1. Only a Theory

Comment #195044 by beeline on June 17, 2008 at 3:32 pm

As you yourself admitted, it's unlikely to work so well in Europe.

No, I said that the carrier contract plans have not yet been made public for Europe. The original plan here was indeed for only one carrier (O2), but they realised that was a mistake, and so will probably open it to other carriers as well. We'll see.

I'm in the UK, so no problems for me here - plenty of 3G. Obviously 3G isn't going to work so well in the states, but it also has all the other connection options: GPRS, EDGE, HSPA, WiFi, etc. All other phones suffer from the same problem.

That's an interesting comparison list, and I'd agree about a couple of them - I'm an avid Symbian fan, in fact, having been 'brought up' on Psion equipment, and having owned various Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones.

The person who wrote that list is very unfamiliar with the iPhone's capabilities, however - unsurprising, as it was written in Jan 2007, before the reviewer had had a chance to actually use one (they weren't out for another 6 months).

Also: there is video streaming; there is a full web 2.0 browser; it runs Unix BSD; there will shortly be literally thousands of professional applications to download (including support for all known video and sound formats); VoIP is already possible; Etc Etc Etc. As I said, that comparison is quite wide of the mark, and will soon be almost completely wrong in every respect.

Anyway, people very rarely comprehend the magnitude of the impact that actually sitting down and using one for a while has on you. You can look at the specs and the features lists all you like, and pick your way through the minefield of opinions - most of which will be largely uninformed - but it's the actual using of the thing that Apple gets so right, and you can't put that in a comparison list because it's so personal.

And it's not something that anyone can explain to you, or convince you of, either. You just have to see for yourself. And I can't quite stretch to sending you one, I'm afraid...

As with operating systems, it's largely a matter of 'who your clan is', and what you're used to using that will make the difference. If you decide to hate Apple, then you'll never know, which would be a shame.

2. Only a Theory

Comment #194960 by beeline on June 17, 2008 at 1:09 pm

Nokia interfaces are generally the top of all cell phones. The only way apple has ever made people dumb enough to buy their products is to make them color coded and cater to the female audience by reducing the number of features supported.

Hmmm - I'm not convinced you've used an Apple machine recently, or at all, possibly - and would be very surprised if you've ever used an iPhone, given that description.

It does sound a bit like your opinion has simply been copied from those around you that love to hate Apple, and not directly from familiarity with the products themselves. There are similar-sounding arguments from those that hate Microsoft (and have probably never used XP either).

In my experience of platforms for writing, researching and coding, you get what you pay for.

The tech specs on iPhone 2 answer your questions, although it's not yet clear how the network operations are going to work in Europe yet. There's talk of it being multi-network, but who knows. In any case, I intend to hack mine immediately, as I'm not a fan of 'lock-in' technology from either Apple or Microsoft.

Whether it crashes more or less than a Nokia I couldn't say. They're all computers running software, and therefore all have bugs somewhere. (Although I've not found any yet...)

3. Only a Theory

Comment #194906 by beeline on June 17, 2008 at 11:48 am

That's just wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Crime rates, and violent crime rates in particular, are lower now than they were when we had much smaller communities, as a simple Google search will show you.

Can you give me some help with that simple Google search. I can't really work out how to get that kind of information. (Nor do I believe it's possible to.) The type of small communities I'm referring to are those that precede cities, so I doubt whether the figures are available.

AtheistJon, I'm sure the Nokia can outperform the iPhone in many ways, but not even remotely closely on actual 'useability'. Interface is everything. Just watch what happens when the iPhone two comes out in a few weeks...

4. Only a Theory

Comment #194610 by beeline on June 17, 2008 at 4:05 am

It's a very clever law, because it allows for a far greater effect than the court could offer: a kind of public sentence. By using 'not proven' instead of 'not guilty', the court is *efffectively* saying to the public "Look, you know he's guilty as hell, we know it too, but there's just not enough evidence there."

This genuinely is a punishment, however: the public will be reassured that he's guilty, share the judge's public frustration that we can't nail this crim, and turn on him themselves, making sure his reputation is suitably tarnished, and, if the crime is severe enough, shutting him out of the community. (This being enacted, you'll realise, back when Scotland was nearly all small communities.)

It almost amounts to the court remarking, as a half-aside: "Okay, you can lynch him if you want". But slightly more restrained these days, perhaps.

