PhDP

This ground-breaking educational film reveals historical and archaeological evidence that dinosaur and man once co-existed. Even if it's not what they meant, this affirmation that we has co-existed with dinosaurs (and still do) is true. Birds are dinosaurs. I can't believe creationism, even maybe christianism as a whole, won't suffer in the near future for all those absurdities they're promoting.

Which ones ? Seriously I am very interested in any good argument against it, but really often I've only heard purely ideological attack against socialized healthcare, "it makes people lazy", "the governement is strealing our money", "it cannot run anything efficiently", et cetera et cetera... I'm not saying socialized healthcare is perfect, it isn't, especially in Canada, but it hasn't made Canadians "lazy red Stalinists" either. There's probably a lots of alternatives, but if it's fair (everybody is equal in a socialized system) AND efficient, I think it's more than a "reasonably good" idea.

It seems so, you are often using as an argument that "blacks don't achieve well", like it was proving they have a lower intelectuel potential. In fact, and that's why I'm surprised there's still people believing Rushton (who is obviously biased), it's quite simple; the moment you show that by eliminating environment you eliminate the gasp, you know it's environmental. There's not a whole lot to say because it's not very complicated. Read about basic genetics, read about studies eliminating environmental factors, and then if you want to refute Rushton's "Life History" argument read about Life history theory (which doesn't even work if differences are only environmental). You don't understand the point, it's not that they achieve better; they are as good (even slightly better). If it's in their genes, if "being black" is a sign of intellectual inferiority, how can you explain that ? Anway, the gaps is reducing, Rushton and his frieds, which often claim it was "impossible", must not be very happy. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ltt/results2004/sub-reading-race.asp Wow, you have to explain that to me. "culture is innate", it's like saying "black is white", by definition when we are speaking of "culture", it's something acquired during life.

A true creation scientist is not happy if he hasn't created confusions in every single area of science, even in mathematics. Like swansont said, they have already worked their way into geology and astronomy. AFAIK, most of the attacks on geology and astronomy is from YEC (young earth creationists). For exemple, did you know that those god hating liberals geologists are using radiometric dating without even knowing it's not working ! http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i1/earth.asp Or that those foolish astronomers claims that the speed of light is constant, even if it was proven by rigorous creation Scientist that the speed of light isn't constant. In fact, if you plot various bad estimations of the speed of light in the last centuries you'll find that the speed of light was infinite about 6 000 years ago, and his constant since 1960, just as the bible said ! http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/speed_of_light.html#claim

If I was tortured by aliens asking me to name something great in Bill O'Reilly, I'll say that he doesn't do everything to fit into a label. The fact that he's lying so much is, however, makes him very unsympathic (to me at least). But even if I agree he's not a neoconservative or even a paleoconservative, I'm 90% sure he would rank firmly in the right part of a "politicalcompass"-like map. Personally, I see him as a rather rightish populist, he is really strong on using superficial stereotypes to justify his point.

I strongly disagree with you on that one mister Pangloss, if that's your real name In fact, I think your exemple of the zeta-ray cure is a good start for an argument against the private healthcare system. Let's take it from a purely strategic point of view. There's a limited amount of money we can put into health care, it's sad, we can't save everybody, but it's a fact, and I agree with you on that part. And I agree with Rand's ideological son that the type of system (privatized or socialized) doesn't change the amount of money in the system. The distinction is that with a socialized system, the cost is shared by all, and can be shared progressively. Secondo, in a socialized system, you can choose where to put the money so it would be the most beneficial, but in a privatized system, as in your example, some people would necessarily put lots of money to be cured, money that could be better used. If what you want from an health care system is that it doesn't "confiscate the citizens' wealth", well, privatisation is great, if you want to save the most lives with a limited amount or ressources, socialisation is a good idea. In Quebec we have what you call "socialized healthcare". We pay less, far less. Because our doctors are not paid as well, because there's no cost in advertising, no profits and nearly no frivolous lawsuits. I could also find you some references proving private health care, for the same service, cost more (is that surprising?). Sure, the system is not perfect, and we are probably not putting enough money in it since the "zero deficit" policy of our governement[1], but still, it's really far from being a failure. You can probably scare off some people with the word socialized, but you have to look at the facts. Also, one of the problem with "inventing" better and new medical technologies is often the private, it's incredible the amout on money wasted on marketing that could be used to do research. I try to be a realist, pragmatic social democrat, but honestly I haven't much data against socialized health care except ideological rethoric. Also, I'll say that money IS important, but still it's not an end in itself, it's a tool we have to achieve something. [1] I could have inserted a nationalist message just there...

