"I'm going to forward it to Miguel and the people over at the Twister forum (unless you'd like to do it - I'll hold off for a couple of hours in case you do)."
Then perhaps you'd like to post this as well:
Twister will never see widespread adoption if users have to compile it for their platform. Unless and until pre-compiled binaries are available, most people will avoid it like the plague.
Qualifier: you may not have liked McAfee even in the beginning, but lots of people did. Probably what killed it was all the default installations that people didn't want.
Norton, on the other hand, was ground-breaking in its day.
Also, I might add: one of the reasons people disliked anti-virus software so much was that they used it wrong. They'd have 4 different utilities running in the background all the time, killing performance. In reality, it was almost always fine to run it manually once a week, or scheduled for 3:00 a.m., and disabling all the background crap.
"There was never a good reason to use McAfee or Norton. Not even in dial-up days when you'd buy software boxed. In those days Panda was available and way less of a nightmare than the competition."
Nonsense, youngster.
What happened to McAfee was the same thing that happened to Norton. When Peter Norton was running Norton Utilities, it was among the greatest software around. It started to suck less than a year after his company was bought out by Symantec.
McAfee used to be a great product. It began to suck soon after the company was acquired by Intel.
Both founders have stated they were glad to be as distanced from the "modern" product as possible.
"If your lovemaking includes unmanned aerial vehicles, directed-energy weapons, lethal autonomous robots and cyber weapons... You're probably doing it very right and should do online tutorials."
Well, I disagree with OP. You don't make bad things better by changing the rules to make them okay. That's not fixing a problem, that's endorsing it.
Actually, even more. These things too, from Greenspan. Question: "You write that one thing would have prevented the crisis was expanding the capital banks had to hold in reserve. Do you have a figure in mind?" Greenspan:
"You can have a financial system with banks making all sorts of horrible loans... but if they're well capitalized, all of the losses go to the shareholders."
All of those things were actually told him by Austrians for many years. After close to 20 years of leading the Fed, and years since, he's just learning these things NOW? 27 years too late? Why didn't he listen when real economists advised him?
"Taxes aren't needed to fund the government. The lesson of QE is that the Fed can create money to buy bonds and keep the loans rolling over forever without consequence."
Haha. Hardly. QE and inflation both eventually have very harsh consequences. As a nation, our economy is no better off than it was in 2008, the people in general are poorer, the Fed has no more tricks up its sleeve, and unemployment is still high.
And we haven't seen the worst of the consequences yet (depite the fact that my food costs are pretty close to twice what they were 4 years ago). If the economy continues to recover on its own, it might not get too bad.
Read what Alan Greenspan has to say on the last page of the Nov. 4 Time Magazine, about the recent economy. Even he admits that he was wrong about a lot of things. Among them:
"It's not the type of asset -- subprime mortgages or stocks -- it's whether it is leveraged."
"If I could go back and recalibrate my psyche and fully understand how toxic debt really is, that would have been very helpful."
"Part of the way out is to slow down benefits. Very much to my surprise, benefits are crowding out savings of the society; the data are very clear in this regard."
Etc. Etc. As for the last two points: Austrian economists were trying to tell him those things for many years. He didn't listen.
"No need for that. The more crime (real or imagined) there is, the more people are afraid, stupid and easy to manipulate. "
Well, it's mostly imagined. Crime has been going steadily DOWN for 20 years. Even serious crimes are down to HALF of what they were 30 years ago.
But what I want to know is this: since when does the FBI get to amend its own mission statement? Where did they get the authority to do that? (Rhetorical question: they don't have the authority to do that. So either somebody higher up did it, or they did it illegally.)
but they have significantly differing views on the relationship of the role of government to the citizenry and the economy.
You're seriously out-of-date. That was the OLD government, 20 years ago.
Today, they're both a bunch of namby-pambies. The Democrat party gives lip service to the idea of reducing military, but they are now responsible for expanding our military presence around the world more than anybody else, ever. The Republican party has been giving lib-service to the idea of smaller government, but when it actually came to any kind of a fight, they simply caved. If you actually believed the lies on either side, these things would be an absolute mystery to you. But if, like most of us, you don't believe ANY of it any more, it all makes perfect sense and there is no more mystery.
