ddeckerslyke

I have no knowledge or expertise in this area but nevertheless I shall pontificate grandly..... There are two sides to this coin. Cut calories and you will lose weight. WRONG. Exercise more and you will lose weight. WRONG. Fat is stored energy. If you eat more calories than you use then you will put on weight (or fat at any rate). If you use more calories than you eat then you will lose weight/fat. There are other factors to consider but that seems to be the basic requirement. If Energy Out>Energy In then you will lose fat. When I upped my cycling to 100/120 miles a week as part of a commute (I was fed up with the train service it wasn't a fitness drive) - I had to eat more and I lost weight. Similarly you could conceivably eat less ("reduce your calorific intake") and put on weight. As for the OP how bad are your knees? I realise it's not for everybody and I'm not proselytising but cycling doesn't have to be that much of a strain on your knees, especially if you keep to a low gear. Dancing! I knew one lass who basically sat on a sofa for several years getting larger and larger, complaining of a bad back but then she discovered Es and raves and lost several stone. It's true! Generally I'd say you have to enjoy whatever exercise you do otherwise it's a chore. I'm not sure will power should enter into it. Swimming is great but in my experience wherever you go lanes are crowded and it's not much fun. ddeckerslyke's exciting scientific weight loss formula plan equation: Energy Out > Energy In -> Weight Loss

Any suggestions about what to do over the next couple of weeks with the kids while they are off school? Our kids are 6,7, and 9 - but I'm sure other people have children too.

Patriotism "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." "To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography." "Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons." "It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind." And, of course, everyone's favourite... "Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Firstly I appreciate you taking the time and trouble to reply. So what you're saying is that Science accepts the validity of Induction as an article of faith Although obviously I've edited ISTM that in the last couple of sentences faith in God and faith in Induction are regarded as equivalent. This is essentially the point. Science is faith based. Scientists happily go about their daily business because they don't question the validity of Induction - they leave that to Philosophers of Science, but how is this any different to, say, vicars happily going about their daily business because they believe in God - they leave the questioning to Philosophers of Religion.

That statement confuses America bashing with Bush bashing. It's quite possible to be pro-America and anti-Bush. It just depends on your defnition or view of America.

Interesting question Some immediate thoughts 1. Sometimes people tie their egos to their arguments and consequently will cling on for dear life. It's more important not to lose face. In these circumstances people will often go to murderous lengths in order to not to have admit they are wrong. 2. Scientists/Mathematicians, amongst others, often go out of their way to be proved wrong and take great delight in the resulting progress. 3. Some arguments are based on emotion not reason. In these cases you examine your feelings and then go and seek justification, working backwards. Of course this doesn't necessarily mean you are wrong but it's not always the best way to proceed. (Actually this is quite similar to 1.) 4. On the specific issue of weakness. If you are in a position of let's say political authority then in order to preserve order you might think it's important to Carry On Regardless of whether you are right. Admitting you are wrong may do more harm than good - in the short term at least. Without getting into the detail a recent example would be raising Capital Gains Tax from 10 to 18%(?). IM(H)O this had not been thought through, but if you admit you are wrong then your whole economic policy is under threat. So it may be better to not admit you are wrong and try to find another way out. Authority is more important than Truth, or is Truth more important than Authority?

Nice I believe (ha ha ha ha ha - oh my aching sides) this is known as Pascal's Wager.

You're in good company! ISTM that what you're talking about is not a million miles from the Fermi Paradox. ISTM you might also be interested in the Drake Equation which is an attempt to quantify the probability of life on other planets. FWIW I thought the reason we didn't have contact with other civilisations was due to the limiting factor of the speed of light ie even travelling at near light speed it would still take millions (and millions) of years to explore the neighbourhood but then I read about von Neumann probes and self-replicating spacecraft in general. A self-replicating spacecraft does what it says on the tin. So it could set off millions of years ago from a civilisation somewhere, covered the distances, and times involved and should??? have made contact by now.

