Y2K.. I was busy in Finland during fall 1999, hoping to get my fiancee visa and fly to the US before Y2K hit. Just in case all airplanes would stop working and so on.. Luckily I got the visa on time and arrived to the States already in late November 1999.

The world didn't end, planes were still flying at 2000, and I got to marry the love of my life! Not bad for a doomsday scare!

At present this concept of design is just castle-in-the-sky nonsense. Empty piffle. A complete non-starter.

This is why the "mere mention" of "design" will get you "banned" from peer-review, because you could just as well have made a "mere mention" of Bigfoot and the loch ness monster in your zoology report, it's a big tell to your peers that you are a nut who fails to understand the nature of evidence and science, and a big sign that you are in for some fuzzy logic and dumb assumptions instead of solid science.

Design is a better hypothesis for the information we find in DNA, and the fine tuning we see in the physical laws. The reason design is a non-starter is because the idea this Universe was created by anyone is anathema to the scientific community:

Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."

S. C. Todd,
Correspondence to Nature 410(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the unitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.

Richard Lewontin, Harvard
New York Review of Books 1/9/97

No evidence would be sufficient to create a change in mind; that it is not a commitment to evidence, but a commitment to naturalism. ...Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it.

Steven Pinker MIT
How the mind works p.182

After essentially nullifying and disproving everything we have learned about biology the last 200 years, you still have all the work ahead of you, I'm afraid. You now have to build a completely new framework and model for every single observation ever made in biology that makes sense of it all and explains why things are the way they are. Shouting that a thing is "complex" is not cutting it, I'm afraid. You need a new theory of DNA, Immunology, Bacterial resistance, adaptation, vestigal organs, animal distobution, mutation, selection, variation, genetics, speciation, taxonomy... well, as Dobzhansky put it: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" That quote is more relevant than ever.

Your error here is conflating micro and macro evolution. Creation scientists believe in micro evolution and speciation. That is part of the creationist model of how the world was repopulated with animals after the flood. Macro evolution, the idea that all life descended from a universal common ancestor, is not proven by immunology, bacterial resistance, adaptation, animal distribution, mutation, seclection, variation, speciation, taxonomy etc. The only way you could prove it is in the fossil record and the evidence isn't there. They've tried to prove it with genetics but it contradicts the fossil record (the way they understand it). So Creationists have no trouble explaining those things..and common genetics points to a common designer.

You dont have to trust scientists, most of the EVIDENCE is RIGHT FUCKING THERE, in front of you, in your pocket, in your hand, around your home, in every school, in every home, in every post office or courtroom, in the streets. ACTUAL REAL EVIDENCE, right there, PROVING, every second, that the universe is billions of years old.

Every scientist since Newton could be a lying sack of shit, all working on the same conspiracy, and it would mean fuck all, because the evidence speaks for itself.

The earth is definately NOT ten thousand years young.

Have you ever heard of the horizon problem? The big bang model suffers from a light travel time problem of its own, but they solve it by postulating cosmic inflation, which is nothing more than a fudge factor to solve the problem. First, it would have to expand at trillions of times the speed of light, violating the law that says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. There is also no theory compatible with physics that could explain the mechanism for how the Universe would start expanding, and then cease expanding a second later. It's poppycock. See what secular scientists have to say about the current state of the Big Bang Theory:

http://www.cosmologystatement.org/

As far as how light could reach us in a short amount of time, there are many theories. One theory is that the speed of light has not always been constant, and was faster at the beginning of creation. This is backed up by a number of measurements taken since the 1800s showing the speed of light decreasing. You can see the tables here:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v4/n1/velocity-of-light

>> ^L0cky:
I looked at a lot of sources, including CDC. They have a helpful compilation of their stats in the form of their CDC's 2007 chart book. It shows that firearm related deaths and poisoning are always less than motor vehicles; firearms are more likely to cause an early death; while death from poison is more likely to get you in middle age (possbily this includes long term effects of poisoning, ie working with hazardous materials when they were younger?).
It also doesn't show non death injuries; nor can the stats reflect the fact that every household has potential poisons while around half of households have firearms.
I took a look at the pdf, and while the charts are nice, they cover various date ranges and present their results in different formats, and I think you're misinterpreting them. What I did was use the search feature and look at the raw data. You can also search for non death injuries, but gun related non deadly injuries, accidental or intentional, doesn't even make the top 20, and it doesn't show anything below that.

>> ^L0cky:
In absolute terms it's inarguable that there are a lot of gun related deaths and injury in the US (around 31,000 deaths and 70,000 injuries per year give or take). This doesn't change simply because there are other causes of death and injury.
You just said that your source doesn't show non death injuries, yet now you're claiming 30,000 deaths and 70,000 injuries per year. You claim to be getting your sources from the same place, but the data from the CDC shows that between 1999 and 2010 the average homicide by firearm is 12,807 deaths per year. If you add accidental deaths involving firearms the total comes to 21,146 which accounts for 9.6% of all accidental and intentional deaths (this does not include suicide, illness and disease related deaths).

