Please define "having a lock on truth," because the more we go round, the less I'm sure I know what you mean by this.
Maybe I don't know what I should be meaning--I wasn't the one who originally used the phrase. However, I took it to mean that there were no true statements that were contradicted by the ones with a lock, and that there were no false statements put forth. (This is essentially the same as "inerrant".)
Furthermore, I'd require that you be able to communicate the truth. If you can't communicate, the knowledge is irrelevant (and therefore isn't much of a "lock").
If the traditional interpretation was that Genesis was a fable with little to no basis in reality[1], it was somehow forgotten and--given the number of biblical literalists today--hasn't ever been fully remembered. This isn't exactly locklike behavior. But at this point it's getting rather silly; if I define the standards for having a lock to be high enough, no one will be able to meet them. If you define them low enough, someone will. Perhaps we should quit already, while we're only behind?
--Ichoran
[1] (E.g. "README: To install, rcp the hqm.1.7.tgz tarball, explode, grep * for D_INST_DIR and pipe to rpm." "Huh????" "You have to interpret that in context. You see, they mean click on the crossed-out goldfish icon." "Oh.")
Can you tell me what the universe was like before the Big Bang? Can you even tell me what light and gravity really are? Is time truly infinite? Or is time simply a human invention, perception of one event after another, much like the human ability for pattern matching? These are things we don't know the answer to, yet, and they're very simple problems compared to the problem of the existence of a deity, deities, creator, or creators.
Do we have evidence that the answers to any of these questions matter? If not, one can comfortably be a theoretical agnostic (you know you can't know in theory) while being a practical theist or atheist (the majority of the evidence that actually matters points in such-or-so direction).
I can't prove that a God exists, and neither can I prove that it doesn't (Ichoran, a greater abundance of arguments does not a proof make). So, I decide that I don't know, and maybe I'll solve the problem, and maybe not.
More arguments doesn't make for a proof; it does usually make for more evidence (though the evidence isn't necessarily good). Can you prove that you can't prove whether or not God exists with no more than a reasonable amount of effort? If not, the stance of not being able to know is a very weak one--yet most agnostics simply assume it. I think there's a good case to be made, but it still has to be made. (Which you more or less have.)
1) our knowlegdge of the physical world is provisional at best, and (2) texts such as Genesis have a moral purpose, are were not meant as treatises on "natural philosophy." A quote from that period is that "the Scriptures are meant to tell us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go."
Irrelevant. You don't get a lock on truth by making false statements and then telling people to not bother about them. Genesis is not making no claims at all--and it easily could have. So as I said, there's an observed absence of a lock on truth here. (Not that this rules out "most truth" or somesuch.)
However.. have you ever tried convincing an atheist that a God in some form might exist? You'll get about as far as trying to convince a Christian that God doesn't exist, yet atheists can't really offer any more proof for their belief than Christians can.
Perhaps, but atheists typically offer more arguments. Christians not infrequently cite as their primary evidence that God exists that "I just know He exists." In my experience, atheists will at least give a somewhat plausible argument against the existence of gods.
Actually, agnostics are often the worst of all (!) because they often simply state that you can't know, or that they don't know, and expect that their statement is enough. (In the former case it is a belief/religion; in the latter, in the absence of arguments, it may not be religion but it's rather lazy.)
I think organized religion is a sort of virus...I might add that atheism is just as much a religion [and "virus"] as Christianity or any other religion; atheism is simply a belief in the impossibility of the existence of any deity. It's still a belief, without any scientifically observable foundations.
Atheism usually isn't organized, though. Since you postulated that the organization made the virus, doesn't that mean that atheism isn't as much of a virus?
As far as it being as belief-based as religion...in theory perhaps it is, but in practice I find that atheists are on average more willing to critically examine their own beliefs than are theists. Inasmuch as critical examination moves one away from belief towards knowledge, in practice atheists are less belief-based.
Have you studied all religions? What criteria are you using to find them objectively false?
