...at least come up with a way to lower the cost of their computers so they sell more copies of OS X...
I think that Apple could make a cheap computer just as easily as say Dell does. After all, neither of them make the components that go into the computer. BMW also could make just as cheap a car as Hyundai. I just got a little Mac mini and it is the cutest little gadget I have gotten in a long time. The Logitech keyboard, Microsoft mouse and Gateway monitor work just fine with it, as does my Sony video and Olympus still camera. I got the fancier version for $600 and I don't believe there is a PC box out there for that price that offers all that functionality. I especially like the total freedom from the plague of malware that infested my old Wintel box.
...Apple has a PC version of OS X, things might change sooner...
It will be a cold day in hell before Apple will make OSX available on generic no name x86 boxes. All the best games eventually make it to the Mac in the same way that all good movies eventually come out on DVD. Apple makes their money on hardware and M$ on software. Apple controls both and for that reason alone a Mac system will ALWAYS be superior to Windows. Besides, for the average gamer a dedicated game console is much more affordable than a general purpose computer of sufficeint power to decently run modern games.
...A lot of monitors these days have usb hubs built into them...
So do a number of USB keyboards. Plug the mouse into the keyboard and the other USB port for the printer. USB hubs are not all that expensive either. Most inexpensive PCs don't have a firewire port for a video camera, but the mini does. It also comes with cool video software that costs extra for Windows and is nowhere near as good.
...Linux is quickly taking over the server market segment...
People who run servers are usually computer professionals or at least computer savy power users. Linux is an excellent system, made by geeks for geeks, but it is not likely to be taking over the desktop until the geekyness is sufficiently hidden from ordinary users. Mac OS 10.4 is just as powerful for server use as Linux, but Apple has also manged to hide the Unix geek stuff very well from the ordinary Joe or Jane user. The Mac also has some very easy to use software and very good hardware support for many neat gadgets and accessories. Windows is more frustrating because of all the malware, but still easy to use for the masses.
...would take months or years to reimplement on Windows, Mac or Operating System X...
I can't see *anything* that could be done in Linux should take much time at all to port to a Mac, since both systems are variants of Unix. If someone did come out with a "killer" app on Linux it would likely run on a Mac in a few weeks also. Getting it onto Windows *might* take a bit longer.
...something for Linux that everyone needs but doesn't exist on Windows or the Mac...
What everyone needs is a computer that is as simple to operate as a toaster. Actually, computers are too complex for exactly that, but for Linux a user still needs too much tech expertise to do common computer chores. Right now Apple's OSX 10.4 computers are the most powerful, yet the most easy to use systems out there. They are basically just like Linux, another flavor of Unix, but the powerful Unix stuff is sufficiently hidden from the non geek user. In Linux the Unix core still peeks out too often and scares non-geek users and PC manufacturers away.
....I am not able to, for example, replace my right-mouse-button myself after it fails to work properly....
Good luck finding just the right mouse button to replace it with. Getting parts for most inexpensive consumer electronics devices is nearly impossible these days even if you can get the gadget open an know what to repair. Most consumers would not know how to repair a mouse or whatever gadget anyway. Given the legal climate, it also is prudent for the manufacturer to not allow clueless customers to possibly get injured.
...we don't want to be hampered by anti-copyign schemes...
The RIAA as representatives of the multi-rich music companies DEMANDED that if Apple wanted to sell their music they would have to implement some sort of DRM. So Apple implemented some DRM and now that same person who demanded it complains about it. Before the iTunes store existed I remember the "rip, mix-burn" ads from Apple. Even now the constituents of the RIAA are implementing CDs with all sorts of (mostly useless) anti-copying (sharpiepen) technology! What a hypocrite!
...The Bible never says that Heaven is outside of our space-time...
Not directly, but we are told in Isaiah 57:15 - "For thus saith the high and lofty One that INHABITETH ETERNITY, whose name is Holy; -...
God created time, space, matter-energy and is not subject to time. The first verse of the Bible tells us this and modern science calls it "The Big Bang". A concept of eternity being "just a lot of time" is not biblical, but very hard to understand. God exists eternally, outside of time and Heaven is where God dwells.
God looks in from the outside of our whole time-space universe. He sees everything going on at once. He sees time as one who sees a parade from the air -- the first float, the last one and the ones in between all at once. We, standing at the street corner see each only as it comes before us and after it has passed, we have but a memory of it.
