If they chose option 3a, the written offer need not exist.
If they chose option 3b, then Broadcom would have to word the written offer so that anyone would be permitted to make use of it, not just Linksys. However, neither Broadcom nor Linksys is obligated to pass on this written offer to anyone unless they are also distributing the software to them. Broadcom can nether stop Linksys from redistributing, nor can they force them to redistribute.
Chances are, they chose 3a anyway, because the economics of the GPL have changed since it was written. Originally, 3a was easy but expensive, 3b was the hard but sometimes less expensive (3c was easy and cheap, but not always possible). 3a is still easy, but it's now cheap, cheaper than 3b. Since 3b is both hard (you have to have someone listening for and honoring requests for source), and more expensive, and risky too (there's nothing to stop a third party from picking option 3c, which will cost you staff and administration time for distributions you can't control or make a profit on), there's almost no incentive for people to use that option anymore.
He's almost certainly talking about SAMBA. Microsoft probably (I haven't checked) has patents on several aspects of the SMB protocol and the NT Domain system. SAMBA would then reimplement these patents without a license. Therefore, Microsoft IP (patents) could very well be in open source software (SAMBA) without authorization.
To my knowledge, Microsoft has not moved on this issue. They probably see SAMBA as still being too small a fish. It wouldn't be profitable for them to sue a few developers into bankrupcy, but if a big company with deep pockets banks on SAMBA, they might reconsider.
In the interim, Microsoft spreading vague FUD on the issue is cheap and very beneficial to their bottom line.
[Sorry for the long delay in responding, I felt your thoughtful post deserved a thoughtful reply, and life kept getting in the way of me having time to do so]
I was unable to find any mention of the word mutate or mutations, except in one of the references. The creation model in fact accounts for speciation, and indeed counts on it. More on this below (perhaps not in a way you will recognise).
The most common biological definition of mutation is "a permanent change in genetic structure that is inheritable by future generational offspring". The site refers to many permanent changes in genetic structure, it discusses their inheritance by future generational offspring. Therefore, it is talking about mutation.
Mutation is the key difference between Modern and Darwinian Evolution theory. Darwin knew that there was variation and inheritance, but the field of Genetics hadn't started yet, so there was no body of theory for him to draw on to explain them. Genetics theory supplied that explanation, and the underlying process is mutation.
It may not surprise you that for a long time I have known that certain parts of the general theory of evolution are correct, such as natural selection, and observed speciation. I have difficulty from person to person using the correct words. Each person has their own view in which certain words should be used, eg "evolution".
I have found it safest to use the words as defined by the scientific community for scientific terms (eg "evolution", "mutation"), as there is maximal precision and minimal variation, particularly since we are talking science here. For religious terms, I try to use the terms as defined by the person I'm talking to, as my religion is not well known, and usually irrelevant to the conversation. For lay terms, I try to explicitly define what I'm talking about as soon as I suspect confusion.
Some are very quick to discount other fields besides biology, while people like yourself (rightly) point out that these fields are equally important to the GTE. After all, if geology shows that the earth is as young as the creation model states, then the GTE would be incorrect.
Not necessarily. If Geology suddenly changes its interpretation of its data, and gives a completely different chronology, it would affect the chronology of when we think certain ancestral species existed, but probably not the order in which they occured. The theory of evolution (GTE) would be essentially untouched, since it describes a process, not a chronology.
Ultimately, what I reject are: a. That the earth is older than ~6,000 years (I do not reject an old universe, read Starlight and Time by Russell Humphreys) Your main beef here is with the scientific theories in the field of Geology, not Evolution then. Even if you somehow manage to completely disprove the Theory of Evolution, that doesn't change the fact that the Evolution says nothing about the age of the earth.
b. That all living things share a common ancestor
This is a core premise of Darwin's, but to my knowledge it's only being held up by Occam's Razor, since the fossil record of early life is very fragmentary. If you accept evolution as the source of all modern life, any multiple ancestor explanation is just astronomically unlikely without further evidence. Of course, if you don't accept evolution, there's no need to accept a common ancestor either.
This implies a number of things. Not so obvious, or explicetly mentioned in the above is that I reject that humans and apes ever shared a common ancestor. Not so surprising, but here you are coming up against more than just evolution. The genetic difference between humans and apes is minisculely small, implying a common ancestor. The paleontological record shows many intermediate species that imply a shared ancestor. Psychologists and sociologists discuss numerous cognitive and social paralells between us and apes. Again, feel free to bel
This is something that would be a lack of evidence for. Couldn't it always be said "we simply have not seen mutations result in a new species"?
You could say it, but you would be wrong. We have seen mutations result in a new species, we have seen it often, both in the wild and in the laboratory. The talk.origins site has a page devoted to speciation evidence.
Well then call me an evolutionist. I still believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old, and that all creatures originated from an initial kind (humans from Adam & Eve). Do I still qualify as an evolutionist?
If you are asking whether you can simultaneously believe in your view of Creation, and accept the theory of evolution as valid, you most certainly can. Remember, science is incapable of producing truth, merely increasingly accurate predictions. There is nothing stopping you from saying "I believe the Truth is, God created the Earth 6000 years ago, but I accept Evolution theory as a useful and valid means of predicting biological events, even though it implies things that I consider untrue."
Please, however, keep in mind that we don't get the age of the universe from the Theory of Evolution. You would need to say similar things regarding: Astrophysics, Astronomy, Geology, Paleontology, Archaeology, Anthropology, and probably many other sciences I haven't thought of.
If you are concerned with more aspects of Creationism than the age of the universe, keep in mind that it also says things like we are all descended from eight people (Noah, his three sons and their wives) who, according to Ussher, didn't land in the Arc until Wednesday, May 5, 1491BCE. According to historians, the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt was thriving before, during and after the period of time that Bishop Ussher claims the world was underwater and the only survivors were non-Egyptians.
I would also point out that many people who believe in God and the Bible are quite willing to accept that the word commonly translated as "day" in the Book of Genesis does not necessarily equal a 24 hour day-night cycle, that a "year" in the ages of biblical figures does not necessarily equal a 12 month year as we currently understand it, and that admitting that the Bible does not clearly define a specific moment as when the universe begins is not contrary to a faith in God. Some parts of the Bible are clearly and explicitly metaphors, why not the Book of Genesis too?
A metaphor isn't false, it's merely trying to explain something hard to understand using terms that are easier to understand, I think it goes without saying that most versions of the Creation of the Universe are pretty hard to understand.
You sound like a reasonable person. I haven't felt insulted by you or mistreated, which I commend you for. Usually I find evolutionist to be mocking, sometimes disguised, sometimes very openly. But I've yet to find one that understands the creationist position, and I wonder if that's why they (you) are so quick to reject it?
I find no need to insult or mock, and you are clearly a thinking person, even though some of your beliefs don't match mine. However, you would find me a lot harder to get along with if you were actually threatening me with Creationism. Far too often, lately, Creationism hasn't come up as a matter of personal belief, but in terms of "Creation Science", and in school boards being pressured to teach "Creation Science" to their students as science (along with or instead of Evolution). Not only do I object to the views of Creationism being presented as science to impressionable minds, when it is not science, but I also strenuously object to the political movement that is trying to get Christianity taught in our public schools, in direct contradiction to the Establishment clause. I think this movement is unhealthy
This is where you are confusing me, you say you accept the theory as presented by Darwin, and by talk.origins, but you say don't accept the "common descent of living organisms". The common descent of living organisms from shared ancestors is the subject of Darwin's The Origin of Species, and the theories referenced on talk.origins. It is part of the theory you claim to accept.
Specifically, Darwin addresses the topic at length in Chapter 4 of The Origin of Species. Also, on talk.origins, the entire discussion of Phylogenetics is a discussion on the theory behind the "common descent of living organisms", and it explicitly includes potential falsifications. This is one of the places where Darwin's case needed to be strenghtened by modern biologists, since Darwin did not know of the work of Mendel and later biologists in the field of Genetics, which is key to explaining the role of mutation in the variation that Darwin speaks of.
To phrase it a different way:
We know that mutations occur, and have observed them repeatedly and in detail;
We know that some mutations will result in a new species, this too has been observed;
To corroborate the above, we have recreated certain mutations in the laboratory, verified that they results in a new species, and confirmed that the results matched (and in fact bred with) the corresponding mutations in the wild.
This is what people mean when they say the "evidence is so overwhelming" for evolutionary processes (variation/mutation, competition, natural selection) resulting in new species.
alexhmit wrote: I remember reading that the right to trial by combat wasn't removed until 1780 somthing...
Actually, it appears to still be on the books. Someone attempted to invoke it just last year. Apparently it hasn't been actually used since the 1800's, but it seems to still be on the books.
I am a creationist, but I agree with what you say - creationism is not a scientific theory. At least not in the strictest sense of the word. It is not falsifiable. What I am trying to set straight is that the whole theory of evolution (not the strict definition that talkorigins.org gives, which creationists agree with) is also not scientific, since it is not falsifiable. Not in a scientific way. I've asked a few times now, and no-one's given me a falsifiable theory of evolution
The Theory of Evolution, that is to say the theory put forth by Darwin in The Origin of Species and updated and elaborated by him and other Biologists as time went on is scientific and is falsifiable. It is what is being discussed on the talk.origins site. That is the Theory of Evolution, and every step of the way, every piece of it is falsifiable (and the talk.origins site lists possible falsifications).
The Theory of Evolution is often misrepresented by the media, and occasionally by its proponents in science and education as well, but just because they claim the theory covers things doesn't mean the theory covers it, it just means the person is wrong.
