If The Pirate Bay wins, the swedish laws will be changed to make sure what they've been doing would be an offence had they done it under the new law.
Unlike the United States, most countries (ie the ones that don't boast about being "free" but actually ARE) cannot apply laws to you in a retroactive manner.
Your reading comprehension needs work. TPB's actions in the past will still be legal, but after the law is changed, if they do it again, it will be illegal.
And ex post facto laws are void in the US. If you're going to be childish, don't display your own ignorance while you're doing it.
Most things the government does they do very, very well.
I'd say that government does some things fairly well, and a lot of things adequately but with a lot of waste or bias. The FDA does a good job keeping food safe, but their rules about experimental drugs kill people. Law enforcement keeps crime down, but then there the war on drugs. The US military has done an excellent job of protecting those on its own soil, but that comes with an absurd price tag and all those pointless little wars.
You ahve far more recourse against the government.
Not really. Eminent domain, sovereign immunity, national secrets - all of them give government special privileges that corporations don't have. And that's not to mention your lack of recourse if you're sent to a third-world country to be tortured, or labeled an enemy combatant.
Do you even know that government agency have less waste then any corporate group?
That's a very strong statement, so if you want it to sound like anything other than your own prejudices talking, you're going to need to back it up with something.
yes, there are a lot of new drugs
I was thinking less drastic surgery and better preventative treatment.
... circumcision isn't [dangerous].
Unless a screw up leads to your penis being amputated, or damage so extensive that you have to be surgically reconstructed as a girl, or it kills you - all rare, but quite possible. And then there's the [perhaps not technically dangerous] possibility of infection, changes in pain response, undesirable cosmetic outcome, etc.
As to mastectomies, women's breasts are functional, foreskins aren't.
Are you saying that providing sexual pleasure isn't a function, or that you believe that the mucous membranes of the penis don't provide sexual pleasure?
"The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis." - British Journal of Urology, April 2007
If you did a large number of transactions and half of them added a penny or two to your account and half of them subtracted a similar amount, it would all even out in the, would it not?
Until you get hit with a a $40 overdraft charge for being a penny short...
If the earth is poisoned by volcanic eruptions, it is due to dozens of other elements and compounds that have nothing to do with carbon. Sulphur, anyone?
Sulfur may cause problems, but since CO2 is the second largest constituent of volcanic gasses, it might have an impact as well.
Ahh, nothing like an idiot being led by a moron. Very similar to the blind leading the blind. Thank you, ma'am. ROFLMAO
Don't worry about it. We were all stupid, know-it-all teenagers at one time. You'll grow out of it.
One, it is easier for an uncircumcised man to catch AIDS than one who is circumcized. Governments are pusing for circumcision in countries with epidemic rates of the disease.
This is at best controversial, but the WHO and 3rd world governments are desperate and willing to try anything. Nearly every study done in industrialized countries shows no connection between circumcision and any STD, and the South Africa-Uganda-Kenya set of experiments (what most "circumcision decreases AIDS" claims are based on) had massive methodological problems (more people dropped out of the studies than got AIDS, more contact between medical personnel and the test group than the control group, including the time the test group was recovering from surgery in the exposure time, ending the study early to produce desired results).
In tropical climates, uncircumcized men are prone to getting "jungle rot" on their penises.... The treatment was circumcision...
Well, a treatment for it, but in the 21st century we have less drastic solutions to (and ways to prevent) problems like that.
... which is very painful when performed on an adult.
Well, breast cancer ends up killing 1% of all people in the world, and we could preform mastectomies on infant girls the way that some doctors preform male circumcisions, which would save them from painful adult mastectomies. It would also be a simple, effective way to save half a million lives a year (no controversy about that!), but I've never met someone who actually suggested that this was a good idea.:)
As to how sex feels, if it feels better uncircumcised than I'm glad it was done, I think too much about sex as it is. If it felt even better it would drive me insane.
If you'd been given a choice, you could always have gotten it done later. You body, your choice, and all that freedom stuff.
Since a blastocyst consists of less than 100 undifferentiated cells I don't believe that it is possible for it to meet my definition of human life.
It consumes nutrients, excretes wastes, grows,... it's obviously alive. And it isn't a bacterium or a sheep - it's quite clearly a human stage in an early stage of human development.
I believe that human life begins with human consciousness and thought.
I think human life begins to have moral value when it develops human consciousness and thought - I still think it was a human life before that.
Hurray for private charity, yes. But capitalism? I fail to see what capitalism has to do with with this.
