> However, the United States has never admitted responsibility, nor apologized to Iran.

Why not? That would seem to be the proper thing to do.

Ron Paul is intellectually honest; I regret not voting for him now. It would have been mostly symbolic but you know he would be on the right side of this whole PRISM debacle.

I just wish some of what else he appears to believe didn't seem so batshit crazy to me, otherwise I would decamp from the Democrats in a heartbeat. He seems to want to turn us into 50 semi-autonomous laissez-faire oligarchies. I don't actually hate the entire government and I do believe certain things like the FDA, Federal Reserve, Department of Labor, and FEMA serve a valuable purpose.

Maybe. As a "tech" kind of guy, I'm not quite ready to vote for a medical doctor who denies human evolution.

And what does being a medical doctor have to do with evolution? Evolution has no effect on medication at that level.

As to whether or not someone can just learn what has to be done in a specific situation or not, let me ask you this: do you prefer working with developer colleagues that work with Cargo Cult mentality or because they understand the underlying technology that they use? And which of those two developers produces better work? Yeah, I choose doctors that understand evolution.

In this particular case, the beliefs are not irrelevant - doctors need to correctly understand evolution to correctly carry out their duties. Also, I fail to see how someone that understands their job could be considered more dangerous in doing that job than someone that is cluelessly copying something they've been told. To be clear, I can imagine a competent psychopath being more dangerous than an incompetent normal person, but psycopathy is orthogonal to the discussion here, I hope you agree.

Be concrete. In what way would not knowing anything about evolution affect the duties of a doctor?

> Also, I fail to see how someone that understands their job could be considered more dangerous in doing that job than someone that is cluelessly copying something they've been told.

Well, you were making a comparison to a developer who understands what they work with vs. one who doesn't. For this comparison to work, the one with understanding would have to be evil or dangerous. In that case, I would pick the one with lack of understanding provided they at least can get the work done that I need.

>I can imagine a competent psychopath being more dangerous than an incompetent normal person, but psycopathy is orthogonal to the discussion here, I hope you agree.

That I agree with a competent psychopath is more dangerous than an incompetent person? I would agree with that. I don't necessarily agree that psychopathy is orthogonal to the discussion tough, it's a key part of the reason why I'd vote for someone like Paul. :)

If my doctor doesn't accept evolutionary theory, I have to wonder what else he doesn't accept. Can I trust him to advise on my childrens' vaccinations? Will he give me wife good advice on birth control? Did he just prescribe a homeopathic remedy for my high blood pressure?

I prefer dealing with professionals who use the best available evidence to make decisions in both their professional and personal lives. That way I don't have to wonder who he/she answers to at the end of the day. And that rules out MDs who don't accept the basic tenets of modern biology.

I don't see the difference. I don't trust either of them to do their jobs properly if their mental model of reality is based on religion.

And you consider that rational? Do I care if my car mechanic believes in ghosts? Why would it matter? Because it might mean he could have other strange ideas as well? How about I cross that bridge when I get to it and first meet the person, and maybe start caring about their beliefs once they actually do fuck up, instead of plastering my beliefs about their beliefs, and how it influences their work, all over it and calling it a day? At any rate, I would sooner look out for their office being littered with gifts from pharma salesmen and ads, if you catch my drift, and you can worry about bogeymen in the meantime.

Obviously I do, since I'm the one who said it.

Do I care if my car mechanic believes in ghosts?

Do you care if your electrician believes in Ohm's Law? Because that's what it means to deny evolution, for anyone whose job is even remotely connected to biological science. Your car mechanic analogy is irrelevant, because car mechanics don't confront decisions in their professional life that may bring them into conflict with their religion.

A better way to phrase your question might be, "Do you care if your car mechanic believes in phlogiston?" That would be "Yes."

That's absolutely not true. Do you somehow not realize that the process that evolution describes takes millions of years to work? There is no possible way that disbelieving evolution can effect the effectiveness as a doctor.

That's like saying you can't develop a PHP app unless you understand Turing theory. The bulk of the internet proves such an assertion wrong.

And good luck with those Turing-denying programmers you hired. Let us know how they work out in the long run. There's a difference between someone who doesn't completely understand a given theory but accepts the process that led to it, and someone who actively denies the theory and, in doing so, rejects the entire epistemological framework it rests on.

I'm still waiting for you to give a concrete example where not knowing or believing evolution will cause a doctor to make a wrong choice. At is typical, people like yourself rely on hand wavy "you just don't understand" nonsense.

>And good luck with those Turing-denying programmers you hired. Let us know how they work out in the long run.

What I'm telling you is that most of the PHP sites on the web are made by people with little or no understanding of the fundamentals of the technology they use. And they make a living just fine. Honestly, I suspect Zuckerberg would be in this group as well. Fundamental understanding is never required to get results, no matter how much we may wish it so.

Aside from ways in which it is good for the wealthy generally, I don't see how it is good for the "tech industry".

> Is it that the right is so bad they are voting against it, or they actually think the left cares about their interests?

I don't think those are the only two options; I can easily believe, for example, that the policies a particular party is likely to pursue in office will, in fact, be better for my interests than any of the alternatives without thinking that the politicians in that party actually care about my interests.

The U.S. has at least paid reparations. Perhaps on the eve of the election of the new Iranian president it might be possible for Obama to make that apology.

I'd hate to see that linger on for years like the way Japan still refuses to accept ownership of some of the country's actions in WWII.

