Intelligence Quotient

I have a high IQ. I'm not a genius, but I have a higher then average intellect. This I know based on my experiences with school, work and people. I've always been able to understand things easier then most. During school, I was generally looked to by classmates and teachers for the answers. In 9th Grade I learnt and taught the teacher how to correctly use the computer program to achieve the desirred results. She apparently wasn't a computer whizz... In grade 10, I broke the rules. I profited a small sum by writing out the asssignments of several students in my class. I don't regret this, and here I will explain why.

It is the way of society to be hypocritical. We respect our betters with bitter resentment and open aggression. We treat our lessers with either utter contempt, or complete ignorance. During high school, I learnt to fear those who dressed or acted in certain ways, despite the fact that I could, with ease, logically talk them out of, or into, doing pretty much anything. The teachers would tell us that we're preparing for real life... In the classroom, perhaps, but the whole schoolyard society was warped, or so I thought.

Now I realise, the aim wasn't to prepare everyone for their lives outside of school, but to teach the few who showed talent how to succeed. I took an opportunity when I was younger, and I felt guilty for so long. Having come to this realisation, I notice many opportunities I have missed. I failed university. I didn't have a proper girlfriend until I was 19. I even lost precious opportuities to make money. If I took full advantage of my life up until now, I could be in a much bettter postition then I am in now.

In life, we all face important decisions, and many risks. If we always take the safer road, we may be able to predict how it'll turn out, but we'll miss the chance for true prosperity. Next time you have a choice between certain low gain, and risky high gain, take the risk. Who knows, it might pay off.

Next time, I'll be discussing a moron I saw on youtube. Until then:
Fui fides tantum in testimonium.

A Hoax is a Creationists best friend

Everyone dislikes being proven wrong. Especially in a manner that makes you look and feel like a fool. Normal people worry about this problem for only a little while, and even then they usually accept it and adopt a new point of view on the subject. Not so with creationists. Despite being figuratively beaten over and over and OVER again, they just keep coming back with the same stupid arguments that were disproved and debunked decades ago. Some, however, are a little more devious. When they see their comrades being defeated, they search out alternative arguments, less seen to the average atheist. These are the more nefarious in nature, and generally drawn from unscrupulous websites and books. This is the domain of the hoaxer.

Whether or not it is intentional, there are many websites out there that are dedicated to hoaxing. My most recent encounter was in the form of an e-mail, sending a few pictures and directing me here:

http://hheartbeat.com/?p=1527

It seems pretty convincing, yes? Look again. The first picture has nothing really to do with anything, so I'll just ignore it. The second is a fake. There are a few things that lead me to this conclusion. First, the teeth and the head wound are very highlighted for a colour photo. Usually, there would be a slight colour variance, allowing for the change. The second thing is the quality of the photo around the skeleton when compared to the rest. It seems to have little bits of white floating about, an effect mostly seen in early photographs, you know, black and white or sepia tone. The rest of the photo doesn't have these. From these two problems, it seems to be a black and white photo, spliced onto a photo of an archiological dig.

The third is a little harder to prove, but easier to see. The skull itself looks flat, and seem to fade at the left hand side. After a little research I discovered that this photo was in fact the unearthing of bones. Dinosaur bones. The skull was merely photoshopped in. Hell, one of the workers is standing on it. And not that well, might I add.

At this point I would like to point out that I saw a few of the photos and discontinued my examination of the page. Looking at it again today has made me notice the large statement in red after the photos, which points out that they are all fake. Seems kind of pointless to continue my debunking, huh.

I would next like to touch on a subject I have little to no knowledge in: hoaxes for evolution.

Apparently, some people decided that evolution didn't have quite enough evidence to support it, who knows why, and came up with these lies, which hinder more then help it.

I've seen only 1 website like this, which I believe has since been removed. I don't remember the name, just the barest details. Please update me if I'm mistaken.

Effectively the hoax is as follows: "Fossil of an unknown creature found. Looks like a cross between shark and snake. Must be common ancestor. Evolution is proven."

