Jihad needs scientists

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 03:07:31 GMT, <lucasea@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:3g2tj2lhua1fap95hmds1gr987qu2vo90f@4ax.com...

My only real suggestion here has been that evolution should be able to
optimize evolution itself: evolution evolves. And the implications of
that are manifold, and lead to some ideas that produce some
interestingly hostile reactions.

Interesting thought. My first response is to ask what you propose as the
mechanism for that.

Mutation and natural selection, of course. If that was enough to give
us kidneys and eyeballs and brains, it's surely enough to fine-tune
the hardware of evolution itself.

Evolution is so passive, that it's hard to imagine any
form of active control.

Circular argument. Try imagining.

There are two possible points of control that I
see--the mutation rate, and the survivability advantage due to any
particular mutation. As I understand it, mutations are based on 3 general
chemistries: 1) photochemistry of nucleobases, 2) O2 (and other
free-radical) chemistry of nucleobases, and 3) simple mis-transcription. I
do not know in what proportions these mix. It's not clear how the first two
can be manipulated without a sweeping change, for example to other
nucleobases besides ACGT. All three are subject to repair mechanisms in the
body of the lifeform, and this might be one point of active control over the
rate of evolution.

Yes, that's basic. The natural mutation rate is too high, and most
mutations are too destructive, so repair mechanisms evolve to optimize
the mutation rate. Evolution begins to manage itself. The optimum
"crude" mutation rate, the rate of gross random damage to DNA by means
of radiation and such, may well be zero. There are better ways to
shuffle cards than by blasting the deck with a shotgun.

Finally, it's not clear how evolution would exert any
control over the survivability advantage of a particular mutation, since the
mutations are supposed to be, by definition, random.

That definition is dogma. DNA may have better ideas. Species that
evolve better will, err, evolve better, won't they? You can't argue
with that sort of reasoning.

However, it is possible that evolution has already selected for some sort of
optimum rate of evolution. Considering there are probably billions of
mutations for every one mutation that is "productive", and considering that
a mutation probably has a far, far greater chance of causing damage than
good, there will be a limit to how fast productive mutations can crop up,
without having so many catastrophic mutations that the species simply cannot
survive. If an organism mutates at too rapid a rate, it simply won't even
survive one generation because it will likely encounter so many destructive
mutations. This may be how we have evolved a DNA repair mechanism, and the
evolved need to have some rate of uncorrected mutations may have set limits
on the effectiveness of that repair mechanism. This then sets an upper
limit on the rate of "productive evolution".

It may also be that evolution should lowpass filter the selection
environment. A few cold winters, or a few millenia of ice age, should
not make us adapt too well to cold if the adaptation will kill us when
it gets warm.

In order to assess this
against the actual rate of evolution, it would take some serious attempts at
estimating the productive mutation-to-total mutation ratio, as well as the
destructive mutation-to-total mutation ratio. Both of these would probably
also have to take account of the *degree* of constructiveness or
destructiveness of a particular mutation--so that a mutation that instantly
kills the organism is counted as being far more influential than one that
slightly decreases the chances that an offspring several generations hence
will reach child-rearing age. Considering, however, that I believe current
thought is that evolution happens by punctuated equilibrium, it would be
difficult to assess the long-term average rate of productive mutations to
assess any such attempt to quantitate the "maximum plausible rate of
evolution."

I think there is some evidence, at least in bacteria, that the
mutation rate increases in times of stress. That would be another
self-optimization: take risks when necessary. There are potentially
many more.

If you believe in evolution, it seems to me that you must believe that
evolution works to optimize the mechanisms of evolution itself, rather
than sticking to the passive random mutation/selection model. It
further seems to me that that course is imperative as long as it's not
physically impossible, and so long as it has adaptive advantages.

I believe in evolution.

Anyway, it is an interesting thought, and one that I have not heard
biologists address.

Thank you for thinking with me. This is the first time anyone here has
tried.

John

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 03:41:14 +0100, Eeyore
<rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 17:56:33 +0100, "T Wake"
usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

Isn't that how Hitler got started?

Yes. However Germany is not suffering a massive economic depression and
smarting from a recent, unfair, peace treaty. In the 1930s Germany still had
the capability of becoming a world power in military terms. This is no
longer the case.

