S is also in Strand, as in Superman saved then stranded that ship on the seashore!

>> ^oritteropo:

As I don't generally find suffering, human or animal, terribly humorous I don't think there's much risk of laughing.
For reference, re the comments above, the cat swung in the saying has nine strands and not four legs.>> ^Yogi:
>> ^oritteropo:
Except that it's very likely to cause serious injury to the cat, I won't be watching this one.>> ^sillma:
It is pretty cruel, but it does look pretty darn funny as well.


I agree with you, it's not right to watch it because if you love cats you might accidentally laugh and make yourself feel bad. I applaud you sir, you've avoided a genuine human moment today, bravo.



I love cats but I nearly F'n Died laughing...and then I made myself sad. I'm sure if I got a chance to punch that guy in the face I'd laugh my ass off again...ahhh different strokes.

As I don't generally find suffering, human or animal, terribly humorous I don't think there's much risk of laughing.

For reference, re the comments above, the cat swung in the saying has nine strands and not four legs.>> ^Yogi:

>> ^oritteropo:
Except that it's very likely to cause serious injury to the cat, I won't be watching this one.>> ^sillma:
It is pretty cruel, but it does look pretty darn funny as well.


I agree with you, it's not right to watch it because if you love cats you might accidentally laugh and make yourself feel bad. I applaud you sir, you've avoided a genuine human moment today, bravo.

I have claimed that there are methods to synthesize information that do not require the interaction of a mind. I have provided an example of one such system.

You object, but without either asserting that the simulation is a mind, or that it does not synthesize information, but instead you make some vague assertion about how it's instead not an example.

A mind created and designed it, therefore a mind is involved, therefore it is an invalid example..

Abiogenesis is, like all real knowledge, unproven. None the less it is, at present, the only coherent explanation for what can be demonstrated to exist.

Abiogenesis is unproven because there is no evidence, it is just metaphysics. It's your faith that it is true. It is not the only coherent explanation, it is just the explanation that you have to believe because you have ruled out an intelligent designer apriori.

There is no ID hypothesis, Behe came the closest to actually trying, and any competent high school biology student could pick his little charade to pieces in a few hours with a half decent encyclopedia.

Here is the hypothesis

http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1156

Here is a story about ID being published in a biology journal making predictions for cancer research

http://www.discovery.org/a/2627

I am arguing not that there are no differences in the world, but that there is no concrete distinction between life and chemistry. You can assume there is, you can assert there is, but until you can demonstrate that there is I have nothing to disprove.

There is obviously a concrete difference since life doesn't come from non-life, and has never once been observed doing so. You have everything in the world to prove here. Everything in the Universe is made up of atoms, does that mean there is no difference between you and me? Is there no difference between a duck and a neutron star? You can't just say that because there are trivial similarities that they are the same thing.

And if you think like that, and you just believe we are all chemicals in motion, then you can't trust your own mind because if our mental processes are just chemical reactions, then there is no reason to believe anything is true. If our mental states have their origin in non-rational causes, rationality can't be trusted. You can't know if the rationality we have from evolutionary processes is discerning the truth of the world or not. Even Darwin realized this:

"With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

The bottom right hydroxyl group is the only difference between RNA and DNA, to suggest that molecules can't lose parts, is to argue that the universe is not as it observably is.

Since the step you clearly label (MAGIC) in the RNA-> DNA path is so obviously trivial, why should anybody believe that the other step you label (MAGIC) is any more complex
?
Well this is plainly false. RNA to DNA is far more probable than ROCKS to RNA. The reason it is labeled magic is because there is no proof. It doesn't mean that they are both equally likely. It is less likely by large orders of magnitude.

The magic is RNA self-replication:

http://www.lifesorigin.com/chap10/RNA-self-replication-3.php

And if you had bothered to do any real research, you would see that the leap from soup to these complex molecules is anything but trivial..here is a list of just of basic issues...

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/chemlife.html

Some quotes for you:

Instead of revealing a multitude of transitional forms through which the evolution of the cell might have occurred, molecular biology has served only to emphasize the enormity of the gap. We now know not only of the existence of a break between the living and non-living world, but also that it represents the most dramatic and fundamental of all the discontinuities of nature. Between a living cell and the most highly ordered non-biological system, such as a crystal or a snowflake, there is a chasm as vast and absolute as it is possible to conceive....

