I stand by my claim that the DI misrepresented and distorted the original content of the video, precisely because the original narration does not make any statement about how these biochemical mechanisms came into being, and because it is reasonable to presume that the video's content was developed by scientists, they could not legitimately believe that intelligent design furnishes a valid scientific framework for these mechanisms' existence. The logical conclusion is that the subsequent use is a distortion.
So you're claiming that the content was "distorted", because it was used in a lecture that you presume the authors of the content would disagree with? Wow, that is just absurd. If that ever became a legal standard, it would be the end of science, intellectual debate, and education itself.
You ought only tolerate what doesn't harm you or others. In this case I cannot tolerate creationism. You have already prematurely labeled me a bigot but if it means simply I am intolerant of inadequately supported ideas then thank you I must be a bigot.
I agree that the claim that macroevolution was driven by God or some other intelligent designer is inadequately supported by reproducible evidence. However, the claim that it was driven by random mutation is equally inadequately supported by reproducible evidence. If you are aware of evidence that directly reflects on the mechanism of macroevolution which the scientific community is not aware of, won't you share it with us? If you are not, aren't you indeed a bigot?
The entire thing supports evolutionary theory. This is because biology - in all its manifestations - cannot be understood without an understanding of evolutionary theory. It would be like trying to discuss or explain organic chemistry while denying the existence of the atom.
The idea that the understanding of molecular biology requires the belief in neodarwinism is absurd beyond my ability to express. The original narration described the structures, their actions, and purposes. If anything, the narration supports ID more than neodarwinism, as it very clearly implies that the structures being described have purpose. Nothing is mentioned implying that those systems, mechanisms, or structures came into being randomly.
[DI] in fact (a) distorted and misrepresented the meaning of the content via overdubbed narration, and (b) knowingly misrepresented the authorship of the content. The former is fraud (though perhaps not in a legal context), and the second is plagiarism (which does satisfy the legal definition).
You might consider being more careful what you present as fact about the misdeeds of others, when you haven't witnessed those deeds for yourself. In my opinion, the above is a textbook example of libel. The facts that can easily be gained by viewing the videos are that (a) the original narration and the overdubbed version are both saying the exact same things, and (b) DI never claimed or implied authorship of the video.
They hope to insinuate themselves into rational discourse by invoking a false sense of objectivity and open-mindedness, appealing to the public to "hear both sides," which is merely a sophistic tactic to put their position on equal footing with decades of confirmed and verified scientific theory. Confirmed and verified? The assertion that evolution took place solely by random mutation and natural selection is no more "confirmed and verified" than the assertion that God guided evolution. Both are so far untested and untestable. They are on the same footing, as neither are falsifiable, so until one is, neither can yet be called "scientific."
History has shown us time and time again that when religion fights science, religion ends up with egg on its face. (Galileo and his support of Copernican heliocentrism comes to mind.) Perhaps you studied a different history than me. Rome opposed to Galileo's religious assertions, not his scientific ones. They embraced his heliocentrism until it became immersed in his biblical interpretation. As far as egg on face, I seem to remember decades of the scientific community denying and ridiculing the big bang theory, as being religious and not real science, until the evidence became inescapable. Same with the theory of the "biblical"-scale floods following the last Ice Age in places like Oregon. Of course, there were also decades of scientists saying that ancient Jerico never existed, along with a dozen other biblical cities, until they were actually found.
The Discovery Institute is almost certainly going to claim Fair Use or something similiar, but I don't see how they can justify that when they stripped out the credits and copyright notice. Not to mention the narration.
Everyone who's been to college has presumably seen many such short videos or snippets of videos as part of a lecture that were devoid of any attribution or copyright notice. This is the very epitome of purpose of fair use. In fact, an example would be the lectures from the introductory physics class that UCLA recently made available on youtube.
Actually, I think it's the new narration that's going to get it disqualified under Fair Use. By taking the "opposite" tack of evolution (i.e. design), they're in effect, diluting the value of the original work.
