By accepting that wage below what the Californian will work for, you are better off. There's nothing wrong with that. What minimum wage law proponents want to do is price you out of job. Actually, you'd still be making above minimum wage. That's why I brought up foreigners. Not because I'm racist, but because they would be priced out of a job if anyone actually enforced the insanity that is minimum wage law.
See the link the post of my you replied (which you did read). In the Summer of Code, they paid below McDonald's wages, and thus, well below programmers' wages. If any of the programmers in India worked longer hours, they were paid even less per hour.
I don't know what else you want me to show. Do you deny that Indians are going to offer to be programmers for this project? Probably not. Do you deny that they will have to underbid Americans, and will in fact underbid Americans? Probably not. Do you deny that Google will accept some of these offers? Probably not.
Google can get away with paying below California's minimum wage laws. If they solicit people to work on OO.o, they will inevitably find some Indian or Chinese person willing to work at an [imputed] wage below that which Californians need to live. That's why we need to make sure Google pays a FAIR WAGE, an amount ENOUGH FOR SOMEONE TO LIVE ON (including and especially Californians). When Google does things like this, it puts California's programmers out of work. Even if the amount is enough for the Indian to live on, it drags down the wages of Californians and other Americans. Let's shut the exploitative project down. Write your state representa...
No, that made no sense whatsoever. Yes, it made exactly as much sense as any other argument for minimum wage laws.
Before you mod me down, please, for the love of God, explain how you can support minimum wage laws, but also what Google is planning to do. I want to know where I erred, and if I have in fact erred, I am more than willing to change my mind.
There are opponents of evolution who say silly things too. Niether the people in favor of evolution nor those against it are unified groups, and both have those who say unreasonable things.
One small difference: most proponents of evolution do reference this particular "silly thing" sayer. If he's the best they have to offer...
No, you do have a point.
No, I do NOT HAVE A POINT! I most certainly do not have a point! I have proposed that the case for evolution is not quite as solid as previously thought! I have offended the sacred gods of evolution! I must be a religious fundamentalist nut. It is 100% impossible for my suggestion to have ANY hint of rational thought behind it. That I even conceived it means I must reject every single scientific advance. I just need to shut up, sit down, and let the pros handle science. Right? How dare I ask questions about evolution? It's not like God did it or nothin'! Just keep me away from children. If I point out a single aspect in which the case for evolution is any way shaky, I am fully responsible for any failings in US science. The education monopoly, the regulations on public schools, the anti-achievement mentality, the watering down of standards, the emphasis on "self-esteem" over results has ZILCH to do with it. Because I proposed that vestigial organs also cannot be explained by current evolutionary theory, I am the source of all evil!
Didn't you get the memo? I'll get you a copy of the memo.
These vestigial organs do use energy and so are evolutionarily somewhat disadvantageous. The amount of extra food an animal needs in order to maintain these organs is, however, pretty small, and not likely to have a very large effect on the number or survival of offspring. There should be some effect, but it would be very small and take a really long time. Evolution then does predict the existance of these organs, as we should expect there to be a long time between the loss of an organ's usefulness and its dissapearance. Without evolution, how do you explain them?
When you define any history not involving a designer (be it God or aliens) as a "version of evolution", then of course you can't explain anything. But I don't have to do that. I just have to dispute the mainstream scientists' version. In regard to your defense, it proves too much. So "small disadvantages" won't count against fitness. Why do small advantages count in favor of fitness? The theory is that these advantages developed in tiny steps. But for the evolution to progress, each species member with these tiny developments must consistently beat out those without. Once you concede that small disadvantages don't impede survival, you throw into doubt whether "evolution" happened at all - you would have to believe in "revolution" - that all advantage-providing developments happened in one fell swoop. Is this what most biologists believe?
Now I'll go back to the mental hospital you probably believe I should be in for believing this.
-You didn't dispute my explanation of what it means to "lie" but rather just re-asserted your previous (refuted) position.
-You again ignore that I am only trying to establish the errors of prominent evolution proponents that everyone points to, and that there are no non-trivial falsifiable unfalsified predictions of evolutionary theory.
Is that it? Yes, that looks like it's all you did this time. I'll accept this as your face-saving concession. When you want to come back address my actual position (and stop dishonoring whatever diploma mill gave you your BS by revealing inexcusable rhetorical practices), I'll be ready.
The statement "All organisms will have the same basic DNA building blocks" is indeed nonfalsifiable. It's too general. What is a "basic DNA building block". Does it refer to the GATC bases? Does it refer to substructures of the bases? Does it refer to the elements making them up? Does it refer to just the GA bases?
