Why do 'intelligent design' proponents attack the evolution of life? It seems much easier to attack things that just "are" perfectly so. Like, eπi+1=0 ... There seems to be a suspicious amount of design in this system of mathematics to make such a random equation turn out so neatly. Or cosmology - why are the various physical constants "just so"?
There are two core principles of ID, "irreducible complexity" which is also known as demonstrable ignorance, and I forget the other, but I think it is also demonstrable ignorance. The real answer is that Genesis doesn't mention the cosmological constant, but it really undermines any shallow credibility the ID folks might have. Wheras not asking "how did this complex system arise" but instead "where did the framework to create this complex system come from" strikes me as alot more profound.
For example, look at genetic algorithms. The final solution can be ridiculously complex, in such a way that no one understands how they work, only that they do (for example, the GA-created cube-root function curcuit. From a certain level of ignorance that could probably be proved to be irreducibly complex.) The final product was not created by any intelligence. BUT, the *framework* to evolve the complex design WAS created by intelligence.
But no, it's always "What good is half an eye?" or "Look at the motorboat flagellum, that couldn't possibly have evolved by random chance!"
Ok, I appear to be showing my own ignorance here - the wikipedia article on intelligent design (all hail wikipedia) does make reference to this concept, calling it the "fine-tuned universe". However, I had to go looking for that. All the press reports on ID only ever mention the biology angle.
There is of course a simple explanation for this: Genesis doesn't mention the cosmological constant, relativity, complex math, or even gravity. It only explains in irrefutable form that God created all life as we know it. "But ID isn't about religion, it's real science!" they say. And it is mere coincidence that every single ID proponent is a fundamentalist
Christian, and that they all had their religious awakening before accepting ID and not the other way around.
The use of 'ID' to abbreviate 'Intelligent Design' is not in any way Freudian. Honest.
-EO
Dec 23, 2005
Jul 12, 2005
Swatting flies
Old cliches don't die, they just get older. An old cliche mentions the futility of "swatting flies with an elephant gun". There are worse ways to swat flies.
A commentator on a radio show I was listening to this morning about the war in Iraq and military recruiters defended the rights of anti-recruitment and anti-war groups to spread their message, but also called them out for not suggesting alternative other than "sticking their heads in the sand." The implication is that doing something is always better than doing nothing, and the the current war is at least doing something about terrorism (the dubious connection between the war in Iraq and terror groups notwithstanding).
I disagree. We should be opposing it, because the way we are going about it is worse than doing nothing, in that while it may make things a little better in the short term, is it almost certainly making things worse overall, and in time we will see and feel these effects. And more broadly, there is no military solution to terrorism - it is like swatting flies with .. well, you know the rest.
To draw a more complete analogy, consider acts of terrorism to be malaria, and those who commit such acts to be mosquitos. Mosquitos breed in pools of standing water. So we have some military folk come in and determine that we must eliminate the places for mosquitos to breed: we must destroy these pools of standing water. So naturally, we call in artillery strikes. They blast the pools with pinpoint accuracy, kill millions of mosquitos, and declare the problem solved. Excapt that the very tactic used to clear up the problem makes it worse. The artillery shells destroy alot that they weren't intended to. And they dig more holes in the ground, create more places for the water to pool, and next season the mosquitos will be worse than ever.
Of course, terrorists aren't mosquitos and they don't breed in pools of water. Instead, they breed in pools of despair. However, the military tactics we use against them have a very similar effect - short-term gains with much collateral damage, and I don't even want to think about what next season will be like.
A commentator on a radio show I was listening to this morning about the war in Iraq and military recruiters defended the rights of anti-recruitment and anti-war groups to spread their message, but also called them out for not suggesting alternative other than "sticking their heads in the sand." The implication is that doing something is always better than doing nothing, and the the current war is at least doing something about terrorism (the dubious connection between the war in Iraq and terror groups notwithstanding).
I disagree. We should be opposing it, because the way we are going about it is worse than doing nothing, in that while it may make things a little better in the short term, is it almost certainly making things worse overall, and in time we will see and feel these effects. And more broadly, there is no military solution to terrorism - it is like swatting flies with .. well, you know the rest.
To draw a more complete analogy, consider acts of terrorism to be malaria, and those who commit such acts to be mosquitos. Mosquitos breed in pools of standing water. So we have some military folk come in and determine that we must eliminate the places for mosquitos to breed: we must destroy these pools of standing water. So naturally, we call in artillery strikes. They blast the pools with pinpoint accuracy, kill millions of mosquitos, and declare the problem solved. Excapt that the very tactic used to clear up the problem makes it worse. The artillery shells destroy alot that they weren't intended to. And they dig more holes in the ground, create more places for the water to pool, and next season the mosquitos will be worse than ever.
Of course, terrorists aren't mosquitos and they don't breed in pools of water. Instead, they breed in pools of despair. However, the military tactics we use against them have a very similar effect - short-term gains with much collateral damage, and I don't even want to think about what next season will be like.
Jun 10, 2005
Life imitates art
Are these the plots of a hit movies, or news stories?
Terrorists attacks in NYC lead to egregious human rights violations in the name of national security, led by an arguable lunatic with a hidden agenda.
Repeated security violations dealing with computerized data lead people to demand the adoption of a system with hidden backdoors, in the name of better security.
Terrorists attacks in NYC lead to egregious human rights violations in the name of national security, led by an arguable lunatic with a hidden agenda.
Repeated security violations dealing with computerized data lead people to demand the adoption of a system with hidden backdoors, in the name of better security.
Jun 7, 2005
And so it begins...
Greetings, program
You wanna know what's wrong with ... well, just about everything? A lot. Got some time to sit around and listen? Good.
Traffic. Driving. Broken software. Stupid people. I think that about covers my morning.
See, the problem is basically that people can't be bothered. Can't be bothered to think, can't be bothered to do the right thing, can't be bothered to take responsibility for their own actions. It's gotta stop sometime.
We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Now all I need to do is explain to people why they have them backward.
You wanna know what's wrong with ... well, just about everything? A lot. Got some time to sit around and listen? Good.
Traffic. Driving. Broken software. Stupid people. I think that about covers my morning.
See, the problem is basically that people can't be bothered. Can't be bothered to think, can't be bothered to do the right thing, can't be bothered to take responsibility for their own actions. It's gotta stop sometime.
We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Now all I need to do is explain to people why they have them backward.
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