/sci/ - Science & Math

We do not want to spam them.
By all means, inform them of this error yourself, but you do not need us to file the same complaint.

Also, you should come to expect this kind of thing on the internet, it is best to not get too worked up over it. You can easily ignore it.

This is total bullshit, I just looked it up.

10/10 fucking pissed

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abiogenesis?s=t

But neither of these are correct.

I dont understand, why bring evolution or creationism into this at all?

OP's pic says abiogenesis is the precursor to evolution. But this is misleading at the two ideas are unrelated. abiogenesis exists even if evolution is not true, its totally unrelated.

It looks like they have confused abiogenesis with spontaneous generation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation

>>4815186
The second one is.

>>4815186
>an heritable

>>4815192
You can use 'an' for any time that the next word has a vowel at the beginning, but it also works with soft h's.

>An historic victory.

This makes me angry because it is clearly misinformation based on personal bias. It has no place in a dictionary.

>>4815193

>>4815196
Fucking Brits.

>>4815193
>abiogenesis exists even if evolution is not true, its totally unrelated.

Did you get that the wrong way round?
I think that you meant: "Evolution exists even if abiogenesis is not true, it's totally unrelated."

>>4815199
People are usually not too pedantic about this. You can say it either way for h's, and people usually will not mind.

>A historic victory.

>>4815198
"Example sentences" meaning "we plugged your word into a search engine and here were the results."

>>4815203
My mind is being a little fucked right now, do I still say "a unicorn" and "an umbrella"?

>>4815207
A unicorn is spelt with a 'u', but you pronounce it as if it were a 'y', and so you should still say 'a unicorn' because 'an yoo-nick-awn' sounds stupid.

The English language is quite strange sometimes.
:)

>>4815198

Yeah see? They are independent ideas. Evolution can be true, regardless of abiogenesis, and abiogenesis can be true, regardless of evolution being true.

>>4815202

I am just saying these two subject matter are independent, and if some one releases some propaganda about abiogenesis, we shouldnt lose our shit and bring the whole evolution vs creationism debate into this. That controversy is only going to make dealing with this dictionary.com thing worse.

>Using dictionary.com
>Not using wiktionary
*sigh*
Do you also use search.com and email.com?

>>4815214
It should not have ever been 'evolution versus creationism' in the first place, anyway.

Evolution explains the diversity of life, and it certainly does happen, or else we would not even have different dog breeds, and new strains of the flu virus.

What we do not know is what started it all off before evolution.

The atheists can say it was abiogeneisis, and then evolution took its course, and the religious people can say that god created the first life, and then evolution took its course.

Either way, evolution is still a fact.

>>4815219
Any dictionary site is fine, for the most part.
This is the first error on dictionary.com that I have ever seen, and you should, of course, expect some errors on anything that can be freely edited by anybody.

>>4815221
Which is why it can take weeks to have an error fixed on a private website, yet on wikipedia errors and vandalism are fixed within minutes.
Wait.....

fire off a complaint to interactivecorp

>>4815169
They seem to have confused these two:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

>>4815266
it's more like conservapedia compaigned for that change

http://www.conservapedia.com/Abiogenesis

>>4815220

>It should not have ever been 'evolution versus creationism' in the first place, anyway.

I agree, which is my point.

>Either way, evolution is still a fact.

Okay, I am going to bite. This statement is bothering me.

So, evolution is a theory, which means observations of reality fail to disprove evolution. Nothing can prove a theory true, you just repeatedly fail to disprove, often in exceedingly intricate ways.

There comes a point in which we simply come to believe something. This is not an objective thing. We have seen enough observations to believe this theory to be true. The amount of observations is seemly arbitrary.

Evolution is a belief, albeit an extremely reasonable one that I think you would be hard pressed to reject, it is a belief nonetheless.

If you are going to claim it is a fact, than you must accept that facts are dependent on your beliefs.

>>4815220
That is microevolution, for the principles of macroevolution to be true and for all living organisms to have evolved from the same initial organism, you have to believe that an alpha organism at some point had to A) have somehow originated from inorganic matter or B) have been seeded from outside of earth.

