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Virtual Genetic Evolution
Sleeperservice writes "This story at New Scientist describes how, using cell simulation in computers, evolution can be simulated. How long until we can work out what the DNA sequence for a Dragon should be I wonder?"
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They're speeding up evolution via a cell simulator. How long will it be before we get true AI by teaching a virtual human that was just freshly evolved? :)
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
That's an interesting idea, now that I think about it. A relatively low voltage can ignite methane. Methane is produced naturally by the body by waste products. Maybe a fire breathing dragon wouldn't be genetically impossible, after all.
They're hoping that one day the artificial creatures will develop artificial intelligence. They have to tell this what to develop (like an lgiht sensor for sight or a limb for motion.) We don't know how intelligence came about so how could we tell this program how to develop some? It's just like all the other things where you tell a computer a bunch of stuff about the world and hope it becomes intelligent, sure it has all this information but without knowing how to use it on it's own, it becomes quite useless.
I suppose when you get down to it we're all nothing more than electrical pulses running down organic "wires" anyway. That is, if you can ignore the support systems (cardio, and the like). It seems possible that this could be represented by the extremely logic nature of a computer.
The problem is they're not really simulating life since they pre-program the genome anyway. They are, in effect, telling it how a "complex web of neurons" (aka. brain) should look and operate.
The article claims they've created creatures with very primitive mobility and senses. Going from there to sentience, wants, needs, emotions, reproduction etc. will be very difficult to simulate in an environment where chaos does not exist.
OTOH, sounds like they've found a really clever compression scheme.
So what? This is just a comp sci experiment in cellular growth. All it is is JUST BITS. What I was interested in was the much earlier slashdot article that mentioned an evolving FPGA. After N iterations, it was re-creating itself in techniques mostly unknown to electricl engineers.
Point in fact: the evolving chips aren't a big step. To an EE, you test for all possibilites and capture all errors (look at firmware in cars). An evolving chip probably has errors here and there (so EE's aren't going to be put out of business). What the chip DID show is there are new and more potent techniques for chip creation. Bigger repirotoire and more testing.
http://www.draconian.com/body/body.htm
u t/
http://www.colba.net/~tempest1/From_tail_to_sno
What if we are just a simulation running on some computer? I guess that's all just Through the Looking Glass again. "Are we the dreamer, or merely a part of another's dream?"
BlackGriffen
The article reads like all they have done is code a bog standard Genetic Algorithm for moving boxes. Have I read the article wrong or have they discovered nothing new??
A computer can't possibly take into consideration all the myriad of influences on evolution. I'm sure it can postulate POSSIBLE evolutionary paths, but there is so much about evolution that is unpredictable that, to use a medium like a computer, something which is eminently predictable, just cannot consider every possible evolutionary change.
I don't even think we can have the "dragon" discussion.
We know we have these 4 building blocks, and we can kind of tell what certain groups do by trial and error, but we've been essentially reverse engineering the software without truly understanding the logic gates underneath.
Until you can tell me what adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine actually *do*, that we can create adapting computers is merely interesting rather than the next step in conscious evolution.
The hard part is figuring out an envrionment where mice and roaches won't be happy enough that they need to create kerosene glands and wings and scales and horns and crap. :-)
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
How can you possibly believe in that evolutionary tripe? God created the Heavens and the Earth and mankind. The idea that we evolved from monkeys is offensive to even consider. This article in now way proves that evolution is possible because it was created with a specific goal of evolution in mind.
Besides, how can you can believe in evolution when it violates basic laws of the universe? There are so many arguments against evolution that it's ridiculous.
Even those that ignore the written record of humanity cannot ignore the scientific facts making it impossible.
Evolutionists claim that universe the earth is billions of years old, but how is that possible when the rotation of the earth slows by 30 seconds every century? If the earth were billions of years old the speed at which it would have been rotating four years ago would have been so fast that it could not have held together.
