Guess you could slap something similar on the bible.

I drunk what: you are incorrect. I'm not an average reader. I read every Blue Moon. I do listen a lot, and try to find summaries of certain texts you recommend. If I come across one that sounds particularly intriguing I might even get a copy and read the darn thing. In the mean time I'd rather just hear thoughts and discuss ideas, I can read when I'm old and retired. (and HAVE more free time)

Then recognize that you are in effect ignorant, choosing to remain ignorant, and furthermore attempting to assert the conclusions derived from your ignorance, in debate with people who are not ignorant.

You assert God like it must be obviously true, we quote you all the resources and logic you need to see why that is not so, you shrug and say, "I'll get around to looking at them, maybe, some day", then go back to asserting God without batting an eye.

This does not inspire respect, or any inclination to take you seriously. It does inspire us to consider you ignorant and poorly educated, as well as dull of wit.

Remember that most of us posting in these threads are autodidacts. We learn constantly, almost obsessively, about nearly everything that catches our attention. We recognize the complexity of these issues, and the volume of scholarship that has gone into addressing them, and try to respect that effort.

So when you ask for the Coles notes version, and just brush off anything you disagree with by saying how you'll "get around to it later", why then should we not just immediately and with cause dismiss anything further you have to say on the topic?

ninjakirby: I was speaking technically. There are reading speed tests. I've been as high as 388 in the past, I scored 335 when I googled this for the previous post.

http://www.readingsoft.com/

Huh. I got 836 at 82% comprehension according to their tests. That's much better than I was expecting.

All I can add is that the best way to learn to read fast is practice.

FootInMouthDisease: I drunk what is trolling he's done it in the same exact fashion several times.

He's just using the, um, "Socratic" method.

snowburnt: FloydA:

First: happy? :-)

It's the second time I've done that. I'm beginning to suspect something! (Not really. Me getting post number 666 in this thread was indeed "intelligently designed." I even had my screen grab software running ahead of time.)



Second: my assumption is that the end result of evolution is efficient survival.


We disagree then. I would call survival an unintended byproduct of evolution, rather than a goal.

I do not think of evolution as a conscious program, so I tend to reject teleological arguments automatically.


By efficient I mean at each stage of the evolutionary game things change as little as they have to in order to survive in changing conditions.


Again, we disagree. As far as I can tell, the relative frequencies of the various alleles in various gene pools change without regard to external conditions. The notion that there is a correlation between the "needs" of the organism (or gene pool) and the rate at which variation arises is a Lamarckian concept that (IMO) relies on undefined and as yet undetected forces. I'm just not sure how that could work.

Adaptation is, as far as I can tell, a "side effect" rather than a goal.


I think you're confusing what anti-evolutionist's refer to as "Intelligent Design" with what I am trying to say. The idea "Intelligent Design" starts off with the assumption that we are created. For my purposes, There is no concrete end goal, just a meandering path with a beginning but no end. In a lot of ways it seems like a poorly designed piece of software.

Or a completely un-designed one, which is what I have been suggesting. The entire concept of "design" is anthropomorphic, and I am innately skeptical of anthropomorphising non-human phenomena.



If you look harder it's not just one piece of software but an incredibly complex, robust framework with endless upgrade and add-on possibilities.

Following the software metaphor, it's more like an entire OS, each piece of which was built by a different person, each with his or her own ideas about what the software needs to be doing, and all of them are creating something with multiple, competing "goals" in mind, no single one of which is more influential than any of the others. Then the original programmers hire someone else and tell their new hire some but not all of what they planned and then retire and let the new hires continue writing their own, modified version of the software.

The results only "work" because all of the parts that don't work have failed to be included in the collection of new hires.

That the OS "works" at all is in some ways quite surprising, and it is not even remotely like what the original programmers had in mind.

Third: You've continue to claim that you understand what I'm saying yet your prose suggests the opposite.


I am open to clarification. If I have failed to understand you, perhaps you would be willing to re-phrase your point so I can try again.


And you even contradict yourself.

"I contain legions." But please feel actively encouraged to point to any contradictory statements I have made. I would appreciate the assistance in making my own ideas more internally consistent.


You said that creationism and evolution can not co-exist, yet you also claim that they don't even belong in the same conversation.

Nope.

I said that creationism and evolution cannot both be correct because creationism is nothing other than the claim that evolution is wrong.

I am making a distinction between "creation" (which is the religious belief that God created everything) and "creationism" which is the claim that evolution is wrong. These are not equivalent claims, IMO.

I am also concerned that I might have been unclear. Perhaps you misunderstood what I meant when I said that the Big Bang is not part of evolution.

The "big bang" is an attempt to account for the origin of hydrogen (and subsequently of heavier elements) after the initial collapse of a universal singularity.

Evolution is about organisms reproducing. There were no organisms at all until long-long (probably billions of years) after the "big bang."


I also feel like under the proper circumstances the designated hitter rule in baseball can enter the discussion of evolution.

For example: look at how Darwin discovered that plants and animals on the mainland were incredibly similar yet entirely different from their cousins of the mainland.

National League = Mainland
American League = Island

We can investigate the evolution of how the two leagues became so similar and yet so different yet can somehow mate and form the world series. (unlike creatures of different species)

You are correct (IMO) that such phenomena can be understood using evolutionary principles (although this is a somewhat controversial opinion). However, the existence of evolution is not dependent on the existence of the designated hitter rule, nor is the DH rule dependent on evolution.

By the same token, evolution is not dependent on the big bang, nor vice versa. There could have been the origin of a universe that did not result in the existence of life, and there would still be evolution even if everything we currently think about the initial stages of the formation of our universe is wrong. The two concepts (evolution and big bang) are therefore independent of each other.

But this is really all a "side issue" and is getting a bit off topic for the thread. My email is in my profile if you want to discuss this in more detail.

Cheers

ninjakirby: Murkanen: /photographic memory maybe?

There are techniques which are supposed to move you into that realm, where your eyes see the full page and understand what is contained within it, but I'll be farked if I know how that works, or if it really does.

You can make an analogy to a relational database. When I read, I don't look at letters, or even words, or even small groups of words. I tend to look at 1-2 lines at a time, and recognize all the words and most of the context in which they are arranged in one long glance. All the words and their order all process as one chunk.Now, if the arrangement does not make sense on first pass, I go back and read it a little more closely, but that is relatively rare unless I am reading highly technical information.

This is just the result of massive practice reading everything I could get my hands on as a kid. Effectively, I've seen most word arrangements already many times. So when I see a few words together, the most common meaning of that arrangement jumps to mind, I spend a moment on a quick automatic reality check, then move on.

At least, that's what it feels to me like I am doing. I know enough psychology to know I might be completely wrong. =)

ninjakirby: FloydA: But this is really all a "side issue" and is getting a bit off topic for the thread. My email is in my profile if you want to discuss this in more detail.

That happened looooooooong ago.

Yeah, I just don't want to make it worse. ;-)

So when are we going to meet up for those drinks I owe you?