825 Forum Posts by "Draconias"
The meaning (or point) of life is a multi-faceted topic:
a) Continuation.
At the most basic level, the meaning of life is to insure a continuation. The thing you continue may be your individual genes (as in animals), a memory or reminder of you (such as a famous novel), or a group you support (such as America).
The individual can never live forever, therefore the point of life is to beat death in some manner or another.
b) Enlightenment
At the next level, the meaning of life is to fulfill your curiousity and answer questions. The knowledge you gain may be situational (who was the murderer?), universal (how does gravity work?), metaphysical (what is morality?), spiritual (does God exist?) or obstacle-oriented (how do I solve this?).
c) Achievement
Continuation can extend to greater levels, where the meaning of life is to achieve something substantial during your life. That can mean mechanical achievements (building a famous monument), political achievements (founding a new, successful country), ideological achievements (spreading a religion throughout the world), societal achievements (becoming famous or popular), or internal achievements (defeating a phobia).
d) Contentment
At another level, the meaning of life is to satisfy your desires and reach a position of contentment in your life before dying. That can mean something as simple as a peaceful retirement, happy marriage, and many grand children to enjoy. This meaning is the most broad and temporary meaning, since it can mean almost anything at any time. However, it is also the hardest to accept because at times it seems as if you can never reach contentment.
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Those are the primary aspects of Life as I have come to understand it, and as I have time to describe. Every individual must choose what aspect he wishes to pursue, and how he wishes to pursue it, but everyone will eventually pick one or more of these paths (often unintentionally). No one can choose for you.
At 9/4/06 07:50 PM, Begoner wrote: Are you saying that using Occam's Razor would tell you that Oswald could shoot faster than any FBI agent and that the bullet bounced around 100 times in the car. No, Occam's Razor would say that there was a conspiracy.
You do know that the "Magic Bullet" idea was perpetuated by a series of incorrect assumptions about the sitting positions in the car? JFK was not riding in a standard car, and if you actually looked at the design specifications of the car the abnormalities in design solve the position "problems."
Also, nothing is unusual about the firing time Oswald took. In fact, it was slightly longer than average for the type of rifle he used.
Options:
A) JFK was riding in a non-standard car, and conspiracy theorists are simply ignorant of critical facts in the situation
B) There was a massive conspiracy planning and executing an assassination on the US president for no discernable reason, and then performing an extreme cover-up operation with no official leaks.
A true use of Occam's Razor in this situation would point definately at choice A.
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At 9/4/06 09:31 PM, Nitroglys wrote: Ok why was the size of the hole in the pentagon so much smaller than it should be when a 747 hits it.
The entrance hole perfectly matches a 747 impact hole, especially considering that the Pentagon is a reinforced concrete-brick building struck by a comparatively weak aluminum plan at a steep angle. The exit hole was made by a wheel carriage, not the fuselage.
And the fact that all of the planes that should of been covering the U.S. were placed outta their coverage zones especially the ones covering D.C.
It is impossible to expect that a civilian organization facing a totally-unexpected situation would be prepared enough to contact the military, call in attack fighters, and blow a civilian plane out of the sky on the suspicion of a hijacking in less than an hour. This is simply a matter of how it was, and nothing more.
The whole story is just to skechy to trust in full.
Nothing is sketchy about it expect possibly your knowledge of the facts.
Evil is allowed for two reasons:
a) God doesn't control anything. Humans do what humans want.
b) Evil is a human-defined term. It can be almost anything, so how can you prevent it?
However, the justification that evil is needed so we can understnad good is complete crap. Don't listen to anyone who proposes that.
At 9/3/06 09:43 AM, HAcoreRD wrote: UN is the world police. USA is the SWAT
That's a great way to put it.
At 9/3/06 12:16 PM, sdhonda wrote: Iraq did not have any connection to 9/11.
Actually, the slow translation of the declassified Saddam regime materials has revealed that he did in fact have direct connections with Osama and was at least negotiating the placement of terrorist training facilities in Iraq at one point.
However, the translators have only had time to scratch the surface of the declassified materials, since the burden of that task has been dumped on the public, so the full truth will be a long time in coming out.
A connection to Osama & Gang is a connection to 9/11 and future attacks by the same group. However, the actual reasons for the invasion had nothing to do with 9/11 or oil, as a lot of fools believe.
The US would have been better served by attacking Iran or Syria directly, but that probably would have de-stabilized the region so badly that we would have lost control. One step at a time.
At 9/3/06 05:14 AM, DisturedRocks wrote: Being a full beliver in evolution and being cristian isn't easy.
I beg to differ. Being a true believer in all of Science, and also being a true believer in Christianity and Christ simultaneously is very easy. You only have to do one thing: accept the stories of the Old Testament as myths, no different from the Egyptian story of a Sun God or the Roman story of a chariot pulling the sun through the sky.
The only things in conflict between Science and Religion is the myths of those religions (which were formed in ignorance thousands of years ago) and the religious desire to avoid critical thinking or doubt.
