Yes, it can be. If through your negligence and laziness your child is now starving, then stealing will just be one of a long string of evils committed by you to support an immoral lifestyle.
If your child is starving because your corrupt government has been withholding the wealth of the nation, resulting in poverty, then stealing may be just as an action of civil disobedience to overthrow an unjust rule. But then you may steal off your neighbour who needs that food just as much as your child. That would be wrong.
If your child is starving, then it is evil for those with greater wealth to refuse to aid that child when you ask.
Murdering in self defense is evil? What about murdering a mass murderer?
In the Bible, at the least, murdering and killing are two separate things. Taking a life out of greed is an example of murder. Taking a life in self defence or in a just war is killing. The Bible specifically prohibits murdering. Take, for example, the punishment for a murderer: death. If there was no difference then it would be hypocritical. I'm not making this up in case you are wondering - the Hebrew has two separate words for murder and kill. Even in English we have this distinction. So your statements phrased correctly are: Killing in self defense is evil?
and:
What about killing a mass murderer?
Are you evil if you lie to protect the fact that your friend standing next to you is about to enter into a surprise birthday party?
The Biblical commandment is, specifically:
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour (Exodus 20:16)
- which covers, more specifically, lying for your own benefit, out of greed, or other selfish/sinful motivations. It does not prohibit, for example, lying to Nazi SS soldiers about the three Jews hidden in your roof.
Ah, good and evil, you false ideals created by those too afraid to face reality!
From what source springs your definitions of good and evil?
I'll bet that people will continue to have children after 100+ years. Especially when they realise that afterwards they'll have many, many years of youth remaining to enjoy with their adult children. After all, having kids these days consumes a significant portion of your life. Living over a thousand years would reduce one of the significant turn-aways of having children.
On a different topic, one problem to consider is the deterioration of the brain. If that is not healthy we might find people living to 800 years, but having a mind that is completely irrational after 200 years.
Hear hear. The fact is, we're not equal. There are very tangible differences. Physical differences are obvious, mental/emotional differences are the more offensive ones to try and describe.
Announce publicly, "Women are naturally better at than men" and people may disagree, but they won't be offended. Say "Men are naturally better at than women" and you will be labelled sexist, receiving strong personal criticisms - rather than criticisms of your actual claim. People don't act rationally where this is concerned. It is absurd to claim there are not differences - so the important question is, what are those differences?
And I'm very glad you pointed out that just because you're not as naturally able in a particular area as the opposite gender does NOT mean you can't excel in it.
I don't think they need to explain. It's quite obvious that it being eaten is the simplest explanation. You said yourself the first interpretation is probably correct - so the reasons for rejecting the others are clear to everyone.
What instead should be asked is how you can base a new cultural tendency (mammals ate dinosours) to just a single piece of evidence. Perhaps this mammal was unusual in its eating habits. Perhaps starvation led it to steal food it would never otherwise consider. Perhaps it is normally the prey, but was fortunate enough to chance upon a wounded baby dinosaur.
I think those are more interesting points - one baby dinosaur in a mammal's stomach does not indicate anything much.
Ah, so instead of explaining the large inconsistencies, you claim to be a victim. Nice.
You just ignore what I said. Your open hostility demonstrated to me that you are not interested in being correct - but rather just to make me an open fool. I've been in this game long enough to know how it works. If I engage you with answers, you will respond with more open hostilities. I _much_ rather communicate with Darwinists who are polite and take the time to understand and respond. It is a fruitful encounter for both sides. You are not one of these Darwinists, so I'm not interested in engaging you.
Quite honestly, all the answers to your questions are on the AiG website. Why should I hold your hand while you scream and kick? Go your own way. Come back if you are interested in actually understanding before you criticise - know thine enemy.
Want an example? Try this: How do you fit 55 dinosaurs on a boat (with every other species in the world, mind you)? (your words)
It is not every 'species', but it is every kind. A kind is a much more inclusive category. For example, all large and small cats belong to the same kind. So it's not one of every species of cats, it is one male and one female representative of the kind that cats sprang from. What is a kind? Answers to that question and more are all on the website.
