Researchers used problem-solving tasks and subtle experimental priming – including showing participants Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker or asking participants to complete questionnaires in hard-to-read fonts – to successfully produce “analytic” thinking.
Although I'd agree with you, I think it's necessary to point out that these aren't the normative beliefs of Christianity. As those assertions go, they're over-represented among Christians in the U.S., so it skews our sample set; but that doesn't mean that it's the definitive rebuttal of Christian belief.
I think more, and when I think more, I disbelieve more?
So, this research can be characterized as, "when I'm faced with the fact of my own poor eyesight, or I'm forced to look at art, I hate God". Yeah, that's good science...
It's simply meant to be an implementation of a heuristic, based on the traveling salesman problem, that takes into account physical considerations (speed, acceleration, direction) and processing limitations (RAM, processor cycles) for both initial setup and decision-making at each step.
The speed/direction stuff reminds me of the kind of skating that hockey players do (is it more effective to go in one direction, stop, and turn around, or is it better to modify your line and preserve momentum? in this game, too, is it better to accelerate greatly and bounce off a wall behind your target, or approach more slowly in order to modify your line without an abrupt change in direction?).
The processing limitations are interesting too, and provide for an interesting optimization exercise.
Or, by "I don't understand", should I simply answer "it's fun"...?;)
No, he said that "religious zealots have no idea where stem cells come from". In the current context, this "putty" therapy, I demonstrated that they came from a variety of sources -- none of them originating from fetal stem cells. "Many more advantages", eh?
Right now, Fetal Stem cells have many more advantages.
Except that these are multipotent, not pluripotent stem cells, and therefore, we're not talking about fetal stem cells.
The sources for MSCs include "umbilical cord blood, adipose tissue, adult muscle or the dental pulp of deciduous baby teeth"... but not fetal stem cells.
Nearly every job requires a BS or BA...even if they don't care which subject. A University should be a place of higher learning and research, not a factory for just the next step in education.
Umm... that's exactly the idea! The subject, in some ways, shouldn't matter -- after all, it's higher education, not technical school! If you spend the time working on a degree, regardless in which department, you've ostensibly grown in knowledge, in a "Renaissance 'man'" kind of way! It's precisely in its mission as "not a technical school factory" that the university exists!
ABC and Fox News are now reporting that, although it may have started breaking up over Calgary, it seems that it went down in the ocean west of Australia. Guess we're gonna have to wait and see...
Religion by definition is the enemy of science. It's believing something without evidence. The minute you have evidence that religion becomes science.
That's not at all the case, although it's close.
Science is the search for evidence of provable, physical phenomena and the development of theories based on an understanding of that evidence. Religion speaks to a metaphysical reality and an understanding of it. Physical evidence does not play the role in religion that it does in science.
When one attempts to play either game by the other's rules, one either fails, and/or misunderstands one -- or both -- endeavors...
You're wrong in your assumption that smart people with convincing evidence can convert religious people into accepting science as a good method to describe the world.
Wow... whose post are you responding to? Certainly not mine... I didn't suggest that convincing evidence always succeeds in winning arguments -- however, I *am* saying that it's necessary to have teachers who are able to present the convincing evidence.
Again... pardon? Where did I say that there isn't enough supporting evidence?
There are many people who just don't listen, and it's hard to convince anyone who just doesn't listen.
Apparently, there are also many people who don't read... and it's hard to convince anyone of your points if they don't read them outside of their own internal monologues...;^)
Oops... forgot to sign in before posting this. Didn't want to post AC, so just IDing this as my post...
No... science is being *questioned* and that's a Good Thing. Now, what we need is people who can answer the questions with supporting evidence, and an explanation that helps people see that Science.NE. Religion, and neither poses a threat to the other. Science doesn't answer religious questions, and religion doesn't answer science questions. Period. It's only when we "cross the streams", and try to make one discipline answer the other's problems that we get into trouble.
But I have accidentally OC'ed my PC and gotten a BSOD. What happens to humans when you do that?
You start agreeing with Rush Limbaugh / Shawn Hannity / Al Gore / Bill Maher. (Take your pick, according to your personal preference, and whom you wish to demonize...)
Interesting discussion! (Nonetheless, it's filled with mis-assumptions about Christian belief; moreover, it's pretty much a point-for-point rehash of Medieval Islamic Philsophy -- see, back then, Islamic philosophers were dealing with the implications of Ancient Greek philosophy, and had a hard time reconciling it with their belief in an omnipotent Allah. They, too, posited that, since God could do everything, that everything that happened wasn't really our own free will -- or even action -- but rather, just the act of a puppet.)
