Well I just can't stay away from this topic. Since I made the last post I've been reading more of the two counter creationist web sites I posted links to. They've reaffirmed something I've been suspecting for some time.
At first I used to think of the creationists (and the intelligent design supporters, who let's face it are creationists in disguise) were misguided ignorant people raised with unquestioning faith in the bible that blinded them to the reality they lived in. While I still felt it was important to fight against their efforts to spread religiously motivated ignorance, at the same time I felt somewhat constrained by the whole freedom of religion thing. And no, I don't mean the law, I mean the concept. It's supposed to be a core value of the country, it means respecting other people's views even if you don't agree with them. It was a delicate balance, but I tried to maintain it.
But the more I saw of the creationist arguments, like the video I linked to at the end of my last post, the more I was convinced that they were deliberately attempting to deceive people. So many of their arguments are outright lies, or rely on decades old, outdated research. But check out the creationist propaganda and there it is, being flaunted for all to see. The sites I linked to handily refute a great deal of those arguments. But they continue to use them.
There's one of those arguments in particular I want to focus on. This one.
Basically what Kent Hovind (the guy in the video I linked to at the end of the last post) did was quote Niles Eldridge (paleontologist, evolutionary theorist) in such a way to make it seem like he said that the geologic column (the basic timeline of prehistory derived from the layers of fossils found in the ground) was dated using circular reasoning. But the entire quote, indeed a series of paragraphs on the subject, makes exactly the opposite statement. And also states that in some cases radioactive dating can be used to date a geologic layer (which Kent Hovind strenuously denies in the same segment).
Isn't it interesting how he perverted someone else's words and then continued to make claims that the same person clearly invalidated in the same series of paragraphs?
It's things like this that have convinced me that the creationists know darned well that they're not only incorrect, but are lying. The site I referenced often attempts to be kind to the creationists so far as suggesting that they may simply be incompetent researchers. Which would still be preferable to intentional deceit in the name of religion.
But I think it's clear that they know they're working to deceive people. They're not proposing a scientific theory, they're twisting the words of others, using selective quotes to make it seem like they said the opposite of what they really intended. They make claims that are completely false, either through outdated research or in some cases by making completely baseless claims that are easily demonstrated as being wrong.
They're lying. Plain and simple.
Which I think brings up an interesting point. At least some of these people must be reasonably scientifically literate to be able to come up with the claims that they do. Literate enough to understand the theory of evolution. See, it's my feeling that the people who really doubt evolution simply don't understand it. Once you understand it, it's pretty much common sense. It takes a degree of imagination to be able to extend your thought process to the sort of time scales needed to understand it, but once you're there it's simple.
I think they're attempting to coerce people into embracing creationism even though they themselves are aware of how poor a relationship the bible has with reality (I'm not saying it has no value, but treating it as literal truth in all areas is bound to fail because it was written in a pre-scientific world that lacked a great deal of the knowledge that allows our modern world to function). They may not even believe in creationism themselves.
Let me fast forward to what I think they're attempting to do to society. The fundamentalists are trying to restructure society into an echo of the dark ages.
It's clear that at their top they have an intelligent leadership who are ruthlessly fighting to promote their interests. Their core support comes from ignorant individuals who lack the knowledge to resist the message that the fundamentalist propaganda machine feeds them, but at the top I think most of the organization must know of the sort of deceit they're engaging in. The regular scandals that tend to claim one of their leaders every so often seems to suggest that while the fundamentalists at large may attempt to live by their moral code, their leaders are as corrupt, morally if not spiritually, as those they regularly denounce.
So anyway, where I see them headed if they manage to gain control of the country (an eventuality that, ironically enough, leads me to invoke the name of God in despair even though I'm an agnostic) is this: I think their leadership understand how important science is to our modern society. If they were to take control they'd have to safeguard some degree of scientific understanding while at the same time they worked to sabotage all public knowledge of it. For their interests they want the public at large to be ignorant of the higher forms of science, because as I said they want the people to be ignorant and frightened of the world around them so that they turn to the church for answers. It's clear from the general public level of ignorance of science that we have in this country that the society can exist without the masses understanding the sciences. It's just that at the top we rely on a limited number of individuals who do understand it. And they'd have to have a similar core of knowledgeable experts in the various fields to continue running things.
Sure, the country would lag the rest of the world in scientific research and it would slowly sink into third world status, but that's really not their concern. Misery can be used to strengthen fundamentalist support, just look at the Middle East.
But anyway, my ultimate vision (if they were to succeed in essentially taking the country over) goes like this: They will have to create a new ruling class. By keeping the masses ignorant they'll have made them largely unsuitable for any sort of national or even local leadership position. I suspect they'd need to develop an entirely separate educational system for the new ruling class in order to keep the dangerous information safe. Which also means that the ruling class would probably be hereditary. It might prove to be difficult or perhaps even impossible to take someone raised in the faithful ignorance method and bring them into the fold, the sudden understanding of how much they'd been deceived might prove to cause them to question their faith.
As I said, the model for this society is essentially medieval Europe. A dirt poor working class working themselves to death to support an opulent ruling class while the church secretly controls the rulers from behind the scenes like puppets.
Analysis of the methods of the fundamentalist Christians in the USA has lead me to this conclusion. I honestly believe that their leadership is this deceitful, they've demonstrated it too often now. And as such I have to label that entire movement as basically destructive and counter to the best interests of the country as a whole.
Legally they can't entirely be stopped because of the whole freedom of religion thing. Which, as I said, is basically a good idea, and I'm unwilling to compromise such principles when they become inconvenient.
