And getting people to switch from their Mac to Windows? Why even spend money on that effort? Windows machines may have been more difficult to use 15 years ago, but they've caught up... anyone who still thinks they are more difficult to use hasn't tried one.
Buzz!
The emphasis is no longer really on "easy to use." It is on "easy to setup and maintain." Windows installations (I don't care the flavor, it's true of XP, 2000 and 98) tend to slowly degrade, becoming more and more flaky until you're left with no choice but to reload.
Drivers are also a bloody pain in the you-know-what. Every time I have to reload Windows, I spend hours hunting around the net for drivers, then updating drivers, the downdating drivers, all to get everything to work together. (Good example: ati video drivers require directx 8, which you have to download running at 640x480 before you can install the driver.) Yes, I could keep the driver disks on-hand, but that's truly a pain in the but. A pain that i don't have to endure with my Macs.
The point being this: 10 years ago, the focus of ease of use was menus, mouses, and drag & drop. Today, the focus is on configuration and maintainability. And here the Mac clearly has MS beat. And yes, this IS because Apple owns the hardware - but I don't care so long as it works.
And, in other news, Toys-R-Us has declined to give shelf space to "Anal-Sex Barbie". This decision was greeted with shock and derision by free speech advocates, who felt that the elimination of one "slippery slope" might destroy them all."
I must admit, I'm a bit confused as to when, in the eyes of "Your Smut Online" retailers lost the right of choosing how to stock their shelves while, somehow, you retain the right to buy it. You have a right to speak: you don't have a right to make me or anyone else listen.
I have to wonder - what version of Mozilla are you basing this on? I am running Netscape 7 as we speak, and it seems quite snappy to me.
As far as environmental bloat.. that seems to be true of virtually all the environments out there nowadays. Looked at.net lately?
I recognize that xpcom components are not automatically portable, but they are a heck of a lot more portable than most similar environments. XPFE takes care of most of the nitty-gritty work necessary to make them portable.
People responding seem to be missing a crucial point: I am not talking about a web application here. I am talking about using the mozilla framework to develop a local application. This is actually how Mozilla, including Mail, Messenger and Composer, is developed.
I asked myself the same question a few months ago, and came to the conclusion that unless/until I have an application that requires a native API, I would do everything in Mozilla. In practice, this means a combination of XPCOM, XUL, RDF and javascript. It's like developing a really advanced web page, but you're not stuck in a browser framework.
Several advantages:
Easy cross platform. Your app will run on any platform Mozilla/Netscape run on.
Easy development. Subjectively, development goes a lot faster than under a traditional framework.
Something you probably already know: most people I know who program already know HTML and Javascript to some degree. From there, it's a very small leap to XUL and Javascript.
The major disadvantage is that it will necessarily be a little slower than a custom coded native solution. But who cares for most apps? With recent Mozilla versions, it's more than fast enough. Anyway, my $0.02
They weren't interested in providing the list before. The judge had to force them to do so, since they took the irrational position that it was Napster's responsibility to figure out whether every file in their service was copyrighted without anything to tell them what files were copyrighted!
The RIAA is truly intransigent.
Actually, I am the original poster, and you would be correct. The problem seems to have been that instead of using the phrase "handheld scanner" I used the phrase "hand scanner". The latter is what they were called back in the eighties, but is apparently now technical argot for a bar-code scanner.
I also tried "portable scanner" and "+portable +scanner", etc. The "use google" responses are perpetually lame, because it can sometimes be impossible to find something on google if you don't know exactly what it's called.
Yes, but objectivist morality still fails in the end.
Realize that, from my perspective, a moral system rises or falls on its tendency to advance the kingdom of God. Although objectivism may (emphasis on may) offer a basis for the affirmation of individual importance (not relative to that of other individuals) it fails to glorify God since it elevates these individuals to His level.
I am sure there are just as many drones on the right who simply believe in God because it is easier. Most Christians (the majority of religious people in America) have not read the Torah, Koran or Bhagavad Gita. Why is this? Is it because they know after reading the Bible that nothing else can possibly be correct? They may say that to themselves, but I doubt it is the truth. I find it much more likely that the Bible is what they were brought up with, and it is simply easier to follow what they already know as opposed to working to figure out what they can truly put their faith in.
I tend to agree with your assessments in many ways, including your frustration at Christian insularism. However, as one of the small percentage of Christians who even knows his own religion well, I'd like to comment on your core assertion.
