Is there a point to that comment? Did anyone say that smallpox is a "living thing"?
And yes, virologists do refer to viruses as species. For exampal, from PubMed:
"Molecular characterization of Iranian wheat stripe virus shows its taxonomic position as a distinct species in the genus Tenuivirus." Arch Virol. 2005 Nov 21; [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 16328148 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
I believe the common term is "extinct in the wild".
That's enough evidence for me to deomonstrate that we can "have an impact on nature", or whatever the original claim was. And that's not to mention many other species that are absolutely extinct due to human activity.
If you don't want people to "pull rank" on you, try adding some sort of explanation to your comments, rather than just saying "you're wrong". For example, you never mentioned where smallpox existed, so you failed to refute my original imprecise statement that it is extinct. Also, don't nit-pick. If you must nit-pick, point out that you are aware that your comment has no bearing on the main point of the discussion.
I'm a scientist also, and I have no concern about patents being limited or even eliminated. I'll find a job one way or another--I'm smart enough.
Anyway, I could still get a job as a scientist: 1) teaching science 2) working from grants 3) providing individualized services, and consulting for in-house processes. Even when a processes has been standardized, you still need someone who knows what he's doing in order to assure quality and fix problems as they occur.
The reason I asked for a date is that you said that infectious disease has gotten worse since that unspecified date.
Regarding SARS and bird flue, do you know anyone who got sick with either of those diseases?
No? See, infectious diseases have minimal impact on our lives. (I'm assuming that you don't know anyone, and if you do, sorry, you represent the rare case in the developed world) They cause occasional scares. That's nothing compared to an actual pandemic, which used to happen on a regular basis. Worst case scenerio is that we have a flu outbreak like the 1918 pandemic. In other words, our disease control (or luck) is very good right now, and we only fear that things could get as bad as they used to be.
Anthrax is only a problem if it is weaponized. It is almost incapable of passing from human to human on its own.
I'm not too worried about Ebola either. I doubt that it could spread effectively in the concrete jungle. It seems to rely on poor medical hygine in order to spread (it probably doesn't spread by air).
Regarding the spread of AIDS in Africa, that can be chalked up to ignorance or idiocy, depending on how you want to interpret their behavior. A doctor can tell those people that AIDS is caused by a virus spread by sexual contact, but they will have absolutely no idea of what a "virus" is. They are as likely to believe that the disease is caused by a curse, and can be cured by counterproductive acts like having sex with a virgin (idiocy or ignorance?). Often, their personal identity is so tied up with their sexuality that they won't refrain from sex or use a condom (idiocy or ignorance?). They also are afraid to get tested because they either don't trust doctors or they are afraid of being shunned by their neighbors (idiocy or ignorance?)
I can't tell you what the solution is for AIDS in Africa, but I can't tell you what the solution is for an educated Westerner--unless you are absolutely sure that the person you are having sex with is not infected, don't have sex with them. If you are still gonna have sex, use a condom. If you follow that advice and don't use needle drugs, you have a less than one in a million chance of contracting HIV.
"And yet infectious disease is more pervasive today than when we started on a program to erradicate it all those years ago."
That's frickin' absurd!
First, when did we start a program to erradicate infectious disease?
Second, in the developed world, infectious disease has a minimal impact on our lives.
Only a few infectious agents have been on the upswing recently--HIV and some antibiotic resistant bacteria. HIV can't touch Smallpox in terms of the damage it does to a society, and antibiotic resistant bacteria can't be any worse than bacteria were before antibiotics.
Another big difference between HIV and smallpox is that if you don't already have HIV, and you are informed about the disease, and you aren't a complete idiot, you have almost no chance of getting infected.
...semantics. I'm a biologist; don't play these games with me.
My point still stands. Smallpox is firmly under our control (as humanity), despite the enourmous number of infectious particles that once existed and the incredible rate that it can spread through a population.
I only use Yahoo for "groups", but I don't manage any groups. Can anyone suggest another service that is as useful as Yahoo, but doesn't have these ethical problems?
Also, can you suggest an easy way to transfer membership from one group to another? I bet that many group managers would be afraid of loosing subscribers if they shifted to a new service provider.
At election time, you are given two choices of candidates (if you are lucky).
Candidate 1: A known theif. Candidate 2: A racist.
Choose between them. Are your DMCA concerns really going to impact your vote? (the above situation has happened)
More realistically, one wants abortion to be legal all the time, while the other seeks to make it illegal all the time. Does the DMCA really matter in that situation? Do the candidates even differ in their position on the DMCA?
Republicanism is a very shallow form of democracy. Don't waste too much time with it.
