Corante: technology, business, media, law, and culture news from the blogosphere
OUR PUBLICATIONS:
Corante is a trusted, unbiased source on technology, business, law, science, and culture that’s authored by leading commentators and thinkers in their respective fields. Corante also produces premium conferences and publications that help decision-makers better understand their industries and the world around them.
Corante Blogs
Corante Blogs examine, through the eyes of leading observers, analysts, thinkers, and doers, critical themes and memes in technology, business, law, science, and culture.
Vin Crosbie, on the challenges, financial and otherwise, that newspaper publishers are facing: "The real problem, Mr. Newspaperman, isn't that your content isn't online or isn't online with multimedia. It's your content. Specifically, it's what you report, which stories you publish, and how you publish them to people, who, by the way, have very different individual interests. The problem is the content you're giving them, stupid; not the platform its on."
by Vin Crosbie in Rebuilding Media
There's a problem in the drug industry that people have recognized for some years, but we're not that much closer to dealing with it than we were then. We keep coming up with these technologies and techniques which seem as if they might be able to help us with some of our nastiest problems - I'm talking about genomics in all its guises, and metabolic profiling, and naturally the various high-throughput screening platforms, and others. But whether these are helping or not (and opinions sure do vary), one thing that they all have in common is that they generate enormous heaps of data.
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Now that the Web labor market is saturated and Web design a static profession, it's not surprising that 'user experience' designers and researchers who've spent their careers online are looking for new worlds to conquer. Some are returning to the “old media” as directors and producers. More are now doing offline consulting (service experience design, social policy design, exhibition design, and so on) under the 'user experience' aegis. They argue that the lessons they've learned on the Web can be applied to phenomena in the physical and social worlds. But there are enormous differences...
by Bob Jacobson in Total Experience
Clay Shirky, in deconstructing Second Life hype: "Second Life is heading towards two million users. Except it isn’t, really... I suspect Second Life is largely a 'Try Me' virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use."
by Clay Shirky in Many-to-Many
Over the last few years we've seen old barriers to creativity coming down, one after the other. New technologies and services makes it trivial to publish text, whether by blog or by print-on-demand. Digital photography has democratised a previously expensive hobby. And we're seeing the barriers to movie-making crumble, with affordable high-quality cameras and video hosting provided by YouTube or Google Video and their ilk... Music making has long been easy for anyone to engage in, but technology has made high-quality recording possible without specialised equipment, and the internet has revolutionised distribution, drastically disintermediating the music industry... What's left? Software maybe? Or maybe not."
by Suw Charman in Strange Attractor
Derek Lowe on the news that the Nobel Prize for medicine has gone to Craig Mello and Andrew Fire for their breakthrough work: "RNA interference is probably going to have a long climb before it starts curing many diseases, because many of those problems are even tougher than usual in its case. That doesn't take away from the discovery, though, any more than the complications of off-target effects take away from it when you talk about RNAi's research uses in cell culture. The fact that RNA interference is trickier than it first looked, in vivo or in vitro, is only to be expected. What breakthrough isn't?"
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Andrew Phelps: "Recently my WoW guild has been having a bit of a debate on the merits of Player-vs.-Player (PvP) within Azeroth. My personal opinion on this is that PvP has its merits, and can be incredible fun, but the system within WoW is horridly, horribly broken. It takes into account the concept of the battle, but battle without consequence, without emotive context, and most importantly, without honor..."
From later in the piece: "When I talk about this with people (thus far anyway) I typically get one of two responses, either 'yeah, right on!' or 'hey, it’s war, and war isn’t honorable – grow the hell up'. There is a lot to be said for that argument – but the problem is that war in the real historical world has very different constraints that are utterly absent from fantasized worlds..."
by Andrew Phelps in Got Game
Derek Lowe: "So, you're developing a drug candidate. You've settled on what looks like a good compound - it has the activity you want in your mouse model of the disease, it's not too hard to make, and it's not toxic. Everything looks fine. Except. . .one slight problem. Although the compound has good blood levels in the mouse and in the dog, in rats it's terrible. For some reason, it just doesn't get up there. Probably some foul metabolic pathway peculiar to rats (whose innards are adapted, after all, for dealing with every kind of garbage that comes along). So, is this a problem?.."
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Bob Jacobson, on shopping at his local Albertsons supermarket where he had "one of the worst customer experiences" of his life: "Say what you will about the Safeway chain or the Birkenstock billionaires who charge through the roof for Whole Foods' organic fare, they know how to create shopping environments that create a more pleasurable experience, at its best (as at Whole Foods) quite enjoyable. Even the warehouses like Costco and its smaller counterpart, Smart & Final, do just fine: they have no pretentions, but neither do they dump virtual garbage on the consumer merely to create another trivial revenue stream, all for the sake of promotions in the marketing department..."
by Strange Attractor in Total Experience
Kevin Anderson: "First off, I want to say that I really admire the ambition of the Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free. It is one of the boldest statements made by any media company that participation needs to be central to a radical revamp of traditional content strategies... It is, therfore, not hugely surprising to find that Comment is Free is having a few teething troubles..."
by Kevin Anderson in strange
Corante Developments
Here you will find the latest news from Corante including updates on upcoming events, new initiatives, product and publication launches, and more.
It was with shock that I returned home from a night out last night to hear the news of Russell's passing. How terribly, terribly sad. Most of all for him, as he'd seemed buoyant, healthier, and content when I'd last seen him several months ago when he was in town - he was happy that work was busy and rewarding and was having fun with it but most of all was thrilled about how things were going with his girlfriend, Ellen.
