My power comes from a diesel generator in my back yard. It runs on my own formulation of bio-diesel though made entirely from the oil from the coats of freshly clubbed baby seals. I tried using the oil from hippies but they smelled worse than the dead baby seals.

Not really, just correcting a false assumption. If I'd continued arguing the same point or the counterpoint it might have been relevant.

Fuck, who wouldn't? Me, I want to be hung by a nice, shoddy, dry rotted rope that's as close to certain to break as possible.

Common mistake there, AC. That evolution happens is a fact, that it is the origin of man is a theory. An extremely well supported by the evidence theory but without direct observation of the origin of species, it's still a theory. It would take an FTL drive and a fucking amazing telescope to be able to empirically verify it and promote it into fact. Well, or negative axis time travel but that's even more problematic than an FTL drive.

Either I missed something in your statement or you're not one of the "the sky is falling and it's all our fault" types. To clarify, were you saying that an increase in solar radiation, massive deforestation, and added CO2, wouldn't make much difference but our current non-apocalyptic situation has? Nah, can't be. I must just be in a mood to argue.

Erm... Mars's atmosphere is 95.32% CO2 according to a quick wikipedia check. Which doesn't matter in the slightest really. All that matters for your point is that Mars is unaffected by Earth pollution but still has rising temperatures.

You are aware that gas prices are pretty high right now and we're having pretty shitty economic times on top of it? Yet people are still buying and driving SUVs.

Now I don't have a P.H.D. in economics but it seems to me that if you were to raise the gas taxes high enough to get any significant portion of the SUVs off the road right now, you would jack the prices on everything shipped by truck to a level just as uncomfortable. And inhibit consumer spending. And drive us most definitely into a double-dip recession.

Then again, all the unemployed people would lose their SUVs and have to go about their starving on foot, so I guess it would help even more. For a really fucktarded definition of 'help'.

You are aware that this was a bit of hyperbole on Ben's part, yeah? GIving up liberty for safety is the most fundamental aspect of every form of government. Rather ask how much is too much and ask it often.

most scientists are primarily interested in the surprisingly idealistic goal of discovering the scientific truth about something

You are extremely naive.

Fair point. I'm inclined to think that a business model based on being a gatekeeper of data is a bad, bad idea in this day and age though.

Valid point, if they were at war.

In the UK, yes you can copyright a specific collection of facts. I'd be interested in knowing whether that copyright is still in effect once they've been removed from the covered database and made part of a much larger one that would hold its own copyright.

Shrug, I default to not believing anything either side of the argument says. There've been far too many outright lies not to mention people spouting off on things they know nothing about in this argument alone. Which is why I'd like a few more checks on funded research.

It wouldn't be difficult if one of the above became the de facto standard. As to finding funding from an impartial source, yeah, that's a pipe dream. Doesn't mean the research has to be as corrupt as the impetus behind it though.

Strawman argument. There's a world of difference saying you have no right to keep information private and saying you have a right to determine how any facts you share are used in perpetuity.