Understand our theory and check your facts first before you criticise. We don't say "two of every species". The Bible never said "two of every species". I don't need to answer all your complaints. They're all there for you to look up.
Your vast ignorance is typical of Creationists and still ceases to amaze ME. If you believe in fairy tales, fine, that is your choice. But don't try to tell me that I should believe it based on flaky-to-nonsensical "evidence," bullshitting, revisionism, and wild speculation & interpretation.
Bravo. You proclaim things like the ignorance of Creationists, while demonstrating great ignorance yourself. You are aggressive and stubborn enough to raise problems with my beliefs, then judge me before letting me answer?? How is that rational, fair or reasonable? It is nothing but trite, and I have no inclination to discuss further with someone who flings insults before giving a chance for response.
I don't care about the kooky ignorance of your local church. What if I was to judge evolution based on the ramblings of a lay man? There is ignorance even among evolutionists of their own beliefs - and it would be completely ignorant of me to reject Darwinism based simply on those encounters. It is their fault you misunderstood the theory, but you at least owe the courtesy of understanding before you critisise. It goes without saying there are answers to all the questions you asked here, but it takes a mind more open to understanding and serious criticism than you have demonstrated yours capable of.
You clearly demonstrated to me that you misunderstand creationism. That is an undisputable fact. That you would raise problems with creationism and not even give chance for answering before insulting displays very poor debate tactics. In a sentence: I'm not interested in what you have to say with that attitude.
I've never heard a Creationist accept any part of Natural Selection.
Your response is a typical one that still never ceases to amaze me. If you're going to reject another viewpoint, you should at least give it the courtesy of understanding it...even just a little. How can you reject what you don't even know? I have never encountered the version of creationism you refer to. I'm sure you've heard of Answers in Genesis, so here's what they say on the topic:http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v23/i3/mu ddywaters.asp
Just so you know that my viewpoint is not atypical, but in fact held by most creationists who've taken the time to understand their beliefs (sadly, some haven't).
Predictions can be made on survival rates, changes in population, genetic drift, and so forth. The interesting thing here is that you can get real numbers and concrete predictions. Whether you understand or have used these techniques does not, in any way, decrease their predicitive power.
I'm sorry, I may not have been clear enough - but all these portions of Darwinism are also present in the Creation model. I was referring to those parts that comprise the whole Darwinist model - a description of how life arose from a simple single celled life form to what we see today.
These things you mention are observable and repeatable, and natural selection as a process (when not defined as a tautology) has useful descriptive and predictive powers. But it is not a method unique to Darwinism, and is not that portion which "explains everything but predicts nothing". Darwinism as an explanation for the origin of all life explains nothing. It has no predictive power. We cannot observe and repeatably test where we have come from, nor can we predict where we will end up.
I submit humbly to your correction on the use of the word "proof". I am far more familiar with philosophical debates where proofs exist, so that when I come to scientific debates, the word "proof" feels natural and I forget to use "evidence". I do understand the distinction between them.
Back to the point about magic: imagine our difficulty in trying to falsify Darwinism as a model that describes life's origins. Natural selection and those portions are present in the Creationist model, and so are not in question here. What is in question is the claims that dogs and sharks share a common ancestor, and the process by which that divergence occurred. What observable and repeatable experiment can be used to test these claims? What claim is being made? I say, "all life shares a common ancestor", yet even if that is demonstrated untrue, the Darwinist theory stands up to attacks. It is not falsifiable.
That is what I mean about magic. I think that you are considering the portion of Darwinism that is natural selection - which I hold no problem with. Whereas I was thinking of the whole Darwinist model which makes statements about the origin of life.
The theory of evolution - the whole theory - has been defined as:
the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form. (Kerkut, Implications of Evolution, 1960, pg. 157)
So even here, should this statement be demonstrated false, Darwinism still stands. Imagine our frustration at trying to shoot a moving target. The complaints made against Creationists ("Oh, they'll just say God did it") apply equally well to Darwinists.
What exactly, then, does Darwinism say about the universe that is predictable? All your comment does is demonstrate perfectly how Darwinism is a theory that explains everything but predicts nothing.