Obviously, obviously, if you narrow it down to "every species will have this specific kind of DNA, and it will always have GATC as the largest common unit to all of them", that is falsifiable. But when people try to talk about the "same basic building blocks", they inevitably set an arbitrary threshold for similarity. That is what I was claiming is non-falsifiable. No matter how unique a species I find, you can always retreat back a cite a more fundamental unit common to them all. That is why it is non-falsifiable.
First, let's go over the concept of a "lie". A lie is when you state something you believe is false. (That's something you'll learn in college.) I quite reasonably, based on the grade of your posts, thought you had not yet completed college. I then stated that you had not. Since I was stating what I believed, it was not a lie. I'm still not even sure it's false. I don't know how someone could believe he "caught" someone in a compromising position for making an argument that one other person has made or using a citation that another person has used, yet have also gone to college. (That says a lot about declining standards.) I don't even know how you got modded up for finding that someone else cited the same passage! New concept, kid: when a prominent individual says something stupid, *it tends to get cited more than once*. According to you and only you, when I want to cite the passage, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times", I can't just say it's from A Tale of Two Cities. I must also google that passage and then cite everyone else who has also... forget it, I can't believe I'm even dignifying this point even further.
I see it and I agree that it is NOT part of evolutionary theory. Evolution deals with species, not individuals.
So you STILL refuse to accept the most BASIC concept of evolution.
But your refusal to accept the facts does not change them. Darwin spoke of species, not individuals....I've shown where the "expert" who's book you referenced made a very basic mistake with regards to what Darwin said. Again, Darwin spoke of species, not individuals.
And I agree with you on this point (100th time): yes, evolution speaks of species, not individuals. My point (which has again eluded you) is apparently, a much more prominent evolutionist than you, believes otherwise. Your problem is with him, not me. I'm not going to defend a statement I don't agree with, which is what you apparently want me to do.
And the whole discussion has been about ID and evolution. So your claims that I "moved the goal posts" is just another lie from you.
Ah, now the baby talk: the whole discussion is "about" ID and evolution, ergo, you can bring up whatever you feel like. Again, extend your attention span allllllllllllll the way to where I entered the discussion of the article. Do you think you can do that? I think you can. I really do. There, I made the specific claim that evolution - as is claimed of ID - makes no predictions except ones that are some combination of trivial, non-falsifiable, or falsified. That's all I came in here to establish. If you want to bring up other topics so you can defend a more defensible position, hey, good for you. But don't pretend it refutes anything I've said. If you want to refute someone's arguments, you can't just bring up superficially similar arguments and refute them. I am not claiming ID is correct. I am not claiming ID is science. I'm not claiming the history specified by proponenets of evolution is false. I entered this thread merely to object to the claim that evolutionary theory makes non-trivial, falsifiable, unfalsified claims. That's it. If you want to address what I've said, address that specific claim. Don't bring the debate to your "comfort zone."
Oh, what's this? It looks like your very first attempt to say something relevant:
Evolution has, accurately, predicted every discovery in the science of Biology since it was first stated. Just because you don't want to believe that does not alter that fact.
Really? No prediction based on evolutionary theory has ever been falsified? You sure you don't want to take back this claim before I school you again?
Interesting, by the way, that it took you >5 posts to say something relevant to the point I brought up on coming into the thread.
I didn't demand that it work perfectly - just that they show us how well it did work. Is that too much to ask? It is not.
What have I done? I'm actually developing what I think is the key, before someone else hits on it. I already have an (outsourced!) programmer writing part of it.
No, I understand completely. I'm missing nothing. If a change saves in one area, but costs more in another area, don't do it. I get that. Unlike most of the people you seem to be picking off the street and giving paycheks to, I understand that sometimes, saving money in one area can cost you more in another. I also understand that you want to optimize total return, not return on any one process.
Your distinction between recognizing that "a, b, c, etc. are linked" and investing in order of highest to lowest return in no way contradicts my analysis about investing in the area with the highest ROR. If one option is to invest in increasing the efficiency in a, but because of linkage to c, that increases the costs associated with c, then that cost needs to count against the return on investing in a to determine if it has the highest ROR. If investing in two things at once has a higher ROR than investing in either one in isolation, do that. This is exactly what businesses have done since time immemorial. If delivering goods "just in time" would have induced a higher ROI in the Middle Ages, people would have done it then. They wouldn't need high-paid consultants to remind them to invest where the ROR is the highest.
This comment comparing me to auto execs is pure slander. If I were an exec and someone came up to me and said "if we use smaller batch sizes, we can save on overall costs", I can 100% guarantee you I would not say "but small batch sizes are inefficient!". I might check the validity of the calculations, but unlike the Ivy League geniuses you have helping you, I wouldn't immediately rule it out.
Just a question for you: if I realized that investing X dollars in increasing quality increased the amount buyers were willing to pay by more than X, could I call that "insight" "High-Quality-Production" HQP and then write books that I require you to read before responding?
