There might've been up to 38,000 people putting down a deposit, but are they likely to be repeat customers? I don't think so.
So? Even if they're not repeat customers, that's about $7.6 billion. Except to someone like Bill Gates, that's a sum of money worth pursuing even if you only get it once.
Of course, once you get the thing working smoothly the costs will certainly come down from $200k and the number of repeat customers will increase; or at least the number of one-time customers will increase beyond 38,000.
Personally, I'm surprised to hear that 38,000 people have put down $20k each for this. I wouldn't have though that many people would have both the money and the desire to go suborbital for such a short time.
Who gains the most from using our highways? Businesses!
Who paid the most for our highways? The Citizens!
A business is an imaginary entity. Sure, for legal questions it's legally a person. But in reality, a company is just a group of real people working together towards a goal of generating income for themselves and, hopefully, generating excess profits to pay the people that originally invested money to get their group off the ground (or the people that later bought shares which creates a market so the original people had a market to sell their shares in afterwards). There is no logical reason why a group of people (a company) should be taxed when the individuals that make up that group (the employees) are already being taxed on their income, as are the individual investors (who pay taxes on dividends and/or capital gains, or should under a sane tax system).
Taxing corporations is nothing short of double taxation. But that's nothing new. Money is more than double-taxed already.
Saying that corporations have benefited more from highways than individuals is silly. Corporations are individuals. And, besides, highways are one of the few productive and useful things that I see my tax dollars spent on.
Google sends business to these retards, if anything. Those that can't make that simple connection need to do us all a favor, and stop breathing.
No kidding. I'm a published author and I'm currently trying to figure out if my publisher is going to get my book listed with Google or if I have to do it myself. One way or another I definitely want my book listed. I can't imagine why an author wouldn't want the contents of his or her book to be searchable on Google.
As an avid cyclist, I'd love to assume it will end at user fees.
You're assuming that they won't apply the same technology to bikes and charge you, too! Granted, probably a lesser fee but why would we think they'll exempt bikes?
Anyway, I oppose this across the board. The privacy concerns are obvious. But fee-based infrastructure is a really bad idea. National infrastructure is one of the few things that I agree the government should be involved in because it benefits all of us.
If they eventually go fee-based then I assume they'll cut the federal budget by whatever it is they currently spend on the transporation department, at least the hundreds of billions they regularly spend on highways? I'm definitely not going to put up with being double-dinged for this stuff.
You'd likely change your mind if you knew all my religious beliefs:
I suggest, as a Christian, that you follow God's 10 commandments rather than your invented list of 10 commandments which talk about taxation and zoning laws.
I've never subscribed to a paper in my life, and never will. I have no use for a collection of "current events" that are 6 to 30 hours out-of-date. If I want to know what's going on now, I want to know what's going on now, not what happened yesterday. And if I want to find out what happened a few weeks or months ago, I want a nice "Search" box on a website that'll give me what I'm looking for in a second, not have to go wading through a collection of old dead-tree papers which is what I'd have to do to accomplish the same thing at home without an Internet version.
If you doubt evolution because 1) you don't understand the evidence or 2) science has been wrong before or 3) the scientific establishment is biased, it follows that you can't trust *anything* science tells you about any subject.
1) I do understand the evidence and I recognize the lack thereof. 2) I don't care whether or not science has been wrong before, that's not the point. 3) It's not that the scientific establishment is intentionally biased, it's that there's not a lot of creative thought going on to try to explain things which evolution hasn't--and I suspect that, in great part, is because a) Scientists want evolution to be right because the alternative is they have no explanation, and b) Those that might consider other options do have some fear in being the subject of the kind of mocking you see here when someone questions evolution. I'm not a paleontologist so I have no worries about being mocked for an unpopular view--for a paleontologist, that could be a career-limiting move.
My issue is with #1--and not that I don't understand the evidence, but rather I simply haven't seen evidence that allows me to fully accept the current explanation that evolution offers.
Why single out evolution unless you have a prejudice against it?
Because its evidence is lacking. We can show that our understanding of gravity is understood by witnessing objects falling and seeing that our spacecraft orbit the earth as expected and follow expected trajectories to other planets. We can see our understanding of nuclear physics is correct because of nuclear bombs and nuclear reactors. We can show that our understanding of electricity is correct because it consistently behaves the way we would expect it to.
I have no prejudice against evolution, I just haven't seen this level of evidence that allows me to put the same trust in the theory of evolution as I have for other scientific theories.