It is useless in describing reality in any meaningful way, no more useful than explaining everything as a result of "magic". For something to be useful it must make risky predictions.
Regarding life, the similarity of the genetic code between living things is cited as proof of their common ancestry. I understand the possibility of there being separate origins of life, but it does nothing for the defense of Darwinism.
That's not an accurate statement about Darwinism, unless you define it very narrowly perhaps. Micro-evolution can and is measured. Experiments regularly study micro-evolution. Macro-evolution would need to be observed over a longer time scale, of course.
I refer to that most unprovable of claims - that all living things share a common ancestor. It is possible to find explanations for things after the fact, but it is a claim that is not scientifically verifiable. It is a claim about the unobservable, unrepeatable past.
Things like natural selection are common between Darwinism and Creationism. The problems are more like those you find if you ran a diff between Darwinism and Creationism. I agree there are many parts of Creationism that are not scientifically testable. Darwinism has parts like that too - so while portions of each theory can be subjected to the scientific method, the models as a whole cannot be. They fall primarily under the realm of philosophy.
Getting back to the article, I think Darwinism is a very poorly chosen word for what they are talking about. I suspect it was chosen deliberately for its provacativeness.
I doubt it was chosen for provocativeness, more so because in people's eyes natural selection and Darwinism are the same thing - whereas in truth they are not. I don't imagine a conspiracy, but just a popularised use of a word has been taken. But I will admit I don't understand much about "Quantum Darwinism";)
Quantum darwinism is false! The tree is that way because God made it that way, not because 4 billion years of quantum evolution positioned its particles that way!
There is no quantum tree, as far as I can see. Quantum Darwinism is merely an application of the principles of natural selection to another system. Though you are probably aware of that and just grasping at an opportunity to mock creationists. Stay on topic.
We need to stop teaching quantum darwinism in our schools, and teach quantum creatinism!
While individuals may make this claim, creationist groups don't really want creationism taught in schools instead of darwinism. They want one of:
a. Darwinism and Creationism both taught in a non science class (since science is about the observable and repeatable things, while Darwinism makes claims about the past which cannot be observed).
b. Neither Darwinism or Creationism taught in schools.
If the facts are so strong for Darwinism, what have you to fear?
Darwin himself denounced quantum evolution on his deathbed, it's true!
Ugh. AiG does not make this argument. Creationists should not make this argument. Stop misrepresenting us by using the arguments of a few uninformed creationists.
There are so many wrong underlying viewpoints in your post, but it would take more time than I can commit to address it. So I will go straight to your biggest fault:
"*whimper* All right, so the Earth is round, and it and all the other lumpy rocks revolve around the Sun, and it's all really old, and humans are a lot like apes... but, um, see, there's all this little stuff you scientists haven't quite figured out yet about the specifics, and sometimes you argue about it, and THAT'S ABSOLUTE PROOF OF THAT GOD EXISTS AND HE WANTS YOU TO DO EXACTLY AS _____ (insert your preferred version of a frequently mistranslated, politically loaded anthology of folktales here) SAYS!"
You CANNOT assume that just because w, x, and y were explainable through one particular mechanism, that z will also be explainable through it. It is illogical to assume that, just because you have been able to explain everything you have encountered through science, that everything else that needs explaining can also be done so through science.
*if* a spiritual world exists, it stands to reason that encounters with it in the natural world would be the exception, not the rule. Therefore, we should expect in a universe with a spiritual world that most encounters in the natural will be natural ones. I am not going to go into any arguments now though about whether any encounters in the human history are supernatural - that is beyond the scope of a simple slashdot discussion.
Both Darwinists and Creationists are guilty at times of using this faulty line of reasoning. You should not expect that a certain pattern should continue to express itself all the time. We try to look for the simplest explanation for something - but sometimes that is not always true. Its true enough times to make it useful. For example, a house has things arranged a certain way, and we assume that it is because of practical or personal taste reasons. 9999/10000 we'd be right. But in one case a house has been arranged to hide any clues of a murder. It is an exception. You cannot assume that just because the arrangement in the first 9999 houses was through mundane events that the 10000th house will also be.
I think that science is an excellent tool and should be applied in most cases. We should not be so foolish though as to assume that all things can be explained through science. But it is definitely worth trying to do it, just to be sure.
