Pfft. Just about everybody knows how rainbows are formed, and why. And I show a very clear understanding here, on account of explaining the diffusion of light and the laws of nature. I applied that understanding to the diffusion of light which colors the sky. I didn't say that rainbows were caused by the color of the sky, I said that sky color and rainbow color are both caused by the same thing: diffusion of light.
Under your interpretation I would feel really sorry for the plants. That's a hell of a lot of years before you get a drop of rain. Even though 2:5 and 2:6 are clearly explaining how God made rain. Not that there wasn't rain until several chapters later. Your claim is plainly ignorant. Doubly so on account of giving the citation of exactly where in Genesis god makes rain. Even the KJV gives this pretty cut and dry. There wasn't any rain, God made a mist, it rained.
Gen 2:5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth* and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth* and there was no man to work the ground, Gen 2:6 but streams* came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground--
--- From NIV
I have a great understanding of physics including those responsible for rainbows, and apparently a much better understanding of the Bible. As for God, well she doesn't exist and you seem to neglect this fact so I'll give myself higher marks in that department too.
Total Assignments: 2 Patent #:7027311 Issue Dt: 04/11/2006 Application #: 10966880 Filing Dt: 10/15/2004 Publication #:US20050104453 Pub Dt:05/19/2005 Inventors:Timm A. Vanderelli, John G. Shearer, John R. Shearer Title:
I want a bunch of different UK and even other countries to start sending in a flood of DMCA copyright letters, to everything and anything they can. And while they are at it, they should send DMCA takedown notices to random people on the internet and just flood that platform.
Basically it would bog down the ability of ISPs to cut off internet to infringing uses are cut off youtube from taking down things. It seems like just flooding takedown notices everywhere would roughly make takedown notices either impossible to enforce, or require that all ISPs take large amounts of time disconnecting and reconnecting their customers. Even if you didn't want to do it to destroy the system, if you work for a certain ISP you could do it to destroy your competitors or if you're just a dick you could do it to destroy your enemies or critics. Next time some dick is talking about how he's unhackable and starts giving out his IP address... just ignore it and send a DMCA letter saying he infringed your copyright on a large quantity of gay and bestiality porn.
There was a great study about some content in the public domain being added to a website which when they sent takedown notices to all of them saying that the given document was copyrighted they managed to everybody but two to turn off the website.
My guess is that the older preflood images were better. They were taken before the roads were washed away and that it's easier to see what is going on if you have an accurate map of the area. To tell a person that there is a road when the image only shows water makes maps a remarkably hard endeavor. Whereas roads are a secondary effect of google maps and so the most updated pictures are clearly the best.
They stated that the process is reversible. I frankly don't think it is at all practical. They would have to fiddle with out genes to give this the ability to work. Perhaps they should keep checking and just find the gene that fixes the problem itself.
My question is what color was the sky prior to Noah's flood?
Oddly enough, in the story, after God drowns everything for being completely evil. Man, woman, child, infant, fetus... all dead. God feels really really bad about it. Apparently he didn't think it through or know what was going to happen so in Genesis 9:9-13 he makes rainbows exist as a way to say, "I'm really sorry and will never do it again." -- However, rainbows are produced by a fairly trivial byproduct of the diffusion of white light through a medium. This is roughly why we have a blue sky. The light from the sun is diffused and the blue light is diffused more than the other colors. However, if this diffusion didn't exist before God screwed up by drowning everybody and everything (seems like a better solution than later sacrificing Himself to Himself to pay Himself for the debt mankind owes to Him and worse than just not keeping a grudge against people who didn't do anything wrong but somehow get the blame for some other mythological couple doing something wrong without the facilities to tell right from wrong), what color was the sky?
I don't find that flood story explanation is that compelling. There certainly was a local flood in the area. Most civilizations tend to settle next to water and water tends to have floods. However, beyond this I see little to no evidence that there was or even needs to be a historical source for a literary myth. Noah's Ark is almost certainly a rehashing of the Epic of Gilgamesh from the Sumerians and Babylonians. It is entirely possible that idea of a major flood comes from such an event. It is highly suggestive, but beyond providing very minor details for the setting it conveys almost nothing of the story. The source of the idea for the setting of the story has nothing to do with the setting itself much less the story proper. Such a comment does not explain any part of the 'why' in the question why does the story exist or any of the events in the story. It only suggest why they think floods might exist.
