Area54

That's true.

Fundamentally we are animals. As such our instinctive behaviours are ones that, generally, promote procreation of the species. As animals we respond especially positively to those who are close kin to us, or are perceived as being close kin. Consequently we tend to be largely indifferent to the plight of starving millions in Africa, or exploited millions in China. Note that charities advertising for donations don't talk about the thousands who die every day from malnutrition, or contaminated water, but single out one individual. This is intended to, and often does, evoke a sympathetic response because we can relate to that single individual whose story is made known to us. And then our conscience kicks in. But, as I said, we are animals. The conscience was not given to us by God, but is a subtle expression of behaviors and decision making arising out of the evolutionary value of cooperation. Primates are, by and large, sociable animals for whom cooperation is important. And we are good primates. As Prometheus noted, as a species, we are slowly becoming less violent, more cooperative, marginally less selfish. Given that we now have the power to destroy the human race, or devastate the biosphere, this is a good thing. Deluding ourselves into believing the contradictory theologies of one or other religion is unlikely to help in that matter. (And I've always found it rather distasteful that many Christians choose to do good because it may get them into Heaven. I choose to do good because the instinct for cooperation is quite strong in me, reinforced by my environmental upbringing. It's not going to get me into an imaginary heaven, nor does it merit any particular praise. )

Based on our current understanding, sending a message from the future to the past is not hard - it is impossible. The one apparent loophole is that something called a closed time-like loop, or curve, is not excluded by general relativity theory. It is specualtive as to whether such loops actually exist, whether they could be accessed by technology, or whether they may be subsequently shown to be impossible based upon refinements to relativity theory. You can read a little more here in a rather weak wikipedia article.

Moreno, please respond to the above. You wish to discuss this topic. Let's do it systematically.

Let's focus on Earth. What data causes you to suspect there is a significant unknown source of geothermal energy here? Citations of good quality, peer reviewed papers from reputable journals that supporting this suspicion would be a good starting point. You have not offered anything that meets these criteria thus far. (Please correct me if I have missed it.) What you have offered has, in case, been adequately refuted.

In looking into the background of this report I came across an excellent paper, "Late Pleistocene human population bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern humans". Although this paper is two decades old it gives a clear picture of the landscape of competing ideas into which the Toba eruption global winter and its impact on humanity, was inserted. While doing this speedy literature search I ran across another paper, from about five years ago, that also cast serious doubt on the Toba Eruption/Bottleneck connection. Life being what it is I can no longer locate it. If I find it during a further search I'll post a link here.

It has value as material for a critical thinking exercise. Arguably, all things have value, even if it is not the value their creators intended.

Einstein famously remarked " The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible." In this regard I view Einstein as an optimist. I cannot think of any plausible reason why homo sapiens should (yet) be sufficiently intelligent, or to have gathered sufficient data, to properly determine the "true" nature of reality. As they say, just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

I thought the articles argument similar to that used by creationists who think that if they present evidence against evolution this provides confirmation of supernatural creation. In this instance even if events were influenced by the conscious act of observation, it does not necessarily follow that consciousness must extend beyond death.

I did not give you an opinion. I gave you facts that directly contradicted your statements. Despite this you continued to make the same assertions, yet made no effort to dispute the facts I had outlined. If all you want to do is to spout opinions that are contradicted by the facts then perhaps you would be better of speaking to drunks. On a science forum you are expected to support your assertions or to recognise when they are mistaken.

Repetition. Then more repetition. If it doesn't seem to working then you haven't repeated often enough. This rule applies to learning any fundamental concept.

My impression was that they were natural, else he would not have referred to a "geological analysis". I did google for more info, but in the half dozen links I looked at none of them specified the formal rock type.

I'm not sure. It would help to know what the rock type is. My initial thinking was that this was probably a volcanic ash. My recollection is that these can make good whetsotnes. The high silica content would be consistent with an acidic magma which, in turn, is consitent with explosive eruptions and hence the ash. However, the alkali % is low and alumina % is high, so we are likely dealing with a clay matrix, weathered from the original feldspars. All this is off the top of my head speculation. If it is clay then these can be very reactive.

The table is not directly helpful. For example, magnesium will not be present as magnesium oxide, but as a component in a ferromagnesian mineral such as an amphibole. Presentation of the composition as oxides is as convenient and conventional approach.

I have to assume you have me on Ignore, since you are ignoring every one of my references to the conversion of kinetic energy to thermal energy during the accretion process. Is there a reasn for this? An inconvenient truth, perhaps.

