If my claim is that Windows set the entire industry back a decade, then you can't point to the lack of superior software as a counterclaim. The superior software is software that went undeveloped due to the stifling nature of the Microsoft monopoly. It never happened, that's why you can't find it.
Exactly right! Why then do most text books present it as fact?
Because it is burdensome and redundant to preface every single topic discussed in a science textbook with "this is not, and cannot be, proven, it is simply believed to be true to the best of our knowledge at the time this text book is written." Much simpler to talk about the nature of scientific investigation somewhere near the beginning and let that inform the rest of it. That's certainly what all of my high school textbooks did.
Why is then so objectionable to present ID as just another theory as well? After all, both are only theories trying to explain the actual facts we observe and measure.
Because ID, not being falsifiable, is not a scientific theory at all.
You can't prove evolution. It's the nature of scientific theories that they can never be proven, only potentially disproven. Young-Earth Creationism is not science because it's not falsifiable. That is, in a hypothetical world where it's wrong, there is no conceivable test which can show it to be wrong, because any result can be explained by "God did it". Whereas in a hypothetical world where evolution is wrong, there are plenty of tests which could disprove it.
Maybe they realized that Washington and the surrounding area contain several tall structures that a potential terrorist could use to take pictures of the roofs of the buildings in questions without having to go through an internet service.
Or if you're the paranoid type, maybe they made them clear again but got Google to report anyone who looks at them, so they can feed that into their data mining programs.
Good point about evolution being a fact. It may or may not be one, but the evolution that scientists talk about is not a fact of evolution, but a theory.
As for religion and science converging, it seems like crap to me. Science is the realm of what is, religion is the realm of what's beyond. They are essentially unrelated and ought to stay that way.
Science is not a collection of facts. Science is a technique to gain knowledge about the world.
Yes, "assume" is just another way to say "believe". Ask any good scientist about this and he'll admit that certainly the flow of time in the past could have been different. But in the absence of evidence for such a thing, the question cannot go beyond simple speculation.
Evolution is not a fact. It's "just a theory", an idea which fits the available facts extremely well and makes a great many accurate and useful predictions. That's all it is, and all it ever claimed to be.
He's complaint was about studies complaining about other studies. He was also complaining about a study. I don't see any difference between the two other than that he has a whole lot less funding and, I'm guessing here, expertise. Otherwise they look the same to me: both of them are people telling other people that their efforts would be better applied in a different way.
Anyone who knows anything about it won't tell you that the ages of things are established FACTs. The only facts in science are the observations. The conclusions drawn from them are not facts and are not considered as such.
The current assumption is that these clocks have remained consistent. This is because there has yet to be any evidence to the contrary, and because it's hard to get any useful results at all if they haven't. But this isn't treated as some kind of invariable fact the way fundamentalists treat the creation of the Earth in 4004BC. If something comes along to show that these clocks have changed through time then that will simply change the way things are done.
There is no difference between a suggestion and a demand when the person making it has no power over the target.
It's not about expecting complaints. It's about you saying that these complaints are bad, while doing the exact same thing yourself. What makes their complaints bad but yours legitimate?
Do you realize how hilarious it is for you to complain about a study for complaining about studies? If you think it's wrong for third parties to second-guess studies and demand things with no responsibility or accountability, maybe you should stop doing it yourself.
If this is the case, then we should be seeing loads of stuff for Linux, OS X, etc. that's significantly more advanced in many ways than anything that's ever been written for Windows. So where is all this amazing state-of-the-art software?
I think you misunderstood. I didn't say that only Microsoft's stuff sucked, but rather that their monopolistic ways set the entire industry back around a decade. The fact that people develop for the technologically inferior Windows rather than for superior OSes is a huge part of why that happened, and would not be the case if Microsoft hadn't been so abusive and anti-competitive.
But we're not talking about the point of the article, we're talking about the point of Bruce Schneier's quote.
If the user can copy your media after having paid for it, well, that's just how things are. But if the user can pirate your media off your own servers without ever having paid for it, that is downright stupid. Given the vagueness of Schneier's quote he could very well have been referring to that.
It is falsifiable, which is to say that if it were false then it could be shown to be false. Since it's not false then it can't be shown false, but that doesn't change the fact that it's falsifiable. If light moved at a different speed then a simple experiment to show that different speed would falsify it.
Contrast this to creationism. No matter what test you conduct and what results you receive, "God did it" is always a working refutation. Thus it's not falsifiable.
He may have been commenting about the part where they send people the entire movie before they've paid for it, so that it can start playing sooner once they pay. That is a truly boneheaded move regardless of what you think of DRM.
Sorry, the correct term is "falsifiable". It means that an assertion has the logical possibility of being show false. In other words, if the assertion is wrong, can you show it to be wrong?
Creationism isn't falsifiable, because any piece of evidence can be explained with "God did it". Evolution is, for example if the Intelligent Designer suddenly showed up and announced himself.
