"Religion has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution."

I think it has.
- people have a greater chance of survival if they cooperate. If there is a further possible bond (apart from being family), than that can help.
- it can also help against power. Suppose the chief of your clan is a grumpy strong man. You could lose your life. But if you tell him that you're in contact with higher powers that will punish him if he doesn't alter his behavior, then that can help you survive.
- it made for good stories in a time without internet. What have you been doing today? Herding the goats. Oh. Well, let me tell you a story (in the bible, there's a story about a well that was sealed off with a rock that required three people to move it. Or a bald guy who was yelled at by kids and bears came out of the wood and killed the kids. What do you think: It is something that god really wanted to tell us or was a good story at the campfire?).

So, while only my hypothesis, I think that there may well be a genetic component to religion/the ease with which humans can be deluded.

Bert

Patents/patent applications are open source knowledge before the term open source was coined. You are free to build on those ideas (and are free to take a patent on any non-obvious improvement, if you want that or not if you don't want that). Patent databases are freely accessible (as in beer); they may even have free machine translators so you can read the information in a language you don't speak. Want to know how something can be made, alternative ways of solving problems? Patent documents are your friend. No books to buy. No subscriptions needed. The documents are well-organized, in a standard format and can be searched using keywords from the comfort of your home. (You don't need to register and sell your soul to get the information you want.).

The information in patents becomes freely available to the public in on average about 7 years (drugs take longer, other stuff shorter). No shitty near-infinite term like copyright.

The applicant paid quite a bit to put an accurate description of the invention into words, and it becomes public after 18 months. That may be before the actual product hits the market. You couldn't have know about it otherwise.

Bert
Patent attorney (oh, and patents on software? Yes, I agree. They're a bad and unnecessary thing)

And in case of crashing windows, you can see the blue screen of death.

Bert

Much better than burning the original.

Bert

If you read about the role of general Groves, Oppie's boss, his personal need to be more than a bureaucrat .

Googled quotes:
While Groves credited President Truman with the decision to use the atomic bomb, he qualified this by saying, "As far as I was concerned, his decision was one of noninterference - basically, a decision not to upset the existing plans".

Groves was a prime mover in getting the atomic bomb built, on where it would be used, and on when it would be used.

Bert

I never understood that.

I once talked to the captain of a boat (that sailed from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean islands) that in the straight of Gibraltar his GPS was inaccurate. He said that it was because of the satellites. But the GPS satellites don't know where you are; you're just receiving signals from them. AFAIK for military purposes the satellites introduce inaccuracies in the timing signals they broadcast, and only military GPS knows how to correct for those. But how is it possible to have a particular region on earth have inaccurate positioning.

Do you know how that works?

Bert
BTW, thanks Bill Clinton for removing (most?) of the inaccuracy and making GPS navigation in cars possible.

What has changed? The price of solar panels. It will have come down even further.

The sun will be providing us with the same amount of energy every year for quite a few years to come. No shortages are expected.

More to the point: take a closer look at the math.

Item 1 $12
Item 2 $120
Difference in price (e.g saving): $108

Both items 5 times more expensive, the saving is $540. That is $432 more in the piggy bank.

Anyone doing the math on EV vs ECI should consider:
- more than the purchase price
- when doing the math, don't base the calculation on the current fuel/electricity cost, but the average cost over the next few years. (I drive ICE, here the price has gone up in about 8 years with over 30%, and there have been periods when it was 40% higher).

Bert
You could consider helping the environment by buying electric now/encouraging others to buy. Technological progress needs sales.

"God did protect me, he gave me a well designed parachute and good instructors to keep me safe."

God did design the parachute? It is in the bible? Wow, I must have missed that part.

How about your boss saying to you at the end of the month: Well, that was one job well done! What is god's bank account number? I'll transfer his salary right away.

Bert
The maker you don't want to tempt outfitted you on the assembly line with the GULO gene. The gene is broken (a chunk is missing), as a result of which you can't synthesize vitamin C. It is like a car company taking the trouble of installing a broken airco into every car it produces. Makes sense.
Oh, by the way. In primates the same chunk is missing. It is not that we share a common ancestor and your source of reference is completely off the mark. Oh no, the devil planted that gene to confuse us.

Radiocarbon dating relies on fresh 14C being generated (high up) in the atmosphere by solar radiation. It mixes due to air turbulence, so plants have a substantially constant supply of it. The exchange of 14C carbon with carbon below the surface of water is poor. There, plant/animal stuff eaten also results in CO2 but it is absorbed by algae again. So it is recycled there, and doesn't have the good mixing and constant supply like in the atmosphere. So, scientists know: You can't do radiocarbon dating using material that grew in or under water. (Liars for religion use examples like radiocarbon dating a freshly caught fish to be hundreds of years old as evidence that radiocarbon dating is unreliable and proof that their favorite myth book is correct. Sigh). So, no radiocarbon dating on the clam wouldn't work.

Bert

Economy is just money flowing around. It doesn't matter too much on what you spend it. You could waste for example enormous amounts of money on military forces without any particular benefit.

In case of action against global warming, the very least you get is that you do longer with fuel, keeping the price low which happens to be good for consumers. Also, it keeps stuff like oil available for a longer period of time. Not a bad thing either. And that is true even if climate scientists were wrong. My Dunning-Kruger bet however is that they are more likely to be right than you or I, and in particular that whether they are right or wrong has nothing to do with economy and this bias should be left out when deciding whether they are wrong or right.

In my country, houses used to use 3000 m3 gas for heating, these days it is 500 m3 or less without any loss of comfort. In my country we used to have a huge gas field. It is almost empty now. Instead of 30 years, we could have enjoyed it for over 150 years. Also, there are tremors now in that area of the country caused by the settling after the gas extraction, resulting in (costly) damage to housing. It pays to be frugal with resources.

Bert

The lord didn't have a truck to haul the mirror.
No disrespect for the trucker (certainly not: Hats off), but doesn't give reading about Rosse's achievements on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Parsons,_3rd_Earl_of_Rosse
you cause to revise your statement at least somewhat?

Bert

Well, if they do that, they increase the threat level, because non-threating people start to get pissed.

It is a bit like killing civilians in another country. These people get mad. If they have a religion (not unlikely), and it is different from yours (also not unlikely), doubly so. They could go really crazy and fly a plane into building. Or something.

So, remember: Pissing off other people indiscriminately: Not good.

Bert

Yes, they count their weight in decimal stones.

Bert

When I hear people say "Think about the children", my thought is: Why, they'll grow up into terrible people anyway.

What physical law is preventing Google from creating an emergency mode?
Autonomous driving can be turned off.
A manually operated/atuomatic car speeding to a hospital would be more likely to reach its destination quickly with autonomous driven cars paying attention to their environment.

Bert
Sorry if you're still cognitively suffering from head trauma

Iowa is in the US. In the US there is a filter for politicians. It only allows people to pass that deny evolution. So, the people in power lack spine, brains, critical thinking skills, ignore facts or have opinions without collecting facts; or any combination thereof. Rather bad bunch to make policy choices.

The public is informed even worse. They don't make these decisions for a living. So, they'll have less time to think things over. You don't want important decisions to be based on the average uninformed person. In communist China they had bunches of farmers decide what to do with people who knew stuff.

No need to put a lid on scientists voicing an expert opinion. At the very least it is a valuable contribution to a discussion.

Bert