As debate looms, Romney looks to Pennsylvania - The Associated Press [dayinformations.blogspot.com]
Google has created a new mobile app that gives people facts about the places around them â€" unprompted, without the need to even ask for the information. The app, Field Trip, offers historical trivia about a park, an architectural factoid about a ... A New Google App Gives You Local Information â€" Before You Ask for It
Information R/evolutionThis video explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively. High Quality WMV download: www.mediafire.com Quicktime: www.mediafire.com If you are interested in this topic, check out Clay Shirky's work, especially: www.shirky.com Also check out David Weinberger's Everything is Miscellaneous: www.everythingismiscellaneous.com This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. So you are welcome to download it, share it, even change it, just as long as you give me some credit and you don't sell it or use it to sell anything.
As debate looms, Romney looks to Pennsylvania
PHILADELPHIA (AP) â€" His path to victory narrowing, Mitt Romney is looking to Pennsylvania to help slow President Barack Obama's momentum ahead of a high-stakes meeting on the debate stage next week.
The Republican presidential nominee was to campaign Friday in the Philadelphia area, first courting donors at a high-dollar fundraiser and then meeting voters at a midday rally.
Fresh off a promise to spend more time in the swing states that matter most, Romney will pass much of the day in a state that has not supported a Republican presidential candidate in nearly a quarter-century. His campaign is not running any television ads in Pennsylvania, and aides privately concede that Obama has a significant advantage just 40 days before Election Day.
They suggest that Romney's visit â€" his first to the state in more than two months â€" is largely designed to raise the money needed to narrow Obama's edge in more competitive states. After raising $ 5 million at a Washington event Thursday, Romney is expected to generate more than $ 1 million in Philadelphia and an additional $ 7 million at a Boston fundraiser later Friday.
"We're going to have to make the right choice on Nov. 6, and you're going to make that happen," Romney told cheering donors in Washington.
Obama will also focus on raising cash Friday as he keeps his campaign close to Washington, where he has three fundraising events scheduled.
He is set to deliver remarks at a finance event at the Capital Hilton in Washington, where tickets start at $ 250 but go as high as $ 10,000 per couple. Obama will attend a smaller fundraiser at a private residence before returning to the Capitol Hilton for a third event.
On Thursday, Romney and Obama campaigned a few hundred miles apart in Virginia.
The president pledged to create many more jobs and "make the middle class secure again," while Romney focused on threats beyond American shores, accusing Obama of backing dangerous cuts in defense spending.
The Republican's message, including questions about the president's response to recent violence in Libya, comes as he tries to move beyond his long-held economic focus to help score political points and reverse a slide in the polls.
"The idea of cutting our military is unthinkable and devastating. And when I become president we will not," Romney declared at an American Legion hall in Springfield, Va.
He is expected to push a similar message on Friday in suburban Philadelphia during a rally at Valley Forge Military Academy and College.
While Romney aides are not optimistic about their chances in Pennsylvania, Republicans are not giving up on the state.
"We have an aggressive operation and ground game in place," campaign spokesman Rick Gorka said.
The state GOP is set to begin running a television ad Friday assailing Obama's economic leadership. Pennsylvania's unemployment rate, at 8.1 percent, is slightly less than the national average.
Obama and Romney are scheduled to face off Wednesday in Denver for the first of three presidential debates, which may represent the challenger's best remaining opportunity to change the trajectory of his campaign. Romney has struggled through a series of perceived missteps in weeks amid signs that confidence in the nation's economy is on the rise.
Obama was expected to meet with advisers Friday to prepare for next week's debate. The president was departing Sunday for Nevada, where he planned to hold debate practice sessions near Las Vegas.
Romney has been focused on fundraising and debate preparation for several weeks, raising some questions from within the GOP about his strategy. Earlier in the week, Romney said the time had come in the campaign when he would start spending less time with donors and more time with voters in swing states.
Following his stop in Pennsylvania, Romney heads to Boston for an evening fundraiser and a weekend focused on more debate preparation.
In an election centered largely on the economy, each side got some new ammunition on Thursday. The Commerce Department lowered its earlier estimate of tepid growth for the April-June quarter, while the Labor Department said the economy added 386,000 more jobs from April 2011 through March 2012 than previously believed.
Romney compared the American economy to that of Russia as he ignored signs of growth and pounced on the Commerce Department's downward revision.
