I see your point - and I think our disagreement arises with the breadth of our brushstrokes. There are those who believe (which I sense you do) that science is a methodology. I understand science as a mode of thinking about the world, of which the methodology is an important and necessary aspect. In my mind, that's the only fair way of thinking about the issue as it pertains to the NOMA argument - since religion is not a methodology, but a way of interpreting the world. Hence, on even footing, science must win in the "world perception" category, since it has the huge benefit of being internally and externally consistent. That's my only case.
History is in a large part science. The rest are stories, that - though important for us humans to holistically understand the context of historical events - should never supersede scientific discoveries that conflict with those stories. To use your Caesar example, there is quite a lot we know about him because of the evidence surrounding him. Gathering and analyzing evidence is exactly the domain of science - no other domain of inquiry does a better job. This isn't to say that they have no use, but they are merely placeholders until science can catch up. I'll give an illustration:
Cave dwellers knew nothing about the natural world. They revered it as a mystery and told stories that agreed with what they saw. Those stories though explanatory, were largely incorrect. Religious dogma stepped in and stopped the questioning of the correctness of their own theories about the world. Later, religious theories gave way to more naturalistic ones - though I'd not consider that science either, since people like Aristotle hardly tested their ideas... simply observed and thought - a primitive form of science. Nothing that is science today was originally a science, but started out with some other explanatory method. Even physics was originally known as natural philosophy.
But science is more than physics and chemistry and test-tubes... it is the be-all, end-all to epistemology precisely because it has powers that other realms of thought and inquiry don't have, viz., it must be internally AND externally consistent. Philosophy has to be internally consistent but not externally (it doesn't necessarily have to match what people see every day), and religion doesn't have to be consistent at all (sure, it must match what people see and feel - or at least make them see and feel things in a different way so as not to notice the external/internal consistency problems). Religious scholars are often "apologists" - explaining why external criticisms of consistency are incorrect. Science needs no such role (though for some reason, people appoint themselves into such positions from time to time).
Science is a mode of thought... not a thing, or a conspiracy, or a club. It's like the "war on terror". Terror is a tactic - how do you wage war against a tactic? Science is way of thinking - how can a way of thinking be restricted to a small domain? To claim it belongs there is simply arrogance on the part of those that believe their own mode of thought is the sole arbiter of a domain - like, for example, "how the world ought to be".
Suppose that, due to some hitherto unknown form of history-gazing mirror, we were to prove that Jesus never existed. History would claim "well, but the stories are still important", and many Christians would vehemently reject the facts. I hold science as the ideal - the arbiter of the best truth we have. I couldn't see the point in proselytizing the word of Jesus, knowing he never even existed, any more than I could see worshiping the works of Tolkien. This (admittedly imaginary and manufactured) scenario has now slightly shrunk the magesteria of a religion (and history), and grown the magesteria of science. Knowing that Jesus didn't exist means that claims of his divinity are necessarily false. If they are false, then what is to be gained by believing the words of the writers divine? Precisely because their words and ideas cannot be tested holds them highly suspect - no matter how good they may feel.
This isn't to say that all mode of human inquiry should stop until science can take over. I look at philosophies (and historical study) important precisely because it allows us to consider problems in different ways. But once something becomes testable, once the theory, technology, or thought process is in place to do so - the philosophy must give way. If a theory is internally consistent, AND matches all observations, what more could you want from an idea? You have your best guess at this point - the only way (that we know of) to improve it is more stu
Let's keep ID where it belongs, in religion classes, not in the science lab. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. Science answers questions about the knowable and testable. If it doesn't fit into that category, then it probably fits into religion or philosophy. It is very silly to try and use science to influence religion and even sillier to try and use religion to do science.
