Church/School/State should always be separated imo.
School and state ARENT seperated right now, and in general the argument that all thought about one side of life can be divorced from your philosophy of life is nonsensical.
Theyre private institutions just as NPOs are. They dont earn money, it is donated anyways; im not exactly clear on why my charitable giving should be taxed in the first place.
You seem to be confusing anthropology and theology. Theology is the study of the nature of God, or alternatively what God says about God. Religion studied in class is anthropology-- the study of man, or what man says about God.
Studying theology seriously generally implies your belief that there is, in fact a God; otherwise you are wasting your time.
I'm sure they will find the WMDs in Iraq any moment now, and can justify it being "national defense"?
When congress authorizes it, yes. And everyone believed there were WMDs-- even the UK, and the NY times, and all the journalistic outlets.
Its really astonishing, some of the creative spins people try to put on history. There were naysayers to the war, but this wasnt something that there was much public division on. According to the very insightful Wikipedia, public opinion wavered between 50 and 75% in 2003 FOR a war in Iraq. It basically wasnt until mid 2005 that people were over 50% against it.
3.5, 3.6 and 4.0 were all major versions. 3.5 was seen as a part-way big change, and 3.6 a further improvement on the JS engine. It wasnt really a major version in the way 2.0-3.0 was.
Their versioning scheme right now makes very little sense; its completely arbitrary. I think Chrome rather gets it right-- a new major number on the stable branch means "new features have been added", while the "point" numbers mean "security and bug fixes". Incremented "point" numbers on the beta and dev branches mean "new features we're baking in in prep for stable".
Agree with it or not, Libya's a different situation: backing up something the local population started,
Yes, it is different: we weren't attacked by Libya, so it isnt "national defense", and thus not really our military's role. Defending us against an actual attack, on the other hand, IS the role of our military; and I will note that unlike Obama's Libya, GWB had congressional approval for both Afghanistan AND Iraq (and in the case of Afghanistan, given the whopping 518-1 vote for the war, its REALLY disingenuous to "blame" GWB for it; he would have been impeached if he HADNT gone to war).
Pretty sure GWB didnt open Gitmo either. Pretty sure GWB wasnt the first to establish free speech zones. And im pretty sure EVERYONE was for war in Afghanistan when we first invaded.
Faith is expected without justification and is expected to endure regardless of what facts may come to challenge it.
Sounds like youre trying to create a distinction where the dictionary doesnt see one (based on first and primary definitions from multiple dictionaries): Wikipedia-- Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept or thing. Reference-- confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability. MerriamWebster-- allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty
None of those indicate "enduring regardless of what facts may come to challenge it"'; the best you can get from any of those is "trust for that which has no evidence" (which is a far cry from "trust regardless of any evidence").
His thesis is that these things are so complex and hard to test that you personally will never test them, and are therefore taking it on faith that they are true. If you had actually read the article (and you should, it is excellent), you would see that the author isnt even arguing for religion; hes arguing for perspective, and perhaps for people who arent specialists in a field to stop pretending they are (at least, I felt that was implied).
The article is perhaps best summarized right here...
If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that we accept the incredibly complex scientific phenomena in physics, astronomy, and biology through the process of belief, not through reason. We don’t practice the scientific method. We don’t rationally consider the evidence presented for a theory. We don’t learn science by doing science, we learn science by reading and memorizing
And here...
Science can’t speak for itself, it needs people to do that. Science speaks the same way philosophy, art, and religion speak. Through people. Science does not make statements. People make statements about science.
In answer to your statement...
Even more important, the 'experts' often don't agree on even the basics.
If we accept the hypothesis that "One religion is true", it generally has the corollary that "All other religions are false". Showing that so many disagree on "the basics" is no different than if I were to show you all the experts who disagree on, for example, global warming.
