Sure. Any physical object can suddenly "come into existence" at any time, according to physics, though very improbably (an improbability one might otherwise call a "miracle").

No theological assumptions required for this to be true at all. Nothing but established QM physics is needed.

Whether such phenomena are "truly random" or not (a bit of a paradox for a supposedly generally-deterministic physics), or, say, a perfect back-door to controlling all of physical reality that an insightful engineer might put in, or, say a God, is a metaphysical question. But that it can happen is clear, as a matter of science.

I see we have Slashdot's typical systematic "overrated" downvoting of religion posts in lieu of an actual counterargument again.

Don't be shy, mods. You can share it with us, if you have it. You know I'll be asking you about it again much later anyway.

Yes... I also take the allegorical nature of Genesis and that of Revelation to be parallel. While it contains spiritual metaphors and truths, I am quite sure that nobody thought a literal dragon would be literally chasing around a literal pregnant woman during the "end times", from the very moment Revelation was first written down, up until today.

Similarly, I interpret Genesis as predominately metaphorical. That doesn't mean however, that certain elements we may have originally presumed were allegory, might not have an unexpected literal element to them. In my experience, such cases can be quite enlightening.

*banging head on wall with everybody calling these things 'drones'*

Not just any aeriel photography... manned vs not.

This is simply a modern and more cost effective way of doing what has been done for ages.

It used to be you'd pay someone (for their time & fuel) to fly a manned helicopter or airplane over a given area and have to deal with possibly remote takeoff/landing locations as well as noise over your target... now you simply pay a guy with a van to park on a public street, launch a UAV and fly it over the target area.

Far easier & far cheaper.

Though I don't really agree with the notion on a "general principle" level, the notion that the properties of observables from which we infer material attributes, and the properties from which we infer time sequences, are not separable, is an interesting viewpoint to me.

From that perspective, if one were to create something in a manner not following typical physical causality, it would have to have a structure "appearing to have had time pass" in order to be viable and stable per physical laws.

Although it personally to me would be interesting as a sci-fi novel premise more so than a parsimonious theological position, it does seem rather hard to refute.

Well, I don't ever do intra-theist arguments on the internet, so I'll just note that my personal "sequence of accuracy" goes like...

1. Old Earth Creationism
2. Young Earth Creationism
...
n. Atheists

;)

That's quite possibly one of the stupidest things I've seen all week.

No, it's not.

You are excluding by fiat that anything can be created "ex nihilo", and out of presumed causal "sequence", for which hard physics (in particular, quantum indeterminacy) states you cannot assert and not simply be wrong per physics.

Again, however, reading that my stance hasn't changed might help your post from being the stupidest misreading posted this week.

Yes, the interesting part is the order of these observables, per the model's "findings" (or perhaps more appropriately, "focus"), from the perspective of the Earth, mirrors the sequence given in Genesis.

There are lots of different ways to conceptualize this finding, and there would still be many issues with a literal application of Genesis, which is why as I said I'm still an Old Earth Creationist (or an advocate of "directed evolution", if you prefer).

Caveats, disclaimers, mysteries, etc. hereby included by reference.

So... light first, then water, then the sun.

I guess that's one for the YEC's.

Though, I'm still going with "allegory" as an OEC...

But just because you don't have the cash flow to make it worthwhile to do the same thing the companies are doing, doesn't make what the companies are doing illegal.

Correct. It makes it unethical.

See Kant's Categorical Imperative on this. If you posit a behavioral norm that you can not simultaneously advocate equally applying to -everyone else-, it is not a rational stance, ethically.

Or, if you prefer a religious axiom, "Do unto others and you would have them do unto you", i.e. the Golden Rule. The fact "they" are incapable for practical reasons of reproducing your behavior, does not create an ethical exemption.

And you know this how?

You may be right.... but unless you've got some specific evidence you are speculating just as much as any explicit pointing to this vulnerability as the exploit used in the hack.

I am pointing out that samzenpus is just a prime example of how political - and conservative - this site has become.

I assure you that the collective community is applauding your efforts to sleaze this place up. You've been around long enough to know that the old conservative vs liberal thing is a waste of electrons.

