Very True - De Beers is not thrilled. When the technology first came out, I showed some of the articles to jewelers in a nearby mall. You could see their interest by the way their jaws dropped. Quite a few may have wondered how many more rings they could sell if the cost could drop 40+% with no drop in quality!
What I'm curious about is where have some of the earlier diamonds went. Some of the companies have made diamonds with these new processes for more that a couple of years. One said in an article they were shipping them out as fast as they could make them. One wonders. . . where did they go? Is someone selling them somewhere for top dollar? How could you know? Things will soon change in the diamond business.
After all, Firefox has probably caused more updates and work on IE than anything else. Those IE developers are probably quite thankful seeing as their budget increased quite a bit, partially because there is now some decent competition on the field.
I suppose to some degree, we'll have to agree to disagree. I am glad you picked up on some of my argument. Although you may not have the slightest interest in reading the book I mention reading above or figuring out how it fits together, I do check out books you might read. Here's one, I think you might like.
"When life Nearly Died" by James Lovelock - author of Gaia and Homage to Gaia
On the Back cover it starts with, "Mass extinctions have profoundly shaped the course of evolution of live. . . . " - see, this is a book that is friendly to your cause.
And reading part of the inside leaf of the book, "Today it is common knowledge. . . 251 million years ago, at least 90% of life was destroyed, both on land and in the sea. The earth became a cold, airless place, with only one or two species eking out a poor existence. .."
When he says at least 90%, he is especially referring to the more complex organisms. Lower level, cockroaches, simple invertebrates and etc., would be more likely to survive. This shortens the time span for evolution significantly. Sort of like it occurred twice. Yet according to geological records, life seemed to sprout up fairly quickly after that. Considering the shorter time spans in this book and comparing them to the lack of noticeable evolution over the past, as you say, 6,000 years, makes one wonder.
By the way, I like your definition, argumentum ad ignorantiam - I find it often applies.
Here's one:
Henry could explain the Ford. The Ford never could explain Henry.
Thanks for your comment. Sorry to take so long to get back to you - been busy. I did read your link. First, when talking about evolution making it's way into our schools, I was only speaking about the original court precident - nothing more. Regarding entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, I did read your Wikipedia article. It says the following early on:
"the total entropy of any isolated thermodynamic system tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value; and so, by implication, the entropy of the universe (i.e. the system and its surroundings), assumed as an isolated system, tends to increase."
If the earth is a part of the universe, and the entropy of the universe is increasing, then the entropy of the earth is also increasing. My college chemistry professor also said the same thing. He said that evolution appears to violate the law of entropy. Now he didn't say this to oppose it (in his academic environment, it might have gotten him in trouble). He appeared to be stating it as one would state a mystery that had not yet been explained. As for me, my major was chemistry. - I do know the second law of thermodynamics.
Many people do not look at all the evidence or consider anything that disagrees with their own theory. It reminds me of what Robert Frost Once wrote,
"We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows."
Agreed, why are there only Two choices? That was a main point in what I wrote! Looking back about 500 years, it is easy to laugh at those who insisted that the sun revolved around the earth. The funny thing is that many of the scientists of their day insisted that it was an obvious provable fact. Although the church at that time played a part, it wasn't just them. Many learned people simply believed that it was true. 500 years from now, who knows. . .
Your write-up again pits Evolution VS Creationism. I'm saying that no one has to take a side with the fanatics of Either! I can agree with parts of both. Is there evolution within a species? - Sure. Plenty of evidence of that. There are many different breeds of Cattle, birds (as Darwin found on the Islands), and many other species. Generally, like horses and donkeys, they can still interbreed. If a creature changes or mutates just a little too much, it often becomes sterile or unable to breed with the rest of its kind. Evolution ends.
