I certainly agree that speed limits are abused to provide easy revenue. My dad once got a speeding ticket in Lousiana while sitting at a red light - the trooper noticed the out of state tag and wrote him a ticket "because you must have been speeding somewhere."
Sure, the ticket can be fought - but who really expects to win and come out cheaper than the fine?
Maybe the key is to take away the incentive: rule that fines do NOT go to the ticket issuing entity - and that all identifying info is stripped from the revenue. Ok, so heck if I know where the money should go - and legitimate damages should certianly still go to the injured party; but fines are punitive in nature. Theoretically this means they are most important as a punishment on the wrongdoer - where the cash GOES isn't as important as taking it away from the convict.
And am I the only one who thinks that the sort of thinking engendered from punishing your constituents (erratically and irrationally) for revenue is toxic to good governance?
Heck, if they were serious about enforcing the speed limits they would just use cameras - and mail you the ticket; this might let the Highway Patrol get back to their actual job of searching for shipments of contraband, stopping flagrantly reckless / drunk drivers, helping distressed motorists, and generally making use of the roads safer for all of us.
Just my two cents.
Changing Visions of the Future
on
Ask Larry Niven
·
· Score: 1
Hi Larry,
Your future history of "Known Space" seems very thoroughly thought out, from the massive laser installations on mercury for pushing solar-sail ships around to the inevitable madness that makes machine intelligence a dead end. That being said, technology today is not what it was when some of these issues were first dealt with in your writings; so, what I would like to know is:
How has your vision of the future of humaniti changed? Not necessarily the vision presented in your works, but your own personal vision?
Thanks for sharing, and thanks for the body of great hard Spec-Fic!
- Infrared Interferometer: Multiple small telescopes on a fixed structure or on separated spacecraft flying in precision formation would simulate a much larger, very powerful telescope. The interferometer would utilize a technique called nulling to reduce the starlight by a factor of one million, thus enabling the detection of the very dim infrared emission from the planets.
So, yes - stars give off considerable IR radiation; yes, the planned mission has a way (a method called Nulling) of coping with this potentially blinding glare.
Hey guys - the whole "so what makes something art" question isn't exactly new... The ancient dead greek guy started trying to define thought and reality, and generally to put everyting into neat little boxes. Definitions of this style are "SubjectX IS:" and for hundreds of year - heck, millenia - the definition "Art IS:..." has eluded and stymied pundits, critics, artists, and various other flavors of Raging Egos(tm). Current art theory seems to think that art is defined by who does it and who accepts it - if you aren't part of the art world, then nothing you do can possibly be art - but any 'recognized' artist can legitimately market meaningless tripe as 'ART!' and we plebians can't be expected to understand it. Just my two cents and old notes from an aestetics class.
Heck Yes! Sorry for the (perhaps off-topic) rant, but as a concerned citizen, I've gotta say that education in the US has gotta be one of the most egregious and obnoxious pork-barrels in the budget. Hey, I realize that education is THE key to future prosperity and research projects that register well on the 'Ultra-Cool-O-Meter'; but the money spent on it here in the US is largely wasted. I wish I had a few links to offer, but I have read many articles pointing out that the US spends more per student per year on education than any other industrialized nation. In return, we consistently score the WORST amongst industrialized nations in terms of student knowledge / ability. Time something was done.... Any suggestions?
Naahhh - with all due respect, I hope that weapons technology never even enters into it. Far better to simply pursue space settlement (an idea actually possible with some surprisingly old technology) and the associated space based infra-structure to support it. We've got a few decades, and a space based civilization has lots of advantages to offer; not least is the concept of melting objects like this down for the resources. Hey, PrestO! Threat (and all similar threats) gone, in exchange for a thriving economy where chopping up dinosaur-killers turns a handy profit. Everybody wins.
Just my two cents.
Ok RingBarer - I realize that troll just for fun because apathy has destroyed your respect for all the other readers of this site, but you have really stooped to a new low.
The Israelites have never wanted peace. Period. The US has given Israel carte-blanche to piss in everyones Wheaties with absolutly NO harmful repercussions for Israel at all, and they have set out to do exactly that. The continuation of hostilities allows the Israelies to paint themselves as victims and seize territory at the same time - a ploy that only the US seems to have been duped by.
Pay close attention to the casualty numbers, whenever you hear them; and try to remember the lesson the US failed to learn in SE Asian conflicts - anyone who ISN'T against you, will certainly become your enemy after you start murdering their family members. Remember the 'Intifada' fighting last year? "Over 160 killed, including 10 Israelies..." doesn't it occassionally make you wonder who the violence really serves?
Ok, so casualty numbers aside, lets count hardware: Israel gets tanks, planes, and other military equipment from the US - and in many cases buys better versions than we make available to our other allies. How many tanks can the Palestinians feild? What is the strength of the Palestinian Air Force? Do the Palestinians have a Navy? No? What DO they have, then - poorly trained light infantry irregulars? Please excuse me if I think this sounds like a very uneven fight.
Why are Israelies indiscrimantely targetted? Several possible reasons come to mind - first, the Palestinians aren't deluded enough to think that they could win an open feild battle vs Israel, especially since the US would do it's level best to prop the Israelies up in any concievable way. Second, the Innocent 'embittered, harrowed person' who is the Israelite settler is an instrument of the expansionist Israeli foriegn policy! The simple presence of the 'settlers' justifies destroying Palestinian property, evicting Palestinians from their own homes, and creating restrictive and invasive 'Security Measures'. Thirdly, often the Palestinians who act rashly enough to be labeled 'terrorists' are just plain blind FURIOUS and often justifiably so. This results in reckless, pointless, futile acts - just to 'make the invaders suffer'. The deaths of civilians IS tragic, and certainly the ugliest side of war; and I will not excuse it - but remember who is suffering the disproportionate share of these horrific victimizations (Hint: not the Israelies).
Why did the US back Israel in the first place? It has certainly played merry havoc with our "utter nonsense which is supposed to be a Middle East Policy". Heck, the US is targetted by Radical Islamic Fundamentalist (RIF) terror groups BECAUSE of our unhesitating and unquestioning support of Israels bloody-handed and expansionist tactics. Virtually all of these groups would run out of steam and cease to be if the US decided to take its foriegn policy blinders off. What does Israel do for us? Nothing? What about the Arabs? Hmm - well they do invest quite a bit of their capital in the west, and their willingness to sell us oil certainly makes life here in the US a lot more comfortable. As for the charge that Islam is a religion of war and murder, let me point out that Mohammad is only recorded as having said the word JIHAD very few times (twice I think..) and in EVERY instance he spoke of a jihad in the soul - a holy war waged within oneself against vice and evil. That a few frothing fanatics (and believe me, they exist in Every religion) have managed to get large followings of people ready to take the word 'Jihad' as an opportunity to martyr themselves is only a measure of the desperation of the victims of a policy of systematic genocide.
What should be done? Well, clearly diplomacy hasn't worked; the Israelies have demanded impossible concession after impossible concession in an effort to kill every peace effort ever attempted - and all the while try to paint themselves as the ones making all the overtures. Clearly, if diplomacy is sver to suceed, we here in the US should light a fire under their butts to get down to serious business. After all, a small state exists only at the sufferance of it neighbors (ask San Marino or Luxemborg) - and if we can make it in Israels interest to start being a good neighbor, perhaps the talks will have a chance. Cessation of all arms sales to Israel would be a good start; and please pardon me if the Dual-National deal offered SOLEY to Israelite-Americans looks a little odd (is this just an easier way to get Massad operatives across the border?) and in need of trimming. Another initiative that the US should probably take up is the withdrawal of ALL Israelites back to the original borders set out in the UN charter which formed Israel - this includes the emptying of the exploitative fortified 'settlements'.
Just my two cents - clearly I don't have all the answers, but I am sick of being covered in the Pro-Israeli propaganda which the so-called 'news' shovels out over here in great steaming loads. That said, no I do not hate Jews, several members of my extended family are Jewish (I don't think anyone is Islamic.. but we do have a couple Hare Krishnas). I have had several Jewish friends, and - in general - think that Jews are just as decent, honest, and hardworking as group can be expected to be. I am not a Nazi, a Radical Islamic Fundamentalist (Heck, truth be told, I am an agnostic), a Palestinian, an Arab, or anyone else 'too close to the issue'. I just despise Israels bloody-handed antics; and I think that the Israelies condone this policy or they would have chosen a more peaceful government.
PS - Sorry Joey (God War Sex Rugby): I know we won't ever see eye-to-eye on this; but there's my veiw anyway.
As to creationism - please don't try to advocate it; for the Fundamentalist Christian Young Earth Creationism to work, ALL of science has to be mangled into utter unintelligibility.
I'm not sure where you are going with this... trying to somehow claim that a YE theory is absolutely wrong because of any of numerous scientific findings that have been made, by us humans. That this somehow invalidates any and all opposing thoughts. This is a rather ridiculous statement - along the lines of standing under an orange tree in the middle of an apple orchard and claiming that there are only oranges throughout the orchard - completely inane and without any sustainable arguments. Scientific theories have been proven wrong over and over again in the past.
Yes, they have - but remember, our current theories did not spring fully-formed into being in a single instant; they have incrementally improved (over centuries of careful observation) by replacing older theories that worked less-well. The great-grand-daddy of almost all scientific theories today is Creationism - which sorta leads to the conclusion that discarding any science in favor of Creationism is unwise.
People have died believing that certain theories were workable.
Yup - some of them went to the firey stake certain that the Earth was not the center of the Universe; perhaps religious advocates should be careful of the stones they toss here....
Please don't try and use this ridiculous FUD in origin discussions.
I provided a link, which links to many resources backing my claim that 'Creation Science' isn't a science at all, and is completely untenable as an explanation for the natural origin of life on Earth.
Mind you that I know of and understand many scientific theories that can be used to manipulate our environments, but just because some do work does not mean that they are all right.
No, it just means that they are righter than competing explanations; they will certainly be discarded or modified when better theories come along. "Creation Science" and Creationism in general is NOT one of these.