There's also the second law of thermodynamics to look at. It states that the universe is constantly heading toward disorder. Evolution violates that law, so which one is right?
Another problem with evolution is that certain nucleic acids cannot form without the help of certain proteins, but those proteins cannot form without certain nucleic acids. That makes it impossible to occur naturally.
Face it, there are many, many more facts that I could go on about that disprove the possibility of evolution bringing about the human race. Humans are so complex biologically that we simply could not have come about through chance happenings in just 5000 years (rougly the age of the earth). Evolutionists simply spread lies.
It was created by someone and it allowed you to watch the progress of a little robot-thingy, and it would create different versions of itself and continue allowing itself to be able to walk, move, sense stuff, you know... Anybody know where that was?
I belive dragons are supposed to be fire-breathing, not fire-farting.
I'd written an essay on something similar to this, of using DNA Mapping long ago when I'd just started doing AI. You can find the essay here.
/virtual humans/ and so on.
Ofcourse, once you start working on it, you just realise how damn tough it is, and although it sounds easy on paper, it's just not that simple. Simulated environments are just too complex.
And it's also interesting that David Zindell has written some interesting stuff on this in his series Requiem for Homo Sapiens, on simulated
The day is not far when bots will replace the slashdot editors .. A simple program will do ..
: bash microsoft once a day.
: praise linux thrice a day.
: arrange fights frequently between kde and gnome,mozilla and IE,mysql and postgres ...blah..
: put the latest linux.2.5.1.0.1.0 release on the front page and wait for the trolls about how this is news.
blah blah ...
and just imagine no more spelling/grammatical mistakes !
( no, this is not a troll :) )
me
How long until we can work out what the DNA sequence for a Dragon should be I wonder?
If you consider that we already have what is by far the world's largest Beowulf Cluster (tm) working on this problem -- every living organism in the world -- perhaps not so long.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Do we really want to know where we're heading down the evolutionary highway?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Does anyone remember that one voyager where they did the opposite of this, they ran into this nomadic saurian species and they took their dna and went to the holodeck and de-evolved them and they ended up being the decendants of earth hadrosaurs.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The Simulation Argument
Are You Living In a Computer Simulation?
Nick Bostrom (2002)
Forthcoming in Philosophical Quarterly.
ABSTRACT. This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a "posthuman" stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.
A-38847, First cutaway 4-14-2002
What jump number? Inquiring minds want to know. Also, what's your DZ?
Blue skies!
E
B-34024, First cutaway 1.April.1995, jump #30
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
The sheer arrogance of the slashdot poster is unbelievable. Just listen to this:
This story at New Scientist describes how, using cell simulation in computers, evolution can be simulated. How long until we can work out what the DNA sequence for a Dragon should be I wonder?
Come on! The simulation is about as closer to reality as the economist assumptions of the rational consumers. You don't know how many corners they can cut in their simulation. It's just a simulation and it is as good as the assumptions made by the people who created the simulation. Real life is messy and difficult to predict. It will be hundreds of years before they get the simulation even close to the true working of a real cell.
I want the specifications so I can sell them on slashdot for 50 mod points a pop.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
I belive dragons are supposed to be fire-breathing, not fire-farting.
Pretty funny. An extremely dry gizzard could produce static electricity. Enough to ignite methane, especially if there was a mixture of oxygen and methane, which could happen due to a large number of anatomical oddities. Not only that, but methane can be ignited chemically; it doesn't have to be electrically.
Yeah I agree, id much rather beleive in a "god" that was invented from suffering and came to rule by suffering. Think about it, before the fall of the roman empire, christianity had a very small foothold. When it fell, people didnt have a perfect life anymore, in face, their lives sucked. The most common tombstone enscription was "i was not, i was, i am not, i have no more desires". Out of this "hell" people decided to believe in an afterlife because their real lives were so terrible. This is when all of these rediculous laws came up: you must go to church on sundays, the whole system of power that came out of the ability to rule people's lives, all you need to do to get into heaven is repent your sins to one of these officials that "god" never appointed.
