As a New Zealander living in Wellington (where there is practically every ethnicity on the planet condensed into an 800,000 pop city) I can formally call your source of "it is shown", bullshit.
I'd partially agree with you for certain parts of the world but these aren't racial differences, they're social differences. An example is aboriginial australians; my sister used to think all of my aussie friends were ignorant or racist. Then she moved over there and lo and behold, found out that in general they really are the scum of society. Some aussies say they've never yet met an aboriginal worth his salt. You could take it at face value (and judging you on your posts, you will), but you need to take it into context. The aboriginal race in australia has been fucked over royally. For all of recent history they have been slaughtered and brutalised, forced to live in the most barren parts of australia... hell, last century there was a governmental policy of removing aboriginal children from their families and giving them to fair skinned people to raise; an evil that was only abolished in the 70's and the aboriginal people only recieved an apology for the government this year, over thirty years later. They are a broken and demonised people and yet the few that do manage to rise and become productive members of australian society prove that it's nothing to do with blood and skin colour but a long violent history of racism and ostracism.
The "built in" racism that you are implying can be easily uprooted if you live in a multicultural/multiracial environment. Your brain will be brought up knowing that skin colour doesn't mean jack shit and this inbuilt preference doesn't rear its ugly head.
TLDR version: you're racist and it's clear you haven't had much experience with any race other than your own.
Roll a Gnome and a Human on a World of Warcraft PvP server. Keep track of how many times hostile players gank you vs leave you alone. I guarantee the gnome will recieve more punishment. Anyone who has played a gnome and some other race in WoW can attest to this statement's accuracy.
It's basically virtual racism. But I'd be seen as a tool if I called these people racist... "Lulz it's just a game". I put it forward that more often than not, one's attitudes in a virtual world do have an anchor in real life... game or no.
Aliens: They come from the planet Xorbulon on the other side of the galaxy and made us using the Microsoft Evolutionizer Ray 100,000,000BCE Second Edition. They, themselves, evolved normally with the rest of the species on their planet.
- Science is like superstition
- Superstition is not ignoring things that are potentially false
- Some scientists are ignorant
- These ignorant scientists are ignoring mounting evidence, which makes them not-superstitious
- Science needs to be more superstitious
I've either missed something, or he's contradicting himself, or he's making a judgment on a profession based on the actions of small group of scientists who shame the profession by calling themselves such.
- Science is like superstition
- Superstition is not ignoring things that are potentially false
- Some scientists are ignorant
- These ignorant scientists are ignoring mounting evidence, which makes them not-superstitious
- Science needs to be more superstitious
I've either missed something, or he's contradicting himself, or he's making a judgment on a profession based on the actions of small group of scientists who shame the profession by calling themselves such.
Re:research to application life cycle
on
LHC Success!
·
· Score: 1
Lebesque
I didn't read the rest of your post but I just wanted to say there's something really hot about that word.
The correct answer is: neither. All it is is evidence that life can be created in a test tube. It conveys no additional information toward determining the reality of either abiogenesis or creationism. To claim otherwise is a logical fallacy ("A created B. Therefore all B is created by A.").
That's because in that state you don't have much brain left to imagine with. You'll actually just be sprawled over the floor sleeping in your own vomit for most of it.
So you're not going to spend money on an average game that's loaded with some very nasty DRM. That's fair enough. But that doesn't mean you need to forgo trying/playing it; there's a better, DRM-less version of it available for free at your local torrent site.
You can download creature packs containing thousands of extra species, which fills in the gap between pirated vs. legit copies of the game. The difference is, due to the DRM, the former is the better version.
You COULD conceivably learn to do something in your lifetime, that no other human has ever done. That doesn't mean you evolved into something OTHER than a human.
This is completely off topic. Evolution, by definition, cannot happen within one lifetime. Nor is learning a form of genetic mutation. A better analogy:
If, over the course of many generations, one of my anscestors has deviated so much so as to gain, lose or otherwise change functions (such as adapting lungs for extended dives or vision expanding to detect infrared or legs dwindling to the point of unusability), you would still be considered human. If however, this ancestor couldn't breed with what we now consider human, then it is officially a new species.
