The Skeptical Zone

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."

Sandbox (3)

Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.

This is also a continuation of previous Sandbox threads (1) and (2) that have fallen victim to the dreaded page bug.

1,013 thoughts on “Sandbox (3)”

Alan Fox on January 26, 2017 at 12:39 pm said:

Dutch take on Trump!
Patrick on January 27, 2017 at 2:35 pm said:

Just for a change of pace, what do people think of punching Nazis?
Mung on January 27, 2017 at 2:51 pm said:

Patrick: Just for a change of pace, what do people think of punching Nazis?

Is Adapa a Nazi? That could change my decision. Otherwise it sounds too much like punching Jews, or gays, or non-whites. So no, not in favor.

I bet you think all Nazis are child abusers too though, right?
Frankie on January 27, 2017 at 3:05 pm said:

Patrick:
Just for a change of pace, what do people think of punching Nazis?

The same I feel about punching evos
Patrick on January 27, 2017 at 6:29 pm said:

Mung:
I bet you think all Nazis are child abusers too though, right?

I think that people who teach their children to hate people of other races are abusing their children. Don’t you?
Mung on January 27, 2017 at 7:02 pm said:

A supposed libertarian advocating for thought crimes. Pigs fly.
petrushka on January 27, 2017 at 7:04 pm said:

Actual courts dealing with claims of abuse have as their only guiding principle, the best interest of the child.

Pretty flexible standard. Obviously, “best interest” and religious teaching would be treated differently in the Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia, or rural Alabama.

Contrary to claims made from dictionary definitions, courts give lots of consideration to the emotional and educational well being of children.

In my own professional training, I was taught that physical abuse is much less damaging than emotional abuse or neglect. And that physical abusers are much more likely to respond to intervention than emotional abusers.

Which leads me back to my primary concern. Is it abusive to threaten children with eternal torment for disbelief?
Patrick on January 27, 2017 at 7:13 pm said:

Mung:
A supposed libertarian advocating for thought crimes. Pigs fly.

I never advocated for it being a crime. I also note you failed to answer my question.
keiths on January 27, 2017 at 7:24 pm said:

Mung fail.
dazz on January 27, 2017 at 7:27 pm said:

keiths:
Mung fail.

Department of Redundancy Department?
Mung on January 27, 2017 at 7:39 pm said:

Patrick: I also note you failed to answer my question.

And if that bothers you it would please me to keep doing it. Just call me a Patrick abuser. It’s for your own good.
Rumraket on January 27, 2017 at 7:59 pm said:

Mung: A supposed libertarian advocating for thought crimes. Pigs fly.

Someone who literally believes in just punishment for thought-crime, unironically trying to saddle another person with advocating thought-crime.

This is what irony is made of.
Mung on January 27, 2017 at 9:53 pm said:

Irony generates one of those fields that Allan Miller can’t detect.
Patrick on January 27, 2017 at 10:33 pm said:

Mung: And if that bothers you it would please me to keep doing it. Just call me a Patrick abuser. It’s for your own good.

As long as you don’t ask me to call you Daddy. I might think you’re Milo then.
stcordova on January 28, 2017 at 5:05 pm said:

And in other news democrat Elizabeth Warren supports a YEC to the Trump Cabinet. Yay!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/elizabeth-warren-defends-ben-carson-vote-against-liberal-backlash-162645244.html

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., found herself in an unusual position after voting to support retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s nomination to President Trump’s cabinet — defending herself to aggrieved progressives.

On Wednesday evening, after considerable pushback from supporters, Warren wrote on Facebook that she thinks backing Carson was a reasonable decision despite her “serious, deep, profound concerns” about Carson’s inexperience and the “outrageous things” he said as a Republican presidential candidate.
Mung on January 28, 2017 at 9:19 pm said:

Cry Us A River

LoL
stcordova on January 30, 2017 at 2:38 am said:

And in other news, Jerry Coyne found out our Vice President is a creationist, Mike Pence. Yay!
stcordova on January 30, 2017 at 3:22 pm said:

Kudos to Jerry Coyne for defending free speech:
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/01/21/welcome-to-the-trump-era-no-safe-spaces-for-those-you-oppose/

I was saddened to hear about the violence in D.C. this weekend, with over 100 people arrested and substantial damage to property. If a march is to succeed, it should be nonviolent, as was the case with the civil rights and Vietnam marches in the Sixties (yes, I know there was some violence). If the Left is to keep the moral high ground, we simply can’t go around physically attacking those whose views we don’t like. In fact it’s ironic, because when progressives do this, they’re implicitly denying someone a REAL safe space: a space to be free to express your opinions and remain physically safe. “Safety” refers to freedom from physical attack or illegal harassment, not to freedom from hearing views you don’t like.

