Yep. Of course, we've always known for a while that it's possible for biological agents to co-opt other organisms... viruses co-opt cellular functions to reproduce themselves and retroviruses will co-opt the host's DNA itself, often to the detriment of the host organism. Non-viral parasites can also co-opt the metabolic functioning of a host organism or even control the hosts' minds.
So this sort of dog-eat-dog, inter-species warfare (as well as friendly symbiosis and back-scratching) between genes for the purpose of gene replication is nothing new or surprising to people familiar with biology, but what is new is the fact that bacteria apparently interact with the DNA of organisms in ways we didn't quite expect. It's just not something most people quite expected... this is probably a flawed analogy, but it'd be like learning that some turtles can fly. Sure, you can imagine there might be an advantage to the genes belonging to the turtle that can fly, but it's still not something you expect to discover... of course, we understand the qualities turtles have which would prevent them from evolving the necessary characteristics for flight perhaps better than we understand the way bacteria work.
Incidentally, these findings seem to be an additional point of evidence against the common creationist argument that you can't add information to the genome through any known naturalistic mechanism (there is a video out there where Dawkins is supposedly stumped when asked for an example of how this might occur). These findings seem to demonstrate that in addition to other known and speculated mechanisms of genetic change, bacteria can integrate aspects of their genome into that of another organisms. As the article indicates, this may have significant implications for our models of biological evolution. Pretty incredible stuff.
Troll may be more likely than idiot. Though "confused victim of religious indoctrination, cunning deceptions and the piss-poor manner in which schools and the media cover science" is also a legitimate possibility.
No big deal though, I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I like hearing myself type.
And the Neanderthal man was declaired in 1958 by the National Zoological Society to be a man suffering from arthritis.
Can you provide a link? I'd like to see this claim in context, but a quick Google search doesn't seem to turn up anything from the horse's mouth. Are you referring to the 1957 paper by Straus and Cave referenced here?
but microbiology has proven that evolution is no longer a valid argument.
Got a citation for that? I don't know enough about microbiology to evaluate such claims (especially when they lack specifics), but if you could link to an abstract of a paper published in a major peer-reviewed journal of science, which states that the current model of evolution has been falsified by observing irreducible complexity in a microbiological structure (or any biological construct for that matter) then I'll start to consider the possibility that what you've just said here is true.
Until then, it has about as much credibility as any random sample of technobabble from Star Trek, as far as I'm concerned. I may not be able to explain exactly why any particular bit of it is nonsense, but it is a sensible conclusion to reach.
Still, evolution does not prove or dis-prove the creationism,
Depends on what you mean by "creationism." Evolution doesn't disprove the idea that there is a creator who set the whole universe in motion according to an unfathomably complex plan, resulting in the intentional evolution of human beings and every other species on the planet, but it does pretty soundly debunk the accounts of most folks who call themselves "creation scientists" and believe in a 6,000 year old Earth and other nonsense derived from literal interpretations of the Bible.
DNA is a digtial code, it does not change. Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box is a great read.
Maybe you should re-read Darwin's Black Box, then.
Here is how evolution works. You've got an organism, with genes (physically manifested in DNA) which dictate how the organism gets built. Genes can mutate (the DNA changes). Most genetic mutations have a negative impact on a organism's ability to reproduce (pass on their genes), though some improve the lifeform's odds of survival/reproduction. Naturally, the beneficial genes tend to get passed on and are more widely represented in a population than the "negative" mutations, and this is what we call "natural selection." It is this process of genetic mutation acted on by natural selection which was/is responsible (over millions/billions of years) for producing all of the diversity of life seen on the planet, from a single common genetic ancestor (that is, humans descended from some kind of chimp-like ape, who if you go back far enough, probably descended from some sort of shrew-like mammal, who if you go back far enough... you get the picture).
Behe is in agreement with my entire description of evolution.
The difference between Behe and other scientists working in the field is that he think that gene mutations (DNA changes) sometimes happen as a result of the meddling of an intelligent designer. Most everyone else thinks the genes mutate randomly (that is, with no guidance or overarching purpose) and that these mutations happen often enough and in such a way that natural selection is the only "guiding" mechanism required to produce large scale morphological changes, speciation, etc. and the scientific literature reflects this.
It's a review of Behe's latest book (not Black Box), but check out Jerry Coyne's article titled The Great Mutator for a lengthier distillation and robust criticism of Behe's claims.
You seem to be a pretty good example of why I have a problem with ID and other forms of pseudo-
No it isn't. It isn't censorship unless the power of the State is involved,
That's not the only valid definition of the word.
From the American Heritage Dictionary:
censorship 1. the act or practice of censoring.
censoring To examine and expurgate.
From the Oxford American Dictionary of Common English
censor make deletions and changes in
Government doesn't need to be involved for it to be censorship. There can be private/corporate censorship or government censorship. They each have different political implications, but they're both still censorship.
Yes, the demo is DS9-able, but as usual you may have to play around a bit to get the Cardassian, Federation and Bajoran technology to work together properly.
