So right there he's pretty much limited the challenge entirely to showmen and fame seekers, the traditional territory of con artists.
This requirement only came into play fairly recently. Originally, you just had to have a few letters from other people certifying that they didn't think you were nuts. They raised the bar after years of being buried in claims. Randi also pointed out that the people who really need to be debunked are the serious fraudsters on TV who use the media to get rich off of the gullible. I think the move makes sense.
Finally, there's the whole nature of the challenge itself. I can't say I've encountered anyone who I considered to be "psychic" in my estimation that gave a rat's ass about money, fame, or proving that they're not a fraud. I can't say why that is, but it just doesn't fit the personality type.
The problem here is that this essentially requires every real psychic to be uninterested. I can't imagine that the set of psychics and the set of people who don't mind testing their abilities to win $1M is completely disjoint, but this argument pretty much requires that to be true.
1. He's quite rude and derisive to people who attempt to apply, to the point where most people want nothing to do with him.
This seems to be true. He does appear to be pretty abrasive.
2. In his official rules, he states that only celebrities are eligible. (Look it up, be informed, and stop spreading misinformation.)
This only happened in the past year or so. The issue is that with $1M on the line and a lot of crazy people out there, they're inundated with applicants. The new rule essentially says, "If you do something amazing and get some press, we're willing to investigate." If you can't get into your local newspaper, you're probably not doing it right.
And so on....basically, Randi prefers to name call and rig any test beyond neutrality.
I'm not sure where you're getting this conclusion. Where was the attempt to "rig" the test? All I got out of it is that the proposition "Pear's cables are no better than any other decent cable" cannot be tested because Pear backed out. Not using cables from the claimant's own personal collection sounds like a reasonable precaution when $1M is at stake.
It does demonstrate that Randi is an abrasive dick, but I don't think that's much of a surprise. This example just seems like a reasonable inability of the two parties to come to an agreement and Randi being a jerk on top of it.
Tell that to an antenna designer. Free space DOES have definite electrical and magnetic properties. you can look that up here:
Interestingly, I was going to refer you to the very same article.
That makes free space a medium that affects electromagnetic energy propagation. I used to design antennas and tune them. Space has a characteristic impedance Z0. Any antenna is nothing more than an impedance matching device between an AC generator and free space.
All of which has nothing to do with the virtual particles. You're correct that light going through free space is simply a wave propagating through a dialectric medium, but virtual particles aren't part of the issue--you seem to be conflating the dialectric speed limit that a wave propagating through free space experiences with the polarization lag it experiences when it interacts with particles. The constant c is based on the former.
I strongly suggest you read at LEAST that referenced article.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the only place it's possible to find a full explanation of the principles you're invoking and how they change epsilon0 and mu0 on the scale you're suggesting is on some guy's web site. Your initial explanation read like a laundry list of potentially recognizable physics jargon designed to be dazzling, and it has all the hallmarks of an explanation written up by one of the countless physics cranks on the Internet.
Let's pretend for the moment that I understand physics well enough to hang with you. How, exactly, does this work? Where are the calculations? If your assumptions are true, what would we expect to see in the universe around us (aside from the tidy validation of a young Earth biblical timeline)?
Wishing something to come true and actually accomplishing it are two very different things.
Is it, really, if the goal is "take over this land" and accomplishing it is an open ended task to be accomplished by generations of people over the course of centuries?
Some people think, if it had not been for the World War II Holocaust, there would not have been enough sympathy for these people, among those with power over that piece of real estate would have permitted an independent Israeli state.
I'm inclined to agree with them.
The history of how all this came about as well-documented for you to study if you feel so inclined.
How generous.
The other prophecy I mentioned, the controversy over the city of Jerusalem is also not vague, but very definite. Jerusalem and the Israeli control over it is a big thorn in the hide of the Muslim world. There really is a justified fear, that a war over this issue is a distinct possibility.
Which also is not especially surprising in light of the fact that the "take over this land" part of the prophecy was fulfilled and that there were people living on that land.
Up until the coming of the computer age, scholars scratched their heads over a prophecy written in the last book of the Bible. They could not figure out, how a person could be prevented from buying or selling, unless a person had some sort of identifying mark on or in their body. Mankind now has the technology to eliminate cash and by means of modern digital systems track every person and every penny that everybody spends. This sort of thing was not even imagined by John the apostle or anyone else that lived in those days. We are well into the beginnings of such a system. Try to rent a car, fly in an airplane or rent a room in a hotel without that little plastic card. Try to get a job or send in your tax return without your Social Security number.