For example, one famous argument was that, since God was omnipotent, the idea that we actually act runs counter to that argument. Therefore, if we put a lit match up to some cotton, the resulting fire couldn't be anything that we caused, or else it would nullify God's omnipotence. Instead, there was just the illusion that the fire that we thought we initiated actually caused the fire in the cotton; rather, God simply put the fire there, ex nihilo, in order to keep up the illusion he created. You can see what this does to free will, and how it dovetails with your argument.
As another has noted in this thread, "God works through us" doesn't mean "God directs our actions"; rather, it simply means that we work, and in doing so -- out of our own volition -- we may do the will of God.
The implication is that, although God knows the result of the soccer game, he doesn't take any action to influence that outcome. He's outside of the space/time construct; therefore, for him, it's "preknowledge", although to us, it appears as "predestination".
Calvinists would disagree with this argument -- they would argue for strict predestination. However, to argue that this is what Christianity teaches -- or moreover, that this is what it implies -- is to make an overly broad and reaching assertion...
Umm... when you go to a service station, you pay both for materials (new oil, plugs, filters) and labor. With the Geek Squad model, you get "materials" which are available for free otherwise... and you pay them $30 for labor? Hmm...
Here we were, blaming undergrads for those couches pulled off of porches and set ablaze after WVU football games... and all along, it was just spontaneous combustion as hot spots poked through the surface...!
no, no, no! 35 billion is exactly the appropriate number! Didn't you think security issues would be the downfall of this idea? Well... what better a way to get around the possibility of being attacked after buying gold... than to place one in every home in North America?!?!?!
The thing is, only one of those sides is supported by scientific consensus.
... and this consensus happens to be being provided by those who stand to gain by increased spending in climate science. If AGW predictions are untrue, then these same folks who are providing "consensus" take a serious hit in the wallet, and to their careers. (If this logic can be applied to the "big oil" lobby, why not equally to the scientific community? Are we so enamored of our priesthood of the scientific elite that we think they can do no wrong?)
"Climategate" is a lightning rod precisely because it purports to demonstrate that fears over the integrity of the scientists at the helm of the AGW doctrinal push are, in fact, warranted. Moreover, it provides an explanation of exactly why there is such a consensus, in the face of a science that still smacks more of chaos theory than of settled scientific conclusion -- and that explanation is that there is more "consensus" than "science" here...!
After all, you assumed the code (far from random if you took the time to look) was NOT used to make a graph on which the fortunes of whole economies may rise and fall.
So wait. Your standard is:
A) Find some piece of code that you know nothing of what it does, who made it, and what it was ever used for, if anything (i.e., college student assignment).
What's really funny about this "rebuttal" is that it's, essentially, the complaints aired by the maintenance programmer who had to cobble together these programs in order to update the data -- he couldn't figure out what it was supposed to do, or why it wasn't doing it, or where it fit into the grand scheme of things... but he did know that it was part of what had created the earlier "value-added" data set!
Moreover, his notes document source code file names, output statements, and bugs -- which are verifiable, if one takes the time to read through the code base -- that allow one to recognize the really sad state of affairs in that shop; in addition, his notes assert that his work was meant to produce an updated set of data. Therefore, we have a direct link between code, runs of that code, and the uses that output was meant to have. So no, this wasn't Joe Undergrad's implementation of a bubble sort that someone just happened to run across...
B) Assume that it is something on which "economies may rise and fall"?
Wow, what a standard. So if I found a random piece of code somewhere designed to calculate pi, that I had no clue where it came from or what it did, and there was a bug in it, I should conclude that the foundations of mathematics are bogus?
If "the foundations of mathematics" were strictly based on observational data and statistical analysis thereof... and if one who was responsible for the analysis/processing of that data were found to have kept notes showing what a complete cluster-fsck was made of this processing, then yeah, it'd be sufficient to show that, at the very least, the conclusions of the group(s) using this data were questionable at best!
Ticket issuers Ticketmaster and Veritix tout paperless tickets as a way to eliminate worries about lost, stolen, or counterfeit tickets, and to banish long will-call lines.
Note for the British English impaired - a tout is what you on the other side of the pond call a scalper.
Soooo... "Ticketmaster scalps paperless tickets"? Umm... ever hear of a thing called "context"? It's what helps a person decide between various meanings of a word. (Which, in this case, means "promote" or "recommend"...);^)
Slashdot Mirror
From the fine article:
Researchers used problem-solving tasks and subtle experimental priming – including showing participants Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker or asking participants to complete questionnaires in hard-to-read fonts – to successfully produce “analytic” thinking.
Although I'd agree with you, I think it's necessary to point out that these aren't the normative beliefs of Christianity. As those assertions go, they're over-represented among Christians in the U.S., so it skews our sample set; but that doesn't mean that it's the definitive rebuttal of Christian belief.
Just sayin'...
I think more, and when I think more, I disbelieve more?
