I’ve been blogging for about three weeks. I’ve been on Twitter for about two. Yesterday I wrote this entry about sex-determination in humans. Within an hour I had been called all manner of profane names, most notably I was referred to as a transphobe, a misogynist, and a transmisogynist. Within three hours I had been added to Atheism Plus’s “block bot†and yes, it was specifically because of that article. ...
I don't get your "point"didymos wrote:What is it with you people and nails?
I love it when they quote leviticus, then when you quote leviticus back at them, say "JESUS MADE THAT PART IRRELEVANT" then go back to quoting leviticus at you.BarnOwl wrote:They're complete moral relativists. Look at all the shit that goes on in the Old Testament. Unfortunately for the prospect of any reasonable discussion with them, it's usually the case that I remember more details about the Bible than they do. Or perhaps they never actually bothered to read it. Inconvenient, that.didymos wrote:And by that I mean fundies can be as morally relativist as anyone else, they just refuse to acknowledge that they do it.
Both Dawkins’ experience and that of the other person still seem to qualify as sexual assault:Aneris wrote:Forget Atheism Plus! Stephanie Zvan has a new idea:
Sexual Assault Plus!Zvan (emphasis hers) wrote:The reason we think what happened to her was worse is because more than sexual assault occurred. Young Richard was sexually assaulted. Young Rawan was sexually assaulted plus sold as property plus subjected to pain plus subjected to injury plus killed. Each of those is independently bad in its own right. That more things happened to her than sexual assault does not make the fact that she was sexually assaulted worse than the fact that he was.
I pull a Christina as I don't have time, but you can freezly read some pristine nonsense reasoning here. How difficult it must be to see the difference between a few seconds of touching in semi-public, and extended sexual abuse (or even one time) of someone who is at the mercy of someone.
But most over there seem to be eliding the graduations just to be able to take a shot at Dawkins. Classy bunch.Sexual assault is any involuntary sexual act in which a person is threatened, coerced, or forced to engage against their will, or any sexual touching of a person who has not consented.
Users Rystefn (sp?) and Cunt got into a protracted "debate" whether the former could drive a nail into a board with a screwdriver some time ago. It was the occasion for much hilarity and has turned into a bit of a "Slympit meme" or framework for describing similarly "pointless" debates.didymos wrote:What is it with you people and nails?
Drive a nail into a board with a screwdriver? That is just silly. You cannot drive nails anywhere because they do not have engines, and no amount of vodka and orange juice is ever going to change that fact.Steersman wrote:Users Rystefn (sp?) and Cunt got into a protracted "debate" whether the former could drive a nail into a board with a screwdriver some time ago. It was the occasion for much hilarity and has turned into a bit of a "Slympit meme" or framework for describing similarly "pointless" debates.didymos wrote:What is it with you people and nails?
I suppose I might as well finish the story.ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote:This phrase would have set off Rystefn's "Shag-Alert" if she was within 3 miles of his house. He'd then leap into his Shagmobile and race to the bus stop to see if the woman and her boyfriend wanted to have sex with him, his current date, his previous three dates, and his cousin's dog.VAXherd wrote:If you get Mrs. VAXherd riled about The Injustices She Experiences As A Woman, one of her big gotos is that back when she had to wait at bus stops at night, saying "I have a boyfriend" did not work.
Though it's not the reason for my reference to Bleeding Edge and Pynchonesque neo-Ludditism, Pynchon is at least tangentially relevant to the recent discussions of postmodernism. I was reading another review of the book in Harper's today, and the distinction was made that in "systems" or postmodern novels such as Pynchon's, the plot is driven by relationships among institutions, objects, and concepts, rather than those between characters. It's much easier for me to get my head around postmodernism in literature and art than in philosophy. I still don't see how it applies to scientific research or interpretation of data, and I certainly don't think that postmodernism refers to addressing social or environmental issues using scientific techniques, as PZ seems to believe.Liesmith wrote: I don't know who that is (beyond a brief Ask Jeeves search), but you could've just doxed me (about a one in seven billion chance). I am literally shaking from delirium tremens right now because of this campaign of harassment and how responding to these posts is cutting into my drinking time.
Indeed. Even if they had engines they're still missing wheels. Then there's the issue of roads and licenses - a real can of worms ....Liesmith wrote:Drive a nail into a board with a screwdriver? That is just silly. You cannot drive nails anywhere because they do not have engines, and no amount of vodka and orange juice is ever going to change that fact.Steersman wrote:Users Rystefn (sp?) and Cunt got into a protracted "debate" whether the former could drive a nail into a board with a screwdriver some time ago. It was the occasion for much hilarity and has turned into a bit of a "Slympit meme" or framework for describing similarly "pointless" debates.didymos wrote:What is it with you people and nails?
Yeah, I know the history. I'm questioning the entire thing, including the Great Screwdriver Debate.Steersman wrote:Users Rystefn (sp?) and Cunt got into a protracted "debate" whether the former could drive a nail into a board with a screwdriver some time ago. It was the occasion for much hilarity and has turned into a bit of a "Slympit meme" or framework for describing similarly "pointless" debates.didymos wrote:What is it with you people and nails?