So you're suggesting that the Bible predicts the emergence of social security numbers?
When the Universe was young, its entropy and the number virtual particles was very small. Entropy of the universe as a whole is still increasing, but much more slowly. A photon is absorbed and re-emitted when it collides with a virtual particle. The more such virtual particles there are, the more such absorptions and re-emissions take place. Each of these takes a quantum of time, a tiny but finite amount of time. Thus, the speed of light through the medium of space can be and was much faster when there were fewer such virtual particles encountered than today.
This argument gets more and more sophisticated looking every time I see it, but it's basically an obfuscatory way of saying that the medium has changed, so the speed of light within the medium has changed. I'm sorry, but this is simply not a correct interpretation of c. The value of c is the speed of light in free space, not the average speed of light as it passes through a medium. Free space is not the same as a medium. This is very basic undergraduate physics, so whoever is making this argument is not, and probably should not be doing "cutting edge" research. Any calculations done based on this assumption would be nonsense.
I'm not sure what to make of the biblical prophecies. Most of what you mentioned seems to be prophecies written in the book that came true in the book. We're evaluating the validity of the Bible by noting that prophecies it claims to contain also supposedly came true. I cannot say that the Jews returning to Jerusalem is a particularly surprising result. As you pointed out, they've spent centuries trying to make the prophecy come true. It's a bit like me telling somebody who works for me to do something and then rejoicing that the prophecy has been fulfilled when he succeeds.
Ok, start listing the evidence for macro-evolution then. I am a creationist but I also believe in micro-evolution which accounts for differentiation amongst members of the same species. However, I don't believe in macro-evolution which states that one specie can change into another specie.
OK, let's try this: By all appearances, there was a time when there were dinosaurs but no rabbits. At some point along the line, we got rabbits. Where did the rabbits come from?
The bare-bones scientific fact is that we observe radioactive decay. We observe, that elements that decay in this manner exhibit a characteristic time in which half of a given pile of such an element is transformed. This is termed its half-life.
You're painting this picture as if we don't have any idea how radioactive decay happens and that its simply assumed that it's constant. The constancy of relevant radioactive decay rates is a consequence of both theory and observation, not simply looking at piles of radioactive material and saying, "Well, isn't that neat?" There are a few relevant facts that this ignores:
1) There are different types of radioactive decay. Suggestions of physical phenomena that affect one type do not necessarily affect others. If you can come up with a neat way to make one type of decay "break", you'll still have to explain how your phenomenon affects the others.
2) Decay rates can be derived from quantum mechanics, not just observation. The fact that those calculations match with observation is telling--it strongly supports the mathematics behind them. If quantum mechanics as we understand it is true, tweaking decay rates would change the decay rates of different isotopes differently. I know of no evidence that actually supports this having happened.
3) Observing certain natural phenomena (e.g. supernovae) give us insight into decay rates in the past.
This is much more than a shot in the dark. If you really want to suggest significant changes in half lives, especially changes that make the universe look significantly younger, there is a lot of explaining to do.
To enable an object to be dated by this method, two things have to be known. The first is, how big was the pile of atoms when the radioactive decay began. The second is, how fast the radioactive clock ticks. We can measure this one easily enough.
This is not true for all methods. Isochron dating methods such as Pb/Pb do not require the initial quantity. I would be interested in your explanation for the collinearity and slope of the points in the first graph on this page. There is a very parsimonious explanation that syncs up with our known physics and understanding of the universe quite well: the asteroids in question are about 4.55 billion years old.
There is evidence, that the so-called "constants" which govern the atomic behavior, including radioactive decay are not at all invariant.
Such as?
The intrinsic properties of space MUST affect these constants, so they are no longer constant. The properties of space itself have changed many orders of magnitude in a highly non-linear manner, over the time the universe has been in existence.
I'm very interested in a clearer explanation of this and how it applies to decay rates.
Some of this in advance written history, called prophecy, is re-told in today's newspapers and the nightly news on CNN.
I'm also interested in this. In my experience, prophecies only seem obvious in retrospect. If you're willing to apply the same standards to all post-hoc prophecies, I suspect that you'll find a surprising number of divine prophets.
The problem with this suggestion is that the Obama camp, glass house and all, has been hammering the Palin pick on the basis of experience. Heartbeat away and all that.