And don't give me Tea Party guff, either. They aren't a subset of Republicans, and Republicans aren't really Tea Party. GOP has strictly prohibited support for Tea Party from all the major elections, and (as was all over the U.S. newspapers recently) they decided that if they want to win more elections they'll have to reject Tea Party even more, and run on the wishy-washy platforms they were running on 10 years ago. What a laugh.
It used to be, Democrats were the party of civil rights and social tolerance. Today, they have become extremely INtolerant. (Say anything about gays that isn't genuinely flattering in a crowd of them today, for example, and see how fast you get tossed out. That's not "tolerance", that's intolerance of anything but their pet points of view.) Obama has violated more civil rights than any President in history.
It used to be, Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility and small government. But they haven't done anything serious about the budget, and grudgingly allowed Democrats to "force them" (haha) to put this nation in twice as much debt as it was in just a few years ago. They haven't fought Obama's monetary policy. They haven't actually been trying (or not hard, anyway) to reduce government. They have just been going through the motions, so they can pretend that they did.
The only solution is to shitcan both parties. They have been WAY more trouble than they're worth.
How easily one can get developers who are both familiar with the domain AND the language, or know a language so close that transitioning is easy (i.e. why most languages looks like C) is just as critical as in how well a language fits a project as the technical aspects.
I agree with you in general, but I don't agree that most important languages look like C. That's why they are used in different areas for different things. Sure, there are a lot that do look like C. But not many of the most often-used languages.
If I'm going to carry around a toolbox, I'm going to carry around a wrench, a screwdriver or two, a hammer, etc. I'm not going to carry around all wrenches, or all hammers, or all screwdrivers.
"... you goddamned moron. What exactly do you think happens when someone shows up at the ER with a life-threatening condition they can't afford to pay for?"
We have a "charitable" hospital "system", which is mostly administered by the States (not the Feds), and which is largely (though certainly not entirely) paid for by charitable donations.
Why do you think so many hospitals in the U.S. are owned and run by church organizations?
"The point here is that because natural transgenic processes exist, human engineering of genes is no more alien in comparison to natural processes than Mendelian genetic selection by humans is distinct from natural selection."
Not necessarily more alien. Although even that argument is weak. It is unlikely that cat genes would every be naturally combined with jellyfish genes in the way that has been done in the lab, for example.
But regardless, I am not saying it's necessarily "alien", just untested by time, and for that matter far too untested by science. It is a potentially very dangerous thing to do to a food supply. (And not without unintended consequences, either. For example, "Roundup Ready" products were supposed to reduce pesticide use, but use is now higher than ever before.)
This question is only a little less silly than asking why we haven't cured all disease yet.
It's even more silly because it asks no new questions, nor gives any new answers. The prevalence of cancer today is precisely because of improvements in the treatments of other diseases. The fact that it has been more difficult to cure is not an argument that it is never curable. In fact there are some very promising candidates even today.
Just as you say, however: there are different kinds, and as a result there will likely be many different treatments.
Initially, it was believed that transgenic processes did not occur in nature and were a purely human, hence 'new' technology. This has now changed:
Yes, but if you're trying to use that to justify GMO, it's a giant straw-man argument.
Natural processes that likely occurred over millions of years are hardly comparable to inserting genes from one organism into another in a lab to get the effect you desire. You see the first precisely because it worked, and the organism survived over long periods of time. You aren't seeing the likely millions or even billions of combinations that, for one reason or another, did not work. Because they simply did not survive over time.
"that tomato strain was genetically modified, by plasmid insertion, -then- cross-pollinated with most other major strains. or... are you willing to say generation 1 of GMO is GMO whereas generation 3 isn't?"
Further, even when the "Flavr-Savr" tomato was being produced experimentally, the claim that it used fish genes was actually a confusion between that and other research. So: no, your tomato is not GMO in the sense being discussed here, which is the insertion of foreign genes from other organisms.
Hawaii is a special case, and it is particularly sensitive to invasive organisms. It is perfectly reasonable for them to be extra-cautious at this time. They are in a particularly strong place from which to say, "If there is even a small chance it is bad, let's not do it."
First, this is exactly the kind of thing someone from the Council on Foreign Relations would be expected to say. No surprise there: "Let's keep control over everything and punish anybody who dares challenge!"
