The solution is obvious: more prototyping. With 60 team members you can prototype 5-10 different game ideas at a time. Each prototype team is small, 5 members or so. The prototype teams can go crazy with their ideas. Then after that prototype cycle everyone can see which turned out the best, or if all of them suck they try 5-10 new ideas. Once everyone agrees on which one to put all their effort into, then you can worry about making the full game.
I don't want to go back to the "good ole days", I want better games.
This is so two years ago. More and more game companies are adopting sane schedules and better production schedules. There is still a ways to go of course, but it's getting better by leaps and bounds. My last project I only crunched a combined 2 months. Much better than the 14 months of crunch I did two projects ago.
The REAL problem with innovation in "big" titles is that the development teams are getting too large. On a 60 person team only a select few actually get to give design input on what the game is. There just isn't enough time to get input from every team member that wants to share their ideas. You can't afford to prototype enough to get to everyone's ideas, so to be fair no one's ideas are prototyped. Back when a game could be made with 10-20 people, every one could go crazy with ideas and everyone could contribute. That just isn't possible now. Except of course with the small teams making the flash games and things like that.
Exactly right! You're getting there. It's obvious that the probelm is equating a myth with a lie- it isn't. A myth is just a story that comes to a conclusion with incomplete data.
How do you define a "lie"? It's probably important to get that ironed out:)
You don't. You don't know anything. Knowledge is impossible.
How can you know that knowledge is impossible. Seems like thats a self-refuting statement.
Mine have been in the past. I've had some very near misses and even time in the hospital because of this. Same with driving. Nothing is perfect.
Well I do grant that I don't always pay attention to what my eyes see, and I don't see everything. But this is a bit beside the point. If my eyes see a table, then I can be sure that there is a pattern of light coming into my eyes that get interpreted by my brain as a table. Perhaps this light is from a real table or a hologram, but the image of a table in my mind doesn't just spring out of nothing. This goes back to the cause and effect discussion we had. The same could be said for our sense of hearing. There must be a cause for the effect of the sound that our brains interpret.
It is in comparison to the blind man. Just as reality is in comparison to us.
This I don't understand. How is an elephant infinitely larger than a blind man? Obviously you aren't talking about mass or height or any other physical quantity. Are you talking metaphysics?
It's all the same. Some people in Tripoli in 1986 remember seeing a mushroom cloud over the palace. Some people in Tripoli in 1988 remember seeing the mushroom cloud. Some people in Tripoli don't remember seeing the mushroom cloud in 1986 or 1988, but only saw the palace destroyed. Nobody knows the actual truth about this incident, or even the actual year or the cause of the bombing for sure, though it was probably related to terrorism of one form or another.
Unless there's a connection I'm missing, this seems rather off-topic. I was talking about sensory perceptions.
Actually- it all started as an attempt to use the second meaning of the word "myth" to show that the separation of Church and State is ridiculous- because EVERYTHING we believe in is a myth. We can't have evidence without myths.
This is the same logical misstep as before. If everything we believe in is a myth, then believing that everything is a myth is also a myth.
Or a third way is to realize that our very sensory apparatus taints whatever we look at to the point that our information can never be accurate.
But how do you know that our sensory perception is tainted? Besides, you've already said that if you can see a tree, you know that it exists. How can you know that tree exists if your sense of sight is tainted? How do you walk across the street without getting run over? I don't know about you, but I use my eyes and ears to determine when it's safe to cross the street quite often, and they haven't been wrong yet.
Mathematical set theory- the finite cannot encompass the infinite.
An elephant is hardly infinite. Besides, didn't you say that mathematics is not a source of truth?
Well, parallel universes aren't real- but there is an argument over how many nuclear weapons the United States has used in the last 50 years (someplace between 2-50,000 depending on what you think a nuclear weapon is, and what timelines you remember).
You're talking about having insufficient evidence, not how that evidence is gathered. I was talking about sensory perceptions.
The mind is a tricky thing- we don't know the cause of how we think, let alone what could cause our senses to be wrong.
Barring a Paul Bunyan hitting the tree with the blunt side of a single bladed axe in a rainstorm in Portland, sure....:-) But that's where the claims of scientists have a tendency to fall down- when we're talking about origins, we've got an uncaused event at the very begining.
Great, so we can infer characteristics of the cause by observing the effect. I think this conversation started with something about black holes being a myth. Well if we can see movements of stars and light as an effect of a cause that is very small and has a huge gravitational pull, then that matches with the characteristics of what is called a black hole. So I don't understand what the problem is with astronomers thinking there are black holes out there in space when they can see evidence for them. As for what you say about origins, that's only a problem for those with a materialistic worldview. For myself, I don't think the origin of the universe is an uncaused effect, but is the effect of a cause transcendant to time and space.
Actually, I'm talking about the problem with comming to conclusions with imperfect, inaccurate, or incomplete information- it's fine to come to such conclusions, but you've got to stay open to the idea that your conclusions may very well be tainted, and that the process of coming to such conclusion bears a lot of resemblance to religious mythology, which is another form of coming to conclusions without complete evidence.
I don't think you answered my other two questions;) How can we know our information is imperfect, innaccurate, or incomplete? To me that premise seems absurd. Another problem with that proposition is that the only way to know that our information is imperfect is to compare it to information that is perfect. The only way to know that our information is inaccurate is to compare it to information that is accurate.