Especially so as the Brits and French and Russians have nukes.

Nearly irrelevant in the European context.

The way things are going we ( the above ) need to target the USA.

Graham

I knew you would say that. Do you stay up at night, dreaming of
killing?

John

 

[Haude Daniel]

In article <49esj2l46b3mbf9ufjg7d6d886j4ag2lh6@4ax.com>, John Larkin wrote:

I keep telling the kids that they're not lazy enough. They get a
problem, conceive a solution, and plow in with enormous energy to
implement it. I look at a problem, consider various solutions, and
keep rejecting the ones that look like too much work, until I come
across some core simplicity that makes it easy. Or I change the rules,
ditto.

Same here. I sometimes procrastinate for days while working on a
difficult design. The ideas are all there, they just need to
ferment a while (that's what I call it. My colleagues,
especially the Japanese guy who is constantly on the brink of
dying from overwork, think I'm a bit funny but they all have
high regard for my designs).

Recently I did a new mechanical design, lots of well-fermented
ideas and all, and the parts just came back from the machine
shop. A real engineeering gem, if I may say so, and works like a
charm.

However, while waiting for the shop to finish I suddenly hatched
a completely new design that definetely solves the problem that
the current model is only hoped to solve *) in a completely
different, more elegant way. Fewer parts and easier to
manufacture to boot. Colleagues ask me why I didn't design it
that way in the first place. Answer, I couldn't possibly have
done it without first doing the other thing. I just wasn't there
yet.

BTW, I'm neither a mechanical nor an electrical engineer. I'm a
physicist with an engineering streak which, by now, exceeds my
interest in scientific work. But since I only work among
scientists and not engineers, my stuff may seem to be a bit more
ingenious than it actually is. It's definetely better than
what's on the (very small and limited) market, which is of
course also mostly designed by physicists and not engineers. But
who cares. I certainly don't. Among the blind, the one-eyed is
king.

--Daniel

*) We'll see when the thing is down the cryostat in UHV.

 

John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 24 Oct 06 17:02:26 GMT, lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker)
wrote:

In article <t1msj214ga0dem1ntfhb5p3kq8cf52v0dn@4ax.com>,
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 24 Oct 06 10:27:14 GMT, lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker)
wrote:

Whether or not models are correct is not important to us.
What is important that they provide accurately predictive
tools for us to use.

Does the science of evolution provide any accurately predictive tools?

Selective breeding in domestic animals for thousands of years. Although
because we provided the selection pressure rather than nature you can
get stupid dogs with heavy jaws that can't breathe properly but will
bite and hold onto a bulls leg (or some other more or less useful
trait).

Evolution of multi-drug resistant strains of bacteria due to overuse of
anti-biotics. Selection pressure kills the least fit and leads to an
altered population better suited to the new environment. Things with
unstable genomes that reproduce rapidly show the most change (influenza
for instance).

We even use genetic design techniues now for certain types of
algorithmic programming. And simulating A-life has become fairly
routine. It is actually quite interesting to watch how things evolve
over a few hundred generations to match environmental pressure.

Simple cases, like bacterial drug or temperature resistance, are
somewhat predictable and can be verified by experiment. But how about
macro things, like the creation of new genera and orders? Are past
creations at this level "predictable" after the fact?

A few are but you are looking for a needle in a haystack. A new species
is formed (or possibly two new species) when for either reasons of
genetic drift, preference or physical size the extreme ranges of an
original species can no longer interbreed or have weak or sterile
offspring. See for example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4708459.stm

A few new cacti, butterfly and moth species have been identified in
this category.

Predict the movement of a body in a 3-body system.

Given the masses, locations, and velocities, this can be done with
extreme accuracy for some amount of time. The time depends on the
precision of the inputs and the available computational resources. In
most cases, the time over which accurate predictions can be made is
extreme, billions of orbital periods. Pathological/chaotic cases can
still be predicted for usefully long times. Even the chaotic behaviors
have predictable statistics.

But there is no exact solution. Therefore, we do not understand the movement
of 3 bodies and we cannot model it. Weren't those your complainst about
evolution?

