Walmart.com has tried JDS. Linspire. Xandros. Etc., etc. A merry-go-round of distros and systems, not one of which has caught fire.
For corporate take-up (which would be the ideal target, while Linux does not work well for typical home uses such as games), you are going to need a corporate supplier to provide this - Dell for example, or IBM.
Now before you string me up by my pinky toes, listen to me for a moment. Consumers don't purchase something they don't want or need.
Very few consumers get the chance to purchase anything other than Windows on a typical desktop PC. It comes pre-installed as part of the overall package. If users were offered a decent desktop Linux as either an alternative, or as a jointly installed system, I have few doubts that it would succeed.
If there was the option to have this free system, which conformed to 'international standards', was 'hugely resistant to viruses' and with 'compatible Office software' (Open Office) and was free, there would be a lot of takers, especially for corporate desktops where gaming is irrelevant.
In fact, I install Linux for exactly this situation, and it works superbly.
My problem is that.Net is a framework, while JAVA is a language. Grandparent just assumed the poster was using C#. With.Net they could be using J# (kinda java) or a number of other languages. I'm not endorsing anything, just saying it's kinda apples and oranges.
Not really. The comparison should not be between.Net and Java, but between.Net and the JVM. There are a vast number of different languages that run on the JVM - far more than for.NET. These include Groovy, BeanShell, python (Jython), ruby (JRuby), Basic, LISP, Scheme, Cobol, Pascal, Modula, TCL, Fortran, Smalltalk....
It is called "Turing Equivalency". You are wrong on this one. As far is developer convenience, though, that is a different matter.
Sorry, but I am not. How can I be "wrong" when I was talking about develop convenience? Everyone knows that raising Turning equivalency is a last-ditch and pointless justification.
Goto's were inconsistence from developer-to-developer and lacked visual cues that indented blocks give. These same lessons don't apply to OOP that I can see.
That you can see: that is the key. Just because you can't, doesn't mean that others can't.
Back in the 70s many of us actually used indentation to indicate the logic behind gotos!
This is about how a high level developer should code, not how things are actually implemented.... of course,if you want to talk about electron flows through transistor gates.....
The joke is of course on you. Because it can be indeed so implemented.
Where did I say it couldn't?
Paradigms and languages are tools. Nothing more. They are not omni-potent, nor universally superior to one another.
Yes they are. For certain use cases different paradigms are definitely superior to one another. To imply that large libraries could be implemented without procedural code and just with GOTOs is plain silly.
But I fear that long after OOP has been relegated to the dusty bin of history, some ctr2sprt of the future will still argue about how you are really always writing "Quantum Parallax" code, even if you are you are not...
Awesome! I remember exactly the same detailed and well-argued articles being posted against the use of procedural code in the 70s. Procedural code was 'just a paradigm', and pointless as it could always be implemented with the right combination of 'GOTO's.
From albinism.org: "The word "albinism" refers to a group of inherited
conditions...." "For nearly all types of albinism both parents must carry
an albinism gene to have a child with albinism." Stop gainsaying without
support.
This has no relevance to the point being debated, which was that albinism can arise spontaneously, and that minor changes in DNA can have dramatic effects.
Your wolf analogy is the direct opposite of natural selection. There's nothing random about it.
It is not the direct opposite. It illustrates how random variation in an animal can be selected to produce dramatic effects.
There is nothing random about natural selection. The randomness is in the variation that is selected, not the selection.
It is a very common mistake to assume that natural selection is random! It really, really isn't!
But let's get to the core issue.
OK.
But let's say you get your guy. His dad gets naturally selected, he gets the trait, and he's produced. He's 1/100th less green than his buddies, he has a 1/100th better chance for survival than his compatriots
There is no reason why the greeness and the survival chances should be proportional (1/100th less green may mean double the survival odds, if that means he is exactly camouflaged), but carry on....
[Lots cut out]
And I've drastically oversimplified the problem. You've got millions of salamanders over millions of generations. Fine. It's a huge number. I'm trying to show you that the problem is exponentially greater.
You are missing out something fundamental from your argument. First of all, you are wildly optimistic about the survival rates of each generation. The vast majority of a salamander population won't survive to breeding - they will be eaten. This means that in each generation there is enormous selection pressure. It also means that advantageous adaptations don't get diluted out in the way you suggest. Only neutral or disadvantageous changes get diluted out. Within only a relatively small number of generations a successful adaptation will be present in the majority of the population.
This dramatically changes the math.
Imagine a salamander that is slighly less green. He survives longer, and produces a few more offspring. His descendents also survive slightly longer (well, those who have inherited this gene do), and produce slightly more offspring. In a reasonably few generations the entire population has the gene (the ones who have it have out-bred the ones who don't). Effectively, the whole population has been ratchetted one step towards yellowness. (Actually, that is a bad thing to say, as it assumes that the genes are somehow targetting yellow as some eventual goal, which is nonsense). Now, along comes another mutation, which makes one of these alreadly less green salamanders even less green. Wow! That survives even better! Slightly more offspring etc. etc. Again, in a reasonably short time, the entire population is even less green.
You see, it is a combination of the selection pressure on each generation and the fact that genes are 'digital', and don't get diluted through breeding (your 'slight yellowness' will not become 'slightly less yellowness' in your descendants). That overcomes your math. There are no ever-decreasing probabilities.
We have actually seen this kind of spreading of adaptations through populations in the wild - a good example is some island finches which have shown gradual changes in beak shapes throughout a population to cope with the changes in food availability. This has been seen over a period as short as decades - it is evolution by natural selection happening right in front of our eyes!
Albinism a recessive, inherited genetic defect, not a randomly generated mutation that will get selected for.
Of course it is randomly generated.
Albinism does not occur spontaneously,
Yes it does.
and when it does it is not selected as a trait to pass to future generations.
