Strictly speaking there is zero scientific evidence supporting ID so there is zero scientific basis to believe in it. This is not exactly the same as saying there is no intelligent design...but it does mean that there is no way to teach it scientifically except as to say that.
It seems a bit too soon for life to evolve by too haphazard a route in that time.
It does? So how long should it take life to first evolve then? Even if you have a reasoned, evidence-based argument you need to remember that we are looking at a statistical sample of 1 so it is impossible to say whether we got lucky, and life evolved quicker than normal, or whether there was a reason for it. Certainly your vague 'feeling' about long life ought to have taken is absolutely no scientific basis for believing in Intelligent Design.
Don't the british carry their drivers license? (its what an ID card is in Canada) How do you ID at pubs?
The British license is not like the Canadian one in that there is no photograph on it and it is valid until you turn 70 years old (as long as you are younger than 70 when you get it otherwise I think it is valid for something like 5 years?). I'm not sure if they have now added a photo to it (seem to remember something about that) but as an ID it is useless for a majority of people who have the old style. But that is fine, it is not meant to be an ID it is meant to show that you know how to drive.
True, but if we agree that parents have jurisdiction here, that includes not only the right to discipline, but also the right to NOT discipline, if they so choose.
No, society has juristiction in that society does not want children to grow up learning that this sort of behaviour is ok. Society normally gives that responsibility to the parents and gives them some leeway in deciding things for themselves. However, when parents abdicate all responsibility, as they seem to have here, then society can take back that resposibility. In this regard I would argue that a school is a far better agent of society to educate the child than the courts and so I think they absolutely did the right thing.
But whether or not they do so doesnt give us the right to say that it becomes the schools place to step in.
If they are in their own house and the effects are confined to that then I'd agree. Putting slanderous material out there goes beyond their privacy and needs corrective action to be taken by society (since the parents are not doing it) because otherwise society will be harmed when the child grows up. The fact that the school chose to be the agent of society in correcting this behaviour rather than the courts should be applauded. Instead of quoting rights why not think about what the best way to educate this child is? I would argue that a school is infinitely better at this than a court.
When schools extend their jurisdiction into the home, they are treading on the parent turf, and I think that is really the problem with this case.
So the kid never discussed this website with her friends while at school? Suppose the kid wrote the message in her homework while at home and handed it in - would that count? While I agree the connection is somewhat more tenuous than things occurring in school this is clearly relevant to the pupil-school interaction and so they do have some claim. If I'd have stood just outside the school grounds and hurled verbal insults at teachers just after school was finished I'd have got into real trouble and with good cause. How is this different?
I agree that the parents SHOULD be disciplining the child. Unfortunately they seem to be backing the appalling behaviour of their offspring and going up against the school which is an atrocious lesson to teach the child: "behave badly and if you don't like the punishment hire a lawyer and sue".
Gmail offers email addresses with *no advertising* to Universities and their students for free. If there is still scanning going on, it's probably for spam filtering, and I'll bet that most email providers will scan for viruses and spam anyway -- not just google.
Who knows? Perhaps they generate demographics but don't use it via GMail? Apparently all the agreement saysis that you agree to let them scan your mail - the purpose is not specified nor what information they keep.
If they're worried about privacy, may be they shouldn't be using email period (unless it's encrypted).
They are not worried about someone hacking into the system and stealing personal, private information (that can happen to files in an office) which is all encryption prevents. What they are worried about is that the US government will obtain access and use that to pursue a student - an under US law they can force you to reveal the keys. If that happens the student can probably sue the University for breach of privacy.
No, instead of banning things. I'd suggest you guys provide your students with free substitutes.
We already do - there is no reason to use GMail, everyone has a free account accessible via IMAP, POP and Webmail. However some people prefer GMail because they are used to it. Sure, if you are really determined you can set up a forwarding chain to get you email to GMail but at that point the University no longer has responsibility and you will be personally liable.
Why do you think that a court of law is a good place to administer discipline to a child? She's a kid. What she did was wrong so she needs to be punished in a reasonable way. This is what happened so why on earth do lawyers need to be involved? All they do is suck up time and money and the result will be that either she'll get of scot-free or have some huge financial bill against her (legal costs if not damages as well).....and this would somehow be better?
