Why should I not ignore the "intent of the writers"? They were, after all, ancient peoples who had a very different way of looking at the world than we do. That does not mean there is not some value in the allegory.
Science says nothing about the probability of a God. It is only concerned with what is testable. God is not testable (and I think deliberately so), so probabilities don't even have a bearing on the conversation.
Put another way, if God does not want to be seen in a specific context, it will not be seen - and that will appear as a low probability. Any God worth its salt would be able to show itself in a manner of its own choosing, when and how it feels appropriate. And it would seem that the realm of scientific discipline is one of those situations where it does not feel it appropriate. And frankly, were I in its place, I'd do the same thing.
Difference being - that's based on what you can see right now. You can test gravity, you can figure out what causes it, you can see the ball at the height of its parabola and measure its descent down into its lower energy state. You saw how the system began and ended, and thus you know for a fact that gravity did its thing. You don't know *why*, but you can measure it. That's not a nonzero chance. You never saw an elf.
You never saw the earth at the beginning. Thus, all you've got are guesses. Unless you can somehow build a time machine.
Technically, he is, to a degree, correct. The pressures at the center of the sun that cause initiation of fusion are caused by gravity. What we are seeing now is a balance between the outward pressures caused by fusion and the inward pressures caused by gravity. The reason supernovas are so violent is that the star runs out of fuel, the outward pressures get too high, and the whole thing just collapses in on itself very quickly.
That said, if he is denying that fusion is the process (or one of the major processes) that keeps the star from collapsing in on itself and creates the energy that causes the radiant heat we see, well, he's beyond hope.
I have no doubts that based on the evidence that we see *now*, that evolution appears to be the correct way that life came to being. Scientifically, that's not within doubt. However, I do not treat the idea of evolution as a religion, because I am aware of one little fact that many people seem to overlook:
It's *all* circumstantial.
I realize this is fanciful, and the odds are really high that this didn't happen, but who is to say that six thousand years ago something didn't just pop everything into existence fully formed, *including* all of the evidence?
They're really high, but not nonzero.
I prefer to think that this did not happen, but I don't dismiss people who might think it did as complete crackpots. Very, very unlikely, improbable, perhaps even vanishing - but possible. Unless you were there from the beginning of the Universe and saw everything happen, there's no way to tell. All you've got, and will ever have, is a best guess. A probably correct one - but not certainly correct.
I agree with your general premise but I don't think you quite understand how natural selection works. For example, an eye may have started (I'm not sure the exact story here) with a simple little light sensitive organ which allowed a little critter to find a plant that grew better in the sunlight than shade, for example. And that proves to be advantageous, so it's kept. And then, a mutation occurs and the little organ can sense colors. Oh, look, that's bright AND green, I think I'll eat that. And so on, and so on. Nothing appears fully formed.
There is a group of people who do not care about the evidence - the Bible says so, so there it is. That's not going to change just because you amass more evidence.
On the other hand, there are a group of people who believe in God who also believe evolution was the method God used to create all of the different kinds of life we see. That is not something you can prove or disprove, therefore it's not in the realm of science. In other words, you want people to keep their religions hands off science, great. Keep your scientific hands off God. They don't have to be mortal enemies.
Seriously. It'd be nice to have a UI designed by someone who actually knows how we work rather than how the computer expects us to work. Larry Wall is a linguistics expert - he took that skill and wrote perl.
Of course it does. The foolish bit comes in when people start thinking that it's *all* based on science. Of course it's not. There are some aspects of medicine that are just as wishful thinking as homeopathy.
And the very fact that side effects exist is a testament to our not understanding what we're doing half the time.
Some scientists do not think it is worth their time to study things that they have already decided are not worth their time to study.
By the way, I'm not defending homeopathy. But there are other things out there - many having to do with energy work - that do not have foundations in current science but are sworn by. I have personally felt its effect firsthand.
... of worshipping science to the extent of all else.
Some "traditional medicines" are bupkus. Some are not. Just because science has not discovered something does not mean it doesn't exist. To think otherwise is arrogant. I can think of quite a few things in my life that science cannot (or at least does not at present) explain.
There are things about the human body and mind that science does not understand yet. And as long as their mindset continues to be "if I can't see it, smell it, touch it, taste it, or hear it, it doesn't exist" that will continue to be the case.
I already do that. I have a Mac Mini attached to my TV running XBMC as a media server, and I use my iPad using rowmote as the controller. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Apple - but it Just Works. In fact, I like the setup so much I made the mac mini my dedicated media server and got an Airbook for development and everyday computing.
Only thing I don't like is the Mac Mini doesn't have BluRay. Other than that, everything I could want.