Jesus is all God, but for our sake He took on our humanity and limited himself to the laws of physics he formulated - including time and even death. He often referred to Himself "as the Son of Man".
Jesus claimed to be God in human form so among other things, we could get some idea what the transcendant eternal God is like. He came from a place called Heaven which is not part of our space-time domain. Jesus commissioned the Apostle John to write the book of Revelation. It details in admittedly difficult picture language some of the concluding events ending history as we have known it. John wrote other parts of the Bible also. If you only know about the Bible from others, I recommend you read it for yourself at least once. It is a remarkable collection of 66 books written by 40 authors over thousands of years. These men were given what to write by God. It is funny how many of the most vocal critics of the Bible have never read it for themselves.
I am not a crazy. There are millions of Christians who also believe this. Maybe in some people's eyes they are all crazy.
Korea is likely to be only a side show in the end time scenarios predicted in the Bible. The center of action will be in the Middle East. This is where human civilization began and this is where it will end, save for the grace and last minute, personal intervention by the God-Man Jesus. He will re-enter our time-space dimension once again, this time put an end to human foolishness and rebellion against God.
...For instance, we know how gravity works.. Science is generally pretty good at answering "how" questions but the "when" and "why" questions are much harder. Why are the laws and constants of physics what they are and when did they begin is really beyond explanation. We do know that human laws are made by (somtimes!?) intelligent beings, so why is it so absurd or unreasonable to say that the complex, highly coherent "laws of nature" spring from and intelligent source? Is ID really such an unreasonable explanation for what we see in the universe? When discussing the nature of this intelligence, we of course must leave science behind and enter the realm of faith and belief.
The card is just the pre-cursor to the mandatory implantable chip device. These chips are already commonly used in animals. Biometrics is a good way to go, but is much more expensive to implement universally than a simple chip reader connected to a phone line or network. Just replace the present credit card reader with a cheap chip scanner.
actually the "ON his right hand or ON his forehead..." is also translated..."IN his right hand or IN his forehead"...
Why bother with a card that can be lost or stolen. Just require an implantable chip device that can be read at a distance.
The next verse adds to this: "And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark..."
The elimination and outlawing of cash money will follow this ID system to allow the total control of all people, ultimately world wide.
For centuries nobody reading this prophecy imagined how it could ever be that trade could be prevented by the lack of an identifying mark. Now it is on the not too distant horizon thanks to technology.
Could it be that other prophecies in the Bible, such as many of the statements of Jesus Christ will also come true soon? For example, Jesus said that there would come a time so terrible, that if God did not intervene, all life on Earth would be extinguished. With modern WMDs that doesn't sound to far fetched anymore either.
Actually, this is one of those "when" question, that unlike "how" questions is very difficult to answer definitively. Evidence from the past (such as ice cores and tree rings and others) shows that there were periods of time when the Earth's climate, especially in the higher latitudes, was much colder or warmer than today. Extrapolating things into the future is even more uncertain, since it must be based on assumptions that are quite uncertain. If tomorrow's weather cannot be predicted with reasonable accuracy, long term climate prognostications seem much more uncertain and speculative.
What exactly do you mean by this. If you come across an object, say a primitive tool such as an arrowhead, would you also assert that there was no intelligence behind it? Why would it be considered universally foolish by almost everyone if the obvious intelligent design of say the pyramids or stonehenge, for example, were denied. Why are we willing to allow for the existence of intelligent design for human creations and not for the vastly more complex "natural" things we see?
...Those who believe that basic matter always existed...
Einstein's and other's mathematics and astronomical observations show that time-space-mattter-energy all came into being at once at an event commonly called "The Big Bang".
The philosphical or religious equivalent of this is found in the first sentence of the Bible. We read: "In the beginning (time) God (Hebrew plural word = Elohim) created the heavens (space) and the earth (matter-energy).
Science cannot go beyond either the "Big Bang" event nor the first verse of the Bible. Both are describing the same thing in different ways.
...creationist arguments is that it doesn't really answer the question of origin...
The accepted evolutionary scientific explanation of origins is really no different. It all started with the so called 'big bang' supposedly, but there is no explanation as to who or what made that happen. It is facetiously formulated by some as: "First there was nothing and then somhow it exploded"!
