The Bear's Key

No, I just think the misconceptions about it have been spread far and wide. And if a person who disliked the BB misnamed it, keep in mind that one way to discredit a concept among a political base is to squeeze every ounce you can from any related misconception, especially if the confusion mostly originates in the name itself. Thus, the guy who misnamed it probably didn't intend this end result, but the politicians whose twisting of religion was endangered by the Big Bang concept might have jumped at the opportunity. Stir in enough doubt, and mission accomplished. Like global warming, strong evidence can be weakened by muddying the big picture with doubt. Science needs to take charge and rename the Big Bang, make it their own, and remove from it the politician's strongest leverage for intended confusion. Of course, it's possible for human error to be solely responsible for the misconceptions, and political trickery might actually have a minor role. But whatever the case, the science establishment isn't helpless. It's able to make the necessary changes to lessen the misconceptions, the easiest being a name change that's more accurate, with lesser chance of being inaccuracy-friendly.

Flemsicle I had invented that one way before the urban dictionary's 2006 origin. Their's is a ceiling toy, mine is accumulated in a bucket over a period of time and frozen onto an ice cream stick into a lumpy, sticky popsicle. But the ice cream maker will turn it nice and creamy. Yum!

EditPad Lite, free program, minimal components and can open any size file. Might take a while for 833 MB though

"They've been wrong before" is not a reason for skepticism. A much better reason is not having looked at the evidence yourself. In between replicating the experiments and combing the data, skepticism is healthy. Wise, in fact. Yet just being a skeptic for the label's prestige, tends to be stupid. Few will be able to replicate experiment or review the data, so it's a perfect opportunity for politicians and/or the affected industries to confuse the issues. Be skeptical of them as well. However, unlike science, they have no formal manner of recording their views for experimental analysis. In other words, their conclusions are merely opinions that can't be dissected in a lab, and they don't have a larger peer-review body that automatically double-checks their results with the understanding their peers will make every attempt to poke holes through it. Science welcomes the fine scrutinizing of every bitty detail by complete strangers in the field, because that's what real scientists do. The opposition has no such intellectual architecture. They have no rigid, self-imposed, and neutrally "open to all" type of checks and balances. And due to all that, it's easy for them to confuse the issues. It's fine scrutiny vs. closed door meetings and strategizing. The opposition, industries, politicians can afford the money to do astroturf. In fact, we may have some of those occasionally dropping by here for all we know.

Well they are scoundrels. Except ironically, not Bush as much as people might think. Why do you suppose that he was given a hand-picked audience to give speeches to, and demonstrators were made to protest blocks away from view? Insulation. The bubble he lived in was ideal for his "subordinates" to keep their activities hidden from the top guy. They fetch his newspapers, probably conservative ones, they keep the TV news on the Fox, and kept a tight group of loyal supporters averting his eyes. In case some real-world tidbit made it past them to him, they had already warned him of how liberals were "against" finding terror suspects. In their twisted version, they probably claimed that liberals opposed unwarrented surveilance because it wasn't fair to jihadists. OK maybe not so simplistic, but you get the drift. I think the best thing reporters could've done, which they haven't but still can, was to ask him a simple question, "do you know what your administration has been up to?"..... and follow up with a long list of interesting summaries and revealing facts. I believe the shite would hit the fan.

You are partially correct. A better perspective is that the people who are assholes yell the loudest, and the people who just mind their business yet disagree with the assholes go unheard precicely because they don't go about huffing and puffing up their righteousness. Precisely why faith exists, or is as important as reason, and the likely reason for the Bible having contradictions. A society with a variety of athiests, the faithful and doses of both, is a healthy one. Either way, no science or faith will know everything, much less .00000001% of everything. Science and faith do co-exist perfectly. This post by iNow might shed relevance into why it don't seem like they do. Just change the context from harmful people in power to harmful people abusing faith. Again only partially correct (see beginning of post). You've undoutedly met plenty who didn't challenge science and were in fact religious and/or creationists, but didn't mention that aspect of themselves. And didn't see a need to. Bingo. Also consider that many believers do appreciate science but know only a little and therefore do question things that go against the Book, however they are open-minded enough to ask questions and open to the possibility that the science is valid. Many even are knowledgeable about the potential for corruption in the church, and take denials of science with a grain of salt. That is the problem with being the silent majority. The little fringe groups can hold the loudspeakers and proclaim themselves the moral majority, of which they're neither. But I gotta say it has value not to feed the fire either. At first it seemed a bad choice when the scientists had boycotted the I-D conference to present their case. But I saw the wisdom in it then. So use of judgment in letting people vent opinions even if wrong is as valid as when someone pipes in to challenge them.

Let me rephrase, it wouldn't let me post there in that link you gave.

(I can't post there, so maybe you can move this for me) Let's not kid ourselves. These scoundrels had a long to-do list from the very beginning, they planned to squeeze every last inch of a whole lot of their expliuts into our system. You didn't notice how your head might spin from tracking one heinous act of theirs, and by the time you could grasp how outrageous it was they'd already be onto a next heinous act? The bewilderment of wondering exactly how they could get away with it, was probably their intent. To keep opponents doubting that anyone could ever be so mindfully brazen about actions that should undoubtedly land one in federal and international trouble. See the magic of doing something most people would take with a large grain of salt if they heard mention of it? Especially if you had your AM radios and certain TV media propogandists claiming your righteousness and patriotism loudly every day, which is more resonating after one's nation had gotten attacked. Yes, they'll be queezing every little and big sheenanigans they can, not only until the very last seconds before inauguration, but probably well into months afterwards as the rats left behind in the system filter out and even then some will remain behind.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112103359.html Historic

I strongly disagree. I never voted before 2004, barely knew what a Republican or Democrat were, and thought Ross Perot was the only candidate who wasn't a total weasel politician in 1992 -- yet couldn't vote for him either. 91% supported the prez after the buildings went down. His crew used the opportunity to entrench their party and destroy the opposition, in a time when the nation needed their leadership. You call that anger or jealousy by the people affected by the nonstop, bold scheming of this administration? Postponing explanations and then claiming it's old news when it's long due? Sorry, but I have defended faith, business and government to people who are right to be angry, and I still do. But there is something you might consider. It's not politics when an obsessed group of politicians have committed treason. And I'm not even talking about Iraq. I do believe in God, by the way. And I don't like documentaries such as the one Bill Maher created. Yet his movie is far less dangerous than when a political gang takes hold of something pure like faith and twists it, gaining a large swath of unsuspecting votes. I know someone who is all Christ the Savior, nothing is possible without God, put all your faith in His Son, etc. Her radio is always playing sermons, but I must tell you, she filters it only gaining the nuggets, dismissing the politics sprinkled within, and not fully trusting the church. She will never be dangerous. But she knows those who seek power by luring with the attraction of holy scripture, they are more likely to be corrupt. She doesn't trust the prez nor this new Palin, and she has no idea what a Democrat or Republican is, nor even about world events. You know, some things are just obvious. While I and others saw both candidates as a dreaded lesser of both evils choice, we had been unaware there was a huge following that idolized politicians of their party, and worse, tuning in solely to a.m. radio, conservative media, or evangelists who drilled over and over into their heads that the media was liberal and so it's safe to tune in only to the safe networks: the political machine using religion as tool after twisting a few key concepts.