Prometheus

I don't think my mum will like it there.

I also get various groups knocking on my door asking me to vote a certain way. It just doesn't bother me, but that's a personal thing. Sounds like a communist country is the closest you will get to annihilating religious people. China? Still no where near free from religion.

Depends what you mean by bothered and how sensitive you are. I live in London and don't get bothered by religious people: but people will try to give me leaflets and have a chat if i'm willing. I suspect a country where no one approaches you at all about religion would be a totalitarian regime of some kind.

I agree, Scotland would be well within it's rights to demand another referendum given exiting the EU would drastically different from the context in which they recently voted. I've always found it odd that some groups, like UKIP, that advocate exiting the EU often also wish for the UK to remain a union. They want independence for themselves, but are unwilling to grant it to others. I don't understand - is it a throw back to colonial days?

Amazing. You haven't even come close to addressing the really simple issue of whether the statement you have made is a null-hypothesis. Instead you simply parroted a few things i have said, then stated "Now, let's go back to my null-hypothesis". You haven't addressed whether it is a null-hypothesis at all, but continued as if it is. How is this not side-stepping the issue? Thats two posts you've made without answering what should be a simple question. Third time lucky?

I'm aware that it's thought of as a pathology of the reticular formation, but have particular chemicals had been identified too? Sorry for going off-topic; sleep-paralysis interests me.

So the physical/chemical behaviour restricts possible genetic mutations and reconfigurations and so restricts phenotypes. The environment also places constraints on phenotypes. These would form the biased part of the random walk. Within these restrictions and constraints there is nothing inevitable about the phenotype (i.e. chance would play a role), this would be the random part of the walk.

Hi Lino. Given the ethereal nature of dreaming I doubt you'll get a definitive answer to this question. The best we may be able to do is offer a series of anecdotes. I have died several times in dreams, most times causing me wake, but not always. From this i would say it is not necessarily the case we wake upon dying in a dream. The physiological response is plausible, being consistent with our understanding of biology. Hitting the water and the rush of adrenaline are probably the same thing. The shock is an emotional response resulting in a physiological response culminating with waking up.

Nice attempt at side-stepping the issue - but you haven't addressed that the statement, "There is no knowledge in biology, based on facts learned through experiments and observation which shows that process of evolution can create new/de novo genes", isn't a null hypothesis in the technical sense. You have simply stated what a null hypothesis is, not whether your statement is one. I'm sorry you fell i'm trolling, but since you simply reject evidence without even considering it no-one can properly engage you in a reasonable debate. Therefore, for the undecided reader, i thought it simpler to point out the tricks you use to avoid difficult questions, make it sound like you answered a question when you haven't and hide behind a wall of text with pseudo-scientific terms.

Hi forex. Since you have simply ignored my rebuttals i will extend the same courtesy. Let me know if you ever want to revisit any of those sticky issues you conveniently 'forgot'. I will, however, show that you do not understand what a null-hypothesis is, or are deliberately misrepresenting what a null hypothesis is in the hope you will influence someone undecided by use of obfuscation. 'Null hypothesis' is a technical term, where you perform statistical tests for significance between 2 or more groups. This is a statement, not a null hypothesis. It's a perfectly valid statement, though others have given evidence on this thread to refute it. I draw your attention to it only to show how calling it a null hypothesis gives the veneer of scientific language, while simply being a statement. It's splitting hairs, but as i suspect you are deliberately trying to confuse undecided readers with technical jargon it needs pointing out. This is a common tactic among anti-science advocates; adopting the language of science to try to influence people less familiar with the lingo, which makes the argument sound more credible to some people while either adding nothing to understanding or actually making a point less clear. I look forward to your reply.

Reminds me of this:

First it was a non-sequiter, now it has become an ad hoc fallacy? You are of course free to acknowledge your mistake and change your mind, but i just want to make sure i know what you are saying before i answer only for you to move the goalposts. At least Forex has implicitly conceded that he does not understand at least one logical fallacy; the non-sequiter. This is progress.

Evolution could be thought of as a biased random walk in that an environment may make certain phenotypes more likely, but given the environment also changes there is nothing inevitable.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. In particular in this debate you left number of points unanswered, including your misunderstanding of non-sequiturs, citing a lack of time. Yet you have found time to start a new thread. Selectively leaving debates when they get difficult to start on another tangent? Yet another anti-science tactic.

