The term "volunteer" in our culture generally carries implications of altruism rather than self interest.
If you put it that way, no one is a "volunteer developer" for linux. They write / change code for their own benefit (to add features, improve functionality). Once they've finished, they usually give their code to "the linux community", but the reason they do the work in the first place is because they want to fix / improve the way their system runs.
Regardless of his motives, I'd think twice about hiring a guy who deliberately acted against the instructions he was given and against his employer's interests. It appears that his bosses were wrong to ask him to cover up what he found, but how do we know they didn't have a good reason they couldn't share with him.
I think "counter-hacker" has a similar connotation to "counter-terrorism" (i.e. stopping the hacker / terrorist, not fighting back on his terms). I would say that a "counter-hacker" employs intrusion-detection methods and tightens up security (e.g. stronger passwords, block all unnecessary ports, etc.).
Shawn Carpenter could be called a "white hat hacker" (as suggested by another poster), but the fact that he acted against his employer's orders makes that questionable as well.
The only term we can use with any certainty is "hacker".
Why would the GMT offset be the same for all of Mars? Different parts of the planet would have different local times, so if it were inhabited, it would probably be divided into timezones. Unfortunately, a martian day (24.6 hours) is not the same length as an earth day (24 hours). For a given location on the martian surface, if "local noon" today is noon GMT, "local noon" tomorrow will be about 12:40 GMT.
If I recall correctly, Kim Stanley Robinson solved this problem in his Mars Trilogy by adding that extra time just after midnight every night. (Similar to the way we start/end DST every year.)
If you're RAIDing for reliability, an SSD is less likely to fail mechanically, but if you're writing to the same
bits to each SSD, those bits will all wear out at approximately the same time.
If you have a flash drive that your entire business depends on, and it fails, how much will that failure cost per
minute ? How many minutes of downtime does it take to generate the cost of another flash drive to mirror it onto ?
I would still be concerned that about the possibility of several drives failing at the same time. You would probably want to retire the whole set when one fails. (Of course, you could do this by a process of remove/replace/rebuild one member at a time to avoid downtime.)
Fundamentally, I think the issue is that teaching evolution is sticky enough. It's all good fun to point out that we're not so big on the Apollo explanation of celestial mechanics, but as soon as you bring up a religion that isn't dead, you're stepping on somebody's toes. I have no problem making the statement you recommended, but I have a feeling that it would cause more hurt feelings rather than less.
Well, I'd rather have a curriculum (in science or any other topic) that doesn't shy away from "sticky" issues regardless of whose feelings get hurt.
It's probably good that I don't write the curriculum.
I have a problem with "cherry-picking" the information you're giving to kids so that they can only reach one
conclusion.
What information, specifically, is being left out that you'd like to see put in?
To start, the fact that alternate theories exist for how we came into existance. We have no problem mentioning that prior to Keppler, Copernicus, and Galileo everyone* believed the earth was the center of the universe, so why not mention everyone* believed god created man?
*By "everyone" I am refering to "western civilization". I'm not certain what scientific theories were favored in other parts of the world.
Dollars to doughnuts, that's because either you don't know the evidence, don't understand it, or don't care.
Those first two statements are certainly possible, but I could say the same thing about your understanding of creationism or intellegent design. Does finger-pointing really help?
I saw one company that offers solid-state drives in a RAID formation.
Why would you want to do that? This seems like a really silly idea for several reasons:
The I in RAID stands for Inexpensive. Solid-state drives are certainly not inexpensive (compared to a same-sized disk drive).
If you're RAIDing for capacity, why not just buy a big disk drive?
If you're RAIDing for reliability, an SSD is less likely to fail mechanically, but if you're writing to the same bits to each SSD, those bits will all wear out at approximately the same time.
If you're RAIDing for speed, SSDs are great for reading (until you max out the bus) but not too good for writing.
I seem to recall articles here where leaps are being made in chip technology that will make these more realistic and cost-effective.
I'm not sure what leaps you would need. Buy some solid-state drives in a 3.5" form factor and RAID them just like disk drives.
I completely agree with half of what you say, and I completely disagree with the other half of what you say. It's clear that this debate could go on forever, but I think we've covered everything we usefully can.
And biologists don't "believe" anything: they look at what the evidence supports.
At some point, it always come down to belief. Try this exercise: Why do you believe in evolution?
"Because it is supported by scientific evidence." Why do you believe scientific evidence is accurate?
"Because it uses the scientific method." Why do you believe the scientific method works? ...
So we should teach kids that the holocaust happened, but also that it didn't happen? That 2+2=4, but also it could equal 5 or 2.3, or 6.12 ?
