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[femmelf]

The false presumption that natural and artificial selection have anything to do with one another is just kind of a justification for the crap we do today as being "natural." Bullshit

Example 1: Toy dog breeds. Lap dogs used to be wolves.... Then we got ahold of them.... Then we told them who they could and couldn't date/have puppies with:


Progress? The look on his face says "I'm a snack and look they even put me in a wrapper! It's to keep your food from getting cold! Brrrr it's not working!"

That thing's ancestors used to be wolves and we made it into, basically a rat that needs a sweater. That thing isn't gonna make it outside your living room ten minutes without people saving it. Survival of the fittest? Natural and artificial selection the same thing? I'm sorry Mr. Fluffles. God am I sorry.... Our sins against your entire family line will never wash off....

LTLFTP.

We have a chihuahua, and this made my day, lol. The annoying little wannabe monster isn't my dog. I actually feel a little tiny bit sorry for him after this. Only a little though because he's evil instead of cute, but now I know why.

This should fit nicely in the Rage Thread:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110620/us_nm/us_walmart_lawsuit

[Gantolandon]

To clear things up - there is a problem with talking about evolution of anything other than a biological organism - we have no way to see if it's really happening. Dawkins invented the term "meme", which was a hypothetical "gene" for thoughts and ideas. It failed mainly because it wasn't even possible to clearly define what a meme is. We just know too little about how our brains (and minds) work to speculate on such things. That's why talking about car designs being an example of evolution doesn't make sense.

The same problem is with evolutionary psychology - it tries to explain away human psychology with a link that may as well not even exist. The DNA strands only code proteins which make up cells in the animal body, but it's not clear how does the mind emerge from that. Or even if its all that is required for the conscious mind to emerge - its possible that the "software" comes from the interaction with society, for example. Psychological traits can be explained with the evolution, of course... as well as with the solar radiation. Or pixie dust.

[Vector]

Related to the Walmart case.

The comments are pretty disgusting, but educational.

[Africa]

I don't mind the evolutionary derail, because I figure it's important.  Try not to get too wrapped up in it, though.

I think it's just filling the void of on-topic things for people to talk about at the moment.

The same problem is with evolutionary psychology - it tries to explain away human psychology with a link that may as well not even exist. The DNA strands only code proteins which make up cells in the animal body, but it's not clear how does the mind emerge from that. Or even if its all that is required for the conscious mind to emerge - its possible that the "software" comes from the interaction with society, for example. Psychological traits can be explained with the evolution, of course... as well as with the solar radiation. Or pixie dust.

If you mean it's not clear how consciousness emerges from the cells of the body and so forth, well yeah, nobody has a clue. But if you mean it's not clear how information processing and all the functions of the mind emerge from the cells, well, it's quite clear. Not in all its details, but we know the mechanics of what's going on in general. We know that people are meat computers and that the the brain is the mind is the brain. From that, we still have questions about "software" - that being the specific ways in which each person's and culture's meat computers end up functioning - but we know that it's rooted and intertwined in the hardware and that the hardware has to spec'd out by DNA.

I'd just seen the Walmart thing earlier. Go litigants! Not that, if neo-nazis sued Walmart for frivolous reasons, I wouldn't feel strangely sympathetic to the neo-nazis.

[Siquo]

To clear things up - there is a problem with talking about evolution of anything other than a biological organism - we have no way to see if it's really happening.

Sure we do, I programmed evolutionary algorithms (albeit very simple ones) when I was 13 yrs old. It's not magic, it's just an organising principle.
Consider a bowl with red and blue marbles (I was going to say black and white but I know better now ). Take a marble. If it's red, discard it, if it's blue put it back. Rinse and repeat. You'll end up with a bowl of mostly blue. Tadaa: Evolution. Sorry for the derail, vector.

Oh lord
So funny

I had 20 really good responses to this, and have wisely decided to delete all of them.

Related to the Walmart case.