No, in fact, we can't be sure of anything at all- we're making conclusions without having complete information. We can believe in reality. We can have faith that it exists. We can have moral certainty that it exists- but we can't have absolute certainty because our brains are simply incapable of it.
Again, this is an absurd statement. How can you be sure that we can't be sure of anything?
Our only evidence comes through our senses- and those senses have been shown to lie to us in the past.
Only evidence comes through our senses? That doesn't seem to be a conclusion arrived at from sensory evidence, is it? Besides that, our senses can be fooled, yes, but I think that's different from them lying. There is a difference between being dishonest, and being naive.
True- but that's as far as we can get. And we also don't know HOW the previous conclusion was incorrect, so we don't know if some of what we're rejecting is evidence we really need to be considering.
But we do know how the previous conclusion was incorrect. If we previously thought that the elephant was a rope after touching it's tail, and then walked around and touched it's leg and smelled the elephant's scent, we know that we were wrong because a rope does have that scent, and it does not have a large leg. We know that our previous conclusion is not consistent with the increased body of evidence we have at our disposal, and is thus incorrect. We aren't throwing out evidence, we're throwing out our incorrect theory.
True- but the problem is we are prevented from seeing the whole elephant, so we don't know what it is.
But if we don't know what it is, how do we know that we can't see the whole elephant?
No, in fact, I don't. All sorts of things make us percieve stuff, sometimes real, sometimes not. And there's really no way to tell the difference.
I am not aware of anything that is not real that makes me perceive anything at all. How is this possible? Even illusions are caused by real things. A desert mirage of an oasis is not real, but it is caused by heat waves in the air which are real.
Yes, but I don't know what it is. It might have been a beaver, it might have been Vishnu, the 9th incarnation of Shiva. There's no real way to tell.
Ok, so we have causes requiring an effect. The effect of the change in the form of the tree must have some cause. Would you go even further to say that if we see that the tree is very big and is still in one piece - that the tree was uprooted - we could conclude that it was not a guy with only an axe that knocked it over?
No, not neccessarily- I could just be a very complex turing machine following a set of rules.
Even if that were the case, you must still exist as a machine. In addition, if that were the case, where do those rules come from and where does the machine come from? I think what you're talking about is the concept of free will, yes?
No thinking needs to be involved, nor a mind to exist- it could all be an illusion.
Does not an illusion imply a subjective perception? If there is a subjective perception, there must be a perceptor, which would be a mind. If there is an illusion, does that not also imply a reality that is not percieved? So even if we cannot perceive reality, we can be sure that it exists, right?
No, I said that there is no way to know for absolute certainty that reality exists.
But you did, you said this a few posts ago... Which is the core of my point- absolute certainty doesn't exist for human beings, nor reality. Have I misunderstood what you said?
Possibly- have you ever seen a single individual water molecule? Or is this just another logical concept, a model that may or may not mimic reality?
I have been inside a cloud while in a plane, so I know that it is a collection of something. The name that represents that something is water molecules. And when you take one collection of something and add it to another collection of that something, you end up with a collection of something that is larger than the two that were added together. Mathematics is how that relationship is quantified. Two somethings added to two somethings makes four somethings. It doesn't matter what those somethings are, or even if they exist.
Now you're getting the picture- Human beings cannot know whether reality exists or not, because while we may be right, we can never be correct.
So you define a "right" answer as one that is consistent with the available evidence, and a "correct" answer as one that is absolutely true, is that right? It seems to me that if the person who thought the elephant is a rope examined the elephant further he would realize he came to an incorrect conclusion and change his conclusion to fit with all the evidence he has available. Perhaps he would still be incorrect, but he would at least know that his previous conclusion was incorrect. On the other hand, if he had first examined the whole elephant and had come to the conclusion that it was an elephant, he would have been both right and correct, yes?
I think it's still a failure of imagination. It's entirely possible that it can be both a rope and an elephant at the same time- we don't know because we're stuck in the box of our own perceptions.
Regardless of our perceptions, there must be a real elephant there for us to perceive the rope. Perhaps we are mistaken in our perception, but there must be something there that really exists for us to perceive anything. Would you agree?
I am glad that you could post though, thanks for taking the time. Your answers have sparked new questions, as answers always seem to do.
But yes, that's correct- having turned around and being out of earshot, I don't know that a demented beaver didn't destroy the tree after I turned around. I can't be absolutely certain that it continued to exist.
But in that case the beaver would have to exist for the tree to be destroyed, which answers my question. So something can exist even if you are not directly observing it at that moment. So if you turned around to look at where the tree was, and you see that the tree is now lying on the ground when it had previously been standing straight up, you would allow that something that you did not perceive must exist other than the tree that caused the tree to change form, is that right?
I find myself unable to prove that I am actually thinking- so by Descartes I don't exist.
But by denying your existence have you not produced an idea, a thought? That's Descartes whole point, in order to doubt your own existence, you must acknowledge that your doubt is real and originated within your own mind, thus your mind exists, and you exist.
Mere models that may or may not mimic reality- they don't define truth.
I agree, logic and math are not the origin of truth. But don't you think they are useful in describing and analyzing truth and truth claims? So what does define truth, or is there no such thing? I know you stated previously that there is no absolute truth for us human beings (which, as an aside, I see as a self-contradicting statement), but does that hold true in general? Could there be an absolute truth outside of human beings?
Within the model, 2+2=4 because it's defined to be so, but in the real world, two clouds plus two clouds often equals one big cloud raining on you.
