Evolution with regards to common ancestry assumes there exist micro-evolutionary steps from this original organism all the way down to every currently living creature. Not only that, it assumes that EVERY one of these mutations was beneficial enough that natural selection or some other mechanism would survive to pass the mutation on. This is the part of evolution that is not obvious. Furthermore, the above mentioned evolutionary paths must have occured in 5 million years time. Again this part of evolution is based on faith, which is based on observation of other evidences.
The only problem with the sudden release is the probability of multiple mutations being beneficial. The number of mutations performed increases the number of possible mutations exponentially. So the problem becomes that even if you only have say 4 stored mutations, the probability that those 4 mutations will create a benefit over the original creature are very low. If you have a billion possible mutations in a single step, then your odds for 4 random mutations being beneficial is one million to the power of 4 over the number of beneficial mutations available. Before this can be considered probable we need to know what kind of population size and time frame would be needed to have a likely hood of a beneficial mutation sequence occuring. Untill then we don't really know if 5 million years is enough time for a large number of such "mutation leaps" to occur.
This is a bit silly but I'll go for it. Given the number of keys on your typewriter adn the number of possible combinations of those characters you can figure out the probability of recreating a few pages of shakespeare. The problem is that if it would take longer than 5 million years to have a probability of getting the desired result, it is unlikely to work.
" amazing species, show the awesome power of something as simple as random mutation and selection." Unsupported statements like this are why creationists cry that evolution requires as much faith as creation. Unless you support how evolution allows for these amazing species to develop your belief that they came about through evolution is based solely on faith. Please don't water down science this way.
Financially speaking it just makes more sense to develop games for consoles. You only need to debug 1 hardware configuration, and the target market you are selling to is much larger. These are the two biggest reasons it is more profitable to develop for console systems than pc's. It's cheaper to build a polished, stable product and you've got the likelyhood of greater sales to boot.
For a good look at the interpretations of evidence for macro evolution check the 2 following sites www.talkorigins.org and www.trueorigin.org In particular read the 29 evidences of macro evolution and the corresponding counter document on true origin.
Actually if you care to read the Genesis account God creates light on the first day. If one presumes this 'light' simply didn't have a specific source until the sun and moon were created then plants can be created before the sun and moon. Please at least spend a few short minutes studying an opposing view before decrying them as evil fanatical zealots.
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 And the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. 4 And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided between the light and the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the first day. 6 And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it be a division between waters and waters. 7 And God made the expanse, and divided between the waters that are under the expanse and the waters that are above the expanse; and it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heavens. And there was evening, and there was morning -- a second day. 9 And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together to one place, and let the dry [land] appear. And it was so. 10 And God called the dry [land] Earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, Let the earth cause grass to spring up, herb producing seed, fruit-trees yielding fruit after their kind, the seed of which is in them, on the earth. And it was so.
"According to the Bible, the Earth existed quite a long time before man was deposited here"
I don't know where your source on this is but the Bible in fact does quite clearly and accurately translate to stating that creation occured over 7 days. The only error assumed in the translation I can think of you making here is that the word translated as day does not always mean a literal 24 hours. But in it's default context, and the context in which it is used in Genesis does mean a 24 hour day.
" Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
Yes, that apples do not float up is an observable fact. The difference between the 2 arguments though is in saying that humans evolved from apes. This is not a verified, observed or proven fact. The weight of evidence showing that apes became human beings is not nearly so strong as the evidence that apples fall to the ground.
Creationists could take DNA to be God's signature on his creation and proof of intelligent design. Then they would jump on the biggest philosophical question of all, where did the atoms to create cells originally come from? My understanding of microbiology is admitably minimal. So I must ask, what evidence is there in cell history that shows creatures more likely started from a common one celled organism and not a number of seeded organisms. I guess the 'big' coincidence of common DNA strands, but then see my first comment. Invariably faith comes into people's decisions on how they interpret evidence.
First off, thanks for clearing that up. On the issue of 7-day creationism then though, who is to say that the 'inital' creation of animals wasn't simply a day where God seeded the world with animals in various stages of change? Are fossil records considered complete and accurate enough to 'prove' this was not the case?
Where evolution is concerned, we have physical evidence, genetic evidence, laboratory evidence, and observation. Where creation is concerned, we have....A book that says it happened.
Just food for thought here. I would propose the difference between religous belief and scientific theory is that science uses the simpilist theory/explantion/model that fits all known evidence, and the collection of further evidence to see that this holds. Christian beliefs are taken from the bible, but any half intelligent christian looks around at scientific evidence and facts to ensure that their interpretation of the bible is sane. That said, I don't believe that so lightly belittling creationism is anything short of ignorance. Perhaps try showing where evidence for evolution does not fit in the creationist model/theory of how the world came to be.