We should show them the evidence that supports "the holocaust happened" and the evidence that supports "the holocaust didn't happen" and let them decide what they believe.
Well, what you are essentially asking is that we stop teaching science (i.e., the evidence) and start teaching all the different things people believe.
I think we should show kids all the evidence and discuss how to formulate a theory. We should talk about how to test a hypothesis / theory using experimentation and physical evidence. Isn't that the scientific method? We just need to make sure we don't censor the theories and evidence that don't fit the majority view.
So then, you have no complaint with the way science is taught then?
I have a problem with "cherry-picking" the information you're giving to kids so that they can only reach one conclusion.
First of all, you completely dodged the implication of the question which was to ask why you scream bloody murder over physical evidence used in science but not in court.
I did not respond to your implication because it is completely unfounded and untrue. I believe physical evidence is the cornerstone of the scientific process.
Second of all, evolution has not only met the reasonable doubt standard, but also the "no one can supply any other alternative that explains all the evidence" standard.
I don't think you (as an individual) can assert that evolution has met the reasonable doubt standard. Perhaps it does in your mind, but it does not in mine. That's why a jury makes those sort of determinations. When it comes to the "no one can supply any other alternative that explains all the evidence" standard, I can come up with any number of alternative theories. Most of them would be implausible, but that leads us back to "reasonable doubt".
Most tellingly, despite the fact that HUMAN genetists today can swap entire genes across even kingdoms of life to gain useful effects with no downsides, we don't see this in nature. We see nested clades in genetics like everything else, not good ideas developing somewhere and then used across the board.
No downsides? How can we tell if there are downsides that don't manifest themselves for 1000 generations when we've only produced 10 generations?
If all you are saying is that a designed code can look exactly like non-designed code, then you aren't really saying much, and you clearly aren't getting what I was saying. The possibility that one can identify artifacts of design is one I was considering because it MIGHT help the ID, but it turns out it doesn't. Essentially agreeing that it doesn't, as you are doing, doesn't really help your case much. And it only underscores how eager ID proponents are to hide themselves from any testible hypothesis: i.e. hide from doing science.
I didn't say that "designed" can look exactly like "non-designed". I'm simply saying "designed" does not always mean "designed the most efficient manner, reusing the maximum amount of code". I'm saying there are other plausible explanations for the things you see as a nail in the coffin for ID.
This is a failing of primary school science programs in their teaching of the philosophy of science. It has nothing to do with evolution per se. I would say that just skimming over the posts here should be enough to indicate that we're doing a terrible job teaching kids how science works and what it is. The idea that yanking evolution from the curriculum or singling it out for special scrutiny will somehow "fix" the problem is simply nonsense.
If it is a fundamental failing in science education, then how better to "fix" it than teaching kids where the flaws lie? It doesn't have to be "evolution" that is singled out, but it seems a good candidate. Currently kids hear* "evolution is fact" at school and (some of them) hear "creation is fact" outside of school. Addressing the issue would be more productive than ignoring it.
*I realize they are being told "evolution is a theory", but many hear this as "evolution is fact".
Are you asserting that in a murder trial, we shouldn't deal with forensic evidence because we can't prove or disprove anything without a time machine?
The standard of proof for a criminal trial is "beyond a reasonable doubt". If you want to talk about evolution in those terms, I don't believe it has met that standard.
"but proving it is possible that humans came into existence by (theory of your choice) does not prove that that
is what actually happened."
That's something of a caricature, but really, that's what proof IS: showing that something CANNOT be ruled out despite all the other alternatives can be. Totally consistent with all the evidence is the HIGHEST standard of proof, not the lowest.
I agree with your logical analysis, but it does not address my point. I said, "X is possible does not imply X occured". Your statement (as I understand it) is, "X is the only possibility implies X occured".
It's worse than that though. Because you can get specific about the ways in which known intelligences, like us, operate. And when you consider those, it fact becomes clear that biological life constantly defies everything we would expect to see from designers like us: traits aren't treated as "good ideas" that are reused and jump lineages, muck isn't cleared out, design problems aren't so much solved as they are compensated for, and so on.
You clearly don't spend much time reading old code. I see many of those "issues" with the programs I work on every day. It's also difficult to look at someone else's code and know exactly why they did what they did in any program that's more than a couple thousand lines. Maybe "the designer" coded the DNA in a particular way for reasons we don't see because it's hard to analize the potential interactions of every gene in the entire genome.
This claim would be a falsehood. Even intelligent design, which is a PR movement devoted to trying to "create" the circumstances for this claim, has virtually no support amongst biologists. That many Americans believe in creationism has no bearing on whether it is sound science. Science is about the evidence, not about people's beliefs.
