republicans are more likely to base unscientific arguments on morality or religion, while dems try to back all of THEIR bad science with actual figures and data.
What a nut. If actual figures and data are used, then there is no abuse of science. You may not like the conclusions, but that's just tough for you.
Evolution isn't an explanation for the origin of the universe. It's not really an explanation for the origin of life, either. It's the scientific model that explains the history and diversity of life on Earth by means of mechanisms like random mutation and natural selection.
Actually, it includes all of that, and more.
And where did you get that from? I'll bet it came from some preacher who wouldn't know a scientific therory if he tripped over it. You certainly didn't get that from a biologist, or anyone else who actually knows anything about evolution.
fyngrz:
While I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that science and religion are fundamentally different, I also think you may still be missing toad3k's point.
Everything that you accept as true in science, but have not personally verified, involves a certain "leap of faith" on your part. Case in point:
When I read an article in a respected scientific journal, I assume that the paper has been peer-reviewed by competent experts in that field, and that the data described is not an outright fabrication. Recent events show that this is not always a valid assumption.
About 5 years ago, the respected medical publication "Journal of Reproductive Medicine" published a study out of Columbia University (one of the world's top research institutions) that apparently showed a link between human fertility and "directed prayer". The paper described detailed results, thorough statistical analysis, and appeared to have been properly peer-reviewed. Ultimately, the entire study proved to be a sham, and in fact no such experiment was ever performed.
In fact, the lead author of the paper turned out to be a con-man with a long record of fraud. Yet, a prominent scientific institution and a respected publication had been completely taken in, because a series of people had passed the paper on, trusting the other's word on faith. Of course, the fact that the fraud was eventually uncovered can be considered a triumph of the scientific method. And yet, nothing about this story was ever verified by me personally, one way or the other. I accept that the original study was a fraud because I trust the source of the exposé (the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). Trust and faith are basically the same thing.
In the end, you do have to trust somebody: maybe there is a vast conspiracy covering up the fact that there really are no stars, and we are all living in a gigantic planetarium.
Exactly. There is nothing mysterious about this. Demonstrating faith in the deities that the boss and his priests approve of has always been required for advancement in society.
For example, a recent Gallup poll http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=26611/ showed that most Americans would be more likely to support an African-American lesbian for president (are you listening, Condi?) than an atheist of any description.
This is true even in nominally atheistic societies: witness the worship of Stalin in the USSR, Mao in China and Kim Il-Sung in Korea.
and about the fact that the disease is easily preventable in junior-high-school girls
It's not easily preventable, and that is the whole point.
There's nothing easy about never having sex, never being raped, and never getting married to a man who unwittingly picked up HPV.
nowhere in my post did I profess to being a Christian
Nowhere did you profess to being an idiot, either. You didn't need to.
Ever read Brave New World? That's only about 100 years away. In a
thousand, no problem.
Re:The most likely scenario
on
Interstellar Ark
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The logical "crew" of an ark like this would be a dewar flask filled with frozen human embros. They can travel for centuries with no bordom or aging, would weigh almost nothing, and need no food or water for the trip. The ship would keep travelling until a suitable planet is found, then thaw a few thousand as a test group. If they are happy in their new home, they could thaw the rest, or send them on to the next place.
Of course, this would involve a highly automated ship, with AI-based nannies and teaching robots to raise the thawed kids. I think this should be achievable within a thousand years from now.
Of course, this raises the Fermi paradox: if we can do it, other more ancient civilizations in the galaxy could also. So where are they?
But they don't use the fundamental basis of all "real" science: controlled, repeatable experiments.
That's because any truly controlled experiment would necessitate comparing two groups of subjects that are identical but for the variable being studied. There is no way to this with people, so controlled experiments are impossible. Or at least unethical (cloning?).
Social "scientists" try to get around this by making arbitrary statistical assumptions, e.g. "we'll just assume that the six sociology grad students down the hall are representative of the population in general, just like we always do."
The kind of prediction you are talking about could be called "probabalistic guessing". You predict what you think other people are most likely to choose. The "free will" comes from them being able to choose actions even if you think them unlikely.
This has nothing to do with omniscience, where a deity always knows exactly what choices you and everyone else will make, along with the most chaotic consequences of those choices, centuries later.
For example, if Lee Harvey Oswald had decided to get steaming drunk one night a year before the Kennedy assasination, he might have tripped on the stairs and broken his neck. Then Kennedy might have lived longer, gotten the US out of VietNam sooner, which might have prevented Nixon's election, which might have prevented Watergate, Reagan, Bush, etc.