I just believe in the product, and I've hung around just enough to pick up some of the lingo. As an IT guy, I'm very efficient with words, and if "marketing lingo" expresses what I'm trying to say, then I use it. I'm probably using some of it wrong anyway.
If I use words like "story" or "win/win proposition" you can feel free to take my name seriously. Well, not literally, but you get the idea.
Buy Jive, don't buy Jive. That's the concern of the salespeople. My job is not to convince you to do so, my job is to support those who have already purchased it, and I do a pretty damn good job of it. But if I can add to the conversation on a social site (of which slashdot, to a degree, is one) then I'm going to do so, and I'm going to use the words that best describe what I'm trying to say. Your aversion to words that sound like marketing is understandable, this is slashdot after all, but sometimes they *are* the best words to use.
And as far as moderation, etc... we have (and even sell) some social media tracking tools, and I haven't yet seen any evidence that they've picked up on this. The company only has a few hundred employees, and I very much doubt that any more than me were spending their Sunday on a holiday weekend just watching slashdot for mentions of Jive. So, again, think what you want, but there's not some grand Jive conspiracy here. I just believe in the product, have seen its benefits (and its drawbacks) and am empowered to speak up about it. Shrug.
You cannot keep Yammer isolated on your own network. You can keep it isolated to people within your own *domain*, but that's entirely different. Jive is a solution that can be run either on-prem or hosted.
You can call bullshit if you want. I'm not really concerned about that. Facts are facts. I can't, however, go into much more detail because I should let those who actually are marketers speak to those things, but there are some testimonials from our customers out on our website, with individual names. Ask them - many of our customers are very socially active, you can find some of them on google+. Then tell me I'm wrong. And here, I'll drop it because arguing it further is not productive.
And just to note, Jive encourages its employees (but not requires) them to be socially active, which is why I've commented here as much as I have while mentioning my workplace. Grammar errors happen. Oh well.
I'm pretty sure I'm not a marketer. I would be a bull in a china shop if they let me anywhere near sales and/or marketing. I'd probably make one or two sales out of sheer dumb luck and cause the rest of my accounts to go away. No, I spend my day working cases, upgrading instances, etc., etc. The marketers are very vocal about what they do on our internal social site, so maybe a little of it rubbed off.
That said, if you have a system, workflows are designed around it, and it's successful, the point still stands - it was successful. Arguing it wasn't is still going to be a nonstarter.
I am not sure you understand what "social business" really is, based on this post. Or what those that are advocating social business are trying to accomplish. I agree that MS Sharepoint is not an internal social networking platform - but they're not the type of platforms I'm talking about anyway.
Social business is *all* about collaboration, using social networks. And as I said, Facebook may be the largest one, but it is not the only one.
Lots of reasons. A company may run its own external facing social networking site and ask its employees to participate in order to make sure that their customers are interacting and getting good advice/support. A company may run its own *internal* social networking site for collaboration.
I think when one says "social networking site" you immediately think "Facebook". The world of social networking is much larger than Facebook. That is only one, very large, aspect of it.
I cannot say strongly enough how horrifically bad this advice is.
If you make a habit of going to HR when they ask you to do something that is even tangentially related to your job duties and essentially demand a payoff, if you last years it's pretty much a miracle. Hallelujah.
I'm not sure I understand your point. If they're dependent on it to the point where work stops getting done of the social network is down, and when significant and concrete cost savings can be proven (again, look at the use cases, I'm not going to repeat them here - I'll repeat that I'm not a marketer) it would become very difficult to make the case that the network being used is not at the very least *adequate* for the needs of the company whom is using it.
Some social networks and social software are better than others (I obviously have my opinions but I don't think I need to spell them out here as to which are which) but when a company is seeing tangible and measurable benefits trying to convince them that their solution is the wrong one is going to be an uphill battle.
A competent community manager would delete the post and start with some gentle corrective action - maybe a polite note asking you to cut it out. Only after it becomes completely clear that you have no intention of cooperating will it be escalated to your manager. A competent manager would probably be able to figure out the appropriate carrot and stick that would make you toe the line.
Of course, that's assuming a competently run company, and a competent community manager.
I saw one hilarious example of this a while ago (though it was not intentional, just someone posting something silly where it could be viewed by the wrong people). It was removed and the poster was asked very nicely to not do that again. All was well.
While you are technically correct, you are ignoring economic realities and pressures. Sometimes just because you *can* quit doesn't mean that you will be able to find another job. There are places in the country where if you lose your job, you will have to move.
Slashdot Mirror
Why should I not ignore the "intent of the writers"? They were, after all, ancient peoples who had a very different way of looking at the world than we do. That does not mean there is not some value in the allegory.