Science is good at answering questions of HOW things work according to the laws we have discovered that seem to consistently operate to control the processes we see, including so called evolution. Questions that have a WHEN component, either past or future are much harder or mostly impossible for science to ascertain, because when questions are not usually subject to experimental observation. Nobody is making fossils today.
All of true science is limited to our senses or instrumental extensions thereof and the intellectual evaluation of these observations. The "supernatural" is by definition beyond this and therefore is NOT science. When confronted with phenomena or historical accounts thereof which cannot be experimentally or observationally verified, true scientists should be humble and open minded enough to say: "I don't know", rather than categorically denying or ridiculing the supernatural.
Many now reasonably understood natural laws and phenomena were one regarded as superstition or heresy. Many of the accounts in the Bible are not explainable by our present knowledge. Turning water into wine is a process that we understand by learning about grapes etc. How this was done by Jesus in a shortcut way that is termed a "miracle" is still a mystery, because our knowledge about the arrangement of atoms is so limited. Since bread is also an arrangement of atoms, why is it considered impossible to accept the possibility that someone, such as Jesus, God in human form, who knows a lot more about matter and energy than we do, to be able to duplicate a set arrangement of atoms as many times as needed in order to feed a hungry crowd? Just because we do not (yet) have the knowledge how this can work, why do so many, in arrogance deny that "miracles" can take place? Much of what is common science and technology today was once considered "miraculous".
...Has anyone actually observed an electron moving?...
Yes, at SLAC, where I used to work, we observed them going at almost any speed from barely moving up to 99.999999% of the speed of light as they came out of the two mile long linear accelerator.
What then IS science? That is the question that is being debated, not only in Kansas, but in other places, including here now on/.
Is science not attempt to learn truth about the universe and its laws we find ourselves in? Just as the tools limit a tradesman or a professional, so the tools available to science are limited to what our senses and their extensions can receive and our limited intellect can process.
As we observe "nature" it is very evident that there are very definite "rules" by which these "natural" processes operate. The reason science is possible at all is because by learning about these rules, we can predict and modify some of these processes to our advantage. Once these rules or laws are established and at least partially understood we can postulate how these laws might have shaped what we observe in nature and the laboratory. Evolution is thought to operate by and inside of these laws, as far as we can observe and understand them
The big question really isn't how we or everything else we observe came to be by following these rules or laws, but how these laws came to be in the first place. As far as we can tell, these laws, commonly called the laws of physics, appear to operate consistently not only here on earth, but also in the most distant observable reaches of the cosmos.
The relationships and characteristics of these laws are so exact, that if any of them were altered, in some cases only one part in a million or less, we the observer, and no other physical life forms could exist. The binding energies of carbon are the only element we know of that allow the construction of the extremely complex protein molecules advanced physical living entities are observed to have.
Religion and faith is a superset of these laws. The Bible is a book that tells us outright that physical life forms, are at the bottom of the scale of life. We are told of a transcendant, non-physical intelligent entity called God, (Elohim in Hebrew) who exists outside of, and is not subject to these laws, but created these laws along with the time-space-matter-energy universe they control. Furthermore, this God of the Bible came here to Earth, where in the human form of Jesus Christ, He voluntarily subjected Himself to these laws of physics He had formulated, even to the point of being subject to and suffering death. He did all this in order to enable us have a relationship with Him beginning right here and now, while we are still subject to these laws of physics, including entropy which guarantees the death of our physical body. The promise is, and that must be taken by faith right now, that He desires for us also to transcend the limiting laws of physics and be forever joined to Him.
Science and our limited intellect cannot go that far, and that is why the Bible tells us that "without faith it is impossible to please God". The Bible tells us that we are non-physical entities that live for a short time in physical bodies, wherein we may freely decide by faith, whether we want to live in the presence of the One who is self-existent and eternal, or apart fom Him. Being apart from Him is what the Bible labels Hell.
...I've yet to hear an argument against copyright laws...
I'm not advocating the ending of copyright, but simply replying to your assertion that art and creativity would vanish if there were no copyright. Copyright, like so many other laws are a neccessary evil because of the greed and dishonesty of many, if not most people. Also, I was mostly talking about music. Film and photography are a modern inventions that may need to be dealt with differently.
