This technology has "false positive" written all over it. It'll just tie up our existing system by having agents investigate and track down innocent people.
Yeah, just like I'm allowed to walk in to the movie theater at any time because I bought a ticket but didn't show up to watch the movie.
I bought a ticket for a specific show at a specific time. I didn't buy season tickets to the local cinema. Your analogy doesn't work.
Oh wait... I'm not. If you didn't watch it when it ran on TV, its your own damn fault. Buy a VCR, rent it from a video store, get on-demand TV.
Yes, it's my own damn fault that I have to have a job to pay for my cable TV which prohibits me from catching certain shows. Please explain to me what the difference is between recording the TV show in question and just downloading it. The only difference is the amount of work involved and the quality of the final product. If you're seriously arguing that I shouldn't be able to easily obtain a high-quality copy of a show, then I'd love to hear your reasoning for it.
I'm not shedding any tears for the MPAA, but stop making ridiculous excuses to justify your infringement. If you think $100/month is too much, don't pay for it. Nobody's holding a gun to your head forcing you to get cable TV.
They are if I want to watch shows on HBO. And I pay for HBO because I like their original programming. But if I missed last week's episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, why the hell shouldn't I be able to download it and watch it when I please? What does HBO lose by me not watching it on TV when they want me to? If I fill out a Neilson rating, I'm going to tell them that yes, I do watch the show, regardless of whether I download it or watched it when it aired. And since those ratings determine advertising prices for commercials, no one loses anything.
Why? I pay $100/month for cable TV. If I miss a show that won't be re-run for God knows how long, why shouldn't I be able to download it? As far as I'm concerned, I've already paid my dues to these blood-suckers.
Obj-C looks like someone came up with the idea to just change some words and symbols from C and call it a new language. And if you ignore the features of the Cocoa framework in OS X, there's nothing revolutionary about Obj-C.
All C statements are perfectly valid in Objective-C. Objective-C is a superset of C, meaning that nothing was changed in C to create it. You can call C library functions quite easily. Have you ever written a program in Objective-C? Have you ever tried to design classes with inheritance in both languages?
The way C++ and Objective-C handle objects are fundamentally different. Objective-C, to me at least, handles the concepts of inheritance and function overloading much more logically than C++. There are no virtual functions to worry about when designing a parent class. Constructor methods for child classes are infinitely more graceful than in C++ due to an object being able to call its parent's methods, even if the child has overloaded that method. Objective-C itself was designed to be a self-documenting language with labels on each method parameter and the guidelines on naming methods and variables. I find that my Objective-C code requires far less commenting than C++ code.
didn't have to do the google search. and you can think i'm full of shit all you want. just as your scenarios didn't apply everywhere, either did mine. you did a terrible job explaining your instances and left out the points that i included.
I wasn't aware that I was supposed to be giving you a dissertation, professor. I gave you a real-world example of evolution occurring, and then when you introduced the ridiculous distinction of "micro" and "macro", I told you that they're the same thing because they're driven by the same mechanism. You have yet to address this point.
The simple fact remains that you were asking questions no one with a degree in biological science should ask because they should already know the answers. Again, what school did you get this degree from?
i am not a religious person, yet i have this strange feeling you won't believe that either.
That's not difficult to believe at all. Lots of people all across the spectrum have been duped by this intelligent design nonsense.
What many people don't realize is that intelligent design boils down to the same type of flawed argumentation creationism uses: irreducible complexity.
unfortunately, i am not longer in the biological sciences field, so i am a little out of practice. we did learn about different types of evolution. and we were also taught to look at evidence (which is all theories since you can't really prove any of it) and consider which works and which doesn't (much like a scientist does).
Theories are not equivalent to evidence. Evidence must support the theory. And in the case of evolution, there are mountains of evidence in favor of it. It's one of the most robust theories in all of science, for Christ's sake.
and while it would be absurd for me to see the relation between species on the large scale, and it would be absurd for me to say that it's impossible for us to have come from a common anscestor, unfortunately the fossil record doesn't cover everything, so the proof there is incomplete. i can't come out and say that it's definitely the way it happened. new fossil evidence proves theories wrong all the time, as well as giving other theories strong backing. there's just not enough evidence to prove that evolution happens on a much larger scale than within a species.