"By the way, Russia's GDP growth is at 4 percent. And we're at 1.3. This is unacceptable," he said. "The president does not understand how to get this economy to work for the American people."
Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Ken Thomas contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
More As debate looms, Romney looks to Pennsylvania - The Associated Press Issues Question by Dreamstuff Entity: How do creationists define "information" in the context of evolution? Posted a few minutes ago: "Evolution (now called macro evolution) cannot be observed. It requires the addition of genetic information that results in new traits, something that we've never seen." How do they define "information" in this context? Is it... * increased genetic variety in a population? We have observed it. * increased genetic material? We have observed it. * novel genetic material? We have observed it. * novel genetically-regulated abilities? We have observed it. * another definition? Let's have it. Best answer for How do creationists define "information" in the context of evolution?:
Answer by Dr. Bob
Information is exactly that: something meaningful. A failure of genes to fully separate that results in additional genes is observed quite often. Such abnormalities are always detrimental, however -- unless you'd argue that Down's Syndrome (for example) is really a step forward on the evolutionary scale. Increased genetic variety is simply a result of the process of heredity due to biodiversity. Biodiversity actually works against evolutionary processes, diluting any potential improvement in the gene pool, Dreamstuff. Mutts have increased genetic diversity over their purebred counterparts, but are you really arguing that mutts represent a step forward? It's dishonest then, Dreamstuff, to attempt to characterize my answer (from which you clipped this snippet) as being incorrect when you know that such problems are not evolutionary advances. Unless you're simply claiming that heredity is itself evolution. And if that's the case, then there's nothing we can discuss, because you're using a definition of evolution that's not accepted by anyone of any sensible scholarship anyplace on the planet.
Answer by Leonard
That's not fair, that's making unreasonable demands... :P Dr.Bob is a textbook example of the half-educated ID'er. His veneer of science babble serves as a paper mask to hide his clown face from the creationists... but not people who are not subject to the preconceptions of their crude faith.
Answer by fmko
creationists can't even pass their biological anthropology courses - they get "Ds" for "Dr. Bob"!!
Answer by secretsauce
I think Dr. Bob missed the exact point that was opened up with his own wording. When he originally claimed that evolution "requires the addition of genetic information that results in new traits" ... the question glares ... what does 'information' mean in a GENETIC sense? Simply saying "Information is exactly that: something meaningful" is an absolutely useless definition ... it does nothing to clarify what information is in a GENETIC sense! In other words, *how does one measure information as a *GENETIC* quantity?* If you can't explain that, then claiming that evolution "requires the addition of genetic information" is utterly meaningless! It is an attempt to say that evolution "requires" something, and then make that requirement impossible to meet by leaving it *vaguely defined*. Any answer the geneticists produce, can be shrugged off with "that's not additional information", without any rigorous, measurable definition of what they *do* mean by "additional information." >"A failure of genes to fully separate that results in additional genes is observed quite often." Are you talking about a gene duplication? If so, then yes, this is correct that it is observed quite often. If that's not what you mean, then what does that mean? >"Such abnormalities are always detrimental, however" Always?? Absolute rubbish! Documented cases of gene duplications that were NOT "detrimental": http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10413401 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20433736 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16798872 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19803737 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2351932 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19899624 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20212107 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20002213 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19995988 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2351932 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19899624 So much for "something that we've never seen."
Answer by emucompboy
As a world-renowned award-winning Creationist I can tell you that at times like this, I would quote former president George W Bush: "Well, the jury's still out on evolution." So I would define "information" as being something that George W Bush has never seen. That's kind of a negative definition, but did you know that lots of people define "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction" in exactly the same way?