Ugh - the NOMA argument. Listen: there are no questions "off limits" to science. Could love be chemicals? Could souls exist as energy clouds? If god exists what is he thinking? All of these fall in the realm of science if they can be observed. If they can't be observed now, that doesn't mean they automagically become the domain of religion - they just can't be tested by science yet. Even ethics can be broken down in a more scientific way (anthropologically and evolutionarily, it is statistically in our nature not to kill people who don't pose a threat... knowing that, what ethics can we build from it? How can we reliably assess and define threats to expand our consciousness to the possibility that it's never right to kill? etc.)
Point being - religion only matters if you want to believe in it. Beyond that, it's science all the way down.
Ever hear of In-N-Out Burger?
Menu: Burger. Fries. Shakes/Sodas.
Wildly successful, wherever they are. They have a limited menu, which allows them to focus on the core things that 80% of people want. That's why blanket statements like that are dumb, no matter what side of the debate you're on. But beyond that, I tend to agree with you in certain cases.
I think the biggest reason 20-er's succeed is they do not understand the world wants them to fail (so they don't). Older folks are so much more cynical that they don't step out of the comfort zone. Naw, I think it's just the law of large numbers. you see successful 20-something startups, because so many educated 20-somethings start them. Then the herd gets thinned, the droves of eager-beavers get older and bitter, and the 40-somethings left know their shit. There may be fewer of them, but they're more likely to succeed, per capita.
Ever hear of lijit? Sounds like the same thing. It basically creates a private search engine based on many social networking accounts (including facebook, delicious, myspace, blogs, etc). If you have friends, it spiders out to their results too.
The company is based on the founder's thesis from 2004... so how is faceboogle a new idea?
Well, sort of. You must have a single overarching legal theory - and then you see what laws/rules/agreements/etc. were broken by the defendant in line with the theory presented. But you can't just "see what sticks" with multiple theories, or all you're going to get is an angry judge, who at best tells you to try again. This is essentially what's going on here: a "do-over".
I've always understood that they were pimps, and the musicians were whores. But then again, I'm from Kansas, so I'm not sure there's a difference in our analogies.
Forget that all other smartphones can do this and have even figured out that sending a "suspend" notification to applications when they go out of the foreground helps nullify battery usage by, you know, SUSPENDING the application until it is resumed. iPhone apps CAN suspend. When the iPhone receives a signal that it is about to switch apps, it sends a signal to the UIApplicationDelegate (your app's main interface) called "applicationWillTerminate". You can easily store application state here, and reload when the app is started via "applicationDidFinishLaunching". Does it take a little more work handling it manually? Yes, but hardly enough to whine about. So please stop talking out of your ass.
Must be nice to have had free time. It's amazing what you can do if you don't watch TV or play video games. Unless you claim you work 100 hours a week steadily and that is why you have no time. Then you're a moron for staying at your job. You're getting paid slave wages. Quit now.
Come to think about it... get off slashdot and get back to work!
Cushy work if you can get it. I didn't realise that public speaking was an IT skill. Who said anything about IT skills? Speaking is a basic business skill. You work in a business, right? I've never been a good public speaker. That's fine. I'm not an entertainer, I just disseminate information - something anyone can do. Sign up for Toastmasters if you have hang-ups on speaking. Welcome to the real world, junior.
My opinion isn't swayed much. That's because you're a self-righteous dick. No wonder you don't get promoted... I wouldn't want to work for you either.
Somewhat true. I probably only rate an 8 on the "factor of 10" scale. My position was earned through spending my freetime on open source projects - writing a book on one project, and co-authoring another one. Creating a startup, and speaking at several conferences (JavaOne, ApacheCon, etc). But if you think I brown-nosed my way up, sorry to dissappoint.
Yes. There's an excellent book on the subject by Seth Godin called "The Dip". The Dip is that long, slow grind where you work hard (or socially finagle... whatever) and get a reputation for good works. Most people drop out of this grind, significantly thinning the field. But if you survive through it to the other side, only then do you start to reap the benefits. Since there are so few left, you will get paid alot and given far more leway/power than everyone else. His suggestion? Pick one things and excel in it... society doesn't reward "well rounded" people.
