> Good thing to know that if downtown New York got bombed, and thousands of people died, nobody would want to know if someone was plotting another attack like that.
Good to know that you don't think freedom is worth dying for.
Too bad about all those who died for nothing over the centuries.
> That is one of the most incredibly dimiwitted thought processes Ive seen in...well, seen today. If a global pandemic killed off 99% of the population it would also kill off at LEAST 99% of a companies consumers for their other products.
Unfortunately, the company's policy will be based on its impact on the next quarterly report.
Companies aren't going to be any more forward-thinking about this than they are about investment in R&D, impoverishment of the middle class, or destruction of the environment.
> oseltamivir (the real name of TamiFlu) is a viral inhibitor which helps protect cells. It does not work like some antibiotics which (often) actually kill the harmful agent.
Clarification: antibiotics don't kill viruses at all. They're only good for bacterial infections.
Sinusitis, URI, pneumonia, septic wound: take antibiotics.
Influenza or other virus: get a vaccination, get one of those new anti-virals, or treat the symptoms and tough it out.
> Sadder yet, an asterisk should be attached to the Dover event. Since the Dover voters have already thrown out the school board that started the issue, and the new board is quite happy with the decision, there will be no appeal. That means it will not go to a higher court, which in turn means the decision will have little or no precedential effect outside its jurisdiction.
But the exhaustive findings of fact will be available to the next court that has to waste time on the subject.
> True - but all the money it gets and the research it does result in the same thing - nothing.
Oh, the money produces lots of stuff, such as a continuous stream of new books rehashing the same nonsense and speaking tours where these scientists explain their latest research to church groups.
>...from the article: "Not even the US President, George Bush, could ignore the historic hurricane season in the north Atlantic this year." - heh, heh, heh....
> I feel the unmasking of the fake results posted by Woo Suk Hwang could be a blessing for science, and one of the years highlights. It could be portrayed as why science works, although the community requires a basis of trust, eventually frauds will be revealed, hopefully creating more trust in the system.
The response of scientists to the revelation of this liar among their number certainly makes an interesting contrast to the response of proponents of Intelligent Design to the the revelation of liars among their number, which was also big news this week.
> I can't help thinking this decision is politically-motivated. Doesn't mean it's not deserved, but it sure is convenient, coming on the heels of the ID court decision.
Take it as a sign that after the Discovery Institute has been pushing their pseudoscience in the public arena for a decade, scientists are finally starting to push back.
It would be better if they didn't need to, but they do, so IMO this is a good sign.
> Evolution, having replaced "God did it" with "Random Chance did it" is particularily bad at this
You just tole everyone you don't have the first clue about how evolution works.
> as is the claim that ID is not science because of some incredibly arbitrary and subjective rules about who is a scientist and what a science is.
Should we take Behe's suggestion and redefine science to include ID -- and astrology?
> BTW, it has nothing at all to do with creationism
Yeah, that's why the authors of Of Pandas and People used "designer" as a plug-in replacement for "creator".
And it's also why the Dover defendents are now falling down and crying "religious persecution!"
> the type of ID we're talking about takes a given the scientific age of the earth at about 4 billion years and the latest age of the universe at 19.3 billion years. Creationists peg the entire shebang at much less than that- around 6000 years or so.
Actually, the leading proponents of ID are all over the map regarding the age of the earth and the universe. You should look up the transcripts of the recent Texas textbook hearings and see how the YECs among them squirmed and tried to avoid the question when asked how old they thought the earth is.
> > I submit for your viewing pleasure the underwater rocks of Bimini.
> Another great example is the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, which looks for all the world like it's been carved or purposely laid down in a particular pattern (but of course, hasn't)
> It's interesting to me that this whole thing has become a religious debate.
It's interesting to me that the people who until a few days ago were pretending ID wasn't religion are now claiming that they're victims of religious persecution and that separation of church and state is a bad legal doctrine, and a whole chorus of religious organizations is joining in.
