> It's funny you mention Andromeda. The early episodes were actually not too bad. The later series was made stupid
They lost me in the early episode when the ship's AI started running around in a miniskirt. Not that I minded the leg, but the series was just getting too fscking st00pid.
> > evolution is a fact and the theory of evolution is an attempt to explain it
> Wow, you just haven't been paying attention. Evolution is not a fact. The diversity of life is a fact.
The fact that the set of species populating the earth has changed enormously over the past 3+ billion years is, well, a fact. Some exist now that didn't exist earlier. Some existed earlier that do not exist now. The theory of evolution is an attempt to explain those kinds of facts.
> > Unless of course [the universe] has always existed...
> The second law of thermodynamics and Hubble's observations tell us that this cannot possibly be true. If the universe has existed for infinite time in a static state, its temperature would be much higher than it is. If it has existed for infinite time in an expanding state, its temperature would be much lower than it is. The only conclusion that fits the facts is that the universe has existed in an expanding state for finite time... implying a beginning.
How do you know some supernatural parasite isn't siphoning off entropy for its upkeep?
Why wouldn't an eternally old Creator have already reached maximum entropy?
I don't believe the universe is infinitely old, but anyone who accepts the handwaving arguments of creationism must accept similar arguments for an eternal universe. The Law of Cake says you can't both have and eat it.
> > the Creator must have a creator
> Sorry, no. There's physical evidence that tells us the universe must have had a beginning, but there's no evidence to contradict a divine, infinite creator.
Sorry, but I was only applying the logic invoked in the post I was replying to.
> > Your "theory" doesn't actually explain anything.
> Of course it does. What you really mean to say is that it doesn't explain anything to your satisfaction
No, I meant it very literally: invoking an unknown agency of unknown capabilities working toward unknown goals by unknown means for unknown motives is not an explanation, period. It's just a way of saying "something made it happen, and I choose to call that something 'God'".
> > all the way back to the first drooling idiot excuse for a human's first idiotic thought about how the world works
> See what I'm talking about? You're never going to get anywhere as long as you continue mocking the beliefs of people who have faith, and comparing them to drooling idiots.
Anyone who read for comprehension would have noticed that I was talking about some hypothetical barely-intelligent precursor of the "cave men", not the creationists who inhabit the internet.
> You're just a bigot, plain and simple.
You can't make a case for your views, plain and simple.
I preemptively named my software company The Vapour Software Company, so that when people read articles about my late products they just think the writer is mentioning the name of my company again and again. The later my producs, the better the free advertising!
> Articles referenced here only discuss archeoptryx (sp?) as one such transitional species. But one single instance of something is NOT proof.
If you don't believe in transitional species, you should read up on aquatic mammals. We've got the full range of adaptions from landlubbers to whales - even if you only consider the living species!
> So called "Conclusive" proof such as Lucy, the Piltdown Man and others have been thouroughly repudiated
> Actually, evolution was accepted as fact even before Darwin advanced a theory to explain it. Before Darwin, there actually were real scientists (as opposed to religious ideologues masquerading as scientists) who took creation seriously as a theory of the origin of species. But even before Darwin, they had rejected the Biblical notion of creation as patently inconsistent with the data that clearly demonstrated evolution over time.
FWIW, the last major geologist holding out in favor of a global flood conceded that it was incompatible with the geological evidence in a famous speech given (IIRC) in 1820. (And he was the laggard.) After that, it was impossible for scientists to accept the Bible as undeniable evidence for anything.
I haven't read up on it, but lots of people claim that creationism AWKIToday was started by the Jehovah's Witnesses in the 20th Century. If so, then the creationist "scientists" of today do not actually spring from the same intellectual tradition that influenced scientists before the 19th Century. (I suppose that's what you mean when you call them religious ideologues masquerading as scientists.)
"It" is two separate things, which have similar names and therefore greatly confuse people who have been too busy trying to deny "it" to pause and think about what "it" actually is.
> The passing of genetic material and traits through offspring is obviously a fact. I don't dispute this at all. This has been demonstrated and seen time and time again. This is called "micro-evolution".
> If you are speaking of the transformation of species into another species, we have what is generally classified as "macro-evolution". This is the theory part which I was pointing out.
FYI, you are disputing the facts rather than the theory. You don't even make reference to the theory.
> What really irritates my about this post is how bloody confident the poster is that his parent was wrong. How can a person be so sure and so clueless at the same time?
Simple cause and effect: the cluelessness causes the false certainty.
Jokes aside, a study came out a year or two ago showing that the less competent you are, the less likely you were to be aware of your shortcomings. (It may have been discussed on Slashdot.)