You (and everyone else commenting) apparently didn't watch the videos. The original narration said absolutely nothing in favor of evolution, and the second narration said absolutely nothing in favor of intelligent design. There were two original versions, to my knowledge, one with music and one with narration. What was showed looked like they took the one with music, showed it in a biology lecture, with the professor narrating what was on the screen, just as the original narration did. Then a video of that was shown in this ID lecture. The point being that both narrations said the exact same things.
I truly want to apologize for the criminal stupidity that perpetrated this.
Criminal stupidity? I've seen a lot of short videos and snippets of videos shown in lectures, and I've never seen copyrights displayed on them, or heard the professor announcing who made the videos. Are these all criminal stupidities? It sounds like the epitome of fair use to me. Furthermore, aren't research products that are funded by the federal government in the public domain?
I prefer to see God as a scientist rather than a "Creator"... Maybe they were the end result of an experiment being run by God;
Someone who gains knowledge by experiments could be many things, but could by no means be God. God is by definition infinite, outside of time and space, and unchanging. He is thus defined by the Old Testament, New Testament, the Quran, the Vedas and associated Hindu works, by the Zoroastrian sacred texts, by the ancient Greeks (at the very least by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle), and if impersonal definitions of God are allowed, by the Taoists.
One who gains knowledge by experiments is both temporal and finite. To the ancient Greeks, this could have been "a god" in the sense of their traditional mythological gods who were created by God, but not "God", in the sense of "the one" or the infinite father and creator of the universe.
To think that we sprung up out of the ground is preposterous to me.
Isn't that the claim of neodarwinists? (One has to distinguish between darwinism and neodarwinism on this point, as Darwin believed that the original organisms were created by God before evolving.)
It has nothing to do with interpretation. Experiments prove that consciousness is in no way necessary for collapsing a wave function. It's an observation whether the photon hits a retina or a rock. Any serious physics enthusiast knows this. How two physics professors would not know it can only be explained by the politically incorrect, but true, aphorism that most people aren't particularly good at their jobs. It applies to physicists as well as to programmers and brick layers. There's a reason why we call the ones who accomplish something worth admiring "exceptional."
I never understand the logic behind yelling "you'll go to Hell for [insert triviality]!!" to someone who doesn't believe in a Hell.
Neither do I. But neither do I understand the Dawkinesque logic behind yelling "The belief of God is delusional. You believe it because it makes you feel good. I am a 'bright'." Personally, I see a whole lot more of the latter than the former.
So many things are taken out of context, interpreted to fit biases or simply translated incorrectly. For example, "Jesus walks ON water" is written same as "Jesus wants NEXT TO water" in the original language.
Yes, "epi" in Greek could mean "next to" as well as "on." But then you would have to interpret the book of Matthew to say that while the ship of disciples was in the middle of the sea, being battered by waves, Jesus walked to the ship by walking NEXT TO the sea; and when they saw him walking NEXT TO the sea, they were terrified; but when he said that it was him, Peter asked him to make him also able to walk NEXT TO the water; but when Peter was also walking NEXT to the water, he started to fear because of the wind, and he began to sink, but Jesus saved him. (Apparently, there was quicksand NEXT TO the sea.)
You obviously didn't pick up this particular criticism by actually reading the book in Greek. If you blindly believe what ideologues tell you, you will be manipulated. That goes for you just as well as religious people.
Then there's the Jesus guy... an illiterate carpenter who care about poor sick people.
He was not illiterate. Besides many places describing him as having a comprehensive knowledge of scripture, the Book of Luke specifically describes him reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue.
Can you at least see how modern implementation of religion doesn't even inherently bash logic, but even conflict with its own roots?
There is no one "modern implementation" of Christianity. There are as many implementations as there are Christians. All implementations conflict, to one degree or another, with its root; as its root is perfect and its implementations are imperfect. As for religion inherently bashing logic, it doesn't; however it is inherently devoid of the fallacy that logic is the one and only source of truth.
It keeps coming up because religious ideologues keep insisting that science is wrong because it contradicts their beliefs.
