1. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #99798 by Wilfred C. Lyon on December 17, 2007 at 2:52 pm

"Newton was a great scientist, but also an obsessional alchemist, misogynist and anti-socialite."

Let us remember that Newton in his old age started tinkering with alchemy and that involved mercury. Much of his elder humanist mistakes probably were the results of mercury poisoning his brain.

2. This deadly religious resistance to vaccinations

Comment #97775 by Wilfred C. Lyon on December 12, 2007 at 4:03 pm

This series of articles may not just kill Brits. I live in Mexico, but work in the USA, so trip home are always rushed. I a recent trip, my wife and I were discussing health plans for the family. My wife asked me about the risk of autism from a viral injection that we were anticipating getting for the whole family. It seems that bad memes are like bad dreams, they pass borders, cultures, oceans. We live in a borderless society where published word is supposed to be checked for truth, and many of us read it in passing and it becomes a part of the culture.

The injection that we were contemplating was approved for use by the USA's FDA and I trusted that rather than "urban legend," but now I wonder how far "urban legend" can go and now how much damage it can do to otherwise intelligent people.

Yes, I think that the authors and the newspaper should be sued. Even I have made a mistake or two in my lifetime. When I make them out of ignorance and learn better, I at least try to correct and atone, blustering forward with further deceit needs to be punished. Somewhere there is still an ethic.

3. The US is a Christian Nation

Comment #83946 by Wilfred C. Lyon on October 31, 2007 at 6:41 pm

"The idea of Church/State separation comes from Christianity"

Well, in some respects this is a true statement. James Madison was so taken with pity for a Baptist whowas being abused by his Virginia state religion's parson, that he wrote to Thomas Jefferson about it. The two conspired to have Virginia's law changed to protect all religions. That Virginia law became the basis for the First amendment.

Thomas Jefferson, of course, mentioned the "wall of separation" between church and state to assure the Baptists in New York that it protected them, too.

It is one irony of religious history that a minority religion pleads for tolerance until it becomes the majority when it then can become intolerant, and then does.

I have a brother-in-law who believe the Christian nation idea and that the non-faithful are turning it into a nation hostile to Christianity. I say "believes" because no amount of showing that either George Washington did tell a lie with his statement in the Treaty of Tripoli or that he is wrong, or giving him the letters of Madison, Jefferson, Ben Franklin, will shake his belief. A "faith-head" believes and anyone who tries to shake his faith is giving him satanic verses.

Sadly, reason and facts, will not change belief. A believer must put aside belief to accept reason and fact, and then they are no longer a believer.

4. Science of the Soul? 'I Think, Therefore I Am' Is Losing Force

Comment #54372 by Wilfred C. Lyon on July 6, 2007 at 2:57 pm

And I thought that Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" was a response to Barkeley's idea that everything is just a dream, an imagination, that there is no reality. And now it is about having a soul?

When did this happen?

5. Intellectual Diversity or Intellectual Insult?

Comment #40183 by Wilfred C. Lyon on May 13, 2007 at 3:33 pm

The answer for reporting on intellectual diversity is:

50% of our students rank in the lower half intellectually and 50% rank in the upper half intellectually

50% of our students are, likewise, above the median intellectually and 50% are below the median intellectually.

This means that our students are a diverse mixture and is proof that we are doing a good job academically.

6. Consciousness Comes from DNA

Comment #39942 by Wilfred C. Lyon on May 12, 2007 at 11:11 am

I was around at the University of Michigan when the "Worm Runner's Digest" was around. It was there discovered that learning could be transferred via DNA from planaria to planaria. These are quite low level animals. Learning IS DNA dependent.

Also, having grown up in a rural environment with many sorts of barnyard animals, I never questioned the consciousness of these animals, they WERE conscious. I don't have controlled test data like the mirror test, but a lowly bovine (canine, swine,etc) that can respond to their name and ignore the other names is somehow conscious of themselves.

