If I have a phd in the field of "teapots orbitting the sun", every one is more than welcome to question the value of my field. If your point was valid, any quack could create all sorts of completely pointless fields of study and no one would be able to say they were pointless.
If millions of people began defining themselves in terms of whether they believe in the existence of these teapots or not (pots and apots ?-), found all kind of organizations around the subject (Catholic Tea House vs. Freebrewers ?-), wrote books like "The Teapot Delusion", and engaged in fierce debates about the subject in message boards like Slashdot, I'd say that the subject would indeed be important enough to justify a studying the possible existence and properties of these hypothetical orbital teapots.
Sure, it would seem pointless to anyone not caring about teapots; but then again, attempts to develop heart transplants would seem pointless to anyone not caring about staying alive. Importance of things is purely up to personal priorities, and for whatever reason a large amount of people seem to consider the existence/nonexistence and nature of God to be important to them, which makes the field valuable to them. You are, of course, free to disagree about that value; but please understand that that is simply your opinion and not any more or less valid than any other.
Did I give any evidence? No, I am not going to give out that kind of info on a public forum. I said I have an insight and I said that IF he is found guilty I would like to see his ass fried.
You said "However I personally have some insight into this situation and I am 99% certain he killed her." in response to a post that reminded everyone that it's unkown whether he is guilty or innocent because he hasn't stood trial yet. You indeed failed to give any evidence for your claim besides claiming that you know someone who knows someone who knew the victim.
In other words you made the claim that the guy is almost certainly guilty and didn't pack it up with any evidence, except an additional claim that sounds like it was taken from Spaceballs. Do you see how such statements could prompt sarcasm ? Besides, we are talking about very a serious crime here, so claiming that the guy is guilty before the trial is simply not proper behavior, IMHO.
If they want to start playing private detective treating some cookie stealing as a hangable offence then I hope they get caught and sentenced for the fraudulent methods they use.
Since they only screw people poorer than themselves I'd say that they're quite safe from any retaliation. They are, after all, the modern aristocracy; what could the peasants possibly do against them ?
From your own link, wire-fraud necessarily includes, "to defraud, or for obtaining money or property." The MAFIAA do not claim to want to do any of those, only to get the information so as to further their actions in court.
And what is the purpose of these actions ? To obtain money, either directly from the case at hand or by making an example of the poor bastard being accused and therefore helping with the MAFIAA's extortion efforts on out-of-court settlements of innocent people.
But anyway, it is unquestionably lying, so let's just use that word from now on.
You're little website is one thing, but if you're microsoft, you have a lot to lose. Maybe the hacker just wants to get on the inside to get better info for future illicit hacks... or worse, put in backdoors.
Why would anyone bother putting in more backdoors to the OS equivalent of Goatse ?
Nope, because all of that logic is fallacious, and further, wouldn't be held as allowable and appropriate responses to the situations you describe by a court.
The logic is yours: because you couldn't be bothered to set up the network so that you could cut off a malicious machine, you felt it was justified to break the law to deal with the resulting situation. It is indeed quite fallacious, so perhaps you should stop trying to justify your actions with it.
But tell me: if this guy had had proper security on his machine, what would you have done ? Committed harakiri ? I guess you got very lucky that he was even more incompetent than you appear to be, at least based on your own arguments.
Your beef isn't with me. It's with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which routinely upholds personal rights and privacy, and often sides against government interest. And yet, it still found this action appropriate.
Since the government wasn't a party to this case, why would the 9th CCoA's attitude towards it have any relevance ? And from what I've understood, it seems that they simply said that the evidence gathered this way is admissible in a trial, not that the action was justified.
Also, at the time that this incident occurred, there wasn't an integrated capability to block MACs on the Housing network by the central IT organization, for various reasons. The most immediately available option was blackholing the IP, which was done, at which point the user simply manually assigned himself an unused IP on the DHCP network and continued malicious activity. The central IT organization does not operate the Housing network, and also didn't have immediate capability to physically disable ports in dorm rooms.
Today, we have all of those capabilities. Then, the only option for dealing with a very critical situation was taking all steps to actively ensure and verify that this computer did not come back on the network during the evolving emergency situation occurring over a very short period of time.
I can't be bothered to install brakes to my car for various reasons. Therefore, if I find myself on collision course with another car, my only option for dealing with this very critical emergency situation is to steer to a sidewalk and run over pedestrians. This is okay because, after all, it is an evolving emergency situation occurring over a very short period of time.