So, if 4 out of 5 biologists believe it, it is true?
Should we also take a neutral point of view on the holocaust, astrology, numerology and 2+2=4?
Yes.
Should we simply stop teaching science altogether? Isn't that basically what you are asking for, in the end?
No, I'm not sure why you think that's what I'm saying.
Science ISN'T neutral. Science is about what the evidence shows, not about surveying everyone's opinions and beliefs.
I think you must be working on a different definition of neutral. I think "based on evidence rather than opinions" is neutral.
How can the statement "humans evolved (through many, many generations) from single-celled organisms" be falsifiable and the statement "humans were created by a supernatural being" not be falsifiable? How would you disprove either without a time machine to go back and see what happened?
If you could disprove "a single-celled organism could evolve (through many, many generations) into a human" or "a supernatural being could create a human", that would answer the question, but proving it is possible that humans came into existence by (theory of your choice) does not prove that that is what actually happened.
nor can it be used to make any predictions about what will happen in the real world
How do you make predictions based on the theory "an organism can evolve (over several generations)"? That's like making predictions based on "a meteor could crash into the earth today". Well, sure, it's possible, but who knows if it's going to happen?
And, for the record, Intelligent Design is a theory that states that humans (and all other living things) were designed by a supernatural being. It does not specify how those designs were implemented (creation, evolution, or something else). Let's try not to lump together two different ideas.
I rather doubt any science text describes evolution as a "Fact".
They might not say it's "fact", but they strongly imply "this is the way it happened". Students don't realize it is not "fact" because they don't realize there is any alternative explanation.
You are completely incorrect if you believe it is extortion. Basically they are saying if you really need support for EOL'ed software then it is going to cost us money and we are passing that cost onto you.
Well, I don't believe it's extortion in the legal sense, but it certainly doesn't give me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
However, if they just let anyone have access to the EOL'ed support then there would be little reason for people to upgrade to software that is regularly supported and it would be a big cost for MS to keep supporting such old software.
I see your point, but I'm not sure there is a "right way to do this". In my mind, it all depends on how much it cost MS to fix Win2000... If a couple programers back-ported the XP fix in an few hours, then they're charging way too much. If 50 people spent months writing a patch for Win2000, then it seems perfectly reasonable for MS to charge a reasonable price for it.
AFAIK Apple is only providing fixes for 10.4.x. I patched my 10.3.x systems with an open-source tool some helpful person created.
Does this mean Apple wants you to upgrade to Vista too?
I think they'd prefer that you upgrade to Mac OS 10.4.x (Tiger) or 10.5.x (Leopard).
FWIW, I personally don't have much sympathy for someone running an 8 year old OS that was EOL'd over 18 months ago. If it does what you need it to do, fine, I'm happy for you, but you can't complain about it being left out of new requirements or advances.
I understand if they say, "It's EOL'd so we're not going to expend any resources fixing it." But it looks more like they're saying, "We've expended resources fixing this for people who have paid for extended support. You can (a) pay us money to get the fix or (b) pay us money to get Vista." That sounds like extortion to me.
[W]hen encountering complex phenomenons like evolution, scientific believes like Darwin's theory are a good interesting model for interpreting the facts that you discover... and that can make interesting prediction (you can't directly make an experiment to prove/disprove it.... BUT you can predict that as we dig up more and more fossils, we'll fill the holes and get more steps that details in a better way the evolution).
That is an excellent way of putting it. I just wish the people writing the standards and the textbooks would explain it that way instead of saying / implying that evolution is a proven fact. What a person believes about the origin of species is all well and good, but when it comes down to it, no one can prove conclusively that it happened "just like this". I'd like to see some standards that acknowledge there are several theories (evolution, creation, intellegent design) that currently have some level of support within the scientific community and society. Is it too much to ask that we try to take a neutral point of view with education standards?
I... just see no reason to provide it in public school. At least not at the elementary level.
They have it at home. Shouldn't we teach them how to use it properly?
And wikipedia is not an encyclopedia. You cannot site it, there is no fact checking done. Citing wikipedia is basically saying "some guy on the internet told me"
My anecdote before was based on fact, I was searching shakespeare one day looking to settle an argument about somehting in one of his plays. I discovered that he was a "big fag" and Hamlet chiefly concerns "fudgepackers doing each other in teh ass"
Yes, it does have problems with vandalism, but where would you rather start researching a subject like the war in Iraq or George W. Bush? The ten year old encyclopedia on the shelf in the library?
I'd like to see them shut the internet right off in public schools, except for maybe "internet class". It's just a giant source of bullshit. Another crutch that teachers can use instead of teaching - send the kids online to "research".
