They're simply getting it wrong; they're falling victim to a hateful extremism that hand-feeds them selected (disputed or sectarian) teachings by later people. The basic Sunni/Shia split is similar to Catholic/Protestant in being at least largely about accepting later teachings from a claimed official line of the church and if such new teachings would count as Scripture.

It is generally a bait-and-switch; they emphasize that making images of Mohamed is offensive to God, and then they switch to telling the other humans to be personally offended. They don't continue with the same religious argument from beginning to end. After they establish that the person creating the image is [list of horribles] then they switch to talking about what punishments that would incur if done by nominal Muslims within the unified Muslim State that is assumed and ordered in scripture. Historically when such a state existed it would indeed have been punishable by death. Mainly because there was no chance that an Islamic court was going to treat a person making banned Muslim religious images as other than a heretic Muslim. If they were Christian images, that was actually okay, as long as the person making the images wasn't from a Muslim family. So they had freedom of religion, but not as a matter of personal choice. And non-Muslims who already lived in Muslim-ruled lands were allowed freedom of religion, but had to pay a tax. (Christians and Jews were excepted and didn't need to pay the tax or have a visa)

Freedom of expression isn't a natural right. It is a created right, a somewhat arbitrary luxury. Even where it exists it is not absolute. Historically, the Islamic State had a high level of freedom of expression. It did not extend to religious iconography, but there was extensive and open discussion of the philosophical and creative implications of different religious ideas. This was at the same time that scientists in Europe were being burned at the stake by the Christian Church, just for believing in the wrong physical facts, even where they had conceded they had no opinion on the religious implications. And yet later it was Christian extremists during the English Civil War that created the modern right of freedom of the press, and the separation of church and state; both were enacted so that individuals could have a personal conversation with God, without interference from the State (via an approved church) and then write about their experiences.

So Christians have rejected freedom of religion and freedom of expression in the past, too. It should be no surprise that there will be extremists that engage in these patterns of control. But it is not something that is in the nature of either religion; it is in the nature of sociopathic control freaks who sometimes manage to get power over land, or for example in France, simply can persuade some common criminals to become murderous villains.

The Koran does call for strict religious rule in a home region, but there is nothing in it about restricting freedom of expression beyond the standard anti-veneration protocols. And it could be argued that the history of the Catholic Church and freedom of expression is diametrically opposed to modern American values, and yet, it doesn't stop Catholics from loving God, or being good Americans. Like my dad (a non-Catholic) says, "if you don't want to be anything like a Catholic, just hate God and you'll have nothing in common."

We don't need to reconcile the views, the vast majority will continue to come together to oppose religious violence. There will still be radicalized nutjobs blowing stuff up, just like there are still burglars and murderers and various sorts of neer-do-wells.

That said, if I intentionally antagonize my neighbor by posting insulting pictures of what he values (and presumably, I don't) then he may eventually snap and punch me, or do whatever bad thing. Almost everybody in the community will agree punching is bad. He'll probably get fined and put on probation. But also, I'd still know when choosing to antagonize him that he may snap and blow me up.

Just like, if I wear an insulting T-shirt making fun of President Reagan to a bar, I might get in a fight over it. That doesn't make it okay to fight. It just means if I'm going to intentionally insult people, I should be prepared to accept the predictable consequence knowingly, and believing I'm making the world a better place. In my city I can get away with almost any t-shirt I want. But swastikas would probably get my ass whooped. Now, if somebody was going to threaten to kill me over a Star Trek shirt, maybe I'd be willing to take a bullet for free speech. Science Fiction is that important to society. It may sound like I'm joking, but if you're not ready to die to defend your expression... does it even have value to you in the first place?

If you aren't willing to die expressing your right to cause grave insult to maniacs and religious extremists, why go out of your way to insult them? It seems to me these French journalists must deeply value insulting religious extremists, or why would they go out of their way to be insulting? If they didn't think, for better or worse, that they're making the world a better place, wouldn't they be drawing pictures of kittens or sex or something? So I assume they're willing heros, and in that sense, that they were successful in exercising their freedom of expression, and that their murders in no way succeeded in removing that freedom. So there is freedom, and there is also crime. And some of that crime is driven by passions inflamed by communication. It is all part of the give-and-take of Progress.