>> ^L0cky:
Let me be clear, my argument is that non sport firearms don't add anything positive to society that justifies the resulting gun related injury, death and crime. The granting of firearm licenses for hunting and sport should require strict licensing that's based on a requirement of training and testing. Gun control laws should be purposefully strict.
We already have plenty of gun control laws. More laws are not going to stop someone that has no intention of obeying them. You obviously did not read the whole article I linked to as it points out that "93 percent of the guns obtained by violent criminals are not obtained through lawful transactions that are the focus of most gun control legislation.

>> ^L0cky:
I haven't objected to this. My objection is to the suggestion that a societal need to teach children how to use firearms can be used to justify their existence. It's circular logic; and I'd prefer not to live in a society where learning to use firearms is a requirement of safety.
No one said that you need to teach children to use guns to justify their existence. You were a kid once (or still are), and at a certain age didn't you do the opposite of everything your parents said? If there is going to be a gun in a house, even if they are told it's dangerous and not to be played with and you do your best to lock it up and keep it away from them, if they do get their hands on it wouldn't it be better that they knew how to properly handle it so they don't end up adding to the accidental death by firearm statistic? Cars are dangerous too, but we teach our kids how to be safe in and around cars (wear your seat belt, look both ways before crossing street, etc.), why are you so freaked out about teaching a kid gun safety?

Your philosophy that kids shouldn't be taught how to use guns because guns are bad is basically the same as abstinence only sex education, AKA teaching ignorance.

>> ^L0cky:
I'm not stating this, I'm questioning it. You yourself said you own them for self defense.
I said I own guns for many reasons, self defense being one of them. You still seem to be confused about why someone chooses to carry a gun for self defense. It looks to me based on what you've written is that you assume someone carries a gun only to protect themselves from other gun owners. As I already pointed out, only 10% of violent crimes involve the use of a gun. I carry to protect myself from 100% of crimes.

>> ^L0cky:
That has zero effect on the number violent crimes that DO involve the use of a gun.
You can't pick out a small portion of a larger statistic to base your argument on, you need to take into account the whole picture. That's like saying 2001 was a slow year for terrorism, if you don't count the World Trade Center attacks.

>> ^L0cky:
This isn't a useful number unless you can show that those crimes would not have been prevented without guns; and would still have occurred without guns.
I don't know what more you expect, a crime was in progress, a lawfully armed citizen stopped it and it was reported to the police. What your asking isn't possible as the only way to know what would have happened in the other situations is to invent a time machine.

>> ^L0cky:
I guess your point is that gun ownership reduces crime. I'm open to that - if it can be shown more clearly.
What is clear from comparing to other countries, particularly those with comparative gun ownership is that the lack of gun control in the US correlates to an increase in gun related death and injury by an order of magnitude. The problem isn't gun ownership in and of itself; it's gun ownership without lack of appropriate gun control laws.
If guns don't reduce crime, then why do we give them to the police? Once more back to that article you didn't read:

"In 13 states citizens who wish to carry arms may do so, having met certain requirements. Consider Florida, which in 1987 enacted a concealed-carry law guaranteeing a gun permit to any resident who is at least 21, has no record of crime, mental illness or drug or alcohol abuse, and who has completed a firearms safety course. Florida's homicide rate fell following the enactment of this law, as did the rate in Oregon after the enactment of a similar law. Through June 1993, there had been 160,823 permits issued in Florida. Only 530, or 0.33 percent, of the applicants have been denied permits. This indicates that the law is serving the law abiding. Only l6 permits, less than 1/100th of 1 percent, have been rescinded because of the commission, after issuance, of a crime involving a firearm."

>> ^L0cky:
You're right, if guns suddenly vanished tomorrow there would still be crime and violence. However, it would be crime and violence without guns; and I think, that (of itself) is preferable. How could it not be?
Are you fucking serous? Why is a murder with a gun any worse than a knife, baseball bat or even bare hands? A murder is a murder no matter what tool is used to commit it. Other crimes besides murder would be better off without guns, but what part of 90% of violent crimes do not involve the use of a gun did you not understand? If you take away guns from everyone, you're only removing 10% of the tools used by violent criminals, and that doesn't guarantee that violent crime will drop by 10%? In reality you wouldn't be removing anything from criminals because "93 percent of the guns obtained by violent criminals are not obtained through lawful transactions that are the focus of most gun control legislation. So you essentially want to take away every law abiding citizen's right to defend themselves with a gun without doing anything to stop criminals from committing crimes with guns.

>> ^L0cky:
Crime in the UK has reduced dramatically according to The Office for National Statistics between before then (1999/2001) and now, including firearm offences. In Australia assault is up, robbery is down and sexual assault is about the same according to the Australian Institute of Criminology. Homicides involving firearms have continued to decline to their lowest on record.
From your source: "Provisional figures for the year ending June 2012 show that 5,507 firearm offences were recorded in England and Wales, an 18 per cent decrease on the previous year (6,694)." In 1997 when the ban was enacted only 2,648 crimes were reported involving guns. It looks like that ban has worked well.