Buffy and Xena count as "fantasy", a similar but different category from science fiction. I don't know enough about Lara Croft, but that would probably fall under "adventure".
Wow, not only have you been totally flustered, you're actually resorting to calling me a liar. What did I lie about? Can you at least give me that courtesy, or was it just a rank attempt at insulting me?
Let's go back to why I brought up the Futuyma quote. See this post:
Someone was claiming that "No member of any species will act for the benefit of another [species] with no benefit for its own" was "not even evolutionary theory". I quoted Futuyma to challege that statement. I did not copy the analysis on the page you linked at all. I merely used a quote - that someone else happened to use - to impeach a statement someone else made. There was no reason for me to cite that page because I didn't use anything in it except - assuming I even knew about the page - the passage. And to cite a passage from a book, you cite the book, not anyone else who happened to have used that same passage. Get it? It's really not a difficult concept.
Next, you didn't "refute" anything I said, you refuted an evolutionist and then put it on me to defend him. Except one small problem: I agree that he's wrong.
And finally, in the blind fit of rage that led you to calling me a liar (without even referencing the lie I allegedly told) you moved the goal posts and said that I "still haven't shown Darwin to be wrong or ID to be correct". You probably should have added that I also haven't "shown dark matter to exist or the Rosenbergs to be innocent"... I wasn't trying to prove any of that. If you can lengthen your attention span alllllllllllll the way to where I entered this thread, you'll see that the only thing I was trying to show was that evolutionary theory has no non-trivial predictive power.
-not that IDers are right -not that natural selection doesn't happen -not even that the history given by evolutionists is false!
To do that, I pointed out a falsified prediction sometimes used as an example of the predictive power of evolution. When someone claimed that prediction wasn't part of the theory of evolution, I cited a prominent evolutionist (NOT another person who wrote an internet article that also happened to cite him!) who claimed otherwise. Remember now?
Pointing out my "failure" to accomplish those additional tasks (that Darwin is wrong or IDers right) shows you don't even remember what you're arguing about.
Got ADD? Or ADHD? Or whatever sensitive phrase they use for it now?
Futuyma didn't say "No one has ever found a species altruistically serving another, without any gain for itself." He said "No one has ever found a case of a species altruistically serving another, without any gain for itself."
I can't wait until your bold defense of the major proponents of evolution amounts to "So what if they unnecessarily add words that don't add meaning... everyone does it."
No, it was IDENTICAL to your post. IDENTICAL. Don't try an play if off now. You've been caught and slammed....
Which is understandable because you're getting your info from his page, even if you refuse to cite it correctly (and just copy it, word for word, including bolded text).
*burying face in hands*
I was quoting a passage from Futuyma's book. Someone else, a few years ago, also quoted this passage. So, apparently, according to you and only you, whenever one quotes a passage, one must not only cite the source of that passage, but everyone else on any internet site who has also quoted that passage.
I really don't know what to say. You're hopeless, you really are. Look, when you quote a passage, you cite the source of that passage, not everyone else who has ever cited that passage. I put the sentence in bold to bring it to your attention, not because some other internet writer has also made it bold. Get it?
Now, to the more important matters: Futuyma has studied biology a lot longer than you have. He has a PhD in the subject. You do not even have a BS. As evidenced from your posts, he's also a lot smarter than you. When defending the validity of evolution to the general public, he feels the need to cite falsities as proof. You're saying I should draw no conclusions about the strength or weakness of the theory of evolution based on that?
I'm sure you can weasel your way out of the mistakes of others. Big difference though: no one has yet told me to read your books to learn why evolution is so solid. It must be great to have such plausible deniability.
"Why should I believe evolution?"
"Here, check out Futuyma's book."
"That book contains blatant errors."
"Pff, what does that mean, that's just one person, I'm sure there's some proof out there, that's why evolution is valid."
Now quick, go back to googling more pieces of my posts.
Oh, okay, cool, then you have a sample of something they translated successfully right? And they have a way for me to submit text to an automated program that translates it, right? No? Oh, well I guess you don't have much more to add to the non-information that's in the article.
OH NOES!!!! You googled someone's citation and found that someone else made the same point! You clever guy, you. If you going to do that, try not to:
1) Carry on as if I'm making the same argument that "Robert Murphy" is making. He's talking about the contradiction in defending redwoods. I'm talking about the contradiction in advocating the termination of the human race. Actually, Murphy appears to even talk about the human extinction movement, so it seems you can't even maintain internal consistency.
2) Place on me the burden of correcting Futuyma's error. You can gripe at me all day about how Futuyma is misreading evolutionary theory. It's still up to you to take it to him, not me.