So what if you have to buy a licence for commercial development? If you're out to make money on your software then you deserve to pay.
Pay who? That's the critical point. I don't necessarily mind people having to pay to write commercial software, it's just that I have a problem with who the money goes towards. If an application is written for KDE then Trolltech gets the money for it - the KDE team gets nothing.
I'm uncomfortable with trolltech being the gateway for all commercial software on Linux. That's a powerful position, and I'll bet they know it.
Does FireFox send information when it is installed, or is it just through the Mozilla website? If the latter, then it wouldn't help for organisations that download a single copy and distribute, or downloads from mirrors (such as the default for Gentoo using emerge).
A couple of thoughts...
The rules are there for fun and simplicty, not realism. It would be dull, but realistic, if you had to balance a healthy diet for your character. Hit points and AC are merely convenient measurements that don't subtract enough from realism to take away believability. Besides, our group has always viewed HP as something more like your ability to avoid the final blow. 100HP means you can dance and dart around blows that would have landed on a normal person. The Star Wars d20 system called it "vitality".
Check out White Wolf's Exalted roleplaying game (or Vampire which is similar). In that, armour reduces the damage potential but doesn't eliminate it. As you lose health from damage, you become less capable of performing. It's a simple system, but it works well.
The idea is that you purchased a computer that included windows xp in the price. You show them the receipt to prove that you paid for it.
Microsoft then checks your version to see if it really is genuine. If it isn't, they assume you are innocent (since you have receipt to demonstrate that you bought it believing it was the real deal). Then, they go after the company that sold you the pirate version.
So it's not a trick, it's not about converting pirates, and it's not a PR move. If you pirated your copy deliberately, then you won't be able to get a legal copy for free without getting in trouble. If you believe you have a legal copy but want to check, this is a way to do so for free.
I'm a member of the popular Microsoft hating slashdot group, but this is not what you suggest - not as far as I understand it.
No, but I used to be one. I believe that qualifies me to pass judgement on poor parenting methods. (Although not necessarily to offer better ones)
Two problems here:
1. The poster's educated guess that you had no children was right. Think about it.
2. I don't have children, but I was one. That gives me exactly the same qualifications that you tout for yourself: yet I disagree wholeheartedly with you.
I'm afraid that you are the one who doesn't understand the issues like sexual predators and hate sites. Sexual predators are so few in number, that your child is much more likely to be abducted by aliens than by one of them.
If you want to persuade people, you should start by making sense. The chances of being abducted by aliens is close to zero. Zero!! Yet children have many times been abused by sexual predators. "It was just an example", you might say. Well, it was a bad one. You just said something that makes no sense. Here's a better one. In Australia it is required by law that you wear a seatbelt when you go in a car. Do we we wear the seatbelt for the 99.9999% times that our trip is safe? No. we wear it for the 00.0001% when things go wrong (that statistic made up).
Most children are not abused in that manner, but rather grow up dull, neglected, and harassed.
This was not my experience in life, nor that of most of my friends. Perhaps your outrage should not be directed at parenting as a whole, but rather towards your parents specifically? Just because one pair of parents abused their power does not mean that parents should have no power. For my upbringing it worked quite well. Doesn't it strike you as interesting that so many people, when they go on to be parents, still discipline their children? Doesn't that make you think that maybe you're not right? After all, you seem to claim that your ideas are the product of your upbringing, yet other parents did not produce the same effect in their children.
And why do you think he is not responsible? A four year old might not know what is good or bad, but at thirteen he should be absolutely certain.
Again, more nonsense. You can't seriously be thinking that by thirteen a person has developed as much maturity and rationality as they will need? They are still children with a child's mind, selfishness, and all other vices. How often do you deal with people at this age? They are very curious and just starting to learn about the world. I have been told once we turn 23 we have formed the opinions that we will keep the rest of our lives. That means that a thirteen year old has a long way to go of learning and shaping.
You think I haven't been a kid? Of course peer pressure is real. What I wish my parents have taught me, is whose people's opinions should matter.
This sounds again like outrage against your parent's methodology, not about parental discipline in general.