This is a civil matter, not a school disciplinary one. If the principal is so adamant for punishment, his principle's should have guided him to a civil suit, which IMHO, he would have won.
Perhaps his principles were saying: she's only a kid who needs to be taught a lesson and not have her life ruined by huge monetary damages against her and her parents which would like prevent her going to university etc. Law courts are NOT a place to discipline children!
I hope you actually meant to say "Right up until it is not true and does harm to another person.". If the only criteria were harm, regardless of truth, there would be no sort of free speech at all and criticism of a government would be impossible.
The courts have long held that school is different from work, and that you do not give up your rights merely by being a student.
This raises the question of what rights a child should actually have. Given that the law shields them from the full consequences in exercising free speech (reasoning: they are only kids and cannot be expected to know fully the consequences of what they are doing) why should they enjoy the full, adult rights of free speech for exactly the same reason: they don't know how to use it responsibly? Indeed they already have restrictions on the literature and viewing material they can purchase, so why is it unreasonable to also impose restrictions on their free speech especially given a case like this where it is being abused in such a fashion?
Sorry but you are completely wrong. I'm guessing you don't know too much about the different fields of physics. There is atomic physics (study of atoms), nuclear physics (study of the atomic nucleus) and particle physics (study of the fundamental particles which make up everything).
Rutherford's experiment gave birth to nuclear physics. MRI, or to give it its proper name: nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is nuclear physics, as are radio-isotopes and nuclear power. Chemo, as the name suggests, has nothing whatsoever to do with physics (unless you count chemistry and biology as applied specializations of physics). CAT scans use X-rays which are atomic physics. Even calling PET scans particle physics is a little generous since really it is nuclear physics (isotope decay) and only the positron annihilation can really be considered particle physics.
Keep offering email services. GMail is not an acceptable alternative in many situations. In the Canadian University where I'm a faculty member some groups refuse to send mail to gmail addresses because Google scans all mail (this violates privacy contracts on some research material). This will affect final year undergrads and grad students mostly and already occurs. In addition things like the US "patriot" act mean that provincial privacy laws in many cases make Universities very uneasy to send any private information to gmail addresses due to the server location in the US - our University has not yet refused gmail addresses but they are working up to some sort of policy which will probably do so.
Experimental particle physics never brought us CAT scans, PET scans, MRIs, chemo, radio-isotope dating, nuclear power, and it certainly has not brought us electricity or advanced transister production.
I'm guessing you were attempting to be sarcastic but got it wrong. Experimental particle physics did bring us PET but it did not bring us the rest. Fundamental physics in general did (mainly quantum and nuclear) but not particle physics. This is because quantum and nuclear physics are a lot older than particle physics and it usually takes several decades before discoveries this fundamental trickle down into applications. One you forgot though is that Experimental particle physics did give us the web.
And before I hear a "oh oh oh but the web was invented at CERN", what is your point? (1) The invention had nothing to do with CERN itself; (2) the majority of ingredients already existed in not quite the same form
The invention had everything to do with CERN. Nowhere else had a group of people scattered halfway around the world with a need for extremely detailed and precise communications and a small enough travel budget that they could not always just fly out and meet whenever they wanted. Of course now there are lots of such groups now but that is because of the web.
This is why I am a mathematician and not a scientist.
I would certainly agree with the last half of your statement. However mathematics is one of the sciences.
The admins at scientific labs like CERN are basically doing a heroic job despite the best efforts of their users to be as awkward as possible.
I'd disagree with that. Many physicists are simply trying to run their code and are generally ignorant of the inner workings of their computers, mainly because they are not interested, not from lack of ability.
I've taken down the UK particle physics cluter farm (the tier 1 in grid speak)
Reminds me of the time as a grad student when I "took over" the old CSF cluster at RAL and blocked out all the LEP experiments for a weekend. They weren't too pleased about that...although I seem to remember that they were more interested in how I'd done it. I can hardly be blamed if their batch queue system had a priority flag for jobs which a user could set now could I? It was in the man page...
Slashdot Mirror
The bastards are nothing if not thorough - they trademarked the French version as well - "Des plus brilliants exploits". See here.
Strictly speaking there is zero scientific evidence supporting ID so there is zero scientific basis to believe in it. This is not exactly the same as saying there is no intelligent design...but it does mean that there is no way to teach it scientifically except as to say that.