> Whether you want to call it a "fact" or a "theory backed up by emperical observation" is up to you.
Actually, for clarity of thought we need to keep those ideas distinct. A fact is something we know about the universe; a theory is a model that explains why that fact is the way it is.
Examples:
Gravitational attraction is a fact. Relativity and Loop Quantum Gravity are theories that attempt to explain it. (The latter theory still embryonic, as I understand things, but no matter for present purposes.)
That the makeup of the earth's "biosphere" has changed radically over the past few billion years is a fact. The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis it a theory that attempts to explain it.
> Believing that creation explains the way we got here better than evolution does is not unscientific.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "unscientific". Given that belief in creationism is neither arrived at nor supported by science, I would call it "unscientific". Or at least "non-scientific". Of course, that's not at all the same thing as saying that it's wrong.
> Creation hasn't been proven scientifically, but neither has evolution in the sense that we evolved from other life forms, or that the world originated through evolution.
FYI, the theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of the world.
> Studying the world and believing that the evidence points to creation is not invalid. It's an interpretation of the evidence.
But it's not science, and never will be science, since creationism is compatible with any observation. It's like saying "gravity works the way it does because something makes it work that way". If we suddenly discovered some surprising new fact about gravity that 'theory' wouldn't need to change at all, because it doesn't actually say anything. Same with creationism.
(Lots of creationists do make specific claims, but they are always arbitrary claims about the 'facts' of history rather than things that fall out from the non-existent 'theory' of creationism. Also, AFAIK, all the creationist claims that impinge upon reality have been shown to be wrong.)
MY GOD PEOPLE. You are criticizing the Bush Administration for being stupid and you can't even spell the words "controversial" or "doctering." "Your" in the context of your subject line should be "You're", which is a contraction for "You are." "Administration" beings with a vowel, and should therefore be preceded with the antecedent "an" not "a."
If you are going to throw intellectual stones, make sure your brain isn't living in a glass skull.
I love Slashdot. A bunch of illiterate, reactionary, left-wing nutcases hurling insults at people smarter and more successful than they are.
> I wonder when exactly it changed from the "Theory of Evolution" to the "Law of Evolution"...
There is no "Law of Evolution". We have the fact of evolution, i.e. the biological history of the earth, and the theory of evolution, which is our best attempt so far at explaining the fact.
(Actually you could probably come up with a First Law of Evolution, something along the lines of "a system of imperfect self-replicators will evolve". But that doesn't seem to be the sort of thing you are talking about.)
> If I can tolerate you to have the Theory of Evolution, then you should be kind enought to tolerate my Theory of Creationism.
OK, I tolerate it. But if you want to flash it in public, don't be offended if people point out how deficient it is.
> But the theory of evolution says that, given enough time, ants evolve into birds. (Not exactly, but you get the idea.)
No, it's not the theory of evolution that tells us that X evolved into Y, it's the fact of evolution. The theory is an attempt to account for the known facts.
What creationists really dispute is the fact of evolution. Hence their incessant attempts to explain away everything we know about the history of life on earth.
> No, it's wrong at all levels. It's just that the degree to which it's wrong is sometimes too small to notice.
Now rewind and reconsider the observation that evolution is a fact and the theory of evolution is an attempt to explain it. As with gravity, a greater or lesser error in the theory is not going to make the fact go away.
> > the total absence of any evidence for a Creator
> Look around you. The universe exists. Ergo, it must have come into existence.
Unless of course it has always existed...
BTW, if you took your own argument seriously you would also conclude that the Creator must have a creator, that the creator' must have a creator'', etc. It follows by well-founded induction that "it's creators all the way up".
> Your theories for explaining how are no better than mine.
Not so. Your "theory" doesn't actually explain anything. Saying "a creator did it" is no different from saying "a zingflurf did it", other than the choice of noun you use to describe a vaguely conceived, unconstrained process.
> > Your theory is silly, your belief system sillier, being based in a muddled mythology of the Middle East that was only written down about the same time as Homer.
> Nope, sorry. My system is just as valid as yours. Moreso, in fact, because mine has a deeper tradition. Yours is a flash in the pan by comparison.
That's not obviously true. But no matter: your argument is idiotic regardless of the factuality of the claims you base it on. If you claim "the older the better", then you must acknowledge that the Sumerian tradition trumps the Hebrew tradition, that Caveman traditon trumps the Sumerian, etc., all the way back to the first drooling idiot excuse for a human's first idiotic thought about how the world works.