If individuals helping other species at the expense of their own species doesn't contradict evolutionary theory (after moving the goalposts again), why does a prominent advocate of the theory need to claim such a falsity as evidence? Again, your dispute is with him, not me. It's not my fault advocates of the theory can't get their stories straight.
Don't believe a word of this. Everybody likes to say they've finally cracked the problem of machine translation. This is exactly what we saw previously on Slashdot with the quote about the "bin Laden tapes" or whatever.
Proof? Ah, we'll get to that later.
Where in any of the links does it give the text of what he said, and the translation? And the analysis to the success of the translation? I found two sentences it mentioned. That's not good enough. Let's allow independent examination of the success of this translation.
Eating only when hungry is not trivial in the least.
I don't see the word "only" in there. Try to respond to what I actually posted.
>>"All organisms will have the same basic DNA building blocks" is non-falsifiable.
Actually, that is quite falsifiable. All it takes is an organism that doesn't have the same DNA building blocks. The fact that we haven't found anything to disprove such an idea (RNA retroviri aside) lends a lot of evidence to common descent.
Actually, you missed the entire point of what I said. What does it mean to have the same "basic" building blocks? What if we found a species that, say, just used A and C? You'd fall back to "well, though some use G and T, they all use the basic building blocks of A and C." And if the bases were all different for every species, you'd be saying "well, they all have carbon". See how fuzzy claims like "same basic building blocks" can become? Who defines basic? What constitutes same?
Also, many animals act for the benefit of their families when it's not in their own best interest to do so. [beating dead horse of your own misinterpretation]
I was referring to the befit of another species, as everyone but you understood it to mean.
As for a prediction of evolution, I'll go with the creation of more and more superbugs, antibiotic resistent bacteria. When antibiotics came out there wasn't anything they couldn't kill, now there are a number of suckers that are harder and harder to defeat.
Except that this is not unique to evolutionary theory. You can totally dispute how species formed according ot it, yet still agree that antibiotics will spare all who were resistant to it. Another example of a triviality.
Let's see if this time you can respond without inserting words.
If you really think ghosts and all are fake, then how about this: put up, say $1000 of your own money to the first person to scientifically prove they exist. You wouldn't do it right? Because you know you'd be out $1000.
That's a straw man argument. Evolution gives results on the scale of a species. Intellegence is a trait that helps our species over others. Intellegence is not uniformly a benefit over other species, as sometimes some groups will use it to determine that other species matter more (hence VHEM, ZPG, etc). On net, however, it helps the species and so is not in conflict with Evolution at all.
Fine, then you guys need to get your stories straight. Certain proponents of evolution do claim the phrase in quotes and claim it logically follows from evolutionary theory. See my response to the above poster. If evolution stands on its own merits, you should be able to cite experts who don't say obviously false things.
As for a claim, what about the claim that evolution will encourage the adoption of useful traits but not the removal of things no longer useful (but not harmful), that is, vestigial organs.
How can something be not useful but not harmful? The body must spend energy maintaining that organ, so vestigial organs are inherently disadvantageous. Evolutionary theory would predict species without them would dominate, so it's falsi......but what the fuck do I know, I'm just some hick?
Really? Then explain this quote from Douglas Futuyma, p. 123 of his Science on Trial:
"If this were true, we would expect to see harmony in nature, not struggle; indeed, we would expect to see animals sacrificing themselves for the good of their species, and even making sacrifices for the good of the natural community in which they live. If the theory of natural selection is true, though, organisms should have adaptations that serve purely for the survival and reproduction of the individuals who bear them, not for the good of any other individual or species. Darwin laid down the challenge in The Origin of the Species: "If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory..."
How has Darwin's challenge fared? No one has ever found a case of a species altruistically serving another, without any gain for itself." (bold added)
So... what you're saying is, when the rate of return (dollars saved per dollar invested) is highest when funds are allocated to reducing g), businesses try to reduce g). If the ROR is highest in a), then businesses should try to reduce a). When b), b). When c), c). When d), d). When e), e). When f), f).
In other words, businesses should invest in the areas that give them the greatest return. WOW. I totally did not know that. Let's invent a new name for this "innovation". I'll call it NBD (Not Being a Dumbass) manufacturing.
Look, I sympathize that you have to teach a few idiots that saving money in one area can cost more in another. I really do. But investing in reducing the cost of one thing until it becomes cheaper to reduce the cost of another thing is not innovation. It is exactly what businesses have done since the days of barter.
Slashdot Mirror
By accepting that wage below what the Californian will work for, you are better off. There's nothing wrong with that. What minimum wage law proponents want to do is price you out of job. Actually, you'd still be making above minimum wage. That's why I brought up foreigners. Not because I'm racist, but because they would be priced out of a job if anyone actually enforced the insanity that is minimum wage law.
