People obviously want good acting and good stories.
Film makers seem more interested in spending tens if not hundreds of millions on adding a layer of 3D and sparkle.
This is exactly the point. The argument is that the layer of 3D and sparkle adds "value", whereas in most cases it adds "bloat". The bloat is often used to cover up something rehashed or badly written. It's exactly like software in that respect.
Since 200 years ago, when the UK and the US began copyrighting, the argument has been that giving a creator a monopoly helps society as a whole because people will have an incentive to distribute their new works publicly. Restricting freedoms for the betterment of society is what law is all about. Restricting copying is only valid if it adds value to society.
Personally, I don't find value in the bloat. I watch / listen to just as much highly ranked Creative Commons media as copy restricted media and there is excellent work and absolute crap on both sides. From my perspective, there's no additional value added to the copy restricted content.
Distribution used to be much more difficult, which added strength to the argument that an incentive was needed. Now that distribution is such a minor issue, copyright laws are currently solely based on a subjective "value" of bloated entertainment. I'd much rather live in a society where we all pool money together (taxes) to deal with things like safety and efficiency, and not with enforcing laws based on the subjective value of entertainment.
Dr Nicko van Someren reported at last year's Crypto 98 conference that he had disassembled the ADVADPI driver. He found it contained two different keys. One was used by Microsoft to control the cryptographic functions enabled in Windows, in compliance with US export regulations. But the reason for building in a second key, or who owned it, remained a mystery.
Two weeks ago, a US security company came up with conclusive evidence that the second key belongs to NSA. Like Dr van Someren, Andrew Fernandez, chief scientist with Cryptonym of Morrisville, North Carolina, had been probing the presence and significance of the two keys. Then he checked the latest Service Pack release for Windows NT4, Service Pack 5. He found that Microsoft's developers had failed to remove or "strip" the debugging symbols used to test this software before they released it. Inside the code were the labels for the two keys. One was called "KEY". The other was called "NSAKEY".
Fernandes reported his re-discovery of the two CAPI keys, and their secret meaning, to "Advances in Cryptology, Crypto'99" conference held in Santa Barbara. According to those present at the conference, Windows developers attending the conference did not deny that the "NSA" key was built into their software. But they refused to talk about what the key did, or why it had been put there without users' knowledge.
I always thought that was one of China's motivations for Red Flag linux: take out the U.S's backdoor and put in their own. Red Flag first appeared in 1999, the same year that this speculation of the NSA backdoor began.
Japanese TV stations put their most high profile dramas on at popular times just like American TV stations. But what's interesting from an outside perspective is that these are constantly new stories, usually either 13 or 26 episodes long, with beginnings, middles, and ends.
Yes, there are sequels sometimes, but usually these involve the same characters with a completely new problem/story that also has a beginning, middle, and end.
While I'm not a huge fan of TV dramas, a few of these have sucked me in because the writers move the story along, and it makes it a lot more interesting to know that questions will be answered, and things do get resolved somehow. What gets the audiences to watch the new shows is that they often recycle the same popular actors, just in different roles.
In contrast, I've seen very little of this on American TV, except from things like "special series" on HBO. And yes, Japan has it's share of never-ending stories, but it's interesting that the most popular time slots are often filled with these "complete story" dramas.
Single player RPGs also seem to be more popular when I look at the game isle in Japan, than when I look in America. And I'll often see advertisements for them (more than when in the states). I think this is where we can still find the complete story arches and the big endings.
Just like TV, there's a following of certain people involved in the games (like Akira Toriyama doing the art for example).
In Japan, there seems to be more of an emphasis on who is involved in these projects (TV or game), and perhaps that's what leads to more completed stories. With a famous person involved, they can always make a new story with confidence that it will sell. There is also more control over these famous people as they are much less like free-agents, and more like company people, doing the projects the company sets up for them. And there's an audience willing to pay for a new story when someone they like is involved in making it.
The 2 games the article mentions for having scant endings are Fallout 3 and GTA 4. These were made by American companies using a popular name for their game. The names were the selling point, not the studio or the people that made them. Most of the games from the 8, 16, or 32-bit eras the article has nostalgia for were made by Japanese companies.
