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Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. That's 152 years ago, six generations ago. Within less than a decade, the fossil record provided overwhelming proof that his theory of natural selection was correct. Late 20th Century and early 21st Century genetic research has provided additional irrefutable, supporting evidence. Charles Darwin was correct. Scientifically this has been known for well over a century.

And yet Creationism, a.k.a. Intelligent Design, still prevails in many classrooms.

We have historical precedence for this, the Ptolemaic system. It held sway scientifically for over 1400 years. Many regarded the Copernican system as blasphemy many decades after it was scientifically established. It took centuries to overcome this hurdle.

I suspect the same will be true for Evolution versus Creationism. Perhaps in 2111, Evolution will be taught in every American public school classroom ... but then again, perhaps not.

Somebody tagged this "darwinwasracist" - he may well have been by our standards, pretty much everyone around at that time was raised to hold opinions that would be considered a bit...well, outdated...today, but for when he was, where he was, I think you'd be surprised. I would recommend reading the Voyage of the Beagle - basically Darwin's own description of his voyage (in particular his encounters with slavery in IIRC Brazil).

Also kind of neat to see him basically figure out plate tectonics along the way by trying to understand the how the atolls & volcanic islands he encounters were formed. His working out of the basic mechanism of evolution (*not* discovery BTW, evolution had been known about for a while, but he was the first to figure out how it works) was not just blind luck, he was clearly brilliant.

Well, to extend your analogy to fit the actual situation in TFA...

It's 3 AM. And you can hear your neighbors again.

Their loud music, their footsteps, their breathing, their incessant heartbeats.

Are you going to sue? When you inevitably lose, will you do the obvious thing?

since when do kids have the legal duty to make sure that others don't kill themselves?

Since they started affecting the outcome.

I must mention again that it can be only decided by courts if their influence was sufficiently harmful or not (and in this sense whether the offenders achieved the "legal duty" status by doing whatever they were doing.) But certainly there are at least two factors that are immediately obvious, and the court will not fail to notice them:

1. The suicide (this one, at least) wouldn't happen without actions of the defendants
2. The defendants had "guilty mind" (wanted to hurt the victim.)

It can be argued that the victim was free to choose another path; for example, she could run away from the hated school, from her uncaring parents, and from the heartless people of the town. That's definitely an option. But you need to have a hope for the future in order to fight for that future. Once the hope is lost, there is no reason to even try to survive. An adult could deal with the situation with relative ease. First of all, adults learned to not give a rat's behind about other people's opinions (they are often worthless - both the people and their opinions.) An emo child, however, is 1% physical and 99% mental creature. The victim probably mostly existed in opinion of others. Once that opinion, that support, dropped through the floor, she was destroyed.

I still understand your objections, mostly from the POV of the Butterfly Effect. In some cases a minor action can have a large effect. For example, a kid slightly pushes another kid in school, without meaning much harm. But the pushed kid trips over something, falls down the stair and ends up dead. Yes, the offending kid did mean some harm, but not *that* much. Should he be jailed for murder? Note that he had no "guilty mind", but the defendants in this case seemingly had it. That's why I believe there can't be a standard answer to this question; each defendant's actions must be parsed and guilt determined by capable, trained adults (judge, jury.)

That's where your initial analogy is flawed - people jumping from a burning building have no choice in the matter, and would likely have died if they remained in the building

Likely? How could anyone know that? For example, if only those people decided to stay on the roof another 3 minutes, the police helicopter would be there to pick them up. They *chose* to jump because they *thought* they are going to burn, but this here CFD analysis on the IBM supercomputer shows that they were wrong. Well, maybe they'd get 50% burns, but they'd survive, most of them at least. So jumping was their own idea, and the arsonist is only responsible for property damage, a misdemeanor perhaps.

In order for me to accept the idea that one person can be held responsible for the suicide of another, I'd have to reject the entire concept of free will.

I already suggested some response to that; but here is an example. You are caught by Spanish Inquisition and placed under the Pendulum. In addition to the Poe's setup you also have an option to kill yourself, relatively easily, at any time. The pendulum slowly descends; there is no hope of escape; the blade just cut your clothes; now the blade cut through your skin ... at what point, if ever, you will choose death? Will you never choose it, instead watching your chest cut through, one tiny slice per swing, until it cuts so deep that you pass out from blood loss or from intolerable pain? Most importantly, what will a *reasonable person* choose?