Of course this doesn't really have any effect now that cities are so large, with a greater and greater proportion of the population living in them. Crime is rife then because criminals can be anonymous amongst the general public. There are too many of us, and anonymity grants liberty to criminals.

If everyone could become connected again somehow, as we once physically were when living in small communities where everyone knew everyone. Then crime would disappear. Some people think that this is what the truly mobile internet might bring, somehow. 'll settle for an iPhone and watch it all happen.

Even more useful would be its application to people like Behe and Ben Stein, who we can't "prove" are greedy, lying publicity seekers with a misfiring ethical system, but we can label them 'not proven'.

Which we kind of do already. But it would be nice to have it 'all up in one place'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenanters - the history seems a little 'dense' but it probably was the English. :-P

http://www.apple.com/iphone

http://www.expelledexposed.com/

5. Only a Theory

Comment #194189 by beeline on June 16, 2008 at 2:12 pm

But within the scientific community there is NO controversy! Not one decent scientific paper. Not one falsifiable hypothesis. Nothing.

Exactly - and that's what the course will show.

However, as well as deliberating over 'controversy', the course will also need to help non-scientific people avoid confusion. It's generally only confused people who sense a controversy, because they don't understand what science generally tries to do.

To avoid confusion, the course will touch on the ways that people over the centuries have tried to disprove various scientific theories, talking about the successful attempts (and consequent improvements in those theories, or their abandonment) and the unsuccessful attempts (which theories are still around today).

Hi Beeline, I'm not familiar with (or at least I don't remember)the Carl Sagan "Dragon in the Garage" sketch. Could you refresh our memories?

Googling 'sagan dragon garage' brings it up as the top hit. It's wonderfully simple, and It might be worth quoting in full here. Buy the book, though - it's incandescently brilliant.

The Dragon In My Garage
by Carl Sagan

"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"

Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle -- but no dragon.

"Where's the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick." And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so. The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility. Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative -- merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."

Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons -- to say nothing about invisible ones -- you must now acknowledge that there's something here, and that in a preliminary way it's consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.

Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages -- but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence" -- no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it -- is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.

6. Only a Theory

Comment #193733 by beeline on June 16, 2008 at 1:10 am

I think that "strengths and weaknesses" DO need to be taught, but only in a 'higher up' course about the methods of science generally. In fact, the philosophy of science should come a long time before any actual science is taught: you just need to introduce the modes of reasoning such as those introduced in Sagan's "Dragon in the Garage" sketch.

Also, if "strengths and weaknesses" are taught in the proper place - at the 'top' of the science curriculum, it will not leave open a door for ID Creationists to wheel in their barrows of crap, because it won't be focusing specifically on evolution.

And we all know that there aren't any ID-Creationist cabals that like to focus on Newton's Laws, or electromagnetism, or calculus, or energy conservation, or quantum mechanics, or... (etc etc etc)

Teach the controversy, but teach it 'higher up' to show that really there is none.

7. Behe's Empty Box

Comment #193278 by beeline on June 15, 2008 at 6:55 am

Am I the only one who noticed what an INCREDIBLY GREAT COLLECTION OF LINKS and INFORMATION there is on that page by John Catalano. An incredibly detailed and structured knowledge resource for everyone.

He sounds like an excellent guy.

8. Probe lands on Mars, NASA says

Comment #185814 by beeline on May 28, 2008 at 4:50 pm

I share your dismay, and the problem stems from a very common misconception: that there is such a thing as 'Americans' - there isn't, but people will tend to generalise on very little evidence.

By which I mean that there are smart people and dumb people, and liars and cheats, and they're spread all over the world. They happen to be making a lot of noise in America right now, because there's a niche for them to make money and grasp some power, and soon it will be the UK too (where I also live, by the way).

It just so happens that America has fabulous technology as well, so it bemuses most people who don't understand the diversity that exists there.

I expect that if we showed a truly proportional representation of who thinks what (rather than these wholly inaccurate public opinion polls which keep getting reported), we'd find there would be far more rational people around than the media, us included, makes out.

'Americans' - whoever they are - do tend to get a bad rep, and I guess the only way to not get upset is to realise that when people say 'Americans this...' and 'Americans that...' they are generalising massively and disproportionately, largely, as you say, from their ignorance, and probably for snobbish effect.

And the sad thing is that it doesn't matter how far we advance scientifically, there will still be uneducated people around, and unethical people to exploit them...