I've known Russ for what seems like ages now (in a good way) though in fact it's only been about six or seven years since the early days of "commercial" blogging when he started working on various projects at and around Corante. He was a diligent, committed, and prolific journalist who had impressively and more ably than others been able to make the transition from the old-school way of doing things to the new. He had his quirks, as we all do, but I greatly valued that he was good-natured, collegial, reliable, quick to adopt, trustworthy, eager to learn, and earnest in his interest in helping others better understand what he wrote about.
He was also, it should be said, a kind and thoughtful soul and it was the rare conversation in which he didn't ask, with sincerity, about what he knew of my life, e.g. our new babe, and we didn't talk as seemingly old friends about our lives and respective paths. I can't say I knew him very well, of course, but in our half-dozen get-togethers over the years and dozens of conversations I got a good sense of the man: he cared about learning and sharing and his bearing was earnest and ego-less and we'll miss him for that and more.
We wanted to let you know about a discount to New Comm Forum, the annual event event put on by our friends at the Society for New Communications Research. The conference, which runs from April 22-25, will feature many of the field's leading observers and is an important event for those looking, in the words of SNCR, to "better understand new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society."
Check out the event's website and, if you're interested in attending, be sure to use the code supplied below for a special discount.
EARLY BIRD PRICING - NOW UNTIL FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $995.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $195.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
REGULAR PRICING - AFTER FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $1095.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $249.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
CORANTE READER DISCOUNTS
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Use discount code: NCF08100
Pre-conference or post-conference session - save an additional $45.
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We've been remiss in letting you know about two new independent blogs we've helped launch in the past month or so.
The first - the ConversationHub - is a companion blog to Supernova 2007, the latest edition of Kevin Werbach's excellent conference on all things connected. As the conference site says: "Supernova examines the effects of an increasingly connected world on business, life, and public policy. As disparate physical and social networks link with one another, a new societal network is rapidly evolving... The New Network is greater than the sum of its parts. It challenges us to re-create everything from the software and hardware we use...to the business models we employ...to the information and entertainment we encounter...to the ways we work and play."
Visit the ConversationHub and you'll find several dozen leading thinkers and doers, led by a few notable ringleaders, weighing in on the themes and trends of the day in technology and business. We encourage you to tune in - feel free to comment and even suggest topics and ideas for posts.
The second blog - Mobile Messaging 2.0 - convenes about a dozen top observers of the mobile messaging space for an intense discussion of the industry and where it's headed. Among its contributors are leading commentators, journalists and players in the field - tune in and you'll find them touching on topics such as mobile device design, messaging platforms, market pressures, user-generated content, interface design, and much, much more.
Also, if you visit the site, which is sponsored by Airwide Solutions, this week, you'll find live coverage and commentary from Global Messaging 2007, to which several of our contributors have traveled to hear about the latest developments from a broad spectrum of the industry's players and providers.
Be sure to catch the Office 2.0 Conference and hear from and engage with leading thinkers and doers in this exciting new market. Find out more here and be sure to use the code "GLDRK" for a special discount for Corante readers.
In the Pipeline: Don't miss Derek Lowe's excellent commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry in general at In the Pipeline
43,000 Scientists: Bush Puts Schoolchildren At Risk
Posted by Carl Zimmer
The American Geophysical Union just issued a press release in response to Bush's comments about intelligent design. It's not online at their web site yet, so I've posted it here. (Update: It's on line now.) This is not the first time that the 43,000 members of the AGU have spoken out against creationism. They protested the sale of a creationist account of the Grand Canyon in National Park Service stores, and condemned the airing of a creationist movie about cosmology at the Smithsonian Institution. But this is the first time they've taken on the President.
American Geophysical Union 2 August 2005 AGU Release No. 05-28 For Immediate Release
AGU: President Confuses Science and Belief, Puts Schoolchildren at Risk
WASHINGTON - "President Bush, in advocating that the concept of ?intelligent design' be taught alongside the theory of evolution, puts America's schoolchildren at risk," says Fred Spilhaus, Executive Director of the American Geophysical Union. "Americans will need basic understanding of science in order to participate effectively in the 21st century world. It is essential that students on every level learn what science is and how scientific knowledge progresses."
In comments to journalists on August 1, the President said that "both sides ought to be properly taught." "If he meant that intelligent design should be given equal standing with the theory of evolution in the nation's science classrooms, then he is undermining efforts to increase the understanding of science," Spilhaus said in a statement. "?Intelligent design' is not a scientific theory." Advocates of intelligent design believe that life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own and must therefore be the work of a designer. That is an untestable belief and, therefore, cannot qualify as a scientific theory."
"Scientific theories, like evolution, relativity and plate tectonics, are based on hypotheses that have survived extensive testing and repeated verification," Spilhaus says. "The President has unfortunately confused the difference between science and belief. It is essential that students understand that a scientific theory is not a belief, hunch, or untested hypothesis."
"Ideas that are based on faith, including ?intelligent design,' operate in a different sphere and should not be confused with science. Outside the sphere of their laboratories and science classrooms, scientists and students alike may believe what they choose about the origins of life, but inside that sphere, they are bound by the scientific method," Spilhaus said.
AGU is a scientific society, comprising 43,000 Earth and space scientists. It publishes a dozen peer reviewed journal series and holds meetings at which current research is presented to the scientific community and the public.
Advocates of intelligent design believe that life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own and must therefore be the work of a designer. That is an untestable belief and, therefore, cannot qualify as a scientific theory."
