Attention, parent poster and everyone who thinks like him: please immediately stop living without any of the technological advances which have been made possible by basic science which had no immediate an obvious practical advantage when it was first being done. This means, pretty much, going back to a mid-19th-c. standard of living, and certainly means that you need to get the hell off the net. Let us know how it works out for you, perhaps by carrier pigeon.
Naive people who are threatened by science and therefore revel in fantasies of its ignorance will mod him up.
Well, I'm a PhD student in bioinformatics -- are you going to tell me that I'm "naive" or "threatened by science?" And I though what he had to say was pretty interesting.
Our understanding of life is grounded firmly in chemistry and physics, which are literally universal. You science-fiction wankery is entirely beside the point.
Our understanding of the life we have observed to date is grounded in a very specific type of chemistry and physics. Sneer at it as "science-fiction wankery" all you want (and really, a phrase like that is a pretty strong indicator that you have nothing useful to say on the topic) but there is nothing in our understanding of chemistry and physics -- both of which go well beyond biochemistry and biophysics, BTW -- which rules out the types of life GPP has proposed.
Oh, for God's sake (so to speak.) He didn't say "all of the evil in the world is done because of beliefs not supported by evidence" (i.e., religion) he said "much of the evil," etc. Can you really claim, with a straight face, that this is not true?
Also, where are you getting this "your Master" crap?
My sister recently took a college level biology course and when briefly going over the presumed evolution of humans, known hoaxes were mentioned as proof.
[[citation needed]] Textbook title and authors, edition, page numbers, excerpts. Your claim is a very common bit of creationist propaganda, and such claims tend rather strongly to fall apart under close examination.
the moth thing in England was brought up, even though I'm pretty certain everyone agrees that no evolution occurred there, it was just a shift in population ratios
"A shift in population ratios" is evolution by definition. Look it up.
Except that axioms, by definition, are not subject to modification based on observations. Theories are. Which is why scientists aren't called "natural philosophers" any more, and why the scientific approach to the world is so useful.
Another poster, who is probably a biologist, gave two very good answers to your question; as a bioinformatician, I'll give a third. You're right that DNA doesn't lie, but we can have a damn hard time figuring out what it's trying to tell us. There is no universally agreed-upon method for reconstructing phylogenetic trees from sequence data -- Google on "phylogenetic algorithm" to see the enormous number of methods that people have come up with, and what an active area of research this continues to be. Also, the Linnaean taxonomic system, obviously, was not designed with modern genetics in mind, and trying to shoehorn phylogenetic data into this system (which is pretty much what everybody does, even if they're not happy about it) can lead to bizarre results. Until we have what everyone agrees is really a gold standard method for reconstructing ancestral trees, this is the way it's going to be.
After all, (and I will be modded down for stating this fact)
Except you weren't modded down. You were, as you knew perfectly well you would be, modded up. Because you couldn't just say what you had to say, you had to try to impress us with how tough and brave and individualistic you are, standing up speaking truth to power, whatever the risk.
Whatever. Next time try punching your statement up by leading with, "This may not be very politically correct of me, but..." Because that also shows what a tough, brave individualist you are, and it adds a little variety. A bold rebel in the battle for truth, that's you!
I maybe wrong, but could you do the perl -e one liners in Python? I use them quite often.. Not trying to flame, but curious.
No, not a flame at all. (It's sad that people snark about other people's choice of languages so often that your disclaimer was necessary.) Anyway, python -c is the equivalent to perl -e. The 'c' is a mnemonic for "command."
Yes, I am. I'm not saying it's easy, you understand, but it is easier. Specifically, although they'll still be bullied by their peers, they won't be beaten bloody by their teachers.
No, "Perl or Python?" is more like "C++ or Java?" In other words, they are indeed different languages with different strengths, but the area of overlap is pretty damned large -- you can write programs that do the exact same thing in either language and it really won't make any difference to the end result. Since I switched over from Perl to Python ~6 years ago, I've never found a task for which I would have used Perl that I couldn't do in Python. I'm not saying that there aren't any such tasks, you understand, but I honestly don't think there are many of them.
Years of stealthy replacement of educators, first at the college level, then the high school level have beaten the very idea out of people.
I think you have no idea how much tougher the educational system used to be on people who stood out from the crowd. "Don't stick out, fit in. Don't complain, accept," indeed. Do you think being a genius as a schoolkid was easy for Newton?
If mathematicians are getting older then I would be more inclined to believe their conclusion.
Of course, it would be hard to measure this by the "top prize in the field" criterion due to the age restriction on the Fields Medal. There's probably a better measure to use for all fields, though -- age of authors on publications in top journals, maybe?
