The entire point is that context matters: what might be the "proper" temperature for coffee served in an open ceramic cup on a table is ultrahot for coffee served in a closed, insulated, flimsy container to a customer in a moving vehicle.
And yet she received a multi-million dollar punitive award from the jury along with medical expenses.
Which was substantially reduced subsequently. But it is certainly understandable that a jury might feel that a large penalty is necessary to punish a big, wealthy corporation sufficiently to induce them to alter their practices.
And you do realize that we are talking about a 20 degree F temperature difference between McDonald's and their competitors, right?
Once again, it depends upon context. There are circumstances in which 20 degrees can literally be the difference between life and death. I can tell you that 90 degree weather does not feel only slightly less comfortable than 110 degree weather. Look at death rates during heat waves when considering whether 20 degrees is inconsequential. Survival time in the water is drastically lower at 60 degrees than at 80. And the danger of frostbite and hypothermia is much greater in 10 degree weather than 30 degree weather.
In point of fact, the lady did a stupid thing. Since water boils at 212F, I would expect coffee could be served anywhere up to that temperature and therefore I would never place a flimsy foam cup near my balls in a car.
Assertions about the "proper" serving temperature for coffee are pretty much irrelevant. Yes, under normal home or restaurant serving conditions in which coffee is served in an open, noninsulated ceramic cup to be placed on a stable table, it makes sense to serve it very hot. After all, it is subject to rapid cooling by evaporation, so it is probably already significantly cooler when it gets to the table. If it is still too hot, the diner can just wait a moment while the coffee sits safely on the table.
But Macdonalds is serving the coffee in an insulated cup with a lid. That means it cools only very slowly. And who decided that the ultrahot coffee should be served in a flimsy foam cup that gets soft when the contents are really hot? Macdonalds. And considering that they were serving it to drive-through customers who were going to be holding that soft foam cup in a moving vehicle (minimally moving far enough to exit the drive-through lane) over their laps, Macdonalds surely knew that spills and lap burns were inevitable. Even then, the court only found Macdonalds to be partially responsible for the woman's injuries, with the woman herself bearing a share of the blame.
There have a number of attempts to substantiate an autism-vaccination connection this by case-control studies or examining whether diagnosis of developmental disorders changes when vaccination rates or the use of mercury preservatives changes. In general, these studies have found little association, so it looks like this is not a major factor in autism. It may be just that the time when early symptoms of autism appear is close to the time at which vaccinations are normally given.
Is this an evolutionary restraint on nerds breeding?
Quite possibly. The question can be raised, "Why aren't people getting smarter?"
There doesn't seem to be any prominent evolutionary trend toward increased intelligence, despite naive notions of future humans with big heads. It seems more likely that human intelligence is close to steady-state. Very likely, there are disadvantages (at least in terms of the kind of thing that matters to evolution, namely having a lot of kids) to very high intelligence that balance the advantages. Whether an increasingly technological world has changed that balance remains to be seen.
And how again does that have anything to do with the creative quality of the film, which was written and directed by Pixar?
That is precisely my point. What it had to do with the quality of the films was that Disney chose to do a full theatrical sequel, written and directed by Pixar, instead of one of their usual third-rate follow-ups (which they could have done without Pixar's involvement since they owned the rights to the characters).
Maybe I need to spell the point out a bit for you:
When Pixar was a separate company, Pixar features were an exception to Disney's normal practice of releasing low-quality direct-to-video sequels to cash in on successful Disney features. This raises the question of whether, now that Pixar will be a division of Disney, Pixar features will continue to enjoy this level of special treatment (and the Pixar division will continue to enjoy this level of artistic control), or whether Disney will now revert to its customary practices when it comes to Pixar sequels.
The only thing unusable is tha you're attributing the sequel to disney when they had nothing to do with it.:)
You mean, aside from authorizing its production (Disney owns the rights to the characters) and distributing it under the Disney brand name?