On the other hand abiogenesis, that life can arise out of non-life, is testable. The problem is its a test that fails experimentally. It doesn't even come close, but even if it did...horseshoes, hand grenades etc. Not to mention the many assumptions necessary to even attempt it. Even if experiments met with success it would be impossible to verify that the assumptions were correct. Wow, I guess its no more testable than ID or Creation after all. Maybe we should get it out of the Biology classroom and into the Comparative Religions class.
Advocates of Intelligent Design (ID) rely on notion of "God in the gaps" . . . if it is too complex (for us to understand) then it must have been the work of God." ID advocates and creation scientists dismiss macroevolution claiming that "nobody was there to see it" (once again - "then it must have been God"), but neglect to mention the hundereds of instances of speciation events that have occurred recently and in recorded history (see http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html). Evolution is the nuts and bolts explanation of how biological forms change, just as gravitational theory, plate tectonics, and atomic structure are descriptions of natural phenomena. But we don't evoke God to explain how the sun and moons pull on the earth and its oceans, yet nobody has ever seen a graviton. So why don't we evoke Intelligent Design when explaining all other natural phenomena?
why don't we evoke Intelligent Design when explaining all other natural phenomena?
Because creation mythologes are usually a bit quiet about physical constants, plate tectonics and general relativity, but very explicit about man's dominion over every other living thing. Fundamentalist Christians (indeed, fundamentalists religious followers anywhere) generally have no comprehension of how important the former is, but believe that they have a monopoly on explaining the latter. This causes them to focus all of their energy on defending only that which they believe to be defensible, and to completely ignore that which has, in their odd world, no bearing on their case. This is good news for proponents of hard science, because unlike creation mythology explanations, most of hard science dovetails together nicely. And unlike the mythologies, if it doesn't dovetail, you can be pretty sure you've missed something and you need to look again. The upshot of this is that science is beginning to develop into the most comprehensive and all-inclusive physcial descriptive and predictive model of the univere (from sub-atomic levels, through our human scale, and up to the scale of galaxies and superclusters) that mankind has ever had. Is it full of holes? Yes, although comparatively speaking, we've only just seriously started to build it. Do some of the models not agree? Again yes. Is it consistent? Way more so than any Biblical explanation, could do better. Decision making under doubt and uncertainty is something the fundamentalist never has to deal with, so the absence of any mention of 99.999% of modern scientific discoveries in his creation mythology causes him no pain. His certainty is based on Faith, and Faith alone, so these absences are mere irritations. So uniting quantum mechanics and relativity isn't of any interest to the fundamentalist. Only man's illusory supreme position in the universe is actually of interest, which is his downfall, and Darwin's triumph.
To answer the Doug who is not me... The Theory of Evolution is what happened between the first life forms and now. While it may be involved in the construction of the first life forms, there are many theories of abiogenesis. Are we to toss out Evolutionary theory because it doesn't explain how the first life form came to be? For most of science, abiogenesis is an interesting but not pressing question...
"This is not the first time that the 43,000 members of the AGU have spoken out against creationism."
Do you really believe that out of the 43,000 members of the AGU that there is not one single member who advocates for intelligent design and all 43,000 are staunch darwinists?
For the record, do I believe that religious creationism should be taught in any public school?
The answer is an emphatic NO!
Do I believe that the possibility of intelligent input should be discussed and investigated as a possible mechanism for evolution and that it falls comfortably within the realm of the scientific method?
I don't question the differentiation between abiogenesis and the subsequent "evolution" from that early self-replicating living organism.
The statement I addressed "...life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own..." implies an inclusion of abiogenesis into the theory of evolution. Anyone familiar with the ID arguments, specifically "irreducible complexity," knows a cornerstone of the ID worldview is that the probability of life from non-life, through a lightning strike in a puddle of chemicals, or what have you, is so immeasurably small that it is effectively zero.
Where a creation proponent imposes God, an ID'er imposes a Designer, an evolutionist invokes Time. The evolutionist recognizes the improbability of the theory but reconciles this improbability with the old adage that "With enough time anything is possible."
Although a creationist, I'd also make clear that I do not support teaching creation or even ID in the classroom.
First, forcing an "Origins of Species" thumping evolutionist to teach the alternatives would be ridiculous. Can you imagine the sarcasm and epithets Dawkins would invoke if he were forced to lecture on the 6 days of creation?
Second, teaching on origins, be they biblical or evolutionary, is of virtually no value to a high school student. The only predictive power of macroevolution (for lack of a more descriptive but accepted term) comes in the science-fiction genre. Evolution's only possible value to science comes from the study of natural selection and its counterparts, microevolution. These are also tenets of creationism. There is no quarrel with their presentation in the classroom. As its my experience that most evolutionists seem willingly ignorant as to what creationists actually believe this will likely meet with protest. For example, Richard's above comment about speciation. He and others like him should visit
The precious little time most high schoolers spend in the science classroom should be spent introducing the topics that inspire the interest that ultimately leads to more efficient engines, computer chips, cures for disease, etc. The question of whether or not a whale evolved from a dog, or bird from a dinosaur, is of little value to the vast majority of scientists and people in general.
If evolution - common descent of all organisms from an original life form, though mutation and selection etc. - is to be taught in high school, I see no reason why its potential flaws and shortcomings should not also be presented. Wouldn't students find a dynamic discussion of the topic more engaging? A discussion that unveiled areas in need of further study might inspire a student to beome the investigator that fills in a hole or two. Revealing the mistakes, hoaxes and deceptions (nebraska man, piltdown man, Haekel's embryo's, etc) would be of interest to the student and lend credibility to the vast majority of scientists showing that they verify each other's work. The current one-sided presentation of evolution as thouroughly known and understood fact would be better called indcotrination.
