ROAM allows arbitrarily detailed terrain. It represents the terrain as a quadtree -- a space which is subdivided into four parts, each of which is subdivided into four parts, etc ad infinitum -- and by intelligently collapsing and expanding quadtree nodes based on the distance from the viewer to the terrain. Actually your describing how quad trees work, which I Soul Rider is based on. But ROAM works by splitting triangles in halves recursively, and is quite different.
this explanation is perhaps the simplest and best answer to creationists who want to insist that life is too complex a process to spring into existance fully developed (.e.g. behe's mouse trap argument). The answer is that being adaptive can beat being the best.
But being adaptive is a part of the most basic life functions we observe. The creationist statement that life is too complex to spring into existance fully developed is targetted primarily at abiogenesis research. All our current knowledge does not have an accepted natural mechanism by which DNA or even RNA could come into being. They are the simplest known mechanism that provide the adaptive ability of life. Thus there still isn't any known adaptive mechanism to get to DNA/RNA. Creationists disagree with the assumption that such a mechanism exists. And our current evidence really doesn't strongly(I said strongly, so no troll/flamebait rating please) support the assumption of a naturalistic mechanism existing. I don't think this observation of adaptivity will win many arguments with creationists.
People are not going to rewrite millions of lines of established C++ code in C#. So the only apps that will be ported to Linux through Mono will be those that originate in.Net.
I agree completely, but I think your underestimating just how many applications there are being developed with c#, especially how many will be down the road.
If I want to run Windows programs, I'll run Windows. I never saw much sense in emulators, other than in desperate circumstances or embedded work.
Which is why I feel Mono is a step up from WINE, it is not an emulator. If you can develop for Windows, or develop for both windows and linux, which would you choose? Specifically if the linux support was trivial to add to your product. Mono should be able to make a linux port as simple as ensuring you use api's available under Mono. How many contractors\consultants would like to save the MS license's for x users on the solutions they develop?
Absolutely true,.NET is MS attempt to stop java development and pick up people to develop for.NET instead. But, like it or not MS will be succesfull in getting a lot of developers currently using VB, or C++ with the MFC, to switch to.NET instead. Mono's existence isn't going to affect this group of developers either way. Furthermore, there are alot of apps developed this way right now. I have no illusions that mono will ever be fully portable from windows to linux. I do have faith though that it will make the task far, far easier than it has ever been before. There simply is no way to port an MFC or VB based project to linux without a major rewrite, or planning ahead..NET apps though can be made portable just by using api's that exist under Mono. It makes it feasible for.NET developers to port to linux without spending an extra year rewriting code. Yes, I realize with the write knowledge of both windows and linux api's that can be done now. But Mono reduces that learning curve tremendously. I really think we'll see far more developers supporting Mono than supporting linux with native development. It's cheaper for the developer, and that means a lot.
it is a shame that he and his talented followers insist upon cloning dubious Microsoft products
Is it also a shame that the WINE team insists on doing the same thing? Now, as much as I agree about the lack of innovations in.NET, and a lack of a lot of benefit to using it instead of a lot of existing alternatives, there are other reasons for mono to exist. Availability of.NET apps on linux under Mono is parallel to development work on WINE. From a perspective of allowing a more competetive linux, Mono is quite important. I think the main benefit of Mono lies in portability of windows apps to linux, not in being able to use c# for linux development.
It's a really sad way for a lot of people to waste a whole lot of time rebuilding that which already exists. Wouldn't the whole computing world be a lot better if there wasn't a team of people, maybe a couple of teams of people building complete copies of.NET for other platforms?
Although I harbor no love for MS, I take issue with this remark. In fact, my lack of love for MS spawns my affection for Mono, and the developers working on it. Like it or not,.NET is going to have a lot of apps developed for it. Mono allows.NET apps that in days gone by would run only on windows(often written in VB) to be run under Linux.
Mono undercuts one of the biggest barriers to Linux acceptance by mainstream users, support for windows programs. Not today, but down the road when more and more.NET apps are available. This in my eyes is a great stroke of foresight by the Ximian team. This kind of look ahead approach, instead of playing catch up, is precisely what it'll take for the open source community to threaten MS down the road.
Projects like WINE are great and seek the same goal, but in many ways it's too little too late. A fully functional WINE available before users switched to XP could've easily drawn a lot of users to linux instead. The problem is WINE is on a tight time line to implement a monumental task before users already have a license for XP anyway. Mono is effectively starting it's development at the same time as MS, with much of the standard already documented for them, all things WINE had working against them. I believe these are good reasons Mono is a tremendous asset to linux. Let's give these guys some credit and take some joy in their efforts, not sorrow.
I'm not sure here, but I'd guess part of the reason you aren't able to swap just any pc hard drive is to do with how well such drives would handle the movement of a camcorder. I know alot of people who's camcorders are subjected to a lot of sudden movements, if you subject a standard pc HD to that while fully spinning for an extended period of time, you'll kill the drive pretty fast. Most people are used to there media surviving more than a year. Standard HD's could well be killed of by wear and tear on the 7200rpm platters after only a year of spinning while being moved around by amateur shaky cam recording.
The evolution debate is closed everywhere, expect in USA.
I think your overstating things a bit here. Genetic change in populations over time has been closed for a long time. But any further details that evolution encompasses are still in quite active debate. Particularly phylogentic/caldistic analysis are still a hot topic. Fossil/morphology based trees are at odds with molecular based trees in several key locations. Mechanisms and models are also still under heavy debate, molecular evidence is still at odds with puncuated equilibrium. The mass of conflicting evidence and theories that evolution encompasses right now easily matches the amount of 'agreed upon' evidence and interpretations. To call this debate closed(even with regards to common descent), severly underestimates the complexity of our origins.