>> ^L0cky:
I pulled it from the same source you are correcting me with
The CDC - Injury in the United States: 2007 Chart Book, page 24.
Statisticslol
This is where you have misinterpreted the graphs. The vertical portion of that graph is in deaths per 100,000 population. If you dig up the raw numbers from the search engine this is what you'll find:

Motor Vehicle Accident = 22%
Homicide by Firearm = 13%
Accident by Firearm = 0.5%

>> ^jimnms:

You can get very detailed statistics from the CDC

I looked at a lot of sources, including CDC. They have a helpful compilation of their stats in the form of their CDC's 2007 chart book. It shows that firearm related deaths and poisoning are always less than motor vehicles; firearms are more likely to cause an early death; while death from poison is more likely to get you in middle age (possbily this includes long term effects of poisoning, ie working with hazardous materials when they were younger?).

It also doesn't show non death injuries; nor can the stats reflect the fact that every household has potential poisons while around half of households have firearms.

In absolute terms it's inarguable that there are a lot of gun related deaths and injury in the US (around 31,000 deaths and 70,000 injuries per year give or take). This doesn't change simply because there are other causes of death and injury.

Let me be clear, my argument is that non sport firearms don't add anything positive to society that justifies the resulting gun related injury, death and crime. The granting of firearm licenses for hunting and sport should require strict licensing that's based on a requirement of training and testing. Gun control laws should be purposefully strict.

>> ^jimnms:

I don't understand your objection to teaching a kid how to properly operate a firearm when the're old enough.

I haven't objected to this. My objection is to the suggestion that a societal need to teach children how to use firearms can be used to justify their existence. It's circular logic; and I'd prefer not to live in a society where learning to use firearms is a requirement of safety.

>> ^jimnms:

how come no one pitches a fit about bows like they do guns?


Like swords, they have nowhere near the same problem; and there isn't any good data about what they're used for. My guess would be they're mostly owned for sport, but like swords I don't know.

>> ^jimnms:

From everything you've posted, you seem to be thinking that someone needs a gun to defend oneself from an attacker with a gun.

I'm not stating this, I'm questioning it. You yourself said you own them for self defense.

>> ^jimnms:

The majority violent of crimes do NOT involve the use of a gun

That has zero effect on the number violent crimes that DO involve the use of a gun.

>> ^jimnms:

up to 2.5 million reported crimes (many are unreported) are prevented by lawful gun owners each year


This isn't a useful number unless you can show that those crimes would not have been prevented without guns; and would still have occurred without guns. I guess your point is that gun ownership reduces crime. I'm open to that - if it can be shown more clearly.

What is clear from comparing to other countries, particularly those with comparative gun ownership is that the lack of gun control in the US correlates to an increase in gun related death and injury by an order of magnitude. The problem isn't gun ownership in and of itself; it's gun ownership without lack of appropriate gun control laws.

>> ^jimnms:

You seem to have some delusional idea that removing guns from society is going stop crime and violence. Removing guns isn't going to magically stop people from being violent and committing crimes.

You're right, if guns suddenly vanished tomorrow there would still be crime and violence. However, it would be crime and violence without guns; and I think, that (of itself) is preferable. How could it not be?

>> ^jimnms:

The UK and Australia did ban personal ownership of guns and their crime rates went up because the only ones left with guns were the criminals. [1][2][3][4]


Crime in the UK has reduced dramatically according to The Office for National Statistics between before then (1999/2001) and now, including firearm offences. In Australia assault is up, robbery is down and sexual assault is about the same according to the Australian Institute of Criminology. Homicides involving firearms have continued to decline to their lowest on record.

>> ^jimnms:
That "statistic" is flat out untrue, and it must have hurt pulling that out of your ass.

I pulled it from the same source you are correcting me with

The CDC - Injury in the United States: 2007 Chart Book, page 24.

Statisticslol

>> ^jimnms:

Personally I would rather live in a society where people are educated and non violent so that we can own guns for sport, collecting, hunting, etc. and not have to deal with people's irrational fear of them.

Personally I would rather live in a society where people are educated and non violent so that we can own guns for sport, collecting, hunting, etc. and not feel the need to own them for self defense, therefore supporting lenient gun control policies that contribute to a high rate of injury and death.

One can dream

>> ^L0cky:
There really is only one major criticism and that's the amount of death and injury caused by firearms, which is backed up by statistical research rather than media hyperbole.
If you're a 25 year old US citizen you're almost as likely to die by gunshot as you are by a vehicular accident.

OK, we can all stop right there. After that statement, you have shown how delusional you really are and anything you say can't be trusted. That "statistic" is flat out untrue, and it must have hurt pulling that out of your ass. Here are the death statistics for 25 year old US citizens from the CDC from 1999-2010:

Motor Vehicle Accident = 22%
Homicide by Firearm = 12%
Accident by Firearm = 0.4%

As I said in my other post, the pages can't be linked to, but you can use the search at the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention & Control and look it up yourself.

>> ^L0cky:
You may or may not agree with the justification (I, like you, agree - the world is an inherently dangerous place) but vehicles do bring obvious benefits to society in many ways.

