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Post by lonelocust on Jul 5, 2009 5:48:39 GMT -5
Huh. I always just heard "It was their sisters, who just weren't mentioned by name because they weren't important as individuals." Sometimes this would be followed up with how God hadn't yet told us that incest was bad, so it thus technically wasn't. Occasionally this has been followed up with how now sibling procreation would lead to probably mutation issues, but God created Adam and Eve with perfect unmutated DNA, so they didn't have any dangerous recessive mutations to pass on, and it was only after a while of breeding and mutating that having kids with your siblings became dangerous. That's the YEC story I've usually heard, but it might not actually be the standard.
I've found old earth creationists, especially those that go with the gap theory, believe that there were already humans around because the Garden wasn't the first creation, similar to what it sounds like LithP has heard.
Really, when I was a young kid it seemed like old earth creationism was the default. The young earth creationist movement seemed to gain momentum, and seems to have now pretty much succeeded in establishing its own orthodoxy and labeling OECs as heretical.
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Post by mice34 on Jul 5, 2009 10:43:40 GMT -5
Yeah, this stuff seems to have really exploded in the last 20 years. When I was religious my parents were evangelicals but not YECs. I never even knew one YEC.
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Post by Alexandria on Jul 5, 2009 16:45:50 GMT -5
CHAOS THEORY! DO YOU UNDERSTAND IT? (directed at the AE comic). In all honesty, it's been proven that you can't forecast the weather past 7 days due to chaos theory. There's so many tiny variables in the weather models that even rounding causes a whole different outcome (which was the basis of Lorenz's discovery) As it was once said, "Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?"
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Post by Tiger on Jul 5, 2009 20:44:05 GMT -5
As it was once said, "Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?" Nobody knows, so both yes and no.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jul 6, 2009 10:37:23 GMT -5
CHAOS THEORY! DO YOU UNDERSTAND IT? (directed at the AE comic). In all honesty, it's been proven that you can't forecast the weather past 7 days due to chaos theory. There's so many tiny variables in the weather models that even rounding causes a whole different outcome (which was the basis of Lorenz's discovery) As it was once said, "Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?" I've always viewed the chaos theory in a purely hypothetical way. It never occured to me before how great an example of it weather is. You learn something new every day. But, as I said before, the same does not apply to the age of rock. The half-life of an element doesn't suddenly change to accomodate a YEC worldview.
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Post by John E on Jul 6, 2009 10:49:27 GMT -5
As it was once said, "Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?" Nobody knows, so both yes and no. Schrodinger's weather-changing butterfly?
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Post by Alexandria on Jul 6, 2009 14:18:51 GMT -5
Heh, for a little background:
A few decades ago, Edward Lorenz ran an experiment through a computer to get specific results. A certain part of the results interested him, so he started the simulation from a certain point, using the values from the printout instead of starting all over again.
The end results were completely different.
What happened was is that the computer he was using went up to 6 digits, but the printout had only 3. Those 3 missing digits caused the entire sequence to change (for example: 0.506127 was given as .506). Such a small amount (.000127) shouldn't have caused such a drastic change, but it did. Lorenz's work proved that you can not predict weather past a week.
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Post by Oriet on Jul 8, 2009 6:46:39 GMT -5
To me it sounds like that method couldn't predict past a week. The larger the dataset, the more accurate you have the variables, the better and further you'll be able to predict it. This still does not change the fact that small variances or variables can have a large impact, but the more variables we account for and the better we understand them (to both greater accuracy and how they interact with the other variables) the more accurate said predictions can be.
Also, take into account the advances in technology over the last few decades. What used to be a supercomputer now sits discarded as an obsolete desktop that very well might not be able to run bargain bin games. Hell, compare the graphics in the movie Tron to the game Starfox64, and then think about how badly obsolete that is. Computers can most definitely run more complex simulations to far greater accuracy in much less time than they used to, so I really don't see why it should be that hard to predict weather with decent accuracy beyond 7 days.