For example, many people claim that the Theory of Evolution includes how life initially emerged from the primordial ooze, but to my knowledge it does not. Once you have life, the theory covers how you get increasingly complex life quite well, but it doesn't give any mechanism for life starting to begin with. Biologists have some compelling hypotheses regarding this (including the "Primordial Soup"), but to my knowledge none of them have been established to the point where they are called theories.
I'll tell you why I think creation scientists may claim their theory is scientific (and this is just my guesses, I don't know for sure). Science is, ultimately, a more generic term than it's strictest meaning.
Lay people use the word science in a sloppy way, but that doesn't excuse so-called scientists from using it in a sloppy way. It doesn't protect these "scientists" from being called out on it when
In the strictest sense neither evolution or creation are scientific
In the stricted sense Evolution is quite scientific, you have failed to demonstrate that it is not. In the strictest sence a few non-scientific things have been attributed to the fringes of Evolution, but these should not be taught as science either. It doesn't change the fact that the Theory of Evolution is science and is scientific.
But in a more general way they are - because the two theories use scientific facts (in the strict sense) to explain their model of the world. Like fruit in a fruitbowl - the fruit are not the fruitbowl individually, but they make it up. So do scientific facts (for so long as they remain fact) make up and explain or contradict the models of evolution or creation.
That is not science, not even in the general sense. If I look at my computer, and all the scientific facts and observations regarding the processor in my computer, and claim that there are no moving electrons within my microprocessor, but rather thousands of non-corporeal, invisible spirits who listen to the electrons on the wire, talk to each other really quickly, make decisions, and push electrons onto the wire; that they watch for logic probes and other analytic tools and affect them according to how they should act if there were moving electrons. This is based on scientific facts, it might even be true (I certainly can't prove it false), but it's not science, and not even reasonable laypeople would call it science.
You can't just keep reasserting "Evolution is not falsifiable" without backing it up. What about Evolution is not falsifiable?
You went to great lengths to explain to me the proper scientific method, then you present this. In Darwin's origin of species, where does he describe how his theory may be falsified?
You don't need to explicitly say "This is how my theory can be falsified" for a theory to be falsifiable. The Origin of Species is long, I can't list every way it can be falsified. I will endeavor to list some.
If the biologists concept of "species" were to be invalidated, his theory would fall apart just like Newton's did when the physicists concept of "particle" were invalidated.
If it can be shown that mutations cannot be inherited, that would pretty much kill large chunks of his theory.
If it can be shown that mutation can not result in a new species, that would kill the "origin of species" part of his theory.
It's really pointless and impossible to make an exhaustive list, why don't you point to a portion of the theory that you find suspicious, and ask how that can be falsified.
Tell me how evolution can be falsified, else it is not a scientific theory. Tell me, according to your previous article, how we can repeatedly test evolution.
We can and do repeatedly test evolution. Each year, everyone from biotech firms to cattle ranchers to soybean farmers follow techniques that are entirely based on the Theory of Evolution in order to maintain their livelihood. The fact that Evolution is used to develop things that Darwin would never have dreamed of is a testimant to the testability of Evolution.
I'm afraid like most evolutionists you don't really understand the creationist position. We believe in natural selection. It's proven, tested, and observable. It's maths, a fact of life and logic. We don't dispute that. Your list of four points, we agree with them all. And this is not where our dispute with evolution lies.
I hate to break this to you, but that's the Theory of Evolution. Everything else is something else.
It lies with the fact that simple single celled life could *never* produce more information to become complex lifeforms like we see today for many reasons.
I don't understand, all muticellular life that we know comes from the information in a single cell, the zygote. This is an accepted fact, directly (well, through a simple microscope, anyway) observed repeatedly. If you have a problem with this, your beef is with the developmental biologists and medical doctors, not with evolutionary theory and Darwin.
Among those reasons are the amazing odds against it, the irreducible complexity of many creatures, and the greatest of all - the fact that no information producing mutations have been observed that could explain it. The theory of evolution as presented by those who believe in long ages has not had the mechanism it needs observed. The simple single celled life would never become something other than what it is.
Saying we haven't observed something isn't evidence against it, it's merely a lack of evidence for it.
I also fail to see how multicelular life coming from single celular life is so implausable. You have a single celled lifeform; a mutation happens that encourages it to form a colony life form (like many algae), and this version thrives; a mutation happens that causes some specialization to happen, say cells on the outside dedicate themselves to defense, while the inside ones dedicate themselves to eating (like the hydra), and this version thrives. There is no logical difference between this colony with specialized cells and a multicellular organism; from this point, the whole of multicellular evolution opens up.
If you think that the Galapagos finches are evidence of what he [Darwin] taught, then you are mistaken.
How do the Galapagos finches fail to be evidence for Darwin's theories?
I don't really know how much you already know about the creation theory, but I suggest it's not enough at any ra
Not a thing here I disagree with. I understand that the "science" of origins is not based in the scientific method. I don't think I ever claimed that.
I don't think you did either, was just trying to be as clear as possible as to where I stood.
A creation scientist is one who practices science and believes the origin story as presented in the Bible.
I disagree, there are many people who practice science, and believe in the origin story as presented in the bible, but those people don't call themselves "Creation Scientists". The people calling themselves creation scientists are people who claim to practice science, and present the origin story as presented in the bible as if it were science.
It's not because they believe they can scientifically examine unrepeatable history.
You can scientifically examine unrepeatable history. For example the Battle of Gettysburg is completely unrepeatable, but observations of it are repeated often. We find a new person's memoirs of it, offering an independant view of their portion of the battle, a new artifact is uncovered giving new, different or more complete information on its location, a new way of examining artifcats or the land itself are found, giving new observations.
Some parts of the Bible may be examined in this way, when there's an archaeological site assocated with the story, or independent observers writing their own descriptions of the events at the time. However, I don't see how the biblical story of creation can possibly be examined scientifically.
> I understand that the "science" of origins is not based in the scientific method.
Well, it is. In this case our observation is that life of some form arose under the conditions prevalant on earth around 3.8 billion years ago. Other observations - such as the current composition of life forms - provide more observations; the laws of physics provide constraints. Hypotheses can be tested against these.
The point I was originally making regarding the science of origins, and the point which Tyreth appeared to be agreeing with, was that past a certain point, Science can't go, because observation can't go, and testing can't go. Assume that Science establishes the Big Bang as the origin of the universe, you cannot Scientifically examine what happened a minute before the big bang, anything you say about that would be pure conjecture, not Science.
Sorry for the delay, problems at home. Here is the last part, Part 3, "Creation Theory"
Tyreth wrote:
It's exactly comments like this that I buck against.
First off, I wasn't saying there was "hard evidence" for evolution, I was saying there was "hard evidence" against so called "Creation Theory". First, let me be precise about I'm talking about. There is a set of assertions, called "Creationism" or "Creation Theory" by its proponents. This assertion says:
1) The Christian Bible is literally true, including its discussion of creation in the Book of Genesis 2) That a calcuated chronology of the bible is correct, usually the chronology of Archbishop James Ussher, which places the first day of the universe on Sunday, October 23, 4004BCE. Occasionally they use a different chronology, but to my knowledge, none of them use a chronology that sets the age of the universe as more than 10,000 years old.
I have two problems with "Creation Theory", one semantic, and one political. Semantically, I have a problem with the fact that they call it Science, and they call their assertions a Theory, when neither is true, as I will demonstrate below. Politically, I have a problem with the fact that the proponents of "Creation Theory" try to convince school boards and politicians that Evolution Theory is not science, and that "Creation Theory" is. I don't necessarily think that you are a proponent of Creationism, but it struck me from your comments that you have at least been exposed to their arguments, and wanted to set the record more clear, the argument for Evolution as Science and Creationism as Non-Science from someone who does not take the knee jerk "Science is Truth" attitude that pollutes much "Scientific" thinking in this society.
The obstacle to using Creationism as a Theory is getting a proper definition of it. It claims the statements in the Bible are literally true, but which Bible? Which Book of Genesis? Most denominations of Christianity that I know of use either the Hebrew version or the Latin Vulgate translation as Canon, as the Truth. Most proponents of Creationism speak neither Hebrew nor Latin, their concept of the Bible is based on a translation, and not the version of the bible that their professed faith considers Truth. So there is an instant question mark, what Theory is being proposed?
Next, many (though not all) Creationists use quotations in the bible as evidence, as if it were to take the place of Scientific Observation. As I described in Part 1, scripture cannot qualify as Scientific Observation. It is not Direct (The person who penned the Book of Genesis, presumably Moses, did not directly observe the third day of creation), nor is it Repeatable (I can't go out and directly observe the third day of creation, nor was there an effort to get additional people to make independant observations of it at the time). Any assertion that depends on Scripture as evidence, regardless of whether or not you believe it is Truth, it is not Science.
Next, if you accept Creationism as a Hypothesis, it has been scientifically falsified. While there is a lot of dispute as to the exact ages of the Universe, of Earth, of Life, of Humankind, there is widespread agreement, and large amounts of independant evidence, that they each are more than a certain age. The universe is at least 10 Billion Years old, the Earth is significantly older than 3.5 Billion Years old, Life on Earth is at least 3.4 Billion Years old, Human Kind (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) is at least 100,000 years old. All of these time spans insist on a change in the chronology. All of them indicate that Creationism, as a hypothesis, has been falsified, and must be modified or discarded.
