I do like this spirit of your post, but these days, I'm a little cynical about the whole regulation process. Like, you're saying the government should say "we require that your business fulfill requirement X and abide by regulation Y". The problem is, when there's a lot of money in something (like a nationwide shipping system, for instance), it seems to be in vogue for the company to buy themselves some legislative relief rather than try to creatively solve the problem.
To wit: airlines ("On-time arrivals are HARD. Can we have another bailout? Say, 100 billion dollars this time?"), the *AA ("We could make a lot more money if copyright never expired. Let's buy us a couple new congresscritters."), California utility companies ("Stop us from price-gouging, will they? Let's see how they deal with... ROLLING BROWNOUTS! Bwahahahaha!")
What testable predictions are made by the theory that all macroevolutionary change is caused by random mutation?
Two points:
1. You're A) changing the subject, and B) offering a fallacy of false choice. I'm saying that ID is not a scientific theory, as it fails the necessary and sufficient test for a hypothesis to be scientifically valid. That is true regardless of whether or not evolution is a scientific theory.
2. "theory that all macroevolutionary change is caused by random mutation" is not a very good summary of the theory of evolution, which is what I assume you're challenging me to prove. In this very thread, there are several well-moderated examples of places where evolutionary theories have made predictions that were later borne out, whether archeologically or in the lab. Perhaps you'd like to read the thread before posting in it?
I agree with basically everything you say here, except for one clause:
Since you can't prove a negative...
No. People say this all the time, but it isn't simply isn't true. Proving a negative to a scientifically-formulated theory is EASY - it requires a single counter-example. I say, "all grues are pink", and you say, "look, there is a purple grue!", and POOF, you have proved the negation of my theory. Or, I say "the standard model predicts that neutrinos should have no mass", and you say "but look, I've shown that neutrinos do have mass", and then we know that the standard model isn't correct.
The standard model is thus a scientific theory. ID is not - "life is too complicated for evolution" is not a theory that you can test. It is actually not incumbent on ID supporters to PROVE anything - they need only make falsifiable, testable predictions.
One of the reasons why this whole debate is so astonishingly stupid is the whole "falsifiable, testable prediction" thing. The #1 way to make various timecube-style crackpots leave you alone is to say "OK, great, what testable predictions does your crazy crackpot theory make?" For ID, just as for timecube, the answer is "not a one." In principle, then, we're done. It's not science! It fails the one and only test that a scientific theory must pass!
In conclusion, my original point was... uhh... oh yeah... stop saying "you can't prove a negative." 'cus you can.
I've only seen your website, and of course I don't know you, so I'm hardly in a position to say anything concrete - but have you considered visiting a mental health professional? I'm truly not try to be insulting - I've seen friends fall into schizophrenia, and some of the idiosyncrasies of your writing really remind me of what I saw with them. There are a lot of resources out there - try asking a trusted doctor for a quick consultation, or call 1.416.961.2855 for assistance finding help.
Hi Darl - thanks for joining us. As for your poorly done hatchet job:
That way all can find out just how baseless and 'mean' SCO is and how independant Groklaw really is.
As for Groklaw being a legal website based upon the truth, one should be reminded of the words of former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: 'Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants'.
What in God's name are you talking about? What needs to be 'disinfected'? There is absolutely no evidence to support the contention that Groklaw is connected to IBM, and even if they were, what does it have to do with the legal merits of SCO's case?
Of course, that's not why you're here. You're here to spread innuendo and FUD, to link PJ to statements like "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants" without ever actually making any sort of substantive statement. You're far too much of a coward to come out and accuse PJ of anything. Take your astroturf elsewhere, troll.
America is the two continents. Not any one country
Well, while you're of course technically right, but "USA" and "America" seem to be functional synonyms. In my admittedly light travels in "America" (Canada, Mexico, various Carribean Islands, Costa Rica, and Peru) the US is pretty much universally referred to as "America," and the US' citizens are "Americans". I've never met anyone from a North or South American country, other than the US of course, who thinks of herself as an "American".
... so you can forget power when a clouds in the way.
Yes... if ONLY we had some sort of futuristic device that could store electricity!
If everyone did this, it was just make taxes jump significantly, meaning EVERYONE would pay more for power. Oh, and no one would use the electricity grid, so you can forget power when a clouds in the way.
