201. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #182666 by MaxD on May 20, 2008 at 8:00 pm

LastgreekStanding,
Be that as it may all I was saying is that wikipedia is much more dependable than you think, at least as much as any encyclopedia set you might buy or use. As good as Britainica even.

This isn't a formal setting. Wikipedia is a good place to start a discussion. Also, depending on how important the subject wikipedia is very good indeed.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html
Don't tell me to "Come on." Don't tell me to get serious. And don't misread me. Have I said it [wikipedia] is the best? No. But in all my areas of knowledge Wikipedia is more or less spot on.
EDIT: last paragraph for grammar and clarity.

202. What is science for?

Comment #182639 by MaxD on May 20, 2008 at 5:45 pm

ASMargues,
WOW!
Giving your sarcastic bullshit strawman definition, followed by your triumphant simple bullshit explanation makes you a total tool. Or to quote one of our greater sages on this site...
You sir have earned,
FUCKTARD

203. Teenager faces prosecution for calling Scientology 'cult'

Comment #182637 by MaxD on May 20, 2008 at 5:39 pm

MMurray,
I think it will all depend on how offence is defined. Is it the party being critiqued, Scientology that matters. Or is it something more general, like something that would be broadly construed as offense taking by the general public. Like inciting violence, or being ridiculously obscene or something like that.
Imagine the precedent if the kid loses. Anyone being criticised can cry foul and appeal to the thought police.
Fuck all that.

204. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #182617 by MaxD on May 20, 2008 at 4:25 pm

LastGreekStanding,
While you want to be careful with Wikipedia, it has been deemed to be as good as any encyclopedia you can buy.

FYI

205. Richard Dawkins Responds to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #182511 by MaxD on May 20, 2008 at 9:47 am

Hungarianelephant,
I thought you were an elephant of Hungarian ancestry.

206. Richard Dawkins Responds to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #182509 by MaxD on May 20, 2008 at 9:39 am

Hungarianelephant may be onto something here.

207. Richard Dawkins Responds to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #182503 by MaxD on May 20, 2008 at 9:21 am

clearmind,
You wootered:

Diacanue

At least I am smarter than the guys on this web page, who are supporting evolution. BECAUSE I CAN THINK.

We aren't supporting evolution because you can think. Its neat that you think you can do that. But whether you could think-I have an opinion on this-or could not we would continue to find Evolutionary theory compelling because of the evidence.
You complain about Diacanu as follows clearmind,

By the way what are the chances to write a comment for you without insulting and swearing?

At what age did you start swearing?

Ah, Clearlyunclearmind the classic switch. It goes like this, "I can avoid dealing with my opponent's points by simply complaining about their language."

For myself, I think I started swearing profusely in the 3rd grade, like almost all kids I knew, and like most kids in general.

208. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #182491 by MaxD on May 20, 2008 at 8:48 am

AsMarques,

And I'm still all ears. I'm still waiting to hear the news. Like, say, "oh, come on, the "Holocaust" word has nothing to do with any gas chamber slaughterhouses..." [!!!]

No you are still not all ears. You have never been. That isn't what Shermer did (I know because I am, inspired by the debate here and the short-shrift you give his argument, re-reading his bit on Holocaust revisionism in WPBWT. He is in fact being quite reasonable. He has leveled legitamate critiques of the leaders in Holocaust Revisionism, you just don't want to see them. But since you seem to be quoting more hard line elements of revisionism, I can only conclude you don't care about debate, or listening.

Does this sound like anyone you know?
"The wild fables about gas chambers loosely grouped under the Orwellian Newsspeak heading of the 'Holocaust' have become the informal state religion in the West. The government, the public schools and the corporate media promote the imposistion of this morbid, funeral home of the mind on young people to instill guilt as a form of group libel/hate propaganda against the German people." (House 1989 pg 15 taken from Shermer 1997) House's book is called Tales of the Holohoax

I quote the full text of that because ASMarque's seems almost to parrot those lines whenever any one disagrees or offers evidence that contradicts him. For my own part what seems to be the most salient feature of the atrocities against the Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, slavs (but particularly Jews) is the fact that it does indeed seem to be deliberate top down policy. Whether it was primarily through gas chambers, working them to death, starving them, lining them up an shooting them (often referred to under the unpleasant euphamism, liquidating) is less important than the fact that it was systematic.
Maybe you will be right about the gas chamber business, but I fucking doubt it. You seem to think that no gas chambers would exculpates the Germans of WWII who participated in the inhuman treatment of their jewish prisoners. I'm not sure how that is. Or why you think that anyone hates the Germans now, or thinks of them as evil. I mean do caucasian americans hate themselves over what happened to the Native Americans? No I don't think so. It is a legitimate part of our countries history though and needs to be faced squarely.

This is no less so of the WWII Germany.

209. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #182483 by MaxD on May 20, 2008 at 8:24 am

Quetz,
Your tale makes an excellent point, some nights (or days) you eat the Midgard serpent, and some nights (or days) it eats you. It just wasn't the magic penquin's fight. Penguins slip all the time you know? Giant serpents are already uh..down. I don't know why Bertie's manager accepted an icey venue. Oh I smell a conspiracy, Bertie's manager is Jesus! He probably set bertie up for that business with his daddy's balls.

210. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #182481 by MaxD on May 20, 2008 at 8:19 am

Irate-atheist,
So how does one like them apples? I am less annoyed by the CoS's complaints (what the hell are they going to do? Clearly they have every dislike of free speech and we wogs, they are always going to try to limit critique) but what upsets me more is the attitude toward free speech exibited by your benighted country.

