Creationists Manipulating Search Results

reallocate writes: It looks like some Creationists are manipulating search results to ensure websites pushing religion are appearing in response to queries about science. Ask Google "What happened to the dinosaurs?" and you'll see links to Creationist sites right at the top. (And, right now, several hits to sites taking note of it.) Google has a feedback link waiting for you to use it.

Comments

In Our Town

[Anonymous Coward]

Heads high, ponies! Marching proud! All together now! Every one of you! No pony left behind!

Life is so grand in Our Town
We're always filled with cheer
We never have to look around
To know that we're all here

In Our Town, in Our Town
We don't have to wait
To find out that our destiny
Is just to emulate

Let's see those big, happy smiles!

Life is a smile in Our Town
Our cutie marks the same
Because we do not separate
Ourselves by more than name

In Our Town, in Our Town
We dare not compete
Winning only breeds the worst
Ego-filled conceit

You see? Now everypony wins!

Life is a joy in Our Town
We're all equal here
No one is superior
And no one shakes in fear

In Our Town, in Our Town
We work as a team
You can't have a nightmare
If you never dream

Other ponies argue
Do you ever wonder why?
When you think your talent's special
You don't see eye-to-eye
There's just too many differences
That lead to disarray
But when you learn to act as one
It's like a holiday

In Our Town, in Our Town
We don't complicate
When you learn to simplify
Life is oh, so great
Join in our utopia
Come out of the dark
Banded by equality
By our cutie mark!

First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm posting this because I want attention. This post will echo through the internet for all time, and you just read it.

Re:First Post

[bondsbw]

Don't worry, subby was doing the same thing.

"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is that they're still here, SEO-ing the search results.

Dinosaurs, the ones related to lizards, can be traced through the fossil record to a number of extinction events.

Dinosaurs, the ones related to creationism, can be traced through the search results to the pages they've tweaked for rankings.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[MobSwatter]

Shhh, you don't want them to go all ISIS and start lopping heads off folks, kidnapping and burning women that won't go all PR0N for them do you?

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[KGIII]

I think they are anti-porn (at least of the heterosexual variety) and I am also pretty sure that that is half their problem.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Applehu Akbar]

As they call it, intelligently designing the search results.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[ArmoredDragon]

Dinosaurs, the ones related to lizards

Uhh...wut? Just because they looked like overgrown lizards in Jurassic Park, doesn't mean they're related to lizards.

Here's Jur ass has had it Park's raptor:

http://jurassicpark.wikia.com/...

Here's what a raptor probably looked like IRL:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Now what modern animal does the likely IRL version of a raptor resemble? If you guessed lizard, then I'm sorry.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[davester666]

I think they are anti-porn, when asked in public. If you check their internet history, you are likely to get a different version of events...

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[ArmoredDragon]

BTW that post sounds kind of mean spirited to the OP in retrospect, which isn't intended, I'm just poking fun at creationist websites claiming that dinosaurs espousing the idea that "god let lizards live a long time so they grew big" which isn't supported by the fossil record.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[KGIII]

That does not explain their curmudgeon attitude and other idiocy. It can't (I hope) be entirely due to their lack of intellect or logic. There must be a physical component and I am thinking it is due to frustration for a disaffected libido.

Hmm... Disaffected Libido... Band name, maybe? I have never typed that before and I hope I never type it again. It was wrong and I should feel bad.

Re: "What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

There is actually a study about this. Religious people use as much porn as others.

Re: "What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[oobayly]

There was a YouTube creationist called nephilmfree who was a fervent believer in "the flood" amongst other things. He accidentally showed his favourites menu in a video, which people noticed contained links to escort agencies. The video was re-uploaded with the link removed, but as he learned -nothing gets deemed from the internet.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Jstlook]

As a band name, I certainly wouldn't capitalize it. Just like Erectile Disfunction .. Why .. pray tell .. is that ever capitalized? It seems like the antithesis of capitalization, as [ed. in] a hole.

Re: "What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[narcc]

Wait ... are you telling me there was some random user on YouTube that wasn't competent? That produced poorly edited content? That said and did odd things?

Impossible!

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[marcello_dl]

> Shhh, you don't want them to go all ISIS and start lopping heads off folks

Don't be silly. Everybody knows we employ lapidation. Hold still a sec, will you?

Prophetic captcha: rigidly.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Jack Griffin]

Uhh...wut? Just because they looked like overgrown lizards in Jurassic Park, doesn't mean they're related to lizards.

Well, some of them actually do look like lizards.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Uhh...wut? Just because they looked like overgrown lizards in Jurassic Park, doesn't mean they're related to lizards."

Well, yes. But just because they're not lizards doesn't mean they're not related to them.

I am not my niece. But I *am* related to her. We look quite similar, but that doesn't mean I AM my niece. But not being my niece doesn't mean I'm not related to her.

The common ancestor was quite a long time before the Jurassic era, but dinosaurs overtook lizards about 200 million years ago. Jurassic being 150 million years (give or take) after that.

But they ARE related.

As close, really, as us and monkeys, at least at the time of ceolophysis.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if some of them had feathers, doesn't mean that all of them did or even that most of them did. If there are no feather marks found when the fossil has been dug up, then it's very likely that particlar dino had no feathers. Unfortunately now people seem to think that all of them had feathers, since maybe raptors and some of them did. That does not mean that T-Rex had them, or that triceratops had them or anything like that. Further more it doesn't mean they had feathers like birds do, unless there's clear traces of them.

The only dinos with feathers, that i've seen a fossil of in documents have been pretty small gliding dinos. They've had vey clear feathers around them. I'd like to see one of raptor too, since apparently it had feathers.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

As they call it, "designing" the headline. Spoiler: If you actually follow the link there is not even any suggestion that the search results have been manipulated. Instead the story poster has seen a Creationist site high in the results and gone MORAL PANIC! IT MUST BE MANIPULATION!

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Maritz]

Just because they looked like overgrown lizards in Jurassic Park, doesn't mean they're related to lizards.

No, it doesn't mean they're related to lizards. They're related to lizards because they're related to lizards. Parent didn't say anything about raptors, Therapods are the one major dinosaur sub-order that branched out into birds. There's nothing wrong with saying dinosaurs were related to lizards. We're related to lizards.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Sique]

We are related to lizards in a way that the last common ancestor of today's lizards and us lived about 290 mio years ago.

Btw. lizard is no cladistic category. Lizard is a habitus that often appears in certain groups of amniotes. But the lizards within the amniotes are not closely related to each other, or at least not more closely than to other amniotes. The lizardlike crocodiles are more closely related to birds (both are archosauria) than for instance to the Komodo dragon, though they look very similar. The Komodo dragon instead is more closely related to snakes and to the ancient marine mosasaurs than for instance the wall lizards.

Re: "What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[O('_')O_Bush]

Some reptiles had fur (see Synapsids) and only one branch of dinosaurs developed feathers at some point (Therapods). Obviously not all dinosaurs had feathers (for example, a large portion of them were aquatic, filling the same roles as modern whales), so it is hardly a stretch to think that many of them looked like reptiles.

Especially since the appearance of reptiles then could have been mammalian for some values of reptiles.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[luis_a_espinal]

Uhh...wut? Just because they looked like overgrown lizards in Jurassic Park, doesn't mean they're related to lizards.

Well, some of them actually do look like lizards.

Tuataras are neither dinosaurs (clade Archosauromorpha), nor lizzards (order Squagmata). They are Rhynchocephalia, distantly related to the Squagmata, both orders being Lepidomorphs. It is almost as comparing Marsumials with Eutherians.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Maritz]

You've made me a smidgen wiser, thanks. ;)

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[MiniMike]

Seems to me that Google is calling the creationists themselves dinosaurs. In that sense the answer is correct, although a bit abstract for most people who would be doing this search.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[KGIII]

It is a name. Pronouns are usually capitalized, I think?

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[ArmoredDragon]

Well, some of them actually do look like lizards.

A dead giveaway that it's not a dinosaur is (among other things) its 5 digits. All dinosaurs had 3 digits.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's a name. However, pronouns aren't usually capitalized, you should know that.

Rather *proper names* are usually capitalized, and 'erectile dysfunction' isn't a proper name any more than 'joint pain' is.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[ArmoredDragon]

That does not mean that T-Rex had them or that triceratops had them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

While the triceratops may not have had them, they also have three digits and a proto beak, two traits I've never heard of in any lizard.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Your fossil records are incomplete... you (and the scientific world) are make great assumptions. I will agree that I am also since neither of us can honestly prove or dis-prove our own points of view.

Science interprets what it thinks it sees. Creationist interprets what we read. Neither proves their own point or disproves the other point. In the end we will know. If you are right - we just die and rot. If I am right - we die and you burn in hell. Right now you have a choice.

enjoy.

Re: "What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction: If we are right, you've just wasted a lot of time practicing religious beliefs, while afterwards you'll just die and rot anyway.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps google wants to know what you think on the issue and is purposely putting creationist results at the top.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Dinosaurs, the ones related to lizards

Uhh...wut? Just because they looked like overgrown lizards in Jurassic Park, doesn't mean they're related to lizards.

Here's Jur ass has had it Park's raptor:

http://jurassicpark.wikia.com/...

Here's what a raptor probably looked like IRL:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Now what modern animal does the likely IRL version of a raptor resemble? If you guessed lizard, then I'm sorry.

Umm... we are all related to lizards and their ancestors. ALL life on the earth is related to all other life on the earth.
                  Yep, even the plants. Its a DNA / Evolution type thing.

                    REad up on it.

                  Just Sayin.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Grey Geezer]

Funny, how you, and many of your kind, never consider that you may be the ones burning in Hell. Lying, even to ourselves, would seem to be a mortal sin (if we are to believe in the holy books as you are suggesting). Wanting something to be true, even wanting something to be true really, really passionately, is not the same thing as knowing something is true. Science, so far, is the best system we have to find those truths. The fact that "The Scientific Method" has found (continues to find) its mistakes is not its weakness, it is its strength.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Science changes. God has been constant.

You wanting your interpretation of science to be true - does not make it so - it just proves your faults.

Your religion (evolution) is riddled with faults. It has never been scientifically proven but just accepted by a few. I will accept my religion also has faults perhaps (only to the point I cannot explain everything to your satisfaction) but it is the most logical or both possibilities. Mine is easier to accept that happenstance. Ill pick intelligent design every time!

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[GrumpyOlBastard]

We really need to get away from comparing slashdot id's. It is especially mean to call those with a 3 digit ID 'dinosaurs'. They prefer the term 'early adopter'.

Re: "What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

My time is not wasted if it adds value to me and my life.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Keybounce]

What happened to the dinosaurs? Some of them grew wings, developed feathers, and are still around. Just ask the chicken what it's ancestor was like.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[marklark]

Well, I am sure the author didn't want it to read "How Evolutionists (You ;^) Are Manipulating Google!"

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[HiThere]

It could be the name of a punk rock band. (Is that even around anymore?)

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise for "Who wrote Genesis?" [the correct answer may be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287457/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Jack Griffin]

Attempt to sound knowledgeable fails with basic spelling errors...

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Jack Griffin]

Who says it didn't grow 2 extra digits in the last 65 million years? (I'm not serious - the point is that the word dinosaur is not always used in it's scientifically pure definition. For the rest of us, anything that was a living species 65 million years ago is a dinosaur, and that's ok)

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[KGIII]

Yeah, I meant proper names but I was being dump/brain farting. It happens with age.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[StikyPad]

"Jur ass has had it Park"?

"Late Cretaceous Park," would have been a much more relevant dig at the name.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[StikyPad]

Unless you're reading ancient aramaic and greek, you're interpreting an interpretation of words whose original meanings and connotations are speculative anyway. You're speculating on speculation, even assuming the original text was authoritative.

Of course, the canonical texts of the New Testament were chosen by some guy named Athanasius who lived 300 years after Jesus, and you probably didn't know of until reading this. If you did, you'd be an exception. And why are there four gospels? Because of such amazing logic as: "since there are four-quarters of the earth in which we live, and four universal winds, while the church is scattered throughout all the world, and the 'pillar and ground' of the church is the gospel and the spirit of life, it is fitting that she should have four pillars breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh⦠Therefore the gospels are in accord with these things⦠For the living creatures are quadriform and the gospel is quadriform⦠These things being so, all who destroy the form of the gospel are vain, unlearned, and also audacious; those [I mean] who represent the aspects of the gospel as being either more in number than as aforesaid, or, on the other hand, fewer." By that logic, the Bible should exhibit bilateral symmetry and be capable of reproduction.

But I guess that doesn't matter, as long as we get the "jist" of the Bible. Even though not one word can be added or removed, sayeth the Lord, dontchaknow.

Meanwhile, science is testable and repeatable, not "trust me, it happened because someone wrote it down and then some other people voted on it."

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[RockDoctor]

A dead giveaway that it's not a dinosaur is (among other things) its 5 digits. All dinosaurs had 3 digits.

This is an incorrect statement. Dinosaurs had one (Mononykus, kiwi), two (other reports of kiwi, Apteryx ; the character may be labile or reporting inconsistent. I don't have a kiwi skeleton in my cupboard) three (theropods, including birds, though not necessarily the same three digits in theropods and birds), four (stegosaur and ceratopsian hind feet), or five digits ceratopsian fore feet). There's no particular reason to have the same digit count on fore and rear limbs.

I am not aware of any six-digited dinosaurs, but if you were to show me one I wouldn't automatically assume it were a fake. (I'd look damned carefully though.)

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[RockDoctor]

Some of my favourite sexually-transmitted bacteria are related to lizards. In fact, they all are. And probably the viruses too, though that may be harder to prove.

Re: "What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[RockDoctor]

Obviously not all dinosaurs had feathers (for example, a large portion of them were aquatic, filling the same roles as modern whales),

This is an incorrect statement.

No dinosaurs were aquatic, to the best of my knowledge (I'm a geologist, so there's a fair chance that I'm better informed on this than the average Slashdotter. I don't think there are any full-time palaeontologists on the board.)

Plenty of dinosaurs lived in wet environments - the Spinosaurs, for example - but they still developed from eggs laid on dry land and had no adaptations requiring them to live in a permanently aquatic situation.

There were "reptiles" alive at the same time as the dinosaurs, which were fully aquatic. ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs would both fit your description. Neither of them were dinosaurs. Neither of them were much more closely related to the dinosaurs than you and I are.

("Reptile" is of course a polyphyletic group, not the descendants of a single species of organism which has no descendants which are not "reptiles".)

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[RockDoctor]

Funny, how you, and many of your kind, never consider that you may be the ones burning in Hell.

Sithrak has a spit oiled for Creationists. But that doesn't make them special. Sithrak has a spit oiled for every one. And it's an irritating oil, not a soothing oil.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[devent]

Lying is not a "mortal sin" (sic), where did you get that from? Unbelief is the mortal sin in Christianity and Islam. Btw, I'm not religious in any sense, just pointing that fact out. Or, just to help you to understand the Creationist view point, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1. i.e., faith is evidence in the Creationist view point.

Re:"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Changing when you get new information is a strength, not a weakness. Furthermore, are you trying to tell me that God didn't change from the Old Testament to the New Testament? Are you really asserting that the words in the Bible haven't been changed over time through different translations or different editions?

Evolution doesn't have faults. There is massive amounts of evidence for it. There is evidence against intelligent design, and literally no evidence for it. Your position is, by far, less logical than the alternative.

next up

[Anonymous Coward]

you'll see wackadoos talking about how carbon dioxide is not to blame for global warming!!

Re: next up

[Anonymous Coward]

On the Genesis site it blames CO2 levels on God farting too much.

Re: next up

[Anonymous Coward]

On the Genesis site it blames CO2 levels on God farting too much.

Not surprising given we are all created in his image.

Re: next up

[warm_warmer]

Not surprising given we are all created in his image.

In Soviet Russia, God created US in HIS image!

Re: next up

[Anonymous Coward]

No, God created himself in our image.

Re: next up

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite surprising given that god is a myth.

Re: next up

[Maritz]

For me he's also a myth, but sadly for certain gullible people he's a definite HIT.

Re: next up

[coinreturn]

On the Genesis site it blames CO2 levels on God farting too much.

Not surprising given we are all created in his image.

No, we created God in our image. That's why he's white.

Alternate story title

[amicusNYCL]

"Everyone trying to manipulate search results"

Re: Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes... Or 'person creates website and performs seo optimization.'

Re:Alternate story title

[v1]

"Everyone trying to manipulate search results"

Though just because "everyone else is doing it" doesn't make it right. This particular one is just something more people would like to see action taken on.

(I won't shed a single tear for scientologists gettting a slashdot effect)

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. I'm no creationist but it always seems to me I hear "Right Wing manipulating search results!" when the left wing does it every seems to say 'Oh yeah, no problem.'

Spare me.

Re:Alternate story title

[Theolojin]

"Everyone trying to manipulate search results"

Yep. Don't like it? Use duckduckgo.com. Meh. A non-story.

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing isn't it ? It's like watching people covered in shit, sniffing around looking for something that stinks.

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

startpage.com is another that does the same thing, with more of a focus on general privacy as opposed to just an SEO blocker

Re:Alternate story title

[rmdingler]

Manipulating search results is essentially a service available to the highest bidder.

I liken this to an expression of belief.

An expression in which I advocate the freedom of, even (and especially) if it makes throw up in my mouth a tiny bit.

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

http://imgur.com/AlDiotr

Re:Alternate story title

[rmdingler]

Amazing isn't it ? It's like watching people covered in shit, sniffing around looking for something that stinks.

Damn. I don't get that...

Is that a focking premium cable channel?

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

I used DuckDuckGo and got the same result. Did you?

Re:Alternate story title

[msauve]

"Though just because "everyone else is doing it"..."

To paraphrase Yossarian, "Then, I'd certainly be a damned fool to do it any other way, wouldn't I?"

Re:Alternate story title

[towermac]

when I think of all the mod points I let expire...

Heh.

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

SEO/Marketing Asshole here:

This is slightly different than your typical manipulation in that Google is showing the result outside of the typical organic results. Google has been pulling in 'facts' under its Knowledge Graph program to return 'factual' information for common search terms (a common example is the generic name for name-brand medicine).

Having read the patent that describes the Knowledge Graph they're suppose to validate any 'facts' with Wikipedia and other trusted data sources before returning those 'facts' in the Knowledge Graph.

This is a serious fuck up on Google's part if jerks like Ham can get his stupid book and obviously-wrong facts into the Knowledge Graph. In reality the story should be about Google getting played not more focus on made-up bullshit that people made up to rectify the bible with science.

Re:Alternate story title

[rmdingler]

No. I did not get the same result.

It occurs to me you knew that and got me to search there anyway, you clever bastard.

1)You can't wash your eyes with soap.

2)You can't count your hair.

3)You can't breathe through your nose with your tongue out.

4)You just tried number 3.

6)When you tried #3, you realized it's it's possible, you just look like a dog.

7) You're smiling right now because you know you were fooled.

8) you skipped number 5.

9)You just checked to see if there was a #5.

Re:Alternate story title

[BarbaraHudson]

"Everyone trying to manipulate search results"

Yep. Don't like it? Use duckduckgo.com. Meh. A non-story.

DuckDuckGo has the same problem. Ditto Bing, Yahoo Search, and of course Amazon.

Re:Alternate story title

[BarbaraHudson]

If you can't breathe through your nose with your tongue out, maybe you should see an eye-ear-nose specialist. Also, I just tried DuckDuckGo, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon - they all have this problem.

Re:Alternate story title

[Rick Zeman]

"Everyone trying to manipulate search results"

Yep. Don't like it? Use duckduckgo.com. Meh. A non-story.

Did you actually try DDG that before posting? DuckDuckGo gave its top result to a fruitcake link saying "Genesis can explain everything...."
No, I didn't click it....

Re: Alternate story title

[GrantRobertson]

Yep. But christians are supposedly not supposed to lie. SEO of that sort is a form of lying.

Re: Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats your excuse for being a hypocrite ?