There are several major problems with your idea. It would:
Cut off teachers and staff as well as students.
Hamper communications between teachers, parents, and students.
Render a large amount of technology already paid for by federal, state, and local funds (virtually) useless.
Eliminate many useful resources (although you may disagree with this).
Require schools to duplicate resources that are already available online.
Not prepare kids for life outside of school (where they will have access to the Internet, and it will probably not be filtered).
Tangent: Wikipedia has no place in a school. It's only good at illustrating how the stupidest in society can always trump the masses.
It serves the same function as any other encyclopedia: to provide an overview of a subject and direct further research.
Slashdot Mirror
If you put it that way, no one is a "volunteer developer" for linux. They write / change code for their own benefit (to add features, improve functionality). Once they've finished, they usually give their code to "the linux community", but the reason they do the work in the first place is because they want to fix / improve the way their system runs.
That's a new term to me, but based on the Wikipedia entry, I would say he falls into that category.
I think a good "chewing out" might have been appropriate (since he was clearly insubordinate) but nothing that "goes on his permanent record".
Regardless of his motives, I'd think twice about hiring a guy who deliberately acted against the instructions he was given and against his employer's interests. It appears that his bosses were wrong to ask him to cover up what he found, but how do we know they didn't have a good reason they couldn't share with him.
Would you trust him?
I think "counter-hacker" has a similar connotation to "counter-terrorism" (i.e. stopping the hacker / terrorist, not fighting back on his terms). I would say that a "counter-hacker" employs intrusion-detection methods and tightens up security (e.g. stronger passwords, block all unnecessary ports, etc.).
Shawn Carpenter could be called a "white hat hacker" (as suggested by another poster), but the fact that he acted against his employer's orders makes that questionable as well.
The only term we can use with any certainty is "hacker".
Why would the GMT offset be the same for all of Mars? Different parts of the planet would have different local times, so if it were inhabited, it would probably be divided into timezones. Unfortunately, a martian day (24.6 hours) is not the same length as an earth day (24 hours). For a given location on the martian surface, if "local noon" today is noon GMT, "local noon" tomorrow will be about 12:40 GMT.
If I recall correctly, Kim Stanley Robinson solved this problem in his Mars Trilogy by adding that extra time just after midnight every night. (Similar to the way we start/end DST every year.)
I would still be concerned that about the possibility of several drives failing at the same time. You would probably want to retire the whole set when one fails. (Of course, you could do this by a process of remove/replace/rebuild one member at a time to avoid downtime.)
Well, I'd rather have a curriculum (in science or any other topic) that doesn't shy away from "sticky" issues regardless of whose feelings get hurt.
It's probably good that I don't write the curriculum.
To start, the fact that alternate theories exist for how we came into existance. We have no problem mentioning that prior to Keppler, Copernicus, and Galileo everyone* believed the earth was the center of the universe, so why not mention everyone* believed god created man?
*By "everyone" I am refering to "western civilization". I'm not certain what scientific theories were favored in other parts of the world.
Those first two statements are certainly possible, but I could say the same thing about your understanding of creationism or intellegent design. Does finger-pointing really help?
Now who's dodging? Answer this: "Why do you believe in physical evidence?"
You previously stated that we can't teach kids everything (e.g. graduate-level evolutionary biology). Who chooses what we teach?
Why would you want to do that? This seems like a really silly idea for several reasons:
I'm not sure what leaps you would need. Buy some solid-state drives in a 3.5" form factor and RAID them just like disk drives.
I completely agree with half of what you say, and I completely disagree with the other half of what you say. It's clear that this debate could go on forever, but I think we've covered everything we usefully can.
That was fun. Now back to work!
At some point, it always come down to belief. Try this exercise:
...
Why do you believe in evolution?
"Because it is supported by scientific evidence."
Why do you believe scientific evidence is accurate?
"Because it uses the scientific method."
Why do you believe the scientific method works?
We should show them the evidence that supports "the holocaust happened" and the evidence that supports "the holocaust didn't happen" and let them decide what they believe.
I think we should show kids all the evidence and discuss how to formulate a theory. We should talk about how to test a hypothesis / theory using experimentation and physical evidence. Isn't that the scientific method? We just need to make sure we don't censor the theories and evidence that don't fit the majority view.
I have a problem with "cherry-picking" the information you're giving to kids so that they can only reach one conclusion.
I did not respond to your implication because it is completely unfounded and untrue. I believe physical evidence is the cornerstone of the scientific process.