Wrong. Find me one of these threads that is started by a religious ideologue. And science is a methodology. It cannot be right or wrong. Scientists, on the other hand, can be many things, including, but not limited to, right, wrong, ideological, and irrational.
one of the requirements for life is that you have an environment that supports molecular self assembly and recognition, this experiment seems to show that this is the case with DNA and RNA strands as short as 6 bases and can select for more stable configurations over time. It's the beginnings of evolutionary natural selection- base pairs assemble into structures that have certain desireable characteristics.
How can one base pair be any more desirable than any other base pair, unless it exists within the context of a cell, or in the context of some other preexisting complex machinery that will treat the the strand as a blueprint for manufacturing another kind of molecule?
Sounds interesting, but is a map enough to understand the brain? I know in artificial neural networks, the actual structure isn't as important as the weights on the nodes. Will hitting the brain with electrons be enough to give us an understanding of these "weights", or just the connections between them?
To me, the bigger question than the "weights" and other mediating factors of the brain's network, is where do the network's outputs go? Artificial Neural Networks, like the biological kinds, are indeed great at processing a large collection of input to form a unified impression, but that means there are inputs and then outputs. So the millions of "pixel" inputs from the retina go into a huge neural network in the visual cortex, to output a unified 3D visual impression... so where does that 3D visual impression data get sent to so that we can actually consciously experience the visual impression?
Those who believe that the neural networks in our brains are themselves conscious, would, I suppose, say they go nowhere -- that the solution is computed and then the signal essentially dead-ends, that we somehow experience it without any actual mechanism to experience it. Personally, I find it an irrational belief.
However, if the brain is merely an interface to the conscious mind, where in the brain provides that interface and how? What kind of arrangement could allow matter to interact with mind?
If each of the 100 billion neurons managed the 1000 or so synapses, and say a modern day PC with a quad processor could computationally handle say 100 neurons, you would need 1 billion PCs.
You're assuming that a neuron is simple, which it is not. To simulate just one neuron, or any other kind of cell, you may need a billion PCs.
and it's only like 302 neurons,so,it's possible to write a simulator of it?
You could write some kind of rough analog of the neural network. However, an actual simulator of a C. elgans would be impossibly complex, as a simulator of an actual cell would be impossibly complex.
Of course, it's not just "many" universes. As the wave function is continuous, it's an INFINITE number of universes that are created every time two particles interact -- or continuously, depending on the version. The problem with that is that having an infinite number of things is a meaningless concept. Infinity isn't a "counting number." Infinite or not, I personally think that the conservation of universes should be one of the axioms of science. The concept of a colony of asexually reproducing universes is absurd on so many levels.
Yes, they could conceivably program their software to send the private keys to the server, but that would of course completely undermine the point of using Public Key Encryption, and also undermine their claim to providing "end-to-end" encryption, which I would think would make them liable for charges of false advertising or other things. There's no compelling reason for them to risk alienating their customers and possibly exposing themselves to legal liability, so I would tend to take them at their word. Of course, I might feel differently if I were considering using it to organize the overthrow of the government.
Or do you thing that USA would just allow osama bin laden to host conference calls with wannabe terrorists using Skype. In fact Skype clearly admits that they decrypt the calls for all requesting authorities.
Kurt Sauer, Skype's chief security officer, said there are no "back doors" that could let a government bypass the encryption on a call. At the same time, he said Skype "cooperates fully with all lawful requests from relevant authorities." He would not give particulars on the type of support provided.
The quote seems to undermine your claim. Skype uses end-to-end public-key encryption, meaning that the company would not have the ability to decrypt phone calls or messages for authorities, any more than your ISP could decrypt an SSL session with your bank for authorities.
Um, no. Religion is about the relationship between God and man. And most religious organizations are about offering support and guidance to other people in their relationship with God. As with all things, people have used religious organizations to further their own power and wealth, but those cases are the minority.
What makes one kind of cell(fertilized egg) "alive" and yet other(sperm) is not, when neither is showing any greater sentience than the other at the early stages at least?
