Jihad needs scientists

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:qndaj2p3kovkgrk7g4ijnppv9d1ptn2qfm@4ax.com...

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:07:41 +0100, "T Wake"
usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

It is sad that people are pushed to the point at which they feel they need
to throw stones at Soldiers to get their voices heard. Isn't democracy
wonderful.

How does hurling rocks get "their voices heard"?

Well, in fact I think it was exactly events like KSU that made
visible/audible a rising tide of discontent with Vietnam, that Nixon could
no longer ignore, and ultimately led to our complete withdrawal.

As I said, I
wouldn't throw rocks at people with guns; I don't fancy being in the
right, and dead.

It is fortunate your countries founding fathers didn't hold this
viewpoint.

They threw rocks at people with guns?

Maybe not the "Founding Fathers" as in Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, etc,
but in fact, yes. The famous "shot heard round the world" was a British
soldier firing on an angry mob, some of whom were throwing stones. One of
the first people killed was a child, if I remember my 10th-grade American
History class correctly. (This could have been a little bit of jingoistic
rewriting of history, though.) If my memory is correct, it was precisely
this act of firing on the mob that incensed the population, and served to
motivate the revolutionaries through the ensuing brutal years of fighting.

Eric Lucas

 

"David Bostwick" <david.bostwick@chemistry.gatech.edu> wrote in message
news:eh3g6g$1fm$2@news-int.gatech.edu...

In article <K38Zg.17285$6S3.4370@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net>,
lucasea@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in
message
news:100aj2tujd38kum9omn0ni4tcbd22cfdbe@4ax.com...

[...]


There are plenty of tax-exempt nonprofits on both sides, or rather all
sides.

The ones I'm objecting to are the religious ones, and they're almost
invariably aligned with the right.



So you haven't been in many African-American churches, eh?

No, not really. They don't have much use for Renaissance/Baroque recorder
quartets. :^)

However, it is my understanding that the trusim that black churches vote
Democrat is now dated. I understand part of the reason that Bush carried
the South in 2000 and 2004 is because the black churches gave up on the
Democrats who had largely been ignoring them for many years. Not true?

Eric Lucas

 

"Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:45355C57.28A8837D@earthlink.net...

The one where someone is
reported to have fired at the National Guard

Now *there's* a nice little bit of revisionist history.

The national Guard is made up of well
trained soldiers

Not especially, not then. As I understand it, John Fields got it right when
he pointed out that they were mostly kids of roughly the same age as the
students, many of them ROTC graduates, and green as hell.

The thing that surprised me was that the riots went on for so long
before it happened. At least a year before Kent State I was telling
people it was going to happen, and it would stop the riots, but no one
believed me.

Those were bad times. A very vocal minority hated our participation in
Vietnam, and were frustrated that those in power just didn't understand the
ethical problems of other US kids, i.e., their friends and brothers, being
killed in a country that had never done a damn thing to us, and where we had
no clear ethical reason to be in the fight.

Eric Lucas

 

"Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:45356037.5C0BD56@earthlink.net...

lucasea@sbcglobal.net wrote:

Not in churches, they're not. As a musician in a group that happens to
play
for church services a lot, I've been to services of quite a few
denominations...and many of them preach politics from the pulpit, to the
extent of telling their congregation for whom they should vote. That is
a
big problem, in my book.


Then you are a hypocrite for performing at those churches if you know
their views. If you don't know and perform there, you should tell them
why you won't be back.

Why do you equate playing music for an organization as endorsing their
political actions? I enjoy playing music, and I get a great deal of joy out
of sharing that music with others. I don't particularly care about the
politics or ethics of those I play for...and I'm sure they don't care about
mine.

Eric Lucas

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:07:18 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan
<jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:

They are prohibited by law from engaging in politics, and
that's reasonably well enforced.

Not in churches, they're not.

Churches may not donate money or substantial resources to political
candidates. Would you have a prohibition against members of a
congregation discussing politics? How about members of the Sierra
Club? The NRA? The ACLU? MADD?

There have been some recent legal actions against churches that have
broken the no-politics rules, and against some secular nonprofits,
too.

As a musician in a group that happens to play
for church services a lot, I've been to services of quite a few
denominations...and many of them preach politics from the pulpit, to the
extent of telling their congregation for whom they should vote. That is a
big problem, in my book.

Of course it is; you don't want their candidates to win.

John

 

"MooseFET" <kensmith@rahul.net> wrote in message
news:1161137010.045786.169700@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

Also: the "jawbone of an ass" was the first recorded republican
filibuster.