Molecular biology has also shown that the basic design of the cell system is essentially the same in all living systems on earth from bacteria to mammals. In all organisms the roles of DNA, mRNA and protein are identical. The meaning of the genetic code is also virtually identical in all cells. The size, structure and component design of the protein synthetic machinery is practically the same in all cells.

In terms of the basic biochemical design, therefore no living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth. For those who hoped that molecular biology might bridge the gulf between chemistry and biochemistry, the revelation was profoundly disappointing."

Dr. Denton, Ph.D (Molecular Biology),
An evolutionist currently doing biological research in Sydney, Australia

Now we know that the cell itself is far more complex than we had imagined. It includes thousands of functioning enzymes, each one of them a complex machine in itself. Furthermore, each enzyme comes into being in response to a gene, a strand of DNA. The information content of the gene (it's complexity) must be as great as that of the enzyme it controls.

A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain, one consisting of a 1,000 links could exist in 41000 different forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 41000 = 10600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives us the figure '1' followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension."

Frank Salisbury,
Evolutionary biologist

Perhaps an "effort", but not a method, or a hypothesis. ID makes no predictions, it simply tries to find arguments to prop up a baseless assumption, that is the opposite of science.

If any ID proponent, or any theologian for that matter, can demonstrate even one example of anything true that their ideology can reliably tell us that we don't already know I will admit that it has predictive power, and that it could qualify as a hypothesis, and then eventually a theory. I'm betting you can't find one.

I did, see above. Here is a bunch more: http://www.discovery.org/a/2640


>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
What I insist is that you substantiate your claims, which you have failed to do.
I have claimed that there are methods to synthesize information that do not require the interaction of a mind. I have provided an example of one such system.
You object, but without either asserting that the simulation is a mind, or that it does not synthesize information, but instead you make some vague assertion about how it's instead not an example.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Abiogenesis is purely metaphysics and unproven.
Abiogenesis is, like all real knowledge, unproven. None the less it is, at present, the only coherent explanation for what can be demonstrated to exist.
There is no ID hypothesis, Behe came the closest to actually trying, and any competent high school biology student could pick his little charade to pieces in a few hours with a half decent encyclopedia.
Given two possibilities, one being unlikely, and the other being false, I'll go with unlikely.
>> ^shinyblurry:
So you acknowledge that information is trivially synthesized, by
non-minds? That's the opposite of your original claim. Is that a
retraction?
No, see above.

You said, and I quote: "if you already have DNA, you can certainly expect a cell to form."
Do you mean that DNA must already have the information required to do so? because lots of DNA does not, otherwise are you asserting that DNA is somehow "mind", which you claim would be required for that information to come into being?
>> ^shinyblurry:
The distinction between "life" and "non-life" does not exist.
So there is no difference between you and a rock? I can admit I see similarities, heart wise..:)
Let's see some evidence for your claim that there is no difference between life and non-life.

I am arguing not that there are no differences in the world, but that there is no concrete distinction between life and chemistry. You can assume there is, you can assert there is, but until you can demonstrate that there is I have nothing to disprove.
You can't disprove unicorns, I can't disprove the life boundary, and we have no reason to believe either exists.
>> ^shinyblurry:
It's not false. This is your pathway to DNA: RNA - (MAGIC) - DNA This is your pathway to RNA: ROCKS - (MAGIC) - RNA Just because you can get RNA to self-replicate doesn't automatically mean it is either likely or plausible this could happen.
Please consider this image: http://en.citizendium.org/images/thumb/f/f6/RNA_base_vs_DNA_base.jpg/350px-RNA_base_vs_DNA_base.jpg
The bottom right hydroxyl group is the only difference between RNA and DNA, to suggest that molecules can't lose parts, is to argue that the universe is not as it observably is.
Since the step you clearly label (MAGIC) in the RNA-> DNA path is so obviously trivial, why should anybody believe that the other step you label (MAGIC) is any more complex?
>> ^shinyblurry:
It is an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent" design in nature, which biologists acknowledge, is actual design. It is only useless to you because you have ruled out design apriori, which is just simply ignorant.
Perhaps an "effort", but not a method, or a hypothesis. ID makes no predictions, it simply tries to find arguments to prop up a baseless assumption, that is the opposite of science.
If any ID proponent, or any theologian for that matter, can demonstrate even one example of anything true that their ideology can reliably tell us that we don't already know I will admit that it has predictive power, and that it could qualify as a hypothesis, and then eventually a theory. I'm betting you can't find one.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'whale, carcall, body, dead, field, stranded, sei whale, beached' to 'whale, carcass, body, dead, field, stranded, sei whale, beached' - edited by garmachi

>> ^aurens:

The problem with tweezing out individual strands of Ron Paul's convictions and considering them out of context, as this fellow did, is that it divorces them from the social and cultural changes that must necessarily accompany them.

