Brock Beauchamp

Absolutely... But it usually requires faith to be smacked around with science for a few decades for it to happen.

The key difference between science and faith is that science changes when presented with better information. Is our understanding of the universe's origins flawed? Almost certainly. We still haven't figured out gravity, for crying out loud. Calling into question science's ability to understand natural phenomena because it hasn't figured out every natural phenomena is a flawed argument.

It's a bit more complex than that because Levi and I are discussing "life" in more of a colloquial manner. As with most things science, we step into treacherous ground when we apply a scientific definition of a word to an argument that involves more than science. Here's a pretty great article on the subject: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/life's_working_definition.html On the matter of "scientific life" (and to descend further into this rabbit hole), CalTech used synthetic DNA to create crystals that meet the properties of life you listed above. Are they alive? http://www.dna.caltech.edu/Papers/dna-crystal-evolution.pdf

In this case, I don't know if we can honestly move past that part of the conversation because it forces us to delve into the world of philosophy and leave science behind. When does life begin? Well, first we must define "life" and... well, science can't answer that question in a meaningful way, which means we all need to make a judgment call based on belief, not fact.

I know several. I share blood with a few of them.

"Different group of humans" is where our arguments diverge. I see your point but my later statements clarify that I question whether a fetus - particularly early in a pregnancy - qualifies as human in the first place. And I don't have an answer to that question. It's easy to declare a living, breathing man or woman a human because it's an obvious statement. A three-month fetus... of that, I'm not so sure.

There is overlap but this is my understanding of the situation: On the far far right, flouride is considered some kind of bizarre governmental conspiracy. It's not a denial of science so much as a denial of common sense coupled with extreme paranoia. On the far far left, flouride is considered dangerous because it's a "foreign element". It's largely the same argument used to remove GMOs from our food supply. Never mind that flouride is a naturally-occurring entity and has been rigorously tested by science. Hence, the left's position is more anti-science than the right. Portland, one of the most left-leaning cities in the country, voted against the addition of flouride to their water supply because... Well, it's not even worth discussing the "why" because it's utter nonsense.

You're leading into strawman territory here, Levi. In no way would I advocate the killing of "societal leeches", for lack of a better term. My abortion pragmatism is largely borne out of me feeling ill-equipped to answer the larger question of "is a fetus a person?" I have no strong moral feeling on the subject one way or the other. It can be argued - at least for the first two trimesters of a pregnancy - that a fetus is more parasite than human being. Simply put, I do not have a strong underlying feeling about when life is "created" and when that life gains legitimacy in the eyes of the law. When lacking a clear path to a right or wrong answer, I fall back to neutrality. In this case, that neutrality is "do whatever you want, I'm not going to tell you otherwise".

To be fair, there is a vocal element on the left that denies science just as loudly as the right... They just choose different topics: GMOs, vaccines, and in extreme cases, fluoride.

Yep. When the current system doesn't make sense when looked at objectively, you are forced to question the underlying motive of the system.

To be perfectly honest about it, my views about abortion aren't terribly different. Most of it is borne from pragmatism. If someone can't afford or doesn't want a child, I'm sure as hell not going to stop them from aborting said child and force them to consume state resources to raise, house, and feed the little beastie. There are also feelings about womens' rights and all that jazz mixed in there but a considerable portion of my pro-choice views revolve around money. Hell, if I had my way, the state would walk through poor neighborhoods of America and hand out birth control like candy. Want to have sex but don't want children? Can't afford birth control yourself? Here you go! Better to give 1,000 women free birth control than raise one child to adulthood on the state's dime. I know it sounds cold but you have to admit the reasoning is sound...

This one is easy! Pragmatism. It is less expensive to put someone in a cell for the rest of their natural life than it is to put them through the lengthy appeals process required to ensure guilt and later, execution. So why kill them in the first place? I honestly couldn't care less if someone is executed by the state but when the cheaper option is to lock them up and throw away the key, that's a better option in my eyes. These people are a blight on society and while I take no delight in knowing someone is going to be killed by the state, what I feel is most important is that we allow those blights to consume as few state resources as possible. If that means keeping them alive, so be it.

I'm taking this post out of the context of Colabello (and therefore removing the "I'm right, you're wrong" aspect of this argument) for a moment. This statement is patently untrue and it really bothers me because we see it every day in modern America, a place where people who spend their lives studying a subject are seen on the same level as a random politician with a law degree. Both sides of the aisle (and their partisan followers) participate in this mockery of knowledge, though they go about it very differently. Two people can see the same thing and reach a different conclusion but it's not only possible that one of the debaters is more informed on the subject, it's likely to be the case. Opinions are not created equally. Some are more well-informed and educated in others. Some are less biased than others. There are a multitude of reasons why someone is "more right" than another person. It doesn't matter whether it's a blog, a scientific paper, or traditional journalism. End rant. I'm not arguing that I'm more right about Chris Colabello than you but I had to rebut that paragraph because i see statements like that far too often in modern society.