I'll say it for another time (third?); phenotype is not genotype. It's basic genetics, I've learned that before university. It's not because black people have a lower IQ that it's because they are black. To prove that you have to eliminate the environmental factor, and when the environmental factor is out, "blacks" do NOT follow a pattern of "low achievement". Maybe you have decided that "blacks are idiots and that's it", but you'll need a little more than common sense to prove a point. And seriously, I don't care about your common sense, as I don't care about my own common sense. One thing about science is going a little deeper than common sense, prejudices and blind faith.

Well, that's not science, and it's not even rational. You cannot say it's in their genes, you cannot say it's because they are "black" as long as you didn't eliminate the environmental factor in your study, in fact it's quite easy to understand. So how could one not judge them as having less intelligence? By using science and rationality, not prejudice And you think if they were white it would be different ? Have you read the article showing that people close to the equator had a lower IQ ? It's not because they are black, white or yellow, it's because the environment is hard.

Well, THAT'S a strange statement, as I just gave you many references on the subject; Nisbett, R.E. 2005. Heredity, Environment, And Race Differences in IQ; A commentary on Rushton and Jensen. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11(2), 302-310. Jencks, C. and Phillips, M. (Editors), 1998. The Black-White Test Score Gap. Brookings Institution Press Scarr, S. and Weinberg, R.A. 1983. The Minnesota Adoption Studies: Genetic Differences and Malleability. Child Development, 54, 260-267. Scarr. S., Pakstis, S., Katz, H and Barker. 1977. The absence of a relationship between degree of white ancestory and intellectual skills within the Black population. Human Genetics, 39, 69-86. Tizard, B., Cooperman, A and Tizard, J. 1972. Enviromental effects on language development a study of young children in longstay residential nurseries. Child Development, 43, 342-343. What's even more strange is that you seem to accept the ideas of Rushton, even if he didn't prove; A - That races are a biological fact. In reality, the very idea of a "black race" is phylogenetically unlikely. The first thing that draw my attention is Rushton's book is how he arbitrarily accept the "3 races" models as true. B - That blacks score lower because they are black (which seems to be an important point). All his "life history" argument is completely bogus if he cannot prove the genetical basis on the difference, but he doesn't even seems to try. If blacks score lower because of the enviroment, and it is the case, well, how can Rushton interpret it as a different life history strategy ?

You don't understand, it's not that intelligence is not in the genes, it's that the differences between "race" is necessarily environmental, otherwise it would not disappear when we eliminate the environmental factor by studying the IQ of "blacks" being raised by "whites" parents.

I don't see why. Humans are much smarter than drosophila, but they can change much faster than we do, probably in part because they have a relatively simple design. Also, you don't need to "know" why you are selecting a mate, in fact, even with our great intelligence, we often don't even know why we are choosing a mate over another. It can be because of sexual selection. Even if a trait reduce survival, let say by 5% because it's useless or even because it's attracting predators, it can be favoured by time if it's attracting 10% more females. Sexual selection can play against natural selection and do very strange morphological transformation.

