p.s.: How's that for staying power? And BTW, Microsoft either has to abandon their proprietary kernel in favor of an open one (taking a BSD like Apple did, or a Linux or Hurd), or open-source Windows to save the platform from extinction. (The WINE project is quite usable, but is far from covering the complete Windows environment; open-sourcing Windows could help making a better compatibility layer for the Un*xes)
Yes, but while Windows became worse every year, GNU/Linux became better. You're invited to take a look at the latest Ubuntu Linux (8.04). It's fit now for multimedia and office purposes. I wrestled with various distros for a couple of years myself, but they're all getting better, all the time. (Fedora Linux is also definitely worth a look.) And then there's the BSDs, especially OpenBSD and FreeBSD, which have some of the packages from GNU/Linux in their ports collection. They're all very good Un*x systems. And let's not forget Solaris, OpenSolaris and AIX. And MacOS X, which based on BSD. After being called "dead" for more than 20 years, Un*x systems have not only made it to the desktop, are available for free for everyone, but are also ubiquitous in a way that could soon drown Windows out of the market. (cf. Gartner group studies about the future of Windows)
That doesn't change the fact that the Theory of Evolution is a fantasy tale of sorts... in the time when it appeared, there was absolutely no way of telling, but it was used as one of the weapons to fight the Catholic Church. And that's why it's still a mainstay. No-one has come up with a better theory yet of why all the species exist. Of course everybody can come up with "corroborating evidence", but that doesn't change the fact that it's just a theory. You can bend and twist things until they fit a warped mindset, and that's true for religion as much as it is true for science. We have absolutely no way of telling whether we've been created by whatever entity, or whether we've sprung into existence out of random, or out of evolution. The missing links in anthropology are what makes proving evolution difficult. The so-called "evidence" there is razor-thin.
They do plan to introduce 1000 Watt (roughly 1.5 horse power) engine later. And the article you read also said that they're probably using it to charge the secondary battery of electric cars. But for small city cars that can be solar-powered, an additional 1 KW water-powered energy source wouldn't be bad.
If they wanted to make a fool of themselves, they had plenty of opportunity so far, don't you think? The big irony is that -- like always -- we're gonna buy it from Japan, just like future household robots and other fun stuff, because the USA and Europe are too reluctant into investing in such ideas... sometimes I thank god for the global market.
Apparently, physics don't apply, but chemistry. They apparently use a chemical reaction to separate hydrogen from water. From an article that was posted here.
It's mentioned nowhere that electrolysis is being used to separate the hydrogen from the water. Apparently they use a chemical reaction. This might well be possible then. I doubt the company wants to make a fool of itself in public.
Although the likelihood of the "Theory of Evolution" is comparably high, there's no sufficient proof for it. It's not a scientific fact, because that would require proof. Currently, it's impossible to prove, because we don't have time machines that let us travel through the aeons and observe it with scientific methods. Analyze your credo, Creedo.;-)
Thanks for your reply! That was an interesting read. I'm glad you found what you're looking for. In the light of youthful fundamentalism that you mentioned, I agree of course. Every young person should be taught some basic and healthy skepticism. I'm a German and we learnt in school to recognize media bias and such things, I cannot watch or read news without being sceptical about the source of information and how it is presented. I'm also sceptical of every apparent achievement of science, because there's the question of who funded a research project, and every scientific theory and application is worth being questioned. Every religion should be questioned as well, as in "what does my God do for me?" for instance.
Religions like the Islam are often misused for political purposes. Our government here in Germany is currently working with Islamic groups to find out how Islam can be taught at schools. Many Muslims are enraged about how their religion is discredited by terrorists. But that doesn't stop right-wing preachers from seducing the youth in mosques. Many feel the government has an obligation to do something about that, to teach a peaceful form of Islam. I think the biggest problem is that young people often feel they don't have a purpose in society, that they would be unable to achieve anything. To motivate them to take a part in society is among the noblest of goals to achieve.