If you can agree with this more than you can agree with the logical system of evolution, where accidental mutations can advance the species or just disappear, then by all means do it. I hope you get into your "heaven" and i hope everything works out for you. But i think you should remember that your buying into a religion that (like all religions) bases itself in anguish and fear.
You may read this and say "what a jackass, he just had to go on and ramble about a whole bunch untrue, unglody crap(and i hope you throw in, 'what a fag' or something really clever)" You should remember that you brought this subject up, and its one that shouldnt have been discussed at all, considering that the subject had nothing to do with the validity of evolution. In fact, if you would have payed just a little more attention before preaching to everybody, you would have realized (maybe) that the whole point of the experiment was to test the theory of evolution, and if proved wrong, you just might have more "proof" that you god exists.
So next time, dont bring your religious beliefs into a discussion of science, that neither denounces (no matter what my personal opinions are), or eulogizes religion.
And please dont mod me down for this ramble, the comment that provoked this response actually got modded up, so dont be completely biased, id rather hear a response than an attack on my karma.
I will not be trained.
This simulation is on par (maybe a *little* more in-depth than) the GOLEM project that's been running out of Brandeis for quite a while now (you can download your own evolution simulation). Basic blocks which when recombined with each other "develop" into more complex things that can be rated on their ability to function in a certain role and be recombined to hopefully produce something even more efficient.
More impressive forced-evolution science is the DNA shuffling work of labs and companies like Maxygen. This is truly evolution in a tube and deals directly with the genetic sequence as opposed to higher-level vague cell-type simulations.
But the great thing about science is that there's room enough in it for pretty much any research.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
well said.
Indeed such is the nature of human beings that we tend to repeat ourselves although we will be the last ones to admit it.
Every one one of us has mannerisms, pet peeves, a certain set of biased opinions etc etc that we could *perhaps* be replaced by a bot one day and no one will be wiser.
me
I've always been interested in this, because if this is possible, it would seriously increase the chances of life being elsewhere, since the odds of an "Earth-like" planet are supposedly not that great.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
I had a population of simulated organisms competing in a shared 2d grid for food, which appeared in a pile at a random location when the old food was depleted. While the organism had basic looking/moving operations to rely on, invariably some would discover that with enough organisms, the food moves enough that you can survive by just looking around until the food is in your line of sight, and then jumping on it. My arbitrary decision to place the food randomly formed the basis for an *entire species* of organisms (which didn't fare too well when some got smarter).
These same organisms used a stack to do their thinking. Looking and eating produced values, which could be used for simple branching. Out of sheer laziness, I designed the stack to allow infinite pops off an empty stack which would return false, and infinite pushes on a full stack which would discard the values. One memorable run produced a dominant species which relied on this stack behavior to implement COUNTING! It intentionally (well, purposefully) left crud on the stack in a main loop, relying on the filled-stack behavior to detect a certain number of iterations. The stacksize and the arena size happened to be comparable, and this is how it determined when to turn.
I highly suspect that it is a troll too, but misguided trolls exist who just don't believe or understand or don't want to understand.
The third component that you passed on is also known as the interlocking component conundrum, or the chicken-and-egg problem ('which came first...'), or the idea that when you have a complex system composed of multiple interdependent parts (e.g. the coagulation cascade of clotting factors in the blood, the DNA -> RNA -> protein -> multiple protein activities and A,T,C,G creating enzymes -> nuclear bases -> DNA system, etc.) then there must have been NO reason for the individual elements to have evolved on their own because they serve no purpose without their interdependent parts.
This anti evolution argument has been expounded most strongly by Michael Behe, a chemist or biochemist, in his book Darwin's Black Box. The strongest counterargument is that proteins and other molecules do not simply play a single role. A protein that is known as Coagulation Factor X does not simply play a role in coagulating. It may also have other activites. And these other activities may have been selected for after they had arisen out of random mutation. Philip Johnson, a lawyer, is another anti-evolution creationist who has also published a few books on this topic. Rather than list any specific book that argues against Behe or Johnson, I recommend looking at general biology and biochemistry books.
