Besides, how different is the idea of life arising from primordial crap from the idea of super-complex life arising from super simple life?
Like it or not, these are two logically distinct ideas. The theory of evolution and the evidence for it is entirely independent of the origin of life. It doesn't matter to the theory of evolution whether life came into existence from:
Chemical reactions in the primordial ooze
Dropping onto earth from a comet
Poofing onto earth from another universe
Poofing onto earth from the mind of some intelligent designer
Evolution doesn't start until there's life for it to act upon.
The geological evidence certainly supports the idea that there was an origin of life (at least on earth). The earliest evidence shows that there was no life, followed by a long period where there was only very simple life, followed by a period where more complext life began to appear.
What the science camp has faith in is simply that the universe operates according to consistent and predictable rules.
Unfortunately for ID, there's no "there" there. Most of the scientists who support ID don't actually do research about ID. Michael Behe wrote Darwin's Black Box almost ten years ago. There's a couple of philosophy books by William Dembski. There's a bunch of books attacking evolution by folks like law professor Phil Johnson or Jonathon Wells. Yet none of these people have any experiments about ID. Strip away the attacks against evolution, and there's nothing to the ID movement.
BTW, evolution is most certainly falsifiable. However, "missing links" won't do it. Why not? The fossil record is not complete, and will never be complete. For instance, bats are a very diverse group today, yet not many bats are found in the fossil record period. They just don't preserve well.
One way to falsify evolution would be to show that the DNA evidence is not consistent with evidence obtained from the fossil record and elsewhere in biology. For instance, suppose that the DNA of humans, chimps and the other primates were completely different. Forget about evolution.
Or suppose that the evidence showed that the earth was only a few thousand years old. This also throws evolution out the window. The thing is, you'd have to toss out a lot of geology and physics to prove this.
Oh, and that squid eye thing? The vertebrate eye is good enough. I personally don't think this is much of an objection against ID, since a designer could have given us compound eyes like a fly. A designer can mix and match, after all.
One point you didn't mention is that ebola also does not spread easily from person to person (much like the current version of HN51). It spreads through bodily fluids. It can apparently be transmitted through the air and infect monkeys, but not humans.
It seems to be difficult no matter who your supplies is. My wife, who manages a group which buys and deploys hardware for a company with a reasonably large user base, has had all kinds of problems with this from a couple of different supplies. IBM and Compaq/HP are the obvious examples.
Ur, how did Prohibition lift the US out of the Great Depression? Because that's what you seem to be saying. Prohibition in the US started in 1920, and the Great Depression started in 1929.
Now, it makes sense (and is a little funny) if you're trying to say that the 21st Amendment ended the Great Depression. But a) it took a long time, since the Great Depression lasted a good 5-6 years after the 21st amendment was ratified and b) you've ruined the joke by this time...
Anyway, I think you might have missed the point of the original poster. It seemed to me that he/she/it was critiquing the methodology. If you only look at the vocabulary, you might get an impression of the origins of English that turns out to be historically incorrect in the way that you describe. This does show some of the limitations of linguistic analysis (through either grammar or vocabulary).
English and French almost certainly have a common parent. The thing is, it was a couple of millenia before the Norman Conquest. Look up Proto-Indo-European or whatever they call it nowadays. You probably knew that but it's not clear from your post.
Let's say that we don't search 80-year-old grandmothers at airports. If I wanted to blow up a plane, I can game the system by using some 80-year-old grandmother to smuggle in a bomb. I don't even have to go on the plane!
Alternately, I can also attempt to game the system by recruiting agents who either do not belong to the profiled groups, or who do not appear to be in those groups. It's not like there aren't plenty of unstable white people, after all.
Don't forget that a few years ago a Palestinian attempted to smuggle a bomb into a plane using his pregnant girlfriend. While not an 80-year-old grandmother, I doubt pregnant women are likely to be the targets of most profiling schemes.
