"Well, I'm talking about alternatives to the theory of natural selection generally"
No, you're talking about supposed problems with evolution. I do not agree that the supposedly incomplete evidence you cite gives us any reason to question evolution, but that's irrelevant. Let's stipulate, for the purposes of this conversation, that Darwin was on acid, and no supporting evidence for this theory has ever been found, and that it's just obvious to everyone that it is completely false.
Creationism still isn't science. That statement is in no way based on belief in evolution. It is based entirely on the fact that creationism does not depend on evidence.
You mentioned murders, so that's what I looked up.
Let's see, the same source has
Asaults: #6 US: 7.56923 per 1,000 people #8 UK: 7.45959 per 1,000 people
Rapes: #9 US: 0.301318 per 1,000 people #13 UK: 0.142172 per 1,000 people
The UK does do worse on burglaries, but you assertion about violent crime appears to be more bullshit.
The fact is, sources with big tables of statistics and discussion of methodological issues may be boring, but I trust them more than some random blog tossing "facts" about amidst obvious editorial bias. I read over the blog you cited, but if you want me to take your numbers seriously, find them provided by some sort of boring government statistician.
"If you want to experience UK levels of crime, visit Washington DC, a city famous for its ridiculous crime rate."
Of course, if we wish to resort to anecdotal evidence, I'll note that I have actually lived in both London and Washington. They are not comparable.
Gee, rather than random article on some blog with an agenda, I went straight to some basic stats. From the first list I found, listing number of murders annually, per 1,000 people:
#24 United States: 0.042802 per 1,000... #46 United Kingdom: 0.0140633 per 1,000
"Personally, I'd rather not be murdered at all"
You might consider moving to the UK; it should cut your chances significantly.
"And it is indeed official in the sense the it is agreed upon by the professional society of a given discipline and hence agreed upon by the folks in the profession."
So you can provide a link to the official list then? In any discipline?
"Unfortunately, there really aren't any countries out there that practice libertarian thinking."
Just about every political order under the sun has been tried somewhere at some point. Some have produced societies stable enough to still be around today, some haven't.
What does socialism have to do with immigration policies? How do you figure a "huge crime problem" in a country with a lower crime rate than most?
She sold a small portion of the property, at a price-per-square-foot entirely in line with the market at the time. She later sold the rest. Her profit on the whole deal was considerable.
This was quite thoroughly investigated and all these facts are readily available. The only reason to get them wrong is willful ignorance on either your part or that of your source. I'll assume the latter and suggest you look into it further before continuing to recite others nonsense.
"Well, let's take one genuine problem in current evolutionary theory"
Let's not; we're trying to discuss whether creationism is science. Whether evolution is true or false is completely irrelevant.
If we found that fossil, would that suggest creationism was wrong? Of course not, because God could have created the world with or without that fossil just as easily.
Creationism can't be out ahead, because it's not in the race. To get in the race, it must tell us something we should expect to be true because that thing being false would imply creationism was false. There is no such thing, because if God did it, he could do it however he wanted to. Creationism has no predictive power; it can tell us nothing new about the world. It is not science.
There's no significant difference in this context. Hypothesis tends to be a single, simple idea, while a theory tends to be a more complex construct of multiple hypotheses. You can call the Oort cloud whichever you like, it's science either way.
"Now, how many of the voters in your state/local area support this barfing turtle thing?"
If a majority of voters in my town vote to make 2+2 equal 5, you would support changing the math textbooks? Do you think those voters would be right because they had the majority; or is it that having the majority makes it proper to intentionally misinform children?
My concept is that a giant turtle named George barfed up the universe last Tuesday (including all your memories of stuff existing before that).
I demand my concept be discussed in elementary schools, so we can have a healthy debate and students can make up their own minds. You won't dare suggest I be censored, will you?
The existence of the Oort cloud is a perfectly good scientific theory, whether there is any evidence for it or not, whether it is true or not. There CAN be evidence for or against it.
Creationism is not a scientific theory; nothing you could possibly discover, no matter which way it turns out, can possibly suggest that it's impossible that an omnipotent being decided he wanted it that way.
So, she tried to get this trooper (and probable asshole) fired before she was Governor. After becoming Governor, members of her family and staff tried to get him fired, failing right before she fired his boss. But nobody can prove she knew her family and staff were trying to get the guy fired, so... no problem?
In deciding who to vote for "It looks pretty certain I'm unethical, but you can't prove it" is not the strongest argument. I fear you're right, that people will accept the obvious ethical lapse because it was in going after target who is by all accounts, a bad guy. Personally, I wonder, when McCain croaks next year, and she's President, who will she think are "bad guys" worth discarding principle to defeat?
