I suspect that anyone involved in identity theft would have no problem fibbing their way through a face-to-face interview.
In fact, they might actually *be* unemployed, or at least w/o legal employment--why get a day job when you make this much ripping everyone else off?
What, so we shouldn't bother with strong security at Ft. Knox because anyone who tried to stage a robbery there would be locked up for eons, and would be a large-scale criminal anyway?
Unfortunately, I think that quite a few people who aren't "terrorists" per se would be more than happy to try to hack into homeland security computers. Why? I'd imagine it's quite an accomplishment to claim, from certain points of view. Plus, there are certain people who are anti-government but not exactly anti-American-people enough to go around bombing places or whatever; this would seem a "harmless" target that would hurt the infrastructure but not kill anyone.
That's misleading logic, though, since having to track/do damage control after someone wreaked havoc here would take energy and resources away from Homeland Security's real mission, and in doing so possibly endanger the country. Even if I'm rather skeptical of the agency's structure and initiatives (which I am), I still think it could be detrimental to gum its gears like that.
Sure, it'd be nice (in theory) to be able to clone a nice new kidney for someone whose kidneys were failing. But would the time necessary to carry out this process--from cloning the embryo to harvesting stem cells to growing the organ--negate the benefit for many people? For a kidney, a person can go on dialysis (not a piece of cake, but better than dying I suppose!), and we do have artificial hearts that can help some heart disease, but I'm sure there would be other cases where the patient might die before his or her "new organ" was ready. Is there a way to speed the process, I wonder, as well as make it more "efficient"?
Nothing is wrong with seeing science and religion as mutually supportive; in fact, that's generally my view.
There is, however, something wrong with giving science (which does not itself support religion, by the very nature of both religion and science; religion is based on faith and science is based on testing and observable fact) comparable footing with religion in public schools. We are supposed to be a country that separates church and state; the school is a place where religion should be neither trampled on nor triumphed.
I rather like the approach of my venerated high school bio teacher, Dennis McFaden: "This is the current scientific approach to how things came to be. It's known as evolution, and yes, it can be controversial. You do not have to believe it, either religiously or factually. You do, however, need to know it, because it is my job to teach the prevailing scientific views and your job to learn them, whether you accept them or not."
So they claim to 'increase the reliability and reduce the cost of access to space by a factor of ten.'
Well, according to Wikipedia (where else?) a space shuttle mission is likely to cost $500 million. If they've been given $100 million, and can stretch it 10 times as far, that gives us, what, 1 billion dollars' worth of effort? Divide that up and that's 2 space shuttles' worth, as it were. (In a very rough sense, at least.) It will be interesting to compare this with the end results that the company actually produces.
Of course, that doesn't even *broach* the subject of how you would calculate whether the reliability was increased by a factor of 10 or not. (90% fewer accidents?) However, the statement may have just meant a general increase in reliability....
Nope, don't worry about being human-centric. Opposable thumbs is a primate-specific trait, not limited to humans (or even apes); next time you're at the zoo, have a look at the monkeys.
Now, not having opposable toes--that's relatively unique!
Yes and no.
There's a huge amount of debate about language as genetic vs. cultural (nature vs. nurture/etc). It does seem true that (1) as humans we have brains that are language-capable to a unique degree, and (2) human children who do not learn language by a key age (between 8 and 12 years usually) completely lose the ability to ever learn it. So many lingusts/linguistic anthropologists seem to think it's a combination of both, although there is little real consensus.
The linguistic apes are another conundrum. Some have been refuted as learning mimicry (which, while not as "simple" as it is often seen as, is far different from true language). Others, particularly Kanzi (who uses lexigrams and is a bonobo), seem to have some linguistic capacity (I would say proto-language personally). However, their vocabularies are far more limited than even your average six-year-old human, even when they are adults.
There are theories (I wish I could remember from whom) that suggest that humans' development of language led to our out-competition of Neandertals around 50-30000 years ago. The idea is that it helped us form socially cohesive groups, plan strategically for the future, etc. Who knows if it's true, but it is an interesting theory....
