The Conservapedia Bible Project has a plan to remove liberal bias from the Bible. This is an interesting idea, and I went to the project’s web site to learn more.
The web site click here states:
“Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations. There are three sources of errors in conveying biblical meaning are (sic), in increasing amount:
“lack of precision in the original language, such as terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts introduced by Christ.
lack of precision in modern language.
translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.
“Experts in ancient languages are helpful in reducing the first type of error above, which is a vanishing source of error as scholarship advances understanding. English language linguists are helpful in reducing the second type of error, which also decreases due to an increasing vocabulary. But the third--and largest--source of translation error requires conservative principles to reduce and eliminate.”
The second sentence of the quote seems to need removal of the extra “are”. And I don’t understand what is meant by “terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts introduced by Christ.”
The meaning of the first two sentences in the next paragraph (beginning “Experts in ancient languages...”) is also wobbly to me.
I think I understand what is meant by the third sentence. However, I don’t understand how conservative principles could “reduce and eliminate” translation error. An accurate translation depends fundamentally on understanding the ancient language. Applying either conservative or liberal “principles” to the translation would only distort accuracy.
A cursory review of examples of “liberal” bias suggested that the project found most of these in the New Testament.
The Conservapedia project gives an example of the liberal bias of the New Testament and how it should be reinterpreted. When Jesus is hung on the cross, he is reported to have said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” The conservative slant on this is to point out that those who crucified Jesus surely knew exactly what they were doing and therefore were not candidates for forgiveness.
I’m no biblical scholar, but the New Testament emphasizes mercy and forgiveness over the fire and damnation found in the Old Testament. The New Testament is liberal. The Old Testament is conservative.
And this made me think that liberals might take a shot at removing conservative bias from the Old Testament.
For example, Adam and Eve, rather than being expelled from the Garden of Eden for eating the forbidden apple, should be given second and third chances to see the error of their ways. If they continue to fail, God would give them a bailout in the form of a bushel basket of apples. How else could the fertile lands of the world producing bountiful fruits be explained! God intended for everyone to be forgiven and to have second and third chances, and the story of Adam and Eve should reflect that truth.
And whoever said the Bible was the literal word of God!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Biochemical translator nets Nobel Prize
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in Cambridge, UK, Thomas A. Steitz, of Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA, and Ada E. Yonath, of the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, Israel, are the joint recipients of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".
DNA is at the heart of life, it is the code that allows cells to divide and organisms to reproduce, but it is the cellular machinery of the ribosome that translates the genetic code into proteins, which in turn underpin all of biochemistry: the oxygen-transporting haemoglobin, the antibodies of the immune system, hormones such as insulin, the collagen of the skin, and enzymes that digest our food, and tens of thousands of other proteins in the body with their own function and form.
Ramakrishnan, Steitz and Yonath spent many years working to get a clear picture of what the ribosome looks like at the atomic level using X-ray crystallography; no mean feat given that the ribosome contains hundreds of thousands of atoms.
The ribosome, named for ribonucleic acid and from the Greek, soma, for body is itself comprised of a protein and RNA complex. It reads the information in messenger RNA created from the DNA blueprint in the cell's nucleus. Based upon this information, it makes proteins in the process of translation. It is during this translation that the DNA/RNA language becomes manifest in the substance of life.
Understanding the innermost workings of the ribosome is not only important for a scientific understanding of life but also represents a practical target. Given that bacterial ribosomes are so very different from human ribosomes, finding small molecules that inhibit bacterial ribosomes represents one approach to the development of novel antibiotics for fighting bacterial infection.
Indeed, this year's chemistry laureates have all generated 3D models showing how different antibiotics bind to the ribosome and drug discovery scientists are already using these develop new antibiotics.
Science has known the very general structure of the ribosome since the early 1970s. However, it was the application of powerful XRD techniques and skilful manipulation of the ribosome in various complex crystalline forms during the late 1990s, early 2000s, that led to the Nobel-winning high resolution structures of this cellular entity down to the few angstrom level.
All three of the 2009 chemistry laureates published their work almost simultaneously in 2000. First, Steitz published the 50S (large bacteria) subunit from the archaea, Haloarcula marismortui and soon after Yonath revealed the structure of the 30S subunit from Thermus thermophilus. Very soon after that, Ramakrishnan published a more detailed structure. In May 2001, other researchers began to build on those structures and reconstructed the entire T. thermophilus 70S particle at 5.5 angstrom resolution.
In November 2005, the structure of the Escherichia coli 70S ribosome was published with 3.5 angstrom resolution XRD and just two weeks another team published details of a cryo-electron microscopy study showing the structure of the E. coli protein-conducting channel bound to a translating ribosome. This structure showed the ribosome during the transfer of a newly synthesized protein strand into the protein-conducting channel.
With this burgeoning field of study well underway, the first structures of ribosomes complexed with tRNA and mRNA molecules were revealed in 2006. Two independent research teams had used XRD to solve these structures and showed the functional interactions and rearrangements at high resolution for the 70S ribosome-tRNA complex. Yet other complexes and active arrangements have been revealed since, all building on the initial findings of this year's Nobel chemists.
