What is a survival trait? exploding the myth.

@Jpsy,

I remember some examples of GE from a book on evolution I owned regarding fruit fly experimentation. The scientists were manipulating fruit fly genes and making them grown legs out of their heads and extra eyes etc. Like most technology, GE has the potential greatly enhance the lives of future generations or cause great harm. Given the power the ruling elites and the military industrial complex has I'm a little worried. Interesting stuff.

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@Jpsy,

I'm currently manipulating my genome to make myself grow antlers and a kangaroo pouch. I'll never lose my keys or my wallet again If I have a marsupial pouch. It's like a biological fanny pack.

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@Jpsy,

That's gonna be a hell of a deterrent to getting in a car, Im just saying that you might wanna temper those genic manipulations with inserting them from maybe a female impala,

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@Jpsy,

Jpsy wrote:

I think Fresco may have gotten it right immediately. I'm 50/50 on whether John is a troll or is actually serious. To your credit John, you seem too intelligent to actually believe this college logic 101 statement about evolutionary traits is actually valid and rational. John, are you a troll or do you actually believe this is rational logic?

JJ actually does have credits (if not working background as well) in philosophy and science (chemistry, possibly). Which then apparently would bolster the assertion of him being deliberately troll-ish... Or some subcategory of postmodernism really is his legitimate ideological approach. Since his developing web and discussion group history over the years might indicate a general theme of taking jabs at the secular West's "idols" and various offspring of its Enlightenment, I favor the latter being the case. Though there's indeed an unabashed dash of trawling a net through the lake and setting a trotline, too.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

Armies kill people.
Therefore, the Salvation Army kills people.

Dude . . . you crack me up!

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@IRFRANK,

Troll accusations are always made by those who have investments in their strong beliefs. It's a pity, it turns away reasoned debate, and is one of the great cornerstones of American foreign policy. Have fun. Bye.

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@JohnJonesCardiff,

You may think that but often (quite often) a cigar Is just a cigar.
Many of us havent decided whether youre that dumb or are you just having a big laugh up your sleeve by playing an evolution deny-er.

Either way your coming up way short on the debatometer

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@Jpsy,

You don't understand the process of a thread getting a "thumbs up." If someone responds to a thread, it gets a thumbs up. You could start at thread, and if 14 people come along telling you you're an idiot, and they don't bother to "thumb down" your OP, the thread will have 14 thumbs up. As a measure of either value of the content or the popularity of an idea, the number of "thumbs" a thread gets is meaningless.

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@JohnJonesCardiff,

People call you a troll because of the lack of any valuable content in the drek you post and your penchant for attempting to pick fights, and telling us how brilliant you are. That hilariously idiotic remark about American foreign policy is just another example of you attempting to get rise out of people.

You're a troll, there's no doubt.

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@JohnJonesCardiff,

Quote:

Troll accusations are always made by those who have investments in their strong beliefs. It's a pity, it turns away reasoned debate, and is one of the great cornerstones of American foreign policy. Have fun. Bye.

Are you insulting American foreign policy. Are you insulting & questioning the judgement of the greatest intellectual president in the history of the world: George W. Bush. The political prodigy. The presidential prince of precocity. That's conservative blasphemy. You are against freedom JJ. There's no need to waste all that time debating back and forth trying to find the best solutions to problems. Mass bombings is the solution Fox & CNN told me so. We bomb countries for their own good. To bring them democracy. Nothing expresses our love for liberty and freedom like a good healthy bombing or drone strike. George W. (& now Obama) used great strategery to bring democracy to the rest of the world. Besides, don't they always say war is good for the economy. When we bomb other countries, it increases profits for their hospitals. Iraqi nurses and doctors need to make a living too. And the bomb builders, them bomb builders need jobs as well. They're patriots. We got to keep dropping bombs so them bomb builders can keep builden bombs and keep our economy running like a well-oiled oil rig. Abletoknow, answer the call to FREEDOM! LIBERTY LOVERS UNITE! Stupidity is a virtue.

It's fun being a politically incorrect troll.

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@JohnJonesCardiff,

JohnJonesCardiff wrote:

Troll accusations are always made by those who have investments in their strong beliefs. [...] Have fun. Bye.

4 peetz-ache, simply submit your topics to the philosophy group rather than cross-posting to that diverse range of others (i.e., the former is not uninhabited or abandoned by any means).