What is asserted by thinking (emphasis on THINKING) Christians is not that an atheist or agnostic cannot be moral. That would be downright silly. Instead, I tend to think that when an atheist or agnostic behaves morally, he cannot articulate a consistent reason for doing so. It seems to me -- having been a teenage agnostic -- that agnosticism and atheism both fail to provide a stable base for more thinking. (Oddly enough, true atheists often do better since they tend to be humanists.)
The problem is that, when we get to the tough moral decisions, non-theists are left without a guiding principle by which to make decisions. So, pragmatism becomes their only principle. This pragmatism is then "blessed" using utilitarian ethics: 'the greatest good for the greatest number.' However, from a Christian perspective this ethic fails on a number of points.
One notable example of the failure of non-theistic ethics would be the question of abortion. While I am not a rabid anti-abortion advocate (I feel strongly that Christians should stay out of politics) it seems to me faintly absurd to argue that the fetus is not a human, then, suddenly for no apparently reason it is. The arguments usually skip careful reasoning about the nature of human life and jumps straight to practical questions - "How much good will it do the baby to live if it is born to a single mother who hates it yada yada blah blah?" This jump is made because non-theistic ethics has no basis to deal with intrinsic human value.
The Christian ethic is very different (although many Christians have not thought it through very carefully.) The ultimate end is the glory of God. God has chosen to be glorified by creating the present reality of the kingdom of God, that was innaugurated in Jesus Christ. In this present kingdom, the church is called to act in Jesus stead until his return, and to that end we, through God and through christ, attempt to do good. The good we do is not the kingdom, but it is our response to the kingdom. The nature of the kingdom is that there is no death, no suffering, even for the smallest and weekest (Isaiah says "even the lions will eat grass in that day.") So, our response tries to reduce suffering even among the smallest and weakest.
In the case of abortion, this plays out as a particular concern for the powerless - since we are commanded to have a particular concern for the powerless. So, we are more concerned with the one life (of the baby) being snuffed out than we are with the practical questions that fire the whole liberal view of it. Certainly, we value the life of the baby more than we value the mother's right to be "empowered" vis a vis the gender wars. Why? Because we regard (or should) money and temporal matters as of trivial importance compared to a single life. (Go back and read some of the early abortion debate - feminism is the root of the issue.)
Anyway, I suspect I've rambled. But my point is that while a non-theist may be very ethical, I don't think he has a consistent basis to do so. And this lack o consistency will inevitably come out at the edges.
My big complaint with Chimera is that it doesn't seem to have some features that are critical for web development - for example, no Javascript console, acts weird when loaded from fireworks, etc.
Should it be fixed? Yes. Is it a big deal? Not unless you're doing something nasty.
Bottom line is that I don't really care who knows what websites I go to, because I keep my web accesses legitimate and vanilla. Who's got time to crack, pr0n, or spod when trying to raise a family? Geesh.
I'm an accredited Bible-Thumper, and I like Harry Potter quite a bit. Don't believe any stereotype, because they're generally not true to life, silly slashdotter.
Just remember: physics without Math is like beer without alcohol. It may look good, taste good, and go down good, but at the end of the day it won't do anything for you.
I have to admit - I tried to read this book, and had to put it down. I couldn't follow the plot (my wife, who finished and loved it, tells me there isn't one.) And I was just exhausted by all the sixteen billion characters.
It was as bad as a Russian novel, but the Russian novels at least usually have a point! This just seemed to be a roll in a kind of a trendy post-modern muckiness for its own sake. It made me tired.
If apple were to move to X86 (still probably unlikely, even according to the article), I somehow doubt that they would move to the industry standard platform.
Think about it - if Microsoft can put hooks in Windows XP that prevent it from installing on a different OEM than the one you got it from, what's to prevent apple from doing the same? Further, they could easily make their X86 hardware different enough to prevent any random clone from working. In fact, SGI did something similar a few years ago, not that it did them any good. The point is that, even if they go X86, a mac could still be proprietary. There's much more to the Industry Standard platform than running on Intel.
Okay, you made me laugh. For this favor, I pray that you will eventually repent of your Ramish, Yakish, and otherwise shaven ways and eventually come into the glory of... errr. Never mind.
Frankly, I don't know why I bothered to say anything here, since these conversations never get anywhere. Look: just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't make them a liar. And I never presented myself as an expert - I'm just a guy who reads a fair amount.