It seems a bit too soon for life to evolve by too haphazard a route in that time.
It does? So how long should it take life to first evolve then? Even if you have a reasoned, evidence-based argument you need to remember that we are looking at a statistical sample of 1 so it is impossible to say whether we got lucky, and life evolved quicker than normal, or whether there was a reason for it. Certainly your vague 'feeling' about long life ought to have taken is absolutely no scientific basis for believing in Intelligent Design.
Well 860241, I 'm not so sure.
Don't the british carry their drivers license? (its what an ID card is in Canada) How do you ID at pubs?
The British license is not like the Canadian one in that there is no photograph on it and it is valid until you turn 70 years old (as long as you are younger than 70 when you get it otherwise I think it is valid for something like 5 years?). I'm not sure if they have now added a photo to it (seem to remember something about that) but as an ID it is useless for a majority of people who have the old style. But that is fine, it is not meant to be an ID it is meant to show that you know how to drive.
Isn't it Subject's data?
Neither - it is foreigner's data.
True, but if we agree that parents have jurisdiction here, that includes not only the right to discipline, but also the right to NOT discipline, if they so choose.
No, society has juristiction in that society does not want children to grow up learning that this sort of behaviour is ok. Society normally gives that responsibility to the parents and gives them some leeway in deciding things for themselves. However, when parents abdicate all responsibility, as they seem to have here, then society can take back that resposibility. In this regard I would argue that a school is a far better agent of society to educate the child than the courts and so I think they absolutely did the right thing.
But whether or not they do so doesnt give us the right to say that it becomes the schools place to step in.
If they are in their own house and the effects are confined to that then I'd agree. Putting slanderous material out there goes beyond their privacy and needs corrective action to be taken by society (since the parents are not doing it) because otherwise society will be harmed when the child grows up. The fact that the school chose to be the agent of society in correcting this behaviour rather than the courts should be applauded. Instead of quoting rights why not think about what the best way to educate this child is? I would argue that a school is infinitely better at this than a court.
So does that mean someone can disbar the RIAA now?
You watch Fox?
When schools extend their jurisdiction into the home, they are treading on the parent turf, and I think that is really the problem with this case.
So the kid never discussed this website with her friends while at school? Suppose the kid wrote the message in her homework while at home and handed it in - would that count? While I agree the connection is somewhat more tenuous than things occurring in school this is clearly relevant to the pupil-school interaction and so they do have some claim. If I'd have stood just outside the school grounds and hurled verbal insults at teachers just after school was finished I'd have got into real trouble and with good cause. How is this different?
I agree that the parents SHOULD be disciplining the child. Unfortunately they seem to be backing the appalling behaviour of their offspring and going up against the school which is an atrocious lesson to teach the child: "behave badly and if you don't like the punishment hire a lawyer and sue".
maybe they should look into encryption ?
What is the point of encryption if the country you store your email in has laws to enforce you to reveal the keys?
Gmail offers email addresses with *no advertising* to Universities and their students for free. If there is still scanning going on, it's probably for spam filtering, and I'll bet that most email providers will scan for viruses and spam anyway -- not just google.
Who knows? Perhaps they generate demographics but don't use it via GMail? Apparently all the agreement saysis that you agree to let them scan your mail - the purpose is not specified nor what information they keep.
If they're worried about privacy, may be they shouldn't be using email period (unless it's encrypted).
They are not worried about someone hacking into the system and stealing personal, private information (that can happen to files in an office) which is all encryption prevents. What they are worried about is that the US government will obtain access and use that to pursue a student - an under US law they can force you to reveal the keys. If that happens the student can probably sue the University for breach of privacy.
No, instead of banning things. I'd suggest you guys provide your students with free substitutes.
We already do - there is no reason to use GMail, everyone has a free account accessible via IMAP, POP and Webmail. However some people prefer GMail because they are used to it. Sure, if you are really determined you can set up a forwarding chain to get you email to GMail but at that point the University no longer has responsibility and you will be personally liable.
Why do you think that a court of law is a good place to administer discipline to a child? She's a kid. What she did was wrong so she needs to be punished in a reasonable way. This is what happened so why on earth do lawyers need to be involved? All they do is suck up time and money and the result will be that either she'll get of scot-free or have some huge financial bill against her (legal costs if not damages as well).....and this would somehow be better?
