>> ^LarsaruS:

I actually find the notion of saving our species to be a vain and misguided effort. In 100 million billion trillion years when the Universe is still here, We wont be. If we survive long enough we will evolve from Homo Sapien to something else.
Of course. So what? Humans have children, even though those children are not clones of their parents. Why should we care that somewhere far down the line our offspring will speciate into something else? They will still be Homo in some way. /rebuilder

>> ^LarsaruS:

I actually find the notion of saving our species to be a vain and misguided effort. In 100 million billion trillion years when the Universe is still here, We wont be. If we survive long enough we will evolve from Homo Sapien to something else.


Of course. So what? Humans have children, even though those children are not clones of their parents. Why should we care that somewhere far down the line our offspring will speciate into something else? They will still be Homo in some way.

>> ^LarsaruS:

I actually find the notion of saving our species to be a vain and misguided effort. In 100 million billion trillion years when the Universe is still here, We wont be. If we survive long enough we will evolve from Homo Sapien to something else. Ergo the Human race as we are today, here defined as Homo Sapien as I doubt we would consider Cro Magnon or Neanderthal as Human beings if they were around today, can not survive even if we leave this planet. All paths of evolution lead to something else that is "better", it is just a matter of applying the right amount of time and biological pressures, or it dies out in the end.
Nietzche said it best: "Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species."

Then why bother to type that post?

Our lives have meaning to us today, this is true regardless of their ultimate end. If you have any values at all, it's rational to try to advance and sustain those values; the continuation of our species is, currently, necessary to that operation.

I actually find the notion of saving our species to be a vain and misguided effort. In 100 million billion trillion years when the Universe is still here, We wont be. If we survive long enough we will evolve from Homo Sapien to something else. Ergo the Human race as we are today, here defined as Homo Sapien as I doubt we would consider Cro Magnon or Neanderthal as Human beings if they were around today, can not survive even if we leave this planet. All paths of evolution lead to something else that is "better", it is just a matter of applying the right amount of time and biological pressures, or it dies out in the end.

Nietzche said it best: "Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species."

I would not be in the least bit surprised if he has a cushy job lined up with BP (300k a year lobbyist?) because this will most certainly be his last term in office. No amount of spin is going to save his political career after that and he has to know it. If it happens, it'll be interesting to see if he survives the inevitable ethics probe.

As long as you're going to Cuba, pick me up some cheap prescription drugs. Like Viagra. It's for....a friend.

Hey, have a blast. If you get any cool videos load 'em up on YouTube or whatever so I can see them. And use plenty of sunscreen. You know how you Irishmen burn in the sun.

In reply to this comment by moodonia:
Hey KP! Alas I'm not anywhere special, yet. I'm off to Cuba this saturday! Going away with family, havent had a holiday in so long, I cant wait to not work for two weeks. I hope your doing good? This place really wasnt the same without you.

Oh i bought an amazingly cheap HD camcorder (Kodak Playsport) that is waterproof so if I survive my inevitable shark attack while snorkelling I'll be sure and send you the link so you can submit it under EIA i guess

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Just checking to see where you're currently at in the world. You're not on a boat, are ya?

Seriously, if there's a good video that comes out of this story, I hope you get to post it. Would be fitting.

Hey KP! Alas I'm not anywhere special, yet. I'm off to Cuba this saturday! Going away with family, havent had a holiday in so long, I cant wait to not work for two weeks. I hope your doing good? This place really wasnt the same without you.

Oh i bought an amazingly cheap HD camcorder (Kodak Playsport) that is waterproof so if I survive my inevitable shark attack while snorkelling I'll be sure and send you the link so you can submit it under EIA i guess

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Just checking to see where you're currently at in the world. You're not on a boat, are ya?

Seriously, if there's a good video that comes out of this story, I hope you get to post it. Would be fitting.

> World's luckiest bike rider

wouldn't it have been luckier if he hadn't been anywhere near that accident? like.. everyone else in the world?
i agree, it's awesome, but it's not lucky
much like it's not a miracle a single person survives a plane crash, as reported last week - it would be a miracle if everyone survived the crash and the plane was in the same destroyed state
and that could only be considered lucky if they crashed on a mountain of gold and everyone lived ever after in luxury, or otherwise the event had a positive impact on their lives

I got into a discussion with a friend the other night on the dangers of statistics. Eventually, I brought up economic systems and how any economic system makes moral judgments. He disagreed, saying that economics have nothing to do with morals, especially in a capitalist system. I think that argument is somewhat strange, since the lack of moral judgments can be construed as a negative.