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Search for "ipod touch 6g 2015" on ddg, and the first entries are for Christian sites.

I mean, it's been three years since they've updated the iPod touch, are people resorting to praying for a new model?

Re:Alternate story title

[im_thatoneguy]

Bing returns the same results so unless both knowledge graphs are operating the same I would imagine it's a much simpler explanation: both sites rely on "answer" websites for answers. If you ask any question most often the results are Yahoo.Answers, Answers.com and wikihow. My guess would be that "Answers in Genesis" overloads their weighting for "answers" URLs associated with "Questions" on this topic.

If they actually overloaded the Knowledge Graph it would appear in a special box at the top of the results. In this instance it's still just a link. If you search "Circumference of the earth" you'll get a knowledge graph result with an "official answer".

Re: Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

"seo optimization"? What's next, "pin number"? ;-)

Re: Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always a problem when either wing does anything. And a bigger problem that the 80% inbetween the two extremes do fuck all about keeping their loons in check.

Re: Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Right after you access your LAN Network with your NIC Card on your PC Computer.

Re: Alternate story title

[bledri]

Yep. But christians are supposedly not supposed to lie. SEO of that sort is a form of lying.

Many "modern" Christians believe that it's OK to lie if your goal is to convert the people to Christianity. After all, there is only one "Truth."

Re: Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Please keep your personal perversions to yourself.

Re:Alternate story title

[Maritz]

Consider yourself spared.

Re: Alternate story title

[Maritz]

The list of what christians are 'supposed' to do but do not do is astonishing. If you take the whole book, then even the crazy ones are hellbound hypocrites. Show me a preacher who doesn't trim the hair on the side of his head for example (expressly fucking forbidden in Leviticus). Even if you take it forward to the 'nice' nutter, JC - he gave pretty specific instructions that NO-ONE pays any attention to.

Re:Alternate story title

[serviscope_minor]

7) You're smiling right now because you know you were fooled.

Damn you, damn you to hell.

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Though just because "everyone else is doing it" doesn't make it right

And just because you don't like it doesn't make it wrong.

This particular one is just something more people would like to see action taken on.

Really? Why? Creationists have their point of view and they're just as entitled to game the system as anybody else. If science is so self-evidently true, why would anyone care about Creationists having a voice? Could it be that scientific method doesn't apply to historical events anyway, and that's science's own dogmatic position on this stuff is fairly weak? The search in question is "what happened to the dinosaurs?". We don't know what happened to the dinosaurs. End of. The Creationists have as much right to speculate on the answer as anyone else. Same goes triple for our scientific creation myths about the universe and the formation of the solar system. You think it's a coincidence that a Judeo-Christian civilization's science has a Judeo-Christian-style scientific creation myth? Let there be light, indeed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a science-ist, and I believe the scientific version, not the Creationist version. I'm just able to understand that these are beliefs, and not facts, and I wish more science-ists were able to so.

Re:Alternate story title

[ILongForDarkness]

I think I had that channel in my hotel room in Germany.

Re:Alternate story title

[ILongForDarkness]

and who has more money than God?

Re:Alternate story title

[devent]

Wikipedia is not a "trusted data source"? I think humanity is destined for doom.

Re:Alternate story title

[Big Hairy Ian]

"Everyone trying to manipulate search results"

It's the only way I can make my knob look bigger

Re:Alternate story title

[devent]

Wikipedia is *now* a "trusted data source"? I think humanity is destined for doom.

Re:Alternate story title

[asylumx]

If you ask any question most often the results are Yahoo.Answers,

It's called "Yahoo! Answers" -- how do people not realize that these answer come from Yahoos?

Re: Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. But christians are supposedly not supposed to lie. SEO of that sort is a form of lying.

Many "modern" Christians believe that it's OK to lie if your goal is to convert the people to Christianity. After all, there is only one "Truth."

It's ok , if I am searching for a science article, I avoid the bible thumper sites, just as a rule of thumb. Speaking of that, you can beat a bible thumper with a cane up to but not exceeding the diameter of your thumb in most states when they get all preachy.

"Modern Christians" and "Christian Scientists" are oxymorons.

Re:Alternate story title

[Bing Tsher E]

The Pope?

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Good One. You could have even added, "Nothing to see Here".

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Of course you can wash your eyes with soap. It just hurts like fuck.

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

validate any 'facts' with Wikipedia and other trusted data sources

AAAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahaha.....ROFLMAO at the thought of Wikipedia being "trusted".

But seriously, why is it that the "Scientists" are usually the first ones to cry Heretic!

Maybe it's not the scientists, but the Face Painting Homers who only know of science from what they read on the Daily KOS.

Re: Alternate story title

[sycodon]

I would think that if you are searching for a Science article then you would stick to reputable journals and not some publication aimed at the general public.

Science "Journalists" usually have no science education and just parrot back what they learn during their research...if you are lucky. If you are not, then they will conform it to their political agendas and include ridiculous statements that would elicit a great big WTF? from most scientists.

Re:Alternate story title

[An ominous Cow art]

It hurts less if you take them out first.

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, if I had mod points and you weren't already at +5 Funny I'd give one to you.

I am guilty on all counts, and literally laughed out loud (in a crowded office) at this.

Well done sir, I salute you.

Re:Alternate story title

[mu51c10rd]

SEO/Marketing Asshole here

At least you market your comments properly to your target audience at Slashdot...

Re:Alternate story title

[tlhIngan]

Bing returns the same results so unless both knowledge graphs are operating the same I would imagine it's a much simpler explanation: both sites rely on "answer" websites for answers. If you ask any question most often the results are Yahoo.Answers, Answers.com and wikihow. My guess would be that "Answers in Genesis" overloads their weighting for "answers" URLs associated with "Questions" on this topic.

If they actually overloaded the Knowledge Graph it would appear in a special box at the top of the results. In this instance it's still just a link. If you search "Circumference of the earth" you'll get a knowledge graph result with an "official answer".

FTFA, it was in a special box - there's a screenshot of the result right there.

It wasn't just a set of links, it was an actual knowledge box with the answer being found in Genesis.

Links, fine, that's just a SEO thing. But this was being presented as facts - Google returning it as definitive "truth" and answer, and appearing before the actual search results.

Re: Alternate story title

[XxtraLarGe]

The list of what christians are 'supposed' to do but do not do is astonishing. If you take the whole book, then even the crazy ones are hellbound hypocrites. Show me a preacher who doesn't trim the hair on the side of his head for example (expressly fucking forbidden in Leviticus).

Sounds like the only thing you know about the Bible is what you've read on the atheist talking point sites. There's a pretty good reason that Christians don't follow the Levitical laws. See Acts 15 for more info, if you'd like to gain some insight into it.

Re:Alternate story title

[ILongForDarkness]

Exactly.

Re: Alternate story title

[rezme]

ATM machine...

Re: Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so it's that and not Matthew 5:18 where jeebus says the exact opposite? Silly theist doesn't know his own bronze age sheepherder mythology.

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a serious fuck up on Google's part if jerks like Ham can get his stupid book and obviously-wrong facts into the Knowledge Graph.

I _guess_ it's a serious fuck-up, but what does Google give you in response to a search query seeking information?

  - search results: knowledge
  - knowledge graph: knowledge

Knowledge Graph is just another ranking algorithm. Maybe it differs in ambition (greater), scope (narrower), politics (more room for editorializing), and marketing (your expectations were set way higher), but fundamentally it's made of the same stuff as regular search: computers. It's not like they're trying less hard to program them well for regular search or for Knowledge Graph. They do their best on both because competition is fierce.

Re: Alternate story title

[amicusNYCL]

Just out of curiosity, which groups are allowed to lie? Are you supposed to lie? Do you consider yourself a Christian? If you go around lying to people all day does that make you feel good? What does this have to do with a religion? Do you feel like you need religion to lay the rules for how to interact with other people? What the hell ever happened to the Golden Rule?

Re:Alternate story title

[sudon't]

Don't like it? Use duckduckgo.com. Meh. A non-story.

It's not only outsiders trying to manipulate Google results, but Google itself, (if you allow those cookies), tries to guess what results you'd like, based on your search history. I no longer google with Google, either.

However, around 65 million years ago, something happened to change all of this—the dinosaurs disappeared.

God struck them down for their sins. I don't know where Ken Ham gets his crazy ideas.

Re: Alternate story title

[XxtraLarGe]

Oh, so it's that and not Matthew 5:18 where jeebus says the exact opposite? Silly theist doesn't know his own bronze age sheepherder mythology.

You mean

Matthew 5:18 "For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. "

Jesus was talking about his death and resurrection. That wasn't even a challenge, try harder next time. Iron sharpens iron, and all that.

Re:Alternate story title

[sudon't]

"...validate any 'facts' with Wikipedia..."

Validate facts with Wikipedia? You need double scare quotes in a sentence like that.

Re: Alternate story title

[GrantRobertson]

A) Everybody is "allowed" to lie. Research shows that most everybody lies dozens of times per day, just as part of social interactions. Plus, I really don't care who lies amongst their own group. Christians can tell each other just about anything they want.

B) My point is that christians have, as one of their Ten Most Important Things Not To Do, an edict against lying. However they do it all the time and pretty major ways. So that makes them hypocrites. Even if you say that The Ten Commandments are in the "Old Testament" and therefore only apply to jews, then there is still your Golden Rule, which was supposedly espoused by their supposed messiah. So, by lying, are christians saying that they think it is OK for others to lie to them in such a way. Is it OK to trick them into seeing something they weren't looking for? Porn, for instance? (Yes, hyperbole. Get over it.)

Personally, I lie as little as possible. However, I don't go overboard with the "honesty" by telling people exactly what I think of them all the time either. Every so-called "christian" I have ever met has been a major hypocrite. And I was a pretty involved christian for a while. That hypocrisy is one of the main things that started turning me off to the whole thing. (Now don't anybody start in with the "nobody's perfect, we're just forgiven" BS. I know, you are only forgiven if you are repentant. All of these people were unrepentant hypocrites so, by their own book, they aren't forgiven and aren't really christians. Plus, that wasn't the only thing that convinced me that it is all BS.)

Re: Alternate story title

[Khashishi]

It's not really lying if they believe it to be true.

Re:Alternate story title

[LWATCDR]

And Google does not provide quality search results it provides popular search results.
And Slashdot shows an anti-religious bias again.

You get the same quality of results if you search for "have aliens landed on earth".

Re: Alternate story title

[GrantRobertson]

OK. Good point. In this context, if they really believe that the version of history espoused on their web sites IS the accurate version of what really happened, then you are right. They aren't lying. Nor are they doing anything anyone else wouldn't do to "help more people find their websites."

So, in this context, I take back what I said about them being hypocrites.

Re:Alternate story title

[PitaBred]

No. You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. We care because they brainwash kids from a young age, so we have to overcome that indoctrination so that people understand reality. We care because young-earthers head up Senate science committees. We care because just being right is not enough, we have to actively combat the people spreading intentional ignorance.

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, the well known fact that Yahoo uses Bing which scrapes it's results from Google. DuckDuckGo I have no idea about, but one can still honeypot Bing, it's almost a game now. Realistically, the only search engine you have to worry about is Google; the rest generally use their results.

Re:Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone stopped paying attention to the list in the middle.

Re: Alternate story title

[Maritz]

Funnily enough the christians who ignore the Old Testament seem to be the very same ones who cite it as justification for repression of homosexuals. Almost as if they pick and choose what bits they like.

Re:Alternate story title

[SillyHamster]

Manipulating search results is essentially a service available to the highest bidder.

There is a benign reason for why the AIG link ended up on top of the list - that Google happened to use an algorithm that weighted it as the "best answer" (faultily?).

So evidence is there that AIG paid to manipulate search engine results and get their page at the top of the list?

Re:Alternate story title

[RockDoctor]

You need to talk to the poster "devent", below.

Re:Alternate story title

[RockDoctor]

You need to talk to the poster "devent", above.

Re: Alternate story title

[RockDoctor]

Yep. But christians are supposedly not supposed to lie. SEO of that sort is a form of lying.

This is exactly why we frequently refer to them (to their faces on those rare occasions that they dare to see daylight) as "Liars for Jesus."

The epithet is intended to remind them of the mortal peril into which their actions put their souls. As if they had one. Which they don't.

Re: Alternate story title

[RockDoctor]

It's not really lying if they believe it to be true.

and we have no problem about considering such people to be delusional - no less delusional than the man who leaps from the 40th floor flapping his arms vigorously.

Re:Alternate story title

[devent]

Sure, my email is erwin.mueller@deventm.org
I think it's also on my web site.

Re:Alternate story title

[rdnetto]

If they actually overloaded the Knowledge Graph it would appear in a special box at the top of the results. In this instance it's still just a link.

I just googled it, and it absolutely does appear in that special box. (Interestingly, this is despite it being the #2 result, with #1 being the PBS website.)

Re: Alternate story title

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like you'd still have to only eat kosher meat though. Not many Christians do that.

Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Google filter results presumably based in part on links and subjects you've visited across the web before? Sounds like a creationist witch hunt to me.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Runaway1956]

Maybe the anti-creationist, anti-Christian witch hunters set this bogus thing up, just to have an excuse to go after the Christians. Something looks bogus, but I'm nowhere near convinced that some church is responsible for it.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

"anti-Christian witch hunters"

ROTFLMAO

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[NemoinSpace]

The thing you have to realize is how stupid they have to be to get into an argument like this with someone. These God-hating wanna be anti-christs hang around and apparently know an awfully large number of dumb people, and are happy to have the same stupid conversations with them ad-nauseum. Personally, I have never met anyone over the last 20 years that believes the Earth is 6,000 years old. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just saying I don't seem to have an affinity for them.
The real problem is, in an infinite, probabilistic universe, even the smallest chance that God exists is a certainty. Of course, there is no shortage of conflicting, self defeating pseudo-science airheads that will believe anything else rather than making an attempt at living a Christian life with a little less ego.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Ol Olsoc]

Maybe the anti-creationist, anti-Christian witch hunters set this bogus thing up, just to have an excuse to go after the Christians. Something looks bogus, but I'm nowhere near convinced that some church is responsible for it.

Who else would care? Fundamentalists have long lost the science war, so they go for the court of public opinion .

Also noted your completely whacked conspiracy theory that a group of anti-cheristian witch hunters set this up so they have another thing to go after.

Seen any suspicious rainbows lately? This might fill you in on what the governmen is doing I hear it targets Christians:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Runaway1956]

I've seen that video before. The woman ain't the sharpest tool in the shed - fifty years ago or more, I was busily creating my own rainbows with a garden hose, with a spray bottle, with a wet piece of glass - I was learning all about water prisms. Hell, you can do it UNDERGROUND!

But, to address your remarks, the Department of Homeland Security has indeed identified Christians as potential extremists, along with honorably discharged military veterans. Maybe you should check DHS' list to see if you're on it.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/dh...

http://www.homelandsecuritynew...

Among other things, I find it curious that DHS was searching so hard for "non-Islamist" extremists - almost like Islamist extremists had DHS tacit approval.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[rthille]

The real problem is, in an infinite, probabilistic universe, even the smallest chance that God exists is a certainty.

Not any god that a christian would accept. Their god is outside the universe, and created it.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[the gnat]

identified Christians as potential extremists

Identified specific Christians as potential extremists. And they do exist - why is this in any way a surprise? Every faith-based ideology (Marxism obviously falls into this category) eventually attracts violent nutjobs. Even Buddhism has violent extremists, some of whom are currently hard at work ethnically cleansing a Muslim minority in Myanmar. There are also left-wing environmentalist extremists, along with Maoists and anarchists, all of whom the DHS and FBI also track.

Among other things, I find it curious that DHS was searching so hard for "non-Islamist" extremists - almost like Islamist extremists had DHS tacit approval.

The fact that most worldwide religious extremists are currently Muslim does not mean we should give a free pass to domestic extremists just because they happen to follow your preferred religion. (And what makes you so certain that the DHS wasn't investigating domestic Islamists too?) Since Christians are an overwhelming majority in the US, it is certainly logical to look for extremists in that population, especially since they may have an easier time blending in, and there are existing organized extremist groups, some of which have a long history of violence. (I should note that Timothy McVeigh was an "honorably discharged military veteran".)

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[BarbaraHudson]

Your theory requires that the universe be infinite. No proof of that yet, and maybe never.

What is so hard to believe that we created the "god" myth? It's been done many times over the ages, so we have more proof of that than the other way around.

Otherwise, who created god?

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Runaway1956]

I'm pretty certain that DHS was NOT investigating any Muslim groups because the puppet master in the White House is a Muslim. And, by "puppet master" I am not referring to Obama - he is the puppet!

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

anti-Christian

witch hunters

Hnnng!

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[KGIII]

I do not believe in God but I have no problem with the concept. Your comment made me think, though...

If particles can be in more than one place and controlled simply by measuring or observing them then could we humans have, perhaps, created a God? The whole thing about the statistical chances of this being an accident is interesting but not a part of this. By worshiping a deity could humans have created a deity? It seems unlikely but, well, who knows? I think it would make an interesting science fiction plot...

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[PopeRatzo]

Maybe the anti-creationist, anti-Christian witch hunters set this bogus thing up, just to have an excuse to go after the Christians.

That's...plausible.

But maybe the Creationists set it up just to make it look like the anti-Christian witch hunters set it up so that then they could say, "Look how we're being made to look stupid and a little evil by the anti-Christian witch hunters who are all hiding in plain sight just steps away from the Christian churches that are on every other block throughout the United States.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

using that logic there is an equal chance every one elses god exists and the same chance that only one god exists how do you know yours is the correct one Sinner?

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[PopeRatzo]

What is so hard to believe that we created the "god" myth? It's been done many times over the ages, so we have more proof of that than the other way around.

Yes, but all those other people who created gods were just making them up, whereas the god we made up is the Real Thing!

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[PopeRatzo]

Seen any suspicious rainbows lately? This might fill you in on what the governmen is doing I hear it targets Christians:

Actually, there was a big stunning double rainbow over Dublin last week as the people of Ireland rejected the teachings of the Church and approved same sex marriage.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/u...

Texas, on the other hand, outlawed gay marriage and got deadly floods and tornadoes.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/26/...

Coincidence?

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[rgbatduke]

The real problem is, in an infinite, probabilistic universe, even the smallest chance that God exists is a certainty. Of course, there is no shortage of conflicting, self defeating pseudo-science airheads that will believe anything else rather than making an attempt at living a Christian life with a little less ego.

I do not think that this "probability" means what you think it means.

I will try to tell you. No, it is too much, I will sum up.

Suppose you have an infinite barrel of marbles, 10% of which are green. Then the probability of drawing a green marble is (wait for it) 10%. This isn't a particularly small probability. If there is a single green marble, somewhere in the barrel, the probability of drawing it is asymptotically zero, statistically neglible, less than the chance of winning the lottery, and winning the lottery in one try is far from certain. If the probability that God exists is 1 x 10^{-403} in an infinite, probabilistic Universe, then the probability that God exists is (gasp) 1 x 10^{-403}. This is most definitely not certainty. Certainty isn't the "smallest chance", it is probability 1. It is the largest (possible) chance.

Even 1 x 10^{-403} isn't in the same ballpark as "the smallest chance", by the way. It is enormous compared to the probability that all of the air molecules in the room I'm in will suddenly (by pure chance) happen to bounce in just the right way to form a big blob of liquid air in the middle of the room and leave me gasping in a vacuum as air molecules outside of the house by strange chance miss all of the myriad pathways into the room. Which in turn is unbelievably, awesomely hugely enormous compared to the probability that the infinite, probabilistic Universe is in fact determined and known at the subatomic level by a perfectly organized, uncreated, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent superbeing that created it all by pure magic from nothing.

Oh, wait -- that's a contradiction, isn't it! If the Universe is infinite and probabilistic, then it can't be infinite and deterministic and hence known by an omniscient, omnipotent being, because there is nothing less probabilistic than something that is completely determined by an all powerful, all-knowing being. So your premises directly contradict your conclusion, in addition to demonstrating nothing more than the simple fact that you have absolutely no clue about probability distributions on continuous spaces.