That's right. That's the definition of a species: a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another. If your dog breeding led to one such dog, that was incapable of breeding with other dogs but could successfuly reproduce with dogs of its immediate genetic line (like parents or siblings), congratulations, you've bred a new species. It doesn't seem very special, does it? For all intents and purposes it's just another dog. But scientifically, it's a brand new species. The point is, don't put all your argumentative weight on definition. In this context it is arbitrary.
Going back to the point however, you don't seem to understand what evolution is exactly.
- It happens over generations. An example is the hundreds millions of years it took for an ape to become anything remotely human.
- It happens gradually: you don't just sprout a new arm; an existing limb (such as a fin or a vestigial relic of an ancient species) adapts, slowly.
- Evolution is natural selection + mutation (aka. genetic drift). Something that's more likely to survive is more likely to pass on its genes. So the creature that is best at surviving, helps its species become better.
An example of evolution would be if there was a significant advantage to being able to butterfly swim (hypothetical - say it's the most optimal way to avoid a predator and all the food is in the water). Someone like Michael Phelps, with his longer-than-usual arms, double jointed flipper feet and short legs would have an advantage over other humans. He'd be more likely to live, and thus more likely to breed and pass on his genes, and his kids in turn more likely to live, breed, pass on their genes. As generations go on you would see humanity in general become more fish-like in appearance and ability, but it would take millions of years for it to be readily noticable... and they'd still be human until the day when they're unable to reproduce with the original humans as we know them today.
Exactly. To go into further detail on my original post...
Overall outcome of using DRM:
- The game is cracked within a day, hindering the pirates about 0%.
- Some legit consumers are stung by the DRM to varying degrees. Some of these consumers either download a pirated copy or a crack to get their game to actually run. A good portion of these consumers will avoid the brand in the future.
- People who originally wanted to steal the product, still steal the product. No money lost from "lost sales". This group makes up the largest percentage of downloaders and forced with the options of paying for it vs. not playing it at all, they'll take the latter.
- A smaller number of people, who would have bought it, instead pirate it upon learning of the DRM. (hi!)
- The pirated copy is higher quality than a legit copy as it's the same product minus the DRM.
- The reputation of the vendor/developer suffers.
- The DRM provider, having pulled off a successful scam^H^H^H^Hsales pitch, makes a lot of money.
And DRM is the root cause of why "shit thieves" like me persist in this "bad behaviour". Which came first? The DRMs or the angry consumers?
I like to think I'm making a difference here by putting my foot down. I know I'm not the only one by a number of posts on the DRM issue in this article and many others. A number of developers (not just for software) intentionally stay away from DRM because they know consumers hate it. I'm contributing to that number by pocketing my wallet and browsing to the pirate bay. I call myself an idealist. You can call me what you want.
If you learn to do calculus while riding a bicycle on a tightrope, are you no longer human? It would be an entirely new function which likely no other human has ever done.
Let me fix that for you.
If, in a few million years time, a descendant of yours is able to convert nutrients to energy via photosynthesis in their skin, swim one meter underwater for extended periods of time via adapted lungs and see in the infrared spectrum, is he no longer human?
We still seem to be stuck here. I had hoped you had moved on. You are correct in that we have not yet had the chance to observe many billions of generations evolve into a category of species other than what they began as. This is because the theory of evolution has not been around for millions of years and neither have we. Poke me in a million years for an update there.
What HAS been proven in the lab is evolution itself. I'm not talking about some sort of "nuh uh it isn't evolution until it turns into this" arbitrary goalpost. I'm talking about the mechanics and predictions made by the theory, which have observations in the laboratory. In the "olden-days" of science, the Theory of Evolution would now be called the Law of Evolution (scientific theory doesn't work like that any more). As a theory/law that has overcome all scientific obstacles thus far, you could now take the "laws" and use it to predict something millions of years into the future... including the evolution of one species into a new species... and may reasonably assume it is true, along with the assumption that you haven't fucked up the prediction itself. And, millions of years down the track, one of your descendants can observe your prediction for you.