All of the modifications I've heard, "God made an old world", both depend on assertions that are not falsifiable (eg. the existance of God), and violate
You tell me, what proof is there of evolution? Even better! What is the scientific theory of evolution by which we can test the theory? What is the scientific theory of evolution which creationists disagree with - that all life evolved from simple single celled life. Show me something we can test.
Darwin's hypothesis was borne from very detailed observations Darwin did, that could be easily repeated. Among his observations were, the techniques and effects of animal and plant husbandry, the variations of finches in the Galapagos islands, the fossilized findings of the relatively new field of paleontology. His theory has been widely tested, and has directly enhanced the industry of husbandry. Other fields of study started independantly of Evolution (eg Genetics) were found to dovetail so neatly that Evolution is considered to have very strong observational backing. It is a strong theory that has been so useful and accurate it has become one of the cornerstones of modern biological science.
As time went on and more things got observed, the theory was tweaked in places, and expanded upon in places, but at it's core, modern evolution theory is very close to what Darwin expounded in his books. It pretty much boils down to: 1) Within a species of organism, there is a certain amount of variation. 2) A population of an organism is under a set of environmental pressures (eg. scarce food, predators, etc) 3) These pressures will be more effectively met by some variations within the population than others, the better adapted variations will thrive in relation to the more poorly adapted variations. This process is called natural selection 4) Since different populations can be under widely different sets of pressures, natural selection can encourage variations to increase between populations, sometimes to the point where they are no longer the same species as each other.
As far as evidence goes, as well as falsification tests for pieces of modern theory, I can't possibly do better than the people at talk.origins. You can find their examination of the subject at http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
There is no proof of evolution. In fact, there is no proof of any scientific theory. Science doesn't work by proof.
You have a body of observation that has developed over the years. Someone, let's say Darwin, comes up with an explanation as to the specifics of how nature is functioning, this is called a hypothesis. Among other things, the hypothesis will point out predictions of future observations. A number of scientists will test the hypothesis by performing observations, and seeing whether the predictions the hypothesis made are borne out or not. If the hypothesis matches all of these predictions, it becomes a theory, otherwise there's evidence the hypothesis is false, and it's either discarded or reworked to match the new observations. Once a theory is accepted, it's not set in stone, but future observations can still show it is incomplete or wrong.
This is the scientific method: Observation -> Hypothesis -> Testing -> Theory If you aren't following the scientific method, it's not science. Most (though not all) "Creation Scientists" show no understanding of the scientific method, spew statements that violate or ignore the scientific method, and wonder why people say that it's not scientists.
The next thing that I feel I have to make explicit before going into your argument is the nature of Scientific Observation. For an observation to be scientifically useful, it needs to be direct, and it needs to be repeatable. Direct means that you are reporting what your senses tell you, with little or no interpretation. For example, if I'm doing electrical experiments, I don't say "the battery put out 20 volts", because you didn't see any volts, you say "the voltmeter, when attached with the positive lead on terminal A1 and the negative lead on terminal B3, indicated a voltage differential of 20 volts". Repeatable means that, if another scientist were to folow your directions at a different location, they will obtain the same observation. For example, the whole "cold fusion" flap a few years back was not because cold fusion bucked the mainstream scientific community, but because the researchers went to press before they confirmed that their observation was repeatable.
Many "Creation Scientists" show their lack of scientific understanding by presenting non-scientific observation as if it were scientific observation or even as just plain "truth". As important as the Book of Genesis may be to you, a line of scripture in it is not a direct observation of the events described, nor is it likely to be repeatable. Even if you personally have directly observed a miracle, and report it with scientific rigor, the event can be as true and real as the nose on your face, it would still be irrelevant to science, because a miracle is by its very nature unrepeatable in the scientific sense.
This is a limitation on science, science just can not touch certain subjects unless or until we can figure out how to come up with direct repeatable observations of the subject. By accepting this limitation, however, science has become the most useful predictive tool of those subjects it can address.
Another point that needs to be explored before I get to the meat of your request, is what happens when there are multiple hypotheses addressing a set of observations. First, you review the observations, make sure that there isn't one that knocks one or the other out of the running. Next, you look at the tests each hypothesis offers, if a hypothesis offers no tests for a significant chunk of its conjecture, it must be discarded as not scientifically useful. It is said to not be falsifiable, there must be a way of potentially disproving a hypothesis before it can be accepted. Lastly, if both hypotheses have survived to this point, most scientists use a rule of thumb called Occam's Razor, "One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain
God is the first cause, the creator, the origin. Atheistic evolution has no answer for first cause, while there must be one.
It's not clear from the context which thing you are talking about. When I hear people talk about "the creator" and "first cause", generally they are talking about the creation of the universe as a whole. But this is a thread about creationism, so you might be talking about the creation of life/man on earth. I'll answer the question both ways.
In regards to the first cause in the creation of the universe, it is qutie true that science has no real answers. It has some speculation (eg. an eternal cycle of big bang->expansion->contraction->big crunch->repeat), but these speculations are difficult or impossible to analyze scientifically. Since it cannot be answered by science, it pretty much has to be answered by faith, and it doesn't matter to me, or to science, if you feel that Jehovah made it with a word, Shiva danced it into existance, or it was sneezed out of the nostril of a divine goat. It's a matter of personal faith.
In regards to the first cause in the creation of life, Darwin doesn't really address that as far as I know, but modern biologists seem pretty well convinced that as the earth was cooling, you had a stage where the atmosphere was primarily methane, and there were oceans of "primordial soup" which was essentially key elements disolved in water. This was a high energy time, and a lot of heat was coming up from the earth beneath these oceans and from lightning from the sky. The energy interacting with the soup made for developing some interesting and exotic chemicals (eg amino and nucleic acids) which could, by random chance, combine into self-replicating forms. Once you have self-replicating chemicals, Darwin's theories take it from there just fine. Many of the steps involved in this process have been borne out either in the geological/paleontological record, or in laboratory experiments.
If you feel that your God had a hand in making the random collisions come out the way they did, there's nothing in science to contradict you; there's also nothing in science to support you. Again, that boils down to a matter of personal faith.
On the other hand, if you feel, as many "creation scientists" do, that the universe, the earth, life and man all were created in late October, 4004 BCE, there is a great deal of hard evidence against you. Such a belief is not a simple matter of faith, but a more complicated matter of blind faith. A faith that demands that you close your eyes to the world around you doesn't strike me as healthy, or likely to be true. It certainly doesn't count as science, or as something I'd want to see children being taught.
'Almost certainly'? I love how astrophysists base their hypotheses on theories that are so far from being conclusively proven that it's ridiculous.
Such is science, all science.
There is no such animal in science as a theory that has been "conclusively proven". You want conclusive proofs, guarantees of truth and falsehood, go to mathematics (and steer clear of fundamental Set Theory while you're there)
First off, how do we know that the Universe is 13 billion years (or whatever?) We don't.
You're right, we don't. What we have is some evidence that the universe is 13-14 billion years old, and some evidence that it's older (and some that it's younger). The "true" age will
The scientific method, honest science, doesn't strive for "truth", it strives for a framework of prediction that becomes more and more accurate and useful as scientists work on them. For example, Newton's theory of accelleration (F=ma) has been disproven, we know it's incorrect, but we still find use in it; Einstein's accelleration theories is more precise, particularly at high speeds and near dense objects. As far as I know, Einstein's theories haven't been disproven, but I'd bet they will be before the end of this century.
If the Universe's existence *is* finite, what was there before the Universe? How did the Universe form? "Big bang"? And this happened how? Remember, there was no Universe, so there was nothing to make a big bang!
There are many ideas about this (what, you thought cosmologists forgot this question?) One popular one is that there's a big bang, the universe expands, runs out of steam, starts contracting, collapses in a "big crunch" which then becomes the next big bang. Another is that quantum fluctuations are capable of creating new universes.
The trouble is, assuming there was a big bang, anything that came before it is currently unverifiable, which means that any ideas about it are difficult or impossible to form a falsifiable hypothesis about it. Unless you have a falsifiable hypothesis to study, you're not doing science. So anything prior to the big bang is currently not subject to scientific analysis, and is therefore just interesting speculation.
It's all predicated on silly little assumptions that are based on no credible, reliable information. Just assumptions on top of assumptions.
No, it's predicated on little assumptions that are based on the best observation and analysis we currently have available. You follow these assumptions back far enough, and you find reach assumptions like "the fundamental laws of nature don't change over time" and "we can make useful observations of reality". While these are assumptions, and they really can't be proven, I think you will find them axioms that are hard to live without.
And then purported to be 'fact'.
A good, honest scientist will never purport anything to be fact beyond "When I did X, I observed Y". Note, this doesn't stop the media from attributing all sorts of "facts" to the scientist erroneously.
That's the problem with much of the scientific community -- too closed-minded.
You are the one sounding closed minded here, by scoffing about scientific theories you clearly don't understand.
My problem with the scientific community is that far too few of its members are the good, honest scientists that I described above, and far too many are administrators, or dishonest scientists more concerned with protecting their jobs and/or ego investments in their theories than keeping the body of understanding growing.
Science is not closed minded, but yes, too often the scientific community can be. We need more scientists in the scientific community.
You need to not just make the call. If you deviate from professional/company standards, even for good reasons, you make the call and then CYA. Fire off a quick email to Your Boss/President/CEO/Board indicating the fact that you need to bend the rules in order to ensure company success. If possible, include an estimate of what will happen if you follow the rules versus what will happen if you bend the rules. If possible, also include a quick and dirty estimate of what the post-release costs of getting the project back on track.