Hell no! Confucius said "if you rule your people by punishment, they will try to avoid being punished, but will feel no shame." Punishment never does any good. Whenever it happened to me as a child, I felt nothing but hate, and resentment, and helplessness toward the punisher. Any thoughts about my actions as having been wrong evaporated instantly and turned into brooding on the world's unfairness where the parents feel free to impose rules and punishments just because they can. I would eventually cool down and think things over, considering whether what I did really was a good idea, and about how unnecessary and unfair the punishment was.
Confucius was wrong. Solomon, considered the wisest man to have lived, has said:
Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of correction will drive it far from him. - Proverbs 22:15
He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him
I concur. I was unimpressed and becoming bored with the game for the first part, but nearing the latter parts of the game I started to enjoy it a whole lot more, and finished thinking "that was a great game".
It is a downside that you do get bored with the earlier part and need to wait, but you must persevere to enjoy the whole game.
I feel intense disgust at the thought of eating octopus, yet I see nothing wrong with it.
Your argument doesn't follow. In fact, it doesn't make sense on many levels. The point of seeing pictures of two people intimately involved is so we can imagine ourselves in their place. Seeing pictures of two men together invites the viewer to take the place of one. That is nauseating. One does not have to disapprove of homosexuality to find the idea repulsive for themselves.
Personally, I'm a bit apprehensive about all of Google's plans. I can see software becoming freely available with servers and hardware being the thing beyond reach. It seems like Google is working towards having all systems run off their hardware in such a way that the small man could not imitate. So our future will require a subscription to Google's internet. Either that, or don't have a modern system to use. Once we had to pay for software, now we have to pay for services (computer cycles coupled with software).
As long as I can keep using my own software and hardware, I'll be happy.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it can be. If through your negligence and laziness your child is now starving, then stealing will just be one of a long string of evils committed by you to support an immoral lifestyle.
If your child is starving because your corrupt government has been withholding the wealth of the nation, resulting in poverty, then stealing may be just as an action of civil disobedience to overthrow an unjust rule. But then you may steal off your neighbour who needs that food just as much as your child. That would be wrong.
If your child is starving, then it is evil for those with greater wealth to refuse to aid that child when you ask.
Murdering in self defense is evil? What about murdering a mass murderer?
In the Bible, at the least, murdering and killing are two separate things. Taking a life out of greed is an example of murder. Taking a life in self defence or in a just war is killing. The Bible specifically prohibits murdering. Take, for example, the punishment for a murderer: death. If there was no difference then it would be hypocritical. I'm not making this up in case you are wondering - the Hebrew has two separate words for murder and kill. Even in English we have this distinction. So your statements phrased correctly are:
Killing in self defense is evil?
and: What about killing a mass murderer?
Are you evil if you lie to protect the fact that your friend standing next to you is about to enter into a surprise birthday party?
The Biblical commandment is, specifically:
- which covers, more specifically, lying for your own benefit, out of greed, or other selfish/sinful motivations. It does not prohibit, for example, lying to Nazi SS soldiers about the three Jews hidden in your roof.Ah, good and evil, you false ideals created by those too afraid to face reality!
From what source springs your definitions of good and evil?
Or have heard that it requires internet to activate, but not to actually play the game afterwards (which is how I understood it).
On a different topic, one problem to consider is the deterioration of the brain. If that is not healthy we might find people living to 800 years, but having a mind that is completely irrational after 200 years.
Announce publicly, "Women are naturally better at than men" and people may disagree, but they won't be offended. Say "Men are naturally better at than women" and you will be labelled sexist, receiving strong personal criticisms - rather than criticisms of your actual claim. People don't act rationally where this is concerned. It is absurd to claim there are not differences - so the important question is, what are those differences?
And I'm very glad you pointed out that just because you're not as naturally able in a particular area as the opposite gender does NOT mean you can't excel in it.
What instead should be asked is how you can base a new cultural tendency (mammals ate dinosours) to just a single piece of evidence. Perhaps this mammal was unusual in its eating habits. Perhaps starvation led it to steal food it would never otherwise consider. Perhaps it is normally the prey, but was fortunate enough to chance upon a wounded baby dinosaur.