So, this research can be characterized as, "when I'm faced with the fact of my own poor eyesight, or I'm forced to look at art, I hate God". Yeah, that's good science...
It's simply meant to be an implementation of a heuristic, based on the traveling salesman problem, that takes into account physical considerations (speed, acceleration, direction) and processing limitations (RAM, processor cycles) for both initial setup and decision-making at each step.
The speed/direction stuff reminds me of the kind of skating that hockey players do (is it more effective to go in one direction, stop, and turn around, or is it better to modify your line and preserve momentum? in this game, too, is it better to accelerate greatly and bounce off a wall behind your target, or approach more slowly in order to modify your line without an abrupt change in direction?).
The processing limitations are interesting too, and provide for an interesting optimization exercise.
Or, by "I don't understand", should I simply answer "it's fun"...? ;)
No, he said that "religious zealots have no idea where stem cells come from". In the current context, this "putty" therapy, I demonstrated that they came from a variety of sources -- none of them originating from fetal stem cells. "Many more advantages", eh?
Right now, Fetal Stem cells have many more advantages.
Except that these are multipotent, not pluripotent stem cells, and therefore, we're not talking about fetal stem cells.
The sources for MSCs include "umbilical cord blood, adipose tissue, adult muscle or the dental pulp of deciduous baby teeth"... but not fetal stem cells.
Nice try, though...
Nearly every job requires a BS or BA...even if they don't care which subject. A University should be a place of higher learning and research, not a factory for just the next step in education.
Umm... that's exactly the idea! The subject, in some ways, shouldn't matter -- after all, it's higher education, not technical school! If you spend the time working on a degree, regardless in which department, you've ostensibly grown in knowledge, in a "Renaissance 'man'" kind of way! It's precisely in its mission as "not a technical school factory" that the university exists!
ABC and Fox News are now reporting that, although it may have started breaking up over Calgary, it seems that it went down in the ocean west of Australia. Guess we're gonna have to wait and see...
they want to know when you'll be sending your royalty checks to them. Please make the check out to "All Your Thought Belong to Us"...
"NPR is looking for examples of tools that have gone entirely out of use... any ideas, Slashdot?"
Oh, trust me ... Slashdotters are famous for having tools that never get any use...
Religion by definition is the enemy of science. It's believing something without evidence. The minute you have evidence that religion becomes science.
That's not at all the case, although it's close.
Science is the search for evidence of provable, physical phenomena and the development of theories based on an understanding of that evidence. Religion speaks to a metaphysical reality and an understanding of it. Physical evidence does not play the role in religion that it does in science.
When one attempts to play either game by the other's rules, one either fails, and/or misunderstands one -- or both -- endeavors...
You're wrong in your assumption that smart people with convincing evidence can convert religious people into accepting science as a good method to describe the world.
Wow... whose post are you responding to? Certainly not mine... I didn't suggest that convincing evidence always succeeds in winning arguments -- however, I *am* saying that it's necessary to have teachers who are able to present the convincing evidence.
Again... pardon? Where did I say that there isn't enough supporting evidence?
There are many people who just don't listen, and it's hard to convince anyone who just doesn't listen.
Apparently, there are also many people who don't read... and it's hard to convince anyone of your points if they don't read them outside of their own internal monologues... ;^)
Oops... forgot to sign in before posting this. Didn't want to post AC, so just IDing this as my post...
No... science is being *questioned* and that's a Good Thing. Now, what we need is people who can answer the questions with supporting evidence, and an explanation that helps people see that Science .NE. Religion, and neither poses a threat to the other. Science doesn't answer religious questions, and religion doesn't answer science questions. Period. It's only when we "cross the streams", and try to make one discipline answer the other's problems that we get into trouble.
But I have accidentally OC'ed my PC and gotten a BSOD. What happens to humans when you do that?
You start agreeing with Rush Limbaugh / Shawn Hannity / Al Gore / Bill Maher. (Take your pick, according to your personal preference, and whom you wish to demonize...)
Interesting discussion! (Nonetheless, it's filled with mis-assumptions about Christian belief; moreover, it's pretty much a point-for-point rehash of Medieval Islamic Philsophy -- see, back then, Islamic philosophers were dealing with the implications of Ancient Greek philosophy, and had a hard time reconciling it with their belief in an omnipotent Allah. They, too, posited that, since God could do everything, that everything that happened wasn't really our own free will -- or even action -- but rather, just the act of a puppet.)
For example, one famous argument was that, since God was omnipotent, the idea that we actually act runs counter to that argument. Therefore, if we put a lit match up to some cotton, the resulting fire couldn't be anything that we caused, or else it would nullify God's omnipotence. Instead, there was just the illusion that the fire that we thought we initiated actually caused the fire in the cotton; rather, God simply put the fire there, ex nihilo, in order to keep up the illusion he created. You can see what this does to free will, and how it dovetails with your argument.
