The Hall of Fire

halplm wrote:I have read up on polling, and it's all bogus.
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Then why are you so eager to believe the polls that have the results you like?

I think I understand what I just said far better than you're giving me credit for hal. Tread lightly - computer modeling is fundamental to structural biology and structural biology is what I do. But it's your foot. You can step in it if you want. I'll be gentle. I promise.

I've got a paper to write, so I'll let Wikipedia handle this one. They did a good job. Read . And consider. A lot of this stuff is pretty nuanced. BTW, computer modeling is considered to be experimentation. Of course one must be careful with computer experiments because your simulation is only as go...

halplm wrote: Reality: I don't know, because no pollster is likely to ask that, because they wouldn't want to bring to light the fact that Obama is NOT the same as the hype surrounding him.

Fine. Then read up on polling and run the test yourself.

hal, please go collect some more data before you make generalizations. no, it was a genearlization... as in a general statement... as in people around here don't seem to understand that most people in the real world don't know anything about any political opinion or candidate. They get caught up in...

hal, please go collect some more data before you make generalizations.

You know, if the EPA is asked to present a report, what are they supposed to do? Slap the party lines between a nice cover or set their scientists loose and present the findings? The responsible answer is the latter. The current government's response is the former.

Oh, so politicians SHOULD suppress scientific findings? They SHOULD play the ostrich and stick their heads in the ground?

This is just depressing.

Er, I've met vison and living where I do geriatric hippies aren't hard to come by. The two do not equate. There's self respect and then there's conforming to the old rules. The two don't equate either. I'd have as hard a time respecting myself if I bent to the old-fashioned ways as I would if I were...

yovargas wrote:

We need to think ahead not just to the next election but to the next century, or our great-grandkids will be cursing our names.

I find that a tad extremist.

How so?

FWIW, I wasn't a bad kid perse, but I somehow drove my parents up the wall nonetheless. Yet I absorbed more than they realized - it is a common mistake, among the people who interact with me IRL, to believe that I am oblivious. Not reacting does not equal not paying attention. I also had some severe...

halplm wrote: Ellienor, the government doesn't care long term, they only care about the next election.

As opposed to companies, which only care about the next quarter.

Without thinking real hard, I can think of another 8 of my schoolmates who got pregnant as teens. ......Shame and ostracism didn't stop girls from having sex in those days, and it never will Only eight? Then you were doing much better than any modern-day school. Apparently shame and ostracism do ha...

"They're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally," Ireland says. I think this says a lot. Easier access to birth control, in this case, would be a teeny little band-aid on a gaping, hemorrhaging wound. If they couple birth control with some sort of assurance to the...

So it's farms, not environmental activists that are pushing ethanol? That's not what I've heard. That's because you're 1) confused and 2) thinking in binary. Lot's of people do it. You're not alone. :) Environmental activists are hot for any viable alternative to oil. Ethanol could be viable. Using...

Beats me, but the fact that corn is a crap source of ethanol is. Not. New. The corn ethanol thing, is, as far as I can tell, a product of the farm lobby. There are other, better sources of biofuel and some very exciting ideas out there that don't seem to be getting much play outside of science-land....

Nah, global warming is caused by a lack of pirates... I can't believe the guy with the FSM av didn't point that out.

Faramond wrote:I'm the poster "allRED" in that thread.

It's not nice to play with people's heads like that. Though it was funny.

Yes, and then a lot of people never really progress beyond HS science, end u with a poor understanding of the scientific method, and we end up with arguments like we've seen on this board. I'm not sure how to address that though - there are certain things you need to know regarding science and HS sc...