Nah, we just need an implant that generates electricity from all the calories floating around in our blood waiting to turn into fat. Then we could power all of our devices and lose weight at the same time.:)
The biggest problem with science reporting is that the reporter, even if they understand what the scientist says, has to "dumb it down" for the masses. Depending on the publication, there is a different level of "dumb it down", presumably to match the expected readership. That all goes out the window when the reporter DOESN'T understand the science, and is just reporting "news". Most scientists who haven't made a point of talking to laymen in their field suck at dumbing down their own work, so either they say something that people misunderstand or they say something that get changed by an ignorant editor, or both. Relying on summaries, other than the abstract for the paper, will leave you with a possible misunderstanding as to what the science is actually all about.
The real issue is, if the admin is in your employ he isn't working for anyone else. When you get that call at 2am that the servers are all smoking, or whatever, you haul your guy in; whereas if the contracting company already has en emergency, you might have to wait until the prior emergency is solved to get any help at all. Of course you can have problems with employees like vacations etc
Of course one of the by-products of breeder reactors is the whole weapons grade material thing that makes other countries nervous. Making breeders illegal was part of a plan to assuage the fears of those other countries, and get them to stop building them. Of course it didn't really work out.
Even if nuclear energy is a disaster waiting to happen, coal and oil are disasters that are already happening. For-profit organizations are responsible for the continuation of their use. Utilities, such as power, should never, under any circumstances, be allow to be operated by for-profit concerns. For-profit organizations have only a single concern: paying their investors, no matter what anyone says, that is their sole care. Nuclear power is safe and effective, as long as no penny-pinching profit mongers are allowed anywhere near them. e.g. please look up the number of problem caused by nuclear powered plants on nuclear powered naval vessels. At least in the US the people running those plants have a vested interest in keeping them going, safely; they live in them. There is no reason a fission plant cannot be run safely and effectively in the US except the FUD that's been spread about it has poisoned the minds of the very folk that should be fighting for it. The other problem is all the folks that are making so much money off of us for power now are loathe to give up all the profit they are making and will spend a fair piece of it to prevent anyone moving in that direction.
Actually I was joking about RKVs. What is interesting though is that they technology for an RKV doesn't seem too extreme.
From the RKV article on Wikipedia a 1kg Mass at 99% the speed of light has a energy of 135Megatonnes. The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs had an yield of 75 to 100 million megatonnes. So you'd need a 740 metric tonne projectile at 0.99c
A bussard ramjet would probably have a mass much more than this. I also think that you could probably figure out clever ways to get 740 tonnes to 0.99c if you were a high tech civilisation.
And you never know, maybe the reason we don't see any aliens is because they keep quiet and RKV any civilisations that look like they are near the technological level to RKV them first.
Ok, idle speculation at best.
Maybe the Dinos annoyed someone who flung a RKV at them... seems to have worked.:) And without trashing ALL life on the planet, earth has recovered nicely. Too bad we are messing it up so much... hmm.
But their website isn't wikipediaart that's the domain name, the web site is "Wikipedia Art" which is clearly a dilution. Whether it's infringement is a matter for the courts, not a matter of opinion. If they don't take it to court, as someone said already, then any further infringement BY ANYBODY will be harder for them to deal with in the courts. They have to go to court over it, they have no choice if they want to keep their trademark, unless they come to an agreement first.
Speciation is simply the result of many small changes (micro) over a long period of time.
That's what is meant by macro evolution and it's the part that is not falsifiable. It is legitimate to point this little fact out to evolutionists but they will not listen to reason. Claiming that part of the fossil record shows a progression is not proof. We see progression over time when we breed our pets and farm animals. Big deal! A chihuahua is still a dog. Its genes did not evolve; they were selected (or deselected) for expression from a pool that had existed for millions of years. The sort of pseudoscience that asserts that hippos evolve into whales (no falsifiability whatsoever) or fish into lizards will flourish whenever science is used to support a pre-existing mindset or ideology. Atheism and refusal to accept the possibility of creation/intelligent design is the ideology that underlies macro-evolution. A priori conclusions do not lead to good science. It is chicken shit science. Live with it.
