rationalia.com

Gawdzilla wrote:Will those folks stay muslim just because they were born into a muslim family?

Seems like all too often that tends to be the case...

That wasn't an argument from authority. Haven't even started arguing (or caring) yet. Just a gentle warning to potential opponents to prepare themselves. being a professional means I have a small library of references stored in my head by now ^^

So they are for real? Meh rather do real science. Maybe if I'm in a fighting mood tomorrow... (kinda late here...or early, or something...)

Is spinoza99 for real? *cracks knuckles* professional biologist at your service!

See, where I come from, the wonderful Mother Nature plant is not really considered a 'drug'. It's more like "medicine that prevents the entire population of Vancouver from killing themselves after the second month of no sunlight in the winter"...

I believe it is in Unweaving the Rainbow he goes off on a rant about lawyers...

Granted, the rant did make sense – lawyers do often engage in further polarising and dividing conflicting parties, especially in divorce situations. But it's very ironic of him to write that...

lp – I'm not claiming expertise, but as a human being I'm qualified to psychoanalyse whomever I want as an amateur. In fact, I have to do that to assess how to deal with whom, and who not to deal with at all. An essential skill in academia anyway...

lp, it is agreed he's a great writer. And that is part of why there's considerable resentment towards him from his own academic field – the other reason being that his own field's mainstream views changed considerably since he stopped being actively involved. And while he writes well and, ironically...

Not clinically autistic, but leaning towards that end, yes. There is accumulating evidence that non-clinical autism/schizophrenia are opposite ends of a continuum. Most people are average, maybe a little off to one side or another but not much of a problem. Some people are on the very extremes, and ...

The Mad Hatter wrote:Do you use drugs?

No.

I'm blown away. Whowuldathunk, eh?

Dawkins' attack on fantasy and mythology really irritates me – maybe HE can't do good science and appreciate fictional stories, but most of us actually have that ability. Imagination is a wonderful thing, and ironically enough, neither reason nor science could ever happen without it. Most of us can ...

Sexual selection is a secondary phenomenon (basically a runaway selection process based on sexual dimorphism), not a fundamental 'force'...

It's not either/or. It's always both. And NOBODY rejects the importance of selection. All the "forces" (selection, recombination, drift, mutation) act in tandem. Just different ones emphasised in different situations. What I do reject though is the notion that selection is the sole force responsible...

Genomes are, though :P Dory, a phenotype is any trait that emerges from the activity of genes, either single genes or in many cases, networks of genes. It does NOT have to be visible, just observable by whatever experimental method catches your fancy. It may not even be observable by current techno...