Coffee here (too much!) 
 
Lately I've been taking this new drug my Dr suggested. It's called "Placebo" or something like that. 
 
Cheers, 
--Bob

jim, I take exception at your implicit comparison of that great man Geo Washington with that spivvy slave-shagging spin doctor, Thos Jefferson. 
 
Bah! George?! There wasn't a Great American until Harriet Tubman, I'm pretty sure...

Based on the treatment of others in similar positions Jensen, Rushton, Murray, Hernstein, Lynn, Vanhannen, et alia et alia he may face arrest and will risk physical assault, book burning, a ruined reputation, etc 
 
BUT 
 
He won't be scientifically refuted and the problems that could be solved via genetic engineering won't be (at least not as soon as they could be). 
I hope that the other side here enjoy the feeling of moral superiority while they watch the avoidable misery of their fellow humans

^^  
 
Yeah actually I skimmed his post. Looked at it again after I posted, and realized I misread it. That was my bad.

If monogamy doesn't exist, how did the ritual of marriage come to exist? It seems strange that almost every culture throughout history made such a big deal about staying true to their spouse. Humans must have been really good at fighting the instinct of polygamy, and for no apparent reason, instituted monogamy into law and religion for thousands of years. How did monogamy come to exist if polygamy is instinctive? Why do humans have such strong emotions when they discover their spouse is cheating, after all, if it is instinctive to have more then one spouse, despite the fact that cheating is shunned in society, we wouldn't care if our spouse is cheating or if we are caught cheating, right?

The MZ DZ concordance rates (MZ=59, DZ= 10) for leprosy are an error in the table... 62 MZ pairs with 37 concordant = .59+ , but the table incorrectly calculates the DZ concordance rate. 40 DZ pairs, 8 concordant SB 20% concordance....

" that concept is irrational and self-contradictory" 
 
how is the concept of god self-contradicting?  
 
I dont belive in god becase i need proof not faith to believe in something. However i cant see how the concept of god contadicts itself.

If it is a sex-linked recessive trait it cannot manifest itself in any way in an XX female. 
The trait is on the X chromosome and thuse, a male cannot pass it on to a child because they are infertile and have AIS. 
On another front, retrospectively, I had a girlfriend a long time ago who had AIS (discovered after the House episode) and there was no external clue whatsoever. 
AIS females are typically tall, 5'7" and up, fairly large boned yet have exaggerated female characteristics, hips, breasts, facial features. Many are athletic or model material. Several have been discovered through testing at the Olympics, far more than would be expected in a normal cross section of the general population. If you are picking a candidate based on looking tomboyish or masculine, you are probably wrong.

From the synopsis on this site, it seems that the authors present HP as a refinement of sexual selection, and I am not buying it. There are plenty of instances of signals and of cheaters where cheating does not reduce the value of the signal. For instance, plenty of animals mimic threatening creatures. The poisonous coral snake has several non-venomous mimics. Likewise, plenty of species select for behaviours that cheat on other signals like chest size for instance where a bird might ruffle its feathers during courtship to make it look like it has a larger chest.

When I think of a handicap principle and the peacock's tail, I think of the saying that a gazelle need not outrun the lions as long as it outruns its sisters.

Males are reproductively very redundant and expendable compared to females. A peahen has a natural handicap when it comes to predation because she has to watch out for junior. Having a hobbled male around to occupy the predators while she and her chick sneak away improves the odds of her survival and the survival of her chick. Ironically, it can also improve the odds that the male's genes survive when the chick grows up to reproduce.

Let's suppose that well-nourished, disease-free, parasite-free birds grow larger and more symmetrical so they have larger, more symmetrical chests and longer, more symmetrical tails. Consider two hens in different colonies that each have perverse sexual fetishes: one likes a man with a big brawny chest and the other likes a good piece of tail. As a result, they both end up picking better-nourished, better-groomed, healtier males as partners and eventually their female descendants come to dominate each colony.

Eventually the males start cheating. Because the fetishes respond to secondary characteristics, the males adapt by putting their energy into those secondary characteristics and not necessarily into the features that improve survival. In one colony, small weak males end up with long symmetric tails and in the other colony, small weak males learn to puff out their chests and ruffle their chest feathers.

Now we come to the good part. Suppose there is a year or two of extreme predation as happens at the crests of predator population cycles. To make the numbers easy, suppose each colony has 100 males, 100 females and 100 chicks. Further assume that if the female survives, so does her chick.

The male chest rufflers do not really have a handicap when it comes to escaping predators whereas the long tailed males have a very real handicap. Suppose that during extreme predation 100 adults are killed.

In the long-tailed colony, the predators are drawn to the appetisingly large appearing males and find them easy to catch. In this colony, the predators get 98 males and two females. In the chest ruffler colony, the predators get 50 males and 50 females.

At the start of the next season, the long-tailed colony has 98+49=147 fe
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I should also add that if there were a third colony where females evolved to respond to the primary characteristics of nourishment, grooming and health, the predators would likewise wipe them out in three seasons.

I separated the colonies for clarity, and there is nothing to say that the peacock did not evolve its long tail in a geographically isolated colony.

