Discovering life on another planet will come as a shock to most people becuase it will put our existence in context. However, churches will not and will never have to abondon any beliefs becuase of science. The geocentric mantra you're referring to states that you exist in the world because of a loving creator. It doesn't state that microbes or life in general is specific to the planet Earth. When Genesis was written, its writer could not even fathom the existence of microbes or life on another planet, so he didn't write, "God created life on Earth, any maybe some microbes on other planets."
Most importantly, religion doesn't espouse to make any scientific predictions. It deals with the workings of the human soul. As a result, ANY scientific discovery will not force religion to change.
..because I've never given my real address out to anybody I didn't trust. Oh sure, my old AOL address gets hundreds a day, but the school address gets none. ZERO. No Spam. And my school sure as hell doesn't offer any spam filters.
In the past it was on a few Spam lists, but I opted out of those and now I don't get anything.
So, if you're careful, Spam won't affect you at all!
Anybody else finding success with the 'chastity' approach?
"Well, now I don't have to drop $600K anymore becuase I've got the car right here on my PS2!"
Plus, I'm sure that offering girls a ride on your PS2 is just as effective as an F150.
Plus, they are now going to find tons of breaks that are not important... but they will be obligated to fix anyway.
Tons of breaks that aren't important? We're talking about a heat shield, not your '89 Oldsmobile's fender! Any hole that has appeared since launch is a result of debris during takeoff, and is pretty darn important. Especially if you're up there in the shuttle, you're not going to mind spending the time to fix. Ground control, senators, and the American public, I believe, would rather see expensive long missions than more catastrophic failures.
Sure. I was quoting OneFix when he spoke of organic systems. I took the word "organic" to mean very complex systems.
You see, people have a misconception that the world can be divided into natural and manmade. It's an easy mistake to make that is ingrained in our way of thinking. Look at foods and cosmetics being touted as "organic" or "natural" when they really just mean that humans haven't screwed around with what was already there. If something is 'organic' or 'manmade', it's still a physical system governed by the laws of physics and chemistry. The system doesn't care if it developed as a result of millions of years of evolution or if it was created last week in a lab. It will behave the same way regardless.
The difference between these organic and manmade systems is only in their history, not in their function. We tend to think of very simple systems like a car or an airplane as different from very complex systems like an animal. All three, however, convert chemical energy to motion. Chemical reactions create mechanical interactions. The animal is a system which is very stable and is able to provide for its own continuance, while the car and airplane require outside input.
oh, it looks like somebody's worried about a littly itty bitty firestorm. Me? I'll be racing past you in my KICK-ASS flying car with a hot honey next to me. So while you're whining about being pulverized into a million little chunks, I'll be racking up Awesome points and your friends will start hanging out with me instead of you cause my car is AH-Mazing!
Years ago, people might have argued that the bewilderingly complex chemical reactions that occur in our bodies were impossible to understand because they are somehow out of our logical grasp.
Computational Biology now allows us to take our genetic code and develop 3-dimensional models of the enzymes that regulate 9 out of 10 reactions in our bodies.
Perhaps some systems are infinitely more complex than others, but none is organically impossibly to characterize.
After all, as Edward O. Wilson argues, Biology is just Chemistry, and Chemistry is just Physics. Today, our computational models can predict (sometimes with accuracy) physics and chemistry. What's next?
According to HowStuffWorks.com's How Terraforming Mars Will Work , sending large ice meteors into a planet will introduce water, but will in the process release as much energy as several billion tons of TNT, causing a 'nuclear winter' that would make the planet uninhabitable for thousands of years.
Plus, the moon ain't got no atmosphere last time I checked. So who cares if we got water up there? We gonna suffocate anyway.
Isn't it amazing that a computer could compute in minutes what has taken humans thousands of years to solve?
We're in a time in which the sheer calculating power of computers can predict stress and failure in complex structures (FEA), lift and drag of fluid flows (CFD), and even the way a polypeptide will fold into a protein.
If computers can do all this and solve puzzles that have plagued our minds for centuries, where will the limit be? Perhaps one day the effect of a drug in a patient or the release of software into a market will be fully simulated through computation.
We will soon be replacing our market analysits and physicians with programmers!
Did anybody else notice that scientists nicknamed the rock "Plutino" after our ninth planet?
In order to generate public interest in this story, I think "Pluto's bitch" might be more engaging. Or perhaps "the victim of Neptune's drunken advances"
The pattern is:
physical item/uniqueness of user,
so why break the trend?
I propose:
credit or debit card/fingerprint.
Swipe your card, then swipe your thumb. This way, would-be frauds would still have to go through the trouble of obtaining a fraudulent credit card, but they would also have to fake the finger print. (15 minutes is still longer than the time it takes to badly fake a signature!)
And let's be honest--what employee of Best Buy can really tell if your signature is fake? Not to mention that it takes half a lifetime to sign those damn credit card receipts and separate the two copies! I'd much rather swipe my thumb!