No, because it is usually disadvantageous. But that is not the point. The point is that large changes can happen spontaneously.
Genetic change in fact happens very, very minutely.
yes, but those minute changes can have dramatic effects. Consider that a significant (and selected-for!) change like sickle-cell anaemia (which confers and advantage in terms of malaria survival) can occur just from one point mutation.
In humans (I don't have the numbers for slalmanders) the rate of mutation in the human genome is 4.2 per generation. And remember that the vast majority of genetic mutations have no physical effect at all, regardless of the species. So while genetic mutations do occur, those that manifest themselves as evolutionarily significant are (in proportion to the population) quite rare.
Yes they are, but there are millions of years and billions of individuals.
You say that the color change happens all at once, as a genetic accident. Fine.
No, I didn't. I said that some colour change can happen all at once. This does not mean that the dramatic sets of colour we know see happened all at once. They happened in a series of individually selected stages.
He's the only one, though, because the one to his immediate left has a random genetic mutation that has turned him (slightly) red. The genetic mutations that you say happen 'all the time' are present in our population. Since they're accidental, they all have an equal chance of occurring. Our yellow salamander might mate, might not. If he does, he passes the trait. Now we have two yellow ones at the next generation, along with two red ones. Or maybe a two yelows, a red, and one with bigger eyes. In your world of genetic mutation happening all the time, how do any traits get selected for at all?
Because some traits confer a better chance of survival than others! There only needs to be a little bit of advantage for a trait to take over in a population. If a yellow salamander has only a few percent chance of having more offspring than a red one, the population will soon be dominated with yellows.
Let's say 90% of all the salamanders of a given generation live to reproduce. This is all speculation, but you begin to see the problem.
Sorry, no, I don't.
Given this scenario, how many salamanders must we have, for how many generations, to arrive at a bright yellow subspecies? And we haven't even thrown in alternate mutations that are competing for the same genetic real estate.
You don't need that many. As I stated, even a slight advantage will lead to a trait becoming dominant. The properties of a species are being constantly refined by selection. You don't in practice get large changes occurring at high frequency, and almost all large changes are detrimental. What you will get in each generation is subtle variations - variations that can survive for a reasonable period. It is this range of variations that is the usual fuel for selection. Your idea that you will get bright red and bright yellow salamanders competing is an extremely unlikely scenario. You will get slightly more yellow and slightly less yellow salamanders competing. And, yes, over hundreds of millions of generations, that sort of variation can turn a fish into an amphibian!
And yet, after all this, we still find yellow salamanders, and in a relatively small population. I say, again, that the populations are too small, and the generations are too infrequent, to support natural selection as described.
You can say it as often as you like, but all you are repeating is your lack of understanding. You should take a look at some of th
In fact, Darwin's idea that evolution is gradual has been largely replaced by punctuated equilibria based on evidence.
No, this is a very outdated view, and was held by few reputable scientists. Darwin's idea of gradual evolution is now almost universally accepted, and what seemed like 'punctuated equilibria' is nothing more that somewhat faster gradual evolution over shorter (geologically speaking) timescales.
I would argue that the intermediate steps themselves are too complex to be explained through natural selection.
And you are wrong.
We know that a portion of the evolutionary process is random (since you can't select for genetic code that doesn't do anything, and changing colors doesn't happen all at once),
Woah! Hold on there. This is your big mistake. Changing colours can happen all at once. There are plenty of examples in nature where even single point mutations can have dramatic effects - think of albinos. Simple mutations can do things like change the colours of spots or stripes, or increase their pattern or frequency.
This sort of experiment has been done before, as you've read above. Natural selection theory is based on steps that do not result in the observable world.
Yes it is. We see these results (mutations in the wild) all the time.
The problem rises when we agree that any physical trait that helps an organism reproduce (or survive, or attract a mate, or whatever) must be the result of a significant genetic transformation that cannot occur within just a few generations. Or even a few hundred generations.
Significant traits that effect survival and reproduction can result from point mutations - single changes in the DNA sequence. They do not have to take hundreds of generations, or even a few. Very simple DNA mutations can have significant effects on thinks like colour, size, immunology etc. You also, don't even need mutations - simple gene shuffling as a result of sexual reproduction can mean that children have major differences from their parents.
Each incremental step has no bearing on reproduction or survivability, and thus has (at the very, very best) a 50/50 chance of being passed on.
No. Incremental steps do have a bearing on reproduction and survivability.
For your statement to be true, a species would have to recognize the intermediate steps toward a favorable trait, and pass that along as if it were the trait itself. That's a risky proposition.
It would be if anyone was making such a proposition. No-one who understands evolution is. Let me repeat again: each intermediate step is subject to selection. There is no 'forward planning'. Single changes in DNA can result in major changes in traits, but even minor changes in traits can affect reproduction.
Natural selection must also account for the traits that are purely social.
The 'natural' that 'selects' includes other members of the same species - there is no difficulty accounding for this.
It has nothing to do with the physical survival of the species.
Actually, it has! Producing that sac takes energy - and is actually a disadvantage to survival, which has to be outweighed by the advantage of female preference.
So how did the incremental steps, the steps that don't result in the beginnings of a red sac, get reinforced. And most importantly, how did the genetic trait in the female, the trait that causes the female to find red sacs attractive, get reinforced before the red sacs were even there?
Why are you assuming that there were incremental steps that didn't result in the beginnings of a red sac? The trait that causes the attraction simply wasn't there before the sac was. These things can be caused by the same mutation, due to 'linkage'. This happens a lot - the genes for longer tail in the peacock male also influence selection of the longer tail by the peacock female. This sounds weird, but it is a natural consequence of the way chromosomes and genes are shuffled by sexual reproduction. (There are, of course, millions of mutations that don't work like this, but they aren't selected for and fade away).
You misidentified the trivially simple in your last line. DNA mutation is a simple mechanism. Natural selection is an extremely complicated process.