Ego aside, you might want to contemplate learning something about probability and reason itself before you argue in favor of something empirically, logically, and statistically indefensible. God (as a concept) is all three.

rgb

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Ol Olsoc]

Texas, on the other hand, outlawed gay marriage and got deadly floods and tornadoes.

Don't forget another state blessed by God, Oklahoma. They are getting hammered too.I think that falls under the "working in mysterious ways" escape clause.

Seriously I do feel awful badly for those folks. I hate when bad things happen to anyone, even if they hate me with a passion.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[rgbatduke]

An interesting science fiction plot that has been used so many times it is hackneyed.

It is also a horrendous abuse of the concepts of quantum theory. The problem with the hypothesis of God is that there has been no reproducible, objective, measurement or observation of God. Quite the contrary. The Universe unfolds precisely as if there were no such thing as God, with truly awesome, mind-boggling consistency, follow rules known only approximately (so far) as the "Laws of Nature" which leave no room whatsoever for God, unless it is God's will that the Universe evolve in time as if there were no God.

This is a far cry from asserting that the Aharanov-Bohm effect implies God, even allowing for the imprecision of stating that particles can be "controlled" by observing them, and worshipping something has never, as far as I know, caused that something to come to be.

Finally, there is an information-theoretic argument that proves it quite impossible to create a God by any means such as you suggest. It is quite literally as impossible as reconstructing an encoded string a gazillion bytes long from a single tiny fragment of that encoded string. The information content of God has to be greater than or equal to the information content of the Universe (this is literally the God-property of omniscience). I am a (very) finite part of the Universe. I have enormous (information) entropy relative to the Universe quite aside of the possibility that I have in some sense a quantum indeterminacy in my state. God (if God exists) has zero entropy, quantum Universe or not. There is simply no way the former can generate the latter. Violating the second law of thermodynamics is an understatement.

rgb

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[PopeRatzo]

Seriously I do feel awful badly for those folks. I hate when bad things happen to anyone, even if they hate me with a passion.

I agree. However, I am reminded of the story of the farmer who's trying to show someone how to train a mule. He starts by walking up to the mule and whacking it on the head with a club, knocking the mule out. When the pupil asked him, "Why did you do that?" the farmer said, "Well, first you have to get his attention."

One has to wonder if a theoretical compassionate God is trying to get Texas and Oklahoma's attention. But then, considering the annual number of tornadoes and other natural disasters that hit Texas and Oklahoma, you'd have think He'd just give up by now and smite the whole region and leave it to the armadillos.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[KGIII]

Perhaps you missed the fiction part? Either way, do not think it bothers me. I truly appreciate your reply and am grateful for it. It is nice to read it and I even picked up something new from it so it is of great value to me personally.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have an infinite barrel of marbles, you can't make a statement such as "10% of them are green".

There is nothing to infer a statement such as "the chances are 1 in 10"..

You're kind of obnoxious. We all took math in high school.

You don't seem to understand infinity is not simply a big number.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[rgbatduke]

No, I got the bit about fiction. I just finished reading recent science fiction that utilizes very similar plot lines in several distinct stories, that's all. Even in the movie "Merlin", Mab's existence was contingent on belief. I think American Gods by Neil Gaiman is pretty much precisely that as well. To quote from its Wikipedia page:

The central premise of the novel is that gods and mythological creatures exist because people believe in them (a form of thoughtform).

So as I said, yes, you are quite right, it is (or can be, a premise for a good science fiction/fantasy novel. And has been, several times. And quite a number of bad ones as well. It's a very interesting philosophical/ontological problem -- does belief precede or follow existence?

Personally, as a physicist, I have to say that correct/best belief (as opposed to fantasy) follows existence, and ultimately is empirically founded on it. Religion is the other kind, the one where there is plenty of belief but no solid evidence for the existence of the objects of the belief.

To paraphrase Austin Power, I may believe in a gold plated potty but that doesn't mean that one exists, not even in an infinite Universe where it is possible that one exists.

Or, to toss in a reference to Russell, it is possible that there is a silver teapot floating around in an orbit around Saturn. I might, if I were un-sane enough, believe in such a teapot, and write out an entire mythology based on the teapot and how it got there and what its existence means for the Universe in general. But even if I convinced every human alive on Earth that I must be right, that as an authority on all matters concerning the Sacred Silver Teapot my word on this cannot be doubted, not even the deep and profound belief of every person in the world has the slightest chance of either creating the teapot from nothing but the belief itself or increasing the probability that the teapot exists from a number so close to zero that their kids go to the same school, noise from parties in zero's yard keep the probability up at night, they argue about who is going to trim the hedge and who is providing the beer...

rgb

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[KGIII]

I might agree to follow the Silver Teapot religion, I like me some tea. Just think, we could have a TeaParty. It would be an excellent art project.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because it isn't always easy to see, every rainbow is a "double rainbow"

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[SoftwareArtist]

If you have an infinite barrel of marbles, you can't make a statement such as "10% of them are green".

You absolutely can. Let me give a simple example: the positive integers. That is, unquestionably, an infinite set. And it also is quite clear that precisely 10% of them are divisible by 10.

Mathematically, here's how we would describe it. Consider the set of integers from 1 to N. Let x(N) be the fraction of members in that set that are divisible by 10. It's quite easy to show that as N->infinity, x(N)->1/10.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[the gnat]

the puppet master in the White House is a Muslim. And, by "puppet master" I am not referring to Obama - he is the puppet!

Um... what? I can't tell if this is satire or not.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're kind of obnoxious. We all took math in high school.

...but some of us stopped there, apparently.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[jblues]

Not any god that a christian would accept. Their god is outside the universe, and created it.

Panentheism (meaning "all-in-God", from the Ancient Greek pân ("all"), en ("in") and Theós ("God")) is a belief system which posits that the divine – whether as a single God, number of gods, or other form of "cosmic animating force"[1] – interpenetrates every part of the universe and extends, timelessly (and, presumably, spacelessly) beyond it. Unlike pantheism, which holds that the divine and the universe are identical.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Although you might have taken math in high school, evidence suggests that you failed it. Badly.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[narcc]

That rabbit-hole goes far deeper:.

It was really the Anti-anti-Christian-witch-hunters who set it up to make it look like the Creationists set it up just to make it look like the anti-Christian witch hunters set it up so that they'd blame the anti-Christian witch-hunters.

Follow the money...

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

hmmm...so, Satanic witch hunters? Since no Christians are witches, that implies that this person would both have to be anti-Christian and also a witch hunter, since witches are a separate "religion" as well. Maybe a fundamentalist Muslim who hunts Wiccans? Or are they using "witch" just as a adjective and don't realize that there are people who refer to themselves as "witches" aka Wiccans...

Creationists shouldn't use computers or the internet, since that technology relies on science as opposed to "God magic".

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Even if God exists, there is an even smaller chance that It would be the one described in the current Christian Bible. If one looks at all the disasters, plagues, wars, etc and puts those in the "God did this" column, it really looks more like God just barely tolerates humanities existence and doesn't really like us very much. He seems very distant, passive-aggressive, and sometimes very violent and genocidal. I personally am unable to "worship" any entity like that, nor do I wish to spend an eternity with an entity that endorses all of the horrific acts in the Old Testament.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

when someone posted a picture of some wood left hanging in Moore, OK after the tornado...people got upset that I thought that IF this was a sign from God, IF God put this "cross" there, then He also caused that tornado...like a signature at the bottom of a painting. And that obviously God doesn't like the people in that area very much. The more they pray, the worse the weather gets.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

However you could reorder the natural numbers so that the limit above x(N) -> p, for any p between 0 and 1. So, no, its is not clear that the integers divisible by 10 account for 10% of the integers. In fact that, there are exactly the same number of integers divisible by 10 that there are integers: the mapping n -> 10n provides a bijection.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[inasity_rules]

If the Universe is infinite and probabilistic, then it can't be infinite and deterministic and hence known by an omniscient, omnipotent being, because there is nothing less probabilistic than something that is completely determined by an all powerful, all-knowing being.

There are sections of Christianity that believe in a non-deterministic universe. Omniscient and Omnipotent are defined differently by different people. Basically the two terms are so polluted with different definitions that they are all but useless. For example, by what definition is God omnipotent? Most Christians will assert readily that God can or will not act outside his character. For all intents and purpose that wipes out most definitions of omnipotent. There is more to it than this(the limits of omniscience are debated within christianity and there are other issues), but I think there is disconnect between your understanding of the words and a Christian's understanding. You are using the same words, but they mean different things and thus there can be no understanding on certain topics.

Most atheists/agnostics at this point will insist upon their own definitions. It becomes a semantic argument, and if you insist upon your own definitions, you have effectively erected a straw man. Perhaps this is not the best approach.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[JimSadler]

The powers of a supreme being by definition would enable all kinds of violations of mathematics and physics. If we look at all that surrounds us it is an unbelievable display of supreme artistic creations. For example now and then I see a stunning young girl at 16 or 17 years of age that simply oozes with beauty and grace. It is as if God used his best sculpture and paints to create such a being. Such stunning beauty has no reason de etre at all. It isn't about reproduction at all. Females tend to reproduce even when they look like a wrecked garbage truck. We see the same effect in rocks. Most rocks are sort of dull and unremarkable but then we see opals and rubies and other stones of remarkable beauty. We see it in wildlife as well. So many animals are just plain beautiful even if deadly. It is as if God just could not help but show a glimpse of His artistic skills. So just how does one try to apply statistics or probability to such a situation? And just who created the possibility of mathematics even existing?

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Maritz]

It's funny because the people who carried out witch hunts were christian. Fine upstanding c*nts that they were.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Maritz]

The real problem is, in an infinite, probabilistic universe, even the smallest chance that God exists is a certainty.

That might be a problem for you. But the universe is 13 and a bit billion years old, and maybe somewhere around 100 billion light years in diameter. So it fails the infinity test.

You would also have to specify what God you're talking about. I would be more than a little surprised if it turned out to be one made up by bronze age goat herders on an unremarkable blue planet around an unremarkable yellow sun in an unremarkable galaxy.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[spauldo]

Oklahoma gets flooded every decade or so. Some parts even more often (the next town over floods almost every time it rains... it's a poor town so people can't afford to move).

It's because of a mixture of terrain and weather patterns. Large parts of the state are fairly flat with wide, shallow river basins. The Arkansas river near here is very wide and usually only a couple feet deep - you can walk across it and not get your shirt wet. People take their 4x4s out on it and drive between the sand bars. Canoeing on it involves getting out and dragging your canoe every half a mile or so. So when we get a lot of rain, which happens every few years, the water has nowhere to go.

It's no different than tornadoes or drought. You live here, you get used to it. Unless you live in Moore, which is rapidly becoming a running gag around here.

You can blame God for it if you like (or Obama, he gets blamed for everything around here), but that's like blaming God for earthquakes in Tokyo and California, or hurricanes in the Caribbean. The "ways" aren't exactly mysterious. You live in the great plains, you're going to get floods and tornadoes.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[lastman71]

Exactly. Please mod up parent post. The problem is that when you have to deal with infinite most of you think should be obvious, it's not. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[drewlake2000]

Whenever the credulous complain to me about attacks on religion, I ask them to count the pyres.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[rgbatduke]

Most atheists/agnostics at this point will insist upon their own definitions. It becomes a semantic argument, and if you insist upon your own definitions, you have effectively erected a straw man. Perhaps this is not the best approach.

I think you have it exactly backwards. The meaning of omniscient and omnipotent are perfectly clear and are contained in any dictionary. As you say above, every religion, including the many sects and branches of "Christianity", faced with the obvious fact that their god(s) is/are not possessing of either quality in its true formal meaning, adopt some weaker definition, so that God isn't all-knowing (the literal meaning of omniscient) or all-powerful (the literal meaning of omnipotent) or all-good (omnibenevolent) or ubiquitous (omnipresent) or "perfect" or any other infinite quality that would get them in the kind of obvious trouble any sort of infinite attribute is likely to lead to. At the same time, they have to assert that this really really big, mostly knowing, somewhat powerful, occasionally incredibly cruel being was knowing enough and powerful enough to be the proximate cause of the entire visible Universe as well as any still unseen invisible parts, which he (masculine gender usually assigned) created out of nothing, because otherwise most of us wouldn't consider even a really big, really smart, mostly good space alien to be a god, we'd consider them to be somebody like us, living in time's stream with every moment mostly a surprise because our finite information capacity is "infinitely" smaller than the information content of the Universe.

So yes, I've learned the hard way that there is little point in discussing Christianity in a reasoned way with a Christian. The fact that they are still a Christian is de facto proof that they have already arrived at a state of cognitive dissonance wherein all the myriad contradictions in (e.g.) the Bible itself or between bald assertions in the Bible (old and/or new testaments and/or apocrypha) and mere reality are smoothly elided and rationalized by doing what you're doing, bending the clear definitions of the simple terms used to describe God with a capital G.

One has to do this, because otherwise the problem of theodicy is a crushing burden for any religion claiming any significant fraction of the "omni"-properties conjoined with the assertion that god is good. One has to literally turn off one's common sense to believe that a being exists that on the one hand created the entire Universe out of nothing in some sort of state of knowledge of its future course (in most of the Bible, it is pretty clear that this state is supposed to be perfect knowledge beginning to end, alpha and omega and predestination and all that) but who created the Universe filled with evil as experienced by humans (undeniable) but was at the same time all-good and who runs things so that one can never detect Its existence because the visible Universe appears to follow rigorous rules that are never violated and that are utterly indifferent to human suffering.

That's actually the more interesting aspect of Chrisitianity in particular. Since Jesus is advanced as being God and Human and all-compassionate and perfectly good, and since the New Testament is full of direct quotes of Jesus asserting that he can do literally anything (and so can all of us) just by "having faith" and wishing it into being, Christians have to engage in the most incredible mental distortions to explain the mind of God/Jesus in such a way that there is room for the existence of human suffering on Earth and Hell for unbelievers and all of the other madness while the principle parties remain hidden.

So next time somebody dies slowly of cancer, next time a baby is born in innocence with the terrible affliction of Down's syndrome, the next time a small child dies of starvation or from malaria or from being bitten by a snake, the next time you are directly confronted with the cogniti

Re: Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people approach religion from what they want to believe. Logically, that has no bearing on whether that religion is right or wrong. Much of modern Christianity looks at God as one who loves everyone and ignores passages which you refer to. But the truth is that the Bible teaches that things like death are in this world because of sin and the God is just in condemning people. I can understand why someone would want to believe in a God that meets his or her standards of goodness, but that doesn't mean it coincides with reality.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[drewlake2000]

The problem is, even with an infinite universe, not everything is possible. What do you define as a Christian? By Christian, do you mean - I don't believe a word of the bible, but I've got a vague spirituality and was born into a christian family, so I guess I'm christian. Do you have a list of the bits of the bible you have to take as fact and those that are allegorical? Why is one bit (earth is 6000 years old) unbelieveable, and another bit (God impregnated Mary) to be the cornerstone of the faith?

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[drewlake2000]

Sit a god botherer in a box and keep them there until you can measure accurately their faith level. Until you can do this, you don't even have a mechanism that could work.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just it, I don't wish to and refuse to "argue" over anything. I'll discuss and you'll learn and appreciate or you won't. According to Wikipedia: "Empirical evidence is information that justifies a belief in the truth or falsity of a claim." Well, I guess I've found this since... I truly do feel justified in my beliefs.

I reckon you hold it's more unlikely that all the air would glob into liquid in the center of the room that to form our universe complete with all it's complexities, just in our solar system, such as you reading this. That's illogical.

Statistically indefensible? Seriously? Did you know that 10 out of 10 atheists don't believe in that "concept" of GOD? Lordy, lordy, that makes it true and I guess I have no defense for that...

Atheist's ego's blind them to truth, because they've made projected themselves as GODs in their own minds that they are capable of understanding all, even though they have zero empirical evidence, zero logical evidence or nothing of any statistical meaning yet declare themselves final authority. A little ironic, don't you think?

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[drewlake2000]

How lucky you were born to a family that happened to pick the right one. Your joke isn't funny in the slightest, it's unfortunately how religions work.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[inasity_rules]

It is, of course not possible for words to have specific meanings within specialized contexts.

I am going to put it another way: If a [Insert person whose philosophy/religion/texteditor you disagree with] wants to use a word and you wish to understand their point of view, then you must let them define their terms. You don't get to define the terms.

Language is somewhat fluid. We don't have words for everything, and specialized vocabularies develop quite easily. In this case, not least because the source documents are not English.

If, however, you have no interest in understanding, but just like to rant on slashdot, don't let me stop you. Carry on.

This is the entirety of my point. I feel I have adequately made it, and I have no real interest in discussing the other topics you bring up, as they are tangential.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[drewlake2000]

So, by injecting god you can make up any old shit. Are you really saying "God shares the same subjective tastes as me", and "I invoke god thus your science is invalid". Statistics are real, we have all seen them, So just why does one try to apply god to such a situation?

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[drewlake2000]

Well define omnipotent and omniscient then if it's not the same as a dictionary. I guess this is how christians get to make up their own meaning for theory too. If you don't mean omnipotent just say very powerful, if you don't mean omniscient say very knowledgeable. Don't redefine words then get upset when the rest of the world carries on with the original definition.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[drewlake2000]

If god exists, he's a myopic jerk. He hates so many people, but whenever he tries to hit them with a disaster, he causes more collateral damage the the US air force.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[penguinoid]

However you could reorder the natural numbers so that the limit above x(N) -> p, for any p between 0 and 1. So, no, its is not clear that the integers divisible by 10 account for 10% of the integers. In fact that, there are exactly the same number of integers divisible by 10 that there are integers: the mapping n -> 10n provides a bijection.

Nice try but parent is right. The integers divisible by 10 do, in fact, compose 10% of the integers. If you take a random sampling of integers, 10% of them will be divisible by 10. Integers are that much more frequent than integers divisible by 10...

And yes, both the integers and integers divisible by 10 are countably infinite, and thus equal in a sense. Naively, 10% of infinity is infinity.

I suppose you could count 1, 10, 2, 20, 3, 30, 4, 40, 5, 50, 6, 60, 7, 70, 8, 80, 9, 90, 11, 100, ... it wouldn't surprise me too much if you can modify the relative frequency of two different infinite sets by rearranging them.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Ol Olsoc]

The "ways" aren't exactly mysterious. You live in the great plains, you're going to get floods and tornadoes.

Sure - be serious! But since we're here, my thoughts on exactly why places like yours tend to the religious.

A drive through the countryside in my area will show a lot of farms with presumably fundamentalist religious owners, if the signs are to be believe. Plenty of "The wages of sin is death" friendly reminders to see.

Giving some thought to the matter, who more likely to be really religious. Religion is the desire to influence events that you have no influence over. A Farmer has to have some sort of trust that the rains will come, the temperatures will moderate, and the crops will grow. Economic and some times actual life critical.

So they pray a lot, and in earlier times, when weather patterns were not known, it was not outside the realm of reason that abundant years were signs of Godly approval, and bad years were signs of offense.

But then you have the odd happening of the "faithful" being hammered by nature like this. Then it becomes silly season. The leaders scurry to find blame and attach it to the usual sources (Katrina, The mess in New Jersey, and Haiti come to mind).

So we have the elite, gay loving people of the northeast getting pummeled by a hurricane as proof of gawd's wrath against homosexuals, and it's accepted by the devout.

And there will be some insane excuses regarding these floods in Texas and Oklahoma that might be completely opposite in nature, but likewise gobbled up as proof of gawd's something something.

But let's take Haiti. One of gawd's mouthpieces, Pat Robertson gave the massive earthquake in Haiti as divine retribution http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/...

Now the fact that haiti sits on a shallow plate of geology that has been there long before there were those Hatians that presumably made a pact with the devil, apparently has nothing to do with it.

I wonder what Pat's comments on the present day mess in Texas and Oklahoma are? It will probably be along the lines of having to purge the sinners among the faithful, or if not fully prepared, back to the old "Mysterious ways" catchall.

