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Date: 2009/06/17 16:48:03, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

From PZ's blog Sounds very much like some of Stephen B's (faulty) logic. (I'm actually Bystander but I thought I would change to my real name which I use almost everywhere else)

Date: 2009/06/17 19:15:24, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (deadman_932 @ June 17 2009,18:07) I'm kinda amused. Okay, so rather than Corny continuing to flog his blog in front of the brain-addled UD-ers, we have Little Billy Dembski trying to fleece the sheep sell an actual book. A book that likely merely contains the Baylor Polyani Center conference presentations (hence the "three Nobel Prize Winners" hype) and some spin by Dembsky and his ghost-writer...er..."co-editor."   BUT..Granville Sewell posts something interesting in response to Paul Burnett's comment about the publishing house being run by Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an odd little 501c(3) non-profit organization. Sewell -- by all appearances -- thinks that the "three Nobel Prize winners"  mentioned in the publisher's blurb actually support ID:     Quote Sewell wrote: "The typical response from critics to scientific arguments for ID is the “ad hominem” attack... For some reason Paul Burnett (comment #1) did not feel comfortable questioning the credentials of 3 Nobel prize winners and a few dozen PhDs, so he decided to go after the publisher." Uh, Sewell...who are the three Nobel laureates? Is one of them Steve Weinberg? Does he back ID? Why would you seem to think that the Nobelists and PhD's *SHOULD* be "questioned" by Burnett at all, since not all of those even back ID? Tard. As an aside, Burnett is spot on --- the "Intercollegiate Studies Institute" has all the appearances of a cute little Christian-conservative propaganda mill, to me:     Quote " the Institute relies on the moral and cultural traditions that are part of the Judeo-Christian heritage and rooted in Western Civilization." (From here. Read the rest of the FAQ and linked bits on the "Institute" and how one can join it to  get crappy online reading materials -- AFTER you send in those dollars, dammit. ) Billy sure likes to pump out the books. I think that this is Billy's sign of capitulation. If you really thought that you can change the world and make a best seller, you would be happy to take 3 years to produce the book. If you know that you have a finite captive audience, you are better to pump out multiple books per year and make a couple of thousand from each book. When PZ finally does his book and it does well, I'm sure that there will be a deep head shaped dent in Dembski's desk.

Date: 2009/06/18 17:25:52, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (JLT @ June 18 2009,05:07) Don't you get sarcastic with Gil or Clive'll put you in moderation.   Quote 71 Clive Hayden 06/16/2009 4:50 pm Gaz, ——”Grateful for a quick reply, we’ve been waiting with bated breath for some time now.” Drop the disdainful rhetoric or I will put you in moderation. The offending comment:   Quote 70 Gaz 06/16/2009 4:43 pm GilDodgen (55), “That being said, would you kindly share with us these revelation-bearing simple mathematics about probabilities and combinatorics? If it convinced you, I’m sure it would do a number on the rest of us. http://www.uncommondescent.com…..selection/” Gil, are you sure you gave the right link? That just seems to lead to a rather dull and wordy thread. Can’t you just put your sub-teenager math and probabilities up for us to see here? Grateful for a quick reply, we’ve been waiting with bated breath for some time now. while Joseph calling somebody a BoS is A-OK

Date: 2009/06/22 03:51:53, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Richardthughes @ June 22 2009,01:03) Sod all of you. I, as Jerry, will continue. I thought I was Jerry?

Date: 2009/06/22 23:03:54, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (keiths @ June 22 2009,20:45) PZ is rubbing Dembski's face in this little prediction from 2004: Quote Where is the ID movement going in the next ten years? What new issues will it be exploring, and what new challenges will it be offering Darwinism? Dembski: In the next five years, molecular Darwinism—the idea that Darwinian processes can produce complex molecular structures at the subcellular level—will be dead. When that happens, evolutionary biology will experience a crisis of confidence because evolutionary biology hinges on the evolution of the right molecules. I therefore foresee a Taliban-style collapse of Darwinism in the next ten years. Intelligent design will of course profit greatly from this. For ID to win the day, however, will require talented new researchers able to move this research program forward, showing how intelligent design provides better insights into biological systems than the dying Darwinian paradigm. According to the IDers it has fallen over it is only because of the Nazi tactics of the Darwinistas that stops the public knowing of the fact

Date: 2009/06/26 17:30:18, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (someotherguy @ June 26 2009,13:48) Voted for ya, Wes.  I too expect a live penguin in payment.   :D Live? I just want a couple of penguin burgers.

Date: 2009/06/28 17:05:26, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

KF reminds me of a couple of Indian lecturers (and some older Indians that I have employed). If I had to make a guess I would think that it comes from a culture that reveres the skill of being able to speak English. This is understandable as it increases your employability. However, if your audience does not have a strong handle on English, you would be valued more for your ability to turn out flowery speeches than being able to communicate with clarity. Michael

Date: 2009/06/29 16:28:31, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (didymos @ June 29 2009,15:59) Quote (Hermagoras @ June 29 2009,08:42) kairosfocus compares David Kellogg to Hitler and then asks him to apologize for it. Gordon gets some spiritual advice: Quote Excession 06/29/2009 11:19 am kairosfocus: SHAME ON YOU! a Christian should know and act better! You are a disgrace to the religion. Go look up the word Hypocrite then think long and hard about the teachings of Jesus. Yeah, I'd say Gordumb has at least a cord of wood that needs removing from his intelligently-designed-yet-oddly-wired eye.  When he's done, he can sell it and buy a clue.  Or a hooker.  That might help more than the clue, actually. The fun part is that KF is incapable of apologizing, so we can see him explode in the oil soaked ... whatever

Date: 2009/07/01 18:05:24, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (oldmanintheskydidntdoit @ July 01 2009,16:02) StephenB responds     Quote You, like your hero, Judge “copycat” Jones, are scandalously uneducated on the subject matter of intelligent design So who's fault is that. Wasn't Behe and the others there to educate Judge Jones on the Science of ID? They were there for days giving testimony. So either the ID crowd in giving their best shot failed (and if they failed in court why should they expect scientists to be convinced) Also, I am convinced that nobody on the ID side has ever read any of the trial material. Most people tend to focus on the Astrology and the pile of unread papers.   However, Behe got hammered for hours, all of it entertaining and none of it ever defended by the ID crowd. In addition when the reality people were cross examined, it was all about coming at the subject from a poisoned POV. They were NEVER questioned on facts.

Date: 2009/07/01 22:06:47, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (oldmanintheskydidntdoit @ July 01 2009,21:40) Quote (someotherguy @ July 01 2009,21:37) Quote (didymos @ July 01 2009,21:32) Dr. Dr. gives us the news: "We are now at war with Front-Loading.  We have ALWAYS been at war with Front-loading." I could be wrong, but I think the kind of front-loading discussed here is not the same kind of front-loading that Behe and Dave Scot proposed. it seems to be saying god did it without doing it, so it's not theistic. or something. I read it to mean that front loading is impossible to do in the non-supernatural realm. The designer could not have set the initial conditions in the natural world and stepped back. ID can only exist if there is an information flow from the supernatural to the natural. This is interesting as it flies in the face of what the IDers were arguing on the other thread.  I don't think that it is a comfortable read for them in any case. The article is supposed to show up theistic-evolutionists but I don't see how it can destroy the argument that if you believe in a god, you can believe that what is random to us is not random to him.

Date: 2009/07/05 20:00:39, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Every time you think that UD has jumped the shark, they manage to find yet another one to jump over. I find it hard that any of these guys can function in public

Date: 2009/07/05 20:07:19, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (MichaelJ @ July 05 2009,20:00) Every time you think that UD has jumped the shark, they manage to find yet another one to jump over. I find it hard that any of these guys can function in public ETA: hard to BELIEVE that any of these guys can function in public

Date: 2009/07/06 06:16:04, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (didymos @ July 06 2009,03:26) Vivid stakes out his position Quote For something to come from nothing it must, in effect, create itself. Self creation is a logical and therefore rationally [sic] impossibility. For something to create itself, it must have the ability to be and not be at the same tmie [sic] and in the same relationship. For something to create itself it must be before it is. Something can be self existent without violating logic, but it cannot be self created. Several comments later: Quote To say that something that comes into existence from nothing ie without a cause violates the law of non contradiction AND is a form of self creation. It does not rely on self creation for its validity. One could just say it violates the law of non contradiction if they wanted to. Dude, you really suck at non-contradiction. True, they are in fact experts in contradiction sometimes even within the same sentence.

Date: 2009/07/08 18:35:38, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Before the departure of Davetard, I used to think that there were some reasonable but misguided people on UD. That these people kept their mouths shut against the crazies for the sake of the large tent. Since then I realised that they are all like that and I think that this whole Nazi == Darwinism thing just makes me pretty disgusted. I was wondering though that when some of the Nazi posts started appearing via Denyse there was some mild opposition by otherwise ID supporters (I think that Dave was still around). I'm not sure if they were socks or not but is it possible that a whole crowd of real ID supporters have been turned off by this crap.

Date: 2009/07/16 16:22:03, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (blipey @ July 16 2009,09:21) Quote (fusilier @ July 16 2009,07:57) Hippo birfday two ewes! Bystander's Scottish??? Thanks all, I have ceased being bystander and am using my real name (or part thereof). They say that you are as young as the woman you feel (but unfortunately my wife is older than me). Cheers to you all with a glass of fine Australian beer (fill in your favourite).

Date: 2009/07/16 16:58:52, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (blipey @ July 16 2009,09:21) Quote (fusilier @ July 16 2009,07:57) Hippo birfday two ewes! Bystander's Scottish??? Och No! Aussie by Crickey

Date: 2009/07/16 16:59:45, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (carlsonjok @ July 15 2009,16:49) Hope you have a good day and one of these around. 2 dogs, 3 cats, 7 chooks, 2 donkeys and a Goose. Nothing gets wasted.

Date: 2009/07/16 21:52:11, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (keiths @ July 16 2009,21:17) Quote (Richardthughes @ July 16 2009,18:25) Quote (midwifetoad @ July 16 2009,18:34)   Quote Which is especially impressive given that Joseph was not Jesus' father. That's the special part. Wasn't he supposed to be 'of the house of David'? Joesph was, but mary wasn't...? Both genealogies (see Matthew 1 and Luke 3) go through Joseph, not Mary.  And they're inconsistent. We have evidence that the Bible has been changed, I always wonder why glaring problems like this wasn't fixed. The culture must be very different to ours that finds that inconsistencies are unimportant to the whole message.

Date: 2009/07/17 03:13:04, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (deadman_932 @ July 16 2009,22:38) Birthday? Um...er...I know I had a lolcat here somewhere. Ahhh here... Oh. Oh, my. This is confusing: Happy birthday, anyway, all three of you. In this picture I most closely resemble the basketball

Date: 2009/07/22 04:13:43, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (CeilingCat @ July 22 2009,03:21) Mapou maps out the cranks Mapou, of "Nothing Can Move in Spacetime! By Definition!" fame gives us a list of cranks: Stephen Hawking Kip Thorne John A. Wheeler Richard Feynman Michio Kaku John Gribbin Carl Sagan John Kramer J. Richard Gott III Hans Moravec David Deutsch Igor Novikov John Baez Ronald Mallett Jack Sarfatti Kurt Gödel Paul Davies Albert Einstein If only they would embrace ID. Somebody should tell the timecube guy about UD, where all ideas are welcome as long as you agree that darwin=hitler.

Date: 2009/07/26 03:37:57, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Many Happy returns regards Michael

Date: 2009/07/26 06:54:32, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (deadman_932 @ July 25 2009,08:44) The broad form that a reply to Sanford should take -- to give the fullest possible refutation of Sanford -- would be to eventually demonstrate how Mendel's Accountant is a deceptive product of Sanford's overall views. Because Sanford believes that all life on Earth is between 5,000-100,000 years old, Mendel's Accountant essentially cooks the books to arrive at output which is intended to bolster Sanford's claims set out in his book "Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome." I think everyone here is aware of that. Mendel's Accountant and Sanford's "Genetic Entropy" book go hand-in-hand Over at TalkRational, Febble, Vox Rat and others are going through Sanford's book. This can be useful in the future. See here,  here and here keeping in mind that the last two are currently less useful because the discussion really hasn't begun yet -- due to "AF Dave" serving as a foil for Febble. He's really putting off any in-depth discussion because (1) he's an idiot and (2) he's doing what he usually does; use a discussion for propaganda purposes rather than anything difficult like, y'know...learning. Then there's the good discussion at Theology Web. I'll look around and see what else I can find at other BB's Anyway, all of this has to be brought together at some point to show the pattern of pseudoscience and deception inherent in Sanford's efforts. It's a largish task, but manageable when broken down into parts. Febble has to be one of the clearest and most logical writers I have come across. afDave hasn't changed at all.

Date: 2009/07/28 21:45:56, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Even starting Noah it would be less generations because didn't people live for hundreds of years in those days? But I agree that the response that there was superfast evolution in those days as they had to diversify from the few animals on the ark to all of the diversity we see now.

Date: 2009/08/03 07:05:14, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

some notable events: Lockout of the Baylor cafeteria. Marines incident Dembski getting destroyed by ERV at one of his talks Street theatre

Date: 2009/08/04 16:34:50, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (JohnW @ Aug. 04 2009,10:53) Quote (midwifetoad @ Aug. 04 2009,06:43) It seems like just yesterday that ID proponentsists were insisting that it had nothing to do with religion. Now we have a full blown inquisition going, and no one is raising the hammer to slow it down. I guess they could only hold their breath for so long. Coincidentally, this began to happen around the time UD's focus switched from "Is too science!  Teach it in teh skools!" to "Jebus wants you to buy my book". I think that the ID leaders realised that they hadn't convinced anyone who wasn't already on the religious right about ID. Also they realised that a lot of people on the religious right don't like anything that doesn't mention Jesus eleventy seven times (or rails against liberals). Simple economics really

Date: 2009/08/06 19:10:10, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (JohnW @ Aug. 06 2009,16:09) Quote (carlsonjok @ Aug. 06 2009,13:57) Quote (dvunkannon @ Aug. 06 2009,15:34)   Quote (midwifetoad @ Aug. 06 2009,16:22) Wouldn't Front Loading counteract Genetic Entropy? Enquiring minds want to know. I would have expected Front Loading to be killed by Genetic Entropy, kind of like Godzilla vs Mothra. I disagree.  God The Disembodied Telic Designer Entity is omniscient.  So he would have front-loaded The Fall genetic entropy into Adam and Eve the original genome. God did whatever creationists need God to have did to support their current argument.  If they need God to have did something contradictory in some other debate, or at a different point of the same debate, well, God did that too.  God can do that.  He's God. I'd love to see this quote dropped into the conversation at UD and see the reaction although StephenB problem wouldn't see anything wrong with the argument.