Macro-evolution is falsifiable, if you can show it is somehow different than micro-evolution. You seem to think that every little conjecture that touches upon evolution needs to be individually falsifiable, some things are just conjecture. They are more along the line of reconstructing what we think happened based on the evidence we have and the theory explaining the process. (like forensics)
It a common misconception, or commonly expression misinformation, that evolution = atheism. i.e. Ignorance or a deliberate attempt to mislead.
You might want to go back and read about 'a priori' and 'a posteriori' again, I don't think they mean what you think they mean.
Methinks the lady does protest too much. Your post is just the usual propaganda with a hidden atheist agenda. It is no better than creationist (YEC) propaganda. Any scientific theory that exempts itself from challenges and falsification is just that, propaganda. Macro evolution has no evidence other than a seriously flawed fossil record and the evidence, when it does exist, proves nothing. Macro evolution is no more falsifiable than creationism. The shrill cries that science is under attack is just BS masquerading as legitimacy. Isaac Newton believed that the universe and lifeforms were created but that did not stop him from revolutionizing physics. Texas should be applauded for its courage in the face of persecution. If your science is superior, it will survive. If not, it will fail. I am seeing signs of failure and the latest news doe not bode well for macro evolution and atheism.
Good science takes courage, courage to stand up in the face of mainstream boneheadedness. I got the guts to write the above on Slashdot, a bastion of atheism and Darwinism because that is what it takes. Now do your duty, moderators. Mod me down and see if I give a shit.
Can you give even a off-the-cuff reason/mechanism that would prevent what you call macro-evolution, given that micro-evolution is accepted? Unless you can show that macro-evolution is somehow fundamentally different than micro-evolution you have nothing to argue against except personal preference. Do you understand what falsifiable means? I know several people who think it means "have found evidence against" instead of "can find evidence against". There are also plenty of people who don't understand that facts don't need to be falsifiable. If I drop a ball, on earth, that it falls is a fact. Different theories of gravity can explain it's motion. If my theory says that big objects fall faster than small objects, that theory can be falsified by experiment or observation of events. i.e. dropping two differently sized objects and show they fall at the same speed.
The fact of evolution cannot be falsified any more than the fact of things moving toward a lower potential energy in a gravity well. Evolution can and continues to be observed. The theory of evolution is multifaceted, the origin of species part is one that many have a problem with. That many diverse species came from few common ancestors. There are many things that can falsify many different parts of the ToE, the problem that annoys many creationists is that none of them have ever been observed. The REASON the ToE has endured is because none of the things that could falsify it have ever been observed, or if they have, the theory would has been revised. That's the neat thing about science, when it's wrong, we fix it. Religions don't allow that, and typically see it as a weakness, thus demonstrating their lack of understanding.
To me, it is "insane" and foolish to believe in the tenants of evolution.
Evolution does not give any meaning to life - God does. Evolution does not give any purpose to MY life - God does. Evolution does not give any hope (for anything) - God gives hope for eternal life. Evolution does not give joy - only depression at the meaninglessness of life - God gives joy both now and eternally.
But God only does this if we choose to believe in Him, His Son, and the Biblical claims of them.
I choose meaning and purpose and hope and joy and TRUTH over a theory filled with innumerable holes.
What do you choose?
A very nice synopsis of the basic problem with religious thinking, wrt evolution.
Evolution is not TRYING to do any of those things. Science DOES NOT CARE about any of those things. Science is about explaining how the world works.
Meaning, purpose, joy, and hope are things for individuals and philosophers.
If god does all those things for you, great. If, for some reason, evolution takes one of those things away from you, that is your problem, not evolution's. If you can't believe in god if someone explains how the world works, that too is your problem, not a problem with science.
If an observation contradicts something in your holy book, does that invalidate the whole thing? If so you might consider the fragility of such a stance. Religious texts may be fine for morality lessons and such, but as science textbooks they fall a bit short of the mark. As a rule, science is defined by change, religion is defined by it's lack.
Finally, you don't get to choose how the world* is, only what you believe. Guess what, the first is unaffected by the second. The world is what it is, it was before you were born and will continue after you are gone.
Well, unless you go to college, or do some self study, you are unlikely to be "reasonable informed" on very many things. i.e. 90+ percent of the people who have a problem with evolution ARE NOT reasonably informed, some aren't informed at all.
That's kind of the point of university, a place where people can study, and GET informed. Self study works for some, but reading a 90 page synopsis of evolution written by a "hostile witness" is not the way to become "reasonably informed" about anything.