So back to Oklahoma and Texas. They don't want to believe they have no control over these disasters, they see the destruction, and since humans have this strong approval blame thing going on, they feel they need to do something. Religion to the rescue.

Whereas the smart money says move elsewhere.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[drewlake2000]

Most terrorist attacks in the US have been committed by christians frankly the islamists have only had a couple of successful attacks. In fact the US has killed more innocent US citizens than islamist have in the same time. In the UK you have more to fear from people who don't agree with you that a bit of biscuit changes to flesh or not when you eat it. One name shows that the US needs to fear military veterans and christians: Timothy James McVeigh Your argument seems to say that if you worship a zombie or shot a gun for your country you should get a free pass to kill who you want?

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[inasity_rules]

I think the point was to convey the idea that such a being's limitations in doing anything is not in terms of ability, but in terms of character. This concept is common across all theological systems that I have encountered. God could do anything but there are things he won't do, because then he would not be God. Trivial example - if God chose to cease to exist.

Omniscient has a wider range of meaning within Christianity, though all affirm the word. For example, a calvinist would agree with your definition, while a non-calvinist might take it to mean that the end is known, but not necessarily all internal states. There has been some discussion on the topic for some time with extreme positions on both side. It is controversial even within Christianity

As I pointed out to the other poster, specialized vocabulary is not unique to Christianity. You also have to remember that your average nutter crying out in the street that "evolution is just a theory" is not representative of the state of academic or philosophic Christianity. He is, in fact, as far as I can tell, an export of America.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[PopeRatzo]

Your joke isn't funny in the slightest

You think I was trying to be funny?

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything relies on GOD. Yes, even "science", as biased and agenda driven as it is. Maybe idiot atheists shouldn't use computers or the internet, since they might think everything on it is true.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Science war? Those two words shouldn't touch each other in a sentence or the first one ceases to have any value. Wait, too late, we've all lost "the war" since much of science is not much more than propaganda. And I just feel the need to point out, atheists are excellent projectors; why we've just experienced a bogus attempt to blame Christians for astro-turfing the web in order to persuade public opinion.

Re: Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Earth is only 600 years old, you're in good company with Palin there.
Tell me, have you put any nonbelievers to the sword this week? If not you better get on that, also women are property, and stone your kids to death if they disobey you.
Fun times.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point of having a discussion on religion without that Babs Hudson chiming in?

Can't you just live and let live?

You don't seem to realize that you are as ignorant and intolerant as the bible-thumpers you so despise.

Go away, you fucking cunt.

Re: Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

No True Scotsman up in here.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

You absolutely can. Let me give a simple example: the positive integers. That is, unquestionably, an infinite set. And it also is quite clear that precisely 10% of them are divisible by 10.

Mathematically, here's how we would describe it. Consider the set of integers from 1 to N. Let x(N) be the fraction of members in that set that are divisible by 10. It's quite easy to show that as N->infinity, x(N)->1/10.

It may be "quite clear", but your reasoning unfortunately fails, and can be used to show that it's some percentage other than 10%. The problem is that your argument implicitly relies on a property other than it being an infinite set, namely an implicitly defined ordering of that set. There are other equally-valid orderings which would imply different percentages if you applied your exact same argument. Consider the following ordering of the positive numbers:

  First 99 numbers: smallest 99 numbers *not* divisible by 10.
  100th number: 10
  Next 99 numbers: next-smallest 99 numbers *not* divisible by 10.
  200th number: 20 ... and so on ...

Applying your same reasoning to *this* ordering, you find that x(N) is 1%, in the limit of N going to infinity. By choosing the appropriate ordering, you can use the identical reasoning to "prove" that the percentage is anything from 0.0 to 1.0, inclusive. The set of positive numbers being infinite really *does* make the statement that 10% of them are divisible by 10 meaningless ... unless you impose additional conditions other than the mere fact that the set is infinite in order to get around the problem.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[spauldo]

I think you're overthinking matters.

Of course, there's no way to be sure why people in the bible belt tend to be religious, but living here most of my life has given me some clues.

We've got 3.5 million people in Oklahoma. Half of those live in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. The other half lives in smaller towns or rural areas.

The type of people who were able to survive and thrive here in the early days are the type of people that tend towards religion; hard-working, self-reliant, conservative types. Church was often the only social contact they had in a typical week. Education beyond the very basics wasn't readily available and generally deemed unnecessary. Hospitals were few and far between. Law enforcement was negligible - you protected your property and family yourself. Flooding, tornadoes, drought, violence, crime, and sickness would take loved ones and destroy the efforts of labor, sometimes taking entire towns. Then add the dust bowl and the depopulation of the western part of the state. If the only place to turn for help is God, then that's where people will turn.

Our current leaders are only a generation or two behind those events. We have access to good education and hospitals, and the towns are larger now, but attitudes change over generations. Give us time.

Kansas is a bit older, but its history just means that people were in the position that early Oklahomans were in for longer. Kansas didn't really begin to modernize until around the same time as Oklahoma. I suspect the same applies to much of Texas and Nebraska, although Texas has some older, larger cities where religion isn't necessarily the norm.

As far as Pat's comments (or Falwell's concerning Katrina), that's just the same old bullshit warmed over and re-served that religious leaders have been spouting forever. The oldest example of that I can think of is the obvious one - Sodom (there is archaeological evidence that it was a real city). It's unlikely to attract any followers, but it works on the believers. I doubt any of the mouthpieces will use the "mysterious ways" line - they'll just get people to pray for our poor, damp and bedraggled selves and play it off like it's a bigger deal than it is (while there is some major damage and loss of life, the vast majority of us are fine and we have systems in place to deal with it. Like I said before, this isn't exactly a rare occurrence.).

And those guys that paint messages on their fenceline? Yeah, I dunno about them. You see that more in Kansas than Oklahoma. My personal theory is that it's because the evangelical churches have flourished here, with their doctrine on "spreading the word." You know the old saying - the loudest aren't necessarily the majority.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[SoftwareArtist]

(giggle)

I'm honestly not certain whether you're being serious or sarcastic. I hope the latter, because as a parody of religious thinking that was hilarious. "I saw a sexy underage girl, therefore God must exist," is not what I would call a good example of logical reasoning.

But in case you really were being serious, what other explanations have you considered? You've made an observation: there are things in the world that appear beautiful to you. You have suggested one explanation for that observation: they were all created by a supreme being who is an artist and "could not help but show a glimpse of His artistic skills." That is, I suppose, one possible explanation. But it certainly isn't the only one. So what other explanations have you considered? And then, how can you determine which of the possible explanations is correct?

To give just one example: perhaps beauty is not an intrinsic quality of an object. Perhaps, as the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and whether you find something beautiful is strictly a property of you, not of the thing itself. That's easy to test. If true, there should be lots of disagreement about what is beautiful. There should be things that you find beautiful but many other people don't; and likewise, things that some people find beautiful but you don't.

Care to conduct that experiment?

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Woah there big fella!

A mathematical property of numbers does not say anything about an uncountable set of objects - something that is a fantasy anyways. These concepts are unrelated.

If a property of the uncountable set of marbles defined that every 10th was green, then we'd be on the same territory.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am going to put it another way: If a [Insert person whose philosophy/religion/texteditor you disagree with] wants to use a word and you wish to understand their point of view, then you must let them define their terms. You don't get to define the terms.

I disagree. I say the burden is on the person who wishes his philosophy/religion understood to present his message in a way that can be understood, even by those who disagree with him.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[BarbaraHudson]

Why? For asking for some evidence? That out of all the gods that man has had, that even ONE of them has some actual basis in fact? Because I'm not willing to believe in any of them just because someone says that their bible says so (the fallacy of argument from authority).

Many of the same people who refuse to accept tons of evidence for global warming) accept the bible without a shred of evidence. "You gotta believe ." No, I don't. It's not intolerant to point out that the emperor hasn't had clothes for thousands of years, any more than it was "intolerant" to denounce slavery or child-beating in opposition to that same bible.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[david_thornley]

Actually, we can quantify faith, although it's normally from self-reporting. We could presumably use EEGs and other devices to make this more objective. There appears to be a biological basis for religion, and that can presumably be measured.

What we can't measure is whether there is any such thing as God.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[sudon't]

You do know that the majority of terrorist attacks on US soil have been committed by (non-Muslim) Americans, right? You should be glad that someone in our government is doing something right, for once.

P.S. Please google before asking me for citations. That's what I'd have to do, and I've already done the reading.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[sudon't]

That actually sounds plausible. We all know Christians have a persecution complex.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[david_thornley]

:What you are saying is that there is no scientific reason to believe in God, which is entirely true. However, saying the Universe unfolds as if there were no God isn't correct.

We have discovered some principles called Laws of Nature. We do not understand them fully. If we did, we could derive psychology from physics. Instead, we assume that things proceed according to the Laws of Nature, and that when we come to something that looks wrong we can refine our knowledge of them. We assume that everything happens according to those laws. These assumptions are generally good ones, and have driven a lot of incredibly successful and useful thoughts and experiments. Assuming that something happens because it's God's will and for no other reason is dangerous to scientific reasoning. (This is why I don't believe in compiler errors without extensive verification - while compiler errors do happen, they usually don't, and suspecting them is bad for the debugging process.)

While these are excellent assumptions, they aren't necessarily true. God could influence human thought, for example, and we're not nearly good enough at brain physiology to tell if anything unnatural is going on. God could pull off a few miracles and we'd think there were errors in perception, mass hysteria, false reporting, coincidences, or some purely natural freak of nature. We wouldn't know. We do know that perceptual errors, emotional disturbances, and the rest are possible.

I believe that the best thing to do is to keep religion out of science and science out of religion.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[david_thornley]

If you take a random sampling of integers

How do you do that? I've never been able to figure what that means.

If you define a way to generate a random sampling of integers from a range, which you can do, then as the range expands the probability that an integer from there is divisible by 10 does indeed go to 0.1.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[liquidsin]

Otherwise, who created god?

bigfoot. of course.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[stackOVFL]

Now take it easy with all that probability and logic talk. I have proof my deity exists, there's no P(x) tomfoolery involved! Not only that it exists it embraces a fantastic diversity.

http://www.barilla.com/possibl...

His noodleness will forgive you!

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[OutOnARock]

so kind of like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark....

not necessary to the story as without him it turns out exactly the same?

bazinga!

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

you can't make a statement such as "10% of them are green"....You don't seem to understand infinity is not simply a big number.

And you don't seem to have much of an imagination. Can't you think of a single formulation that would produce 10% green marbles in an infinite set?

What if we had a barrel that was infinitely deep, and filled with marbles in sequence: 9 red, 1 green, 9 red, 1 green...?

You're kind of obnoxious. This is /. - we all took math in university. This kind of pedantic crap is like arguing over "who" vs "whom" in any conversation not already centered on linguistics. It makes you feel smart, and no one cares.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[inasity_rules]

You can disagree all you like, but you miss the point. Few of the reasonable are interested in making you understand. You are completely free to continue in your ignorance of other points of view. Go ahead, I got no problem with that. Your opponents certainly don't understand your POV. Fair is fair.

Should you wish to engage with Christians or other philosophies to your own, you will need to adjust your attitude. The trouble is, because your fundamental set of assumptions are so wildly different from those you argue with, you don't even realise how little sense you make to them, or vice versa.

I make the claim to have some understanding of both Christian and naturalistic philosophy, and I am much happier for it. It may frustrate you however. I don't speak for you.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[rgbatduke]

His noodleness won't need to forgive me of anything. I'm perfectly aware of the correlation between piracy and global warming, and what more evidence does one need? And who can deny the reality of fettucini, especially when made with loving hands?

Unless, of course, one is inclined to think of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs as being the incarnation of deity. Or Xenu. Or Krishna. Or Odin. Or Vishnu. Or Allah. Or Jesus. Or Zeus. Or Quetzacoatl. Or Yahweh. Or...

His divine noodleosity makes as much sense as any of the named possibilities, and serves well to emphasize that with the exception of mavericks like Benjamin Franklin who supposedly believed a little bit in "everything" and are N-n for some value of n, everybody is an N-1 atheist except for real atheists who are N.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

" If the probability that God exists is 1 x 10^{-403} in an infinite, probabilistic Universe, then the probability that God exists is (gasp) 1 x 10^{-403}. This is most definitely not certainty. Certainty isn't the "smallest chance", it is probability 1. It is the largest (possible) chance."

No no no!
The probability that such a god exists somewhere in an infinite universe is one.
The probbility that you, as a finite human, could ever explore such a universe and really encounter this god is near zero.

"It is enormous compared to the probability that all of the air molecules in the room I'm in will suddenly (by pure chance) happen to bounce in just the right way to form a big blob of liquid air in the middle of the room and leave me gasping in a vacuum as air molecules outside of the house by strange chance miss all of the myriad pathways into the room. "

I dunno. It seems to me there is so much entropy in just a roomfull of space and air molecules that the chance of this occuring is much lower than the proposed 'god' chances.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

"God (if God exists) has zero entropy, quantum Universe or not."

Zero entropy would mean this god is a static fact and could never ever interact with anything in this universe.

" The information content of God has to be greater than or equal to the information content of the Universe

But the universe contains entropy, so god must also contain entropy.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with the statistical approach is that theistic belief holds that God is necessary - therefore, statistics don't really apply - either God is necessarily true (and the origin of all) or necessarily false. To use a lottery example: let's suppose that you're running a raffle with an infinite number of entries. Each entry has an asymptotically zero chance of winning... yet when you draw the winning ticket that particular ticket has in fact won, despite it's infinitely small odds. Let's suppose that you *could* calculate the odds of God existing (1 option among n) - one option must indeed be true, and if the one where God exists is true, then it's true despite your calculated odds.

The original assertion was that in an infinite, probabilistic universe if there exists any chance at all that God exists (one ticket in your raffle - I would guess that the author was thinking of a raffle with finite options) then the infinite nature of the universe means that all tickets must be drawn, meaning that the one where God exists will also be drawn. My problem with this assertion is the necessary nature of the existence of God - naturalism and theism are mutually exclusive and cannot coexist, despite the size of the universe - because they are axioms that apply to the entire universe, of which you only get one.

Re:Why is this dribble on the front page?

[rgbatduke]

We wouldn't know. We do know that perceptual errors, emotional disturbances, and the rest are possible.

You are simply saying that we cannot disprove God, that absence of evidence is not conclusive evidence of absence. Sure. But so what? We can go down an enormously -- actually uncountably infinite -- list of propositions for which we have no evidence. If we are sane, we do not grab arbitrary entries from this list and promote them to plausible beliefs, no matter how pretty a story they make.

Your argument is, of course, ancient and has a name. You are arguing for a God of the Gaps. As human knowledge has expanded, thing after thing that was attributed to God in ancient scripture has been shown to have natural causes. Furthermore, "natural causes" have been shown to have a rigorous, inviolable consistency so much so that when we look hard for cases where our existing laws fail, or where there are still pernicious inconsistencies that suggest that they are not quite right and will require future revision.

Since all of the "easy" gaps have been plugged, you are stuck following this chain:

Laws of Nature (microscopic nuclear + E&M and QFT) -> nuclei and nucleons
Laws of Nature (E&M/QED) -> atoms and molecules (Chemistry!)
Chemistry -> Inorganic and Organic chemistry
Organic chemistry + classical E&M and mechanics -> biochemistry and biophysics
Biochemistry and biophysics -> evolutionary biochemistry, neurophysiology etc (Biology)
Biology -> neuropsychology, anthropology, medicine, (Psychology!)
Psychology & information theory & mathematics -> Intelligence and cognition, Artificial intelligence, etc.

At this point, you take the fact that the science is incomplete to extend the quite correct observation that we don't understand all aspects of human consciousness (yet!) in full detail as a "gap" in which you can insert God. Consciousness is only possible with God, God can communicate with humans by directly manipulating microscopic physics, chemistry, biology, psychology laws in ways that directly violate the second law of thermodynamics, and so on. Forget whether or not there is any good reason to think that this is true. Forget the fact that we have an entire, consistent, empirically validated chain of physical law and reasoning stretching from the microscopic to the macroscopic. If you hear voices in your head, it could be God instead of (for example) your right brain talking to your left brain or some other perfectly natural thing. Hence in your mind, there is a reason to believe, and furthermore to invent a whole new "logic" to explain the fact that your conclusions can be held independent of the mere common sense that leads to the development of consistent science.

Obviously -- seriously -- you are mistaken. What you are doing is called the "Mind Projection Fallacy". To quote wikipedia:

Once one has grasped the idea, one sees the Mind Projection Fallacy everywhere; what we have been taught as deep wisdom, is stripped of its pretensions and seen to be instead a foolish non sequitur. The error occurs in two complementary forms, which we might indicate thus: (A) (My own imagination) (Real property of Nature), [or] (B) (My own ignorance) (Nature is indeterminate)

Welcome to B, with an admixture of A. Our ignorance is not an excuse for assuming that Nature is indeterminate and there is room for e.g. violations of the first or second laws of thermodynamics at the whim of a Deity, and your imagination of God filling the gaps in our knowledge is neither evidence nor (worse!) certainty that that which you imagine is a real thing.

rgb

One web site.

[Geoffrey.landis]

The actual article seems to only say that one web site, titled "What really happened to the dinosaurs", appears in response to one particular search query, "What happened to the dinosaurs".

That's annoying and stupid... but it's not the same as the hyped headline "creationists manipulating results."

Re:One web site.

[timrod]

I think the fear is more that kids will see this stuff while doing research for school (especially in earlier grades where they don't necessarily know better) and take it for granted. I had a professor in college who showed me a site that popped up when searching for information about the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. that was actually run by a racist group, which contained blatantly false information. As I recall, it appeared near the top of Google results at the time, but this was five or six years ago.

I think this kind of stuff should remain up, though. There's the free speech issue, but I think it's a really good way to teach kids how to find proper sources of information.

Re:One web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Incidentally I was just noticing earlier today that Google is prioritizing pages based on the actual title of the page itself. Of course it's rife for this kind of exploitation.

Re:One web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually when I do the query, nearly half the links on the first page are creationist sites:
answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/...dinosaurs
unmaskingevolution.com/13-extinction.htm
commackchurchofchrist.org/a_i_g/.../whathappenedtodinos.pdf
apologeticspress.org/article/1771
christiananswers.net/dinosaurs/j-fate1.html
chick.com/reading/tracts/1038/1038_01.asp

Re:One web site.

[phantomfive]

Wow, thanks for the query. It has all kinds of entertaining things to see [last link is barely sfw].

Re:One web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Anti-creationist hypes slashdot headline to manipulate readers into manipulating google search results"

Re:One web site.

[towermac]

Maybe that's because no real scientist (all of us are scientists) would ever google "What really happened to the dinosaurs". (I guess starting tonight we have)

The question itself is intended to solicit creationist answers. So the query results are accurate.

Re:One web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why kids have to do research projects in school. Let them use one of these sources and find out how worthless it is from a logical, ethical, scientific, sociological, [you-name-it] perspective.

Maybe their parents will get butthurt and we'll see the whole thing on the national TV.

Re:One web site.

[retchdog]

this is an old tactic.

a long time ago, i picked up a random book in the library about the Aktion T4 program and read it while i should have been writing my thesis. it was interesting enough, until the last two chapters which ranted about how, obviously, pro-choicers were pushing America down the same path. it was annoying, but a nice reminder; i had to fact-check everything i read. i did, and the facts about T4 checked out, which suggests that they just took some legitimate research and bolted their drivel to it.

Re:One web site.

[Blymie]

Exactly. In this day and age, kids MUST learn to filter.

Re:One web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Kentucky Fried Chicken is missing a marketing opportunity

Re:One web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

This scientific question itself is intended to be answered in a scientific way. If someone wanted to know what happened to the dinosaurs according to the bible, then that's what they should search for.

Re:One web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this kind of stuff should remain up, though. There's the free speech issue, but I think it's a really good way to teach kids how to find proper sources of information.

