We have been following the investigation into the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. The shooter, George Zimmerman, 28, has not been charged and reported a suspicious character to 911. Martin was returning from a 7-11 after buying Skittles. He was carrying the candy, a small amount of cash, and an iced tea. The family and many others have called for the arrest of Zimmerman, though the accounts of the shooting have been murky. Previously, we discussed the need to hear the 911 tapes, which have now been released and are linked below.
Zimmerman is reportedly a habitual caller into the police and is heard on one of the tapes complaining that ““These a**holes always get away.” Zimmerman states on the call that Martin appeared “up to no good . . . It’s raining. He’s just walking around, looking about . . . He’s just staring looking at all the houses.” Zimmerman says on the call that it is Martin who confronts him: “Something’s wrong with him. He’s coming to check me out.” However, he later admits that he is following Martin, which the police dispatcher discourages.
Police Chief Bill Lee said the 911 calls show that the incident was not a case of racial profiling. He said Zimmerman could not say whether the suspect was black or white. However, on the tape you hear Zimmerman say “He looks black” and then a few moments later, “He’s a black male.” While he is at first equivocal, he does identify his race. That does not mean that this is a case of profiling, of course.
However, family member have been critical of the handling of the case by the police and what they view as the police bending over backward to defend Zimmerman. The family had to file a lawsuit to get these tapes. After a hearing, the police finally relented.
The tapes certainly contradict some statements by the police. However, I am not sure that they substantially alter the status in the case. The evidence still is largely based on Zimmerman’s account, though such contemporary records are generally admissible. The tapes both help and hurt Zimmerman.
The statement by Zimmerman that “these a**holes always get away” certainly shows animus and he clearly follows the youth. However, that does not translate into evidence of intent to kill. I am more interested in the level of force used by Zimmerman and the two gunshots heard on the tape. It is possible that audio creates a misleading impression of two shots but that would seem an important forensic question. It is hard to believe that Martin would allegedly continue any confrontation of Zimmerman after a warning shot unless the shot was fired in the midst of a struggle over the gun. Zimmerman can cite the tape for his statement that he believed that Martin had something in his waistband and appeared on drugs. He can also cite his contemporary description of Martin approaching him.
Putting aside the complaints regarding the handling of the case by the police and the conflicting statements given by officials, there remains the question of whether there is sufficient evidence to base a charge against Zimmerman. I would like to see the coroner’s report on the trajectory and distance of the gunshot wound as well as audio analysis of the gun shot or shots. I would also like to see evidence of the abrasions on both men. Zimmerman was reportedly bleeding from the struggle but we have not heard many details on Martin’s other injuries.
Zimmerman would be wise to secure criminal counsel. There is probably enough here for an indictment. The most salient facts against him are (1) the statement on the 911 tape showing animus, (2) the disregarded instructions not to follow Martin, (3) the advantage in weight and possession of a firearm in the struggle, and (4) the lack of any weapon or proof of criminal conduct by Martin.
What do you think about the state of the evidence?
Here is the Zimmerman tape: 911 Tape (Zimmerman)
Here is a witness tape: 911 Tape (1)
Here is a witness tape: 911 Tape (2)
Source: CNN
Otteray Scribe:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/03/071203fa_fact_specter?printable=true
Interesting article.
Otteray Scribe:
You can laugh all you want but I dont believe a wolf changed into a whale because it had webbed feet and was therefore able to catch more food in the water. The web foot may become more webbed because that is a trait that is being bred for based on environmental pressure but it is a genetic trait that already exists. The DNA for web feet already produces that trait and over generations may produce better webbing if the genetic code is there but it isnt going to change that web foot into a flipper.
So what causes the flipper to appear? Since all life on earth comes from the same source I am going to assume that a frog has the same DNA humans have. And that humans could express this frog DNA if something went wrong during gestation or if parental DNA was effected prior to conception. Some chain was suppressed or inserted, etc. then we might see humans with web feet or little small hands.
So what causes the change of sequence? I think it is some sort of virus or it might be some sort of short circuit in the construction of DNA either in the parents or during gestation.