In my write-up, I hit on a certain flaw in the translation of the first verse of Genesis. There was no passive tense verb in ancient Hebrew. This was stunning piece of learning for me when I first heard it. It changes the whole emphasis of the verse from being a continuous process to fixing something that was destroyed. It says things "became" without form and void. I'm not the only one who knows it, either. If so, why isn't it taught? Ego and tradition. Same as 500 years ago, no one wants to rock the boat because they are comfortable with what they believe or are afraid of the consequences of what will happen if they try.
Sadly, some parts of science fall in the same category today. A recent article on Neanderthal man (in Slashdot) showed that, contrary to what the experts thought, modern man did not come through or by Neanderthals. The DNA is way too different. The nice thing with evolution, though, is if the time frame doesn't work out, rather than say we're wrong, we just move it back another million years or so. Since the scientists have the degrees and no one had a vidcam back then, no one can disprove it. Right. . . Can you say Pseudo-science?
Again, I'm not trying to tick people off or be a troll. Thanks for the ideas sent to me on the subject. The final word on these things will not be on such a brief forum as slashdot. It may only be some years down in the future. . .
What if neither creationism or evolution is right? Having only two ("A" or "B") selections may be part of the problem. Ever seen situations where people are pressured into picking from one of two (usually emotional) choices. How about Pro-Life and Pro-Choice? Are either of them right - all of the time? Would you prefer being stoicly religeous or eat-drink-and-be-merry? Choices like this come out not only in life but also in religeous and professional fields. It's a catch-22. Scientific evolutionists stick to their preferred data and ignore anomolies while sincere religeous types consider only their private interpretation of scripture.
Evolution made its way into schools via court decision, partially because it successfully attacked provable faults in Creationism (there was no explanation for dinosaurs, for example) without having to expose its own faults. Intelligent design has done the same thing in recent years to evolution. It simply demonstrates flaws in Evolution without getting specific as to how or in what way things actually came about. And yes, Creationism, as taught has flaws.
To start with, evolution violates the basic law of entropy, which says that left alone, things naturally go to disorder. But perhaps I can speed up the evolution of a computer, by putting some sand, aluminum, and copper with a dynamite stick and setting it off. It just might turn into a Mac! Also, the DNA code that is so consistent in animals today changes suddenly and dramatically once one goes back, say 10 to 20 thousand years. And as to taking it by faith! . . . don't get me started. Too many people use that as an excuse to not use the brain they claim God gave them. In the first para, I said sincere religeous types consider only their private interpretion of scripture. They never look (or the so-called religeous experts never look) at the original writings that the scriptures come from. Ancient Hebrew has no form of the verb "to-be". Words like "was" or "is" came about with the Greeks. They did have forms of the word "became". So read the first verse of Genesis. It says, ". . . God created the earth. And the earth was [became] without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep." There is substantial proof that there was an ice age shortly after some natural disasters of incredible magnitude back then. Dinosaurs and/or whatever was around back then simply got zapped.
I suppose I've given ample evidence to get modded down, flamed, or whatever. Go ahead, attack what I said because I disagree with your religeion, Evolution or Creationism. But I think at the least, thinking people should not assume that the what's out there is necessarily the only way to think about things. Let's get outside the nine dots.
Perhaps the mail order bride legislation should reflect it. In a CBS news article on the subject, Natasha Spivak, founder of Encounters International, a Bethesda, Maryland-based service, said she had "no objection to mandatory background checks", but felt it would not totally prevent abusive from getting a foreign wife. O
n the other hand, she contended that, "male clients, not the women, are the most likely to be victimized in mail-order marriages. Some women, she said, enter such marriages solely to gain U.S. citizenship, then falsely complain of physical abuse as a ploy to remain in America despite divorce. Some of these women are sharks".
Although the legislation is promoted with the noblest of intentions (to get votes), it's unlikely to make any great impact. Let the buyer beware!
Your article has good points. I bet your Mike Warnke quote comes from his book, "The Satan Seller" written somewhere back in the 70's. Funny thing. It's the story about how Mike W becomes the leader of some witches/warlock coven near San Francisco back in the 60's and successfully "sells" their belief system until things get too freaky even for him and he gets out and exposes what goes on.