Now, please explain to me - if evolution (or rather Darwinian natural selection) is not "purely random", then what is it? Do you seriously think that the postulated feedback loop (i.e. good mutations survive) brings enough order to the system to make it less than purely random? Would it not make more sense to suppose that there is some consideration directing mutations in profitable directions - i.e. God?
On another topic - you spend a lot of time railing against creationists. However, the pro-evolution types are just as bad. I have heard Dawkins, on NPR's Connection, claim that no theologian is supernaturalist. Considering that I know quite a few theologians, almost all of which believe more or less in a number of supernatural events, I have to wonder whether Dawkins is deluded or just lying? Gould made similar gaffs on many occasions, but I'll let him lie.
Actually, the "Nebraska Man" (better referred to as Hesperopithecus) was widely trumpeted by the scientific community as the final proof of evolution during the monkey trials in the thirties.
Widely? You mean: Osborn? Again, read the scientific literature at the time. Read what the scientific community thought of Osborn's find (hint: less than impressed, and unconvinced). Then come back and tell me if your statement here is anything other than simply misleading.
Testimony regarding hesperopithecus was introduced into the Scopes trial.
Maybe it's just "politics" talking: but I think you're a liar. Not only wasn't it in the end, but the only one who called for it was Bryan. But of course, noting that would take most of the wind out of the accusation... so why note it? Politics?
OK, did some more research on this, and it looks like you're right at least so far as Hesperopithecus not being discussed at the Scopes trial. However, you are certainly out of line to claim that Piltdown was not an out and out fraud - Hesperopithecus is debatable. Being mistaken does not make someone a liar - I find it interesting that you will so vigorously defend scientific mistakes but attack one minor mistake (actually based on a pretty serious misrepresentation I read elsewhere) as me being "a liar". Possibly you should grow up and be a bit more polite?
Red flag: again "purely random" natural selection? Buzz: down the crapper goes your credibility...
No further down the crapper than neo-Darwinism puts your argument. As best as I understand Neo-Darwinism (a la Dawkins) it appears to posit some kind of weird force, the mechanisms of which are so unclear as to be invisible, that somehow makes formation of more complex life forms more probable. First, this is a substantial departure from Darwinian Natural Selection, and second I wonder when you 19th century naturalistic types give up and just say "God" again?
Survey says: BUZZ! In fact, Matthias was elected to replace Judas within 50 days of Jesus' death. Acts 1.
Can I get a doctorate via mail order too?
Yes, you can! For $19.95. Of course, it won't be from UVA, and you won't be forced to learn anything about the subject, but that's just a detail, right?
Or differing nutrient and hormonal exposure when they shared the womb...
You can, of course,come up with things that could be slightly different. For example, Rebecca was born thirty minutes sooner, and her head had to push open the cervix, so maybe she's just a little bit brain damaged? However, the babies differed only by three ounces of weight (one was 5lbs. 9oz., the other wass 5lbs. 12oz.) have been together ever since, etc. I think that any naturalistic differences you claim are really just post-hoc rationalizations designed to preserve a failed concept of human nature.
I'm confronted with the absurdity of someone who can't spell "ridiculous" or "believe" or "claim," or use the apostrophe correctly, quoting as his authoritative source John Lennon, and who moreover couldn't recognize a clearly anti-Christian troll and responded to it with diatribe against a religion he apparently knows nothing about, promising me that someday I will "wake up". Your original post seemed to imply that you thought Christians uneducated. I wonder - who sounds uneducated in this conversation?
I'm working on a Masters in Theological Studies, and in a year expect to be working on my PhD at University of Virginia (not exactly a charm school), and have debated Christianity vs. Atheism with the best on the Net and off. I went through two years of debating anyone and everyone on the net on the historical merits of Christianity, and at the end of it came to the conclusion that there was not one valid historical argument against Christianity and that there were many, many reasons to believe it was true.
Let me respond to your Lennonism with a relevant quote:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter,[2] and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 1Cor 15:3ff.
What are your relevant historical reasons for assuming that this (indisputably authentic) utterance is a lie? And when will you be getting your high school diploma?
It appears that it was a bit less bland than this (although, not, as I had thought, used in the actual trial). The guy who wrote the following lambastes both sides for misinformation, which I take to mean that he's probably a fairly reliable source:
Far from "making every effort to obtain more evidence" regarding Hesperopithecus, Osborn actually ignored doubts about the nature of the tooth voiced as early as 1923, and no further work at the site was initiated until the Spring of 1925. Throughout the intervening period Osborn frequently used Nebraska Man as a 'stick' with which to beat Bryan in the popular press.