9. Probe lands on Mars, NASA says

Comment #185679 by beeline on May 28, 2008 at 9:49 am

FightingFalcon, I'm perfectly sure we have the same aims, but your repremand seems to be based on some unrealistic assumptions about the way people behave in different media.

Surely you've noticed the difference in tone of discussion between interactive internet forums and broadcast-only communications with the general public?

People on websites are self-selecting because most websites with a particular cause will only be attractive to those who support that cause, who will then register. It's natural, therefore, when amongst a population of your brothers in the cause, that you don't need to be careful, or control your emotions - 'hysteria' as you call it. It's safe, because the general public at large doesn't read these kind of things: attached forums on intellectual websites. They're not interested in it *that* much.

When preparing material for books, broadcasts and lectures, however, it's completely different. You know that people may be listening or hearing about you in the media, and also be vastly more numerous. You're careful with what you say, and keep calm and rational - all the things you rightly mention. It matters in these media how you behave.

But not here. As long as we give each other what humans really want most - support in our convictions - and help each other feel part of a community, we can be as raucous as we like, and be fairly sure that it's practically 'behind closed doors'. All groups of people with a cause or conviction behave in this way, attracting themselves together and giving mutual support. Sometimes stewards emerge, and attempt to exploit and control vast groups for long-term power, which is what happens with dictatorial governments and the more politically-inclined religions.

Every week now I see bills being put to US State Education Boards, who have mostly - as you say - been dumping them, but the point is that the ID creationists are trying really hard, so sometimes a little hysteria to get the public's attention, and let them know that this is going on, and that they should resist it any way they can, is probably worth it.

10. Probe lands on Mars, NASA says

Comment #185112 by beeline on May 27, 2008 at 2:05 am

Are you suggesting NASA disbelieve their telemetry? Well I suppose they did manage to crash the previous two attempts... :-D

My post is directed more toward Europeans who have never been to America and don't understand it, yet believe everything they read in the media about how the American education system is literally being taken over by evangelical Christians. It's annoying seeing that idea constantly pop up on this board.

Er, the American education system IS literally being taken over by evangelical Christians. Yes, they're doing it slowly, eeking their way into local school boards, so they can change the children's minds, and from there into local government, and then state government.

They're changing the legal implications of religion in the USA, and by the time they've done it in a widespread enough manner for everyone to be able to say "Look what they're doing" it'll be too late.

That's why the "bitching" is needed right now.

As you can see, from the postings on RDF or Pharyngula, these "churchianity" political organisations are starting off in the traditionally evangelical areas like Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc. - why wouldn't they: obviously they want to start somewhere they'll have an easier time of it - although thankfully they've mostly been squashed because enough people are 'bitching' to know what the alternative (doing nothing) means: ending up with an even more religious state where totalitarian control is the norm.

I don't think anybody here genuinely believes or can show that America is 'going down the tubes', as you contend they do, or that evangelists have got control of everything yet, because it's obvious they haven't. But the only thing stopping them doing so is this kind of 'bitching' that puts opponents in their way to stop them.

Sure, most people here - myself included - are armchair flag-wavers, but we are representative of the beliefs (or lack of them) that we think should be held by government and education establishments.

11. Probe lands on Mars, NASA says

Comment #184752 by beeline on May 26, 2008 at 5:39 am

For the next, what, five years at most, maybe.

And anyway, there's a time-lag between destroying an educational system and seeing its effects when those children go into work. If we let fundamentalist churchianity get ANY kind of power in governments and education, then those countries will suffer further down the line. It's already happening. Right now.

This is why there's 'bitching' on here. The troops are rallying, or haven't you noticed?

12. Probe lands on Mars, NASA says

Comment #184735 by beeline on May 26, 2008 at 4:49 am

There should be a specific name for that phobia - the fear of crushing disappointment after increasing expectation, as in discovering socks in a Christmas present.

I humbly submit 'apogoitephobia' (Anc. Greek: 'apogoitevon': disappointment)

Of course it'll be horribly difficult to work out whether it's Martian life, or whether we sent it there, clinging to the side of Phoenix. Remember the story about the bacteria inside the Apollo camera, brought back after years on the moon's surface, and finding live bacteria in that, from some guy who purportedly sneezed while putting it together?

13. What Genes Remember

Comment #184734 by beeline on May 26, 2008 at 4:35 am

It's a well-formulated theory in some respects, and would fit absolutely within the current framework of evolution. It would in no way challenge natural selection.

