They don't apply for a power plant... you don't care about gyroscopic effects...
No? Current human energy consumption averages around 15 terawatts. Say you want your wind energy system to store on average at least a day's worth of energy. That makes 10^18 joules. I'll leave it to someone else to carry the calculation further, but when it comes to potential for irreparable climate change, I'd much rather take my chances adding CO2 to the atmosphere than storing 10^18 joules of energy in angular momentum along the earth's surface.
When I read "God said 'let there be light'", I read it as "God made the Big Bang".
You think "light" in Genesis is talking about photons? One Christian to another, I suggest you might not be giving Genesis its due. In Samuel 2:22, where it says, "You are my lamp, O LORD; the LORD turns my darkness into light," is that light talking about photons or a more profound kind of light? I think it's the same kind of light being discussed in Genesis 1, where, for example, it says, "God set [great lights] in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth... and to separate light from darkness." After all, it says, "God saw that the light was good". It is spiritual light that is good; natural light is indifferent.
Sure, the physical sense of the creation story is there. But I think it is incidental to the message that the story was written to convey.
The aggressive ones, the F1122's, something interesting happens to them... One batch (F11221) has a bit of a less discerning gut, one that happens to derive nutrition not just from the plants released from their prey, but also maybe a little bit from the blood of that prey that gets released. At first it's not much, but the ones who are able to do that trick well wind up being just a little more efficient than the ones who can't, and soon F11221's have gotten to the point where they're also able to digest the meat from their prey which is MUCH more efficient than digesting the plants. So F11221's have become basically carnivorous.
The F11222's are the F1122's that aren't as maneuverable. They prefer shallower waters like those nearer to land. They still eat plants, but lots of the plants are on the surface of the water, and some of these guys, it turns out, are able to pull some oxygen from air (not a lot, just a little, just enough to let them stay on the surface eating plants a little longer) instead of just from their gills. These guys are F112221's. The F112222's (the ones who don't figure out how to get o2 from air) wind up going extinct - they aren't able to compete for food because they aren't quite as versatile.
This kind of hand-waving (Oh, some of them "figured out" how to get o2 from air. Some of them "happened to" derive nutrients from meat) would make for mediocre science fiction at best. It doesn't make for any kind of SCIENCE. While this sounds a little more plausible than saying, "fish A just happened to give live birth to a monkey," it isn't any more scientifically sound. Scientific evidence is strong for the common descent of the species. But those who pretend to any real understanding of the mechanisms of macroevolution are unfit of the label of "scientist".
As Daniel J. Boorstin said, "The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge."
Huh. That seems odd. You're right--that's circular reasoning, and has no place in science (at least the version you presented; if Dawkins did the same thing you're right to be shocked). But of course, religious people perpetrate a more extreme version of the same thing: remove "aliens" and insert "god". Who created the universe? Who created Man? Which is more likely to have come about naturally and to put an end to this loop of "A created B": a simpler life form that somehow evolved naturally, or a life form at one time capable of breathing universes into existence? Which is a more sensible hypothesis?
You do the same thing. If you say "nature created life" it begs the question "who created nature?" To the Greek philosophers, almost unanimously, the "more sensible hypothesis" was that for something finite and changeable (which everything in the universe clearly is) to exist, it must have its origin in something infinite and unchangeable. Call it Theos, Logos, Tao, or God. But to Pythagoras, Plato et al, it was an absolute logical requisite.
In any case, you can accept parts of the Bible as allegorical or poetical (although I'd argue that those are very few) without accepting the whole Bible as allegorical or poetic. I do not believe the creation story is simply allegorical or poetic, I just believe that it is not a fully accurate description of what happened (however, it's no more simplistic than most textbook descriptions of evolution - the issue is much more complex than can be described in a few sentences).
