You're really going to tell someone with a UID only 530,295 higher than yours that they're "new here"? Your UID is hardly lower than mine either. Also, do you know what the current UIDs being handed out are? I doubt it.
I now bow out for someone with a 5 digit UID to come in and smack you around, to be followed by someone with a 4 digit, then finally a 3-digit. (Much lower than that is an extreme rarity... I mean, there ARE in theory only 90 2-digit UIDs...)
So, so tired of zombies, pirates, ninjas, and robots. Jesus, Internet, can you please latch on to something else? Anything? I know whatever it is you latch on to will still get annoying, with 18 year old girls running around pretending to be cute and funny, but just being fucking annoying, but for the love of god, let the Zombie bullshit die.
The weight of a bag of chips is actually supposed to be a minimum amount of chips. The reason they have so much QC on it, is because they want to over-pack as little as possible, and never underpack (as this leads to potential torts of deceptive labeling.)
A good example is the lines on German glasses at restaurants. If you order 750 ml of a drink, and it comes back not at that line, you can legally refuse to accept the drink. But how many people are going to fill it to 800 ml every time just to ensure that they never get a return? Not many.
Advertisers who present a minimum value are going to do their best to ensure that they over-provide as little as possible. Advertisers who present a maximum value are going to have a wide statistical variance on what they actually provide, because there are no legal consequences for them doing so. And it is unlikely that anyone advertises median values, but they're probably the most honest, but still have large variances.
There is no way to correct this problem without regulation dictating that internet connections cannot be sold with an "up to X speed" advertising.
Please consult the actual "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
The position is "Christians don't believe X". Evidence is presented of a Christian that does believe in X. The position is thus amended to "Well any REAL Christian doesn't believe in X."
Dismissing any other Christian's beliefs as non-Christian is by definition committing this very fallacy.
Stating a personal disagreement with their beliefs is fine. Stating that this belief is non-Christian, when they assert it is Christian, and they are Christian, is fallacy.
As an example. Some Christians have presented a Biblical argument for supporting slavery. Few if any would make such an argument now, most Christians would reject such an argument now, but that does not make the argument non-Christian.
Two-party consent is not the problem here. The police misinterpretation of the law is the problem.
Two-party consent can be met by implicit grant of consent. i.e. you're aware that you're being recorded (IMs are automatically covered, because nearly ever IM program automatically records conversations; recording machines are automatically covered, because you had to grant consent to leave a message; and the last big one, is that openly visible and apparent recording is deemed to be a clear statement of recording, and thus anyone being recorded has clear knowledge that they are being recorded)
The police's argument fails on a number of points. a) Police operating in their official capacity do not have an expectation of privacy, because those whom they interact with do not have this expectation of privacy. Thus, consent is implied. b) The recording in question was taken with a GoPro helmet mounted camera, thus the recording device was clear and obvious.
The reason the police got as far as they did, is because none of the acts that they took required opposition in court. The police were allowed to make any and all claims that they felt were relevant in the acquisition of the warrants. No one was around to even suggest to the judge that the alleged wiretapping incident was entirely legitimate.
broke into his home, kidnapped him for 26 hours, and stole this computers, there would be serious prison time, but when cops do this there are no real consequences.
Actually, if I had a court order, like these cops did, then there wouldn't be any prison time or consequences.
As for the pulling of the gun? Cops get some license to violate laws while performing official duties.
The worst that could have come from the video was the cop gets a reprimand for failure to properly identify himself. Then he goes and escalates the issue, and gets the whole prosecution arm of the justice system on this guy. Bad move. Either you lied to the ADA about the justification for the warrant, or the ADA misrepresented the facts to the judge. In any case, malicious prosecution.
If I were the judge hearing all this, I'd dismiss all the wiretapping crap, uphold the original ticket as given, and award just awards for malicious prosecution on the wiretapping crap. I would then issue a detailed and scathing opinion and reprimand to the police.
