After my post yesterday about women who are interesting but of whom I am terrified, I had another addition to my quiver who perfectly fits that description.

I think in some cases it's a total emphasis on sex. I'm no prude - far from it - but making that sound like the most important thing in the world is really intimidating. Clearly either these women have no idea about the excessive cultural pressure that exists on males to, ahem, perform well - that we're worthless if we don't or can't - or they are bitches and just don't care.

Or maybe it's not like that at all. Any woman who's serious about finding a date or a relationship on this site knows not to mention sex, because that's a total guarantee to get a lot of pointless, stupid messages from the wrong kind of guys if they do that. Any woman, however, who is serious about getting attention should definitely mention sex as much as possible. Frankly I've had enough of attention whores. No thanks.

To dispel the illusion that perhaps exists that there is a raging misogyny bubbling under this post, I did talk to a very nice woman yesterday. Interesting and not scary. Also not in Scotland, though. Sigh.

Why does it feel like most of the people who seem interesting to me (at least within Scotland) are people whom I cannot message because they'd more likely than not bite me in half?

Well, I am feeling a good deal more fragile than usual right now, so that's almost certainly a contributing factor. It may also explain why I have failed to impress those few who don't absolutely terrify me with my underconfident messaging style which is really nothing more than nervous blabbering.

Being underconfident on the internet is a strange experience. Normally there's this shell of web-anonymity (or at least pseudonymity, which this site has too, though it doesn't work in the same way) which offers that confidence boost. That's probably also why people feel free to be such idiots on the web, too, but for us guys who are not stupid, just shy, it's a massive boon. It doesn't work on this site, though.

Right, this is a comment I just saw on the Times Online website. It's an argument that's been furiously debunked many many (many) times, so it's sad that I have to say it again. Maybe one day people will actually pay attention and stop using arguments that make no freakin' sense.

Science has confirmed evolution to be impossible. Something can't evolve just because you throw more time at it. The 2nd law of thermodynamics confirms this. Monkeys aren't giving birth to man today are they? They never did. Check out the Entropy law. Weird how it all goes against scientific laws.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics applies in a closed system, which the Earth isn't. Even within a closed system, the entropy is not consistent, and there can be localised decreases in entropy, as long as there is a global increase in entropy (i.e. other parts of the system are increasing in entropy faster than the one localised part is decreasing in entropy).

The Second Law of Thermodynamics poses a problem for the Theory of Evolution. I mean, the only way it's possible for evolution to not contradict this law is if the Earth had some kind of external power source. Something, like, say, a thermonuclear furnace. But not just any thermonuclear furnace: it would have to be a pretty huge one. Maybe if it were 1.9891*10³⁰kg in mass, 1,392,000,000 km in diameter, with a core temperature of about 15,600,000 degrees Kelvin and an energy output of 3.86*10²⁰ megawatts... If this whole hypothetical engine sat at a distance of about 149,600,000,000 km away from the Earth, that might be enough to power evolution without breaking the Second Law of Thermodynamics. But where would we find such an engine?

Here is where the response normally ends, but I would like to take a moment to reflect on the irony that, before Abrahamisation, there were many cultures who worshipped the Sun as the giver of life. Creationists' Abrahamic forebears of course considered such heathen nonsense to be primitive superstition, so killed or converted them. How embarrassing that it suddenly turns out that the Sun is (figuratively speaking) the giver of life, and not believing that the "primitive superstition"...

Goffman's 1952 Matching Hypothesis states that people are more likely to form lasting relationships with people of a similar level of physical attractiveness.

While I'm still not 100% convinced that this hypothesis holds, it has been experimentally confirmed several times, so it's at least worth thinking about. This seems to rely on the idea that physical attractiveness is objective, which I'm not sure about, but if it's not, then an average of subjective opinions may be close enough provided there's no confirmation bias in those opinions.

How does that apply to the matching on this site? Well, even if the average of ratings people have been given for looks is used in determining matching (and I suspect it's not), there is interference from so-called 'internet disease'. Definition from urbandictionary (117 up, 3 down): " People on the internet have pictures of themselves in which they look far more attractive than they really are. Quite often from odd angles, unique lighting, or a combination of both."

Clearly this means that people with a better aesthetic sense appear to be more attractive. I'm certain if it was studied, there would be a correlation which shows that art-school graduates appear to be more attractive than engineers, regardless of their level of attractiveness "in real life". But there's really no way around this short of enforcing passport-like photo restrictions, where everyone looks ugly. And that would be a shame.

It has been suggested (Huston, 1976) that the fact that this hypothesis has been confirmed suggests not that people are innately driven to seek partners of the same level of physical attractiveness, but simply refrain from choosing more attractive partners for fear of rejection. That sounds a little more plausible.

On the other hand, my last relationship lasted six years, and we got together before I even knew what she looked like because of this crazy interweb thing. Anecdotal evidence may not be admissible, but it's something to think about.

Could Evolution and Intelligent Design both be right?

• Yes.
• No.

Could Evolution and Intelligent Design both be right? Personally I don't believe in Intelligent Design, so I suppose I should just answer 'no'. But the wording of the question is 'could'... and that changes things a bit.

But then it depends on the definition of Intelligent Design. In the 70's and 80's, "Intelligent Design" meant theistic evolution -- that evolution occurred, but some god guided the process. Today "Intelligent Design" is a synonym for Creationism, which totally refutes evolution. The former includes evolution in its worldview, the latter completely rejects it. And thus, they are also mutually incompatible. This makes a huge difference to the answer, and in fact dictates the answer.

How can anyone possibly answer that question accurately?