10. Paul Hackett on August 3, 2005 03:59 PM writes...
Hi there
No, I'm no the Paul Hackett from Ohio. Im from England.
Ha Ha! My country is going to take back the science crown from you lot soon! If this is what you are going to teach your children, how much longer are you going to be able to make silicon chips? A faith-based space shuttle? I cant wait!
But seriously. This is not good news for anyone. Its bad when some backwater town decides that it understands science better the the scientists, but when the commander in chief does it? Whoh!
I am reminded of a humorous radio program over here (Title - "I'm sorry I hav'nt a clue") which reported a lagre increase in UFO abductions in the US after the last election, with the victims being probed in depth and questioned - The question being "What an earth were you thinking of, voting for Bush?".
What irks me about this is: what if science progresses to make the Theory of Evolution into a Law? Can humanity claim possession of the Law after discovering it? Of course not. So where did such a fundamental Law of systems in this universe come from? My guess would be it came from whatever created all this stuff (ie our universe). Thus, creationism and the theory of evolution dovetail into each other. The creationists are just confused by taking a book which is about our social system and applying it to a physical system.
So Charle Wagner HAS fled here, avoiding the nasty problem of answering questions and being exposed as a complete humbug, regularly!
You have my condolences on being subjected to such a self-inflated jerk, but he does represent the very BEST of the creationist (and minions) opposition.
13. Juke Moran on August 3, 2005 06:14 PM writes...
Of course Doug's right - life evolving from not-life, what he's calling "abiogenesis" is not only testable but so far it's failed those tests miserably.
That the armamentaria of applied science are aimed precisely at that target may have more pertinence than he realizes. They just haven't done it yet, but soon they may.
Another way of looking at it is that life evolved from something we've been calling not-life, but that we were wrong about that, that it was alive all along. That the universe is alive, but that Doug and his ilk are wrong about the nature of that living.
In fact it's more than likely that Doug's wrong, and the converse position, of life and evolution having a starting gun in some amino soup way back when, is also wrong.
And the energy expended by both sides may be not so much in order to get at the truth, but to further cement the polarity and their positions in it.
Unintelligent Design means there is no moral context for the Mengelian tinkering with the things at the heart of life that is the most prominent face of applied science now; Intelligent Design means the holders of the copyright on the Designer and his biography are in a privileged biological position.
Both stances mean their holders are superior to the other side, and both positions confer a Darwinian leg up. Doug and Co. are wrong superficially, the unorganized troops of logical positivism are right superficially. Deeper in they switch.
The universe is alive - it can't be proven though, so without some kind of faith, what difference does it make?
The difference is where we end up - for instance with a world on fire from human arrogance and unchecked greed.
The idea that the same heedless assault is being carried into what has to be a far more delicate place than the skies of earth - the heart of what this life is - by men who are as blind and as viciously intent on their own aggrandizement as the men who gave us the worship of automobiles and petroleum - that's enough to make some of us overlook the superstitious idiocy of much of the creationist/ID position, if it wasn't leading to pretty much the same end as the logical positivists.
It's like watching one of those old cartoons, where, headed for a tree, the front wheels of the cartoon car start separating, going in two different directions while the car starts splitting up the middle.
Oh, my gosh, we're putting our children at risk to accept theories that my not be able to be difinatively proven. What kind of mother am I that I was only thinking of public school risks, such as, drugs, guns. All this time I should have focused on new scienfic or non scienfic theories. Am I putting my child at risk to have a brain or question scienfic fact (yes, I was born in the 60's)? Half of what is taught is merely conjectsure or has been so watered down to be polically correct that their getting only half truths. What is so dangerous about a new possible theory. New theories, new studies come out all the time and we preach them as gospel (no pun intended). ID does not mention God or one God. Only the possibility of a creator. The scientific community needs to get there collective heads out of the lab and imagine that they may actually have consider the old "your guess is as good as mine" theory. Oh, but that would require a leap of faith.
15. Kirk Hughey on August 4, 2005 05:53 AM writes...
Thanks to Juke Moran for a genuinely intelligent position on the question- one that not only happens to agree with that of Louis Pasteur but the contemporary research of information theorists like Simon Berkovich.
16. Kevin W. Parker on August 4, 2005 05:53 PM writes...
The only predictive power of macroevolution (for lack of a more descriptive but accepted term) comes in the science-fiction genre.
Well, let's see. Macroevolution predicts:
- All living things on Earth will have the same genetic code.
- Testing drugs on animals can be helpful toward seeing what their effects will be on humans.
- Any new mammal discovered will have four legs.
- Any new insect discovered will have six legs.
- Any new spider discovered will have eight legs.
- You will never find a creature, past or present, that's a transition between mammals and birds.
- You will never find a marsupial, past or present, outside of the Americas, Antarctica, or Australia.
- You will never find a primate, past or present, in the Americas, Antarctica, or Australia (excepting the primates who have invented boats).
I left out a few thousand other things, but that's a start.
I thank God for President Bush. I only wish that more of our so-called "scientists" had the courage to admit what is staring them all in the face: i.e. that from a purely scientific basis (as in real science that is observable, testable and repeatable) there is absolutely NO WAY that life (as we know it) could ever have Created itself -- without the aid of an Intelligent Being, directing the process. And anyone who says otherwise is either TOTALLY IGNORANT of the facts, or lying about them.