I saw a judge give one of those verbal beatdowns once because the plaintiff was seeking a prior restraint of speech against the defendant. The judge was just like, (profanity inserted to indicate raging) "what the fuck are you thinking? Fucking New York Times, any first year law student, and 80% of all paralegals should know this shit. Get the fuck out of here, and go file a defamation suit." Then turned to the defendant, and said, "I can't tell you to shut up, but if your legal counsel hasn't already given you the legal advice to shut up, then you need a new lawyer."
Himself. Motorcycles have a lot of speed, high acceleration and maneuverability, little mass, and very little between the rider and the road. If he'd met another vehicle at 127mph, the other vehicle would be operable with a dent, and this video would've ended with road pizza.
In my state this reasoning is why motorcyclists don't have to carry car insurance. YAY! I get out of paying you for damages, because I'M DEAD!!! I win!!!
What I'm trying to get to, is ANY religious doctrine is idiocy, and illogical, and will eventually be found to violate facts and reality.
In science, we throw out crap that stops working, but religious doctrine requires things be retained.
You attempt to show what "real Christian beliefs are", but you're committing the No True Scotsman fallacy first, and second, you're still making a logically fallacious argument. So, what good is it?
"Hiring policies based on religion are illegal in the USA. As they very well should be."
Hiring policies based on relevant, detailed subject knowledge are not illegal. Extremely detailed placement tests are not illegal.
If the job actually requires knowledge and belief of evolution, then yes.
However, you must actually be able to present evidence that it actually is necessary, and if evidence presents itself that such knowledge and/or belief are not required, then you're in trouble.
Ask the Salvation Army about their "must learn English" policy. They had already been told that it had to be a necessary part of employment, and then fired two workers who had received regular positive reviews before being fired for not learning English.
Sorry to butt in, but you do realize that the post you were replying to was a satirical masterpiece? And it did so while at the same time being potentially sincere (in that a true Christian would actually have to say that!)
No no no no.... none of this has to do with free will. I'm not arguing that it's a failure of Christian doctrine that God would let us sin.
I'm saying, and none of these are possibly controversial: *It is well established that Judeo-Christian doctrines hold that their god established a covenant with the Jews. *It is well established that Christian doctrine holds that no one can maintain the strict covenant demanded by god, as we all sin. *It is biblical fact that Jesus said that divorce was wrong, and anyone who divorces and marries another commits adultery. *It is biblical fact that Jesus said that divorce was allowed, because we were either: "stubborn" or "our hearts were hard" *It is biblical fact that Jesus said that he who breaks any part of the law, is guilty of breaking all of it.
Now. Given that we know that we're omniscient like god, we now know that the law was never meant to be maintained, and that it was supposed to show our inequity, and our necessity of grace. This is well established Christian doctrine.
So, why would the law give us an out, when we were going to be just as guilty of the violations anyways?
He knows that we will be found guilty, and that he will need to send his own son to be a blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, yet still says "Oh, but this one Sin? It's totally ok if you do it, because I know you guys won't be perfect."
If the Christian god is perfect, and he was able to give us a loophole for divorce, why couldn't he give us a loophole for all of it? And if he was still going to hold us accountable for divorce while separating the wheat from the chaff, then why even include a loophole anyways? Why would he deceptively present divorce as acceptable, when it is not?
I should also mention, I just assumed young, not an idiot. Back in the day I thought businesses were successful due to good leadership guiding the current hard workers and the hard work of those leaders when they were building the company up from the ground rather than the combination of ruthless backstabbing and sheer dumb luck resulting in success in spite of bad decision after bad decision that all too frequently seems to be the case.
AHAHHAHAHAHahahahahahahahahaa.... Oh, I don't think I were ever that naive... my parents raised me on far too much skepticism to be a true believer in corporate ethics.
So, now to apply this to an extrasolar planet, we have to have the planet reflect the light of its sun back at the Earth, which means that their sun is already between them and us (counting "between" as being able to project the vector from here to their sun upon the vector from here to the extrasolar planet, and result in a vector of lesser magnitude than the vector from here to the extrasolar planet). And we're supposed to be able to isolate any of the light from that planet apart from its sun?