Disney and sequels--bad business
on
Toy Story 3 Scrapped
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Toy Story 2 was something very unusual for Disney--a sequel that was actually good. Their usual practice is to follow up a great animated film with an utterly crappy direct-to-video release. Perhaps they fell into this habit as a result of their fairy tale films; there's not much chance of making a good sequel to "Beauty & the Beast" or "The Little Mermaid." But Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote dozens of sequels to Tarzan, all of them pretty good; there was no reason why Tarzan 2 had to be crap. Nor was there any reason why Casper the Friendly Ghost 2 had to be crap. Either one of these could have had a strong sequel. Running strong properties into the ground like this is simply bad business.
Of course, string theory may be right. The philosophical problem is that many of our best minds are spending all their time on a theory that can't be proven or disproven with current technology.
You bring up a chicken and egg problem--one has to spend time on a theory to figure out what it does predict and devise ways of testing it. In practice, physicists often spend time thinking about theories that cannot be proven, and this often serves as a spur for development of new technologies. Working out the predictions of a complex theory can take decades; indeed, new and often surprising predictions of quantum theory are still emerging.
The problem is making success over these diseases last.
Polio was virtually wiped out, yet has been returning in countries like Bangladesh, where infrastructure is decaying or non-existent, for waste disposal and clean water. You can innoculate all the children, assuming some backward holy man doesn't frighten mothers into keeping their children away from the free clinic, accusing you of trying to sterilize their children, but if you haven't done anything about the state people live in then you've only postponed the problem.
For a lot of nasty 3rd world parasitic diseases that should only be our biggest worry. In many cases, the problem is not that people won't accept the therapy, but that no good therapy is available.
People rarely have absolutely pure motives for doing good things. Still, there are many things that Gates could have done that would have reaped more publicity and goodwill among those who purchase his products. It appears that he is approaching philanthropy with the same single-mindedness he that he brought to making Microsoft preeminent. He seems to be genuinely targeting those areas where his money will do the most to help people, such as 3rd world diseases that tend to be neglected by government-funded research and industrial drug development.
That was the "few thousand years of mathematical thought" that were tossed out.
Actually, the idea tht mathematics could be completely axiomatized in such a way as prove its own validity was itself fairly recent at the time; it is generally attributed Hilbert, who was a rough contemporary of Godel.
Yeah, until some smartass like Gödel comes along and proves that any sufficiently powerful system is self-inconsistent, thus throwing out a few thousand years of mathematical thought.
Except that Gödel proved no such thing. What he proved is that it is impossible to prove that a system is consistent from within the system and that any consistent system must contain statements that are true but that cannot be proved to be true within the system.
It didn't throw out "a few thousand years of mathematical thought." All it did was dash the hopes of some mathematicians that a mathematical system could "lift itself up by its bootstraps" (prove its own consistency) or be absolutely complete (prove the truth or falsity of every proposition that can be framed within the system).
So not everything can be proved, but there are plenty of things that can be proved in mathematics. Gödel's theorem being one of them.
For most purposes, the key question for most users is not going to be how fast it is really, but how fast it "feels," in practice, say watching a QT movie with maybe a browser loading a couple of windows in the background and a Spotlight search in progress.
The OS X seems to be pretty good at spreading the load of multiple programs and the OS across processors. I remember that the dual 450 MHz Macs seemed dramatically snappier that the 800 MHz iBook, even though in most tests the iBook would come out ahead.
It's early yet. Besides, I don't really want to run Windows on it--I want to run Windows applications on it, ideally in Mac-style windows that can interleave with OS X windows, and preferably with the menu bar at the top of the screen instead of at the top of the window.
So I'm much more interested in Windows non-emulators like WINE.
My point is that its not obvious to alot of people, thats why you see people acting like its the "truth"
I am sure that there are a lot of things that are not obvious to people who didn't pay attention in school. But every science course I have ever seen teaches the scientific method, the fact that science does not claim to be a route to absolute truth, and the fact that many ideas that were once believed to be true are now known to be incorrect. That being said, the evidence for evolution is sufficiently persuasive that a person who announces "I don't believe in evolution" will deservedly by regarded by scientifically literate people with the same incredulity as a person who announces, "I don't believe in gravity."
Would adding "We are not sure if Evolution is correct but its generally understood to be the leading scientific thought." be dangerous? Because its wrong? Because it makes it look "weak"? Because "other's aren't doing it, so why should we"?