Date: 2009/08/09 19:37:41, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Happy Birthday

Date: 2009/08/12 18:31:10, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (midwifetoad @ Aug. 12 2009,15:07) Quote Dear Cousin Stuart, Nice to see you posting at UD. There must be something in those Dodgen genes that predisposes us to software engineering, and recognizing the illogical and evidence-deprived nonsense propagated by Darwinists. Entropy? I call sock. The writing style is too much like Gils

Date: 2009/08/13 16:44:06, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Forgive my fearfully bad memory but didn't Kevin come here indicating that he accepted evolution but we must allow for some alternative explanations. Its a huge drop from there to supporting Dr Dino or is Kevin just another troll lying for Jesus.

Date: 2009/08/13 17:52:27, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Richardthughes @ Aug. 13 2009,17:08) Quote (dheddle @ Aug. 13 2009,16:18) Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Aug. 13 2009,14:27) It looks like we will have Kevin Miller to kick around some more. He's scriptwriting a film trying to make heroic the life of exceptional loon and religious antievolutionist Kent Hovind.       Quote Resurrection Pictures was founded in 2006 as the first—and possibly the only—501©(3) non-profit, tax-exempt ministry with a mission to produce and distribute Christian-themed entertainment for movie theaters worldwide.  This Christian film ministry is shaping the future of the faith-based film industry by investing in the work of others who share a vision to create high-quality, culturally relevant entertainment options that share the Gospel message.  In September 2009, Resurrection Pictures is partnering in the release of "The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry"—a heartwarming coming-of-age story about three 12-year-old boys who are shown how to apply Scripture to daily struggles—and is a 2009 Silver Sponsor of the 168 Hour Film Project & Festival.  Creation, Resurrection Pictures’ first original film project— a humorous and tearful story of a high school biology teacher’s struggle to expose the lie of evolution, based on the life of creation evangelist Dr. Kent Hovind and written by Kevin Miller the writer of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" is scheduled for production in 2010. Uh, Kevin, it hasn't been produced yet, so you could actually work to correct the errors we know you've written in so far. After all, we know your idea of "research". We'll give you a hand, I'm sure. Just post excerpts and after we get done laughing, we'll explain why going with your draft would continue your reputation as a laughingstock. First hint: Calling Kent Hovind "Dr." isn't doing yourself any favors. Have you read Hovind's "dissertation" as distributed by Patriot University? I have. I nominate Richard Hughes to play Dr. Hovind--Rich has that certain je ne sais quoi. My noble brow will not pass for antipodean criminal stock. harrumph! I thought than Ham was the Aussie, Don't tell me that there are two from my shores.

Date: 2009/08/14 19:55:41, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Richardthughes @ Aug. 13 2009,18:20) Quote (MichaelJ @ Aug. 13 2009,17:52) I thought than Ham was the Aussie, Don't tell me that there are two from my shores. Crap. I confused them. MIA KULPER phew!

Date: 2009/08/14 20:12:33, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Richardthughes @ Aug. 14 2009,19:59) MichaelJ, are you related to Henry J? yes, but we don't like to talk about THAT side of the family, especially after the incident with the goat and Sister Virtue J

Date: 2009/08/14 20:20:03, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Erasmus, FCD @ Aug. 14 2009,10:36) Quote 7 –> The following Sunday, the tomb is open and empty, and the former occupant, over the following forty days, appears to, eats and converses with his friends, family and followers, including making breakfast and having a fairly public meeting with over 500. 8 –> These 500 become the core of a culture-transforming movement that was unstoppable by even fire and sword. How do you know the resurrection happened? There were 500 witnesses to Jesus rising from the dead. What evidence is there for the 500 witnesses? It is in the Bible. How do we know that the Bible is true? It is the word of God. How do we know it is the word of God? There were 500 witnesses to Jesus rising from the dead. WTF

Date: 2009/08/18 16:18:03, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Hey Dawk and PZ are coming downunder next March. I'll be heading down to Melbourne for the show, if there are enough ATBCers there for a Quorum, we could meet for a coffee or something.

Date: 2009/08/19 00:18:44, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (paragwinn @ Aug. 18 2009,23:41) Quote (didymos @ Aug. 01 2009,01:05) Ahahahahahahaahahahahaha!1!one!! GilDodgen is a tard (bolding mine):     Quote Completely and totally off-topic: From time to time I Google my name to check out the latest vitriol and abject hatred directed at me by Darwinists. I was amazed to discover that there is a reference to my Masters thesis, written in French in 1977, about the great French aviation pioneer and author, Antoine de Saint Exupéry. His best known work is The Little Prince. At that time I was pursuing degrees in music and foreign language and literature, and building and flying hang gliders on the weekends. Saint Exupéry was an inspiration, for obvious reasons, so I read his entire opus in French and wrote my thesis on his life and literature. Here is what I would like to know: To the best of my knowledge, there are only two copies of my Masters thesis — one in my personal library and one in the library archives at Washington State University. How did this end up on the Internet? http://openlibrary.org/b/OL167.....pe%CC%81ry Here’s a link about Saint Exupéry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.....up%C3%A9ry Anyone wanna try and get a copy of Gildo's thesis? While trying to get caught up on posts here, I came across this one above and checked the out the first link regarding the Exupéry paper. It has an, uh, interesting "book cover" associated with it. Ha Ha Ha Ha

Date: 2009/08/19 01:27:58, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (jswilkins @ Aug. 18 2009,20:27) Quote (MichaelJ @ Aug. 19 2009,07:18) Hey Dawk and PZ are coming downunder next March. I'll be heading down to Melbourne for the show, if there are enough ATBCers there for a Quorum, we could meet for a coffee or something. Chris Nedin, Ian Musgrave and I will be there, forcing PZ to drink designer beer. I don't know Chris but you and Ian are another two good reasons to turn up. However, any event with The Dawk and PZ in attendance would be packed to the rafters. I forwarded the link to my wife saying I wanted to go (more  as a joke as we can't really afford it) but not only did she say yes, she is keen to listen to the talks herself.

Date: 2009/08/19 17:45:36, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (k.e.. @ Aug. 19 2009,12:44) Quote (Erasmus @ FCD,Aug. 19 2009,19:27) Quote 4 William Dembski 08/19/2009 11:09 am Sal Gal: “He definitely did not present it as that.” Quite right, he did not present it — as in portray it – as a targeted search. But in his articulation, it was a targeted search and our critique applies. Squatney: I would re-read the paper. I know your side has quibbled about our characterization of Dawkins’ algorithm (which he did not clearly lay out in THE BLIND WATCHMAKER) as to whether it locks in correct characters or allows for their random alteration after they’ve been achieved. As I showed here, it doesn’t really matter. and he sends you to the 16 march 2009 post "Dawkins’ WEASEL: Proximity Search With or Without Locking?" where he does not show anything of the sort.  In that post he claims that Dawkins manipulated the code for the video in order to make it look 'unlatched'.  of course this is what spawned Gordon Mullings to have an apoplectic fit in which he spewed out the character count equivalent of 7 dissertations, and the content count of the back of a cereal box. Dembski has found new lows!  for this we should rejoice!  but i do believe i would rather see more flash animation than him attempting to do what he cannot possibly do, that is use science to justify his religious beliefs.  Stay Clowny, b-b-b-b-b-b-bill!!!! One wonders why Billy didn't cite Mullings and I'm sure Gordo hisself will be wondering the same. After all Billy boy and him are peers and teh new way of ID for thrith in science and resurection of culture needs all the logos of men like Mullings and his mission to save No Free Information for the likes of Jerry etc. Expect a new cancer cure from cutting edge Dembski genetic algorithms....if he can figure out what they are. If you have a tumor on you hair ID tells you chances are better than 10-150 that it's designed and a dilute solution of peroxide will remove the hair tumor and your finger prints too if you don't use gloves. Read all about it in "Hair Dressers Monthly" or tune into "Days of Our Lives" for a charged look at "Intelligent Design" in action, or heavy petting...whateva. Dense can raffle free copies of Billz book for the first creative use of Billies new paragim. ............yawn. I'm sure that GUM of TOOTHY will be wondering just that and not connect that DrDr never reads the blog. I also wonder if the moderators will be dragged over the carpet for letting the riff-raff in,

Date: 2009/08/21 22:42:28, Link 202.139.23.225

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Gunthernacus @ Aug. 21 2009,20:24) GillyD on the hoax thread:   Quote I was extraordinarily blessed by public education, in a small town called Pullman, Washington (in an era gone by, the 1950s and 1960s). My teachers were almost all terrific. I remember: My junior-high science teacher, who spent extra time after school explaining things to me that I did not understand. My high-school French teacher who gave me a love of foreign language and literature. My high-school math teacher who inspired me. Our choir director, whose choirs I accompanied on the piano. All of these teachers had very high standards, and for that I am grateful. From GillyD's post, "The Atheism Delusion: The Destructive Power of Materialist Indoctrination ":   Quote I was an atheist, brainwashed by the establishment, into my 40s. I got a triple dose of indoctrination: from the public schools, from the secular environment in which I grew up (a small college town, surrounded by intellectual university types), and from the university itself. Tard. Atheist until his Forties? I can understand somebody becoming a deist of a theist at that age but you would have thought that an normal person would have developed enough common sense to avoid becoming a creationist at that age.

Date: 2009/08/24 17:21:22, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Happy Happy Happy Joy Joy Joy Happy Happy Happy Joy Joy Joy Happy Happy Happy Joy Joy Joy Happy Happy Happy Joy Joy Joy Happy Happy Happy Joy Joy Joy Happy Happy Happy Joy Joy Joy Happy Happy Happy To Blipey!

Date: 2009/08/24 23:30:07, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Erasmus, FCD @ Aug. 24 2009,21:20) Quote 36 bornagain77 08/24/2009 6:00 pm Dave, To be honest with you,,I have debated atheists for several years now,,,I usually have been polite to the point of fault,,, in return I have for the majority of times been maligned, cussed, ridiculed, threatened with death and all sorts of evil response,,,all for sticking to the truth of the evidence and proving evolution wrong with the best of what ability I have been given,,,Though you may take me for being rude with you, I am actually trying my very best to wake you from the deception you are in,,, for I figure a few hurt feelings by you now will be far better than the consequences of being separated from God eternally,,,Maybe I am wrong to be this way with you,,,every one is different,,,but truly I am not meaning it personally,,, first of all, what in the feck is ,,, about?  this sombitch is crazier than a damn shot she-hawg second, Dave Wisker's got a girlfriend, dave wisker's got a girlfriend neener neener neener Wasn't his debating style cutting and pasting some rubbish and then either running off refusing to answer questions or to start abusing everybody.

Date: 2009/08/27 01:06:35, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (deadman_932 @ Aug. 26 2009,22:06) Seventhded ( Onlookers!! : now with more FSCI'd goodnessytude ) It's even in Fortran

Date: 2009/08/27 16:26:32, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (deadman_932 @ Aug. 27 2009,15:36) Quote (oldmanintheskydidntdoit @ Aug. 27 2009,15:04) I can't decide - pompous arsehole or arrogant fuck-wit? StephenB to R0B:       Quote Obviously, you are unaware of the metaphysical foundations for modern science. Normally, I would recommend a book, but in this case, I think it would be futile. The comment is worth reading in it's entirety just to see how deep the hole is that StephenB has dug for himself.     Quote In any case, why would irrational Darwinists be impressed when I expose their irrationality? Expose it to who StephenB? It's UD. A standing joke in the reality based community. I really, really would have liked to get StephenB to "discuss" things with me at TheologyWeb, but he did everything he could to avoid that. It would have been nice to have him in an arena where he wasn't protected by his fellow UD-ites. Eh. You'd think they'd have the ethics to actually emerge from the piss-stained panties of Clive every once in a while. OMFSM, how can you go through life being so ignorant. Even if he was home schooled has he never seen a documentary in his life?

Date: 2009/08/29 19:16:13, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Erasmus, FCD @ Aug. 29 2009,18:49) BarryHole gets one in filed under "Intelligent Design".   not Humor not Street Theater not materialist-baiting this really does justify "intelligent design" for this ignoramus Quote 29 August 2009 Dinnertime Design Detection Barry Arrington Last evening I was talking to a friend about how my dad had to learn morse code when he was in the navy, and he related a funny design detection story (not that he put it in those terms). My friend had a cousin (we’ll call him Bill), and when he was a teenager Bill developed a nervous tapping habit, or so everyone thought.  One evening Bill’s family had an older couple over for dinner, and Bill was tapping away when both guests got red in the face and exclaimed “Bill!  What are you doing?”  It turns out Bill had been learning morse code and tapping on the table for practice.  The problem:  He was practicing with four letter words, and no one knew until the family invited two retired Western Union operators to dinner! Thus, the God of the Bible.   ALL SCIENCE SO FAR So thereby proving that design detection doesn't work unless you know about the designer (Samuel Morse in this case).

Date: 2009/08/31 00:04:48, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Lou FCD @ Aug. 30 2009,22:24) Quote (RDK @ Aug. 30 2009,21:41) Quote (Ptaylor @ Aug. 30 2009,19:30) DO'L:     Quote It all sounds a bit hysterical to me, and well below Dawkins’s usual standard of writing. Words (almost) fail me. As if she's ever read a paragraph of anything written by Dawkins.  And I mean actually read, not glance over the first couple lines and then go right back to jacking herself off with Dembski's hand. The best was when she read the cover of The Selfish Gene and then ranted about how genes don't have feelings or somesuch. Carlson, find me a link, babe. That was some classic TARD, right there. A couple of years ago she was on Australian radio debating a local sceptic. D'OL was basically "Dawkins Dawkins Dawkins Dawkins Dawkins Dawkins" Sceptic - Have you read blah blah by Dawkins? D'OL - I haven't read any Dawkins because I find him irrelevant and not a deep thinker.

Date: 2009/09/01 19:29:57, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Quack @ Sep. 01 2009,06:50) Quote I have often advocated a boycott at UD by ID critics as the undiluted stupidity of commenters like Gordon, upright biped, BA^77  et alis would stand out more starkly without sane commenters giving the impression that there are ID arguments worthy of rebuttal. Why not try an experiment on a smaller scale? I suggest nobody responds to nul's threads or comments. And, since, as Oleg points out, he is congenitally unable to concede points, the saving of wasted time is also a bonus! I've often been thinking similar thoughts. It would be an interesting experiment to leave the UcD and TT crowds to themselves for, say a month or so and see what would happen. I believe we might get some laughs out of that too. (After all, the purpose of UcD is to "serve the ID community.") I think that poking them with sticks is the best course. Before UD became more open, I always thought that most IDists were reasonably intelligent but misguided. Now anybody looking at the threads can see that ALL of them are Batshit crazy. I think that if you did a study of the posters at UD and removed the anti-IDists and the obvious Poes that the number of real posters at UD has dropped compared to six months ago.