If you run into this on a regular basis, you might want to talk to the powers-that-be about making some sort of protocol for "Fast Track" projects that will give you the flexibility you need to get the job done, but give them the control they need to ensure they don't have an ever-increasing dependence on unmaintainable spaghetti code. And then you can do it, and still be following the rules.
If the powers-that-be keep balking at the thought of getting stuff done during what you consider the windows of opportunities, you might just have to accept the fact that your superiors have a vastly different viewpoint or set of priorities than you. Then your options include: see if you can engage the board or owners into changing their viewpoint, or finding a company that's more compatible with the way you prefer to operate.
Well, no. It depends on the date of the work. Copyright law changes over time.
No, it doesn't depend on the date of the work. The principal of "You can't copyright facts" is based on the wording of the copyright clause of the US Constitution, it has always been the case in this country (and is not necessarily the case in any other country).
Today, all is "born copyright", though you still have to file for official copyright to sue anybody and get actual damages. Before the lawsuit. But this is a recent law and before about 2000, one had to copyright your work, there was no born copyright.
Yes, today in the US all is "born copyright", but the year 2000 has nothing to do with it. This change was part of the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 which took effect on March 1, 1989 (Section 7, to be precise).
Merely stating "this work is copyright" didn't make it so,
Prior to the Berne Act, it wasn't much harder than that, all you had to do was write "Copyright 1956, John Doe" somewhere where people will see it.
and bluntly, the federal copyright law starts out with a warning that copyright law is a peculiar law and each and every case will be different and there is no real set law as such, there are a set of tests.
Music is treated far different than software, or written works, and it gets mighty complex indeed.
There are sections describing special rules and notes for music and software, I wouldn't go so far as to say they are treated "far different".
Whether a cutsey copy-left statment would stand in a court has so many if ands and buts about it, nobody can say anything about such cases in the abstract.
Sure you can. You can say that prose (eg. the comments) is covered by copyright, facts (eg. the data in the termcap lines) are not, and compilations of facts (eg. what order the termcap lines come in) is usually but not always covered by copyright, and all this takes effect before any "cutsey copy-left statement" is even looked at.
While the "This file deliberately has no copyright" phrase probably does nothing legally interesting, the phrase "It belongs to no one and everyone." does appear to me to clearly place the entire work into the public domain. "It" gramatically refers to the file, and the only reasonable interpretation is it refers to the copyrights on the file; "belongs to" indicates that we are discussing who holds the copyrights on the file; "no one and everyone" a description that only truly matches the public domain. If I were going to distribute this file, particularly if I were to distribute it commercially, I would run my interpretation past a lawyer first, but it certainly reads like a public domain declaration to me. If I were commercially redistributing it, I'd probably write ESR for formal confirmation that his parts of the file are public domain, and that nothing but facts were taken from SCO's file.
All of which wil make anything going on in court between SCO and IBM on any potential copyright aspects of this a pure crap shoot for sure.
No crap shoot, since nothing is going on in court between SCO and IBM on any potential copyright aspects of this. The
Anonymous Coward wrote, in response to the "lack of copyright" notice in a termcap file:
Wake the frell up.
Copyright is granted regardless of whether there is a copyright claim or statement. If you put a work out, including email, it is held protected under copyright law under the letter of the law.
You're right, of course, but with one notable exception.
You can't copyright data (at least in the US), and a Termcap file is data. Specifically, the Supreme Court decision in Feist Publications v Rural Telephone Service Co goes into great detail on the differences between facts and compilations of facts in regards to copyright law. The termcap file being discussed lifted termcap info, which essentially amounts to encoded facts about things like screen width, whether or not it has italic fonts, and the command code to clear the display.
Nobody (at least in the US) can sanely claim copyright on a line from a termcap file. You could claim copyright on the comments or any other prose involved, but none of that was lifted from SCO. I would read the copyright disclaimer here as saying "I'm not claiming copyright on the comments, and if anyone claims copyright on the termcap data, they're morons", which is essentially correct.
Furthermore, if you intended to put your words into the public domain, be very clear. State that this is your work and creation, you are the legit holder, and that you now place it into the public domain.
Excellent advice, except that the author is viewing it as a mixed work, not as their work, and therefore couldn't make such a statement.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above is not legal advice. Sane or not, at this point, I wouldn't suggest copying even a punctuation mark from a file bearing a copyright or license from SCO, as they are rabid and likely to sue.
Well, what if I deliver an extemporaneous speech orally? Is it fixed? Perhaps, if you consider that I am altering the configuration of air molecules in my vicinity in such a way that my words are fixed in it. It doesn't last, but then, what does? Even books and stone tablets wear out. My ice sculptures sure don't last too long, but they're copyrightable subject matter. And this configuration of air is perceivable by you, and you can understand the work that I've placed there.
But it's a stupid argument. Sound carried over the air is not enough to be fixed.
Well, when I copy information into volatile RAM, it lasts for a mere instant. Nanoseconds. The sounds in air actually last LONGER.
You misunderstand, I'm not talking about RAM, I'm talking about software installation.
Check out 17 USC 117, which makes copying software to a computer in any way necessary for its use, or for backup purposes as desired, perfectly legal and not an infringement at all.
Yes, I stand corrected, I forgot that that section was for more than just backup copies. This section should have eliminated shrinkwrap licenses alltogether. Sadly, it was added after the industry was already addicted to such licenses.
I'd argue that licenses generally are not [valid or enforcable], at least of the EULA variety.
I'd argue that any EULA, Clickwrap or other attached license that flies in the face of First Sale Doctorine, or goes beyond the limitations on Contracts of Adhesion is likely to be unenforcable, or at least the bad terms would be. Most EULA's would run afoul of one or both issues.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and as demonstrated above I have an imperfect memory of the law. The above is not legal advice. Even though I feel EULA's are unenforcable, don't violate them without advice of legal council.
But you DONT buy music. You buy a license to use it.
The most recent music CD I purchased came with no license, nor did I need one. At least in the United States, first sale doctorine says that when I purchase a copyrighted product (eg. a book, or a CD), I own the physical product, and have a right to enjoy the use of it, and resell it as I see fit. The copyright holder has no right to limit my quiet enjoyment of my purchase.
Copyright Law restricts my right to make and distribute copies of the work, and derivative works. If I wish to do something with my CD that would be in violation of Copyright Law, then and only then I would need to obtain a license from the copyright holder.
There is no legal basis for an implied license with a CD/Book/DVD, nor is there any need for one.
Computer software is different, because you almost always have to copy software at least once to make use of it (from the media to the computer). It's also different, because software (both shrinkwrap and Free) is traditionally shipped with a license in some form you can see and read. So, basically, if you see a license, you (may or arguably may not, that's a different issue though) have a license; if you don't see one, you definately don't have one.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. The above is not legal advice. Eat your greens.
It's simple, we have a script check incoming emails for restricted attachment types (eg..exe files), and rather than delivering them, or dumping them entirely, it places the attachment in a quarantine area, and sends the user an email saying that their email had been quarantined.
If, as in most cases, the attachment was a virus, or something the user wasn't supposed to be opening anyway (eg. greeting cards in executable files), it sits in quarantine until it reaches a certain age, and then it gets deleted.
If it was a legitimate file, we get a call requesting the file be delivered, we double check that it's safe, and then bounce the full email to them (through a restricted use path that avoids the quarantine check).
As long as you have a quarantine area, you can safely be draconian about adding to the list of attachments that don't get delivered.
The anarchists Cookbook was published by a covert government organization and was intended to cause physical harm to any who tried to execute the plans included in it. Anyone with a rudimentary education in chemistry, mechanical engineering, and explosives can easily see this.
The Anarchist Cookbook (by William Powell; ISBN 0962303208) was written by a naive teenager with little practical experience, and most of the recipies in the book were never tested before the book went to print. It was published, unedited, by Lyle Stuart, Inc. While Lyle Stuart is not the most pristine publisher in the world, it's far from being a government conspiracy.
An update to the cookbook entitles The Anarchists Cookbook 2000 or something along those lines has the same caliber of useless information in it.
The cookbook was never updated. William Powell (the author) regretted the book being published and requested the book be taken out of print, but was rebuffed by the publisher since he signed away his copyrights. He never updated the book.
There are many books, and other publications, with similar names, but they are not updates to the original.
Please do not try any of the "recipes" out of either of these books. You will most likely wind up seriously injured.
Yes, please do not try any recipies for producing explosives, chemicals or pharmaceuticals, without having a clear understanding of what you are doing. Just because it's written down on paper doesn't mean it's correct. Even if it's correct, many such recipies are very easy to have a catastrphic mistake. No recipie book is sufficient to prepare you for such projects, seek instruction under someone experienced.
Disclaimer: I am not "someone experienced" in such projects. This post is not intended to condone illegal activity.
Um, I first tried Microsoft Windows in 1985 or early 1986, which I would certainly classify as "nearly 20 years" ago. Given the author's background, I would think he tried it at a similar time.
Granted, I found it ugly, bloated and slow in 1985, and he apparently liked it, but matters of taste don't change the date.
Slashdot Mirror
If they chose option 3a, the written offer need not exist.
If they chose option 3b, then Broadcom would have to word the written offer so that anyone would be permitted to make use of it, not just Linksys. However, neither Broadcom nor Linksys is obligated to pass on this written offer to anyone unless they are also distributing the software to them. Broadcom can nether stop Linksys from redistributing, nor can they force them to redistribute.