Possible answers:
1. The GP was quoting Austin Powers.
2. It's hard to have "private charity" without "private enterprise" to provide the funds.
3. A libertarian was taking a cheap shot.
What makes you so sure this wouldn't have been done a long time ago if capitalism weren't around?
Can you name a country that could fund this research (publicly or privately) that doesn't have an economy based primarily on capitalism? Even the most "socialist" of Nordic countries still uses the private sector to generate the wealth that their public sector uses.
Your assertion that there's no difference between early development and late development is absurd.
I would appreciate it if you could kindly point me to where I have made such an assertion.
Next time simply state "I am uninterested in the lessons of science and believe that you should accept my wacky, unsubstantiated beliefs about a soul"...
I am deeply interested in scientific knowledge, and do not believe in immaterial souls. To me, that is sufficient reason to avoid using the statement you have suggested.
... and avoid using subjective moral arguments to rationalize your irrationality.
I have made no argument about morality, only your improper use of language.
Rabbits can re-absorb unsustainable pregnancies.
You seem to suffer the misapprehension that this is evidence that the material absorbed in these cases was never living.
If only humans could do this, all you anti-choice fuckos would have to find something else to do.
Since I believe that induced abortions should be legal, you must be addressing someone else. Also, because spontaneous abortions do occur in humans, and opposition to induced abortions still exists, I feel that your hypothetical is somewhat optimistic.
My 400 MHz win98 box with 256 megs could download just fine. It couldn't play Hulu's video, but bittorrent, Firefox file downloads, and software updates got to me at the same speed as on my new machine with several gigs of RAM.
I believe that since it has unique human DNA, it should not be killed
I find this moral stance quite odd - it would suggest that the deliberate destruction of the only surviving tissue sample of a deceased person should be treated as a murder.
Ignoring your self-contradictory use of the English language, your assertion that there's a stage between "sperm and egg" and "adult" where animals are non-living is absurd. Next time simply state "I don't believe that the killing of human fetuses is morally objectionable", and avoid using falsehoods to rationalize your moral stance.
it's the truth that really matters and not the classification
everything that's true isn't science
I was not speaking in the context of 'science' at that point, but rather person-to-person.
Oh. I thought you were trying to change the topic on me. Never mind.
'methodological naturalism'... initiated by Darwin
methodological naturalism predates...
If Darwin did not initiate this trend, then he certainly greatly advanced it (given his popularity).
Well, as long as you aren't trying to say that "Darwin took God out of science" or something, we can call this a miscommunication as well.
There are many well qualified scientists and philosophers of science on the other side of this debate.
This I still have to disagree with, and here's a more verbose explanation:
Creationism - God did it. I think we've established that this is religion, not science.
Intelligent Design - something about some living thing(s) was designed. One specific problem with this is that the only evidence that can be offered for it (given the current formulation of ID) look like this: we don't have a natural explanation for X, so X can't be natural, so it's designed. That not acceptable because it's an argument from ignorance - not knowing of another explanation isn't actual evidence in favor of it. Another problem (closely related to the first) is that - no matter how strong the case is for other explanations, or how many other things are explained, there's still always the possibility that something, somewhere was designed. The idea doesn't let you make any predictions where/what to look at, and it isn't falsifiable, and therefore it can't be a scientific theory.
Future Scientific Theory - a theory has the word 'design' in it. Neither the "intelligent" part nor the "design" part is the issue, it's the fact that it's left as vague as possible. In the future, there may be a valid theory that has those words in it - for example: intelligent aliens designed X because we have their blueprints or laboratory. This both would have valid evidence to support it (blueprints or lab), and is falsifiable (different group of aliens have better evidence that they did it, evidence from Earth shows X predates the alien's development of interstellar flight). This is what Dawkins was doing - trying to illustrate that it isn't the general idea of intelligent design per se, but the specific concept called "Intelligent Design" that isn't scientific.
If you mean the majority of scientists who further such theories as 'abiogenesis' and 'multiple universe hypothesis', then no.
They advance ideas that might some day become scientific theory later on, because scientist do need to brainstorm. Abiogenesis already has several competing hypotheses of how it could have occurred (RNA world, prions, complex chemical cycle development) and we know what kind of evidence to look for to support those separate ideas. Several versions of the the multi-universe concept have already been tested (gravitation influencing, neutrino loss, dark matter explaining), and while they were disproved, the fact that they could be disproved shows that those more specific theories are scientific. Intelligent design could do the same thing (go from sci-fi/philosophical speculation to scientific hypothesis), but to get there you need to add to it so that it makes predictions, is falsifiable, and has actual evidence (and since the person who manages to do that will have a good shot at a Nobel Prize, don't expect me to come up with it for a Slashdot post:) ).
