If I said I had faith in my boss at work, you would assume that I'd seen good things from him in the past, hence I'd coem to trust him. If I said I had lost faith in someone, you would assume that something happened, not that I had randomly decided not to trust that person any more for no reason. But as soon as I say I have faith in God, people assume that for it to be true faith it cannot be based on evidence or it wouldn't be faith! How silly.
There is no evidence of any kind of the existence, or not, of God. Since your boss or that person you lost faith in are part of the normal physical universe its possible that your faith or not in them could be based on evidence or experience. Your faith in God cannot be based on evidence or experience or anything like that - its pure faith.
What I don't understand is why God is _looked_for_ outside of nature. Wouldn't this God work within nature also and not just outside of it? God of the natural _and_ the supernatural, if you will.
Well if god is ominpotent then it follows that he/she/it can influence the physical universe too - after all god is omnipotent. The point is though that there is no way to test wether or not god has done something. If god can do anything and everything its completely arbitrary what you attribute to him/her/it. This is why ID and creationism in general will never become a science, it simply isn't testable, and that's why the most frequent argument you hear against ID is that its untestable.
As for your original question of why it must be creationism vs evolution the answer is that the creationists have tried to create a false dichotomy by trying to equate their beliefs with science. There is no real conflict between the 2 - evolution doesn't say anything about wether there is or is not a god, that's left completely up to you.
First God, then reality, then the created, then evolution.
That's a religious belief, we don't know if god exists or created the universe or not. Religious beliefs shouldn't be taught in school.
Second Law of Thermodynamics: Randomness increases in a closed space without outside intervention. Take the universe as your closed space, there is no way that something as ordered as a living being will occur.
Uhh.. no. That's not the 2nd law of thermodynamics that's some creationist nonsense version. The real 2nd law of thermodynamics states that the total disorder of a closed system will always increase, it doesn't prevent the formation of localised order such as the Earth or living things.
I think the main problem with the arguments here is that people assume that only physical objects are created. For those of you who know programming, just like an object has variables and methods/functions that act on those variables, life has "variables" such as matter and energy and "methods/functions" such as gravity, time and space that act on the "variables". Yes, we are created, but so are the rules that act upon us such as time, space, gravity, etc. Once it is understood that everthing is created, it is easier to understand that God can create a reality without (which consists of matter/energy, time/space) without being affected by it. It then also makes sense that a God is never born into a reality and still considered God. If God did come into existence into a reality then the original creator of that reality would be the real God. Therefore, God must have existed outside of any reality and we have come into existence in the reality created by God.
More religion - nothing against it but you can't expect it to be taught in schools. Its your personal belief, nothing more.
Now for Evolution, it's a valid theory but it only works on living things. Nothing doesn't evolve into something.
True, which is why the hypothesised formation of life from non-living matter is a seperate scientific theory called 'abiogenesis'.
The dead do not evolve, and it is implausible that the living would arise from the dead while the Second Law of Thermodynamics was still in effect.
Huh?? The living arising from the dead? Are you talking about some horror movie you saw last night or something?
For the people that think that life will randomly occur given trillions of years, I would like them to explicitly do what it takes to form life through a pool of basic elements. Zap it with electricity if you think that's what it takes.
It takes a bit more than zapping it with electricity since its a chance occurance that occurred once among uncountable trillions and trillions of interactions. Replicating this in a lab is extremely difficult but some experiments have been done although nothing conclusive has been found yet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Or even better, run electricity through something that has died and see if you can bring it back to life.
What the..!!?? You watch way to many horror movies and know nothing about the science you're trying to criticise. Read up on what abiogensis actually theorises, it has nothing to do with Frankenstein.
Just another added note, to all of you clinging on to evolution being a theory, and not a belief.
from Stephen Hawking: "Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single repeatable observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."
Yes everything in science is a theory, nothing can ever be proven outright since there's always the possibility that some new evidence will come along and that's why its called the theory of evolution. 'Theory' in the scientific sense of the word (not the common colloquial usage which is more like a synonym of speculation or conjecture), ie. '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.' (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=theory).
So, I propose a theory based on a common belief, one which a large majority of the world has, and thus points to truth. The theory is: "God exists".
Just because a lot of people believe something doesn't make it true - we all believed the earth was flat for centuries for example. Science is based on evidence, not getting people to believe. A scientific theory can still be valid if no-one believes it as long as there's evidence to support it.
It cannot be disproven, and is thus as valid a theory as Evolution
No its not as valid as Evolution since evolution can be disproven and can be tested, making it a valid scientific theory. The idea that god exists or not is purely conjecture or faith and is not incompatible with Evolution since Evolution says nothing about wether god does or does not exist.