But I think that makes it our basic civic duty to work to oppose them. They've declared a war on the secular aspects of the country. Even those Christians who do not subscribe to the same maniacal, obsessive devotion to interpreting the bible as literal fact are not safe. Another tactic I've seen used by the creationists is to label evolutionist scientists as atheists (in one case as a marxist as well, almost any slur will do apparently). Basically, if you're not with them then you're against them whether you like it or not.
There can be no common ground because they're unwilling to acknowledge any.
The sooner this subversive movement is stopped, the sooner we can get back to working to make this country a better place for all. So long as they're still out there and possessing the kind of power that they do today they'll still be pushing their agenda of intolerance and fear. I'd hope that whatever the differences among everyone else in the country, we can at least agree that these are not the sort of values we should be embracing.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
coral clocks
Well that was an unpleasant series of negative posts. But, well, obviously I felt they were things that needed to be said.
So let's turn to a less controversial topic. Actually.. it's still going to be controversial among the creationists, the truth is I found out about this on one of the links I gave in the last post.
But ignoring the anti bible literalist angle that this information could be used for, it's still darned fascinating.
The concept goes like this. We all know that you can count the age of a tree by counting its rings, one for every year, right? Well it turns out that, at least to some degree, you can do the same thing with coral, because as it grows it expands and leaves similar layer patterns. But it doesn't just leave a single layer per year, it leaves a detectable layer every day, as well as patterns that indicate the passing of a year. This in itself blows my mind because much has been made about how coral is an extremely slow growing organism. To think that despite that it leaves behind detectable layers for every day is incredible.
But it gets better. This isn't about measuring how many days old the coral in our oceans is. The method has been used on fossilized coral.
Some of you reading this may just see where I'm going with this. But rather than attempt to ease gradually into the concept I'll just spring it. The older the coral samples get, the more days per year they indicate.
I'm not a scientist, I merely have an extreme fascination with science. I only encountered this coral concept recently. I've attempted to do some research into the concept, but specific information is difficult to find. I've found a research paper that appears to give different numbers for days per year for the same fossils, I'm not sure what's going on there, it seems to be a reflection of different methods or differing formulas or an indication of a margin of error.
But the number of days per year of the older samples gets at least as large as 400.
What this is about, of course, is the fact that the Moon is constantly slowing down the rotation of the Earth through tidal friction. Don't ask me to explain how, I only barely have a handle on the concept myself. The same or at least a similar effect is behind the fact that the same side of the moon faces the Earth at all times (give or take a few percent because of libration, but that's beyond the scope of what I'm talking about).
Ultimately what will happen is that the Earth will rotate slow enough that the same side always faces the moon. The moon will, essentially, appear to stay in the same place in the sky at all times. There'll be some variations to that because its orbit isn't perfectly circular, but basically that's what will happen. I don't know how long it will take off hand, but it will take a VERY long time. Believe me you shouldn't be starting to think ahead to prime real estate if you want to be able to see the moon hanging outside your kitchen window every day of the year. In about 400 million years we've gone from 400 days per year to 365. So we have a bit of time yet before we reach full tidal lock.
But back to the coral. I'm practically giddy with the revelation that it's possible to go so far back in time and count how many days were in the year. If I understood what I read it sounded like they were using the coral research to track tidal cycles from the era of the coral being studied as well.
Perhaps this seems odd that I'd be that impressed by counting layers in coral, but it's the idea that we're able to get this much information about a time so far in the past.
It appears that coral clocks aren't the only way to do this. One of the nearly unintelligible (to the average reader) scientific papers I found on the subject seemed to refer to using bivalves (in other words, things like clams) to do similar research. Or using silt accumulation. Clearly there's much more to this type of research than I'd ever heard about.
But the fact remains that we can look back in time using evidence of when a year was 4oo days long, and conversely each day was shorter. It's not about exactly what the numbers say, it's that we can actually get them in the first place.
I don't think my fascination with this concept is that weird. I'm interested in the past because it's something that I can never personally witness. I wish I could go back in time to see what the ancient Roman empire was really like, I'd even settle for a one way visual portal that would let me see (and preferably hear) without interfering in any way.
But the fact that it's permanently out of reach means it will never lose its appeal, it's a mysterious world that I can only get glimpses of. This is even more true for the pre historic era, including the time before humans were even around at all.
Take for example the Devonian era, roughly about 400 million years ago. Life in the seas was well established, but life on land was still in its infancy. Land plants were well established and becoming more complex, and fish evolved legs to take their first steps onto land (although arthropods, which is to say insects, appear to have been first onto land). I want to know what it would be like to be there to see it. Not to see the changes happening, but just to see a moment in time, just a tiny slice of what the world looked like then. The alien vista of the primitive plants with the comparative lack of animal life variety. A world completely unsuited to humans, that very fact alone makes me want to be able to be standing there, intruding into a place I don't belong. The fact that I can never see it makes it all the more intriguing.
But now I find out that just by looking at coral they can count how many days were in a year, and analyze the tidal patterns of the age. In a way it makes the ancient past seem slightly less out of reach. It suggests that there's a great deal of information out there that I've never even heard of. And in the end I always get a kick out of that. I have a definite "know-it-all" complex, I try to accumulate as much general knowledge as I can. But I'm continuously reminded that there's a great deal more information out there, including stuff that I don't even know exists. And it's so much fun when something pops up out of the blue and surprises me.
I should specify that it appears that the data is actually being used to fine tune the age of the coral. It may be that scientists are actually using the information to figure out how old the coral is, because they already know (or at least have a reasonable understanding of) how fast the Earth's rotation is slowing down. So they can use the rotation information to get another estimate of when the coral lived, to compare with the dates obtained by radiological dating or by using the geologic layer.
