you dont have to like gates to see what he is saying is not wrong, at least in the short term
Maybe. If you twist it just right. I mean, I can see how his claim that improving classroom education via computing devices is "never going to work on a devices without a keyboard-type input" might be "not wrong, at least in the short term" in the same way the statement "Humans will never land on the moon" would have been "not wrong, at least in the short term" if it had been made in 1965.
Well, he's right on the part that everyone says ("Just giving people devices has a really horrible track record. You really have to change the curriculum and the teacher.")
He's almost certainly wrong on the part that is specific to addressing tablets, where he makes the argument characterized in the headline ("And it's never going to work on a device where you don't have a keyboard-type input.") The thing he offers to support this claim is likely true ("Students aren't there just to read things. They're actually supposed to be able to write and communicate.") But, he overlooks the obvious fact that students have spent most of history able to "write and communicate" without a "keyboard-type input". And he's overlooking that the mechanisms they've used to do that without a "keyboard-type input" -- writing (as opposed to typing on a keyboard), drawing, and verbal and visual communication -- are directly supportable on "devices where you don't have a keyboard-type input", particularly, on those that have touch, audio, and video inputs, whether or not they have "a keyboard-type input."
Agree to disagree" is absurd - it's impossible for two rational agents to disagree over a matter of fact.
No, its impossible for two rational agents to disagree over a matter of logic.
Its quite possible for two rational agents to disagree over a matter of fact, since conclusions of fact always involve applying reason to experience, and two rational agents won't have the same universe of experience.
I'd like to correct you on what Agnosticism is about. It certainly isn't -as commonly believed- the middle ground between theism and atheism. Instead it's about the possibility of proof/true knowledge wrt to the existence of gods. An agnostic believes gods' existence/non-existence cannot be proven.
That's approximately what I've often seen referred to as the "strong agnostic" position (the way I've usually seen it articulated isn't in terms of proof -- which presupposes very particular epistemological framework which is orthogonal to agnosticism -- but in terms of "knowability", that is, the strong agnostic position is that the existence or non-existence of god(s) is unknowable rather than unproven -- the latter implies the former, of course, but not the other way around.)
There's also a "weak agnostic" position that holds that the existence or not of god(s) is unknown, but not necessarily unknowable (there are also at least two subcategories of this position, one which holds that the existence or not of god(s) is knowable but unknown, and one which doesn't claim any position on whether or not that existence is knowable but merely holds that it is unknown whether or not it is knowable. You could call the former "strong weak agnosticism" and the latter "weak weak agnosticism", but that's just cumbersome, and there are very few contexts where it is important to distinguish the two positions.)
I don't think its really accurate to characterize either the strong or (either) weak position as the one "real" agnostic position. At least, I've seen different people who themselves claim the "agnostic" label argue for each position, and neither seems to have any legitimate claim to priority over the term. Their all "agnostic", though they are distinct in important ways.
And, yes, my presentation of agnosticism as the absence of belief in a diety rather than the belief that the existence of a diety was either not known or not knowable in GP was soemthing of oversimplification. I thought it was a useful one for the point I was making (as the knowability issue requires an even longer explanation that didn't add much in context.)
And I agree that agnosticism isn't a middle ground position between atheism and theism (though there is a sense in which it is a middle ground between strong atheism -- the belief that the existence of any gods is knowable and known to be false -- and strong theism -- the belief that the existence of some god or gods is knowable and known to be true.)
It is compatible with weaker versions of both theism and atheism (in that its possible to believe either that God does or does not exist without believing that it is known or even knowable whether or not this is true), as well as with a absence of belief in either direction (the position I think of "pure agnosticism", not because its "better" than when it is mixed with theism or atheism, but simply because its not mixed with a belief on that axis at all.)
You cannot believe in the lack of something other than to not believe it exists
Yes, you can. Absence of belief in something isn't the same as belief in the absence of the thing. For instance, there is an office suite next door to the one I'm in, isolated from the one I'm in by walls thick enough to block normal office noise. I have no belief regarding the presence or absence of people in the room. That is a distinct belief state from either the belief in people in that room, or the belief that there are no people in that room.
Similar, one can have an absence of belief in the existence of a God without having a belief in the non-existence of God.
There is no proof at all - zilch - nada - that god exists, that cannot be explained by other means.
Whether or not there is proof of the existence of X is irrelevant to the fact that absence of belief in X is distinct from belief in the non-existence of X.
"The negation of a positive claim is itself a positive claim" is totally false, to the point of a paradox.
No, its not.
If you assert A, and I do not believe in A, that does not imply I believe in the lack of A; because then there is itself a belief in the lack of belief of A, and so on.
