I mean that a huge problem in talking about science and religion, is that to many people, they appear to be two completely separate categories, wheras it is more like what you say (and i tried to say in my post) that we all have things we value, but which we would be very hard to objectively prove are actually of more value.

But there is still to bear in mind that there are levels of reasonableness, so there is a big difference between believing in love because you rationally know that all humans are valuable, and believing in love because of a purely mythic belief system forced you to believe it, the book says it, the book is truth, i must not question it, because questioning (thinking for myself) is herecy.

UID zero divided by zero

Huge problem mixing "science" and "religion" is that for many, religion is about "faith" and science is about reason. So it invokes the pre-modern versus the modern. Another problem is not just faith but the content of that faith. The Protestant Work Ethic is credited by some as a key ingredient why the West developed so fast, as the faith was, work for the sake of work, develop for the sake of development. That is a huge contrast to mere warlord hedonism, or a monk sitting recluse and fasting. Arguably, faith in modern progress is a thing people value and value for its own sake. So one can say that science has this aspect of faith in self determined progress and ability to lift ourselves out of material mysery. However, we are now talking a very reasonable humanistic value, in contrast to "kill the hethens" and "burn the witches who float like ducks" faiths which are just ignorance, along with "world created in 6 days". Now any atheist may say they have zero beliefs, but ask them what they want, and it is stuff like, to love my family, to see my children happy, to make a positive impact on the world. Now as it happens, none of those answers can survive a thorough postmodern deconstruction, they are all groundless, or "empty" as some Buddhists might say. So where are the atheists who say, "Darling, of course I don't love you, we all know I merely have a flow of hormones and other mood altering chemicals flowing around my brain, for survival reasons, selected by the environment from random mutations" No of course not, there are things which we still value as intrinsic to human life, not life as a collection of 40 trillion cells, but sentient experienced life with compassion and love. There is no reason why as biological machines, we need to be sentient, my brain can respond to the environment without there needing to be "anybody here" to experience the show. Anyway, this is where you can get into a scientific humanistic rational ethical purposeful arena, where as we understand more about the brain, and psychology, we can maybe understand more what makes people happy, what makes for better education, what makes for a better and healthier life. Here some rational "atheists" would be happy to include anything we might already have some ideas about, such as Buddhist self-questioning, who are you? and certain meditation, etc. as a small part of an overall scientific understanding of love, insofar as these things can be rationally tested, not merely believed. And if that means that most of traditional religious teaching is shown up to be the head fuck that it really is, well so be it.

Who is root?

Imagine the damage when they realise your monitor is displaying over 2 million single pixel movies!!!

No phone calls?

I don't disagree but I'm reading someone's code at the moment, some routines in R, and the word "training" is in the name of a routine, but it doesn't explain in which sense of the word "training". So now I have to try to figure out the meaning of the result. I'm sure it was obvious to the author. Maybe fine grained comments are bad, but an overall story explaining in ordinary words the overall intent and picture would be nice. Anyway, IANAP.

"Having a conversation with the sketchbook" is a notion in visual design like architecture or construction. For little scripting tasks, I find talking to the comments an exercise in clarifying what I am trying to do and why. The intention, the way it fits the bigger picture. The code is the reality, the comments are the mental intention. Unless it is a very well understood area where to be a programmer you really have to know the domain and the problems very well, so the code is immediately obvious to the trained eye. But for run of the mill make stuff up as we go along problems, the intention needs to be talked about, methinks.

I gather the real basis for "diversity" is the cognitive skill of finding fault with one's own thinking, beliefs, attitudes, etc. But too often it is merely used as a narrative to find fault with the opponent. Basically, honest diversity is about being able to deconstruct one's own view, "maybe we are treating gays unfairly". So it is an actual skill HOWEVER, unless one has that "bending over backwards to prove one's self wrong" skill, the teaching of diversity can merely encourage tribalism. Basically, you get good at deconstructing the other's views, "gee you must have some hidden neocolonialist power drive", but don't get round to deconstructing your OWN views, "gee I wonder if I am using the neocolonialist phallocentric racist narrative to bypass any need to look at whether my own views might also contain some errors which need examining." Which is where perhaps the "left" then fails to deliver, because in trying to promote diversity, it doesn't examine the key ingredients which are necessary for true diversity, namely developing the cognitive skills. So the kids who are already smart enough to get diversity, because they criticise their own views just as honestly as they criticise other's views, can thrive in these exercises. But the kids who don't already have the skill, will find it a bridge too bar, the curriculum is literally over their heads, and instead tend to interpret the lesson as a free pass to encourage tribalism. Of course, a left narrative is that everyone is equally smart, it is just life or society that is unfair, so the notion of a teaching about diversity being "over their heads" sounds nasty, but the consequence, if true, is that the left ends up ignoring the needs of those people whom it most desires to help. It is just a matter of adding some intermediary steps toward diversity. One book on cognitive development describes engaging kids in a boat building project, where they get to build their own boat, so that's the "selfish" motivation, but the work is arranged so that for some tasks, they need to help each other in a cooperative way, so it gradually introduces social bonding and social cooperative skills. But it doesn't make those the obvious goal. Anyway, IANA... etc.