> Ok, Mr Fancy Pants scientist that studies mutation for a living- how do you explain the extremely short amount of time in the fossil record where animals suddenly developed eyesight? Random chance? Ok fine. How about spinal chords? How about the fact that our planet is just the perfect distance from the sun so we can have water in liquid form? Or that our buttholes are far away from our noses?
Forgive my crude example, but how come buttholes also fit penises so well, and are so conveniently located for those who want to test the fit?
If you took your own style of argument seriously, you'd have to conclude that homosexuality exists because your god deliberately made the arrangements for it.
> It seriously amazes me that people like you cannot even admit that there is a chance that God exists
Most of us actually can. Where creationists go wrong is that they go on to make additional claims that are demonstrably false.
> but you latch on to theories that are based on nothing more an incredibly unlikely "chance" sequence of events. Indisputable proof? Pffft. You have just as much proof as I do.
You don't know much about the subject matter, do you.
> Most of the people I've worked with -- the vast majority, above and below me, including presidents, vice-presidents, general managers, directors, managers, and individual contributors, across 10 or more companies I've worked at -- were ethical. There have been some exceptions, but they number at most a half dozen over my 20+ years in the software business.
> Unless people are actually dying at an alarming rate, no amount of evidence is going to change anything.
I think the Great Melt is already upon us. Just look at the news of the past few years: Glacier National Park is becoming Bare Rock National Park; unprecedented signs of melt in the Artic last year; signs of instability in Antartic ice; predator-prey relationships getting out of whack due to an earlier spring melt. A few years earlier, Otzi melting out of the Alpine snow for the first time in 5000 years.
Places like New Orleans and Venice, already having trouble due to subsidence, are going to be in "deep" trouble, and the cost is going to be phenomenal.
> This is way off topic, but it was in your signature line. I was listening to an interview with Matt Groening on Fresh Air (I think) and he explained this point. He was trying to make it a point that Bart hates his father but loves this clone that looks exactly like his father.
Thanks. Several other people have answered, and I just haven't gotten around to changing my.sig.
> In Alaska, the Eskimos have 15 different words for snow
That's nothing, think how many words programmers have for "a temporary variable".
> It's easier to see solutions for something you have a word for, then for something you have no frame of reference for.
So whenever you get ready to invent something, decide in advance that you're going to call it a glurf - regardless of what it turns out to be - and you'll release the mental block against inventing it.
Slashdot Mirror
> "Magic, in any sufficiently advanced show, is indistinguishable from technology."
I thought it was "Any sufficiently prolonged series is indistinguishable from crap."
> It's funny you mention Andromeda. The early episodes were actually not too bad. The later series was made stupid
They lost me in the early episode when the ship's AI started running around in a miniskirt. Not that I minded the leg, but the series was just getting too fscking st00pid.
> And just three days after that, it appeared here:
Maybe it's a viral story?
> hint: in my time I've done more than just read what they've got to say
Yeah, I keep an emergency copy in my bathroom, too.
Also, check the expiration date on the bottom of the can.
> > evolution is a fact and the theory of evolution is an attempt to explain it
> Wow, you just haven't been paying attention. Evolution is not a fact. The diversity of life is a fact.
The fact that the set of species populating the earth has changed enormously over the past 3+ billion years is, well, a fact. Some exist now that didn't exist earlier. Some existed earlier that do not exist now. The theory of evolution is an attempt to explain those kinds of facts.
> > Unless of course [the universe] has always existed...
> The second law of thermodynamics and Hubble's observations tell us that this cannot possibly be true. If the universe has existed for infinite time in a static state, its temperature would be much higher than it is. If it has existed for infinite time in an expanding state, its temperature would be much lower than it is. The only conclusion that fits the facts is that the universe has existed in an expanding state for finite time... implying a beginning.
How do you know some supernatural parasite isn't siphoning off entropy for its upkeep?
Why wouldn't an eternally old Creator have already reached maximum entropy?
I don't believe the universe is infinitely old, but anyone who accepts the handwaving arguments of creationism must accept similar arguments for an eternal universe. The Law of Cake says you can't both have and eat it.
> > the Creator must have a creator
> Sorry, no. There's physical evidence that tells us the universe must have had a beginning, but there's no evidence to contradict a divine, infinite creator.
Sorry, but I was only applying the logic invoked in the post I was replying to.
> > Your "theory" doesn't actually explain anything.
> Of course it does. What you really mean to say is that it doesn't explain anything to your satisfaction
No, I meant it very literally: invoking an unknown agency of unknown capabilities working toward unknown goals by unknown means for unknown motives is not an explanation, period. It's just a way of saying "something made it happen, and I choose to call that something 'God'".
