the village idiot

There is a very, very big difference between you and I and the POTUS. What you or I say in private or on a forum such as this has next to no immediate influence on the world. What the president says privately or publicly (he was in a meeting with other polititians when he said these things) matters a huge amount. Trump seems incapable of moderating his language, and incapable of seeing the need to. This is one of the main reasons why he is not fit to hold the position he does. There is also the fact that Trump's branding of these countries is not a truth claim. It is a blanket opinion that makes no sense when you break things down to specifics. You also (rightly in my opinion) consider that telling the truth is important for society. Why does it not worry you that Trump is a proven compulsive liar? Many Trump supporters seem to think that this is OK, or even that it somehow makes him an even better person. This is crazy when you consider how much power he has. People are being swept along by the show and are not stopping to think. It is terrifying.

I'm not having a go at farmers. I just think we should put a bit more consideration into the life cycle of our meat and view it as more of a luxury than a cheap staple, unless you rear/shoot your own. If everyone visited an intensive pig farm, a mega dairy, an abbatoir and a battery chicken complex I'm pretty sure people would be shocked and cheap meat and dairy consumption would plummet.

I'd pretty much agree with you for the most expensive chicken. These animals have a pretty decent life. Unfortunately a lot of people can't afford expensive meat, and it is not for me to say that they shouldn't eat cheap meat. It is not possible to produce farmed meat humanely at the prices many of us want to pay. I would like to see ethical meat available to all, and cultured meat seems like the perfect solution. People get a bit queesy at the idea of cultured meat, but it has many benefits. It is real meat, just not grown on an animal. It contains no antibiotics, causes no animal suffering and relieves a huge amount of pressure from habitat destruction, fresh water usage, and animal feed mono crops. It takes anywhere from 440 to 2500 gallons of water and 12 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. In the US, 56 million acres of land are used to grow animal feed, while only 4 million acres are producing plants for humans to eat.

Yes, I eat farmed meat too. I firmly believe it to be ethically problematic but I do it anyway. I am really excited by the prospect of lab cultured meat. Once this becomes an affordable proposition we can make huge inroads into some of the biggest problems around animal welfare and the health of our planet.

Yes, great for chicken genes, terrible for chickens.

If you really want to do justice to the 'crimes against chickens' issue you need to be talking about human beings, not foxes.

Great heart warming tale Vesp. We should have more stories.

Hi Bob, Not sure I agree with that. There is still room for God with evolution. Many people of faith accept evolution. What it proves is that complex lifeforms, like ourselves, evolved from less complex beginnings. We don't know how the first self replicating organism came into being. People can insert God here if they wish. I personally see no good reason to do this, and many good reasons not to, given the nature of all the God's we have so far described, and what we know about the nature of the universe.

I think it's just a case of trying to ensure that things are taught in the appropriate arenas. Intelligent design is not science and should not be taught as such. Fine to discuss it in religious studies or sociology.

Hi Ti, The fact that there are gaps in our knowledge is inevitable. It is a mistake to think that because we don't know everything about a subject this makes what we do know invalid. I'm not suggesting this is exactly what you are saying, but some people fall into this trap. Mortimer Firewood has recommended a book for me to read. I'll make what I can of that and perhaps we can compare notes then. Evolution is one of my favourite topics as it is such an elegant and fascinating explanation for how things are, not just for how other organisms look but also for how they (and we) behave.

This is one of the big problems created by the current political climate. People begin to think it is legitimate to call into question the integrity of just about anything. The quantity and quality of evidence, across many different fields, in support of the theory of evolution is utterly overwhelming.It's as near to a demonstrable fact as it is possible to get. Anyone who believes the theory of evolution is false is (in my view) not being intellectually honest with themselves. If you are truly open to follow the evidence to it's natural conclusion you will believe in evolution.

Sorry, it was the monkey bit I was confused about. None of us are descended from monkeys.

How do you mean, it's a trick question?

Get yourself man flu straight after christmas and Arbtalk's yer oyster!

You got the genny up and running then Mull? Just think, if you weren't so tight on diesel you could post in the daytime too!

Some clever bod pointed out the other day that it would be far far easier and fantastically cheaper to colonise the underwater realms of our planet rather than try to eek out an existence on a thoroughly inhospitable planet. Does make you wonder.

That's funny, I was just thinking about Elon Musk. Don't tell Vesp, he'll think I'm psychic!

Hillary was a terrible candidate, but that in no way makes Trump a good one. If I couldn't trust my neighbours I wouldn't buy a guard dog, I'd move.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/major-correction-to-satellite-data-shows-140-faster-warming-since-1998

Sorry Kevin, I'm not going to indulge you. It is a completely flawed question.

97% of scientists who work in climate research agree that human activity is accellerating global warming. 3% disagree. This is not 50/50! Imagine there was a huge boulder rolling down a steep cliff. At a particular place there is a split in the route which could take the boulder either way, and you have to stand in one of the two options (left or right). Now you are fortunate and get time to consult geologists, motion specialists, particle physicists, and predictive moddlers. They combine all their expertise and experience and tell you that the evidence concludes there is a 97% chance the boulder will bounce to the right. You would have to be a fool with a death wish or completely insane to choose to stand in the right channel. The only difference with rejecting the scientific concensus on global warming is that instead of yourself, you are putting your grandchild in the path of the boulder. You are not qualified to take a punt on climate change and neither am I. We have to go with the science.

No, It's absolutely not a toss of a coin. It's not as simple as an either/or between those options and you know it Kevin.

Holy crap! This thread is terrifying. This guy is destabilising the world politically, socially and environmentally to protect the financial interests of one country's population for a short period of time. It may be a spectacle, but it is not good.

A good example of why we need to be exceedingly careful in our progress with AI. Something we are not being at the moment. It's all fun and games until an immensely powerful computer algorithm believes itself to be God!