As another has noted in this thread, "God works through us" doesn't mean "God directs our actions"; rather, it simply means that we work, and in doing so -- out of our own volition -- we may do the will of God.
The implication is that, although God knows the result of the soccer game, he doesn't take any action to influence that outcome. He's outside of the space/time construct; therefore, for him, it's "preknowledge", although to us, it appears as "predestination".
Calvinists would disagree with this argument -- they would argue for strict predestination. However, to argue that this is what Christianity teaches -- or moreover, that this is what it implies -- is to make an overly broad and reaching assertion...
This is Slashdot; it is 2010-10-10.
Right -- we don't have a reason to get excited until 2020-20-20 ...
Umm... when you go to a service station, you pay both for materials (new oil, plugs, filters) and labor. With the Geek Squad model, you get "materials" which are available for free otherwise... and you pay them $30 for labor? Hmm...
Here we were, blaming undergrads for those couches pulled off of porches and set ablaze after WVU football games... and all along, it was just spontaneous combustion as hot spots poked through the surface...!
no, no, no! 35 billion is exactly the appropriate number! Didn't you think security issues would be the downfall of this idea? Well... what better a way to get around the possibility of being attacked after buying gold... than to place one in every home in North America?!?!?!
So what's the point? Blame (ban?) the Segway?
Absolutely! And they should totally sue the pants off of whoever... umm... yeah.
A lot of funerals I've been to seem to treat it entirely as a chance to prattle on about God and Jesus
You went to a Catholic service, and they talked about God and Jesus? Huh... what a surprise! Who would've expected that?
The last funeral I went to was for my Gran, and it was a secular funeral. It was [i]all about[/i] a celebration of her life
Um... and at a secular funeral, what else could it possibly have been about?
In conclusion, get a clue.
The thing is, only one of those sides is supported by scientific consensus.
... and this consensus happens to be being provided by those who stand to gain by increased spending in climate science. If AGW predictions are untrue, then these same folks who are providing "consensus" take a serious hit in the wallet, and to their careers. (If this logic can be applied to the "big oil" lobby, why not equally to the scientific community? Are we so enamored of our priesthood of the scientific elite that we think they can do no wrong?)
"Climategate" is a lightning rod precisely because it purports to demonstrate that fears over the integrity of the scientists at the helm of the AGW doctrinal push are, in fact, warranted. Moreover, it provides an explanation of exactly why there is such a consensus, in the face of a science that still smacks more of chaos theory than of settled scientific conclusion -- and that explanation is that there is more "consensus" than "science" here...!
After all, you assumed the code (far from random if you took the time to look) was NOT used to make a graph on which the fortunes of whole economies may rise and fall.
So wait. Your standard is:
A) Find some piece of code that you know nothing of what it does, who made it, and what it was ever used for, if anything (i.e., college student assignment).
What's really funny about this "rebuttal" is that it's, essentially, the complaints aired by the maintenance programmer who had to cobble together these programs in order to update the data -- he couldn't figure out what it was supposed to do, or why it wasn't doing it, or where it fit into the grand scheme of things... but he did know that it was part of what had created the earlier "value-added" data set!
Moreover, his notes document source code file names, output statements, and bugs -- which are verifiable, if one takes the time to read through the code base -- that allow one to recognize the really sad state of affairs in that shop; in addition, his notes assert that his work was meant to produce an updated set of data. Therefore, we have a direct link between code, runs of that code, and the uses that output was meant to have. So no, this wasn't Joe Undergrad's implementation of a bubble sort that someone just happened to run across...
B) Assume that it is something on which "economies may rise and fall"?
Wow, what a standard. So if I found a random piece of code somewhere designed to calculate pi, that I had no clue where it came from or what it did, and there was a bug in it, I should conclude that the foundations of mathematics are bogus?
If "the foundations of mathematics" were strictly based on observational data and statistical analysis thereof... and if one who was responsible for the analysis/processing of that data were found to have kept notes showing what a complete cluster-fsck was made of this processing, then yeah, it'd be sufficient to show that, at the very least, the conclusions of the group(s) using this data were questionable at best!
The point was that to British ears it sounds like "scalps", since the context is concert tickets.
Although I'll give you that "touts" sounds like "scalps" to folks who don't speak proper American English... ;^)
Ticket issuers Ticketmaster and Veritix tout paperless tickets as a way to eliminate worries about lost, stolen, or counterfeit tickets, and to banish long will-call lines.
Note for the British English impaired - a tout is what you on the other side of the pond call a scalper.
Soooo... "Ticketmaster scalps paperless tickets"? Umm... ever hear of a thing called "context"? It's what helps a person decide between various meanings of a word. (Which, in this case, means "promote" or "recommend"...) ;^)