Chances are, they chose 3a anyway, because the economics of the GPL have changed since it was written. Originally, 3a was easy but expensive, 3b was the hard but sometimes less expensive (3c was easy and cheap, but not always possible). 3a is still easy, but it's now cheap, cheaper than 3b. Since 3b is both hard (you have to have someone listening for and honoring requests for source), and more expensive, and risky too (there's nothing to stop a third party from picking option 3c, which will cost you staff and administration time for distributions you can't control or make a profit on), there's almost no incentive for people to use that option anymore.
He's almost certainly talking about SAMBA. Microsoft probably (I haven't checked) has patents on several aspects of the SMB protocol and the NT Domain system. SAMBA would then reimplement these patents without a license. Therefore, Microsoft IP (patents) could very well be in open source software (SAMBA) without authorization.
To my knowledge, Microsoft has not moved on this issue. They probably see SAMBA as still being too small a fish. It wouldn't be profitable for them to sue a few developers into bankrupcy, but if a big company with deep pockets banks on SAMBA, they might reconsider.
In the interim, Microsoft spreading vague FUD on the issue is cheap and very beneficial to their bottom line.
[Sorry for the long delay in responding, I felt your thoughtful post deserved a thoughtful reply, and life kept getting in the way of me having time to do so]
I was unable to find any mention of the word mutate or mutations, except in one of the references. The creation model in fact accounts for speciation, and indeed counts on it. More on this below (perhaps not in a way you will recognise).
The most common biological definition of mutation is "a permanent change in genetic structure that is inheritable by future generational offspring". The site refers to many permanent changes in genetic structure, it discusses their inheritance by future generational offspring. Therefore, it is talking about mutation.
Mutation is the key difference between Modern and Darwinian Evolution theory. Darwin knew that there was variation and inheritance, but the field of Genetics hadn't started yet, so there was no body of theory for him to draw on to explain them. Genetics theory supplied that explanation, and the underlying process is mutation.
It may not surprise you that for a long time I have known that certain parts of the general theory of evolution are correct, such as natural selection, and observed speciation. I have difficulty from person to person using the correct words. Each person has their own view in which certain words should be used, eg "evolution".
I have found it safest to use the words as defined by the scientific community for scientific terms (eg "evolution", "mutation"), as there is maximal precision and minimal variation, particularly since we are talking science here. For religious terms, I try to use the terms as defined by the person I'm talking to, as my religion is not well known, and usually irrelevant to the conversation. For lay terms, I try to explicitly define what I'm talking about as soon as I suspect confusion.
Some are very quick to discount other fields besides biology, while people like yourself (rightly) point out that these fields are equally important to the GTE. After all, if geology shows that the earth is as young as the creation model states, then the GTE would be incorrect.
Not necessarily. If Geology suddenly changes its interpretation of its data, and gives a completely different chronology, it would affect the chronology of when we think certain ancestral species existed, but probably not the order in which they occured. The theory of evolution (GTE) would be essentially untouched, since it describes a process, not a chronology.
Ultimately, what I reject are:
a. That the earth is older than ~6,000 years (I do not reject an old universe, read Starlight and Time by Russell Humphreys)
Your main beef here is with the scientific theories in the field of Geology, not Evolution then. Even if you somehow manage to completely disprove the Theory of Evolution, that doesn't change the fact that the Evolution says nothing about the age of the earth.
b. That all living things share a common ancestor
This is a core premise of Darwin's, but to my knowledge it's only being held up by Occam's Razor, since the fossil record of early life is very fragmentary. If you accept evolution as the source of all modern life, any multiple ancestor explanation is just astronomically unlikely without further evidence. Of course, if you don't accept evolution, there's no need to accept a common ancestor either.
This implies a number of things. Not so obvious, or explicetly mentioned in the above is that I reject that humans and apes ever shared a common ancestor.
Not so surprising, but here you are coming up against more than just evolution. The genetic difference between humans and apes is minisculely small, implying a common ancestor. The paleontological record shows many intermediate species that imply a shared ancestor. Psychologists and sociologists discuss numerous cognitive and social paralells between us and apes. Again, feel free to bel
If you wish to file a complaint with the SEC, you can find the directions (and even online forms) here:
http://www.sec.gov/complaint.shtml
Remember, be polite and businesslike in the text of your complaint. Be detailed, and make sure you are supplying facts that you can verify.
Tyreth wrote:
This is something that would be a lack of evidence for. Couldn't it always be said "we simply have not seen mutations result in a new species"?
You could say it, but you would be wrong. We have seen mutations result in a new species, we have seen it often, both in the wild and in the laboratory. The talk.origins site has a page devoted to speciation evidence.
Well then call me an evolutionist. I still believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old, and that all creatures originated from an initial kind (humans from Adam & Eve). Do I still qualify as an evolutionist?
If you are asking whether you can simultaneously believe in your view of Creation, and accept the theory of evolution as valid, you most certainly can. Remember, science is incapable of producing truth, merely increasingly accurate predictions. There is nothing stopping you from saying "I believe the Truth is, God created the Earth 6000 years ago, but I accept Evolution theory as a useful and valid means of predicting biological events, even though it implies things that I consider untrue."
Please, however, keep in mind that we don't get the age of the universe from the Theory of Evolution. You would need to say similar things regarding: Astrophysics, Astronomy, Geology, Paleontology, Archaeology, Anthropology, and probably many other sciences I haven't thought of.
If you are concerned with more aspects of Creationism than the age of the universe, keep in mind that it also says things like we are all descended from eight people (Noah, his three sons and their wives) who, according to Ussher, didn't land in the Arc until Wednesday, May 5, 1491BCE. According to historians, the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt was thriving before, during and after the period of time that Bishop Ussher claims the world was underwater and the only survivors were non-Egyptians.
I would also point out that many people who believe in God and the Bible are quite willing to accept that the word commonly translated as "day" in the Book of Genesis does not necessarily equal a 24 hour day-night cycle, that a "year" in the ages of biblical figures does not necessarily equal a 12 month year as we currently understand it, and that admitting that the Bible does not clearly define a specific moment as when the universe begins is not contrary to a faith in God. Some parts of the Bible are clearly and explicitly metaphors, why not the Book of Genesis too?
A metaphor isn't false, it's merely trying to explain something hard to understand using terms that are easier to understand, I think it goes without saying that most versions of the Creation of the Universe are pretty hard to understand.
You sound like a reasonable person. I haven't felt insulted by you or mistreated, which I commend you for. Usually I find evolutionist to be mocking, sometimes disguised, sometimes very openly. But I've yet to find one that understands the creationist position, and I wonder if that's why they (you) are so quick to reject it?
I find no need to insult or mock, and you are clearly a thinking person, even though some of your beliefs don't match mine. However, you would find me a lot harder to get along with if you were actually threatening me with Creationism. Far too often, lately, Creationism hasn't come up as a matter of personal belief, but in terms of "Creation Science", and in school boards being pressured to teach "Creation Science" to their students as science (along with or instead of Evolution). Not only do I object to the views of Creationism being presented as science to impressionable minds, when it is not science, but I also strenuously object to the political movement that is trying to get Christianity taught in our public schools, in direct contradiction to the Establishment clause. I think this movement is unhealthy
Specifically, Darwin addresses the topic at length in Chapter 4 of The Origin of Species . Also, on talk.origins, the entire discussion of Phylogenetics is a discussion on the theory behind the "common descent of living organisms", and it explicitly includes potential falsifications. This is one of the places where Darwin's case needed to be strenghtened by modern biologists, since Darwin did not know of the work of Mendel and later biologists in the field of Genetics, which is key to explaining the role of mutation in the variation that Darwin speaks of.
To phrase it a different way:
This is what people mean when they say the "evidence is so overwhelming" for evolutionary processes (variation/mutation, competition, natural selection) resulting in new species.
alexhmit wrote:
I remember reading that the right to trial by combat wasn't removed until 1780 somthing...
Actually, it appears to still be on the books. Someone attempted to invoke it just last year. Apparently it hasn't been actually used since the 1800's, but it seems to still be on the books.
Tyreth Wrote:
I am a creationist, but I agree with what you say - creationism is not a scientific theory. At least not in the strictest sense of the word. It is not falsifiable. What I am trying to set straight is that the whole theory of evolution (not the strict definition that talkorigins.org gives, which creationists agree with) is also not scientific, since it is not falsifiable. Not in a scientific way. I've asked a few times now, and no-one's given me a falsifiable theory of evolution
The Theory of Evolution, that is to say the theory put forth by Darwin in The Origin of Species and updated and elaborated by him and other Biologists as time went on is scientific and is falsifiable. It is what is being discussed on the talk.origins site. That is the Theory of Evolution, and every step of the way, every piece of it is falsifiable (and the talk.origins site lists possible falsifications).
The Theory of Evolution is often misrepresented by the media, and occasionally by its proponents in science and education as well, but just because they claim the theory covers things doesn't mean the theory covers it, it just means the person is wrong.
For example, many people claim that the Theory of Evolution includes how life initially emerged from the primordial ooze, but to my knowledge it does not. Once you have life, the theory covers how you get increasingly complex life quite well, but it doesn't give any mechanism for life starting to begin with. Biologists have some compelling hypotheses regarding this (including the "Primordial Soup"), but to my knowledge none of them have been established to the point where they are called theories.
I'll tell you why I think creation scientists may claim their theory is scientific (and this is just my guesses, I don't know for sure). Science is, ultimately, a more generic term than it's strictest meaning.
