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Famed Harvard Biologist Gould Dies
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&ncid=716&e=2&u=/ap/20020520/ap_on_re_us/obit_gould ^ | 5/20/02 | yahoo

Posted on 05/20/2002 12:53:27 PM PDT by rpage3

See source for details....


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: crevolist
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To: All
I have posted another thread regarding the recent school board decision in Cobb County, GA to add a disclaimer against evolution to their biology text books. You can find the thread here.
801 posted on 05/23/2002 11:10:30 AM PDT by Condorman
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To: Junior
God did not say, "Thou shalt not kill unless the victim is thoroughly evil"

Whatever.

God did say, "you shall not murder," not "you shall not kill." It's the more accurate translation.

802 posted on 05/23/2002 11:10:33 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
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To: AndrewC; Aquinasfan;Heartlander;longshadow;PatrickHenry
Well I think the question relates to whether one can, with ruler and compass, construct a square with the same area as that of a specified circle. The fact that to an infinitesimal degree one can construct a square with the "same" area as a specified circle seems to be ignored.

Aaaaahhhhh, that's where we're going. Gotcha - it wasn't clear before. If that's the case, then Aquinasfan has a problem because the concept of "squaring a circle" with a compass and straightedge alone makes perfect sense, in terms of plane geometry - it's not possible for us to do it, but it's no longer nonsensical to discuss it. It's a perfectly valid proposition, in that case, and Aquinasfan has to come up with some explanation a bit more substantial than that it just doesn't make sense to discuss, because it does. Even if we can't actually do it.

And it has been mathematically proven that you cannot square a circle with compass and straightedge alone. Since we have to admit that discussing (and refuting) the concept of squaring a circle is eminently possible, you can read a good discussion of the problem and attempts to solve it here.

So now we have to resolve exactly what we mean by "square circle". Does it mean "can we construct a figure that has the properties of both a square and a circle?" as we have been assuming to this point, or does it mean "can a circle be squared using compass and ruler alone?", as Andrew suggests?

But to answer - can God square a circle with a compass and ruler alone? I don't know - maybe. Can he trisect an angle with a compass and straightedge alone? Maybe ;)

803 posted on 05/23/2002 11:34:27 AM PDT by general_re
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To: All
Did anyone catch The Simpsons last night? The episode was dedicated to Stephen Jay Gould who appeared in Episode 908. It was kinda neat...
804 posted on 05/23/2002 11:44:24 AM PDT by Condorman
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To: Condorman
No, I missed it. I’ve been having problems with my TV set – all of a sudden - it’s perfectly round!
805 posted on 05/23/2002 11:48:18 AM PDT by Heartlander
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To: Aquinasfan
"Hence," says Thomas (Summa I, Q. xxv, a. 3), "it is more exact to say that the intrinsically impossible is incapable of production, than to say that God cannot produce it."

I should have known that this was worked out centuries ago by better minds, but sometimes we understand and remember things better when we first try to work through the reasoning ourselves.

The Catholic Encyclopedia on Omnipotence

806 posted on 05/23/2002 11:48:39 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
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To: Stormblast
You are a riot...

f.christian (I think that's what his name was), despite his inability to write properly, put across something in his reply to me that I should point out. It doesn’t matter who created the “secular state,” fundamentalists today are trying to de-secularize it. Anything they consider “immoral” they wish to ban, whether it is evolutionary theory, violent video games, Harry Potter books, or homosexual rights, among many other things. Not only that, but they wish to establish what they consider “right” into American culture—prime examples being to force the 10 Commandments into being displayed in public institutions and trying to force “creation science” (which is not science at all) into the classroom. They seem to think that what is good for them must be good for everybody else. In fact, I’m pretty sure that many fundies want all non-theists deported (such was the opinion of several people who wrote letters to the editor to my local paper a few months back). A lot of the things I’ve heard straight from the mouths of fundamentalists seems like shadows of the oppressive Taliban regime—currently nowhere as bad, but could be if left unchecked by separation of church and state. Despite what f.christian thinks, atheists and other non-theists are trying to keep this country secularized. Secularism is by definition “The view that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs or public education.” I also fail to see how evolution has contributed to de-secularization. The only way I see this is that Darwin’s theory has done this indirectly and unwittingly. Fundamentalists who thought the theory was an attack on their belief saw it necessary to stick their noses into what is taught in public schools. So evolution has unwillingly provoked fundamentalists into trying to de-secularize public education. This was of course not Darwin’s intent when he formulated his theory. He was just a simple naturalist who put together a theory based on observation that would give us more understanding of living things than we have ever had and probably ever will.

