According to the report I read, the Sony rootkit doesn't contain any of the code from the LAME libraries, just a couple of tables. No-one seems to be quite sure why they'd do this - the two popular theories seem to be that either it's a cockup (they didn't really mean to include the tables) or it's part of some LAME-detection system. The evidence is probably on the side of the former given that the tables don't actually seem to be used at any point.
This probably is copyrightable data, but it appears to be use on a par with that occurring in spyware detection, as reported in the last news item.
Disclaimer: I'm not the techiest person in the world - if I've made a mistake please tell me.
And the index needs to be centralised so people can get consistent results. And the group that controls the index gets to decide what stuff is in it and who gets sections of it. And, when the index is for a system as economically important as the internet, being thrown into the outer darkness of indexlessness can really hurt a country. And, if the group that controls the index has a reputation for being somewhat trigger-happy in their dealings with other countries, it's not surprising that the rest of the world gets somewhat unnerved.
You're right. Nobody should do anything. Thanks for pointing out the futility in life....*BANG*
Uh... all I said was that supporting the right to slander and libel and discriminate against others was probably not in society's best interests. But if you want to take your own life, don't let me stop you.
For the record, I think that in many ways our present (Western) societies are as good as they're likely to get - there's room for improvement, but far more room for deterioration. That's not going to stop me trying to make things better, of course.
No, the somewhat dodgy assumption I was making is that those who have the most venues to push their ideology will tend to inflict it on the masses. Which is not always the case, but I think it's fairly valid on the whole.
Discrimination may be profitable for the individual but, if population segment A have cash and population segment B don't, discrimination can be used to keep the cash in segment A's hands, giving segment B no chance to work themselves out of poverty. My belief is that this is more damaging to society than any loss of freedom resulting from anti-libel/slander laws.
If that was the case, I wouldn't get sent so many fake virus warnings by those of my friends who have internet. And slime can be arbitrarily convincing - look at the recent happenings where people finally twigged to the fact that Microsoft's "leaks" are probably no such thing.
I read her site (google cache link) and among the issues she raises are:
Contamination of groundwater - "Our moraine provides 300,000 people with ground source drinking water. We're the largest region in North America dependant on ground water. This moraine is one of the major sources for the Grand River and that is the only source of drinking water for Brantford, Brent County and Six Nations."
Danger to kids
from shoddy construction - "The KW record published that an 8 year old boy was killed in Montreal by falling wooden pallets on an unfenced Construction site and charges may be laid against the owners of the site."
from dangerous chemicals - "I have seen kids playing in a stagnant pond of water that was 4ft deep. It was filled with building debris including paint cans, fiberglass insulation, pressure treated wood, oil residue and tadpoles." "Parents should be aware that Pressure Treated wood is not safe. It contains many chemicals including arsenic and it's a known carcinogen."
from building debris - "I decided to speak to one of the folks who were outside with their three year old child. The yard was not completed and there was debris, including a half buried 2 by 4 sticking out of their yard with rusty nails in it.... The condition of the yard was so poor they couldn't allow their child to play outside at all."
Dangerous personnel behaviour - "At another area construction site, unharnessed roofers and workers without hard hats were spotted working in the vacinity of high school students who were part of a federal Youth Training Program."
So I'd say she's valuing the well-being of her kids and those around her here, especially given the number of such cases detailed on her site.
To me, all speech is a natural right as a form of expression. Swearing, discrimination, yelling fire in your own theater, or even preaching the murder of another. If you don't like a certain form of expression, don't allow it on your property.
But discrimination results in people not being able to make so much money, and thus not being able to own property, and thus not being able to reduce the acreage available for bigots to be bigoted on, and so on. Seems like that'd create an underclass, which never ends well.
I could care less about what media companies might do with the freedom to libel. Who cares. If you're in the public eye, accept it. If you run a big business, combat it with great quality of service.
