Well, in the old way of doing things, everybody wins: you play a new song on the radio for a while, forcing people to listen to the radio if they want to hear it (and thus boosting the stations' revenue), and increasing the number of people who hear the song. Then once you have built enough anticipation and demand, you can sell the song at a higher price, increasing the recording industry's revenue. The fact that the listeners want to buy the song right away never mattered, because back then, they had no choice: they had to wait for the record companies to release the song before they could have it.
Now we have this new age, where people do not have to wait, because they have an alternative: downloading. Downloading at no cost, in fact. I am glad to see the recording industry is at least trying to adjust their business model to reflect the new reality of the world, instead of trying to sue everyone until technology reverts to the state of the art of 1970.
I think most ID theorists have a problem with abiogenesis and not evolution itself.
Perhaps, although most of the ID arguments I have seen use highly developed organs like eyes, or highly developed cellular mechanisms like flagella, as evidence of "irreducible complexity." As for abiogenesis, it is worth noting that it remains hypothetical, and that previous models of abiogenesis were experimentally disproved -- we are still awaiting evidence for or against newer models, last I checked. We may have to admit that we will never know how life came to exist on Earth, short of inventing some sort of a time machine.
I know that proving that such an artificial contraption is irreducibly complex would not disprove evolution, but it sure would be convincing. And, in time, we could classify many different instances of such self-replicators and prove that each class is also irreducibly complex and then merely prove that all such classes have been covered.
I am not certain that such an argument would be convincing, considering that such machines would have been constructed in a particular way. Additionally, proving that a self replicating machine is "irreducibly complex" may not be meaningful; it may be the case that it is reducible to forms which are not self-replicating, but which may exist on their own for entirely separate reasons (which is essentially what any abiogenesis hypothesis states). Proving that abiogenesis is impossible is a fairly difficult task; a more reasonable question is, "Did abiogenesis happen on Earth, and is abiogenesis the reason there is life on Earth?"
all of modern science assumes that many physical constants do not change
This is a fairly reasonable assumption; if physical constants are not universal, then we cannot really progress at all with science of any sort. Avoiding circular logic means starting with assumptions; assuming that the universe is logical and that universal constants are, in fact, universal seems fair. Even ID proponents need a logical universe; otherwise, what is "irreducibly complex" here in the USA might not be "irreducibly complex" in the UK.
However, there would obviously be a problem for the proofs above if any one of such constants has not truly been constant forever
This would only be a problem insofar as it would demonstrate a limitation in our models. Assuming a logical universe, if it were the case where physical constants can change over time, there should be some explanation for that -- some model which could be used to discuss when and how those changes happen, at what rate the constants change, etc. A real problem for scientists would be if you could demonstrate that some physical constant takes on two values at the same time. (Keep in mind that changes in physical constants would be fairly difficult to reconcile with a great deal of evidence in a number of fields; the radioactivity of elements would be different, chemistry would be different, even the very existence of matter as we know it would be different, yet we never seem to find evidence of these enormous changes in geology or when we look at distant stars. This assumes, once again, that our universe is actually logical.)
As I said, what it really comes down to is the fact that we have models, and that those models have limitations. You would not try to use Newtonian mechanics to explain the physics of electrons, because the Newtonian model is limited and is not suitable for explaining electrons. The current models for evolution are also limited, and there are questions which have yet to be answered; that is really not a problem for science. Pointing to a deity or an intelligent force whenever a model has limitations is neither scientific nor particularly useful for explaining our universe.
Well, for starters, we have the right to privacy; apparently, though, that right is not respected anymore, so we really need to be taking matters into our own hands and reminding the government that we do not want them spying on us.
Second, and probably the more practical reason, how do you know whether or not you are doing something illegal? There are a lot of laws on the books, and people can be arrested for all sorts of things that do not seem illegal but which actually are. I very strongly doubt that you can accurately claim to follow every law; you may even have committed felony offenses without realizing it. All it would take is a police department under pressure to engage in a crack down, or a cop who just does not like you, and you could find yourself arrested and in court (but they would never do that, right?).