But let's put things in perspective: if the U.S. still behaved in a civilized and rational manner in regard to whistleblowers, he would not have had to escape the United States and seek asylum elsewhere. This is fundamentally the fault of our U.S. government. Government breaks the law and violates the Constitution (in a rather extreme manner) via the NSA. When that is exposed, government tries to retaliate, also in an extreme manner. Government drives the person with the offending documents somewhere else.
There is not a single step in this process that was not a direct result of government action. I've said this before, but I will repeat it:
Disobedience to government is not treason. Betraying your country and people is treason. Snowden committed the former. U.S. government committed the latter.
Your accusation is baseless; I haven't confused DNA and RNA.
I wasn't accusing you of confusing DNA and RNA. Although to be fair, I see how my statement could be interpreted that way. I was referring to your statements "all life uses the same DNA" and "each species has its unique DNA with different nucleic acids". My point was that this is imprecise, loose phraseology.
First, it isn't clear whether you're referring to "all possible life" or "all known life". If the former, I don't believe we have any solid basis for making that claim. And if the latter, "all life uses the same DNA" is not necessarily accurate... some contains only RNA. Or at least, again, ambiguous because it does "use" DNA during replication, while not actually containing any.
I'm not trying to nitpick here. I'm simply saying that the way you stated this leaves your meaning open to quite a bit of interpretation, and it is not entirely clear to me what that meaning is. I had to interpret in the way I thought you probably meant, without really knowing if that was correct.
"I'm just pointing out that we couldn't have evolved from creatures using alternative DNA bases."
Well, that does make your argument clearer. This much is almost certainly true.
What Iâ(TM)m talking about is the scenario where every species in existence has a different set of nucleic acids in their DNA.
Okay, and thanks for clearing that up as well. I am assuming here by "different set" you mean "different nucleic acids", as opposed to "a different sequence of nucleic acids". So if I understood you correctly, I would have to agree with this too.
Millions of separate abiogenesis events would completely destroy evolution. Ergo, itâ(TM)s possible to find evidence which would disprove evolution. Ergo, evolution is falsifiable science.
I haven't disputed that evolution is falsifiable science. It's the other part of your argument that I was not following.
That's what I've been saying for years, so you obviously didn't understand my point.
And that's what I've been saying. I wasn't sure I understood your point because I felt your explanations were ambiguous. Pardon me for not having read the whole page. But I did read quite a bit above and below the section you originally pointed me to, and it was still unclear to me. So I was probably arguing against something other than what you actually meant. It happens.
Creationism isn't even wrong.
And I agree with you that creationism isn't even science. At least what I've seen of it certainly has not been. But remember what my original comment was: "some facts exist that are evidence of creationism". (Or close enough as makes no difference.) But that was all I meant. I said or implied nothing else; only that some facts can support the argument of creationism... whether it is valid "science", or not. Something they can use to argue. I didn't even say that the argument had to hold up under scrutiny... only that there is evidence for it.
So -- as I tried to get at earlier -- I think we are again discussing two different things. I wasn't trying to argue that creationism was falsifiable. Or any of those other things you have brought in to the conversation.
As I've repeatedly (and apparently pointlessly) explained to you, the first method of testing for the existence of dark matter was developed in 1933.
And I find this repeated assertion astounding. As I have explained to you several times, observational evidence of extra mass, and experimental testing of the "dark matter" hypothesis over alternative explanations for the "missing mass", are two different things. Any other claim is absurd. The latter did not come until much later. You are conflating observational evidence of extra mass with experimental testing of the dark matter
"Your second example was actually bad too, because it shows evolution is falsifiable science while creationism is just religion. Try again."
Not at all. The fact that you've argued about this in the past doesn't make you automatically correct. You restate your position here:
Iâ(TM)m saying that the statement âoeGod created lifeâ is compatible with the evidence âoeall life uses the same DNAâ as well as the evidence âoeeach species has its unique DNA with different nucleic acids.â But, as I point out, evolution is only compatible with the evidence âoeall life uses the same DNA,â which means evolution is falsifiable science and creationism is theology instead.
First, you are not using technically accurate terms. DNA is DNA. RNA is RNA. Different sequences of DNA are possible and have been observed. Same for RNA. To date, however, no substitutes for DNA or RNA have been confirmed.
