This is a pun on, "canned ham", of course. For anyone who wanted to see 
the inane (maybe there needs to be an "s" in there some place...) museum 
built in the US by Ken Ham, here is your chance. A while back a bunch of 
people donated a mess of money to get one scientist to go into and 
critique this disaster. Here is the photo journal of it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scalzi/1969151713/in/set-72157603091357751/

This is the link to the article he posted on the subject too, but there 
is a lot more content in the photo captions/comments. The Article is 
mostly a lot of him repeating "Horseshit" a lot.

http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=121

All I can say is... Wait, sorry, I think my brain finally fell out, let 
me pick it up off the floor. Now what was I saying? Oh heck, I guess I 
will just send this.

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive  
    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/scalzi/1969151713/in/set-72157603091357751/
> http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=121

  Regardless of what is the truth, that just seems to be mocking for the
sake of mocking. "Hahahaa! Look at all those idiots!"
  Is that any better than the idiots?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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In article <473abb4b@news.povray.org>, war### [at] tagpovrayorg says...
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> > http://www.flickr.com/photos/scalzi/1969151713/in/set-72157603091357751
/
> > http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=121
> 
>   Regardless of what is the truth, that just seems to be mocking for the
> sake of mocking. "Hahahaa! Look at all those idiots!"
>   Is that any better than the idiots?
> 
You didn't do more than read the article and look at a few pictures 
right? To be clear, the author is a biologist, so he knows how bloody 
silly this shit is. He also never says that **everyone** there is an 
idiot. He even mentions one guy that, at the sign where it blames Adam's 
eating an apple for creating weeds said, "Oh, come on!"

How the heck do you go through a place like that and not, about half way 
through, start laughing your ass off. I means seriously, their 
**entire** exhibit is based on two ideas - 1. Evolution is wrong, and 2. 
Everything on earth was carried on the ark by Naoh by through the flood. 
They can't even get their own nonsense right, in that they have a 
diorama that **very clearly** shows dinos being loaded on the ship that 
are **bigger** than Giraffes, then two rooms later they try to claim 
that only *young* dinosaurs where loaded on the ship, which being young 
where no bigger than a dog. Well, which @$#@$ one is it? Then there is 
the, "Evolution is false, but well, there probably where only a small 
number of animals on the ship, so everything 'evolved' from those 
'kinds' into all the billions of species we see now..." Again, which $@#
$@# one is it?

This a monument to one nuts badly thought out version of one minority 
interpretation of one religions silly story, and an even worse attempt 
to claim that everything from disease, famine, and apparently crab 
grass, is the fault of either Adam's fall, or teaching Evolution, or 
both, backed by the worst science imaginable (if you can even call it 
science), paranoia, and obvious mental illness. And, as the author state 
in the subtext on his photo set, its unimaginable that 90% of the people 
that go through the place will leave having been convinced of anything 
other than that the guy who created the place was totally nuts, and a 
sense of either horror that it was built and people might believe it, or 
a strong case of the giggles (possibly both). The other 10% **have to 
be** so badly deluded and disconnected from reality to begin with, that 
nothing short of a head on collision with a semi is likely to dislodge 
the idea that Ken Ham is some sort of scientific genius.

And now, that last suggestion, that you can't reach the people that will 
believe this place, is **not** pure conjecture. Sure, *some* find 
themselves in direct conflict between the huge disparity between facts 
and the fiction they where taught, but at that point there is only two 
paths. One, path is to suffer a massive crisis and start "honestly" 
looking for the truth, the other path is to spiral into the pit of 
insanity. The later post lots on the Internet. You can tell who they are 
in posts by the fact that you can point them at the largest depositories 
of facts possible, including rebuttals of their **specific** complaints 
and arguments and not only will they not read them, they will continue 
to repeat the same accusations, invalid arguments, silly strawmen, etc., 
over and over until they either get banned or get bored and find someone 
else's website to rant on. Most of them are more than happy to give you 
links to their websites, or send you emails too. They are almost always 
written in comic sans, AND tend to emphasize WORDS, often seemingly AT 
random using ALL caps, also using multiple colors, and a dozen different 
font sizes, just in case you failed to notice those ALL CAPS parts.

I haven't met *anyone* on *any* website, out of hundreds, who actually 
believed this BS and didn't even endlessly repeat the same BS over and 
over, while appearing to be incapable of reading *anything*, including 
the comments replying to them, without either missing the point, 
ignoring it, or just flat out not reading what was said, and who didn't, 
if they emailed people, or owned a website dedicated to their "truth", 
didn't fit the above description. Well, almost none of them anyway, but 
the ones that don't love to praise the ones that *do* fit that 
description.

No, I don't think "most" of the people that are in any of those pictures 
are idiots. Some are probably, at least in one respect, completely 
fracking batshit nuts, just like the guy that built the place, but if 
its more than about 5% of them, we might as well all move to Australia 
and watch the US implode in the vacuum of ignorance, incompetence and 
gullibility that would invariably suggest. And even 5% frankly scares 
me.

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive  
    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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I'm not sure about the horses ass, but the
vehemence of anti-Christian rhetoric lately
reminds me of the attitude of the Germans
during the holocaust. "Might as put it,"
or maybe them, "somewhere that it's out
of everyone else's way."

Certainly his article does nothing to
convince those who disagree.

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> >   Regardless of what is the truth, that just seems to be mocking for the
> > sake of mocking. "Hahahaa! Look at all those idiots!"
> >   Is that any better than the idiots?
> > 
> You didn't do more than read the article and look at a few pictures 
> right? To be clear, the author is a biologist, so he knows how bloody 
> silly this shit is.

  That doesn't make my statement above any less true.

  The article and the photo series was nothing more than mocking for the
sake of mocking. "Have a look at these photos and have a good laugh."
There was no other point.

> Then there is 
> the, "Evolution is false, but well, there probably where only a small 
> number of animals on the ship, so everything 'evolved' from those 
> 'kinds' into all the billions of species we see now..." Again, which $@#
> $@# one is it?

  Regardless of whether evolution is true or not, that's one of the things
which always make me laugh. Anti-christian atheists always consider so-called
microevolution (eg. wolves and dogs having a common ancestor species) to be
the same thing as macroevolution (everything on Earth evolved from one
single living cell). Accepting the former but doubting the latter is
considered contradictory.
  Regardless of what is the truth, that logic is flawed.

  Anyways, your overly long argumentation is pointless. I was not defending
anything. I was simply saying that the purpose of that photo gallery was
nothing more than mocking for the sake of mocking, with no other point.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   The article and the photo series was nothing more than mocking for the
> sake of mocking. "Have a look at these photos and have a good laugh."
> There was no other point.

Yes. And I feel it's entirely appropriate to mock people who are trying 
to get others to act in self-destructive ways.

> single living cell). Accepting the former but doubting the latter is
> considered contradictory.
>   Regardless of what is the truth, that logic is flawed.

Check this out for why it makes sense to doubt that:

http://denbeste.nu/essays/cake.shtml

>   Anyways, your overly long argumentation is pointless. I was not defending
> anything. I was simply saying that the purpose of that photo gallery was
> nothing more than mocking for the sake of mocking, with no other point.

I don't know. A bad review of a bad entertainment is useful of itself. 
Might save you $20. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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In article <473c0fce$1@news.povray.org>, tim### [at] comcastnet says...
> I'm not sure about the horses ass, but the
> vehemence of anti-Christian rhetoric lately
> reminds me of the attitude of the Germans
> during the holocaust. "Might as put it,"
> or maybe them, "somewhere that it's out
> of everyone else's way."
> 
> Certainly his article does nothing to
> convince those who disagree. 
> 
Sorry, but seriously, 90% of the country is Christian and about 5% of 
those are currently parading their faith around as justification for 
every stupidity and idiotic idea possible, from wars, to undermining 
science, to you name it. Its not about ***Christians***, its about 
radicals among them that want to redefine the entire universe to conform 
to BS that only a tiny number of them take as being absolute literal 
truth. And its not just non-Cristians calling them on it and putting out 
the so called "rhetoric".

Blindly defending these people because you don't like imaginary attacks 
on Christianity in general isn't going to win you any points. They don't 
think you or anyone else that doesn't ***believe*** in the literal 
genesis story, dares to claim that science or evolution is compatible, 
or has the audacity to claim that their silly BS isn't the literal word 
of God, instead of metaphorical stories, are Christians either. They 
win, everyone loses, and they have people like you convinced that 
pointing at them and laughing is the same thing as attacking Jews during 
WWII (or has anything at all to do with attacks on Christianity in 
general).

I mean they **claim** to represent the majority of people in the 
country... Is your next argument going to be that, because only some 
American Christians fall for this shit, that I am attacking Americans?

BTW: Godwin's law - look it up.

