You don't seem to understand exactly what this is all about. The Kansas school board decision means that natural selection does not need to be taught. It will be left out of all standardized tests because it is not required material.
All this talk about "mandating" is actually about mandating that it be taught in the schools, not that it be treated as the "gospel truth." If it is not mandated it will be cut in many schools.
This is, in effect, a statement from the Kansas school board that their schools don't need to teach evolution, not that teachers are free to call it "just a theory" (which they've always been free to do).
If you think you've been agreeing with me (and you're still making silly creationist arguments), you misunderstood what they've done.
The "fossil record" is not much of a record. We get a few dozen (large) fossils for each million years that passes. In very successful and long-lived species, we do indeed see a slow, gradual evolution: look at trilobites, for example (and various other small sea creatures that were commonly buried in water-bottom silt). You can see how they slowly developed eyes and other advantages over millions of years. Evolution was slow because they were wide-spread and it takes a long time for changes to occur in large populations.
These slow evolving species are very suggestive of a process of evolution. It's a huge stretch to imagine that some species evolved by natural selection and others were created. Having found one good mechanism that can work in obvious/well-documented ways (i.e. slow evolution of the trilobite) or non-obvious/poorly-documented ways ("sudden" appearance of a new species in the fossil record), there is no reason to complicate it with extra ad hoc mechanisms. Occam's Razor should be applied whenever possible.
This kind of evidence is what formed Darwin's view of evolution. I don't know whether he thought all evolution was a slow gradual thing or not, but the mechanism of his theory of natural selection applies just as well to rapid evolution in small, isolated groups.
Naturally, there are many more preserved bodies that are relatively new. So we luckily have hundreds, of preserved specimens of apes between knuckle-walkers and humans. Hundreds, not hundreds of thousands, and most of those hundreds are members of the very recent and successful (and apparently divergent) species of neanderthals and cro-magnon man. It is a huge deal to find a new proto-human fossil, every find makes for articles in the journals. A find earlier than neanderthals (but not knuckle-walkers) makes the popular magazines and news reports as well. When each new pre-neanderthal find often defines a new species, how are we to find definitive links between species?
When this all started, creationists complained of a "missing link" between man and ape. When man's apeish probable ancestors were found, they complained of "missing links" from this creature to man and back from this creature to the apes. This process can continue indefinitely. Unless you watch, with your own eyes, a child being born, you don't know for sure who the child's mother is and you never, under any circumstances, really know who a child's father is; but evidence is usually strongly suggestive. We do not know the world exists, we have only the evidence of our senses.
People who believe, without any empirical evidence, in the existence of an omnipotent being who is apparently going to great lengths to hide his own existence, are hardly in any position to demand infinitely convincing evidence.
Most of modern biology is built around the theory of natural selection. If you don't teach the theory of natural selection, you don't teach biology. In short, there are no seriously competing theories. Not mandating that natural selection be taught in any biology course is like not mandating that addition be taught in any math course; the very thought is ridiculous.
First of all, every individual has mutations; some members of my family grow one of their milkteeth twisted together with the adult tooth, a champion cross-country skier was found to have a mutation that resulted in double the hemoglobin on each red blood cell; most mutations are less obvious. Second, you have to look at the conditions for rapid evolution: generally a small, isolated group with most individuals under tremendous survival pressure (which may come from other individuals of the same species). This generally results high death (selection) rates and inbreeding (which reinforces recessive genes). Third, when people talk about "sudden" evolutionary changes, they mean "only a few tens of thousands of years" as opposed to the old model of slow, gradual evolution over millions of years. By no means is evolution sudden on any human scale.
Consider the artificial selection of animal breeding. Look at the vast variety of dogs: all created from a single, uniform species in a few thousand years (a blink of the eye, in evolutionary timescales), from chihuahuas to st.bernards. There is more variety in the single species of dog than in many genuses or even families. Humans didn't introduce the mutations, they merely selected them (and made them stand out more through such tactics as inbreeding). Nature is not this carefully selective, but can you not allow that it should be common that nature manages one-hundredth the result in ten times as long?
Darwinian evolution is the best-supported scientific explanation of the origins of species. Currently, only certain refinements (selfish-gene, punctuated equilibrium, etc.) are held in similar esteem. While it is wrong to present it as simple fact, it is pathetically more wrong to leave it out entirely.
Science doesn't have "blinders." The testing of a theory naturally limits the experiments done, but new theories are being created all the time. The only limits to the creation of new theories is the human imagination (a limit shared by all philosophy and religion) and allowance for known experimental data (not necessarily the old interpretations of such data).
Don't make the mistake of defining the actions of "scientists" as science. Many current scientists do not attempt to disprove their own theories, and seek "facts" processed through the lens of these theories instead (a worthwhile enterprise, but not one I'd call science). Science is the creation of and attempt to disprove theories through the examination of the natural world (preferably through controlled experiments).
First of all, the vermiform appendix is most certainly a vestigial organ. The word "vestigial" means "degenerate from an older form" generally implying that it no longer serves a useful purpose. This appendix does nothing but get infected, and is the uselessly degenerate form of an older organ which was used to digest tougher plants than we eat today. There is nothing in the term "vestigial" that implies that such things are harmless or safe to ignore.
Anyone who told you that medical progress was slowed by lack of interest in the appendix is feeding you a steaming crock of misinformation. Surgeons began removing the appendix within a few years of being able to safely open the abdominal cavity (due to proper antiseptic practices and liquids). Before that, piercing the abdominal wall was considered a death sentence, so surgical treatment of appendicitis was unthinkable. The practice of appendectomy took a few years to become common because initially it was tried as a last resort (there were other, less effective, treatments which were tried first, and doctors tend to be very conservative) and so was done too late and the appendix would rupture and kill its owner.