Perhaps all copyright could be modified to only to restrict the profiteering from copying of a work. If I give a copy of some music to my sister, I am not profiting by it. It is disingenuous to assert that the artist lost money because now my sister didn't need to buy the work. She may like that particular song and buy others from that artist. If I had never copied it, she would never have heard and never bought anything. Wholesale copying over the Internet could be deemed profiteering by the ISP and be prohibited.
Copyright, since it is supposedly for the protection and encouragement of the creative living artist, should enter the public domain upon the death of the creator. Only real live flesh and blood people should have non-transferable or non-assignable copyright, not big fat mega-rich corporations. Copyright should only benefit the creator of the work and society as a whole, not some rich class of investors and stockholders in a faceless corporation.
...Should it be legal to copy copyrighted material? Do you realise this would mean the end of the entire entertainment industry?...
Copyright is a quite modern legal invention. For millenia, people wrote stories and poems, composed and played music, drew pictures etc. Art, creativity and beauty is innate in humans, a reflection of the Creator. It is not needed as a factor in the theory of evolution driven by the survival of the fittest. If copyright disappeared today, the joy of creativity of many people and their desire to share it with the rest of us would definitely continue.
In most cases, the artists get the least of the money spent for canned, copyrighted entertainment. The biggest losers in the absence of copyright would be countless hangers-on that are now like parasites living off the creativity of a few. Many artists could and do make the most money from live performances. If anyone recorded and broadcast their performance, it would be like free advertising. When that person or group, someone who is truly good, came to town, many of those who heard the recording would pay to hear the live performance. The performers might even consider paying the recording company for the advertising.
...To survive long enough to reproduce and perpetuate our genes. No other reason. No reason needed...
So then why should it be considered wrong and a crime that society prosecutes as murder for someone to just kill you so that they can have the resources you have worked for? That way they can pass on THEIR genes which are obviously better than yours since he/she was able to "survive" better to evolve further. Why should it be a crime for someone to rape your mate so they can then pass on THEIR genes? After all, that is just 'natural selection' working by eliminating you since you are weak and the genes of the weak should die out. Don't you see the end of your reasoning? If 'survival of the fittest' is why we are here, then we would need no laws or government.
Slashdot Mirror
...at least come up with a way to lower the cost of their computers so they sell more copies of OS X...
I think that Apple could make a cheap computer just as easily as say Dell does. After all, neither of them make the components that go into the computer. BMW also could make just as cheap a car as Hyundai. I just got a little Mac mini and it is the cutest little gadget I have gotten in a long time. The Logitech keyboard, Microsoft mouse and Gateway monitor work just fine with it, as does my Sony video and Olympus still camera. I got the fancier version for $600 and I don't believe there is a PC box out there for that price that offers all that functionality. I especially like the total freedom from the plague of malware that infested my old Wintel box.
...Apple has a PC version of OS X, things might change sooner...
It will be a cold day in hell before Apple will make OSX available on generic no name x86 boxes. All the best games eventually make it to the Mac in the same way that all good movies eventually come out on DVD. Apple makes their money on hardware and M$ on software. Apple controls both and for that reason alone a Mac system will ALWAYS be superior to Windows. Besides, for the average gamer a dedicated game console is much more affordable than a general purpose computer of sufficeint power to decently run modern games.
...A lot of monitors these days have usb hubs built into them...
So do a number of USB keyboards. Plug the mouse into the keyboard and the other USB port for the printer. USB hubs are not all that expensive either. Most inexpensive PCs don't have a firewire port for a video camera, but the mini does. It also comes with cool video software that costs extra for Windows and is nowhere near as good.
...Linux is quickly taking over the server market segment...
People who run servers are usually computer professionals or at least computer savy power users. Linux is an excellent system, made by geeks for geeks, but it is not likely to be taking over the desktop until the geekyness is sufficiently hidden from ordinary users. Mac OS 10.4 is just as powerful for server use as Linux, but Apple has also manged to hide the Unix geek stuff very well from the ordinary Joe or Jane user. The Mac also has some very easy to use software and very good hardware support for many neat gadgets and accessories. Windows is more frustrating because of all the malware, but still easy to use for the masses.
...would take months or years to reimplement on Windows, Mac or Operating System X...
I can't see *anything* that could be done in Linux should take much time at all to port to a Mac, since both systems are variants of Unix. If someone did come out with a "killer" app on Linux it would likely run on a Mac in a few weeks also. Getting it onto Windows *might* take a bit longer.
...something for Linux that everyone needs but doesn't exist on Windows or the Mac...