Date: 2009/09/01 20:09:50, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Best wishes for the day. Michael

Date: 2009/09/01 21:00:22, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Maya @ Sep. 01 2009,18:00) We can add "tautology" to the long list of concepts Clive baby doesn't understand:   Quote So, to give an anology, to give any positive number, is to say that it is more than zero. That’s not a tautology, for the positive number isn’t all positive numbers, it is a specific number, a specific amount. It’s not exhaustive, so it’s not a tautology, because it is not all numbers, but rather a specific number. These guys are at their funniest when they have to defend DrDr. They are like bad contenstants on theatre sports: Clive - your scenario is that you are an IDist and somebody has ripped your leaders argument to shreds. You have 4 lines to create the lamest response you can think of.

Date: 2009/09/02 16:42:31, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Happy Birthday and Happy Tibet Democracy day.

Date: 2009/09/02 16:59:25, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Erasmus, FCD @ Sep. 02 2009,09:15) wesley it's too late to send you my firstborn but i can arrange to have the firstborn of others sent to you for your ceremonial nefariosities ETA on other notes, how is that gordon mullings never has heart attacks?  seems like tard that great must stress the machine that produces it.  that latest screed is some seriously hysterical horsefeathers.  there is no reasonable naive person in the world who would take that poor dumb bastard seriously so perhaps that is a gift. i would like to see him fight a bathtub full of ice or better yet BARRET BROWN  why don't you do a story on Gordon E Mullings of Montserrat the mad ID scientist preacher???? that would be faaaaaaaaaantastic.  there are plenty of web crumbs I think an article on KF would be a little too much like making fun of the mentally ill.

Date: 2009/09/06 18:01:10, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (midwifetoad @ Sep. 06 2009,09:49) Quote If the blind-watchmaker thesis is correct for biological evolution, all of these artificial constraints must be eliminated. Every aspect of the simulation, both hardware and software, must be subject to random errors. Of course, this would result in immediate disaster and the extinction of the CPU, OS, simulation program, and the programmer, who would never get funding for further realistic simulation experiments. Someone propose the following thought experiment to Gil: Create a simulation that runs on a virtual machine. I'm sure he understands the concept. The virtual machine includes the OS, hardware drivers, and programs. All of this will reside in memory, but this is the only feasible way to run his kind of simulation. To make it possible, the virtual machine would be somewhat less complex than Windows. Perhaps a few thousand bytes. I think the early Apple and Radio Shack computers implemented Basic in under 4K. I think you could easily make a VM that requires much less. A VM would consist of an interpreter and code, and both would be subject to mutation. Since abiogenesis is not the issue being explored, the starting VM would be a self replicator. It would divide, producing imperfect copies of itself. The division and mutation process could affect both "children." The VMs would exist in a sea of memory, perhaps a turbulent sea that sloshes around, separating the individuals so replications don't always sit on other individuals. Although this could happen. Perhaps individuals need a virtual membrane. My first thought is that something like this has probably already been done. I don't follow the details of the various simulation programs, but I'd be surprised if someone hasn't tried this. My second thought is that Gill wouldn't accept this, because the "real" OS isn't affected. It does remind me of an related project. The GAs are based around machine code. You started with a population random byte arrays and the processor attempts to read the byte string as instructions. Usually you have a target (such as finding the square root of a number loaded into a register) but you could mix this with another game from the eighties "Core War" where each individual attempts to kill the other members of the population by moving around memory and putting stop codes in other individual's code. You would change the code by putting in random mutations. In this scenario you don't need to code the reproduction code as the programs should develop the ability to reproduce to protect the "genome" against being killed by competitors or by random mutations

Date: 2009/09/07 00:02:23, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Zachriel @ Sep. 04 2009,21:24) Quote Bradford: object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. I wish to emphasize that the subject matter to which the law refers- objects, motion, direction, speed and force- were all commonly observed phenomenon prior to Newton's formulation. It was well known that objects tend to come to rest, not keep in motion. If the horse stops pulling the wagon it will eventually come to rest. That's the observation. It was careful experiments by Galileo that teased out what we call inertia, Newton's First Law of Motion. You think it's intuitive, but like the round Earth, it's simply the result of familiarity with the concept. Gee, that's one of the things I remember from high school physics that it used to be *obvious* that everything eventually stops.

Date: 2009/09/08 20:47:37, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

I think that you could for almost any subject without compartmentalizing. You just need to remember by rote all of the stuff. I think that knowing how oil formed and why it is found is such and such a strata can certainly help, but a person could just as learn that oil is found in these conditions. When I did mechanical engineering we had people who just remember the equations but wouldn't have the faintest idea on how to derive the equations which I think is a similar mindset. What these people will never do is advance knowledge.

Date: 2009/09/09 21:26:43, Link 202.139.23.130

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Quack @ Sep. 09 2009,16:20) Quote Yet another outlet for IDCists to dissipate their energy (as opposed to doing science):  A blog "satirizing scientism" that's about as funny as syphilis. Pox on you, evoswine! So lame - they do humour worse than they do science

Date: 2009/09/12 17:07:22, Link 202.139.22.131

Author: MichaelJ

DLH doesn't need to do no steenking calculations. Jesus told him so.

Date: 2009/09/19 02:09:55, Link 202.139.22.131

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (sledgehammer @ Sep. 18 2009,17:11) Quote (sparc @ Sep. 17 2009,21:36) Dembski           Quote I receive a mention next to one of the slides — apparently the emergence of nylonase is supposed to provide empirical disconfirmation of my theoretical work on specified complexity (Miller has been taking this line for years). For my response about nylonase, which the critics never cite, go here. If you go ther you will find something hilarious:           Quote The problem with this argument is that Miller fails to show that the construction/evolution of nylonase from its precursor actually requires CSI at all. As I develop the concept, CSI requires a certain threshold of complexity to be achieved (500 bits, as I argue in my book No Free Lunch). It’s not at all clear that this threshold is achieved here (certainly Miller doesn’t compute the relevant numbers). Did Dembski ever calculated such numbers himself? By the Durston/Axe method of calculating functional sequence specificity in protein configuration space, namely: (negative base 2 log of the ratio of the number of sequences with a specified functionality, to the total number of possible sequences) - any protein or enzyme that is longer than 250 aa can have over 500 bits of "Functional Information" (by their definition); -even if it is a near duplicate of another extant sequence, even if different by only a single amino acid- as long as it enables a novel, specifiable function (like digesting Nylon).  Since evolution can easily produce just such a sequence, It appears that Dembski and Co. have specified themselves into a proverbial corner. Isn't his default position that everything is 500 bits until somebody proves that it isn't

Date: 2009/09/22 02:45:26, Link 202.139.22.131

Author: MichaelJ

I tend to give these guys the benefit of the doubt but after doing a bit of reading on his blog I am 100% convinced that the Kirk is outright lying.

Date: 2009/09/22 16:33:49, Link 202.139.22.131

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Turncoat @ Sep. 23 2009,07:13) Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Sep. 20 2009,16:49)   Quote (Zachriel @ Sep. 20 2009,14:44)     Quote (DiEb @ Sep. 20 2009,14:03) 2: For his interview, Dawkins needed the program to run for ~ 2000 generations. This could be achieved by the combination (10 children, 4% mutation rate) But I suppose that Dawkins just fooled around a little bit with his program to get an optimal number of runs, i.e., the program was running during the length of his interview… Is that correct? Dawkins seems to be showing all the children, not just the parents. It's slower because it takes time to display on the antique system he's using. [...] I think the number 2485 comes up at the end of the video as the number of individuals. If that is the case, Dawkins likely did have to find fairly particular parameters in order to terminate in the short time of the video sequence, and the slow display system likely did have an impact on that. I think I posted some numbers here before on the likely parameter space the video run's parameters were taken from. My previous comment regarding Weasel2 was wrong. I should have used Wolfram's MathWorld rather than Wikipedia to get the mean of the negative binomial distribution. Wikipedia explains the r parameter incorrectly. The mean number of trials required for an uphill step is (1 - p) / p, not 2 * (1 - p) / p. The mean number of trials for Weasel2 to reach the target is about 2900. In simulation, 12% of runs require 2485 or fewer trials. My apologies for not double-checking my work prior to posting here. Don't give in so easily. Don't admit a mistake until you have written 20 3000 word posts and then hide it in the middle of a 15000 word post

Date: 2009/09/24 01:19:59, Link 202.139.22.131

Author: MichaelJ

Sidewiki doesn't work on Chrome!

Date: 2009/09/26 17:25:14, Link 202.139.22.131

Author: MichaelJ

I think that at the end of the day it is bums on seats. You don't know what is going on inside his head but a large part of it would be that Ken Ham is a crowd puller. The moment that they sense that their congregations are dropping because of their archaic ideas a lot of them will flip. I think that we saw this with global warming. I get the sense that a few evangelical leaders flipped from "God wouldn't allow global warming and it is our duty to rape the planet" to "God requires us to be good stewards of the environment" because people starting wandering off. People will shop for the religion that fits their predisposed ideas and the combination of people laughing at creationists and other religions accepting evolution may create a market share for people who think evolution is ok but Obama is still the anti-Christ.

Date: 2009/10/06 15:07:31, Link 202.139.23.193

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (BillB @ Oct. 07 2009,02:56) Quote (Turncoat @ Oct. 06 2009,16:59) Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Oct. 06 2009,05:42)   Quote (Turncoat @ Oct. 05 2009,18:56)     Quote (sledgehammer @ Oct. 05 2009,18:06)       Quote (Turncoat @ Oct. 05 2009,15:57) The latest at Bounded Science:               Quote Resolving a moral dilemma I made a promise to Bob Marks that I would not divulge my correspondence with him regarding drafts of the paper that IEEE SMC-A published last month. But I did not know that he and Dembski would resort to trickery to get the paper published, and, after considerable agonizing, I've decided that the better course is to break my word. False attribution of partitioned search to Dawkins is the not the full extent of the academic dishonesty in the article. This is the first I've heard of sneaky tactics or trickery in the path to publication.  Any details you can share? Give us dirty laundry!  We like dirty laundry. Another blog entry is on the way. Omitting the names of the two evolutionary algorithms, as well as neglecting to cite the relevant literature, was a trick to keep the editors and reviewers from scrutinizing the redundant and/or worthless analysis Dembski and Marks provided. If there had been explicit mention of evolutionary algorithms, the editor-in-chief might have handed the paper off to a different associate editor, and the associate editor might have lined up better-informed reviewers. I had already blocked out to have a section on the neologism issue in my response, but hadn't really taken it to the academic dishonesty conclusion. I was thinking more in terms of how it was another way that poor scholarship was expressed. I'm a bit worried that lodging academic dishonesty complaints will fire up the old "expelled" propaganda mill. I really will listen to arguments against doing it. I agree that a complaint would present an opportunity for them to cry conspiracy but it would also be a shame to let them get away with academic dishonesty ... tricky one. The alternative I suppose is to refute the paper from a technical standpoint through academic journals, and try and hint at the possible dishonesty through that means. Whatever happens there will be claims of a conspiracy to expell ID (Even though the paper isn't about ID) and the paper will be hailed as peer reviewed research supporting ID. I can't see the reason to tip-toe around. Think about the undecided middle. If you do a technical criticism, the undecided uninformed may just read it as taking DrDr seriously (and this may include IEEE themselves). Without background how are they to know whether you are critiquing details or are calling the paper a load of old bollocks. I'd say call it dishonest scholarship, the IEEE would probably not publish them again. Also it is a simpler concept to understand for somebody randomly googling Dembski. Sure they will play the martyr card but still both stories are out there, otherwise there is only Dembski braying that he has a published paper.

Date: 2009/10/08 17:03:49, Link 202.139.23.193

Author: MichaelJ

The US is really turning into 2 nations isn't it. The Barrys and Clives of your country have their own history, science, TV channels, web sites etc. UD is one of the few interfaces and even there reality has a hard time to poke its head through.

Date: 2009/10/09 16:50:10, Link 202.139.23.193

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Richardthughes @ Oct. 10 2009,06:51) New socks will emerge. This thread makes Barry look so unhinged I suspect a 404 / server burp is on the way. Any sort of reasoned dialogue with them makes them look assclowns, and it needs to happen for that reason. I think that they are oblivious to how stupid they look. Stephen has had the same discussion before and it made no difference then and it will make no difference now.

Date: 2009/10/13 15:47:39, Link 202.139.23.193

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Henry J @ Oct. 14 2009,06:35) I wonder if the heat from cities is really all that negligible on a planet wide scale, or is that a significant factor? I think the argument runs that a lot of weather stations in the US were out in the countryside originally and eventually the nearest city has grown to be near them so that the readings are now affected by the Urban heating effect. This argument in itself has been refuted and also ignores all of the other ways that climate has been measured.

Date: 2009/10/16 22:46:57, Link 202.139.23.193

Author: MichaelJ

I saw Vox's 'Irrational Atheist' book in our library. It surprised me that this drivel would find it's way into a small Australian regional library. It was right next to "The God Delusion"

Date: 2009/10/17 01:26:19, Link 202.139.23.193

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Reg @ Oct. 17 2009,04:36) In "Freud down, Darwin next?" David Coppedge tells me something I never knew before:   Quote Sigmund Freud had immeasurable impact on modern culture. ...  His theories (based largely on Darwinism) brought new words into popular vocabulary–id, ego, super-ego, the unconscious. Freud based his theories "largely on Darwinism"? How in the name of the sweet baby Jesus did Coopedge come up with that? Anything that is not based on Jesus is based on Darwin dontchaknow

Date: 2009/10/30 22:54:10, Link 202.139.23.193

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (olegt @ Oct. 31 2009,12:48) Here is a complete list of publications of Gil "the professional scientist" Dodgen (according to ISI Web of Science): [1] E. Trice and G. Dodgen, The perfect 7-piece checkers database, ICGA Journal 26, 229-238 (2003).  Abstract. That's actually not that bad by ID standards. Second billing too.

Date: 2009/10/30 22:59:53, Link 202.139.23.193

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (MichaelJ @ Oct. 31 2009,13:54) Quote (olegt @ Oct. 31 2009,12:48) Here is a complete list of publications of Gil "the professional scientist" Dodgen (according to ISI Web of Science): [1] E. Trice and G. Dodgen, The perfect 7-piece checkers database, ICGA Journal 26, 229-238 (2003).  Abstract. That's actually not that bad by ID standards. Second billing too. For my mechanical engineering thesis, I pretty much just wrote a program around an algorithm that somebody else developed. As Gil doesn't seem to have a clue about anything really, I wonder if this is the case here -- somebody came up with the method and told Gil to code it.