My former post was by no means intended as a troll. Furthermore, I can't see any objective reason it would be considered as such. I can understand people disagreeing with my statements but can anyone explain to my why the above was considered a troll?
For a good long time, mtDNA was considered an accurate dating method for finding common ancestors. It was even heralded as confirmation from a second dating method that the fossil record dates were accurate. But, then we learnt a little more and found out that mtDNA suggested we had an Out of Africa common mother(not the only woman ancestor, just our common mother) about 100,000 years ago. Which didn't fit our current interpretation of human fossil distribution, but it was in keeping with a less popular interpretation, so things were okay. Then we learnt a little more(Parsons in 1997) and found out that mtDNA mutations where around 20 times faster than we thought, placing our common ancestor around 6000 years old. Clearly wrong, so we essientially stopped claiming mtDNA evidence as support for evolution. And yet dates for mtDNA calibrated off expected evolutionary branches are still accepted as more accurate on evolutionary time scales, in spite of numerous studies confirming that observed mtDNA mutations within species are unexplicably higher than those between them. This anomaly is still being investigated, but evolutionists are confident it is nothing to worry about.
The evolution of whales is still a big issue for evolution. Claims from the fossil record were that whales came from Ambulocetus and this was accepted as a good enough answer. But molecular biology shows us that whales are actually more closely related to the hippopotamus. Now, although hippos share alot of morphological features with whales, they only appear in the fossil record 30 million years after whales. So these common morphological features must be the result of convergence, but evolutionists needn't worry.
Now, as much as evolution fits a lot of the evidence, there is also a good quantity of evidence that does not support evolution(above are merely 2 recent examples). Just how much counter evidence for evolution is required for it to be considered 'falsified'. At the very least there should some admission there are reasons to lack confidence in common descent. Note: By evolution I refer to common descent here, not genetic change over time(which is of course a demonstrable fact).
Actually, punctuated equilibrium is gradualism, just a look on gradualism over a short time. Basically, it means gradualistic changes in an organism resulting in rather large morphological changes in a relatively(for the fossil record) short time. Usually it is believed that smaller populations would be required for such changes to become 'fixed' in the population. The creationist conjecture comes in with molecular biology and the fact that the kind of changes occuring in this time require either a large population or a large amount of time to have a likelyhood of occuring. The essence of the argument is that it is an example of where the fossil record and molecular biology disagree.
Thanks for the links. They're a great resource for research in micro-biology, and I'm sure there is lots of relevant stuff here. It'll just take some time to dig through it. I found the paper by Gary Olson and Carl Woese here most interesting. Then again as a programmer that's maybe not much of a surprise:). Unfortunately I've only found one paper(pdf), or get the google html cache here, so far really relavent to our discussion, on phylogenies of photosynthetic organisms.
The conclusion of that paper was pretty much like all other molecular phyogenies I've found. Still inconclusive and raising questions about our former ideas about how the phylogeny should have looked. It's this trend of conflicting findings, that would be expected if our common descent assumption is wrong, that continue to make me think our evidence for common descent is not compelling.
As I find other examples that pertain I'll post them. If you have any in particular you've seen just let me know, thanks again.
Thanks for the first good explanation I've heard of for feathers appearing in the first place. Any links or resources for further studies on this idea?
when combined with the DNA/RNA/Protein sequence evidence Although this depends on one's interpretation of similarities in DNA between living creatures. On a biological level creatures use similar organs to perform similar functions. The same is logically the case on the molecular level. DNA in similar creatures would be expected to be similar. The molecular evidence, from what I know is no more compelling than morphological based phylogenetic trees. That is to say, molecular evidence shows no inidication of missing links existance. That mutations back to a common ancestor can be thought up is one matter, but the feasability of those mutational, in between forms is still as in question as before.
If an intelligent agent created the species, why would it engineer the DNA/RNA/Protein sequences such that they looked exactly like they would if they got that way by eons of mutation? Well, it's pretty early still in our understanding of DNA but I'd hazard they wouldn't. Furthermore though, I'm unconvinced that they do appear to look like they have evolved over eons. All the evidence I've seen and found(and I've looked, please show me any you think is compelling), falls into two categories. DNA that looks like it has evolved over a short time within species, or junk DNA we don't yet know the purpose of and we assume similarities in this junk DNA between species is evidence of common descent. I still believe we'll find functional reasons for those similarities. The common descent interpretation is just that, an interpretation. I personally see the evidence and take a different view of what it represents.
Occam's razor would tell you that natural evolution of those sequences is a far, far simpler and more likely explanation, especially in light of the fact that microchanges happen spontaneously and are commonly observed in the laboratory. Occam's razor is not a cure all magic wand though. It can as easily be turned around to say abiogenesis seems highly improbable(by currently known methods), and depending on how probable you believe God's existance is, one could say God is more likely to exist than a natural method by which abiogenesis occured.
I'm not an expert on the second case, but I believe quite strongly that knowledge of the first case is compelling evidence for the second, especially in light of all the other piles of observational evidence and the historical record that is available. Logically, evidence for the first case is not evidence for the second. It's a bit like any inductive proof, proving for n still leaves the proof for n+1. In evolution, we know micro-evolutionary changes through DNA mutations are possible. But that the process of mutations can be extended indefinitely back to a common ancestor is a seperate issue.