Yes I can; Nisbett, R.E. 2005. Heredity, Environment, And Race Differences in IQ; A commentary on Rushton and Jensen. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11(2), 302-310. Jencks, C. and Phillips, M. (Editors), 1998. The Black-White Test Score Gap. Brookings Institution Press Scarr, S. and Weinberg, R.A. 1983. The Minnesota Adoption Studies: Genetic Differences and Malleability. Child Development, 54, 260-267. Scarr. S., Pakstis, S., Katz, H and Barker. 1977. The absence of a relationship between degree of white ancestory and intellectual skills within the Black population. Human Genetics, 39, 69-86. Tizard, B., Cooperman, A and Tizard, J. 1972. Enviromental effects on language development a study of young children in longstay residential nurseries. Child Development, 43, 342-343. Two other very interesting articles on the subject of "race and IQ"; Mingroni, M. A. 2004. The secular rise in IQ: Giving heterosis a closer look. Intelligence, 32, 65-83. Show that the IQ rise may be due to cross-ethnic matings. Beals, K. L., Smith, C. L. & Dodd, S. M. 1984. Brain size, cranial morphology, climate, and time machines. Current Anthropology, 25, 301–330. Show that distance from the equator, not race, predict the mean IQ of a group I don't like Rushton. His work range mostly from "biased" to "completly irrational". I've read his book nearly by accident (while doing a research on the theoretical implications of life history evolution), and his understanding of life history evolution is extremely low. It's incredible, he used the r/K model as it was a powerful predictive theoretical tool ! Even Pianka acknowledge his model is mainly a pedagological tool, and, anyway, it is now known to be too inaccurate to make any sort of predictions; Case, T.J. 1999. An Illustrated Guide to Theoretical Ecology. I still can't believe he call himself a defender of race realism...

Rushton is the idiot. You cannot conclude that "black people" are genetically less intelligent without eliminating the environmental factor, and when the environmental factor is out (by comparing data on black and white children raised by white parents), blacks are as intelligent as white people. And Rushton continue to evaluate the phenotype like is was a correct evaluation of the genotype. Could you find the source for that, I find that conclusion to be very interesting.

It depends on what you want to program . Basic programming doesn't require much maths, however most computer scientist have at least some knowledge of discrete mathematics, which is closely tied to the language of the computer.

Thanks dave ! I'll give Octave/GNUplot a try (if I can found a good guide), it seems to be able to plot differentials equations.

Exactly, but I can't correct it now, we're doomed !

[math]\sin^2(x) = \frac{1-\cos(2x)}{2}[/math] You just have to replace the "x" in the identity with your "4x"; [math]\sin^2(4x) = \frac{1-\cos(2(4x))}{2}=\frac{1-\cos(8x)}{2}[/math] So your integral is now; [math]\int \sin^2(4x)dx = \frac{1}{2}\int dx - \frac{1}{2}\int \cos(8x)dx[/math]

It's the quality of the PNG, and probably also the fact that I'm manually converting Maple's graphic to PNGs. The best would probably be to produce the graphic directly with LaTeX, but I don't know how.

I have no problem with equations, there's nothing better than LaTeX for equations. I have a problem with graphics, plotting functions and ODE.

I have a project in biology with many equations (mostly ODE and PDE). I use LaTeX (MikTeX/TeXnicCenter) and Maple for plotting functions. I convert them to PNG so TeXnicCenter can compile my work in PDF. But the quality is not very good. I saw many PDF with mathematical model where you could "zoom in" without lossing much quality, how ? I know you can draw lines, and cercles with LaTeX but ODE are far too complex.

The BQ is, essentially, a party that's voting with the left on most issues, but that's also very often voting with the right against centralization of power in Ottawa. It's a strong voice for Quebec and a strong voice against centralization, that's what they do for Quebec. If the BQ was not there, I would not even bother to vote... Yes, and I wish it will settle the question for good.

I would like to help on the part on the theory of evolution, and, if it's included, on the history of evolutionary biology. It would be interesting if we could assemble a team and work on a text à la Wikipedia, where everybody on the team could work on the guide freely.

From time to time I look at what John Gibson and Bill O'Reilly have to say. I don't know how representative they are of FoxNews, but those guys are far from being moderate, despite the fact (joke?) that O'Reilly claim to be a centrist.

Liberals are in power since 1993, and it seems quite possible they'll retain the power, again, by promising billions in area outside their competence and by saying the conservatives are disciples of Bush. The problem with the conservative party is their leader, Harper is as charismatic as ice... and they are too socially conservative to win much seats in Quebec. Anyway, I'm a sovereignist, so I'm voting for the center-left sovereigntist Bloc Québécois. Jean Chretien was ousted in his own party by Paul Martin. http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,780869,00.html

Hey ! We have an election in Canada, nobody cares ?