I also think it should remain up.

Indeed, I'm thrilled to see these crazies spewing their insane beliefs so publicly. IMO the biggest take away is to highlight how the bible should only ever be read as a book of fairy tales. Sure there are some good lessons in there wrt morality, etc ... but the whole Invisible Sky Fairies aspect shouldn't be taken seriously.

Nothing makes this clearer than Creationists. If we all didn't have a forgiving blind spot any religion would earn the title of "Cult for insane (but mostly nice) folks" - but creationists are a bridge too far. They're where you have to throw your hands up & admit that religion really is a load of bull & anyone who believes is deluded/insane.

Re:One web site.

[prof_robinson]

This is always going to happen from now on - as long as there will be an internet that is searched, there will be people "gaming the results". Much better to teach kids to find real information and identify it when they find it, then to have to worry about every little idiot out there with a theory. Besides...all great truths, start out as heresies. You have to make room for the idiotic; the future may depend on it.

Re:One web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

The editors are not trying to hype the headline per se. They are trying to shore up Slashdot as a "progressive" front in US culture wars. These stories will continue until we all convert to becoming neo-puritan, non-gender-binary, atheist+, anti-male, anti-vidoe game, democrat-voting, social justice storm-troopers.

Re:One web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

The actual article seems to only say that one web site, titled "What really happened to the dinosaurs", appears in response to one particular search query, "What happened to the dinosaurs".

Well, I also have these on the first page of Google:

Dinosaur Fate I - Christian Answers Network

What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs? (DJ and Tracker John)

There Go the Dinosaurs

The other results are recent articles and blogs about the current case. I had to go to the second page before I saw the first answers which are not related to all of this and which explained about the extinction event 65 million years ago.

Re:One web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you remove the word "really" and say "What happened to the dinosaurs?", the result shows the same page immediately under the blog page linked to here on Slashdot. That is a problem.

Re:One web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of learning, I would say the biggest part, is to learn how to separate truth from fiction. It's a critical thinking process that many of us don't engage in for various reasons.

Lesson learned: Google's job is to index good and the bad.

Re:One web site.

[asylumx]

Agree! When I do the same search I get several results from science blogs and then several from pages referencing how google reports the wrong info, then finally one result at the bottom of the page with a creationist POV. Not exactly worth a headline.

Re:One web site.

[Maritz]

Sure there are some good lessons in there wrt morality, etc ...

It sure is good to occasionally remember in the modern world that selling, for example, your daughter into slavery is A-OK. As is slavery in general of course. Failing to trim the hair on the side of your head is RIGHT fucking OUT (obviously). And having a rebellious son should definitely result in the entire village stoning them to death. Honestly, where would we be without the Bible's moral guidance.

Re:One web site.

[Maritz]

While that is entirely true, the Bible isn't itself aware of dinosaurs. Its bronze-age human authors had not dug up any Tyrannosaurs at the time.

Re:One web site.

[Stinky Cheese Man]

I read The Fine Article twice just in case I missed it, but it does not in fact claim that "creationists [are] manipulating search results". Mr. Laden's panties are chafing him because the inscrutable wizardry behind search rankings has put a web site that he doesn't like near the top of the search results. He then invites his readers to manipulate the search results with their feedback.

Re:One web site.

[rubycodez]

And children doing research on reproductive system will find porn links. Is there really an issue? You worry imagining yourself a nanny for mankind?

Re:One web site.

[Heathren-bert]

Don't forget about the abominations of wearing clothing of mixed fibers, or yoking your oxen to your ass.

Re:One web site.

[sudon't]

You don't find it odd that a bogus, minority-held theory is the top result? How else would it be there, if not through manipulation?

Re:One web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the fear is more that kids will see this stuff while doing research for school (especially in earlier grades where they don't necessarily know better) and take it for granted.

These kids have a problem no matter what results the search yields. Repeating what others say is neither learning nor knowledge.

Re:One web site.

[DedTV]

I think the fear is more that kids will see this stuff while doing research for school (especially in earlier grades where they don't necessarily know better) and take it for granted.

If they're old enough to be given free reign on a computer to do research, they should be old enough to know how to perform basic fact checking.
The only kids likely to take that kind of stuff for granted are the ones who are already being dragged to Sunday School by devout parents and have been indoctrinated from birth to believe that if someone can make something fit with scripture in any way, it's fact. And even a lot of those kids learn enough about critical thinking and scientific method to recognise the hypocrisies inherent in organized religion and break that habit by their teens.

I personally indoctrinated my kids on Carlin very early. And funnily, I was actually introduced to Carlin by my childhood Southern Baptist pastor. Although the only thing Southern about the place was that it's membership was mostly dust bowl migrants and their descendants and I don't know how it was affiliated with baptists as we had 2 marriage ceremonies for homosexual couples while I was there way back in the late 80s, something even the state of CA wouldn't recognise at the time and that the SBC still forbids.

Re:One web site.

[DedTV]

IMO the biggest take away is to highlight how the bible should only ever be read as a book of fairy tales.

I look at the Bible as an old social science textbook. The "good story" method of conveying information and ideas still remains an extremely effective teaching tool today despite a massive increase in access to the written word and the literacy to comprehend it. For the time period in which it was written, it would have been the most effective way to disseminate information to the general public.

And, again taking into account the primitive time period, the policies and ideas were quite advanced and sound in reasoning. For example, In a time when life expectancy was low and everything from famine to plague to natural disaster had the potential to (and repeatedly did) wipe out a significant percentage of the human population, birth control and homosexuality could have had severe impacts on the existence of mankind. It could also be argued that some of the info is highly advanced scientific knowledge explained in a primitive way for a primitive people. And with just a bit of creative interpretation one can even apply things like the story of creation to today's scientific knowledge. "Let there be light" could be a 2000 year old scientific reference to the Big Bang.
The take away should be that the bible should be viewed like any old text book or encyclopedia. Interesting, and containing some persistently good information, but still woefully inaccurate, out of date and increasingly irrelevant to the present.

Nothing makes this clearer than Creationists. If we all didn't have a forgiving blind spot any religion would earn the title of "Cult for insane (but mostly nice) folks" - but creationists are a bridge too far. They're where you have to throw your hands up & admit that religion really is a load of bull & anyone who believes is deluded/insane.

Calling creationists deluded or insane is itself delusional and insane. Science is agnostic, not atheistic. Rejecting the existence of divinity requires the same blind faith as any other religion. Creationists aren't necessarily mentally deficient, they simply hold to different theory of reality.
I don't see how their view is any less valid than opposing theories. I myself hold in the theories grounded in the theory that our observable reality is real. But I can't definitively say the universe we observe doesn't exist as part of a computer simulation, a dream or as the equivalent of an ant farm sitting on the desk of some being we can't fathom. I also wouldn't classify anyone who does believe in such things to be insane. So long as they don't use their belief to justify harming people or oppressing the beliefs of others, people should be free to believe in anything they like.

Everyone does SEO. Why should them doing it well enough to reach the top of certain search results be disparaged? Campaigning to suppress, diminish or down rank them in search results because we don't agree with their views makes us no better than them when they try to do it to us.

This is a surprise?

[epyT-R]

I'm sure every ideologue out there wanting to brand their dogmatic bullshit as truth is doing the same thing.

Re: This is a surprise?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read their explanation. Why is it so hard to believe that God took a huge sh*t and buried all of the dinosaurs? Sounds plausible to me.

Re: This is a surprise?

[epyT-R]

The Lord YOUR GOD sayeth so. All you have to do is listen and believe. Why is that so hard?

Re:This is a surprise?

[Anonymous Coward]

Including the OP.

Re: This is a surprise?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lo and behold, the lord busteth a hemorrhoid whilst sh*tting on Satan's creatures.

Re:This is a surprise?

[Brett Buck]

Like the OP?

Re: This is a surprise?

[bledri]

The Lord YOUR GOD sayeth so. All you have to do is listen and believe. Why is that so hard?

Because it's all unsubstantiated hearsay that contradicts itself and fails to map to observable reality in any meaningful way. All the while threatening infinite punishment for being unconvinced and calling it "love."

So, the Creationists ate all the Dinosaurs . . . ?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

That what it seems to be from TFS:

Ask Google "What happened to the dinosaurs?" and you'll see links to Creationist sites right at the top."

Xenu did it first

[Anonymous Coward]

Look into the website growth by the cult of Scientology when they first got wind of how many people could find the inner secrets of the galactic emperor, Xenu, and how all our sickness and bad thoughts are the re-incarneted "thetans" slaughtered by Xenu.

I talked to their webmaster, Jurian Massena, when he left the cult. Jurian and his colleagues made www.scientology.org so big to flood the search engines that it crashed Google databases.

It's kinda cute

[Opportunist]

Their zeal to push their bullshit in a vain attempt to still appear relevant. Kinda like dinosaurs in a tar pit... how fitting.

Maybe someone should tell them that nobody outside the US even remotely takes that "controversy" serious? I do not know a single politician outside the US who would think that even remotely considering pushing an agenda as harebrained as creationism is anything but political suicide. Hell, even our ultra-conservatives would not even touch that shit with a 10 foot pole, knowing that they'd be looked at like they just claimed the tooth fairy existed.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Anonymous Coward]

Their zeal to push their bullshit in a vain attempt to still appear relevant. Kinda like dinosaurs in a tar pit... how fitting.

...

Or global warming alarmists trying to hand-wave away two decades of a non-warming planet...

Re:It's kinda cute

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, two decades is a pretty significant time period, I don't know how the global warming alarmists get away with it, considering that God created the Earth only a couple of thousand years ago

Re:It's kinda cute

[the gnat]

nobody outside the US even remotely takes that "controversy" serious

Hell, most scientists inside the US don't take the "controversy" seriously, or even notice it most of the time. The only reason most of us care is because those fuckwits keep trying to legislate their mythology into the public schools, otherwise they'd be worth no more thought than, say, flat-earthers or faith healers. And in large parts of the country, e.g. liberal urban areas like the one I live in, it's not even an issue in schools either. (God knows our public schools have enough other problems...)

Re:It's kinda cute

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all right because everyone outside the USA is a faggot. No fucks are given. Having actually been outside the USA I was totally surprised when I found fat people. I was also astounded when I found idiots. If I were to believe all your European propaganda, every single obese person, and every single below average intelligence person was a U.S. citizen. In that respect you Eurpeans are exactly like USians. Everyone thinks their side is the best and that the other side is full of faggotry / gayness / bigotry/ pedophilia / terrorists / stupidity / homophobia / obesity / etc. People are people. In spite of how much you try to convince yourself that you unique and better than those guys on the other side of the pond; we are all pretty much the same. Sure they might think differently, but so would you if you had been born someplace else or at a different time.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL
We are all the same, but you would be different if you were born in a different place....

Yes we agree, that different place is the US, and the difference is religious stupidity.

Re:It's kinda cute

[jmv]

I do not know a single politician outside the US who would think that even remotely considering pushing an agenda as harebrained as creationism is anything but political suicide. ...well, except in Canada these days. A couple years ago, our minister of *science* was refusing to answer questions about whether he believed in evolution. More recently, Alberta also had a creationist minister of education.. So unfortunately, some of the madness has escaped North of the US.

Re:It's kinda cute

[SuricouRaven]

Nobody outside the US in the English-speaking world takes them seriously. There are a *lot* of Creationists outside the US, including some countries where young-earth Creationism is the government-endorsed position taught in schools. You just don't hear about them because they mostly speak Arabic, and the language barrier gets in the way.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Xtifr]

Maybe someone should tell them that nobody outside the US even remotely takes that "controversy" serious?

I don't know if you realize this, but "outside the US" is an area that contains countries which are not among the developed nations, and in poor countries with limited access to schools and low literacy rates, a lot of people do take the controversy seriously. Heck, Turkey, which is actually part of the EU, has a ever-so-slightly higher rate of evolution-rejectionism than even the US does. (Although it's the only country in the EU with more anti-science idiots than the US.) :)

Brazil also seems to have a lot of science-rejecting creationists. India, perhaps surprisingly, does not, but then evolution isn't actually all that incompatible with Hinduism. Can't find any data on China or south-east Asia or the rest of South America.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, Turkey, which is actually part of the EU

Since when? And why doesn't the EU know about this?

Re:It's kinda cute

[Anonymous Coward]

Turkey is not an EU member but have tried to become one since forever. And they still have a long way to go and their creationist nonsense is the least of their membership hurdles.

Re:It's kinda cute

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

no, they comprehend the idea of "the ocean is a heat sink", Mr. Coward. It has been absorbing most of the additional heat, thus the rise in sea levels. Unfortunately, the ocean can't keep this up forever.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Anonymous Coward]

Turkey, which is actually part of the EU

When you make a mistake this big, why should anyone take the other things you say about the rest of the world seriously?

Although it's the only country in the EU with more anti-science idiots than the US

It's also apparently the only country in the EU not actually listed by the EU itself as a member state. Or indeed by anyone else. Except you.

You may want to think about what that says about your system of beliefs.

http://europa.eu/about-eu/coun...

Re:It's kinda cute

[inasity_rules]

I do blame America for creationism. Most Christians outside America were quite happy with various interpretations of Genesis until the bullys in America said "If you don't buy our (out of context) version, you're going to hell."

One longs for a time when people understand Genesis literally. As in it is literally a temple inauguration story, and not a material origins story.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Anonymous Coward]

Turkey, which is actually part of the EU

Turkey is not part of the EU.

It is a member of the "Council of Europe" since 1949, but that is not the same as the European Union.

Negotiations for Turkey to join the EU were started on 3 October 2005, and it is not clear what way those will go.

Re:It's kinda cute

[JimSadler]

Sadly due to a very lousy school system in the US many Christians simply can not understand their own faith. They get suckered in by all kinds of nonsense sects that offer teachings about 100% opposite of what Christ asked of us. These sects are the ones clinging to a supposed divide between science and faith centered on creationism. It fails to dawn on them that God could use evolution to create life on this planet.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Anonymous Coward]

Turkey is not part of EU, a small area of Turkey is in the geographic area we call Europe. Europe European Union.

Re:It's kinda cute

[coofercat]

It's also a contradiction of sorts.

If a god created every detail of the earth and universe around it, then that same god has created the environment for us to live and learn in. Thus, that god is responsible for people becoming more atheist in the western world, and people learning about (very convincing) science that contradicts the bible or whatever other texts. Thus, no matter what the creationists do, they cannot change the ultimate outcome.

If on the other hand, god simply created the building blocks for life (perhaps god pointed his finger in empty space and created the Big Bang?) then it gives way for all that free thinking and whatnot. It also makes the "beauty of a sunset" more of a coincidence than a specific desired outcome (and so doesn't look a lot like 'intelligent design' as it's generally defined). In this world, creationists can have an effect, but by definition their belief system is inaccurate.

Or then again, the FSM might have just farted out the universe by accident and it just so happens that we grew out of the smell of last nights curry.

Back on topic though - Google and all the others use various sources on the Internet to build 'graphs' which they use to tweak the search results. Wikipedia is a major source of such information, although I suspect other sources are gaining traction because of the vandalism that occurs on there.

Re:It's kinda cute

[dave420]

I appreciate your effort in attempting to improve this discussion, but when you talk about the EU and include Turkey in it, it makes it very difficult to accept anything you say without a massive grain of salt. It's not like that's esoteric knowledge available to a couple of scholars in the secret Vatican library...

Re:It's kinda cute

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of turkeys in the EU, but Turkey is not one of them.

Re:It's kinda cute

[jez9999]

Sadly due to a very lousy school system in the US many Christians simply can not understand their own faith. They get suckered in by all kinds of nonsense sects that offer teachings about 100% opposite of what Christ asked of us.

So what if Christ had asked people to believe in creationism? Would that make it any more valid?

Re:It's kinda cute

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, Turkey, which is actually part of the EU ...

Minor nitpick: that assertion is approximately entirely false.

Turkey isn't in the EU.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Inzkeeper]

Heck, Turkey, which is actually part of the EU, has a ever-so-slightly higher rate of evolution-rejectionism than even the US does. (Although it's the only country in the EU with more anti-science idiots than the US.) :)

Um, Turkey is NOT part of the EU.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Anonymous Coward]

When this is what your 'side' are reduced to, well... Speaks for itself. You got nothin.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Maritz]

Having actually been outside the USA I was totally surprised when I found fat people.

Yeah there are fat people everywhere where there is enough food to get fat on. Most people would figure that out as kids. Well - you got there in the end so well done you.

Re:It's kinda cute

[drewlake2000]

Here in the UK our idiots are as stupid as yours - you just have a lot more of them.

Re:It's kinda cute

[drewlake2000]

Shhh, don't tell them, the last thing we want is for the right wing christian nutjobs to realise that they have a shared agenda with militant islamists. As long as they hate each other, we may have a chance.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Opportunist]

You settle at the coast, I settle at the hill. You enjoy your seaside real estate, I get to shoot you if you try to escape the climbing sea levels.

Deal?

Re:It's kinda cute

[Opportunist]

Of course we have our stupid people. We just don't let them run the country. If in Europe someone stands up and claims that his imaginary buddy made the world and that we should teach this nonsense to kids, we don't sit down with him and discuss his valuable input and his interesting idea because every opinion is valuable and everyone has the right to speak his mind and other PC bullshit. We'd tell him to shut the fuck up so he doesn't embarrass himself even more by acting like a complete tool.

Maybe that's the difference.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Opportunist]

I don't remember which pope said it, but I think it sums up the general sentiments of the European Christians:

"The Bible doesn't tell you how the heaven works. The Bible tells you how you can get there."

And that's basically the position the Christian churches took here in general. Also because the mere idea of promoting new-earth-creationism would make them lose members faster than they already do.

Re:It's kinda cute

[Opportunist]

Intelligent design... I mean, take a look at the platypus. When it comes to this, I can only imagine god and devil sitting in a bar drinking, and after a few cocktails god doodles on his napkin and the devil yelling "dare ya!"

Re:It's kinda cute

[rahvin112]

Most non-scientists in the US don't either. The young earth creationists are a VERY small group, I'd guess less than 0.5%. They are generally very vocal and congregate to "discuss" this view so it makes them seem larger than they are.

Re:It's kinda cute

[RockDoctor]

they have a shared agenda with militant islamists. As long as they hate each other, we may have a chance.

"They," the Xtian Fun-dies, have known for decades that they have fellow travellers in Islam. They have been swapping bullshit since at least 1996, to my personal knowledge. That was the first time that my Compuserve email address got spammed into oblivion by Arabic-language garbage after I showed that Harun Yaya (a pseudonymous Turkish Islamic creationist) had been copying everything including the spelling mistakes from rabid US Protestant Fun-die websites (which themselves were copies of older pamphlets, with the same misspellings).

If we rely on the hatred of one enemy of ours for another to keep both enemies down, thne we're fucked. We should attack directly.

Re:It's kinda cute

[RockDoctor]

Heck, Turkey, which is actually part of the EU

I was working in Turkey two weeks ago, and expect to be back next week. while the hookers and bars of Istanbul accept the â, the country is not now and never has been part of the EU.

Biblical truth

[Anonymous Coward]

... Creationists are manipulating search results ...

There was Cedric. He built an ark. He put two of the dinosaurs, the unicorns, the other magical creatures in it: All boys so there was no hanky-panky. Then, there was a flood: All the girl dinosaurs, girl unicorns and other girl magical creatures died. God issued DMCA notices so no-one could read about Cedric and God's stupidity.

Science is learnt via a narrative, just like mythology. So the same rule applies: Publish or perish.

Re:Biblical truth

[Anonymous Coward]

which fish did cedric take salt water or fresh water - he had a 50 - 50 chance of getting it right.

Re:Biblical truth

[Black Parrot]

All boys so there was no hanky-panky.

How did that work out for him?

Re: Biblical truth

[oobayly]

Did Cedric get a rainbow too?

i guess the new algorithm

[Anonymous Coward]

that ranks sites and pages based upon actual facts they contain isn't operational yet.

Suppose a Christian search term was hijacked?