First off, I hope this doesn't enevitably descend into a flame war.
That said I would like to ask for honest and open thoughts on whether it is possible for faith in 7 day creationism and micro-evolution to co-exist. God created species, which naturally adapt to their environment. What evidence for macro evolution is out there that is non consistant with such a view point? All the evidence for macro evolution I'm aware of does not seem to fit better with either creation and micro-evolution or macro+micro evolution.
I work at a university and our terms for MS Select are that we can run any MS OS on our systems, BUT we must already have purchased a windows license for covered machines. Furthermore, licenses CANNOT be transfered to replacement machines if your original windows version was an OEM license. MS still makes off like bandits on this deal as we must buy a new license with each incoming system.
Actually, 'seeing' what is ahead of you wouldn't be a problem at the speed of light. You wouldn't be able to see anything behind you, but from anything ahead of you would still reach you as it always did.
Re:Good series - what motive?
on
Forbes on Linux
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· Score: 1
Even if the articles do have an agenda, it doesnt matter as long as they are factual
This is a very dangerous statement. The best propaganda is also completely factual. Showing only selected facts can be every bit as misleading as outright lies. What if forbes agenda was to portray an image of linux to big business that showed only the strengths it had that business don't care to adopt? Most execs might then dismiss linux as a good thing the have no need for. I don't believe this to at all be the case here, I'm simply saying that the potential is there. Just because something is factual does not mean it can't also be misleading.
Of course it would be better to avoid using someone else's IP in designing anything. The problem is that MS's IP in this instance covers a crucial technology to ANY 3d api using vertex/pixel shader technology. It is general enough that the only choices out there are to 'use' this IP or to have no support for programmable shaders. If the OpenGL board has to they can argue the patent is merely common sense and most likely get it over turned. I really don't foresee this happening though. Many companies in the past have owned IP used by OpenGL and it has always been allowed.
You make some good points, and as far as any american entities are concerned I agree with you. However, for the original reason ICANN took over it's current duties for the Gov't was to encourage a more open and GLOBAL community to be supported in a globally fair manner. The american gov't simply assuming control again could very well leave disputes from foreign interests at the bottom of the priority barrel. As corrupt as private business can be, it generally is globally indiscriminate in it's bias's. Where as a gov't based org is not.
" Bill Gates just doesn't want all this bolts to be standardized." Actually he and MS simply and truly believe that their standards are what the industry needs. MS see's itself as the means by which the standards you speak of will be reached in the software industry. Thus his argument that weakening their grip on such 'standards' would be catastrophic to the software industry.
This is hardly what I would consider a victory/blow to the DMCA. It seems to me that in the land of the free, obtaining legal permission to create specific kinds of software is a problem. Software should not be restricted based on it's content, and this is just another way the DMCA is restricting development. Is it really OK that you need to gain fair use rights through legal expenses? Particularily when the need for those expenses is to avoid larger ones in the future? It still sounds like more signs of bad news to me.
"It's not about the First Amendment or squashing free speech. One of the suit's purposes is to stop people from spreading vicious lies and is directed at making them accountable for saying things that are not true." I think the above statement sums things up nicely. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there is a clause excluding lies/false statements from First Amendment protection is there?
The article follows a line of reasoning that because Everquest is addictive it should come with warning labels just like alcohol and tobacco products. The problem with this analogy is that Everquest is NOT an addictive substance. I agree it can be addictive, but it follows more in rank with Gambling than drugs and alcohol. It's pure sensationalism to draw a comparison between a game and highly addictive chemical substances. However, to simply dismiss the potential harm Everquest can cause is underestimating the situation. Sure most people won't get addicted in any harmfull way. But there are those same personality types which get addicted to gambling that can find the same kind of problems from Everquest. There really needs to be more common sense in journalism these days.
Not sure about everyone else but I get a phone call from ATT and Sprint bi-annually to switch my long distance over to their service. Most phone calls I've received NEVER ask if you want to switch over. The simply quote the benefits of their service and then ask for your name and address. Giving your address is taken as you acceptance to switch over to their service, very underhanded. This kind of marketing is simply becoming more wide spread.
This page describes the current state of Canadian cd levies. We pay x dollars extra per blank cd, and copying for private use, including copying a cd someone else bought is no longer considered infringment. Pretty sweet deal... Unless of course your main use for cd's is software related.
