Flareon

Yay, finally. Darn you The Thing, you made me doubt myself.

Okay: [hide]It is initially 1:05, but the boy thinks it is 10:55. After 20 minutes, it reads 1:25. From 10:55 to 1:25, 2.5 hours passed.[/hide] Is that correct?

Unfortunately, it is still very much in use, although it is usually done under anesthesia. A close friend of mine has been enduring them for about 3-4 years now, and only just recently stopped. Although the treatment is controversial, it is sometimes the option that a patient has to be able to lead a somewhat normal life when all other treatments have proven futile. I am not against it per se, but I do strongly believe it should be the absolute last resort. It has the unfortunate side-effect of memory loss.

We had great turn out in the last election. What is disturbing may be that a disproportionate amount of voters were motivated by the fear of the other candidate winning, rather than the desire to see their man get elected. Phi, you seem to have the right idea...care to venture what kind of appeal would get the non-voters out and into the booths?

Oops, I read the question too quickly. Is it [hide]7:25[/hide]?

Yes, you can study patients with brain traumas. But then the post hoc study would not be experimental. Science depends on experimentation. I never disagreed with you. You however, did not even answer my simple question.

[hide]2:25[/hide]

Well, Perot was well-connected and had gobs of money...yes, like Pangloss says, please elaborate.

Ah, I thought it was pointed at me. Well, you make a good point there, as far as creativity and ingenuity being indispensible aspects of research. But let me get this clear: are you stating that it would make zero difference in the advancement rate of psychology whether not human beings could be tested freely without the contraints of ethics? You bring up politics and dogma which is an excellent point: but do you not see that ethics is human-made construct, existing hand-in-hand with politics and dogma? Therefore, perhaps we aren't in such a disagreement after all.

Come again?

Facinating. How exactly does it induce the other brain proteins to follow its suit and fold? Can you be so kind as to direct me to an on-line source, if you know of one?

Unfortunately, if one does wish to see evolution for what it is, nothing will be successful in convincing him/her. Articles such as what you present is just something for us to enjoy and for them to ignore. But if evolution WAS a religion, then would Darwin be our prophet, our messiah?

I never stated that people were smarter now. If you are attributing that statement to me, first go look at my previous posts.

Okay Vladimir, I won't shorten your name, no offense intended. I think you misunderstand what I mean by "scientific reasoning." Scientific reasoning or scientific method, is a way of gathering and testing information. It is a basic approach to understaning. Here is an overview. Obviously you do not yet understand this concept so it is a waste of time for me to debate with you. Obviously you are not well versed in history either. Please provide a more compelling example than monks memorizing books. In the 80's A Japanese man set the world record by memorizing the first 40,000 digits of Pi. What is your point?

The whole name including the middle initial? Or just the first, like, 'Hi, I'm Bob'? What induced this particular curiosity?

This administration has done a swell job cutting the divide of partisanship even deeper. Unless there is unity among those who are "for a third," there will not be a successful third candidate because no one wants throw their vote away. Even though unification seems like a daunting, if not impossible task, I believe that we may be ripe for it, because even many Reps have been becoming uneasy if not outright disillusioned by their party's wanton extreme rightism (especially the Reps who are economically conservative, but not necessarily socially conservative), and many Dems are sick of their party's whiny rhetoric.

Xavier, I agree with much of what you said. I would just like to add a little of my point of view. If innate potential of racism is beneficial to the subgroup of a species due to increased propagation of similar genes, then killing of step children, adultery, even some forms of incest should also be "beneficial." Just because a concept is legitimate in the biological sense does not make it right in the social sense. And we human beings while inescapably biological are also just as inescapably social creatures. Xavier, if you are speaking strictly in terms of biology, that's well and fine. But personally I believe that the line between understanding a nature and acceptance of it is frequently crossed in such a manner as you have shown. But this is not to assume any knowledge on my part of your motivations as I do not know you as a person.

This reminds me of a query on Straight Dope: "If all one billion Chinese people jumped up at once, would the earth wobble?"

I used to believe similar. Now after having been to various parts of the coutry, meeting people of many different backgrounds, having held fulltime jobs, applying for college, I've began to think differently. It's not as simple as being of equal intelligence.

Beautifully said.

You 'bug' me...

What if the bug of many names was walking, doing his little left-right-left-right shuffle and I picked him and shook him (don't call PETA) and made him all discombobulated and set him back down. Would he pick up the pattern where he left off? Does he always begin with the left, or is the beginning step random? Im really curious to find out more.

Ooh, dissection fun! I guess the only advice I can think of would be to choose your lab partner (if you are allowed a choice) wisely.

I already expressed that our intelligence has not changed by stating that our potential is still the same. I wasn't arguing the original point; I was arguing Vlad's point that we have not achieved as much recently as we did before. To answer Vlad: Our big social achievement? Scientific Reasoning. The system of acquiring knowledge which holds that all hypotheses must be able to be disproven. I don't wish to stray from the main topic any longer than I already have. Please find this information, or better yet begin a new topic elsewhere.