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Re: Should religions be able to run private schools in the US, where the students exculsively participate in their religion? Sorry it looks like crap, I wrote it in notepad on a school computer and e-mailed it to myself. Edit: cleaned it up a little, but I forgot to e-mail some of the source...

In the last 10 years, I have probably personally spent less than 80 dollars on clothes and shoes, but I have received a few articles here and there for Christmas. The idea of getting a sense of self worth from my clothes sounds very strange to me - I actually feel better about myself knowing I...

Intellectual? It sounded more like an opinion to me, and even an idiot can have an opinion. I could sum up the entire article with "I believe men are men and women are women, so there." I generally try to give every view point a chance, but it's too difficult to read such pernicious nonsense...

Sounds good to me. I'm not sure how well it will work with the forum going in and out, but I'll begin writing mine. Shall we say that the intro is due sometime on Thursday afternoon at some time? The maximum is the upper limit. If it can be written in less then that, it's fine. I just don't...

Interesting audio discussion about HGT and the 'unit' of selection.

People should be treated fairly. People should not be treated 'equally'.

That sounds more like what I was getting at (me fail english thats unpossible). That almost sounds like support for eugenics - perhaps a suitable debate topic?

They are both the same thing in principle - gene therapy is exchanging, altering, or adding new genetic material, generally with the purpose of treating disease development. GM crops are created the same way - exchanging, altering, or adding new genetic material. The only difference is that one...

Personality type may not be a direct phenotype of any certain allele inherited from ones parents, but may be a byproduct of combination's of multiple alleles. A certain brain structure may develop because of our inherited genetic makeup, and the personality type may only be a result of these...

Bah, if you want to make that claim, you should defend it in a formal debate (yes, I am trying to goad you into it) Okay, that was bad wording on my part, but I was trying to get ready for work while writing that post. I suppose what I mean is: is string theory a true scientific theory or...

This is an open challenge to the first person that accepts one these topics: Do the benefits of biotechnology (biologically engineered crops, gene therapy in the medical field etc) out weigh the detriments? My position: that the benefits do out weigh the detriments. Should religions be able to...

I was thinking the same thing. I posted a rules thread, but I don't know how comprehensive it is (I may have accidentally omitted something) if someone wants to proof read it.

People can create open challenges, making a statement for or against a certain claim, topic, subject, idea etc, and accepting the challenge of another person. Once this is done (publicly) both contenders can come up with their own ground rules about the word count of their posts and how many...

Hey, I just came up with the idea, I didn't know I had to do anything. I think most of the rules seem to be spread out throughout this thread - at least, as far as I know, those are the agreed upon rules. I can make a more cohesive thread for it, though.

Word limits would probably be a good idea (soft limits anyway) perhaps agreed upon by the contestants.. As far as the number of rebuttals, I'd say that could be agreed upon by the contestants before hand, but certainly a limit to that too. Deadlines would be mandatory, especially for intro...

I wonder if anyone else would be interested in having a forum for formal style debates, perhaps requested and set up by a moderator or something. I'm thinking in a style where both debaters put up an introduction, stating their arguments and supporting them - these are done independently...

Multiple Personality Disorder 46% Depressed, 41% Obsessive, 42% Delusional and 67% Anxious! The descriptions are so broad and loose that anyone can find something that fits them in it, creating the illusion of the test being able to explain them - but it was still fun.

Theory is always more interesting to me, too. The difference is, it seems like a lot of N people (especially INTP's) seem to trust theory a lot, where I have always been very wary of things that can't be objectively tested. There's a lot of people on this forum who seem to believe in...

I'd consider myself both introverted and reserved. To me, introverted means what other people have already said, in that being social wears me out, and most of my energy seems to come from myself. But I'm always reserved; my friend described this as me being "more interested in my own thoughts...

I'd say I've always had a bit of cognitive dissonance between N and S as far as I can remember. I've always lived with my head in the clouds, thinking about the future and how I would rearrange reality - yet at the same time, I've always had a very 'S' (specifically Se) like skepticism of any...

I'm actually doing decently in math since going back to college - very different from high school. I think one thing that's helped me is becoming interested in physics, and seeing that math can actually mean something, as oppose to just figuring out what "x" equals or what number to put behind...

Natural selection certainly has (in my and many other peoples opinion) the final say on which genes survive, but things like epigenetics and HGT have an almost Larmarckian way of catalyzing change, in that it seems a more top down approach. The one weakness I see with Darwinian natural...