A fertilized egg is a new organism. Before fertilization, you have an egg cell, which is a component cell of the would-be mother, and a sperm cell, which is a component cell of the would-be father. If either of these cells dies, the organism they belong to does not die. But if the fertilized egg dies, then that whole organism dies. While it is alive it is by any definition a distinct organism from both the mother and the father, that is it is a separate human being. And by any remotely reasonable definition, it is alive until it dies. It has nothing to do with "potential for life," it has to do with killing a living human being.
Excess calories make you fat. That's a law of physics; I have no idea why some people dispute it. It's like arguing with the law of gravity. The only question is whether calories coming from different sources are absorbed more slowly or quickly, but the end result is the same unless you're exercising to stay in shape. A calorie is a unit of energy and if that energy is not used, it must be stored.
Yes, but what is important is not necessarily the calorie content of the food, but rather the calories that cross the intestinal barrier, minus the calories from that food that are excreted out of the skin, minus the calories used as energy to process the food, minus the net calories excreted into the digestive tract in the cause of digesting the food.
If I eat 500 calories of white bread, I'm going to have a net calorie intake of near 500 calories. If I eat a 500 calorie meatball dipped in lard, I'm going to have greasy stools, greasy hair, and a net calorie intake of 200 calories. (I have no basis for that actual number, but you get the idea.)
I see some people come up with the logical question, why still use comcast. Because we have no choice people reply. But aren't you americans, the country of the free market that should ensure plenty of competition? How come I as a socialist live in a country with multiple ISP's whose competition is mandated by the goverment, creating a free market and ensuring that any ISP that tried to pull this will be out of business very soon... If comcast is truly the only alternative in some areas, then that is clear evidence the free market does not work. WIth current tech there should be at least two options, cable and adsl, in all areas, using the cable and phone network that any reasonable goverment should have mandated should be available to all homes.
I use Comcast because it is the best value available to me. I have at least two other broadband options offered by my phone company (Verizon), DSL and FiOS. If there were a reasonably priced service that provided higher upload speeds, I would switch to that. Meanwhile, I am glad that Comcast protects what upload bandwidth it has by limiting bittorrent uploads.
I don't know what socialist country you're from, but it sounds like it's one of those tiny ones that an ISP could completely wire with a single spool of cable. Many Europeans have no sense of how large America is. It's really really big. Some places are very sparsely populated. Even a giant company like Comcast is unable to cover the whole country. No single cable or phone company covers the whole country. So there are some areas where the regional phone companies don't yet offer DSL service. There are even some very remote areas where no broadband is available. Heck, my in-laws just built a cabin out in the woods where there is not even phone or power service.
Sure, the state governments could decide to force the region phone companies to provide DSL to everyone, regardless of the cost to the phone companies. The thing is, that most of us Americans are very jealous of our rights, and of the proper limitations of governmental power -- always have been. Practically and philosophically, there is no difference between a government compelling an individual to do something, and compelling a corporation of individuals to do something. If they can do one, they can do the other. So generally, the specter of the government compelling a corporation to offer a service is a repugnant thing to us -- more repugnant than not having a choice in broadband providers.
1. I defy you to cite examples of Japanese anime houses (not US dub shops) objecting to the fansubs of unlicensed shows.
If you follow the first link in TFA, it's the Japanese government that has been complaining -- specifically about the copying of anime on P2P networks.
Writing has historically had little to do with communicating engineering techniques. Europe has had writing for at least a few thousand years, but until the last hundred years or so, all our engineering knowledge has been handed down from generation to generation by means of apprenticeship, just like the rest of the world. This would have been how both Incan and European bridge-related engineering would have been communicated at the time.
"Trial and error" implies that there were no principles of engineering applied to the design of the bridge, which if you look at the complexity of it, clearly there were. Obviously, new principles are learned from failures and from experimentation, but this is a different concept than "trial and error."
These aren't suspension bridges, as the comparison to the George Washington bridge in the article clearly shows. They are rope bridges.