Not really - it is just your false idea of how you assume it must work that is complex.
Once you understand that selection simply doesn't look ahead, and changes in DNA are selected at every generation, so must confer some advantage at every stage (or at the very least, be neutral), things become pretty clear.
Can I propose that natural selection (as a subset of evolutionary theory) has some pretty monstrous holes in it, without being labelled an anti-intellectual zealot?
I am not sure how.
I'm serious. I challenge someone to give a succinct definition of natural selection that can stand up to intellectually honest scrutiny. I think I can prove you wrong, and I won't once mention God.
OK, here goes. DNA does not replicate with complete fidelity. Also, sexual reproduction shuffles the DNA to produce different combinations of genes. This means that the offspring of an organism can show considerable random variation. It is rare that an organism is perfectly tuned to it's environment (this including the presence of other organisms, including members of it's own species). Therefore, some random changes will be in the direction of optimising the organism, allowing it to reproduce more successfully. Because this organism has more offspring, the changes in its DNA will tend to spread, and become a dominant characteristic. Eventually, in a group of isolated organisms, the se small changes may accumulate until the organisms are no longer able to breed with others. This is now a new species is formed.
Evolution certainly occurs. The evidence is irrefutable. It is my position that natural selection is not up to the task of explaining how it occurs.
What do you suggest as an alternative then? Natural selection is a trivially simple mechanism.
When we can get a reliable weekly weather forcast I'll start putting more faith in their predictions and understanding of a few billion years of changes.
Hey, I agree. I mean, how on Earth can experts predict that we will get this 'summer' thing in a few months, if they can't predict the weather a few days ahead?
This is dogmatic and closed minded pure and simple. You don't know that cold fusion doesn't work for sure, any more that you know that they will ever get hot fusion to break-even, it just might require duplication of some more attributes of the Sun than extreme heat and pressure, for sustained reaction, and that these attributes may not be duplicate-able. The operative word in this sentence is "might". There just is not any supportable evidence either way, but maybe you should do some research into what has been happening with cold fusion in the last 10 years.
So perhaps you should use the three state logic, yes, no, and maybe, because the CORRECT ANSWER to cold fusion is "maybe". And not an authoritative dogmatic NO it doesn't work.
Hypothetically, yes. Practically, no. You are confusing 'cold fusion doesn't work' with 'cold fusion will never work'.
This is the beauty of science - it is based on what is effective. Cold fusion may have worked in one case; perhaps on one day, for the 'discoverers'. But, that is irrelevant. Science is based on replicatable findings.
How dare you question our dogmatic authority! So I am still in the same kind of scenario right now, How do you know that cold fusion doesn't work?
You are setting up yourself in opposition to positions that no-one is taking. There is no dogma about cold fusion, simply the evidence that over a decade of attempts to reliably replicate the reports of energy+neutron production have failed, so far. That is what I mean by it does not work. Not dogma - evidence.
And I think what you are saying is that they have picked the easy alternative, not because there is substantial proof either way, but just because it is easier to work with.
I think you are misunderstanding how science (and rational logic, in my view) works. You should always pick the easy alternative first - and it being easier to work with is an excellent reason for doing this! It is the Occam's razor approach. There are an infinite number of complicated hypothetical explanations for anything - the influence of higher intelligence, the work of fairies or Mutant Star Goats (with apologies to Douglas Adams). Given all these possible explanations, going for the simpler explanation has proved a useful way to understand things.
The "first cause" scenario closely resembles the intelligent creation theory.
No, it doesn't. Because there is no reason why a first cause should be intelligent. The insistence that such a first cause needs to be intelligent seems to me come from a combination of an emotional insecurity which requires a God/Creator, and the mistaken belief that complex results need complex causes.
And the "endless cause and effect" scenario, more closely resembles the random creation theory. Like the million monkeys on the typewriters would eventually type Hamlet theory. But this is only a logical framework within which to work and find empirical evidence either way, and in the meantime, the correct answer to either question is, I don't know for sure yet.
Actually, there are far more options than this. There is the possibility of no cause needed, such as universes being either circular and closed in spacetime (Stephen Hawking's past ideas), or being generated from loops in time, so there is no linear cause and effect needed (Andre Linde's idea). There is even the extreme idea that our intelligent observation creates the universe 'backwards in time' (as once suggested by John Wheeler).
The idea that there is a first-cause intelligence seems to me to be both naive and too unimaginative. There are far more useful and simpler (mathematically, if not philophically) answers which should be explored first.
So you're saying that all 'Excel' is, is a container to transfer data between different companies?
Of course not! It is a way of transferring data + calculations + presentations. However, what is hardly ever required is transfer of a rich set of macros. People are usually transferring a spreadsheet, NOT a full-featured VBA application.
Man, you live in a different world than the rest of us....
This would be true if what you were saying above were true. It isn't.
2) People who *need* it to be compatable with MS Office files (for more than just the basic lowest-common-denomenator features).... The reasons I'm not using OpenOffice at work are because I fall into group #2.
I have installed Open Office as the main Office suite at a medium size company that needs to exchange MS Office documents with other organisations and with customers. I have had very few problems with compatibility.
I love OO.o, but I sometimes wonder if we would now have a significantly lighter, "cleaner" office suite had OO.o not dropped into the picture when it had.
You may be right, but, sadly, I don't think that users want a light clean suite - they want something that looks like MS Office.
If Sun is interested in goodwill, then this seems a great way to go.
Open Office is possibly the single most important reason why Linux is useful as a workstation OS. Seems to me like they deserve all the goodwill anyway.
Light propagates through absolutely empty space, and although this is different from what we know about sound, and relationships between laws is not needed, so no problem any more. Now along comes Zero Point Energy, and it now seems once again that "empty space" is absolutely full of seething energy. So is this the medium through which light travels? Remembering originally that was the dilemma, all the empirical data available indicated that vibration needed a media through which to propagate. And maybe even the type of media should be consistent with the type of vibration? So do we have to resurrect the ether again?---
You have put together some half-understood principles here to try and make something that sounds coherent. Space is very complex, but there is no aether.
