I wonder whether "supply & demand" will play a role here. If thousands of artists start producing formulaic output, won't the per-artist demand drop? With perhaps a compensating increase in demand for innovators?
> How much does it cost? I'm really sick of paying for this crap.
Probably a lot less than our faith-based missile defense.
BTW, the news says cities are using DoHS grants for everything from civic festivals to funding new speed traps, with an almost complete lack of oversight.
> It is a "creationist textbook sticker" because Intelligent Design is just a secular telling of creationism.
For a compelling demonstration that ID really isn't about what it pretends to be about, try to see the ABC clip where a reporter tries to get one of the Dover board members to explain what ID is. She doesn't have the faintest fucking clue - can't even answer his question in complete sentences - and yet she voted to require exposure to ID as an alternative to evolution in the school's biology classes.
> Do a web search on irreducible complexity. [...] But the evidence is there, waiting for you to explain it. Don't dismiss the challenger; know his argument and refute it.
The IC argument is a lamer that only fools people who are ignorant or uncritical. The argument is that you can break certain things if you remove one part at a time, therefore those things could not have been built up by the reverse process.
However, people with only a smattering of knowledge about evolution know that it not only builds up, it also tears down, modifies, changes function, etc. Simply demonstrating that something is IC is not a valid argument that it could not have evolved, pace Behe and Dembski.
A high-school student who has had an uncensored biology class is smart enough and educated enough to refute the arguments offered by the proponents of ID. (That's why I think the handful of overreligious PhDs who are peddling it are doing it out of dishonesty rather than honest error. That, and the fact that they keep using the arguments even after having the factual and logical flaws pointed out to them.)
BTW, IMO there's nothing wrong with being ignorant about evolution or anything else unless of course you're willfully ignorant.
> Here is biblical proof that pi is in fact exactly 3, which should be given equal time in high school math classes.
IMO this is a silly criticism of biblical literalism. What if the cauldron was 30.40 cubits in circumference and 9.676 cubits in diameter, and you were describing it to friends as "a big cauldron" rather than a math problem?
If you want to point out biblical idiocy, use the stock-breeding yarn in Genesis XXX, talking serpents and donkeys, a boat big enough to save the whole world's ecosystem for over a year, an omniscient god who often doesn't know what's going on, an omnipotent god who fails in his attempt to stamp out evil in the world, a loving god who has schoolkiddies mauled by bears after they tease a prophet for being bald, etc, etc, etc.
> Creationists such as myself believe that the Creator made each plant after its kind and each animal after its kind, and the animals escaped the Great Flood of 1656 on Noah Cruise Lines two by two after their kind. Intelligent design does not require that the Creator make each species separately; consider that the "kind" in "after its kind" is cognate to Latin genus.
So you appeal to evolution-on-steroids in your alternative to evolution...
> Incidentally, the order-of-magnitude decline in human life spans can be attributed to a population bottleneck caused by the Flood.
Actually, humans (and almost all other species) have far too much genetic diversity to have suffered such a radical bottleneck in the past few thousand years.
> So is Intelligent Design, which is gaining creedance as an alternative theory.
ID isn't a theory; it's a collection of half-assed armchair arguments against evolution (or, often as not, against a misrepresentation of evolution), attached to the non sequitur conclusion "therefore an intelligent designer must have done it".
Also, for some strange reason it's only "gaining credence" among creationists... and a few stray Raelians.
ID is nothing but an attempt to sneak creationism into the public school curriculum. Its authors learned from the failure of the Creation Science movement a generation ago: the overt creationism brought it into conflict with the Establishment Clause, and the tangible claims were falsified. ID attempts to skirt both those problems, by substituting cryptocreationism for overt creationism, and by eliminating the science altogether. I.e., ID is Creation Science without the intellectual honesty.
Many scientists have pointed out the folly of ID as "science", and now at least one judge has spotted the cryptocreationism.