Given a deterministic process (i.e., natural selection)
Natural selection is not really deterministic; it has predictable outcomes, yes, but it is probabilistic. We can model it, which is essentially what the theory of evolution is, but it is certainly not a deterministic process. Additionally, those models are based on the best available evidence, and that body of evidence is growing, sometimes necessitating a change in the model.
the finished product (i.e., the organ) along with its genetic material and enough computation time, we can explore every possible back-trace through the set of possible mutations.
That is an extremely large search space, and considering the incomplete nature of our understanding of genetic processes, it is a search space that may become much larger over time. Already, there is evidence of gene transfers between species, which may serve to make the search space even larger. I think you may be underestimating just how large of a search space we are talking about; like I said, we have models, but you could not hope to perform a meaningful exhaustive search using those models.
It is only a matter of time before our supercomputers prove that a particular organ could not possibly have 'evolved'.
Even if we assume that those supercomputers could be built -- which is a stretch -- all such a simulation would prove is that the current models of evolutionary, chemical, and physical processes have limitations and do not show the complete picture, which nobody is denying. That would not be a historic first for the theory of evolution; at one time, evolution had the contend with limitations in the models of how the sun works, which "proved" that there was not enough time to permit evolutionary processes. The models were eventually updated to reflect new discoveries and new evidence.
It is as if you are claiming that Newtonian physics has been "debunked" -- in fact, it has simply been found to be a model that has limitations on very small or very large scales, and a lot of research has gone into constructing models that address those limitations and models which can help unify physics. Evolutionary biology has also seen updated models, and Darwin's original model is not the most up to date. Scientists already know that the current models have limitations, and guess what? They are working on better models.
Intelligent design, on the other hand, is not a model; it is simply an attempt to freeze evolutionary models, then claim that because the models are limited, there "must" be an intelligent force that explains those limitations. If evolutionary models are updated to be less limited, ID will still "explain" the remaining limitations; ID is not predictive in nature, it is primarily based on a lack of evidence (unlike most scientific models, which are based on the discovery of evidence), and it is not falsifiable. You may not personally like the theory of evolution or its implications, but that has no bearing on science.
Perhaps you should look at the faith we all share in science as an explanation for everything.
Funny, last I checked, scientists themselves were saying that we do not have scientific explanation for everything and that more research is needed. Nobody believes there is a scientific explanation for everything, because frankly, there is not.
Faith is, as it turns out, completely irrational, based on no logic whatsoever, and usually just a matter of what makes people "feel good." I am not saying that there is anything specifically wrong with that -- people should be just as free to have faith make them feel good as they should be to have drugs make them feel good (of course, people are not free to do the latter, but you know, we are talking about the ideal and not the reality of our society's situation).
Which essentially amounts to, "This particular organ has no apparent explanation from the most up-to-date theory of evolution, and therefore it could not have possibly evolved! It must have been designed by some intelligent force!"
Nothing can refute intelligent design, because it is not falsifiable. ID is based on the premise that gaps in certain scientific theories "must" be explained by an intelligent force having designed life/the universe. Since the argument is based on the fact that there are things which remain unknown or unexplained, and since there will always be things that remain unknown and unexplained, intelligent design could not possibly be falsified, regardless of how much evidence you gather or how many missing links are found.
What exactly did Windows do for our society? When last I checked, it was the Internet that really changed things, and the Internet was not built using Windows. The only reason people admire Bill Gates is his philanthropy, and to be honest, although I strongly disagree with a lot of Microsoft's tactics under Gates' leadership, I am glad to see that he is willing to give so much to charity.
You don't have the right to use a technology developed by someone else (e.g. H.264) without paying. It's nice if you have such an option and I understand why you would prefer it, but there is no inherent right to it.
No, actually, it is the other way around: there is no inherent right to demand payment for your ideas. Patents are nothing more than a legal construct designed to encourage innovation, and patents expire for that very reason: they are artificial and deprive people of the natural right to implement what they know (i.e. the patented the material, which they may read). Furthermore, mathematics cannot be patented, and the legal basis for software patents (which amount to patents on mathematics, like it or not) is extremely shaky, and yes, you do have a right to use someone's mathematical discoveries without paying them (unless they call it an algorithm and get a patent on it, in which case you cannot exercise your right for 20 years).