So is it about finding out the truth, is it about self interest and glory, or is it about being published?
It is about mixtures of these, depending on the individual.
They start with a theory that might fit the current data, then they look for more evidence (empirical data) that might further support the theory. If there is any evidence that they find that contradicts the theory, that has to be either ignored or explained away. They will not change or abandon the theory to fit all the known facts.
This is total ranting nonsense. Good scientists don't ignore evidence that doesn't fit. There is no point. Science is a competitive process. Fellow scientists will try and reproduce your work, and they will find that your work is wrong. This happens all the time. Poor work is weeded out.
What about our recent stem cell buddy? Was this not publish me please?
Yes, and his work was analysed by fellow scientists and found to be wrong. That is how science works.
The so called scientists that are getting billions of funding dollars for the Tokamak, did not want the government to know that there might be an alternative, that might be viable for a lot less funding. So destroy someone else's career, that will work.
This is just crazy. The US government has been trying to get Cold Fusion to work for a very long time, as a way to get energy. The reason they are funding Hot Fusion is because Cold Fusion simply doesn't work! You need to get your facts straight.
---Where have I said anywhere that "intelligence did it", all I have ever said is that there is no conclusive evidence that it didn't, so until there is, these so called scientists should not be going around saying "it was not intelligently created" like they are an authority on the subject.
No, you are wrong. Scientists ARENT going around saying that it was NOT intelligently created. What they are saying about so much of the universe is that there is no need for an intelligence to explain so much of it.
The whole theme of my issue has been that science is now rotten with dogmas, and sacred cows, and is just as unscientific as religion.
Utter nonsense. Science is rich and vigorous with debate about alternatives. There may be individuals with dogmas, but if those dogmas don't pass the test of time they are thrown away. This is the exact opposite of religion.
You seem to be missing a key point. There are two alternatives, according to you: The complex Universe arose by itself, or the complex Universe arose via an intelligence.
You are saying both alternatives should be considered.
What you don't seem to understand is that it is possible that the complexity of the universe can arise from simple rules, and intelligence is more complicated than simple rules.
Intelligence is complex - VERY complex. It is rational to go for the less complex situation: Simple universe arises alone without the need for a complex designer.
What you are saying is that something (intelligence and reason) came out of nothing. Well then what is this nothing, that everything evolved from?
The rules and laws of the Universe.
The scientific sleight of hand again, explaining a process and pretending that it is a cause. If you make the process explanation big enough, and put it far enough back in time, maybe no one will notice that the essential question still has not been answered. What caused this, and if part of this process outcome resulted in intelligence, then what is the supporting evidence, that no part of the cause was intelligent?
Why do you keep insisting on the idea that an intelligence must be behind things? If you have even the slightest understanding of maths or physics you will know that complexity can arise out of order.
If you are truly scientific you will have imperial evidence for this claim, or else there is no basis for the statement that there is no intelligence behind the evolutionary process.
Nonsense. You are putting forward the more complex case - that some intelligence is behind things. Prove it. Your ignorance of how things happen is not proof.
Most recent case of burning at the stake that I remember was Pons and Fleischman. A classic case of today's scientific closed mindedness, because they could not reproduce the same results, instead of asking themselves, what is different about our set-up that may be an unanticipated causal factor, it was easier to call Pons and Fleischman frauds and liars. This is scientific?
Oh, so you don't think that people haven't been asking what is different about their setups? How can you possible ask what is scientific when you haven't the slightest understanding of what actually goes on in science. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I know, why don't we just ignore it, or pretend that we already know the answer, even we have no evidence to support that position. Is this is science, or is this dogma?
You are the one insisting you already have the answer - 'intelligence did it'. You are the one expressing your personal dogma.
I believe Albert Einstein said something similar, "I think that science without religion is lame and, conversely, that religion without science is blind."
So dirt of the ground just organizes itself into complex life forms, and then returns to dirt of the ground again of it's own volition?
Yes.
There is no mystery here at all, there does not need to be any explanation of "cause and effect" you only have to deal with the "process" that connects the "effect with the cause" and ignore the fact that scientifically there always has to be a "cause". How scientific is that?
No-one is ignoring the fact that there has to be a cause. The point is that the cause does not need to be intelligent. There are some wonderful features of Nature that appear whenever there are flows of energy far from equilibrium. You get patterns. You get things organising themselves into complex structures spontaneously, with no need for intervention.
We can only speculate what that cause might be, but certainly if one of the "effects" (humans) is deemed to be intelligent, (maybe) then by deduction should the cause not be deemed intelligent too?
Actually, the cause of our intelligence IS intelligent - it us and other animals. By competing, we select certain features. By competing and facing up to the challenges of life over millions of years, intelligence has been selected and refined.
Or is it a very scientific theory, and does not affront everyday reason, that dirt of the ground could all on its own turn into a complex brain, that by all accounts produces thought and reason, and then turn back into dirt of the ground which by all accounts cannot produce thought and reason, and then claim there is no other agency involved?
Everyday reason has no place in understanding this, as the factors involved are beyond everyday reason. No-one can concieve of a million years, let alone a billion. No-one can concieve of the trillions of combinations of molecules that were present on the early Earth that let to life. Why should something as majestic as life be subject to something as petty as human 'everyday reason'. On the other hand, science has the tools to deal with things that we can't concieve.
Slashdot Mirror
Walmart.com has tried JDS. Linspire. Xandros. Etc., etc. A merry-go-round of distros and systems, not one of which has caught fire.
For corporate take-up (which would be the ideal target, while Linux does not work well for typical home uses such as games), you are going to need a corporate supplier to provide this - Dell for example, or IBM.