Well, Noah's ark is a myth through and through. Everything from about Genesis 1 to Exodus 40 is entirely fiction (probably true even through Revelations with an extremely minor caveated exception for Hezekiah, which actually has a secondary external source to verify some claims). The reason why the "dinosaurs missed the ark" isn't an acceptable answer is because biblical literalists take the Bible literally. The Bible says all the land animals got on the ark and all the land animals lived. So creationists jump through a huge number of hoops to save the fish who would be crushed by the water or explode because of the altered salt content, stop the plants from dying out, restoring the ecosystems to their previous state, putting all the different animals in the specific places that only they exist, explaining fossils, and providing a way for the dinosaurs to live... even though they went extinct 64 million years ago (save the birds which are part of a certain branch) and certainly aren't around today.
So oddly enough, to cling to a couple throw away words in a myth they insist the dinosaurs were alive and happy the last time Noah saw them, which would have been about the same time as the laws of physics were changed to make rainbows exist (Genesis 9:13) as a way of saying sorry for killing everybody (all-knowing deities should know better).
I understand the objections to the idea. That's why I cited the source rather than claiming personally to know that that is the source. It's a good idea as to why the brain might increase in size. Personally I think the advantages of big brains is so overwhelming that to attribute it to just raw non-utilitarian sexual selection is rather odd.
I don't care how you get to the standard of pretty. But there certainly is one. A number of studies have found that the prettiest people are those who have strong signs of fertility. That definition is coded elsewhere in the brain. The instruction I was talking about is just the lusty one that you should have sex with such a person.
What you really want to know is if they develop some of these genes to give you superpowers can you have them or do we need to genetically engineer ungrateful children to be able to whoop us.
The latter is the case. Your eyes are destined to suck forever. You can't see infrared or ultraviolet, you can't see like a hawk, nor can you get the lungs of a bird, the electro-sensing power of a platypus, ability to freeze solid like a toad, smell things as well as a dog, hold your breath like a whale. Even simply fixes like giving humans the ability to make their own vitamin C (every mammal has that save great apes and guinea pigs). No fixing the mammal eye so the all the blood and nerve don't run in front of the lens. No fixing the recurrent laryngeal nerve so that it goes from the brain straight to the larynx rather than looping around the aortic arch for no reason at all.
We could however, perhaps give such changes to our kids, those ungrateful little snot-filled twerps. You'll have to live being a social thin-haired ape who can play with fire and kill just about anything after making the tool for the job.
That isn't the question. The problem is that via a few levels of encapsulation knowing a higher level programming language has nothing to do with the core code that runs on the processor.
The only thing I've ever used Assembly for is to write up a virtual machine for a genetic algorithm I was running. And even that is on a pretty profoundly different level and I didn't write the assembly code, the evolving little code-bots did.
Well on the bright side, this new printer will break other ways less often. The head doesn't move so no moving head problems. Though, to be fair, if you went several weeks without printing anything at the margins wouldn't the printer clog at the margin? Roughly, every part of the page has it's own printer head, isn't that going to let some of the heads stick without the others?
Those things you mention which are valid are typically extrapolations of the previous. Art is quite often a creative process and according to Geoffrey Miller could easily have helped with sexual selection of mates; why that is a pretty picture... let's have sex. Cultivation is a technology, this develops on a different level. Our technology evolves but not as part of our genetic code, rather it develops as part of system of memes. Our ideas and creations evolve in this sense. We take a good idea and make it better. Primarily more than anything else, I would say this different evolving layer of memes is what makes us human. Unlike other apes, we have mirror neurons and can effectively do what we see. There is an old idiom, 'monkey see, monkey do', which is actually rather ironic because apes aren't very good at aping. Whereas humans can watch an activity out of the corner of our eyes and pick it up.
A nation as such is simply an extreme extrapolation of group.
These are simply derived from the rules, not rules themselves. Artistic pursuits might be hardwired. Meta-concerns and religion are probably misfiring of a general rule to believe that any perceived effect has a real natural cause. Which, after some convolutions shoves that real cause outside the reality of the natural world. We are talking about general moralistic rules hard-coded into our brains. Not the higher extrapolations like lets draw a picture and put forth a charter.
Hardly! Derived morality from survival isn't Nietzschian, it's societal. Frankly, me and my family and friends working together will crush you regardless how strong you are. Help each other and spread our genes faster than any greedy fool with boots on the throat of others. The rules aren't hard to hash out.
Help others. Help yourself. Help a group that helps you. Help another who helps you. Have sex. (lust) Have sex with pretty people. Protect your children. (love) Protect those in your group. (love) Protect children. Hurt those who hurt you. (revenge) Don't do things which would make you feel bad if they were done to you. Don't do things which make you feel bad. (empathy) Work with the group, do as they do. Believe what you are told. Protect others. Share with the group. Ask for help. Dislike outsiders.