Until that day comes I'm afraid you're just going to have to wait and join the rest of us in opting for more short term experiments.
I put it to you that we are animals and a product of nature itself, and thus any modification of any environment wec could possibly make is also 100% natural.
Interesting how it can swing one way or another, depending on how you define natural.
They're bacteria because we call them bacteria. Understand? They can, via natural selection + evolution, eventually morph into completely different bacteria with completely different functions. It's the same species of course, because it fits within the definition of the word. Don't try and use the semantics of english and methods of scientific categorisation to prop up such a flimsy response. "Ok fine it's evolution BUT IT DIDNT TURN INTO A SPIDER!" Ugh.
I now delegate this argument to these other gentlemen who have stepped in and are doing a fine job.
Your misplaced sarcasm aside, I recommend the youtube vids. They're not evidence and nobody presents them that way, but they are exceptionally good at demonstrating how natural selection + mutation + generations = the transformation of something simple (an uncalibrated pendulum) to something complex (an accurate four-handed time piece).
I paused several times reading that to gather some references to show how flat wrong you are, until I completed reading your post and realised the scale of work required. So here's a summary. All of the following can be backed up with a few google and wiki searches.
Evolution has been observed, forced and guided in "the lab", using various species (bacteria's the most common but I also spotted one involving caterpillars). Evolution is a ridiculously simple premise that is oft misunderstood, especially by people who don't quite understand that complex creatures and features start simple.
Finally, If you want to disassemble humans down to their most basic components and then argue we're the same as dirt/clay/trucks/the sun, go nuts, just don't present it in an argument and expect people to not call you retarded.
I leave you with a very appropriate link. Have a good weekend!
There are numerous vids on youtube of simulated evolution for even complex things, such as watches. They're quite interesting and they help the novice break down evolution into something that can be easily understood.
You speak of Intelligent Design, though. ID is basically a single portion of creationism ("we were made by a designer") expanded upon and turned into a theory (which has since been scientifically panned -- normally that would mean that the theory needs significant rework but ID'ers don't seem to care... but I digress). Creationism is all about holding what the bible says, to be true... specifically, the parts on creation. This means it took six days to make earth, that all creatures were made as-is in a day, that humans are made from clay (or a rib if you're of the "inferior" sex), that the earth is 6000 years old (technically that's young-earth creationism but for the sake of argument).
If you hold to creationism, it is clearly incompatible with evolution (among other near-certainties of reality). Six thousand years isn't nearly enough time for anything beyond simple quick-reproducing organisms such as bacteria to noticably evolve. This alone doesn't mean evolution can't exist but the problem is, we have a ridiculous amount of evidence spanning from months (evolution observed in the lab) to millions and millions of years (evolution of ancient species between periods leading up to today's species) and in between. Practically the only argument remaining that can be used to tie the two together is that "god put everything there to fool us", which even the most devout believer will admit is an incredible stretch.
Interestingly though, this point still exists with ID vs. evolution. Unless the designer started with the most basic building block, such as a single celled organism from which evolution would take root, there's still the problem of all that historic evidence. If we're following the ID theory (which is meant to be approached scientifically), it's a much greater stretch to believe that this designer placed them to fool us.
Ultimately, if you understand evolution enough to be trying to make it compatible with creationism/intelligent design, then you know enough about evolution to know that it explains everything you need to know about how we all came to be. If you want to know where life came from to begin with, that's a different theory altogether (said theories are not nearly as rock solid at this point in time, though in true scientific form, that's improving).
First you say:
> I respect other peoples right to an opinion, but
> that doesn't mean I have to respect the opinion itself.
The you say:
> Quite frankly, I think that people who seriously believe
> in creationism need to be checked into the loonie bin.
Didn't you just contradict yourself?
Where do irrational people belong?
No. His second statement is his opinion. He was saying it to highlight that while you can respect his right to have and share his opinion, you don't need to respect the opinion itself.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd imagine the loss of a testicle would make you more prone to drag.
As a New Zealander living in Wellington (where there is practically every ethnicity on the planet condensed into an 800,000 pop city) I can formally call your source of "it is shown", bullshit.