Furthermore, I can't be bothered to get up on time for various reasons; therefore I have the right to run the red lights at 200 mph in the morning rush of a city center, killing a few schoolkids on the way, and then complain bitterly on Slashdot that I'm being oppressed when the speed cameras catch me and I'll get a fine.
And since the fine loses me money, and I can't be bothered to lower my level of spending for that month for various reasons, I have the right to solve the resulting financial problem by robbing a bank. Goes without saying, really.
Do you get the point, or do you need more examples of your own logic applied to other situations ?
Because Amazon has to pay an extra 7% on their $10 domain registration doesn't mean that the price of a $7000 camera at amazon also goes up 7%. It means it goes up ($0.70 / TOTAL_SALES_AT_AMAZON) * 7000 which I'm going to go out on a limb and say rounds to $0.00.
On the other hand, Amazon could use this matter as an excuse to rise the price of everything 7%, trusting that the average American is not smart enough to recognize the bullshit, and therefore increase its profit margins.
I'd also say that the energy cost of raising a 10km insulated power cable into the air would also need to be resolved too.
Why would the cable need to be insulated ? Use alternating power through a bare steel wire, and just shield the transformers at each end so they won't get fried if lightning strikes. That way you don't need multiple wires and can use the tether itself as the power cable, allowing you to use very high voltages to minimize power losses.
A parasite is hardly an innocent bystander, even if it didn't choose to be there. It's still infringing your rights.
You keep using the word "parasite". Why ? Is it an attempt to appeal to emotion: "OK, we can't say if it's a human or not, but that doesn't matter since it's a parasite, and we all know that parasites are nasty things with no right to live" ?
But tell me: since post-birth children are also leaching from their parents, and are therefore parasites, should it be OK to kill them ? And how old should this right be extended to ?
Look, even if you deliberately attacked the violinist, causing him to fall into a coma, only a lunatic would conclude that you should be forced to sustain him from your own flesh.
"Only true scotsman" is a logical fallacy. And in fact there are quite a few cases of the one causing an accident - and more so when deliberately harming someone - having to pay for any and all resulting medical treatment of that person. Having to "sustain him from your own flesh" does seem quite reasonable extension to me.
Indeed. The purpose of this scenario is to show that even if that question were resolved in the way the pro-lifers would prefer, abortion can still be justified, because even a "someone" is not inherently entitled to everything it needs to survive, especially when that can only be obtained by leeching it out of a particular person's body.
And I'm trying to point out that making such a conclusion requires categorically placing the mothers rights above the fetus's, which, if the fetus is indeed equal to a human being, is illogical.
If there is an a priori contradiction, you don't have to worry about the phenomenology of the entity or idea at hand. For instance, if I ask you to give me a description of the marital status of a married bachelor, so that we can debate his existence, I would imagine you would want to appeal to the contradiction rather to show that there is no such thing as a married bachelor.
Certainly. However, the difference between "married bachelor" and "soul" is that both "married" and "bachelor" are quite well-defined terms, while some definitions of "soul" I've heard have equated to breath, some to "ethereal substance" (itself undefined), and some to purely philosophical concepts. Without knowing which definition the grandparent is talking about it is impossible to show that it contradicts anything.
Or, to put it another way: it is useless for two persons to argue about whether a soul exist or not if one thinks that having a soul is a fancy way of saying you're alive (where soul would simply be a synonym for "life"), and another thinks it's some kind of secondary body made of ethereal substance.
Are we about to see the dawn of a new day for the Boot Sector Virus?
And should a virus which circumvents Vista's DRM and therefore restores full control of the machine to the user be called "benware", as opposed to "malware" ?
No, the moral of the story is that you need to be an active member of your ethical community, not just a passive observer of immoral agents. You knew that your friends were acting immorally and breaking the rules of the university, and you chose to do nothing about it.
No. He knew that his friends were breaking the rules of the university. Whether or not this was immoral is not at all clear.
Ethical behavior may or may not include following the rules of your community. At best those rules coincide with ethical behavior, but at no case do they define it.
The cheaters prospered because they cheated, but they cheated successfully because you allowed them to. You let them harm you by allowing them to gain an unfair advantage over you.
If not doing the term papers yourself gives you an advantage that lasts the rest of your life, or any significant time after the university, then doing them causes the student to not do as well as not doing them would, making them not only useless but an actively harmful burden, which means they should be dropped as soon as possible, and avoided like plague in the meanwhile.
