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A part of the issue is that folks thinking that they are in the right tend to make intellectual shortcuts. In the early 2000s I was somewhat interested in various atheist movements, in part because I was worried about rising anti-intellectualism and creationism. But apparently once enough folks gather things go quickly to a self-congratulating group of folks who cannot stop emphasizing how rational and therefore superior they are (without actually putting in the work). There were plenty of folks, including academics who did a great job in outreach and educating. But some of their followers were sketchy and did not put in the intellectual work before succumbing to insufferable smugness (the result being attitudes that are way closer to religious organizations than folks would admit) .

You have identified the major problem with the "Does God Exist ?" debates -- there are at least as many unstated concepts of God as there are debaters. I strongly doubt that any consensus on a definition could be reached. Ergo, the debate is pointless. When you address the question on a personal level you are free to formulate your own definition of God. It is on that definition that the outcome of your personal decision process hinges. If you define God as some sort of entity that not only can but with some regularity does intercede in natural physical processes, then there is a great deal of objective evidence that no such God exists. In fact, the existence of anything that regularly upsets what we have come to expect as the orderly processes of nature is antithetical to science, which seeks to uncover and explain that natural order in terms of predictive models. Without that order there can be no science. Science seems to work rather well. So any concept of God or any religious tenets that directly contradict science as buttressed by experimental evidence is clearly indistinguishable from superstition. Superstition is, essentially by definition, wrong. If you define God as some sort of entity that exists outside of the natural universe and does not regularly disrupt the operation of that universe according to the principles discovered by science, then science and religion are disconnected, and neither has anything to say about the other. In this situation neither science nor logic can be brought to bear on the question of the existence of God. The order of the universe could be mere happenstance or it could be the result of God. The question is logically undecidable. You are free to reach your own conclusion, or forego a final conclusion. But do not deceive yourself that whatever conclusion you reach is based on rigorous logic, unless you formulate a sufficiently narrow definition of God to be able to apply empirical data. In any case you should recognize that, despite the marvelous progress of science, there is a lot that we don't know. If we knew everything the satisfaction and outright fun of scientific discovery would be lost.

Are you sure?

More broadly, since repellents like Deet and similar products actually work, it seems rather obvious that ticks can sense and smell things in their environment that serve to alter their response or path... including differences between Person1 and Person2 Ticks also often focus on specific hosts... and will differentially bite deer over dogs or humans, for example.

You might like this:

I never thought I'd say these words but Weird Al comes across as very soothing in all this.

Deserves its own post here... within a few hours of the first debate last night, Weird Al published this gem:

Something a bit lighter. So good and so quickly done! Yes. The more they’re mentioned, the more it hurts him with voters. Almost 3M, actually. 2,864,974 more

I actually did that. Finding issues in your device took a few seconds but from there I assumed your idea to be correct. Then I looked at the big picture; what profound consequences would your idea have on the current states of physics and the universe as we know it. The result of that outside the box thinking was that your claims seems incompatible with the universe and our models. That was the quick part and no math was used. My struggle now is to find a suitable explanation that fits your current level of understanding and/or helps raising understanding of physics to a required level. My first attempt at that was to look at the whole system and to use a simple formula; F=ma, unfortunately that seems to have failed to add clarity. You miss the big picture. Conservation of momentum (linear and angular) always holds. And when the device is from the outside you start with zero momentum p=0 and at a later time there is p>0. You need to explain the new physics that allows that. The big picture is that we already know that the current laws of physics makes your proposed device impossible. No amount of details about the device will ever change that. You need to present the new physics that supports the claims and allows total momentum to not be conserved. Compare to Einstein if you wish; Special relativity is not derived from within Newtonian physics. SR has separate postulates and applies to scenarios outside the applicability of Newton's laws. But Newton is a good approximation at low relative velocities. It sounds like you have a postulate something like "Total momentum is not conserved"?

You're the one who hasn't studied physics, by your own admission. You aren't in a position to tell someone they're 50% right and they need to think on their feet.

You are overreacting. Don't behave like those in NSF forum. Let people breath. Do you want to close this thread? Please do it.