Now before you string me up by my pinky toes, listen to me for a moment. Consumers don't purchase something they don't want or need.
Very few consumers get the chance to purchase anything other than Windows on a typical desktop PC. It comes pre-installed as part of the overall package. If users were offered a decent desktop Linux as either an alternative, or as a jointly installed system, I have few doubts that it would succeed.
If there was the option to have this free system, which conformed to 'international standards', was 'hugely resistant to viruses' and with 'compatible Office software' (Open Office) and was free, there would be a lot of takers, especially for corporate desktops where gaming is irrelevant.
In fact, I install Linux for exactly this situation, and it works superbly.
My problem is that .Net is a framework, while JAVA is a language. Grandparent just assumed the poster was using C#. With .Net they could be using J# (kinda java) or a number of other languages. I'm not endorsing anything, just saying it's kinda apples and oranges.
.Net and Java, but between .Net and the JVM. There are a vast number of different languages that run on the JVM - far more than for .NET. These include Groovy, BeanShell, python (Jython), ruby (JRuby), Basic, LISP, Scheme, Cobol, Pascal, Modula, TCL, Fortran, Smalltalk....
Not really. The comparison should not be between
It is called "Turing Equivalency". You are wrong on this one. As far is developer convenience, though, that is a different matter.
Sorry, but I am not. How can I be "wrong" when I was talking about develop convenience? Everyone knows that raising Turning equivalency is a last-ditch and pointless justification.
Goto's were inconsistence from developer-to-developer and lacked visual cues that indented blocks give. These same lessons don't apply to OOP that I can see.
That you can see: that is the key. Just because you can't, doesn't mean that others can't.
Back in the 70s many of us actually used indentation to indicate the logic behind gotos!
You are wrong, again.
You are talking off topic, again.
This is about how a high level developer should code, not how things are actually implemented.... of course,if you want to talk about electron flows through transistor gates.....
The joke is of course on you. Because it can be indeed so implemented.
Where did I say it couldn't?
Paradigms and languages are tools. Nothing more. They are not omni-potent, nor universally superior to one another.
Yes they are. For certain use cases different paradigms are definitely superior to one another. To imply that large libraries could be implemented without procedural code and just with GOTOs is plain silly.
But I fear that long after OOP has been relegated to the dusty bin of history, some ctr2sprt of the future will still argue about how you are really always writing "Quantum Parallax" code, even if you are you are not ...
Awesome! I remember exactly the same detailed and well-argued articles being posted against the use of procedural code in the 70s. Procedural code was 'just a paradigm', and pointless as it could always be implemented with the right combination of 'GOTO's.
From albinism.org: "The word "albinism" refers to a group of inherited
conditions...." "For nearly all types of albinism both parents must carry
an albinism gene to have a child with albinism." Stop gainsaying without
support.
This has no relevance to the point being debated, which was that albinism can arise spontaneously, and that minor changes in DNA can have dramatic effects.
Your wolf analogy is the direct opposite of natural selection. There's nothing random about it.
It is not the direct opposite. It illustrates how random variation in an animal can be selected to produce dramatic effects.
There is nothing random about natural selection. The randomness is in the variation that is selected, not the selection.
It is a very common mistake to assume that natural selection is random! It really, really isn't!
But let's get to the core issue.
OK.
But let's say you get your guy. His dad gets naturally selected, he gets the trait, and he's produced. He's 1/100th less green than his buddies, he has a 1/100th better chance for survival than his compatriots
There is no reason why the greeness and the survival chances should be proportional (1/100th less green may mean double the survival odds, if that means he is exactly camouflaged), but carry on....
[Lots cut out]
And I've drastically oversimplified the problem. You've got millions of salamanders over millions of generations. Fine. It's a huge number. I'm trying to show you that the problem is exponentially greater.
You are missing out something fundamental from your argument. First of all, you are wildly optimistic about the survival rates of each generation. The vast majority of a salamander population won't survive to breeding - they will be eaten. This means that in each generation there is enormous selection pressure. It also means that advantageous adaptations don't get diluted out in the way you suggest. Only neutral or disadvantageous changes get diluted out. Within only a relatively small number of generations a successful adaptation will be present in the majority of the population.
This dramatically changes the math.
Imagine a salamander that is slighly less green. He survives longer, and produces a few more offspring. His descendents also survive slightly longer (well, those who have inherited this gene do), and produce slightly more offspring. In a reasonably few generations the entire population has the gene (the ones who have it have out-bred the ones who don't). Effectively, the whole population has been ratchetted one step towards yellowness. (Actually, that is a bad thing to say, as it assumes that the genes are somehow targetting yellow as some eventual goal, which is nonsense). Now, along comes another mutation, which makes one of these alreadly less green salamanders even less green. Wow! That survives even better! Slightly more offspring etc. etc. Again, in a reasonably short time, the entire population is even less green.
You see, it is a combination of the selection pressure on each generation and the fact that genes are 'digital', and don't get diluted through breeding (your 'slight yellowness' will not become 'slightly less yellowness' in your descendants). That overcomes your math. There are no ever-decreasing probabilities.
We have actually seen this kind of spreading of adaptations through populations in the wild - a good example is some island finches which have shown gradual changes in beak shapes throughout a population to cope with the changes in food availability. This has been seen over a period as short as decades - it is evolution by natural selection happening right in front of our eyes!
Albinism a recessive, inherited genetic defect, not a randomly generated mutation that will get selected for.
Of course it is randomly generated.
Albinism does not occur spontaneously,
Yes it does.
and when it does it is not selected as a trait to pass to future generations.
No, because it is usually disadvantageous. But that is not the point. The point is that large changes can happen spontaneously.
Genetic change in fact happens very, very minutely.
yes, but those minute changes can have dramatic effects. Consider that a significant (and selected-for!) change like sickle-cell anaemia (which confers and advantage in terms of malaria survival) can occur just from one point mutation.
