What a strange definition of science. And which scientific theories do you think have ever been "proved"?
Your use of capital letters is very convincing, but the idea that "science" excludes evolutionary biology, geology, cosmology and linguistics (and the other historical sciences) is a strange one. All these endeavours make testable, falsifiable predictions and are therefore science by any reasonable definition.
"Misrepresentation" is a pretty harsh word. There's a decent description of the Big Bang on NASA's website at http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101bb1.html. Do you think this is a misrepresentation?
Really? When I studied for my degree in physics the Big Bang was certainly described as a theory. I'd understand a "model" to be something you construct around a "theory" - the two are not really alternatives.
That said, the problem here is not the description of the Big Bang as a theory (clearly correct) but that the word is used in a deliberate attempt to mislead the public by confusing the colloquial meaning of "theory" (i.e. not much more than a guess) with the scientific meaning of "theory". I'm betting that this guy didn't insist on NASA desribing rocketry as a "theory".
An invention implemented by a business method or a computer program can be patented in the UK, it's just computer programs and business methods as such that aren't.
I haven't read InPro's patent, but from the press coverage it seems fairly clear it was an invention. The problem is that it's equally clear it was "obvious", and therefore not patentable (even if there hadn't been any prior art). The patent should never have been granted and the Court was right to throw it out.
I think it's worse than that. US patents are only supposed to be granted for inventions which are not obvious. The US patent office doesn't seem to make the slightest attempt to police this rule. The NTP patent, and most of the other controversial patents one hears about seem, to me, to fail this test.
I don't understand. The parent seemed to think that science required or permitted "proof" and I corrected him. I don't think I was being particularly philosophical, or remotely controversial. I didn't mention ID.
Science is never about "proof". Nor is science about "knowing" anything with certainty. It is about assembling theories that describe the world as accurately as possible. So no, an experiment measuring continental drift does not "prove" Pangea. But neither does an experiment measuring time dilation "prove" relativity, or indeed any experiment "prove" any scientific theory. All experiments and investigations can do is support or undermine a theory.
Plate tectonics, evolution and relativity are all well-supported theories, and more successful than other competing theories, but they are still provisional (e.g. we know that relativity is incomplete, the details of the mechanisms behind plate tectonics, and many of the details of evolution, are not fully understood). So there is no comparison with religious revelation, which is by definition certain and final.
We construct theories of the past all the time without observable evidence. It's commonplace for murderers to be convicted on the basis of forensic evidence alone. Your standard of 100% certainty is one that science can't possibly reach, and doesn't even try to reach.
This is not a flame, but try reading some Popper or Kuhn.
They would have to *show* (not "claim") that their development was independent from your submission. The sad state of US litigation means that Bioware would be crazy not to include a clause like this.
Indeed. I suppose the various multimedia usenet newsgroups could be used for all sorts of purposes, but in practice almost everything posted seems to be copyrighted.
I've always wondered why the RIAA doesn't go after this. I appreciate the structure of usenet means that the newsgroups can't be shut down, but surely they could sue ISPs and posters based in the US. Is there some technical or legal reason, or is usenet just too far away from the mainstream?
I don't understand your arguments at all. You initially said there were no intermediates in the fossil record. This is clearly incorrect, and a few minutes with google will pick up dozens of counter-examples. This leaves you with two arguments:
1. that the fossil record is not continuous. But neither Darwin nor anyone following him, has predicted that it would be, for the reasons outlined in my previous email. You have snipped my arguement that your own arguments are contradictory on this point.
2. that evolution in combination with mutation cannot create new information. This is an empty assertion unless you provide a rigorous definition of what you mean by "information", and then a physical or mathematical argument that it cannot be increased by (e.g.) mutation. The well resourced "Intelligent Design" people haven't even tried to do this. Even intuitively it is surely incorrect - if you accept the evolution of a wolf-like creature into the thousands of varieties of dog, are you really telling me this evolution involved no new information? It is also logically problematic - see http://www.evowiki.org/index.php/Mutations_don't_a dd_information.