The idea that a machine can become conscious simply by following some "special" set of rules, defies reason and is pure superstition. Since consciousness requires neither sensory inputs nor outputs, such a machine would not need to do anything, and any such rules could be simplified to non-existence.
Strange, what seems superstitious and unreasonable to me is the assertion that consciousness has some ineffable quality that cannot be reproduced mechanically. I also disagree about consciousness not requiring sensory inputs or outputs. I'd say sensory inputs and outputs are absolutely central to consciousness. You can't have be a conscious entity without some form of functioning nervous system, if only one that is so disconnected from the external reality that all it can do is feed back on itself. If you know of any instances (real or even merely hypothetical) that defy my conjecture, I would be interested to hear them.
Of course this is largely a discussion of semantics where the terms aren't very clearly, objectively defined. Ask ten different philosophers, scientists, theologians or just average people what they think "consciousness" is, you'll probably get back ten different answers (many of which are likely to be composed of terms that equally difficult to define, like "thinking," "intelligence," "feelings" and "emotions.") Also in this conversation it depends on what is meant by "rules." The processes that form what we call consciousness are sufficiently subtle and complex that calling them "special rules" may not entirely do them justice. However, as the you can use the word "rules" to describe any coherent set of governing processes, the word does fit, to at least some degree.
There was some interesting debate about this some years ago in Penrose's "The Emperors New Mind" and other articles from Douglas Hofstadter. Computers are rule based. We can convert all those electronic rules to flowcharts on paper. This in turn can be converted to a book. A really big book to be sure, but a book nonetheless. Now imagine if the software that mimiced a human mind were converted to a physical, dead-tree book... Would the book be "conscious" if someone turned the pages depending on the outcome of the rules?
No, the book would not be conscious because a book is a static object incapable of following the rules contained within.
You could write a book on how a microprocessor works, but it wouldn't possess the qualities we think of as inherent to a functioning microprocessor, like the ability to perform calculations.
Likewise, you could write a book with all of the "rules" of consciousness, but the book itself would not be conscious.
If you had a computer that could put all of the rules of consciousness into practice, then you'd have a conscious computer.
If I were a Mars lander, I'd want the same kind of name I want as a human... Herculees Rockafeller, Rembrant Q. Einstine, Hansum B. Wonderfull, Max Power, etc.
Or if I were a female robot, maybe Busty St. Claire or Chesty La Rue.
I don't know if it's necessarily a "trick" or a "fallacy." Saying "it's just a theory" is just another way of saying "there's not enough proof to compel belief."
Well, science doesn't deal in proof, it deals in evidence... and oftentimes, there's more than enough evidence to compel belief. After all, would we say "it's just a theory" about the theory of gravity? The evidence may not be, and will never be sufficient to compel absolute certainty, but belief should be no problem.
They're not trying to imply that it's taken less seriously by the scientific community than other theories, just that they have reason to believe something else, and the evidence doesn't exist of such a nature that would "invalidate" their belief.
Well, it depends on who we're talking about. As I said, "creationists" generally use a somewhat less subtle approach, more easily identifiable as logically fallacious equivocation. One minute they'll tell you "it's just a theory," and the next, invoke the second "LAW" of thermodynamics to refute evolution -- for some reason, they almost never see fit to remind us that the entire scientific model of thermodynamics (or any other well-subscribed, religiously inoffensive science) is also "just a theory."
Intelligent Design is all about casting doubt on evolution and people who understand ID usually don't make the "just a theory" equivocation argument, but as I said, many attempt to create an impression that ID is scientific -- a genuine theory of science, just like evolution (only better, more correct!) The problem is that ID, scientifically speaking, hasn't earned the right to be called a theory, the same way the theory of evolution has. It'd be more accurate to say it's a conjecture. Those aspects of ID that haven't been effectively refuted by evidence or rational examination are sometimes impossible to produce evidence against, because of how they've defined their belief in such a way that it cannot be falsified, which is another reason (besides the dearth of supporting evidence) that it's not a valid scientific theory. ID lacks predictive power, a requisite quality for any good scientific theory. It's pretty clear now that ID hasn't been arrived at or verified through honest application of the scientific method.
Intelligent Design could be correct. Heck, even young Earth creationism could be correct... but neither are really worthy of being called science.
In this day and age, I think "it's just a theory" is a useful reminder, equally applicable to all areas of science, given a populous who increasingly treats scientific theories as if they were divine dictates handed down from a priesthood.
That's funny, because in this day and age, I'm more worried about a populace that treats divine dictates handed down from a priesthood as having more weight and credibility than well-tested scientific theories.
The real danger lies with a scientifically illiterate public, who are unable to distinguish junk science and pseudo-science from the real thing -- or those who behave as if some kind of superstition is just as good, right and reliable as science (if it's not in fact what they consciously believe).