See the link the post of my you replied (which you did read). In the Summer of Code, they paid below McDonald's wages, and thus, well below programmers' wages. If any of the programmers in India worked longer hours, they were paid even less per hour.
I don't know what else you want me to show. Do you deny that Indians are going to offer to be programmers for this project? Probably not. Do you deny that they will have to underbid Americans, and will in fact underbid Americans? Probably not. Do you deny that Google will accept some of these offers? Probably not.
As someone previously figured
o ld=1&commentsort=0&tid=217&mode=thread&cid=1387568 1
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166347&thresh
Google can get away with paying below California's minimum wage laws. If they solicit people to work on OO.o, they will inevitably find some Indian or Chinese person willing to work at an [imputed] wage below that which Californians need to live. That's why we need to make sure Google pays a FAIR WAGE, an amount ENOUGH FOR SOMEONE TO LIVE ON (including and especially Californians). When Google does things like this, it puts California's programmers out of work. Even if the amount is enough for the Indian to live on, it drags down the wages of Californians and other Americans. Let's shut the exploitative project down. Write your state representa...
No, that made no sense whatsoever. Yes, it made exactly as much sense as any other argument for minimum wage laws.
Before you mod me down, please, for the love of God, explain how you can support minimum wage laws, but also what Google is planning to do. I want to know where I erred, and if I have in fact erred, I am more than willing to change my mind.
There are opponents of evolution who say silly things too. Niether the people in favor of evolution nor those against it are unified groups, and both have those who say unreasonable things.
One small difference: most proponents of evolution do reference this particular "silly thing" sayer. If he's the best they have to offer...
No, you do have a point.
No, I do NOT HAVE A POINT! I most certainly do not have a point! I have proposed that the case for evolution is not quite as solid as previously thought! I have offended the sacred gods of evolution! I must be a religious fundamentalist nut. It is 100% impossible for my suggestion to have ANY hint of rational thought behind it. That I even conceived it means I must reject every single scientific advance. I just need to shut up, sit down, and let the pros handle science. Right? How dare I ask questions about evolution? It's not like God did it or nothin'! Just keep me away from children. If I point out a single aspect in which the case for evolution is any way shaky, I am fully responsible for any failings in US science. The education monopoly, the regulations on public schools, the anti-achievement mentality, the watering down of standards, the emphasis on "self-esteem" over results has ZILCH to do with it. Because I proposed that vestigial organs also cannot be explained by current evolutionary theory, I am the source of all evil!
Didn't you get the memo? I'll get you a copy of the memo.
These vestigial organs do use energy and so are evolutionarily somewhat disadvantageous. The amount of extra food an animal needs in order to maintain these organs is, however, pretty small, and not likely to have a very large effect on the number or survival of offspring. There should be some effect, but it would be very small and take a really long time. Evolution then does predict the existance of these organs, as we should expect there to be a long time between the loss of an organ's usefulness and its dissapearance. Without evolution, how do you explain them?
When you define any history not involving a designer (be it God or aliens) as a "version of evolution", then of course you can't explain anything. But I don't have to do that. I just have to dispute the mainstream scientists' version. In regard to your defense, it proves too much. So "small disadvantages" won't count against fitness. Why do small advantages count in favor of fitness? The theory is that these advantages developed in tiny steps. But for the evolution to progress, each species member with these tiny developments must consistently beat out those without. Once you concede that small disadvantages don't impede survival, you throw into doubt whether "evolution" happened at all - you would have to believe in "revolution" - that all advantage-providing developments happened in one fell swoop. Is this what most biologists believe?
Now I'll go back to the mental hospital you probably believe I should be in for believing this.
So, let's go over what you tried this time:
-You didn't dispute my explanation of what it means to "lie" but rather just re-asserted your previous (refuted) position.
-You again ignore that I am only trying to establish the errors of prominent evolution proponents that everyone points to, and that there are no non-trivial falsifiable unfalsified predictions of evolutionary theory.
Is that it? Yes, that looks like it's all you did this time. I'll accept this as your face-saving concession. When you want to come back address my actual position (and stop dishonoring whatever diploma mill gave you your BS by revealing inexcusable rhetorical practices), I'll be ready.
The statement "All organisms will have the same basic DNA building blocks" is indeed nonfalsifiable. It's too general. What is a "basic DNA building block". Does it refer to the GATC bases? Does it refer to substructures of the bases? Does it refer to the elements making them up? Does it refer to just the GA bases?
Obviously, obviously, if you narrow it down to "every species will have this specific kind of DNA, and it will always have GATC as the largest common unit to all of them", that is falsifiable. But when people try to talk about the "same basic building blocks", they inevitably set an arbitrary threshold for similarity. That is what I was claiming is non-falsifiable. No matter how unique a species I find, you can always retreat back a cite a more fundamental unit common to them all. That is why it is non-falsifiable.