Again, you're totally full of shit. These so-called "missing link" fossils are discovered all the time. Just because you don't read about it in the newspaper doesn't mean it didn't happen. Uncovering a transitional fossil in a species' evolution simply isn't a big deal because it's just another piece of evidence to throw on the pile.
Perhaps you have a better explanation for why 99% of all species which have ever existed are extinct, or as to why there are thousands of different species of beetles alone.
as for the definitions of species and speciation, there are different ones because there are different theories and mindsets. the definition you gave differs from that of many top evolutionary biologists. in fact, a few of my professors had different thoughts on it as well. so don't go and say that they're all correct, when not even the top minds in the field can agree on it.
The only controversies regarding evolution are about the mechanisms which drive it. Evolution is an observed process. That it happens is not in question among biologists. Some think that mechanisms in addition to natural selection drive it, but that doesn't mean that evolution doesn't happen. It makes no difference whether botanists use a different definition of "species" from the one entymologists use because it's more convenient.
a new species of bird emerges in your scenario because 2 species are not going to reproduce with each other based on differences in looks. however, they can reproduce in a lab. apparently you don't know the definition of species (of which there are many).
Different definitions of species are embraced by different kinds of biologists. It is possible to show that speciation has occurred when a subspecies becomes unable to reproduce with its superspecies for any reason. Just because some of those reasons may not happen to be genetic differences doesn't mean that there are no such instances which exist.
species are generally differentiated by the fact that they will not reproduce with one another in a natural setting, be it that they are geographically incapable (like your weak example) or it's just physically impossible. for instance (and you just had to choose birds), there are species of birds in north america an in europe that are exactly the same in everything except their name and some slight differences in looks (sparrows). they're perfectly capable of reproducing with one another, but a sparrow cannot fly across the atlantic ocean. therefore they are different species. that's not so much evolution. bad example. you explained no concepts to me.
You are describing one type of speciation and making it seem as though all species are actually able to interbreed but don't. (For some reason, you also hold this up triumphantly as a counter to basic evolutionary theory.) Reproductive barriers can be geographic separation or genetic incompatibility.
What's your point? That my scenarios didn't apply to everything? Of course they don't. But they are valid instances of speciation, which is the mechanism behind evolution. You've done nothing to refute my criticism of your absurd notion of "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution" somehow being completely different things despite having the same underlying mechanism. Maybe you just wanted to prove to me that you actually have a valid degree, so you did some Google searches to try and nitpick my post. Too bad, I still think you're full of shit.
Awww... did I use a bad word? I'm so sowwy that I've offended your virgin ears. Maybe I should've explained the birds and bees to you nicely and slowly instead of using a taboo 4-letter word to communicate the same concept.
ok, evolution on a small scale exists, this i know. that's microevolution... survival of the fittest...
There is no distinction between "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution." Those are terms dreamed up by creationists to try and weasel their way out of acknowledging that scenarios like the ones I presented actually exist. But if you insist on grouping them together that way, both micro- and macro-evolution have the exact same mechanism. After a certain number of changes in the population, members of the dominant variation of the species become unable to reproduce with other members of the species, hence speciation occurs. This should be obvious.
If a flock of birds is flying around and one group of birds becomes geographically separated from the other, then it's possible for one group to evolve in such a way that they can't reproduce with the other. A new species of that bird emerges as a result.
now how about macroevolution...
you didn't touch on that one. the evidence that the world was not created by intelligent design...
They're the same thing. See above. How about you present evidence that the world was intelligently designed instead? You're making the positive claim, so the burden of proof is on you.
for the record, i've actually got a degree in evolutionary bio... so i know a bit about how evolution works...
Bullshit. I'm a fucking computer science major who's taken one biology class in his entire college career, and I have to explain these simple concepts to someone who allegedly has a degree in the subject? Yeah, sure. What creationist diploma mill did you get it from? Vanguard University?
By the way, yes, it was pure chance. The universe is a very big place. Even if the chances of all this happening on a given planet were 1 in 100 billion, that means it'll happen, 'cause our universe has a whole lot of stars. The only reason we think we're special is because we possess self-consciousness which allows us to think we're special. If sentient life had happened on some other planet instead of Earth, we wouldn't be alive to know about it.
So no matter where sentient life happens, there will always be people who think that they must be special because it happened on their planet. That's called putting the cart before the horse.
"But mister... why did they form together just so to make me and my sister?" Happenstance? Just lucky? I choose to believe that there was a plan. That may be just me. To each his own (within reason;-)).