You say "all life uses the same DNA"... apparently you are referring here to the same bases, AGT & C. Each known life form uses diferent sequences of it, however, making it difficult to tell what your argument is. If what you mean is that "a Creator could make creatures with something that is akin to DNA but isn't DNA", then I understand your argument.
However, understanding it is not the same as agreeing with it. The notion that different molecules could be used as DNA analogs is certainly testable. In fact, if you recall, there was a recent claim that some bacteria used arsenic instead of phosphorus in their DNA... which would make it "not DNA". I am not aware of any reason to believe that "alternate DNA" would be any more or less susceptible to evolution than our known DNA. Therefore this hypothesis is just as testable as the other. The only difference is that it is not currently, actively testable given our state of technology, and we currently know of no examples.
Just as, for years, there were no known methods to test for the existence of dark matter. Yet that did not stop many scientists from creating models based on it, nor did it get them ejected from the halls of science.
Frankly I am not convinced that your argument "evolution is only compatible with 'all life uses the same DNA'", is any more plausible than the argument that "evolution is possible given a suitable alternative analog of DNA". The only difference I see is that only one of them is testable today.
The flap over the "arsenic DNA" in Mono Lake shows that the other idea is at least plausible to many scientists.
I replied by saying "No, isochron dating only relies on nuclear decay rates being constant, which has been confirmed by SN1987a, etc. Try again." and your response was "Okay, maybe it was a bad example."
Yes, this is correct. It was apparently a bad example. And so, what is your point? I conceded that point. There is no argument here.
Any example may be a bad example, so that wasn't a retraction.
Well, it was a retraction of that example. I'm not going to retract my more general claim, because it is not incorrect. And you are already well aware that statistically speaking, it is almost certainly true.
Here is an example I found. And I admit that it was difficult and actually a bit of fun trying to find one.
All currently known life forms have structures based on DNA or RNA. This is a fact. Creationists argue that because we know of no actual examples of the evolution of DNA or RNA from simpler molecules, then DNA (or RNA at least) were created and did not evolve.
NOTE: I do NOT claim it is evidence of creation, only that it is evidence that can reasonably be interpreted as supporting a creationist's arguments. (By the way: the claim of the existence of organisms that use arsenic rather than phosphorus has not been substantiated.)
Now, let's be clear: I also did not and do not claim that this argument is sound. I am simply saying that it is not an inherently silly argument, it is based on genuine observable evidence, and I am not aware of counter-evidence. (Though I do not deny that some may exist. The very same evidence might be interpreted as supporting the argument for evolution, for all I know, but I am not sure how at this time.)
Therefore I have found a bit of evidence that supports the creationism argument.
Nor do I necessarily claim it is even a good argument. Only that here is evidence that plausibly supports such an argument. If you want to call that moving the goalposts, go ahead, and I'll just deny it because that was what I meant by my original comment, as I believe I have explained repeatedly.
Standard disclaimer: As I stated before, I am neither a creationist or a young-Earther. I am a firm believer in evolution.
"I'm not the one who claimed that some facts support the creationist position."
You know very well what my argument was about. You're either missing the whole point, or you're just trolling... again.
Yes, or no. Do you deny that given the size of the body of evidence, the probability of ALL available evidence being against the ideas of creationism or "young Earth" is very close to zero?
Do you deny that a corollary if this is that SOME evidence must almost certainly be supportive of creationism?
Yes, or no? No more blathering. Just yes or no to these two questions. The latter one in particular, because it is more specifically on-topic.
And I will state again that I am not a believer or a proponent of creationism, nor am I "young earther". I did not claim that either idea was sound, and I already stated that the vast majority of evidence is in favor of evolution.
So make a damned argument already, if you're going to make one, and stop this childish baiting. I made mine, as you already know. What is YOURS?
Slashdot Mirror
"I'm going to forward it to Miguel and the people over at the Twister forum (unless you'd like to do it - I'll hold off for a couple of hours in case you do)."
Then perhaps you'd like to post this as well:
Twister will never see widespread adoption if users have to compile it for their platform. Unless and until pre-compiled binaries are available, most people will avoid it like the plague.
Qualifier: you may not have liked McAfee even in the beginning, but lots of people did. Probably what killed it was all the default installations that people didn't want.