As a conscientious objector, I’ve always adhered to the nonviolent philosophies of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, for if you start violence, you lose credibility.
…
Even a white supremacist deserves to have his say without being physically attacked.
Mung on January 31, 2017 at 2:06 am said:

Patrick: Just for a change of pace, what do people think of punching Nazis?

Thinking of coming out of the closet and want to know if it’s safe?
TristanM on February 2, 2017 at 9:33 am said:

stcordova:
And in other news, Jerry Coyne found out our Vice President is a creationist, Mike Pence. Yay!

https://youtu.be/ikax0Y0NJsY

Yay that Jerry knows this. Boo that the VP was born in the 17th century.
AhmedKiaan on February 3, 2017 at 7:54 pm said:

ID is so boring blah blah my bullshit probability calculations blah blah some new acronym I made up blah blah. I so wish PaV would write up, or point to where he’s written up, his understanding of the science of HIV. That would be new and fresh and exciting.

Sadly, he is scared.
fifthmonarchyman on February 5, 2017 at 3:46 am said:

Hey guys

I’d like to post an OP but it’s a little long.
How do I go about inserting “continue reading” breaks in the body?

peace
Mung on February 5, 2017 at 4:00 am said:

Look for the more button.

ETA: if you click on it, it will add the following:

<!–more–>
Neil Rickert on February 5, 2017 at 4:02 am said:

There’s a “more”. Position the cursor where you want the break and click the icon for more (a dotted line in the middle of the icon).

If you can’t work it out, then I’ll add that later. But then you don’t get to choose the break point.
fifthmonarchyman on February 5, 2017 at 4:16 am said:

thanks guys

peace
fifthmonarchyman on February 13, 2017 at 10:20 pm said:

Is there a good way to post a long string of numerical digits? Richardthughes asked for the raw data behind my chart and I like to give it to him with out being too ugly

peace
keiths on February 13, 2017 at 10:28 pm said:

Don’t post it! Upload it and share the link.
Patrick on February 14, 2017 at 1:05 am said:

fifthmonarchyman:
Is there a good way to post a long string of numerical digits? Richardthughes asked for the raw data behind my chart and I like to give it to him with out being too ugly

peace

Upload it to PasteBin.
stcordova on February 17, 2017 at 6:03 pm said:

Political Correctness going too far, imho.

Here’s another instance of political correctness on a college campus going a smidge too far, courtesy of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities: A proposed resolution to recognize the 9/11 terrorist attacks on campus each year was rejected by the Minnesota Student Association as it may potentially violate a “safe space” on campus.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2015/11/12/university-of-minnesota-rejects-911-remembrance-because-it-might-incite-racism-n2079788

Why should colleges be places your feelings are always coddled? If that’s the case let colleges be safe spaces for creationists and Christians too!

An alternative then is to make universities almost free of any political and cultural discussion. As in totally sterilize the environment. Let’s not have presidential debates or election debates at University Campuses anymore.

Heck, let’s just make most classes online and sterilized of offending content and then go to places like Skeptical Zone where we can enjoy free speech in an “unsafe space”. Sheesh!
Mung on February 17, 2017 at 6:27 pm said:

stcordova: Heck, let’s just make most classes online and sterilized of offending content and go to places like Skeptical Zone where offending each other is par for the course.

🙂
Neil Rickert on February 17, 2017 at 6:52 pm said:

stcordova: Why should colleges be places your feelings are always coddled? If that’s the case let colleges be safe spaces for creationists and Christians too!

Colleges are already safe places for creationists and Christians.