They didn't. Your parents' fucking was responsible for that.
give me concrete scientific proof that one side is completely wrong. it doesn't exist. scientific theories exist, but concrete proof does not.
Proof of a negative fallacy. Concrete proof is not needed to show that creationists are completely full of shit.
many of the world's greatest scientists believe in a god of some sort.
And many do not. This is not relevant.
as for life being created, how did it happen? if humans were truly evolved completely from apes, without the help of anything else, how do apes still exist? in fact, how do any other animals still exist? or is your scientific theory that one day the world will be nothing but humans?
Because evolution happens on smaller scales. You obviously don't understand evolution at all. Try reading science textbooks instead of 10-page creationist pamphlets. Here's a scenario for you. A farmer is spraying his crops with pesticides fairly often. After a few months of this, he notices that his crops are still being eaten, despite the broad use of pesticides.
What happened here? Can God explain that one? Nope, but evolution sure can. By liberally applying pesticides, the farmer killed off the proportion of the insect population that was not resistant to the pesticide. However, some members of that population had a gene which granted them a resistance to the pesticide. By killing off the members of the population without the resistant gene, the members with that gene grew to encompass a larger proportion of the population than their vulnerable brothers. So the members of the population with that gene reproduced and began dominating the population of insects. So now, almost every insect in the farmer's field is resistant to his pesticide, and they can eat his crops unimpeded unless he uses another pesticide.
This happens all the time in the real world. This is a big problem for farmers and pesticides. And it exists because of evolution. If you take a bunch of scenarios similar to this one and line them up over billions of years, you get massive changes among different populations.
How about this one? Why do human beings exist with different features all around the globe? Bible bashers can't explain that one. (Well they can, with the reasoning that God marked darker-skinned people as being subservient to whites.) Evolution, however, can. Black people generally have wider noses and darker skin for a reason: it allows them to breathe more easily because their environment was Africa, a really fucking hot place where the air pressure was significantly lower. So those members of their population which could take in larger quantities of air through their noses fared better and eventually became a dominant proportion of the population. Contrary to what racists might tell you, it is not because "black people are closer to apes."
please enlighten me to your concrete evidence. i'm really interested in learning.
Your sarcasm and parroting of creation "science" pamphlets says differently.
disclaimer: i am not a practicing christian, nor am i even remotely a creationist. i am just a curious mind interested in hearing all sides of things before making up my mind about anything. concrete evidence is the only thing that will sway me in one direction or the other, and since religion has no concrete evidence, science surely must... but i have yet to see any.
Evidence for evolution exists everywhere around you. It is an observed process. The concept of evolution is central to any field that deals with biology, from agriculture to medical science. Ever wonder why doctors recommend against using anti-bacterial soap unless absolutely necessary? Because it kills off the weaker bacteria while allowing stronger ones to survive and multiply.
And yet it is this way, and not just in humans. If an overall better alternative existed (taking into account all advantages and disadvantages), would we not have evolved differently?
No! Christ, that's precisely the POINT! Evolutionary theory predicts that more complex organisms today would exist in a sort of "cobbled together" state based on the trial and error approach of natural selection! Intelligent design does not predict this; in fact it predicts the exact opposite, making it completely inconsistent with observed fact.
You are, in fact, saying that "Nature" is an idiot.
Nature is not a conscious entity. It can't be an idiot. Evolutionary theory merely describes how nature acts without bias or prejudice. Intelligent design goes against the scientific philosophy of simple description and wants to try and divine the intentions of supernatural beings we can't interact with at all.
OK, whe littly Bobby Jones asks where the stuff to make it came from and where we came from, you have two options.
1) I don't know for sure. It was probably just always there and then people showed up through some very lucky coincidences from bacteria.
2) I don't know for sure. I believe that God created the matter and the rules of physics and genetic mutation such that the end result would be us and then set them in motion.
I don't know, but to me the second answer seems to give more explanation to the problem and doesn't detract from the scientific work being done. That's just my opinion though.
The second explanation has unnecessary terms. Again, explain to me what parts of human evolution cannot be adequately explained through simple, natural mechanisms? Even if you find something we cannot currently explain, saying, "We don't know, therefore God did it" is a blatant appeal to ignorance. How does saying "God did it" help us generate new predictions for evolutionary theory to be tested against? How does saying "God did it" help explain anything? It's a worthless and intellectually lazy explanation.