Date: 2009/11/05 00:09:55, Link 202.139.23.193

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Doc Bill @ Nov. 05 2009,09:37) Playing along for fun, wouldn't being in an open star cluster be better than being part of a spiral arm? How about a Lone Star?  Even better? Just think, instead of the Lone Star state we could be the Lone Star solar system!  By Jove I like that idea. Imagine being above the galactic core or travelling at 0.99c

Date: 2009/11/07 03:01:17, Link 202.139.23.193

Author: MichaelJ

I wrote a forth interpretor in Z80 assembler for my Amstrad 64k. Do I win the geek prize?

Date: 2009/11/17 00:11:04, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

Didn't Qwok start as a one of the good guys? The first I remember of him was when he did a review of Behe's book and was pwned by the IDiots for not actually reading the book. I remember at that stage quite a few people defended him.

Date: 2009/11/20 03:52:46, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

The interesting thing I always think is that people like Joe think that we must convince them of the validity of the science. Now I know the people here like an argument but the fact for Joe is that ID is losing. There was a surge of interest prior to the Dover case but the poor showing of ID dried that up. Is there any sign that ID is being accepted by anyone who isn't already a creationist? Even Dembski knows this, he doesn't even try anymore. Most of his books are about God and his latest "Paper" was chock full of errors that have been previously pointed out to him. Dembski doesn't care, he can ignore the experts because he makes enough money out of people like you who will support him no matter what he does.

Date: 2009/11/20 03:59:42, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

I'll admit that his ideas are warped but I am sure that he will eventually cotton onto the facts.

Date: 2009/11/20 14:56:26, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

I think that creationists look at life through blurry glasses. With these glasses on the thialacine and the wolf are almost alike. Take the glasses off (compare bone structures internal organs) and you can see that the thialicine and the kangaroo look more alike. Now Darwin did this and quipped when he was in Australia that there must have been a second creator. Darwin doesn't have the blurry glasses on and he saw that though superficially there were similarities between Australian and other animals, they are in fact very different to the Animals on other continents. You don't need fossils, you don't need DNA, you just need a keen mind to see that Bible literalism is bunk.

Date: 2009/11/20 15:09:50, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

The other case of the blurry glasses is flood geology. Way before Darwin, the geologists and civil engineers while trying to make predictions about where to mine or where to build roads/bridges etc. realised that flood geology doesn't make sense. Using no dating methods just using their eyes and brains they saw that the strata were millions of years old and created through a uniform process. Now, real scientists can tell the story of the planet with a great deal of accuracy. We can go anywhere and see when there was a volcano, a sea, a desert etc. They have had 200 hundred years - Creationists have yet to get out of their armchairs.

Date: 2009/11/23 17:28:23, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Robert Byers @ Nov. 24 2009,07:28) Quote (MichaelJ @ Nov. 20 2009,14:56) I think that creationists look at life through blurry glasses. With these glasses on the thialacine and the wolf are almost alike. Take the glasses off (compare bone structures internal organs) and you can see that the thialicine and the kangaroo look more alike. Now Darwin did this and quipped when he was in Australia that there must have been a second creator. Darwin doesn't have the blurry glasses on and he saw that though superficially there were similarities between Australian and other animals, they are in fact very different to the Animals on other continents. You don't need fossils, you don't need DNA, you just need a keen mind to see that Bible literalism is bunk. Darwins wrong. The creatures are alike in thousands of points of the physical body and different in minor points. By the way in south America he got right what today they say he got wrong. in saying some camel shaped creature was a camel while today they say its just a convergent look alike to a camel. In fact marsupials inside or out look 95% the same. Just a few details of the head, teeth, and reproductive organs. All within the ranges of other creatures not said to be different. In fact snakes can bear their young live or by way of eggs. Yet clealy they are the same kind. It's strange how creationists like to prove your point for you. I was saying how creationists fail to do any detailed set of analysis and instead sit in the armchair with the blurry glasses. So what does Robert do? Does he get 100 points of comparison between wolves and Tasmanian wolf and compare then with 100 points of comparison between the Tasmanian Wolf and a Tasmanian Devil and show which is closer. Does he then formulate a hypothesis as to why God decided that Marsupials are better adapted to Australia than placentals. Does he look for similar environments to see if the hypothesis works? Does he examine the fossil evidence that shows where and when this sudden change occured? He might not agree with the dating but shouldn't wolf fossils be found in Tasmania under the marsupial fossils? No, he just waves his magic wand and says that the thousands of scientists that do take the trouble of looking through the evidence, are wrong. I know it is painful in the US at the moment but Creationism will eventually die.

Date: 2009/11/25 05:36:33, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Raevmo @ Nov. 25 2009,19:54) Why is it so important to the fundies that climate change (let alone AGW) isn't happening? Would it somehow reflect badly on Jeebus? Can someone please explain?!? Pick one or more of the following: 1. Because the whiny Liberals believe in it. 2. It would cause them to curtail their lifestyles which is unAmerican 3. Its not in the Bible (ie God wouldn't let it happen)

Date: 2009/11/25 14:17:19, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (someotherguy @ Nov. 25 2009,13:03) Here's a piece of friendly advice for you, Robert:  when your arguments don't even reach the "random YouTube commenter" level of coherence, it's probably time to rethink your whole approach. He's gone. Did you break another one?

Date: 2009/11/26 01:10:40, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (KCdgw @ Nov. 22 2009,22:45) Mung finally mentions the 800-pound gorilla in the room in Sal's thread: Quote My complaint about your model was that it makes ID supporters look stupid, a complaint I think you should take seriously, considering that I am one myself. Is there an amendment to Poe's Law? That any purported creationist that criticizes another creationist for using bad science is an obvious Poe. Creationists only ever argue over interpretations of the scriptures.

Date: 2009/11/26 17:17:24, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

I stated above some reasons for Climate Scepticism but I think that it is the excuses that they used, but it all falls under something that I always think is a little odd. There were just under 50% of Americans who voted for the right, which as an outsider surprises me as a lot of the policies of the right, only actually benefits a relatively few on the right. They might jump up and down about the financial meltdown but generally they will happily support laws that enable big companies to do what they like without hindrance. I wonder how much of the evangelical's beliefs are posthoc rationlisations of successful lobbying efforts by big business.

Date: 2009/11/27 02:58:41, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (deadman_932 @ Nov. 27 2009,14:38) Over at Panda's Thumb , Dan had an interesting set of comments:     Quote "The Discovery Institute alone spent $4,334,124 in 2007.  (Compensation of President Bruce Chapman was $167,486.) The Institute for Creation Research spent $7,057,626. (Including $194,004 as compensation to officers with the last name “Morris”.) Answers in Genesis spent $16,956,626 … of which nearly 1% ($162,188) went straight into Ken Ham’s pocket. As others observed, that's a lot of moolah (eh, a tad over 28.3 million) for producing zero actual science per year. Thanks to Dan for pointing out the latest take of the scam artists. To be honest I don't think that the DI and the ICR are particularly well funded. It might sound okay for funding of an additional lab but when it has to pay for everything (rent, admin etc) it wouldn't go far. Happily I don't think it would also go far in funding their PR machine and pretend science and it is nice to see that the DI is the bottom of the bunch.   Also I am sure that  Ken Ham and Bruce make a lot more money. When they sell a book or give a seminar, I'm sure the lion's share goes into their own pockets.

Date: 2009/11/28 15:53:41, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

Imagine I wrote a book about a movement that has a Journalist who can't write and never checks sources. The story also has an information specialist who can't define information theory properly and always shoots himself in the foot. I'm sure that everybody would think that it was highly unrealistic and cruel and it would never get published.

Date: 2009/11/30 03:57:00, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

definitely a tinnie short of a slab

Date: 2009/11/30 14:32:12, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

Can anybody explain the motivation behind the truthers? I could understand it as a left wing conspiracy theory but the right wing loved Bush at the time.

Date: 2009/12/02 20:24:59, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (JLT @ Dec. 03 2009,02:04) From "Is backwards or forwards time travel really possible?"     Quote 2 Gods iPod: Yes. And I can prove it from the Bible alone :)     Quote 5 Gods iPod: Denise, I’d love to share my theory here, but since I am fairly certain that I am the only person that has ever seen this in the Word, at least among the living and posting thoughts online, I am keeping it to myself for a future book. I know, sounds like a cop-out crackpot*. I would be open to sharing it with you privately. For those that missed my first post. I believe there is a crystal clear example of time travel in the Bible. So clear that when I explain it to you you’ll slap yourself for not having seen it before. I have shown it to about a dozen people, and the reaction is the same each time**, and no one needs to be “convinced” It’s just obvious. Time travel is possible because there's an example of it in the bible. ALL SCIENCE SO FAR. And he is the only one who has ever seen it although "it's just obvious" and "crystal clear". Right. * fixed that for him ** they very carefully back away? Could it be that using historical markers from within the text that 2 gospels have Jesus being born in two different places and quite a few years apart. That a pretty good piece of time travel. Not to mention that the resurrection gospels has Jesus, the women and the apostles doing all kinds of different things at the same time.

Date: 2009/12/03 05:35:29, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

nything.

Date: 2009/12/03 14:37:48, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

Maybe Robert means that we are hiding all of that evidence. Like we stopped Robert showing his detailed studies on how marsupials are the same as wolves.

Date: 2009/12/05 05:22:08, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Dec. 05 2009,18:03) What will be interesting if the CSC case proceeds will be the discovery process as CSC gets subpoena power to request all AFA<->DI emails. The insanity is that DI is shooting itself in the foot by not appearing to be an actual third party. The emails between the AFA and the DI would be interesting

Date: 2009/12/05 12:34:32, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

I'm an engineer and I like the term empirical. Empirical as far as I remember means measurable. The world is full of data and as we create new instruments we find more and more data. Since before recorded history man has tried to interpret this data. Initially, everything had a god behind it but as we got more and more data we could interpret this information and give it natural causes rolling back God(s) to smaller and smaller gaps. Now to me God has basically two forms. One is an active God who gets involved intimately in the world. The second is a God who may have "got the ball rolling" at the start but has not been involved in the world since. The second God we can never detect and never disqualify and will need to be taken on faith forever. The second God will need to fit into one of these gaps and already the gaps are so small that he is looking rather odd. If he poofed creatures into existence he certainly did a bad job of it as many of the designs are extremely jury rigged. Man has been here for a very short time so he has created a very big universe a very long time ago just for us. Now Dembski, Behe etc will tell you that the data already shows the signs of a designer. But repeatably they have demonstrated that they can only do this by ignoring a lot of the data. The recent debate between Meyer etc demonstrated this where data discovered over the last 9 years has pretty much demolished any of the IDists arguments. To me the clincher against the second type of God is that we should find some non-random attributes to what we see as being random. Does any category of human win more/less lotteries, survive cancer, miss tornadoes better than any other kind of human? Now the current bet is that you are some kind of creationist and as I have said this can only be achieved by ignoring or misinterpreting data.

Date: 2009/12/06 01:45:07, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

John, I might have misinterpreted your argument but I can't see why there can't be a god who is a meddler. I agree with Dembski and Behe in this. These guys are dishonest turds but say someone did find a biological structure that had NO possible evolutionary pathways? Or something less subtle such as the stars lining up and saying "Dawkins is wrong".

Date: 2009/12/06 05:20:34, Link 202.139.22.94

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Cubist @ Dec. 06 2009,17:03) Quote (MichaelJ @ Dec. 06 2009,01:45) John, I might have misinterpreted your argument but I can't see why there can't be a god who is a meddler. I agree with Dembski and Behe in this. These guys are dishonest turds but say someone did find a biological structure that had NO possible evolutionary pathways? Or something less subtle such as the stars lining up and saying "Dawkins is wrong". John wasn't denying the possibility that a meddling, trickster-type god could exist; rather, he was speaking of whether or not this "god"-thingie is something us puny humans can use science to investigate. We can study god, we are already doing it in a negative way. Over the last couple of hundred years we have knocked out a whole raft of possible gods. If there is any positive evidence that will give us a whole raft of information about god.

Date: 2009/12/07 13:23:17, Link 202.139.21.156

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Arden Chatfield @ Dec. 08 2009,03:48) Quote But this type of speciation does not result in a new species. I'm dazzled. Inquiry, you do realize that this is what you're actually saying?: Quote When a new species is created, it doesn't result in a new species. I think that he means biblical 'kinds'. So, harking back to the other discussion what 'kind' is a tasmanian wolf? A Kangaroo kind or a wolf kind and please show working. As we have quite detailed fossils of the evolution of a whale from a land beastie, what kind is a whale? Is it a cow or a fish? What does the fact that Inquiry requiring a detailed video of a species changing 'kind' have to do with his original question. As far as I can see all he is saying is gap in knowledge == God. The worse thing is that he seems pretty ignorant on the science, but then if he wasn't he wouldn't be a creationist.

Date: 2009/12/08 05:05:17, Link 202.139.21.156

Author: MichaelJ

What kind is tiktaalik? You could flip a coin but in any case the distance between it and a fish or it and an amphibian is smaller than the difference within some of your kinds.

Date: 2009/12/08 23:01:23, Link 202.139.21.156

Author: MichaelJ

Well Robert, waving your hands and saying that the differences are minor when the science shows detailed analysis and show that the differences are not minor means ... You Lose... Science is not a debate. Science is data and evidence, you have shown neither except for assertions, so You Lose... Until you get out of your armchair and do some work you are a  Loser. No wonder atheism is growing. People like you say that it is either creationism or atheism. When creationism fails to answer the data people take you at your word.

Date: 2009/12/09 14:33:48, Link 202.139.21.156

Author: MichaelJ

These guys need to go back to kindergarten

Date: 2009/12/13 13:59:11, Link 202.139.21.156

Author: MichaelJ

I have some questions: Is it normal for a professor to have so many publicity shots of themselves? Is it normal for a scientific paper to be so jokey?

Date: 2009/12/14 22:01:31, Link 202.139.21.156

Author: MichaelJ

It's strange. Marks seems to be a narcissist but he is keeping a relatively low profile in the ID world. It seems that only ATBC knows that he is a creationist. I wondered is they planned this. Get Marks to author the papers and get them published because he is unknown.

