mistermack

It would be easy to fake. Just by having a strong electromagnet under the table, and flicking a switch as you passed the bulb back and forth to switch it on and off.

That's nothing to be proud of.

So you would like all discrimination cases restricted to shops? I don't get that. The church provides a service and money changes hands. Some gays have been paying in all their life to the church.

As I said before, In my first post, I never responded to the specifics of this case. Rather to an hypothetical case where it was clear that the case was manufactured to push a political point. Why bring it up? I think it's relevant. In that kind of scenario, I think the baker would be able to argue that he's not discriminating on grounds of sexuality, but simply refusing to be used for political ends. If I was the baker they could have whatever they liked. And if I was gay getting married, I wouldn't want a cake from a baker who didn't want to bake it. But I don't expect everyone to feel the same way. What about the Catholic Church? They offer a wedding service. Are gays welcome to buy it?

That's the accepted working version, and there's nothing wrong with it. What I'm getting at is the reality, lurking behind the relativity. Apologies for the copy and paste, but this from the wikipedia page on the twin paradox covers what I was getting at : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox#No_twin_paradox_in_an_absolute_frame_of_reference " No twin paradox in an absolute frame of reference[edit] Einstein's conclusion of an actual difference in registered clock times (or aging) between reunited parties caused Paul Langevin to posit an actual, albeit experimentally undetectable, absolute frame of reference: In 1911, Langevin wrote: "A uniform translation in the aether has no experimental sense. But because of this it should not be concluded, as has sometimes happened prematurely, that the concept of aether must be abandoned, that the aether is non-existent and inaccessible to experiment. Only a uniform velocity relative to it cannot be detected, but any change of velocity .. has an absolute sense."[32] In 1913, Henri Poincaré posthumous Last Essays were published and there he had restated his position: "Today some physicists want to adopt a new convention. It is not that they are constrained to do so; they consider this new convention more convenient; that is all. And those who are not of this opinion can legitimately retain the old one."."[33] In the relativity of Poincaré and Hendrik Lorentz, which assumes an absolute (though experimentally indiscernable) frame of reference, no twin paradox arises due to the fact that clock slowing (along with length contraction and velocity) is regarded as an actuality, hence the actual time differential between the reunited clocks. That interpretation of relativity, which John A. Wheeler calls "ether theory B (length contraction plus time contraction)", did not gain as much traction as Einstein's, which simply disregarded any deeper reality behind the symmetrical measurements across inertial frames. There is no physical test which distinguishes one interpretation from the other.[34] More recently (in 2005), Robert B. Laughlin (Physics Nobel Laureate, Stanford University), wrote about the nature of space: "It is ironic that Einstein's most creative work, the general theory of relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when his original premise [in special relativity] was that no such medium existed . . . The word 'ether' has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity. This is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum. . . . Relativity actually says nothing about the existence or nonexistence of matter pervading the universe, only that any such matter must have relativistic symmetry." (i.e., as measured)."[35] A. P. French writes, in Special Relativity: "Note, though, that we are appealing to the reality of A's acceleration, and to the observability of the inertial forces associated with it. Would such effects as the twin paradox exist if the framework of fixed stars and distant galaxies were not there? Most physicists would say no. Our ultimate definition of an inertial frame may indeed be that it is a frame having zero acceleration with respect to the matter of the universe at large.")."[36]

Not to this particular case, but I wasn't commenting on this case, but on the general principle. In my first post, I said that if I was the judge, and it looked like the baker was being targeted for political purposes, I would be inclined to find for the baker. This case already has mileage on it, and positions have already been taken. Like I said, if the baker made it clear he was just discriminating on sexual preference, he wouldn't stand much chance. Their best response, in my opinion, would be to make it clear that they were willing to bake a cake for a gay wedding, so long as it had a traditional and non-controversial message on it. Would a committed republican be forced to bake a cake with a rabidly democrat message on it?

The point is that you can refuse to serve anyone if you don't like their attitude. That's not discrimination. That's why I said it would depend on how the baker framed his defence. It's perfectly legal to refuse service, if someone is trying to cause you trouble. But not just on their sexual orientation. If the baker just said I don't serve gays, then he wouldn't have much of an argument.