A spokeswoman for the force said today: "City of London police had received complaints about demonstrators using the words 'cult' and 'Scientology kills' during protests against the Church of Scientology.

So this is a reason to silence peaceful demonstrators?
And this from the Public Order Act seems a bit chilling to me,

The section prohibits signs which have representations or words which are threatening, abusive or insulting.

I suppose the boy's sign qualifies since he is offending the parties he is criticising but I would have expected that it meant something more generally offence making, like say racist placards, or ones that call for violence, like "slay those who criticize Islam." Not legitamate labels, or charges against the CoS. I guess I just don't understand your wacky country Irate.

211. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #182474 by MaxD on May 20, 2008 at 8:00 am

SRWB,
Odin (Wotan) has this Yaweh business handled. His son Thor has this Jesus business handled.
I mean could Yaweh take on the Mid-gard serpent? Eh...? I think not. That particular serpent would have demonlished Leviathan.
I await your apology to the norse gods.

212. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #182395 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 11:48 pm

Oh epeeist,
That was...well...it was priceless.

213. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #182393 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 11:44 pm

Quine,
How do you do that fancy linkin'?

What I find interesting is how this 'Argument from Incredulity' often vanishes the more one knows about biology. The elephant trunk thing we just addressed again removes the likelihood that adjectives like insurmountable, and impossible are simply not anywhere near appropriate. (I'd further note that the whole nose, mouth area are prime for this kind adaptation given the right selective pressures. Like theropods were well primed to give rise to birds. I think the term-a terrible one-is preadapted. In any event what I am saying is that the co-ordinations of mouths, noses and lips make the system amenable to such changes.)

Other things I find interesting are the lengths some folk will go to not learn what is necessary.
Ah well.

214. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #182381 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 10:18 pm

Txpiper,
I have no idea how many beneficial mutations might have been involved. Neither do you. It could have been a few, it could have been a lot.
It doesn't strike me as terribly hard work though considering we see rudiments, and I do mean rudiments of the most rudimentary kind in another animal from a whole different group, the carnivora. Bears have more or less prehensile lips and something you will notice is that the nose moves pretty freely too. Wiggle your own lips around and you will note some motion in your own nose.

Simply put there are already a lot of connected muscles and structures and it seems no more problematic to me than reducing digits in horses, or making shrews fly. The fact is you act as if the developing proboscisis needed to be as perfectly made as what find in current elephants. And that, in a word, is bullshit! And this is where the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant might help you over the hurdles of your incredulity. All the developing trunk needed to be was just a little better than whatever its contemporaries were toting around at the time.

I used bears, but I really needn't have done that. everyone has seen film of them wiggling their noses as they peel berries out of bushes with their agile lips, and I thought that they were a good illustration of the fact that the system of muscles is already all connected and would need only minor adjustments in programing and structure at the intervening steps. But I could have just as well pointed to the intermediates in the Order Proboscidae.

Elephants are linked to phylogenetically to several species whose noses are all at varying lengths.
These two are the closest living relatives to modern Elephants.
Hyraxes
Sea Cows
Extinct members of the tribe:
Moeritherium
Palaeomastodon
Gomphotheres
Mastodons
Primelephas
Mammoths
Living members of the group:
Modern elephants

Looking at these species, occupying different time periods you will notice that the proboscis seems to go through several transitional stages. Neato eh? And that from just a little research on the interwebs.
Go here for more on the impossible elephant trunk.
http://www.allelephants.com/allinfo/evol.php

While you are thinking about impossible elephant trunks you might want to keep in mind that snakes are interesting in that simple genetic switches seem to add or substract units of vertebrae more or less willy nilly. By your logic this should be impossible. Adding a vertebrae requires nervous, musclular, vascular connections, ligaments, extra synovial fluid oh my how can it cope. A simple genetic code that stays on when it shouldn't? It doesn't matter for the purpose of my example which shows that segments, even very complex ones can be added by very simple controls.
No Txpiper, elephant trunks don't scare me in the slightest.
EDITED
some of my wording in the first two paragraphs. And added the website I forgot to add.

215. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #182362 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 9:01 pm

Txpiper,
I agree with Quine on this point. it is an interesting article. Genes like this actually allow us to assess relatedness among species. The genes that code for protiens like myosin 2 are referred to as highly conserved genes, as changes in them can spell immediate disaster for organisms. One I've used to assess genetic relatedness is mitochondrial cytochrome b.

216. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #182345 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 7:45 pm

Txpiper,
Sadly you are going to have to show why it isn't a fair extrapolation. You have to give us speciation. And I think given our spectacular work as agents of selection (dogs, cats, numerous plants, cattle) even genera and families. When you look at extant groups you see huge problems with Linnean classification. Where do warblers end and tanangers begin in the tropics. The tropics give us a window into the problem as there are many more closely related species, that run across genera and families. Txpiper you think there are hard lines that go from this to that and that to something else. There just aren't.

Tomorrow some stochastic event could wipe out a group and we would have what looked like a more distinct picture than there really was. Something like this happened among hominids. We seem more than mildly different from chimps (though not all that much, especially if we put our babies next to theirs). However, bring back the australopithicines, bring back the rest of the Hominidae Homo erectus, H. habilis, H. neanderthalensis and you begin to see huge problems with the idea there is an insurmountable chasm between us and our cousins the chimps, and from the apes to the monkeys, and from monkey's, and thence from the primates to...well you get the idea.

217. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #182344 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 7:33 pm

txpiper,
Seriously read their work. It is key to understanding how even tiny variations translate to reproductive gains. There work is key to showing how little a difference need be to be "seen" by natural selection. One of the things speciation hasn't yet occured (we offered you examples of that happening) in large part because they island they work on doesn't trend one way (hot and dry or hot and wet) for very long. If it did we might very well see a speciation event. I simply suggest you read it for it is a good introduction to the evolutionary biology.

Gr8hands and I harp on artificial selection in dogs having produced any number of new species. Tigers and lions can interbreed but they are biologically isolated, and have a suite of behaviors that would have prevented this even when they were not geographically isolated from one another (lions and tigers enjoyed overlapping ranges for most of their existance, and only on place in India still has populations of lions left. In any event one can see a problem with finding hard lines to distinguish among species.)

My advice is to actually read alot more than what you do about the subject. Maybe then you will have something to offer than what seems a rather pointless stuff you offer now. I am not trying to be rude. But you aren't really here to dialogue. You don't accept our answers and you have no desire to look up anything we recommend. Look how easily you marginalized the work of the Grants. I know you think you have something interesting to say, but you really really don't.
Sorry to put it so bluntly.

218. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #182335 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 6:50 pm

Gr8hands,
What I noticed was that he won't address my points.

219. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #182332 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 6:40 pm

Silly gr8hands,
HA! Now that is a silly damn question! Has he ever read Discover? Has he seriously read any single thing we've sent him?
Did he know that molecules more than capable of ordering themselvse into complex arrangements without need of any imput or direction?

You can't get much out of a piece when all you are doing is scanning it for mineable quotes.

220. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #182215 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 12:03 pm

Clearmind asked:

Who fits in the defination of pathetic.

What an excellent question Mind of opacity. I suggest if you review your posts in detail, maybe even read them out loud the answer to this question will more or less sing out to you! It will sing in clear notes, "Clearmind. Clearmind you are the most pathetic of them all."
Or....something like that.

221. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #182212 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 11:59 am

Bonzai,
I don't think you are wrong to say Ghandi was overated. Not even a little bit. It can be bit like kicking Mother Theresea but I think you are correct.

I think that though that consistent non-violence would work better for them simply because it would either put the lie to Israeli claims of superiority (We are wonderful, moral, and democratic) or it would make them face up to those ideals in a more real way. Either way would be a clear victory for the Palestinians. Either greater international support, that would pressure Israel, or greater understanding between the two peoples. I just think Israel is the kind of society on which the non-violent approach, would pay larger dividends is all.

I absolutely could be wrong. But the Palestinians cannot really blame Israel for defending itself after it is attacked by Palestinians. Nor can they as easily make their case that they are attacked unjustly, because so long as rockets zip into Tel Aviv, and suicide bombers are upsetting mornings of Coffee and bagels, many in the US and Britain are going to say well we would respond rather harshly to that business too. Part of the change in the zietgeist here with african americans was seeing them beaten in protests for no reason whatsoever.
Anyway, those are just the thoughts of someone further on outside of the knowledge than you and Al seem to be. I just wondered what you guys thought.

222. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #182065 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 7:20 am

Quetz,
Indeed. But it is clear that the inconsistency of the spelling errors, and grammar errors, indicate that they are made up. Whoever it is comes here only to harangue and it is annoying.

223. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #182061 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 7:10 am

Al,
I've long suspected that Palestine has an opportunity in its dealins with israel that it cannot seem to make itself take (because there are too many armed militant factions that would hurt the strategy I am about to suggest). Israel prides itself on being a robust democracy, and more civilized. These two things are, I suspect, wrong doing and all, true. Palestine should adopt the Ghandi/King stance of non-violent civil disobediance and protest. These tactics are ready made to protest oppression among more or less reasonable people. I am not saying it would be immediate, or that some poor Palestinian protester wouldn't get cracked with a nightstick or worse. But if the protest was peaceful and Palestinians committed to that course the empathy of reasonable people with in Israel, and the pressure of the international community would, I hope, marginalize the hard line elements in Israel.
I think Israel though has a political system and a people against whom non-violent protest would be very persuasive.
I am sure if my analysis is hopelessly flawed someone will drop the hammer on it.

On another less important subject.
So who is clearmind?
My own guess it isn't a real creationist at all after its defense of Islam. Didn't one of our posters here claim to be into messing with everyone here at times? When drunk or otherwise altered?

224. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #182052 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 6:52 am

ASMarques,
What an excellent way to ignore the bulk of my post.

EDIT: No I don't "see what you mean." If you think I have something wrong then fucking state it plainly. Then we can move the conversation forward. Also address all my points and not some imagined slight.

225. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #182049 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 6:49 am

Dr. Benway,
How did you fall? My advice, refrain from the activity that lead to that!

226. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #182045 by MaxD on May 19, 2008 at 6:43 am

Al,
This business of firing rockets from such places is more or less brilliant (reprehensible and disgusting at the same time) on the part of radical elements inside Palestine. They have the PR battle both internally and internationally won. No matter how the Israelis respond. If Israel goes in they are seen as occupiers, and usurpers of sovereignty, if they fire back with their own artillary they are monsters.

I am no across the board defender of Israel or Palestine in that particular conflict I think there is plenty of blame to go around. What I am struck by though is how facile either of the one-sided arguments seem and why anyone buys into them.

227. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #181885 by MaxD on May 18, 2008 at 3:20 pm

Diacanu!
Rocky references! Now that is always appropriate.
And thanks.

Quine,
That is the system. Now I am going to use it to prove the X-Men really exist.

Mark Smith,
Speaking to the piper you said:

You misunderstand the nature of experiments.

I think for him to get them, or understand them would be because he would need to read them.

PhilRimmer,
I am going to have to agree with you. I think there are a couple of people who are, vainly, trying to get ID on more solid footing scientifically. These "theorists" (the honest ones anyway and they are few and far between) all admit they have no evidence for the ID case (see Shermer's Why Darwin Matters and Why People Believe Weird Things for a recap of these conversations with uh...leaders in the field of ID. I suppose when the intellectually dishonest ones hear this kind of thing, or see it for themselves they come to realize their only hope is to use less honest means of influence.

Sowing doubt among laypersons with a feirce desire to believe the ID/creationist case (the phrase ID is in itself another link in their dishonest armor)and laypersons who just desire some comforting being rather than none seems to be their only option.

Txpiper,
You remind me a bit of those inventors who thought they had figured out how to produce more energy from a device than they put in. Only to have the unthinkable embarassment happen when they presented their "invention" to phyicists. They simply didn't know enough and had made an elementary mistake. You are like such people as they, if you are being honest anyway. You are like the Discovery Institute or the Creation Reesearch Institute if you are not.
EDIT: spelling and grammar

228. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #181841 by MaxD on May 18, 2008 at 11:12 am

Txpiper,
You seem to neglect history when you make this dumb statement here.

Organization is not an automatic thing with biological organisms any more than it is with a video camera. The recognition of the need for function, and the production of a functional device, happens as a result of cognitive reasoning.

But it does appear to be automatic, and self-sustaining at simpler levels and can ratchet upwards as complexity increases. That is to say it can be built upon. As I've said, the RNA world seems more than mildly plausible because we can spontaneously generate the stuff from non-biological precursors and then it does neat things like self-replicate. Amino acids can also be formed in this way as well as many other simple components of cells etc.

Looking at the current understanding of self-organization of solar systems from tiny molecules to stable solar systems illustrates in a massive way the principle and power of the concept of spontaneous organization. From very simple beginings a clockwork like system of planets has formed, complete with climate systems, and on at least one life. It of course only looks clock work like and has more than few major disruptions now and again, but by and large it is a remarkably stable system requireing no imput from any designer for upkeep.


Again spontaneious is a bad word and one you use for effect. ALso you speak about biology as if it is somethingyou know about. Clearly it is not. As I have said though if you are as brilliant as you think you are publish, collect your prizes and we can all begin talking about the ID universe.

229. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #181838 by MaxD on May 18, 2008 at 11:01 am

TCT,
Its okay sometimes. It gives me the opportunity to claim to have written the definitive post, crusthing, trenchant, cunning, authoratitive and then demand that people act as if I won whatever arguement, debate I was having.

230. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #181836 by MaxD on May 18, 2008 at 10:59 am

Txpiper,

Well it must be. I quoted all these questions from a very developed website devoted specifically to explaining the details of evolution and evolutionary theory. I furnished the link, but here it is again: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_50
Maybe you should contact them and let them know you have all the details worked out.

I'm not sure I said we had all the problems worked out. But go on distorting.

You further blow hard,

In other words, extinction events are one of evolution's best friends. Perfect.

Such confident sarcasm sits ill on someone with as shaky a case as your own.

Pardon me for noticing that this is classic evolutionary doubletalk. In the face of what is known about the improbability of mutations to actually produce anything but bad results, how in the sam hill could you consider the elimination of species as an advantage? Do you think the destruction of the library in Alexandria was a good thing because it cleared the way for more literature?

Txpiper, we have pointed you to papers that directly contradict the second part of what you are saying here. Your analogy perfectly illustrates one thing, and that is that you are more or less a completely and willfully ignorant buffoon.
You have changed the analogy so you wouldn't have to address mine which actually illustrated the problem better and did not obscure it.

I would point you to entirity of the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant. For an example of how evolution works. And I would look at all the papers that others have posted for you to examine that address your "questions." After you have done that do come back and dialogue with us for real.

231. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #181831 by MaxD on May 18, 2008 at 10:44 am

Lastgreekstanding,
I just lost a rather long response to you and lost it because of the time-out mechanism on this site.

Here is the thrust of what I was saying though. Being a neoconservative is about a great deal more than defending Israel. Anyway, you avoided the thrust of my last post and continue on in your charge.

I think it is more credible to simply say Harris is wrong on the Israel question. His critique of liberalism wasn't that it is bad, but that we need to come up with ways of defending liberal western democratic systems so they are not the easy targets for chaning to more theocratic leanings. His position boils down to liberalism is generous and tolerant-a good thing. But this opens the door for people who are not liberal and tolerant to come in and try to alter it in ways anti-thetical to freedom and liberty. If you think this isn't the case, be Dutch and make a few cartoons. Or write a novel that has a passing, yet not overly awed look at Allah, or simply go be a woman in a Muslim country. The problem with liberalism in modern form is that it has bent over backwards not only to respect peoples and cultures but it has also bought to much into cultural relativism.
His critique is valuable in that it enables us to look closely at a system most of us-myself included- find more than mildly agreeable.

Anyway you dislike Harris. That is fine. I'm not his defender I just thought your charge was baseless based on a broader reading of him. Have you read his books by chance? Anyway instead of calling him names lets here more about your claim, and indeed one that I think is quite wrong, that if we pulled out of Iraq there would be no further bloodshed.

232. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #181806 by MaxD on May 18, 2008 at 9:39 am

ASMarques,
I stopped reading your post when you accused me of this little error.

Let me try to explain to you how your Newspeak-style usage of the word short-circuits your brain and impeaches your understanding of what you yourself are saying:

I am not speaking in any Newsspeak style. I am not lost in shifty definitions. Your tone indicates to me that may be you are going to play semantic games to let the Nazis off for what a large body of historians agree are the party's crimes. I am all for letting them off if, indeed, the Holocaust (extermination of the Jews, 4 to 6 million, homosexuals, gypsies, and slavick peoples of numbers I am not remembering) is a simple hoax. Or rather one of the more complex ones in human history. But I still think your camp has all its work ahead of it to prove that particular, and particularly problematic thesis.

I am also quite in favor of hardening definitions so we are all speaking about the same things. I would have been fine if you had suggested ways in which the current defintion of Nazi policies, and my understanding of them was flawed. However, I won't be called a liar, and that is exactly what NewsSpeak is. I won't be called intellectually dishonest by someone as smarmy as you. Especially when I know my mind is actually open on the subject.

Accusing people of being closed minded and engaging in Orwellian Newsspeak is simple obfuscation on your part, an attempt to deflect the very real criticisms of your ideas. Acting as if your position has not problems and treating other arguments as if they have been made by 9 year olds is completely silly. It is even more silly considering much of your argument boils down to "No holes, no holocaust!" (Faintly reminiscent of the "If it doesn't fit, you must aquit!")

The holocaust revisionism amounts to an incredible claim considering the evidence against it seems so strong. Even if you are right the burden of proof rests on you to prove it. And to do this you cannot take what amounts to a creationist approach to data collection. This seems by an large, on my layman's reading of the controversy, what your side of this argument consistently does. It does your side no good at all that much of it is populated by racist crackpots of one stripe or another. You may not think that makes it a fair hoop for yourside to jumpt through. I suspect it probably is a fair thing. I know I am suspicious a group and a position for whom a large number of its adherants also find Hitler something of a heroic figure.

I am not accusing you of thinking Hitler is a heroic figure. So please don't hurl that back at me as if I said it was you.

233. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #181679 by MaxD on May 17, 2008 at 10:58 pm

Txpiper looked up from some eSCATological garbage and woofed thusly,
(but before proceeding I have to say the fact that you think you have discovered anything is as touching as it is silly and reminds me of a time, while I was out nest searching and I found a Bushtit nest and I "discovered" what I hoped was a behavior heretofore unseen in the species. I noticed that their young from the first brood were sticking around and helping their parents with the next brood. Of course this was well known in the birds. I was just new to the species and so hadn't really read alot of literature about them. You see what happens when you don't know what the hell you are talking about? YOu can think you're on to something when, in fact, you are not. Unlike you though, I went to the science library and began to research the birds to see what was known of their natural history.)

1. Does evolution tend to proceed slowly and steadily or in quick jumps?

This is not a problem in the slightest. If you think of ecology as an economic system one can see why evolution when pulled back and examined at large scales (10s of millions of years or more) looks as if it proceeds in jumps and starts. If an economy is already saturated with specialists it is hard for new companies, and inovators to get a foothold in.

Think back to the dinosaurs. There were mammals around when the terror lizards walked the earth. Why didn't they take to the air? Or experience the same trends toward gigantism and diversification? The answer is simple and we see it in more clearly recent extinction events and adaptive radiations in the age of mammals. But the reason for their smallness and insubstantialness during the Triassic, Jurasic and Creataceous lies simply in the fact the niches they would later come to fill were already occupied by dinosaurs.

Trends in dinosaur evolution seem to match trends in the age of mammals with more or less constant rates of species formation and a background rate of extinction. When a slate is wiped clean as at the K/T boundary there were whole economies that were empty and ready to be filled.

It is important to note that no one is saying that the leaps forward were from huge mutational leaps but rather that groups diversified more quickly because there was a vaccum that could easily be filled. The walk from non-extraordinary proboscis possessing pachyderm to elephant trunk was very likely gradual (this is what all the evidence points to). That elephant ancestors went from no trunk to trunk in a more or less gradual progression.

2. Why are some clades very diverse and some unusually sparse?

This is an excellent question that seems largely correlated with metabolism (at least among vertebrates) as well as time available to diversify. Bakker's The Dinosaur Heresies covers this material wonderfully in layman's terms.

Briefly, in terms of vertebrates, poikilothermic organisms are under far less pressure to come up with novel ways to exploit their environment.

Go to the Everglades in Florida and you will see not a huge amount of diversity among its resident archosaurs-the crocodillians. Not only will you notice that you will notice they occupy territory at much higher densities than endothermic predators. The reason is simple they aren't under the same metabolic pressures. This has some profound impact on behavior, and evolutionary trends in biodiversity. However go into the tropics and you will see a slight uptick in the diversity of crocodillians.
Anyway that is just part of the story. But it will give you an example of non-insurmountablity which should help you to calm down a bit!

3. How does evolution produce new and complex features?

This has been explained to you ad nauseaum. You just like to stick you head in the sand when it comes up. I've not got the patience tonight to answer it.
Again.

4. Are there trends in evolution, and if so, what processes generate them?

Uh why don't you go read a book on the well understood trends in evolution instead of coming in here trying to shore up your creaky, leaking case for the ID/Creationist theory.