Lay people use the word science in a sloppy way, but that doesn't excuse so-called scientists from using it in a sloppy way. It doesn't protect these "scientists" from being called out on it when
In the strictest sense neither evolution or creation are scientific
In the stricted sense Evolution is quite scientific, you have failed to demonstrate that it is not. In the strictest sence a few non-scientific things have been attributed to the fringes of Evolution, but these should not be taught as science either. It doesn't change the fact that the Theory of Evolution is science and is scientific.
But in a more general way they are - because the two theories use scientific facts (in the strict sense) to explain their model of the world. Like fruit in a fruitbowl - the fruit are not the fruitbowl individually, but they make it up. So do scientific facts (for so long as they remain fact) make up and explain or contradict the models of evolution or creation.
That is not science, not even in the general sense. If I look at my computer, and all the scientific facts and observations regarding the processor in my computer, and claim that there are no moving electrons within my microprocessor, but rather thousands of non-corporeal, invisible spirits who listen to the electrons on the wire, talk to each other really quickly, make decisions, and push electrons onto the wire; that they watch for logic probes and other analytic tools and affect them according to how they should act if there were moving electrons. This is based on scientific facts, it might even be true (I certainly can't prove it false), but it's not science, and not even reasonable laypeople would call it science.
You can't just keep reasserting "Evolution is not falsifiable" without backing it up. What about Evolution is not falsifiable?
Tyreth wrote:
You went to great lengths to explain to me the proper scientific method, then you present this. In Darwin's origin of species, where does he describe how his theory may be falsified?
You don't need to explicitly say "This is how my theory can be falsified" for a theory to be falsifiable. The Origin of Species is long, I can't list every way it can be falsified. I will endeavor to list some.
If the biologists concept of "species" were to be invalidated, his theory would fall apart just like Newton's did when the physicists concept of "particle" were invalidated.
If it can be shown that mutations cannot be inherited, that would pretty much kill large chunks of his theory.
If it can be shown that mutation can not result in a new species, that would kill the "origin of species" part of his theory.
It's really pointless and impossible to make an exhaustive list, why don't you point to a portion of the theory that you find suspicious, and ask how that can be falsified.
Tell me how evolution can be falsified, else it is not a scientific theory. Tell me, according to your previous article, how we can repeatedly test evolution.
We can and do repeatedly test evolution. Each year, everyone from biotech firms to cattle ranchers to soybean farmers follow techniques that are entirely based on the Theory of Evolution in order to maintain their livelihood. The fact that Evolution is used to develop things that Darwin would never have dreamed of is a testimant to the testability of Evolution.
I'm afraid like most evolutionists you don't really understand the creationist position. We believe in natural selection. It's proven, tested, and observable. It's maths, a fact of life and logic. We don't dispute that. Your list of four points, we agree with them all. And this is not where our dispute with evolution lies.
I hate to break this to you, but that's the Theory of Evolution. Everything else is something else.
It lies with the fact that simple single celled life could *never* produce more information to become complex lifeforms like we see today for many reasons.
I don't understand, all muticellular life that we know comes from the information in a single cell, the zygote. This is an accepted fact, directly (well, through a simple microscope, anyway) observed repeatedly. If you have a problem with this, your beef is with the developmental biologists and medical doctors, not with evolutionary theory and Darwin.
Among those reasons are the amazing odds against it, the irreducible complexity of many creatures, and the greatest of all - the fact that no information producing mutations have been observed that could explain it. The theory of evolution as presented by those who believe in long ages has not had the mechanism it needs observed. The simple single celled life would never become something other than what it is.
Saying we haven't observed something isn't evidence against it, it's merely a lack of evidence for it.
I also fail to see how multicelular life coming from single celular life is so implausable. You have a single celled lifeform; a mutation happens that encourages it to form a colony life form (like many algae), and this version thrives; a mutation happens that causes some specialization to happen, say cells on the outside dedicate themselves to defense, while the inside ones dedicate themselves to eating (like the hydra), and this version thrives. There is no logical difference between this colony with specialized cells and a multicellular organism; from this point, the whole of multicellular evolution opens up.
If you think that the Galapagos finches are evidence of what he [Darwin] taught, then you are mistaken.
How do the Galapagos finches fail to be evidence for Darwin's theories?
I don't really know how much you already know about the creation theory, but I suggest it's not enough at any ra
Tyreth wrote:
Not a thing here I disagree with. I understand that the "science" of origins is not based in the scientific method. I don't think I ever claimed that.
I don't think you did either, was just trying to be as clear as possible as to where I stood.
A creation scientist is one who practices science and believes the origin story as presented in the Bible.
I disagree, there are many people who practice science, and believe in the origin story as presented in the bible, but those people don't call themselves "Creation Scientists". The people calling themselves creation scientists are people who claim to practice science, and present the origin story as presented in the bible as if it were science.
It's not because they believe they can scientifically examine unrepeatable history.
You can scientifically examine unrepeatable history. For example the Battle of Gettysburg is completely unrepeatable, but observations of it are repeated often. We find a new person's memoirs of it, offering an independant view of their portion of the battle, a new artifact is uncovered giving new, different or more complete information on its location, a new way of examining artifcats or the land itself are found, giving new observations.
Some parts of the Bible may be examined in this way, when there's an archaeological site assocated with the story, or independent observers writing their own descriptions of the events at the time. However, I don't see how the biblical story of creation can possibly be examined scientifically.
fluffy666 wrote:
> I understand that the "science" of origins is not based in the scientific method.
Well, it is. In this case our observation is that life of some form arose under the conditions prevalant on earth around 3.8 billion years ago. Other observations - such as the current composition of life forms - provide more observations; the laws of physics provide constraints. Hypotheses can be tested against these.
The point I was originally making regarding the science of origins, and the point which Tyreth appeared to be agreeing with, was that past a certain point, Science can't go, because observation can't go, and testing can't go. Assume that Science establishes the Big Bang as the origin of the universe, you cannot Scientifically examine what happened a minute before the big bang, anything you say about that would be pure conjecture, not Science.
Sorry for the delay, problems at home. Here is the last part, Part 3, "Creation Theory"
Tyreth wrote:
It's exactly comments like this that I buck against.
First off, I wasn't saying there was "hard evidence" for evolution, I was saying there was "hard evidence" against so called "Creation Theory". First, let me be precise about I'm talking about. There is a set of assertions, called "Creationism" or "Creation Theory" by its proponents. This assertion says:
1) The Christian Bible is literally true, including its discussion of creation in the Book of Genesis
2) That a calcuated chronology of the bible is correct, usually the chronology of Archbishop James Ussher, which places the first day of the universe on Sunday, October 23, 4004BCE. Occasionally they use a different chronology, but to my knowledge, none of them use a chronology that sets the age of the universe as more than 10,000 years old.
I have two problems with "Creation Theory", one semantic, and one political. Semantically, I have a problem with the fact that they call it Science, and they call their assertions a Theory, when neither is true, as I will demonstrate below. Politically, I have a problem with the fact that the proponents of "Creation Theory" try to convince school boards and politicians that Evolution Theory is not science, and that "Creation Theory" is. I don't necessarily think that you are a proponent of Creationism, but it struck me from your comments that you have at least been exposed to their arguments, and wanted to set the record more clear, the argument for Evolution as Science and Creationism as Non-Science from someone who does not take the knee jerk "Science is Truth" attitude that pollutes much "Scientific" thinking in this society.
The obstacle to using Creationism as a Theory is getting a proper definition of it. It claims the statements in the Bible are literally true, but which Bible? Which Book of Genesis? Most denominations of Christianity that I know of use either the Hebrew version or the Latin Vulgate translation as Canon, as the Truth. Most proponents of Creationism speak neither Hebrew nor Latin, their concept of the Bible is based on a translation, and not the version of the bible that their professed faith considers Truth. So there is an instant question mark, what Theory is being proposed?
Next, many (though not all) Creationists use quotations in the bible as evidence, as if it were to take the place of Scientific Observation. As I described in Part 1, scripture cannot qualify as Scientific Observation. It is not Direct (The person who penned the Book of Genesis, presumably Moses, did not directly observe the third day of creation), nor is it Repeatable (I can't go out and directly observe the third day of creation, nor was there an effort to get additional people to make independant observations of it at the time). Any assertion that depends on Scripture as evidence, regardless of whether or not you believe it is Truth, it is not Science.
Next, if you accept Creationism as a Hypothesis, it has been scientifically falsified. While there is a lot of dispute as to the exact ages of the Universe, of Earth, of Life, of Humankind, there is widespread agreement, and large amounts of independant evidence, that they each are more than a certain age. The universe is at least 10 Billion Years old, the Earth is significantly older than 3.5 Billion Years old, Life on Earth is at least 3.4 Billion Years old, Human Kind (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) is at least 100,000 years old. All of these time spans insist on a change in the chronology. All of them indicate that Creationism, as a hypothesis, has been falsified, and must be modified or discarded.
All of the modifications I've heard, "God made an old world", both depend on assertions that are not falsifiable (eg. the existance of God), and violate
A post in parts, Part 2 Evolution Theory
s _darwin/origin_of_species/index.shtml.
Tyreth asks:
You tell me, what proof is there of evolution? Even better! What is the scientific theory of evolution by which we can test the theory? What is the scientific theory of evolution which creationists disagree with - that all life evolved from simple single celled life. Show me something we can test.
