Feathered T-Rex

[Nanohedron]

Just to return for a bit to the questions of evloution and speciation, etc.:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6346939/?GT1=5472

Wow. Real hobbits.

[Nanohedron]

Never mind. Caj beat me to it.

*sigh*

[Darwin]

Nothing to do with this, really doubly off-topic, but the picture reminds me of something I was reading about last night. It's a possibly apochryphal story of a man who claimed to have Hitler's skull. When an expert came to examine the skull, it was obvious that it was the skull of a young boy. When he told this to the skull's owner, the guy replied, without missing a beat, "Yes, it's Hitler as a young man."

[dubhlinn]

I heard a similar tale years ago concerning a Irish farmer who was conning American tourists with the sale of Brian Borus skull. He tried the trick with a repeat visitor a year later and explained this problem to the tourist by saying "This is when he was a boy".

( I never said Yank once in that post!!)

Slan,
D.

[Darwin]

Never mind. Caj beat me to it.

*sigh*

But that site's not as significant as this one: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6343637/

Biotech firm wants to breed allergy-free cats
Genetically altered felines wouldn't produce irritating protein

This means that these cats would be free to own any human being at all, without being restricted by allergy problems.

[Nanohedron]

Please. The very idea that you can improve on a cat: ridiculous. The arrogance of it. Any cat would laugh if it were capable.

BTW, this might of interest in the pipe forum, as there was a heading of "Problems with Regulators?" in the article.

[scottielvr]

Biotech firm wants to breed allergy-free cats
Genetically altered felines wouldn't produce irritating protein

"The company is now accepting $350 deposits for the British Short Hair breed of cats it plans to charge $3,500 a piece for in the United States and $10,000 each in Japan. Brodie said he hoped to ultimately sell about 200,000 of the genetically engineered cats a year. The four-person company has yet to engineer any cats, ....."[emphasis mine]

Hmm. What's wrong with this picture?

[Darwin]

Biotech firm wants to breed allergy-free cats
Genetically altered felines wouldn't produce irritating protein

"The company is now accepting $350 deposits for the British Short Hair breed of cats it plans to charge $3,500 a piece for in the United States and $10,000 each in Japan. Brodie said he hoped to ultimately sell about 200,000 of the genetically engineered cats a year. The four-person company has yet to engineer any cats, ....."[emphasis mine]

Hmm. What's wrong with this picture?

I should be collecting that money, because I, too, have yet to engineer any cats!!!

[Joseph E. Smith]

....now if they can come up with a cat with bright plumage, I'll be impressed...

[izzarina]

Never mind. Caj beat me to it.

*sigh*

That's ok, nano...I looked at your version of that link first

[mamakash]

Biotech firm wants to breed allergy-free cats
Genetically altered felines wouldn't produce irritating protein

This means that these cats would be free to own any human being at all, without being restricted by allergy problems.

I have a better idea. Let's generically alter humans so they won't be allergic to cats.

I remember being told that there are cats(from a remote area . . . but I don't remember where) that don't have that protein gene. They're fluffy and furry, but non allergic.

[Wombat]

Jim Stone seems to regard him highly, though.

So it would appear. There were always philosophers who wished that modern philosophy had never happened. When David Lewis was alive, many people who felt this way, Plantinga included, surfed the wave he created. Now he's gone, they'll have to stand up for themselves. I don't like their chances.

There's actually an ontological disproof of God's existence. Imagine a being with all the perfections, a being no greater than which can be conceived. OK. Now you will surely agree with me that such a being would have to be able to perform every deed under the greatest possible handicap; otherwise we could imagine a being the same in every respect but who could perform some deed under a greater handicap. Now if God created the universe with one hand tied behind his back that would be impressive, right? How much more impressive to create the universe with both hands tied behind his back. Well, what bigger handicap could God be sadled with than non-existence? None that I can imagine. I conclude that God doesn't exist.

Strangely, I find this no more satisfying than St. Anselm's proof of God's existence. :roll:

I don't think I want to be a philosopher when I grow up.

