Sisyphus

You misunderstand entirely. Obviously there is a strong genetic component to intelligence, otherwise there would be no point in talking about it. My statement is still completely accurate. The fact that when environmental factors are removed from the experiment, blacks and whites do exactly the same on intelligence tests demonstrates that the discrepancy BETWEEN RACES is environmental, not genetic. Like I said. You didn't "call me" on anything. You also don't seem to understand what "desirable" means in terms of evolution. The entirety of what it means is the passing on of one's genes. Is population control a good idea? Obviously. But does it help you pass on your genetic traits? No. If every Chinese couple only has 1 child, a Chinese man's genes only account for one half of a person in the next generation. Compare that to a family with four children in, say, India. Continue this for a few generations, and assume the pattern holds. After one generation, the genes of the Indian account for four times as much of the total gene pool as the Chinese man. After two generations, 16. Three, 64. Then 256, then 1024 after just five generations. The total population is thus evolving to be more Indian and less Chinese at an extreme rate, and it is thereby extremely genetically undesirable to be Chinese.

So in other words, the fertilized ovum needs nutrients to survive? That it can't magically grow out of nothing? What is your point, exactly? No more than any other cell, which is not much. Immersed in the proper nutrients, constanty being refreshed (standing in for the circulatory system) and in the proper environment, the white blood cell will go about its metabolic functions, and divide into other white blood cells. If you know a way of turning them into stem cells, I'd love to hear that, as well as why your method only works with white blood cells. You probably want to paraphrase that in a way that makes some sense.

Yeah, it's just racism. And yeah, it's disgraceful. But I don't think it counts as discrimination; it's just free speach. The Klan is free to discourage people from voting for black candidates. And, sadly, it's probably politically effective. All politicians manipulate demographics. It's certainly not true that "white aren't allowed to complain," BTW. What is this lawsuit? What is this thread?

It wouldn't just be the number of ways of arranging the grid, I don't think. Because for each possible solution, you also have every single combination of starting numbers that lead uniquely to that solution. I have no idea how to go about calculating that, but it seems like it would be a pretty big number.

There are at least two reasons I can think of. One, something like the air sack might be a way of demonstrating healthiness and available resources. "Look at me. I can have this big, colorful frivolous thing hanging off me. I can afford to waste resources." And two, an instinctive attraction to something doesn't just go away as soon as the survival value of that thing does. Say, hypothetically, there is a plague of deadly vampire bats that attack monkeys on the back of the neck. It lasts a long time, and those monkeys who evolve neck spikes to keep them away have a much better chance of survival, and thus, necks spikes become instinctively attractive in a mate, since they show a greater probabillity that the mate will survive to bear and take care of the young. Then the vampire bats go extinct. The neck spikes no longer help individuals survive. Yet monkeys of the opposite sex are still attracted to them, and so those monkeys with the spikes have more offspring, and the spikes grow bigger and bigger until they're a hindrance. ......or just think humans and large breasts. When was the last time a child in a developed nation died because his mother couldn't produce enough milk?

Right, except that the IQ difference between Europe and South Africa is not genetic, it's environmental, as the studies Phil cites demonstrate. And the individuals in a society tend to have more children when they are less intelligent, meaning lower intelligence (to a degree, obviously) is more desirable, from an evolutionary standpoint. Incidentally, it has become extremely undesirable to be Chinese. The population halves every generation!

Sure, the physical causes of mental illnesses are poorly understood. The brain is an extremely complex machine. Beyond that, I'm not sure what's being asked. The brain is a physical object, so obviously, whatever is happening inside it has a physical cause. And obviously, chemical changes can profoundly affect consciousness. Take some LSD if you don't believe me...

That is a tough one. If this were readily availible, a lot of people would essentially become vegetables overnight. It's like the ideal drug: a perfect high of unlimited duration with no side effects at all, and it's cheap as electricity. Of course, it would destroy the user's motivation, because if you have that, how could you want anything else? But unless you're actually harming others by doing so (like doing it while you're driving), I can't morally justify outlawing it. I'm undecided. This is the "tasp," by the way, if anyone else is familiar with Larry Niven's books. In his universe, the problem basically solves itself, as the sort of person who becomes addicted to it almost never breeds...

I haven't seen it either, and so this is kind of a ridiculous argument, but I still don't see how he possibly could have presented it so as to excuse terrorism. Even if there is a "moral equivalence," it seems like it would have to be in condemning both sides equally, not excusing anyone. The point would indeed be that two wrongs don't make a right.

