Where is the fossil record the the "partial wing"--the one that was growing but had yet to produce results?
What do you mean, "had yet to produce results"? Even a partial lift body would help in running and escape. Even a flap of skin between elbow and ribs would help glide.
They have found intermediate stages, and have been finding them for almost 50 years. So there they are. A recent one (with "proto-feathers") was recently found in Utah.
Where is the fossil record for the partial gil (sic)--the gil (sic) that didn't yet breath but was existing in order that some relatives would grow one that did work?
First, it'll be hard to find something like that in the fossil record, since gills are soft tissue. But, even today, there are sea-dwelling animals that have no gills, but instead have blood vessels very close the the surface of the skin. Evolutionarily-speaking, and device that would protect those exposed blood vessels would be an advantage. It's neither imporobable nor hard to imagine the staged evolution of the gill.
Mutations NEVER result in good changes in the near generation, and therefor the extended generation.
I assume you have proof of this?
In any case, there is growing evidence that genotypical drift within a population is not driven primarily by mutations. It appears possible that viruses do a substantial amount of genetic "cross-pollination" between species. Cool, huh?
So evolution remains only a fallible theory.
I'm not sure if you understand science at all (your statements make it doubtful), but all theories are fallible. Nothing in science is certain except our observations. Theories are made or broken by their predictive power (their "testability"), and evolution has stood up to a *lot* of testing.
Just like the whole mutation thing, there is lively debate about many of the processes of evolution. That doesn't make evolution itself incorrect.
Some better scientific explanation may come along some day. But ID is not it-- as the crux of ID is not testable. (How do you prove an "intelligent designer?" Humanity has been trying to prove the existence of God for a lot longer than they've been studying science.)
If you are going to enter into a scientific debate, at least come armed with science, and not rhetoric and dogma.
Effectively, you're forcing students to learn about one side of the debate while limiting access to the other.
It is a requirement in scientific debate that both sides of the debate restrict themselves to science. This debate is not a scientific debate, even if some scientists take part. ID is not scientific; therefore, it should not be taught in science class, even under the guise of "fairness."
Evolution is as proven as most other scientific theories. There are many debates about various mechanisms within evolution; but it is quite apparent that evolution itself occurs. It gets a "free pass" for the same reason the atom gets a free pass-- because years of evidence supports it, and the predictive nature of the model has held up.
People are free to believe whatever they way. That's what makes the US a great country. (In theory, at least.)
However, to call something that is not testable "science" is like calling haikus mathematics. (You can have a mathematical haiku, I'm sure.) The issue isn't with belief, or the suitability of evolution as a sufficient explanation for life on earth. The issue is ID is *not* science.
A poet with no background in math might claim the Pythagorean Theorem is riddled with holes, as well, but that doesn't make her right. You can have as many anti-Pythagorean Theorem non-math poets as you want, and that will *still* not change the fact that Pythagorus was right.
Group stupidity is still supidity, for all size groups.
And in the end, it really IS NOT hurting you if they do.
Yes. Yes it is.
Their belief is their belief. That's fine. But now they wish to destroy the process of science so they can get their pet belief taught in schools. This destroys any chance these kids have of learning science. Once you remove the fundamental basis of scientific study, you no longer have science, you have dogma and rhetoric.
I don't know about you, but I want my science to be pure science, and not laced with religious zealotry.
Either way, I don't see a problem with the definition of science as presented in the article. It sounds a lot like what I was taught in public school in New Mexico - a state not known for its conservative education policies.
The problem is with the poison pill ". . . to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."
The way it is phrased, you can use non-science to teach science. It paves the way for unscientific studies like intelligent design to be taught in science class.
There is already a perfectly good definition of science. They just don't like it because it excludes intelligent design.
The problem with this whole freakshow is that, by changing the definition of science, they get a whole bunch of kids who don't have a chance of understanding the fundamental concepts of science.
Not that most kids really understand science anyway; most of them (and subsequently most of the adult population) think that science is a collection of boring facts. They never stop to think how it is that we *know* these facts. (That's not even getting into the whole subject of "true enough until something better comes along.")