[Required Snark]

Just imagine that a common simple search phrase referring to Christ had as it's first result a Satanist site?

It would be a major national news story. There would be editorials in news outlets large and small. Fox News and the right wing press would call it a terrorist act. There would be hearings in Congress, and calls for laws protecting religion. It would be a three ring media circus.

All truths are not created equal. Some points of view are more equal then others.

Re:Suppose a Christian search term was hijacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Religion has a special pedestal in many societies including ours. That's why many atheists/skeptics are branded 'radical', simply because they dare point out the elephant in the room. It's important for all skeptics/atheists to firmly, but fairly, point this out every time religion implicitly asks for special treatment.

Captcha: abstain

Re:Suppose a Christian search term was hijacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened to Christ?

"https://www.lds.org/new-era/2005/02/what-happened-to-christs-church?lang=eng"

Ah-shizzit. Third from the top.

Oddly, when typing "What Happened" in Google, the first option is "To Zuko's mother"

Avatar in the hizzouse.

Re:Suppose a Christian search term was hijacked?

[towermac]

It would be weird, would it not? I would hope most news outlets would run that story.

Congress would mandate search results? Hm.

And if an act inspires terror in a populace, then it would be a terrorist's act, no?

In any case, how you see a correlation worthy of note in a tale about the inevitable corrupting influence of power; well it makes me worry about you. :)

Re:Suppose a Christian search term was hijacked?

[Required Snark]

I did not say that any laws would be changed. I did not say it was an act of terrorism, but it would be compared to terrorism. I did not say that that search results would be mandated in any way.

You did not read my post carefully. I said that there would be huge media frenzy, and that political opportunists would use it to whip up public opinion to their advantage.

I wonder about your reading comprehension. You seem to know what most of the words mean, but do not seem to grasp the actual content of the statements. You projected an interpretation that is not in the text. I worry about you. :(

Re:Suppose a Christian search term was hijacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, something like Santorum?

Re:Suppose a Christian search term was hijacked?

[chispito]

Just imagine that a common simple search phrase referring to Christ had as it's first result a Satanist site?

It would be a major national news story. There would be editorials in news outlets large and small. Fox News and the right wing press would call it a terrorist act. There would be hearings in Congress, and calls for laws protecting religion. It would be a three ring media circus.

All truths are not created equal. Some points of view are more equal then others.

And apparently you'd be right there to keep shouting about how stupid the attention was. Creating more attention. Much like we're all doing here over something as stupid and as mundane as marketing.

Slahdot Weetodded

[Anonymous Coward]

We onwy make post fudding hahaha dem kweashonts iz stupid so we hab nodin betta do do hahaha

Graffiti

[Anonymous Coward]

Defacing public works or knowledge is a crime.

It is called "graffiti"

Can someone please contact the appropriate authorities and have these selfish idiots charged with the crime of defacing public property?

Re:Graffiti

[KGIII]

Google is not public property...

Re:Graffiti

[meerling]

You can also get arrested for doing that to private property you know.

Re:Graffiti

[dave420]

He probably knows, but the OP clearly called Google's results public property, hence his observation.

Re:Graffiti

[KGIII]

Those goalposts won't move themselves.

Comedy gold

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

After the Flood, around 4,300 years ago, the remnant of the land animals, including dinosaurs, came off the Ark and lived in the present world, along with people. Because of sin, the judgments of the Curse and the Flood have greatly changed earth. Post-Flood climatic change, lack of food, disease, and manâ(TM)s activities caused many types of animals to become extinct. The dinosaurs, like many other creatures, died out. Why the big mystery about dinosaurs?

C'mon guys. you just can't make that kind of shit up. There isn't enough weed on the planet for that. It must be divinely inspired.

Re:Comedy gold

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the spaghetti sauce!!

    http://www.venganza.org/

Re:Comedy gold

[Black Parrot]

4300 years ago...

I guess the Sixth Dynasty of Old Kingdom Egypt didn't notice they got washed away, and went on building their pyramids like nothing had happened.

And Sargon must have clung to the side of the ark - or snuck on disguised as a dinosaur - so he could get back to building his empire as soon as the ground dried out.

I reckon the author is better at manipulating reality than he is at manipulating search results.

Re:Comedy gold

[surd1618]

I cannot bring myself to laugh at this. The thought that this was written and could be taken seriously is way too sobering.

Re:Comedy gold

[Anonymous Coward]

so an infalliable god had Noah save them all - just to let them all starve to death because he had killed off other life on earth! What a tool!

Re:Comedy Gold

[narcc]

Well, it is better than passive voice...

Re:Comedy gold

[Anonymous Coward]

No, weed are legion.

Re:Comedy gold

[mu51c10rd]

I guess the Sixth Dynasty of Old Kingdom Egypt didn't notice they got washed away, and went on building their pyramids like nothing had happened.

No, they just hopped on top of the pyramids and waited for the water to subside. As for Sargon...why does everyone think only Noah has the ability to build a boat? I am quite humans were crossing the water in ancient times...and they certainly were not swimming across.

Re:Comedy gold

[HiThere]

Sargon was significant as the tale of Noah and the flood was an edited steal from Babylonian myth...and they (probably) got it from the Sumerians. (IIRC, Sargon was also found floating in a small boat by a princess, like Moses...but I suspect the Moses story came from Egypt rather than from Akkad.)

Re:Comedy gold

[jfdavis668]

How did Kangaroos get from wherever the ark landed to Australia? Without building another ark, of course. Or did the ark stop in lots of places to drop animals off on various continents and islands?

Re: Comedy Gold

[Anonymous Coward]

Now they just need to set it to music.

Re:Comedy gold

[cwsumner]

After the Flood, around 4,300 years ago, the remnant of the land animals, including dinosaurs, came off the Ark and lived in the present world, along with people. ...

I grew up in the US, in "The South" where it is very religous. I don't remember anything like -that-!

Maybe I just didn't notice, but if it was widespread I would have.

And anyway, why are y'all giving that website so much publicity?

Comedy Gold

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, look out this is some heavy science. The good folks at CreationInGenesis (https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/) are providing citations to bolster their case! Feast your eyes....

"A thin slice of T. rex bone glowed amber beneath the lens of my microscope . . . . The lab filled with murmurs of amazement, for I had focused on something inside the vessels that none of us had ever noticed before: tiny round objects, translucent red with a dark center . . . . Red blood cells? The shape and location suggested them . . . "

Apparently scientific publications in the field of Paleontology include full dramatizations of performed lab work.

What's wrong with slashdot indentation?

[Blaskowicz]

I thought it was cosmetic, but deeply threaded discussions are really messed up as can be seen here.

Posting in this discussion as it's both the most recent and a boring one.

Re:What's wrong with slashdot indentation?

[lanroth]

I prefer the old formatting.

There's an extension for Firefox that I used to tweak the css back: Stylish https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...

I created this rule which made it better:

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain("slashdot.org") {
#comments ul ul, #comments ul li ul li {
      margin: 0px 0px 0px -10px !important;
    }
}

Re:What's wrong with slashdot indentation?

[Anonymous Coward]

it turns out, nobody cares.

Lisa Simpson...

[jaredmauch]

"I find the defendant not guilty. As for Science versus Religion, I'm issuing a restraining order. Religion must stay 500 yards from Science at all times"

Re:Lisa Simpson...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I find the defendant not guilty. As for Science versus Religion, I'm issuing a restraining order. Religion must stay 500 yards from Science at all times"

I am all for this as long as it uses the metric system to get more on board with the rest of the world. "Religion must stay 500 meters from Science at all times."

Re:Lisa Simpson...

[narcc]

Blashpemer! Imperial are the one true units of measure!

Bow down before your Rod.

Re:Lisa Simpson...

[jfdavis668]

No, Religion must stay 500 YEARS away from Science at all times.

Bullsh*t

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a vision from God about the dinosaurs. He made it clear that Chuck Norris killed all them all.

wha

[Anonymous Coward]

Only news when creationists do it? It is not like they use scientists who make guesses and write as if their guess is 100% accurate.

Creation, evolution... it is all based on belief since you can't prove either. No body knows for sure how dinosaurs all died.

Re:wha

[Namarrgon]

Creation, evolution... it is all based on belief since you can't prove either.

Can you pick which one has vastly more evidence for it?

Re:wha

[Anonymous Coward]

When you do a little digging (and if you do so in earnest without letting your past 'education' cloud your judgement), you'll find out rather quickly that there is little, if any direct evidence to support the evolution hypothesis, and much, much, that's directly contradictory.

And - in response to the inevitable follow-up comment "give me an example" - you are more than capable of finding them on your own - there's no shortage.

Re:wha

[Anonymous Coward]

When you do a little digging (and if you do so in earnest without letting your past 'education' cloud your judgement), you'll find out rather quickly that there is little, if any direct evidence to support the evolution hypothesis, and much, much, that's directly contradictory.

And - in response to the inevitable follow-up comment "give me an example" - you are more than capable of finding them on your own - there's no shortage.

haha.. hahahaha......hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Thanks dude, I needed that. I'm surprised your neck can take the strain of a light breeze, having spent years holding up an empty cavity.

Re:wha

[dcollins]

I'll take "Poor Thinkers are Also Poor Spellers" for $1000, Alex.

Re:wha

[Anonymous Coward]

Also on slashdot:

http://science.slashdot.org/story/15/05/25/2150208/can-bad-scientific-practice-be-fixed

Re:wha

[khallow]

And - in response to the inevitable follow-up comment "give me an example" - you are more than capable of finding them on your own - there's no shortage.

No, give me an example. We can make this about my refusal to do your work for you, or we could make it about this alleged evidence you speak of.

Re:wha

[Anonymous Coward]

Evidence against Evolution:
-Irreducible complexity of many structures, like the eye.
-DNA containing a multitude of safeguards against mutation.
-Not a shred of scientific evidence of creation either of life from non-life (spontaneous generation was disproved over 100 years ago) or a new kind (science defined by the scientific method (Hypotheses, experiment, evaluate results, repeat).
-No scientifically observed creative mutation, either in nature or in the lab (fruit flies mutate to get more heads, more wings, more legs, but never a stinger or a tail or anything not already in their genes). There are a few dozen destructive mutations that have been beneficial in some limited way that we know of, but again, these created nothing new, they removed or damaged something that was pre-existing in the organism.

Whether it was an all powerful God that spoke the universe into existence, or an alien race that seeded Earth with all of the organisms a million years ago, I wasn't there, but Evolution is a shit THEORY proposed before we understood genetics and it has massive holes that make it almost certainly invalid. The problem is science has no better answer, so they circle the wagons and defend the junk science instead of openly admitting that it needs to be shit canned and that science needs to get out of business of telling the past, for which it is wholly inadequate and un-prepared, and just describe the natural world as we can observe it today. That is what science was created to do. That is all science can do. Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit. And probably looking for more grant money from the tax payer.

Re:wha

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure forensic scientists will find that rationale interesting next time they try to figure out how someone died if there weren't any witnesses around to see it.

Re:wha

[dywolf]

Ya...no direct evidence...except for:
-Fossils
-DNA, aka the universal genetic code
-Common traits and stages of life across species
-antibiotic/herbicide/pesticide resistance in bacteria plants
-ability to change the characteristics of living things through breeding
-long term evolutionary experiments, such as Lenski's E Coli experiment

http://www.scientificamerican....
http://humanorigins.si.edu/evi...
http://www.motherjones.com/pol...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
http://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/

Re:wha

[dave420]

1. There is no irreducible complexity in the eye. In fact, it's an organ with so many common defects if it was intelligently designed, the designer wasn't very good. How many people do you know who need glasses/contact lenses/laser surgery? Cataracts? The list goes on.
2. Of course it has some safeguards, as rampant mutation would be very unlikely to yield viable offspring. No mutation would have yielded a very fragile species which could be entirely wiped out if their living conditions changed even slightly. Clearly any branches of the tree of life with those traits would be far less likely to exist, hence you making your point.
3. Abiogenesis (the creation of life from non-life) is not part of evolution. It is a separate theory. As for creating new species, that has been observed in nature (the London Underground mosquito springs to mind), and in the lab (many different fruit fly experiments leading to new species).
4. That makes no sense. Of course there haven't been any observed changes of such scale, as that would take hundreds or thousands of years even with the rapid reproductive cycle of fruit flies.

The theory of evolution is only "shit" if you don't understand it, which you clearly don't. That hasn't stopped you lashing out at it, however. As an answer goes, the theory is not complete, but without it we would have no biology or medicine.

Please, educate yourself. You are dangerous, and your school failed you.

Re:wha

[Maritz]

Creation, evolution... it is all based on belief since you can't prove either. No body knows for sure how dinosaurs all died.

Decent troll attempt. Evolution is a fact, creation is a big pile of bollocks. Turns out they're really different and you apparently know fuck all, because you equate them.

Re:wha

[Maritz]

You forgot to include evidence against evolution in your word salad drivel.

Re:wha

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't guessing, they are lying in order to control. And Germ resistance is evolution in real time. Case closed.

Re:wha

[Seatche]

You forgot to include evidence against evolution in your word salad drivel.

Please state any scientific evidence against evolution that you might have. I'm OK being surprised, because that makes life interesting.

thought the article was joking ...

[schleprock63]

but i went and googled it and low and behold, there's the bogus creationalist CRAP as the first link. so i sent my feedback detailing how i just sat there and shook my head in disbelief ...

Re:thought the article was joking ...

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

You can find out all kinds of stuff from Google.

Re:thought the article was joking ...

[vidnet]

Obviously this is a grievous error which should be fixed, but I can definitely see how a machine learning system could pick up this answer as a false positive with no foul play*: extinction through biblical flood may be the most commonly held hypothesis in the US.

42% of Americans believe in creationism, and it's not unlikely that they'd all believe dinosaurs were killed in a flood.

The other 58% could be split between asteroids, volcanos, continental drift, "other" and "don't know", with no single group having a share over 42%.

* Centuries of generally teaching BS to kids notwithstanding

Re:thought the article was joking ...

[BradleyUffner]

Obviously this is a grievous error which should be fixed, but I can definitely see how a machine learning system could pick up this answer as a false positive with no foul play*: extinction through biblical flood may be the most commonly held hypothesis in the US.

42% of Americans believe in creationism, and it's not unlikely that they'd all believe dinosaurs were killed in a flood.

The other 58% could be split between asteroids, volcanos, continental drift, "other" and "don't know", with no single group having a share over 42%.

* Centuries of generally teaching BS to kids notwithstanding

I think religion is pretty dumb and all, but I'm having a hard time seeing why it needs to be "fixed". Search engines are for finding web pages that contain your search terms, not for finding the truthful answers to questions. If the resulting crappy web page actually contains the searched terms then Google did it's job properly.

Re:thought the article was joking ...

[towermac]

You sure there wasn't a big ass flood when that asteroid hit?

It could be that their timing is just off. That would be far less stupid.

I'm just sayin'.

Re:thought the article was joking ...

[thejynxed]

Not when so many of them think the planet is only a bit over 6,000 years old, and the asteroids that used to hit our planet back then were much older than that yet.

Re:thought the article was joking ...

[SuricouRaven]

Machine learning is hard even when you've got good input data. The internet is full of lies.

Reminds me of the Siri clone, Isis - a program that was supposed to index knowledge, but assimilated a number of pro-life sites a bit too well. Queries about abortion or contraception were met with a long rambling monologue about sin, with a few insults thrown in against anyone who would consider such things.

Wait what?

[cloud.pt]

Man, that first result BS is so deep, I'm even starting to believe it myself. They say dinossaurs were the big creatures from the genesis that got wiped out by Noah's flood. Then they go in to praise (what they deem as) good science for computers, electricity, junk food (yeah, they praised junk food. Honest.), and even space exploration. Then like a two-punch, they discredit all history-related kinds of sciences (even inventing new definitions of it), with arguments about them dealing with the past only with present facts, which makes some sense. But then I see this amazing quoted comparison...

"Paleontology (the study of fossils) is much like politics: passions run high, and it’s easy to draw very different conclusions from the same set of facts." M. Lemonick, Parenthood, dino-style, Time, p. 48, January 8, 1996.

And I felt just like waking up from a priest/pastor's best wet dream (sans pre-pubescent kids). Lord Baby Jesus. Fucking politics. I think I laughed for like 2 minutes straight like a nutcase. Imagine voting for your favorite paleontologist for the best excavation. Creationists have THE best comparisons ever. Period.

Breaking news: Search engine provides website.

[MrFlannel]

This just in!
Google provides websites related to your search, not answers to your questions.

Film at 11.

Creationism

[Murdoch5]

If creationists want to be taken seriously they need to stop arguing science on points that aren't disputed.
If creationists wants to be taken seriously they need to create a reason for God to exist, that doesn't fall back on weak, shallow, sad logic paradoxes which don't make sense.
If creationists wants to be taken seriously, they need to prove aspects of there given religion.

The problem is, no creationist has ever been able to do this, they always have to result to shallow, weak, sad and pathetic arguments, against topics they don't understand and using logic that doesn't work. Just saying a theory doesn't make sense, doesn't make it false and doesn't make valid controversy. You can't just radically claim that Dinosaurs don't exist and never once provide evidence of that, that isn't a separate view, it's just a wrong view until you have evidence. Creationism has become the new face of the uneducated adult, and the worst part about this is that it's being pushed onto kids. Creationism can't be taken seriously until it starts making serious, adult arguments. Just because a creationist is to scared to grow up and drop the security blanket, doesn't mean they have a point, they don't.

Re:Creationism

[prof_robinson]

Look, I'm not religious at all...but you're standards of truth are just "rigged" for your side. If scientists want to be taken seriously, they need to stop arguing the existence of a deity when 85% of the world's population believes in one. If scientists want to be taken seriously in their opinions about God, they have to stop pretending that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. If scientists want to be taken seriously, they have to stop worrying what stupid people think. You are not the jackass whisperers.

Re:Creationism

[asylumx]

If scientists want to be taken seriously, they need to stop arguing the existence of a deity when 85% of the world's population believes in one.

Most scientists don't bother arguing about the existence of a deity anyway. They dodge the question and leave it alone. The people who argue against the existence of any deity are called "Atheists" and generally while some scientists are atheists, certainly not all atheists are scientists. Scientists don't worry what stupid people think but the rest of us worry for them because we know those stupid people are allowed to vote, own guns, and do any number of other stupid things that are likely to affect us.

Re:Creationism

[Maritz]

If scientists want to be taken seriously, they need to stop arguing the existence of a deity when 85% of the world's population believes in one.

Science has no opinion on the existence of God except where it is presented as a testable question (which it never is). Also, if you believe stuff just because other people believe it you're doomed to eternal ignorance.

If scientists want to be taken seriously, they have to stop worrying what stupid people think.

Don't worry, by and large, scientists give not a single fuck what 'stupid' people think. It might be better if they did, but they don't.

Re:Creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

a) Nobody cares whether you "take them seriously", nor is there any reason they should. You'll be eliminated by natural selection and become entirely irrelevant, correct?

b) No, we don't need to "create a reason for God to exist". Things that exist, exist. Those that don't, don't. Having a "good enough reason" per your views is, again, irrelevant.

c) No, they don't need to "prove" it, as one does not for 90% of all human endeavors. "Prove" the best kind of music, or art. "Prove" you political views. "Prove" the right model of economics, or psychology. Ad infinitum.

This does get rather muddled since you, like virtually all others in your "camp", use a deliberately misleading "package deal" application of the term "creationism".

What you claim to be objecting to: The notion that the world is 6000 years old.

What you are actually objecting to: The notion of a God's existence, in conjunction with -anything else whatsoever-.

Fortunately, the theists who founded virtually every branch of science in existence were not as wantonly illogical as you.

Re:Creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet they command the ears of countless millions.

Millions that vote.

At some point you realize that the irrational are a danger to you and a danger to themselves.

You can't reason with the irrational. You can only contain, curtail, and marginalize.

You do it for their own good, despite their thankless protests. That is the curse and burden of reason.

  More importantly, you do it for for your own survival.