I agree that these are reasonable questions that we should think long and hard about. But then I remember that nearly every non-Catholic Christian church supported Roe v Wade after the ruling and my head wants to explode. The Pro-Life movement is largely a manufactured political device, created to rile up what was once an uninterested base. In many ways, the creation of the Pro-Life movement by Evangelicals has directly led to the polarization and ultimate "WTF" status of the current GOP. So effective in all the wrong ways. I actually sympathize with the concept of pro-lifers. I do not sympathize with the current movement because of the reason I listed above (and a few others I won't get into here). Damn it all, so many people who vote pro-life &^%$ing remember the mid 1970s and were probably attending the same church they attend today. How do they not remember that their own church was once tolerated Roe v Wade and how do they not ask questions about it, starting with "WHY?" Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! *head explodes*

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p98/badwolf07/Gifs/JermeyRennerexcited.gif

We can create a new category: Dave.

Absolutely. He's not the perfect eighth inning guy but he'll do in a pinch. He's better suited to the seventh.

I hope it's the bullpen. The Twins could use the help and Trevor doesn't deserve a demotion.

Yeah, I'm not terribly worried about Fien or Perkins. It's everybody else that worries me (Alex Meyer somewhat excepted).

Meyer: I wouldn't have pitched him there, either... I was merely pointing out that putting him in for Fien would be a mistake. As you said, you ease a guy into a later inning role... Which is why I wanted to see the Twins more aggressively promote Oliveros earlier in the season. You can't start a guy in the 7th/8th inning role. He needs to pitch in lower leverage situations and work his way up the ladder. Boyer: I have no faith in Boyer as a 7th/8th inning guy... But as a 5th/6th inning guy, he's a pitcher you ride while he's hot and prepare yourself to demote him the moment he cools off. It's fine that he's on the roster, it's not fine that the Twins sat on the current pen for so long and set themselves up for implosion.

A few thoughts: 1. This was an unusual situation. Most of the time, a merged/locked thread only has 1-2 pages of content before the article is up and it's merged/locked. This is an outlier situation and while it would have been okay to keep the six page thread open, it's also a situation that occurs once in a blue moon. 2. I appreciate all the merging/locking the mods do and they do it because ownership requests that it be done. In the case of the Buxton call-up, I think we had 4-5 threads that were basically discussing the same topic. Does it create a few minutes of confusion while the threads are merged? Sure... But that's better than half the page being consumed by people discussing the same topic, saying the same things. Who here hasn't gotten confused about what conversation they were having in the "Buxton is called up!" thread... Or was it the "Buxton gets the call!" thread? I can't remember. 3. Yes, the implementation is inconsistent. Twins Daily generates over 100 new threads a week, probably more like 150 per week during the season. Moderators aren't going to have 100% coverage of every thread generated on the board, particularly the MiLB, Draft, and Other Baseball forums. If you see duplicate threads, don't hesitate to reach out to a moderator or myself and we'll make a judgment call on those threads. 4. In the case of articles, this software does not have the ability to merge an article thread into an already-existing thread. That's why we lock the established thread and try to move people to the article thread. If we merge an article thread into another thread, it breaks the article commenting system (it's a complex technical issue with how threads are generated and linked to the front page or I would have changed it already). 5. Criticism is fine but for Christ's sake, ease up on the mods. They do all that they do out of love for the community. They get virtually nothing for all the work they do on Twins Daily. If you have a complaint, leave the moderators out of it and direct your burning hatred in my direction. It's probably my fault anyway.

You don't swap out your eighth inning guy for a rookie with a single MLB appearance. Boyer, maybe. Fien, no.

True but the reality of the situation is that you're going to lose pretty much every game where your pen posts an ERA over 20.

It was immensely winnable until the bullpen entered the game. In 2015, you will lose the majority of games in which you allow your opponent to score five runs. Milone: 0 runs, 6 innings Bullpen: 5 runs, 2 innings It's not hard to spot the goat in this game.

I can't begrudge putting Nunez in there. Not only has he been better than Vargas this season but a homer wasn't needed in that situation. A base hit would have been plenty of offense and Nunez gives you a better chance of scoring multiple runs.