Sometimes there is such intolerance of opposition in opinion here at the Sift. When your typical liberal Sifter decries the greed of the private sector, vilifies "big business" and slams Fox News, it is hailed throughout the ranks as a battle cry, but when bobknight33 suggests the inefficiency of government-controlled industry and criticizes MSNBC, he is bombarded by the mob with accusations of naivety, not substantiating his remarks and being a "troll." For instance, take a post like CrushBug's -- "Fucking Harper. I am glad they have spent the time and money to change the name of the gov't to "The Harper Government" so once this horrible aberration of politics is voted out we can easily identify and kill this kind of evil bullshit." This is the quintessence of unsubstantiated, ad hominem attack. Yet it is met with resounding approval and hardy back slaps aplenty, buoyed up by the inertia of the throng.

"You didn't want to come. The average man don't like trouble and danger. YOU don't like trouble and danger. But if only HALF a man—like Buck Harkness, there—shouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!' you're afraid to back down—afraid you'll be found out to be what you are—COWARDS—and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-man's coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is—a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any MAN at the head of it is BENEATH pitifulness. Now the thing for YOU to do is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching's going to be done it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they'll bring their masks, and fetch a MAN along."
-Mark Twain

>> ^messenger:

Dear all,
Stop feeding the troll please. bobknight33 is a troll, and his claims in this thread are wrong or cannot be substantiated. We all know that. I understand that "Someone's wrong on the Internet" is considered an emergency that requires your intervention, but really, it's not. bk33 has no influence here other than to disrupt threads, and it's you who give him that power by responding.
Ignoring is having the last word.
Thank you.

That was quite fetching =o)

>> ^JiggaJonson:

With the votes being 1/1/28/1, you've touched on something that is clearly, as you put it, divisive. </sarcasm>
It may be divisive among the troglodytes that make up a good hunk of society, but I would hope, for most who are not ignorant of what evolution is, that this is not even a question. What @zombieater brings up about abiogenesis is something I agree with. @gwiz665 makes a good point too. It's just hard to answer a question like this when the question is not very specific.
On another note, I also don't believe extraterrestrial evolution is that far fetched; with The Voyager 1 reaching the boundaries of our solar system, I think it's certainly possible that even we are colonizing a few cells if by some chance they make their way to a habitable planet. That situation, however, requires that Darwinian evolution exists.


Wow, the result... I figured we'd have a few more for Creationism and especially Theistic Evolution, BUT all I can say is that I'm guessing education (YES, this is a big player!) played a large part into the outcome of this poll. The only two things that could be making such a large play on this poll is, one: education--this is pretty straight forward, but basically everyone that voted had a considerable higher source of education (or perhaps even better grades, thus more attention and better retention of the knowledge they learned). Two: cultural (or better said sometimes as: community education), this could be due to the literal source of where this poll is located such as in this case, "The Internet", meaning it attracts a certain type of person and ONLY persons that have access to the Internet (which already means that those people most likely have access to things you only commonly see in a First World society--especially if it seems to be a common place discussion...); second, the culture and community around the person voting. In this case we could say that the culture and community are both the Internet. The last choice is of course your personal one; we all have it in the end, but this poll was taken on the Internet and shown to have a stark difference between a "real world" poll and a tongue-and-cheek version.

Of course the original was the U.S. only and also was across all types of people. It would be interesting to go back to those polls and have them mark out the reasoning for why they made the choices they did. Was it religion? Was it religion, but evolution is on their minds they just don't think science has proved it yet...? Was it science? Was it what they were taught (belief)? Did they guess or just pick what they thought was right? Lets see a poll on that as well.
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For example if you go to this page here: wiki-answers: Do you believe in Creationism or Evolution and why?

It REALLY is a Creationism page! Sure they "try" to be nice to evolution, but apparently whoever understands evolution there knows about it in a 1970's Junior High textbook read-through half-assed way, looking back after 47 years they wrote a very brief summary of what they "thought it was (after writing some stuff down from Wikipedia too flesh it out)" and then left it for the masses.

They even put up links, plenty of creationist, creationism, or young-earth scientist links, BUT when they got to evolution they put up:...not even the Wikipedia entry. THEN they call it an answer on a page were people go looking for answers and this is a page that gets HIGH HITS from Google! They can barely even explain what the word evolution is, they know know enough to not get "clowned" by every single person.

BUT, here's the thing I bet the majority of the people that voted yes for evolution on this poll COULD in fact tear into this person and make a mockery out of that page. The page tries to be friendly to what I would call: "Atheist Suckers". They come on soft and nice, telling you how religion got you down, but guess what there is so much evidence that is just plain strange--it makes no sense.

As I said though, there is absolutely no page to back up their claims; just some names of idiotic scientists that most likely were Dentists and decided it was their job to tell you that carbon dating is fake, and so on and so forth.
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To me it is as clear as day, but maybe I'll FORCE someone to make a poll besides me on this subject. Why did you vote for evolution, creationism, intelligent design, or the aliens (don't forget comedy for the alien choice ), or maybe just quickly post below as it would much quicker get the job done and allow for every response in the book, including multi-responses. Maybe even tell what choices you were originally if you changed over time and HOW those choices changed (was it due to faith or education)!?