Date: 2009/12/15 03:10:51, Link 202.139.21.156

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Robert Byers @ Dec. 15 2009,18:05) Quote (George @ Dec. 13 2009,09:28) Robert, while I'm here, I'll add that your arguments make baraminologists look like freaking geniuses.  At least they try to crunch a few numbers to justify their definitions of a "kind".  Have a look at Creation Science Quarterly (can't be arsed to provide you with the link).  There's a paper there by Todd Woods who identifies the family Canidae as a "kind" with no inclusion of Tasmanian wolves or any other marsupial.  This was based on analysis of a number of morphological characters, not just the "'cause it looks like one" and "it's got 'wolf' in the name" criteria. Now don't get me wrong, baraminology and created "kinds" are just so much rubbish.  But your brand of rubbish makes theirs smell oh-so-sweet.  If you want to do anything other than display your own foolishness, such as having a coherent discussion, you'll need to step up the level of your argumentation and the evidence you provide. These creationists would be wrong. not right about everything although farther along then 'others". I wrote a essay and made my case there. Remember its not about words but about rejecting the conclusion of evolutionists that convergent evolution explains the fantastic and prolific instances of creatures in different orders looking the same but said to be unrelated. Marsupials are just another case. i focus on them as they are more known. My evidence is excellent. In fact convergent concepts are my evidence. I then put in a twist. Evidence I see no evidence. You have done nothing more than so "is not" to anybody who has presented evidence. Quantify the differences ... Otherwise you are a loser

Date: 2009/12/21 19:29:34, Link 202.139.21.156

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (CeilingCat @ Dec. 21 2009,20:35) How the ID world works, Part 1: GrannyTard:   Quote I am a Canadian free speech journalist But you have no free speech, at least on UD. To be fair has she ever personally banned anyone? I think that she is probably pretty oblivious to what is happening at UD and buys the line that people are banned for rudeness rather than to hide embarrassing arguments. I do think that she is a loathsome bigot in almost every other area.

Date: 2009/12/23 16:40:52, Link 202.139.23.220

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (FloydLee @ Dec. 24 2009,06:51) Quote But when it has been said that this is going to happen while some of you are still alive... Not "...this IS going to happen while some of you are still alive", but instead "...this COULD happen while some of you are still alive."  Very big difference. That's the point that has now been fully established by rationally examining the actual text and context of the 1 Thessalonians Rapture text.  The biblical evidence is clear at this point unless anybody has anything else to offer. Quote As far as I am concerned, unless you can prove it is true, my claim that it is false stands. I would ask why "your claim that it is false stands", given that Chay was the only person who brought up any kind of rational point in support of your claim that the 1 Thessalonians text was a lie.  Now that Chay's specific point has been critically examined in light of the clear biblical text and its context, and visibiy refuted on both counts, I see no rational reason to consider the Rapture text a lie. Floyd Lee The clear text meaning in any translation was the expectation that it would occur within the current generation. I've seen the apologetics to this as well and it is only achieved by giving certain words meanings that are shared nowhere else in the Bible. I think it is convincing to somebody who is desperate to hang on to a literal interpretation of the Bible but to the rest of us it is just funny.

Date: 2009/12/26 04:45:46, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (didymos @ Dec. 26 2009,18:20) Gawd, StephenB is one thick son of a bitch:     Quote Should I ask the question yet a fourth time? How can you do science absent the law of causality? If one thing can come into existence without a cause, why not a thousand things, why not a million things? How can you interpret evidence reasonably if you can’t know which things were caused and which things were not caused? There's this thing called 'observation', Steve.  You do it, and are able to figure out whether or not something has an identifiable cause, or likely does based on the presence of a pattern or somesuch other observed regularity or similarity to something else you've observed.  Then, you keep doing it, and are hopefully able to figure out various laws and processes. This works pretty well, given that cause-and-effect seems to be the rule for the most part...which we know because that's what we observe. Now here's the tricky bit:  if you can't identify the cause of a given event you...keep observing until you (or some other individual) can figure out what's going on (or at least get a rough idea).  If it turns out there is no observable Cause X for Event Y and/or your best theory tells you there ain't one to be found, well...you make note of the exception...and keep fucking observing anyway.  Yay! Science is saved from certain doom! Without going to the site and feeling nauseous , I think that he is talking about ultimate cause. As in, Science can't give the answer to the ultimate cause of the universe therefore baby jesus is true.

Date: 2010/01/02 16:08:55, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Quack @ Jan. 03 2010,02:32) Quote (Dr.GH @ Jan. 02 2010,11:16)   Quote (Quack @ Jan. 02 2010,01:40) Re. RDK's post above, for your convenience a working link:         Quote Though her standards are usually not too high it may have not been the brightest of Denyse O'Leary's ideas  to join Examiner.com because it allows comments The Examiner authors are able to delete comments. Funny, that's what I guessed... AFAICT, would have been like a 2nd home to her. does anybody else get the impression that the photo was try 200 of "Now Denyse try and smile naturally"

Date: 2010/01/06 02:46:39, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (tsig @ Jan. 06 2010,16:24) Quote (k.e.. @ Jan. 06 2010,00:38) Quote (Doc Bill @ Jan. 06 2010,00:47) I thought Lenny went to work for Domino's. My bad. He cheesed them off and they panned him. I thought he got into a dick waving contest with his boss and she fired him. What happened to Lenny's Pizza delivery man?

Date: 2010/01/07 05:23:05, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

The thing is that before any of the dating methods and before Darwin people could figure out that the world was far older than 6000 years. We go camping at the Wombeyan caves. These caves with stalagmites and Stalactites formed from marble. I'd like any creationist show me how you can form a deep coral reef. bury it, cook it by a nearby volcanoe. Massive caves slowly eroded by water and the limestone features metres high being created. This is a process that takes millions of years, any quicker and it wouldn't work.

Date: 2010/01/07 15:58:00, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Richardthughes @ Jan. 08 2010,06:43) MUST Read: http://www.westword.com/1997-05-01/news/god-s-own-party Barry 'Censorship' Arrington's less than illustrious past. It doesn't say much for him that he is now reduced to moderating UD

Date: 2010/01/08 00:38:21, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (CeilingCat @ Jan. 08 2010,15:23) Quote (Richardthughes @ Jan. 07 2010,15:43) MUST Read: http://www.westword.com/1997-05-01/news/god-s-own-party Barry 'Censorship' Arrington's less than illustrious past. Thanks, that sheds a lot of light on Barry.  I especially like this bit:       Quote But Palmer and Burton saved their harshest words for Arrington, who they said "bullied and physically threatened those who disagreed with him and who causes controversy whenever he speaks." The thin-skinned Arrington, after winning the election, slapped Palmer and Burton with a lawsuit, asking for a public apology and $10,000 because they'd called him a bully. The suit, which has been inching toward a settlement, had an immediate chilling effect on Arrington's foes. I don't like the idea of filing libel suits, but since Barry does and since he said this about Cochrane:       Quote Cochrane is impatient with the “dignity criterion,” because it prevents actions that he deems beneficial, for example medical experiments on human guinea pigs that might lead to advances in medicine. and also this:   Quote In Cochrane’s conception of morality, the strong dominate the weak and defenseless to the point of killing them on a whim (abortion) or using them as objects (medical research subjects).  And don’t bother him with your slave morality and its concepts of inherent human dignity.  For Cochrane, imposing one’s will on another is, by definition, “good.” I'm having to re-think my position.  (Oops, there goes my career in ID.)  I wonder how Dr. Cochrane feels about Barry's remark.  I'd say it's worth at least $10,000 and a public apology. But can't you only sue if it hurts your reputation. I'm sure that being rubbished at UD enhances a reputation. Michael

Date: 2010/01/08 17:13:22, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

So are Tasmanian Devils really Satan's minions?

Date: 2010/01/08 18:05:37, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (J-Dog @ Jan. 09 2010,07:56) From Josh at SciBlogs - Bill Dembski Friday Meltdown! Dembski Kisses Jesus Out Loud Quote Billy Dembski is concerned. His latest book, The End of Christianity, was attacked by a Baptist minister as a work of theistic evolution, and Dembski defended his honor by charging that windmill: Go and read the whole thing! Read the original review as well. It must have hurt Dembski that the reviewer had never heard of him. Also the second last comment is good with a YEC taking him to task for being dishonest

Date: 2010/01/09 19:01:03, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Jkrebs @ Jan. 10 2010,05:47) This is good: more Chesterton from Barry:   Quote All the terms used in the science books, “law,” “necessity,” “order,” “tendency,” and so on, are really unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesis, which we do not possess. The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, “charm,” “spell,” “enchantment.” They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a MAGIC tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. So there you have it: it's all magic that things happen as they do - no science needed with it's tedious and erroneous explanations. ID, on the other hand ... Isn't this another form of hyperskepticality that KF talks about.

Date: 2010/01/10 05:36:28, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (CeilingCat @ Jan. 10 2010,16:42) The loudspeaker in the ceiling is back!   Quote 2 Nakashima 01/08/2010 3:19 pm Mr DonaldM, “way earlier”? I thought the difference was about 20 million years. If 20 million years is way earlier, please keep that in mind when discussing the Cambrian “Explosion” which happened across 50 million years. The start of that ‘explosion’ must have been way, way, way earlier than the end. Nonsense. The best information we have now is that the cambrian explosion (no scare quotes I) happened over 5 million, but no longer than 10 million years. Nakashima, you can have your own opinions, but you can’t have your own facts. Editors. DonaldM opened this vein.  Would he be "Editors" or can any highly ranked tard tack a comment on to a message? I thought it was 3 days?

Date: 2010/01/11 14:40:53, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

A sock should as Dense how she could make statements about Gould's thinking without reading what he had read. Also has she read any books on evolution? I heard her on radio a couple of years back. She was ranting about Dawkins and his book and then admitting she had never read it.

Date: 2010/01/11 15:00:19, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (oldmanintheskydidntdoit @ Jan. 12 2010,02:21) David Tyler (Mod)   Quote Many of the claims of Darwinians (for example, that over 99% of species are unrepresented in the fossil record) are inferences from their gradualistic presuppositions. Those of us who have not bought into the Darwinian mindset are therefore totally unimpressed by their conclusions. But who is this Mr Tyler, a new (to me) moderator/poster at UD? Well, Larry has the answer.   Quote David Tyler is a Young Earth Creationist who belongs to The Biblical Creation Society. Tyler believes in the literal truth of Genesis. It's no wonder that he has some doubts since there's nothing in Genesis about peppered moths. Yep, another creationist. No sir, ID has nothing to do with Creationism, nothing at all.... Ask him what he thinks of DrDr's book on Theodicy?

Date: 2010/01/13 00:51:50, Link 202.139.23.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Erasmus, FCD @ Jan. 13 2010,14:00) Quote (Richardthughes @ Jan. 12 2010,17:10) You'd think the LeaderTards would have a quiet word and tell him "You're not helping", but the beauty is they have no such awareness! i've been enjoying this particular quality of Tards in other fora.  We have observed it so often at UD (big tent!) that it might be easy to forget that in general people who are at odds with reality tend to be quite forgiving of the baggage carried by anyone that says what they wish to hear. I used to think the same but I think that this gives them too much credit. I think that they all have cognitive difficulties and don't comment on Joseph because they don't understand the argument

Date: 2010/01/23 18:02:16, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (khan @ Jan. 24 2010,07:29) Quote (Quack @ Jan. 23 2010,17:16) Quote (khan @ Jan. 23 2010,10:56)     Quote (blipey @ Jan. 22 2010,22:12) Just in: Eating right and exercise(?) solve all health problems!!! JoeTard, MD       Quote If people eat right and take care of themselves then health care won't be an issue. Can I say how much I hate that crap? Some of us drew the short straw in DNA. I wonder if maybe my genes are worth a fortune: I measured 1.86m tall weighing around 63 kilos at 20, in 1950. That's been my matchweight ever since. All attempts at eating more to gain weight have been unsuccessful. I've always had a good appetite, and eat till my tummy aches. My weight is a little less nowadays and I try not to stuff myself like I used to since that makes me uncomfortable. I have two brothers, one older and one younger than me and they are of a similar build. There must be a reason. I suspect my brain is burning most of the energy. I have inherited: cartilage degeneration, carpal tunnel syndrome, ulnar nerve entrapment.  Also migraines, but they went away after menopause. Really want to smack those (including my idiot sister) who tell me that diet & exercise will 'cure' me. While no doubt diet and exercise can make us feel better it is annoying that there are those who can think it can solve everything. Similarly, The right approach and attitude is a great part of success** but this doesn't mean that sitting at home wishing for a sports car (ala 'the secret') is going to make it happen. ** Ever since I have started my own business, Marketing has fascinated me and a common theme of successful salesmen is not all just being gifted it is just being out there. A guy who won the award for best realestate salesman in the state told me that the industry average is 100 prospects per sale and his attitude is to hunt out those 100 prospects over a day or two rather than take weeks like other sales people. Richard Wiseman (I think) also did a study of 'lucky' people and found out that their luck took a lot of hard work and a few failures.

Date: 2010/01/23 18:20:01, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Happy Birthday to you both

Date: 2010/01/25 15:12:03, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Happy Australia day to all fellow Aussies. We are just off to the beach followed by the traditional BBQ

Date: 2010/01/25 16:45:51, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (oldmanintheskydidntdoit @ Jan. 26 2010,06:58) Would anybody care to ask O'Leary what her proposed alternative is?   Quote “a problem that has proved a conundrum for the past 30 years.” One reason I got interested in this issue is that in virtually any viable field other than Darwinian evolution, if a problem has “proved a conundrum for the past 30 years,” people would be looking at other viable solutions. Same old. Same old. So unlike most of her mates she is okay with Geology, Cosmology, Vaccines, Climate Science and early US history?

Date: 2010/01/25 22:47:27, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Ptaylor @ Jan. 26 2010,13:23) This might get interesting. idnet.com.au posts a thread "This is science??" with:         Quote The Royal Society, the foremost British science body is hosting a conference exploring extraterrestrial life. Given that there is zero evidence from any scientific study ever that there is any extra terrestrial life, why is this considered science when even discussing ID would never be sanctioned by the Royal Society? These folk hate the idea that the idea that there could be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. However, the central conceit of ID - we're not saying who the designer is - has to allow for the possibility of an extraterrestrial designer. You know, though, that inside they are saying to themselves "but is really just us, we are special and made in the image of Yahweh and there is no one else". They then go on to backslap each other, erm, shoot themselves in the foot by saying that Stein really gotcha'd Dawkins  when he got him to say that ID could be true to the extent that alien seeding of life forms is an intellectual possibility. "Aliens - preposterous - the man is a fool". I wonder what they make of Avatar? PS - I see Gil has followed up with a B-D, 1-3 hybrid argument - link. The difference between ET and ID is that nobody except kooks are saying that ET has been found. If the fathers of ID have not been so slimy, I'm sure that there would be discussions around god's fingerprints on the universe. Around how we would study it, whether it could ever be science (rather than god of the gaps). I really think that the ID crowd have poisoned their own well on this subject.