A bad one, perhaps, but a theory none the less.
Its not a theory in the scientific sense of the word, see above.
If he thinks that then he just hasn't looked very hard. Almost everyone who argues against ID does it on the basis that its not science, not some mis-representation that its Young Earth Creationism. I'd suggest he looks at the official statements from scientific and educational organisations for a start, but even on discussion board sites like this with nearly 2000 responses I doubt you'd find many trying to deride ID for being 'Young Earth' creationism.
How did that first "light-sensitive cell" evolve in the first place? By random chance? Do you realize the complexity of the molecules needed by a cell to be sensitive to light? How would these be randomly made?
The DNA could quite easily have mutated by random chance to form very, very simple (at first) light-sensitive cells. There is nothing to say this couldn't happen.
What about the other proteins in our DNA - afterall, that's all DNA holds, a map of proteins - how did the DNA magically mutate, time after time after time, to create these proteins which are so vital to our survival?
What are you asking here? How does DNA mutate? Read up on biology - its usually attributable to random radiation although there can be many causes. There's nothing magical about it.
Does it use the premise that an eye is a good thing? If so, how is this valid? A cell which can see light slightly better than another does NOT always imply that cell will have a higher chance of living. Sometimes, perhaps, but 100 million (or however many mutations were necessary to create our eyeball) in a row?
It turns out that being able to see (in some fashion or other) is always an advantage on earth, this hasn't changed in the last 100 million or 1 billion or whatever years.
I'm looking on this page (http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2 005/11/intelligent_des.html) and I can't find it, even doing a search and replace. I admit I didn't read the comments - just the blog entry. I don't see why the arguments of people who don't know what ID is relevant? How does it weaken the case against ID?
Why is it that proof of God was always looked for outside of nature? That any divine action must be "supernatural"? It seems like an unnecessary distinction.
Because god (at least as defined by most religions such as Christianity, Islam etc.) is omnipotent and omniscient, these to qualities are impossible within the natural universe. The distinction is not only necessary its 'by definition' of what god is.
Can you point out where? (yes I did read the blog BTW). All I see him do is mis-represent the arguments of opponents against ID. I have never heard anyone using the 'the earth couldn't have been created 10,000 years ago' argument against ID - not in the official statements from scientific and educational organisations debunking ID as a science, not in the various court trials surrounding the issue and not even here on slashdot.
For example, Darwinists often argue that Intelligent Design can't be true because we know the earth is over 10,000 years old. That would be a great argument, supported by every relevant branch of science, except that it has nothing to do with Intelligent Design.
Right there he's misrepresenting the arguments against ID. I've never heard or read anyone use that argument against ID (and I don't just mean here on slashdot), the main argument against ID is that it is not science which is correct and not mis-representation of anything.
This is not meant to be a flame either. But I think it's dangerous to apply some philosopher's definition of science to something like ID, since it could also be used to show that much bona fide science is "not science." This is especially true of Popper's falsifiability criterion, which has problematic application to many branches of science. As for Kuhn, a mischievous interpretation of his incommensurability argument could be used to support the teaching of ID in schools, since Kuhn's approach rejects the notion that any explanation purporting to be scientific is intrinsically more correct or valid than any other.
The idea that science must be falsifiable is not just some philosopher's personal view, its fundamental to the scientific method. If you remove the requirement for falsifiability then anyone could say anything, even things that are not testable such as 'an omnipotent flying spaghetti monster created this'. Since there is no way to test things like this it no longer meets the scientific method and is not science. Science is clearly defined by the scientific method (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Method) and not by some philosopher's personal opinion.
And we should exercise great care before using that stick to beat ID, however richly it deserves to be driven out of our schools and its supporters removed from public office.
There is no uncertainty about this - if its not testable or falsifiable its not science. There's nothing wrong with using this argument against ID, it is the reason why ID can't be taught in schools.
Most scientists' theories are treated with skepticism at first, despite having proof. See for yourself: http://www.einstein.caltech.edu/vol04_intro.htm remained skeptical in their responses to Einstein's recent work Even scientists having proof cannot convince other scientists. Why is that if science is based purely on truths? Scientists are people too, just like religious people. They too become emotional about their truths when someone else tries to show them they're incorrect.
Einstein didn't have 'proof' he had evidence in support of his theories, nothing in science can ever be proven because there's always the possibility of a new theory or evidence being found. Science sets the bar high on supporting evidence for new theories otherwise it would have no legitimacy - it'd swing from one half-baked theory to the next year-by-year. As it is a hypothesis has to have significant supporting evidence that has been independently repeated or verified before it becomes acceptable.
We have never seen the CREATION of a specialized cell from NOTHINGNESS.
Which is exactly what creationism/ID proposes.
