I have a question for evolutionists who quote dating techniques. I have never had an answer to this. Consider the following:
1. There are a few techniques for measuring old dates (say, 4000 years and older, including upwards of millions of years).
2. These techniques are not accurate for young objects, such as dates taken from recent volcanic activity
3. Because these techniques are only recently employed, they have not been tested on anything we know is old to prove they work.
4. They are untestable because we have no objects we are certain are, say, 60000 years old except by these techniques. Therefore we cannot test these techniques on anything within range.
5. These techniques are based on the assumption that breakdown, injection of elements, etc, continues at a constant rate.
Now consider that there is one test we can employ - dating objects we know the date of. Eg, a recent lava flow. Consider potassion-argon (K-Ar) dating. In a young flow (eg 1948-49) there should be too little argon in the sample to provide an accurate date. It follows logically then, that if enough argon is discovered to place it's date within the accurate date of a K-Ar then the method must be inaccurate.
Let me make this clear for Black Parrot - I know K-Ar cannot accurately measure a sample 50 years old. And the reason is because there should be too little argon. So if enough argon is present to form a date, then the assumptions that K-Ar is based on are invalid. Now consider a volcano that is discovered by explorers in 1970. It had last erupted in 1920, but they had no idea. They took some samples which showed the flow to be 1.2 million years ago. Because they are certain their testing is accurate, they will never understand that it may be incorrect.
Now here is an article which demonstrates what I said above:
here
So my question is, if K-Ar fails when it can be tested, and produces an age of 0.27-3.5 million years old for something that is _known_ to be young, then why should I trust the dates given in contemporary science?
If I am to take evolution seriously, then this question must first be answered. Forget anything else, lets talk about this.
What I want to know is how they'll get it into space?
I can imagine a 100,000km elevator coiled up in the australian desert, then a shuttle launched with it tied to the back. The huge coil slowly unwinds, only to be dragged across Australia, levelling perth!
If the close for the OS was the same as opera, how would you distinguish between wanting to close the current Opera/Mozilla tab and closing the entire program?
Unless of course you use a different button for the OS compared to Opera/Mozilla.
Yes, I meant a hardware one, so I could plug it into a computer that uses qwerty and without any software can use a dvorak one. But also if software ever supports dvorak in the future then I'll want to have a "qwerty" setting so it doesn't go all wierd:)
And for labelling just have two characters on the keyboard. A big black dvorak letter and a smaller red qwerty one.
Seems to me that it would be worth someone making a dvorak keyboard on the hardware side. ie, it sends the buttons as qwerty, but the layout is dvorak. That way you can take this keyboard and use it on a computer set up for qwerty.
It's probably already been done I'm guessing. Be nice to have a toggle too to switch between dvorak and qwerty layout.
I wish there was an easy way for us to switch everyone over.
I know that physical access makes a machine vulnerable in most cases. But that is because people don't password their bootloader, don't password their bios and disable boot disks.
Take these precautions and you can be fairly secure with physical access. Add an encrypted file system so that if someone steals your hard disk you are safe. Then padlock the PC.
Those are reasonable steps for a Linux machine (and I may have missed some, please let me know if i did). Now with a windows xp machine it looks like you also need to disable cdrom access. An unreasonable step.
But am I misunderstanding this? Does this mean that there is a way for programs to be made to bypass Administrator password? If so why would this be limited to a windows 2000 disk? What's stopping someone from making a program that enters into Recovery Console, removing the need to be physically present or have a windows 2000 CD. Unless you actually have to boot from CD, but the article makes it sound like you can use the CD after the PC boots.
This reminds me of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.
He describes how Einstein and other scientists spent a great deal of time looking outwards, at the largest things - the far reaches of space. Now we have returned to look at the smallest things, quantum physics.
Linux is working to get into the high end computing as well as the smallest parts. We have a unified Linux kernel!