The only historical evidence available to support the second case is from the fossil record, which even www.talkorigins.org considers the 'weakest' proof for evolution. Our other observational evidence lies mostly towards 'mountains' of evidence for the first case, but only quite limited evidence for the second. Check www.talkorigins.org's list of evidences of macro-evolution for a decent listing.
Seems a bit weaker than the alternative proposed theories. It would seem to me that extra legs would work better as legs for added traction, not being flapped to create downward force. At least not untill the legs had mutated quite a bit from ordinary legs. Alternative theories like evolution from gliding to flying in tree leaping lizards seems a little more likely path. Although feathers in general still seem a bit of an odditity to me.
I might be wrong here but I believe it was more a called a law in the same sense as Moore's law. It's an observation of a pattern, but biologists did not hold it as an absolute.
However, if mutations are truly random, isn't it necessary that they at least have the possibility to recreate a lost pathway, no matter how complex?
I believe it was more a prediction that if evolution operates as we expect, organisms would be unlikely to 'solve' an evolutionary problem the same way twice. It was not so much saying such an occurrance was impossible, but that it's occurance would out of keeping with the idea of evolution being pushed by random mutations.
That said, Dollo died in 1931, so modern discoveries like pretty much all DNA/genetic evidence wasn't available to him. I'm not sure here, but I don't think a lot of weight was put in Dollo's law anymore. Anyone out there know of reasons someone would even bother mentioning that their research contradicted Dollo's law?
Well, the fossil record does tell us that for the first 2/3 of life's existence on earth, all life consisted of bacteria. The fossil record also tells us that something really crazy started happening during the Cambrian period, and then proceeded to stop. Evolution fits some of the evidence well, but there are still places where it suddenly doesn't seem to fit at all and we need to call on extraordinary circumstances. Yes evolution fits most of the evidence pretty well, but it's entirely possible a theory could come along that fits even more of the evidence. And every time a fossil is discovered, the number of gaps in the fossil record increases by one, to the delight of the foes of evolution. There are now thousands and thousands of (ever tinier) gaps they can talk about in their pamphlets. Yep, there are crazy's who'll take such foolish arguments and champion them. I'm probably more against them than yourself as their stupidity taints the credibility of my own position.
If you propose that no transitionary forms ever existed in these gaps, you have to explain why not, since that's the most logical conclusion.
Logical in this case is rather subjective. Based on the difficulty scientists are having justifying morphological and molecular phylogenies I tend to think the assumption of missing links existing is somewhat illogical. But in either case, from a scientific stand point it is up to both sides to prove the existance or non existance of such links. I'm personally rather confident our understanding of molecular biology will bear out the infeasability of transitinary forms.
Yep. We have no direct evidence of abiogenesis, apart from limited success in reproducing chemical reactions in the lab. But we wouldn't expect to get direct evidence of abiogenesis because it leaves no fossil evidence.
Fossil evidence aside the only evidence we do have is that on a molecular level it is ridiculously improbable to occur by any known process. Now evolution can be argued ignoring abiogenesis and assuming it happened either by god or some unknown process. But the answer to how that single celled(if it exists) creature came along could have big implications in how evolution works. That strikes me as another reason to teach it as theory and not fact.
People not taught our current view as students will probably have more trouble with this superior alternative theory, should it ever come out. And as I've stated a number of times, I fully encourage students be taught our current view. I'm simply stating HOW it should be taught, as a theory based on current evidence and models.
I'd be willing to bet that it will more resemble evolution than any "competing theory" that the "theory, not fact" crowd like to talk about, like intelligent design. We're allowed to put our faith in different outcomes, mine lies somewhere in the middle.
In fact, ID undermines one's ability to understand natural selection, because it teaches you to think in the wrong way. You end up viewing evolution as a weird variant of ID where each individual species is anthropomorphized and planning career decisions for itself over millions of years. People taught ID always ask stupid questions like "how does the tree know it should make fruit?", as if evolution supposes that species make intelligent decisions about how they will evolve. Idiot's abound everywhere, but try not to judge the concept of ID by it's lowest common denominators. We can argue all day about what propenents of either side can claim, but that gets us nowhere on the actual issue. Student's taucht evolution as fact could easily get caught in the same trap of misunderstanding a new theory that explains the evidence better than anything we have currently thought of.
I'm NOT suggesting creation as this theory, there can very easily be a number of other unthought of explanations that could be missed be people assuming these don't exist. Usually, when a discussion about the Big Bang turns into one about evolution, it means a creationist is around.
Creationist, yes. But I'm trying to focus more on the current issues in evolution and why I believe teaching it as fact could hamper the scientific process by closing people's minds to other possible explanations, not creation or ID, but some completely unique new explanation that might fits everything better.
First off, thanks for the moderator defense. Although I don't believe I'm confused, maybe I could have worded my response more clearly.
My problem with evolution being taught as fact in the classroom is with how it fits the evidence available. For the purpose of debate, I'm going to split evolution into two definitions I commonly see people using. The first is simply genetic change in a population over time, often influenced by selection, environment, etc. The second is the more general theory that this process can and was extended indefinitely and gave rise to all bio-diversity on Earth. The first I believe everyone excepts openly as fact and has no problems with being taught in the classroom as such. But the evidence for the second is much less compelling. From this point on my references to evolution are to the second definition.
