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."
"Look, we're using a document format that abuses an open standard! That means we're using open standards too!"
Groklaw's dissection of MS's "open format" is a lot more thorough than mine. Go read it.
Because clearly, Blackberries only exist so that your bosses boss can send you an email with a sig at the bottom that says "sent from Mr. Big's Blackberry (while rolling down the hgwy in his Z4).
But seriously, the company I work at recently yanked all blackberry devices and replaced them with Treo 600 and treo 650's.
the fact that you dont need any "special" software to access email and has the capability of viewing doc and excel attachments was the death spike for the blackberry here at this company.
and honestly, the treo's have much better sounding audio for phone calls than even the latest blackberry's did.
Check out my website: Playfully Clever
I don't have respect for such patent holding companies that don't produce anything but litigation. On the other hand, if RIMM loses, I hope they have the balls to pull the government services too.
From the relevant Money article:
RIM said in a statement that it would continue efforts to get the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. The company also reiterated that it has prepared a software upgrade that can be used to work around the disputed patents.
Several analysts believe that RIM is likely to avoid an injunction by settling, whatever the cost. At the moment, this all certainly makes me glad that I use a Treo.
Do you like German cars?
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."
The Chinese have a huge population and apparently an unknown AIDS victim population that keeps growing. Some estimates are in the 10+ million range.
China is full of amazing scientists that have been making huge advancements. Why are they pushing so hard for the space race and not for eliminating AIDS and opening their *real* numbers of infection to the world?
I'm unimpressed with anything they do until they get their ass in gear and stop w/the human rights issues and the government coverups that go along with it. That includes ANY country, not just them.
"Hu Shixiang said that the goal is subject to the government's funding and their ability to build a rocket with 25 tons capacity." :)
Good news then, finally something that will be able to lift american space tourists
On the other hand they had salt mines...
But then again if we were to send the lawyers to the salt mines, I think it would solve most of our problems...
I shal call the new ideology Communiapitalism, or capitunism.
Crawl before me, ye wealthy, or state funded rather-well-off.
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
There's nothing wrong with that belief, providing you don't try to foist it on school children as being science.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I thought the problem was whether this view should be taught in science classes or not. Personally I believe it should be left for discussion in philosophy classes...
Also, their argument is partially based on the fact that the site is government funded. Does this mean that eventually private institutions are going to be the only places allowed to teach without getting hassled? Schools shouldn't operate under fear of suit.
sure they can co-exist - one gets taught in science class the other in religion class - very simple.
The issue here is different though - UC has a requirement that for entry you have taken classes in A, B, C and D - in this case one of these is a science class that covers certain topics including the theory of evolution and the religious schools are complaining because they decline offer those classes. UC's not turning people down, just requiring them to take make-up classes (BTW UC doesn't have any religious education requirement)
Oh, for crying out lo--
Look, it's simple. The only thing science and religion have in common with each other is that they're both methods people use to try to make sense of the world around us. Period, full stop, end of the matter.
Science holds most dear that which can be objectively, repeatedly, independently verified. Religion, on the other hand...religion is nothing without faith.
And a person with faith is one who makes conclusions about that which he has concluded is inconclusive, has knowledge about that which she knows is unknowable. Faith is not ``willful ignorance,'' but rather ``willful insanity'' or ``willful idiocy.'' Faith is a thing deserving not praise and respect, but pity and scorn.
To equate science with religion in this context in an attempt to force their superstitious mindfuck on people is just about the most reprehensible thing I can think of--especially when you consider that these people would be dead without modern medecine, and that modern medicine wouldn't exist without that oh-so-hated cornerstone of science, the Theory of Evolution.
</rant>
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
There's nothing wrong with believing in it, but there are several issues.
1) Science does not deal with the metaphysical. Therefore, this is should be taught in a philosophy class and not a science class.
2) Only one being? How do you know there's only one?
whats so good about blackberry when you have generic mobile devices which can access email though a browser and supports most trivial tasks you already do on a desktop...
It's wrong because you're just making up fantasy to try to appease religious fanatics.
Scientists shouldn't try to appease. They should do nothing more than try to understand nature via the devising of theories, and then using observation and experimentation to back up said theories.
Sure, you can concoct some story about some intelligent designer designing evolution. But that doesn't change the fact that there's no basis to such claims.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Why not China? It is an awesome adventure and everyone would learn from it.
NASA would rather spend their money on a space station, I think they should go back to the moon instead. Send an unmanned mission first maybe, then they could learn from this probe and send another manned mission.
I think there is still much more to learn from the moon. It seems to be a better use of money rather than simply orbiting Earth, which many satellites already do very well.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Yes, and this entity is called "LAWS OF PHYSICS".
Stupid jokes appart : No. It's not possible, because evolution is about understanding the mecanism which made todays deversified life-form (even in your exemple, science is used to understand how the designer did design. In a phylosophical way, modern science is patiently and minutiously dissecting deities). Like everything else in science, it's about finding good models to understand and predict.
And Intelligent design is by defition (by the definition of its proponent) is something that CANNOT be understood and SHOULDN'T be falsifiable (the whole "designer has planted dinosaur fossils to fool us" part and other "noodly appendages"). It's "don't ask questions and just believe, if our explanation doesn't seem understandable it's the designers fault". That's why ID cannot be considered as science.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
</interesting>
That's not the source of contention. Almost everyone believes or can be easily convinced that organisms adapt (microevolution). The primary arguments are centered around macroevolution (monkey to man, etc) and differing timetables between evolution and creation. To make things a little more complicated, you'll also find a large number of Intelligent Design proponents who do not support creation in 6 days.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Bullshit. Show a biologist new evidence, and if the prevailing theory doesn't fit, it changes.
Show a religious person evidence of any kind that contradicts their faith, and the faith doesn't change. After all, virtue from a religious standpoint is believing the unbelievable.
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times." Bill Hicks
Sorry, ID is most definitely NOT a hypothesis. A Hypothesis can be falsified - whereas the CONCEPT or IDEA of ID can't be falsified, so it quite definitely does not get the dignity of being called a hypothesis. It's a crackpot belief - nothing more. Please don't get me started about the "I'm entitled to my belief" thing because it gets long... The crux of the statement is that you have an entitlement. Unfortunately, every true entitlement also means a corresponding duty. The right to life for example, has a corresponding duty on everyone else not to kill you. If there is no duty, then there can be no entitlement. So, strictly speaking, you are NOT entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to express your opinion - be it true or false - but you do not have an entitlement to believe in something which is not true.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
From TFA:
(...)RIM repeated that it will implement a software "workaround" if the court issues an injunction to shut down its U.S. service(...)
(...)Some analysts and industry observers expect RIM could be backed into a corner and forced to settle for a sum as high as $1 billion.(...)
It sounds more like the company is closer to a $1 bil settlement rather than it is to being shut down. Now, that's still news, but not as close as 3.6 million people losing service permantently.
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.
It may be valid to assume that the laws were designed, but the more we find out about evolution the more it looks like it basically happens by itself - it does not need a designer. In that case, why go to the bother of assuming one?
Science may someday become a religion. Science may sometimes hunker down behind it assumptions, basking in the booty that it's greed and prejudice has gained, arguing that others are profiting immorally while it'w own priests are sitting in palaces, wearing funny hats, eating scrumptious meals, handing down edicts, while the rest of world starves and die becuase protective devices and medicines are prohibited due to vague holy sciprt, but that has not happened yet.
What has happened is that science has the metacognition to understand that the dangers lie in the assumptions. Scientists dare each other to prove that the constants are constant. They dare each other to come up with wilder hypothosis, and then destroy each other in the process of proving it.The holy wars are bloodless fueds posited through the journals, not barbaric spats on involving noose, or fire, or rape. The vested interests can be unseated with a simple allegation of impropriety. All work is open to public, not hidden behind doors that never see an opposing opinion.
Now, i am not implying that all is perfect, but sciences subversion of religion is deeper than religion. if one believes in natural cause and effect, then one cannot believe that god destroyed new orleans for being a city of sin. One cannot believe that god sent AIDS to kill the infidels of sub saharan africa. One cannot believe that one or two or a few people have a holy authority to dominate the rest of the world. One cannot believe that killing people who look different of believe different from you will result in your ascent to the promised land.