No, what they do is to point out that the "random mutation" aspect of the neodarwinian theory of evolution is unsupported, and in fact unsupportable, by the evidence presented in actual biological systems.
This partially correct. What they do is try to poke a hole in Darwinian evolutionary theory and then proceed to fill the newly manufactured gap with a premise that is even less supported and supportable by the evidence -- a god-like Designer.
The basic argument of Intelligent Design advocates (or at least Behe) is that evolution occurs as a result of both random and intelligently guided mutation combined with natural selection. The theory of evolution that gets written about in peer-reviewed papers supposes that the mutations occur naturally and randomly (which is not to say each mutation is equally likely to occur, or that any mutation is possible -- just that the mutations themselves do not seem to occur with any bias towards reproductive fitness, or any "intelligent" bias) -- which is consistent with all of the available evidence.
ID advocates equivocate not necessarily by disparaging the theory of evolution for being a mere "theory," but by calling ID itself a theory and putting it on seemingly equal footing with ToE. Creationists use the word "theory" to denigrate evolution, to create a false impression of uncertainty. IDers use the word "theory" to elevate Intelligent Design and create a false impression of scientific credibility. Same basic trick, same basic fallacy.
Your strategy of waiting for titles to hit the bargain bin is not guaranteed to work.
No, but on the whole the strategy will save you a good deal of money over time, if you buy a reasonable number of games.
Why do games like Earthbound for Super NES and Rez for PlayStation 2 cost more now than they did new?
Because those are classic, out of print games. They're almost what you'd call vintage. If you wait too long the games essentially become antiques and you end up having to pay what a hobbyist collector would pay for them, if you want to own them legitimately and the game hasn't been re-released for a more modern platform. In the vast majority of cases, however, if you don't wait one or two console generations worth of time to elapse before purchasing the game you had your eye on, a little patience will save you a good chunk of money on any given title.
You may get bit by the few exceptions to the rule, from time to time. There will sometimes be some ups and downs, and some games may not experience much of a price dip. Katamari Damancy was originally priced at $19.99 and when it became a runaway success, all the copies were sold out, and they released a more expensive sequel without producing more copies of the original. If you wanted Katamari, for a while there, you'd have to pay in the neighborhood of $50 or so on eBay. However, it recently went back into print and you can once again buy it brand new for $20. Something similar happened with a few DS games, I know, and the price on the Guitar Hero games has been pretty stable since release as well.
By and large though, it makes a lot of sense to wait. Of course, if everybody waited, it would lose some of its efficacy as a smart shopping tactic, so I'm glad for all of the impatient gamers and early adopters. It allows a cheapskate like me to thrive off the bargain bin and cheap, used and perfectly playable games.
I'm sorry, but consciousness -- the most unfathomable, beautiful thing any of us has ever conceived of or experienced -- is just a tool for making copies of DNA? Something that bacteria do FAR more successfully WITHOUT consciousness? Do you actually believe that? To me that falls squarely in the category of an absurdity that would require extraordinary evidence to even consider.
As far as the origins of consciousness go, yes. Bacteria fills one ecological niche, other non-conscious organisms (such as plants) another, while thinking animals fill yet another.
Of course, for conscious beings, consciousness has implications that go far beyond that... but you have to take my comment in context, based on the discussion we were having of what "Mother Nature" cares about, or doesn't.
The world is teaming with evidence. There are things very much like scientific methodology. On both counts, read Swedenborg, e.g., "Heaven and Hell". It's tempting for one who is ignorant to say, "we're all equally ignorant," as I also used to say, but we're not.
First, please explain to what scientific methodology this this Swedenborg employs to empirically verify the relevant observations and to test and verify his hypotheses. A cursory search on the title provided leads me to believe he was exactly the sort of "authority" we should be wary of when searching for the truth. I have only so much time to waste on the rantings of crackpots, pretenders, liars, madmen, or frankly, any theologian.
Now I'm not a born-again sort-of-dude (heck, by no means) but it does seem extremely wasteful of mother nature to just toss away the contents when the container wears out. No doubt there's other more suitable metaphors but that's one I picked on.
If by "contents" you mean things like consciousness and identity, I see no evidence that Mother Nature gives a damn about them. Consciousness is just a useful tool for allowing our genes to produce copies of themselves -- a goal which the genes themselves, of course, are not conscious of.
Maybe cliniically dead =/ dead? Is there a metaphysicist in the house?
No help here, I'm afraid. I'm a fairly strict naturalist. Although there is a valid medical distinction between different kinds of "deaths" and one type of death may have different, true metaphysical consequences than another type of death... there is no good empirical evidence that I'm aware of that suggests that hypothesis has any merit.
Anybody can look at what we know and define an invisible system of metaphysics beyond the limits of our knowledge. Without evidence or something like a scientific methodology for testing our speculations, however, I don't really see where any of that gets us, or why we should credit any book, legend, priest, psychic medium or anything/anybody else as a credible authority on these matters. We're all equally ignorant on this subject... some just think (or pretend) otherwise.