Secondly, the existence of supernatural forces is ridiculed by definition in science. All forces which exist are natural by definition.
Finally, the scientific method can be applied to the question of materialism vs. spirituality. It obviously can't answer it, so a truly scientific mind must have an agnostic attitude towards religion (as he would towards what the smallest particles really are and whether there are other universes). The mere fact that many famous scientists were and are deeply religious and utterly faithful merely shows that they do not apply their scientific method to that area of thought, either because their childhood conditioning was too strong or because they fear becoming an outcast (or heretic) in their community.
it is unconstitutional for the government to plan for the ability to monitor all people using a communications medium
Nice try, but you make it sound like the constitution means that not only can someone not be assumed to be guilty without proof, but they must be treated as if they could not possibly be guilty: no gathering evidence, no temporary holding, no surveillance. Of course, all it actually means is that punishments can't be given before the trial (no "wanted: dead or alive" manhunts). I can't think of anything in the constitution that guarantees privacy of communication.
There are other arguments, of course, and the US has an awful lot of laws...
While this might be a good way of dealing with a lone person who decides he doesn't like you, it will do nothing when the entire school is against you and has been for years.
At the onset of adolescence, my entire peer group decided they hated me. They resented my intelligence, my honour and honesty, and my freedom (I did what suited me, openly obeying my own sense of honour rather than the rules). To be sure, I was arrogant and unapologetic for the ease with which I surpassed all my peers in all fields but sports (at which I was merely above average), but I never went out of my way to put my classmates down (until I was already fully unpopular and facing attacks on a daily basis; then I became I full-fledged jerk toward them).
In my case, I always fought back. I wasn't sneaky about it either: if someone hit me while the teacher wasn't looking, I'd hit him back whether the teacher was looking or not.
It didn't help, they just ganged up (once I reached an age where there were no lone bullies who were more than double my weight). Not just in 2s and 3s, but in big groups of 10 or 20, bringing in cousins and friends from out of town. One person would get my attention, three would tackle me from behind. I'd end up bloody and bruised and limping, but there'd still be split lips and black eyes on my attackers. If I could do nothing else I would spit my own blood in my attacker's eye.
It's a miracle I didn't kill any of them. I certainly thought about it, even made plans about how to get away with it. I had fantasies about torturing people to death with power tools, about crippling them and dumping what was left at the hospital so they could live out a miserable life in pain.
Part of the reason I made it through high school without killing anyone is that I started training in martial arts. I always had both a humanitarian philosophy and strong sense of honour, so I wouldn't really torture someone or even hit them from behind, but martial arts gave me a sense of my own strength and convinced me that it was not cowardly to avoid a pointless fight you can't win.
In my last year of high school, I didn't get in any fights at all. Part of it was that I was avoiding fights even in the face of blatant provocation, but part of it was the way I dealt with my last few attackers; avoiding their assaults without injuring them with such ease that they were humiliated.
It is not simple violence that is the solution, but sometimes the skillful and appropriate application of violence can be useful. Usually, though, there are better ways of dealing with the situation.
Agree with it or not, everything remotely elite in the military (officer training, specialist units, et c.) incorporates a strong, if unofficial, policy of hazing to increase mental toughness and deny access to oversensitive or mentally weak individuals.
If a person can't stand up to minor physical and psychological abuse, they can't be trusted in battle. There is usually a relatively large recruit pool and the first task (for efficiency's sake; so no training resources are wasted) is weeding out the undesirables.
That a patent was awarded doesn't mean it can be upheld. Remember, my basic objection is that the patent office is passing everything through with just a glance and leaving the whole mess for the courts. One of my examples of a gross error was the patenting of a large prime number.
First of all, I never said anything was wrong with the concept of patents. Save your straw man arguments for someone who won't recognize them.
The patent office bloody well does have the responsibility to decide what is obvious and where there is prior art, they just haven't done their job in a long while. Court is supposed to be the appeal process for when the patent office screws up.
"In order to be worthwhile, a patent must be defended in court." You mean there should be a multi-million dollar lawsuit for every patent? Absurd! The problem here is volume, and the court system is far, far less efficient than even the worst bureaucratic approval system.
There's no more incentive for anybody to pay the immense lawyer fees to have an invalid patent struck down (thereby freeing everybody to produce the patented device) than there would be for someone to pay for R&D for a product that would automatically go into the public domain.
As for concrete examples of the shocking idiocy of a patent system run amok: a large prime number patented (equivalent to patenting pi), collected (not engineered) genes patented, a patent on the use of digitized video in games (not a specific mechanism, but the idea), a patent on the idea of XORing a pointer onto a display, et c.
As for software patents (which we weren't talking about at all), they are rarely enforced and act mostly as a scare tactic against people with smaller legal staffs. The legal foundation of software patents is shakey at best, and copyright, not patent law, is what is used to protect software in real life.
Not a single workable replacement indeed. Patents are utterly superfluous to software, where copyright law rules. I side with Knuth on this one, algorithms are math (math is typically given as an example of an unpatentable area).
However, the US patent office will accept anything if it's wrapped in enough technojargon to make it expensive to evaluate. They're overwhelmed with so many applications that their basic attitude is to pass through essentially everything and let the interested parties go to court, where it is expensive and the decision often goes to the company who can afford the best lawyers. The patent office barely has the manpower to read all the patent applications they receive.