And your statement:
Cosmology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, paleontology, archeology, meteorology, and all their (very useful) subfields - must be dismissed as garbage in order to force the world-veiw that YE Creationism demands.
is completely incorrect, and quite ignorant of the subject you claim so much knowledge of, might I add. For example, a YE theory does not claim that Newton's laws of motion are incorrect.
Nope - not explicitly; even the most fanatic must realize that a full blown attack on Newton's mechanics is even more laughable (if that is possible) than their attack on Evolution. Nevertheless, Newton's Mechanics are built upon earlier (very sound, within it's well recognized limits) science; and is used in turn as foundations for other sciences - for instance Hubbles 'Expanding Universe" theory http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q544.html htt p://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q401.html http:/ /itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q55.html This is NOT hand waving.
A YE theory does not claim that red shifts are false.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/nri.html Umm.. except that the Earth was created BEFORE all the 'Heavenly Lights', and so YE Creationism would claim a universe younger than million years - actually, I think the YE Creationists predict that the 'Creation' happened less than about 10000 years ago. Since red shifts support a universe ~15 billion years old, YE Creationists must refute them. http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q681.ht ml
A YE theory does not state that sediment flow does not happen.
No, it just insists that much of todays geology be created in a world wide flood, something that was recognized as a severe problem for Creationism in the 1840's and earlier. Needless to say, for the stratigraphic column to have formed the way YE Creation insists it must have, geology has to be mangled. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noah s-ark.html
A YE theory does not imply any of what you just said. You can take your foot out of your mouth now, and stop talking through... well whatever else you are using, because your foot is in your mouth.
What didn't we cover? Cosmology? the Big bang?.. no first set of links should cover that.... Astronomy? Well, aside from the age of the universe, and the fact that none of the 'Heavenly Lights' actually seem to be attached to any sort of 'Firmamnent', and probably all of the Spectroscopy techniques which yeild red shift data, chemical composition data, etc (you WERE disputing red shifts showing an old universe, weren't you? Or did you abandon YE Creationism there?) have yet to be refuted... aside from all that, I guess "Creation Sciance" and Astronomy are bestest buddies. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/nri.html Physic s - this includes more than just Newton, you know. And while you may later want to fight with Newton for his role in inspiring Hubble's 'Expanding Universe', other Young Earthers have already started in in physics from the nuclear theory side (radiometric dating), http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dating.h tml as well as the constancy of the speed of light itself... http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/c-decay.html Go od luck to you if Creationism wins, you WILL have to chuck much of physics as heresy. Geology? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs /faq-age-of-earth.h tml http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moon-dust.htm l http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/debate-age-of-e art h.html paleontology? Here we get back to saltation and the creation of many strata... http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs -flood.html archeology? Well, obviously - any civilization 'older' than the Earth, or any evidence against the whole 'Adam and Eve only' picture of human origins will be a problem. Not to mention geolingustics and Babel... meteorology? Ok, so maybe I went out on a limb here. Sorry. But... any YE Creation theory which succeeds in 'debunking' physics, chemistry, etc., will have gone a long way to discarding meteorology too. Maybe it really wasn't such a stretch.
And asking someone not to advocate their thougts and ideas to others because they conflict with what you believe in? What the fudge is this? Censorship from a/. patron? I believe you are off your rocker, sir/ma'am.
I am not asking you to discard your religion; just stop trying to pretend it's a science of some sort. Also, as part of that, don't try to inflict your religious veiws on every schoolchild in the US by gussying up the book of Genesis in the emporers new pseudo-scientific clothes.
Why should someone succumb to oppositional ideas? Because you have scientific theories that back up your ideas? Who cares? Creationism has theories and proof to back up its ideas, so why not this... "As to evolution - please don't try to advocate it; for the Theory of Evolution to work, ALL of religion has to be mangled into utter unintelligibility." ? Pointless eh?
Um... Yes?! I am not asking you to 'succumb' to, or be convinced by, the end result of centuries of hard work and careful observation, which has eventually led to todays useful and productive scientific theories. I am just asking you to stop promoting the purely political agenda which is Young Earth Creationism, and to stop pretending that it has explanatory power or intellectual legitimacy as an explanation of the NATURAL world.
Because you don't care what creationism provides for, even if it is true. Well, many people don't care about various scientific ideas either.
Fine by me.. science isn't about opinions - it is about what can be verified, and what works. Who believes it, or doesn't, is fairly unimportant - especially gulliable laymen.
Science is not an 'exact science' to be used as a universal explanation.
Obviously this is a strange new usage of the word 'Science', of which I was previously unaware. Science does try to be exact - and generally does a pretty good job, within its recognized limits. Also, science does seek universal principle of the natural world - anything which only applies to only one particular instant or tiny location is virtually useless to science.
Our world needs to operate in some fashion, so rules can be applied to govern its operation, but where did these rules come from? Many creationists can believe in scientific ideas to govern the world, but that their origins are in an original creation. So, a young earth theory does not even mangle existing scientifc ideas into oblivion.
This is a bit muddled, I think - scientific laws aren't 'enforced', and don't 'Govern' in that sense at all; rather, science seeks to understand the principles already in operation.... And your point about many Creationists believing in scientific thought is well made; but Young Earth Creationists (at least the members of the Cration Research Society) are forbidden from this by the statement of belief they are required to sign. But more to the point: Yes Virginia, Young Earth Creationism (certainly not the only flavor of Creationism) does demand the mangling of all science, as I think the links above should have already illustrated. If you hold the Bible to be non-literal, and to be a source of comfort, guidance, and inspiration, and the Genesis story to be yet another non-literal parable from which valuable teachings can be drawn, then more power to you. I certainly have little to no quarrel with any such belief. But insist that it the ONLY "TRUE" history of the origins of life, the universe, and everthing - and you've gotten up my nose. This is what I was trying to express when I asked you not to advocate it; believe what you will, but please leave evangelism at home.
As for the science lessons, I have attended far more complex lectures and discussions on the topic than the paltry attempt at an explanation you have provided. Mind you that I don't remember some of the specifics of such events entirely, but the conclusions have survived.
Thank you - the 'Paltry' explanation was meant to be simple, and present only a few essential features; glad to see it succeeded. If much of it eludes your memory later, it will not be because I tried to be too obscure or complex.
As for the FAQ you have provided, it seems to state a neutral ground, but reading through the various questions and documents shows a definite bias towards an anti-creation evolution - about as useful as any other scientific journal, perhaps just more open to opposition.
My aplogies, the linked FAQ is only as useful (perhaps less, though it has a wider scope) as a scientific journal. I fail to see this as a fault - the truth does seem to be that the evidence in nature is strongly against Young Earth Creationism; any neutral, rational being faced with such evidence will inevitably take the non-YEC view.
My main post was not trolling, nor an explanation of the science as you have claimed to interpret it as, and was not necessarily meant to be taken completely serious. It was a minor rant at/laugh at/miniscule explanation of the ignorance of so many people who are uneducated on the subject of evolution/creationism, but biased towards evolution, who cry out "the answer has been shown" because a few amino acids were detected in a hostile environment.
My apologies for missing the wit/sarcasm. It seemed as though you were constructing a straw-man, or had missed the point - science, being incremental, often works by taking small steps, this was such a small step. Not only that, but it was a test of the extra-terrestial nutrients side of abiogenesis - and had Amino-Acids failed to form, I cynically believe that it would be YECs crowing about their 'Victory in the Lab'.
It's kinda neat how so many people who believe in creationism can still embrace ideas of science, yet so many people who live their lives in science feel the need to reject creationism. You shouldn't feel the need to fight opposing ideas so violently when the ideas of the other side aren't threatening in the least bit. I for one don't emerge out of the blue trying to fight science. I may however try to promote my ideas, and respond when certain attacks have been made.
I must admit to somewhat of a knee-jerk reation when it comes to YE Creationism; but I think that you are right that it is wonderful when people can find ways to embrace and combine reason with their own supernatural beliefs. That said, I know several molecular biologists who have very strong personal religious beliefs, and do not find them incompatible with the modern scientific veiw of the origins and developement of life here on Earth.
Hope this clears things up for you.
Somewhat; understand that my primary objection is not to your religion, but with a particular way of promoting a portion of it to the public. Wow.. this has taken a whole lot longer than I thought it would, sorry for the length. *Sigh - darn tired and going to bed*
Hey, if you are going to 'interpret' the time scale (ie, say that that tiny bit O' Genesis isn't literal) then don't stop there! Render the whole thing non-literal... After all, the sun isn't created until the fourth day (same time as the moon, and all the other 'lights of the sky' - planets, stars, etc) making it and everything else in the universe younger than the Earth. Not to mention that it (and all the 'lights') are firmly afixed to the 'Firmament'. Not to mention that all the birds and sea creatures were created on the fifth (several thousand or million year long - remember?) day; this includes owls right? Ok.. so their prey animals (mice) weren't created until the sixth day.... What did all those predatory birds EAT? Or how about plants (Third day) that require birds or even insects for seed spreading and pollination?
And then there's the whole Noachian flood fiasco. Trust me on this - don't try for literal Young Earth Creationism, it's just too much to swallow.
Look, I could go on, and probably get into some cheap shots at Creationism in truly poor taste - so I'll just stop now. But please check out this link: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html i t's a great place to start in the whole E/C debate, and yes - there are links to both sides of the issue there. Night Night
try a little reading at http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html G ood stuff.
The problem with literal Genesis creation (whether followed by a period of evolution or not) is that it requires the mangling of every science you care to name to make it work; further since what we know scientifically does work today, it requires the "Creator" to have gone to tremendous extra effort to decieve us. Why do we think the universe is about 16 billion years old? Astronomy and the speed of light, so god had to fake the old light... why do we think the Earth is about 4.5 Billion years old? Cosmology (the main sequence of stars, the Big Bang with inflation) and Geology (RadioIsotope dating, stratigraphy, plate tectonics, paleo magnetic traces...) and again, all this evidence had to be deliberatly falsified by the creator. These are more than just a few little fibs, they are grand LIES of universal scope.
I'd find the absence of such a Creator tremendously comforting.
Cut and pasted from "Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution" from http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html
"The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance."