None of these consequences could have been predicted probabalistically on the night that Oswald didn't get drunk and break his neck. But an omniscient God would have known all these things, since by definition He knows everything. But if that is the case, then Oswald had no free will as to whether he would get drunk or not. Since God knew he didn't, that was that.
In summary, there exists omniscience or there exists free will. Not both.
If I were a masochist, I would choose the kick.
All such "He knows what choice you would make" arguments are
equally foolish. IF you have a choice THEN
--nobody else (including God) can predict what it will be ENDIF
The law was clearly intended to prohibit adults taking sexual pictures of children,
not children taking children pictures of children.
Those asshat judges delibrately distorted the intention of the law.
They were being responsible, and what they did was perfectly legal
(having sex and recording it entirely for their own benefit).
They were convicted for "maybe later doing something illegal" (showing
the photographs to others).
I teach an intro to robotics course and use this one:
http://www.pololu.com/products/pololu/0225/ It is powerful (Atmega8), complete with motor controller and
LCD display and cheap ($50 complete). You can program it in C using
WINAVR (free download) using any PC.
I've read the spec and I think you are wrong.
Every player has what amounts to a serial number in rom, and a corresponing key.
The whole idea was to prevent someone buying a player, removing the AACS chip,
and cloning it over and over without paying royalties. By revoking this particular
chip, all the fake players using it would be revoked. Anyone who bargain-hunted
by buying one of them would be screwed.
The people who tried and failed did not waste their time or energy.
It is impossible to work long and hard on anything without
learning a hell of a lot about the problem domain.
For example, in the first DARPA "Grand Challenge" to build an autonomous
vehicle, all the contestants failed miserably. But,
several of the failing teams did brilliantly the following year. Would they
have done so well the second year without the knowledge gained through "failure"
in the first?
I'm not trying to convince you of the truth of any of this only to defend christians who are said to be stupid
And you did this by quoting some of the silliest rubbish I've ever seen. If only those who
have been terrified into accepting - that memorizing nonsense will protect them from
torment in the afterlife - could step back and see just how silly they sound.
at the point of union (baptism) the existence of God is self-evident
Even if you could achieve such a thing, how would you know that you had?
And don't say it is "self evident". People
can convince themselves of pretty well anything, no matter how foolish
and ill-founded.
Also, baptism is just another silly ritual, like believing that munching a cracker is "eating the flesh of Christ".
They email you an unsigned postscript file A', which you print out for verification, and it looks just like your email. So you digitally sign it and email it to them
Why the f**k would you sign something that someone else created?
That's just plain stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
If by "fail miserably" you mean "can provide evidence of correctness, but upset my Sunday-School dogma" I would have to agree with you.
What a nut.
If actual figures and data are used, then there is no abuse of science. You may not like the conclusions, but that's just tough for you.
And where did you get that from?
I'll bet it came from some preacher who wouldn't know a scientific therory if he tripped over it.
You certainly didn't get that from a biologist, or anyone else who actually knows anything about evolution.
I have a Toyota and a Honda, both well over 200,000 miles and running like a dream. JohnnyGTO is full of shit.
fyngrz:
While I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that science and religion are fundamentally different, I also think you may still be missing toad3k's point.
Everything that you accept as true in science, but have not personally verified, involves a certain "leap of faith" on your part. Case in point: When I read an article in a respected scientific journal, I assume that the paper has been peer-reviewed by competent experts in that field, and that the data described is not an outright fabrication. Recent events show that this is not always a valid assumption.
About 5 years ago, the respected medical publication "Journal of Reproductive Medicine" published a study out of Columbia University (one of the world's top research institutions) that apparently showed a link between human fertility and "directed prayer". The paper described detailed results, thorough statistical analysis, and appeared to have been properly peer-reviewed. Ultimately, the entire study proved to be a sham, and in fact no such experiment was ever performed.
In fact, the lead author of the paper turned out to be a con-man with a long record of fraud. Yet, a prominent scientific institution and a respected publication had been completely taken in, because a series of people had passed the paper on, trusting the other's word on faith. Of course, the fact that the fraud was eventually uncovered can be considered a triumph of the scientific method. And yet, nothing about this story was ever verified by me personally, one way or the other. I accept that the original study was a fraud because I trust the source of the exposé (the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). Trust and faith are basically the same thing.
In the end, you do have to trust somebody: maybe there is a vast conspiracy covering up the fact that there really are no stars, and we are all living in a gigantic planetarium.
No, his sensation of touch and pain are pretty well normal. It is his coordination that is shot.
Exactly.
There is nothing mysterious about this. Demonstrating faith in the deities that the boss and his priests approve of has always been required for advancement in society.
