Slashback: Little Red Hoax, Firefly, Google 508
A little red hoax. MyNameIsFred writes "In an earlier Slashdot story, it was reported that a student was investigated for requesting Mao's Little Red Book on inter-library loan. It appears that the story was a hoax."
Firefly franchise death greatly exaggerated. Kazzahdrane writes "Joss Whedon has spoken out against the Entertainment Weekly that claimed he has turned his back on the Firefly/Serenity franchise. From his post at Whedonesque: 'All right, now I have to jump in and set the record straight. EW is a fine rag, but they do take things out of context. Obviously when I said I had "closure", what I meant was "I hate Serenity, I hated Firefly, I think my fans are stupid and Nathan Fillion smells like turnips." But EW's always got to put some weird negative spin on it.'"
Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching religion. rcs1000 writes "After much deliberation Judge John Jones has ruled that teaching Intelligent Design is tantamount to teaching religion. The judge was pretty forthright, arguing that 'it is unconstitutional to teach Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.'"
EU launches first Galileo navigation satellite. Xserv writes "The EU launched the first in the series of Galileo Navigation Satellites signifying the start of a lessening of dependency on US Military GPS Systems in Europe. The new Galileo system is touted to be much more accurate and will also be more accessible on higher latitude zones where the US GPS system is known to be less than ideal."
Why AOL chose Google over Microsoft. gambit3 writes to tell us that the Wall Street Journal has a nice article deconstructing AOL's decision to go with Google instead of Microsoft. From the article: "Two weeks ago, when Time Warner Inc. was on the cusp of signing a sweeping online deal with Microsoft Corp., a team of executives from the media company's AOL unit traveled to Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash., to make sure everything was in order. When the executives returned, they reported back to Time Warner's top deal negotiator, Olaf Olafsson, with some less-than-satisfactory findings. They had found some of Microsoft's technology to be clunky, while the contemplated joint venture with the software king contained what they thought were financial pitfalls."
Endgame in Blackberry patent case. waynegoode writes "The New York Times is reporting that a recent decision could spell the end of the NTP vs. RIM Blackberry case. The US Patent Office apparently took the unusual step of telling NTP & RIM it will likely reject all 5 of NTP's patents, meaning the basis for NTP's lawsuit and it's billion dollar claim will most likely disappear. This puts pressure on the judge to not issue an injunction against RIM but to instead delay until the USPTO gets around to actually rejecting the patents."
Katrina aftermath still making waves. An anonymous reader writes "Approximately 50 people have been indicted in relation to a scheme that drained almost $200,000 from a Red Cross fund designed to put money into the hands of Hurricane Katrina victims. From the article: 'Seventeen of the accused worked at the Red Cross claim center in Bakersfield, Calif., which handled calls from storm victims across the country and authorized cash payments to them. The others were the workers' relatives and friends, prosecutors said last week.'"
More cloning doubts emerge. LukePieStalker writes "The Boston Globe is reporting that the South Korean cloning team whose troubles have recently been chronicled here on Slashdot used "borrowed" photos in their Science journal article that "appear in the journal Molecules and Cells, in a research article by another Korean team, submitted before the Science paper". In the earlier article, the cells in the photo are described as having been created without cloning."
Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching religion (Score:4, Insightful)
As I peer into my crystal ball... (Score:5, Insightful)
Predicted comment breakdown for this Slashback I love the ID stories, those are where I can tell rational people from kooks by my "Fans/Foes" changes that day.
Can there be anything worse? (Score:5, Insightful)
News stories like this make me sad. I am sad for the people of New Orleans who are suffering. They have lost so much, many have lost loved ones. Many have lost homes. But I am also sad that there is a small number of people who could take advantage of others and steal funds which should have helped the people of New Orleans. What kind of deprived life can a person have where they think it is okay to steal from the less fortunate?
And what is worse is these kinds of actions will make people less likely to donate. They will be wondering "Is my gift really going to help people, or will it be sucked up by greedy people taking advantage of a situation". What can a person do? Give and hope for the best??
Ah, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Abuses that are so thoroughly not in evidence that the people who believe in them are forced to manufacture them.
A little red hoax (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:2, Insightful)
You know he was pretty much wrong when he said that, right? Hidden variable theories of quantum mechanics have been pretty thoroughly disproven.
The parent in not a troll (Score:3, Insightful)
Editors - do some editing! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ah, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, the fact that so many people were neither surprised nor outraged that the original story might have happened in the US... just indifferent... was rather depressing.
