"There would have to be some reason why naturally occurring, electrically neutral black holes haven't destroyed all the white dwarfs and neutron stars."
It seems to me that this is what it boils down to.
My question is: is the lack of white dwarfs being destroyed surprising or predicted by a solid theory?
If predicted, I would of course be interested in a link (if at all possible) to an explanation.
If surprising, could not one of the factors preventing the white dwarfs from being destroyed potentially be missing in the lab? If we don't know what they are, I mean?
What if lower energy collision makes it *more* likely for an eventual black hole to hang around and start swallowing stuff? Do you have a completely solid reason why this could not be the case?
Perhaps something like this: China sends you some stuff and you send only bits of paper back, grinning smugly. Then China buys your land and industry from you using those same pieces of paper, while you are still grinning smugly and receiving, in essence, some more lovely pearls for Manhattan.
"If we use evolution we can see that the only task of an organism is to create more organisms to benefit the species"
No, the only task of an organism is as a vehicle for the genes inside to make copies of themselves. Genes don't build organisms to benefit species, organisms are built to benefit the genes that build them.
When interests overlap, as they so often do, you can see adaptations that seem to benefit the organism itself or even the species - but ONLY when they also benefit the genes. If a mutation arises that benefits the species at the expense of the gene itself, the gene will tend to be disfavored by natural selection. Dawkins explained all this in accessible form in the 70-s in "The Selfish Gene" and the correctness of this view has only been solidified since.
Thus, using your "logic", the "logical conclusion" would be that we should act to benefit the genes inside our bodies. For example, if I told you I had a machine that would dissolve your body into goo, but will then replicate your genes (in goo form) until they cover the moon, you should jump at the chance. Perhaps there is something missing to your "logic", though. Dawkins points it out at the end of "The Selfish Gene" when he notes that by understanding the reality of the selfish genes (and memes) we have the opportunity to identify and disobey the little tyrants within (both genes and memes) and that whenever we seem programmed in a way that may benefit our genes/memes but that for some reason we don't agree with, we can decide to act differently.
"So it seems to me that the religious bunch might be around for quite a while yet. Why do you think they would be more likely to die out than the atheists?"
One thing should be very clear: It's not about people dying out, but about memes dying out.
With that in mind, the argument is then that religious memes face a constantly more difficult environment as science takes over more and more of the meme pool. Seeing religions adopt more aggressive strategies, such as discussed in this thread, could be considered a sign of desperation, and an indication that the end times for the religious memes are nearing.
Are you sure? That sounds more like my point, which was that if you're too smart for your own good then the superfluous brains will tend to evolve away.
I'm not sure I understand if you disagree with me or if you just think I should have expressed myself a little more carefully?
"Only when it's to large to fit current evolutionary pressures will it favor random mutations the may occur."
Here you seem to be saying that evolution only occurs in response to selection pressures? Well, I certainly agree with this - indeed my point was that since the brain is so costly there is a constant selection pressure in favor of smaller brains (a pressure which the brain needs to overcome, in order to be big, by "pulling its weight" and be very useful for the organism).
"If pressure means your brain needs to be smaller, and the needed random mutation do not happen, the species will go extinct."
Are you saying that if genes for smaller brains don't exist, there won't be any smaller brains? Well, I don't disagree with that...
"I dislike any analogy abuote volutin that implies it has a goal or destiny. That alone has confused evolution understanding more then anything else."
Of course there's no goal or destiny to any of this, and obviously there's no guarantee nature will come up with useful mutations. If my post gave the impression that I thought appropriate responses to selection pressures were absolutely guaranteed by the process of Darwinian evolution by natural selection, I guess I was too sloppy: We certainly agree it only trends that way. Was that your point?
Huh? The brain is the most costly organ for the body to run, any opportunity to reduce that cost will be aggressively pursued by evolution. The size of the brain matters *drastically* for evolution purposes...
What I find really intriguing is that, when read carefully, TFA seems to subtly signal a different attitude towards climate change compared to the impression I got from most of the press before COP15 and Climategate: one towards adapting to inevitable changes rather than trying to prevent them.
The article doesn't really suggest that we try to stop climate change to save coffee plantations: It notes that coffee plantations are sensitive to climate change, and thus in the interest of being able to adapt to such change, we should be interested in keeping the natural genetic diversity in the wild coffee gene pool around. To do that, we may want to focus on good old environmental policies about not cutting down said wild coffee plants, more so than trying to save them by stopping the climate from changing. (Because if we could do that, the argument for keeping genetic diversity around as a way of dealing with that change would become invalid - preservation of genetic diversity would still have many excellent supporting arguments, but not the particular one lifted in TFA).
If we see a policy change from trying to prevent change towards trying to adapt to it, I would see that as a strong vindication for the people I have seen advocating this very position for years in different Internet forums, but who have been consistently branded as "deniers" by the more prevention oriented crowd and lumped together with the obvious madhats from their opposition.
So you start by stating how rational you think the view on terrorism has been, and go on to lament that we don't (enough) apply the same hysteria to climate change?