However, if Dawkins had said something like - "I was sexually abused as a child so I can understand rape victims". They would take the opposite tack and say how his experience could in no way match the rape that the women experience.Steersman wrote:Both Dawkins’ experience and that of the other person still seem to qualify as sexual assault:Aneris wrote:Forget Atheism Plus! Stephanie Zvan has a new idea:
Sexual Assault Plus!Zvan (emphasis hers) wrote:The reason we think what happened to her was worse is because more than sexual assault occurred. Young Richard was sexually assaulted. Young Rawan was sexually assaulted plus sold as property plus subjected to pain plus subjected to injury plus killed. Each of those is independently bad in its own right. That more things happened to her than sexual assault does not make the fact that she was sexually assaulted worse than the fact that he was.
I pull a Christina as I don't have time, but you can freezly read some pristine nonsense reasoning here. How difficult it must be to see the difference between a few seconds of touching in semi-public, and extended sexual abuse (or even one time) of someone who is at the mercy of someone.But most over there seem to be eliding the graduations just to be able to take a shot at Dawkins. Classy bunch.Sexual assault is any involuntary sexual act in which a person is threatened, coerced, or forced to engage against their will, or any sexual touching of a person who has not consented.
No wonder he got on their shitty little bot:Skep tickle wrote:http://thedenveratheist.net/atheism-plu ... community/
@DenverAtheist opens a post on his/her relatively new blog with this:I’ve been blogging for about three weeks. I’ve been on Twitter for about two. Yesterday I wrote this entry about sex-determination in humans. Within an hour I had been called all manner of profane names, most notably I was referred to as a transphobe, a misogynist, and a transmisogynist. Within three hours I had been added to Atheism Plus’s “block bot†and yes, it was specifically because of that article. ...
:naughty:If you’re a man who undergoes a sex change operation, you’re still a man. You’re just a man with a vagina. If you’re a woman who undergoes a sex change operation, you’re still a woman. You’re just a woman with a penis. If you’re a woman with a penis, dressed in a tuxedo, you’re still a woman. If you’re a man with a vagina, dressed in a ball gown, you’re still a man. Doesn’t matter what you feel like, you’re biologically a particular sex.
The plagues of Egypt in Exodus always creeped me out when I was a kid. I mean seriously, Yahweh, WTF?welch wrote:
I love it when they quote leviticus, then when you quote leviticus back at them, say "JESUS MADE THAT PART IRRELEVANT" then go back to quoting leviticus at you.
Well, not love per se, but it's interesting to watch.
The more they believe it, the less they know what's actually in the damn thing.BarnOwl wrote:They're complete moral relativists. Look at all the shit that goes on in the Old Testament. Unfortunately for the prospect of any reasonable discussion with them, it's usually the case that I remember more details about the Bible than they do. Or perhaps they never actually bothered to read it. Inconvenient, that.didymos wrote:And by that I mean fundies can be as morally relativist as anyone else, they just refuse to acknowledge that they do it.
Did you see this one from some Dutch guy?Skep tickle wrote:http://thedenveratheist.net/atheism-plu ... community/
@DenverAtheist opens a post on his/her relatively new blog with this:I’ve been blogging for about three weeks. I’ve been on Twitter for about two. Yesterday I wrote this entry about sex-determination in humans. Within an hour I had been called all manner of profane names, most notably I was referred to as a transphobe, a misogynist, and a transmisogynist. Within three hours I had been added to Atheism Plus’s “block bot†and yes, it was specifically because of that article. ...
I am tempted to point him to the A+ forum for shit and giggles.Your strategic mistake has been, in my opinion, being overly aggressive. You have alienated possible allies by telling them they are rape apologists, or stupid, or … whatever. I'm sure all these people have tried to communicate with you, but it's very hard to do that when you're insulted.
You have misused the expression 'rape apologist' and you've stripped it of all meaning! Words have meaning, and rape apologist is explained in the rationalwiki. Saying that somebody who questions you is a rape apologist is a big mistake because you are trivializing the word. It also causes an immediate communication breakdown.
Its an interesting twitter thread he links to:Skep tickle wrote:http://thedenveratheist.net/atheism-plu ... community/
@DenverAtheist opens a post on his/her relatively new blog with this:I’ve been blogging for about three weeks. I’ve been on Twitter for about two. Yesterday I wrote this entry about sex-determination in humans. Within an hour I had been called all manner of profane names, most notably I was referred to as a transphobe, a misogynist, and a transmisogynist. Within three hours I had been added to Atheism Plus’s “block bot†and yes, it was specifically because of that article. ...