Hmm. Are women a class? Certainly not a minority. (unless you believe this, which is misogyny at it's purest). Personally, I think the SC is technically right in denying the class action, as that would open the way for Wallmart to be convicted by statistics. And we all know they lie. It's a tough one though, as most women don't have to resources sue Wallmart by themselves, this ruling effectively takes their chance at justice, which is a shame.

[Gantolandon]

If you mean it's not clear how consciousness emerges from the cells of the body and so forth, well yeah, nobody has a clue. But if you mean it's not clear how information processing and all the functions of the mind emerge from the cells, well, it's quite clear. Not in all its details, but we know the mechanics of what's going on in general. We know that people are meat computers and that the the brain is the mind is the brain. From that, we still have questions about "software" - that being the specific ways in which each person's and culture's meat computers end up functioning - but we know that it's rooted and intertwined in the hardware and that the hardware has to spec'd out by DNA.

That's not "well". At least - not well enough to use evolutionary psychology. To be sure, we would at least need to trace quite accurately how did the human behavior change through all those centuries. With genetics it's easier, because we already know how does the genetic code look like and we only need some fossils to extract and compare DNA. Not to mention that we can just compare fossils and most changes look quite clear.

We barely know anything about our minds and it's hard to say how did the mind of a prehistorical homo sapiens (not to mention the earlier species) look like. We can only guess some things from some quite vague art and burial sites. We can't see how did their brains work and see how it processed ideas. We can't even define an idea accurately. This is just not enough to explain things in our psychology.

Sure we do, I programmed evolutionary algorithms (albeit very simple ones) when I was 13 yrs old. It's not magic, it's just an organising principle.

Of course. That's what I get for being too haste.

With evolutionary algorithms we can observe the evolution in action. Still, you can observe the changes, that are being made, somewhat easily. Their purpose may not be apparent, but at least you see the actual code and see exactly how it changes with time. It's not something what you can do with ideas, at least not now.

[Siquo]

It's not something what you can do with ideas, at least not now.

Agreed.

[Leafsnail]

Except that it is 'fittest' for being cute (to a certain part of the population). Fittest does not mean "best" or "better". It means it fills a certain niche for which there was a need. As said before, we now decide what is "fittest", and guide evolution in that way. Look at his ancestors, and look at him, right now the number of wolves in the world is declining, and the number of chihuahuas is rising. Now tell me who is most successful?

Yeah.  It's fit as in "Fit for a king" - ie suitable.

[Truean]

http://theweek.com/article/index/214400/is-education-the-next-bubble

Yes, very yes.

__________________________________________________

We should really get back on point, cause we're in a derail here, which has to end eventually....

Related to the Walmart case.

The comments are pretty disgusting, but educational.

First off, I hate this ruling but:

Sigh, yeah let me go over this. It's way too complex to get into here, and there are variants, but generally this is a common problem. There are legal definitions that things have to fit into and it is a pain explaining to clients that it really doesn't matter AT ALL what you think something means. It matters entirely what the judge says something means based upon what the law says it means, and anything else is doing yourself a disservice. Judge has black robe and little hammer, meh. This is especially true with the rules of Civil Procedure, which are especially not open to debate, such as class actions.

Class actions (United States Federal):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1.) Requirements:
a.) "Identifiable Class:" "Class must be sufficiently unambiguous that members may be identified with reasonable effort."

b.) "Express Prerequisites"

"Numerousity" (Class members too numerous to join, as parties as would otherwise be the case)
"Commonality" (Common Questions exist as a matter of law)
"Typicality" (Class representative's claims are typical of the class)
"Representation" (Class representatives will adequately represent the class)

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b) (1-3)  (1) "Prejudice" (not "discrimination" prejudice but equal representational treatment in court) (2) "Injunction" (Actions seeking primarily injunctive or declaratory relief relating to conduct generally applicable to the class as a whole) (3) "Damages" Action seeks damages and (a) common questions predominate and (b) class action is the superior method of handling the disputes.

2.) Certification: Class treatment allowed only if court on motion determines the requirements are met

.... Fuck I'll just spare you the rest....