Its irrelevant to the topic though; The author might very well ask you what proof YOU have of the existence of atoms. This isnt an argument that "all science is wrong", but simply that anyone who says they dont rely on any faith / trust (eg evidence that you have not personally verified) or assumptions is simply mistaken. Everyone makes assumptions; youre welcome to try to prove me wrong, but scientific pursuit itself relies on assumptions-- for example, that certain forces are uniform in their effects throughout the universe.
Incidentally, this may be one of the most thoughtful and substantial articles posted to slashdot that I can remember. Kudos for posting something longer than 2 paragraphs by an author who can cast a critical eye on the very foundations of his (our) own knowledge.
Chrome has done a LOT right. In the 3 years since it has been released, here are the major, user-noticeable changes chrome has had...
* Several (3-4) major JS engine revisions (newest version is several times faster than initial release, which was itself quite fast)
* Added extensions
* Seperated extensions to be per-process
* Added theming
* Added MSI packages and AD GPO templates
* Added Private browsing
* Baked in respectable native "flashblock" / "noscript" controls (though not as full featured)
* Added Cloud sync
* And a lot of other stuff (HTML5, hardware rendering, autofill, cloud print, automatic page translation, etc)
Given how effective its development model seems to be, it might not be a bad idea for firefox to take a few pages from their book (even if copying the interface wasnt really necessary)
Everyone remarking on the new firefox release system seems to think this has something to do with the numbers "catching up". Everything Ive read indicates that that has NOTHING to do with what theyre doing here.
Major (x.0) releases tend to indicate "we added new features"-- this is what chrome does, this is what firefox (usually, not counting 1.5 and 3.5/6) does, this is what IE does. Point releases (3.6.11, 3.6.12) indicate fixes.
This isnt changing. What IS changing is that rather than having a new "dot-oh" release every 1-2 years, theyre making them more rapid, and adding fewer features. This has several benefits, as chrome has shown in its rapid dev cycles:
* New features are released sooner, keeping firefox competitive
* Fewer major changes per release means easier regression control and testing
* Releasing a feature thats "ready" sooner means that it gets public testing (not to the detriment of pre-release testing either, in theory), and that it gets any bugs ironed out sooner
* Makes sure new changes are relevant-- it would be unproductive if firefox spent 2 years perfecting Tab management, if by the time it comes out, tabs have been obsoleted by the NextBigThing (aka Hurd Syndrome).
The numbering on releases is utterly unimportant, except as an indicator of whether major, or minor changes have been made. I dont know of any non-techies who even know what version of firefox or IE they are using (which is, in fact, part of the problem); and half the time I dont even know what specific number chrome is up to (because they dont really trumpet the number at all). All these complaints are over nothing; where has someone actually asserted that "Opera 11 is better than Chrome 10, because it goes to 11"? This is a nothing complaint.
Incidentally, slashdot seems awfully broken now; neither UL or OL seems to have any "list" delimiters any more (mine are manually inserted).
If youve ever used ADSIEdit, and tried using command-line analogues; or used Exchange 2003's System Manager to set up a routing group, vs using power shell to do the same in 2007, you know that for about 80% of use cases, the GUI is easier and quicker.
The problem with education and intelligence is that it tends to lead one to think that they know all of the answers. A healthy dose of humility and perspective would solve a large number of these problems.
They didn’t like the earth "not the centre of the universe" thing much, bless.
Nor, for that matter, did pretty much anyone during that time. It is rather misleading to blame this on the church, as geocentrism predated it by quite some time, and having been espoused by most of the educated "scientific community" of the day. To quote wikipedia,
it was accepted for over a millennium as the correct cosmological model by European and Islamic astronomers.
So lets lay off acting like the rest of the world was on-board modern astronomy and that it was just the big bad church holding them back.
Slashdot Mirror
Church/School/State should always be separated imo.
School and state ARENT seperated right now, and in general the argument that all thought about one side of life can be divorced from your philosophy of life is nonsensical.
Why on earth is the government responsible for teaching that to children? If ANYTHING sounds like "this is part of parenting", thats it...