For the molecules, as you said, it would be more valuable to have a force-feedback system that could give us an intuitive idea of the forces involved in molecular structure. I've seen robotic-arm type structures that allow a person to "interact" with something on the computer screen in a way that makes it feel like something is actually "there".
Instead of using taxpayer's money, backers hope to find a telecommunications company willing to build the network in exchange for access to rooftops of city-owned buildings.
I've had some further thoughts on this issue that may put it in perspective since my point apparently wasn't clear to most.
1) What would happen if the pro-ICANN group and the pro-UN group don't come to an agreement and set up separate systems? How would a user respond to the existance of these independent systems?
2) There are two separate issues here -- first, the computers have to identify each other, i.e. they need unique names. Next, we need to translate those names into something that humans can use. This is what gets political as some names are clearly better (more memorable and descriptive) than others. I was only suggesting that the second part of the system be modified. So how do we associate words with the NIN? Do we use "official" DNS, or do we develop a system that is more like human language? There is more than one Mike Smith in the world, yet I can generally find the Mike Smith who I am looking for.
Could we just get rid of the centralized domain name system? Could we get rid of domain names all-together? Perhaps a search function like Google could make these names obsolete, and we can avoid the politics.
My technical knowledge is littile, so I'd appreciate any thoughts you guys have.
Part of the idea is to transfer debates from Wikipedia to a format where they are treated formally. Otherwise, it is meant to be a more productive debate form than mailing lists or forums.
It is very new, and has no real activity yet, but I'd appreciate any contributions or feedback. I'm announcing it's presence because I'm not really in the MediaWiki loop, and don't want there to be duplication of effort.
It is probably impossible to have a clear-cut limit to a class of objects where the individual objects consist of myriad particles. Probably the best we can do is find some system that clearly classifies MOST objects, even if a few are unclear.
As an example, I think I'm a rather competent user, but I have a good number of problems using Linux (RedHat versions) such that I don't use it very much.
Background: I went to Carnegie Mellon, and tho I didn't major in CS or Engineering, I was still forced to learn how to use computers (including UNIX) and I picked up a few things from my CS friends. I think that I'm more computer savy than at least 3/4 of my peers, who are scientists. If someone like me can't use Linux, then very few people can. I think this article nailed my problems on the head.
I've continued to play with Linux off and on over the course of several years. I even bought a nice big book "RedHat Linux 9 Bible", but I still sometimes have trouble getting basic processes to work (Printing, certain network connections)
I know some (many) of you programmers don't care about general use of Linux, but if you do, this topic is essential.
Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.
on
Superbowling
·
· Score: 1
I'm so sick of this meaningless "playing God" argument. First, no-one agrees on what "God" is or what it would mean to imitate Him. Second, by any reasonable interpretation of what "playing God" means, humanity has been doing it for millenia:
1) Domestication of plants/animals 2) Human-forced extinctions (the exitnction of smallpox was intentional, and there are more intentional extinctions to come, including some animals) 3) Wholesale replacement of natural ecosystems with anthrocentric ecosystems (rural, sububan, and urban) 4) Alterations to the atmosphere (drastic CO2 increases) 5) Digging enormous holes in the Earth and bringing up elements such as Selenium, that used to be almost non-existant on the Earth's surface 6) Nuclear Fusion (that only happens in stars!!!) 7) Global transportation networks that have demolished the geographical barriers to species movement 8) A near-instantaneous global communication network 9) Launching lifeforms into outer-space. 10) Executions.
Basically every technological and organizational advancement of the human race could be described as humans "playing God". The funny thing is that if we look at the history of life, there are pre-human analogies for the things that humans are doing. We're just life, taken to the next level.
I'm actually more concerned about backlash from religious groups, both insinde and outside the US.
Of course, if they were better educated about biology, they probably wouldn't consider these fish to be frightening. However, the reality is that the vast majority of humanity is ignorant of science and that's how things will probably be for another 100 years, at least. These fish will do little or nothing to educate most persons about biology since they simply don't have access to educational opportunities.
This type of thing will get a strong emotional reaction, with little intellectual reaction. They'll just consider it an example of the arrogance of the technoligical/scientific elite in the West.
Slashdot Mirror
Is there a point to that comment? Did anyone say that smallpox is a "living thing"?
And yes, virologists do refer to viruses as species. For exampal, from PubMed:
"Molecular characterization of Iranian wheat stripe virus shows its taxonomic position as a distinct species in the genus Tenuivirus."
Arch Virol. 2005 Nov 21; [Epub ahead of print]
PMID: 16328148 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
I believe the common term is "extinct in the wild".
That's enough evidence for me to deomonstrate that we can "have an impact on nature", or whatever the original claim was. And that's not to mention many other species that are absolutely extinct due to human activity.