I think those are more interesting points - one baby dinosaur in a mammal's stomach does not indicate anything much.
You just ignore what I said. Your open hostility demonstrated to me that you are not interested in being correct - but rather just to make me an open fool. I've been in this game long enough to know how it works. If I engage you with answers, you will respond with more open hostilities. I _much_ rather communicate with Darwinists who are polite and take the time to understand and respond. It is a fruitful encounter for both sides. You are not one of these Darwinists, so I'm not interested in engaging you.
Quite honestly, all the answers to your questions are on the AiG website. Why should I hold your hand while you scream and kick? Go your own way. Come back if you are interested in actually understanding before you criticise - know thine enemy.
Want an example? Try this:
How do you fit 55 dinosaurs on a boat (with every other species in the world, mind you)? (your words)
It is not every 'species', but it is every kind. A kind is a much more inclusive category. For example, all large and small cats belong to the same kind. So it's not one of every species of cats, it is one male and one female representative of the kind that cats sprang from. What is a kind? Answers to that question and more are all on the website.
Understand our theory and check your facts first before you criticise. We don't say "two of every species". The Bible never said "two of every species". I don't need to answer all your complaints. They're all there for you to look up.
Bravo. You proclaim things like the ignorance of Creationists, while demonstrating great ignorance yourself. You are aggressive and stubborn enough to raise problems with my beliefs, then judge me before letting me answer?? How is that rational, fair or reasonable? It is nothing but trite, and I have no inclination to discuss further with someone who flings insults before giving a chance for response.
I don't care about the kooky ignorance of your local church. What if I was to judge evolution based on the ramblings of a lay man? There is ignorance even among evolutionists of their own beliefs - and it would be completely ignorant of me to reject Darwinism based simply on those encounters. It is their fault you misunderstood the theory, but you at least owe the courtesy of understanding before you critisise. It goes without saying there are answers to all the questions you asked here, but it takes a mind more open to understanding and serious criticism than you have demonstrated yours capable of.
You clearly demonstrated to me that you misunderstand creationism. That is an undisputable fact. That you would raise problems with creationism and not even give chance for answering before insulting displays very poor debate tactics. In a sentence: I'm not interested in what you have to say with that attitude.
Your response is a typical one that still never ceases to amaze me. If you're going to reject another viewpoint, you should at least give it the courtesy of understanding it...even just a little. How can you reject what you don't even know? I have never encountered the version of creationism you refer to. I'm sure you've heard of Answers in Genesis, so here's what they say on the topic: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v23/i3/mu ddywaters.asp
Just so you know that my viewpoint is not atypical, but in fact held by most creationists who've taken the time to understand their beliefs (sadly, some haven't).
I'm sorry, I may not have been clear enough - but all these portions of Darwinism are also present in the Creation model. I was referring to those parts that comprise the whole Darwinist model - a description of how life arose from a simple single celled life form to what we see today.
These things you mention are observable and repeatable, and natural selection as a process (when not defined as a tautology) has useful descriptive and predictive powers. But it is not a method unique to Darwinism, and is not that portion which "explains everything but predicts nothing". Darwinism as an explanation for the origin of all life explains nothing. It has no predictive power. We cannot observe and repeatably test where we have come from, nor can we predict where we will end up.
I submit humbly to your correction on the use of the word "proof". I am far more familiar with philosophical debates where proofs exist, so that when I come to scientific debates, the word "proof" feels natural and I forget to use "evidence". I do understand the distinction between them.
Back to the point about magic: imagine our difficulty in trying to falsify Darwinism as a model that describes life's origins. Natural selection and those portions are present in the Creationist model, and so are not in question here. What is in question is the claims that dogs and sharks share a common ancestor, and the process by which that divergence occurred. What observable and repeatable experiment can be used to test these claims? What claim is being made? I say, "all life shares a common ancestor", yet even if that is demonstrated untrue, the Darwinist theory stands up to attacks. It is not falsifiable.
That is what I mean about magic. I think that you are considering the portion of Darwinism that is natural selection - which I hold no problem with. Whereas I was thinking of the whole Darwinist model which makes statements about the origin of life.
