Dak

^^^ assumption ^^^ ^^^ conclusion ^^^ can you support your assumption? e.g., any peer-reviewed papers that suggest that assessing glacial CO2 records is only accurate over 50-year periods? If you can, then i think you have a bit of a point. if you can't, then your conclusion is pretty worthless.

No idea where this should go, but i thought it was quite cool (sorry if this is well-known to phisisists): http://www.as-e.com/products_solutions/z_backscatter.asp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAldBxgRCdY afaict, it assays materials' ability to scatter x-rays and so measures stuff with low molecular weight (people, drugs, explosives etc) which apparently are more inclined to scatter x-rays, whereas normal x-ray scanners (like you'd find in a hospital) i think measure things based on their x-ray-adsorption, and so measure stuff with a higher molecular weight. or something. apart from thinking that this is interesting/cool/like sci-fi x-ray specs, i have a question: if the backscatter thingy detects matter with 'low atomic weight, such as stuff made from carbon, hydrogen, etc', then why isn't it detecting the petrol in the vehicles tanks? DISCLAIMER: I suck at phisics, so if anyone's reading this who isn't very good at phisics themselves, don't take anything i said above as accurate.

i'm not sure. probably phisics has something to say on the matter. but you're right in as much as theres no scientific reason to assume that a god didn't create the universe so that evolution would happen (okkram's razor notwithstanding). but like i said, i meant 'deistic creation' as in a god created everything, including life, in 6 days as described in genesis ('divine creation' would have been better; i thought 'deistic' just meant 'involving a deity') ID (e.g., the discovery institute) is trying to make out that there's scientific merit to the idea that the earth was created in 6 days by a god, which is in direct opposition to the actual science that states that we evolved slowly over time.

bloody terminology by 'deistic creation', i meant the belief that god made everything (e.g., 6-day creation as described in genesis). which is definately mutually exclusive with evolution.

No. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed (search = Soon Baliunas co2) he can't find it in google scholar, google (which incorporates many journals that are on the web, and have thus been indexed), nor in ebsco or jstor. I can't find it in pubmed. for me, this raises doubts that the journal is actually peer-reviewed; either way, as 1veedo said, it makes hunting down any peer-reviews (eg, if it's been rebuked) hard. at the least, the paper seems never to have been mentioned in any other paper, or it'd probably show up on google scholar. also, as 1veedo said, the paper doesn't actually support the claim being made by skepticlance. so? theres still papers published on evolution, which certainly doesn't mean that we're unsure of evolution. it's telling that the papers published are exploring mitigation techniches, discussing the exact effects of GW, etc, and not arguing against the premise that GW is probably occouring due to man. depends who you mean by 'proponents'. certainly, science doesn't say 'GW will lead to catastrophic consequenses'. it says something more similar to 'it'll probably lead to bad concequences, and potentially to catastrophic ones'. the science isn't exactly settled, but there is a consensus (being that GW is almost certainly mans fault). this means that in the future the consensus will almost certainly change to 'GW is mans fault'. no it's not. it was on them; they have since established that their view is the one backed up by evidence and logic (i.e., science). it's now up to the dissenters to back up their counter-claim.

which has become synonomous with 'someone who disreguards science and evidence due to their faith'. nothing wrong with that per se, but the ID movement -- of the 'discovery institute' fame -- want to put forth a facade of intelectual viability. e.g., they want to pretend that there's some scientific basis for believing in deistic creation, and disbelieving evolution. Ultimately, they're starting to experience the same embarrasment as the flat-earthers are, as it becomes clearer that we evolved, and they wish to avoid this by pretending that their beliefs are scientific. this, btw, is why quite a few scientists' hackles are raised by ID, but not by creationism. creationism is just dibelief in evolutionary science; ID is misrepresentation of evolutionary science. 'oficialy' was probably a bad choice of wording. all i meant is that the leading IDers (eg, the discovery institue) are packaging creationism in a lab coat and pretending it's scientifically valid, as opposed to just admitting that it's a matter of faith. yes, to a lot of people ID == creationism == 'god did it'. it's only when you look at the movements, and what the main players officially claim, that the distinction becomes clear. but at the poll level, i've no doubt that if you asked people 'do you think science is crap, and we were made in 6 days according to genesis, and to hell with all the evidence' less people would say 'yes' than if you asked them 'do you believe in ID'.

vista's the first new windows OS in x years, so its obviously going to have a lot of new code (the kernel is new, for example) but that doesn't make the OS next-gen, it just makes it... well, next-windows-OS.

deistic/theistic evolution. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wic.html ID is officially saying that the complexity of life can only be explained by direct creation by god (which is obviously BS from a scientific pov, as evolution has been firmly proven to be capable of creating complex life), but it basically boils down to 'no, god did it, so there ' theistic evolution is kinda like 'yeah, ok, evolution etc. but god was tinkering with the process'.