The inexplicable complexity of the paper I read on the issue may have been because of the need to compensate for differing tidal levels caused by ice ages and such. I say that because it would seem that having more or less liquid water in the ocean would change the way the tides slow down the rotation. Before I realized that I was baffled at how what would seem to be a simple relationship should call for a mathmatical formula that I couldn't even read.
So let's turn to a less controversial topic. Actually.. it's still going to be controversial among the creationists, the truth is I found out about this on one of the links I gave in the last post.
But ignoring the anti bible literalist angle that this information could be used for, it's still darned fascinating.
The concept goes like this. We all know that you can count the age of a tree by counting its rings, one for every year, right? Well it turns out that, at least to some degree, you can do the same thing with coral, because as it grows it expands and leaves similar layer patterns. But it doesn't just leave a single layer per year, it leaves a detectable layer every day, as well as patterns that indicate the passing of a year. This in itself blows my mind because much has been made about how coral is an extremely slow growing organism. To think that despite that it leaves behind detectable layers for every day is incredible.
But it gets better. This isn't about measuring how many days old the coral in our oceans is. The method has been used on fossilized coral.
Some of you reading this may just see where I'm going with this. But rather than attempt to ease gradually into the concept I'll just spring it. The older the coral samples get, the more days per year they indicate.
I'm not a scientist, I merely have an extreme fascination with science. I only encountered this coral concept recently. I've attempted to do some research into the concept, but specific information is difficult to find. I've found a research paper that appears to give different numbers for days per year for the same fossils, I'm not sure what's going on there, it seems to be a reflection of different methods or differing formulas or an indication of a margin of error.
But the number of days per year of the older samples gets at least as large as 400.
What this is about, of course, is the fact that the Moon is constantly slowing down the rotation of the Earth through tidal friction. Don't ask me to explain how, I only barely have a handle on the concept myself. The same or at least a similar effect is behind the fact that the same side of the moon faces the Earth at all times (give or take a few percent because of libration, but that's beyond the scope of what I'm talking about).
Ultimately what will happen is that the Earth will rotate slow enough that the same side always faces the moon. The moon will, essentially, appear to stay in the same place in the sky at all times. There'll be some variations to that because its orbit isn't perfectly circular, but basically that's what will happen. I don't know how long it will take off hand, but it will take a VERY long time. Believe me you shouldn't be starting to think ahead to prime real estate if you want to be able to see the moon hanging outside your kitchen window every day of the year. In about 400 million years we've gone from 400 days per year to 365. So we have a bit of time yet before we reach full tidal lock.
But back to the coral. I'm practically giddy with the revelation that it's possible to go so far back in time and count how many days were in the year. If I understood what I read it sounded like they were using the coral research to track tidal cycles from the era of the coral being studied as well.
Perhaps this seems odd that I'd be that impressed by counting layers in coral, but it's the idea that we're able to get this much information about a time so far in the past.
It appears that coral clocks aren't the only way to do this. One of the nearly unintelligible (to the average reader) scientific papers I found on the subject seemed to refer to using bivalves (in other words, things like clams) to do similar research. Or using silt accumulation. Clearly there's much more to this type of research than I'd ever heard about.
But the fact remains that we can look back in time using evidence of when a year was 4oo days long, and conversely each day was shorter. It's not about exactly what the numbers say, it's that we can actually get them in the first place.
I don't think my fascination with this concept is that weird. I'm interested in the past because it's something that I can never personally witness. I wish I could go back in time to see what the ancient Roman empire was really like, I'd even settle for a one way visual portal that would let me see (and preferably hear) without interfering in any way.
But the fact that it's permanently out of reach means it will never lose its appeal, it's a mysterious world that I can only get glimpses of. This is even more true for the pre historic era, including the time before humans were even around at all.
Take for example the Devonian era, roughly about 400 million years ago. Life in the seas was well established, but life on land was still in its infancy. Land plants were well established and becoming more complex, and fish evolved legs to take their first steps onto land (although arthropods, which is to say insects, appear to have been first onto land). I want to know what it would be like to be there to see it. Not to see the changes happening, but just to see a moment in time, just a tiny slice of what the world looked like then. The alien vista of the primitive plants with the comparative lack of animal life variety. A world completely unsuited to humans, that very fact alone makes me want to be able to be standing there, intruding into a place I don't belong. The fact that I can never see it makes it all the more intriguing.
But now I find out that just by looking at coral they can count how many days were in a year, and analyze the tidal patterns of the age. In a way it makes the ancient past seem slightly less out of reach. It suggests that there's a great deal of information out there that I've never even heard of. And in the end I always get a kick out of that. I have a definite "know-it-all" complex, I try to accumulate as much general knowledge as I can. But I'm continuously reminded that there's a great deal more information out there, including stuff that I don't even know exists. And it's so much fun when something pops up out of the blue and surprises me.
I should specify that it appears that the data is actually being used to fine tune the age of the coral. It may be that scientists are actually using the information to figure out how old the coral is, because they already know (or at least have a reasonable understanding of) how fast the Earth's rotation is slowing down. So they can use the rotation information to get another estimate of when the coral lived, to compare with the dates obtained by radiological dating or by using the geologic layer.
The inexplicable complexity of the paper I read on the issue may have been because of the need to compensate for differing tidal levels caused by ice ages and such. I say that because it would seem that having more or less liquid water in the ocean would change the way the tides slow down the rotation. Before I realized that I was baffled at how what would seem to be a simple relationship should call for a mathmatical formula that I couldn't even read.
a war on science
Okay, time for talk of another war.