I suppose alternatively the secular kids could just answer "entropy did it" to all of theirs...
Theyre private institutions just as NPOs are. They dont earn money, it is donated anyways; im not exactly clear on why my charitable giving should be taxed in the first place.
the scientifically accepted theory of evolution (it's a controversial subject for some non-scientists though
I smell a No True Scotsman argument here....
You seem to be confusing anthropology and theology.
Theology is the study of the nature of God, or alternatively what God says about God.
Religion studied in class is anthropology-- the study of man, or what man says about God.
Studying theology seriously generally implies your belief that there is, in fact a God; otherwise you are wasting your time.
I'm sure they will find the WMDs in Iraq any moment now, and can justify it being "national defense"?
When congress authorizes it, yes. And everyone believed there were WMDs-- even the UK, and the NY times, and all the journalistic outlets.
Its really astonishing, some of the creative spins people try to put on history. There were naysayers to the war, but this wasnt something that there was much public division on. According to the very insightful Wikipedia, public opinion wavered between 50 and 75% in 2003 FOR a war in Iraq. It basically wasnt until mid 2005 that people were over 50% against it.
3.5, 3.6 and 4.0 were all major versions. 3.5 was seen as a part-way big change, and 3.6 a further improvement on the JS engine. It wasnt really a major version in the way 2.0-3.0 was.
Their versioning scheme right now makes very little sense; its completely arbitrary. I think Chrome rather gets it right-- a new major number on the stable branch means "new features have been added", while the "point" numbers mean "security and bug fixes". Incremented "point" numbers on the beta and dev branches mean "new features we're baking in in prep for stable".
Except everyone who knew anything about how all the wars in Afghanistan have turned out in the last century
ALL of congress (except for 1 nay and 16 abstentions)-- a full 518 out of 535 votes-- voted to invade Afghanistan.
I repeat, Bush would have been impeached if he hadnt invaded; to blame him for the war is about as partisan, biased, and blindered as you can get.
Iraq was also authorized by Congress, which is a heck of a lot more than we can say for Obama's military adventures so far.
Agree with it or not, Libya's a different situation: backing up something the local population started,
Yes, it is different: we weren't attacked by Libya, so it isnt "national defense", and thus not really our military's role. Defending us against an actual attack, on the other hand, IS the role of our military; and I will note that unlike Obama's Libya, GWB had congressional approval for both Afghanistan AND Iraq (and in the case of Afghanistan, given the whopping 518-1 vote for the war, its REALLY disingenuous to "blame" GWB for it; he would have been impeached if he HADNT gone to war).
Pretty sure GWB didnt open Gitmo either. Pretty sure GWB wasnt the first to establish free speech zones. And im pretty sure EVERYONE was for war in Afghanistan when we first invaded.
Not war! Kinetic military activity! And we're only providing our unique dictator-removal capabilities, not bombing!
And didnt we have to invade a country to arrest Noriega?
You forgot that his TSA implemented the full body scanners /. is so fond of, and his ICE team has started doing IP enforcement raids.
Woooooo....
Faith is expected without justification and is expected to endure regardless of what facts may come to challenge it.
Sounds like youre trying to create a distinction where the dictionary doesnt see one (based on first and primary definitions from multiple dictionaries):
Wikipedia-- Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept or thing.
Reference-- confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
MerriamWebster-- allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty
None of those indicate "enduring regardless of what facts may come to challenge it"'; the best you can get from any of those is "trust for that which has no evidence" (which is a far cry from "trust regardless of any evidence").
More clunky than "Linux 2.6.31-5"?
Is it possible the number will be less important as they ship more often, especially if they implement automatic update?
No, theyre moving to a "ship more major versions" model, since major version releases are where features are added.
Theyre simply shipping new features more often.
Wow, you didnt even read the summary.
His thesis is that these things are so complex and hard to test that you personally will never test them, and are therefore taking it on faith that they are true. If you had actually read the article (and you should, it is excellent), you would see that the author isnt even arguing for religion; hes arguing for perspective, and perhaps for people who arent specialists in a field to stop pretending they are (at least, I felt that was implied).