This isn't a paradox. The part before the "because" is true (and is, in fact, the point I've been arguing: there is a distinction between the absence of belief in A and the belief in the absence of A),
The part after the "because" is not only not the cause of the part before it, but isn't meaningful. Yes, its possible to have beliefs about the presence or absence of beliefs. So what?
I consider your entire post a collection of logical fallacies and I am not even sure why I replied, other than the expectation that other "agnostics" will mod it up out of the mistaken belief that they are the only people in the universe who are right.
Other agnostics? Where did I claim to be agnostic? Understanding what the word "agnostic" means and why it is distinct from "atheist" doesn't mean that I am an agnostic.
I, personally, see this trend as a major problem for democratic processes. If we can't really know what's going on, we can't vote sensibly on it.
I don't think there is any evidence that the decline of the corporate advertising vehicles that make up the major commercial "news" media has made people less able to know what is going on.
I also think its amusing to see the decline of the influence of a set of outlets including the BBC and the rise of a set of outlets including Al Jazeera portrayed as the decline of private news media in favor of state outlets. The BBC is no less a state outlet than Al Jazeera is.
Options we have so far (which seem to be increasingly inadequate): 1) Traditional media. It's dying. I think we can all point to a handful of compelling reasons why it'll continue to die. 2) Paywalls. Nobody likes them, and they're arguably little better than unabashed state media, since one has to pay for a lot of them in order to sort out what's nonobjective. (If someone knows a fix for this, let's hear it!) 3) Free (as in beer) news--ad-sponsored. It lacks funding required to do a lot of "real" investigative reporting, and as such, it isn't likely to send a reporter across the world to report on the latest war in which our soldiers are fighting. (Let's put the topic of what wars they should be fighting aside, for the moment.) Also, I'm sick of seeing "lowest common denominator" content--no matter how cute those cats are.
Traditional news media is free-as-in-beer ad-sponsored media, they aren't alternatives to each other. At least, traditional broadcast news is; traditional newspapers might as well be -- the retail cost (and even moreso the subscription cost) is nominal and doesn't even cover the cost of printing, but exists largely so that newspapers can have paid circulation (i.e., people that can reasonably be expected to be reading it) numbers to use in marketing to advertisers.
Otherwise, this means that everyone is doing journalism in a mostly (or strictly) amateur capacity, which will (typically) produce low-quality stories and lack journalistic legal protection in those countries that provide such.
Special legal protections for institutional journalists (as opposed to those that apply to anyone performing a journalistic function regardless of institutional status) are a form of state sponsorship of institutional media outlets.
Mythology is simply religion that is no longer believed anymore
No, its not.
Religions generally include mythology, but religions (dead or alive) are more than just the body of myth they include, in the same way that (for instance) a a nation's system of government is more than just it electoral system, even though the system of government includes the electoral system.
For instance, religions generally include moral precepts, which -- while they may be illustrated by elements of the mythology, aren't part of the mythology, and can be examined separately.
They also often include institutional authority structures, which again may be justified by reference to the mythology, but which are themselves not part of the body of myth.
So your search-and-replace of "religion" with "mythology" in a post talking about what can be learned by examining religion doesn't work as a substitution that doesn't change the meaning, as you claim. Instead, it radically changes the meaning.
The Norse gods, the Greek and Roman gods... you'd likely say they are parts of different culture's mythologies, but it is just as accurate to say they are parts of different culture's religions.
Well, yeah. Mythology is often part of a religion (though it can be outside of a religion in the usual sense -- there is a lot of US national mythology that doesn't really have a religious context.)
Courtesy of the scientific method and burden of proof, a positive claim is false until proven.
The scientific method has nothing to do with what makes a claim true or false, it is about a pragmatic method of refining predictive models given the assumption of a universe that operates under consistent rules.
And the "burden of proof" also has nothing to do with what makes a claim true or false, it is a popular convention that addresses standards for the justification of belief (which is different than truth, in a manner similar to -- but distinct from -- the way that utility of a scientific theory is distinct from its truth.)
One can, of course, adopt a belief that only scientific hypotheses that have failed efforts at falsification are "true", but while that belief is about the scientific method, it is not a product of that method. It is an independent a priori belief, no different than most forms of religious faith.
Here's a test. When it comes to elves, do you say you are "agnostic?"
Pretty much (I wouldn't usually use the term "agnostic", but I would say that I have an absence of belief in elves rather than a belief in the absence of elves -- there might be specific concepts of elves that are precise enough [and contrary enough to available evidence] -- where that tips into belief in absence rather than absence of belief.)
Atheists ARE agnostics in the strict sense: if god were proven, we would have to accept that god exists
That doesn't make you agnostics in the strict sense. Atheists believe that God does not exist. Agnostics have an absence of belief in the existence or non-existence of God. The existence of circumstances which would cause both (some) atheists and (some) agnostics to switch from their existing beliefs (or lack thereof) to a belief that God does exist doesn't suddenly make the existing beliefs equivalent.