In humans (I don't have the numbers for slalmanders) the rate of mutation in the human genome is 4.2 per generation. And remember that the vast majority of genetic mutations have no physical effect at all, regardless of the species. So while genetic mutations do occur, those that manifest themselves as evolutionarily significant are (in proportion to the population) quite rare.
Yes they are, but there are millions of years and billions of individuals.
You say that the color change happens all at once, as a genetic accident. Fine.
No, I didn't. I said that some colour change can happen all at once. This does not mean that the dramatic sets of colour we know see happened all at once. They happened in a series of individually selected stages.
He's the only one, though, because the one to his immediate left has a random genetic mutation that has turned him (slightly) red. The genetic mutations that you say happen 'all the time' are present in our population. Since they're accidental, they all have an equal chance of occurring. Our yellow salamander might mate, might not. If he does, he passes the trait. Now we have two yellow ones at the next generation, along with two red ones. Or maybe a two yelows, a red, and one with bigger eyes. In your world of genetic mutation happening all the time, how do any traits get selected for at all?
Because some traits confer a better chance of survival than others! There only needs to be a little bit of advantage for a trait to take over in a population. If a yellow salamander has only a few percent chance of having more offspring than a red one, the population will soon be dominated with yellows.
Let's say 90% of all the salamanders of a given generation live to reproduce. This is all speculation, but you begin to see the problem.
Sorry, no, I don't.
Given this scenario, how many salamanders must we have, for how many generations, to arrive at a bright yellow subspecies? And we haven't even thrown in alternate mutations that are competing for the same genetic real estate.
You don't need that many. As I stated, even a slight advantage will lead to a trait becoming dominant. The properties of a species are being constantly refined by selection. You don't in practice get large changes occurring at high frequency, and almost all large changes are detrimental. What you will get in each generation is subtle variations - variations that can survive for a reasonable period. It is this range of variations that is the usual fuel for selection. Your idea that you will get bright red and bright yellow salamanders competing is an extremely unlikely scenario. You will get slightly more yellow and slightly less yellow salamanders competing. And, yes, over hundreds of millions of generations, that sort of variation can turn a fish into an amphibian!
And yet, after all this, we still find yellow salamanders, and in a relatively small population. I say, again, that the populations are too small, and the generations are too infrequent, to support natural selection as described.
You can say it as often as you like, but all you are repeating is your lack of understanding. You should take a look at some of th
That is when the creationists say they believe in adaptation and not speciation.
What is speciation but an accumulation of adaptations?
In fact, Darwin's idea that evolution is gradual has been largely replaced by punctuated equilibria based on evidence.
No, this is a very outdated view, and was held by few reputable scientists. Darwin's idea of gradual evolution is now almost universally accepted, and what seemed like 'punctuated equilibria' is nothing more that somewhat faster gradual evolution over shorter (geologically speaking) timescales.
I would argue that the intermediate steps themselves are too complex to be explained through natural selection.
And you are wrong.
We know that a portion of the evolutionary process is random (since you can't select for genetic code that doesn't do anything, and changing colors doesn't happen all at once),
Woah! Hold on there. This is your big mistake. Changing colours can happen all at once. There are plenty of examples in nature where even single point mutations can have dramatic effects - think of albinos. Simple mutations can do things like change the colours of spots or stripes, or increase their pattern or frequency.
This sort of experiment has been done before, as you've read above. Natural selection theory is based on steps that do not result in the observable world.
Yes it is. We see these results (mutations in the wild) all the time.
The problem rises when we agree that any physical trait that helps an organism reproduce (or survive, or attract a mate, or whatever) must be the result of a significant genetic transformation that cannot occur within just a few generations. Or even a few hundred generations.
Significant traits that effect survival and reproduction can result from point mutations - single changes in the DNA sequence. They do not have to take hundreds of generations, or even a few. Very simple DNA mutations can have significant effects on thinks like colour, size, immunology etc. You also, don't even need mutations - simple gene shuffling as a result of sexual reproduction can mean that children have major differences from their parents.
Each incremental step has no bearing on reproduction or survivability, and thus has (at the very, very best) a 50/50 chance of being passed on.
No. Incremental steps do have a bearing on reproduction and survivability.
For your statement to be true, a species would have to recognize the intermediate steps toward a favorable trait, and pass that along as if it were the trait itself. That's a risky proposition.
It would be if anyone was making such a proposition. No-one who understands evolution is. Let me repeat again: each intermediate step is subject to selection. There is no 'forward planning'. Single changes in DNA can result in major changes in traits, but even minor changes in traits can affect reproduction.
Natural selection must also account for the traits that are purely social.
The 'natural' that 'selects' includes other members of the same species - there is no difficulty accounding for this.
It has nothing to do with the physical survival of the species.
Actually, it has! Producing that sac takes energy - and is actually a disadvantage to survival, which has to be outweighed by the advantage of female preference.
So how did the incremental steps, the steps that don't result in the beginnings of a red sac, get reinforced. And most importantly, how did the genetic trait in the female, the trait that causes the female to find red sacs attractive, get reinforced before the red sacs were even there?
Why are you assuming that there were incremental steps that didn't result in the beginnings of a red sac? The trait that causes the attraction simply wasn't there before the sac was. These things can be caused by the same mutation, due to 'linkage'. This happens a lot - the genes for longer tail in the peacock male also influence selection of the longer tail by the peacock female. This sounds weird, but it is a natural consequence of the way chromosomes and genes are shuffled by sexual reproduction. (There are, of course, millions of mutations that don't work like this, but they aren't selected for and fade away).
You misidentified the trivially simple in your last line. DNA mutation is a simple mechanism. Natural selection is an extremely complicated process.
Not really - it is just your false idea of how you assume it must work that is complex.