I suggest that describing hypotheses based upon sound analysis of validated data as fortune telling is an emotional characterisation that does nothing to help a serious discussion of some interesting observations. You say "some theories suggest it does have only a tiny rocky core. The rest is the ice." I suggest rather than basing our speculations on oudated "theories" we work with something current. For example, W.B.McKinnon et al, "Origin of the Pluto-Charon system: constraints from the New Horizons flyby" Icarus 287 (2017). They note that: New Horizon’s accurate determination of the sizes and densities of Pluto and Charon now permit precise internal models of both bodies to be constructed. Assuming differentiated rock-ice structures, we find that Pluto is close to 2/3 solar-composition anhydrous rock by mass and Charon 3/5 solar-composition anhy-drous rock by mass. That eliminates your concern over minimal quantiites of radioactive elements. Next, you do not need to raise the temperature from -233 C. Why would you? It doesn't start at such a temperature. You appear to be completely ignoring the conversion of kinetic to thermal energy during the accretion process. Why are you ignoring that?

This is a low-level suggestion that reveals more about my ignorance than my knowledge, but is part of the issue that you are attempting to create a complete system, whereas Kohavi deals with only half a system. His words: To build a DTM, the induction algorithm must decide which features to include in the schema and which instances to store in the body. In this paper we restrict ourselves to the former problem, called feature subset selection.

A couple of replies have contained this point, but I think it merits emphasis. The vast majority of fossils are in the right place. That's like 99.9999999999% of them, or more. There are only two explanations to account for the observed distribution of fossils. 1. Evolutionary theory, with descent from a common ancestor, is correct. 2. An entitiy, or entity has placed 99.9999999999% of fossils in exactly the way we would expect them to appear if evolutionary theory, with descent from a common ancestor, was correct. It seems to me somewhat foolish to favour option 2 without supporting data.

I'm not aware of any chemical identifiers, but new techniques are always being developed. However, there are plenty of physical signatures related to mineralogy, clastic size, shape, sorting, angularity, cementation, bedding structures etc. Indeed, on reflection, some of the mineralogical and cementation aspects could be considered as chemical signatures. I wasn't aware of these. Do you have a sound reference? Orwill yu just recommend I Google? Edit: Forget the reference. I see the Yellowstone example is simply trees buried in ash and subsequently petrified. That's quite different to the examples envisaged by the OP and requires no more of an explanation than, "they were buried in ash and subsequently petrified".

Interestring. This would provide support, would it not, for those who favour a multi-regional origin for homo sapiens over the more popular Out of Africa? On the more general point, this is not surprising and is implicit in many studies, but it is encouraging to see it spelled out and supported in a specific (pun intended) situation.

Hello 305ditto. Sometimes it is worthwhile to revive a thread initiated decades ago and inactive for more than seven years. This probably wasn't one of them.

So, I take it from this that you have absolutely no intention to engage in an honest discussion. You refuse to address those posts that have refuted your faulty assertions, or explained your misunderstandings. Instead of acknowledging these explanatory posts you pile in with further misunderstandings, misinterpretations and misrepresentations. (For convenience, I shall refer to these in future as lies.) It seems clear to me your approach is fundamentally dishonest and the persistent manner in which you are applying it is no more than trolling. Consequently I have reported your behaviour in this thread.

If the emboldened sentence is what you wished to know then you should have opened with that enquiry. Instead you produced a series of statements relating to the thermal characteristics of the planets that were inaccurate, either through misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or misrepresentation. These inaccuracies were dealt with by myself and other members. At no time, that I could see, did you address our corrections. Instead you piled in with other, similar statements that were also misunderstandings, misinterpretations, or misrepresentations. This technique, when used by creationists, is called a Gish Gallop. It is not a sincere method of discussion. We've moved on quite a way since the time of Lord Kelvin. He was unaware of radioactive decay. There is no issue to account for the current heat budget of the solid Earth. Sure there are details to be worked out, but details are exactly that - details. They are not matters of fundamental uncertainty. What makes you think there is an issue? And you are right - it should not be too difficult to work out the numbers. It's so basic that you should be able to find it in any relevant textbook. Have you looked? I mean, you've come up with all these links that supposedly represent a problem for the conventional view (all of which are misunderstandings, misinterepretations, or misrepresentations) , yet you can't find this basic information. That strikes me as peculiar. Moreno, if you sense a tension in my posts you would be correct. I don't feel you are dealing honestly with the membership with your style of presentation> I apologise if this is a faulty impression, but that's how you are coming across. You say you want a concrete discussion. So do I. It's time for you to deliver.

@Moreno - I would welcome a direct response to any of the refutations to your alleged anomalies that have been provided by myself or other members. Your failure to do so thus far is against the spirit of this discussion forum. Throwing out further supposed examples without completing discussion of the intial ones is not an acceptable means of making an argument. I trust you will correct this deficiency in your next post.

And yet each of the supposed anomalies you have raised has been easily refuted, or shown to be insignificant in magnitude by a number of members. Are you disagreeing with the refutations*? If so, on what grounds. If not, why would you persist in this belief? * I ask this because you have not, that I can see, directly addressed any of my arguments refuting specific points. You merely went off on a tangent, so that I am unable to tell if you agree or disagree.