How do complex and allegedly "irreducible" organs and systems come about?
First, you must have a serious definition of what irreducibly complex means. From the examples I've been given me, it's a subjective guess.
Second, you have to consider what you would accept? We can look for examples in the fossil record and "connect the dots". Is that good enough? I mean, it is when you accept that the planets are moving in elliptical orbits. All we can do is observe them every night and "connect the dots", and use other theories to back up our completed picture. But perhaps some people won't be satified until they can park their butt in a lawn chair above the solar system and observe it for thenselves.
There are also modelling techniques. Since evolution takes a lot of time, one way of observing it is to simulate it in a manner faster than natural time. Tierra is an example of digital evolution, as is a more recent simulation built at MSU. Mathematics also offers models of evolution. But will you accept these as you do for just about every other scientific field out there?
Don't get me wrong; I believe that microevolution occurs; it's readily observeable. I just don't think speciation has provided us with anything factual so as to be convincing. The simplest explanation is often the right one, and in this case the simple explanation is that other species moved into the same areas.
Can you fill in the blanks in your belief? If the species didn't come from differentiation in prior species, where do you believe they came from? Did they just all popped into existence when God sneezed? And how, then, did Noah fit all of these onto his ark? Or were there only a few species back then, and God has sneezed the rest into existence since?
Bless you
Oh, sorry. God just sneezed. I now have a purple unicorn standing next to me. I dub it, Intelligentus Designus
Seriously, where did it all come from? Are you so all knowing that you KNOW God couldn't have invented evolution himself? God is probably quite proud of himself for coming up with such a clever solution for generating such variety. And here you insult him by saying his plan doesn't exist?
Changes within a species are observable and testable within our world today. Speciation, or evolution of one species into another, is not observable and has never been found in the fossil record.
It sounds like you are comparing microevolutiona nd macroevolution. Plenty of people on SlashDot have brought the words themselves into question. You wield them well, so I'll ask for your definition. Already I infer that micro is within a species and macro from one species into another. So what is the definition of a species then?
You also state that evolution from one species into another is not observable. Why? I did some googling last time this subject appeared on SlashDot, and found plenty of examples of one species turning into a new one (or, more correctly, one specifes diverging into two). I also read earlier this year in Discover about a specifies of butterfly that diverged because of environmental separation into two valleys (the two species no longer mate together because of evolved color differentiations). So, why do you think its not observable?
Secondly, if one wants to reproduce evolution in the laboratory, all you need is:
One primordial plabent
2 billion years
Those are both hard to come by. UNtil you can set such an experiment up on a grand scale, you're going to have to extrapolate from smaller experiments. You won't see a monkey evolve into a human in your labs on the small timescales we have. But instead, if you do small experiments, and combine what you know about mathematics, DNA, ecology, global climate change, etc. you can interpolate smaller hypothetses to test, and then extrapolate the bigger theory.
All that needs to happen is for a change not to cause the organism to die before it can pass its genes on. If there is a mutation, even a harmless or slightly detrimental one, so long as the organism still successfully reproduces, then it passed its genes on. Its unmutated counterparts may still reproduce at a better rate, causing its own numbers to diminish relatively.
But if that disadvantage then mutates again to something that is then a great advantage, then this organism can regain its losses and procreate even faster than its nonmutated counterparts.
Sometimes to reach a gloablly optimal path, you have to take a locally suboptimal path. So long as one mutation doesn't completely destroy an organism, the mutation, even if immediately unhelpful, can serve as a stepping stone to future, more helpful mutations or advantages in changing environments.
Imagine it like this. Suppose a mutation makes a human very nerdy looking. Girls don't like that. Their chances of reproduction drop sharply. The occasional nerd of the opposite sex may come along allowing this breed to trickle on. Then computers are invented and these nerds have anew environment in which to flourish. Their nerdy traits make them very successful, which in turns attracts a large number of mates, allowing what was a negative mutation to carry on in greater numbers!