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive  
    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <473c27ea@news.povray.org>, war### [at] tagpovrayorg says...
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> > >   Regardless of what is the truth, that just seems to be mocking for 
the
> > > sake of mocking. "Hahahaa! Look at all those idiots!"
> > >   Is that any better than the idiots?
> > > 
> > You didn't do more than read the article and look at a few pictures 
> > right? To be clear, the author is a biologist, so he knows how bloody
 
> > silly this shit is.
> 
>   That doesn't make my statement above any less true.
> 
>   The article and the photo series was nothing more than mocking for the
> sake of mocking. "Have a look at these photos and have a good laugh."
> There was no other point.
> 
> > Then there is 
> > the, "Evolution is false, but well, there probably where only a small
 
> > number of animals on the ship, so everything 'evolved' from those 
> > 'kinds' into all the billions of species we see now..." Again, which $@
#
> > $@# one is it?
> 
>   Regardless of whether evolution is true or not, that's one of the thing
s
> which always make me laugh. Anti-christian atheists always consider so-ca
lled
> microevolution (eg. wolves and dogs having a common ancestor species) to 
be
> the same thing as macroevolution (everything on Earth evolved from one
> single living cell). Accepting the former but doubting the latter is
> considered contradictory.
>   Regardless of what is the truth, that logic is flawed.
> 
>   Anyways, your overly long argumentation is pointless. I was not defendi
ng
> anything. I was simply saying that the purpose of that photo gallery was
> nothing more than mocking for the sake of mocking, with no other point.
> 
Why the #@$@$@ is it flawed. A) There is no mechanism **at all** that 
prevents one from leading to the other and B) The only answer the 
denialists can come up with is, "Well, maybe some intelligent designer, 
who (wink, wink..) might not be god at all, did it, somehow." Sorry, but 
that isn't science. Not knowing doesn't means you get to insert any BS 
you want. But that is hardly the point. The premise that we have no 
proof that micro can lead to macro is BS anyway, since we ***do*** have 
evidence of it in modern times, in labs, with bacteria, as well as 
things like ring species, where the opposite ends of the "ring", when a 
land slide or the like has separated them, are genetically **unable** to 
breed anymore, even though they can too their nearest neighbors, all 
they way around the "ring". I.e. A<->B<->C<->D<->E, but A</>E. This 
shouldn't be possible if micro evolution can't produce new species 
(which by definition is any two groups of animals that are sterile when 
they try to breed with each other, they don't have to be a giraffe and a 
mountain lion, nor is there any rule that says they have to **look** so 
radically different in the few hundred years it takes for this to happen 
that you can tell them apart visually).

Well, at least you didn't pull the, "And evolution doesn't explain how 
it got started!", claim, since that is roughly the same argument as if 
someone claimed you can't reconstruct a car accident without knowing how 
someone dug up the iron ore used to manufacture the car parts. Evolution 
is about what happened "once you had" life, not how it got here (at 
least not at this point anyway), and never has been about that.

Lets put it this way. If you think that micro evolution can't lead to 
macro evolution, never mind that those terms when they are used mean 
entirely different things between scientists and creationists, then you 
are a) not knowledgeable enough about the subject to know why this is a 
stupid claim and b) showing far more flawed logic than any biologist. I 
suggest reading www.talkorigins.org and specifically looking at the 
rebuttals given for this claim.

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive  
    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <473cb774$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> > single living cell). Accepting the former but doubting the latter is
> > considered contradictory.
> >   Regardless of what is the truth, that logic is flawed.
> 
> Check this out for why it makes sense to doubt that:
> 
> http://denbeste.nu/essays/cake.shtml
> 
Wouldn't that be, "Why it doesn't make sense to doubt it?" Mind you, 
this guy makes some common mistakes. First one is suggesting that their 
are some huge number of *possible* combinations that would work. Really? 
How does he determine this? Yeah, the math would seem to suggest that is 
the case, but we are not dealing with arbitrary objects, which one can 
"presume" all interconnect in functional ways, no matter how you arrange 
them. Lets put it this way. Take a processor. There may be an infinite 
number of ways you "could" combine the instructions, but some **won't** 
do anything at all, such as INC X followed immediately by DEC X. 
Chemistry is far more complex than a processor. Just because you can 
imagine combining A with G in umptenth billion ways, or even imagine 
other chemicals in place of it, doesn't mean that every combination or 
chemical that could happen would work. Some may be too unstable, some 
too stable. Some sequences could cause folding errors, which would 
destabilize the whole mechanism and prevent *any* of it working. Unless 
he has some way to *test* every possible chemical, or every possible 
combination, and lay out a statistical table that specifies what works 
and what just doesn't at all, his "REALLY BIG NUMBER" might be a really 
small number. We don't have the data to produce such a table (we still 
don't know how every chemical in existence has an effect on every other 
chemical in *every* situation, let alone how every DNA molecule 
can/would effect arbitrary sequences of genetic code.) Claiming that you 
can make predictions of what is/isn't possible, when you don't even have 
the data to make a vague guess, is a bad idea. And this is just what he 
is doing: "Since we have virtually **no** data to determine what 
possible combinations *can* or *do* work, lets just assume they all 
work, then make up some 'really big number' based on that assumption."

Sorry, but such a number is meaningless, since it presumes facts you 
don't have.

But none of that really matters, since the article says *nothing* about 
the likelihood of macro vs. micro, and only supports the idea that it 
all works, based on the existing "chart". A fact that would **support** 
the idea that it all started from a single cell, since, even if there 
where a thousand possible "working" solutions, the only way you get only 
*one* solution that works, on all scales, is via common descent.

Well, ok, you could get it via engineered DNA, but if so, the engineer 
is an idiot, in as much that nothing in our DNA is engineered to be 
robust or stable, just "good enough". Engineers don't design things to 
be, "Barely good enough to stay afloat.", and that is what you get when 
you start looking at the hacks, screwy solutions, and bad designs in 
biological systems. The other claim is a, "genetic map", leading from 
the first versions to the newest ones, which plays out like some sort of 
master program. But.. Oops, that doesn't work either, since lots of 
species don't have near enough unused "data" in them to do that 
(including viruses), some viruses and the like have barely enough to 
function at all, for example, let alone contain "code" to define how 
they got from the first cell to now, and we are finding the function of 
most of the "junk" DNA in humans and other animals. This pretty much 
only leaves the "damaged" DNA, which are regions containing copies of 
things that are broken, like the Vitamin C gene, which exists in humans, 
in a damaged form, but isn't functional, which is why *we* get scurvy, 
while non-primates don't. We know what it *should* have done, what it 
does in other animals, and that it **is** broken. And that is the point, 
we survive *despite* it being broken, since we can get what it used to 
produce from other sources. If we couldn't, then we *would* die out.

There is nothing in there that would suggest denial of common descent of 
macro evolution.

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive  
    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   The article and the photo series was nothing more than mocking for the
> > sake of mocking. "Have a look at these photos and have a good laugh."
> > There was no other point.

> Yes. And I feel it's entirely appropriate to mock people who are trying 
> to get others to act in self-destructive ways.

  Mocking for the sake of mocking is not constructive nor helpful. It only
increases aversion between different groups. Is that really the correct
way of doing things?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> Why the #@$@$@ is it flawed.

  You sound like a religious fanatic.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> 
>   Regardless of whether evolution is true or not, that's one of the things
> which always make me laugh. Anti-christian atheists always consider so-called
> microevolution (eg. wolves and dogs having a common ancestor species) to be
> the same thing as macroevolution (everything on Earth evolved from one
> single living cell). Accepting the former but doubting the latter is
> considered contradictory.
I don't know if you ever read the origin of species, but for me the main 
point in it revolves around the concept of a species. I think the point 
where the devout christian Darwin turned away from a literal 
interpretation of the bible is in the story of Noah's ark. While 
thinking of the concept of a species and the definition of it he was 
gradually forced to admit that there is no such concept as a species. 
Undoubtedly a dog and an oak are not the same species, but that does not 
imply that for every two individual plants or animals you can decide 
whether they are the same species or not, not even a supernatural being 
can do that. Hence there is no way that Noah's story can be true. After 
taking that hurdle Darwin freed himself from the literal interpretation 
of the bible and was able to take all the other steps.
I am an atheist (though not an anti-christian one, some of my best 
friends are Christian) and indeed I think that microevolution and 
macroevolution are the same thing. Because the distinction is based on 
the concept of a species, which may be handy concept in everyday live, 
but scientifically it is fundamentally flawed. It is possibly comparable 
to using Newtonian physics. Handy in normal live, but we know that in 
the end, nature is not like that.
 >   Regardless of what is the truth, that logic is flawed.
True, if you believe that 'species' is a well defined concept then it is 
indeed possible to believe one and not the other.

>   Anyways, your overly long argumentation is pointless. I was not defending
> anything. I was simply saying that the purpose of that photo gallery was
> nothing more than mocking for the sake of mocking, with no other point.