First off its interesting as I could not find either of those phrases in his piece: http://thedenveratheist.net/lets-talk-about-sex-baby/Anyone who refers to me as "a homosexual" or to anyone as "a transgender" is first order scum. Period. No discussion
Now, the user who posted that claimed that they ran out of characters and dropped the "a" ie, "homosexual" instead of "a homosexual", but in doing so they have totally changed the meaning of the sentence. (For the worse, into batshitville)Anyone who refers to me as "homosexual" or to anyone as "transgender"is scum.â€
I ain't had this much fun since the pigs ate my little sister. You've shown time and time again on this forum that all one needs to do to drop a quarter into you is disagree on some point and then watch a grown man throw a public tantrum. I've made a simple and consistant claim and committed myself to demonstrating it: The part of the trick, and yes we are both saying it's a trick, you say requires much practice is in fact the part which is the easiest and requires little if any preparation. How is that being manipulated into increasingly stupid stunts? Do you honestly believe you are so superior, that I'm so easily played, that taunting me with your silly little power fantasy will actually goad me into dancing to your tune?welch wrote:So I don't talk how you like, and therefore, by driving a nail through a board with your hand, you win.TheMudbrooker wrote:Where EXACTLY did I say I was going to do the trick EXACTLY the same way? As you rightly point out, the original video provides little in the way of evidence as to how the trick is done. Taking that as a given, which is more likely, that the end result is the product of intensive training and practice as you claim, or is it the product of a simple trick as I have said? You've said that the skill involved relates to the driving of the nail through the board, I say you're wrong, the real skill in the trick lies elsewhere and you've yet to even come close to mentioning what that skill might be. Yes indeed, it may be possible for a person with enough training and practice to actually drive a nail through a common board with their bare hands, but again, the original video provides no proof that that is what you are seeing.welch wrote: No you fucking twat, I don't know if you have any experience doing it or not. You're the one making that claim. I said shit like that, even if it's a carnie trick is still not easy to do.
if you're going to claim you can perfectly replicate the EXACT SAME TRICK the guy in the video did, then you need to provide evidence such as:
You know for a fact exactly what kind of wood the plank is, and if it's not just cut ala normal planks exactly how it's put together.
You know for a fact exactly how he does the trick, even though, as far as we can tell, you have the exact same source we do. If you have better sources, by all means, name them.
Oh, and while you're at it, *prove* beyond all reasonable doubt that what happens in the video is in fact, a carnie trick or similar. I would love to see the ironclad evidence of even that.
Doing a similar trick with the same end result is not the same as doing EXACTLY what he did, in the same way that two different ways of building a canoe, even though the end canoes are nigh-identical, are not the same ways of building the fucking things.
By all means post the video, and even post extra clips of how you set the trick up, and how it relates to the original video. It'll be kind of cool to see. But I still fail to see how this "humiliates" me in any way shape or form, because it's not disproving anything I've said.
As for your later post where you just can't understand why I might be annoyed with you, the answer is simple, throughout this exchange your tone has been that of a snotty, condecsending teenage girl. You've yet to miss an opportunity to get in a cutesey little dig or to project your own shitty attitude onto me.
If I wanted shit like that, I'd be over at Skepchick conversing with Rebecca Watson.
I'm sorry, I have no idea how to respond to a concept that fucking stupid and lame in any way but how I just did. Wait, if I turn it up to 11, will you use your forehead? Maybe your cornea?
I'm curious now, is that how it works? The more snotty I get, the more stupid you get? If I really work hard, you'll do progressively more idiotic stunts just to show me...well, I have no idea what you're going to show me, because now, I don't even know what you're showing me in the first place other than you're easily manipulated by PEOPLE YOU HAVE NEVER MET NOR KNOW.
Just be warned, I am NOT good with power, I will abuse that shit. If i think that by calling you "Beavis" a lot, i can get you to drive a nail through a brick via you jumping off a building and hitting it with your anus, I'm going to view that as a goal.
(also this bit?
I know you think you know what you think I said, but what you heard isn't what you think. I'm not saying it is or is not a trick. I don't have enough proof either way. Russians are kind of crazy, so either is possible. What I've been saying, if you'd read, is that even if it is a trick, even if it is definitely a trick, ala carnie tricks, or street corner "follow the queen" tricks, that even *tricks* take some practice and skill to do *well*.As you rightly point out, the original video provides little in the way of evidence as to how the trick is done. Taking that as a given, which is more likely, that the end result is the product of intensive training and practice as you claim, or is it the product of a simple trick as I have said? You've said that the skill involved relates to the driving of the nail through the board, I say you're wrong, the real skill in the trick lies elsewhere and you've yet to even come close to mentioning what that skill might be. Yes indeed, it may be possible for a person with enough training and practice to actually drive a nail through a common board with their bare hands, but again, the original video provides no proof that that is what you are seeing.
Magic tricks are a good example. Even simple beginner's tricks like the classic "where'd the quarter go" take some practice and skill to do smoothly. Obviously, the harder the trick, the more practice and skill involved.
If he's REALLY driving a nail through a board, then that's also a trick of a different nature, and takes some different kind of practice and skill.
But please, do go on and tell me how you're going to humiliate me by driving a nail through a board with your hand.