OK, that one was a stretch:)
My take on this
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Whenever I start solving a problem in Java, as its complexity increases, I can tackle this yb developing objects/components/frameworks/libraries to abstract a lot of the complexity away -- effectively creating a new "language" (my APIs) with which to solve the problem in. Java lends itself well to this sort of OOP solution development.
When I used to do simple JavaScripts, or simple ASP pages, or simple Perl scripts, a lot of my solutions also started very simple. Many of these languages did not lend themselves well to objects, so you end up creating a lot of functions and passing data around and doing strange things with the standar data types -- but they also offered a richer syntax which allowed you to more easily accomplish these things without needing to hide anything. Still, I would eventually reach the point where I wanted to start wrapping things up more (JavaScript, now ECMAScript, supports Objects, Perl added OO support, etc.).
My point is that these "LAMP" languages make it very easy to write not-too-complex programs rapidly. However, my personal feeling is that once you start to make that more and more complex, the problems become easier to manage in bite-size chunks with OOP concepts like encapsulation. Since Java naturally urges you to start out OO, evolving the OO is simple. BUt to start with a non-OO programa nd evolve it to OO can be... trying.
Rhino is a JavaScript implementation for the JVM. IIRC, it can run in interpreted mode, but also be compiled into bytecodes (i.e. an actual language compiling to the JVM).
IIS an AppServer? No free Java AppServer?
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While both.NET and Java are free, the application servers they run on are not. For ASP.NET, IIS is the application server. For Java/J2EE, it could be Web Sphere or a variety of others. In pretty much every case a Windows license will be a lot cheaper than the license for the J2EE app server... especially Web Sphere.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a better analogy be that IIS is a WebContainer more than an AppServer (e.g. TomCat, not JBoss)?
Second, TomCat (WebContainer) is free. JBoss is free. I also believe Sun just released abunch more of their stuff free. And all this free stuff can run on Linux, which is free.
.NET's multi language support?
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As far as the CLR vs the Java runtime goes, Java byte code is fairly specific to java. It's possible to create non-Java languages that target the byte code, but it's not particularly practical. The CLR, on the other hand, was designed from the start with the idea of multiple language support.
OK, this is a biased question, but its still an honest question. I'm not a VB developer nor a.NET developer. However, I know a bit of VB syntax and I've seen a bit of VB.NET syntax. I've also talked to realy.NET programmers and real VB programmers who are in the know.
If the CLR is so language-agnostic, why is it that the VB.NET syntax is so vastly different than the old VB syntax? Granted, I thought the old VB syntax was crap. However, when I look at C# and J# and VB.NET, I feel like I could switch between the two languages with a few simple global search/replace for a ocuple dozen keywords. I don't feel like those languages are truly different.
Re:The real 90s versus outdated 00s software
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Java's "Write once run everywhere" motto is a joke, and everyone knows it. I've never seen any serious developper that could tell me he was able to make Java code flawlessly run on every plateform.
While I don't have a picture handy so you can see me, lets start by having you know that I exist:
Hi I'm a serious developer who relies on Java's cross-platform support
The problem with letting anyone just patent anything, without checking up on it first, is that then it becomnes a burnden on those in potential infringement of the patent to disprove it -- a burden of time and money.
On my system, FireFox used to be a HUGE hog. I solved it by switching to Opera. FireFox would grow to hundreds of MB after a couple of days. Opera is hovering at 46MB after weeks. So... does FireFox use a Java UI, too?
Also, if Azures is such a pig and is so slow, why do so many people use it? I mean, I find it to be perfectly fine, but this is not the first time I've heard poeople complain about it -- but still its cited all the time by others as a GOOD example of a Java app (like I do). Why such a polarizing view?
I just checked my copy of Azures that I've had running a couple of days now, and it's using 86MB of RAM. Sounds like a lot for a BitTorrent client in some ways, but Zures is the a very full-featured client. The original BitTorrent client from Bram Cohen (SP?) himself was a much tiner, but also less-features piece of software. So, that's apples and oranges.