The theory of evolution - the whole theory - has been defined as:
So even here, should this statement be demonstrated false, Darwinism still stands. Imagine our frustration at trying to shoot a moving target. The complaints made against Creationists ("Oh, they'll just say God did it") apply equally well to Darwinists.
It is useless in describing reality in any meaningful way, no more useful than explaining everything as a result of "magic". For something to be useful it must make risky predictions.
Regarding life, the similarity of the genetic code between living things is cited as proof of their common ancestry. I understand the possibility of there being separate origins of life, but it does nothing for the defense of Darwinism.
I refer to that most unprovable of claims - that all living things share a common ancestor. It is possible to find explanations for things after the fact, but it is a claim that is not scientifically verifiable. It is a claim about the unobservable, unrepeatable past.
Things like natural selection are common between Darwinism and Creationism. The problems are more like those you find if you ran a diff between Darwinism and Creationism. I agree there are many parts of Creationism that are not scientifically testable. Darwinism has parts like that too - so while portions of each theory can be subjected to the scientific method, the models as a whole cannot be. They fall primarily under the realm of philosophy.
Getting back to the article, I think Darwinism is a very poorly chosen word for what they are talking about. I suspect it was chosen deliberately for its provacativeness.
I doubt it was chosen for provocativeness, more so because in people's eyes natural selection and Darwinism are the same thing - whereas in truth they are not. I don't imagine a conspiracy, but just a popularised use of a word has been taken. But I will admit I don't understand much about "Quantum Darwinism" ;)
There is no quantum tree, as far as I can see. Quantum Darwinism is merely an application of the principles of natural selection to another system. Though you are probably aware of that and just grasping at an opportunity to mock creationists. Stay on topic.
We need to stop teaching quantum darwinism in our schools, and teach quantum creatinism!
While individuals may make this claim, creationist groups don't really want creationism taught in schools instead of darwinism. They want one of:
a. Darwinism and Creationism both taught in a non science class (since science is about the observable and repeatable things, while Darwinism makes claims about the past which cannot be observed).
b. Neither Darwinism or Creationism taught in schools.
If the facts are so strong for Darwinism, what have you to fear?
Darwin himself denounced quantum evolution on his deathbed, it's true!
Ugh. AiG does not make this argument. Creationists should not make this argument. Stop misrepresenting us by using the arguments of a few uninformed creationists.
"*whimper* All right, so the Earth is round, and it and all the other lumpy rocks revolve around the Sun, and it's all really old, and humans are a lot like apes ... but, um, see, there's all this little stuff you scientists haven't quite figured out yet about the specifics, and sometimes you argue about it, and THAT'S ABSOLUTE PROOF OF THAT GOD EXISTS AND HE WANTS YOU TO DO EXACTLY AS _____ (insert your preferred version of a frequently mistranslated, politically loaded anthology of folktales here) SAYS!"
You CANNOT assume that just because w, x, and y were explainable through one particular mechanism, that z will also be explainable through it. It is illogical to assume that, just because you have been able to explain everything you have encountered through science, that everything else that needs explaining can also be done so through science.
*if* a spiritual world exists, it stands to reason that encounters with it in the natural world would be the exception, not the rule. Therefore, we should expect in a universe with a spiritual world that most encounters in the natural will be natural ones. I am not going to go into any arguments now though about whether any encounters in the human history are supernatural - that is beyond the scope of a simple slashdot discussion.
Both Darwinists and Creationists are guilty at times of using this faulty line of reasoning. You should not expect that a certain pattern should continue to express itself all the time. We try to look for the simplest explanation for something - but sometimes that is not always true. Its true enough times to make it useful. For example, a house has things arranged a certain way, and we assume that it is because of practical or personal taste reasons. 9999/10000 we'd be right. But in one case a house has been arranged to hide any clues of a murder. It is an exception. You cannot assume that just because the arrangement in the first 9999 houses was through mundane events that the 10000th house will also be.
I think that science is an excellent tool and should be applied in most cases. We should not be so foolish though as to assume that all things can be explained through science. But it is definitely worth trying to do it, just to be sure.