I would disagree. If it's obvious to the baker that he's being targeted for political reasons, then he can claim that he's not refusing on grounds of sexual orientation, but on grounds of feeling that he's being deliberately targeted and provoked and used as a political tool. If I were a judge, I would find that argument valid, if the evidence made it clear that that is what was happening. Of course, it would then depend on what grounds the baker made his argument. If he was prepared to bake a cake with a traditional kind of wedding message for a gay couple, but not one that had a militant gay message, then I would say that the baker could win.

Appeal court ruling usually are on fine legal points. That's the nature of an appeal.

You won't find many cases so simplistic or black-and-white in real life. As I said, courts are constantly having to evaluate who is telling the truth, and who is feeding them a story. There is no third option in civil cases. They have to find for one party, or the other. In the case of the cake, one side is going to bang on about how shattered and humiliated they feel, by being refused the cake of their dreams. The other side will drone on about how they believe every word of the bible and how their souls will go to hell if they bake it. One side or both could be lying, and it's almost a certainty that both will be exaggerating. And the court is stuck in the middle, trying to sort out fact from fiction. That's why, if I was the judge, I would try to get a handle on the sincerity of the complainant. Did they deliberately choose a baker who they knew would be likely to refuse, did they go for the most provocative text on the cake, etc. etc. And if they did, they would lose, and I wouldn't be blaming any court who saw it the same way. On the other hand, if it was clearly a case of wanton discrimination, in an unwarranted fashion, I would find for the customer.

What I struggle with isn't the concept that the laws of special relativity work equally well in all inertial frames. What allows that to happen is the fact that time passes at a different rate in every inertial frame. i.e. every observer MEASURES the speed of light at a fixed value, because every inertial observer has time passing at a different rate. What niggles at me though, is that, if every observer experiences time at a different rate, then time passes faster for some, and slower for others. There must be a top limit, and a bottom limit, for the rate of time. I get the bottom limit is for any inertial frame travelling at a steady rate of c. Time stops altogether, and matter cannot reach that speed. But what is the top limit for time. In what frame does a stationary clock tick the fastest? Is there a frame where a clock can tick infinitely fast, or is there a limit? And if there is a limit, there must be a preferred frame, where a clock ticks at it's max. Is it that it's impossible to identify that frame, or is it that it doesn't exist? On a slightly different note, people are starting to use the rest frame of the cosmic microwave background radiation as a preferred frame, since someone actually got a fix on it. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/25928/is-the-cmb-rest-frame-special-where-does-it-come-from

I can see how an overhead power line can provide the energy, but how would it become so focused at the one location? Would the equipment shown be able to concentrate the power line energy into a very small area between the two arms? Edit: OK, I'm guessing it could, if you have coils in an alternating field. Do the fixed magnets play a part ?

So I would want to look under the table, to see if something was supplying energy from below. Or see the apparatus moved to a different position. Or preferably both. The effect on the bulbs is very localised, so presumably whatever is powering them is also very localised, and that suggests something under the table. Edit: Maybe repeat it with a glass table? That would be quite impressive.

Like it or not, courts form an opinion on the veracity of evidence every minute of every day. You have no choice, when two sides are giving opposite versions of the same event. It's not like it's a capital charge, where you have to give the accused the benefit of the doubt. In a civil case, you are supposed to find for the more convincing case.

If I was a judge in one of these cases, the first question I would ask is how sincere are the plaintiffs? If I got a hint that the case was manufactured for political purposes, I would always find for the defendant. I would want to get a real idea of what was the cake for, was it a genuine occasion, and why did they choose a particular baker? If it looked like they were fishing for a refusal, so that they could bring a case, I would award against them, and award costs. It seems like a very odd thing to do, to try to force someone to prepare food for you, when they don't want to. I wouldn't want to chance eating the cake, under those circumstances. You never know what went into it.

I suppose I'd better change the writing on the cake we've got planned for my daughter's abortion party.

In any case, the 99% figure is misleading. In fact, the difference between a human and a chimp is twelve times as great as the difference between two humans. The more important contrast, is the evolutionary time back to the most recent common ancestor. With humans and chimps, it's about seven million years. With Europeans and Sub-Saharan Africans, it's more like 70,000 years separation, which is not much of a blip in evolutionary terms.