Please note that in that context, I meant "everything" to mean everything in the realm of evolutionary science. The point was that evolutionary science only explains about 40%, yet you claim it explaisn EVERYTHING about how current species came to be.
Huh? 40%? Did you just pull that out of your arse? Why doesn't the evidence we have for evolution explain the development of organs such as the eye? What are you basing this on?
Yah, and religion X is better than religion Y because I think so also. Natural laws explain how atoms bond, how a book falls due to gravity. "Eye balls form due to pure chance and natural selection" is not natural law, it is an opinion.
Science is based on observations of the physical universe, not blind faith. Saying eye balls can be explained by evolution is supported by real scientific evidence.
how do all the many privately owned companies manage so well without access to the stock market then?
Because for whatever reason they already have enough capital available through private means. Some, actually many, companies see the need to open themselves up to investment by any member of the public because they can't get enough capital through private investors. This is just a fact of life - companies need capital to survive and there's nothing inherently evil about letting people voluntarily invest their own capital in those companies in the hope of getting a return.
If all companies were private you'd have a severely stunted economy in which companies could not properly grow or expand. Your dad's blue-collar job you mentioned probably wouldn't have existed. You'd also have a system where people have no way to make good on their money besides spending it immediately. Eg. I have $5000 that I'm not considering spending just yet. If I leave it in the bank with no interest it does nothing (in fact I'm losing money because of inflation) and its way too small to invest in property. I don't mind risking that much (I have a bit more in savings in the bank) but $5000 is too small an amount to buy a business (and I don't have time to run one anyway!). Why shouldn't I be allowed to buy a share in (an)other business(es)? They need and want the capital, I want an oppurtunity to do something with my money, to invest it.
with the cost of living nowadays, after all this "economic growth", it would take a high paying white collar job to enable somebody to achieve the same standard of living.
Economists say that things will adjust eventually (cost of living will increase in China/India/... which will make outsourcing less attractive) but I'm not so sure I buy their theoretical arguments when prices keep going up, salaries stagnate (do you honestly think you can live on "minimum wage" anywhere now?), and jobs get outsourced.
Economics is a lot more complex than just saying 'stock markets are evil' and 'trade with India/China is evil'. Its always a balance - stock markets enable efficient use of capital and economic growth, but they also expose the economy to more volatility and risk of a recession if a lot of people have their money in stocks. Trade with places like India and China brings cheap goods and services but at the same time they compete with Westerners for jobs in producing those goods and services.
Its naive, or perhaps a better word is ignorant, to think that the only way to run an election is the American Way with completely different voting methods in each state (dodgy Diebold machines, chads etc.) and partisan party officials in charge of the process. Take a look at how other democracies, such as Australia and Canada, do it and you might be surprised to see how resiliant they are to rigging. They are not guaranteed to be safe from rigging - no system is perfect but that doesn't mean that a rigged election is inevitable.
yet, no-one seems to be particularly hindered by the DRM in iTunes
Umm how do you know this? iTunes is successful but that doesn't mean they aren't missing out on a huge load of business because of their restrictions and incompatabilities. For example a while ago I remember wanting to download a particular song that was really popular at the time. Since all the ones on Limewire were fakes I decided I'd hang up my pirate's eye-patch and give legitimate downloading a go. First hurdle was that iTunes wasn't available here in Australia (they've launched here since then), second was that iTunes and the files you buy don't work on Linux. 'Oh well..' I sighed, 'I have a better idea anyway...'
and it thwarts pirates sufficiently to make the publishers comfortable
..so I jumped back on Limewire and this time searched only for videos of that song. I soon found a nice mpeg, extracted the audio into an mp3 in my collection (yes the quality was still ok) and now I have both an mp3 and a music video of the track. Even better when a buy an iRiver in a couple of weeks I can happily transfer this track to it without any incompatabilities or re-encoding.
So the moral of the story is not that I think piracy is right (I don't), just that DRM restrictions are a problem and millions of people are going to keep using P2P because of that. That's just the way the cookie crumbles in a free market, wether or not the music industry likes it.
Second point, another famous demo failure I will point out is the infamous "Windows 98 Blue Screen of Death" that Microsoft had back in the day trying to show it off
I don't see how this demo counts as a failure as it accurately demonstrated the typical user experience with that particular product.
if we get ion drives working well enough you could probably do here to Proxima in 5-10 years
Correct me if I'm wrong but Ion drives are just a method of propulsion, it doesn't cover the generation of the energy required, only how to properl the spacecraft with energy once its been generated. This means no matter how good Ion drive technology gets you still haven't solved the problem of where the energy originates, so you'd need to wait for the development of small, efficient (ie. good power-to-mass ratio) fusion generators or something like that.