The difference is that the walking surface is not suspended from the overhead cables. It is instead supported by tension in the ropes that compose it.
According to the illustration of the Inca bridge that's next to the GW bridge in the linked NYT article, the walking surface clearly WAS supported by overhead cables (as well as its own ropes).
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So you're claiming that the content was "distorted", because it was used in a lecture that you presume the authors of the content would disagree with? Wow, that is just absurd. If that ever became a legal standard, it would be the end of science, intellectual debate, and education itself.
I agree that the claim that macroevolution was driven by God or some other intelligent designer is inadequately supported by reproducible evidence. However, the claim that it was driven by random mutation is equally inadequately supported by reproducible evidence. If you are aware of evidence that directly reflects on the mechanism of macroevolution which the scientific community is not aware of, won't you share it with us? If you are not, aren't you indeed a bigot?
The idea that the understanding of molecular biology requires the belief in neodarwinism is absurd beyond my ability to express. The original narration described the structures, their actions, and purposes. If anything, the narration supports ID more than neodarwinism, as it very clearly implies that the structures being described have purpose. Nothing is mentioned implying that those systems, mechanisms, or structures came into being randomly.
You might consider being more careful what you present as fact about the misdeeds of others, when you haven't witnessed those deeds for yourself. In my opinion, the above is a textbook example of libel. The facts that can easily be gained by viewing the videos are that (a) the original narration and the overdubbed version are both saying the exact same things, and (b) DI never claimed or implied authorship of the video. They hope to insinuate themselves into rational discourse by invoking a false sense of objectivity and open-mindedness, appealing to the public to "hear both sides," which is merely a sophistic tactic to put their position on equal footing with decades of confirmed and verified scientific theory. Confirmed and verified? The assertion that evolution took place solely by random mutation and natural selection is no more "confirmed and verified" than the assertion that God guided evolution. Both are so far untested and untestable. They are on the same footing, as neither are falsifiable, so until one is, neither can yet be called "scientific." History has shown us time and time again that when religion fights science, religion ends up with egg on its face. (Galileo and his support of Copernican heliocentrism comes to mind.) Perhaps you studied a different history than me. Rome opposed to Galileo's religious assertions, not his scientific ones. They embraced his heliocentrism until it became immersed in his biblical interpretation. As far as egg on face, I seem to remember decades of the scientific community denying and ridiculing the big bang theory, as being religious and not real science, until the evidence became inescapable. Same with the theory of the "biblical"-scale floods following the last Ice Age in places like Oregon. Of course, there were also decades of scientists saying that ancient Jerico never existed, along with a dozen other biblical cities, until they were actually found.
Everyone who's been to college has presumably seen many such short videos or snippets of videos as part of a lecture that were devoid of any attribution or copyright notice. This is the very epitome of purpose of fair use. In fact, an example would be the lectures from the introductory physics class that UCLA recently made available on youtube.
You (and everyone else commenting) apparently didn't watch the videos. The original narration said absolutely nothing in favor of evolution, and the second narration said absolutely nothing in favor of intelligent design. There were two original versions, to my knowledge, one with music and one with narration. What was showed looked like they took the one with music, showed it in a biology lecture, with the professor narrating what was on the screen, just as the original narration did. Then a video of that was shown in this ID lecture. The point being that both narrations said the exact same things.
Criminal stupidity? I've seen a lot of short videos and snippets of videos shown in lectures, and I've never seen copyrights displayed on them, or heard the professor announcing who made the videos. Are these all criminal stupidities? It sounds like the epitome of fair use to me. Furthermore, aren't research products that are funded by the federal government in the public domain?
Someone who gains knowledge by experiments could be many things, but could by no means be God. God is by definition infinite, outside of time and space, and unchanging. He is thus defined by the Old Testament, New Testament, the Quran, the Vedas and associated Hindu works, by the Zoroastrian sacred texts, by the ancient Greeks (at the very least by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle), and if impersonal definitions of God are allowed, by the Taoists.