Just because there is no universal closed-form solution for the 3-body
problem doesn't stop anybody from modeling a given case. And only a
tiny minority of delicately-balanced cases don't model fairly, or
very, well, and even then we know *why* they don't model well.
Earth-moon-sun is a 3-body system, and people were predicting eclipses
pretty well a thousand years ago.

Much longer ago than that. Although the Chinese astronomers got lazy
and forgot how to do it in the Middle ages. The Jesuit Ferdinand
Verbiest managed to convert a Chinese Emperor to Christianity after
defeating them in a challenge to predict an eclipse. The locals all
were beheaded.

http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/jmac/sj/scientists/verbiest.htm

Evolution, because it's mostly a qualitative theory, is not very
testable, which is I suppose why people stake such dogmatic positions

It is eminently testable by computer simulation now and becoming ever
more so as computational power increases. Evolution is even useful for
designing certain type of engineering structure and some computer
programs. Try for example

http://www.santafe.edu/projects/evca/Papers/papers.html

on so little hard evidence. That seems contrary to me: the less hard
evidence for a phenom, the more range there should be for speculation.

The very soft sciences, psychology and nutrition and such, are known
for having wild faddish swings of dogma; remember when stress caused
ulcers? remember when hydrogenated margarine was the healthier
substitute for butter?

You mean like esoteric magical copper cables in HiFi electronic
engineering?

Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Eeyore]

John Larkin wrote:

Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:
John Larkin wrote:
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

Isn't that how Hitler got started?

Yes. However Germany is not suffering a massive economic depression and
smarting from a recent, unfair, peace treaty. In the 1930s Germany still had
the capability of becoming a world power in military terms. This is no
longer the case.

Especially so as the Brits and French and Russians have nukes.

Nearly irrelevant in the European context.

The way things are going we ( the above ) need to target the USA.

Graham

I knew you would say that. Do you stay up at night, dreaming of
killing?

John

All the time - lol.

Graham

 

In article <YMidnRe1eI5f2KPYnZ2dnUVZ8t2dnZ2d@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:ehktmq$8qk_003@s772.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
In article <wJ6dneNN343tnKPYRVnyug@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:ehkoev$8ss_003@s772.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
In article <453DA5CD.1A70BB2@hotmail.com>,
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:


unsettled wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:

I reckon in any competition, my knowledge of history would knock
yours
into the proverbial cocked hat.

Possibly. I forgot the utliple choice answer-type history.
ARe you not alarmed that Nazis are getting elected to seats of
power in Germany?

The are no Nazi members in the Bundestag

You just finished with a denial that you and Wake have
selective blindness, yet here you are once again
giving us a clear demonstration. The Nazi party, and
similar spinoffs, are outlawed in Germany, so clearly
there are today no Nazi "members" anywhere in Germany.

So why did BAH say .......

" ARe you not alarmed that Nazis are getting elected to seats of power
in
Germany? " ???

I'm just the messenger here !

BAH needs to get her facts straight. That would seem to be quite a
hurdle
for
her starting from where she is right now.

That was a news item the BBC reported. You were the one who
told me to listen to something other than US news reports. So
I did.

Strangely the BBC seem to have neglected putting this on their news
website
and I cant find anything which could be construed as having said that. Can
you let me know when you heard the BBC report it please?

I can't remember which night it was. Guesstimate was Friday or
Saturday night between 2 and 3 AM my time EDT. And it was
on the feed that is sold to FM PBS radio stations.

I don't know if that's enough data for you to pinpoint.

It might be. I will continue to look.

The demonstration was to free a Nazi rock star. I think it
said he's been in jail for 3 years.

There is an upswell in right wing organisations getting public support
across Europe, but this is not quite the same.

Isn't that how Hitler got started?

Yes. However Germany is not suffering a massive economic depression and
smarting from a recent, unfair, peace treaty.

That isn't the only thing that can trigger an economic depression.

In the 1930s Germany still had
the capability of becoming a world power in military terms. This is no
longer the case.

Isn't it trying to run the EU economics show? The news
over here implies that France and Germany as the main
players. All those other countries seem to get no
attention.