> But you should be embarrassed to compare the state of your field with a mathematician or a physicist. I am not saying life is too cool for evolution. I am saying biologists use the notion of evolution without understanding deeply what it really is.
> Saying that biologists have a lack of rigor is something you're going to have to back up with mountains of evidence.
A googling for "mathematical biology" (with the quotes) turns up 558,000 hits - ten times what "mathematical linguistics" turns up. (Without the quotes it goes up to 21 million hits.) Just the first page should dispell any notion that biology is lacking in this area:
Society for Mathematical Biology Home Page
Centre for Mathematical Biology, University of Oxford
Mathematical Biology Homepage
Mathematical Biology Sites
Elsevier.com - Bulletin of Mathematical Biology
SpringerLink - Publication (Journal of Mathematical Biology)
Center for Cancer Research Nanobiology Program (CCRNP) (Formerly the Laboratory of Mathematical Biology (LMMB))
"biology equation" (without the quotes) gives 3,680,000. "biology math", 25,400,000. There's also a brief Wikipedia article on Mathematical biology, with some links and literature.
Also, my personal experience with biologists is that they know lots of abstruse statistical methods as basic trade skills. ("biology statistics", no quotes, 35,900,000.)
All that to the side, saying that phyisics is rigorous and biology is sloppy is just penis swizzling. Physics, chemisty, biology, geology, meteorology, etc. are all legitimate sciences, and use the type and amount of mathematics that is appropriate to the phenomena they study. Focusing on mathematics as the measure of a science is as arbitrary as focusing on the number of Antarctic bases would be.
> What you are outlining is the Anthropic Principle, which is a tautology. Certainly, the odds are against such a confluence of good fortune, but if physical property X did vary from what we observe, we would not be around to observe it. Thus, the odds of such a confluence of good fortune rise from infinitesimal to 1:1.
More technically, the a posteriori probability is 1.
Also, we don't have the faintest idea what the a priori probability was. We don't even know what the independent parameters of the universe are, let alone what their various probability distributions were. (For that matter, if there is in fact only one universe, does the question of "possible" values for a physical constant even make sense?)
It simply isn't possible - today - to calculate the a priori odds that the universe AWKI would exist. Anyone who offers a probability argument against it is not only offering an argument from incredulity, but an argument from incredulity based on completely made up numbers.
And as if that isn't enough... Most of the universe is hard vacuum, so it's clearly "designed" for space ghosts. We should be arguing about the probability that a universe would be hospitable to space ghosts; humans are just parasites taking advantage of an extremely small corner not useful to the space ghosts.
> Of course, the current battle over Intelligent Design in schools isn't even really over religion, though many of the footsoldiers are lead to believe it is. There are people who are afraid that they (and their successors) will loose their current power if American Children are well educated on scientific topics. They want children to be raised ignorant of scientific knowledge so they will always have a supply of pawns to mobilize against anything they dislike.
I.e., "'Religion is the opiate of the masses', and by-Golly we're going to use it to keep them stoned out of their minds."
The naive religionist needs to realize that these people are their worst enemies, not their best friends.
> And, it just so happens, Mr. Turing disproved omniscience with his little halting problem.
Actually he didn't. He proved that there's no algorithm that can determine whether any arbitrary computer program will halt. The question of whether magical or oracular methods might answer the question are outside the scope of the theory of computation.
Slashdot Mirror
> Good thing to know that if downtown New York got bombed, and thousands of people died, nobody would want to know if someone was plotting another attack like that.
Good to know that you don't think freedom is worth dying for.
Too bad about all those who died for nothing over the centuries.
> This is just the sort of sensitive information that the Whitehouse did not want leaked. Now Osama is going to change his long distance calling plan.
Osama who?
Are they even looking for that guy anymore?
> Is there anybody out there who doubts that Bush is not good for our country?
There's some as to whether he's even in the loop.