Really, these moral instructions are fairly easy to evolve. The group which possesses them is more fit than the series of individuals which doesn't. Some of them tend to misfire and don't work as well as they might have in the past. Doing what the group does is a great way to learn, it's also a great way to do horrific and sinister wrong to non-group individuals. And, in fact, when engaging in immoral acts, it is best to exclude the non-group completely to get around the brain's build in moral compass. That way they have no moral group worth to you.
Really we see this group activity rather regularly in the wild as well as in other primates. Chimps will go without food when getting food will give another chimp an electric shock. Even plants will release chemical signposts when attacked so that other plants will be more apt to protect themselves. Philosophy has been rather good at hashing out certain elements of this moral code, though they tend to miss some of the finer details. For example, utilitarianism works remarkably well... though you would be hard pressed to find any mother who would choose to let her child die over the children of five strangers.
Well, I don't have any faith that a gene which serves to aid in the malaria population and detract in a non-malaria population would stay that way. The gene might evolve a work around for the problem after all. Really, I suppose neutral without malaria is probably best. No need to get fancy. And certainly no need to create a cycle of Malaria.
The older gene wouldn't die out, it would after the end of the malaria infections sit in lower levels in the gene pool. Without malaria the gene becomes selectively neutral. I'm as liberal as they come, and honestly I'll take several million lives a year over a reduction of a certain gene in the mosquito population. Though, I suppose I would be lying if I said what you suggest would definitely not happen. That said, what you suggest would definitely not happen.
I disagree. I'll take that crap shoot. Under box number 1, you have a solution to a problem which kills millions upon millions of people. Under the mystery box you have perhaps nothing.
Honestly, I don't think the FUD is warranted. Oddly enough though, I thought of this same solution several years ago. Seemed like a pretty good thing to do. Just fix the genes and improve the bug and you have yourself a solution after a few years. I wonder if the religious right will get pissed that people are solving the world's problems using natural selection.
In theory the carrying capacity should be stable in the mosquito population (not suddenly over-run with bugs). Really all the improvement seems to do is make those mosquitoes immune to the parasite. So the new gene protects the mosquito and by proxy us. Basically they would be introducing a new gene into the population rather than a new bug. This improved gene should increase in frequency and as a result destroy the population of Malaria.
The article is wrong that the mosquito need compete better even in a malaria free environment. Why the hell would that be the case? We should only care about them in the malaria environment. In fact, it would be the best if they competed worse in areas without malaria. That way the gene population would drop very low when Malaria does. When the gene solves the problem, having it die out would be the best solution.
Yeah, you figure Google could crank out some nice housing for the employees. With the most bad ass internet connection ever. It would cut back on the transport if they are close to Google HQ. This would honestly reduce the cost of living for all Google employees so much that their paycheck would pretty much be spending money.
Well if you coat yourself with a conductive material, you would become in theory a sphere and thus have no electricity on the inside of the sphere. Not sure how much weaving and conductive stuff it would take to mostly negate the effect, but it could be done if it was done completely. Though if you make a capacitor vest and shock the bastard back... that'd be cooler and less practical.
--- You claim it doesn't exist, because of lack of evidence.
I don't believe in it for three reasons, the first is lack of evidence, the second is absurdity, and the third is because I refuse to be agnostic about the absurd.
--- In the absence of evidence, science is agnostic; it knows that lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.
Science doesn't tend to address non-claims. However, if you check back you'll find your original claim had to do with cause and effect, which science is perfectly okay without (such is the case with QM). Attempting to bend over backwards and make the supernatural as absurd as you can, such that it escapes science is to make it, ultimately moot. You are, in essence, defining it out of existence to try to make supposing it plausible while removing (as a consequence) the ability to make it relevant or able to exist within the natural universe.
---- The supernatural is defined as everything that is not bound by the laws of nature -- magic is a good word to use. If magic existed, why couldn't it be detectable?
If magic existed it would be detectable. It would also be testable. Each time I say "Llaberif", I create a fireball in my hand and it drains 200 calories from me. Magic would be quite natural, if it existed. You are simply looking at the idea of magic from the known perspective of being rather absurd and trying to force it into existence while somehow keeping it out of the natural realm. Magic would make for odd laws of physics, though they would still be the laws of physics.
--- No, faith is belief without proof. People change their "faith" every day when it disagrees with the evidence they observe.
They can certainly look at the evidence for their beliefs, but faith is belief without regard to the evidence in question.
--- Faith describes our belief in things that have insufficient evidence, which is probably the vast majority of the things we believe (very little in our day to day lives has been scientifically proven, or proven to the extent that it would hold up in a court of law.)