I can't believe I even had to explain that.
First, let's go over the concept of a "lie". A lie is when you state something you believe is false. (That's something you'll learn in college.) I quite reasonably, based on the grade of your posts, thought you had not yet completed college. I then stated that you had not. Since I was stating what I believed, it was not a lie. I'm still not even sure it's false. I don't know how someone could believe he "caught" someone in a compromising position for making an argument that one other person has made or using a citation that another person has used, yet have also gone to college. (That says a lot about declining standards.) I don't even know how you got modded up for finding that someone else cited the same passage! New concept, kid: when a prominent individual says something stupid, *it tends to get cited more than once*. According to you and only you, when I want to cite the passage, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times", I can't just say it's from A Tale of Two Cities. I must also google that passage and then cite everyone else who has also ... forget it, I can't believe I'm even dignifying this point even further.
...I've shown where the "expert" who's book you referenced made a very basic mistake with regards to what Darwin said. Again, Darwin spoke of species, not individuals.
I see it and I agree that it is NOT part of evolutionary theory. Evolution deals with species, not individuals.
So you STILL refuse to accept the most BASIC concept of evolution.
But your refusal to accept the facts does not change them. Darwin spoke of species, not individuals.
And I agree with you on this point (100th time): yes, evolution speaks of species, not individuals. My point (which has again eluded you) is apparently, a much more prominent evolutionist than you, believes otherwise. Your problem is with him, not me. I'm not going to defend a statement I don't agree with, which is what you apparently want me to do.
And the whole discussion has been about ID and evolution. So your claims that I "moved the goal posts" is just another lie from you.
Ah, now the baby talk: the whole discussion is "about" ID and evolution, ergo, you can bring up whatever you feel like. Again, extend your attention span allllllllllllll the way to where I entered the discussion of the article. Do you think you can do that? I think you can. I really do. There, I made the specific claim that evolution - as is claimed of ID - makes no predictions except ones that are some combination of trivial, non-falsifiable, or falsified. That's all I came in here to establish. If you want to bring up other topics so you can defend a more defensible position, hey, good for you. But don't pretend it refutes anything I've said. If you want to refute someone's arguments, you can't just bring up superficially similar arguments and refute them. I am not claiming ID is correct. I am not claiming ID is science. I'm not claiming the history specified by proponenets of evolution is false. I entered this thread merely to object to the claim that evolutionary theory makes non-trivial, falsifiable, unfalsified claims. That's it. If you want to address what I've said, address that specific claim. Don't bring the debate to your "comfort zone."
Oh, what's this? It looks like your very first attempt to say something relevant:
Evolution has, accurately, predicted every discovery in the science of Biology since it was first stated. Just because you don't want to believe that does not alter that fact.
Really? No prediction based on evolutionary theory has ever been falsified? You sure you don't want to take back this claim before I school you again?
Interesting, by the way, that it took you >5 posts to say something relevant to the point I brought up on coming into the thread.
I didn't demand that it work perfectly - just that they show us how well it did work. Is that too much to ask? It is not.
What have I done? I'm actually developing what I think is the key, before someone else hits on it. I already have an (outsourced!) programmer writing part of it.
No, I understand completely. I'm missing nothing. If a change saves in one area, but costs more in another area, don't do it. I get that. Unlike most of the people you seem to be picking off the street and giving paycheks to, I understand that sometimes, saving money in one area can cost you more in another. I also understand that you want to optimize total return, not return on any one process.
Your distinction between recognizing that "a, b, c, etc. are linked" and investing in order of highest to lowest return in no way contradicts my analysis about investing in the area with the highest ROR. If one option is to invest in increasing the efficiency in a, but because of linkage to c, that increases the costs associated with c, then that cost needs to count against the return on investing in a to determine if it has the highest ROR. If investing in two things at once has a higher ROR than investing in either one in isolation, do that. This is exactly what businesses have done since time immemorial. If delivering goods "just in time" would have induced a higher ROI in the Middle Ages, people would have done it then. They wouldn't need high-paid consultants to remind them to invest where the ROR is the highest.
This comment comparing me to auto execs is pure slander. If I were an exec and someone came up to me and said "if we use smaller batch sizes, we can save on overall costs", I can 100% guarantee you I would not say "but small batch sizes are inefficient!". I might check the validity of the calculations, but unlike the Ivy League geniuses you have helping you, I wouldn't immediately rule it out.
Just a question for you: if I realized that investing X dollars in increasing quality increased the amount buyers were willing to pay by more than X, could I call that "insight" "High-Quality-Production" HQP and then write books that I require you to read before responding?
Buffy and Xena count as "fantasy", a similar but different category from science fiction. I don't know enough about Lara Croft, but that would probably fall under "adventure".
