iNow

Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but some quick googling implies to me that the answer is yes. It looks like the first mammal was Hadrocodium Wui, which is this: ... and that little dude obviously has five fingers/toes.

Your contributions to this site are unparalleled, Dr.Syntax. We're really lucky you're here. FWIW, I consider A Tripolation to be a friend, so your read of this situation is rather poor and inaccurate. I simply made a mistake and was IN NO WAY attacking him. Maybe you should go get more of that wonderful primal therapy you're always talking about so you can start behaving more like a normal human being. Perhaps you haven't figured this out yet, but rep is earned. Obviously, many of my contributions here are valued. I'm sorry if that makes you feel insecure.

You all look the same to me.

I say, yes... absolutely. Our brains are probably too limited to understand the real world impact which would have occurred had we allowed the markets to "self-correct." The bailouts were greatly necessary, and helped tremendously. Without them, we'd have a great many people making fence post soup. I say this with a caveat, though. We're not really doing anything now to add regulations, and we're losing the opportunity to do so. We could do this all over... yet again... if we don't learn from our previous mistakes.

Actually, he's a deist, not a Christian... but I'm just being pedantic.

You put a 4 where the 3 should be. Can you fix that?

The libertarian, Austrian, anti-regulation crowd really needs to return to reality. I am beginning to wonder if free marketeering is the new creationism or global warming denial. The failures of the market without regulation are so obvious as to be unmistakably apparent even to a toddler. This week, Frontline did a special called "The Warning." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/ "We didn't truly know the dangers of the market, because it was a dark market," says Brooksley Born, the head of an obscure federal regulatory agency -- the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] -- who not only warned of the potential for economic meltdown in the late 1990s, but also tried to convince the country's key economic powerbrokers to take actions that could have helped avert the crisis. "They were totally opposed to it," Born says. "That puzzled me. What was it that was in this market that had to be hidden?" In The Warning, veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk unearths the hidden history of the nation's worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. At the center of it all he finds Brooksley Born, who speaks for the first time on television about her failed campaign to regulate the secretive, multitrillion-dollar derivatives market whose crash helped trigger the financial collapse in the fall of 2008. <...> Greenspan, Rubin and Summers ultimately prevailed on Congress to stop Born and limit future regulation of derivatives. "Born faced a formidable struggle pushing for regulation at a time when the stock market was booming," Kirk says. "Alan Greenspan was the maestro, and both parties in Washington were united in a belief that the markets would take care of themselves." Now, with many of the same men who shut down Born in key positions in the Obama administration, The Warning reveals the complicated politics that led to this crisis and what it may say about current attempts to prevent the next one. <...> Following the publication of the concept release, Born testified before Congress in support of regulating derivatives. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt all testified against regulation. The next time someone argues non-regulation, pure free market, and other Austrian fantasyland rubbish, you should seriously think of them like you do a creationist, a person who thinks aliens abduct people and insert probes into their asses, or people who deny human impact on global climate. They truly are that far removed from reality. In the meantime, you should watch this special. It's slightly less than an hour, and pulls together some of the most critical human elements which led to the current crisis, and how mistaken ideologies have caused us all so much strife. Watch Online --> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/

Just stick with the evidence, and you'll do fine. If someone tells you there is a unicorn in the pantry, but aren't willing/able to prove it, then just politely walk away and don't give it another thought. Evidence is your friend. Be good to your fellow humans, and try to learn about the world in which you exist. Beyond that, it's not worth wasting your energy or causing yourself neuroses. Just stop worrying and enjoy your life.

What benefit is a belief system that is not based in evidence, and which is often directly contradicted by reality? I'm genuinely curious. Why is that supposed to be something worth holding on to?

I understand the point you are making here, DS, but one could easily argue that their lack of connection with reality, and their dismissal of the truth (with things like evolution) does more harm to your relationship than would having an open and honest discussion with them about these topics. Further, one might argue that the relationship is not worth a whole lot if you cannot even express yourselves sincerely around one another, or challenge each other on basic principles, without the relationship being harmed. I mean... really. Is that relationship truly such an important part of your life and a critical part of your existence if you have to walk on egg shells around one another? I would think not, but I suppose YMMV. One can be polite, and still stand up for the truth and accuracy. Syntho-sis: Do you believe in the tooth fairy? If not, why not? Now, apply that reasoning to your deity. What... pray tell... is the difference? Stop worrying, and just enjoy your life.

There's probably no god. Now, stop worrying and enjoy your life.

Obviously, it depends on scale. Burning adds CO2 and other elements to the atmosphere, and killing that plant life decreases the base of organisms which would re-absorb that CO2 as part of the respiratory process. However, I tend to agree that it's a stretch.