Oh, you know what would make me curl up in a ball and cry? If you nailed your scrotum to a board and then ran a 5K.
And, if you put a brick up your ass and then used it to break a bottle, I MIGHT be suicidal.
Just in case.
If you catch a mack truck in your mouth, I might die of terminal pants-shitting.TheMudbrooker wrote:I ain't had this much fun since the pigs ate my little sister. You've shown time and time again on this forum that all one needs to do to drop a quarter into you is disagree on some point and then watch a grown man throw a public tantrum. I've made a simple and consistant claim and committed myself to demonstrating it: The part of the trick, and yes we are both saying it's a trick, you say requires much practice is in fact the part which is the easiest and requires little if any preparation. How is that being manipulated into increasingly stupid stunts? Do you honestly believe you are so superior, that I'm so easily played, that taunting me with your silly little power fantasy will actually goad me into dancing to your tune?welch wrote:So I don't talk how you like, and therefore, by driving a nail through a board with your hand, you win.TheMudbrooker wrote: Where EXACTLY did I say I was going to do the trick EXACTLY the same way? As you rightly point out, the original video provides little in the way of evidence as to how the trick is done. Taking that as a given, which is more likely, that the end result is the product of intensive training and practice as you claim, or is it the product of a simple trick as I have said? You've said that the skill involved relates to the driving of the nail through the board, I say you're wrong, the real skill in the trick lies elsewhere and you've yet to even come close to mentioning what that skill might be. Yes indeed, it may be possible for a person with enough training and practice to actually drive a nail through a common board with their bare hands, but again, the original video provides no proof that that is what you are seeing.
As for your later post where you just can't understand why I might be annoyed with you, the answer is simple, throughout this exchange your tone has been that of a snotty, condecsending teenage girl. You've yet to miss an opportunity to get in a cutesey little dig or to project your own shitty attitude onto me.
If I wanted shit like that, I'd be over at Skepchick conversing with Rebecca Watson.
I'm sorry, I have no idea how to respond to a concept that fucking stupid and lame in any way but how I just did. Wait, if I turn it up to 11, will you use your forehead? Maybe your cornea?
I'm curious now, is that how it works? The more snotty I get, the more stupid you get? If I really work hard, you'll do progressively more idiotic stunts just to show me...well, I have no idea what you're going to show me, because now, I don't even know what you're showing me in the first place other than you're easily manipulated by PEOPLE YOU HAVE NEVER MET NOR KNOW.
Just be warned, I am NOT good with power, I will abuse that shit. If i think that by calling you "Beavis" a lot, i can get you to drive a nail through a brick via you jumping off a building and hitting it with your anus, I'm going to view that as a goal.
(also this bit?
I know you think you know what you think I said, but what you heard isn't what you think. I'm not saying it is or is not a trick. I don't have enough proof either way. Russians are kind of crazy, so either is possible. What I've been saying, if you'd read, is that even if it is a trick, even if it is definitely a trick, ala carnie tricks, or street corner "follow the queen" tricks, that even *tricks* take some practice and skill to do *well*.As you rightly point out, the original video provides little in the way of evidence as to how the trick is done. Taking that as a given, which is more likely, that the end result is the product of intensive training and practice as you claim, or is it the product of a simple trick as I have said? You've said that the skill involved relates to the driving of the nail through the board, I say you're wrong, the real skill in the trick lies elsewhere and you've yet to even come close to mentioning what that skill might be. Yes indeed, it may be possible for a person with enough training and practice to actually drive a nail through a common board with their bare hands, but again, the original video provides no proof that that is what you are seeing.
Magic tricks are a good example. Even simple beginner's tricks like the classic "where'd the quarter go" take some practice and skill to do smoothly. Obviously, the harder the trick, the more practice and skill involved.
If he's REALLY driving a nail through a board, then that's also a trick of a different nature, and takes some different kind of practice and skill.
But please, do go on and tell me how you're going to humiliate me by driving a nail through a board with your hand.
Oh, you know what would make me curl up in a ball and cry? If you nailed your scrotum to a board and then ran a 5K.
And, if you put a brick up your ass and then used it to break a bottle, I MIGHT be suicidal.
Just in case.
I do have to concede this point though: There is absolutely nothing I can do to humiliate you. Anyone possessed of an ego as grotesquely bloated as yours is beyond embarassment.
So, I just scrolled past every response between you and Mudbrooker to this last sentence, and....Yo, I don't even wanna know.welch wrote: If you catch a mack truck in your mouth, I might die of terminal pants-shitting.
We'll hammer the details out in committee.welch wrote:I don't get your "point"didymos wrote:What is it with you people and nails?
HAHAHA!Tigzy wrote:I once had one of those things fly into my eye. I now know what a bouncy castle feels like when a lanky person uses it.dogen wrote:Crane fly, you limey git.Tony Parsehole wrote:Daddy-Long-legs? What the fuck are they? Is it those weird, demented buzzy things with a long head and massive eyes that usually turn up in droves in autumn?