Seriously, this bizarre notion that you have a natural right to forbid other people from using your ideas needs to be dropped. Patents are not a natural right; if they were, they could not expire, any more than your rights to live or speak freely can expire.
You have no idea what Jobs is suffering from; it could be a recurrence of his cancer. Being a billionaire will not mean that he suffers any less if it is indeed another bout of cancer. Other people are suffering, and you know what? We should hope that their suffering ends also.
Please; I disagree with a lot of Apple's policies and decisions regarding their products, and I strongly suspect Jobs is behind many of those policies, but that does not mean that Jobs is not a human being. He may just stroll past beggars, but that does not make him any less human either. As you said, he does not deserve death, and I would add that he does not deserve to suffer from whatever ailment he is on medical leave for.
So, it would seem that people do have an expectation of privacy when it comes to their email. Well, glad to know there won't be any warrantless surveillance now.
The issue here is helping educate people to be more secure in their online transactions.
Doubtful; if that were the case, people would be talking about PGP and S/MIME. If the victims in this case had encrypted the messages with the pictures, there would have never been any problem.
Of course, that would be slightly less convenient, so it will never happen.
Of course, you could point them in the direction of a company like Red Hat, which will gladly take their money and put a corporate name behind the software.
It may have something to do with the Cell processor, which for some tasks significantly outperforms x86. True, you can find other Cell processor machines...at ten times the cost.
Even if there were no technical reason, why shouldn't people be able to use their computers the way they want to? Why should Sony get to decide how a system that I purchased gets used?
Slashdot Mirror
I was surprised also, but I won't complain. It's about time these people woke up and realized that the world has changed.
Well, in the old way of doing things, everybody wins: you play a new song on the radio for a while, forcing people to listen to the radio if they want to hear it (and thus boosting the stations' revenue), and increasing the number of people who hear the song. Then once you have built enough anticipation and demand, you can sell the song at a higher price, increasing the recording industry's revenue. The fact that the listeners want to buy the song right away never mattered, because back then, they had no choice: they had to wait for the record companies to release the song before they could have it.
Now we have this new age, where people do not have to wait, because they have an alternative: downloading. Downloading at no cost, in fact. I am glad to see the recording industry is at least trying to adjust their business model to reflect the new reality of the world, instead of trying to sue everyone until technology reverts to the state of the art of 1970.
I think most ID theorists have a problem with abiogenesis and not evolution itself.
Perhaps, although most of the ID arguments I have seen use highly developed organs like eyes, or highly developed cellular mechanisms like flagella, as evidence of "irreducible complexity." As for abiogenesis, it is worth noting that it remains hypothetical, and that previous models of abiogenesis were experimentally disproved -- we are still awaiting evidence for or against newer models, last I checked. We may have to admit that we will never know how life came to exist on Earth, short of inventing some sort of a time machine.
I know that proving that such an artificial contraption is irreducibly complex would not disprove evolution, but it sure would be convincing. And, in time, we could classify many different instances of such self-replicators and prove that each class is also irreducibly complex and then merely prove that all such classes have been covered.
I am not certain that such an argument would be convincing, considering that such machines would have been constructed in a particular way. Additionally, proving that a self replicating machine is "irreducibly complex" may not be meaningful; it may be the case that it is reducible to forms which are not self-replicating, but which may exist on their own for entirely separate reasons (which is essentially what any abiogenesis hypothesis states). Proving that abiogenesis is impossible is a fairly difficult task; a more reasonable question is, "Did abiogenesis happen on Earth, and is abiogenesis the reason there is life on Earth?"
all of modern science assumes that many physical constants do not change
This is a fairly reasonable assumption; if physical constants are not universal, then we cannot really progress at all with science of any sort. Avoiding circular logic means starting with assumptions; assuming that the universe is logical and that universal constants are, in fact, universal seems fair. Even ID proponents need a logical universe; otherwise, what is "irreducibly complex" here in the USA might not be "irreducibly complex" in the UK.