What's with this aversion to amino acids forming on Earth billions of years ago to lead to life today? The formation of amino acids under conditions found on early Earth is an experimentally verified fact.
Of course, if such a designer did exist, then we would certainly be perfect in every way imaginable and be completely immortal, no?
Uh, you'd think so, if the intelligent designer actually had so much power that he created the universe. At the very least, we wouldn't have so many glaring flaws.
I just find it rather amusing that you could call other people ignorant and egotistical for clinging to these ideas and yet you yourself are apparently worthy of designer of existence, and that you accuse other people of trying to bring unscientific ideas into science and yet you yourself feel that a lack of evidence is negative evidence.
Strawman and shifting the burden of proof. Nowhere did I ever say that I was an exception to my "no intelligent designer" conclusions. Furthermore, it is not up to me to find contrary evidence to any ridiculous ideas that religious nutcases dream up. There's no evidence for the existence of unicorns either, yet are you going to pull this "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" garbage with people who don't believe in unicorns?
They are the ones claiming the existence of an intelligent designer, so they have to provide evidence for the claim, then explain the mechanisms in this "intelligent designer" black box of their, then address the mountains of evidence that contradict their theory. They have utterly failed on all three accounts. So why should anyone take their claims seriously?
I'm not saying that I disagree with you--I believe science should be taught in science class, not religion, but if you're going to argue this point at least use arguments that make sense.
And if you're going to argue against someone, try learning how to read and understand the entire post before spewing bullshit about how hypocritical I am.
Intellegent design appeals to ignorance? You, Sir, are an idiot. So by your logic, if I see a chair and assume it was skillfully designed, I'm appealing to my ignorance? or the person to whom I'm describing it?
Any evidence that humans were "skillfully designed"? Oh wait, never mind. There isn't any. You only assume that something was designed if its formation cannot be explained through natural mechanisms. The human body's functions and form can be adequately explained by evolutionary theory, hence there is no need for a "designer" term. Anyone yammering about "Oh well evolution doesn't explain the beauty and perfection... bla bla bla" is simply appealing to poetry and ignorance (i.e. "You can't explain it, therefore my explanation must be true by default).
Once again, folks, it's very simple. Everyone one wants to put everyone in a corner. If you're a Creationist, you're not a Scientist. If you're a scientist you're not a Creationist. As soon as someone produces an example to the contrary, someone cries fowl. There are scientific premises for Creationism as well as Evolution.
Golden mean fallacy. Rather than examining the legitimacy of both sides, you label them as extremes and declare the truth to be somewhere in the middle. I hate to break it to you, but one side is just plain wrong. There are no scientific premises for a "theory" which has the Earth being created before the stars. Genesis is an allegory originally designed to keep women subservient to men and to make people feel ashamed of their naked bodies. It's not a scientific account of the formation of the universe, you dolt. Only morons actually think that it is.
You don't have to be a Christian to believe that all this came from somewhere. You don't have to be a scientist to believe we're all here by chance. Don't show your ignorance by pigeon-holing everyone with your rhetoric.
Physicists understand that our concepts of cause and effect break down when the universe is in a singularity state, as it was "prior" to the big bang. Time did not exist until the big bang created it. If you want to think of time as a giant cosmic clock, it didn't start ticking until an infinitesimally (or possibly smallest discrete time unit -- Planck Time) small interval after the big bang. So the universe has literally existed for all time. There is no need for a "first mover" or other such nonsense to explain any of it.
Really: what's wrong with seeing the Universe and the wonderful complexity of everything from the scale of galaxies to the scale of atoms - or smaller - and our very lives as something more than the sum of its parts?
Nothing, but forcing this "intelligent design" garbage into school curriculums is an affront to the scientific method. By definition, intelligent design appeals to ignorance and supernatural mechanisms. We have a perfectly robust theory already; intelligent design adds extra terms on to that theory (the so-called "intelligent designer") which do not add to its predictive capacity at all. Why don't these people petition that we should teach that gravity is "too complex and marvelous" to be explained be the general theory of relativity, so we should add a term into the theory saying that God's Magic Hand comes out of the Earth and pulls objects down?
