danielsangeo

Abortion doesn't kill children. If you suggest that fetuses, embryos or even single-celled fertilized eggs are "children", then perhaps you could say that pro-choice "kills children" but then you are a corpse (you will be, someday) and the English language is dead because any word can mean anything. Tablet brick potato llama. But, back to IVF, embryos ("living children"?!?!?!?!) are killed by the literal cartload and I hear no qualms about that...so I'm curious why they can't be used for stem cell research.

Not really, ee. Atheism is not a belief system nor does it "serve the purpose" of one. Atheists, however, have a wide and varied belief system. Generally speaking, you probably won't find two atheists that agree on everything. Think of it this way. I'm sure you have some sort of hobby. Whether it's collecting stamps or playing video games, you do something you enjoy. Now, imagine something someone else enjoys that you do not do nor care to do. That is atheism. You don't believe in a deity (as in, you don't collect stamps). You, however, do other things and atheists believe in many things. Atheism doesn't drive anything...because it isn't anything. It is the LACK of something: belief in a deity.

Actually, there is. It's called the Back button.

(No, there's no such thing as a "pro-abortionist", nor do those that identify as 'pro-choice' advocate for the killing of children.)

I don't think anyone is suggesting "killing off a living child". What in the world......?! Also, I never said YOU were for outlawing... I said that there are some that want to outlaw it...

Not necessarily. I've seen green eyed children from family that had 1 great grandparent with blue eyes, and all other family members were brown. It's just more common for children to have the same color eyes as one of their parents. See up there where I said "generally"? Perhaps it's not currently relevant to survival, but that's not the point. If the parents have the same mutation and have offspring, they will generally produce offspring with that same type of mutation, aka "propagation". The very same mutation under different environmental conditions could be beneficial or it might be neutral or it could even be deleterious. Unless you're saying that mutations of any kind will not propagate....but then again, even the creationist website Answers in Genesis states that mutations propagate...so you'd have to be even beyond them.

Yet, if we outlaw "embyronic stem cell research" as some wish we could do, then these embryos would simply perish without providing a benefit for anyone.

Wait, what? Are you telling me that if a mother and father both have brown eyes, their offspring won't generally have brown eyes?

I would just like to take this time to express that while we're different from other animals, it doesn't mean that other animals do not have traits like we have....survival instinct, emotions such as love and hate, desire to control the environment around them, all of these and more appear in other animals. To say that we are the "smartest" animals on Earth is a complete tautology because we measure "smartness" based on human intelligence. Of course humans have the best human intelligence. That's just silly. We have a DIFFERENT intelligence than other animals. We are a "higher" species, sure, but "smartest"? Really? I could even say that a great numbers of humans are stupid given human intelligence capabilities.

Okay, let me take a step back here. There are certain rules of nature. A weak species (one unable to adapt to its surroundings and the changes inherent therein) will eventually die out where a stronger species (one that is able to adapt) will survive and possibly thrive. Leaving evolution out of it all together, this is exactly what we see in nature. That is what this person coded into the simulation. Step 1: Nothing is guided, except for natural affinities. Step 2: These natural affinities will eventually form a pseudo-clock (a gear attached to an arm that swings back and forth). No, you can't tell what time a day it is from a single pendulum, but it keeps time. Step 3: This is selected for, while others, such as non-pendulums, are selected against. Again, this is all natural and what we see every day in nature. Step 4: A hand attaches to a spring (natural affinity) and the spring turns as the pendulum swings back and forth. This type of clock is selected for. ... Step 158,293: Three handed clocks form, showing hours, minutes, seconds. Again, all natural. Mutation + Natural selection = Evolution This is what we see in nature. We have no evidence of an "intelligent guiding force". We do have evidence that, random occurrences (such as a hand attaching to a gear to form a pendulum) that are beneficial or neutral survive and random occurrences that are detrimental (such as two gears connecting to each other) die out. Again, total common sense. Totally natural. And thus, the great web of life. The guy in the video simply programmed natural selection (which we see) and natural affinities (which we see) and let the computer program run. And clocks spontaneously formed on their own. Maybe if you could be a bit more specific about what your issue with the video is...such as maybe pointing to a section of the video that you have questions on, I'd be happy to assist.

Who needs Robin Hood: Men in Tights when you've got Time Bandits?