What everyone needs is a computer that is as simple to operate as a toaster. Actually, computers are too complex for exactly that, but for Linux a user still needs too much tech expertise to do common computer chores. Right now Apple's OSX 10.4 computers are the most powerful, yet the most easy to use systems out there. They are basically just like Linux, another flavor of Unix, but the powerful Unix stuff is sufficiently hidden from the non geek user. In Linux the Unix core still peeks out too often and scares non-geek users and PC manufacturers away.
....I am not able to, for example, replace my right-mouse-button myself after it fails to work properly....
Good luck finding just the right mouse button to replace it with. Getting parts for most inexpensive consumer electronics devices is nearly impossible these days even if you can get the gadget open an know what to repair. Most consumers would not know how to repair a mouse or whatever gadget anyway. Given the legal climate, it also is prudent for the manufacturer to not allow clueless customers to possibly get injured.
...we don't want to be hampered by anti-copyign schemes...
The RIAA as representatives of the multi-rich music companies DEMANDED that if Apple wanted to sell their music they would have to implement some sort of DRM. So Apple implemented some DRM and now that same person who demanded it complains about it. Before the iTunes store existed I remember the "rip, mix-burn" ads from Apple. Even now the constituents of the RIAA are implementing CDs with all sorts of (mostly useless) anti-copying (sharpiepen) technology! What a hypocrite!
...The Bible never says that Heaven is outside of our space-time...
Not directly, but we are told in Isaiah 57:15 - "For thus saith the high and lofty One that INHABITETH ETERNITY, whose name is Holy; -...
God created time, space, matter-energy and is not subject to time. The first verse of the Bible tells us this and modern science calls it "The Big Bang". A concept of eternity being "just a lot of time" is not biblical, but very hard to understand. God exists eternally, outside of time and Heaven is where God dwells.
God looks in from the outside of our whole time-space universe. He sees everything going on at once. He sees time as one who sees a parade from the air -- the first float, the last one and the ones in between all at once. We, standing at the street corner see each only as it comes before us and after it has passed, we have but a memory of it.
Jesus is all God, but for our sake He took on our humanity and limited himself to the laws of physics he formulated - including time and even death. He often referred to Himself "as the Son of Man".
Jesus claimed to be God in human form so among other things, we could get some idea what the transcendant eternal God is like. He came from a place called Heaven which is not part of our space-time domain. Jesus commissioned the Apostle John to write the book of Revelation. It details in admittedly difficult picture language some of the concluding events ending history as we have known it. John wrote other parts of the Bible also. If you only know about the Bible from others, I recommend you read it for yourself at least once. It is a remarkable collection of 66 books written by 40 authors over thousands of years. These men were given what to write by God. It is funny how many of the most vocal critics of the Bible have never read it for themselves.
I am not a crazy. There are millions of Christians who also believe this. Maybe in some people's eyes they are all crazy.
...invasion of North Korea...
Korea is likely to be only a side show in the end time scenarios predicted in the Bible. The center of action will be in the Middle East. This is where human civilization began and this is where it will end, save for the grace and last minute, personal intervention by the God-Man Jesus. He will re-enter our time-space dimension once again, this time put an end to human foolishness and rebellion against God.
...For instance, we know how gravity works..
Science is generally pretty good at answering "how" questions but the "when" and "why" questions are much harder. Why are the laws and constants of physics what they are and when did they begin is really beyond explanation. We do know that human laws are made by (somtimes!?) intelligent beings, so why is it so absurd or unreasonable to say that the complex, highly coherent "laws of nature" spring from and intelligent source? Is ID really such an unreasonable explanation for what we see in the universe? When discussing the nature of this intelligence, we of course must leave science behind and enter the realm of faith and belief.
...What does that have to do with an ID card?....
The card is just the pre-cursor to the mandatory implantable chip device. These chips are already commonly used in animals. Biometrics is a good way to go, but is much more expensive to implement universally than a simple chip reader connected to a phone line or network. Just replace the present credit card reader with a cheap chip scanner.
actually the "ON his right hand or ON his forehead..." is also translated ..."IN his right hand or IN his forehead"...
Why bother with a card that can be lost or stolen. Just require an implantable chip device that can be read at a distance.
The next verse adds to this: "And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark..."
The elimination and outlawing of cash money will follow this ID system to allow the total control of all people, ultimately world wide.