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Post by Bluefinger on Jul 8, 2009 6:59:23 GMT -5
Weather is analogous to a fractal based system, so it is not surprising how chaos theory would inevitably apply. Any change along a fractal would upset the whole chain, and thus precipitate a cascade of slight variations to the point where the resultant pattern is consequently different to a given prediction. And, the accuracy of resolution we can measure a pattern depends on how many samples and granularity we can achieve within a given sample of computational power.
However, like Oriet's pointed out, a larger dataset merged with more powerful computational resources would be able to achieve a much finer granularity with regards to weather simulation, being able to take into account both global and local climatic effects, both of which are important to consider when making weather predictions, as both affect the other. And as techniques for more efficient processing emerge, along with increasingly more powerful hardware being developed in tandem, the computational power available could in effect make more accurate predictions over a longer period of time.
The only issue then is having a large enough dataset to accompany the vast computational resources now available to us. The computers of a few decades ago are nothing in comparison to even my desktop computer, of which is capable of some immense computational feats by its own standard. However, by contrast to the computers available to researchers now, we have the same behemoths, but not only in size but also in computational scope. The amount of data we can store at any time is incredible, and even if one supercomputer may not be enough to do a complex weather simulation, we now have a vast network of computers to exploit to provide additional computational power when required.
The finer granularity with regards to the sampling rate and datasets, the less variation that comes with the calculated results over a function of time.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jul 8, 2009 13:54:31 GMT -5
Magic, got it.
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Nightboomfer
New Member
The Modern Science of Awesome
Posts: 28
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Post by Nightboomfer on Jul 28, 2009 14:06:07 GMT -5
Well here's your answer right here. UNRELATED WEBCOMIC!
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Post by antichrist on Jul 28, 2009 14:38:30 GMT -5
They also try to make it look like "species" is just unclear, but it isn't. If 2 animals can interbreed & create a fertile offspring, they are of the same species. Concise, clear definition. Nothing like the vagueness of "kind." I have to argue with you on this one Wolf-dogs are fertile coydogs are fertile Wolves, Coyotes and dogs are all different species.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jul 28, 2009 15:37:58 GMT -5
They also try to make it look like "species" is just unclear, but it isn't. If 2 animals can interbreed & create a fertile offspring, they are of the same species. Concise, clear definition. Nothing like the vagueness of "kind." I have to argue with you on this one Wolf-dogs are fertile coydogs are fertile Wolves, Coyotes and dogs are all different species. More magic. Also, why Japan?
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Post by canadian mojo on Jul 28, 2009 16:37:16 GMT -5
They also try to make it look like "species" is just unclear, but it isn't. If 2 animals can interbreed & create a fertile offspring, they are of the same species. Concise, clear definition. Nothing like the vagueness of "kind." I have to argue with you on this one Wolf-dogs are fertile coydogs are fertile Wolves, Coyotes and dogs are all different species. They are different species due to segregation of populations. They don't (generally) intermingle and interbreed so they are drifting further apart genetically. Eventually, they probably won't be able to interbreed at which point they will fall into the more classic definition of species. If you think this is bad, try botany some time. Some large groups of plants hybridize freely with one another (Amelanhcier sp. comes to mind) and the hybrids occur naturally and frequently enough that they are officially recognized. Everything get its own species designation though.
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Post by Vene on Jul 28, 2009 20:13:05 GMT -5
I have to argue with you on this one Wolf-dogs are fertile coydogs are fertile Wolves, Coyotes and dogs are all different species. More magic. Also, why Japan? Lithp, look up ring species.Basically, species A and B can mate, species B and C can mate, but species A and C can't. The biological definition of species sucks. But, considering that evolution is a continuous process, there shouldn't always be clear lines between them. Also, if you can find a way to apply the concept of species objectively to microbes, please tell me. I would love for my name to be in textbooks for generations to come.
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