> but instead we have a prematurely scrapped Hubble, a disfunctional ISS that doesn't do anything anyway, and NASA with promises to fly to mars and build a "space plane" that is currently in pre-planning stage.
Looks like bye-bye for NASA... until a few years from now when it looks like some other country is on the verge of doing something great, and then we'll pour a trillion dollars into a deathmarch program, after all the remaining expertise has been dispersed and the physical infrastructure has decayed.
> A photo seemingly showing Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry protesting the Vietnam War with anti-American actress "Hanoi Jane" Fonda - the photo Dems fear most - exists, and has been obtained by NewsMax.com.
If he's anti-war at heart, that's a plus for him. Too bad he didn't vote against George's Big Adventure.
> maybe the elections are just a tad too far away, is suspect that in 6 months or so NASA will have a sudden change of heart, following a generous promise for funding and flying to mars, the moon, and the sun from president bush.
And another round of tax cuts to fund all of it...
If we assume an x percent successful mutation (quite liberal) rate, we'd need x^30,000 mutations.
Ok, so let's assume that there is only.001% chance of a useful mutation. Using your math, we would need (.001)^30,000 mutations, which is approximately...0. Wait a minute...
Yeah, that's the funniest part, but there are several other doozies:
Tries to do probability calculations with percentages rather than raw probability values, 0<=p<=1.
Identifies x as "quite liberal", even though he never suggests a value, nor even puts any constraints on it.
Offers to calculate in bits rather than 4gits, but never actually uses either.
Introduces y, which is never used for anything. (We can calculate y though, determining that it has such-and-such a value and the head-scratcher units of seventeenth-root-of-a-second.)
Summarizes with "Statistically, I just don't see it", though he hasn't actually done any statistical analysis.
Let me know if I missed anything...
> You're a scientist. I'm 17.:)
You're not so determined to get the "right" answer that you have to check in your brain when the topic comes up.
> The tech recession is obviously already over. We are already very near full employment for tech workers even here in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Why else would you be seeing things like this:
Kaiser Foundation Hospitals is seeking approval of a labor condition application for the period of February 26, 2004 to February 26, 2007 to permit employment of one H-1B worker in the classification of Programmer Analyst. The salary for this job is $77,501 per year.
Especially since so many US citizens formerly working in the IT sector are now out of work.
If 2 million people each take on 11 "want fries with that?" jobs to maintain the income they lost when their professional jobs got offshored, everything will work out even.
To get to where we are now, we'd need at least 30,000 mutations (actually quite a bit more) that were useful enough to select over other mutations. If we assume an x percent successful mutation (quite liberal) rate, we'd need x^30,000 mutations.
The universe is believed to be about 13 billion years old. Thats 297648000 billion seconds, or y^17. How many mutations would be required per second to get to x^30,000? Statistically, I just don't see it.
I am speechless that a professor in any discipline would make such an idiotic mistake.
(Let us know if someone needs to explain it to you.)
> A search for Conan Albrecht reveals this guy? Content on his site seems consistent with recent postings.
That's rich: MIS prof invokes non-existent probability calculations to convince us that biologists don't know jack about biology.
BTW, for those who haven't followed these discussions very long, be warned that misrepresentation of credentials is so common among creationists that alarm bells should go off any time you hear an overly vague claim to authority status such as "I am a scientist", "I have a degree in science", "I work in the field", etc., and you should demand clarification.
It would have been trivial for Conan to say "I am a MIS prof", but somehow that doesn't bear the implication of subject-matter expertise that "I am a scientist" does.
> Evolution, OTOH, has never been demonstrated or shown in an experiment. To demonstrate evolution would require watching a planet from start to finish, which we have not yet done.
Sorry to inform you, but science allows indirect evidence as well.
> Something not taught in school that should be is that evolution is dependent upon natural selection, but not the other way around. The earth could have been populated by God/Aliens/someone creating species in a test tube somewhere and populating the earth. Natural selection would just as easily occur with this hypothesis.
You seem to be confused about the subject matter. It is correct to say that it doesn't matter whether gods/aliens/naturalforces/blindchance created life, because evolution could operate on the result regardless of the origin. All evolution requires is imperfect self-replicators.
> BTW, I'm a scientist
You certainly don't talk like a scientist. What is your field, and where can we find a list of your publications?
> WRONG. There is no such thing as proving a theory right (i.e. as truth).
And a real scientist would know that scientists don't spend their time trying to "prove" theories right. Rather, scientists look for explanations for observed phenomena, and theories are the product of that endeavor.
> Evolution is so mathematically improbable that I'm surprised that most scientists just accept it.
Can you show us the math on that?
> It's a great theory to explain things right now (which is why we use it), but there's a good chance it will probably be proven false someday.
Can you show us the math on that, too? (I'll gladly accept "it may be proven false someday", but you are asserting more than that, even with your double qualification. What are the chances that the theory of evolution will be proven to be false some day?)