So what's my point? That Mr. Harris's talk is exactly why I believe my friend is wrong. I believe there are right and wrong ways to do things and that some things which are regarded to be valid opinions today will, in the future, be perceived as wrong or ignorant by the vast majority of the planet's population...if we survive that long.

Most importantly, I wasn't suggesting that the current setup is in any way acceptable, only that what @ghark alluded to wasn't accurate.

Exactly what sort of life-saving surgery can be done at the GP's office? Or were you just trying to change the topic? Argumentum ad misericordiam.

>> ^Stormsinger:
Sure, they'll give you the surgery, if you survive the delays in getting around to it. And you're responsible for a bill that you have absolutely no way to pay. Then guess what, you get to declare bankruptcy.
And that's not even beginning to ask -why- we want the hospital to be supplying medical care that -could- have been handled for a tenth the cost by a GP at his office. But the GP won't see anyone who doesn't have either insurance or cash...and if he does, the pharmacy sure as hell isn't going to give you your meds unless you can pay.
So we get tens of thousands of people dying each year because they don't have insurance and can't afford care. But that's okay, because hospitals are required to treat them.
Every other industrialized country in the world can do it...but the richest one is too stupid or too incompetent to provide even minimal health care to all its citizens. It blows my mind that people can be so pessimistic about our country.

>> ^xxovercastxx:
That's not actually legal in the US. If you need treatment, a procedure, surgery or whatever, then the hospital cannot turn you away whether you can pay or not. Don't believe everything you hear on CSPAN.


Sure, they'll give you the surgery, if you survive the delays in getting around to it. And you're responsible for a bill that you have absolutely no way to pay. Then guess what, you get to declare bankruptcy.

And that's not even beginning to ask -why- we want the hospital to be supplying medical care that -could- have been handled for a tenth the cost by a GP at his office. But the GP won't see anyone who doesn't have either insurance or cash...and if he does, the pharmacy sure as hell isn't going to give you your meds unless you can pay.

So we get tens of thousands of people dying each year because they don't have insurance and can't afford care. But that's okay, because hospitals are required to treat them.

Every other industrialized country in the world can do it...but the richest one is too stupid or too incompetent to provide even minimal health care to all its citizens. It blows my mind that people can be so pessimistic about our country.

>> ^eric3579:


You forgot one!

United States

GDP spent on health care: 16.0%

Average monthly family premium: $1,100, with some employers paying a portion

Co-payments: Varies, can be as low as $10 co-pay with other costs covered at 100% for HMO in-network, or with HDHP you pay out of pocket until the deductible is met, with deductibles falling somewhere in the $4,000-$12,000 range. You are also given the option to not get sick, or to save up lots of money just in case you do.

What is it? If you're 65 and older, single-payer. If you're a veteran, it's socialized medicine. If you work for an employer with benefits, it's whatever they've decided to offer. If you don't get employer insurance, and you're healthy you may be able to buy overpriced individual insurance, with no guarantee that the contract will be honored. If you're seriously ill, you will be paying out of pocket. It's the Ayn Randian ideal of economic eugenics, minus the bit where people can escape it if they survive to 65, or join the military.

How does it work? Poorly. We spend the largest portion of our GDP for healthcare, but our basic health statistics (e.g. life expectancy, infant mortality, etc.) are nearly 3rd-world. There are certain procedures that the US does better than other countries, such as organ transplants and boob jobs, but our overall ability to deliver care is no better than other countries that spend much less. The US does not have anywhere near universal coverage, with over 15% of our population without insurance of any kind, and many of those who do face denied claims or rescinded policies if they become seriously ill. On the bright side, the profits in the US health industry are second to none.

What are the concerns? All trends point to the situation only getting worse. Costs continue to grow faster than in any other nation. Due to a lack of a national guarantee of universal coverage, this leads to a steady increase in the number of uninsured. Insurance policies themselves are becoming more and more limiting, with denials of coverage becoming a regular occurrence, while premiums continue to rise apace.