This obscure reference is intriging. But perhaps Microsoft's leadership really does wear black robes and perform mysterious rituals to garner more users. And maybe it's when problems with Windows get too freaky that we escape to the truth of Linux and expose Windows.
This is deep. Have I gone too far? Just don't tell me that the few at the top have horns and red suits. Who would sleep at night?
Slashdot Mirror
Very True - De Beers is not thrilled. When the technology first came out, I showed some of the articles to jewelers in a nearby mall. You could see their interest by the way their jaws dropped. Quite a few may have wondered how many more rings they could sell if the cost could drop 40+% with no drop in quality!
What I'm curious about is where have some of the earlier diamonds went. Some of the companies have made diamonds with these new processes for more that a couple of years. One said in an article they were shipping them out as fast as they could make them. One wonders. . . where did they go? Is someone selling them somewhere for top dollar? How could you know? Things will soon change in the diamond business.
After all, Firefox has probably caused more updates and work on IE than anything else. Those IE developers are probably quite thankful seeing as their budget increased quite a bit, partially because there is now some decent competition on the field.
Not many domesticated animals would vote in favor of making it on their own. Some have it pretty good.
"When life Nearly Died" by James Lovelock - author of Gaia and Homage to Gaia
On the Back cover it starts with, "Mass extinctions have profoundly shaped the course of evolution of live. . . . " - see, this is a book that is friendly to your cause.
And reading part of the inside leaf of the book, "Today it is common knowledge. . . 251 million years ago, at least 90% of life was destroyed, both on land and in the sea. The earth became a cold, airless place, with only one or two species eking out a poor existence. . ."
When he says at least 90%, he is especially referring to the more complex organisms. Lower level, cockroaches, simple invertebrates and etc., would be more likely to survive. This shortens the time span for evolution significantly. Sort of like it occurred twice. Yet according to geological records, life seemed to sprout up fairly quickly after that. Considering the shorter time spans in this book and comparing them to the lack of noticeable evolution over the past, as you say, 6,000 years, makes one wonder.
By the way, I like your definition, argumentum ad ignorantiam - I find it often applies.
Here's one:
Henry could explain the Ford. The Ford never could explain Henry.
"the total entropy of any isolated thermodynamic system tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value; and so, by implication, the entropy of the universe (i.e. the system and its surroundings), assumed as an isolated system, tends to increase."
If the earth is a part of the universe, and the entropy of the universe is increasing, then the entropy of the earth is also increasing. My college chemistry professor also said the same thing. He said that evolution appears to violate the law of entropy. Now he didn't say this to oppose it (in his academic environment, it might have gotten him in trouble). He appeared to be stating it as one would state a mystery that had not yet been explained. As for me, my major was chemistry. - I do know the second law of thermodynamics.
Many people do not look at all the evidence or consider anything that disagrees with their own theory. It reminds me of what Robert Frost Once wrote,
"We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows."
Your write-up again pits Evolution VS Creationism. I'm saying that no one has to take a side with the fanatics of Either! I can agree with parts of both. Is there evolution within a species? - Sure. Plenty of evidence of that. There are many different breeds of Cattle, birds (as Darwin found on the Islands), and many other species. Generally, like horses and donkeys, they can still interbreed. If a creature changes or mutates just a little too much, it often becomes sterile or unable to breed with the rest of its kind. Evolution ends.
In my write-up, I hit on a certain flaw in the translation of the first verse of Genesis. There was no passive tense verb in ancient Hebrew. This was stunning piece of learning for me when I first heard it. It changes the whole emphasis of the verse from being a continuous process to fixing something that was destroyed. It says things "became" without form and void. I'm not the only one who knows it, either. If so, why isn't it taught? Ego and tradition. Same as 500 years ago, no one wants to rock the boat because they are comfortable with what they believe or are afraid of the consequences of what will happen if they try.