> It's easier to swallow that gravity isn't exactly 1/r^2 over huge distances than it is to believe that the universe is full of stuff that we can't see or feel (except at large distances) that clusters around normal matter in a manner suggestive of a severe rounding error.
It's not a question of what is easier to believe; it's a question of what is supported by the evidence. You're a science student, and you know the drill: make interesting observation, generate pile of conjectures as to the cause, examine conjectures for observable consequences, examine universe for occurrence of those consequences.
Surely your first year or two of physics was enough to convince you that the universe may be stranger than we can imagine?
> Entire careers in physics are going straight down the shitter because of dark matter, because it doesn't exist.
Let's wait until we see how this turns out first.
Notice that at the end of the article reference is made to observations that merely suggest that the universe has more conventional matter than we know of. What the writer neglects to mention is the fact that "matter not seen in telescopes" = "dark matter", by definition.
> From the very first time I read about it, I thought "Geez, this sounds like a 3 year old trying to cover up the fact that he doesn't KNOW the reason why". I really think that's what it comes down to.
Yeah, that's what I thought when I first heard of cosmic inflation. But it turns out that, rather being an epicycle-style kludge, inflation makes sense of a great many cosmological observations. (See the four articles in the Feb. 2004 Scientific American for more info.)
> Very smart people not wanting to admit that they have no idea why they can't explain the lack of visible matter in relation to the effects of gravity.
No, very smart people coming up with a hypothesis to explain unexpected observations. That's how science works: Let the best hypothesis win!
> Bush and Blair should be nominated. They ended Saddam's war against Iraq, Kuwait, and other countries which has killed over 500,000 people.
Many more, I think. Estimated 900,000 for the Iran-Iraq war, plus 300,000 Iraqi Shiites after the first Gulf War inspired them to rebel, plus many others in smaller increments.
> Iraq is now a free country, and has hope
Unfortunately, the proverbial fat lady hasn't sung yet. Other proverbs:
"You can have any kind of government you like, so long as it's the kind we want and makes the decisions we want it to."
"The arrests will continue until our welcome improves."
What is Iraq going to be like 2, 5, 10, or 20 years from now?
Slashdot Mirror
> but instead we have a prematurely scrapped Hubble, a disfunctional ISS that doesn't do anything anyway, and NASA with promises to fly to mars and build a "space plane" that is currently in pre-planning stage.
Looks like bye-bye for NASA... until a few years from now when it looks like some other country is on the verge of doing something great, and then we'll pour a trillion dollars into a deathmarch program, after all the remaining expertise has been dispersed and the physical infrastructure has decayed.
Business as usual.
> A photo seemingly showing Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry protesting the Vietnam War with anti-American actress "Hanoi Jane" Fonda - the photo Dems fear most - exists, and has been obtained by NewsMax.com.
If he's anti-war at heart, that's a plus for him. Too bad he didn't vote against George's Big Adventure.
> maybe the elections are just a tad too far away, is suspect that in 6 months or so NASA will have a sudden change of heart, following a generous promise for funding and flying to mars, the moon, and the sun from president bush.
And another round of tax cuts to fund all of it...
- Tries to do probability calculations with percentages rather than raw probability values, 0<=p<=1.
- Identifies x as "quite liberal", even though he never suggests a value, nor even puts any constraints on it.
- Offers to calculate in bits rather than 4gits, but never actually uses either.
- Introduces y, which is never used for anything. (We can calculate y though, determining that it has such-and-such a value and the head-scratcher units of seventeenth-root-of-a-second.)
- Summarizes with "Statistically, I just don't see it", though he hasn't actually done any statistical analysis.
Let me know if I missed anything...> You're a scientist. I'm 17.
You're not so determined to get the "right" answer that you have to check in your brain when the topic comes up.
Especially since so many US citizens formerly working in the IT sector are now out of work.> The tech recession is obviously already over. We are already very near full employment for tech workers even here in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Why else would you be seeing things like this:
> I think they're holding the napkin upside down.
LOL!
If 2 million people each take on 11 "want fries with that?" jobs to maintain the income they lost when their professional jobs got offshored, everything will work out even.
> My girlfriend's been complaining that she can't get onto MSN all night
Shucks, you two will just have to find another way to while away the hours.
(Write me if you need suggestions. I can do ASCII art for the complicated stuff.)
(Let us know if someone needs to explain it to you.)
> A search for Conan Albrecht reveals this guy? Content on his site seems consistent with recent postings.
That's rich: MIS prof invokes non-existent probability calculations to convince us that biologists don't know jack about biology.
BTW, for those who haven't followed these discussions very long, be warned that misrepresentation of credentials is so common among creationists that alarm bells should go off any time you hear an overly vague claim to authority status such as "I am a scientist", "I have a degree in science", "I work in the field", etc., and you should demand clarification.