Norton, on the other hand, was ground-breaking in its day.
Also, I might add: one of the reasons people disliked anti-virus software so much was that they used it wrong. They'd have 4 different utilities running in the background all the time, killing performance. In reality, it was almost always fine to run it manually once a week, or scheduled for 3:00 a.m., and disabling all the background crap.
"There was never a good reason to use McAfee or Norton. Not even in dial-up days when you'd buy software boxed. In those days Panda was available and way less of a nightmare than the competition."
Nonsense, youngster.
What happened to McAfee was the same thing that happened to Norton. When Peter Norton was running Norton Utilities, it was among the greatest software around. It started to suck less than a year after his company was bought out by Symantec.
McAfee used to be a great product. It began to suck soon after the company was acquired by Intel.
Both founders have stated they were glad to be as distanced from the "modern" product as possible.
"If your lovemaking includes unmanned aerial vehicles, directed-energy weapons, lethal autonomous robots and cyber weapons... You're probably doing it very right and should do online tutorials."
Well, I disagree with OP. You don't make bad things better by changing the rules to make them okay. That's not fixing a problem, that's endorsing it.
"You can have a financial system with banks making all sorts of horrible loans... but if they're well capitalized, all of the losses go to the shareholders."
All of those things were actually told him by Austrians for many years. After close to 20 years of leading the Fed, and years since, he's just learning these things NOW? 27 years too late? Why didn't he listen when real economists advised him?
"Taxes aren't needed to fund the government. The lesson of QE is that the Fed can create money to buy bonds and keep the loans rolling over forever without consequence."
Haha. Hardly. QE and inflation both eventually have very harsh consequences. As a nation, our economy is no better off than it was in 2008, the people in general are poorer, the Fed has no more tricks up its sleeve, and unemployment is still high.
And we haven't seen the worst of the consequences yet (depite the fact that my food costs are pretty close to twice what they were 4 years ago). If the economy continues to recover on its own, it might not get too bad.
Read what Alan Greenspan has to say on the last page of the Nov. 4 Time Magazine, about the recent economy. Even he admits that he was wrong about a lot of things. Among them:
"It's not the type of asset -- subprime mortgages or stocks -- it's whether it is leveraged."
"If I could go back and recalibrate my psyche and fully understand how toxic debt really is, that would have been very helpful."
"Part of the way out is to slow down benefits. Very much to my surprise, benefits are crowding out savings of the society; the data are very clear in this regard."
Etc. Etc. As for the last two points: Austrian economists were trying to tell him those things for many years. He didn't listen.
That's still tax money. Not ALL tax money, but tax money nevertheless.
I think this is one for the Journal of Irreproducible Results.
Haha. "Lib service." Bit of a Jungsian slip there.
"No need for that. The more crime (real or imagined) there is, the more people are afraid, stupid and easy to manipulate. "
Well, it's mostly imagined. Crime has been going steadily DOWN for 20 years. Even serious crimes are down to HALF of what they were 30 years ago.
But what I want to know is this: since when does the FBI get to amend its own mission statement? Where did they get the authority to do that? (Rhetorical question: they don't have the authority to do that. So either somebody higher up did it, or they did it illegally.)
but they have significantly differing views on the relationship of the role of government to the citizenry and the economy.
You're seriously out-of-date. That was the OLD government, 20 years ago.
Today, they're both a bunch of namby-pambies. The Democrat party gives lip service to the idea of reducing military, but they are now responsible for expanding our military presence around the world more than anybody else, ever. The Republican party has been giving lib-service to the idea of smaller government, but when it actually came to any kind of a fight, they simply caved. If you actually believed the lies on either side, these things would be an absolute mystery to you. But if, like most of us, you don't believe ANY of it any more, it all makes perfect sense and there is no more mystery.
And don't give me Tea Party guff, either. They aren't a subset of Republicans, and Republicans aren't really Tea Party. GOP has strictly prohibited support for Tea Party from all the major elections, and (as was all over the U.S. newspapers recently) they decided that if they want to win more elections they'll have to reject Tea Party even more, and run on the wishy-washy platforms they were running on 10 years ago. What a laugh.