Most of the references to such things I've seen have regarded disputes between players - what about disputes between players and Linden themselves?
Read the article linked in the parent post. It is actually a dispute between a player and Linden Labs. Linden "seized" his virtual land and shut down his SL account because he took advantage of a bug or design oversight of some sort to access land auctions that were not yet publicly listed, thus he was able to get them for dirt cheap. The guy took LL to court for taking possession of his "property." It'll be interesting to see how it plays out, and to see how those clauses you mention, if LL actually has them, actually hold up in light of the manner in which LL advertises their service.
Why are video game characters able to come so close to a lava pool and get hurt only on contact? True, some Metroid games have entire hot rooms that will hurt Samus without a suit upgrade, but why aren't all rooms containing lava considered "hot rooms"?
So they can utilize interesting, cool and dangerous-looking environments? If just getting near lava killed you, it'd be kind of pointless to have in the game. It's not that hard to suspend disbelief. I mean, if you're playing a Mario game where mushrooms make you double in size and a leaf turns you into a flying anthropomorphic raccoon. In the Metroid games, you can just assume that Samus' basic power suit has some thermal protection, but for extremely hot areas, the varia upgrade is necessary.
I'd probably say that ability is worth (depending on the accuracy) at least $60 billion, so at least 0.025% chance of success. When you think like that, it's easy to see how some truely random projects get funded. Heck, I can probably convince most people here they stood a 0.025% chance of almost anything.
Exactly. Like I said, people lack robust critical thinking skills.
I'm not sure if the reasoning you're offering up here is something you seriously think makes sense, or if you're just throwing it out there as an example of the kind of bad logic that often goes unchecked among people.
In any case, your example is a case of faulty thinking, because, first, it puts the cart before the horse. Before you can have an accurate, orbital mind reading device, you need some reliable method of reading minds at all. With our present understanding of the human brain, even with the benefit of point-blank brain scanning procedures, (PET, MRI, EEG) we can't get glean any really useful information about the specifics of what a person is thinking (about matters that would be of relevance to national security). That's a vital component of the proposed technology. Next you need a way of getting the necessary info about a person's brain activity without sticking electrodes to their head or having them lie perfectly still in a claustrophobic tube. Then you need to extend the range to orbital distances. You also need to make sure the mind-reading device can actually function in space... it needs to be mechanically reliable and able to power itself and be able to cope with the radiation and junk that is normally filtered out by the atmosphere.
The hurdles are too tall, and the underlying technology and knowledge just isn't close to being there. It'd be kind of like trying to build a multimedia Internet a couple years after the development of the telegraph. While a forward thinker would have been able to perhaps imagine that such a thing is conceptually possible, it's pretty pointless to define that as a short to mid-range goal.
Another reason why your proffered reasoning doesn't work is that you say $15 million for a feasibility study (I just performed one for you for considerably cheaper, though I'm not a professional in the pertinent fields.) Say the feasibility study says there is a 0.025% (1 in 4000) chance that the mind-reading satellite can be built. Having performed this study doesn't give you a functioning orbital mind-reading device -- so the $60 billion benefit has not be reaped (to be fair, such a satellite would probably be worth considerably more, though as you say, it would depend on the detail and accuracy of the info provided by the device).
What you get out of your $15 million study is the knowledge that the project is not worth embarking upon, because of the costs of developing and building the satellite combined with the odds of success. If the satellite were to cost, say, $50 billion to create (an extremely conservative estimate) then by your measure, the satellite would need to be worth $240 trillion.
This is what came to mind for me to well, as well as the also previously mentioned forays of the CIA into physic espionage, the MKULTRA efforts at brainwashing and mind control, etc.
I see it as a symptom of the scientific illiteracy pervasive in our culture, which apparently penetrates the military and our "intelligence" agencies to some degree.
We pay for an educational system does tries only weakly to teach of vital critical thinking skills and the basic methodologies and facts of science (and in some ways, these things are actively stifled in the system) in the form of squandered tax dollars on dubious projects such as these and our costly militarism in general (see the various pretenses employed in the run up to the war in Iraq, and the credulous acceptance of them by our representatives in Congress and in the public at large).
I would not be sure about that. When a person connected to a heart-lung machine dies during an operation, the chemistry is still there and working, but the person is _dead_. They had a case in Germany where they kept a pregnant woman on the support machine for several weeks. She was brain dead but her body and the whole "chemistry" was still there.
If anything, that just serves to illustrate my point. Life is not always simple, binary function. If you lack a heartbeat, you're said to be clinically dead, but your body is still composed of billions of living cells. If you're in a persistent vegetative state ("brain dead"), your existence as a conscious entity may be at a definitive end, but a lot of the chemistry that's going on your body is still life, unless you're going to define life as requiring consciousness. If you do that, bacteria, plants, fungi, etc. no longer qualify as living organisms.
IMHO, life is not something that can be made by man. All they are doing in TFA is a bunch of fancy chemistry.
