From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Sun Sep 22 2002 - 21:14:52 MDT
Party of Citizens wrote:
> Let me tell you how to get a try at James Randi's million $ "Psychic
> Challenge" at very low cost. First you randomly assign flies to two
> contrast groups, G1 and G2...
> The experimental procedure? You "pray" for the longevity of G1 and you
> give G2 the "whammy" by contrast. Then you see which lives longer. > POC
Nay, Party, for verily, it is written in James 5:16,
"...the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous
man availeth much."
Regardless of the outcome, the faithful could argue
that the G1 supplicants were insufficiently righteous,
or were not real men (it only works for men), or that
a still more righteous man was praying for the G2s.
The Amazing Randi's money is safe, as is the faith
of the true believer.
ps: I am out of posts for today, so I must comment
on a previous post regarding Southern Missouri.
My intention was not to insult those from Southern
Missouri, which include my own distant cousins.
Any place on this planet would likely have backroads
which have slipped out of gear, where the bright and
ambitious flee, leaving the rest to breed. I choose
Southern Missouri as a good example because of the
remarkable genetic homogenity to be found there,
which allows us to discard the racism angle.
After seeing this rural community first hand, I
began pondering mechanisms which would explain
why humans may evolve more quickly than similar
apes. In humans there is evidently more impact
from mechanisms such as mate selection than in
other species: both males and females are highly
selective, and understand the relationship between
copulation and reproduction. My notion is that
evolutionary changes can occur in far fewer
generations in humans than other mammalian
species for that reason. The entire mating
process is far less random in humans, so that
unnatural selection (smart and ambitious being
constantly removed as mating choices) has a
large and fast impact on the population.
Perhaps this can help explain why we have such
enormous heads.
spike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:14 MST