Evolution: King of Contradictory, Inconsistent Logic

I read an interesting little blog article today about the fact that the famous "evolutionary tree of life" so often found in biology text books doesn't really exist in nature and that even modern scientists are finally starting to admit this. The idea of the "biological tree of life" is that you can map similarities between living organisms and fossils into a branching "tree" of evolutionary progress and/or dead ends. It's the idea of common ancestry, everything is connected way back in the past and has branched off from the same ancient common ancestors. The responses to the blog post I read were quite fascinating and are a great example of an astounding flaw in evolutionist apologetics thinking.

Blog Post this article is related to: The Evolutionary Tree Failed But Evolutionists Still Insist Evolution is a Fact

When Creationists or people that believe in Intelligent Design (and not Darwinistic evolution or all-encompassing common ancestry) point this major failure of Darwinism out (the classic "tree of life"), a common response by pro-evolutionists is to argue that clearly evolution is much more complex and variable than was assumed. The "tree of life" is much more like a "very tangled bush" instead, but they still argue that there's enough of a "core tree-like structure" to life that the proof of common ancestry IS there.

The problems of so many instances of life supposedly being along the same branch (due to apparent similarity), and then the genetic studies on these organisms revealing vast differences between them far beyond what should exist when compared against the famous "tree of life", is a nasty punch to Neo-Darwinism. The same is true for organisms that are highly separated on the "biological tree of life" but turn out to have vast genetic similarities despite being physically very different. It boggles the mind and destroys the tidy concept of the biological tree of life (which was always an entirely assumption-based (instead of fact-based) belief anyway). The evolutionists, however, continue to argue that there's still enough "good and accurate structure" to the "tree of life" model that it's a mathematically valid and very probable reality.

But this is a classic case of contradictory logic. As I've debated with some atheists and evolutionists online over the last half year or so, I've found that this kind of "stance-jumping" is extremely common among them. They'll argue one point in defense of evolution and then completely disregard that exact same logical point at another. It's, "win in any way you can, even if we constantly disobey our own previously stated logical and factual stances." There's very little consistency in their position. They contradict themselves all over the place.

Case in point...

Mathematical statistics and probability are used to defend the crumbling "biological and historical tree of life". They say that there's enough mathematical probability and similarity in the structure of the tree to still be considered a valid belief/fact. However when the math does NOT support evolution at all, they say math, statistics and probability has nothing to do with it, or is not relevant. Why? Because they only like the math when it agrees with them.

The probability of life arising from non-living molecules is astronomically impossible. The probability is trillions of times beyond what's mathematically possible, let alone actually plausible. It is absolutely impossible for a simple protein to form in nature except by way of life building it on purpose. The odds for just ONE such simple Protein forming in nature is 1 in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion (etc.). It's simply not mathematically possible. In fact, there isn't even enough matter and energy (probabilistic resources) in the entire universe to get anywhere close to giving this equation a chance. And yet these scientists claim that this exact event (a protein forming with no help from life or intelligence) happened MANY times.

But the math just doesn't work! The entire universe has no way of producing a single protein without life intentionally building it from an already existing blue print. When such things are pointed out to evolutionists and scientists, they shrug it off and say that, "Clearly life happened, since life is here, so the odds and statistics don't really matter." This is a VERY common argument by evolutionists and atheists.

Note the completely contradictory statement and stance compared to their arguments regarding math, statistics and probability when it comes to the biological tree of life. It's completely illogical to consider "the math" to be a valid proof or evidence defending your stance (belief) in one related instance but to ignore it completely with regards to another aspect of your worldview (beliefs). There's no consistency of stance and position there, which throws your entire structure of supposed logical reasoning out the window.

Either probability, statistics and math ARE a valid proof of something's reality (in this case, Darwinistic Evolution) or they are not. You can't have it both ways, as the evolutionists clearly desire.
 

For more on the numerous problems with the "evolutionary tree of life" check out this 5 part entry at EvolutionNews.com. A Primer on the Tree of Life

Diablo 3 Copy Protection And Server Hell

The much anticipated game Diablo 3 was just released yesterday at midnight and though many people have managed to play it, there's also a great number of people that have not, despite having purchased the game at midnight launch parties or pre-ordered the game through various online vendors (the game hit a record for pre-orders on Amazon.com). Some customers are extremely ticked off, and it all comes down to the copy protection (or DRM, Digital Rights Management) built into the blockbuster game.

The game requires that you always be connected and signed in to the game company's online servers to play, even if you're playing the game by yourself, single-player. Back in the "good old days", if you bought a single player computer game, you could take it home, install it, and then play it. Now, you have to jump through all kinds of hoops in order to prove that the game is a real purchased copy of the game before (and while) you play, otherwise the game locks you out.

I ran into this very same problem just last week when I bought a cheap computer game and spent days messing around with it and my computer system to try and get the stupid thing to work. My final fix was to do EXACTLY what the game company was trying to stop. I downloaded a hack that blocked all the copy protection and constant (as you play) online server verifications. The game then ran like a dream, instead of stuttering all over the place and freezing up every 10 minutes. The problem? Excessive copy protection and constant online authentication.