Scientific evidence. The order of appearance of organisms in Genesis is wrong, for instance. Actually, I'm overstating the case: we can only deduce that the order of appearance in Genesis is highly likely to be wrong. All religions that I've paid much attention to have felt the need to explain physical phenomena; all religions that I've paid much attention to have gotten it wrong. It's hardly their fault: the "correct" answers are complicated, and the religious answers were given before we knew how to find answers of that complexity.
Of course, if you chop religion up into small enough pieces, then it's difficult to find counterexamples (especially if the fragmentation was the result of a counterexample becoming widely known, with half refusing to believe the counterexample and the other half denying that the religion claimed something that the counterexample disproved; e.g. the argument about how literal Genesis is within different arms of Christianity). However, if you look at this with a historical perspective, it wasn't that the religion had the truth originally; rather, observations shifted the religion. This strongly argues that current religions have the same problem.
Of course, this doesn't mean that religions aren't religions which are partially true or even mostly true.
(If anyone wants to complain that this isn't a proof, only a probability argument, and therefore doesn't count as an objective measure, I would simply mention that *nothing* about the physical world is provable, so such a strict definition is useless.)
Apparently, Mr. Knuth's being a christian has deeply offended a lot of you.
Maybe a few...but mostly people with negative reactions seem to be bored, not offended?
Geeks hate being wrong (I know, I am one). But that's what christianity is, telling you that you're wrong, a sinner, doomed. But you guys are so narrow minded that you can't get past that to find out that it also talks about what to do about it.
That's possibly a fair characterization of some non-geeks (and probably some geeks as well--geeks are hardly a uniform bunch!). But inasmuch as geeks actually think, and inasmuch as there is a negative reaction, maybe the problem is that they don't believe that they are wrong until it's well documented that they are? Popular opinion doesn't cut it, either. If it did, they wouldn't be geeks. So it seems to me that, if you're trying to change people's minds rather than display support for a specific viewpoint, you've hit the nail squarely on the thumb.
If a religion were to have a lock on what is objectively true, then they would never be wrong when someone else is right. To disprove that they have a lock it takes but a single example of them being wrong.
All religions contain such examples (unless you define the religion to be true and say that aspects of the real world are "false").
Therefore, no religion has a lock. Any religion claiming this would be claiming something that was true...but they wouldn't have a monopoly.
(It's much like Godel's Incompleteness Theorem: it is true that not all truth can be known (only some of it), to paraphrase it badly.)
Many forms of resistance carry a significant cost for the bacteria. E.g. the "multiple drug resistance" genes tend to encode fairly nonselective channels that pump out many things from the inside of the bacterium. Unsurprisingly, bacteria that aren't leaking their guts grow faster...unless they are placed in an antibiotic.
This means that if we have alternate strategies that we can use--a drug or whatever--while we avoid certain antibiotics, resistance will probably be lost. However, it is extremely hard to have the discipline to avoid prescribing an antibiotic that might work now to save someone on the grounds that doing so will allow it to certainly save people in the future. We prefer to--and with some justification--wait for a newer tech fix.
There is a lesson...but if your description of it is accurate, the corollary is that religion is not objectively true.
Religion is intensely personal and private, yet it purports to give objectively accurate descriptions of the world. Obviously, there are severe constraints on how accurate everyone can be simultaneously.
Also, religion is a private venture until it starts affecting other people. E.g. in Chechnya.
I stupidly forgot to mention that luciferin costs about $55,000 per ounce from Molecular Probes. That makes for some pretty expensive fertilizer.
Also, luciferin has an emission spectrum that peaks at 560nm. (By contrast, the rich yellow sodium yellow line is at 589nm; we perceive "green" as about 500nm.) GFP's excitation spectrum peaks at about 450nm (blue) depending on which variant you use. The luciferin emission spectrum is broad, but if it looks yellow anyway (what color are fireflies?), why change it? (Note that removing the blue component and turning it green would make the glow look even more yellow than before...maybe it's just because they can't stand to waste any of the blue photons since their fertilizer is so expensive? Actually, if they're serious about using that fertilizer, I guess it's a good idea....)