I agree, vehicles are beneficial to society, but they are also the leading cause of accidental death. Most of those deaths are caused by people improperly using their vehicles. You advocate taking guns away from all citizens, so in your perfect world only police and the military would have them. Would you also like to remove personal vehicle ownership for all citizens and only allow travel to be by government operated mass transit? It would certainly save a lot of lives.

Guns have played a beneficial role in modern society. Lots of free societies have come from its citizens taking up arms against their oppressive governments. You could argue that we no longer need guns in free societies, but you can also argue that without access to guns, what is to stop the government from becoming oppressive to its people again.

>> ^L0cky:
I'm not sure who's disagreeing with who here.
The fact that you can teach a child in order to make their access to guns safer doesn't mean that every child that has access to guns will be taught this in a sufficient way. Besides, how many children had lots of training and still ended up shooting themselves or someone else.
You can get very detailed statistics from the CDC, unfortunately I can't link to them because they are generated by a search and the URLs generated are session specific. The statistics, as detailed as they are, don't state weather the child was educated in the use of firearms, but accidental firearms death in children is quite low. According to the CDC, between 1999 and 2010 the leading cause of accidental deaths to children ages 1-4 is motor vehicle accidents (28.9%), poisoning is 8th (2.4%) and firearms is 12th (1.0%). Going up to the 5-9 age range MVA is still the leading cause of accidental death (46.7%), with poisoning still 8th (1.8%) and firearms still 12th (1.5%). You can look them up yourself at the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention & Control.

>> ^L0cky:
If you don't think having a gun in your home would automatically make it the most dangerous thing in that home then you're either being disingenuous or you have some freaky shit going on in your house.
Having a gun in your home does not make it the most dangerous thing in the house, and the statistics I posted above back me up. There are plenty of things even in a gunless household that are lethal if a child gets its hands on it. I would argue that a gun is far safer because it can be unloaded and therefore be rendered harmless if a kid gets a hold of it. A bottle of drain cleaner, bug spray, bottle of medicine, etc. is always going to be dangerous if a child gets a hold of it. With those items, all you can do is lock them away in a safe place where a child can't get them until they are old enough to understand that they are dangerous. Any responsible gun owner would treat a gun the same as any other dangerous object in the home, by unloading it and/or locking it up until the child is old enough to be taught that it's dangerous and not something to play with.

I don't understand your objection to teaching a kid how to properly operate a firearm when the're old enough. I was taught by my father as his father taught him, and I've never killed anyone on purpose or accident.

>> ^L0cky:
So my question is: despite the fact that some kids can be taught to be careful with a firearm, what is the justification of owning one...
I can't speak for every gun owner, but I have several reasons. I personally own four guns, two rifles and two pistols. It's a hobby, I like to shoot them, but I also own them for self defense. I also like archery and own a bow. A bow is also an instrument of war and designed for the taking of human life as well as hunting, just as a rifle, but how come no one pitches a fit about bows like they do guns? I don't hunt, but I have friends that do, so there's another reason for you.

I also have gone through the steps to acquire a license to carry a concealed firearm in my state. I think of it as insurance. I have car insurance, but I don't intend to get in a wreck, and I also have home owners insurance though I don't intend for my home to get damaged or destroyed. I don't carry a gun intending to kill someone, but just like car and home insurance I have it just in case.

>> ^L0cky:
I'll play devil's advocate and say 5: to defend your property and family against an armed burgler. Yet if you take a look at the rest of the world, at countries where guns are not prolific, gun assisted burglaries are so rare that it doesn't even bear thinking about.

The fact that you need a gun to defend yourself against someone with a gun is because you both have guns. - Captain "Circular" Obvious

From everything you've posted, you seem to be thinking that someone needs a gun to defend oneself from an attacker with a gun. The majority violent of crimes do NOT involve the use of a gun, and up to 2.5 million reported crimes (many are unreported) are prevented by lawful gun owners each year, most of which do not involve discharging the weapon.

Ninety percent of violent crimes are committed by persons not carrying handguns. This is one reason why the mere brandishing of a gun by a potential victim of violence often is a sufficient response to a would-be attacker. In most cases where a gun is used in self-defense, it is not fired." [source]

>> ^L0cky:
I can't really budge on this unless you can somehow convince me that it's not preferable to live in a western society where almost all people have never even seen a real gun, therefore removing all their associated problems.
That's not an idealism, that's pretty much most of Europe.

Personally I would rather live in a society where people are educated and non violent so that we can own guns for sport, collecting, hunting, etc. and not have to deal with people's irrational fear of them. You seem to have some delusional idea that removing guns from society is going stop crime and violence. Removing guns isn't going to magically stop people from being violent and committing crimes. The UK and Australia did ban personal ownership of guns and their crime rates went up because the only ones left with guns were the criminals. [1][2][3][4]

>> ^EMPIRE:

i know it may not seem like it, but there is actually, usually, some distance between trains. More than enough for her not to have been hit.
That being said, I would've shat my pants


Usually yes.. Back 1999 new year, we were on a backbag trip thru eastern europe, filming the whole thing to 8mm and with one of the new award winning Finnish document producer on the camera, he leaned over the window, started doing a slow pan shot and once he got it and started to climb back in, a powerpole swush past his head, it was literally just 1 or 2cm... we check the situation and they were really going only 15cm from the train.. This was in Poland, Warsaw-Bialystok line (i think, could've been in Lithuania too)... No doubt they have increased margins since.. We almost lost a great talent.