The contribution to the computer sciences of the Reverend Dodgson are oft overlooked. He was a CS major and his colorful works were IT manuals that take some digesting. It is said that a full understanding of "Alice in Wonderland" will suffice as background for a full IT career.

What I tell you three times is true. This is the rule. A fact that is recorded in three geographically disparate locations (each more than 50 miles apart), did happen. A fact that is not so recorded is open to debate. Often that there is a question, regardless of what the answer is, is a career ending event.

I've been re-reading Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the story of a Republican who wakes up and finds that he's turned into a Democrat overnight.

Humbug to you too, Mr. Bush.

I'm sorry, but Scrooge is a Democrat who wakes up as a conservative.
"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir." "Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge. "Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again. "And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?" "They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not." "The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge. "Both very busy, sir." "Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."
As a good Democrat he is all for the government programs that provide a basic "safety net" out of taxes, but he doesn't give anything to charity. Check the statistics on charitable giving to see what I mean.

When your workers have good pay and benefits, that takes away from profits, and in a plutocracy such as ours the profits always outstrip any consideration for human beings and their needs.

If WalMart was unionized, you wouldn't have to pay those taxes that go to food stamps. The poor are REQUIRED to work in the US under TANF (which ended AFDC welfare in 1996), so those food stamps are another government giveaway to the rich, like that 700 billion that went to the banks who still aren't making loans.

Unions are good for everyone except the corporates.

The head of a major non-union airline in the early 80s (I think it was Eastern, whatever company it was has since become union) said wisely "any company that gets a union deserves one". Your workers create your profits and your wealth. Bargain unfairly and they will come to bargain collectively.

You owe your workers, the generators of your wealth, a living. If your business is sound you owe them a decent living.

Want crime rates down? Raise wages. You'll find that most poor people are far more generous and honest than most rich people (not to say that many rich aren't honest or that all poor folks are).

I've been re-reading Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the story of a Republican who wakes up and finds that he's turned into a Democrat overnight.

Humbug to you too, Mr. Bush.

For the record, Heinlein was making an allusion to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark:

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What i tell you three times is true."

WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson's big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:

      "Who dah?"

      He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy -- if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:

      "Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n. Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin."

      So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore -- and then I was pretty soon comfortable again.

      Tom he made a sign to me -- kind of a little noise with his mouth -- and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome.

WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson's big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:

      "Who dah?"

      He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy -- if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:

      "Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n. Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin."

      So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore -- and then I was pretty soon comfortable again.

      Tom he made a sign to me -- kind of a little noise with his mouth -- and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome.

did you know the movie monsters we've all to come to know and love (in a platonic way, of course) have colorful histories stretching back to the earliest civilizations?

Someone who did some basic research, rather than just reproducing what Wikipedia says, might could even have written an intersting article about the subject.

This article deserves to be eaten by the Snark - one monster that is not based on folklore!

Really? Then you don't read. The Sony Reader's screen is 100x better than an iPod for reading something like a book.

The Sony screen is 6.9" x 3.9", whereas the iPod Touch's is like 3.5" x 2.2" -- not even close. Add to that it is usable in full, direct sunlight and has an almost 180 degree viewing angle and much higher contrast ratio and for READING, not browsing, ePaper blows the iPod (and iPhone) out of the water.

Screw web content. Believe it or not there are people with attention spans not defined by MTV. Try a few of these on the iPod Touch and then the Sony, then get back to me.

Totally different targets.

Darwin took certain points from the array of facts like genetic mutation, adaptation, variation and expression, the facts that it is possible and observed that subsets of species can mutate and survive and thrive, and he mixed in observations like hybrid sterility and survival of the fittest, and published a theory involving Natural Selection as "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". You can read the paper here.
Darwin tried to explain how and why Evolution actually occurs; the fact that evolution can and does occur should be considered as basic as the fact that gravity, energy and time exist.
If you've got an alternative theory about how and why evolution occurs, and whether or not it has any bearing or importance upon our past or future, then present that. But don't run around saying that nothing can mutate, that mutations can't adapt, that species can't have variations, that genetics is a fixed, static state, which is what one says every time one proclaims that evolution is only a theory.

Someone who describes that as the unthinkable can only be a a MS zealot, a troll, or a plain idiot.