On the concept of mocking, I think you may be right, but I could not 
force myself to read more than a few paragraphs. When I still had no 
clue what it was about I stopped reading.

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott wrote:

> o be an "s" in there some place...) museum
> built in the US by Ken Ham, here is your chance. A while back a bunch of
> people donated a mess of money to


I was just about to debate with someone the difference between the young
earth creationist position and the old earth creationist position, and why
the young earth position was not necessarily required from a literal
reading of the text.   I threw in a link to the veggie raptor to boot!

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:

> Regardless of whether evolution is true or not, that's one of the things
> which always make me laugh. Anti-christian atheists always consider
> so-called microevolution (eg. wolves and dogs having a common ancestor
> species) to be the same thing as macroevolution (everything on Earth
> evolved from one single living cell). Accepting the former but doubting
> the latter is considered contradictory.
> Regardless of what is the truth, that logic is flawed.


Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, makes a claim that neoDarwinian
processes could not have brought about irreducibly complex processes such
as formation of an eye.   He actually came to speak at a conference my
church put on.   I asked him about whether a process of "change through
descent" could bring about speciation.  He said yes, he believed it could.

My 15 seconds of fame in the evolution debate.

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There's nothing wrong with science, but IMO many scientists seem to be
way too arrogant and lack humility, even to the point of being unscientific.
The attitude of many scientists seems to be "since I can't think of any
other rational explanation, then this explanation must be the Truth, the
only Truth, and nothing but the Truth, and anyone who doubts that is nuts".
This is simply a logical fallacy and thus an unscientific attitude.

  Scientists don't seem to learn from past mistakes. For example in the
late 1800's the general attitude among scientists was that physics was
more or less complete, that we know everything there is to know about how
the universe works. Since there is no other rational explanation to explain
how the universe works than newtonian mechanics, then newtonian mechanics
must be the Truth, the only Truth and nothing but the Truth, and anyone
who doubts that is nuts and deserves ridicule. Since there's no other
rational explanation of how light travels in space than that there's a
medium called ether, then ether must be the Truth, the only Truth and
nothing but the Truth, and anyone doubting that is nuts and deserves
ridicule.
  Scientists assumed that they could simply extrapolate the physics of
everyday scale to the physics of the two extremes (atomic scales and
extremely large and fast scales), and that's ok. However, in a typically
arrogant attitude they don't only extrapolated that, but they stated that
it must be the only Truth, and that physics is complete. We know everything
there is to know.

  Then technology advanced, measurement instruments got better, and science
got a lesson in humility. Our knowledge of physics was far from complete.
What was once the Only Complete Truth resulted to be only a very narrow
and limited vision of the whole truth. Suddenly it was not the whole truth.
Very far from it.
  Many arrogant scientists struggled for decades, fighting against the new
evidence. They couldn't admit being wrong. They couldn't admit that perhaps
their Holy Truth was not so true after all. They ridiculed the new evidence,
they ridiculed the scientists who had a more open mind.
  Finally they had to submit and admit that perhaps physics was not complete
and that there might be something else to it than what they thought.

  Have scientists learnt anything from this episode? It doesn't seem so.
They are still arrogant, they still think they know the Truth, the only
Truth and nothing but the Truth, and simply because they can't think of
any other explanation. They think they can go back millions of years and
see what happened, and thus their theory must the the only Truth, and
anyone who doubts it is nuts and deserves ridicule. Over a hundred years
ago scientists assumed that they could simply deduce what happens at
atomic levels, extremely high speeds, etc, without actually "going there".
They were wrong. Nowadays scientists assume that they can simply deduce what
happened millions of years ago, without actually going there. But this must
be the Truth.

  History tends to repeat itself. People never learn from past mistakes.
People are arrogant and think they are omniscient and that they know the
Truth. Anyone who doubts that deserves ridicule.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp a écrit :
> Have scientists learnt anything from this episode? It doesn't seem
> so. They are still arrogant, they still think they know the Truth,
> the only Truth and nothing but the Truth, and simply because they
> can't think of any other explanation. They think they can go back
> millions of years and see what happened, and thus their theory must
> the the only Truth, and anyone who doubts it is nuts and deserves
> ridicule. Over a hundred years ago scientists assumed that they could
> simply deduce what happens at atomic levels, extremely high speeds,
> etc, without actually "going there". They were wrong. Nowadays
> scientists assume that they can simply deduce what happened millions
> of years ago, without actually going there. But this must be the
> Truth.
> 
> History tends to repeat itself. People never learn from past
> mistakes. People are arrogant and think they are omniscient and that
> they know the Truth. Anyone who doubts that deserves ridicule.
> 

The problem is that you cannot do a research about something without
being at least a bit convinced that indeed your ideas are right... It
does not prevent from being open-minded but at some point it will be a
matter of opinion, if two theories explain the facts.

If you go back two centuries earlier, and announce you have a new theory
called relativity that explains everything about the motions of planets
and stars, you will rightfully be told that there is no need for all
these complications because Newton's theory works just as well for what
can be observed. You will have to bring up new facts that show the
limits of the current theory, new experiments where your theory predicts
the observed result and the old one does not.

Of course everyone will shout you down at the beginning, the
establishment will not be happy to see their own theory disturbed (the
older the less happy ;-) ), but in the end if it is convincingly linked
to the facts it will be accepted. And it will be so only because
yourself were convinced that your theory is closer to the Truth... So
when someone else comes to challenge your theory, you will be part of
the establishment...

Creationists do not take that approach at all. We are not discussing
about people bringing new evidence to the table, that is best explained
with their new theory. They are taking the existing facts and building
an extraodinarily twisted explanation just to satisfy their religious
belief.

So yes, at first some will try to explain the current theory, in case
there was a misunderstanding. At some point, when everything answered is
based on false logic and religious belief passed as science, I can
understand the need to finally take a good laugh about it :-)

I tend to think of it like I do of violence: at first you do everything
to avoid it, to settle the things calmly, but then there is a point
where discussing is not the solution anymore. It takes two reasonable
people to end something reasonably.


-- 
Vincent

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> a écrit dans le message de news: 
473d6557@news.povray.org...
>  Finally they had to submit and admit that perhaps physics was not 
> complete
> and that there might be something else to it than what they thought.

There were only 20 years between Kelvin's claim of "There is nothing new to 
be discovered in physics now" and Einstein's Nobel Prize. In fact, there 
were 15 years between the publication of Einstein's paper on matter/energy 
equivalence and the Times's headline "Newtonian Ideas overthrown". Not too 
bad for overturning a "Holy Truth" and one wishes regular people would be as 
quick as scientists before accepting new ideas.

This phenomenon has been called a paradigm shift by Thomas Kuhn, who said 
that "successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is 
the usual developmental pattern of mature science". In other words, that's 
the way science works, and if you've been around scientists, you can see 
that at work even in lesser fields of science.

In any case, it seems that you've been reading some crappy blogs instead of 
actual books about epistemology. Modern science works along the principles 
layed out by Claude Bernard in 1865. Here are some quotes:

"When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept 
the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great 
names and generally accepted"

"Theories are only verified hypotheses, verified by more or less numerous 
facts. Those verified by the most facts are the best, but even then they are 
never final, never to be absolutely believed."

If you haven't read his book "An introduction to the study of experimental 
medicine" you should, it's a fantastic read.

G.

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Vincent Le Chevalier <gal### [at] libertyallsurfspamfr> wrote:
> The problem is that you cannot do a research about something without
> being at least a bit convinced that indeed your ideas are right... It
> does not prevent from being open-minded but at some point it will be a
> matter of opinion, if two theories explain the facts.

  There's a difference between an attitude like "I think this is a very
plausible theory, and I'm going to try to find even more evidence to
support it", and "this theory is the truth, and anyone who doubts it
is nuts and deserves ridicule".

  You can find the latter attitude in all kind of people, from complete
laymen to amateur scientists to professional scientists. Sure, not *all*
people are like that, but many are.

  I don't disagree that any pseudoscientist or religious fanatic who
presents completely unscientifical and implausible claims with no proof
nor evidence deserves to be ignored and if such claims get widespread, it
very much deserves scientifical debunking.

  However, debunking and ridicule are two different things. The former
shows scientifical thinking, the latter shows arrogance.

  Another typical attitude is that anyone who presents even the slightest
opposition to the idea that evolution is the whole Truth, that the evolution
theory presents exactly and accurately what happened, must be a creationist.
The attitude seems to be "if you can't present any counter-arguments or
scientifically plausible alternative theories, then you simply must believe
in the theory of evolution as presented". It's as if it was completely
unscientifical and illogical to doubt a theory if there exists no plausible
alternative. And in this case, if you doubt it, you must be a creationist.
There is no other possibility. Of course this is also a logical fallacy.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp a écrit :
> There's a difference between an attitude like "I think this is a very
>  plausible theory, and I'm going to try to find even more evidence to
>  support it", and "this theory is the truth, and anyone who doubts it
>  is nuts and deserves ridicule".
> 

And which one you think is more common among creationists?
What do you think happens when a tenant of the first attitude tries to
discuss the matter with a tenant of the second attitude? No discussion
is possible, that's what happens.