No. Faith quite often applies only to those things without good evidence because typically when there is real evidence we accept it on the grounds of evidence. We have evidence that computers function because we use them, we don't have evidence of ghosts and thusly they must be accepted on faith (because no evidence can exist for the non-existent). Most of the things in our day to day lives are proven because they consistently work. If they don't consistently work they are probably wrong. When we say that such things can only be accepted on faith, we are at the understanding that there can be no evidence for such a thing.
--- My belief is consistent with my observations, but correlation with observations is not proof. Logically, we know that just because something happens 100 times in a row doesn't mean that it will happen the 101st time, but in practice humans tend to believe it anyway.
You are equivocating belief with faith and proof with strong evidence. You are arguing that since your wireless telephone has only worked the first 100 times you tried it, that it is a belief completely devoid of evidence that it will work the 101st time. If a certain theory predicts something, and after 100 tries nothing has falsified the theory... there might be some merit to the idea. That's the way science works. What ever fails to fail... is science.
--- That's what "super"natural means: "Unexplainable by natural law or phenomena."
Would you argue that a photon splitting into an electron and positron is supernatural? There is no cause and effect at work, and we can naturally describe a causeless event. Then if the supernatural existed and had a naturalistic effect we could describe this effect and thusly make such a thing natural... by definition.
--- It says "The scientific method seeks to explain the complexities of nature in a replicable way." Also: "Natural sciences, which study natural phenomena, including biological life
--- OK, then, it's on you: prove whether or not the supernatural exists.
I never claimed it existed, it is really on the one making such claims. I am simply disinclined to be agnostic about the absurd. The fact that there is no evidence for any such things and the universe exists exactly as we should find it if there wasn't a supernatural is pretty strong evidence is reason enough to discount something that absurd.
--- Are you asserting that the supernatural is undetectable? If so, prove it. Note that lack of detection is not proof of undetectability, or proof of lack of existence, or proof of lack of influence in day to day life.
If it is detectable, it is natural. Your argument is that the supernatural is somehow a different and magical realm where science cannot address it. The only way for that to be the case is if it is undetectable. If you would like to change your definition and say it can be detected... then you've reduced it to a natural detectable thing. Furthermore, everything given as an example of the supernatural has thus far, been natural in origin.
------ Faith is a fallacy. ---On the contrary: you appear to use it to believe the three assertions above. Faith is nothing more than the axioms of a person's belief system.
No faith is acceptance of beliefs without regard to evidence. Such is easily a fallacy.
--- What do you or I believe without proof? That's faith. Here's something that I believe through faith: the scientific method is a valid way to determine how things work.
Nonsense. You believe that on the grounds of evidence. Certainly the scientific method doesn't prove itself, but the results are testable. We are chatting away on some of the results right now. Science is accepted as a valid way to determine how things work, because either science is a valid way to determine how things work or modern technology is really really really really extremely lucky. Chalking such things up to faith, is simply pathetic. As if the ability to use the concepts of physics to make a cell phone (which probably isn't just luck) to the blind acceptance of gods, fairies, angels, jinn, and goblins are not in the same ballpark, much less the same league.
--- It can't be proven, but I believe it anyway.
Again, until things start falling up... science is pretty immune from most criticisms. It seems extremely desperate to think that belief that Einstein's relativity is valid (discovered via science) is roughly on the same grounds as accepting something without even a suggestion of evidence. Weak.
--- This is very close. The point of science is to discover what our universe ("nature") does and why. The supernatural, by definition, exists outside of our universe; it is not natural.
Natural things are those things which exist and interact with our universe. Limiting supernatural things in such a way is to argue that they are the set of all those things which don't exist. You cannot eat your cake and have it too. Either it exists and interacts or it doesn't exist and doesn't interact.
--- That doesn't preclude it, in theory, if it exists, from affecting our universe; the concept of "supernatural" is not bound by natural laws.
In what theory? You're just pulling this crap out of your ass. You are talking about beyond the natural, and you still want characteristics of the existing like "thing", "exists", "interaction with natural stuff". These are rather outlandish claims, which need substantiation... though that's only something which could be done for natural things.
--- You have quite a bit of faith. Investigate further and you will find that scientists studying the start of life, existence of life, start of the universe, function of the brain etc. have more questions than answers.
More questions about the minor details. The main details are pretty well understood. Furthermore, simply because they aren't understood doesn't mean they aren't natural. This sort of supernatural gaps nonsense is nothing more than an argument f
Death is death. Can't figure anything out. You're dead. We are restricted to figuring things out while we are alive. And, as far as we can tell, religion is completely bunk.
Slashdot Mirror
Pfft. Just about everybody knows how rainbows are formed, and why. And I show a very clear understanding here, on account of explaining the diffusion of light and the laws of nature. I applied that understanding to the diffusion of light which colors the sky. I didn't say that rainbows were caused by the color of the sky, I said that sky color and rainbow color are both caused by the same thing: diffusion of light.