Date: 2010/01/26 20:08:18, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (khan @ Jan. 27 2010,10:27) Quote (Ptaylor @ Jan. 26 2010,19:58) Ouch - the stupid hurts! O'Leary:   Quote What I don’t understand is, if ecology is that fragile, how come life has existed continuously on Earth for about four billion years? That much stupid should be painful, to the disseminator. Hasn't she also somewhere said that humans have increased biodiversity on the planet due to all of the types of dogs we have bred.

Date: 2010/01/28 16:26:10, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

I'm not a biologist but from my understanding, Lenski's experiment just displayed what was already known. Now Behe says that the probability to get from point a to point b is a gazillion to one. What he overlooks is: 1. Evolution is not goal orientated and there could be a bazillion proteins that could perform the same function. He should take these into account. 2. Proteins are not binary as a near hit can have a partial effect. 3. there are a bazillion ways to go from a to b. Behe only looks at a single path straight from a to b.

Date: 2010/01/30 03:33:19, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Gunthernacus @ Jan. 30 2010,11:44) porkies = pork pie = lie I worked for a while with an Englishman on a construction crew.  Of course, most work days ended with a beer or three.  A pigs ear before heading home to the trouble-n-strife. you mean a pigs ear before hitting the frog. We used to have a butcher's at the beach first. frog == frog and toad == road butchers == butchers hook == look

Date: 2010/01/31 17:47:21, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Reciprocating Bill @ Jan. 31 2010,11:03) StephenB:         Quote If you don’t understand that the distinction is between the forces of nature and purposeful behavior I cannnot help you. Stephen's dimwitted argument was lovingly explored here (beginning with a remark from Diffaxial to Jerry). As he is often wont to, he fled the thread once boxed around the ears, then used a flashy thingy on himself in order to believe that nobody has responded to his questions. Well he is right nobody answers his Questions. Stephens standard debate goes A list of bad assumptions - then a list of questions for the evil atheist to answer. The problem is that we question the bogus assumptions and Stephen sees this as changing the subject or rephrasing the question. So he always wins because we wont answer his Questions.

Date: 2010/02/04 04:23:41, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Ptaylor @ Feb. 04 2010,13:34) Quote (Doc Bill @ Feb. 04 2010,13:25) Casey does the Time Warp again! Has anybody been following the News and Views at the DI's website? Yeah, I noticed that too. The EN&V site has it that the article "...was to give you an alternative viewpoint on many of Ken Miller’s arguments and to help you critically evaluate his claims." However the PDF itself is a continuation of Casey's many-years-long whine about the Kitzmiller case. Rather than wade through the dreck I did a quick word count - sure enough "Dover" comes up 13 times; "testimony" 15 times and "jones" 6 times. That was enough for me. Get over it Casey - your side lost, and it was fair and square. Edited to add a figure. I'm not surprised really. It was probably the last time the NYTimes rang for an interview. If I was at all talented, I would write something to the American Pie tune ... that was the day that ID died    that was the day that ID died

Date: 2010/02/06 15:34:40, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (oldmanintheskydidntdoit @ Feb. 07 2010,04:19) StephenB proves ID is science. ID answers questions!   Quote By this standard, we can easily make sense of one of the many questions that the methodological naturalists cannot answer or even dare approach. For the MN’s, a burglar [or an ancient hunter constructing a spear, or an ancient engineer building Pompeii] that is motivated by a material brain is a natural cause, while a burglar/hunter/engineer motivated by an immaterial mind is a supernatural cause, except of course that, for them, immaterial minds don’t exist, so never mind the supernatural cause after all. How can those who embrace such a proposition keep a straight face? For ID, everything falls into place. A burglar, by definition, is simply an example of an intelligent agent of the human variety. Got that? It's all so simple with ID! I don't get it. What is it that we are afraid to ask or answer?

Date: 2010/02/12 06:48:48, Link 114.73.47.251

Author: MichaelJ

Robert is still here and not saying anything new. He does mention that we should let the people decide. Well I think that they have. There are two Facebook Sites. One pro-Evolution and One-Pro creation each trying to get a million fans. The evolution site is beating the creationist site 5 to 1. Compare this to the general US public where 40% of the population believes in Creationism of some kind. I think that this is pretty clear that given exposure to both arguments, evolution comes up trumps.

Date: 2010/02/18 05:47:25, Link 114.72.190.81

Author: MichaelJ

To me "free will" is a meaningless concept. I think that free will as proposed by the UDiots can not be defined without God.

Date: 2010/02/20 22:34:06, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Feb. 19 2010,09:57) Quote (Henry J @ Feb. 18 2010,18:17) I don't know about indoctrination, but I recall "learning" some things in basic science that I've since had to unlearn. I'm pretty sure that in grade school general science, we were taught that life came in two categories - plant and animal. Protozoans were labeled as a phylum of animals, and bacteria were labeled as plants. Oh, and fungi were described as plants that lacked chlorophyll. (I recall being startled on learning that fungi are closer related to animals than they are to plants.) Also while in school, the number of chemical elements was 103 (well, either 102, 103, or 105 depending on which book I had at the moment), and now (at latest report that I've seen anyway) there are 117 elements that have been reported as having been detected, with atomic number 118 being the last one added to the list (number 117 is still unreported). (On a side note, an earlier reported detection of number 118 got retracted, and at that point the number of "known" elements went down instead of up.) Henry Part of the problem is that a large part of the populace seems to think that scientific facts are immutable. We do try to teach students that science is going to change conclusions as new data emerge, but most of them don't seem to get it. Apparently they would like to believe that scientists, like those who rely on "revealed truth", never change their minds. It sounds like High School in Australia is very different. In Physics (I didn't do Biology, I was allergic to essays) we spent as much time, if not more, on history as much as learning the (then) current science. So the idea that science changes seems natural. Also you could not get the creationist idea that science is always wrong just that a theory stands until more data comes in and a better theory takes it's place.

Date: 2010/02/25 04:34:20, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Shouldn't that last line read Moreover, I will make it to the ultimate victory of ID in that  sweater.

Date: 2010/03/03 15:17:19, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

I'm only going by what is captured in the august pages of this thread but wasn't Stephen recently saying that as the human mind is not material human design is supernatural design or was that another IDiot.

Date: 2010/03/03 19:39:31, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Just heard Dawkins on the local ABC radio about his new book. Just got me wondering if anybody else is heading to the convention in Melbourne (or Melbawrn as the Americans pronounce it)?

Date: 2010/03/03 22:13:45, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

So in other words part of the definition of Specification is that which only an intelligence can produce, another nice circular argument

Date: 2010/03/04 23:53:08, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Pretty embarrassing for FL. He has ended up on a thread that he ran away from.

Date: 2010/03/05 00:54:47, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Robin @ Mar. 05 2010,06:34) [quote=midwifetoad,Feb. 02 2010,11:31][/quote] Quote Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Jan. 29 2010,19:52) There is now a Creation Letter Project in opposition to the Clergy Letter Project. They're not doing badly. In two months they've had 11,000 visitors and 43 clergy signatures. :p Late to the game on this, but I just saw FL's comment on the subject. Seems to me that since the Creationist Letter Project is allowing just any ol' Tom, Dick, or Apologist sign on, perhaps there should be a simple Evolutionary Theory Letter Project on which anyone who affirms an understanding of evolutionary theory and process and can sign. It would be interesting to see just how many people would. There is a facebook page trying to get 1000000 members by June

Date: 2010/03/05 15:54:38, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

I think that the guy has serious problems and feel a little guilty about poking fun at the guy

Date: 2010/03/06 02:25:58, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Benny H @ Mar. 06 2010,12:13) UD is flatlining. The last post there to have more than 100 comments was two weeks ago. The other measure of UD falling off the map is that we seem to have been stuck on page 159 for ages. What happened to the days when I would log on in the morning and find 2-3 new pages of this thread.

Date: 2010/03/06 16:33:39, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Maya @ Mar. 06 2010,23:59) For my 500th post I was going to do a full fisking of one of Corny Hunter's bits of nonsense, or maybe do some research into the reasons why the typical UDiot seems incapable of abstract thought, but I got distracted by this from Joey G's object of desire:   Quote Now, what I’d be interested to know is, the ETs never phone, they never write. Why do we assume they exist? Gee, Denyse, are there any other objects of belief to which we could apply that criteria? I see hypocrites.  They don't know they're hypocrites. ... because there is OBJECTIVE MORALITY AND every effect must have a cause AND it is impossible to be able to imagine something that doesn't exist AND it says so in the Bible which must be true because the Bible is the word of God

Date: 2010/03/10 15:42:54, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Dr.GH @ Mar. 04 2010,03:16) Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Mar. 03 2010,09:10) Quote (Dr.GH @ Mar. 03 2010,10:38) Incumbent Geraldine “Tincy” Miller, lost to George Clayton. Both call themselves conservatives, but Miller was not a safe vote for the radical religious right.  Clayton  is the Academic Coordinator for North Dallas High School. He seems to be similar to Miller- more pro-teacher in fact. I dunno about Clayton. According to this article, Clayton said   Quote "It's seems to me you can't be taught the one [evolution] without the other [creationism]. It's an impossibility to talk about evolution without mentioning creationism." OH NOOES Shit! The jury is still out on this as I heard one interpretation of his statement to mean that children should be taught about the culture war not that creationism is an alternative to evolution.

Date: 2010/03/11 14:40:14, Link 122.110.79.157

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Badger3k @ Mar. 11 2010,01:40) Quote (Richardthughes @ Mar. 09 2010,15:54) Some crackerjack commentary:   Quote God naturally intended the men e.i. husbands to earn a living for their families. God is still all about the family being one man and one women, in marriage. Parenthood, specificially motherhood is a high noble honor that is spat upon in this country. In the workplace I see good men underpaid and discounted. Even the pink hand of gayness is exulted. But I will love God and love His version of living b/c its the only one worth living. Thankyou, lindapolver999. IF ANY WOMANDS IS READING THIS, WHY ARE THEY NOT IN THE KITCHEN AND WHY CAN THEY READ? WHAT A WASITE. ALSO, LOUIS' PINK HAND GETS MENTIONED! I assume that "londapolver" is the commenter, and it sure sounds like that is a woman's name.  How dare she learn how to read!  And speaking up before men...verboten according to some passages in the bible.  Of course, maybe some man wrote it for her, which would excuse her complete misunderstanding of marriage in the bible, which was one man, many women - even if some were concubines or slaves. No, women CAN comment after getting permission from their husbands. The big problem is that her internet handle should be her husbands name. So Leanne's handle would be mrsMichaelJ or wifeofMichaelJ and of course each post will need my prior approval. Hang on I'll just shoot upstairs to tell my wife these rules, I'm sure she will be impressed

Date: 2010/03/11 14:44:21, Link 122.110.79.157

Author: MichaelJ

I would just like to retract my last comment. I'm going to take a little break from posting now as it is hard to type with two broken thumbs husbandofLeanneJ

Date: 2010/03/20 18:24:25, Link 114.72.179.7

Author: MichaelJ

I disagree, I think that Dembski used to be much more severe. Most of the socks here would have disappeared after one or two comments.

Date: 2010/03/22 19:22:02, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (midwifetoad @ Mar. 23 2010,01:22) Quote So information is not free. More to the point, "information" is a label applied to a process. Information is not a thing, any more that "running" is a thing. Except to Platonists. One of the speakers at atheistcon made the point that there is this kind of theology that has the habit of turning a verb into a noun and thereby proving god.

Date: 2010/03/30 20:10:11, Link 114.73.5.172

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Reciprocating Bill @ Mar. 31 2010,08:17) Gee, BarryA has been strangely silent on the Hutaree arrests. The responses will be 1. They weren't real Christians 2. If they weren't white and Christian they would have been left alone. I think that the UD crowd is getting very boring and repetitious, I'm only here for the ATBC humour

Date: 2010/03/31 13:54:54, Link 114.73.155.102

Author: MichaelJ

While we are on human physiology can Robert please explain why God gave us a body more suited to running around on all fours causing most of us to have bad backs and knees.

Date: 2010/03/31 13:57:46, Link 114.73.155.102

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (MichaelJ @ April 01 2010,04:54) While we are on human physiology can Robert please explain why God gave us a body more suited to running around on all fours causing most of us to have bad backs and knees. Speak of the devil*: Design Flaws *For some Christians PZ is the devil

Date: 2010/04/03 21:20:02, Link 122.110.43.142

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (FrankH @ April 04 2010,06:33) Quote (Joe G @ April 03 2010,14:33) Quote (OgreMkV @ April 03 2010,08:52) So, how bout that challenge Joe? I am ready- Any time you want to start posting positive evidence for your position I will read it and respond. Have you ever posted "positive evidence for ID" Joe? I would like to see it. As for "positive evidence for evolution", I give you this: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7085/full/nature04637.html Yes Joe, this is Rocket Science and yes, it takes study to grasp it.  There are no quick or easy solutions. I've just read "The Greatest Show on Earth", Joe should start with that.

Date: 2010/04/07 02:25:11, Link 114.72.164.82

Author: MichaelJ

Is it Happy Paul Nelson day or Merry Paul Nelson day?

Date: 2010/04/18 18:44:32, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

FL should realise that if he quotes a creationist he should check the facts as they invariably lie. I see that FL has run away

Date: 2010/04/21 00:36:05, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

"Who honestly cares if you are personally convinced or unconvinced?   I can't say I am. " You should care. Dembski has not managed to convince anybody except those of a particular religiosity. Everybody else who has heard of him thinks that he is a crook. Now, the ranks of Christians (especially the right wing Christianity) are thinning especially amongst the young, you can see it very strongly on the internet. While there are vocal creationists, I think that they are far out numbered.