> I don't disagree that any pseudoscientist or religious fanatic who 
> presents completely unscientifical and implausible claims with no
> proof nor evidence deserves to be ignored and if such claims get
> widespread, it very much deserves scientifical debunking.
> 
> However, debunking and ridicule are two different things. The former 
> shows scientifical thinking, the latter shows arrogance.
> 

Debunking has been done and redone and re-re-done, at some stage it
needs to stop.

Problem is a vast portion of the population is not used to scientific
thinking. Many people are ready to follow the one who appears convinced
of holding the truth. The problem is that religious nutcases are far
more convincing at that than scientists. Ridiculing a religious nutcase
is in my opinion a valid weapon to use. Blame Molière for doing it in
Tartuffe...

It's that or let a portion of the population follow a way of thinking
that has proved dangerous over and over in history. People who are going
to swallow the nonsense spread all over this museum are not going to be
convinced by scientific debunking. By ridicule there is a tiny chance
that they realize the problem, and then learn. Ultimately, education is
the answer, but there has to be an initial impulse, and it will not be
science.

I'm all for doubting a theory as long as something else, new experiments
or a new interpretation of the old ones at least, is offered that makes
some sense. Doubting for the sake of doubting is not really interesting,
because then you doubt, and then what? Does not make the established
theory any less true, and does not bring us closer to the Truth, in as
much as it exists...

-- 
Vincent

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And lo on Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:46:24 -0000, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

> Vincent Le Chevalier <gal### [at] libertyallsurfspamfr> wrote:
>> The problem is that you cannot do a research about something without
>> being at least a bit convinced that indeed your ideas are right... It
>> does not prevent from being open-minded but at some point it will be a
>> matter of opinion, if two theories explain the facts.
>
>   There's a difference between an attitude like "I think this is a very
> plausible theory, and I'm going to try to find even more evidence to
> support it", and "this theory is the truth, and anyone who doubts it
> is nuts and deserves ridicule".
>
>   You can find the latter attitude in all kind of people, from complete
> laymen to amateur scientists to professional scientists. Sure, not *all*
> people are like that, but many are.
>
>   I don't disagree that any pseudoscientist or religious fanatic who
> presents completely unscientifical and implausible claims with no proof
> nor evidence deserves to be ignored and if such claims get widespread, it
> very much deserves scientifical debunking.
>
>   However, debunking and ridicule are two different things. The former
> shows scientifical thinking, the latter shows arrogance.

'to allow these people to share the stage with scientists and debate their  
points is to automatically elevate these ideas  to the same level of  
science' Scientists ask "What if?" and seek out evidence that shows either  
right or wrong; pseudo-scientists start with "What if?" and look for  
evidence that shows them to be correct; Religious fanatics start with   
"This is!" and need to look no further. You can't debunk "This is!" with  
evidence, you're trying to integrate two entirely different systems.

>   Another typical attitude is that anyone who presents even the slightest
> opposition to the idea that evolution is the whole Truth, that the  
> evolution
> theory presents exactly and accurately what happened, must be a  
> creationist.
> The attitude seems to be "if you can't present any counter-arguments or
> scientifically plausible alternative theories, then you simply must  
> believe
> in the theory of evolution as presented". It's as if it was completely
> unscientifical and illogical to doubt a theory if there exists no  
> plausible
> alternative.
> And in this case, if you doubt it, you must be a creationist.
> There is no other possibility. Of course this is also a logical fallacy.

No not really, feel free to doubt it. if you do then you must have a  
reason to do so, which implies you have another theory (unless you're  
saying that you don't like a theory as it doesn't explain everything, in  
which case welcome to a permanent state of not liking things). If that  
theory also explains the evidence or better yet also sheds light on areas  
the old theory keeps dark great. Just don't invoke anything outside the  
evidence, otherwise we'll be drowning in angels, elfs, imps and we might  
as well all join the Church of Last Thursday.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Genesis says:
First God made heaven & earth
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep;
and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters

Sefer Berechit says (attached pic):
béréchit bara élohim 'èt hachamayim vé'èt ha'arets
véha'arèts hayéta tohou vavohou vé rochèr al pénè téhom vé rouar élohim
méraréfèt al pénè hamayim

I am sure they do not tell the same story.

Bruno

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Attachments:
Download 'gen1_1-5.jpg' (51 KB)

Preview of image 'gen1_1-5.jpg'

Tim Attwood wrote:
> vehemence of anti-Christian rhetoric lately

This wasn't anti-Christian rhetoric, tho. It is clear the author is 
indeed Christian. This is anti-Stupidity rhetoric.

Don't confuse "bashing stupid Christian's stupidity" with "bashing 
stupid Christian's Christianity".

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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Vincent Le Chevalier <gal### [at] libertyallsurfspamfr> wrote:
> Warp a ?crit :
> > There's a difference between an attitude like "I think this is a very
> >  plausible theory, and I'm going to try to find even more evidence to
> >  support it", and "this theory is the truth, and anyone who doubts it
> >  is nuts and deserves ridicule".

> And which one you think is more common among creationists?

  Who was talking about creationists? I wasn't. I was talking about
scientists.

  Or are you trying to say that since creationists ridicule scientists
it then becomes ok for scientists to ridicule creationists? That's
flawed logic.

> What do you think happens when a tenant of the first attitude tries to
> discuss the matter with a tenant of the second attitude? No discussion
> is possible, that's what happens.

  That's why it's impossible to discuss with some scientists (or, more
usually, scientist wannabes).

> > I don't disagree that any pseudoscientist or religious fanatic who 
> > presents completely unscientifical and implausible claims with no
> > proof nor evidence deserves to be ignored and if such claims get
> > widespread, it very much deserves scientifical debunking.
> > 
> > However, debunking and ridicule are two different things. The former 
> > shows scientifical thinking, the latter shows arrogance.
> > 

> Debunking has been done and redone and re-re-done, at some stage it
> needs to stop.

  So the next logical step is to start mocking and ridiculing? Yes, that
makes a whole lot of sense.

> Ridiculing a religious nutcase
> is in my opinion a valid weapon to use.

  Valid for what purpose? It certainly isn't constructive and can only
make things worse.

> I'm all for doubting a theory as long as something else, new experiments
> or a new interpretation of the old ones at least, is offered that makes
> some sense. Doubting for the sake of doubting is not really interesting,

  That's exactly the flawed logic. "Since there's no alternative plausible
theory, this theory must be true."

> because then you doubt, and then what?

  I don't even understand what you mean by that. Are you talking
philosophically now? Do you get some kind of existentialist crisis
if you doubt something and have no plausible alternative theory?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Anti-christian atheists 

By the way, the author isn't an atheist, and atheists aren't 
anti-christian, they're anti-theist. :-)


-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

Post a reply to this message

Phil Cook <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
> No not really, feel free to doubt it. if you do then you must have a  
> reason to do so, which implies you have another theory

  Once again, that is completely flawed logic.

  There's no law in science which says that you must have an alternative
theory in order to reasonably doubt an existing theory.

  "I don't know an explanation for this, and this presented explanation
seems too implausible to me" is a perfectly valid way of thinking, even
scientifically. You don't need an alternative theory to be able to do
that in a completely rational and valid basis.

  Take any unsolved question in science, which science has yet not an
answer to, and present the theory "it happens because invisible gnomes
do it from inside the Earth". Even if the scientist doesn't have any
alternative theory to that, it's still completely valid for him to doubt
that presented theory.

> (unless you're  
> saying that you don't like a theory as it doesn't explain everything, in  
> which case welcome to a permanent state of not liking things).

  Is this some kind of philosophical question now? Do you get an
existentialist crisis if there's something you don't know how and
why it works?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> and atheists aren't anti-christian, they're anti-theist. :-)

  In my experience the majority of self-proclaimed atheists vehemently
oppose christianity, usually much more than any other religions. Usually
they have a more or less indifferent attitude towards other religions,
while loudly opposing anything related to christianity.

  (I have even witnessed extreme cases, where devoted atheists have had
a *positive* attitude towards other religions, up to the point where they
frown upon criticising them, while still loudly criticising christianity.)

  Ok, I admit it, I'm falling into making the same kind of generalization
as the "anyone who opposes the evolution theory is a creationist". OTOH,
in my experience in many cases it's just true.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Wouldn't that be, "Why it doesn't make sense to doubt it?"