But... if no one was using the electricity grid, no one would have to pay for electricity. And there likely wouldn't be tax credits for solar power, as it would be standard part of building a house. I'm sure there are some viable economic criticisms of solar power, but your examples are really, really, astonishingly lame.
Sooo... you would prefer that they not tell Fedex your address when shipping something to you?
Seriously, that's the most standard privacy clause you can find.
Hmmm... looking at your comment history, your astroturfing is extremely sub-par. You don't have a SINGLE POST on slashdot that isn't shilling Sony products. Not one. I assume this guy.
I could be snarky, but I'll just say this: Please, be honest, or leave. As a Sony employee, you could probably offer a lot of insight in these discussions. But you aren't - you're astroturfing. Please go away.
My sarcasm detector is going off, yet your post is modded "insightful." PLEASE tell me that you're kidding. Please tell me that you know what an ecosystem is. Please tell me you don't truly believe that everything would be hunky-dory for us if there were only 4 species of mammals on earth. And please correct those idiots who modded this post "insightful" instead of "funny." Thanks.
Ummm... I don't know if you're really unaware of physics here, but if you stick a mouse in a microwave and turn the power to 11, the mouse sort of dies.
Sure. But not of cancer, which is what we're talking about.
Now that I think about it, I guess I can see why heating MIGHT play a role. Assuming that your cell phone transmitter is 1 cm away from your skin, its irradiance a bit more than that of the sun. And it will definitely penetrate deeper than solar radiation, although much less will be absorbed. I just don't see how you can get biologically siginificant heating from that sort of effect.
Ummm... I don't know if you're really unaware of the counter-argument here, but this has nothing to do with heating or not. The plain and simple fact is that DNA does not interact with light at microwave/radiowave frequencies. Therefore DNA can't get damaged by cell phone radiation. Therefore, it doesn't give you cancer. I'm still not aware of any non-crackpot scientific studies that show any evidence of tumors being caused by cell phones. If you can come up with a reference to this guy, I'd be happy to take a look, but he sure sounds like a crackpot to me.
Re:Funny you should mention that...
on
IT and Divorce?
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· Score: 1
This isn't a scientific study. Who said it was? It's a discussion. This is a discussion board. We have discussions here. Here, we're discussing how careers in IT affect one's marraige. You're attacking him for starting this discussion. Do you believe this discussion isn't worth having?
The submitter is sort of right - it looks like the device you transfer it to will need explicit support for the DRM. From the New York Times:
Customers will be able to download an unlimited number of Universal songs to their computer and one other device. They will not be able to transfer those songs onto a compact disc, and they must visit the site at least once a month to maintain access to their music.
Look, it's great that you're thinking about this stuff, but what you are talking about has no relation to the way physics is done. If you are seriously interested in probing deep mysteries of gravity, you're going to need 4 years of intensive undergraduate math plus several more years of extremely difficult differential geometry and tensor calculus before you can even think about describing it.
It's easy to sit down, smoke some weed, and say "hey man, what if there were gravitational DIPOLES! Did I just BLOW YOUR MIND?!", but actual physics is motivated by the math and experimental evidence. If you can fit your gravitational dipoles into existing theories of gravity, go for it. But right now, you're a crackpot. Congratulations.
A friend of mine, currently studying in the United States, faced a similar situation for criticizing some funding program of Singapore's science agency. Philip Yeo, the head of Singapore's science agency, threatened sue my friend into submission and forced him to post a pre-written 'apology' on his blog. Not only that, but Mr. Yeo has continued to harass my friend even after the apology was posted, by sending him crazy, childish emails. This is how it appears to work in Singapore. Idiot arrogant bureaucrats such as Mr. Yeo have free reign as petty tyrants and the blessing of the government to crush anyone who criticizes them. It's sick, and it's most certainly not democracy.
What sane teenager or adult is going to publicly announce that they have to go home to play with their Wii?
What are you talking about? The value in obvious double entendrees alone is worth the price of buying the console. "Hey, guys, this is boring. Fuck y'all, I'm gonna go home and play with my wii until I fall asleep." What teenager or video-game playing adult doesn't appreciate a good penis joke now and then?