When you come right down to it, life is fancy chemistry and nothing more. Life could also be described as "really fancy physics," if you wanted to. There is no clear line between when chemistry stops and biology begins, hence the term biochemistry.
True life is not made by one of life's own evolutionary steps, which is all that man is.
On the contrary, all life is made by one of life's own evolutionary steps. That's a pretty vital component of how and why evolution works.
If, for arguments sake, believing in the Norse Gods results in that child being a better member of society, then wouldn't that be a good thing?
It depends on what's meant by "a better member of society." If believing in the Norse pantheon made for considerably more honest, hardworking citizens with more enlightened humanitarian values, without dulling their critical faculties or generating excessive hostility towards science, or out-group violence and bigotry... if it cultivated respect for civil liberties, the rule of law and a robust and an intellectually honest sense justice without encouraging blind obedience... then yes, it would probably be a good thing, on the whole, for people to believe in Wotan, Thor and even Loki.
That is about as hypothetical as hypothetical scenarios get, however. In reality, religiosity in a population seems to correlate negatively (or at best, neutrally) with what would generally be regarded as "good qualities" in a society (low rates of violent crime and poverty, for instance.) This doesn't prove a causative link between religion and "bad stuff," but it is consistent with my intuition that moral and social progress generally happens in spite of religion rather than because of it.
As far as I'm concerned, beliefs (though not insignificant) are far less important than consequences, and dogmatism, not religion, is the real enemy. Indoctrinating children into a certain set of beliefs, whether they are religious or political, is in general a bad idea, and in my opinion, is a form of abuse. That's not to say children shouldn't be given rules and guidelines to follow (if nothing else, for their own safety), but they should be exposed to a breadth of ideas about religion in their highly suggestible and formative years, if they are to be exposed to any such ideas at all, to give those beliefs the proper context and to give them an actual honest-to-goodness choice about what to think.
have no idea how long this has been mandatory here in Sweden, but I do know it's quite a while now. Religion is a mandatory subject up to and including high school.
Yes, and just look at how well that's ended up for you Swedes! Something like 70-85% of the population doesn't even believe in a personal god. What good is it educating people about religion if it doesn't make them more religious?! It could be that exposing students to such a variety of beliefs actually makes them less religious. Why would we want the government giving our children an education that may result in them choosing to doom their souls for eternity?
Sarcasm off.
Again, what explanation could there possibly be for NOT teaching religion in school? Why would you not want to know everything there is to know about all religions, so that you can make a conscious decision for yourself what teaching you want to follow? As a Swedish citizen who, admittedly, has never been in the USA, I just can't understand that.
The religious majority and the lobbyists who represent them have nothing to gain by allowing people to make a more informed decision about what religion (if any) to follow. They want a loyal flock of sheep, not a diversity of independent thinkers.
This is why "prayer in school" is such a hot button issue, but almost nobody in the political sphere talks seriously about the merits and consequences of teaching comparative religion in primary school, which is something that (unlike prayer) actually has some educational relevance.
The asteroid belt is full of resources and the great thing about them is that they are already in space. We should start cataloging them and marking the ones that have necessary things like water, iron, gold, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep. Of course, we've always known for a while that it's possible for biological agents to co-opt other organisms ... viruses co-opt cellular functions to reproduce themselves and retroviruses will co-opt the host's DNA itself, often to the detriment of the host organism. Non-viral parasites can also co-opt the metabolic functioning of a host organism or even control the hosts' minds.
... this is probably a flawed analogy, but it'd be like learning that some turtles can fly. Sure, you can imagine there might be an advantage to the genes belonging to the turtle that can fly, but it's still not something you expect to discover ... of course, we understand the qualities turtles have which would prevent them from evolving the necessary characteristics for flight perhaps better than we understand the way bacteria work.
So this sort of dog-eat-dog, inter-species warfare (as well as friendly symbiosis and back-scratching) between genes for the purpose of gene replication is nothing new or surprising to people familiar with biology, but what is new is the fact that bacteria apparently interact with the DNA of organisms in ways we didn't quite expect. It's just not something most people quite expected
Incidentally, these findings seem to be an additional point of evidence against the common creationist argument that you can't add information to the genome through any known naturalistic mechanism (there is a video out there where Dawkins is supposedly stumped when asked for an example of how this might occur). These findings seem to demonstrate that in addition to other known and speculated mechanisms of genetic change, bacteria can integrate aspects of their genome into that of another organisms. As the article indicates, this may have significant implications for our models of biological evolution. Pretty incredible stuff.
Troll may be more likely than idiot. Though "confused victim of religious indoctrination, cunning deceptions and the piss-poor manner in which schools and the media cover science" is also a legitimate possibility.
No big deal though, I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I like hearing myself type.
Can you provide a link? I'd like to see this claim in context, but a quick Google search doesn't seem to turn up anything from the horse's mouth. Are you referring to the 1957 paper by Straus and Cave referenced here?