Wow, not only have you been totally flustered, you're actually resorting to calling me a liar. What did I lie about? Can you at least give me that courtesy, or was it just a rank attempt at insulting me?
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Let's go back to why I brought up the Futuyma quote. See this post:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=16682
Someone was claiming that "No member of any species will act for the benefit of another [species] with no benefit for its own" was "not even evolutionary theory". I quoted Futuyma to challege that statement. I did not copy the analysis on the page you linked at all. I merely used a quote - that someone else happened to use - to impeach a statement someone else made. There was no reason for me to cite that page because I didn't use anything in it except - assuming I even knew about the page - the passage. And to cite a passage from a book, you cite the book, not anyone else who happened to have used that same passage. Get it? It's really not a difficult concept.
Next, you didn't "refute" anything I said, you refuted an evolutionist and then put it on me to defend him. Except one small problem: I agree that he's wrong.
And finally, in the blind fit of rage that led you to calling me a liar (without even referencing the lie I allegedly told) you moved the goal posts and said that I "still haven't shown Darwin to be wrong or ID to be correct". You probably should have added that I also haven't "shown dark matter to exist or the Rosenbergs to be innocent"... I wasn't trying to prove any of that. If you can lengthen your attention span alllllllllllll the way to where I entered this thread, you'll see that the only thing I was trying to show was that evolutionary theory has no non-trivial predictive power.
-not that IDers are right
-not that natural selection doesn't happen
-not even that the history given by evolutionists is false!
To do that, I pointed out a falsified prediction sometimes used as an example of the predictive power of evolution. When someone claimed that prediction wasn't part of the theory of evolution, I cited a prominent evolutionist (NOT another person who wrote an internet article that also happened to cite him!) who claimed otherwise. Remember now?
Pointing out my "failure" to accomplish those additional tasks (that Darwin is wrong or IDers right) shows you don't even remember what you're arguing about.
Got ADD? Or ADHD? Or whatever sensitive phrase they use for it now?
All the better! Let's see a sample of that then.
Futuyma didn't say "No one has ever found a species altruistically serving another, without any gain for itself." He said "No one has ever found a case of a species altruistically serving another, without any gain for itself."
I can't wait until your bold defense of the major proponents of evolution amounts to "So what if they unnecessarily add words that don't add meaning... everyone does it."
No, it was IDENTICAL to your post. IDENTICAL. Don't try an play if off now. You've been caught and slammed....
Which is understandable because you're getting your info from his page, even if you refuse to cite it correctly (and just copy it, word for word, including bolded text).
*burying face in hands*
I was quoting a passage from Futuyma's book. Someone else, a few years ago, also quoted this passage. So, apparently, according to you and only you, whenever one quotes a passage, one must not only cite the source of that passage, but everyone else on any internet site who has also quoted that passage.
I really don't know what to say. You're hopeless, you really are. Look, when you quote a passage, you cite the source of that passage, not everyone else who has ever cited that passage. I put the sentence in bold to bring it to your attention, not because some other internet writer has also made it bold. Get it?
Now, to the more important matters: Futuyma has studied biology a lot longer than you have. He has a PhD in the subject. You do not even have a BS. As evidenced from your posts, he's also a lot smarter than you. When defending the validity of evolution to the general public, he feels the need to cite falsities as proof. You're saying I should draw no conclusions about the strength or weakness of the theory of evolution based on that?
I'm sure you can weasel your way out of the mistakes of others. Big difference though: no one has yet told me to read your books to learn why evolution is so solid. It must be great to have such plausible deniability.
"Why should I believe evolution?"
"Here, check out Futuyma's book."
"That book contains blatant errors."
"Pff, what does that mean, that's just one person, I'm sure there's some proof out there, that's why evolution is valid."
Now quick, go back to googling more pieces of my posts.
Oh, okay, cool, then you have a sample of something they translated successfully right? And they have a way for me to submit text to an automated program that translates it, right? No? Oh, well I guess you don't have much more to add to the non-information that's in the article.
OH NOES!!!! You googled someone's citation and found that someone else made the same point! You clever guy, you. If you going to do that, try not to:
1) Carry on as if I'm making the same argument that "Robert Murphy" is making. He's talking about the contradiction in defending redwoods. I'm talking about the contradiction in advocating the termination of the human race. Actually, Murphy appears to even talk about the human extinction movement, so it seems you can't even maintain internal consistency.
2) Place on me the burden of correcting Futuyma's error. You can gripe at me all day about how Futuyma is misreading evolutionary theory. It's still up to you to take it to him, not me.
If individuals helping other species at the expense of their own species doesn't contradict evolutionary theory (after moving the goalposts again), why does a prominent advocate of the theory need to claim such a falsity as evidence? Again, your dispute is with him, not me. It's not my fault advocates of the theory can't get their stories straight.