LOL! It's not often that I hear something on Usenet that takes me so
totally by surprise. I laughed myself to tears over that.

Eric Lucas

 

[Eeyore]

John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:07:18 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan
jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:

As a musician in a group that happens to play
for church services a lot, I've been to services of quite a few
denominations...and many of them preach politics from the pulpit, to the
extent of telling their congregation for whom they should vote. That is a
big problem, in my book.

Of course it is; you don't want their candidates to win.

*Their* candidates ?

How long before the USA has religious political parties ? Are to become the New
Iran ?


Graham

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 19:23:05 +0100, "T Wake"
<usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

Good point and fair cop. Although the debate was about America as an entity
so there is still some validity in the terminology used. I am not trying to
say "everyone in Azerbaijan hates America" or anything along those lines. It
is simply the case that the "general opinions" as made available by popular
media, news and political debate is that the populations of most countries
have a low opinion of the US as an entity (not of Americans per se) and of
US actions on a global scale.

This is strange as the US does so much good. People can either accept the
low opinion and ask why this skewed perspective exists or dismiss it and
carry on as normal.

The US is rich and powerful. That alone creates a lot of resentment.
If I were poor and opressed and hungry, of course I'd tend to resent
people who spend more maintaining their swimming pool than it would
take to feed my village. And they have a point. They might dislike
europeans or Australians as well, but the US has become the cultural
symbol for material excess and hedonism. Part of the dislike for
Americans is for what we do, but I sense it's more for what we are,
and for what we *can* do.

Some people, perhaps a minority, look at the US and don't resent us,
they say "Cool, I want to be like that too." And some of them emigrate
here, and do it. Some of them stay home and do it. Different
temperaments. I have a friend that I met in Russia, and I invited him
to visit me here, which he did, and now *he* has a swimming pool
behind his big house in Sacramento, and I still don't.

John

 

"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote in message
news:cfGdnVrm2JcngajYnZ2dnUVZ8qqdnZ2d@pipex.net...

Generally speaking any belief system does no harm to scientific
exploration in that manner. The problem comes in when the belief tries to
answer scientific questions.

Well put. That's what I was trying desperately, and failed miserably, to
say.

Yet despite this many, many, scientists (including Darwin) have held
strong religious beliefs.

Of course religious belief doesn't necessarily prevent one from becoming a
good scientist. There are many, many examples, including many of the
greatest, who were great scientific minds and also deeply religious--Newton,
Galileo, and I believe even Einstein. In some sense, I've heard scientist
friends who also happen to be religious say that, far from conflicting with
their religion, science gives them all the deeper appreciation and awe for
their god. Certainly that's how Darwin was reported to have felt. I'm
somewhere between agnostic and atheist, but I can understand and appreciate
that.

Eric Lucas

 

"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote in message
news:9YudneJsm-X4vajYnZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@pipex.net...

The key issue is this is a peer reviewed article, it is safe to assume
both right and left wing people have gone over the methodology.

Well, that may and may not be a fair assumption. Academics in this country
are generally somewhere between left-leaning and radical left. That trend
is starting to change, but unfortunately, if media reports are to be seen as
representative, it's not changing by everybody moving more toward the
center...the average is moving back toward the center due to a small amount
of radical right backlash in academia.

Still, given the controversial nature of the study, the Lancet would be
abbrogating its responsibility if it didn't find a right-leaning reviewer or
two to look over the article before it was published.

In any case, attacking an article on the grounds that "I don't believe it"
and a general indictment of the methods used is no substitute for actually
understanding the statistics behind those methods and understanding
precisely why they are or are not valid, based on sound mathematical
arguments rather than "well, gee, that sure doesn't sound right". Sound
bites and intuition don't work here--statistics is one field where intuition
serves *very* poorly. For example, did you (the rhetorical "you") know that
if you sample 10 people in an opinion poll, the standard deviation of your
result is exactly the same whether those 10 people represent a village of
500 people, or a country of 300,000,000, as long as the sample is chosen
randomly? How's that for a non-intuitive result?

Eric Lucas

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 19:11:06 +0100, "T Wake"
<usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

If the origin of the universe is unknown, and maybe
unknowable, feeling that it was designed on purpose does no harm to
scientific inquiry.

Generally speaking any belief system does no harm to scientific exploration
in that manner.

Exactly.

The problem comes in when the belief tries to answer
scientific questions.