If it is not 'truth' which science is after, what is it, deception?
Science only proposes some approximations of what appears to be true. Because it only proposes it's always capable of being refuted when we find new evidence, because it's approximate there's always the possibility of a better theory explaining more or in m
The point though is-- no matter which you classify it as, it's the truth that really matters and not the classification.
And that's exactly where you go wrong - science doesn't give Truth, and everything that's true isn't science. Our entire argument isn't about whether or not various ideas are correct, but merely if they are science.
Well, the problem with 'methodological naturalism' as promoted (and if I'm not mistaken, initiated) by Darwin is that it too quickly dismisses design as a potential explanation.
You are mistaken - methodological naturalism predates the precursors of science, natural philosophy and natural history, that were around in Darwin's day.
I believe it lies at equal depth as 'descent' for serving as an explanation... ... and, for the reasons I've already given, nearly everyone who's in a good position to make that determination not only disagrees with you, but does so without reservation.
As far as I can tell, all of your misapprehensions seem to stem from the same error: you don't know what science is, because you've gotten you science education from people that want to change what the word "science" means.
I assume you are either Canadian, European, or one of leftie Americans.
I do come from a place where people are fairly well-educated, yes.
Now imagine trying to live your wonderful life in Israel. Wondering if rockets are going to land in your office. Wondering if that kid on the bus...
Still beats the heck up of the life in the West Bank - more people killed, unemployment greater than the US and Europe have ever seen, foreign military checkpoints to go through constantly, bulldozing of a lot of new construction, foreign settlement using the water you need to live to water their lawns, no ability to leave,...
They have tried on several occasion to make peace with those people, and what do the get?
Probably the same response that you expect when your peace proposal requires the other side to have no military, allows your side to control the borders, and leaves your settlements and checkpoints inside the other country intact. As bad as some Palestinians have behaved, I don't expect them to take a deal that would essentially make them second-class citizens of the eastern half of Israel.
And now they go forward into a future where it is uncertain on whether they can count on there staunchest ally in a few weeks.
Obama, Reid and Pelosi are all as pro-Isreal as the rest of the Washington politicians that meet frequently with the AIPAC. The worst probable scenario for Israel with regard to the change of administration is that they might have to pull back out of Gaza if they want all of their American financial support (assuming that they go through with a ground invasion).
You are just simply narrowing down the pool of possible suspects because those that wish to do us the most harm tend to be of the Muslim faith.
Right, because no other nutjobs would carry out a terrorist attack, and because they can't start recruiting white people and women, and because they couldn't possibly hide their religious affiliation.
Why is this not getting through to you? I'm referring to philosophy of *science* (i.e., the business of defining exactly what science is).
It's true that it's difficult (and perhaps impossible) to draw a bright, unambiguous line between science and non-science, but that doesn't mean that some things aren't clearly on one side or the other. There may be a gray area in English where "ginormous" might or might not be a real word, but where the words "friend" and "hte" fall isn't in dispute.
Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe... So, at this point, if you still disagree with these statements...
Then I disagree with some guys who've built their careers out of trying to redefine science so that it can embrace ID. If you want to see how Behe (for example) is viewed by scientists and other philosophers, look at the Dover trial:
"First, defense expert Professor Fuller agreed that ID aspires to "change the ground rules" of science and lead defense expert Professor Behe admitted that his broadened definition of science, which encompasses ID, would also embrace astrology."
What is more, defense experts concede that ID is not a theory as that term is defined by the NAS and admit that ID is at best "fringe science" which has achieved no acceptance in the scientific community.
You seem like a smart guy, but your reading material isn't giving you a real understanding of the philosophy of science.
The practice of forensic science accurately (and to the criterion of 'beyond a reasonable doubt') identifies the activity of intelligent agents in the committal of crimes in the past.
Forensic science doesn't detect intelligent agents - it simply tries to works out what happened on a physical level. We assume that people are intelligent and do things deliberately, but the leap from "his index finger pulled the trigger" to "he wanted to kill the other guy" isn't part of the science.
They rather object to neo-Darwinism (which is essentially the marriage of Darwin's theory of natural descent, abiogenesis, & the philosophy of materialism).
If you're trying to have science without materialism, meaning allowing non-physical explanations, you're trying to change the definition of science, period.
Sure, there are aspects to the SETI program which are not directly related to detecting intelligence...
That wasn't my point. If you just hooked up a computer to a bunch of radio telescopes and had it run a pattern detector, it will go nuts with "stars come in groups" and "things far away are red-shifted", none of which implies intelligence. And even if you told it to ignore known patterns, when it comes across a pulsar it will go off again, and for a bit you'll think you've found alien navigational beacons, but they're just an unusual type of star.