When you know someone is acting against the interests of the group in order to gain an unfair advantage and you do nothing about it, you shouldn't complain about the results.
The interests of the group were not harmed in any way. That someone cheats at his term paper does not put any more burden on anyone else, nor does it prevent anyone else from also avoiding these apparently pointless assignments. "I did worse than someone else because I wasted my time on pointless activities instead of dodging them like that someone" in no way implies that that someone has harmed you.
You know the line about evil needing nothing to succeed but that good men do nothing? It applies to people like you in situations like this.
No, it applies to situations where evil is involved. It does not apply to this situation since it is not.
Besides, shouldn't you have properly credited the source of that saying ?-)
There's a large body of evidence that the soul does not exist, there is no evidence that the soul does exist. Make your conclusions.
Before making any conclusions I'd like to know what this presumably nonexistent soul is, exactly speaking ? What would its physical charasteristics be like, if it existed ? How much would it weight, what would it look like, and how would one determine its presence ?
I'm sure you can answer these question satisfactorily, because defining a phenomenon is a prerequisite of having any evidence against it.
No form of contraception is perfect, and rape still happens, so it is quite possible to become pregnant through no fault of your own.
Rape is not your fault, but taking the risk that the non-perfect contraceptive method fails is.
Ah, so you're arguing for "pro-life as punishment". I'm afraid that's still unreasonable.
Punishment ? If someone has to suffer from your actions, then it most certainly should be you and not some innocent bystander. Punishment is suffering that's inflicted on you for the purposes of deterrence or vengeance, and has nothing to do with this issue.
And the question of whether a fetus is "someone" as opposed to "something" is still unresolved. I haven't taken any position on the abortion issue, I've simply commented the arguments used in the debate.
Just think about where this line of argument might take you. If you break your leg while skiing, is it reasonable to deny you proper medical treatment, so that you have to have the leg amputated or even bleed to death, simply because the broken leg is the consequence of your own actions and your insurer, or the local taxpayers, think it's unfair that they should have to suffer those consequences instead of you?
The insurer made a deal with you, and received due compensation for it, to carry this risk. He is suffering the consequences of taking such a risk.
As for the taxpayers, if they think they're unfairly burdened by having to pay for such medical treatment, they can always elect representatives who will change the laws so that they don't have to, or perhaps move to another country or something.
Staying in bed wasn't a condition of the violinist experiment. Who says you can't drag him around on a cart?
The text you quoted did:
You would be very generous to remain attached and in bed for nine months, but you are not morally obliged to do so.
Would you argue that the violinist does, in fact, have the right to stay connected to your body, despite any suffering he may cause you?
The difference between this and abortion is, of course, that you are innocent of the situation - the violinist is dependent on you through no fault of your own. The fetus, on the other hand, is there because you had sex with no adequate protection. It may be unreasonable to except you to burden yourself on some complete strangers behalf, but is it unreasonable to ask you to suffer the consequences of your own actions rather than make someone else (the fetus, if it is human, which still remains the question) suffer them ?
So no, this thought experiment doesn't really parallel abortion, especially since a pregnant woman doesn't have to remain in bed for 9 months. Now if you caused the violinist to fall into a coma by, say, running over him with a car, then it would be a close parallel.
I believe an astronaut already did that actual thing (releasing a feather and a hammer), and since the hammer did not fall towards earth, your theory does not fit the observed reality.:-)
Since my point was that a theory fitting a single observation (or a thousand or a googleplex observations, for that matter) does not prove the theory correct, I'd say that you've just proven my point:).
All you really need to know is that it's inside your body and you don't want it there. DNA doesn't enter into it at all; the whole argument of whether a fetus is a separate person is irrelevant, because even people don't have the right to set up camp inside other people.
Whether abortion is or is not wrong, this argument is ridiculous. The fetus didn't "set up camp" inside anyone; it was formed there as a direct result of its parents actions and had no say in the matter.
If you woke up one morning and found Steve Ballmer living inside your body, throwing your organs around and sucking nutrients out of your blood, would you be morally obligated to let him keep living there until he decided to come out on his own?
If Ballmer ended up inside you as a direct result of your actions, why would you have the right to kill him for the sake of your convenience ?
The only open question in the abortion issue is whether a mass of cells which is fetus should be considered and granted the same rights as a post-birth human being. Unfortunately the question is at least somewhat philosophical in nature, and as such is unlikely to ever be answered, leaving this issue a battle ground for years to come.