Also Ion engines have extremely low thrust levels no matter what's powering them so it'd take a long, long time (probably years) to accelerate anything up to (or decelerate back down from) relativistic velocities.
just that the benefits he will receive will differ
Actually independantly finding a flaw in a well used piece of open source software (Linux Kernel, Samba, Apache etc.) would get you similar 'cred' and enhancement of job prospects, just as it does for MS software.
I don't have anywhere near 20 years experience either, but you don't have to be an absolute guru to spot FUD like that Microsoft 'study'. Setting up a secure Linux server is no more difficult, and probably a bit easier, than doing the same in Windows. But of course you need have a bit of experience in Linux, just like you needed a bit of Windows experience for your current job.
But what possible reason do I have for trusting the claims of Red Hat or Debian more? What research I can do is hardly reassuring. Remember Saturday's story here http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/31/081 2210&tid=172: researchers found 812 flaws in the Windows operating system, 2,328 problems in various versions of the Unix/Linux operating systems (Mac included)?
You can't be serious. Even if just counting vulnerabilities wasn't completely meaningless as a measure of security (it doesn't take account of severity or difficulty of exploitation which are the really important metrics) its still an apples-to-oranges comparison. Linux distros include way, way more software and components in their updates (everything from office suites, photo-editing programs to every server program you'd ever need to run an ISP) than Windows does (the OS, IE, OE and a few core services like DHCP, web and FTP). The inclusion of Mac (yes its unix-based but its a completely seperate OS) vulns. in the Linux stats is just the icing on the cake to make that probably the most stupid, biased security report you can get.
I can see some of your points in the rest of the article but if this is the kind of reasoning you're using to evaluate security then you need to have a serious rethink.
The interesting thing is that when talk turns to MP3s, iPods and CD-ripping most people will have some idea that its 'illegal' in some way. Almost no one will let this modify their behaviour in any way though. However when it comes to old analogue technologies most people will have no idea that there is anything illegal about what they're doing. Literally just about every Australian home has had a VCR in it since the things first became popular back in the 80s or whenever it was. They're necessary in a country with only 5 TV networks and no cable-TV until the 1990s. No one would seriously think they were doing something wrong by video-taping a TV show.
I remember a few months back a Christian school here in Sydney was reported in the media for their students voluntarily giving up all their 'burned' CDs and such because they'd been taught copyright infringement was immoral. They even pinned their CD-Rs to a wall or something like that to show that they were serious. However I bet that if I walked into any one of their houses their parents would still have one or more VCRs, would have had a VCR continuosly for many, many years and over that time all members of the family would have committed vastly more acts of copyright infringements by taping TV shows and fast-forwarding the ads than anything they did on their iPods or CD-Burners.
The ruling only stops ID from being fradulently pushed as a science. The judge explicitly stated that schools were free to discuss ID in a philisophy or religion class where it belongs. I don't understand how excluding things that aren't science from a science class amounts to not 'considering points of view'. After all science classes don't teach or discuss the ancient Egyptian creation myth, flat-earth theory or any number of other non-scientific points of view.
People need to learn to think critically
Exactly, and throwing out the scientific method (which is all about objectivity and thinking critically) and debasing science lessons to be an indoctrination in whatever religious beliefs happen to be in favour at the time is exactly the wrong way to go about this.
There are no 'two aspects' of evolution. The evolutionary processes that act on microbes over short period of times are the exact same ones that act on larger organisms over long or short periods of time. There is plenty of evidence for evolution over long time periods: (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/) and plenty of examples of radiation experiments that simulate the long-term action of evolutionary processes on complex organisms (ie. not just bacteria or single-celled organisms): The work of Herman Muller who was a pioneer in radation bombardment experiments: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/muller.html [talkorigins.org] http://www.aboutnuclear.org/view.cgi?fC=History,Ha ll_of_Fame,Hermann_Joseph_Muller [aboutnuclear.org] http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1946/ [nobelprize.org] (he received the Nobel prize for inducing mutations through radiation bombardment) Another example of mutation inducing experiments: http://www.ansinet.org/fulltext/jbs/jbs14269-271.p df [ansinet.org] (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:762TTjEpLBAJ: www.ansinet.org/fulltext/jbs/jbs14269-271.pdf+mull er+%2B+flies+%2B+radiation&hl=en [72.14.203.104])
There has been a lot of debate in the scientific community about exact mechanisms and processes by which evolution happens, and their 'speed'. However its a bit much to think that creationists are right about evolution over long periods, especially since the whole micro vs macro evolution thing that they have invented is a false dichotomy.