Re:Creationism

[david_thornley]

Most of humanity believes (more or less) in something halfway recognizable as a god or God (two different concepts). Nobody needs to prove God exists to be taken seriously by most of the population. In fact, religion is something of a red herring here, as most Christians have no problem with science and evolution. There are an unfortunately large number of noisy zealots who insist that the details of what they were told have to be true. (My impression is that these are usually not certain of their faith, and so cling to details, however idiotic, to convince themselves.)

Creationists need to be taken seriously as a threat to education. They needn't be taken seriously intellectually, since they have nothing to offer, but groups of irrational fanatics can be dangerous.

Re:Creationism

[HiThere]

Sorry, but you fall afoul of the problem of "What constitutes reasonable proof?" This is a serious problem, as if we are Bayesian reasoners, then what consititues reasonable proof is highly sensitive to our priors. It is also provable that for certain sets of priors there is *NO* evidence that could possibly switch one from one set of beliefs to the other.

You outline what you are currently considering a set of proofs, but that means that you think they would suffice to convince anyone. This is not true. And "Creationist" is not a single set of priors, but rather several such sets, so even if an argument would suffice to convince one particular "Creationist" it might well fail on others. Now flip this around. Would you really change your opinions if they produced what they considered was good evidence? I truly doubt that. You are just certain that they can't produce what *YOU* consider good evidence. But be aware that you, also, cannot produce what they consider as good evidence.

What we call "reality" isn't what we sense, it's what we believe about what we sense. And that's all the reality we can ever know. And this is mathematically provable if you assume that we are Bayesian reasoners. (It's probably true anyway, but you can't prove it without the assumption.)

Re:Creationism

[Murdoch5]

I would absolutely change my mind if someone could show my God, I'm not joking, bring God down to earth for 5 minutes, let me interview him, I'll check his credentials and once I validate everything is on the up and up, I'll let him go. Simple :-)

Other forms of proof I'll except:

1. Show me the garden of eden.
2. Show me the bones of Adam and Eve.
3. Show me the Ark.

Just start there, it will be enough to give you serious credibility.

Re:Creationism

[SillyHamster]

I accept your apology. Posting here since that previous article is now locked to comments.

I guess this is as good a place to continue that previous discussion if you wish.

Re:Creationism

[Murdoch5]

Yep, all I really want to hear are some logical, rational arguments in favor of a God, that's it.

Re:Creationism

[SillyHamster]

Yep, all I really want to hear are some logical, rational arguments in favor of a God, that's it.

/sigh. Knowing our previous discussion, I don't believe you. There's too much history of people thinking and arguing on the topic for you to have not found a single rational argument, if that's all you were looking for.

But I said I would offer one, and so here's one from a systems engineering point of view.

I work with computer systems and building up software/hardware to collect information, process it, and pass it around. I can recognize the complexity of a system, and the level of effort needed to build complex systems versus simple ones. There's an obvious difference in wht it takes to rendering realistic 3D graphics versus displaying the simple text "Hello World!", for example

As such, I can recognize that the human body far exceeds the functionality of any human built system in history. There are an estimated 37.2 trillion cells in your body, all working together to make you continue to live. Those trillions of cells are grouped into a dozen or so systems throughout your body. Those parts working together using many nested layers of feedback loops. All of that starts from a single cell, working from its DNA blueprint.

That's an amazing design, and we don't even understand it enough to replicate it, let alone build something better.

The fact that the human body operates from an amazing intricate design is evidence for a superhuman designer. That is, a being that is above humans in ability to create designs.

Re:Creationism

[Murdoch5]

I'll give you credit on actually giving me a semi valid point, at least an intelligent, well thought out point, possibly the best on there really is.

I'm actually an Embedded Software engineer, so I know more then a lot about creating complex computer based systems :-), I've written several full Operating Systems and dozen's of RTOS's. As far as computer systems go, I got that covered :-)!

I'll agree with you that complex systems require a designer, at in all cases we've been able to find so far. I'll agree that the human body is insanely complex having trillions and trillions of cells, each more complex then the best super computer we currently have. Each cell is full of DNA and DNA is the single most complex chemical structure we've ever discovered.

I don't know if you accept evolution, but the current evolution theory can trace DNA from modern man back to early bacteria, this means that DNA has gained complexity over time, though means of replication, this also means that information had to produce itself over time.

I don't know how much embedded programming you've done but in several specialized cases I've had to create functions in low level Assemblers / C to mimic high level abstraction object orientence, I can post some of the code if you're interested. These smaller, simpler systems, end up in a more complex state, without being designed in a complex manor, if that makes sense.

My point is that something such as DNA can be decomposed into smaller, simpler systems, which when assembled, create more complex, "designed", states. Scientists have been able to create amino acids in a lab, which granted, is not full DNA, but it does demonstrate the simple system design methodology.

If you want to pose a designer, then you have ask yourself, who designed the designer? You could insert the claim that the designer always existed, but that doesn't really answer anything, it's scapegoating a proper answer. However you posed probably the one acceptable argument for God, however, it doesn't really answer anything because it requires a designer for a designer, which just pushes the one true creator into an infinite regression paradox.

Re:Creationism

[SillyHamster]

I'll give you credit on actually giving me a semi valid point, at least an intelligent, well thought out point, possibly the best on there really is.

Semi-valid is actually invalid. Come on, now. Break it or accept it.

I don't know if you accept evolution, but the current evolution theory can trace DNA from modern man back to early bacteria, this means that DNA has gained complexity over time, though means of replication, this also means that information had to produce itself over time.

As a design process, evolution is an undirected search over a design space, using an extremely weak filter of "does not die" to refine the design.

Popularity aside, it's not a serious answer to human origin. It could sort of past muster when cells were thought to be blobs of simple chemicals, but we now know they are complex nano-factories running off of digital blueprints.

Junk DNA has turned out to be nothing of the sort, and I believe "non-coding DNA" is related to control logic and error checking. And that's before we even start to look at symbiosis and ecosystems.

My point is that something such as DNA can be decomposed into smaller, simpler systems, which when assembled, create more complex, "designed", states. Scientists have been able to create amino acids in a lab, which granted, is not full DNA, but it does demonstrate the simple system design methodology.

How many retards does it take to equal a single intelligent designer? How many monkeys randomly hitting buttons and clicking "Compile" will replicate your work as a SW engineer?

Bearing in mind that failure is an option, there being no finite number is a very real possibility.

The supposed natural origins of complex designs aren't anywhere close to being explanations. So we're left with the one known good explanation of design - intelligent design; one that was historically believed in, and consistent with any computer engineer's experience with information systems.

If you want to pose a designer, then you have ask yourself, who designed the designer?

No, I do not. I don't have to know anything about the designer of man, to recognize that something like a computer or a car is a designed object, and that those were designed by man.

Extrapolating that true relationship to conclude that man too is a designed object is rational. Incomplete, perhaps, but working with incomplete information should not be anything new to an engineer. ("So you want me to buid you a widget but you don't know what you want ...")

However you posed probably the one acceptable argument for God, however, it doesn't really answer anything because it requires a designer for a designer, which just pushes the one true creator into an infinite regression paradox.

Nothing about my argument says that every designer must have his own designer. It merely points out that man did not design himself and that man isn't even capable of designing himself; therefore this is evidence for the existence of a superior being that designed man.

And no, it's not the one acceptable argument for god. It's the one that I like, though, and one that every techie should acknowledge. To deny it is like denying the existence of lolcats and porn on the Interwebz.

Re:Creationism

[Murdoch5]

Semi-valid is actually invalid. Come on, now. Break it or accept it.

No, semi-valid means it has some good points but not all the talking points are correct or complete.

As a design process, evolution is an undirected search over a design space, using an extremely weak filter of "does not die" to refine the design. Popularity aside, it's not a serious answer to human origin. It could sort of past muster when cells were thought to be blobs of simple chemicals, but we now know they are complex nano-factories running off of digital blueprints.

Evolution doesn't deal with origins, it doesn't make the point of answering what started it all, evolution only answers how we got from early bacterial life to modern man. Yes a cell is complex, very very complex, but that doesn't mean it needs a designer, just like really simple software modules, combine to make a complex module, the cell could function the same way and indeed must, as we know evolution as take bacteria to man, and that means information, in the form of generic material, has been created through replication.

Junk DNA has turned out to be nothing of the sort, and I believe "non-coding DNA" is related to control logic and error checking. And that's before we even start to look at symbiosis and ecosystems.

I never said junk DNA, 99.8% of all DNA is just the "house keeping" DNA, it's the same for every person, ti's the other .2% that makes me, me and you, you. I might have the percentages off, but none the less, the idea works.

How many retards does it take to equal a single intelligent designer? How many monkeys randomly hitting buttons and clicking "Compile" will replicate your work as a SW engineer?

Well if you take an infinite amount of time, a team of monkeys at some point, even randomly mashing on the keyboard will of course be able to replicate my work. I don't know the point of that analogy as it nither defends your side or disproves mine. A bomb could go off in a junk yard and a sports car could be assembled, sure the odd are damn close to 0% but it's still possible.

Intelligent design is just re-branded creationism, so that adults can sneak creationism into school and lie to children. The world looks designed, I've admitted that, however that doesn't mean God designed it. As I already said you would have to then explain who designed God, it's an infinite regression paradox.

Bearing in mind that failure is an option, there being no finite number is a very real possibility.

I agree that failure is an option, everything we know could be wrong.

The supposed natural origins of complex designs aren't anywhere close to being explanations. So we're left with the one known good explanation of design - intelligent design; one that was historically believed in, and consistent with any computer engineer's experience with information systems.

Again, I'm not debating the appearance of design, but even so, leave a computer running with a monitor plugged in, in a magnetic rich environment, you'll see the memory react and you'll see "garbage" in the memory and on the screen, yet no one design it. If you look at software bugs, you'll see events occur with the appearance of design that weren't designed. My point is that the appearance of design doesn't mean there was a designer.

No, I do not. I don't have to know anything about the designer of man, to recognize that something like a computer or a car is a designed object, and that those were designed by man. Extrapolating that true relationship to conclude that man too is a designed object is rational. Incomplete, perhaps, but working with incomplete information should not be anything new to an engineer. ("So you want me to buid you a widget but you don't know what you want ...")

I'll give you forgive

Re:Creationism

[SillyHamster]

No, semi-valid means it has some good points but not all the talking points are correct or complete.

"Your code is semi-valid"

"Uh, does that mean it's valid?"

"Well, no, I like parts of it, but ... "

"So you mean it's broken and invalid then."

Say what you mean. If there are parts that are not correct, then break it and show that it's broke. That's what rational argument *is*.

It's either valid or invalid. If there's any part that is broken, then it is invalid. Otherwise, a failure to find broken parts indicates that the argument is valid.

Evolution doesn't deal with origins, it doesn't make the point of answering what started it all, [...]

I wasn't talking about origins. I was criticizing evolution as a design process. It boils down to try random things and see what fails to go extinct.

That's insufficient to build something intricately complex, based on our actual experience with software and computer engineering. It's an article of faith that throwing infinite time at a lousy process will allow it to create excellent outputs.

I never said junk DNA, 99.8% of all DNA is just the "house keeping" DNA, it's the same for every person, ti's the other .2% that makes me, me and you, you. I might have the percentages off, but none the less, the idea works.

I know you did not. It was part of my overall point about the intricacy of human design and inadequacy of randomly driven evolution as an explanation for its existence.

Well if you take an infinite amount of time, a team of monkeys at some point, even randomly mashing on the keyboard will of course be able to replicate my work.

... Theoretically. You have not actually performed that experiment, and the universe has existed for a finite duration of time, based on our current physics understanding and the constraints of thermodynamics.

That I could theoretically level a mountain by myself given an infinite amount of time does not indicate I have actually done so.

The world looks designed, I've admitted that, however that doesn't mean God designed it.

I said I would offer a rational argument for God. This fulfills the requirements. That you can come up with a counter argument does not negate the existence or rationality of the argument.

I'll give you forgiveness in that I didn't answer abiogenesis, so I won't make you answer abiogod, but you would still have to show beyond all possible doubts that DNA could not started on earth without a designer, which is going to be hard because scientists have been able to create amino acids in a lab.

Please look at the italicized and bolded parts and think through your arguments more thoroughly.

Back to the main point, I don't have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that DNA was designed. That's a standard of evidence used for criminal trials to avoid harming the innocent. We can and do use different standards for different topics.

Whether or not the "design" is actually from a designer does not change that designers are observed to create designs, and designers are a reasonable explanation for the existence of anything that has a "design".

It's poor argument because you've only really said that 1 didn't design 1 and there for God.

1. Someone with the ability to create man and all other life has sufficient creative power to be considered god.

2. The existence of man is evidence for such a being's existence.

3. Thus, the existence of man is evidence for god existing.

I don't care how you feel about the argument. Either break it or accept that it is a valid argument, even if you don't like the conclusion.

Re:Creationism

[Murdoch5]

Okay, you want to me to say your entire argument is invalid, fine, it is, you've put in place a designer, so who designed it? You want to claim a designer created life, well then that designer had to be designed. You've caused an infinite regression paradox, so try again. This time put some effort into it.

Re:Creationism

[SillyHamster]

Okay, you want to me to say your entire argument is invalid, fine, it is, you've put in place a designer, so who designed it?

Why does the designer of the designer matter to this argument?

Not knowing if man has a designer does not affect whether or not is reasonable to argue that man designed cars/computers/etc. Not knowing if god has a designer does not affect whether or not it is reasonable to argue that god designed man.

You want to claim a designer created life, well then that designer had to be designed. You've caused an infinite regression paradox, so try again.

You are introducing a premise that is not a part of my argument. I know that my argument does not require this premise. You have created a different argument than mine and said that different argument has a paradox. Since it is not my argument, I don't care.

You're welcome to elaborate on how your premise should be included in my argument ... but until you show the logical steps on why your different argument is actually identical to mine, I don't give any weight to your claim that my argument is invalidated by paradox.

Again, we can identify human designed objects without knowing the designer of humans (if such exists). We can identify god designed objects without knowing the designer of god (if such exists).

This time put some effort into it.

Do remember that I have the experience of our previous discussion, and I was not impressed with your ability to reason. I'm not impressed now, either. You regularly misread my points, and show no intellectual humility by acknowledging the errors and dropping the prosecutorial stance.

Still better than Bing

[Oarsman]

Ask Bing the same question and you get the same results. But you can't flag them. Google's algorithm got hacked. Good on the Creationists for getting creative. Good on Google for having a feedback mechanism to flag it.

Re:Still better than Bing

[Anonymous Coward]

You do not get the same results. What are you an idiot?

MC Hawking "Fuck the Creationists"

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory MC Hawking link... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:So, the Creationists ate all the Dinosaurs . .

[Cognizant]

I think they (the creationists) are doing what they believe in, a disservice. They make it easier for more people to see how lost they are in the reality of our universe.

Manipulate all search results to relevent xkcd

[jfdavis668]

We need to work together to manipulate all search results to lead to whichever xkcd is most relevant to the topic.

Creationist = Climate Scientist

[Anonymous Coward]

But Of Course.

Those with little and even less in skill and training fall into this trap.

Think of the IPCC as a City and the rest of the world as another City.

Then the IPCC Reports are a 'Tale of Two Cities'.

Simple.

For the IPCC City to survive, the other City, the World, must die.

That is Bon Ki-Moon's aspiration.

For the World to survive, the IPCC must die.

And die the IPCC will, by lack of money.

Simple.

I am Bain.

Re:Creationist = Climate Scientist

[Anonymous Coward]

Bon Ki-Moon? Could this be a misspelling? Hmm... Bonk I Moon... Bonky Moon!

The First Full Moon
First Full Moon in June
Is called the Bonky Moon.

With buttocks a-flutter
Please pass the butter
Then jam in your putter.
Or your tiny pee-nutter.

Bonking left and right
Bonking throughout the night
Do it wrong then do it right
Mooning the Moon, what a sight.

If put off because of Rain
Bonk anyway, again and again
But if you feel a sudden pain
It's Bain.

The First Full Moon
First Full Moon in June
Is called the Bonky Moon.

Re:Creationist = Climate Scientist

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for neatly summarising the mental state of the average AGW denier.

Purge thought criminals

[Anonymous Coward]

Glorious outrage comrade! Only party-approved thinkers should be able to promote their thoughts using standard search result optimisation strategies.

Genesis does what paleontologydon't

[tepples]

DuckDuckGo gave its top result to a fruitcake link saying "Genesis can explain everything...."

Phil Collins or Sega?

Re: Genesis does what paleontologydon't

[oobayly]

Neither - The Wrath of Khan.

Re:Genesis does what paleontologydon't

[Guy Harris]

DuckDuckGo gave its top result to a fruitcake link saying "Genesis can explain everything...."

Phil Collins or Sega?

No, Peter Gabriel.

Re:Genesis does what paleontologydon't

[drewlake2000]

I'm picturing the Bill & Ben suit from "Supper's Ready"

Re:Genesis does what paleontologydon't

[jd2112]

More like Peter Gabriel. By the time Phil was leading the band they had definitely lost their way.

Re:Genesis does what paleontologydon't

[Anonymous Coward]

Project Genesis.

root knows all

[tepples]

The information content of God has to be greater than or equal to the information content of the Universe (this is literally the God-property of omniscience).

That's not how God's omniscience was explained to me. It's more "all seeing" than "all knowing". It's not that God knows every detail of everything in the universe as much as that he can know anything he needs. It's like having a debugger.

Re:root knows all

[KGIII]

And this is the first time I have heard of this God thing being referred to a programming tool. That analogy makes more sense than you may have intended but I will assume you meant it in a broader scope as well.

Re:root knows all

[rgbatduke]

So you mean, God's omniscience is, well, sort of like not being omniscient at all. I mean I can look at the Universe and get all of the information I "need". Well, at least I can get all of the information I need if I'm omniscient enough to know what information I need before I look at it, or if I have moderate needs.

Next you'll be telling me It didn't really create the Universe, it just sort of nudged already existing stuff around, sort of like using a debugger to rewrite existing code. And that It doesn't really control the Universe, it just hacks it a bit so it does some of the stuff that it wants.

Then I'll be telling you:

a) sort of like, not being God at all, isn't it?

b) and besides, there is no evidence that any of these assertions are true, or consistent.

In the end, if God has nonzero information entropy, then It is not God. If it has zero entropy, it has no Choice (and is not God, not in any way that matters). The Universe has zero entropy already.

Assertions of God are almost invariably made without any appreciation for the mathematical challenges of complexity and information content on infinite domains. A shame, really.

rgb

Re:root knows all

[drewlake2000]

Wow, why would you limit your god's power? Blows a massive hole in the ontological argument for god though.

Re:root knows all

[drewlake2000]

This is what always bothered my about prayer. If your god is omniscient, then they don't need you to tell them when someone is in need, which suggests that they are either incapable of helping, or unwilling. If god is omnipotent, then they are just unwilling to help. So you only need to pray to convince god to help. Does god only help after a certain number of prayers have been met, like some kind of spiritual kickstarter?

Re:root knows all

[tepples]

God has as much power as he needs to accomplish his goals.

Bing did OK for me

[mbone]

On Bing, my response to

What happened to the dinosaurs?

(no quotes) is pretty benign - pbs, wikipedia, and national geographic in that order, and then Answers in Genesis.org, followed by slate. Only 2 of the 8 links on the first response page are fundamentalist, the AIG site and a kiddie site. Finally, while I don't agree with Answers in Genesis, they are certainly not a stealth site, and I don't think it is objectionable just by itself that they in the mix.

Of course, "Your results are personalized" so other people may get different responses.

Re:Bing did OK for me

[assistanslinkoping]

Hi and thank u for this.

How can you all still be into xkcd?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've run out of jizz jacking off to my candid photographs of Randall Munroe.

Sunday Morning Breakfast Cereal

[mbone]

We need to work together to manipulate all search results to lead to whichever xkcd is most relevant to the topic.

I think this Sunday Morning Breakfast Cereal would be perfect.