I do have prejudice against people who try to elevate evolution to the same level certainty of many other areas of science. Our understanding of evolution continues to, ironically, evolve. To portray our current understanding of evolution as being as complete as some of the other scientific areas I mentioned is disingenous.
Granted, you don't want to spend $100 to $200 on the power supply. But you shouldn't have to. Does anyone know offhand the wattage and amps that the Xbox requires? In all my life I've never seen a power supply as large as the one I saw pictured as coming with the Xbox. What, does it include its own nuclear backup power supply? And why is it so big? Does the Xbox include an integrated space heater for the room in which the game is being played?
Wouldn't it be easier and more reliable to buy a power supply that functions without overheating? As long as it provides the correct voltage and is rated at the correct number of amps, there's nothing special about a given power supply.
If are a young-earth creationist, then you have to reject all of science.
I'm not a young-earth creationist. Most Christians aren't. Like I said, that doesn't mean we can't have reservations about the theories and evidence (or what some consider the lack thereof) of evolution while believing in other scientific theories we feel are more well-established and understood.
Evolution is not the cornerstone of all science. It very well could be wrong with all other areas of science being completely right. Don't try to make science an all-or-nothing proposition or you will be just as radical and goofy as fundamentalist Christians who think the planet is 6000 years old and whom you mock.
Moderators: The parent is a troll, not funny. Just because some people have reservations about one scientific theory (evolution) doesn't mean they disagree with all science. But it's nice to see the parent was more than eager to paint such people with such a wide, inaccurate, stereotypical brush.
I think people should get their priorities in order. Rather than get worked up over low priority/impact stuff. Makes me wonder if politicians or someone is trying to distract people from more important stuff.
I can't speak for everyone--and I believe our power consumption is probably below typical American averages--but we use about 11kWh per day. If our wall warts, etc. are really consuming 2.4kWH per day, that's about 22%! If a country needs 22% less energy, that's a big savings in terms of money, infrastructure, and polution.
Now like I said, I realize that we're probably way below the American average. In fact, I just did a quick Google lookup and this link says the typical American uses 10,000kWh per year--so that'd work out to 27.4kWh/day. So, fine, we use less than half the average. But even so, if the wall warts amount to 2.4kWh/day, that's still close to 10% of the typical American consumers' consumption. That's not insignificant.
I'm so mad that I chose to run this Adware OS. Oh wait, no I'm not it was cheaper this way.
How many really consciously pay for Windows? If it's in a business, the business is going to pay anyway and they're not going to accept ads on their employee's computers for reasons already discussed (distraction). If it's a home user, Windows either came pre-installed on the computer (in which case the user paid for it, but doesn't really "feel" that he paid for it) or the user probably "borrowed" a copy from someone else/the office/etc. Either way, I don't think very many home users actually pay for Windows. So adding OS advertisements is going to be seen by the typical user as an intrusion for very little benefit.
Personally, I could care less. I've been using Linux desktop for the last 3 years. When I was using RedHat 9, I was tempted on several occasions to go back to WinXP--but every time I'd have to clean up my wife's Windows computer/reinstall it, or take care of a customer on-site only to find the entire problem was some kind of virus/spyware infestation on their Windows machine. It seems like each time the idea of going back to Windows crept back into my head, a very vivid reminder of why I left Windows would whack me over the head.
But since upgrading to Fedora Core 3, man, I don't even consider thinking about going back to Windows. Given the choice between FC3 or XP on my laptop, you couldn't pay me to use Windows. And if I had to look at ads? Hehehehe, yeah right.
I still have an 800XL connected and running with a 1050 (it still works too - they, and 5 1/4" disks are plentiful on ebay and other sources) but you would want something called APE for real storage - it uses your PC serial port and emulates all kinds of devices.
Yeah, as if my dang laptop actually has a serial port!:)
I just know that a friend and I couldn't reliably transfer data between our two machines. If we wanted to take software from one machine to another, we'd usually save it on two or three disks to increase the chance of at least one of them working. Surely an alignment problem, but a problem nonetheless.
Still orders of magnitude better than the cassette recorder though. I can't remember how many programs I lost to the cassette recorder even after saving every program on two different tapes.
I don't think I've heard of any one project being the source of so many "evil" events, natural and man-made.
You forget 9/11.:) I'm not sure which is the more versatile Swiss Army Knife for conspiracy theorists--HAARP or 9/11. The advantage to the 9/11 conspiracy theories is that the event itself is more well-known than HAARP and they can tie into their Bush-bashing whereas HAARP is far more obscure to the general public and they generally can't blame it on Bush since it was launched during the Clinton administration.