We may not have a complete theory of evolution. This is mostly due to spotty evidence, which is par for the course (fossils are rare). But unlike gravity, our theories of biological evolution are consistent with all of the evidence we've managed to find.
My problem with evolution being taught as fact is our lack of evidence that micro-evolutionary changes can be extended right back to a single celled common ancestor. The two biggest evidences we have for this are a spotty fossil record and the relative similarity between DNA from different animals. To claim that our current theory is strong enough to be promoted to fact is premature. Our evidence that micro-evolution is extendable indefinitely really consists of evidences that 'look like it's what happened'. Transitionary fossils are assumed to exist, a mutation path from all animals back to a common ancestor is assumed to exist, a process by which a single celled creature with DNA came into being is assumed to exist. We have lots of secondary evidences that we can point to and say, well these make it look like the above are good assumptions. But I don't think it is a far stretch to continue to teach our current interpretation of the evidence as theory and not as fact. It is still possible that an alternate theory will fit the evidence better, and people taught as students that our current view is fact will have trouble finding it. I'm NOT suggesting creation as this theory, there can very easily be a number of other unthought of explanations that could be missed be people assuming these don't exist.
Your example, far from being a call to tolerance is a call to arms. A cry for better education.
My example most certainly is not a call to tolerance. It is a call to open minded approachs to the scientific process, particularly when it is being to taught to students.
I would conclude that most people (who took that poll) are undecided You'll note I made no claims that creationism should be taught alongside evolution. I referred instead to these undecided people you speak of. I was merely suggesting that this group of people's indecision may be attributable to being torn between evolution being taught as a theory vs. as a fact. Not people on the fence of creationism being taught in class.
Anything we teach to students 'as fact', particularly before post secondary education, has a big impact on how they think about and interpret the evidence they see. I was merely stating that we need to be very carefull were we draw that line. We are not necassarily doing science a disservice by not promoting common descent to 'fact' prematurely.
The theory of evolution covers a pretty broad range of theories and I think this is were in a lot of the indecision among people comes in. Evolution as simply genetic change in a population over time isn't too hard to show as an observable fact. But just how far that change can be extrapolated, and how well the evidence supports that possiblity is another far more debated issue.
For example, if a science teacher taught his class it is a fact that all creatures came from an individual type of single celled ancestor, it could leave abiogenesis running off in false directions. It can close people's minds to the chance that maybe two or 3 types of original single celled creatures started things off. There are a lot of negative side effects that come from teaching students at a young age things as fact which could well be shown as a wrong theory down the road.
I suppose my disagreement comes in drawing a line between wondering at our achievements, and arrogantly believing that all our answers must be the right ones. If we take that wonder too far and lower our standards for what it takes to elevate theory to fact we could well hinder feature scientific minds.
While the puzzle, as you point out, is far from complete, we should encourage the innovative investigation of the questions that remain, as opposed to endorsing magic.
My point precisely, I wasn't endorsing magic I was encouraging innovative thought which could well be hindered by over eager high school teachers over stepping the bounds of theory and fact.
That a majority of my people seem to think creationism should be taught in schools, tells me too few of my countrymen take advantage of it.
Alright, that was likely flamebait, but I'm gonna put my two cents in here anyhow. I've seen a high number of slashdotter's who seem to believe that this majority consists of scientifically ignorant, close minded religous fanatics. I don't believe this majority consists of people who want creationism to be taught in science classes. I think the bigger part of this majority is people against the theory of common descent darwinian evolution being taught as fact in the classroom. An objective observer can easily note that a vast number of special cases, and secondary supporting theories are required for the full single cell to man evolution theory to fit the evidence. Yes, I realize that often the details of a theory follow the initial more general theory(newtonian\relativity\quantom theories for example). But the full theory of common descent from single celled life is still fraught with an immense field of unknowns and conflicting theories on just what might or could have happened. It is hardly irrational for people to want the theory of common descent to be taught as a theory and not a scientific fact. Other, completely unthought of theories could, suddenly become necassary as new discoveries are made. Molecular phylogenies are already frequently at odds with phenotype based phylogenies. With the number of things we simply don't know about our distant origins being so large, it could well be prudent not to educate our youth as though current thinking is absolute fact. Remember that once 'most' scientific evidence suggested a flat earth, but that evidence is now understood to simply be a misinterpretation of the bigger picture. Our current evidence for common descent evolution may be better explained by another theory as we make new discoveries. I'm willing to bet molecular studies of DNA will reveal a great deal of what is and is not probable to happen through evolution. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should not be so quick to push the entirety of current evolutionary thinking on students as though it were fact. It will only lead to closed minded scientists down the road who might miss the next big breakthrough because their 'facts' were wrong.
Namely, the fact that the US acts as a gigantic research sink (read 'brain drain') for the rest of the world A very good point, but I think your missing one of the problems the article is pointing out. The number of American born students pursuing scientific interests is decreasing. Yes, right now the American economy is benefiting from the scientific studies/knowledge of a good number of bright foreigners. But in the long term is this a good pattern to see developing? Reliance on foreign individuals seems to be something the current administration is shying away from. I won't start in on the problems of the deteriorating school system, but suffice it to say there is a very big potential problem that this trend indicates.
The market will take care of this, though. Actually, if you look at the American economy I'm not sure your right. The market will only correct this if their is a demand for scientific research in the economy. I'd say it seems more likely the lowered funds to research are the market taking care of the research the American economy no longer revolves around. Which industries in America need any research outside of biotech?