Until then, we do not say "well, god MIGHT exist, so we should use a special word to make it look like we're not against religion, just in cane,"
Right, because atheists have a positive belief in the non-existence of God, which is different than the agnostics' absence of belief in the existence or non-existence of God. The atheist perspective may come from a particular construction of the burden of proof which holds that the negation of an existential claim is held to be true unless the existential claim is proven, but this is different than the construction you offer above, as the negation of a positive claim is itself a positive claim.
My guess is that then they could argue that the fossil record is inaccurate.
Well, it might support an argument that the fossil record is incomplete, but we already know that, and we already know that it can produce surprises such that previously-thought-extinct species turn up to be doing just fine (like the coelacanth, which before specimens were found alive was thought to have gone extinct about the same time as non-avian dinosaurs.)
Of course, nothing in evolutionary theory depends on the fossil record being complete.
If finding species thought to have gone extinct during the K-Pg extinction event living alongside man would disprove evolution, you wouldn't need to go hunting for looking for swimming (non-avian) dinosaurs to do it.
Cats are doing pretty well with their current set of instincts, I don't see a huge evolutionary need for cats to learn advanced mathematics.
In fact, cats spent a lot of effort domesticating humans so they wouldn't have to bother with things like advanced mathematics, engineering, etc., but could just reap the benefits.
Very unlikely that there will be anything like a housecat in a million years.
Sure cats (in the broad sense) appear to have evovled fairly rapidly, but in evolutionary terms a million years is an eye blink. What makes you think F. silvestris catus won't be around for another million years?
Yes, your fossils may show change over time that you call "evolution".
That's all that "evolution" means.
They do nothing to prove that life evolved from a primordial soup of random chemicals
That's abiogenesis, and has nothing to do with evolution.
which is what you'd need to disprove a belief in a creator that created the life originally.
Scientists, qua scientists, have no interest in "disproving a belief in a creator that created the life originally". (Certain scientists have such an interest, but that's orthogonal to actual science.)
Scientists have an interest in producing, testing, and refining predictive models. The existence of a creator (unless you assume a whole lot more traits than just being a creator) generally produces no testable predictions that differentiate it from other models, which makes it a useless speculation from a scientific standpoint.
Various models of abiogenesis do produce testable predictions, and therefore can be useful scientific hypotheses, even if they are useful only in being falsified in the process of getting to better hypothesis.
I have no problem believing that species change over time
Plenty of people do, which is where much of the misrepresentation of evolution (including the failure to distinguish from abiogenesis or various cosmological theories) comes from.
I have lots of problems with scientists who claim to have proof of how life began.
Science doesn't generally prove anything in the absolute sense that "prove" is sometimes used, it disproves models, and in doing so produces ever-better models.
Something that is said to be "proved" true in science usually means that it has (1) proven to be very useful in predicting future observations, and (2) withstood concerted efforts at disproof without being disproven -- and those aren't really two different things, (2) is really an aspect of (1).
Don't anthropomorphize natural processes. They hate it when you do that.
Seriously, "evolution" is a descriptive term for what results when you have a certain combination of features in a system (basically, a mechanism for replicating traits, a mechanism or combination of mechanisms that produces random changes in traits as they are replicated, and an environment which creates pressures which affect which traits are replicated.)
You're talking about "abiogenesis", which does contradict creationism. Evolution is a process that can exist with or without creationism or abiogenesis.
Well, if you assume infinite past time, during which life always existed; otherwise, evolution (since it requires the existence of life) requires either some form of abiogenesis (the emergence of life from lifelessness via natural processes) or some form of creationism (the emergence of life from lifelessness via supernatural processes.)
But, even without infinite past time, evolution isn't partial between abiogenesis and creationism, though of course it conflicts with some particular explanations of creationism (and, heck, I suppose some particular forms of abiogenesis that could be dreamt up, but no one would bother to seriously propose those once the conflict became clear, because there isn't a whole lot of unscientific extremism tied to particular forms of abiogenesis.)
Right now we have an important check in the form of a search warrant. Before searching me, a law enforcement agent must demonstrate to a judge probable cause that I have committed, or will commit, a crime.
False. Before searching you (in conditions that don't permit warrantless searches), a law enforcement agent must demonstrate to a judge probable cause to believe that a search with the parameters specified in the warrant application will unveil evidence relating to a crime (the specific type of evidence also being specified in the warrant application.) They only have to provide probable cause that you committed a crime if they want an arrest warrant, which is not the same thing as a search warrant.