You ask as if it's hard to find. The core of Evolution Theory is found in The Origin Of Species, by Charles Darwin. It can be found onlne at http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charle
Darwin's hypothesis was borne from very detailed observations Darwin did, that could be easily repeated. Among his observations were, the techniques and effects of animal and plant husbandry, the variations of finches in the Galapagos islands, the fossilized findings of the relatively new field of paleontology. His theory has been widely tested, and has directly enhanced the industry of husbandry. Other fields of study started independantly of Evolution (eg Genetics) were found to dovetail so neatly that Evolution is considered to have very strong observational backing. It is a strong theory that has been so useful and accurate it has become one of the cornerstones of modern biological science.
As time went on and more things got observed, the theory was tweaked in places, and expanded upon in places, but at it's core, modern evolution theory is very close to what Darwin expounded in his books. It pretty much boils down to:
1) Within a species of organism, there is a certain amount of variation.
2) A population of an organism is under a set of environmental pressures (eg. scarce food, predators, etc)
3) These pressures will be more effectively met by some variations within the population than others, the better adapted variations will thrive in relation to the more poorly adapted variations. This process is called natural selection
4) Since different populations can be under widely different sets of pressures, natural selection can encourage variations to increase between populations, sometimes to the point where they are no longer the same species as each other.
As far as evidence goes, as well as falsification tests for pieces of modern theory, I can't possibly do better than the people at talk.origins. You can find their examination of the subject at http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
A post in parts. Part 1 The Scientific Method
There is no proof of evolution. In fact, there is no proof of any scientific theory. Science doesn't work by proof.
You have a body of observation that has developed over the years. Someone, let's say Darwin, comes up with an explanation as to the specifics of how nature is functioning, this is called a hypothesis. Among other things, the hypothesis will point out predictions of future observations. A number of scientists will test the hypothesis by performing observations, and seeing whether the predictions the hypothesis made are borne out or not. If the hypothesis matches all of these predictions, it becomes a theory, otherwise there's evidence the hypothesis is false, and it's either discarded or reworked to match the new observations. Once a theory is accepted, it's not set in stone, but future observations can still show it is incomplete or wrong.
This is the scientific method:
Observation -> Hypothesis -> Testing -> Theory
If you aren't following the scientific method, it's not science. Most (though not all) "Creation Scientists" show no understanding of the scientific method, spew statements that violate or ignore the scientific method, and wonder why people say that it's not scientists.
The next thing that I feel I have to make explicit before going into your argument is the nature of Scientific Observation. For an observation to be scientifically useful, it needs to be direct, and it needs to be repeatable. Direct means that you are reporting what your senses tell you, with little or no interpretation. For example, if I'm doing electrical experiments, I don't say "the battery put out 20 volts", because you didn't see any volts, you say "the voltmeter, when attached with the positive lead on terminal A1 and the negative lead on terminal B3, indicated a voltage differential of 20 volts". Repeatable means that, if another scientist were to folow your directions at a different location, they will obtain the same observation. For example, the whole "cold fusion" flap a few years back was not because cold fusion bucked the mainstream scientific community, but because the researchers went to press before they confirmed that their observation was repeatable.
Many "Creation Scientists" show their lack of scientific understanding by presenting non-scientific observation as if it were scientific observation or even as just plain "truth". As important as the Book of Genesis may be to you, a line of scripture in it is not a direct observation of the events described, nor is it likely to be repeatable. Even if you personally have directly observed a miracle, and report it with scientific rigor, the event can be as true and real as the nose on your face, it would still be irrelevant to science, because a miracle is by its very nature unrepeatable in the scientific sense.
This is a limitation on science, science just can not touch certain subjects unless or until we can figure out how to come up with direct repeatable observations of the subject. By accepting this limitation, however, science has become the most useful predictive tool of those subjects it can address.
Another point that needs to be explored before I get to the meat of your request, is what happens when there are multiple hypotheses addressing a set of observations. First, you review the observations, make sure that there isn't one that knocks one or the other out of the running. Next, you look at the tests each hypothesis offers, if a hypothesis offers no tests for a significant chunk of its conjecture, it must be discarded as not scientifically useful. It is said to not be falsifiable, there must be a way of potentially disproving a hypothesis before it can be accepted. Lastly, if both hypotheses have survived to this point, most scientists use a rule of thumb called Occam's Razor, "One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain
Tyreth asserts:
God is the first cause, the creator, the origin. Atheistic evolution has no answer for first cause, while there must be one.
It's not clear from the context which thing you are talking about. When I hear people talk about "the creator" and "first cause", generally they are talking about the creation of the universe as a whole. But this is a thread about creationism, so you might be talking about the creation of life/man on earth. I'll answer the question both ways.
In regards to the first cause in the creation of the universe, it is qutie true that science has no real answers. It has some speculation (eg. an eternal cycle of big bang->expansion->contraction->big crunch->repeat), but these speculations are difficult or impossible to analyze scientifically. Since it cannot be answered by science, it pretty much has to be answered by faith, and it doesn't matter to me, or to science, if you feel that Jehovah made it with a word, Shiva danced it into existance, or it was sneezed out of the nostril of a divine goat. It's a matter of personal faith.
In regards to the first cause in the creation of life, Darwin doesn't really address that as far as I know, but modern biologists seem pretty well convinced that as the earth was cooling, you had a stage where the atmosphere was primarily methane, and there were oceans of "primordial soup" which was essentially key elements disolved in water. This was a high energy time, and a lot of heat was coming up from the earth beneath these oceans and from lightning from the sky. The energy interacting with the soup made for developing some interesting and exotic chemicals (eg amino and nucleic acids) which could, by random chance, combine into self-replicating forms. Once you have self-replicating chemicals, Darwin's theories take it from there just fine. Many of the steps involved in this process have been borne out either in the geological/paleontological record, or in laboratory experiments.
If you feel that your God had a hand in making the random collisions come out the way they did, there's nothing in science to contradict you; there's also nothing in science to support you. Again, that boils down to a matter of personal faith.
On the other hand, if you feel, as many "creation scientists" do, that the universe, the earth, life and man all were created in late October, 4004 BCE, there is a great deal of hard evidence against you. Such a belief is not a simple matter of faith, but a more complicated matter of blind faith. A faith that demands that you close your eyes to the world around you doesn't strike me as healthy, or likely to be true. It certainly doesn't count as science, or as something I'd want to see children being taught.
Surak wrote:
'Almost certainly'? I love how astrophysists base their hypotheses on theories that are so far from being conclusively proven that it's ridiculous.
Such is science, all science.
There is no such animal in science as a theory that has been "conclusively proven". You want conclusive proofs, guarantees of truth and falsehood, go to mathematics (and steer clear of fundamental Set Theory while you're there)
First off, how do we know that the Universe is 13 billion years (or whatever?) We don't.
You're right, we don't. What we have is some evidence that the universe is 13-14 billion years old, and some evidence that it's older (and some that it's younger). The "true" age will
The scientific method, honest science, doesn't strive for "truth", it strives for a framework of prediction that becomes more and more accurate and useful as scientists work on them. For example, Newton's theory of accelleration (F=ma) has been disproven, we know it's incorrect, but we still find use in it; Einstein's accelleration theories is more precise, particularly at high speeds and near dense objects. As far as I know, Einstein's theories haven't been disproven, but I'd bet they will be before the end of this century.
If the Universe's existence *is* finite, what was there before the Universe? How did the Universe form? "Big bang"? And this happened how? Remember, there was no Universe, so there was nothing to make a big bang!
There are many ideas about this (what, you thought cosmologists forgot this question?) One popular one is that there's a big bang, the universe expands, runs out of steam, starts contracting, collapses in a "big crunch" which then becomes the next big bang. Another is that quantum fluctuations are capable of creating new universes.
The trouble is, assuming there was a big bang, anything that came before it is currently unverifiable, which means that any ideas about it are difficult or impossible to form a falsifiable hypothesis about it. Unless you have a falsifiable hypothesis to study, you're not doing science. So anything prior to the big bang is currently not subject to scientific analysis, and is therefore just interesting speculation.
It's all predicated on silly little assumptions that are based on no credible, reliable information. Just assumptions on top of assumptions.
No, it's predicated on little assumptions that are based on the best observation and analysis we currently have available. You follow these assumptions back far enough, and you find reach assumptions like "the fundamental laws of nature don't change over time" and "we can make useful observations of reality". While these are assumptions, and they really can't be proven, I think you will find them axioms that are hard to live without.
And then purported to be 'fact'.
A good, honest scientist will never purport anything to be fact beyond "When I did X, I observed Y". Note, this doesn't stop the media from attributing all sorts of "facts" to the scientist erroneously.
That's the problem with much of the scientific community -- too closed-minded.
You are the one sounding closed minded here, by scoffing about scientific theories you clearly don't understand.
My problem with the scientific community is that far too few of its members are the good, honest scientists that I described above, and far too many are administrators, or dishonest scientists more concerned with protecting their jobs and/or ego investments in their theories than keeping the body of understanding growing.
Science is not closed minded, but yes, too often the scientific community can be. We need more scientists in the scientific community.
You need to not just make the call. If you deviate from professional/company standards, even for good reasons, you make the call and then CYA. Fire off a quick email to Your Boss/President/CEO/Board indicating the fact that you need to bend the rules in order to ensure company success. If possible, include an estimate of what will happen if you follow the rules versus what will happen if you bend the rules. If possible, also include a quick and dirty estimate of what the post-release costs of getting the project back on track.
If you run into this on a regular basis, you might want to talk to the powers-that-be about making some sort of protocol for "Fast Track" projects that will give you the flexibility you need to get the job done, but give them the control they need to ensure they don't have an ever-increasing dependence on unmaintainable spaghetti code. And then you can do it, and still be following the rules.