Answer by Shaz
Actually Dr Bob is incorrect. Gene duplication is believed to play a major role in evolution; this stance has been held by members of the scientific community for over 100 years.[3] Susumu Ohno was one of the most famous developers of this theory in his classic book Evolution by gene duplication (1970)[4]. Ohno argued that gene duplication is the most important evolutionary force since the emergence of the universal common ancestor.[5] Major genome duplication events are not uncommon. It is believed that the entire yeast genome underwent duplication about 100 million years ago[6]. Plants are the most prolific genome duplicators. For example, wheat is hexaploid (a kind of polyploid), meaning that it has six copies of its genome. The duplication of a gene results in an additional copy that is free from selective pressure. This allows the new copy of the gene to mutate without deleterious consequence to the organism. This freedom from consequences allows for the mutation of novel genes that could potentially increase the fitness of the organism or code for a new function. An example of this is the apparent mutation of a duplicated digestive gene in a family of ice fish into an antifreeze gene. SO basically we do see that duplication results in advantagous genes in both plant and animal life and this is ffrom a quick 5 second search
Answer by David D
Please read the following completely... There is no such thing as "The Theory of Evolution." There isn't now and there never has been. There are, however, theories that try to explain the evidence for biological evolution… Biological evolution is a conclusion based on FACTS. An individual fact of biological evolution is a single fossil or other artifact recovered, studied and reported in detail. There are over 100,000,000 "facts" of biological evolution. It is a fact that in the recent past (60 million years ago) there were no large mammals at all such as horses, bears, man, etc. Farther back it is a fact that there were no flowering plants of any kind. Still farther back it is a fact that there was no life on land- at all. Still farther back the fossils reveal that there were no fishes in the oceans. Still farther back it is a fact that there was no multicellular life on Earth, anywhere. These are a very few of the many, many facts that make biological evolution on Earth a FACT. The facts show unmistakably that life in the past was different from life today. The facts show unmistakably that life has changed (evolved) over time. Biological evolution is a FACT, not a theory (or a guess). The question is: how can these facts from the fossil record be explained? How did biological evolution happen? The theory of "Decent With Modification" (first proposed by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace - since improved) is the theory that currently best explains the mountain of FACTS showing how biological evolution proceeded. Without the theory of Decent With Modification the FACTS of biological evolution would still be there begging for an explanation. If a theory is proposed in the future that better explains the facts of biological evolution, we will discard the Darwin-Wallace theory as we have discarded Aristotle’s "Great Chain of Being" theory, Charles Bonnet’s “Germ Theory†and the Bible’s “Creation Theory.†They were discarded because they couldn’t explain the FACTS.. Natural Selection is not a theory but is a proposed mechanism to explain how the theory of Decent With Modification would proceed. The theory of Decent With Modification does NOT need Natural Selection for the theory to be valid. If a better mechanism is found we will relegate that mechanism to the scrap heap as we have past mechanisms such as Lamarck's “Inheritance of Acquired Traits.†“Survival Of The Fittest†is nothing but a catch phrase that is not even accurate. A more accurate representation of that poorly worded concept would be “Variation Augmented Differential Reproduction.†That is, the favored survival of individuals and their progeny who posses variations that can better utilize the environment they currently live in. There is no such thing as “Darwinism†any more than there is “Newtonism†or “Einsteinism.†There is a general misunderstanding about just what constitutes a “theory.†The word "theory" has several meanings. The common meaning used by the general public is that of a "guess" or "opinion." You could say, "It is my theory that the CIA ordered Kennedy's assassination." or "It is my guess/opinion that the CIA ordered Kennedy's assassination. A scientific theory, however, is not a guess or opinion as the word “theory†is used by the general public. A scientific “theory†is an overall unifying principal that seeks to explain seemingly disconnected measurements and observations (facts) under a single, simple concept. As such, a theory is the highest form of knowledge about the universe because it explains not just one isolated part of the natural world but it ties together many measurements and observations (facts), that may not seem to be connected, under a single unifying principle. Facts, on the other hand, are single pieces of information about the world that usually come from controlled experiments. Lots and lots of facts are unified and explained by a single theory. You can collect facts (measurements) about the motions of the planets. You can collect facts about the movement of projectiles and falling bodies. You can study the flow of rivers. The concept of gravity embodied in Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity explains all of these observations and measurements (Newton’s concept of gravity, embodied in the Theory of Mutual Attraction, could not explain all of the facts â€" so it has been superseded). Without the General Theory of Relativity the FACTS of the movements of objects remain and beg to be explained...
What Is Information?When Creationists argue that no new information can be added to a genome through random mutation, they confuse the lines between "Matter" and "Information", sometimes using the terms interchangeably. To truly understand what information is, let's describe what it isn't. It ISN'T the hard drive. It ISN'T ones and zeroes. Information can be a nebulous thing, that could be described with the ones and zeroes STORED on a hard disk. Information isn't language, it's what language represents. Information isn't the Internet, it's what the internet conveys in its' tubes. Information is an idea. And ideas spread, they mutate, they evolve. And the faster they reproduce, the faster the evolution. This is why information is becoming "faster" with the onset of faster vehicles of ideas. Information is almost "alive".
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