I don’t know the full story from U. of Mn., but I’m not impressed by the Townhall argument.

From a faculty perspective: Let’s have a special event 7 days a week for 52 weeks of the year. And then we can teach the actual curriculum in the time left over.

Students are there to learn, not to be distracted by these kinds of events.

You see the objection as a kind of political correctness. But surely the claim that there should be a special event is its own kind of political correctness.
keiths on February 22, 2017 at 8:02 pm said:

NASA Announces Major Exoplanet Discovery
Mung on February 26, 2017 at 12:20 am said:

Learn Enough to Be Dangerous
Richardthughes on March 3, 2017 at 12:35 am said:

FYI: http://evolutionnews.org/2017/03/participate-in-an-online-seminar-with-stephen-meyer-just-five-days-away/

Click through for bonus lulz – the sponsors.
petrushka on March 3, 2017 at 12:39 am said:

keiths:
NASA Announces Major Exoplanet Discovery

Call me when they detect oxygen.
GlenDavidson on March 3, 2017 at 1:43 am said:

You hear about an event featuring your favorite scientist or scholar from the world of intelligent design research

Bolding added.

Yes, I wish to discuss greenscreens.

Glen Davidson

ETA: I meant for this to be a reply to Richardthughes’ post above, but for some reason it didn’t take.
Richardthughes on March 3, 2017 at 4:46 am said:

https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/dna-could-be-the-future-of-data-storage
Tom English on March 8, 2017 at 4:23 pm said:

Yet another $\LaTeX$ experiment:

$\mathbf{\bar{1}}<em>T(\omega) = \frac{1}{|\omega|} \sum</em>{i=1}^{|\omega|} \mathbf{1}_T(\omega_i)$
Tom English on March 8, 2017 at 4:25 pm said:

Underscores are transformed into emphasis delimiters.
Tom English on March 8, 2017 at 4:25 pm said:

$\mathbf{\bar{1}}<em>T(\omega) = \frac{1}{|\omega|} \sum</em>{i=1}^{|\omega|} \mathbf{1}_T(\omega_i)$
Tom English on March 8, 2017 at 4:26 pm said:

[latexmath]\mathbf{\bar{1}}T(\omega) = \frac{1}{|\omega|} \sum{i=1}^{|\omega|} \mathbf{1}_T(\omega_i)[/latexmath]
Tom English on March 8, 2017 at 4:26 pm said:

$\mathbf{\bar{1}}<em>T(\omega) = \frac{1}{|\omega|} \sum</em>{i=1}^{|\omega|} \mathbf{1}_T(\omega_i)$
Tom English on March 8, 2017 at 4:27 pm said:

$\mathbf{\bar{1}}<em>T(\omega) = \frac{1}{|\omega|} \sum</em>{i=1}^{|\omega|} \mathbf{1}_T(\omega_i)$
Tom English on March 8, 2017 at 4:31 pm said:

$\mathbf{\bar{1}}_T(\omega) = \frac{1}{|\omega|} \sum_{i=1}^{|\omega|} \mathbf{1}_T(\omega_i)$
Tom English on March 8, 2017 at 4:33 pm said:

$\mathbf{\bar{1}}_T(\omega) = \frac{1}{|\omega|} \sum_{i=1}^{|\omega|} \mathbf{1}_T(\omega_i)$
Tom English on March 8, 2017 at 4:36 pm said:
Tom English on March 8, 2017 at 4:38 pm said:

It sucks, but it works: put the $\LaTeX$ between backquotes, to suppress MarkDown translation.
Tom English on March 8, 2017 at 4:40 pm said:

Let's try something more advanced. I put a backquote at the beginning of this comment, and a backquote at the end.
Tom English on March 8, 2017 at 5:09 pm said:

[latex] and [/latex]

or

[latex] and [/latex]
Patrick on March 8, 2017 at 7:15 pm said:

Tom English:
It sucks, but it works: put the $\LaTeX$ between backquotes, to suppress MarkDown translation.

That’s weird. The Markdown plugin has been disabled for a while. Perhaps one of the others also supports some variant. I’ll have a look this weekend.

Comments are closed.