I'd much prefer an online check to the current situation of having to keep track of and swap CD's all the time.
I don't. I don't want Brutal Violence to stop working just because the company that made it goes banckrupt or decides to boost sales for Brutal Violence 2. Besides, most games have CD check removal patches available, sometimes from the manufacturer himself (Neverwinter Nights, for example).
I can say for sure that I'll never purchase a game that requires an online check unless it's either an online game or the no-check patch is available.
Ok, so 6% do not believe in God, "People who don't believe in God are called atheists", and only 3% are willing to say they are atheist. WTF is up with the other 3% who do not believe in God?
They likely disagree with the definition of atheist given there, and only include someone who actually denies the existence of God - that is, believes that there is no God - rather than simply not having any believe either way. They'd likely consider themselves agnostics. Or they could worship a pantheon of some kind and think that God - with the capital letter - refers to a monotheistic deity of some kind. Or maybe they consider atheism to be synonymous to irreligious and are members of some non-theistic religion.
This is why it's so very important to set the question and possible answers just right, to ensure that you're actually researching the thing you think you're researching.
As a specific example, you really need to distinguish between strong atheism - the belief that there is no god - and "dunno". Otherwise you're going to get results like these.
You can prove Newton's laws of gravity. Take a hammer, drop it. It will fall directly towards the center of Earth's gravity.
Except that this doesn't prove Newton's laws of gravity, it simply fits them. To demonstrate the difference, I'll make a theory that all objects have a tendency to move towards their natural position in space, which in the hammers case happens to be Earth's center; the hammer falling fits this theory, but does it prove it ?
Obviously, if Newton's laws of gravity survive test after test, at some point you can assume them to be true for all practical purposes; but at no point in this process do they actually become proven, that is, known to be true beyond any shadow of doubt.
Of course love is made up of matter. Its a combination of molecules in your brain.
Love is an emotion, or possibly an abstract concept. It is no more made of molecules than mathemathics or philosophy is; chemical reactions simply happen to be how your brain processes these concepts.
Or to put it in another way: your brains are made of brain cells, but that doesn't mean that everything they can think about is.
Probably because it's not really going to help the problem; government solutions always seem to fall far short. It's just like craziness in the UK with CCTV cameras everywhere; it hasn't been shown to actually decrease crime.
This sounds more like a smoke detecting fire alarm to me. Those work quite well.
If they have problems with high-crime areas of the city, maybe they should have more cops patrolling these areas, plus social programs to prevent kids from turning to crime.
Sure, those would be much better. However, they require money, and get libertarians and other small government / low taxes -types up in arms crying against "nanny state".
Slashdot Mirror
If millions of people began defining themselves in terms of whether they believe in the existence of these teapots or not (pots and apots ?-), found all kind of organizations around the subject (Catholic Tea House vs. Freebrewers ?-), wrote books like "The Teapot Delusion", and engaged in fierce debates about the subject in message boards like Slashdot, I'd say that the subject would indeed be important enough to justify a studying the possible existence and properties of these hypothetical orbital teapots.
Sure, it would seem pointless to anyone not caring about teapots; but then again, attempts to develop heart transplants would seem pointless to anyone not caring about staying alive. Importance of things is purely up to personal priorities, and for whatever reason a large amount of people seem to consider the existence/nonexistence and nature of God to be important to them, which makes the field valuable to them. You are, of course, free to disagree about that value; but please understand that that is simply your opinion and not any more or less valid than any other.
You said "However I personally have some insight into this situation and I am 99% certain he killed her." in response to a post that reminded everyone that it's unkown whether he is guilty or innocent because he hasn't stood trial yet. You indeed failed to give any evidence for your claim besides claiming that you know someone who knows someone who knew the victim.
In other words you made the claim that the guy is almost certainly guilty and didn't pack it up with any evidence, except an additional claim that sounds like it was taken from Spaceballs. Do you see how such statements could prompt sarcasm ? Besides, we are talking about very a serious crime here, so claiming that the guy is guilty before the trial is simply not proper behavior, IMHO.
Since they only screw people poorer than themselves I'd say that they're quite safe from any retaliation. They are, after all, the modern aristocracy; what could the peasants possibly do against them ?
And what is the purpose of these actions ? To obtain money, either directly from the case at hand or by making an example of the poor bastard being accused and therefore helping with the MAFIAA's extortion efforts on out-of-court settlements of innocent people.