/BAH

 

In article <c3ptj2hik5d15egrtr0b9q6hcr9rv4vttt@4ax.com>,
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 03:41:14 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:



John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 17:56:33 +0100, "T Wake"
usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

Isn't that how Hitler got started?

Yes. However Germany is not suffering a massive economic depression and
smarting from a recent, unfair, peace treaty. In the 1930s Germany still
had
the capability of becoming a world power in military terms. This is no
longer the case.

Especially so as the Brits and French and Russians have nukes.

Nearly irrelevant in the European context.

The way things are going we ( the above ) need to target the USA.

Graham



I knew you would say that.

Yup. I did, too.

Do you stay up at night, dreaming of killing?

Nah, people that have his type of thinking are believing
that, if the US were gone, there wouldn't be any of these
problems. It's an opinion that's been building up
over the last decade...and another damned thought process
I've been trying to fix.

/BAH

 

In article <YsqdnSqgH-CP2qPYnZ2dnUVZ8sidnZ2d@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:ehktr9$8qk_004@s772.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
In article <AaSdncIuNrMUnaPYRVnyrQ@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:
"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:453DA5CD.1A70BB2@hotmail.com...

unsettled wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:

I reckon in any competition, my knowledge of history would knock
yours
into the proverbial cocked hat.

Possibly. I forgot the utliple choice answer-type history.
ARe you not alarmed that Nazis are getting elected to seats of
power in Germany?

The are no Nazi members in the Bundestag

You just finished with a denial that you and Wake have
selective blindness, yet here you are once again
giving us a clear demonstration.

I am sure "unsettled" is more than aware that Eeyore and I have very
different view points on lots of topics, so I am somewhat confused what
lumping us together adds to the weight of "his" argument - other than
creating the illusion of collusion to fuel his paranoia.
snip

You two, actually three, are getting lumped together because
you keep repeating our Democrat sound bites as supporting
evidence that there isn't a danger from Islamic extremeists.

I haven't heard any Democrat soundbites so I have no idea if I am repeating
them.

You are.

Because something is a "soundbite" does not intrinsically make it
wrong or incorrect.

For the 2004 US President campaign (so this would be 2002, 2003, and
2004) Democrat candidates would go over to Europe, and try out
sound bites. The BBC would pick it up and repeat it. Our news
media would pick up the BBC report and report the sound bite as
news. Then this "news" would become recursive because now
the BBC would pick it up as fact. Meanwhile, polls were taken
to see the sound bite had resonance among US voters.

These bites have morphed.

Islamic Extremism does not pose a greater threat than other threats people
live with on a daily basis.

You are being foolish.

Oddly, the threat from Islamic Extremism has markedly _increased_ since
2003. The plan is not working.

From what I see, it has diminished. But it can always pick
up again if a majority of people believe as you do and
open the city gates.

The smoke and mirrors is so thick in this discussion, it is
difficult to identify who is who.

Really? Maybe it isn't smoke and mirrors.

It is. We haven't even started discussing the issue. I've
been trying to sweep away the crud that you were using
as a point to support your opinion.

But I'm not doing very well at this.

/BAH

 

In article <gldsj29b1c1911oi7v8ii0secbsntuh51o@4ax.com>,
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

Reminds me of some physics conferences I've attended, where you had to
watch your step for slipping on the blood on the floor.

All topics have conferences like that.


I find physicists to be especially aggressive.

Terseness isn't aggressive; it's efficient.

"That can't work" is pretty terse, especially when it turns out later
that it can work.

It's a good first reaction. If you agree, meeting is over.
If you've done your homework, you can start yakking about
the real stuff. That response is used to shortcut the typical
3-meeting territorial imperative shaking out that seems to
be SOP whenever new humans get together for the first time.

I'm talking about people who are good at their job, not the
average types.

It's hard to brainstorm
with them, because their first reaction to an idea is often to slap it
down, rather than play with it and see if there might be something
there.

That's only way to design something. We wouldn't have gotten anything
done if we didn't slap each new idean and tear it apart.

But ideas, even bad ideas, can be played with and sometimes that leads
to ideas that are not bad.

Of course. But if you're a newbie, a "no" will test your mettle
and tell them if you're a crank or not . A similar approach
is used here, although it takes a lot longer w.r.t. wallclock time
and number of words used.