...that they have supported with evidence/science, and which has been accepted by science. so, now, the burden of proof is on the skeptics. the statement 'global warming is occouring, is almost certainly occouring due to man, and is probably occouring due to human-induced increased atmospheric CO2 levels, and will probably be overall bad, with the potential to be catastrophic' has been suported, and it's now up to the 'deniers' to offer proof to rebuke this statement. but it's the deniers who are saying, of accepted science, 'no that's wrong', so it's up to the deniers to provide reasons. yes, but if it's true that if you don't do x then the world will probably change in some manner to cause human life to become whatever, then it's true. the fact that it's somewhat disturbing, and that polititians will jump on it to help them get elected is irrelevent to it's truth. ----- unrelated to this (biased) poll, i do think it's somewhat telling that the people who argue in favour of anthropogenic GW can tend to back up their stance with science, whereas those who can't tend to never, ever have any science that backs up their claims. the poll is biased, but it seems to be an attempt to get the 'GW deniers' to put up or shut up; no-one's seemed to have 'put up' yet. how curious

how so?

sorry, yeah i meant knock it out and replace it with a mutated version on a plasmid. but like charon said, putting it on a plasmid then mutating it (my original suggestion) isn't a good way of doing it

couldn't you put the gene into a plasmid, UV mutate it, and then plonk the plasmid into the bacteria? that way, only the gene of interest would be mutated.

atomicpsyco II: the 'tard is back. do you think there'll be a third installment? also, i think i know your evil thoughts cap'n. may i suggest the 'you got pwnd' site

yeah, we're just replacing the incandescent bulbs with flurescent ones as they blow. we've still got one in the back room that hasn't blown, and three that we're choosing to leave as incandescents: one in each toilet, and one in the cupboard under the stairs, mainly due to the fact that (afaict) turning fleurescent bulbs on and off for very short times kills them quicker than incandescents.

well, yeah, but i was thinking more about (say) the catholic view, e.g. that animals randomly evolved (because god set things up like that, iirc), but that god guided the evolution of man, which is impossible to rule out. at least stuff like that bows to, and works around, facts and established science, rather than completely ignoring them (which is what ID does)

why? it's not inconsistant with science. sure, science says that evolution was completely unguided, but thats due to lack of evidence that it was: theres no actual evidence that it was unguided. 'evolution guided by god' is not scientific, but it's not incompatable with science. 'god did it', otoh, is incompatable with science. "scientifically, we evolved; religiously, i believe that said evolution was guided" is a vast improvement over ID.

I'm not sure you can edit your polls (if you can, there'll be an 'Edit poll' option to the top-right of the poll). I chose option one, but with one cadevat: option one is almost certainly the case, not definately the case.

do you want them added to the poll options?

interesting claim; do you have a citation?

watforufo, you've already posted that link here: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?p=338653#262 Theres no sense having the same conversation about the same webpage in two threads

ever tried lisp or python for one without, but i'm sure your aware of both. ---- checking out "gnu style" i found this, so i'll probably pick a style from there, as i doubt any of them are too objectionable. thinking about it, if you're going to indent, you don't really need to convey any human-readable info with the {}s, so i'll probably go for: /** *quick learny thingy */ class TestApp{ public static void main (String[] args){ System.out.println("I have written a thingy! :-)");}} look how small it is! my 800*600 res screen will thank me for it. cheers muchly guys

how about a slight alteration of Atheists' way: /** *quick learny thingy */ class TestApp { public static void main (String[] args) { System.out.println("I have written a thingy! :-)"); } } ? I'd quite like a logical human-readable representation of the code blocks, but obviously without pissing other people off, as i eventually will probably start some open source work for practice. having said that, Atheist's suggestion tipped me off that the close-} is (in the first example) on the same indentation level as the block that you're returning to, and the open-{ seems to be pretty ignorable (from a human pov). It seems odd to me, as i'd be more inclined to put the block start/stop marks at the indentation of the block you're starting/closing (as in my example above), or just use indentation to mark the blocks and put the open/close {}s inline with each other so you can easily see if you've missed any. I'll probably be able to get used to the standard way now that i've spotted the reasoning, which is what i'll try to do if the above is also confusing to people used to java (now i see the reasoning, i'd assume that it is quite odd and hard to read for you?)

I've just started learning java, and i'm finding the indentation of the {}s a bit hard to follow (i.e., i can easily imagine missing closing a {}). basically, for the following: /** *quick learny thingy */ class TestApp { public static void main (String[] args) { System.out.println("I have written a thingy! :-)"); } } I have a really strong inclination to write as: /** *quick learny thingy */ class TestApp { public static void main (String[] args) { System.out.println("I have written a thingy! :-)"); } } My question is: for someone who's experienced in java/C, would the latter make it harder to read or not really matter? If it makes it harder to read for most people, i'd rather not get into the bad habbit of doing it. otherwize, i'll use indentation so it's a bit clearer to me from the outset.

Bascules kinda got a point. i tend to stick with the bbc news website, because I find it generally more reliable than most news sources. I don't bother with newspapers or TV news 'cos they're crap. find a website/newspaper/tv news that you trust and stick with it, and stop watching the crap you're complaining about... market forses, and whatnot. oh, and i've seen a 'news on news' site, but i can't remember what its addy is, sorry it had something to do with misreporting wars, maybe?

actually, if i'm understanding this right, repeated long exposure to second hand smoke -- e.g., spending a couple of hours down the local pub every week -- could have non-trivial health repercussions. the problem with banning smoking in pubs on these grounds, tho, is that it's pretty inconsistant with leaving tobacco legal as everyone knows that second hand smoke is harmful. what, i'm allowed to chose to smoke 50 a day and really harm myself, but i'm not allowed to chose to minorly harm myself by not bothering to find the nearest pub with decent air-con or a no-smoking rule? ---------- the uk gov are thinking of banning smoking in cars now, aswell and, afaict, it's not one of those instances where a sane rule is twisted to look stupid by the media. they're actually thinking of actually banning smoking in cars, on 2nd-hand-smoke-related grounds...