However, there would obviously be a problem for the proofs above if any one of such constants has not truly been constant forever
This would only be a problem insofar as it would demonstrate a limitation in our models. Assuming a logical universe, if it were the case where physical constants can change over time, there should be some explanation for that -- some model which could be used to discuss when and how those changes happen, at what rate the constants change, etc. A real problem for scientists would be if you could demonstrate that some physical constant takes on two values at the same time. (Keep in mind that changes in physical constants would be fairly difficult to reconcile with a great deal of evidence in a number of fields; the radioactivity of elements would be different, chemistry would be different, even the very existence of matter as we know it would be different, yet we never seem to find evidence of these enormous changes in geology or when we look at distant stars. This assumes, once again, that our universe is actually logical.)
As I said, what it really comes down to is the fact that we have models, and that those models have limitations. You would not try to use Newtonian mechanics to explain the physics of electrons, because the Newtonian model is limited and is not suitable for explaining electrons. The current models for evolution are also limited, and there are questions which have yet to be answered; that is really not a problem for science. Pointing to a deity or an intelligent force whenever a model has limitations is neither scientific nor particularly useful for explaining our universe.
Is Obama from a major party? That pretty much answers the question: he is a liar.
Not storing any incriminating data on your phone to begin with?
Are you sure that you have never broken any laws? Are you sure that your phone does not store any incriminating data?
Well, for starters, we have the right to privacy; apparently, though, that right is not respected anymore, so we really need to be taking matters into our own hands and reminding the government that we do not want them spying on us.
Second, and probably the more practical reason, how do you know whether or not you are doing something illegal? There are a lot of laws on the books, and people can be arrested for all sorts of things that do not seem illegal but which actually are. I very strongly doubt that you can accurately claim to follow every law; you may even have committed felony offenses without realizing it. All it would take is a police department under pressure to engage in a crack down, or a cop who just does not like you, and you could find yourself arrested and in court (but they would never do that, right?).
Honestly, Platypus... How is that animal NOT a joke?
Exactly the same way that C++ is not a joke: design by committee.
Given a deterministic process (i.e., natural selection)
Natural selection is not really deterministic; it has predictable outcomes, yes, but it is probabilistic. We can model it, which is essentially what the theory of evolution is, but it is certainly not a deterministic process. Additionally, those models are based on the best available evidence, and that body of evidence is growing, sometimes necessitating a change in the model.
the finished product (i.e., the organ) along with its genetic material and enough computation time, we can explore every possible back-trace through the set of possible mutations.
That is an extremely large search space, and considering the incomplete nature of our understanding of genetic processes, it is a search space that may become much larger over time. Already, there is evidence of gene transfers between species, which may serve to make the search space even larger. I think you may be underestimating just how large of a search space we are talking about; like I said, we have models, but you could not hope to perform a meaningful exhaustive search using those models.
It is only a matter of time before our supercomputers prove that a particular organ could not possibly have 'evolved'.
Even if we assume that those supercomputers could be built -- which is a stretch -- all such a simulation would prove is that the current models of evolutionary, chemical, and physical processes have limitations and do not show the complete picture, which nobody is denying. That would not be a historic first for the theory of evolution; at one time, evolution had the contend with limitations in the models of how the sun works, which "proved" that there was not enough time to permit evolutionary processes. The models were eventually updated to reflect new discoveries and new evidence.
It is as if you are claiming that Newtonian physics has been "debunked" -- in fact, it has simply been found to be a model that has limitations on very small or very large scales, and a lot of research has gone into constructing models that address those limitations and models which can help unify physics. Evolutionary biology has also seen updated models, and Darwin's original model is not the most up to date. Scientists already know that the current models have limitations, and guess what? They are working on better models.
Intelligent design, on the other hand, is not a model; it is simply an attempt to freeze evolutionary models, then claim that because the models are limited, there "must" be an intelligent force that explains those limitations. If evolutionary models are updated to be less limited, ID will still "explain" the remaining limitations; ID is not predictive in nature, it is primarily based on a lack of evidence (unlike most scientific models, which are based on the discovery of evidence), and it is not falsifiable. You may not personally like the theory of evolution or its implications, but that has no bearing on science.