Wow, sheesh, Vista sucks so badly that I might consider using another OS that's already installed on millions of servers and desktops around the world. I must be so desperate!

About the rest of the article, it's just a rant on Vista's inability to properly manage sleep modes, and some networking problems, with a couple of unfunny jokes here and there. Apparently this guy can't get all his computers to behave as expected (as if anyone should be surprised at this stage that two computers running the same version of Windows can run into trouble trying to talk to each other). You'd better be spending your time reading something else...

Whatever.

There is no new information in parent post, and no new logic connecting known facts in a way that stands up to analysis. There is only a continued assertion that Suse is safe to develop on, because... uh...

Invoking the Bellan's Rule doesn't change my situation. I cannot recommend using Suse as the basis for a custom distro simply because a slashdotter with a somewhat lower usernumber than mine says it would be okay to do that. When it is time to do so, I can and probably will recommend that we not waste time evaluating whether Suse might be better than Redhat, etc, since there is this weird black cloud over Suse that Novell has brought on themselves. It's not like there aren't any good alternatives to Suse.

In a way, that guy who used to jump around yelling "developers! developers! developers!..." was right. A distro whose management has allowed the well of developers to be poisoned by a competitor with known predatory business practices is a sick distro. It prolly needs to be forked. Funny that it was that very same monkey-dancing fool who visited these problems on Novell.

Try searching Google Books for a public domain work like Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and you're taken to where you can buy a copy of the public domain work in question rather than to the text itself.

I'll believe it when I see it. "Dont be Evil?" From a corporation? suuuuuuure....

SCIENCE requires EVIDENCE for CONCULSIONS

Natural evelution is basically one kind of animal giving birth to another. Natural selection is basically weaker animals dieing off.

Natural selection is only part of an equation (figurative, not mathmatical). Other factors weigh in more heavily than natural selection. Survival of the fittest is the catch phrase for natural selection. But does the fittest bird in a flock survive the huricane, or the one that wasn't strong enough to be that far south? Does one strength save it from all dangers? No, it's far more complex. You need to be strong in a way that helps when you need to "survive".

Natural evolution is most notably not proven true. It just takes one repeatable event to prove it true. Monkeys can't give birth to cats, or the other way around. And Religious Evolutionist will tell you we all came from the same primortial soup. They say animals of one kind gave birth to animals of another kind. You rarely if ever hear them say "a lot of animals of one kind gave birth to a lot of animals of another kind at the same time" so they could actually propogate, even though it doesn't even happen when it's one in a generation either.

They preach that it rained on the rocks for thousands of years, and the wet rocks came to life. That life gave birth to other kinds of life, and so on until monkeys gave birth to humans. Only problem is, monkeys can't give birth to humans. Not to be disgusting, but there are enough freaks practicing beastiality to prove that several kinds of animals can't give birth to humans. And I'm sure no other kind of animal can give birth to a kind that isn't the same as itself. KIND is broader than SPECIES and differs, so don't try to think of them as the same. A dog could possibly successfully mate with any other dog(opposite sex), but not a cat. The factors that seperate one SPECIES from another are theoretical as evidenced by the constant redefining of the theory of evolution since it's inception. The theory predates Darwin, but he's credited with gathering many of the ideas and formalizing them into one "super theroy" for lack of a better term.

Read the book:

Talk about a long title! Darwin's book was a bullet from the smoking gun of RACISM!
-
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
-

Read it for yourself here:
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/t he-origin-of-species/

If you don't understand how this title speaks of RACISM then read the book and it won't take you long to see why evelution is favored by RACISTS world wide.

Funny thing about the title is that the book never actually covers where "Species" origionally "Origionated" from.

THE LIE: Religious Evolutionist will tell you that animals change because of their environment and they call that "Micro Evolution". Which they say proves animals change into other animals.

Before wide spread Evolutionary Evangelism that kind of change was called "Adapting" and it was commonly knows that animals would not give birth to animals that were so adapted that they were a different kind of animal.

SCIENCE requires EVIDENCE. Evelotionary conculsions are not Scientific conclutions. At best they are Scientific theories, and many Evolutionary theoryies are far from Scientific in so much as they directly contradict the evidence.