> i actually read something about this the other day while sitting at the dentists office. it was about how we treat infections and diseases with medicines, and then the germs evolve to become resisant to that drug. just a thought
It is indeed a fact. Creationists, either out of ignorance or else out of rhetorical need, almost always confuse the fact of evolution with the theory that explains the fact. Then they only require the additional step of confusing a scientific theory with a conjecture, and bingo the fact has become a mere conjecture!
Now re-read the disclaimer with that background in mind.
> There are lots of fossils of discovered species, but there seems to be huge, unfilled gaps between these species in the fossil records.
And how well sampled is the fossil record? Do people reject creationism because they can't find the bones of everyone's ancestors in an unbroken chain back to Adam?
And if we have only a very sparse sampling of bones for the past few thousand years, how complete an survey can we expect to have for animals that lived a few hundred million years ago?
> Observed??? When? Where have they found such evidence? Have they ever found remains of a creature which is inbetween evolutionary states?
All creatures are in between evolutionary states. Some of the most obvious are flightless birds (especially penguins, which are substantially adapted to underwater life) and aquatic mammals (which show the whole range of adaptations from landlubber to sea creature).
Slashdot Mirror
> Welcome to the age of 'Art for fart's sake'. It's the future!
Better than the "Fart for art's sake" movement.
I wonder whether "supply & demand" will play a role here. If thousands of artists start producing formulaic output, won't the per-artist demand drop? With perhaps a compensating increase in demand for innovators?
Welcome our new satellite-eating overlords.
> Look at the little peepee on atlas!!!
We'll never fit that on the CD cover!
> Hmm.. Anyone else notice that the statue has a fig leaf over the groin in one photograph, but not the other? Did it fall off recently, or what?
No, it's just the pre-Ashcroft and post-Ashcroft versions.
> To me, it's absolutely hilarious that much time and money is being spent to figure out how to improve a business model that's fundamentally idiotic.
Don't have an MBA, do you.
> Sorry I don't have a reference, I was reading this a few months ago and was really surprised.
chimera
> maybe someone will get linux running on it
As a dual boot system, no doubt.
> the first time I read the title... I swear... I thought it said two tons. That would be a hell of a meal!
Conversely, you would only be a small snack.
> Our production of such a species is a stirring development that may lead to new compounds with a completely new class of chemistry and applications
Pros:
Cons:
> How much does it cost? I'm really sick of paying for this crap.
Probably a lot less than our faith-based missile defense.
BTW, the news says cities are using DoHS grants for everything from civic festivals to funding new speed traps, with an almost complete lack of oversight.
Hmmmm. MS gets into the anti-spyware business, and the FBI suddenly decides it doesn't need its custom spyware anymore...
> I'd like to know what this kid's major was.
And why he was in college if, as the news story suggested, he had raked in millions of dollars this way.
Oh... maybe he needed access to the university's computers.
> It is a "creationist textbook sticker" because Intelligent Design is just a secular telling of creationism.
For a compelling demonstration that ID really isn't about what it pretends to be about, try to see the ABC clip where a reporter tries to get one of the Dover board members to explain what ID is. She doesn't have the faintest fucking clue - can't even answer his question in complete sentences - and yet she voted to require exposure to ID as an alternative to evolution in the school's biology classes.
> "Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore."
Theists like to claim that "there aren't any atheists in foxholes", but the fact that someone is in a foxhole shows where they really put their trust.
> How is it that the US civil war had more deaths from wounds than wounds?
First, make sure you understand that the numbers are "wounded and survived" vs. "wounded and died".
Then read up on bayonettes and the
> Do a web search on irreducible complexity. [...] But the evidence is there, waiting for you to explain it. Don't dismiss the challenger; know his argument and refute it.
The IC argument is a lamer that only fools people who are ignorant or uncritical. The argument is that you can break certain things if you remove one part at a time, therefore those things could not have been built up by the reverse process.
However, people with only a smattering of knowledge about evolution know that it not only builds up, it also tears down, modifies, changes function, etc. Simply demonstrating that something is IC is not a valid argument that it could not have evolved, pace Behe and Dembski.
