Before I reply, thanks for making the effort to write a concise post, Blankety!
I also notice you thought me being patronizing by suggesting you are an evolutionary loser due to your health. I can see why my post would come across like that and I'm sorry if I offended you. I was really writing about averages, that chronically ill people on average have lower biological fitness. Had it not been for modern medical advances, I probably would have died from infections several times over in the past, so I myself likely owe my life to modern medicine, even if I'm not chronically ill.
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Originally Posted by blankety blank
How do you know that tore? It's not a headline issue mate. Did you research?
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I've read cases of it happening and it's also described in a book I read, although that was a book by Dawkins who could be said to be biased
Heckling and so on does happen. How often it happens is the problem. I think in some areas, quite often.
A quick look at some top finds on google gave me the following news cases. The first here is a story about a teacher, Melissa Hussain, who got harassed by her students after a lecture on evolution. The story is covered many places, but I chose to link to the opinions of famous biologist and science blogger PZ Myers.
Link :
Melissa Hussain committed Thought Crime!
Another case which got some attention in the Times was the story about biology teacher Pat New who retired early due to the stress of teaching evolution. Her story gives a little more insight into how it can be when you're a science teacher in the US.
Link :
Evolutions lonely battle in a Georgia classroom
I'll quote some of the text here :
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Originally Posted by nytimes.com
But she has decided to retire, a year earlier than planned. "This evolution thing was a lot of stress," she said.
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She isn't sure how many questioned her teaching of evolution — perhaps a dozen parents, teachers and administrators and several students in her seventh-grade life science class. They sent e-mail messages and letters, stopped her in the hall, called board members, demanded meetings, requested copies of the PBS videos that she showed in class.
One parent asked how money could be wasted on a subject like evolution: "As budget cuts continuously chip away at our children's future of a good, quality college-ready education," she wrote, "I would think there would be more educational, more worthwhile and certainly more factual learning that could be taught." She requested that her son be permitted to "bide his time elsewhere" when evolution was taught.
Ms. New explained that evolution is so central to biology, the boy would be biding elsewhere all year long. Practically every chapter in her Prentice Hall textbooks — "Bacteria to Plants," "Cells and Heredity," "Animals" — used evolution to trace the development of life starting with bacteria, green algae and gymnosperms.
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I have lots of admiration for people like Pat New who go on teaching after years of resistance. Parents and pupils come and go, but she's on her own fighting the same struggle every semester. I think it's like that for many science teachers.
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Originally Posted by blankety blank
Certainly tore. What if they just simply used reverse osmosis. It takes everything out, including poisonous gases?
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There's no simple way to reverse osmosis so I'm not sure how to comment on this. Osmotic ("water") pressure only works one way. F.ex if a cell in a moist environment contains a lot of salt compared to the relatively solution free environment outside it, then osmotic pressure will try to push water into the cell. It's not possible to reverse it so that the water wants to go in the opposite direction.
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Originally Posted by blankety blank
Is that your post, or was that Satchmos?
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The text you quoted there was a general comment in a post to Satchmo.
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Originally Posted by blankety blank
Is it safe to say that as for tore, 'he is who he is', or do we just assume he 'imagines he is who is he'. i need to have this clarified, because, i don't want to talk in metaphors?
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I think it's generally fair to say he is who he is. Every human is an expression of something real - at the most basic a human body built up from a genetic blueprint. Change the blueprint and you change the person. And while thoughts and experiences are more fluid, I'm sure you would still be Blankety if your convictions changed. How you process the information you sense and f.ex commit that to text is still something which is done by a part of you that will always be uniquely you, regardless of what you believe in or imagine.
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Originally Posted by blankety blank
Why did you capitalize the 'g'? Just curious, a simple answer will suffice.
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Because "god" with a lower case g to me is synonymous with "deity" while "God" with a capital G is a name (hence the capital) for the christian god. The different use of case allows me to distinguish between the two.
Since you've been posting so many nice songs, I thought I'd try the same
Here's an old favourite of mine called "God Song" by the band Matching Mole. I think it's interesting that it's written from the point of view of someone who is a christian.
What on Earth are you doing, God?
Is this some sort of joke you're playing?
Is it cause we didn't pray?
Well I can't see the point of the word without the action
Are you just hot air, breathing over us and over all?
Is it fun watching us all?
Where's your son? We want him again!
And next time you send your boy down here
Give him a wife and a sexy daughter
Someone we can understand
Who's got some ideas we can use, really relate to
We've all read your rules, tried them
Learnt them in school, then tried them
They're impossible rules, and you've made us look fools
Well done, God, but now please...
Don't hunt me down, for Heaven's sake!
You know that I'm only joking, aren't I?
Pardon me I'm very drunk!
But I know what I'm trying to say, and it's nearly night time
And we're still alone, waiting for something unknown, still waiting
So throw down a stone, or something!
Give us a sign, for Christ's sake!