Date: 2010/04/22 15:40:49, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (nmgirl @ April 23 2010,04:42) From Gil "The problem with most Darwinists is that they have no real-world experience in any hard-science discipline with real-world accountability (such as engineering), in which a proposed solution or mechanism must first pass the beverage-out-the-nose test, and then be empirically verified to be capable of what is claimed for it." so trying to find a cure for aids or vaccines against swine flu or anitibiotics that will cure mrsa or cdif or tb is not "hard science"  I think saving the human race from anitbiotic resistant bugs is about as real as it gets. This ignores the fact that though we have a concentration of creationists in engineering most engineers are "darwinists". These guys need to make up their minds when they are a brave downtrodden minority or when they are the majority

Date: 2010/04/23 17:04:56, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Robin @ April 24 2010,05:06) [quote=JLT,April 23 2010,13:31][/quote] Quote StephenBS:     Quote There are many other ethical practices that a Christian could execute that would normally be out of range for an atheist, including the act of loving his enemies, refraining from lust, fulfilling his moral obligation to worship the Creator, and pursuing his final end. The problem is not in identifying the moral obligations that atheists cannot fulfill but rather in finding atheists who will acknowledge them as moral obligations. Why would that be, do you think? A conundrum. I don't think I understand Stephen B's comment at all. Is he really insisting that there are no atheists who love their enemies and/or refraining from lust (as if any fundamentalist/evangelical Christians ever demonstrate such abilities...) or is he insisting that being an atheist means that such behaviors can't be considered "good"? Both of course would be erroneous statements as there are plently of examples of atheists who do love their enemies and who refrain from lust and who define such behaviors as "good" based on their negative impact on others. So what is Stephen B getting at? He obviously has never talked to an Atheist or at least listened to what one would say. However, if he was interested in really finding out other peoples point of view and learning something he wouldn't be an IDiot and we wouldn't be talking about him. Sort of like catch-22 really

Date: 2010/05/02 03:59:42, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

So if there is a paper on Biology who does the peer review? biologists or theologians

Date: 2010/05/02 04:31:18, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (sparc @ May 02 2010,19:00) Quote (utidjian @ May 02 2010,03:11) I figured I would take a peek at ratemyprofessor.com to see if Dembski had an entry... and he does: William Dembski at SBC Loved this entry:   Quote You could NOT design a worse professor. (bolding mine) Last entry was in March of 2007. Perhaps he hasn't been teaching much in the past three years. -DU- Why is he listed under "Finance" department? Wasn't he going to give a seminar in ID finance or something?

Date: 2010/05/02 04:33:00, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (DiEb @ May 02 2010,19:10) From Bio-Diversity's Author Guidelines:   Quote To facilitate review, manuscripts should be prepared as MS Word documents (in Times or Times New Roman 12 pt with 1.5 line spacing) with numbered pages, complete with all elements (figures, tables, equations, etc.) that should be present in the final published PDF file. They don't expect many mathematicians to publish there, I suppose... What do mathematicians normally do?

Date: 2010/05/02 06:07:43, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (utidjian @ May 02 2010,19:56) Quote (DiEb @ May 02 2010,04:36) Quote (MichaelJ @ May 02 2010,04:33)   Quote (DiEb @ May 02 2010,19:10) From Bio-Diversity's Author Guidelines:     Quote To facilitate review, manuscripts should be prepared as MS Word documents (in Times or Times New Roman 12 pt with 1.5 line spacing) with numbered pages, complete with all elements (figures, tables, equations, etc.) that should be present in the final published PDF file. They don't expect many mathematicians to publish there, I suppose... What do mathematicians normally do? LaTeX/TeX (it really depends on their age, I presume) It isn't easy to generate mathematical formulas in Word - and they look like crap. Agreed, for math there is little substitute for TeX/LaTeX. Word has always sucked for doing math. Many of my physics colleagues use Word for physics though. I prefer LyX (basically a GUI for LaTeX.) Are mathematicians still using plain TeX/LaTex? I suppose I could go down tha hall and ask some of our new professors but... not too many of them here at 6AM on a Sunday :P -DU- Gee, I amost got a little tear in my eye. I remember using Latex 25 years ago. It suppose it was pretty common in unis but we worked in a large firm. This was pre-PC when word processors could only do bold, italic and underline. When our group started producing multi-font multi-sized reports with embedded diagrams we were like kings

Date: 2010/05/02 06:57:32, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (olegt @ May 02 2010,21:40) LaTeX is alive and well in physics.  In my field of condensed matter, experimentalists often submit their papers in MS Word, but theorists almost invariably use LaTeX.  Nature Physics accepts both.  The preferred format for arXiv submissions is TeX or LaTeX.   And it's not just equations, even fonts look more professional in TeX-generated documents! But I doubt that there are many biology journals that accept TeX, so no surprise that BC is Word-oriented. If having a well formatted document is important I think Word is a pain. I've had the pleasure of formatting some dissertations for some friends and no matter how careful I am with the initial styles setup, I make a minor change to a heading in the body and for some reason the appendix will go into a bold font or something similarly weird.

Date: 2010/05/05 00:25:01, Link 114.73.36.24

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ May 05 2010,12:34) This is a routine down in the IkonBoard text parsing module: Code Sample sub chomp_url ($$) {    my ($obj, $the_red_sea) = @_;    return $the_red_sea   if    $the_red_sea =~ /^<img src=/;    return $the_red_sea unless length($the_red_sea) > 70;    return $the_red_sea unless $the_red_sea =~ m!://!;    # Fix up 'dem pesky ampersands    $the_red_sea =~ s!&amp;!&!g;    $the_red_sea =~ s!(?:(\?)|[&;])s=[\w\d]{16,32}(?:&|;|$)!$1!g;    my ($moses, $did_indeed) = split /\:\/\//, $the_red_sea;    my @miracle = split "/",$did_indeed;    my $worker = substr($miracle[1], 0, 7,);    my $maybe  = substr($miracle[$#miracle],length($miracle[$#miracle])-7);    return $moses.'://'.$miracle[0].'/'.$worker.'....'.$maybe; } A busted URL seems to be 140 characters to the break. The 70 character bit in the above seems a bit suspicious in that light. Anybody got a comment? ETA: Never mind... that just truncates URLs for viewing. Something else must be doing the damage. Who named the variables?

Date: 2010/05/07 22:23:29, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

The church is blaming everything except themselves for the loss of kids from SRE. I'm not surprised at the numbers dropping out. 10% of Australians go to church and a lot of parents send their kids to SRE because they think it will do them some good to learn ethics and morals. On the other hand some Christians take their kids out because some of the SRE teachers are truly awful (think afdave)

Date: 2010/05/14 03:18:14, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (didymos @ May 14 2010,10:00) Quote (REC @ May 13 2010,16:44) Cornelius, in typical fashion, decides to horribly misinterpret Douglas Theobald's nature paper, mis-arguing both the methods and conclusions. After being corrected, Cornelius argues: "The paper doesn't say that, but the data does." Which is kind of calling the author a liar. The author himself just posted, correcting him. LOL. Link That deserves a full-quoting: Quote Hi George, You've got pretty much everything backwards regarding the results from my analysis. My analysis does not test whether fusion hypotheses or strict tree-like evolution are better. The point is that UCA is the winner *regardless* of whether there was a fusion event or rampant HGT. In fact, the model selection scores clearly show that the Class II models (which include fusion scenarios) are the best. I did not directly address this issue, as it's not the point of the paper, and would require more sophisticated models to really nail down -- but if you read the supplementary material I show evidence from my data for the archaeal-bacterial fusion for the first eukaryote. You also claim that "the entire analysis is based on sequence alignment scores", but that is incorrect. Have you read the methods? Talk is cheap -- you can always criticize the models I used. But do the criticisms hold any water? The data speaks for itself, and the best models are the best models -- the model selection scores do not depend on my opinions, desires, or beliefs. The great thing about this methodology, is if you think you have a better model, with a well-defined likelihood function, that can explain the same sequence data, then you are of course able (and encouraged by me) to do the analysis, to throw it in the mix and see how it fares against the rest as judged by the model selection criteria. Cheers, Douglas Theobald LOL indeed. Great takedown. I wonder if Douglas new that one of Cornies big things is how we all look at the same data but get different results depending on our worldviews. Douglas is basically saying okay model your world view and stick it into the program and see how it measures up. If Cornie was honest he would pony up. Instead he saw the game was up and deleted the post.

Date: 2010/05/14 23:12:26, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (skeptic reborn @ May 13 2010,13:12) Louis, sorry for the diversion but even though I realize the conservative/liberal labels aren't equivilent to ours over here, isn't the Cameron/Clegg partnership somewhat hard to rationalize?  Just curious. I think the problem is that Clegg is a decent man and thinks that the Tories got the most votes and deserve to run the country. Although he did have some meetings with Labor, so it is interesting to contemplate what compromises that the Tories will make that Labour would not.

Date: 2010/06/10 18:09:38, Link 122.110.36.244

Author: MichaelJ

For evolution they want mutation by mutation changes before they would even consider it true but they allow all of the unsupported assumptions by William Lane Craig to stand without question

Date: 2010/06/11 02:24:57, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ June 11 2010,16:39) Interesting that this thread alone has been in existence for about 3.5 years, has 12,117 views, and thus has an average annual view rate of nearly 3,500 views/year. The Biologic Institute seems to be playing in "Low Expectations Theater" mode. Wes, so if he gets 97k for 40,000 views then you must be a millionaire

Date: 2010/06/18 19:24:51, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Censoring posts on the we don't censor posts thread. is it no wonder the irony meters keep blowing.

Date: 2010/06/19 19:29:59, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

I imagine that the Jesus section of the the book is just as groan worthy as the science section. I wonder if any of these guys read any real Biblical scholarship so they can get rid of the more obvious howlers.

Date: 2010/06/19 22:01:46, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (olegt @ June 18 2010,02:00) Sal reminisces fondly:   Quote I'm really not complaing about Matheson. Personally I hope Matheson turns into anoterh Abbie Smith. He'll be a rich source of future quotations. Yes quotes such as "You Sal Cordova. You cottage cheese dripping pussy"

Date: 2010/06/24 06:53:36, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (dvunkannon @ June 24 2010,21:20) Quote (Raevmo @ June 24 2010,02:27) Clive in the next post:     Quote So, the obvious truth is that morality doesn’t evolve; it may improve, but improvement implies a steady standard that is not changed, for if all were changed, there would be no improvement, no judgment could be made comparing two things to themselves. This seems obvious to me. Let's strip the "argument" to its bare bones: - It's obvious that A - Maybe not-A, but not-A implies A, for if not-A then A. - Therefore B - Obviously Clive, even if we accept the necessity of a standard, that doesn't make the standard absolute, perfect, or divinely inspired. The Farenheit scale is a standard way to measure temperature, and can be used to detect absolute changes in the temperature of two bodies even when the relative difference in temperature stays the same. But Farenheit was not divinely inspired. These guys have no sense of history do they. 60 years ago said that the natural law was that the races should not mix. 200 years ago, slavery was part of the natural law. If their current natural law was universal and unchanging there would have been no slavery, no WWII, no crusades.

Date: 2010/06/24 16:28:26, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Maya @ June 25 2010,06:50) Quote (dvunkannon @ June 24 2010,06:55) Nakashima has decided to use Google SideWiki to comment on UD. His deleted posts from the Destroy the DI thread are now available. I've started adding comments there as well.  It would be interesting to pipe all of this AtBC thread into SideWiki on UD. I've just installed it for Chrome. I get a dialog to enter comments but I can't see any other comments

Date: 2010/06/24 16:36:18, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (MichaelJ @ June 25 2010,07:28) Quote (Maya @ June 25 2010,06:50) Quote (dvunkannon @ June 24 2010,06:55) Nakashima has decided to use Google SideWiki to comment on UD. His deleted posts from the Destroy the DI thread are now available. I've started adding comments there as well.  It would be interesting to pipe all of this AtBC thread into SideWiki on UD. I've just installed it for Chrome. I get a dialog to enter comments but I can't see any other comments I found four comments on the main page but nothing on individual entries

Date: 2010/06/24 22:22:56, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (carlsonjok @ June 25 2010,10:31) Quote (Maya @ June 24 2010,17:35) Most of the entries have no comments, but I can see Nakashima's (and my one) on The Discovery Institute Needs To Be Destroyed thread. I can only see the Sidewiki entries on the main page, not the individual thread.  What browser are you using?  I am using Firefox 3.6.4. I'm not seeing them either and I am using Chrome

Date: 2010/06/25 17:38:06, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Alan Fox @ June 26 2010,08:09) Quote (Maya @ June 25 2010,02:58)   Quote (carlsonjok @ June 24 2010,19:31)     Quote (Maya @ June 24 2010,17:35) Most of the entries have no comments, but I can see Nakashima's (and my one) on The Discovery Institute Needs To Be Destroyed thread. I can only see the Sidewiki entries on the main page, not the individual thread.  What browser are you using?  I am using Firefox 3.6.4. FireFox 3.6 on a Mac.   Quote Sidewiki is a feature of Google Toolbar, which is only available for Internet Explorer and Firefox. says Google. Why is it not available with Chrome, I wonder. But please everyone post comments on Sidewiki, making sure you are commenting on the main page. It is now available for Chrome!

Date: 2010/06/25 19:22:38, Link 202.139.21.173

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Alan Fox @ June 26 2010,08:48) Quote (MichaelJ @ June 25 2010,12:38)   Quote (Alan Fox @ June 26 2010,08:09)     Quote (Maya @ June 25 2010,02:58)       Quote (carlsonjok @ June 24 2010,19:31)         Quote (Maya @ June 24 2010,17:35) Most of the entries have no comments, but I can see Nakashima's (and my one) on The Discovery Institute Needs To Be Destroyed thread. I can only see the Sidewiki entries on the main page, not the individual thread.  What browser are you using?  I am using Firefox 3.6.4. FireFox 3.6 on a Mac.       Quote Sidewiki is a feature of Google Toolbar, which is only available for Internet Explorer and Firefox. says Google. Why is it not available with Chrome, I wonder. But please everyone post comments on Sidewiki, making sure you are commenting on the main page. It is now available for Chrome! What, When? Click on the spanner and select extensions and search for SideWiki.

Date: 2010/07/12 23:09:15, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Wow good going the IDers are taking a pounding, it is great to see somebody calling Sal a liar without the comment disappearing.

Date: 2010/07/15 16:30:32, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Richardthughes @ July 16 2010,07:17) Quote (fnxtr @ July 15 2010,12:15) There was a brief flurry of "what are you reading" on the local PT bathroom wall. I'll repeat my recommendation of anything by Iain (M.) Banks (science fiction like "The Algebraist" or "Against a Dark Background", or more reality-based stuff like "Espedair Street"), or Gregory Benford. Aye, There's a cat here who posts a GCU Grey Area. "Use of weapons" - great twist! Unlucky Handmaiden's tail, I'm not reading you. I actually enjoyed the handmaidens tail, but I read it a long time ago.

Date: 2010/07/15 16:45:49, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

I think that the stats that kids are leaving the church in droves speaks for itself. I think that the internet has a lot to do with it. While we will always have the FL, Slimy Sals etc, once these kids get onto the internet they figure out that they have been lied to. One of the problems is that like abortion and GW denial, creationism is seen as part of the right wing ideological package.