First off, I am against large pharmaceutical companies profitting off of the sick and dying. But before heralding this as a victory for freedoms, the flipside also deserves some consideration. Like it or not, research into cures for diseases require money, period. This research is very expensive, and thus so are the resulting products. I can understand trying to cut excessive profiteering on new found medicines(or tests in this case) but if any nation can afford to pay some cash for the research that was done, surely we Canadians are one of those nations... Unless of course the price asked was in American dollars:)
Slashdot Mirror
ROAM allows arbitrarily detailed terrain. It represents the terrain as a quadtree -- a space which is subdivided into four parts, each of which is subdivided into four parts, etc ad infinitum -- and by intelligently collapsing and expanding quadtree nodes based on the distance from the viewer to the terrain.
Actually your describing how quad trees work, which I Soul Rider is based on. But ROAM works by splitting triangles in halves recursively, and is quite different.
this explanation is perhaps the simplest and best answer to creationists who want to insist that life is too complex a process to spring into existance fully developed (.e.g. behe's mouse trap argument). The answer is that being adaptive can beat being the best.
But being adaptive is a part of the most basic life functions we observe. The creationist statement that life is too complex to spring into existance fully developed is targetted primarily at abiogenesis research. All our current knowledge does not have an accepted natural mechanism by which DNA or even RNA could come into being. They are the simplest known mechanism that provide the adaptive ability of life. Thus there still isn't any known adaptive mechanism to get to DNA/RNA. Creationists disagree with the assumption that such a mechanism exists. And our current evidence really doesn't strongly(I said strongly, so no troll/flamebait rating please) support the assumption of a naturalistic mechanism existing. I don't think this observation of adaptivity will win many arguments with creationists.
People are not going to rewrite millions of lines of established C++ code in C#. So the only apps that will be ported to Linux through Mono will be those that originate in .Net.
I agree completely, but I think your underestimating just how many applications there are being developed with c#, especially how many will be down the road.
If I want to run Windows programs, I'll run Windows. I never saw much sense in emulators, other than in desperate circumstances or embedded work.
Which is why I feel Mono is a step up from WINE, it is not an emulator. If you can develop for Windows, or develop for both windows and linux, which would you choose? Specifically if the linux support was trivial to add to your product. Mono should be able to make a linux port as simple as ensuring you use api's available under Mono. How many contractors\consultants would like to save the MS license's for x users on the solutions they develop?
Absolutely true,
it is a shame that he and his talented followers insist upon cloning dubious Microsoft products
.NET, and a lack of a lot of benefit to using it instead of a lot of existing alternatives, there are other reasons for mono to exist. Availability of .NET apps on linux under Mono is parallel to development work on WINE. From a perspective of allowing a more competetive linux, Mono is quite important. I think the main benefit of Mono lies in portability of windows apps to linux, not in being able to use c# for linux development.
Is it also a shame that the WINE team insists on doing the same thing? Now, as much as I agree about the lack of innovations in
It's a really sad way for a lot of people to waste a whole lot of time rebuilding that which already exists. Wouldn't the whole computing world be a lot better if there wasn't a team of people, maybe a couple of teams of people building complete copies of .NET for other platforms?
.NET is going to have a lot of apps developed for it. Mono allows .NET apps that in days gone by would run only on windows(often written in VB) to be run under Linux.
.NET apps are available. This in my eyes is a great stroke of foresight by the Ximian team. This kind of look ahead approach, instead of playing catch up, is precisely what it'll take for the open source community to threaten MS down the road.
Although I harbor no love for MS, I take issue with this remark. In fact, my lack of love for MS spawns my affection for Mono, and the developers working on it. Like it or not,
Mono undercuts one of the biggest barriers to Linux acceptance by mainstream users, support for windows programs. Not today, but down the road when more and more
Projects like WINE are great and seek the same goal, but in many ways it's too little too late. A fully functional WINE available before users switched to XP could've easily drawn a lot of users to linux instead. The problem is WINE is on a tight time line to implement a monumental task before users already have a license for XP anyway. Mono is effectively starting it's development at the same time as MS, with much of the standard already documented for them, all things WINE had working against them. I believe these are good reasons Mono is a tremendous asset to linux. Let's give these guys some credit and take some joy in their efforts, not sorrow.
I'm not sure here, but I'd guess part of the reason you aren't able to swap just any pc hard drive is to do with how well such drives would handle the movement of a camcorder. I know alot of people who's camcorders are subjected to a lot of sudden movements, if you subject a standard pc HD to that while fully spinning for an extended period of time, you'll kill the drive pretty fast. Most people are used to there media surviving more than a year. Standard HD's could well be killed of by wear and tear on the 7200rpm platters after only a year of spinning while being moved around by amateur shaky cam recording.
The evolution debate is closed everywhere, expect in USA.
I think your overstating things a bit here. Genetic change in populations over time has been closed for a long time. But any further details that evolution encompasses are still in quite active debate. Particularly phylogentic/caldistic analysis are still a hot topic. Fossil/morphology based trees are at odds with molecular based trees in several key locations. Mechanisms and models are also still under heavy debate, molecular evidence is still at odds with puncuated equilibrium. The mass of conflicting evidence and theories that evolution encompasses right now easily matches the amount of 'agreed upon' evidence and interpretations. To call this debate closed(even with regards to common descent), severly underestimates the complexity of our origins.
My former post was by no means intended as a troll. Furthermore, I can't see any objective reason it would be considered as such. I can understand people disagreeing with my statements but can anyone explain to my why the above was considered a troll?