I.D. is a pseudo-science and should be adapted to be taught in a Philisophy (itself a pseduo science) class.
Philosophy is not a pseudo science. Science is a branch of philosophy-- specifically, science is a type of epistomology, the study of "how we know things."
Philosophy itself has a great and noble history, and we have learned many things through philosophy that science cannot teach us-- morality, justness, what it emotionally means to be human. Science cannot tell us this, because it is beyond the scope of prediction. (Psychology tries to figure out some aspects, but psychology itself barely flirts with science.)
But Sony doesn't see many of those fronts as a battle. Their movies compete with other movies, but they can pretty much expect that they'll get their share of the movie-going pie (unless they make crap nobody wants to see, unlike the crap that a lot of people want to see they make now). Same with the home electronics-- they get their share without it being a "war." A CD player will play CDs. You can go to a Sony movie one day and a Pixar movie the next.
The console market is a war because each one fights for marketshare. A PS2 game only works on a PS2. Same with Xbox. Most gamers purchase one and only one console, and so will purchase only that flavor of game. That's why it's a "war." They are fighting for turf, because they can't share the market.
Problem is, Microsoft is fighting too many of those sorts of turf wars. The other companies are not. Google does many things, yes; but those things are done in a single way, as web applications. Google is fulfilling the promise given us by Netscape many years ago-- the platform is irrelevant if you provide the applications via the web. And that's scary for Microsoft.
Sony, at least, is trying to do a great many things all at once, and is succeeding at most, if not all, of them.
*That* is the proper definition of success. Sony doesn't own any single one of the areas in which it competes (with the possible exception of the PS2, which is still dominant). But it's still successful.
Unfortunately, the Microsoft culture doesn't see things that way. It seems that for them, success is being the only one left standing.
Sounds kinda lonely to me.
Re:Microsoft Will Fail - Tales From The Inside
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Gates on Google
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Everyone said the company would be dead within the decade. That comapnies name? IBM!!!!
That IBM is not the IBM of today. IBM has successfully transformed itself from a hardware vendor with questionable sales tactics, to a service company with questionable sales tactics. I'm not sure what kind of service company they really are these days, but that is the focus of IBM's business.
If Microsoft is to survive, it's going to have to transform itself. They have been trying, but by concentrating on multiple fields (game console, search engine, phones, media, ISP, etc), they are spreading themselves too thin.
I've heard stories similar to the GP post. Microsoft doesn't know where to turn, doesn't have commitment to any single line. Unless they can find a new cash cow, they are going to have problems moving forward. PCs have pretty much stopped expansion (at least at the rates of the '90s), so MS-Windows and MS-Office aren't reeling in the dough like they used to. That's hurting their bottom line, which hurts the stock, which hurts the "market valuation."
It's not obvious to everyone yet, but it is to many: MS needs something new, and big, or its going to end up like IBM-- a (very large) service company that is at the whims of their customers, not a market-controlling monolith. The words and actions of Mr. Gates pretty much confirms this. Between Mac OS X, Linux, falling sales numbers, and an increasingly-disastisfied customer base, Microsoft is not on solid ground.
I'm most likely insane, but I recall this whole old-fashioned internet thang was designed, built, and expanded by tax dollars. Now these multi-billion dollar megacorps want to control access to this beast that was built by *ahem* THE GOVERNMENT?
Let me get this straight. They think that they have a God-given right to profit from a publically-built system, and the public which funded it, must go through them for access.
Well, exCUSE the fuck out of me if my heart fails to bleed for them.
Nevertheless, the value of the program is equal to the value of the time the programmers spent writing it. That value may be zero, because it would otherwise be spent watching TV.
Uhm... the development cost is equal to the time the developer put into it. The value may be much, much greater. For programs like Linux, Apache, Samba, and Mozilla products, that value is several orders of magnitude greater.
The GPL may not guilty of price fixing but it's most definitly the worst business model ever.
You aren't being imaginative enough. Stabbing yourself in the eyeballs on a streetcorner in Buffalo, New York in the middle of winter and calling it "Street Performance Art, toss your money in the hat" is the worst business model ever.