But first, check out this video.
If you don't wish to sit through a 50 minute video I can attempt to recap it. It's the story of the Dover trial, an attempt by the fundamentalist Christians to force their concept of intelligent design on the local school district.
Just to attempt to be thorough, I should attempt to explain the concept of intelligent design. Basically, it's a clear attempt to begin taking over the scientific world, to start denying the theory of evolution. It's creationism in disguise. To me it's clear that if these people were to get intelligent design accepted into the classroom then creationism would be the next step.
I did not follow the Dover trial as closely as I should have, given the critical importance of it. This video gave me much needed background on it.
I had always assumed that these attempts to force creationism into classrooms was a wacky, doomed to fail effort by some poor misguided individuals. Watch the movie and you'll find out that there's a massive organization at work with a terrifyingly subtle plan.
Basically, it goes like this. They claim that they have a legitimate scientific theory. They demand the right to debate the mainstream scientific community with it.
That's where the insidious subtleness begins. They have to know that their arguments are fundamentally flawed. The people working to do this appear to be scientifically educated, if they're as educated as they claim they have to be aware of the flaws in their reasoning.
But that's not the point. All it took was for them to get the scientific community to come out and point out the flaws. And then they had what they wanted. Now they could claim that there WAS a scientific debate. The very fact that scientists had engaged them was enough, they got to claim legitimacy.
It's a publicity scam, not a scientific conflict. They just wanted to get the nation to hear that they had entered into a debate with the scientific community. "Teach the debate" has become the war cry of the creationists.
All of the attacks on evolution have failed. Scientifically speaking, there is no debate. It's clear that these people do not possess a functional scientific concept, they're merely desperately trying to find obscure loopholes that allow them to claim that evolution is disproved.
At it's heart this dispute has nothing to do with science. Even the most dedicated fundamentalist is happy to use any number of results of scientific progress. They do not deny that the world is round, or that it orbits around the sun. If they're diagnosed by a scientific doctor as having some sort of disease which, if left untreated, would prove fatal they're certainly not hesitant to use the medicine that science has created.
It is an attempt to seize power by undermining the very concept of logic and reason. They are working to bring us back to the intellectual level we had sunk to during the dark ages. They want to be the ones who tell us all what to think and what to do. They want people to be confused and frightened by the world around them so that they turn to the church to find answers.
It is about control.
The best example of the sort of logic they're attempting to promote is a short quote by a girl who had been brought up immersed in this irrationality. It was a brief quote aired on the radio, she had been asked what scientific evidence she had for creationism. Her immediate (which I suspect means it was a ritualized phrase) response was "the creator is in my heart". To her that was proof. Belief has become a form of evidence.
This is, to me, of immediate relevance because of the Bush presidency. I've already put forward the fairly simple logical statement that the war on terror has benefited terrorists and hurt our country. Logic would suggest that maybe we should stop it then. But nonetheless the right wingers demand that we must continue or else things might get worse. It's completely illogical. Our actions have made things far worse, but if we were to stop then things might REALLY get bad. Yeah, and the Pope could suddenly convert to Buddhism. Bush and his supporters are desperate to continue the conflict in Iraq until the next administration takes over, then they can dump the problems on them and, at the same time, blame it on them.
To think that that degree of illogic can exist at the highest levels of our government without an immediate outcry tells me that we've already lost a great deal of the ability to think rationally. I think it's worth noting that those arguments always use an element of fear as well, there's always the threat that if we don't do just what they want to do that the terrorists might strike back. Kind of like how the church uses the threat of Hell to attempt to frighten people into doing what they wish. Osama bin Laden has become our own official devil who will deliver punishment if we don't do what we're told.
I can only hope that despite that, the backlash from the Bush presidency will still carry a rational successor to office who can begin undoing the damage that's been done.
For a sampling of other examples of creationist attacks on science I have a few more links to offer.
This one is a page that lists a number of attacks on evolution and refutes them all.
This is a collection of content from a usenet group, talk.origins, that deals with discussion about, well, the origins of things. - Human beings, life on Earth, the Earth itself, the Solar System, and the Universe. It is a treasure trove of counter creationist arguments that point out the flaws in the various tricks the creationists attempt to use to argue their point.
And if you want an example of the methods the creationists use to attack evolution, if you, like I used to be, find it impossible to think of creationists as subtle and clever, here's an example. You can find some of this man's arguments refuted in the talk origins site.
The basic technique used by people like this is to be cute and folksy, exuding charisma, and to bombard the audience with random information which they know little about. Without specific knowledge in the fields covered it's difficult to understand how you're being lied to, besides which these sorts of lectures are aimed at people who already believe in creationism.
If you really want a laugh, continue watching towards the end where he'll present pictures that are supposed to show fossilized human footprints next to dinosaur fossils, and other things like that. Of course he doesn't give any sort of verifiable source for this kind of information, he just happens to have pictures which should change our understanding of the history of the world tucked away in his own private museum.
But first, check out this video.
If you don't wish to sit through a 50 minute video I can attempt to recap it. It's the story of the Dover trial, an attempt by the fundamentalist Christians to force their concept of intelligent design on the local school district.
Just to attempt to be thorough, I should attempt to explain the concept of intelligent design. Basically, it's a clear attempt to begin taking over the scientific world, to start denying the theory of evolution. It's creationism in disguise. To me it's clear that if these people were to get intelligent design accepted into the classroom then creationism would be the next step.