If you don't want people to "pull rank" on you, try adding some sort of explanation to your comments, rather than just saying "you're wrong". For example, you never mentioned where smallpox existed, so you failed to refute my original imprecise statement that it is extinct. Also, don't nit-pick. If you must nit-pick, point out that you are aware that your comment has no bearing on the main point of the discussion.
I'm a scientist also, and I have no concern about patents being limited or even eliminated. I'll find a job one way or another--I'm smart enough.
Anyway, I could still get a job as a scientist:
1) teaching science
2) working from grants
3) providing individualized services, and consulting for in-house processes. Even when a processes has been standardized, you still need someone who knows what he's doing in order to assure quality and fix problems as they occur.
The reason I asked for a date is that you said that infectious disease has gotten worse since that unspecified date.
Regarding SARS and bird flue, do you know anyone who got sick with either of those diseases?
No? See, infectious diseases have minimal impact on our lives. (I'm assuming that you don't know anyone, and if you do, sorry, you represent the rare case in the developed world) They cause occasional scares. That's nothing compared to an actual pandemic, which used to happen on a regular basis. Worst case scenerio is that we have a flu outbreak like the 1918 pandemic. In other words, our disease control (or luck) is very good right now, and we only fear that things could get as bad as they used to be.
Anthrax is only a problem if it is weaponized. It is almost incapable of passing from human to human on its own.
I'm not too worried about Ebola either. I doubt that it could spread effectively in the concrete jungle. It seems to rely on poor medical hygine in order to spread (it probably doesn't spread by air).
Regarding the spread of AIDS in Africa, that can be chalked up to ignorance or idiocy, depending on how you want to interpret their behavior. A doctor can tell those people that AIDS is caused by a virus spread by sexual contact, but they will have absolutely no idea of what a "virus" is. They are as likely to believe that the disease is caused by a curse, and can be cured by counterproductive acts like having sex with a virgin (idiocy or ignorance?). Often, their personal identity is so tied up with their sexuality that they won't refrain from sex or use a condom (idiocy or ignorance?). They also are afraid to get tested because they either don't trust doctors or they are afraid of being shunned by their neighbors (idiocy or ignorance?)
I can't tell you what the solution is for AIDS in Africa, but I can't tell you what the solution is for an educated Westerner--unless you are absolutely sure that the person you are having sex with is not infected, don't have sex with them. If you are still gonna have sex, use a condom. If you follow that advice and don't use needle drugs, you have a less than one in a million chance of contracting HIV.
"And yet infectious disease is more pervasive today than when we started on a program to erradicate it all those years ago."
That's frickin' absurd!
First, when did we start a program to erradicate infectious disease?
Second, in the developed world, infectious disease has a minimal impact on our lives.
Only a few infectious agents have been on the upswing recently--HIV and some antibiotic resistant bacteria. HIV can't touch Smallpox in terms of the damage it does to a society, and antibiotic resistant bacteria can't be any worse than bacteria were before antibiotics.
Another big difference between HIV and smallpox is that if you don't already have HIV, and you are informed about the disease, and you aren't a complete idiot, you have almost no chance of getting infected.
...semantics. I'm a biologist; don't play these games with me.
My point still stands. Smallpox is firmly under our control (as humanity), despite the enourmous number of infectious particles that once existed and the incredible rate that it can spread through a population.
Any time we think that we can really have a big impact on nature, we're proven wrong.
Yeah, it's impossible to drive a species extinct. Especially something that exists in huge numbers and reproduces quickly...like the Smallpox virus.
I remember that image. It took me a while to figure out why there was a small, bright island to the SW of Japan.
I only use Yahoo for "groups", but I don't manage any groups. Can anyone suggest another service that is as useful as Yahoo, but doesn't have these ethical problems?
Also, can you suggest an easy way to transfer membership from one group to another? I bet that many group managers would be afraid of loosing subscribers if they shifted to a new service provider.
At election time, you are given two choices of candidates (if you are lucky).
Candidate 1: A known theif.
Candidate 2: A racist.
Choose between them. Are your DMCA concerns really going to impact your vote? (the above situation has happened)
More realistically, one wants abortion to be legal all the time, while the other seeks to make it illegal all the time. Does the DMCA really matter in that situation? Do the candidates even differ in their position on the DMCA?
Republicanism is a very shallow form of democracy. Don't waste too much time with it.
This is just scientific fraud. Nothing fundamentally new.
I'm most interested in the fabricating machine.
For the molecules, as you said, it would be more valuable to have a force-feedback system that could give us an intuitive idea of the forces involved in molecular structure. I've seen robotic-arm type structures that allow a person to "interact" with something on the computer screen in a way that makes it feel like something is actually "there".