After all, didn't Microsoft get charged for monopoly when distributing their Internet Explorer free of charge?)
That was a Sherman Act thing-- using a monopoly in one area to push your way into another area. Microsoft's intent was to give IE away for the purpose of undercutting the existing market. This is what convicted them: they purpose of giving away IE was to destroy Netscape, and it was proven by emails, statements, and memos.
This is completely different-- the GPL is not a monopoly, it is a grant of copy rights, the grant given by the proper copyright owner for specific trade. The intent of the GPL is not to destroy competition. The GPL encourages competition by allowing anyone to distribute *any* GPL programs and / or code. It in fact provides a level playing field for everyone involved.
I like that idea, too; jail as a form of rehabilitation instead of a form of inadequate and expensive punishment.
I like your idea that such people be incarcerated until cured - of course what that means in the vast majority of these cases is a life sentence with no parole. How economically feasible is that?
Well, if we release all those people who are in jail for nothing more than possession of pot (not even with intent to sell, just posession), we'd have more than enough cash freed up for this sort of thing.
In creationism, YHWH created it all. In ID, there is an unknown, unseen designer who might be YHWH, but might also be Mongo Bongo, god of the congo.
And the difference is...?
In evolution, it is assumed a priori that random mutation is the only factor.
Please try to understand evolution before making false statements like this.
In evolution, ALL structures are assumed to be achievable by random mutation alone.
This is incorrect. First, mutation is not "random." The driving force is genetic diversity within a population, filtered through natural selection. The process of genetic diversification is not fully understood, and this leads a *lot* of otherwise-intelligent people to assume there is something fundamentally wrong with the theory of evolution through natural selection.
Secondly, the filtering via natural selection is hardly random either. There are definite driving forces behind the selection, but they are not "intelligent."
Life is a structure of the universe, guided by nothing more than other expressions of mathematics within the universe. Claiming divine intervention in the creation of life is like claiming the mostly-elliptical orbits of the planets, or the statistical decay of subatomic particles, are proof of God.
The platelet thing has been debunked so many times, I'm not going to repeat it here-- just look for "platelet behe." Or, here's a decent link.
But I would urge those ranting and raging to consider whether their oppositions to Intelligent Design is founded in a considered evalution kof the theory, or in a knee-jerk reaction against your perception of where it will lead?
My problem with intelligent design is that it relies on something more preposterous than random chance: it presupposes a divine being guiding the universe. Our inability to fully understand something does not necessitate a divine being. The existence of God is about a quadrillion times more unlikely than platelets evolving, fer crying out loud.
Finally, and I cannot scream this loud enough, ID IS NOT SCIENCE!!! There. I'd try to make it louder, but I'm in a library. ID enters into the argument with an agenda-- to "prove" the existence of God. In science, if God became a necessary part of the explanation, a scientist would think of certain necessary predictions based upon the existence of God, and design and perform experiments based upon those predictions.
Since God cannot be tested for in the universe, God is outside the realm of science. For all I know, there is a divine hammer in the universe. But, since I cannot test for God, nor can I make predictions based upon the "knowledge" of God, it is outside science altogether.
Saying "irreducible complexity is proof of Good" is just as cirular as saying, "The bible is proof of God." Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean God had a hand in it. It just means we're limited in either our knowledge or our capacity to understand.
I've read through their discussion and changelog, I think one more person coming along with "Shh! grownups are talking" will yet again be met with "if someone believes it for whatever reason, it's a valid opinion" line of thinking.
Yeah, it's a rather strange phenomenon. "Fair and balanced" means presenting both sides of a case, even when one side is obviously right (or at least more right), and one side is wrong. The John Titor case is one of those (obviously a very artful hoax). Intelligent Design vs. evolution is another. Both John Titor and Intelligent Design are attractive falsehoods (at least, attractive to some people). That doesn't make them right, or even viable.
I mean, if I claim that I have invisible aliens called Dvutels living in my attic...
Jesus, you've got those, too? How do you get rid of them? I've been using invisible Raid, but that ain't working.