I have to agree with you, but for some reason any time I show a female Linux, they say "Ooh look at the penguin its so cute!", even when I didn't realise there was a penguin around:)
No need to be like that, I'm thankful that they release this source and excited! You can bet I'll never complain or mock the work of someone who gives it away for free.
Not so. How often is there good news about Microsoft? When there's a new version of windows released, it's featured here. When Microsoft released it's tablet PC we had a look at that, with many praises.
We all know Microsoft has done a lot of criminal activity, so why should it surprise you that:
a) We continue to look at the negatives
b) There should still be so many negatives
This seems only natural to me. Let Microsoft have it's praise where it is due. Most people think, for example, that their Office software is actually quite good. I don't often see a slashdotter claiming the contrary.
I am bound to get modded down as 'off topic' even though it's not, but...
This has an influence on evolution. Typically when describing the impossible nature of evolution, it has occasionally been the response to describe that the universe expanding, collapsing, and expanding again has given a theoretically infinite number of times for evolution to successfully occur.
This argument now has no foundation if this final position is what really is happening. It will now be the role of the evolutionist to demonstrate how the incredibly unlikely event of evolution could have occurred with only one try.
I'm glad this isn't televised. If Microsoft televised a question session that looked like genuine hackers, geeks, executives, secretaries, etc asking questions about software, the future, and esp. software....well, I know just enough people who will want to believe what is said, and that's scary.
And it will only give a greater confidence to those who think that my optimism about free software is unfounded, and that Microsoft can't be that bad since they are so big. After all, the only reason we geeks hate them is because they are too big!
Then again, I suppose I shouldn't be giving marketting suggestions to Microsoft.
Think about this from an Iraqi perspective. They could use Windows - and risk the US government asking/paying Microsoft for security holes that only they (Microsoft) know about. Then be unable to patch it when the US exploits the weakness against them.
Or they could use opensource and when a flaw is exploited fix it themselves - without relying on the software of their enemy.
I didn't say this was good for the US - but not everyone thinks the USA is all that great. Anything that balances world power is a good thing to me.
For other countries who fear a US attack, this could be a great reason for them to pursue open source software. There is more chance of them identifying flaws so long as they keep their machines up to date.
They can fix problems quickly. They will not rely on the software of the country attacking them.
I'm guessing this is your first encounter with the Creationist position. A summery of our position (without evidence to support it):
South America & Africa: These were one continent likely around 4500 years ago, but during the great flood were separated.
Grand Canyon: This would have taken perhaps 4500 years, maybe less, to carve.
Oil deposits & diamonds: I'm not sure about how oil is made (I'm ignorant here), same with diamonds - but out position is that they were formed quickly (relatively speaking), probably within the last 4500 years.
Space and vision: we believe that light may not have always travelled at the same speed, and that current measurements of the distance of galaxies may be inaccurate. So yes, we believe the universe is around 6000 years old too.
You may be surprised that we can make such claims, but you may be surprised to find out how faulty many dating techniques are. What is especially curious is that these techniques have never been tested. We have not had them for long enough to date something we know for certain is, eg, 5 million years old. We only know it is 5 million years old by using a particular dating method.
Anyway, if you are more than just curious I suggest you check out, say www.creationscience.com, www.answersingenesis.com, etc. But please don't post any comments about stuff there, I won't defend it on slashdot.
Although on secondglance it doesn't appear that he's quite so "converted" as I may have been led to believe.
I think this deserves more research by me in the future, because a biologist who is convinced there are massive problems with evolution and then changes his mind would be significant indeed - and so would understanding his reasons why.
Especially considering this review:
At least one pro-evolution writer, Gert Korthof, has seized with delight Denton's apparent flip-flop on evolution. In Part 2 of Nature's Destiny that appearance is quickly dispelled, but Denton still deserves some of the blame for the confusion. Virtually every reference to evolution in Part 1 could be replaced with a reference to the survival of species, and the argument concerning the laws of physics would not be diminished. By using the word "evolution" as he does, Denton seems to be contributing to the obfuscation of that word, rather than clarifying it as Phillip Johnson seeks to do.