But, seriously, if BitTorrent is using 500MB of RAM on your system just to IDLE... whew! You've got something else going serisouly wrong.
Why can't they just look at the other views, and use common sense to pick the best plan of action?
I don't know about the other "evolutionsists", but I did exactly what you suggest. I looked at creationism, intelligent design, evolution and thought to myself "gee, this evolution thing seems the least wacky, let's use that!"
Actually, as I recall, the first reasons for invaiding Iraq were that they wouldn't (couldn't?) prove they destroyed 100% of their WMDs. Once we pretty much confirmed there were no WMDs, then came the story focusing on freedom. Before that, freedom was a nice side dish. But when the vaporware that is WMD never materialized, freedom got shoved in our faces as the main course.
Look, I would've supported a war to liberate people. My problem is that I feel like I was lied to.
Mind you, I don't advocate pulling out of Iraq. We made a mess when we came in, and we should NOW focus on humanity and do our best to restabilize the country. And for self-serving purposes too, because if we don't, we'll have a repeat of Afghanistan 20 years from now!
Interestingly I heard on the news a week or so ago a clip from Cheney back in the 1st Bush administration saying invading Iraq (during Desert Strom) rather than just liberating Kuwait. He said it would be a quagmire, it would take many many years and lots of lives to do, etc. I wonder why it was different this time around.
Hey, it's right up 27 from me. THe fashions may slowly change, but much like the buildings, the students almost all look the same. The people I knew who went there didn't blend in too well at first, but they eventually did.
I'm not saying its a bad thing. Conformity happens everywhere to some degree. But in colleges that are remotely located such that they are the main driving force in the local economy, there's nothing much else to do but go to class, drink at the local bars and frat houses, and, if you're lucky, find someone to take you "Cincinnati!!!".
The information released also included demographics. I've obtained the information and masked off the personally identifying information so I could show the sort of demographic information made available:
... Gender Dress... ... Male, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap ... Female, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap with pony tail pulled through ... Male, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap ... Female, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap with pony tail pulled through ... Male, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap ... Male, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap ... Female, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap with pony tail pulled through ... Female, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap with pony tail pulled through ... Male, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap ... Female, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap with pony tail pulled through
Sure, with the proviso that after every time WUA tweaks your computer by as much as a single bit (or so it seems), it automatically reboots your computer.
Windows update never automatically reboots my computer. It periodically prompts me to remind me. , and I can choose to ignore it (I usually have a dozen things actively being worked on,s o I'm not always ready to reboot).
There's already enough valid FUD for Windows, you don't have to create more.
Actually, we have been using stored fusion energy which was delivered as solar radiation.
And where did the fusion energy come from? GRavitational force of the solar atoms own masses compressing themselves together? But where did the energy released when two nuclei merge come from? The big bang? And where did that come from?
Are humans so arrogant that we think we can destory the earth let alone save it?
It's not the earth I'm worried about destroying, it's my ability to comfortably inhabit it! The earth doesn't give a rats arse about us. It will exist whether or not we boil ourselves away. Nature has adapted throughotu the earht's history, and life is presently living in many extreme biomes. But the fungus that is human can destroy itself without destroying the earth.
Well, as far as I know in most of the USA it's against the law not to wear clothes in public, and indoctrinating kids to obey laws makes a fair bit of sense to me.
The past (unless/until we can time travel) cannot be observed,...
What is it you would hope to observe in the past with your hypothetical time machine that would be proof of evolution. Do you expect to see a monkey giving birth to a human? If so, you won't see it because that's not how evolution works
Instead, what you'd be better off doing is using your time machien to take time lapse photography of the diversification of populations, and following them as those populations spread out.
But we already have *some* evidence of just that in the fossil record. Unfortunately, its mostly skeletal which is only the tip of the iceberg.
My point is, yuo can continue to observe evolution today if you want, and you don't even need a time machine, because you're already moving through time. But what you shoudl do now, is do what nature is already doing, but on a more thorough scale. Take a detailed picture of every animal on earth from now through the end of time. Do this for say, a million years, and you'll start to see some differences between some animals now and their counterparts in the future.