What about reform? We're thinking about setting up something less intrusive than Switzerland, and they're calling our President a Nazi. Aside from that, it's going swell. We will probably end up with a system that's a bit of a hybrid of the Swiss and German systems -- no government mandated pricing (aside from Medicare), but we are likely to end up with nonprofit, privately run sickness funds (co-ops), as well as a nonprofit, government run sickness fund (teh public option). However, as it stands, only the unemployed and people working for small businesses will be allowed to purchase plans either through the co-ops or public option (and only then if their small business chooses not to provide a group plan). Most will receive coverage from mandated employer coverage, which includes a minimum requirement for the quality of the employer provided plan. People will still be permitted to forgo insurance altogether, but they will need to pay a penalty/excise tax for doing so.

There's almost certainly too little in the plan to control costs, but it should improve the quality of life for millions, and help bump up our OECD stats to the level of our economic peers.

Eventually the people who own our country will realize that upwards of 20% GDP on healthcare isn't worth it, and will inflict cost controls on us one way or another. You can choose the free-market eugenic path of "if you can't afford it, hurry up and die" or you choose the path where we try to come up with some fair, medically-based rules for how we provide care to cut costs (aka *scary voice* SOCIALISM!!!).

Chapter 1 courtesy of the http://richarddawkins.net/article,4217,Extract-from-Chapter-One-of-The-Greatest-Show-on-Earth,Richard-Dawkins---Times-Online

Imagine that you are a teacher of Roman history and the Latin language, anxious to impart your enthusiasm for the ancient world — for the elegiacs of Ovid and the odes of Horace, the sinewy economy of Latin grammar as exhibited in the oratory of Cicero, the strategic niceties of the Punic Wars, the generalship of Julius Caesar and the voluptuous excesses of the later emperors. That’s a big undertaking and it takes time, concentration, dedication. Yet you find your precious time continually preyed upon, and your class’s attention distracted, by a baying pack of ignoramuses (as a Latin scholar you would know better than to say ignorami) who, with strong political and especially financial support, scurry about tirelessly attempting to persuade your unfortunate pupils that the Romans never existed. There never was a Roman Empire. The entire world came into existence only just beyond living memory. Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan, Romansh: all these languages and their constituent dialects sprang spontaneously and separately into being, and owe nothing to any predecessor such as Latin.

Instead of devoting your full attention to the noble vocation of classical scholar and teacher, you are forced to divert your time and energy to a rearguard defence of the proposition that the Romans existed at all: a defence against an exhibition of ignorant prejudice that would make you weep if you weren’t too busy fighting it.

If my fantasy of the Latin teacher seems too wayward, here’s a more realistic example. Imagine you are a teacher of more recent history, and your lessons on 20th-century Europe are boycotted, heckled or otherwise disrupted by well-organised, well-financed and politically muscular groups of Holocaust-deniers. Unlike my hypothetical Rome-deniers, Holocaustdeniers really exist. They are vocal, superficially plausible and adept at seeming learned. They are supported by the president of at least one currently powerful state, and they include at least one bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Imagine that, as a teacher of European history, you are continually faced with belligerent demands to “teach the controversy”, and to give “equal time” to the “alternative theory” that the Holocaust never happened but was invented by a bunch of Zionist fabricators.

Fashionably relativist intellectuals chime in to insist that there is no absolute truth: whether the Holocaust happened is a matter of personal belief; all points of view are equally valid and should be equally “respected”.

The plight of many science teachers today is not less dire. When they attempt to expound the central and guiding principle of biology; when they honestly place the living world in its historical context — which means evolution; when they explore and explain the very nature of life itself, they are harried and stymied, hassled and bullied, even threatened with loss of their jobs. At the very least their time is wasted at every turn. They are likely to receive menacing letters from parents and have to endure the sarcastic smirks and close-folded arms of brainwashed children. They are supplied with state-approved textbooks that have had the word “evolution” systematically expunged, or bowdlerized into “change over time”. Once, we were tempted to laugh this kind of thing off as a peculiarly American phenomenon. Teachers in Britain and Europe now face the same problems, partly because of American influence, but more significantly because of the growing Islamic presence in the classroom — abetted by the official commitment to “multiculturalism” and the terror of being thought racist.