Under your interpretation I would feel really sorry for the plants. That's a hell of a lot of years before you get a drop of rain. Even though 2:5 and 2:6 are clearly explaining how God made rain. Not that there wasn't rain until several chapters later. Your claim is plainly ignorant. Doubly so on account of giving the citation of exactly where in Genesis god makes rain. Even the KJV gives this pretty cut and dry. There wasn't any rain, God made a mist, it rained.
Gen 2:5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth* and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth* and there was no man to work the ground,
Gen 2:6 but streams* came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground--
--- From NIV
I have a great understanding of physics including those responsible for rainbows, and apparently a much better understanding of the Bible. As for God, well she doesn't exist and you seem to neglect this fact so I'll give myself higher marks in that department too.
http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=pat& pat=7027311
Total Assignments: 2
Patent #:7027311
Issue Dt: 04/11/2006
Application #: 10966880
Filing Dt: 10/15/2004
Publication #:US20050104453
Pub Dt:05/19/2005
Inventors:Timm A. Vanderelli, John G. Shearer, John R. Shearer
Title:
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR A WIRELESS POWER SUPPLY
I want a bunch of different UK and even other countries to start sending in a flood of DMCA copyright letters, to everything and anything they can. And while they are at it, they should send DMCA takedown notices to random people on the internet and just flood that platform.
Basically it would bog down the ability of ISPs to cut off internet to infringing uses are cut off youtube from taking down things. It seems like just flooding takedown notices everywhere would roughly make takedown notices either impossible to enforce, or require that all ISPs take large amounts of time disconnecting and reconnecting their customers. Even if you didn't want to do it to destroy the system, if you work for a certain ISP you could do it to destroy your competitors or if you're just a dick you could do it to destroy your enemies or critics. Next time some dick is talking about how he's unhackable and starts giving out his IP address... just ignore it and send a DMCA letter saying he infringed your copyright on a large quantity of gay and bestiality porn.
There was a great study about some content in the public domain being added to a website which when they sent takedown notices to all of them saying that the given document was copyrighted they managed to everybody but two to turn off the website.
My guess is that the older preflood images were better. They were taken before the roads were washed away and that it's easier to see what is going on if you have an accurate map of the area. To tell a person that there is a road when the image only shows water makes maps a remarkably hard endeavor. Whereas roads are a secondary effect of google maps and so the most updated pictures are clearly the best.
They stated that the process is reversible. I frankly don't think it is at all practical. They would have to fiddle with out genes to give this the ability to work. Perhaps they should keep checking and just find the gene that fixes the problem itself.
My question is what color was the sky prior to Noah's flood?
Oddly enough, in the story, after God drowns everything for being completely evil. Man, woman, child, infant, fetus... all dead. God feels really really bad about it. Apparently he didn't think it through or know what was going to happen so in Genesis 9:9-13 he makes rainbows exist as a way to say, "I'm really sorry and will never do it again." -- However, rainbows are produced by a fairly trivial byproduct of the diffusion of white light through a medium. This is roughly why we have a blue sky. The light from the sun is diffused and the blue light is diffused more than the other colors. However, if this diffusion didn't exist before God screwed up by drowning everybody and everything (seems like a better solution than later sacrificing Himself to Himself to pay Himself for the debt mankind owes to Him and worse than just not keeping a grudge against people who didn't do anything wrong but somehow get the blame for some other mythological couple doing something wrong without the facilities to tell right from wrong), what color was the sky?
I don't find that flood story explanation is that compelling. There certainly was a local flood in the area. Most civilizations tend to settle next to water and water tends to have floods. However, beyond this I see little to no evidence that there was or even needs to be a historical source for a literary myth. Noah's Ark is almost certainly a rehashing of the Epic of Gilgamesh from the Sumerians and Babylonians. It is entirely possible that idea of a major flood comes from such an event. It is highly suggestive, but beyond providing very minor details for the setting it conveys almost nothing of the story. The source of the idea for the setting of the story has nothing to do with the setting itself much less the story proper. Such a comment does not explain any part of the 'why' in the question why does the story exist or any of the events in the story. It only suggest why they think floods might exist.
Well, Noah's ark is a myth through and through. Everything from about Genesis 1 to Exodus 40 is entirely fiction (probably true even through Revelations with an extremely minor caveated exception for Hezekiah, which actually has a secondary external source to verify some claims). The reason why the "dinosaurs missed the ark" isn't an acceptable answer is because biblical literalists take the Bible literally. The Bible says all the land animals got on the ark and all the land animals lived. So creationists jump through a huge number of hoops to save the fish who would be crushed by the water or explode because of the altered salt content, stop the plants from dying out, restoring the ecosystems to their previous state, putting all the different animals in the specific places that only they exist, explaining fossils, and providing a way for the dinosaurs to live... even though they went extinct 64 million years ago (save the birds which are part of a certain branch) and certainly aren't around today.