The 2009 Prize represents the third of a trilogy that take us from Darwin's theory of natural selection and evolution to an understanding of life at the molecular level. It was Rosalind Franklyn's X-ray images of DNA that led to the 1962 Prize for James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins and X-rays that showed Roger D. Kornberg (2006 laureate) how information is copied to the messenger RNA molecule. The X-rayed ribosome completes the trilogy in 2009.
DNA is at the heart of life, it is the code that allows cells to divide and organisms to reproduce, but it is the cellular machinery of the ribosome that translates the genetic code into proteins, which in turn underpin all of biochemistry: the oxygen-transporting haemoglobin, the antibodies of the immune system, hormones such as insulin, the collagen of the skin, and enzymes that digest our food, and tens of thousands of other proteins in the body with their own function and form.
Ramakrishnan, Steitz and Yonath spent many years working to get a clear picture of what the ribosome looks like at the atomic level using X-ray crystallography; no mean feat given that the ribosome contains hundreds of thousands of atoms.
The ribosome, named for ribonucleic acid and from the Greek, soma, for body is itself comprised of a protein and RNA complex. It reads the information in messenger RNA created from the DNA blueprint in the cell's nucleus. Based upon this information, it makes proteins in the process of translation. It is during this translation that the DNA/RNA language becomes manifest in the substance of life.
Understanding the innermost workings of the ribosome is not only important for a scientific understanding of life but also represents a practical target. Given that bacterial ribosomes are so very different from human ribosomes, finding small molecules that inhibit bacterial ribosomes represents one approach to the development of novel antibiotics for fighting bacterial infection.
Indeed, this year's chemistry laureates have all generated 3D models showing how different antibiotics bind to the ribosome and drug discovery scientists are already using these develop new antibiotics.
Science has known the very general structure of the ribosome since the early 1970s. However, it was the application of powerful XRD techniques and skilful manipulation of the ribosome in various complex crystalline forms during the late 1990s, early 2000s, that led to the Nobel-winning high resolution structures of this cellular entity down to the few angstrom level.
All three of the 2009 chemistry laureates published their work almost simultaneously in 2000. First, Steitz published the 50S (large bacteria) subunit from the archaea, Haloarcula marismortui and soon after Yonath revealed the structure of the 30S subunit from Thermus thermophilus. Very soon after that, Ramakrishnan published a more detailed structure. In May 2001, other researchers began to build on those structures and reconstructed the entire T. thermophilus 70S particle at 5.5 angstrom resolution.
In November 2005, the structure of the Escherichia coli 70S ribosome was published with 3.5 angstrom resolution XRD and just two weeks another team published details of a cryo-electron microscopy study showing the structure of the E. coli protein-conducting channel bound to a translating ribosome. This structure showed the ribosome during the transfer of a newly synthesized protein strand into the protein-conducting channel.
With this burgeoning field of study well underway, the first structures of ribosomes complexed with tRNA and mRNA molecules were revealed in 2006. Two independent research teams had used XRD to solve these structures and showed the functional interactions and rearrangements at high resolution for the 70S ribosome-tRNA complex. Yet other complexes and active arrangements have been revealed since, all building on the initial findings of this year's Nobel chemists.
The 2009 Prize represents the third of a trilogy that take us from Darwin's theory of natural selection and evolution to an understanding of life at the molecular level. It was Rosalind Franklyn's X-ray images of DNA that led to the 1962 Prize for James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins and X-rays that showed Roger D. Kornberg (2006 laureate) how information is copied to the messenger RNA molecule. The X-rayed ribosome completes the trilogy in 2009.
Translation firm SDL sees performance in line
British translation services and technology firm SDL (SDL.L) said on Tuesday that its performance for the period from July 1 to Oct. 13 was in line with consensus expectations.
The company, which provides translations for companies such as Honda, Sony and Microsoft, said revenue and operating profit were slightly ahead of 2008 and that cash flow remains strong.
"Demand in translation services, whilst still showing the impact of the global economy... has been stable with some recent improvement in back order pattern," the company's statement said.
SDL also said performance in global information management technology remains robust.
The company bought XyEnterprise for $14.7 million in June and said that its integration was proceeding on schedule.
Shares in SDL closed at 357.50 pence on Monday.
(Reporting by Sharon Lindores; Editing by Julie Crust)
The company, which provides translations for companies such as Honda, Sony and Microsoft, said revenue and operating profit were slightly ahead of 2008 and that cash flow remains strong.
"Demand in translation services, whilst still showing the impact of the global economy... has been stable with some recent improvement in back order pattern," the company's statement said.
SDL also said performance in global information management technology remains robust.
The company bought XyEnterprise for $14.7 million in June and said that its integration was proceeding on schedule.
Shares in SDL closed at 357.50 pence on Monday.