you get--THINK everything backwards!

Christian protestants created the secular state...athiest--evolutionists have turned it into a cesspool of commhumanism!

You and donh should go out on a blind date---make a nice couple...

807 posted on 05/23/2002 12:08:15 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: general_re
square (skwâr) n. 1. A plane figure having four equal sides.

cir·cle   (sûrkl) n. 1. A plane curve everywhere equidistant from a given fixed point, the center.

Now tell me how a thing can simultaneously be both a square and a circle.

Your parlor games are getting boring.

808 posted on 05/23/2002 12:19:10 PM PDT by Aquinasfan
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To: AndrewC
The idea is, the mind isn't some separate entity from the brain itself. It's simply what the brain does.

I then presume that you deny the possibility of an artificial mind.

Of course not. How would that follow from what I said?
Do you think there is analogy between the mind and a general purpose computer? A GP computer "mechanically" functions. When power is applied, electronics signals are generated, heat is produced, voltages are switched etc. However to do something "useful" it must have a program. Once a program is introduced into this "mechanical" vessel, the vessel becomes quite a different thing. The program is also considerably a different thing than the vessel. Does the program require a particular vessel? Generally, no. Now the question becomes does it require any vessel?

The program requires some vessel in order to exist. If it's merely a gleam in a programmer's eye then it still requires a brain. If it's been typed out, it requires a medium in which to be stored. If it's been installed in a computer, then it requires a suitable computer.

But you are talking about an "artificial mind" here - one whose program is being imposed on it from outside. The whole thing about living organisms is, the program is generated internally. Ultimately you could say it was bootstrapped into existence by evolution. I think it's clear that intelligence (or any kind of functional complexity) can be created by 2 methods: From an existing intelligence from without, or by living processes (in the long run by evolution) from within. Method 2 created the living world, and elements of that world used Method 1 to create the artificial world.

So where I suspect you're going with this is really begging the question: Did evolution occur?

809 posted on 05/23/2002 12:20:26 PM PDT by jennyp
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To: Aquinasfan
It seems the ‘square circle’ is possible if one possess an intrinsic obtuseness. LOL
810 posted on 05/23/2002 12:29:39 PM PDT by Heartlander
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To: rpage3
I watched the last first run episode of the season for "The Simpsons" last night (Wednesday). At the end, they had a quick "In Memory of Stephen Jay Gould" with a Simpson's like cartoon face. Did anyone see that?
811 posted on 05/23/2002 12:30:55 PM PDT by NEWwoman
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To: Aquinasfan
Your parlor games are getting boring.

I'll try to be more interesting. I could resurrect the red font ;)

In any case, AndrewC suggested that we've been misreading the problem all along. "Squaring the circle" is a geometric problem with a long history, so it seemed plausible that this was what was meant by "square circles". You say we were right in the first place - fair enough.

I'm on my way out the door, but I'll come back to #796 later tonight.

812 posted on 05/23/2002 12:32:21 PM PDT by general_re
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To: longshadow
#808 can be your kitty, if you like - square circles are starting to bore me. Cubic spheres are much more interesting ;)
813 posted on 05/23/2002 12:34:54 PM PDT by general_re
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To: f.Christian
you get--THINK everything backwards!

