That would make sense if there was a shred of evidence that people only invent things because they hope to patent them. Say maybe if the world were full of saying like "IP protection is the mother of invention" or "invent a better mouse trap and the world will grant you exclusive use of the idea for a limited time."

Or suppose we had clear evidence that primitive people lived lives little different than those of other animals until some freak accident created the first intellectual property laws, triggering the taming of fire, agriculture, and so forth.

Of course, we don't see any of that. We don't live in that world and it takes a rather twisted view of human nature to swallow the notion that patents somehow cause invention.

On the other hand, all it takes to support the notion that patents were intended to cause disclosure of inventions is a little reading. For example, in the second paragraph of The Patent Act of 1790 we find the prerequisites for obtaining a patent and the reason for them spelt out. In the second full sentence of US patent law we are told that those seeking patents must:

[...] deliver to the Secretary of State a specification in writing, containing a description, accompanied with drafts or models, and explanations and models (if the nature of the invention or discovery will admit of a model) of the thing or things, by him or them invented or discovered, and described as aforesaid, in the said patents; which specification shall be so particular, and said models so exact, as not only to distinguish the invention or discovery from other things before known and used, but also to enable a workman or other person skilled in the art or manufacture, whereof it is a branch, or wherewith it may be nearest connected, to make, construct, or use the same, to the end that the public may have the full benefit thereof, after the expiration of the patent term;

If you want a patent on your gizmo, you have to fully disclose the details so anyone reasonably competent can make and use one after the patent expires.

That is what society gets out of it. The promotion of progress isn't about gulling people into inventing stuff (they were doing that already). It's about making sure that other people can copy those inventions, build on them, progress from them, rather than having the secret die with the inventor thus forcing everyone else to (as the saying goes) "reinvent the wheel".

--MarkusQ

"At the heart of any patent, there should be some trade secret."

I think most people would disagree with you. The majority of ills in our patent system today are due to patented "trade secrets" [...] the workings of most useful INVENTIONS usually become pretty obvious at the point the invention hits the market; thus the need for a patent in the first place.

If the working of the invention become obvious at the point the invention hits the market, society has no reason to offer the inventor patent protection in exchange for being let in on the secret. Only in cases where the trick wouldn't be obvious to a practitioner skilled in the applicable arts do we have any reason to say "Oh, come on, just tell us how it works and we promise not to compete with you!" -- in other words, grant a patent in exchange for full disclosure.

Patents are supposed to be what we grant the inventor in exchange for their revealing a "trade secret" that we wouldn't have otherwise been able to figure out.

-- MarkusQ

Thank you for illustrating my point so neatly. Just as die-hard communists insist that real communism looks nothing like was practiced in the USSR, so do free-market fundamentalists insist that real capitalism looks nothing like what we have in the US ... both groups neatly ignoring the fact that in the real world, this is how their preferred system behaves. You can talk all you want about how it should work, or how you think it would work if certain conditions were met, but it doesn't make a damned bit of difference to how it actually works.

Yep. Anyone can describe a utopian economic system ("Under communism, everyone will work together for the common good!" "Under capitalism, competition and individual choice will lead to the greatest possible efficiency!") but in the real world, they all tend toward cronyism and corruption. Every single time.

I'd be willing to bet there are more deployments of MySQL than of all other standalone RDBMSs combined.

Does it cover both the aging of the body and the heart? Both the aging of the body and the liver? Both the aging of the body and the third toe on the left foot?

I know what you meant, but I get really tired of people acting like the brain and the body are something separate. The brain is part of the body; a complex and unique part, to be sure, but essentially it's just another organ. So if we can slow down aging generally, most likely our brains will benefit just as much as the rest of our bodies will.

Okay, you win. ;)

If I see "such-and-such biological structure is too complex to have arisen by chance," I don't need to see the word "create" to know the person making the post is a creationist. If I see "Barack Hussein Obama" and "Kenya,", I don't need to see the word "birth" to know the person making the post is a birther. If I see a rambling post about Israel, the melting temperature of steel, and the patterns of building collapse, I don't have to see the word "truth" to know the person making the post is a 9/11 truther. Etc.

Oh, please. This experiment is performed over and over again on Slashdot, on every story on the subject, and the results are plain to see. Most AC posts go unnoticed because they're AC, but for those that don't, there are plenty of responses giving links to easily accessible information on the actual science involved ... along with lots of upmods for the person making the original post, and responses talking about "warmism" and the huge piles of money allegedly being made by the AGW conspiracy and "hah hah, Al Gore is fat."

American ballots aren't as simple as you think they are. We have lots of candidates for each office (almost all the time, the Democrat and the Republican are the only ones most voters have ever heard of, but there's no shortage of others) and tons of ballot initiatives as well. Granted, we don't have the problem of major parties with confusingly similar names, but that's mainly because we're so boxed into the two-party system, without even a semi-major third party to act as a spoiler most of the time. On the rare occasions that candidates who aren't (D) or (R) get the top spot on the ballot, they do tend to get a lot more votes, probably for exactly the same reason as happened in this election.

Or it can get you lots of upmods from all the Bold Individualistic Un-PC Rebels Speaking Truth To Power just like you.

Like religious fundamentalists, denialists pretending they're a persecuted minority are simultaneously pathetic and hilarious.

Don't forget the part about being followed at night by an aggressive stranger, who is considerably bigger than you and may be (and in this case, of course, was) armed. Also don't forget the part about how you live in a state where you have the legal right to stand your ground. But maybe you should forget that last part, because Terms And Conditions May Apply.

Ah, well, yes, there is that.

They didn't "redefine" it, they studied it until they understood it better. If you go to the doctor, are you upset because you get a diagnosis of a specific bacterial infection and a prescription for antibiotics instead of a diagnosis of "fever" and a bleeding to restore the balance of your bodily humors?

Probably true, but the discontinuation process will be pretty horrible for everyone who's around to see it.