There is probably no other statement which is a better indication that the arguer doesn't understand evolution. Chance certainly plays a large part in evolution, but this argument completely ignores the fundamental role of natural selection, and selection is the very opposite of chance. Chance, in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, which is the raw material that natural selection has to work with. From there, natural selection sorts out certain variations. Those variations which give greater reproductive success to their possessors (and chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will be inevitable) are retained, and less successful variations are weeded out. When the environment changes, or when organisms move to a different environment, different variations are selected, leading eventually to different species. Harmful mutations usually die out quickly, so they don't interfere with the process of beneficial mutations accumulating.
Nor is abiogenesis (the origin of the first life) due purely to chance. Atoms and molecules arrange themselves not purely randomly, but according to their chemical properties. In the case of carbon atoms especially, this means complex molecules are sure to form spontaneously, and these complex molecules can influence each other to create even more complex molecules. Once a molecule forms that is approximately self-replicating, natural selection will guide the formation of ever more efficient replicators. The first self-replicating object didn't need to be as complex as a modern cell or even a strand of DNA. Some self-replicating molecules are not really all that complex (as organic molecules go).
Some people still argue that it is wildly improbable for a given self-replicating molecule to form at a given point (although they usually don't state the "givens," but leave them implicit in their calculations). This is true, but there were oceans of molecules working on the problem, and no one knows how many possible self-replicating molecules could have served as the first one. A calculation of the odds of abiogenesis is worthless unless it recognizes the immense range of starting materials that the first replicator might have formed from, the probably innumerable different forms that the first replicator might have taken, and the fact that much of the construction of the replicating molecule would have been non-random to start with.
(One should also note that the theory of evolution doesn't depend on how the first life began. The truth or falsity of any theory of abiogenesis wouldn't affect evolution in the least.)
Phil Reeds short reply - attacking your gross misrepresentations about benificial mutations having never been observed - aside; your post - and the one you are defending - overlook gross mathematical innaccuracies in this attack on scientific abiogenesis. Ok, he has calculated that the odds for a fully functional cell forming is about 10^440 - that number only holds if you put a few chemicals in a box and shake, expecting a cell to miraculously just fall together. Abiogenesis makes no such claims; nor, in fact, does evolution. Rather, evolution only states that very simple, primitive, only marginally efficient organisms can improve over generations; and that even small increments of improvement are strongly favored, and can add up (over time) to very large improvements. What is more, you can build on the sucesses, and discard the failures - this shortens the required time amazingly.... Behold, the power of Natural Selection! For that matter, evolution doesn't require cells, organelles, DNA, or any other bit of molecular biology that you care to point to - all it requires is something replicating (however poorly) and competing for resources to carry on that replication; it does nothing to explain the origins of life itself - that is the domain of the closely related feild of Abiogenesis. The currently favored model (to my knowledge) there doesn't even bring DNA or proteins into the picture until fairly late - this is called the RNA World hypothesis and it really does seem to be pretty good. And keep in mind that Abiogenesis only has to have very few, very limited successes to get to all life as we know it; we don't have to put chemicals in a box and shake until a horse drops out, then a pig, then a fish, then a human.... Just one success can succeed for all of us.
As to creationism - please don't try to advocate it; for the Fundamentalist Christian Young Earth Creationism to work, ALL of science has to be mangled into utter unintelligibility. Cosmology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, paleontology, archeology, meteorology, and all their (very useful) subfields - must be dismissed as garbage in order to force the world-veiw that YE Creationism demands. Not only that, but all the problems that you present for abiogenesis plague your "Creator" - did it simply arise by chance? What are the odds there? Ha - shake that box until a supreme being drops out, but you'll be here a long time - remember, the creator isn't allowed to have evolved by natural selection! Nope, Creationism is just too much to have to swallow. I'm sure I should have been a little less inflamatory, sorry. I realize that probability is something that is very difficult for the human mind - intuition is NOT to be trusted here - and that there are a few Creationism advocates who are intellectually dishonest enough to have inflicted this faulty reasoning upon you under their guise of 'authority'. Not your fault at all. Incidently, this link: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa. html
also leads (eventually) to several Creationist resources; good luck in your digging.
Ok - so the AC didn't contribute anything except flamebait; but your post (that the AC was responding to) could easily be taken to be trolling. You seem to not understand the science involved, or - worse - to deliberately distort it. Neither evolution nor this experiment demands that humans spring, perfectly-formed, from a few amino acids and a bit of ice in interstellar space, which is what you seem to posit.
I honestly don't know why I bother with the science lessons, but here goes - evolution only states that very simple, primitive, only marginally efficient organisms can improve over generations; and that even small increments of improvement are strongly favored, and can add up to very large improvements. For that matter, evolution doesn't require cells, organelles, DNA, or any other bit of molecular biology that you care to point to - all it requires is something replicating (however poorly) and competing for resources to carry on that replication; it does nothing to explain the origins of life itself - that is the domain of the closely related feild of Abiogenesis. The favored model (currently, and to my knowledge only) there doesn't even bring DNA or proteins into the picture until fairly late - this is called the RNA World hypothesis and it really does seem to be pretty good.
As to creationism - please don't try to advocate it; for the Fundamentalist Christian Young Earth Creationism to work, ALL of science has to be mangled into utter unintelligibility. Cosmology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, paleontology, archeology, meteorology, and all their (very useful) subfields - must be dismissed as garbage in order to force the world-veiw that YE Creationism demands. It is simply too much to swallow.
A pretty good place to start looking for information on this is the talk-origins FAQ at: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html
Actually - it doesn't require faith in your own (or any single persons) intelligence and/or reason; that is what 'Peer Reveiw' is for. And before we all hear the endless "Worldwide conspiracy of entrenched scientist" garbage, or the "it's just a theory- it hasn't been PROVEN because nobody was there to see" whine, let me clarify something: Science never proves anything - because its all about dis-proof. You start with a theory (for example, the Earth is flat, has corners where angels stand, is covered at night by a big blue-blacky dome thing with little glowy bits stuck on, was created in 168 hours from nothingness, and there ISN'T a 'rest of the universe' out there...) and (after living with it for more than a thousand years) begin testing the bits you can reach. Where the theory fails you have to find a better explanation (Hmmm.. OK, so the Earth isn't flat - maybe it's a cylinder... or a sphere....) after a remarkably short two or three hundred years you start getting to 'Alright, so the universe isn't static...'.
Summary: Science - and science funding - is about finding ways to test theories, and every time a standing theory fails it creates a lot of fame, fortune, and funding for the folks who figured out what is actually going on. Nowadays, it is largely a matter of degree ("Hey, that's not the mass of an electron! Look - I've found a way to measure it to two decimal places more accuracy!") because what we have left un-disproven is the results of many very highly trained and motivated individuals trying their hardest to find a way to make the theory fail. (Thankfully, in High Energy Physics there are signs that the Standard model will finally crumble)
It takes very little faith to believe that scientific theory X is still accurate to Nth degree because all alternative theories are less credible. And there is NO WAY that theory X is just going to roll over and die without a struggle, just because some crackpot has dusted off a centuries old, long discredited superstition and dressed it up in fancy new duds. (Discard Orbital Mechanics in favor of a Geocentric model of the universe? Sorry, no, and I really don't care what manner of numerological quackery it is couched in...)
Sorry - it's gotten late and I probably wandered there a bit. Hope the points came through despite my muddled writing. Signing off..
The quote you provide from the Creationists.org site could be construed as a misrepresentation. The quote is:
"...Evolutionists don't want the weaknesses of evolutionary theory to be known to the public. In fact the negative effects of engaging in a debate with a Creation Scientist is so bad that evolutionist, Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, Berkeley, California, says, ?Avoid Debates. If your local campus Christian fellowship asks you to ?defend evolution,? please decline....you probably will get beaten" [creationists.org]
The quote from Eugenie Scott is probably accurate, and as a student of molecular biology and biology enthusiast I have encountered the same advice on several occassions. In fact, a similar observation is early in the preamble to the excellent "Abusing Science: The case against creationism" by Philip Kitcher. Humorously enough though, it isn't the weakness of Evolution that prompt this advice, but the weaknesses of "Creation Science".
Virtually every old, threadworn, thoroughly debunked fallacy from a hundred years or more ago is still part of the "Creation Science" arsenal vs Evolution - just because a claim has been closely inspected and soundly refuted doesn't mean that a "Creation Science" advocate won't trot it out. As a result, it is easily possible to embarass Evolutionists by simple "Crapflooding" - a "Creation Science" advocate can trot out more shoddy thinking in thirty seconds than can be cleaned up by even the best prepared Evolutionists careful scholarship in thirty hours. The result? The audiences attention wanders off, and the lesson carried home by everyone is 'Well, the Evolutionist couldn't refute everything...'
The evidence against "Creation Science" is out there, it is thourough, complete, and utterly ignored by "Creation Science" advocates (the talk-origins faq is probably a good starting point)- because they are only trying to promote an agenda. Solution? Don't try to argue - it is impossible to move them from their position, even if you did manage to convince them - denying them a forum is the one of the only ways to keep the pseudo-science from spreading. The other is a good education, complete with scientific literacy and critical thinking skills; a seemingly impossible dream for public schools here in the US.
More of a rant than I really intended - hope I didn't offend, but this is one of my pet peeves...
I agree - but with some reservations. I love cosmology and astrophysics (if had had the discipline to do better in the maths, I might have become a astrophysicist); but I wish that more of our resources were spent "Closer To Home".
I'd really like to see an intuitively simple 3-d map of all the stars (and their characteristics) within ~75 lightyears of Sol. Or a complete map of all solar system bodies (or at least, everything above ~50 meters in diameter) and their compositions, histories, etc.
The idea behind these nearer objectives is to help in getting people to colonize space; nobody will go unless maps are made and resources assessed. And who knows - maybe these close you-can-almost-touch-them bodies will get people dreaming about space again, and excited about going there.
None of which is to say that larger scale studies aren't fascinating, and vital to some very fundamental science. Quite the opposite, in fact, but I find discovered territories a lot less exciting if I can never expect to live to see a trip to them.
Just my two cents... and check out the NASA Origins Program at: http://origins.jpl.nasa.gov/
they are doing Large scale stuff too, but they seem to have our interstellar backyard firmly targetted.