Slashdot Mirror
Evolution with regards to common ancestry assumes there exist micro-evolutionary steps from this original organism all the way down to every currently living creature. Not only that, it assumes that EVERY one of these mutations was beneficial enough that natural selection or some other mechanism would survive to pass the mutation on. This is the part of evolution that is not obvious. Furthermore, the above mentioned evolutionary paths must have occured in 5 million years time. Again this part of evolution is based on faith, which is based on observation of other evidences.
The only problem with the sudden release is the probability of multiple mutations being beneficial. The number of mutations performed increases the number of possible mutations exponentially. So the problem becomes that even if you only have say 4 stored mutations, the probability that those 4 mutations will create a benefit over the original creature are very low. If you have a billion possible mutations in a single step, then your odds for 4 random mutations being beneficial is one million to the power of 4 over the number of beneficial mutations available. Before this can be considered probable we need to know what kind of population size and time frame would be needed to have a likely hood of a beneficial mutation sequence occuring. Untill then we don't really know if 5 million years is enough time for a large number of such "mutation leaps" to occur.
This is a bit silly but I'll go for it. Given the number of keys on your typewriter adn the number of possible combinations of those characters you can figure out the probability of recreating a few pages of shakespeare. The problem is that if it would take longer than 5 million years to have a probability of getting the desired result, it is unlikely to work.
" amazing species, show the awesome power of something as simple as random mutation and selection." Unsupported statements like this are why creationists cry that evolution requires as much faith as creation. Unless you support how evolution allows for these amazing species to develop your belief that they came about through evolution is based solely on faith. Please don't water down science this way.
Financially speaking it just makes more sense to develop games for consoles. You only need to debug 1 hardware configuration, and the target market you are selling to is much larger. These are the two biggest reasons it is more profitable to develop for console systems than pc's. It's cheaper to build a polished, stable product and you've got the likelyhood of greater sales to boot.
For a good look at the interpretations of evidence for macro evolution check the 2 following sites www.talkorigins.org and www.trueorigin.org In particular read the 29 evidences of macro evolution and the corresponding counter document on true origin.
Actually if you care to read the Genesis account God creates light on the first day. If one presumes this 'light' simply didn't have a specific source until the sun and moon were created then plants can be created before the sun and moon. Please at least spend a few short minutes studying an opposing view before decrying them as evil fanatical zealots.
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 And the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light. And there was light.
4 And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided between the light and the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the first day.
6 And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it be a division between waters and waters.
7 And God made the expanse, and divided between the waters that are under the expanse and the waters that are above the expanse; and it was so.
8 And God called the expanse Heavens. And there was evening, and there was morning -- a second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together to one place, and let the dry [land] appear. And it was so.
10 And God called the dry [land] Earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth cause grass to spring up, herb producing seed, fruit-trees yielding fruit after their kind, the seed of which is in them, on the earth. And it was so.
"According to the Bible, the Earth existed quite a long time before man was deposited here"
I don't know where your source on this is but the Bible in fact does quite clearly and accurately translate to stating that creation occured over 7 days. The only error assumed in the translation I can think of you making here is that the word translated as day does not always mean a literal 24 hours. But in it's default context, and the context in which it is used in Genesis does mean a 24 hour day.
" Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
Yes, that apples do not float up is an observable fact. The difference between the 2 arguments though is in saying that humans evolved from apes. This is not a verified, observed or proven fact. The weight of evidence showing that apes became human beings is not nearly so strong as the evidence that apples fall to the ground.
Creationists could take DNA to be God's signature on his creation and proof of intelligent design. Then they would jump on the biggest philosophical question of all, where did the atoms to create cells originally come from? My understanding of microbiology is admitably minimal. So I must ask, what evidence is there in cell history that shows creatures more likely started from a common one celled organism and not a number of seeded organisms. I guess the 'big' coincidence of common DNA strands, but then see my first comment. Invariably faith comes into people's decisions on how they interpret evidence.
First off, thanks for clearing that up. On the issue of 7-day creationism then though, who is to say that the 'inital' creation of animals wasn't simply a day where God seeded the world with animals in various stages of change? Are fossil records considered complete and accurate enough to 'prove' this was not the case?
Where evolution is concerned, we have physical evidence, genetic evidence, laboratory evidence, and observation. Where creation is concerned, we have....A book that says it happened.
Just food for thought here. I would propose the difference between religous belief and scientific theory is that science uses the simpilist theory/explantion/model that fits all known evidence, and the collection of further evidence to see that this holds. Christian beliefs are taken from the bible, but any half intelligent christian looks around at scientific evidence and facts to ensure that their interpretation of the bible is sane. That said, I don't believe that so lightly belittling creationism is anything short of ignorance. Perhaps try showing where evidence for evolution does not fit in the creationist model/theory of how the world came to be.