Parts of the bible are poetical. Parts of the bible are literal historic fact. All of the bible contains underlying spiritual truth written in the representational language that was common in pre-ancient times. If chapter 1 of Genesis were written for the purpose of describing the origin of physical land, oceans, the sun and stars, it never would have been considered sacred in the first place. It is sacred because it describes the human soul, its creation, and its development.
Yes, that is Dawkins' answer to Intelligent Design. This is not a reference to anything pertaining to evolution. Stein asked how ID could be applied to science, and the ONLY way is if alien life (intelligent) seeded Earth (design). Why is this the only answer? Because a deity is not science.
That is an irrational answer. He's basically saying that if God seeded life on earth, then science would therefore become useless for understanding that life. He's as bad as the worst of the creationists. He's co-opting and perverting science to support his emotion-based belief system -- in his case the belief in the non-existence of God.
Leptons and quarks organize themselves into atoms, atoms into molecules, molecules into amino acids and peptide chains. All of this has been observed in nature or laboratory facsimiles thereof. So what magical force prevents organization from continuing to higher and higher levels, especially once rudimentary feedback loops form?
A magical force called entropy. The same force that makes most those things happen -- it makes things tend toward lower energy states. Let me know when you observe peptides arranging themselves into a life form. I'd be very interested in watching that. Since it "would take a god to stop", it shouldn't be too hard to arrange.
The hard part is this; When you say I believe in microevolution but not macroevolution, you are really saying "I believe in evolution, but with some exceptions". The broader your definition of species is (I.E. the more differences that are needed to declare something a new species), the fewer exceptions you are allowing. The narrower your definition, the more exceptions you are allowing (and the more credit you are giving to a god), but also the more difficult it is to make a claim that hasn't already been disproved.
When people make a distinction between microevolution and macroevolution, they generally are not talking about the minutia of what might constitute a new species. They are generally more concerned with things like the origins of new organs and systems, or the transformation of one type of organ into an entirely different type of organ. In almost all of these cases we don't know what the intermediate steps were, or if there were intermediate steps.
To me, the current explanations available for these types of changes (as opposed to changes that clearly lend themselves to incremental changes, like body parts changing in size, for which we also happen to have abundant factual evidence of the intermediate steps having existed), ring hollow to the point of seeming almost ridiculous. So by my account, macroevolution has yet to be explained. As for God, He gets full credit for macroevolution and microevolution alike, so I don't see where He need come in to the question.
When we do that, there is some maths happening in our brains, it just isn't conscious. You're right, that is exactly what is happening in the spider's case. However to "just point" to an intercept seems like an incredibly simple thing to us, but to do it with the amount of brain cells a spider has is quite a trick. Bear in mind this all has to come from sensory data - it has to find branches, blades of grass or whatever and make a decision whether it is feasible to spin a web there, using very rough input from it's eyes. Try writing software for a robot to do that - if you manage it you might get a nobel prize. Even in a very simplified virtual world with perfect data, there would be a fair bit of maths, even if it's just basic trig.
The fact that it would be difficult to model with math, but easy to do without math, goes further to illustrate that math is not involved. The brain, whether spider or human, uses neural networks for working out such sensory/motor coordinations. If you were to build an artificial neural network in a computer to do the same thing, you would use math... because computers are mathematical tools. We can try to model the things going on inside a neuron, or inside a network of neurons using math, but that's a lot different than saying a neuron or a network of neurons is itself "using" math.
I get a kick out of watching gunfights on TV and in the movies. I also play paintball. Should I be arrested for murder? Aren't I showing the signs of being one step away from the latest mass shooting?
I also am fully capable of enjoying such things. However, if those things are causing you sexual arousal, then I wouldn't want to be in the same vicinity as you. Sexuality is a different ball of wax.
It shouldn't matter AT ALL the age depicted. The (Just) reason that child pornography is illegal is to stop the harming of children through its production. Adults have the right and ability to consent to be part of such productions as part of their own free speech rights.