For centuries nobody reading this prophecy imagined how it could ever be that trade could be prevented by the lack of an identifying mark. Now it is on the not too distant horizon thanks to technology.
Could it be that other prophecies in the Bible, such as many of the statements of Jesus Christ will also come true soon? For example, Jesus said that there would come a time so terrible, that if God did not intervene, all life on Earth would be extinguished. With modern WMDs that doesn't sound to far fetched anymore either.
...global warming is a problem...
Actually, this is one of those "when" question, that unlike "how" questions is very difficult to answer definitively. Evidence from the past (such as ice cores and tree rings and others) shows that there were periods of time when the Earth's climate, especially in the higher latitudes, was much colder or warmer than today. Extrapolating things into the future is even more uncertain, since it must be based on assumptions that are quite uncertain. If tomorrow's weather cannot be predicted with reasonable accuracy, long term climate prognostications seem much more uncertain and speculative.
so abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution?
...intelligent design cannot be falsified...
What exactly do you mean by this. If you come across an object, say a primitive tool such as an arrowhead, would you also assert that there was no intelligence behind it? Why would it be considered universally foolish by almost everyone if the obvious intelligent design of say the pyramids or stonehenge, for example, were denied. Why are we willing to allow for the existence of intelligent design for human creations and not for the vastly more complex "natural" things we see?
...Those who believe that basic matter always existed...
Einstein's and other's mathematics and astronomical observations show that time-space-mattter-energy all came into being at once at an event commonly called "The Big Bang".
The philosphical or religious equivalent of this is found in the first sentence of the Bible. We read: "In the beginning (time) God (Hebrew plural word = Elohim) created the heavens (space) and the earth (matter-energy).
Science cannot go beyond either the "Big Bang" event nor the first verse of the Bible. Both are describing the same thing in different ways.
...Science is defended via hypothesis and experimentation...
So what experimentation has there been done that can show how the laws of physics came into existence, since these control how evolution operates?
...creationist arguments is that it doesn't really answer the question of origin...
The accepted evolutionary scientific explanation of origins is really no different. It all started with the so called 'big bang' supposedly, but there is no explanation as to who or what made that happen. It is facetiously formulated by some as: "First there was nothing and then somhow it exploded"!
Science is good at answering questions of HOW things work according to the laws we have discovered that seem to consistently operate to control the processes we see, including so called evolution. Questions that have a WHEN component, either past or future are much harder or mostly impossible for science to ascertain, because when questions are not usually subject to experimental observation. Nobody is making fossils today.
All of true science is limited to our senses or instrumental extensions thereof and the intellectual evaluation of these observations. The "supernatural" is by definition beyond this and therefore is NOT science. When confronted with phenomena or historical accounts thereof which cannot be experimentally or observationally verified, true scientists should be humble and open minded enough to say: "I don't know", rather than categorically denying or ridiculing the supernatural.
Many now reasonably understood natural laws and phenomena were one regarded as superstition or heresy. Many of the accounts in the Bible are not explainable by our present knowledge. Turning water into wine is a process that we understand by learning about grapes etc. How this was done by Jesus in a shortcut way that is termed a "miracle" is still a mystery, because our knowledge about the arrangement of atoms is so limited. Since bread is also an arrangement of atoms, why is it considered impossible to accept the possibility that someone, such as Jesus, God in human form, who knows a lot more about matter and energy than we do, to be able to duplicate a set arrangement of atoms as many times as needed in order to feed a hungry crowd? Just because we do not (yet) have the knowledge how this can work, why do so many, in arrogance deny that "miracles" can take place? Much of what is common science and technology today was once considered "miraculous".
...Has anyone actually observed an electron moving?...
Yes, at SLAC, where I used to work, we observed them going at almost any speed from barely moving up to 99.999999% of the speed of light as they came out of the two mile long linear accelerator.
...But it is not science...
What then IS science? That is the question that is being debated, not only in Kansas, but in other places, including here now on/.
Is science not attempt to learn truth about the universe and its laws we find ourselves in? Just as the tools limit a tradesman or a professional, so the tools available to science are limited to what our senses and their extensions can receive and our limited intellect can process.