Don't believe a word of this. Everybody likes to say they've finally cracked the problem of machine translation. This is exactly what we saw previously on Slashdot with the quote about the "bin Laden tapes" or whatever.
Proof? Ah, we'll get to that later.
Where in any of the links does it give the text of what he said, and the translation? And the analysis to the success of the translation? I found two sentences it mentioned. That's not good enough. Let's allow independent examination of the success of this translation.
Eating only when hungry is not trivial in the least.
I don't see the word "only" in there. Try to respond to what I actually posted.
>>"All organisms will have the same basic DNA building blocks" is non-falsifiable.
Actually, that is quite falsifiable. All it takes is an organism that doesn't have the same DNA building blocks. The fact that we haven't found anything to disprove such an idea (RNA retroviri aside) lends a lot of evidence to common descent.
Actually, you missed the entire point of what I said. What does it mean to have the same "basic" building blocks? What if we found a species that, say, just used A and C? You'd fall back to "well, though some use G and T, they all use the basic building blocks of A and C." And if the bases were all different for every species, you'd be saying "well, they all have carbon". See how fuzzy claims like "same basic building blocks" can become? Who defines basic? What constitutes same?
Also, many animals act for the benefit of their families when it's not in their own best interest to do so. [beating dead horse of your own misinterpretation]
I was referring to the befit of another species, as everyone but you understood it to mean.
As for a prediction of evolution, I'll go with the creation of more and more superbugs, antibiotic resistent bacteria. When antibiotics came out there wasn't anything they couldn't kill, now there are a number of suckers that are harder and harder to defeat.
Except that this is not unique to evolutionary theory. You can totally dispute how species formed according ot it, yet still agree that antibiotics will spare all who were resistant to it. Another example of a triviality.
Let's see if this time you can respond without inserting words.
Hey, you're talking to the wrong person. Talk to the prominent evolutionists like, I don't know, Douglas Futuyma who are promoting this.
If you really think ghosts and all are fake, then how about this: put up, say $1000 of your own money to the first person to scientifically prove they exist. You wouldn't do it right? Because you know you'd be out $1000.
That's a straw man argument. Evolution gives results on the scale of a species. Intellegence is a trait that helps our species over others. Intellegence is not uniformly a benefit over other species, as sometimes some groups will use it to determine that other species matter more (hence VHEM, ZPG, etc). On net, however, it helps the species and so is not in conflict with Evolution at all.
...but what the fuck do I know, I'm just some hick?
Fine, then you guys need to get your stories straight. Certain proponents of evolution do claim the phrase in quotes and claim it logically follows from evolutionary theory. See my response to the above poster. If evolution stands on its own merits, you should be able to cite experts who don't say obviously false things.
As for a claim, what about the claim that evolution will encourage the adoption of useful traits but not the removal of things no longer useful (but not harmful), that is, vestigial organs.
How can something be not useful but not harmful? The body must spend energy maintaining that organ, so vestigial organs are inherently disadvantageous. Evolutionary theory would predict species without them would dominate, so it's falsi...
Really? Then explain this quote from Douglas Futuyma, p. 123 of his Science on Trial:
"If this were true, we would expect to see harmony in nature, not struggle; indeed, we would expect to see animals sacrificing themselves for the good of their species, and even making sacrifices for the good of the natural community in which they live. If the theory of natural selection is true, though, organisms should have adaptations that serve purely for the survival and reproduction of the individuals who bear them, not for the good of any other individual or species. Darwin laid down the challenge in The Origin of the Species: "If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory..."
How has Darwin's challenge fared? No one has ever found a case of a species altruistically serving another, without any gain for itself." (bold added)
Name me one non-trivial, falsifiable, unfalsified claim of evolutionary theory.
And just to save us some time:
"Animals will eat when they're hungry and when there's food around" is trivial.
"All organisms will have the same basic DNA building blocks" is non-falsifiable.
"No member of any species will act for the benefit of another with no benefit for its own" is falsified by the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.
Please confine all "clever" jokes about female college students promoting Victoria's Secret products to this thread and this thread only. Thank you.
So... what you're saying is, when the rate of return (dollars saved per dollar invested) is highest when funds are allocated to reducing g), businesses try to reduce g). If the ROR is highest in a), then businesses should try to reduce a). When b), b). When c), c). When d), d). When e), e). When f), f).
In other words, businesses should invest in the areas that give them the greatest return. WOW. I totally did not know that. Let's invent a new name for this "innovation". I'll call it NBD (Not Being a Dumbass) manufacturing.
Look, I sympathize that you have to teach a few idiots that saving money in one area can cost more in another. I really do. But investing in reducing the cost of one thing until it becomes cheaper to reduce the cost of another thing is not innovation. It is exactly what businesses have done since the days of barter.