Its not that "macroevolution" can't be observed, its just that it occurs on such a vast and lengthy scale, no one is patient enough to watch it.
Evolution is based on natural selection, and the basic premise of that is survival of the fittest. But the key there is "survival."
You state: "That irreducibly complex things can't be evolved from simpler components in singled steps, because no single step constitutes an improvement."
Why must it constitute an improvement? I could very well have passed on a harmless gene to my children. Suppose the gene causes me to have a mole, but having the mole does not consitute an improvement. But so long as it doesn't kill me before I reproduce, or hinder my offspring before a subsequent event (see below), then it can continue existing.
So my first point is that it is not necessary for any one mutation to be an improvement for that mutation to live on through generations -- it just can't be detrimental to the point that it extinguishes itself too soon.
Now, suppose that I'm carrying this first mutation, the mole. Now all of a sudden another mutation happens in myself causes this particular kind of mole to start boosting my immune system. *Now* I have an advantage. The mole before was useless, or minorly harmful, but I've now had a second change that builds upon the first, combining to make something extremely useful.
So if you can accept that these so called "irreducibly complex" things are built of simpler parts, you're half way there. You just have to discard your statement that each part must be worthy in its own right. I see no reason for that whatsoever.
The only requiremnt is that the coinciding pieces must exist long engough for them to coincide to have their combined properties fully realized and passed on, advantagously.
Why is it possible to believe that God has always been there, and one day, dcided to create space, time the universe and you. Yet it's not possible to say simply that the universe has always been there?
It's not that scientists consider pre-big-bang to be taboo. It's just that there's no generally accepted theory. Some think whatever happened before is unkowable and therefore pointless to dicuss(but not forbidden). Others think there was another universe before this one that underwent a big crunch. Others believe there were lots of little bangs going on for eternity. Others think the universe didn't start with any bangs at all but has always been here, swimming around for eternity.
But why does some other eternal thing have to be conjured up to create something else instead of saying the something else existed for eternity? Or, on the other hand, if everything must have a creator, then who created God?
IF you are willing to accept that, why do you think it is such a big leap to think that he could a) build the earth or b) reveal a new idea about SCIENCE to someone?
So isn't this same God that did all that also powerful and clever engouh to put evolution into motion to ultimately "create man in his image", rather than having to do it directly? As another poster said, GOd could be the ultimate perl scripter who wrote a script (evolution, DNA, etc.) to create life as we know it, rather than wiriting it out by hand.
I just don't understand why this possibility doesn't occur to regular people, or people in a place of high public visibility, like Rick Santorum, who also thinks God and evolution are mutually exclusive.
I did hear once creationist once remark, 'Of course all living things have similar DNA. God invented something once, and it worked so well, he used it everywhere!'
Macro evolution, on the other hand, attempts to explain hot how things change, but how they DID change in the PAST
Where did you get this definition. As another poster said, macroevolution is an artificial term used to describe, generally speciation. Not only PAST speciation, but future and present speciation.
If you so badly want to observe "macroevolution", go observe a single species of an animal for say... 100,000, no, better make it 1,000,000 years.
The problem is that people too impatient to observe it. They want to find nicely laid out examples in a sparse fossil record. What about the genetic record. I'm an amateur at genetics but can understand in DNA the evidence of (a) evolution or (b) a God who likes using copy & paste in DNA. And I've seen programs like Tierra, and more impressive modern variants, that demonstrate how genetic evolution can occur. Its not a huge leap to piece this altogether.
You know, I had a friend the other day respond to me unexpectedly when I mentioned them trying to teach ID in schools, "well, I don't understand why if we evolved from monkies, why there are still monkies around." With misunderstanding about evolution like that abounding, I'm not surprised people want to shoot what they understand to be evolution down. Heck, I would too!
Slashdot Mirror
How do complex and allegedly "irreducible" organs and systems come about?
