Part of this is because such definitions are ultimately outside the scope of the original article. The original scope of the article was to clearly define Creationism and Horizontal Evolution and point out that the development of Linux is a mixture of the two. One one hand there is the clear dictation of the superior coder designing the code, and on the other hand there is the Horizontal Evolution adaptation of the existing code and the further progression of the code to meet different needs.
The other part of the weakness behind the argument is the desire to try to stay within grounded scientific fact, rather than attempting to address absurdity. However, if the absurdity is not clearly addressed, the entire argument is weakened.
So, who exactly is behind Vertical Evolution and who is promoting it? If Vertical Evolution is such a farce, why is it so prominently taught today?
Again, we'll need to set the background data.
Once again I'll list the 3 laws of Thermodynamics as explained by David Morgan-Mar in his own humorous method here: http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/431.html
- The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy is conserved. You can't create energy from nothing, nor can you destroy it. Since heat is a form of energy, you're stuck with it, unless you convert it into some other form of energy or move it away. Since you can't get something for nothing: You can't win.
- The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that heat will only flow from a region of higher temperature to one of lower temperature. To move it the other way, you need to supply some extra external energy to do the work. So moving energy in any useful direction that doesn't happen naturally requires you to put in additional energy. You can't even use the First Law and say "the total heat content is equal, so just move the heat from the cold place to the hot place" - it won't happen: You can't break even. However, the efficiency with which you move energy around is related to the temperature. The colder the better. If you could get to absolute zero, you could break even, just. But:
- The Third Law of Thermodynamics states that it's impossible to reach absolute zero. As you make a system approach absolute zero, the process that you are using to cool it down slows down. It sucks smaller and smaller amounts of heat away (and you're using tons of energy to power this über-refrigerator), and you can never suck away that last bit of heat to get it to absolute zero. Since you can't even get to the place where the Second Law lets you do things with 100% efficiency: You can't get out of the game.
Essentially, the Three Laws of Thermodynamics state that everything deteriorates over time. Now, defining this deterioration is almost an exercise in futility.
Judeo-Christan Creationists and some Muslims define the deterioration as Sin. Like the political party question presented in the first article, this is a delicate subject that nobody really wants to address in public or fight over. Yet, as the Political Control behind many of the Large Media companies affect publications, so the argument of Sin affects the arguments of Creationists and Vertical Evolutionists.
A general agreement among Creationists is that the physical reality, the world we live in, our very Lifes, are corrupt. There is something inherently physically and mentally wrong with everything that is in the world, something is irrevocably broken. Among Creationists, there is again, fragmentation. Sin is considered by some to be the reason behind the broken reality, typically by Judeo-Christian Creationists.
Deists also subscribe to the Three Laws of Thermodynamics in that reality is fundamentally broken. However, they may not be so quick to attribute it to Sin. Collectively, I don't think this class has an agreed upon idea on what is the cause of fracture, just that something is broken.
Those who propose Extra-Planar or Extra-Dimensional forces also sign off that something is fundamentally wrong with reality. However, their ideas behind it is that whatever Extra-Planar force built this reality made an error in the creation. Again, considering their normal representation out in public, Extra-Planar proponents are not exactly too fond of talking about their ideas.
So, our first class of Vertical Evolution proponents are those who completely reject the idea of Sin. To these people, everything is inherently good. Society is corrupt, parents are corrupt, everything is corrupt but reality itself. Nature is pure and good, and Nature is perfect.
Hate to break it to them, but nobody had to teach me how to take things for myself. I had to be taught how to share. Babies are born with corrupted natures, end of story, get over it.
The fundamental rejection of Sin also means that they have to reject the very idea of a Creator as advocated by the Judeo-Christian Creationists.
So, why do these class of proponents reject the idea of Sin anyways? Well, for a large part, it depends on what people believe or experience as they are growing up. We all have heard the stories, some 4 year old kid watches their grand-parent, aunt, uncle, close friend of the family, or other relative die a slow and horrible death at the hands of Cancer or some other disease. We see them sitting on Daddy or Mommy's lap crying their eyes out... Maybe another relative if it was their parent that was removed... They look at the authority figure and ask that question nobody wants to answer : Why did God allows this to happen?
Can you imagine trying to explain to a four year old the concept of Sin? Much less explaining that reality is corrupt? That human life is imperfect? That bad things DO happen? Nobody wants to do that. How can you tell a mere child that, hey, sorry, That's Life, get over it.
You Don't.
Now, I'm not saying that events like these are the only cause of people who reject Sin, there are other reasons. But it is the clearest example that I can try to explain. As people grow up and ask the difficult questions, their experiences shape what they believe. Many recall the overly pious relative or neighborer who sounds like Billy Graham running an invitation every minute, and it turns them off. To them Sin just becomes another buzz-word tossed around, instead of being a meaningful concept of what is wrong and what is right. The problem is, Sin is a noun, and a verb. Sin is part of the world, and it is a corruptive influence. Sin is part of what makes a human, a human.
There are several different factors that go into making the personality of a human being, and sometimes those experiences cause people to Rebel and reject what they thought was true.
Again, a point I failed to elaborate on last night. Okay. The point of this is that people can grow up to be bitter against Authority, be bitter against what they see as Established Religion, be bitter against what they saw as Christianity, and so on and so forth. These are the people who look at the world and say "A loving God would not allow this to happen, so there is no God." Most of these people are fairly intelligent, and the idea of an Extra-Planar force is ludicrous to consider. Many of these people wind up rejecting God, or the notion of a God. Ultimately, the concept of Sin is rejected entirely. That means that explaining the Laws of Physics, the laws of Thermodynamics, is impossible. The Corruption in reality doesn't have a name, and doesn't have an explanation. The views of the Creationists then must be classified as impossible.