And It is high time that we start teaching our kids the truth in this regard. Meaning that we should be teaching them that there MUST be a Creator/God.
Corante: technology, business, media, law, and culture news from the blogosphere
OUR PUBLICATIONS:
Corante is a trusted, unbiased source on technology, business, law, science, and culture that’s authored by leading commentators and thinkers in their respective fields. Corante also produces premium conferences and publications that help decision-makers better understand their industries and the world around them.
Corante Blogs
Corante Blogs examine, through the eyes of leading observers, analysts, thinkers, and doers, critical themes and memes in technology, business, law, science, and culture.
Vin Crosbie, on the challenges, financial and otherwise, that newspaper publishers are facing: "The real problem, Mr. Newspaperman, isn't that your content isn't online or isn't online with multimedia. It's your content. Specifically, it's what you report, which stories you publish, and how you publish them to people, who, by the way, have very different individual interests. The problem is the content you're giving them, stupid; not the platform its on."
by Vin Crosbie in Rebuilding Media
There's a problem in the drug industry that people have recognized for some years, but we're not that much closer to dealing with it than we were then. We keep coming up with these technologies and techniques which seem as if they might be able to help us with some of our nastiest problems - I'm talking about genomics in all its guises, and metabolic profiling, and naturally the various high-throughput screening platforms, and others. But whether these are helping or not (and opinions sure do vary), one thing that they all have in common is that they generate enormous heaps of data.
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Now that the Web labor market is saturated and Web design a static profession, it's not surprising that 'user experience' designers and researchers who've spent their careers online are looking for new worlds to conquer. Some are returning to the “old media” as directors and producers. More are now doing offline consulting (service experience design, social policy design, exhibition design, and so on) under the 'user experience' aegis. They argue that the lessons they've learned on the Web can be applied to phenomena in the physical and social worlds. But there are enormous differences...
by Bob Jacobson in Total Experience
Clay Shirky, in deconstructing Second Life hype: "Second Life is heading towards two million users. Except it isn’t, really... I suspect Second Life is largely a 'Try Me' virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use."
by Clay Shirky in Many-to-Many
Over the last few years we've seen old barriers to creativity coming down, one after the other. New technologies and services makes it trivial to publish text, whether by blog or by print-on-demand. Digital photography has democratised a previously expensive hobby. And we're seeing the barriers to movie-making crumble, with affordable high-quality cameras and video hosting provided by YouTube or Google Video and their ilk... Music making has long been easy for anyone to engage in, but technology has made high-quality recording possible without specialised equipment, and the internet has revolutionised distribution, drastically disintermediating the music industry... What's left? Software maybe? Or maybe not."
by Suw Charman in Strange Attractor
Derek Lowe on the news that the Nobel Prize for medicine has gone to Craig Mello and Andrew Fire for their breakthrough work: "RNA interference is probably going to have a long climb before it starts curing many diseases, because many of those problems are even tougher than usual in its case. That doesn't take away from the discovery, though, any more than the complications of off-target effects take away from it when you talk about RNAi's research uses in cell culture. The fact that RNA interference is trickier than it first looked, in vivo or in vitro, is only to be expected. What breakthrough isn't?"
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Andrew Phelps: "Recently my WoW guild has been having a bit of a debate on the merits of Player-vs.-Player (PvP) within Azeroth. My personal opinion on this is that PvP has its merits, and can be incredible fun, but the system within WoW is horridly, horribly broken. It takes into account the concept of the battle, but battle without consequence, without emotive context, and most importantly, without honor..."
From later in the piece: "When I talk about this with people (thus far anyway) I typically get one of two responses, either 'yeah, right on!' or 'hey, it’s war, and war isn’t honorable – grow the hell up'. There is a lot to be said for that argument – but the problem is that war in the real historical world has very different constraints that are utterly absent from fantasized worlds..."
by Andrew Phelps in Got Game
Derek Lowe: "So, you're developing a drug candidate. You've settled on what looks like a good compound - it has the activity you want in your mouse model of the disease, it's not too hard to make, and it's not toxic. Everything looks fine. Except. . .one slight problem. Although the compound has good blood levels in the mouse and in the dog, in rats it's terrible. For some reason, it just doesn't get up there. Probably some foul metabolic pathway peculiar to rats (whose innards are adapted, after all, for dealing with every kind of garbage that comes along). So, is this a problem?.."
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Bob Jacobson, on shopping at his local Albertsons supermarket where he had "one of the worst customer experiences" of his life: "Say what you will about the Safeway chain or the Birkenstock billionaires who charge through the roof for Whole Foods' organic fare, they know how to create shopping environments that create a more pleasurable experience, at its best (as at Whole Foods) quite enjoyable. Even the warehouses like Costco and its smaller counterpart, Smart & Final, do just fine: they have no pretentions, but neither do they dump virtual garbage on the consumer merely to create another trivial revenue stream, all for the sake of promotions in the marketing department..."
by Strange Attractor in Total Experience
Kevin Anderson: "First off, I want to say that I really admire the ambition of the Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free. It is one of the boldest statements made by any media company that participation needs to be central to a radical revamp of traditional content strategies... It is, therfore, not hugely surprising to find that Comment is Free is having a few teething troubles..."
by Kevin Anderson in strange
Corante Developments
Here you will find the latest news from Corante including updates on upcoming events, new initiatives, product and publication launches, and more.