I see that as a misstep. As I see it, the sensible thing to do would have been to say, "I think that John McCain has acknowledged that policy and ability are what matter, not years of experience in office," and move on to other things.
Then again, I think that if McCain had not nullified the experience argument, he likely could have scared Americans into voting for him in November. We Americans talk a good game about hating the way the government is run and wanting to teach them a lesson by electing the new upstart to shake things up. The reality though, is that come November, we live in a scary world and enough people will flock back to whoever promises to make them feel safe that the "unknown quantity" will have a hard time making it.
"I may have supported all the stuff that you guys are pissed off about, but you know me and I make you feel safe. I'm weathered and manly and this guy is just a kid," probably would have worked. That message is badly diluted if you have to append, "and if something happens to me, I'll hand your safety over to somebody who has no more experience than that other guy."
The absence of theism is not an absence of faith. For that you want agnosticism. Atheists require faith to believe that there is no God, and nothing else outside their perceived world. In reality, this viewpoint requires more faith than any religion, because all religions offer "proof" that they are true. Not so for atheism.
Person A: "I believe that 499,999 of the 500,000 religions out there are false. I reject their evidence. I accept one of the 500,000 religions, mainly because {I accept their evidence, I had a religious experience, My parents raised me that way, It makes me feel good, etc.}."
Person B: "I agree with person A about the first 499,999 religions. I also think that because the evidence for the 500,000th one looks a whole lot like the other 499,999 {It makes claims that are hard to reconcile with observed fact, Provides no real hard evidence to distinguish it from other ridiculous sounding stories, etc.}, I don't believe in that one either."
Person B is, by your definition, exercising more faith than person A? As I see it, all of those religions offer insufficient "proof" that they are true in the face of the incredibility of their claims, so I reject them.
If I claim that God exists and created us three days ago with memories intact, and the evidence that I offer is what appears to be the face of Barry Bonds on a piece of toast, does it take more faith to reject that claim or to accept it? Or is the only rational option to reserve judgment?
As Mark Twain, a disbeliever once said: "I don't have trouble with the parts of the Bible I don't understand, but the parts of the Bible I do understand very well, but do not wish to be obedient to".
Speaking of different versions of historical text, I don't think that I've ever seen a version of that Mark Twain quote with the clause in bold on the end of it.
Ok. So, is what you're saying is that evolution does not have to produce a new species but it explains why there are different species?
I've never heard it phrased that way, but that's a pretty good way of putting it. Evolution is simply the process of changes to the genepool over time. It produces gradual changes that are selected for or against and eventually results in significant changes overall. The first link I presented was an example of the mechanisms and process of evolution in action.
I still stand by my point that the E. coli strains are still the same, basic specie - which is ultimately where evolution started its definition: as an explanation of the origin of species.
There's the rub: What objective, concrete standards are you using to define species? This is not an easy game to play in this case, and it's one that usually results in significant goalpost shifting. We know that evolution is occurring--we're watching it. We can see the mechanisms at work. The theory of evolution states that over a long time, huge changes are possible. You seem to be suggesting that this is not the case. What phenomenon prevents a lot of little changes from adding up to large changes?
However, at the conclusion of cited observations the organism has changed in DNA - but not enough to make it grow flagella or become a multicelled organism or etc. The fact that these changed organisms can be reverted back shows that at their core they have not changed.
What do you mean by "at their core"? They've clearly changed. Their DNA is different and they behave differently. What immutable characteristic are you pointing to, and how would you expect it to change if evolutionary theory, as you see it, was correct?
A possible parallel is the skin differences in Humans - they can still bread with one another - they can share blood and organs: at their core they are still the same and able to adapt to many environments.
Humans and apes share practically all of their DNA and most physiological characteristics. The tiny differences in their DNA work out to make them very different organisms, at least from the perspective of humans. How close do two species need to be before you'd consider them the "same thing" by your definition?
One example of human adaptability is that of the Peruvian and Bolivian Indians living around lake Titicaca - (I've heard that) it takes a few generations for people to adapt to the high altitude - that over each generation the lungs grow larger and thus the chest cavity. But at their core, they are still Human - but I bet their genome is different than most other Human's.
I suspect that you're right. The question, though, is why are you proposing a barrier along the continuum of changes? Somewhere between "no changes at all" and "huge changes between species" you're suggesting that there's a barrier that can't be overcome. Why are you suggesting that? What leads you to believe it?