And, at least until Pre-Crime Division is authorized, providing probable cause to believe that you will commit a crime in the future isn't grounds for any kind of warrant (though grounds to believe that may be relevant in bail or parole hearings, but that's a completely different set of issues from warrants.)
Consider for instance the breakdown in voting participation over the last 4 presidential elections (.pdf warning) - voter participation of those between 18 and 34 (what I would consider to be the net generation) has increased, in many cases markedly.
[...]
If anything one could argue that the rise of the internet has increased participation through the development of targeted demographic outreach like that popularly attributed to Obama's campaign success.
Yeah, look, there's been lots of studies of other things that contribute to voting propensity in different age groups. Taking four data points and not controlling for any other contributing factor you can say lots of things, but nothing meaningful.
Also, you've reversed the direction of the usual attribution in the last sentence. Its fairly popular to attribute at least some of Obama's 2008 success to targetted demographic outreach, its not all that popular to attribute targetted demographic outreach to Obama's 2008 success.
Tax lawyers, by contrast, have a directly symbiotic relationship with the complexity of the local tax code.
This is frequently stated, but not really all that true.
Actual complexity of tax codes increases the effort tax lawyers must expend to deliver the same value to clients, which is disadvantageous to them.
Perceived (by non-tax lawyers) complexity of the tax code increases the perceived value of the services of tax lawyers (and, therefore, the prices purchasers of those services are willing to pay), and is therefore advantageous to them.
Insofar as tax lawyers have a vested economic interested in the complexity of the tax code, its not in maximizing the actual complexity of the tax code, but in maximizing the difference between the perceived and actual complexity of the tax code.
Given the value of language in communication between people, and the rather dubious history of the various things that make messy tribalism even easier than it already is, is this 'Linguistic Diversity' stuff actually a good thing(beyond the relatively narrow; although certainly important, value as a research sample for linguists and as a useful rallying point for resistance to other flavors of attack on relatively powerless groups)?
If you don't have anyone who understands the language, you don't have anyone who can access information stored in the language, whether the storage medium is currently in a known place, or buried somewhere that will be dug up 100 years from now. (Insofar as there is a substantial two-way interaction between langauge and other parts of culture, it also is a useful tool in understanding the cultures from which the languages evolved, above and beyond interpreting material originally recorded in the language -- which there may not be any of, for languages that have not been written.) So, preserving languages before they disappear from active use (what the Google project is focussed on) has some uses aside from what you present, even aside from whatever utility there may be in preserving the languages in active use.
Plus, the less other languages there are, the less places there are for English to steal vocabulary from, and the stolen vocabulary used for new concepts is usually a lot better than the deliberate new constructions that we get when there isn't a convenient foreign word to steal.
companies don't "make" stuff anymore they outsource manufacturing..
To whom? Magical manufacturing pixies?
The companies that do the outsourcing outsource to, guess what, companies that do manufacturing. It is true that very frequently the companies that specialize in branding products and marketing them to consumers aren't the same companies that specialize in manufacturing the products, but it is very much not the case that companies don't make stuff anymore.
It's basically a bunch of monstrous Access databases. Unfortunately, most (all?) of the VBA code is in databases that have been compiled to.mde files. There's no simple way that I know of to get usable source code back from those, which is unfortunate, since that's probably where most of the damning evidence would be found.
There's at least one commercial service that for taking MDEs back to MDBs with VBA source, so it is certainly doable, if not simple.
This here is an example of not using appropriate sources:
You're kidding, right? This is clear-cut extortion. You don't have to threaten to commit a criminal act to be guilty of extortion: all you need to do is threaten to do something unpleasant and demand something in exchange for not doing it. "Give me $5 or I'll punch you" is extortion, but so is "Give me $5 or I'll tell everyone you have a crush on Suzie", even though saying so is not a crime, and even though Suzie may already know.
Yeah, a wikipedia article that characterizes the law with no citations to primary or secondary sources regarding the law (only citing a general -- not legal -- dictionary and another digital encyclopedia) it characterizes isn't really something you want to rely on.
The actual US federal extortion law is 18 USC Chapter 41; the two general provisions of which (not requiring the perpetrator or victim to be public or foreign officials or specially protected persons or having other similar special limitaitons) or 18 USC Secs. 873 & 875:
Sec. 873 Whoever, under a threat of informing, or as a consideration for not informing, against any violation of any law of the United States, demands or receives any money or other valuable thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
Sec. 875 a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any demand or request for a ransom or reward for the release of any kidnapped person, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. (b) Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. (c) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. (d) Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
I don't think either really applies to the behavior at issue here.
Non-federal extortion provisions will vary considerably from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so you really need to look at the laws of the jurisdiction applicable to the particular event.