You have to look at evolution as a battle of the sexes. The females evolve long-tailed males to increase their own survival. Males would evolve to molt the long tails in response to increase their own survival. The tug of war back and forth will eventually evolve long-tailed males who molt neither too soon nor too late after the rut. Molting too soon will reduce the survival of the chicks and molting too late will reduce the male's chance of reproducing multiple seasons.

A short-tailed male would not have a reproductive advantage among females with the long-tail fetish. The short-tailed male would have to come along at the same time a female comes along with a perverse fetish for short tails, and even then his descendants might get wiped out during another period of extreme predation. Of course, for all we know this is happening right now and in a million years peacocks will all have short tails.

The weightlifting example is misleading. There are a number of phenotypes that affect a weightlifter's ability: hormone production, height (bone length) and insertion point. Muscle size is determined more by muscle belly length.

It is possible for a tall weightlifter with long muscle bellies and unfortunate insertion points to have huge muscles and not be all that strong, and for a short weightlifter with short muscle bellies and fortunate insertion points to have small muscles and massive strength.

Consider two genetically identical birds with the exception of one genotype difference that causes one of the birds to put more energy into growing a tail. If both birds have identical developmental nutrition, the bird who puts more energy into tail production will be smaller with a longer tail. It is possible that even if the long-tail received less nutrition that it would still have a longer tail, but be even smaller still.

If females are choosing mates based on a tail fetish, they will pick the longest tailed male even if it is smaller.

By the same analogy, if human females select mates on the basis of muscle size alone, human males will cheat by evolving longer muscle bellies even if that does not improve their strength.

Diana,

I have difficulty believing that nobody can automate the task of picking melons. If there were no longer a steady supply of illegals and migrants, the question is not if someone would invent an automated melon picker, but how many competing designs would appear on the market the first season.

People will use less unskilled labor, and unskilled laborers will find better jobs with insurance benefits. (Like driving the melon picker.) Some things will become more expensive and some things less expensive.

Godless is right: People will substitute one thing for another.

Zack,

When you objectively consider who presents a greater risk of killing you in an indiscriminate act of mass murder, who do you fear most?

Shintos Buddhists Catholics Muslims Animists Protestants ?

With all due respect, Zack, you are dissembling--neither a traffic accident nor a stray bullet from a drive-by have anything to do with my question to you.

If you wanted to give a reasoned, rational response, you could at least point out that by far the greatest number of acts of indiscriminate mass murder in the US are perpetrated by white males of european descent between the ages of 14 and 25. However, these acts tend to result in no more than a dozen or so deaths. Timothy McVeigh, by far the most effective of these mass murderers, managed to outdo the typical casualty rate by an order of magnitude.

When one compares McVeigh's act of mass murder to similarly successful acts perpetrated by muslims against Americans, one would conclude that McVeigh was a rank amateur. His casualty rate was at the low end of such acts by muslims and the 9/11 attacks raised the casualty rate by yet another order of magnitude.

In recent days, I have noticed you accused Randall of prejudice and you even went to the trouble of posting a definition of prejudice. I have to say that your mindless, knee-jerk, irrational responses on the topic of muslim immigration are the very picture of prejudice while Randall's measured, calm and rational analyses of the situation are the very picture of rational impartiality.

Would Randall's suggestion to exclude muslims from immigrating to the US deprive deserving muslims of a valuable opportunity? Yes. Does current US immigration policy deprive deserving muslims of a valuable opportunity? Yes. Is there any feasible US immigration policy that would not deprive millions of eager would-be Americans of a valuable opportunity every year? No. Simply too many people want to immigrate to the US to allow them all.

Since it is a given that the US must arbitrarily exclude millions of deserving wouldbe immigrants every year, what rational argument do you have against biasing the selection criteria to reduce the risk of subversive fifth elements and completely avoidable damage to the US economy?

Another reason is I think if we stop all Muslim immigration and/or take other actions against all Mulsims, we make this war on terror out to be a war against all of Islam. That is not right and would result in major problems for the world in my opinion.

The system of governance of the United States of America was engineered for the enduring preservation of freedom. One of the most basic core values upon which the US is founded and that chosen to preserve freedom is the separation of church and state. Personally, I don't think the US is at war with all muslims. I think the US is only at war with those muslims who oppose the separation of church and state.

We should also consider the fact that there is a plus side to Muslim immigrants. Well-adjusted Muslims in the US can possibly positively affect relations between people in the Muslim world and the US.

Having read the core texts of the Islamic faith, I have to say that the Hadith and the Qur'an on their face tend to mis-adjust Muslims. I am entirely open to the idea that many millions of muslims reinterpret the literal word of the Qur'an in well-adjusted ways; however, the literal texts and core doctrines remain a problem.

Ignoring the bloodlust of passages about smiting fingers etc. and ignoring the historical record of Mohammed himself as a genocidal mass-murderer, the doctrine that a fragmented, obviously incomplete, randomly ordered collection of rambling, incoherent verses is 'the complete, true and unadulterated word of God' whereas the texts of earlier religions were incomplete and inaccurate destroys any confidence I would have in the well-adjustedness of adherents who espouse the doctrine.