With the current level of polemic, those who point out holes in your arguments are painted as akin to holocaust deniers, flat-earthers and creationists and now as apparently so cynical that they care more for a cup of coffee than for people who see their land go underwater.
It seems so hysterical at times that if someone tries to object to this coffee claim by pointing out that it seems likely that the coffee plant would be able to *adapt* to climate change, the way it and everyone else on this planet has been doing for quite a while, it would almost not surprise me to see him labeled a "creationist"...
It is called "artificial selection". Darwin started out by pointing at the example of humans who breed - evolve - animals and plants using artificial selection and then went on to show that a similar process takes place in nature, causing animals and plants to evolve on their own, only that nature does the selection rather than humans, thus the term "natural selection" to be contrasted to "artificial selection".
"yeah, you were right, our greed and laziness are destroying the planet"
Are you so sure of this that you think the only problem with Al Gore's "brilliant oversimplification" (as you call it) is that now your opposition will be able to *pretend* not to see your truth by pointing to the problems with the oversimplified science backing up your case?
This doesn't sound so good. And the worrying thing for me about the Climategate emails is that they contain indication that this type of thinking may possibly even have subverted pertinent climatologists.
Honestly, shouldn't the lesson rather be that if you want people to take you seriously you must avoid oversimplifications, produce rigorous and transparent science and focus political recommendations to (as I read your post) the points where you *really have a case*?
The job of the manager is to help the developers prioritize. In an overtime situation, prioritization is all the more necessary. Only the manager can take the decisions about what to cut to meet both deadline and essential requirements. Only the manager can legitimately revise the definition of "done" to adapt to resource constraints.
Sure, if the directive is clearly "implement all of it, no excuses" then the manager isn't really needed, during the overtime nor at any other time during the project - at least not more than in the capacity of "spy" for higher ups to track implementation velocity and perhaps wielder of a whip.
But to a real manager, the question of whether they could go home during the time they would quite obviously be the most useful to the project should seem a very suspect one to ask.
Slashdot Mirror
If the jab at Republicans got a positive mod, why mod a response to that as off-topic? That's just unsportsmanlike.
Or at least not from New York to London.
"If they evolve, they HAVE genetic material;"
Why not 'they ARE genetic material' ?
Then I guess the point seems to be that nobody really wants to do the work :-)
Plus that hallmark observation of wise, old men in any profession: Whenever you see a power of ten, chances are the number is completely made up.
"I choose to believe the people who understand the theories."
I'm not sure I understand your argument, but that just proves you're smarter than I am, so I choose to believe you.
Extremely interesting.
"There would have to be some reason why naturally occurring, electrically neutral black holes haven't destroyed all the white dwarfs and neutron stars."
It seems to me that this is what it boils down to.
My question is: is the lack of white dwarfs being destroyed surprising or predicted by a solid theory?
If predicted, I would of course be interested in a link (if at all possible) to an explanation.
If surprising, could not one of the factors preventing the white dwarfs from being destroyed potentially be missing in the lab? If we don't know what they are, I mean?
What if lower energy collision makes it *more* likely for an eventual black hole to hang around and start swallowing stuff? Do you have a completely solid reason why this could not be the case?
"But on the outside chance that it did touch something and start growing, eventually consuming the earth"
There's an outside "chance" now?? I thought it was supposed to be _impossible_ and only nutcases would say otherwise?
"it would pretty much stop there"
Oh, great...I'm sure I don't see what the fuzz could be about then :-/
Hehe. You won on lolover :-)
So...you'll sell but you won't deliver? That's the plan?
Perhaps something like this: China sends you some stuff and you send only bits of paper back, grinning smugly. Then China buys your land and industry from you using those same pieces of paper, while you are still grinning smugly and receiving, in essence, some more lovely pearls for Manhattan.
"If we use evolution we can see that the only task of an organism is to create more organisms to benefit the species"
No, the only task of an organism is as a vehicle for the genes inside to make copies of themselves. Genes don't build organisms to benefit species, organisms are built to benefit the genes that build them.
When interests overlap, as they so often do, you can see adaptations that seem to benefit the organism itself or even the species - but ONLY when they also benefit the genes. If a mutation arises that benefits the species at the expense of the gene itself, the gene will tend to be disfavored by natural selection. Dawkins explained all this in accessible form in the 70-s in "The Selfish Gene" and the correctness of this view has only been solidified since.
Thus, using your "logic", the "logical conclusion" would be that we should act to benefit the genes inside our bodies. For example, if I told you I had a machine that would dissolve your body into goo, but will then replicate your genes (in goo form) until they cover the moon, you should jump at the chance. Perhaps there is something missing to your "logic", though. Dawkins points it out at the end of "The Selfish Gene" when he notes that by understanding the reality of the selfish genes (and memes) we have the opportunity to identify and disobey the little tyrants within (both genes and memes) and that whenever we seem programmed in a way that may benefit our genes/memes but that for some reason we don't agree with, we can decide to act differently.
"So it seems to me that the religious bunch might be around for quite a while yet. Why do you think they would be more likely to die out than the atheists?"
One thing should be very clear: It's not about people dying out, but about memes dying out.