But I thought you said that reality doesn't exist? Besides, I'm not talking about physical objects, but logical concepts. If you want to talk about clouds, you need to consider what a cloud is: a collection of individual water molecules. When you add 2 water molecules to 2 water molecules you get 4 water molecules.
Three blind men may describe an elephant in three different ways (a snake, a rope, a tree) and appear to be contradictory- but actually all be correct.
Except that none of them are correct. An elephant is not a tree, or a snake, or a rope. Perhaps they share some qualities, but that does not mean they are the same. Poison Hemlock and Parsnips are often confused with one another, but one is good to eat and the other will kill you.
The law of non-contradiction, as I understand it, states that nothing can be one thing and be a different thing at the same time in the same way. So in your example, the elephant could be considered a rope, but not in the same way that it is an elephant. The law of non-contradiction allows for different perceptions of the thing being considered. So would you deny it when stated in that way?
hmm ok... another question if you don't mind. (this is fascinating:) If you are facing a particular tree and you can see it with your eyes (but are far enough away that you can't taste, touch, smell, or hear it), I gather that you would say that you can be certain that this tree actually exists. Now, from your answers it would seem that if you were to turn around such that this tree is no longer in your field of view, you would say that you are no longer certain of its existance, is that right?
Which is the core of my point- absolute certainty doesn't exist for human beings, nor reality.
What do you do with Descartes' "Cogito ergo sum"? What about mathematics and logic? Are you saying that we can't be certain that 2+2=4? Do you deny the law of non-contradiction?
Hey, I'm not the one taking faith-based models and claiming them to be absolute truth.
That statement is a straw man, that's not what he said at all.
Also, your statement begs the question of what is absolute truth? I'm curious of your answer to the question "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"
Perhaps I'm missing something, but how could evolution be strictly falsified through experimentation? I understand how theories of physics and chemistry can be falsified, since they can predict the outcomes of experiments. But paleontology is a historical science, the strength of theories for how speciation has been accomplished is based on more on mathematical odds than anything else, right?
As an english speaker, the main problem I have in grouping with non-english speakers is that it's hard to coordinate what the group is doing. So there is confusion on loot rules, who attacks what and when, etc. It's just a lot more fun to play with people you can communicate with easily. I would expect that Chinese players that don't speak english wouldn't want me in their group for the same reasons.
At least half of the time I've been in a group where there was a problem with loot distribution it was because someone didn't speak english too well and didn't understand what the rules were for the group. The times that I've seen ninja looting, it's normally english speaking jerks that are quickly black-listed. I don't mind gold/item farmers being in the group, so long as they follow the loot rules.
Um, so evolutionary theory and ID are the only two *possible* explanations for the existence of life?
No, thats not what I was trying to say at all. I was trying to say that any theory you can come up with will fit into one of two categories, materialistic and non-materialistic. To put it another way, materialistic theories would not require an intelligent agent, non-materialistic theories would. Evolution would certainly fit in the materialistic category, ID the non-materialistic one. But they wouldn't be the only ones.
OK, first off nobody is violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Overall entropy is increasing, but entropy can most certainly decrease locally. See here under the heading, "Evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics" for a quick explanation.
I've heard the arguments given on that webpage before regarding the 2nd law of thermodynamics(I'll shorten it to 2nd law), and I do not find them compelling. I took a quick scan through the Wallace refutation of the FAQ and the refutation of Wallace by Duck. I don't think Duck does a good job of refuting Wallace's point. It doesn't seem like he understands the very equations that he's citing here: http://www.mindspring.com/~duckster/evolution/ther mo.html.
The entropy of a system can decrease if external sources cause it to decrease. However sunlight, heat, shaking, whatever, do nothing to decrease entropy as those are all uniformly applied. So if you take a box of watch parts, and you add energy by shaking it, you're not going to reduce the entropy of the system because the energy being added to the system is uniformly applied. If you were to use tools to put them back together, you would decrease the entropy of the system since the energy you added was not uniformly applied.
Further, if the entropy of a system decreases because of non-uniform external forces, then the rate of entropy increase within the system will increase proportionally. So take the case of lightning which was used as an example on that talkorigins page you mentioned. The open system is the ground and the air. The entropy decreases as the electrical potential increases because of friction in the non-uniform air movement, an external non-uniform energy source. So the entropy in that open system can decrease temporarily from non-uniform introduction of energy. Then the lightning serves to increase the entropy back to at least it's original level. Notice that as the external force decreases the entropy of the system, the entropy level will then snap back up more rapidly. So in lightning, as in all electrical systems, as the voltage increases the current increases proportionally, i.e. Ohm's law. This concept is shown in the equations for the 2nd law on that page.
So if by some chance there was some decrease in entropy that led to the sudden appearance of an IR system, it would snap back to the higher entropy quite fast.
Secondly, what makes the odds of beneficial mutations so low? Do you have some figures on mutation rates, number of organisms mutating, generation time, possibility of beneficial mutations, etc? Have you ever seen how quickly bacteria can evolve into different strains?
Although I forget the figures, to my understanding beneficial mutations are extremely rare compared to detrimental mutations. So a species would need to have a small body mass, high population, and short reproduction cycle in order to speciate before going extinct. So something like a bacteria or a virus could do it pretty well, but something like a fish, horse, whale, or basically anything bigger than an ant would have essentially no chance of speciating whatsoever. They would go extinct too rapidly.
