Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: BlackBerry, Cloning, Smart Hotels
BlackBerry closer to a shutdown. WebHostingGuy writes to tell us MSNBC is reporting that Research in Motion Ltd, the company who makes the BlackBerry is nearer now to a shutdown of their US mobile email service than ever due to the recent ruling handed down. From the article: "U.S. District Judge James Spencer Wednesday ruled invalid a $450 million settlement between RIM and NTP Inc., a small patent holding firm of McLean, Va., that maintains the technology behind the popular BlackBerry infringes on its patents."
Cloning pioneer admits to wrongdoing and resigns. moraes writes "The first research group to clone human embryos ran into some ethical difficulties concerning the source of the eggs - allegations were made indicating that the eggs were taken from junior research assistants. The South Korean pioneer, Hwang Woo Suk, has since resigned his official posts and apologized for lying about the sources of eggs used.."
China on the moon by 2020. IZ Reloaded writes "China will send its astronauts to the moon by 2020 according to the Deputy Commander in Chief of China's manned space flight program. Hu Shixiang said that the goal is subject to the government's funding and their ability to build a rocket with 25 tons capacity."
Behined the scenes with Cisco. molotov writes "Cisco installed the system described in the recent Slashdot article about Smart Hotel Rooms in New York City and has a great video about the technology used in a similar project for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel."
Massachusetts gives Microsoft a second chance. An anonymous reader writes "CNet is reporting that Massachusetts is considering adopting the MS Office XML format as a standard to be used to store the state's documents now that it is under review as an ECMA standard. From the article: 'The commonwealth is very pleased with Microsoft's progress in creating an open document format. If Microsoft follows through as planned, we are optimistic that Office Open XML will meet our new standards for acceptable open formats.' Microsoft still does not intend to support the OpenOffice standard." IBM also took the time to weigh in on the issue with a recent letter to Thomas Trimarco.
University sued for supporting evolution. Hikaru79 writes to tell us that two parents are suing the University of California-Berkeley based on the contents of a website aimed at educating teachers. From the article: "Jeanne and Larry Caldwell, the couple bringing the suit against the site, claim that the site delves improperly into religion. While most debates center around whether or not Intelligent Design is "religion in the classroom," the Caldwells are looking to spin it the other way."
What's wrong with believing that the "Intelligent Being" *designed* evolution? That the Being designed this whole system we live in and all the laws that govern it.
The sooner religious types retreat back to the big bang and say that God did that and set everything else in motion, the sooner they can stop being humiliated by science at every step of the way on this inevitable course. The less publically humiliated they are, the more gullible people they can recruit.
Personally, my faith is a perosonal choice about certain things that cannot be conclusively proven either way.
You can't prove there isn't a God, and I can't prove there is a God.
It's technically falacy to make the assumption either way that he does or does not exist.
Still, I prefer a world where God exists, thus I choose to believe in him.
Call it "willful idiocy" if you want, but if it's a knowing, concious and rational decision... I don't see how you can support such an assertion.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
"...but I don't see why you need to call those who are religious idiots or insane."
Because they ARE idiots or lunatics. Living life based on ancient myths, legends, and fairy tales simply because it makes one feel good, is a despicable thing. The greatest advantage humans have over the other animals on this planet is our ability to reason, and religion is a direct rejection of our ability to reason in favor of being lazy and accepting silly stories as the basis of all existance.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/
Good web site, showing the christian objection to evolution in a way that all anti-creationists can understand.
And attached, an article wholy reproduced, stating a common christian objection to the 'but its not scientific', 'Creationism isn't science.' 'They don't understand the rules of what science is,
or they deliberately ignore them.' objections:
jech
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v11/i1/ru les.asp
The rules of the game
As the 'rules' of science are now defined, creation is forbidden as a conclusion--even if true.
by Carl Wieland
'Creationism isn't science.'
'They don't understand the rules of what science is,
or they deliberately ignore them.'
Comments such as these flow readily from the pens of the many critics of the modern creationist movement. Why are such comments so widely and passionately believed? I believe that the only rule creationists are 'breaking' is one which cannot be said to properly belong to a scientific inquiry into origins, and which effectively imposes a religious dogma upon science.
Rhonda Jones (Professor of Zoology, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia) is one who has reacted with what she calls 'stunned indignation' to the suggestion that science students should have evidence for creation presented to them along with evidence for evolution (Quadrant, August, 1988).
She gives two criteria which she feels are universal to all definitions of science. She insists that evolutionary theory meets both requirements, but creationism meets neither. Let's examine these.
Correctibility
(1) 'Correctibility -- some acknowledgment that what we currently think can be changed by future discoveries.'
It is a common caricature of creationism to paint it as a fixed, immovable set of ideas that leaves no room for change or discussion, as opposed to 'real' science (read 'evolutionary theorizing') which is vibrantly alive with constantly changing ideas and concepts refined by new evidence. This is, of course, simply not true. There are, always have been, and presumably always will be many healthy scientific controversies among creation-oriented scientists. The speed of light decay theory is just one example that springs to mind (this is the belief that the speed of light is not constant, but has been decreasing).
It is true that there is a 'bottom line' in the creationist framework belief in the literal truth of Genesis. However, there is a 'bottom line' for evolutionary theorists too just as fixed and immovable, in my experience. It too is a belief that the world has made itself. Put another way, it is a belief that natural processes and causes must have been sufficient to build planets and people from particles.
There are indeed many controversies about the mechanism of this self-transformation. Opinions shift and scientists are often willing to correct and abandon their ideas about how evolution happened. But they are not prepared to abandon the bottom line, the belief that some sort of evolution did occur. To put it another way, the how of evolution is negotiable, but not the whether.
At the 1967 Wistar Institute Symposium, top-level evolutionary biologists and mathematicians met to mathematically test the idea of evolution by mutation/selection. When the super-computers finished crunching their numbers, it was obvious that the answer was 'impossible'. It was reported that when someone very cautiously (maybe even rhetorically) asked whether this meant that perhaps one should look at special creation as an option, there were loud cries of 'No!' 'No!' from the floor.
Study Nature
(2) 'A commitment to finding out how the world works by studying the natural world itself.'
Creationist scientists are of course equally committed to this statement, since you will notice it refers to 'how the world works'