So, all this is not about evolution. Evolution is applied science, biololgy. Useful, and part of cause and effect, but only important as a stepping stone. This is about various groups of people ability to say I am better because I believe in this piece of writing or this creed. This is about someone saying I have the right to impose my will on other people and damage other people, or discriminate against other people, because I believe that god has given me that right. And if I have to kill people, then god has given me that right as well.
Church, unfortuntaly in many cases, has become the last holdout to a civilized society. Nowhere else can one legally hire on the basis of color or belief, caste out on the basis of belief, and get away with hate speech. The evolution debate is one of the last gasps in a long war perpetuated by those who profit off discrimination and hate. Many more will be hurt because those who are willing to kill for profit are vanquished.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
From the BBC story, this sounds grossly unfair to Dr. Hwang.
According to the BBC, Dr. Hwang did not attempt to violate the policy, he did not even know about the fact that the women donated, and it is clear that he wasn't trying to circumvent the policy either. It sounds to me like he did nothing wrong.
Yes, he did lie to Nature about it, but I find his justification acceptable. While there are some ethical considerations that go into publishing a journal, Nature has no business conducting ethics investigations, and this particular aspect of the experiment had no bearing on the scientific validity of the results.
To me, this story mostly reflects poorly on Nature--attempting to pry into areas that really are none of their business--and the Korean research establishment.
Hats off to Dr. Hwang for being willing to take the blame for something he didn't do. I suspect that his motivation is to keep human cloning research going, and he knows that the media and politicans would continue a feeding frenzy over this as long as he stays in his job.
Check out my website: Playfully Clever
That theory makes no testable predictions so it isn't scientific.
Can you think of some observable aspect of reality that would be different depending on whether the universe was designed vs. not designed?
Frankly, the universe looks pretty darn random and chaotic to me. Thrown in some weird stuff like duck billed platypuses and humans all having appendixes for no apparent reason and the most generous conclusion you can come to is that if there was an Intelligent Designer he wasn't very good at it.
Science is simply a methodology, a tool for exploring the natural world. If you wish to invoke a designer, it is insufficient to simply try to magnify what amounts to a rather vapid god of the gaps argument. At least open creationists make some sort of positive claims, and don't try to hide behind pseudo-scientific language. Those claims may be laughably absurd, but at least a Creationist is being honest, though that does tend to mean that courts go "sorry, we won't let you force your religious beliefs on public schools".
Now, as to the oft-repeated claim that we can't observe what happened in the past, I'll counter simply that unless you can show me an electron, how can you know it exists? How can you know that your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather existed? Can you demonstrate to me that Italian and German have an ancestral language?
Inference is a perfectly legitimate way to analyze a problem. Plenty of things in many areas of science rest upon evidence gained in ways that we cannot directly observe. So if it's legitimate to talk about electrons and their effects, then surely the same reasoning is fine for discussing the environment of the early Earth. And if it isn't, then perhaps you can tell me how you simply don't slip into solipsism?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Really, all you have to do is say that `days were longer back then.' That's the great thing about dogma ... you (if you're the church or ruling body) you can always make more.
Wouldn't it be something if before someone was given mod points, they had at least some ability to demonstrate that they knew something about the world around them, including recent history? it seems, sometimes, that mod points are given to some genuinely retarded people, who probably should be beaten with their computer and shouldn't be given anything more complicated that a box with a light and a button on it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There's also nothing wrong with a belief in exclusively naturalistic causes, providing you don't try to foist in on school children as being science.
Science is the search for understanding the universe and how things work. We know how some systems work in some cases, and these things should be taught. We should also teach students the limitations of what we know. The things we cannot currently explain, or that seem to contradict the established models (I'm thinking about things we take for granted like gravity here rather than origins).
Neither camp should offer mere speculation in the class room and present it as an established fact.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Science is things that can be proven or disproven. Religion is things beyond proof. Yes, ID is religion, it is faith based and falls back on that old crap about God moving in mysterious ways.
"Because I said so" is not science. It does not belong in science classes. Maye you place your faith in Prez Bush, and when he says science classes should teach religion, that's good enough for you. Or maybe you are like these CA nuts who says science is religion and therefore religion should be taught alongside its brother evolution.
The only faith you can find in science is the core idea that things are scientific if they can be proven or disproven. That's the same faith you have in geometry about the core axioms. If you think that is religion, you are truly pathetic. I wonder why you don't expect religion to be taught in math classes.
Infuriate left and right
What is this argument based on? The fact that both modern medicine and evolution are both "modern", and must therefore be intimitely interrelated? What, exactly, about anaesthetics, or surgery, or germ theory, or gene theory, or antibiotics, or you-name-it related to modern medicine depends on the idea that all life is descended from a common ancestor? And if it wasn't the "common ancestry" part of evolution to which you were referring as vital, then what makes you think that whatever-it-is is unique to the theory of evolution?
Do tell, please. I'm beyond fed up with people blandly asserting this, as though it were self-evident that belief in evolution is synonymous with being pro-technology, and vice versa. Hasn't anyone noticed that many great scientists and contributors to technology were creationists, or non-evolutionists at the very least? Some of you people make it sound like Darwin singlehandedly invented modern science. The hero-worship is conspicuous.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
There has been no concrete explanation for the forming of the universe by evolutionists
No, but that doesn't stop scientists from looking for natural explanations for such. There are, at present, a number of theories awaiting sufficient observational data. The ID folks would just say "it's too complex, so don't bother".
I'd like to point out that they are both religions
No. Those who are postulating various naturalistic origins for the universe are generating genuine hypotheses that can be disproven. The religious viewpoint never can be.
and therefore should not be subsidized by the government as absolute truth to be taught in public schools.
I think that they both should be taught. One as science, the other as philosophy. Niether of which deal with "absolute truths".
the phrase "separation of church and state" wasn't even in the Constitution
Not in so many words, though Jefferson does so in his writings. Nevertheless, I believe that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion" is pretty clear on that point.
Evolution is one of the best supported theories we have, particularly in light of the major studies of the molecular data in the last twenty years. It cannot explain everything and debate still circles around some areas, but are you actually saying that that is reason to call the theory into question?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You have demonstrated that you don't even know what the hell evolution is. Evolution is not the theory of the Big Bang, and the Big Bang itself only states that the universe was once very dense and very hot. If you start out with a pathetic dichotomy, what does that say about anything else on this subject you have to say?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
not .
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Apologies for the angry tone of the following post, it just got my goat somewhat.
There has been no concrete explanation for the forming of the universe by evolutionists
Firstly, there's no such word as "evolutionist". The correct term, if you're talking about someone who studies the scientific discipline in question, is "evolutionary biologist". If you're talking about someone who accepts evolution as the most likely explanation for our being here, the term is atheist or agnostic (depending on details).
And thus to my second point. The theory of evolution and associated bioscience have nothing to do with how the universe started. None. Nada. Zip. They have nothing to do with stellar evolution, despite the name. They have nothing to do with how the Earth was formed. They don't even have anything to do with how life began - the correct term for that is abiogenesis and it's closer to chemistry than biology. The only reason anyone bothers to conflate the scientific discipline of evolutionary biology with this vast range of related subjects is so they can bundle them all together, slap a label saying "ATHEIST" (or, more likely, "ATHIEST") on them and then whine loudly about people teaching this pile of "dogma" in schools. Wonderful straw man there.
Similarly, there is no such thing as Darwinism. The only people who advocate "Darwin: right or wrong?" as a valid ideological choice are those who wish to set up a false dichotomy. Which historically has been proponents of creationism or intelligent design.
Extreme evolutionism is more fanatical than based on science, with many varied beliefs and varied "scientific" explanations for the same things.
On the whole, these "beliefs" are falsifiable. When a conjecture as to how things work/worked is falsifiable (and preferably meets a couple of other standards), we call it a scientific hypothesis. You may have heard the term? It's that thing that Intelligent Design isn't until it demonstrates a method by which it can be falsified. In the same vein, "God did it" can never be a hypothesis if God is assumed to be infinitely powerful, as such a God can do whatever the heck he wants. Now, this may even be the way the universe works. There may be an all-powerful God who takes great pleasure in planting random dinosaur skeletons and tinkering with bacterial flagella. But that conjecture sure as hell isn't scientific and hence shouldn't be taught in a science class.