How falsifiable is the theory of evolution?
For a good long time, mtDNA was considered an accurate dating method for finding common ancestors. It was even heralded as confirmation from a second dating method that the fossil record dates were accurate. But, then we learnt a little more and found out that mtDNA suggested we had an Out of Africa common mother(not the only woman ancestor, just our common mother) about 100,000 years ago. Which didn't fit our current interpretation of human fossil distribution, but it was in keeping with a less popular interpretation, so things were okay. Then we learnt a little more(Parsons in 1997) and found out that mtDNA mutations where around 20 times faster than we thought, placing our common ancestor around 6000 years old. Clearly wrong, so we essientially stopped claiming mtDNA evidence as support for evolution. And yet dates for mtDNA calibrated off expected evolutionary branches are still accepted as more accurate on evolutionary time scales, in spite of numerous studies confirming that observed mtDNA mutations within species are unexplicably higher than those between them. This anomaly is still being investigated, but evolutionists are confident it is nothing to worry about.
The evolution of whales is still a big issue for evolution. Claims from the fossil record were that whales came from Ambulocetus and this was accepted as a good enough answer. But molecular biology shows us that whales are actually more closely related to the hippopotamus. Now, although hippos share alot of morphological features with whales, they only appear in the fossil record 30 million years after whales. So these common morphological features must be the result of convergence, but evolutionists needn't worry.
Now, as much as evolution fits a lot of the evidence, there is also a good quantity of evidence that does not support evolution(above are merely 2 recent examples). Just how much counter evidence for evolution is required for it to be considered 'falsified'. At the very least there should some admission there are reasons to lack confidence in common descent. Note: By evolution I refer to common descent here, not genetic change over time(which is of course a demonstrable fact).
Actually, punctuated equilibrium is gradualism, just a look on gradualism over a short time. Basically, it means gradualistic changes in an organism resulting in rather large morphological changes in a relatively(for the fossil record) short time. Usually it is believed that smaller populations would be required for such changes to become 'fixed' in the population. The creationist conjecture comes in with molecular biology and the fact that the kind of changes occuring in this time require either a large population or a large amount of time to have a likelyhood of occuring. The essence of the argument is that it is an example of where the fossil record and molecular biology disagree.
Thanks for the links. They're a great resource for research in micro-biology, and I'm sure there is lots of relevant stuff here. It'll just take some time to dig through it. I found the paper by Gary Olson and Carl Woese here most interesting. Then again as a programmer that's maybe not much of a surprise :). Unfortunately I've only found one paper(pdf), or get the google html cache here, so far really relavent to our discussion, on phylogenies of photosynthetic organisms.
The conclusion of that paper was pretty much like all other molecular phyogenies I've found. Still inconclusive and raising questions about our former ideas about how the phylogeny should have looked. It's this trend of conflicting findings, that would be expected if our common descent assumption is wrong, that continue to make me think our evidence for common descent is not compelling.
As I find other examples that pertain I'll post them. If you have any in particular you've seen just let me know, thanks again.
Thanks for the first good explanation I've heard of for feathers appearing in the first place. Any links or resources for further studies on this idea?
when combined with the DNA/RNA/Protein sequence evidence
Although this depends on one's interpretation of similarities in DNA between living creatures. On a biological level creatures use similar organs to perform similar functions. The same is logically the case on the molecular level. DNA in similar creatures would be expected to be similar. The molecular evidence, from what I know is no more compelling than morphological based phylogenetic trees. That is to say, molecular evidence shows no inidication of missing links existance. That mutations back to a common ancestor can be thought up is one matter, but the feasability of those mutational, in between forms is still as in question as before.
If an intelligent agent created the species, why would it engineer the DNA/RNA/Protein sequences such that they looked exactly like they would if they got that way by eons of mutation?
Well, it's pretty early still in our understanding of DNA but I'd hazard they wouldn't. Furthermore though, I'm unconvinced that they do appear to look like they have evolved over eons. All the evidence I've seen and found(and I've looked, please show me any you think is compelling), falls into two categories. DNA that looks like it has evolved over a short time within species, or junk DNA we don't yet know the purpose of and we assume similarities in this junk DNA between species is evidence of common descent. I still believe we'll find functional reasons for those similarities. The common descent interpretation is just that, an interpretation. I personally see the evidence and take a different view of what it represents.
Occam's razor would tell you that natural evolution of those sequences is a far, far simpler and more likely explanation, especially in light of the fact that microchanges happen spontaneously and are commonly observed in the laboratory.
Occam's razor is not a cure all magic wand though. It can as easily be turned around to say abiogenesis seems highly improbable(by currently known methods), and depending on how probable you believe God's existance is, one could say God is more likely to exist than a natural method by which abiogenesis occured.
I'm not an expert on the second case, but I believe quite strongly that knowledge of the first case is compelling evidence for the second, especially in light of all the other piles of observational evidence and the historical record that is available.
Logically, evidence for the first case is not evidence for the second. It's a bit like any inductive proof, proving for n still leaves the proof for n+1. In evolution, we know micro-evolutionary changes through DNA mutations are possible. But that the process of mutations can be extended indefinitely back to a common ancestor is a seperate issue.
The only historical evidence available to support the second case is from the fossil record, which even www.talkorigins.org considers the 'weakest' proof for evolution. Our other observational evidence lies mostly towards 'mountains' of evidence for the first case, but only quite limited evidence for the second. Check www.talkorigins.org's list of evidences of macro-evolution for a decent listing.