Wait, what? From the first link: "Human embryos that are discarded every day as medical waste from in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics"

No, the results are completely unexpected, actually. All he did was fashion what evolution does: That is, certain things help advance and certain things are a detriment. Being able to eat is a helpful thing. Not being able to eat is a detriment. That is all he's coded into his program. If a clock organism is able to "tell time" more accurately than another, then that organism survives and propagates. That is what happens in the real world with actual organisms. As the generators continue, more things that help the organism tell time better come together until you have what looks like a "designed" clock. But this doesn't happen in real life because clocks aren't alive and don't mutate or reproduce. Complexity comes from simplicity. The code wasn't made by evolutionary rules. The code was made according to basic biology. Biology has "certain things" that has to happen for an organism to survive.

You use that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Asahina, who is Gordon's former Girlfriend, Saw Gordon with his brother John, eating space brownies with headcrab zombie icing, and she was pissed at God for not making her beautiful enough for him, instead he chose Jessica, who was John Freeman's wife! John Freeman fucked Gordon up because he didn't have the money to get a crowbar, instead buying teletubbies which caused Gordon to jump on top of lung and use wepon against zombie ghosts! Then Captain Tightpants, surprisingly pantless today, had an epiphany "Kaylee was right next to bees that were angry and shooting lazoooors!" Captain Tightpants said "UGH BOOGA BIM" and Gordon Freeman replied "Ma lazoooor!" and everything exploded, headcrab zombie Icing and cake was seriously friggin' everywhere. Gordon felt guilty and John started crying a pond. Just then an antelope crashed through to the surface from the land called "Under the Surface". All of a sudden there was a huge rift and Asahina disappeared. Someone said something about the Combine attacking John Freeman by kidnapping Asahina, John Freeman frowned and said, "Avast!" He then got his grappling hook stuck in an asshole of a vortigant who said "Why, thanks, John!". The Vortigant started hovering over a giant headcrab that looked suspiciously like Wallace Breen. Earlier, Breen had been smelling coke off a monkey's ass when Duke Nukem arrived negotiating with him using a crowbar. Gordon Freeman was confused by Duke's arguments. He get wepon from goast which was actually his grandmother. She decided to kill the joke by starting this over.

Grappling hook, pulls and closes the gap.

http://www.physorg.com/news121446759.html http://www.umich.edu/stemcell/faq/ http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/healthday/080128/embryos-discarded-during-ivf-create-stem-cell-lines.htm I have more from the first page of Google for "ivf embryos discarded". If you want more, I can provide more, though.

I think it's fine the way it is. "Cinco dinero" to me, is "five money"....which doesn't really make sense to me...so translating it wouldn't work for me. Also, it's funnier if it remains untranslated. I'm also not 100% sure that I got the right words (I don't speak Spanish, though I know a few words). If the words are incorrect, could someone please let me know?

*cough* They don't keep aborting children to get the cells for most of the research. That's just flat out incorrect. When IVF happens, they create multiple embryos because it's still an inexact science, so they create a bunch and then try to implant a couple to see if they'll 'take' (which leads to fun stuff as multiples when more than one 'takes'.) When that happens, there are excess embryos which are then either 'put on ice' or discarded. Why can't we take stem cells from those that are, for all intents and purposes, dead anyway?

Michael Archer: You recently stated, "Corporations are human beings. All of corporation is is a collection of human beings." Do you feel this way about a union? How about a government? Are they people? Do you believe that people should be allowed to own other people?

I believe that this will be some kind of "other" video....such as maybe something like Galaxy Gulp or that Halo thing or something. I don't think it'll be FM or CP.

It's me again with subtitles for the latest Freeman's Mind. There's a scene where Gordon/Ross talks over a scientist and I had a bit of trouble with the timing on that and trying to keep it sane for the subtitling. Hope it works out for you. Enjoy! (If you see any issues with these subtitles, please let me know! Thanks!)

That video is clearly problematic with too many illogical assumptions. Like what, for instance? Please explain.

Ross Scott: The missile has an in-universe explanation. The Resonance Cascade opened up a spacetime rip or dimensional rip or something like that, allowing aliens from Xen, the borderworld, to teleport in. The storyline states that launching the missile will send a satellite into orbit that will close the dimensional rip. It probably does, but you end up going to Xen and destroying Nihilanth, freeing the Vortigaunts from bondage and unleashing random "portal storms" on Earth, alerting the Combine of our presence, and allowing them to take over the world. Then, two humans, Mike and Dave join Civil Protection....

I didn't read the whole thread (just the first page) and here's my thoughts on the Gordon Freeman thing: I like the idea of Gordon being a sort of "bumbling know-it-all". "Did somebody fix this?" "I just launched a missile!" and so on. It makes the eventual messiah-hood (the "One Free Man") of Gordon Freeman just that much funnier. They're all following someone who throws grenades at nitroglycerin boxes while thinking about Doritos ("Sometimes, I dream about nachos.").