Incidentally, there's nothing wrong with there being several different explanations for the same data. But until they're falsifiable they're called conjectures, and until we have sufficient examples of them dramatically failing to be falsified they're called hypotheses. Only once they've been through the white-hot flame of detailed scientific enquiry are they referred to as theories.
The teachers could present, say, the top 3 worldwide views on the subject, and allow the students to choose.
I have no problem with that. As long as they do it in a Religious Studies class. If they try to do it in a science class, they've completely misunderstood the nature of science and need to be sacked for the children's sake - it'd be like getting a Holocaust denyer to teach 20th century history. Science isn't about "choosing" what's right. It's about suggesting what might be right, then scrutinising it, poking holes in it, looking high and low for contradictory data (and there must be the potential for contradictory data, otherwise your conjecture is scientifically nihilistic) and then, when you've given up in despair of ever disproving the damn thing, accepting that it might conceivably be an accurate reflection of reality.
Is there a single religion in the world willing to go through that baptism of fire? If it did, and passed, wouldn't that rather destroy the idea of "having faith", anyway? Answers of "No" or "Yes" respectively indicate that religions have no place in the science classroom.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
It follows from our development of language and complex social organizations that our brains are a resource we would default to in striving for the best mates to propogate our genes. We compete between individuals and for mates by language, by telling stories. Religion is the greatest story ever told by each and every tribe.
Religion is an evolutionary adaptational gambit. As an adaptational ploy, religion decrees if you want to get along go along. And if you make for a good tribal fit in terms of the archetypes projected by the story that is religion you will get a mate, maybe a prime mate.
In terms of complex tribal structures religion is evolution in action.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
I recall reading a post from a previous thread about ID where they discussed what the Bible actually says about God(s).
Commandments #1
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me..."
Anywone who's studied logic can tell you that this doesn't exclude the existence of other Gods, it merely states that the Guy who spoke to Moses shall be top dog.
(The Muslims have that angle covered because a central tenent of their faith is "There is no god but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet")
I wish I could remember more of that post, he made a very interesting argument.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Most people here seem to agree that this whole Blackberry fiasco is rediculous. From the article:
"NTP, inc. a small patent holding firm of McLean, VA., that maintains the technology behind the popular blackberry infringes on their patents" This is a textbook case of the abuse occuring in our patent system. NTP doesn't make stuff. They're a patent holding firm. Did RIM steal resources and technology from NTP? NO. Was the idea of a wireless e-mail device a non-obvious one? NONo. Did NTP really create any kind of technology? No. Did RIM come up with the idea independently of NTP, and actually execute on it, actually spending the money to engineer an actual device? Yes. If NTP wants to bitch, I think they should at LEAST have a fucking PRODUCT on the market. Instead, they sit on a non-invention and decide to sue when someone else thinks of it as well, because they think they can just prfit from everyone else's hard work. This is complete bullshit.
What REALLY gets me, is that congress practically runs on Blackberry. Just this past Thanksgiving I happened to be sitting on an airplane right next to my state senator Mitch McConnel. He's blackberrying away like the whole time from Louisville to Philadelphia. (I couldn't help but think of that American Dad episode where they steal Cheney's). But it is pretty well known that almost all of these senators and representatives are using blackberries for their wireless communications. So why aren't they speaking up about this. When a product they they use and rely on daily is threatened out of existance in the US, because of the laws that THEY have enabled, I mean, shouldn't this send some kind of wake-up call that patent law is serious FUCKED UP? I have actually read (please correct if wrong or confirm if really true) that blackberry service would shut down for everyone in the US except except for high ranking government officials, because they rely on the devices so much. Isn't this a huge double standard? Can they really say that our laws outlaw this technology for everyone except for them, because while it infringes patents, it is just too important for us political elite to not have. Obviously this should show that patent law in its current form is NOT contributing or encouraging the progression of science and useful arts.
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
Now what do we plan? More non-polar Mars landers! Big ones! We can send humans, allowing the nation to cry when somebody gets blown to smithereens.
No, we won't just send a robot to return a sample. No, we won't bother trying another polar lander. No, we won't bother with other planets and moons very much. Mars! Mars! Mars!
Sheesh. The last Venus lander took some seriously crappy images, 6 bits per pixel, at a funny angle, only a couple hundred pixels across. From radar returns, we suspect that there might be metallic rain at some altitudes. Wouldn't it be neat to bring back a sample of that or at least some pictures and basic physical measurements?
We have so many places to go: Venus, Mercury, Jupiter's moons, Saturn's moons, Pluto...
Nevermind. We must beat China to Mars! Grrrr...
If that's the case, then that means there are other gods, right?
It's true that the theory of evolution assumes that things will look undesigned (that's methodological naturalism for you). On the other hand, it does not assume that things will look undirected (the difference being that directedness does not imply a designer). The ToE in no way states that life is going to be structurally similar to the results of a hurricane passing through a junkyard, or similar bad metaphor of your choice.
Most reasonably efficient structures, taken without context, are consistent with directedness - the structure is "directed" towards high efficiency by dint of the fact that organisms containing the inefficient versions tend to have fewer surviving offspring. About the only thing I can think of that would be consistent with design but not directedness is a message buried deep in DNA saying "God was here". So far no such signature has been found.
Fortunately for the ToE's scientific status, there are a large number of other ways it could be falsified, and it has repeatedly failed to be disproven by any of them. Compare and contrast with the conjecture of "intelligent design".
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Actually... I've always thought that the fact that we have to pee and procreate with the same organ was too sick and standardized to have been created randomly.
Clearly it is a sign that there is a designer, and that his mind is totally twisted and evil.
I keep hearing all these arguments saying "you can't prove god doesn't exist."
My only response is that Santa is a lie told to millions of gullible children around the world. And science has proved he can't exist.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Sophistry.
The real argument about creationism (or, more frequently, ID) not being science is that it doesn't conform to the scientific method. That is, scientific research generally has these steps:
1. Observe something about the world around you
2. Hypothesize why those observations might be so
3. Predict what other observations the hypothesis supports
4. Test those predictions to determine whether the hypothesis is false
The test of creationism as science versus dogma isn't whether Rhonda Jones's personal criteria are satisfied. It's whether the scientific method is followed. As soon as ID/Creation advocates present hypotheses that can be tested scientifically (and not just tests of evolution masquerading as tests of ID/creation), they can join the scientific community. That hasn't happened yet, however, and that's why ID/creationism can't be considered science.
"So why aren't they speaking up about this." Actually, they have.
Name: Mr. Anon E Mouse; SSN: 555-55-5555
Hi. Does someone know more details? The cnn article says "In 2002, a jury found in favor of NTP and awarded the company $23.1 million in damages."
Then, in 2003 "a district judge increased the damages to $210 million."
Then, last December "RIM settled with NTP for $450 million."
Now, RIM wants to settle for the $450 million, but "a new settlement could cost as much as $1 billion."
What's going on here? Is RIM not paying? Is NTP not accepting their checks? Seems odd. Just curious.
In practice, this can take awhile because the biologist is human too. Sometimes it can even take a generation of researchers to displace an outmoded theory. However, your point is well taken: science has a good track record of error-correcting itself. Unlike most religious and political philosophies, science actively seeks to tests its ideas and guard itself against human cognitive error.
For millennia, religion has promised to heal the sick, fertilize the land (or womb), and bring down destruction on the enemy. In the past 400 years a lot of those promises have come to fruition, but somehow it seems that the credit belongs to those who have conducted, funded, and leveraged scientific research. The ability of science to critique itself, to backtrack, to admit error and accommodate new information probably has something to do with its relative success in these areas.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
The thing is, this belief, as another poster pointed out, cannot be falsified. Unfortunately for the Creationists, everything in science today rests on the premise of scientific theories which can be falsified by opposing evidence. At least that is the scientific method almost all scientists today subscribe to. If you want to know the basis of this methodology read Popper.
Also note that a theory (aka "I made something up") is very different from a scientific theory, which is based on a hypothesis (normally multiple iterations thereof) and needs a certain amount of evidence and no counter-evidence to be more widely recognized. So creationists want to introduce unfalsifiable "We made shit up you cannot disprove" into a class that is all about falsifyability. This is of course not such a bright idea - and that is the point, not the judgement of your personaly beliefs (although some people with moderator points obviously think otherwise, but that's a whole different post altogether).