At 9/2/06 08:14 PM, Squigley wrote: Has the US become the worlds police? for some reason it belives that they are allowed nucleur weapon facilites and no-one else. I mean - Bush Probabley has a launch site in his backgarden.
What you don't seem to understand is that no one is allowed to build new nuclear weapons. The United States hasn't built a single nuclear bomb since shortly after the Cold War, and we have been working with the other mature countries of the world to ensure that no one makes more nukes.
In time, the nuclear arsenals of the world will hopefully rust away.
Becuase of this - they have invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, countless others, and toppled regimes. Occasionly however - is Bush using thethreat of terrorists to secure oil facilites in Iraq? to sequre land?
Here is how the world works:
I have more and bigger guns than you. You can't stop me.
Aghanistan was totally warranted. We caused the mess in the first place, Osama was hiding in the country, and the conquering + rebuilding has gone wonderfully smoothly.
Iraq may not have been the full threat we thought it was, but the country is better off for the change. We acted in what we thought was the best manner with what we knew, and if it weren't for the Syrian, etc. "insurgents" flooding into the country, the rebuilding would have been done long ago.
The United States is the only true superpower left in the world. We saw an enemy who struck first in one country, and an enemy who we expected to strike soon in another. When discussing terrorist acts and nuclear capabilities, the only choice is pre-emption. No one can stop us from doing what we need to protect ourselves.
The US almost had UN approval, anyways. Only a couple countries didn't want to let us invade Iraq, and at the time it seemed to be because Iraq was a strong trading partner for them (oil). However, many of the top leaders of those countries were later implicated in a multi-million dollar payoff scam connected to Food for Oil.
At 8/31/06 09:31 PM, KemCab wrote: Besides, they're not going to use any nukes on us.
And even if they do, I wouldn't care.
Has it occurred to you that it isn't the United States we're worrying about? It's South Korea (ally), Japan (ally), and China (giant massacre) who we are trying to protect. No dictatorship should have nuclear weapons, especially one that has a long-time grudge against a good ally of ours who is prospering (S.K.) and can target one of our best economic allies and a democratic technological powerhouse (Japan).
Also, remember: the United States has ceased manufacturing new nuclear weapons. The only ones we still have are stockpiles which we carefully guard. North Korea is an enemy, as is Iran, and we don't want anyone making new nukes, especially enemies. You should be worried because it doesn't take a direct hit for a nuclear bomb to destroy your life-- economic collapse would be just as effective.
At 8/27/06 06:56 PM, LMHMorales wrote: You are saying someone is a moron because they believe that these are theories and not proven facts?
LMH, one thing you don't seem to understand is that "theory" is the highest title of honor for a scientific concept. When a scientist says "theory" they mean "as close to fact as current scientific knowledge and technology allow us to know."
It is physically impossible for a hypothesis or theory to graduate to a "fact" because scientists refuse to ignore the chance that we will learn something world-altering in the future which proves the theory false.
While I don't disagree that many Christians are morons, I think that's really unfair. Don't call a person a moron because they don't believe in not fully proven theories.
I will repeat it once: A scientific concept can only become a theory if it is "fully proven." Nothing can be closer to fact or more true within the world of scientific concepts and explanations.
Your ignorance of even the core aspects of science validates the frustration and anger shown by the person you were replying to. What you have just done is equivalent to an atheist walking up to a Catholic Cardinal and earnestly saying, "I think your religion is totally fake because you're like a cult that worships a single human. What was his name again? "Satan" or something?"
How can you argue decently against someone when you know almost nothing about their side of the argument?
/rant off
At 8/27/06 06:44 PM, C-Damage wrote:At 8/27/06 06:32 PM, o_r_i_g_i_n_a_l wrote: Next time you look at static on your television, you're looking at proof of the big bang.I don't see the connection.
That static is caused by the background radiation of the universe, which is leftover from the big bang. That's what he meant.
At 8/27/06 03:48 PM, therealsylvos wrote:At 8/22/06 08:29 PM, KingCharles wrote: Evolution:How has it been demonstrated please tell me.
has been observed and demonstrated in lower life forms such as bacteria (because they reproduce so fast, the process is millions of times faster to watch).
- Development of new strains of Influenza every year
- Development of multiple-antibiotic resistant bacterium
- Origination of HIV
- Origination of Ebola
Diseases demonstrate it very effectively in the real world.
Affirmative Action should just be abolished entirely. It should not be altered to favor poor-born people over richer-born people. It should not favor blacks or other minorities over whites.
Judge everyone for who and what they are, regardless of race, class, or ancestry.
If a poor person is smart, and does well on the SATs, they can get into a good college with or without a reasonable supply of money. Colleges never ask for information about how much you can pay for until you get accepted and decide to go.
Anyone who is proactive outside of school can still suceed, particularly if any sort of public facilities (like a library with internet) are available to them. For the most part, impoverished people tend to stay impoverished because bad habits transfer across generations.