When we begin reading Part 2, it immediately becomes apparent that Denton is talking about something very different from Darwin's concept of natural selection acting on random changes. Denton proposes that evolution is true in a sense, but that it is not driven by random changes, but rather by intelligently directed leaps which involve significant changes in complexity. Further, he proposes that these directed leaps are not performed by supernatural acts of interference with the laws of physics, but instead were elaborately planned into the laws of physics from the beginning. Thus, Denton finds a point of common ground between pure naturalism and the intelligent design of higher organisms -- a remarkable feat.
Slashdot Mirror
What does the Koran teach Black Parrot? (without resorting to google). How much do you know?
1. There are a few techniques for measuring old dates (say, 4000 years and older, including upwards of millions of years).
2. These techniques are not accurate for young objects, such as dates taken from recent volcanic activity
3. Because these techniques are only recently employed, they have not been tested on anything we know is old to prove they work.
4. They are untestable because we have no objects we are certain are, say, 60000 years old except by these techniques. Therefore we cannot test these techniques on anything within range.
5. These techniques are based on the assumption that breakdown, injection of elements, etc, continues at a constant rate.
Now consider that there is one test we can employ - dating objects we know the date of. Eg, a recent lava flow. Consider potassion-argon (K-Ar) dating. In a young flow (eg 1948-49) there should be too little argon in the sample to provide an accurate date. It follows logically then, that if enough argon is discovered to place it's date within the accurate date of a K-Ar then the method must be inaccurate.
Let me make this clear for Black Parrot - I know K-Ar cannot accurately measure a sample 50 years old. And the reason is because there should be too little argon. So if enough argon is present to form a date, then the assumptions that K-Ar is based on are invalid. Now consider a volcano that is discovered by explorers in 1970. It had last erupted in 1920, but they had no idea. They took some samples which showed the flow to be 1.2 million years ago. Because they are certain their testing is accurate, they will never understand that it may be incorrect.
Now here is an article which demonstrates what I said above: here
So my question is, if K-Ar fails when it can be tested, and produces an age of 0.27-3.5 million years old for something that is _known_ to be young, then why should I trust the dates given in contemporary science?
If I am to take evolution seriously, then this question must first be answered. Forget anything else, lets talk about this.
I can imagine a 100,000km elevator coiled up in the australian desert, then a shuttle launched with it tied to the back. The huge coil slowly unwinds, only to be dragged across Australia, levelling perth!
Unless of course you use a different button for the OS compared to Opera/Mozilla.
cool! Know where I can get one? Or did he make it himself?
And for labelling just have two characters on the keyboard. A big black dvorak letter and a smaller red qwerty one.
It's probably already been done I'm guessing. Be nice to have a toggle too to switch between dvorak and qwerty layout.
I wish there was an easy way for us to switch everyone over.
Why can't we clone network centric software?
Take these precautions and you can be fairly secure with physical access. Add an encrypted file system so that if someone steals your hard disk you are safe. Then padlock the PC.
Those are reasonable steps for a Linux machine (and I may have missed some, please let me know if i did). Now with a windows xp machine it looks like you also need to disable cdrom access. An unreasonable step.
But am I misunderstanding this? Does this mean that there is a way for programs to be made to bypass Administrator password? If so why would this be limited to a windows 2000 disk? What's stopping someone from making a program that enters into Recovery Console, removing the need to be physically present or have a windows 2000 CD. Unless you actually have to boot from CD, but the article makes it sound like you can use the CD after the PC boots.
He describes how Einstein and other scientists spent a great deal of time looking outwards, at the largest things - the far reaches of space. Now we have returned to look at the smallest things, quantum physics.
Linux is working to get into the high end computing as well as the smallest parts. We have a unified Linux kernel!