"Tip of the iceberg"
> That is one of the most incredibly dimiwitted thought processes Ive seen in...well, seen today. If a global pandemic killed off 99% of the population it would also kill off at LEAST 99% of a companies consumers for their other products.
Unfortunately, the company's policy will be based on its impact on the next quarterly report.
Companies aren't going to be any more forward-thinking about this than they are about investment in R&D, impoverishment of the middle class, or destruction of the environment.
> oseltamivir (the real name of TamiFlu) is a viral inhibitor which helps protect cells. It does not work like some antibiotics which (often) actually kill the harmful agent.
Clarification: antibiotics don't kill viruses at all. They're only good for bacterial infections.
Sinusitis, URI, pneumonia, septic wound: take antibiotics.
Influenza or other virus: get a vaccination, get one of those new anti-virals, or treat the symptoms and tough it out.
> (Weekends are good for a little "trolling" ;-)
But apparently not for a little good trolling.
> Sadder yet, an asterisk should be attached to the Dover event. Since the Dover voters have already thrown out the school board that started the issue, and the new board is quite happy with the decision, there will be no appeal. That means it will not go to a higher court, which in turn means the decision will have little or no precedential effect outside its jurisdiction.
But the exhaustive findings of fact will be available to the next court that has to waste time on the subject.
> True - but all the money it gets and the research it does result in the same thing - nothing.
Oh, the money produces lots of stuff, such as a continuous stream of new books rehashing the same nonsense and speaking tours where these scientists explain their latest research to church groups.
> ...from the article: "Not even the US President, George Bush, could ignore the historic hurricane season in the north Atlantic this year." - heh, heh, heh....
Sure he could. He delegated ignoring it to FEMA.
> I feel the unmasking of the fake results posted by Woo Suk Hwang could be a blessing for science, and one of the years highlights. It could be portrayed as why science works, although the community requires a basis of trust, eventually frauds will be revealed, hopefully creating more trust in the system.
The response of scientists to the revelation of this liar among their number certainly makes an interesting contrast to the response of proponents of Intelligent Design to the the revelation of liars among their number, which was also big news this week.
> I can't help thinking this decision is politically-motivated. Doesn't mean it's not deserved, but it sure is convenient, coming on the heels of the ID court decision.
Take it as a sign that after the Discovery Institute has been pushing their pseudoscience in the public arena for a decade, scientists are finally starting to push back.
It would be better if they didn't need to, but they do, so IMO this is a good sign.
> Evolution, having replaced "God did it" with "Random Chance did it" is particularily bad at this
You just tole everyone you don't have the first clue about how evolution works.
> as is the claim that ID is not science because of some incredibly arbitrary and subjective rules about who is a scientist and what a science is.
Should we take Behe's suggestion and redefine science to include ID -- and astrology?
> BTW, it has nothing at all to do with creationism
Yeah, that's why the authors of Of Pandas and People used "designer" as a plug-in replacement for "creator".
And it's also why the Dover defendents are now falling down and crying "religious persecution!"
> the type of ID we're talking about takes a given the scientific age of the earth at about 4 billion years and the latest age of the universe at 19.3 billion years. Creationists peg the entire shebang at much less than that- around 6000 years or so.
Actually, the leading proponents of ID are all over the map regarding the age of the earth and the universe. You should look up the transcripts of the recent Texas textbook hearings and see how the YECs among them squirmed and tried to avoid the question when asked how old they thought the earth is.
> ID makes no testable predictions. Even the Discovery Institute, the driving force behind this farce, provides no evidence to support their claim.
And the pro-religion Templeton Foundation never got a single applicant for their offer of support for ID research.
> > I submit for your viewing pleasure the underwater rocks of Bimini.
> Another great example is the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, which looks for all the world like it's been carved or purposely laid down in a particular pattern (but of course, hasn't)
And the Eltanin Antenna.
> It's interesting to me that this whole thing has become a religious debate.
It's interesting to me that the people who until a few days ago were pretending ID wasn't religion are now claiming that they're victims of religious persecution and that separation of church and state is a bad legal doctrine, and a whole chorus of religious organizations is joining in.
