Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> I'll just point out again that it wasn't the executive branch, but the 
> congress, that declared a national day of prayer.

  The first words of the first amendment to your constitution somehow
resonate in my head when I read that, causing a terrible pain...

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                                                          - Warp

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> I fail to see how telling 
> people "if you believe in something, practice it" comes even close to 
> establishing a state-sponsored religion

  For fair balance, shouldn't there be a "Nation Day of Atheism"? You can
make the exact same arguments: It's not promoting atheism nor forcing
anybody to be atheist. You can be atheist if you want, but it's your choice.

  Too bad the day will never come in my lifetime when the US congress passes
that law. It would be a show to remember.

  (And if you didn't get it, my point is that there's a clear *bias* towards
religion, a bias which shouldn't exist.)

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                                                          - Warp

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> If you can't, take a look at dogs. Some kinds can't interbreed with each 
> other, if only due to huge differences in size. Humans did that.

  I don't think that is what defines a species. It's about genetics.

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                                                          - Warp

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Invisible wrote:
> The distinction you're looking for is between eukaryotes and 
> non-eukaryotes.

I'm getting too used to my Kindle. I wanted to put the mouse over that word 
and have the exact definition pop up.

Doubly-funny, considering how long it took me to learn to JFGI.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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scott wrote:
>>> but maybe that's just because we haven't figured out yet what is
>>> driving those events, so they just *appear* random to us.
>>
>> FWIW, the answer to this speculation is "no, we have proven that's not
>> the case." :-)
> 
> Really?  How?

Look up "Bell's Inequality."  It has recently (in the last couple of years) 
gone on from there to prove that the problem is not non-local interactions.

Yeah, it was pretty surprising to me too.

There are lots of explanations out there, but here's one I found was very 
clear: http://phys.wordpress.com/bells-theorem/

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> It's trivial to do in a lab. Take any experiment that speciates fruit flies, 
>> for example. Stop it half way through and let them mix together again. 
>> Bingo, it happened. :-)
> 
>   Can you actually speciate two groups of fruit flies in the lab so much
> that they can't reproduce anymore with each other, hence making them two
> different species?
> 

Surprisingly enough, it really is trivial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation#Artificial_speciation

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
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On 12/01/2011 04:12 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> If you can't, take a look at dogs. Some kinds can't interbreed with each
>> other, if only due to huge differences in size. Humans did that.
>
>    I don't think that is what defines a species. It's about genetics.

How about this: There are two species of grasshopper that never 
interbreed. The females of species A ignore the songs of males of 
species B. However, if you mute the male and play back a recording of a 
male of species A, the two will mate, and produce viable offspring. It's 
just that this only ever happens in the lab.

Does that not count as two species then?

Similarly, there are probably classes of birds where you could do the 
same thing by putting coloured visors over the bird's eyes, or moths 
where you could mask one chemical pheromone with another. Are these 
separate species?

You can apparently mate a lion with a tiger, producing either a "liger" 
or a "tiglon". (Go look them up.) But this never happens in the wild (as 
far as we know). Are these separate species?

Indeed, you can even do really weird stuff like implant a goat embryo 
into a big. But that doesn't make goats and pigs the same species.

If two creatures would not normally interbreed, they are separate species.

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Warp wrote:
>   Just think about it like this: Why exactly do you need a "national day
> of prayer"? What's so special about that particular day? What purpose does
> it serve? Why does the government have to declare a special day for that?

One thing I've never settled on is the concept of "a moment of silence." If 
you're doing it to somehow respect an event (i.e., a moment of silence to 
respect the victims of this horrible tragedy), is it different from a moment 
of silence before we start doing business for the day? Does it imply 
anything religious, given that it's obviously intended that religious people 
pray?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>>   Of course it is. It's an implicit encouragement from the government for
>>> people to follow a religious custom.
> 
>> Does this mean Black History Month implies you should go out and be Black 
>> for a few weeks?
> 
>   How exactly does "Black History" imply "you should *be* black"?

That's why it's silly, yes. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Apparently, the Congress requires the President to announce the national day 
>> of prayer. Obama is the most atheist-friendly president we've ever had, afaik.
> 
>> """
>> The Congress, by Public Law 100-307, as amended, has called on the President 
>> to issue each year a proclamation designating the first Thursday in May as a 
>> "National Day of Prayer."
>> """
> 
>   Ok, I retract my allegation that it was Obama's own decision to announce
> the day. It might well be that he had not much choice (lest he cause even
> *more* unneeded controversy).
> 

Actually, given that he almost invariably includes people of no faith when 
discussing such things in his speeches, and this particular speech he 
didn't, I think he did indeed make it a religious national day of prayer.

I just don't think that blaming Obama for something that's been official for 
decades is worthwhile. It makes it sound like it's Obama's fault, or 
something unusual about Obama's administration in this respect.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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