But how do people find out about your excellent quality of service or great product if the people getting paid to talk loudly are all saying it sucks? The system you describe would allow any company to cover another with as much slime as they could buy, which would tend to lead to horrific monopolies - a classic market breakdown effect. Slime does have an effect, and it's not always trumped by quality of service. Besides, do you really want to produce a system in which only the biggest liars are able to survive? We're close enough to that already without adding fuel to the fire.
It's easy if you're a manufacturer, cos you can just get one Deep Geek to rig it all up for you on one machine of each type, then copy the image to all the other machines. Which is what they do with Windows, in fact.
No, that's Linux. Windows is "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Unless it violates the EULA. Or isn't good for us at Microsoft. Or we're in a bad mood that day."
The problem I have with including "supernatural" explanations is that they tend to be assumed to be a scientific no-go area. On the other hand, any *real* scientist, when confronted with a supernatural Designer, would instantly reach for his supernatural jar of chloroform and dissecting kit.
That's not the case, you simply need to start with a different set of suppositions.
The suppositions that give rise to an acceptance of Macroevolution as the best scientific theory available are limited to a scientific approach to evidence. In partular, objectivity and Occam's Razor ("one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything"). Again, which of these assumptions do you not accept? I don't see any set of even remotely rational suppositions that are both non-self-contradictory and support Intelligent Design.
Regards the "you'd have to be a fool to believe": I've already agreed that just because something is the scientific consensus doesn't mean it's true but I will say that, by the very nature of the scientific community (I can go into more detail here if this statement seems odd), it is better positioned to find the truth behind the universe we sense than any other community. It has the track record to prove it - chances are you and I wouldn't be alive today if not for the technologies resulting from its work. Given its unparalleled record at discovering the nature of the universe we live in, I would say that it *is* foolish to fence off an area of the world in which you're not willing to apply scientific precepts.
Of course, if you believe firmly enough that you have information the rest of us aren't privy to then you'd be justified in concluding differently from the rest of us. But even then, if your data isn't peer-reviewed by an objective community, you'll never know for sure whether your data is accurate or just subjectivity kicking you in the cerebellum. So yes, I'd say that disbelief in the consensus of the scientific community is foolish, unless you have a damn good reason to think otherwise which also includes a reason why the scientific community wouldn't have twigged to the truth of your belief.
The problem with your specific points of design is that they try to associate intent with intelligence.
No, that's what the Intelligent Design advocates are trying to do. I'm merely pointing out holes in the argument. If they're allowed to say "look how beautifully life is designed, therefore it must have had a designer", I'm allowed to counter.
For example, human eye sight puts a limit on how aggressive we can be as a species. How much more dangerous would humans be if our ability to hunt was magnified even more through physical enhancements? While this is just an example, it illustrates that a system can be misunderstood because the viewer understands the purpose differently.
Firstly I'd note that the second sentence here expands Intelligent Design to cover every single possible state of affairs the universe could find itself in, and hence renders the hypothesis down to a completely useless "yeah, whatever, but God did it OK?"
Secondly, the first sentence still doesn't indicate any sort of intelligence on the part of the designer, as He then supposedly gave us the brains to produce physical enhancements of our own. Yes, it's possible that He had some obscure reason which He'll never share with us. But as I said, this complete lack of specificity removes all possible predictive value from Intelligent Design and leaves it a meaningless "God of the Gaps" truism. I'd have thought that, if there was an all-powerful Creator floating around, He'd have a little more impact on the world He supposedly created.
For your other example, having a largely sterile liquid periodically cleanse the vital reproductive tract isn't a particularly bad design either.
The problem that arises is that when, as happens with depressing regularity, the prostate becomes infected, the resultant swelling cuts off that lovely yellow shower, causing severe pain to the victim. Given that the prostate has ducts connecting it to the urethra anyway (i.e. the whole system isn't being flushed out) why not lengthen those ducts, set the prostate back a little and avoid the screaming agony? No-one can think of a good reason, except for the evolutionary one of: it started off that way and there's never been quite enough evolutionary pressure to fix it.
