The Lounge

In light of Dawkins' recentish high profile attacks on YE OLDIE GODS. Is there a relatively current, and growing energy, within the science community to step up attacks, in order to attempt to extinguish the belief in deities once and for all?

As a modern parent, I try to be as involved as possible in the lives of my six children. I attend their teen parties with them to ensure no drinking or alcohol is on the premises. I keep a fatherly eye on the CDs they listen to and the shows they watch. My children have never failed to make me proud. As parents do we decided to aid with our childrens education by purchasing a computer. The kids had a lot of fun using the handful of application programs we'd bought, such as Adobe's Photoshop and Microsoft's Word, and my wife and I were happy we had made the decision Our son Terence was most entranced by the device, and became quite a pro at surfing the net. But he be…

Now not knowing if nature or reality such as QM and evolution for example is truly finite to any real extent and the reality of organic evolution being a part of that very nature from any level be it classical to QM and such also becoming evident in even astrophysics what is the implication to humanity in regards to worldview and behavior? It derives so many profound speculations I will not even attempt to cover them all here, and not to appear as a hippy out of touch, but is the reality of the future in regards to something so natural as evolution truly in our hands via behavior? If such is so would it not for the simple sake of survival be humanities best bet to ch…

http://www.neatorama.com/2007/09/03/clowns-kicked-kkk-asses/ Just read this today, and according to this the KKK got their asses handed to them by a bunch of clowns in Knoxville,Tennessee. Check it out!

I don't know if anyone else has had this problem but 4/5 time the new thread button doesn't show. i thought i had been banned for a bit. anyway, to what i was going to say before... can anyone else connect to the chatroom? i've tried pidgin, xchat and (shudders) the java client on the boards. nothing is working.

Does anyone here have an Omerta account? In case you want to know what this is, here's the link.

http://www.tibetcustom.com/article.php/20070803133532961 Damn but I'd love to see the form you fill out for this one.

Why do we find certain things appealing to look at and not others? What makes something look good?

http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2007 samples of research recognized by the Ig-Nobel committee of judges this year, in four different categories: LINGUISTICS: Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, of Universitat de Barcelona, for showing that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards. "Effects of Backward Speech and Speaker Variability in Language Discrimination by Rats," Juan M. Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, vol. 31, no. 1, January 2005, pp 95-100. …

I've moved the Wikipedia article for SFN to the new name "SFN (scienceforums.net)" and added a disambiguation page to differentiate between the different uses of "SFN." More importantly, the article has been nominated for deletion! I do not know the SFN article's fate.

I'm looking for a few enthusiastic folk with some writing talent to join Snail and me in a new venture: dbunked. dbunked will be a collation of pseudoscience and scientific myths debunked -- much like Snopes, but for the science world. We also hope to help improve the popular perception of science by sending letters to media agencies when they goof, and by publishing editorials and features that emphasize the importance of good scientific thinking. If you're interested in helping, visit our signup page and follow the instructions. If you'd like to be a "resident expert" for dbunked, and you have impressive credentials, visit our expert signup page. You don't have …

I was always wondering... is there a term for a Hand doctor, or Hand surgeon?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21154137/wid/11915829/page/2/ This seems to have some promise?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange So far it's just an "artificial chromosome", but he apparently stands poised to announce the creation of the first artificial lifeform. Insane.

I often think that people think that the mear action of moving money around makes the world a better place. Here is a theoretical and rather simplified economy to show my point. The only requirement in my economy is food Trawlers take little wooden spoons and sift though soil preparing it for planting seeds that will grow into plants. trawlers 50% (half of all people) other farming 50% (half of all people) employed 100% (everyone) output from farming relative to the population 80% (so 20% go hungry but 80% get enough food) hungry people 20% The plough is invented[edit], ploughing is more efficient than trawling so less …

im sort of retarded when it comes to music. its sung by a female artist, i think it falls into techno or trance or something like that. the only lyric i remember is in the chorus it says "baby look at me" i heard it on 94.9 (the bay areas party station!) if that helps at all.

I would say the Midwest includes the entire states of: Ohio Michigan Indiana Illinois Wisconsin Minnesota Iowa Kansas Nebraska North Dakota South Dakota and parts of: Missouri (northern and central) Montana (eastern 2/3) Wyoming (eastern 1/4) Colorado (east of Denver) Kentucky (far north)

I was thinking the other day when I was reading another thread about macs. So I decided to start this thread. I felt I needed to get a new music/audio player because I have one of those bulky handheld radios from the 90's. So I wanted to know which is better out of these: MP3 player (i'll be getting the 2 or 3 gb ones if I'm goona get a MP3 player) MP4 player (they're so cool, it's got a tv screen like-thing. an Ipod which type would be the best. like a ipod nano or a shuffle or one of those 80gb video ones. they cost a fortune though! or just a new plain old radio player that can't fit in your pocket! Or should I not even get one at all and listen on…

was a long one....and the rest will be as well. For those that don't know, I started work at the Modifications and Additions to Reactor Facilities plant at Knoll's Atomic Power Laboratory. It's twelve hour days and I start rotating shiftwork in seven weeks so it will get worse.

I was reading the "news" from one of my favorite website, CreationWiki. I learned that 15 christian families established in Quebec will get out of the province so they won't have to teach they children about evolution and, even worst, the "acceptance of alternative lifestyles". http://www.wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57199

I don't know if this will be considered spam, but I'd thought I would just tell you guys of my new blog. The reason I'm posting about it is because the blog I just set up is largely about science and devoted to debunking pseudoscience and other forms of quackery or misconceptions, and rant about philosophy and life in general... And no, its not intended to compete with dbunked, its just a place where I can post my random thoughts about life. You are free to look onto my blog and either critique my views or give me praise . here is the link: http://radiantaspie.blogspot.com/ And for future reference, my link is on my signature. There is not much on it, since I ju…

I have decided to get a new computer soon, and I'm thinking of switching to Mac. What I have now is a 4.5 year old Dell Inspiron 5100 which I have come to loathe for all it's various hardware and software problems, and that's part of the reason I'm considering switching. Any advice? Particularly from those with experience with both PCs and Macs?

Random science facts wanted. Any you can think of. Just post and maybe give a source. I like random facts so hopefully this will be interesting.

Here's a fun forum game - reply to the topic of the poster above - make your replies in a Johnny Carson style Top 10 List. Your replies should be funny or suffer the consequences - after you finish, suggest a new topic I'll start: First topic: Things You Wouldn't Want on Your Tombstone: 10) Didnt eat his lima beans 9) This week's winning lotto numbers: 7 14 5 21 15 9 8) Be right back... 7) Its Clobberin' Time! 6) LOL 5) This Space for Rent 4) Last Words: "Hey guys, watch this!..." 3) Hated by all, befriended by none 2) He entered this world the way he left it: screaming and naked 1) Unmourned, Unloved Next topic: Unconventional uses of a knife

Which board games do you think are best for children to play if you want them to develop their minds? Deterministic, perfect-information board games like chess or Go can be good for developing reasoning and creativity skills but these games do not teach about randomness or imperfect information. In the real world we adults have to deal with randomness and imperfect information a lot, so maybe games like monopoly are better?