> The "cheater" was always a graduate student hired for the occasion. The prof swore by the method.
LOL
We had one where the final came in two colors, and the prof insisted on alternating colors for adjacent students.
When we got the exams back we discovered that all the exams were identical.
> Hey, it worked.
In principle, yes, but my teachers would never let me pour the milk and light the candle during the exam.
> Automatic code generation sets of alarm bells in my mind
Do you have a beef with compilers and assemblers?
> Errr... Last time I checked I was still getting about 50 spam messages a day.
Yes, but at least it's canned spam now.
> But you should be embarrassed to compare the state of your field with a mathematician or a physicist. I am not saying life is too cool for evolution. I am saying biologists use the notion of evolution without understanding deeply what it really is.
God, that's a stupid statement even for Slashdot.
A googling for "mathematical biology" (with the quotes) turns up 558,000 hits - ten times what "mathematical linguistics" turns up. (Without the quotes it goes up to 21 million hits.) Just the first page should dispell any notion that biology is lacking in this area:
- Society for Mathematical Biology Home Page
- Centre for Mathematical Biology, University of Oxford
- Mathematical Biology Homepage
- Mathematical Biology Sites
- Elsevier.com - Bulletin of Mathematical Biology
- SpringerLink - Publication (Journal of Mathematical Biology)
- Center for Cancer Research Nanobiology Program (CCRNP) (Formerly the Laboratory of Mathematical Biology (LMMB))
"biology equation" (without the quotes) gives 3,680,000. "biology math", 25,400,000. There's also a brief Wikipedia article on Mathematical biology, with some links and literature.Also, my personal experience with biologists is that they know lots of abstruse statistical methods as basic trade skills. ("biology statistics", no quotes, 35,900,000.)
All that to the side, saying that phyisics is rigorous and biology is sloppy is just penis swizzling. Physics, chemisty, biology, geology, meteorology, etc. are all legitimate sciences, and use the type and amount of mathematics that is appropriate to the phenomena they study. Focusing on mathematics as the measure of a science is as arbitrary as focusing on the number of Antarctic bases would be.
> What you are outlining is the Anthropic Principle, which is a tautology. Certainly, the odds are against such a confluence of good fortune, but if physical property X did vary from what we observe, we would not be around to observe it. Thus, the odds of such a confluence of good fortune rise from infinitesimal to 1:1.
More technically, the a posteriori probability is 1.
Also, we don't have the faintest idea what the a priori probability was. We don't even know what the independent parameters of the universe are, let alone what their various probability distributions were. (For that matter, if there is in fact only one universe, does the question of "possible" values for a physical constant even make sense?)
It simply isn't possible - today - to calculate the a priori odds that the universe AWKI would exist. Anyone who offers a probability argument against it is not only offering an argument from incredulity, but an argument from incredulity based on completely made up numbers.
And as if that isn't enough... Most of the universe is hard vacuum, so it's clearly "designed" for space ghosts. We should be arguing about the probability that a universe would be hospitable to space ghosts; humans are just parasites taking advantage of an extremely small corner not useful to the space ghosts.
> Of course, the current battle over Intelligent Design in schools isn't even really over religion, though many of the footsoldiers are lead to believe it is. There are people who are afraid that they (and their successors) will loose their current power if American Children are well educated on scientific topics. They want children to be raised ignorant of scientific knowledge so they will always have a supply of pawns to mobilize against anything they dislike.
I.e., "'Religion is the opiate of the masses', and by-Golly we're going to use it to keep them stoned out of their minds."
The naive religionist needs to realize that these people are their worst enemies, not their best friends.
> And, it just so happens, Mr. Turing disproved omniscience with his little halting problem.
Actually he didn't. He proved that there's no algorithm that can determine whether any arbitrary computer program will halt. The question of whether magical or oracular methods might answer the question are outside the scope of the theory of computation.