Re:Editors - do some editing! (Score:4, Insightful)
Intelligent Design stories (no pun intended) get
Re:Ah, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
See Wolf, Boy who Cried
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:4, Insightful)
That would be delusional. The judge is a rather conservative Bush appointee.
I am conservative myself and I personally do believe in inelegant design but I do not believe that it should be tough in schools as science.
Believe whatever you want according to the dictates of your own conscience. So long as you don't try to put it in public school science curricula, that is fine with me.
Science is not guaranteed to be absolute truth, science is a process of observations and finding a theory that best fits the observation, if a pattern cannot be found it is called random
Science is a bit more than you give it credit for. There is a pretty well defined set of philisophical principals that extend it well beyond pure empiricism.
As far as 'random', this is whare I disagree. Self-organization is easy to show on many scales and doesn't require any faith to accept. This argument is an approach used to try obfuscate the fact that there are real ways of dealing with the question of self organization. Unfortunately they require some pretty careful thinking to undersand and are not as easily presented to the general public as Darwinism is.
Just saying God did it is a shortcut that ends further investigation
And that is the problem. Progress ends when you stop looking for alternative explanations.
Re:The parent in not a troll (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ah, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey, I'm just kidding...
* superchkn quietly assembles a tinfoil hat out of his holiday Hershey's Kisses...
Re:Ah, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
You have got to be kidding.
No, it would seem to prove there are so few cases regarding civil rights abuses that someone had to make one up. Or at least it would lead a logical person to conclude this. I mean, if there are 10s of thousands of real stories, and no one hears about them, and we only hear about this one, and it is fake? Do the math.
There ARE problems with civil rights in limited circumstances in the US, and these fake stories do nothing but HURT those who really have a legitimate bitch. So, rather than prove your point, it counters it.
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:3, Insightful)
And god can be scientifically disproven. In fact, I have ran tests, and in each and every one of them this god fellow failed to show up, deliver lottery numbers, or cure children inflicted with AIDS.
God doesn't exist, QED.
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you prove a negative? Proving that there isn't an underlying pattern to the apparent pseudorandom behavior on a quantum level is like proving there is no God. And in fact, being a firm believer in the "God of the Gaps" theory- that's exactly what you're attempting when you claim there are no possible hidden variable theories of quantum mechanics. At best, you can only say there are no proven hidden variable theories- yet.
Re:As I peer into my crystal ball... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:3, Insightful)
I find it ridicules that some people can not combine faith and science , the two things do not mix normally (unless science can define the view in question) .
Science is there to help us understand the world and how things work , faith is there to help us accept the things we can not understand , till the time comes that we may understand those things .
Science and faith should never be opposed and have no reason to be .
I like to think of it like this , if g-d is all mighty then surely it would have the power to architect a world an existence than can construct itself and follow its own rules , such as the laws of physics . Much as I do as a systems admin to automate my tasks . Science helps me to understand the way things works . Perhaps my views are naive and cowardly and there to help me cope with a short term life , but they do not affect my scientific views as I hope they would not any person who is religious .
sadly they do as they are too blind sighted to accept anything.
To them I say this , if g-d is all mighty then perhaps g-d would do as us sysmins do and automate the creation process . Why would the divine waste time on something which us mere mortals would have found a simple solution for .
These things need not be a dividing line , they are only made so by hatred and fear . Fear to know truth and to understand the workings of the world and if you choose the workings of g-d
Re:A little red hoax (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:With regards to the hoax... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why did you have to turn this into a partisan issue? Was it such a stretch to think that ALL defenders of American liberties - liberals, democrats, conservatives, republicans, libertarians - could be equally concerned over a (thankfully false) report that the government was investigating people who read Mao's book? Did you honestly think only liberals would raise a stink over such an issue?
Because if that is what you're saying, then you are tacitly admitting that only liberals are defenders of American liberties.
Re:As I peer into my crystal ball... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't believe in ID. That said, I don't at all agree that it's unconstitutional, or even improper. Perhaps it *should* be (although I don't think so), but I don't see anything to substantiate the argument that such prohibitions currently exist. The two arguments in favor of separation are as follows: 1) The constitution prevents the establishment of religion in the First Amendment, and 2) Congress has no power except that which is explicitly granted to it, therefore it can neither support nor discourage religion.