First off, I hope this doesn't enevitably descend into a flame war.
That said I would like to ask for honest and open thoughts on whether it is possible for faith in 7 day creationism and micro-evolution to co-exist. God created species, which naturally adapt to their environment. What evidence for macro evolution is out there that is non consistant with such a view point? All the evidence for macro evolution I'm aware of does not seem to fit better with either creation and micro-evolution or macro+micro evolution.
I work at a university and our terms for MS Select are that we can run any MS OS on our systems, BUT we must already have purchased a windows license for covered machines. Furthermore, licenses CANNOT be transfered to replacement machines if your original windows version was an OEM license. MS still makes off like bandits on this deal as we must buy a new license with each incoming system.
Actually, 'seeing' what is ahead of you wouldn't be a problem at the speed of light. You wouldn't be able to see anything behind you, but from anything ahead of you would still reach you as it always did.
Even if the articles do have an agenda, it doesnt matter as long as they are factual
This is a very dangerous statement. The best propaganda is also completely factual. Showing only selected facts can be every bit as misleading as outright lies. What if forbes agenda was to portray an image of linux to big business that showed only the strengths it had that business don't care to adopt? Most execs might then dismiss linux as a good thing the have no need for. I don't believe this to at all be the case here, I'm simply saying that the potential is there. Just because something is factual does not mean it can't also be misleading.
Of course it would be better to avoid using someone else's IP in designing anything. The problem is that MS's IP in this instance covers a crucial technology to ANY 3d api using vertex/pixel shader technology. It is general enough that the only choices out there are to 'use' this IP or to have no support for programmable shaders. If the OpenGL board has to they can argue the patent is merely common sense and most likely get it over turned. I really don't foresee this happening though. Many companies in the past have owned IP used by OpenGL and it has always been allowed.
You make some good points, and as far as any american entities are concerned I agree with you. However, for the original reason ICANN took over it's current duties for the Gov't was to encourage a more open and GLOBAL community to be supported in a globally fair manner. The american gov't simply assuming control again could very well leave disputes from foreign interests at the bottom of the priority barrel. As corrupt as private business can be, it generally is globally indiscriminate in it's bias's. Where as a gov't based org is not.
" Bill Gates just doesn't want all this bolts to be standardized." Actually he and MS simply and truly believe that their standards are what the industry needs. MS see's itself as the means by which the standards you speak of will be reached in the software industry. Thus his argument that weakening their grip on such 'standards' would be catastrophic to the software industry.
This is hardly what I would consider a victory/blow to the DMCA. It seems to me that in the land of the free, obtaining legal permission to create specific kinds of software is a problem. Software should not be restricted based on it's content, and this is just another way the DMCA is restricting development. Is it really OK that you need to gain fair use rights through legal expenses? Particularily when the need for those expenses is to avoid larger ones in the future? It still sounds like more signs of bad news to me.
"It's not about the First Amendment or squashing free speech. One of the suit's purposes is to stop people from spreading vicious lies and is directed at making them accountable for saying things that are not true." I think the above statement sums things up nicely. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there is a clause excluding lies/false statements from First Amendment protection is there?
The article follows a line of reasoning that because Everquest is addictive it should come with warning labels just like alcohol and tobacco products. The problem with this analogy is that Everquest is NOT an addictive substance. I agree it can be addictive, but it follows more in rank with Gambling than drugs and alcohol. It's pure sensationalism to draw a comparison between a game and highly addictive chemical substances. However, to simply dismiss the potential harm Everquest can cause is underestimating the situation. Sure most people won't get addicted in any harmfull way. But there are those same personality types which get addicted to gambling that can find the same kind of problems from Everquest. There really needs to be more common sense in journalism these days.
Not sure about everyone else but I get a phone call from ATT and Sprint bi-annually to switch my long distance over to their service. Most phone calls I've received NEVER ask if you want to switch over. The simply quote the benefits of their service and then ask for your name and address. Giving your address is taken as you acceptance to switch over to their service, very underhanded. This kind of marketing is simply becoming more wide spread.
http://www.dww.com/articles/billc32article.htm
This page describes the current state of Canadian cd levies. We pay x dollars extra per blank cd, and copying for private use, including copying a cd someone else bought is no longer considered infringment. Pretty sweet deal... Unless of course your main use for cd's is software related.
"This would destroy Windows desktop operating systems as a stable and consistent development platform,"
.....
Mod Bill himself up to +5 funny.