You may not be a creationist but you seem to have picked up on their arguments with insufficient scepticism. The "information" argument in particular is pure pseudo-science, and it's a bit depressing that someone with a scientific or technical background can make it.
I'm sorry you find evolutionary theory boring. Darwin's claims were mind-blowing at the time, and many people find them impossibly mind-blowing today. I would urge you to delve into the vast and exciting literature on evolution mutation, and not just the pop-sci accounts of it. It would also be great if you could apply a fraction of the healthy scepticism you throw at mainstream science to the scientifically illiterate claims of the creationists about information and the fossil record.
1. You are arguing against intelligent design as well as evolution, because Behe, Dembski and the other advocates of ID accept evolution as a general matter but argue that certain features are too complex to have arisen through unguided evolution. I'm not aware of any other explanation for the origin of life apart from creationism, but I'd be fascinated to hear what you believe.
3. You misunderstand. You claim that if macroevolution occured there would be a continuum of macroevolving fossils. You accept that microevolution occured. Therefore you must logically be claiming there is a continuum of microevolving fossils (whether there is a "need" for this or not). There is no such continuum. Therefore your assumptions as to fossilisation probability are incorrect.
4. Show me your math.
5. This is just the same arguement.
6. I've never come across anyone making your claims about evolution who isn't a religious fundamentalist of one stripe or other (with the possible exception of the Raelians). If your views are not driven by religious beliefs then congratulations on being the first secular creationist.
7. I made no ad hominem attack. You are contesting a well established area of science without citing a single source and it's reasonable for me to assume your motivations are religious rather than scientific. I'm happy to be corrected on this.
8. A paradigm shift requires a competing candidate theory with greater explanatory power to replace the current theory. You offer no such competing theory. Kuhn said that to reject one paradigm without simultaneously substituting another is to reject science itself. This is what you are doing.
You say there is only one fossil linking fish and amphibians. Absolute poppycock. Over a dozen "transitional" *species* between fish and amphibians have been identified from many hundreds of fossils. There are many other well understood transitions. There is an excellent introduction of this at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/p art1a.htm if anyone wants the detail on this.
Your argument is also self-refuting. You claim that if evolution were correct then the fossil record would be a continuum. But you presumably accept "microevolution" even though there is no continuum of "micro-evolved" fossils. The answer is of course that the chance of an organism being fossilised, and then surviving millions of years of erosion and geological activity is is pretty damn small.
And as for a scientific revolution coming, it's a funny kind of scientific revolution that's driven by religious fundamentalists?
There are many sequences showing gradual change over a long period of time - the classic example is the evolution of the horse from a species called Hyracotherium which looks rather like a small dog. See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol. html for more info on this.
But "half mutated" is a rather meaningless concept.
The most doom-laden worst-case scenarios I've seen are 50,000 deaths in the UK (i.e. about one in a thousand people), with the death-rate disproportionately borne by the very young, the very old, and those with impaired immune systems. An appalling tragedy should it happen, but a long way off the end of the world as we know it.
"Do a runner and start up in a dodgy tax haven"? I think not. It would be a criminal offence in the UK for the directors of a company to move its assets offshore to avoid insolvency.
Historically you're right that there hasn't really been an equivalent of Chapter 11 in the UK - our bankruptcy procedures have been ways of managing the end of a company, and it's been rare for a company which goes into administration to emerge intact. The Enterprise Act 2000 created a more flexibile regime, but it's pretty much untried as yet, and in any event not as debtor-friendly as Chapter 11.
Slashdot Mirror
What a strange definition of science. And which scientific theories do you think have ever been "proved"?
Your use of capital letters is very convincing, but the idea that "science" excludes evolutionary biology, geology, cosmology and linguistics (and the other historical sciences) is a strange one. All these endeavours make testable, falsifiable predictions and are therefore science by any reasonable definition.
I think Blackberry patented their wheel - ridiculous, but seems to successfully prevent other people using the same concept.
