packsaddle

Whew, now that's hittin' pretty low - The Bush admin. But now you know why attorneys don't like to put scientists on the stand. You should hear the frogs!

If you can disassemble the stove easily, you can probably improvise a new seal from old carburetor gasket material you get from an auto parts store. It's your call, though. Sometimes we just have to decide to put a stake through its heart and lay it to rest. I like the old liquid fuel stoves even though, as mentioned, there is a certain risk attached. Mostly because you don't have to dispose of old propane or butane containers. If those were easily refillable, I'd be willing to take a closer look.

Chirp! http://new.wavlist.com/soundfx/014/cricket-1.wav

"Certainly a bunch of middle aged scouters with way too much time on their hands don't stand a chance of ever finding any solutions." Now them's fightin' words! I think the idea is to just have fun batting the thing back and forth over the net. Jump on in and we can call it volleyball. Besides, I figure as long as I keep 'em writing, I won't have to worry about them declaring war on me or a fatwa or something. "Can I judge all scientists base on da action of 5%, while ignoring the action of the majority (>50%) in opposition?" Actually that's not science at all. But I'm not judging all of anything based on the action of 5%. In fact I don't think I have used the word 'judge' or 'judgement' in that context. I'm just identifying prejudice when I see it. I saw it then...I see it today using the same criteria. Do you really think that 5% or less of white people in the South were prejudiced against blacks back then? Really? "But if yeh asked packsaddle whether different scientists ever look at the same set of data and come to very different conclusions (or workin' theories or whatever), I bet he'd say "yes, all the time." I almost forgot this one. Yeah, I might say that as a figure of speech. But if pressed, actually I'd say NO, sometimes the results are crystal clear to everyone. You see, those are the times that really worry me. When I can't figure out a way to poke holes in the results, I suspect a hidden flaw. Those are the times when I like to see the data replicated to make sure. Several times would be better...always subject to doubt, even when it seems conclusive. "So because religions have a different approach to epistemology than science, they must be flawed? Prejudice again." That is your conclusion. I have consistently maintained that science cannot address matters of faith. But in your failure you have given no evidence to reject my contention. If you think that constitutes prejudice on my part, so be it. I'm just not yet feeling the effect of that blade....

Yes, the two brothers were noble, prominent, and met a very sad fate for their efforts. Your contention that only a small number of whites held prejudicial views on race in the '50s and '60s is suspect considering what measures were ultimately taken by the federal government to stem the violence. Mrs. Beavah may know this well. I report what I observed as a young person growing up in the South. I heard about and saw terrible things. As I read about the struggle, I tend to think this was widespread throughout the South. If you want to minimize it by saying my 'window' on the world was small, that's your choice. Perhaps there really wasn't much of a problem back then, and perhaps Trent Lott was right. Regarding data. Scripture hardly qualifies as history, much less as objective scientific data. I'm a little surprised that you don't understand the difference. In science, observations that cannot be reproduced using the same observational methods are suspect and eventually get marginalized or rejected (just ask Pons and Fleischman). Indeed, regarding the classification of humans, history is littered with ideas that science eventually discredited and rejected. And yes, they were used in support of prejudice in those days. Science is a system of understanding that constantly questions and challenges its own assumptions and observations. This self-correcting tendency is its great strength. It constantly attempts to disprove even ideas that are currently accepted by much of the scientific community (such as those old racial classifications were back then). Indeed, I enjoy bringing these controversies to lecture, poking fun at even some famous scientists. The students need to understand that 'facts' are always open to challenge and that we really WANT to learn from mistakes. And sometimes it is fun and makes for a pretty good story later on. All assumptions are tentative, just waiting for a critical experiment to reject them. Show me the religion that does this as a matter of fundamental doctrine (aside from UUs). I have had friends in the past who were alcoholics. I tried. They are dead. I never thought of them in terms of sin. I have gay friends some of whom are dead. I never thought of them in terms of sin. You haven't come close to explaining sin satisfactorily. Separate 'sin' as a concept from any kind of religious background, and I might be able to grasp it. Regarding Watson...yes he is prejudiced. Please explain the genetic theory, the reasoning, and data that Watson has employed to form his prejudice. I would like to know this myself. I think you have mischaracterized the body of genetics and science in particular. Whereas Watson expresses prejudice if he says one ethnic group is 'inferior' to another based on whatever, the distinction is that on one hand, there is actual evidence of a difference and no particular judgement is made. For prejudice, on the other hand, the judgement is made independently and perhaps 'evidence' gathered in support. I recognize this as 'dishonesty' in the form of a self-deception. If brought to the public, I call it what it is.