Psychologists will naturally defend their field, but from where I'm looking, psychology has gone from absolute junk science to highly suspect. And the core problem is that people involved massively over claim. About the only thing you can claim for an IQ test, is that the high scorers are good at doing that type of test. Once you go any further, you're just guessing. I'm nearly 68, and I can remember in my young days people were firmly convinced that no white man would ever be world heavyweight champion boxer ever again. And at the time, it seemed a quite persuasive notion. The facts on the ground were undeniable. It really became the perceived wisdom by boxing "experts" who had a lifetime of experience. Then along came the Klitchko brothers, and they showed just how ridiculous it is to give any weight to short term racial trends. In terms of genetics, the entire human race is very closely related. There just isn't enough genetic difference for there to be a noticeable intelligence difference. The only real genetic difference between whites and sub-Saharan black dna is a little bit of Neanderthal dna in the whites, that blacks don't have. It's not very likely that that is enough to make an inherent intelligence difference. And if anything, modern humans were very slightly more intellectual than Neanderthals. That's if you go by the artwork and tool technology. But that's probably as misleading as an IQ test.

This is the problem with calling psychology a science. It gives respectability to concepts like IQ which are actually really fuzzy. You then get the phenomenon where blacks are gaining IQ points as social conditions change. If IQ was a direct measure of intelligence, that would be impossible. Psychology is as much art as science. Lots of guesswork and imagination go into it. You have to take it with a pinch of salt, and extract the useful and discard the bull.

Well, before the diversions, the point I made was that human evolution of intelligence is completely unique in scale, and here on Earth, and without that happening, there would be little likelihood of an industrial civilisation arising for millions of years, if ever. Our own species dropped in numbers at one point to as low as 2,000, according to some genetic studies, which identify signs of a population bottleneck from the lack of human genetic variation. All of the other human lines went extinct, and we nearly did too. So a large brain doesn't guarantee species survival, and it could happen on other planets that equally intelligent species come and go without ever reaching the industrial stage. You could also get alien species that are more intelligent than us, but who don't have an equivalent of speech, and so are unable to pass on knowledge to others, or to act as one giant organisation, like we do. If people couldn't cooperate through communication as we do, we would be restricted to what each individual could achieve on their own. So it's possible you could have all sorts of intelligent aliens evolving around the galaxy, but none of them get to the point where they can leave their own planets, or communicate via radio waves etc.

You need some background knowledge, or the answer is wasted on you. My "assertion" was that there's not much obvious sign of an intelligence increase for the wolf line from 34 million years ago to the present day. That's a pretty accurate assertion. There isn't much obvious sign. In fact, if you search the page that I linked, of the evolution of the wolf, you won't find the word intelligence at all. That's because they take it for granted that no signs of evolution of intelligence will be observable. There are lots of developments covered, but intelligence is not one of them. The context is a comparison with humans, where there is HUGE and OBVIOUS signs of an extremely rapid process of brain enlargement. As far as I know, there is no record of any other creature undergoing such an increase in intelligence over just a few million years. The general rule is it takes many tens of millions of years for the slightest increase to show up in the fossils of any animals. Except for us.

Free oxygen in the atmosphere or dissolved in water isn't essential for life. It's essential for some forms of life, but not others. Oxygen is highly reactive, so without being constantly replaced, there wouldn't be any oxygen in the air. It would react with materials in the environment and form stable compounds (oxides). Life involving photosynthesis is the only source of free oxygen in the air, so there's no way that oxygen in the air could come before life. Since we know that some forms of life can exist without oxygen, it's obvious that life came before oxygen. You can have life without oxygen, but not oxygen without life.

You need to go back to our starting point, on the road to being human. About five or six million years ago, our ancestors were much like modern chimps. Why we eventually differed so much isn't known, but there's lots known that might HELP to explain it. There are three major developments that happened to our species. Firstly, upright walking. Secondly, an extremely rapid expansion of our brains. And thirdly, speech. The upright walking bit indicates that we didn't rely on tree climbing to escape ground living predators. Since we are relatively weak compared to those predators, we must have had some form of defence, and it's likely that it was done by working together in tight groups, with the bigger males wielding weapons as a bunch and working as a team, protecting the young and females as they foraged. Working as a tight team works a lot better with increased brain power, so higher brain power becomes a survival advantage in those circumstances. The same goes for language. Meanwhile, chimps and bonobos stayed in heavily wooded areas, had an easy escape route from most predators, and so didn't need the same degree of cooperation and communication to stay safe. That's really just background stuff. There are so many possibilities that the full story will probably never be known.

Seriously, you would be better off reading up on the subject, and getting some background knowledge.

Best you work it out for yourself. I'm fed up with goalposts being shifted. Do a bit of reading.