In particular, we had one younger heifer who was not depolled (dehorned) and she became the leader of the herd, not through using her horns as fighting tools, but as tools to be manipulated with cleverness for the use of the herd. We had the usual pin-in-the-hole door handle/locks. We had a bolt screwed into the pin as a handle to help move the pin out of the hole. She learned by observation and then trial that she could hook a horn on the bolt and move the pin out of the slot. Thereby gaining free access to the barn, and its contents at her will, not always ours. After learning that trick, she learned to open the door between the manger and the hay/grain area. This was a door with a simple bent nail latch, swing it out of the way and the door would open, swing it back down and the door would rest against it and the jamb and the door would stay closed. She could not reach the nail, but repeatedly tried to hook the "imaginary bolt". This bumped the door back and forth on the nail and jamb. Eventually the nail would swing out of the way bit by bit, the door would open and she and the herd would have access to the hay. The grain was storred in a steel barrel to keep vermin out and had a steel top with a lip suitable for a barrel band. We didn't have the band and didn't need it for the usual vermin. She learned to get her horn between the barrel and the top and flip the top off, gaining accress to the grain.

This does not prove awareness of self, however, she was one of the few bovines that "knew" her name. There was more intelligence there than usual, and the herd and she was aware of her position as the leader.

One of my daughters kept rabbits. These animals (the rabbits, not my daughters) are not noted for their great intelligence. But my observation of them was that they were keenly aware of each other and each other's well being, even when kept in separate pens. This specicies specific awareness, as I said, was very keen, notable when one of them died, all were upset and seemed to mourn. This does not necessarily denote self awareness, but when I was left with only the last two, a male and female long time pen mates, who were by then quite old and one died, the other went from relative youth (compared to the other) and good health, to death in less than two weeks. I felt that it was entirely from an awareness of being alone, i.e., some form of self awareness.

I conclusion, I think that when we begin to examine self-awareness, we will indeed find a continuum down the evolutionary species chain. The challenge is understanding what to test and how to test. The intelligence is there on their part, it has simply been lacking on our part due in large measure to our own belief.

7. Massachusetts Proposes Stem Cell Research Grants

Comment #38950 by Wilfred C. Lyon on May 9, 2007 at 3:58 pm

I'm curious about several things the "pro-lifers" posit and their implications. Apparently an individual human life starts at conception. After that single cell with all of its humanity intact divides and replicates. Presumably these cells still imbody the single human life.

What happens with identical twins? The single cell somehow becomes multiple, but in a division the "lump" becomes two, and each continues to become two individuals. Is only one a human being now because it started as one, or is each twin only a half a human being?

Suppose we took one of those two lumps and declared the other to be the whole human, then the lump that we took could be declared not human and those could be used for stem cell research.

Then, suppose that we did not wait for the natural division to happen, but simply sneaked out a few cells. Apparently the blastula or early zygote can, at least in the case of identical twins, become a full baby. If we did this then the full baby could be the whole human, and our few stolen cells could be our stem cells.

Well, now suppose that we are confronted with the position that some how both are declared a full human beings. I guess then we should be prevented from any such approach as above. But, then it would be a case where all of these cells are human beings. In a tonsilectomy, we are killing a human being? Would these same people object to their child having an appendectomy if it meant saving the child's life?

What about "waste" genetic material? We cut hair, we lose hair, we cut our finger nails, we slough off millions of old skin cells. All of these contain our genetic material. Are these dead humans?

It seems clear that when "belief" is questioned on a rational basis, it seems to become "unbelievable."

8. Scene Caused by Christian Group at NYC Stage Show

Comment #35932 by Wilfred C. Lyon on April 29, 2007 at 11:15 am

This is interesting. Christian terrorists terrorizing someone with whom they disagree because that person doesnot comform to their religious concept of what is acceptable. And this in the name of protection, safety, and purity.

Does anyone else see the irony here? And we think that Christianity is "more developed" than that other "Abhramic religion".

9. Justices to Decide if Citizens May Challenge White House's Religion-Based Initiative

Comment #11014 by Wilfred C. Lyon on December 2, 2006 at 4:23 pm

I think that the Bush administration's use of government money give away to churches is grounds for impeachment, amongst other high crimes and treason.

I hope/wish that the new congress had the nerve to impeach, but I fear that they are just two cheeks of the same ass-hole. I would like to see a forum on a better way to govern that was more representative and democratic. In the last election(s) 40% of the elegible voters actually voted. That means that either party elected is ruling as a minority government. The majority is probably for Mickey Mouse.

10. Huw Edwards Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #1326 by Wilfred C. Lyon on October 11, 2006 at 12:20 pm

To Garry,

You seem to be getting and giving all of the comments, I'd like to add mine.