However, in order to say that teaching ID is unconstitutional, the following criteria must be met:
1) ID is religion
2) Teaching religion as theory is supporting religion
3) The classroom is a federal matter
On the first point, ID might be a pillar of some religions, but I do not believe that it is paramount to religion. A religion is a construct (or divine law, if that's what you believe) which usually centers around a higher power, but not always. It is, at the heart of it, a set of principles, values, and beliefs about how one should live one's life, and possibly why. The theory of ID on its own makes no claim as to whom this being might be, what its motives were, or how we should regard it. It is the dichotomic (is that a word?) opposition of life arising by chance mingling of molecules. Either it happened by chance, or it didn't. Acknowledging an opposing viewpoint is not anti-science; rather it is the very foundation of science. To blindly follow any hypothesis or theory without regard to alternatives is the definition of bad science.
On the second point, sociology is science, and religion is part of sociology. Sociology is not hard science like chemistry or physics, but it's science nonetheless. Further, no science is an island, regardless of how much each branch may wish it were so. I do believe it's a slippery slope, but sheltering children from various ideas is the opposite of education. Acknowledging that religion exists is not at all the same as supporting it. Teaching politics is as much of a slippery slope, and maintaining an unbiased presentation (inasmuch as that is humanly possible) is obviously important. Because it is difficult does not mean it shouldn't be attempted.
On the third point, Congress only has powers which are granted to it by the Constitution. All other powers are granted to the state, or the individual. As far as I know, States are in charge of their own curriculum. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Congress is expressly prohibited from making any laws regarding religion, which would mean that such powers are relegated to the states by default. While it's not (to my knowledge) legal for any state to promote or discourage religion, such restrictions would logically be enacted on a state-by-state basis in their own constitutions. That, however, does not make it unconstitutional.
Anyway, that's my take on it. I don't particularly like the idea of teaching ID, but when I try to think about it objectively, I just can't reconcile its prohibition.
ID in Science Class (Score:5, Insightful)
It went on to say that there are groups which believe that the earth and the creatures as we know them, were created by a higher power. And while this could be possible, it was beyond the scope of a science class as it was not a scientifically testable hypothesis. It finished with suggesting that, should you wish to learn more about the idea of creationism, you should contact the clergy of your church of choice.
Simple, Factual, not more than a parapgrah. Now if only I could remember who published that text book.
Re:Ah, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Got to differ with you are the rariety of civil rights abuses. They are getting out of control in this country. In some cities people are getting shot for disorderly conduct and other crimes that wouldn't nessaccarily involve jail time. Ignoring an officers orders shouldn't be grounds for execution in this country. Can't happen? Hate to break it to you but it's a daily occurance in this country. Just before I left LA a man was shot for disorderly conduct because both officers were under 130lbs and felt they couldn't handle the man. Since when have we gone to the Judge Dred system? Unless there's a serious risk of life there should be no excuse for beating or executing a suspect. I've seen hand cuffed suspects beaten on video tape that weren't even resisting arrest. We used to call it innocent until proven guilty. Add to that the government constantly ignoring the constitution and we have a serious problem. I just read an article about the NSA using visiting the website an excuse to install a thirty year cookie onto your computer to monitor where you browsed. Do we control the government or are they here to control us? The constitution says one thing but the government seems to feel the opposite is true.
Re:Ah, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
He said nothing about whether that information was actually useful. It doesn't contradict his initial statement, but it's really more of an obfuscation rather than a clarification.
I also don't see how the fact that after 2001, 179 FISA requests have been modified illustrates that abuse has lessened. If anything, it tells me that Bush tried to push the envelope on who they're monitoring, and FISA told him "no". After which, in classic fashion, Bush decides to just ignore the FISA.
Re:Ah, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
So he got information he didn't already have. So what. It could have been anything from the bust size of a 1930's pinup girl to the fact the wiretap recipient likes to say "unh hun, and then what?" every five seconds while his mother in law is on the phone to piss her off.
The fact they obtained information doesn't mean it was useful, or legally, or morally correct to collect it.
Did they get real, actionable information they acted upon to save the United States from another 9/11 disaster? Nope. Or else they'd have trumpeted it all day long.
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:2, Insightful)
Technically, judges don't belong to a party. Therefore, he's neutral. Just because Bush appointed him doesn't make him a conservative "nut".
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:3, Insightful)
Even with evolution we are starting to stop to look for anything alternative. I am not for nor agaisnt the theary of evolution. But it remains just that - a theory. Being a better theory does not make it true. Remember the time when the most acclaimed minds in the world thought that the world was flat? Or how the best minds once thought the molecule was the smallest unit before they discovered atoms and electrons and those became the smallest. Then they they spilt THOSE up too. Remember the period table 50 years ago had less elements than they do now.