ID makes no predictions that can be tested in order to falsify it (name one test I could do that could produce a result that re
It's only a non sequitor if there are more possible options than the two we're talking about. if x = a or b, and x != a, then x = b. The cause of the evidence we see is either natural(read: materialistic) or non-natural(read: super-natural), there aren't any other possibilities. Your 10 second universe thing is still a natural cause in the sense that it is materialistic.
Your 10 second reconfiguring universe could explain IR in principle. One problem with that theory is that we observe that the universe has had stable physics for at least as far back as we can observe stars, galaxies, quasars, etc. It could be that the universe reconfigures itself so that it just happens to appear that there are stables physics, but the odds against that are very long indeed. That the universe has consistent physics is a better explanation of the evidence.
I'm not talking about proof in the mathematical sense. Usually, historical science does not entail syllogisms as in "if a then b, a is true, therefore b is true". Where talking about what theory best explains the data, this is going to be based on some kind of odds-making excercise. Even if the odds aren't strictly calculated, we evaluate odds based on intuition all the time (not to say that we couldn't calculate the odds). Evolution theory does this all the time as well. They'll say that it is likely that birds are decendants of dinosaurs because they have some similar bone structures, the feathers might have evolved from scales, etc. There's no proof there, no repeatable experiments, just odds. So if someone puts forth the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs based on similar bone structure, and someone else has a theory that birds evolved from ferns cause fern leaves look a bit like wings, then you can examine the available evidence and make odds on which theory is better supported by the data. The odds are much better for the birds to have evolved from dinosaurs than from ferns, so that theory wins out over the other. It's possible that new evidence could be found to tip the odds in the other theory's favor, or someone might come up with a new theory that better explains the data (since other theories are possible), but we have to act based on the evidence we have. Thats how historical science works.
So I'd say we can look at something like the bacterial flagellum you mentioned and see that for it to come about through natural means would require a decrease in entropy in that system (the system being a bacteria within which all the parts to the flagellum are floating around). So what are the odds of that happening? Well, from the naturalistic side of the coin, that would be a violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics which is very very improbable. But the problem for naturalism is worse than that. It isn't enough for the bacterial flagellum to form out of those parts one time, you need to naturalistically produce the process by which it is constructed out of those parts so that the bacteria can pass that information on to it's descendants. So did that information come from a random organization of molecules, or was that information introduced to the system from outside? Given the ridiculously long odds of the information forming as a random organization of molecules (based on the above mentioned odds of a violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics) it seems that the better explanation is that the information was introduced from outside the system. The only question that remains is where did that information come from.
So do you put your faith in countless violations of the 2nd law of thermodynamics at odds so low we can't begin to comprehend them? Or do you put your faith in a super-natural information source? As far as I can tell, it's clear which theory better explains the evidence.
Well I already gave a hypothetical example of that (the reading a letter on the computer). But I'll try another one and see what you think about it.
Suppose I get a phone call asking if I want to subscribe to a newspaper, and then I report that company to the appropriate agency for that national do not call registry thing (I'm assuming of course that I've registered my phone number, you get the point I'm sure). That company might say they shouldn't have to pay the fine because I can't prove beyond all doubt that they really called me. There could have been an electrical problem with the phone which caused it to ring, and then when I picked up the receiver thinking someone was calling me that the speaker cone in my phone just happened to vibrate such that it merely sounded like someone trying to sell me a subscription. So, since this is a possibility, there is no absolute proof that there was an actual person from their company talking into a phone on the other end of the line.
So we have a hypothetical situation where we have a lot of material evidence, the bell on the phone sounded, the speaker cone in the phone's receiver vibrated producing waves of air that got into my ear and which were interpreted by my brain as someone talking to me, etc, you get my point. So my brain acquired this new information, the non-material ideas that there is this newspaper and I can subscribe to it for some amount of money per week.
So take the same situation except that when I pick up the phone all I hear is static, because of some problem in the connection or something. My brain doesn't aquire any of the information that the salesman is trying to convey. Then if I were to complain to the appropriate federal agency and I tell them I heard a bunch of static on the phone but I think it was the newspaper company trying to sell me something and they should be fined. They aren't going to bother trying to fine the company because the company could just say I was mistaken.
The point here is that I have a set of material evidence, the phone ringing, the speaker cone vibrating and making noise. Both sets of evidence (hearing a man's voice, and hearing static) are equally probable as far as the material goes, it's the organization of the materials that is the test of my claim. Is the organization of the material the product of an intelligent cause or is it random? The issue becomes what the odds are of any particular organization of the materials in evidence being in a configuration that could convey information from an intelligent agent. In the case of a phone call there are vastly more equally probable random configurations where no information is conveyed than there are where information is seemingly conveyed, making the odds that I was mistaken very small. Therefore, based on those odds, I am justified in complaining in the case where I hear someone's voice, but I am not justified in complaining in the case where all I hear is static.
Does this satisfy your idea of a scientific test? If so, then the ID claim is indeed subject to scientific testing. If not, Darwinian Evolution is not subject to scientific testing as it is just a measure of odds as well. Unless I am very much mistaken, this is the manner in which theories for all historical sciences are tested.
Look at all of the "evidence" for ID - it's nothing but attacks on evolution. I know you've probably heard that before, but it's true. Also note that attacking evolution does *nothing* to support ID. Even if we were absolutely sure that complex life forms could not have arisen as a result of evolution, then what would we have? Nothing. We just wouldn't know the answer. You could step up and say, "An Intelligent Creator must have made it!" but you wouldn't be able to back that up with any evidence. I could just as easily say, "The universe takes on a random configuration every 10 seconds, and it just happened to hit this one. It was a one in a gigillion shot, but this has been going on for eternity so i
The thing a lot of people don't get about the big bang is that it was (theoretically) not only the beginning of space, but the beginning of time as well.
