Evolution Disclaimer Supported

The term is still single photon response.

That's just a word--I still don't see a photon counter in action.

Actually, you could make a better case--though I still claim it's a wet noodle. There exists an expensive diode, which I've used, called a photon/electron converter. Couple the output of that the Millikan Oil Drop experiment and voila'--you have a quantum counter, of sorts. Provided you don't swamp the apparatus with more than one reading at a time. I don't know how you'll do that, but if you stand around in pitch black until it happens, your case will be made,-- provided the instrumentation can tell your quantum blip from system noise.

Actually, I think we are demonstrating a better understaning of history and human depravity than yourself.

Opinions vary.

Why do you think slavery is wrong?

Didn't we already have this discussion about 6 times? For roughly the same reason murder and theft are immoral, even though they might be of short term benefit to specific individuals. Because we want to downplay force and fraud, and upplay cooperation, in human affairs as much as possible, inuring substantially thereby to everyone's long term best interests.

Let me just save some time by anticipating the argument: Is this consideration naturally binding on the individual?

As force majeure arising from the nature of reality. No. But, as a natural sentimental tendancy arising from our millions of years as veldt-dwelling social predators? Yes. Is this a foolproof source of morality? No, it's very fallible, and requires a lot of work, both to develop, and constantly verify, the right ideas about what's moral, and to harness men's natural sentimental tendencies (which tend to be natually limited to the tribal vicinity) to them.

Does this generally suck? Yes. Does it have big time failures of choice, and failures of adherence? Yes. It's just the best we can do, is all. Your candidate requires Special Knowledge, and viewing its historical track record, is a total non-starter. My horse, like evolutionary theory in it's own domain, is pretty feeble, but it's the only horse that's seriously in the race.

"Would you care to describe what form such proof might take. I would probably listen to a burning bush (I'm not being sarcastic here -- I would be open to direct observation of a miracle). I would also be impressed by the "signature of God" found in some natural constant. But I am mistified by what you have in mind by proof of Creationism."

I didn't say they had proof of Creation, I said IF they FOUND proof. Little bit of a difference here. I guess proof would be if God showed up one day in public so that the entire world could see him and then explained what he did, then to most people this would constitute proof. However most people who argue against creationism would find a way to refute that as well.

There is as much proof for Creation as there is for Evolution.

Basically none.

Hmmm... Leatherneck, eh? Methinks everything above your neck seems to consist of leather too.

Regards

Did you think that up all by yourself or did you have to get mommy to help?

Semper Fi

There is as much proof for Creation as there is for Evolution.

Basically none.

Fortunately, natural sciences do not wait around for proof, they make their best guesses, and move on.

Are we at 6500 already. And I'm expected to justify something I said 400 posts ago?

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. If George Burns or some reasonable facsimile turned up and claimed to be God, I would not require any cheap miracles. I would require some explanations of how things work and why they are the way they are. Specificially, I'd like to know about Leishmaniasis. What's that all about.

Actually, you could make a better case--though I still claim it's a wet noodle.

As I said previously what you claim for yourself is not relevant. What is relevant is that whatever you wish to call the object being measured, it is measured, now, directly.

There exists an expensive diode, which I've used, called a photon/electron converter.

What is expensive about a phototransistor or photodiode?

This is expensive---

High Resolution Photon Counting System

HRPCS-3

HRPCS(web).jpg (12213 bytes)

Features

	Extreme sensitivity with single photon counting capabilities
	Automatic center of gravity detection ensures high resolution in photon counting mode
	Bright field mode with real time video output for
	Photon co-ordinates can be spooled to a sequential disk file during data acquisition
	Powerful sequential file analysis software provides post experiment time resolved image analysis
	18, 25, 40 and 75mm image intensifier options.
	Large format X-ray camera options
	Vacuum imaging detector camera options

Applications Include

	Bio and chemiluminescence
	Measurement of acquorin, luciferase and ATP expression
	Simultaneous fluorescence and luminescence
	Measurement of rate constants
	Analysis of micro-titre plates
	Multiple wavelength imaging
	Contact imaging of samples
	Astronomy
	Autoradiography
	X-ray photon counting

Introduction

HRPCS-3 is a development of Photek's highly successful "High Resolution Photon Counting System" which was established in 1994 as a result of a EUREKA project "Phobia". Certain aspects of the system are subject to ESA patents for which Photek has a license.

This second generation photon counting system offers a true single photon counting sensitivity camera along with high spatial resolution. The heart of the system is based around one of a range of Photek's photon counting cameras. This, together with a camera control unit, proprietary PCI interface card (for PC compatible computers) and IFS32 data acquisition and image processing software completes the package.

The complete system comprises a photon counting camera, HRPCS-3 Camera PSU, PCI interface frame grabber card, IFS32 software and a PC compatible computer running Windows 98/ME/2000.