It used to be, Democrats were the party of civil rights and social tolerance. Today, they have become extremely INtolerant. (Say anything about gays that isn't genuinely flattering in a crowd of them today, for example, and see how fast you get tossed out. That's not "tolerance", that's intolerance of anything but their pet points of view.) Obama has violated more civil rights than any President in history.
It used to be, Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility and small government. But they haven't done anything serious about the budget, and grudgingly allowed Democrats to "force them" (haha) to put this nation in twice as much debt as it was in just a few years ago. They haven't fought Obama's monetary policy. They haven't actually been trying (or not hard, anyway) to reduce government. They have just been going through the motions, so they can pretend that they did.
The only solution is to shitcan both parties. They have been WAY more trouble than they're worth.
How easily one can get developers who are both familiar with the domain AND the language, or know a language so close that transitioning is easy (i.e. why most languages looks like C) is just as critical as in how well a language fits a project as the technical aspects.
I agree with you in general, but I don't agree that most important languages look like C. That's why they are used in different areas for different things. Sure, there are a lot that do look like C. But not many of the most often-used languages.
If I'm going to carry around a toolbox, I'm going to carry around a wrench, a screwdriver or two, a hammer, etc. I'm not going to carry around all wrenches, or all hammers, or all screwdrivers.
Besides, the theoretical model is a frictionless and massless rubber sheet, not a real rubber sheet.
Physicists getting paid (likely tax money, too) for playing with marbles, to show that an analogy is only... an analogy.
I think I want that job.
"The GMO method of inserting a specific gene to accomplish a specific goal seems much safer than to me than Mutation breeding."
That's nice. But (1) "seems" is hardly science, and (2) who said the "mutation breeding" process was anywhere near safe?
"... you goddamned moron. What exactly do you think happens when someone shows up at the ER with a life-threatening condition they can't afford to pay for?"
We have a "charitable" hospital "system", which is mostly administered by the States (not the Feds), and which is largely (though certainly not entirely) paid for by charitable donations.
Why do you think so many hospitals in the U.S. are owned and run by church organizations?
"The point here is that because natural transgenic processes exist, human engineering of genes is no more alien in comparison to natural processes than Mendelian genetic selection by humans is distinct from natural selection."
Not necessarily more alien. Although even that argument is weak. It is unlikely that cat genes would every be naturally combined with jellyfish genes in the way that has been done in the lab, for example.
But regardless, I am not saying it's necessarily "alien", just untested by time, and for that matter far too untested by science. It is a potentially very dangerous thing to do to a food supply. (And not without unintended consequences, either. For example, "Roundup Ready" products were supposed to reduce pesticide use, but use is now higher than ever before.)
"People have been genetically modifying organisms since the 1930s using the scattershot approaches ..."
Those are still VERY DIFFERENT from the kind of methods used to create the GMO crops we are discussing here.
You can choose to be as alarmed or not as you please, but those are simply different subjects, and scarcely relevant.
This question is only a little less silly than asking why we haven't cured all disease yet.
It's even more silly because it asks no new questions, nor gives any new answers. The prevalence of cancer today is precisely because of improvements in the treatments of other diseases. The fact that it has been more difficult to cure is not an argument that it is never curable. In fact there are some very promising candidates even today.
Just as you say, however: there are different kinds, and as a result there will likely be many different treatments.
Initially, it was believed that transgenic processes did not occur in nature and were a purely human, hence 'new' technology. This has now changed:
Yes, but if you're trying to use that to justify GMO, it's a giant straw-man argument.
Natural processes that likely occurred over millions of years are hardly comparable to inserting genes from one organism into another in a lab to get the effect you desire. You see the first precisely because it worked, and the organism survived over long periods of time. You aren't seeing the likely millions or even billions of combinations that, for one reason or another, did not work. Because they simply did not survive over time.
It's apples and oranges.
"that tomato strain was genetically modified, by plasmid insertion, -then- cross-pollinated with most other major strains. or... are you willing to say generation 1 of GMO is GMO whereas generation 3 isn't?"
Since there are no genetically modified tomatoes available commercially, GP is correct.
Further, even when the "Flavr-Savr" tomato was being produced experimentally, the claim that it used fish genes was actually a confusion between that and other research. So: no, your tomato is not GMO in the sense being discussed here, which is the insertion of foreign genes from other organisms.