We call those Father-Lengthy-Limbs.
Indeed.Tony Parsehole wrote:Is that the SlenderMan?
I doubt I am going to forget the FC(n) in a hurry, but he may have a point though. Who is really going to remember the FC(n) in 50 years, much less 20?In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
HAHAHAHA!Gefan wrote:Gefan's Law:
As the level of baboonery drops, the probability of a fight breaking out on The Slymepit over something involving a nail approaches one.
Some of them will be forgotten within days - I saw a post last night (just the usual bullshit) by Avicenna, and it took quite a while to remember that he was the doctor who melted down over false threats colon made (at least, I think that's who it was, don't care enough to go back and check). The drama llamas tend to blur together - they all whine and complain about the same thing, so gradually they lose their individuality.AndrewV69 wrote:I am not so sure about this but:I doubt I am going to forget the FC(n) in a hurry, but he may have a point though. Who is really going to remember the FC(n) in 50 years, much less 20?In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
hmm... pALestINe....steep Nail ? Sounds like the Illuminati at work....of the reptiloids.Tony Parsehole wrote:HAHAHAHA!Gefan wrote:Gefan's Law:
As the level of baboonery drops, the probability of a fight breaking out on The Slymepit over something involving a nail approaches one.
I wonder what the link is? Why does it always come back to nails?
Or Palestine?
:lol:welch wrote:
If you catch a mack truck in your mouth, I might die of terminal pants-shitting.
Gefan wrote:Gefan's Law:
As the level of baboonery drops, the probability of a fight breaking out on The Slymepit over something involving a nail approaches one.
I also plan on rereading Gibbons but I doubt I am going to get an unbroken block of time to do so.Fighting his way to power on the remote steppes of Mongolia, Genghis Khan developed revolutionary military strategies and weaponry that emphasized rapid attack and siege warfare, which he then brilliantly used to overwhelm opposing armies in Asia, break the back of the Islamic world, and render the armored knights of Europe obsolete. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongol army never numbered more than 100,000 warriors, yet it subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans conquered in four hundred. With an empire that stretched from Siberia to India, from Vietnam to Hungary, and from Korea to the Balkans, the Mongols dramatically redrew the map of the globe, connecting disparate kingdoms into a new world order.
But contrary to popular wisdom, Weatherford reveals that the Mongols were not just masters of conquest, but possessed a genius for progressive and benevolent rule. On every level and from any perspective, the scale and scope
of Genghis Khan’s accomplishments challenge the limits of imagination. Genghis Khan was an innovative leader, the first ruler in many conquered countries to put the power of law above his own power, encourage religious freedom, create public schools, grant diplomatic immunity, abolish torture, and institute free trade. The trade routes he created became lucrative pathways for commerce, but also for ideas, technologies, and expertise that transformed the way people lived
I'm not an expert but my impression is that postmodernism is supposed to apply to science in that it leads to a sort of "absolute relativism" about all human knowledge.BarnOwl wrote:I still don't see how [postmodernism] applies to scientific research or interpretation of data, and I certainly don't think that postmodernism refers to addressing social or environmental issues using scientific techniques, as PZ seems to believe.
Usually I enjoy reading welch vs. blank, but this one is so stupid I am just scrolling right past the whole thing!JackRayner wrote:So, I just scrolled past every response between you and Mudbrooker to this last sentence, and....Yo, I don't even wanna know.welch wrote: If you catch a mack truck in your mouth, I might die of terminal pants-shitting.
Nailed it.Gefan wrote:Gefan's Law:
As the level of baboonery drops, the probability of a fight breaking out on The Slymepit over something involving a nail approaches one.
The second link Selection without adjective and boundIn Europeans this has resulted in a strongly homogenized region of the genome around LCT.
The situation in Ethiopia is a touch paradoxical in light of the above model. Instead of one allele, it looks as if several are segregating. And, the lactase persistence haplotypes exhibit more, not less, genetic diversity than the non-persistent variants.
This is the part that had me giggling (underline is mine)In my post below where I take a stand against the tired, but inevitable, assumption that a post demographic transition society necessarily entails a cessation of biology evolution, a reader brings up a trite but specious observation:This isn’t novel or exceptional in its wrongheadedness. The same idea comes up when I engage in discussion with the types of intellectuals in sociology or anthropology unencumbered by the constraints of “Western linear thinking.†The presumption is that natural selection operates through exogenous environmental pressures, and as we attenuate those pressures we diminish the rate of evolutionary change. The stylized model being:But you’re missing the point really. We’ve slowed (not stopped because it can’t be stopped) because we now control our environment. Evolution is moving from individual biological expression to cultural and technological evolution.
Rate of evolution ∠natural selection ∠1/(control of environment)
As the magnitude of human control of the environment increases, the magnitude of natural selection decreases, and so does the rate of evolutionary change. This impression was already cursorily dispatched in my prior post.