Science says nothing about the probability of a God. It is only concerned with what is testable. God is not testable (and I think deliberately so), so probabilities don't even have a bearing on the conversation.
Put another way, if God does not want to be seen in a specific context, it will not be seen - and that will appear as a low probability. Any God worth its salt would be able to show itself in a manner of its own choosing, when and how it feels appropriate. And it would seem that the realm of scientific discipline is one of those situations where it does not feel it appropriate. And frankly, were I in its place, I'd do the same thing.
Difference being - that's based on what you can see right now. You can test gravity, you can figure out what causes it, you can see the ball at the height of its parabola and measure its descent down into its lower energy state. You saw how the system began and ended, and thus you know for a fact that gravity did its thing. You don't know *why*, but you can measure it. That's not a nonzero chance. You never saw an elf.
You never saw the earth at the beginning. Thus, all you've got are guesses. Unless you can somehow build a time machine.
Technically, he is, to a degree, correct. The pressures at the center of the sun that cause initiation of fusion are caused by gravity. What we are seeing now is a balance between the outward pressures caused by fusion and the inward pressures caused by gravity. The reason supernovas are so violent is that the star runs out of fuel, the outward pressures get too high, and the whole thing just collapses in on itself very quickly.
That said, if he is denying that fusion is the process (or one of the major processes) that keeps the star from collapsing in on itself and creates the energy that causes the radiant heat we see, well, he's beyond hope.
Incorrect.
I have no doubts that based on the evidence that we see *now*, that evolution appears to be the correct way that life came to being. Scientifically, that's not within doubt. However, I do not treat the idea of evolution as a religion, because I am aware of one little fact that many people seem to overlook:
It's *all* circumstantial.
I realize this is fanciful, and the odds are really high that this didn't happen, but who is to say that six thousand years ago something didn't just pop everything into existence fully formed, *including* all of the evidence?
They're really high, but not nonzero.
I prefer to think that this did not happen, but I don't dismiss people who might think it did as complete crackpots. Very, very unlikely, improbable, perhaps even vanishing - but possible. Unless you were there from the beginning of the Universe and saw everything happen, there's no way to tell. All you've got, and will ever have, is a best guess. A probably correct one - but not certainly correct.
I agree with your general premise but I don't think you quite understand how natural selection works. For example, an eye may have started (I'm not sure the exact story here) with a simple little light sensitive organ which allowed a little critter to find a plant that grew better in the sunlight than shade, for example. And that proves to be advantageous, so it's kept. And then, a mutation occurs and the little organ can sense colors. Oh, look, that's bright AND green, I think I'll eat that. And so on, and so on. Nothing appears fully formed.
There is a group of people who do not care about the evidence - the Bible says so, so there it is. That's not going to change just because you amass more evidence.
On the other hand, there are a group of people who believe in God who also believe evolution was the method God used to create all of the different kinds of life we see. That is not something you can prove or disprove, therefore it's not in the realm of science. In other words, you want people to keep their religions hands off science, great. Keep your scientific hands off God. They don't have to be mortal enemies.
Seriously. It'd be nice to have a UI designed by someone who actually knows how we work rather than how the computer expects us to work. Larry Wall is a linguistics expert - he took that skill and wrote perl.
Of course it does. The foolish bit comes in when people start thinking that it's *all* based on science. Of course it's not. There are some aspects of medicine that are just as wishful thinking as homeopathy.
And the very fact that side effects exist is a testament to our not understanding what we're doing half the time.
Some scientists do not think it is worth their time to study things that they have already decided are not worth their time to study.
By the way, I'm not defending homeopathy. But there are other things out there - many having to do with energy work - that do not have foundations in current science but are sworn by. I have personally felt its effect firsthand.
... of worshipping science to the extent of all else.
Some "traditional medicines" are bupkus. Some are not. Just because science has not discovered something does not mean it doesn't exist. To think otherwise is arrogant. I can think of quite a few things in my life that science cannot (or at least does not at present) explain.
There are things about the human body and mind that science does not understand yet. And as long as their mindset continues to be "if I can't see it, smell it, touch it, taste it, or hear it, it doesn't exist" that will continue to be the case.
I already do that. I have a Mac Mini attached to my TV running XBMC as a media server, and I use my iPad using rowmote as the controller. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Apple - but it Just Works. In fact, I like the setup so much I made the mac mini my dedicated media server and got an Airbook for development and everyday computing.
Only thing I don't like is the Mac Mini doesn't have BluRay. Other than that, everything I could want.