Congress is proposing a draft of a bill to enact a commission to investigate the possibility of something having had or have had not happened - and being met with resistance. The Republic in Action.
It is... oh god it is. I got a BR player, and it takes forever to boot. Not only that, some discs actually take forever to load beyond the boot-up time. Ratatouille actually took over 5 minutes to load when we tried to watch it... just sat there with a loading screen with a damn rat on it. I swear - it was laughing at me.
Slashdot Mirror
I see your point - and I think our disagreement arises with the breadth of our brushstrokes. There are those who believe (which I sense you do) that science is a methodology. I understand science as a mode of thinking about the world, of which the methodology is an important and necessary aspect. In my mind, that's the only fair way of thinking about the issue as it pertains to the NOMA argument - since religion is not a methodology, but a way of interpreting the world. Hence, on even footing, science must win in the "world perception" category, since it has the huge benefit of being internally and externally consistent. That's my only case.
WTF?
History is in a large part science. The rest are stories, that - though important for us humans to holistically understand the context of historical events - should never supersede scientific discoveries that conflict with those stories. To use your Caesar example, there is quite a lot we know about him because of the evidence surrounding him. Gathering and analyzing evidence is exactly the domain of science - no other domain of inquiry does a better job. This isn't to say that they have no use, but they are merely placeholders until science can catch up. I'll give an illustration:
Cave dwellers knew nothing about the natural world. They revered it as a mystery and told stories that agreed with what they saw. Those stories though explanatory, were largely incorrect. Religious dogma stepped in and stopped the questioning of the correctness of their own theories about the world. Later, religious theories gave way to more naturalistic ones - though I'd not consider that science either, since people like Aristotle hardly tested their ideas... simply observed and thought - a primitive form of science. Nothing that is science today was originally a science, but started out with some other explanatory method. Even physics was originally known as natural philosophy.
But science is more than physics and chemistry and test-tubes... it is the be-all, end-all to epistemology precisely because it has powers that other realms of thought and inquiry don't have, viz., it must be internally AND externally consistent. Philosophy has to be internally consistent but not externally (it doesn't necessarily have to match what people see every day), and religion doesn't have to be consistent at all (sure, it must match what people see and feel - or at least make them see and feel things in a different way so as not to notice the external/internal consistency problems). Religious scholars are often "apologists" - explaining why external criticisms of consistency are incorrect. Science needs no such role (though for some reason, people appoint themselves into such positions from time to time).
Science is a mode of thought... not a thing, or a conspiracy, or a club. It's like the "war on terror". Terror is a tactic - how do you wage war against a tactic? Science is way of thinking - how can a way of thinking be restricted to a small domain? To claim it belongs there is simply arrogance on the part of those that believe their own mode of thought is the sole arbiter of a domain - like, for example, "how the world ought to be".
Suppose that, due to some hitherto unknown form of history-gazing mirror, we were to prove that Jesus never existed. History would claim "well, but the stories are still important", and many Christians would vehemently reject the facts. I hold science as the ideal - the arbiter of the best truth we have. I couldn't see the point in proselytizing the word of Jesus, knowing he never even existed, any more than I could see worshiping the works of Tolkien. This (admittedly imaginary and manufactured) scenario has now slightly shrunk the magesteria of a religion (and history), and grown the magesteria of science. Knowing that Jesus didn't exist means that claims of his divinity are necessarily false. If they are false, then what is to be gained by believing the words of the writers divine? Precisely because their words and ideas cannot be tested holds them highly suspect - no matter how good they may feel.
This isn't to say that all mode of human inquiry should stop until science can take over. I look at philosophies (and historical study) important precisely because it allows us to consider problems in different ways. But once something becomes testable, once the theory, technology, or thought process is in place to do so - the philosophy must give way. If a theory is internally consistent, AND matches all observations, what more could you want from an idea? You have your best guess at this point - the only way (that we know of) to improve it is more stu
Let's keep ID where it belongs, in religion classes, not in the science lab. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. Science answers questions about the knowable and testable. If it doesn't fit into that category, then it probably fits into religion or philosophy. It is very silly to try and use science to influence religion and even sillier to try and use religion to do science.