More often than not, impoverished kids don't even consider college-- regardless of the feasibility of attending. They tend to acquire bad habits from their parents, such as violent behavior or a global despondency and unjustified disillusionment. One of the worst problems for many impoverished people is that they never keep track of time-- which makes them late for anything serious.
At 8/23/06 04:54 PM, Pwnage_In_A_Can wrote: I was always thought the reason HIV was dangerous was because it caused damage to your immune and nervous system to the point your body can't fight well against foreign bacteria or viruses. The immune system is wittled down to the point even the common cold can kill you.
HIV doesn't actually damage your immune system-- it just happens to have such a messy reproduction method (large number of mutations) and such a tough camo to beat (sugar coating) that your immune system wears itself out trying to beat HIV. It's just like one of the types of diabetes-- your liver will fail because it tries to produce too much insulin for too long because your cells are ignoring the insulin message.
By the way, the government isn't bribed to do anything of the sort related to medicines. As soon as it was known that drugs of the same class as Vioxx caused heart problems, those drugs were promptly banned by the FDA.
Prior to that discovery, no one realized that the drugs caused heart problems because it wasn't detected in the FDA trials. Side effects are not ignored-- sometimes we just don't know about them.
Check your Science news sometime.
Cure for Cancer: Scientists recently discovered a dominant gene in mice which enables the entire innate immune system (reacts to first-time intruders) to effectively attack and destroy all forms of cancers. Mice are often used for immune system testing because they have one almost identical to our own. The immunity to cancer was transferrable through white blood cell donation and usually gave a lifetime immunity. Even mice with tumor that covered half of their body recovered fully within 3-6 weeks when given a dose of the immunity white blood cells.
Vaccine for Cancer: Another group of scientists recently bio-engineered a harmless strain of salmonella to carry a surface protein that is also present in most of the major killer cancers-- those of the heart, lungs, etc. When given an injection of the bio-engineered salmonella, the subject's immune system quickly associates the surface protein with a foreign invader; any of the cancer-types that develop and display that protein are immediately attacked by the immune system and quickly eliminated. The results are retroactive as well (if you have cancer already, it can cure it to a degree).
Why HIV is Dangerous: In the past several months, scientists have identified the primary immune system "brakes" protein that prevents monkeys infected with SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) from dveloping AIDS. The reason HIV is so problematic in humans is because it changes rapidly, easily outpacing your immune system-- but it isn't very dangerous. However, you immune system doesn't see it that way; without those specific "braking" proteins present on simian white blood cells, the human immune system overreacts to the HIV virus, continuously attacking it and running at full speed until finally your immune system "burns out" and you develop AIDS.
Now that we have identified the key factor that makes HIV dangerous in humans, but not apes, it may be possible to find drugs that simulate that braking mechanism or develop gene therapies for the same effect to cure AIDS, even though it only alleviates the symptoms of HIV and doesn't cure you of the virus. Although some areas like South Africa may never recover from their absurd HIV rates (40% among men), in most other areas the ability to detect and treat HIV will allow us to stop the spread and deal with it more easily.
I can get back to you sometime later with sources, etc. for this information, but it is currently late at night and I don't have time to track down the scientific articles where I found this information. All of it is accurate.
At 8/20/06 04:24 PM, Peternormous wrote:At 8/20/06 04:19 PM, Draconias wrote:Stuff
Well, I am basing what I said by comparing my group compared to everyone else. Maybe I'm in a school full of dumbass dull people?
It doesn't take much to be at the top in most of the lower school levels (High School and below). In general, out of every school you will have about half a dozen kids who are naturally "smart" and successful in school, regardless of what they do. While you're still in High School, it doesn't matter whether or not you smoke pot-- if you're one of those "smart" people, and you keep control of your life, then you'll be at the top.
However, you aren't the type of person who we need to worry about. It's the plain-ol'-average-idiot who barely gets through school and doesn't know how to manage their life and time-- just like 85% of the population --who we need to worry about. Those are the people who lose control, and the people for whom a "little loss" makes a big impact because they tend to hang on by the skin of their teeth in most situations.
Oh,by the way, we actually don't lose money from it, that's an advantage of living on farmland, you can grow stuff :)
Actually, knowing that you live in a rural area puts you even less at risk while using pot. It's the inner-citty and sometimes suburban kids using it that really screw up. Out in the country, the population desnity and social problems aren't bad enough to make things like underage driving, alcohol, smoking, or pot too troublesome.
However, certain worse things like crystal meth are serious issues out in the countryside because the natural privacy of rural areas backfires.
Just know that the primary at-risk people when using drugs are:
1. Urban, particularly inner-city
2. Sometimes suburban, but usually parents have the cash to support them even then
3. Students at overcrowded, underfunded school-- they get lost in the crowd
4. Low-wage and/or transitory workers
5. College students-- the added stress leads to a spiral
At 8/20/06 12:58 AM, Peternormous wrote: I'll have to disagree with that. I, and many of my friends, have smoked pot since we were 12. 3 of us are in the Top 10 of our class academically. I also haven't noticed lack of personality or creativity, in fact I've seen an increase in both.