More importantly, I wonder if it locks up like my 'ol Atari's did (yes, that's plural).
I loved my Atari 400, 800XL, 1200XL, 130XE (and eventually 520ST, though that wasn't part of the 8-bit line). I still have a 1200XL lying around and was thinking of doing something similar to what this guy did: I couldn't imagine trying to make the old 1050 disk drive work (they were barely reliable when they were new, and now you'd have to find 5.25" disks which is probably difficult). So I was going to make an SD card adapter so I could use SD cards instead of floppy disks.
Wasn't planning on making it portable, but that's pretty cool.:)
Conservation of energy and thermodynamics tells us that this system has to operate with a net loss in efficiency for the *same* operating conditions.
The alternator is being driven regardless of whether you use some of the electricity to split water into hydrogen or not. This isn't a matter of getting something for nothing... it's a matter of not throwing away electricity that's already being generated by the alternator.
I'll try to ignore your quips as much as possible since they add nothing useful to the conversation.
... then macroevolution is already being demonstrated all around you: For example, if you have a son and he grows up to be taller than you, and that trait ends up winning him a basketball scholarship, and your son marries a tall woman and gives you a grandchild who is even taller than he is, then you have just witnessed "macroevolution".
That has not provided him with any new functionality. So now you're saying that height is an example of macroevolution??? At least if a human can suddenly mate with a dog, you've got something a little more significant than a difference in height. Your examples seem to be getting weaker and weaker.
Of course, to you, that demonstration is not adequate - you don't want a "gradual improvement", you want a wholly-formed, physically apparent change to be wrought in one generation. Like, say, a brand-new, fully-functonal third eyeball on the back of your son's head.
That's not what I want--I don't care if the new functionality appears overnight or over time. But your examples are far from the kinds of things that create a truly new, functionally unique species either spontaenously or over time.
Great, so if my son is tall and he marries a tall woman, his child might be tall... or might be short. That's just dominant and recessive genes. It's not mutation and it certainly isn't evolution. It's existing genes together producing a result that is within the parameters of the existing speices.
Small, even imperceptible changes can eventually result in speciation and can produce all the diverse life forms we see today.
Then why don't you give me an example of these small changes producing a new, diverse life form? You're giving me examples of maybe what we considered (based on our arbitrary definition) two species perhaps mating (very similar species by the way, it wasn't a duck with a cow!) and now you even give me height as an example of macroevolution... and you mock me wanting to see a third eyeball on the back of my son's head. You may mock that, but a new eyeball, a wing, multiple stomachs, 8 legs instead of 2, etc. THESE would be excellent examples of macroevolution. Yet you mock me for wanting to see an example. I don't understand why. It's not a silly request.
Me: So? And you're (meaning science, not you personally) defining macroevolution arbitrarily as something that is able to cross a species boundary that is, itself, an arbitrary definition.
You: It's not arbitrary. It's the accepted definition.
The accepted definition is arbitrary. I'll agree it's accepted, but it's arbitrary. At some point it was decided that if two organisms can't (or won't!) mate, they're different species. Perhaps that's valid--though I would say that two organisms that can mate but choose not to is not necessarily a different species. Maybe they're just racist.:) Seriously, though, just because the definition is "accepted" doesn't mean there's anything magical about it. Just because evolution may have crossed the definition of macroevolution and we've defined macroevolution to include everything from now being able to mate all the way up to sprouting wings, that doesn't mean that just because we've seen two relatively similar organisms agree to mate (or even achieve the ability to) that we will necessarily also get to see wings sprout out of descendents a billion years from now.
This is a different situation than the "dance" I describe above, where the definition conveniently changes to be repeatedly outside the bounds of observed phenomena.
Well we're talking about my position here, I think, and my definition hasn't changed. And to be quite honest, I don't really care about the official "definition" of micro and macroevolution. Pe
All necessary molecules for primitive life have been created through simple experiments in the labs.
Even if true, the molecules are a small fragment of what's needed. What's more interesting than the chemistry is how these molecules just got together and formed a functioning cell, a cell wall, etc. So many functions of the cell are such that it either has to all be there or none of it can work. THAT'S the challenge, that's the "holy grail" for science in terms of explaining the origin of life--not explaining the proteins or molecules, but what logically must be a spontaneous creation of a functioning cell.
To say that creating the "necessary molecules" for primitive life is anywhere near a sufficient explanation for the origin of life is like saying that someone was able to build a hammer so we now have an explanation of how a 100-story skyscraper is built. The hammer might be a tool used to build the skyscraper, but it doesn't itself really explain how the skyscraper is built... and there is no implication that the hammer alone is of any use unless something intelligent puts it to use.