Brent, you make a good point regarding global warming. I note that I am not as pessimistic about the political outcome while I am probably MORE pessimistic about our ability to solve the problem, assuming we can even identify it clearly. At any rate, those people are not scientists. They neither understand nor care about science. I could probably add some of the 'Earth First' types to your group...in fact they may well be some of the same people. From my perspective, these are fundamentally ignorant people. Dilettantes, perhaps, with only a superficial understanding of their own ignorance...and locked in unshaking faith on their 'fundamental' ideas. Sound familiar? In this respect I see strong similarities to fundamentalists of many types. With that in mind, I would instead argue that while these groups may well be prejudiced, it is rather based on 'absence' of real science and in ignorance of the way science proceeds. The collective scientists who do research on global climate change...I doubt can be found among the group you mention. I could be wrong. As I already mentioned, I don't understand the concept of sin. I understand dishonesty. If consenting adults mutually agree for any reason to engage in acts that have no effect on me, I try not to make judgements about them. There just aren't enough hours in the day and too many other things in life to worry about or enjoy. That said, if a particular physical activity between male and female are the result of mutual love and attraction, then I most certainly do NOT condemn the same thing between males or between females as wrong or sinful. Can't say, however, that I can base that on scripture of any kind. Sorry.

Heh, heh, I guess we were writing at the same time. I have to admit that discussions of things like greater or lesser sins or cultural dynamics and effects on society (or something like that) just leave me bewildered. I would like to note that I directly observed an empirical test of the powerline thing back when I was in college. Tragic. Don't touch powerlines, even with really good, insulated shoes.

Heh, heh, Watson is for sure a piece of work, eh? But if you or I walked up to Watson and called him a racist jerk, his response would probably be something like, "So what's your point?" rather than threatening violence or a war. Same for scientists. I certainly HAVE heard sweeping indictments of scientists along those lines from certain religious persons. The way we respond is to provide counter-arguments backed up with data and objective reasoning. If you can find a large group of scientists (say, the NAS, for example) who have threatened violence because they were called bad names, I'd like to know about it. Watson, for whom Cold Springs Harbor was like his pampered 'only' child, had that 'child' taken from him in response...by other scientists. I agree that it is wrong to accuse an entire religion just because of the words or deeds of some of the followers...as I commonly hear on talk radio with respect to Islam. But that is your idea not mine. "...I think if you are tryin' to judge a whole group by the actions of its most outrageous or misguided members". That is not what I wrote. To me prejudice, with its connotations, is an idea that is sometimes extended into hateful actions. The similarities between race and sexual orientation with respect to prejudice is obvious, I hope. If someone expresses personal prejudice or takes those hateful actions, I identify THEM as prejudiced or hateful. What I have directly observed is a LARGE number of white people, years ago, expressing racial prejudice and justifying it on the basis of scripture. Now I see a large number of people expressing prejudice against gays and justifying it on the basis of scripture. You and Aquila have noted an exception. Fine. But, if those mean old prejudiced people exclude gays, using their religion as their authority for the action, and if YOU exclude gays using the same religion as your authority, HOW do I make the distinction between you? Keep in mind I am following YOUR idea of 'action' being the important factor. Back to Watson. Watson is a very bright, arrogant jerk. He seems to be proud of that. As part of the pageant of life, he is a fascinating character. But he does not base his prejudice on some central body of scripture that a large group of scientists accept on faith alone and worship as Holy. If I am wrong please correct me. Likewise, if you can identify a large group of scientists who are threatening violence on some other group of people because of a disagreement on some theory or experimental result, I'd like to know about it...especially if they base their threat on some kind of 'scientific scripture'. I see no evidence of any such interaction. Religious people (on behalf of religion), I am sure you understand, can make no such claim (with the possible exception of wimpy sects like Quakers and UUs ). To me THAT is one of the strongest criticisms of religion that can be made - again, conforming to your 'action' standard.

