You're trolling, right? In case you're serious;
You don't seem to realize that all the major issues that people face stem directly from overpopulation. All of the real modern challenges are issues of scale. Energy scarcity, food scarcity, transportation complexity, pollution levels, disease susceptibility, psychological disorder, climate change, and political unrest are all directly related to the number of people on the planet. While you, (and all parents, regardless of species) get a warm fuzzy feeling in your tummy about your offspring, the fact remains that humans are too reproductively successful to continue at our current pace. A person who relegates their occupation to "caregiver" is short-sighted and is merely passing the buck to the next generation. Unfortunately, because of our natural reproductive instincts, this generation will be larger, and their problems will be compound.
I work in the field of robotics. It's exciting, but it's in its infancy. Robots are very very far from solving the world's problems. I imagine the same is true with GMO crops, robot general warlords, and whatever other tech hype you've been reading about. To envision these nascent technologies as humanity's salvation is to ignore the real problem: There are too many of us.
FTA Her father, Kiril Schreiber, who represented her in court Wednesday, said he wants the biology textbook revised
This sound to me more like an issue he should take up with the publisher. I mean, what is the school going to do about it? Make all of the other ten year olds cross out "evolution" every time it appears in the textbooks?
"It seems pretty ridiculous that you could drive a tank at 19, but not have a beer afterwards.
Yes, but it also seems pretty sane that you could drive a tank at 19, and not have a beer (or six) beforehand.
"Humans are natural, hence they are part of natural selection. This false dichotomy between nature and man is, frankly, just so much hippie bullshit."
First, Just being "natural" does not make something "part of natural selection." Natural selection, as defined by Darwin, is substrate-neutral. That is, in ANY situation where variation, differential fitness, and heritability exist, natural selection will necessarily occur. This is what allows gene selectionists (right or wrong) to speak of the gene as a unit of selection. I'm not saying that we're not products of natural selection, I'm just saying that it's possible for "non-natural" things to be the products of natural selection as well.
Second, Although I agree that humans are products of natural selection, a dichotomy exists between humans and every other species on the planet. Kim Sterelny argues this point in Thought in a Hostile World. We are the products of a unique selective history in which downstream epistemic engineering accelerates evolution. We're good teachers, good learners, cooperative, and our epistemology improves cumulatively over successive generations. This behavior extends all the way back to our earliest hominid ancestors. So yes, we're unique.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, no thanks.
You're trolling, right? In case you're serious; You don't seem to realize that all the major issues that people face stem directly from overpopulation. All of the real modern challenges are issues of scale. Energy scarcity, food scarcity, transportation complexity, pollution levels, disease susceptibility, psychological disorder, climate change, and political unrest are all directly related to the number of people on the planet. While you, (and all parents, regardless of species) get a warm fuzzy feeling in your tummy about your offspring, the fact remains that humans are too reproductively successful to continue at our current pace. A person who relegates their occupation to "caregiver" is short-sighted and is merely passing the buck to the next generation. Unfortunately, because of our natural reproductive instincts, this generation will be larger, and their problems will be compound. I work in the field of robotics. It's exciting, but it's in its infancy. Robots are very very far from solving the world's problems. I imagine the same is true with GMO crops, robot general warlords, and whatever other tech hype you've been reading about. To envision these nascent technologies as humanity's salvation is to ignore the real problem: There are too many of us.
FTA
Her father, Kiril Schreiber, who represented her in court Wednesday, said he wants the biology textbook revised
This sound to me more like an issue he should take up with the publisher. I mean, what is the school going to do about it? Make all of the other ten year olds cross out "evolution" every time it appears in the textbooks?
"It seems pretty ridiculous that you could drive a tank at 19, but not have a beer afterwards. Yes, but it also seems pretty sane that you could drive a tank at 19, and not have a beer (or six) beforehand.
Here's a link to the video introduction. http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics/media/MSRS_Intr oToSim_300K.wvx
"Humans are natural, hence they are part of natural selection. This false dichotomy between nature and man is, frankly, just so much hippie bullshit."
First,
Just being "natural" does not make something "part of natural selection." Natural selection, as defined by Darwin, is substrate-neutral. That is, in ANY situation where variation, differential fitness, and heritability exist, natural selection will necessarily occur. This is what allows gene selectionists (right or wrong) to speak of the gene as a unit of selection. I'm not saying that we're not products of natural selection, I'm just saying that it's possible for "non-natural" things to be the products of natural selection as well.
Second,
Although I agree that humans are products of natural selection, a dichotomy exists between humans and every other species on the planet. Kim Sterelny argues this point in Thought in a Hostile World. We are the products of a unique selective history in which downstream epistemic engineering accelerates evolution. We're good teachers, good learners, cooperative, and our epistemology improves cumulatively over successive generations. This behavior extends all the way back to our earliest hominid ancestors. So yes, we're unique.
Your pal,
-the hippie.