1. Should Galileo's tomb be opened for DNA tests?

Comment #141442 by frikkenkids on March 10, 2008 at 12:32 pm

More important than "what's the problem?" is: What's The Point?

Why does it matter who the female is? If it isn't really his daughter are they going to take that corpse out - sorting through the dust and make sure everything is separated correctly? If it is proved to be his daughter, will that somehow make the corpse deserve her hundreds of years old resting place?

This is ridiculous. Surely there is something better that can be done with the money that would fund this exercise in futility. Feed some poor people. Buy some medicine for people who need it. Hand out copies of The God Delusion outside the church. Anything!

2. Please Call Earth. We Still Haven't Found You.

Comment #137783 by frikkenkids on March 3, 2008 at 1:27 pm

The author's knowledge of our own solar system seems a little out dated.

"Since that meeting, in 1961, spacecraft have surveyed all the major bodies of the solar system, except for Pluto"

The minor planet Eris is 27% more massive than Pluto and it hasn't been surveyed either. I'm a little touchy about articles omitting Eris, though - that's what I named my baby girl.

3. Secret Swami - About Sai Baba

Comment #95097 by frikkenkids on December 7, 2007 at 10:46 am

That water pipeline things seems so transparently non-godlike that it's pathetic. Giving clean water to a village (or villages) is indeed a noble and wonderful thing to do. However, shouldn't a god just be able to increase the amount of natural clean water in the area? Then there's the hospital. Again a very noble endeavor. However, shouldn't a god just be able to heal the sick? This reminds me of Kirk's line in Star Trek 5..."What does god need with a starship?"

4. Mother dies after refusing blood

Comment #85225 by frikkenkids on November 5, 2007 at 10:16 am

Seems to me that getting a blood transfusion is a sin that one can ask a loving god to forgive. Then everything would be right in their lives.

Children growing up without a mother for such a futile reason can never be made right.

5. American kids, dumber than dirt: Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history

Comment #81799 by frikkenkids on October 25, 2007 at 7:48 am

In response to Duff : "'''the one thing these young people were most interested in was becoming good parents. I wouldn't be so upset, if I were you."

That scares the hell out of me. To too many ignorant Americans, being a good parent means raising your child deeply involved in the church that teaches them evolution is a devilish lie, gays should be hated and science feared. They'd rather have a religious child than a thinking child.

6. Scientists Feel Miscast in Film on Life's Origin

Comment #74337 by frikkenkids on September 28, 2007 at 7:21 am

I used to be a fan of Ben Stein. He's such a smart guy. I watched his quiz show all the time and he was always impressive - accept of course for his bewildering loyalty to Nixon.

That "From Darwin to Hitler" thing, though, shows an utterly unbelievable ignorance - an ignorance that has to be willful. He's well enough read that he could know the truth if he had even the remotest interest in it. Now instead of being a fan, I feel pity for the poor bugger. How could he know so much, and yet know so little?

7. PZ Myers sued for a negative review in a blog post

Comment #64698 by frikkenkids on August 21, 2007 at 11:20 am

Apparently Stuart Pivar is a graduate of the Uri Geller School of Responding to Negative Criticism.

8. Gay hate church to picket VT gun rampage funerals

Comment #33456 by frikkenkids on April 20, 2007 at 7:38 am

I am amazed that there hasn't been a violent reaction to these folks in the past. They certainly seem to be trying to provoke just that by picketing funerals of millitary families.

"The evidence is they were not Christian. God does not do that to his servants,"
Given this statement, I have to wonder what their reaction would be to some of them being hurt or killed while protesting. Would that be sufficient to convince them that they are not god's servants? Or would they be martyrs? How would they be able to tell the difference between a slaughtered infidel, who died a horrible and sudden death and so was not a servant of god and a person who died a horrible and sudden death and was, therefore, a martyr?

9. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32552 by frikkenkids on April 17, 2007 at 11:26 am

Re: Comment #32388 by Jonathan Dore

You comment "if not having foreskins provided any sort of survival advantage, human males would have evolved without one."

I'm a circumcised male who will not circumcise any male children I might have but that argument is rediculous.

Not having a blind spot would provide a survival advantage but we still have one. Not breathing through the same hole we eat through would provide an advantage, that didn't evolve away. Lenses in our eyes that didn't distort with age would be great but lots of people still need glasses. How many genetic deseases are there that we would be better off without? They're still in our DNA.

Simply because something doesn't directly benefit a species does not mean that the trait will necessarily be lost by default through natural selection.