234. Texas Megachurch Minister Busted in Internet Sex Sting

Comment #181655 by MaxD on May 17, 2008 at 7:57 pm

ScooterNYC,
I think you get it now. Go forth and preach your understandings....
on second thought...

235. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #181649 by MaxD on May 17, 2008 at 7:29 pm

Txpiper distorted thusly:

You say this as if there is a strong consensus concerning, I assume, the RNA world idea. There is not, and insurmountable problems with this proposal and all of the others, are the reason there is no consensus.

I never suggested there was a broad conscensus O'disorting one! I simply suggested there were active hypotheses that seemed promising and as yet remain unfalsified.

Again you blow smoke out of your ass when you assert- sans proof- that insurmountable problems exist. More baseless claims on your part.

What I said:

We are still not sure about what happened in the early formation of cell precursors. We have good research evidence that suggests that the problem isn't insurmountable. For instance from raw nonbiotic precursors self-replicating RNA can be spontaneously generated. However we still do not have a complete picture of the formation of life (which wouldn't necessarily fit the modern description as we don't describe things like viruses as life).

was clearly not what you asserted. I was simply suggesting that there are several hypotheses that seemed promising and offered solutions to the abiogensis problem. I find the RNA model the most compelling as it has the component of self-replicating entities. And experimentally it has a lot in its favor. I never said it was easy, nor did I say it was something we were on the cusp of solving. It is possibly a question to which we will ever have anything more than a set of possible experimemtally justified explanations. (There in fact may be more than one possible pathway to the creation of self-replicating entities. After all we were surprised by the sulfur metabolizers and the thermophiles. We are likely in for more surprises).

What is neat about science though is that it doesn't throw up its hands and insert baseless bullshit. That it leaves to conspiracy theorists such as yourself, Hal Lindsey, and Pat Robertson, and let me not leave out the great Ben Stein. You have no answers and further you have no real oberservations. You have a hope, and that is all. We have all informed you in numerous ways how this is so. We have gone to your stupid websites (often dishonest) and you have yet to deign to look into the actual science. You will demure, oh that is about cichlids, or flies. You refuse to look further than your quote mine.
I have no choice but to conclude you have no interest in actual inquiry, or dialogue, but that you are deluded enough to think you have uncovered a conspiracy of willful ignorance, and complicity in the sciences.
If this is so it would be one of the most comprehensive in the history of human kind.
Of course it isn't. And it isn't for a very, very simple reason. The sciences are easily one of the most contentious fields of human knowledge in all academia. Every one is critical of everyone, there are great prizes and accolades to be won by any who bring down a cherished theory. Darwinism has survived a hundred and fifty years of such research and hostility. And do you know what is amazing?
The evolutionary theory has only grown more robust. Not less.
Toodles.

236. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #181536 by MaxD on May 17, 2008 at 11:27 am

Txpiper,
Its no fence. I know you need desperately for the whole of science to be wrong. I also know that from your arm chair you in all your wisdom have figured out how every single branch of it is wrong. But this point about abiogenesis is an important one and requires distinctions.

We are still not sure about what happened in the early formation of cell precursors. We have good research evidence that suggests that the problem isn't insurmountable. For instance from raw nonbiotic precursors self-replicating RNA can be spontaneously generated. However we still do not have a complete picture of the formation of life (which wouldn't necessarily fit the modern description as we don't describe things like viruses as life).

Darwin himself was not concerned with the formaion of life as you will not know or remember. He was concerned with the maintainence and development of biological diversity and adaptation. You will want to look up the "There is grandeur in this view of life..." quote.

Txpiper you are not well placed it doesn't seem to make the strange pronouncments that you do.
You have been pointed to to studies that show your statement:

However, most mutations are deleterious, and cause many of the genetic diseases that we are discovering today."

to be something of a creationist canard. Or in a more generous light a simple mistake or misunderstanding.

Big alterations are almost always deleterious. But smaller moves tend not to be. I suggest you look at the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant, or work on adaptation in Guppy camoflauge. You will find your faith that evolution is impossible or that genetic mutation is incapable of producing the necessary changes severly shaken.

I am tempted ot suggest that you are immune from logic and reason though because I've seen that you are also in possession an avid escatological mind. And what always impresses me about such minds is the tenacity to which they resist contrary evidence. That is all that impresses me about such minds by the way.

237. Texas Megachurch Minister Busted in Internet Sex Sting

Comment #181526 by MaxD on May 17, 2008 at 10:55 am

It is good to see the way church based morality helped keep this Christian on the straignt and narrow. I mean with out religion, God and the bible what could possible influence someone to behave lawfully and morally?
Its obvious isn't it?

238. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #181397 by MaxD on May 17, 2008 at 6:22 am

ASmargues,
What a gross misrepresentation of the Shermer's chapter on Holocaust denial in Why People Believe Strange things. He has pegged your argument thus far down perfectly. "No holes, no Holocaust." You seem to be neglecting the fact that there are vast amounts of other evidence that points to a more or less systematic attempt to eradict European Jewry.

Shermer does not engage in any ad homs against the deniers, though he is curious about the groups that do it. It is deeply curious that most have an anti-semitic ax to grind. While the rest of the historic community, the part that is more or less secular and neutral on Jews finds the evidence compelling in favor of a Holocaust that not only targeted Jews, but homosexuals, gypsies and slavic folk.