Code is Speech. No to Censorship.
wait 'til you learn about chicken functionality.
And I'd then love to break the empty bottle over these religious fanatics' heads. Only then might they understand what it is like to force your view on someone else.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of this, is that they are trying to say "oh look, ID is part of science too!", and then COMPLETELY refuse to examine it and argue it based on the underlying foundation of science...the Scientific Method.
I mean...isn't that like going into a courtroom and saying "Your Honor...my client is innocent, and we're basing our case off of some completely different set of laws that do not apply to our current legal system as well as our belief that he is innocent."
If you want to argue that your view is part of the system, at least discuss/view/analyze it within the paradigm of the system!
But of course that will never happen, because as soon as anyone attempts to do that (as every scientist today thrills in doing) the argument falls completely apart.
God, its like arguing with an autistic kid who will keep being the same way no matter what you say to them. If we ever do manage to colonize another planet, I hope to god (whoops) that logical beings will be able to create a society free of religion.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with people who have religious beliefs and don't try to force them on others...I'm just saying its high time that those who believe in science and do not have religious beliefs set up their own society. Makes you wonder what would happen if you took two societies from scratch, and had one made up of these ID fanatics and another with atheist/agnostic scientists, where each would end up in a century.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
It starts off with possibly hinting at giving non-creationists a view of evidence that creationists may posses, but it fails to do that. Instead it just rambles on about how crazy and sad these evolutionists must be to not believe the same thing that the writer does. Obviously written for the crowd that drinks the same coolaid or close enough coolaid to share in the writers personal disgust and surprise. I couldn't find any evidence in there.
Although it was interesting to see this witter rule out the possibility of god being someone who set things in motion (in essence created natural observable law), on the predication that god has done miracles in the past. Somehow that would discount him as being the same god that set the general rules in motion.
So here we have an article hoping to share disgust, pity with the reader and then "helping" them narrow possible definitions of what the reader believes.
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.
Modern attempts at computational investigation of evolution have proven just the opposite. While the results are of course restricted to microevolution...evolution by mutation/adaption is computationally model-able, as well observable. Even distantly related bacteria have been observed exchanging dna fragments...thus undergoing a type of mutation. Viruses routinely mutate through random processes as well as exchanges of RNA. If we can observe such radical changes in the behavior and structure of such organisms within the lifespan of a human...how can creationists seriously challenge the idea of what might have been accomplished over billions of years?
I'll be the first to say that science can't discount that something or someone ultimately created the rules by which things that we observe behave. Well, others have said it before me...so I'll be the next. Even Stephen Hawking has commented that because we, and anything we create (including ideas) are contained within this universe, that by mathematical consequence of self-referencing systems we are incapable of completely describing the universe and all of its rules and behavior. However, we *can* see and describe discrete chunks of it, and to discount such behavior after we see it (as the creationist zealots do) is stupidity at its finest.
Congratulations on having just reinvented Deism or at least the Clockmaker Hypothesis. :-)
Neither seems to be very popular anymore, though. One possible reason is that the idea that God no longer intervenes in the Universe is not very satisfying, or at least not very comforting, and therefore not very appealing as a belief.
Natural Selection is a good description of what actually happens in nature. It describes how animals change over time. It can be used to make predictions about which offspring will survive and to some degree these predictions can be tested. It doesn't describe how the first self replicating thing (cell / rna / whatever) came to be, as it can only describe an effect where there are already offspring being produced. It doesn't describe how new information can be created out of nothing. I certainly don't have a problem with teaching natural selection in a class room.
However, the belief that random processes and mutations can create new information out of nowhere, breaking the 2nd law of thermodynamics. That a one off random assortment of molecules could somehow defy the obsene probability required and the seemingly contradictory environmental requirements to build the first thing that can copy itself. This is pure speculation, and is not based on any physical evidence, or testable theory, apart from our actual existance.
I would rather see neither ID nor Evolution taught in a science class.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Don't concern yourself with the second definition--yes, many religious people hold illogical beliefs, and yes, you can call that idiocy if you wanted to be a dick. But faith is an essential component in holding all beliefs, including those founded on truth and logic. It takes faith to fall asleep, it takes faith to get up in the morning, and it takes faith to be able to answer in the affirmative to anything. Because without faith, someone could challenge you on anything. Words, after all, are symbols, and cannot really describe anything. Only when you have faith that the words have meaning can you begin to use them.
wait 'til you learn about chicken functionality.
TELL ME MORE!!!
This isn't about those nimrods who thought they could force the end of the world by cloning Jesus is it?
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
I think I might lie down now.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Data from 1967? Are you kidding me?
This guy is way out there
You cna't even argue your point so you post some fundametalists's website. I really liked theads for books such as "This book is a must for everyone who desires to defend the Bible in this increasingly "educated" society."
Not our fault education smashes the teachings of some tribe in the desert from 2000 years ago.
Go skips rocks, Jr.
This guy is way out there
This, at least in the US, is a serious question... not because one of them might be right, but because one of them might be wrong. Science is well equipped to handle it when science is not right, but religion on the other hand *IS* not able to handle that. They only have one book, one set of rules (per sect) and one g*d so if any of those singularities are wrong, then everything about their religion is wrong...
Christians in general will agree that Christ and Christianity does not need defending, so it must be the 'church' that needs defending, and thus the motivation for the church to modify science, or at least how it is taught.
This is more important than it seems on face value because if the 'church' can weasle its way into what is taught in this country, then it won't be long before the Christian terrorists^H^H^H^H^H^Hextremists have control of the government in the US, and THAT, my friends, is actually just as bad as any other bad government in the world that has recently been deposed or needs to be. Image what extremist Christians will do to your rights, lefts, and otherwise none-of-their-businesses????
The religions that are not in favor are right out the door, science pfffttt gone, but on the other hand, gone also would be the JW's, and that's not so bad.... or is it? It is bad, because when religion begins making law, history has shown us over and over again, the excrement hits the fan! and people start getting killed. Whether its a holy crusade, or just hunting witches... people start to die.
In the interest of all that is humane, please GOD, don't let them fsck up science!
The Holy Roman Church's Head Astronomer stated that ID is not science and should not be taught in science classes... so maybe things aren't as one sided as it seems?
nuff said
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Show a religious person evidence of any kind that contradicts their faith, and the faith doesn't change.
e s.dalai_lama_op_ed.htm
The Dalai Lama apparently claims that Buddhism is different:
http://brainimaging.waisman.wisc.edu/New_York_Tim
If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.
However, the belief that random processes and mutations can create new information out of nowhere, breaking the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Repeat after me: The Earth is not a closed system.
"Each day more solar energy falls to the Earth than the total amount of energy the planet's 6.1 billion inhabitants would consume in 27 years."
Whatever happens here on Earth, entropy always has the last laugh. Evolution and thermodynamics do not conflict.
iSKUNK!
For the record, Buddha never claimed to have created the universe or anything like that. He was a regular human being, albeit one who became enlightened. Of course, the ID crowd would STILL go nuts if someone said that Buddha created the universe, seeing as they don't tend to know much about other religions.
Eh, I vote for His Noodliness, The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Yarr!
First, the treo650 at its maximum full list retail price, is $599. How stupid do you have to be to pay $899 for one? Hell, if you want to sign a 2 year agreement, you get it for around $299 from sprint.
Second, the Treo 650 does email a WHOLE lot better than any blackberry with any of several pieces of software. Good.com for instance had a full suite. Their package is push email, calendar, and remote access, WITH full syncronization. So your calendar, and email sync scenario is really a non-advantage.
Third, your blackberry does not support remote desktop, vnc, ssh, java, and a TON of other usefull business/remote access applications.
There are MANY reasons to change from a blackberry to a Treo, these are just a FEW of them. Above all IMHO, is that it is WAY more versatile.
(stolen from DaBum) I am dyslexia of borg - your ass will be laminated.
Whats this? The new BlackBerries can CLONE smart hotels? Where can I get one of these!
(Note to mods: Yes, even though you are already reaching for that troll mod, it was a joke!)