Honestly, we're absolutely going to be inundated with the Wii name over the next x months until release, it's not like people won't know what you're talking about. I'm sure at one point it sounded really bizarre to say "I'm going to home and write a paper on my apple" or whatever, but you get used to it - proper nouns take over namespace surprisingly quickly.
The graphics won't dazzle everyone but they'll be fine.
In my opinion, this is actually a big FEATURE of the Wii. The better the graphics, the more work that needs to go into every square inch of every surface, polygon and texture. That means that a) no one except huge production houses is able to afford to produce a game that looks alright, and b) game production is far too expensive for any company to risk innovation.
I think that the wii will definitely have a boost from being cheaper to develop for than the other 2 systems. Less time spent on polygons and and high textures means more time to innovate. I'm also of the opinion that artists tend to produce far more intersting output when they're working under practical constraints - give someone the freedom to do everything, and it becomes hard to do anything.
Well, firstly, I said you can't prove that god doesn't exist. Secondly, the one of the very reasons for you can neither prove nor disprove god's existance is that there's no definition whatsoever. Yes, you could claim that God is the sun - that's not proving the existance of god, that's just semantics. I could also claim that butter is, in fact, puppies, and then say to have conclusively proved that butter has a cold wet nose.
Delicious, spreadable puppies.
And thanks for calling me "foolish" and raising the level of the debate, when you can't be bothered to read my original post - you must be a blast at parties.
I have proven that not(all apples are red), that is there exists(apple which is not(red)). I have not proven all apples(are not(red)), which is proving a negative, because I only showed you one example.
Sorry, your symbolic logic is wrong. "All apples are not red" is the negation of "there exists an apple which is red" - that's different from your first statement.
As you can see, that's different than "all apples are red", which negated is "there exists an apple which is not red." Remember - the negation of "all" is "there exists not."
Two ways:
1)if a theory says A is true, find an example where A is not true. I.e., a counter-example = proof of a negative.
2)Logical deduction, i.e. mathematical proof. Hidden variables are proved not to exist by a mathematical theorem (Bell's Theorem, specifically).
You can't prove there's no god, because God isn't formulated as a scientific theory. You can prove there are no hidden variables, since quantum mechanics is a scientific theory.
Further, many-worlds does offer (possibly observable) distinctions from the Copenhagen Interpretation. For instance, from the point of view of Schrodinger's cat. This is often illustrated in the "quantum suicide" thought experiment, which isn't possible under the Copenhagen Interpretation, and which makes its veracity vs. Copenhagen at the very least philosophically interesting.
I'm probably just dense, but I don't see the difference between Copenhagen and MW from the perspective of Schrodinger's cat, but it sounds interesting - would you mind spelling it out for me?
Also, I agree that MW is a nicer explanation for quantum weirdness, but that's not the issue. The issue is that I just don't see how it has additional predictive power. What you're calling 'explanatory power' sounds like aesthetics to me - it doesn't give us anything to test. The only reason to move to a more complicated theory is because it makes better predictions than the simpler one.
You're describing many-worlds theory, I think, and actually the article does mention it. I guess makes things a little more palatable, but, as a scientific theory, Sir William of Occam says 'hell no.' It gives us no new predictive power and is not falsifiable. So far, no serious work has been done except to say 'this clears up a lot of things that make me uncomfortable.' You mention a lot of benefits, but there are only two criteria that determine the merit of a scientific theory - predictive power and falsifiability.
The point is that just because the Copenhagen Interpretation is aesthtically unappealing in its treatment of the 'observer' and the collapse of the wavefunction doesn't mean anything about its merit as scientific theory. Many-worlds is a pretty drastic measure - it involves postulating extra dimensions that we have no way of probing, and is therefore not falsifiable.
Very good book on the palatibility of quantum mechanics that anyone interested should check out is "Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics" by J.S. Bell (he of the mighty inequalities). It addresses a lot of the uneasiness people have with the Copenhagen interepretation, and shows how a lot of it baseless when formulated correctly.