Because to be fair, and avoid giving the false impression that evolution in particularly in doubt compared to scientific knowledge, we would have to also say "We are not sure if atoms exist, but its generally understood to be the leading scientific thought" and "We are not sure if gravity exists, but its generally understood to be the leading scientific thought," and so forth for every single bit of scientific knowledge. Which would be a waste of valuable educational time, considering that all of that is explained up front in basic science classes anyway.
Ok, I continue and actively on a on-going basis to look at human interaction and human history for new ways to test and challenge the axioms originating from my religous text; which I still find they hold true, so far. Now does that make me a scientist performing science?
It could be. People certainly do scientific studies to test historical claims derived from ancient texts, including religious ones. Whether it constitutes science would depend upon how well you do it and whether it meets basic scientific standards. Are the hypotheses scientific (i.e. falsifiable)? Is the logic valid? Are the conclusions based on the data? Etc.
Look how many people will defend evolution, even though strictly speaking, they need to post-fix each sentence with ", maybe.".
In science, all knowledge is provisional, so it is belaboring the obvious to say, "The earth orbits around the sun maybe", or "F = MA maybe." This was one of the most telling points that the judge made in the Dover trial. Because all science is provisional, attaching a disclaimer to evolution, and not to other statements of scientific knowledge, gives the false impression that evolution is somehow more subject to doubt than other scientific knowledge.
Look how science is taught, with the assumption that everything written in the textbooks are true.
Every science course I ever took began with an explanation of the scientific method.
Look how people will base their scientific careers and life-work on things that may or may not be correct.
Every scientist does that. So what? It is the only workable way of doing science that anybody has ever found. The people who go into science are the ones who find that fundamental uncertainty exciting and inspiring. It is not what is known that attracts people to science; it is what is not known. Those who are uncomfortable with living among the shifting sands of scientific knowledge should go into fields such as mathematics, where true proof exists, or into religion, where faith does not require evidence.
I have the Old Testement/New Testement/Koran/"insert any religous text", which is a set of recorded assumptions. I base theories from these assumptions. From observation of human interactions and from human history I think that the validity of these assumptions remain true. Am I a scientist performing science?
No because you are leaving out the part about continually seeking ways to test and challenge these assumptions. For a scientist, nothing is more exciting that finding a way to challenge and test something that he or she has always previously been forced to take as an assumption.
Unfortunately, its validity has nothing to with your emotional reaction.
"Nothing is proven in science, but we assume it is and act like it."
I think that most scientists are aware that all scientific knowledge is provisional. Even fundamental theories are continually challenged. For example, there are current theories that challenge whether gravitation really actually follows an inverse square law.
This is used because "Science needs to move forward with certain assumptions." which is the equivant of saying "We can't prove God exists but lets go to church on Sunday and do other things as if God did.".
All reasoning is contingent upon assumptions; all knowledge is of the form: IF {assumptions} THEN {conclusions}. Even the notion that their is a reality outside our own minds is fundamentally an assumption. What sets science apart is that scientists attempt to keep track of their assumptions, to remember that all conclusions are contingent upon those assumptions, and to constantly search for means of testing the validity of those assumptions.
Macro-evolution is NOT micro-evolution on a larger scale, and cannot be explained by micro-evolution over a long period of time. By "cannot be explained" I actually mean that it was formerly explained that way until the fossil record showed that macro changes occur suddenly, not gradually. Now evolutionary "scientists" have various theories for what triggers these changes.
Actually, modern DNA studies have confirmed the prediction that macro-evolution is simply microevolution on a large scale. The prediction of evolutionary theory is that all differences among species will turn out to be due varying quantities of the sort of "micro" genetic changes that have been shown to occur by mutation. Many genomes have now been sequenced, and so far that prediction has held up perfectly.
His theory was that God created a few, or one, initial organisms, and that everything else evolved from them by the mechanisms he described. By what we know now, that seems naive, but it was a coherant theory. But now, in the interest of making it a purely naturalistic theory, "scientists" actually try to explain the origins of the first cells in terms of molecules "evolving" into them. As this kind of evolution pre-supposes the ability to reproduce and pass along genetic coding to its offspring, ability that by definition, a pre-organism does not have. This "scientific theory" can therefore only be believed by the delusional.