The glowing is a special reaction, yes. However, the proposal doesn't call for the tree to be able to control the glowing as the firefly can.
Animals and vegetables and fungi and bacteria are all pretty much the same at the level of genes, so that kind of combination isn't a problem. Since the light-production capability of fireflies can be tracked down to one gene (luciferase) and one chemical that can be externally supplied (luciferin, which fireflies make themselves), it's feasible to get plants to glow. However, arms and legs are not nearly so easy to add, since they requires thousands of genes to code for muscles, neurons, skin, appropriate circulatory systems, and all the other junk you find in working arms and legs.
There are bioluminescent molecules that are not toxic. Luciferin is so expensive that I've no idea whether it is toxic or not, but aequorin (another bioluminescent protein) is not. Best of all, it's calcium-sensitive, so you could "light" your drink by putting in an appropriate high-calcium component. (Of course, it's pH and alcholol sensitive, so it might not work in any really interesting drinks.)
Since I know a little bit about the subject, this article strikes me as both an obvious idea and a peculiar (impossible) approach to implementing it.
Luciferase is a firefly gene that catalyzes the breakdown of the chemical luciferin, emitting light in the process. (Yellow light.) Fireflies "blink" by controlling the access of luciferase to luciferin. A plant isn't going to blink since it doesn't have the appropriate control machinery (e.g. no neurons to send a signal saying "turn on now"). But a plant could always simply glow steadily. Unfortunately, plants don't make luciferin, and normal luciferase doesn't catalyze anything in a normal non-firefly-light-organ cell. I presume that the postdocs have figured out a way to get around this.
Even stranger is the idea to use GFP. GFP (green fluorescent protein) is responsible for most of the neat pictures of glowing organisms that you're likely to see. However, what they don't tell you is that since it is fluorescent it requires violet or blue light as input. GFP absorbs violet or blue light, blah blah Stokes Shift blah blah, and emits green light. If you're going to shine blue light on your tree, why bother with all the confusing luciferase stuff and--if you want yellow--just include YFP as well (which works just like GFP except it emits yellow, or actually more chartreuse, light).
My guess as to what the group is really trying to do is this: find and use a luciferase-like gene that creates bioluminescence out of common cellular energy carriers, e.g. NADPH. Plants store the energy from sunlight in NADPH, so if you express this gene, they'd glow (at least during the day...). Furthermore, the reaction would ideally produce blue light. It's tough to get blue light out of a plant, because cholorphyll absorbs blue light. But if you tack on a GFP, it will convert the blue light to green and you'll be able to see it fine. Likewise for yellow with YFP. If you want orange or red, you can tack on both a GFP and a coral fluorescent protein, which will turn green light into an orangy color.
It makes a nice headline, but it sounds rather complicated to me. I wouldn't hold your breath for these trees.
There seem to be a number of stages in the rise to prominence of both OSS and Linux. Other posters have covered the OSS-Linux symbiosis plenty. However, I noticed some other things going on at the same time.
Microsoft killed[1] Borland. Microsoft killed WordPerfect. Microsoft killed Lotus. Microsoft killed FoxBase and Paradox. Microsoft killed OS/2, the Mac OS, etc.. Microsoft is killing Netscape. Etc., etc., you will be assimilated, etc.. We humans instinctively get uneasy when we view a rampant rise to dominance like this one. Recently, Linux and OSS have just been in the right place at the right time to be blatantly Not MS. Not only because it actually works like it is supposed to, but because it is free. MS has proven itself an expert at destroying products that one must pay money for. But one that is free?
Another thing that happened was the internet. Win[9N][58T] just didn't handle the internet very well. But Linux did. I can be anywhere and have full access to my home machine. I can read my mail from anywhere. And so on. All of those things take work, cost money, and don't work very well anyway with Win[9N][58T].
