On the Nature of Things | Forum

Wondering if a traditional muslim What is a "traditional Muslim"? could sit on the board of Mozilla, or be Fire Chief of Atlanta. I think that even in Saudi Arabia, it is possible to form a company. Presumably there are also fire stations. Just answer the question for heaven's sake. Here'...

Wondering if a traditional muslim could sit on the board of Mozilla, or be Fire Chief of Atlanta.

Have we done the long rifle vs handgun thing yet?

Back in the 80s is was all about banning guns -- today's assault rife obsession seems stupid -- few crime committed with them; and in terms of terrorism -- how will gun control ever stop that?

It's time to take common sense steps to prevent pipe bombs from falling into the wrong hands.

Hmmm... Nonc says the 8th Amendment (14th Amendment??) doesn't apply to States -- not sure about the reasoning there -- anyone else think this fine conflicts with the 8th Amendment? I'm just the messenger here. I thought LegalZoom had a decent explanation of the logic. I imagine there will be an ap...

Hmmm... Nonc says the 8th Amendment (14th Amendment??) doesn't apply to States -- not sure about the reasoning there -- anyone else think this fine conflicts with the 8th Amendment?

It's just a reference to the "excessive fines" in the 8th amendment -- in this case $135K will basically ruin these people.

**goes off the grid for the weekend**

The Kleins -- and I don't care if/when/why/how they broke the law -- let's just say they're guilty as hell. Questions for (mostly) the progressives here: Is the fine ethical? Is the fine legal under the 8th Amendment? It was not a federal case. Gay discrimination is illegal in Oregon, and the fine ...

The Kleins are the Cake bakers in Oregon -- refused to provided a gay wedding cake, and have been fined $135,000 by the state and are under a gag order not to discuss their 'discrimination intentions'.

The Kleins -- and I don't care if/when/why/how they broke the law -- let's just say they're guilty as hell.

Questions for (mostly) the progressives here: Is the fine ethical? Is the fine legal under the 8th Amendment?

**Proposes a Toast** I would like to honor Mr. P and Col. Typhoon's (near) ten-year anniversary of "All Fighting and No Sex." By the rules of the Internets you are now in a common-law partnership. I cordially pronounce you husband and wife. (you'll have to decide who identifies with which ...

You guys. We Know: Any fist semester biology student can tell you there are plenty of software packages out that that can model alleles, fitness, and so on in populations. We can observe speciation, adaptation. This isn't arguable because we can predict it and test -- observe -- those predictions. ...

noddy wrote:...in my mind the aggregated variations over millenia are plenty enough mechanism...

No inferences allowed!! Shame! Shame!!

Right all around. But I really, really, really really -- really -- don't want to argue inference here. I'm looking for a sufficient observable mechanism to do the amount of work/information generation that Evolution needs. Speciation has been observed: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.htm...

noddy wrote:Goalposts moved.

Explain how new species is new information and progress rather than just variation.

No, that was part of the original question -- a sufficient observable mechanism. We can observe cyclical variations all over the place; same for broken chemical pathways...

Right all around.

But I really, really, really really -- really -- don't want to argue inference here.

I'm looking for a sufficient observable mechanism to do the amount of work/information generation that Evolution needs.

noddy wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme

Here, noddy we'll link ourselves to death

http://youtu.be/QDQ0NJQ_z3U

Well, there is also the key point that no one has come up with an alternative hypothesis to evolution that can account for the observational data: both the fossil record and the genetic tree of life. Yes... Bush of life... but that goes right back to inference. Inference is fine, but Evolution is s...

... What do you have an issue with specifically? There's nothing to take issue with -- we can observe variations in finch beaks, watch chemical pathways break using darwinian mechanisms (Lenski's bacteria line, antibiotic resistance in other cases). Observation tells us that Darwinian mechanisms ar...

Typhoon wrote:CNN reports ISIS flag at gay pride parade

I guess ISIS really *is* a big bag of dicks.

It's been years since we had a good bickerfest on this.

Wanted to revisit Darwinian mechanism sufficiency -- not to break things (Lenski) or produce cyclical variations in finch beaks -- but the ability to create new information/species/anything.

Still blue sky?

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Words fail me.

I was repeatedly informed that demographics guaranteed that a conservative cultural tsunami was going to sweep over the USA. What happened? The US has no authentic culture. What does type of culture does the US have then? I think it's degenerated to tribalism of a sort -- history is dead, so I don'...