I don't dispute microevolution. But if microevolution implies macroevolutions, we should see incremental movements from a previous version of an organism to the new, evolved version. "Discoveries" such as this 'Godzilla' seems to be the exact opposite: It appeared out of nowhere and the articles I've read on it say that paleontologists "can't explain" how it happened so suddenly.
To tell the truth, I'm kind of confused what evolutionists believe anymore. I don't know if that's because they don't articulate their position well, because their position changes frequently, or because I haven't been paying close enough attention, but: Is the current evolution belief that evolution happens through a bunch of extremely small microevolution steps and eventually produces something new? Or does evolution say that it is perfectly reasonable to discover a brand new species (such as Godzilla) that seems to have appeared "suddenly" out of nowhere?
It seems like either way there are some problems regarding making the data fit the theory. Unless they adopt both positions in which case I have to call B.S.:)
The primary point behind an anti-global warming position is that we do not have enough data on record that can be 100% relied upon to say that yes the earth is indeed warming in an out-of-the-ordinary fashion.
That may be one of the points, but I'm not sure I'd call it the primary point. We also have satellite temperature data that doesn't entirely coincide with less accurate surface record that is usually used by global warming advocates; we have the ice in Greenland thickening rather than melting, to say nothing of the south pole. And time and time again we see global warming apologists explaining what seems like awfully cold weather with explanations such as "global warming may cause local cooling."
So, yes, I'd say you're right--we don't have enough data to say that the earth is warming at all (at least in the last couple of decades), let alone that it is doing so in an unnatural fashion.
When it comes down to the pure recorded facts that can be 100% relied on, we simply see that we don't know enough about the cyclic patterns of (a) the sun, and (b) the earth. After we've been recording all the information for several thousands years (we have about 100 years), we can start to draw conclusions like what global-warming advocates are trying to draw.
I agree, except that we don't really have 100 years of useful records. The surface record is quite useless. It is biased significantly around cities (where people have been there for a hundred years to record the surface temperature) which is effected by the heat island effect. Yes, I'm aware that scientists try to compensate for these heat island effects, but anyone that says they can do so with enough accuracy to detect a half degree temperature change over 100 years is selling you something... probably pro-global warming propaganda.
In addition, the surface record only covers a few prime points on land and even fewer points over the oceans which cover 75% of the planet. Pretty much only sporadic, non-precise readings along major shipping lanes are represented in the surface record.
And we can't be entirely sure how much confidence we can have in readings taken at any given surface site. Perhaps they're accurate and well controlled now, but they were much less so a hundred years ago. This is especially true in less developed countries where the readings from 100 years ago can be so unreliable so as to be useless. In short, temperature readings from the pre-satellite age are of little use in judging what is being sold as a global problem.
Call me a Bush stoodge, call me a pawn of the oil companies, etc. but I don't think it's unreasonable to wait for some real data over a stastistically significant time frame before running around like chickens with our heads cut off.
Me: Your response, though long, mostly didn't even respond to my points. I already know what macroevolution is and its difference from microevolution. Your essay was redundant.
You: No, you obviously don't. My point is that functionally, there is no difference.
Sorry, I do (and did) know the difference. Your essay wasn't necessary to make your point. In fact, you just stated your point in one sentence. For the record, I disagree with your point.
Me: This, and every example of speciation that I've been able to find so far, all offer fertility and/or the interest in interbreeding as an example of speciation. While this may satisfy the technical definition of speciation (which you yourself have said is an arbitrary line), we have not seen this process produce any new useful and beneficial functions or features in the offspring.
You're doing the typical dance of the macroevolutionist, which is to define macroevolution as "whatever level of complexity we haven't observed yet", and then to declare that since we haven't observed it, it's not likely to happen.
So? And you're (meaning science, not you personally) defining macroevolution arbitrarily as something that is able to cross a species boundary that is, itself, an arbitrary definition. The fact remains that we have yet to observe any natural evolution that produced useful new functionality for the organism, and which was perpetuated beyond the first generation. And that's really the key to evolution. Until we've observed that, don't be surprised that people are not going to blindly believe your assertion that microevolution is the same as macroevolution. If we have all these examples of microevolution but no evidence of useful new functionality evolving, it should at least give you pause.
Do you have any idea how long A BILLION YEARS is?
Yes I do, your condescension notwithstanding.
Me: No-one is disputing genetics, here. We're questioning whether or not those genes could feasibly have spontaneously generated at the beginning of time and subsequently gained complex information to eventually create all the animals we see today.
