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Nature has the story. Scientists from the MIT have suceeded in building a machine that can make copies of itself from random parts.http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7059/full/437636a.html
You'll need a subscrition to read the article, but it's well worth it!
This is the first step to self-replicating robots if there ever was one!
I just read an article in the Brittish "Guardian" by Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne. They enumerate a great list of scientific controversies that should be taught alongside established theories in science classes (besides the evident "intelligent falling" of course 
.Among the items in the list are such gems as teaching alchemy in chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. A real good one (especially from a German perspective) is the suggestion to demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened in a class on 20th-century European history
What else can we come up with?
Another good point the article makes is the falsifiability of evolutionary theory:
As the great biologist J B S Haldane growled, when asked what might disprove evolution: "Fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian." Evolution, like all good theories, makes itself vulnerable to disproof. Needless to say, it has always come through with flying colours.
In these times, it's hard to distinguish between news and satire. After having had great fun reading the satirical magazine The Onion and their reports on "intelligent falling" and the "entropy controversy", I'm thoroughly perplexed to read what I think is a news-item in the Los Angeles Times. In the article, the LA Times reports that the Assn. of Christian Schools International has files a federal civil rights lawsuit against University of California admissions officials. Among other things, the plaintiffs are apparently upset that "UC admissions authorities have refused to certify high school science courses that use textbooks challenging Darwin's theory of evolution."In other words, they file a religious discrimination suit, because UC requires biology students to have a basic grasp of biology.
Can this actually be a serious lawsuit?
Or will it make it into "America's most frivolous lawsuits"?
I mean, if this is news and not satire (of which I'm still not fully convinced), will the deaf next file for admission to music conservatories? Will the blind file for admission to driving or pilot school? Will the dyslexic file a suit to earn a degree in Literature? Maybe women will start filing suits to become sperm donors? Or men for their right to become pregnant?
Where is Monty Python when you need them?
Got fed up with the BlueSteel looks. It also loaded too slowly. New and slick "steam" theme. Hope you like it Got new emotes, too
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I have received my complimentary copy of the book on the Novartis Foundation symposium I attended as a participant last year. It was held at the Foundation in London in July, 2004 and the topic was "Molecular mechanisms influencing aggressive behaviours". It contains papers of all the talks including all the discussions. A great read, you should go and order a copy right away![ Read the rest ... ]
To round off the picture the religious extremists in the US are painting of themselves, TV preacher Pat Rpbertson preached murder on live TV. The 75 year-old called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Hmmmm, according to this report he also suggested the US department of state be blown up with a nuclear device and that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." LOL Reports like these do show rather clearly what sort of brains stand behind the religious extremist movement in the US.
Dementia senilis anyone?
My quote about the Flying Spaghetti Monster the other day apparently was part of an internet storm. Now even the German weekly newspaper DER SPIEGEL reported on this new religion. Almost 100,000 websites now link to the FSM website and the Kansas board of education must certainly be overwhelmed with letters demanding the religion being taught alongside evolution in biology class.I love how good stuff like that takes off. Hilarious!
Posted on Wednesday 24 August 2005 - 08:31:01 comment: 1
| religion evolution creationism intelligent design |
Not only in a recent post here but also to creationist readers who email me have I repeatedly emphasized that a lot of the "arguments" creationists use to exemplify their doubts about evolution, also can be used similarly for gravity. Is it a coincidence that now "America's Finest News Source", The Onion, is reporting on religious groups proposing "intelligent falling" as an alternative for gravitational theory? This article joins the report on a third religious group trying to overturn the second law of thermodynamics. I provide these articles, because The Onion will remove access to them eventually. Please read The Onion regularly and advertize their articles.
Posted on Thursday 18 August 2005 - 13:35:37 comment: 1
| religion evolution creationism intelligent design intelligent falling |
I thought I'd share with you a comment from a reader in the chatbox to the left (I'll re-post it here, to keep it with the subject):First time at site as I was doing research on my master's thesis - thanks for info. Concerning your comments on 'intelligent design': you do err on the side of ignorance. Our present bodies, though miracles in an of themselves (over 80% water and gelatinous material) that can self heal as indicated by daily life in a hostile, poisoned environment) were ORIGINALLY meant to be perfect. It is through mankind's proclivity to rebel against its Crator that has wrought so much bodily corruption and pain(in short 'death') into our existence. It was not and is not the ORIGINAL design we enjoy, but a corrupted consequence. Thanks!
Venusbaby
Venusbaby
While posting anonymously, the reader's IP number (24.167.214.49) resolved to a cable ISP (Roadrunner) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It can never be entirely clear if the reader was being serious or simply pulling my leg. The problem is, that there is a surprisingly strong movement in the US trying to teach children ideas like these. Most peple born outside of the US and after about 1200 a.d. (like me) have a hard time even to determine the seriousness of such barely intelligible blurbs. While there is evidence that in the middle ages up until the time of enlightenment, people really considered such ideas and pondered human origins in terms of "good" and "bad" and in terms of what people long dead had written in an ancient language in old collections of tales. However, outside of the US, modern reasoning replaced obscure mysticism a few hundred years ago.