Beyond that, several elements of the human design simply don't support the hypothesis that a conscious entity engineered us. Evolutionary theory explains several useless features left over from our human ancestors (like the appendix and tailbone) and several glaring weaknesses in our anatomy. Tell me, what intelligent designer would design us so that we used the same tube for both respiration and eating, thus creating a potential choking hazard? That's pure idiocy, not intelligence. Humans like to think we're the cock of the walk and that our bodies are oh-so-perfect, but from an engineering perspective, that viewpoint doesn't hold water. Yes, Kristen Kreuk is a marvelous specimen of beauty, but she can still choke to death because of traits inherited from her evolutionary ancestors.
That's the flaw of intelligent design. It seeks to combine poetic (and frankly egotistical) views of the human body with a scientific view of the universe. Sorry, it just doesn't work that way. Science is based on observed facts and natural mechanisms to explain those facts. To introduce supernatural or undefined mechanisms into an explanation is blatantly unscientific.
26! x 26! x 26! x 26! x 26! different combinations. (think the math is right...) True some might not make any sense, but there are more combinations than words in the dictionary.
26! by itself is a gigantic number -- about 403,291,461,126,606,000,000,000,000. To the fifth power, it's about 1 x 10^133. So no, the math is not right.;)
For a set of 5 letters from the English alphabet, you have 26 choices for each element in the set. So the total number of combinations is 26^5 = 11,881,376. This is an upper limit because, as you said, not all combinations are valid words.
Re:From snails point of view, data rate ~= 0 bps
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Snails Edge Out ADSL
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Greater transfer rates according to the snails. However, the time that matters is the time it takes for the data to reach the other end, which is not a part of the snail's reference frame.
I believe that, as a parent, you have one, simple duty. You must convince your children that, no matter how much you love them, you will not hesitate to kill them if crossed.
The admin at a BBS I post on handled the situation very cleverly with his kids. He and his wife were concerned about their 10 year-old (or so) son playing violent videogames with the other kids. They didn't want to ostracize him from his peers, nor did they want him to take videogame violence lightly. So the father sat down with him and watched Black Hawk Down, completely uncensored. Afterward, they talked about it and how scary violence can actually be.
The key isn't to shield your kids from violence; it's to instill a healthy respect for the damage that humans can do to each other.
And that's what I'm trying to say. You're so angry because I say "Christian" that you fly off the handle, not even taking into consideration what I'm saying. I'm saying, in the laws, call it "Legal Joining" or something like that. Then you redefine the laws to take this new word into consideration, passing rights to everyone.
Why? So Christians can have some sort of copyright on the word "marriage"? It was hardly their idea. Creating a new category of legal joining just for gays enforces a "separate but equal" mindset that was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Yeah, I know that too. I was drawing a line between "Marriage" and "Legal Joining". I was saying, if the gay couple can find a church that will "Marry" them, then they say they're married. Otherwise, they say they're life partners or whatever the current catchphrase is, because they were joined at a courthouse instead of a church. Again, not reading what I'm saying, I'm not negative about Christianity, so I must be retarded, right?
So non-religious people who were married in a courthouse cannot say they are married? That's ridiculous. Implementing a scheme like this into law would create a dangerous legal precedent allowing churches to prevent people from obtaining a legal marriage license, instead forcing them to be "civilly joined." All to appease some bigots. Churches have no place telling the government who is and is not married.
Go look in a dictionary, look up marriage. The primary definition is "union between a man and a woman". Only recently has it even entered any dictionary that marriage should also encompass same sex marriages.
And the Constitution only explicitly granted the right to vote to white males. Things change, but appealing to tradition is still a logical fallacy.
And the definition comes from religious contexts, so the word "Marriage" stems from the very idea of two people uniting as one in a ceremony. So, to keep one side happy, you don't redefine "marriage" because you are getting rid of the history of the word, which is why there's such a big hubbub about it all. It's called a compromise, and the govermnment is good at using compromises. Hell, the whole fact that we have two houses in Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) stems from a big compromise. The most fundamentalist Christians don't want the union to be able to happen at all. You give some, you get some. And besides, gay couples can be called "married" too if they want, they just have to find a church that will support the claim, like I said. Not hard, considering churches in Canada will reportedly do this. So, churches here in the U.S. will allow it as well, depending on their doctrine and views.
Golden mean fallacy. Simply label both sides as extremes and declare the truth to be somewhere in the middle. Your strategy focuses on appeasement; mine focuses on human rights and dignity. Public opinion or desire is irrelevant if people's rights are being violated. That's why black people and women are now allowed to vote. It's why gays should be allowed to marry.