I did not follow the Dover trial as closely as I should have, given the critical importance of it. This video gave me much needed background on it.
I had always assumed that these attempts to force creationism into classrooms was a wacky, doomed to fail effort by some poor misguided individuals. Watch the movie and you'll find out that there's a massive organization at work with a terrifyingly subtle plan.
Basically, it goes like this. They claim that they have a legitimate scientific theory. They demand the right to debate the mainstream scientific community with it.
That's where the insidious subtleness begins. They have to know that their arguments are fundamentally flawed. The people working to do this appear to be scientifically educated, if they're as educated as they claim they have to be aware of the flaws in their reasoning.
But that's not the point. All it took was for them to get the scientific community to come out and point out the flaws. And then they had what they wanted. Now they could claim that there WAS a scientific debate. The very fact that scientists had engaged them was enough, they got to claim legitimacy.
It's a publicity scam, not a scientific conflict. They just wanted to get the nation to hear that they had entered into a debate with the scientific community. "Teach the debate" has become the war cry of the creationists.
All of the attacks on evolution have failed. Scientifically speaking, there is no debate. It's clear that these people do not possess a functional scientific concept, they're merely desperately trying to find obscure loopholes that allow them to claim that evolution is disproved.
At it's heart this dispute has nothing to do with science. Even the most dedicated fundamentalist is happy to use any number of results of scientific progress. They do not deny that the world is round, or that it orbits around the sun. If they're diagnosed by a scientific doctor as having some sort of disease which, if left untreated, would prove fatal they're certainly not hesitant to use the medicine that science has created.
It is an attempt to seize power by undermining the very concept of logic and reason. They are working to bring us back to the intellectual level we had sunk to during the dark ages. They want to be the ones who tell us all what to think and what to do. They want people to be confused and frightened by the world around them so that they turn to the church to find answers.
It is about control.
The best example of the sort of logic they're attempting to promote is a short quote by a girl who had been brought up immersed in this irrationality. It was a brief quote aired on the radio, she had been asked what scientific evidence she had for creationism. Her immediate (which I suspect means it was a ritualized phrase) response was "the creator is in my heart". To her that was proof. Belief has become a form of evidence.
This is, to me, of immediate relevance because of the Bush presidency. I've already put forward the fairly simple logical statement that the war on terror has benefited terrorists and hurt our country. Logic would suggest that maybe we should stop it then. But nonetheless the right wingers demand that we must continue or else things might get worse. It's completely illogical. Our actions have made things far worse, but if we were to stop then things might REALLY get bad. Yeah, and the Pope could suddenly convert to Buddhism. Bush and his supporters are desperate to continue the conflict in Iraq until the next administration takes over, then they can dump the problems on them and, at the same time, blame it on them.
To think that that degree of illogic can exist at the highest levels of our government without an immediate outcry tells me that we've already lost a great deal of the ability to think rationally. I think it's worth noting that those arguments always use an element of fear as well, there's always the threat that if we don't do just what they want to do that the terrorists might strike back. Kind of like how the church uses the threat of Hell to attempt to frighten people into doing what they wish. Osama bin Laden has become our own official devil who will deliver punishment if we don't do what we're told.
I can only hope that despite that, the backlash from the Bush presidency will still carry a rational successor to office who can begin undoing the damage that's been done.
For a sampling of other examples of creationist attacks on science I have a few more links to offer.
This one is a page that lists a number of attacks on evolution and refutes them all.
This is a collection of content from a usenet group, talk.origins, that deals with discussion about, well, the origins of things. - Human beings, life on Earth, the Earth itself, the Solar System, and the Universe. It is a treasure trove of counter creationist arguments that point out the flaws in the various tricks the creationists attempt to use to argue their point.
And if you want an example of the methods the creationists use to attack evolution, if you, like I used to be, find it impossible to think of creationists as subtle and clever, here's an example. You can find some of this man's arguments refuted in the talk origins site.
The basic technique used by people like this is to be cute and folksy, exuding charisma, and to bombard the audience with random information which they know little about. Without specific knowledge in the fields covered it's difficult to understand how you're being lied to, besides which these sorts of lectures are aimed at people who already believe in creationism.
If you really want a laugh, continue watching towards the end where he'll present pictures that are supposed to show fossilized human footprints next to dinosaur fossils, and other things like that. Of course he doesn't give any sort of verifiable source for this kind of information, he just happens to have pictures which should change our understanding of the history of the world tucked away in his own private museum.
Friday, May 25, 2007
strategy
I feel that I should probably write a bit more about my thoughts on the whole war on terror debacle. The usual defense against the sort of thing I've said is to reassert that the terrorists are still a threat and to suggest that people like me are advocating ignoring them.
It didn't take long after the attacks of September 11th for the blowhards to start giving their speeches. The message was that the architects of the attacks had a problem with everything good about the USA, and somehow that they thought that a single suicide attack would just make us surrender.
Assuming that Osama bin Laden was indeed the master architect of the attacks (if you follow foreign news reports you'll see that they always say that the US believes he was behind them, which makes it seem like the rest of the world isn't as convinced), then say what you will about him but you have to give him credit for being a master strategist. There's no virtue in ritualistically discrediting your enemies.
I don't believe that someone with that firm a grasp of strategy would believe that such an attack would simply cause the country to give up. And I'm not sure that he would have gone to all that trouble to just kill a bunch of people. He is trying to change the world.
From the very beginning I said that the attacks were an attempt to elicit a response. Basically a trap. While all our would be "brave leaders" were on television giving their bold speeches promising equally violent responses to the violence that had just been done to us, while everyone was chanting "we will never forget".. I was telling everyone I could that we were falling into a trap. A path had been planned for us by the enemy and we were heading straight down it.