I assume this is what you're talking about (in Portland)...
s &file=article&sid=3795
http://www.dailywireless.org/modules.php?name=New
Instead of using taxpayer's money, backers hope to find a telecommunications company willing to build the network in exchange for access to rooftops of city-owned buildings.
I read the first one "Colorado" and it seems reasonable? If you bother to read them all, please tell me which ones are the worst.
thanks
And a law is an observation that holds true, without any explanation.
It is not going "defunct".
It will just have to cut benefits to about 75% of what is promised by the current formula.
Don't listen to the politicans, they'll say anything to get what they want.
Don't listen to the newspapers, they just repeat what the politicans say.
Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for.
I've had some further thoughts on this issue that may put it in perspective since my point apparently wasn't clear to most.
1) What would happen if the pro-ICANN group and the pro-UN group don't come to an agreement and set up separate systems? How would a user respond to the existance of these independent systems?
2) There are two separate issues here -- first, the computers have to identify each other, i.e. they need unique names. Next, we need to translate those names into something that humans can use. This is what gets political as some names are clearly better (more memorable and descriptive) than others. I was only suggesting that the second part of the system be modified. So how do we associate words with the NIN? Do we use "official" DNS, or do we develop a system that is more like human language? There is more than one Mike Smith in the world, yet I can generally find the Mike Smith who I am looking for.
Could we just get rid of the centralized domain name system? Could we get rid of domain names all-together? Perhaps a search function like Google could make these names obsolete, and we can avoid the politics.
My technical knowledge is littile, so I'd appreciate any thoughts you guys have.
For what it's worth, I've initiated a new MediaWiki based project, which you could call "wiki-debate"
http://forum.for-pgh.org/wiki
Part of the idea is to transfer debates from Wikipedia to a format where they are treated formally. Otherwise, it is meant to be a more productive debate form than mailing lists or forums.
It is very new, and has no real activity yet, but I'd appreciate any contributions or feedback. I'm announcing it's presence because I'm not really in the MediaWiki loop, and don't want there to be duplication of effort.
It is probably impossible to have a clear-cut limit to a class of objects where the individual objects consist of myriad particles. Probably the best we can do is find some system that clearly classifies MOST objects, even if a few are unclear.
As an example, I think I'm a rather competent user, but I have a good number of problems using Linux (RedHat versions) such that I don't use it very much.
Background: I went to Carnegie Mellon, and tho I didn't major in CS or Engineering, I was still forced to learn how to use computers (including UNIX) and I picked up a few things from my CS friends. I think that I'm more computer savy than at least 3/4 of my peers, who are scientists. If someone like me can't use Linux, then very few people can. I think this article nailed my problems on the head.
I've continued to play with Linux off and on over the course of several years. I even bought a nice big book "RedHat Linux 9 Bible", but I still sometimes have trouble getting basic processes to work (Printing, certain network connections)
I know some (many) of you programmers don't care about general use of Linux, but if you do, this topic is essential.
There are ads against drunk driving.
I'm so sick of this meaningless "playing God" argument. First, no-one agrees on what "God" is or what it would mean to imitate Him. Second, by any reasonable interpretation of what "playing God" means, humanity has been doing it for millenia:
1) Domestication of plants/animals
2) Human-forced extinctions (the exitnction of smallpox was intentional, and there are more intentional extinctions to come, including some animals)
3) Wholesale replacement of natural ecosystems with anthrocentric ecosystems (rural, sububan, and urban)
4) Alterations to the atmosphere (drastic CO2 increases)
5) Digging enormous holes in the Earth and bringing up elements such as Selenium, that used to be almost non-existant on the Earth's surface
6) Nuclear Fusion (that only happens in stars!!!)
7) Global transportation networks that have demolished the geographical barriers to species movement
8) A near-instantaneous global communication network
9) Launching lifeforms into outer-space.
10) Executions.
Basically every technological and organizational advancement of the human race could be described as humans "playing God". The funny thing is that if we look at the history of life, there are pre-human analogies for the things that humans are doing. We're just life, taken to the next level.
I'm actually more concerned about backlash from religious groups, both insinde and outside the US.
Of course, if they were better educated about biology, they probably wouldn't consider these fish to be frightening. However, the reality is that the vast majority of humanity is ignorant of science and that's how things will probably be for another 100 years, at least. These fish will do little or nothing to educate most persons about biology since they simply don't have access to educational opportunities.
This type of thing will get a strong emotional reaction, with little intellectual reaction. They'll just consider it an example of the arrogance of the technoligical/scientific elite in the West.
There has been extensive research on zebrafish, long before these fish were made. Nothing was learned from making these fish.
Stuff like this is just inviting a backlash against genetic engineering and science in general.