I think Linux (and *BSD) and OSS are great. But I don't think they would be nearly so publically prominent now without the existence of the factors I mentioned above. (If OSS and Linux hadn't existed, the "rebirth" (G3 era) of Macs might have gotten a lot more press, for instance.)
--Ichoran
[1] Def.killed (verb, past tense) subject increased their own market share at the expense of the object's until the business and/or prominence of the object was severely diminished.
There's no sense in highlighting the fact that there are a lot of things that we don't know. This makes for a very useless description of the world, and science is supposed to be useful. ("How fast do things fall?" "I don't know." "But I heard about G*m_1*m_2/r^2..." "I don't know that for *sure*, that's just our best guess right now.")
There is a good (and simple) reason why the dogma became that no neurons were formed in the adult brain. People looked and didn't find any. Of course, all they could say at that point was that it seemed unlikely that more than N neurons were being formed per time T. The simplest hypothesis is that zero are formed. In the absence of other evidence, that wins.
Were some scientists a bit too confident in the hypothesis? Yes, probably. Were they all shocked? Nope. Not everyone dropped the ball...it just reads that way in the popular press. ("Humans Grow No New Neurons!!!!" "Humans Do Grow New Neurons!!!!!")
Also, for what it's worth, 1k neurons/day isn't very many. You have between 10^10 and 10^11 neurons in your brain. (They're hard to count; an order of magnitude is about as honest as we can realistically get.) 10^10/10^3 = 10^7 days or about 30,000 years to replace all your brain's neurons. Unfortunately, you tend to die after about 80. Okay, but this at least shows that neural regeneration is *possible*, so we could maybe find a way to increase the rate...we couldn't have done that if adults didn't make any neurons, right? Actually we could have: humans make neurons when they are younger; we'd just have had to do a bit more tweaking of developmental regulation pathways to go from "zero" to "enough" instead of "a few" to "enough".
The bottom line is that it's cool for neurobiologists, but you still have to take care of the neurons you've got (and hopefully make them connect in computationally useful ways); yeah, you'll get a few more, but not enough to save you from stupidity.
The most obvious thing that occurs to me, upon reading this article and/. in general, is that not everyone here can "get" geek girls. The ratio of female to male posters here is no more than 1:10. As much as you and I might wish to the contrary, those aren't very good odds[1]. (At least not without some pretty serious polyandry going on.)
On the other hand, maybe not everyone wants a girl like Debbie, as wonderful as she may be? Lots of Roblimo's advice is generically useful ("Look them in the eye / Use their name when appropriate / Smile / etc."). But, to beleaguer the obvious, people have different tastes. What is most important? Mutual caring? Hot sex? Shared recreational interests? Shared work interests? That they'll leave you alone when you want them to? That they have at least three but no more than five body piercings?
Just because you don't want the exact qualities that Roblimo is pointing out doesn't mean that he isn't still giving good advice: figure out what you want, what will make your (and maybe even their!) life better, and be realistic[2]. So for all of you who don't care if your S.O. will take care of you: great. You'll have a wider selection! (Just make sure you really mean it and aren't echoing PC rhetoric without realizing it.)
--Ichoran
[1] Hint for geek girls: 10:1 is really great odds. You can be selective, even if you have to put up with being pestered. [2] Coding a HTML4.0 compliant web browser in a weekend is not realistic. Adjust your personal expectations accordingly.
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Please define "having a lock on truth," because the more we go round, the less I'm sure I know what you mean by this.
Maybe I don't know what I should be meaning--I wasn't the one who originally used the phrase. However, I took it to mean that there were no true statements that were contradicted by the ones with a lock, and that there were no false statements put forth. (This is essentially the same as "inerrant".)
Furthermore, I'd require that you be able to communicate the truth. If you can't communicate, the knowledge is irrelevant (and therefore isn't much of a "lock").
If the traditional interpretation was that Genesis was a fable with little to no basis in reality[1], it was somehow forgotten and--given the number of biblical literalists today--hasn't ever been fully remembered. This isn't exactly locklike behavior. But at this point it's getting rather silly; if I define the standards for having a lock to be high enough, no one will be able to meet them. If you define them low enough, someone will. Perhaps we should quit already, while we're only behind?