Ultimately, judging great science is like judging great art. You don't get to say you're great. Your contemporaries don't get to say you're great. The closest we come to an objective standard is what people think about you after you're dead, and so is everyone who knew you. If a major change in science took place in the latter half of the 20th c., we won't really be able to decide that until, oh, 2050 at the earliest.
If interfaces actually did something, I'd agree with you. But they don't. Implementable interfaces which could be used by any class that needed them would be beautiful. Java interfaces are essentially documentation, not code.
I am not a genius in Calculus which is why I am not majoring in computer science. I am good at Algebra but Precalc was the limit to what I could endure in college and had to change majors.... I know what an o^2 algorithm or a linear search routine is to cut down on the number of calculations to solve a problem in code
You are either selling yourself short on math skills, or (more likely) you don't understand algorithms nearly as well as you think you do. You don't have to be a "genius in Calculus" to get through the required math track for a typical CS degree (usually Calc I and II, discrete math, and linear algebra.) You just have to be reasonably intelligent and hard-working. People who wail that "math is haaard!" simply do not have what it takes to understand the applied mathematics that goes into good algorithm design... and the fact that so many of them end up as programmers anyway is a major reason why there's so much slow, bloated code out there making everyone who uses it miserable.
Multiple inheritance is rarely needed, but when it is, it's really the best tool for the task, and I don't think it's that hard to understand. I've never understood the hostility the idea gets, and as arcane as C++'s rules for multiple inheritance may be, they work and do something useful -- unlike, say, Java interfaces, which as far as I can tell are a half-assed attempt at something that kinda sorta looks like multiple inheritance but doesn't actually do anything.
Slashdot Mirror
Attention, parent poster and everyone who thinks like him: please immediately stop living without any of the technological advances which have been made possible by basic science which had no immediate an obvious practical advantage when it was first being done. This means, pretty much, going back to a mid-19th-c. standard of living, and certainly means that you need to get the hell off the net. Let us know how it works out for you, perhaps by carrier pigeon.
Naive people who are threatened by science and therefore revel in fantasies of its ignorance will mod him up.
Well, I'm a PhD student in bioinformatics -- are you going to tell me that I'm "naive" or "threatened by science?" And I though what he had to say was pretty interesting.
Our understanding of life is grounded firmly in chemistry and physics, which are literally universal. You science-fiction wankery is entirely beside the point.
Our understanding of the life we have observed to date is grounded in a very specific type of chemistry and physics. Sneer at it as "science-fiction wankery" all you want (and really, a phrase like that is a pretty strong indicator that you have nothing useful to say on the topic) but there is nothing in our understanding of chemistry and physics -- both of which go well beyond biochemistry and biophysics, BTW -- which rules out the types of life GPP has proposed.
I know the people involved. They're not fraudsters.
Oh, for God's sake (so to speak.) He didn't say "all of the evil in the world is done because of beliefs not supported by evidence" (i.e., religion) he said "much of the evil," etc. Can you really claim, with a straight face, that this is not true?
Also, where are you getting this "your Master" crap?
My sister recently took a college level biology course and when briefly going over the presumed evolution of humans, known hoaxes were mentioned as proof.
[[citation needed]] Textbook title and authors, edition, page numbers, excerpts. Your claim is a very common bit of creationist propaganda, and such claims tend rather strongly to fall apart under close examination.
the moth thing in England was brought up, even though I'm pretty certain everyone agrees that no evolution occurred there, it was just a shift in population ratios
"A shift in population ratios" is evolution by definition. Look it up.
Except that axioms, by definition, are not subject to modification based on observations. Theories are. Which is why scientists aren't called "natural philosophers" any more, and why the scientific approach to the world is so useful.
Another poster, who is probably a biologist, gave two very good answers to your question; as a bioinformatician, I'll give a third. You're right that DNA doesn't lie, but we can have a damn hard time figuring out what it's trying to tell us. There is no universally agreed-upon method for reconstructing phylogenetic trees from sequence data -- Google on "phylogenetic algorithm" to see the enormous number of methods that people have come up with, and what an active area of research this continues to be. Also, the Linnaean taxonomic system, obviously, was not designed with modern genetics in mind, and trying to shoehorn phylogenetic data into this system (which is pretty much what everybody does, even if they're not happy about it) can lead to bizarre results. Until we have what everyone agrees is really a gold standard method for reconstructing ancestral trees, this is the way it's going to be.
There is only one definition of Democracy. Demos-kratos. The People - rule.
Of which there are many implementations, of which a constitutional republic happens to be one.