I'm typically not one for anecdotal evidence myself, but I don't need to rely on it. There is very little data on successful techniques for long term weight loss. Here's an example. Now, not everyone will interpret these results in the same way that I do. On my reading, people that maintained weight loss needed to check their weight, reduce their fat intake, and expend more energy than people that are naturally weight stable at that weight. In fact, people that lost weight, and regained it had effectively the same habits as people that are weight stable at the lower weight. In other words, weight stable fat people and weight stable thin people exercise and eat the same amounts. Granted, there were some that were able to maintain this increased activity level and highly restrictive diet, however I would suspect if you were to investigate that group you would likely find a higher incidence of psychological issues surrounding body-image, and likely an increased incidence of OCD. Now if your claim is true, the people that lost weight down to an average of 167 pounds or so (the average weight of the weight stable controls), should have been able to have equivalent habits to those controls and maintain that weight as their BMR should be equivalent. Clearly the data shows your claim to be false. They need to maintain an increased activity level and lower fat intake in order to maintain the same weight.

>> ^Duncan:

@bmacs27 You're using every cliche in the book. Basal Metabolic Rates vary in negligible amounts between people of the same gender, age, height, and weight. If your body doesn't get the energy it needs from an outside source, it will break down itself for fuel. And your anecdotal evidence means very little. Argue all you want about how body fat has little to do with health, but don't go saying some people can't lose it (genetic conditions notwithstanding).

@ChaosEngine

Oh sweet irony, I'm being called wilfully ignorant by a young-earther.

I'm not going to refute you. I don't need to; @BicycleRepairMan has already done an excellent job of it.

An excellent refutation? He cherry picked one sentence out of my reply, a reply where I had demonstrated the fallacy of his argument from incredulity by proving his assumption of the constancy of radioactive decay rates was nothing more than the conventional wisdom of our times. Is this what passes for logical argumentation in your mind? He posited a fallacious argument. I exposed the fallacy. He ignored the refutation and cherry picked his reply. You seem to be showing that in your eagerness to agree with everything which is contrary to my position that you have a weak filter on information which supports your preconceived ideas. Why is it that a skeptic is always pathologically skeptical of everything except his own positions, I wonder?

@BicycleRepairMan

...and to see an exampe of such a racket, check the flood "geology" link.

Seriously, you cant see the blinding irony in your own words? So, things like radiometric dating, fossils, geology, astronomy, chemistry, biology are all just parts of a self-perpetuating racket confirming each others conclusions in a big old circlejerking conspiracy of astronomical proportions.. well, lets assume then that it is. So they are basically chasing the foregone conclusion that the universe is over 13 billion years old and that life on this planet emerged some 3,6 billion years ago and has evolved ever since. But where did these wild conclusions come from? Who established the dogma that scientists seems to mindlessly work to confirm, and why? And why 13,72 billion years then? Why not 100 billion years, or 345 million years?

The thing is, what you have here is an alleged "crime" with no incentives, no motivation.. Why on earth would all the worlds scientists, depentently and independently and over many generations converge to promote a falsehood of no significance to anyone? it might make some kind of sense if someones doctrine was threatened unless the world was exactly 13.72 billion years old. Or if someone believed they were going to hell unless they believed trilobites died out 250 million years ago.. The thing is, nobody believes that.

The truth is pretty much staring you in the face right here. The conclusions of science on things like the age of the earth emerged gradually; Darwin, and even earlier naturalists had no idea of the exact age of the earth, or even a good approximation, but they did figure this much: It must be very, very old. So old that it challenged their prior beliefs and assumptions about a god-created world as described in their holy book. And thats were nearly all scientists come from: They grew up and lived in societies that looked to holy books , scripture and religion for the answers, and everybody assumed they had proper answers until the science was done.If scientists were corrupt conspirators working to preserve dogma, they be like Kent Hovind or Ken Ham. Ignoring vast mountains of facts and evidence, and focus on a few distorted out-of-context quotations to confirm what they already "know".

Not only was your prior argument fallacious, but I refuted it. Now you're ignoring that and cherry picking your replies here. Seems pretty intellectually dishonest to me? In any case, I'll reply to what you've said here. I was going to get into the technical issues concerning why scientists believe the Universe is so old, and the history of the theory, but so far you have given me no reason to believe that any of it will be carefully considered.

Instead I'll answer with a portion of an article I found, which was printed in "The Ledger" on Feb 17th 2000. It's interview of a molecular biologist who wanted to remain anonymous

Caylor: "Do you believe that the information evolved?"

MB: "George, nobody I know in my profession believes it evolved. It was engineered by genius beyond genius, and such information could not have been written any other way. The paper and ink did not write the book! Knowing what we know, it is ridiculous to think otherwise."

