Because it's not NASA's job to develop a drive for which there is no supporting evidence that it can work. Even if such a propulsion system is possible, you still need to be able to get into space to use it. And you need to know stuff like what NASA actually does in order to do anything useful in space.
At this time, it is more properly CERN's task to invest in FTL research and they're doing an admirable job of it.
First, you admit here that species actually exist. Second, you're just not getting it. It's not just genes, but a collection of genes acting together. As I noted in response to serviscope_minor, there are other examples of macroscopic phenomena which don't make sense to consider only in terms of the smallest scale that contains the phenomena.
Finally, natural selection is just the winnowing process. An organism can indeed experience selection from a single gene (such as the difference between being susceptible to poisoning or not to some chemical in the environment, which can be triggered by a single gene). But it can also experience higher level selection (such as survival being dependent on morphological properties such as size, speed, or physical appearance) which can depend on a subtle mix of large numbers of genes acting together.
Except that species are a thing we actually observe. Trees don't breed with cats. And there are actually cases where closely species have evolved in a way to appear very distinct (for a recent example, guenon monkeys in central Africa.
The species is more of a macroscopically observable manifestation of a collection of genes plus noise.
Which makes it something that doesn't happen at the level of genes - by definition of "macroscopically observable".
We don't say, for a similar example, that music operates at the level of the Brownian motion of air particles even though sounds such as those of music are transmitted through such a medium. You would be glossing over both the macroscopic properties of the air medium which define and transmit sound and the structure of music (and its perception by a human audience) which differentiates it from arbitrary sounds.
Yes, but only at prices confirming to the developing world's wages.
Which are growing at a rapid rate and for which there are a lot more people. Basically, the economy is moving from the developed world to the rest of the world.
In most creative works, those can be distilled to sequences of elements from a fairly small set (notes, words), there are reasonable constraints to limit the possible space, those rules can be deduced by a neural networks, the results can be easily tested.
You already attributed this phrase to Hayek not Darwin or Wallace. I don't get the reason why this is mentioned here.
Sorry, I read to the beginning of the thread and get that now.
I still find it weird how you went straight in your reply to the above shallow observation into a criticism of Darwin and a discussion of morality changes in society.
One headed down a positivist trajectory, setting a trend; one went the other way.
Which did which? I think their stances on religion and belief preclude either from a pure positivist trajectory.
The point is that "old men in the sky" bespeaks a lot of foolishness.
You already attributed this phrase to Hayek not Darwin or Wallace. I don't get the reason why this is mentioned here.
Whether theistic or otherwise, philosophies that impose constraints and morals, mysteries and hard things to consider on how to be moral vs. simply succeed, always have a place in human endeavors
I think this is a problem with any sort of change. The old morality becomes detached and decays when change obsoletes some of its foundation. A solution which IMHO makes morality more resistant and adaptable to change, is to remove its dependency on "old men in the sky" and other extraneous beliefs that ultimately do not matter.
Believe something is right and act on that basis, because it is right (or at least creates a sound basis for a just and fair society), not because a sky god tells you to. Else when the sky god goes away, the morality does too - at least until a new morality is established.
The IPCC's latest report does NOT state that the science supporting global climate change is "weaker than ever".
That's a pretty abusive characterization of the latest report. The most important climate variable, the temperature forcing sensitivity of CO2 concentration in atmosphere was loosened to a factor of three difference between highest and lowest estimate. It's now back to where it was in the late 19th century with Arrhenius's estimates (which I gather is the basis for Jane Q. Public's claim that the science is "weaker than ever"). Extreme weather was put on the back burner. We're left with a greatly weakened case for urgency as a result. Those are huge changes.
Sure, a few minor botches were discovered in the report, but that doesn't change the fact that there is some evidence, supported by the opinions of a large though undetermined majority of climate scientists (most who don't have any more experience or knowledge than knowledgeable outsiders), that global warming is real and partly caused by human actions.