The recommended minimum specification computer is a 1GHz Pentium or Athlon processor with 256Mb ram and video card operating at a minimum resolution of 1280x1024.

Bright Field Mode
The bright field mode of operation reduces the gain of the image intensifier to a maximum of a few thousand. This mode allows the user to adjust the gain of the camera and allows optimal levels to be achieved for the recording of bright field images. The following modes of operation are available:

	Live display for focusing the camera.
	Grab and display single frame (8 bit data)
	Grab and display an average of 16 frames for an enhance bright field image

Photon Counting Mode
In photon counting mode, the gain of the image intensifier is increased such that every detected photon event is easily discriminated from CCD background noise. Operating modes are as follows:

	Centre of gravity detection of photon events and integration into buffer.
	Binary slice intention mode.
	Real time display of the image during image integration.
	Spooling of detected XY events to a disk file for post experiment analysis.
	Real time graph showing count rate trends.
	Status window showing integration progress parameters.
	Timed Integration mode

Time Sequence Integration
Time sequence integration allows the user to set-up multiple integrations. For example, it is possible to set the camera to take up to 24 separate images. The integration time and a delay between images is also programmable.

The software can also control a room lamp. It can be arranged that the lamp is automatically switched off when the photon counting mode is selected.

Programmable Filters
A novel feature of our system is the programmable neutral density (ND) filter. This allows photon counting and time resolved experiments to be carried out even if the incident light falling on the detector is too high for normal operation.

Fixed settings of ND0 through to ND5 give six decades of signal attenuation. User defined levels are also available

Protection
The HRPCS has a number of optional interlocks which prevent the camera been switched on if for example a door is open or a lamp is on. In addition to this, the video signal is monitored and the camera switched off even if a small area of the detector is over illuminated.

Sequential File Analysis
The co-ordinates of all detected photon events may be written to a disk file for further analysis. Various tools are provided for analysing and re-constructing time resolved images. These include:

	The generation of a count rate trend graph. This shows how the count rate of an experiment changes on a second to second basis. This may be based on the whole image or up to six selected areas.
	The ability to generate a single image from any defined time domain, for example to see the image generated by the photons detected in time range 20 seconds to 70 seconds of a given experiment. This allows unwanted information to be removed from the image.
	Generation of a sequence of images from a given start time, integration period and the number of images.
	To regenerate images using pixel binning techniques to enhance the S/N ratio of a given image and to conserve memory when large image sequences are generated.
	To generate multiple sequences of images based on frame tag coding.

But, as a natural sentimental tendancy arising from our millions of years as veldt-dwelling social predators?

Let's assume you're right for just a second. We've evolved over millions of years from veldt-dwelling social predators. Why has slavery only become morally objectable within the last two millenia? Why has slavery been found in every culture in the history of man?

Why does murder and the use of violence to obtain things in possession of another occur in nature? Why does slavery only occur among humans?

Your candidate requires Special Knowledge, and viewing its historical track record, is a total non-starter.

You mean the will of God? How do you figure it has a poor track record?

Why does slavery only occur among humans?

Not true.

You mean the will of God? How do you figure it has a poor track record?

Well, now, lets just take a starter sample. 1) The slaying of the Midianites & other tribes in the holy land. 2) The genocides of the Gnostics, Templars, Anabaptists, Jews and witches. 3) The signing of the accords of silence regarding the Jews by Pius the Silent, and the acts of of the Slavonic catholic church in packing the trains heading for the ovens. 4) The ritualized, sanctified kidnapping of jewish children to be raised in foreign lands as christians. 5) The wholehearted sanctification of Saracen-slaughter during the crusades, including by children.

Had enough? I'm hardly winded.

Why does murder and the use of violence to obtain things in possession of another occur in nature?

Why don't you ask a question that makes sense in context? Who cares that violence arises from nature? How is this relevant to my suggestion that it makes sense for violence by individuals to gain ends be considered immoral?

Let me just try to cut to the chase, because I'm getting impatient waiting for you to frame the usual argument: Which I'll summarize--if morals don't come from God then they are fallible.

ANS: yes, that is right, that's why having morals isn't like falling off a log, but requires a lot of educational and philosophical work, and probably won't be an incredibly rousing or thoroughgoing success regardless. How many times do creationists have to be told that the social consequences of a theory are not a valid measure of whether it is correct or not? You can't argue (persuasively) that morals must come from God, as otherwise, the're ignorable. Obviously, looking at history, they're pretty bleeding ignorable whether they come from God or not.

What is expensive about a phototransistor or photodiode?

Their called 1 for 1 (one photon = one electron) photodiodes, and last time I looked they were plenty expensive enough for me.