Sadly, some parts of science fall in the same category today. A recent article on Neanderthal man (in Slashdot) showed that, contrary to what the experts thought, modern man did not come through or by Neanderthals. The DNA is way too different. The nice thing with evolution, though, is if the time frame doesn't work out, rather than say we're wrong, we just move it back another million years or so. Since the scientists have the degrees and no one had a vidcam back then, no one can disprove it. Right. . . Can you say Pseudo-science?
Again, I'm not trying to tick people off or be a troll. Thanks for the ideas sent to me on the subject. The final word on these things will not be on such a brief forum as slashdot. It may only be some years down in the future. . .
What if neither creationism or evolution is right? Having only two ("A" or "B") selections may be part of the problem. Ever seen situations where people are pressured into picking from one of two (usually emotional) choices. How about Pro-Life and Pro-Choice? Are either of them right - all of the time? Would you prefer being stoicly religeous or eat-drink-and-be-merry? Choices like this come out not only in life but also in religeous and professional fields. It's a catch-22. Scientific evolutionists stick to their preferred data and ignore anomolies while sincere religeous types consider only their private interpretation of scripture. Evolution made its way into schools via court decision, partially because it successfully attacked provable faults in Creationism (there was no explanation for dinosaurs, for example) without having to expose its own faults. Intelligent design has done the same thing in recent years to evolution. It simply demonstrates flaws in Evolution without getting specific as to how or in what way things actually came about. And yes, Creationism, as taught has flaws. To start with, evolution violates the basic law of entropy, which says that left alone, things naturally go to disorder. But perhaps I can speed up the evolution of a computer, by putting some sand, aluminum, and copper with a dynamite stick and setting it off. It just might turn into a Mac! Also, the DNA code that is so consistent in animals today changes suddenly and dramatically once one goes back, say 10 to 20 thousand years. And as to taking it by faith! . . . don't get me started. Too many people use that as an excuse to not use the brain they claim God gave them. In the first para, I said sincere religeous types consider only their private interpretion of scripture. They never look (or the so-called religeous experts never look) at the original writings that the scriptures come from. Ancient Hebrew has no form of the verb "to-be". Words like "was" or "is" came about with the Greeks. They did have forms of the word "became". So read the first verse of Genesis. It says, ". . . God created the earth. And the earth was [became] without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep." There is substantial proof that there was an ice age shortly after some natural disasters of incredible magnitude back then. Dinosaurs and/or whatever was around back then simply got zapped. I suppose I've given ample evidence to get modded down, flamed, or whatever. Go ahead, attack what I said because I disagree with your religeion, Evolution or Creationism. But I think at the least, thinking people should not assume that the what's out there is necessarily the only way to think about things. Let's get outside the nine dots.
Perhaps the mail order bride legislation should reflect it. In a CBS news article on the subject, Natasha Spivak, founder of Encounters International, a Bethesda, Maryland-based service, said she had "no objection to mandatory background checks", but felt it would not totally prevent abusive from getting a foreign wife. O n the other hand, she contended that, "male clients, not the women, are the most likely to be victimized in mail-order marriages. Some women, she said, enter such marriages solely to gain U.S. citizenship, then falsely complain of physical abuse as a ploy to remain in America despite divorce. Some of these women are sharks". Although the legislation is promoted with the noblest of intentions (to get votes), it's unlikely to make any great impact. Let the buyer beware!
Your article has good points. I bet your Mike Warnke quote comes from his book, "The Satan Seller" written somewhere back in the 70's. Funny thing. It's the story about how Mike W becomes the leader of some witches/warlock coven near San Francisco back in the 60's and successfully "sells" their belief system until things get too freaky even for him and he gets out and exposes what goes on. This obscure reference is intriging. But perhaps Microsoft's leadership really does wear black robes and perform mysterious rituals to garner more users. And maybe it's when problems with Windows get too freaky that we escape to the truth of Linux and expose Windows. This is deep. Have I gone too far? Just don't tell me that the few at the top have horns and red suits. Who would sleep at night?