Before we get started I just want to say I am strongly anti-religion - I think it can reasonably be seen as a form of mental illness - "delusion" is as good a word as any for it. If you're going to point me at Wikipedia then it's only fair to respond in kind... "Inductive reasoning has been attacked several times. Historically, David Hume denied its logical admissibility. During the twentieth century, thinkers such as Karl Popper and David Miller have disputed the existence, necessity and validity of any inductive reasoning, including probabilistic (Bayesian) reasoning." I'm getting out of my depth but here goes anyway...I asserted that at least some of science is in some sense faith based and referred in particular to The Problem of Induction. Whether The Problem has been solved or worked round to your satisfaction is not relevant. All that means that if and when you "do science" then you are not acting on faith. And AFAICS it could be argued that, because there is no generally accepted solution to The Problem, then your acceptance of the solution you believe in is, well, an act of faith. The Problem of Induction needs to be solved on a much more generally accepted basis and in a much more generally accepted way. How many professional scientists are even aware of The Problem and any of the possible solutions? ISTM that those scientists are proceeding on the basis of faith. I'm definitely not saying I'm right about all this - it's all a naive interpretation of a dimly remembered passage about turkeys in Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy but I do think there are legitimate questions in this area.

Apparatchiks to Zealots. I'd ask whether you can broaden the debate to include secular religions such as Marxism (and even Freudianism)? And what about politics closer to the middle of the left-right spectrum? AISI religion is just one manifestation of the wider notion of unquestioning belief, aka faith. People have faith in lots of different ideas eg Christianity, Islam, Marxism, Nazism, Labour, the Conservatives, United(?), Wednesday(?), Racism - and I don't just mean Black/White I'm thinking more broadly of, for example, Hutu/Tutsi and other examples of ethnic cleansing. (BTW I'm not saying all people in all these 'faiths' are without critical faculties.) The danger seems to arise when you jettison free will and the ability/desire to make up your own mind. Dogma/Ideology is/are dehumanising or at least 'deindividualising' but, as others have said, there seems to be a deep rooted need for their comforts. A common thread in conversations with believers is that they seem to have been assimilated by their chosen system of belief and respond by unquestioning reference to the tenets of their faith. Their eyes have glazed over and they are repeating what they have been told. AISI this is not specific to religion. You'd also have to ask whether scientists escape such categorisation. AIUI there are debates in the Philosophy of Science about, for instance, the Problem of Induction. If you look deep enough ISTM that there is faith at the heart of at least some science. People...

I'm anti religion for, amongst others, some of those reasons stated in the OP but I also think, and I've been saying this to anyone who'll listen for the past 10 years or so, that 'St Richard' is as religously fundamentalist in his own way as those he attacks. To say that someone who is anti-religion is therefore pro-Dawkins is lazy thinking.

It's a great book but you need to make time to read it - it's looooong. Written in a different age when people had time to spend. Les Miserables is similar - a great book well worth the time.

Of course!! Laugh out loud funny. A great book.

This sort of thing is always a personal choice with little or no chance of crossover but never mind... Gone With The Wind The book I'm trying to get everyone to read at the moment. Don't knock it till you've tried it The Raw Shark Texts IM(H)O the best contemporary fiction (and there's a Sheffield connection) "My eyes slammed themselves capital O open." The Sheltering Sky "Each man's destiny is personal only insofar as it may happen to resemble what is already in his memory." . Favourite book for a long time. Titus Groan and Gormenghast as a teenager. Almost (but not quite) anything by Elmore Leonard for crime fiction. Don Quixote - I remember reading this and enjoying it but I've tried since and was bored. Hmmm. Paul Auster before he descended into self parody eg Music of Chance, In the Country of Last Things, earlier stuff really. And, er, many more

If you read and answer the questions in the link provided then ISTM that's a reasonable interpretation. (Unless you've been to South America to get a tattoo of course.)