You misunderstand the experiment. For this idea to work, the planet has to be between us and the star. Exactly between - as in, the planet is eclipsing its sun, from our point of view. They're not detecting light that's been reflected off a planet, they're detecting light that's been filtered through a planet's atmosphere.
This is something we've already done with large gas giant planets. The 'new' thing is that we did it with a planet the size of earth, with its significantly thinner atmosphere.
At twice the distance of the Earth and moon, I don't think the observable difference in thickness of the atmosphere is particularly significant. (I haven't done the math, but it strikes me as so.)
Even if there were a significant difference in the measurement required, then what? We've managed to prove that technology has gotten more precise at taking measurements? Whoopdidoo! Slow news day news!
The technology and science necessary to make the equivalent observation of an extrasolar planet that we made of the Earth necessary requires a knowledge level that would circumscribe this technology.
In other words, "by the time we can actually make the detections necessary for the extrasolar case, we necessarily would have all the knowledge necessary to produce this test."
Which is kind of a retarded way of saying "we're going to have this technology first."
But having plenty of time left before it's even useful? Eh, a reasonable amount of criticism.
Basically, I suppose I object to this being NEWSWORTHY, rather than being science.
It's like those scientific tests that find that attractive people have more potential mates. Good science can be done, but it's hardly really stunning news that the public needs to be let known about.
the notion that God would by definition have the ability to design and use evolution must be avoided, in their minds, at all costs.
This belief bears no relevance to the practical operation or understanding of evolution. There are a number of ideas for why Quantum Mechanics is statistically based. There's the "it's all too small to actually measure precisely, but it's still Newtonian-type bodies", there's the "each statistical result actually occurs, and we simply live in a single sequence of universes", and a few others.
None of these "answers" can be falsified, and (kind of as a side-effect of being unfalsifiable,) none of them have any practical impact upon the application of the theory in real life.
So, if you want to believe that some deity exists who "designed" the rules of existence, then I can't really object to your science, because it's still all practically correct. I could most certainly raise the question of, "why are you invoking an deity? Isn't that multiplying entities without reason?"
If you teach both, please give seperate marks. So I know to hire specifically the people who scored A or B in evolution and F-- in creationism because they ridiculed it all year.
Hiring policies based on religion are illegal in the USA. As they very well should be.
That said, I shall now commit hypocrisy and say, I'd rather work with people who would laugh at creationists than sympathize them.
Your religion also believes that God gave us divorce, because he knew we were imperfect. So, even though he knew it to be sin, he still permitted it under the covenant established with the Jews.
He made them not eat pork, to not mix milk and meat... how stubborn must we really be for him to say, "oh yeah, that's totally sin... but go ahead and do it anyways with my blessing."
If the Truth be true that he established the covenant to show that no one could follow his perfect law and all would sin, then why permit some things under the law that weren't acceptable? If you already knew that no one could follow it all perfectly, and that any violation be equivalent to violating all of it, then why give us a loophole at all?
The more I ponder Christian apologetics, the more and more I realize that the proposition that your god is perfect is an absolutely untenable position.
"Irreducibly complex" is the idea that a biological component could be, such that removing any individual element of it removes its functionality.
Evolution actually DEMANDS that "irreducible complexity" would occur, and is actual predicted, and verified by its existence.
That components can be removed, and be shown to have alternate functions explains the mechanism by which irreducibly complex features appear, not that they do not exist.
This technique only works on light that passes through the planet's atmosphere. In this case, during a lunar eclipse, they pointing a telescope at the part of the moon that was reflecting the light that had traveled through the Earth's atmosphere. They found that the moon had absorption lines resulting from interactions with Earth's atmosphere.
The technique would work if the Earth occulted the Sun from Cassini's viewpoint, but such occultations are rare.
So... the light went through the Earth's atmosphere, into a reflector on the moon, which reflected it back... to the Earth's surface? Like... THROUGH the atmosphere that they were trying to detect anyways?
If it simply needed to pass through the atmosphere, I could do that in my back yard, why reflect it off the moon? Why involve anything other than a sensor on the Earth's surface? If "zomg, we have to be all mythbusters sciencey on this", then why not just a LEO satellite... each one, I'm sure receives more than enough light passing through the earth's atmosphere... I think it's like 16 sunsets a day, or something like that.