While I can think of exceptions on both sides of the Pacific, there seems to be more of an emphasis on the completed story in entertainment from the Japanese side. At least that's my anecdotal impression.
This would come with the explicit expectation that these governments spend the money wisely, and steps are taken so that as little money as possible is wasted by corruption.
The FDA has a list of substances they consider safe because they're inert (won't cause chemical reactions) or they have already been tested on animals. If you use these substances, you can legally sell your product without doing additional testing.
If there is a substance that already has a significant amount of scientific evidence for safety (in other words, prior animal testing), you can petition the FDA to label this substance as safe, and use it.
This sounds like what Tom's of Maine did although they give very little actual information in their video that you mentioned (it is a commercial after all). If this is what they did it is actually fairly common practice, but I give them credit for showing that there has already been enough testing in the case of fluoride (if that's what they did. We can't tell from the video.).
You can't get around testing on living things. With advancements in creating various living tissues without the organism, hopefully we can use that more in the initial stages of testing, but eventually you're going to have to see how it reacts with the whole organism.
So what the leaping bunny logo actually shows, in almost all cases, is that the substances have already been tested on animals, but not by that company. It also means that the company did not make any innovation in regards to chemical reactions. It's not a new drug. It's not a new cosmetic. It's just repackaged. If it's a new chemical substance, it is required by law to be tested.
On a related note, this is why the frauds of "Natural Male Enhancements" and the like are allowed to operate. If you use substances that are safe for ingestion, you can say it does whatever you want until someone proves you wrong (which is expensive and difficult to do).
if you are putting a chemical into a shampoo you think might blind someone, wtf are you doing?!?!
This is a common misconception.
The truth is, every scientist in industry (ie: making products to sell) wants all of the animals in their experiments to come out completely safe and healthy.
Why? Because the company has already spent a LOT of money in development by the time it gets to animal testing. Animal testing is expensive (but required by law) and it only comes after everything else has been tried. At this point, the company believes the product to be safe. It then becomes the toxicologist's job to make sure it's absolutely safe on actual living beings.
They start with the lower order species such as mice and if the mice are okay, they move up the ladder of complexity (with the top being primates), and finally they test humans. Yes, humans. Human volunteers are the final stage of testing. If there are any problems along the way, the project is stopped there. The company loses their investment, but it is less than what they would pay in lawsuits should their product start hurting people.
If all the animals and humans are safe, then the company gets to make money on whatever they developed.
If you don't believe these companies are ethical, at least believe that they want to make money. Animal testing is the last step, and every company wants the animals to remain healthy.
... to push the limits of our power and find ways to get around things. This is often seen in a negative light (as in the OP's choice of the word "abuse"), yet it's also a trait that has allowed humans to survive, thrive, and make numerous advancements.
The OP talks about IT people white-listing websites they know to be safe because they themselves use them. I don't see this as having a negative impact for the staff or patrons of the places he mentions. If there is a negative impact, or "abuse", it comes from the executive decision to use censoring software in the first place, not the IT guy poking holes in it.
Slashdot is U.S.-centric. We readily admit this, and really don't see it as a problem. Slashdot is run by Americans, after all, and the vast majority of our readership is in the U.S. We're certainly not opposed to doing more international stories, but we don't have any formal plans for making that happen. All we can really tell you is that if you're outside the U.S. and you have news, submit it, and if it looks interesting, we'll post it.
It is worth noting that there is a Japanese Slashdot run by VA Japan. While we helped them a little in their early days, they essentially run their own content without any real involvement from us... none of us can read Kanji! There are currently no plans to do other language or nation specific Slashdot sites.
Think as a member of the faith, who lives their life (as best they can) by the word of the creator of the universe. Which is worse, the Creator not knowing about alien life, or keeping it a secret from His chosen people?
It's a good question, and I believe I can answer it for you.
I've spent most of my life around devout religious people, in particular the Catholics you're referring to.
First you have to understand the distinction between "dogma" and the "practice" that is most of the church's teaching.