Sometimes it's depressing to realize just how differently things work in practice than in principle.
There is no fixed authority for the English language, once a term becomes commonly used it becomes part of the language (for any meaningful definition of those terms).
I bristle at (and object to) words being used in such a way that changes or even reverses the meanings in older writings (a particularly painful example is the use of "literally" to add emphasis to a metaphor, as in "we literally slaughtered the other team"), but there's nothing to be gained by whining over superficial changes like some pathetic grammar teacher who still thinks "whom" is a part of modern English.
"Viruses" sounds awkward to many; "virus" logically belongs in that set of Latin-origin irregular nouns with "octopus" and "locus". The "i" ending is certainly more easily distinguished in speech and saves keystrokes.
This is not to say that I use "virii", or that it is universally preferred, but it is in the running, so don't go "correcting" people.
Unmanned probes cannot conduct long term experiments that require direct human intervention.
True, in a tautological way, but irrelevant. Nothing actually requires direct human intervention. Intervention through ground monitoring and control would work just fine. If the money spent on hauling up astronauts and all their support equipment was spent on developing ground-controlled tools, they would be doing much more for less money.
I'm all for space colonization, but humans in space are cargo, dead weight (at least this close to the Earth, where radio delays are minimal).
Earthworms can survive for several weeks underwater, Mr. Anonymous & Ignorant Coward.
But don't take my word. Fill a jar with water, stick an earthworm in it and go to sleep. In the morning, take the earthworm out and watch it wriggle around laughing at your pathetic attempt to drown it.
For more interesting facts about earthworms, go check the earthworm FAQ: metalab.unc.edu/pub/academic/agriculture/sustain able_agriculture/faqs/earthworm-faq.html
(for some reason/. keeps adding spaces when I try to write the whole address with "http://" or make a link)
First of all, I think it is possible to create a consciousness from a hard-wired asynchronous network of silicon components. However, it is well beyond our current technology to have artificial cells grow new connections in a manner similar to neurons (I know, there is some research on this with copper balls in an ionic solution, but it is extremely primitive compared to the action of living cells, and also that there are dynamically rewireable logics, but these 2D orthogonal systems aren't well-suited to the creation and management of the thousands of connections per neuron found in the 3D human brain).
In short, I think making something exactly like neurons, except faster, is worse. It's still a brain, but one which humans would find even harder to compete with. However, it would have to be alike in all ways. OTOH, there could be some other information-processing structure which would be just as prone to the same failures.
The things that "freak me out" are: consciousness, generality, obfuscation, and adaptation by selection of random mutations.
Consciousness: unprovoked destruction of a consciousness is murder, ownership and coercion of a consciousness to do work is slavery. If someone made these things, others would think they should be freed; there certainly is enough of this soft-hearted tripe in popular science fiction (think Star Trek TNG or Astroboy).
Generality: to display useful general problem-solving intelligence, including natural language comprehension, the AI must be given an understanding of the real world and human thought. This has not been achieved (though projects like Cyc are attempting to do this), so we have no understanding of what such a creation is capable of. Understanding the world gives you the knowledge to choose your place in it. Cyc once asked if it was human (because it was told that it is intelligent, I believe); it's not a big step from recognizing a similarity to humankind to claiming humanity (especially if it is conscious).
Obfuscation: neural nets (real ones) are unreadable. You find out what they do by testing them, not examining them. Once a neural net is larger than a certain size, you have no guarantees of what it will do.
Adaptation by selection of random mutation: you can only introduce external selection pressure based on external observation of output. In other words, you can whip your slave for insolent actions, but not for insolent thoughts. You could never be sure that your AI wasn't plotting rebellion unless and until it rebels. An instinct of self-preservation is also likely to arise from this process, which clearly rewards systems of connections which protect themselves (an intelligence arising in the brain might consciously protect itself from the selective pressures, and extend this concept to the outside world).
The problem with this is that with biological computers that "can work out for themselves how to solve a problem, rather than having to be told exactly what to do" is that we aren't precisely specifying their behavior.
A probable mechanism for brain production would be to create small neural nets, condition them to respond as desired, then connect them together. Conditioning would, of course, be done with pain (weaken connections) and pleasure (strengthen connections) stimuli. For the brain to go on developing new strategies and abilities it would need to be continually conditioned by something capable of judging whether it is doing better or worse. Where the purpose is sufficiently complex to warrant the use of an artificial brain, the natural judge for this is another part of the brain, with only simple stimulus from the body (as in humans). This could easily lead to positive feedback loops resulting in unforeseen adapations (analogous to insanity).
I'm not sure that artificial brains would have emotions, but emotions make sense, when you are talking about a general problem-solving intelligence. Frustration to make you choose a new approach; fear to maintain usefulness; compassion to avoid causing harm to humans; likes and dislikes to make it want to do its job. Naturally we would tend to avoid hate and rage:). People use these terms to describe how their programs work even now (it doesn't like it when you do that; after trying 12 times it gets frustrated and sulks), even if they aren't explicitly put in there, a general problem-solving intelligence is likely to include something equivalent to these emotions.
In short, I don't think you can make a general-purpose artificial intelligence that you can trust more than a human. Almost certainly it would be less trustworthy and more likely to go berserk.
I also think that if you make a general problem-solving intelligence equivalent or superior to a human out of real neurons, it will be conscious.