Or...it just points out that implementing his policies would lead to a nightmare dystopia, and that he's not really helping push society in a more compassionate, altruistic direction.

>> ^aurens:
It's true (and Ron Paul would concede the point, I think): asking "our neighbors, our friends, our churches" (as he said in the latest debate) to assume responsibility for the health care of individuals without the means to pay for it

That is what I'm for.

It's called national health care. It's a social contract, that specifically lays out everyone's responsibilities and guarantees. To work out the details, we talk to one another, and try to hammer out an agreement that the majority can agree to.

Paul would call me lots of nasty names for wanting to formalize that arrangement into an enforceable contract, though.

He's not really promoting that people need to take more responsibility for others, he's promoting the idea that you shouldn't ever be held responsible for anyone but yourself.

>> ^aurens:
To me, there's nothing more hopeful or more heartening than the world that Ron Paul envisions.

To me it seems pretty naive to think that world is the world we live in, though. It seems even worse to say that it would be the world we lived in if only we went back to our 19th century economic policies.

I too want a world where government is no longer necessary. I just don't see humanity ever getting to the point where we're all perfect moral creatures. I certainly don't see Paul's insistence that "freedom" means freedom from responsibility for anyone but yourself as being a step towards that goal.

That. Was. Fucking. Great.

I would never have been able to articulate that even if I tried. But let me ask this--isn't gross hyperbole what Fox News does daily? And yet they are called out daily? To do anything besides that here is hypocritical. "Oh, but they know the omissions they make are lies." And this guy doesn't?

I wish we could promote comments... I would here.

>> ^aurens:

"If it was up to Ron Paul, Mr. Snyder would have died ... in a church. On the floor of the church. I suspect it would have been significantly more painful than dying in a hospital for two months."
A lie? Yes, in a way. But probably better categorized as gross hyperbole.
The problem with tweezing out individual strands of Ron Paul's convictions and considering them out of context, as this fellow did, is that it divorces them from the social and cultural changes that must necessarily accompany them.
Ron Paul envisions a completely different form of government, and by extension, a completely different form of society. It's true (and Ron Paul would concede the point, I think): asking "our neighbors, our friends, our churches" (as he said in the latest debate) to assume responsibility for the health care of individuals without the means to pay for it would not work unless people became less accustomed to the government handling so many facets of their personal lives. As with many of his positions, his ideas about health care would necessitate a more informed body of citizens, a more socially conscious society, and more empathetic neighbors.
To me, there's nothing more hopeful or more heartening than the world that Ron Paul envisions. The hard part, though, and one of the biggest hurdles that Ron Paul supporters face, is to determine, honestly, whether or not we've advanced enough as a society to handle the responsibilities that his vision entails.
In any event, speaking of lies of omission, why not take the opportunity to remind everyone of one of the greatest scenes in the history of television: http://videosift.com/video/The-First-Duty.>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^Lawdeedaw:
lies through omission, a lot of omission.

Took that channel off. You wanna slap lies on it, at least articulate what the lie is.
Was there a salient, knowable detail he left out that would have repudiated what he said? If so, what was it? And do you have a source to back it up?
Maybe what you're looking for is controversy?

"If it was up to Ron Paul, Mr. Snyder would have died ... in a church. On the floor of the church. I suspect it would have been significantly more painful than dying in a hospital for two months."

A lie? Yes, in a way. But probably better categorized as gross hyperbole.

The problem with tweezing out individual strands of Ron Paul's convictions and considering them out of context, as this fellow did, is that it divorces them from the social and cultural changes that must necessarily accompany them.

Ron Paul envisions a completely different form of government, and by extension, a completely different form of society. It's true (and Ron Paul would concede the point, I think): asking "our neighbors, our friends, our churches" (as he said in the latest debate) to assume responsibility for the health care of individuals without the means to pay for it would not work unless people became less accustomed to the government handling so many facets of their personal lives. As with many of his positions, his ideas about health care would necessitate a more informed body of citizens, a more socially conscious society, and more empathetic neighbors.