The rocket scientists are unlikely to discover a cure for AIDS, just as those that let their religeon lead them in innapropriate situations are blocking spending money on AIDS prevention (yes, not using prevention means the wrath of their unforgiving god will fall upon those that sleep around and they will die of AIDS - childish isn't it - perhaps these losers should actually read the book they use as an excuse for their malice and jealousy). Less AIDS research goes on there, possibly because that problem has only become recently apparant there while it has been seen as a problem in the USA for many years - and I'm sure no-one can become a world leading AIDS expert overnight. We may see some movement on AIDS if China puts a lot of effort into solving the problem - since solving the problem and not imposing morality on others may be the main objective.
Flames may well come after this barely articulate rant typed by someone who needs more sleep - but I am not writing this to bash Christians, since the nastiest of these folk that go by that name don't really follow what he said and really follow some unforgiving god of blood and money.
religion was illegal...
A lack of religion did not prevent the Socialist government from distorting science in biology and agriculture.
Just look at the current US administration. The great majority of the antiscientific stances they take are due to corporate interests. The stem cell debate and the FDA's baseless rejection of the morning after pill were the lone counter examples. Most of the administrations antiscience stances are on pollution, drugs,
But on the other hand corporate and military interests put the Bush administration in favor of science when it comes to things like nuclear power. It is the leftists that are antiscience when it comes to nuclear power, genetically modified crops,
Neither side is proscience. They both have an agenda that they place above the truth and will agree or disagree with science as it suits them.
Offer their services there and turn the US off.
At the least the first people they should have turned off once the judge went to idiotville is the government workers. They might have given the jerks in Congress a clue about just how bogus patents can be.
Instead they will cave and the patent whores will become even more belligerent. Hell Canada should invalidate any holdings NTP has just to prove a point. (or better yet, pay off RIMs losses by charging a few US based companies idiot fees)
Time to go to war over something truly valuable.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Kind of funny how nonsensical arguments don't get modded up like the sensible arguments. Why are people such bigots?
Now, I'm not saying that religion is bunk. I *am* saying that you shouldn't give an argument equal consideration just because it is different. One of the points of this whole big debate about ID vs. evolution is that we shouldn't even be talking about ID! It doesn't give predictions, it doesn't explain anything any deeper than "that's just the way it is" - in short, it's not scientific. At all. It shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as evolution, which can predict what fossils you'll find at a particular layer in the earth, and how at least some of the diversity of life we see can be directly explained using processes that we can observe happening, repeatably.
So, if you want to tell me that religion is good because it provides meaning in people's lives, and you can show me how religious people are happier/more productive/more caring than other people, great - I want to hear about it. If you want to tell me I'm a bigot because I don't give equal weight to every harebrained unsupported argument anyone gives, then I guess in your eyes I'll always be a bigot.
Of course, a lot of Buddhists these days are about as true to their religion as many Christians are. I mean, come on, they enshrined a bone from his finger in an elaborate gold and jeweled container which is carried around and basically worshipped by people. Somehow I don't think Buddha would approve.
One isn't a religion. Creationists present a god as an explanation for the ultimate origin of life as the answer. That however is no answer because we then have to ask who made this god? Evolution need not extend beyond the basic building blocks. We do wonder how those initial building blocks came about, but it is no way critical to evolution. Adding in a god just adds apparent certainty for the unthinking who are desperate to do away with the uncertainty of the world.
I don't have a problem with comparative religion being taught in schools. It should probably be mandatory so children can quickly realise that there are overlaps, religions steal each other's ideas and basically there is no one true religion. Drawing straws is as good a way as any to choose a religion.
One insisted that, since it was the most logical conclusion from the evidence, the car was not made by processes operating in the car
They don't say whether this car had fuel and was still operational? Fundamentally the laws of physics that went into the manufacture of that car would still be in operation. I assume these fleas researched materials, physics and chemistry. Where that car ultimately came from is however a philosophical not scientific question.
To propose a maker who could not now be seen, and a process of making that was no longer operating, was by definition unscientific
And a contradiction of the god postulated by Christianity. Christianity has always claimed a god that was everywhere, and always involved. What new evidence suggests this god has in fact left the building?
keeping in mind that the scientific method cannot ultimately prove or disprove matters related to origins because they involve the unrepeatable, unobservable past
True, so what does inventing a god add to our understanding? Especially a god we apparently can never understand. I say it was inter-dimensional garden gnomes (very short, but very powerful). The great gnome shall one day return to redeem us.
Fundamentally some people need there to be a god. They simply can't cope without such a thing existing. But if we can't know this god's plan or understand its workings in the universe then it is no better than any other fantasy we come up with to make ourselves feel better.
A God who is truth, who instituted the laws in the beginning,/i>
Let's say there is a god, how do we know it isn't a lying cheating used car salesman from another dimension? Sure he says he is truth and light, but so did the guy who sold me my car.
There is no supernatural. Anything that exists is natural, even a god, ghosts or whatever kicks your bucket.
Perhaps, at some point, you should actually look at what 2LoT says, rather than aping Creationist dishonesty. 2LoT does not refer to information. I have no idea where Creationists get that nonsense, but its not from physics. Perhaps you should crack open a physics text rather than the lies and stupidity of AiG and ICR.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Apologies for the double post, but version 1 really wasn't legible) Here goes nothing: 1) A fossil being found way outside its stratum, preferably in an area with no breaks in the strata (i.e. it couldn't have been forced downwards by a tree root or something). 2) For bonus points, it should be possible to apply dating techniques to it that also indicate that it existed millions of years before it was supposed to 3) An animal, preferably one alive today, that is apparently a hybrid of one or more completely distinct families of animals. For example, a species of bat with feathered, instead of leathery, wings, or a species of horse with catlike claws. If evolution is false, we should be seeing weird pokemon-like creatures that resist placement in the big family tree that is common descent. We don't. 4) A dinosaur holding an "end nuclear testing" placard or similar absurdity. Note that we'd have to see quite a few of these, otherwise we'd probably assume they came about through error or hoax. Regards your other comments: 1) "There are already tons of examples of complex organisms appearing out of nowhere in the fossil record." Not completely out of nowhere, or at least not to an unexpected extent. It's not surprising that we don't always catch animals in every possible intermediate stage of development. Consider that we've only ever unearthed 30 Tyrannosaurus Rex skeletons, and that's a (relatively) recent species compared to, say, those that appeared during the Cambrian explosion. And, even in the case of species that just suddenly start to crop up, we can normally place them in the family tree with no great difficulty. You'd be right to say that this falsified a particular variant of the theory of evolution - specifically, the one stating that evolution would occur at a fairly steady rate. This has been replaced with the "punctured equilibrium" subtheory, which points out that animals won't tend to evolve much unless the ecosystem they're in gets destabilised. This shouldn't be considered a disproof of the ToE as a whole, in the same way that the disproof of Newtonian gravity in no way suggested that we should accept Intelligent Falling. The new variant explains "jumps" in evolution by pointing out that, for example, the Cambrian explosion occurred immediately after the Earth got snowballed by a sudden glaciation. The creatures that appeared afterwards had far more potential than the ones around before, but they had never had room to grow - the less fundamentally well-designed but more evolutionarily "honed" species had previously been able to hold their own against the incursion. But, after the big freeze, there were enough resources (primarily unoccupied land) available that odd mutations and less efficient species could survive for longer, giving a chance for a whole bunch of new approaches to appear. Mostly evolutionary changes only occur in tiny steps, each of which has to be more immediately efficient than the last. After a big die-off, though, it's possible for species to take a "backwards" step without being wiped out. This massively increased the range of new biological techniques that could be discovered. 2) "The largest animals today are smaller than in the Jurassic period." That's no surprise, really. Firstly, when disaster strikes (such as whatever killed the dinosaurs), large creatures are at a disadvantage - they need more food to stay alive. If a few hundred tiny dinosaurs can survive off the same food as one tyrannosaurus then a reduction in the food supply will kill the T Rex but will only reduce the population of the tiny dinos. Being large isn't always a good thing, so we shouldn't be terribly surprised that it doesn't always develop as a strategy. Secondly, at least one large creature managed to escape the most recent ice age - the woolly mammoth. Then we killed it. Large animals today don't tend to have much of a life expectancy these days - look at what's happening to the whales and the elephants. Incidentally, your premise is slightly wrong - iirc, the blue whale is substantially b
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
OK, that time it was definitely slashdot's fault - I set it to "Plain text" and previewed before submitting. Third time lucky:
1) A fossil being found way outside its stratum, preferably in an area with no breaks in the strata (i.e. it couldn't have been forced downwards by a tree root or something).