This is a civil matter, not a school disciplinary one. If the principal is so adamant for punishment, his principle's should have guided him to a civil suit, which IMHO, he would have won.
Perhaps his principles were saying: she's only a kid who needs to be taught a lesson and not have her life ruined by huge monetary damages against her and her parents which would like prevent her going to university etc. Law courts are NOT a place to discipline children!
Right up until it does harm to another person.
I hope you actually meant to say "Right up until it is not true and does harm to another person.". If the only criteria were harm, regardless of truth, there would be no sort of free speech at all and criticism of a government would be impossible.
The courts have long held that school is different from work, and that you do not give up your rights merely by being a student.
This raises the question of what rights a child should actually have. Given that the law shields them from the full consequences in exercising free speech (reasoning: they are only kids and cannot be expected to know fully the consequences of what they are doing) why should they enjoy the full, adult rights of free speech for exactly the same reason: they don't know how to use it responsibly? Indeed they already have restrictions on the literature and viewing material they can purchase, so why is it unreasonable to also impose restrictions on their free speech especially given a case like this where it is being abused in such a fashion?
Sorry but you are completely wrong. I'm guessing you don't know too much about the different fields of physics. There is atomic physics (study of atoms), nuclear physics (study of the atomic nucleus) and particle physics (study of the fundamental particles which make up everything).
Rutherford's experiment gave birth to nuclear physics. MRI, or to give it its proper name: nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is nuclear physics, as are radio-isotopes and nuclear power. Chemo, as the name suggests, has nothing whatsoever to do with physics (unless you count chemistry and biology as applied specializations of physics). CAT scans use X-rays which are atomic physics. Even calling PET scans particle physics is a little generous since really it is nuclear physics (isotope decay) and only the positron annihilation can really be considered particle physics.
Keep offering email services. GMail is not an acceptable alternative in many situations. In the Canadian University where I'm a faculty member some groups refuse to send mail to gmail addresses because Google scans all mail (this violates privacy contracts on some research material). This will affect final year undergrads and grad students mostly and already occurs. In addition things like the US "patriot" act mean that provincial privacy laws in many cases make Universities very uneasy to send any private information to gmail addresses due to the server location in the US - our University has not yet refused gmail addresses but they are working up to some sort of policy which will probably do so.
Experimental particle physics never brought us CAT scans, PET scans, MRIs, chemo, radio-isotope dating, nuclear power, and it certainly has not brought us electricity or advanced transister production.
I'm guessing you were attempting to be sarcastic but got it wrong. Experimental particle physics did bring us PET but it did not bring us the rest. Fundamental physics in general did (mainly quantum and nuclear) but not particle physics. This is because quantum and nuclear physics are a lot older than particle physics and it usually takes several decades before discoveries this fundamental trickle down into applications. One you forgot though is that Experimental particle physics did give us the web.
Of course he didn't know that! Didn't you read his comment?
I find your lack of faith....disturbing
And before I hear a "oh oh oh but the web was invented at CERN", what is your point? (1) The invention had nothing to do with CERN itself; (2) the majority of ingredients already existed in not quite the same form
The invention had everything to do with CERN. Nowhere else had a group of people scattered halfway around the world with a need for extremely detailed and precise communications and a small enough travel budget that they could not always just fly out and meet whenever they wanted. Of course now there are lots of such groups now but that is because of the web.
This is why I am a mathematician and not a scientist.
I would certainly agree with the last half of your statement. However mathematics is one of the sciences.
The admins at scientific labs like CERN are basically doing a heroic job despite the best efforts of their users to be as awkward as possible.
I'd disagree with that. Many physicists are simply trying to run their code and are generally ignorant of the inner workings of their computers, mainly because they are not interested, not from lack of ability.
I've taken down the UK particle physics cluter farm (the tier 1 in grid speak)
Reminds me of the time as a grad student when I "took over" the old CSF cluster at RAL and blocked out all the LEP experiments for a weekend. They weren't too pleased about that...although I seem to remember that they were more interested in how I'd done it. I can hardly be blamed if their batch queue system had a priority flag for jobs which a user could set now could I? It was in the man page...
You should come and work at ATLAS then. We are generally friendly and outgoing and so are our sysadmins.