A literal ad hominem.

No it isn't. OP was attacking an organisation. ;)

I think I did say Gore is full of shit

But not nearly so full of shit as the Daily Mail.

I realize you think "natural" is synonymous with perfect holiness and righteousness, but this is a science topic, so please keep your arguments rational.

You need to read that comment in context: It was a response to the statement: "A bigger question is whether or not man should attempt to interfere with the naturally changing climate of the Earth."

To correct the misapprehension that AGW is "natural," or rather to point out the fallacious reasoning --that "climate change occurs in nature, therefore all climate change is natural" implicit in that statement, --does not involve any claim that "natural" is "synonymous with perfect holiness and righteousness." So please keep your arguments rational.

And multiplying by 1.6 isn't really all that stressful to those of us bright enough to handle decimal points....

It would have been much neater if they could have just made the mile a nice, round 1.5km ... ;)

You are confusing "pure gold" and "solid gold".

He is.

"Pure" gold is 24-karat, it means that something is made out of 100% (or 99.99%) gold.

To be a complete pedant ... 24 carat is "only" >99.95%. 99.99% (called 4 nines) is commonly the standard of bullion gold.

"Solid" gold means that the item is made out of gold (even if it is an alloy) throughout and not just plated with gold on the outside.

Bingo!

And boy does it work!

18-karat gold is not solid gold. A watch made out of 18-karat gold is not solid gold.

Well a it's solid 18 carat gold watch (at least the casing is). And reportedly it's more 'solid' than 24 carat (or even finer) gold.

[A]s a college educated person, they should know the approximate age of the universe, that the universe is expanding, and that we know that because of the red shift. They should know, roughly, the scale of the earth, the solar system, the galaxy, etc

Why should a farmer, or a software writer, be able to put even an approximate number (OK, understanding red shift is pretty basic) to any of those factoids. Surely it is far more important to know that the effects of capsaicin are mediated by the TRPV1 receptor ... or am I naval gazing? ;) (Believe it or not, but that question was actually put to me over lunch this weekend.)

OK, any science graduate must have a working knowledge of the basics of physics, chemistry and maths (as these are the building blocks of the other sciences). Knowing that the universe's age is measured in billions rather than thousands of years doesn't hurt either, (but really, if you thought the universe was 5 billion years old that is not going to affect most of the work you do in biochemistry).

However increasingly when "facts" are only a few keystrokes away memorising them becomes less important, while recognising fact vs non-fact becomes more so.

Bill Nye is ... saying that too many people lack basic scientific literacy.

I can read what Bill Nye is saying. What I'm saying is that, in the context in which he answered that question, his diagnosis is wrong. It's not so much a database that is required, as a bullshit detector.

I'm not sure, perhaps your knowledge of immunology is so good as to be comparable to amount to a knowledge of "age of the universe ... the scale of the earth, the solar system, the galaxy, etc." But even if your work in science has never brought you into contact with CST, you ought to be able to assess the credibility of evidence led by anti-vaxxers for example.

CS people are better educated than the average person, but many of them are still surprisingly ignorant about scientific topics.

And neither should we expect them to be experts outside their own field. I should have no reasonable expectation that a farmer (Nye wrote "regular software writers and farmers") would have expertise in astrophysics for example. And as science requires ever more specialisation, I should have no reasonable expectation either that an astrophysicist be an expert in pharmacology (just don't try telling any physicist that! ;)

The problem is not so much the lack of knowledge about "scientific topics," it the lack of humility in regard to those who have knowledge. You are free, of course, to contradict the orthodoxy in absolutely any field of science, but it is impertient to do so unless you have done the hard yards and made yourself an expert. The knowledge, the skill rather, that everyone ought to possess (and this IMO is more important than direct knowledge of "science topics") is the skill to assess the credibility and authoritativeness of sources of scientific "information." It is this skill, in light of the increasing supply of disinformation, that a science education ought to impart.

You may think that measles isn't that serious (you'd be wrong), but it could just as easily have been polio. The inability to sort out scientific information from scientific disinformation kills!

So, all some poor country has to do is just go ignore IP rights - there' s not a fucking thing the owners can do about it.

Sadly that's not so. Because of TRIPS, the poor country will be excluded from the WTO framework should it fail to honour intellectual "property" laws.

A case in point India. They've been forced to back down on their position on pharmaceutical patents outlined in the (now out of date) article you cite.

a Fiesta is clearly not an F150. One is a fucking hatchback, the other is a fucking muscle car.

Exactly!

oxforddictionaries.com is as much the OED ...

... as a Fiesta is an F-150. That's the point

They are produced by the same company, one is a feather-weight dictionary and one is the mother-of-all dictionaries.

... paper version.

The OED comes in 4 formats that I can think of off the top of my head: 20 (+3 addendum) volume paper, CD-ROM, online, and single volume microprint.

If you think it's not, tell the people that fucking publish it.

It's not. And I hardly need to tell the people who publish it that, they already know. Obviously! Nor am I going to tell Ford that a Fiesta is not an F-150.

Now calm down, have a look at the same entry in those two vastly different dictionaries, and learn something!

uh...

As I wrote "I suppose another Oxford UP product" ... it very clearly is not the OED though. No more than my New Shorter OED is the OED ... yeah?

I mean look at the definition in the link and compare it to the tiny snippet of the OED entry which I reproduced here (or to the full OED entry if you can access it). Oxford produce enough different dictionaries to fill most peoples bookshelves.

Quick car analogy: To refer to www.oxforddictionaries.com as "the OED," is like referring to a Fiesta as an "F-150." It does indeed seem to be the legitimate Ford Motor Company that makes both.

Fair enough, my bad.

It's still not "the Oxford" though :) That being said it does accord with the OED's definition 8.c) which specifies that this sense is used in the passive.

Fuck that, it's wrong.

His source (not the OED, see above) actually says it's "regarded as incorrect."

The Oxford English Dictionary entry on comprise ...

Sorry to be a pedant but that is not the OED! There are many Oxford Dictionaries, but only one Oxford English Dictionary

...unless you count the different editions.

As it is, the OED does include the "incorrect" form under definition 8.c) and includes four entries (the earliest from 1874) all of which use the "comprised of" construction. However it's a mistake to think that it's appearance in an historical descriptive dictionary amounts to any endorsement as regards usage. The OED does not concern itself with correct use.

More to the point however, the dictionary (oxforddictionaries.com) you incorrectly cite as the "Oxford English Dictionary" (I suppose another Oxford UP product) does. And it says "the construction comprise of" ... "is regarded as incorrect." lgw's heart can rest peacefully.