Harm to children in the making of child porn is only ONE of several just reasons for making child pornography illegal. It is not the case, and has never been the case, that consenting adults have the legitimate free speech rights to produce any sort of publication they like. Treasonous publications, libelous publications, and obscene publications ARE and HAVE ALWAYS BEEN illegal, and justly so. And by any sane standard, child pornography is obscene. A separate law should not be necessary, and an actual child being harmed in the making should CERTAINLY not be necessary.
That said, people with socially unacceptable fetishes should be treated with sympathy and provided the support they need to control and channel their sexual energy.
I agree. And I believe that the most supportive thing we can do for people with fantasies of child-rape -- or other rape for that matter -- is to prohibit the distribution of pornography that fosters that fantasy.
To me this is a no-brainer. Rape-fantasy or child-abuse-fantasy porn has NO AUDIENCE except for people with these "unacceptable fetishes". There is no legitimate reason for them to be permitted in society.
The ratifiers of the 1st Amendment NEVER intended the meaning of "the right of free speech" or "freedom of the press" to include things like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, or publishing pornography (child or otherwise). If they had, they would have never ratified it. Suggesting that those things are protected by it is the morally reprehensible thing. It both belittles and endangers the noble cause of protecting the actual freedom of speech.
This will be the true test of free speech in the West - going not against the taboos of another society, but against ones of our own. Count me a pessimist on this one...
IMO freedom to draw pictures of children getting raped has NOTHING in common with the legitimate right of free speech. Nor does any pornography, for that matter... rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding.
Sure, people have the responsibility to know the law, but when the laws are increasingly at odds with basic ideas of freedom, it takes unreasonable effort to know them.
Hardly. It's more like people's "basic ideas of freedom" are increasingly at odds with the law.
I understand that parents get pretty scared about this and rightly so, but no one should be locked up because of something that solely exists in their head.
No one is suggesting that. If someone is purchasing depictions of children being raped, then their depraved fantasies no longer just exist in their head.
Every public policy has a cost side and a benefit side. The cost of ever more stringent child pornography laws, in terms of both fiscal impact and damage to our society, far outweighs the marginal increase in safety to children.
Emotionally, cost-benefits analysis is repulsive. Emotionally, we want to do everything we can to protect children, and any other policy has all the emotional impact of actual child abuse. But fortunately, society is not based on pure emotion. Reason, which is the only mechanism through which we ever make progres, dictates that we take reasonable steps to ensure children are safe, but not to the point where we sacrifice other principles for which we stand and create an oppressive police state.
After all, we want to bring children up in a free society, don't we? We want them to safe after they turn 18, too!
An oppressive police state is one where we can't access pictures of children getting molested?
I have children. The reason I support anti-child porn laws and enforcement is not because I think it's going to prevent my children from getting molested. It's because after they grow up, I want society to be something worth living in, and not a moral cesspool.
Oops, I should have read TFA. Okay, this is a federal law at issue. Still, the law is written under the power granted by the Constitution for the Congress to regulate interstate commerce, and other provisions.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Right. The power to outlaw child pornography was reserved to the states. The states used that power to make the appropriate laws. An individual violated the laws, was found guilty by his peers, and sentenced by a state judge. So what's the problem?
Let's make them cartoons depicting gruesome murders -- but note that as with the kiddie porn, no actual person is harmed. Or at the other end of the scale -- cartoons depicting someone smoking pot, even tho no actual marijuana was grown, harvested, or smoked.
HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT??
You're proceeding as if child porn were illegal for the reason that it depicts something illegal. But that's not the case, and no legislator or judge has ever suggested that. It is illegal because of its deleterious effects on individuals and on society, combined with its lack of any conceivable beneficial value. Sexual fantasy is an extremely powerful motivator. I don't think it makes any sense to allow materials that serve no purpose other than bolstering adults' fantasies of having sex with children.
I don't suppose you noticed that are in fact no victims in this case. No actual children where involved. Otherwise I agree with you.