Did you even read the articles? I highly recommend them - very accessible and good reads. And, BTW, a third of the main 'evolution in action' article is dedicated to HapMap. They make an excellent case for how evolutionary science has had some really big discoveries this year. ID only gets mentioned once, in the weekly editorial. But with things like the comparison between the chimp and human genome and observations of speciation without geographical barriers, it's clear that this wasn't simply a political decision (although it might certainly of played a role). Check it out - it's all accessible without a subscription.
Slashdot Mirror
To wit: airlines ("On-time arrivals are HARD. Can we have another bailout? Say, 100 billion dollars this time?"), the *AA ("We could make a lot more money if copyright never expired. Let's buy us a couple new congresscritters."), California utility companies ("Stop us from price-gouging, will they? Let's see how they deal with ... ROLLING BROWNOUTS! Bwahahahaha!")
1. You're A) changing the subject, and B) offering a fallacy of false choice. I'm saying that ID is not a scientific theory, as it fails the necessary and sufficient test for a hypothesis to be scientifically valid. That is true regardless of whether or not evolution is a scientific theory.
2. "theory that all macroevolutionary change is caused by random mutation" is not a very good summary of the theory of evolution, which is what I assume you're challenging me to prove. In this very thread, there are several well-moderated examples of places where evolutionary theories have made predictions that were later borne out, whether archeologically or in the lab. Perhaps you'd like to read the thread before posting in it?
No. People say this all the time, but it isn't simply isn't true. Proving a negative to a scientifically-formulated theory is EASY - it requires a single counter-example. I say, "all grues are pink", and you say, "look, there is a purple grue!", and POOF, you have proved the negation of my theory. Or, I say "the standard model predicts that neutrinos should have no mass", and you say "but look, I've shown that neutrinos do have mass", and then we know that the standard model isn't correct.
The standard model is thus a scientific theory. ID is not - "life is too complicated for evolution" is not a theory that you can test. It is actually not incumbent on ID supporters to PROVE anything - they need only make falsifiable, testable predictions.
One of the reasons why this whole debate is so astonishingly stupid is the whole "falsifiable, testable prediction" thing. The #1 way to make various timecube-style crackpots leave you alone is to say "OK, great, what testable predictions does your crazy crackpot theory make?" For ID, just as for timecube, the answer is "not a one." In principle, then, we're done. It's not science! It fails the one and only test that a scientific theory must pass!
In conclusion, my original point was ... uhh ... oh yeah ... stop saying "you can't prove a negative." 'cus you can.
I've only seen your website, and of course I don't know you, so I'm hardly in a position to say anything concrete - but have you considered visiting a mental health professional? I'm truly not try to be insulting - I've seen friends fall into schizophrenia, and some of the idiosyncrasies of your writing really remind me of what I saw with them. There are a lot of resources out there - try asking a trusted doctor for a quick consultation, or call 1.416.961.2855 for assistance finding help.
Of course, that's not why you're here. You're here to spread innuendo and FUD, to link PJ to statements like "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants" without ever actually making any sort of substantive statement. You're far too much of a coward to come out and accuse PJ of anything. Take your astroturf elsewhere, troll.
Sooo ... you would prefer that they not tell Fedex your address when shipping something to you?
Seriously, that's the most standard privacy clause you can find.
I could be snarky, but I'll just say this: Please, be honest, or leave. As a Sony employee, you could probably offer a lot of insight in these discussions. But you aren't - you're astroturfing. Please go away.
My sarcasm detector is going off, yet your post is modded "insightful." PLEASE tell me that you're kidding. Please tell me that you know what an ecosystem is. Please tell me you don't truly believe that everything would be hunky-dory for us if there were only 4 species of mammals on earth. And please correct those idiots who modded this post "insightful" instead of "funny." Thanks.
Sure. But not of cancer, which is what we're talking about.
Now that I think about it, I guess I can see why heating MIGHT play a role. Assuming that your cell phone transmitter is 1 cm away from your skin, its irradiance a bit more than that of the sun. And it will definitely penetrate deeper than solar radiation, although much less will be absorbed. I just don't see how you can get biologically siginificant heating from that sort of effect.
Ummm ... I don't know if you're really unaware of the counter-argument here, but this has nothing to do with heating or not. The plain and simple fact is that DNA does not interact with light at microwave/radiowave frequencies. Therefore DNA can't get damaged by cell phone radiation. Therefore, it doesn't give you cancer. I'm still not aware of any non-crackpot scientific studies that show any evidence of tumors being caused by cell phones. If you can come up with a reference to this guy, I'd be happy to take a look, but he sure sounds like a crackpot to me.