Intelligent Design may not be the answer. But that does not mean evolution is. Scientists are supposed to have an open mind. Accept your believes and accept that they may be wrong.
Re:About Firefly (Score:2, Insightful)
If the dvd does well, then I could see Universal being interested in a direct-to-video sequel, which would be fine by me.
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:3, Insightful)
MEEP! BEEP! The bullshit-o-meter just burst!
Any statement of fact can be written in positive or negative form, so your statement simply says you can't prove anything at all. Positive: "I am going to the park today." Negative: "I am not going to remain outside the boundaries of the park today." Or more simply, "It is not true that it is not true that I am going to the park today."
And in case you really believe the statement, "You can't prove a negative.": I'd like to see you try to prove it. Oh, I'm sorry, did I ask you to prove a negative?
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:4, Insightful)
So you're saying that we should continue looking for alternatives to the current understanding that the world is round?
I guess I will take these in order.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't consider teaching one particular sect's creation story in a science class support?
The theory of ID...
ID is not a theory, at most it is a hypothesis
Except (by your own words) that it must be a being in the first place. That is a pretty specific claim
Acknowledging an opposing viewpoint is not anti-science; rather it is the very foundation of science. To blindly follow any hypothesis or theory without regard to alternatives is the definition of bad science.
All opinions are not equally valid in science. Only those opinions that can be tested in some way count. To blindly posit a hypothesis with no way to verify it and call it a theory is the (literal) definition of bad science in that it does not follow the scientific method.
On the second point, sociology is science, and religion is part of sociology. Sociology is not hard science like chemistry or physics, but it's science nonetheless.
Sociology class is not Biology class. People would not be nearly so upset it they were suggesting it for the sociology curriculum.
On the third point, Congress only has powers which are granted to it by the Constitution.
And converselty cannot wield powers that are specifically denied it. Of course, we are talking about the judiciary branch re: the article. To get to the heart of the matter (FTA): We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion.
Case closed (thank God).
Re:As I peer into my crystal ball... (Score:3, Insightful)
Neither does the judge, as far as I understood him. The whole thing was not about whether ID is constitutional or proper, it was about whether ID should be thaught in science classes or not.
Re:Separation of church and state (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, anything requiring intelligent design to be taught in schools would most certainly be a "law respecting an establishment of religion." And, although the Constitution only specifically mentions Congress, I think it should be agreed that this should apply to the states and municipalities and such as well (because I'm sure we'd be equally upset if these bodies banned free speech).
I don't think anyone would have a problem with ID being taught in a religious studies class, which most high schools today offer. But that's where it belongs. A science class should teach ideas that have been proven (or at least backed up) through scientific evidence and conceptualized using a scientific method. But hey, religion in a religion class and science in a science class? That's just begging for the wrath of God, isn't it?
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:3, Insightful)
Careful - rightnext to the bsometer is the wasnt-paying-attention-in-junior-high-ometer.
The g.p. is refering to the scientific principle that you cannot prove an absolute negative. In general, it is a warning not to infer too much from one's own limited perspective of the universe.
For example, "I can see no stars in the sky at this time" is much more easily supported than the statement "There are no stars in the sky." The statement, "I found no fish in this pond" is sensible, but the statement, "This pond has no fish" is close to nonsense.
Per your example, "I do not intend to go to the park today" is a statement you can support. "I will not go to the park today" is not provable. Of course, that is because it is future-tellings, not because it is negative.
Which brings us back to...
This is misleading. The theories have not been disproven. They have simply not been proven. The fact that they have not, to date, been proven, does not imply that they are disproven. Actually, the theory of some pattern existing behind pseudorandom quantum phenomena may very well be not-provable and yet still true. (In order to emphatically prove such a theory, one have to discover the pattern... rendering the point moot!)
Ask any metaphysicist.
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of them *do* have an open mind. But they require decent scientific theories do actually consider. Intelligent Design is the weakest theory around, and it's not science. You can't pitch a scientific theory against something that is not a scientific theory.
ID is better explored in philosophy or theology (where is used to be before it was rebadged as ID).
Remember the period table 50 years ago had less elements than they do now
They may be true but it doesn't matter! Good scientists would have assumed that more elements may be found, given that they kept finding them! Intelligent design says, "I don't understand that - it looks way too tricky and complicated - God must have done it! Hooray for God, I was just *looking* for something to credit Him with".