You: No we're not. This is a discussion about whether evolution is an accepted phenomenon on the large and small scale. Terms like "gained complex information" and "spontaneously generated" don't even fit in the evolutionary framework.
Ahhh, and if it doesn't fit into the evolutionary framework, that automatically means that the people questioning evolution are automatically wrong, not that evolution itself could be incorrect because, once again, something doesn't fit into its "framework?":)
Those terms are borrowed from, respectively, the debunked "irreducible complexity" problem, and "creationism".
As much as you may disagree with either of those concepts, neither one has been debunked.
Genes don't need to spontaneously result in lizard wings and dragon breath or whatnot, "feasibly" or otherwise. They just need to spread, gradually diverge through separation, and gradually refine through natural selection.
At some point you're going to have to have a lizard with wings. You didn't before, now you do. At some point the wings had to appear. Natural selection doesn't adequately explain this unless the change was pretty much instant from one generation to the next because there's no natural selection advantage to a mutated lizard that has half a wing, or a wing stub, etc.
Me: That we are learning to do potentially amazing things with genes that don't happen without intelligence is actually an indirect hint that maybe intelligence was involved.
You: That's just lame. I can write intelligible words in the snow with my pee. That doesn't in ANY WAY imply that the snow was "intelligently" distributed.
Nice. You abandon your losing battles in the Kansas thread, and come over here and make the same stupid potshots at evolution, to the same effect. Get a life.
I do have a life which is exactly why, thusfar, I haven't had time to continue in the other thread. I was actually going to bring up this 'Godzilla' topic in the other thread--then I saw a brand new thread was created on the topic.
It's the weekend, go have fun away from your computer for a few minutes!
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So? Even if they're not repeat customers, that's about $7.6 billion. Except to someone like Bill Gates, that's a sum of money worth pursuing even if you only get it once.
Of course, once you get the thing working smoothly the costs will certainly come down from $200k and the number of repeat customers will increase; or at least the number of one-time customers will increase beyond 38,000.
Personally, I'm surprised to hear that 38,000 people have put down $20k each for this. I wouldn't have though that many people would have both the money and the desire to go suborbital for such a short time.
A business is an imaginary entity. Sure, for legal questions it's legally a person. But in reality, a company is just a group of real people working together towards a goal of generating income for themselves and, hopefully, generating excess profits to pay the people that originally invested money to get their group off the ground (or the people that later bought shares which creates a market so the original people had a market to sell their shares in afterwards). There is no logical reason why a group of people (a company) should be taxed when the individuals that make up that group (the employees) are already being taxed on their income, as are the individual investors (who pay taxes on dividends and/or capital gains, or should under a sane tax system).
Taxing corporations is nothing short of double taxation. But that's nothing new. Money is more than double-taxed already.
Saying that corporations have benefited more from highways than individuals is silly. Corporations are individuals. And, besides, highways are one of the few productive and useful things that I see my tax dollars spent on.
No kidding. I'm a published author and I'm currently trying to figure out if my publisher is going to get my book listed with Google or if I have to do it myself. One way or another I definitely want my book listed. I can't imagine why an author wouldn't want the contents of his or her book to be searchable on Google.
You're assuming that they won't apply the same technology to bikes and charge you, too! Granted, probably a lesser fee but why would we think they'll exempt bikes?
Anyway, I oppose this across the board. The privacy concerns are obvious. But fee-based infrastructure is a really bad idea. National infrastructure is one of the few things that I agree the government should be involved in because it benefits all of us.
If they eventually go fee-based then I assume they'll cut the federal budget by whatever it is they currently spend on the transporation department, at least the hundreds of billions they regularly spend on highways? I'm definitely not going to put up with being double-dinged for this stuff.
I suggest, as a Christian, that you follow God's 10 commandments rather than your invented list of 10 commandments which talk about taxation and zoning laws.
1) I do understand the evidence and I recognize the lack thereof. 2) I don't care whether or not science has been wrong before, that's not the point. 3) It's not that the scientific establishment is intentionally biased, it's that there's not a lot of creative thought going on to try to explain things which evolution hasn't--and I suspect that, in great part, is because a) Scientists want evolution to be right because the alternative is they have no explanation, and b) Those that might consider other options do have some fear in being the subject of the kind of mocking you see here when someone questions evolution. I'm not a paleontologist so I have no worries about being mocked for an unpopular view--for a paleontologist, that could be a career-limiting move.
My issue is with #1--and not that I don't understand the evidence, but rather I simply haven't seen evidence that allows me to fully accept the current explanation that evolution offers.