Yah. Forgive me. I've been ill. :-)

> this guy makes some common mistakes. First one is suggesting that their 
> are some huge number of *possible* combinations that would work. Really? 
> How does he determine this? 

Actually, I read somewhere that someone had figured out (well after that 
article was written) that there are something like 12 different 
isomorphic ways you can arrange the codons to do the same job. So 
instead of 41^22! or whatever it was, there were at least 12. :-)

> do anything at all, such as INC X followed immediately by DEC X. 

That's a completely different point. That just means there are genes 
that don't code for anything. He's assuming that there's no good reason 
for the bit patterns in the instruction set to be arranged in any given 
pattern for a particular instruction.

> But none of that really matters, since the article says *nothing* about 
> the likelihood of macro vs. micro,

So here's the question: What is "macro vs micro"?  How do you know when 
you have "macro" evolution? What makes something of two "kinds"?

I suspect you'll wind up coming up with a tautologically false answer, 
if you want to invent something that hasn't been observed.

> There is nothing in there that would suggest denial of common descent of 
> macro evolution.

Sorry. I meant it as an explanation of evidence in favor of common 
descent, regardless of how I misworded the original statement.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>>   The article and the photo series was nothing more than mocking for the
>>> sake of mocking. "Have a look at these photos and have a good laugh."
>>> There was no other point.
> 
>> Yes. And I feel it's entirely appropriate to mock people who are trying 
>> to get others to act in self-destructive ways.
> 
>   Mocking for the sake of mocking is not constructive nor helpful. It only
> increases aversion between different groups.

Yes. I want to mock the stupid dangerous group in order that people who 
hear my mocking might avoid them, or recognise how silly they are.

> Is that really the correct way of doing things?

If I could figure out how to make the stupid dangerous group less stupid 
or less dangerous, that would obviously be the right way to go. In my 
experience, religion is illogical (in the mathematical sense of the 
word), so it's almost impossible to convince someone to change their 
religion with mere evidence. You have to get to the unreasoning 
emotional underpinning. Of the various ways to do that, mocking would 
seem to be the least damaging and easiest to control.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

Post a reply to this message

Warp a écrit :
> Who was talking about creationists? I wasn't. I was talking about 
> scientists.
> 
>> What do you think happens when a tenant of the first attitude tries
>>  to discuss the matter with a tenant of the second attitude? No 
>> discussion is possible, that's what happens.
> 
> That's why it's impossible to discuss with some scientists (or, more 
> usually, scientist wannabes).
> 

Oh, so you are just saying that some scientists are not as open minded
as they should be. Who would have thought, really ;-)

As far as I can judge, it is not the case of the one that wrote the blog
post...

>> Debunking has been done and redone and re-re-done, at some stage it
>>  needs to stop.
> 
> So the next logical step is to start mocking and ridiculing? Yes, 
> that makes a whole lot of sense.
> 

Well what would be your next step then? I'm not saying it's the only
thing that can be done...

>> Ridiculing a religious nutcase is in my opinion a valid weapon to 
>> use.
> 
> Valid for what purpose? It certainly isn't constructive and can only 
> make things worse.
> 

For a purpose that I tried to make clear in the rest of my post that you
didn't quote. In order to cause a shift of mentality in a part of the
population that unfortunately would not understand a scientific
debunking. It is possible that the slight shock, or comical effect, make
people think about it...

So of course it's lost on the strongest proponents of the "alternative
theory", but everything is lost on them. There is nothing constructive
you can do about it. It's not a reason not to do something.

>> I'm all for doubting a theory as long as something else, new 
>> experiments or a new interpretation of the old ones at least, is 
>> offered that makes some sense. Doubting for the sake of doubting is
>>  not really interesting,
> 
> That's exactly the flawed logic. "Since there's no alternative 
> plausible theory, this theory must be true."
> 

It is true as far as we can check. If really you want to talk about
absolutes, define truth, then.

If you bring something different or new to the table, it's another story...

>> because then you doubt, and then what?
> 
> I don't even understand what you mean by that. Are you talking 
> philosophically now? Do you get some kind of existentialist crisis if
>  you doubt something and have no plausible alternative theory?
> 

Existentialist crisis is a bit over the top ;-) , but yes, it's a problem...

As Phil put it earlier:
> (unless you're saying that you don't like a theory as it doesn't 
> explain everything, in which case welcome to a permanent state of not
>  liking things)

If you doubt everything without doing anything to make something better,
well, from the general point of view it's exactly as if you were
agreeing with the current theories... Except that it makes you look
angry ;-)

-- 
Vincent

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Warp a écrit :
>   Take any unsolved question in science, which science has yet not an
> answer to, and present the theory "it happens because invisible gnomes
> do it from inside the Earth". Even if the scientist doesn't have any
> alternative theory to that, it's still completely valid for him to doubt
> that presented theory.
> 

The doubt in this case is for a completely valid reason. A key point 
with any scientific theory is that you have to be able to challenge it. 
Your little gnomes are hard to test for empirically...

So the scientist still does not have a scientific theory, in that case.

-- 
Vincent

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Warp wrote:
>   There's nothing wrong with science, but IMO many scientists seem to be
> way too arrogant and lack humility, even to the point of being unscientific.
> The attitude of many scientists seems to be "since I can't think of any
> other rational explanation, then this explanation must be the Truth, the
> only Truth, and nothing but the Truth, and anyone who doubts that is nuts".

Baloney.  I don't know of anyone who has studied relativity or quantum 
physics that thinks they know the truth of which one is "right", seeing 
as how they're contradictory.

>   Scientists don't seem to learn from past mistakes. For example in the
> late 1800's the general attitude among scientists was that physics was
> more or less complete, 

 From wikipedia, Borh model:

In atomic physics, the Bohr model depicts the atom as a small, 
positively charged nucleus surrounded by electrons that travel in 
circular orbits around the nucleus — similar in structure to the solar 
system, but with electrostatic forces providing attraction, rather than 
gravity. This was an improvement on the earlier cubic model (1902), the 
plum-pudding model (1904), the Saturnian model (1904), and the 
Rutherford model (1911). Since the Bohr model is a quantum-physics based 
modification of the Rutherford model, many sources combine the two, 
referring to the Rutherford-Bohr model.

Sure looks like they figured everything was known, with only four other 
competing theories of the shape of the model at the time.


You're beginning to sound rather fanatical, making up easily refuted 
statements about scientists being just as religious as those who argue 
from lack of evidence.

> how the universe works than newtonian mechanics, then newtonian mechanics
> must be the Truth, 

Even *newton* knew he was wrong, dude.


> arrogant attitude they don't only extrapolated that, but they stated that
> it must be the only Truth, and that physics is complete. We know everything
> there is to know.

Show me where they stated that? Or are you just making up crap or 
repeating what ignorant friends have told you?

>   Then technology advanced, measurement instruments got better, and science
> got a lesson in humility. Our knowledge of physics was far from complete.

They knew that. There were dozens of measured experimental results that 
couldn't be explained in terms of newtonian physics. That's why Einstein 
got a Nobel prize for figuring out the answer to one that had been 
bothering people for a while.  Damn, I'm not even a physicist and *I* 
know this much about it.

I probably know more about the Bible too, is the sad part.

>   Many arrogant scientists struggled for decades, fighting against the new
> evidence. They couldn't admit being wrong. 

You're so full of crap. Bohr came up with the first workable(*) model of 
how an atom is arranged internally in 1911. Einstein won a Nobel prize 
ten years later for explaining that Bohr was wrong and quantum physics 
was right.

How many arrogant scientists had to fight against Einstein to keep him 
from getting a Nobel prize within 10 years?

>   Finally they had to submit and admit that perhaps physics was not complete
> and that there might be something else to it than what they thought.

Unlike religious people, who never admit that.

>   Have scientists learnt anything from this episode? It doesn't seem so.
> They are still arrogant, they still think they know the Truth, the only
> Truth and nothing but the Truth, and simply because they can't think of
> any other explanation. 

They can think of many other explanations. Then they discard those 
explanations because they don't match all the facts.

> anyone who doubts it is nuts and deserves ridicule.

Not at all. Anyone who doubts it *and* claims they have a better 
explanation *and* presents said better explanation that contradicts all 
the facts that the current theories accomidate *and* continue to insist 
they're right in spite of that, those people deserve ridicule.


> Over a hundred years
> ago scientists assumed that they could simply deduce what happens at
> atomic levels, extremely high speeds, etc, without actually "going there".

No, they didn't. They just didn't have any way of testing it, and 
nothing they knew contradicted it. What they didn't accept is angels 
holding up the moon.

> They were wrong. Nowadays scientists assume that they can simply deduce what
> happened millions of years ago, without actually going there. But this must
> be the Truth.

So you propose, instead, that dinosaurs were around 6000 years ago, 
living with man, and Adam eating the tree of knowledge led to the 
creation of weeds and the changing of dinosaurs and lions into carnivores?