The problem with B) is that you still have to have an origin of the organism from outside of earth and if you follow through with that line of thought you would eventually end up back at A). This means that the totality of evolution is still inherently linked to abiogenesis.

>>4815267
Oh my God!
They actually cite dictionary.com as their source, to say that it is discredited. It links to the exact page the OP was talking about.

I think that perhaps they edited it dictionary.com to say that 'it was discredited' so that they could write the same thing in their article, and cite it to make it look legitimate.

Dictionary.com, of course, does not have any citations to show if the theory really has been 'discredited' or not.
(It has not, of course)

>>4815267
wait that doesnt make any sense. they say abiogenesis is discredited then follow up with biblical as an example of abiogenesis. so they think the divine origin is discredited too.

>>4815269
Yes, I agree with you.

And in a way, we can not know if anything is really true, just like we can not know for certain that we are not in the matrix, or not a brain in a jar being fed sensory inputs.

>>4815269
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_fact_and_theory

Evolution is both. There is the fact that evolution happens. And then there is the theory that tries to explain how it works, called the theory of evolution. These are often conflated.

ToE is ofc an extremely well corroborated theory of how evolution works.

>>4815275
either they pressures for the change or the boss at dictionary.com or their owners are big fans of conservapedia

>>4815276
Interesting.

So abiogenesis is just 'life coming from non-life'
With no method specified.

Either life has always existed, or abiogenesis must be true, in some form.

>>4815269
>babby's first criticism of induction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

~~

>>4815287
Induction is not really the cause of uncertainty anyway. Even with pure deduction, there is uncertainty. Humans are not absolutely certain of anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallibilism

IEP is currently down, apparently, but use: http://web.archive.org/web/20110705151132/http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallibil/

>>4815283
>Either life has always existed, or abiogenesis must be true, in some form.

Yes. This follows trivially. Positing seeding theories doesn't change this either. That just means life came from somewhere else, where the same question can be asked.

Besides, definition of life is not particularly clear:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Definitions

>>4815294
>Besides, definition of life is not particularly clear:
Ah, yes.

I have a question, not trolling:
Do viruses count as being alive?
In a way, they can be 'killed' (Inactivated; made to not be infectious anymore)

One more question: Will a computer/AI ever count as being 'alive', and if so, how will we know when we make it?

>>4815279

I do think you have made an important distinction, but if we take the problems of induction to the fullest possible extent they apply to everything.


>>4815287

I feel like thats exactly what I just said.
>>4815287

>>4815297
>Do viruses count as being alive?
Similar question, do genes count as being alive?

>Will a computer/AI ever count as being 'alive', and if so, how will we know when we make it?
Probably not alive, but maybe conscious, but the only way we will be able to know is if it claims to be conscious without prompting and has it own unique perspective even then it will surely be widely debated and no one may ever know if it is conscious or alive.

>>4815302
1. Oh right, I suppose not, not on their own.

2. Interesting. So if we did create something like that, would it be immoral to turn it off? Would it be similar to murder?

>>4815306
Morality is far too murky and subjective to draw definitive conclusions maybe you could phrase that a different way.

>>4815313
>maybe you could phrase that a different way.

I am not sure how to.
Irrelevant anyway, just something interesting to think about.
Will only become relevant if we actually ever create anything close to being 'conscious'

>>4815319
Well, I don't know about morality, but I can say that we would most likely miss valuable learning opportunities and growth potentials if we created artificial life, then just ignored it and turned it off.

>>4815313

As to whether or not morality is subjective is up for debate.

>>4815328
No its not.
The very ideas that morality is still under debate after thousands of years of continued debate with zero resolution and that it changes from generation to generation are major indications that it is subjective.

>>4815335

As to whether it is up for debate has no consequence on the objective reality we live in.

If evolution, or gravity, or whatever, was up for debate for a thousands of years it would mean nothing as to whether or not there was an objectively true answer to the debate.