Although, as has been claimed, a lot of people who don't understand neo-Darwinism, and instead rely on their intuition to give them this sort of Lamarckian idea of evolution, it does not necessarily follow that the reverse is true: that those who think there may be something in the genetic transfer of environmental factors don't understand neo-Darwinism.

Neo-Darwinism states that the gene is the unit of replication, and any effects that its mutations bring about in the world of the bodies that actually increase its rate of replication will gradually increase it frequency in the gene pool.

Now, as the gene codes for the brain and the senses as well, and we already have a great deal of evidence for the communication between DNA and body/brain development in vitro, it shouldn't be considered impossible that some aspects of this may have been missed, and are only just becoming identifiable.

Genes that represent factors in a bodily or social environment are just the same as genes that represent factors in a genetic environment; they're just one step further off, and not necessarily out of bounds enough for natural selection not to 'notice' it.

Look at Haldane's and Stebbins's calculations of how small an advantage (in their case, in size) an organism needs to have to give it a walloping great surge of growth in a few hundred thousand generations. And if it works for size, then it can work for other advantages, of any type at all, that are good for that organism.

Listen to Dawkins talk about this here , almost exactly 28 minutes in.

Now, if some genes in our bodies had ANY kind of representation of their current environmental parameters, while they were in a particular body, and that information had ANY advantage at all in getting that body to pass this gene and all its comrades into the next generation, then natural selection will 'spot' it and it will spread.

Just because it's good at getting itself spread. This is the core of Neo-Darwinism, and not something that should be considered 'alternative' or 'in opposition' at all.

Obviously, nobody's done the experiments or tested any predictions concerning this idea, because it's only just becoming possible to study this sort of thing. But it's still perfectly plausible mechanistically, and I bet it will turn out to have some basis in truth.

I've not seen any clear arguments given so far that would deny the possibility of the effect - prove it wrong. And if it's not been proved wrong, or shown to be fallacious or otherwise ill-formed, then it's still a contender, surely.

14. Probe lands on Mars, NASA says

Comment #184692 by beeline on May 26, 2008 at 1:31 am

I'm still dying to see a creation science spacecraft even get built, never mind blast into orbit, zoom to another planet, enter its atmosphere, land by itself, deploy its own power source and send back pictures...

15. What Genes Remember

Comment #184689 by beeline on May 26, 2008 at 1:23 am

It's certainly not impossible that the environment could affect an organism's genetic make-up while it is alive. This happens all over the place, as we already know, during developmental stages, before and after birth. It's just a question of whether high-level cognitive experiences can get information into the genes, and what the mechanism is.

It's silly to reject it because it doesn't "seem possible". It's just information, and as we know, that stuff has a tendency to permeate boundaries without respect to what we happen to think is 'reasonable'.

Let's repeat the old mantra of biological adaptation: "Evolution is smarter than you". If you've thought of it, chances are that evolution thought of it millions of years ago, and had several goes at it...

16. A bit of Fry & Laurie - Sex talk in class

Comment #181815 by beeline on May 18, 2008 at 9:54 am

This is approaching the limits of Poe's law :-D

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Poe's_Law

17. What really goes on at the Large Hadron Collider

Comment #175827 by beeline on May 6, 2008 at 6:04 am

Good job there aren't any other irregularities of pronunciation in English that confuse us as much as kilOMeter.

There is no such thing as 'correct' pronunciation, as a quick listen to any of the tens of thousands of English accents on Earth will testify. And there aren't any rules that dictate whether there should even be any consistency or systematisation to pronunciation.

The only simple rule is that people pronounce words in the way that they've heard them pronounced, and will generally pick up pronunciation patterns from those they respect, or like, or that appear to have some authority.

Language is utterly fluid. Your grandparents would hate the way that you speak, and you will hate the way your grandchildren speak.

Accept it, or spend your remaining years ranting! :-D

18. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175264 by beeline on May 5, 2008 at 3:44 am

Bill Gates probably never used a computer.

I *really* wanted to click 'Strongly Agree' after that one...