Notice to slashdot user in love with capitol letters: do not make the assumption that everyone who believes in God is a creationist. It is annoying and counterproductive.
Many of the plaintiffs in lawsuits against idiotic creationist "equal time" laws have been religious figures. Do not make the assumption that all religious people buy into the creationist agenda.
Nah. The Chinese government is corrupt and repressive, not lawless. They're not about to let anything like that happen on their watch. The murder of foreigners is frowned upon, to say the least (even by other foreigners).
Or English is not the poster's first language, or they don't give a shit about spellcheck when posting to Slashdot.
Let's get real--I've had managers who can't speak or spell worth a damn. I know of one who was concerned that it was holding him back, in fact (which was a shame because he was actually pretty decent). I've had managers who spoke English as a second language, nad not all that well.
I've also had managers who spoke very well and could even spell who turned out to be complete nimrods.
I have to agree with you, but you're making a poor case. You give three examples, only one of which (the young girls) necessarily relates to the "selfish, callous and remorseless use of others." Being carried on a palanquin and his actual adherence to communist principles indicate that he was a hypocrite. Not all hypocrites are psychopaths, after all, and hypocrisy is not a defining trait of psychopathology.
See, for instance, a review of Jung Chang's new bio of Mao for some better examples. I thought this was a telling example: "Mao's doctor Li Zhisui tells of sitting next to Mao at a performance in Shanghai when a child acrobat slipped and crashed to the floor. The audience gasped. Mao, alone, laughed."
I think this is true. However, this does support the notion that SUVs attract bad drivers. There's almost never any point in inching forward when stopped unless you need to see or someone behind you can't get around.
Re:I don't even know where to begin...
on
Spring Into PHP 5
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· Score: 1
Eh, I hate the white space thing myself, but if you can't get over it in 20 minutes or working with python you've got more serious problems.
Re:I don't even know where to begin...
on
Spring Into PHP 5
·
· Score: 1
Python is more sophisticated than python? Gotta say I don't see it--although I think they're pretty similar (in terms of sophistication, anyway).
Or do you mean that python is more sophisticated than PHP? Just pretend I never said anything.
Interestingly, there was a recent study which suggests that practicing Mormons have a lower suicide rate than non-practicing Mormons and us idolatrous heathens.
The obvious implication of that would be, of course, that Mormons do indeed commit suicide, albeit at a lower rate.
So is it worth investigating? Maybe, but not because "Mormons do not commit suicide."
Slashdot Mirror
Like it or not, these are two logically distinct ideas. The theory of evolution and the evidence for it is entirely independent of the origin of life. It doesn't matter to the theory of evolution whether life came into existence from:
Evolution doesn't start until there's life for it to act upon.
The geological evidence certainly supports the idea that there was an origin of life (at least on earth). The earliest evidence shows that there was no life, followed by a long period where there was only very simple life, followed by a period where more complext life began to appear.
...and unfortunately for me I forgot to preview. User error...
What the science camp has faith in is simply that the universe operates according to consistent and predictable rules. Unfortunately for ID, there's no "there" there. Most of the scientists who support ID don't actually do research about ID. Michael Behe wrote Darwin's Black Box almost ten years ago. There's a couple of philosophy books by William Dembski. There's a bunch of books attacking evolution by folks like law professor Phil Johnson or Jonathon Wells. Yet none of these people have any experiments about ID. Strip away the attacks against evolution, and there's nothing to the ID movement. BTW, evolution is most certainly falsifiable. However, "missing links" won't do it. Why not? The fossil record is not complete, and will never be complete. For instance, bats are a very diverse group today, yet not many bats are found in the fossil record period. They just don't preserve well. One way to falsify evolution would be to show that the DNA evidence is not consistent with evidence obtained from the fossil record and elsewhere in biology. For instance, suppose that the DNA of humans, chimps and the other primates were completely different. Forget about evolution. Or suppose that the evidence showed that the earth was only a few thousand years old. This also throws evolution out the window. The thing is, you'd have to toss out a lot of geology and physics to prove this. Oh, and that squid eye thing? The vertebrate eye is good enough. I personally don't think this is much of an objection against ID, since a designer could have given us compound eyes like a fly. A designer can mix and match, after all.
