Where the hell is it? Deleted by an overzealous moderator? Accidentally zapped by a drunk admin? Abducted by space aliens? Destroyed by the hand of God at the behest of creationists? Bring it back........pretty please.
I was wondering that same thing myself? I posted on the damned thread this morning, then ....POOF... it's gone without explanation at all. It's James R. I'm sure ...he's the one that gets so freakin' upset and pissed off. Baron Max
Don’t worry, the thread will be back very soon. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I have temporarily taken it offline to consider whether any moderation is required. It’s filling up so fast with so much creationist rubbish and lack of application of the scientific method that it’s impossible to monitor it. (There are notable exceptions - thankyou to those who are trying to correct the horrendous misinformation campaign of the evolution denialists.) In case anyone missed it, I have specified in the B&G posting guidelines that threads may be taken offline for 1-2 days for that purpose. This is a far better option than my first preference which is to simply delete the whole stupid thing. The reason why I am pressed for time when it comes to moderation duties is the birth on Saturday of my first child. Mother and son are both well but require a lot of attention.
congratulations hercules. may your progeny grow up to be just like you, tall, svelte, and sexy. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Shouldn't that have read: "may your progeny grow up to be just like you, OR tall, svelte, and sexy." Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Congratulations Hercules.
It's a boy! Hercules Jnr. Congratulations to you and your wife!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I remembered last week that she was due at the end of this month. Was going to ask you today actually. But you're already a Papa. And Junior shares the same birthday as my youngest! I am really happy for you HR. *Hugs*.. Stock up on the strongest coffee you can find now while they are still in the hospital. You will need it when Junior comes home.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Okay, having read through the thread it is apparent that it is such a long, jumbled and intertwined mess that it’s un-moderatable. There are only two options – leave it or delete it. I prefer the latter but I’ll bow to requests and leave it as is. Thanks all for the kind thoughts. He’s an amazing little guy and we feel very blessed. I’m still feeling overwhelmed by the total dependence he has on the two of us. It’s a very steep learning curve for first time parents. But we have a good support base of family and friends. Okay, must go and do some chores!
Moderate it from where it is now ...most people never go back and re-read all the old posts anyway. Or, if you prefer, another option is to pick a couple of days ago, then delete everything prior to that point (with a note to explain it, of course!). But then, if you really moderated every thread on this site properly, 99.9% of the threads would have to be deleted, wouldn't they???? Baron Max
It had to happen sooner or later. Congratulations to Hercules on acquiring two or three decades of responsibilities.
I think there were some quite useful links in the thread even though Oli added nothing at all to the debate. I did rather enjoy meursalt's stinging assault on ophiolote but I'm a bit twisted like that. Happy New Baby HR (run, run for your life!!).
Stinging?Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! A drunken concatenation of discordant emotion bereft of facts. Stinging? I thought you had more perception Sniffy.:shrug:
Didn't it make your eyes water just a little bit....? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Only because of excessive chortling. He missed the mark rather badly on everything related to motivation/character assessment and confirmed that he didn't really know much about evolution. That's the key point, he was proclaiming himself as someone who had deep insights as to the nature of eovlution. What did these deep insights turn out to be? The selfish gene theory of Dawkins. I'm sorry, but if ones thesis revolves around a popular book rather than bona fide, peer reviewed research then one has a problem. My understanding of evolution, such as it is, is based upon reading dozens of popular, but scholarly works such as Dawkins, scores of undergraduate and graduate level biology/palaeontology text books and hundreds of research papers and monographs. I just find it whimsical when someone like meursalt comes along enthused by and totally focused upon the hypothesis of a single worker in the field and tries to teach me what I already know as if it were the only true gospel. I'm genuinely pleased you enjoyed his attack, but personally I found it to be annoying, like the yapping of a poodle, rather dangerous like the roar of a lion.
Around here we all like to wear what we think we know on our sleeves. As any immunologist will tell, you a little prick now and again gives resistance for life. Dawkins btw: popular and scholarly; popular and bona fide; just popular and/or a bit dated in regards to advances in evolutionary theory?
Selfish gene theory is still very much in vogue in biology, though Dawkins' treatment of drift is pretty much non-existent. Evolutionary geneticists are currently modeling the parameters of what's necessary to get evolution, and according to their models, it's not much. If anything, Dawkins attributes too much to selection. Some of the more extreme proponents of null theory go so far as to suggest that sexual reproduction in eukaryotes was largely an accident, and that the great amount of variation one sees in multicellular life is the result of a bloated genome and chance- not selection.
Do any biologists ever wish that the words 'fittest' and 'selfish' had never, ever been associated with evolution? Don't think Darwin ever used them himself, did he?