What you don't realize is that everything happens on a person-by-person basis.
If your group didn't smoke pot, the three of you could have topped the entire list, academically, instead of just being near the top.
If your group didn't smoke pot, you'd all have more personality and creativity, because those two things naturally develop during your teenage years and drugs weaken the development.
If your group didn't smoke pot, you'd be much safer in a whole slew of ways-- early users of any addictive substance are significantly more likely to be involved with crime, drop out of school, etc.
If your group didn't smoke pot, you'd all have a lot more money.
At 8/18/06 10:48 PM, o_r_i_g_i_n_a_l wrote: So, tell me how you know the intricacies of criminal organisations who (despite your baseless beliefs) will suffer greatly because of any legalisation or decriminalisation of cannabis.
Who was talking about anything intricate? For anyone to sell it now, they must have supply lines and distribution routes. Otherwise they wouldn't be selling it. That means they have an immediate leg-up on anyone who tries to compete in an open market. They also often have income from other illegal substances to supplement their operations. This is all pre-school level kind of knowledge.
I support decriminalization in the sense that pot users should only be heavily fined and only big dealers should be jailed. However, legalization is a bad idea for the same reason that prescription painkillers are not sold over the counter: abuse and inappropriate use.
Yes, Organised Criminals makes cash of legal drugs through tax evasion and smuggling, but to think that the amount available to make is equal to that which is available through cannabis now is naive.
No, believing that legalizing it will suddenly eliminate all the dark alley sellers and related crime, or even have a significant impact on it, is naive. Show statistics that prove your point, or else it is just wishful thinking.
I honestly don’t understand what importance the specific effect has (Removing you from social interactions, false euphoria?!? Where’d you get that bull? Have you ever smoked pot?). When, as a recreational drug it is less harmful personally and socially speaking than tobacco and alcohol.
Do you even know what pot does? Does sitting on a couch, eating cheetos, watching a crappy movie for a couple hours while high sound like "social interaction" to you? It isn't. Do you know what a "high" is? False euphoria.
People who choose to kill themselves slowly through drink and cigarettes are given the freedom to, why make cannabis smokers criminals for doing the exactly same thing.
But they aren't doing exactly the same thing. It's not killing yourself slowly that's the problem, it's everything else.
Again, your inexperience with the drug is showing. There is NOTHING to say that cannabis could not be commercialised just as successfully as tobacco or alcohol.
Hmm, I don't know, maybe the massive opposition against it?
Again, if MOST drunks were the ‘friendly’ type (sheesh) then why is alcohol considered societies biggest menace?
Because alcohol is the one thing that can reach every level of our society. According to most of those who care about society in that fanatical sort of way, other drugs are the plague of ghettoes and the "poor people" areas. Alcoholism can strike even the richest and most high-ranking people.
How the fuck can you use logic in a discussion about drug prohibition?
Drugs and other mind-altering things suck. Many drugs are unncessary and a burden on society because they are addictive. Therefore, most unnecessary drugs should be eliminated from society whenever possible. Tobacco is being slowly strangled, but alcohol is too old and ingrained to remove yet.
Oh, and I’m of the opinion that a sane person has the right to kill themselves if that’s what they desire.
Who is to define "sane" in that situation? If you want to kill yourself, I would not consider you sane in the same way that I would not consider a pot user life-smart.
Legalisation would be the admittance that these outdated laws where wrong in the first place.
Legalization would be an even bigger mistake than criminalization was. Fine users, jail dealers, and destroy crops (then fine the grower for the cost of destroying it!)
We’ve been using drugs for over 10 000 years. Do you honestly think people are going to let a government dictate to them which drugs they can, and cannot use, particularly when the government stinks of hypocrisy and double standards?
We had slavery for over 5,000 years. Do you honestly think people would let a government dictate to them what they can and cannot own, particularly when some in the government haves slaves, too?
Tobacco deaths per year in US: 435 000
Alcohol: 85 000
Cannabis: 0
It's not who it kills that matters so much as what it does to those who survive it. By the way, I happen to know that you Cannabis statistic is false: an old neighbor of mine died two years ago by driving into a tree while driving high from pot. He died as a direct result of the pot, in the same way that a drunk driver counts as an alcohol death. He can't be the only case of such incidents, but they are not well reported because no one cares.
At 8/18/06 11:22 PM, skyraider wrote: No. How complex is the natural engine of change? How does it function?
The complexity of the natural engine is irrelevant when the "Intelligence" is an addition. One is always smaller than one plus something.
This is a legitimate point that ID should do a better job of addressing.
That's why I don't believe the "Priveleged Planet" argument. It smacks too much of Galileo and the Catholic geocentric theory.
Well, I already answered most of those questions.
The questions are about the Designer, though. Unless you can expand on every aspect of the Designer, Intelligent Design doesn't help anyone. Even just expanding on the methods employed during the Design process would be helpful. When were changes made? What trigger the new design changes? Why were design changes necessary when simpler organisms would have been just as effective?