You're right, neither Macroevolution (aka Common Descent) or Design can be conclusively proven to be true (I'd question whether they rely on differing assumptions about the universe - care to supply more detail?)
However, Macroevolution can be proven to be false - all you have to do is find a fossil sufficiently out of place, or a species that's completely different, at a chemical level, to the rest of life as we know it. Design, by contrast, can be used to explain any state of affairs - if nothing else, supporters of the Design hypothesis can say "yeah, just like what you said, only God did it." As such, it can't be proven false.
And, if we have one hypothesis that is too vague to be proven false and one hypothesis that is specific enough to be easily kicked out if it's wrong, standard practice is to accept the simpler one. If you see 27 dots in a row, it's sensible to assume that they represent a straight line rather than an order-27 polynomial (apologies for this example, I've been doing maths work all afternoon). If you accept Design over Macroevolution, why not accept intelligent falling over gravity?
There's an even better reason in this case, which is that any attempt to pin the Designer down in more detail (that I've come across) has been refuted. For example, the very concept of Him as intelligent (as with Intelligent Design) is somewhat implausible - to use the old cliche, what kind of Intelligent Designer would run the sewer through the middle of a recreational zone? This is what the Designer supposedly did when creating a urethra running through the prostate gland in male humans. There are a number of other examples, such as the fact that the human eye could be massively more efficient if it incorporated a simple design change - one that's actually found in octopi. Why would that be the case if the same Designer had created both?
To conclude: both hypotheses can explain the available data. However, the Design hypothesis could explain almost any alternative data set, whereas the Macroevolution hypothesis could explain comparatively few alternative data sets. Additionally, all attempts to be more specific about the nature of the Designer have met with failure - the hypothesis can only explain the evidence by being completely vague. As such, the Macroevolution hypothesis is the only one worthy of the "scientific theory" seal of approval based on the available data, and is thus likely to be more accurate*.
-----
* I realise there's a leap of logic here, but it's fairly lengthy and basically boils down to the 27 dots example given above. If this bothers you, just ask.
I was reading Answers in Genesis the other day (yes, I was bored. It happens). It's a comparatively well-written Creationist site which, for example, comes down heavily on people who use dodgy evidence in support of creationist claims.
The author makes it a major plank of his argument that "if we Christians really understood that all evidence is actually interpreted on the basis of certain presuppositions, then we wouldn't be in the least bit intimidated by the evolutionists' supposed 'evidence.' We should instead be looking at the evolutionist's (or old-earther's) interpretation of the evidence, and how the same evidence could be interpreted within a biblical framework and be confirmed by testable and repeatable science." I was almost convinced... but then I whipped out the FSM test!
As far as I can tell, every single bit of this guy's argument as to why Christian creationism is equally valid is also applicable to FSMist creationism. Hence it is likely to apply to an infinite number of other hypotheses. Hence, as science attempts to find the most probable hypothesis, I must be missing something. Thus forewarned, I was able to visit the Talk Origins site and note that, for example, the AiG comments (later in the same article) about possible variability of dating techniques are dodgy as they provide no explanation for why a large number of diverse dating techniques would all vary in precisely the same way. That and a number of other points make it clear that it's not just a difference in presuppositions distinguishing creationism and evolution/abiogenesis/cosmology.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster saved my sanity! Repent and His Noodly Appendage can save yours too!
Abiogenesis deals with which of several possible processes gave rise to that "seed" self-replicating molecule. Evolution deals with what happened afterwards.
Examples of theories of abiogenesis include:
clay surfaces, because clay forms in nice layers and would provide a good scaffold for complex molecules
inside iron globules, because that creates a stable environment, mimicking the behaviour of modern-day cells
around deep-sea vents, because of the proliferation of naturally-forming complex chemicals you get there
just in rockpools or whatever - the early atmosphere of the planet was apparently very conducive to the formation of amino acids and the like
If you read what he actually said, you'll see he was advocating teaching the assorted scientific theories (which currently are all variations on evolution) in science class and the assorted religious theories (which are mostly variations on creationism) in theology class (what schools where I come from call Religious Education). This seems to me to be an excellent approach to the situation.