From what other sources I have read, I have every reason to believe that even the best educated, most erudite and open-minded muslim thinkers at overseas universities espouse and believe the most virulent, paranoid fantasies.

Assuming there are well-adjusted Muslims, they are few and far between, and we then have the difficult task of identifying those few among the throngs of resentful, arrogant haters. If you can provide a reliable, accurate test for well-adjustedness, maybe you can propose an alternate rational immigration policy.

While I hold basically liberal, humanist, freedom loving democratic values and espouse a "live and let live" attitude, I do not see my values as a suicide pact. Demanding an immigration policy that welcomes our enemies and those opposed to our corest of core values on the principle that it is wrong to filter by religion is suicidal and irrational.

And lastly, to all those who think Muslims should not be allowed to immigrate, do you think I should be deported? Forget the group "Muslims." Let's talk about individuals. Should I be allowed to immigrate or not?

If you act in a manner treasonous to the US or engage in sedition, I
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Gordon, Bob, Randall: Do I belong to the set "Americans" in your opinion as true-blue Americans considering that I am not a US citizen, though I live in the US and am a Muslim.

I await your wisdom.

Frankly, I don't know enough about you to judge. If you are a true-blue American, you would put your patriotic duty to your country ahead of your sense of community to your religion. For instance, if you heard someone preaching sedition at the local mosque, you would report the event to the appropriate authorities. That's not to say that the US would demand that you kill muslims for it. The US has some tolerance for conscientious objectors--not much but some. Just don't expect to be given the keys to the kingdom after refusing to stand in its defence.

If you are a true-blue American, you will understand the core values and ideas that make America, and where those values and ideas contradict your religion you will side with America.

Now, if Canada and the US went to war, both sides would be smart to jail me. I would not enjoy it, but I would understand it fully.

Nowhere does he entertain the possibility that I might be a law-abiding nice guy who deserves a chance to live here.

What you fail to understand, Zack, is absent any contradictory evidence, I assume you are a law-abiding nice guy who deserves just as much chance as anyone to your life, to your liberty and to your pursuit of happiness. If you truly understood American values, you would understand that such assumptions go without saying. The presumption of innocence and the principle that everything not explicitly prohibited is allowed are core ideas founding the US legal and value systems.

Regardless, the US deprives many millions of non-muslims who are at least as deserving as you of any similar chance to live in the US. Given that the US must deprive many millions of eager and deserving wouldbe immigrants every year, I think the US should bias its selection criteria to admit those least likely to support attacks against its core values and institutions.

Do you have a rational response to anything I have said or will you continue to rely on wholly inaccurate and unsupportable insinuations of my alleged prejudice?

Ikram,

I am mystified by your statements regarding civility.

It's true that Gordon and euphrenio both mischaracterized Zack's statement about the US choosing to be at war with Islam. However, I see no reason to assume their statements were anything worse than a careless reading of what Zack wrote. It's also true that their responses were personal, but Zack personalized the issue in his question. Since Zack personalized the issue in his question, I see no reason to consider personalized responses uncivil.

Your blatant smear of me by insinuating that I was trying to smear Zack was uncivil.

Other than your uncivil behaviour and Zack's sarcasm, I think the participants in this discussion have been perfect gentleman: godless, sen, johny rotten, Randall, razib and myself included.

Godless,

I agree the topic does not benefit from personalization. Personalization is just a neat bit of sophistry the PC crowd use.

If one refuses to personalize the issue, the rejoinder is: "Your position is all well and good in the abstract, but as soon as it gets down to the details of actual people's lives it is clearly immoral and wrong."

If one addresses the personalized challenge directly, one appears to be "attacking" the individual. It is especially risky to address the individual's own words as Gordon and Eufrenio attempted because the slightest ambiguity or misunderstanding will appear profoundly unfair.

The only things I know about Zack and Ikram are the sophistry they posted in this thread. Sophistry does not make them evil; it only makes them typical.

Because I know nothing about Zack, I cannot directly answer his question: "Should I be deported?" I can only describe the conditions under which I think he should be deported. And, yes, I intentionally framed my answer within the broader context in which deportation is a relatively mild action.

I did not accuse Zack or anyone else of treason or sedition. However, if reports are to be believed, some muslim clerics have openly preached sedition in American mosques for decades, and nobody can deny that some few muslims have planned and carried out dire acts of treason.

Of course, I am sure there are white supremacists and apocalyptic cults engaged in both sedition and treason, so it is not a uniquely muslim phenomenon.

The fact that Americans find dislocating innocent people for reasons of imminent security threats distasteful is all the more reason to stop admitting muslims sooner rather than later. After the muslim world grows up and ceases to be a breeding ground for virulent resentment, the world will thank us for re-opening our borders to muslims. If things get worse before they get better, the world will condemn us for protecting our children's legacy.

If you breed both ways you could possibly produce a human/chimp hybrid . If you have a human chimp male and a chimp human female mate then, do the reverse. They may be able to produce offspring and even up the chromosomes on both sides.