Who doesn't manipulate search result?

[xizhi.zhu]

Hello, anyone?

The irony of this post

[Anonymous Coward]

The author of this post gives no evidence that creationists are manipulating search results...it is all is opinion with no factual basis.

No captcha

[Anonymous Coward]

The bible sites are generic with no captcha really. SPAM :)

turnabout is fair play

[prof_robinson]

well, if any of you bothered to recall - this whole tactic was first employed by the American left to smear George Bush. And *now* you're all outraged? Girl, please!

Re:turnabout is fair play

[Maritz]

To be fair, he did a decent job of smearing himself. No help required.

Re:turnabout is fair play

[HiThere]

How could anyone possibly smear George Bush? (And which one?)

Mind you, the Democrats have been autocratic manipulators, but still... I can't guess either what you are considering a smear, or which George Bush you think it was applied to.

Doesn't matter

[jandersen]

Reality is real, whether or not a group of blinkered idiots try to force it not to be so. If these people really had faith, then they wouldn't mind; they would accept that since God had created the world and everything in it, anything you learn about His reality teaches you more about God. The idea that the Bible - a hodgepodge of stories carefully selected to support a religious/political agenda over 1000 years ago - must, aboslutely must, be true to the very comma, is a modern invention, and a particularly pathological one too.

Creationists are liars to themselves, more than anything else. Fundamentalism is equally vile, whether it decorates itself with the name of Christ, Muhammed or any other famous person. The objectves of creationists are of the same evil nature as those of IS or al Qaeda - the methods may vary, but they all want to subdue your freedom to think and choose on you own, by spreading falsehoods. I am not going as far as professor Dawkins and saying that all religion is by nature bad - I have known honest, religious people - but there is line that is very easily crossed.

Well slashdot them then

[DrXym]

These creationist idiots pay for ads by the click. So get clicking.

Offs

[pbjones]

A special interest group rigging search results? Oh, gosh, how could this ever happen? OFFS.

Xtian fundies

[Anonymous Coward]

Meet the Christian counterparts of Muslim Salafis/Wahhabis - the Creationist kooks. Their main distinguishing trait is that they are convinced that their holy scriptures are literally true, word for word.

Let google do what google does

[allo]

Google ranks by popularity, not by truth. No need to fiddle with that. If you think the page at place 1 tells you the truth, you have other problems than the page at the top of the google results.

The Bigger Problem

[davydagger]

This just highlights the bigger problem of SEO, big data, and such. Anyone can manipulate search engine rankings, and anyone can pay for your public opinion.

Having creationists do what advertising has done should simply highlight an existing problem.

Just add +"Brillo" to your searches

[TheRealHocusLocus]

Adding the keyword BRILLO to your searches effectively locks out 'intelligent design' search results that have been deliberately seeded to rank among science articles. It thrusts you into the bizarre world of people who call themselves brillo-head, folks making fun of popular culture. Also some money saving coupons! Also a great many documents in Spanish. Brillo even makes a shoe shine product, so anyone researching boot problems.

Came to mind because the company who made its fortune bringing relevance to online search results just decided to name their new project in such a way as to aggravate people searching for specific technical topics on it, until the end of time. Instead of choosing a nonsensical name. If you want to name a new project Google, please Google it first. Or connect a USB Ouija Board and ask Lewis Carroll to think one up for you.

Pot: That kettle is Black. Kettle: Say what?!

[Anonymous Coward]

POT: That kettle is Black. Kettle: Say what?!

Search results adapted to your search...

[Anonymous Coward]

Search results adapted to your search terms and clicks, do you have an interest in creationist sites?

don't they pay for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I searched for the very same examples, the only links I got that were creationist were paid placement. If you don't like that, tell google you don't like paid placement. It doesn't have anything to do with creationists.

Marketing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is a standard marketing technique considered manipulation? I thought all websites do that all the time. ..

It takes Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

To admit that climate change is real?

The Religious are the most Dishonest

[Anonymous Coward]

But christians are supposedly not supposed to lie. SEO of that sort is a form of lying.

Most Christians I know defend the daily duplicity in their lives by pointing out that, in the ten commandments, they are admonished to not "bear false witness" which is not the same as lying in general, but a specific, particularly onerous type of lie: lying about others to defame, smear, or incriminate. Some will even argue that it means don't commit perjury in court, and will happily run a smear campaign against people they don't like, destroying their reputation through lies, and blissfully expound on how they're going to heaven because they don't break any of the commandments, since they didn't lie in a court of law.

In my experience, religious people lie a lot more than non-religious people, about a lot of stuff (much of it trivial even), and are some of the nastiest when it comes to tearing down others. I guess all that lying to yourself makes it easier to lie to others. In any event, if someone says "praise God", don't expect honestly. Watch your back instead.

wow??

[Anonymous Coward]

So, people who are strongly convinced that they are right, and the other guy is wrong, try to convince the other guy any way they can, and make fun of them?

I'd never have guessed...

Inaccurate, inflammatory summary

[Stinky Cheese Man]

I read The Fine Article twice just in case I missed it, but it does not in fact claim that "creationists [are] manipulating search results" and it presents zero evidence that this is happening. Mr. Laden's panties are chafing him because the inscrutable wizardry behind search rankings has put a web site that he doesn't like near the top of the search results. He then invites his readers to manipulate the search results with their feedback.

I am a Creationist

[Anonymous Coward]

I am posting anonymously for the obvious reason. I am a Creationist. I believe a divine being created everything. That said, I do not fall in line with these literalists with Creationism. I don't believe the world is 6000 years old, I am quite sure Genesis is not so literal. I also believe that our Creator uses the natural laws to create things...and time has no meaning to Him, hence having the Earth and other planets be millions or billions of years old is no big deal. Adam and Eve were the first humans, but that doesn't mean humans have not evolved since then over the millenia. As for Noah, sure, I'm sure he was flooded and rescued a bunch of animals from his area, but I don't believe the entire Earth was flooded...only his local area. It is conceivable to fit 2 of every animal from a small geographic area into his ark with him. The Earth is changing, creatures are evolving, and I am sure His plan is working just fine. I also believe in the Big Bang and figure that is how He chose to start this universe.
So many extremists on both sides of Science vs Religion.

Re:I am a Creationist

[david_thornley]

So you aren't a Creationist in the same sense. The problem is with people who interpret the Bible one way, claim that their interpretation is the one true one, insist on it despite evidence, and in general believe that God couldn't do anything outside their very limited imaginations. Your only claim to Creationism is that you believe God created everything, and most Christians believe that.

google gone recursive...

[lkcl]

actually... what's now "top news" for when you search "what happened to the dinosaurs" is... greg's post and associated discussions...

Assertions not based on facts

[Kojow777]

Creationists are simply pointing out that there is no hard evidence for evolution. Evolution is an assertion that is not based on facts. This posting which claims that creationists are manipulating search results is also an assertion not based on facts. It would seem that there is a common theme running here.

Re:Assertions not based on facts

[kanweg]

Actually, even if you consider all the cold facts consistent with evolution "no hard evidence", then the soft evidence for it is still infinitely more than for any god.

There are hundreds of religions. If one assumes there is only one true religion divulged by god, the others are made up by humans. So, it is possible for humans to invent a religion. Now, about that "real" one... . Does it really trump the theory of evolution?

Bert

Re:Assertions not based on facts

[Kojow777]

Even if there is one true religion (or belief system), that does not necessarily mean the others are "made up" by humans. There are different categories of religions. For example, many religions that are more philosophical in nature have evolved over time and are not necessarily directly "made up" by humans. Of course, there are cults leaders that have made up their own religions, but they are in the minority. Then you have Islam as an example where Mohammad had originally thought that a demonic spirit or the devil gave him the words to write. Assuming that is true, that means it did not come from God or humans.

Now, that leaves us with the one true religion (if it exists) which would have been given by God, but as it was passed down from one generation to another may have been distorted (both intentionally and unintentionally) leading to variations from what God had originally given. Now, if God spoke to His creation at one time, it is also possible He is still speaking to it today. If so, there would be ways to hear His voice. And because this God may operate on a completely different level, it may not be possible to hear His voice scientifically, but spiritually. So, when looking for the evidence of the existence of God, it must be done so through a spiritual paradigm more so than a physical paradigm.

As for which has more soft-evidence, I think the real question is which theory is lacking the necessary evidence to support it. The more details we uncover about evolutionary theory, the more we realize how much is actually missing for it to be true.

Re:Assertions not based on facts

[Copid]

The more details we uncover about evolutionary theory, the more we realize how much is actually missing for it to be true.

Who is "we" in this sentence, and what are they uncovering?

Re:Assertions not based on facts

[Kojow777]

Who is "we" in this sentence, and what are they uncovering?

The "we" is us as the human race, and more specifically, scientists.

As for what they are uncovering, I suggest doing some research. Even a simple google search will bring you many results. Here are two examples of some things that still need more study, but are very new and recent:

1. Potential DNA and fresh tissue is being found in dinosaur bones. From what we currently know about DNA and tissue, there is no way it should be able to survive millions of years. The simplest answer is that these bones are not millions of years old. Certainly, because of bias, many researchers would not consider that they could be less than a million years old so will try to come up with new theories that will answer how they could have survived millions of years. There is certainly nothing wrong with coming up with new theories and ideas and I definitely welcome it. The problem is with biases and assumptions as it can certainly stifle the finding of the truth. There are definitely many biases on both the secular and creationist sides of the issue here.

2. Lucy (often deemed as one of the first missing links found) has recently been shown to possibly have at least one bone from a baboon.

Also, this one isn't so new but is often overlooked. The age of rock layers are generally determined by the fossils found in them, and the age of the fossils are generally determined by the age of the rock layers. The fossil layer isn't as clean cut as it shows in the text books and often we find fossils at layers that they should apparently not be in.

Re:Assertions not based on facts

[Copid]

Potential DNA and fresh tissue is being found in dinosaur bones. From what we currently know about DNA and tissue, there is no way it should be able to survive millions of years. The simplest answer is that these bones are not millions of years old.

That's a really interesting discovery, and it has led to some work on what we know about how that stuff breaks down, but are you really sure that's the simplest answer? Given what we thought we knew about tissue, that material shouldn't have lasted thousands or even hundreds of years, so there's clearly something we don't understand at all going on. Simply moving the timeline doesn't do much for you--I don't think that soft dinosaur tissue comports with anybody's model of how old those bones are, so a more robust explanation that doesn't rely on our old assumptions about decay is necessary. It turns out that there are ways to preserve tissue for a lot longer than we thought, which is interesting, and that result makes a lot more sense than throwing out geology and radiometric dating.

2. Lucy (often deemed as one of the first missing links found) has recently been shown to possibly have at least one bone from a baboon.

"At least" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. That's one bone out of 89, which still leaves a lot of the skeleton unaccounted for. It's embarrassing for the researchers, but it's still an overall skeleton of something different. If the question is, "If one was a mistake, could everybody have made 88 more mistakes?" Sure, it's theoretically possible, but at some point you're just assuming that anthropologists can't do anything right.

The age of rock layers are generally determined by the fossils found in them, and the age of the fossils are generally determined by the age of the rock layers.

"Generally" is the key word here. It's not as though the whole process is bootstrapped that way. There are a lot of techniques that combine to create that textbook geological column. Index fossils are one piece of it, but there's also the fact that lower layers were laid down before higher layers and the use of radiometric dating to date layers independent of other references. If you can date a layer with an absolute method, you can be relatively certain that the layer below it is older than that absolute date, etc.

It's worth noting that the patterns in the geological column were noticed before the theory of evolution was ever suggested--there's very real stuff going on there that needs to be explained, and evolution over long periods of time explains it quite handily. Nothing else makes a lot of sense. I've heard claims of hydrological sorting and a worldwide flood, but the evidence against that is staggering. It just doesn't hold up.

Re:Assertions not based on facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Even a simple google search will bring you many results.

You mean that thing that is supposedly being manipulated?

Damn you, circular logic! You win again!

Birds

[Anonymous Coward]

They evolved into birds....

Apk educated your dumb ass

[Anonymous Coward]

STFU n' quit cryin bitch, face the music here http://linux.slashdot.org/comm...

Google, almostalladsblocked + you know this

[Anonymous Coward]

STFU n' quit cryin bitch, face the music here http://linux.slashdot.org/comm...

We'd appreciate how ya "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!"

[Anonymous Coward]

STFU n' quit cryin bitch, face the music here http://linux.slashdot.org/comm...

Evolution is Killing People.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Christians understand evolution just fine. The T-Rex will not kill you, but the antibiotic resistance might. But good luck with your Purple Barney Disneyland wedding. Just don't make any kind of casual contact - I hear the vaccines aren't what they're cracked up to be.

Silence Them!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is absolutely disgusting that people who think differently to us should be allowed a voice. They should be silenced at all costs as the fount of all wisdom and knowledge resides with us not with them.
Next they will be wanting us to believe that the universe did not create itself from nothing! God help us all if such a concept excapes into the wild.

A society that hates the hunch

[Odinson]

Hi I've got a website that discusses a scientific theory of mine. I have NEVER claimed it is anything but a theory, but lately I've been pretty beat up by the new google SEO techniques. Like I'm some kind of carnival barker. There are four kinds of knowledge in this world. Google's new plan only acknowledges one of them. 1. Fact - Information that is reproducible and verified. 2. Theory - Information that is reproducible, but not yet verified. 3. Failed Theory - Information that has been proven false. 4. Faith - Information that has no mechanism of reproduction. Problem is Google's new system only considers #1. So everyone else is freaking out. Google's target is #3 and is squashing #2 and #4 as collateral damage. The experiment failed. Back out Google!

"The Real Reason Dinosaurs Became Extinct."

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet so many will tell us that marijuana is safe and effective. Birds may be descended from dinosaurs, but science has conclusively proven that overdose participants definitely are not.

Not only Creationists manipulate search results

[Anonymous Coward]

Want to see something interesting? Do a Google image search for "black couple", now search for white couple. Results are likely what you'd expect, results filled with black and white couples respectively.

Now let's see if there's any Country specific PSYOPS going on. Compare a search for "American black couple" to a search for American white couple. The "American Black Couple" search results looks similar to the "Black Couple" results, but the "American White Couple" results are primarily pictures of multicultural couples.

Why are the mixed race couples present in "American White Couple" but not for "American Black Couple"? This is not-so-subtle psychological manipulation. It's yet another bullet point on the long list of "anti-white" propaganda. There's nothing wrong with being an interracial couple, IMO; What troubles me is the racist application of the PC agenda. Searches for American Black, Hispanic, and etc. minority couples aren't populated with interracial images, only white couples.

Oh, perhaps it's a fluke you say? Well, then let's try this again using "British" instead of "American" searches, and compare the results: "British Arab couple", "British White Couple". The first search produces the results you'd expect, but the latter results are full of interracial couples, interestingly so is "British black couple" Results are clearly being influenced, most likely due to a psychological operation (PSYOP). In the United States propaganda is being pushed hard for white & black interracial couples, while in Brittan Arab and Indian couples are left "pure" while the PSYOP pushes black and white couples to be more interracial. Now that you're aware of this you'll likely see more examples of said PSYOP in other forms of media.

For some fun, let's try out Russia: Russian Black Couple Wow, interracial and gay, heh. Isn't homosexuality what PC propaganda is primarily focusing on in Russia? "Russian white couple" results seem tainted with "white Russian" the drink and a white building famous for the exhibitionist couple in its window. "Russian Couple" turns up primarily heterosexual white Russian couples, but just look at how many more homosexuals there are in "Russian straight couple" Ah, that must be the other term the PC PSYOP is Google bombing. From the search results I would guess that Russia is under far less PC pressure and influence than the USA and Brittan; Wouldn't you say that's a fairly accurate political prediction?

I've noticed many other such political manipulations occurring over the years, primarily it was news media furthering the Politically Correct Narrative, but now it can also be seen in search results and comment sections full of political shills. Not even our schools are safe from

Poor Little Babies...

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? Nothing like getting a bunch of psuedo-science /.'ers panties in a twist over search results.

Are you really that insecure about your 'science'?

"Ask and ye shall receive."

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pharaoh was in the Bible and you've seen the bones of King Tut (plus many others). I guess you're a believer now?

Genesis 12:14-16 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

14 It came about when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 Pharaoh’s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16 Therefore he treated Abram well for her sake; and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels.

http://www.livingwithoutreligion.org/

[iq145]

http://www.newser.com/story/20... Sad, but true. The devout religious are struggling to survive...

the Dark Ages Are Back

[lott11]

Is this for Real!!! Are we back here again. Is there a real reason for this stupidity. Are we in dark ages, or is this a fools play on life. It is bad enough that we have to listen to this anal buffoon. Anal because that is what he stupidly preaches out, just loads of crap. And this is not even funny, just loads ironic conjectures that are meaningless. This was one of main reason I moved out of the US., I did not want my kids to learn BS. We have enough of that with politician and there greedy agendas, making more stupidities. Of panic and terror of other cultures to justify the theft land and resources for capital gains. Just make a search fro troglodytes, and another one for people with commonsense called homosapiens. and use a logo that they can understand a witch doctor on and on the other the symbol of infinity. There is to much miss directed info already, this just to obtuse and degrading for the 21's century. I know that every millennium people go thou a culture clash, but this like moving back to 13's century. OK let just bring back the inquisition, jail all the scientist, bring back all the land barons. No actually that is what is happening now, but instead barons we have oil companies and banks and corporations. So we are 2 out of 3 and you are pushing the intellect to end of no return. So what is Google. The way to ignorance and medeocrity.

Manipulated!?

[porjo]

The inference is that there has been some sneaky, underhanded tactics employed to cheat or 'game' the system somehow. What evidence does anyone have that this is the case? As far as I can see, Creationist have created a SEO-friendly website which covers what they sincerely believe about dinosaurs, and let Google do the rest.

Surely Slashdot isn't calling for Google to start censoring unpopular points of view?

Wouldn't the proper response be for those nay-sayers to create SEO-friendly websites stating their own version of dino history, and put it out there!?

Big Ben proves Harry Potter is real!

[Anonymous Coward]

You've seen Big Ben, haven't you? Well, remember that scene in Deathly Hallows where they scoot through London and you see Big Ben?

I guess you believe that wizards really DO live among us muggles now, huh?

correction

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot Editorializing The News

But, oh wait, this isn't news.

Do Creationists not believe in the food chain?

[barlevg]

From the Answers in Genesis article:

Dinosaurs could not have died out before people appeared because dinosaurs had not previously existed; and death, bloodshed, disease, and suffering are a result of Adam’s sin (Genesis 1:29–30; Romans 5:12, 14; 1 Corinthians 15:21–22).

So, before Adam's sin, did animals not eat other animals? Did Tyrannosaurus not only coexist with Adam, but also eat kale? Mighty sharp teeth for peeling a banana, gotta say...

Re:So, the Creationists ate all the Dinosaurs . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask Google "What happened to the dinosaurs?" and you'll see links to Creationist sites right at the top."

In that case why don't google regionalise the response?

Those nearest the creationist campus can type p0rn and get taken to the nearest convenience places that creationists click on.

Just out of academic interest, as well as other nefarious reasons, I'd like to know what results come out on top when IP addresses from creationist colonies are linked to words like p0rn :)

This problem is not new any way. Not too long back type in Linux and you get to see microshaft fanoboyees have been clicking on goatse sites all day and all night to shift their carp to the top.

Welcome to Azkaban.

[Anonymous Coward]

Point your magic wand at a flying car and you will find your wizard ass locked away in a very real Azkaban.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/blinding-light-the-us-crackdown-on-not-so-harmless-laser-strikes/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/california-man-who-lasered-two-helicopters-to-face-14-years-behind-bars/

"...Came Down Out of Heaven."

[Anonymous Coward]

John 6:41-51 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

41 Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” 42 They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

To use or not to use?

[timkofu]

"Google has a feedback link waiting for you to use it"

Which we may or may not use based on whether we do or don't believe that the universe was created, or "just happened".