Now, as a follow-up question (that I sincerely hope you answer). If we are not a 'bag of chemicals' and have a soul... what happens to our soul when we get drunk? If our thoughts and actions are effected by alcohol, then how is our soul affected? If it is not affected, then our soul is not responsible for our thoughts and actions (as these are affected by alcohol) or our soul is responsible for our thoughts and actions.. and therefore our soul can be drunk.
I haven't thought about this before, so I'm not sure. I'd guess that our soul isn't effected by alcohol, but I don't see how that means it isn't responsible for our thoughts and actions...
1) There is no observation of the formation of the human
race... but evolution can make predictions. Basically
evolution can say "If evolution occurred, we should expect to
see X" X being transitionary states, vestigial organs, and
close genetic relations. When we see these things, it lends
credence to this theory.
What can creationism make predictions about? How can it be
tested?
2) We can see evolutionary processes in other species... so
why would it be happening for them, but not humans for some
reason?
Basing a scientific theory on predictions seems like sketchy
reasoning.
Do we even have proof that transitory states and vestigial
organs exist? Regardless of whether or not they do exist, they
could have come about in
ways other than evolution, including creation.
Creation doesn't
make scientific predictions, but it does make claims about what the
world is like, and I believe that its claims fit reality.
One such claim that the Bible makes is that humans are not just
sophisticated animals, but are created in the image of God and
have souls. The Bible gives us an explanation of various aspects
of human nature. The reason everyone has some concept of beauty, justice,
the importance of truth, etc, is because we are made in the image of
God. If, as evolution claims, we are just the result of a string
of random events, and are therefore nothing more than bags of
chemicals, why should we care about anything? You think that
evolution is the true explanation of why we are here, but
why do you care if I believe something which you think is false? If we're just bags of chemicals, and our thoughts and beliefs are nothing more than chemicals reacting, why do you pursue knowledge and truth? The reason for your pursuit of these things is that you are made in the image of God, and because of this you realize that these things do matter.
A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Exactly. And since there is no record of any observation of the process that led to the origin of the human race, and since neither supernatural creation nor chaotic macroevolution can be repeatedly tested, perhaps science has no business trying to explain how we got here at all.
Well that sounds great, but this isn't like iTunes at all. Searches for well known artists wilco, radiohead, the strokes, and the white stripes all failed to turn up any results. After browsing the alternative rock section, it appears all they offer is music by musicians from small labels.
On a more serious note, what's up with Denial of Service attacks anyway? I guess I'm not informed enough to really offer a technical solution -- but on the client side, DDOS attacks are made with zombie bots/machines...which means an army of unpatched boxen. It's one thing to get yourself flooded out of IRC by some "crew" but a completely different thing to have major sites get killed because of an exploit infecting thousands of machines which should have been patched months ago.
Yeah, Windows users are really terrible about keeping their boxes secure. I'm just proud that, as part of the open source community, my box never causes any problems for other people's servers.
Barterbee is a great site for trading your old CDs (DVDs and games, too) for something new. The site is based on a points system; you get 5 points for joining and points for each item you trade. You use your points to request items; most CDs are only 1 or 2 points. The cost is only $5 a month. Check it out.
Companies make the most money when you buy as much new hardware as possible rather than keeping your existing stuff that is sufficient. Car manufacturers are the same way. It's inefficient but like everything else we can chalk it up to capitalism.
That's true. But's it's also true that if hardware companies didn't have the monetary incentive to innovate that a capitalist society provides then we'd still be running computers that struggle to handle tasks thrown at them by new software.
Wikipedia seems to be able to rid itself of obvious vandalism fairly effectively: I've been using wikipedia for months and I've never come across a page that had obviously been vandalized. However, I would like to know what wikipedia does about "sneaky vandalism." (The Dealing with vandalism page defines sneaky vandals as "...the users that think they can outsmart the wiki and put their little comments, misinformation and typos on articles, without anyone noticing. Switching one number (often a date) for another and deliberately introducing typographical errors are their favorite tactics.") I decided to see what would happen if I made such a change and, as far as I can tell, I did "outsmart the wiki."