"Misrepresentation" is a pretty harsh word. There's a decent description of the Big Bang on NASA's website at http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101bb1.html. Do you think this is a misrepresentation?
Has conservation of energy been established as a scientific fact? Not saying it isn't, just would like some free lunch.
Really? When I studied for my degree in physics the Big Bang was certainly described as a theory. I'd understand a "model" to be something you construct around a "theory" - the two are not really alternatives.
That said, the problem here is not the description of the Big Bang as a theory (clearly correct) but that the word is used in a deliberate attempt to mislead the public by confusing the colloquial meaning of "theory" (i.e. not much more than a guess) with the scientific meaning of "theory". I'm betting that this guy didn't insist on NASA desribing rocketry as a "theory".
An invention implemented by a business method or a computer program can be patented in the UK, it's just computer programs and business methods as such that aren't.
I haven't read InPro's patent, but from the press coverage it seems fairly clear it was an invention. The problem is that it's equally clear it was "obvious", and therefore not patentable (even if there hadn't been any prior art). The patent should never have been granted and the Court was right to throw it out.
I think it's worse than that. US patents are only supposed to be granted for inventions which are not obvious. The US patent office doesn't seem to make the slightest attempt to police this rule. The NTP patent, and most of the other controversial patents one hears about seem, to me, to fail this test.
I remember that very clearly too. I'd just come home from school, so it must have been 4.30pm or so, London time.
I don't understand. The parent seemed to think that science required or permitted "proof" and I corrected him. I don't think I was being particularly philosophical, or remotely controversial. I didn't mention ID.
Science is never about "proof". Nor is science about "knowing" anything with certainty. It is about assembling theories that describe the world as accurately as possible. So no, an experiment measuring continental drift does not "prove" Pangea. But neither does an experiment measuring time dilation "prove" relativity, or indeed any experiment "prove" any scientific theory. All experiments and investigations can do is support or undermine a theory.
Plate tectonics, evolution and relativity are all well-supported theories, and more successful than other competing theories, but they are still provisional (e.g. we know that relativity is incomplete, the details of the mechanisms behind plate tectonics, and many of the details of evolution, are not fully understood). So there is no comparison with religious revelation, which is by definition certain and final.
We construct theories of the past all the time without observable evidence. It's commonplace for murderers to be convicted on the basis of forensic evidence alone. Your standard of 100% certainty is one that science can't possibly reach, and doesn't even try to reach.
This is not a flame, but try reading some Popper or Kuhn.
Bob
No there aren't. Did you even read the second link you posted?
I've a solution to those IP tracking issues: how about not downloading illegal copies of music and videos?
...that misread this as a story about "pirate trackers". What a silly mistake that would have been.
fair enough!
They would have to *show* (not "claim") that their development was independent from your submission. The sad state of US litigation means that Bioware would be crazy not to include a clause like this.
He is correct. Google "proximate causation".
Indeed. I suppose the various multimedia usenet newsgroups could be used for all sorts of purposes, but in practice almost everything posted seems to be copyrighted.
I've always wondered why the RIAA doesn't go after this. I appreciate the structure of usenet means that the newsgroups can't be shut down, but surely they could sue ISPs and posters based in the US. Is there some technical or legal reason, or is usenet just too far away from the mainstream?
I don't understand your arguments at all. You initially said there were no intermediates in the fossil record. This is clearly incorrect, and a few minutes with google will pick up dozens of counter-examples. This leaves you with two arguments:
a dd_information.
1. that the fossil record is not continuous. But neither Darwin nor anyone following him, has predicted that it would be, for the reasons outlined in my previous email. You have snipped my arguement that your own arguments are contradictory on this point.