The fact that we haven't observed changes on the large scale that you appear to be suggesting follows from the amount of time they'd take. We've never seen Pluto orbit the sun, but based on known principles and observation of some of Pluto's path, we know with a high degree of certainty that it does.
When you ask for a change from one species to another, you're asking for a line to be drawn on a continuum. For example, let's look at a rainbow. You ask me where red becomes orange. I can draw a line. You then look at the colors immediately opposite the line and say, "Those are barely different at all! In fact, they're less different than these two colors here that are both clearly red!" Of course. That's the nature of moving along a continuous gradient. That doesn't change the fact that moving along the rainbow, you'll eventually transition between "definitely red" and "definitely orange." Any attempt to mark the transition point will seem arbitrary, but it happened.
If that's true, then why should Sarah Palin frighten you? Have you seen any policy statements from her office that would imply she favored limiting the teaching of science in school?
My problem with the position is a reflexive one: The people who most want to push mythology into science classrooms have resorted to the "teach the controversy" gambit (and to a lesser degree, the "why can't we at least have a debate?" gambit), so it's difficult to tell who legitimately cares about reasoned discussion and who simply wants the green light to authoritatively spout creationist canards in the classroom.
If people really want a reasoned discussion of creationism in the science classroom, it's a tough line to walk. Doing it in a way that preserves the scientific method and reinforces scientific principles is likely to be outright offensive to everybody from vague intelligent design proponents to biblical literalists. Working on pure facts and observations tends to crush most concrete creation hypotheses--enough so that it would probably look even more like public schools were "selling atheism" than creationists claim now. Rigging the game so that creationist hypotheses don't get a serious drubbing does nothing to serve science education. In fact, it tends to reinforce the idea that empiricism isn't important and that the occasional appeal to magic is OK in science.
I can't see how such a discussion would be implemented. It seems more sensible just to stick with the established science and ignore the fact that this particular established science upsets some people.
In short, when I hear, "They should teach both!" the "Stealth creationist!" alarm bell rings in my head. Frankly, I don't see a lot of evidence that Palin is one of those. I think that she's just a politician trying to please the religious base. I'm sure she'd ahve straight biblical creation taught if she thought she could, but I don't believe it's really part of her agenda. All this does is expose the fact that she's not particularly scientifically inclined--hardly something that singles her out among politicians.
There's your problem. If the choice is between spending some tax money and having the pharmaceutical industry "fail" at producing the cures we want, I'm going to lean toward the former.
The bottom line is that basic research has huge positive externalities, especially relative to the immediate direct value of the research. The free market will underproduce basic research as a result. We can either cope with that loss in the name of ideological market-driven purity or we can acknowledge that we're all better off if we kick in some money to pay for the externalities that we all benefit from.
Sorry, I must have missed the memo where Palin was running for President.
You're kidding, right? You do know what the Vice President's job is, right?
John McCain just said, "If I'm on my deathbed, I will apoint Sarah Palin President of the United States. I would choose her above all others to hand they keys to the USA over to." There's no way around that.
Experimentally verify any of the following hypotheses as false, and you've falsified creationism.
The problem isn't with those hypotheses as you've formulated them. The point where creation science ceases to be science is the point where they start appealing to magic to explain away the problems with your testable hypotheses. For example, an explanation for the slope and collinearity of the points in the the top figure here would be required for the "young earth" hypothesis to remain valid. If there is no compelling explanation, or the explanation amounts to "a magic being wanted it to be that way", you're pretty much sunk as a scientific hypothesis.
I'm with you. I'm all for playing the "let's test creationism" game as loudly and publicly as possible. Once they start appealing to magic or simply ignoring devastating points, though, I'm taking my ball and going home.
Your example does not show the change of one specie into another. THAT is what Evolution is - not your example of adaptive (to diet) changes.
I'm sorry. I didn't realize that you were working with your own private definition of the word evolution. I'll try to be more careful.
Genetic change in humans can be as simple as children being better looking than their parents. This doesn't make them another species (though some parents might believe their children are another species for other reasons).
The word you're probably looking for is "speciation" in this case. If that's what you're looking for, start here. If you disagree, you should start by providing a very clear definition of what you're looking for and why you think we should observe it if evolutionary theory is true.