[1] (E.g. "README: To install, rcp the hqm.1.7.tgz tarball, explode, grep * for D_INST_DIR and pipe to rpm." "Huh????" "You have to interpret that in context. You see, they mean click on the crossed-out goldfish icon." "Oh.")
Do we have evidence that the answers to any of these questions matter? If not, one can comfortably be a theoretical agnostic (you know you can't know in theory) while being a practical theist or atheist (the majority of the evidence that actually matters points in such-or-so direction).
I can't prove that a God exists, and neither can I prove that it doesn't (Ichoran, a greater abundance of arguments does not a proof make). So, I decide that I don't know, and maybe I'll solve the problem, and maybe not.
More arguments doesn't make for a proof; it does usually make for more evidence (though the evidence isn't necessarily good). Can you prove that you can't prove whether or not God exists with no more than a reasonable amount of effort? If not, the stance of not being able to know is a very weak one--yet most agnostics simply assume it. I think there's a good case to be made, but it still has to be made. (Which you more or less have.)
Irrelevant. You don't get a lock on truth by making false statements and then telling people to not bother about them. Genesis is not making no claims at all--and it easily could have. So as I said, there's an observed absence of a lock on truth here. (Not that this rules out "most truth" or somesuch.)
Perhaps, but atheists typically offer more arguments. Christians not infrequently cite as their primary evidence that God exists that "I just know He exists." In my experience, atheists will at least give a somewhat plausible argument against the existence of gods.
Actually, agnostics are often the worst of all (!) because they often simply state that you can't know, or that they don't know, and expect that their statement is enough. (In the former case it is a belief/religion; in the latter, in the absence of arguments, it may not be religion but it's rather lazy.)
Atheism usually isn't organized, though. Since you postulated that the organization made the virus, doesn't that mean that atheism isn't as much of a virus?
As far as it being as belief-based as religion...in theory perhaps it is, but in practice I find that atheists are on average more willing to critically examine their own beliefs than are theists. Inasmuch as critical examination moves one away from belief towards knowledge, in practice atheists are less belief-based.
Scientific evidence. The order of appearance of organisms in Genesis is wrong, for instance. Actually, I'm overstating the case: we can only deduce that the order of appearance in Genesis is highly likely to be wrong. All religions that I've paid much attention to have felt the need to explain physical phenomena; all religions that I've paid much attention to have gotten it wrong. It's hardly their fault: the "correct" answers are complicated, and the religious answers were given before we knew how to find answers of that complexity.
Of course, if you chop religion up into small enough pieces, then it's difficult to find counterexamples (especially if the fragmentation was the result of a counterexample becoming widely known, with half refusing to believe the counterexample and the other half denying that the religion claimed something that the counterexample disproved; e.g. the argument about how literal Genesis is within different arms of Christianity). However, if you look at this with a historical perspective, it wasn't that the religion had the truth originally; rather, observations shifted the religion. This strongly argues that current religions have the same problem.
Of course, this doesn't mean that religions aren't religions which are partially true or even mostly true.
(If anyone wants to complain that this isn't a proof, only a probability argument, and therefore doesn't count as an objective measure, I would simply mention that *nothing* about the physical world is provable, so such a strict definition is useless.)
Maybe a few...but mostly people with negative reactions seem to be bored, not offended?
Geeks hate being wrong (I know, I am one). But that's what christianity is, telling you that you're wrong, a sinner, doomed. But you guys are so narrow minded that you can't get past that to find out that it also talks about what to do about it.
That's possibly a fair characterization of some non-geeks (and probably some geeks as well--geeks are hardly a uniform bunch!). But inasmuch as geeks actually think, and inasmuch as there is a negative reaction, maybe the problem is that they don't believe that they are wrong until it's well documented that they are? Popular opinion doesn't cut it, either. If it did, they wouldn't be geeks. So it seems to me that, if you're trying to change people's minds rather than display support for a specific viewpoint, you've hit the nail squarely on the thumb.
