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Chemically bonded. Exactly right again. +1 I was avoiding talking about these first off because the general concept of chemical bonding has to be understood before tackling the more complicated matters such as exchemist is talking about. (Giant structures). Chemical bonds are the answer to my question "what holds molecules together", but they also hold other groupings called chemical species together as well, including our own DNA. To start with we divide chemical bonding into Primary bonds which are generally strong or very strong and conform to a few simple rules. and Secondary bonds which are mostly less strong and have a much more flexible rulebook. I am going to be away again for a few days so ask you further questions now or we can continue to develop this after Wednesday of next week.

A molecule is a group of atoms joined by chemical bonds, constituting the smallest complete subunit of a chemical compound that can take part in chemical reactions. In the case of giant structures there is no such subunit. You could almost say that, with a giant structure, the whole structure could be thought of as one giant molecule, but even that would not be entirely right as it has no fixed size: it's size simply depends on how big the entire crystal is!

I don't see this as productive at all. You dislike religion, so you create your own?! Non-participation is also an option. This isn't like saying you dislike store-bought bread so you make your own. This is like saying you dislike your astrological sign so you came up with something you like better. It may not be a specific religion you dislike, but rather the whole concept, in which case it may be better to ignore it completely.

Aligned with your broader points, but this may not have been the best example. Often those with severe depression say screw the meds and actively avoid treatment for various reasons. Anyway, back on topic… there’s a lot of suffering in nature. Finding healthy ways to lighten that load is a good thing. The question then becomes whether or not beliefs such as these are themselves net healthy.

Thanks Mr Studiot! and thanks for the vid too; going to have to look at it a few times to really get it, but like all the best learning tools it motivates me to find out more, and thanks for keeping it simple (alot of the replies I get on this site use hifalutin jargon which I don't yet understand.) So sodium is a metal?? Didn't know that, So salt is 1 atom of sodium + 1 atom of chlorine? And thanks for the stuff about ethane and propane All I know about how the contents of molecules and compounds are held together is that they are "chemically bonded" according to the kids' books and vids I'm looking at and can be difficult to separate, so perhaps you can send me a link to some info about it please? (suitable for 12yo's) Thanks Mr Exchemist. So in simplest possible terms how do you define a molecule as opposed to these other giant structures? Cheerz GIAN🙂XXX (science age; 12)

Actually this is not correct, because not all compounds are molecules. There are also giant structures, both ionic (such as common salt) and covalent, (such as quartz). These compounds are not molecular in nature but are indefinitely extended arrays of atoms, with regular repeating units that correspond to the formula of the compound: NaCl i.e. one Na+ to every Cl-, and SiO₂, i.e. one Si atom with 4 covalent bonds to every 2 O atoms with 2 covalent bonds each. (Metals are also a 3rd type of giant structure, but these are generally not chemical compounds.) But yes, you are right that oxygen and nitrogen are both diatomic molecules: O=O and N≡N. Carbon dioxide is a triatomic molecule: O=C=O. (Oxygen also forms a triatomic molecule, ozone, but that is very reactive and not good to breathe at all - though it does find some application in disinfecting public swimming baths.)

I have no doubt, but can we please just go with the spirit of the question; bc I was just wondering... I guess I deserved that neg, for some reason...

Depends on how you write and approach things. Look at science, for example, there is more written than any current human could ever hope to absorb but I don't see by what criteria you could ever call science "static" or unable to "evolve".

Or, you know, you could just make an effort to explain what you mean, so people don’t have to read between the lines. And not put the blame on others when they don’t get what you mean No, but that’s not the point. It’s analogous to Pascal’s wager, with free will taking the place of the existence of a supreme being

Dawkins has used hypothetical cases such as this as a reductio ad absurdum criticism of the Linnaean classification system. In particular, that intermediate evolutionary forms must be shoehorned into either a parent or daughter species at some arbitrary single point mutation event. The reality is of course, that genetic isolation etc allow the transition to occur over many generations of intermediates. The OP is simply an attention seeking gross misrepresentation of Dawkins' argument.

Well, not only that, it also takes time and genetic isolation between populations. Even extreme inbreeding would not result in genetic isolation within a generation (or at least I cannot think of a scenario at the top of my head).

I think it is an oversimplification - or at least the quoted bit without the context and explanation of what that means could be misconstrued. Yes, some individual critter was a common ancestor of both baboons and humans, but it was not their only ancestor (or even only pair of ancestors). Their progeny would be a lot more like the parents and parent population than like baboons or humans and I would expect generations of "common ancestors" for each to coexist and for some of (and possibly all of) their progeny to also be common ancestors of both later lines. A whole lot of evolution would be still to come, including some cause for divergence into separate populations.

Yes you must have misunderstood, I think. It is populations of organisms that evolve, collectively, rather than single individuals spawning a whole new species. If it were the latter it could only happen by extreme in-breeding, which we know doesn't work out well.

Maybe that was meant in terms of mitochondria. It's estimated that we need at least 500 people to be viable as a species. Having more than 2 children was the average historically.