The iPhone 3GS, which was released in June 2009, is still being sold as Apple's low-end iPhone (usually for $0.99 on a contract), and it runs the current iOS 5. When iOS 6 is released this Fall, the 3GS will run that as well.
The difference between this and the WP8 situation is mostly marketing. WP7 devices will get WP7.8, which includes many WP8 features, but not some that MS considers dependent on the hardware specs that differ betwen WP8 and WP7 (either because the older hardware doesn't support the feature at all or because using it on the older hardware would produce an unacceptable -- in MS's eyes -- user experience.)
While older iPhones nominally get the current iOS versions, the versions they get are lacking features that Apple feels are dependent on the newer device hardware (either because the older hardware doesn't support the feature at all or because using it on the older hardware would produce an unacceptable -- in Apple's eyes -- user experience.)
iOS 5 on the iPhone 3GS doesn't support the same features as iOS 5 on the iPhone 4, which doesn't support the same features as iOS 5 on the iPhone 4S. With iOS 6, that'll all still be true (and is increasingly true as more iOS devices are supported by the same nominal OS version.)
In this case, the 2 summaries of the score give out different meaning. The first one is showing that Whites are superior when they did a little bit better; whereas, the second part, where Asians did even a bit better, is saying there is no significant difference. As a said before, why can't they say that in all grades, there is no significant difference, and then go on that Whites had the highest for grade 4 and 8.
Because statistical significance isn't based on just the absolute value of the difference of the means, so its quite possible to have the situation where the place where the difference of means is greater that the difference is not statistically significant, where the place where the difference of means is less the difference is statistically significant.
Your comment seems based on the premise that a smaller difference should always be presented as statistically insignificant if a larger difference in the same measure in a different population in the same report is statistically insignificant, but that's simply a failure to understand what statistical significance means.
Does anyone have any idea why the W3C opposed this?
To encourage sites that track users to voluntarily respect DNT: if it is on by default, no one will respect it server side. If it is an active choice of the user, there is better chance at gaining support from advertisers and others who track user data, who almost universally oppose opt-out DNT (which equates to opt-in tracking), but generally are willing to accept opt-in DNT (which equates to opt-out tracking.)
Its interesting to note that while MS-the-browser-vendor has instituted DNT-by-default, MS-the-user-tracker doesn't support DNT on their websites. So, in effect, DNT-by-default serves to create a competitive advantage for MS (as a user-tracking firm) over firms that do respect DNT, and creates a disincentive for other user-tracking firms to adopt DNT (and an incentives for those that do to stop.)
It seems like a no-brainer.
If you are in Microsoft's position and Google has already started respecting DNT and want to create a short-term competitive advantage, its a no-brainer.
If you actually want to encourage widespread respect for DNT and drive its adoption on the back end where it matters, not so much.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe. If you twist it just right. I mean, I can see how his claim that improving classroom education via computing devices is "never going to work on a devices without a keyboard-type input" might be "not wrong, at least in the short term" in the same way the statement "Humans will never land on the moon" would have been "not wrong, at least in the short term" if it had been made in 1965.
Well, he's right on the part that everyone says ("Just giving people devices has a really horrible track record. You really have to change the curriculum and the teacher.")
He's almost certainly wrong on the part that is specific to addressing tablets, where he makes the argument characterized in the headline ("And it's never going to work on a device where you don't have a keyboard-type input.") The thing he offers to support this claim is likely true ("Students aren't there just to read things. They're actually supposed to be able to write and communicate.") But, he overlooks the obvious fact that students have spent most of history able to "write and communicate" without a "keyboard-type input". And he's overlooking that the mechanisms they've used to do that without a "keyboard-type input" -- writing (as opposed to typing on a keyboard), drawing, and verbal and visual communication -- are directly supportable on "devices where you don't have a keyboard-type input", particularly, on those that have touch, audio, and video inputs, whether or not they have "a keyboard-type input."
No, its impossible for two rational agents to disagree over a matter of logic.
Its quite possible for two rational agents to disagree over a matter of fact, since conclusions of fact always involve applying reason to experience, and two rational agents won't have the same universe of experience.
That's approximately what I've often seen referred to as the "strong agnostic" position (the way I've usually seen it articulated isn't in terms of proof -- which presupposes very particular epistemological framework which is orthogonal to agnosticism -- but in terms of "knowability", that is, the strong agnostic position is that the existence or non-existence of god(s) is unknowable rather than unproven -- the latter implies the former, of course, but not the other way around.)
There's also a "weak agnostic" position that holds that the existence or not of god(s) is unknown, but not necessarily unknowable (there are also at least two subcategories of this position, one which holds that the existence or not of god(s) is knowable but unknown, and one which doesn't claim any position on whether or not that existence is knowable but merely holds that it is unknown whether or not it is knowable. You could call the former "strong weak agnosticism" and the latter "weak weak agnosticism", but that's just cumbersome, and there are very few contexts where it is important to distinguish the two positions.)