Ugh - the NOMA argument. Listen: there are no questions "off limits" to science. Could love be chemicals? Could souls exist as energy clouds? If god exists what is he thinking? All of these fall in the realm of science if they can be observed. If they can't be observed now, that doesn't mean they automagically become the domain of religion - they just can't be tested by science yet. Even ethics can be broken down in a more scientific way (anthropologically and evolutionarily, it is statistically in our nature not to kill people who don't pose a threat... knowing that, what ethics can we build from it? How can we reliably assess and define threats to expand our consciousness to the possibility that it's never right to kill? etc.)
Point being - religion only matters if you want to believe in it. Beyond that, it's science all the way down.
Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
Ever hear of In-N-Out Burger? Menu: Burger. Fries. Shakes/Sodas. Wildly successful, wherever they are. They have a limited menu, which allows them to focus on the core things that 80% of people want. That's why blanket statements like that are dumb, no matter what side of the debate you're on. But beyond that, I tend to agree with you in certain cases.
I don't think it can be done...
Sweet Jesus, you made your point. Now please stop saying "pr0n".
I feel like I just got Rickrolled. Thanks Slashdot.
Ever hear of lijit? Sounds like the same thing. It basically creates a private search engine based on many social networking accounts (including facebook, delicious, myspace, blogs, etc). If you have friends, it spiders out to their results too. The company is based on the founder's thesis from 2004... so how is faceboogle a new idea?
Until all of the cool kids get on IM and decide to give the introverts a swirly.
Engineers make good lovers, not fighters!
Well, sort of. You must have a single overarching legal theory - and then you see what laws/rules/agreements/etc. were broken by the defendant in line with the theory presented. But you can't just "see what sticks" with multiple theories, or all you're going to get is an angry judge, who at best tells you to try again. This is essentially what's going on here: a "do-over".
I've always understood that they were pimps, and the musicians were whores. But then again, I'm from Kansas, so I'm not sure there's a difference in our analogies.
They also write shitty poetry.
Come to think about it... get off slashdot and get back to work! Cushy work if you can get it. I didn't realise that public speaking was an IT skill. Who said anything about IT skills? Speaking is a basic business skill. You work in a business, right? I've never been a good public speaker. That's fine. I'm not an entertainer, I just disseminate information - something anyone can do. Sign up for Toastmasters if you have hang-ups on speaking. Welcome to the real world, junior. My opinion isn't swayed much. That's because you're a self-righteous dick. No wonder you don't get promoted... I wouldn't want to work for you either.
Somewhat true. I probably only rate an 8 on the "factor of 10" scale. My position was earned through spending my freetime on open source projects - writing a book on one project, and co-authoring another one. Creating a startup, and speaking at several conferences (JavaOne, ApacheCon, etc). But if you think I brown-nosed my way up, sorry to dissappoint.
Yes. There's an excellent book on the subject by Seth Godin called "The Dip". The Dip is that long, slow grind where you work hard (or socially finagle... whatever) and get a reputation for good works. Most people drop out of this grind, significantly thinning the field. But if you survive through it to the other side, only then do you start to reap the benefits. Since there are so few left, you will get paid alot and given far more leway/power than everyone else. His suggestion? Pick one things and excel in it... society doesn't reward "well rounded" people.
I'm a "millenial", and half of the IT department at my company reports to me. Hasn't held me back at all. Have you ever considered sucking less?
Congress is proposing a draft of a bill to enact a commission to investigate the possibility of something having had or have had not happened - and being met with resistance. The Republic in Action.
It is... oh god it is. I got a BR player, and it takes forever to boot. Not only that, some discs actually take forever to load beyond the boot-up time. Ratatouille actually took over 5 minutes to load when we tried to watch it... just sat there with a loading screen with a damn rat on it. I swear - it was laughing at me.