This really makes me ask: Is there a real shift here that is problematic, or was there a bubble where research increased very rapidly in new fields, where older people didn't have right degrees to get the money, and so it started out with an unusually young group of people? Like in CS at the start of the modern research efforts the people had math and physics degrees. In medicine I'm assuming that wasn't done; they didn't just have veterinarians doing human studies because there weren't enough research doctors. There doesn't seem to be any closely related fields to draw people from either. So I would expect there to be research age bubbles whenever there is a major new round of medical tech.

A big question I don't know the answer to: What percent of NIH grants go to that sort of degree-restricted field, compared to degree-portable fields like CS? My initial guess is that most of the NIH grants would be degree-restricted and require a medical degree.

Just having 1983 and 2010 as data points, without anything farther back, seems dubious, even with the other data point in TFA using 1980 instead of `83.

If you were 36 in 1980 you were born in `44. So it may even just be as simple as, "baby boomer generation had a baby boom, news at 11." If the percent of young researchers had remained level, that would actually mean that researchers were getting younger, because there are a higher percent of older people with medical degrees now.

Nope. You don't consume media that would contain that information, that is why you're unaware of it. It is a lie, because you know that you don't know. You know that being unaware of what regular Muslims, and Muslim-focused media, are saying, is not the same as them not saying anything. You're not a low-IQ schoolchild who never confronted the difference between what you know, and what you know you don't know. Hate can blind anybody, even people who would otherwise be intelligent.

I saw headlines in some media giving an analysis of actual media coverage in the middle east, and there was extreme outrage, and religious offense. You'd rather hate people based on what other people with the same religious label than to understand what is actually going on in the world and what the majority views of that religion are.

Most of the elites have been under forced foreign divestiture rules the past couple years, in anticipation of sanctions, so those still there are mostly stuck now.

I fully support Russia's efforts to establish themselves as the force of Evil to be opposed in this New Cold War.

It is great for the US economy.

The average Christian on the street in many places is not going to be at all impressed by blaming Christians generally for bad Popes, past or present.

Some Blargs are murderers. Therefore, all Blargs are murderers. T/F?

It is a simple IQ test. You come out on the side of hate. It is not only immoral, it is stupid.

It isn't odd at all, building probes advances multi-use engineering, and lab science doesn't. Not in a comparable way, anyhow.

Like in the book Interface by Neal Stephenson and George Jewsbury

Proving the control is not absolute does not actually prove that the control exists. Demonstrating that the control is less than 10% effective certainly doesn't prove the thesis that the Government is in control of that subject. Actually it refutes it.

You reject freedom of religion, and engage in hate speech, I'm gonna ask you to please leave Western Civilization right now. You don't have to live here, you're free to leave. Bye. Thank you.

It is not an article of faith for people with hair to commit those acts?! What? Are you really claiming that all people with violent articles of faith have no hair?

Or are you claiming that nobody ever explained to you that most Muslims reject the idea that Islam allows murder in the name of God? Sharia isn't claimed to apply in France, BTW. It says right in the Koran where it applies; in the Muslim Nation.

Pretending you didn't know that most Muslims reject violence is just some sort of code-word style hate speech. You did actually know it, but you lied about their views anyways, to promote your hatred.

You are part and parcel of the cycle of irrational hate and murder.

Nope. Logic fail there. Maybe if I abstract it you can see past the blinding context.

All Blargs are Blorgs. Therefore there are no Blorgs. T/F?

See how easy that one actually is?

Jews, Christians, Muslims all believe in the same God; the God of Abraham. And all three religions link themselves to Abraham by a different lineage. They are indisputably different branches of the same religion.

All three believe in (what the Christians call) the Old Testament, and the prophesy of the "Son of Man" who is implied to also be the Son of God, though never named as such, and who is the "Messiah" and brings about the forgiveness of Original Sin.

Jews believe that Jesus was a Prophet but not the Son of Man and not the Messiah. They're still waiting for the Prophesy to be fulfilled.

Christians believe that Jesus was the Son of Man, the Messiah, and that his death fulfilled the Prophesy. They also believe there have been no new Prophets since before Jesus.

Muslims agree with Christians entirely about Jesus being the Son of Man, the Messiah, and his fulfillment of said Prophesy. They also believe that there had been one additional Prophet since then, Mohamed, the Seal of the Prophets, who was not divine at all but merely a human man who was chosen by God for the job of Prophet, and who was given a large set of rules to complete the teachings. The idea is that humans weren't ready for many teachings yet at the time of the Prophet Moses, who is also highly revered by Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike. Jesus fulfilled the Prophesy, but left precious few new rules for how to live and how to structure a society based on the principles of Scripture. So there was a rules gap, an information dearth. The Seal of the Prophets brought a final teaching, to tie all the disparate teachings from the past into a single, comprehensive, and final set of rules. So to Muslims there can be no new Prophets.