2. that evolution in combination with mutation cannot create new information. This is an empty assertion unless you provide a rigorous definition of what you mean by "information", and then a physical or mathematical argument that it cannot be increased by (e.g.) mutation. The well resourced "Intelligent Design" people haven't even tried to do this. Even intuitively it is surely incorrect - if you accept the evolution of a wolf-like creature into the thousands of varieties of dog, are you really telling me this evolution involved no new information? It is also logically problematic - see http://www.evowiki.org/index.php/Mutations_don't_
You may not be a creationist but you seem to have picked up on their arguments with insufficient scepticism. The "information" argument in particular is pure pseudo-science, and it's a bit depressing that someone with a scientific or technical background can make it.
I'm sorry you find evolutionary theory boring. Darwin's claims were mind-blowing at the time, and many people find them impossibly mind-blowing today. I would urge you to delve into the vast and exciting literature on evolution mutation, and not just the pop-sci accounts of it. It would also be great if you could apply a fraction of the healthy scepticism you throw at mainstream science to the scientifically illiterate claims of the creationists about information and the fossil record.
1. You are arguing against intelligent design as well as evolution, because Behe, Dembski and the other advocates of ID accept evolution as a general matter but argue that certain features are too complex to have arisen through unguided evolution. I'm not aware of any other explanation for the origin of life apart from creationism, but I'd be fascinated to hear what you believe.
h tml (you may need to remove extraneous spaces)
2. try http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.
3. You misunderstand. You claim that if macroevolution occured there would be a continuum of macroevolving fossils. You accept that microevolution occured. Therefore you must logically be claiming there is a continuum of microevolving fossils (whether there is a "need" for this or not). There is no such continuum. Therefore your assumptions as to fossilisation probability are incorrect.
4. Show me your math.
5. This is just the same arguement.
6. I've never come across anyone making your claims about evolution who isn't a religious fundamentalist of one stripe or other (with the possible exception of the Raelians). If your views are not driven by religious beliefs then congratulations on being the first secular creationist.
7. I made no ad hominem attack. You are contesting a well established area of science without citing a single source and it's reasonable for me to assume your motivations are religious rather than scientific. I'm happy to be corrected on this.
8. A paradigm shift requires a competing candidate theory with greater explanatory power to replace the current theory. You offer no such competing theory. Kuhn said that to reject one paradigm without simultaneously substituting another is to reject science itself. This is what you are doing.
Typical unsourced creationist claims.
p art1a.htm if anyone wants the detail on this.
You say there is only one fossil linking fish and amphibians. Absolute poppycock. Over a dozen "transitional" *species* between fish and amphibians have been identified from many hundreds of fossils. There are many other well understood transitions. There is an excellent introduction of this at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/
Your argument is also self-refuting. You claim that if evolution were correct then the fossil record would be a continuum. But you presumably accept "microevolution" even though there is no continuum of "micro-evolved" fossils. The answer is of course that the chance of an organism being fossilised, and then surviving millions of years of erosion and geological activity is is pretty damn small.
And as for a scientific revolution coming, it's a funny kind of scientific revolution that's driven by religious fundamentalists?
If the principles behind his explanation apply only to A and B and not any future events then it is a lousy ad hoc explanation and it is not science.
There are many sequences showing gradual change over a long period of time - the classic example is the evolution of the horse from a species called Hyracotherium which looks rather like a small dog. See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol. html for more info on this.
But "half mutated" is a rather meaningless concept.
Actually I have zero technical knowledge.
um, how about "you're an idiot"?
The most doom-laden worst-case scenarios I've seen are 50,000 deaths in the UK (i.e. about one in a thousand people), with the death-rate disproportionately borne by the very young, the very old, and those with impaired immune systems. An appalling tragedy should it happen, but a long way off the end of the world as we know it.
"Do a runner and start up in a dodgy tax haven"? I think not. It would be a criminal offence in the UK for the directors of a company to move its assets offshore to avoid insolvency.
Historically you're right that there hasn't really been an equivalent of Chapter 11 in the UK - our bankruptcy procedures have been ways of managing the end of a company, and it's been rare for a company which goes into administration to emerge intact. The Enterprise Act 2000 created a more flexibile regime, but it's pretty much untried as yet, and in any event not as debtor-friendly as Chapter 11.