I made changes to two pages, the Eden Prairie, Minnesota page and the Great fire of Rome page. In the first page I changed the year of Ellet's visit to Eden Prairie from 1852 to 1857. In the second page I added a sentence to the end of the second paragraph: "Recently discovered evidence has led some modern historians to believe that Nero was in fact guilty of causing the fire." Both changes are (as far as I know) blatantly false. However, after less than half an hour both pages had disappeared from the "recent changes" page (even if I told it to display the last 500 changes) and no one had corrected either error. Unless I am mistaken, once the pages left the recent changes page the only way the errors would have been eliminated is if someone visited one of the pages, recognized the error and reverted the page to an accurate version. Since it seemed very unlikely that this would happen any time soon I reverted the two pages back to the correct version myself.
Is there a safe-guard that I don't know about that protects against sneaky vandalism? If not, what do you plan to do to keep this kind of vandalism from becoming a serious problem?
Most people who switch to Mozilla or Mozilla's Firefox browser quickly notice that the browser is pretty bare. It contains exactly what you need to browse the Web -- no less and no more.
I don't know of anyone who's disappointed that Firefox is "pretty bare" the first time they use it. What they notice is that it can do everything IE does, but with tabbed browsing and without the pop-ups or security holes.
Here's a "mini-HOWTO" that I found via google. I didn't read the whole thing, but it looks informative. Wikipedia's Ramdisk entry had links to two stripped down knoppix distros that could be loaded into a ramdisk - Damn Small Linux (50 mb), and Feather Linux (64 mb). I've never done anything with ramdisks (I'm a linux newbie, too) but they do sound pretty neat.
"I can now go back to my chosen profession, the exploration of the fascinating mating dance of the common newt.... Btw, did you know that newts have more offspring if you play the harmonica to them during their mating rituals? It's true."
I wonder if Linus was alluding to P.G. Wodehouse here. In some of Wodehouse's novels there is a character by the name of Finknottle (I think) who lives a lonely life in the country and is obsessed with newts. In one book (don't remember which...) he talks about the mating dance of the newt.
Since Microsoft feels that MikeRoweSoft.com is too similar to their name and gets the poor guy to rename his site, the W. bro's could (and really ought to) go after Microsoft for the obvious takeoff of their movie's title.
The problem with Google searches comes up because of people intentionally taking a crack at them. Litigious Bastards anyone? [scom.com].
Even miserable failure [google.com] still works.
But even those examples don't really matter. The only reason those jokes work is because there are few legitimate sites that are about "litigious bastards" or "miserable failures." And really, the only people who would search for something that vague are people who want to see the joke, or people who don't know how to use a search engine.
Similarly, people have focused on Google as a search engine (for similar reasons - it is "user-friendly")
Yes, google is user-friendly, but (unlike windows) it's also the best of its kind. I don't think that google's dominance is a bad thing. I can't see any disadvantages in google being much more popular than the other search engines that are out there.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't thought about this before, so I'm not sure. I'd guess that our soul isn't effected by alcohol, but I don't see how that means it isn't responsible for our thoughts and actions...
What can creationism make predictions about? How can it be tested?
2) We can see evolutionary processes in other species... so why would it be happening for them, but not humans for some reason?
Basing a scientific theory on predictions seems like sketchy reasoning.
Do we even have proof that transitory states and vestigial organs exist? Regardless of whether or not they do exist, they could have come about in ways other than evolution, including creation.
Creation doesn't make scientific predictions, but it does make claims about what the world is like, and I believe that its claims fit reality. One such claim that the Bible makes is that humans are not just sophisticated animals, but are created in the image of God and have souls. The Bible gives us an explanation of various aspects of human nature. The reason everyone has some concept of beauty, justice, the importance of truth, etc, is because we are made in the image of God. If, as evolution claims, we are just the result of a string of random events, and are therefore nothing more than bags of chemicals, why should we care about anything? You think that evolution is the true explanation of why we are here, but why do you care if I believe something which you think is false? If we're just bags of chemicals, and our thoughts and beliefs are nothing more than chemicals reacting, why do you pursue knowledge and truth? The reason for your pursuit of these things is that you are made in the image of God, and because of this you realize that these things do matter.