The article is perhaps best summarized right here...
If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that we accept the incredibly complex scientific phenomena in physics, astronomy, and biology through the process of belief, not through reason. We don’t practice the scientific method. We don’t rationally consider the evidence presented for a theory. We don’t learn science by doing science, we learn science by reading and memorizing
And here...
Science can’t speak for itself, it needs people to do that. Science speaks the same way philosophy, art, and religion speak. Through people. Science does not make statements. People make statements about science.
In answer to your statement...
Even more important, the 'experts' often don't agree on even the basics.
If we accept the hypothesis that "One religion is true", it generally has the corollary that "All other religions are false". Showing that so many disagree on "the basics" is no different than if I were to show you all the experts who disagree on, for example, global warming.
Its irrelevant to the topic though; The author might very well ask you what proof YOU have of the existence of atoms. This isnt an argument that "all science is wrong", but simply that anyone who says they dont rely on any faith / trust (eg evidence that you have not personally verified) or assumptions is simply mistaken. Everyone makes assumptions; youre welcome to try to prove me wrong, but scientific pursuit itself relies on assumptions-- for example, that certain forces are uniform in their effects throughout the universe.
Incidentally, this may be one of the most thoughtful and substantial articles posted to slashdot that I can remember. Kudos for posting something longer than 2 paragraphs by an author who can cast a critical eye on the very foundations of his (our) own knowledge.
Chrome has done a LOT right. In the 3 years since it has been released, here are the major, user-noticeable changes chrome has had...
Given how effective its development model seems to be, it might not be a bad idea for firefox to take a few pages from their book (even if copying the interface wasnt really necessary)
Everyone remarking on the new firefox release system seems to think this has something to do with the numbers "catching up". Everything Ive read indicates that that has NOTHING to do with what theyre doing here.
Major (x.0) releases tend to indicate "we added new features"-- this is what chrome does, this is what firefox (usually, not counting 1.5 and 3.5/6) does, this is what IE does. Point releases (3.6.11, 3.6.12) indicate fixes.
This isnt changing. What IS changing is that rather than having a new "dot-oh" release every 1-2 years, theyre making them more rapid, and adding fewer features. This has several benefits, as chrome has shown in its rapid dev cycles:
The numbering on releases is utterly unimportant, except as an indicator of whether major, or minor changes have been made. I dont know of any non-techies who even know what version of firefox or IE they are using (which is, in fact, part of the problem); and half the time I dont even know what specific number chrome is up to (because they dont really trumpet the number at all). All these complaints are over nothing; where has someone actually asserted that "Opera 11 is better than Chrome 10, because it goes to 11"? This is a nothing complaint.
Incidentally, slashdot seems awfully broken now; neither UL or OL seems to have any "list" delimiters any more (mine are manually inserted).
If youve ever used ADSIEdit, and tried using command-line analogues; or used Exchange 2003's System Manager to set up a routing group, vs using power shell to do the same in 2007, you know that for about 80% of use cases, the GUI is easier and quicker.
The problem with education and intelligence is that it tends to lead one to think that they know all of the answers. A healthy dose of humility and perspective would solve a large number of these problems.
They didn’t like the earth "not the centre of the universe" thing much, bless.
Nor, for that matter, did pretty much anyone during that time. It is rather misleading to blame this on the church, as geocentrism predated it by quite some time, and having been espoused by most of the educated "scientific community" of the day. To quote wikipedia,
it was accepted for over a millennium as the correct cosmological model by European and Islamic astronomers.
So lets lay off acting like the rest of the world was on-board modern astronomy and that it was just the big bad church holding them back.
One might make the same comment about parallel worlds theorems and the like. That, in and of itself, is not a very good argument one way or the other.
That this was modded "informative" makes me wonder if I could start making money by offering Sol winter vacation homes.