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If I said I had faith in my boss at work, you would assume that I'd seen good things from him in the past, hence I'd coem to trust him. If I said I had lost faith in someone, you would assume that something happened, not that I had randomly decided not to trust that person any more for no reason. But as soon as I say I have faith in God, people assume that for it to be true faith it cannot be based on evidence or it wouldn't be faith! How silly.
There is no evidence of any kind of the existence, or not, of God. Since your boss or that person you lost faith in are part of the normal physical universe its possible that your faith or not in them could be based on evidence or experience. Your faith in God cannot be based on evidence or experience or anything like that - its pure faith.
What I don't understand is why God is _looked_for_ outside of nature. Wouldn't this God work within nature also and not just outside of it? God of the natural _and_ the supernatural, if you will.
Well if god is ominpotent then it follows that he/she/it can influence the physical universe too - after all god is omnipotent. The point is though that there is no way to test wether or not god has done something. If god can do anything and everything its completely arbitrary what you attribute to him/her/it. This is why ID and creationism in general will never become a science, it simply isn't testable, and that's why the most frequent argument you hear against ID is that its untestable.
As for your original question of why it must be creationism vs evolution the answer is that the creationists have tried to create a false dichotomy by trying to equate their beliefs with science. There is no real conflict between the 2 - evolution doesn't say anything about wether there is or is not a god, that's left completely up to you.
First God, then reality, then the created, then evolution.
That's a religious belief, we don't know if god exists or created the universe or not. Religious beliefs shouldn't be taught in school.
Second Law of Thermodynamics: Randomness increases in a closed space without outside intervention. Take the universe as your closed space, there is no way that something as ordered as a living being will occur.
Uhh.. no. That's not the 2nd law of thermodynamics that's some creationist nonsense version. The real 2nd law of thermodynamics states that the total disorder of a closed system will always increase, it doesn't prevent the formation of localised order such as the Earth or living things.
I think the main problem with the arguments here is that people assume that only physical objects are created. For those of you who know programming, just like an object has variables and methods/functions that act on those variables, life has "variables" such as matter and energy and "methods/functions" such as gravity, time and space that act on the "variables". Yes, we are created, but so are the rules that act upon us such as time, space, gravity, etc. Once it is understood that everthing is created, it is easier to understand that God can create a reality without (which consists of matter/energy, time/space) without being affected by it. It then also makes sense that a God is never born into a reality and still considered God. If God did come into existence into a reality then the original creator of that reality would be the real God. Therefore, God must have existed outside of any reality and we have come into existence in the reality created by God.
More religion - nothing against it but you can't expect it to be taught in schools. Its your personal belief, nothing more.
Now for Evolution, it's a valid theory but it only works on living things. Nothing doesn't evolve into something.
True, which is why the hypothesised formation of life from non-living matter is a seperate scientific theory called 'abiogenesis'.
The dead do not evolve, and it is implausible that the living would arise from the dead while the Second Law of Thermodynamics was still in effect.
Huh?? The living arising from the dead? Are you talking about some horror movie you saw last night or something?
For the people that think that life will randomly occur given trillions of years, I would like them to explicitly do what it takes to form life through a pool of basic elements. Zap it with electricity if you think that's what it takes.
It takes a bit more than zapping it with electricity since its a chance occurance that occurred once among uncountable trillions and trillions of interactions. Replicating this in a lab is extremely difficult but some experiments have been done although nothing conclusive has been found yet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Or even better, run electricity through something that has died and see if you can bring it back to life.
What the..!!?? You watch way to many horror movies and know nothing about the science you're trying to criticise. Read up on what abiogensis actually theorises, it has nothing to do with Frankenstein.
Just another added note, to all of you clinging on to evolution being a theory, and not a belief.
.
m l
from Stephen Hawking: "Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single repeatable observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."
Yes everything in science is a theory, nothing can ever be proven outright since there's always the possibility that some new evidence will come along and that's why its called the theory of evolution. 'Theory' in the scientific sense of the word (not the common colloquial usage which is more like a synonym of speculation or conjecture), ie. '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.' (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=theory)
More Info: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.ht
So, I propose a theory based on a common belief, one which a large majority of the world has, and thus points to truth. The theory is: "God exists".
Just because a lot of people believe something doesn't make it true - we all believed the earth was flat for centuries for example. Science is based on evidence, not getting people to believe. A scientific theory can still be valid if no-one believes it as long as there's evidence to support it.
It cannot be disproven, and is thus as valid a theory as Evolution
No its not as valid as Evolution since evolution can be disproven and can be tested, making it a valid scientific theory. The idea that god exists or not is purely conjecture or faith and is not incompatible with Evolution since Evolution says nothing about wether god does or does not exist.
A bad one, perhaps, but a theory none the less.
Its not a theory in the scientific sense of the word, see above.