Most sciences have gone though the same thing - for a long time science has no explanation, but when one was found mythology tends to fall back. The only difference between evolution/abiogenesis and other theories (like the heliocentric solar system) is that evolution more directly contradicts what many people want to believe, and thus has a stronger emotional impact, so it gets a great deal more resistance.
There's lots of material written on the subject which pretty much proves that such demarcations are futile.
But separating things that are clearly scientific from religious ideas rewritten in the language of science is much easier, this isn't a gray area at all. Within the scientific community there is no controversy, they can tell the difference quite easily.
It's based on the same underlying theory as the fields of: forensic science,...
Except for the fact that forensic scientist often try to reconstruct past events, I don't get the connection.
... cryptology/information science,...
Which is where we get genetic algorithms, probably the best evidence of what evolution can do - including things like generate "irreducible complexity", incorporate new information, and even do some things better than humans can (like certain kinds of design work).
... SETI,...
Which searches for artificial things, not just complexity. Finding that stars form galaxies, have a certain relationship between size, color, brightness and luminosity, and even regular bursts of radio waves from pulsars isn't evidence that they were designed, even though it's complex - it's just physics.
Keep in mind that our intuition injects purpose into everything (the gods send rain to make plants grow, the king has power because god wants him to have it). It also ascribes agency to things that clearly don't have it (yelling at cars that won't start, luck). In the same way we see faces in things are are completely random. Our intuition also keeps telling us that living things must be designed - even though we have better explanations not only for the living things, but also why our intuition keeps giving us the wrong signals.
Rather, I'm suggesting that scientists (both theist and atheist) recognize (and be transparent about) when their preferred form of that axiom comes into play in forming their conclusions.
I don't think it does affect their conclusions. By limiting itself to the natural world, science keeps itself open to people regardless of their views on other subjects. That's why Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists can all be scientists and come to the same conclusions. That's also why scientists who embrace all sorts of different philosophies on other subjects still almost universally embrace evolution as the best scientific theory to explain the why living things are the way they are.
I'm not talking about introduction to philosophy of science here, but rather a bit more depth than that...
You want to say that the philosophical assumptions underlying science aren't being admitted, even though they are explicitly discussed at the beginning of everyone's education in science. You can't ignore a fact, claim the opposite, and then try to get out of it by stating that you're going "more in depth".
Even if you choose to attempt (and I say attempt because it really is impossible) to demarcate science along some reasonable boundaries, ID should be included (and if your choice of demarcation criteria somehow excludes ID, then evolution is also equally excluded).
Science only explains the physical world in terms of the physical world - that's the boundary. As long as the version of ID that you're proposing includes supernatural influence (God designed it), it's not science. Versions of ID without the supernatural (at least so far) end up merely being appeals to ignorance - which don't explain anything.
... and it's pretty evident that you have not read such material.
No, I think it's clear that I've read a great deal about both science and philosophy, while you've stuck with creationist propaganda. Cheers!
Where does it get the additional genetic information to construct feathers?
From the environment. To anthropomorphize a bit: every living thing is a question ("How well does this set of genes work in this environment?"), and their reproductive success is the answer. As different "questions" are "answered", the amount of information that can be incorporated in organisms' genes increases.
Unless a feature confers a distinct advantage on an organism, it is invisible to the natural selection mechanism.
That's true., but...
Incomplete, nonfunctional feathers or other structures are useless for survival and are therefore not passed on to succeeding generations. ...this isn't. There are many ways that feather-like scales could be useful to an organism that have nothing to do with flight - keeping warm, for instance.
The fact is that none of these things happen in the wild, because the selective breeding of dogs is accomplished by means of the application of human intelligence.
It doesn't matter if it's a person picking the whitest rabbits to breed and selling the rest, or hawks picking off the ones that are easier to spot in the snow - the effect is the same. Sorry, but I don't even know where to begin with this example of willful ignorance - if I rolled a rock down a hill to crate a rockslide, would you then insist that rockslides can't happen in the wild and requires human intelligence?
Why is it that otherwise highly intelligent humans credit the existence of even the existence of a single living cell to processes NOT ALSO involving intelligence and thought?
Because we have another explanation that fits the evidence better and requires fewer assumptions.
Science is not about what was thought to have taken place an unimaginably long time ago.
So most of geology and astronomy aren't really science?
Slashdot Mirror
I will act the way I please. If you don't like it, mod me down.
I will act the way I please. If you don't like it, post a reply.
If The Pirate Bay wins, the swedish laws will be changed to make sure what they've been doing would be an offence had they done it under the new law.