Wait wait, the administration expected us to be greeted as liberators and put no serious effort into planning for the post-invasion phase. The US administration allowed Iraq's infrastructure to be gutted by looters, disbanded the armed forces, treated the UN presence with contempt and allowed its headquarters to be truck bombed...
I think the US could have done a much better job in the crucial months after the invasion, and that the forethought given to reconstructing Iraq compares very poorly to the Marshall Plan. In fact, some European countries apparently refused to join forces with the US because there was no plan for the post-invasion phase. They know they'll have to help clean up the mess after the US has left Iraq. Who'll help Iraqis to get a pro-Western attitude after the invasion is over?
BTW, uncritical acceptance of science is just as bad as uncritical acceptance of religion. A famous example is "The Theory of Evolution", which is taken as a fact by many people, despite it's just a theory. Science students should not take scientific information as absolute truth, it should always be made clear in which ranges a scientific paradigm applies.
Beliefs have the tendency to lead to actions. And that is a problem if their beliefs are out of sync with reality, because then their actions will try to push us back into the Dark Ages. There are a lot of people with false beliefs who have the vote. How do you feel about Intelligent Design? Some fly planes into buildings. Others try to intimidate their fellow men into not publishing material using violent protests. Beliefs have consequences and if these consequences pull us back to Stone Age superstitions that we've worked so hard to rid ourselves of, they cannot be tolerated. Yeah yeah, you have a point, but who decides what is in "sync with reality"? Who decides which belief is false?
That it's wrong to fly planes into skyscrapers is pretty obvious, that's true, and terrorism (or crimes in general) as a belief system as well. But the Islam as a religion per se had probably nothing to do with it. Muslims often regard their peers as criminals as well if they're involved in such activities. Abuse of religion is certainly an issue, abuse of power in general, and this also affects the scientific community if some scientific circles abuse their power to intimidate their peers.
And as for that former scientist of yours... there has been so much progress in science recently, sometimes in unbelievably radical new directions that I have to assume that he was talking out of his ass. If a scientist thinks he can make a case for something, he'll publish, if only because he wants to know if his peers can prove him wrong. Because that's where progress in science comes from. That's not entirely true, because peer pressure is high in scientific circles. To be proven wrong is often the end of one's career, once and for all times. It's like being shot dead. And that's why it's feared so much.
Anything that's overdone isn't good, that's the definition of the "over-" part. But can skepticism really be overdone? As long as you stick to facts I don't think so, and this is for most skeptics what skepticism is all about in the first place. Stating that someone is too skeptical is really just another way of saying that you yourself prefer to live in fantasy land. There have been times (like in 80ies), in which you would've been (almost literally) put into psych ward for saying that some day we would have home computers with 16 million colors, 2 GiB of RAM and 270 GiB hard drives. In the 80ies, exoplanets were laughed off, because the solar system was thought of having the only planets in the universe. Watching things like that over decades makes one doubt the whole scientific process. Because what's the point of denying something's possible when it's discovered a few years later? And of all the people who fell because they came too early with their ideas?
That's great, but to what extent? It's all well and good if people keep their faith, or lack thereof private, but how often does this end up happening? Should we teach Evolution alongside Creationism alongside Pastafarianism just to 'let people have their beliefs'? Perhaps, yes. Here in Germany, we have both scientific and religious lessons in school. Everybody grows up with it. Most people reckon that both theories might be true.
After all, the world could've been created by the FSM, and we wouldn't know.
Recorded history reaches only a couple hundred years back, and in some cases, a few thousand years. As soon as we're born, we're in an alien environment, and we grow up in the substrate of our surroundings, in our petri dish. I, for example, know about WWII only from television, books and tales from long lost relatives. My parents experienced it first hand, but they were children. My grandparents remembered living through it. But their parents are long dead. So, what I want to say is, we're only aware of immediate history. Everything else we know about by secondary media. The further we go down in history, the more things become unclear. That's why both Evolution and Creation are concepts that we cannot verify by first-hand experience.
And many others would tell you that the greatest acheivement a scientist could have is to make a new discovery, or prove an well established discovery incorrect with the irrefutable proof to back it up. Well, but that person needs to have the strength to go thru that ordeal of finding irrefutable proof. And that's not easy, apparently. Also, it hampers development, because there has to be proof first. (Unlike technology, where a successful application of a concept is enough to use that technology.)