But no. Everyone knew better. The situation called for knee jerk reactionism only. The only thing left was go out and kill a bunch of people. That would make everything better.
Well we're coming up on six years after the event. We've brought two countries to chaos, stretched our military to the breaking point, sent our own country plummeting into debt, and ruined our standing in the global community.
We should have been working to moderate the anger in the Islamic community. Instead we've fed it. We've given power to the fundamentalist leaders who seek to spread their absolute law and enforce their narrow view of their religion on the rest of the world.
The Pentagon and even George Bush himself have had to admit that our actions have resulted in terrorist organizations gaining power. Yet not even the fact that our "war on terror" has ultimately benefited those we're supposed to be fighting has made a difference in the course we're pursuing.
There are, roughly speaking, two problems here. Number one, that a computer geek such as myself has a better handle on the subtleties of global military tactics and diplomacy than the current occupants of the executive branch of our government. And believe me I'm not claiming to be a tactical genius. I'm calling them incompetent hacks who have no real concern for the consequences of their own actions.
Then number two there's the fact that, despite the immediate historical record showing that our actions have achieved results exactly opposite to what they were supposed to do, we're continuing to do the same thing because the people who lead us down this path are still in charge and are attempting to remedy the situation by continuing to do the same thing that got us here in the first place.
The solution to the Iraq quagmire is not an easy thing to find. I have no easy solutions. But the correct approach to the threat of terrorism is simple. This is not a conflict that can be solved by bombs and bullets. Certainly we should be on guard for further attacks, although we're more than capable of doing that without dismantling the bill of rights in the process. The answer is to work to promote peace and stability in the Middle East. Okay so that's not simple. But the basic concept is. It's a slow, unglamorous process of diplomacy.
The extremists feed on violence and conflict. The solution is to work for peace and stability. Defuse the rage and you take away their power. But before we set out on that path we need leaders who are capable of the subtlety and patience that that approach would require.
The deciding point will be the next presidential elections. If we elect someone who talks the talk of the war on terror then we will be turning away from any chance of a positive outcome. I don't have an adequate understanding of the full situation to know how much worse things will have to get before it happens, but sooner or later I fear that a true global conflict will begin if things continue unchanged. Religious fervor is reaching a fever pitch for both the Islamic and Christian fundamentalists, we're entering another oil crisis, and a number of hostile dictatorships either have or are in the process of acquiring nuclear weapons.
It's going to take a bit more than a "mission accomplished" sign to get us out of this one.
It didn't take long after the attacks of September 11th for the blowhards to start giving their speeches. The message was that the architects of the attacks had a problem with everything good about the USA, and somehow that they thought that a single suicide attack would just make us surrender.
Assuming that Osama bin Laden was indeed the master architect of the attacks (if you follow foreign news reports you'll see that they always say that the US believes he was behind them, which makes it seem like the rest of the world isn't as convinced), then say what you will about him but you have to give him credit for being a master strategist. There's no virtue in ritualistically discrediting your enemies.
I don't believe that someone with that firm a grasp of strategy would believe that such an attack would simply cause the country to give up. And I'm not sure that he would have gone to all that trouble to just kill a bunch of people. He is trying to change the world.
From the very beginning I said that the attacks were an attempt to elicit a response. Basically a trap. While all our would be "brave leaders" were on television giving their bold speeches promising equally violent responses to the violence that had just been done to us, while everyone was chanting "we will never forget".. I was telling everyone I could that we were falling into a trap. A path had been planned for us by the enemy and we were heading straight down it.
But no. Everyone knew better. The situation called for knee jerk reactionism only. The only thing left was go out and kill a bunch of people. That would make everything better.
Well we're coming up on six years after the event. We've brought two countries to chaos, stretched our military to the breaking point, sent our own country plummeting into debt, and ruined our standing in the global community.
We should have been working to moderate the anger in the Islamic community. Instead we've fed it. We've given power to the fundamentalist leaders who seek to spread their absolute law and enforce their narrow view of their religion on the rest of the world.
The Pentagon and even George Bush himself have had to admit that our actions have resulted in terrorist organizations gaining power. Yet not even the fact that our "war on terror" has ultimately benefited those we're supposed to be fighting has made a difference in the course we're pursuing.
There are, roughly speaking, two problems here. Number one, that a computer geek such as myself has a better handle on the subtleties of global military tactics and diplomacy than the current occupants of the executive branch of our government. And believe me I'm not claiming to be a tactical genius. I'm calling them incompetent hacks who have no real concern for the consequences of their own actions.
Then number two there's the fact that, despite the immediate historical record showing that our actions have achieved results exactly opposite to what they were supposed to do, we're continuing to do the same thing because the people who lead us down this path are still in charge and are attempting to remedy the situation by continuing to do the same thing that got us here in the first place.
The solution to the Iraq quagmire is not an easy thing to find. I have no easy solutions. But the correct approach to the threat of terrorism is simple. This is not a conflict that can be solved by bombs and bullets. Certainly we should be on guard for further attacks, although we're more than capable of doing that without dismantling the bill of rights in the process. The answer is to work to promote peace and stability in the Middle East. Okay so that's not simple. But the basic concept is. It's a slow, unglamorous process of diplomacy.
The extremists feed on violence and conflict. The solution is to work for peace and stability. Defuse the rage and you take away their power. But before we set out on that path we need leaders who are capable of the subtlety and patience that that approach would require.