Why single out evolution unless you have a prejudice against it?
Because its evidence is lacking. We can show that our understanding of gravity is understood by witnessing objects falling and seeing that our spacecraft orbit the earth as expected and follow expected trajectories to other planets. We can see our understanding of nuclear physics is correct because of nuclear bombs and nuclear reactors. We can show that our understanding of electricity is correct because it consistently behaves the way we would expect it to.
I have no prejudice against evolution, I just haven't seen this level of evidence that allows me to put the same trust in the theory of evolution as I have for other scientific theories.
I do have prejudice against people who try to elevate evolution to the same level certainty of many other areas of science. Our understanding of evolution continues to, ironically, evolve. To portray our current understanding of evolution as being as complete as some of the other scientific areas I mentioned is disingenous.
But how long does that fuzzy feeling last when your system crashes because the power-supply overheated?
I'm not a young-earth creationist. Most Christians aren't. Like I said, that doesn't mean we can't have reservations about the theories and evidence (or what some consider the lack thereof) of evolution while believing in other scientific theories we feel are more well-established and understood.
Evolution is not the cornerstone of all science. It very well could be wrong with all other areas of science being completely right. Don't try to make science an all-or-nothing proposition or you will be just as radical and goofy as fundamentalist Christians who think the planet is 6000 years old and whom you mock.
I can't speak for everyone--and I believe our power consumption is probably below typical American averages--but we use about 11kWh per day. If our wall warts, etc. are really consuming 2.4kWH per day, that's about 22%! If a country needs 22% less energy, that's a big savings in terms of money, infrastructure, and polution.
Now like I said, I realize that we're probably way below the American average. In fact, I just did a quick Google lookup and this link says the typical American uses 10,000kWh per year--so that'd work out to 27.4kWh/day. So, fine, we use less than half the average. But even so, if the wall warts amount to 2.4kWh/day, that's still close to 10% of the typical American consumers' consumption. That's not insignificant.
How many really consciously pay for Windows? If it's in a business, the business is going to pay anyway and they're not going to accept ads on their employee's computers for reasons already discussed (distraction). If it's a home user, Windows either came pre-installed on the computer (in which case the user paid for it, but doesn't really "feel" that he paid for it) or the user probably "borrowed" a copy from someone else/the office/etc. Either way, I don't think very many home users actually pay for Windows. So adding OS advertisements is going to be seen by the typical user as an intrusion for very little benefit.
Personally, I could care less. I've been using Linux desktop for the last 3 years. When I was using RedHat 9, I was tempted on several occasions to go back to WinXP--but every time I'd have to clean up my wife's Windows computer/reinstall it, or take care of a customer on-site only to find the entire problem was some kind of virus/spyware infestation on their Windows machine. It seems like each time the idea of going back to Windows crept back into my head, a very vivid reminder of why I left Windows would whack me over the head.
But since upgrading to Fedora Core 3, man, I don't even consider thinking about going back to Windows. Given the choice between FC3 or XP on my laptop, you couldn't pay me to use Windows. And if I had to look at ads? Hehehehe, yeah right.
Yeah, as if my dang laptop actually has a serial port! :)
Still orders of magnitude better than the cassette recorder though. I can't remember how many programs I lost to the cassette recorder even after saving every program on two different tapes.
You forget 9/11. :) I'm not sure which is the more versatile Swiss Army Knife for conspiracy theorists--HAARP or 9/11. The advantage to the 9/11 conspiracy theories is that the event itself is more well-known than HAARP and they can tie into their Bush-bashing whereas HAARP is far more obscure to the general public and they generally can't blame it on Bush since it was launched during the Clinton administration.
I loved my Atari 400, 800XL, 1200XL, 130XE (and eventually 520ST, though that wasn't part of the 8-bit line). I still have a 1200XL lying around and was thinking of doing something similar to what this guy did: I couldn't imagine trying to make the old 1050 disk drive work (they were barely reliable when they were new, and now you'd have to find 5.25" disks which is probably difficult). So I was going to make an SD card adapter so I could use SD cards instead of floppy disks.
Wasn't planning on making it portable, but that's pretty cool. :)
The alternator is being driven regardless of whether you use some of the electricity to split water into hydrogen or not. This isn't a matter of getting something for nothing... it's a matter of not throwing away electricity that's already being generated by the alternator.
That has not provided him with any new functionality. So now you're saying that height is an example of macroevolution??? At least if a human can suddenly mate with a dog, you've got something a little more significant than a difference in height. Your examples seem to be getting weaker and weaker.