FIFY. Note both the weakness of the actual claim made and that it doesn't actually translate into a call for action. Just because a narrow category of scientist, most which don't actually do research on global warming, happen to have an opinion that there is some degree of human-induced global warming doesn't mean that we need to act to reduce CO2 emissions.
And I question whether there actually is that high a level of agreement. From this story, we have the following comment on a 2007 survey:
Of the 489 Earth and atmospheric scientists surveyed by Harris Interactive, 97 percent said that global temperatures have increased during the past 100 years, and 74 percent agreed that "currently available scientific evidence substantiates the occurrence of human-induced greenhouse warming." The findings mark a significant increase in concern over climate change since 1991, when a Gallup survey of the same universe of scientists showed only 60 percent agreed that temperatures were up and 41 percent believed that evidence pointed to human activity as the cause.
74% is a fair bit short of your "over 90%" claim, but that includes scientists without a direct financial or status stake in global warming being true. Now there's been a few years since 2007, but I see no evidence, despite widespread government bribery, that the evidence has improved significantly. To the contrary, the IPCC had to weaken their case as Jane Q. Public noted.
The article was written about us. The sort of anti-scientific hypocrisy present in a considerable portion of your posts here, is a common manifestation of that. You are merely a pot calling a kettle black.
I suggest the Ashkenazim, a subgroup of Jews from Eastern Europe, as a counterexample. There seems to have been selection pressure for genes that promote intelligence during their stay in Europe (particularly, when the population was isolated socially and economically from around 800 AD to 1650 AD).
Moreover just because a strong government wins one case you disagree with, it does not follow that a fundamentally different system, with significantly stronger private corporations and a significantly weaker government, would result in rulings you like 100% of the time.
It would be less dangerous. Corporations and other businesses are more vulnerable than governments. And I'm not interested in achieving a society that matches my interests perfectly.
In particular it's impossible for mew to conceive of a system with a weaker government, and stronger private corporations, where there wasn't a private NSA with more data then the real NSA, and more power too. The Pinkertons never bothered with warrants.
The Pinkertons always worked with law enforcement to provide legal cover for their actions. And they became that powerful due to numerous government-related contracts. And I have to roll my eyes at the claim that a "private NSA" could have as much data as the real one. Especially, since the "private NSA" wouldn't have the sorts of powers that allow the real NSA to collect so much data.
It must be nice to live like you. So much money that you don't care that your credit is busted. Hell even a $10k debt probably wouldn't move your debt to income ratio. You just have that much income. Congratulations. If you ever get really annoyed you can just drop $5k on a lawyer and know that you'll get it back eventually. And you get to laugh laugh laugh at all the poor peons who don't have that much money lying around to pay a lawyer. Yes Mas'r Khallow you live a wonderful life.
Back in the real world, the IRS ruling hurts my poor coworker, but she wasn't depending on that money to pay her bills because you can't depend on tax refund money to do that. The Feds refuse to finalize the tax Code until the very last minute, so you never know what your refund is going to be until you do your return. OTOH if she'd had this problem with a private business her ability to find a new job would be hurt, her ability to move would be hurt (landlords frequently do credit checks), her ability to buy a car would be hurt. For those of us who are below you, Mas'r Khallow, the IRS taking a tax refund is a lot less disastrous then some scam artist putting a fake debt on our credit report. We can fight the IRS through our local Congresspeople, if we could fight the scam artists they wouldn't have careers.
In other words, the IRS just took her money while she'd have a chance against a private institution doing the same.
Origin of Species was a great work for it's time, but it's probably not worth spending much time on it as it's so outdated. It works at the wrong abstraction. Natural selection works at the level of genes, not species.
This is poor advice at two levels. First, natural selection does work at the level of species too. Else there wouldn't be identifiable species or the possibility of species going extinct. Darwin wouldn't have gotten far with the theory of evolution, if it weren't for the huge variety of observable species.