Seriously... cool science, cool results, but essentially just mast stroking...
You have to learn to walk before you learn to run.
Right, but learning to walk is not the first steps towards crossing an ocean.
This test is trivial at best, because the data present themselves so readily. We can't even isolate extrasolar planets from their sun. Could we even detect this stuff from a more reasonable distance away. If this detects elements in the atmosphere, then we can use it on Venus, too, right? Which would be a lot more meaningful since it is relatively faint from the Earth surface, and LEO.
Not like much of this really means jack anyways, we already knew that elements absorb light in specific frequencies.
So, now to apply this to an extrasolar planet, we have to have the planet reflect the light of its sun back at the Earth, which means that their sun is already between them and us (counting "between" as being able to project the vector from here to their sun upon the vector from here to the extrasolar planet, and result in a vector of lesser magnitude than the vector from here to the extrasolar planet). And we're supposed to be able to isolate any of the light from that planet apart from its sun?
Most of the planets we can't even detect directly yet anyways.
So, yay! Someone tests a theory that will be completely non-applicable for at least decades. It's like having internal combustion engine before the wheel... mostly useless. (Yeah, I know the ICE uses wheel-type devices in it, leave me alone, it's supposed to be a lame analogy.)
Yep, I did misunderstand you then. I took your OP as "that's not how business works" rather than your intended "that's not how you should want your business to work".
Ah yes.:) I figured. Good that we were able to clear that up. I'd hate to look like an ivory tower idiot denying the reality of the world as it is.
Slashdot Mirror
zOMG!
You're really going to tell someone with a UID only 530,295 higher than yours that they're "new here"? Your UID is hardly lower than mine either. Also, do you know what the current UIDs being handed out are? I doubt it.
I now bow out for someone with a 5 digit UID to come in and smack you around, to be followed by someone with a 4 digit, then finally a 3-digit. (Much lower than that is an extreme rarity... I mean, there ARE in theory only 90 2-digit UIDs...)
So, so tired of zombies, pirates, ninjas, and robots. Jesus, Internet, can you please latch on to something else? Anything? I know whatever it is you latch on to will still get annoying, with 18 year old girls running around pretending to be cute and funny, but just being fucking annoying, but for the love of god, let the Zombie bullshit die.
The next big craze? ZOMG PONIES!
I'm beginning to subscribe more and more to a friends theory that all that is wrong in first world nations can be blamed on an MBA.
I'm down with this theory. Tell me more, can I pay you to hear more? Where is your seminars, and when will it be in my town?
The weight of a bag of chips is actually supposed to be a minimum amount of chips. The reason they have so much QC on it, is because they want to over-pack as little as possible, and never underpack (as this leads to potential torts of deceptive labeling.)
A good example is the lines on German glasses at restaurants. If you order 750 ml of a drink, and it comes back not at that line, you can legally refuse to accept the drink. But how many people are going to fill it to 800 ml every time just to ensure that they never get a return? Not many.
Advertisers who present a minimum value are going to do their best to ensure that they over-provide as little as possible. Advertisers who present a maximum value are going to have a wide statistical variance on what they actually provide, because there are no legal consequences for them doing so. And it is unlikely that anyone advertises median values, but they're probably the most honest, but still have large variances.
There is no way to correct this problem without regulation dictating that internet connections cannot be sold with an "up to X speed" advertising.
And since no true Scotsman would put sugar in his porridge, any true Scotsman should not put sugar in his porridge.
I'm bored of this argument, you're being disingenuous, and arguing stupid shit.
Please consult the actual "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
The position is "Christians don't believe X". Evidence is presented of a Christian that does believe in X. The position is thus amended to "Well any REAL Christian doesn't believe in X."
Dismissing any other Christian's beliefs as non-Christian is by definition committing this very fallacy.
Stating a personal disagreement with their beliefs is fine. Stating that this belief is non-Christian, when they assert it is Christian, and they are Christian, is fallacy.