As long as they teach Flying Spaghetti Monsterism of course. I want to see that belief system in a textbook, dammit.
That's called abiogenesis and is a completely different area of study. It's true that many people who accept the scientific community's best guesses as to evolution also suspect that abiogenesis occurred naturally, but they are almost completely unrelated fields of study.
So philosophically (neo-Darwinism) they're somewhat similar approaches but scientifically (evolutionary biology) they're very different.
Google collects personal information? Since when? What kind of information are you talking about, and what evidence do you have for it?
I first read your comment as saying "Google has indexed too many webpages/scanned too many books/gathered too much information on the location of shops/etc". If so, that's not even slightly bothersome - until they're collecting information on me personally, I'm not going to take it personally either. I may have misread your comment - if so, apologies.
You're not gonna get depressed from it though. Not being able to do something is completely different from being able to and choosing not to. I was a complete, unadulterated geek til about age 12, didn't see the point of social skills. As a result, I've spent the last 8 years trying to build up my social skills from scratch and it is no fucking picnic. And I still haven't reached the point where I can get dates.
I strongly advise you to at least test the water on all those lame social things that other kids are doing. If you don't hit the window of time in which it's acceptable to screw up on a regular basis, it's much harder to get started later on without risking complete social meltdown.
(2) If any person with the appropriate permission under Schedule 2 believes, on reasonable grounds-
(a) that a key to the protected information is in the possession of any person,
[more stuff here]
the person with that permission may, by notice to the person whom he believes to have possession of the key, impose a disclosure requirement in respect of the protected information.
In short, if they think you're hiding something, you're stuffed.
Under the RIP act, you're assumed to know all your encryption keys to any files they ever encrypted that are still extant. You're guilty until proved innocent (which of course is fairly impossible in this situation), hence are automatically considered a criminal.
What the grandparent was saying is that having both options provides the best of all worlds.
Linux generally has immensely powerful command line tools, with corresponding lack of useability. Windows generally has immensely useable GUI systems, with corresponding lack of flexibility.
Wouldn't it be nice to have both? I think Linux could achieve that. If so, it'd be fairly unbeatable.
Sadly, the "space bending" (lensing) that you're talking about is different than the theoretical model I'm talking about.
OK, I see what you're getting at - how do we know we're not living on a torus or a trumpet or something? You're right that we can't measure these things directly - however, as the linked article shows, we can make some fairly strong deductions based on things like the distribution of cosmic radiation. The fact that our instruments are in the universe isn't really an issue, in the same way that living on the surface of the Earth doesn't mean you can't show it's round (just look at the horizon).
You're right that there are parts of cosmology that currently can't be tested or examined in any meaningful way. In these cases, you're also right that the theories are not scientific and, as such, I would not expect them to be taught to kids in science class. When we've figured out a number of tests that could prove the theories wrong, then we can start teaching them in science classes.
An aside: To my knowledge no one knows what causes gravitational lensing
No, gravitational lensing is pretty thoroughly understood - it's a direct consequence of General Relativity. The dark matter thing you're talking about is an attempt to test the existence or otherwise of MACHOs - weakly interacting massive particles - that, if passed in front of a star, tend to make it glow more brightly for a brief period by lensing the light towards us. That is an untested theory, but it's still scientific as the testing is happening pretty much as we speak. In a few years the predictions of the theory will either be refuted or confirmed. If the latter, we can then start looking for new tests of the theory. By contrast, no-one has even figured out how to develop a test for ID (that I know of - correct me if I'm wrong).
The point, I think, with Kansas is that the schools shouldn't discount the -possibility- of intelligent design.