"evil" Well I do not like to think that most people are just evil. Even if he is super greedy and or power hungry he would also have to be delusional to think that this will end well for him.
Well, the best definition of evil I have is this: "Willing to fuck over other people for personal gain." Seems like a decent definition.
I think that McBride is in this case to float SCO stock to line his own pockets. Seems like he sold off a lot when SCO's stock went through the roof at the beginning of this ordeal. This trial has already made him a richer man; whatever comes later is pure icing on the cake.
Believe whatever you may want about the basic goodness of humanity. It doesn't change the fact that he and his friends have profited from these shenanigans. If that is the purpose of this (which seems most likely), that makes him evil.
Our kids are growing up in a world where money solves all problems, and materialism is doled out in every finely-tuned propaganda-ridden commercial, every "business" news story, every TV show. It's no wonder our kids are selfish pricks when we ourselves are selfish pricks.
Is it any wonder our futilism infects our children to the point when they don't really care anymore, either? What's the point of growing up if it's just going to make them just like us? What's the point of that? Better to look out for #1. After all, that's what we preach in our business classes, our politics, our day-to-day lives.
Or, it could be that they're 15. That's a suck-ass age to be, in any generation.
Language is defined by the useage over time. Societies collectively define words. Many words you use every day started out with very different meanings. Deal with it, find a new word for "hackers" and move on.
Physicists still use the word "velocity" to mean both speed and direction, while the mainstream uses it to just mean speed. All scientists use the word "theory" to mean a tested hypothesis, while most people use it synonymously with hyptohesis.
I could go on with similar examples. We don't have to give up our name "hacker" to mean a coding guru, and cracker to mean a malicious coder. We are a subculture, and it is perfectly acceptible for us to use very tightly-defined words that the rest of socieity misuses. We do not have to accept their definitions just because everyone else uses it that way.
We do not have to participate in consensual stupidity.
So long as the market is regulated by consumer decisions and PRIVATE efforts at change, freedom reigns and the sovereign consumer will get what they demand.
This ideology breaks down in today's corporate condition. As we saw back in the 90's, Microsoft was in a position to regulate the market itself. Its regulation was much more targeted and efficient than the government could have *ever* been.
Plus, I'm not a consumer. I am a citizen, and I'm damned tired of being thought of as a consumer.
The ease of spreadsheet creation is the problem, not the solution. Yes, it allows non-computer-literate managers to create an analysis of a particular problem... but that analysis is often flawed, and it is nearly impossible (for any non-trivial spreadsheet) to figure out where the problem really lies.
I have met several people who claimed to be "computer experts" based solely on their Lotus 1-2-3 / Quattro Pro / Excel expertise. It's all well-and-good to create a spreadsheet; but just like computer programming, you need some sort of development and quality control methodology. Too often (like, in say 99.999% of the cases) there is a single user creating a single spreadsheet that eventually controls some aspect of the way a business is run. There is no quality review; there is merely a, "yeah, that number looks right" phase.
I've seen it too many times. It's endemic in business. I'm not surprised with the results of the study ("Spreadsheets considered bad"), though I'd rank the monetary valuation right up with the report I read 2 years ago, "Slow modems cost US businesses $4B yearly!").
And if everyone were lawyers, we would have sued each other out of existence by now. What's your point? My point is, we are *all* different, choose different paths, make different decisions. That is a *good* thing.
You cannot argue something is bad simply because it does not allow reproduction. There are many species that rely on non-reproducing members. Bees, for instance. Ants. It is not a biological imperetive to reproduce.
Social issues should not be determined by the ability or willingness to reproduce. Fuck, there are too many people reproducing as it is. As population pressures increase, I hope there are more gays. We should be encouraging people to be gay, fer christs sake.
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Where is the fossil record the the "partial wing"--the one that was growing but had yet to produce results?
What do you mean, "had yet to produce results"? Even a partial lift body would help in running and escape. Even a flap of skin between elbow and ribs would help glide.
They have found intermediate stages, and have been finding them for almost 50 years. So there they are. A recent one (with "proto-feathers") was recently found in Utah.