Mr.Intel (#165870) wrote: On the contrary, part of my religion is that all truth comes from God. Just because I don't understand it or know about it does not make it any less than true. Despite my scepticism, I am not without humility in accepting truth when I know it to be so. So far, I have not found anything to contradict my beliefs.
I reply:
The premise that all truth comes from God, is - as you observe - part of your religion. This presents several (well, at least two) problems: it assumes the truth of your religion at the start - rendering it impossible you to acknowledge the truth of anything contrary to your religion; and it implies that true things are 'given' to man by your God alone - wouldn't this imply that those affliated with other belief structures would not be capable of finding true things?
I can certainly understand and empathize with your humility with regard to knowledge; I agree that things can be understandable, and still not be understood yet (especially by me). However, wouldn't this humility require that you admit to uncertainty about the assumptions your religion is based upon?
I know, I know - probably coulda been phrased better; sorry, hope the points were clear enough without offending.
I'm sorry - but by making it clear that your religion is at stake, and is in serious danger should 'macro' (your term) evolution be real, you have made your argument very weak. Scientific data is meant to be examined objectively, without influence from personal agendas. It is sadly true that sometimes scientists (being only as human as the rest of us) do fail in this regard; it is one of the strengths of science that the data can be re-examined and better (more objective and explanatory) hypotheses reached.
Umm - problem with the whole 'Lighter vehicle = less kinetic energy = less lethal accidents' argument; since kinetic energy KE = M * V^2 faster moving are very much more dangerous than you might think - and in fact velocity is much more important than mass.
And it doesn't help that you compare apples to oranges. A Geo Metro is lighter than an excursion, true; but it is also MUCH less powerful. Automobile producing corporations are already trying to produce lighter vehicles, with as much power as the Excursion - they are called 'Sports Cars'. Unfortunately for your Lighter = Safer argument, sports cars are considered extraordinarily dangerous - and it is due soley to their speed and LACK of mass.
Now for some numbers - an Excursion w 6.8L V-10 weighs 9600 lbs, and produces 310 HP. http://www.fordvehicles.com/suvs/excursion/feature s/specs/index.asp?c1=&action=all A Geo Metro wieghs in at about 1950 lbs, and produces 55 HP. http://caranddriver.radicalmedia.com/member/b g/199 5/economy/geoMetroSpec.html Does anyone know of anything out there that wieghs about as much as a Metro, but with about the power of an Excursion?
I am not offended at all! True, I don't agree with you on some points, but reasonable people are allowed to disagree.
However, please note that I wrote about 'a space-based' civilization - this does NOT require colonizing Mars (or even the Moon). Dr. Gerald O'Neill made excellent argument for the contsruction of orbital habitats with existing technology - and that was in the 1970's! As I noted, launch costs are a barrier - but not nearly as large as some would have you believe.
First; as to the "lets make more of Earth habitable first" point of veiw, I must most vehemently disagree. 'Terraforming' the Sahara desert destroys the environment - there is already a perfectly functional desert biome in place, with all of its own species, cycles, and unique beauty and value.
Secondly; I am an elitist bastard - I'd rather spend to advance mankind as a whole instead of creating vicious cycles of dependance (on free food, etc.) amongst populations that may simply expand to consume as much of any budget that you can devise. Helping the poor and starving might better be accomplished by showing them ways out of their current situation - including reproductive control, education, employment, credit, and the ability to MOVE.
Thirdly; I only speak of a space-based civilization as being a long way off because I am a cynic. We could have habitats in orbit (capable of housing and employing hundreds or thousands) within ten years; the technology isn't really a problem - BUT humans suck, and any big project is going to attract pork-barrel politics, activist talking heads, beaureucrats, naysayers, doomsayers, freeloaders, con-men, and enough associated sleaze to basically kill it. In witness whereof, the ISS - one of the designs considered was (I believe - need to do some fact checking) a Bernal sphere (a pretty good design, fairly small, and cheaply built from lunar or NEO resources) but we got stuck with the current white elephant instead. Why? Politics - Bah! I recommend spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com - it is a listserve of space colony discussions; fairly amusing.
Fourth; as to "why bother"; I think a space-based civilization offers many substantial and fundamental benefits - not least of which is much cheaper energy. Of all the ways of measuring quality of life, energy available per day has long struck me as the most elegant. More and cheaper energy = better quality of life.
To some degree I do agree that acomplisments build on one another, and that pursuing a particular advance now is more advantageous that some other choices, BUT we can never know in advance which advances are most worthwhile, so all need to be pursued. Even if you were to prioritize advances along a time line, I think that we have really dropped the ball in space; we should have had a lunar mining base by the late seventies. We should at least try to catch up....
Hope I managed to make some decent points without seeming too bull-headed.
Sorry folks, I take a while to get to my point - please bear with me. Thanks.
This may be mostly wishful thinking, but I want human civilzation to go interstellar in my lifetime. Heck, who am I kidding - it won't happen; maybe my grandkids (I am as yet unmarried at 32) will live to see the very beginings of a space-based human civilzation. But, just because it is such a long way off is no reason to give up - it is a noble and worthy cause.
Consider what sorts of developments would be required for a space-based civilization: improved materials technology, virtually total recycling, cheap energy from Solar Power Satellites, cheap launch costs from Earth, vastly better understanding of ecologies and effective conservation, and more.
Consider also the various potential advantages of a space-based civilization: Cheap exotic (rare earth, Ni Pt group elements, etc) materials, a wide variety of space based habitats to choose from (with hundreds of social experiments - new types of economies, governments, services, etc), increased security from world shattering catastrophes / terrorist acts, vastly more resources and room to live, and much more.
Most folks don't seem to think about Space-based civilization - and some seem to think that any investment in space is wasteful; but we've gotta crawl before we can sprint - even if that means tiny, futile looking, expensive baby-steps.
I love the Origins program (and the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program) because nothing could possibly serve as a better call-to-arms than finding another habitable (or inhabited) planet nearby. Somethings gotta light a fire under (in my case the US) taxpayers butt - or nothing will continue to happen in space.
Sir; your posting advocating creationist veiws is offensively incorrect; and I intend to dismantle it thoroughly.
Please pardon me, but the first oder of business is to cool my blood with an ad hominem attack on you: You sir are either a poor deluded idiot completely under the sway of mind-rotting creationist hogwash as to be beneath contempt and beyond all hope, or you are a ruthless cad - one for whom spreading poorly constructed anti-science propaganda is the last resort in a world increasing able to see through the horse shit you depend upon to dupe people into your endless collection of scams. In either case, I cannot really expect a lucid response; but here goes.
Secondly: you are shocked at the responses you have received: people pointing out the fact that the ICR is inherently and openly biased, that perhaps you should consult actual biology texts (and no, not the ones on the ICR "properly censored and distorted" errrm.. "approved" list), or that you advance actual evidence in favor of (or perhaps just a clear, unambiguous statement of) the creationist or scientific-creationist "theory".
Thirdly: I did look up the definition of "science" in "Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language" copyright 1994 Gramercy Books, a division of dilitium Press, Ltd. 1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences. 2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world.
A poor definition to be sure, but even the most obtuse might see that science deals only with the NATURAL world - not the SUPER-natural world. The moment any 'theory' starts invoking some spiritual / metaphysical / supernatural / religious dogma mumbo-jumbo, it stops being science. Exit all flavors of creationism.
Fourthly: your jibe about 'both are unverifiable' is sadly distorted, untrue, and IRRELEVANT. To be considered science, a theory must - among other things - offer plausible natural explanations for all creditably observed phenomina, and provide test whereby the mechanisms it proposes may be observed / measured / verified or shown to be in error. Yet again, exit all flavors of creationism; Evolution proposes natural selection, which has been repeatedly tested, observed, measured, and verified. Evolution predicts that any fossil record of the past must fit a progression consistent with natural selection, and yet again the test of the fossil record obseves / measures / verifies the mechanisms proposed in evolution.
Science must be able to provide such test upon itself, because a scientific theory must be able to discard those portions of itself which are found to be inaccurate in favor of new principles or mechanisms which better explain the cretiably observed phenomina. Once again, exit all flavors of creationism - "God did it" can NEVER be replaced with ANY other mechanism. Indeed, all of the ancient, decrepit, long discredited (read: tested and FAILED) creationist arguments get trotted out again and again, only to be knocked down again by the very same evidence that they couldn't dispute or explain away the first time - evidence that creationists deliberately 'forget' and 'accidently' (or perhaps conveniently) fail to mention whenever they try to hawk their tired wares to the ignorant.
Fifthly: the "Problem" you present in your post regarding acid spit in elephants is a "straw man" a deliberatley distorted and badly flawed mis-representation of your opponents veiws; built simply so that you can SEEM to knock those veiws down. It is an elementary fallacy, and one you should be embarassed to be caught committing - especially since it is exactly that sort of distortion and misrepresentation which has so deeply marked all of the most distasteful creationist propaganda.
To conclude with a few tests for you - if species extant today are simply "Microevolutionary" (your misuse of jargon, not mine...) descendants of exactly only TWO original ancestors - does the genetic clock evidence support this sort of bottlenecking? For all species? Do they ALL provide the same date for this bottleneck? If ALL genetic variation was contained in exactly TWO individuals - and the genetic maps for the parents were the same structure as their descendants - how do you explain loci with more than four possible alleles? And remember - your answers must fit ALL certifiable phenomina BETTER than any alternatives, no so funny stuff or double talk with the genetic clocks....
Actually the "we could never possibly run out" philosophy is wastrel, short-sighted, and irelevent. The purpose of looking for other Earth like worlds is not just so we'll have yet another planet to mess up; the purpose is to finally light a fire under the butts of the population at large about serious space exploration. It bears noting that by the time we could even begin to think about travelling to any Earth like world we discover, we will have had to master all sorts of recycling / conservation technologies in order to even survive the trip. Finding another Earth like planet to lust after may be the best possible thing for our environment here.
This might seem a bit like a 'no brainer', but bear with me...
What issue postions are key to your parties platform? What issues do you feel are most important, and which of these distinguish your ticket from other electoral offerings?