I don't think you (as an individual) can assert that evolution has met the reasonable doubt standard. Perhaps it does in your mind, but it does not in mine. That's why a jury makes those sort of determinations. When it comes to the "no one can supply any other alternative that explains all the evidence" standard, I can come up with any number of alternative theories. Most of them would be implausible, but that leads us back to "reasonable doubt".
No downsides? How can we tell if there are downsides that don't manifest themselves for 1000 generations when we've only produced 10 generations?
I didn't say that "designed" can look exactly like "non-designed". I'm simply saying "designed" does not always mean "designed the most efficient manner, reusing the maximum amount of code". I'm saying there are other plausible explanations for the things you see as a nail in the coffin for ID.
If it is a fundamental failing in science education, then how better to "fix" it than teaching kids where the flaws lie? It doesn't have to be "evolution" that is singled out, but it seems a good candidate. Currently kids hear* "evolution is fact" at school and (some of them) hear "creation is fact" outside of school. Addressing the issue would be more productive than ignoring it.
*I realize they are being told "evolution is a theory", but many hear this as "evolution is fact".
The standard of proof for a criminal trial is "beyond a reasonable doubt". If you want to talk about evolution in those terms, I don't believe it has met that standard.
I agree with your logical analysis, but it does not address my point. I said, "X is possible does not imply X occured". Your statement (as I understand it) is, "X is the only possibility implies X occured".
You clearly don't spend much time reading old code. I see many of those "issues" with the programs I work on every day. It's also difficult to look at someone else's code and know exactly why they did what they did in any program that's more than a couple thousand lines. Maybe "the designer" coded the DNA in a particular way for reasons we don't see because it's hard to analize the potential interactions of every gene in the entire genome.
So, if 4 out of 5 biologists believe it, it is true?
Yes.
No, I'm not sure why you think that's what I'm saying.
I think you must be working on a different definition of neutral. I think "based on evidence rather than opinions" is neutral.
How can the statement "humans evolved (through many, many generations) from single-celled organisms" be falsifiable and the statement "humans were created by a supernatural being" not be falsifiable? How would you disprove either without a time machine to go back and see what happened?
If you could disprove "a single-celled organism could evolve (through many, many generations) into a human" or "a supernatural being could create a human", that would answer the question, but proving it is possible that humans came into existence by (theory of your choice) does not prove that that is what actually happened.
How do you make predictions based on the theory "an organism can evolve (over several generations)"? That's like making predictions based on "a meteor could crash into the earth today". Well, sure, it's possible, but who knows if it's going to happen?
And, for the record, Intelligent Design is a theory that states that humans (and all other living things) were designed by a supernatural being. It does not specify how those designs were implemented (creation, evolution, or something else). Let's try not to lump together two different ideas.
They might not say it's "fact", but they strongly imply "this is the way it happened". Students don't realize it is not "fact" because they don't realize there is any alternative explanation.
Well, I don't believe it's extortion in the legal sense, but it certainly doesn't give me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
I see your point, but I'm not sure there is a "right way to do this". In my mind, it all depends on how much it cost MS to fix Win2000... If a couple programers back-ported the XP fix in an few hours, then they're charging way too much. If 50 people spent months writing a patch for Win2000, then it seems perfectly reasonable for MS to charge a reasonable price for it.
AFAIK Apple is only providing fixes for 10.4.x. I patched my 10.3.x systems with an open-source tool some helpful person created.
I think they'd prefer that you upgrade to Mac OS 10.4.x (Tiger) or 10.5.x (Leopard).
I understand if they say, "It's EOL'd so we're not going to expend any resources fixing it." But it looks more like they're saying, "We've expended resources fixing this for people who have paid for extended support. You can (a) pay us money to get the fix or (b) pay us money to get Vista." That sounds like extortion to me.
That is an excellent way of putting it. I just wish the people writing the standards and the textbooks would explain it that way instead of saying / implying that evolution is a proven fact. What a person believes about the origin of species is all well and good, but when it comes down to it, no one can prove conclusively that it happened "just like this". I'd like to see some standards that acknowledge there are several theories (evolution, creation, intellegent design) that currently have some level of support within the scientific community and society. Is it too much to ask that we try to take a neutral point of view with education standards?
Where's the "automatic update" for Windows 2000?
From the URL you directed us to:
So it sounds like they have a fix, but I need to pay to get it?!
They have it at home. Shouldn't we teach them how to use it properly?
Have you read Citing Wikipedia and Verifiability?Yes, it does have problems with vandalism, but where would you rather start researching a subject like the war in Iraq or George W. Bush? The ten year old encyclopedia on the shelf in the library?
It serves the same function as any other encyclopedia: to provide an overview of a subject and direct further research.