So, in the USA, are science and religion still fighting? Why not let people have their beliefs?
And how many people that believe in the scientific method expose themselves to the theater of science business?
A former professional scientist once told me, that scepticism is so big that it's difficult to introduce new ideas.
But when it's difficult to introduce new ideas, you have basically the same thing that stifled progress in the Dark Ages: Stagnation. Some scientists fear so much for their reputation that they barely dare to publish new ideas.
Having a healthy dose of scepticism is good, but if it's overdone, it doesn't help either.
Slashdot Mirror
p.s.: How's that for staying power? And BTW, Microsoft either has to abandon their proprietary kernel in favor of an open one (taking a BSD like Apple did, or a Linux or Hurd), or open-source Windows to save the platform from extinction. (The WINE project is quite usable, but is far from covering the complete Windows environment; open-sourcing Windows could help making a better compatibility layer for the Un*xes)
Yes, but while Windows became worse every year, GNU/Linux became better. You're invited to take a look at the latest Ubuntu Linux (8.04). It's fit now for multimedia and office purposes. I wrestled with various distros for a couple of years myself, but they're all getting better, all the time. (Fedora Linux is also definitely worth a look.) And then there's the BSDs, especially OpenBSD and FreeBSD, which have some of the packages from GNU/Linux in their ports collection. They're all very good Un*x systems. And let's not forget Solaris, OpenSolaris and AIX. And MacOS X, which based on BSD. After being called "dead" for more than 20 years, Un*x systems have not only made it to the desktop, are available for free for everyone, but are also ubiquitous in a way that could soon drown Windows out of the market. (cf. Gartner group studies about the future of Windows)
That doesn't change the fact that the Theory of Evolution is a fantasy tale of sorts ... in the time when it appeared, there was absolutely no way of telling, but it was used as one of the weapons to fight the Catholic Church. And that's why it's still a mainstay. No-one has come up with a better theory yet of why all the species exist. Of course everybody can come up with "corroborating evidence", but that doesn't change the fact that it's just a theory. You can bend and twist things until they fit a warped mindset, and that's true for religion as much as it is true for science. We have absolutely no way of telling whether we've been created by whatever entity, or whether we've sprung into existence out of random, or out of evolution. The missing links in anthropology are what makes proving evolution difficult. The so-called "evidence" there is razor-thin.
lol
Here, read this, which has been posted here already, somewhere above.
If they wanted to make a fool of themselves, they had plenty of opportunity so far, don't you think? The big irony is that -- like always -- we're gonna buy it from Japan, just like future household robots and other fun stuff, because the USA and Europe are too reluctant into investing in such ideas ... sometimes I thank god for the global market.
Another article that has been posted here. It has a more in-depth description than TFA.
Yes, it's the same thing. From an article posted here
Apparently, physics don't apply, but chemistry. They apparently use a chemical reaction to separate hydrogen from water. From an article that was posted here.
It's mentioned nowhere that electrolysis is being used to separate the hydrogen from the water. Apparently they use a chemical reaction. This might well be possible then. I doubt the company wants to make a fool of itself in public.
Thanks! That was really informative! :-)
... because there are none in TFA:
WES system (Google-translated)
Genepax homepage (English)
Although the likelihood of the "Theory of Evolution" is comparably high, there's no sufficient proof for it. It's not a scientific fact, because that would require proof. Currently, it's impossible to prove, because we don't have time machines that let us travel through the aeons and observe it with scientific methods. Analyze your credo, Creedo. ;-)
Yeah.
Thank you! At last, another person understanding the usefulness of that old instruction! :-)
Thanks for your reply! That was an interesting read. I'm glad you found what you're looking for. In the light of youthful fundamentalism that you mentioned, I agree of course. Every young person should be taught some basic and healthy skepticism. I'm a German and we learnt in school to recognize media bias and such things, I cannot watch or read news without being sceptical about the source of information and how it is presented. I'm also sceptical of every apparent achievement of science, because there's the question of who funded a research project, and every scientific theory and application is worth being questioned. Every religion should be questioned as well, as in "what does my God do for me?" for instance.