As an example. Some Christians have presented a Biblical argument for supporting slavery. Few if any would make such an argument now, most Christians would reject such an argument now, but that does not make the argument non-Christian.
Two-party consent is not the problem here. The police misinterpretation of the law is the problem.
Two-party consent can be met by implicit grant of consent. i.e. you're aware that you're being recorded (IMs are automatically covered, because nearly ever IM program automatically records conversations; recording machines are automatically covered, because you had to grant consent to leave a message; and the last big one, is that openly visible and apparent recording is deemed to be a clear statement of recording, and thus anyone being recorded has clear knowledge that they are being recorded)
The police's argument fails on a number of points. a) Police operating in their official capacity do not have an expectation of privacy, because those whom they interact with do not have this expectation of privacy. Thus, consent is implied. b) The recording in question was taken with a GoPro helmet mounted camera, thus the recording device was clear and obvious.
The reason the police got as far as they did, is because none of the acts that they took required opposition in court. The police were allowed to make any and all claims that they felt were relevant in the acquisition of the warrants. No one was around to even suggest to the judge that the alleged wiretapping incident was entirely legitimate.
broke into his home, kidnapped him for 26 hours, and stole this computers, there would be serious prison time, but when cops do this there are no real consequences.
Actually, if I had a court order, like these cops did, then there wouldn't be any prison time or consequences.
As for the pulling of the gun? Cops get some license to violate laws while performing official duties.
The worst that could have come from the video was the cop gets a reprimand for failure to properly identify himself. Then he goes and escalates the issue, and gets the whole prosecution arm of the justice system on this guy. Bad move. Either you lied to the ADA about the justification for the warrant, or the ADA misrepresented the facts to the judge. In any case, malicious prosecution.
If I were the judge hearing all this, I'd dismiss all the wiretapping crap, uphold the original ticket as given, and award just awards for malicious prosecution on the wiretapping crap. I would then issue a detailed and scathing opinion and reprimand to the police.
I saw a judge give one of those verbal beatdowns once because the plaintiff was seeking a prior restraint of speech against the defendant. The judge was just like, (profanity inserted to indicate raging) "what the fuck are you thinking? Fucking New York Times, any first year law student, and 80% of all paralegals should know this shit. Get the fuck out of here, and go file a defamation suit." Then turned to the defendant, and said, "I can't tell you to shut up, but if your legal counsel hasn't already given you the legal advice to shut up, then you need a new lawyer."
Himself. Motorcycles have a lot of speed, high acceleration and maneuverability, little mass, and very little between the rider and the road. If he'd met another vehicle at 127mph, the other vehicle would be operable with a dent, and this video would've ended with road pizza.
In my state this reasoning is why motorcyclists don't have to carry car insurance. YAY! I get out of paying you for damages, because I'M DEAD!!! I win!!!
What I'm trying to get to, is ANY religious doctrine is idiocy, and illogical, and will eventually be found to violate facts and reality.
In science, we throw out crap that stops working, but religious doctrine requires things be retained.
You attempt to show what "real Christian beliefs are", but you're committing the No True Scotsman fallacy first, and second, you're still making a logically fallacious argument. So, what good is it?
"Hiring policies based on religion are illegal in the USA. As they very well should be."
Hiring policies based on relevant, detailed subject knowledge are not illegal. Extremely detailed placement tests are not illegal.
If the job actually requires knowledge and belief of evolution, then yes.
However, you must actually be able to present evidence that it actually is necessary, and if evidence presents itself that such knowledge and/or belief are not required, then you're in trouble.
Ask the Salvation Army about their "must learn English" policy. They had already been told that it had to be a necessary part of employment, and then fired two workers who had received regular positive reviews before being fired for not learning English.
Sorry to butt in, but you do realize that the post you were replying to was a satirical masterpiece? And it did so while at the same time being potentially sincere (in that a true Christian would actually have to say that!)
Damn Poe's Law...
No no no no.... none of this has to do with free will. I'm not arguing that it's a failure of Christian doctrine that God would let us sin.
I'm saying, and none of these are possibly controversial:
*It is well established that Judeo-Christian doctrines hold that their god established a covenant with the Jews.