If a religion were to have a lock on what is objectively true, then they would never be wrong when someone else is right. To disprove that they have a lock it takes but a single example of them being wrong.
All religions contain such examples (unless you define the religion to be true and say that aspects of the real world are "false").
Therefore, no religion has a lock. Any religion claiming this would be claiming something that was true...but they wouldn't have a monopoly.
(It's much like Godel's Incompleteness Theorem: it is true that not all truth can be known (only some of it), to paraphrase it badly.)
This means that if we have alternate strategies that we can use--a drug or whatever--while we avoid certain antibiotics, resistance will probably be lost. However, it is extremely hard to have the discipline to avoid prescribing an antibiotic that might work now to save someone on the grounds that doing so will allow it to certainly save people in the future. We prefer to--and with some justification--wait for a newer tech fix.
Religion is intensely personal and private, yet it purports to give objectively accurate descriptions of the world. Obviously, there are severe constraints on how accurate everyone can be simultaneously.
Also, religion is a private venture until it starts affecting other people. E.g. in Chechnya.
Also, luciferin has an emission spectrum that peaks at 560nm. (By contrast, the rich yellow sodium yellow line is at 589nm; we perceive "green" as about 500nm.) GFP's excitation spectrum peaks at about 450nm (blue) depending on which variant you use. The luciferin emission spectrum is broad, but if it looks yellow anyway (what color are fireflies?), why change it? (Note that removing the blue component and turning it green would make the glow look even more yellow than before...maybe it's just because they can't stand to waste any of the blue photons since their fertilizer is so expensive? Actually, if they're serious about using that fertilizer, I guess it's a good idea....)
Animals and vegetables and fungi and bacteria are all pretty much the same at the level of genes, so that kind of combination isn't a problem. Since the light-production capability of fireflies can be tracked down to one gene (luciferase) and one chemical that can be externally supplied (luciferin, which fireflies make themselves), it's feasible to get plants to glow. However, arms and legs are not nearly so easy to add, since they requires thousands of genes to code for muscles, neurons, skin, appropriate circulatory systems, and all the other junk you find in working arms and legs.
There are bioluminescent molecules that are not toxic. Luciferin is so expensive that I've no idea whether it is toxic or not, but aequorin (another bioluminescent protein) is not. Best of all, it's calcium-sensitive, so you could "light" your drink by putting in an appropriate high-calcium component. (Of course, it's pH and alcholol sensitive, so it might not work in any really interesting drinks.)
Luciferase is a firefly gene that catalyzes the breakdown of the chemical luciferin, emitting light in the process. (Yellow light.) Fireflies "blink" by controlling the access of luciferase to luciferin. A plant isn't going to blink since it doesn't have the appropriate control machinery (e.g. no neurons to send a signal saying "turn on now"). But a plant could always simply glow steadily. Unfortunately, plants don't make luciferin, and normal luciferase doesn't catalyze anything in a normal non-firefly-light-organ cell. I presume that the postdocs have figured out a way to get around this.
Even stranger is the idea to use GFP. GFP (green fluorescent protein) is responsible for most of the neat pictures of glowing organisms that you're likely to see. However, what they don't tell you is that since it is fluorescent it requires violet or blue light as input. GFP absorbs violet or blue light, blah blah Stokes Shift blah blah, and emits green light. If you're going to shine blue light on your tree, why bother with all the confusing luciferase stuff and--if you want yellow--just include YFP as well (which works just like GFP except it emits yellow, or actually more chartreuse, light).
My guess as to what the group is really trying to do is this: find and use a luciferase-like gene that creates bioluminescence out of common cellular energy carriers, e.g. NADPH. Plants store the energy from sunlight in NADPH, so if you express this gene, they'd glow (at least during the day...). Furthermore, the reaction would ideally produce blue light. It's tough to get blue light out of a plant, because cholorphyll absorbs blue light. But if you tack on a GFP, it will convert the blue light to green and you'll be able to see it fine. Likewise for yellow with YFP. If you want orange or red, you can tack on both a GFP and a coral fluorescent protein, which will turn green light into an orangy color.