So oddly enough, to cling to a couple throw away words in a myth they insist the dinosaurs were alive and happy the last time Noah saw them, which would have been about the same time as the laws of physics were changed to make rainbows exist (Genesis 9:13) as a way of saying sorry for killing everybody (all-knowing deities should know better).
I understand the objections to the idea. That's why I cited the source rather than claiming personally to know that that is the source. It's a good idea as to why the brain might increase in size. Personally I think the advantages of big brains is so overwhelming that to attribute it to just raw non-utilitarian sexual selection is rather odd.
I don't care how you get to the standard of pretty. But there certainly is one. A number of studies have found that the prettiest people are those who have strong signs of fertility. That definition is coded elsewhere in the brain. The instruction I was talking about is just the lusty one that you should have sex with such a person.
What you really want to know is if they develop some of these genes to give you superpowers can you have them or do we need to genetically engineer ungrateful children to be able to whoop us.
The latter is the case. Your eyes are destined to suck forever. You can't see infrared or ultraviolet, you can't see like a hawk, nor can you get the lungs of a bird, the electro-sensing power of a platypus, ability to freeze solid like a toad, smell things as well as a dog, hold your breath like a whale. Even simply fixes like giving humans the ability to make their own vitamin C (every mammal has that save great apes and guinea pigs). No fixing the mammal eye so the all the blood and nerve don't run in front of the lens. No fixing the recurrent laryngeal nerve so that it goes from the brain straight to the larynx rather than looping around the aortic arch for no reason at all.
We could however, perhaps give such changes to our kids, those ungrateful little snot-filled twerps. You'll have to live being a social thin-haired ape who can play with fire and kill just about anything after making the tool for the job.
That isn't the question. The problem is that via a few levels of encapsulation knowing a higher level programming language has nothing to do with the core code that runs on the processor.
The only thing I've ever used Assembly for is to write up a virtual machine for a genetic algorithm I was running. And even that is on a pretty profoundly different level and I didn't write the assembly code, the evolving little code-bots did.
Well on the bright side, this new printer will break other ways less often. The head doesn't move so no moving head problems. Though, to be fair, if you went several weeks without printing anything at the margins wouldn't the printer clog at the margin? Roughly, every part of the page has it's own printer head, isn't that going to let some of the heads stick without the others?
Those things you mention which are valid are typically extrapolations of the previous. Art is quite often a creative process and according to Geoffrey Miller could easily have helped with sexual selection of mates; why that is a pretty picture... let's have sex. Cultivation is a technology, this develops on a different level. Our technology evolves but not as part of our genetic code, rather it develops as part of system of memes. Our ideas and creations evolve in this sense. We take a good idea and make it better. Primarily more than anything else, I would say this different evolving layer of memes is what makes us human. Unlike other apes, we have mirror neurons and can effectively do what we see. There is an old idiom, 'monkey see, monkey do', which is actually rather ironic because apes aren't very good at aping. Whereas humans can watch an activity out of the corner of our eyes and pick it up.
A nation as such is simply an extreme extrapolation of group.
These are simply derived from the rules, not rules themselves. Artistic pursuits might be hardwired. Meta-concerns and religion are probably misfiring of a general rule to believe that any perceived effect has a real natural cause. Which, after some convolutions shoves that real cause outside the reality of the natural world. We are talking about general moralistic rules hard-coded into our brains. Not the higher extrapolations like lets draw a picture and put forth a charter.
Hardly! Derived morality from survival isn't Nietzschian, it's societal. Frankly, me and my family and friends working together will crush you regardless how strong you are. Help each other and spread our genes faster than any greedy fool with boots on the throat of others. The rules aren't hard to hash out.
Help others.
Help yourself.
Help a group that helps you.
Help another who helps you.
Have sex. (lust)
Have sex with pretty people.
Protect your children. (love)
Protect those in your group. (love)
Protect children.
Hurt those who hurt you. (revenge)
Don't do things which would make you feel bad if they were done to you.
Don't do things which make you feel bad. (empathy)
Work with the group, do as they do.
Believe what you are told.
Protect others.
Share with the group.
Ask for help.
Dislike outsiders.