It seems the scientist who described the observed adaptations are stuck on proving Evolution instead of understanding the (adaptive) capacities of a species and have thus credited Evolution for what what is merely the natural ability of the E. coli specie.
You don't "credit evolution" for changes in genes over time. Evolution is changes in genes over time. You're going to have to share your definition of evolution with the rest of us, because it's really not apparent from your posts.
I would say it's far more important for the President to be ready to be President than the person next in line to be President.
I wouldn't go so far as to say "far more" but "more" is definitely reasonable. My point is simply this: when a person picks a Vice President, he is saying, "If I'm on my deathbed, I will choose this person over every other person in the world to hand the keys over to." If McCain has said that he would appoint Palin to the Presidency on his deathbead, I think it's time for the McCain campaign to shut the fuck up about experience.
As for qualifications, executive experience is far more useful than legislative experience. This is one of the reasons why governors have tended to outperform senators in Presidential elections.
Significant executive experience may be more important than significant legislative experience, but I'd hesitate to say that Palin or Obama has either. I don't think that it's worth reading too much in the fact that governors outperform senators in elections. All that really says to me is that governors are better than senators at getting elected (not exactly a surprising fact).
Really what it boils down to, strictly Palin vs Obama, is which one is more in line with your core principals. Arguing whether or not 3 years in the Senate vs 2 years as Governor is more significant is splitting hairs.
I'll buy that. Frankly, the "experience" gambit has always seemed ridiculous to me. Every major candidate this time around is highly accomplished and probably fairly bright. Their policy positions are clear and they all have track records that speak to their judgment. If I don't know anything about the candidate, I'm all for going with the more seasoned candidate, but that's about it. Getting to the final round of this election tells me that you're a savvy enough politician. All I care about now is what you would do if elected.
He doesn't have a whole lot of experience. Either does Palin. But then, Palin isn't running for the top spot.
I'm not going to call either one of them seasoned politicians, but don't you think that it might be good for the person next in line to be President be... well... ready to be President? Especially when the President is an older gentleman?
Anybody from the McCain camp who wants to point the finger at Obama not being experienced enough to be President needs to think long and hard about whether it's any wiser to hire an equally "unqualified" understudy.
The funny thing is that Dan Quayle is an extremely intelligent person, he just had one major blunder and was crucified for it.
I'm sure that Quayle is quite a bit more intelligent than people gave him credit for, but he had a pretty impressive number of superbly stupid sounding quotes. Every politician has a few, but Quayle seems remarkably overrepresented.
Some people just aren't very good at talking off the cuff. I'm sure that we can all think of at least one other recent politician with the same problem.
It's a total lie. Haven't you noticed? In the 1980s, we were told that terrorism would stop if we just talked to the them. Well, it didn't. Then we were told that terrorism would stop if we just recognized the them, and it didn't. Then, well, if we just gave the them a country, then, they would stop, and they didn't. In an case you haven't noticed, EVERYTHING is a provocation to the Islamic world and no matter what we do, its always going to be a provocation and an excuse for terrorism right up until they turn the entire planet into a Caliphate.
I'm seriously wondering what actual historical examples you're thinking of. "Gave them a country"? Who is them? What country? WTF?
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This requirement only came into play fairly recently. Originally, you just had to have a few letters from other people certifying that they didn't think you were nuts. They raised the bar after years of being buried in claims. Randi also pointed out that the people who really need to be debunked are the serious fraudsters on TV who use the media to get rich off of the gullible. I think the move makes sense.
The problem here is that this essentially requires every real psychic to be uninterested. I can't imagine that the set of psychics and the set of people who don't mind testing their abilities to win $1M is completely disjoint, but this argument pretty much requires that to be true.
This seems to be true. He does appear to be pretty abrasive.
This only happened in the past year or so. The issue is that with $1M on the line and a lot of crazy people out there, they're inundated with applicants. The new rule essentially says, "If you do something amazing and get some press, we're willing to investigate." If you can't get into your local newspaper, you're probably not doing it right.
I'm not sure where you're getting this conclusion. Where was the attempt to "rig" the test? All I got out of it is that the proposition "Pear's cables are no better than any other decent cable" cannot be tested because Pear backed out. Not using cables from the claimant's own personal collection sounds like a reasonable precaution when $1M is at stake.
It does demonstrate that Randi is an abrasive dick, but I don't think that's much of a surprise. This example just seems like a reasonable inability of the two parties to come to an agreement and Randi being a jerk on top of it.