But anyway, it is unquestionably lying, so let's just use that word from now on.
With such hard evidence, is a trial even neccessary ?-)
Why would anyone bother putting in more backdoors to the OS equivalent of Goatse ?
I have a better idea: buy a boat and live there. Then it doesn't matter to you if the sea rises a kilometer, since your home will raise with it.
You can build a floating city much easier than you could build a seabottom bubble one. You can also move it, which could be a huge advantage.
The logic is yours: because you couldn't be bothered to set up the network so that you could cut off a malicious machine, you felt it was justified to break the law to deal with the resulting situation. It is indeed quite fallacious, so perhaps you should stop trying to justify your actions with it.
But tell me: if this guy had had proper security on his machine, what would you have done ? Committed harakiri ? I guess you got very lucky that he was even more incompetent than you appear to be, at least based on your own arguments.
Since the government wasn't a party to this case, why would the 9th CCoA's attitude towards it have any relevance ? And from what I've understood, it seems that they simply said that the evidence gathered this way is admissible in a trial, not that the action was justified.
I can't be bothered to install brakes to my car for various reasons. Therefore, if I find myself on collision course with another car, my only option for dealing with this very critical emergency situation is to steer to a sidewalk and run over pedestrians. This is okay because, after all, it is an evolving emergency situation occurring over a very short period of time.
Furthermore, I can't be bothered to get up on time for various reasons; therefore I have the right to run the red lights at 200 mph in the morning rush of a city center, killing a few schoolkids on the way, and then complain bitterly on Slashdot that I'm being oppressed when the speed cameras catch me and I'll get a fine.
And since the fine loses me money, and I can't be bothered to lower my level of spending for that month for various reasons, I have the right to solve the resulting financial problem by robbing a bank. Goes without saying, really.
Do you get the point, or do you need more examples of your own logic applied to other situations ?
On the other hand, Amazon could use this matter as an excuse to rise the price of everything 7%, trusting that the average American is not smart enough to recognize the bullshit, and therefore increase its profit margins.
Why would the cable need to be insulated ? Use alternating power through a bare steel wire, and just shield the transformers at each end so they won't get fried if lightning strikes. That way you don't need multiple wires and can use the tether itself as the power cable, allowing you to use very high voltages to minimize power losses.
You keep using the word "parasite". Why ? Is it an attempt to appeal to emotion: "OK, we can't say if it's a human or not, but that doesn't matter since it's a parasite, and we all know that parasites are nasty things with no right to live" ?
But tell me: since post-birth children are also leaching from their parents, and are therefore parasites, should it be OK to kill them ? And how old should this right be extended to ?
"Only true scotsman" is a logical fallacy. And in fact there are quite a few cases of the one causing an accident - and more so when deliberately harming someone - having to pay for any and all resulting medical treatment of that person. Having to "sustain him from your own flesh" does seem quite reasonable extension to me.
And I'm trying to point out that making such a conclusion requires categorically placing the mothers rights above the fetus's, which, if the fetus is indeed equal to a human being, is illogical.
Certainly. However, the difference between "married bachelor" and "soul" is that both "married" and "bachelor" are quite well-defined terms, while some definitions of "soul" I've heard have equated to breath, some to "ethereal substance" (itself undefined), and some to purely philosophical concepts. Without knowing which definition the grandparent is talking about it is impossible to show that it contradicts anything.
Or, to put it another way: it is useless for two persons to argue about whether a soul exist or not if one thinks that having a soul is a fancy way of saying you're alive (where soul would simply be a synonym for "life"), and another thinks it's some kind of secondary body made of ethereal substance.
And should a virus which circumvents Vista's DRM and therefore restores full control of the machine to the user be called "benware", as opposed to "malware" ?
No. He knew that his friends were breaking the rules of the university. Whether or not this was immoral is not at all clear.
Ethical behavior may or may not include following the rules of your community. At best those rules coincide with ethical behavior, but at no case do they define it.
If not doing the term papers yourself gives you an advantage that lasts the rest of your life, or any significant time after the university, then doing them causes the student to not do as well as not doing them would, making them not only useless but an actively harmful burden, which means they should be dropped as soon as possible, and avoided like plague in the meanwhile.
The interests of the group were not harmed in any way. That someone cheats at his term paper does not put any more burden on anyone else, nor does it prevent anyone else from also avoiding these apparently pointless assignments. "I did worse than someone else because I wasted my time on pointless activities instead of dodging them like that someone" in no way implies that that someone has harmed you.