19. Lecture on Neo-Darwinism

Comment #160944 by beeline on April 14, 2008 at 3:10 pm

Richard makes a slight but unimportant error (at just after 7 minutes in) about the source of Fleeming Jenkin's review of [i]On the Origin of Species[/i]. He mentions it was from Edinburgh Review, whereas it was actually from The Northern British Review (June 1867, 46, pp. 277-318). Here it is in full:

http://www.victorianweb.org/science/science_texts/jenkins.html

It was the Edinburgh Review that printed Owen's review, which is on the same site:

http://www.victorianweb.org/science/science_texts/owen_review_of_origin.html

They're both quite interesting reading, giving a rather uncomfortable view into the Victorian proto-scientific mind, but also the similarities to the 'arguments' (and I use that word quite wrongly) that some of today's fleas rustle up from their intellectual compost heaps.

20. Rep. Davis: The Worst Person in the World

Comment #157416 by beeline on April 9, 2008 at 4:26 am

I sometimes think it's uncharacteristically kind of people like this to let us know, in very clear terms, what kind of fool they are, which is odd, because you'd think they'd want to hide it.

It's a delicious irony of the universe that foolishness, by its very nature, will reveal itself because the fool is too foolish to know how to hide it, and in some cases to even realise that they should do if they want to 'get ahead'.

Foolish people aren't really a worry when compared to clever, dishonest people, who are good at 'hiding' and cheating.

21. Rep. Davis: The Worst Person in the World

Comment #157361 by beeline on April 9, 2008 at 1:45 am

I recognised Rep. Davis's behaviour immediately because I have a two year-old child.

When she doesn't get what she wants, and realises too late that there's a good reason for it, she fights back with the only weapon left in her arsenal: shrieking irrationally.

It's called "a tantrum".

Yelping religious dogma is the 'grown up' version of shrieking because it uses big grown-up-sounding words.

22. The Dog Allusion

Comment #128512 by beeline on February 17, 2008 at 9:14 am

And just like dogs, sometimes our gods bite the hand that feeds them.

Oh no, wait, they don't. The tail wags the god.

Hey, there's a lot of mileage in this...

23. Could there be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?

Comment #104909 by beeline on December 30, 2007 at 12:01 am

I have been unable to discover the source of Picasso's claim, which is nicely balanced by a better known remark by a more down-to-earth creative genius, Thomas Edison: 'Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.' (1932)

As much as I know Picasso (which is admittedly little) I know that this quotation is a regular bedfellow of one of his others, framed along somewhat similar lines:

If you know exactly what you are going to do, what is the point of doing it?

This is essentially an intellectual stance about what creativity - and art generally - is, in his opinion. Picasso didn't mean that he didn't do any 'searching in design space' - quite the opoosite, in fact. He meant that the process of creating (his) art was less about thinking of an idea and then executing it perfectly, as it was about wandering almost aimlessly, in a Zen-like state of openess and trial and error, until stumbling upon the thing that he was 'supposed to create', and then working on it until it shone.

It combined openness of mind - preparedness to accept and nurture creative inspiration when it comes - with accidental discovery as the random seed.

The point he was trying to make was that to be original in art, which is something he strove for (and wrote about) all his life, you can't have pre-conceived ideas in your mind, or you will just follow the other artists whose ideas will inevitably fill your mind. Obviously you will suffer from this, as a human being, but you must *try* to get rid of them and strike out on your own, which, you could argue, he did with more success than most humans.

So in a way he was both very 'wandering randomly through design space' - almost to the point of purposefully forsaking any pre-existing paths that he came across - but then also very 'R and D' when the moment seized him. Not something that fits well with any one evolutionary argument.

24. Hello Again, Michael Behe!

Comment #86331 by beeline on November 9, 2007 at 1:53 am

I don't have a PhD at all, but I really REALLY believe some things A LOT, so that must mean I'm right, yeah? :-D

25. Evolutionary Design

Comment #71190 by beeline on September 18, 2007 at 2:22 am

Erm... I was quoting exactly what he said, not what you generously interpret him as having said. That second sentence is entirely yours, together with its meaning.

Computers can quite clearly not do "all that nature can do" - they can't exert selection pressure in any meaningful way as far as CAED goes - that's why a human is needed on the end to pick the offspring that looks 'best' for their end purposes.

Note how I said:

What made me stumble was his (probably inadvertent) use of the word 'all'

(albeit spelled correctly this time!) - he almost certainly knows what he means, but to someone who doesn't, he might appear confusing.