For example, a recent Gallup poll http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=26611/ showed that most Americans would be more likely to support an African-American lesbian for president (are you listening, Condi?) than an atheist of any description.
This is true even in nominally atheistic societies: witness the worship of Stalin in the USSR, Mao in China and Kim Il-Sung in Korea.
There's nothing easy about never having sex, never being raped, and never getting married to a man who unwittingly picked up HPV. Nowhere did you profess to being an idiot, either. You didn't need to.
Ever read Brave New World? That's only about 100 years away. In a thousand, no problem.
The logical "crew" of an ark like this would be a dewar flask filled with frozen human embros. They can travel for centuries with no bordom or aging, would weigh almost nothing, and need no food or water for the trip.
The ship would keep travelling until a suitable planet is found, then thaw a few thousand as a test group. If they are happy in their new home, they could thaw the rest, or send them on to the next place.
Of course, this would involve a highly automated ship, with AI-based nannies and teaching robots to raise the thawed kids. I think this should be achievable within a thousand years from now.
Of course, this raises the Fermi paradox: if we can do it, other more ancient civilizations in the galaxy could also. So where are they?
But they don't use the fundamental basis of all "real" science: controlled, repeatable experiments.
That's because any truly controlled experiment would necessitate comparing two groups of subjects that are identical but for the variable being studied. There is no way to this with people, so controlled experiments are impossible. Or at least unethical (cloning?).
Social "scientists" try to get around this by making arbitrary statistical assumptions, e.g. "we'll just assume that the six sociology grad students down the hall are representative of the population in general, just like we always do."
Correct.
That is because absolute truth is a ridiculous concept.
All anyone can do is to try to get as close to the truth as possible, by gradually eliminating all the nonsense.
Such as dogmatic religion.
The kind of prediction you are talking about could be called "probabalistic guessing". You predict what you think other people are most likely to choose. The "free will" comes from them being able to choose actions even if you think them unlikely.
This has nothing to do with omniscience, where a deity always knows exactly what choices you and everyone else will make, along with the most chaotic consequences of those choices, centuries later.
For example, if Lee Harvey Oswald had decided to get steaming drunk one night a year before the Kennedy assasination, he might have tripped on the stairs and broken his neck. Then Kennedy might have lived longer, gotten the US out of VietNam sooner, which might have prevented Nixon's election, which might have prevented Watergate, Reagan, Bush, etc.
None of these consequences could have been predicted probabalistically on the night that Oswald didn't get drunk and break his neck. But an omniscient God would have known all these things, since by definition He knows everything. But if that is the case, then Oswald had no free will as to whether he would get drunk or not. Since God knew he didn't, that was that.
In summary, there exists omniscience or there exists free will. Not both.
If I were a masochist, I would choose the kick.
All such "He knows what choice you would make" arguments are equally foolish.
IF you have a choice THEN
--nobody else (including God) can predict what it will be
ENDIF
That's what "choice" means.
The law was clearly intended to prohibit adults taking sexual pictures of children, not children taking children pictures of children. Those asshat judges delibrately distorted the intention of the law.
They were being responsible, and what they did was perfectly legal (having sex and recording it entirely for their own benefit). They were convicted for "maybe later doing something illegal" (showing the photographs to others).
I take it English is not your native language.
I teach an intro to robotics course and use this one: http://www.pololu.com/products/pololu/0225/
It is powerful (Atmega8), complete with motor controller and LCD display and cheap ($50 complete). You can program it in C using WINAVR (free download) using any PC.
Especially when caused by Xenu.
I've read the spec and I think you are wrong.
Every player has what amounts to a serial number in rom, and a corresponing key.
The whole idea was to prevent someone buying a player, removing the AACS chip, and cloning it over and over without paying royalties.
By revoking this particular chip, all the fake players using it would be revoked. Anyone who bargain-hunted by buying one of them would be screwed.
The people who tried and failed did not waste their time or energy.
It is impossible to work long and hard on anything without learning a hell of a lot about the problem domain.
For example, in the first DARPA "Grand Challenge" to build an autonomous vehicle, all the contestants failed miserably. But, several of the failing teams did brilliantly the following year. Would they have done so well the second year without the knowledge gained through "failure" in the first?
If only those who have been terrified into accepting - that memorizing nonsense will protect them from torment in the afterlife - could step back and see just how silly they sound.
And don't say it is "self evident". People can convince themselves of pretty well anything, no matter how foolish and ill-founded.
Also, baptism is just another silly ritual, like believing that munching a cracker is "eating the flesh of Christ".
That's just plain stupid.
Wow. A well-reasoned essay in Slashdot. I must be dreaming.