> > all the way back to the first drooling idiot excuse for a human's first idiotic thought about how the world works
> See what I'm talking about? You're never going to get anywhere as long as you continue mocking the beliefs of people who have faith, and comparing them to drooling idiots.
Anyone who read for comprehension would have noticed that I was talking about some hypothetical barely-intelligent precursor of the "cave men", not the creationists who inhabit the internet.
> You're just a bigot, plain and simple.
You can't make a case for your views, plain and simple.
I preemptively named my software company The Vapour Software Company, so that when people read articles about my late products they just think the writer is mentioning the name of my company again and again. The later my producs, the better the free advertising!
> Articles referenced here only discuss archeoptryx (sp?) as one such transitional species. But one single instance of something is NOT proof.
If you don't believe in transitional species, you should read up on aquatic mammals. We've got the full range of adaptions from landlubbers to whales - even if you only consider the living species!
> So called "Conclusive" proof such as Lucy, the Piltdown Man and others have been thouroughly repudiated
Don't bogart that...
> Actually, evolution was accepted as fact even before Darwin advanced a theory to explain it. Before Darwin, there actually were real scientists (as opposed to religious ideologues masquerading as scientists) who took creation seriously as a theory of the origin of species. But even before Darwin, they had rejected the Biblical notion of creation as patently inconsistent with the data that clearly demonstrated evolution over time.
FWIW, the last major geologist holding out in favor of a global flood conceded that it was incompatible with the geological evidence in a famous speech given (IIRC) in 1820. (And he was the laggard.) After that, it was impossible for scientists to accept the Bible as undeniable evidence for anything.
I haven't read up on it, but lots of people claim that creationism AWKIToday was started by the Jehovah's Witnesses in the 20th Century. If so, then the creationist "scientists" of today do not actually spring from the same intellectual tradition that influenced scientists before the 19th Century. (I suppose that's what you mean when you call them religious ideologues masquerading as scientists.)
> It is a THEORY or a FACT. It cannot be both.
"It" is two separate things, which have similar names and therefore greatly confuse people who have been too busy trying to deny "it" to pause and think about what "it" actually is.
> The passing of genetic material and traits through offspring is obviously a fact. I don't dispute this at all. This has been demonstrated and seen time and time again. This is called "micro-evolution".
> If you are speaking of the transformation of species into another species, we have what is generally classified as "macro-evolution". This is the theory part which I was pointing out.
FYI, you are disputing the facts rather than the theory. You don't even make reference to the theory.
> What really irritates my about this post is how bloody confident the poster is that his parent was wrong. How can a person be so sure and so clueless at the same time?
Simple cause and effect: the cluelessness causes the false certainty.
Jokes aside, a study came out a year or two ago showing that the less competent you are, the less likely you were to be aware of your shortcomings. (It may have been discussed on Slashdot.)
> Whether you want to call it a "fact" or a "theory backed up by emperical observation" is up to you.
Actually, for clarity of thought we need to keep those ideas distinct. A fact is something we know about the universe; a theory is a model that explains why that fact is the way it is.
Examples:
> Believing that creation explains the way we got here better than evolution does is not unscientific.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "unscientific". Given that belief in creationism is neither arrived at nor supported by science, I would call it "unscientific". Or at least "non-scientific". Of course, that's not at all the same thing as saying that it's wrong.
> Creation hasn't been proven scientifically, but neither has evolution in the sense that we evolved from other life forms, or that the world originated through evolution.
FYI, the theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of the world.
> Studying the world and believing that the evidence points to creation is not invalid. It's an interpretation of the evidence.
But it's not science, and never will be science, since creationism is compatible with any observation. It's like saying "gravity works the way it does because something makes it work that way". If we suddenly discovered some surprising new fact about gravity that 'theory' wouldn't need to change at all, because it doesn't actually say anything. Same with creationism.
(Lots of creationists do make specific claims, but they are always arbitrary claims about the 'facts' of history rather than things that fall out from the non-existent 'theory' of creationism. Also, AFAIK, all the creationist claims that impinge upon reality have been shown to be wrong.)
> I wonder when exactly it changed from the "Theory of Evolution" to the "Law of Evolution"...
There is no "Law of Evolution". We have the fact of evolution, i.e. the biological history of the earth, and the theory of evolution, which is our best attempt so far at explaining the fact.
(Actually you could probably come up with a First Law of Evolution, something along the lines of "a system of imperfect self-replicators will evolve". But that doesn't seem to be the sort of thing you are talking about.)
> If I can tolerate you to have the Theory of Evolution, then you should be kind enought to tolerate my Theory of Creationism.
OK, I tolerate it. But if you want to flash it in public, don't be offended if people point out how deficient it is.
