oxbeast

It does put it into perspective. After the iraq war, plenty of people said we had to invade, because the Iraqi people were suffering under a cruel government. Just look what happens when there is no oil involved, and reconsider the whole 'for the good of teh Iraqi people' argument.

Evolve and adapt are more or less the same term. Evolution is a cumulation of adaptations. But the original question seems to be about society evolving, not physical adaptation. Society is certianly evolving, and people are adapting to new circumstances. Just in the last few years, geoploitical events have caused huge changes to how economies are organised. Physically, the human race is definately evolving. It happens at scales that can be seen, such as the lactose production example given above. What we are evolving into is not really clear. Bits of this and that, I suppose. Certianly no overall pattern towards brilliance. BTW, we certainly DO know how Stonehenge was built. There are no particularly miraculous elements to it, just some rather precise alignments and labourious quarrying. It is a mistake to imagine some missing technology.

What if they're not a loafer?

Beef up the AU force, and give them a mandate to actually DO something about it. I'm amazed that Colin Powell has called it genocide. The Us government has also pointed out that things are at least this bad in northern Uganda, with intense fighting against the Lord's Resistance Army, but that hasn't even hit the headlines. Its not exactly clear to me why this has such a high media profile. Not to be callous, but these sorts of things happen all the time.

Certainly on average graduates earn more than non-graduates. But the best educated people I know are academics and teachers, where salaries are low. If making money is really your thing, become a salesperson, estate agent or property developer. None of these careers needs much education, you just need to be the right sort of person. I think education should be free at the point of delivery, and entirely funded out of general taxation.

Charging commercial rates on loans is a terrible idea. No-one will want to take jobs that don't pay well right away, like social work. And contrary to what was quoted above, they start taking money off you when you're earning ten grand. I expect repayment to run at £100-150 when I'm working. Its a bit odd to hear people railing against 'Mickey Mouse Degrees', and hear that people should only study things that are useful to society. What kind of society would it be with no artists or writers?

When National Service was last around, soldiers basically spent a lot of time marching about and cleaning things. There wasn't really anything for them to do. An unlucky few got sent to Yemen, Malaysia or Egypt and got killed. The rest of them whitewashed coal and cleaned floors with toothbrushes and things. Any 'character' that they gained would have been the ability to put up with extreme boredom. In other European countries, you can do Social Service to instead of sitting around in a barracks. In germany, old peoples homes rely on this slave labour from untrained youngsters. The other thing is that National Serivce would have to be universal, not just for the unemployed/criminals/whoever. I wouldn't appreciate the government wasting my time in this way.

There are indeed a number of ways to oppose evolution. This webpage lists some of them. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/anti-darwin.html The rest of the site is pretty good as well. I found it really useful for university course work.

As to the scientific viewpoints to this topic... Religion (which i use here as a synonym for Christianity, which I know the most about) used to cover all the bases. It had explanations for the whole natural world. Religion has basically lost the explanations for most things, leaving just 'inner space', like souls and the afterlife. Science has not come up with explanations for this, as there are no phenomena that need explaining.

No, I don't believe in God. I've met lots of people with religious faith, and they were really nice. Kind and helpful and so on. But I couldn't get over the feeling that they were a bit gullible. I've always found it rather hard to respect the gullible.

I wouldn't want to be in a heaven full of animals anyways. It'd be full of annoying yapper dogs owned by grannies, stinky felines, and pointless rodents. Besides, animals cannot go to heaven because they don't have souls. And heaven is a non-existent place designed to prevent a gnawing sense of existential ennui.

Hello. I've been working away for a bit, and so haven't posted to this forum. But I am a little surprised to read From Sam Miguel. I don't think that any political differences have evaporated at all. Countries have largely the same priorities and loyalties as before. Perhaps a few more of them will jump when America tells them to. Putting the situation in terms of 'civilised nations' against terrorism is rather oversimplistic. The Russians, for example seem to have a largely domestic problem, caused in part by the horrific situation in the south Caucusus. This has been brewing for decades, and certainly in the last few years the Chechens seem to have been using al-quaeda like tactics. The Putin government has been talking about the Chechens as a part of al-Quaeda, though there is no credible evidence for this. Putin said that at least ten of the hostage takers at Beslam were Arabs. This has been contradicted by the survivors, and there is no evidence that any of the bodies were of Arabs. This has then been used for a further crackdown on Russian media. Hopefully the lies will cost Putin the presidency, like they cost Jose Maria Aznar in Spain.

Be honest, This is not cute, its a bit scary. I would freak out if I saw this coming down the street... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3859967.stm

The prison officers were seemingly normal, but they were actually alarming. They scared their kids with 'hell', i.e. don't lie or you'll go to hell. There did not seem to be much affection or laughter in that household. In conversation with the other mother, the male prison officer seemed to imply that anything other than a strict, timetabled, regimented upbringing opened the door for children to become career criminals. Not that the other family didn't have their faults.

Druidry is the 'branch' that I am most familiar with, although mostly second hand. I'm interested by your statement that their practice is more earth/nature based. What is yours based on? I thought that all braches of paganism were essentially nature worship/veneration/interaction. I'm a bit puzzled by attempts to merge paganism and christianity. I thought that was what we had already. Also, what is the difference between magik and magic? I agree that his Druidic beliefs have only been included in the article to sensationalise it. But interviewing the known associates of a man dead in suspicions circumstances seesm locigal, no matter who they were.