I agree OGE, but I also agree with Brent to some extent. I do understand that as you say, we can justify many prejudices that we already hold...with carefully selected and interpreted Bible passages. I further believe that this is not unique to Christianity. To me, whether the prejudice is there anyway or if it has been taught from scripture, the effect is the same and neither one is better than the other. The connection to the conflict articulated earlier in the thread seems to be to the source of our moral code. If it is based a flavor of religion that dictates the code from a book like the Bible, then any negative judgement of people based on that code will automatically coincide with what we otherwise would call 'prejudice', if that prejudice is based on the same writings. In this way the two are indistinguishable when viewed from the outside...which is where, of course, the objects of the prejudice reside (and me as well, more often than not). Moreover, the ultimate origin of a societal prejudice is nearly impossible to identify if the society has been dominated by one general type of religion, as ours has been. I have a strong sympathetic response to the 'underdog', cultivated during the '60s and '70s. Today I see gays as having suffered unfairly and I work either to change this status or else to make resistant people uncomfortable with their prejudices. I disagree that the difference is between skin color and behavior. I am satisfied that sexual orientation is not a matter of choice and that prejudice against gays exists regardless of any 'behavior'.

Various versions including KJV, Revised Standard, maybe some others, I'm not sure how many. But you already knew that, right?

Heh, heh, my neighbor ain't no 8-pointer. And as he's kind of elderly, he lost control of that tree - actually had no idea what he was doing, I got lucky in that it only landed on my yard. Anyway, no way he'd be scampering up and down the hill to my garden. Those would be the 4-legged varmints with the white tails. And I'll be gnawing on them soon enough.

Happy Halloween, Trevorum. As the road signs say at Langley, "Watch for Spooks!"