*It is well established that Christian doctrine holds that no one can maintain the strict covenant demanded by god, as we all sin.
*It is biblical fact that Jesus said that divorce was wrong, and anyone who divorces and marries another commits adultery.
*It is biblical fact that Jesus said that divorce was allowed, because we were either: "stubborn" or "our hearts were hard"
*It is biblical fact that Jesus said that he who breaks any part of the law, is guilty of breaking all of it.
Now. Given that we know that we're omniscient like god, we now know that the law was never meant to be maintained, and that it was supposed to show our inequity, and our necessity of grace. This is well established Christian doctrine.
So, why would the law give us an out, when we were going to be just as guilty of the violations anyways?
He knows that we will be found guilty, and that he will need to send his own son to be a blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, yet still says "Oh, but this one Sin? It's totally ok if you do it, because I know you guys won't be perfect."
If the Christian god is perfect, and he was able to give us a loophole for divorce, why couldn't he give us a loophole for all of it? And if he was still going to hold us accountable for divorce while separating the wheat from the chaff, then why even include a loophole anyways? Why would he deceptively present divorce as acceptable, when it is not?
I should also mention, I just assumed young, not an idiot. Back in the day I thought businesses were successful due to good leadership guiding the current hard workers and the hard work of those leaders when they were building the company up from the ground rather than the combination of ruthless backstabbing and sheer dumb luck resulting in success in spite of bad decision after bad decision that all too frequently seems to be the case.
AHAHHAHAHAHahahahahahahahahaa.... Oh, I don't think I were ever that naive... my parents raised me on far too much skepticism to be a true believer in corporate ethics.
So, now to apply this to an extrasolar planet, we have to have the planet reflect the light of its sun back at the Earth, which means that their sun is already between them and us (counting "between" as being able to project the vector from here to their sun upon the vector from here to the extrasolar planet, and result in a vector of lesser magnitude than the vector from here to the extrasolar planet). And we're supposed to be able to isolate any of the light from that planet apart from its sun?
You misunderstand the experiment. For this idea to work, the planet has to be between us and the star. Exactly between - as in, the planet is eclipsing its sun, from our point of view. They're not detecting light that's been reflected off a planet, they're detecting light that's been filtered through a planet's atmosphere.
This is something we've already done with large gas giant planets. The 'new' thing is that we did it with a planet the size of earth, with its significantly thinner atmosphere.
At twice the distance of the Earth and moon, I don't think the observable difference in thickness of the atmosphere is particularly significant. (I haven't done the math, but it strikes me as so.)
Even if there were a significant difference in the measurement required, then what? We've managed to prove that technology has gotten more precise at taking measurements? Whoopdidoo! Slow news day news!
The technology and science necessary to make the equivalent observation of an extrasolar planet that we made of the Earth necessary requires a knowledge level that would circumscribe this technology.
In other words, "by the time we can actually make the detections necessary for the extrasolar case, we necessarily would have all the knowledge necessary to produce this test."
Which is kind of a retarded way of saying "we're going to have this technology first."
But having plenty of time left before it's even useful? Eh, a reasonable amount of criticism.
Basically, I suppose I object to this being NEWSWORTHY, rather than being science.
It's like those scientific tests that find that attractive people have more potential mates. Good science can be done, but it's hardly really stunning news that the public needs to be let known about.
the notion that God would by definition have the ability to design and use evolution must be avoided, in their minds, at all costs.
This belief bears no relevance to the practical operation or understanding of evolution. There are a number of ideas for why Quantum Mechanics is statistically based. There's the "it's all too small to actually measure precisely, but it's still Newtonian-type bodies", there's the "each statistical result actually occurs, and we simply live in a single sequence of universes", and a few others.
None of these "answers" can be falsified, and (kind of as a side-effect of being unfalsifiable,) none of them have any practical impact upon the application of the theory in real life.
So, if you want to believe that some deity exists who "designed" the rules of existence, then I can't really object to your science, because it's still all practically correct. I could most certainly raise the question of, "why are you invoking an deity? Isn't that multiplying entities without reason?"