Caylor: "Have you ever stated that in a public lecture, or in any public writings?"

MB: "No, I just say it evolved. To be a molecular biologist requires one to hold onto two insanities at all times:
One, it would be insane to believe in evolution when you can see the truth for yourself.
Two, it would be insane to say you don't believe evolution. All government work, research grants, papers, big college lectures -- everything would stop. I'd be out of a job, or relegated to the outer fringes where I couldn't earn a decent living.”

Caylor: “I hate to say it, but that sounds intellectually dishonest.”

MB: “The work I do in genetic research is honorable. We will find the cures to many of mankind's worst diseases. But in the meantime, we have to live with the elephant in the living room.”

Caylor: “What elephant?”

MB: “Creation design. It's like an elephant in the living room. It moves around, takes up space, loudly trumpets, bumps into us, knocks things over, eats a ton of hay, and smells like an elephant. And yet we have to swear it isn't there!”

Here are some selected quotes:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Richard Lewontin

"In China its O.K. to criticize Darwin but not the government, while in the United States its O.K. to criticize the government, but not Darwin."

Dr. J.Y. Chen,

Chinese Paleontologist

Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."

S. C. Todd,
Correspondence to Nature 410(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999

"Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it."

Steven Pinker,
Professor of Psychology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA., "How the Mind Works," [1997]

"Biologists are simply naive when they talk about experiments designed to test the theory of evolution. It is not testable. They may happen to stumble across facts which would seem to conflict with its predictions. These facts will invariably be ignored and their discoverers will undoubtedly be deprived of continuing research grants."

Professor Whitten,
Professor of Genetics, University of Melbourne, Australia, 1980 Assembly Week address.

"Science is not so much concerned with truth as it is with consensus. What counts as truth is what scientists can agree to count as truth at any particular moment in time. [Scientists] are not really receptive or not really open-minded to any sorts of criticisms or any sorts of claims that actually are attacking some of the established parts of the research (traditional) paradigm, in this case neo-Darwinism. So it is very difficult for people who are pushing claims that contradict that paradigm to get a hearing. They find it hard to [get] research grants; they find it hard to get their research published; they find it very hard."

Prof. Evelleen Richards,
Historian of Science at the University of NSW, Australia

Speaks for itself, I think..

The question is what the indies will do. I already know how this indie will vote..but I can only speak for myself.

I am getting sick of the paid personalities though...left and right. These so called discussions between "liberal" and "conservatives" on shows like this are about as genuine as Mitt's smile.

This election is already over though. Mitt simply cannot rally the conservative base because he prays to a different imaginary friend than his other Republican pals. Republicans and Democrats alike are calling for him to release his taxes.

Something tells me it doesn't matter either way. If he stands firm, he's sunk because he's hiding something. If he does release them, he's sunk for being a tax dodger.

They did make an excellent point though. Even if he did really leave Bain like he said in 1999. This notion that he ran things without outsourcing and they only started outsourcing the instant he left is a bit absurd.

I'm sure you're right, $100k is chump-change to a man that can get a $77k write-off for dressing up his horse.

I'll bet that $100k is equivalent to how some CEO's take $1 salaries. It's a token amount, when their typical take is in the 8 figures. >> ^bareboards2:

length=5:17
I've heard this many times, the $100K wage in 2000 and 2001. First time I have had this thought --- what was his wage in 1999?
I'll bet it was 5 times that. But we don't know, because he won't release his tax returns.

*length=5:17

I've heard this many times, the $100K wage in 2000 and 2001. First time I have had this thought --- what was his wage in 1999?

I'll bet it was 5 times that. But we don't know, because he won't release his tax returns.

>> ^nock:

>> ^shinyblurry:
It's a great ad if you're not interested in facts:
http://factcheck.org/2012/06/obamas-outsourcer-overreach/
You might also want to consider President Obamas outsourcing record:
http

/www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obamas-record-on-outsourcing-draws-criticism-from-the-left/2012/07/09/gJQAljJCZW_story.html

Your rebuttal is only true if he indeed left Bain in 1999, which is why he is adamantly denying involvement up to 2002 despite recent evidence to suggest otherwise.


The Obama campaign hasn't actually provided any evidence that their accusations are true. That Romney signed a few documents while they were transferring ownership of the company doesn't prove Romney was actually running the company. He was working 112 hour work weeks running the Olympics; how was he supposed to have an active role at Bain?

There is also the evidence of three confidential offering documents distributed to potential investors, two in 2000, 1 in 2001, in which Romneys name is conspicuously absent from. If he was really running the company, his name would have been on them:

http://factcheck.org/2012/07/romneys-bain-years-new-evidence-same-conclusion/

>> ^shinyblurry:

It's a great ad if you're not interested in facts:
http://factcheck.org/2012/06/obamas-outsourcer-overreach/
You might also want to consider President Obamas outsourcing record:
http
/www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obamas-record-on-outsourcing-draws-criticism-from-the-left/2012/07/09/gJQAljJCZW_story.html


Your rebuttal is only true if he indeed left Bain in 1999, which is why he is adamantly denying involvement up to 2002 despite recent evidence to suggest otherwise.

hmmm, I was aware that we only have thermometric readings of temperature for the last 100-150+ years. So basically you are doubting the ability of tree rings, pollen identification in sediments, and other methods of temperature reconstruction.