Oh! If only. If only we could make it so! PLEASE I do so really want this to happen.But as there hasn’t been strong selection in the human past for reading and comprehending something before commenting on it, this issue might require a little teasing out, as the stylized model above is so ubiquitous as to be a background assumption of many.
Also:there is a great deal of prenatal selection in the womb due to mutation. The spontaneous abortion rate is difficult to ascertain because many women are never aware they are pregnant if the zygote does not implant, but somewhere on the order of 50% of fertilizations never make it to term*.
G'night all.One of the implications of this model is that if genetic load is increasing in developed populations then the frequency of chronic illnesses that elevate morbidity is going to go up. But a more clear effect might be increased fertility issues across the population, as people with higher mutational load have to pay the bill of deleterious alleles finally coming due. Humans may be able to abolish some of the less palatable aspects of natural laws, but they can not overturn nature itself.
Like those special ways of knowing we observe from time to time from the usual suspects.The same idea comes up when I engage in discussion with the types of intellectuals in sociology or anthropology unencumbered by the constraints of “Western linear thinking.â€
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzpfa03WuK1qba0x7.jpgTrophy wrote:Nailed it.Gefan wrote:Gefan's Law:
As the level of baboonery drops, the probability of a fight breaking out on The Slymepit over something involving a nail approaches one.
Really enjoyed listening to this, thanks. :clap:Al Stefanelli wrote:In case you missed last night's show:
"The Petulant Goddess: Feminism, Humanism and Atheism"
We had as our guests Becky Garrison, EllenBeth Wachs, Matt Facciani & Jen August (along with lengthily call ins with Joe Zamecki, Paul Loebe and Robert Robinson), the link to the podcast is below.
This was a very intense show, as several of the guests and callers were victims of brutally violent rape, and offer their point of view of what is so wrong with places like Atheism+, the FC(n), the Block Bot, preventative measures with regard to personal safety, victim blaming, the PZ Myers/Shermer fiasco, etc.
Listen Here
From the deepity, deepity, derp, or there must be more to billions and "billions" department -- the convo about pomo, age of the earth, conceptualizing big numbers discussion was picked up at Thunderdome:windy wrote:I can haz scientifically literate examples of how science needs postmodernism, plz?
http://theedixieflatline.wordpress.com/ ... s-breadth/Daz wrote:To put that into some perspective, a human hair is about seven times that; 7â„100 of a millimetre thick. Put another way, in order to make a hair's width equal one millionth of the line, we'd have to make the line seventy metres long.
Put yet another way, so as to graphically turn a very small number into a very big one, you'd need to lay one million hairs side by side in order for them to measure seventy metres in width. Think how big seventy metres is, and how narrow a hair is. That's how many a million is. Now imagine a line 70,000 kilometres long. That's a billion (1,000,000,000) hairs' widths, or roughly one and three quarters trips around Earth's equator. A trillion (1,000,000,000,000)* hairs' widths? That's 70,000,000; seventy million kilometres. Roughly 1,750 times around Earth's equator, or just under half-way to the sun. Even Rapunzel would have struggled with that one!
"Vicki, duly vaccinated tool of the feminist conspiracy" points out a few comments later that aspiring uberchemist Esteleth might not describe her buffer that way because a microliter is "by definition" a millionth of a liter, not a billionth. But, hey -- what's a factor of 1000 among postmodern friends on an intimidating "science" blog? In the immortal words of Barbie, "math class is tough!"Esteleth wrote:... A proper understanding of mole ratios is crucial for chemistry, after all. It makes sense that the class spent some time drilling on moles (this included dressing up as moles).
Avogadro’s number is fucking huge: 602,200,000,000,000,000,000,000!
I cannot conceptualize this. Avogadro’s number is a piece of trivia in the back of my mind, right next to the bit that says, “a mole of 100% pure carbon-12 weighs one gram.â€
Similarly: 1 liter is by definition 1 billion microliters. Because that is what the metric prefix “micro-†means. Okay, fine.
Today I made a liter of buffer. I measured the liter of solute using a volumetric flask – which is to say I stuck it under the spigot and eyeballed the graduation. It filled a bottle about *hand gesture* so big. I could lift the bottle with one hand easily, but I preferred to hold it in two, for greater stability. It had a noticeable weight – a bit more than a kilo – but was not heavy.
Yesterday I made a 1 millimolar solution of peroxide. I did this by diluting a stock solution – which is to say I mixed 1 microliter of the stock with 7.28 milliliters of water. I used a pippette to do this. The peroxide was a sliver of liquid that occupied a fraction of the tip. I did not notice its added weight as I moved the pippette across my workspace.
Intellectually I know that the buffer I made today was (approximately) 1 billion times bigger than the amount of stock peroxide I used yesterday. If you handed me a bottle containing a liter of liquid and asked me how much was in there, I’d probably be able to say, “Looks like about a liter.†Maybe I’d peg it as about a quart – but that would depend on if I was in the lab or not. Likewise, if you handed me a eppendorf tube containing a microliter of liquid, I’d be able to squint at it and guess that it was a microliter or so.