Gregor Mendel was dealing with peas and noticing different colors being produced, colors I might add that already existed within the DNA of the plant. My guess is that those peas, millions of years before Mendel, were of a single color and a virus insinuated itself into pea DNA and the pea was then able to produce other colors which became part of its DNA which Mendel then identified as heritable traits millions of years later.
I can create a Scottish Terrier by selective breeding but I cannot create a whale no matter how many Newfoundlands I cross with Great Danes. There has to be some consistent genetic change over generations to make that transformation. Environmental pressure is not going to do it.
@Gene H. – You assume too much… How do you know Emma would want to kiss you? (LOL)
BTW – I told you I used the original Ancient Greek meaning of META PHYSICAL not metaphysics which is totally different from what I was trying to say. I don’t believe in ghosts, the Trinity, Fundamentalist Creationism, and other hocus-pocus. I do believe in the BB theory but I don’t believe it created itself. Something had to create gravity. Nothing had the create the quantum singularity that created everything aka God. Stephen Hawkin only recently started to vocalize his atheism. Probably because of his declining condition which he may improperly blame on YHWH. He once said that he is NOT really an atheist (I think) and that he only objected to people using God to explain everything.
Einstein also was not really one either. He only objected to the Fundamentalist viewpoint of God which he thought was child-like. I was not ATTACKING atheists. I was only repeating a timeless true story which demonstrates a fundamental lack of true wisdom by some to fashion themselves as “very smart”.
You can keep saying God doesn’t exist but never vocalize exactly why you feel that way. If you blame that on Fundamentalism I am behind you 100%. But if you base that on your (et al) personal observations of the Universe and the complexity of organic life on Earth and it’s internal interdependencies, I can only go: “HUH?”
Gene,
“Look at that S-Car-Go”?
Never mind.
“It doesn’t matter that it was Newton. It was the story that was key. It demonstrates that atheists don’t really use basic logical thinking.” Actually all it demonstrates is that Newton wasn’t operating with the current level of scientific knowledge and that he was committing the logical fallacy of begging the question, in Latin petitio principii or “assuming the initial point”. Newton’s entire logic is premised assuming that the universe has a maker. Although he was an unorthodox Christian who dabbled in numerology and the occult, he was nonetheless a staunch believer in God. He had no proof of God’s existence though and proof is a large part of what science is about. It may have been his opinion that a divine maker was required, but it wasn’t science. Logic is a tool. It can and often is misused. This is why logic alone does not a scientific fact make. To wit:
All sports cars are red.
All telephones are red.
Therefore all telephones are sports cars.
This is an example of a formally logically correct statement (a basic syllogism) that is factual nonsense.
And now . . . more about the history of science Newton wasn’t privy to: The concept of self-organizing systems, although rooted in antiquity with the Greek atomists who believed matter to be self-organizing without divine intervention and tracable to Descartes (who’s work would have been known by Newton), the term “self-organizing” was first used by Immanuel Kant, born 3 years before Newton’s death. However, self-organizing systems were an insufficiently developed idea that didn’t start to come into its own in the scientific community until the late 40’s in the study of cybernetics (an interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems overlapping information theory, control theory and systems theory). Self-organization was eventually adopted into general systems theory in the 1960s. It wasn’t until the 70’s and 80’s that the idea became commonplace after being adopted by the physics community. The turning point was when Ilya Prigogine won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1977 for discovering that the import and dissipation of energy into chemical systems could reverse the maximization of entropy rule imposed by the second law of thermodynamics. It was his dissipative structure theory that led to pioneering research in self-organizing systems in biology during the 80’s and 90’s. This work led to the idea of abiogenesis being the currently accepted process by which non-organic chemistry became organic life in both chemistry and biology.
Here’s another story for you since you appear to like stories:
Stephen Hawking, no slouch in the physics world himself, has said in his book, The Grand Design, that the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of gravity and sets out to contest Sir Isaac Newton’s belief that the universe must have been designed by God as it could not have been created out of chaos. He has the math to back up that claim too. Science is an accretion of knowledge over time. It didn’t start and end with Newton. It’ll go on after Hawking. It’s a continuum.