Pay who? That's the critical point. I don't necessarily mind people having to pay to write commercial software, it's just that I have a problem with who the money goes towards. If an application is written for KDE then Trolltech gets the money for it - the KDE team gets nothing.
I'm uncomfortable with trolltech being the gateway for all commercial software on Linux. That's a powerful position, and I'll bet they know it.
Is there anything like this for KDE or Gnome, either in the works or finished?
Does FireFox send information when it is installed, or is it just through the Mozilla website? If the latter, then it wouldn't help for organisations that download a single copy and distribute, or downloads from mirrors (such as the default for Gentoo using emerge).
The rules are there for fun and simplicty, not realism. It would be dull, but realistic, if you had to balance a healthy diet for your character. Hit points and AC are merely convenient measurements that don't subtract enough from realism to take away believability. Besides, our group has always viewed HP as something more like your ability to avoid the final blow. 100HP means you can dance and dart around blows that would have landed on a normal person. The Star Wars d20 system called it "vitality".
Check out White Wolf's Exalted roleplaying game (or Vampire which is similar). In that, armour reduces the damage potential but doesn't eliminate it. As you lose health from damage, you become less capable of performing. It's a simple system, but it works well.
I use bogofilter, and it works near perfect when trained well.
Microsoft then checks your version to see if it really is genuine. If it isn't, they assume you are innocent (since you have receipt to demonstrate that you bought it believing it was the real deal). Then, they go after the company that sold you the pirate version.
So it's not a trick, it's not about converting pirates, and it's not a PR move. If you pirated your copy deliberately, then you won't be able to get a legal copy for free without getting in trouble. If you believe you have a legal copy but want to check, this is a way to do so for free.
I'm a member of the popular Microsoft hating slashdot group, but this is not what you suggest - not as far as I understand it.
Two problems here:
1. The poster's educated guess that you had no children was right. Think about it.
2. I don't have children, but I was one. That gives me exactly the same qualifications that you tout for yourself: yet I disagree wholeheartedly with you.
If you want to persuade people, you should start by making sense. The chances of being abducted by aliens is close to zero. Zero!! Yet children have many times been abused by sexual predators. "It was just an example", you might say. Well, it was a bad one. You just said something that makes no sense. Here's a better one. In Australia it is required by law that you wear a seatbelt when you go in a car. Do we we wear the seatbelt for the 99.9999% times that our trip is safe? No. we wear it for the 00.0001% when things go wrong (that statistic made up).
This was not my experience in life, nor that of most of my friends. Perhaps your outrage should not be directed at parenting as a whole, but rather towards your parents specifically? Just because one pair of parents abused their power does not mean that parents should have no power. For my upbringing it worked quite well. Doesn't it strike you as interesting that so many people, when they go on to be parents, still discipline their children? Doesn't that make you think that maybe you're not right? After all, you seem to claim that your ideas are the product of your upbringing, yet other parents did not produce the same effect in their children.
Again, more nonsense. You can't seriously be thinking that by thirteen a person has developed as much maturity and rationality as they will need? They are still children with a child's mind, selfishness, and all other vices. How often do you deal with people at this age? They are very curious and just starting to learn about the world. I have been told once we turn 23 we have formed the opinions that we will keep the rest of our lives. That means that a thirteen year old has a long way to go of learning and shaping.
This sounds again like outrage against your parent's methodology, not about parental discipline in general.
Confucius was wrong. Solomon, considered the wisest man to have lived, has said:
Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of correction will drive it far from him. - Proverbs 22:15
He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him
Because one of these games will get the better mods. I'm hoping it's D3 so that Linux users can run the popular mods natively.
Wrong. Doom3 gets plain old monotonous towards the midway point, then improves drastically with new levels.
It is a downside that you do get bored with the earlier part and need to wait, but you must persevere to enjoy the whole game.
Your argument doesn't follow. In fact, it doesn't make sense on many levels. The point of seeing pictures of two people intimately involved is so we can imagine ourselves in their place. Seeing pictures of two men together invites the viewer to take the place of one. That is nauseating. One does not have to disapprove of homosexuality to find the idea repulsive for themselves.
As long as I can keep using my own software and hardware, I'll be happy.