If you squash the process at step #1, it
ends there.

If you accept the squash, then you don't have the inner fortitude
to carry the project through to the end. It's test.

Now, I'm not trying to say that your personal meeting was this
way. I am describing how we sorted out all the possibilities
and figured out which ones were feasible, salable, and possible
with the current technology. Note that we were also in
a "young" discipline and creating the discipline at that time.

Most physicists have a better understanding of device physics
than the average engineer, but are still rotten circuit designers...
check out the circuits in RSI, for instance. That wasn't so in the
RadLab days, but it sure seems that way now.

The physics biz is not a production line activity. It is their
job to fiddle and tweak until it works. Then the mess gets
handed over to engineers; it is their job to figure out how
to manufacture the thingie without having to reproduce the
bandaging steps.



The thing about physics, especially quantum/particle/cosmological
physics, is that some very smart people have already discovered a lot
of stuff, and there's no low-hanging fruit left that mere mortals can
reach. In condensed matter physics (aka "dirt physics") and chemistry
and biology, there's still a lot left to discover, so it's not as
brutally competitive.

Circuit design is fun, because you can invent something entirely new
most any afternoon, and dabble in the physics and chemistry and optics
without having to spend a decade as an impoverished post-doc.

grin> You should try working with people who are doing engineering
work with a thinking style trained to do physics.


Now *that* is an interesting concept. Elaborate?

JMF was trained as a physicist but decided he wanted money so
he started in the computer biz. The bit gods I talk about
occasionally did their work in operating systems for
a manufacturer of computer hardware. So we were doing
engineering but at the same time doing and creating
a lot of things that hadn't been done before and solving
problems that had never existed until we made them.

Our best OS people had their degrees in math, chemistry,
physics, a couple were engineers, and there was one philosophy
guy later on. These were very, very, very, very bright
people who did not suffer fools at all. The people here in
this newsgroup put up with 100x more shit than the guys
I worked with would.


/BAH

 

In article <k7gnj2l9ohj1bl31bgnb8f9p6oevsrifch@4ax.com>,
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
<snip>

I get railed at for snipping, and railed at for not snipping. What's a
boy to do?

Cut and paste. ;-)

/BAH

 

In article <vb4qj29r3tpr4ctnhbffuumsdgpj704mf8@4ax.com>,
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:42:53 -0500, unsettled <unsettled@nonsense.com
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 23 Oct 06 10:55:36 GMT, lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker)
wrote:


In article <8t5nj29md56ugu8pm4epmitj8tgp66v2of@4ax.com>,
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 14:21:12 +0100, "T Wake"
usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:



Saying "I believe in evolution" is a valid sentence.

No, it is not valid within this context. You do know that
the Creed starts out with "I believe...".

It is still valid. I honestly believe in Newtonian Gravity being the
best
description of gravity in the domain in which it applies. This is not
something which can be "known" as tomorrow some one may come up with a
better description.

Does this open the floodgates for the Religious Right to send me to
hell?

Can you cite any modern case of the Religious Right denying the
accuracy of Newton's law of gravitation?


Well, there was an Onion story...


Strawman indeed. Since the
time of Galileo's house arrest, the western churches have
progressively conceded to science the domain of physical reality. I've
read, and believe, the argument that Christianity is in fact
pro-science, and Islam is not, which is why the West is so far ahead
in technology. The Irish monks kept the wisdom of the Greeks safe
through the dark ages, and the Jesuits were and are great contributors
to math and science.


So your rejection of evolution makes you more Islam than Christian?


I don't reject it. I have a long history in s.e.d. of arguing that
evolution and the operations of DNA will turn out to be far more
complex than Darwin or the neo-Darwinists ever imagined. The dispute
is that I believe in evolution more than most other people do. As
such, evolution is still very poorly understood, hence not very well
developed science.

The same statement can be made with great validity about any
of the sciences.

Most of the other sciences produce theories that work quantitatively
to some goodly number of decimal points, and can be tested
experimentally, and that have difficulty quantitatively explaining
only extreme situations. Evolution is essentially qualitative, and
only connects the dimly-understood functionality of DNA to evolution
in a fuzzy, descriptive sort of way.