First, you must have a serious definition of what irreducibly complex means. From the examples I've been given me, it's a subjective guess.
Second, you have to consider what you would accept? We can look for examples in the fossil record and "connect the dots". Is that good enough? I mean, it is when you accept that the planets are moving in elliptical orbits. All we can do is observe them every night and "connect the dots", and use other theories to back up our completed picture. But perhaps some people won't be satified until they can park their butt in a lawn chair above the solar system and observe it for thenselves.
There are also modelling techniques. Since evolution takes a lot of time, one way of observing it is to simulate it in a manner faster than natural time. Tierra is an example of digital evolution, as is a more recent simulation built at MSU. Mathematics also offers models of evolution. But will you accept these as you do for just about every other scientific field out there?
I think pleny of people are willing to answer how
Don't get me wrong; I believe that microevolution occurs; it's readily observeable. I just don't think speciation has provided us with anything factual so as to be convincing. The simplest explanation is often the right one, and in this case the simple explanation is that other species moved into the same areas.
Can you fill in the blanks in your belief? If the species didn't come from differentiation in prior species, where do you believe they came from? Did they just all popped into existence when God sneezed? And how, then, did Noah fit all of these onto his ark? Or were there only a few species back then, and God has sneezed the rest into existence since?
Bless you
Oh, sorry. God just sneezed. I now have a purple unicorn standing next to me. I dub it, Intelligentus Designus
Seriously, where did it all come from? Are you so all knowing that you KNOW God couldn't have invented evolution himself? God is probably quite proud of himself for coming up with such a clever solution for generating such variety. And here you insult him by saying his plan doesn't exist?
Changes within a species are observable and testable within our world today. Speciation, or evolution of one species into another, is not observable and has never been found in the fossil record.
It sounds like you are comparing microevolutiona nd macroevolution. Plenty of people on SlashDot have brought the words themselves into question. You wield them well, so I'll ask for your definition. Already I infer that micro is within a species and macro from one species into another. So what is the definition of a species then?
You also state that evolution from one species into another is not observable. Why? I did some googling last time this subject appeared on SlashDot, and found plenty of examples of one species turning into a new one (or, more correctly, one specifes diverging into two). I also read earlier this year in Discover about a specifies of butterfly that diverged because of environmental separation into two valleys (the two species no longer mate together because of evolved color differentiations). So, why do you think its not observable?
Secondly, if one wants to reproduce evolution in the laboratory, all you need is:
Those are both hard to come by. UNtil you can set such an experiment up on a grand scale, you're going to have to extrapolate from smaller experiments. You won't see a monkey evolve into a human in your labs on the small timescales we have. But instead, if you do small experiments, and combine what you know about mathematics, DNA, ecology, global climate change, etc. you can interpolate smaller hypothetses to test, and then extrapolate the bigger theory.
Every change had to confer a survival advantage
Why?
All that needs to happen is for a change not to cause the organism to die before it can pass its genes on. If there is a mutation, even a harmless or slightly detrimental one, so long as the organism still successfully reproduces, then it passed its genes on. Its unmutated counterparts may still reproduce at a better rate, causing its own numbers to diminish relatively.
But if that disadvantage then mutates again to something that is then a great advantage, then this organism can regain its losses and procreate even faster than its nonmutated counterparts.
Sometimes to reach a gloablly optimal path, you have to take a locally suboptimal path. So long as one mutation doesn't completely destroy an organism, the mutation, even if immediately unhelpful, can serve as a stepping stone to future, more helpful mutations or advantages in changing environments.
Imagine it like this. Suppose a mutation makes a human very nerdy looking. Girls don't like that. Their chances of reproduction drop sharply. The occasional nerd of the opposite sex may come along allowing this breed to trickle on. Then computers are invented and these nerds have anew environment in which to flourish. Their nerdy traits make them very successful, which in turns attracts a large number of mates, allowing what was a negative mutation to carry on in greater numbers!