I wonder, is 'genius' something someone can only be born with, or is it something that we can train to become?

The idea of guys being intimidated by smart or independent females sounds very strange to me. Intelligence is probably the sexiest thing I can think of in a woman (I've got a huge crush on Lisa Randall)

I think the problem emerges when people think of the eccentric genius. The problem with this is, firstly, that the vast number of people that could be considered genius (which by my own definition would simply be somebody that's noticeably better at their field then their peers/colleagues) are...

I think the main argument for this (and I admittedly haven't read up on epigenetics much, much less any studies done on it (which is why I'm asking and speculating so much on it :D)) is that epigenetic changes aren't actually genetic changes, but only changes in the expression of a gene...

You shouldn't be thinking of women when you read scripture - you should be thinking of Jesus while having sex.

I don't know about that, but that much time together and they'd just about have to do some "just friends" spooning.

I wouldn't be too worried about up or down. I'd be more worried about the fact that we wouldn't even exist, because with that much air, the gravity would have caused the universe to collapse before it even 'banged'.

This is often something I've mused about. What if some disease or predator came about that only preyed on humans that are over 4 feet tall? After a few thousand years, all of humanity would be under 4 feet tall (with probably a large majority of them with dwarfism). I wonder what those people...

What do people make of epigenetics? The basic idea behind it is that external effects can change the expression of genes (although not the actual genes themselves) which can alter a phenotype. The current theory of epigenetics is that it's not hereditary - the epigenetic changes doesn't pass on...

I concur. I think finding life - no matter how simple - outside of our planet would be just as exciting, if not more exciting then discovering a grand unification theory. Of course, intelligent life would be a lot more exciting, but I think finding any kind of life out there is an effort worth...

I found this interesting. All of the 300 exoplanets found have been gas giants (similar to Jupiter, Neptune etc) because of the way in which they have to detect them. The main way to detect a planet is by seeing how it's gravity affects the rotation of the star (they both orbit a mutual center...

It seems to have to make us rethink the idea of a selfish gene. I still wonder, though, whether HGT would fit in with Darwinian theory - is there any survival advantage on the genetic level for HGT, is it something that genes are supposed to do, or is it merely an accidental thing, or even a...

I can't remember the last time I cried. According to my parents, I've always been good about not crying, even as a baby. My mom once joked that if any of the three kids (me, my brother, or my sister) was going to get sick, they'd rather it was me, because I never complained. I honestly can't...

Yes, but cancer is a mutation on the scale of microorganisms - we are essentially a collection of microorganisms. Transcription errors in the DNA during mitosis is essentially the same idea as genetic mutations of an organisms offspring. Not to mention that there is a genetic correlation with...

Looks interesting.

That's essentially the case I'm making. It would certainly be a reasonable explanation for how a genome can expand, and a mechanism for positive mutations (as most of them seem negative - ie cancer and down syndrome etc). There isn't usually much mention of HGT and symbiosis in evolutionary...

I know, why don't you keep posting what you think. I'm sure it will help tons knowing that all of these people care so much about what you think that they'll take time out of their day to read about it! It's just great that we all get the inside scoop on what Noddy has to say about us, because...

Awww, Noddy, that would be just terrible if you blew your brains out. I don't think I'd be able to get to sleep for weeks! I just care sooooo much about all of you, I feel such kinship with everyone I just want to have a great big group blood orgy hug.

When I think of you, drawing on our vast array of past experiences, I think of geography. That's what I voted.

I will take that challenge. I think I can do it more times then you in a given time frame, pump out more volume, have a higher count, climax to a wider variety of pornography, and even out trick you (I've been perfecting the 'no handed back flip projectile triple climax').

A virus killing it's host could possibly have the advantage of making sure that the host doesn't gain resistance to the virus and pass on those genes. I found an interesting experiment, using a genetic algorithm with robots, that shows the novel adaptations that can arise from Darwinian...

What a fantastic idea! Because the cynic club wasn't sarcastic enough, you had to espouse yet another unintelligible comedic abortion. Please, won't you favor us with more of your witty little gems, so that all of us can share in a laugh like the bosom buddies we've all become?

Pretty much describes me. I have like 10 PM's here from people congratulating me for going to college, and I haven't responded to a single one, because I don't even know how I should feel about it much less know what I'd say.

The true definition of quantity over quality. Can anyone ever do anything original around here? Christ you people bore me sometimes.