There are victims. The victims are the people who end up looking at that crap and being affected by it. Secondary victims would be people, especially children, who subsequently interact with the primary victims. The tertiary victim is the psychological, mental, and, yes, moral, state of the culture as a whole. Should we have laws that put limits on the moral content of our culture? ABSOLUTELY. When I see the human scum that are the product of lax Western culture, it's no mystery why Islamists see us as the incarnation of evil.
No, we do not all see the problem. It isn't up to a judge. Unless a jury finds that it is -- beyond a reasonable doubt -- a depiction of a child, you have nothing to worry about with your elf-sex screensaver.
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No? Current human energy consumption averages around 15 terawatts. Say you want your wind energy system to store on average at least a day's worth of energy. That makes 10^18 joules. I'll leave it to someone else to carry the calculation further, but when it comes to potential for irreparable climate change, I'd much rather take my chances adding CO2 to the atmosphere than storing 10^18 joules of energy in angular momentum along the earth's surface.
You think "light" in Genesis is talking about photons? One Christian to another, I suggest you might not be giving Genesis its due. In Samuel 2:22, where it says, "You are my lamp, O LORD; the LORD turns my darkness into light," is that light talking about photons or a more profound kind of light? I think it's the same kind of light being discussed in Genesis 1, where, for example, it says, "God set [great lights] in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth... and to separate light from darkness." After all, it says, "God saw that the light was good". It is spiritual light that is good; natural light is indifferent.
Sure, the physical sense of the creation story is there. But I think it is incidental to the message that the story was written to convey.
This kind of hand-waving (Oh, some of them "figured out" how to get o2 from air. Some of them "happened to" derive nutrients from meat) would make for mediocre science fiction at best. It doesn't make for any kind of SCIENCE. While this sounds a little more plausible than saying, "fish A just happened to give live birth to a monkey," it isn't any more scientifically sound. Scientific evidence is strong for the common descent of the species. But those who pretend to any real understanding of the mechanisms of macroevolution are unfit of the label of "scientist".
As Daniel J. Boorstin said, "The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge."
You do the same thing. If you say "nature created life" it begs the question "who created nature?" To the Greek philosophers, almost unanimously, the "more sensible hypothesis" was that for something finite and changeable (which everything in the universe clearly is) to exist, it must have its origin in something infinite and unchangeable. Call it Theos, Logos, Tao, or God. But to Pythagoras, Plato et al, it was an absolute logical requisite.
Parts of the bible are poetical. Parts of the bible are literal historic fact. All of the bible contains underlying spiritual truth written in the representational language that was common in pre-ancient times. If chapter 1 of Genesis were written for the purpose of describing the origin of physical land, oceans, the sun and stars, it never would have been considered sacred in the first place. It is sacred because it describes the human soul, its creation, and its development.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/swd/ac/ac001.htm
That is an irrational answer. He's basically saying that if God seeded life on earth, then science would therefore become useless for understanding that life. He's as bad as the worst of the creationists. He's co-opting and perverting science to support his emotion-based belief system -- in his case the belief in the non-existence of God.
A magical force called entropy. The same force that makes most those things happen -- it makes things tend toward lower energy states. Let me know when you observe peptides arranging themselves into a life form. I'd be very interested in watching that. Since it "would take a god to stop", it shouldn't be too hard to arrange.
When people make a distinction between microevolution and macroevolution, they generally are not talking about the minutia of what might constitute a new species. They are generally more concerned with things like the origins of new organs and systems, or the transformation of one type of organ into an entirely different type of organ. In almost all of these cases we don't know what the intermediate steps were, or if there were intermediate steps.
To me, the current explanations available for these types of changes (as opposed to changes that clearly lend themselves to incremental changes, like body parts changing in size, for which we also happen to have abundant factual evidence of the intermediate steps having existed), ring hollow to the point of seeming almost ridiculous. So by my account, macroevolution has yet to be explained. As for God, He gets full credit for macroevolution and microevolution alike, so I don't see where He need come in to the question.