This really annoys me. Despite it's attempt at being helpful, it is still an argument from ignorance AND obviously not real. If such a fossil were discovered, it would be all over the news. I don't remember if there was a photo or not, but it doesn't matter. If there was, it can be used as another piece of evidence against the hoax's credability, if not, what evidence is there this discovery occured.

The major problem with this is that creationists can take it and use it to put credence to their insults. Like "Evolution needs to lie to be taken seriously" or even worse "That creature is described in the bible as x in Yyy:zz,zz, therefore this proves evolution wrong and the bible right." For this last quote I've used the hoax as a broad idea, scoping many different animals.

These hoaxes aren't difficult to debunk, given the time for a few minutes research, however, they are annoying, as when they are presented in a debate, "callin hoax" won't cut it, and disproving them on the spot will be nearly impossible, without forewarning. I don't have any other hoaxes to present aat this time, though if I'm presented with any more, I'll post them here, with appropriate rebuttals.

Like most athiests, I've debated on occation with hard-headed creationists. Where I'm from, it's harder to find them, but they're around. I've been acccused of calling hoax, right after they've done the same thing. I am not an expert at these things, but my advice is to calmly, but firmly dismiss hoaxes in a friendly manner, lest you open yourself up to ad hominem attacks.

Sorry if I have any spelling mistakes, I'm very tired. I'll be posting my next topic in the next few days. Until next time,
Fui fides tantum in testimonium.

I'm Back

All right. Due to a cock up with my internet service provider, I have been absent for way too long. This has been fixed! I will now be posting regularly once again.

My next post is going to be on the hoaxes created or used by religious nuts to discredit or disprove evolution, or prove god. I've lost most of my research on this subject, so please point out my mistakes. I'll announce the problems and fix them. Otherwise, please feel free to throw in your two cents, whether for or against my point, and I'll respond appropriately. I'm only mean to trolls, and trolls who don't realise they're trolling.

After that post, I'm open to suggestions for what you would like to see. I have a youtube channel, though I have no videos yet. My plan was to first do a video discussing empiricism, but it seems that I can't explain it in a way that average people can understand. So I'm open to suggestions for that as well.

Until next time,
Fui fides tantum in testimonium.

Evolution, my thoughts

Been a while since the last post... Time to enter the debate!

Let me start by stating my credentials. I am not the most intelligent person, but I always try to think my arguments through. My IQ is roughly 121. I am currently in an Australian University studying Microbiolgy.

Now, as for my argument:

I am going to point out a few things I know about life. Things which are rather obvious.

1. Everything that lives will eventually die. Be it Disease, famine, predator, accident, not knowing water depth and jumping, everything that is alive, or will be, will die.

2. Something that is not suited to it's environment is more likely to die. Examples: A crocodile out of water, Plant in constant shade, slow rabbits etc.

3. While things are alive, most of them will reproduce. These reproductions are not clones. Life reproduces with variation. Easily observable, just notice how you're different from your parents. The exception to this rule are creature is reproduce asexually, but even these mutate to create variation.

Because life reproduces with variation, life is constantly changing. In an unchanging environment, if a species has a high survival rate, few changes will occur over long periods of time. If the environment changes, and the species is no longer well adapted to living there, the changes will be more dramatic.

The term 'more dramatic' means that while individuals will still look very similar, the whole population will change in a certain evolutionary 'direction' very quickly. The individuals who are best at surviving in the environment will reproduce more, causing certain features to be more prominent, and/or others to be less prominent. In some cases, two populations of the same species, in the same environment, will begin to diverge. The populations have to be somehow separeted, or else the gene pool will be flooded by the other. The separation may be an earthquake caused fissure leaving half the population on each side, or perhaps a diverted river.

I haven't found evidence for it, but it seems to me that if behavioural conditions cause certain packs or herds to remain separate, despite no other barrier stopping interbreeding, speciation could occur. This would probably take much longer, considering the likelihood of outliers who cross to another herd or pack.