DARWIN OF CREATIONISM: http://www.drdino.com/

I'm not affiliated with this group of scientist/preachers, but I've listened to a lot of their materials and I find them to be far more Scientific in their aproach.

Wm

P. S. I'm a White Male Bible Believing Christian in my early 30s, just so you know where I stand. And so you know where I'm coming from, I was an Athiest raised by a single mother with 2 brothers who are both agnosti

> Evolution as it is often thought of today is macro-evolution, something that Darwin never spoke of and something that, judging by his own writings, Darwin did not seem to believe. If anything, evidence points to Darwin being the first observer of what we now call "intelligent design." That is my just opinion on the matter based on my observations from the writing.

How much of his writings did you read? You misrepresent Darwin.

Here's another Darwin quote from the conclusion.

"Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction. We see this even in so trifling a circumstance as that the same poison often similarly affects plants and animals; or that the poison secreted by the gall-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak-tree. Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed."

He is talking about all organic beings descending from some primordial ancestor. This is most emphatically not simple micro-evolution with the mystical species-barrier required by creationists.

What i tell you three times is true.

Darwin's preferred term was Natural Selection. I think survivial of the fittest has become more prevalent because "fittest" has changed in meaning from "most suitable" to "strongest" and appeals to those who think might is right.

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/t he-origin-of-species-6th-edition/chapter-03.html

"I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term natural selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient."

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/t he-origin-of-species-6th-edition/chapter-04.html

"This preservation of favourable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest."

on a related note I was reading (in New Scientist I think) that the life of the parents between their birth and the birth of their offspring also contributes to the genetic make-up of new individuals, in particular, the effects of malnutrition. I wish I had a URI for that if anyone can help.

Darwin's preferred term was Natural Selection. I think survivial of the fittest has become more prevalent because "fittest" has changed in meaning from "most suitable" to "strongest" and appeals to those who think might is right.

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/t he-origin-of-species-6th-edition/chapter-03.html

"I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term natural selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient."

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/t he-origin-of-species-6th-edition/chapter-04.html

"This preservation of favourable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest."

on a related note I was reading (in New Scientist I think) that the life of the parents between their birth and the birth of their offspring also contributes to the genetic make-up of new individuals, in particular, the effects of malnutrition. I wish I had a URI for that if anyone can help.

Thats OK, most bible thumpers haven't read the bible either.

But here's a link http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/t he-origin-of-species/

"Origin of Species" is also a good book to read and probably available online for free.

It is available online and free here.

No amontillado for you, ever!

I'd disagreee with the majority of these posts... evolution is a fact. Species do in fact change over time.

Natural selection is the theory that suggests how evolution occurs.

In checking out the site in the parent post, I ran across this interesting comment:

Can anyone, viewing a hummingbird in action and knowing that all its hundreds of organs are packed inside something the size of a marble, believe the myth that, way back, it originated when a lightning bolt hit some dirty seawater?

I'm having problems finding exactly where in Darwin's Origin of Species this claim is made? Perhaps someone can enlighten me. Or is this just another creationist strawman?

A cubit is not an exact measurement, and was used, especially for measurements larger than a few cubits, to convey the sense of size. A cubit was the length from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. It was never intended to be exact.

Every manuscript ever written was/is/will be written in the context of that culture and language. Pure math falls into similar context as well. You could write it as a series of dots representing numbers and even group the dots with symbols in a series, to explain the symbols (whether they are operators or more convenient symbols to represent a quantitiy of dots), and then show proofs using this system. Just about anyone could then read this language, given a bit of thought. But true understanding may be harder, especially for those tribal groups whose language only include the equivalents of one, two, and many. So even this attempt at writing a culture-neutral, universally understood manuscript has limitations.

Commenting on most of the rest of what I've read here:

Almost everyone posting needs to know a science book, not dictionary, definition of theory, fact, and scientific law. I will not provide these. That's what science books are for.

Most posts have no validity whatsoever because they are based on faulty premises, and very bad logic on top of that. Most have much misinformation.

Since there is so much "proof" abounding here I will throw some opinions into the fray. Read the second law of thermodynamics. How does evolution fit in (that's always been my question)?