Dogma
There really is very little you need to believe in, in order to be Catholic. It's basically summed up by the Apostle's Creed.
1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
5. On the third day he rose again.
6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
10. the forgiveness of sins,
11. the resurrection of the body,
12. and life everlasting.
That's it. You're basically done.
Practice
Most of the rest is simply what you take from various teachings, such as the bible. The church is simply the organization that's there to help you interpret it all through day to day life. Thus they take certain official stances. They take these very seriously as they are meant to help guide people through their faith.
If you looked through some of the articles in that Google search you did, you would have come across this:
The interview in L'Osservatore Romano spawned dozens of headline stories in the secular press, many of them suggesting-- inaccurately-- that the Vatican had given official approval to belief in life on other planets.
Father Funes offered a more limited view, saying that the possibility of extra-terrestrial life cannot be disproved, and "does not contradict our faith." He argued that Christians should not attempt to place arbitrary limits on what God might have done in creating the universe.
The zealots you see, and the majority you don't
So to answer your question, the zealots you may be used to seeing (and seem to have influenced your comment) are just the loudest and are usually a minority. They'll take all the surveys and skew results. They'll protest the loudest about whatever stance they take (whether or not it's actually the church's view). And for the most part, they'll be the most annoying.
The vast majority of religiously devout people are rather quiet about it, and very down to earth. They will not participate in these annoyances or make themselves heard, as they simply have better things to do with their time.
The Bible is not a book of Science
Most devout religious people don't think of the bible as a book of science. When they read the bible, most take it as a book of parables and histories, written down to help guide them when they have their own decisions to make. It's taken as a large literary work of wisdom from God. Take this from someone who has lived in this circle their entire life. There is the occasional zealot, or pack of zealots. But most devout, church-going, bible reading Catholics are not what you're used to seeing in the media. In fact, many of the ones I know are research scientists. They would never think of the bible as a book of science holding the secrets you suggest.
In fact the Jesuits (the largest male religious order in the Catholic
Exactly! I recently moved back to Japan, looked for a new cellphone, and noticed the extremely limited choices of smartphones (about 5 out of 100 available phones).
There are 2 main phone carriers (Softbank and Docomo) and 1 less popular but still large option (AU). These links go directly to their current phone lineups (in English), so you can go to the source and see what they're selling today.
Softbank offers the iPhone and a Window's mobile phone. Docomo offers a Blackberry, a Google phone, and a Window's mobile phone. Other than that, I don't think any of those other phones are considered "smartphones".
Thank you. Reading responses like yours is one of the main reasons I troll these comments, and I really do appreciate it when someone more informed can point out when I make mistakes and give cogent explanations as to why.
The combination of the reliance on a computer model, the lack of what you described as gradualism, and the attention grabbing, catastrophic implications described gave me pause. That combination has given rise to a number of unreliable headlines lately. However, I'm excited that there seems to be a stronger foundation to this model, and I look forward to hearing more as they progress with their research.
it is all based on observations made by rather imperfect human eyes
Don't confuse this with actual observation. It's far from it.
This "research" is little more than a computer game where the programmer puts in the physics of a closed environment, and plays with some numbers with a big incentive to get an impressive result in order to get published.
Computer models are the spam messages of complex science.
Some kind of attention grabbing headline
A number of people believe what they say and propagate it all over
Even knowledgeable people often take second to realize what it is before discarding it
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the science is even shakier than that.
The Mediterranean could easily have formed over tens of thousands of years (it says so in the article), but they're puzzled that there's a U-shaped sediment deposit instead of a the V-shape made by slow water erosion.
Glacial valleys are also U-shaped. Glaciers have covered that area many times over the last 5 million years.
Tectonic movement could also smooth out the normal V-shape of slower water erosion. All patches of earth are constantly rising, sinking, and/or moving horizontally. The middle of the V rising could explain the U. The sides of the V sinking or moving away from the center could also explain the U. Notice the mountainous areas around Spain and NW Africa. There is a tectonic plate boundary next it. There's been plenty of movement in that area over the last 5 million years.