"Despite what people may think, there is no crime in charging too little for land."
Nor any evidence that it happened. Rezko's wife made a bunch of money on that land, so what "favor" she is supposed to have done Obama remains mysterious.
No, they've criticized him on slim experience, period. No mention of "executive" experience has been made before now, and for good reason: McCain doesn't have any either.
Yeah, we weren't, like, *serious* about the first big decision we had to make. Why would we blow the chance to shamelessly pander for votes on picking someone with real qualifications?
A VP who could not be imagined as a serious candidate for President in their own right is a bad idea.
I've no idea if the cop deserved to be fired; let's assume he did. That's not the controversy.
The controversy is that she claimed she never pressured the commissioner to fire him. Then when tapes come out of one of her aides doing exactly that, she claims she didn't know about it, that one of her aides tried to get her ex-brother-in-law fired entirely without her knowledge, right before she fired the commissioner for entirely unrelated reasons.
It's like "US Attorney Scandal: Hillbilly Edition".
"It's not a video game, it's a driving simulator."
I can't even remember what game I heard that said about, but the guy sounded like he was sure he was imparting some deep insight. That was 1987. It was a video game; so is this.
"...it got designed and built by the knob who would take the job. Unlikely, sure... "
Unlikely? I guarantee it. I personally know a half dozen techie types who have left jobs for government or government contractors because they were tired of working on poorly designed, ultimately pointless projects.
Oh, I see, you're saying maybe people didn't take it due to moral objections to no fly lists, and it would be better if someone competent did it. Worry not. A perfectly designed and implemented no fly list is just as useless as this cluster, so I can't see any ethical cost of letting it suck.
Slashdot Mirror
"Allow them to brag about having built the damn cars themselves and we might be entering obscenely smug territory."
I don't drive; I built my own bicycle.
"Well, I'm talking about alternatives to the theory of natural selection generally"
No, you're talking about supposed problems with evolution. I do not agree that the supposedly incomplete evidence you cite gives us any reason to question evolution, but that's irrelevant. Let's stipulate, for the purposes of this conversation, that Darwin was on acid, and no supporting evidence for this theory has ever been found, and that it's just obvious to everyone that it is completely false.
Creationism still isn't science. That statement is in no way based on belief in evolution. It is based entirely on the fact that creationism does not depend on evidence.
From your comment:
"Is the thing not x86 compatible?"
From the summary of the article you are commenting on:
"They ditched x86 compatibility..."
You mentioned murders, so that's what I looked up.
Let's see, the same source has
Asaults:
#6 US: 7.56923 per 1,000 people
#8 UK: 7.45959 per 1,000 people
Rapes:
#9 US: 0.301318 per 1,000 people
#13 UK: 0.142172 per 1,000 people
The UK does do worse on burglaries, but you assertion about violent crime appears to be more bullshit.
The fact is, sources with big tables of statistics and discussion of methodological issues may be boring, but I trust them more than some random blog tossing "facts" about amidst obvious editorial bias. I read over the blog you cited, but if you want me to take your numbers seriously, find them provided by some sort of boring government statistician.
"If you want to experience UK levels of crime, visit Washington DC, a city famous for its ridiculous crime rate."
Of course, if we wish to resort to anecdotal evidence, I'll note that I have actually lived in both London and Washington. They are not comparable.
Gee, rather than random article on some blog with an agenda, I went straight to some basic stats. From the first list I found, listing number of murders annually, per 1,000 people:
...
#24 United States: 0.042802 per 1,000
#46 United Kingdom: 0.0140633 per 1,000
"Personally, I'd rather not be murdered at all"
You might consider moving to the UK; it should cut your chances significantly.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
"And it is indeed official in the sense the it is agreed upon by the professional society of a given discipline and hence agreed upon by the folks in the profession."
So you can provide a link to the official list then? In any discipline?
"Unfortunately, there really aren't any countries out there that practice libertarian thinking."
Just about every political order under the sun has been tried somewhere at some point. Some have produced societies stable enough to still be around today, some haven't.
What does socialism have to do with immigration policies? How do you figure a "huge crime problem" in a country with a lower crime rate than most?
She sold a small portion of the property, at a price-per-square-foot entirely in line with the market at the time. She later sold the rest. Her profit on the whole deal was considerable.
This was quite thoroughly investigated and all these facts are readily available. The only reason to get them wrong is willful ignorance on either your part or that of your source. I'll assume the latter and suggest you look into it further before continuing to recite others nonsense.