For those who want to know about how science relates to religion, try Lee Strobel's "The Case for a Creator," and/or http://www.answersingenesis.org/. For those who want the to know about evolution, try http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/t he-origin-of-species/ for the research that started it all. For an ongoing debate about the subject, try http://www.talkorigins.org/. For a balanced view, try all the above, plus more. Each of these contain lengthy reads, and great opposition. Keep an open mind, flip back and forth between all of them, and you will probably still end up taking a side. The important thing is, that if done properly, the side will be yours.

Happy Thinking!

Finally, a few quotes attributed to "Mark Twain" to shed some absurd insight on all this (disclaimer: these are his own opinions, not to be construed as fact, theory, law, or anything otherwise, though some might be):

Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.

The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain't so.

-JDS

If you want a supporting argument for Genesis, it is easy enough to asser that the events in the time preceeding Adam were described to him by the almighty, recorded either orally or in writing, and finally made their way into the current text.

So you expect me to take on faith that Adam existed, spoke to god, and wrote it down and that this is the truth, but you won't except evolution because you can't see it happening. Sorry, doesn't fly. Claims are not evidence. Claiming to speak to god is not evidence that he did. And you can't hold my argument to a higher standard than you hold your own.

But the discussion is not one about creationism, rather it is one about what ideas should journalists present.

It was until you claimed creationism had valid scientific evidence to support it and failed to present any. But, you want to present both sides in a scientific discussion? Fine. Have some evidence. Mistating evolutionary theory is not evidence. Claims that it is possible is not evidence. "Ancient documents" whose very origin is dubious is not evidence. You've got no evidence, so that's what we'll present.

If you want a rational discussion, put some facts on the table.

I see little point since you can't even decide what constitutes valid scientific evidence. Anything that's possible is not probable. Just being possible is not evidence of it acutally happening. But, here's some light reading:

"Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin - the father of modern evolutionary theory. Explains in detail the concept of natural selection among others.

Strength and tempo of directional selection in the wild - a scientific study on the effects of natural selction in the wild.

Comparison of the Human and Great Ape Chromosomes as Evidence for Common Ancestry - in fact, quite a bit at this site is useful.

And I highly recommend:
Evolution and the Fossil Record - published by the American Geology Institute. Not only is it informative but highly accessible to non-scientists.

Every model of the world devised to date has eventually been discredited,

This is a flat out lie. The earth is still round and still orbits the sun, for starters. Both ideas are older than Christ. Again, misrepresenting the facts to support your argument.

I never said I was a creationist.

Yet you are so willing to take "ancient documents" on faith but discredit evolution because you can't see it happening.

And my arguments are quite rational if one looks only at the facts.

Calling the most wild-ass ideas with no evidence to support them reasonable is not rational. Requiring faith to support your argument and having none to discredit mine is not rational. Believing that anything that is possible is just as likely to be true is not rational. And even if they were, rational is not evidence. I'd love to look at the facts, but you haven't supplied any.

Perhaps we should have a neutral party review the discussion.

First, good luck finding one. Second, I don't care anymore. The main problem here, which oddly enough goes back to the original discussion, is you have no idea what constitutes valid scientific evidence. Until you can resolve that, there is no point in discussing this any further. Feel free to write the whole episode off as my unwillingness to consider what goes against the status quo. You're going to anyway, regardless of what arguments I make because it's what you want to believe, so I don't see why I should bother.

Darwins work did not have the word "the" in the title. The full title is: "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life".

It a very important point to be aware of. It greatly affects the meaning of the title.

That work discusses how it is that species develop. There is virtualy no reference to humans in it as would be inferred by a title which referenced "The Species".

Here is a link to a copy of that work:

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/t he-origin-of-species/

According to this website, Jules Verne also considered Florida to be an ideal spot for launching into space. This was from his 1865 novel, From Earth to the Moon.

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -- tear up the planks! -- here, here! -- it is the beating of his hideous heart!"

'Monads' are part of Leibnitz's philosophy, which Voltaire famously satirised in Candide with the figure of Dr. Pangloss, who resolutely maintained that we live in 'this, the best of all possible worlds' despite a succession of disasters that would convince any sane man that he was wrong.

How very suitable for a Microsoft product.

Even on the off chance that the About network doesn't have all the information you need, they have a large number of links to sites with relevant information across the Web, so there's a very good chance that you will be able to use them to find what you are looking for.
Also...although these are not strictly an answer to your question, I would still heartily encourage you to follow the links to these (listed in a suggested order of reading...my probably misguided opinion only) text files, web pages, and books, as I think they could be of enormous benefit to both your children and yourself...indeed, anyone who wishes to read them. Although I understand that several of these could possibly only be understood at tertiary level, they also as far as I know are not normally included in *general* curriculums, and IMHO they should be.