You're absolutely right, you're talking about Hawking and Penrose's space-time theorem. So lets consider that theorem for a second. It's not just time and space, the big bang was the beginning of all the matter and energy in our universe as well (since matter and energy only exist within space-time). So where did space, time, matter, and energy come from then? Obviously it had to come from something that is operating outside of space-time. And obviously it has to be something other than matter and energy. So we're talking about something that is, by definition, super-natural. Something non-material and able to operate outside of time. This would be material evidence (the evidence is the universe itself) of a non-material thing. As an aside, these are some of those characteristics of the Creator that we can discern that I was talking about. I find it interesting that only worldviews based on the Bible describe a God that operates outside of time, and as the creater of time is able to operate within time as well. You can see where this is headed, the anthropic principle.
Back to ID;) Since there is the possibility of material evidence of non-material things, we can look for such evidence in living systems as well. IR (to use your abbreviation) is evidence of information, which is something non-material. An example for clarification. When you write words to convey an idea (like we're doing in this discussion thread) we are using material things (all the material things that make up computers, the web, etc.) to convey something non-material. I see the red, green, and blue dots on my monitor, which is purely material. The dots themselves have a materialistic cause. But the organization of those dots are what I can see as evidence for some non-material thing called information. Finding the evidence for the existence of information compelling (based on the odds of those dots being organized randomly into a configuration which would appear information-rich), I can then go about examining the evidence further to see what that information is, what it's purpose is, from where that information originated (from the mind -- a whole other topic, heh -- of an intelligent person who speaks english), and so on.
We can do this with biological machines such as the bacterial flagellum and many others. We see the way those machines operate, how they are constructed, and we see the evidence for the information required to build those machines. It doesn't matter if the parts of the machines were all there already. I can take apart a working mechanical watch, put all the parts in a box, and shake them for billions of years, but they'll never go back together to become a functioning watch again. If I have a functioning watch, that is positive evidence of an intelligent watchmaker. Many, perhaps most, biological systems are vastly more complex than a watch.
The problem darwinian evolution has is that it doesn't even have billions of years (as if that were even enough). It has a few million years at the most. This with both an abiogenesis during a period of intense bombardment of meteors which would include several sterilization events and the Cambrian Explosion. And as mathematicians figured out a long time ago, you aren't going to get darwinian evolution in such a short period of time.
So I do agree that we test our theories in the material world, but that doesn't mean that we can't test theories that involve non-material causes.
For example, many people use agnosticism to mean what is referred to here as "weak atheism", and use the word "atheism" only when referring to "strong atheism".
I suppose you could apply that to me, heh. So yes, when I used the term "atheist" I was referring to "strong atheist" as it seems that is the proper way to specify those that hold to a materialistic worldview (which is the worldview that seems to be assumed in Darwinian Evolution). Thanks for the clarification:)
That's what science is -- the study of the material world. You can have a different worldview, but that's not science.
I guess I missed the memo that said science makes a worldview assumption. Theories should be based on evidence, not evidence and a particular worldview. A theory doesn't need to be materialistic to be testable.
As an example, I can make the claim that God created the universe. Two hundred years ago the universe was thought to be eternal, so having it be created by God at some point in the past wasn't such a good theory. But now we have the scientific community pretty much agreeing that the universe came into existence about 14by ago. The evidence for God creating the universe got a whole lot better. There were competing theories, the reciprocating universe, steady-state model, etc, but those have all fallen out of favor based on the incresing body of evidence. At the same time, with the increasing body of evidence, the "God created the universe" theory has really come into it's own. In fact (I use that term purposefully:), we have enough evidence to start to discern some characteristics of that God. To be sure, this isn't the only theory, but it is a scientific theory simply because it is able make predictions about future discoveries.
That it is able to predict future discoveries makes it scientific. This is true of any historical science (for example, scientists used to think the earth was flat till someone found some evidence that contradicted that theory). Cosmology and paleontology are both historical sciences. Theories in those disciplines are tested by gathering new evidence and examining the existing theories in the light of the new evidence and the existing evidence (observing stellar phenomena for cosmology, digging up and examining fossils for paleontology). If a theory can make predictions about future discoveries, then it is testable. Darwinian evolution is testable because we can dig up more fossils, add those to the existing body of evidence, and see if the theory does a better or worse job at explaining the whole body of evidence. If you can do this and see a general trend towards being a better or worse explanation, then you have an idea of how good that theory is.
ID can make predictions about future discoveries, such as finding more and more irreducably complex systems. (incidentally, the main idea of ID is not simply complexity, but information content. An irriducably complex system implies information. Information implies design. Design implies both a designer and a purpose for that design.) So if we find more and more evidence of information-rich systems, then the ID theory looks better and better scientifically and darwinian evolution looks worse and worse. If we find more and more small incremental changes that lead to speciation then you have the opposite situation.
It is *NOT* accepted as fact, because in science there are no absolute truths.
By your own definition, this claim would not be scientific.
Isn't the whole purpose of science to discover truth? If there is no absolute truth, then what is the point of science? The reason Einstein is so famous is because he came up with a theory that better matches with the behavior of matter than Newton's theories. In other words Einstein's theory is closer to the truth than Newton's. If there is no absolute truth then 2+2=5 is just as valid as 2+2=4.