If the powers-that-be keep balking at the thought of getting stuff done during what you consider the windows of opportunities, you might just have to accept the fact that your superiors have a vastly different viewpoint or set of priorities than you. Then your options include: see if you can engage the board or owners into changing their viewpoint, or finding a company that's more compatible with the way you prefer to operate.
Anonymous Coward wrote:
Well, no. It depends on the date of the work. Copyright law changes over time.
No, it doesn't depend on the date of the work. The principal of "You can't copyright facts" is based on the wording of the copyright clause of the US Constitution, it has always been the case in this country (and is not necessarily the case in any other country).
Today, all is "born copyright", though you still have to file for official copyright to sue anybody and get actual damages. Before the lawsuit. But this is a recent law and before about 2000, one had to copyright your work, there was no born copyright.
Yes, today in the US all is "born copyright", but the year 2000 has nothing to do with it. This change was part of the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 which took effect on March 1, 1989 (Section 7, to be precise).
Merely stating "this work is copyright" didn't make it so,
Prior to the Berne Act, it wasn't much harder than that, all you had to do was write "Copyright 1956, John Doe" somewhere where people will see it.
and bluntly, the federal copyright law starts out with a warning that copyright law is a peculiar law and each and every case will be different and there is no real set
law as such, there are a set of tests.
No, the Federal Copyright Law starts out the same way most federal laws do, with a Section full of definitions, after that, the next section describes the scope of the law. Nowhere in the law could I find it describing itself as peculiar, nor any indication that there was "no real set law as such".
Music is treated far different than software, or written works, and it gets mighty complex indeed.
There are sections describing special rules and notes for music and software, I wouldn't go so far as to say they are treated "far different".
Whether a cutsey copy-left statment would stand in a court has so many if ands and buts about it, nobody can say anything about such cases in the abstract.
Sure you can. You can say that prose (eg. the comments) is covered by copyright, facts (eg. the data in the termcap lines) are not, and compilations of facts (eg. what order the termcap lines come in) is usually but not always covered by copyright, and all this takes effect before any "cutsey copy-left statement" is even looked at.
While the "This file deliberately has no copyright" phrase probably does nothing legally interesting, the phrase "It belongs to no one and everyone." does appear to me to clearly place the entire work into the public domain. "It" gramatically refers to the file, and the only reasonable interpretation is it refers to the copyrights on the file; "belongs to" indicates that we are discussing who holds the copyrights on the file; "no one and everyone" a description that only truly matches the public domain. If I were going to distribute this file, particularly if I were to distribute it commercially, I would run my interpretation past a lawyer first, but it certainly reads like a public domain declaration to me. If I were commercially redistributing it, I'd probably write ESR for formal confirmation that his parts of the file are public domain, and that nothing but facts were taken from SCO's file.
All of which wil make anything going on in court between SCO and IBM on any potential copyright aspects of this a pure crap shoot for sure.
No crap shoot, since nothing is going on in court between SCO and IBM on any potential copyright aspects of this. The
Anonymous Coward wrote, in response to the "lack of copyright" notice in a termcap file:
Wake the frell up.
Copyright is granted regardless of whether there is a copyright claim or statement. If you put a work out, including email, it is held protected under copyright law under the letter of the law.
You're right, of course, but with one notable exception.
You can't copyright data (at least in the US), and a Termcap file is data. Specifically, the Supreme Court decision in Feist Publications v Rural Telephone Service Co goes into great detail on the differences between facts and compilations of facts in regards to copyright law. The termcap file being discussed lifted termcap info, which essentially amounts to encoded facts about things like screen width, whether or not it has italic fonts, and the command code to clear the display.
Nobody (at least in the US) can sanely claim copyright on a line from a termcap file. You could claim copyright on the comments or any other prose involved, but none of that was lifted from SCO. I would read the copyright disclaimer here as saying "I'm not claiming copyright on the comments, and if anyone claims copyright on the termcap data, they're morons", which is essentially correct.
Furthermore, if you intended to put your words into the public domain, be very clear. State that this is your work and creation, you are the legit holder, and that you now place it into the public domain.
Excellent advice, except that the author is viewing it as a mixed work, not as their work, and therefore couldn't make such a statement.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above is not legal advice. Sane or not, at this point, I wouldn't suggest copying even a punctuation mark from a file bearing a copyright or license from SCO, as they are rabid and likely to sue.
cpt kangarooski wrote:
Well, what if I deliver an extemporaneous speech orally? Is it fixed? Perhaps, if you consider that I am altering the configuration of air molecules in my vicinity in such a way that my words are fixed in it. It doesn't last, but then, what does? Even books and stone tablets wear out. My ice sculptures sure don't last too long, but they're copyrightable subject matter. And this configuration of air is perceivable by you, and you can understand the work that I've placed there.
But it's a stupid argument. Sound carried over the air is not enough to be fixed.
Well, when I copy information into volatile RAM, it lasts for a mere instant. Nanoseconds. The sounds in air actually last LONGER.
You misunderstand, I'm not talking about RAM, I'm talking about software installation.
Check out 17 USC 117, which makes copying software to a computer in any way necessary for its use, or for backup purposes as desired, perfectly legal and not an infringement at all.
Yes, I stand corrected, I forgot that that section was for more than just backup copies. This section should have eliminated shrinkwrap licenses alltogether. Sadly, it was added after the industry was already addicted to such licenses.
I'd argue that licenses generally are not [valid or enforcable], at least of the EULA variety.
I'd argue that any EULA, Clickwrap or other attached license that flies in the face of First Sale Doctorine, or goes beyond the limitations on Contracts of Adhesion is likely to be unenforcable, or at least the bad terms would be. Most EULA's would run afoul of one or both issues.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and as demonstrated above I have an imperfect memory of the law. The above is not legal advice. Even though I feel EULA's are unenforcable, don't violate them without advice of legal council.
Kenja asserts:
But you DONT buy music. You buy a license to use it.
The most recent music CD I purchased came with no license, nor did I need one. At least in the United States, first sale doctorine says that when I purchase a copyrighted product (eg. a book, or a CD), I own the physical product, and have a right to enjoy the use of it, and resell it as I see fit. The copyright holder has no right to limit my quiet enjoyment of my purchase.
Copyright Law restricts my right to make and distribute copies of the work, and derivative works. If I wish to do something with my CD that would be in violation of Copyright Law, then and only then I would need to obtain a license from the copyright holder.
There is no legal basis for an implied license with a CD/Book/DVD, nor is there any need for one.
Computer software is different, because you almost always have to copy software at least once to make use of it (from the media to the computer). It's also different, because software (both shrinkwrap and Free) is traditionally shipped with a license in some form you can see and read. So, basically, if you see a license, you (may or arguably may not, that's a different issue though) have a license; if you don't see one, you definately don't have one.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. The above is not legal advice. Eat your greens.
It's simple, we have a script check incoming emails for restricted attachment types (eg. .exe files), and rather than delivering them, or dumping them entirely, it places the attachment in a quarantine area, and sends the user an email saying that their email had been quarantined.
If, as in most cases, the attachment was a virus, or something the user wasn't supposed to be opening anyway (eg. greeting cards in executable files), it sits in quarantine until it reaches a certain age, and then it gets deleted.
If it was a legitimate file, we get a call requesting the file be delivered, we double check that it's safe, and then bounce the full email to them (through a restricted use path that avoids the quarantine check).
As long as you have a quarantine area, you can safely be draconian about adding to the list of attachments that don't get delivered.
Anonymous Coward trolls:
The anarchists Cookbook was published by a covert government organization and was intended to cause physical harm to any who tried to execute the plans included in it. Anyone with a rudimentary education in chemistry, mechanical engineering, and explosives can easily see this.
The Anarchist Cookbook (by William Powell; ISBN 0962303208) was written by a naive teenager with little practical experience, and most of the recipies in the book were never tested before the book went to print. It was published, unedited, by Lyle Stuart, Inc. While Lyle Stuart is not the most pristine publisher in the world, it's far from being a government conspiracy.
Check out the Author's Note for the book on Amazon.com for more info.
An update to the cookbook entitles The Anarchists Cookbook 2000 or something along those lines has the same caliber of useless information in it.
The cookbook was never updated. William Powell (the author) regretted the book being published and requested the book be taken out of print, but was rebuffed by the publisher since he signed away his copyrights. He never updated the book.
There are many books, and other publications, with similar names, but they are not updates to the original.
Please do not try any of the "recipes" out of either of these books. You will most likely wind up seriously injured.
Yes, please do not try any recipies for producing explosives, chemicals or pharmaceuticals, without having a clear understanding of what you are doing. Just because it's written down on paper doesn't mean it's correct. Even if it's correct, many such recipies are very easy to have a catastrphic mistake. No recipie book is sufficient to prepare you for such projects, seek instruction under someone experienced.
Disclaimer: I am not "someone experienced" in such projects. This post is not intended to condone illegal activity.
Um, I first tried Microsoft Windows in 1985 or early 1986, which I would certainly classify as "nearly 20 years" ago. Given the author's background, I would think he tried it at a similar time.
Granted, I found it ugly, bloated and slow in 1985, and he apparently liked it, but matters of taste don't change the date.
Ah, but the Russians had some designs....
;-)
I would have loved to have seen the UR-700 (4,823,000 kg) fly. It was 58% larger, with 67% more liftoff thrust than the Saturn V.
But I think we've drifted a bit from amateur rockets