Where is the fossil record for the partial gil (sic)--the gil (sic) that didn't yet breath but was existing in order that some relatives would grow one that did work?
First, it'll be hard to find something like that in the fossil record, since gills are soft tissue. But, even today, there are sea-dwelling animals that have no gills, but instead have blood vessels very close the the surface of the skin. Evolutionarily-speaking, and device that would protect those exposed blood vessels would be an advantage. It's neither imporobable nor hard to imagine the staged evolution of the gill.
Mutations NEVER result in good changes in the near generation, and therefor the extended generation.
I assume you have proof of this?
In any case, there is growing evidence that genotypical drift within a population is not driven primarily by mutations. It appears possible that viruses do a substantial amount of genetic "cross-pollination" between species. Cool, huh?
So evolution remains only a fallible theory.
I'm not sure if you understand science at all (your statements make it doubtful), but all theories are fallible. Nothing in science is certain except our observations. Theories are made or broken by their predictive power (their "testability"), and evolution has stood up to a *lot* of testing.
Just like the whole mutation thing, there is lively debate about many of the processes of evolution. That doesn't make evolution itself incorrect.
Some better scientific explanation may come along some day. But ID is not it-- as the crux of ID is not testable. (How do you prove an "intelligent designer?" Humanity has been trying to prove the existence of God for a lot longer than they've been studying science.)
If you are going to enter into a scientific debate, at least come armed with science, and not rhetoric and dogma.
Effectively, you're forcing students to learn about one side of the debate while limiting access to the other.
It is a requirement in scientific debate that both sides of the debate restrict themselves to science. This debate is not a scientific debate, even if some scientists take part. ID is not scientific; therefore, it should not be taught in science class, even under the guise of "fairness."
Evolution is as proven as most other scientific theories. There are many debates about various mechanisms within evolution; but it is quite apparent that evolution itself occurs. It gets a "free pass" for the same reason the atom gets a free pass-- because years of evidence supports it, and the predictive nature of the model has held up.
People are free to believe whatever they way. That's what makes the US a great country. (In theory, at least.)
However, to call something that is not testable "science" is like calling haikus mathematics. (You can have a mathematical haiku, I'm sure.) The issue isn't with belief, or the suitability of evolution as a sufficient explanation for life on earth. The issue is ID is *not* science.
A poet with no background in math might claim the Pythagorean Theorem is riddled with holes, as well, but that doesn't make her right. You can have as many anti-Pythagorean Theorem non-math poets as you want, and that will *still* not change the fact that Pythagorus was right.
Group stupidity is still supidity, for all size groups.
And in the end, it really IS NOT hurting you if they do.
Yes. Yes it is.
Their belief is their belief. That's fine. But now they wish to destroy the process of science so they can get their pet belief taught in schools. This destroys any chance these kids have of learning science. Once you remove the fundamental basis of scientific study, you no longer have science, you have dogma and rhetoric.
I don't know about you, but I want my science to be pure science, and not laced with religious zealotry.
Either way, I don't see a problem with the definition of science as presented in the article. It sounds a lot like what I was taught in public school in New Mexico - a state not known for its conservative education policies.
The problem is with the poison pill ". . . to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."
The way it is phrased, you can use non-science to teach science. It paves the way for unscientific studies like intelligent design to be taught in science class.
There is already a perfectly good definition of science. They just don't like it because it excludes intelligent design.
A little nitpick-- Alice Walker doesn't write books like A Handmaid's Tale. She writes books like The Color Purple.
Margerat Atwood writes books like A Handmaid's Tale.
And I write books like A Handmaid's Tail.
Science is defended via hypothesis and experimentation.
And ninjas, and flying burning sharks, and really big guns.
The problem with this whole freakshow is that, by changing the definition of science, they get a whole bunch of kids who don't have a chance of understanding the fundamental concepts of science.
Not that most kids really understand science anyway; most of them (and subsequently most of the adult population) think that science is a collection of boring facts. They never stop to think how it is that we *know* these facts. (That's not even getting into the whole subject of "true enough until something better comes along.")