This isn't a scientific study. Who said it was? It's a discussion. This is a discussion board. We have discussions here. Here, we're discussing how careers in IT affect one's marraige. You're attacking him for starting this discussion. Do you believe this discussion isn't worth having?
It's easy to sit down, smoke some weed, and say "hey man, what if there were gravitational DIPOLES! Did I just BLOW YOUR MIND?!", but actual physics is motivated by the math and experimental evidence. If you can fit your gravitational dipoles into existing theories of gravity, go for it. But right now, you're a crackpot. Congratulations.
A friend of mine, currently studying in the United States, faced a similar situation for criticizing some funding program of Singapore's science agency. Philip Yeo, the head of Singapore's science agency, threatened sue my friend into submission and forced him to post a pre-written 'apology' on his blog. Not only that, but Mr. Yeo has continued to harass my friend even after the apology was posted, by sending him crazy, childish emails. This is how it appears to work in Singapore. Idiot arrogant bureaucrats such as Mr. Yeo have free reign as petty tyrants and the blessing of the government to crush anyone who criticizes them. It's sick, and it's most certainly not democracy.
Honestly, we're absolutely going to be inundated with the Wii name over the next x months until release, it's not like people won't know what you're talking about. I'm sure at one point it sounded really bizarre to say "I'm going to home and write a paper on my apple" or whatever, but you get used to it - proper nouns take over namespace surprisingly quickly.
I think that the wii will definitely have a boost from being cheaper to develop for than the other 2 systems. Less time spent on polygons and and high textures means more time to innovate. I'm also of the opinion that artists tend to produce far more intersting output when they're working under practical constraints - give someone the freedom to do everything, and it becomes hard to do anything.
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3
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Delicious, spreadable puppies.
And thanks for calling me "foolish" and raising the level of the debate, when you can't be bothered to read my original post - you must be a blast at parties.
Sorry, your symbolic logic is wrong. "All apples are not red" is the negation of "there exists an apple which is red" - that's different from your first statement.
As you can see, that's different than "all apples are red", which negated is "there exists an apple which is not red." Remember - the negation of "all" is "there exists not."
Two ways:
1)if a theory says A is true, find an example where A is not true. I.e., a counter-example = proof of a negative.
2)Logical deduction, i.e. mathematical proof. Hidden variables are proved not to exist by a mathematical theorem (Bell's Theorem, specifically).
You can't prove there's no god, because God isn't formulated as a scientific theory. You can prove there are no hidden variables, since quantum mechanics is a scientific theory.
I'm probably just dense, but I don't see the difference between Copenhagen and MW from the perspective of Schrodinger's cat, but it sounds interesting - would you mind spelling it out for me?
Also, I agree that MW is a nicer explanation for quantum weirdness, but that's not the issue. The issue is that I just don't see how it has additional predictive power. What you're calling 'explanatory power' sounds like aesthetics to me - it doesn't give us anything to test. The only reason to move to a more complicated theory is because it makes better predictions than the simpler one.
The point is that just because the Copenhagen Interpretation is aesthtically unappealing in its treatment of the 'observer' and the collapse of the wavefunction doesn't mean anything about its merit as scientific theory. Many-worlds is a pretty drastic measure - it involves postulating extra dimensions that we have no way of probing, and is therefore not falsifiable.
Very good book on the palatibility of quantum mechanics that anyone interested should check out is "Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics" by J.S. Bell (he of the mighty inequalities). It addresses a lot of the uneasiness people have with the Copenhagen interepretation, and shows how a lot of it baseless when formulated correctly.
Did you even read the articles? I highly recommend them - very accessible and good reads. And, BTW, a third of the main 'evolution in action' article is dedicated to HapMap. They make an excellent case for how evolutionary science has had some really big discoveries this year. ID only gets mentioned once, in the weekly editorial. But with things like the comparison between the chimp and human genome and observations of speciation without geographical barriers, it's clear that this wasn't simply a political decision (although it might certainly of played a role). Check it out - it's all accessible without a subscription.