OK, that one was a stretch :)
Whenever I start solving a problem in Java, as its complexity increases, I can tackle this yb developing objects/components/frameworks/libraries to abstract a lot of the complexity away -- effectively creating a new "language" (my APIs) with which to solve the problem in. Java lends itself well to this sort of OOP solution development.
When I used to do simple JavaScripts, or simple ASP pages, or simple Perl scripts, a lot of my solutions also started very simple. Many of these languages did not lend themselves well to objects, so you end up creating a lot of functions and passing data around and doing strange things with the standar data types -- but they also offered a richer syntax which allowed you to more easily accomplish these things without needing to hide anything. Still, I would eventually reach the point where I wanted to start wrapping things up more (JavaScript, now ECMAScript, supports Objects, Perl added OO support, etc.).
My point is that these "LAMP" languages make it very easy to write not-too-complex programs rapidly. However, my personal feeling is that once you start to make that more and more complex, the problems become easier to manage in bite-size chunks with OOP concepts like encapsulation. Since Java naturally urges you to start out OO, evolving the OO is simple. BUt to start with a non-OO programa nd evolve it to OO can be... trying.
Rhino is a JavaScript implementation for the JVM. IIRC, it can run in interpreted mode, but also be compiled into bytecodes (i.e. an actual language compiling to the JVM).
Here's another site full of plenty more languages for the JVM: http://www.robert-tolksdorf.de/vmlanguages.html
While both .NET and Java are free, the application servers they run on are not. For ASP.NET, IIS is the application server. For Java/J2EE, it could be Web Sphere or a variety of others. In pretty much every case a Windows license will be a lot cheaper than the license for the J2EE app server... especially Web Sphere.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a better analogy be that IIS is a WebContainer more than an AppServer (e.g. TomCat, not JBoss)?
Second, TomCat (WebContainer) is free. JBoss is free. I also believe Sun just released abunch more of their stuff free. And all this free stuff can run on Linux, which is free.
As far as the CLR vs the Java runtime goes, Java byte code is fairly specific to java. It's possible to create non-Java languages that target the byte code, but it's not particularly practical. The CLR, on the other hand, was designed from the start with the idea of multiple language support.
OK, this is a biased question, but its still an honest question. I'm not a VB developer nor a .NET developer. However, I know a bit of VB syntax and I've seen a bit of VB.NET syntax. I've also talked to realy .NET programmers and real VB programmers who are in the know.
If the CLR is so language-agnostic, why is it that the VB.NET syntax is so vastly different than the old VB syntax? Granted, I thought the old VB syntax was crap. However, when I look at C# and J# and VB.NET, I feel like I could switch between the two languages with a few simple global search/replace for a ocuple dozen keywords. I don't feel like those languages are truly different.
Java's "Write once run everywhere" motto is a joke, and everyone knows it. I've never seen any serious developper that could tell me he was able to make Java code flawlessly run on every plateform.
While I don't have a picture handy so you can see me, lets start by having you know that I exist:
Hi I'm a serious developer who relies on Java's cross-platform supportThe problem with letting anyone just patent anything, without checking up on it first, is that then it becomnes a burnden on those in potential infringement of the patent to disprove it -- a burden of time and money.
On my system, FireFox used to be a HUGE hog. I solved it by switching to Opera. FireFox would grow to hundreds of MB after a couple of days. Opera is hovering at 46MB after weeks. So... does FireFox use a Java UI, too?
Also, if Azures is such a pig and is so slow, why do so many people use it? I mean, I find it to be perfectly fine, but this is not the first time I've heard poeople complain about it -- but still its cited all the time by others as a GOOD example of a Java app (like I do). Why such a polarizing view?
I just checked my copy of Azures that I've had running a couple of days now, and it's using 86MB of RAM. Sounds like a lot for a BitTorrent client in some ways, but Zures is the a very full-featured client. The original BitTorrent client from Bram Cohen (SP?) himself was a much tiner, but also less-features piece of software. So, that's apples and oranges.