Wow, you don't know anything about the Bible, do you? Just because God has killed homosexuals in the past doesn't mean Christians have the right to. In fact, Christians don't have the right to kill anyone. Anyone who kills in the name of Christianity, as I said, is rallying behind the name to push their hatred of others forward as a group. If a Christian befriends a homosexual person, it doesn't make them a bad Christian. Quite the contrary, it makes them a good one. Get your facts straight before pushing out anti-Christian FUD.
"No True Scotsman" fallacy. God makes it quite clear in Leviticus 20:13 that men having sex with one another is an abomination, and the penalty for such an act is death.
Leviticus 20:13
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
I have my facts straight. I've read the Bible from an objective standpoint that doesn't assume its infallibility or good intentions.
Wait wait wait... Homosexuality is not a gender. The absence or presence of certain sexual organs defines gender, my friend. It's cut and dry, Male or Female. And while Hermaphrodites may be a special case, almost always they choose a sex and get surgery (or surgery is performed at birth). And as far as I know, the state recognizes them as one sex or the other to keep things simple.
The only difference between a gay marriage and a heterosexual marriage is the gender of one of the partners. Hence banning one form of marriage is gender discrimination, which makes it unconstitutional. The Vermont Supreme Court came to this same conclusion.
Now, the fact of the matter is, marriage is deeply entrenched in our laws (think taxes), and the reason Christians are so offended is because they feel that defining marriage to also include "same sex relationships" is stepping on their beliefs. And it is, only the most Liberal of Christian organizations believe that God will sanction a homosexual joining.
Tough shit for them. No one's forcing Christians to redefine the meaning of "marriage" in the context of Christianity. If two gay people want to get married in the eyes of the government, nothing should stop them. Churches are under no obligation to perform a religious ceremony for them. What needs to be modified is the civil definition. No one's trying to take away religious institutions' rights to be hateful bigots.
So, what's the solution? Rewrite the laws so that the legal rights of same sex life-joinings are the same as current married benefits and rights. Don't call it marriage. Now, the benefits of this:
1. Religious groups will be appeased with the technicality, since gay couples won't be "married" unless they find a religious organization that will sanction it. They will be "legally joined".
Marriage is a secular institution subject to secular law. Christ, didn't you know that it's eminently possible for a couple to marry without a religious official of any kind being present? A judge can perform marriages. I've been to such a marriage. No religious overtones at all. It was a purely civil ceremony.
The law says that gender-based discrimination is unconstitutional. What exactly is not registering here?
2. Homosexual unions will be allowed by the US, and given equal rights. No discrimination.
At the same time granting some sort of perverse copyright on the term "marriage" to Christian fundamentalists. That's pure idiocy.
3. If a gay couple claims to be "married", then the Christians can take offense with the religious organization that sanctioned it, not the couple itself.
No religious organization is required to sanction any marriage. Do you have any idea how the government works? Or are you just regurgitating the drivel some fundamentalist Christian fed you about how the evil liberals are trying to force their ideas on churches?
Granted, some "Christians" are so shallow that they would rather hate the individual as well, but they're just using the name to rally behind a cause that is essentially hatred.
Christianity's views on homosexuals are rather clearly-cut. You're supposed to execute them. Hateful bigots have ample justification in rallying behind the Christian banner.
Maybe. Just Maybe. The pastor was heard and M$ decided he made a good point.
I'd love to hear an argument against gay marriage which doesn't appeal to arcane religious beliefs or "traditional family values," which is just another euphemism for religious bigotry.
I don't know the guy. So I can't say how bad he is. But you certainly sound very negative.
He's obviously a bigoted homophobe. You didn't know Hitler either, yet I imagine you'd say he was a bad guy.
There is no national gay agenda. I'm sure we could find gay people on both sides of the issue.
Oh please. The only gay people against gay marriage are the ones who have been brainwashed by fundamentalist Christians into thinking they have some sort of disease.
Are we so desperate to split up our society into little small pieces to fight one another? Does it have to be the bible-crusaders against human rights for gays? I would imagine there are a lot of bible-thumpers who would never hurt another human being, gay or not. And until told otherwise, I'd assume this pastor is one of them. Likewise, I imagine there are a lot of gay people who don't want special rights, they just want to be treated like everyone else.
Is there room for common sense anymore?