Diablo 3's user review average score on Metacritic is currently running at 3.6 out of 10. That's horrible. Many people were super excited about Diablo 3 coming out and when they went to play this greatly anticipated game that they'd purchased, they were locked out of the game by the now infamous "Error 37".

Diablo 3 User Reviews at Metacritic:  3.6 / 10
Metacritic Diablo 3 User Reviews

At VentureBeat someone created a Day 1 game review. The reviewer's final conclusion?
VentureBeat: World exclusive Diablo III review!!!!

Overall, I am impressed by the production values and execution of Diablo III’s main menu. It’s admittedly a very slick menu...

Yup, the main menu title screen was as far as the reviewer got. Thanks to Error 37.

It's been so bad that "Error 37" has actually been trending high on Twitter all day and internet meme websites are filling with Error 37 jokes. IGN: Diablo 3's Best Error 37 Jokes

GamesRadar has this to say about it all...
GamesRadar: Diablo III error 37 causing a great wailing and gnashing of teeth as players worldwide fail to log in.

What's galling in this case though is that the log-in failures currently being suffered by a large number of aspiring players block the single-player game as well as multiplayer. Yay online authentication.

Consider the online DRM arguement well-and-truly cracked open once again. Can of worms, ACTIVATE! 

Over at IGN, their "review in progress" of the game was off to a rough start.
IGN: Diablo III Review in Progress

Diablo III has all the launch problems of a major MMO. Blizzard’s action-RPG requires you to connect to their proprietary gaming network, Battle.net, if you want to play, but since its launch it’s been an aggravating slog to log on. It’s annoying enough that you can’t play without an Internet connection, but it’s even worse that the company that runs the biggest MMO in the world, and who no doubt had a good idea of how well Diablo III was selling, couldn't make the first day run smoother. Even now, at the time this is being written, the whole system has been shut down for server maintenance. Thankfully I’m playing it from my office, since I can only imagine how irate people who took the day off to enjoy one of the biggest game launches all year must be feeling right now.

Even when I managed to successfully log in and Diablo III running things didn’t go well as far as user experience is concerned. Regularly my friends and I would have multiple minutes go by between messages we sent one another, only to have an error code pop up and a wall of text spam through the chat. Or there was the point when early on in Act I my game simply crashed, prior to which half the world disappeared along with my character’s spell effects. The best part? After forcing my way out of Diablo III I logged back in only to find that my items and progress from the previous few minutes had disappeared. Goodbye, shiny new helmet. This didn’t bother me too much since I was so early in the campaign that I hadn’t found anything special, but if I lost a rare or special item due to their server issues you could bet I’d be on the phone with someone in customer service. Items can now net real money, so its inexcusable to lose them due to problems with Blizzard's servers.

 UPDATE:

Here's a few more meme pics related to the problem. :-)
 

Copy Protection Nightmare

Just the other day I bought a new computer game that came out in 2011 published by the company Kalypso, and created by RealmForge. The game was on a clearance sale for only $10 brand new. It was a strategy RPG game and I like that style of game, so I picked it up. Then the nightmare began.

I spent two days messing around with the game and my computer trying to get the game to work until I finally realized what the root of the problem was. Copy protection. The game was crammed full of copy protection to make sure that I had actually paid for the game.

When I first installed the game, it asked me for the Product Key included inside on the game's instruction manual. This kind of copy protection has been common for a LONG time (at least since the 1990s, and probably before). Basically, you can't install the program unless you type in a real product key. The product key is usually something like 15 to 20 characters (letters and numbers) long.

After I entered the product key and the game installed, it then asked me to register an account with Kalypso (the publisher of the game). I had to give them an email address (as a unique user name) and a password so that I could log in. The game can be played online with other people, but it can also be played on your own (single player). Keep that in mind...

I registered a new account with an email address that I use for almost all "sign ups" in order to keep mountains of spam and junk mail from clogging my regular email inbox. Then I'm told that I have to activate my account before I can play the game at all (single player or multi-player). So I fire up my web browser, sign into that junk email address, find the email they auto-sent me, and click on the activation URL. Now my account is activated! I've proven that my email account is a real email account. For those of you counting at home, that's 3 separate copy protection checks to make sure that I'm not a game pirate and that I actually bought the game. A product key, registering an account with them, and verifying the email account I used was real.

Great! So now I can finally play my purchased game! I close extra programs that I don't need running while I play (to improve game performance) like I usually do when I play games. I open the game up, and am asked to sign into my account. Here's verification #4. Each and every time I want to play the game, I must sign in with my created account (email address and password) in order to play. Well that kind of sucks. Usually such things are standard on multi-player only games and optional on single-player games (for extra features). But to play this game at all, you MUST sign in and you MUST be connected to the internet when you sign in so that the game can verify that you've used a proper account that really exists. So I do that, now getting a little ticked off. This is starting to get a little ridiculous. I don't even want to play online and the case the game comes in says nothing about requiring an internet connection except for playing multi-player.