If you teach both, please give seperate marks. So I know to hire specifically the people who scored A or B in evolution and F-- in creationism because they ridiculed it all year.
Hiring policies based on religion are illegal in the USA. As they very well should be.
That said, I shall now commit hypocrisy and say, I'd rather work with people who would laugh at creationists than sympathize them.
Your religion also believes that God gave us divorce, because he knew we were imperfect. So, even though he knew it to be sin, he still permitted it under the covenant established with the Jews.
He made them not eat pork, to not mix milk and meat... how stubborn must we really be for him to say, "oh yeah, that's totally sin... but go ahead and do it anyways with my blessing."
If the Truth be true that he established the covenant to show that no one could follow his perfect law and all would sin, then why permit some things under the law that weren't acceptable? If you already knew that no one could follow it all perfectly, and that any violation be equivalent to violating all of it, then why give us a loophole at all?
The more I ponder Christian apologetics, the more and more I realize that the proposition that your god is perfect is an absolutely untenable position.
"Irreducibly complex" is the idea that a biological component could be, such that removing any individual element of it removes its functionality.
Evolution actually DEMANDS that "irreducible complexity" would occur, and is actual predicted, and verified by its existence.
That components can be removed, and be shown to have alternate functions explains the mechanism by which irreducibly complex features appear, not that they do not exist.
I take a similar approach to ideas of Kharma (including Heaven/Hell judgement systems.)
There is no reason to believe that there is any consequence for actions beyond what those actions actually make.
Belief in a magical equalizing moral factor is a feel-good kneejerk reaction to make oneself feel better about choosing "good" over "evil".
My equalizing moral condition? I did good. That's good enough for me.
This technique only works on light that passes through the planet's atmosphere. In this case, during a lunar eclipse, they pointing a telescope at the part of the moon that was reflecting the light that had traveled through the Earth's atmosphere. They found that the moon had absorption lines resulting from interactions with Earth's atmosphere.
The technique would work if the Earth occulted the Sun from Cassini's viewpoint, but such occultations are rare.
So... the light went through the Earth's atmosphere, into a reflector on the moon, which reflected it back... to the Earth's surface? Like... THROUGH the atmosphere that they were trying to detect anyways?
If it simply needed to pass through the atmosphere, I could do that in my back yard, why reflect it off the moon? Why involve anything other than a sensor on the Earth's surface? If "zomg, we have to be all mythbusters sciencey on this", then why not just a LEO satellite... each one, I'm sure receives more than enough light passing through the earth's atmosphere... I think it's like 16 sunsets a day, or something like that.
Seriously... cool science, cool results, but essentially just mast stroking...
You have to learn to walk before you learn to run.
Right, but learning to walk is not the first steps towards crossing an ocean.
This test is trivial at best, because the data present themselves so readily. We can't even isolate extrasolar planets from their sun. Could we even detect this stuff from a more reasonable distance away. If this detects elements in the atmosphere, then we can use it on Venus, too, right? Which would be a lot more meaningful since it is relatively faint from the Earth surface, and LEO.
Not like much of this really means jack anyways, we already knew that elements absorb light in specific frequencies.
So, now to apply this to an extrasolar planet, we have to have the planet reflect the light of its sun back at the Earth, which means that their sun is already between them and us (counting "between" as being able to project the vector from here to their sun upon the vector from here to the extrasolar planet, and result in a vector of lesser magnitude than the vector from here to the extrasolar planet). And we're supposed to be able to isolate any of the light from that planet apart from its sun?
Most of the planets we can't even detect directly yet anyways.
So, yay! Someone tests a theory that will be completely non-applicable for at least decades. It's like having internal combustion engine before the wheel... mostly useless. (Yeah, I know the ICE uses wheel-type devices in it, leave me alone, it's supposed to be a lame analogy.)
Yep, I did misunderstand you then. I took your OP as "that's not how business works" rather than your intended "that's not how you should want your business to work".
Ah yes. :) I figured. Good that we were able to clear that up. I'd hate to look like an ivory tower idiot denying the reality of the world as it is.