My personal pet hypothesis is that just as the rain forest protected hunter-gatherer societies from modern societies, the US public education system protects religious fundamentalists from basic scientific knowledge.
I'd be interested in the mechanism with which our rebellious mind alters our genes to make us less "perfect" in each generation. And I wonder: if it's our "rebelliousness" that makes us more and more "imperfect" why did the pious people in the middle ages only get to live 30 years and we get to be rebellious for over 70? It seems not only is our creator less than intelligent, he also seems to be losing (against whom, I wonder?). Are pious people more healthy than the impious ones? One would assume so! However, no statistical evidence could be found so far. A simple coelenterath, for example, Hydra, consists of far more than 80% water and not only heals, but if you cut it in two, then you get two new Hydras (hence the name). So hydra is even more of a miracle than we are! And there are plenty more animals that are way more miraculous than we are. While I don't think there's a crown to creation, if there is one, it's defenitely not Homo sapiens! "Originally". Just about when was that? Before or after the Neanderthals?
Ok, this is getting all too silly. For all non-US readers, there is a very loud group of apparently radical christian fundamentalists trying for the last 120 years to fight the fight that the rest of the world never even bothered: the one against setting humans into the evolutionary perspective.And they're doing so rather successfully. In a country that ranks close to a number of third-world countries in terms of public education standards (according to the PISA tudy), a majority of telephone polled people believe human beings were created by a god: Harris Poll.
There is also a strong movement to bring these religious views into the science classrooms (see e.g. the story about Bryan Leonard here and here, or US president Bush's opinion).
Phrases that come up in news like these are "intelligent design" and some "evidence" that warrants a "debate" or "alternative".
So just to clarify a few things once and for all:
"Intelligent" design?
Personally, I'd like to have a few words with the genius who, according to some people, designed my knees. They're clearly not up to the task. I'd also love to exchange a few words on his grand idea of putting a fragile concatenation of bones as the carrying structure at the dorsal end of an upright walking organism (instead of, for instance, a flexible exo-sceleton or a hydraulic system). Finally, I'd like to share with him some of my thoughts on the brilliant design of the human esophagus, with such a neat connection to the trachea, that laughing, breathing or talking during eating or drinking can become life-threatening.
If I were an engineering professor and an undergrad would give me a blueprint with such basic flaws, I'd probably fail him no matter how well he designed some other details.
Ask your doctor: If the human body were a car, wouldn't it qualify as a lemon?
So who had the idea calling that guy "intelligent"?
If I were an engineering professor and an undergrad would give me a blueprint with such basic flaws, I'd probably fail him no matter how well he designed some other details.
Ask your doctor: If the human body were a car, wouldn't it qualify as a lemon?
So who had the idea calling that guy "intelligent"?
"Evidence" against evolution?
- So far, I have not heard about even a single piece of evidence against evolution. I only hear that evolution is supposed to not be able to explain certain things. Well, if a scientific theory that desn't explain everything right awyay justifies the invocation of the divine, you better start believing some god is pulling your legs, because otherwise you'd be flying out into space: nobody can explain (yet!) how gravity works either. Evolution, welcome to the club, there are many things we don't understand, yet. That's why there still is science. Otherwise we'd all be unemployed!
- Good evidence against evolution would be either to catch the divine act "in the act" (pardon the pun). Haven't heard of that happening, yet.
- Another good piece of evidence would be to show that a trait in an animal that does not lead to an increase in offspring (i.e. not adaptive and not a by-product) would spread through the population. Such a trait would clearly violate evolutionary rules and be great evidence against evolution as we know it.
-Inheritance of acquired traits is another good example.
None of these scientific (falsifying) objections have ever been observed and instead of trying to find such instances, creationists do the only thing they can do: they pull the issue on the political platform and fight on the backs of their own children.
Way to go!
- Good evidence against evolution would be either to catch the divine act "in the act" (pardon the pun). Haven't heard of that happening, yet.
- Another good piece of evidence would be to show that a trait in an animal that does not lead to an increase in offspring (i.e. not adaptive and not a by-product) would spread through the population. Such a trait would clearly violate evolutionary rules and be great evidence against evolution as we know it.
-Inheritance of acquired traits is another good example.
None of these scientific (falsifying) objections have ever been observed and instead of trying to find such instances, creationists do the only thing they can do: they pull the issue on the political platform and fight on the backs of their own children.
Way to go!
To sum it up: if you want to believe in design, go ahead. There are people who believe in astrology, flat earth and stuff like that despite of any evidence, so who cares. But don't call it "intelligent", that's an insult to all the intelligent people on this planet. And don't even try to call your belief scientific, until you have gathered some scientific evidence of the nature cited above.
It took the catholic church centuries to accept that earth really isn't the center of things anymore. When will you guys realize that humans are just as flawed, suboptimal and evolved as every other creature on this planet? There's no crown on creation, better get used to it.
For some more on this topic, see my Meta-Biology page.
UPDATE: Don't forget to write to the Kansas board of education and tell them that the designer can only be the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
Posted on Wednesday 03 August 2005 - 11:00:21 comment: 2
| religion evolution creationism intelligent design |
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