The problem with your statement about "opinion hold more credit" is that opinion has no place in science. Science is about facts, there is room for opinion about what theory best explains observed facts, but a theory that ignores the facts, isn't scientific. An expert in the field knows more about it than a layman, typically. i.e. he is more informed. So no matter how reasonably informed you think someone is, as a layman, they are likely to be less informed than an expert.
So do you think it's snobbery to let an MD make medical decisions over someone who watches general hospital a lot?
Also I wouldn't take the advise of an MD on building a bridge, over that of a civil engineer.
Of course the whole point of public education is to "spoon feed" children the basics so they can go on to become adults, in whatever field of endeavor they end up in. Arguing theories in grade school is a waste of everyone's time, the people who want to go on and study in university can do the arguing. Even there you probably will need to advance beyond freshman level courses to get any good opportunity for arguing, since you first have learn all the stuff they left out in grade school.
I feel the same way if you start with the assumption evolution is a process of selection from a random pool.
I would think there would be a much larger number of mutant babies in any given species if that were the case.
I don't see how that can be explained away with starting the assumption that there are forces that trigger mutation that just aren't present now. Perhaps species evolve past the need for random evolution as a survival mechanism.
If so, wouldn't there be some level of life low enough to observe this phenomenon in its raw random nature with mutations occuring, even in mitosis.
There is a real lack of evidence for random evolution in my opinion which makes me feel that there is intelligence behind it somewhere, not necessarily 'God, the Creator' waving his hands, but some force other than random physics and chemistry.
How does modern evolution theory address this dilemma?
evolution is a process of selection from the existing members of the species over each generation, nothing random there. Some of the mutations are "random" but they are based on what already exists.
Not all mutations are visible, there ARE large number of mutations present in a given population. Otherwise they'd all be identical.
There are still plenty of forces that cause mutations.
Changing fur from brown to white in the winter time is a survival mechanism, evolution is just a change in a species over time. (allele frequency, really)
Scientists observe mutation and evolution all the time, in the lab, and out.
Mutations can be random, evolution is never random.
There is no dilemma to address.
(I think I got all the questions, the stupid quote function mashed everything together.)
<quote><p>Seriously, for the country that's supposed to be the most modern and have the best technology (all ofcourse delivered through scientific study), it remains unbelievable that evolution is even questioned.</p><p>No such thing in Europe. Not even the Vatican and the Church of England (both the foundations for the US churches) doubt evolution theory. They even support it !</p><p>Wake up, Americans:-)</p></quote>
<p>Questioning a theory is far from wrong, but until there is substantial proof it should remain quietly in the upper echelons of academia, not taught to grade-school students.</p></quote>
Right, any questioning of theories should be in the realm of academia, grade schoolers should be taught the facts as we understand them, and the scientific method. They can go on to question things later in life, grade school is where you get your grounding in the basics. The theory of evolution should be questioned and tested, but not in grade school, most of them aren't equipped to, or desire to, question things scientifically. Until there is substantial proof for some other explanation, they should continue to teach evolution as is.
Of course if the scalpers are working WITH the actual event staff and only letting out a few "unscalped" tickets so they look like the good guys, then the scalpers can, well scalp, everyone else. With much profit to be had by all.
</tin-foil-hat>
What a Great Idea, for eliminating scalpers. I know it's offtopic, but I wonder how many people here would complain about privacy issue if they record your name with every ticket purchase.:)
Mod Parent up. I have no idea why some overzealous mod has modded the OP flamebait. I don't think "flamebait" means what the mod thinks it means -- must be a wikipedia admin with/. mod points.
The OP is correct, it's sensible advice. As a filmmaker and photographer I always do get forms signed and ID from models. It's extremely annoying to have to do that, but it's insurance nonetheless. Never underestimate the stupidity of humanity when it comes to anything sex-related.
Too many words in your last sentence, just say: "Never underestimate the stupidity of humanity." Because it's not possible to overestimate it.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Nah, we just need an implant that generates electricity from all the calories floating around in our blood waiting to turn into fat. :)
Then we could power all of our devices and lose weight at the same time.
But surely you can just sit down at a locked computer, then look at the sticky note and log in anyway.