I just believe in the product, and I've hung around just enough to pick up some of the lingo. As an IT guy, I'm very efficient with words, and if "marketing lingo" expresses what I'm trying to say, then I use it. I'm probably using some of it wrong anyway.
If I use words like "story" or "win/win proposition" you can feel free to take my name seriously. Well, not literally, but you get the idea.
Buy Jive, don't buy Jive. That's the concern of the salespeople. My job is not to convince you to do so, my job is to support those who have already purchased it, and I do a pretty damn good job of it. But if I can add to the conversation on a social site (of which slashdot, to a degree, is one) then I'm going to do so, and I'm going to use the words that best describe what I'm trying to say. Your aversion to words that sound like marketing is understandable, this is slashdot after all, but sometimes they *are* the best words to use.
And as far as moderation, etc... we have (and even sell) some social media tracking tools, and I haven't yet seen any evidence that they've picked up on this. The company only has a few hundred employees, and I very much doubt that any more than me were spending their Sunday on a holiday weekend just watching slashdot for mentions of Jive. So, again, think what you want, but there's not some grand Jive conspiracy here. I just believe in the product, have seen its benefits (and its drawbacks) and am empowered to speak up about it. Shrug.
You cannot keep Yammer isolated on your own network. You can keep it isolated to people within your own *domain*, but that's entirely different. Jive is a solution that can be run either on-prem or hosted.
You can call bullshit if you want. I'm not really concerned about that. Facts are facts. I can't, however, go into much more detail because I should let those who actually are marketers speak to those things, but there are some testimonials from our customers out on our website, with individual names. Ask them - many of our customers are very socially active, you can find some of them on google+. Then tell me I'm wrong. And here, I'll drop it because arguing it further is not productive.
And just to note, Jive encourages its employees (but not requires) them to be socially active, which is why I've commented here as much as I have while mentioning my workplace. Grammar errors happen. Oh well.
I'm pretty sure I'm not a marketer. I would be a bull in a china shop if they let me anywhere near sales and/or marketing. I'd probably make one or two sales out of sheer dumb luck and cause the rest of my accounts to go away. No, I spend my day working cases, upgrading instances, etc., etc. The marketers are very vocal about what they do on our internal social site, so maybe a little of it rubbed off.
That said, if you have a system, workflows are designed around it, and it's successful, the point still stands - it was successful. Arguing it wasn't is still going to be a nonstarter.
I am not sure you understand what "social business" really is, based on this post. Or what those that are advocating social business are trying to accomplish. I agree that MS Sharepoint is not an internal social networking platform - but they're not the type of platforms I'm talking about anyway.
Social business is *all* about collaboration, using social networks. And as I said, Facebook may be the largest one, but it is not the only one.
I was more referring to internal communities than public social networking sites.
Lots of reasons. A company may run its own external facing social networking site and ask its employees to participate in order to make sure that their customers are interacting and getting good advice/support. A company may run its own *internal* social networking site for collaboration.
I think when one says "social networking site" you immediately think "Facebook". The world of social networking is much larger than Facebook. That is only one, very large, aspect of it.
I cannot say strongly enough how horrifically bad this advice is.
If you make a habit of going to HR when they ask you to do something that is even tangentially related to your job duties and essentially demand a payoff, if you last years it's pretty much a miracle. Hallelujah.
I'm not sure I understand your point. If they're dependent on it to the point where work stops getting done of the social network is down, and when significant and concrete cost savings can be proven (again, look at the use cases, I'm not going to repeat them here - I'll repeat that I'm not a marketer) it would become very difficult to make the case that the network being used is not at the very least *adequate* for the needs of the company whom is using it.
Some social networks and social software are better than others (I obviously have my opinions but I don't think I need to spell them out here as to which are which) but when a company is seeing tangible and measurable benefits trying to convince them that their solution is the wrong one is going to be an uphill battle.
A competent community manager would delete the post and start with some gentle corrective action - maybe a polite note asking you to cut it out. Only after it becomes completely clear that you have no intention of cooperating will it be escalated to your manager. A competent manager would probably be able to figure out the appropriate carrot and stick that would make you toe the line.
Of course, that's assuming a competently run company, and a competent community manager.
I saw one hilarious example of this a while ago (though it was not intentional, just someone posting something silly where it could be viewed by the wrong people). It was removed and the poster was asked very nicely to not do that again. All was well.
Yes. But since it's one based on a product that we sell (not a public facing one), I have no issue with it.
You should get a job as a Community Manager. They indeed can make up all the details. Including the name
While you are technically correct, you are ignoring economic realities and pressures. Sometimes just because you *can* quit doesn't mean that you will be able to find another job. There are places in the country where if you lose your job, you will have to move.