That's great that Collins was moved by a waterfall enough to make this great leap of... er, faith: since the universe couldn't have created itself, the Christian God that itself has no creator, but who has a personal interest in our sex lives must have created it.

But that puts him in an ever-shrinking minority amongst his peers of eminent scientists (assuming he is considered an eminent scientist).

Nature published the results of a survey of eminent scientists in 1914, 1933, and 1998 that found belief in that group of a personal god fell from 27% to 7%. Francis Collins withstanding, it seems the more one knows about science, the less likely one is to believe a personal god is responsible for what science has yet to explain.

http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/sci_relig.htm

Jason

gene: "You can speculate all you want about it being an evolutionary adaptation, but where is the proof of this adaptation?... I, Francis Collins and millions of others would say that believing Christianity is also a justified true belief based on numerous things, including the historical reliability of Scripture"

Here's where Christian apologists get all confused about science. Science is not a set of proofs, it's a degree of certainty achieved by challenging a premise.

Just because a scientific theory and an alternative religious belief are both not proved, does not give them equal merit.

One can examine social traits of a population of wild dogs, for example, and observe that in some circumstances a population that maintains some kind of social pact fares better than one where it's every individual for him or herself. The religious argument that god "made morality", is, on it's face, about as believable as a man walking on water.

Jason

"They've been sold a bill of goods by people who like the warfare model of science and religion, particularly fundamentalists and militant atheists. Both sides want to force a choice and debunk the other side. But it need not be so. It's an incorrect interpretation promoted by extremists."

As an athiest, or, as I prefer: "a spiritually challenged person", I'm kind of tired of the fundamentalist and moderate monotheists, deists, and now even agnostics all piling on.

The difference between an agnostic (Sherman) and an athiest is mostly symantic. An athiest simply rejects a hypothesis until evidence is provided, while an agnostic leaves it unaccepted, yet undecided. Yet somehow Sherman sees athiesm as an extreme, akin to fundamentalism.

I think the reason Sherman is confused here is that fundamentalists want to create theocratic societies because it increases their power. When athiests fight back, it's not because we want to swing the pendulum the other way and use the governemnt to force everyone to publicly renounce their beliefs; it's because we want to defend the Constitution and maintain a secular state that is tolerant of all beliefs.

Jason

All that you said is true, but we're not scared of the Iranian bomb, we're scared of the terrorist bomb.

Jason

Isn't converting microfiche and paper reports to digital form and saving money all good?

It wasn't clear from the article why the EPA moves would not make the data _more_ accessable instead of less.

Jason

tom payne> "Name a better choice: Kerry or Gore redux? Vilsak? Please."

Wes Clark - Father died at four, leaving his mother, a secretary at a bank to raise him. High school state swimming and debating champion. Fluent in Spanish, Russian, and German. Rhodes scholar with Masters in Philosophy and Economics. First in his class at West Point. Four star general, 35 years of military service, supreme allied commander of Nato during the Yugoslavia campaign which ended with 1.5M Serb refugees returning home, the trial of Milosovic, and the development of democracy in Yugoslavia without a single US service member killed. After service, worked for a VC firm investing in renewable energy technology. Knighted by French and British governments, and inducted to the French Legion of Honor. Telegenic, articulate native Southerner.

"But connecting with the voters is not a resume issue: you have or you don't."

I can't really tell if Obama has the knack that Clinton did, or whether what we are seeing is the product of a media feedback loop.

Though I think that voter appeal is very important, it's not the key. I'd argue that Clark and certainly Edwards both connect to voters better than Kerry.

Unfortunately it's not all about resume or even voter appeal -- it's mostly about the freak show and whether the media decides to make a story out of your qualifications and views, or whether your tie matches your jacket.

I felt strongly enough about Clark that I worked in a local Clark group. I'd recommend that anyone who doesn't want the freak show to pick the next leader of the free world should make it their job in the next cycle to help connect voters to their candidate.

Jason

"Poco: People starve to death every day in Africa. Please send them all your food, Since they need it more than you do"

Mr Poco, I'm not following your logic. Could you fill in the missing steps of logic between Sue's proposition for returning drug companies to a capitalistic marketplace and your proposition that that is equivalent to "shipping all our food to Africa so that we can beg on the streets". Also, once we all become beggars here in America, where would Africa get their food? It seems like supporting a capitalistic markeptplace is more workable.

Jason