I haven't read the case and I don't even have time to read the case right now, but there are three options:

1.) The justices are totally full of shit
2.) There was a technical problem of procedure or requirement that was legit
3.) There was a technical problem of procedure or requirement that wasn't legit
[The High Court gets to decide what is legit and what isn't]

Edit, what I thought might have been legit, then I read up and saw the bullshit....
If I had to guess and I could very well be and probably am wrong because I'm shooting in the dark here, I'm betting that EACH AND EVERY PARTY IN THE CLASS ACTION didn't have technical federal subject matter jurisdiction on either a.) "Diversity"Jurisdictional Claim over $75,000 and not from the same state, or b.) "Federal Question" Jurisdictional Claim....

In simple sum, off a completely blind shot in the dark, if I was the Lawyer for WalMart, Jurisdictional issues would be an easy way to break this up. That may very well be what happened.

That said, I wouldn't put it past the narrow conservative majority led by Scalia to hose a crapton of women....

[EDIT: Nevermind,:
"It accepted Wal-Mart's argument that the female employees in different jobs at 3,400 different stores nationwide and with different supervisors do not have enough in common to be lumped together in a single class-action lawsuit."

It seems we have Option 3.) There was a technical problem of procedure or requirement that wasn't legit. This is the "Commonality" requirement and the "Certification" procedures Factor(s) above and the Supreme Court even overruled a previous case saying this was cool and of course it was the 5 conservatives vs the 4 liberals who said the conservatives had a few points but ultimately disagreed.

What really pisses me off:

Scalia, being a douche, said that there needed to be more between these plaintiffs in common.
Ginsburg, answered his question nicely and simply: "Wal-Mart's delegation of discretion over pay and promotions is a policy uniform throughout all stores." This is the common element.... That is, the one policy and its consistent, wrongful implementation....

What this means is:
The plaintiffs can't proceed together because "They aren't similar enough."
Now they will all file individual claims that are exactly the same.... *headdesk*

Like it wasn't hard enough to sue when a big company screwed you over....]

[Reelyanoob]

Perhaps there's not enough in their complaints to establish a specific company policy as being to blame for the specific instances of unfair treatment.

How do you know that the subsets of people within that class action are all saying the exact same claim? That's a pure speculation not born out by any data we have. We do know however, that they're "not similar enough" according to the court, so we have to assume there's several TYPES of complaints mixed in together. This type of problem is certain to doom a class action.

We'd have to know the specifics of a number of the cases to see whether there's a good chance of success. If the class action is doomed to failure due to mixing different complaints with various causes, then it's better to not allow the current action to be put to a court, the plaintiffs would almost certainly fail, and thereby lose their right to try again. The smaller class actions of those indivuduals will have a much better chance of succeeding, due to being able to target specific behaviors rather than a general "they don't like women" argument.

Can we make the automatic assumption that this specific ruling is sexist? Not really, because if the current class action has zero legal chance of success, then they're doing the women a favor by getting them to submit complaints with higher chance of success.

[Truean]

How do you know that the subsets of people within that class action are all saying the exact same claim?

I say again

Ginsburg, answered his question nicely and simply: "Wal-Mart's delegation of discretion over pay and promotions is a policy uniform throughout all stores." This is the common element.... That is, the one policy and its consistent, wrongful implementation....

Scalia doesn't even dispute that they are all suing over the same policy; he can't, because they are. Scalia is saying that because they all worked at different stores with different supervisors, they don't have enough IN COMMON. You know what big business just heard, "If we have enough stores, then no class action!"

It was a 5/4 decision. I'm on Ginsburg's side. They are all trying to collectively sue over that policy. "Uniform throughout all stores" x1.6 Million. <---- They are all suing over this policy every single solitary one of them, because it's the only such policy Wal Mart has on topic and Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg said so. She has certainly seen all the evidence. She just happened to be in the minority opinion

Can we make the assumption that this specific ruling is sexist? Not really, because if the current class action has zero legal chance of success, then they're doing the women a favor by getting them to submit complaints with higher chance of success.