Darwin understood that you cannot make a scientific theory about God. His theory did not address whether or not God created the initial organisms--it only addressed how organisms have changed over time. Nor did Darwin's theory include anything about a particular kind of genetic material--indeed, Darwin had never heard of genetics. Darwin did predict that there had to be some sort of mechanism for passing down changes undiluted from generation to generation, and the discovery of DNA-based inheritance is perhaps one of the most dramatic confirmations of a theory's predictions in the history of science. But all that evolution requires is some mechanism of inheritance. All models of the origin of life take this into account. There are several such models, and none has yet reached the level of near-universal scientific acceptance that evolution has attained, but all of them include a mechanism (not necessarily DNA-based) for proto-organisms to pass down traits from generation to generation.
But exactly what I mean - now regardless of what I believe about continental drift and whatnot, an experiment that shows continental drift does not PROVE that all of the land was once gathered in the same mass. The problem with it is that you do not know what occurred in the past unless you have an observable experiment. Micro-Continental Drift is a great theory because there is proof and experiments to back it up. Not that Macro-Continental Drift is a bad theory, it just can't be backed up as much.
Actually, nothing is ever "proved" to be true in science. Proof is for mathematics, science is about disproof. Theories are disproved by logically and mathematically predicting consequences of a theory, and then checking those predictions by observation. So continental drift makes numerous predictions about things like current movement of continents, magnetism in rocks, etc. The fact that so many of those predictions have been checked, and that the results have failed to disprove the theory, is what causes scientists to regard some theories, such as gravitation, evolution, or continental drift, as particularly strong.
A very well-reasoned post, and your conclusions are inescapable--except for one thing. Intelligent Design is falsifiable, thus is science, and thus should be taught in the classroom.
Interesting claim, considering that in the Dover court case, none of the ID "experts" were able to suggest any even vaguely experiment capable of falsifying ID. Demonstrating evolution in any kind of experimental system obviously does not falsify ID, because ID does not exclude the possibility that some things could have evolved. Indeed, ID advocate Behe apparently believes that what was "intelligently designed" was some kind of microorganism, and that everything evolved from that. So no matter what kind of experimental demonstration of evolution is provided, the ID advocate can always respond, "OK, so maybe that can evolve, but {insert something else} is intelligently designed." It is this kind of all-purpose "out" that renders a theory unfalsifiable.
While it may seem counterintuitive, patents have actually increased translation of basic research to pharmaceutical drug development. The reason is quite simple--taking a drug from basic discovery to FDA approval is enormously expensive--generally far more costly than the initial discovery of a patentable compound. Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to make such a huge investment if they do not have an exclusive license, because other companies that do not have to recoup research costs could simply make cheaper generic versions to compete. So if you are going to invest 100 Million dollars, which decision sounds easier to defend to your stockholders? Invest in a compound that you don't have the rights to, with the likelihood that even if it works in the clinic, you will be competing with dirt-cheap generic equivalents? Or invest in a compound that you have developed in house that may be a bit less promising or less innovative, but for which you hold the patent?
We have given your proposal the attention that it deserves, and offer the following counterproposal:
We will allow you to continue to offer our service to your customers, at no additional charge to you, and you will save the immense amount of money that it would cost you to explain to all of your customers whey they can no longer get through to Google, and why they shouldn't switch to another internet provider that does offer Google access.
1. It's turned on by default, with no warning to the users. 2. it takes up screen space.
Isn't it it's own warning? It's right there in front of your face. So even if you didn't bother to read Apple's announcement of the feature, or the Tech Note that explained just what it did, it's pretty obvious.
3. Google have said from day 1 they will present adverts based on what they scan in the email.
I didn't see any notice that Google presents ads based on what I search when I went to Google's web page. Of course, it's pretty obvious. And I imagine that it's in Google's documentation somewhere, just as the function of the ministore is explained in Apple's documentation.
Slashdot Mirror
How do you reconcile these two statements?
The entire point is that context matters: what might be the "proper" temperature for coffee served in an open ceramic cup on a table is ultrahot for coffee served in a closed, insulated, flimsy container to a customer in a moving vehicle.
And yet she received a multi-million dollar punitive award from the jury along with medical expenses.