The fact that it would be difficult to model with math, but easy to do without math, goes further to illustrate that math is not involved. The brain, whether spider or human, uses neural networks for working out such sensory/motor coordinations. If you were to build an artificial neural network in a computer to do the same thing, you would use math... because computers are mathematical tools. We can try to model the things going on inside a neuron, or inside a network of neurons using math, but that's a lot different than saying a neuron or a network of neurons is itself "using" math.
I also am fully capable of enjoying such things. However, if those things are causing you sexual arousal, then I wouldn't want to be in the same vicinity as you. Sexuality is a different ball of wax.
Harm to children in the making of child porn is only ONE of several just reasons for making child pornography illegal. It is not the case, and has never been the case, that consenting adults have the legitimate free speech rights to produce any sort of publication they like. Treasonous publications, libelous publications, and obscene publications ARE and HAVE ALWAYS BEEN illegal, and justly so. And by any sane standard, child pornography is obscene. A separate law should not be necessary, and an actual child being harmed in the making should CERTAINLY not be necessary.
I agree. And I believe that the most supportive thing we can do for people with fantasies of child-rape -- or other rape for that matter -- is to prohibit the distribution of pornography that fosters that fantasy.
To me this is a no-brainer. Rape-fantasy or child-abuse-fantasy porn has NO AUDIENCE except for people with these "unacceptable fetishes". There is no legitimate reason for them to be permitted in society.
The ratifiers of the 1st Amendment NEVER intended the meaning of "the right of free speech" or "freedom of the press" to include things like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, or publishing pornography (child or otherwise). If they had, they would have never ratified it. Suggesting that those things are protected by it is the morally reprehensible thing. It both belittles and endangers the noble cause of protecting the actual freedom of speech.
IMO freedom to draw pictures of children getting raped has NOTHING in common with the legitimate right of free speech. Nor does any pornography, for that matter... rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding.
Hardly. It's more like people's "basic ideas of freedom" are increasingly at odds with the law.
One could argue that... but then one would be an idiot.
No one is suggesting that. If someone is purchasing depictions of children being raped, then their depraved fantasies no longer just exist in their head.
An oppressive police state is one where we can't access pictures of children getting molested?
I have children. The reason I support anti-child porn laws and enforcement is not because I think it's going to prevent my children from getting molested. It's because after they grow up, I want society to be something worth living in, and not a moral cesspool.
Repeal the 17th Amendment!
He IS a child predator. He created a market for the child porn. He has as vital a role in the chain as the individuals performing the actual abuse.
Oops, I should have read TFA. Okay, this is a federal law at issue. Still, the law is written under the power granted by the Constitution for the Congress to regulate interstate commerce, and other provisions.
Right. The power to outlaw child pornography was reserved to the states. The states used that power to make the appropriate laws. An individual violated the laws, was found guilty by his peers, and sentenced by a state judge. So what's the problem?
You're proceeding as if child porn were illegal for the reason that it depicts something illegal. But that's not the case, and no legislator or judge has ever suggested that. It is illegal because of its deleterious effects on individuals and on society, combined with its lack of any conceivable beneficial value. Sexual fantasy is an extremely powerful motivator. I don't think it makes any sense to allow materials that serve no purpose other than bolstering adults' fantasies of having sex with children.
There are victims. The victims are the people who end up looking at that crap and being affected by it. Secondary victims would be people, especially children, who subsequently interact with the primary victims. The tertiary victim is the psychological, mental, and, yes, moral, state of the culture as a whole. Should we have laws that put limits on the moral content of our culture? ABSOLUTELY. When I see the human scum that are the product of lax Western culture, it's no mystery why Islamists see us as the incarnation of evil.
No, we do not all see the problem. It isn't up to a judge. Unless a jury finds that it is -- beyond a reasonable doubt -- a depiction of a child, you have nothing to worry about with your elf-sex screensaver.