• The Allegory of the Cave by Plato
• Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, by Rene Descartes
• Guide to Ethics & Morality
• The Logic FAQ
• The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
• The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
• The Sovereign Individual, by James Davidson
• The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene
• The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

It used to be in the past that the education systems of most nations didn't want us to know the why (philosophy, religion, history, political theory) of life, but were content enough to let us know the how. (Science without analysis, numeracy and literacy skills, etc) Now however we are seeing that primarily in America, but also in other places, government education departments no longer even want to allow people to know the how.

Mathematics is part of the how - a means to an end, a way of solving problems - but it is not a destination in itself. The material I've given you links to in my second section is concerned with finding out *why* - "Why am I here? Who am I? How do I know what reality is? What do I want to do with my life? What moral values do I believe in?"
The answers to these questions are far more important than becoming merely literate or mathematically capable for their own sake. Figure out what your purpose is first, and the rest, although still requiring work, will be relatively easy. That is what the links in the second list will help you do, and it's not something you'll be taught to do in any contemporary public school, either...Governments consider people with purpose to be highly dangerous.

[...] Just at this moment, somehow or other, they began to run.

Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying `Faster! Faster!' but Alice felt she could not go faster, thought she had not breath left to say so.

The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything. `I wonder if all the things move along with us?' thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed to guess her thoughts, for she cried, `Faster! Don't try to talk!'

Not that Alice had any idea of doing that. She felt as if she would never be able to talk again, she was getting so much out of breath: and still the Queen cried `Faster! Faster!' and dragged her along. `Are we nearly there?' Alice managed to pant out at last.

`Nearly there!' the Queen repeated. `Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! Faster! And they ran on for a time in silence, with the wind whistling in Alice's ears, and almost blowing her hair off her head, she fancied.

`Now! Now!' cried the Queen. `Faster! Faster!' And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy. [...]

Alice looked round her in great surprise. `Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!'

`Of course it is,' said the Queen, `what would you have it?'

`Well, in out country,' said Alice, still panting a little, `you'd generally get to somewhere else -- if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing.'

`A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. `Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!'

One similar device is the Jules Verne Gun -- essentially it is a huge cannon that fires things into space, at about 1000 g's. The idea originated from Jules Verne's book From The Earth To The Moon. Popular Mechanics had a write-up about it a few years back (check out the pictures on page 2!) -- apparently some guy at Lawrence Livermore National Labs is trying to build one that actually works. :^)

Nothing lasts forever. Clean out your old baggage and move on.

I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, if they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population .

And if we end up losing the unique cultural histories of thousands of peoples in the process, we can always console ourselves with the fact that they weren't static anyway. I'm sure future generations will understand.

It's just like that rainforest thing. Anyone who thinks we need more than a couple dozen kinds of trees could probably use a good attitude adjustment, anyway.

*sigh*

Perhaps most terrifying of all these is Nerve Gas.. the Nazis discovered the base of all nerve toxins (IIRC, I'm an engineer, not a biochemist, Jim) in the 40's - Vx. That was over 60 years ago boys and girls, and science has come a long way since then. The world is a very scarey place now. Playing dumb and sticking our collective heads in the sand isn't the way to go. A dumb populace might be easy to control - but who's going to be in control? I think I read a story about that once. Something about a time machine?

Hiding science does nobody any good, and prevents people from having access to information. Those people who you are preventing from having access might be the people who have the insight to develop a new treatment, cure, or neuralizing agent for these evil compounds.

Last time I checked, all our engineering and universities were still open. Are we now going to ban biochemistry? Or maybe electrical engineering, becuase you might learn how to make a precision timer for a nuclear bomb? Or hell, ban mechanical engineering - you learn how to manufacture equipment to insane tolerances. The only people who might want to do that are TERRORISTS!

Yeah, I'm laying it on pretty thick up there, but this self-censorship crap smacks back to the 50's, and I don't like where it's going. How effective has the DEA been against people learning how to make amphetamines and other drugs in their backyards? Or when compounds are effectively removed from the public, discovering alternative, exotic synthesises? Not very.