The subjects of the latter forums have already settled either their methodologies or their foundations for knowledge [or both], and are not open to any journey back to a non-doctrinal perspective from the original starting point, or taking an alternative route of epistemological nihilism, constructivism, etc, at that primeval crossroads. Such may not be applicable to begin with.

For instance: Science is not a worldview or [epistemic / ontic / sociopolitical] ideology -- it's not to be confused with either scientism or philosophy of science. It's a work practice, a category of occupations, that cranks out information-related products. Which provide fodder for educational textbooks and feed / stimulate technological industries [in many cases, supported by their R&D]. Science is no more warmly receptive to having its output and procedures examined / evaluated by external agencies [including free-lance analytical agents] than a lawn mower factory is. Or in this case, potentially having the erroneous interpretation of being a "worldview" projected upon it, or being dissected as such. Thus your cold welcome in such places at Able2Know.

While atheism is probably quite accustomed to being attacked or misrepresented (such discussion groups actually seem to turn into ghost towns when theists are not crusading through them), it would accordingly have been utterly ridiculous for you to have expected being labeled anything other than an idiot, troll, etc, there.

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@G H,

You could not possibly be more wrong, about all of this. This joker is just here to stir the turd, to pick fights. Witness several attempts of his to get a rise out of people through condemnations of the United States. He doesn't care about ontology or epistemology, he just wants to piss people off.

What was also hilarious was your comment about atheists and "atheism." (There really is no such thing as atheism, because it's not a belief set, it's the absence of belief. Oh certainly there are some anti-theists who call themselves atheists, but atheists are under no obligation to assure truth in advertising.) Most threads about so-called "atheism" are started by theists or agnostics. There might be the occasional thread started by a newbie, but their authors usually turn out to be anti-theists, a particular subset of atheists (whom i find rather pathetic). We do have a thread about atheism started several years ago, the purpose of which was to discuss the experience of being an atheist in a theistic society. It got trashed pretty quickly by the theists and the agnostics.

Talk about having a smug, little world view--you take the cake.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

What was also hilarious was your comment about atheists and "atheism." (There really is no such thing as atheism, because it's not a belief set, it's the absence of belief.

Any amusement to be derived here would be your taking the "-ism" to be designating a system of belief / ideology rather than simply being part of the "-theism" appended to the prefix "a-" (not, non, without).

Also curious that you feel a need to react to and be covertly defensive about a word that supposedly has no significance for you ("No such thing as atheism..."). Similar to Sam Harris at one time, a party of drunken Abrahamic guys might roast atheists all night, without it registering to me that I was among those intended to be the butt of the jokes. Hell, I'd probably toss in a one or two good ones myself. But I still wouldn't suggest that atheism is a fictional classification, devoid of any self-declared members.

Quote:

Oh certainly there are some anti-theists who call themselves atheists, but atheists are under no obligation to assure truth in advertising.) Most threads about so-called "atheism" are started by theists or agnostics. There might be the occasional thread started by a newbie, but their authors usually turn out to be anti-theists, a particular subset of atheists (whom i find rather pathetic). We do have a thread about atheism started several years ago, the purpose of which was to discuss the experience of being an atheist in a theistic society. It got trashed pretty quickly by the theists and the agnostics.

So, according to you...There is no atheism. Yet there is somehow the "experience of being an atheist..." which apparently needs to be talked about in an existing atheism forum. [Or I assume it is the same one which this "joker" is currently cross-posting to, whose threads you are doing such a fab job of ignoring / not contributing to.] And it was theists and agnostics who derailed this "experience of..." topic which atheists, who actually aren't such, were then disappointed about.

Why were they disappointed about the topic being disrupted, since it should have been rubbish, anyway, in the context of there being "no such thing as atheism"? Or are you instead implying that they were elated about the theists and agnostics clobbering it up? (Kind of hard to tell...)

Quote:

Talk about having a smug, little world view--you take the cake.

Don't be so modest. Anyone who can globally hijack a term so thoroughly that it now references a mythical position or status is certainly no one I would ever entertain being able to de-throne. You'll continue to hold that coveted "Smug Azzo" trophy for many competitions to come, buddy-boy. Count me as a fan in the audience. Wink

1 Reply

@G H,

You're imposing your world view again. I don't consider that "-ism" denigrates anything. The point, which apparently shot right by you, is that when one is an atheist, one participates in no system of belief. Get it? (Apparently not.)