The United States is ruled by law, and therefore is a Republic
To believe that "republic" and "rule of law" are synonymous you must deliberately ignore almost three millennia of political history --
For example, whites can not take away the immigrant-asians right to free speech, even if they hold a referendum.
-- and to claim that this has anything to do with being a republic, the same.
If we had a democracy, it wouldn't matter what the law says because the law could be ignored with a simple majority vote - "kill him".
This definition of democracy is a pure straw man.
Can one yearn for the good old days even if they happened before one was born?
Indeed, one can. It is almost always a mistake.
After all, (and I will be modded down for stating this fact)
Except you weren't modded down. You were, as you knew perfectly well you would be, modded up. Because you couldn't just say what you had to say, you had to try to impress us with how tough and brave and individualistic you are, standing up speaking truth to power, whatever the risk.
Whatever. Next time try punching your statement up by leading with, "This may not be very politically correct of me, but ..." Because that also shows what a tough, brave individualist you are, and it adds a little variety. A bold rebel in the battle for truth, that's you!
I maybe wrong, but could you do the perl -e one liners in Python? I use them quite often.. Not trying to flame, but curious.
No, not a flame at all. (It's sad that people snark about other people's choice of languages so often that your disclaimer was necessary.) Anyway, python -c is the equivalent to perl -e. The 'c' is a mnemonic for "command."
Yes, I am. I'm not saying it's easy, you understand, but it is easier. Specifically, although they'll still be bullied by their peers, they won't be beaten bloody by their teachers.
No, "Perl or Python?" is more like "C++ or Java?" In other words, they are indeed different languages with different strengths, but the area of overlap is pretty damned large -- you can write programs that do the exact same thing in either language and it really won't make any difference to the end result. Since I switched over from Perl to Python ~6 years ago, I've never found a task for which I would have used Perl that I couldn't do in Python. I'm not saying that there aren't any such tasks, you understand, but I honestly don't think there are many of them.
The language point is that 'minor casualty' sounds wrong.
Depends on who's hearing it.
In linguistic terms, these words don't usually go together (make a collocation), whereas 'minor' and 'injury' do.
Unless you're a medic, in which case they do go together quite a bit. Or a New Zealander, apparently.
No, in American usage that's the Emergency Room, or in more modern usage Emergency Department.
Ayn Rand would roll over in her grave if she read this.
The degree to which any proposition would make Ayn Rand roll over in her grave is a good measure of its correctness.
Years of stealthy replacement of educators, first at the college level, then the high school level have beaten the very idea out of people.
I think you have no idea how much tougher the educational system used to be on people who stood out from the crowd. "Don't stick out, fit in. Don't complain, accept," indeed. Do you think being a genius as a schoolkid was easy for Newton?
If mathematicians are getting older then I would be more inclined to believe their conclusion.
Of course, it would be hard to measure this by the "top prize in the field" criterion due to the age restriction on the Fields Medal. There's probably a better measure to use for all fields, though -- age of authors on publications in top journals, maybe?
Ultimately, judging great science is like judging great art. You don't get to say you're great. Your contemporaries don't get to say you're great. The closest we come to an objective standard is what people think about you after you're dead, and so is everyone who knew you. If a major change in science took place in the latter half of the 20th c., we won't really be able to decide that until, oh, 2050 at the earliest.
If interfaces actually did something, I'd agree with you. But they don't. Implementable interfaces which could be used by any class that needed them would be beautiful. Java interfaces are essentially documentation, not code.
Great. So you're perfectly qualified to be the PHB that your employees hold in contempt.
Oh, bravo! Well said.
I am not a genius in Calculus which is why I am not majoring in computer science. I am good at Algebra but Precalc was the limit to what I could endure in college and had to change majors. ... I know what an o^2 algorithm or a linear search routine is to cut down on the number of calculations to solve a problem in code
You are either selling yourself short on math skills, or (more likely) you don't understand algorithms nearly as well as you think you do. You don't have to be a "genius in Calculus" to get through the required math track for a typical CS degree (usually Calc I and II, discrete math, and linear algebra.) You just have to be reasonably intelligent and hard-working. People who wail that "math is haaard!" simply do not have what it takes to understand the applied mathematics that goes into good algorithm design ... and the fact that so many of them end up as programmers anyway is a major reason why there's so much slow, bloated code out there making everyone who uses it miserable.
(shudder) multiple inheritance
Multiple inheritance is rarely needed, but when it is, it's really the best tool for the task, and I don't think it's that hard to understand. I've never understood the hostility the idea gets, and as arcane as C++'s rules for multiple inheritance may be, they work and do something useful -- unlike, say, Java interfaces, which as far as I can tell are a half-assed attempt at something that kinda sorta looks like multiple inheritance but doesn't actually do anything.