Anyway, I think we're in danger of being led off-track here. I understand the CAED discipline very well, but - and this is the important bit - from the point of view of a viewer who might not (and who also might be a teetering theist of some kind) I'd like to have seen a better distinction between the two parts of evolution:

1. The random mutation and variation (nature and computers can both do this easily)

2. The selection (only nature and human design engineers can do this bit).

This would make it clear that there is no room for a designer in the natural world - i.e. no natural (or, rather, supernatural) analogue for our own position as designer/selector in the CAED process.

This is the whole point of this website isn't it? Not to have petty arguments amongst ourselves, but to agree on ways to be able to explain more and more clearly to people who don't have a clear picture why evolution by natural selection is the only real contender for the complexity we see around us.

I think that 'argument' is overrated. While it might give us the temporarily exciting thrill of confrontation (from a very safe position), a calm, well-structured and careful explanation is far more powerful in the long term.

26. Evolutionary Design

Comment #70947 by beeline on September 17, 2007 at 9:56 am

I assume you've either not watched as far as 1:38 in the video, or can't understand his accent...

27. Evolutionary Design

Comment #70832 by beeline on September 17, 2007 at 3:36 am

No - you have it exactly. What made me stumble was his (probably inadvertant) use of the word 'all':

All the computer can do is what nature can do, namely generate variations...

This is not all that nature can do - nature also has natural selection built in, as you say, whereas the computer system does not (the selection is external - i.e. us).

Simplifying nature's processes to that of a computer is to miss the most interesting part about evolution: the selection part. One day computers will be able to simulate this as well - but who knows to what end?

However, at the current state-of-the-art of CAED, the computer is just being used for the provision of variation and the display of the analogous 'phenotypes' - the generational products amongst which we must continually select.

Admittedly, there are systems where the system can also do the selecting - systems where the fitness of a particular design can be objectively measured, such as finding the fastest algorithm for sorting numbers, or recognising known shapes - but these all have test data available as a 'target'. Biological evolution has no such targets in mind - it's driven by completely short-term goals.

(Of course, the words 'mind' and 'goal' should also be in scare-quotes, because the whole process is mindless.)

28. Evolutionary Design

Comment #70810 by beeline on September 17, 2007 at 1:28 am

Hmmm...

"All the computer can do is what nature can do, namely generate variations... you know, random variations... which are recombinations or mutations of previous solutions."

And then - in his computational analogy, the 'engineer' selects the mutation he wants to breed from. (I paraphrase.)

He's left out the most important part of what nature does that computers don't do: Darwinian Natural Selection. Silly mistake, but very common. Plays right into the hands of those that insist that this technology 'proves' (and I use the word quite wrongly here) that an 'engineer' or 'designer' is needed.

"Everyone thinks they understand evolution." :-D

Fascinating stuff, though, and very powerful - if a bit slow and dead-end-ridden, like the 'real thing'.

29. Public Debate on Complexity and Evolution

Comment #61193 by beeline on August 4, 2007 at 5:32 am

Wolpert showed his usual, somewhat ossified misunderstanding of natural selection, when asking whether it was possible to wake up tomorrow morning as a platypus.

As Dawkins pointed out in the answer to an earlier question, evolution acts not on individuals, but on populations of individuals.

Come on Wolpert - you're not really thinking very clearly, and actually muddying the waters rather a lot with your 'I don't believe this' and 'I don't believe that'. Think about things a bit more, and try to rely less on your past achievements.

Credibility and respect cannot be bought: you have to rent them, by making regular 'payments'.

30. Interview with Dan Dennett on Danish TV

Comment #54411 by beeline on July 7, 2007 at 12:52 am

Has anyone seen a meme or explained how one could work physically?

Have you ever seen a 'bit' of information, or a 'word', and can you explain how they work 'physically'?

Memes, genes, bits and words are all just information packets that manifest themselves in different physical media. Genes use molecules, bits use electromagnetic charges, words use ink shapes on paper, or sound waves (and who knows what else in the brain...)

Just because you can't 'throw it in the air and catch it' doesn'e mean it's nonsense. Information is not like solid matter.

31. Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it

Comment #53360 by beeline on July 1, 2007 at 2:53 am

Not that I wish to come across all 'Cult of the Children' or anything, but in a recent lecture Davies gave in Oxford to promote his 'Goldilocks' book, he was quite brilliantly tripped up by a small boy.

The question that this boy asked was very simple, and addressed the very idea that Davies was using to sell his book. He asked (and I paraphrase):

If some of the constants were different, wouldn't evolution just work the same way it does in our universe, and just make life evolve in some other way, but still filling in the available niches?