If he thinks that then he just hasn't looked very hard. Almost everyone who argues against ID does it on the basis that its not science, not some mis-representation that its Young Earth Creationism. I'd suggest he looks at the official statements from scientific and educational organisations for a start, but even on discussion board sites like this with nearly 2000 responses I doubt you'd find many trying to deride ID for being 'Young Earth' creationism.
How did that first "light-sensitive cell" evolve in the first place? By random chance? Do you realize the complexity of the molecules needed by a cell to be sensitive to light? How would these be randomly made?
The DNA could quite easily have mutated by random chance to form very, very simple (at first) light-sensitive cells. There is nothing to say this couldn't happen.
What about the other proteins in our DNA - afterall, that's all DNA holds, a map of proteins - how did the DNA magically mutate, time after time after time, to create these proteins which are so vital to our survival?
What are you asking here? How does DNA mutate? Read up on biology - its usually attributable to random radiation although there can be many causes. There's nothing magical about it.
Does it use the premise that an eye is a good thing? If so, how is this valid? A cell which can see light slightly better than another does NOT always imply that cell will have a higher chance of living. Sometimes, perhaps, but 100 million (or however many mutations were necessary to create our eyeball) in a row?
It turns out that being able to see (in some fashion or other) is always an advantage on earth, this hasn't changed in the last 100 million or 1 billion or whatever years.
I'm looking on this page (http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2 005/11/intelligent_des.html) and I can't find it, even doing a search and replace. I admit I didn't read the comments - just the blog entry. I don't see why the arguments of people who don't know what ID is relevant? How does it weaken the case against ID?
Why is it that proof of God was always looked for outside of nature?
That any divine action must be "supernatural"? It seems like an unnecessary distinction.
Because god (at least as defined by most religions such as Christianity, Islam etc.) is omnipotent and omniscient, these to qualities are impossible within the natural universe. The distinction is not only necessary its 'by definition' of what god is.
Can you point out where? (yes I did read the blog BTW). All I see him do is mis-represent the arguments of opponents against ID. I have never heard anyone using the 'the earth couldn't have been created 10,000 years ago' argument against ID - not in the official statements from scientific and educational organisations debunking ID as a science, not in the various court trials surrounding the issue and not even here on slashdot.
For example, Darwinists often argue that Intelligent Design can't be true because we know the earth is over 10,000 years old. That would be a great argument, supported by every relevant branch of science, except that it has nothing to do with Intelligent Design.
Right there he's misrepresenting the arguments against ID. I've never heard or read anyone use that argument against ID (and I don't just mean here on slashdot), the main argument against ID is that it is not science which is correct and not mis-representation of anything.
If it were possible on slashdot this should've been modded +10
This is not meant to be a flame either. But I think it's dangerous to apply some philosopher's definition of science to something like ID, since it could also be used to show that much bona fide science is "not science." This is especially true of Popper's falsifiability criterion, which has problematic application to many branches of science. As for Kuhn, a mischievous interpretation of his incommensurability argument could be used to support the teaching of ID in schools, since Kuhn's approach rejects the notion that any explanation purporting to be scientific is intrinsically more correct or valid than any other.
The idea that science must be falsifiable is not just some philosopher's personal view, its fundamental to the scientific method. If you remove the requirement for falsifiability then anyone could say anything, even things that are not testable such as 'an omnipotent flying spaghetti monster created this'. Since there is no way to test things like this it no longer meets the scientific method and is not science. Science is clearly defined by the scientific method (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Method) and not by some philosopher's personal opinion.
And we should exercise great care before using that stick to beat ID, however richly it deserves to be driven out of our schools and its supporters removed from public office.
There is no uncertainty about this - if its not testable or falsifiable its not science. There's nothing wrong with using this argument against ID, it is the reason why ID can't be taught in schools.
Most scientists' theories are treated with skepticism at first, despite having proof. See for yourself:
l
http://www.einstein.caltech.edu/vol04_intro.htm
remained skeptical in their responses to Einstein's recent work
Even scientists having proof cannot convince other scientists. Why is that if science is based purely on truths? Scientists are people too, just like religious people. They too become emotional about their truths when someone else tries to show them they're incorrect.
Einstein didn't have 'proof' he had evidence in support of his theories, nothing in science can ever be proven because there's always the possibility of a new theory or evidence being found. Science sets the bar high on supporting evidence for new theories otherwise it would have no legitimacy - it'd swing from one half-baked theory to the next year-by-year. As it is a hypothesis has to have significant supporting evidence that has been independently repeated or verified before it becomes acceptable.
We have never seen the CREATION of a specialized cell from NOTHINGNESS.
Which is exactly what creationism/ID proposes.