Seems a bit weaker than the alternative proposed theories. It would seem to me that extra legs would work better as legs for added traction, not being flapped to create downward force. At least not untill the legs had mutated quite a bit from ordinary legs. Alternative theories like evolution from gliding to flying in tree leaping lizards seems a little more likely path. Although feathers in general still seem a bit of an odditity to me.
I might be wrong here but I believe it was more a called a law in the same sense as Moore's law. It's an observation of a pattern, but biologists did not hold it as an absolute.
However, if mutations are truly random, isn't it necessary that they at least have the possibility to recreate a lost pathway, no matter how complex?
I believe it was more a prediction that if evolution operates as we expect, organisms would be unlikely to 'solve' an evolutionary problem the same way twice. It was not so much saying such an occurrance was impossible, but that it's occurance would out of keeping with the idea of evolution being pushed by random mutations.
That said, Dollo died in 1931, so modern discoveries like pretty much all DNA/genetic evidence wasn't available to him. I'm not sure here, but I don't think a lot of weight was put in Dollo's law anymore. Anyone out there know of reasons someone would even bother mentioning that their research contradicted Dollo's law?
Well, the fossil record does tell us that for the first 2/3 of life's existence on earth, all life consisted of bacteria.
The fossil record also tells us that something really crazy started happening during the Cambrian period, and then proceeded to stop. Evolution fits some of the evidence well, but there are still places where it suddenly doesn't seem to fit at all and we need to call on extraordinary circumstances. Yes evolution fits most of the evidence pretty well, but it's entirely possible a theory could come along that fits even more of the evidence.
And every time a fossil is discovered, the number of gaps in the fossil record increases by one, to the delight of the foes of evolution. There are now thousands and thousands of (ever tinier) gaps they can talk about in their pamphlets.
Yep, there are crazy's who'll take such foolish arguments and champion them. I'm probably more against them than yourself as their stupidity taints the credibility of my own position.
If you propose that no transitionary forms ever existed in these gaps, you have to explain why not, since that's the most logical conclusion.
Logical in this case is rather subjective. Based on the difficulty scientists are having justifying morphological and molecular phylogenies I tend to think the assumption of missing links existing is somewhat illogical. But in either case, from a scientific stand point it is up to both sides to prove the existance or non existance of such links. I'm personally rather confident our understanding of molecular biology will bear out the infeasability of transitinary forms.
Yep. We have no direct evidence of abiogenesis, apart from limited success in reproducing chemical reactions in the lab. But we wouldn't expect to get direct evidence of abiogenesis because it leaves no fossil evidence.
Fossil evidence aside the only evidence we do have is that on a molecular level it is ridiculously improbable to occur by any known process. Now evolution can be argued ignoring abiogenesis and assuming it happened either by god or some unknown process. But the answer to how that single celled(if it exists) creature came along could have big implications in how evolution works. That strikes me as another reason to teach it as theory and not fact.
People not taught our current view as students will probably have more trouble with this superior alternative theory, should it ever come out.
And as I've stated a number of times, I fully encourage students be taught our current view. I'm simply stating HOW it should be taught, as a theory based on current evidence and models.
I'd be willing to bet that it will more resemble evolution than any "competing theory" that the "theory, not fact" crowd like to talk about, like intelligent design.
We're allowed to put our faith in different outcomes, mine lies somewhere in the middle.
In fact, ID undermines one's ability to understand natural selection, because it teaches you to think in the wrong way. You end up viewing evolution as a weird variant of ID where each individual species is anthropomorphized and planning career decisions for itself over millions of years. People taught ID always ask stupid questions like "how does the tree know it should make fruit?", as if evolution supposes that species make intelligent decisions about how they will evolve.
Idiot's abound everywhere, but try not to judge the concept of ID by it's lowest common denominators. We can argue all day about what propenents of either side can claim, but that gets us nowhere on the actual issue. Student's taucht evolution as fact could easily get caught in the same trap of misunderstanding a new theory that explains the evidence better than anything we have currently thought of.
I'm NOT suggesting creation as this theory, there can very easily be a number of other unthought of explanations that could be missed be people assuming these don't exist.
Usually, when a discussion about the Big Bang turns into one about evolution, it means a creationist is around.
Creationist, yes. But I'm trying to focus more on the current issues in evolution and why I believe teaching it as fact could hamper the scientific process by closing people's minds to other possible explanations, not creation or ID, but some completely unique new explanation that might fits everything better.
First off, thanks for the moderator defense. Although I don't believe I'm confused, maybe I could have worded my response more clearly.
My problem with evolution being taught as fact in the classroom is with how it fits the evidence available. For the purpose of debate, I'm going to split evolution into two definitions I commonly see people using. The first is simply genetic change in a population over time, often influenced by selection, environment, etc. The second is the more general theory that this process can and was extended indefinitely and gave rise to all bio-diversity on Earth. The first I believe everyone excepts openly as fact and has no problems with being taught in the classroom as such. But the evidence for the second is much less compelling. From this point on my references to evolution are to the second definition.
We may not have a complete theory of evolution. This is mostly due to spotty evidence, which is par for the course (fossils are rare). But unlike gravity, our theories of biological evolution are consistent with all of the evidence we've managed to find.