"Well, let's take one genuine problem in current evolutionary theory"
Let's not; we're trying to discuss whether creationism is science. Whether evolution is true or false is completely irrelevant.
If we found that fossil, would that suggest creationism was wrong? Of course not, because God could have created the world with or without that fossil just as easily.
Creationism can't be out ahead, because it's not in the race. To get in the race, it must tell us something we should expect to be true because that thing being false would imply creationism was false. There is no such thing, because if God did it, he could do it however he wanted to. Creationism has no predictive power; it can tell us nothing new about the world. It is not science.
There's no significant difference in this context. Hypothesis tends to be a single, simple idea, while a theory tends to be a more complex construct of multiple hypotheses. You can call the Oort cloud whichever you like, it's science either way.
"One person would see that as teaching creationism another would see it differently."
And one of them would be wrong. Teaching that 2+2 might equal 5 is not fair and balanced. It is incorrect.
"Now, how many of the voters in your state/local area support this barfing turtle thing?"
If a majority of voters in my town vote to make 2+2 equal 5, you would support changing the math textbooks? Do you think those voters would be right because they had the majority; or is it that having the majority makes it proper to intentionally misinform children?
My concept is that a giant turtle named George barfed up the universe last Tuesday (including all your memories of stuff existing before that).
I demand my concept be discussed in elementary schools, so we can have a healthy debate and students can make up their own minds. You won't dare suggest I be censored, will you?
The existence of the Oort cloud is a perfectly good scientific theory, whether there is any evidence for it or not, whether it is true or not. There CAN be evidence for or against it.
Creationism is not a scientific theory; nothing you could possibly discover, no matter which way it turns out, can possibly suggest that it's impossible that an omnipotent being decided he wanted it that way.
That put him in command of how many people, as compared to the number of people in, let's say, a presidential campaign organization?
But frankly, if experience were everything, I'd vote for Donald Rumsfeld.
I am hard pressed to find anyone objecting to teaching about religion (informational).
The problem is teaching about religion (in Biology class).
So, she tried to get this trooper (and probable asshole) fired before she was Governor. After becoming Governor, members of her family and staff tried to get him fired, failing right before she fired his boss. But nobody can prove she knew her family and staff were trying to get the guy fired, so... no problem?
In deciding who to vote for "It looks pretty certain I'm unethical, but you can't prove it" is not the strongest argument. I fear you're right, that people will accept the obvious ethical lapse because it was in going after target who is by all accounts, a bad guy. Personally, I wonder, when McCain croaks next year, and she's President, who will she think are "bad guys" worth discarding principle to defeat?
"Despite what people may think, there is no crime in charging too little for land."
Nor any evidence that it happened. Rezko's wife made a bunch of money on that land, so what "favor" she is supposed to have done Obama remains mysterious.
No, they've criticized him on slim experience, period. No mention of "executive" experience has been made before now, and for good reason: McCain doesn't have any either.
"Yeah, but she's our VP choice."
Yeah, we weren't, like, *serious* about the first big decision we had to make. Why would we blow the chance to shamelessly pander for votes on picking someone with real qualifications?
A VP who could not be imagined as a serious candidate for President in their own right is a bad idea.
"That's not what the Constitution says";
Well, you're welcome to your interpretation, but the interpretation of Federal Judges is more relevant, and they think that is what it says.
I've no idea if the cop deserved to be fired; let's assume he did. That's not the controversy.
The controversy is that she claimed she never pressured the commissioner to fire him. Then when tapes come out of one of her aides doing exactly that, she claims she didn't know about it, that one of her aides tried to get her ex-brother-in-law fired entirely without her knowledge, right before she fired the commissioner for entirely unrelated reasons.
It's like "US Attorney Scandal: Hillbilly Edition".
"Can you imagine ... these bacteria getting into electronics world-wide ..."
No, I can't.
"It's not a video game, it's a driving simulator."
I can't even remember what game I heard that said about, but the guy sounded like he was sure he was imparting some deep insight. That was 1987. It was a video game; so is this.
"...it got designed and built by the knob who would take the job. Unlikely, sure... "
Unlikely? I guarantee it. I personally know a half dozen techie types who have left jobs for government or government contractors because they were tired of working on poorly designed, ultimately pointless projects.
Oh, I see, you're saying maybe people didn't take it due to moral objections to no fly lists, and it would be better if someone competent did it. Worry not. A perfectly designed and implemented no fly list is just as useless as this cluster, so I can't see any ethical cost of letting it suck.