If I may reiterate my point, which I made rudely in the video post, I would say that you might be interested to know that if you go back further than 2k years, as in, more than 10k, there are temperature changes that were even greater than 1 degree, however, homo-sapiens was not around to endure them. Irregardless of previous temperature deviation, science tells us that our "freeing-up" of carbon dioxide, and creation of methane, are the culprits of the current temperature increase.

How does our ability to measure the last 2k years change that? or change the fact that we are heading for a 6 degree increase (which would not be uniform, for instance the poles have already warmed more than by 0.8 degrees, while the tropics may have warmed by less than 0.8 degrees)?

I fail to see that you have any point outside of that our estimations going back past 150+ years may be slightly off.

"It is obviously true that past climate change was caused by natural forcings. However, to argue that this means we can’t cause climate change is like arguing that humans can’t start bushfires because in the past they’ve happened naturally. Greenhouse gas increases have caused climate change many times in Earth’s history, and we are now adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere at a increasingly rapid rate." -s.s.

In reply to this comment by bcglorf:
You are exactly right, the red line is directly measured temperature, and it shows that we are indeed breaking records. The trick is it only shows that we have hit the record for the last 100 years for which we actually have a measured record. The temperature over the last 2k years is not directly measured, but derived from proxies like tree rings. Those temperature reconstructions never hit the heights of the measured record. The speaker in the video then declares that current temperature is then a record over 2k years. The trick is to look closer. When we state that the reconstruction of the last 2k years never hits the current measured records it doesn't only mean it never hit them before today, it means that even where the measured temperature hits the record today, the reconstruction STILL doesn't come close to hitting the measured record. Seems very strong evidence that the reconstruction might have missed a record like today that happened over the last 2k years, as clearly they missed THIS ONE.


In reply to this comment by Peroxide:
I can't understand how you are interpreting Mann's graph, you do realize the red line at the end is not a projection, but in fact current measurements...

So how are you coming to the conclusion that we are not (already, if not soon) breaking records?

In reply to this comment by bcglorf:
>> ^alcom:

By your own admission, the composite readings are now at record highs. Nowhere in my previous post did I mention that these measurements were exactly equal to the 0.8 instrumental record. I only said that they followed the same directional trend. Read it and weep, a 2000 year-old record is a 2000 year-old record.
To argue that 'Mann's statement that the EIV construction is the most accurate,' is to willfully ignore all the other data sources. You completely miss the point that instrumental data is by far the most accurate. Proxy reconstructions are relied on in the absence of instrumental data.
The lack of widespread instrumental climate records before the mid 19th century, however, necessitates the use of natural climate archives or “proxy” data such as tree-rings, corals, and ice cores and historical documentary records to reconstruct climate in past centuries.
The curve of this warming trend is gradually accellerating accourding to all data sources, even if you ignore the two instrumental lines. And what a coincidence that it matches the timeline of the industrial revolution. Ignore science at your own peril!
>> ^bcglorf:
What graph are you reading?
CPS Land with uncertainties: Peaked at 0.05 in 600, but yes a new peak in the lat 1990's at 0.15(not 0.8), recent temp is the internal record by only 0.1.
Mann and Jones 2003: current peak at 0.15(not 0.8), but current is the record by 0.25.
Esper et. Al 2002: peaks once in 990 and again in 1990 at negative 0.05, not positive 0.8 nor is current warming a record.
CPS land+ocn with uncertainties: peaks at 0.2 (not 0.8) and only starts at 1500 not sure how much the record would've been set by if it included the year 600 where land alone hit 0.05.
Briffa et al. : Series begins in 1400, but again peaks at 0.15 (not 0.8). Can't tell from the graph how much of a record but by Briffa et al's original 2001 paper it's by 0.2
Crowly and Lowery (2000): peaks at 0.15(not 0.8), granted it current warming sets the record within the series, by 0.25 higher than 1100.
Jones et al. (1999): peaks at 0.05(not 0.8), current is record by 0.1
Oerlemans (2005) and both borehole sample go back less than 500 years. The boreholes who a smooth curve throughout, with warming starting 500, not 100 years ago. They all peak at 0.2 or lower, again not 0.8.

If I repeat my main point, I think it is reinforced by each of the series above. Instrumental measured warming is completely anomalous compared to the proxy reconstructions. The instrumental record peaks fully 0.6 degrees higher than any of the proxy series. How can anyone look at that and NOT object to the declaration that the last 2k years as shown by proxies proves temperatures have been far cooler and more stable than the last 100 years as shown on the instrumental record. If you instead compare like to like, and compare the last 100 years as projected by each proxy and not the instrumental record, you clearly see that the last 100 years is anything but a radical anomaly.
If you accept Mann's statement that the EIV construction is the most accurate, it can be easily said that the last 100 years, as appears in proxy reconstructions, isn't much of an anomaly at all.