There's a saying that goes something like this:
The world is not flat.
The world is not spherical either.
But it's a lot less wrong to say the world is spherical than
   to say the world is flat.

There are differences in degree of wrongness. I ridicule those who can't 
see those differences.

>   History tends to repeat itself. People never learn from past mistakes.
> People are arrogant and think they are omniscient and that they know the
> Truth. Anyone who doubts that deserves ridicule.

Yes, the infamous "Et tu" logic. My religious beliefs are arrogant and 
make me think I am omniscient. My religious beliefs tell me what 
happened back when the world was young. However, scientists also are 
arrogant and think they're right, so they can't be any righter than I am.

Like I said, illogical.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> and atheists aren't anti-christian, they're anti-theist. :-)
> 
>   In my experience the majority of self-proclaimed atheists vehemently
> oppose christianity, usually much more than any other religions. Usually
> they have a more or less indifferent attitude towards other religions,
> while loudly opposing anything related to christianity.

Warp, Have you ever had the pleasure of meeting a (or at least 
interacting with online) one of the so-called born again southern 
baptists. They usually tend to take the bible literally, and will 
proselytize everyone they come in contact with. Maybe this is why some 
atheists appear to be vehemently anti-Christian.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   There's a difference between an attitude like "I think this is a very
> plausible theory, and I'm going to try to find even more evidence to
> support it", and "this theory is the truth, and anyone who doubts it
> is nuts and deserves ridicule".

Scientists don't say that second thing. They say "you're theory is nuts 
and deserves ridicule, as does anyone who believes it."

The first step of trying to put forward a scientific theory is to 
explain at least one actual fact.

I don't know of *any* actual fact that creationism explains.

>   However, debunking and ridicule are two different things. The former
> shows scientifical thinking, the latter shows arrogance.

I disagree. Debunking only works on the rational. Ridicule stirs up the 
emotions enough that the misled feel a need to interact.

>   Another typical attitude is that anyone who presents even the slightest
> opposition to the idea that evolution is the whole Truth, that the evolution
> theory presents exactly and accurately what happened, must be a creationist.

I've noticed that. I'm told it's something the creationists brought on 
themselves. Since creationism isn't an actual theory that explains any 
actual facts, the "theory" of creationism is "evolution isn't the right 
theory." So if you doubt evolution, you're likely a creationist, at 
least in the eyes of people who know what's going on.

> The attitude seems to be "if you can't present any counter-arguments or
> scientifically plausible alternative theories, then you simply must believe
> in the theory of evolution as presented". It's as if it was completely
> unscientifical and illogical to doubt a theory if there exists no plausible
> alternative. 

If there's no plausible alternative and nothing difficult to explain 
with the theory in hand, then it is pretty illogical and unscientific to 
doubt it.  On what scientific or logical grounds do you doubt that 
evolution is significantly correct, given that it's actually used 
regularly all around the world to create important products? It's not 
hard to understand in broad outline. It's not hard to understand 
detailed evidence when presented well. The only reason to doubt it's 
right is "I don't like what it implies", which is illogical and 
unscientific.

That doesn't mean it's *wrong* to do so. Just ... illogical and 
unscientific. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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In article <473dd597$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Tim Attwood wrote:
> > vehemence of anti-Christian rhetoric lately
> 
> This wasn't anti-Christian rhetoric, tho. It is clear the author is 
> indeed Christian. This is anti-Stupidity rhetoric.
> 
> Don't confuse "bashing stupid Christian's stupidity" with "bashing 
> stupid Christian's Christianity".
> 
Exactly. Though, some people seem to confuse them a lot. Case in point, 
the constant whining we get around now about the "war on Christmas", 
from idiots that don't get that "X" is "Chi" and has been used as short 
hand for Christ since back in the Roman empire. If you want to read 
anti-religious (I don't think only targeting Christians is worth much, 
even if there are so many where I am that if you fired a shotgun at a 
group of people the odds are you would miss all the non-Christians), 
then you read this womans fall from live and let live agnosticism to 
hardline atheism:

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2007/11/evolut
ionblog.html

Some of us are just starting to get real fed up at being told to shut up 
and play nice all the time, when the other side not only doesn't have to 
play by that rule, but has threatened to put us in internment camps or 
deport us for not being American enough (something we, despite some 
people's true rhetorical complaints, I haven't heard many of us saying, 
and fewer still standing around in huge crowds to cheer at).

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive  
    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <473dda5c$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > Wouldn't that be, "Why it doesn't make sense to doubt it?"
> 
> Yah. Forgive me. I've been ill. :-)
> 
> > this guy makes some common mistakes. First one is suggesting that their
 
> > are some huge number of *possible* combinations that would work. Really
? 
> > How does he determine this? 
> 
> Actually, I read somewhere that someone had figured out (well after that
 
> article was written) that there are something like 12 different 
> isomorphic ways you can arrange the codons to do the same job. So 
> instead of 41^22! or whatever it was, there were at least 12. :-)
> 
> > do anything at all, such as INC X followed immediately by DEC X. 
> 
> That's a completely different point. That just means there are genes 
> that don't code for anything. He's assuming that there's no good reason
 
> for the bit patterns in the instruction set to be arranged in any given
 
> pattern for a particular instruction.
> 
> > But none of that really matters, since the article says *nothing* about
 
> > the likelihood of macro vs. micro,
> 
> So here's the question: What is "macro vs micro"?  How do you know when
 
> you have "macro" evolution? What makes something of two "kinds"?
> 
> I suspect you'll wind up coming up with a tautologically false answer, 
> if you want to invent something that hasn't been observed.
> 
Well, strictly speaking "kind" is a word the Creationists came up with, 
which is entirely meaningless. They place species that **can't** breed 
at all in the same "kinds", including the donkey/mule/horse version, 
which can breed, but produce the third on in that list as a sterile 
result. The correct term "Species" means it cannot breed at all. This 
has recently gotten a bit fuzzier, since you obviously can breed most 
cats, even though they are recognized as different species. Likely we 
need a subcategory for those, instead of using species. But, even with 
cats you do also get things like Ligers, which are sterile about 50% of 
the time, so Tigers and Lions have diverged enough to *almost* be two 
distinct "kinds" in the parlance of these nitwits.

Basically, science's distinction is that, sure, you can get 5 million 
different sorts of birds from one proto bird, but 99.9% of them can't 
breed with each other, so they have become different species. The ID 
version of this would be, there are 5 million different kinds of birds, 
all from some proto bird, but they are all the same "kind". They gloss 
over the fact that you can't breed them, so they don't have to admit 
that they are different species. Point it out to them and they back 
peddle and claim it all happened in a few hundred years after the flood 
(since all those different birds(not to mention other animal) would have 
had to exist **immediately** after the flood ended to explain how many 
people saw them over 5,000 years ago.) It just doesn't work at all. And 
that is the main problem here. They **literally** want evolution to mean 
that tomarrow your dog will give birth to an elephant, never mind the 
fact that it doesn't work that way, and if it did, it **would** imply 
intervention.

> > There is nothing in there that would suggest denial of common descent o
f 
> > macro evolution.
> 
> Sorry. I meant it as an explanation of evidence in favor of common 
> descent, regardless of how I misworded the original statement.
> 
Ah, ok. Kind of confusing there.

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive  
    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <473ddb21$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Warp wrote:
> > Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> Warp wrote:
> >>>   The article and the photo series was nothing more than mocking for 
the
> >>> sake of mocking. "Have a look at these photos and have a good laugh."
> >>> There was no other point.
> > 
> >> Yes. And I feel it's entirely appropriate to mock people who are tryin
g 
> >> to get others to act in self-destructive ways.
> > 
> >   Mocking for the sake of mocking is not constructive nor helpful. It o
nly
> > increases aversion between different groups.
> 
> Yes. I want to mock the stupid dangerous group in order that people who
 
> hear my mocking might avoid them, or recognise how silly they are.
> 
> > Is that really the correct way of doing things?
> 
> If I could figure out how to make the stupid dangerous group less stupid
 
> or less dangerous, that would obviously be the right way to go. In my 
> experience, religion is illogical (in the mathematical sense of the 
> word), so it's almost impossible to convince someone to change their 
> religion with mere evidence. You have to get to the unreasoning 
> emotional underpinning. Of the various ways to do that, mocking would 
> seem to be the least damaging and easiest to control.
> 
Not specific about mocking, but it cuts to the heart of the issue 
anyway:

"So when you tell an atheist (or for that matter, a woman or a queer or 
a person of color or whatever) not to be so angry, you are, in essence, 
telling us to disempower ourselves. You're telling us to lay down one of 
the single most powerful tools we have at our disposal. You're telling 
us to lay down a tool that no social change movement has ever been able 
to do without. You're telling us to be polite and diplomatic, when 
history shows that polite diplomacy in a social change movement works 
far, far better when it's coupled with passionate anger. In a battle 
between David and Goliath, you're telling David to put down his 
slingshot and just... I don't know. Gnaw Goliath on the ankles or 
something.", Greta Christina - Oct. 15, 2007

Playing nice gets you no place at all, and when someone is impervious to 
evidence, facts or logic, you don't have much left, without being 
Machiavellian, but to laugh at them, in the hopes that embarrassment 
will open a crack in the wall of ignorance where everything else failed.