(Reporting by Sharon Lindores; Editing by Julie Crust)
Twitter Needs You To Translate Its FIGS
One of Twitter's limitations when expanding to the global community is the fact that the microblogging network is currently only available in English and Japanese. Other social networks like Yahoo Meme have tried to capitalize on this gap by offering a Twitter-like network in Spanish and Portuguese.
Today, Twitter says it will soon be rolling out support for FIGS: French, Italian, German, and Spanish. In a blog post, the social network says that it hopes to offer Twitter in several other languages in the near future. And while Twitter is going to be doing some of the translations in-house, they are mostly trying to crowdsource translations, which is a strategy that Facebook has used in the past.
So now, Twitter will offer a tool that lets people suggest translations for the site. Once people submit translations, Twitter follow up on the technical backend. The tool will be rolled out to a small group of volunteer translators and as they come in, Twitter will distribute the translations to developers so they can offer multi-language support. Twitter adds that the crowdsourcing strategy has been the foundation for many features on the site such as @mentions and retweets. Users submit their ideas and Twitter will make them a reality. It appears that translation volunteers will be given a level, which will be indicated on their profile (see our screenshot of what this looks like below). It's seems safe to assume that as your become more reliable with translations, you move up levels.
It's about time that Twitter rolled out more language functionality and what better way to do this than to lean on your loyal followers to help out with this endeavor. And with versions of the site in more languages, Twitter should be able to increase its international following. It's certainly worked with Facebook.
Now, Facebook wants to unleash its army of volunteer translators on other sites and apps across the Web. Any site or app that use Facebook Connect can now tap into the Facebook community to get help translating their site into any language that Facebook Translations supports.
Facebook recently launched a feature of Facebook Connect that lets developers tap into the Facebook community to get help translating their site into any language that Facebook Translations supports. Facebook even patented its crowdsourced translation tools.
Today, Twitter says it will soon be rolling out support for FIGS: French, Italian, German, and Spanish. In a blog post, the social network says that it hopes to offer Twitter in several other languages in the near future. And while Twitter is going to be doing some of the translations in-house, they are mostly trying to crowdsource translations, which is a strategy that Facebook has used in the past.
So now, Twitter will offer a tool that lets people suggest translations for the site. Once people submit translations, Twitter follow up on the technical backend. The tool will be rolled out to a small group of volunteer translators and as they come in, Twitter will distribute the translations to developers so they can offer multi-language support. Twitter adds that the crowdsourcing strategy has been the foundation for many features on the site such as @mentions and retweets. Users submit their ideas and Twitter will make them a reality. It appears that translation volunteers will be given a level, which will be indicated on their profile (see our screenshot of what this looks like below). It's seems safe to assume that as your become more reliable with translations, you move up levels.
It's about time that Twitter rolled out more language functionality and what better way to do this than to lean on your loyal followers to help out with this endeavor. And with versions of the site in more languages, Twitter should be able to increase its international following. It's certainly worked with Facebook.
Now, Facebook wants to unleash its army of volunteer translators on other sites and apps across the Web. Any site or app that use Facebook Connect can now tap into the Facebook community to get help translating their site into any language that Facebook Translations supports.
Facebook recently launched a feature of Facebook Connect that lets developers tap into the Facebook community to get help translating their site into any language that Facebook Translations supports. Facebook even patented its crowdsourced translation tools.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
New York Spends Millions on Assimilation
The City of
The research by the Independent Budget Agency (IBO) was actuated by Staten Island City Councilmen James Oddo in reaction to a developing movement to dramatically broaden the demands for translation services. FormerJune, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ratified Executive Instruction 120, demanding each such city bureau to render language aid in the top 6 languages talked by New Yorkers.
Those fresh interpretation and translation laws will bring $1.7 million to the $26.9 million the offices already expend on like servings, the IBO detected. The top expender is the Health and Hospitals Company (HHC) -- which runs eleven public infirmaries, 4 nursing facilities, 6 symptomatic and therapy centers and more than eighty profession established clinics in City of
The Education Department (DOE) was a outdistance 2nd at $4 million, accompanied by the Department of Data Technology & Telecoms (DoITT) at $3.9 million and the New York City Housing Government Agency (NYCHA) at $3.5 million.
With the city awaiting a shortage of $5 billion in the following budget and even harder financial times before, Oddo and Ignizio see that income could be better wasted elsewhere.
"Men have dissimilar priorities, I regard that. Merely for Vinnie and I, it's nearly indispensable services. Each dollar gone on translation services is a buck less that the city of
"Once more we are fronted with the fact that budgets are finite and to throw about $27 million on translation services at one time when we are disregarding schoolhouses and emergency services boggles the mind. Let alone that these services only remain the crutch that more need to cast in order to access their full possible by determining the English language and in full assimilating into the New York crucible," Ignizio summed up.
Advocators of the legislating, a lot of whom have been combating for years to get the city and state to be more inclusive for humans with restrictive English technique (LEPs), state the translation demands are crucial in removing a cardinal roadblock to citizenship. They full point to researches that introduce immigrants fuel economic development and assist building the middle class.
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