I'm sick of this idiotic nanny crap in politics. There are some issues which are just cut and dry, and gay marriage is one of them. The government is engaging in gender-based discrimination by refusing to recognize gay marriage, and gender-based discrimination is unconstitutional. Period. Religious nut-cases can whine and scream all they want, but they don't have a legal leg to stand on. Homosexuals are citizens of this nation, and they deserve to be treated like citizens of this nation.
In 50 years, our grandchildren are going to look back on this anti-gay marriage idiocy the same way we now look back on Jim Crow laws.
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This technology has "false positive" written all over it. It'll just tie up our existing system by having agents investigate and track down innocent people.
You can? Is there a keyword for referencing the parent class like Objective-C's `super' keyword?
Why? I pay $100/month for cable TV. If I miss a show that won't be re-run for God knows how long, why shouldn't I be able to download it? As far as I'm concerned, I've already paid my dues to these blood-suckers.
The way C++ and Objective-C handle objects are fundamentally different. Objective-C, to me at least, handles the concepts of inheritance and function overloading much more logically than C++. There are no virtual functions to worry about when designing a parent class. Constructor methods for child classes are infinitely more graceful than in C++ due to an object being able to call its parent's methods, even if the child has overloaded that method. Objective-C itself was designed to be a self-documenting language with labels on each method parameter and the guidelines on naming methods and variables. I find that my Objective-C code requires far less commenting than C++ code.
The simple fact remains that you were asking questions no one with a degree in biological science should ask because they should already know the answers. Again, what school did you get this degree from? That's not difficult to believe at all. Lots of people all across the spectrum have been duped by this intelligent design nonsense.
What many people don't realize is that intelligent design boils down to the same type of flawed argumentation creationism uses: irreducible complexity. Theories are not equivalent to evidence. Evidence must support the theory. And in the case of evolution, there are mountains of evidence in favor of it. It's one of the most robust theories in all of science, for Christ's sake. Again, you're totally full of shit. These so-called "missing link" fossils are discovered all the time. Just because you don't read about it in the newspaper doesn't mean it didn't happen. Uncovering a transitional fossil in a species' evolution simply isn't a big deal because it's just another piece of evidence to throw on the pile.
Perhaps you have a better explanation for why 99% of all species which have ever existed are extinct, or as to why there are thousands of different species of beetles alone. The only controversies regarding evolution are about the mechanisms which drive it. Evolution is an observed process. That it happens is not in question among biologists. Some think that mechanisms in addition to natural selection drive it, but that doesn't mean that evolution doesn't happen. It makes no difference whether botanists use a different definition of "species" from the one entymologists use because it's more convenient.
What's your point? That my scenarios didn't apply to everything? Of course they don't. But they are valid instances of speciation, which is the mechanism behind evolution. You've done nothing to refute my criticism of your absurd notion of "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution" somehow being completely different things despite having the same underlying mechanism. Maybe you just wanted to prove to me that you actually have a valid degree, so you did some Google searches to try and nitpick my post. Too bad, I still think you're full of shit.
Awww ... did I use a bad word? I'm so sowwy that I've offended your virgin ears. Maybe I should've explained the birds and bees to you nicely and slowly instead of using a taboo 4-letter word to communicate the same concept.
If a flock of birds is flying around and one group of birds becomes geographically separated from the other, then it's possible for one group to evolve in such a way that they can't reproduce with the other. A new species of that bird emerges as a result. They're the same thing. See above. How about you present evidence that the world was intelligently designed instead? You're making the positive claim, so the burden of proof is on you. Bullshit. I'm a fucking computer science major who's taken one biology class in his entire college career, and I have to explain these simple concepts to someone who allegedly has a degree in the subject? Yeah, sure. What creationist diploma mill did you get it from? Vanguard University?
By the way, yes, it was pure chance. The universe is a very big place. Even if the chances of all this happening on a given planet were 1 in 100 billion, that means it'll happen, 'cause our universe has a whole lot of stars. The only reason we think we're special is because we possess self-consciousness which allows us to think we're special. If sentient life had happened on some other planet instead of Earth, we wouldn't be alive to know about it.
So no matter where sentient life happens, there will always be people who think that they must be special because it happened on their planet. That's called putting the cart before the horse.