>>4815338
>objective reality
>morality

What objective evidence existing in physical reality (not the application of abstract concepts, physical evidence such as the attraction of masses in the case of gravity or the generational change in alleles in the case of evolution) is there for morality?

>>4815338
Also, great job ignoring the fact that there is not even a single consistent morality set that lasts more than a few generations to evaluate and test for objectivity.

>>4815297
>I have a question, not trolling:
Do viruses count as being alive?
In a way, they can be 'killed' (Inactivated; made to not be infectious anymore)

The answer is that: there is disagreement. Some people think that they do, others do not. The definition of life is vague and viruses are in the grey zone.

If u read the link, u wud find, just below:

"Viruses
Viruses are most often considered replicators rather than forms of life. They have been described as "organisms at the edge of life,"[37] since they possess genes, evolve by natural selection,[38] and replicate by creating multiple copies of themselves through self-assembly. However, viruses do not metabolize and they require a host cell to make new products. Virus self-assembly within host cells has implications for the study of the origin of life, as it may support the hypothesis that life could have started as self-assembling organic molecules.[39][40]"

>>4815298
As i wrote earlier, i don't think the problem of induction has to do with uncertainty in the sense, that it makes it the case that people are uncertain about stuff. We are also uncertain about deductive stuff.

See my previous links about fallibilism.

>>4815339
Replace morality with love in that sentence and try to answer it.
Does that mean you do not love your mother?

>>4815339

Well okay you got me, maybe I shouldnt use the word reality. I dont know that there is any objective evidence in reality, but I dont think the scope of what is objective is limited to reality. I think objective truth precedes reality, and that we can make objective statements that are beyond the confines of reality.

With that said, if we were to derive some objective morality using abstract ideas, they would apply to reality. From abstract ideas we can make objective statements about reality.

I dont think this is very different from an engineers or physicists using abstract ideas that certainly dont exist in reality to make statements about reality

Kant, for example, believed in an objective reality derived from pure reason.

>>4815335
>The very ideas that morality is still under debate after thousands of years of continued debate with zero resolution and that it changes from generation to generation are major indications that it is subjective.

So are ideas about gods, astrology, math, astronomy, fysics, as well. Are those all subjective (whatever that means).

>>4815341
>Also, great job ignoring the fact that there is not even a single consistent morality set that lasts more than a few generations to evaluate and test for objectivity.

Eh. Golden rule is has some ~2500 years on its back. It is more or less built into humans by (natural) design. Reciprocal altruism.

>>4815343
Good job identifying another very subjective, inconsistently defined term and proving why morality is subjective.

>>4815340
I never got the "require a host cell" bit as meaning "they aren't alive"

Aren't there a number of parasites who require other hosts? I get the not metabolizing, but that's never sat well with me.

Are parasites replicators, not living creatures?

>>4815341

Again, how is longevity relevant at all?

Newtonian physics came about less than 300 years ago, and eventually was trumped by newer ideas. Does the social evolution of these ideas have anything to do with reality?

Nope.

>>4815342

I saw that. That was an interesting comment.

>>4815348
>I never got the "require a host cell" bit as meaning "they aren't alive"
>Aren't there a number of parasites who require other hosts? I get the not metabolizing, but that's never sat well with me.
>Are parasites replicators, not living creatures?

I have thought the same. I think it is best just to recognize that the concept is vague, and that it is still useful in some areas, and not so useful for other things, such as answering questions about viruses.

It is mostly a waste of time to sit around and try to make up some super clear definition of "life". Life is a vague concept. It's fine if someone can invent a more useful concept.

I seem to recall skimming a nice paper dealing with the definition of life at length.
http://www.nbi.dk/~emmeche/cePubl/97e.defLife.v3f.html
This one.

>>4815297
I watched a video a while ago where the case was made that there is a continuum from clear non-life(rocks) to clear life(animals) and that there was no specific point that you can say this is alive and that is not it is an arbitrary choice.
I have explained it ineptly. I think the argument was made by Abbie Smith in a creationist vs evolution debate on youtube.