The point that you seem to have missed in the naturalists is that what can be observed or tested by one and be tested by anyone. When all of the tests results agree, we commonly put faith in the theorem, much like gravity. One difference between "faith" arguments and naturalists theories, is that the theory should propose things that can be tested. I have proposed a religion based on the fact that a "creator" made everything just as it was five minutes ago, implanting our individual consciousness with a knowledge of a past life, rocks with testable ages, etc. This concept cannot be tested and does not yield any questions to be further tested. Gravity of Newton, did suggest tests and explained Kepler's observation that the sun was the center of the universe, etc.

It is this that naturalism has for all of us, and why we have gained so much knowledge, useful knowledge. And, yes, just one flaw, or incontrovertible fact can change the theory. Just as the Michelson-Morley experience changed Newtonian physics. In naturalism, there are no absolutes, only certainity in the facts revealed by testing, and only useful in the context of those test, while suggesting further tests.

I think that I may have run on too much, both linguistically and in prose.

11. The New Naysayers

Comment #360 by Wilfred C. Lyon on September 26, 2006 at 7:38 pm

"But millions of Christians and Muslims believe that it was precisely God who turned them away from a life of immorality."

A good example of this phenomenon is George Bush. A very moral man who talks with God every day and kills with impugnity.

12. The real reasons to hate the Pope

Comment #236 by Wilfred C. Lyon on September 23, 2006 at 7:36 pm

Re: Comment #234 by Samuel Thomas Poling

On your definitions, I might be guilty of #4 with my atheism and thus make the Christians statement true that atheism is a religion. I hold to no beliefs, but believe very, very strongly in the so called scientific method and until it is disproved (if possible) or is replaced with something better, I believe in it. The difference with this belief and so-called religious belief is that the scientific method seeks to be able to replicate any "facts" so that they are not dependent upon the performer or believer. For me this is the basis of rationalism. I think that I would thus disagree with the #4 unless modified so that it excludes this methodology. For example, I believe very strongly in the principal of gravity, either Newton's or Einstein's because they work in their settings, over and over and over again.

This still begs the question that I was attempting to raise about Taoism or Bhuddism. Your second number 2, is sort of circular, in that to be in a religious order, you would have to have religion defined a priori to include that order. The bhudda did not set about to become a spiritual leader, in fact, he tried to renounce that very thing. Where does that leave his followers? Some that I have known are by that definition religious, others see it as simply a spiritual path. I think that the Tao was trying to do the same, only to give guidance for living a satisfactory life. I do not know about Taoism, but would guess that it would incorporate the whole spectrum, too, from very secular followers to very religious.

So I am not sure yet how to draw a line in the sand. The comment on superstition seems to be almost always true, but again what about Taoism. The others are certainly true of the bases for the three middle eastern origin religions.

Thanks,

WCL

13. The real reasons to hate the Pope

Comment #231 by Wilfred C. Lyon on September 23, 2006 at 4:08 pm

I'm not sure where I would put Taoism. It is similar to Bhuddism in that it does not have a "God", but rather is a way of life, to be followed to attain a goodness or nirvana. And, like Bhuddism has different sects and ways of performing their rites, rituals, and whatevers, just like what I think of as religion.

I would like a good definition of religion before I would make statements about it. Does it require a "god", or is it just a dovout following of someone else's principles and belief's, or just belief's, i.e., without a means of rational testing. Under some of the definitions, my atheism would be described as a religion, as some Christians have tried to argue, and to their own satisfaction, put me and fellow atheists.

14. Collateral Damage 1: Embryos and Stem Cell Research.

Comment #229 by Wilfred C. Lyon on September 23, 2006 at 3:08 pm

There is one other example of colateral damage that everyone seems to agree is acceptable, and yet kills human cells. That is an "ectomy", e.g., tonsilectomy, appendectomy, etc, or removal of cancerous tissue, which is still human. Even Christians do not seem to object to this colateral damage, yet they destroy human cells and kill "humanness".

I'm not sure with the recent exposure of bogus science where the extension of the argument stands, but at least these cells are potentially cloneable into "little us's", which would have sentience, etc.

I don't hear any complaints when someone, even a devout Christian, has their appendix removed, and thus their life is saved, but thus kill millions of human cells. Are they hypocrites, or is there some other explanation?