The topic kind of went the way of other threads anyway and I've thought some more about the "buzz words", as Aquila put the phrase. Beavah had some thoughts on the 'buzz words' and these two statements sort of encapsulated his thoughts: "But by throwing out "hate" and "prejudice" (and other buzzwords), the discussion changes to an offensive/defensive posturing rather than the issue of behavior." then later, "Prejudice and hate cut both ways, packsaddle. Best to stay away from that kind of loaded language, eh?" I had associated certain attitudes and actions against gays with prejudice and hate. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that objections to this association are because some views toward gays are based on religious beliefs. And Dan (and I) thought that just because attitudes and actions are based on religious belief they should not thereby automatically receive a 'pass' on prejudice and hate, if those are the effective outcomes. This summary is brief, I know, so correct me if I've gotten something badly wrong in it. The exchange between Dan and Beavah caused me to think a little more about the things we 'believe' and our basis for them. I admit I have some difficulty with the topic because, as a scientist, my beliefs are very tentative and I actually delight in seeing them shattered by data and new observations, or by better reasoning. It has long mystified me why everyone else doesn't feel this way too. As evidence of this consider Beavah's statement: "Callin' someone else's fundamental belief hateful is a good way to start conflict and war, eh?" War? Really? Sadly, Beavah seems to be correct...I wonder why though? I guess I'm as naive as Galileo was when he tried to help the Church out with a better system of planetary motion. But I continue to ask myself, "why do people kill other people over ideas?", especially ideas that can't really be separated from superstitions and myths. After all, ideas are things that actually don't exist, really. Right? Theyre just a system of neural activity, not much different from computer vaporware. This is particularly puzzling for a scientist because in science ideas are constantly in flux, just waiting to be examined, criticized, re-examined, and potentially rejected. So I think back to the days when I literally DID try to move objects with faith alone. The ideas of those days were very clear. At least they seemed to be at the time. They were written right there, in the KJV Bible - infallible, inviolable. But, I eventually had to ask myself... "Are black people really cursed and inferior as written in the Bible?" My mere willingness to ask questions like this did two things: First, it opened a flood of related questions in my mind. Second, it made it clear that I was never EVER going to be a Presbyterian. and perhaps not any of the other flavors, either. The answers were my path to science. They also put me in a minority of white persons who understood that those Biblically-based views of black people were employed by persons of faith to hold attitudes and commit actions that were prejudiced and hateful. I suspect that a fair number of black people agreed with my view, though. So if a particular religious belief IS a negative statement on a person or group outside those following that religion, then what difference does it make who that person or group is? Does anyone FAIL to understand the prejudicial nature of such religious doctrines with regard to race? Circle the answer: YES NO Why is it easy for us to understand this with respect to race and NOT with respect to gays, atheists, or other faiths and minorities? This question is one about which I continue to wonder. And about which I was thinking earlier in the thread. So why DOES one group threaten war just because their religious view is associated with prejudice by someone else? I remember this kind of thing from the '50s and '60s, only the topic of equal rights was with respect to race, not sexual orientation. It's only an idea - right? And the ones who OUGHT to be alarmed are the recipients of the prejudice, right? But black people didn't bomb the churches, lynch people, or turn fire hoses on peaceful assemblies of people. The people who did those things claimed Biblical authority. They were filled with prejudice and hate. It seems to me that we should be able to lob ideas back and forth an infinite number of times without the threat of violence. The concept of WWJD comes to mind. Perhaps that isnt explicit enough in the scriptures. So I ask: If I and others consider the religious-based attitudes and actions of the 50s and 60s to be prejudiced and hateful toward blacks, why the objections today when I make comparisons to identical attitudes and actions with regard to gays, atheists, or any other group? The better question might be: why do you USE your faith as a defence of such attitudes and actions? Or do you disagree that the religious-based attitudes and actions against blacks were prejudiced and hateful? This inquiring mind would like to know.

No frost yet at my house. But it just happened yesteday up the hill a ways. I gave up on the leaves. I'm just cutting the trees down. Really. Enough is enough. A neighbor dropped a huge oak on my yard so I claimed it as mine. Cut it into firewood, a couple of cords worth...so why stop there? The deer that ate my garden last spring. I'm going to eat those vegetables this fall...assuming my freezer can hold all the meat. I'll be glad to stick a piece of lead right through each of those big brown eyes. A beautiful 8-pointer and several does come right to my back door every evening. Won't even have to leave the house...just have to figure out how I can get them all the same evening..... Happiness is a warm gut-pile. Several of them. I tend to agree with Eamonn on the gun thing, though. Seems like the country is awash with them. Good luck with OJ, maybe he'll come to his senses after he tries it. "A good walk, spoiled" applies to hunting as well as golf.

Heh, heh, and we know what happened to Krypton....

OGE was right at the very beginning. This is a lark. "I see....dead people" but what I see is that you guys will argue about ANYTHING. And now I'm suspecting that you're all just a bunch of closet Unitarians. You DO KNOW, don't you, that all of these traditions and holidays are just a bunch of superstitious claptrap based on myth? Just excuses to party. Fun, to be sure, but not to be taken seriously.

Well I read the whole thing and I saw nothing technical in it. It seems understandable to the lay person. Gold Winger's estimation of the intellect of the average Congressman must be a lot lower than mine. But what I don't get is why those parts were cut. They deal mostly with planning and response and don't seem at all controversial unless someone thinks the climate is NOT changing at all. Maybe there was simply a 1500 word limit for the written testimony?