2) For bonus points, it should be possible to apply dating techniques to it that also indicate that it existed millions of years before it was supposed to
3) An animal, preferably one alive today, that is apparently a hybrid of one or more completely distinct families of animals. For example, a species of bat with feathered, instead of leathery, wings, or a species of horse with catlike claws. If evolution is false, we should be seeing weird pokemon-like creatures that resist placement in the big family tree that is common descent. We don't.
4) A dinosaur holding an "end nuclear testing" placard or similar absurdity.
Note that we'd have to see quite a few of these, otherwise we'd probably assume they came about through error or hoax.
Regards your other comments:
1) "There are already tons of examples of complex organisms appearing out of nowhere in the fossil record."
Not completely out of nowhere, or at least not to an unexpected extent. It's not surprising that we don't always catch animals in every possible intermediate stage of development. Consider that we've only ever unearthed 30 Tyrannosaurus Rex skeletons, and that's a (relatively) recent species compared to, say, those that appeared during the Cambrian explosion. And, even in the case of species that just suddenly start to crop up, we can normally place them in the family tree with no great difficulty.
You'd be right to say that this falsified a particular variant of the theory of evolution - specifically, the one stating that evolution would occur at a fairly steady rate. This has been replaced with the "punctured equilibrium" subtheory, which points out that animals won't tend to evolve much unless the ecosystem they're in gets destabilised. This shouldn't be considered a disproof of the ToE as a whole, in the same way that the disproof of Newtonian gravity in no way suggested that we should accept Intelligent Falling.
The new variant explains "jumps" in evolution by pointing out that, for example, the Cambrian explosion occurred immediately after the Earth got snowballed by a sudden glaciation. The creatures that appeared afterwards had far more potential than the ones around before, but they had never had room to grow - the less fundamentally well-designed but more evolutionarily "honed" species had previously been able to hold their own against the incursion. But, after the big freeze, there were enough resources (primarily unoccupied land) available that odd mutations and less efficient species could survive for longer, giving a chance for a whole bunch of new approaches to appear.
Mostly evolutionary changes only occur in tiny steps, each of which has to be more immediately efficient than the last. After a big die-off, though, it's possible for species to take a "backwards" step without being wiped out. This massively increased the range of new biological techniques that could be discovered.
2) "The largest animals today are smaller than in the Jurassic period."
That's no surprise, really. Firstly, when disaster strikes (such as whatever killed the dinosaurs), large creatures are at a disadvantage - they need more food to stay alive. If a few hundred tiny dinosaurs can survive off the same food as one tyrannosaurus then a reduction in the food supply will kill the T Rex but will only reduce the population of the tiny dinos. Being large isn't always a good thing, so we shouldn't be terribly surprised that it doesn't always develop as a strategy.
Secondly, at least one large creature managed to escape the most recent ice age - the woolly mammoth. Then we killed it. Large animals today don't tend to have much of a life expectancy these days - look at what's happeni
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
I'm trying to come at this from a rational point of view... I'm not a fanatic, and I don't wish to force my views down anyone's throat. I'm saying that atheists shouldn't either.
I realise thermodynamics doesn't apply directly since it's talking about energy distribution and not information theory. Fine, it's a poor choice of terms. But the 2 concepts are related.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
First I would like to cite an example clarifying your missinderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics, then address your earlier and continued point about information.
The sun evaporates water from the sea into the atmosphere. That water vapor is about as disordered and chaotic as you can get. That water than routinely and spontaneously condenses into highly ordered and complex SNOWFLAKES.
When there is a flow of energy it is perfectly normal for nature to spontaneously create order structure and complexity out of chaos. And as you say, that is closely related to information.
Now back you your exact earlier comments:
It doesn't describe how new information can be created out of nothing.
the belief that random processes and mutations can create new information out of nowhere
Just because *your* highschool did not provide a decent education and *you* do not understand how information is created does not mean it is not known.
In fact not only can I explain it to you, but I persnally have used this process and witnessed it in operation and seen exactly how powerful it is.
Step one: mutation. This introduces random noise. There is no "information value" in random noise, but it does provide raw material for the later steps.
Step two: initial selection. A mutation that gets passed down even a single generation is by definition a non-fatal mutation (you can't have kids if you died). So immediately selection has converted random noise into directed information. Every mutation that gets passed down now carries a little information tag on it... a tag saying "this is a non-fatal mutation". Q.E.D., the point is proven, mutation and selection can create at least *some* bit of information. Over time a population builds up a vast LIBRARY of these non-fatal mutations.
Step three: on going selection. The more helpful a mutation is (if it is helpful at all) the more common it becomes in the population, and the more costly/harmful a mutation is the rarer it becomes in the population. Each generation preforms a measurement and either increases or decreases the percentage of individuals carrying each different variation. At the population level each mutation gets measured and tagged with a PERCENTAGE number, a percentage number representing a complex peice of information measuring the cost/value of each mutation. This represents a second layer of information and information processing. So not we not only have a library of non-fatal mutations, every mutation in that library is tagges with a value measurement.
There is actualy a fourth and vastly more powerful step, recombination. Recombination represents a third layer of information and information processing, but to explain it and how powerful it is requires a much longer post and a bit of math. It makes use of that second layer library of information to preform a very powerful search. If you are genuinely interested in further understanding evolution I can and will explain this as well, if you request it. Hopefully I have atleast proven to you that evolution *does* create information, and in fact that it further processes that information into additional information. That is enough to demonstrate evolution really can and does work.
Oh, and when I said I have used and witnessed this process in action, I'm a programmer. The minimal features of mutation - reproduction - selection alone are adaquate to create information. That is true wether it is biological mutation - reproduction - selection, or if it is automated digital mutation - digital duplication - digital selection. There is an entire feild of computer science dedicated to harnessing the information processing powers of evolutionary methods. In fact they have been used to solve very complex problems and in some cases to produce sophisticated solutions better than any human experts have been able to create. In one such case a computer evolved a better jet engine design that was more efficient than anything we have been able to "intelligently design". That better design has saved many millions of gallons of fuel and many millions of dollars.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Sadly there really are a lot of people here in America - even "Slasdot-types" who argue against evolution. Many of our highschools do not teach the subject at all, or do a really rotten job at it. That being due of course due to religious-political pressure. There has also been many millions of dollars spend on PR campaigns spreading disinformation to the general public. It's unbelieveable how many people have the rediculous notion that there is some conflict between evolution and God. A large majority of Americans also have the mistaken impression that there is actually a scientific controversy over evolution. Mainstream news stories that address eveolution generally quote "both sides of the issue for balance", and they interview these religious fundamentalists attacking evolution and the'll cite the one or two crackpot biologists on the subject. Quote one scientist on each side of an issue and *poof* it looks like a genuine scientific controversy. It is appalling the way reporters will present "both sides" of something without bothering to point out that one side has the support of 99.9% of experts and professionals in the field and that the other side are widely recognized as crackpots and that their arguments have been addressed and found horribly flawed.
One thing I would really like to add is that it is an extremely regional thing. It correlates very closely with the Red-State/Blue-State division. The urban and sub-urban areas have no problem, but the rural areas tend to be more isolated and more deeply focused on religion, sometimes to the extent of fundamentalism.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It's just a model that, based on the scientific method, explains PART of the world around us in a convenient manner. We could argue all day about how it's been proven or disproven in various areas, but until it's officially considered not to be a theory, completely proven in every case, then I don't want to hear it taught as absolute fact.
You mean like the THEORY of elements and the THEORY of gravity and the THEORY of atoms and the THEORY of a sun-centered solar system and the THEORY that the stars in the sky are other suns much like ours?
Heay, I don't think anyone has a problem with your position as stated. The PROBLEM is ignorant people who demand that one random field of science be treated differently than any other field of science for strictly religious motivations.