Evolution may be called a theory, but it is a well accepted theory that is buttressed by a strong scientific and evidentiary basis. Creationism is not.
Wouldn't future computers have precision limitations that would cause artifacts in the simulated world? Relativity and the passage of time, randomness of subatomic particles.
Also, the authors of the universe would have to cheat from time to time to deal with the limitations of whatever hardware they're using. Not wanting to simulate an entire universe, they just crudely simulate distant worlds as point sources of information and place them far enough so the approximation will never be realized.
Also, adjustments would be made from time to time as the simulation evolved. After all, such a universe would be a product of curiousity and it would be difficult to not want to tweak certain things and see how the system is affected.
But then you get into the murky business of whether or not the simulators are simulated. If simulation=reality, it becomes illogical to continue pondering the question.
"How long until we can work out what the DNA sequence for a Dragon should be I wonder?"
Well the article says they are 'breeding' the most effective pusher... So it should be not long before Dragons are developed...
I mean, how much more effective can it be to drag than push?
Drag-on my virtual brothers!
Does anyone read the actual articles anymore?
DJMD - The fourth man - Planetary
I am the father of two one-year-old identical twins. Although they look exactly alike and share many gross, physical characteristics (size, athletic ability, etc.) in many respects they play very differently. Madeline is much more bookish, likes to site and "hang out", and is generally a thinker. Rebecca is an adventurer, likes to wrestle with her brother, jump on the bed, and dance to Jazz music. No, I'm not making any of this up or projecting it - others have observed the same trends.
Even before they were born, these trends were observable. Rebecca would respond (in the womb) to high energy, big band music. Madeline would respond best to classical - she particurly liked Bach. I ran the experiment again and again - Swing and Rebecca would Kick, Bach and Madeline would kick. (Yes, you can tell which is which if you get an ultrasound.)
Although my girls are genetically identical, they have been very different as long as we can determine, and these differences do not seem to be easily attributable to environmental factors (What is really so different about one side of a uterus from another? And, believe me, when you have twins there is not a lot of time for individual attention. Mostly, you are dealing with both of them in the same way at the same time.)
The point is that, although genetics are obviously important, there seems to be more to a human being than just his genetic code and experiences. For lack of a better word, I will call that his "soul." This sounds like cool research, but based on my experiences I think that the most we will get is a smarter computer.
I realize this is all anecdotal - I don't know any way you could make something this fuzzy reproducible - but anecdotal evidence is generally quite convincing to the one telling the anecdote :)
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Do you think HP is trying to build themselves a new CEO? "So far, none of the virtual creatures has grown the equivalent of a brain." Hmmm.. looks like Carly should be nervous!
Obviously, you know virtually nothing about history and even less about Christianity to say this.
Claim 1: That Christianity didn't gain more than a small foothold until after the fall of the Roman empire. This is simply not true. In fact, Christianity seems to have been a force to reckon with as early as 115 in parts of the empire - witness the letter of Pliny the Younger (in Egypt) asking how to do deal with it. In fact, Starting in the early 300s, Christianity was THE official religion of the empire. However, the Western Empire didn't fall until (generally accepted date) 476CE and the Eastern Empire persisted in one form or another until almost 1500.
Claim 2: That Christians invented their religion in response to suffering, to develop a fantasy afterlife with no suffering. Here, you display a severe lack of Knowledge of the New Testament. In fact, the early Christians were severely persecuted. We know that at least three of the major early leaders were executed by the authorities before 70 (Peter, Paul and James) and we know that the leaders were again and again imprisioned for their faith. We have numerous books that seem to be written by and for people undergoing serious persecution - e.g. Revelation. (Also, consider Matthew 24). And there are about a million side references in Paul to persevering through persecution. In fact, that seems to be one of the major recurring themes of the New Testament. It was not until the end of the third century that being a Christian was even LEGAL - it was largely illegal because worshiping "King Jesus" was seen, across the empire, as a threat to the imperial cult and to the emperor.