Once you understand that selection simply doesn't look ahead, and changes in DNA are selected at every generation, so must confer some advantage at every stage (or at the very least, be neutral), things become pretty clear.
Can I propose that natural selection (as a subset of evolutionary theory) has some pretty monstrous holes in it, without being labelled an anti-intellectual zealot?
I am not sure how.
I'm serious. I challenge someone to give a succinct definition of natural selection that can stand up to intellectually honest scrutiny. I think I can prove you wrong, and I won't once mention God.
OK, here goes. DNA does not replicate with complete fidelity. Also, sexual reproduction shuffles the DNA to produce different combinations of genes. This means that the offspring of an organism can show considerable random variation. It is rare that an organism is perfectly tuned to it's environment (this including the presence of other organisms, including members of it's own species). Therefore, some random changes will be in the direction of optimising the organism, allowing it to reproduce more successfully. Because this organism has more offspring, the changes in its DNA will tend to spread, and become a dominant characteristic. Eventually, in a group of isolated organisms, the se small changes may accumulate until the organisms are no longer able to breed with others. This is now a new species is formed.
Evolution certainly occurs. The evidence is irrefutable. It is my position that natural selection is not up to the task of explaining how it occurs.
What do you suggest as an alternative then? Natural selection is a trivially simple mechanism.
When we can get a reliable weekly weather forcast I'll start putting more faith in their predictions and understanding of a few billion years of changes.
Hey, I agree. I mean, how on Earth can experts predict that we will get this 'summer' thing in a few months, if they can't predict the weather a few days ahead?
The only real (i.e. existing physically) part of our time perception is now.
Not according to most current theories of spacetime. There is no universal 'now', and one person's past can be in another's future.
This is dogmatic and closed minded pure and simple. You don't know that cold fusion doesn't work for sure, any more that you know that they will ever get hot fusion to break-even, it just might require duplication of some more attributes of the Sun than extreme heat and pressure, for sustained reaction, and that these attributes may not be duplicate-able. The operative word in this sentence is "might". There just is not any supportable evidence either way, but maybe you should do some research into what has been happening with cold fusion in the last 10 years.
So perhaps you should use the three state logic, yes, no, and maybe, because the CORRECT ANSWER to cold fusion is "maybe". And not an authoritative dogmatic NO it doesn't work.
Hypothetically, yes. Practically, no. You are confusing 'cold fusion doesn't work' with 'cold fusion will never work'.
This is the beauty of science - it is based on what is effective. Cold fusion may have worked in one case; perhaps on one day, for the 'discoverers'. But, that is irrelevant. Science is based on replicatable findings.
How dare you question our dogmatic authority! So I am still in the same kind of scenario right now, How do you know that cold fusion doesn't work?
You are setting up yourself in opposition to positions that no-one is taking. There is no dogma about cold fusion, simply the evidence that over a decade of attempts to reliably replicate the reports of energy+neutron production have failed, so far. That is what I mean by it does not work. Not dogma - evidence.
And I think what you are saying is that they have picked the easy alternative, not because there is substantial proof either way, but just because it is easier to work with.
I think you are misunderstanding how science (and rational logic, in my view) works. You should always pick the easy alternative first - and it being easier to work with is an excellent reason for doing this! It is the Occam's razor approach. There are an infinite number of complicated hypothetical explanations for anything - the influence of higher intelligence, the work of fairies or Mutant Star Goats (with apologies to Douglas Adams). Given all these possible explanations, going for the simpler explanation has proved a useful way to understand things.
The "first cause" scenario closely resembles the intelligent creation theory.
No, it doesn't. Because there is no reason why a first cause should be intelligent. The insistence that such a first cause needs to be intelligent seems to me come from a combination of an emotional insecurity which requires a God/Creator, and the mistaken belief that complex results need complex causes.
And the "endless cause and effect" scenario, more closely resembles the random creation theory. Like the million monkeys on the typewriters would eventually type Hamlet theory. But this is only a logical framework within which to work and find empirical evidence either way, and in the meantime, the correct answer to either question is, I don't know for sure yet.
Actually, there are far more options than this. There is the possibility of no cause needed, such as universes being either circular and closed in spacetime (Stephen Hawking's past ideas), or being generated from loops in time, so there is no linear cause and effect needed (Andre Linde's idea). There is even the extreme idea that our intelligent observation creates the universe 'backwards in time' (as once suggested by John Wheeler).
The idea that there is a first-cause intelligence seems to me to be both naive and too unimaginative. There are far more useful and simpler (mathematically, if not philophically) answers which should be explored first.
So you're saying that all 'Excel' is, is a container to transfer data between different companies?
Of course not! It is a way of transferring data + calculations + presentations. However, what is hardly ever required is transfer of a rich set of macros. People are usually transferring a spreadsheet, NOT a full-featured VBA application.
Man, you live in a different world than the rest of us....
This would be true if what you were saying above were true. It isn't.
Try an Excel sheet with some macros...
Very few people use Excel to transfer software (macros). Virtually all cases where Excel is transferred between companies is for exchange of data.
But if you insist on going on about macros, the issue of portability arises even between different versions of MS Office.
2) People who *need* it to be compatable with MS Office files (for more than just the basic lowest-common-denomenator features) ....
The reasons I'm not using OpenOffice at work are because I fall into group #2.
I have installed Open Office as the main Office suite at a medium size company that needs to exchange MS Office documents with other organisations and with customers. I have had very few problems with compatibility.
I love OO.o, but I sometimes wonder if we would now have a significantly lighter, "cleaner" office suite had OO.o not dropped into the picture when it had.
You may be right, but, sadly, I don't think that users want a light clean suite - they want something that looks like MS Office.
If Sun is interested in goodwill, then this seems a great way to go.
Open Office is possibly the single most important reason why Linux is useful as a workstation OS. Seems to me like they deserve all the goodwill anyway.