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive  
    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <473cde43@news.povray.org>, war### [at] tagpovrayorg says...
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> > Why the #@$@$@ is it flawed.
> 
>   You sound like a religious fanatic.
> 
Why? Because I got a bit annoyed and dared to ask a question? Seriously, 
claiming there is a problem and not giving one good explanation for what 
that is, or how it undermines the whole concept is what religious 
fanatics do. They don't ask people to explain themselves, they just 
spout assertions, then ignore any request for clarification.

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive  
    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> The correct term "Species" means it cannot breed at all. 

So, two human women are obviously not the same species, because they 
can't breed, right? :-)

> had to exist **immediately** after the flood ended to explain how many 
> people saw them over 5,000 years ago.)

Not to mention the written records in China of dynasties more than 5000 
years old, yah.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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Warp wrote:
> Vincent Le Chevalier <gal### [at] libertyallsurfspamfr> wrote:
>> Warp a ?crit :
>>> There's a difference between an attitude like "I think this is a very
>>>  plausible theory, and I'm going to try to find even more evidence to
>>>  support it", and "this theory is the truth, and anyone who doubts it
>>>  is nuts and deserves ridicule".
> 
>> And which one you think is more common among creationists?
> 
>   Who was talking about creationists? I wasn't. I was talking about
> scientists.

I know. I asked you something different.

Do you doubt that the fundamentalists think you're crazy and deserve 
scorn if you don't believe what they do?

>   Or are you trying to say that since creationists ridicule scientists
> it then becomes ok for scientists to ridicule creationists? That's
> flawed logic.

No, the creationists deserve ridicule because they have crazy fixations 
with no support. They deserve ridicule just as we ridicule people who 
believe we've never gone to the moon, people who believe the earth is 
flat, and people who believe that Zeus makes lightning.

>> What do you think happens when a tenant of the first attitude tries to
>> discuss the matter with a tenant of the second attitude? No discussion
>> is possible, that's what happens.
> 
>   That's why it's impossible to discuss with some scientists (or, more
> usually, scientist wannabes).

I think if you want to actually discuss scientific things with a 
scientist, they'll be happy to talk to you without ridicule, no matter 
how wrong you are. If you spout unsupported and unsupportable 
creationist babble, and try to claim it's scientific, you won't get much 
discussion. Mostly because most people willing to discuss such things 
are tired of bashing their heads against unreasoning insanity.

>> Debunking has been done and redone and re-re-done, at some stage it
>> needs to stop.
> 
>   So the next logical step is to start mocking and ridiculing? Yes, that
> makes a whole lot of sense.

Indeed it does.

>> Ridiculing a religious nutcase
>> is in my opinion a valid weapon to use.
> 
>   Valid for what purpose? It certainly isn't constructive and can only
> make things worse.

In what way? You're not going to change the mind of the religious 
person. The best you can do is to get others to look at the 
fundamentalist's claims with common sense. Hearing ridicule often turns 
on the common sense, waking you up from seductive nonsense.

>> I'm all for doubting a theory as long as something else, new experiments
>> or a new interpretation of the old ones at least, is offered that makes
>> some sense. Doubting for the sake of doubting is not really interesting,
> 
>   That's exactly the flawed logic. "Since there's no alternative plausible
> theory, this theory must be true."

That's not what was said. You can doubt the theory, but on what grounds? 
Why would you doubt it, if it explains all the evidence?

>> because then you doubt, and then what?
> 
>   I don't even understand what you mean by that. 

He means, what do you do with that doubt?

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Sure looks like they figured everything was known, with only four other 
> competing theories of the shape of the model at the time.

> You're beginning to sound rather fanatical, making up easily refuted 
> statements about scientists being just as religious as those who argue 
> from lack of evidence.

  You always sound so arrogant, but in this case you are simply wrong,
sorry, and this time I have quite clear references. For example:

http://amasci.com/weird/end.html

  It is a well-known fact that it was more or less a consensus in the
scientific community of the late 1800's that almost everything that there
is to know about physics is already known.

> > arrogant attitude they don't only extrapolated that, but they stated that
> > it must be the only Truth, and that physics is complete. We know everything
> > there is to know.

> Show me where they stated that? Or are you just making up crap or 
> repeating what ignorant friends have told you?

  I urled to quotes above.

> I probably know more about the Bible too, is the sad part.

  More than who?

> >   Many arrogant scientists struggled for decades, fighting against the new
> > evidence. They couldn't admit being wrong. 

> You're so full of crap.

  You are being unusually rude today.

> Bohr came up with the first workable(*) model of 
> how an atom is arranged internally in 1911. Einstein won a Nobel prize 
> ten years later for explaining that Bohr was wrong and quantum physics 
> was right.

  And that somehow disproves the claim that a large amount of scientists
strongly opposed Eintein's and others' theories at first?

> >   Finally they had to submit and admit that perhaps physics was not complete
> > and that there might be something else to it than what they thought.

> Unlike religious people, who never admit that.

  First you say that I'm full of crap, and now you write as if what I said
was indeed true. Make up your mind.

  And why do you bring up religion into this?

> > They were wrong. Nowadays scientists assume that they can simply deduce what
> > happened millions of years ago, without actually going there. But this must
> > be the Truth.

> So you propose, instead, that dinosaurs were around 6000 years ago, 
> living with man, and Adam eating the tree of knowledge led to the 
> creation of weeds and the changing of dinosaurs and lions into carnivores?

  Where have I proposed that? Why do you insist in bringing religion
into this?

> Yes, the infamous "Et tu" logic. My religious beliefs are arrogant and 
> make me think I am omniscient. My religious beliefs tell me what 
> happened back when the world was young. However, scientists also are 
> arrogant and think they're right, so they can't be any righter than I am.

> Like I said, illogical.

  You certainly sound arrogant.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Mike Raiford <mra### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Warp, Have you ever had the pleasure of meeting a (or at least 
> interacting with online) one of the so-called born again southern 
> baptists. They usually tend to take the bible literally, and will 
> proselytize everyone they come in contact with. Maybe this is why some 
> atheists appear to be vehemently anti-Christian.

  I understand *why* so many atheists so vehemently oppose christianity
in particular, while having a much milder attitude towards other religions.
However, my point is that that kind of attitude is hypocritical.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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In article <473### [at] hotmailcom>, a_l### [at] hotmailcom 
says...
> Warp wrote:
> > 
> >   Regardless of whether evolution is true or not, that's one of the thi
ngs
> > which always make me laugh. Anti-christian atheists always consider so-
called
> > microevolution (eg. wolves and dogs having a common ancestor species) t
o be
> > the same thing as macroevolution (everything on Earth evolved from one
> > single living cell). Accepting the former but doubting the latter is
> > considered contradictory.
> I don't know if you ever read the origin of species, but for me the main
 
> point in it revolves around the concept of a species. I think the point
 
> where the devout christian Darwin turned away from a literal 
> interpretation of the bible is in the story of Noah's ark. While 
> thinking of the concept of a species and the definition of it he was 
> gradually forced to admit that there is no such concept as a species. 
> Undoubtedly a dog and an oak are not the same species, but that does not
 
> imply that for every two individual plants or animals you can decide 
> whether they are the same species or not, not even a supernatural being
 
> can do that. Hence there is no way that Noah's story can be true. After
 
> taking that hurdle Darwin freed himself from the literal interpretation
 
> of the bible and was able to take all the other steps.
> I am an atheist (though not an anti-christian one, some of my best 
> friends are Christian) and indeed I think that microevolution and 
> macroevolution are the same thing. Because the distinction is based on 
> the concept of a species, which may be handy concept in everyday live, 
> but scientifically it is fundamentally flawed. It is possibly comparable
 
> to using Newtonian physics. Handy in normal live, but we know that in 
> the end, nature is not like that.
>  >   Regardless of what is the truth, that logic is flawed.
> True, if you believe that 'species' is a well defined concept then it is
 
> indeed possible to believe one and not the other.
> 
Yes, there are two things you could call species - A) What looks 
different enough to call it one, and which is naturally separated enough 
by inclination, territory, etc. to remain separate or B) Things too 
different to interbreed. The first one is the traditional 
interpretation, while the second is a more strict version that doesn't 
work for about 90% of what we deem "species", at least in categories 
like cats, some birds, etc. Its a sloppy term. The joke of course is 
that the ID people muddle things even more, by inventing the term 
"kinds", which means little more than, "Things that look a lot alike, so 
must have all micro-evolved from one goat/horse/sheep/turtle/rabbit/etc. 
Though, I have to wonder, wouldn't someone have noticed if, within the 
unbelievably short time it would have needed to happen, billions of 
different colors, shapes and sizes of all those animals started popping 
up to fill in the gaps in the ecosystem all over the world? You would 
think *someplace* you would find a comment like, "Yesterday I had two 
rabbits, with brown fur and short ears. Today I have 12, some with sandy 
hair, some with floppy ears, some with puffy tails, some with larger 
than normal feet, and a myriad of other differences." lol They seem to 
forget that it would have taken time for all those species to spread 
across the globe, and change, and that there where **people** around to 
see all those stuff happening, so it had to have either happened in a 
really long time *before* any flood, so as to avoid the glaring lack of 
mention of sudden rapid changes being observed or it would have all had 
to have happened in literally days after they reached land again (with, 
again, no one noticing any of it), in order for there to be this many. 
Otherwise, by their own argument, if it took all of 6,000 years to do, 
then we, or someone in the last 6,000, should have seen new species just 
*popping* into existence to fill incomplete parts of the grand plan 
every day.