>>4815344
everything you said except for math and physics is subjective yes

The basic principles of math and physics don't generally get serious debate unless you get into very new theoretical forms which are generally subjective and contested until they can stand up consistently to generations of scrutiny and peer review.

>>4815348
>>4815354

Parasites and viruses are different in that parasites dont need a host to reproduce, just to feed.

Viruses cant reproduce on their own, they need another organism to do all the hard work involved with gene reproduction. In that regard they are unique.

>>4815350
Science is subjective. The truth changes as society wants it to. First, it was all mystery, then god, then gravity, then bends in space time. Now it is strings and evolution, or perhaps it is gods again. We don't know. We have no idea. We see the cause and the effect and try to figure out why they happen in such a way.

Gravity is a force. No, it's not.

Morality is also true in every aspect and representation. We don't know. First it's don't lay with other races, but that has changed. The same sex as well, but that is changing. Some cultures considered cannibalism acceptable, others abhorrent.

Before you say that science has a shot, I will contend it will always remain as fucked as morality. Or at least as long as an effect requires a cause.

>>4815350
longevity is generally required to get clear consistently defined sets of principles and to undergo the scrutiny of peer review and if these principles are easily warped and modified through time and by culture, then that is an indication that the principles are subjective

>>4815361

>Science is subjective. The truth changes as society wants it to.

I refuse to believe this. Doesnt science in some way assume that reality an objective? We live in a reality, there is something real that we perceive, and we are assuming it can be understood.

What is true does not change. Society, or culture, or norms might change. But none of this precedes what is true.

>Morality is also true in every aspect and representation. We don't know. First it's don't lay with other races, but that has changed. The same sex as well, but that is changing. Some cultures considered cannibalism acceptable, others abhorrent.

If morality is objective, than there is a correct answer to these moral problems.

>>4815366

If our understanding of reality is not stable, as in the case of this longevity problem, then that only means we are limited in our capacity to understand reality. It has no bearing on reality itself, which is independent of our understanding.

Being independent of our understanding, it is objective (or subjective) despite what we think it is.

>>4815346
The golden rule is very subjective because it is a fact that not everybody likes to be treated the same, in fact some people love pain, while others abhor it, so using the golden rule as a principle for morality is the very definition of subjective morality.

>>4815357
>Viruses cant reproduce on their own, they need another organism to do all the hard work involved with gene reproduction. In that regard they are unique.

Okay. Sounds plausible, but then again, parasites can't reproduce without feeding. I don't know enough about the details to tell if ur proposal of "being able to copy one's own RNA/DNA" works.

>>4815358
>>4815361
>>4815373

Truth relativism. -.-

>>4815372
Alright, let's say morality is objective.

Based on what?

This would be so much easier if I was religious, damn it.

>>4815375
You know what I love about language?

When everyone's on the same page, using the same vocabulary set, two simple words can convey an entire concept that would otherwise have to be defined using 2 or 3 dozen words instead.

Amazing.

>>4815384

Okay, but thats not a statement about truth, thats a statement about language.

>>4815376

>Based on what?

I mentioned Kant before, and he is famous for having a solid answer to this question. Note, that for a long time European philosophers had accepted that morality was objective despite not knowing what the objective morality was based on.

Thats a virtue many people in academia lack today, patience for a good answer.

But anyway, Kant called it the categorical imperative, which is an attempt to derive morality from pure reason.

But you dont necessarily need to believe Kant. I think even if you were a utilitarian you could recognize that utility is something rooted in human beings and human beings do not escape the confines of the objective universe we live in.

>>4815388
I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR TRUTH

LET ME REVEL IN THE GLORY OF WORDS

Pls n thx

>>4815357
>Viruses cant reproduce on their own,
Except that line has been blurred now. There are some virus that can do some sort of replication by themselves.
I think there are even some proteins that can replicate outside of a cell.
A quick google search of self replicating virus shows many articles. Interestingly this is being used as a potential cancer treatment.

>>4815387
I'm willing to wait for an answer, but the claim that it's objective without the hint of an answer is difficult to accept.

