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Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a
nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a
"Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed
considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense
initiatives more successful? Can such an application of
science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable,
necessary or impossible?
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(7511 previous messages)
almarst2002
- 09:35am Jan 9, 2003 EST (#
7512 of 7532)
Anti-U.S. Sentiment Deepens in S. Korea - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30309-2003Jan8.html
rshow55
- 09:52am Jan 9, 2003 EST (#
7513 of 7532)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click
"rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for
on this thread.
almarst2002
1/9/03 9:35am . . and reasonably so.
commondata
1/9/03 8:58am - - is an interesting post - and asks about
how an "argument from design" can make sense.
Let me start from an example. I think the book of
Job is a better read, and more fun, and more beutiful,
if it is read switching back and forth between a religous and
an evolutionary perspective. It is beautiful either way - but
better, it seem to me, if both perspectives are considered.
Some things like that are inescapable. The fundamental
premise of much science is that things are causal. In that
argument - people invoke statistical arguments that decouple
from details of cause. To really believe in statistics, you
have to be believe in order - but you can't. To really beieve
in order, you have to believe in statistics - but you can't.
On a personal note - a matter of life and death for me (I'm
speaking literally here - I'm in physical trouble - I cannot
sleep, just now, and it is dangerous.)
I bought a big, expensive, wonderful computer - an HP760n -
at an auction - and cared a lot before I did it. A very short
time after I connected that machine to the internet for the
second time - a cd writer that had been working minutes before
became disconnected. The DVD-rom was disconnected, too. I
can't shut down my computer - it won't shut down in an orderly
way without the CD and DVD - and wouldn't boot - and the
program is far to big to deal with from a floppy.
I suspect that somebody who works for GW Bush reached out
and did that to me. But there could be some other explanation,
as well. Often there are other explanations to a presumption
of hostile intervention. I can't know. I doubt either
explanation some - but use it some. I switch back and forth.
On an issue that is, for me, a very serious one, for all sorts
of reasons.
MANY times, the argument from design, and the
argument from randomness - look the same in a particular case.
Sometimes, one happens to be right, sometimes the other.
commondata
- 09:57am Jan 9, 2003 EST (#
7514 of 7532)
rshow55
1/9/03 9:08am - [I'm] ugly and misshappen in other ways
that I can barely believe it.
I'm sorry for offending your aesthetic sense, rshow, and
I'm still interested in understanding why the assertion
torture can be an essential part of our social system
doesn't. Your "no fault" point about Bush being a child of
nature applied to Hitler as well; that should not clear
anybody of their responsibility for plunging the planet into
disaster. There are exception handling mechanisms that Bush
could use but he chooses instead to spend half a trillion
dollars a year on weapons of mass destruction. That's his
alternative. He deserves to be criticised strongly for it by
all well-intentioned people.
rshow55
1/9/03 9:13am - Anyone in his senses, I think - would need
an argument from design in the step by step process of raising
children.
Why? I'd consider one of my responsibilities as a parent to
be teaching what I'm sure is true (as defined in terms of
standard scientific validation), to be honest about what I
don't know and to be honest about what we, as a population of
primates, don't yet or can't ever know. I'd do that to the
best of my ability, I'd know that I'd often fail, and I'd
explain that too. Filling a child's head with the mumbo-jumbo
that often spills from American churches would not be on my
agenda.
One very good thing with arguments of design is they
much more naturally accomodate matters of aesthetics which are
vitally important.
Mapping the world as honestly and as completely as we can
(finding good natural law operators?) appeals more to my
aesthetic sense. I guess it's a personal thing.
An argument from design NEEDS an evolutionary argument
to work well.
Of course it does, Intelligent Design was formulated in
response to evolutionary ideas as an attempt square spurious
religious belief with what we actually know about the
world.
rshow55
1/9/03 9:52am
Auction bought computers often go wrong. I don't thing you
need to worry about The Firm.
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