You can't have it both ways. It can't take time to diverge, but have the 
only time available to do that be **while** people where around to see 
it, or take no time at all for the entire planet to get filled up with 
billions of species, and have literally **no one**, including Noah and 
family, notice those billions of species popping into existence right 
and left to make it happen that way. Both are absurdly silly (not in the 
least because if the first version where true, they would have a damn 
hard time claiming we didn't observe anything evolve).

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive  
    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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Warp wrote:
>   There's no law in science which says that you must have an alternative
> theory in order to reasonably doubt an existing theory.

No, but there *is* a "law" that says you have to have some contradictory 
evidence. :-)

Now, if you're saying "Evolution isn't complete because it doesn't 
explain X", then sure, that's a reasonable doubt.

>   "I don't know an explanation for this, and this presented explanation
> seems too implausible to me" is a perfectly valid way of thinking, even
> scientifically. You don't need an alternative theory to be able to do
> that in a completely rational and valid basis.

Sure. You can "doubt" it, but without another theory, all you're really 
saying is "I don't understand this well enough to know why everyone else 
is convinced."

"Implausible" implies some degree of probability calculation. "I have no 
explanation for these photographs of people standing on the moon, but 
the presented explanation seems too implausible to me."

>   Take any unsolved question in science, which science has yet not an
> answer to, and present the theory "it happens because invisible gnomes
> do it from inside the Earth". Even if the scientist doesn't have any
> alternative theory to that, it's still completely valid for him to doubt
> that presented theory.

Right. That's because there's no evidence in *favor* of gnomes, either. 
There are literally countless theories that could explain something 
unsolved, and until you show how that explains something else also, or 
how you could do an experiment to show it's wrong, then it doesn't make 
sense to work strenuously towards the theory. It seems like a perfectly 
reasonable question to ask "why gnomes, and not unicorns?"

>   Is this some kind of philosophical question now? Do you get an
> existentialist crisis if there's something you don't know how and
> why it works?

You were talking about evolution, to start with, tho. We know there are 
theories that aren't complete. We know there are unanswered questions in 
every scientific theory. But most stuff tends to be refinements of what 
we already know in realms we couldn't measure before. Even quantum and 
relativity didn't overthrow newtonian physics - we still use that to 
shoot space probes.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> In article <473cde43@news.povray.org>, war### [at] tagpovrayorg says...
> > Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> > > Why the #@$@$@ is it flawed.
> > 
> >   You sound like a religious fanatic.
> > 
> Why? Because I got a bit annoyed and dared to ask a question?

  Because you used symbolized expletives where none was really needed,
and your overall tone was quite strong. Fanatics tend to shout and use
expletives when having a "discussion" with someone they disagree with.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Regardless of what is the truth, that just seems to be mocking for the
> sake of mocking. "Hahahaa! Look at all those idiots!"

I will point out that without the mocking, this long thread discussing 
scientific theory and practice would not have occurred. :-) Hence, the 
mocking obviously had some use here, getting some of the more religious 
people trying to defend their beliefs in some small way.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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In article <473d189a@news.povray.org>, 
pte### [at] thecommononethatstartswithYcom says...
> Warp wrote:
> 
> > Regardless of whether evolution is true or not, that's one of the thing
s
> > which always make me laugh. Anti-christian atheists always consider
> > so-called microevolution (eg. wolves and dogs having a common ancestor
> > species) to be the same thing as macroevolution (everything on Earth
> > evolved from one single living cell). Accepting the former but doubting
> > the latter is considered contradictory.
> > Regardless of what is the truth, that logic is flawed.
> 
> 
> Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, makes a claim that neoDarwini
an
> processes could not have brought about irreducibly complex processes such
> as formation of an eye.   He actually came to speak at a conference my
> church put on.   I asked him about whether a process of "change through
> descent" could bring about speciation.  He said yes, he believed it could
.
> 
> My 15 seconds of fame in the evolution debate.
> 
lol Self contradiction much? Behe is an example of someone who has a 
degree, but is clueless anyway. Every time he comes up with something 
*irreducible*, someone quotes a paper clearly showing how the mechanism 
arose from reducible processes. But the gem is, how can you get species, 
which in this case implies an irreducible result, via a process that 
can't produce irreducible systems?

Even sillier though is that several people, though I don't remember any 
of the links at the moment, have created simple computer programs that 
use random selection to produce irreducible function. Its very easy to 
get such a thing.

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive  
    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Every time he comes up with something 
> *irreducible*, someone quotes a paper clearly showing how the mechanism 
> arose from reducible processes. 

And even if it didn't, there's at least four or five other plausible 
ways of getting irreducible genetics into organisms that have nothing to 
do with God at all. So as a religious offering, "Evolution is wrong" 
doesn't really pan out.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Do you doubt that the fundamentalists think you're crazy and deserve 
> scorn if you don't believe what they do?

  Why should I care about what some fundamentalists think? I was not
talking about fundamentalists. And if they think like that, why should
I care about that either?

> >   Or are you trying to say that since creationists ridicule scientists
> > it then becomes ok for scientists to ridicule creationists? That's
> > flawed logic.

> No, the creationists deserve ridicule because they have crazy fixations 
> with no support. They deserve ridicule just as we ridicule people who 
> believe we've never gone to the moon, people who believe the earth is 
> flat, and people who believe that Zeus makes lightning.

  And that's exactly the idea I'm not comfortable with: That it's ok to
make fun of people if they are obviously wrong.

  That's an attitude which may be fit for small children, but IMO it's not
an attitude fit to civilized adults.

  Mocking and loathing is not constructive. It only makes animosities
stronger.

> >> Debunking has been done and redone and re-re-done, at some stage it
> >> needs to stop.
> > 
> >   So the next logical step is to start mocking and ridiculing? Yes, that
> > makes a whole lot of sense.

> Indeed it does.

  I disagree. The world is not getting any better with disrespect, mocking,
ridicule and loathing. It's only making things worse.

> >   Valid for what purpose? It certainly isn't constructive and can only
> > make things worse.

> In what way?

  In that it only deepens the animosity between the groups.

> You're not going to change the mind of the religious 
> person.

  So let's make things even worse and make him hate you?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp a écrit :
>> You're not going to change the mind of the religious person.
> 
> So let's make things even worse and make him hate you?
> 

You know the world is not made of just scientists and religious nuts.
There is a whole lot of people watching the debate...

If I have to be hated by one fool to prevent a hundred people following
him blindly because no-one wanted to sound confrontational, well so be
it. It does not make things worst overall.

-- 
Vincent

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Warp wrote:
>   You always sound so arrogant, but in this case you are simply wrong,
> sorry, and this time I have quite clear references. For example:
> 
> http://amasci.com/weird/end.html

OK, so for 20 years they thought they'd have everything figured out. 
That's hardly stagnation.

>> You're so full of crap.
>   You are being unusually rude today.

You are correct. I am still feeling unwell. I apologise.

>   And that somehow disproves the claim that a large amount of scientists
> strongly opposed Eintein's and others' theories at first?

Sure, but clearly for less than 10 years. Obviously, scientific change 
*does* take some time, or it's just technology.

>   And why do you bring up religion into this?

Must be something about the thread.  Hmmm... Could be the creationist 
museum concept?

>   Where have I proposed that? Why do you insist in bringing religion
> into this?

I dunno. I look at the subject line, and when you say "I believe 
evolution is implausible", I have to believe it's because you prefer the 
religious explanation.

>> Like I said, illogical.
>   You certainly sound arrogant.

"Please explain to this man the difference between arrogance and 
competence."

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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