My post got cut off, and I had writting a thing about how I resign from this debate. Anyways, I resign, and I think I'm going to find it hard to debate someone who either doesn't accept or doesn't know about the different between micro and macro evolution. Heh, just kidding. I've done 200-page debates, and I'm not really up for another one. Thanks for the good debate.
End.
At 8/18/06 11:19 PM, skyraider wrote: Yeah, that is exactly what I said. I said that current technolgy can't do it.
But it can.
You're suggested a mechanism other than macroevolution may have produced life? What could it be? I am doubtful of the existance of evidence for such a claim. ID isn't the only science that involves deduction.
I propose UD. Unintelligent Design. It was the organisms themselves who designed the new additions, not another organism independent from our chain of evolution. And, as we all know, humans are the first "intelligent" lifeform on Earth.
There, you have an alternative that is more plausible than Intelligent Design because it is simpler overall.
My response to both of these statements is in the my previous post. I argued that saying that there *may* be other (yet undiscovered) possibilites is unacceptable, as you have no evidence for such possibilities!
When you are using eliminative logic, you can not ignore those unknown possibilities. Eliminative logic, the only type supporting Intelligent Design, requires a finite number of choices. However, due to unknown options, we do not have an effectively finite number of choices. Therefore, affirmative logic is necessary.
Ah, but I *am* arguing that any form of evolution is impossible for irreducibly complex systems. I most certainly did not claim that "part of it is evolution".
"For irreducibly complex systems." What about the other systems? At least how I am interpreting what you say, the reducible systems evolved, but the irreducible ones did not.
Relatively ideal. Design doesn't imply optimal design!
The Earth is not ideal. It is nowhere close. In fact, life itself eliminates the ability for life to develop and encourages the breakdown of organic systems. Neither you nor I could survive in the environment of prebiotic Earth, nor could most other things on the planet.
Mutation :) Not on the scale of components of the eye, components of the flagellum, components of the liver, components of the brain, etc.
Mutation is microevolution. When mutation results in new abilities and forms, that is macroevolution. New strains of bacteria are produced through macroevolution.
Macroevolution, on the other hand, involves point & shift mutations. They are most certainly not one in the same! Where did you hear that?
That is not macroevolution! Microevolution is changes within a population, such as trait frequencies, etc. Macroevolution is the accumulation of microevolutionary shifts into significant change compared to the ancestral population.
Point and shift mutations are merely two ways new gene sequences and alleles can be introduced into a population. Microevolution is the skewing of allele frequencies due to environmental or other reasons. Macroevolution is divergence from ancestral populations due to increasing skewing due to relatively-changing environment (like changing niches within a biosphere).
Do you mean "witness" as in the fossil record? If not: If we've witnessed macroevolution, I would certainly like to know about it.
As I said before, look into modern diseases and viruses. When new strains of disease develop, or entirely new diseases like ebola appear, you are witnessing the results of macroevolution.
Building on my last post, fossils provide indirect evidence, btw, and you don't seem to be willing to accept indirect evidence for ID.
Actually, on a relative scale, fossil records are quite direct. You can line up fossils chronologically and see a time-lapse film of whale evolution.
Not gonna happen. As I noted before, the part of ID that deals with cosmology has produced direct evidence.
Report it, then.
"Who or what is the "Intelligent Designer(s)"?
I addressed this in my last post.
Unless Intelligent Design can tell us something useful about the world, what's the point in even pursuing it? Evolution warns doctors that using the same anti-biotics too often will result in anti-biotic resistant bacteria. Intelligent Design tells us nothing about the present or the future, and it answers no questions about the past sufficiently (so it was designed-- how?, etc).
Umm ok, farting cows produced bat evolution. Discount that.
Bats existed before cows, therefore cows could not have produced bats. Within this finite sphere of choices, eliminative logic appears to work. However, an effectively infinite number of other answers are available, and that is where eliminative logic fails.
At 8/18/06 08:58 PM, Pwnage_In_A_Can wrote:At 8/18/06 05:36 PM, johnfn wrote: Religions can redefine their own specific marriage rites to meet their own needs.Religion is not something that can be compromised upon. To alter its tenets would change the religion.
So wait, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc. aren't Christian?
Since the Catholic church got rid of the "Get Out of Sin for a Fee" cards, they aren't Catholic anymore?
At 8/18/06 08:10 PM, o_r_i_g_i_n_a_l wrote: Three reasons to legalise it then...?
Legalising it won't get rid of those problems. Even with legal drugs, the primary users are those for whom it is illegal. Pot is just a small extension of criminal organizations, who already have the production lines and distribution set up to take advantage of any legalizaton.
Irrelevant, it’s a drug, so of course it’s going to have an effect on the user….that’s the point.
It's not that it has an effect, it's what that effect is that matters. Tobacco is a stimulant, so it aids focus and relaxes the user as the primary effect. Alcohol facilitates social interaction and provides a safe alternative to polluted waters under certain circumstances. Pot spaces you out, removing you from social interactions, filling you with a false euphoria, and basically wasting half your day while you munch on the worst foods possible.