Multiple rivers could also have broken into the Mediterranean and eventually carried off the bits of land in between, also explaining a U-shape, but over a longer period of time than the "2-year max" their simulation shows.
Here are 3 less exciting, but (as far as I can tell) plausible explanations. It could also be a mixture of these and/or other factors we haven't considered.
It looks like they simply chose one hypothesis that sounded impressive and made a computer simulation of it.
There has, to my knowledge, never been a platform or group of any appreciable size or influence that really wanted, as an end, to mess up the environment.
At the very least we can stop at not knowing without inventing a fiction
That's basically what I was trying to say. You just put it more eloquently.
Everything else we observe in the world happens without any sign of divine intervention and can be explained by natural means
There are a few things that cannot be explained by natural means (depending on your definition of natural). Let's narrow it down and say there are a few things that cannot be explained by logical means. Infinity, 3 dimensional space, and Brownian motion are 3 examples. I'm not trying to suggest divine intervention, just that these do not fit neatly into any logic or natural cause and effect relationships.
From my understanding, Brownian motion can be proved to be random mathematically. Anything that is truly random sits outside the realm of logic, and yet by our observations, it is true.
You cannot have a tiniest bit of 3 dimensional matter. In order for it to have dimension it must have parts. In order for a 1 dimensional line to have length, it must have 3 points (2 terminal points and 1 in the middle). And if these points are truly points (dimensionless) they would occupy the same space, and the line would have no length. So a length must have parts that have length, which must also have parts that have length, etc.
We postulate infinity, and it holds true based on logic in geometry, mathematics, etc. But it too falls outside the realm of cause and effect.
These 3 things are illogical. Yet we observe them.
Maybe in the future, we'll be able to predict Brownian motion, find the smallest length (Planck?), see the edge of a finite universe and find that asymptotes don't extend to infinity, but jump to zero at a final point.
A 4th example of something defying logic is the beginning of existence, or that something always existed. It is an example of an "uncaused cause". The modern argument against Aristotle's "unmoved mover" is that we've observed particles being moved without any observable moving body. If it is truly not caused by anything, it has no rational explanation.
We observe Brownian motion, 3d space, infinity, and the universe on some level, so we believe they exist on some level. But we cannot use logical arguments to claim any knowledge of "how" they exist. The "how" is irrational.
Your logical arguments against your premise were sound. But the "I... take this as a reason to (narrow down the possibilities of how the universe was created)" is what doesn't make sense.
You cannot logically argue, for or against, the reasons behind something that defies logic.
It could be said that to not believe in a creator is just as silly as believing in creator. There's no evidence from a time before our universe began. We have an educated guess of a centralized bang at the onset because our galaxies are moving away from a central location, but that's as far back as we can go.
A creator or creators of the matter and force environment that we inhabit does not need to be like the religious zealots define him/them.
You've formed a "belief" about how it all began (ie: with no creator). There's no tangible evidence for it. Just as there's no tangible evidence for a creator. There's nothing to observe from a time before matter and force existed. Any idea we formulate about it is not based on logic or observation.
One of the great things about science is the humility of "I don't know". It applies here.
There was a large demand to get to the "New World" to both flee persecution and make money. Many individuals, corporations, and governments could see a tangible opportunity worth the risk.
Few people want to flee Earth at the moment, and getting to Mars is still a rather poor monetary investment.
'If they imprint on these small systems, that becomes their frame of reference and what they're always thinking about,' said Jim Spohrer
That is SOOO true! I mean, I was brought up on my Commodore 64, and I have NO IDEA how to to contemplate petabytes of data! (What does that EVEN MEAN?!?) I still don't see why ANYONE would need more than 64kB of memory.
Slashdot Mirror
he will exceed the speed of sound — the first person to do so without the aid of a machine.
He's using a machine. It's a balloon that sends him up 120,000 ft.
People obviously want good acting and good stories.
Film makers seem more interested in spending tens if not hundreds of millions on adding a layer of 3D and sparkle.
This is exactly the point. The argument is that the layer of 3D and sparkle adds "value", whereas in most cases it adds "bloat". The bloat is often used to cover up something rehashed or badly written. It's exactly like software in that respect.