The deciding point will be the next presidential elections. If we elect someone who talks the talk of the war on terror then we will be turning away from any chance of a positive outcome. I don't have an adequate understanding of the full situation to know how much worse things will have to get before it happens, but sooner or later I fear that a true global conflict will begin if things continue unchanged. Religious fervor is reaching a fever pitch for both the Islamic and Christian fundamentalists, we're entering another oil crisis, and a number of hostile dictatorships either have or are in the process of acquiring nuclear weapons.
It's going to take a bit more than a "mission accomplished" sign to get us out of this one.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
the futile stupidity of our war on terror
I'm writing this in response to this news story. I don't know how long that link will last, so to summarize it, it's a story about Bush telling the same old story that Iraq is at the forefront of the war on terror.
I'm sick of the idiocy behind that, and astounded and deeply, deeply discouraged that anyone believes that nonsense anymore. All evidence tells us that under the regime of Saddam Hussein Iraq had absolutely no ties to al-Qaida. However after we destroyed the infrastructure of their country and brought them the joys of total civil chaos, THEN al-Qaida moved in.
We gave them a country that was ripe for the taking, and we loaded it up with vulnerable troops that they could strike out at.
How does anyone not know that since we began the so called "war on terror" terrorist causes worldwide have gained considerable power? Are we that dumbed down by the actions of a draft dodging war monger president that we're unable to understand that killing scores of people alone does not constitute victory?
To be fair the news story I referenced does quote some people who have a slightly wider world view than that. They managed to find someone who actually remembered that before Iraq we fought the Taliban in Afghanistan, but unlike Iraq as soon as the fighting slowed down we pulled out so fast we left vapor trails in our wake. The Taliban, who were seen as such a threat, are back in Afghanistan. So why isn't Bush telling us that the mission in Afghanistan isn't complete? Why the single minded tunnel vision focused squarely on a third world nation who's only resource is oil.
Oh yeah. Silly me.
I just want to know why the incompetence of the war in Iraq to date hasn't lead to widespread demands to remove Bush from power. How can we not see how much his actions have weakened the nation? It seems we've become increasingly willing to accept senseless civilian casualties so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised at the lack of outrage over the unknown numbers of innocent civilians killed as a result of our invasion. But if we're so concerned about our own country why does it not matter that we've strained our mighty military, funded by an amount of money that no single other nation can come close to matching, so much money that entire groups of other nations can't match, to the breaking point in simply attempting to occupy a single third world nation where the primary resistance is people so desperate that they're willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to strike out at their perceived enemy.
Russia is increasingly showing signs of regressing to the state it was in during the Cold War. North Korea and Iran threaten to bring nuclear weapons into the sphere of global conflict. All around the Muslim world rage is boiling over as a result of our actions in Iraq, supporting a new generation of extremists bent on making the west and the USA in particular feel the force of their rage.
And we're still Stuck in Iraq trying to police a civil war we touched off.
Let's ignore the question of whether we should be staying or leaving for the moment. Let's hold the man who got us into this situation accountable for his actions. And get him and his entire corrupt administration removed from office so that we can find someone else, someone sufficiently in touch with reality to understand that committing our military to a guerrilla war that could last for a decade or more and enraging the Muslim world is not the way to work for our security.
Come on. The Republicans tried to get Clinton removed from office because he lied about receiving oral sex from an intern. That was clearly not his finest hour, but compared to lying about intelligence in order to push the country into a war that's resulted in the deaths of tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, he might as well have been a celibate priest.
I'm sick of the idiocy behind that, and astounded and deeply, deeply discouraged that anyone believes that nonsense anymore. All evidence tells us that under the regime of Saddam Hussein Iraq had absolutely no ties to al-Qaida. However after we destroyed the infrastructure of their country and brought them the joys of total civil chaos, THEN al-Qaida moved in.
We gave them a country that was ripe for the taking, and we loaded it up with vulnerable troops that they could strike out at.
How does anyone not know that since we began the so called "war on terror" terrorist causes worldwide have gained considerable power? Are we that dumbed down by the actions of a draft dodging war monger president that we're unable to understand that killing scores of people alone does not constitute victory?
To be fair the news story I referenced does quote some people who have a slightly wider world view than that. They managed to find someone who actually remembered that before Iraq we fought the Taliban in Afghanistan, but unlike Iraq as soon as the fighting slowed down we pulled out so fast we left vapor trails in our wake. The Taliban, who were seen as such a threat, are back in Afghanistan. So why isn't Bush telling us that the mission in Afghanistan isn't complete? Why the single minded tunnel vision focused squarely on a third world nation who's only resource is oil.
Oh yeah. Silly me.
I just want to know why the incompetence of the war in Iraq to date hasn't lead to widespread demands to remove Bush from power. How can we not see how much his actions have weakened the nation? It seems we've become increasingly willing to accept senseless civilian casualties so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised at the lack of outrage over the unknown numbers of innocent civilians killed as a result of our invasion. But if we're so concerned about our own country why does it not matter that we've strained our mighty military, funded by an amount of money that no single other nation can come close to matching, so much money that entire groups of other nations can't match, to the breaking point in simply attempting to occupy a single third world nation where the primary resistance is people so desperate that they're willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to strike out at their perceived enemy.
Russia is increasingly showing signs of regressing to the state it was in during the Cold War. North Korea and Iran threaten to bring nuclear weapons into the sphere of global conflict. All around the Muslim world rage is boiling over as a result of our actions in Iraq, supporting a new generation of extremists bent on making the west and the USA in particular feel the force of their rage.
And we're still Stuck in Iraq trying to police a civil war we touched off.