To me, there's nothing more hopeful or more heartening than the world that Ron Paul envisions. The hard part, though, and one of the biggest hurdles that Ron Paul supporters face, is to determine, honestly, whether or not we've advanced enough as a society to handle the responsibilities that his vision entails.

In any event, speaking of lies of omission, why not take the opportunity to remind everyone of one of the greatest scenes in the history of television: http://videosift.com/video/The-First-Duty.>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^Lawdeedaw:
lies through omission, a lot of omission.

Took that channel off. You wanna slap lies on it, at least articulate what the lie is.
Was there a salient, knowable detail he left out that would have repudiated what he said? If so, what was it? And do you have a source to back it up?
Maybe what you're looking for is controversy?

What does half-decent mean?

I've stayed at 5-star hotels were I've retrieved a new room key without a single bit of identification from an attendant I had never seen before. When I left my girlfriend stranded, it was even easier, god forbid a women would ever commit a crime, they didn't even ask her for the name of the guest staying in the room.

>> ^Skeeve:

The point that I was trying to make was that, in a (half-decent) hotel, not just anyone has access to your room. Yes, anyone who has seen this video can try to unlock a hotel safe, but they first have to get into the hotel room. If just anybody can access your hotel room, there is a much bigger problem than an easily opened safe.>> ^00Scud00:
>> ^Skeeve:
Thankfully, if you put things in the safe and they are stolen the likely thief is a staff member with access to your room - kind of narrows down the list of suspects.

And now, anyone who's watched this video, whoops!
Good to know however.

Man, what a brilliant idea.

I'm stranded somewhere, gotta wait for a hurricane to blow through...Pub?

I was gonna say "makes me wish we had more hurricanes in Britain" but who am I kidding, it's not like we Brits need any more excuses to have a few pints.

Prove it that her car didn't break down. BTW, you misspelled appalled. Thanks for the Swedish links.

>> ^LarsaruS:

>> ^ant:
Bah, she can't help it if her car broke down!
Bork bork bork?
>> ^LarsaruS:
>> ^ant:
>> ^LarsaruS:
From this day on no buss should ever be late again. This driver has shown that busses are unstoppable. He is my hero of the week.

Buss?
How wude for that bus drive to splash that stranded lady. At least pick her up?

Sorry, was tired and my Swedish kicked in... (You have now learned something today. Yay learning!)
And it was wude[sic!] of the lady to park in the middle of the road!


Her car didn't break down... As the bus didn't stop. Because it made it through it is obvious that the female parked there voluntarily.
I am appaled at your choice of words! That was very very rude. Bork to you too sir!
Here is some great Swedish music. (I even translated the lyrics for you)

>> ^ant:

Bah, she can't help it if her car broke down!
Bork bork bork?
>> ^LarsaruS:
>> ^ant:
>> ^LarsaruS:
From this day on no buss should ever be late again. This driver has shown that busses are unstoppable. He is my hero of the week.

Buss?
How wude for that bus drive to splash that stranded lady. At least pick her up?

Sorry, was tired and my Swedish kicked in... (You have now learned something today. Yay learning!)
And it was wude[sic!] of the lady to park in the middle of the road!



Her car didn't break down... As the bus didn't stop. Because it made it through it is obvious that the female parked there voluntarily.

I am appalled at your choice of words! That was very very rude. Bork to you too sir!

Here is some great Swedish music. (I even translated the lyrics for you)

Bah, she can't help it if her car broke down!

Bork bork bork?

>> ^LarsaruS:

>> ^ant:
>> ^LarsaruS:
From this day on no buss should ever be late again. This driver has shown that busses are unstoppable. He is my hero of the week.

Buss?
How wude for that bus drive to splash that stranded lady. At least pick her up?

Sorry, was tired and my Swedish kicked in... (You have now learned something today. Yay learning!)
And it was wude[sic!] of the lady to park in the middle of the road!

>> ^ant:

>> ^LarsaruS:
From this day on no buss should ever be late again. This driver has shown that busses are unstoppable. He is my hero of the week.

Buss?
How wude for that bus drive to splash that stranded lady. At least pick her up?


Sorry, was tired and my Swedish kicked in... (You have now learned something today. Yay learning!)

And it was wude[sic!] of the lady to park in the middle of the road!

>> ^LarsaruS:

From this day on no buss should ever be late again. This driver has shown that busses are unstoppable. He is my hero of the week.


Buss?

How wude for that bus drive to splash that stranded lady. At least pick her up?