Also came across this. It seems the general desire among senior UK scientists is to stay in the EU.

Prayer healing has been shown to be ineffective. If you need prayer to get your through hard times don't let anybody stop you, but don't try to convince anyone that magic sky daddy is rubbing it better.

Well, UK universities receive about 15% of their funding from the EU. I've not heard if/how the UK plans to make up this shortfall. I have only heard of negative consequences for UK science, like those outlined in John's links. I have yet to hear of any benefits.

I don't care to count but i suspect there are as many concepts of god as there are people. Here we should only talk about the idea of god given by the OP, and not confuse it with our own ideas of god(s). The OP seems to be describing pantheism, such as the Tao.

The OP hasn't described the god of the Bible: it it closer to the Tao. The first line of the Tao te ching: the Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. i.e. undefinable and untestable.

In June the UK will vote on whether to leave the European Union (known to my chagrin as Brexit). My intuition is that this will be bad for science in the UK in particular and Europe in general: collaborations between UK and European institutions will be that little harder, students mobility will be reduced and EU funding for UK universities will be lost. What do you think? Are there any positives to science for leaving. Any negatives i've missed?

Of course, the implicit null-hypothesis most anti-evolutionists actually have is 'magic invisible sky daddy did it'. So the question is: is mecA a new gene? I'm not really sure what you mean by new: i'm going with it hasn't been observed by humans before - let me know if this is incorrect. Staphylococcus aureus was first sequenced in 2001 so we're unlikely to know whether mecA is a new gene as antibiotic resistance was already present in this species. However, your claim is not just "There is no knowledge in biology, based on facts learned through experiments and observation which shows that process of evolution can create new/de novo genes." but also that this precludes evolution (let me know if you wish to move the goalposts again). You don't necessarily need new genes to drive evolution, recombinations of existing genes may be enough. As in when a bacterial population acquires a new trait - initially present only a few individuals - like antibiotic resistance. It is populations that evolve, not individuals. Even if the evidence i supplied was erroneous (i.e. mecA is not a new gene), it would not be a non-sequitur. I'm not normally so pedantic but as you are trying to muddy the waters rather than seeking clarity i will draw attention to it (there may be people following the debate unfamiliar with non-sequiturs and will learn about it in the context of our debate). If the evidence is erroneous then the premise is flawed, not the logical structure of my argument. It is deliciously ironic that your claim of a non-sequitur is itself a non-sequitur. Also, you have admonished others (more than once) for neglecting evidence you have supplied, but then defend your right to do so. This is the very definition of hypocrisy and another classic trick of the anti-scientific minded.

You have conveniently 'forgotten' the evidence i gave for this on that very thread. On the plus side you provide a classic case study for how the anti-science establishment debates.

Maybe go with Clarke's dictum: 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'. You could give it a 'scientific' feel by having wizards knowledgeable about things we now take for granted but would've been arcane in the dark age. To the horror of a mother the wizard places maggots on her son's festering wound: and lo his arcane ways break the fever. The gamblers' den is left fuming after a wizard leaves. When he attempts to explain the maths he used to tilt things in his favour to people, they are all the more convinced it is magic. Sprinkle in a few of these while leaving others unexplained and hopefully you'll suggest they have 'scientific explanations' while shrouding them in enough mystery to retain the mystic any good wizard should maintain.

Kids are nasty in real life. I broke an arm, nearly lost an eye, lodged a dart in my brothers foot sometime after ripping out two of his teeth. My mate had a branch lodged up his arse, causing problems decades later. Then there's all the name calling and mental nastiness i can't even begin to recount. Is that any better or worse than your online experience? At the moment we're just comparing anecdotes so we don't know. How about looking at the literature to see if your opinions have any foundation in reality? Otherwise this is just a 'back in my day things were better...' rant, the likes of which society has suffered at least since written records began. P.S. Here's an interesting exposition on 'Good Old Days syndrome'.

OK, i see the problem. It's difficult. You are correct that you should account for the fact you are sampling from a finite population. However, since you don't know the population number, you can't make the usual corrections. I would just assume an infinite population and proceed with the usual analyses, bearing in mind you will have a biased estimate. The result will be that you have a larger estimate for the standard error than you would otherwise have, meaning you are less likely to detect statistically significant differences in means when comparing two species.