Nor should one read Darwin just for the science, but rather to see how a master writer and scientist puts together a beautiful and profound scientific argument. So much of scientific writing today is crap. It's poorly written and stuffed with cliche, sometimes not even understood by the author much less anyone else who reads it.
assault on myths of Darwin and juxtaposition of the simple fact that the guy who had all the writing done and who was eventually ignored despite having demonstrably better work in some ways actually believed in some power in the sky if not an old man.
What are you trying to say here? Darwin was Christian and Wallace was a spiritualist. So both had some sort of belief along these lines.
It's because it's much easier for somebody who isn't rich to appeal decisions by the government.
I don't buy that. When are the NSA's poor and unlawful decisions going to get appealed?
And your IRS versus private business example is laughable. Notice that the IRS took the money straight away while the private business would attempt to do by less sure means. And if you win a private case against a business, you can get your lawyer money back from the business.
Whereas Alfred Russel Wallace, who I believe can rightly be regarded as far more legitimate than Darwin himself (after all, he had a working paper that was observational while Darwin was still putsing and had nothing written, read Wallace's work, and back-fit "his" ideas to the notes from his voyage) but who simply wasn't a famous noble (damn pleb, stay out of the spotlight!), elucidated a theory of theism and the impossibility of life without it.
What's the reason for this unprovoked and gratuitous assault on Darwin? Darwin didn't start as a famous noble either though admittedly started with a somewhat better economic position (and social status) than Wallace.
Perhaps you ought to read Darwin first before you cast judgment? "The Origin of Species" is remarkable as a coherent, broad, and detailed argument for evolution. While much has been said about how we've moved on since then with far better and more nuanced understanding of biology and evolutionary processes, it is still remarkable how well Darwin's works can stand up to scrutiny, even today. I think these works will long stand as examples of how to make thoughtful, convincing scientific arguments.
The crowd shouldn't be that close to the fireworks in the first place. They have to assume that shells will do that anyway say due to a mortar tipping over.
To claim that economics doesn't make assumptions about scarcity, marginal utility, rational behavior, and risk is to create a new discipline.
Not at all. Such a claim is merely a claim about economics. And if it does actually create a "new" discipline, what of it? We're allowed to do that. But frankly, I think there's enough overlap on both the biology and economics side to avoid the need for doing so.
Economics is fundamentally tied to money and money is a psychological invention of humans.
Which is an absurd claim. We can look at actual definitions of economics:
A social science that studies how individuals, governments, firms and nations make choices on allocating scarce resources to satisfy their unlimited wants.
Obviously, the phrase "individuals, governments, firms, and nations" is very human-centric. And "unlimited wants" is kind of an exaggeration since there are limits to wants even at infinite levels of resources (eg, the cost of making the decision concerning disposition can outweigh the benefit of the additional infinite part of the resources).
But that doesn't change that economics is fundamentally about multiple parties with preferences making choices that allocate scarce resources.
I find it hard to take seriously arguments which depend even a little on redefining a term in a non-standard way. You continue with:
Biology doesn't have concepts of debt, or futures contracts, or inflation. If there is suddenly twice as much food, that doesn't mean that calories are devalued. But economics makes that assumption.
Science can't make assumptions because it's just an inanimate collection of ideas. Scientists can make assumptions. And we do see in the real world differences in behavior even at the microbe level when an organism has plentiful food rather than too little food. Just because the organisms might not have a concept of time value of calories or whatever, doesn't mean that they can't behave in ways which happen to exploit that concept.
Make your assumptions explicit, then.
No. Reality doesn't work that way. The power of patterns is that if some aspect of reality meets the preconditions of the pattern, then the pattern exists whether or not we are even aware of the pattern.
Slashdot Mirror
Because it's not NASA's job to develop a drive for which there is no supporting evidence that it can work. Even if such a propulsion system is possible, you still need to be able to get into space to use it. And you need to know stuff like what NASA actually does in order to do anything useful in space.
At this time, it is more properly CERN's task to invest in FTL research and they're doing an admirable job of it.
No, species are just a phenomenon of genes.
First, you admit here that species actually exist. Second, you're just not getting it. It's not just genes, but a collection of genes acting together. As I noted in response to serviscope_minor, there are other examples of macroscopic phenomena which don't make sense to consider only in terms of the smallest scale that contains the phenomena.