Claim 3: that all these "rediculous" (sic) laws came up out of a desire to avoid hell. In fact, the specific "laws" you mention are specifically denied in the New Testament. For example:
No responsible theologian would claim that you were required to go to church on Sundays, although most would say that it is a good idea.Look: You are trying to judge a religious faith - which is ultimately a set of propositions - by the actions of relatively few of its adherents. This is not fair - ultimately the propositions can stand or fall on their own. And the main proposition is the fact of Jesus' resurrection. I have found that, if you actually approach this issue with rigor, you are forced to the conclusion that Jesus did rise from the dead (the best efforts of certain "scholars" notwithstanding.) I was not raised in the church, I came to that conclusion as an adult. Why don't you stop focusing on peripheral issues and instead look at the core of the faith?
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Koza et al have been doing this for years via Genetic Programming (www.genetic-programming.com).
While still surviving in it ;) On a side note- How did everybody else go about developing spears and blades fo hunting and combat while the aboriginies came up with a revolving, self return airfoil as a weapon? Simulate that.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Dr. Dan Ashlock at Iowa State University has been evolving robots that push blocks around a 2-D world for some time now. Check out the BotWorld link on his research page for info. On a side note, I did a research project for one of his courses during Spring 2002, where I evolved robots for Robocode that were effective in destroying human-programmed robots.
what if we would some day simulate a single human/animal cell and force it to split. Wouldnt that lead to a full featured human being if we simulated the environment right. I wonder what it must be like to live inside a custommade simulation (if we arent already...;-) and what kind of ethical questions this would rise.
I came across this topic lately when i was discussing with a friend who believes that there actually IS something like a soul. I tried to rule the soul out by giving the stated example. So, what do you think? Would a artificially created (simulated) human have some sort of soul, or human rights?
And why does it always make me feel like standing in a hall of mirrors?
cu,
Lispy
Are Creationists going to build a God simulation in order to compete?
Table-ized A.I.
So It may infact, be possible to overclock the UNIVERSE!!!
mmmmmm
Years ago I read an intriguing Omni article that talked about Dragons and hydrogen. This is the best reference online I could find...
Excerpted from Dragon Tarot
This actually works pretty well for Pratchett's swamp dragons (Discworld) that tend to explode when they get agitated.
unfortunently, it is too long to fit inside this comment box.
Again quoting the hawkman (mchawking.com)
Fuck The Creationists
Trash Talk
Ah yeah, here we go again!
Damn! This is some funky shit that I be laying down on your ass.
This one goes out to all my homey's working in the field of
evolutionary science.
Check it!
Verse 1
Fuck the damn creationists, those bunch of dumb-ass bitches,
every time I think of them my trigger finger itches.
They want to have their bullshit, taught in public class,
Stephen J. Gould should put his foot right up their ass.
Noah and his ark, Adam and his Eve,
straight up fairy stories even children don't believe.
I'm not saying there's no god, that's not for me to say,
all I'm saying is the Earth was not made in a day.
Chorus
Fuck, fuck, fuck,
fuck the Creationists.
Trash Talk
Break it down.
Ah damn, this is a funky jam!
I'm about ready to kick this bitch back in.
Check it.
Verse 2
Fuck the damn creationists I say it with authority,
because kicking their punk asses be me paramount priority.
Them wack-ass bitches say, "evolution's just a theory",
they best step off, them brainless fools, I'll give them cause to fear me.
The cosmos is expanding every second, every day,
but their minds are shrinking as they close their eyes and pray.
They call their bullshit science like the word could give them cred,
if them bitches be scientists then cap me in the head.
Chorus
Trash Talk
Bass!
Bring that shit in!
Ah yeah, that's right, fuck them all motherfuckers.