Light propagates through absolutely empty space, and although this is different from what we know about sound, and relationships between laws is not needed, so no problem any more. Now along comes Zero Point Energy, and it now seems once again that "empty space" is absolutely full of seething energy. So is this the medium through which light travels? Remembering originally that was the dilemma, all the empirical data available indicated that vibration needed a media through which to propagate. And maybe even the type of media should be consistent with the type of vibration? So do we have to resurrect the ether again?---
You have put together some half-understood principles here to try and make something that sounds coherent. Space is very complex, but there is no aether.
So is it about finding out the truth, is it about self interest and glory, or is it about being published?
It is about mixtures of these, depending on the individual.
They start with a theory that might fit the current data, then they look for more evidence (empirical data) that might further support the theory. If there is any evidence that they find that contradicts the theory, that has to be either ignored or explained away. They will not change or abandon the theory to fit all the known facts.
This is total ranting nonsense. Good scientists don't ignore evidence that doesn't fit. There is no point. Science is a competitive process. Fellow scientists will try and reproduce your work, and they will find that your work is wrong. This happens all the time. Poor work is weeded out.
What about our recent stem cell buddy? Was this not publish me please?
Yes, and his work was analysed by fellow scientists and found to be wrong. That is how science works.
The so called scientists that are getting billions of funding dollars for the Tokamak, did not want the government to know that there might be an alternative, that might be viable for a lot less funding. So destroy someone else's career, that will work.
This is just crazy. The US government has been trying to get Cold Fusion to work for a very long time, as a way to get energy. The reason they are funding Hot Fusion is because Cold Fusion simply doesn't work! You need to get your facts straight.
---Where have I said anywhere that "intelligence did it", all I have ever said is that there is no conclusive evidence that it didn't, so until there is, these so called scientists should not be going around saying "it was not intelligently created" like they are an authority on the subject.
No, you are wrong. Scientists ARENT going around saying that it was NOT intelligently created. What they are saying about so much of the universe is that there is no need for an intelligence to explain so much of it.
The whole theme of my issue has been that science is now rotten with dogmas, and sacred cows, and is just as unscientific as religion.
Utter nonsense. Science is rich and vigorous with debate about alternatives. There may be individuals with dogmas, but if those dogmas don't pass the test of time they are thrown away. This is the exact opposite of religion.
You seem to be missing a key point. There are two alternatives, according to you: The complex Universe arose by itself, or the complex Universe arose via an intelligence.
You are saying both alternatives should be considered.
What you don't seem to understand is that it is possible that the complexity of the universe can arise from simple rules, and intelligence is more complicated than simple rules.
Intelligence is complex - VERY complex. It is rational to go for the less complex situation: Simple universe arises alone without the need for a complex designer.
What you are saying is that something (intelligence and reason) came out of nothing. Well then what is this nothing, that everything evolved from?
The rules and laws of the Universe.
The scientific sleight of hand again, explaining a process and pretending that it is a cause. If you make the process explanation big enough, and put it far enough back in time, maybe no one will notice that the essential question still has not been answered. What caused this, and if part of this process outcome resulted in intelligence, then what is the supporting evidence, that no part of the cause was intelligent?
Why do you keep insisting on the idea that an intelligence must be behind things? If you have even the slightest understanding of maths or physics you will know that complexity can arise out of order.
If you are truly scientific you will have imperial evidence for this claim, or else there is no basis for the statement that there is no intelligence behind the evolutionary process.
Nonsense. You are putting forward the more complex case - that some intelligence is behind things. Prove it. Your ignorance of how things happen is not proof.
Most recent case of burning at the stake that I remember was Pons and Fleischman. A classic case of today's scientific closed mindedness, because they could not reproduce the same results, instead of asking themselves, what is different about our set-up that may be an unanticipated causal factor, it was easier to call Pons and Fleischman frauds and liars. This is scientific?
Oh, so you don't think that people haven't been asking what is different about their setups? How can you possible ask what is scientific when you haven't the slightest understanding of what actually goes on in science. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I know, why don't we just ignore it, or pretend that we already know the answer, even we have no evidence to support that position. Is this is science, or is this dogma?
You are the one insisting you already have the answer - 'intelligence did it'. You are the one expressing your personal dogma.
I believe Albert Einstein said something similar, "I think that science without religion is lame and, conversely, that religion without science is blind."
Einstein did not believe in a God.
So dirt of the ground just organizes itself into complex life forms, and then returns to dirt of the ground again of it's own volition?
Yes.
There is no mystery here at all, there does not need to be any explanation of "cause and effect" you only have to deal with the "process" that connects the "effect with the cause" and ignore the fact that scientifically there always has to be a "cause". How scientific is that?
No-one is ignoring the fact that there has to be a cause. The point is that the cause does not need to be intelligent. There are some wonderful features of Nature that appear whenever there are flows of energy far from equilibrium. You get patterns. You get things organising themselves into complex structures spontaneously, with no need for intervention.
We can only speculate what that cause might be, but certainly if one of the "effects" (humans) is deemed to be intelligent, (maybe) then by deduction should the cause not be deemed intelligent too?
Actually, the cause of our intelligence IS intelligent - it us and other animals. By competing, we select certain features. By competing and facing up to the challenges of life over millions of years, intelligence has been selected and refined.
Or is it a very scientific theory, and does not affront everyday reason, that dirt of the ground could all on its own turn into a complex brain, that by all accounts produces thought and reason, and then turn back into dirt of the ground which by all accounts cannot produce thought and reason, and then claim there is no other agency involved?
Everyday reason has no place in understanding this, as the factors involved are beyond everyday reason. No-one can concieve of a million years, let alone a billion. No-one can concieve of the trillions of combinations of molecules that were present on the early Earth that let to life. Why should something as majestic as life be subject to something as petty as human 'everyday reason'. On the other hand, science has the tools to deal with things that we can't concieve.