Unlike the United States, most countries (ie the ones that don't boast about being "free" but actually ARE) cannot apply laws to you in a retroactive manner.
Your reading comprehension needs work. TPB's actions in the past will still be legal, but after the law is changed, if they do it again, it will be illegal.
And ex post facto laws are void in the US. If you're going to be childish, don't display your own ignorance while you're doing it.
I am a trader. I earn what I get in trade for what I produce.
This is the worst definition of the term "trader" that I've ever seen.
He isn't defining "trader". He's contrasting his economics (trading) with the economics of the book's antagonists (taking).
Most things the government does they do very, very well.
I'd say that government does some things fairly well, and a lot of things adequately but with a lot of waste or bias. The FDA does a good job keeping food safe, but their rules about experimental drugs kill people. Law enforcement keeps crime down, but then there the war on drugs. The US military has done an excellent job of protecting those on its own soil, but that comes with an absurd price tag and all those pointless little wars.
You ahve far more recourse against the government.
Not really. Eminent domain, sovereign immunity, national secrets - all of them give government special privileges that corporations don't have. And that's not to mention your lack of recourse if you're sent to a third-world country to be tortured, or labeled an enemy combatant.
Do you even know that government agency have less waste then any corporate group?
That's a very strong statement, so if you want it to sound like anything other than your own prejudices talking, you're going to need to back it up with something.
yes, there are a lot of new drugs
I was thinking less drastic surgery and better preventative treatment.
Unless a screw up leads to your penis being amputated, or damage so extensive that you have to be surgically reconstructed as a girl, or it kills you - all rare, but quite possible. And then there's the [perhaps not technically dangerous] possibility of infection, changes in pain response, undesirable cosmetic outcome, etc.
As to mastectomies, women's breasts are functional, foreskins aren't.
Are you saying that providing sexual pleasure isn't a function, or that you believe that the mucous membranes of the penis don't provide sexual pleasure?
"The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis." - British Journal of Urology, April 2007
If you did a large number of transactions and half of them added a penny or two to your account and half of them subtracted a similar amount, it would all even out in the, would it not?
Until you get hit with a a $40 overdraft charge for being a penny short ...
The fact is, there is precious little carbon in any type of rock.
Except for they type of rock with the word "carbon" in its name.
If the earth is poisoned by volcanic eruptions, it is due to dozens of other elements and compounds that have nothing to do with carbon. Sulphur, anyone?
Sulfur may cause problems, but since CO2 is the second largest constituent of volcanic gasses, it might have an impact as well.
Ahh, nothing like an idiot being led by a moron. Very similar to the blind leading the blind. Thank you, ma'am. ROFLMAO
Don't worry about it. We were all stupid, know-it-all teenagers at one time. You'll grow out of it.
One, it is easier for an uncircumcised man to catch AIDS than one who is circumcized. Governments are pusing for circumcision in countries with epidemic rates of the disease.
This is at best controversial, but the WHO and 3rd world governments are desperate and willing to try anything. Nearly every study done in industrialized countries shows no connection between circumcision and any STD, and the South Africa-Uganda-Kenya set of experiments (what most "circumcision decreases AIDS" claims are based on) had massive methodological problems (more people dropped out of the studies than got AIDS, more contact between medical personnel and the test group than the control group, including the time the test group was recovering from surgery in the exposure time, ending the study early to produce desired results).
In tropical climates, uncircumcized men are prone to getting "jungle rot" on their penises. ... The treatment was circumcision ...
Well, a treatment for it, but in the 21st century we have less drastic solutions to (and ways to prevent) problems like that.
Well, breast cancer ends up killing 1% of all people in the world, and we could preform mastectomies on infant girls the way that some doctors preform male circumcisions, which would save them from painful adult mastectomies. It would also be a simple, effective way to save half a million lives a year (no controversy about that!), but I've never met someone who actually suggested that this was a good idea. :)
As to how sex feels, if it feels better uncircumcised than I'm glad it was done, I think too much about sex as it is. If it felt even better it would drive me insane.
If you'd been given a choice, you could always have gotten it done later. You body, your choice, and all that freedom stuff.
I got it done at age 16. It is definitely better after.
For you it might be better, for others it might not be.
I know this is a topic of debate but I thought I'd add a data point since it's rare to find people who have had it both ways.
And I feel that everyone should have that same opportunity.
Since a blastocyst consists of less than 100 undifferentiated cells I don't believe that it is possible for it to meet my definition of human life. ... it's obviously alive. And it isn't a bacterium or a sheep - it's quite clearly a human stage in an early stage of human development.