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I suspect that anyone involved in identity theft would have no problem fibbing their way through a face-to-face interview. In fact, they might actually *be* unemployed, or at least w/o legal employment--why get a day job when you make this much ripping everyone else off?
What, so we shouldn't bother with strong security at Ft. Knox because anyone who tried to stage a robbery there would be locked up for eons, and would be a large-scale criminal anyway?
Unfortunately, I think that quite a few people who aren't "terrorists" per se would be more than happy to try to hack into homeland security computers. Why? I'd imagine it's quite an accomplishment to claim, from certain points of view. Plus, there are certain people who are anti-government but not exactly anti-American-people enough to go around bombing places or whatever; this would seem a "harmless" target that would hurt the infrastructure but not kill anyone.
That's misleading logic, though, since having to track/do damage control after someone wreaked havoc here would take energy and resources away from Homeland Security's real mission, and in doing so possibly endanger the country. Even if I'm rather skeptical of the agency's structure and initiatives (which I am), I still think it could be detrimental to gum its gears like that.
Sure you don't mean the farce?
Sure, it'd be nice (in theory) to be able to clone a nice new kidney for someone whose kidneys were failing. But would the time necessary to carry out this process--from cloning the embryo to harvesting stem cells to growing the organ--negate the benefit for many people? For a kidney, a person can go on dialysis (not a piece of cake, but better than dying I suppose!), and we do have artificial hearts that can help some heart disease, but I'm sure there would be other cases where the patient might die before his or her "new organ" was ready. Is there a way to speed the process, I wonder, as well as make it more "efficient"?
Nothing is wrong with seeing science and religion as mutually supportive; in fact, that's generally my view.
There is, however, something wrong with giving science (which does not itself support religion, by the very nature of both religion and science; religion is based on faith and science is based on testing and observable fact) comparable footing with religion in public schools. We are supposed to be a country that separates church and state; the school is a place where religion should be neither trampled on nor triumphed.
I rather like the approach of my venerated high school bio teacher, Dennis McFaden: "This is the current scientific approach to how things came to be. It's known as evolution, and yes, it can be controversial. You do not have to believe it, either religiously or factually. You do, however, need to know it, because it is my job to teach the prevailing scientific views and your job to learn them, whether you accept them or not."
So they claim to 'increase the reliability and reduce the cost of access to space by a factor of ten.' Well, according to Wikipedia (where else?) a space shuttle mission is likely to cost $500 million. If they've been given $100 million, and can stretch it 10 times as far, that gives us, what, 1 billion dollars' worth of effort? Divide that up and that's 2 space shuttles' worth, as it were. (In a very rough sense, at least.) It will be interesting to compare this with the end results that the company actually produces. Of course, that doesn't even *broach* the subject of how you would calculate whether the reliability was increased by a factor of 10 or not. (90% fewer accidents?) However, the statement may have just meant a general increase in reliability....
Nope, don't worry about being human-centric. Opposable thumbs is a primate-specific trait, not limited to humans (or even apes); next time you're at the zoo, have a look at the monkeys. Now, not having opposable toes--that's relatively unique!
Yes and no. There's a huge amount of debate about language as genetic vs. cultural (nature vs. nurture/etc). It does seem true that (1) as humans we have brains that are language-capable to a unique degree, and (2) human children who do not learn language by a key age (between 8 and 12 years usually) completely lose the ability to ever learn it. So many lingusts/linguistic anthropologists seem to think it's a combination of both, although there is little real consensus. The linguistic apes are another conundrum. Some have been refuted as learning mimicry (which, while not as "simple" as it is often seen as, is far different from true language). Others, particularly Kanzi (who uses lexigrams and is a bonobo), seem to have some linguistic capacity (I would say proto-language personally). However, their vocabularies are far more limited than even your average six-year-old human, even when they are adults. There are theories (I wish I could remember from whom) that suggest that humans' development of language led to our out-competition of Neandertals around 50-30000 years ago. The idea is that it helped us form socially cohesive groups, plan strategically for the future, etc. Who knows if it's true, but it is an interesting theory....