Religions like the Islam are often misused for political purposes. Our government here in Germany is currently working with Islamic groups to find out how Islam can be taught at schools. Many Muslims are enraged about how their religion is discredited by terrorists. But that doesn't stop right-wing preachers from seducing the youth in mosques. Many feel the government has an obligation to do something about that, to teach a peaceful form of Islam. I think the biggest problem is that young people often feel they don't have a purpose in society, that they would be unable to achieve anything. To motivate them to take a part in society is among the noblest of goals to achieve.
BTW, uncritical acceptance of science is just as bad as uncritical acceptance of religion. A famous example is "The Theory of Evolution", which is taken as a fact by many people, despite it's just a theory. Science students should not take scientific information as absolute truth, it should always be made clear in which ranges a scientific paradigm applies.
That it's wrong to fly planes into skyscrapers is pretty obvious, that's true, and terrorism (or crimes in general) as a belief system as well. But the Islam as a religion per se had probably nothing to do with it. Muslims often regard their peers as criminals as well if they're involved in such activities. Abuse of religion is certainly an issue, abuse of power in general, and this also affects the scientific community if some scientific circles abuse their power to intimidate their peers.
And as for that former scientist of yours... there has been so much progress in science recently, sometimes in unbelievably radical new directions that I have to assume that he was talking out of his ass. If a scientist thinks he can make a case for something, he'll publish, if only because he wants to know if his peers can prove him wrong. Because that's where progress in science comes from. That's not entirely true, because peer pressure is high in scientific circles. To be proven wrong is often the end of one's career, once and for all times. It's like being shot dead. And that's why it's feared so much.
Anything that's overdone isn't good, that's the definition of the "over-" part. But can skepticism really be overdone? As long as you stick to facts I don't think so, and this is for most skeptics what skepticism is all about in the first place. Stating that someone is too skeptical is really just another way of saying that you yourself prefer to live in fantasy land. There have been times (like in 80ies), in which you would've been (almost literally) put into psych ward for saying that some day we would have home computers with 16 million colors, 2 GiB of RAM and 270 GiB hard drives. In the 80ies, exoplanets were laughed off, because the solar system was thought of having the only planets in the universe. Watching things like that over decades makes one doubt the whole scientific process. Because what's the point of denying something's possible when it's discovered a few years later? And of all the people who fell because they came too early with their ideas?
After all, the world could've been created by the FSM, and we wouldn't know.
Recorded history reaches only a couple hundred years back, and in some cases, a few thousand years. As soon as we're born, we're in an alien environment, and we grow up in the substrate of our surroundings, in our petri dish. I, for example, know about WWII only from television, books and tales from long lost relatives. My parents experienced it first hand, but they were children. My grandparents remembered living through it. But their parents are long dead. So, what I want to say is, we're only aware of immediate history. Everything else we know about by secondary media. The further we go down in history, the more things become unclear. That's why both Evolution and Creation are concepts that we cannot verify by first-hand experience.
And many others would tell you that the greatest acheivement a scientist could have is to make a new discovery, or prove an well established discovery incorrect with the irrefutable proof to back it up. Well, but that person needs to have the strength to go thru that ordeal of finding irrefutable proof. And that's not easy, apparently. Also, it hampers development, because there has to be proof first. (Unlike technology, where a successful application of a concept is enough to use that technology.)
So, in the USA, are science and religion still fighting? Why not let people have their beliefs?
And how many people that believe in the scientific method expose themselves to the theater of science business?
A former professional scientist once told me, that scepticism is so big that it's difficult to introduce new ideas.
But when it's difficult to introduce new ideas, you have basically the same thing that stifled progress in the Dark Ages: Stagnation. Some scientists fear so much for their reputation that they barely dare to publish new ideas.
Having a healthy dose of scepticism is good, but if it's overdone, it doesn't help either.
"With Folded Hands" is an awesome story! :-)