Hey... Look. Yet another post to this thread from a brand new user with the EXACT same format of spam in the signature. That's GOT to be a coincidence. It's only happened nine times now. First post. New user. This thread. Two links in the sig. Good stuff.

Evidence?

Your argument is basically that if we prevented businesses from borrowing for several years... if we let their manufacturing stop... killing their suppliers and laying off their employees... and if we prevented people from paying their bills for several years so their creditors also failed... and so they too would layoff their employees furthering this self-propagating/cascading set of failures... and if we allowed consumption and production to fall nearly to zero for more than 98% of the population... that, as a result, employment would have gone up and the depression would have ended within 1-2 years? That doesn't make any sense. It dismisses too many of the connections in the system, and glosses over the real-world impact of demolishing the existing system and killing the major players in just a few short weeks. We can't even rebuild the World Trade Center after 8 years, and you're arguing that a mass extinction event of all of the world economies and major players in banking would only have a negative effect lasting for 1? I'm sorry. I'm not drinking that particular brand of kool-aid.

I just liked it because it reminded me of your avatar. Also, I reported the troll when he first arrived. No offense, but y'all could have acted a bit more swiftly and this wouldn't have been an issue. All the same, I take your point about just ignoring him.

Those banks were making those risky choices well before they were guaranteed bailouts from the government, so your assertion that moral hazard was a factor is an example of the post hoc propter hoc fallacy.... again.

Your ideology is not aligned with reality. Problems were a direct result of the market, and had been building for nearly a year before the crash of Lehman. Further, for you to say that things would have been better without intervention from the government with TARP shows just how profoundly your idea of "better" has escaped the realm of common sense and real world impact. You are burying your head in the sand of ideals, and your presentations are suffering accordingly. We don't live in a world of ideals, nor will a purely free market (such as that required for your ideas to work) EVER exist. So... can we all at least agree to argue based on reality, and not based on fantasy and wish thinking?

Here's the short answer. Your challenge is all based on a strawman. It's not about number of offspring alone. It's about the various approaches which lead to the successful passage of genes to future generations. Sometimes organisms will be successful with few offspring, and other times organisms will be successful only with many offspring. It truly is that simple. As a general rule, however, those with more offspring have a higher probability of propagating their genes into the future. The measure of success you cite is merely about "genetic representation" in the future. If organisms can successfully achieve a higher incidence of genetic representation by having fewer offspring, then that is what will generally be selected for. There is no "one right way." There's really no need for claims of double talk and charges of hollow reasoning. You're just arguing a strawman like all of the worthless pile of shit creationist trolls which have come before you.

So, now we can discuss the thread topic? Is the idea that... based on that quote... Einstein was a vegetarian or advocated it? I'm not sure that holds water.

I can't replicate. Works fine for me. Is it possible you are going to a new browser window, and your login credentials are not replicating? (The short answer is that this has nothing to do with the forum, and everything to do with your own computer and/or browser settings). May have something to do with your settings for cookies...

Does look sweet. Where was this? (I could google, but that wouldn't help the conversation)

Actually, we can see it, and we've detected new species. Just FYI. http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12001839 Dung beetles provide an object lesson in the speed of natural selection ONE of the lies regularly promulgated by creationist ideologues is that you cannot see evolution in action right now. For microorganisms this is obviously untrue. The evolution of new viral diseases, such as AIDS, is one example. The evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is another. But bacteria and viruses breed fast, so natural selection has time, within the span of a human life, to make a difference. For species with longer generations, examples are less numerous. But they do exist. A new one has just been published, appropriately, in Evolution. It concerns dung beetles. Harald Parzer and Armin Moczek, of Indiana University, have been studying a species called Onthophagus taurus. Or, rather, it was a species 50 years ago, but it is now heading rapidly towards becoming at least four of them. These are nifty, too: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html#observe

This article may be more accessible for some: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091018141716.htm "It's extra nice now to be able to show precisely how selection has changed the genomes of these bacteria, step by step over tens of thousands of generations," Lenski said. Lenski's team periodically froze bacteria for later study, and technology has since developed to allow complete genetic sequencing. By the 20,000-generation midpoint, researchers discovered 45 mutations among surviving cells. Those mutations, according to Darwin's theory, should have conferred some advantage, and that's exactly what the researchers found. The results "beautifully emphasize the succession of mutational events that allowed these organisms to climb toward higher and higher efficiency in their environment," noted Dominique Schneider, a molecular geneticist at the Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France. <more at the link>