Oh, I completely agree. They still shouldn't be teaching a nonscientific theory in a science class though.
I don't know exactly to what extent ID is covered in the science classes of Kansas, but surely we're not so insecure about the foundations of our science that we don't think it can hold up to a teacher saying "...and there may be a God involved"?
Very few people are insecure about the foundations of science, but many are justifiably concerned over the fact that about 3/4 of Americans think that one of science's most powerful, best tested theories is complete bollocks. We don't want to give these people any more rope with which to hang themselves (unless we're really really keen on Darwinian evolution:-P)
Plus, it sets a very bad precedent. What happens when the flat-earthers start demanding equal time in geography classes in an attempt to "teach the controversy"? And don't get me started on those "intelligent falling" nutters;-)
Slashdot Mirror
According to the report I read, the Sony rootkit doesn't contain any of the code from the LAME libraries, just a couple of tables. No-one seems to be quite sure why they'd do this - the two popular theories seem to be that either it's a cockup (they didn't really mean to include the tables) or it's part of some LAME-detection system. The evidence is probably on the side of the former given that the tables don't actually seem to be used at any point.
This probably is copyrightable data, but it appears to be use on a par with that occurring in spyware detection, as reported in the last news item.
Disclaimer: I'm not the techiest person in the world - if I've made a mistake please tell me.
And the index needs to be centralised so people can get consistent results. And the group that controls the index gets to decide what stuff is in it and who gets sections of it. And, when the index is for a system as economically important as the internet, being thrown into the outer darkness of indexlessness can really hurt a country. And, if the group that controls the index has a reputation for being somewhat trigger-happy in their dealings with other countries, it's not surprising that the rest of the world gets somewhat unnerved.
Because how the hell are we supposed to figure out the IP address corresponding to Slashdot.org without it?
You're right. Nobody should do anything. Thanks for pointing out the futility in life. ...*BANG*
Uh... all I said was that supporting the right to slander and libel and discriminate against others was probably not in society's best interests. But if you want to take your own life, don't let me stop you.
For the record, I think that in many ways our present (Western) societies are as good as they're likely to get - there's room for improvement, but far more room for deterioration. That's not going to stop me trying to make things better, of course.
No, the somewhat dodgy assumption I was making is that those who have the most venues to push their ideology will tend to inflict it on the masses. Which is not always the case, but I think it's fairly valid on the whole.
Discrimination may be profitable for the individual but, if population segment A have cash and population segment B don't, discrimination can be used to keep the cash in segment A's hands, giving segment B no chance to work themselves out of poverty. My belief is that this is more damaging to society than any loss of freedom resulting from anti-libel/slander laws.
If that was the case, I wouldn't get sent so many fake virus warnings by those of my friends who have internet. And slime can be arbitrarily convincing - look at the recent happenings where people finally twigged to the fact that Microsoft's "leaks" are probably no such thing.
So I'd say she's valuing the well-being of her kids and those around her here, especially given the number of such cases detailed on her site.
To me, all speech is a natural right as a form of expression. Swearing, discrimination, yelling fire in your own theater, or even preaching the murder of another. If you don't like a certain form of expression, don't allow it on your property.
But discrimination results in people not being able to make so much money, and thus not being able to own property, and thus not being able to reduce the acreage available for bigots to be bigoted on, and so on. Seems like that'd create an underclass, which never ends well.
I could care less about what media companies might do with the freedom to libel. Who cares. If you're in the public eye, accept it. If you run a big business, combat it with great quality of service.
But how do people find out about your excellent quality of service or great product if the people getting paid to talk loudly are all saying it sucks? The system you describe would allow any company to cover another with as much slime as they could buy, which would tend to lead to horrific monopolies - a classic market breakdown effect. Slime does have an effect, and it's not always trumped by quality of service. Besides, do you really want to produce a system in which only the biggest liars are able to survive? We're close enough to that already without adding fuel to the fire.