In 1922 he jokingly (?) suggested that Nebraska Man might have been better named as Bryopithecus "after the most most distinguished Primate which the State of Nebraska has thus far produced."
As late as May 1925 he wrote an article for The Forum, entitled "The Earth Speaks to Bryan" (a play on Job 12:8 - "Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee"), in which he asked:
"What shall we do with the Nebraska tooth?... Certainly we shall not banish this bit of Truth because it does not fit in with our preconceived notions and because at present it constitutes infinitesimal but irrefutable evidence that the man-ape wandered over from Asia into North America."
Brave words, but not exactly well-judged.
In late June Osborn was still listed amongst the eleven scientists "who will be called to testify in defense of John T. Scopes" (New York Times, June 26, 1925). When Bryan arrived in Dayton (July 7) he made it clear to reporters that he was looking forward to the opportunity of confronting Osborn and Nebraska Man head on. Yet where was Osborn? And where was Hesperopithecus? Certainly not in Dayton. Nor would they ever arrive.
Although Osborn responded to Bryan's widely publicised jibes the very next day, with a full page defence of evolution in The New York Times, Nebraska Man was suddenly conspicuous by his absence. Likewise Osborn himself, far from attending the trial, stayed safe and sound in New York, without even supplying an affidavit of his testimony.
The point? Once again, the evolution/creation issue is all politics, no substance.
Actually, the "Nebraska Man" (better referred to as Hesperopithecus) was widely trumpeted by the scientific community as the final proof of evolution during the monkey trials in the thirties. Bryan (William Jennings) was repeatedly confronted with this pig tooth as a proof of evolution. Pictures were published in Newspapers, mocking Bryan with alleged evidence from his own state. Testimony regarding hesperopithecus was introduced into the Scopes trial. Similar things were done using the Piltdown skulls, which have also since proven to be outright fabrications.
Or, howbout that picture (hand drawn) you see in all the science textbooks of human babies with gills? These are fabrications. Or the old example of moths who change color to match the soot? They glued the moths to the trees to get the pictures.
The bottom line is that there are only a very few biologists in the US who talk much about evolution, and precious few scientists who really specialize in it. In fact, from what I've seen many biology degrees don't even include a course in it. This is a political issue, not a scientific one. And I really wish those (on both sides) who have such strong, loudly voiced opinions on it would take the time to see how they BOTH are being lied to. A good start would be books by some of the true scientists out there who've spoken up on natural selection, such as Michael Behe. Dembski is also good, although his credentials are not.
Much of the evidence used in support of evolution is fabricated. However, much of the evidence used (by e.g. Hovind) to refute it is equally bad - either fabricated, or distorted. The reasonable conclusion is probably that the earth is well in excess of 6000 years old (probably more like 6 billion), and that some kind of "evolution" did occur, but that purely random Natural Selection does not appear to be a sufficient explanation for speciazation.
Anyway, I don't really care about this issue, but I really wish that people would stop acting like the two months wasted on evolution in their introductory Bio course entitles them to make grand pronouncements on the validity of evolution. Almost as much as I wish people who've read one tendentious, right wing book on the subject -- generally based in a theory of Biblical interpretation that is unsustainable -- would stop making grand pronouncements on the validity of creationism.
</rant>
Slashdot Mirror
First version of Linux made public was 0.12. I rant it. Trust me on this one.
The emphasis is no longer really on "easy to use." It is on "easy to setup and maintain." Windows installations (I don't care the flavor, it's true of XP, 2000 and 98) tend to slowly degrade, becoming more and more flaky until you're left with no choice but to reload.
Drivers are also a bloody pain in the you-know-what. Every time I have to reload Windows, I spend hours hunting around the net for drivers, then updating drivers, the downdating drivers, all to get everything to work together. (Good example: ati video drivers require directx 8, which you have to download running at 640x480 before you can install the driver.) Yes, I could keep the driver disks on-hand, but that's truly a pain in the but. A pain that i don't have to endure with my Macs.
The point being this: 10 years ago, the focus of ease of use was menus, mouses, and drag & drop. Today, the focus is on configuration and maintainability. And here the Mac clearly has MS beat. And yes, this IS because Apple owns the hardware - but I don't care so long as it works.