Since 200 years ago, when the UK and the US began copyrighting, the argument has been that giving a creator a monopoly helps society as a whole because people will have an incentive to distribute their new works publicly. Restricting freedoms for the betterment of society is what law is all about. Restricting copying is only valid if it adds value to society.
Personally, I don't find value in the bloat. I watch / listen to just as much highly ranked Creative Commons media as copy restricted media and there is excellent work and absolute crap on both sides. From my perspective, there's no additional value added to the copy restricted content.
Distribution used to be much more difficult, which added strength to the argument that an incentive was needed. Now that distribution is such a minor issue, copyright laws are currently solely based on a subjective "value" of bloated entertainment. I'd much rather live in a society where we all pool money together (taxes) to deal with things like safety and efficiency, and not with enforcing laws based on the subjective value of entertainment.
From the article written in 1999:
Dr Nicko van Someren reported at last year's Crypto 98 conference that he had disassembled the ADVADPI driver. He found it contained two different keys. One was used by Microsoft to control the cryptographic functions enabled in Windows, in compliance with US export regulations. But the reason for building in a second key, or who owned it, remained a mystery.
Two weeks ago, a US security company came up with conclusive evidence that the second key belongs to NSA. Like Dr van Someren, Andrew Fernandez, chief scientist with Cryptonym of Morrisville, North Carolina, had been probing the presence and significance of the two keys. Then he checked the latest Service Pack release for Windows NT4, Service Pack 5. He found that Microsoft's developers had failed to remove or "strip" the debugging symbols used to test this software before they released it. Inside the code were the labels for the two keys. One was called "KEY". The other was called "NSAKEY".
Fernandes reported his re-discovery of the two CAPI keys, and their secret meaning, to "Advances in Cryptology, Crypto'99" conference held in Santa Barbara. According to those present at the conference, Windows developers attending the conference did not deny that the "NSA" key was built into their software. But they refused to talk about what the key did, or why it had been put there without users' knowledge.
The NSA has also been "helping" Windows' security development since then as well.
I always thought that was one of China's motivations for Red Flag linux: take out the U.S's backdoor and put in their own. Red Flag first appeared in 1999, the same year that this speculation of the NSA backdoor began.
Wake up MS. There another new kid on the block as rich as you.
Google is not nearly as rich as MS.
Microsoft
Google
Japanese TV stations put their most high profile dramas on at popular times just like American TV stations. But what's interesting from an outside perspective is that these are constantly new stories, usually either 13 or 26 episodes long, with beginnings, middles, and ends.
Yes, there are sequels sometimes, but usually these involve the same characters with a completely new problem/story that also has a beginning, middle, and end.
While I'm not a huge fan of TV dramas, a few of these have sucked me in because the writers move the story along, and it makes it a lot more interesting to know that questions will be answered, and things do get resolved somehow. What gets the audiences to watch the new shows is that they often recycle the same popular actors, just in different roles.
In contrast, I've seen very little of this on American TV, except from things like "special series" on HBO. And yes, Japan has it's share of never-ending stories, but it's interesting that the most popular time slots are often filled with these "complete story" dramas.
Single player RPGs also seem to be more popular when I look at the game isle in Japan, than when I look in America. And I'll often see advertisements for them (more than when in the states). I think this is where we can still find the complete story arches and the big endings.
Just like TV, there's a following of certain people involved in the games (like Akira Toriyama doing the art for example).
In Japan, there seems to be more of an emphasis on who is involved in these projects (TV or game), and perhaps that's what leads to more completed stories. With a famous person involved, they can always make a new story with confidence that it will sell. There is also more control over these famous people as they are much less like free-agents, and more like company people, doing the projects the company sets up for them. And there's an audience willing to pay for a new story when someone they like is involved in making it.
The 2 games the article mentions for having scant endings are Fallout 3 and GTA 4. These were made by American companies using a popular name for their game. The names were the selling point, not the studio or the people that made them. Most of the games from the 8, 16, or 32-bit eras the article has nostalgia for were made by Japanese companies.