I.D. is a pseudo-science and should be adapted to be taught in a Philisophy (itself a pseduo science) class.
Philosophy is not a pseudo science. Science is a branch of philosophy-- specifically, science is a type of epistomology, the study of "how we know things."
Philosophy itself has a great and noble history, and we have learned many things through philosophy that science cannot teach us-- morality, justness, what it emotionally means to be human. Science cannot tell us this, because it is beyond the scope of prediction. (Psychology tries to figure out some aspects, but psychology itself barely flirts with science.)
Just thought I'd clarify.
But Sony doesn't see many of those fronts as a battle. Their movies compete with other movies, but they can pretty much expect that they'll get their share of the movie-going pie (unless they make crap nobody wants to see, unlike the crap that a lot of people want to see they make now). Same with the home electronics-- they get their share without it being a "war." A CD player will play CDs. You can go to a Sony movie one day and a Pixar movie the next.
The console market is a war because each one fights for marketshare. A PS2 game only works on a PS2. Same with Xbox. Most gamers purchase one and only one console, and so will purchase only that flavor of game. That's why it's a "war." They are fighting for turf, because they can't share the market.
Problem is, Microsoft is fighting too many of those sorts of turf wars. The other companies are not. Google does many things, yes; but those things are done in a single way, as web applications. Google is fulfilling the promise given us by Netscape many years ago-- the platform is irrelevant if you provide the applications via the web. And that's scary for Microsoft.
Sony, at least, is trying to do a great many things all at once, and is succeeding at most, if not all, of them.
*That* is the proper definition of success. Sony doesn't own any single one of the areas in which it competes (with the possible exception of the PS2, which is still dominant). But it's still successful.
Unfortunately, the Microsoft culture doesn't see things that way. It seems that for them, success is being the only one left standing.
Sounds kinda lonely to me.
Everyone said the company would be dead within the decade. That comapnies name? IBM!!!!
That IBM is not the IBM of today. IBM has successfully transformed itself from a hardware vendor with questionable sales tactics, to a service company with questionable sales tactics. I'm not sure what kind of service company they really are these days, but that is the focus of IBM's business.
If Microsoft is to survive, it's going to have to transform itself. They have been trying, but by concentrating on multiple fields (game console, search engine, phones, media, ISP, etc), they are spreading themselves too thin.
I've heard stories similar to the GP post. Microsoft doesn't know where to turn, doesn't have commitment to any single line. Unless they can find a new cash cow, they are going to have problems moving forward. PCs have pretty much stopped expansion (at least at the rates of the '90s), so MS-Windows and MS-Office aren't reeling in the dough like they used to. That's hurting their bottom line, which hurts the stock, which hurts the "market valuation."
It's not obvious to everyone yet, but it is to many: MS needs something new, and big, or its going to end up like IBM-- a (very large) service company that is at the whims of their customers, not a market-controlling monolith. The words and actions of Mr. Gates pretty much confirms this. Between Mac OS X, Linux, falling sales numbers, and an increasingly-disastisfied customer base, Microsoft is not on solid ground.
I'm most likely insane, but I recall this whole old-fashioned internet thang was designed, built, and expanded by tax dollars. Now these multi-billion dollar megacorps want to control access to this beast that was built by *ahem* THE GOVERNMENT?
Let me get this straight. They think that they have a God-given right to profit from a publically-built system, and the public which funded it, must go through them for access.
Well, exCUSE the fuck out of me if my heart fails to bleed for them.
Nevertheless, the value of the program is equal to the value of the time the programmers spent writing it. That value may be zero, because it would otherwise be spent watching TV.
Uhm... the development cost is equal to the time the developer put into it. The value may be much, much greater. For programs like Linux, Apache, Samba, and Mozilla products, that value is several orders of magnitude greater.
The GPL may not guilty of price fixing but it's most definitly the worst business model ever.
You aren't being imaginative enough. Stabbing yourself in the eyeballs on a streetcorner in Buffalo, New York in the middle of winter and calling it "Street Performance Art, toss your money in the hat" is the worst business model ever.