I don't think its really accurate to characterize either the strong or (either) weak position as the one "real" agnostic position. At least, I've seen different people who themselves claim the "agnostic" label argue for each position, and neither seems to have any legitimate claim to priority over the term. Their all "agnostic", though they are distinct in important ways.
And, yes, my presentation of agnosticism as the absence of belief in a diety rather than the belief that the existence of a diety was either not known or not knowable in GP was soemthing of oversimplification. I thought it was a useful one for the point I was making (as the knowability issue requires an even longer explanation that didn't add much in context.)
And I agree that agnosticism isn't a middle ground position between atheism and theism (though there is a sense in which it is a middle ground between strong atheism -- the belief that the existence of any gods is knowable and known to be false -- and strong theism -- the belief that the existence of some god or gods is knowable and known to be true.)
It is compatible with weaker versions of both theism and atheism (in that its possible to believe either that God does or does not exist without believing that it is known or even knowable whether or not this is true), as well as with a absence of belief in either direction (the position I think of "pure agnosticism", not because its "better" than when it is mixed with theism or atheism, but simply because its not mixed with a belief on that axis at all.)
Yes, you can. Absence of belief in something isn't the same as belief in the absence of the thing. For instance, there is an office suite next door to the one I'm in, isolated from the one I'm in by walls thick enough to block normal office noise. I have no belief regarding the presence or absence of people in the room. That is a distinct belief state from either the belief in people in that room, or the belief that there are no people in that room.
Similar, one can have an absence of belief in the existence of a God without having a belief in the non-existence of God.
Whether or not there is proof of the existence of X is irrelevant to the fact that absence of belief in X is distinct from belief in the non-existence of X.
No, its not.
This isn't a paradox. The part before the "because" is true (and is, in fact, the point I've been arguing: there is a distinction between the absence of belief in A and the belief in the absence of A),
The part after the "because" is not only not the cause of the part before it, but isn't meaningful. Yes, its possible to have beliefs about the presence or absence of beliefs. So what?
Other agnostics? Where did I claim to be agnostic? Understanding what the word "agnostic" means and why it is distinct from "atheist" doesn't mean that I am an agnostic.
I don't think there is any evidence that the decline of the corporate advertising vehicles that make up the major commercial "news" media has made people less able to know what is going on.
I also think its amusing to see the decline of the influence of a set of outlets including the BBC and the rise of a set of outlets including Al Jazeera portrayed as the decline of private news media in favor of state outlets. The BBC is no less a state outlet than Al Jazeera is.
Traditional news media is free-as-in-beer ad-sponsored media, they aren't alternatives to each other. At least, traditional broadcast news is; traditional newspapers might as well be -- the retail cost (and even moreso the subscription cost) is nominal and doesn't even cover the cost of printing, but exists largely so that newspapers can have paid circulation (i.e., people that can reasonably be expected to be reading it) numbers to use in marketing to advertisers.
Special legal protections for institutional journalists (as opposed to those that apply to anyone performing a journalistic function regardless of institutional status) are a form of state sponsorship of institutional media outlets.
No, its not.
Religions generally include mythology, but religions (dead or alive) are more than just the body of myth they include, in the same way that (for instance) a a nation's system of government is more than just it electoral system, even though the system of government includes the electoral system.
For instance, religions generally include moral precepts, which -- while they may be illustrated by elements of the mythology, aren't part of the mythology, and can be examined separately.
They also often include institutional authority structures, which again may be justified by reference to the mythology, but which are themselves not part of the body of myth.
So your search-and-replace of "religion" with "mythology" in a post talking about what can be learned by examining religion doesn't work as a substitution that doesn't change the meaning, as you claim. Instead, it radically changes the meaning.
Well, yeah. Mythology is often part of a religion (though it can be outside of a religion in the usual sense -- there is a lot of US national mythology that doesn't really have a religious context.)
That doesn't make mythology the same as religion.
The scientific method has nothing to do with what makes a claim true or false, it is about a pragmatic method of refining predictive models given the assumption of a universe that operates under consistent rules.
And the "burden of proof" also has nothing to do with what makes a claim true or false, it is a popular convention that addresses standards for the justification of belief (which is different than truth, in a manner similar to -- but distinct from -- the way that utility of a scientific theory is distinct from its truth.)
One can, of course, adopt a belief that only scientific hypotheses that have failed efforts at falsification are "true", but while that belief is about the scientific method, it is not a product of that method. It is an independent a priori belief, no different than most forms of religious faith.