Actually, I do have beliefs. I believe I’d like to kiss Emma Stone. I also have other bits of information which have high degrees of certainty attached to them. I have what are known in empirically driven evidence and sound logic dependent circles like law and science as facts and evidence. I know natural selection is a real natural measurable phenomena known to and through science that is not dependent upon some supernatural hocus pocus. You call it minutia? Well if you want to dismiss facts because they don’t confirm your belief system, that’s your choice. I prefer to call it what it is: science fact – observable, measurable, repeatedly testable. But then again, you didn’t know what the word metaphysics actually means or its derivation, so I don’t expect you to know what the word science means either.
Now let’s contrast what I have with what you have:
You have a belief backed by a non-sequitur of a Newton story you simply used as a reason for an attack on atheists (many of whom are perfectly able and capable in the area of logic and begging the question that I’m an atheist and/or would find this offensive) and an idea about a gestalt premised on an unprovable supernatural supervening force. You have something there alright, but it isn’t science. Depending on how one looks at that, you appear to have either a ghost story, a fairy tale or a metaphysical proposition with no proof.
You enjoy your metaphysical ghost story. I’ll enjoy my scientifc facts and evidence.
However, if you want to attempt to prove a supernatural being invented natural selection or created the universe? Be my guest. I love watching people try to observe, measure and test the supernatural. It’s a hoot. Get back to me when you’ve measured God or your supernatural whatever, observed Him intervening in natural processes and can prove it is Him via repeatable tests. Bring me some evidence. I’m sure Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose and Kip Thorne would be interested in seeing your evidence too.
Futility is funny.
Gene,
Thanks for keeping it simple for me ! 🙂
SoTB,
I do remember that show. Needless to say, any show with that title loses me right off the bat.
SoTB,
Bron really ought to read a little of Gregor Mendel’s work before getting into science discussions about adaptive genetic mutations with folks who have terminal degrees in…you know….actual science.
Good thing my mouth was empty when I read that bit about viruses. Orange juice burns when snorted out the nose.
I can’t post a link to the study but there was a study about how swimming with the dolphins (you have to be a good swimmer, of course) helped ameliorate various illnesses, and even anorexia! Often with things like that, I think I will never forget where I got the information, but five years later, I can’t even imagine where the thread was picked up…
When it turned out that my son had a chronic condition called ankylosing spondylitis, I wanted him to go swim with the dolphins. It didn’t work out at the time. I still think it would be a good idea.
True story: Some dolphins were used in the filming of a movie, and in the scene that was being shot, a guy falls out of a boat and gets rescued by the dolphins. So they shoot the scene. But something happened with the photography and it didn’t work out right, so they prepare the scene and get ready to shoot it again, and the guy gets dry clothes on, and etc. and etc., and then he falls out of the boat again.
Forget it! The dolphin who previously saved him, upon seeing his fool ass flop into the water again in spite of having been rescued a mere hour before, gives him a violent beating. They had to rescue him from the stern pedagoguery of the outraged dolphin.
@Bron – I want to help you but I dare not as Otteray Scribe is my Internet buddy (I hope). So I have no response here. I want to keep it that way as I really like him. 🙂
You’re on your own I’m afraid buddy. :-/
@rafflaw – Hey Raff. Did you ever watch that TV show NUMB3RS? It’s about an FBI agent who uses his brother’s math wizardry to help him solve problems with cases. The premise is that problems in human nature or behavior can be solved with Calculus. I’m like you as I can’t see how you can use static equations to solve for a totally random event. Not all humans are alike in personality as the FBI BAU profilers learn the hard way with psychopath and sociopath behavior.
So watching these two morons, David Krumholtz and Peter MacNicol, act through their parts is laughable. I have no problem with them demonstrating a math equation on the whiteboard for a never changing event like the braking distance of a Ford F-150 at 60 mph. But to try and track a psychopath running down an ally and saying there is a 60% probability that he will return to the scene of the crime is simply retarded IMO. He more than likely will outsmart everyone and show up at David’s house.
I wonder how they would handle George Zimmerman’s case? There’s a 90% probability that GZ is a closet racist? Hmmm… that may work… (LOL)
Bron sez: “So you think that feet magically turned to flippers because the food was in the water? Come on. Are you serious? There is something other than environmental pressure at work. My guess is that the changes are genetic mutations brought about by viruses or some other yet to be discovered mechanism.”