It may be the amps that kill you, but the voltage is the bus they take to work.
The biggest problem with science reporting is that the reporter, even if they understand what the scientist says, has to "dumb it down" for the masses. Depending on the publication, there is a different level of "dumb it down", presumably to match the expected readership. That all goes out the window when the reporter DOESN'T understand the science, and is just reporting "news". Most scientists who haven't made a point of talking to laymen in their field suck at dumbing down their own work, so either they say something that people misunderstand or they say something that get changed by an ignorant editor, or both.
Relying on summaries, other than the abstract for the paper, will leave you with a possible misunderstanding as to what the science is actually all about.
The real issue is, if the admin is in your employ he isn't working for anyone else.
When you get that call at 2am that the servers are all smoking, or whatever, you haul your guy in; whereas if the contracting company already has en emergency, you might have to wait until the prior emergency is solved to get any help at all. Of course you can have problems with employees like vacations etc
Of course one of the by-products of breeder reactors is the whole weapons grade material thing that makes other countries nervous. Making breeders illegal was part of a plan to assuage the fears of those other countries, and get them to stop building them. Of course it didn't really work out.
Even if nuclear energy is a disaster waiting to happen, coal and oil are disasters that are already happening. For-profit organizations are responsible for the continuation of their use. Utilities, such as power, should never, under any circumstances, be allow to be operated by for-profit concerns. For-profit organizations have only a single concern: paying their investors, no matter what anyone says, that is their sole care.
Nuclear power is safe and effective, as long as no penny-pinching profit mongers are allowed anywhere near them. e.g. please look up the number of problem caused by nuclear powered plants on nuclear powered naval vessels. At least in the US the people running those plants have a vested interest in keeping them going, safely; they live in them. There is no reason a fission plant cannot be run safely and effectively in the US except the FUD that's been spread about it has poisoned the minds of the very folk that should be fighting for it. The other problem is all the folks that are making so much money off of us for power now are loathe to give up all the profit they are making and will spend a fair piece of it to prevent anyone moving in that direction.
maybe blood is considered toxic waste? :)
Actually I was joking about RKVs. What is interesting though is that they technology for an RKV doesn't seem too extreme.
From the RKV article on Wikipedia a 1kg Mass at 99% the speed of light has a energy of 135Megatonnes. The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs had an yield of 75 to 100 million megatonnes. So you'd need a 740 metric tonne projectile at 0.99c
A bussard ramjet would probably have a mass much more than this. I also think that you could probably figure out clever ways to get 740 tonnes to 0.99c if you were a high tech civilisation.
And you never know, maybe the reason we don't see any aliens is because they keep quiet and RKV any civilisations that look like they are near the technological level to RKV them first.
Ok, idle speculation at best.
Maybe the Dinos annoyed someone who flung a RKV at them... seems to have worked. :)
And without trashing ALL life on the planet, earth has recovered nicely.
Too bad we are messing it up so much... hmm.
But their website isn't wikipediaart that's the domain name, the web site is "Wikipedia Art" which is clearly a dilution.
Whether it's infringement is a matter for the courts, not a matter of opinion.
If they don't take it to court, as someone said already, then any further infringement BY ANYBODY will be harder for them to deal with in the courts.
They have to go to court over it, they have no choice if they want to keep their trademark, unless they come to an agreement first.
receiving stolen goods is just as illegal as stealing.
That's what is meant by macro evolution and it's the part that is not falsifiable. It is legitimate to point this little fact out to evolutionists but they will not listen to reason. Claiming that part of the fossil record shows a progression is not proof. We see progression over time when we breed our pets and farm animals. Big deal! A chihuahua is still a dog. Its genes did not evolve; they were selected (or deselected) for expression from a pool that had existed for millions of years. The sort of pseudoscience that asserts that hippos evolve into whales (no falsifiability whatsoever) or fish into lizards will flourish whenever science is used to support a pre-existing mindset or ideology. Atheism and refusal to accept the possibility of creation/intelligent design is the ideology that underlies macro-evolution. A priori conclusions do not lead to good science. It is chicken shit science. Live with it.
Macro-evolution is falsifiable, if you can show it is somehow different than micro-evolution. You seem to think that every little conjecture that touches upon evolution needs to be individually falsifiable, some things are just conjecture. They are more along the line of reconstructing what we think happened based on the evidence we have and the theory explaining the process. (like forensics)
It a common misconception, or commonly expression misinformation, that evolution = atheism.
i.e. Ignorance or a deliberate attempt to mislead.