"Testable" isn't really it, because that implies that it can not only be disproven but also proven. Generally scientific theories can't be proven, only fail to be disproven after many different rigorous tests.
While I realize that your reply is much more based on bashing Behe than praising me (as it should be), it's still the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day. Thanks!
Um, yes it does. There is no detectible difference between the Earth being created billions of years ago out of the coalescing gas cloud surrounding the young Sun, and the Earth being created six thousand years ago in the exact state it would have been if it had been created billions of years ago out of the coalescing gas cloud surrounding the young Sun.
I've met many creationists who, for example, thought that fossils were put there because of the flood and they just happen to line up in what appears to be a historical record because God is testing their faith.
I'm not sure how best to explain it so I'll try with a simple example.
Let's say the structure you're trying to evolve can be represented as ABC. The letters are different parts. Together, ABC performs some useful function. Maybe it senses light, or moves the organism, or converts energy. Doesn't matter.
Now imagine that AB and BC are both useless constructs. The stance of the IDers is that ABC would have to evolve from constituent parts, by starting with one letter and adding more until ABC is achieved. But, they claim, since both AB and BC are useless, they would never evolve, and so ABC could never come to be. Therefore, the existence of ABC in an organism is, essentially, proof that God Did It.
However, imagine if C is some sort of useful construct all by itself. The actual function of C could be completely different from the function of ABC, it just has to be useful in some fashion. Then we add D, another part which is not part of ABC, to form CD. Imagine that CD is also useful in some manner, potentially related to C, potentially not. Then B is added which gives it more of a useful function, so organisms have the useful construct BCD. Then A is added to give the final functionality in the more complex form of ABCD. Then D, being redundant, is eventually dropped from the organism. Therefore you have evolved the useful and "irreducibly complex" construct ABC from parts.
Since you seem like a friendly fellow I'll save you a little money. Every issue of the newsletter just contains the same two words, in large type on the front page, and nothing else.
i don't think you are going to find much support for this textbook on slashdot
however, what you will find is a lot "hear, hear" and then... nothing. or worse, cynicism
It is amusing how your comment is posted below a metric crapload of comments talking about how mainstream science is wrong, how ID should be taught in schools, how the reviewer is biased, etc. Yes, the stupid people are here too!
Slashdot Mirror
There are at least two (probably more) spots in Washington where a tourist can get up in a tall building and inspect the White House roof visually.
Last time I did it, there was no evidence of sniper or MANPADS emplacements. In fact the whole roof was quite boring.
If my claim is that Windows set the entire industry back a decade, then you can't point to the lack of superior software as a counterclaim. The superior software is software that went undeveloped due to the stifling nature of the Microsoft monopoly. It never happened, that's why you can't find it.
Exactly right! Why then do most text books present it as fact?
Because it is burdensome and redundant to preface every single topic discussed in a science textbook with "this is not, and cannot be, proven, it is simply believed to be true to the best of our knowledge at the time this text book is written." Much simpler to talk about the nature of scientific investigation somewhere near the beginning and let that inform the rest of it. That's certainly what all of my high school textbooks did.
Why is then so objectionable to present ID as just another theory as well? After all, both are only theories trying to explain the actual facts we observe and measure.
Because ID, not being falsifiable, is not a scientific theory at all.
You can't prove evolution. It's the nature of scientific theories that they can never be proven, only potentially disproven. Young-Earth Creationism is not science because it's not falsifiable. That is, in a hypothetical world where it's wrong, there is no conceivable test which can show it to be wrong, because any result can be explained by "God did it". Whereas in a hypothetical world where evolution is wrong, there are plenty of tests which could disprove it.
Maybe they realized that Washington and the surrounding area contain several tall structures that a potential terrorist could use to take pictures of the roofs of the buildings in questions without having to go through an internet service.
Or if you're the paranoid type, maybe they made them clear again but got Google to report anyone who looks at them, so they can feed that into their data mining programs.
Good point about evolution being a fact. It may or may not be one, but the evolution that scientists talk about is not a fact of evolution, but a theory.
As for religion and science converging, it seems like crap to me. Science is the realm of what is, religion is the realm of what's beyond. They are essentially unrelated and ought to stay that way.
Science is not a collection of facts. Science is a technique to gain knowledge about the world.
Yes, "assume" is just another way to say "believe". Ask any good scientist about this and he'll admit that certainly the flow of time in the past could have been different. But in the absence of evidence for such a thing, the question cannot go beyond simple speculation.
Evolution is not a fact. It's "just a theory", an idea which fits the available facts extremely well and makes a great many accurate and useful predictions. That's all it is, and all it ever claimed to be.
He's complaint was about studies complaining about other studies. He was also complaining about a study. I don't see any difference between the two other than that he has a whole lot less funding and, I'm guessing here, expertise. Otherwise they look the same to me: both of them are people telling other people that their efforts would be better applied in a different way.
That's nice. What's your point?