Which was substantially reduced subsequently. But it is certainly understandable that a jury might feel that a large penalty is necessary to punish a big, wealthy corporation sufficiently to induce them to alter their practices.
And you do realize that we are talking about a 20 degree F temperature difference between McDonald's and their competitors, right?
Once again, it depends upon context. There are circumstances in which 20 degrees can literally be the difference between life and death. I can tell you that 90 degree weather does not feel only slightly less comfortable than 110 degree weather. Look at death rates during heat waves when considering whether 20 degrees is inconsequential. Survival time in the water is drastically lower at 60 degrees than at 80. And the danger of frostbite and hypothermia is much greater in 10 degree weather than 30 degree weather.
In point of fact, the lady did a stupid thing. Since water boils at 212F, I would expect coffee could be served anywhere up to that temperature and therefore I would never place a flimsy foam cup near my balls in a car.
Assertions about the "proper" serving temperature for coffee are pretty much irrelevant. Yes, under normal home or restaurant serving conditions in which coffee is served in an open, noninsulated ceramic cup to be placed on a stable table, it makes sense to serve it very hot. After all, it is subject to rapid cooling by evaporation, so it is probably already significantly cooler when it gets to the table. If it is still too hot, the diner can just wait a moment while the coffee sits safely on the table.
But Macdonalds is serving the coffee in an insulated cup with a lid. That means it cools only very slowly. And who decided that the ultrahot coffee should be served in a flimsy foam cup that gets soft when the contents are really hot? Macdonalds. And considering that they were serving it to drive-through customers who were going to be holding that soft foam cup in a moving vehicle (minimally moving far enough to exit the drive-through lane) over their laps, Macdonalds surely knew that spills and lap burns were inevitable. Even then, the court only found Macdonalds to be partially responsible for the woman's injuries, with the woman herself bearing a share of the blame.
There have a number of attempts to substantiate an autism-vaccination connection this by case-control studies or examining whether diagnosis of developmental disorders changes when vaccination rates or the use of mercury preservatives changes. In general, these studies have found little association, so it looks like this is not a major factor in autism. It may be just that the time when early symptoms of autism appear is close to the time at which vaccinations are normally given.
Is this an evolutionary restraint on nerds breeding?
Quite possibly. The question can be raised, "Why aren't people getting smarter?"
There doesn't seem to be any prominent evolutionary trend toward increased intelligence, despite naive notions of future humans with big heads. It seems more likely that human intelligence is close to steady-state. Very likely, there are disadvantages (at least in terms of the kind of thing that matters to evolution, namely having a lot of kids) to very high intelligence that balance the advantages. Whether an increasingly technological world has changed that balance remains to be seen.
And how again does that have anything to do with the creative quality of the film, which was written and directed by Pixar?
That is precisely my point. What it had to do with the quality of the films was that Disney chose to do a full theatrical sequel, written and directed by Pixar, instead of one of their usual third-rate follow-ups (which they could have done without Pixar's involvement since they owned the rights to the characters).
Maybe I need to spell the point out a bit for you:
When Pixar was a separate company, Pixar features were an exception to Disney's normal practice of releasing low-quality direct-to-video sequels to cash in on successful Disney features. This raises the question of whether, now that Pixar will be a division of Disney, Pixar features will continue to enjoy this level of special treatment (and the Pixar division will continue to enjoy this level of artistic control), or whether Disney will now revert to its customary practices when it comes to Pixar sequels.
The only thing unusable is tha you're attributing the sequel to disney when they had nothing to do with it. :)
You mean, aside from authorizing its production (Disney owns the rights to the characters) and distributing it under the Disney brand name?
Toy Story 2 was something very unusual for Disney--a sequel that was actually good. Their usual practice is to follow up a great animated film with an utterly crappy direct-to-video release. Perhaps they fell into this habit as a result of their fairy tale films; there's not much chance of making a good sequel to "Beauty & the Beast" or "The Little Mermaid." But Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote dozens of sequels to Tarzan, all of them pretty good; there was no reason why Tarzan 2 had to be crap. Nor was there any reason why Casper the Friendly Ghost 2 had to be crap. Either one of these could have had a strong sequel. Running strong properties into the ground like this is simply bad business.