Really, these moral instructions are fairly easy to evolve. The group which possesses them is more fit than the series of individuals which doesn't. Some of them tend to misfire and don't work as well as they might have in the past. Doing what the group does is a great way to learn, it's also a great way to do horrific and sinister wrong to non-group individuals. And, in fact, when engaging in immoral acts, it is best to exclude the non-group completely to get around the brain's build in moral compass. That way they have no moral group worth to you.
Really we see this group activity rather regularly in the wild as well as in other primates. Chimps will go without food when getting food will give another chimp an electric shock. Even plants will release chemical signposts when attacked so that other plants will be more apt to protect themselves. Philosophy has been rather good at hashing out certain elements of this moral code, though they tend to miss some of the finer details. For example, utilitarianism works remarkably well... though you would be hard pressed to find any mother who would choose to let her child die over the children of five strangers.
Well, I don't have any faith that a gene which serves to aid in the malaria population and detract in a non-malaria population would stay that way. The gene might evolve a work around for the problem after all. Really, I suppose neutral without malaria is probably best. No need to get fancy. And certainly no need to create a cycle of Malaria.
The older gene wouldn't die out, it would after the end of the malaria infections sit in lower levels in the gene pool. Without malaria the gene becomes selectively neutral. I'm as liberal as they come, and honestly I'll take several million lives a year over a reduction of a certain gene in the mosquito population. Though, I suppose I would be lying if I said what you suggest would definitely not happen. That said, what you suggest would definitely not happen.
I disagree. I'll take that crap shoot. Under box number 1, you have a solution to a problem which kills millions upon millions of people. Under the mystery box you have perhaps nothing.
Honestly, I don't think the FUD is warranted. Oddly enough though, I thought of this same solution several years ago. Seemed like a pretty good thing to do. Just fix the genes and improve the bug and you have yourself a solution after a few years. I wonder if the religious right will get pissed that people are solving the world's problems using natural selection.
In theory the carrying capacity should be stable in the mosquito population (not suddenly over-run with bugs). Really all the improvement seems to do is make those mosquitoes immune to the parasite. So the new gene protects the mosquito and by proxy us. Basically they would be introducing a new gene into the population rather than a new bug. This improved gene should increase in frequency and as a result destroy the population of Malaria.
The article is wrong that the mosquito need compete better even in a malaria free environment. Why the hell would that be the case? We should only care about them in the malaria environment. In fact, it would be the best if they competed worse in areas without malaria. That way the gene population would drop very low when Malaria does. When the gene solves the problem, having it die out would be the best solution.
What next Mr. Science guy... Adam and Eve DIDN'T ride to church on dinosaurs?
Yeah, you figure Google could crank out some nice housing for the employees. With the most bad ass internet connection ever. It would cut back on the transport if they are close to Google HQ. This would honestly reduce the cost of living for all Google employees so much that their paycheck would pretty much be spending money.
You don't need to be round. It should work anyway. Now go and get yourself tasered.
Well if you coat yourself with a conductive material, you would become in theory a sphere and thus have no electricity on the inside of the sphere. Not sure how much weaving and conductive stuff it would take to mostly negate the effect, but it could be done if it was done completely. Though if you make a capacitor vest and shock the bastard back... that'd be cooler and less practical.
--- You claim it doesn't exist, because of lack of evidence.
I don't believe in it for three reasons, the first is lack of evidence, the second is absurdity, and the third is because I refuse to be agnostic about the absurd.
--- In the absence of evidence, science is agnostic; it knows that lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.
Science doesn't tend to address non-claims. However, if you check back you'll find your original claim had to do with cause and effect, which science is perfectly okay without (such is the case with QM). Attempting to bend over backwards and make the supernatural as absurd as you can, such that it escapes science is to make it, ultimately moot. You are, in essence, defining it out of existence to try to make supposing it plausible while removing (as a consequence) the ability to make it relevant or able to exist within the natural universe.
---- The supernatural is defined as everything that is not bound by the laws of nature -- magic is a good word to use. If magic existed, why couldn't it be detectable?
If magic existed it would be detectable. It would also be testable. Each time I say "Llaberif", I create a fireball in my hand and it drains 200 calories from me. Magic would be quite natural, if it existed. You are simply looking at the idea of magic from the known perspective of being rather absurd and trying to force it into existence while somehow keeping it out of the natural realm. Magic would make for odd laws of physics, though they would still be the laws of physics.
--- No, faith is belief without proof. People change their "faith" every day when it disagrees with the evidence they observe.
They can certainly look at the evidence for their beliefs, but faith is belief without regard to the evidence in question.
--- Faith describes our belief in things that have insufficient evidence, which is probably the vast majority of the things we believe (very little in our day to day lives has been scientifically proven, or proven to the extent that it would hold up in a court of law.)