Please note that in that context, I meant "everything" to mean everything in the realm of evolutionary science. The point was that evolutionary science only explains about 40%, yet you claim it explaisn EVERYTHING about how current species came to be.
Huh? 40%? Did you just pull that out of your arse? Why doesn't the evidence we have for evolution explain the development of organs such as the eye? What are you basing this on?
Yah, and religion X is better than religion Y because I think so also. Natural laws explain how atoms bond, how a book falls due to gravity. "Eye balls form due to pure chance and natural selection" is not natural law, it is an opinion.
Science is based on observations of the physical universe, not blind faith. Saying eye balls can be explained by evolution is supported by real scientific evidence.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB921_1.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/3/part8.html
how do all the many privately owned companies manage so well without access to the stock market then?
Because for whatever reason they already have enough capital available through private means. Some, actually many, companies see the need to open themselves up to investment by any member of the public because they can't get enough capital through private investors. This is just a fact of life - companies need capital to survive and there's nothing inherently evil about letting people voluntarily invest their own capital in those companies in the hope of getting a return.
If all companies were private you'd have a severely stunted economy in which companies could not properly grow or expand. Your dad's blue-collar job you mentioned probably wouldn't have existed. You'd also have a system where people have no way to make good on their money besides spending it immediately. Eg. I have $5000 that I'm not considering spending just yet. If I leave it in the bank with no interest it does nothing (in fact I'm losing money because of inflation) and its way too small to invest in property. I don't mind risking that much (I have a bit more in savings in the bank) but $5000 is too small an amount to buy a business (and I don't have time to run one anyway!). Why shouldn't I be allowed to buy a share in (an)other business(es)? They need and want the capital, I want an oppurtunity to do something with my money, to invest it.
with the cost of living nowadays, after all this "economic growth", it would take a high paying white collar job to enable somebody to achieve the same standard of living.
Economists say that things will adjust eventually (cost of living will increase in China/India/... which will make outsourcing less attractive) but I'm not so sure I buy their theoretical arguments when prices keep going up, salaries stagnate (do you honestly think you can live on "minimum wage" anywhere now?), and jobs get outsourced.
Economics is a lot more complex than just saying 'stock markets are evil' and 'trade with India/China is evil'. Its always a balance - stock markets enable efficient use of capital and economic growth, but they also expose the economy to more volatility and risk of a recession if a lot of people have their money in stocks. Trade with places like India and China brings cheap goods and services but at the same time they compete with Westerners for jobs in producing those goods and services.
Its naive, or perhaps a better word is ignorant, to think that the only way to run an election is the American Way with completely different voting methods in each state (dodgy Diebold machines, chads etc.) and partisan party officials in charge of the process. Take a look at how other democracies, such as Australia and Canada, do it and you might be surprised to see how resiliant they are to rigging. They are not guaranteed to be safe from rigging - no system is perfect but that doesn't mean that a rigged election is inevitable.
yet, no-one seems to be particularly hindered by the DRM in iTunes
..so I jumped back on Limewire and this time searched only for videos of that song. I soon found a nice mpeg, extracted the audio into an mp3 in my collection (yes the quality was still ok) and now I have both an mp3 and a music video of the track. Even better when a buy an iRiver in a couple of weeks I can happily transfer this track to it without any incompatabilities or re-encoding.
Umm how do you know this? iTunes is successful but that doesn't mean they aren't missing out on a huge load of business because of their restrictions and incompatabilities. For example a while ago I remember wanting to download a particular song that was really popular at the time. Since all the ones on Limewire were fakes I decided I'd hang up my pirate's eye-patch and give legitimate downloading a go. First hurdle was that iTunes wasn't available here in Australia (they've launched here since then), second was that iTunes and the files you buy don't work on Linux. 'Oh well..' I sighed, 'I have a better idea anyway...'
and it thwarts pirates sufficiently to make the publishers comfortable
So the moral of the story is not that I think piracy is right (I don't), just that DRM restrictions are a problem and millions of people are going to keep using P2P because of that. That's just the way the cookie crumbles in a free market, wether or not the music industry likes it.
That's one of the better refutations of zero-sum economics I've seen on slashdot.
Second point, another famous demo failure I will point out is the infamous "Windows 98 Blue Screen of Death" that Microsoft had back in the day trying to show it off
I don't see how this demo counts as a failure as it accurately demonstrated the typical user experience with that particular product.
if we get ion drives working well enough you could probably do here to Proxima in 5-10 years
Correct me if I'm wrong but Ion drives are just a method of propulsion, it doesn't cover the generation of the energy required, only how to properl the spacecraft with energy once its been generated. This means no matter how good Ion drive technology gets you still haven't solved the problem of where the energy originates, so you'd need to wait for the development of small, efficient (ie. good power-to-mass ratio) fusion generators or something like that.