I'm not a historian, but from what I understand it works much like any other historical science. And since the Holocaust is widely accepted as a historical fact by the establishment after as many years as have passed lends some credibility to the view that it happened. Proving otherwise is going to be hard work. And you cannot adopt a conspiracy theorist's approach of only taking the data that supports your own thesis while ignoring the rest.

239. Indian village proud after double 'honor killing'

Comment #181394 by MaxD on May 17, 2008 at 6:08 am

Bucketchemist,

Secondly there is rational in the adaptive, social, cultural sense, in which it is understood as behaviour which ensures genetic survival (religion is what the rest of my social group practice so my practicing of it is rational). It seems to me that one of the tasks of scientific enlightenment is to bring these two understandings more into alignment.

I see where you are going, and I am not sure I disagree but just to be pushing the definition here goes. Is rational the right word for what likely amounts to an instinctive urge to go along with the social order in which you find yourself? I think it may matter what exactly is driving the behavior in these situations.
Is it the more calculating regions? Or is driven by other less consciouss aspects of the brain?

240. Indian village proud after double 'honor killing'

Comment #181326 by MaxD on May 17, 2008 at 12:22 am

BucketChemist,

I think you are right, but I think the other posters here are using the term to describe the thinking at an earlier tier in the reasoning chain. Certainly, if I am a believing Muslim say (not the focus of this tale of woe) and I have come to faith in the Koran, and Hadith then it may indeed be rational to slaughter my children. However is the belief rational given the evidence? In the case of my example, or any other religious example of which you can think, the answer will likely be no. I of course cannot speak for everyone but if I were going to say religious practice X is totally irrational, I am really talking about their first principles.

I think you make an excellent point though.

241. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #181319 by MaxD on May 16, 2008 at 11:06 pm

Bonzai,
I happily will.
For the record though I am not trying to defend Dershowitz. I am simply suggesting that the charges Lastgreekstanding made against Sam Harris, were silly. Dershowitz could be a card caring member of the neocons but it wouldn't make Harris one. I happen to have Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and We the Living on my shelf right now on my book shelf. I would recommend the first and the last to anyone (why the fuck anyone recommends Atlas Shrugged is beyond me)are you ready to toss me into the class with the Randians? (Bonzai, I know you aren't I am just refering to LastGreeksCharge.)

Keith,
I thought that bit about pulling out and magic peace would break out was one of the more unenlightened assessments of the region that I have heard.

242. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #181247 by MaxD on May 16, 2008 at 6:36 pm

Lastgreekstanding,
I have not read the book the case for Israel. You are quite correct. But I have heard Dershowitz speak on number of issues-secular ones-and it seems that on the main point he is on the side of the rationalists and not as it happens a simple neocon.

If you say he is guilty of fabrication and plagarism you will have to provide some evidence of this instead of just making the bald charge. Produce some of evidence. And it still goes no where in proving your case that Sam Harris is a neocon.

243. The Neural Buddhists

Comment #181051 by MaxD on May 16, 2008 at 11:07 am

I was told you south American gods had a reputation to keep up as tough non shit takers!

244. Is Science Killing the Soul?

Comment #181047 by MaxD on May 16, 2008 at 10:59 am

Rickshaw,
An excellent point and one I think I am going to use in the Stupidity of Dignity thread.

245. The Stupidity of Dignity

Comment #181043 by MaxD on May 16, 2008 at 10:49 am

Bobby G said:

[Pinker]The concept of dignity remains a mess. It has features that undermine the possibility of using it as a foundation for bioethics.

[Bobby G]Sorry, but saying that the concept of dignity is a mess is clearly a stronger claim than the position you attribute to him. Similarly, to say that it can't be used as a foundation for bioethics is similarly strong.

Bobby G it is a mess and in your post about something you pulled out Kant's behind (to be fair he seems to have pulled it out first), that is Innate Dignity you proved better it than any of us could (but see my comment above for my take on that).

The problem with relying on many of the ancient's conceptions of virtue is that conceptually many of them are a mess. This stems largely, I think from the fact that they (older to ancient philosphers) didn't have a robust understanding of human psychology. The modern conversation regarding the germaness of virtues is further hindered by the fact that everybody has slightly different ideas of what things like dignity mean. If you think the concept is not a mess, and a good place to form a robust bioethics, you are going to have to deal with a concept that can contain offense at eating in public to rape depending on the person discussing it. Is it un-dignified that a woman show more than her ankles in public? What about the thong? Is that undignified? It depends entirely on who you ask. But the actual decision to go thong or ankle ought to lie with the person putting on the clothes and not be too wed to my tastes or your tastes or Leon Kass's tastes. If we respect a person's autonomy.

246. The amazing intelligence of crows

Comment #181037 by MaxD on May 16, 2008 at 10:35 am

Schmeer,
Already happened, see Animal Farm by Orwell.
Oh wait that is fiction.

247. The Neural Buddhists

Comment #181034 by MaxD on May 16, 2008 at 10:32 am

I think Al has hit upon a sentiment in the conversion story that I don't understand even in ths slightest.
"God loved us first."
I mean doesn't the immense inconsistency of the Genesis tale, emboddied in that four word phrase, just kind of sit there glaring at anyone willing to take a closer look? This reading of the bible with moral blinders on never really makes sense to me. Why is it that simply because it is the creator of the Universe, in other words a very powerful being, his instructions to murder, his own divine acts of "retribution" are all okay? Insert any other name into the biblical accounts and people become more or less appalled. Zeus, Quetz, Ra, Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Saddam, would not be so lauded (except by true believers I suppose) doing the same or at least similar things.
Saying God knows best buys you no leeway, no conceptual room to move either. Especially if you are one of those people who think of such a being as all powerful, all knowing, and all good.
The cognitive partitioning that must occur on this matter in the mind of the religious is truly a strange thing to behold.