Pretty much (I wouldn't usually use the term "agnostic", but I would say that I have an absence of belief in elves rather than a belief in the absence of elves -- there might be specific concepts of elves that are precise enough [and contrary enough to available evidence] -- where that tips into belief in absence rather than absence of belief.)
That doesn't make you agnostics in the strict sense. Atheists believe that God does not exist. Agnostics have an absence of belief in the existence or non-existence of God. The existence of circumstances which would cause both (some) atheists and (some) agnostics to switch from their existing beliefs (or lack thereof) to a belief that God does exist doesn't suddenly make the existing beliefs equivalent.
Right, because atheists have a positive belief in the non-existence of God, which is different than the agnostics' absence of belief in the existence or non-existence of God. The atheist perspective may come from a particular construction of the burden of proof which holds that the negation of an existential claim is held to be true unless the existential claim is proven, but this is different than the construction you offer above, as the negation of a positive claim is itself a positive claim.
Fat and carbs lacking in protein and essential vitamins and minerals which makes a pretty bad extended diet?
Yeah, I'll buy that.
Well, it might support an argument that the fossil record is incomplete, but we already know that, and we already know that it can produce surprises such that previously-thought-extinct species turn up to be doing just fine (like the coelacanth, which before specimens were found alive was thought to have gone extinct about the same time as non-avian dinosaurs.)
Of course, nothing in evolutionary theory depends on the fossil record being complete.
If finding species thought to have gone extinct during the K-Pg extinction event living alongside man would disprove evolution, you wouldn't need to go hunting for looking for swimming (non-avian) dinosaurs to do it.
In fact, cats spent a lot of effort domesticating humans so they wouldn't have to bother with things like advanced mathematics, engineering, etc., but could just reap the benefits.
Sure cats (in the broad sense) appear to have evovled fairly rapidly, but in evolutionary terms a million years is an eye blink. What makes you think F. silvestris catus won't be around for another million years?
That's all that "evolution" means.
That's abiogenesis, and has nothing to do with evolution.
Scientists, qua scientists, have no interest in "disproving a belief in a creator that created the life originally". (Certain scientists have such an interest, but that's orthogonal to actual science.)
Scientists have an interest in producing, testing, and refining predictive models. The existence of a creator (unless you assume a whole lot more traits than just being a creator) generally produces no testable predictions that differentiate it from other models, which makes it a useless speculation from a scientific standpoint.
Various models of abiogenesis do produce testable predictions, and therefore can be useful scientific hypotheses, even if they are useful only in being falsified in the process of getting to better hypothesis.
Plenty of people do, which is where much of the misrepresentation of evolution (including the failure to distinguish from abiogenesis or various cosmological theories) comes from.
Science doesn't generally prove anything in the absolute sense that "prove" is sometimes used, it disproves models, and in doing so produces ever-better models.
Something that is said to be "proved" true in science usually means that it has (1) proven to be very useful in predicting future observations, and (2) withstood concerted efforts at disproof without being disproven -- and those aren't really two different things, (2) is really an aspect of (1).
Don't anthropomorphize natural processes. They hate it when you do that.
Seriously, "evolution" is a descriptive term for what results when you have a certain combination of features in a system (basically, a mechanism for replicating traits, a mechanism or combination of mechanisms that produces random changes in traits as they are replicated, and an environment which creates pressures which affect which traits are replicated.)
Well, if you assume infinite past time, during which life always existed; otherwise, evolution (since it requires the existence of life) requires either some form of abiogenesis (the emergence of life from lifelessness via natural processes) or some form of creationism (the emergence of life from lifelessness via supernatural processes.)
But, even without infinite past time, evolution isn't partial between abiogenesis and creationism, though of course it conflicts with some particular explanations of creationism (and, heck, I suppose some particular forms of abiogenesis that could be dreamt up, but no one would bother to seriously propose those once the conflict became clear, because there isn't a whole lot of unscientific extremism tied to particular forms of abiogenesis.)
False. Before searching you (in conditions that don't permit warrantless searches), a law enforcement agent must demonstrate to a judge probable cause to believe that a search with the parameters specified in the warrant application will unveil evidence relating to a crime (the specific type of evidence also being specified in the warrant application.) They only have to provide probable cause that you committed a crime if they want an arrest warrant, which is not the same thing as a search warrant.
And, at least until Pre-Crime Division is authorized, providing probable cause to believe that you will commit a crime in the future isn't grounds for any kind of warrant (though grounds to believe that may be relevant in bail or parole hearings, but that's a completely different set of issues from warrants.)
Yeah, look, there's been lots of studies of other things that contribute to voting propensity in different age groups. Taking four data points and not controlling for any other contributing factor you can say lots of things, but nothing meaningful.