Drunks don’t have their beers laced with LSD because alcohol is legal.
Wrong. Drunks don't have their beers laced with LSD because the most economical ways to make alcoholic beverages ensure large organizations with consistant quality control. Pot is like moonshine, and even legalizing it won't change that.
Bullshit, you just proved you don’t know what you’re talking about. If most people are ‘friendly’ drunks then why is billions spend on policing them on Friday and Saturday nights?
I said most, not all. Duh.
Ahh, the usual “chuck in a ridiculous example to show how utterly correct drug prohibition is” trick.
You aren't very bright. That was a ridiculous example to show that legalizing something purely for the tax profits is a stupid, foolish idea. It had nothing to do with whether or not it should be legalized; it was about why he thought it should be legalized.
You think the smart decision has already been made? Then let's ignore the infringements of people’s liberties, their safety and stability in the name of the War on Drugs.
You do not have the right to commity suicide. The same logic is used to say that you do not have the right to abuse drugs. Deal with it.
By the way, the War on Drugs would be almost immediately won if idiots would stop buying the drugs in the first place. Legalization is surrender. If you just stopped pushing, the government wouldn't have to waste money pushing back.
The Primary Fallacies of Intelligent Design:
1. Eliminative Logic
When viewing an effectively infinite number of choices, it is impossible to arrive at a single answer by eliminating every other one by one.
2. Argument from Ignorance
Simply because you do not know how something was produced in one method does not mean that it couldn't have been produced. Also, just because you do not know of any other methods that could be used does not mean you can automatically discount the possibility of other methods.
3. "Center of the Universe" Thought
Simply because we exist does not mean the environment was designed specifically so we could exist. It is blatantly arrogant to assume that the Universe exists for us to live in. It is also arrogant to assume the Earth is the center of the solar system simply because we live here.
If all of those "critical variables" that allow life to exist on Earth were different, we wouldn't exist here. It is only because those variables are one way that we exist, not the other way around. There are likely more than 10^23 planets in our galaxy. By the laws of probability, one of them should support life. If it wasn't Earth, it would be another planet.
4. Occam's Razor
Which is simpler: a natural engine of change forming a complex system, or an additional undefined "Intelligence" (likely of physical-law-breaking abilities) triggering and then designing the formation of complexity? Very obviously, a natural engine of change is the simpler situation and does not open up new avenues of unnecessary questions.
5. Defined Ideas
Who or what is the "Intelligent Designer(s)"? What methods did he use? What probable indirect evidence would he leave? Where did he orginate? How did he originate? Is he a complex organism, too?
By not answering any of the key questions, Intelligent Design offers nothing. No one can accept your stance if you don't make one. If you don't want to make false claims about the "Intelligent Designer(s)" then make true claims.
Evolution explains how, why, and where changes occur to allow the world we see today. Intelligent Design just introduces a whole host of new questions which it refuses to answer, most importantly how and why?
At 8/18/06 05:08 PM, skyraider wrote: Direct evidence is hard to come by in the origins/macroevolution/design debate, simply because of the lack of technology sophisticated enough to go out in to space and watch the light waves over the course of billions of years.
Actually, due to the vast distances of space, we can watch light waves over the course of billions of years simply by looking farther away to see farther back in time. If we looked far enough, we would eventually see the "end of the universe" where we see so far back in time that older light hasn't had time to reach us yet.
We arrive that this conclusion by eliminating all other possibilites we know of (could Darwinian evolution have produced organ/system XYZ?), Deductive? Yes.
The counter-argument is that there may be some other process capable of producing XYZ, but maybe we don't know of that process. Well, if we have no idea if such a process exists, such a counter-argument isn't really valid.
Fallacy: Argument from Ignorance
You can not assume the answer must be B because you do not know about C. It is impossible to eliminate all the alternative possibilities in this situation, so how can you reduce the situation down to where Intelligent Design is the "only" choice? That style of logic is unacceptable. As I said before, "negative proof" is worthless when you need "positive proof" to affirm your ideas.
Fallacy: Argument from Personal Incredulity
Your method of eliminating possibilities is unacceptable. Simply because you do not believe there is a way for that system to evolve naturally does not mean there can't be a way.
If we were dealing with a situation in which any form of evolution was impossible, then that would be an acceptable elimination, but you can not say that "part of it is evolution... but then this part, which I can't figure out, must be Intelligentlu Designed."
Take archeology. If you saw a clay pot with intricate patterns on it, you, as an archeologist, would say "hey, this was made by a human being X number of years ago". You're inferring design.
You are not inferring design in the intricate pattern. You are inferring design from apparent purpose. The clay object was not made by a human because it has an intricate pattern, it was made by a human because it is a pot.
Complexity alone does not indicate design. Purpose indicates design in an inanimate system. However, in an animate system, even purpose is not entirely reliable because function can be independent from purpose.
ID states: if it looks designed, then it probably is designed.