It's easy if you're a manufacturer, cos you can just get one Deep Geek to rig it all up for you on one machine of each type, then copy the image to all the other machines. Which is what they do with Windows, in fact.
No, that's Linux. Windows is "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Unless it violates the EULA. Or isn't good for us at Microsoft. Or we're in a bad mood that day."
The problem I have with including "supernatural" explanations is that they tend to be assumed to be a scientific no-go area. On the other hand, any *real* scientist, when confronted with a supernatural Designer, would instantly reach for his supernatural jar of chloroform and dissecting kit.
That's not the case, you simply need to start with a different set of suppositions.
The suppositions that give rise to an acceptance of Macroevolution as the best scientific theory available are limited to a scientific approach to evidence. In partular, objectivity and Occam's Razor ("one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything"). Again, which of these assumptions do you not accept? I don't see any set of even remotely rational suppositions that are both non-self-contradictory and support Intelligent Design.
Regards the "you'd have to be a fool to believe": I've already agreed that just because something is the scientific consensus doesn't mean it's true but I will say that, by the very nature of the scientific community (I can go into more detail here if this statement seems odd), it is better positioned to find the truth behind the universe we sense than any other community. It has the track record to prove it - chances are you and I wouldn't be alive today if not for the technologies resulting from its work. Given its unparalleled record at discovering the nature of the universe we live in, I would say that it *is* foolish to fence off an area of the world in which you're not willing to apply scientific precepts.
Of course, if you believe firmly enough that you have information the rest of us aren't privy to then you'd be justified in concluding differently from the rest of us. But even then, if your data isn't peer-reviewed by an objective community, you'll never know for sure whether your data is accurate or just subjectivity kicking you in the cerebellum. So yes, I'd say that disbelief in the consensus of the scientific community is foolish, unless you have a damn good reason to think otherwise which also includes a reason why the scientific community wouldn't have twigged to the truth of your belief.
The problem with your specific points of design is that they try to associate intent with intelligence.
No, that's what the Intelligent Design advocates are trying to do. I'm merely pointing out holes in the argument. If they're allowed to say "look how beautifully life is designed, therefore it must have had a designer", I'm allowed to counter.
For example, human eye sight puts a limit on how aggressive we can be as a species. How much more dangerous would humans be if our ability to hunt was magnified even more through physical enhancements? While this is just an example, it illustrates that a system can be misunderstood because the viewer understands the purpose differently. Firstly I'd note that the second sentence here expands Intelligent Design to cover every single possible state of affairs the universe could find itself in, and hence renders the hypothesis down to a completely useless "yeah, whatever, but God did it OK?"
Secondly, the first sentence still doesn't indicate any sort of intelligence on the part of the designer, as He then supposedly gave us the brains to produce physical enhancements of our own. Yes, it's possible that He had some obscure reason which He'll never share with us. But as I said, this complete lack of specificity removes all possible predictive value from Intelligent Design and leaves it a meaningless "God of the Gaps" truism. I'd have thought that, if there was an all-powerful Creator floating around, He'd have a little more impact on the world He supposedly created.
For your other example, having a largely sterile liquid periodically cleanse the vital reproductive tract isn't a particularly bad design either.
The problem that arises is that when, as happens with depressing regularity, the prostate becomes infected, the resultant swelling cuts off that lovely yellow shower, causing severe pain to the victim. Given that the prostate has ducts connecting it to the urethra anyway (i.e. the whole system isn't being flushed out) why not lengthen those ducts, set the prostate back a little and avoid the screaming agony? No-one can think of a good reason, except for the evolutionary one of: it started off that way and there's never been quite enough evolutionary pressure to fix it.
You're right, neither Macroevolution (aka Common Descent) or Design can be conclusively proven to be true (I'd question whether they rely on differing assumptions about the universe - care to supply more detail?)
