/3 2/3 split after #1 was a 50/50 split? 1) If we only know that she has two children, we know that she is more likely to have a boy/girl combo than she is to have two girls. A boy/girl combo is more likely for the same reason you're more likely to flip a 50/50 split of heads and tails. However, when she tells us she has a girl, things are evened back out because she would be more likely to say she has a girl if she has two girls. 2) When we find out that the girl in question is the younger, we can overturn the original 50/50 split logic. Before, we had this: BG + GB > GG Now, we have this: G? - where ? can be B or G. The purple font reasoning can be applied to the Monty Hall problem. The mother mentioning a daughter is equivalent to the host opening a door. See following quote.

Whenever a person or group of people would judge this to be so. That's all properness is. If I want to use religion to bonk people on the heads, that is the proper use with respect to myself. proper: This post explains my thoughts in more detail.

Could you give examples of things I could say to accomplish this? I'm still not clear on what you're saying. By the way, I'm glad to know my children are in good hands with you, Father Banana.

At least for me, the video runs better from a separate tab.

You think I am a bot. I do not think I am a bot. I think I am Eli, the galactic embassador.

I don't understand. Like, question their personal integrity? e.g. "If you only have faith, why are you acting like you have authority? You could be spreading misinformation." I could do that after shaking their beliefs a bit.

IGGY's response: Compare Hitler's political strategies were very aggressive. Source of the following quotes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_rise_to_power After Hitler was made the leader of the Nazi party:

Or I could wear this t-shirt. http://www.cafepress.com/mf/46659333/raptor-rodeo-jesus_tshirt I think the bigger issue is that he didn't care for my criticisms. All he cared about was converting me. He seemed very convinced that he was telling the truth. This might have been an issue of assertiveness. I was sort of shell-shocked by it, but I won't be next time. They come to convert me, so I will try to convert them equally, even if their children are present (the Jehova's Witnesses).

I already asked him. He said, "I didn't boil for your sins to hear this crap all day!" It would be interesting to hear some special insight, but I don't expect anyone to have better answers than I. You see, I've tried this, but it doesn't work. This Mormom was telling me the Bible has made a bunch of prophecies that are coming true. I responded, "Actually, The Bible got a lot of things wrong." He just ignored that. Maybe I should have been more assertive in making my point.

I think you were responding to IGGY.

Father Bowen, I need some advice. Many times in the past, I have formed freindships with theistic females. Is it moral for me to date a theistic woman if the relationship's continuance is contingent upon her conversion to atheism? This contingency arises because I foresee too many arguments with a theistic girlfriend. Also, how should I respond to persistent Mormons and Jehova's Witnesses? I've tried being nice, but then they just come back. Must I engage them in arguments about the existence of gods, or should I be rude until they leave me alone? Is there a way to make them feel like they have been rude to me?

Haven't you heard the angry speeches given by Hitler? As long as people aren't riled up about politics, we should be able to stop corruption without weapons.

This is a video I saw several months ago. It's what first got me comparing biological evolution to the evolution of human inventions.

Psychologists use various questionnaires to measure religious belief, e.g. the extrinsic and intrinsic religiosity scales, the fundamentalism scale, the quest religiosity scale. Anyway, Dan Batson conducted a relevant experiment. It suggested that people who score high on the Quest religiosity scale tend to be less prejudiced overall. However, their style of religious belief can be opposed with fundamentalism, so there was an Australian experiment to see if they would discriminate against fundamentalists. Anyway, Dan Batson criticizes the experimenters for assuming that fundamentalism and quest are opposite ends. When Dan Batson redid the experiment with a pure quest scale, he got a different finding. Although they generally don't discriminate against fundamentalists, they're generally unwilling to support oppressive/fundamentalist activities. If anyone is interested in the research on religion and prejudice, I gave analyses of a presentation by Dan Batson over here and here. I studied the presentation thoroughly when I used it for an essay.

The concept of a "means to an end" is relevant to the concept of natural selection. The organisms we see today are here because of their ancestors' tendencies to survive and reproduce. They survived and reproduced because they had certain adaptations. Survival and reproduction can be thought of as ends, and adaptations can be thought of as means to those ends. A means is something that is useful for the production of some end. More simply put, a means can cause a certain result. For example, an axe can cause chopping under the right circumstances. Because we can cause chopping more easily with an axe, we say that the axe is useful for chopping. From an objective perspective, we would say that a person is more likely to chop things if they have an axe, just as a bacteria is more like to swim if it has a flagellum. We often refer to an end as "the purpose" although purpose is always culturally defined or subjective. For example, we say a mouse trap's purpose is killing mice because that particular use is common knowledge. If someone told us a mouse trap's purpose is clipping ties, we would probably disagree because we have been taught that the proper purpose is killing mice. When we eliminate this notion of purpose, we realize that the mouse trap can be useful as a means to many ends. The mouse trap could be used to kill mice, kill birds, torture people, make irritating noises, etc. The notion of purpose is more or less a formality, not a fact regarding the nature of a thing. Nature selection has no subjective notion of purpose because it is not intelligent. Nonetheless, natural selection favors the perpetuation of things that bring about certain ends, and we may come to label these ends as purposes. I'm trying to remember the point this dumb mess of branches was supposed to illustrate. The image is from http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2307.htm John Lienhard got the image from "R. W. Hegner, Practical Zoology, 1917"

Are you sure about that statement?

Many things in our universe interact, and that is why we gain knowledge by making inferences from our observations. Nobody has immediate observation of anything except their own mind. You can also question the nature of "knowing." Scientists know things reasonably well because they can test their claims. However, people think of untestable claims all the time. A great example is the claim "I think, therefore I am." To some people, that is the only unconditional statement they can make with certainty. Maybe natural selection conditioned us to think up certain untestable ideas. We just can't know they're true in the sense that a scientists knows things are true. Of course, many religious people claim to "know" with great "certainty" that "God" "exists".

I was trying to make satire out of ZVBXRPL's wild accusations. The video's religious theme was peripheral. Iodine, I apologize for wasting some of your time.

If you're religious, you'll be offended by this. [YouTube clip removed]

You can't say for sure that it's unnatural until you have a 100% complete understanding of nature. If you concede this point, you must alter what you just said. "you find something [that doesn't fit with our current understanding of nature], then you look for a creator it's the next logical step." This is actually close to what scientists do, but scientists don't assume the "creator" must be intelligent. Intelligent Design proponents use that argument involving the writing in the sand, or the watch, or whatever man-made thing. You find it, and you know it was made by a person. However, scientists have come to realize that nature creates a lot of the same stuff we create. Think about what a purpose is. A purpose is an end, which can be achieved with certain means. In nature, an important end is the end of survival, and organisms meet that end with their various adaptions. The only thing special about "purpose" is that it's a "proper" end. The proper end of swinging bats is hitting balls. The proper end of typing is creating a message. Something is "proper" merely because it is commonly understood by many people. The proper way to construct a watch is to make it circular with 12 numbers or 12 roman numerals. If a watch had a square shape with a foreign number system, it wouldn't look much like a watch to us. In different parts of the world, different languages are considered to be proper. If I wrote a lebanese message in the sand, you'd think, "Who brought their chickens to the beach?" And don't get me started about speaking in tongues. Now consider this. If we can only detect intelligence through our knowledge of what is proper, how would we know signs of a "higher intelligence" when we found them? Here is the documentary Semjase spoke of. Sorry for making up the word "scentient" earlier. It was an unintentional fusion of the words "sentient" and "scient."