As we observe "nature" it is very evident that there are very definite "rules" by which these "natural" processes operate. The reason science is possible at all is because by learning about these rules, we can predict and modify some of these processes to our advantage. Once these rules or laws are established and at least partially understood we can postulate how these laws might have shaped what we observe in nature and the laboratory. Evolution is thought to operate by and inside of these laws, as far as we can observe and understand them
The big question really isn't how we or everything else we observe came to be by following these rules or laws, but how these laws came to be in the first place. As far as we can tell, these laws, commonly called the laws of physics, appear to operate consistently not only here on earth, but also in the most distant observable reaches of the cosmos.
The relationships and characteristics of these laws are so exact, that if any of them were altered, in some cases only one part in a million or less, we the observer, and no other physical life forms could exist. The binding energies of carbon are the only element we know of that allow the construction of the extremely complex protein molecules advanced physical living entities are observed to have.
Religion and faith is a superset of these laws. The Bible is a book that tells us outright that physical life forms, are at the bottom of the scale of life. We are told of a transcendant, non-physical intelligent entity called God, (Elohim in Hebrew) who exists outside of, and is not subject to these laws, but created these laws along with the time-space-matter-energy universe they control. Furthermore, this God of the Bible came here to Earth, where in the human form of Jesus Christ, He voluntarily subjected Himself to these laws of physics He had formulated, even to the point of being subject to and suffering death. He did all this in order to enable us have a relationship with Him beginning right here and now, while we are still subject to these laws of physics, including entropy which guarantees the death of our physical body. The promise is, and that must be taken by faith right now, that He desires for us also to transcend the limiting laws of physics and be forever joined to Him.
Science and our limited intellect cannot go that far, and that is why the Bible tells us that "without faith it is impossible to please God". The Bible tells us that we are non-physical entities that live for a short time in physical bodies, wherein we may freely decide by faith, whether we want to live in the presence of the One who is self-existent and eternal, or apart fom Him. Being apart from Him is what the Bible labels Hell.
...I've yet to hear an argument against copyright laws...
I'm not advocating the ending of copyright, but simply replying to your assertion that art and creativity would vanish if there were no copyright. Copyright, like so many other laws are a neccessary evil because of the greed and dishonesty of many, if not most people. Also, I was mostly talking about music. Film and photography are a modern inventions that may need to be dealt with differently.
Perhaps all copyright could be modified to only to restrict the profiteering from copying of a work. If I give a copy of some music to my sister, I am not profiting by it. It is disingenuous to assert that the artist lost money because now my sister didn't need to buy the work. She may like that particular song and buy others from that artist. If I had never copied it, she would never have heard and never bought anything. Wholesale copying over the Internet could be deemed profiteering by the ISP and be prohibited.
Copyright, since it is supposedly for the protection and encouragement of the creative living artist, should enter the public domain upon the death of the creator. Only real live flesh and blood people should have non-transferable or non-assignable copyright, not big fat mega-rich corporations. Copyright should only benefit the creator of the work and society as a whole, not some rich class of investors and stockholders in a faceless corporation.
...Should it be legal to copy copyrighted material? Do you realise this would mean the end of the entire entertainment industry?...
Copyright is a quite modern legal invention. For millenia, people wrote stories and poems, composed and played music, drew pictures etc. Art, creativity and beauty is innate in humans, a reflection of the Creator. It is not needed as a factor in the theory of evolution driven by the survival of the fittest. If copyright disappeared today, the joy of creativity of many people and their desire to share it with the rest of us would definitely continue.
In most cases, the artists get the least of the money spent for canned, copyrighted entertainment. The biggest losers in the absence of copyright would be countless hangers-on that are now like parasites living off the creativity of a few. Many artists could and do make the most money from live performances. If anyone recorded and broadcast their performance, it would be like free advertising. When that person or group, someone who is truly good, came to town, many of those who heard the recording would pay to hear the live performance. The performers might even consider paying the recording company for the advertising.
...To survive long enough to reproduce and perpetuate our genes. No other reason. No reason needed...
So then why should it be considered wrong and a crime that society prosecutes as murder for someone to just kill you so that they can have the resources you have worked for? That way they can pass on THEIR genes which are obviously better than yours since he/she was able to "survive" better to evolve further. Why should it be a crime for someone to rape your mate so they can then pass on THEIR genes? After all, that is just 'natural selection' working by eliminating you since you are weak and the genes of the weak should die out. Don't you see the end of your reasoning? If 'survival of the fittest' is why we are here, then we would need no laws or government.