>> ^alcom:
Ah, now I see your point, bcglorf. Of the various methodologies, the 2 instrumental record sets of the last 100 years are the only ones that show the extreme spike of temperature. The composite reconstructions have not yet shown data that is above previously held records in the last 2 millennia, with the exception of the following:
CPS Land with uncertainties
Mann and Jones (2003)
Esperg et al. (2002)
CPS land+ocn with uncertainties
Briffa et al. (2005)
Crowely and Lowery (2000)
Jones et al. (1999)
Oerlemans (2005)
Mann et al. Optimal Borehole (2003)
Huang et al. Borehole (2000)
If you closely follow these lines, you will see that each plot above has indeed set 2000 year-old records in the last 25 years within their own recorded plots, even if not as pronounced as the instrumental record highlighted by the red line. I'm not sure why the EIV lines stop at 1850, but I'm also not a climatologist. The instrumental record has more or less agreed with the EIV record since its existence, including an extending cooling trend midway through this century. The sharp divergence is not fully understood perhaps, but I still think it foolish to ignore the provable, measurable and pronounced upward trend in all calculated measurements.
>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^alcom:
After a cursory reading of Mann's Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia, I can't see how climate change deniers can both read about his methodology AND at the same time gripe about a bias towards measurements that support his argument while ignoring conflicting measurements through other means.
These measurements AGREE. The regression measurement data seems to have a wider variance as you go backwards, but they all trend in the same directions both up and down over the last 2000 years. (I'm looking at the graph here: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/36/13252/F3.expansion.html ) converge and climb at the same incredible rate at the end (the last 25 years or so.) Show me ANY scientific data that reports a measurement of +.8°C over such a short period of time.
As for the polynomial curve objection, the variation in measurements over such a limited data set my not yet reveal the true nature of the curve. And Earth's feedback mechanisms may already be at work to counteract the difference in atmospheric composition. For example, trees will grow faster and more quickly in slightly warmer temperatures with elevated CO2 levels, and naturally counteract the effects of fossil fuel burning by simply converting more of it into O2. There are undoubtedly many, many more factors at play. I'm suggesting perhaps that apparent "straight line" graphing is currently the fastest rate of increase possible based on the feedback systems that are at work.
The point is that it is a losing battle, according to the current trend. At some point, these feedback systems will fail (eg., there will come a point when it is so hot in a region that no type of tree will continue to grow and absorb CO2) and worst still, there are things like the methane in permafrost that will exacerbate the problem further. This isn't like a religious doomsday scenario, the alarm bells are not coming from a loony prophet but from real, measurable evidence that so many people continue to ignore. I'd rather be wrong and relieved that there is no climate crisis and clean energy initiatives end up being a waste of time and money than wrong that there IS in fact cause to make serious changes. The doubt that has driven so much misinformation will at some point be exposed for the stupidity that it truly is.

Look closer at the graph in http://www.pnas.org/content/105/36/13252/F3.expansion.html for me. It is the graph I was talking about. NONE of the reconstructions from proxy sources spike up to 0.8 at the end. The all taper off short of 0.2, the bold red(instrumental) line makes them very hard to see precisely. The closest curve to the red that can be seen is the grey one, which is in fact the other instrumental record they include, and even it stops below 0.6. What is more, the green EIV reconstruction peaks past 0.2 twice over the last 2k years. It also spikes much more quickly around 900 and 1300. Most noteworthy of all is if you read further up in Mann's report, because the big reason for re-releasing this version of his paper is to evaluate the EIV method because statisticians recommended as far more appropriate. Mann notes in his results as well stating that of all the methods, 'we place the greatest confidence in the EIV reconstructions'.
My key point is glaringly obvious when looking at Mann's data, even on the graph. The instrumental record of the last 100 years spikes in an unprecedented fashion. The proxy reconstruction of that same time frame does not. Two different methodologies yielding 2 different results. The speaker in this video points at that and declares it's because of human emissions 100 years ago, but we must look at the fact the methodology changed at that exact point too. The EIV reconstruction was the latest attempt to bridge the gap between the proxy and instrumental records, and although it more closely matches the instrumental, it still doesn't spike 0.8 degrees over the last 100 years, and more interestingly it also shows much greater variation over the last 2k years. Enough variation in fact that if you look at just the green EIV line, the last 100 years isn't particularly note worthy or anomalous.





The speaker in the video makes a very big deal though about the current 0.8 of the instrumental record, and similarly a very big deal about it being unprecedented in the last 10k years, which you have to admit has been plainly proven as apples to oranges.

Yes, most current proxies show a 2k year old record, except the EIV which is the most recent and deemed most accurate record. If you can accept comparing reconstructions using the same proxy data but different analysis, the EIV proxy reconstruction shows that current temperatures are not record breaking at all.

If you want to say that "the curve of this warming trend is gradually accellerating accourding to all data sources" I'd say you need also observe warming trends in the reconstructions over the last 2k years. Again, the rate of change over the last century is not unprecedented in the proxy records over the last 2k years. You can again plainly see that similarly or more severe warming and/or cooling within the last 2k years in the proxy reconstructions.