**************************************
First of all, there is nothing magical about any of this. The animals who had the biggest feet, or some larger webbing between their toes than others caught more fish. The longer they stayed out in the water, the less useful feet became, but due to natural selection, bigger webbed feet ate better. And reproduced. And reproduced some more. At the same time they developed more abillity to hold breaths longer. Those with noses higher on the head ate better. And reproduced. And reproduced some more. With each generation, those better adapted to an aquatic enviornment had a higher survival rate.
See, nothing magic about it at all. And viruses had nothing to do with it.
@Gene H. – It doesn’t matter that it was Newton. It was the story that was key. It demonstrates that atheists don’t really use basic logical thinking. They SOUND pretty good at first and others jump on the bandwagon so as to not be marginalized as science-dummies. But in the final analysis the ROOT (or origin) thought (not the content of several minute parts of the whole) is defective in logic. i.e. How could the heavens make itself?
@Gene H. – Again with the minutiae? What about the BIGGER picture? The whole not the parts?
“It is suggested that overcrowding is a primary source of stress for all the morphs, and that temperature is important in determining the selective outcome between them. Alternative interpretations are given. It is concluded that the population cage provides a useful tool for the study of natural selection in Cepaea.”
And this couldn’t possibly be a super-sentient architecture DESIGNED contingency feature in Cepaea? Or is it your “BELIEF” that is was absolutely not?
Define: BELIEF [or BELIEF SYSTEM] – Something one [or more] accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction.
So you and I both have our beliefs…
Good discussion. OK I’m done.
*And I only think people don’t grasp science they demonstrate that they don’t.*
@Bron – I know this is NOT a photo. But I have seen Dolphins do this in large pods during full moon. They call it spyhopping. They levitate on their tails for several minutes looking at each other then straight up. You know what it looks like to me? My mom says “No way! They’re just dumb animals!” What do you think? I know others here will say “Huh? WTH?”:
Dolphins spyhopping during full moon
“You think people like me and Bron can not grasp science?”
Can? Whether you can or not is an open question. Whether you do or not isn’t. And I only think people don’t grasp science they demonstrate that you don’t. Bron does well in some areas, not so well in others. But right now, neither of you are showing an understanding of evolutionary biology. Natural selection isn’t a “belief system”. It’s a measurable repeatable observable process. Why here’s an article outlining that very kind of experiment and the observation called Natural selection in experimental populations of the landsnail Cepaea nemoralis (L.) by C. R. Bantock and M. Ratsey. It is but one of many, many such evidentiary examples of natural selection. Natural selection as an actual natural process is a scientific fact, not a “belief system”.
Half understanding isn’t understanding either. Speaking of which . . .
Newton? Smart guy. Big in physics. Very familiar with the man’s work. He couldn’t say the same of Darwin though being as Newton died March, 31, 1727 and Darwin was born February 12, 1809. I’m sure his knoweldge of abiogenic self-organizing systems was limited too with him being dead and all by the time that phenomena was described scientifically too.
Again, I only think people who demonstrate that they don’t grasp science, don’t grasp science.
I’m perfectly content to let this conversation drop as it is starting to, as Louis Black says, “make the dogs in my head start barking.”
@Melisha – Sorry this picture was supposed to go with my whale posting above:
The Whales of the Port Authority Bus Terminal
@Melisha – I love cetaceans.
The Whales of the Port Authority Bus Terminal
“Sea life at the Port Authority? It’s easy to miss this 400-foot marine-themed mural, since it’s located in the dark and grimy 41st Street underpass through which Greyhound and New Jersey Transit buses regularly lumber through.
But one-name artist Wyland painted one of his 400-foot Whaling Walls here in 1993, coloring an exterior wall of the Port Authority in blues and greens and black.
Wyland’s Whaling Walls, featuring humpbacks, blue whales, and other marine creatures, exist all over the world. There must be an interesting back story as to how this one ended up pretty much hidden away in an urban underpass, out of view of commuters and passerbys.”