Finally, natural selection is just the winnowing process. An organism can indeed experience selection from a single gene (such as the difference between being susceptible to poisoning or not to some chemical in the environment, which can be triggered by a single gene). But it can also experience higher level selection (such as survival being dependent on morphological properties such as size, speed, or physical appearance) which can depend on a subtle mix of large numbers of genes acting together.
The species is more of a macroscopically observable manifestation of a collection of genes plus noise.
Which makes it something that doesn't happen at the level of genes - by definition of "macroscopically observable".
We don't say, for a similar example, that music operates at the level of the Brownian motion of air particles even though sounds such as those of music are transmitted through such a medium. You would be glossing over both the macroscopic properties of the air medium which define and transmit sound and the structure of music (and its perception by a human audience) which differentiates it from arbitrary sounds.
That isn't what it looks like from where I sit.
What makes your perception even remotely valid?
Yes, but only at prices confirming to the developing world's wages.
Which are growing at a rapid rate and for which there are a lot more people. Basically, the economy is moving from the developed world to the rest of the world.
You can't find a single case of me contradicting any consensus opinion of scientists.
And there we go again. Fallacy after fallacy. Here, the fallacy of argument from authority.
The AGW deniers are anti-science. Period.
And the ad hominem fallacy. You're not bringing a thing to the table.
Well, aside from that it's not particular mature to want to ban everything that can't be regulated, I suppose your worldview is seamless.
In most creative works, those can be distilled to sequences of elements from a fairly small set (notes, words), there are reasonable constraints to limit the possible space, those rules can be deduced by a neural networks, the results can be easily tested.
Give it a try then, if it's so easy to do.
Oh look, the Libertardians are out in full force.
Because only Libertardians would be concerned about a government that bans everything it doesn't control?
Privatized enforcement is no enforcement. If it can't be overseen by the government it needs to either be banned.
We have courts as back up. Relax.
Does that company want to sell it's product at "American" prices? Then it needs people ( customers, you know ) that *earn* "American" wages.
Those customers aren't going to be its employees. And it can always sell to the developing world.
You already attributed this phrase to Hayek not Darwin or Wallace. I don't get the reason why this is mentioned here.
Sorry, I read to the beginning of the thread and get that now.
I still find it weird how you went straight in your reply to the above shallow observation into a criticism of Darwin and a discussion of morality changes in society.
One headed down a positivist trajectory, setting a trend; one went the other way.
Which did which? I think their stances on religion and belief preclude either from a pure positivist trajectory.
The point is that "old men in the sky" bespeaks a lot of foolishness.
You already attributed this phrase to Hayek not Darwin or Wallace. I don't get the reason why this is mentioned here.
Whether theistic or otherwise, philosophies that impose constraints and morals, mysteries and hard things to consider on how to be moral vs. simply succeed, always have a place in human endeavors
I think this is a problem with any sort of change. The old morality becomes detached and decays when change obsoletes some of its foundation. A solution which IMHO makes morality more resistant and adaptable to change, is to remove its dependency on "old men in the sky" and other extraneous beliefs that ultimately do not matter.
Believe something is right and act on that basis, because it is right (or at least creates a sound basis for a just and fair society), not because a sky god tells you to. Else when the sky god goes away, the morality does too - at least until a new morality is established.
The IPCC's latest report does NOT state that the science supporting global climate change is "weaker than ever".
That's a pretty abusive characterization of the latest report. The most important climate variable, the temperature forcing sensitivity of CO2 concentration in atmosphere was loosened to a factor of three difference between highest and lowest estimate. It's now back to where it was in the late 19th century with Arrhenius's estimates (which I gather is the basis for Jane Q. Public's claim that the science is "weaker than ever"). Extreme weather was put on the back burner. We're left with a greatly weakened case for urgency as a result. Those are huge changes.