It was with shock that I returned home from a night out last night to hear the news of Russell's passing. How terribly, terribly sad. Most of all for him, as he'd seemed buoyant, healthier, and content when I'd last seen him several months ago when he was in town - he was happy that work was busy and rewarding and was having fun with it but most of all was thrilled about how things were going with his girlfriend, Ellen.
I've known Russ for what seems like ages now (in a good way) though in fact it's only been about six or seven years since the early days of "commercial" blogging when he started working on various projects at and around Corante. He was a diligent, committed, and prolific journalist who had impressively and more ably than others been able to make the transition from the old-school way of doing things to the new. He had his quirks, as we all do, but I greatly valued that he was good-natured, collegial, reliable, quick to adopt, trustworthy, eager to learn, and earnest in his interest in helping others better understand what he wrote about.
He was also, it should be said, a kind and thoughtful soul and it was the rare conversation in which he didn't ask, with sincerity, about what he knew of my life, e.g. our new babe, and we didn't talk as seemingly old friends about our lives and respective paths. I can't say I knew him very well, of course, but in our half-dozen get-togethers over the years and dozens of conversations I got a good sense of the man: he cared about learning and sharing and his bearing was earnest and ego-less and we'll miss him for that and more.
We wanted to let you know about a discount to New Comm Forum, the annual event event put on by our friends at the Society for New Communications Research. The conference, which runs from April 22-25, will feature many of the field's leading observers and is an important event for those looking, in the words of SNCR, to "better understand new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society."
Check out the event's website and, if you're interested in attending, be sure to use the code supplied below for a special discount.
EARLY BIRD PRICING - NOW UNTIL FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $995.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $195.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
REGULAR PRICING - AFTER FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $1095.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $249.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
CORANTE READER DISCOUNTS
NewComm Forum Conference - save an additional $100
Use discount code: NCF08100
Pre-conference or post-conference session - save an additional $45.
Use discount code: NCF0845
We've been remiss in letting you know about two new independent blogs we've helped launch in the past month or so.
The first - the ConversationHub - is a companion blog to Supernova 2007, the latest edition of Kevin Werbach's excellent conference on all things connected. As the conference site says: "Supernova examines the effects of an increasingly connected world on business, life, and public policy. As disparate physical and social networks link with one another, a new societal network is rapidly evolving... The New Network is greater than the sum of its parts. It challenges us to re-create everything from the software and hardware we use...to the business models we employ...to the information and entertainment we encounter...to the ways we work and play."
Visit the ConversationHub and you'll find several dozen leading thinkers and doers, led by a few notable ringleaders, weighing in on the themes and trends of the day in technology and business. We encourage you to tune in - feel free to comment and even suggest topics and ideas for posts.
The second blog - Mobile Messaging 2.0 - convenes about a dozen top observers of the mobile messaging space for an intense discussion of the industry and where it's headed. Among its contributors are leading commentators, journalists and players in the field - tune in and you'll find them touching on topics such as mobile device design, messaging platforms, market pressures, user-generated content, interface design, and much, much more.
Also, if you visit the site, which is sponsored by Airwide Solutions, this week, you'll find live coverage and commentary from Global Messaging 2007, to which several of our contributors have traveled to hear about the latest developments from a broad spectrum of the industry's players and providers.
Be sure to catch the Office 2.0 Conference and hear from and engage with leading thinkers and doers in this exciting new market. Find out more here and be sure to use the code "GLDRK" for a special discount for Corante readers.
1. Doug on August 2, 2005 09:14 PM writes...
Advocates of intelligent design believe that life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own and must therefore be the work of a designer. That is an untestable belief and, therefore, cannot qualify as a scientific theory."
On the other hand abiogenesis, that life can arise out of non-life, is testable. The problem is its a test that fails experimentally. It doesn't even come close, but even if it did...horseshoes, hand grenades etc. Not to mention the many assumptions necessary to even attempt it. Even if experiments met with success it would be impossible to verify that the assumptions were correct. Wow, I guess its no more testable than ID or Creation after all. Maybe we should get it out of the Biology classroom and into the Comparative Religions class.
Permalink to Comment2. John Wilkins on August 2, 2005 10:13 PM writes...
Ah, but can 43,000 geophysicists be wrong?
[Of course not when it's their own field of study, as evolution and scientific method both are. But one had to ask...]
Permalink to Comment3. Richard C. Sutter, Ph.D. on August 2, 2005 10:37 PM writes...
Advocates of Intelligent Design (ID) rely on notion of "God in the gaps" . . . if it is too complex (for us to understand) then it must have been the work of God." ID advocates and creation scientists dismiss macroevolution claiming that "nobody was there to see it" (once again - "then it must have been God"), but neglect to mention the hundereds of instances of speciation events that have occurred recently and in recorded history (see http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html). Evolution is the nuts and bolts explanation of how biological forms change, just as gravitational theory, plate tectonics, and atomic structure are descriptions of natural phenomena. But we don't evoke God to explain how the sun and moons pull on the earth and its oceans, yet nobody has ever seen a graviton. So why don't we evoke Intelligent Design when explaining all other natural phenomena?
Permalink to Comment4. daen on August 3, 2005 07:27 AM writes...
why don't we evoke Intelligent Design when explaining all other natural phenomena?
