Re: How first cells could have formed on earth

Sure it is! It's just that the article seems to be written for/by a first-grader, and that's unfortunately usually the case at Science Daily.

Jeroen Belleman

English language science journalism is pretty bad. Most English language science journalists seem to see it as a stepping stone to more interesting sorts of journalism.

"New Scientist" is better - they seem to get actual scientists to write popular science articles - but I was blown away by the quality of the Dutch science journalism in the Volkskrant and the NRC Handelsblad - it took me years to find an error in their output.

[...]

Hmmm. He's isn't entirely wrong. The world is full of fanatics, with religious, political and many other motivations. Fanatics are dangerous, and it doesn't matter if they happen to have the same nationality as you, or if they adhere to a similar creed as you, or not.

Jeroen Belleman

<snip>

Jan is mainly silly. Donald Trump does set a bad example, and any sensible society would discourage him from embarrassing himself in public, rather than publishing his maunderings on prime time TV, which does licenses half-wits like Jan to spread equally irrational nonsense.

Trump is the first ex-president to be charged with any criminal offenses in the regular courts, but he claims that this is all a politically motivated witch hunt.

If US politicians had a history of being subject to this kind of persecution, this might make sense, but the alternative argument - that he is being gone after because he was uniquely criminally irresponsible

- makes a lot more sense.

Are Jews a "fanatic group of idiots" ?

There are fanatics everywhere. Fortunately, there are genuinely good people everywhere too. It's a tragedy to be drawn into a conflict you didn't want.

Jeroen Belleman

Not all of them, obviously, but Netanyahu does seem to be catering to that portion of Israeli public opinion. The massacre of 1200 Jews by Hamas was repugnant, but killing 30,000 people in the Gaza Strip is an over-reaction.

Hamas does need to be rooted out, but the indiscriminate bombing and shelling of the Gaza Strip is not an acceptable way of doing it.