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. ;)

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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."

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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."

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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.

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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...

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>>> 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.

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>> 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.)

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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

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On Sun, 17 Apr 2011 10:57:32 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Designing it so the car doesn't survive the crash but the people
>>> inside do would be even more miraculous...
>>
>> You've never seen a car crash (or the results of one), have you?  Most
>> of them are *designed* to crumple in order to protect the passengers.
> 
> 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.

Um, can you guarantee fatalities?  Because I'm sure that it's happened.  
100 MPH is two cars in a head-on collision doing only 50 MPH, remember.

Richard Hammond is still alive, for that matter - he was going 288 MPH 
when the "car" (it was a dragster with a jet assist, as I recall) he was 
in crashed.  He didn't walk away from it, but he didn't die, either (as 
evidenced by the fact that he's still presenting on Top Gear).

Jim

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On Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:15:53 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> 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.

Stock Car Racing.

And "the wall" and "other cars" count as solid objects to collide with, 
and those happen to be on the track at the time of the race.

Jim

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