No, it applies to situations where evil is involved. It does not apply to this situation since it is not.
Besides, shouldn't you have properly credited the source of that saying ?-)
Before making any conclusions I'd like to know what this presumably nonexistent soul is, exactly speaking ? What would its physical charasteristics be like, if it existed ? How much would it weight, what would it look like, and how would one determine its presence ?
I'm sure you can answer these question satisfactorily, because defining a phenomenon is a prerequisite of having any evidence against it.
Rape is not your fault, but taking the risk that the non-perfect contraceptive method fails is.
Punishment ? If someone has to suffer from your actions, then it most certainly should be you and not some innocent bystander. Punishment is suffering that's inflicted on you for the purposes of deterrence or vengeance, and has nothing to do with this issue.
And the question of whether a fetus is "someone" as opposed to "something" is still unresolved. I haven't taken any position on the abortion issue, I've simply commented the arguments used in the debate.
The insurer made a deal with you, and received due compensation for it, to carry this risk. He is suffering the consequences of taking such a risk.
As for the taxpayers, if they think they're unfairly burdened by having to pay for such medical treatment, they can always elect representatives who will change the laws so that they don't have to, or perhaps move to another country or something.
The text you quoted did:
The difference between this and abortion is, of course, that you are innocent of the situation - the violinist is dependent on you through no fault of your own. The fetus, on the other hand, is there because you had sex with no adequate protection. It may be unreasonable to except you to burden yourself on some complete strangers behalf, but is it unreasonable to ask you to suffer the consequences of your own actions rather than make someone else (the fetus, if it is human, which still remains the question) suffer them ?
So no, this thought experiment doesn't really parallel abortion, especially since a pregnant woman doesn't have to remain in bed for 9 months. Now if you caused the violinist to fall into a coma by, say, running over him with a car, then it would be a close parallel.
Since my point was that a theory fitting a single observation (or a thousand or a googleplex observations, for that matter) does not prove the theory correct, I'd say that you've just proven my point :).
Whether abortion is or is not wrong, this argument is ridiculous. The fetus didn't "set up camp" inside anyone; it was formed there as a direct result of its parents actions and had no say in the matter.
If Ballmer ended up inside you as a direct result of your actions, why would you have the right to kill him for the sake of your convenience ?
The only open question in the abortion issue is whether a mass of cells which is fetus should be considered and granted the same rights as a post-birth human being. Unfortunately the question is at least somewhat philosophical in nature, and as such is unlikely to ever be answered, leaving this issue a battle ground for years to come.
I don't. I don't want Brutal Violence to stop working just because the company that made it goes banckrupt or decides to boost sales for Brutal Violence 2. Besides, most games have CD check removal patches available, sometimes from the manufacturer himself (Neverwinter Nights, for example).
I can say for sure that I'll never purchase a game that requires an online check unless it's either an online game or the no-check patch is available.
They likely disagree with the definition of atheist given there, and only include someone who actually denies the existence of God - that is, believes that there is no God - rather than simply not having any believe either way. They'd likely consider themselves agnostics. Or they could worship a pantheon of some kind and think that God - with the capital letter - refers to a monotheistic deity of some kind. Or maybe they consider atheism to be synonymous to irreligious and are members of some non-theistic religion.
This is why it's so very important to set the question and possible answers just right, to ensure that you're actually researching the thing you think you're researching.
As a specific example, you really need to distinguish between strong atheism - the belief that there is no god - and "dunno". Otherwise you're going to get results like these.
Except that this doesn't prove Newton's laws of gravity, it simply fits them. To demonstrate the difference, I'll make a theory that all objects have a tendency to move towards their natural position in space, which in the hammers case happens to be Earth's center; the hammer falling fits this theory, but does it prove it ?
Obviously, if Newton's laws of gravity survive test after test, at some point you can assume them to be true for all practical purposes; but at no point in this process do they actually become proven, that is, known to be true beyond any shadow of doubt.
No, but hypotheses and theories can.
Love is an emotion, or possibly an abstract concept. It is no more made of molecules than mathemathics or philosophy is; chemical reactions simply happen to be how your brain processes these concepts.
Or to put it in another way: your brains are made of brain cells, but that doesn't mean that everything they can think about is.
This sounds more like a smoke detecting fire alarm to me. Those work quite well.
Sure, those would be much better. However, they require money, and get libertarians and other small government / low taxes -types up in arms crying against "nanny state".