Stephen Hawking writes on a computer.
Interestingly, I was going to refer you to the very same article.
All of which has nothing to do with the virtual particles. You're correct that light going through free space is simply a wave propagating through a dialectric medium, but virtual particles aren't part of the issue--you seem to be conflating the dialectric speed limit that a wave propagating through free space experiences with the polarization lag it experiences when it interacts with particles. The constant c is based on the former.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the only place it's possible to find a full explanation of the principles you're invoking and how they change epsilon0 and mu0 on the scale you're suggesting is on some guy's web site. Your initial explanation read like a laundry list of potentially recognizable physics jargon designed to be dazzling, and it has all the hallmarks of an explanation written up by one of the countless physics cranks on the Internet.
Let's pretend for the moment that I understand physics well enough to hang with you. How, exactly, does this work? Where are the calculations? If your assumptions are true, what would we expect to see in the universe around us (aside from the tidy validation of a young Earth biblical timeline)?
Is it, really, if the goal is "take over this land" and accomplishing it is an open ended task to be accomplished by generations of people over the course of centuries?
I'm inclined to agree with them.
How generous.
Which also is not especially surprising in light of the fact that the "take over this land" part of the prophecy was fulfilled and that there were people living on that land.
So you're suggesting that the Bible predicts the emergence of social security numbers?
This argument gets more and more sophisticated looking every time I see it, but it's basically an obfuscatory way of saying that the medium has changed, so the speed of light within the medium has changed. I'm sorry, but this is simply not a correct interpretation of c. The value of c is the speed of light in free space, not the average speed of light as it passes through a medium. Free space is not the same as a medium. This is very basic undergraduate physics, so whoever is making this argument is not, and probably should not be doing "cutting edge" research. Any calculations done based on this assumption would be nonsense.
I'm not sure what to make of the biblical prophecies. Most of what you mentioned seems to be prophecies written in the book that came true in the book. We're evaluating the validity of the Bible by noting that prophecies it claims to contain also supposedly came true. I cannot say that the Jews returning to Jerusalem is a particularly surprising result. As you pointed out, they've spent centuries trying to make the prophecy come true. It's a bit like me telling somebody who works for me to do something and then rejoicing that the prophecy has been fulfilled when he succeeds.
OK, let's try this: By all appearances, there was a time when there were dinosaurs but no rabbits. At some point along the line, we got rabbits. Where did the rabbits come from?
I hear all of those guys were against quantum mechanics and relativity too.
In fact, I hear that Newton didn't refrigerate dairy products. Oh, the folly of modern ways.
You're painting this picture as if we don't have any idea how radioactive decay happens and that its simply assumed that it's constant. The constancy of relevant radioactive decay rates is a consequence of both theory and observation, not simply looking at piles of radioactive material and saying, "Well, isn't that neat?" There are a few relevant facts that this ignores:
1) There are different types of radioactive decay. Suggestions of physical phenomena that affect one type do not necessarily affect others. If you can come up with a neat way to make one type of decay "break", you'll still have to explain how your phenomenon affects the others.
2) Decay rates can be derived from quantum mechanics, not just observation. The fact that those calculations match with observation is telling--it strongly supports the mathematics behind them. If quantum mechanics as we understand it is true, tweaking decay rates would change the decay rates of different isotopes differently. I know of no evidence that actually supports this having happened.
3) Observing certain natural phenomena (e.g. supernovae) give us insight into decay rates in the past.
This is much more than a shot in the dark. If you really want to suggest significant changes in half lives, especially changes that make the universe look significantly younger, there is a lot of explaining to do.
This is not true for all methods. Isochron dating methods such as Pb/Pb do not require the initial quantity. I would be interested in your explanation for the collinearity and slope of the points in the first graph on this page. There is a very parsimonious explanation that syncs up with our known physics and understanding of the universe quite well: the asteroids in question are about 4.55 billion years old.
Such as?
I'm very interested in a clearer explanation of this and how it applies to decay rates.
I'm also interested in this. In my experience, prophecies only seem obvious in retrospect. If you're willing to apply the same standards to all post-hoc prophecies, I suspect that you'll find a surprising number of divine prophets.
I see that as a misstep. As I see it, the sensible thing to do would have been to say, "I think that John McCain has acknowledged that policy and ability are what matter, not years of experience in office," and move on to other things.