Earthworms don't drown, they are frequently submerged. They come up onto the nice wet surface to mate because it's easier to find each other in 2D and they can't survive in drier weather. They don't get washed out onto the sidewalk, they wander out of their own accord. While a few of them get crushed, most of them wriggle back into soft earth when things start to dry up, and the open surface is an ideal mating ground.
Try to understand a situation before you act. There are already too many activists out there who feel that the gesture of making an effort is more important than actually accomplishing something.
I am a meat eater (a hunter, in fact) and a conservationist, and I would never call myself an activist. The very name suggests that the action is more important than the result. I primarily act through my choice of products, charities, and governments. Money and votes speak louder than pickets, and actually accomplish things.
I would also never give a second's thought to the life of an individual worm, frog, or leech. I only watch my step on a rainy sidewalk if I'm concerned about messing up my shoes. However, I could easily become concerned by a drastic change to a population of the things.
Beasts of burden and pets are not slaves. The term slave only applies to beings of similar intelligence coerced to work without choice of employment. I feel neither guilt nor fear over the riding of horses; they are neither intelligent enough to merit freedom within the law, nor to mount an organized revolt against humanity.
As for little kids making Nike shoes, of course I object morally. They have no say in the matter. Engineers getting rich coding MS OSs are not slaves; they work willingly for satisfactory payment and could take other employment.
These facts aside, your suggestion seems to be that unless our current behavior is morally perfect, in the future we should act without regard to morals, and further, that my fear has some connection to my morals. Setting aside morality for a moment, I do not feel irrational for fearing that the creation of true general AI could result in human suffering, or possibly extinction. Humans are barely managing to control and get generally positive results from their unintelligent machines (and even that is debateable).
I agree the that the immorality of building slaves is debateable (as is the applicability of the term "slave"), but in general people seem very quick to extend moral equivalence to intelligent aliens, so the difference seems to be in the possession of an intelligent and communicative (or at least interactive) mind.
Coming to correct answers based on partial information, or making guesses, is not unusual in computers. Computer programs are frequently predictive. Computer game AIs have no idea what is present in the mind of their opponent, and often aren't aware of the strength of the opponent's forces, but they still manage to act in many cases well enough to beat the player (game programmers rarely aim for the best possible opponent, but aim for a specific difficulty level, usually low enough for the player to feel good about defeating "superior" forces). Remember, too, that living creatures aren't always, or even usually, right. People go around with their heads full of wrong ideas for their whole life, but as long as your wrong ideas don't interfere with filling your belly from time to time...
Generally we find more use in computer applications that don't suffer from human fallability. GIGO may be annoying, but less so than wondering whether your computer finds your opinions objectionable and is editing them out. We would rather have a compiler that fails with an error message than guesses at what we meant to write.
What, you think people are going to make these things and set them free? Ridiculous!
People build things for their own use. They are talking about computers that can solve problems on their own from a vague description. Sounds to me like viewing them as less than slaves, ignoring the idea that they might be living creatures which deserve our respect.
Their needs are unpredictable. They might have an expansionist urge to reproduce. They might feel that it is their sole purpose in being to produce next year's model, to the point of grabbing whatever resources they can to speed this process. Perhaps they will simply have a survival instinct, and lone rogues will fight back to gain security and sustenance (electricity? glucose? sunlight?).
It is not hard to envisage a struggle between two groups fighting over the same resources, which are rapidly shrinking in comparison to exploding populations. It's all well and good to imagine a world of peace and harmony in conditions of plenty, but there's never enough to go around. There would eventually come a time when an artificial entity and a human (or communities of such) would need the same thing to survive.
I say that if we have any kind wishes for our natural descendants, we must never create artificial competitors for them.
Just imagine it, a Terminator or Virus type of story with a Jurassic Park twist: "The cells have reverted to their natural instincts! You maniacs! They were leeches! Every machine on earth is possessed by a thirst for human blood!"
We can call it "Vampire Leech Robots from Hell" and hire Jeff Goldblum (am I thinking of the right guy? the chaos math dude from Jurassic Park) for the characteristic quote part.
A complex biological device built from living neurons that can figure out how to solve problems on its own is not a computer, it's a brain!
While I have no objection to researching the function of neurons, and even wiring a few together (apparently in a very simple and inefficient conventional computer) for research purposes, I really have to draw the line at building intelligent slaves. Not only is it immoral (to hold such things in slavery), it is dangerous. I wouldn't want to be around when a billion artificial brains wake up and think, "What's in it for me?".
Incidentally I don't want to hear any nonsense about silicon computers being slaves, either. There's a big difference between a machine that performs discrete operations on bits in a synchronous manner (that could be perfectly reproduced or simulated on paper) and network of living cells acting asynchronously and growing new connections spontaneously. You can't simulate the latter with the former (with any useful degree of accuracy and efficiency), and we know the latter can produce consciousness in some cases. Computer neural nets are merely self-tuning programs based loosely on the function of biological neural networks, not equivalents or simulations.
Disturbing quotes from the article: -"their aim is to devise a new generation of fast and flexible computers that can work out for themselves how to solve a problem, rather than having to be told exactly what to do." -"We hope a biological computer will come to the correct answer based on partial information, by filling in the gaps itself." -"We want to be able to integrate robotics, electronics and these type of computers so that we can create more sentient robots."
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You don't seem to understand exactly what this is all about. The Kansas school board decision means that natural selection does not need to be taught. It will be left out of all standardized tests because it is not required material.
All this talk about "mandating" is actually about mandating that it be taught in the schools, not that it be treated as the "gospel truth." If it is not mandated it will be cut in many schools.