If you thought there was any genuine scientific controversey over evolution, well I'm sorry but you were missinformed. Evolution has the same degree of support and the same acceptance among professional biologists as the THEORY of relativity and the THEORY of quantum mechanics have amongst physicists. There are a handful of scietists who reject nuclear fusion and who claim that the sun is powered by electricity. However a handful of crackpots who have had their arguments reviewed and invalidated by 99.9% of the scientific community does not comprise a genuine scientific controversy.
Evolution really is that well supported and that well accepted. Anyone who gets a college biology degree will learn all of this in depth, and you can get a pretty decent into from any good highschool textbook. Sadly many highschools in the US do not teach evolution at all, or they do a dismal job of teaching it, and that is solely because of political pressure.
Just beacuse *you* do not have a background in this feild of science, and just because there is a social and political controversy does not mean anything. It really is on par with other fields of science. The only problem is people trying to single out this one random field of science for special treatment because it doesn't fit with their view of 'literal' biblical genesis.
I don't wish to force my views down anyone's throat. I'm saying that atheists shouldn't either.
What the hell do atheists have to do with anything? Oh, are you one of those religious fundamentalist wackjobs with the absurd notion that anyone who does not subscribe to YOUR limitations upon God is an atheist? One of those religious fundamentalist wackjobs who considers the MAJORITY of Christians to be atheists? One of those religious fundamentalist wackjobs who thinks the Pope himeself is an atheist?
Because that's what you're implying. The Pope, and the MAJORITY of Christians accept the science of evolution and that there is absolutely no conflict between evolution and God, or between evolution and the Bible.
It's as bad as the idiots who said the sun at the center of the solarsystem is "atheist" because their "literal" reading of the bible places the earth at the center of the solarsystem and because the Bible "literally" says that the earth does not move.
No, neither evolution nore a sun centered solarsystem is atheist. Just because some fundamentalists wish to place certain limits on God and how he could have chosen to do things does not make it atheist. They have no right to slander everyone else as atheists simply because those other people do not subscribe to their particular minority fundmanetalist offshot oddball sect trying to place limits upon how God could have done things.
The majority of people who accept evolution are not atheist.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
There has been no concrete explanation for the forming of the universe by evolutionists
Well there has been no concrete explanation for the forming of the universe by chemists either.
That's a just plain stupid argument, pardon my bluntness.
Both camps are religions.
I have no idea what "camp" you are imagining, but the biological field of evolution is a feild of science.
should not be subsidized by the government as absolute truth to be taught in public schools
Science does not deal in any sort of capital-T Truth. Science deals in the best known understanding of how the universe operates, and it is always subject to improvement. Newtonian physics was and is a field of science, and it was taught a useful and the best-known-uderstanding-of-physics and as "lowercase-t truth", and eventually we discovered relativity and we improved our understanding of physics.
The purpose of highschool science class is to teach what science is and the scientific method and to provide a general familiarity with the major areas of thourghly tested and thouroghly supported science that has earned nearly universal acceptance by the experts and professionals in the field.
And by that standard evolution damn well qualifies. Just because *you* are not familiar with how thouroughly tested evolution mearly shows that *you* have not been educated in the subject. Just because *you* are not familiar with all of the evidence supporting evolution mearly shows that *you* have not been educated in the subject. Just because *you* were not aware that evolution has virtually universal acceptance by professional biologists mearly shows that *you* have not been educated in the subject.
There is no genuine scientific controversy over the fundamentals of biological evolution. It is in fact on par with the other fields of science and must be treated as such.
the phrase "separation of church and state" wasn't even in the Constitution, just in a little letter from one of the guys
You are of course referring to Jefferson. However I must inform you that you have been fed propaganda on the subject. The First Amendment was penned by James Madison, and I suggest you read his explanation of how the First Amendment was intended to be read and what it was intended to mean. In particular you should note that Madison repeatedly used phrases such as "the wall of separation" and "perfect separation in referrence to religion and state. Googling Madison and either of those phrases will pull them up immediately.
Madison wrote far more on it than jefferson did, and the only difference being that he used STRONGER language like "wall" and "perfect separation" and sometimes used synonyms for religion and government. The precise words "separation of chuch and state" were Jeffersons, but is is a flat out lie for people to claim that it was some uniquely oddball idea of Jefferson's. The central Founding Fathers, the Framers of teh Constitution, they were certainly religious, but you will find that they often wrote of the undesireablility of any blurring between religion and government.
Madison: Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
Separation of church and state is the very MEANS of ensuring religious freedom. Religious freedom MEANS freedom from the use of government power against the people for religious purposes.
I'm going to take a guess here and say that you have probably been lied to about the ACLU.
Would it surprise you to learn that the ACLU fought and won a court battle to INCLUDE a Bible quote in a highschool yearbook?
Would it surprise you to learn that they ACLU jumped in to defend a public display of religion on government property?
Would it surprise you to learn thatthe ACLU not only SUPPORTS the right of children to pray in school, but that their website has a public invitation to aid any students who are denied the right to
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
"There has been no concrete explanation for the forming of the universe by evolutionists (i.e. where did the big bang come from, where did the cosmic egg come from, where did the subspace that randomly fluctuated to create the egg come from)"
Evolutionary theory doesn't address the beginning of the universe, that has nothing to do with evolution.
Biogenesis is also a topic not strictly addressed by evolutionary theory.
Yes, evolutionary theory leads one to ask the questions, "but how did life start? And what was the first parent?" But the theory of evolution was not developed to answer that question, does not answer that question, and should not be expected to answer that question.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Um, by "atheist" I meant a person who believes in the non-existence of a supreme being. Christians say kids should believe in a supreme being, and atheists say kids should not believe in a supreme being. Both are personal opinions, which should not be forced on people. If a kid wants to believe in the flying spaghetti monster theory of creation, that's his right. I'm trying to make the point that, while both atheists and Christians claim to have an objective or enlightened view of the universe, all that either of them have are "best-fit" explanations. The pope, christians, atheists, buddhist monks, the crazy guy downtown who thinks he's a Klingon, they all have their own viewpoints that they *know* are right, and will vehemently defend to *anyone* who suggests the world might be otherwise. In truth, all we have is what our senses and instruments tell us, which can hardly be the whole picture. For instance, your point about Newtonian physics... Sure, it's great for when an apple falls on your head, but those laws break down when you go to the quantum level. Your antagonism about this merely proves my point... Everyone's a fanatic these days, ready to bash the Christians and anyone else, forgetting that they're using the same tactics they're complaining about.
ID proponents don't have a theory. They don't even have a hypothesis. They barely qualify as having a conjecture. As someone who's spent some time reading ID literature, I can definitively state that their arguments consist entirely of the idea that somewhere, somehow, there's a biological feature that evolution can't explain. Sadly their mathematical arguments have been debunked by proper mathematicians and, every time they suggest a feature that "must" have been intelligently designed, someone points out either how it could have evolved or how its design isn't particularly intelligent. Sometimes both.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
yes, ice and other crystals form interesting and complex patterns based on their initial state and a few simple rules and methods of combination. But water is not DNA. Every single lab experiment to try and recreate the conditions that might have existed in the early earth has failed to convicingly demonstrate how life could have arisen. They may have successfully created a type of amino acid or two, but that's it. This is well short of the requirements for a reproducing organism.
Also nice explanation of how a mutation can be non-fatal. But, does it add anything to the organism? or does it take something away? Show me one example of a mutation in nature that has added information to an organism that did not exist before. Without that example, the whole theory of evolution is just conjecture. Show me the fossils that are half way between one species and another, they should be everywhere.
So a computer simulation designed a better engine? did this new engine have any more parts than the original engine? did it somehow gain some new as yet never before seen component? or was it simply an optimisation that rearranged the existing well understood pieces more efficiently?
Evolution doesn't have to explain how a beak can become longer or shorter. It has to explain, step by step, how a new complex structure can be created in the first place.
I'm a programmer, I know how badly a piece of software can be written and still on the surface appear to work. I hope that engine was very carefully analysed and tested before being used in any life threatening situations.
oh, and I love the fact that you have to attack my education to try and win this argument.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
I'm still not entirely comfortable with the word "Darwinism" - probably no-one in the field of evolutionary biology believes exactly what Darwin believed about evolution, and the field is certainly much larger than his original assertions. Certainly his words aren't taken as necessarily being true, but instead are put to the same tests that any scientific hypothesis labours under. Well, science has done a pretty good job in other fields such as chemistry (beats alchemy hands down), biology (the four humours are so pass) and physics (no, the Sun is not pushed by a dung beetle). Why should it do any worse in the field of evolutionary biology?
