For all the panic about losing some of the networked functionality and Canonical doesn't care about non-traditional desktop setups (with mounted networked home dirs, etc), no one seems to have brought up Ubuntu Server. Ubuntu is not just a desktop OS, the server variant is looking more formidable all the time. Do we really expect Canonical to take its actively maintained server version (which they're pushing for cloud applications) and neuter the ability to deploy it in big server environments where home dirs are NFS mounted and people want to use GUI config tools on headless servers?

I have just finished several years of distro hopping because I felt Ubuntu (my first full-time Linux) wasn't hardcore enough for my taste. After moving to Debian, then Arch, then Fedora for 6-12 months each, I'm now back at Ubuntu with a renewed appreciation for how good a distro it is.

I give Canonical more credit than to screw it up that badly after getting so many things right over the last few years.

+1 to Internode. Been with them for 6 months. Pricing is great, what little support I've needed has been prompt and very useful. And I've been positively abusing the unmetered content (Arch, Debian and Ubuntu mirrors in particular).

I call hogwash. How many Microsoft employees must be posting in this forum. The measure that matters is the real world. I've been working in a university I.T. dept, thats a LOT of machines spread amongst a huge breadth of user skill levels (our particular uni consists of roughly 40% OSX, 50% Windows (XP and 7) and 10% Fedora Linux (and yes, we do put end users on the Fedora boxes for classwork). I am yet to see a Linux or OSX machine get with a hijacked browser session.

I'd be very interested in a show of hands. Linux does have a decent share of the server market, and systems running it do get exploited (but my bet is that its very predominantly from exploits in sloppy PHP web apps and the like). But aside from that, how many of you out there have *ever* had malware get on to your Linux desktop and start hijacking your browser? My bet is very nearly zero. Windows is as secure as anything else? You may like to think that in principle it could be, but the experimental evidence strongly disagrees.

... after considering switching back to vanilla debian for some time, this might be the straw that broke the camels back. Where free software meets the corporate world, trust is everything. And trust is not something I have for yahoo/bing search. I don't trust them to provide good, comprehensive search results (I DO trust google to do that), and I don't trust them not to screw the Ubuntu community (tests on google doing that are inconclusive thus far, but fairly promising).

It need not necessarily be irrational without a creator If the theory predicts neither a rational nor irrational universe, you are left with only the assertion that we have a rational universe purely by coincidence (and absolutely no confidence that this rationality is anything more than illusory). Effectively, having been asked why an incredibly unlikely event came about, you have responded "why not?". It's a non-answer, try again.

This appears to be falling back on neo-darwinian evolution as a logical axiom. Unfortunately the neo-darwinian hypothesis of evolution by natural selection of traits arising from random mutation CANNOT account for biology as we observe it. I refer you to the overwhelming body of evidence. 1 2 3 4 5 . Yes I'm a fan of CMI's website :)

As a person is our only seriously tenable explanation for the existence of an integrated circuit, so an intelligent agent well beyond humans is our only seriously tenable explanation for the existence of even a single cell.

So, this statement,

is proved invalid by denying one of its axioms. Unless of course, you can prove me wrong and build a cell personally. Then I'd have something to think about. I'll recant my whole setup if you can get a cell to arise from non-living components without human intervention. And pay you every cent in my bank account :)

So again, what is your reasoning process for predicting a rational universe from a non-rational, non-intelligent, impersonal, naturalistic beginning?

Agreed, but lets not get ahead of ourselves ;)

Okay, so you would argue that basically, Theory Y above does not predict Observation B. That's fine. Would you mind illuminating to me your reasoning process for predicting a rational universe from a non-rational, non-intelligent, impersonal, naturalistic beginning?

We wouldn't expect rationality from a physical system inherently. For example, we wouldn't expect the paths carved out by a river to naturally form a simple addition circuit. When we find a physical circuit that performs an addition, we naturally infer a person built it. The "person building" theory predicts a logical circuit, but the natural movements of water do not predict that the river's paths will form any particular logic circuit.

Wow, there's a whole lot of stuff you've brought in there that I could pretty much spend the rest of my life talking about. To keep it useful though, I'm just going to stick to my original point.

I'm saying that if there is a personal, rational being that created the universe, we could reasonably predict the rationality of the world. But if there is no such being behind the universe, we have no reason to predict a rational universe. In fact, we'd probably predict the inability to predict anything.

What do we observe? A seemingly rational universe.

Theory X predicts Observation A, Theory Y predicts Observation B. A and B are mutually exclusive, A is observed.

This does not formally prove Theory X (because there may be alternate theories that also predict Observation A), but if each part of the section in italics holds, Theory Y cannot be true.