@Gene H. – I agree with some of what you say (i.e. Earth is MUCH older than the Fundamentalist 6,000 years). I can’t argue with you on that as they (The Fundies) have misinterpreted many of Moses’ divinely inspired words in Genesis. I also agree with Bron on his thought process too. I did say I was “in the middle of the road”. I didn’t think you were going to run me down with your Natural Selection belief system bus though. 🙂
You think people like me and Bron can not grasp science? What gives you that false assumption? Because I used Fundie-sounding “buzz-words” that tripped your Darwinist-talking-points center of your brain? If you actually read my posting with discernment you would see that I explained my point-of-view pretty succinctly that any benighted soul conditioned by the root-illogical-premise of Natural Selection could understand (I’m not being insulting to you Gene! So please don’t take it that way…).
I can’t (and won’t) get down into the primordial muck of focusing on N.S. minutiae (i.e. “…self-orgnaizing abiotic and biotic systems…”) the way atheistic-Evolutionists like to do thinking they’ve made a salient point in their favor by going there to the minutiae. In actuality they totally miss the Gestalt of the ENTIRE picture as a whole (which I tried to present above). As the the 1c. CE Jewish Messianic carpenter was quoted by a Jewish Tax Collector as saying: “You strain out the gnat but gulp down the camel.” So IOW he meant you go to great lengths to explain your point-of-view in excruciating minute detail but totally miss the salient point that the Gestalt (or the big picture) does not support your arguably specious assertions.
Sir Issac Newton summed up atheism pretty well for me. Read this interesting blurb he wrote about an atheist visitor to his laboratory. I think it pretty much sums up my thought processes as well. True story too:
One time an atheist friend of Newton’s came over and saw this scale model of the solar system that Newton had built by an artisan. He remarked at how beautiful it was and asked who made it. Newton nonchalantly replied that no one did; it just made itself. The atheist asked again, got the same answer, and started to get angry. Newton replied, “if you cannot believe something as simple as this model cannot make itself, how can you believe the heavens made themselves?”
I guess we could continue this on Hushmail.com if you like? Same goes for anyone else who doesn’t want to hijack the George Zimmerman thread here… We could just do Hushmail cc: to everybody interested in this conversation. Or not… 🙂
Wow, we’re on a roll here, with discussions that are brain-straining-and-training! First, thanks, wow. Second, another story if you don’t mind.
In the early 1990s I went with a friend (who is a Public Health Service physician) to a wedding of a man and woman in a “Messianic Jewish” church. That is, it was one or another of the “Jews for Jesus” style religions, and I am not sure, sorry to say, which one. It was led by a Rabbi but it was in a church where they met (by arrangement with the minister) on Saturdays, and I think the wedding was also on a Saturday. It was relatively informal and the service was a bit hard to follow but all with best efforts and good cheer. We were seated at tables of eight and the food was brought by the attendees (including us) like a potluck. Not a high ticket affair.
At the table next to the one I sat at were two young men who apparently were born after their mothers had taken thalidomide during the pregnancy. They were close in age but not related, and I figured they knew each other through some educational or medical common ground, and the bride was a registered nurse, so that was a good guess. They had the “flipper-like” appendages that resulted from the use of thalidomide during pregnancy (I believe it was first trimester use that caused the birth defects). They were very skillful at using their upper and lower appendages and they were admirable in their social and musical gregariousness.
Years later, when a friend of mine had cancer, I began to do research on treatments other than the standard fare, and discovered that thalidomide (by then an orphan drug, of course) was a very effective treatment for cancer, because it was “anti-angiogenetic.” That is, the effect of thalidomide on the body was that the tiny capillaries that carry blood to the cells of the body are unable to form (properly or at all) as a result of thalidomide use. Thus, a gestating baby cannot form limbs. Thus, a tumor cannot form its mass and grow.
Shark cartilage was a good source of the same chemical that made thalidomide as dangerous, and as useful, as it was.
And from these experiences, I began to see the whales as my long…long…lost sisters, who had left the land, and the “ragpickers’ hills,” to return, flipping and gliding, “even birthing under a wave,” to the sea.
To me it is not too hard to see manatee in hippopotamus; it is not so hard to see the descent of woman, and it is not so hard to see transformations that are not really architecture, but that may in fact be a series of little amazements, none of which is necessarily done for (or against) our (or my) benefit or detriment. The contingency theory of everything.
In about 1994 I saw paintings of whales on the 41st street wall of Port Authority bus terminal in New York I stared at those whales. I thought, “You and I are here, tricky, unaware, and both of us waiting until time rehabilitates us.”