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Almost Time to Buy a New Computer
These have been my decision points so far:
Build or Buy?
Initially, I thought I might use this as an opportunity to build my first computer. This way, I could get exactly what I need without throwing money away on things I do not need. I am not into computer gaming at all, and the video cards in most systems seems to be overkill. At the same time, drive space and speed are rarely adequate, expandability tends to be limited, and there are never enough or the right kind of ports. However, I soon decided against building because I simply don't have the time (or interest, if I'm being honest) in researching components, etc. I may build eventually but not this time. Decision made.
Windows Vista or...What
I used to use Macs but switched to Windows several years ago because I needed to use Windows-only software regularly for work. I've been generally content with the stability of Windows XP SP3 on my home computer even though I've had a bit of ongoing trouble at work. After reading the reviews of Vista, including SP1, and talking to various friends using Vista, I decided that there was simply no way I was willing to go Vista. No apparent upside and many downsides. Some have suggested Linux, but that is not for me, at least not yet.
Sticking with Windows XP is certainly viable but seems the OS is clearly showing its age. Besides, the ongoing sort of problems I've had with it at work make me less eager to put it on another machine. Still, if I replace this PC with another PC, I've pretty much decided that it will run XP. But should I consider returning to Mac?
Mac or PC?
The thought of getting a Mac for Photoshop work and still having my old Dell to use as a music server and for the times when I do need to run PC-only software at home (so I won't even need Windows on the Mac) is certainly appealing. I can get an Apple educational discount and get the Mac version of MS Office free through work. I need to upgrade Photoshop anyway, so switching platforms shouldn't be too difficult. The current Mac OS sounds wonderful, and it would be great to have a more stable system that required less constant tinkering and updating.
Where the Mac decision gets hard is when the question of which Mac comes up. I've ruled out the Mini for a variety of reasons, I don't need a laptop, and the Mac Pro is overkill in many ways. This leaves me with only the iMac as an option. Fine except I hate the idea of all-in-one systems where I'm stuck with the monitor that houses the computer. Widespread reports of uneven screen brightness also make me a bit nervous.
In the end, it looks like critical question will be whether moving to Mac OS X is so desirable that I'm willing to live with the limitations of the iMac. I think it probably is, and I am leaning toward picking up a new 24" iMac in the next month. We'll see.
Tags: Dell, Photoshop, computer, build, Windows, Windows Vista, Vista, Windows XP, XP, PC, Mac, Apple, iMac, OS X
Kenneth Miller on Expelled
AMERICAN science is in trouble, and if you wonder why, just go to the movies. Popular culture is gradually turning against science, and Ben Stein's new movie, "Expelled," is helping to push it along.
"Intelligent Design," the relabeled, repackaged form of American creationism, has always had a problem. It just can't seem to produce any evidence. To scientists, the reasons for this are obvious. To conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, Intelligent Design is nothing more than a "phony theory." No data, no science, no experiments, just an attempt to sneak a narrow set of religious views into US classrooms.
Advocates of Intelligent Design needed a story to explain why the idea has been a nonstarter within the scientific community, and Ben Stein has given it to them. The story line is that Intelligent Design advocates are persecuted and suppressed. "Expelled" tells of this terrible campaign against free expression, and mocks the pretensions of the closed-minded scientific elite supposedly behind it.
There are many things wrong with this movie. One example: Viewers are told that Dr. Richard Sternberg lost his job at the Smithsonian Institution because he edited a paper favorable to Intelligent Design. Wrong.
Sternberg wasn't even employed by the Smithsonian (he had no job to lose), and had resigned as journal editor six months before the paper was published. In fact, the irony is that neither Steinberg nor any of the other people featured as martyrs in "Expelled" lost jobs as a result of their advocacy of Intelligent Design, while many others who supported evolution have. In 2007, Chris Comer, the director of science education for Texas schools, was fired for having done nothing more than forwarding an e-mail announcing a pro-evolution seminar.
The movie also uses interviews with avowed atheists like Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion," to argue that scientific establishment is vehemently anti-God. Never mind that 40 percent of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science profess belief in a personal God. Stein, avoiding these 50,000 people, tells viewers that "Darwinists" don't allow scientists to even think of God.
Puzzled, the editors of Scientific American asked Mark Mathis, the film's co-producer, why he and Stein didn't interview such people, like Francis Collins (head of the Human Genome Project), Francisco Ayala, or myself. Mathis cited me by name, saying "Ken Miller would have confused the film unnecessarily." In other words, showing a scientist who accepts both God and evolution would have confused their story line.
Despite these falsehoods, by far the film's most outlandish misrepresentation is its linkage of Darwin with the Holocaust. A concentration camp tour guide tells Stein that the Nazis were practicing "Darwinism," and that's that. Never mind those belt buckles proclaiming Gott mit uns (God is with us), the toxic anti-Semitism of Martin Luther, the ghettoes and murderous pogroms in Christian Europe centuries before Darwin's birth. No matter. It's all the fault of evolution.
Why is all this nonsense a threat to science? The reason is Stein's libelous conclusion that science is simply evil. In an April 21 interview on the Trinity Broadcast Network, Stein called the Nazi murder of children "horrifying beyond words." Indeed. But what led to such horrors? Stein explained: "that's where science in my opinion, this is just an opinion, that's where science leads you. Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place. Science leads you to killing people."
According to Stein, science leads you to "killing people." Not to cures and vaccines, not to a deeper understanding of nature, not to wonders like computers and cellphones, and certainly not to a better life. Nope. Science is murder.
"Expelled" is a shoddy piece of propaganda that props up the failures of Intelligent Design by playing the victim card. It deceives its audiences, slanders the scientific community, and contributes mightily to a climate of hostility to science itself. Stein is doing nothing less than helping turn a generation of American youth away from science. If we actually come to believe that science leads to murder, then we deserve to lose world leadership in science. In that sense, the word "expelled" may have a different and more tragic connotation for our country than Stein intended.
Kenneth R. Miller, a biology professor at Brown University, is author of "Only a Theory - Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul," which will be published next month.




























