On 4/17/2011 9:09 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/16/2011 16:35, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Try smog testing a car from Arizona in California, to re-license it, then
>> tell me how "everyone else in the use adopted their standards". lol
>
> It has been relatively recent. Try buying a Japanese car in the last 5
> or 10 years that doesn't meet the restrictions California imposes.
>
Yes, but Japan isn't in the "Hick" zone USA. The problem isn't that 
people "shipping" to California would match those standards, its that 
people 10 feet across a damn state line don't have to. :p

Post a reply to this message

On 14-4-2011 21:52, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> You've got to admit, when you read about stuff like people believing
> that ID is real science, it does make you wonder what kind of people
> live there.

If you take ID to be the idea that some protein(complexe)s can not have 
been evolved from earlier proteins, then that is a testable hypothesis. 
Stating and researching that idea was real science.

It turns out that all proposed systems were proven to be very easily 
evolvable from known components with no intermediate non-functional 
systems. All that is left now is the idea that such proteins might 
exist, but haven't been found yet. IMO the *search* for such unevolvable 
systems is still science. Though science that is so unlikely to be 
successful that no public money should be used to fund it. If a wealthy 
person want to support it, that should be OK and results should be 
published in the usual way.
However *teaching* it in a classroom as an alternative hypothesis 
against the theory of evolution is not science (education). Simply 
because the theory as it stands was proven wrong.

BTW would dissecting the cases brought forward by Behe at al. count as 
spending time on ID? Because that would be an ideal way to teach 
students how real science works.


-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

Post a reply to this message

On 4/17/2011 2:21 PM, andrel wrote:
> On 14-4-2011 21:52, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>
>> You've got to admit, when you read about stuff like people believing
>> that ID is real science, it does make you wonder what kind of people
>> live there.
>
> If you take ID to be the idea that some protein(complexe)s can not have
> been evolved from earlier proteins, then that is a testable hypothesis.
> Stating and researching that idea was real science.
>
> It turns out that all proposed systems were proven to be very easily
> evolvable from known components with no intermediate non-functional
> systems. All that is left now is the idea that such proteins might
> exist, but haven't been found yet. IMO the *search* for such unevolvable
> systems is still science. Though science that is so unlikely to be
> successful that no public money should be used to fund it. If a wealthy
> person want to support it, that should be OK and results should be
> published in the usual way.
> However *teaching* it in a classroom as an alternative hypothesis
> against the theory of evolution is not science (education). Simply
> because the theory as it stands was proven wrong.
>
> BTW would dissecting the cases brought forward by Behe at al. count as
> spending time on ID? Because that would be an ideal way to teach
> students how real science works.
>
>
There are a few teachers that have done that, as I understand, most of 
them college level though. The ID people, for some reason, haven't been 
at all happy with the few they found doing it. lol But, heh, what do you 
expect when some moron babbled "ontological depth", and then can't show 
you how to "messure" it on a pencil, never mind an organism. ;)

Post a reply to this message

On 4/17/2011 14:10, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> No, all too many of them are arguing worse.

Yes, but I don't think that's serious debate over the reality. That's just 
lying.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/17/2011 14:16, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> The problem isn't that people
> "shipping" to California would match those standards, its that people 10
> feet across a damn state line don't have to. :p

My point is that it's hard to buy a car outside of California that doesn't 
match California standards, because it's too expensive to retool for two 
different versions of the cars any more.  If you buy a Toyota while you live 
in Texas or New York, you're going to get one that meets CA emission 
standards. And you won't have to pay to bring it into CA.

Maybe that's not the case with Detroit cars, but I would be surprised.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 15/04/2011 22:25, andrel wrote:

> Oh no, that means that someone really believes that because the society
> as a whole seems to have almost exactly the right amount of bakers,
> plumbers and housewives that must imply that the society is designed by
> a supreme being. And that the proof of that is that society is
> irreducible complex because if you remove one group, the bakers or the
> policeman, or the bus drivers, or... the whole thing stops working,
> hence it cannot have been evolved.

That's not gonna work. Society is composed of individuals with 
intelligence [allegedly]. Complex things can only come about due to 
intelligence, so if unintelligent chemical soup becomes living, 
breathing complexity, it must be my invisible friend's intelligence that 
made it so.

Post a reply to this message

On 17/04/2011 17:07, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/17/2011 2:57, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> Yes, I know what a crumple zone is. But at 100MPH, there are going to be
>> fatalities, no matter which way you design a car.
>
> I take it the UK doesn't have any Formula-1 races?

Yeah, they do. But I'm pretty sure people driving road cars don't wear 
full-body flame-retardant suits, high-end crash helmets, custom-moulded 
seats, custom-calibrated seatbelts and heat restraints. I'm also fairly 
sure no known road car weighs as little as an F1 car, nor is quite as 
low to the ground. Also, walking around the Silverstone race circuit, 
there is a rather conspicuous absence of solid objects to collide with.

If you crash a road car, you're not going to fly across a gravel trap 
for half a mile and then hit a deformable tire wall. You're either going 
to hit another car, or else a tree or a concrete wall. I doubt anybody 
is going to walk away from that alive.

This is presumably why driving at 100MPH is an instant license revocation...

Post a reply to this message

>>> Improving public transportation to reduce the need for private cars is
>>> another efficient way to reduce pollution.
>>
>> See, now, where I live, the government thinks that making private
>> transport too expensive will make everybody use public transport.
>>
> Well, the "government" theory, at least among randian regressives is,
> "If we make driving your car expensive, companies will, for some
> unspecified reason, invest money in more public transportation"

This is the real WTF.

Post a reply to this message

>> You've got to admit, when you read about stuff like people believing
>> that ID is real science, it does make you wonder what kind of people
>> live there.
>
> If you take ID to be the idea that some protein(complexe)s can not have
> been evolved from earlier proteins, then that is a testable hypothesis.
> Stating and researching that idea was real science.

So there's a theory, the theory has been repeatedly proven wrong, 
there's no particular reason to believe that it might be right in some 
unknown case, and yet people continue to assert the truth of this theory 
as *fact*? Doesn't sound very rational to me...

> BTW would dissecting the cases brought forward by Behe at al. count as
> spending time on ID? Because that would be an ideal way to teach
> students how real science works.

I commend the idea.

Right along side showing how String Theory, despite looking far more 
professional than ID, is also not [yet] science. (And examining why it 
has the potential to /become/ science in a way that ID does not.)

Post a reply to this message

On 4/12/2011 4:06 PM, Warp wrote:
>    Following this from abroad, I don't know if this should be amusing or
> frightening...
>
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/03/antievolution-bill-tennessee-progresses-006545
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/03/intelligent-design-legislation-texas-006531
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/03/antievolution-legislation-florida-006524
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/02/antievolution-legislation-new-mexico-006469
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/01/second-antievolution-bill-oklahoma-006439
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/01/antievolution-legislation-missouri-006421
> http://ncse.com/news/2011/01/antievolution-legislation-kentucky-006389
>

Both ....

-- 
~Mike

Post a reply to this message