I think Diacanu, Sharon and Keith are right though, what ever happened on that day in April was not enough, if it were he would have kept to his word and not returned here "anytime soon."

Richard Morgan if you are lurking and reading all these posts about you, maybe you could explain why you deleted the vast majority of your posts. I submit it was because you didn't want your knew friends to see what you have said, or your old friends to use them as tools in an argument. I think it was a more than mild act of cowardess. They are your posts of course and you may do with them what you will, but I don't think you should, if you are going to come back and chat us up (and you are also most welcome to do that!) that you should explain those actions.

248. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #180880 by MaxD on May 16, 2008 at 2:40 am

ASMarques,
Shermer has a much more extensive book on the subject called Denying History. You may want to check it out.

Also saying that Shermer is profoundly ignorant of the subject is not the same as actually proving it. I for one would love to see you demonstrate where Shermer is ignorant on the point.

249. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #180850 by MaxD on May 16, 2008 at 1:00 am

grillem,
Does the human race really have goals? I know some societies do. But does the race? Does nature have any goals for us?

250. The Stupidity of Dignity

Comment #180849 by MaxD on May 16, 2008 at 12:51 am

Bobby G. said:

First, let me have another go at defining dignity. As Kant defined it, if a person has innate dignity, this means that she has a "worth beyond any price"; in other words, because people have innate dignity, there are certain things you just cannot do to them. It is because we have innate dignity that there are deontic constraints.

Okay apply it, and prove that it is a more useful concept than personal autonomy as a basis for ethics. If a person has "worth beyond any price" what does that mean exactly? What if the woman who was raped in your overwrought story became with child from the assault? Say she was a month in a half into the pregnancy before she knew it. Decided she didn't want it. Does the foeteus have dignity yet? Or does it have partial dignity? It certainly isn't human in any of its thinking patterns yet. When does this commodity of "innate dignitity" apply? Pick a period in history and you find a different application of the concept. Whose dignity trumps whose? I smell a mess.

However, if you violate deontic constraints--if, for example, you rape someone--then you go against her innate dignity.

If I rape her I go against her worth beyond any price? Doesn't that sound just a bit goofy? And not terribly important. How are you defining worth? And how does this worth business become more important than the fact that the assailant has caused someone, pain, anguish, likely doomed whatever relationship they were in, and perhaps burdened them with a baby. In short what seems more important is the fact that their autonomy was violated for no good reason. This is a thing nobody likes, or approves of unless the most dire necessity demands it.

This does not mean that her innate dignity is gone, or even damaged; rather, you are treating her in a way contrary to how you should treat her given that she has innate dignity.

Whoa. This seems almost circular. Insert the words "worth greater than anything" in for innate dignity and I think it still makes no sense.

How is this worth established? Wouldn't someone damaged by, say, rape be less worthy than they were before? Wouldn't their worth be diminshed I mean? (Her mate will try hard not to think of it that way, he will try hard not to hold the rape against her but many times he will, and it will be come a sticking point that ruins the relationship. I bring this up because it suggests a problem with thinking in terms of worth and worthiness. Its not necessarily a commonly shared conception.)

Clearly thinking empathically is a way out of this trap of "innate dignity" and the concept of worth you want to attribute to it. Simply understanding I despise it when my own autonomy is violated, and when pain is inflicted on me and that other people are no different gets us closer to a more robust ethics.

Because of this violation, you lose acquired dignity--i.e., you're not acting 'up to' your innate dignity because you're violating the deontic constraints to which innate dignity gives rise.

The perpetrator of the rape is not acting up to his "worth greater than anything?"
By aquired dignity you mean what exactly?
My Oxford English Dictionary suggests, for dignity:
"the state of being worthy of respect."
Clearly you don't mean the second definition, "A calm and serene manner."
I suppose you could lump the third: "Pride in one's self.
Was the woman being raped thinking about, her "worth more than anything?" (And isn't this a kind of meaningless string of words that fill a gap in your knowledge about human psychology?) I am going to bet she didn't think about her dignity. I bet she thought more about her sense of betrayal, fear, what her mate will think, will she have a disease, a baby were she able to think of much of anything at all. These are all personal autonomy kinds of issues and capapble of being handled by our sense of empathy much better than our sense of worth.

As for the rationality comparison, I brought up it only to illustrate the following point: people constantly use 'rational' in an equivocal way; sometimes they use 'rational' to describe the kind of being something is ("man is a rational animal" or "I'm not sure I'd describe my six-month old baby as rational"); other times they use 'rational' to describe a belief ("theism is irrational"), an action ("smoking is irrational"), or a person's conduct on the whole ("it's just not rational spend your life pursuing money") or her entire network of beliefs ("The more I talk to him, the more I'm beginning to think he's really out there, just irrational"). Just because people do this, though, doesn't mean that the term 'rational' is "stupid" or "close to useless"; at worst, it means that people are sometimes or often less than careful about how they use the term, and that they should be clearer about the sense in which they're using it. So too with 'dignity'.

Here you are essentially echoing Pinker who thought the word dignity represented a real concept. What he positied though was that it was too maleable, and relative a concept on which to form a cogent and robust bioethics.

So far you've not demonstrated him to be wrong.