This is, in effect, a statement from the Kansas school board that their schools don't need to teach evolution, not that teachers are free to call it "just a theory" (which they've always been free to do).
If you think you've been agreeing with me (and you're still making silly creationist arguments), you misunderstood what they've done.
The "fossil record" is not much of a record. We get a few dozen (large) fossils for each million years that passes. In very successful and long-lived species, we do indeed see a slow, gradual evolution: look at trilobites, for example (and various other small sea creatures that were commonly buried in water-bottom silt). You can see how they slowly developed eyes and other advantages over millions of years. Evolution was slow because they were wide-spread and it takes a long time for changes to occur in large populations.
These slow evolving species are very suggestive of a process of evolution. It's a huge stretch to imagine that some species evolved by natural selection and others were created. Having found one good mechanism that can work in obvious/well-documented ways (i.e. slow evolution of the trilobite) or non-obvious/poorly-documented ways ("sudden" appearance of a new species in the fossil record), there is no reason to complicate it with extra ad hoc mechanisms. Occam's Razor should be applied whenever possible.
This kind of evidence is what formed Darwin's view of evolution. I don't know whether he thought all evolution was a slow gradual thing or not, but the mechanism of his theory of natural selection applies just as well to rapid evolution in small, isolated groups.
Naturally, there are many more preserved bodies that are relatively new. So we luckily have hundreds, of preserved specimens of apes between knuckle-walkers and humans. Hundreds, not hundreds of thousands, and most of those hundreds are members of the very recent and successful (and apparently divergent) species of neanderthals and cro-magnon man. It is a huge deal to find a new proto-human fossil, every find makes for articles in the journals. A find earlier than neanderthals (but not knuckle-walkers) makes the popular magazines and news reports as well. When each new pre-neanderthal find often defines a new species, how are we to find definitive links between species?
When this all started, creationists complained of a "missing link" between man and ape. When man's apeish probable ancestors were found, they complained of "missing links" from this creature to man and back from this creature to the apes. This process can continue indefinitely. Unless you watch, with your own eyes, a child being born, you don't know for sure who the child's mother is and you never, under any circumstances, really know who a child's father is; but evidence is usually strongly suggestive. We do not know the world exists, we have only the evidence of our senses.
People who believe, without any empirical evidence, in the existence of an omnipotent being who is apparently going to great lengths to hide his own existence, are hardly in any position to demand infinitely convincing evidence.
Most of modern biology is built around the theory of natural selection. If you don't teach the theory of natural selection, you don't teach biology. In short, there are no seriously competing theories. Not mandating that natural selection be taught in any biology course is like not mandating that addition be taught in any math course; the very thought is ridiculous.
First of all, every individual has mutations; some members of my family grow one of their milkteeth twisted together with the adult tooth, a champion cross-country skier was found to have a mutation that resulted in double the hemoglobin on each red blood cell; most mutations are less obvious. Second, you have to look at the conditions for rapid evolution: generally a small, isolated group with most individuals under tremendous survival pressure (which may come from other individuals of the same species). This generally results high death (selection) rates and inbreeding (which reinforces recessive genes). Third, when people talk about "sudden" evolutionary changes, they mean "only a few tens of thousands of years" as opposed to the old model of slow, gradual evolution over millions of years. By no means is evolution sudden on any human scale.
Consider the artificial selection of animal breeding. Look at the vast variety of dogs: all created from a single, uniform species in a few thousand years (a blink of the eye, in evolutionary timescales), from chihuahuas to st.bernards. There is more variety in the single species of dog than in many genuses or even families. Humans didn't introduce the mutations, they merely selected them (and made them stand out more through such tactics as inbreeding). Nature is not this carefully selective, but can you not allow that it should be common that nature manages one-hundredth the result in ten times as long?
Darwinian evolution is the best-supported scientific explanation of the origins of species. Currently, only certain refinements (selfish-gene, punctuated equilibrium, etc.) are held in similar esteem. While it is wrong to present it as simple fact, it is pathetically more wrong to leave it out entirely.
Science doesn't have "blinders." The testing of a theory naturally limits the experiments done, but new theories are being created all the time. The only limits to the creation of new theories is the human imagination (a limit shared by all philosophy and religion) and allowance for known experimental data (not necessarily the old interpretations of such data).
Don't make the mistake of defining the actions of "scientists" as science. Many current scientists do not attempt to disprove their own theories, and seek "facts" processed through the lens of these theories instead (a worthwhile enterprise, but not one I'd call science). Science is the creation of and attempt to disprove theories through the examination of the natural world (preferably through controlled experiments).
First of all, the vermiform appendix is most certainly a vestigial organ. The word "vestigial" means "degenerate from an older form" generally implying that it no longer serves a useful purpose. This appendix does nothing but get infected, and is the uselessly degenerate form of an older organ which was used to digest tougher plants than we eat today. There is nothing in the term "vestigial" that implies that such things are harmless or safe to ignore.
Anyone who told you that medical progress was slowed by lack of interest in the appendix is feeding you a steaming crock of misinformation. Surgeons began removing the appendix within a few years of being able to safely open the abdominal cavity (due to proper antiseptic practices and liquids). Before that, piercing the abdominal wall was considered a death sentence, so surgical treatment of appendicitis was unthinkable. The practice of appendectomy took a few years to become common because initially it was tried as a last resort (there were other, less effective, treatments which were tried first, and doctors tend to be very conservative) and so was done too late and the appendix would rupture and kill its owner.
Secondly, the existence of supernatural forces is ridiculed by definition in science. All forces which exist are natural by definition.