Christian protestants created the secular state...athiest--evolutionists have turned it into a cesspool of commhumanism!

You and donh should go out on a blind date---make a nice couple...

Listen here son. If you want to reply to me, it would do you some good to not desecrate the English languange. Don't bother replying to me unless you can speak properly, understand? Such childishness doesn't go over very well with me. *sigh* Can't I ever get a civilised person who speaks proper English to reply to anything I say in places like this?

814 posted on 05/23/2002 12:43:02 PM PDT by Stormblast
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To: Stormblast
Can't I ever get a civilised person who speaks proper English to reply to anything I say in places like this?

Short answer: no.

815 posted on 05/23/2002 12:44:34 PM PDT by Poohbah
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To: general_re
But to answer - can God square a circle with a compass and ruler alone? I don't know - maybe.

The problem can be couched in a simple question. Can one construct a line of np[nPI] length using straight edge and compass alone?

This problem, "quadrature of the circle," was one of three famous problems that goes back at least to the time of Anaxagoras, about 150 years before Euclid. It is equivalent to constructing a line segment of length pi (relative to a unit length). This problem was solved by ancient Greek geometers but not by means of the Euclidean tools of straightedge and compass; higher curves were required. In fact, by the time of Pappus it was believed that the circle could not be squared using only straightedge, compass, and even the conic sections (parabola, hyperbola, and ellipse). But the ancient Greeks had no mathematical proof that it could not be squared.

That the circle could not be squared with Euclidean tools was not shown until 1882 when Lindemann proved that pi is a transcendental number.

To pose a contradictory situation and then claim some proof of anything is foolish. To me this whole sequence is equivalent to saying God cannot multiply two even numbers together and get an odd result, therefore He is not all powerful.

816 posted on 05/23/2002 12:45:31 PM PDT by AndrewC
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To: Stormblast
Talk about writing---sense...

your report---history would give the belt--decision to a cadaver...

and call the umtouched champ a cheat!

Evolution is politics of socialists...

all about power---unsubstantiated lies...

you swallow whole...hook--line--sinker!

817 posted on 05/23/2002 12:52:04 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: jennyp
So where I suspect you're going with this is really begging the question: Did evolution occur?

Why are you so locked on to evolution? The genesis of this interchange was morality which led to abstraction through my noting that Rand talked of the metaphysical(Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself) while denying independent "reality" of metaphysical objects(values---Epistemologically, the concept of "value" is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of "life"). Eventually we have settled on the mind, and here you are accusing me of some ulterior attack on evolution. My point has been to establish things that are not physical. You either accept that contention or reject it. Which is it? I have not yet dealt with any requirement for instantiation.

818 posted on 05/23/2002 1:03:09 PM PDT by AndrewC
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To: Heartlander
OK so you say a square can be perfectly round and still be a square – and say a circle equal to a square. I guess all shapes musts be the same. You are saying shapes cannot be defined.

I am saying that geometric figures are not only definable, but that they are rigorously defined. In fact I'll do so right now:

square:= a plane geometric figure composed of four equal length sides and of equal interior angles.

circle:= a plane geometric figure composed of the set of points equidistant from a given point.

I am saying that it is possible to specify a square that is both square and perfectly circular at the same time, using the above definitions. In fact, it is "trivially"* easy to do so.

*"trivial" is clue....

819 posted on 05/23/2002 1:53:33 PM PDT by longshadow
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To: PatrickHenry
I'm assuming that no circle is a square, and therefore a circle is a "not-square", and vice versa. Perhaps it's because I've led a sheltered Euclidian life, but I believe that assumption to be true.

Yes; you've made that assumption, but Mathematics isn't done on assumptions alone; it relies on definitions, axioms, and proven theorems (and a few Postulates, but those are stipulated as being deniable.)

I think your on the right track, though. Examine your premises, Grasshopper...... there might be an exception.

820 posted on 05/23/2002 2:00:24 PM PDT by longshadow
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