Also Ion engines have extremely low thrust levels no matter what's powering them so it'd take a long, long time (probably years) to accelerate anything up to (or decelerate back down from) relativistic velocities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_drive
just that the benefits he will receive will differ
Actually independantly finding a flaw in a well used piece of open source software (Linux Kernel, Samba, Apache etc.) would get you similar 'cred' and enhancement of job prospects, just as it does for MS software.
I don't have anywhere near 20 years experience either, but you don't have to be an absolute guru to spot FUD like that Microsoft 'study'. Setting up a secure Linux server is no more difficult, and probably a bit easier, than doing the same in Windows. But of course you need have a bit of experience in Linux, just like you needed a bit of Windows experience for your current job.
But what possible reason do I have for trusting the claims of Red Hat or Debian more? What research I can do is hardly reassuring. Remember Saturday's story here http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/31/081 2210&tid=172: researchers found 812 flaws in the Windows operating system, 2,328 problems in various versions of the Unix/Linux operating systems (Mac included)?
You can't be serious. Even if just counting vulnerabilities wasn't completely meaningless as a measure of security (it doesn't take account of severity or difficulty of exploitation which are the really important metrics) its still an apples-to-oranges comparison. Linux distros include way, way more software and components in their updates (everything from office suites, photo-editing programs to every server program you'd ever need to run an ISP) than Windows does (the OS, IE, OE and a few core services like DHCP, web and FTP). The inclusion of Mac (yes its unix-based but its a completely seperate OS) vulns. in the Linux stats is just the icing on the cake to make that probably the most stupid, biased security report you can get.
I can see some of your points in the rest of the article but if this is the kind of reasoning you're using to evaluate security then you need to have a serious rethink.
The interesting thing is that when talk turns to MP3s, iPods and CD-ripping most people will have some idea that its 'illegal' in some way. Almost no one will let this modify their behaviour in any way though. However when it comes to old analogue technologies most people will have no idea that there is anything illegal about what they're doing. Literally just about every Australian home has had a VCR in it since the things first became popular back in the 80s or whenever it was. They're necessary in a country with only 5 TV networks and no cable-TV until the 1990s. No one would seriously think they were doing something wrong by video-taping a TV show.
I remember a few months back a Christian school here in Sydney was reported in the media for their students voluntarily giving up all their 'burned' CDs and such because they'd been taught copyright infringement was immoral. They even pinned their CD-Rs to a wall or something like that to show that they were serious. However I bet that if I walked into any one of their houses their parents would still have one or more VCRs, would have had a VCR continuosly for many, many years and over that time all members of the family would have committed vastly more acts of copyright infringements by taping TV shows and fast-forwarding the ads than anything they did on their iPods or CD-Burners.
The ruling only stops ID from being fradulently pushed as a science. The judge explicitly stated that schools were free to discuss ID in a philisophy or religion class where it belongs. I don't understand how excluding things that aren't science from a science class amounts to not 'considering points of view'. After all science classes don't teach or discuss the ancient Egyptian creation myth, flat-earth theory or any number of other non-scientific points of view.
People need to learn to think critically
Exactly, and throwing out the scientific method (which is all about objectivity and thinking critically) and debasing science lessons to be an indoctrination in whatever religious beliefs happen to be in favour at the time is exactly the wrong way to go about this.
There are no 'two aspects' of evolution. The evolutionary processes that act on microbes over short period of times are the exact same ones that act on larger organisms over long or short periods of time. There is plenty of evidence for evolution over long time periods: (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/)l [talkorigins.org]a ll_of_Fame,Hermann_Joseph_Muller [aboutnuclear.org]p df [ansinet.org] (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:762TTjEpLBAJ: www.ansinet.org/fulltext/jbs/jbs14269-271.pdf+mull er+%2B+flies+%2B+radiation&hl=en [72.14.203.104])
and plenty of examples of radiation experiments that simulate the long-term action of evolutionary processes on complex organisms (ie. not just bacteria or single-celled organisms):
The work of Herman Muller who was a pioneer in radation bombardment experiments:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/muller.htm
http://www.aboutnuclear.org/view.cgi?fC=History,H
http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1946/ [nobelprize.org] (he received the Nobel prize for inducing mutations through radiation bombardment)
Another example of mutation inducing experiments:
http://www.ansinet.org/fulltext/jbs/jbs14269-271.
There has been a lot of debate in the scientific community about exact mechanisms and processes by which evolution happens, and their 'speed'. However its a bit much to think that creationists are right about evolution over long periods, especially since the whole micro vs macro evolution thing that they have invented is a false dichotomy.