I must admit, I'm a bit confused as to when, in the eyes of "Your Smut Online" retailers lost the right of choosing how to stock their shelves while, somehow, you retain the right to buy it. You have a right to speak: you don't have a right to make me or anyone else listen.
I recognize that xpcom components are not automatically portable, but they are a heck of a lot more portable than most similar environments. XPFE takes care of most of the nitty-gritty work necessary to make them portable.
If you haven't looked at it closely, don't knock it. Take a look at Creating Applications with Mozilla, from O'Reilly (of course.)
Several advantages:
- Easy cross platform. Your app will run on any platform Mozilla/Netscape run on.
- Easy development. Subjectively, development goes a lot faster than under a traditional framework.
- Something you probably already know: most people I know who program already know HTML and Javascript to some degree. From there, it's a very small leap to XUL and Javascript.
The major disadvantage is that it will necessarily be a little slower than a custom coded native solution. But who cares for most apps? With recent Mozilla versions, it's more than fast enough. Anyway, my $0.02Patrick
They weren't interested in providing the list before. The judge had to force them to do so, since they took the irrational position that it was Napster's responsibility to figure out whether every file in their service was copyrighted without anything to tell them what files were copyrighted! The RIAA is truly intransigent.
I also tried "portable scanner" and "+portable +scanner", etc. The "use google" responses are perpetually lame, because it can sometimes be impossible to find something on google if you don't know exactly what it's called.
I took about a gram of sodium from the chemistry lab, dropped it in the toilet, and turned it into a fountain.
Ah... The good old days. Sometimes I'm amazed that I lived through High School.
Realize that, from my perspective, a moral system rises or falls on its tendency to advance the kingdom of God. Although objectivism may (emphasis on may) offer a basis for the affirmation of individual importance (not relative to that of other individuals) it fails to glorify God since it elevates these individuals to His level.
Guess I'm just picky :)
What is asserted by thinking (emphasis on THINKING) Christians is not that an atheist or agnostic cannot be moral. That would be downright silly. Instead, I tend to think that when an atheist or agnostic behaves morally, he cannot articulate a consistent reason for doing so. It seems to me -- having been a teenage agnostic -- that agnosticism and atheism both fail to provide a stable base for more thinking. (Oddly enough, true atheists often do better since they tend to be humanists.)
The problem is that, when we get to the tough moral decisions, non-theists are left without a guiding principle by which to make decisions. So, pragmatism becomes their only principle. This pragmatism is then "blessed" using utilitarian ethics: 'the greatest good for the greatest number.' However, from a Christian perspective this ethic fails on a number of points.
One notable example of the failure of non-theistic ethics would be the question of abortion. While I am not a rabid anti-abortion advocate (I feel strongly that Christians should stay out of politics) it seems to me faintly absurd to argue that the fetus is not a human, then, suddenly for no apparently reason it is. The arguments usually skip careful reasoning about the nature of human life and jumps straight to practical questions - "How much good will it do the baby to live if it is born to a single mother who hates it yada yada blah blah?" This jump is made because non-theistic ethics has no basis to deal with intrinsic human value.
The Christian ethic is very different (although many Christians have not thought it through very carefully.) The ultimate end is the glory of God. God has chosen to be glorified by creating the present reality of the kingdom of God, that was innaugurated in Jesus Christ. In this present kingdom, the church is called to act in Jesus stead until his return, and to that end we, through God and through christ, attempt to do good. The good we do is not the kingdom, but it is our response to the kingdom. The nature of the kingdom is that there is no death, no suffering, even for the smallest and weekest (Isaiah says "even the lions will eat grass in that day.") So, our response tries to reduce suffering even among the smallest and weakest.
In the case of abortion, this plays out as a particular concern for the powerless - since we are commanded to have a particular concern for the powerless. So, we are more concerned with the one life (of the baby) being snuffed out than we are with the practical questions that fire the whole liberal view of it. Certainly, we value the life of the baby more than we value the mother's right to be "empowered" vis a vis the gender wars. Why? Because we regard (or should) money and temporal matters as of trivial importance compared to a single life. (Go back and read some of the early abortion debate - feminism is the root of the issue.)
Anyway, I suspect I've rambled. But my point is that while a non-theist may be very ethical, I don't think he has a consistent basis to do so. And this lack o consistency will inevitably come out at the edges.
My big complaint with Chimera is that it doesn't seem to have some features that are critical for web development - for example, no Javascript console, acts weird when loaded from fireworks, etc.