Anyone who knows anything about it won't tell you that the ages of things are established FACTs. The only facts in science are the observations. The conclusions drawn from them are not facts and are not considered as such.
The current assumption is that these clocks have remained consistent. This is because there has yet to be any evidence to the contrary, and because it's hard to get any useful results at all if they haven't. But this isn't treated as some kind of invariable fact the way fundamentalists treat the creation of the Earth in 4004BC. If something comes along to show that these clocks have changed through time then that will simply change the way things are done.
There is no difference between a suggestion and a demand when the person making it has no power over the target.
It's not about expecting complaints. It's about you saying that these complaints are bad, while doing the exact same thing yourself. What makes their complaints bad but yours legitimate?
Do you realize how hilarious it is for you to complain about a study for complaining about studies? If you think it's wrong for third parties to second-guess studies and demand things with no responsibility or accountability, maybe you should stop doing it yourself.
If this is the case, then we should be seeing loads of stuff for Linux, OS X, etc. that's significantly more advanced in many ways than anything that's ever been written for Windows. So where is all this amazing state-of-the-art software?
I think you misunderstood. I didn't say that only Microsoft's stuff sucked, but rather that their monopolistic ways set the entire industry back around a decade. The fact that people develop for the technologically inferior Windows rather than for superior OSes is a huge part of why that happened, and would not be the case if Microsoft hadn't been so abusive and anti-competitive.
But we're not talking about the point of the article, we're talking about the point of Bruce Schneier's quote.
If the user can copy your media after having paid for it, well, that's just how things are. But if the user can pirate your media off your own servers without ever having paid for it, that is downright stupid. Given the vagueness of Schneier's quote he could very well have been referring to that.
No, but I think an omnipotent God (if one were available) could make it be already there when he created everything else.
Yes, I should have said falsifiable rather than "can't be disproven".
It is falsifiable, which is to say that if it were false then it could be shown to be false. Since it's not false then it can't be shown false, but that doesn't change the fact that it's falsifiable. If light moved at a different speed then a simple experiment to show that different speed would falsify it.
Contrast this to creationism. No matter what test you conduct and what results you receive, "God did it" is always a working refutation. Thus it's not falsifiable.
A design which does not stream the entire movie to a user before he's even paid any money could qualify as "not stupid".
He may have been commenting about the part where they send people the entire movie before they've paid for it, so that it can start playing sooner once they pay. That is a truly boneheaded move regardless of what you think of DRM.
Sorry, the correct term is "falsifiable". It means that an assertion has the logical possibility of being show false. In other words, if the assertion is wrong, can you show it to be wrong?
Creationism isn't falsifiable, because any piece of evidence can be explained with "God did it". Evolution is, for example if the Intelligent Designer suddenly showed up and announced himself.
"Testable" isn't really it, because that implies that it can not only be disproven but also proven. Generally scientific theories can't be proven, only fail to be disproven after many different rigorous tests.
While I realize that your reply is much more based on bashing Behe than praising me (as it should be), it's still the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day. Thanks!
Um, yes it does. There is no detectible difference between the Earth being created billions of years ago out of the coalescing gas cloud surrounding the young Sun, and the Earth being created six thousand years ago in the exact state it would have been if it had been created billions of years ago out of the coalescing gas cloud surrounding the young Sun.
I've met many creationists who, for example, thought that fossils were put there because of the flood and they just happen to line up in what appears to be a historical record because God is testing their faith.
I'm not sure how best to explain it so I'll try with a simple example.
Let's say the structure you're trying to evolve can be represented as ABC. The letters are different parts. Together, ABC performs some useful function. Maybe it senses light, or moves the organism, or converts energy. Doesn't matter.
Now imagine that AB and BC are both useless constructs. The stance of the IDers is that ABC would have to evolve from constituent parts, by starting with one letter and adding more until ABC is achieved. But, they claim, since both AB and BC are useless, they would never evolve, and so ABC could never come to be. Therefore, the existence of ABC in an organism is, essentially, proof that God Did It.
However, imagine if C is some sort of useful construct all by itself. The actual function of C could be completely different from the function of ABC, it just has to be useful in some fashion. Then we add D, another part which is not part of ABC, to form CD. Imagine that CD is also useful in some manner, potentially related to C, potentially not. Then B is added which gives it more of a useful function, so organisms have the useful construct BCD. Then A is added to give the final functionality in the more complex form of ABCD. Then D, being redundant, is eventually dropped from the organism. Therefore you have evolved the useful and "irreducibly complex" construct ABC from parts.
Since you seem like a friendly fellow I'll save you a little money. Every issue of the newsletter just contains the same two words, in large type on the front page, and nothing else.
i don't think you are going to find much support for this textbook on slashdot
however, what you will find is a lot "hear, hear" and then... nothing. or worse, cynicism
It is amusing how your comment is posted below a metric crapload of comments talking about how mainstream science is wrong, how ID should be taught in schools, how the reviewer is biased, etc. Yes, the stupid people are here too!