They don't sleep in the same way we do. They have to be conscious to breathe, and so they can never be completely unconscious. They are still mammals, though, so their brains do need to be unconscious for several hours a day in order to continue functioning properly. They solve this by letting only half of their brains "sleep" at a time. Humans have no equivalent state, and so we can't describe what it feels like, but behavior-wise, they either swim very slowly near the surface, occasionally surfacing, or just float on the surface. Since they are also literally "half-awake," they can return to full consciousness the moment any trouble appears.

How is he excusing anything? He's saying the people who are accusing him of setting up a moral equivalence are morons. "Understanding does not require approval," he said. I would have thought that it would be obvious that we need to understand our enemies, and that perpetuating a cycle of violence is a bad thing. Those ought to be non-controversial sentiments, I think.

I'm not going to address the race issues you're talking about beyond saying: a) This study contradicts others I've seen that say there is no significant difference in intelligence based on race. That doesn't mean this is wrong, necessarily, but it does probably mean it's not quite as black and white (pun not intended) as you think. Measuring inborn intelligence is not even close to an exact science. b) Your logic is seriously flawed regarding the outcomes of such hypothetical differences. (Asians are at a disadvantage due to trade policies, yet blacks are "too dumb to use a condom.") and c) Did you really not expect to be called racist moron because of this, or do you just not care? ANYWAY, regarding your initial premise, "intelligence is always desirable." I don't think I agree. Your example of the intelligent woman pretending to be dumb to get what she wants is true, but misleading. Intelligence will, it's true, usually help you get what you want. But in order for it to be evolutionarily desirable, what you want always has to be more children. However, this is clearly not the case - to the contrary, the more intelligent one is, the more likely is one to find reasons not to have children, like education or finances. Who's going to have more kids, the woman with 4 PhD's who is in school until she's 35? Or the high school dropout who is "too dumb to use a condom?" Intelligence also might not always even be useful at getting what one wants. I remember reading somewhere that the most successful and well-adjusted people tend to have IQs between 115 and 130. Curious.

As has been pointed out, you need to be more specific. But generally speaking, wind turbines are the better technology in most cases, capable of producing more power per cost. This is true for several reasons, most obviously that in most places there is enough wind to generate power almost all the time, but the sun only shines in the daytime, and is greatly reduced when it's cloudy.

I don't even understand. Is it illegal to say you want to have sex with someone?

It doesn't matter what the amount is. If he's not satisfied with all other proofs, he's not going to be satisfied with anything. It's a rhetorical offer.

What is the merit of that forum over this one?

Though not intended to be taken literally...

....so you guys are saying not everything is about sex?

I'm a little confused about calling it "training." I mean, it's not like you join the navy, and instead of sending you to boot camp they give you a rifle and point you at pirates. I don't see how it could take the place of anything, and so it's not really more efficient, per se. That is, unless you're talking about a routine drill kind of thing, but even that is not quite right. By that logic, any war is a good, efficient solution, because it saves on training...... That said, if American ships are getting attacked in international waters, of course the navy should intervene. What else do we have a navy for?

Right, it's just unhindered acceleration, so other factors like wind resistance are ingnored. For relativity I think you'd have to specify a reference frame.

I was wondering where you were coming from. Now it all makes sense. See, the thing about Rush Limbaugh is, most of the statistics he quotes are just made up off the top of his head. It's not really "spinning," exactly. It's more like blatantly lying. But it's not illegal, and his listeners aren't exactly the sort to fact check.

Spirals are tricky because they're composed of two completely independant motions: the radial and rotational, each of which can vary freely of the other. (To trace a spiral, spin a ruler around one point, and move your pencil along the length of the ruler.) As a result, there are many different kinds of spirals, and I don't think there's one equation which can represent its length. However, I think you can generally have a good approximation if you divide it into segments of equal angular distance, then use the average radius over each segment as if it were the radius of the arc of a circle of equal angular distance, thereby approximating the spiral with a series of segments of circles of different radii.

I think this thread should be moved to pseudoscience.

I don't think the ice caps follow politics too closely, and so direct causation is probably not the case... However, it also seems foolish to deny the likelihood that we (humans) have nothing to do with it, as it would be one huge coincidence if we hadn't, don't you think? And Bush does want to deny that, and does insist on policies that would make things much worse. So I have no particular qualms about blaming him for all sorts of crazy stuff.

What do you consider creationism, then?