I'd partially agree with you for certain parts of the world but these aren't racial differences, they're social differences. An example is aboriginial australians; my sister used to think all of my aussie friends were ignorant or racist. Then she moved over there and lo and behold, found out that in general they really are the scum of society. Some aussies say they've never yet met an aboriginal worth his salt. You could take it at face value (and judging you on your posts, you will), but you need to take it into context. The aboriginal race in australia has been fucked over royally. For all of recent history they have been slaughtered and brutalised, forced to live in the most barren parts of australia... hell, last century there was a governmental policy of removing aboriginal children from their families and giving them to fair skinned people to raise; an evil that was only abolished in the 70's and the aboriginal people only recieved an apology for the government this year, over thirty years later. They are a broken and demonised people and yet the few that do manage to rise and become productive members of australian society prove that it's nothing to do with blood and skin colour but a long violent history of racism and ostracism.
The "built in" racism that you are implying can be easily uprooted if you live in a multicultural/multiracial environment. Your brain will be brought up knowing that skin colour doesn't mean jack shit and this inbuilt preference doesn't rear its ugly head.
TLDR version: you're racist and it's clear you haven't had much experience with any race other than your own.
Roll a Gnome and a Human on a World of Warcraft PvP server. Keep track of how many times hostile players gank you vs leave you alone. I guarantee the gnome will recieve more punishment. Anyone who has played a gnome and some other race in WoW can attest to this statement's accuracy.
It's basically virtual racism. But I'd be seen as a tool if I called these people racist... "Lulz it's just a game". I put it forward that more often than not, one's attitudes in a virtual world do have an anchor in real life... game or no.
Here's the difference.
Aliens: They come from the planet Xorbulon on the other side of the galaxy and made us using the Microsoft Evolutionizer Ray 100,000,000BCE Second Edition. They, themselves, evolved normally with the rest of the species on their planet.
God: oooooOOOOOOOoo!
According to this guy
- Science is like superstition
- Superstition is not ignoring things that are potentially false
- Some scientists are ignorant
- These ignorant scientists are ignoring mounting evidence, which makes them not-superstitious
- Science needs to be more superstitious
I've either missed something, or he's contradicting himself, or he's making a judgment on a profession based on the actions of small group of scientists who shame the profession by calling themselves such.
I fail at breaks.
According to this guy
- Science is like superstition - Superstition is not ignoring things that are potentially false - Some scientists are ignorant - These ignorant scientists are ignoring mounting evidence, which makes them not-superstitious - Science needs to be more superstitious I've either missed something, or he's contradicting himself, or he's making a judgment on a profession based on the actions of small group of scientists who shame the profession by calling themselves such.
Lebesque
I didn't read the rest of your post but I just wanted to say there's something really hot about that word.
The correct answer is: neither. All it is is evidence that life can be created in a test tube. It conveys no additional information toward determining the reality of either abiogenesis or creationism. To claim otherwise is a logical fallacy ("A created B. Therefore all B is created by A.").
Hey, that worked!
Please mod parent offtopic.
That's because in that state you don't have much brain left to imagine with. You'll actually just be sprawled over the floor sleeping in your own vomit for most of it.
Yes.
<aol>LOL I NO SICK LOL!!11</aol>
Fixed that for you.
So you're not going to spend money on an average game that's loaded with some very nasty DRM. That's fair enough. But that doesn't mean you need to forgo trying/playing it; there's a better, DRM-less version of it available for free at your local torrent site.
You can download creature packs containing thousands of extra species, which fills in the gap between pirated vs. legit copies of the game. The difference is, due to the DRM, the former is the better version.
You COULD conceivably learn to do something in your lifetime, that no other human has ever done. That doesn't mean you evolved into something OTHER than a human.
This is completely off topic. Evolution, by definition, cannot happen within one lifetime. Nor is learning a form of genetic mutation. A better analogy:
If, over the course of many generations, one of my anscestors has deviated so much so as to gain, lose or otherwise change functions (such as adapting lungs for extended dives or vision expanding to detect infrared or legs dwindling to the point of unusability), you would still be considered human. If however, this ancestor couldn't breed with what we now consider human, then it is officially a new species.