Probably so. As has been said above: we can't know what other kinds of life are possible wth other sets of constants. And of course you can't change just one constant - they're very likely all connected: if one is different, they quite possibly all are...

32. Darwin Still Rules, but Some Biologists Dream of a Paradigm Shift

Comment #52743 by beeline on June 28, 2007 at 1:25 am

I have to say that I'm confused as to what this article is trying to communicate - it almost reminds me of one of Gould's essays given another turn around the block.

What, exactly, is wrong with the modern synthesis that makes 'many biologists' yearn for a change? What evidence or data are there, exactly, that we're having trouble explaining with current theories? What is it that requires a new framework or 'paradign shift' (simplistic Kuhnism that it is)?

I think a few more examples or quotations of the perceived wall that biologists are apparently pushing against could have been helpful, along with some names and references. I realise it's only a NYT piece, but still...

If there is a wall, it's a complexity one, which is not really a biological issue but a computational one. Combinations of genes, developmental and environmental effects produce a bewildering array of adaptations to be sure, but none of these, as far as I'm aware, flout any of the generally prescriptive ideas of the modern synthesis.

As I say, I'm confused, so I may have entirely missed the point.

33. In the name of the Father

Comment #51477 by beeline on June 23, 2007 at 3:55 am

Religious leaders didn't get where they are today by not being 'a bit over the top'...

34. In the name of the Father

Comment #51458 by beeline on June 23, 2007 at 2:15 am

What a vacuous piece of writing, Harries. You are essentially saying "Religion is not to blame: we are." Right, so religion somehow exists outside our brains, does it?

Agreed, everyone needs to cooperate and find 'a political solution', but the biggest problem to overcome is that these are RATIONAL processes, that require each side to have some kind of respect for what can be shown to be true, and what cannot, and religions are not prepared to concede any ground here.

As long as they insist that what they think - unqualified by evidence and testing as it is - is 'unquestionably true', and continue to put their fingers in their ears and hum to themselves if challenged, then there is no hope for dialogue, cooperation or 'justice'.

If, as Harries insists, 'the people' are at fault, then perhaps we should try to work out how they've been led astray and hurriedly shoo-ed away from the path of questioning, and stop that from happening. Perhaps we should stop large, powerful , politically-protected institutions from leading people into separatist, segregated factions, so that the guides can increase their hold and wealth by 'helping manage' the struggle (which they themselves have created).

That is Hitchens's message: throw a clog in the machinery of organised religions. They - and the people who support them and benefit from them - bishops included - are as unjust as any organised crime syndicate.

35. Richard Dawkins on his online alterego

Comment #50675 by beeline on June 19, 2007 at 11:28 am

The problem with Second Life is that my character spends all his time in Third Life...

36. Global Warming (includes commentary about creationism)

Comment #40457 by beeline on May 14, 2007 at 10:07 am

"The Great Global Warming Swindle" has an excellent debunking of its own, by Ben Goldacre:

http://www.badscience.net/?p=383

37. Street Evangelist Saves 300 Souls From Enjoying Park

Comment #33837 by beeline on April 22, 2007 at 4:37 am

Hmmm. The satire:

Oops!

The page or image you requested cannot be found.

is a bit too subtle and complex for me...

38. Dinesh D'Souza says I don't exist: an atheist at Virginia Tech

Comment #33407 by beeline on April 20, 2007 at 3:26 am

It's tremendously easy to shout, criticise and hurl abuse. But it's just the stupid person's substitute for intelligence, humility and compassion.

D'Souza is an embarrassing brat to everyone who knows him. Including himself, I suspect.

39. The Empty Wager

Comment #33094 by beeline on April 19, 2007 at 6:48 am

People will then often say "But surely it's better to remain an Agnostic just in case?" This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I've been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would chose not to worship him anyway.)

Douglas Adams; Interview with American Atheist Magazine.

40. Dawkins says religion is 'like sucking a dummy'

Comment #28386 by beeline on March 29, 2007 at 3:39 am

Perhaps more people were inclined to vote (rather than voting 'don't know') after having heard the debate...

41. Richard Dawkins at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival

Comment #28097 by beeline on March 28, 2007 at 1:14 am

McGrath (and his ilk) are doing for rational thought what the old-school creationists are doing with open religiousness: running away from it to hide where they can't be got at.