But even if they were correct, or honestly mistaken, why is shooting at an aircraft a good response to it intruding on your airspace? When you're not in a hot war with the intruder nothing good can come from it. In fact, this brings us right back to KAL 007....

The shootdown of Iran Air 655 occurred during Operation Earnest Will, which involved the convoying of Kuwaiti (not Iraqi) oil tankers through the Persian Gulf to protect them from Iranian interdiction contrary to the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea regarding international waters and navigation rights.

Throughout this operation, Iran conducted mining efforts within the Persian Gulf. On the very first convoy an oil tanker was hit by an Iranian mine (luckily causing no injuries or loss of life). Later in the convoy operation U.S. special operating forces managed to capture an Iranian minelayer in the act of laying mines.

Later during this same operation, USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) was struck by an Iranian mine (proven based on serial numbers matching mines noted from the aforementioned spec-ops mission).

The mine caused damage which is normally fatal to warships of that size (the keel cracked and both engines were knocked from their mounts). She had to limp out of the minefield on auxiliary thrusters while the crew fought to contain damage and save the ship. 10 sailors were injured badly enough to require evacuation. 4 of those were badly burned and had to be sent all the way back to the U.S. to recuperate.

As a result of that, the U.S. Navy launched a short surface operation against Iranian platforms (Operation Praying Mantis) on April 18, 1988.

Meanwhile, about a year before Iran Air 655, on May 17, 1987, an Iraqi (U.S. ally??) Air Force jet had attacked the frigate USS Stark (FFG-31) with two Exocet missile in the Persian Gulf. Though the damage to the ship itself was not as severe, 37 sailors died and 21 more were injured.

In the context of all of that, on July 3, 1988, USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air 655. To be clear the ship captain was clearly in the wrong. Even with the 'fog of war' and the problems of having to use instruments to fight instead of one's own eyes he had enough indications to know he wasn't under attack.

But the shootdown itself didn't come out of thin air, and the U.S. was brought into a tense situation in the lead-up to the events of that day (though admittedly, they didn't do much to de-escalate either once it started happening).

People died all the time on the interface between the First and Second Worlds, yet it was still termed a 'cold war' for the decades it existed.

And a hot war is one where bullets, missiles, shells are flying around. Just because there's no declaration of war doesn't mean it's not a war. Let's look at a little history here:

Korean War - Hmm, no declaration of war Vietnam War - Same Grenada - Same Panama - Same Desert Shield/Storm - hmm, no declaration here either OIF - Same OEF - Same

So the pattern is pretty clear, that declarations of war aren't worth the paper they're printed on. And try telling the combatants on both sides in the above conflicts that they weren't in a hot war.

And a hot war is one where bullets, missiles, shells are flying around So the Cold War was a hot war then? You can't fix a poor definition with a poorer definition.

In this discussion it hardly matters who was on the right side of the overall conflict, however, in this specific engagement: the Iranians shooting at the Americans was reasonable and should not have surprised anybody; the Americans shooting back was reasonable and should not have surprised anybody. The only real problem was the American shooting at the airliner.

The Vincennes watchstanders tried hailing the aircraft two times, but didn't get a response. But even that didn't really help resolve the issue; was it an hostile aircraft maintaining radio silence or a confused civilian airliner? They used a frequency a civilian airliner could have picked up, but it turns out there were several other frequencies the airliner could have been monitoring as well, and besides... how was the Iran Air 655 pilot to know Vincennes was ever referring to them?

Vincennes was having to make a hail to the effect of "unidentified aircraft south of Bandar abbas with speed 350 knots, heading 210, you are on a hostile course and this warship will take defensive measures". What civilian airliner pilot would think that applied to them (though Vincennes quoted speed-over-ground and not the airspeed the pilot would have been looking at).

So there were tons of 'Final Destination'-esque problems that occurred here, but foremost of all was that the watchteam (CO and CIC watchstanders both) determined early based on a single misread indication that they were being attacked, and the evidence they had available to them after that could easily be construed to support that determination.

The entire operation (and several other operations close in time in the Persian Gulf) was the US administration choosing to directly intervene in support of Iraq in the war with Iran; the limited scope of the intervention was a matter of sell it, above all to US domestic audiences, as something other than the direct support for Iraq that it was.

And if the U.S. wanted to re-enact a modern form of the old "Cash and Carry" plan they imposed on the U.K. before Pearl Harbor, then they were within their rights to do so as well as long as they obeyed UNCLOS.

The additional U.S. direct intervention on the side of Iraq (e.g. weapons, training) has been pretty conclusively demonstrated to have been stupid and unhelpful with regard to geopolitical stability in the Middle East (several times over, by now).

But in any event, if Iran had really wanted to blockade Kuwait then they should have declared war and blockaded Kuwait (it doesn't exactly have a wide coastline), instead of mining international waters. At least then they would have the moral high ground should the U.S. still have decided to intervene.

"The lack of international sympathy disturbed the Iranian leadership, and they came to the conclusion that the United States was on the verge of waging a full-scale war against them, and that Iraq was on the verge of unleashing its entire chemical arsenal upon their major cities."

The aftermath of the incident has no bearing on whether the Iranian reaction to the intrusion was rational or justified. The order of events does not support such a line of reasoning. What you are basically saying is that nobody should ever shoot at Americans no matter where they are or what they are doing, no matter the current military or political circumstance. Ridiculous.

What you want to look at with medals is the type of medal they get, as that is where you can tell how much esteem they possess (or don't).

- George H.W. Bush