While I can think of exceptions on both sides of the Pacific, there seems to be more of an emphasis on the completed story in entertainment from the Japanese side. At least that's my anecdotal impression.
This would come with the explicit expectation that these governments spend the money wisely, and steps are taken so that as little money as possible is wasted by corruption.
Good luck with that.
The FDA has a list of substances they consider safe because they're inert (won't cause chemical reactions) or they have already been tested on animals. If you use these substances, you can legally sell your product without doing additional testing.
If there is a substance that already has a significant amount of scientific evidence for safety (in other words, prior animal testing), you can petition the FDA to label this substance as safe, and use it. This sounds like what Tom's of Maine did although they give very little actual information in their video that you mentioned (it is a commercial after all). If this is what they did it is actually fairly common practice, but I give them credit for showing that there has already been enough testing in the case of fluoride (if that's what they did. We can't tell from the video.).
You can't get around testing on living things. With advancements in creating various living tissues without the organism, hopefully we can use that more in the initial stages of testing, but eventually you're going to have to see how it reacts with the whole organism.
So what the leaping bunny logo actually shows, in almost all cases, is that the substances have already been tested on animals, but not by that company. It also means that the company did not make any innovation in regards to chemical reactions. It's not a new drug. It's not a new cosmetic. It's just repackaged. If it's a new chemical substance, it is required by law to be tested.
On a related note, this is why the frauds of "Natural Male Enhancements" and the like are allowed to operate. If you use substances that are safe for ingestion, you can say it does whatever you want until someone proves you wrong (which is expensive and difficult to do).
if you are putting a chemical into a shampoo you think might blind someone, wtf are you doing?!?!
This is a common misconception.
The truth is, every scientist in industry (ie: making products to sell) wants all of the animals in their experiments to come out completely safe and healthy.
Why? Because the company has already spent a LOT of money in development by the time it gets to animal testing. Animal testing is expensive (but required by law) and it only comes after everything else has been tried. At this point, the company believes the product to be safe. It then becomes the toxicologist's job to make sure it's absolutely safe on actual living beings.
They start with the lower order species such as mice and if the mice are okay, they move up the ladder of complexity (with the top being primates), and finally they test humans. Yes, humans. Human volunteers are the final stage of testing. If there are any problems along the way, the project is stopped there. The company loses their investment, but it is less than what they would pay in lawsuits should their product start hurting people.
If all the animals and humans are safe, then the company gets to make money on whatever they developed.
If you don't believe these companies are ethical, at least believe that they want to make money. Animal testing is the last step, and every company wants the animals to remain healthy.
Its human nature.
... to push the limits of our power and find ways to get around things. This is often seen in a negative light (as in the OP's choice of the word "abuse"), yet it's also a trait that has allowed humans to survive, thrive, and make numerous advancements.
The OP talks about IT people white-listing websites they know to be safe because they themselves use them. I don't see this as having a negative impact for the staff or patrons of the places he mentions. If there is a negative impact, or "abuse", it comes from the executive decision to use censoring software in the first place, not the IT guy poking holes in it.
Slashdot is U.S.-centric. We readily admit this, and really don't see it as a problem. Slashdot is run by Americans, after all, and the vast majority of our readership is in the U.S. We're certainly not opposed to doing more international stories, but we don't have any formal plans for making that happen. All we can really tell you is that if you're outside the U.S. and you have news, submit it, and if it looks interesting, we'll post it.
It is worth noting that there is a Japanese Slashdot run by VA Japan. While we helped them a little in their early days, they essentially run their own content without any real involvement from us... none of us can read Kanji! There are currently no plans to do other language or nation specific Slashdot sites.
Think as a member of the faith, who lives their life (as best they can) by the word of the creator of the universe. Which is worse, the Creator not knowing about alien life, or keeping it a secret from His chosen people?
It's a good question, and I believe I can answer it for you.
I've spent most of my life around devout religious people, in particular the Catholics you're referring to.
First you have to understand the distinction between "dogma" and the "practice" that is most of the church's teaching.
Dogma
There really is very little you need to believe in, in order to be Catholic. It's basically summed up by the Apostle's Creed.