Fucking punk ass creationists trying to set scientific thought back 400 years.
Fuck that!
If them superstitious motherfuckers want to have that kind of party,
I'm going to put my dick in the mashed potatoes.
Fucking creationists.
Fuck them.
Close
I assert ownership of all trademarks and copyrights on this page.
It is to be expected that a loudmouthed braggart wouldn't even bother to read his own references. If you read the navy.mil link closely, you'll note that it gives the rate of change of the earth's rotation with a unit of ms/days/century, ie, a changing rate, not a constant. Granted, we're slowing at about 2.2 ms/cent right now, but if you look at the inputs to the differential equation, you'll find that it makes a lot of sense that we would slow down more slowly as we continued slowing down. Think about it, then re-read your resources, then please realize that science based on bad theology is a terrible idea.
Genetic algorithms are interesting and useful in some cases. But attempting to recreate evolution in a useful amount of time using these techniques.
Let's see.... assume we start with single celled organisms in the ocean.
We have 3 billion years - that.s 9x10^16 seconds.
And how many organisms... well, assume the biological part of the ocean is a foot deep and that the ocean covers 2/3rds of the earth's surface... that is about 1*10^15 cubic meters or 10^21 cubic centimeters. And lets say there are a billion cells per CC (not unreasonable)...
That's 10^24 cells for about 10^16 seconds or
10^40 cell-seconds. Lets assume an evolutionary event (cell fission, DNA absorption, whatever) takes place once an hour per cell. That's about 3*10^37 evolutionary events. And that's just to get to the first multicellular creature!
I think it would take a lot faster computers to get 10^37 events in a genetic algorithm!
Of course, one can guide and tweak and limit... but I don't think a dragon is going to be forthcoming!!
The only good weather is bad weather.
The point is that, although genetics are obviously important, there seems to be more to a human being than just his genetic code and experiences. For lack of a better word, I will call that his "soul."
Or differing nutrient and hormonal exposure when they shared the womb...
Generally, gases like methane and hydrogen, though plausible for a biological organism to create, store, and ignite, don't fit the concept of the "fire-breathing" drake very well, IMO. Gases are tough to store in any real quantity, which would mean that a dragon utilizing such a substance would get maybe one or two weak "breaths" (more just a big puff of flame) before being expended.
Also, someone suggested that the gas would be mixed in the lungs and then ignited during exhalation. Talk about a big bang! If the gas was already mixed with oxygen on the inside, then, upon ignition, you'd have dragon innards all over the place. In the context of this discussion, I think that such an arrangement could be considered a "fatal mutation".
The fire-breath-weapon substance of choice in my draconic designs is something akin to Greek Fire. Essentially a petroleum-based liquid, it could also be produced by biological processes and a great deal more could be stored in the body of the dragon. It would also have a higher potential energy density per unit volume than hydrogen or methane gas. It wouldn't even need to be ignited, as it spontaneously combusts on contact with air (but it still could be, if the substance did not possess this intrinsic quality).
Of course, that sword-thrust into the liquid fire bladder would make things VERY BAD for both the dragon and the hapless knight; being completely doused with greek fire would ruin anyone's day.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
it says so itself!
Here are some other creation stories.
Perhaps God created the big bang in itself and mankind invented religion to soothe minds and facilitate ruling.
Why did GEAR crush RDP?
How can we have faith in something we don't know anything about? Could you believe in God without the Bible? I suppose you could, but you'd have no basis for belief. The Bible is God's manifestation of Himself to the world -- if you don't believe that He can be accurate with regard to science, how can you believe that he really means what he says in John 3:16?
Last point -- Science has nothing to do with evolution, unless you can show me evolution occurring now. Science does not deal with the past or the future -- it deals with the present, with repeatable results. You cannot use science to prove the existence of God, and you cannot use science to prove evolution. Both are outside the realm of science, and in the realm of faith -- evolution is no less faith than Christianity.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
Actually, I have always suspected that the fossils were put in the ground using nano-technology. Who says that ancient peoples did not have the technology just because we have not found a three-thousand year old silicon wafer factory?
"Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky, Imagine all the people living for today... Imagine there's no countries, It isnt hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, No religion too, Imagine all the people living life in peace..."
I will not be trained.
I'm working on a Masters in Theological Studies, and in a year expect to be working on my PhD at University of Virginia (not exactly a charm school), and have debated Christianity vs. Atheism with the best on the Net and off. I went through two years of debating anyone and everyone on the net on the historical merits of Christianity, and at the end of it came to the conclusion that there was not one valid historical argument against Christianity and that there were many, many reasons to believe it was true.
Let me respond to your Lennonism with a relevant quote:
What are your relevant historical reasons for assuming that this (indisputably authentic) utterance is a lie? And when will you be getting your high school diploma?"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Been going for years
Creature Labs
And for Linux...
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
Easy.
Judas was dead. There was no Twelve.
Can I get a doctorate via mail order too?
Of course it's going off the rails. How else is it ever going to fly?
You can, of course,come up with things that could be slightly different. For example, Rebecca was born thirty minutes sooner, and her head had to push open the cervix, so maybe she's just a little bit brain damaged? However, the babies differed only by three ounces of weight (one was 5lbs. 9oz., the other wass 5lbs. 12oz.) have been together ever since, etc. I think that any naturalistic differences you claim are really just post-hoc rationalizations designed to preserve a failed concept of human nature.
But, that's just me. :)
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Maybe the HCl theory explains why dragons seem to have a taste for knights in shining armor since you need to disolve some metal in HCl to get Hydrogen gazz.
Eat at Joe's.
1) at first all my high scoring programs were very short.
2) once adding points for length, all my working programs ( populations circa 1000 ) started with the '#' character.
So I did a $prog =~ s/\#//g; before eval ( $prog ); from now on and all the # cheaters died. Then I tried to teach it to add. I set three variables that would be visible in scope to the programs I was evalling. my ( $input_a, $input_b, $output ) = ( 3, 5, 0 ); Then I scored the programs higher if the program changed the values of any of the three variables. I added code to increase the score of a program further if the values of any of the three variables depended on the initial values of the inputs ( by changing the initial values and re-evalling )
Things I found:
1) a grep of my perl program beasties for input_a and friends found zilch.
2) my perl beasties were still very short
So I added score for length, and I started doing some genetic engineering by splicing in '$input_a' '$input_b', and '$output' at the '#' crosspoints randomly for every child program.
Things I found:
1) Many perl beasties grepped for $input_a and pals
2) None of my beasties changed the values of any of output, and inputs a and b
Then I got bored and had a sickpack of beer and soon didn't care anymore. But something's moving in my basement and I don't have any pets....
Eat at Joe's.
OOPS. you might have to view source to see the first part of this post since I think my alphabet made a tag..
Eat at Joe's.
words like eval, open, opendir, link, unlink, exec, and system were removed before evaluations.
Eat at Joe's.
in a year expect to be working on my PhD at University of Virginia
Heh heh. Where was your God last Thursday when UVA was crushed by the mighty (ha!) CSU Rams?
And don't tell me God doesn't watch football - how do you think Notre Dame has won so many games?
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Okay, you made me laugh. For this favor, I pray that you will eventually repent of your Ramish, Yakish, and otherwise shaven ways and eventually come into the glory of... errr. Never mind.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Close, but no cigar. Matthias wasn't chosen until after the final ascension. So there was no twelve when Jesus made his surprise encore.
Christians - give them a stick of bread and they give you a pretzel.
Of course it's going off the rails. How else is it ever going to fly?
Now either the search function on my browser is busted, or nobody got the aylee/sluggy freelance reference Michael put in there (the dandruff shampoo part). Bad slashdot!
(well, either that or it wasn't there to begin with and I'm just imagining it... but really, am I the only person who made this connection?)
http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=971018