That's right. That's the definition of a species: a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another. If your dog breeding led to one such dog, that was incapable of breeding with other dogs but could successfuly reproduce with dogs of its immediate genetic line (like parents or siblings), congratulations, you've bred a new species. It doesn't seem very special, does it? For all intents and purposes it's just another dog. But scientifically, it's a brand new species. The point is, don't put all your argumentative weight on definition. In this context it is arbitrary.
Going back to the point however, you don't seem to understand what evolution is exactly.
- It happens over generations. An example is the hundreds millions of years it took for an ape to become anything remotely human.
- It happens gradually: you don't just sprout a new arm; an existing limb (such as a fin or a vestigial relic of an ancient species) adapts, slowly.
- Evolution is natural selection + mutation (aka. genetic drift). Something that's more likely to survive is more likely to pass on its genes. So the creature that is best at surviving, helps its species become better.
An example of evolution would be if there was a significant advantage to being able to butterfly swim (hypothetical - say it's the most optimal way to avoid a predator and all the food is in the water). Someone like Michael Phelps, with his longer-than-usual arms, double jointed flipper feet and short legs would have an advantage over other humans. He'd be more likely to live, and thus more likely to breed and pass on his genes, and his kids in turn more likely to live, breed, pass on their genes. As generations go on you would see humanity in general become more fish-like in appearance and ability, but it would take millions of years for it to be readily noticable... and they'd still be human until the day when they're unable to reproduce with the original humans as we know them today.
As for the lab evidence... read these. So help me if you come back spouting "they are LIES and there is NO EVIDENCE", this debate is over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabidopsis_thaliana
and finally, a ridiculously good source of info on the subject in general
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution
A good argument is an informed argument
Exactly. To go into further detail on my original post...
Overall outcome of using DRM:
- The game is cracked within a day, hindering the pirates about 0%.
- Some legit consumers are stung by the DRM to varying degrees. Some of these consumers either download a pirated copy or a crack to get their game to actually run. A good portion of these consumers will avoid the brand in the future.
- People who originally wanted to steal the product, still steal the product. No money lost from "lost sales". This group makes up the largest percentage of downloaders and forced with the options of paying for it vs. not playing it at all, they'll take the latter.
- A smaller number of people, who would have bought it, instead pirate it upon learning of the DRM. (hi!)
- The pirated copy is higher quality than a legit copy as it's the same product minus the DRM.
- The reputation of the vendor/developer suffers.
- The DRM provider, having pulled off a successful scam^H^H^H^Hsales pitch, makes a lot of money.
And DRM is the root cause of why "shit thieves" like me persist in this "bad behaviour". Which came first? The DRMs or the angry consumers?
I like to think I'm making a difference here by putting my foot down. I know I'm not the only one by a number of posts on the DRM issue in this article and many others. A number of developers (not just for software) intentionally stay away from DRM because they know consumers hate it. I'm contributing to that number by pocketing my wallet and browsing to the pirate bay. I call myself an idealist. You can call me what you want.
If you learn to do calculus while riding a bicycle on a tightrope, are you no longer human? It would be an entirely new function which likely no other human has ever done.
Let me fix that for you.
If, in a few million years time, a descendant of yours is able to convert nutrients to energy via photosynthesis in their skin, swim one meter underwater for extended periods of time via adapted lungs and see in the infrared spectrum, is he no longer human?
We still seem to be stuck here. I had hoped you had moved on. You are correct in that we have not yet had the chance to observe many billions of generations evolve into a category of species other than what they began as. This is because the theory of evolution has not been around for millions of years and neither have we. Poke me in a million years for an update there.
What HAS been proven in the lab is evolution itself. I'm not talking about some sort of "nuh uh it isn't evolution until it turns into this" arbitrary goalpost. I'm talking about the mechanics and predictions made by the theory, which have observations in the laboratory. In the "olden-days" of science, the Theory of Evolution would now be called the Law of Evolution (scientific theory doesn't work like that any more). As a theory/law that has overcome all scientific obstacles thus far, you could now take the "laws" and use it to predict something millions of years into the future... including the evolution of one species into a new species... and may reasonably assume it is true, along with the assumption that you haven't fucked up the prediction itself. And, millions of years down the track, one of your descendants can observe your prediction for you.