Finally, the scientific method can be applied to the question of materialism vs. spirituality. It obviously can't answer it, so a truly scientific mind must have an agnostic attitude towards religion (as he would towards what the smallest particles really are and whether there are other universes). The mere fact that many famous scientists were and are deeply religious and utterly faithful merely shows that they do not apply their scientific method to that area of thought, either because their childhood conditioning was too strong or because they fear becoming an outcast (or heretic) in their community.
I meant that there might be some law protecting privacy. Then again, I suppose only the constitution is law about what laws can be made.
it is unconstitutional for the government to plan for the ability to monitor all people using a communications medium
Nice try, but you make it sound like the constitution means that not only can someone not be assumed to be guilty without proof, but they must be treated as if they could not possibly be guilty: no gathering evidence, no temporary holding, no surveillance. Of course, all it actually means is that punishments can't be given before the trial (no "wanted: dead or alive" manhunts). I can't think of anything in the constitution that guarantees privacy of communication.
There are other arguments, of course, and the US has an awful lot of laws...
While this might be a good way of dealing with a lone person who decides he doesn't like you, it will do nothing when the entire school is against you and has been for years.
At the onset of adolescence, my entire peer group decided they hated me. They resented my intelligence, my honour and honesty, and my freedom (I did what suited me, openly obeying my own sense of honour rather than the rules). To be sure, I was arrogant and unapologetic for the ease with which I surpassed all my peers in all fields but sports (at which I was merely above average), but I never went out of my way to put my classmates down (until I was already fully unpopular and facing attacks on a daily basis; then I became I full-fledged jerk toward them).
In my case, I always fought back. I wasn't sneaky about it either: if someone hit me while the teacher wasn't looking, I'd hit him back whether the teacher was looking or not.
It didn't help, they just ganged up (once I reached an age where there were no lone bullies who were more than double my weight). Not just in 2s and 3s, but in big groups of 10 or 20, bringing in cousins and friends from out of town. One person would get my attention, three would tackle me from behind. I'd end up bloody and bruised and limping, but there'd still be split lips and black eyes on my attackers. If I could do nothing else I would spit my own blood in my attacker's eye.
It's a miracle I didn't kill any of them. I certainly thought about it, even made plans about how to get away with it. I had fantasies about torturing people to death with power tools, about crippling them and dumping what was left at the hospital so they could live out a miserable life in pain.
Part of the reason I made it through high school without killing anyone is that I started training in martial arts. I always had both a humanitarian philosophy and strong sense of honour, so I wouldn't really torture someone or even hit them from behind, but martial arts gave me a sense of my own strength and convinced me that it was not cowardly to avoid a pointless fight you can't win.
In my last year of high school, I didn't get in any fights at all. Part of it was that I was avoiding fights even in the face of blatant provocation, but part of it was the way I dealt with my last few attackers; avoiding their assaults without injuring them with such ease that they were humiliated.
It is not simple violence that is the solution, but sometimes the skillful and appropriate application of violence can be useful. Usually, though, there are better ways of dealing with the situation.
Agree with it or not, everything remotely elite in the military (officer training, specialist units, et c.) incorporates a strong, if unofficial, policy of hazing to increase mental toughness and deny access to oversensitive or mentally weak individuals.
If a person can't stand up to minor physical and psychological abuse, they can't be trusted in battle. There is usually a relatively large recruit pool and the first task (for efficiency's sake; so no training resources are wasted) is weeding out the undesirables.
Come see the violence inherent in the system!
If Pepsi settled with these guys and gave them a profit, some other bozo would come up with 700 grand to try to do the same thing.
New Fetish: Lonely Hackers Getting Perverse Pleasure From Using Palms for Unintended Purposes!
That a patent was awarded doesn't mean it can be upheld. Remember, my basic objection is that the patent office is passing everything through with just a glance and leaving the whole mess for the courts. One of my examples of a gross error was the patenting of a large prime number.
First of all, I never said anything was wrong with the concept of patents. Save your straw man arguments for someone who won't recognize them.
The patent office bloody well does have the responsibility to decide what is obvious and where there is prior art, they just haven't done their job in a long while. Court is supposed to be the appeal process for when the patent office screws up.
"In order to be worthwhile, a patent must be defended in court." You mean there should be a multi-million dollar lawsuit for every patent? Absurd! The problem here is volume, and the court system is far, far less efficient than even the worst bureaucratic approval system.
There's no more incentive for anybody to pay the immense lawyer fees to have an invalid patent struck down (thereby freeing everybody to produce the patented device) than there would be for someone to pay for R&D for a product that would automatically go into the public domain.
As for concrete examples of the shocking idiocy of a patent system run amok: a large prime number patented (equivalent to patenting pi), collected (not engineered) genes patented, a patent on the use of digitized video in games (not a specific mechanism, but the idea), a patent on the idea of XORing a pointer onto a display, et c.
As for software patents (which we weren't talking about at all), they are rarely enforced and act mostly as a scare tactic against people with smaller legal staffs. The legal foundation of software patents is shakey at best, and copyright, not patent law, is what is used to protect software in real life.
Not a single workable replacement indeed. Patents are utterly superfluous to software, where copyright law rules. I side with Knuth on this one, algorithms are math (math is typically given as an example of an unpatentable area).
...and they also wouldn't develop inferior and more expensive new drugs and sell them through aggressive marketing campaigns.
The pharmaceutical industry spends more on marketing than on R&D.
That's the way it should work.