A high-school student who has had an uncensored biology class is smart enough and educated enough to refute the arguments offered by the proponents of ID. (That's why I think the handful of overreligious PhDs who are peddling it are doing it out of dishonesty rather than honest error. That, and the fact that they keep using the arguments even after having the factual and logical flaws pointed out to them.)
BTW, IMO there's nothing wrong with being ignorant about evolution or anything else unless of course you're willfully ignorant.
> I just want a word with the guy who came up with the term "intelligent designer". If I'd designed this thing I'd have been fired.
My coworkers do crap like that all the time, and the PHB expects me to clean up behind them.
I wonder who cleans up behind the Designer, and what's taking him so long to get around to planet earth.
> Here is biblical proof that pi is in fact exactly 3, which should be given equal time in high school math classes.
IMO this is a silly criticism of biblical literalism. What if the cauldron was 30.40 cubits in circumference and 9.676 cubits in diameter, and you were describing it to friends as "a big cauldron" rather than a math problem?
If you want to point out biblical idiocy, use the stock-breeding yarn in Genesis XXX, talking serpents and donkeys, a boat big enough to save the whole world's ecosystem for over a year, an omniscient god who often doesn't know what's going on, an omnipotent god who fails in his attempt to stamp out evil in the world, a loving god who has schoolkiddies mauled by bears after they tease a prophet for being bald, etc, etc, etc.
> Creationists such as myself believe that the Creator made each plant after its kind and each animal after its kind, and the animals escaped the Great Flood of 1656 on Noah Cruise Lines two by two after their kind. Intelligent design does not require that the Creator make each species separately; consider that the "kind" in "after its kind" is cognate to Latin genus.
So you appeal to evolution-on-steroids in your alternative to evolution...
> Incidentally, the order-of-magnitude decline in human life spans can be attributed to a population bottleneck caused by the Flood.
Actually, humans (and almost all other species) have far too much genetic diversity to have suffered such a radical bottleneck in the past few thousand years.
> Nah. On the seventh day, God went Commando!
Pretty bold, for a guy with ten commandments!
> So is Intelligent Design, which is gaining creedance as an alternative theory.
ID isn't a theory; it's a collection of half-assed armchair arguments against evolution (or, often as not, against a misrepresentation of evolution), attached to the non sequitur conclusion "therefore an intelligent designer must have done it".
Also, for some strange reason it's only "gaining credence" among creationists... and a few stray Raelians.
ID is nothing but an attempt to sneak creationism into the public school curriculum. Its authors learned from the failure of the Creation Science movement a generation ago: the overt creationism brought it into conflict with the Establishment Clause, and the tangible claims were falsified. ID attempts to skirt both those problems, by substituting cryptocreationism for overt creationism, and by eliminating the science altogether. I.e., ID is Creation Science without the intellectual honesty.
Many scientists have pointed out the folly of ID as "science", and now at least one judge has spotted the cryptocreationism.
> i actually read something about this the other day while sitting at the dentists office. it was about how we treat infections and diseases with medicines, and then the germs evolve to become resisant to that drug. just a thought
It is indeed a fact. Creationists, either out of ignorance or else out of rhetorical need, almost always confuse the fact of evolution with the theory that explains the fact. Then they only require the additional step of confusing a scientific theory with a conjecture, and bingo the fact has become a mere conjecture!
Now re-read the disclaimer with that background in mind.
> There are lots of fossils of discovered species, but there seems to be huge, unfilled gaps between these species in the fossil records.
And how well sampled is the fossil record? Do people reject creationism because they can't find the bones of everyone's ancestors in an unbroken chain back to Adam?
And if we have only a very sparse sampling of bones for the past few thousand years, how complete an survey can we expect to have for animals that lived a few hundred million years ago?
> Observed??? When? Where have they found such evidence? Have they ever found remains of a creature which is inbetween evolutionary states?
All creatures are in between evolutionary states. Some of the most obvious are flightless birds (especially penguins, which are substantially adapted to underwater life) and aquatic mammals (which show the whole range of adaptations from landlubber to sea creature).