But, seriously, if BitTorrent is using 500MB of RAM on your system just to IDLE... whew! You've got something else going serisouly wrong.
Why can't they just look at the other views, and use common sense to pick the best plan of action?
I don't know about the other "evolutionsists", but I did exactly what you suggest. I looked at creationism, intelligent design, evolution and thought to myself "gee, this evolution thing seems the least wacky, let's use that!"
Actually, as I recall, the first reasons for invaiding Iraq were that they wouldn't (couldn't?) prove they destroyed 100% of their WMDs. Once we pretty much confirmed there were no WMDs, then came the story focusing on freedom. Before that, freedom was a nice side dish. But when the vaporware that is WMD never materialized, freedom got shoved in our faces as the main course.
Look, I would've supported a war to liberate people. My problem is that I feel like I was lied to.
Mind you, I don't advocate pulling out of Iraq. We made a mess when we came in, and we should NOW focus on humanity and do our best to restabilize the country. And for self-serving purposes too, because if we don't, we'll have a repeat of Afghanistan 20 years from now!
Interestingly I heard on the news a week or so ago a clip from Cheney back in the 1st Bush administration saying invading Iraq (during Desert Strom) rather than just liberating Kuwait. He said it would be a quagmire, it would take many many years and lots of lives to do, etc. I wonder why it was different this time around.
Hey, it's right up 27 from me. THe fashions may slowly change, but much like the buildings, the students almost all look the same. The people I knew who went there didn't blend in too well at first, but they eventually did.
I'm not saying its a bad thing. Conformity happens everywhere to some degree. But in colleges that are remotely located such that they are the main driving force in the local economy, there's nothing much else to do but go to class, drink at the local bars and frat houses, and, if you're lucky, find someone to take you "Cincinnati!!!".
The information released also included demographics. I've obtained the information and masked off the personally identifying information so I could show the sort of demographic information made available:
... Gender Dress ...
... Male, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap
... Female, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap with pony tail pulled through
... Male, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap
... Female, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap with pony tail pulled through
... Male, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap
... Male, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap
... Female, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap with pony tail pulled through
... Female, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap with pony tail pulled through
... Male, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap
... Female, Khaki shorts, white T-shirt, ball cap with pony tail pulled through
(if you've been there, you'll understand)
Sure, with the proviso that after every time WUA tweaks your computer by as much as a single bit (or so it seems), it automatically reboots your computer.
Windows update never automatically reboots my computer. It periodically prompts me to remind me. , and I can choose to ignore it (I usually have a dozen things actively being worked on,s o I'm not always ready to reboot).
There's already enough valid FUD for Windows, you don't have to create more.
Actually, we have been using stored fusion energy which was delivered as solar radiation.
And where did the fusion energy come from? GRavitational force of the solar atoms own masses compressing themselves together? But where did the energy released when two nuclei merge come from? The big bang? And where did that come from?
Are humans so arrogant that we think we can destory the earth let alone save it?
It's not the earth I'm worried about destroying, it's my ability to comfortably inhabit it! The earth doesn't give a rats arse about us. It will exist whether or not we boil ourselves away. Nature has adapted throughotu the earht's history, and life is presently living in many extreme biomes. But the fungus that is human can destroy itself without destroying the earth.
Well, as far as I know in most of the USA it's against the law not to wear clothes in public, and indoctrinating kids to obey laws makes a fair bit of sense to me.
And why do we have the law?
The past (unless/until we can time travel) cannot be observed,...
What is it you would hope to observe in the past with your hypothetical time machine that would be proof of evolution. Do you expect to see a monkey giving birth to a human? If so, you won't see it because that's not how evolution works
Instead, what you'd be better off doing is using your time machien to take time lapse photography of the diversification of populations, and following them as those populations spread out .
But we already have *some* evidence of just that in the fossil record. Unfortunately, its mostly skeletal which is only the tip of the iceberg.