It is frequently, and rightly, said that senior clergy and theologians have no problem with evolution and, in many cases, actively support scientists in this respect. This is often true, as I know from the agreeable experience of collaborating with the Bishop of Oxford, now Lord Harries, on two separate occasions. In 2004 we wrote a joint article in The Sunday Times whose concluding words were: “Nowadays there is nothing to debate. Evolution is a fact and, from a Christian perspective, one of the greatest of God’s works.” The last sentence was written by Richard Harries, but we agreed about all the rest of our article. Two years previously, Bishop Harries and I had organised a joint letter to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

[In the letter, eminent scientists and churchmen, including seven bishops, expressed concern over the teaching of evolution and their alarm at it being posed as a “faith position”at the Emmanuel City Technology College in Gateshead.] Bishop Harries and I organised this letter in a hurry. As far as I remember, the signatories to the letter constituted 100 per cent of those we approached. There was no disagreement either from scientists or from bishops.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has no problem with evolution, nor does the Pope (give or take the odd wobble over the precise palaeontological juncture when the human soul was injected), nor do educated priests and professors of theology. The Greatest Show on Earth is a book about the positive evidence that evolution is a fact. It is not intended as an antireligious book. I’ve done that, it’s another T-shirt, this is not the place to wear it again. Bishops and theologians who have attended to the evidence for evolution have given up the struggle against it. Some may do so reluctantly, some, like Richard Harries, enthusiastically, but all except the woefully uninformed are forced to accept the fact of evolution.

They may think God had a hand in starting the process off, and perhaps didn’t stay his hand in guiding its future progress. They probably think God cranked the Universe up in the first place, and solemnised its birth with a harmonious set of laws and physical constants calculated to fulfil some inscrutable purpose in which we were eventually to play a role.

But, grudgingly in some cases, happily in others, thoughtful and rational churchmen and women accept the evidence for evolution.

What we must not do is complacently assume that, because bishops and educated clergy accept evolution, so do their congregations. Alas there is ample evidence to the contrary from opinion polls. More than 40 per cent of Americans deny that humans evolved from other animals, and think that we — and by implication all of life — were created by God within the last 10,000 years. The figure is not quite so high in Britain, but it is still worryingly large. And it should be as worrying to the churches as it is to scientists. This book is necessary. I shall be using the name “historydeniers” for those people who deny evolution: who believe the world’s age is measured in thousands of years rather than thousands of millions of years, and who believe humans walked with dinosaurs.

To repeat, they constitute more than 40 per cent of the American population. The equivalent figure is higher in some countries, lower in others, but 40 per cent is a good average and I shall from time to time refer to the history-deniers as the “40percenters”.

To return to the enlightened bishops and theologians, it would be nice if they’d put a bit more effort into combating the anti-scientific nonsense that they deplore. All too many preachers, while agreeing that evolution is true and Adam and Eve never existed, will then blithely go into the pulpit and make some moral or theological point about Adam and Eve in their sermons without once mentioning that, of course, Adam and Eve never actually existed! If challenged, they will protest that they intended a purely “symbolic” meaning, perhaps something to do with “original sin”, or the virtues of innocence. They may add witheringly that, obviously, nobody would be so foolish as to take their words literally. But do their congregations know that? How is the person in the pew, or on the prayer-mat, supposed to know which bits of scripture to take literally, which symbolically? Is it really so easy for an uneducated churchgoer to guess? In all too many cases the answer is clearly no, and anybody could be forgiven for feeling confused.

Think about it, Bishop. Be careful, Vicar. You are playing with dynamite, fooling around with a misunderstanding that’s waiting to happen — one might even say almost bound to happen if not forestalled. Shouldn’t you take greater care, when speaking in public, to let your yea be yea and your nay be nay? Lest ye fall into condemnation, shouldn’t you be going out of your way to counter that already extremely widespread popular misunderstanding and lend active and enthusiastic support to scientists and science teachers? The history-deniers themselves are among those who I am trying to reach. But, perhaps more importantly, I aspire to arm those who are not history-deniers but know some — perhaps members of their own family or church — and find themselves inadequately prepared to argue the case.

Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust. It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips . . . continue the list as long as desired. That didn’t have to be true. It is not self-evidently, tautologically, obviously true, and there was a time when most people, even educated people, thought it wasn’t. It didn’t have to be true, but it is. We know this because a rising flood of evidence supports it. Evolution is a fact, and [my] book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it.

Why, then, do we speak of “Darwin’s theory of evolution”, thereby, it seems, giving spurious comfort to those of a creationist persuasion — the history-deniers, the 40-percenters — who think the word “theory” is a concession, handing them some kind of gift or victory? Evolution is a theory in the same sense as the heliocentric theory. In neither case should the word “only” be used, as in “only a theory”. As for the claim that evolution has never been “proved”, proof is a notion that scientists have been intimidated into mistrusting.

Influential philosophers tell us we can’t prove anything in science.

Mathematicians can prove things — according to one strict view, they are the only people who can — but the best that scientists can do is fail to disprove things while pointing to how hard they tried. Even the undisputed theory that the Moon is smaller than the Sun cannot, to the satisfaction of a certain kind of philosopher, be proved in the way that, for example, the Pythagorean Theorem can be proved. But massive accretions of evidence support it so strongly that to deny it the status of “fact” seems ridiculous to all but pedants. The same is true of evolution. Evolution is a fact in the same sense as it is a fact that Paris is in the northern hemisphere. Though logic-choppers rule the town,* some theories are beyond sensible doubt, and we call them facts. The more energetically and thoroughly you try to disprove a theory, if it survives the assault, the more closely it approaches what common sense happily calls a fact.

We are like detectives who come on the scene after a crime has been committed. The murderer’s actions have vanished into the past.

The detective has no hope of witnessing the actual crime with his own eyes. What the detective does have is traces that remain, and there is a great deal to trust there. There are footprints, fingerprints (and nowadays DNA fingerprints too), bloodstains, letters, diaries. The world is the way the world should be if this and this history, but not that and that history, led up to the present.

Evolution is an inescapable fact, and we should celebrate its astonishing power, simplicity and beauty. Evolution is within us, around us, between us, and its workings are embedded in the rocks of aeons past. Given that, in most cases, we don’t live long enough to watch evolution happening before our eyes, we shall revisit the metaphor of the detective coming upon the scene of a crime after the event and making inferences. The aids to inference that lead scientists to the fact of evolution are far more numerous, more convincing, more incontrovertible, than any eyewitness reports that have ever been used, in any court of law, in any century, to establish guilt in any crime. Proof beyond reasonable doubt? Reasonable doubt? That is the understatement of all time.

*Not my favourite Yeats line, but apt in this case.

© Richard Dawkins 2009

Equal and proportionate use of force...

That is the rule we had to live by when I bounced in clubs over here in Aus and it's the same law that governs self defense, police conduct and any other situation where you find yourself threatened with violence.

Basically, depending on your circumstances and ability, you can respond to an attacker with an equal and proportionate amount of force. ie. a 5"2' girl being attacked in her home by a 6 foot man without a weapon has a fair degree of latitude, she can pick up a weapon if she believes she is in life threatening danger and there will be no repercussions.

It also precludes continuation of violence if you are no longer under threat, ie. gunning someone down who is running away after previously threatening your life is disproportionate and would get you in to a lot of trouble.

Now, not knowing US law, I'm going to go out on a limb and say unless that shoe was coated in anthrax, C4 or feral wookies, that cops response was in no way equal and proportionate, particularly once he restrained her (ie. was no longer in danger) and hit her twice on the back of the neck, head or shoulders region. In short, he is a disgrace.

When he goes to jail for assault I hope they stick him in gen pop. It'll teach him a little something about brutal excesses in force. If he survives, he might even be a better person for the experience...

I have to agree.

If they took the kids away based on the names alone, that's a bit specious.

Politically opportunistic.

I knew a kid named Jerry Ferry in high school. And I knew another kid named Les Pitts.

No shit.

If they survived that, I think that little Adolf might have a fighting chance without the state sticking its nose into things.