It consumes nutrients, excretes wastes, grows,
I believe that human life begins with human consciousness and thought.
I think human life begins to have moral value when it develops human consciousness and thought - I still think it was a human life before that.
Hurray for private charity, yes. But capitalism? I fail to see what capitalism has to do with with this.
Possible answers:
1. The GP was quoting Austin Powers.
2. It's hard to have "private charity" without "private enterprise" to provide the funds.
3. A libertarian was taking a cheap shot.
What makes you so sure this wouldn't have been done a long time ago if capitalism weren't around?
Can you name a country that could fund this research (publicly or privately) that doesn't have an economy based primarily on capitalism? Even the most "socialist" of Nordic countries still uses the private sector to generate the wealth that their public sector uses.
Cookies that give you the munchies? ... BRILLIANT!
Your assertion that there's no difference between early development and late development is absurd.
I would appreciate it if you could kindly point me to where I have made such an assertion.
Next time simply state "I am uninterested in the lessons of science and believe that you should accept my wacky, unsubstantiated beliefs about a soul" ...
I am deeply interested in scientific knowledge, and do not believe in immaterial souls. To me, that is sufficient reason to avoid using the statement you have suggested.
I have made no argument about morality, only your improper use of language.
Rabbits can re-absorb unsustainable pregnancies.
You seem to suffer the misapprehension that this is evidence that the material absorbed in these cases was never living.
If only humans could do this, all you anti-choice fuckos would have to find something else to do.
Since I believe that induced abortions should be legal, you must be addressing someone else. Also, because spontaneous abortions do occur in humans, and opposition to induced abortions still exists, I feel that your hypothetical is somewhat optimistic.
That would be bizarre, but to be fair, the poster didn't assert that unique DNA was the only reason that human life holds moral value.
My 400 MHz win98 box with 256 megs could download just fine. It couldn't play Hulu's video, but bittorrent, Firefox file downloads, and software updates got to me at the same speed as on my new machine with several gigs of RAM.
I believe that since it has unique human DNA, it should not be killed
I find this moral stance quite odd - it would suggest that the deliberate destruction of the only surviving tissue sample of a deceased person should be treated as a murder.
Ignoring your self-contradictory use of the English language, your assertion that there's a stage between "sperm and egg" and "adult" where animals are non-living is absurd. Next time simply state "I don't believe that the killing of human fetuses is morally objectionable", and avoid using falsehoods to rationalize your moral stance.
it's the truth that really matters and not the classification
everything that's true isn't science
I was not speaking in the context of 'science' at that point, but rather person-to-person.
Oh. I thought you were trying to change the topic on me. Never mind.
'methodological naturalism' ... initiated by Darwin ...
methodological naturalism predates
If Darwin did not initiate this trend, then he certainly greatly advanced it (given his popularity).
Well, as long as you aren't trying to say that "Darwin took God out of science" or something, we can call this a miscommunication as well.
There are many well qualified scientists and philosophers of science on the other side of this debate.
This I still have to disagree with, and here's a more verbose explanation:
Creationism - God did it. I think we've established that this is religion, not science.
Intelligent Design - something about some living thing(s) was designed. One specific problem with this is that the only evidence that can be offered for it (given the current formulation of ID) look like this: we don't have a natural explanation for X, so X can't be natural, so it's designed. That not acceptable because it's an argument from ignorance - not knowing of another explanation isn't actual evidence in favor of it. Another problem (closely related to the first) is that - no matter how strong the case is for other explanations, or how many other things are explained, there's still always the possibility that something, somewhere was designed. The idea doesn't let you make any predictions where/what to look at, and it isn't falsifiable, and therefore it can't be a scientific theory.
Future Scientific Theory - a theory has the word 'design' in it. Neither the "intelligent" part nor the "design" part is the issue, it's the fact that it's left as vague as possible. In the future, there may be a valid theory that has those words in it - for example: intelligent aliens designed X because we have their blueprints or laboratory. This both would have valid evidence to support it (blueprints or lab), and is falsifiable (different group of aliens have better evidence that they did it, evidence from Earth shows X predates the alien's development of interstellar flight). This is what Dawkins was doing - trying to illustrate that it isn't the general idea of intelligent design per se, but the specific concept called "Intelligent Design" that isn't scientific.
If you mean the majority of scientists who further such theories as 'abiogenesis' and 'multiple universe hypothesis', then no. :) ).