Sure, a few minor botches were discovered in the report, but that doesn't change the fact that there is some evidence, supported by the opinions of a large though undetermined majority of climate scientists (most who don't have any more experience or knowledge than knowledgeable outsiders), that global warming is real and partly caused by human actions.
FIFY. Note both the weakness of the actual claim made and that it doesn't actually translate into a call for action. Just because a narrow category of scientist, most which don't actually do research on global warming, happen to have an opinion that there is some degree of human-induced global warming doesn't mean that we need to act to reduce CO2 emissions.
And I question whether there actually is that high a level of agreement. From this story, we have the following comment on a 2007 survey:
Of the 489 Earth and atmospheric scientists surveyed by Harris Interactive, 97 percent said that global temperatures have increased during the past 100 years, and 74 percent agreed that "currently available scientific evidence substantiates the occurrence of human-induced greenhouse warming." The findings mark a significant increase in concern over climate change since 1991, when a Gallup survey of the same universe of scientists showed only 60 percent agreed that temperatures were up and 41 percent believed that evidence pointed to human activity as the cause.
74% is a fair bit short of your "over 90%" claim, but that includes scientists without a direct financial or status stake in global warming being true. Now there's been a few years since 2007, but I see no evidence, despite widespread government bribery, that the evidence has improved significantly. To the contrary, the IPCC had to weaken their case as Jane Q. Public noted.
The article was written about us. The sort of anti-scientific hypocrisy present in a considerable portion of your posts here, is a common manifestation of that. You are merely a pot calling a kettle black.
I suggest the Ashkenazim, a subgroup of Jews from Eastern Europe, as a counterexample. There seems to have been selection pressure for genes that promote intelligence during their stay in Europe (particularly, when the population was isolated socially and economically from around 800 AD to 1650 AD).
Moreover just because a strong government wins one case you disagree with, it does not follow that a fundamentally different system, with significantly stronger private corporations and a significantly weaker government, would result in rulings you like 100% of the time.
It would be less dangerous. Corporations and other businesses are more vulnerable than governments. And I'm not interested in achieving a society that matches my interests perfectly.
In particular it's impossible for mew to conceive of a system with a weaker government, and stronger private corporations, where there wasn't a private NSA with more data then the real NSA, and more power too. The Pinkertons never bothered with warrants.
The Pinkertons always worked with law enforcement to provide legal cover for their actions. And they became that powerful due to numerous government-related contracts. And I have to roll my eyes at the claim that a "private NSA" could have as much data as the real one. Especially, since the "private NSA" wouldn't have the sorts of powers that allow the real NSA to collect so much data.
It must be nice to live like you. So much money that you don't care that your credit is busted. Hell even a $10k debt probably wouldn't move your debt to income ratio. You just have that much income. Congratulations. If you ever get really annoyed you can just drop $5k on a lawyer and know that you'll get it back eventually. And you get to laugh laugh laugh at all the poor peons who don't have that much money lying around to pay a lawyer. Yes Mas'r Khallow you live a wonderful life.
Back in the real world, the IRS ruling hurts my poor coworker, but she wasn't depending on that money to pay her bills because you can't depend on tax refund money to do that. The Feds refuse to finalize the tax Code until the very last minute, so you never know what your refund is going to be until you do your return. OTOH if she'd had this problem with a private business her ability to find a new job would be hurt, her ability to move would be hurt (landlords frequently do credit checks), her ability to buy a car would be hurt. For those of us who are below you, Mas'r Khallow, the IRS taking a tax refund is a lot less disastrous then some scam artist putting a fake debt on our credit report. We can fight the IRS through our local Congresspeople, if we could fight the scam artists they wouldn't have careers.
In other words, the IRS just took her money while she'd have a chance against a private institution doing the same.
Origin of Species was a great work for it's time, but it's probably not worth spending much time on it as it's so outdated. It works at the wrong abstraction. Natural selection works at the level of genes, not species.
This is poor advice at two levels. First, natural selection does work at the level of species too. Else there wouldn't be identifiable species or the possibility of species going extinct. Darwin wouldn't have gotten far with the theory of evolution, if it weren't for the huge variety of observable species.