If you don't have a consistent frame of reference in which to make scientific claims and tests (such as logic, consistent behavior of matter/energy), then the whole endeavor of scientific discovery is meaningless.
Science makes no claim about anyone's beliefs. The very idea of whether there is or isn't a creator is completely out of bounds.
If science makes no claims about anyone's beliefs then why all the dispute between darwinian evolution and ID? It's self-evident that both darwinian evolution and ID can't both be true. One comports with a materialistic worldview, the other theistic.
I read another post on here somewhere that said that atheism is not a religion just as not collecting stamps is not a hobby. I'd agree with that in so far as religion goes. (religion being concerned with customs and traditions and not on claims of truth) By that definition atheism is not a religion. But atheism is a worldview just as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc are. Should science make the assumption that a materialistic worldview is true and all others are not? It seems to me that we should take a look at the evidence before we make that assumption.
I certainly appreciate your comments as well. Who knew having a civil discussion was possible on/. hehe.
It seems to me that life is one of those "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it" things. I don't think those criteria that wikipedia listed do the job. I wouldn't count stars or fire as being alive personally.
Perhaps we don't know enough to come to a concensus. It's only natural to lean on personal bias in such a case. So perhaps we will indeed have a better idea in 1000 years when we'll know a lot more than we do now, lol. In the meantime I think something we can do is to keep watch on the latest discoveries from scientific observation and see which direction the evidence is headed towards.
I was AC cause I hadn't yet taken the time to register a nick. So here ya go, just for you;)
Just did a search and found this cool site...
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm
If you hit the "new worlds atlas" link, you'll see they have 154 planets listed so far. Yes, still not a huge number on it's own. But there are so many factors that go into making a planet suitable for complex life, there just isn't time to go into it all. I encourage you to keep looking into this topic. Those books I mentioned before are good for starters, as well as talkorigins.org, wikipedia.org, and other such websites.
Slashdot Mirror
There's never a Libyan Nationalist around when you really need one.
Revolutionists win, terrorists lose.
Clearly the answer is to log the addresses to a RAM disk.
oh wait...
The solution is obvious: more prototyping. With 60 team members you can prototype 5-10 different game ideas at a time. Each prototype team is small, 5 members or so. The prototype teams can go crazy with their ideas. Then after that prototype cycle everyone can see which turned out the best, or if all of them suck they try 5-10 new ideas. Once everyone agrees on which one to put all their effort into, then you can worry about making the full game.
I don't want to go back to the "good ole days", I want better games.
This is so two years ago. More and more game companies are adopting sane schedules and better production schedules. There is still a ways to go of course, but it's getting better by leaps and bounds. My last project I only crunched a combined 2 months. Much better than the 14 months of crunch I did two projects ago. The REAL problem with innovation in "big" titles is that the development teams are getting too large. On a 60 person team only a select few actually get to give design input on what the game is. There just isn't enough time to get input from every team member that wants to share their ideas. You can't afford to prototype enough to get to everyone's ideas, so to be fair no one's ideas are prototyped. Back when a game could be made with 10-20 people, every one could go crazy with ideas and everyone could contribute. That just isn't possible now. Except of course with the small teams making the flash games and things like that.
The law of non-contradiction, as I understand it, states that nothing can be one thing and be a different thing at the same time in the same way. So in your example, the elephant could be considered a rope, but not in the same way that it is an elephant. The law of non-contradiction allows for different perceptions of the thing being considered. So would you deny it when stated in that way?
Also, your statement begs the question of what is absolute truth? I'm curious of your answer to the question "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"
Perhaps I'm missing something, but how could evolution be strictly falsified through experimentation? I understand how theories of physics and chemistry can be falsified, since they can predict the outcomes of experiments. But paleontology is a historical science, the strength of theories for how speciation has been accomplished is based on more on mathematical odds than anything else, right?
As an english speaker, the main problem I have in grouping with non-english speakers is that it's hard to coordinate what the group is doing. So there is confusion on loot rules, who attacks what and when, etc. It's just a lot more fun to play with people you can communicate with easily. I would expect that Chinese players that don't speak english wouldn't want me in their group for the same reasons. At least half of the time I've been in a group where there was a problem with loot distribution it was because someone didn't speak english too well and didn't understand what the rules were for the group. The times that I've seen ninja looting, it's normally english speaking jerks that are quickly black-listed. I don't mind gold/item farmers being in the group, so long as they follow the loot rules.
No, thats not what I was trying to say at all. I was trying to say that any theory you can come up with will fit into one of two categories, materialistic and non-materialistic. To put it another way, materialistic theories would not require an intelligent agent, non-materialistic theories would. Evolution would certainly fit in the materialistic category, ID the non-materialistic one. But they wouldn't be the only ones.
I've heard the arguments given on that webpage before regarding the 2nd law of thermodynamics(I'll shorten it to 2nd law), and I do not find them compelling. I took a quick scan through the Wallace refutation of the FAQ and the refutation of Wallace by Duck. I don't think Duck does a good job of refuting Wallace's point. It doesn't seem like he understands the very equations that he's citing here: http://www.mindspring.com/~duckster/evolution/ther mo.html. The entropy of a system can decrease if external sources cause it to decrease. However sunlight, heat, shaking, whatever, do nothing to decrease entropy as those are all uniformly applied. So if you take a box of watch parts, and you add energy by shaking it, you're not going to reduce the entropy of the system because the energy being added to the system is uniformly applied. If you were to use tools to put them back together, you would decrease the entropy of the system since the energy you added was not uniformly applied.