Eventually, the separate species have varied so much that interbreeding is no longer an option. This is when they are considered 2 different species. I even have an analogy for how a reptilian-like creature(RLC) could have evolved into a bird.

Based on observed facts, we can choose a group of RLC's who lived in trees. The survive on a diet of insects and plants. A RLC is born with slightly lighter bones. This gives him the advantage of being able to jump higher, and use less energy during the course of life. He survives longer, and reproduces more, because he can get more food, and is less susceptible to death due to fatigue. There are other factors, but they don't play a particularly significant role. His genes are passed onto the next generation, some with lighter bones, some with heavier, but all lighter then the average of the last generation. This trend continues, creating lighter and lighter bones, until a compromise is reached between survival through extra resources, and death through broken bones. The original mutation could have occured a number of ways. It could have been a random mutation caused by mutagens in the diet, or environment; it could have been a result of a particular combination of genes; etc..

To answer the obvious statement: "Bone-density doesn't make a bird", I say You're right! But the idea behind my logic can be applied to wings, feathers, beaks.... basically anything. The thing it can't work for, are things that don't originally give a benefit, even if the might eventually. It uses the argument "what's the use of half a x" as evidence for evolution. AND, whose to say that only one change can occur in a population at a time? While bone density is improving, perhaps vestigial wings are developing, or scales are growing into feathers.

And finally, evolution has no aim, no foresight. It has no hindsight either. Whatever works right now is what is selected. And, NO! I am not suggesting something is guiding natural selection, other then the energy, and fertility, of the individual beings, and the choices of the sexual chooser. (By this I mean when a certain sex selects a mate based on appearance, or dominence)

Now, hit me with your best shot! I want to hear counters to my explaination, flaws in my argument and other such things. I especially want to hear from Athiests, and Evolutionists (I know, not a real group, but used for understanding purposes). If you come at me with a stupid argument, be prepared for an equally stupid response. I'll do my best to answer all responses.

Sexy Sexism in the Sex Industry... Sex

Having done what I consider a lot of third party research (I wasn't going into the sex industry for first or second party research), I feel I have an idea of the sexism in the sex industry. Most of my research focussed on pornography, as opposed to prostitution, so theat's wherre I'll focus.

There are instances of sexism to both sexes, but in different ways. For women, sexism occurs in the meriad of ways in which they are paid to act. The more extreme, the more payment. However, due to the nature of the work, most actresses will be forced into these types of situations. When they start, they can make alot of money on very basic things. As there carrer progresses, however, the people will have already seen them like this or that. As such, if they want to keep working, they have to do something new. This works more for videos, though there are model shoots of a similar variety. As for prostitutes, most work for pimps who take most of there profit, and if they don't, some guys don't feel the need to pay. They are treated badly by both pimps and customers. If they are lucky enough to work in a registered brothel, there are precautions taken to ensure there safety, but even so, the conditions they work in can be deplorable. And once again, the more extreme they are asked to act, the more they can charge.

Male video pornographers must have the following attributes: Well endowed (except for the few for that kind of fetish), ability to maintain an erection for extended periods of times (sometimes hours), and the ability to ejaculate on cue. This is easier to achieve since the invention of viagra, but is still difficult. Any man would understand the risks involved in such strain. On top of this, male pornographers only make (usually) 40k a year without doing gay-for-pay videos, compared to women making 100k-250k a year. An actor looking to make more money will usually do gay-for-pay videos, which runs the risk of labelling them as a homosexual, and subject to homophobia.

As for prostitutes, male prostitutes don't normally work for pimps, on the assumption that they can take care of themselves. Not only that, but they can't flaunt their business like female prostitutes, and take a risk every time they try to pick up a job. And, once again, they get apid less unless they go gay-for-pay.

Most people focus on the sexism seen against women here, because it's been seen in other industries. It's all well and good that we want to eliminate sexism in the workplace, but we shouldn't fall into the assumption that only men can be sexist. What this industry needs isn't more restrictions and laws, but better working conditions, and more equality. A better understanding of this industry would go a long way as well.