Security through obscurity -NEVER- works. The only defense is to be well prepared, and in that case, that means educated.

made the greatest work of science fiction ever. Unfortunately, it's more tragedy than comedy.

I believe the reference in the news blurb is to "The Island Of Doctor Moreau" by HG Wells. :)

Oh, for the love of God.

Cask, dammit, cask!

No kidding! This has been a major problem in the scientific community for well over a hundred years. I've traced the trend back to this highly speculative publication. I don't know how the deranged author managed to weasel past the referees and examiners.

Now, lets move on to the broader theory of evolution which essentially postulates that if you could look back in time you would see that all life on Earth decended from from single cell organisms and ultimately strands of dna. (Which isn't to say that parallel evolution didn't happen in the early stages and it's entirely possible that the different kingdoms of biology each came from their own pools of goo. But, it's entirely beside the point.) Look at the timeline. 3.5 billion years... an incomprehensible period of time - 500 thousand times the length of recorded history, 50 million times the length of a human life. Is it any wonder why we have missing links in the geological record? No, and it's impressive that we have found what we have. We don't need the missing links to see that evolution happened. And we certainly don't need the missing links of the last 15 or so changes in a beetle which went through millions of changes just to become a beetle. The Bombardier Beetle is an odd occurance to be sure. It is not, however, a gaping hole in the theory of evolution. It is not usual or expected - but what is? We're lucky to be here debating this at all.

Watching TV on a computer is (for me, at least) much like reading e-books on a palm or an Ipaq or on the computer screen in a library -- it gets the job done, yes, but it's not very enjoyable. (I'm trying to figure out why the only ebooks I'm able read at any length are non-fiction. I can't, for example, bring myself to read fiction electronically. It seems, well, not right. And not comfortable. Yet I can sit on my little ragged sofa -- feet up, trusty Bawls soda beside me -- and can read deadtree fiction until the cows come home. But that's another story for another day ...)

I read the Count of Monte Cristo online, here, just to see what it would be like. My assessment: just like reading the dead tree version. I remember the literature, not the act of reading it. Well, I also remember my laptop being a little clumsy for this job, but it worked. I sure wouldn't do it sitting on a swivel chair looking at a monitor.

I really enjoyed the story, it's clear why it's a monument. I'd read another book this way, when I get time. Moral of the story: the literature itself is actually a lot more important than the media.

Most mac users (note:users, not systemists) I know are above-the-average well-educated people. Yet, when it comes to computers, they are a bunch of jerks. They misinterpret computer terms, know but a bare minimum of computer technology and get caught with "innovative advances" in the field. They think they are 31337, but in the eyes of a Linux geek (me) they're just like the Eloi, not capable of building their own tools and depending on others to do so.

He's not going to make antigravity with this theory, no. But he might make Cavorite.

Cavorite is a fictional material that blocks gravity, and it has appeared in science fiction for decades. No, it's not as useful as antigravity...but imagine what you could do with a launch vehicle that was weightless sitting on the ground.

Cavorite is also what Podkletnov was claiming, so the crackpot alarms should be ringing about now. But if it works, this is bigger than the invention of the automobile or airplane.

You are joking, aren't you? You've never heard of War of the Worlds? Go here and here.

HGWells book, radio show, film, and countless ripoffs. War of the Worlds is possibly the most famous alien invasion film in history - Independance Day was a poor copy of it (I think they called it an homage).

Yeah, Techno fetishists everywhere are already creaming their pants over the demonstration of the new "doctrine" of remote warfare displayed by the US in the Afghan War.

It's certainly good for initial deployment and aerial interdiction and control, but remains untested for endgame positional tactics using soft assets.

But this development is nothing that Our Prophet Philip Dick did not foresee in such stories as Second Variety .

It reminds me of how Twain saw the devastating and immobilizing affect on warfare of machine guns and trench technology in the closing chapters of his 1889 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court .

Or HG Wells foreseeing aerial warfare and the bombardment of cities and civilian populations in The War in the Air .

But because war is politics by any means necessary, when one approach is blocked the street will find a way to express itself through another. If politicized groups and countries cannot hope to use conventional warfare, then they will move on to more promising avenues and asymmetrical opportunities. Things more horribly inventive than destroying buildings with sharp knives and opportunity.