Permalink to CommentBecause creation mythologes are usually a bit quiet about physical constants, plate tectonics and general relativity, but very explicit about man's dominion over every other living thing. Fundamentalist Christians (indeed, fundamentalists religious followers anywhere) generally have no comprehension of how important the former is, but believe that they have a monopoly on explaining the latter. This causes them to focus all of their energy on defending only that which they believe to be defensible, and to completely ignore that which has, in their odd world, no bearing on their case. This is good news for proponents of hard science, because unlike creation mythology explanations, most of hard science dovetails together nicely. And unlike the mythologies, if it doesn't dovetail, you can be pretty sure you've missed something and you need to look again. The upshot of this is that science is beginning to develop into the most comprehensive and all-inclusive physcial descriptive and predictive model of the univere (from sub-atomic levels, through our human scale, and up to the scale of galaxies and superclusters) that mankind has ever had. Is it full of holes? Yes, although comparatively speaking, we've only just seriously started to build it. Do some of the models not agree? Again yes. Is it consistent? Way more so than any Biblical explanation, could do better. Decision making under doubt and uncertainty is something the fundamentalist never has to deal with, so the absence of any mention of 99.999% of modern scientific discoveries in his creation mythology causes him no pain. His certainty is based on Faith, and Faith alone, so these absences are mere irritations. So uniting quantum mechanics and relativity isn't of any interest to the fundamentalist. Only man's illusory supreme position in the universe is actually of interest, which is his downfall, and Darwin's triumph.
5. DouglasG on August 3, 2005 11:14 AM writes...
To answer the Doug who is not me... The Theory of Evolution is what happened between the first life forms and now. While it may be involved in the construction of the first life forms, there are many theories of abiogenesis. Are we to toss out Evolutionary theory because it doesn't explain how the first life form came to be? For most of science, abiogenesis is an interesting but not pressing question...
Permalink to Comment6. Charlie Wagner on August 3, 2005 11:46 AM writes...
Carl wrote:
"This is not the first time that the 43,000 members of the AGU have spoken out against creationism."
Do you really believe that out of the 43,000 members of the AGU that there is not one single member who advocates for intelligent design and all 43,000 are staunch darwinists?
For the record, do I believe that religious creationism should be taught in any public school?
The answer is an emphatic NO!
Do I believe that the possibility of intelligent input should be discussed and investigated as a possible mechanism for evolution and that it falls comfortably within the realm of the scientific method?
The answer is an emphatic YES!
Permalink to Comment7. Doug on August 3, 2005 01:31 PM writes...
I don't question the differentiation between abiogenesis and the subsequent "evolution" from that early self-replicating living organism.
The statement I addressed
"...life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own..." implies an inclusion of abiogenesis into the theory of evolution. Anyone familiar with the ID arguments, specifically "irreducible complexity," knows a cornerstone of the ID worldview is that the probability of life from non-life, through a lightning strike in a puddle of chemicals, or what have you, is so immeasurably small that it is effectively zero.
Where a creation proponent imposes God, an ID'er imposes a Designer, an evolutionist invokes Time. The evolutionist recognizes the improbability of the theory but reconciles this improbability with the old adage that "With enough time anything is possible."
Permalink to Comment8. Doug on August 3, 2005 02:40 PM writes...
Although a creationist, I'd also make clear that I do not support teaching creation or even ID in the classroom.
First, forcing an "Origins of Species" thumping evolutionist to teach the alternatives would be ridiculous. Can you imagine the sarcasm and epithets Dawkins would invoke if he were forced to lecture on the 6 days of creation?
Second, teaching on origins, be they biblical or evolutionary, is of virtually no value to a high school student. The only predictive power of macroevolution (for lack of a more descriptive but accepted term) comes in the science-fiction genre. Evolution's only possible value to science comes from the study of natural selection and its counterparts, microevolution. These are also tenets of creationism. There is no quarrel with their presentation in the classroom. As its my experience that most evolutionists seem willingly ignorant as to what creationists actually believe this will likely meet with protest. For example, Richard's above comment about speciation. He and others like him should visit
Speciation conference brings good news for creationists
and
Argument: Natural selection leads to speciation
The precious little time most high schoolers spend in the science classroom should be spent introducing the topics that inspire the interest that ultimately leads to more efficient engines, computer chips, cures for disease, etc. The question of whether or not a whale evolved from a dog, or bird from a dinosaur, is of little value to the vast majority of scientists and people in general.
Permalink to CommentIf evolution - common descent of all organisms from an original life form, though mutation and selection etc. - is to be taught in high school, I see no reason why its potential flaws and shortcomings should not also be presented. Wouldn't students find a dynamic discussion of the topic more engaging? A discussion that unveiled areas in need of further study might inspire a student to beome the investigator that fills in a hole or two. Revealing the mistakes, hoaxes and deceptions (nebraska man, piltdown man, Haekel's embryo's, etc) would be of interest to the student and lend credibility to the vast majority of scientists showing that they verify each other's work. The current one-sided presentation of evolution as thouroughly known and understood fact would be better called indcotrination.
9. gbusch on August 3, 2005 02:59 PM writes...
Perhaps a No President Left Behind program could be established?
Permalink to Comment10. Paul Hackett on August 3, 2005 03:59 PM writes...
Hi there
No, I'm no the Paul Hackett from Ohio. Im from England.
Ha Ha! My country is going to take back the science crown from you lot soon! If this is what you are going to teach your children, how much longer are you going to be able to make silicon chips? A faith-based space shuttle? I cant wait!
But seriously. This is not good news for anyone. Its bad when some backwater town decides that it understands science better the the scientists, but when the commander in chief does it? Whoh!
I am reminded of a humorous radio program over here (Title - "I'm sorry I hav'nt a clue") which reported a lagre increase in UFO abductions in the US after the last election, with the victims being probed in depth and questioned - The question being "What an earth were you thinking of, voting for Bush?".
