Tidbits
The phony $1 CEO salaries are like “a fat person who devours two pizzas a day forgoing the mushroom topping to cut calories”.
Using your computer could kill you! (if you sit on your ass for 18 hours straight and don’t move so that the blood in your legs clots)
My very own online dry erase board
A Texas biology professor refuses to write recommendations for students that don’t believe in the theory of human evolution. Is it “open religious bigotry”, or a valid measure of one’s aptitude in biology? I think the professor is in err for evaluating students on their personal beliefs rather than knowledge of the subject.
The Aftermath: what happens after the punchline of jokes and riddles.
The Moon: A Propaganda Hoax casts into doubt the existence of the moon.
Artificial intelligence allows for games without frontiers or endings I think the Maxis games (SimCity, The Sims) have been doing this for almost a decade. Not to mention MUDs and fantasy worlds like Ultima and Everquest.
That reminds of of lightcycle.org. Slick weblog.
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January 31st, 2003 at 2:15 pm
“the professor is in err for evaluating students on their personal beliefs rather than knowledge of the subject.”
beliefs are based on knowledge or the lack thereof. you can«t separate the abstract (belief) from the real (information) or you lose the purpose of the abstract. i would also refuse to give recommendations who do not acknowledge that faith and evolution are compatible theories.
January 31st, 2003 at 4:47 pm
i would substitute personal belief for personal delusions. But if I was state school professor with 700 people in a class, I’d probably appreciate delusionals, even if a rather conventional delusion. Yes MUD, ultima/everquest, any multiplayer online are all intelligent b/c playing with people, but not articificially. imagine a console game with say a Lord of the Rings size army, but with individual personalities and abilities assigned to each orc in a physics-accurate middle earth. would be quite the thing. Or a storied game, that could never be played the same way twice (though that is more probability)
February 2nd, 2003 at 9:22 pm
IMHO, the professor didn’t err one bit. In fact, I’d like to shake his hand. Every scientific principle, no matter how well-supported is never called anything more than a theory, but science must build a stronger case for any theory than what any belief has ever required. Evolution doesn’t just apply to our history (though that’s very important, especially when making comparisons between medical and biochemical properties of humans and other species) but also to modern science and medicine. For example. how can you understand multiple drug resistance and the associated epidemiology without it? Then there’s that whole field of ecology…