Fallacy: Argument from Personal Incredulity
Who are you to know what looks designed and what doesn't? Certain rock formations are so amazingly geometric that they looked designed to me.
However, it could just be that I don't understand how the formations were formed, so I don't know that differential stress on the rocks caused molecular breaks along the hexagonal-ring silica units.
Fallacy: Appeal to Probability
Simply because those things then could be designed, and you have no other answer, does not mean those things were designed. The Truth is never just probably, it is. That is why eliminative logic is an inappropriate method for this situation, because it can never eliminate every option in an unconstrained environment (real life).
is it by accident that the couple dozen or so variables that must be fine-tuned in order for a habitable planet to exist
That is false logic. The natural environment of Earth caused us, not the other way around. If the Earth couldn't handle organic life, it wouldn't. If it couldn't handle life like ours, we would be different because we are molded to it.
and that the same planet is also an ideal platform for discovery in terms of our atmospheric conditions & makeup?
But the modern Earth is not ideal. The presence of oxygen precludes the development of life abiotically.
If it looks designed, and there are no other feasible known means by which 2GB of RAM and such got into my case, then it probably is designed.
Inanimate systems are not comparable to animate systems when considering design.
Now, there have been attempts to see evolution in the lab, and most have resulted in very minor changes that do not constitute a true evolutionary change.
Not everything can be viewed directly in a lab. Diseases, in particular, are an amazing real-world example of macroevolution.
How do new strains of influenza form?
How do completely new diseases, such as ebola, form?
How do diseases in one species transfer to another, drastically different species, like SIV changing into HIV?
The reason you will never see evidence of macroevolution is because you need to drawn a line between microevolution and macroevolution. If you do not, any examples of true macroevolution that I provide will be dismissed by you as microevolution because they are one and the same.
Most evolution that we witness is macroevolution. The changes of microevolution are necessarily so small and subtle that the individual is rarely noticeably different from the rest of the population.
One influenza germ is just like another, right? But macroevolution is what makes strains of influenza germs that attack through different methods, transfer in different manners, and act completely differently.
At 8/18/06 06:08 PM, TheSovereign wrote: I say we let pot go, and tahts coming from a guy who has never had a joint in his life.
That has no bearing whatsoever on this discussion. In fact, it only suggests that you are likely more ignorant of the true issue than a user (direct experience) or an opponent (direct or researching experience).
Pot, when grown naturally isn't that bad of a toxin compared to a pack of Number 7 cigs.
Knives, when only stabbing someone a few times, isn't that bad compared to shooting someone with a machine gun. "Less bad" does not mean "good."
Also, the coca plant, when grown naturally, isn't that bad. It's not like there's any difference between natural coca leaves and purified cocaine, is there?
The only reason pot is getting a bad hype is because dealers put harsh poisons in it, like Number 7 smokes. Not to mention that there is a chance your joint maybe laced with crack.
So the reasons you say it gets bad publicity are:
1. Obtaining it requires interaction with not-so-trustworthy or otherwise safe people
2. Purchasing it supports a network of criminals
3. Your "safe" drug may totally screw you over
4. You're getting high. It's like getting drunk, but there is no borderline of effect
Lets look aat people who have been "intoxicated". If the pot is natural the person will be in a calm state, the user may experience TEMPORARY memory lose.
Not a "calm" state, but a spaced out state, where they are unable to function properly and don't react in appropriate ways to tough, important, or dangerous situations.
Really if the pot is okay, the stoner will just in their couch eating cheetos while watching a crappy movie. After the movie (if still intoxicated) they'll make constant referance to the crappy jokes from the movie. Not that dangerous.
You don't use it, so who are you to tell us exactly what users will do? What do they do when the pot isn't okay? I don't know of any drunks who fall down in convulsions, etc. because their beer just happened to be laced with LSD, so why should a danger like that be ignored in pot?
Now people who get drunk tend to become violent! Who is more dangerous: a drunk with a half broken beer bottle, or a stoner with a bag of chips?
Actually, your first statement is a lie. Most people are broken into two categories when they become drunk: those who become friendly, and those who become angry. A slim majority of people are the former type.
Anyways, who is more dangerous: a drunk with a beer bottle who can't even see straight and promptly falls over when he tries to break the end, or a stoner eating a bag of chips on a couch while flames cut off the exit and promptly suffocate him?
Legalize it, regulate it, tax it!
Drug dealers make a lot of money; hitmen make a lot of money. Let's legalize murder, regulate it, then tax it! We can turn football stadiums into Gladitorial Arenas where anyone who wants to murder anyone can do so, for millions to watch!
This isn't an issue of money. It's about morality, safety, stable lives, and smart decisions.
Logical Fallacy: Argument from Ignorance
Simply because we do not know exactly how something developed does not mean it could not have been developed.
Logical Fallacy: False Dilemma
Simply because the evolutionary method of development does not appear to answer the problem does not mean that an Intelligent Designer (God) exists. Negative proof for one idea does not equate to positive proof for another when a large array of options exist.