With that in mind, the argument is then that religious memes face a constantly more difficult environment as science takes over more and more of the meme pool. Seeing religions adopt more aggressive strategies, such as discussed in this thread, could be considered a sign of desperation, and an indication that the end times for the religious memes are nearing.
You wrote: "As the spokesman for Monosetians"...
I'm sure you mean: "As the one Monosetian" in accordance with your strong "belief that all sets are of only one item". Right?
Are you sure? That sounds more like my point, which was that if you're too smart for your own good then the superfluous brains will tend to evolve away.
I'm not sure I understand if you disagree with me or if you just think I should have expressed myself a little more carefully?
"Only when it's to large to fit current evolutionary pressures will it favor random mutations the may occur."
Here you seem to be saying that evolution only occurs in response to selection pressures? Well, I certainly agree with this - indeed my point was that since the brain is so costly there is a constant selection pressure in favor of smaller brains (a pressure which the brain needs to overcome, in order to be big, by "pulling its weight" and be very useful for the organism).
"If pressure means your brain needs to be smaller, and the needed random mutation do not happen, the species will go extinct."
Are you saying that if genes for smaller brains don't exist, there won't be any smaller brains? Well, I don't disagree with that...
"I dislike any analogy abuote volutin that implies it has a goal or destiny. That alone has confused evolution understanding more then anything else."
Of course there's no goal or destiny to any of this, and obviously there's no guarantee nature will come up with useful mutations. If my post gave the impression that I thought appropriate responses to selection pressures were absolutely guaranteed by the process of Darwinian evolution by natural selection, I guess I was too sloppy: We certainly agree it only trends that way. Was that your point?
Then they outsourced me—thankfully my automate replacement i a great piece on it and got me reinstated!
Huh? The brain is the most costly organ for the body to run, any opportunity to reduce that cost will be aggressively pursued by evolution. The size of the brain matters *drastically* for evolution purposes...
So have we, but we don't go around laughing at elephants because of it. Nietzsche famously never wrote "Dumbo".
What I find really intriguing is that, when read carefully, TFA seems to subtly signal a different attitude towards climate change compared to the impression I got from most of the press before COP15 and Climategate: one towards adapting to inevitable changes rather than trying to prevent them.
The article doesn't really suggest that we try to stop climate change to save coffee plantations: It notes that coffee plantations are sensitive to climate change, and thus in the interest of being able to adapt to such change, we should be interested in keeping the natural genetic diversity in the wild coffee gene pool around. To do that, we may want to focus on good old environmental policies about not cutting down said wild coffee plants, more so than trying to save them by stopping the climate from changing. (Because if we could do that, the argument for keeping genetic diversity around as a way of dealing with that change would become invalid - preservation of genetic diversity would still have many excellent supporting arguments, but not the particular one lifted in TFA).
If we see a policy change from trying to prevent change towards trying to adapt to it, I would see that as a strong vindication for the people I have seen advocating this very position for years in different Internet forums, but who have been consistently branded as "deniers" by the more prevention oriented crowd and lumped together with the obvious madhats from their opposition.
So you start by stating how rational you think the view on terrorism has been, and go on to lament that we don't (enough) apply the same hysteria to climate change?
With the current level of polemic, those who point out holes in your arguments are painted as akin to holocaust deniers, flat-earthers and creationists and now as apparently so cynical that they care more for a cup of coffee than for people who see their land go underwater.
It seems so hysterical at times that if someone tries to object to this coffee claim by pointing out that it seems likely that the coffee plant would be able to *adapt* to climate change, the way it and everyone else on this planet has been doing for quite a while, it would almost not surprise me to see him labeled a "creationist"...
It is called "artificial selection". Darwin started out by pointing at the example of humans who breed - evolve - animals and plants using artificial selection and then went on to show that a similar process takes place in nature, causing animals and plants to evolve on their own, only that nature does the selection rather than humans, thus the term "natural selection" to be contrasted to "artificial selection".
"yeah, you were right, our greed and laziness are destroying the planet"
Are you so sure of this that you think the only problem with Al Gore's "brilliant oversimplification" (as you call it) is that now your opposition will be able to *pretend* not to see your truth by pointing to the problems with the oversimplified science backing up your case?
This doesn't sound so good. And the worrying thing for me about the Climategate emails is that they contain indication that this type of thinking may possibly even have subverted pertinent climatologists.
Honestly, shouldn't the lesson rather be that if you want people to take you seriously you must avoid oversimplifications, produce rigorous and transparent science and focus political recommendations to (as I read your post) the points where you *really have a case*?
The job of the manager is to help the developers prioritize. In an overtime situation, prioritization is all the more necessary. Only the manager can take the decisions about what to cut to meet both deadline and essential requirements. Only the manager can legitimately revise the definition of "done" to adapt to resource constraints.
Sure, if the directive is clearly "implement all of it, no excuses" then the manager isn't really needed, during the overtime nor at any other time during the project - at least not more than in the capacity of "spy" for higher ups to track implementation velocity and perhaps wielder of a whip.
But to a real manager, the question of whether they could go home during the time they would quite obviously be the most useful to the project should seem a very suspect one to ask.