GPL is a distant 10th.
After all, didn't Microsoft get charged for monopoly when distributing their Internet Explorer free of charge?)
That was a Sherman Act thing-- using a monopoly in one area to push your way into another area. Microsoft's intent was to give IE away for the purpose of undercutting the existing market. This is what convicted them: they purpose of giving away IE was to destroy Netscape, and it was proven by emails, statements, and memos.
This is completely different-- the GPL is not a monopoly, it is a grant of copy rights, the grant given by the proper copyright owner for specific trade. The intent of the GPL is not to destroy competition. The GPL encourages competition by allowing anyone to distribute *any* GPL programs and / or code. It in fact provides a level playing field for everyone involved.
Propritary [sic] people will win either through law or through filthy business.
But then, you repeat yourself.
I like that idea, too; jail as a form of rehabilitation instead of a form of inadequate and expensive punishment.
I like your idea that such people be incarcerated until cured - of course what that means in the vast majority of these cases is a life sentence with no parole. How economically feasible is that?
Well, if we release all those people who are in jail for nothing more than possession of pot (not even with intent to sell, just posession), we'd have more than enough cash freed up for this sort of thing.
...what is the philosophy of science, more than applied metaphysics?
Epistomology?
In creationism, YHWH created it all. In ID, there is an unknown, unseen designer who might be YHWH, but might also be Mongo Bongo, god of the congo.
And the difference is...?
In evolution, it is assumed a priori that random mutation is the only factor.
Please try to understand evolution before making false statements like this.
In evolution, ALL structures are assumed to be achievable by random mutation alone.
This is incorrect. First, mutation is not "random." The driving force is genetic diversity within a population, filtered through natural selection. The process of genetic diversification is not fully understood, and this leads a *lot* of otherwise-intelligent people to assume there is something fundamentally wrong with the theory of evolution through natural selection.
Secondly, the filtering via natural selection is hardly random either. There are definite driving forces behind the selection, but they are not "intelligent."
Life is a structure of the universe, guided by nothing more than other expressions of mathematics within the universe. Claiming divine intervention in the creation of life is like claiming the mostly-elliptical orbits of the planets, or the statistical decay of subatomic particles, are proof of God.
The platelet thing has been debunked so many times, I'm not going to repeat it here-- just look for "platelet behe." Or, here's a decent link.
But I would urge those ranting and raging to consider whether their oppositions to Intelligent Design is founded in a considered evalution kof the theory, or in a knee-jerk reaction against your perception of where it will lead?
My problem with intelligent design is that it relies on something more preposterous than random chance: it presupposes a divine being guiding the universe. Our inability to fully understand something does not necessitate a divine being. The existence of God is about a quadrillion times more unlikely than platelets evolving, fer crying out loud.
Finally, and I cannot scream this loud enough, ID IS NOT SCIENCE!!! There. I'd try to make it louder, but I'm in a library. ID enters into the argument with an agenda-- to "prove" the existence of God. In science, if God became a necessary part of the explanation, a scientist would think of certain necessary predictions based upon the existence of God, and design and perform experiments based upon those predictions.
Since God cannot be tested for in the universe, God is outside the realm of science. For all I know, there is a divine hammer in the universe. But, since I cannot test for God, nor can I make predictions based upon the "knowledge" of God, it is outside science altogether.
Saying "irreducible complexity is proof of Good" is just as cirular as saying, "The bible is proof of God." Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean God had a hand in it. It just means we're limited in either our knowledge or our capacity to understand.
I've read through their discussion and changelog, I think one more person coming along with "Shh! grownups are talking" will yet again be met with "if someone believes it for whatever reason, it's a valid opinion" line of thinking.
Yeah, it's a rather strange phenomenon. "Fair and balanced" means presenting both sides of a case, even when one side is obviously right (or at least more right), and one side is wrong. The John Titor case is one of those (obviously a very artful hoax). Intelligent Design vs. evolution is another. Both John Titor and Intelligent Design are attractive falsehoods (at least, attractive to some people). That doesn't make them right, or even viable.