Date: 2010/07/15 16:48:27, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Thanks, it's still my Birfday in the US which is cool as everybody here has stopped being nice to me.

Date: 2010/07/17 17:47:27, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Aardvark @ July 18 2010,06:33) bornatard77 on why pi is equal to pi:   Quote To me this order that we find imposed on the universe is no small wonder,, for example exactly why should the space-time that I experience always give me the correct value of pi and not some other value that is at variance with other people’s measurement for pi? Wasn't pi=3 in biblical times?  Maybe he's [not] on to something... Should mention to those who know more physics than the physicists that the value of pi changes depending on the local space-time curvature.

Date: 2010/07/19 02:35:36, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (fnxtr @ July 16 2010,09:17) Trying to parse what you meant by that last sentence, MichaelJ.   You mean "it's unfortunate that if you're conservative you're expected to swallow all this other crap too"? Or "these things give the right a bad name"??? Sorry, I get a case of the O'leary's sometimes. I was trying to say that I don't think that creationism is not always about religion but more about group identification. I think that if a handful of key people came out and said that creationism is a joke then the stats would change.

Date: 2010/07/19 17:00:43, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Advocatus Diaboli @ July 19 2010,19:02) Also, jesting with AtBC's name (After the Asylum Closes) is spot on. As I see it, the Bar represents the place where we get the source for our entertainment, and then come here to talk about it. And that Bar is Uncommon Descent. Lets see in an asylum you will find: inmates that hear voices (check) inmates that have paranoid fantasies about the government suppressing information (check) Visitors are kept under strict supervision so as not to upset the inmates (check) inmates constantly repeat the same conversation over and over (check) some inmates communicate unintelligibly (check) Yep it's an asylum.

Date: 2010/07/19 17:01:31, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Tracy P. Hamilton @ July 20 2010,05:40) Quote (sparc @ July 18 2010,02:34) BTW, why can't Sal mention Nature without putting "the prestigious scientific journal" or even "world's most prestigious scientific journal" in front of it. This time even capitalized:     Quote the Prestigous Scientific Journal Nature . (Spelling mistake in the original) I have noticed that a few times.  Maybe it because even Slimy Sal could not bring himself to say Prestigious Journal Biocomplexity.  :D Wasn't it because he had a letter or something published in Nature at one stage?

Date: 2010/07/24 20:11:29, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

StephenB runs away in the end saying a poem. Gaz is good but you guys who go over there are patient. I usually view UD from the protected shield of ATBC. I usually end up kidding myself that there is a bit of exaggeration about the tard levels. But really StephenB brings up his laws about causality and non-contradiction again. Gaz (as others have done) bring up how this falls down at the quantum level. But the bafflegag that occurs from the ID crowd. I can't even parse VividBleau: "Great we are making progress. If there is no LNC you have no way to assert that the evidence that quantum phenomena have no cause eliminates the contrary." I think that he is saying that if there is no LNC then Gaz is not contradicting it so then LNC is not contradicted and so the law exists.

Date: 2010/07/28 21:36:13, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (oldmanintheskydidntdoit @ July 29 2010,07:54) StephenB is living in the past:   Quote —Petrushka: “Haeckel’s drawings are not defrauding any children.” Thank you for your honest answer. In your judgment, the Darwinists who knowingly publish Haeckel’s bogus drawings are not lying, they are telling the truth. He reminds me of a gutter journalist who whatever you say jots down the worst possible interpretation instead. It would take more to correct the misrepresentations then you'd care to spend. Why bother. He probably knows perfectly well how wrong he is, but some thing wrong in the brain with that one I think. I bet if you tried to asked Stephen to name 2 textbooks published in the last 20 years that has the drawings you would be instantly banned.

Date: 2010/07/29 17:50:07, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Reciprocating Bill @ July 30 2010,06:06) Quote (Robin @ July 29 2010,15:27) StephenB is such a swell guy:   Quote Meanwhile, my quesion[sic] for you persists. Are Darwinists who knowingly use [used] Haeckel’s drawings lying or are they [were they] telling the truth. If you are not up to answering this question, I can do it for you. One of StephenB's most persistent tics. If you decline to walk the Socratic garden path he has laid before you, he provides answers himself, obviously out of frustration over having been thwarted. Weird. Are the creationists who knowingly say that modern textbooks are using the drawings lying or are they telling the truth?

Date: 2010/07/31 00:32:19, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Is he really that dumb

Date: 2010/07/31 00:52:39, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Is it just me of is Cornelius Hunter getting crankier. Quoth Corny "David: === 'And so there is no excuse for lying in the guise of science. But lie they do.' To “lie” is to knowingly state a falsehood. So, Dr Hunter believes that Johnson and Losos know that their claims are false, but are promulgating them anyway. He’s not saying that they are mistaken, but that they are deliberately bearing false witness, which is a heinous sin. I wonder how Dr Hunter can know this. What power has enabled him to see into the souls of Drs Johnson and Losos and discern their cognitions and motivations? === Good point, maybe they're just insane. " I can imagine the spittle dribbling through his beard when he wrote that. Linky

Date: 2010/07/31 17:41:57, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (REC @ Aug. 01 2010,05:34) jadavison said... Cornelius Will you please remove my weblog from your links. I find your behavior and tactics embarrassing and I want nothing more to do with you or your clientele. If you don't remove it, I will alert the world that you refused me! jadavison.wordpress.com Thanks. I love it so!!! Wow JAD ejecting himself from a blog. Is this the first sign of the apocalypse?

Date: 2010/07/31 20:42:25, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Joe G @ Aug. 01 2010,00:08) Let x = $10 and y = $20 The set {x,y} contains $30 the power set { {}, {x}, {y}, {x, y} } also contains $30. $30 = $30 Does anyone disagree with that? If you disagree can you provide a valid resource that agrees with you? the fact that you are discussing set-theory and decide that the test for set equilavency is based on adding the items of the set shows how dumb or dishonest you are.

Date: 2010/08/01 19:00:07, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Beelzebub667 @ Aug. 02 2010,08:55) Typical small-time shady operation.  Look, they know their mice are unusably flawed, but instead of doing the truly honorable thing and sending everyone who has already wasted their time and effort with it a new, fixed mouse, hassle free, they want to recoup the losses of their incompetence. No so much shady but incompentant. You think that you would at least spend some time testing the production mice before shipping. These sound like pretty major flaws

Date: 2010/08/02 18:32:26, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Maya @ Aug. 03 2010,07:28) I thought that tgpeeler was one of the more intelligent posters at UD, but it turns out that s/he can bring the stupid with the best of them:   Quote If materialism is true, then I could not know of abstract things. But I do know of abstract things. Therefore, materialism is false. ETA: This deserves a Babbage Honorable Mention.  "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." Funny then how God has human emotions and I doubt that few Christians can think of God without seeing a grey bearded patriarch. Funny isn't it that during the early iron age where the middle east consisted of waring tribes that God appeared to be a uber-warlord. I'm not as edumecated as most of you but I can't see how abstract!=real. To me abstract art works because of the imperfect wiring of the brain.

Date: 2010/08/05 01:09:42, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

I went to his blog and what an absolute train wreck. Are you sure that he isn't eight years old? How about "The Four Fundamental Entities of Intelligent Design" where he thinks that plasma is another Entity apart from energy or matter. This almost cost me a keyboard.

Date: 2010/08/05 18:40:21, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Richardthughes @ Aug. 06 2010,00:16) Here we go: http://voxday.blogspot.com/2010/08/darwinianism-and-evolution.html Vox Day = Corny. What is it about these rightwing nut jobs? They paint themselves as rugged individuals who think for themselves but they all have exactly the same bag of beliefs

Date: 2010/08/06 03:15:28, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Lou FCD @ Aug. 06 2010,09:44) Will somesock do me a favor and get a straight, unequivocal answer to this question: Denyse, have you ever actually read a single one of Charles Darwin's works? I mean, not like an Amazon book review, or a bashing on Uncommonly Dense, but the actual work itself, cover to cover. If somesock could get an honest answer to that, I'd like to see the same question posed regarding the works of Richard Dawkins. Thanks in advance. ETA: Methinks it is like a Kwok. I heard her on Australian Radio once with Robyn Williams (a science reporter). She was railing on about Dawkins for five minutes before she was asked if she had actually read the God delusion. She answered no that she thought there were better books out there to read.

Date: 2010/08/07 19:33:37, Link 114.73.182.12

Author: MichaelJ

One problem is that we Australians rip out coal to sell to Chinese to burn to make power to make goods to sell to the US. Where does the CO2 get booked on this map?

Date: 2010/08/16 01:18:06, Link 202.139.20.208

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Seversky @ Aug. 16 2010,14:53) Quote 3: If the mind is reducible to the chemical constituents of the brain, then human autonomy and consciousness are illusory because our free choices are determined by the dual forces of chance and necessity. Ummm, point of order:  if the outcome of any decision-making process is truly a question of chance to any degree, it cannot be absolutely predetermined, which is what is being proposed as the only alternative. Therefore   Quote u r doin it rong Whereas God gave us free-will even though every thing is predetermined by said God.

Date: 2010/08/21 20:33:54, Link 202.139.23.150

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Kattarina98 @ Aug. 22 2010,06:59) Quote (Tracy P. Hamilton @ Aug. 19 2010,16:49)   Quote (dvunkannon @ Aug. 19 2010,14:36)       Quote (Tracy P. Hamilton @ Aug. 19 2010,15:25) New game: guess the poster!  The following wordle is from a thread from a year ago... Too easy, it has Lewontin, GEM, and TKI in it. (the file name of the .jpg was also a bit revealing) Perhaps I should have named it GordonMullings.jpg  Almost nobody knows that GEM of TKI is Gordon Mullings, otherwise he would not  freak out when he is referred to by name. OMG, troy outed him on Corny's spin-off:   Quote In honor of a new contributor to this blog, Gordon E. Mullings, one might even call such attacks on Darwin strawmen soaked in the oil of ad hominem and ignited to poison the atmosphere, or something like that. GEM will hit the roof which is a shame as it is more fun to see him slowly come to a boil as his arguments are demolished

Date: 2010/08/25 18:50:01, Link 114.73.182.157

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (CeilingCat @ Aug. 25 2010,20:26) Is Denyse losing her audience?   Her latest post, about the End of the World was written Tuesday and so far has attracted two responses, one clarifying the likely end of the world and the other saying, "Great Post!" Her next latest post, a Coffee!! post about Bats being more dangerous than mothballs(sic) was also posted Tuesday and so far has attracted no replies. Her next next latest post, Memory treatment is possible was written Monday and has 1 reply, which says "Cool Story." Even Cornelius is doing better than that.  I know the average UD poster has not suddenly gotten a lot smarter, so I am forced to speculate that the problem is on O'Leary's end.  And I don't want to think about that. Thong. I just had to look and what struck me first was how literally she takes everything: "The information race between bats and a favoured prey, moths, is described as an arms race (it is actually a race to interpret clicks. Neither party is armed, and certainly not the moth.)" Somebody mentioned this about JoeG and I wonder if this is part of their disease. It would explain why they don't have a sense of humour. The second thing was this quote: "As is characteristic of legacy mainstream media, the story must all be interpreted dogmatically through Darwinist theory. But what’s missing from this very interesting account is how – exactly – the information race could evolve. “Natural selection” is increasingly evoked as a mere incantation, in the face of ever-growing awareness of complexity that are beyond its powers. That is, natural selection must be the cause because we “know” it is true." Complex? Bats have natural variation in click frequencies. Bats that click in a frequency that their prey can't hear don't starve and thus have more kids.

Date: 2010/08/25 20:42:13, Link 202.139.23.150

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (J-Dog @ Aug. 26 2010,10:31) Quote Complex? Bats have natural variation in click frequencies. Bats that click in a frequency that their prey can't hear don't starve and thus have more kids. Some sock should ask Denyse what happens if you cork your bat?* * For all the Euros on this board, corking your bat is an American Baseball custom, if you are a cheater, ala Sammy Sosa and Pete Rose. Was I the only one a little disappointed when "corking the bat" was explained.

Date: 2010/08/26 08:24:37, Link 202.139.23.150

Author: MichaelJ

Wow sounds like the false defiance of a six year old caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I think that Clive is still smarting from his venture from behind the UD skirts. In the word salad Clive failed to mention why he rescinded. Hey has the comment disappeared?

Date: 2010/08/26 08:27:09, Link 202.139.23.150

Author: MichaelJ

Mispoke -- I realise that the Clive quotes are from other places.

Date: 2010/08/26 17:28:51, Link 202.139.23.150

Author: MichaelJ

You 'Merkicans are very confusing. I come here get the impression that it is a rabid religion obsessed country but I watch your TV and it is the complete opposite. One show that I'm watching at the moment is "Modern Family" which has premarital sex, a gay couple with an adopted Asian daughter. A divorce. The fathers are definitely not respected. All the shows like this and fairly liberal. What do the wing nuts watch? Are there shows that don't get exported?

Date: 2010/09/02 02:35:58, Link 202.139.23.150

Author: MichaelJ

So when is BarryA or Dense going to write the Darwinism leads to this thread

Date: 2010/09/02 17:09:42, Link 202.139.23.150

Author: MichaelJ

Bundberg or Bacardi?

Date: 2010/09/02 17:10:32, Link 202.139.23.150

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (MichaelJ @ Sep. 03 2010,08:09) Bundberg or Bacardi? BundAberg (I'll have to ask for one of those edit button thingies

Date: 2010/09/02 19:18:58, Link 202.139.23.150

Author: MichaelJ

Happy very belated Birthday

Date: 2010/09/04 01:31:09, Link 202.139.23.150

Author: MichaelJ

Quote (Seversky @ Sep. 04 2010,14:20) The usual suspects at Uncommon Descent revel in the story of "Darwinist" gunman James Lee.  Kairosfocus, predictably, waxes logorrheical about this crime being a sign of the malign influence of evolutionary theory on society at large. Strangely, I don't recall Gordon and the rest (hi, Clive) making a similar argument about Christianity following this story:   Quote BOULDER, Colo. -- A 24-year-old ski lift operator who fatally shot the general manager of the Eldora ski area was determined to kill co-workers who weren't Christian, according to court records obtained Thursday. The documents, filed Wednesday in Boulder District Court, said witnesses told authorities that Derik Bonestroo walked into a building at work, fired a gun into the ceiling and said: "If you're not Christian, you're going to die." General manager Brian Mahon was shot and killed Dec. 30 at the ski area west of Nederland, Colo., in Boulder County. Witnesses said when Bonestroo asked Mahon's religion, Mahon said "Catholic" and Bonestroo shot him twice: in the chest and head. He wasn't a real Christian,  Dontcha know

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