OGE, you can set aside all the hand-wringing about morality and consent, who is attracted to whom, etc. if you consider: They are going through puberty and therefore fully equipped in every biological way to engage in intercourse. THEY will decide whether or not to do this. YOU won't. Their decision will be based on whatever information they have incorporated through formal or informal sources. If you want to have maximum impact, regardless of belief systems or moral codes, you MUST give them accurate, complete information. Otherwise no one can expect them to make accurate, informed decisions about sexual behavior. No, this doesn't mean they'll always make good decisions. But it does mean that if they are inclined to make a good decision, they'll have the knowledge they need to make a good decision. Now, with that in background, if they decide to engage in intercourse, they're going to do it no matter what. And you know you can't stop it. So why restrict their access to means of avoiding disease or pregnancy? And if they decide NOT to engage in intercourse, then why worry about access anyway? They're not going to do it anyway. Or do you think you can keep them uninformed AND chaste? Isn't that the self-deception many of us engage in now?

Welcome to the forums Scoutmomma. I KNEW I had heard (read) Zeiger's name before. I just couldn't remember where. Thanks for the reminder. It is good to read a local perspective on this from someone who knows more local detail. Thanks.

Get out your specs, Beavah, I never wrote that "everyone with an opinion about not according homosexuality protected class status must be both prejudiced and hateful." That you think I imply the above when I have not, in fact, stated it is remarkable considering the context of your response.

TJ beat me to part of it. I'm a little surprised at the reluctance I'm reading on the part of others. We readily point to racial prejudice and racial hate. The fact that there also exists religious hate and prejudice was just mentioned. Why shy away from pointing to similar prejudice and hate toward gays? If those terms, 'prejudice' and 'hate', are as negative and powerful as claimed, then I would think it should be important for them to be accurately applied to those actions and persons to whom they apply. Unless...my questions have not been answered yet...do you not agree that there are people who hate gays? Do you not also agree that there are people who are likewise prejudiced against gays? These questions can be answered in two words, one each...yes or no. If I have been inaccurate in some way, then by all means tell me so I can learn. Otherwise, why be timid? It seems uncharacteristic...'brave', you know....

Aquila, The term 'hate' certainly does apply to certain other individuals who also adjudge actions by gays as unacceptable and disgusting. It may not apply to you, in particular, but then I used the term in a general sense. Why are you so sensitive to it? Or do you not agree that there are people who hate gays? Do you not also agree that there are people who are likewise prejudiced? If I am to address the problems that gays suffer at the hands of people who are not as 'compassionate' as you, why should I not use the terms that describe those 'less compassionate' interactions accurately? You may not intend to hurt anyone. But remember that in the spectrum of thought and actions, those who are prejudiced - who do hurt - who do hate...are just farther out in the distribution beyond you. In order to call to those people from where I am, I must call past you as well.

Aquila, I was aware of the so-called "rage syndrome" in dogs (mostly Cocker Spaniels) but please expand on the genetics of rage in humans for me. I'm curious. Is it a trait controlled by single or multiple alleles? Or is it more complex than that, maybe influenced by temporary expression during development? So which ones were the "buzz words"? Did you object to all of them or just one in particular? And what do you mean by "buzz word" anyway? Is this a way to dismiss something unpleasant without further thought? Just asking.

Beavah, I almost never get everything I want. I'd love to see scouting available to ALL boys. BSA won't allow that. I live with it now... I can continue to live with it. But the law is the law. If BSA threw its gargantuan weight into a Herculean lobbying effort and demonstrated for all the world BSA's supremacy in intellect and morality, I'm sure the law would be changed forthwith. And Philadelphia would be required to follow it. Tell you what...I won't hold my breath.

Oh ED!!!! And I was having such fun. The fact is, if absolutely irrefutable evidence came along proving that homosexuality is purely biological and without even a small sliver of choice, many people would still hate and condemn gays as immoral or something. Same as they hate and condemn so many other people just because they're different. On the other hand, if evidence was produced that showed unequivocally that homosexuality is PURELY a matter of choice and that biology had almost nothing to do with it, this fact would not deter gays from continuing to seek a status with rights equal to everyone else. The 'choice' question is a red herring that just postpones the issue for both sides because we know that prejudice and hate are going to keep the conflict going NO MATTER WHAT. And we seem to like this for some reason, because we DO it for some reason (usually based on biblical interpretation). So it won't matter for you one way or the other. Happy?