One who gains knowledge by experiments is both temporal and finite. To the ancient Greeks, this could have been "a god" in the sense of their traditional mythological gods who were created by God, but not "God", in the sense of "the one" or the infinite father and creator of the universe.
Isn't that the claim of neodarwinists? (One has to distinguish between darwinism and neodarwinism on this point, as Darwin believed that the original organisms were created by God before evolving.)
It has nothing to do with interpretation. Experiments prove that consciousness is in no way necessary for collapsing a wave function. It's an observation whether the photon hits a retina or a rock. Any serious physics enthusiast knows this. How two physics professors would not know it can only be explained by the politically incorrect, but true, aphorism that most people aren't particularly good at their jobs. It applies to physicists as well as to programmers and brick layers. There's a reason why we call the ones who accomplish something worth admiring "exceptional."
Neither do I. But neither do I understand the Dawkinesque logic behind yelling "The belief of God is delusional. You believe it because it makes you feel good. I am a 'bright'." Personally, I see a whole lot more of the latter than the former.
Yes, "epi" in Greek could mean "next to" as well as "on." But then you would have to interpret the book of Matthew to say that while the ship of disciples was in the middle of the sea, being battered by waves, Jesus walked to the ship by walking NEXT TO the sea; and when they saw him walking NEXT TO the sea, they were terrified; but when he said that it was him, Peter asked him to make him also able to walk NEXT TO the water; but when Peter was also walking NEXT to the water, he started to fear because of the wind, and he began to sink, but Jesus saved him. (Apparently, there was quicksand NEXT TO the sea.)
You obviously didn't pick up this particular criticism by actually reading the book in Greek. If you blindly believe what ideologues tell you, you will be manipulated. That goes for you just as well as religious people.
He was not illiterate. Besides many places describing him as having a comprehensive knowledge of scripture, the Book of Luke specifically describes him reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue.
There is no one "modern implementation" of Christianity. There are as many implementations as there are Christians. All implementations conflict, to one degree or another, with its root; as its root is perfect and its implementations are imperfect. As for religion inherently bashing logic, it doesn't; however it is inherently devoid of the fallacy that logic is the one and only source of truth.
Wrong. Find me one of these threads that is started by a religious ideologue. And science is a methodology. It cannot be right or wrong. Scientists, on the other hand, can be many things, including, but not limited to, right, wrong, ideological, and irrational.
How can one base pair be any more desirable than any other base pair, unless it exists within the context of a cell, or in the context of some other preexisting complex machinery that will treat the the strand as a blueprint for manufacturing another kind of molecule?
To me, the bigger question than the "weights" and other mediating factors of the brain's network, is where do the network's outputs go? Artificial Neural Networks, like the biological kinds, are indeed great at processing a large collection of input to form a unified impression, but that means there are inputs and then outputs. So the millions of "pixel" inputs from the retina go into a huge neural network in the visual cortex, to output a unified 3D visual impression... so where does that 3D visual impression data get sent to so that we can actually consciously experience the visual impression?
Those who believe that the neural networks in our brains are themselves conscious, would, I suppose, say they go nowhere -- that the solution is computed and then the signal essentially dead-ends, that we somehow experience it without any actual mechanism to experience it. Personally, I find it an irrational belief.
However, if the brain is merely an interface to the conscious mind, where in the brain provides that interface and how? What kind of arrangement could allow matter to interact with mind?
You're assuming that a neuron is simple, which it is not. To simulate just one neuron, or any other kind of cell, you may need a billion PCs.
You could write some kind of rough analog of the neural network. However, an actual simulator of a C. elgans would be impossibly complex, as a simulator of an actual cell would be impossibly complex.
Of course, it's not just "many" universes. As the wave function is continuous, it's an INFINITE number of universes that are created every time two particles interact -- or continuously, depending on the version. The problem with that is that having an infinite number of things is a meaningless concept. Infinity isn't a "counting number." Infinite or not, I personally think that the conservation of universes should be one of the axioms of science. The concept of a colony of asexually reproducing universes is absurd on so many levels.