Got a citation for that? I don't know enough about microbiology to evaluate such claims (especially when they lack specifics), but if you could link to an abstract of a paper published in a major peer-reviewed journal of science, which states that the current model of evolution has been falsified by observing irreducible complexity in a microbiological structure (or any biological construct for that matter) then I'll start to consider the possibility that what you've just said here is true.
Until then, it has about as much credibility as any random sample of technobabble from Star Trek, as far as I'm concerned. I may not be able to explain exactly why any particular bit of it is nonsense, but it is a sensible conclusion to reach.
Depends on what you mean by "creationism." Evolution doesn't disprove the idea that there is a creator who set the whole universe in motion according to an unfathomably complex plan, resulting in the intentional evolution of human beings and every other species on the planet, but it does pretty soundly debunk the accounts of most folks who call themselves "creation scientists" and believe in a 6,000 year old Earth and other nonsense derived from literal interpretations of the Bible.
Maybe you should re-read Darwin's Black Box, then.
... you get the picture).
Here is how evolution works. You've got an organism, with genes (physically manifested in DNA) which dictate how the organism gets built. Genes can mutate (the DNA changes). Most genetic mutations have a negative impact on a organism's ability to reproduce (pass on their genes), though some improve the lifeform's odds of survival/reproduction. Naturally, the beneficial genes tend to get passed on and are more widely represented in a population than the "negative" mutations, and this is what we call "natural selection." It is this process of genetic mutation acted on by natural selection which was/is responsible (over millions/billions of years) for producing all of the diversity of life seen on the planet, from a single common genetic ancestor (that is, humans descended from some kind of chimp-like ape, who if you go back far enough, probably descended from some sort of shrew-like mammal, who if you go back far enough
Behe is in agreement with my entire description of evolution.
The difference between Behe and other scientists working in the field is that he think that gene mutations (DNA changes) sometimes happen as a result of the meddling of an intelligent designer. Most everyone else thinks the genes mutate randomly (that is, with no guidance or overarching purpose) and that these mutations happen often enough and in such a way that natural selection is the only "guiding" mechanism required to produce large scale morphological changes, speciation, etc. and the scientific literature reflects this.
It's a review of Behe's latest book (not Black Box), but check out Jerry Coyne's article titled The Great Mutator for a lengthier distillation and robust criticism of Behe's claims.
You seem to be a pretty good example of why I have a problem with ID and other forms of pseudo-
Well said. You expressed your point so clearly, even a woman could understand it!
From the American Heritage Dictionary:From the Oxford American Dictionary of Common EnglishGovernment doesn't need to be involved for it to be censorship. There can be private/corporate censorship or government censorship. They each have different political implications, but they're both still censorship.
Yes, the demo is DS9-able, but as usual you may have to play around a bit to get the Cardassian, Federation and Bajoran technology to work together properly.
Strange, what seems superstitious and unreasonable to me is the assertion that consciousness has some ineffable quality that cannot be reproduced mechanically. I also disagree about consciousness not requiring sensory inputs or outputs. I'd say sensory inputs and outputs are absolutely central to consciousness. You can't have be a conscious entity without some form of functioning nervous system, if only one that is so disconnected from the external reality that all it can do is feed back on itself. If you know of any instances (real or even merely hypothetical) that defy my conjecture, I would be interested to hear them.
Of course this is largely a discussion of semantics where the terms aren't very clearly, objectively defined. Ask ten different philosophers, scientists, theologians or just average people what they think "consciousness" is, you'll probably get back ten different answers (many of which are likely to be composed of terms that equally difficult to define, like "thinking," "intelligence," "feelings" and "emotions.") Also in this conversation it depends on what is meant by "rules." The processes that form what we call consciousness are sufficiently subtle and complex that calling them "special rules" may not entirely do them justice. However, as the you can use the word "rules" to describe any coherent set of governing processes, the word does fit, to at least some degree.
No, the book would not be conscious because a book is a static object incapable of following the rules contained within.
You could write a book on how a microprocessor works, but it wouldn't possess the qualities we think of as inherent to a functioning microprocessor, like the ability to perform calculations.
Likewise, you could write a book with all of the "rules" of consciousness, but the book itself would not be conscious.
If you had a computer that could put all of the rules of consciousness into practice, then you'd have a conscious computer.
If I were a Mars lander, I'd want the same kind of name I want as a human ... Herculees Rockafeller, Rembrant Q. Einstine, Hansum B. Wonderfull, Max Power, etc.
Or if I were a female robot, maybe Busty St. Claire or Chesty La Rue.
Well, science doesn't deal in proof, it deals in evidence
Well, it depends on who we're talking about. As I said, "creationists" generally use a somewhat less subtle approach, more easily identifiable as logically fallacious equivocation. One minute they'll tell you "it's just a theory," and the next, invoke the second "LAW" of thermodynamics to refute evolution -- for some reason, they almost never see fit to remind us that the entire scientific model of thermodynamics (or any other well-subscribed, religiously inoffensive science) is also "just a theory."