Further, if the entropy of a system decreases because of non-uniform external forces, then the rate of entropy increase within the system will increase proportionally. So take the case of lightning which was used as an example on that talkorigins page you mentioned. The open system is the ground and the air. The entropy decreases as the electrical potential increases because of friction in the non-uniform air movement, an external non-uniform energy source. So the entropy in that open system can decrease temporarily from non-uniform introduction of energy. Then the lightning serves to increase the entropy back to at least it's original level. Notice that as the external force decreases the entropy of the system, the entropy level will then snap back up more rapidly. So in lightning, as in all electrical systems, as the voltage increases the current increases proportionally, i.e. Ohm's law. This concept is shown in the equations for the 2nd law on that page.
So if by some chance there was some decrease in entropy that led to the sudden appearance of an IR system, it would snap back to the higher entropy quite fast.
Although I forget the figures, to my understanding beneficial mutations are extremely rare compared to detrimental mutations. So a species would need to have a small body mass, high population, and short reproduction cycle in order to speciate before going extinct. So something like a bacteria or a virus could do it pretty well, but something like a fish, horse, whale, or basically anything bigger than an ant would have essentially no chance of speciating whatsoever. They would go extinct too rapidly.
It's only a non sequitor if there are more possible options than the two we're talking about. if x = a or b, and x != a, then x = b. The cause of the evidence we see is either natural(read: materialistic) or non-natural(read: super-natural), there aren't any other possibilities. Your 10 second universe thing is still a natural cause in the sense that it is materialistic.
Your 10 second reconfiguring universe could explain IR in principle. One problem with that theory is that we observe that the universe has had stable physics for at least as far back as we can observe stars, galaxies, quasars, etc. It could be that the universe reconfigures itself so that it just happens to appear that there are stables physics, but the odds against that are very long indeed. That the universe has consistent physics is a better explanation of the evidence.
I'm not talking about proof in the mathematical sense. Usually, historical science does not entail syllogisms as in "if a then b, a is true, therefore b is true". Where talking about what theory best explains the data, this is going to be based on some kind of odds-making excercise. Even if the odds aren't strictly calculated, we evaluate odds based on intuition all the time (not to say that we couldn't calculate the odds). Evolution theory does this all the time as well. They'll say that it is likely that birds are decendants of dinosaurs because they have some similar bone structures, the feathers might have evolved from scales, etc. There's no proof there, no repeatable experiments, just odds. So if someone puts forth the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs based on similar bone structure, and someone else has a theory that birds evolved from ferns cause fern leaves look a bit like wings, then you can examine the available evidence and make odds on which theory is better supported by the data. The odds are much better for the birds to have evolved from dinosaurs than from ferns, so that theory wins out over the other. It's possible that new evidence could be found to tip the odds in the other theory's favor, or someone might come up with a new theory that better explains the data (since other theories are possible), but we have to act based on the evidence we have. Thats how historical science works.
So I'd say we can look at something like the bacterial flagellum you mentioned and see that for it to come about through natural means would require a decrease in entropy in that system (the system being a bacteria within which all the parts to the flagellum are floating around). So what are the odds of that happening? Well, from the naturalistic side of the coin, that would be a violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics which is very very improbable. But the problem for naturalism is worse than that. It isn't enough for the bacterial flagellum to form out of those parts one time, you need to naturalistically produce the process by which it is constructed out of those parts so that the bacteria can pass that information on to it's descendants. So did that information come from a random organization of molecules, or was that information introduced to the system from outside? Given the ridiculously long odds of the information forming as a random organization of molecules (based on the above mentioned odds of a violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics) it seems that the better explanation is that the information was introduced from outside the system. The only question that remains is where did that information come from.
So do you put your faith in countless violations of the 2nd law of thermodynamics at odds so low we can't begin to comprehend them? Or do you put your faith in a super-natural information source? As far as I can tell, it's clear which theory better explains the evidence.
Suppose I get a phone call asking if I want to subscribe to a newspaper, and then I report that company to the appropriate agency for that national do not call registry thing (I'm assuming of course that I've registered my phone number, you get the point I'm sure). That company might say they shouldn't have to pay the fine because I can't prove beyond all doubt that they really called me. There could have been an electrical problem with the phone which caused it to ring, and then when I picked up the receiver thinking someone was calling me that the speaker cone in my phone just happened to vibrate such that it merely sounded like someone trying to sell me a subscription. So, since this is a possibility, there is no absolute proof that there was an actual person from their company talking into a phone on the other end of the line.
So we have a hypothetical situation where we have a lot of material evidence, the bell on the phone sounded, the speaker cone in the phone's receiver vibrated producing waves of air that got into my ear and which were interpreted by my brain as someone talking to me, etc, you get my point. So my brain acquired this new information, the non-material ideas that there is this newspaper and I can subscribe to it for some amount of money per week.
So take the same situation except that when I pick up the phone all I hear is static, because of some problem in the connection or something. My brain doesn't aquire any of the information that the salesman is trying to convey. Then if I were to complain to the appropriate federal agency and I tell them I heard a bunch of static on the phone but I think it was the newspaper company trying to sell me something and they should be fined. They aren't going to bother trying to fine the company because the company could just say I was mistaken.