Then again, I think that if McCain had not nullified the experience argument, he likely could have scared Americans into voting for him in November. We Americans talk a good game about hating the way the government is run and wanting to teach them a lesson by electing the new upstart to shake things up. The reality though, is that come November, we live in a scary world and enough people will flock back to whoever promises to make them feel safe that the "unknown quantity" will have a hard time making it.
"I may have supported all the stuff that you guys are pissed off about, but you know me and I make you feel safe. I'm weathered and manly and this guy is just a kid," probably would have worked. That message is badly diluted if you have to append, "and if something happens to me, I'll hand your safety over to somebody who has no more experience than that other guy."
One solution to that problem might be not holding on to a belief that flies in the face of observable reality.
Person A: "I believe that 499,999 of the 500,000 religions out there are false. I reject their evidence. I accept one of the 500,000 religions, mainly because {I accept their evidence, I had a religious experience, My parents raised me that way, It makes me feel good, etc.}."
Person B: "I agree with person A about the first 499,999 religions. I also think that because the evidence for the 500,000th one looks a whole lot like the other 499,999 {It makes claims that are hard to reconcile with observed fact, Provides no real hard evidence to distinguish it from other ridiculous sounding stories, etc.}, I don't believe in that one either."
Person B is, by your definition, exercising more faith than person A? As I see it, all of those religions offer insufficient "proof" that they are true in the face of the incredibility of their claims, so I reject them.
If I claim that God exists and created us three days ago with memories intact, and the evidence that I offer is what appears to be the face of Barry Bonds on a piece of toast, does it take more faith to reject that claim or to accept it? Or is the only rational option to reserve judgment?
Speaking of different versions of historical text, I don't think that I've ever seen a version of that Mark Twain quote with the clause in bold on the end of it.
I've never heard it phrased that way, but that's a pretty good way of putting it. Evolution is simply the process of changes to the genepool over time. It produces gradual changes that are selected for or against and eventually results in significant changes overall. The first link I presented was an example of the mechanisms and process of evolution in action.
There's the rub: What objective, concrete standards are you using to define species? This is not an easy game to play in this case, and it's one that usually results in significant goalpost shifting. We know that evolution is occurring--we're watching it. We can see the mechanisms at work. The theory of evolution states that over a long time, huge changes are possible. You seem to be suggesting that this is not the case. What phenomenon prevents a lot of little changes from adding up to large changes?
What do you mean by "at their core"? They've clearly changed. Their DNA is different and they behave differently. What immutable characteristic are you pointing to, and how would you expect it to change if evolutionary theory, as you see it, was correct?
Humans and apes share practically all of their DNA and most physiological characteristics. The tiny differences in their DNA work out to make them very different organisms, at least from the perspective of humans. How close do two species need to be before you'd consider them the "same thing" by your definition?
I suspect that you're right. The question, though, is why are you proposing a barrier along the continuum of changes? Somewhere between "no changes at all" and "huge changes between species" you're suggesting that there's a barrier that can't be overcome. Why are you suggesting that? What leads you to believe it?
The fact that we haven't observed changes on the large scale that you appear to be suggesting follows from the amount of time they'd take. We've never seen Pluto orbit the sun, but based on known principles and observation of some of Pluto's path, we know with a high degree of certainty that it does.
When you ask for a change from one species to another, you're asking for a line to be drawn on a continuum. For example, let's look at a rainbow. You ask me where red becomes orange. I can draw a line. You then look at the colors immediately opposite the line and say, "Those are barely different at all! In fact, they're less different than these two colors here that are both clearly red!" Of course. That's the nature of moving along a continuous gradient. That doesn't change the fact that moving along the rainbow, you'll eventually transition between "definitely red" and "definitely orange." Any attempt to mark the transition point will seem arbitrary, but it happened.
My problem with the position is a reflexive one: The people who most want to push mythology into science classrooms have resorted to the "teach the controversy" gambit (and to a lesser degree, the "why can't we at least have a debate?" gambit), so it's difficult to tell who legitimately cares about reasoned discussion and who simply wants the green light to authoritatively spout creationist canards in the classroom.
If people really want a reasoned discussion of creationism in the science classroom, it's a tough line to walk. Doing it in a way that preserves the scientific method and reinforces scientific principles is likely to be outright offensive to everybody from vague intelligent design proponents to biblical literalists. Working on pure facts and observations tends to crush most concrete creation hypotheses--enough so that it would probably look even more like public schools were "selling atheism" than creationists claim now. Rigging the game so that creationist hypotheses don't get a serious drubbing does nothing to serve science education. In fact, it tends to reinforce the idea that empiricism isn't important and that the occasional appeal to magic is OK in science.