You might want to go back and read about 'a priori' and 'a posteriori' again, I don't think they mean what you think they mean.
Methinks the lady does protest too much. Your post is just the usual propaganda with a hidden atheist agenda. It is no better than creationist (YEC) propaganda. Any scientific theory that exempts itself from challenges and falsification is just that, propaganda. Macro evolution has no evidence other than a seriously flawed fossil record and the evidence, when it does exist, proves nothing. Macro evolution is no more falsifiable than creationism. The shrill cries that science is under attack is just BS masquerading as legitimacy. Isaac Newton believed that the universe and lifeforms were created but that did not stop him from revolutionizing physics. Texas should be applauded for its courage in the face of persecution. If your science is superior, it will survive. If not, it will fail. I am seeing signs of failure and the latest news doe not bode well for macro evolution and atheism.
Good science takes courage, courage to stand up in the face of mainstream boneheadedness. I got the guts to write the above on Slashdot, a bastion of atheism and Darwinism because that is what it takes. Now do your duty, moderators. Mod me down and see if I give a shit.
Can you give even a off-the-cuff reason/mechanism that would prevent what you call macro-evolution, given that micro-evolution is accepted? Unless you can show that macro-evolution is somehow fundamentally different than micro-evolution you have nothing to argue against except personal preference.
Do you understand what falsifiable means? I know several people who think it means "have found evidence against" instead of "can find evidence against".
There are also plenty of people who don't understand that facts don't need to be falsifiable.
If I drop a ball, on earth, that it falls is a fact. Different theories of gravity can explain it's motion. If my theory says that big objects fall faster than small objects, that theory can be falsified by experiment or observation of events. i.e. dropping two differently sized objects and show they fall at the same speed.
The fact of evolution cannot be falsified any more than the fact of things moving toward a lower potential energy in a gravity well.
Evolution can and continues to be observed.
The theory of evolution is multifaceted, the origin of species part is one that many have a problem with. That many diverse species came from few common ancestors. There are many things that can falsify many different parts of the ToE, the problem that annoys many creationists is that none of them have ever been observed. The REASON the ToE has endured is because none of the things that could falsify it have ever been observed, or if they have, the theory would has been revised. That's the neat thing about science, when it's wrong, we fix it. Religions don't allow that, and typically see it as a weakness, thus demonstrating their lack of understanding.
So if I have no kids, should I be allowed to get a credit too? I am not incurring a cost.
There is a reason everyone has to pay in to make it work.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28308
[snip]
To me, it is "insane" and foolish to believe in the tenants of evolution.
Evolution does not give any meaning to life - God does.
Evolution does not give any purpose to MY life - God does.
Evolution does not give any hope (for anything) - God gives hope for eternal life.
Evolution does not give joy - only depression at the meaninglessness of life - God gives joy both now and eternally.
But God only does this if we choose to believe in Him, His Son, and the Biblical claims of them.
I choose meaning and purpose and hope and joy and TRUTH over a theory filled with innumerable holes.
What do you choose?
A very nice synopsis of the basic problem with religious thinking, wrt evolution.
Evolution is not TRYING to do any of those things.
Science DOES NOT CARE about any of those things.
Science is about explaining how the world works.
Meaning, purpose, joy, and hope are things for individuals and philosophers.
If god does all those things for you, great.
If, for some reason, evolution takes one of those things away from you, that is your problem, not evolution's.
If you can't believe in god if someone explains how the world works, that too is your problem, not a problem with science.
If an observation contradicts something in your holy book, does that invalidate the whole thing? If so you might consider the fragility of such a stance. Religious texts may be fine for morality lessons and such, but as science textbooks they fall a bit short of the mark. As a rule, science is defined by change, religion is defined by it's lack.
Finally, you don't get to choose how the world* is, only what you believe.
Guess what, the first is unaffected by the second.
The world is what it is, it was before you were born and will continue after you are gone.
*by world I mean "entire universe"
Example of irreducibly complexity please.
Well, unless you go to college, or do some self study, you are unlikely to be "reasonable informed" on very many things.
i.e. 90+ percent of the people who have a problem with evolution ARE NOT reasonably informed, some aren't informed at all.