What happened here? Can God explain that one? Nope, but evolution sure can. By liberally applying pesticides, the farmer killed off the proportion of the insect population that was not resistant to the pesticide. However, some members of that population had a gene which granted them a resistance to the pesticide. By killing off the members of the population without the resistant gene, the members with that gene grew to encompass a larger proportion of the population than their vulnerable brothers. So the members of the population with that gene reproduced and began dominating the population of insects. So now, almost every insect in the farmer's field is resistant to his pesticide, and they can eat his crops unimpeded unless he uses another pesticide.
This happens all the time in the real world. This is a big problem for farmers and pesticides. And it exists because of evolution. If you take a bunch of scenarios similar to this one and line them up over billions of years, you get massive changes among different populations.
How about this one? Why do human beings exist with different features all around the globe? Bible bashers can't explain that one. (Well they can, with the reasoning that God marked darker-skinned people as being subservient to whites.) Evolution, however, can. Black people generally have wider noses and darker skin for a reason: it allows them to breathe more easily because their environment was Africa, a really fucking hot place where the air pressure was significantly lower. So those members of their population which could take in larger quantities of air through their noses fared better and eventually became a dominant proportion of the population. Contrary to what racists might tell you, it is not because "black people are closer to apes." Your sarcasm and parroting of creation "science" pamphlets says differently. Evidence for evolution exists everywhere around you. It is an observed process. The concept of evolution is central to any field that deals with biology, from agriculture to medical science. Ever wonder why doctors recommend against using anti-bacterial soap unless absolutely necessary? Because it kills off the weaker bacteria while allowing stronger ones to survive and multiply.
They are the ones claiming the existence of an intelligent designer, so they have to provide evidence for the claim, then explain the mechanisms in this "intelligent designer" black box of their, then address the mountains of evidence that contradict their theory. They have utterly failed on all three accounts. So why should anyone take their claims seriously? And if you're going to argue against someone, try learning how to read and understand the entire post before spewing bullshit about how hypocritical I am.
Ahah! Touché, good sir.
Beyond that, several elements of the human design simply don't support the hypothesis that a conscious entity engineered us. Evolutionary theory explains several useless features left over from our human ancestors (like the appendix and tailbone) and several glaring weaknesses in our anatomy. Tell me, what intelligent designer would design us so that we used the same tube for both respiration and eating, thus creating a potential choking hazard? That's pure idiocy, not intelligence. Humans like to think we're the cock of the walk and that our bodies are oh-so-perfect, but from an engineering perspective, that viewpoint doesn't hold water. Yes, Kristen Kreuk is a marvelous specimen of beauty, but she can still choke to death because of traits inherited from her evolutionary ancestors.
That's the flaw of intelligent design. It seeks to combine poetic (and frankly egotistical) views of the human body with a scientific view of the universe. Sorry, it just doesn't work that way. Science is based on observed facts and natural mechanisms to explain those facts. To introduce supernatural or undefined mechanisms into an explanation is blatantly unscientific.
For a set of 5 letters from the English alphabet, you have 26 choices for each element in the set. So the total number of combinations is 26^5 = 11,881,376. This is an upper limit because, as you said, not all combinations are valid words.
Greater transfer rates according to the snails. However, the time that matters is the time it takes for the data to reach the other end, which is not a part of the snail's reference frame.
I believe that, as a parent, you have one, simple duty. You must convince your children that, no matter how much you love them, you will not hesitate to kill them if crossed.
The admin at a BBS I post on handled the situation very cleverly with his kids. He and his wife were concerned about their 10 year-old (or so) son playing violent videogames with the other kids. They didn't want to ostracize him from his peers, nor did they want him to take videogame violence lightly. So the father sat down with him and watched Black Hawk Down, completely uncensored. Afterward, they talked about it and how scary violence can actually be.
The key isn't to shield your kids from violence; it's to instill a healthy respect for the damage that humans can do to each other.
The law says that gender-based discrimination is unconstitutional. What exactly is not registering here? At the same time granting some sort of perverse copyright on the term "marriage" to Christian fundamentalists. That's pure idiocy. No religious organization is required to sanction any marriage. Do you have any idea how the government works? Or are you just regurgitating the drivel some fundamentalist Christian fed you about how the evil liberals are trying to force their ideas on churches? Christianity's views on homosexuals are rather clearly-cut. You're supposed to execute them. Hateful bigots have ample justification in rallying behind the Christian banner.
In 50 years, our grandchildren are going to look back on this anti-gay marriage idiocy the same way we now look back on Jim Crow laws.