I finally get into the game! And I grimace. The opening intro mini-movie clips showing you the name of the publisher and company that created the game (also very common at the start of movies) are stuttering like crazy. They're videos! They shouldn't stutter! Almost NOTHING is happening here. All that's happening is the very basic start up of the program and playing a couple quick low resolution logo clips.

I get to the game's title screen and main menu. I start a new game. I get another intro movie giving an overview of the game's opening plot. Again, it stutters a lot. Then the game play starts and it's surprisingly laggy the jittery (like the videos, though not as bad). So I go into game options, drop all the graphics settings down to the lowest settings and get told that for the settings to take effect I must restart the game. That's VERY common in most computer games, so I save the game, exit the game, and log back in.

This time, I turn off my internet connection after logging in (something I usually do when I play games that I'm not planning to play online) in hopes of squeezing a little more performance out of them. The same stuttering problem as before. I load up my game and the game runs a little more smoothly, but not much. Then the game completely freezes 10 minutes in.

By this point I'm getting annoyed, but I only paid $10 for it. I do the old CTRL+ALT+DEL trick and end the game in the Windows Task Manager. Then I notice a 2nd program also running in the task manager with a very similar name to the game itself and it includes the word "server" in the name. Ok, so the game runs two programs at a time. A little unusual, but not unheard of. Maybe it has something to do with how the game handles multi-player. I close that second program too, then run it all again. I have to log in. Right! I turn my internet back on. Log in. Turn my internet off. And play the game. All the same problems and again it freezes, exactly 10 minutes in. Now THAT is strangely consistent!

I force close the program and the second "server" program and try it again. Again it freezes almost exactly 10 minutes in. Very strange. Maybe it requires my internet connection to remain online when the game fully starts up. That'd be a bit stupid after it's already verified all that other stuff, especially if I'm NOT playing multi-player, but whatever. So I play the game with my internet turned on. The choppiness improves noticeably in the videos and though the game plays more smoothly than before, it's still not great. 20 minutes later, it freezes again. I'm getting very ticked now.

I realized pretty quick what might be happening here, but I wanted to test a few other theories first. I played around with the settings in the game and my computer, testing different options and running the game with each new set up a number of times, but the game still kept freezing (always about 10 minutes in). My first suspicion looked to be the right one.

The game was trying to check back with servers online every 10 minutes or so to make sure that I was playing a proper bought version of the game. That's copy protection #5. The game MUST constantly contact the publisher's online servers and verify that it is a properly purchased copy. If that fails for some reason (any reason), or something else goes wrong with the copy protection, the game locks up.

Quite ticked off that the game is STILL constantly trying to make sure that I'm not a thief or pirate, ON TOP of the other 4 security protocols I already passed, I decided to try something. I download a hack for the game used by people who pirated the game. Many computer games have different types of copy protection and people who pirate the games have to circumvent these systems (hack and break or stop them) in order to play an illegal copy of the game. So I downloaded the hack, used it, and ran the game.

Worked like a charm! NO constant freezing and better yet, the movies didn't stutter at all and the game played VERY smooth without ANY slow down like it should. I cranked up the graphics settings to the maximum and restarted the game and still it ran like a dream. In other words, not only was the game constantly having to verify it's authenticity with computer servers online (even when I played all by myself and NOT online), but all the extra internal copy protection in the game was also making it crawl and stutter as if my computer system were some ancient dinosaur from before the year 2000.

Folks, that is the absolute WRONG way to create a happy satisfied loyal customer. Requiring a long list of verifications when I've purchased your game, making me jump through a bunch of hoops before I even START playing the game, and then constantly spying on me and my game as I'm playing it on my own, resulting in the game lagging terribly AND freezing every 10 minutes, is just plain ridiculous. I bought your game. I registered it. I verified it and continued to verify it every single time I tried to play the game. And then to make matters worse, your game's performance is going to be awful and it'll constantly freeze because while playing, it's regularly checking back with the publisher online to make sure I'm still using a valid copy of the game.

How do you AVOID all that hassle and head ache from a game you bought? Easy. Don't buy it. Pirate the game! Play a hacked illegal copy. This is the height of stupidity on the part of the game publisher. Making it a royal pain to play your game and then making the game play horribly (or freeze, or crash) because of even MORE copy protection built into it is a sure fire way to alienate paying customers. I want to play a game that works and doesn't put me through the ringer because its publisher doesn't trust that anyone actually bought the game.

And how did all this copy protection stop the game from being pirated? It didn't. It's out there free for anyone who knows anything at all about torrent websites to find and download (including the crack that removes or blocks all the many problematic layers of copy protection). The only way the game is even playable for me is to use the hack. A game I paid for (on sale, mind you), and I had to download the very thing the game company was trying to stop, just to get it to work. What a joke!