Should it be fixed? Yes. Is it a big deal? Not unless you're doing something nasty. Bottom line is that I don't really care who knows what websites I go to, because I keep my web accesses legitimate and vanilla. Who's got time to crack, pr0n, or spod when trying to raise a family? Geesh.
I'm an accredited Bible-Thumper, and I like Harry Potter quite a bit. Don't believe any stereotype, because they're generally not true to life, silly slashdotter.
Just remember: physics without Math is like beer without alcohol. It may look good, taste good, and go down good, but at the end of the day it won't do anything for you.
It was as bad as a Russian novel, but the Russian novels at least usually have a point! This just seemed to be a roll in a kind of a trendy post-modern muckiness for its own sake. It made me tired.
Think about it - if Microsoft can put hooks in Windows XP that prevent it from installing on a different OEM than the one you got it from, what's to prevent apple from doing the same? Further, they could easily make their X86 hardware different enough to prevent any random clone from working. In fact, SGI did something similar a few years ago, not that it did them any good. The point is that, even if they go X86, a mac could still be proprietary. There's much more to the Industry Standard platform than running on Intel.
Okay, you made me laugh. For this favor, I pray that you will eventually repent of your Ramish, Yakish, and otherwise shaven ways and eventually come into the glory of... errr. Never mind.
Now, please explain to me - if evolution (or rather Darwinian natural selection) is not "purely random", then what is it? Do you seriously think that the postulated feedback loop (i.e. good mutations survive) brings enough order to the system to make it less than purely random? Would it not make more sense to suppose that there is some consideration directing mutations in profitable directions - i.e. God?
On another topic - you spend a lot of time railing against creationists. However, the pro-evolution types are just as bad. I have heard Dawkins, on NPR's Connection, claim that no theologian is supernaturalist. Considering that I know quite a few theologians, almost all of which believe more or less in a number of supernatural events, I have to wonder whether Dawkins is deluded or just lying? Gould made similar gaffs on many occasions, but I'll let him lie.
You can, of course,come up with things that could be slightly different. For example, Rebecca was born thirty minutes sooner, and her head had to push open the cervix, so maybe she's just a little bit brain damaged? However, the babies differed only by three ounces of weight (one was 5lbs. 9oz., the other wass 5lbs. 12oz.) have been together ever since, etc. I think that any naturalistic differences you claim are really just post-hoc rationalizations designed to preserve a failed concept of human nature.
But, that's just me. :)
I'm working on a Masters in Theological Studies, and in a year expect to be working on my PhD at University of Virginia (not exactly a charm school), and have debated Christianity vs. Atheism with the best on the Net and off. I went through two years of debating anyone and everyone on the net on the historical merits of Christianity, and at the end of it came to the conclusion that there was not one valid historical argument against Christianity and that there were many, many reasons to believe it was true.
Let me respond to your Lennonism with a relevant quote:
What are your relevant historical reasons for assuming that this (indisputably authentic) utterance is a lie? And when will you be getting your high school diploma?Or, howbout that picture (hand drawn) you see in all the science textbooks of human babies with gills? These are fabrications. Or the old example of moths who change color to match the soot? They glued the moths to the trees to get the pictures.
The bottom line is that there are only a very few biologists in the US who talk much about evolution, and precious few scientists who really specialize in it. In fact, from what I've seen many biology degrees don't even include a course in it. This is a political issue, not a scientific one. And I really wish those (on both sides) who have such strong, loudly voiced opinions on it would take the time to see how they BOTH are being lied to. A good start would be books by some of the true scientists out there who've spoken up on natural selection, such as Michael Behe. Dembski is also good, although his credentials are not.
Much of the evidence used in support of evolution is fabricated. However, much of the evidence used (by e.g. Hovind) to refute it is equally bad - either fabricated, or distorted. The reasonable conclusion is probably that the earth is well in excess of 6000 years old (probably more like 6 billion), and that some kind of "evolution" did occur, but that purely random Natural Selection does not appear to be a sufficient explanation for speciazation.
Anyway, I don't really care about this issue, but I really wish that people would stop acting like the two months wasted on evolution in their introductory Bio course entitles them to make grand pronouncements on the validity of evolution. Almost as much as I wish people who've read one tendentious, right wing book on the subject -- generally based in a theory of Biblical interpretation that is unsustainable -- would stop making grand pronouncements on the validity of creationism. </rant>