What I was trying to point out, perhaps overly tersely, is that if you coupled one of these puppies to the Millikan oil drop experiment, you would see the oil drops falling in distinct cascades, sort of like a spectrograph in oil paints. Where each cascade would correspond to a discrete photon energy level, thereby rendering visible a sort of simulacrum of the reasoning by which we deduced from the continuous spectrum of black body radiation, discrete quanta of light.

An odd sort of reversal of the thinking process--sort of a pun of an experiment: in the black body experiment, you look at a continuous energy distribution and "see" quanta. In my experiment, you note a quantized oil drop distribution, and "see" a continuous Plankt distribution of energy.

Having read the technical blurb you just provided, I'm guessing that this device isn't actually counting photons directly, hence the need to push the detection coordinates onto disk for later processing. This should raise alarms about what detection actually means in this case--if you actually know where a photon hit, why not display the details of the photon on the front panel of the instrument?

Oh, by the way, are you suggesting that you are "seeing" quanta, through a 50,000 dollar collection of instruments, After massaging the data they've collected in your massive database?

What is relevant is that whatever you wish to call the object being measured, it is measured, now, directly.

Directly--with an expensive array of instruments that can detect beyond the range of your senses, and which require a huge database and massive computation time using mathematics that didn't exist 100 years ago. Without massive induction, you cannot sense discrete photons, just as I cannot sense actual dino mutational mating events, directly.

Who cares that violence arises from nature?

You're position seems to be that violence is wrong because we have evolved to the point were we have come to realize that it is not in our best interest. So why do people like Saddam Hussein prosper? You say he doesn't. Of course he does. Suppose he dies violently. What's the difference between dying violently or dying in a nursing home? Hussein has lived a life of wealth and comfort. He has had whatever woman he wanted in his terrority allowing him to pass on his genes in persumably the most desireable manner. He is the epitome of evolutionary theory.

Let me just try to cut to the chase, because I'm getting impatient waiting for you to frame the usual argument: Which I'll summarize--if morals don't come from God then they are fallible.

Why is that the usual argument? It's axiomatic that right and wrong exist. It should be axiomatic that God exists.

Obviously, looking at history, they're pretty bleeding ignorable whether they come from God or not.

That's very true.

1) The slaying of the Midianites & other tribes in the holy land.

This one was the will of God, according to scripture. Why do you think this was wrong?

This one was the will of God, according to scripture. Why do you think this was wrong?

You see nothing wrong with god-ordered genocide, eh? You don't hold your nose at slaughtering all the civilian males, and enslaving all the women and children of a tribe? You don't see a problem with one ethnic tribe slaughtering or driving out or enslaving all other ethnic tribes inhabiting the region of the earth God Gave Them? Not exactly a walking advertisement for God's Moral Laws, are you?

It's axiomatic that right and wrong exist. It should be axiomatic that God exists.

In other words, you have no argument to offer, so if I don't concur with your axiom, you are out of philosophical ammo. What a great argument for God's Law. Obviously, like the jailers of Galileo and the burners of Bruno, you will have to depend on the blunt end of a cudgel to make your argument stick.

You're position seems to be that violence is wrong because we have evolved to the point were we have come to realize that it is not in our best interest.

It isn't a question of evolving, it is a question of using your brains instead of your fist to think with. My "position", for those not yet tired of hearing it, is that the predisposition to be moral arises from the biological advantage of altruism. We are inclined to be altruistic toward those we love in our tribe because that is the best way to get your genes into the future, if you are a large, slow-breeding social predator. Numerous examples exist, and I have enumerated a few here on this thread, if memory serves me. Morals, as distinct from this, arise because of the imperfect connection between tribes and larger units of social organization, where the biological advantage is obscured or eliminated. Therefore, just to be clear, morals comes from two places: 1) a natural biological inclination and 2) the use of our brains to plot the best course into the future for all of us as a single cooperative entity, by channeling the natural instinct for useful ends through education and re-enforcement.

So why do people like Saddam Hussein prosper? You say he doesn't. Of course he does.

I didn't say any such thing. Let me just re-iterate once again, that the social consequences of adopting (or not adopting) a theory are not an adequate measure of the truth of a theory. The fact that the moral enterprise is fallible and frail is not an argument against my suppositions about where it comes from, it is an argument in favor of it.

Suppose he dies violently. What's the difference between dying violently or dying in a nursing home? Hussein has lived a life of wealth and comfort. He has had whatever woman he wanted in his terrority allowing him to pass on his genes in persumably the most desireable manner. He is the epitome of evolutionary theory.

Well, that's one strategy, but, large social predators exercise more than one survival strategy, that's the point of having sexual genetic exchange. For large social predators, co-operation and the exercise of selective social constraint is the hallmark of daily discourse, and is, I aver, the dominant strategy of our species. Look around you. Is your school, your church, your community center, your workplace, normally a hotbed of self-absorbed narcissism, acrimony and intemperance?

You see nothing wrong with god-ordered genocide, eh?

That's answering a question with a question. Articulate you're objection.