An interesting example of this is the Muslim image of the "end times," which in many ways is similar to mainstream Christians. In it, Jesus goes out in the world to raise the dead and fly through the air blasting demons with lighting bolts. Mohamed can't do that; he's a human man, given the most important job in history, he has no physical capability to commit Miracles or fire lighting bolts, raise the dead, or battle demons. The see Jesus on the Right Hand of God, his True Son, and the one fighting the devil in the flesh; and Mohamed they see on the Left Hand of God, his esteemed General, giving orders to the field solders from Heaven. He can't leave Heaven to fight in the flesh, because he's Human, and dead. He has no Earthly body to inhabit, only his Spirit body in the land of God.

I'm secular and not part of any of these sects, indeed my meta-physics are more logical positivist, but it is worth knowing the major beliefs that people hold in the world around you.

It is really worth understanding also that the Muslim prohibition on images of Mohamed is not based on perceived insults to him; it is actually based on what Jesus said; "do not call me good; only God is good." Images lead to veneration, and Prophets are not to be venerated; that is the path of idol worship. Not even God's own Son may be praised! All praise must go to God, all veneration must go to God. So the people getting upset a niche group not well supported by the theology whose name they adopt. Also, the strict parts of Sharia explicitly only apply in the perceived Muslim Nation; they do not have their root in commandments for all humans to follow, they are things that community was commanded to follow and implement in their own areas. So it is theologically reasonable for Muslims in Saudi Arabia to impose strict Sharia. But it is theologically not supportable to engage in violence in non-Muslim lands to enforce a prohibition on veneration of Prophets; and indeed, sarcastic and insulting cartoons are poor examples of veneration.

Racists and similar haters always resort to that, "it isn't bigoted because its true, hurrdurr."

The entire content of your statement was anti-Muslim hate speech, and every "common truth" you claim is an easy refuted "common lie by people who hate muslims."

And it is about the intelligence level of blaming "Christians" for the Crusades. I can go to the local Christian churches and ask them about it, they'll all say the same thing; the crusades were about powerful people taking land and money from other people and blaming it on religion, it had nothing to do with Jesus or actual Christianity.

I can go to the local Synagogue and find out that have a lot of respect for Jesus, and don't accept any collective guilt for his execution, and they'll all agree he was a man of God.

And I can go to the local Mosque and ask and find out that

is incorrect, and is hate speech. Indeed, those of us who aren't bigoted hear those outcries all the time.
And

I can find out that this too is ignorant hate speech; both sides of that cultural divide have things that one side is offended the other does. Indeed, Western Culture has invaded many Muslim nations for offending them in various ways. It is not an automatic law of nature that humor is worth offending people over; it is not a Natural Law like prohibitions against murder and theft. Only a minority of cultures have special legal protections for humor. If you actually go and meet some Muslims, you'll find out that the standard teaching is that violence over being offended is an insult to God; God will judge people for their sinful humor on his own. There is no need for them to speak out in support of your own opinion, they already speak out in support of laws against murder.

And while you're at the Mosque, ask them if this is true. They will inform you that it is not. To anybody that knows that, or has listened to a mainstream Muslim for even a couple minutes, it is obvious Hate Speech.

False. And, honestly, that is fall-on-your-face-stupid.

Because you know who you threw out, tells you nothing about who you didn't know about. You can't know it all, and so pointing to knowing something is not evidence of knowing it all.

And in fact, the existence of people you're deporting proves that you don't have control over who is there; if such control existed, those people would not have been present in the first place in order to be deported. And surely you know that the class of people who could be deported is many times larger than the number actually deported. You probably even know that the government doesn't have a list of who all those people are. Here in the US about half of them are unknown to the government except as population estimates.

The key thing to understand is that not everybody informs the entire world of their travel plans. That alone precludes knowing who is in a country, and any claim that it is was under control of the Gubermint in some fantasy Golden Age. You seem aware of deportations, so you already actually knew that such attempts at control has always failed to achieve it in actual fact. There is often a push to keep trying, but it has never been achieved.

I was almost 4 years old before the Gubermint knew about me, and I was born here. And guess what, the Gubermint had no control over my arrival.