It would have been trivial for Conan to say "I am a MIS prof", but somehow that doesn't bear the implication of subject-matter expertise that "I am a scientist" does.
...but what the heck are "googled orks"?
> Evolution, OTOH, has never been demonstrated or shown in an experiment. To demonstrate evolution would require watching a planet from start to finish, which we have not yet done.
Sorry to inform you, but science allows indirect evidence as well.
> Something not taught in school that should be is that evolution is dependent upon natural selection, but not the other way around. The earth could have been populated by God/Aliens/someone creating species in a test tube somewhere and populating the earth. Natural selection would just as easily occur with this hypothesis.
You seem to be confused about the subject matter. It is correct to say that it doesn't matter whether gods/aliens/naturalforces/blindchance created life, because evolution could operate on the result regardless of the origin. All evolution requires is imperfect self-replicators.
> BTW, I'm a scientist
You certainly don't talk like a scientist. What is your field, and where can we find a list of your publications?
> WRONG. There is no such thing as proving a theory right (i.e. as truth).
And a real scientist would know that scientists don't spend their time trying to "prove" theories right. Rather, scientists look for explanations for observed phenomena, and theories are the product of that endeavor.
> Evolution is so mathematically improbable that I'm surprised that most scientists just accept it.
Can you show us the math on that?
> It's a great theory to explain things right now (which is why we use it), but there's a good chance it will probably be proven false someday.
Can you show us the math on that, too? (I'll gladly accept "it may be proven false someday", but you are asserting more than that, even with your double qualification. What are the chances that the theory of evolution will be proven to be false some day?)
> It's easier to swallow that gravity isn't exactly 1/r^2 over huge distances than it is to believe that the universe is full of stuff that we can't see or feel (except at large distances) that clusters around normal matter in a manner suggestive of a severe rounding error.
It's not a question of what is easier to believe; it's a question of what is supported by the evidence. You're a science student, and you know the drill: make interesting observation, generate pile of conjectures as to the cause, examine conjectures for observable consequences, examine universe for occurrence of those consequences.
Surely your first year or two of physics was enough to convince you that the universe may be stranger than we can imagine?
> Actually, with Einstein's relativity, doesn't Ptolemy's theories hold true? Everything is relative to a point of view?
Give some thought to how fast the most distant quasars would have to be moving in their orbits. Relativity is going to rule that out immediately.
> Entire careers in physics are going straight down the shitter because of dark matter, because it doesn't exist.
Let's wait until we see how this turns out first.
Notice that at the end of the article reference is made to observations that merely suggest that the universe has more conventional matter than we know of. What the writer neglects to mention is the fact that "matter not seen in telescopes" = "dark matter", by definition.
> From the very first time I read about it, I thought "Geez, this sounds like a 3 year old trying to cover up the fact that he doesn't KNOW the reason why". I really think that's what it comes down to.
Yeah, that's what I thought when I first heard of cosmic inflation. But it turns out that, rather being an epicycle-style kludge, inflation makes sense of a great many cosmological observations. (See the four articles in the Feb. 2004 Scientific American for more info.)
> Very smart people not wanting to admit that they have no idea why they can't explain the lack of visible matter in relation to the effects of gravity.
No, very smart people coming up with a hypothesis to explain unexpected observations. That's how science works: Let the best hypothesis win!
> Now the sysadmins have someone to beat up and the legal department can take some potshots at them for paying damages caused by virusses.
I know Slashdot is a haven for bad spellers, but how could you possibly get three s's in "virii"?
> If your penis doesn't enlarge when you rub cream on it, maybe you're buying the wrong product.
Maybe you just failed to follow the fine print in the instructions: "To be applied by the girl next door."
> Does any company actually have a business plan that isn't based around suing people any more?
Yes - law firms.
> Bush and Blair should be nominated. They ended Saddam's war against Iraq, Kuwait, and other countries which has killed over 500,000 people.
Many more, I think. Estimated 900,000 for the Iran-Iraq war, plus 300,000 Iraqi Shiites after the first Gulf War inspired them to rebel, plus many others in smaller increments.
> Iraq is now a free country, and has hope
Unfortunately, the proverbial fat lady hasn't sung yet. Other proverbs:
"You can have any kind of government you like, so long as it's the kind we want and makes the decisions we want it to."
"The arrests will continue until our welcome improves."
What is Iraq going to be like 2, 5, 10, or 20 years from now?
> I've herd these arguments all my life and I just have one question. What video game did Hitler or Stalin play ?
Panzer General.
> I was once a fervent KILLER in 3D on-line multiplayer blood&splash games. And let me tell you - it DOES influence you. Negatively.
Yeah, now you're a Slashdot poster!
> Hey that's nothing. Three days after I bought Tetris, I started laying bricks in the garden like crazy.
And three days after I got my first compiler, I was writing crappy code!
You misspelled 'y344', looser.
> When I see "loose" being used in place of "lose", my blood starts boiling.
Me to.