I mean, if I claim that I have invisible aliens called Dvutels living in my attic...
Jesus, you've got those, too? How do you get rid of them? I've been using invisible Raid, but that ain't working.
"evil" Well I do not like to think that most people are just evil. Even if he is super greedy and or power hungry he would also have to be delusional to think that this will end well for him.
Well, the best definition of evil I have is this: "Willing to fuck over other people for personal gain." Seems like a decent definition.
I think that McBride is in this case to float SCO stock to line his own pockets. Seems like he sold off a lot when SCO's stock went through the roof at the beginning of this ordeal. This trial has already made him a richer man; whatever comes later is pure icing on the cake.
Believe whatever you may want about the basic goodness of humanity. It doesn't change the fact that he and his friends have profited from these shenanigans. If that is the purpose of this (which seems most likely), that makes him evil.
Another explanation might be:
Our kids are growing up in a world where money solves all problems, and materialism is doled out in every finely-tuned propaganda-ridden commercial, every "business" news story, every TV show. It's no wonder our kids are selfish pricks when we ourselves are selfish pricks.
Is it any wonder our futilism infects our children to the point when they don't really care anymore, either? What's the point of growing up if it's just going to make them just like us? What's the point of that? Better to look out for #1. After all, that's what we preach in our business classes, our politics, our day-to-day lives.
Or, it could be that they're 15. That's a suck-ass age to be, in any generation.
Language is defined by the useage over time. Societies collectively define words. Many words you use every day started out with very different meanings. Deal with it, find a new word for "hackers" and move on.
Physicists still use the word "velocity" to mean both speed and direction, while the mainstream uses it to just mean speed. All scientists use the word "theory" to mean a tested hypothesis, while most people use it synonymously with hyptohesis.
I could go on with similar examples. We don't have to give up our name "hacker" to mean a coding guru, and cracker to mean a malicious coder. We are a subculture, and it is perfectly acceptible for us to use very tightly-defined words that the rest of socieity misuses. We do not have to accept their definitions just because everyone else uses it that way.
We do not have to participate in consensual stupidity.
So long as the market is regulated by consumer decisions and PRIVATE efforts at change, freedom reigns and the sovereign consumer will get what they demand.
This ideology breaks down in today's corporate condition. As we saw back in the 90's, Microsoft was in a position to regulate the market itself. Its regulation was much more targeted and efficient than the government could have *ever* been.
Plus, I'm not a consumer. I am a citizen, and I'm damned tired of being thought of as a consumer.
I've personally tried about a dozen times, and none of those installs worked correctly...
Uhm, I wouldn't admit that here. Makes people question your bona fides.
The ease of spreadsheet creation is the problem, not the solution. Yes, it allows non-computer-literate managers to create an analysis of a particular problem... but that analysis is often flawed, and it is nearly impossible (for any non-trivial spreadsheet) to figure out where the problem really lies.
I have met several people who claimed to be "computer experts" based solely on their Lotus 1-2-3 / Quattro Pro / Excel expertise. It's all well-and-good to create a spreadsheet; but just like computer programming, you need some sort of development and quality control methodology. Too often (like, in say 99.999% of the cases) there is a single user creating a single spreadsheet that eventually controls some aspect of the way a business is run. There is no quality review; there is merely a, "yeah, that number looks right" phase.
I've seen it too many times. It's endemic in business. I'm not surprised with the results of the study ("Spreadsheets considered bad"), though I'd rank the monetary valuation right up with the report I read 2 years ago, "Slow modems cost US businesses $4B yearly!").
If everyone was gay, we would not be reproducing.
And if everyone were lawyers, we would have sued each other out of existence by now. What's your point? My point is, we are *all* different, choose different paths, make different decisions. That is a *good* thing.
You cannot argue something is bad simply because it does not allow reproduction. There are many species that rely on non-reproducing members. Bees, for instance. Ants. It is not a biological imperetive to reproduce.
Social issues should not be determined by the ability or willingness to reproduce. Fuck, there are too many people reproducing as it is. As population pressures increase, I hope there are more gays. We should be encouraging people to be gay, fer christs sake.