If the Discovery show piqued your interest in busting commonly-held myths, check out www.snopes.com
It analyses the truth behind those stories you always hear about Disney putting "SEX" in its movies, Richard Gere becoming involved with a gerbil, and other urban legends.
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That's what the lump under Bush's coat was! I guess he needs to turn the current up even more.
Discovering life on another planet will come as a shock to most people becuase it will put our existence in context. However, churches will not and will never have to abondon any beliefs becuase of science. The geocentric mantra you're referring to states that you exist in the world because of a loving creator. It doesn't state that microbes or life in general is specific to the planet Earth. When Genesis was written, its writer could not even fathom the existence of microbes or life on another planet, so he didn't write, "God created life on Earth, any maybe some microbes on other planets." Most importantly, religion doesn't espouse to make any scientific predictions. It deals with the workings of the human soul. As a result, ANY scientific discovery will not force religion to change.
So I can download anything I want from Wal*Mart, as long as it doesn't say as* or syit. Well, here's to the information revolution!
In the past it was on a few Spam lists, but I opted out of those and now I don't get anything. So, if you're careful, Spam won't affect you at all!
Anybody else finding success with the 'chastity' approach?
$100K? Ender might argue that perhaps it's not just a game...
"Well, now I don't have to drop $600K anymore becuase I've got the car right here on my PS2!" Plus, I'm sure that offering girls a ride on your PS2 is just as effective as an F150.
Wake up and smell the Espresso, Ferrari!
Tons of breaks that aren't important? We're talking about a heat shield, not your '89 Oldsmobile's fender! Any hole that has appeared since launch is a result of debris during takeoff, and is pretty darn important. Especially if you're up there in the shuttle, you're not going to mind spending the time to fix. Ground control, senators, and the American public, I believe, would rather see expensive long missions than more catastrophic failures.
Try telling that to Joe Volunteer after his 5:30pm beer call.
Someobody nominate Robocup's soccer playing world champion robot from Cornell University.
You see, people have a misconception that the world can be divided into natural and manmade. It's an easy mistake to make that is ingrained in our way of thinking. Look at foods and cosmetics being touted as "organic" or "natural" when they really just mean that humans haven't screwed around with what was already there. If something is 'organic' or 'manmade', it's still a physical system governed by the laws of physics and chemistry. The system doesn't care if it developed as a result of millions of years of evolution or if it was created last week in a lab. It will behave the same way regardless.
The difference between these organic and manmade systems is only in their history, not in their function. We tend to think of very simple systems like a car or an airplane as different from very complex systems like an animal. All three, however, convert chemical energy to motion. Chemical reactions create mechanical interactions. The animal is a system which is very stable and is able to provide for its own continuance, while the car and airplane require outside input.
oh, it looks like somebody's worried about a littly itty bitty firestorm. Me? I'll be racing past you in my KICK-ASS flying car with a hot honey next to me. So while you're whining about being pulverized into a million little chunks, I'll be racking up Awesome points and your friends will start hanging out with me instead of you cause my car is AH-Mazing!
Computational Biology now allows us to take our genetic code and develop 3-dimensional models of the enzymes that regulate 9 out of 10 reactions in our bodies.
Perhaps some systems are infinitely more complex than others, but none is organically impossibly to characterize.
After all, as Edward O. Wilson argues, Biology is just Chemistry, and Chemistry is just Physics. Today, our computational models can predict (sometimes with accuracy) physics and chemistry. What's next?
Plus, the moon ain't got no atmosphere last time I checked. So who cares if we got water up there? We gonna suffocate anyway.
Energy enters and leaves everyday but our mass is here to stay, which is why we wouldn't want to send a large amount of water to the moon.
If computers can do all this and solve puzzles that have plagued our minds for centuries, where will the limit be? Perhaps one day the effect of a drug in a patient or the release of software into a market will be fully simulated through computation.
We will soon be replacing our market analysits and physicians with programmers!
Well well well, it seems Mr. Moller just trashed the flying car barrier .
In order to generate public interest in this story, I think "Pluto's bitch" might be more engaging. Or perhaps "the victim of Neptune's drunken advances"
Absolutely. Consider the function of our systems:
credit card/signature
debit card/code.
The pattern is: physical item/uniqueness of user, so why break the trend? I propose:
credit or debit card/fingerprint.
Swipe your card, then swipe your thumb. This way, would-be frauds would still have to go through the trouble of obtaining a fraudulent credit card, but they would also have to fake the finger print. (15 minutes is still longer than the time it takes to badly fake a signature!)
And let's be honest--what employee of Best Buy can really tell if your signature is fake? Not to mention that it takes half a lifetime to sign those damn credit card receipts and separate the two copies! I'd much rather swipe my thumb!
If the Discovery show piqued your interest in busting commonly-held myths, check out www.snopes.com It analyses the truth behind those stories you always hear about Disney putting "SEX" in its movies, Richard Gere becoming involved with a gerbil, and other urban legends.