It makes a nice headline, but it sounds rather complicated to me. I wouldn't hold your breath for these trees.
Microsoft killed[1] Borland. Microsoft killed WordPerfect. Microsoft killed Lotus. Microsoft killed FoxBase and Paradox. Microsoft killed OS/2, the Mac OS, etc.. Microsoft is killing Netscape. Etc., etc., you will be assimilated, etc.. We humans instinctively get uneasy when we view a rampant rise to dominance like this one. Recently, Linux and OSS have just been in the right place at the right time to be blatantly Not MS. Not only because it actually works like it is supposed to, but because it is free. MS has proven itself an expert at destroying products that one must pay money for. But one that is free?
Another thing that happened was the internet. Win[9N][58T] just didn't handle the internet very well. But Linux did. I can be anywhere and have full access to my home machine. I can read my mail from anywhere. And so on. All of those things take work, cost money, and don't work very well anyway with Win[9N][58T].
I think Linux (and *BSD) and OSS are great. But I don't think they would be nearly so publically prominent now without the existence of the factors I mentioned above. (If OSS and Linux hadn't existed, the "rebirth" (G3 era) of Macs might have gotten a lot more press, for instance.)
[1] Def. killed (verb, past tense) subject increased their own market share at the expense of the object's until the business and/or prominence of the object was severely diminished.
There is a good (and simple) reason why the dogma became that no neurons were formed in the adult brain. People looked and didn't find any. Of course, all they could say at that point was that it seemed unlikely that more than N neurons were being formed per time T. The simplest hypothesis is that zero are formed. In the absence of other evidence, that wins.
Were some scientists a bit too confident in the hypothesis? Yes, probably. Were they all shocked? Nope. Not everyone dropped the ball...it just reads that way in the popular press. ("Humans Grow No New Neurons!!!!" "Humans Do Grow New Neurons!!!!!")
Also, for what it's worth, 1k neurons/day isn't very many. You have between 10^10 and 10^11 neurons in your brain. (They're hard to count; an order of magnitude is about as honest as we can realistically get.) 10^10/10^3 = 10^7 days or about 30,000 years to replace all your brain's neurons. Unfortunately, you tend to die after about 80. Okay, but this at least shows that neural regeneration is *possible*, so we could maybe find a way to increase the rate...we couldn't have done that if adults didn't make any neurons, right? Actually we could have: humans make neurons when they are younger; we'd just have had to do a bit more tweaking of developmental regulation pathways to go from "zero" to "enough" instead of "a few" to "enough".
The bottom line is that it's cool for neurobiologists, but you still have to take care of the neurons you've got (and hopefully make them connect in computationally useful ways); yeah, you'll get a few more, but not enough to save you from stupidity.
On the other hand, maybe not everyone wants a girl like Debbie, as wonderful as she may be? Lots of Roblimo's advice is generically useful ("Look them in the eye / Use their name when appropriate / Smile / etc."). But, to beleaguer the obvious, people have different tastes. What is most important? Mutual caring? Hot sex? Shared recreational interests? Shared work interests? That they'll leave you alone when you want them to? That they have at least three but no more than five body piercings?
Just because you don't want the exact qualities that Roblimo is pointing out doesn't mean that he isn't still giving good advice: figure out what you want, what will make your (and maybe even their!) life better, and be realistic[2]. So for all of you who don't care if your S.O. will take care of you: great. You'll have a wider selection! (Just make sure you really mean it and aren't echoing PC rhetoric without realizing it.)
[1] Hint for geek girls: 10:1 is really great odds. You can be selective, even if you have to put up with being pestered.
[2] Coding a HTML4.0 compliant web browser in a weekend is not realistic. Adjust your personal expectations accordingly.