Hawaii is a special case, and it is particularly sensitive to invasive organisms. It is perfectly reasonable for them to be extra-cautious at this time. They are in a particularly strong place from which to say, "If there is even a small chance it is bad, let's not do it."
I would add:
First, this is exactly the kind of thing someone from the Council on Foreign Relations would be expected to say. No surprise there: "Let's keep control over everything and punish anybody who dares challenge!"
But let's put things in perspective: if the U.S. still behaved in a civilized and rational manner in regard to whistleblowers, he would not have had to escape the United States and seek asylum elsewhere. This is fundamentally the fault of our U.S. government. Government breaks the law and violates the Constitution (in a rather extreme manner) via the NSA. When that is exposed, government tries to retaliate, also in an extreme manner. Government drives the person with the offending documents somewhere else.
There is not a single step in this process that was not a direct result of government action. I've said this before, but I will repeat it:
Disobedience to government is not treason. Betraying your country and people is treason. Snowden committed the former. U.S. government committed the latter.
Your accusation is baseless; I haven't confused DNA and RNA.
I wasn't accusing you of confusing DNA and RNA. Although to be fair, I see how my statement could be interpreted that way. I was referring to your statements "all life uses the same DNA" and "each species has its unique DNA with different nucleic acids". My point was that this is imprecise, loose phraseology.
First, it isn't clear whether you're referring to "all possible life" or "all known life". If the former, I don't believe we have any solid basis for making that claim. And if the latter, "all life uses the same DNA" is not necessarily accurate... some contains only RNA. Or at least, again, ambiguous because it does "use" DNA during replication, while not actually containing any.
I'm not trying to nitpick here. I'm simply saying that the way you stated this leaves your meaning open to quite a bit of interpretation, and it is not entirely clear to me what that meaning is. I had to interpret in the way I thought you probably meant, without really knowing if that was correct.
"I'm just pointing out that we couldn't have evolved from creatures using alternative DNA bases."
Well, that does make your argument clearer. This much is almost certainly true.
What Iâ(TM)m talking about is the scenario where every species in existence has a different set of nucleic acids in their DNA.
Okay, and thanks for clearing that up as well. I am assuming here by "different set" you mean "different nucleic acids", as opposed to "a different sequence of nucleic acids". So if I understood you correctly, I would have to agree with this too.
Millions of separate abiogenesis events would completely destroy evolution. Ergo, itâ(TM)s possible to find evidence which would disprove evolution. Ergo, evolution is falsifiable science.
I haven't disputed that evolution is falsifiable science. It's the other part of your argument that I was not following.
That's what I've been saying for years, so you obviously didn't understand my point.
And that's what I've been saying. I wasn't sure I understood your point because I felt your explanations were ambiguous. Pardon me for not having read the whole page. But I did read quite a bit above and below the section you originally pointed me to, and it was still unclear to me. So I was probably arguing against something other than what you actually meant. It happens.
Creationism isn't even wrong.
And I agree with you that creationism isn't even science. At least what I've seen of it certainly has not been. But remember what my original comment was: "some facts exist that are evidence of creationism". (Or close enough as makes no difference.) But that was all I meant. I said or implied nothing else; only that some facts can support the argument of creationism... whether it is valid "science", or not. Something they can use to argue. I didn't even say that the argument had to hold up under scrutiny... only that there is evidence for it.
So -- as I tried to get at earlier -- I think we are again discussing two different things. I wasn't trying to argue that creationism was falsifiable. Or any of those other things you have brought in to the conversation.
As I've repeatedly (and apparently pointlessly) explained to you, the first method of testing for the existence of dark matter was developed in 1933.
And I find this repeated assertion astounding. As I have explained to you several times, observational evidence of extra mass, and experimental testing of the "dark matter" hypothesis over alternative explanations for the "missing mass", are two different things. Any other claim is absurd. The latter did not come until much later. You are conflating observational evidence of extra mass with experimental testing of the dark matter
"Your second example was actually bad too, because it shows evolution is falsifiable science while creationism is just religion. Try again."
Not at all. The fact that you've argued about this in the past doesn't make you automatically correct. You restate your position here:
Iâ(TM)m saying that the statement âoeGod created lifeâ is compatible with the evidence âoeall life uses the same DNAâ as well as the evidence âoeeach species has its unique DNA with different nucleic acids.â But, as I point out, evolution is only compatible with the evidence âoeall life uses the same DNA,â which means evolution is falsifiable science and creationism is theology instead.
