• Vegetation encroaching on highway • The blind logic of Dawkins • Horsemanship • Time to start planning Vegetation encroaching on highway I was just wondering whose responsibility it is to maintain the vegetation that is encroaching onto Kuhio Highway.
• Vegetation encroaching on highway •
The blind logic of Dawkins • Horsemanship
• Time to start planning
Vegetation encroaching on highway
I was just wondering whose responsibility it is to maintain the vegetation that is encroaching onto Kuhio Highway.
It seems that not everyone can afford a car and some of us like to use a bike as a form of exercise, transportation, or may even walk or run our highway. There are many parts of our highway especially on the north shore that are particularly dangerous due to this overgrowth.
In some cases it makes it difficult to stay on what little shoulder there is on Kuhio Highway. Can someone help answer my question?
Jason Jeffers, Princeville
The blind logic of Dawkins
In his Oct. 10 letter, Bob Downs claims that Dawkins’ Blind Watchmaker proves, once and for all, that tiny mutations can produce highly complex systems that work.
To prove it, Dawkins developed a computer program that would randomly produce a 23 character sentence that he wanted. The computer would generate random letters. Every time a letter came up by chance that matched the letter that he wanted, that letter would be magically saved, with no further mutations. Eventually, as we would expect, all 23 characters matched what he was looking for.
Dawkins’ introduced a magic function that looks for a match, saves each match, and stops further mutations once the match is found. Where did the magic matching function come from? How does it know what it is supposed to match? How does it turn off the mutation once a match is found? Keep in mind that the simplest viable life form (bacteria) has 600,000 letters of DNA.
Let’s illustrate. Suppose Dawkins wants to prove that the book Don Quixote did not come from an author, but came from chance. To prove it, he has Bob start guessing letters. He has Charlie sit next to Bob, with a copy of Don Quixote, tell Bob every time he guessed a correct letter. Eventually, by keeping all the correct letters, Bob now has a copy of Don Quixote, compiled simply by guessing letters. Does this prove that the book Don Quixote came from chance? No, in this case the book really came from Charlie, who already had a copy of the book by Cervantes.
Remember that in creating complex systems with many parts, most of the “correct” mutations will provide no benefit, because there are still other vital parts missing. Dawkins has assumed that there is some magic mutation guidance system that selects each tiny mutation that matches a blueprint. While assuming this outside (supernatural?) guidance force is working, Dawkins says he is proving that there is no outside force.
Dawkins is either seriously deficient in math and logic, or he is purposely trying to mislead people by offering a theory that he knows is illogical.
Regarding Charles Darwin, unfortunately, he also made a big impact in politics. Darwin was a big-time racist. His racist, survival-of-the-fittest ideas provided the philosophical foundation for Hitler’s ideas and the Nazi death camps.
Mark Beeksma, Koloa
Horsemanship
I am a saddened and dismayed horse owner on ag property in Kilauea. What disturbs me is the uncaring and ignorance of other horse owners who share a common fence line with yours.
You put up your safety fence with electric wiring top and bottom and your neighbor puts horses in using your fence and not putting up their own with their horses right across the single fence line. Do they not realize what damage these 1,200- to 1,400-pound animals can do to each other through a single fence line?
Yet, these people ride in events and shows on the island and show off their animals and have no regard for their safety or their neighbor’s horses safety. I question their horsemanship and fellow feeling.
Please offer help if you know of any law or legal action that can be taken on this matter.
Carol Ernsdorf, Kilauea
Time to start planning
Just so people know, we still believe Ordinance 885, the Plastic Bag Reduction ordinance, is a good one.
People can always use their own reusable bags and where necessary merchants can provide paper bags, and maybe current technology will one day soon develop a biobased bag that will qualify for the unique combined standards for a poly bag allowed for in Ordinance 885.
For the retail merchants, Maui and Kaua‘i will effectively have the same requirements come January 2011, namely that poly-carry-out bags will not be allowed.
Franchises that are on both islands should work with home offices to combine their purchasing of allowable bags (paper) so as to minimize their costs and combine their purchasing logistics. For all retailers, they should start planning the transition now if they haven’t already. They have about three months, which is just enough time.
One other point, retailers should look at this as an opportunity to increase revenue at least for the first year with reusable bag sales and to reduce expenses from the giving away of plastic carry out bags in the past. It’s true that paper is a little more expense than plastic, but merchants should take every opportunity to minimize that, keeping in mind that paper does at least biodegrade and regular plastic does not.
This is doable and it is an important step in reducing the unsustainable non-biodegradable flow into our island landfills.
Brad Parsons, Hanalei