Intelligent Design is all about casting doubt on evolution and people who understand ID usually don't make the "just a theory" equivocation argument, but as I said, many attempt to create an impression that ID is scientific -- a genuine theory of science, just like evolution (only better, more correct!) The problem is that ID, scientifically speaking, hasn't earned the right to be called a theory, the same way the theory of evolution has. It'd be more accurate to say it's a conjecture. Those aspects of ID that haven't been effectively refuted by evidence or rational examination are sometimes impossible to produce evidence against, because of how they've defined their belief in such a way that it cannot be falsified, which is another reason (besides the dearth of supporting evidence) that it's not a valid scientific theory. ID lacks predictive power, a requisite quality for any good scientific theory. It's pretty clear now that ID hasn't been arrived at or verified through honest application of the scientific method.
Intelligent Design could be correct. Heck, even young Earth creationism could be correct
That's funny, because in this day and age, I'm more worried about a populace that treats divine dictates handed down from a priesthood as having more weight and credibility than well-tested scientific theories.
The real danger lies with a scientifically illiterate public, who are unable to distinguish junk science and pseudo-science from the real thing -- or those who behave as if some kind of superstition is just as good, right and reliable as science (if it's not in fact what they consciously believe).
This partially correct. What they do is try to poke a hole in Darwinian evolutionary theory and then proceed to fill the newly manufactured gap with a premise that is even less supported and supportable by the evidence -- a god-like Designer.
The basic argument of Intelligent Design advocates (or at least Behe) is that evolution occurs as a result of both random and intelligently guided mutation combined with natural selection. The theory of evolution that gets written about in peer-reviewed papers supposes that the mutations occur naturally and randomly (which is not to say each mutation is equally likely to occur, or that any mutation is possible -- just that the mutations themselves do not seem to occur with any bias towards reproductive fitness, or any "intelligent" bias) -- which is consistent with all of the available evidence.
ID advocates equivocate not necessarily by disparaging the theory of evolution for being a mere "theory," but by calling ID itself a theory and putting it on seemingly equal footing with ToE. Creationists use the word "theory" to denigrate evolution, to create a false impression of uncertainty. IDers use the word "theory" to elevate Intelligent Design and create a false impression of scientific credibility. Same basic trick, same basic fallacy.
No, but on the whole the strategy will save you a good deal of money over time, if you buy a reasonable number of games.
Because those are classic, out of print games. They're almost what you'd call vintage. If you wait too long the games essentially become antiques and you end up having to pay what a hobbyist collector would pay for them, if you want to own them legitimately and the game hasn't been re-released for a more modern platform. In the vast majority of cases, however, if you don't wait one or two console generations worth of time to elapse before purchasing the game you had your eye on, a little patience will save you a good chunk of money on any given title.
You may get bit by the few exceptions to the rule, from time to time. There will sometimes be some ups and downs, and some games may not experience much of a price dip. Katamari Damancy was originally priced at $19.99 and when it became a runaway success, all the copies were sold out, and they released a more expensive sequel without producing more copies of the original. If you wanted Katamari, for a while there, you'd have to pay in the neighborhood of $50 or so on eBay. However, it recently went back into print and you can once again buy it brand new for $20. Something similar happened with a few DS games, I know, and the price on the Guitar Hero games has been pretty stable since release as well.
By and large though, it makes a lot of sense to wait. Of course, if everybody waited, it would lose some of its efficacy as a smart shopping tactic, so I'm glad for all of the impatient gamers and early adopters. It allows a cheapskate like me to thrive off the bargain bin and cheap, used and perfectly playable games.
As far as the origins of consciousness go, yes. Bacteria fills one ecological niche, other non-conscious organisms (such as plants) another, while thinking animals fill yet another.
Of course, for conscious beings, consciousness has implications that go far beyond that
First, please explain to what scientific methodology this this Swedenborg employs to empirically verify the relevant observations and to test and verify his hypotheses. A cursory search on the title provided leads me to believe he was exactly the sort of "authority" we should be wary of when searching for the truth. I have only so much time to waste on the rantings of crackpots, pretenders, liars, madmen, or frankly, any theologian.
If by "contents" you mean things like consciousness and identity, I see no evidence that Mother Nature gives a damn about them. Consciousness is just a useful tool for allowing our genes to produce copies of themselves -- a goal which the genes themselves, of course, are not conscious of.
No help here, I'm afraid. I'm a fairly strict naturalist. Although there is a valid medical distinction between different kinds of "deaths" and one type of death may have different, true metaphysical consequences than another type of death
Anybody can look at what we know and define an invisible system of metaphysics beyond the limits of our knowledge. Without evidence or something like a scientific methodology for testing our speculations, however, I don't really see where any of that gets us, or why we should credit any book, legend, priest, psychic medium or anything/anybody else as a credible authority on these matters. We're all equally ignorant on this subject
So they can utilize interesting, cool and dangerous-looking environments? If just getting near lava killed you, it'd be kind of pointless to have in the game. It's not that hard to suspend disbelief. I mean, if you're playing a Mario game where mushrooms make you double in size and a leaf turns you into a flying anthropomorphic raccoon. In the Metroid games, you can just assume that Samus' basic power suit has some thermal protection, but for extremely hot areas, the varia upgrade is necessary.