Thanks for your breif replies,
Avatar1000
Slashdot Mirror
I certainly agree that speed limits are abused to provide easy revenue. My dad once got a speeding ticket in Lousiana while sitting at a red light - the trooper noticed the out of state tag and wrote him a ticket "because you must have been speeding somewhere."
Sure, the ticket can be fought - but who really expects to win and come out cheaper than the fine?
Maybe the key is to take away the incentive: rule that fines do NOT go to the ticket issuing entity - and that all identifying info is stripped from the revenue. Ok, so heck if I know where the money should go - and legitimate damages should certianly still go to the injured party; but fines are punitive in nature. Theoretically this means they are most important as a punishment on the wrongdoer - where the cash GOES isn't as important as taking it away from the convict.
And am I the only one who thinks that the sort of thinking engendered from punishing your constituents (erratically and irrationally) for revenue is toxic to good governance?
Heck, if they were serious about enforcing the speed limits they would just use cameras - and mail you the ticket; this might let the Highway Patrol get back to their actual job of searching for shipments of contraband, stopping flagrantly reckless / drunk drivers, helping distressed motorists, and generally making use of the roads safer for all of us.
Just my two cents.
Hi Larry,
Your future history of "Known Space" seems very thoroughly thought out, from the massive laser installations on mercury for pushing solar-sail ships around to the inevitable madness that makes machine intelligence a dead end. That being said, technology today is not what it was when some of these issues were first dealt with in your writings; so, what I would like to know is:
How has your vision of the future of humaniti changed? Not necessarily the vision presented in your works, but your own personal vision?
Thanks for sharing, and thanks for the body of great hard Spec-Fic!
From one of the AC posters:
- Infrared Interferometer: Multiple small telescopes on a fixed structure or on separated spacecraft flying in precision formation would simulate a much larger, very powerful telescope. The interferometer would utilize a technique called nulling to reduce the starlight by a factor of one million, thus enabling the detection of the very dim infrared emission from the planets.
So, yes - stars give off considerable IR radiation; yes, the planned mission has a way (a method called Nulling) of coping with this potentially blinding glare.
Hey guys - the whole "so what makes something art" question isn't exactly new... The ancient dead greek guy started trying to define thought and reality, and generally to put everyting into neat little boxes. Definitions of this style are "SubjectX IS:" and for hundreds of year - heck, millenia - the definition "Art IS:..." has eluded and stymied pundits, critics, artists, and various other flavors of Raging Egos(tm). Current art theory seems to think that art is defined by who does it and who accepts it - if you aren't part of the art world, then nothing you do can possibly be art - but any 'recognized' artist can legitimately market meaningless tripe as 'ART!' and we plebians can't be expected to understand it.
Just my two cents and old notes from an aestetics class.
Heck Yes! Sorry for the (perhaps off-topic) rant, but as a concerned citizen, I've gotta say that education in the US has gotta be one of the most egregious and obnoxious pork-barrels in the budget. Hey, I realize that education is THE key to future prosperity and research projects that register well on the 'Ultra-Cool-O-Meter'; but the money spent on it here in the US is largely wasted. I wish I had a few links to offer, but I have read many articles pointing out that the US spends more per student per year on education than any other industrialized nation. In return, we consistently score the WORST amongst industrialized nations in terms of student knowledge / ability. Time something was done.... Any suggestions?
Naahhh - with all due respect, I hope that weapons technology never even enters into it. Far better to simply pursue space settlement (an idea actually possible with some surprisingly old technology) and the associated space based infra-structure to support it. We've got a few decades, and a space based civilization has lots of advantages to offer; not least is the concept of melting objects like this down for the resources. Hey, PrestO! Threat (and all similar threats) gone, in exchange for a thriving economy where chopping up dinosaur-killers turns a handy profit. Everybody wins.
Just my two cents.
Ok RingBarer - I realize that troll just for fun because apathy has destroyed your respect for all the other readers of this site, but you have really stooped to a new low.
The Israelites have never wanted peace. Period. The US has given Israel carte-blanche to piss in everyones Wheaties with absolutly NO harmful repercussions for Israel at all, and they have set out to do exactly that. The continuation of hostilities allows the Israelies to paint themselves as victims and seize territory at the same time - a ploy that only the US seems to have been duped by.
Pay close attention to the casualty numbers, whenever you hear them; and try to remember the lesson the US failed to learn in SE Asian conflicts - anyone who ISN'T against you, will certainly become your enemy after you start murdering their family members. Remember the 'Intifada' fighting last year? "Over 160 killed, including 10 Israelies..." doesn't it occassionally make you wonder who the violence really serves?
Ok, so casualty numbers aside, lets count hardware: Israel gets tanks, planes, and other military equipment from the US - and in many cases buys better versions than we make available to our other allies. How many tanks can the Palestinians feild? What is the strength of the Palestinian Air Force? Do the Palestinians have a Navy? No? What DO they have, then - poorly trained light infantry irregulars? Please excuse me if I think this sounds like a very uneven fight.
Why are Israelies indiscrimantely targetted? Several possible reasons come to mind - first, the Palestinians aren't deluded enough to think that they could win an open feild battle vs Israel, especially since the US would do it's level best to prop the Israelies up in any concievable way. Second, the Innocent 'embittered, harrowed person' who is the Israelite settler is an instrument of the expansionist Israeli foriegn policy! The simple presence of the 'settlers' justifies destroying Palestinian property, evicting Palestinians from their own homes, and creating restrictive and invasive 'Security Measures'. Thirdly, often the Palestinians who act rashly enough to be labeled 'terrorists' are just plain blind FURIOUS and often justifiably so. This results in reckless, pointless, futile acts - just to 'make the invaders suffer'. The deaths of civilians IS tragic, and certainly the ugliest side of war; and I will not excuse it - but remember who is suffering the disproportionate share of these horrific victimizations (Hint: not the Israelies).
Why did the US back Israel in the first place? It has certainly played merry havoc with our "utter nonsense which is supposed to be a Middle East Policy". Heck, the US is targetted by Radical Islamic Fundamentalist (RIF) terror groups BECAUSE of our unhesitating and unquestioning support of Israels bloody-handed and expansionist tactics. Virtually all of these groups would run out of steam and cease to be if the US decided to take its foriegn policy blinders off. What does Israel do for us? Nothing? What about the Arabs? Hmm - well they do invest quite a bit of their capital in the west, and their willingness to sell us oil certainly makes life here in the US a lot more comfortable. As for the charge that Islam is a religion of war and murder, let me point out that Mohammad is only recorded as having said the word JIHAD very few times (twice I think..) and in EVERY instance he spoke of a jihad in the soul - a holy war waged within oneself against vice and evil. That a few frothing fanatics (and believe me, they exist in Every religion) have managed to get large followings of people ready to take the word 'Jihad' as an opportunity to martyr themselves is only a measure of the desperation of the victims of a policy of systematic genocide.
What should be done? Well, clearly diplomacy hasn't worked; the Israelies have demanded impossible concession after impossible concession in an effort to kill every peace effort ever attempted - and all the while try to paint themselves as the ones making all the overtures. Clearly, if diplomacy is sver to suceed, we here in the US should light a fire under their butts to get down to serious business. After all, a small state exists only at the sufferance of it neighbors (ask San Marino or Luxemborg) - and if we can make it in Israels interest to start being a good neighbor, perhaps the talks will have a chance. Cessation of all arms sales to Israel would be a good start; and please pardon me if the Dual-National deal offered SOLEY to Israelite-Americans looks a little odd (is this just an easier way to get Massad operatives across the border?) and in need of trimming. Another initiative that the US should probably take up is the withdrawal of ALL Israelites back to the original borders set out in the UN charter which formed Israel - this includes the emptying of the exploitative fortified 'settlements'.
Just my two cents - clearly I don't have all the answers, but I am sick of being covered in the Pro-Israeli propaganda which the so-called 'news' shovels out over here in great steaming loads. That said, no I do not hate Jews, several members of my extended family are Jewish (I don't think anyone is Islamic.. but we do have a couple Hare Krishnas). I have had several Jewish friends, and - in general - think that Jews are just as decent, honest, and hardworking as group can be expected to be. I am not a Nazi, a Radical Islamic
Fundamentalist (Heck, truth be told, I am an agnostic), a Palestinian, an Arab, or anyone else 'too close to the issue'. I just despise Israels bloody-handed antics; and I think that the Israelies condone this policy or they would have chosen a more peaceful government.
PS - Sorry Joey (God War Sex Rugby): I know we won't ever see eye-to-eye on this; but there's my veiw anyway.
This might take a while, please bear with me:
t p://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q401.html/ /itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q55.html
t ml
h s-ark.html
c s - this includes more than just Newton, you know. And while you may later want to fight with Newton for his role in inspiring Hubble's 'Expanding Universe', other Young Earthers have already started in in physics from the nuclear theory side (radiometric dating),h tmlo od luck to you if Creationism wins, you WILL have to chuck much of physics as heresy.s /faq-age-of-earth.h tmlm le art h.htmls -flood.html
/. patron? I believe you are off your rocker, sir/ma'am.
As to creationism - please don't try to advocate it; for the Fundamentalist Christian Young Earth Creationism to work, ALL of science has to be mangled into utter unintelligibility.
I'm not sure where you are going with this... trying to somehow claim that a YE theory is absolutely wrong because of any of numerous scientific findings that have been made, by us humans. That this somehow invalidates any and all opposing thoughts. This is a rather ridiculous statement - along the lines of standing under an orange tree in the middle of an apple orchard and claiming that there are only oranges throughout the orchard - completely inane and without any sustainable arguments. Scientific theories have been proven wrong over and over again in the past.
Yes, they have - but remember, our current theories did not spring fully-formed into being in a single instant; they have incrementally improved (over centuries of careful observation) by replacing older theories that worked less-well. The great-grand-daddy of almost all scientific theories today is Creationism - which sorta leads to the conclusion that discarding any science in favor of Creationism is unwise.
People have died believing that certain theories were workable.
Yup - some of them went to the firey stake certain that the Earth was not the center of the Universe; perhaps religious advocates should be careful of the stones they toss here....
Please don't try and use this ridiculous FUD in origin discussions.
I provided a link, which links to many resources backing my claim that 'Creation Science' isn't a science at all, and is completely untenable as an explanation for the natural origin of life on Earth.