Until that day comes I'm afraid you're just going to have to wait and join the rest of us in opting for more short term experiments.
I put it to you that we are animals and a product of nature itself, and thus any modification of any environment wec could possibly make is also 100% natural.
Interesting how it can swing one way or another, depending on how you define natural.
They're bacteria because we call them bacteria. Understand? They can, via natural selection + evolution, eventually morph into completely different bacteria with completely different functions. It's the same species of course, because it fits within the definition of the word. Don't try and use the semantics of english and methods of scientific categorisation to prop up such a flimsy response. "Ok fine it's evolution BUT IT DIDNT TURN INTO A SPIDER!" Ugh.
I now delegate this argument to these other gentlemen who have stepped in and are doing a fine job.
Your misplaced sarcasm aside, I recommend the youtube vids. They're not evidence and nobody presents them that way, but they are exceptionally good at demonstrating how natural selection + mutation + generations = the transformation of something simple (an uncalibrated pendulum) to something complex (an accurate four-handed time piece).
I paused several times reading that to gather some references to show how flat wrong you are, until I completed reading your post and realised the scale of work required. So here's a summary. All of the following can be backed up with a few google and wiki searches.
Evolution has been observed, forced and guided in "the lab", using various species (bacteria's the most common but I also spotted one involving caterpillars). Evolution is a ridiculously simple premise that is oft misunderstood, especially by people who don't quite understand that complex creatures and features start simple.
Finally, If you want to disassemble humans down to their most basic components and then argue we're the same as dirt/clay/trucks/the sun, go nuts, just don't present it in an argument and expect people to not call you retarded.
I leave you with a very appropriate link. Have a good weekend!
Ignore my retarded parents. I was adopted.
There are numerous vids on youtube of simulated evolution for even complex things, such as watches. They're quite interesting and they help the novice break down evolution into something that can be easily understood.
You speak of Intelligent Design, though. ID is basically a single portion of creationism ("we were made by a designer") expanded upon and turned into a theory (which has since been scientifically panned -- normally that would mean that the theory needs significant rework but ID'ers don't seem to care... but I digress). Creationism is all about holding what the bible says, to be true... specifically, the parts on creation. This means it took six days to make earth, that all creatures were made as-is in a day, that humans are made from clay (or a rib if you're of the "inferior" sex), that the earth is 6000 years old (technically that's young-earth creationism but for the sake of argument).
If you hold to creationism, it is clearly incompatible with evolution (among other near-certainties of reality). Six thousand years isn't nearly enough time for anything beyond simple quick-reproducing organisms such as bacteria to noticably evolve. This alone doesn't mean evolution can't exist but the problem is, we have a ridiculous amount of evidence spanning from months (evolution observed in the lab) to millions and millions of years (evolution of ancient species between periods leading up to today's species) and in between. Practically the only argument remaining that can be used to tie the two together is that "god put everything there to fool us", which even the most devout believer will admit is an incredible stretch.
Interestingly though, this point still exists with ID vs. evolution. Unless the designer started with the most basic building block, such as a single celled organism from which evolution would take root, there's still the problem of all that historic evidence. If we're following the ID theory (which is meant to be approached scientifically), it's a much greater stretch to believe that this designer placed them to fool us.
Ultimately, if you understand evolution enough to be trying to make it compatible with creationism/intelligent design, then you know enough about evolution to know that it explains everything you need to know about how we all came to be. If you want to know where life came from to begin with, that's a different theory altogether (said theories are not nearly as rock solid at this point in time, though in true scientific form, that's improving).
First you say: > I respect other peoples right to an opinion, but > that doesn't mean I have to respect the opinion itself.
The you say: > Quite frankly, I think that people who seriously believe > in creationism need to be checked into the loonie bin.
Didn't you just contradict yourself? Where do irrational people belong?
No. His second statement is his opinion. He was saying it to highlight that while you can respect his right to have and share his opinion, you don't need to respect the opinion itself.