Re:Can there be anything worse?...Ahem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ah, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it is completely theoretically possible that the government is violating the amendment about unwarranted search and seizure for thousands or millions of people without any of them knowing about it. Not hearing any complaints doesn't mean that rights aren't being violated, not hearing any complaints doesn't mean the abuse is marginal and therefore harmless. Sure, the worst way to violate someone's right is to do it in a way that specifically and immediately hurts them - typically when a crime is committed the victim can show harm, but it is possible to have widespread and secret or subtle violations.
Not hearing about abuses is no excuse, especially if all you do is read slashdot. There are websites being taken down and censored right now because the our good old nanny government has decided it wants a registry with names and phone numbers every adult entertainer, and plenty of other stuff going on I probably don't know about because I don't pay that much attention to the news (mainly because it's all bad and getting worse, I'd trade creationism-free textbooks for all the erosion of liberty we're seeing right now).
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:1, Insightful)
> idea that for the longest time almost every culture assumed
> life came entirely from a super natural being.
You missed the distinction. It's okay to mention that some Christians believe in ID. It's not okay to say that ID is an alternate, valid scientific theory.
It's just like how you can learn in history class that Jesus/Buddha/Mohammed/etc was/is worshiped by Christians/Buddhists/Muslims/etc, but they won't tell you that it is right to worship Jesus/Buddha/Mohammed/etc.
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:4, Insightful)
From your link: One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability."--end quote
Theories are supposed to be treated with skepticism, and the "religious nutcase" you responded to displayed more of it than you have.
Sometimes I think you slashbots have a religion unto yourselves.
I guess I've been in a cave (Score:3, Insightful)
It's got to mean something that prominent people and news organizations picked this up. At face value, it could very well mean that they're just gullible, but I think there is something more legitimate going on. In the wake of the revelation of the Bush administration using the NSA to spy on citizens without getting wiretap warrants (when they are fairly easy to obtain) we have had a range of official responses from "so what?" to "yes we did it, don't you like freedom?" Sadly, this kind of wavering and uncertainty where the truth is concerned is the hallmark of this administr~~~~~ persons with power. This leaves those without power in a position where they don't know what to believe, but always feel safe in assuming the worse. DHS stormtroopers showed up to implant your new baby with a RFID chip? Page one above the fold!
Unfortunately the natural paranoia that beaten down feel is only exacerbated by a media all too eager to jump on stories like this. Edward R. Murrough turns in his grave at the concept of this talking head journalism, but it sure does sell papers. Rightwing Extremist Nutcase vs. Leftwing Extremist Nutcase generates the sort of polarizing, us or them, emotional reaction quotes that make headlines. For those of you not paying attention, they make headlines because they sell papers.
So now we have some college student trying to feel good about himself and justify his own existence. With narry a street protest to find to have his head bashed in by the cops (a clear sign that the system has failed when peaceful protests go uninterrupted), and probably not enough initiative to walk downtown to where the proletariat live to participate in one anyway, this anonymous fellow makes up a story that maybe will score him some points with whatever hippy chick in philosophy 101 that he's had his eye on. Really, this kind of story isn't the sort of thing you tell your professor when you're looking for an extension to a paper, nor is it really the sort of thing one admits during an advising session; this is really the sort of thing you say when you're three sheets to the wind drunk and looking to score (score what, exactly, I'll leave to your imagination). So everyone in this thing winds up with egg on their face. The kid who started it, those who believed him, and the journalists who spread the story because it sells papers. Us sane folk who realize we're not living in a police state yet just kind of shake our heads and wonder which is worse, thought police or freedom of stupidity.
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but for scientific reasons, not religious ones. I wonder if he has the same level of skepticism for the atomic theory of matter, special relativity, and the round-earth theory.
Darwinism (Score:3, Insightful)
1 - random mutation
2 - suvirval of the fittest
3 - inheritance of characteristics from parent(s) - including the random mutation
Darwinism is the theory that all variation in life on Earth has arisen solely as result of this process. Proponents of ID are not the only people that object to Darwinism - there is credible evidence for some mechanisms of non-random mutation.
Creationists using these subtleties is comparable to a flat-earther (or Velikovsky) using the 46-seconds of arc in the obit of Mercury to deny "Newtonism".
Re:Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching relig (Score:3, Insightful)