Perhaps you should look at the faith we all share in science as an explanation for everything.
Funny, last I checked, scientists themselves were saying that we do not have scientific explanation for everything and that more research is needed. Nobody believes there is a scientific explanation for everything, because frankly, there is not.
Faith is, as it turns out, completely irrational, based on no logic whatsoever, and usually just a matter of what makes people "feel good." I am not saying that there is anything specifically wrong with that -- people should be just as free to have faith make them feel good as they should be to have drugs make them feel good (of course, people are not free to do the latter, but you know, we are talking about the ideal and not the reality of our society's situation).
Which essentially amounts to, "This particular organ has no apparent explanation from the most up-to-date theory of evolution, and therefore it could not have possibly evolved! It must have been designed by some intelligent force!"
Nothing can refute intelligent design, because it is not falsifiable. ID is based on the premise that gaps in certain scientific theories "must" be explained by an intelligent force having designed life/the universe. Since the argument is based on the fact that there are things which remain unknown or unexplained, and since there will always be things that remain unknown and unexplained, intelligent design could not possibly be falsified, regardless of how much evidence you gather or how many missing links are found.
What exactly did Windows do for our society? When last I checked, it was the Internet that really changed things, and the Internet was not built using Windows. The only reason people admire Bill Gates is his philanthropy, and to be honest, although I strongly disagree with a lot of Microsoft's tactics under Gates' leadership, I am glad to see that he is willing to give so much to charity.
Yeah, why should anyone admire a man who donated enormous amounts of money to charity?
You don't have the right to use a technology developed by someone else (e.g. H.264) without paying. It's nice if you have such an option and I understand why you would prefer it, but there is no inherent right to it.
No, actually, it is the other way around: there is no inherent right to demand payment for your ideas. Patents are nothing more than a legal construct designed to encourage innovation, and patents expire for that very reason: they are artificial and deprive people of the natural right to implement what they know (i.e. the patented the material, which they may read). Furthermore, mathematics cannot be patented, and the legal basis for software patents (which amount to patents on mathematics, like it or not) is extremely shaky, and yes, you do have a right to use someone's mathematical discoveries without paying them (unless they call it an algorithm and get a patent on it, in which case you cannot exercise your right for 20 years).
Seriously, this bizarre notion that you have a natural right to forbid other people from using your ideas needs to be dropped. Patents are not a natural right; if they were, they could not expire, any more than your rights to live or speak freely can expire.
You have no idea what Jobs is suffering from; it could be a recurrence of his cancer. Being a billionaire will not mean that he suffers any less if it is indeed another bout of cancer. Other people are suffering, and you know what? We should hope that their suffering ends also.
Please; I disagree with a lot of Apple's policies and decisions regarding their products, and I strongly suspect Jobs is behind many of those policies, but that does not mean that Jobs is not a human being. He may just stroll past beggars, but that does not make him any less human either. As you said, he does not deserve death, and I would add that he does not deserve to suffer from whatever ailment he is on medical leave for.
he's a fellow human being
Wish I could mod this up.
Why is this modded funny?
So, it would seem that people do have an expectation of privacy when it comes to their email. Well, glad to know there won't be any warrantless surveillance now.
The issue here is helping educate people to be more secure in their online transactions.
Doubtful; if that were the case, people would be talking about PGP and S/MIME. If the victims in this case had encrypted the messages with the pictures, there would have never been any problem.
Of course, that would be slightly less convenient, so it will never happen.
That was, in fact, the first thing Mark Zuckerberg used Facebook to do: gain access to others' email.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-into-the-harvard-crimson-2010-3
Of course, you could point them in the direction of a company like Red Hat, which will gladly take their money and put a corporate name behind the software.
I understood that the PS3 and the xbox are sold at either no profit or a loss
Which has always been a precarious business model, propped up by laws like the DMCA.
It may have something to do with the Cell processor, which for some tasks significantly outperforms x86. True, you can find other Cell processor machines...at ten times the cost.
Even if there were no technical reason, why shouldn't people be able to use their computers the way they want to? Why should Sony get to decide how a system that I purchased gets used?