Mind you that I know of and understand many scientific theories that can be used to manipulate our environments, but just because some do work does not mean that they are all right.
No, it just means that they are righter than competing explanations; they will certainly be discarded or modified when better theories come along. "Creation Science" and Creationism in general is NOT one of these.
And your statement:
Cosmology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, paleontology, archeology, meteorology, and all their (very useful) subfields - must be dismissed as garbage in order to force the world-veiw that YE Creationism demands.
is completely incorrect, and quite ignorant of the subject you claim so much knowledge of, might I add. For example, a YE theory does not claim that Newton's laws of motion are incorrect.
Nope - not explicitly; even the most fanatic must realize that a full blown attack on Newton's mechanics is even more laughable (if that is possible) than their attack on Evolution. Nevertheless, Newton's Mechanics are built upon earlier (very sound, within it's well recognized limits) science; and is used in turn as foundations for other sciences - for instance Hubbles 'Expanding Universe" theory http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q544.html
ht
http:
This is NOT hand waving.
A YE theory does not claim that red shifts are false.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/nri.html
Umm.. except that the Earth was created BEFORE all the 'Heavenly Lights', and so YE Creationism would claim a universe younger than million years - actually, I think the YE Creationists predict that the 'Creation' happened less than about 10000 years ago. Since red shifts support a universe ~15 billion years old, YE Creationists must refute them.
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q681.h
A YE theory does not state that sediment flow does not happen.
No, it just insists that much of todays geology be created in a world wide flood, something that was recognized as a severe problem for Creationism in the 1840's and earlier. Needless to say, for the stratigraphic column to have formed the way YE Creation insists it must have, geology has to be mangled.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noa
A YE theory does not imply any of what you just said. You can take your foot out of your mouth now, and stop talking through... well whatever else you are using, because your foot is in your mouth.
What didn't we cover? Cosmology? the Big bang?.. no first set of links should cover that....
Astronomy? Well, aside from the age of the universe, and the fact that none of the 'Heavenly Lights' actually seem to be attached to any sort of 'Firmamnent', and probably all of the Spectroscopy techniques which yeild red shift data, chemical composition data, etc (you WERE disputing red shifts showing an old universe, weren't you? Or did you abandon YE Creationism there?) have yet to be refuted... aside from all that, I guess "Creation Sciance" and Astronomy are bestest buddies.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/nri.html
Physi
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dating.
as well as the constancy of the speed of light itself...
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/c-decay.html
G
Geology?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faq
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moon-dust.ht
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/debate-age-of-
paleontology? Here we get back to saltation and the creation of many strata...
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faq
archeology? Well, obviously - any civilization 'older' than the Earth, or any evidence against the whole 'Adam and Eve only' picture of human origins will be a problem. Not to mention geolingustics and Babel...
meteorology? Ok, so maybe I went out on a limb here. Sorry. But... any YE Creation theory which succeeds in 'debunking' physics, chemistry, etc., will have gone a long way to discarding meteorology too. Maybe it really wasn't such a stretch.
And asking someone not to advocate their thougts and ideas to others because they conflict with what you believe in? What the fudge is this? Censorship from a
I am not asking you to discard your religion; just stop trying to pretend it's a science of some sort. Also, as part of that, don't try to inflict your religious veiws on every schoolchild in the US by gussying up the book of Genesis in the emporers new pseudo-scientific clothes.
Why should someone succumb to oppositional ideas? Because you have scientific theories that back up your ideas? Who cares? Creationism has theories and proof to back up its ideas, so why not this... "As to evolution - please don't try to advocate it; for the Theory of Evolution to work, ALL of religion has to be mangled into utter unintelligibility." ? Pointless eh?
Um... Yes?! I am not asking you to 'succumb' to, or be convinced by, the end result of centuries of hard work and careful observation, which has eventually led to todays useful and productive scientific theories. I am just asking you to stop promoting the purely political agenda which is Young Earth Creationism, and to stop pretending that it has explanatory power or intellectual legitimacy as an explanation of the NATURAL world.
Because you don't care what creationism provides for, even if it is true. Well, many people don't care about various scientific ideas either.
Fine by me.. science isn't about opinions - it is about what can be verified, and what works. Who believes it, or doesn't, is fairly unimportant - especially gulliable laymen.
Science is not an 'exact science' to be used as a universal explanation.
Obviously this is a strange new usage of the word 'Science', of which I was previously unaware. Science does try to be exact - and generally does a pretty good job, within its recognized limits. Also, science does seek universal principle of the natural world - anything which only applies to only one particular instant or tiny location is virtually useless to science.
Our world needs to operate in some fashion, so rules can be applied to govern its operation, but where did these rules come from? Many creationists can believe in scientific ideas to govern the world, but that their origins are in an original creation. So, a young earth theory does not even mangle existing scientifc ideas into oblivion.
This is a bit muddled, I think - scientific laws aren't 'enforced', and don't 'Govern' in that sense at all; rather, science seeks to understand the principles already in operation.... And your point about many Creationists believing in scientific thought is well made; but Young Earth Creationists (at least the members of the Cration Research Society) are forbidden from this by the statement of belief they are required to sign. But more to the point: Yes Virginia, Young Earth Creationism (certainly not the only flavor of Creationism) does demand the mangling of all science, as I think the links above should have already illustrated. If you hold the Bible to be non-literal, and to be a source of comfort, guidance, and inspiration, and the Genesis story to be yet another non-literal parable from which valuable teachings can be drawn, then more power to you. I certainly have little to no quarrel with any such belief. But insist that it the ONLY "TRUE" history of the origins of life, the universe, and everthing - and you've gotten up my nose. This is what I was trying to express when I asked you not to advocate it; believe what you will, but please leave evangelism at home.
As for the science lessons, I have attended far more complex lectures and discussions on the topic than the paltry attempt at an explanation you have provided. Mind you that I don't remember some of the specifics of such events entirely, but the conclusions have survived.
Thank you - the 'Paltry' explanation was meant to be simple, and present only a few essential features; glad to see it succeeded. If much of it eludes your memory later, it will not be because I tried to be too obscure or complex.
As for the FAQ you have provided, it seems to state a neutral ground, but reading through the various questions and documents shows a definite bias towards an anti-creation evolution - about as useful as any other scientific journal, perhaps just more open to opposition.
My aplogies, the linked FAQ is only as useful (perhaps less, though it has a wider scope) as a scientific journal. I fail to see this as a fault - the truth does seem to be that the evidence in nature is strongly against Young Earth Creationism; any neutral, rational being faced with such evidence will inevitably take the non-YEC view.
My main post was not trolling, nor an explanation of the science as you have claimed to interpret it as, and was not necessarily meant to be taken completely serious. It was a minor rant at/laugh at/miniscule explanation of the ignorance of so many people who are uneducated on the subject of evolution/creationism, but biased towards evolution, who cry out "the answer has been shown" because a few amino acids were detected in a hostile environment.
My apologies for missing the wit/sarcasm. It seemed as though you were constructing a straw-man, or had missed the point - science, being incremental, often works by taking small steps, this was such a small step. Not only that, but it was a test of the extra-terrestial nutrients side of abiogenesis - and had Amino-Acids failed to form, I cynically believe that it would be YECs crowing about their 'Victory in the Lab'.
It's kinda neat how so many people who believe in creationism can still embrace ideas of science, yet so many people who live their lives in science feel the need to reject creationism. You shouldn't feel the need to fight opposing ideas so violently when the ideas of the other side aren't threatening in the least bit. I for one don't emerge out of the blue trying to fight science. I may however try to promote my ideas, and respond when certain attacks have been made.
I must admit to somewhat of a knee-jerk reation when it comes to YE Creationism; but I think that you are right that it is wonderful when people can find ways to embrace and combine reason with their own supernatural beliefs. That said, I know several molecular biologists who have very strong personal religious beliefs, and do not find them incompatible with the modern scientific veiw of the origins and developement of life here on Earth.
Hope this clears things up for you.
Somewhat; understand that my primary objection is not to your religion, but with a particular way of promoting a portion of it to the public. Wow.. this has taken a whole lot longer than I thought it would, sorry for the length. *Sigh - darn tired and going to bed*
Hey, if you are going to 'interpret' the time scale (ie, say that that tiny bit O' Genesis isn't literal) then don't stop there! Render the whole thing non-literal... After all, the sun isn't created until the fourth day (same time as the moon, and all the other 'lights of the sky' - planets, stars, etc) making it and everything else in the universe younger than the Earth. Not to mention that it (and all the 'lights') are firmly afixed to the 'Firmament'. Not to mention that all the birds and sea creatures were created on the fifth (several thousand or million year long - remember?) day; this includes owls right? Ok.. so their prey animals (mice) weren't created until the sixth day.... What did all those predatory birds EAT? Or how about plants (Third day) that require birds or even insects for seed spreading and pollination?
i t's a great place to start in the whole E/C debate, and yes - there are links to both sides of the issue there. Night Night
And then there's the whole Noachian flood fiasco. Trust me on this - don't try for literal Young Earth Creationism, it's just too much to swallow.
Look, I could go on, and probably get into some cheap shots at Creationism in truly poor taste - so I'll just stop now. But please check out this link: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html
try a little reading at http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html
G ood stuff.
The problem with literal Genesis creation (whether followed by a period of evolution or not) is that it requires the mangling of every science you care to name to make it work; further since what we know scientifically does work today, it requires the "Creator" to have gone to tremendous extra effort to decieve us. Why do we think the universe is about 16 billion years old? Astronomy and the speed of light, so god had to fake the old light... why do we think the Earth is about 4.5 Billion years old? Cosmology (the main sequence of stars, the Big Bang with inflation) and Geology (RadioIsotope dating, stratigraphy, plate tectonics, paleo magnetic traces...) and again, all this evidence had to be deliberatly falsified by the creator. These are more than just a few little fibs, they are grand LIES of universal scope.
I'd find the absence of such a Creator tremendously comforting.
Cut and pasted from "Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution" from http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html
"The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance."