They advance ideas that might some day become scientific theory later on, because scientist do need to brainstorm. Abiogenesis already has several competing hypotheses of how it could have occurred (RNA world, prions, complex chemical cycle development) and we know what kind of evidence to look for to support those separate ideas. Several versions of the the multi-universe concept have already been tested (gravitation influencing, neutrino loss, dark matter explaining), and while they were disproved, the fact that they could be disproved shows that those more specific theories are scientific. Intelligent design could do the same thing (go from sci-fi/philosophical speculation to scientific hypothesis), but to get there you need to add to it so that it makes predictions, is falsifiable, and has actual evidence (and since the person who manages to do that will have a good shot at a Nobel Prize, don't expect me to come up with it for a Slashdot post
If it is not 'truth' which science is after, what is it, deception?
Science only proposes some approximations of what appears to be true. Because it only proposes it's always capable of being refuted when we find new evidence, because it's approximate there's always the possibility of a better theory explaining more or in m
The point though is-- no matter which you classify it as, it's the truth that really matters and not the classification.
And that's exactly where you go wrong - science doesn't give Truth, and everything that's true isn't science. Our entire argument isn't about whether or not various ideas are correct, but merely if they are science.
Well, the problem with 'methodological naturalism' as promoted (and if I'm not mistaken, initiated) by Darwin is that it too quickly dismisses design as a potential explanation.
You are mistaken - methodological naturalism predates the precursors of science, natural philosophy and natural history, that were around in Darwin's day.
I believe it lies at equal depth as 'descent' for serving as an explanation ...
... and, for the reasons I've already given, nearly everyone who's in a good position to make that determination not only disagrees with you, but does so without reservation.
As far as I can tell, all of your misapprehensions seem to stem from the same error: you don't know what science is, because you've gotten you science education from people that want to change what the word "science" means.
I assume you are either Canadian, European, or one of leftie Americans.
I do come from a place where people are fairly well-educated, yes.
Now imagine trying to live your wonderful life in Israel. Wondering if rockets are going to land in your office. Wondering if that kid on the bus... ...
Still beats the heck up of the life in the West Bank - more people killed, unemployment greater than the US and Europe have ever seen, foreign military checkpoints to go through constantly, bulldozing of a lot of new construction, foreign settlement using the water you need to live to water their lawns, no ability to leave,
They have tried on several occasion to make peace with those people, and what do the get?
Probably the same response that you expect when your peace proposal requires the other side to have no military, allows your side to control the borders, and leaves your settlements and checkpoints inside the other country intact. As bad as some Palestinians have behaved, I don't expect them to take a deal that would essentially make them second-class citizens of the eastern half of Israel.
And now they go forward into a future where it is uncertain on whether they can count on there staunchest ally in a few weeks.
Obama, Reid and Pelosi are all as pro-Isreal as the rest of the Washington politicians that meet frequently with the AIPAC. The worst probable scenario for Israel with regard to the change of administration is that they might have to pull back out of Gaza if they want all of their American financial support (assuming that they go through with a ground invasion).
You are just simply narrowing down the pool of possible suspects because those that wish to do us the most harm tend to be of the Muslim faith.
Right, because no other nutjobs would carry out a terrorist attack, and because they can't start recruiting white people and women, and because they couldn't possibly hide their religious affiliation.
Why is this not getting through to you? I'm referring to philosophy of *science* (i.e., the business of defining exactly what science is).
It's true that it's difficult (and perhaps impossible) to draw a bright, unambiguous line between science and non-science, but that doesn't mean that some things aren't clearly on one side or the other. There may be a gray area in English where "ginormous" might or might not be a real word, but where the words "friend" and "hte" fall isn't in dispute.
Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe ... So, at this point, if you still disagree with these statements ...
Then I disagree with some guys who've built their careers out of trying to redefine science so that it can embrace ID. If you want to see how Behe (for example) is viewed by scientists and other philosophers, look at the Dover trial :
You seem like a smart guy, but your reading material isn't giving you a real understanding of the philosophy of science.
The practice of forensic science accurately (and to the criterion of 'beyond a reasonable doubt') identifies the activity of intelligent agents in the committal of crimes in the past.
Forensic science doesn't detect intelligent agents - it simply tries to works out what happened on a physical level. We assume that people are intelligent and do things deliberately, but the leap from "his index finger pulled the trigger" to "he wanted to kill the other guy" isn't part of the science.
They rather object to neo-Darwinism (which is essentially the marriage of Darwin's theory of natural descent, abiogenesis, & the philosophy of materialism).
If you're trying to have science without materialism, meaning allowing non-physical explanations, you're trying to change the definition of science, period.
Sure, there are aspects to the SETI program which are not directly related to detecting intelligence ...