But I as well lament the lack of patience seen in the scholarly world today. Like that business with the potential Higgs-Boson discovery. Ought to take a few years to come near confirming or denying it. Yet it's been months and they're making announcements. Shame, really, but what's to be done?

>>4815399
I suspect as much. There is no neat category without any grey zone that corresponds to our concept of life. Oh well. That's how it is in fields more difficult than fysics.

>>4815396

I think there is quite a lot more than a hint.

We recognize that morality is relative to human beings. So to address morality, I believe all we must do is ask what unique human features give us moral questions, and what human features must we appeal to.

Seeing as we live in an objective reality, it would actually pretty exceptional if these human related concepts were some how not objective, am I right?

>Shame, really, but what's to be done?

I dont know.

I remember when they announced that. Lawrence Krauss works at my university, and I think he was somehow involved in the findings. By happen stance I had scheduled a time in his office hours the day or two after all this Higgs Boson talk arose. I remember he said he almost can't believe it to be true.

He didnt say this, but, his attitude reminded me of something I know about Plato. I think Plato believed that everything that is true could be determined through thought alone. To achieve truth you dont actually need anything. Dr. Krauss, while I was talking to him almost demonstrated the opposite, in that he felt that it was impossible that an idea had turned out to be true.

>>4815410

Oops, my pic was for the fellow I was quoting. But what I typed was in response to:
>>4815403

>>4815411
>>4815410
I am both.

And I suppose you could make humanity believe it was objective if you could satisfy that response, the same way you can with science. But when you look at science, there's arguably some subjectivity, as I have said. And this arises from the fact that no two will ever see anything exactly the same.

If a woman is raped, for example, the rapist and the victim(rapee?) likely both have strongly differing opinions on the morality of the action. Even if they were to agree the action was immoral, the rapist doesn't care about the morality he believes in and thus, it does not exist for him. Good and evil, at least in that situation, are more habitual. The victim, on the other hand, would probably like to see him strung up, and that's understandable.

The divergence of moral viewpoints in any one scenario is enough to me to say that morality is likely totally subjective. If it were in any part objective then humanity would probably be able to find perfect common ground on some situation. But we can't. Never have been able to. And I'm not talking Romans and Egyptians never, I mean Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, Australopithecus, I don't think we ever have. And the funniest part about it is that, if we discovered an objective morality, humanity probably wouldn't care anyways. Look at the religious; morality is objective and absolute, and yet they manage to completely ignore it.

>>4815387
>Thats a virtue many people in academia lack today, patience for a good answer.
Well, they aren't as blessed as you to have already assumed an answer well before they see any evidence and just spend all their patient time looking for ways to justify their preconceptions and ignoring any evidence to the contrary.

>>4815410
>We recognize that morality is relative to human beings.
What about other social animals that have clear rules of behaviour and interaction and develop primitive societies and cultures that demonstrate a clear awareness of each other's feelings? Even though these can differ vastly from human morality, isn't this a form of morality sans structured verbal or written communication, is morality even well enough defined to answer this question and wouldn't this go even further in demonstrating the subjectivity of morality?

>Seeing as we live in an objective reality, it would actually pretty exceptional if these human related concepts were some how not objective, am I right?

Wordplay and fallacies everywhere. We all have a subjective experience of an objective reality. The question is whether morality exists as an objective feature that applies universally or whether it is the result of each individual's subjective experience?

>>4815424

>it does not exist for him.

Every decision is a moral one, even if we disagree about the morality. If he rapes someone is it not that morality simply "doesnt exist to him" but he is operating under some different ideas.

>The divergence of moral viewpoints in any one scenario is enough to me to say that morality is likely totally subjective.

I dont think there is very much divergence between view points. In my studies of ethics I find it impressive how different and conflicting moral theories can converge in what they feel is right or wrong.

>>4815680

>What about other social animals that have clear rules of behaviour and interaction and develop primitive societies and cultures that demonstrate a clear awareness of each other's feelings?

I think most animals, even ones with emotion and social behavior, dont necessarily have a capacity to reflect on and question those behaviors. But I think you are right in that there is something to social behavior with that is important to morality.