Evolution On the problem of the problem of evil and Darwin 15 Mar 2011 In yet another essay reprising his argument that theists can be good Darwinians (a position I concur with, incidentally), Michael Ruse makes the following comment, based on a book by Karl Giberson and Francis Collins, The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions: Where I do want… Read More
Humor The difference between the name and the thing 9 Sep 2009 Sometimes, comics do philosophy: Read More
Humor The “Get a life” meme 19 Dec 2008 Oh dear. I have a bad feeling about this. Via Greg Laden’s blog comes a list of 219 movies and supposedly if you have seen more than 85 you have no life… Prepare yourself Read More
If we exhert a little effort and persuade five of those species to become extinct, then we could claim “how many species of swallow are native to Africa?” as a candidate for Ultimate Question (also as a Grand Unification: Python/Adams).
we tried this in the lab yesterday, it does give you a very detailed answer for the European swallow.
I entered, “What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?” The correct answer was given. I am now at peace.
Great minds think alike — the swallow speed was the 1st question I typed in! Given that the engine has trouble parsing much simpler inputs I’ve tried, this is almost certainly a hard-coded answer, like 42. So double fail.
It didn’t know who did the twiddly bits along the coast of Norway. If they’re going to code in one Guide reference…
Question: what is the frame problem? And have you solved it? Answer: Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input. Yes indeed.
I’m kinda upset the Wolfram Alpha people hadn’t thought of The Last Question. Entering “How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?” gives a “I dunno what to do with this” response.
But there’s an answer, as I noted before. Alpha should know that… You’re expected to teach it. If you don’t teach it, it won’t learn.