However, Macroevolution can be proven to be false - all you have to do is find a fossil sufficiently out of place, or a species that's completely different, at a chemical level, to the rest of life as we know it. Design, by contrast, can be used to explain any state of affairs - if nothing else, supporters of the Design hypothesis can say "yeah, just like what you said, only God did it." As such, it can't be proven false.
And, if we have one hypothesis that is too vague to be proven false and one hypothesis that is specific enough to be easily kicked out if it's wrong, standard practice is to accept the simpler one. If you see 27 dots in a row, it's sensible to assume that they represent a straight line rather than an order-27 polynomial (apologies for this example, I've been doing maths work all afternoon). If you accept Design over Macroevolution, why not accept intelligent falling over gravity?
There's an even better reason in this case, which is that any attempt to pin the Designer down in more detail (that I've come across) has been refuted. For example, the very concept of Him as intelligent (as with Intelligent Design) is somewhat implausible - to use the old cliche, what kind of Intelligent Designer would run the sewer through the middle of a recreational zone? This is what the Designer supposedly did when creating a urethra running through the prostate gland in male humans. There are a number of other examples, such as the fact that the human eye could be massively more efficient if it incorporated a simple design change - one that's actually found in octopi. Why would that be the case if the same Designer had created both?
To conclude: both hypotheses can explain the available data. However, the Design hypothesis could explain almost any alternative data set, whereas the Macroevolution hypothesis could explain comparatively few alternative data sets. Additionally, all attempts to be more specific about the nature of the Designer have met with failure - the hypothesis can only explain the evidence by being completely vague. As such, the Macroevolution hypothesis is the only one worthy of the "scientific theory" seal of approval based on the available data, and is thus likely to be more accurate*.
-----
* I realise there's a leap of logic here, but it's fairly lengthy and basically boils down to the 27 dots example given above. If this bothers you, just ask.
I was reading Answers in Genesis the other day (yes, I was bored. It happens). It's a comparatively well-written Creationist site which, for example, comes down heavily on people who use dodgy evidence in support of creationist claims.
The author makes it a major plank of his argument that "if we Christians really understood that all evidence is actually interpreted on the basis of certain presuppositions, then we wouldn't be in the least bit intimidated by the evolutionists' supposed 'evidence.' We should instead be looking at the evolutionist's (or old-earther's) interpretation of the evidence, and how the same evidence could be interpreted within a biblical framework and be confirmed by testable and repeatable science." I was almost convinced... but then I whipped out the FSM test!
As far as I can tell, every single bit of this guy's argument as to why Christian creationism is equally valid is also applicable to FSMist creationism. Hence it is likely to apply to an infinite number of other hypotheses. Hence, as science attempts to find the most probable hypothesis, I must be missing something. Thus forewarned, I was able to visit the Talk Origins site and note that, for example, the AiG comments (later in the same article) about possible variability of dating techniques are dodgy as they provide no explanation for why a large number of diverse dating techniques would all vary in precisely the same way. That and a number of other points make it clear that it's not just a difference in presuppositions distinguishing creationism and evolution/abiogenesis/cosmology.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster saved my sanity! Repent and His Noodly Appendage can save yours too!
Examples of theories of abiogenesis include:
Slightly more detail here.
If you read what he actually said, you'll see he was advocating teaching the assorted scientific theories (which currently are all variations on evolution) in science class and the assorted religious theories (which are mostly variations on creationism) in theology class (what schools where I come from call Religious Education). This seems to me to be an excellent approach to the situation.
As long as they teach Flying Spaghetti Monsterism of course. I want to see that belief system in a textbook, dammit.
That's called abiogenesis and is a completely different area of study. It's true that many people who accept the scientific community's best guesses as to evolution also suspect that abiogenesis occurred naturally, but they are almost completely unrelated fields of study.
So philosophically (neo-Darwinism) they're somewhat similar approaches but scientifically (evolutionary biology) they're very different.
That was supposed to be funny, dammit! FUNNY! ...Or at least I sincerely hope it was :-/
Google collects personal information? Since when? What kind of information are you talking about, and what evidence do you have for it?