Exactly. Like I said, people lack robust critical thinking skills.
I'm not sure if the reasoning you're offering up here is something you seriously think makes sense, or if you're just throwing it out there as an example of the kind of bad logic that often goes unchecked among people.
In any case, your example is a case of faulty thinking, because, first, it puts the cart before the horse. Before you can have an accurate, orbital mind reading device, you need some reliable method of reading minds at all. With our present understanding of the human brain, even with the benefit of point-blank brain scanning procedures, (PET, MRI, EEG) we can't get glean any really useful information about the specifics of what a person is thinking (about matters that would be of relevance to national security). That's a vital component of the proposed technology. Next you need a way of getting the necessary info about a person's brain activity without sticking electrodes to their head or having them lie perfectly still in a claustrophobic tube. Then you need to extend the range to orbital distances. You also need to make sure the mind-reading device can actually function in space
The hurdles are too tall, and the underlying technology and knowledge just isn't close to being there. It'd be kind of like trying to build a multimedia Internet a couple years after the development of the telegraph. While a forward thinker would have been able to perhaps imagine that such a thing is conceptually possible, it's pretty pointless to define that as a short to mid-range goal.
Another reason why your proffered reasoning doesn't work is that you say $15 million for a feasibility study (I just performed one for you for considerably cheaper, though I'm not a professional in the pertinent fields.) Say the feasibility study says there is a 0.025% (1 in 4000) chance that the mind-reading satellite can be built. Having performed this study doesn't give you a functioning orbital mind-reading device -- so the $60 billion benefit has not be reaped (to be fair, such a satellite would probably be worth considerably more, though as you say, it would depend on the detail and accuracy of the info provided by the device).
What you get out of your $15 million study is the knowledge that the project is not worth embarking upon, because of the costs of developing and building the satellite combined with the odds of success. If the satellite were to cost, say, $50 billion to create (an extremely conservative estimate) then by your measure, the satellite would need to be worth $240 trillion.
No
This is what came to mind for me to well, as well as the also previously mentioned forays of the CIA into physic espionage, the MKULTRA efforts at brainwashing and mind control, etc.
I see it as a symptom of the scientific illiteracy pervasive in our culture, which apparently penetrates the military and our "intelligence" agencies to some degree.
We pay for an educational system does tries only weakly to teach of vital critical thinking skills and the basic methodologies and facts of science (and in some ways, these things are actively stifled in the system) in the form of squandered tax dollars on dubious projects such as these and our costly militarism in general (see the various pretenses employed in the run up to the war in Iraq, and the credulous acceptance of them by our representatives in Congress and in the public at large).
biochemistry.On the contrary, all life is made by one of life's own evolutionary steps. That's a pretty vital component of how and why evolution works.
It depends on what's meant by "a better member of society." If believing in the Norse pantheon made for considerably more honest, hardworking citizens with more enlightened humanitarian values, without dulling their critical faculties or generating excessive hostility towards science, or out-group violence and bigotry
That is about as hypothetical as hypothetical scenarios get, however. In reality, religiosity in a population seems to correlate negatively (or at best, neutrally) with what would generally be regarded as "good qualities" in a society (low rates of violent crime and poverty, for instance.) This doesn't prove a causative link between religion and "bad stuff," but it is consistent with my intuition that moral and social progress generally happens in spite of religion rather than because of it.
As far as I'm concerned, beliefs (though not insignificant) are far less important than consequences, and dogmatism, not religion, is the real enemy. Indoctrinating children into a certain set of beliefs, whether they are religious or political, is in general a bad idea, and in my opinion, is a form of abuse. That's not to say children shouldn't be given rules and guidelines to follow (if nothing else, for their own safety), but they should be exposed to a breadth of ideas about religion in their highly suggestible and formative years, if they are to be exposed to any such ideas at all, to give those beliefs the proper context and to give them an actual honest-to-goodness choice about what to think.
Yes, and just look at how well that's ended up for you Swedes! Something like 70-85% of the population doesn't even believe in a personal god. What good is it educating people about religion if it doesn't make them more religious?! It could be that exposing students to such a variety of beliefs actually makes them less religious. Why would we want the government giving our children an education that may result in them choosing to doom their souls for eternity?
Sarcasm off.
The religious majority and the lobbyists who represent them have nothing to gain by allowing people to make a more informed decision about what religion (if any) to follow. They want a loyal flock of sheep, not a diversity of independent thinkers.
This is why "prayer in school" is such a hot button issue, but almost nobody in the political sphere talks seriously about the merits and consequences of teaching comparative religion in primary school, which is something that (unlike prayer) actually has some educational relevance.