That's kind of the point of university, a place where people can study, and GET informed. Self study works for some, but reading a 90 page synopsis of evolution written by a "hostile witness" is not the way to become "reasonably informed" about anything.
The problem with your statement about "opinion hold more credit" is that opinion has no place in science. Science is about facts, there is room for opinion about what theory best explains observed facts, but a theory that ignores the facts, isn't scientific. An expert in the field knows more about it than a layman, typically. i.e. he is more informed. So no matter how reasonably informed you think someone is, as a layman, they are likely to be less informed than an expert.
So do you think it's snobbery to let an MD make medical decisions over someone who watches general hospital a lot?
Also I wouldn't take the advise of an MD on building a bridge, over that of a civil engineer.
Of course the whole point of public education is to "spoon feed" children the basics so they can go on to become adults, in whatever field of endeavor they end up in. Arguing theories in grade school is a waste of everyone's time, the people who want to go on and study in university can do the arguing. Even there you probably will need to advance beyond freshman level courses to get any good opportunity for arguing, since you first have learn all the stuff they left out in grade school.
I feel the same way if you start with the assumption evolution is a process of selection from a random pool.
I would think there would be a much larger number of mutant babies in any given species if that were the case.
I don't see how that can be explained away with starting the assumption that there are forces that trigger mutation that just aren't present now. Perhaps species evolve past the need for random evolution as a survival mechanism.
If so, wouldn't there be some level of life low enough to observe this phenomenon in its raw random nature with mutations occuring, even in mitosis.
There is a real lack of evidence for random evolution in my opinion which makes me feel that there is intelligence behind it somewhere, not necessarily 'God, the Creator' waving his hands, but some force other than random physics and chemistry.
How does modern evolution theory address this dilemma?
evolution is a process of selection from the existing members of the species over each generation, nothing random there.
Some of the mutations are "random" but they are based on what already exists.
Not all mutations are visible, there ARE large number of mutations present in a given population. Otherwise they'd all be identical.
There are still plenty of forces that cause mutations.
Changing fur from brown to white in the winter time is a survival mechanism, evolution is just a change in a species over time.
(allele frequency, really)
Scientists observe mutation and evolution all the time, in the lab, and out.
Mutations can be random, evolution is never random.
There is no dilemma to address.
(I think I got all the questions, the stupid quote function mashed everything together.)
<quote><p>Seriously, for the country that's supposed to be the most modern and have the best technology (all ofcourse delivered through scientific study), it remains unbelievable that evolution is even questioned.</p><p>No such thing in Europe. Not even the Vatican and the Church of England (both the foundations for the US churches) doubt evolution theory. They even support it !</p><p>Wake up, Americans
<p>Questioning a theory is far from wrong, but until there is substantial proof it should remain quietly in the upper echelons of academia, not taught to grade-school students.</p></quote>
Right, any questioning of theories should be in the realm of academia, grade schoolers should be taught the facts as we understand them, and the scientific method. They can go on to question things later in life, grade school is where you get your grounding in the basics. The theory of evolution should be questioned and tested, but not in grade school, most of them aren't equipped to, or desire to, question things scientifically. Until there is substantial proof for some other explanation, they should continue to teach evolution as is.
Of course if the scalpers are working WITH the actual event staff and only letting out a few "unscalped" tickets so they look like the good guys, then the scalpers can, well scalp, everyone else. With much profit to be had by all.
</tin-foil-hat>
What a Great Idea, for eliminating scalpers. :)
I know it's offtopic, but I wonder how many people here would complain about privacy issue if they record your name with every ticket purchase.
Mod Parent up. I have no idea why some overzealous mod has modded the OP flamebait. I don't think "flamebait" means what the mod thinks it means -- must be a wikipedia admin with /. mod points.
The OP is correct, it's sensible advice. As a filmmaker and photographer I always do get forms signed and ID from models. It's extremely annoying to have to do that, but it's insurance nonetheless. Never underestimate the stupidity of humanity when it comes to anything sex-related.
Too many words in your last sentence, just say: "Never underestimate the stupidity of humanity." :)
Because it's not possible to overestimate it.
Yes, remove the engine, it's called a glider, sometimes a sail plane.