Yeah, no. Respectfully you're completely off the mark and shooting in the opposite direction.

Your comment of "legal chance of success" is completely out of place here BECAUSE IT SPEAKS TO THE MERITS OF THE CASE.

This ruling has less than nothing to do with if Wal-Mart discriminated or not. That is not even being litigated before the Supreme Court in any way, shape, and/or form at all. It will be in the future, but we are nowhere near that yet. This is the "pre game."

The issue is and only is "can a case against Wal-Mart go forward in the specific form of a class action." Nothing else, at all, period.

This is solely and exclusively an issue over if it is proper as a matter of legal procedure for if they can bring a class action. Merits or chances of success don't enter into it. They can still sue Wal Mart individually, because the merits of the case were not addressed.

The smaller class actions of those individuals [sic] will have a much better chance of succeeding, due to being able to target specific behaviors rather than a general "they don't like women" argument.

Let me explain this to you, Wal Mart is huge. There is a reason they are all trying to band together, because otherwise it won't even take them seriously. Together they have a shot; separately they stand practically no chance and Wal Mart knows this. It's a simple matter of tactics.

Why the flying f*** else would Wal Mart pay their main lawyer alone $955/hour to do this if it wasn't?:

This extract is from when Mr. Theodore Boutrous was the conservative side lawyer for Prop 8:
"Gibson partner Theodore Boutrous Jr. said his firm is working the case "partially pro bono," but Boutrous declined to provide any further details. ... top Gibson partner in New York City billed at $955 an hour last year, according to bankruptcy filings, and associates topped out at $595 an hour."

That is the individual lawyer listed as Wal Mart's main attorney in the article Femmelf posted on the case.

IF any of you thought my suggestion of $200/hour wouldn't be reasonable attorney's fees, you must be having a heart attack right now.... You can bet this dude bills every single second of the day he can at that rate too.... He knows Wal Mart's deep pockets will pay him every single cent.

Follow the money, this ruling, which forces each woman to file her own case individually for all intents and purposes, screws them all over. Wal Mart paid a literal fortune for this, and wouldn't have done so if this wasn't the case....

The Supreme Court case is Wal-Mart Stores Inc v. Betty Dukes, No. 10-277.

Can we make the automatic assumption that this specific ruling is sexist?

I didn't. I think the case is bullshit as a matter of law and the wrong legal conclusion to reach in light of it overruling a longstanding precedent case for political reasons along party lines of the Justices deciding the case.

Don't even try to look for some kind of objective scientific certainty in a legal case where it's a 5/4 decision, because if just ONE more justice would've gone the other way, then the case would've gone completely differently.

While Ignorance of Law is almost never a legal defense....:
This is why I said it is a major pain explaining things to clients. Law has a million little things in it that are incredibly difficult to see and this is one of them. A layperson can't be blamed for misunderstanding the law. No one explains it to them and its not their fault if no one ever does. Also, for all I know, you might not  even be from America, so this could be looking at a foreign country's laws that are completely inapplicable to you....

[Mindmaker]

Interesting link, Siquo.
Although they make it sound, like a womens only role is to be a wife 

[Truean]

Interesting link, Siquo.
Although they make it sound, like a womens only role is to be a wife 

Agreed.

I dunno. Personally, I'd like to be a wife and maybe a mom one day, but I can't imagine not working too.

[Siquo]

I dunno. Personally, I'd like to be a wife and maybe a mom one day, but I can't imagine not working too.

Those aren't mutually exclusive. Anyways, who is a wife these days? Most people of my age I know marry long after they had children

[Truean]

I dunno. Personally, I'd like to be a wife and maybe a mom one day, but I can't imagine not working too.

Those aren't mutually exclusive. Anyways, who is a wife these days? Most people of my age I know marry long after they had children

Granted, but it's hard. I also know it isn't exclusive to women only. There are some dads out there who do child care on top of a job too.