Now we fall into the realm of Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever else, however improbable, must be true. To those who reject the idea of Sin or a corrupted reality out of hand, they now view it as impossible. Ergo, whatever else has got to be true, no matter how ludicrous the other concept is.
In the view of Vertical Evolutionists, the lack of a Fossil Record or a living example of a linked species; the failure of dating methods like Carbon-14 beyond a few hundred thousand years, or any number of scientific facts does not matter. The sheer statistical chance of matter coming together on it's own and forming the necessary requirements for life, as well as the materials around the matter forming the appropriate material for creating life, as well as the likely hood of the matter also forming the exactly correct distances from a source of light and the exactly right atmosphere to support that light; none of those statistics matter. It doesn't matter how improbable the statistics are. From a numerical point of view, it could have happened, again, ignoring the Violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics, you can't get something for or from nothing.
Granted, by the same numerical chances, I would have already one a lottery of 6 billion dollars each day for the past 20 years, as well as everybody in my neighborhood, city, state, planet.
You get the picture.
Okay, what about those deists? Those who don't accept Sin as the reason for a fractured reality? Can vertical Evolutions come from that side?
Yes. The short answer is found in proponents of Intelligent Design mixed with Vertical Evolution. Collectively speaking, this class of proponents state that a higher power created the matter first, but the method of creation to our current point of living was implemented through Vertical Evolution. Again, this goes against the Three Laws of Thermodynamics.
Mostly these guys just want to make to peace. They don't want to fight over the subject, and collectively just want everybody to go about their merry way. They are not willing to subscribe to a broken reality, but they'll subscribe to the possibility of a higher power managing everything.
Okay, fine, what about all of the scientific tests over the years that prove Evolution? What about the tests? Last time I checked most of them did a handy job of proving Horizontal Evolution, not Vertical Evolution. Charles Darwin did a great job of documenting adaptation in his research, and he hasn't been the only one to do so.
The problem with a lot of Scientific research done today is the idea of a preconceived ending. Many researches already know that Vertical Evolution is true. There is no doubt, so anything that indicates otherwise is inherently junk or irrelevant information.
Several years ago (9/16/1966 to be exact), Hogan's Heroes ran an episode called Hogan Gives a Birthday Party. The plot of the episode is that the Allie bombers were trying to take out a German Refinery, but with 3 layers of Ack-Acks and all the Messerschmitts, successful bombing runs were just about impossible. Sargent Shultz gives Colonel Hogan the idea to bomb the Refinery with a German Bomber. Hogan goes to Snow Job Colonel Klink, the German Commandant, into arranging for a German Bomber to be within Hijacking Range.
Hogan sells Klink on the idea that the Luftwaffe Pilots are superior to the Allied Bombers, and feeds Klink the idea to prove this in scientific testing.
So, Klink sets up the test and gets in a replica of a Heinkel cockpit. Hogan correctly identifies the cockpit of coming from a German Bomber. Klink then tells Hogan that :
Klink : The aim of a research project my dear Hogan, is not to discover new facts. We already know that the Luftwaffe personal are superior. Here we are merely furnishing Scientific Proof.
Hogan : Surely we'll have a chance to get acquainted with this.
Klink : When you take the test there will be plenty of time.
Hogan : You know, everytime I come face to face with this cruel German
Cunning, I always wonder why my side is winning the war.
Klink represents a lot of the scientific tests that are going around now, and if you want to make a parrallel, a lot of the security tests pitting Windows versus Linux. The result is already known, all that needs to happen is for somebody to provide proof for the pre-established result.
Hogan, by comparison, realizes that the test is fundamentally flawed, and that he is on the receiving end of the screw job, and that the guys running the test have no intention to make it fair and balanced.
If this is also reminding you of the news on CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and from Reuters and Associated Press, good.
I completely forgot to put the point in here that I was trying to make last night. Serves me right for writing so late.
Anyways, the point was going to be this : Many of the researchers who claim an earth age of millions of years already know that the Earth is millions of years old. It is beyond a shadow of any doubt that the planet and the universe is ancient. Ergo, all research tests created to establish the age of the Earth must therefor prove an older age. If the testing process, like Carbon-14 dating breaks down, it isn't because the Earth and Universe are young, there has to be something else gone screwy. Like Klink in the TV show, the result is already known, all that has to be furnished is the proof.
Most of those who fall under the Creationists banner approach the idea of the age of the earth in a different manner. Generally those who become, or are, Creationists approach the age of the planet in the form of this question: We do not know what the age is, so what does the scientific evidence support? The average supporter of the Creationist viewpoint takes a look at the fossil layers, the relative stability of various half-life dating methods, and achieves the independent conclusion that the Earth is young. Some view the process from a Chemical viewpoint, others from a Genetic Breakdown viewpoint, others still from a Radiation viewpoint, but most who wind up supporting the Creationist viewpoint do so because that is what they found to be proven.
So, why do Vertical Evolutionists, and the political Party have such stock in proving a flawed theory? Why does it matter so much?
I honestly couldn't answer. I simply do not comprehend the behavior or beliefs of those who promote Vertical Evolution. Part of me is glad that I don't. I do not want to understand. And if I fail in trying to explain that behavior, perhaps it is a good thing that I am not capable of thinking like that.
It also is fairly hard with this supplemental to tag it back into considerations on the process of Developing Linux. All it does is enforce the arguments behind the definitions of the vocabulary being used, and what some of the aims and motivations might be.
But, at the same time, it provides a derailment to the original topic, and linking back into discussions about how the Linux Development process is achieved is near impossible.
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