Also, you've reversed the direction of the usual attribution in the last sentence. Its fairly popular to attribute at least some of Obama's 2008 success to targetted demographic outreach, its not all that popular to attribute targetted demographic outreach to Obama's 2008 success.
This is frequently stated, but not really all that true.
Actual complexity of tax codes increases the effort tax lawyers must expend to deliver the same value to clients, which is disadvantageous to them.
Perceived (by non-tax lawyers) complexity of the tax code increases the perceived value of the services of tax lawyers (and, therefore, the prices purchasers of those services are willing to pay), and is therefore advantageous to them.
Insofar as tax lawyers have a vested economic interested in the complexity of the tax code, its not in maximizing the actual complexity of the tax code, but in maximizing the difference between the perceived and actual complexity of the tax code.
If you don't have anyone who understands the language, you don't have anyone who can access information stored in the language, whether the storage medium is currently in a known place, or buried somewhere that will be dug up 100 years from now. (Insofar as there is a substantial two-way interaction between langauge and other parts of culture, it also is a useful tool in understanding the cultures from which the languages evolved, above and beyond interpreting material originally recorded in the language -- which there may not be any of, for languages that have not been written.) So, preserving languages before they disappear from active use (what the Google project is focussed on) has some uses aside from what you present, even aside from whatever utility there may be in preserving the languages in active use.
Plus, the less other languages there are, the less places there are for English to steal vocabulary from, and the stolen vocabulary used for new concepts is usually a lot better than the deliberate new constructions that we get when there isn't a convenient foreign word to steal.
To whom? Magical manufacturing pixies?
The companies that do the outsourcing outsource to, guess what, companies that do manufacturing. It is true that very frequently the companies that specialize in branding products and marketing them to consumers aren't the same companies that specialize in manufacturing the products, but it is very much not the case that companies don't make stuff anymore.
There's at least one commercial service that for taking MDEs back to MDBs with VBA source, so it is certainly doable, if not simple.
This here is an example of not using appropriate sources:
Yeah, a wikipedia article that characterizes the law with no citations to primary or secondary sources regarding the law (only citing a general -- not legal -- dictionary and another digital encyclopedia) it characterizes isn't really something you want to rely on.
The actual US federal extortion law is 18 USC Chapter 41; the two general provisions of which (not requiring the perpetrator or victim to be public or foreign officials or specially protected persons or having other similar special limitaitons) or 18 USC Secs. 873 & 875:
I don't think either really applies to the behavior at issue here.
Non-federal extortion provisions will vary considerably from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so you really need to look at the laws of the jurisdiction applicable to the particular event.
The difference between this and the WP8 situation is mostly marketing. WP7 devices will get WP7.8, which includes many WP8 features, but not some that MS considers dependent on the hardware specs that differ betwen WP8 and WP7 (either because the older hardware doesn't support the feature at all or because using it on the older hardware would produce an unacceptable -- in MS's eyes -- user experience.)
While older iPhones nominally get the current iOS versions, the versions they get are lacking features that Apple feels are dependent on the newer device hardware (either because the older hardware doesn't support the feature at all or because using it on the older hardware would produce an unacceptable -- in Apple's eyes -- user experience.)
iOS 5 on the iPhone 3GS doesn't support the same features as iOS 5 on the iPhone 4, which doesn't support the same features as iOS 5 on the iPhone 4S. With iOS 6, that'll all still be true (and is increasingly true as more iOS devices are supported by the same nominal OS version.)
Because statistical significance isn't based on just the absolute value of the difference of the means, so its quite possible to have the situation where the place where the difference of means is greater that the difference is not statistically significant, where the place where the difference of means is less the difference is statistically significant.
Your comment seems based on the premise that a smaller difference should always be presented as statistically insignificant if a larger difference in the same measure in a different population in the same report is statistically insignificant, but that's simply a failure to understand what statistical significance means.
To encourage sites that track users to voluntarily respect DNT: if it is on by default, no one will respect it server side. If it is an active choice of the user, there is better chance at gaining support from advertisers and others who track user data, who almost universally oppose opt-out DNT (which equates to opt-in tracking), but generally are willing to accept opt-in DNT (which equates to opt-out tracking.)
Its interesting to note that while MS-the-browser-vendor has instituted DNT-by-default, MS-the-user-tracker doesn't support DNT on their websites. So, in effect, DNT-by-default serves to create a competitive advantage for MS (as a user-tracking firm) over firms that do respect DNT, and creates a disincentive for other user-tracking firms to adopt DNT (and an incentives for those that do to stop.)
If you are in Microsoft's position and Google has already started respecting DNT and want to create a short-term competitive advantage, its a no-brainer.
If you actually want to encourage widespread respect for DNT and drive its adoption on the back end where it matters, not so much.