Of course, to you, that demonstration is not adequate - you don't want a "gradual improvement", you want a wholly-formed, physically apparent change to be wrought in one generation. Like, say, a brand-new, fully-functonal third eyeball on the back of your son's head.
That's not what I want--I don't care if the new functionality appears overnight or over time. But your examples are far from the kinds of things that create a truly new, functionally unique species either spontaenously or over time.
Great, so if my son is tall and he marries a tall woman, his child might be tall... or might be short. That's just dominant and recessive genes. It's not mutation and it certainly isn't evolution. It's existing genes together producing a result that is within the parameters of the existing speices.
Small, even imperceptible changes can eventually result in speciation and can produce all the diverse life forms we see today.
Then why don't you give me an example of these small changes producing a new, diverse life form? You're giving me examples of maybe what we considered (based on our arbitrary definition) two species perhaps mating (very similar species by the way, it wasn't a duck with a cow!) and now you even give me height as an example of macroevolution... and you mock me wanting to see a third eyeball on the back of my son's head. You may mock that, but a new eyeball, a wing, multiple stomachs, 8 legs instead of 2, etc. THESE would be excellent examples of macroevolution. Yet you mock me for wanting to see an example. I don't understand why. It's not a silly request.
Me: So? And you're (meaning science, not you personally) defining macroevolution arbitrarily as something that is able to cross a species boundary that is, itself, an arbitrary definition.
You: It's not arbitrary. It's the accepted definition.
The accepted definition is arbitrary. I'll agree it's accepted, but it's arbitrary. At some point it was decided that if two organisms can't (or won't!) mate, they're different species. Perhaps that's valid--though I would say that two organisms that can mate but choose not to is not necessarily a different species. Maybe they're just racist. :) Seriously, though, just because the definition is "accepted" doesn't mean there's anything magical about it. Just because evolution may have crossed the definition of macroevolution and we've defined macroevolution to include everything from now being able to mate all the way up to sprouting wings, that doesn't mean that just because we've seen two relatively similar organisms agree to mate (or even achieve the ability to) that we will necessarily also get to see wings sprout out of descendents a billion years from now.
This is a different situation than the "dance" I describe above, where the definition conveniently changes to be repeatedly outside the bounds of observed phenomena.
Well we're talking about my position here, I think, and my definition hasn't changed. And to be quite honest, I don't really care about the official "definition" of micro and macroevolution. Pe
Even if true, the molecules are a small fragment of what's needed. What's more interesting than the chemistry is how these molecules just got together and formed a functioning cell, a cell wall, etc. So many functions of the cell are such that it either has to all be there or none of it can work. THAT'S the challenge, that's the "holy grail" for science in terms of explaining the origin of life--not explaining the proteins or molecules, but what logically must be a spontaneous creation of a functioning cell.
To say that creating the "necessary molecules" for primitive life is anywhere near a sufficient explanation for the origin of life is like saying that someone was able to build a hammer so we now have an explanation of how a 100-story skyscraper is built. The hammer might be a tool used to build the skyscraper, but it doesn't itself really explain how the skyscraper is built... and there is no implication that the hammer alone is of any use unless something intelligent puts it to use.
I don't dispute microevolution. But if microevolution implies macroevolutions, we should see incremental movements from a previous version of an organism to the new, evolved version. "Discoveries" such as this 'Godzilla' seems to be the exact opposite: It appeared out of nowhere and the articles I've read on it say that paleontologists "can't explain" how it happened so suddenly.
To tell the truth, I'm kind of confused what evolutionists believe anymore. I don't know if that's because they don't articulate their position well, because their position changes frequently, or because I haven't been paying close enough attention, but: Is the current evolution belief that evolution happens through a bunch of extremely small microevolution steps and eventually produces something new? Or does evolution say that it is perfectly reasonable to discover a brand new species (such as Godzilla) that seems to have appeared "suddenly" out of nowhere?
It seems like either way there are some problems regarding making the data fit the theory. Unless they adopt both positions in which case I have to call B.S. :)
That may be one of the points, but I'm not sure I'd call it the primary point. We also have satellite temperature data that doesn't entirely coincide with less accurate surface record that is usually used by global warming advocates; we have the ice in Greenland thickening rather than melting, to say nothing of the south pole. And time and time again we see global warming apologists explaining what seems like awfully cold weather with explanations such as "global warming may cause local cooling."
So, yes, I'd say you're right--we don't have enough data to say that the earth is warming at all (at least in the last couple of decades), let alone that it is doing so in an unnatural fashion.