The point here is that I have a set of material evidence, the phone ringing, the speaker cone vibrating and making noise. Both sets of evidence (hearing a man's voice, and hearing static) are equally probable as far as the material goes, it's the organization of the materials that is the test of my claim. Is the organization of the material the product of an intelligent cause or is it random? The issue becomes what the odds are of any particular organization of the materials in evidence being in a configuration that could convey information from an intelligent agent. In the case of a phone call there are vastly more equally probable random configurations where no information is conveyed than there are where information is seemingly conveyed, making the odds that I was mistaken very small. Therefore, based on those odds, I am justified in complaining in the case where I hear someone's voice, but I am not justified in complaining in the case where all I hear is static.
Does this satisfy your idea of a scientific test? If so, then the ID claim is indeed subject to scientific testing. If not, Darwinian Evolution is not subject to scientific testing as it is just a measure of odds as well. Unless I am very much mistaken, this is the manner in which theories for all historical sciences are tested.
Back to ID
We can do this with biological machines such as the bacterial flagellum and many others. We see the way those machines operate, how they are constructed, and we see the evidence for the information required to build those machines. It doesn't matter if the parts of the machines were all there already. I can take apart a working mechanical watch, put all the parts in a box, and shake them for billions of years, but they'll never go back together to become a functioning watch again. If I have a functioning watch, that is positive evidence of an intelligent watchmaker. Many, perhaps most, biological systems are vastly more complex than a watch.
The problem darwinian evolution has is that it doesn't even have billions of years (as if that were even enough). It has a few million years at the most. This with both an abiogenesis during a period of intense bombardment of meteors which would include several sterilization events and the Cambrian Explosion. And as mathematicians figured out a long time ago, you aren't going to get darwinian evolution in such a short period of time.
So I do agree that we test our theories in the material world, but that doesn't mean that we can't test theories that involve non-material causes.
As an example, I can make the claim that God created the universe. Two hundred years ago the universe was thought to be eternal, so having it be created by God at some point in the past wasn't such a good theory. But now we have the scientific community pretty much agreeing that the universe came into existence about 14by ago. The evidence for God creating the universe got a whole lot better. There were competing theories, the reciprocating universe, steady-state model, etc, but those have all fallen out of favor based on the incresing body of evidence. At the same time, with the increasing body of evidence, the "God created the universe" theory has really come into it's own. In fact (I use that term purposefully
That it is able to predict future discoveries makes it scientific. This is true of any historical science (for example, scientists used to think the earth was flat till someone found some evidence that contradicted that theory). Cosmology and paleontology are both historical sciences. Theories in those disciplines are tested by gathering new evidence and examining the existing theories in the light of the new evidence and the existing evidence (observing stellar phenomena for cosmology, digging up and examining fossils for paleontology). If a theory can make predictions about future discoveries, then it is testable. Darwinian evolution is testable because we can dig up more fossils, add those to the existing body of evidence, and see if the theory does a better or worse job at explaining the whole body of evidence. If you can do this and see a general trend towards being a better or worse explanation, then you have an idea of how good that theory is.
ID can make predictions about future discoveries, such as finding more and more irreducably complex systems. (incidentally, the main idea of ID is not simply complexity, but information content. An irriducably complex system implies information. Information implies design. Design implies both a designer and a purpose for that design.) So if we find more and more evidence of information-rich systems, then the ID theory looks better and better scientifically and darwinian evolution looks worse and worse. If we find more and more small incremental changes that lead to speciation then you have the opposite situation.
Isn't the whole purpose of science to discover truth? If there is no absolute truth, then what is the point of science? The reason Einstein is so famous is because he came up with a theory that better matches with the behavior of matter than Newton's theories. In other words Einstein's theory is closer to the truth than Newton's. If there is no absolute truth then 2+2=5 is just as valid as 2+2=4.
If you don't have a consistent frame of reference in which to make scientific claims and tests (such as logic, consistent behavior of matter/energy), then the whole endeavor of scientific discovery is meaningless. If science makes no claims about anyone's beliefs then why all the dispute between darwinian evolution and ID? It's self-evident that both darwinian evolution and ID can't both be true. One comports with a materialistic worldview, the other theistic.
I read another post on here somewhere that said that atheism is not a religion just as not collecting stamps is not a hobby. I'd agree with that in so far as religion goes. (religion being concerned with customs and traditions and not on claims of truth) By that definition atheism is not a religion. But atheism is a worldview just as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc are. Should science make the assumption that a materialistic worldview is true and all others are not? It seems to me that we should take a look at the evidence before we make that assumption.
I certainly appreciate your comments as well. Who knew having a civil discussion was possible on /. hehe.
It seems to me that life is one of those "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it" things. I don't think those criteria that wikipedia listed do the job. I wouldn't count stars or fire as being alive personally.
Perhaps we don't know enough to come to a concensus. It's only natural to lean on personal bias in such a case. So perhaps we will indeed have a better idea in 1000 years when we'll know a lot more than we do now, lol. In the meantime I think something we can do is to keep watch on the latest discoveries from scientific observation and see which direction the evidence is headed towards.
I was AC cause I hadn't yet taken the time to register a nick. So here ya go, just for you ;)
Just did a search and found this cool site...
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm
If you hit the "new worlds atlas" link, you'll see they have 154 planets listed so far. Yes, still not a huge number on it's own. But there are so many factors that go into making a planet suitable for complex life, there just isn't time to go into it all. I encourage you to keep looking into this topic. Those books I mentioned before are good for starters, as well as talkorigins.org, wikipedia.org, and other such websites.