But – I wouldn’t describe that buffer I made to day as being a billion microliters. Both because that would get me accused – rightfully – of sesquipedalian loquaciousness and because I don’t think of it that way. ...
Interesting. His/her comment section doesn't seem to work regardless of the browser I try. I wanted to offer my condolences at his/her rude reception at the hands of the baboons.Skep tickle wrote:http://thedenveratheist.net/atheism-plu ... community/
@DenverAtheist opens a post on his/her relatively new blog with this:I’ve been blogging for about three weeks. I’ve been on Twitter for about two. Yesterday I wrote this entry about sex-determination in humans. Within an hour I had been called all manner of profane names, most notably I was referred to as a transphobe, a misogynist, and a transmisogynist. Within three hours I had been added to Atheism Plus’s “block bot†and yes, it was specifically because of that article. ...
Image of the Year!Dick Strawkins wrote:http://i.imgur.com/GEXMs0Z.jpg
Tribble wrote:Interesting. His/her comment section doesn't seem to work regardless of the browser I try. I wanted to offer my condolences at his/her rude reception at the hands of the baboons.Skep tickle wrote:http://thedenveratheist.net/atheism-plu ... community/
@DenverAtheist opens a post on his/her relatively new blog with this:I’ve been blogging for about three weeks. I’ve been on Twitter for about two. Yesterday I wrote this entry about sex-determination in humans. Within an hour I had been called all manner of profane names, most notably I was referred to as a transphobe, a misogynist, and a transmisogynist. Within three hours I had been added to Atheism Plus’s “block bot†and yes, it was specifically because of that article. ...
Gumby wrote:No wonder he got on their shitty little bot:Skep tickle wrote:http://thedenveratheist.net/atheism-plu ... community/
@DenverAtheist opens a post on his/her relatively new blog with this:I’ve been blogging for about three weeks. I’ve been on Twitter for about two. Yesterday I wrote this entry about sex-determination in humans. Within an hour I had been called all manner of profane names, most notably I was referred to as a transphobe, a misogynist, and a transmisogynist. Within three hours I had been added to Atheism Plus’s “block bot†and yes, it was specifically because of that article. ...
:naughty:If you’re a man who undergoes a sex change operation, you’re still a man. You’re just a man with a vagina. If you’re a woman who undergoes a sex change operation, you’re still a woman. You’re just a woman with a penis. If you’re a woman with a penis, dressed in a tuxedo, you’re still a woman. If you’re a man with a vagina, dressed in a ball gown, you’re still a man. Doesn’t matter what you feel like, you’re biologically a particular sex.
Fairly rare, but I was in a long-term relationship with one. Worst thing was, was 'she' didn't know. Her parents never told her and I don't think she knows. She just knew she had to take birth-control pills to have a 'regular cycle' and stuff and took them from the time she was 13.Swyer syndrome is a condition in which individuals with one X chromosome and one Y chromosome in each cell, the pattern normally found in males, have a female appearance. People with this disorder have female external genitalia and a normal uterus and Fallopian tubes. However, they do not have functional gonads (ovaries or testes). Instead, they have undeveloped clumps of tissue called streak gonads. These abnormal gonads often become cancerous, so they are usually removed surgically early in life.
I hate it when that happens:Dick Strawkins wrote:http://i.imgur.com/GEXMs0Z.jpg
To celebrate I shall take a Rusty Nail in each hand and sink both of them into my stomach. Painless (until tomorrow morning!)Dick Strawkins wrote:http://i.imgur.com/GEXMs0Z.jpg
Was that video made by Grothe's Bear friends in SF?Apples wrote: [youtube]7O9oEFKSJfY[youtube]
Yeah. Just claw through it I suppose.Badger3k wrote:We'll hammer the details out in committee.welch wrote:I don't get your "point"didymos wrote:What is it with you people and nails?
Theres also the fact that "uberchemist Esteleth" is a bit confused about the definition of a mole: One Mole of 100% pure carbon-12 has a mass of 12 grams, not 1.Apples wrote:From the deepity, deepity, derp, or there must be more to billions and "billions" department -- the convo about pomo, age of the earth, conceptualizing big numbers discussion was picked up at Thunderdome:windy wrote:I can haz scientifically literate examples of how science needs postmodernism, plz?
http://i.imgur.com/wP9x95i.jpg
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... ent-689112
http://www.freezepage.com/1379243092GEDMEUKPLU
Such urbanity from Daz and such wittiness from Caine. Daz even links to s/h/it's blogpost on the subject, titled "A Hair's Breadth":
http://theedixieflatline.wordpress.com/ ... s-breadth/Daz wrote:To put that into some perspective, a human hair is about seven times that; 7â„100 of a millimetre thick. Put another way, in order to make a hair's width equal one millionth of the line, we'd have to make the line seventy metres long.