So, in your opinion, which part of the section in italics does not hold?

If you can't see the circular reasoning here, I'm afraid I probably can't help you. I'll break it down.

This is an axiom. A starting truth claim that the argument rests upon, so it must be shown to be valid if the argument itself is to be valid.

In order to make this statement, you must rely on the axiom that you are actually capable of doing empirical testing (i.e. that you have a logical brain, not an illogical one).

But you have invoked the logical nature of your brain, and your capability to do empirical testing, as the evidence for that same starting axiom you are trying to prove! And round and round we go.

Now don't misunderstand me, I am not trying to deny the obvious. I think it is obvious that your brain *is* logical and you *can* do empirical tests, but I am trying to get you to see that if you try to justify that belief with logic, starting from naturalistic axioms, you come up empty handed or chasing your own tail.

On the other hand, if you start from a super-naturalistic axiom, it is possible to justify this belief. For example, the axiom that there is a personal deity that made the universe, who is logical themselves. It would be reasonable to infer that the things this logical deity made would have a logical order to them (including our own minds). As I understand it, just this sort of reasoning was behind the birth of science in the western world.

I am perfectly aware that I hold a minority position on this point. I think its a perfectly rational position, but I don't for a second think that means everyone who looks at the evidence will agree ;) If only the world were that simple.

Ok, fair enough. If your brain is the result of a long process of evolution by random mutation and natural selection, what intrinsic reason is there to believe that you have evolved a logical brain rather than an illogical one? Maybe an illogical brain has some survival value we're just not completely aware of and none of your thought processes actually make sense.

However, if the reasoning process is rooted in a supernatural reality beyond mere matter and energy, then we would have some foundation upon which to rest the starting axiom that we are capable of rationality in the first place.

I'm inclined to disagree. Not interested in shifting topic of conversation, but my disagreement is part of a large coherent worldview.

What I was trying to get at was that the "supernatural" component, in the analogy of a logic circuit, is the humans who made them. There is nothing inherent in (at the "natural" level of) the circuit that means it must be functional/useful/logical. It is only so because of the mind (the "supernatural" component) behind it.

Try as you may, if you start by saying that the circuit is not man made, you will have a hard time justifying the belief that it consistently produces logical output. Conversely, if you thoroughly test the circuit and find that it does consistently produce logical output, you will find it very difficult to justify the belief that it is not man made.

I'm glad you asked, because I believe this question holds the answer to your others. Electrical circuits which process information manage to do so, only because they were engineered with this purpose in mind. They only function in a useful way because something of a qualitatively more advanced intelligence designed them. I find it reasonable to extrapolate this explanation of ordered electrical circuits up to an intelligence qualitatively beyond ourselves that explains our own mental "circuitry".

Specifically what problems do you feel that such an inference introduces?

You want to be careful with a statement like this, its easy to fall into the trap of a double standard. For example, problems with one theory equal missing pieces, but problems with a competing theory make it incorrect. Just a word of caution.

I find no way to deny the existence of at least *something* supernatural without throwing away all rationality with it. After all, if there is nothing but matter and energy, if nothing higher is behind my thoughts, why would I assume that the paths of electrons through my brain actually make real sense and lead to logical conclusions? What do you make of this question?

Dude, you seem so irratable :) I'll be honest, I'm a jaded ex-junky for internet arguments. From reading your sig, I expect a lot more bigotry than rationality from attempting to have a proper conversation with you. So I mock your ideas in a public forum, in order that others may read your responses and get a laugh out of them like I do.

When the guys at the Discovery institute can produce a list of hundreds of PhD scientists who signed their names on dissentfromdarwin.org, it's clearly *wrong* to claim that *all* doubters are "uninformed".

But inherent in that statement seems to be a denial of the validity of the question, lol.

If there is a lot of evidence in favour of life spontaneously arising, I would hardly call that "speculative". My understanding however is that there is a distinct absence of a viable theory for the arising of living from non-living material. It seems there are many theories, but each has its own share show-stopping problems.

And, the question must be raised, what would be admissable, "credible" evidence for the supernatural? For instance, a philosophical line of reasoning, leading to the conclusion that the supernatural, as a category, must necessarily exist? Would such a thing count, in your opinion, as evidence that the supernatural exists?

I would agree with that statement, however, that wasn't the question, lol. The question was not whether a purely scientific account of the origin of life is on equal footing with an account which mainly refers to the supernatural.

Rather, the question was whether the notion that life spontaneously arises and the notion that life exists as the result of a deity intervening are equally logical (since both are given the label "speculative").