There is probably no other statement which is a better indication that the arguer doesn't understand evolution. Chance certainly plays a large part in evolution, but this argument completely ignores the fundamental role of natural selection, and selection is the very opposite of chance. Chance, in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, which is the raw material that natural selection has to work with. From there, natural selection sorts out certain variations. Those variations which give greater reproductive success to their possessors (and chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will be inevitable) are retained, and less successful variations are weeded out. When the environment changes, or when organisms move to a different environment, different variations are selected, leading eventually to different species. Harmful mutations usually die out quickly, so they don't interfere with the process of beneficial mutations accumulating.
Nor is abiogenesis (the origin of the first life) due purely to chance. Atoms and molecules arrange themselves not purely randomly, but according to their chemical properties. In the case of carbon atoms especially, this means complex molecules are sure to form spontaneously, and these complex molecules can influence each other to create even more complex molecules. Once a molecule forms that is approximately self-replicating, natural selection will guide the formation of ever more efficient replicators. The first self-replicating object didn't need to be as complex as a modern cell or even a strand of DNA. Some self-replicating molecules are not really all that complex (as organic molecules go).
Some people still argue that it is wildly improbable for a given self-replicating molecule to form at a given point (although they usually don't state the "givens," but leave them implicit in their calculations). This is true, but there were oceans of molecules working on the problem, and no one knows how many possible self-replicating molecules could have served as the first one. A calculation of the odds of abiogenesis is worthless unless it recognizes the immense range of starting materials that the first replicator might have formed from, the probably innumerable different forms that the first replicator might have taken, and the fact that much of the construction of the replicating molecule would have been non-random to start with.
(One should also note that the theory of evolution doesn't depend on how the first life began. The truth or falsity of any theory of abiogenesis wouldn't affect evolution in the least.)
It's a great resource. Check it out.
Phil Reeds short reply - attacking your gross misrepresentations about benificial mutations having never been observed - aside; your post - and the one you are defending - overlook gross mathematical innaccuracies in this attack on scientific abiogenesis. Ok, he has calculated that the odds for a fully functional cell forming is about 10^440 - that number only holds if you put a few chemicals in a box and shake, expecting a cell to miraculously just fall together. Abiogenesis makes no such claims; nor, in fact, does evolution. Rather, evolution only states that very simple, primitive, only marginally efficient organisms can improve over generations; and that even small increments of improvement are strongly favored, and can add up (over time) to very large improvements. What is more, you can build on the sucesses, and discard the failures - this shortens the required time amazingly.... Behold, the power of Natural Selection! For that matter, evolution doesn't require cells, organelles, DNA, or any other bit of molecular biology that you care to point to - all it requires is something replicating (however poorly) and competing for resources to carry on that replication; it does nothing to explain the origins of life itself - that is the domain of the closely related feild of Abiogenesis. The currently favored model (to my knowledge) there doesn't even bring DNA or proteins into the picture until fairly late - this is called the RNA World hypothesis and it really does seem to be pretty good. And keep in mind that Abiogenesis only has to have very few, very limited successes to get to all life as we know it; we don't have to put chemicals in a box and shake until a horse drops out, then a pig, then a fish, then a human.... Just one success can succeed for all of us.. html
As to creationism - please don't try to advocate it; for the Fundamentalist Christian Young Earth Creationism to work, ALL of science has to be mangled into utter unintelligibility. Cosmology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, paleontology, archeology, meteorology, and all their (very useful) subfields - must be dismissed as garbage in order to force the world-veiw that YE Creationism demands. Not only that, but all the problems that you present for abiogenesis plague your "Creator" - did it simply arise by chance? What are the odds there? Ha - shake that box until a supreme being drops out, but you'll be here a long time - remember, the creator isn't allowed to have evolved by natural selection! Nope, Creationism is just too much to have to swallow.
I'm sure I should have been a little less inflamatory, sorry. I realize that probability is something that is very difficult for the human mind - intuition is NOT to be trusted here - and that there are a few Creationism advocates who are intellectually dishonest enough to have inflicted this faulty reasoning upon you under their guise of 'authority'. Not your fault at all. Incidently, this link:
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa
also leads (eventually) to several Creationist resources; good luck in your digging.
Ok - so the AC didn't contribute anything except flamebait; but your post (that the AC was responding to) could easily be taken to be trolling. You seem to not understand the science involved, or - worse - to deliberately distort it. Neither evolution nor this experiment demands that humans spring, perfectly-formed, from a few amino acids and a bit of ice in interstellar space, which is what you seem to posit.
I honestly don't know why I bother with the science lessons, but here goes - evolution only states that very simple, primitive, only marginally efficient organisms can improve over generations; and that even small increments of improvement are strongly favored, and can add up to very large improvements. For that matter, evolution doesn't require cells, organelles, DNA, or any other bit of molecular biology that you care to point to - all it requires is something replicating (however poorly) and competing for resources to carry on that replication; it does nothing to explain the origins of life itself - that is the domain of the closely related feild of Abiogenesis. The favored model (currently, and to my knowledge only) there doesn't even bring DNA or proteins into the picture until fairly late - this is called the RNA World hypothesis and it really does seem to be pretty good.
As to creationism - please don't try to advocate it; for the Fundamentalist Christian Young Earth Creationism to work, ALL of science has to be mangled into utter unintelligibility. Cosmology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, paleontology, archeology, meteorology, and all their (very useful) subfields - must be dismissed as garbage in order to force the world-veiw that YE Creationism demands. It is simply too much to swallow.
A pretty good place to start looking for information on this is the talk-origins FAQ at: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html
Hope this helps.
Actually - it doesn't require faith in your own (or any single persons) intelligence and/or reason; that is what 'Peer Reveiw' is for. And before we all hear the endless "Worldwide conspiracy of entrenched scientist" garbage, or the "it's just a theory- it hasn't been PROVEN because nobody was there to see" whine, let me clarify something: Science never proves anything - because its all about dis-proof. You start with a theory (for example, the Earth is flat, has corners where angels stand, is covered at night by a big blue-blacky dome thing with little glowy bits stuck on, was created in 168 hours from nothingness, and there ISN'T a 'rest of the universe' out there...) and (after living with it for more than a thousand years) begin testing the bits you can reach. Where the theory fails you have to find a better explanation (Hmmm.. OK, so the Earth isn't flat - maybe it's a cylinder... or a sphere....) after a remarkably short two or three hundred years you start getting to 'Alright, so the universe isn't static...'.
Summary: Science - and science funding - is about finding ways to test theories, and every time a standing theory fails it creates a lot of fame, fortune, and funding for the folks who figured out what is actually going on. Nowadays, it is largely a matter of degree ("Hey, that's not the mass of an electron! Look - I've found a way to measure it to two decimal places more accuracy!") because what we have left un-disproven is the results of many very highly trained and motivated individuals trying their hardest to find a way to make the theory fail. (Thankfully, in High Energy Physics there are signs that the Standard model will finally crumble)
It takes very little faith to believe that scientific theory X is still accurate to Nth degree because all alternative theories are less credible. And there is NO WAY that theory X is just going to roll over and die without a struggle, just because some crackpot has dusted off a centuries old, long discredited superstition and dressed it up in fancy new duds. (Discard Orbital Mechanics in favor of a Geocentric model of the universe? Sorry, no, and I really don't care what manner of numerological quackery it is couched in...)
Sorry - it's gotten late and I probably wandered there a bit. Hope the points came through despite my muddled writing. Signing off..
The quote you provide from the Creationists.org site could be construed as a misrepresentation. The quote is:
"...Evolutionists don't want the weaknesses of evolutionary theory to be known to the public. In fact the negative effects of engaging in a debate with a Creation Scientist is so bad that evolutionist, Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, Berkeley, California, says, ?Avoid Debates. If your local campus Christian fellowship asks you to ?defend evolution,? please decline....you probably will get beaten" [creationists.org]
The quote from Eugenie Scott is probably accurate, and as a student of molecular biology and biology enthusiast I have encountered the same advice on several occassions. In fact, a similar observation is early in the preamble to the excellent "Abusing Science: The case against creationism" by Philip Kitcher. Humorously enough though, it isn't the weakness of Evolution that prompt this advice, but the weaknesses of "Creation Science".
Virtually every old, threadworn, thoroughly debunked fallacy from a hundred years or more ago is still part of the "Creation Science" arsenal vs Evolution - just because a claim has been closely inspected and soundly refuted doesn't mean that a "Creation Science" advocate won't trot it out. As a result, it is easily possible to embarass Evolutionists by simple "Crapflooding" - a "Creation Science" advocate can trot out more shoddy thinking in thirty seconds than can be cleaned up by even the best prepared Evolutionists careful scholarship in thirty hours. The result? The audiences attention wanders off, and the lesson carried home by everyone is 'Well, the Evolutionist couldn't refute everything...'
The evidence against "Creation Science" is out there, it is thourough, complete, and utterly ignored by "Creation Science" advocates (the talk-origins faq is probably a good starting point)- because they are only trying to promote an agenda. Solution? Don't try to argue - it is impossible to move them from their position, even if you did manage to convince them - denying them a forum is the one of the only ways to keep the pseudo-science from spreading. The other is a good education, complete with scientific literacy and critical thinking skills; a seemingly impossible dream for public schools here in the US.
More of a rant than I really intended - hope I didn't offend, but this is one of my pet peeves...
I agree - but with some reservations. I love cosmology and astrophysics (if had had the discipline to do better in the maths, I might have become a astrophysicist); but I wish that more of our resources were spent "Closer To Home".
I'd really like to see an intuitively simple 3-d map of all the stars (and their characteristics) within ~75 lightyears of Sol. Or a complete map of all solar system bodies (or at least, everything above ~50 meters in diameter) and their compositions, histories, etc.
The idea behind these nearer objectives is to help in getting people to colonize space; nobody will go unless maps are made and resources assessed. And who knows - maybe these close you-can-almost-touch-them bodies will get people dreaming about space again, and excited about going there.
None of which is to say that larger scale studies aren't fascinating, and vital to some very fundamental science. Quite the opposite, in fact, but I find discovered territories a lot less exciting if I can never expect to live to see a trip to them.
Just my two cents... and check out the NASA Origins Program at: http://origins.jpl.nasa.gov/
they are doing Large scale stuff too, but they seem to have our interstellar backyard firmly targetted.