1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
5. On the third day he rose again.
6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
10. the forgiveness of sins,
11. the resurrection of the body,
12. and life everlasting.
That's it. You're basically done.
Practice
Most of the rest is simply what you take from various teachings, such as the bible. The church is simply the organization that's there to help you interpret it all through day to day life. Thus they take certain official stances. They take these very seriously as they are meant to help guide people through their faith.
If you looked through some of the articles in that Google search you did, you would have come across this:
The interview in L'Osservatore Romano spawned dozens of headline stories in the secular press, many of them suggesting-- inaccurately-- that the Vatican had given official approval to belief in life on other planets.
Father Funes offered a more limited view, saying that the possibility of extra-terrestrial life cannot be disproved, and "does not contradict our faith." He argued that Christians should not attempt to place arbitrary limits on what God might have done in creating the universe.
The zealots you see, and the majority you don't
So to answer your question, the zealots you may be used to seeing (and seem to have influenced your comment) are just the loudest and are usually a minority. They'll take all the surveys and skew results. They'll protest the loudest about whatever stance they take (whether or not it's actually the church's view). And for the most part, they'll be the most annoying.
The vast majority of religiously devout people are rather quiet about it, and very down to earth. They will not participate in these annoyances or make themselves heard, as they simply have better things to do with their time.
The Bible is not a book of Science
Most devout religious people don't think of the bible as a book of science. When they read the bible, most take it as a book of parables and histories, written down to help guide them when they have their own decisions to make. It's taken as a large literary work of wisdom from God. Take this from someone who has lived in this circle their entire life. There is the occasional zealot, or pack of zealots. But most devout, church-going, bible reading Catholics are not what you're used to seeing in the media. In fact, many of the ones I know are research scientists. They would never think of the bible as a book of science holding the secrets you suggest.
In fact the Jesuits (the largest male religious order in the Catholic
If someone stole your car, would you be upset if an anonymous stranger stole it back without your permission and delivered it to your door?
Nobody stole the computer. They just infected it. The majority of computers are still usable and the owners don't know they've been infected.
Car analogies break down.
Exactly! I recently moved back to Japan, looked for a new cellphone, and noticed the extremely limited choices of smartphones (about 5 out of 100 available phones).
There are 2 main phone carriers (Softbank and Docomo) and 1 less popular but still large option (AU). These links go directly to their current phone lineups (in English), so you can go to the source and see what they're selling today.
Softbank offers the iPhone and a Window's mobile phone. Docomo offers a Blackberry, a Google phone, and a Window's mobile phone. Other than that, I don't think any of those other phones are considered "smartphones".
Who invented the Time Machine?
Time Machine
the way in which humans do insurgent wars — that is, the number of casualties and the timing of events — is universal
Did anyone else find it ironic that human solidarity was found in acts against human solidarity?
Thank you. Reading responses like yours is one of the main reasons I troll these comments, and I really do appreciate it when someone more informed can point out when I make mistakes and give cogent explanations as to why.
The combination of the reliance on a computer model, the lack of what you described as gradualism, and the attention grabbing, catastrophic implications described gave me pause. That combination has given rise to a number of unreliable headlines lately. However, I'm excited that there seems to be a stronger foundation to this model, and I look forward to hearing more as they progress with their research.
Thanks again!
it is all based on observations made by rather imperfect human eyes
Don't confuse this with actual observation. It's far from it.
This "research" is little more than a computer game where the programmer puts in the physics of a closed environment, and plays with some numbers with a big incentive to get an impressive result in order to get published.
Computer models are the spam messages of complex science.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the science is even shakier than that.
The Mediterranean could easily have formed over tens of thousands of years (it says so in the article), but they're puzzled that there's a U-shaped sediment deposit instead of a the V-shape made by slow water erosion.
Glacial valleys are also U-shaped. Glaciers have covered that area many times over the last 5 million years.
Tectonic movement could also smooth out the normal V-shape of slower water erosion. All patches of earth are constantly rising, sinking, and/or moving horizontally. The middle of the V rising could explain the U. The sides of the V sinking or moving away from the center could also explain the U. Notice the mountainous areas around Spain and NW Africa. There is a tectonic plate boundary next it. There's been plenty of movement in that area over the last 5 million years.