I can't see how such a discussion would be implemented. It seems more sensible just to stick with the established science and ignore the fact that this particular established science upsets some people.
In short, when I hear, "They should teach both!" the "Stealth creationist!" alarm bell rings in my head. Frankly, I don't see a lot of evidence that Palin is one of those. I think that she's just a politician trying to please the religious base. I'm sure she'd ahve straight biblical creation taught if she thought she could, but I don't believe it's really part of her agenda. All this does is expose the fact that she's not particularly scientifically inclined--hardly something that singles her out among politicians.
There's your problem. If the choice is between spending some tax money and having the pharmaceutical industry "fail" at producing the cures we want, I'm going to lean toward the former.
The bottom line is that basic research has huge positive externalities, especially relative to the immediate direct value of the research. The free market will underproduce basic research as a result. We can either cope with that loss in the name of ideological market-driven purity or we can acknowledge that we're all better off if we kick in some money to pay for the externalities that we all benefit from.
You're kidding, right? You do know what the Vice President's job is, right?
John McCain just said, "If I'm on my deathbed, I will apoint Sarah Palin President of the United States. I would choose her above all others to hand they keys to the USA over to." There's no way around that.
The problem isn't with those hypotheses as you've formulated them. The point where creation science ceases to be science is the point where they start appealing to magic to explain away the problems with your testable hypotheses. For example, an explanation for the slope and collinearity of the points in the the top figure here would be required for the "young earth" hypothesis to remain valid. If there is no compelling explanation, or the explanation amounts to "a magic being wanted it to be that way", you're pretty much sunk as a scientific hypothesis.
I'm with you. I'm all for playing the "let's test creationism" game as loudly and publicly as possible. Once they start appealing to magic or simply ignoring devastating points, though, I'm taking my ball and going home.
I'm sorry. I didn't realize that you were working with your own private definition of the word evolution. I'll try to be more careful.
The word you're probably looking for is "speciation" in this case. If that's what you're looking for, start here. If you disagree, you should start by providing a very clear definition of what you're looking for and why you think we should observe it if evolutionary theory is true.
You don't "credit evolution" for changes in genes over time. Evolution is changes in genes over time. You're going to have to share your definition of evolution with the rest of us, because it's really not apparent from your posts.
I wouldn't go so far as to say "far more" but "more" is definitely reasonable. My point is simply this: when a person picks a Vice President, he is saying, "If I'm on my deathbed, I will choose this person over every other person in the world to hand the keys over to." If McCain has said that he would appoint Palin to the Presidency on his deathbead, I think it's time for the McCain campaign to shut the fuck up about experience.
Significant executive experience may be more important than significant legislative experience, but I'd hesitate to say that Palin or Obama has either. I don't think that it's worth reading too much in the fact that governors outperform senators in elections. All that really says to me is that governors are better than senators at getting elected (not exactly a surprising fact).
I'll buy that. Frankly, the "experience" gambit has always seemed ridiculous to me. Every major candidate this time around is highly accomplished and probably fairly bright. Their policy positions are clear and they all have track records that speak to their judgment. If I don't know anything about the candidate, I'm all for going with the more seasoned candidate, but that's about it. Getting to the final round of this election tells me that you're a savvy enough politician. All I care about now is what you would do if elected.
I can't think of many political moves that are designed to woo intelligent, thoughtful people.
I'm not going to call either one of them seasoned politicians, but don't you think that it might be good for the person next in line to be President be... well... ready to be President? Especially when the President is an older gentleman?
Anybody from the McCain camp who wants to point the finger at Obama not being experienced enough to be President needs to think long and hard about whether it's any wiser to hire an equally "unqualified" understudy.
I'm sure that Quayle is quite a bit more intelligent than people gave him credit for, but he had a pretty impressive number of superbly stupid sounding quotes. Every politician has a few, but Quayle seems remarkably overrepresented.
Some people just aren't very good at talking off the cuff. I'm sure that we can all think of at least one other recent politician with the same problem.
Yes.
I'm seriously wondering what actual historical examples you're thinking of. "Gave them a country"? Who is them? What country? WTF?