Except that if we were simulated, we wouldn't be conscious.
Yes, they could conceivably program their software to send the private keys to the server, but that would of course completely undermine the point of using Public Key Encryption, and also undermine their claim to providing "end-to-end" encryption, which I would think would make them liable for charges of false advertising or other things. There's no compelling reason for them to risk alienating their customers and possibly exposing themselves to legal liability, so I would tend to take them at their word. Of course, I might feel differently if I were considering using it to organize the overthrow of the government.
The quote seems to undermine your claim. Skype uses end-to-end public-key encryption, meaning that the company would not have the ability to decrypt phone calls or messages for authorities, any more than your ISP could decrypt an SSL session with your bank for authorities.
So your argument is basically that killing is wrong when, and only when, it makes you feel bad.
Um, no. Religion is about the relationship between God and man. And most religious organizations are about offering support and guidance to other people in their relationship with God. As with all things, people have used religious organizations to further their own power and wealth, but those cases are the minority.
A fertilized egg is a new organism. Before fertilization, you have an egg cell, which is a component cell of the would-be mother, and a sperm cell, which is a component cell of the would-be father. If either of these cells dies, the organism they belong to does not die. But if the fertilized egg dies, then that whole organism dies. While it is alive it is by any definition a distinct organism from both the mother and the father, that is it is a separate human being. And by any remotely reasonable definition, it is alive until it dies. It has nothing to do with "potential for life," it has to do with killing a living human being.
Yes, but what is important is not necessarily the calorie content of the food, but rather the calories that cross the intestinal barrier, minus the calories from that food that are excreted out of the skin, minus the calories used as energy to process the food, minus the net calories excreted into the digestive tract in the cause of digesting the food.
If I eat 500 calories of white bread, I'm going to have a net calorie intake of near 500 calories.
If I eat a 500 calorie meatball dipped in lard, I'm going to have greasy stools, greasy hair, and a net calorie intake of 200 calories. (I have no basis for that actual number, but you get the idea.)
I use Comcast because it is the best value available to me. I have at least two other broadband options offered by my phone company (Verizon), DSL and FiOS. If there were a reasonably priced service that provided higher upload speeds, I would switch to that. Meanwhile, I am glad that Comcast protects what upload bandwidth it has by limiting bittorrent uploads.
I don't know what socialist country you're from, but it sounds like it's one of those tiny ones that an ISP could completely wire with a single spool of cable. Many Europeans have no sense of how large America is. It's really really big. Some places are very sparsely populated. Even a giant company like Comcast is unable to cover the whole country. No single cable or phone company covers the whole country. So there are some areas where the regional phone companies don't yet offer DSL service. There are even some very remote areas where no broadband is available. Heck, my in-laws just built a cabin out in the woods where there is not even phone or power service.
Sure, the state governments could decide to force the region phone companies to provide DSL to everyone, regardless of the cost to the phone companies. The thing is, that most of us Americans are very jealous of our rights, and of the proper limitations of governmental power -- always have been. Practically and philosophically, there is no difference between a government compelling an individual to do something, and compelling a corporation of individuals to do something. If they can do one, they can do the other. So generally, the specter of the government compelling a corporation to offer a service is a repugnant thing to us -- more repugnant than not having a choice in broadband providers.
If you follow the first link in TFA, it's the Japanese government that has been complaining -- specifically about the copying of anime on P2P networks.
Writing has historically had little to do with communicating engineering techniques. Europe has had writing for at least a few thousand years, but until the last hundred years or so, all our engineering knowledge has been handed down from generation to generation by means of apprenticeship, just like the rest of the world. This would have been how both Incan and European bridge-related engineering would have been communicated at the time.
"Trial and error" implies that there were no principles of engineering applied to the design of the bridge, which if you look at the complexity of it, clearly there were. Obviously, new principles are learned from failures and from experimentation, but this is a different concept than "trial and error."
According to the illustration of the Inca bridge that's next to the GW bridge in the linked NYT article, the walking surface clearly WAS supported by overhead cables (as well as its own ropes).