Nor should one read Darwin just for the science, but rather to see how a master writer and scientist puts together a beautiful and profound scientific argument. So much of scientific writing today is crap. It's poorly written and stuffed with cliche, sometimes not even understood by the author much less anyone else who reads it.
assault on myths of Darwin and juxtaposition of the simple fact that the guy who had all the writing done and who was eventually ignored despite having demonstrably better work in some ways actually believed in some power in the sky if not an old man.
What are you trying to say here? Darwin was Christian and Wallace was a spiritualist. So both had some sort of belief along these lines.
It's because it's much easier for somebody who isn't rich to appeal decisions by the government.
I don't buy that. When are the NSA's poor and unlawful decisions going to get appealed?
And your IRS versus private business example is laughable. Notice that the IRS took the money straight away while the private business would attempt to do by less sure means. And if you win a private case against a business, you can get your lawyer money back from the business.
Whereas Alfred Russel Wallace, who I believe can rightly be regarded as far more legitimate than Darwin himself (after all, he had a working paper that was observational while Darwin was still putsing and had nothing written, read Wallace's work, and back-fit "his" ideas to the notes from his voyage) but who simply wasn't a famous noble (damn pleb, stay out of the spotlight!), elucidated a theory of theism and the impossibility of life without it.
What's the reason for this unprovoked and gratuitous assault on Darwin? Darwin didn't start as a famous noble either though admittedly started with a somewhat better economic position (and social status) than Wallace.
Perhaps you ought to read Darwin first before you cast judgment? "The Origin of Species" is remarkable as a coherent, broad, and detailed argument for evolution. While much has been said about how we've moved on since then with far better and more nuanced understanding of biology and evolutionary processes, it is still remarkable how well Darwin's works can stand up to scrutiny, even today. I think these works will long stand as examples of how to make thoughtful, convincing scientific arguments.
There's been a lot of money thrown at renewables so far and we produce more CO2 than ever.
I was unaware that foxes constituted "people".
What is your reason for treating foxes differently than people? What can change people? Some sky god?
Because it happens in a movie, it can't happen in real life?
The crowd shouldn't be that close to the fireworks in the first place. They have to assume that shells will do that anyway say due to a mortar tipping over.
To claim that economics doesn't make assumptions about scarcity, marginal utility, rational behavior, and risk is to create a new discipline.
Not at all. Such a claim is merely a claim about economics. And if it does actually create a "new" discipline, what of it? We're allowed to do that. But frankly, I think there's enough overlap on both the biology and economics side to avoid the need for doing so.
Economics is fundamentally tied to money and money is a psychological invention of humans.
Which is an absurd claim. We can look at actual definitions of economics:
A social science that studies how individuals, governments, firms and nations make choices on allocating scarce resources to satisfy their unlimited wants.
Obviously, the phrase "individuals, governments, firms, and nations" is very human-centric. And "unlimited wants" is kind of an exaggeration since there are limits to wants even at infinite levels of resources (eg, the cost of making the decision concerning disposition can outweigh the benefit of the additional infinite part of the resources).
But that doesn't change that economics is fundamentally about multiple parties with preferences making choices that allocate scarce resources.
I find it hard to take seriously arguments which depend even a little on redefining a term in a non-standard way. You continue with:
Biology doesn't have concepts of debt, or futures contracts, or inflation. If there is suddenly twice as much food, that doesn't mean that calories are devalued. But economics makes that assumption.
Science can't make assumptions because it's just an inanimate collection of ideas. Scientists can make assumptions. And we do see in the real world differences in behavior even at the microbe level when an organism has plentiful food rather than too little food. Just because the organisms might not have a concept of time value of calories or whatever, doesn't mean that they can't behave in ways which happen to exploit that concept.
Make your assumptions explicit, then.
No. Reality doesn't work that way. The power of patterns is that if some aspect of reality meets the preconditions of the pattern, then the pattern exists whether or not we are even aware of the pattern.