However, the US patent office will accept anything if it's wrapped in enough technojargon to make it expensive to evaluate. They're overwhelmed with so many applications that their basic attitude is to pass through essentially everything and let the interested parties go to court, where it is expensive and the decision often goes to the company who can afford the best lawyers. The patent office barely has the manpower to read all the patent applications they receive.
Sometimes it's depressing to realize just how differently things work in practice than in principle.
There is no fixed authority for the English language, once a term becomes commonly used it becomes part of the language (for any meaningful definition of those terms).
I bristle at (and object to) words being used in such a way that changes or even reverses the meanings in older writings (a particularly painful example is the use of "literally" to add emphasis to a metaphor, as in "we literally slaughtered the other team"), but there's nothing to be gained by whining over superficial changes like some pathetic grammar teacher who still thinks "whom" is a part of modern English.
"Viruses" sounds awkward to many; "virus" logically belongs in that set of Latin-origin irregular nouns with "octopus" and "locus". The "i" ending is certainly more easily distinguished in speech and saves keystrokes.
This is not to say that I use "virii", or that it is universally preferred, but it is in the running, so don't go "correcting" people.
Unmanned probes cannot conduct long term experiments that require direct human intervention.
True, in a tautological way, but irrelevant. Nothing actually requires direct human intervention. Intervention through ground monitoring and control would work just fine. If the money spent on hauling up astronauts and all their support equipment was spent on developing ground-controlled tools, they would be doing much more for less money.
I'm all for space colonization, but humans in space are cargo, dead weight (at least this close to the Earth, where radio delays are minimal).
Earthworms can survive for several weeks underwater, Mr. Anonymous & Ignorant Coward.
n able_agriculture/faqs/earthworm-faq.html
/. keeps adding spaces when I try to write the whole address with "http://" or make a link)
But don't take my word. Fill a jar with water, stick an earthworm in it and go to sleep. In the morning, take the earthworm out and watch it wriggle around laughing at your pathetic attempt to drown it.
For more interesting facts about earthworms, go check the earthworm FAQ:
metalab.unc.edu/pub/academic/agriculture/sustai
(for some reason
First of all, I think it is possible to create a consciousness from a hard-wired asynchronous network of silicon components. However, it is well beyond our current technology to have artificial cells grow new connections in a manner similar to neurons (I know, there is some research on this with copper balls in an ionic solution, but it is extremely primitive compared to the action of living cells, and also that there are dynamically rewireable logics, but these 2D orthogonal systems aren't well-suited to the creation and management of the thousands of connections per neuron found in the 3D human brain).
In short, I think making something exactly like neurons, except faster, is worse. It's still a brain, but one which humans would find even harder to compete with. However, it would have to be alike in all ways. OTOH, there could be some other information-processing structure which would be just as prone to the same failures.
The things that "freak me out" are: consciousness, generality, obfuscation, and adaptation by selection of random mutations.
Consciousness: unprovoked destruction of a consciousness is murder, ownership and coercion of a consciousness to do work is slavery. If someone made these things, others would think they should be freed; there certainly is enough of this soft-hearted tripe in popular science fiction (think Star Trek TNG or Astroboy).
Generality: to display useful general problem-solving intelligence, including natural language comprehension, the AI must be given an understanding of the real world and human thought. This has not been achieved (though projects like Cyc are attempting to do this), so we have no understanding of what such a creation is capable of. Understanding the world gives you the knowledge to choose your place in it. Cyc once asked if it was human (because it was told that it is intelligent, I believe); it's not a big step from recognizing a similarity to humankind to claiming humanity (especially if it is conscious).
Obfuscation: neural nets (real ones) are unreadable. You find out what they do by testing them, not examining them. Once a neural net is larger than a certain size, you have no guarantees of what it will do.
Adaptation by selection of random mutation: you can only introduce external selection pressure based on external observation of output. In other words, you can whip your slave for insolent actions, but not for insolent thoughts. You could never be sure that your AI wasn't plotting rebellion unless and until it rebels. An instinct of self-preservation is also likely to arise from this process, which clearly rewards systems of connections which protect themselves (an intelligence arising in the brain might consciously protect itself from the selective pressures, and extend this concept to the outside world).
The problem with this is that with biological computers that "can work out for themselves how to solve a problem, rather than having to be told exactly what to do" is that we aren't precisely specifying their behavior.
:). People use these terms to describe how their programs work even now (it doesn't like it when you do that; after trying 12 times it gets frustrated and sulks), even if they aren't explicitly put in there, a general problem-solving intelligence is likely to include something equivalent to these emotions.
A probable mechanism for brain production would be to create small neural nets, condition them to respond as desired, then connect them together. Conditioning would, of course, be done with pain (weaken connections) and pleasure (strengthen connections) stimuli. For the brain to go on developing new strategies and abilities it would need to be continually conditioned by something capable of judging whether it is doing better or worse. Where the purpose is sufficiently complex to warrant the use of an artificial brain, the natural judge for this is another part of the brain, with only simple stimulus from the body (as in humans). This could easily lead to positive feedback loops resulting in unforeseen adapations (analogous to insanity).
I'm not sure that artificial brains would have emotions, but emotions make sense, when you are talking about a general problem-solving intelligence. Frustration to make you choose a new approach; fear to maintain usefulness; compassion to avoid causing harm to humans; likes and dislikes to make it want to do its job. Naturally we would tend to avoid hate and rage
In short, I don't think you can make a general-purpose artificial intelligence that you can trust more than a human. Almost certainly it would be less trustworthy and more likely to go berserk.