Ta
Permalink to CommentPaul
11. James on August 3, 2005 04:20 PM writes...
What irks me about this is: what if science progresses to make the Theory of Evolution into a Law? Can humanity claim possession of the Law after discovering it? Of course not. So where did such a fundamental Law of systems in this universe come from? My guess would be it came from whatever created all this stuff (ie our universe). Thus, creationism and the theory of evolution dovetail into each other. The creationists are just confused by taking a book which is about our social system and applying it to a physical system.
Permalink to Comment12. arwind on August 3, 2005 05:21 PM writes...
So Charle Wagner HAS fled here, avoiding the nasty problem of answering questions and being exposed as a complete humbug, regularly!
You have my condolences on being subjected to such a self-inflated jerk, but he does represent the very BEST of the creationist (and minions) opposition.
Permalink to Comment13. Juke Moran on August 3, 2005 06:14 PM writes...
Of course Doug's right - life evolving from not-life, what he's calling "abiogenesis" is not only testable but so far it's failed those tests miserably.
Permalink to CommentThat the armamentaria of applied science are aimed precisely at that target may have more pertinence than he realizes. They just haven't done it yet, but soon they may.
Another way of looking at it is that life evolved from something we've been calling not-life, but that we were wrong about that, that it was alive all along. That the universe is alive, but that Doug and his ilk are wrong about the nature of that living.
In fact it's more than likely that Doug's wrong, and the converse position, of life and evolution having a starting gun in some amino soup way back when, is also wrong.
And the energy expended by both sides may be not so much in order to get at the truth, but to further cement the polarity and their positions in it.
Unintelligent Design means there is no moral context for the Mengelian tinkering with the things at the heart of life that is the most prominent face of applied science now; Intelligent Design means the holders of the copyright on the Designer and his biography are in a privileged biological position.
Both stances mean their holders are superior to the other side, and both positions confer a Darwinian leg up. Doug and Co. are wrong superficially, the unorganized troops of logical positivism are right superficially. Deeper in they switch.
The universe is alive - it can't be proven though, so without some kind of faith, what difference does it make?
The difference is where we end up - for instance with a world on fire from human arrogance and unchecked greed.
The idea that the same heedless assault is being carried into what has to be a far more delicate place than the skies of earth - the heart of what this life is - by men who are as blind and as viciously intent on their own aggrandizement as the men who gave us the worship of automobiles and petroleum - that's enough to make some of us overlook the superstitious idiocy of much of the creationist/ID position, if it wasn't leading to pretty much the same end as the logical positivists.
It's like watching one of those old cartoons, where, headed for a tree, the front wheels of the cartoon car start separating, going in two different directions while the car starts splitting up the middle.
14. Pam on August 3, 2005 09:00 PM writes...
Oh, my gosh, we're putting our children at risk to accept theories that my not be able to be difinatively proven. What kind of mother am I that I was only thinking of public school risks, such as, drugs, guns. All this time I should have focused on new scienfic or non scienfic theories. Am I putting my child at risk to have a brain or question scienfic fact (yes, I was born in the 60's)? Half of what is taught is merely conjectsure or has been so watered down to be polically correct that their getting only half truths. What is so dangerous about a new possible theory. New theories, new studies come out all the time and we preach them as gospel (no pun intended). ID does not mention God or one God. Only the possibility of a creator. The scientific community needs to get there collective heads out of the lab and imagine that they may actually have consider the old "your guess is as good as mine" theory. Oh, but that would require a leap of faith.
Permalink to Comment15. Kirk Hughey on August 4, 2005 05:53 AM writes...
Thanks to Juke Moran for a genuinely intelligent position on the question- one that not only happens to agree with that of Louis Pasteur but the contemporary research of information theorists like Simon Berkovich.
Permalink to Comment16. Kevin W. Parker on August 4, 2005 05:53 PM writes...
The only predictive power of macroevolution (for lack of a more descriptive but accepted term) comes in the science-fiction genre.
Well, let's see. Macroevolution predicts:
- All living things on Earth will have the same genetic code.
- Testing drugs on animals can be helpful toward seeing what their effects will be on humans.
- Any new mammal discovered will have four legs.
- Any new insect discovered will have six legs.
- Any new spider discovered will have eight legs.
- You will never find a creature, past or present, that's a transition between mammals and birds.
- You will never find a marsupial, past or present, outside of the Americas, Antarctica, or Australia.
- You will never find a primate, past or present, in the Americas, Antarctica, or Australia (excepting the primates who have invented boats).
I left out a few thousand other things, but that's a start.
Permalink to Comment17. Mike Lambert on August 4, 2005 07:29 PM writes...
But has anyone considered the impact of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Intelligent Design?
http://www.venganza.org/
Permalink to Comment18. Randy on August 10, 2005 04:22 AM writes...
I thank God for President Bush. I only wish that more of our so-called "scientists" had the courage to admit what is staring them all in the face: i.e. that from a purely scientific basis (as in real science that is observable, testable and repeatable) there is absolutely NO WAY that life (as we know it) could ever have Created itself -- without the aid of an Intelligent Being, directing the process. And anyone who says otherwise is either TOTALLY IGNORANT of the facts, or lying about them.
And It is high time that we start teaching our kids the truth in this regard. Meaning that we should be teaching them that there MUST be a Creator/God.
Permalink to Comment19. pwb on August 11, 2005 07:43 PM writes...
Does anyone know what Randy is talking about?
Carl, I agree, your titles are very misleading. Couldn't you just report the fact that the organization put out a statement?
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