If the use of scientific methodology bothers you, why not point to the particular issues you have with it? Most of it is, in fact, pretty much common sense. Or, if you have problems with a given scientist's data or the conclusions he draws from these, I'm sure the relevant journal will be happy to consider your submission. Of course, if you're just spouting sarcasm on the basis of absolutely no understanding of scientific methodology or the field in question, said journal will almost certainly tell you to take a hike. That's the power of science at work.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Um, by "atheist" I meant a person who believes in the non-existence of a supreme being.
Correct. And I repeat my complaint: What the hell do atheists have to do with anything?
We were discussing biological evolution. I repeat: The majority of people who accept evolution are not atheist.
You complained about evolution being taught by the government in schools and said "I don't wish to force my views down anyone's throat. I'm saying that atheists shouldn't either." You just called the MAJORITY of Christians atheists. That is blatantly false.
Am I "hostile"? Well I'm sick and tired of seeing that absurd logic over and over and over. It is also based on very offensive logic. It assumes that anyone who does not see some conflict between evolution and God is an atheist. It implies that anyone outside of a particular fundamentalist religious sect is an atheist. It's the logic that "my religion is the One True Religion" and to smear all other people of faith as "atheists" for not following the correct faith.
Am I hostile? Well I'm sick and tired of the STUPID argument I keep seeing that evolution equals atheism. (And the follow-up logic that evolution is therefore wrong or that it equals religion). Evolution has absolutely nothing to do with atheism. How many times do I have to say it? The majority of Christians accept evolution. The majority of "evolutionists" are not atheist.
non-existence of a supreme being
believe in a supreme being
Both are personal opinions, which should not be forced on people.
Correct, so long as we agree that this is completely off-topic and has absolutely nothing to do with the scientific field of biological evolution.
And not only are you correct, it would be unconstitutional for the government to do it. The government is explicitly prohibited from promoting or suppressing any religion or religious belief (including of course atheism or the belief that there is no God). The ACLU is a huge defender of this, and it is exactly why the ACLU wins their cases in this area. There's a ton of anti-ACLU propaganda, such as on School Prayer, and the propaganda is provably false. The ACLU in fact defends the right of students to pray in school (religious freedom), and evr single ACLU case over this has in fact targeted not students praying in school, but targeted the use of the force of government to either promote or supress prayer by students.despite all of the propaganda and lies. The ACLU publicly defends the right of students to pray in school, and they attack any force of government to either promote or supress student prayer. Neither the promotion nor suppression of religion or prayer is permissable through the force of government.
You used two false arguments to oppose the teaching of evolution in government highschool science class. One was that evolution somehow equaled atheism, and the other was that evolution was somehow "just a theory" and not equal to the rest of science. The first argument is just plan wrong, and the second argument is just plain ignorance. Evolution qualifies to be taught in highschool science class on the exact same basis as chemistry and gravity and relativity and quantum mechanics. Evolution is accepted by 99.9% of professional biologists because they have studied it and they do understand it and they have seen how extensively it has been tested and they have seen just how overwhelming the evidence is for it. If you are ignorant of the scientific legitimacy and support of evolution, and that it is on par with every other field of science taught in highschool, well that ignorance is not a valid argument.
If you still oppose the biological theory of evolution in highschool classrooms, either
(1) show how it DOES equal atheism and is thus prohibited, or
(2) show how it IS any different than every other field of science that is taught in highschools, or
(3) present some new argument you have not presented or some argument that I managed to overlook from you
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
snow flake. It's a great example of complexity, but it's got nothing to do with the argument.
I explicitly said that I brought up the snowflake example only to clarify the second law of thermodynamics argument you originally used (and which you latter apparently accepted was flawed), and I explicitly stated that the second thing I was going to do was address your "information" version of the argument.
Your argument was that information could not be spontaneously created by nature. After mentioning the snowflake I explained exactly how the evolutionary process creates information. As far as I can tell you have not disputed my proof that evolution is an information creation and processing system.
Do you accept that evolution can and does create information as I explained? Is so that really should be enough to end the fundamental argument. Snowflakes can create order out of chaos through a few simple rules and methods of combination, and evolution (though a few simple rules and methods of combination) can create accumulate information and order and complexity within DNA.
Both cases of simple rules creating order/information out of chaos. The biggest differences being (1) that snowflakes are restricted to starting from scratch with each new snowflake while evolution in an unbounded accumulation being added each generation, and (2) evolution preforms far more sophisticated information processing than the physics of snowflake formation, especially in the evolutionarly recombination step. As I said last post the recombination step was incredibly powerful. I didn't explain it, but I did offer to explain it upon request. It's a long explanation (though the fact that you are a programmer is is a huge help), but a excessive to explain unless you are genuinely interested. It would also be pointless to explain if you haven't accepted/understood my prior post on the information creation and processing aspects of evolution.
Every single lab experiment to try and recreate the conditions that might have existed in the early earth has failed to convicingly demonstrate how life could have arisen.
Not so long ago every single lab experiment failed to convicingly demonstrate how elements could have arisen. That is in no way a valid criticism of chemistry. The theory of chemistry has asbolutely nothing to do with the origin of the elements. Chemistry starts with the existance of elements and it explains how those elements behave once they exist.
And you should see why your argument is invalid simply by recopying the last paragraph precisely and substituting 'evolution' for 'chemistry' and 'life' for 'elements':
Not so long ago [currently] every single lab experiment failed to convicingly demonstrate how life could have arisen. That is in no way a valid criticism of evolution. The theory of evolution has asbolutely nothing to do with the origin of life. Evolution starts with the existance of life and it explains how that life behaves once it exists.
The only other change I made in there was basic grammer singular-plural agreement cleanup.
The theory to explain the origin of elements is nuclear fusion. The theory to explain the origin of life is aboigenesis. I freely admit that abiogenesis is a very poorly developed and poorly supported field (just as nuclear fusion once was). I have never argued that week and poorly supported theories belonged on highschool curriculums. As far as I am aware abiogenesis does not appear on general highschool curriculums. As far as I am aware there is absolutely no battle, and no need for any battle, over abiogenesis. What we do have is a battle of people attacking evolution, and that battle that is as stupid as a battle against chemistry. Citing weak nuclear fusion theory is not a valid argument against chemistry.
Show me one example of a mutation in nature that has added information to an organism that did not exist before.
Just for oneShow me the fossils that are half way between one speci
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Oops! I previewed THEN made a "minor fix" and posted without re-previewing. I was deleting an HTML tag and I left a glitch, an < without the matching >. All my text after the < dissapeared as one huge invalid HTML tag until the next tag got closed.
Here's the corrected segement:
Show me one example of a mutation in nature that has added information to an organism that did not exist before.
Just for one example, there is an entire industry founded on it. It is used and it occurrs for the measurement of the carcinigenicity/mutagenicity of chemicals. You take a bacteria that has no gene for digesting a certain sugar and you put it in a test dish with the chemical and food - except most of the food is that particular sugar they can't eat. Only bacteria that manage to evolve a gene to eat that sugar continue to survive and multiply. They need to either mutate an existing gene for eating some other sugar to a new form to target this sugar, or even better they could duplicate an existing gene for eating some other sugar and mutate one copy to target this new sugar. In the latter case they keep the old ability to eat the old sugar plus a completely new ability to eat the new sugar. Duplicating an existing gene is a huge evolutionary shortcut for evolving a new ability without damagine the old function in the process. In fact most genes can be traced as duplications and modifications of other genes.
Oh, and just in case I wasn't clear, that bacteria test will generate some bacteria that can eat the new sugar even if there is no carcinigenic chemical present. It is merely that a mutagenic chemical increases how often it happens. They way they read the test is by counting how many independant spots of bacteria pick up the new ability and survive. Below a certain number is the normal evolution rate, the higher it is above that the more the chemical triggers mutations.
Show me the fossils that are half way between one species and another, they should be everywhere.
They are everywhere...
(return to prior post for continuation)
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.