Most creationists wouldn't be satisfied if God personally handed them a DVD of the past billion years of evolution.
More people would recognize it as a joke if it were actually funny.
So how is "not harm[ing] or kill[ing] anyone" a small difference?
Welcome to slashdot!
One point you didn't mention is that ebola also does not spread easily from person to person (much like the current version of HN51). It spreads through bodily fluids. It can apparently be transmitted through the air and infect monkeys, but not humans.
It seems to be difficult no matter who your supplies is. My wife, who manages a group which buys and deploys hardware for a company with a reasonably large user base, has had all kinds of problems with this from a couple of different supplies. IBM and Compaq/HP are the obvious examples.
Now, it makes sense (and is a little funny) if you're trying to say that the 21st Amendment ended the Great Depression. But a) it took a long time, since the Great Depression lasted a good 5-6 years after the 21st amendment was ratified and b) you've ruined the joke by this time...
Anyway, I think you might have missed the point of the original poster. It seemed to me that he/she/it was critiquing the methodology. If you only look at the vocabulary, you might get an impression of the origins of English that turns out to be historically incorrect in the way that you describe. This does show some of the limitations of linguistic analysis (through either grammar or vocabulary).
English and French almost certainly have a common parent. The thing is, it was a couple of millenia before the Norman Conquest. Look up Proto-Indo-European or whatever they call it nowadays. You probably knew that but it's not clear from your post.
Alternately, I can also attempt to game the system by recruiting agents who either do not belong to the profiled groups, or who do not appear to be in those groups. It's not like there aren't plenty of unstable white people, after all.
Don't forget that a few years ago a Palestinian attempted to smuggle a bomb into a plane using his pregnant girlfriend. While not an 80-year-old grandmother, I doubt pregnant women are likely to be the targets of most profiling schemes.
I think you mean Ted Sturgeon.
Many of the plaintiffs in lawsuits against idiotic creationist "equal time" laws have been religious figures. Do not make the assumption that all religious people buy into the creationist agenda.
Bingo. I don't believe there was a town there before Miami was founded.
Nah. The Chinese government is corrupt and repressive, not lawless. They're not about to let anything like that happen on their watch. The murder of foreigners is frowned upon, to say the least (even by other foreigners).
I don't believe Myst III was released until 2001, since it was scheduled to come out that in the first quarter of that year . I bought it not that long after it came out in my current house (which I moved into in October of 2000).
Anyway, it's too bad you're right about the death of the adventure game.
I need a new avatar.
Let's get real--I've had managers who can't speak or spell worth a damn. I know of one who was concerned that it was holding him back, in fact (which was a shame because he was actually pretty decent). I've had managers who spoke English as a second language, nad not all that well.
I've also had managers who spoke very well and could even spell who turned out to be complete nimrods.
See, for instance, a review of Jung Chang's new bio of Mao for some better examples. I thought this was a telling example: "Mao's doctor Li Zhisui tells of sitting next to Mao at a performance in Shanghai when a child acrobat slipped and crashed to the floor. The audience gasped. Mao, alone, laughed."
I think this is true. However, this does support the notion that SUVs attract bad drivers. There's almost never any point in inching forward when stopped unless you need to see or someone behind you can't get around.
Eh, I hate the white space thing myself, but if you can't get over it in 20 minutes or working with python you've got more serious problems.
Or do you mean that python is more sophisticated than PHP? Just pretend I never said anything.
The obvious implication of that would be, of course, that Mormons do indeed commit suicide, albeit at a lower rate.
So is it worth investigating? Maybe, but not because "Mormons do not commit suicide."