No. Faith quite often applies only to those things without good evidence because typically when there is real evidence we accept it on the grounds of evidence. We have evidence that computers function because we use them, we don't have evidence of ghosts and thusly they must be accepted on faith (because no evidence can exist for the non-existent). Most of the things in our day to day lives are proven because they consistently work. If they don't consistently work they are probably wrong. When we say that such things can only be accepted on faith, we are at the understanding that there can be no evidence for such a thing.
--- My belief is consistent with my observations, but correlation with observations is not proof. Logically, we know that just because something happens 100 times in a row doesn't mean that it will happen the 101st time, but in practice humans tend to believe it anyway.
You are equivocating belief with faith and proof with strong evidence. You are arguing that since your wireless telephone has only worked the first 100 times you tried it, that it is a belief completely devoid of evidence that it will work the 101st time. If a certain theory predicts something, and after 100 tries nothing has falsified the theory... there might be some merit to the idea. That's the way science works. What ever fails to fail... is science.
--- That's what "super"natural means: "Unexplainable by natural law or phenomena."
Would you argue that a photon splitting into an electron and positron is supernatural? There is no cause and effect at work, and we can naturally describe a causeless event. Then if the supernatural existed and had a naturalistic effect we could describe this effect and thusly make such a thing natural... by definition.
--- It says "The scientific method seeks to explain the complexities of nature in a replicable way." Also: "Natural sciences, which study natural phenomena, including biological life
--- OK, then, it's on you: prove whether or not the supernatural exists.
I never claimed it existed, it is really on the one making such claims. I am simply disinclined to be agnostic about the absurd. The fact that there is no evidence for any such things and the universe exists exactly as we should find it if there wasn't a supernatural is pretty strong evidence is reason enough to discount something that absurd.
--- Are you asserting that the supernatural is undetectable? If so, prove it. Note that lack of detection is not proof of undetectability, or proof of lack of existence, or proof of lack of influence in day to day life.
If it is detectable, it is natural. Your argument is that the supernatural is somehow a different and magical realm where science cannot address it. The only way for that to be the case is if it is undetectable. If you would like to change your definition and say it can be detected... then you've reduced it to a natural detectable thing. Furthermore, everything given as an example of the supernatural has thus far, been natural in origin.
------ Faith is a fallacy.
---On the contrary: you appear to use it to believe the three assertions above. Faith is nothing more than the axioms of a person's belief system.
No faith is acceptance of beliefs without regard to evidence. Such is easily a fallacy.
--- What do you or I believe without proof? That's faith. Here's something that I believe through faith: the scientific method is a valid way to determine how things work.
Nonsense. You believe that on the grounds of evidence. Certainly the scientific method doesn't prove itself, but the results are testable. We are chatting away on some of the results right now. Science is accepted as a valid way to determine how things work, because either science is a valid way to determine how things work or modern technology is really really really really extremely lucky. Chalking such things up to faith, is simply pathetic. As if the ability to use the concepts of physics to make a cell phone (which probably isn't just luck) to the blind acceptance of gods, fairies, angels, jinn, and goblins are not in the same ballpark, much less the same league.
--- It can't be proven, but I believe it anyway.
Again, until things start falling up... science is pretty immune from most criticisms. It seems extremely desperate to think that belief that Einstein's relativity is valid (discovered via science) is roughly on the same grounds as accepting something without even a suggestion of evidence. Weak.
--- This is very close. The point of science is to discover what our universe ("nature") does and why. The supernatural, by definition, exists outside of our universe; it is not natural.
Natural things are those things which exist and interact with our universe. Limiting supernatural things in such a way is to argue that they are the set of all those things which don't exist. You cannot eat your cake and have it too. Either it exists and interacts or it doesn't exist and doesn't interact.
--- That doesn't preclude it, in theory, if it exists, from affecting our universe; the concept of "supernatural" is not bound by natural laws.
In what theory? You're just pulling this crap out of your ass. You are talking about beyond the natural, and you still want characteristics of the existing like "thing", "exists", "interaction with natural stuff". These are rather outlandish claims, which need substantiation... though that's only something which could be done for natural things.
--- You have quite a bit of faith. Investigate further and you will find that scientists studying the start of life, existence of life, start of the universe, function of the brain etc. have more questions than answers.
More questions about the minor details. The main details are pretty well understood. Furthermore, simply because they aren't understood doesn't mean they aren't natural. This sort of supernatural gaps nonsense is nothing more than an argument f
Yeah. Not so much. I don't think being gnostic about the idea of werewolves raises odd points. Should I buy some silver bullets just in case.
Death is death. Can't figure anything out. You're dead. We are restricted to figuring things out while we are alive. And, as far as we can tell, religion is completely bunk.