Of course, string theory may be right. The philosophical problem is that many of our best minds are spending all their time on a theory that can't be proven or disproven with current technology.
You bring up a chicken and egg problem--one has to spend time on a theory to figure out what it does predict and devise ways of testing it. In practice, physicists often spend time thinking about theories that cannot be proven, and this often serves as a spur for development of new technologies. Working out the predictions of a complex theory can take decades; indeed, new and often surprising predictions of quantum theory are still emerging.
The problem is making success over these diseases last.
Polio was virtually wiped out, yet has been returning in countries like Bangladesh, where infrastructure is decaying or non-existent, for waste disposal and clean water. You can innoculate all the children, assuming some backward holy man doesn't frighten mothers into keeping their children away from the free clinic, accusing you of trying to sterilize their children, but if you haven't done anything about the state people live in then you've only postponed the problem.
For a lot of nasty 3rd world parasitic diseases that should only be our biggest worry. In many cases, the problem is not that people won't accept the therapy, but that no good therapy is available.
People rarely have absolutely pure motives for doing good things. Still, there are many things that Gates could have done that would have reaped more publicity and goodwill among those who purchase his products. It appears that he is approaching philanthropy with the same single-mindedness he that he brought to making Microsoft preeminent. He seems to be genuinely targeting those areas where his money will do the most to help people, such as 3rd world diseases that tend to be neglected by government-funded research and industrial drug development.
Honestly, if you are not doing anything illegal, what part of "liberty" is being taken away by wiretaps?
There are a lot of legal reasons why I might want to keep what I'm talking about private.
I might be a political opponent of the President talking strategy.
I might be a reporter investigating a member of the President's administration.
I might have a critical financial deal that will be spoiled if it becomes public prematurely.
Or I might just be a private citizen talking about personal matters who doesn't want to share it with some government snoop.
That was the "few thousand years of mathematical thought" that were tossed out.
Actually, the idea tht mathematics could be completely axiomatized in such a way as prove its own validity was itself fairly recent at the time; it is generally attributed Hilbert, who was a rough contemporary of Godel.
Yeah, until some smartass like Gödel comes along and proves that any sufficiently powerful system is self-inconsistent, thus throwing out a few thousand years of mathematical thought.
Except that Gödel proved no such thing. What he proved is that it is impossible to prove that a system is consistent from within the system and that any consistent system must contain statements that are true but that cannot be proved to be true within the system.
It didn't throw out "a few thousand years of mathematical thought." All it did was dash the hopes of some mathematicians that a mathematical system could "lift itself up by its bootstraps" (prove its own consistency) or be absolutely complete (prove the truth or falsity of every proposition that can be framed within the system).
So not everything can be proved, but there are plenty of things that can be proved in mathematics. Gödel's theorem being one of them.
For most purposes, the key question for most users is not going to be how fast it is really, but how fast it "feels," in practice, say watching a QT movie with maybe a browser loading a couple of windows in the background and a Spotlight search in progress.
The OS X seems to be pretty good at spreading the load of multiple programs and the OS across processors. I remember that the dual 450 MHz Macs seemed dramatically snappier that the 800 MHz iBook, even though in most tests the iBook would come out ahead.
It's early yet. Besides, I don't really want to run Windows on it--I want to run Windows applications on it, ideally in Mac-style windows that can interleave with OS X windows, and preferably with the menu bar at the top of the screen instead of at the top of the window.
So I'm much more interested in Windows non-emulators like WINE.
My point is that its not obvious to alot of people, thats why you see people acting like its the "truth"
I am sure that there are a lot of things that are not obvious to people who didn't pay attention in school. But every science course I have ever seen teaches the scientific method, the fact that science does not claim to be a route to absolute truth, and the fact that many ideas that were once believed to be true are now known to be incorrect. That being said, the evidence for evolution is sufficiently persuasive that a person who announces "I don't believe in evolution" will deservedly by regarded by scientifically literate people with the same incredulity as a person who announces, "I don't believe in gravity."
Would adding "We are not sure if Evolution is correct but its generally understood to be the leading scientific thought." be dangerous? Because its wrong? Because it makes it look "weak"? Because "other's aren't doing it, so why should we"?
