They don't show us the fragments of bone they have in that article.
"Then they used digital images and specialized software to find similarities between the relics – and differences from other cat species, which was just as important."
It sounds like they are using a computer model of some sort to make this determination.
A model that takes an image and is used to make a determination of a new species is not convincing to me. Models are only a hypothetical explanation. Having software feed in to models is even more detached from reality, IMO.
Models and software might lead us towards some area that needs further investigation, but they are not actually proof of anything, as this article seems to think.
It doesn't really do that though. Its like tracing servers back to North Korea or Russia. It certainly allows someone at a glance to think they know what they are doing, as if 3 letter agencies are incapable of making something look incriminating.
A moral person (like most of us) was forced to make decision early - the unambiguously woeful options in front of him left no room for doubting that he was part of the problem.
"But there is a large difference between telling yourself a story and believing it. Ultimately, the core reason I stayed silent wasn’t altruistic, but selfish."
This is 99.999% of us. And its also the reason that we (as a social group) are going to hell in a handbasket. While we have some innate moral inclinations, the system is such that we have to turn ourselves inside out and find justifications for the unjustifiable so we take our salary and enjoy our lifestyles. We fully capitulate to what we know is wrong. Cos what its all about right is that you've got to get yours!
"The conscience is a pesky thing. It was no consolation that I had gotten the moral calculus to work out in my favor."
"I wasn’t sure at the time, but having had enough free time of late to ponder such questions, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that having a father who can pay for a top-notch education outweighs the disadvantage of being raised by a hypocrite. Sticking with the job for the sake of a paycheck passes the children test."
At least this chap is honest enough to admit it. Better to sell out your principles for a paycheck. A hypocritical sellout that can pay for his kids private education and pass on this shitty stick to the next generation - that's fine! But a moral parent who (understandably) isn't rewarded by the system - that's a problem!
Seriously - if this life is an opportunity to pass a test (and its not a monetary test, IMO!), I wouldn't want to be in his shoes. He will be re-sitting this experience. I'm no Christian, but this is apropos:
"What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" Mark 8:36
The jobs, the money, the education - these are all traps. They will kill your connection to your spirit in your own lifetime, as you already know. You will not develop into what you are meant to be, but you will be harnessed to serve those you think are the most immoral. You will not find the 'moral' answers outside in a society that has been bent to pervert our innate joy in simple existence.
There is only one way to enliven one's life. Look inside, act in truth and follow one's heart. Its a narrow path! But the first step can be taken right away.
"Let that sink in for a moment. The researchers, in the name of academia, decided to commit flawed code (that would, in turn, introduce other serious issues) into the Linux kernel, to prove they could do it."
I'm glad it was caught. But I suspect that there would be other crap in already. It is certainly surprising that academia was so blatant as that - you'd think they would use a more roundabout way to get this in.
Ever seen a plastic bag blow across the road? Or a cat cross the road? Or a roadworks barrier blow over in high wind? Or traffic lights be broken and stuck on red? Or a branch fall? Or a little old lady waiting for someone to stop the traffic so she can slowly cross (even if there is a crossing just 30 feet further up the road)? These (and thousands of other random occurences) aren't insurmountable obstacles to a human driver, but would likely cause a program to fail or act in an unintuitive way.
I don't see how self-driving cars can ever be good drivers on the road. They are running a program, but not all eventualities can be catered to.
More generally, I find the idea of bundling the idea of self-driving cars with electric cars disingenuous. Its contrived as an executive decision has already been made that the masses should not have personal transport (like cars). Instead in the future, we should call a self-driving Uber. This sounds nice perhaps, but I resent it. It is yet another manipulation to take away existing freedoms.
Even if local government drops speed limits by 50% to cater to them (they say this relates to safety) or decrease lanes and parking, self driving cars will still be dangerous. Perversely though, the slower speeds, narrower lanes and other traffic 'calming' measures that create traffic jams, will force people of the road. We will want this solution to a governance created problem.
Legitimate research and information is stifled by MSM, Twitter, etc.
Billions of comments deleted from youtube, accounts struck off or suspended - how can we even observe the scale of the problem when things just quietly disappear?
We live in book burning times, only there's no smoke or fires to be seen.
Of course your eye is a sensor. As are all your senses. The difference is that the input it receives is unmediated by external sensors and software. Visualising atoms or DNA is fine, but it is an inferior source of information. By a long way.
Imagine you were born deaf and couldn't hear music. But that someone showed you a music visualiser.
Do you think if you were watching the output of that visualiser you would now know the music in some meaningful way?
Perhaps this is a water filter advert:
"Using activated carbon filtration devices (like Brita filters) can help reduce TCE in drinking water"
But really, how could they possibly narrow it down to that? How can they ignore all the metals that we are injected and sprayed with as possible alternative causes?
But its not showing things directly, is it? Its interpreting a frequency and converting that to an image. Is it really that different to a music visualiser?
which seems a fair synopsis for me, of Hayden White's position in Metahistory. I thought this quote was interesting:
"In this climate, White (1966) believes that the duty of the researchers in present time is to transform the historical studies so as to liberate the present from the burden of history and to make the historical studies fit in the aims of the community. Seen in this light, history is not seen as a fixed ultimate entity that cannot be touched and that the historians have to accept it as it is. However, the historians should refuse to study the past as an end or ultimate being but contribute to offer some solutions for the problems of the present, which the professional historiography is unable to achieve."
I liked the general analysis that it seems White provides, but I don't like the moral relativism that is implied in the quote above. Why is it a historian's job to provide solutions for the present? What special values do they have? I don't like post-modern, moral relativism - where 'my truth' is the same as 'the truth'.
My position is that our knowledge of history is imperfect, that we cannot know the past. But a single past really did occur. Rather than express the evidence and express their reasoning for what that means, when historians apply narratives over the evidence they are covering an mystifying the past. This is to say I am receiving negative knowledge - I am receiving an informed but biased view that I will find it hard to unpick. And that is all history afaik! So little primary evidence, so many books and articles!
This is why I said that history is an interpretative act. I don't have an issue with the making the best of a past that is hard (impossible?) to discern. And that while our subject matter might be the past, we ourselves are in the present and express our understanding from our own biases and understandings - we talk ourselves into the past, in a way.
What I object to is the indisputable tone - this happened, these are the reasons, etc. It gives the reader the impression of knowledge, but this is an illusion, possibly a dangerous one. It conveys none of the reasoning, jumps and ambiguity that, I think, are the main part of these sorts of investigation.
Personally I would rather have the ambiguity, referring to source material, and try to develop a theory given the evidence - evidence-driven theories. I don't mind if there is no overarching narrative to explain it all. But it seems to me that professional historians feel empowered to present exactly that sort of a narrative, sometimes whether or not it is really supported by the evidence.
"Then they used digital images and specialized software to find similarities between the relics – and differences from other cat species, which was just as important."
It sounds like they are using a computer model of some sort to make this determination.
A model that takes an image and is used to make a determination of a new species is not convincing to me. Models are only a hypothetical explanation. Having software feed in to models is even more detached from reality, IMO.
Models and software might lead us towards some area that needs further investigation, but they are not actually proof of anything, as this article seems to think.