And as so many here have pointed out, most of this is self-serving propgaanda. 30% of munitions dropped still fail to explode. And this article points out, the Rout of the Taliban was largely a social victory. Factions on the ground saw which way the wind was blowing, shaved their beards, and changed sides.

But most of the same local bosses are still running things... why else do you think so many high-profile "Taliban" are being let go. Why is it proving so difficult to arrest Omar, a practically dead, half-blind guy doing a Steve McQueen on a motorbike?



Meanwhile, Blair ran a victory lap in Kabul. Right.

Remember, the Russians also "took" Afghanistan with virtually no resistance within a few months. But their mistake was to stay longer, and eventually the factions started uniting against them. That KC-130 that crashed, they are flying bricks. One hasn't crashed in error since the start of the 1970s. Odds are it was brought down by a shoulder-launched SAM at extremely close range.

And now the Marines are exiting and being replaced by the 101st, who'll be digging fortifying those bases that annoy the Russians so much. They are there for the long haul? I hope they have better luck than Reagan's Marines in Lebanon.

And why are Katz's articles so goddamn difficult to read? Does he go through a rewrite phase where he trys to find longer latinate words whenever possible, replacing anything short and punchy with polysyllabic monstrosities? A dose of Strunk and Whyte would go a long way there.

The Simpsons, albeit a cartoon show

I think that this fragment of a quote pretty much sums up the entire point of the class. There always have been, and still are, some philosophers who write philosophical tomes which are quite clearly philosophy. But philosophy presented in the form of entertainment is no less worthy of consideration.

Consider, for example, "Candide" (by Voltaire) or "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence". While they both take the form of a story, each is clearly a philosophical text as well. Likewise texts such as "Gulliver's Travels" and "Catch-22", while more focused on story, also contain plenty of social criticism, which is a form of philosophy.

Considering that "The Simpsons" is far more thoughtful than most of the rest of popular culture, I'm not at all surprised that someone decided to teach a class in it. Whether or not it lasts as part of the philosophical canon after it's off the air remains to be seen. It may not be good enough or philosophical enough to last, but I'm not surprised that it's being recognized in its time.

On a related note, Alan Moore (of "Watchmen" and "From Hell" fame, among other things) taught a class on comic books as literature at The University of California at Berkeley a few years back, and "Watchmen" is on the reading list for one Film/Rhetoric/English class there. This is another example of a "cartoon" that's being taken seriously. It has been known to happen :)

Will use Outlook only -- "Prayer will defend us from viruses", says school principal.

This will not do good for the acceptance of Linux in the Bible Belt -- Linux evolved through natural selection, while Windows was created by God.

In 1932, physicist Leo Szilard read an H.G. Wells novel, The World Set Free (1914) which described an imaginary world-war using atomic weapons. According to Szilard, this novel was responsible for his interest in in nuclear physics (despite Lord Rutherford's proclamation that atomic power was impossible). A year later, he realized how to set up a fission chain reaction and create atomic power.

I think this optimistic: how many people do you know who have read lots of sci-fi from the 30s and 40s? Take, for example, Edgar Rice Burroughs, who was both incredibly prolific and incredibly popular in his time (roughly, from 1914-50). Some extremely hardcore sci-fi buffs dip into his oeuvre; most don't. Even H.G. Wells and Jules Verne are rarely read in the original (though derivative works based -- usually quite loosely -- on their writings continue to be popular).

Sci-fi really does wear out its welcome, either because it is superseded by actual events (does anyone still want to read a marvelous story about a ship that travels under the surface of the sea? no?) or because the imagined science diverges so far from the known reality (are there aliens living on Mars? no, there aren't) that the concept is no longer intriguing. Horror does better because its fundamental premise that the rational view of the world is incomplete; vampires aren't materially more implausible now than when Stoker first put pen to paper.

Other than Shelley's Frankenstein, Poe's stories, Stoker's Dracula, Lovecraft's stories, Howard's "Conan" stories and Orwell's 1984, I can't think of any pre-1950 sci-fi, fantasy and horror writing (excepting fantasy aimed primarily at young children) which is still actually read widely.

(* Emphasize "actually" and "widely"; the fact that the "Indiana Jones" film series is an update of the Allan Quartermain stories does not mean many people are actually reading the Quartermain novels, nor does the fact that you might be reading them so indicate.)