I first read your comment as saying "Google has indexed too many webpages/scanned too many books/gathered too much information on the location of shops/etc". If so, that's not even slightly bothersome - until they're collecting information on me personally, I'm not going to take it personally either. I may have misread your comment - if so, apologies.
You're not gonna get depressed from it though. Not being able to do something is completely different from being able to and choosing not to. I was a complete, unadulterated geek til about age 12, didn't see the point of social skills. As a result, I've spent the last 8 years trying to build up my social skills from scratch and it is no fucking picnic. And I still haven't reached the point where I can get dates.
I strongly advise you to at least test the water on all those lame social things that other kids are doing. If you don't hit the window of time in which it's acceptable to screw up on a regular basis, it's much harder to get started later on without risking complete social meltdown.
(2) If any person with the appropriate permission under Schedule 2 believes, on reasonable grounds-
(a) that a key to the protected information is in the possession of any person,
[more stuff here]
the person with that permission may, by notice to the person whom he believes to have possession of the key, impose a disclosure requirement in respect of the protected information.
In short, if they think you're hiding something, you're stuffed.
Under the RIP act, you're assumed to know all your encryption keys to any files they ever encrypted that are still extant. You're guilty until proved innocent (which of course is fairly impossible in this situation), hence are automatically considered a criminal.
What the grandparent was saying is that having both options provides the best of all worlds.
Linux generally has immensely powerful command line tools, with corresponding lack of useability. Windows generally has immensely useable GUI systems, with corresponding lack of flexibility.
Wouldn't it be nice to have both? I think Linux could achieve that. If so, it'd be fairly unbeatable.
Sadly, the "space bending" (lensing) that you're talking about is different than the theoretical model I'm talking about.
:-P)
;-)
OK, I see what you're getting at - how do we know we're not living on a torus or a trumpet or something? You're right that we can't measure these things directly - however, as the linked article shows, we can make some fairly strong deductions based on things like the distribution of cosmic radiation. The fact that our instruments are in the universe isn't really an issue, in the same way that living on the surface of the Earth doesn't mean you can't show it's round (just look at the horizon).
You're right that there are parts of cosmology that currently can't be tested or examined in any meaningful way. In these cases, you're also right that the theories are not scientific and, as such, I would not expect them to be taught to kids in science class. When we've figured out a number of tests that could prove the theories wrong, then we can start teaching them in science classes.
An aside: To my knowledge no one knows what causes gravitational lensing
No, gravitational lensing is pretty thoroughly understood - it's a direct consequence of General Relativity. The dark matter thing you're talking about is an attempt to test the existence or otherwise of MACHOs - weakly interacting massive particles - that, if passed in front of a star, tend to make it glow more brightly for a brief period by lensing the light towards us. That is an untested theory, but it's still scientific as the testing is happening pretty much as we speak. In a few years the predictions of the theory will either be refuted or confirmed. If the latter, we can then start looking for new tests of the theory. By contrast, no-one has even figured out how to develop a test for ID (that I know of - correct me if I'm wrong).
The point, I think, with Kansas is that the schools shouldn't discount the -possibility- of intelligent design.
Oh, I completely agree. They still shouldn't be teaching a nonscientific theory in a science class though.
I don't know exactly to what extent ID is covered in the science classes of Kansas, but surely we're not so insecure about the foundations of our science that we don't think it can hold up to a teacher saying "...and there may be a God involved"?
Very few people are insecure about the foundations of science, but many are justifiably concerned over the fact that about 3/4 of Americans think that one of science's most powerful, best tested theories is complete bollocks. We don't want to give these people any more rope with which to hang themselves (unless we're really really keen on Darwinian evolution
Plus, it sets a very bad precedent. What happens when the flat-earthers start demanding equal time in geography classes in an attempt to "teach the controversy"? And don't get me started on those "intelligent falling" nutters