There's all sorts of interesting stuff. Some people are born with six
fully functional fingers on each hand. So "finger" must be some sort
of parameterized macro, and "mirror image" must be an operation, and
there must be some sort of installation crew that hooks everything up
so that it all works.

Aircraft parts were classicly identified by drawing number and dash
number. If a part were, say, 123456-1A (the basic part defined by
drawing 123456 rev A), it was automatically assumed that 123456-2A was
its mirror image.

Yep. JMF worked with a guy whose hobby was studying that kind
of genetic stuff. He gave JMF a video tape that was considering
a hypothesis that the mechanism of making the fingers, etc.
was mechanical. I had never considered that before.

/BAH

 

In article <ehikrg$rv0$5@leto.cc.emory.edu>,
lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:

In article <ehfm39$8qk_006@s799.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
In article <X5KdncZfhOmVpafYnZ2dnUVZ8tmdnZ2d@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:ehd506$8qk_005@s884.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
In article <LKydnafehvClGavYRVnyrQ@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:eh54ge$8qk_011@s847.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
In article <e9ednZ8s0K3l2ajYRVnyuA@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4535424A.C08609A3@hotmail.com...


T Wake wrote:

lucasea@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message

Certainly a lot of the details of Darwin's theories have been
subject
to
question and modification over the years. What has not changed is
the
basic idea of evolution.

Very true. There is a conflict of terminology and if the people on
the
radio
show were talking about "Darwin's theories" specifically they are a
bit
behind the curve. Modern evolutionary theory has progressed beyond
the
specifics Darwin described.

I've noticed that there is now a common tendency for those who reckon
they
know
better to dismiss such things as 'just theories' as if that meant
they
had
no
vailidity !


I love that phrase "just theories." It really makes me smile when some
creationist goes on about how "evolution is just a theory."

Like Newtonian Gravity isn't "just" a theory.

Yes. It is just a theory. It is the human race's best
guess at how nature and its laws work.

Fundamentalists understand the difference between just a theory
and their belief. They get threatened when teachers of their
kids present evolution as a belief;

These teachers should be fired.

They are if they don't preach the Bible, too.

If science teachers are teaching the Bible, they need to be fired. If
Religious Education teachers were teaching science, they should be fired.


the implication of this
is that the goal of teaching evolution is to substitute
the religion known as evolution for the religion of God.

Only in the mind of fundamentalists.

You need to listen more.

Stop being so patronising and read what I wrote.

CSPAN aired some convention that
was to talk about this issue. Science teacher after science
teacher, who did not want to give Bible lessons in their classes,
kept using the language of "...I believe in evolution."

Any fundamentalist will interpret this as the teacher substituting
evolution for Christain religious belief. Plus it is a useful
way to get public schools funds to hold their Sunday School clasess.

Like I said, only in the mind of fundamentalists. If you spent less time
trying to be patronising and imagining half the conversation you would be
able to appreciate what I actually wrote.

Saying "I believe in evolution" is a valid sentence.

No, it is not valid within this context. You do know that
the Creed starts out with "I believe...".


So? "I believe this sample contains NaCl" is perfectly valid, as it would be
based on knowledge, tests, analysis, etc. "Believe" isn't exclusively a word
for theology.

It is if the context of the meeting is all about religious
belief vs. science. Using words that imply a new belief
system at a convention that is discussing not teaching
an old belief system in science classes is similar
to shouting fire in a dark theatre. I don't understand
why you can't comprehend this.

Fuckit. I give up.

<snip>

/BAH

 

In article <5bmdnTiQpMD62KPYnZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:ehl0hs$8qk_001@s772.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
In article <xeidnaGqVPjT7abYnZ2dnUVZ8s-dnZ2d@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:ehfm39$8qk_006@s799.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...

No, it is not valid within this context. You do know that
the Creed starts out with "I believe...".

It is still valid. I honestly believe in Newtonian Gravity being the best
description of gravity in the domain in which it applies.

I don't believe it. I demonstrated it when I did my labs.

You still believe it is the _best_ description of gravity. Tomorrow some one
may overhaul Newtonian gravity and explain that it is actually incorrect
because of [insert reason here]. This is not prohibited by anything in the
scientific method.