Don't worry Darwin, doing philosophy this way tends to be frowned on these days. This stuff was understandable in its time and historical setting—the days when the main game was synthesising the Greek thinkers with Christian dogma—but it gets produced for students these days mainly as a cautionary tale about the mess you get into if you don't think critically about how language is being used.

That's why it's so misleading to talk as though philosphers, apart from the odd eccentric, still play these games.

[Walden]

So it would appear. There were always philosophers who wished that modern philosophy had never happened. When David Lewis was alive, many people who felt this way, Plantinga included, surfed the wave he created. Now he's gone, they'll have to stand up for themselves. I don't like their chances.

There's actually an ontological disproof of God's existence. Imagine a being with all the perfections, a being no greater than which can be conceived. OK. Now you will surely agree with me that such a being would have to be able to perform every deed under the greatest possible handicap; otherwise we could imagine a being the same in every respect but who could perform some deed under a greater handicap. Now if God created the universe with one hand tied behind his back that would be impressive, right? How much more impressive to create the universe with both hands tied behind his back. Well, what bigger handicap could God be sadled with than non-existence? None that I can imagine. I conclude that God doesn't exist.

Strangely, I find this no more satisfying than St. Anselm's proof of God's existence. :roll:

I don't think I want to be a philosopher when I grow up.

Don't worry Darwin, doing philosophy this way tends to be frowned on these days. This stuff was understandable in its time and historical setting—the days when the main game was synthesising the Greek thinkers with Christian dogma—but it gets produced for students these days mainly as a cautionary tale about the mess you get into if you don't think critically about how language is being used.

That's why it's so misleading to talk as though philosphers, apart from the odd eccentric, still play these games.

Weekender considers his self a philosopher. Reckon when he'll weigh in? I'd be interested in his take.

[jim stone]

No surprise that I disagree with most of the above post.
However something correct is implicit in it, I beleive.

The claim that only odd eccentrics still 'play these games'
implies the weaker claim that
SOME of the people who
'play these games' are odd eccentrics.
'Some' in logic is typically construed as 'at least one.'

Now that's demonstrably true.
For surely it's plain by now that I'm
an odd and eccentric fellow--I don't mean this
ironically--and there's my effort,
"Anselm's Proof," Philosophical Studies 57: 79-94, 1989.
Anybody wanting odd and eccentric, not to mention
downright weird, can stock up there.
Best to all

[Wombat]

No surprise that I disagree with most of the above post.
However something correct is implicit in it, I beleive.

The claim that only odd eccentrics still 'play these games'
implies the weaker claim that
SOME of the people who
'play these games' are odd eccentrics.
'Some' in logic is typically construed as 'at least one.'

Now that's demonstrably true.
For surely it's plain by now that I'm
an odd and eccentric fellow--I don't mean this
ironically--and there's my effort,
"Anselm's Proof," Philosophical Studies 57: 79-94, 1989.
Anybody wanting odd and eccentric, not to mention
downright weird, can stock up there.
Best to all

Just to clarify, I wasn't taking a shot at you Jim. What you write here and how you do philosophy in the journals might well be very different.

What are you disagreeing with though? The sociological observation that hardly anyone in a philosophy department in the latter half of the 20th century would have taken the ontological argument seriously? I've only met perhaps a couple of dozen in several decades of meeting my fellow philosophers from all over the world. I've met hundreds of Kantians, Wittgensteinians, and so on .. The ontological argument used to get wheeled out as a bad example of mistaking superficial grammatical form for logical form. What is there to disagree with here? Anyone who's been on the scene for a few years can confirm it.

If you think I'm being unfair to Plantinga, again you might care to listen to what people say about him. Maybe you weren't aware of it but even David Lewis, one of his strongest supporters, had a falling out with him over misrepresentations of Lewis' views some time ago.

I hope you 'disagree with' my ontological disproof. I'd be alarmed if you thought it a good argument. I thought it was obviously a joke. It's by no means original; I think Findlay might have thought it up.