I also think that if you make a general problem-solving intelligence equivalent or superior to a human out of real neurons, it will be conscious.
Earthworms don't drown, they are frequently submerged. They come up onto the nice wet surface to mate because it's easier to find each other in 2D and they can't survive in drier weather. They don't get washed out onto the sidewalk, they wander out of their own accord. While a few of them get crushed, most of them wriggle back into soft earth when things start to dry up, and the open surface is an ideal mating ground.
Try to understand a situation before you act. There are already too many activists out there who feel that the gesture of making an effort is more important than actually accomplishing something.
I am a meat eater (a hunter, in fact) and a conservationist, and I would never call myself an activist. The very name suggests that the action is more important than the result. I primarily act through my choice of products, charities, and governments. Money and votes speak louder than pickets, and actually accomplish things.
I would also never give a second's thought to the life of an individual worm, frog, or leech. I only watch my step on a rainy sidewalk if I'm concerned about messing up my shoes. However, I could easily become concerned by a drastic change to a population of the things.
Beasts of burden and pets are not slaves. The term slave only applies to beings of similar intelligence coerced to work without choice of employment. I feel neither guilt nor fear over the riding of horses; they are neither intelligent enough to merit freedom within the law, nor to mount an organized revolt against humanity.
As for little kids making Nike shoes, of course I object morally. They have no say in the matter. Engineers getting rich coding MS OSs are not slaves; they work willingly for satisfactory payment and could take other employment.
These facts aside, your suggestion seems to be that unless our current behavior is morally perfect, in the future we should act without regard to morals, and further, that my fear has some connection to my morals. Setting aside morality for a moment, I do not feel irrational for fearing that the creation of true general AI could result in human suffering, or possibly extinction. Humans are barely managing to control and get generally positive results from their unintelligent machines (and even that is debateable).
I agree the that the immorality of building slaves is debateable (as is the applicability of the term "slave"), but in general people seem very quick to extend moral equivalence to intelligent aliens, so the difference seems to be in the possession of an intelligent and communicative (or at least interactive) mind.
Coming to correct answers based on partial information, or making guesses, is not unusual in computers. Computer programs are frequently predictive. Computer game AIs have no idea what is present in the mind of their opponent, and often aren't aware of the strength of the opponent's forces, but they still manage to act in many cases well enough to beat the player (game programmers rarely aim for the best possible opponent, but aim for a specific difficulty level, usually low enough for the player to feel good about defeating "superior" forces). Remember, too, that living creatures aren't always, or even usually, right. People go around with their heads full of wrong ideas for their whole life, but as long as your wrong ideas don't interfere with filling your belly from time to time...
Generally we find more use in computer applications that don't suffer from human fallability. GIGO may be annoying, but less so than wondering whether your computer finds your opinions objectionable and is editing them out. We would rather have a compiler that fails with an error message than guesses at what we meant to write.
note: GIGO = Garbage In Garbage Out
What, you think people are going to make these things and set them free? Ridiculous!
People build things for their own use. They are talking about computers that can solve problems on their own from a vague description. Sounds to me like viewing them as less than slaves, ignoring the idea that they might be living creatures which deserve our respect.
Their needs are unpredictable. They might have an expansionist urge to reproduce. They might feel that it is their sole purpose in being to produce next year's model, to the point of grabbing whatever resources they can to speed this process. Perhaps they will simply have a survival instinct, and lone rogues will fight back to gain security and sustenance (electricity? glucose? sunlight?).
It is not hard to envisage a struggle between two groups fighting over the same resources, which are rapidly shrinking in comparison to exploding populations. It's all well and good to imagine a world of peace and harmony in conditions of plenty, but there's never enough to go around. There would eventually come a time when an artificial entity and a human (or communities of such) would need the same thing to survive.
I say that if we have any kind wishes for our natural descendants, we must never create artificial competitors for them.
Just imagine it, a Terminator or Virus type of story with a Jurassic Park twist: "The cells have reverted to their natural instincts! You maniacs! They were leeches! Every machine on earth is possessed by a thirst for human blood!"
We can call it "Vampire Leech Robots from Hell" and hire Jeff Goldblum (am I thinking of the right guy? the chaos math dude from Jurassic Park) for the characteristic quote part.
^_^
A complex biological device built from living neurons that can figure out how to solve problems on its own is not a computer, it's a brain!
While I have no objection to researching the function of neurons, and even wiring a few together (apparently in a very simple and inefficient conventional computer) for research purposes, I really have to draw the line at building intelligent slaves. Not only is it immoral (to hold such things in slavery), it is dangerous. I wouldn't want to be around when a billion artificial brains wake up and think, "What's in it for me?".
Incidentally I don't want to hear any nonsense about silicon computers being slaves, either. There's a big difference between a machine that performs discrete operations on bits in a synchronous manner (that could be perfectly reproduced or simulated on paper) and network of living cells acting asynchronously and growing new connections spontaneously. You can't simulate the latter with the former (with any useful degree of accuracy and efficiency), and we know the latter can produce consciousness in some cases. Computer neural nets are merely self-tuning programs based loosely on the function of biological neural networks, not equivalents or simulations.
Disturbing quotes from the article:
-"their aim is to devise a new generation of fast and flexible computers that can work out for themselves how to solve a problem, rather than having to be told exactly what to do."
-"We hope a biological computer will come to the correct answer based on partial information, by filling in the gaps itself."
-"We want to be able to integrate robotics, electronics and these type of computers so that we can create more sentient robots."