Mr.Intel (#165870) wrote:
On the contrary, part of my religion is that all truth comes from God. Just because I don't understand it or know about it does not make it any less than true. Despite my scepticism, I am not without humility in accepting truth when I know it to be so. So far, I have not found anything to contradict my beliefs.
I reply:
The premise that all truth comes from God, is - as you observe - part of your religion. This presents several (well, at least two) problems: it assumes the truth of your religion at the start - rendering it impossible you to acknowledge the truth of anything contrary to your religion; and it implies that true things are 'given' to man by your God alone - wouldn't this imply that those affliated with other belief structures would not be capable of finding true things?
I can certainly understand and empathize with your humility with regard to knowledge; I agree that things can be understandable, and still not be understood yet (especially by me). However, wouldn't this humility require that you admit to uncertainty about the assumptions your religion is based upon?
I know, I know - probably coulda been phrased better; sorry, hope the points were clear enough without offending.
I'm sorry - but by making it clear that your religion is at stake, and is in serious danger should 'macro' (your term) evolution be real, you have made your argument very weak. Scientific data is meant to be examined objectively, without influence from personal agendas. It is sadly true that sometimes scientists (being only as human as the rest of us) do fail in this regard; it is one of the strengths of science that the data can be re-examined and better (more objective and explanatory) hypotheses reached.
Umm - problem with the whole 'Lighter vehicle = less kinetic energy = less lethal accidents' argument; since kinetic energy KE = M * V^2 faster moving are very much more dangerous than you might think - and in fact velocity is much more important than mass.e s/specs/index.asp?c1=&action=allb g/199 5/economy/geoMetroSpec.html
And it doesn't help that you compare apples to oranges. A Geo Metro is lighter than an excursion, true; but it is also MUCH less powerful. Automobile producing corporations are already trying to produce lighter vehicles, with as much power as the Excursion - they are called 'Sports Cars'. Unfortunately for your Lighter = Safer argument, sports cars are considered extraordinarily dangerous - and it is due soley to their speed and LACK of mass.
Now for some numbers - an Excursion w 6.8L V-10 weighs 9600 lbs, and produces 310 HP. http://www.fordvehicles.com/suvs/excursion/featur
A Geo Metro wieghs in at about 1950 lbs, and produces 55 HP.
http://caranddriver.radicalmedia.com/member/
Does anyone know of anything out there that wieghs about as much as a Metro, but with about the power of an Excursion?
I am not offended at all! True, I don't agree with you on some points, but reasonable people are allowed to disagree.
However, please note that I wrote about 'a space-based' civilization - this does NOT require colonizing Mars (or even the Moon). Dr. Gerald O'Neill made excellent argument for the contsruction of orbital habitats with existing technology - and that was in the 1970's! As I noted, launch costs are a barrier - but not nearly as large as some would have you believe.
First; as to the "lets make more of Earth habitable first" point of veiw, I must most vehemently disagree. 'Terraforming' the Sahara desert destroys the environment - there is already a perfectly functional desert biome in place, with all of its own species, cycles, and unique beauty and value.
Secondly; I am an elitist bastard - I'd rather spend to advance mankind as a whole instead of creating vicious cycles of dependance (on free food, etc.) amongst populations that may simply expand to consume as much of any budget that you can devise. Helping the poor and starving might better be accomplished by showing them ways out of their current situation - including reproductive control, education, employment, credit, and the ability to MOVE.
Thirdly; I only speak of a space-based civilization as being a long way off because I am a cynic. We could have habitats in orbit (capable of housing and employing hundreds or thousands) within ten years; the technology isn't really a problem - BUT humans suck, and any big project is going to attract pork-barrel politics, activist talking heads, beaureucrats, naysayers, doomsayers, freeloaders, con-men, and enough associated sleaze to basically kill it. In witness whereof, the ISS - one of the designs considered was (I believe - need to do some fact checking) a Bernal sphere (a pretty good design, fairly small, and cheaply built from lunar or NEO resources) but we got stuck with the current white elephant instead. Why? Politics - Bah! I recommend spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com - it is a listserve of space colony discussions; fairly amusing.
Fourth; as to "why bother"; I think a space-based civilization offers many substantial and fundamental benefits - not least of which is much cheaper energy. Of all the ways of measuring quality of life, energy available per day has long struck me as the most elegant. More and cheaper energy = better quality of life.
To some degree I do agree that acomplisments build on one another, and that pursuing a particular advance now is more advantageous that some other choices, BUT we can never know in advance which advances are most worthwhile, so all need to be pursued. Even if you were to prioritize advances along a time line, I think that we have really dropped the ball in space; we should have had a lunar mining base by the late seventies. We should at least try to catch up....
Hope I managed to make some decent points without seeming too bull-headed.
Sorry folks, I take a while to get to my point - please bear with me. Thanks.
This may be mostly wishful thinking, but I want human civilzation to go interstellar in my lifetime. Heck, who am I kidding - it won't happen; maybe my grandkids (I am as yet unmarried at 32) will live to see the very beginings of a space-based human civilzation. But, just because it is such a long way off is no reason to give up - it is a noble and worthy cause.
Consider what sorts of developments would be required for a space-based civilization: improved materials technology, virtually total recycling, cheap energy from Solar Power Satellites, cheap launch costs from Earth, vastly better understanding of ecologies and effective conservation, and more.
Consider also the various potential advantages of a space-based civilization: Cheap exotic (rare earth, Ni Pt group elements, etc) materials, a wide variety of space based habitats to choose from (with hundreds of social experiments - new types of economies, governments, services, etc), increased security from world shattering catastrophes / terrorist acts, vastly more resources and room to live, and much more.
Most folks don't seem to think about Space-based civilization - and some seem to think that any investment in space is wasteful; but we've gotta crawl before we can sprint - even if that means tiny, futile looking, expensive baby-steps.
I love the Origins program (and the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program) because nothing could possibly serve as a better call-to-arms than finding another habitable (or inhabited) planet nearby. Somethings gotta light a fire under (in my case the US) taxpayers butt - or nothing will continue to happen in space.
Sir; your posting advocating creationist veiws is offensively incorrect; and I intend to dismantle it thoroughly.
Please pardon me, but the first oder of business is to cool my blood with an ad hominem attack on you: You sir are either a poor deluded idiot completely under the sway of mind-rotting creationist hogwash as to be beneath contempt and beyond all hope, or you are a ruthless cad - one for whom spreading poorly constructed anti-science propaganda is the last resort in a world increasing able to see through the horse shit you depend upon to dupe people into your endless collection of scams. In either case, I cannot really expect a lucid response; but here goes.
Secondly: you are shocked at the responses you have received: people pointing out the fact that the ICR is inherently and openly biased, that perhaps you should consult actual biology texts (and no, not the ones on the ICR "properly censored and distorted" errrm.. "approved" list), or that you advance actual evidence in favor of (or perhaps just a clear, unambiguous statement of) the creationist or scientific-creationist "theory".
Thirdly: I did look up the definition of "science" in "Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language" copyright 1994 Gramercy Books, a division of dilitium Press, Ltd. 1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences. 2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world.
A poor definition to be sure, but even the most obtuse might see that science deals only with the NATURAL world - not the SUPER-natural world. The moment any 'theory' starts invoking some spiritual / metaphysical / supernatural / religious dogma mumbo-jumbo, it stops being science. Exit all flavors of creationism.
Fourthly: your jibe about 'both are unverifiable' is sadly distorted, untrue, and IRRELEVANT. To be considered science, a theory must - among other things - offer plausible natural explanations for all creditably observed phenomina, and provide test whereby the mechanisms it proposes may be observed / measured / verified or shown to be in error. Yet again, exit all flavors of creationism; Evolution proposes natural selection, which has been repeatedly tested, observed, measured, and verified. Evolution predicts that any fossil record of the past must fit a progression consistent with natural selection, and yet again the test of the fossil record obseves / measures / verifies the mechanisms proposed in evolution.
Science must be able to provide such test upon itself, because a scientific theory must be able to discard those portions of itself which are found to be inaccurate in favor of new principles or mechanisms which better explain the cretiably observed phenomina. Once again, exit all flavors of creationism - "God did it" can NEVER be replaced with ANY other mechanism. Indeed, all of the ancient, decrepit, long discredited (read: tested and FAILED) creationist arguments get trotted out again and again, only to be knocked down again by the very same evidence that they couldn't dispute or explain away the first time - evidence that creationists deliberately 'forget' and 'accidently' (or perhaps conveniently) fail to mention whenever they try to hawk their tired wares to the ignorant.
Fifthly: the "Problem" you present in your post regarding acid spit in elephants is a "straw man" a deliberatley distorted and badly flawed mis-representation of your opponents veiws; built simply so that you can SEEM to knock those veiws down. It is an elementary fallacy, and one you should be embarassed to be caught committing - especially since it is exactly that sort of distortion and misrepresentation which has so deeply marked all of the most distasteful creationist propaganda.
To conclude with a few tests for you - if species extant today are simply "Microevolutionary" (your misuse of jargon, not mine...) descendants of exactly only TWO original ancestors - does the genetic clock evidence support this sort of bottlenecking? For all species? Do they ALL provide the same date for this bottleneck? If ALL genetic variation was contained in exactly TWO individuals - and the genetic maps for the parents were the same structure as their descendants - how do you explain loci with more than four possible alleles? And remember - your answers must fit ALL certifiable phenomina BETTER than any alternatives, no so funny stuff or double talk with the genetic clocks....
Actually the "we could never possibly run out" philosophy is wastrel, short-sighted, and irelevent. The purpose of looking for other Earth like worlds is not just so we'll have yet another planet to mess up; the purpose is to finally light a fire under the butts of the population at large about serious space exploration. It bears noting that by the time we could even begin to think about travelling to any Earth like world we discover, we will have had to master all sorts of recycling / conservation technologies in order to even survive the trip. Finding another Earth like planet to lust after may be the best possible thing for our environment here.
This might seem a bit like a 'no brainer', but bear with me... What issue postions are key to your parties platform? What issues do you feel are most important, and which of these distinguish your ticket from other electoral offerings? Thanks for your breif replies, Avatar1000