That wasn't my point. If you just hooked up a computer to a bunch of radio telescopes and had it run a pattern detector, it will go nuts with "stars come in groups" and "things far away are red-shifted", none of which implies intelligence. And even if you told it to ignore known patterns, when it comes across a pulsar it will go off again, and for a bit you'll think you've found alien navigational beacons, but they're just an unusual type of star.
Most sciences have gone though the same thing - for a long time science has no explanation, but when one was found mythology tends to fall back. The only difference between evolution/abiogenesis and other theories (like the heliocentric solar system) is that evolution more directly contradicts what many people want to believe, and thus has a stronger emotional impact, so it gets a great deal more resistance.
There's lots of material written on the subject which pretty much proves that such demarcations are futile.
But separating things that are clearly scientific from religious ideas rewritten in the language of science is much easier, this isn't a gray area at all. Within the scientific community there is no controversy, they can tell the difference quite easily.
It's based on the same underlying theory as the fields of: forensic science, ...
Except for the fact that forensic scientist often try to reconstruct past events, I don't get the connection.
Which is where we get genetic algorithms, probably the best evidence of what evolution can do - including things like generate "irreducible complexity", incorporate new information, and even do some things better than humans can (like certain kinds of design work).
Which searches for artificial things, not just complexity. Finding that stars form galaxies, have a certain relationship between size, color, brightness and luminosity, and even regular bursts of radio waves from pulsars isn't evidence that they were designed, even though it's complex - it's just physics.
Keep in mind that our intuition injects purpose into everything (the gods send rain to make plants grow, the king has power because god wants him to have it). It also ascribes agency to things that clearly don't have it (yelling at cars that won't start, luck). In the same way we see faces in things are are completely random. Our intuition also keeps telling us that living things must be designed - even though we have better explanations not only for the living things, but also why our intuition keeps giving us the wrong signals.
Rather, I'm suggesting that scientists (both theist and atheist) recognize (and be transparent about) when their preferred form of that axiom comes into play in forming their conclusions.
I don't think it does affect their conclusions. By limiting itself to the natural world, science keeps itself open to people regardless of their views on other subjects. That's why Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists can all be scientists and come to the same conclusions. That's also why scientists who embrace all sorts of different philosophies on other subjects still almost universally embrace evolution as the best scientific theory to explain the why living things are the way they are.
I'm not talking about introduction to philosophy of science here, but rather a bit more depth than that ...
You want to say that the philosophical assumptions underlying science aren't being admitted, even though they are explicitly discussed at the beginning of everyone's education in science. You can't ignore a fact, claim the opposite, and then try to get out of it by stating that you're going "more in depth".
Even if you choose to attempt (and I say attempt because it really is impossible) to demarcate science along some reasonable boundaries, ID should be included (and if your choice of demarcation criteria somehow excludes ID, then evolution is also equally excluded).
Science only explains the physical world in terms of the physical world - that's the boundary. As long as the version of ID that you're proposing includes supernatural influence (God designed it), it's not science. Versions of ID without the supernatural (at least so far) end up merely being appeals to ignorance - which don't explain anything.
No, I think it's clear that I've read a great deal about both science and philosophy, while you've stuck with creationist propaganda. Cheers!
Where does it get the additional genetic information to construct feathers?
From the environment. To anthropomorphize a bit: every living thing is a question ("How well does this set of genes work in this environment?"), and their reproductive success is the answer. As different "questions" are "answered", the amount of information that can be incorporated in organisms' genes increases.
Unless a feature confers a distinct advantage on an organism, it is invisible to the natural selection mechanism.
That's true., but...
Incomplete, nonfunctional feathers or other structures are useless for survival and are therefore not passed on to succeeding generations.
...this isn't. There are many ways that feather-like scales could be useful to an organism that have nothing to do with flight - keeping warm, for instance.
The fact is that none of these things happen in the wild, because the selective breeding of dogs is accomplished by means of the application of human intelligence.
It doesn't matter if it's a person picking the whitest rabbits to breed and selling the rest, or hawks picking off the ones that are easier to spot in the snow - the effect is the same. Sorry, but I don't even know where to begin with this example of willful ignorance - if I rolled a rock down a hill to crate a rockslide, would you then insist that rockslides can't happen in the wild and requires human intelligence?
Why is it that otherwise highly intelligent humans credit the existence of even the existence of a single living cell to processes NOT ALSO involving intelligence and thought?
Because we have another explanation that fits the evidence better and requires fewer assumptions.
Science is not about what was thought to have taken place an unimaginably long time ago.
So most of geology and astronomy aren't really science?
Well, whatever the amount is, it isn't the sort of number that you can be certain of to very many significant digits is it?
That was my point - it certainly isn't "safe" to assume that every asteroid impact hits the reset button on evolution.