Those who are becoming uneasy (especially in America) with the religious umbrella are seeking sanctuary in Intelligent Design, which *appears* more respectable, and isn't open to the sort of anti-faith-based attacks that religion suffers from, especially post-911. By packaging themselves as 'scientific' (which they're obviously not) they can dodge most of the bullets.

McGrath does the same thing. By seeking sanctuary in the emotional and touch-feely side of the concepts, he removes hiself from the fatal line of fire that rational argument is laying down. He knows this full well, and knows that he can go on arguing this way for ever, without ever being 'shot down'.

Rational thought and personal conviction can never really cross swords. Dawkins is playing tennis, but McGrath doesn't even have a racket, or come on to the court. He's in the parlour playing charades, and doesn't care if nobody else is playing: he has an audience.

42. Believers are away with the fairies

Comment #27892 by beeline on March 27, 2007 at 6:19 am

Quote: "If you want effective longing change, you must be willing to organize, maintain and grow an influential constituency, to defend yourself against the pernicious will of other religious constituencies who could care less if you were criminalized for having a negatively perceived lifestyle."

That's a pretty good definition of an organised religion, and illustrates my point, I think. To those that don't have the education or patience to understand the different between faith and non-faith, the two fighting houses would look like the same thing, and it would be down to something arbitrary, like 'whether they like the figurehead's character' that determined which camp they joined.

It's obvious that an 'organisation' of rational atheists could do far more damage to religion - I'm not doubting that for a moment, and nor could anyone who understands the power of media - but I am suggesting that it should be avoided simply because any organisation will more and more closely resemble the very structures, complete with internal politics and corruption of people and ideas, to which it is opposed.

I maintain that Darwin was an individual who probably changed more of the population's ideas about religion than any single human being.

It's obviously the case that people like him won't 'stop religion' - I doubt it's possible to stamp it out because it's so well adapted to our brains. But he certainly made significant headways into the religious camp, and therefore shows that it's possible, even just by being an individual. Likewise with Richard's book, which is backed by no 'organisation'.

Change in a system as complex as a society can be far more long-lasting when it's not 'forced', just like in an ecosystem. We have to *give* people the material to make up their own minds, not try to force it down their throats en-masse, Otherwise we risk being rejected by the same reflexes that disgust us in religious evangelical proselytes.

43. Believers are away with the fairies

Comment #27858 by beeline on March 27, 2007 at 4:13 am

However, I do agree with pauliej above - media channels can always be more effectively used when there's money around. And money requires organisational structure.

It's the old 'becoming what you are fighting' problem that we need to keep a constant, vigilant eye on...

44. Believers are away with the fairies

Comment #27857 by beeline on March 27, 2007 at 4:11 am

Quote: "Individual secular thinkers have existed prior to many of today's organized religious groups, yet they've never made an effective impact on society."

Erm, Hume, Darwin, Dawkins... practically any scientist in the past 400 years...

I don't quite understand the rest of your comments, I'm afraid. 'Solitary rationalists' are very powerful people, especially if they understand the channels through which to amplify their voices, e.g. blogging, writing newspaper and magazine articles and, most noticeably, writing critical, best-selling books.

You don't necessarily need an organisation to be 'organised' or affect society. After all, voting is individual, but its effects are felt on an organisational level.

45. Believers are away with the fairies

Comment #27852 by beeline on March 27, 2007 at 3:51 am

One of the problems with any organisational structure is that it generally raises people's suspicions of hidden agendas, particularly with regard to the stewardship and aims of the organisation, and the chief motivations behind their existence. After all, that's what we find distasteful in religious organisations.

A group of people has another, separate, face, too - one that can't necessarily get across a well-reasoned argument or make pronouncements that seem to be anything other than 'ex cathedra' or 'committee-minded'. We want to look as little like 'just another ism group' as possible, so that we can't be dismissed by simple hand-waving tactics.

Part of the strength of rationalism is our ability to stand alone, with each person's calm watertight argument doing all the work. I think this is often overlooked. Organisations - particularly religious ones - need orthodoxy and dogma and occasionally whips to keep their members' (and their members' thoughts) in line, to present a united front. We don't need any of that: we have a far more powerful too that works from the bottom up: rational thought and argument.

I agree with Luthien's remarks above: make *yourself* heard, and try to steer as clear a course around the seductive whirlpools of dogma and evangelism.