First, you are not using technically accurate terms. DNA is DNA. RNA is RNA. Different sequences of DNA are possible and have been observed. Same for RNA. To date, however, no substitutes for DNA or RNA have been confirmed.
... apparently you are referring here to the same bases, AGT & C. Each known life form uses diferent sequences of it, however, making it difficult to tell what your argument is. If what you mean is that "a Creator could make creatures with something that is akin to DNA but isn't DNA", then I understand your argument.
You say "all life uses the same DNA"
However, understanding it is not the same as agreeing with it. The notion that different molecules could be used as DNA analogs is certainly testable. In fact, if you recall, there was a recent claim that some bacteria used arsenic instead of phosphorus in their DNA... which would make it "not DNA". I am not aware of any reason to believe that "alternate DNA" would be any more or less susceptible to evolution than our known DNA. Therefore this hypothesis is just as testable as the other. The only difference is that it is not currently, actively testable given our state of technology, and we currently know of no examples.
Just as, for years, there were no known methods to test for the existence of dark matter. Yet that did not stop many scientists from creating models based on it, nor did it get them ejected from the halls of science.
Frankly I am not convinced that your argument "evolution is only compatible with 'all life uses the same DNA'", is any more plausible than the argument that "evolution is possible given a suitable alternative analog of DNA". The only difference I see is that only one of them is testable today.
The flap over the "arsenic DNA" in Mono Lake shows that the other idea is at least plausible to many scientists.
I replied by saying "No, isochron dating only relies on nuclear decay rates being constant, which has been confirmed by SN1987a, etc. Try again." and your response was "Okay, maybe it was a bad example."
Yes, this is correct. It was apparently a bad example. And so, what is your point? I conceded that point. There is no argument here.
Any example may be a bad example, so that wasn't a retraction.
Well, it was a retraction of that example. I'm not going to retract my more general claim, because it is not incorrect. And you are already well aware that statistically speaking, it is almost certainly true.
Here is an example I found. And I admit that it was difficult and actually a bit of fun trying to find one.
All currently known life forms have structures based on DNA or RNA. This is a fact. Creationists argue that because we know of no actual examples of the evolution of DNA or RNA from simpler molecules, then DNA (or RNA at least) were created and did not evolve.
NOTE: I do NOT claim it is evidence of creation, only that it is evidence that can reasonably be interpreted as supporting a creationist's arguments. (By the way: the claim of the existence of organisms that use arsenic rather than phosphorus has not been substantiated.)
Now, let's be clear: I also did not and do not claim that this argument is sound. I am simply saying that it is not an inherently silly argument, it is based on genuine observable evidence, and I am not aware of counter-evidence. (Though I do not deny that some may exist. The very same evidence might be interpreted as supporting the argument for evolution, for all I know, but I am not sure how at this time.)
Therefore I have found a bit of evidence that supports the creationism argument.
Nor do I necessarily claim it is even a good argument. Only that here is evidence that plausibly supports such an argument. If you want to call that moving the goalposts, go ahead, and I'll just deny it because that was what I meant by my original comment, as I believe I have explained repeatedly.
Standard disclaimer: As I stated before, I am neither a creationist or a young-Earther. I am a firm believer in evolution.
Correction: "corollary if this" should be "corollary of this".
"I'm not the one who claimed that some facts support the creationist position."
You know very well what my argument was about. You're either missing the whole point, or you're just trolling... again.
Yes, or no. Do you deny that given the size of the body of evidence, the probability of ALL available evidence being against the ideas of creationism or "young Earth" is very close to zero?
Do you deny that a corollary if this is that SOME evidence must almost certainly be supportive of creationism?
Yes, or no? No more blathering. Just yes or no to these two questions. The latter one in particular, because it is more specifically on-topic.
And I will state again that I am not a believer or a proponent of creationism, nor am I "young earther". I did not claim that either idea was sound, and I already stated that the vast majority of evidence is in favor of evolution.
So make a damned argument already, if you're going to make one, and stop this childish baiting. I made mine, as you already know. What is YOURS?