My point is, yuo can continue to observe evolution today if you want, and you don't even need a time machine, because you're already moving through time. But what you shoudl do now, is do what nature is already doing, but on a more thorough scale. Take a detailed picture of every animal on earth from now through the end of time. Do this for say, a million years, and you'll start to see some differences between some animals now and their counterparts in the future.
Its not that "macroevolution" can't be observed, its just that it occurs on such a vast and lengthy scale, no one is patient enough to watch it.
Evolution is based on natural selection, and the basic premise of that is survival of the fittest. But the key there is "survival."
You state: "That irreducibly complex things can't be evolved from simpler components in singled steps, because no single step constitutes an improvement."
Why must it constitute an improvement? I could very well have passed on a harmless gene to my children. Suppose the gene causes me to have a mole, but having the mole does not consitute an improvement. But so long as it doesn't kill me before I reproduce, or hinder my offspring before a subsequent event (see below), then it can continue existing.
So my first point is that it is not necessary for any one mutation to be an improvement for that mutation to live on through generations -- it just can't be detrimental to the point that it extinguishes itself too soon.
Now, suppose that I'm carrying this first mutation, the mole. Now all of a sudden another mutation happens in myself causes this particular kind of mole to start boosting my immune system. *Now* I have an advantage. The mole before was useless, or minorly harmful, but I've now had a second change that builds upon the first, combining to make something extremely useful.
So if you can accept that these so called "irreducibly complex" things are built of simpler parts, you're half way there. You just have to discard your statement that each part must be worthy in its own right. I see no reason for that whatsoever.
The only requiremnt is that the coinciding pieces must exist long engough for them to coincide to have their combined properties fully realized and passed on, advantagously.
Why is it possible to believe that God has always been there, and one day, dcided to create space, time the universe and you. Yet it's not possible to say simply that the universe has always been there?
It's not that scientists consider pre-big-bang to be taboo. It's just that there's no generally accepted theory. Some think whatever happened before is unkowable and therefore pointless to dicuss(but not forbidden). Others think there was another universe before this one that underwent a big crunch. Others believe there were lots of little bangs going on for eternity. Others think the universe didn't start with any bangs at all but has always been here, swimming around for eternity.
But why does some other eternal thing have to be conjured up to create something else instead of saying the something else existed for eternity? Or, on the other hand, if everything must have a creator, then who created God?
IF you are willing to accept that, why do you think it is such a big leap to think that he could a) build the earth or b) reveal a new idea about SCIENCE to someone?
So isn't this same God that did all that also powerful and clever engouh to put evolution into motion to ultimately "create man in his image", rather than having to do it directly? As another poster said, GOd could be the ultimate perl scripter who wrote a script (evolution, DNA, etc.) to create life as we know it, rather than wiriting it out by hand.
I just don't understand why this possibility doesn't occur to regular people, or people in a place of high public visibility, like Rick Santorum, who also thinks God and evolution are mutually exclusive.
I did hear once creationist once remark, 'Of course all living things have similar DNA. God invented something once, and it worked so well, he used it everywhere!'
Macro evolution, on the other hand, attempts to explain hot how things change, but how they DID change in the PAST
Where did you get this definition. As another poster said, macroevolution is an artificial term used to describe, generally speciation. Not only PAST speciation, but future and present speciation.
If you so badly want to observe "macroevolution", go observe a single species of an animal for say... 100,000, no, better make it 1,000,000 years.
The problem is that people too impatient to observe it. They want to find nicely laid out examples in a sparse fossil record. What about the genetic record. I'm an amateur at genetics but can understand in DNA the evidence of (a) evolution or (b) a God who likes using copy & paste in DNA. And I've seen programs like Tierra, and more impressive modern variants, that demonstrate how genetic evolution can occur. Its not a huge leap to piece this altogether.
You know, I had a friend the other day respond to me unexpectedly when I mentioned them trying to teach ID in schools, "well, I don't understand why if we evolved from monkies, why there are still monkies around." With misunderstanding about evolution like that abounding, I'm not surprised people want to shoot what they understand to be evolution down. Heck, I would too!