My problem with evolution being taught as fact is our lack of evidence that micro-evolutionary changes can be extended right back to a single celled common ancestor. The two biggest evidences we have for this are a spotty fossil record and the relative similarity between DNA from different animals. To claim that our current theory is strong enough to be promoted to fact is premature. Our evidence that micro-evolution is extendable indefinitely really consists of evidences that 'look like it's what happened'. Transitionary fossils are assumed to exist, a mutation path from all animals back to a common ancestor is assumed to exist, a process by which a single celled creature with DNA came into being is assumed to exist. We have lots of secondary evidences that we can point to and say, well these make it look like the above are good assumptions. But I don't think it is a far stretch to continue to teach our current interpretation of the evidence as theory and not as fact. It is still possible that an alternate theory will fit the evidence better, and people taught as students that our current view is fact will have trouble finding it. I'm NOT suggesting creation as this theory, there can very easily be a number of other unthought of explanations that could be missed be people assuming these don't exist.
Your example, far from being a call to tolerance is a call to arms. A cry for better education.
My example most certainly is not a call to tolerance. It is a call to open minded approachs to the scientific process, particularly when it is being to taught to students.
I would conclude that most people (who took that poll) are undecided
You'll note I made no claims that creationism should be taught alongside evolution. I referred instead to these undecided people you speak of. I was merely suggesting that this group of people's indecision may be attributable to being torn between evolution being taught as a theory vs. as a fact. Not people on the fence of creationism being taught in class.
Anything we teach to students 'as fact', particularly before post secondary education, has a big impact on how they think about and interpret the evidence they see. I was merely stating that we need to be very carefull were we draw that line. We are not necassarily doing science a disservice by not promoting common descent to 'fact' prematurely.
The theory of evolution covers a pretty broad range of theories and I think this is were in a lot of the indecision among people comes in. Evolution as simply genetic change in a population over time isn't too hard to show as an observable fact. But just how far that change can be extrapolated, and how well the evidence supports that possiblity is another far more debated issue.
For example, if a science teacher taught his class it is a fact that all creatures came from an individual type of single celled ancestor, it could leave abiogenesis running off in false directions. It can close people's minds to the chance that maybe two or 3 types of original single celled creatures started things off. There are a lot of negative side effects that come from teaching students at a young age things as fact which could well be shown as a wrong theory down the road.
I suppose my disagreement comes in drawing a line between wondering at our achievements, and arrogantly believing that all our answers must be the right ones. If we take that wonder too far and lower our standards for what it takes to elevate theory to fact we could well hinder feature scientific minds.
While the puzzle, as you point out, is far from complete, we should encourage the innovative investigation of the questions that remain, as opposed to endorsing magic.
My point precisely, I wasn't endorsing magic I was encouraging innovative thought which could well be hindered by over eager high school teachers over stepping the bounds of theory and fact.
That a majority of my people seem to think creationism should be taught in schools, tells me too few of my countrymen take advantage of it.
Alright, that was likely flamebait, but I'm gonna put my two cents in here anyhow. I've seen a high number of slashdotter's who seem to believe that this majority consists of scientifically ignorant, close minded religous fanatics. I don't believe this majority consists of people who want creationism to be taught in science classes. I think the bigger part of this majority is people against the theory of common descent darwinian evolution being taught as fact in the classroom. An objective observer can easily note that a vast number of special cases, and secondary supporting theories are required for the full single cell to man evolution theory to fit the evidence. Yes, I realize that often the details of a theory follow the initial more general theory(newtonian\relativity\quantom theories for example). But the full theory of common descent from single celled life is still fraught with an immense field of unknowns and conflicting theories on just what might or could have happened. It is hardly irrational for people to want the theory of common descent to be taught as a theory and not a scientific fact. Other, completely unthought of theories could, suddenly become necassary as new discoveries are made. Molecular phylogenies are already frequently at odds with phenotype based phylogenies. With the number of things we simply don't know about our distant origins being so large, it could well be prudent not to educate our youth as though current thinking is absolute fact. Remember that once 'most' scientific evidence suggested a flat earth, but that evidence is now understood to simply be a misinterpretation of the bigger picture. Our current evidence for common descent evolution may be better explained by another theory as we make new discoveries. I'm willing to bet molecular studies of DNA will reveal a great deal of what is and is not probable to happen through evolution. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should not be so quick to push the entirety of current evolutionary thinking on students as though it were fact. It will only lead to closed minded scientists down the road who might miss the next big breakthrough because their 'facts' were wrong.
Namely, the fact that the US acts as a gigantic research sink (read 'brain drain') for the rest of the world
A very good point, but I think your missing one of the problems the article is pointing out. The number of American born students pursuing scientific interests is decreasing. Yes, right now the American economy is benefiting from the scientific studies/knowledge of a good number of bright foreigners. But in the long term is this a good pattern to see developing? Reliance on foreign individuals seems to be something the current administration is shying away from. I won't start in on the problems of the deteriorating school system, but suffice it to say there is a very big potential problem that this trend indicates.
The market will take care of this, though.
Actually, if you look at the American economy I'm not sure your right. The market will only correct this if their is a demand for scientific research in the economy. I'd say it seems more likely the lowered funds to research are the market taking care of the research the American economy no longer revolves around. Which industries in America need any research outside of biotech?
First off, I am against large pharmaceutical companies profitting off of the sick and dying. But before heralding this as a victory for freedoms, the flipside also deserves some consideration. Like it or not, research into cures for diseases require money, period. This research is very expensive, and thus so are the resulting products. I can understand trying to cut excessive profiteering on new found medicines(or tests in this case) but if any nation can afford to pay some cash for the research that was done, surely we Canadians are one of those nations... Unless of course the price asked was in American dollars :)