Your allegation of me being defensive is another aspect of your projection of your definitions into the discussion. My remarks about "atheism" were parenthetical precisely because i understand the utility of the term. I have nothing to defend there.

Sam Harris speaks for Sam Harris, he doesn't speak for me. I loathe most appeals to authority, especially when one appeals to an authority who does not deal in concrete evidence, and the more especially one who provides anecdotal evidence.

"According to me" atheism is a misleading term because if implies a belief set when one is speaking about the absence of belief. As i have already pointed out, my remarks were parenthetical because i recognize the utility of the term. The rest of that paragraph of yours is blather which purports to enlist logic to refute what i've said, but all you've got going for you is to continually lean on the parenthetical remarks. You're also trying to expand that to claim that i've stated that there are no atheists, which is, of course nonsense. Fora here exist as soon as someone creates a tag. If, for example, you started a thread to tout the excellence of your understanding, and i tagged it "smug bullshit," there would then exist a smug bullshit forum. Any reference to a forum around here is largely meaningless--fora are the product of tags, and tags are just tools of an elaborate filing system.

I'm not your buddy boy. If i encountered you dying in the street, my only reaction would be mild annoyance at being obliged to step over your body.

1 Reply

@JohnJonesCardiff,

JohnJonesCardiff wrote:

Evolutionists talk about traits as if they were real, independent things, like individuals. But if traits were independent things then they could be swapped between creatures...

Theists talk about their god as if it were real, independent thing, like people. But if a god were an independent thing then it would be detectable, like individuals. Or, if it chose to be undetectable, how would man have detected it? Or is detectability like an on/off switch? God chooses when to be detectable and when not to? He switches it off just to test us to see if we have the weakness and limitations he gave us, so that he can punish us for having them? Nice god you got there. If I detect him, I will give him a quick kick in the balls. I don't like to be fucked with.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

You're imposing your world view again. I don't consider that "-ism" denigrates anything. The point, which apparently shot right by you, is that when one is an atheist, one participates in no system of belief. Get it? (Apparently not.)

"Theism" is the belief system. The prefix "a-" is added to it. Ergo, the new term resulting from that combination is not a belief system itself, simply because it ends with an "-ism". Except to this rather silly person who popped-up in my face suddenly, asking why I beat my wife last night. Who keeps ranting that an employment of the term "atheism" by [apparently] anyone else other than him indicates a misuse of it as a belief system. Woops, better duck fast, I'm pretty sure that's yet another sonic boom you're probably experiencing overhead. Here we go again: The same old gun with a one bullet routine in it that this straggly character jumping out of the bushes is going to come back and poke in my face again in the next post. Zzzzzzzzzzzz....

Quote:

"According to me" atheism is a misleading term because if implies a belief set when one is speaking about the absence of belief.

By gosh, just hold that thought! Yes it's "according to you". And you can keep your invention, your idea that the word atheism implies a "belief set". I don't want it, probably nobody else here gives a #### about possessing it, either. It's your property. Wave it around with delight as the rightful owner and scamper back into the foothills. Get drunk tonight in the caves and celebrate that another "some dumbass" you accosted on the road with a loaded accusation didn't want to fight you over it or try to steal it from you. Gollum, baby, its yours! Jam that "precious" back up into whatever sphincter or cavity it deserves to be in when nobody else is around to watch. I just want to leave this godforsaken detour and return to the journey back home and see the wife and kids. You just party hardy tonight and don't bother me or waste my time anymore with this stupid ####.

1 Reply

@G H,

For someone who attempts to suggest that this bores you, you spent a lot of time saying as much. I have not ranted--once again, it was a parenthetical remark, which you have raised to the level of a rant, not me.

The word you wanted was hearty, not hardy. As with so much of the rest of what you write, you just don't get it.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

The word you wanted was hearty, not hardy. As with so much of the rest of what you write, you just don't get it.

Heartily actually, in this case party was a verb, and you can't describe a verb with an adjective.

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

...and you can't describe a verb with an adjective.

Don't be too sure...

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@izzythepush,

It's an Americanism, Mr. Genius--it's not about anal retentive grammarians from small, insignificant nations.

1 Reply

What is a survival trait? exploding the myth.

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