Because to be fair, and avoid giving the false impression that evolution in particularly in doubt compared to scientific knowledge, we would have to also say "We are not sure if atoms exist, but its generally understood to be the leading scientific thought" and "We are not sure if gravity exists, but its generally understood to be the leading scientific thought," and so forth for every single bit of scientific knowledge. Which would be a waste of valuable educational time, considering that all of that is explained up front in basic science classes anyway.
Ok, I continue and actively on a on-going basis to look at human interaction and human history for new ways to test and challenge the axioms originating from my religous text; which I still find they hold true, so far. Now does that make me a scientist performing science?
It could be. People certainly do scientific studies to test historical claims derived from ancient texts, including religious ones. Whether it constitutes science would depend upon how well you do it and whether it meets basic scientific standards. Are the hypotheses scientific (i.e. falsifiable)? Is the logic valid? Are the conclusions based on the data? Etc.
Look how many people will defend evolution, even though strictly speaking, they need to post-fix each sentence with ", maybe.".
In science, all knowledge is provisional, so it is belaboring the obvious to say, "The earth orbits around the sun maybe", or "F = MA maybe." This was one of the most telling points that the judge made in the Dover trial. Because all science is provisional, attaching a disclaimer to evolution, and not to other statements of scientific knowledge, gives the false impression that evolution is somehow more subject to doubt than other scientific knowledge.
Look how science is taught, with the assumption that everything written in the textbooks are true.
Every science course I ever took began with an explanation of the scientific method.
Look how people will base their scientific careers and life-work on things that may or may not be correct.
Every scientist does that. So what? It is the only workable way of doing science that anybody has ever found. The people who go into science are the ones who find that fundamental uncertainty exciting and inspiring. It is not what is known that attracts people to science; it is what is not known. Those who are uncomfortable with living among the shifting sands of scientific knowledge should go into fields such as mathematics, where true proof exists, or into religion, where faith does not require evidence.
I have the Old Testement/New Testement/Koran/"insert any religous text", which is a set of recorded assumptions. I base theories from these assumptions. From observation of human interactions and from human history I think that the validity of these assumptions remain true. Am I a scientist performing science?
No because you are leaving out the part about continually seeking ways to test and challenge these assumptions. For a scientist, nothing is more exciting that finding a way to challenge and test something that he or she has always previously been forced to take as an assumption.
I hate this argument.
Unfortunately, its validity has nothing to with your emotional reaction.
"Nothing is proven in science, but we assume it is and act like it."
I think that most scientists are aware that all scientific knowledge is provisional. Even fundamental theories are continually challenged. For example, there are current theories that challenge whether gravitation really actually follows an inverse square law.
This is used because "Science needs to move forward with certain assumptions." which is the equivant of saying "We can't prove God exists but lets go to church on Sunday and do other things as if God did.".
All reasoning is contingent upon assumptions; all knowledge is of the form: IF {assumptions} THEN {conclusions}. Even the notion that their is a reality outside our own minds is fundamentally an assumption. What sets science apart is that scientists attempt to keep track of their assumptions, to remember that all conclusions are contingent upon those assumptions, and to constantly search for means of testing the validity of those assumptions.
Macro-evolution is NOT micro-evolution on a larger scale, and cannot be explained by micro-evolution over a long period of time. By "cannot be explained" I actually mean that it was formerly explained that way until the fossil record showed that macro changes occur suddenly, not gradually. Now evolutionary "scientists" have various theories for what triggers these changes.
Actually, modern DNA studies have confirmed the prediction that macro-evolution is simply microevolution on a large scale. The prediction of evolutionary theory is that all differences among species will turn out to be due varying quantities of the sort of "micro" genetic changes that have been shown to occur by mutation. Many genomes have now been sequenced, and so far that prediction has held up perfectly.
His theory was that God created a few, or one, initial organisms, and that everything else evolved from them by the mechanisms he described. By what we know now, that seems naive, but it was a coherant theory. But now, in the interest of making it a purely naturalistic theory, "scientists" actually try to explain the origins of the first cells in terms of molecules "evolving" into them. As this kind of evolution pre-supposes the ability to reproduce and pass along genetic coding to its offspring, ability that by definition, a pre-organism does not have. This "scientific theory" can therefore only be believed by the delusional.