Science shouldn't be so fragile that it is threatened by peoples'
beliefs about stuff like this. Until it is proven otherwise, the
universe may have originated in intelligent design, vacuum fluctuation
or (as one serious theory has it) time is an illusion and the universe
had no date of origin. Why are so many amateur scientists so hostile
to the idea that the universe was designed? I figure there's a chance
that it was, and a bigger chance that DNA was designed. These
speculations invoke hostility, for no logical reason I can figure out.

The Jesuits have a long history of science and mathematics. They
somehow didn't find them mutually exclusive to belief.

John

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 03:27:54 GMT, <lucasea@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

"David Bostwick" <david.bostwick@chemistry.gatech.edu> wrote in message
news:eh3g6g$1fm$2@news-int.gatech.edu...
In article <K38Zg.17285$6S3.4370@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net>,
lucasea@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in
message
news:100aj2tujd38kum9omn0ni4tcbd22cfdbe@4ax.com...

[...]


There are plenty of tax-exempt nonprofits on both sides, or rather all
sides.

The ones I'm objecting to are the religious ones, and they're almost
invariably aligned with the right.



So you haven't been in many African-American churches, eh?

No, not really. They don't have much use for Renaissance/Baroque recorder
quartets. :^)

However, it is my understanding that the trusim that black churches vote
Democrat is now dated. I understand part of the reason that Bush carried
the South in 2000 and 2004 is because the black churches gave up on the
Democrats who had largely been ignoring them for many years. Not true?

True, but more of an issue of turnout than switching sides.

John

 

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4535424A.C08609A3@hotmail.com...

T Wake wrote:

lucasea@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message

Certainly a lot of the details of Darwin's theories have been subject
to
question and modification over the years. What has not changed is the
basic idea of evolution.

Very true. There is a conflict of terminology and if the people on the
radio
show were talking about "Darwin's theories" specifically they are a bit
behind the curve. Modern evolutionary theory has progressed beyond the
specifics Darwin described.

I've noticed that there is now a common tendency for those who reckon they
know
better to dismiss such things as 'just theories' as if that meant they had
no
vailidity !

There appears to be a tendency in humans to want certainty in life. Science
provides absolutely no certainty, only explanations of varying degrees of
usefulness. Religion provides absolute certainty, and religious
explanations are therefore very appealing. In some sense, some of the
theories of science (notably, evolution, but I think there are others) cast
doubt on this certainty, and the religions appear to be fighting back by
highlighting the uncertainty of the science, and the certainty of their
religious offering. Sadly, the result is the ongoing decline of US science
education, and a dearth of good American-born graduates at all levels of
many sciences. Who knows where that will lead, but my gut feel is that it
ain't good for the US economic or technical world hegemony.

Eric Lucas

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 16:55:17 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan
<jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:

John, I've never seen a list for liberals to vote towards. Not ever.
Now you have:

http://www.emilyslist.org/

There are lots more... just look.

Please show me the list there.

Good grief, do I have to do all your web work for you?

https://secure1.emilyslist.org/Donation/index.cfm?event=initiative_showOne&initiativeID=12&mt=146


John

 

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:453573E4.C686A665@hotmail.com...

T Wake wrote:

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote
Jonathan Kirwan <jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

How does hurling rocks get "their voices heard"?

Wrong question, John. There were a lot of people there who did NOT
throw rocks. Only _some_ threw rocks.

And a separate question, entirely, John. Do you imagine that only
those throwing the rocks are the ones who were injured or killed by
professional military action?

The Guardsmen were mostly kids, about the same age as the college
kids, but working-class, hardly "professional" military. They didn't
like being there, but they were under orders, there to prevent
violence. And the college kids assigned them the role of "authority"
and stoned them. Of course the shooting was unjustified, but the
college kids were incredibly clueless.

You are quite correct in that blaming the soldiers directly for their
actions is wrong. The blame rests squarely with the person who wants to
use
guns and soldiers against their own people.

You could blame the US gun culture too.

I'm not sure I see the connection. The "gun culture" generally refers to
arms in the hands of civilians. Soldiers and police have guns in just about
every culture (I can't think of a single counterexample), and it was those
soldiers' guns that caused the deaths at KSU.

Eric Lucas

 

<mmeron@cars3.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
news:6hgZg.13$45.170@news.uchicago.edu...

In article <1161136120.854490.3840@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"MooseFET" <kensmith@rahul.net> writes:

mmeron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
In article <1161093618.810074.46780@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com>,
"MooseFET" <kensmith@rahul.net> writes:

mmeron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
In article <1161055552.800809.247610@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com>,
"MooseFET" <kensmith@rahul.net> writes:

[....]