So depends on your target audience.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you
We all know Microsoft has done a lot of criminal activity, so why should it surprise you that:
a) We continue to look at the negatives
b) There should still be so many negatives
This seems only natural to me. Let Microsoft have it's praise where it is due. Most people think, for example, that their Office software is actually quite good. I don't often see a slashdotter claiming the contrary.
Does the game come with a free P4 cpu? Otherwise I might need an upgrade...
I'd love one of these.
This has an influence on evolution. Typically when describing the impossible nature of evolution, it has occasionally been the response to describe that the universe expanding, collapsing, and expanding again has given a theoretically infinite number of times for evolution to successfully occur.
This argument now has no foundation if this final position is what really is happening. It will now be the role of the evolutionist to demonstrate how the incredibly unlikely event of evolution could have occurred with only one try.
And it will only give a greater confidence to those who think that my optimism about free software is unfounded, and that Microsoft can't be that bad since they are so big. After all, the only reason we geeks hate them is because they are too big!
Then again, I suppose I shouldn't be giving marketting suggestions to Microsoft.
The wrong direction?
Or they could use opensource and when a flaw is exploited fix it themselves - without relying on the software of their enemy.
I didn't say this was good for the US - but not everyone thinks the USA is all that great. Anything that balances world power is a good thing to me.
They can fix problems quickly. They will not rely on the software of the country attacking them.
What exactly did you find objectional? And I'm curious to see your response to this.
South America & Africa: These were one continent likely around 4500 years ago, but during the great flood were separated.
Grand Canyon: This would have taken perhaps 4500 years, maybe less, to carve.
Oil deposits & diamonds: I'm not sure about how oil is made (I'm ignorant here), same with diamonds - but out position is that they were formed quickly (relatively speaking), probably within the last 4500 years.
Space and vision: we believe that light may not have always travelled at the same speed, and that current measurements of the distance of galaxies may be inaccurate. So yes, we believe the universe is around 6000 years old too.
You may be surprised that we can make such claims, but you may be surprised to find out how faulty many dating techniques are. What is especially curious is that these techniques have never been tested. We have not had them for long enough to date something we know for certain is, eg, 5 million years old. We only know it is 5 million years old by using a particular dating method.
Anyway, if you are more than just curious I suggest you check out, say www.creationscience.com, www.answersingenesis.com, etc. But please don't post any comments about stuff there, I won't defend it on slashdot.
Very well, how about you e-mail me? msaward at bigpond dot net dot au and I'll let you know some of the stuff I have read.
I think this deserves more research by me in the future, because a biologist who is convinced there are massive problems with evolution and then changes his mind would be significant indeed - and so would understanding his reasons why.
Especially considering this review:
At least one pro-evolution writer, Gert Korthof, has seized with delight Denton's apparent flip-flop on evolution. In Part 2 of Nature's Destiny that appearance is quickly dispelled, but Denton still deserves some of the blame for the confusion. Virtually every reference to evolution in Part 1 could be replaced with a reference to the survival of species, and the argument concerning the laws of physics would not be diminished. By using the word "evolution" as he does, Denton seems to be contributing to the obfuscation of that word, rather than clarifying it as Phillip Johnson seeks to do.
When we begin reading Part 2, it immediately becomes apparent that Denton is talking about something very different from Darwin's concept of natural selection acting on random changes. Denton proposes that evolution is true in a sense, but that it is not driven by random changes, but rather by intelligently directed leaps which involve significant changes in complexity. Further, he proposes that these directed leaps are not performed by supernatural acts of interference with the laws of physics, but instead were elaborately planned into the laws of physics from the beginning. Thus, Denton finds a point of common ground between pure naturalism and the intelligent design of higher organisms -- a remarkable feat.
Anyway, I'm off to bed.
I guess that is kinda funny. New book called "Nature's destiny"? I'll be sure to remember that.
Thanks