Multiple rivers could also have broken into the Mediterranean and eventually carried off the bits of land in between, also explaining a U-shape, but over a longer period of time than the "2-year max" their simulation shows.
Here are 3 less exciting, but (as far as I can tell) plausible explanations. It could also be a mixture of these and/or other factors we haven't considered.
It looks like they simply chose one hypothesis that sounded impressive and made a computer simulation of it.
There has, to my knowledge, never been a platform or group of any appreciable size or influence that really wanted, as an end, to mess up the environment.
The Eco-Villains from Captain Planet
I think it's more like calling a brain surgeon, "medical staff", since that can apply to interns and support staff in the same way as IT.
You're right, but I also see his point.
At the very least we can stop at not knowing without inventing a fiction
That's basically what I was trying to say. You just put it more eloquently.
Everything else we observe in the world happens without any sign of divine intervention and can be explained by natural means
There are a few things that cannot be explained by natural means (depending on your definition of natural). Let's narrow it down and say there are a few things that cannot be explained by logical means. Infinity, 3 dimensional space, and Brownian motion are 3 examples. I'm not trying to suggest divine intervention, just that these do not fit neatly into any logic or natural cause and effect relationships.
... take this as a reason to (narrow down the possibilities of how the universe was created)" is what doesn't make sense.
From my understanding, Brownian motion can be proved to be random mathematically. Anything that is truly random sits outside the realm of logic, and yet by our observations, it is true.
You cannot have a tiniest bit of 3 dimensional matter. In order for it to have dimension it must have parts. In order for a 1 dimensional line to have length, it must have 3 points (2 terminal points and 1 in the middle). And if these points are truly points (dimensionless) they would occupy the same space, and the line would have no length. So a length must have parts that have length, which must also have parts that have length, etc.
We postulate infinity, and it holds true based on logic in geometry, mathematics, etc. But it too falls outside the realm of cause and effect.
These 3 things are illogical. Yet we observe them.
Maybe in the future, we'll be able to predict Brownian motion, find the smallest length (Planck?), see the edge of a finite universe and find that asymptotes don't extend to infinity, but jump to zero at a final point.
A 4th example of something defying logic is the beginning of existence, or that something always existed. It is an example of an "uncaused cause". The modern argument against Aristotle's "unmoved mover" is that we've observed particles being moved without any observable moving body. If it is truly not caused by anything, it has no rational explanation.
We observe Brownian motion, 3d space, infinity, and the universe on some level, so we believe they exist on some level. But we cannot use logical arguments to claim any knowledge of "how" they exist. The "how" is irrational.
Your logical arguments against your premise were sound. But the "I
You cannot logically argue, for or against, the reasons behind something that defies logic.
It could be said that to not believe in a creator is just as silly as believing in creator. There's no evidence from a time before our universe began. We have an educated guess of a centralized bang at the onset because our galaxies are moving away from a central location, but that's as far back as we can go.
A creator or creators of the matter and force environment that we inhabit does not need to be like the religious zealots define him/them.
You've formed a "belief" about how it all began (ie: with no creator). There's no tangible evidence for it. Just as there's no tangible evidence for a creator. There's nothing to observe from a time before matter and force existed. Any idea we formulate about it is not based on logic or observation.
One of the great things about science is the humility of "I don't know". It applies here.
There was a large demand to get to the "New World" to both flee persecution and make money. Many individuals, corporations, and governments could see a tangible opportunity worth the risk.
Few people want to flee Earth at the moment, and getting to Mars is still a rather poor monetary investment.
'If they imprint on these small systems, that becomes their frame of reference and what they're always thinking about,' said Jim Spohrer
That is SOOO true! I mean, I was brought up on my Commodore 64, and I have NO IDEA how to to contemplate petabytes of data! (What does that EVEN MEAN?!?) I still don't see why ANYONE would need more than 64kB of memory.
You just described Montessori schools.
For example: Montessori in Milwaukee Public Schools