Exactly. And since there is no record of any observation of the process that led to the origin of the human race, and since neither supernatural creation nor chaotic macroevolution can be repeatedly tested, perhaps science has no business trying to explain how we got here at all.
I googled #1 Innovation of the Past 25 Years, hit I'm Feeling Lucky, and discovered that the #1 innovation is... wood flooring.
Well that sounds great, but this isn't like iTunes at all. Searches for well known artists wilco, radiohead, the strokes, and the white stripes all failed to turn up any results. After browsing the alternative rock section, it appears all they offer is music by musicians from small labels.
...and if you're into impersonal, points-based swapping, I've found barterbee to be a great resource.
but all the improvements in the world won't do me any good until iTunes will run on linux.
Excellent article on "the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy."
Yeah, Windows users are really terrible about keeping their boxes secure. I'm just proud that, as part of the open source community, my box never causes any problems for other people's servers.
/sarcasm
Barterbee is a great site for trading your old CDs (DVDs and games, too) for something new. The site is based on a points system; you get 5 points for joining and points for each item you trade. You use your points to request items; most CDs are only 1 or 2 points. The cost is only $5 a month. Check it out.
That's true. But's it's also true that if hardware companies didn't have the monetary incentive to innovate that a capitalist society provides then we'd still be running computers that struggle to handle tasks thrown at them by new software.
Methinks that the SysAdmin's at sysadminday.com might not appreciate this story...
Ok, thanks for clearing that up.
I made changes to two pages, the Eden Prairie, Minnesota page and the Great fire of Rome page. In the first page I changed the year of Ellet's visit to Eden Prairie from 1852 to 1857. In the second page I added a sentence to the end of the second paragraph: "Recently discovered evidence has led some modern historians to believe that Nero was in fact guilty of causing the fire." Both changes are (as far as I know) blatantly false. However, after less than half an hour both pages had disappeared from the "recent changes" page (even if I told it to display the last 500 changes) and no one had corrected either error. Unless I am mistaken, once the pages left the recent changes page the only way the errors would have been eliminated is if someone visited one of the pages, recognized the error and reverted the page to an accurate version. Since it seemed very unlikely that this would happen any time soon I reverted the two pages back to the correct version myself.
Is there a safe-guard that I don't know about that protects against sneaky vandalism? If not, what do you plan to do to keep this kind of vandalism from becoming a serious problem?
I don't know of anyone who's disappointed that Firefox is "pretty bare" the first time they use it. What they notice is that it can do everything IE does, but with tabbed browsing and without the pop-ups or security holes.
Another similar distro is Feather Linux. And for the google-challenged, here are the links to damn small linux and dynebolic: DSL, dynebolic.
I can't help wondering: is the founder of /. a Christian? Rather ironic if that's the case, considering the beliefs held by the majority of /.'ers...
Here's a "mini-HOWTO" that I found via google. I didn't read the whole thing, but it looks informative. Wikipedia's Ramdisk entry had links to two stripped down knoppix distros that could be loaded into a ramdisk - Damn Small Linux (50 mb), and Feather Linux (64 mb). I've never done anything with ramdisks (I'm a linux newbie, too) but they do sound pretty neat.
I wonder if Linus was alluding to P.G. Wodehouse here. In some of Wodehouse's novels there is a character by the name of Finknottle (I think) who lives a lonely life in the country and is obsessed with newts. In one book (don't remember which...) he talks about the mating dance of the newt.
Since Microsoft feels that MikeRoweSoft.com is too similar to their name and gets the poor guy to rename his site, the W. bro's could (and really ought to) go after Microsoft for the obvious takeoff of their movie's title.
Go here for instructions on removal from their index.
But even those examples don't really matter. The only reason those jokes work is because there are few legitimate sites that are about "litigious bastards" or "miserable failures." And really, the only people who would search for something that vague are people who want to see the joke, or people who don't know how to use a search engine.
Yes, google is user-friendly, but (unlike windows) it's also the best of its kind. I don't think that google's dominance is a bad thing. I can't see any disadvantages in google being much more popular than the other search engines that are out there.
Anybody know what OS these things use?
Thank you Dr. Obvious...