Darwin understood that you cannot make a scientific theory about God. His theory did not address whether or not God created the initial organisms--it only addressed how organisms have changed over time. Nor did Darwin's theory include anything about a particular kind of genetic material--indeed, Darwin had never heard of genetics. Darwin did predict that there had to be some sort of mechanism for passing down changes undiluted from generation to generation, and the discovery of DNA-based inheritance is perhaps one of the most dramatic confirmations of a theory's predictions in the history of science. But all that evolution requires is some mechanism of inheritance. All models of the origin of life take this into account. There are several such models, and none has yet reached the level of near-universal scientific acceptance that evolution has attained, but all of them include a mechanism (not necessarily DNA-based) for proto-organisms to pass down traits from generation to generation.
But exactly what I mean - now regardless of what I believe about continental drift and whatnot, an experiment that shows continental drift does not PROVE that all of the land was once gathered in the same mass. The problem with it is that you do not know what occurred in the past unless you have an observable experiment. Micro-Continental Drift is a great theory because there is proof and experiments to back it up. Not that Macro-Continental Drift is a bad theory, it just can't be backed up as much.
Actually, nothing is ever "proved" to be true in science. Proof is for mathematics, science is about disproof. Theories are disproved by logically and mathematically predicting consequences of a theory, and then checking those predictions by observation. So continental drift makes numerous predictions about things like current movement of continents, magnetism in rocks, etc. The fact that so many of those predictions have been checked, and that the results have failed to disprove the theory, is what causes scientists to regard some theories, such as gravitation, evolution, or continental drift, as particularly strong.
A very well-reasoned post, and your conclusions are inescapable--except for one thing. Intelligent Design is falsifiable, thus is science, and thus should be taught in the classroom.
Interesting claim, considering that in the Dover court case, none of the ID "experts" were able to suggest any even vaguely experiment capable of falsifying ID. Demonstrating evolution in any kind of experimental system obviously does not falsify ID, because ID does not exclude the possibility that some things could have evolved. Indeed, ID advocate Behe apparently believes that what was "intelligently designed" was some kind of microorganism, and that everything evolved from that. So no matter what kind of experimental demonstration of evolution is provided, the ID advocate can always respond, "OK, so maybe that can evolve, but {insert something else} is intelligently designed." It is this kind of all-purpose "out" that renders a theory unfalsifiable.
While it may seem counterintuitive, patents have actually increased translation of basic research to pharmaceutical drug development. The reason is quite simple--taking a drug from basic discovery to FDA approval is enormously expensive--generally far more costly than the initial discovery of a patentable compound. Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to make such a huge investment if they do not have an exclusive license, because other companies that do not have to recoup research costs could simply make cheaper generic versions to compete. So if you are going to invest 100 Million dollars, which decision sounds easier to defend to your stockholders? Invest in a compound that you don't have the rights to, with the likelihood that even if it works in the clinic, you will be competing with dirt-cheap generic equivalents? Or invest in a compound that you have developed in house that may be a bit less promising or less innovative, but for which you hold the patent?
We have given your proposal the attention that it deserves, and offer the following counterproposal:
We will allow you to continue to offer our service to your customers, at no additional charge to you, and you will save the immense amount of money that it would cost you to explain to all of your customers whey they can no longer get through to Google, and why they shouldn't switch to another internet provider that does offer Google access.
This is actually a real theory. It is thought that polio is less likely to be a serious problem if you are exposed in infancy. Insufficient exposure to bacteria is also proposed as an explanation for the increase in asthma in developed countries
1. It's turned on by default, with no warning to the users.
2. it takes up screen space.
Isn't it it's own warning? It's right there in front of your face. So even if you didn't bother to read Apple's announcement of the feature, or the Tech Note that explained just what it did, it's pretty obvious.
3. Google have said from day 1 they will present adverts based on what they scan in the email.
I didn't see any notice that Google presents ads based on what I search when I went to Google's web page. Of course, it's pretty obvious. And I imagine that it's in Google's documentation somewhere, just as the function of the ministore is explained in Apple's documentation.