- When it comes down to the pure recorded facts that can be 100% relied on, we simply see that we don't know enough about the cyclic patterns of (a) the sun, and (b) the earth. After we've been recording all the information for several thousands years (we have about 100 years), we can start to draw conclusions like what global-warming advocates are trying to draw.
I agree, except that we don't really have 100 years of useful records. The surface record is quite useless. It is biased significantly around cities (where people have been there for a hundred years to record the surface temperature) which is effected by the heat island effect. Yes, I'm aware that scientists try to compensate for these heat island effects, but anyone that says they can do so with enough accuracy to detect a half degree temperature change over 100 years is selling you something... probably pro-global warming propaganda.In addition, the surface record only covers a few prime points on land and even fewer points over the oceans which cover 75% of the planet. Pretty much only sporadic, non-precise readings along major shipping lanes are represented in the surface record.
And we can't be entirely sure how much confidence we can have in readings taken at any given surface site. Perhaps they're accurate and well controlled now, but they were much less so a hundred years ago. This is especially true in less developed countries where the readings from 100 years ago can be so unreliable so as to be useless. In short, temperature readings from the pre-satellite age are of little use in judging what is being sold as a global problem.
Call me a Bush stoodge, call me a pawn of the oil companies, etc. but I don't think it's unreasonable to wait for some real data over a stastistically significant time frame before running around like chickens with our heads cut off.
Me: Your response, though long, mostly didn't even respond to my points. I already know what macroevolution is and its difference from microevolution. Your essay was redundant.
You: No, you obviously don't. My point is that functionally, there is no difference.
Sorry, I do (and did) know the difference. Your essay wasn't necessary to make your point. In fact, you just stated your point in one sentence. For the record, I disagree with your point.
Me: This, and every example of speciation that I've been able to find so far, all offer fertility and/or the interest in interbreeding as an example of speciation. While this may satisfy the technical definition of speciation (which you yourself have said is an arbitrary line), we have not seen this process produce any new useful and beneficial functions or features in the offspring.
You're doing the typical dance of the macroevolutionist, which is to define macroevolution as "whatever level of complexity we haven't observed yet", and then to declare that since we haven't observed it, it's not likely to happen.
So? And you're (meaning science, not you personally) defining macroevolution arbitrarily as something that is able to cross a species boundary that is, itself, an arbitrary definition. The fact remains that we have yet to observe any natural evolution that produced useful new functionality for the organism, and which was perpetuated beyond the first generation. And that's really the key to evolution. Until we've observed that, don't be surprised that people are not going to blindly believe your assertion that microevolution is the same as macroevolution. If we have all these examples of microevolution but no evidence of useful new functionality evolving, it should at least give you pause.
Do you have any idea how long A BILLION YEARS is?
Yes I do, your condescension notwithstanding.
Me: No-one is disputing genetics, here. We're questioning whether or not those genes could feasibly have spontaneously generated at the beginning of time and subsequently gained complex information to eventually create all the animals we see today.
You: No we're not. This is a discussion about whether evolution is an accepted phenomenon on the large and small scale. Terms like "gained complex information" and "spontaneously generated" don't even fit in the evolutionary framework.
Ahhh, and if it doesn't fit into the evolutionary framework, that automatically means that the people questioning evolution are automatically wrong, not that evolution itself could be incorrect because, once again, something doesn't fit into its "framework?" :)
Those terms are borrowed from, respectively, the debunked "irreducible complexity" problem, and "creationism".
As much as you may disagree with either of those concepts, neither one has been debunked.
Genes don't need to spontaneously result in lizard wings and dragon breath or whatnot, "feasibly" or otherwise. They just need to spread, gradually diverge through separation, and gradually refine through natural selection.
At some point you're going to have to have a lizard with wings. You didn't before, now you do. At some point the wings had to appear. Natural selection doesn't adequately explain this unless the change was pretty much instant from one generation to the next because there's no natural selection advantage to a mutated lizard that has half a wing, or a wing stub, etc.
Me: That we are learning to do potentially amazing things with genes that don't happen without intelligence is actually an indirect hint that maybe intelligence was involved.
You: That's just lame. I can write intelligible words in the snow with my pee. That doesn't in ANY WAY imply that the snow was "intelligently" distributed.
Now THAT is lame because it isn't even an
I do have a life which is exactly why, thusfar, I haven't had time to continue in the other thread. I was actually going to bring up this 'Godzilla' topic in the other thread--then I saw a brand new thread was created on the topic.
It's the weekend, go have fun away from your computer for a few minutes!