Okay, so you do "real world science" for which your sole backing and elaboration is you inform us you do "real world science". Yawn.

Again, I am thoroughly familiar with the various lines of demarcation of what "science" includes and does not include, and you are here calling upon Philosophy of Science as the sole source of your pseudo-presentation of your "real science" at the very same time as you deny its relevance.

It's really too bad though that you dismiss Kant. If you want to have your endeavors mean anything in a wider societal scope than the to-be-superseded-next-year mundane mechanical repetition of your brand of "real science" (really, let's be fair, you are defining yourself as more of a follow-the-recipe clerical staff than a scientist, and probably appropriately), Kant's rationale for an objective, reason-based framework for science and domains such as ethics would be a good bridge for that. As well as provide you with a method to justify (or just merely coherently state) your "real science" in a manner that isn't entirely circular.

And... so?

Wherever you think this means that "the vocabulary used" invalidates the experiences quantified by the paper, you are wrong.

Everything is described through cultural linguistic constructs. That's irrelevant to the reality of any given experience, and if your assertion as to what the sentence implies were what it in fact implied, there would be no reason to continue with the presentation of the study. Since they did in fact continue, we can fairly conclude that this wasn't the assertion--as we can also infer from the absence of your conclusion actually being anywhere in the statement.

See, this is where I feel fundamentally required to respond to the statement not as an argument, not as a perception I consider incorrect, but as an outright deliberate lie. My basis for this is that you could not actually live as long as you have while generally believing what you assert to be true, is true, but rather you apply an entirely different set of criteria to religious concepts as you do every single day to every other subject, and you could not do otherwise.

I'm glad in this case I didn't have to revisit the different commonplace forms of that here, and you, surprisingly, didn't make the claim that because there is an alternate scenario that is also supported by the evidence, it then becomes the case the evidence no longer supports the original interpretation that it in fact supports. As always, for everything, every day, you then have evidence for -both- scenarios. If you find the prime suspect in a bank robbery with a bag of cash with the bank's logo and a gun on his coffee table, noting he has a roommate who could have done it does not make that suddenly not evidence for the prime suspect's culpability. It is simply not, in itself, -proof- (the standard goalpost-shift here to an infinite-regress of expectation, as well as tantamount to demanding forced conversion, proof provided, the requester's choices now irrelevant). Nor is this, because it is -a- line of support (of the particular peer-reviewed sort commonly demanded), therefore the -only- line of support. I could go on at length regarding other lines of support (i.e. improbability of future prediction happening "by chance", historical notations of secular historians, martyrdom of contemporaries, etc.), but this is a waste of time if I don't perceive basic willingness to consider information on the same terms as every other topic in the requester's existence, and as basic reason calls for. Some don't have that. Maybe that's because they're simply lying hypocrites. Maybe you have an alternate explanation.

There's a wealth of material there as to how the paper came about; no Philosophy of Science is needed. But keep whining about the philosophical process for coming up with a hypothesis, I'd prefer to spend my time on the science.

Okay, continue handwaving. Feel free to read "The Introduction" yourself, and see if this entire process, in any given case, represents entirely rigorously-definable and validatable processes. It won't, because none of them do. Again, if you can define "insight" rigorously, and/or the entirely of mental and historical processes that lead to the formation of the paper, feel free to do so.

But, this is largely beside the point by now, since you have abandoned the scoping of "scientific method" to processes involving hypotheses, contrary to, say:

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the scientific method as "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."
...this.

And that's fine, I have no issue with expansion of the notion of "scientific method" to include aspects of pure inference from axioms, untestable "knowns", etc. But, since your response started specifically in response to my addressing a claim by reference to hypotheses, with some kind of (apparently, now, irrelevant) unbacked commentary stating that I broadly don't know what I'm talking about, your sequence of thoughts here seems a bit... irrationally off-topic.

Spend your time on "the science", enjoy. And every time you advance your work by thinking "well, this seems plausible", and don't know the precise attributes that make it so -at that original point in time of conceptualization- (and nobody does, or I would have had you coded out of a job by now) you'll be validating the relevance of Philosophy of Science.