No. No matter how the concept is refined, the lab method worked.
I can then use that method to predict similar setups. That's
how science works.

You believe that the experiments you have carried out are valid tests of the
theory.

Belief is a prevalent concept and the religious extremists should not be
allowed to hijack it for their own use.

Belief, as you use the word here, stops at the hypothesis step
in the Scientific Method. When I demonstrate a reproducible
aspect of physical science, I can then use that aspect as a
building block for new stuff.

This work process is not unlike the operating system history
of the computing biz. It started out using machine language.
Eventually, assemblers were written to create more complex
code tricks. Then compilers were written so that one didn't have
to worry about how the underlying hardware worked.

This is not
something which can be "known" as tomorrow some one may come up with a
better description.

Does this open the floodgates for the Religious Right to send me to hell?

When you try to make a religious creed out of science, yes. And
they will do everything they can to prevent their kids from getting
exposed to the Devil's words.

Who is trying to make a religious creed out of science? The Religious Right
seem to be trying it as much as anyone else (eg. Dawkins).

I tried to explain. Apparently I was using Martian when I wrote
that one up.

<snip>

/BAH

 

In article <db6dnYRkTNUz7KbYRVnysw@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:ehfn55$8qk_011@s799.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
In article <JaednSrRmpdFE6fYRVnyhA@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

lucasea@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:Qmu_g.14851$GR.13390@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net...

jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:ehd5rn$8qk_009@s884.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...

I don't know it's wrong. I do know enough that bad data will
never show any statistical significance.

Don't you think *they* are in a better position to judge the quality of
their data than *you* are, since your understanding of statistics is
essentially non-existent? And don't you think that the peers who
reviewed
the article and allowed it to be published might also be just a tiny tad
more knowledgeable of statistics than you are?

When BAH posted this, it struck me as a massive example of how really
closed
minded some people can be. She hasn't read the data, she has no idea about
the methods, she doesn't know who reviewed it (etc), yet she does know
that
bad data will spoil stats (which is true). She has taken the one thing she
does know and assumed it to be the case because the answer is not one she
wants.

Amazing that BAH claims to have any scientific background at all.

I don't. Biology and math were my majors; chemistry was my minor.

All three are sciences.

I didn't work in the science field. I thought I made that clear.

IT and computers are a science field.

Oh, good grief. It is not.

/BAH

 

In article <98ef$453cbdfb$4fe708e$25125@DIALUPUSA.NET>,
unsettled <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote:

lucasea@sbcglobal.net wrote:

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:453C4494.53C1529@hotmail.com...


unsettled wrote:


T Wake wrote:

IT and computers are a science field.

Only as a misnomer.

Since when was electronics not a field of science ?


It's a fairly subtle difference, but an important one as regards such
things
as approach and mindset. Science is the field of using the scientific
method (you know, hypothesize, test, repeat) to try to discover thruths
about the universe. Electronics in the sense of designing and building
electronic devices like computers is more a field of engineering than
science--i.e., it's a field that uses the results of science to do and make
cool things that people want. Electronics in this sense does use the
results of the sciences of solid state physics, chemistry, etc., and there
can be use of the scientific method involved in designing electronic
circuits (hypothesize, build, test, repeat), but it's really more an
engineering mindset.

Failure to understand the differences between science and
technology is a problem prevalent on usenet and in American
society in general.

Unfortunately, and disasterously, this is also happening
in the universities, too. I've been trying to fight
that battle, too.

<snip>

/BAH

 

In article <csSdnSsIJpDCmqDYRVnysA@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:a4ioj2hb7thtg4gl99sh7mas1fnmddbt6i@4ax.com...
On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:27:01 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:



unsettled wrote:

T Wake wrote:

IT and computers are a science field.

Only as a misnomer.

Since when was electronics not a field of science ?

Graham


Electronics is a technology. Electrical engineers build things, they
don't research the workings of nature. Some academic EEs pretend to be
scientists.

Almost all the sciences use electronics to manage, measure, and record
experiments. It's remarkable how little science can now be done
without electronics, the exception being theoretical work, but even
that is tested and validated - or not - with electronics. Electronics
has become an indispensable tool of science, like mathematics.
Strange.