And that's a place where religions differ somewhat: do they advocate converting others?

There's actually a pretty long history in the monotheistic faiths that, the way to make a good world is to ban all the bad stuff. Some traditions, however, eventually twigged that this doesn't in the end, actually work quite how they intended, and so the "tantra" paths were created, basically, you can't eradicate aggression, but you can transform it into something more productive. I'm told there is a huge amount of repression of sex in the Middle Eastern cultures, and this is all driving people a little nuts. Anyway, now they have the internet. Anyway, going back to paleo man, wasn't there another story that beer drinking allowed them to relax the tribal social rules, which in turn made possible some creative thinking? Inspector Morse may have been the erudite educated type, but he shared that basic human practice with his pale ancestors. Drink, and think. Gee, maybe the crazy woman who fancies me did it...

Some say there's a cold war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. After the victory of the 1979 revolution, Iran really thought the rest of the Middle East would fall in their direction. But then they lost the Iran-Iraq war, so it was to their advantage for USA go in and remove Saddam, leaving room for the Iranian proxy armies to take over after the Americans left. But Saudi Arabia does not want an Iranian crescent of states encircling it, so Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, etc. are all war zones between the Iranian proxy armies and the Saudi proxy armies. And the rumour now with regard to USA restricting Iran's nuclear development, is that if the restrictions don't go far enough, and Iran gets the bomb and missiles, well Saudis have let slip a rumour that they helped fund the Pakistan nuclear programme on the proviso they could have delivery of nukes anytime they wanted. Of course, which is truth and which is lies, well, interesting times. Why was USA on Saddam's side, until it all changed?

I am not going to prove to anyone on Slashdot in three paragraphs. I'm talking a dozen books, 4 year personal experiment with my wife and I, and the stuff that some doctors are now starting to speak out about. It is actually how my own body seems to react that is most tentatively convincing to me. I do not believe I am right. I can only go with what I can see so far. Many people have no interest in changing their food lifestyle anyhow, I had motivation from health issues. So I'm now into Paleo, LCHF, Primal, etc. So far so good. So I mention it in case anyone else just hasn't heard of it. As an earlier poster said, it boils down to us not being cows, or apes with large bellies which can digest that much vegetable and fruit matter. Paleo is simply, eat what we were eating 500,000 years ago. That might not be the real answer. But it has some logic to it. I say to explain, not to convince. At the end of the day, your own body is the only judge. Your body doesn't care what your or my opinion is. We're just the clueless humans trying to understand what our biology requires. Legumes etc. in Paleo are anti-nutrients. If you know anyone with digestive problems, see if they can cope with those. I've seen people basically have to give up soya products 100% (no milk, no anything) in order to see improvement in their digestive problems. But everyone is different. The trouble is, it is very hard to scientifically study nutrition, because you can't force a diet on people for 50 years, you can't find out what eating fruit "healthy 5 a day" does to you 50 years down the line. That's why there is so much disagreement on food.

Also, the sort of grand experiment with our food chain is something I'm not a fan of. Original Nations who ate meat and fat (all grass fed), and were to some accounts quite healthy, good teeth, good bones, compared to the high carb, high sugar, highly processed foods, high soy, low fat yoghurts packed with hidden sugar, etc. etc. substitutes which, according to some reports, we're starting to see the outcome in how even children now get diabetes, whilst still in the womb. It takes a few generations to see the results.

I would much rather save energy on other stuff than on foods, which leads to massive health costs. I would rather continue to get the bus to work, never own a car (have never owned a car), not have too many kids (actually have no kids), and to appease the CO2 people, never fly (I fly once in 10 years), and keep the heating low and wear furry fleeces around the house. I'd insulate but the house is way too old for that, so I settle for better glazing. But food? Mess with that and may as well not be living in a first world country.

Well her point in her book is that you'd be better just letting cows eat their natural diet, grass. Then we eat the cows. Like the food chain was originally.