If organic life is so complex that it requires an Intelligence to create it, how then was that Intelligence created? When considering the enormous complexity of the human brain, wouldn't that Intelligence have to be designed by another Intelligence for the human-creators to be complex enough to develop humans?
Beyond the logical hang-ups of ID, can you point me to positive proof of an Intelligent Designer? Not any of this "we don't know how, so it must be" sort of proof against evolution (negative proof), but instead positive proof of Intelligent Design.
For example, if a bacterium was discovered that created proteins in the distinct, undeniable shape of a human figure that waved an arm back and forth, that would be positive proof in favor of Intelligent Design. Simply claiming the impossibility of something you don't understand in evolution is not positive proof.
The ball's in your court. Prove to me/us that an Intelligent Designer exists not because you can't imagine a way for him/her/it not to exist, but because direct evidence says he/she/it does exist. Also, it is necessary for you to define exactly who or what this Intelligent Designer is so that we might trace his/her/its origins backward.
At 8/17/06 03:00 PM, skyraider wrote: Ken Miller tried w/ to debunk IC for the flagellum, but the Type III Secretory System is just 8 or so out of 40 parts. What about the other 32? As far as your claims that IC has been debunked for things like the eye: huh? Since when?
Your arguments have been defeated hundreds of times over. Check anywhere ont he internet and you will find answers.
Rebuttals concerning flagella:
Bacterial Flagellum
Evolution of Flagella
"They point out that the basal body of the flagella has been found to be similar to the Type III secretion system (TTSS), a needle-like structure that pathogenic germs such as salmonella use to inject toxins into living eucaryote cells. The needle's base has many elements in common with the flagellum, but it is missing most of the proteins that make a flagellum work. Thus, this system seems to negate the claim that taking away any of the flagellum's parts would render it useless."
Also, here you can find rebuttals for your second claim:
The Eye
Evolution of the Eye
RNA isn't very essential to life? Because it was the building blocks of that which Miller and Ulrey created in their experiment. Ganted we can't know exactly how it happened, just like we can't know exactly how Kennedy died... it would require us to go back in time.
Actually, no. Miller and Urey arced electricity through a mixture of "early Earth" gases to produce a few simple amino acids. It was a proof of concept to show that the pre-biotic Earth could have produced increasingly complex organic molecules naturally.
Ah, but M&U didn't get RNA. First of all, we have very limited geological clues as to what the conditions of the early earth were like. M&U arrived at their apparatus setup through what must have been the conditions in order for life to evolve, since life "undeniably evolved". Not scientific.
Wrong. It was entirely scientific because they started with the current scientific knowledge of the situation and did a single proof of concept. They didn't fine tune the experiment until it produced the results they wanted, which would have been unscientific.
Anyways, we have enough information on the pre-biotic Eart to slowly figure out the exact nature of the system. It is taking a long time, just like most science, and requires a lot of revision when we miscalculate an aspect, but we are getting closer to the real answer, one way or the other.
There are many problem with Punc. Eq., and it has largely been rejected by ID theorists. It's irrational to claim that virtually every major evolutionary step in most of the life forms on earth occured when a species migrated to another location, changed, and then returned. There's no sense in that.
Punctuated Equilibrium is nothing of the sort. Where the hell did you hear that it had to do with migration? First of all, PE is actually a subsection of Gradualism, even though most people misunderstand it.
What PE suggests is that large populations tend to have too much of a homogenizing effect on the gene pool, so it is when smaller portions of the population are isolated from the ancestral population that geologically abrupt evolution occurs; however, generationally, the change may be extremely slow and incremental.
To quote my source:
"The relationship between punctuationism and gradualism can be better appreciated by considering an example. Suppose the average length of a limb in a particular species grows 50 centimeters (20 inches) over 70,000 years—a large amount in a geologically short period of time. If the average generation is seven years, then our given time span corresponds to 10,000 generations."
"It is therefore reasonable to conclude that if the limb size in our hypothetical population evolved in the most conservative manner, it need only increase at a rate of 0.005 cm per generation (= 50 cm/10,000), despite its abrupt appearance in the geological record."
At 8/17/06 03:04 PM, skyraider wrote: I meant to add this about M&U. The amino acids they got are not the essential amino acids require for life. 100's of amino acids are required to build a single protein,
Hundreds? Not even close. About 20 amino acids are necessary for life. Proteins are just very long repetitions of those amino acids.
Research your arguments. Too often religious people argue from complete ignorance.
At 8/17/06 06:48 PM, Vrael wrote: why dont we just make more ozone
We do, but down 'ere it's called "smog." Apparently, some people don't like it much.
At 8/16/06 03:38 PM, Dark_Oracle wrote: heres a question for all you lovig parents and offspring. should a parent have the right to restrict the offsprings speech if the offspring is clearly acting more mature, and is rigth about a certain situation.
Oracle, are you that hypothetical child who believes he was in the right, but was spurned by parents who are farmed more experienced than you?
At 8/16/06 09:30 PM, Peternormous wrote: Both! Who says they don't work together?
I do.
Every rational, scientifically-minded person does.