Not strange. Separating them is (IMHO) strange. Electronics is a practical
implementation of science. Why force them into different categories?

Because there exist computer science major programs that do
not require its students to take any, and I mean ANY, other
science course. The logic behind this says, "If computer
science degree has "science" in its name, then the studies
do not have to include real science."

There are teachers out there who actively discourage CS
types from taking physics. Now how in the world are
we going to breed kids to develop and improve technologies
if they have absolutely no knowledge about the limits
of the physical universe? An example is that the speed
of EMF not in a vacuum is slow.

/BAH

 

In article <eR8%g.666$s6.362@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com>,
<lucasea@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:e75qj2h3p4vlor2q6425thuf5t0d1h46os@4ax.com...

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 19:18:06 +0100, "T Wake"
usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in
message
news:a4ioj2hb7thtg4gl99sh7mas1fnmddbt6i@4ax.com...

Almost all the sciences use electronics to manage, measure, and record
experiments. It's remarkable how little science can now be done
without electronics, the exception being theoretical work, but even
that is tested and validated - or not - with electronics. Electronics
has become an indispensable tool of science, like mathematics.
Strange.

Not strange. Separating them is (IMHO) strange. Electronics is a practical
implementation of science. Why force them into different categories?

What's strange is how pervasive it is.

Why? We've been in a situation for almost 60 years, that electronics can do
many things much faster and more accurately/precisely than humans. Beyond
this, we've gotten to the place that we're interested in measuring things
that would be inaccessible to the un-electronic lab. It would only be
strange, as TWake points out, if we *didn't* rely on electronics to help us
measure thing almost everything in science.

A side effect is that old knowledge is forgotten. Even new knowledge
is lost; think about all the magnetic tapes that are now
unreadable but contained data of an event that can never
be repeated. We've been worrying about this alot.

/BAH

 

In article <hn6nj2pjie3hj1brbcv6om2b34sq9cdeeq@4ax.com>,
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 14:27:05 +0100, "T Wake"
usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:



IT and computers are a science field.


What does programming have to do with science?

In order to write code that works, a modified form of the Scientific
Method has to be used. The difference is that this use of the
SM is produce an expected result rather than using the method
to find out what may happen.


This is a huge difference but I've never able to describe it
well.

/BAH

 

In article <be992$453b7621$4fe75d1$17105@DIALUPUSA.NET>,
unsettled <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote:

jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
In article <453A5164.754CBC24@hotmail.com>,
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:


unsettled wrote:


Eeyore wrote:


The survey was to determine death rates from all causes pre and post
war. Quite simple really.

Pre-war of course there weren't any deaths from either US killings or
any insurgents.

And of course you faithfully believe Saddam's historical
records as being accurate and true! Bwahahahahahaha

The figures for the pre-war era encountered by the group tally with CIA
figures !


What era? And there aren't death certificates for those
in hidden mass graves. So any person asked about people
they know who died couldn't have shown a certificate.
This person who disappeared could have been reported by
10 households. Do you not see a problem in collected
unique datums?

Lucas & Wake's blindness is highly selective.

Yes. I don't understand their logic. I am considering a new
hypothesis about this type of thinking.

/BAH

 

In article <ehiku1$rv0$6@leto.cc.emory.edu>,
lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:

In article <ehfndt$8qk_013@s799.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
In article <453A5164.754CBC24@hotmail.com>,
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:


unsettled wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

The survey was to determine death rates from all causes pre and post
war. Quite simple really.

Pre-war of course there weren't any deaths from either US killings or
any insurgents.

And of course you faithfully believe Saddam's historical
records as being accurate and true! Bwahahahahahaha

The figures for the pre-war era encountered by the group tally with CIA
figures !

What era? And there aren't death certificates for those
in hidden mass graves. So any person asked about people
they know who died couldn't have shown a certificate.
This person who disappeared could have been reported by
10 households. Do you not see a problem in collected
unique datums?

/BAH

So if anything, the prewar deaths are over-reported, since you're relying on
people to tell you, and for post-war deaths, you have death certificates.

When did the public records offices get reopened in that country?
How does their public records offices work?

I would need to know this before I'd even bother reading the
report of estimated death count.

/BAH