Put yet another way, so as to graphically turn a very small number into a very big one, you'd need to lay one million hairs side by side in order for them to measure seventy metres in width. Think how big seventy metres is, and how narrow a hair is. That's how many a million is. Now imagine a line 70,000 kilometres long. That's a billion (1,000,000,000) hairs' widths, or roughly one and three quarters trips around Earth's equator. A trillion (1,000,000,000,000)* hairs' widths? That's 70,000,000; seventy million kilometres. Roughly 1,750 times around Earth's equator, or just under half-way to the sun. Even Rapunzel would have struggled with that one!
Oops. Somehow Daz seems to have mistaken meters for kilometers, because by my calculations if 1 million hairs makes 70 meters, a billion makes 70 km, not 70,000 km. So - not quite 1750 times around the earth or half-way to the sun, more like a slightly lengthy Sunday drive. As far as I can tell no one at Pharyngula or Daz's blog noticed the mistake.
Jadehawk and Caine quickly get back to the important stuff:
http://i.imgur.com/IAyuE4O.jpg
***********************************************************
... But then "Esteleth, statistically significant to p ≤ 0.001" has to ruin it in the next comment by getting all brute truthy again:
"Vicki, duly vaccinated tool of the feminist conspiracy" points out a few comments later that aspiring uberchemist Esteleth might not describe her buffer that way because a microliter is "by definition" a millionth of a liter, not a billionth. But, hey -- what's a factor of 1000 among postmodern friends on an intimidating "science" blog? In the immortal words of Barbie, "math class is tough!"Esteleth wrote:... A proper understanding of mole ratios is crucial for chemistry, after all. It makes sense that the class spent some time drilling on moles (this included dressing up as moles).
Avogadro’s number is fucking huge: 602,200,000,000,000,000,000,000!
I cannot conceptualize this. Avogadro’s number is a piece of trivia in the back of my mind, right next to the bit that says, “a mole of 100% pure carbon-12 weighs one gram.â€
Similarly: 1 liter is by definition 1 billion microliters. Because that is what the metric prefix “micro-†means. Okay, fine.
Today I made a liter of buffer. I measured the liter of solute using a volumetric flask – which is to say I stuck it under the spigot and eyeballed the graduation. It filled a bottle about *hand gesture* so big. I could lift the bottle with one hand easily, but I preferred to hold it in two, for greater stability. It had a noticeable weight – a bit more than a kilo – but was not heavy.
Yesterday I made a 1 millimolar solution of peroxide. I did this by diluting a stock solution – which is to say I mixed 1 microliter of the stock with 7.28 milliliters of water. I used a pippette to do this. The peroxide was a sliver of liquid that occupied a fraction of the tip. I did not notice its added weight as I moved the pippette across my workspace.
Intellectually I know that the buffer I made today was (approximately) 1 billion times bigger than the amount of stock peroxide I used yesterday. If you handed me a bottle containing a liter of liquid and asked me how much was in there, I’d probably be able to say, “Looks like about a liter.†Maybe I’d peg it as about a quart – but that would depend on if I was in the lab or not. Likewise, if you handed me a eppendorf tube containing a microliter of liquid, I’d be able to squint at it and guess that it was a microliter or so.
But – I wouldn’t describe that buffer I made to day as being a billion microliters. Both because that would get me accused – rightfully – of sesquipedalian loquaciousness and because I don’t think of it that way. ...
Dude, *I* don't even know what it's about at this point. If you say things in a way someone doesn't like, they'll do stupid shit to prove you wrong is what's going on. I think. Which mind you, has some awesome potential there.another lurker wrote:Usually I enjoy reading welch vs. blank, but this one is so stupid I am just scrolling right past the whole thing!JackRayner wrote:So, I just scrolled past every response between you and Mudbrooker to this last sentence, and....Yo, I don't even wanna know.welch wrote: If you catch a mack truck in your mouth, I might die of terminal pants-shitting.
Still, we should be grateful that she didn't call Avogrado's Number 'Avocado's Number.'Dave wrote:<snip>
Theres also the fact that "uberchemist Esteleth" is a bit confused about the definition of a mole: One Mole of 100% pure carbon-12 has a mass of 12 grams, not 1.
Okay, what is all this "official" shit? Is there some kind of ceremony that outsiders don't know about? I mean, I'm "officially" not in the military, but I was actually "officially" in the military. When I left, there was paperwork, a return of property (completely with receipts of same), briefings, etc.ccdimage wrote:Insert comment about door injury.
One gram, twelve grams - who cares. The Avogadro constant is just a social construct.Dave wrote:Theres also the fact that "uberchemist Esteleth" is a bit confused about the definition of a mole: One Mole of 100% pure carbon-12 has a mass of 12 grams, not 1.
These people are idiots. I can show anyone how to visualize billions with one fucking picture:Apples wrote:From the deepity, deepity, derp, or there must be more to billions and "billions" department -- the convo about pomo, age of the earth, conceptualizing big numbers discussion was picked up at Thunderdome:windy wrote:I can haz scientifically literate examples of how science needs postmodernism, plz?