With the votes being 1/1/28/1, you've touched on something that is clearly, as you put it, divisive. </sarcasm>

It may be divisive among the troglodytes that make up a good hunk of society, but I would hope, for most who are not ignorant of what evolution is, that this is not even a question. What @zombieater brings up about abiogenesis is something I agree with. @gwiz665 makes a good point too. It's just hard to answer a question like this when the question is not very specific.

On another note, I also don't believe extraterrestrial evolution is that far fetched; with The Voyager 1 reaching the boundaries of our solar system, I think it's certainly possible that even we are colonizing a few cells if by some chance they make their way to a habitable planet. That situation, however, requires that Darwinian evolution exists.

Your video, Puppy Plays Fetch With Herself, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Not exactly drowning, but more like fetching lol

In reply to this comment by dannym3141:
RIGHT. I'm not talking about crappy little yapping dogs, but here goes!

Dogs love you so much they'll protect you with their life without even hesitating.
Many dogs have great empathy, they know when you're sad and try to cheer you up.
They're hardy and strong so you can take them on adventures (ok, hikes, i'm a big kid)
They understand how to play games and actually do what they're supposed to do ie. fetch.
They are the best animal to play fight with.
They're like a huge hot waterbottle if you let one lie on your bed.
They can be stupid as hell and it's really funny.
They're so clever they can be used to help blind people get around easier.
Their noses are like magic so police and rescuers can use them.
They are great protection against burglars for a house (the right one at least)
They're used for farming, for our food
They can be used to pull us around, as transport
They even work in the military
-snip- allow me to just edit and add that wikipedia's page on dogs around the section on "work" shows just how amazing dogs are better than i could -snip-

Ok i'm boring myself. In a totally normal, non weirdo way; dogs are the best animal on this planet, they're literally made to accompany us.

"a study of conversations in dog-human families showed how family members use the dog as a resource, talking to the dog, or talking through the dog, to mediate their interactions with each other." -- best source ever wikipedia (pokerface)

The case is made. Dogs are awesome. And i didn't once mention cats.

RIGHT. I'm not talking about crappy little yapping dogs, but here goes!

Dogs love you so much they'll protect you with their life without even hesitating.
Many dogs have great empathy, they know when you're sad and try to cheer you up.
They're hardy and strong so you can take them on adventures (ok, hikes, i'm a big kid)
They understand how to play games and actually do what they're supposed to do ie. fetch.
They are the best animal to play fight with.
They're like a huge hot waterbottle if you let one lie on your bed.
They can be stupid as hell and it's really funny.
They're so clever they can be used to help blind people get around easier.
Their noses are like magic so police and rescuers can use them.
They are great protection against burglars for a house (the right one at least)
They're used for farming, for our food
They can be used to pull us around, as transport
They even work in the military
-snip- allow me to just edit and add that wikipedia's page on dogs around the section on "work" shows just how amazing dogs are better than i could -snip-

Ok i'm boring myself. In a totally normal, non weirdo way; dogs are the best animal on this planet, they're literally made to accompany us.

"a study of conversations in dog-human families showed how family members use the dog as a resource, talking to the dog, or talking through the dog, to mediate their interactions with each other." -- best source ever wikipedia (pokerface)

The case is made. Dogs are awesome. And i didn't once mention cats.

By far the ugliest of the screams and fetches that sum of money, sigh. World is sick, art belongs to the people.

>> ^Fletch:

Still waiting for a similar cat video.


Cats are to self obsessed and deficient in many many MANY ways compared to a dog.. so dont hold your breath.

Cats are good for snake and greasel food though.

Your video, German Shepherd Fetches Ball, Returns to Find His Soldier, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Very good. I think the whole maths/genius/superman thing is a little bit far fetched, but because that's just a framework around which to hang the beautiful film on, i'll suspend my disbelief. And it really is a great film, with fantastic acting.

Science fiction can justify anything because almost anything IS possible. Suspension of disbelief plays too much into our own environment and timeline -- think about your own life as a stage play 400 years ago and MAYBE you'll consider suspending it a bit more.

His hands glow when he touches a mobile device, so for crying out loud, maybe he has extra signals planted in his brain (via nanotech) to provide additional motor control via WiFi, thus steering the motorcycle with one hand. I just listened to a PhD in bioengineering at Wonder Con say that the idea of creating new signals in the brain for additional limb control is not so far fetched. ("Science in Science Fiction" panel by the authors of this book.)

However, lack of exposition in any shape or form does not work for me -- it's just fantasy at that point. I don't need to be eviscerated by constant exposition, but I need to at least know the ground rules. I felt like this was a subpar combination of Advent Children, the T2 motorcycle chase scene and every Half Life chase scene. More stimulation for my brains PLZ.

(On a side note: BUT! it was good fun and was made to display technical skill, not simply to be judged by a group of non-industry laymen, so upvote because the team who made this has TALENT.)