Let's ignore the question of whether we should be staying or leaving for the moment. Let's hold the man who got us into this situation accountable for his actions. And get him and his entire corrupt administration removed from office so that we can find someone else, someone sufficiently in touch with reality to understand that committing our military to a guerrilla war that could last for a decade or more and enraging the Muslim world is not the way to work for our security.
Come on. The Republicans tried to get Clinton removed from office because he lied about receiving oral sex from an intern. That was clearly not his finest hour, but compared to lying about intelligence in order to push the country into a war that's resulted in the deaths of tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, he might as well have been a celibate priest.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Aero Glass fixed
I think I should mention that the main problem with Aero Glass crashing on the one computer that I mentioned seems to have been fixed. It appears to have been caused by the need to install the Via "hyperion" drivers.
For those not familiar with that, hyperion is the new name for the Via 4 in 1 drivers, which in turn are drivers for motherboards that use VIA chipsets.
The one thing that I know for sure that the drivers work with is the AGP interface, which is used by video cards. Annnnnnd to attempt to come to the point, the Aero Glass interface is seriously hardware (video card) dependent. So anyway the drivers seem to have fixed up that little issue.
But in researching that kind of problem one runs into all sorts of disturbing concepts. Apparently some people have run into crashing issues like that if they install video card drivers manually (IE: clicking on a driver install file). The solution for them has been to let Vista install the drivers itself.
Yes folks, Vista is ALREADY forcing people to relinquish control of their computers. This may be inadvertent, but considering that the real point of Vista is to take control of peoples' computers and simply leave them able to use it as a limited appliance, that is only able to do as much as Microsoft and the media companies they're working so hard to support want it to be able to, this is an ominous sign.
It may seem like a small issue, but for power users, especially gamers, video card driver installation has become almost a ritual. There is a specific method that involves uninstalling the previous driver and then using a method to try to wipe out all traces of the previous driver before installing a new one. You can find websites devoted to people discussing each new version of a driver, and often they'll be trading "leaked" drivers, which means drivers not intended for public distribution for one reason or another. Also you can find hacked drivers, modified by end users, typically in an attempt to squeeze more performance out of the video cards.
If you're an average user then this may all seem rather irrelevant to you, but the point is that the PC platform has always been about being OPEN. It was a practically unlimited tool. A commercial grade flight simulator? Sure, with enough money you can add on panoramic simulator style displays, fully simulated cockpit control environments, and even a motion platform if you really wanted to shell out the dough. Recording studio? Of course, with the right interface hardware and recording software you could do anything that a major studio could (mind you I suspect that abilities like that are why the record companies are so eager to see the PC locked down into appliance status, they must understand that the greatest threat to them isn't internet piracy but the ease at which independent artists can produce their own music).
Home built DVR using custom compiled OS designed specifically for recording tv shows and then serving them up later? Why not?
If Microsoft gets their way with Vista all that will come to an end. Hardware will have to be made specifically for Vista, a process that will impose certain restrictions on its functionality as well as make it more expensive overall.
Everything that made the PC great will be gone. It will have come full circle and finally turned into what the Apple fans have been saying all along, a Mac clone.
Except it'll be a clone designed to let the media companies control how you use it.
For those not familiar with that, hyperion is the new name for the Via 4 in 1 drivers, which in turn are drivers for motherboards that use VIA chipsets.
The one thing that I know for sure that the drivers work with is the AGP interface, which is used by video cards. Annnnnnd to attempt to come to the point, the Aero Glass interface is seriously hardware (video card) dependent. So anyway the drivers seem to have fixed up that little issue.
But in researching that kind of problem one runs into all sorts of disturbing concepts. Apparently some people have run into crashing issues like that if they install video card drivers manually (IE: clicking on a driver install file). The solution for them has been to let Vista install the drivers itself.
Yes folks, Vista is ALREADY forcing people to relinquish control of their computers. This may be inadvertent, but considering that the real point of Vista is to take control of peoples' computers and simply leave them able to use it as a limited appliance, that is only able to do as much as Microsoft and the media companies they're working so hard to support want it to be able to, this is an ominous sign.
It may seem like a small issue, but for power users, especially gamers, video card driver installation has become almost a ritual. There is a specific method that involves uninstalling the previous driver and then using a method to try to wipe out all traces of the previous driver before installing a new one. You can find websites devoted to people discussing each new version of a driver, and often they'll be trading "leaked" drivers, which means drivers not intended for public distribution for one reason or another. Also you can find hacked drivers, modified by end users, typically in an attempt to squeeze more performance out of the video cards.
If you're an average user then this may all seem rather irrelevant to you, but the point is that the PC platform has always been about being OPEN. It was a practically unlimited tool. A commercial grade flight simulator? Sure, with enough money you can add on panoramic simulator style displays, fully simulated cockpit control environments, and even a motion platform if you really wanted to shell out the dough. Recording studio? Of course, with the right interface hardware and recording software you could do anything that a major studio could (mind you I suspect that abilities like that are why the record companies are so eager to see the PC locked down into appliance status, they must understand that the greatest threat to them isn't internet piracy but the ease at which independent artists can produce their own music).
Home built DVR using custom compiled OS designed specifically for recording tv shows and then serving them up later? Why not?
If Microsoft gets their way with Vista all that will come to an end. Hardware will have to be made specifically for Vista, a process that will impose certain restrictions on its functionality as well as make it more expensive overall.
Everything that made the PC great will be gone. It will have come full circle and finally turned into what the Apple fans have been saying all along, a Mac clone.
Except it'll be a clone designed to let the media companies control how you use it.
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