Also if you call it a war, you make the folks on the other side into
"soldiers". This is an honerable status I am not sure we want to grant
them. They are criminals like the Mafia and nothing more. It will be
easier to get other countries to help get rid of them if you assert
that they are crooks that snuck into the place instead of soldiers for
a cause.

It is the status they grant themselves that matters far more than the
status we grant them.

I disagree. At least up until the last several years, the word of the
US would have counted for a great deal on this subject. What they call
themselves doesn't matter at all. It is what others consider them that
matters. If they are considered criminals they will be arrested if
they are considered freedom fighters they will get aid.

In nations and societies which sponsor them and see them as heroes,
they'll not get arrested, in fact they'll get aid, regardless of what
you call them.

The obvious and important difference is, of course, what they are called by
other nations and societies, who are not already predisposed to support
them...the US, for example. There are plenty of examples of people we
supported as fighting a noble (and useful, to us) war who later turned our
contributions on us, and came thereafter to be called terrorists. Osama bin
Laden and Saddam Hussein are only two of the more recent and more visible
examples.

It appears to me that you believe that it is not a war unless you call
it so.

Or, in the case of President Bush, to call it a war when it suits his
purpose (to ignore the US Constitution) and to call it "not a war" when that
suits his purpose better (to ignore the Geneva Convention).

Eric Lucas

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

{restricted to sci.electronics.design as John is commenting on
newsgroup members there]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 19:46:53 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

snip
It's surprising to me, in this newsgroup, how hard it is to get people
to brainstorm, to riff on ideas. Rigidity rules.

I can't say about this group, sci.electronics.design. There were
other wonderful groups in this threar, probably not listening. But
you might keep it in mind when you are talking about "this newsgroup."

In sci.electronics I consider myself more as a guest, learning instead
as this is just a hobby to me. So feel free to comment on the group
in any general way you feel.

And thanks for your comments. I think that clears the air, just fine.

Jon

 

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:453591FE.C2B3C58@hotmail.com...

David Bostwick wrote:

lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:

McVeigh was a part of the radical Christian right. The IRA was Catholic
fighting Protestants (and Protestants fought back).

And the guy who killed the Amish kids was what?

Mad presumably.

And just because not all bad acts are caused by religious radicals doesn't
mean that no bad acts are caused by religious radicals.

Still, there is a far more important (non-violent) sense in which religious
(mostly Christian) radicals are a danger to the US.

Eric Lucas

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:57:56 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:07:18 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan
jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:

They are prohibited by law from engaging in politics, and
that's reasonably well enforced.

I didn't write that, you did.

Not in churches, they're not.

I didn't write that.

Churches may not donate money or substantial resources to political
candidates. Would you have a prohibition against members of a
congregation discussing politics? How about members of the Sierra
Club? The NRA? The ACLU? MADD?

There have been some recent legal actions against churches that have
broken the no-politics rules, and against some secular nonprofits,
too.

That's you, of course. Responding to someone you didn't cite above.

As a musician in a group that happens to play
for church services a lot, I've been to services of quite a few
denominations...and many of them preach politics from the pulpit, to the
extent of telling their congregation for whom they should vote. That is a
big problem, in my book.

I didn't write that.

Of course it is; you don't want their candidates to win.

John, you are so fast with all that snip and cut and slam, bam, thank
you mam reading of yours that it would be hard for anyone reading your
post to realize you were responding to someone other than me.

Show a little more care in your writing, if you'd please. If not, of
course, we'll manage. But it would be nicer if you would show some
care about those you are writing to.

Jon

 

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:r84bj29ks79pg0usm3m1gckgv430imkd0d@4ax.com...

It's surprising to me, in this newsgroup, how hard it is to get people
to brainstorm, to riff on ideas. Rigidity rules.

I agree. I think the problem (at least on sci.chem) is that people will
present a new idea as a fact, rather than as a speculation. A post that
says "here's how I say it is" garners a very different response than one
that says "hey, guys, I had this new idea, and I'd like your thought on how
to refine it". People need to find better ways to get a brainstorm like
that going. I've also found, through years of using it as a tool in my
science, that to do brainstorming well and productively takes a phenomenal
amount of discipline, and people do have to agree to abide by rules (for
example, the main rule is "you can only present new ideas, not
criticize/critique what someone else has presented".) Refinement of the
ideas generated in a brainstorm also takes discipline, but not quite as
much. That sort of discipline just ain't possible in a free-form forum like
Usenet, particularly in unmoderated newsgroups.