Scientific American is the bomb.

[Proteus_MST]

It will be interesting if this editorial will make it into the next issue of "Spektrum der Wissenschaft" (the german edition of SA).
Normally they have their own editorials (and many of the article differ from the american edition) but this editorial deserves to be mentioned within the german edition

[Bill3000]

Wow. That's old. In fact I don't even have that version anymore. *saves it*

Yeah, I created Demesos, which turned out to not be very different from Democratic Socialism. (Coincidence in name is slightly a misnomer; game from demos = people, esos = equal, in ancient greek)

Later on that year (December 28th I believe) I created a micronation called the United Demesos. It was pretty much a one man nation, mostly because other people weren't active. (Though one-man nations still had political power back then dammit!)

Geez... Looking back there I made quite a lot of mistakes. I shouldn't have even bothered with that. Much later on, I lost pretty much all faith in democracy, and as I started to love the sciences and my radical stance toward scientific progress, I began to realize that I believed in technocracy.

This is ironic because in an old story thread (I don't remember its name; I do know I was France in that one though) Starchild made Japan a technocracy. I found it disturbing at the time (Most of my knowledge of technocracy was from CTP1 ) so I said that the opposite form of government of Demesos was technocracy and that it completely opposed it.

Wow, that's a flashback.

[Drake Tungsten]

Why are science magazines so political and defensive nowadays? It's not just Scientific American; I've noticed the same thing with Discover and National Geographic. How many more defenses of evolution am I going to have to slog through to get to something interesting?

[Kuciwalker]

I like the evolution stuff; I don't care about the "social science" crap column or the ZOMFG ABM DOESN'T WORK crap articles they run every so often. MISSILE TESTS ARE NOT SCIENCE DUMBASSES.

[Drake Tungsten]

What annoys me most are the needy titles. I think it was National Geographic that put "Was Darwin Wrong?" on the cover and then answered it with "No!!!!!!!!!"* inside the mag. I was all like "Thanks for the newsflash with a healthy side of sensationalism jackasses, but can we please get back to the pictures of naked African *****es?" Seriously, it's a little unsettling that the supposed big thinkers who run these magazines get their knickers in a twist over some moronic creationists. Show the proper amount of disdain by ignoring the rabble, you self-conscious twats...

* - quote may contain more exclamation points than original article

[Kuciwalker]

but can we please get back to the pictures of naked African *****es?"

[DanS]

Why are science magazines so political and defensive nowadays? It's not just Scientific American; I've noticed the same thing with Discover and National Geographic. How many more defenses of evolution am I going to have to slog through to get to something interesting?

You would have thought these folks had never participated in a mock Scopes Monkey Trial. I know that we had one in high school. If they had, I don't know why they would be concerned with the Intelligent Design folks.

I'm forced to consider that these pieces are designed to energize the political base of the left. The left gets its rocks off by watching horror movies of fundies triumphing over Darwin.

[chequita guevara]

Because, of curse, the Fundis never do anything like force schools to teach Creationism or ID or stop teaching evolution or undermine it by putting anti-eveolution stickers on text books.

Supporters of the GOP are completely bankrupt as long as they cntinue to kowtow to the religious right.

[Drake Tungsten]

I'm forced to consider that these things are mostly just pieces designed to energize the political base of the left. The left gets its rocks off by watching horror movies of fundies triumphing over Darwin.

You're probably right.

[DanS]

The ID folks have been clever. They have encouraged school boards to allow a presentation of the ID argument in the context of the other arguments. They've tried their best to not come across as coercive.

I don't think this is any big deal. As long as there is a mock Scopes Monkey Trial, I don't know why you would try to exclude a particular viewpoint.

[chequita guevara]

Because religious dogma has no place in a science class?

And DanS willing steps up to the plate to prove my point about GOP bankruptcy.

[DanS]

Did you have a mock Scopes Monkey Trial in science class? If so, what did the jury say?

[Bill3000]

Originally posted by DanS
The ID folks have been clever. They have encouraged school boards to allow a presentation of the ID argument in the context of the other arguments. They've tried their best to not come across as coercive.

I don't think this is any big deal. As long as there is a mock Scopes Monkey Trial, I don't know why you would try to exclude a particular viewpoint.

Because ID people still have a religious agenda and just try to hide it under a secular viewpoint. Plus, ID is infalsifiable and thus not a valid scientific hypothesis.

I would understand if there was another scientific viewpoint mentioned, but it's not scientific. It's a push to bring a subtle form of creationism into schools.

The reason why scientists hate ID is because it undermeigns the value and credibility of science.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DanS
Did you have a mock Scopes Monkey Trial in science class?

Nope.

[DanS]

How about everybody else? Am I the only person to have gone through one of these?