> But the theory of evolution says that, given enough time, ants evolve into birds. (Not exactly, but you get the idea.)
No, it's not the theory of evolution that tells us that X evolved into Y, it's the fact of evolution. The theory is an attempt to account for the known facts.
What creationists really dispute is the fact of evolution. Hence their incessant attempts to explain away everything we know about the history of life on earth.
> > Newton's theory is accurate up to a point
> No, it's wrong at all levels. It's just that the degree to which it's wrong is sometimes too small to notice.
Now rewind and reconsider the observation that evolution is a fact and the theory of evolution is an attempt to explain it. As with gravity, a greater or lesser error in the theory is not going to make the fact go away.
> > the total absence of any evidence for a Creator
> Look around you. The universe exists. Ergo, it must have come into existence.
Unless of course it has always existed...
BTW, if you took your own argument seriously you would also conclude that the Creator must have a creator, that the creator' must have a creator'', etc. It follows by well-founded induction that "it's creators all the way up".
> Your theories for explaining how are no better than mine.
Not so. Your "theory" doesn't actually explain anything. Saying "a creator did it" is no different from saying "a zingflurf did it", other than the choice of noun you use to describe a vaguely conceived, unconstrained process.
> > Your theory is silly, your belief system sillier, being based in a muddled mythology of the Middle East that was only written down about the same time as Homer.
> Nope, sorry. My system is just as valid as yours. Moreso, in fact, because mine has a deeper tradition. Yours is a flash in the pan by comparison.
That's not obviously true. But no matter: your argument is idiotic regardless of the factuality of the claims you base it on. If you claim "the older the better", then you must acknowledge that the Sumerian tradition trumps the Hebrew tradition, that Caveman traditon trumps the Sumerian, etc., all the way back to the first drooling idiot excuse for a human's first idiotic thought about how the world works.
> Ok, Mr Fancy Pants scientist that studies mutation for a living- how do you explain the extremely short amount of time in the fossil record where animals suddenly developed eyesight? Random chance? Ok fine. How about spinal chords? How about the fact that our planet is just the perfect distance from the sun so we can have water in liquid form? Or that our buttholes are far away from our noses?
Forgive my crude example, but how come buttholes also fit penises so well, and are so conveniently located for those who want to test the fit?
If you took your own style of argument seriously, you'd have to conclude that homosexuality exists because your god deliberately made the arrangements for it.
> It seriously amazes me that people like you cannot even admit that there is a chance that God exists
Most of us actually can. Where creationists go wrong is that they go on to make additional claims that are demonstrably false.
> but you latch on to theories that are based on nothing more an incredibly unlikely "chance" sequence of events. Indisputable proof? Pffft. You have just as much proof as I do.
You don't know much about the subject matter, do you.
First they replaced the beef in your burger with soyuz, now they're even going to replace the soyuz!
They'll be serving us Soyuz Green before you know it!
> Most of the people I've worked with -- the vast majority, above and below me, including presidents, vice-presidents, general managers, directors, managers, and individual contributors, across 10 or more companies I've worked at -- were ethical. There have been some exceptions, but they number at most a half dozen over my 20+ years in the software business.
Geez... what planet did you get your gig on?
> If you are aprogrammer you might only have to lie once or twice a week.
Surely your boss asks "How long until you're done?" more than twice a week!
> Unless people are actually dying at an alarming rate, no amount of evidence is going to change anything.
I think the Great Melt is already upon us. Just look at the news of the past few years: Glacier National Park is becoming Bare Rock National Park; unprecedented signs of melt in the Artic last year; signs of instability in Antartic ice; predator-prey relationships getting out of whack due to an earlier spring melt. A few years earlier, Otzi melting out of the Alpine snow for the first time in 5000 years.
Places like New Orleans and Venice, already having trouble due to subsidence, are going to be in "deep" trouble, and the cost is going to be phenomenal.
>> How come Homer and Krusty look like clones?
> This is way off topic, but it was in your signature line. I was listening to an interview with Matt Groening on Fresh Air (I think) and he explained this point. He was trying to make it a point that Bart hates his father but loves this clone that looks exactly like his father.
Thanks. Several other people have answered, and I just haven't gotten around to changing my
> So greenhouse gases cause global warming which melt the ice caps and then releases greenhouse gases?
Yep, positive feedback cycles are "circular".
> In Alaska, the Eskimos have 15 different words for snow
That's nothing, think how many words programmers have for "a temporary variable".
> It's easier to see solutions for something you have a word for, then for something you have no frame of reference for.
So whenever you get ready to invent something, decide in advance that you're going to call it a glurf - regardless of what it turns out to be - and you'll release the mental block against inventing it.