Area54

Like several other members here I am not sure what point(s), if any, you are trying to make. The following questions might seem superficially aggressive, but they are intended to help me overcome my present confusion. I hope you will help remove it by addressing the questions. What they are saying is adequately captured in their abstract. Do you find anything objectionable in the abstract? Do you find anything inaccurate in the abstract? Do you find anything important that is missing from the abstract? In relation to this thread, what do you think is the most important explicit statement (or statements) in the paper? In relation to this thread, what do you think is the most important implicit statement (or statements) in the paper?

So, a microphone, radio transmitter, receiver, loudspeaker. Sure. However, it looks like I have misunderstood your original question, which I thought was about producing sound in space, not producing sound back on Earth from em waves generated in space. For that I come back to protoplanetary accretion discs I mentioned earlier, which I suspect will be dense enough, in part, to transmit sound waves.

You stated very clearly that you preferred to believe in the non-existence of a malevolent God because it was more comforting not to. That is, your given reason for not beleiving in a malevolent God was based upon how it made you feel rather than upon any logical argument. If this is not what you meant you should have phrased yout thoughts in a radically different way. You should certainly not have stated so definitively that I'm sorry you viewed my epigrammatic summary of my position as flippant, rather than simultaneously concise and witty, but then such things are often a matter of personal taste.

Which god is that? Thor, Jupiter, Bagavathi, Baal? Or another?

But Dimreepr seems to be saying that the Quran does not prevent a follower from being peaceful and friendly towards other religions. Therefore, if Deemreepr is correct, your question is meaningless.

Given the impact of diet on health and the lunancy of some diets, it probably ought to be considered medical advice.

Well it is closer to dawn than midnight for me, so whatever your thought is is not coming across unambiguously. I'll revisit it after sleep.

Well, you haven't bothered to answer my questions that would have clarified things for me. Instead you've attempted to clarify something that you had already made clear. So, I'm just going to assume my interpretation of what you meant is accurate and respond to that. I have no problem with that. But the fact remains that those vegetables are good for him and yet, earlier you said this. Yet you just said the child would not want the vegetables even though they would be good for him. You are contradicting yourself.

You didn't make your point clear. If you had done so I would not have needed to ask for clarification. That sentence is not good English and is consequently ambiguous. I think you mean "When something seems good to you, then you want it." Is that correct? If not, will you please rephrase, since - as written - your sentence does not make sense? Indeed, I'm fairly sure that is what you meant. So your last sentence, corrected, becomes "When that child hated the vegetables even though they were good, then they would seem bad to him."

Did you mean to say "good for us"? Vegetables cannot be good to us, since they are not conscious entities. Once you clarify this point I can respond appropriately.

Was everything science? Is mathematics a convenient descriptive device, or is the universe an expression of a mathematical underpinning? Such questions are deabted at length, but those debates are conducted through structured observation, provision of evidence and logical argument, not by presenting juvenile wish lists. Is God outside of reality, or part of it? Is she real, or is it a product of human imagination and need? Yes, these are valid questions, but again - when asked - they are asked from a position of knowledge, extensive knowledge, not narrow, agenda driven knowledge. If you wish serious discussion on these points then you need to be equally serious. That means opinions don't count. Personal preferences don't count. Waffle and wishful thinking don't count. Evidence and Argument do.

I've now lost track of the number of -1's of yours I have cancelled by giving an otherwise unmerited upvote. However, since you seem determined to go on about it, I shall not be providing that "service" in future. I'm not much in favour of negative votes, though I think I may have given someone one early on in my membership. So can we just focus on the discussion - and I do concur with those who have suggested you will receive fewer negatives if you avoided schoolboy philosophy.

I'll take that as an apology then.

Not cross purposes Mike. You are just incredibly ignorant of the depth of knowledge science has about all kinds of matters. As a minor example, Google Scholar returns just under 300,000 hits for the phrase "sexual reproduction" and just under 3,000,000 for sex. To even provide a decent precis, of an overview, of a summary, of an introduction to what is known about reproduction in animals would require several pages.

That is a bizarre statement. Someone gave you a -1, negative rep. I thought it unwarranted and cancelled it with an upvote. I did the same for a -1 applied to DimReepr. In what way is that me showing a belief I am being persecuted by both sides? Sorry John, but that strikes me as a very silly thing for you to say.

Is that an admission?

Who is throwing around -1's. I've already removed one from John Cuthber and one from DimReepr. I don't believe either response merited it. Verbal disagreement should be sufficient in this thread.

You don't half talk a lot of nonsense at times Mike. The nature of male and female attraction is understood in the general and the particular, in the past and the present, in human and the non-human, the plant and the animal. Science has investigated it in depth and breadth. To declare otherwise is ludicrous. How can you possibly make such an inane comment?

I have a key. It fits the mechanism on my car's steering wheel. If I wish to start my car then using the key is the most effiicient method. Any discussions I have about starting my car will focus on using the key. If the discussion broadens to starting other cars then keys will still play, excuse me for this, a key role. But there is a lot more to keys than just starting cars. Science is a tool. It is a very effective one for learning about the character of the universe and how it works. If I am investigating the universe then science has proven itself as an effective servant. If I am discussing how the universe works then using the results of science will be the most productive approach. But science does not provide answers to questions it is unsuited to ask. And, as Strange said, there is " music, art, beauty, love, hate, life, death, " literature, poetry, ambition, pathos, avocado salad.

There are many scientists who have chosen to accept no responsibility for the use to which their work is put. (And many who have taken an appropriate ethical stance.) Many religious people have rightly questioned violence, warfare, weapons of mass destruction and the like. (And many have not.) So why are some scientist and some religious people capable of ethical behaviour, and some are not? Why is there this spread of two conflicting behaviours and attitudes across two groups? Wait a moment! Could it be because both groups are composed of humans? John, you very clearly have an obsession when it comes to religion. You are as fundamental in your negative attitude to religion as YEC's are to science and with much the same justification. None. So, thank you for the conversation, but I'm not wasting anymore time on your personality quirk.

Using the lat-long numbers on the photo and Google maps, reveals South Thule - three islands, namely Thule, Cook Island and Bellinghausen Island. The satellite view shows snow and ice coverage as one would expect at this latitude. They are the most southerly of the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic. Strange, you are mistaken in thinking the South Sandwich Islands are coral atolls. They aren't. Perhaps you are thinking of Cook's naming of the Hawaiian islands as the Sandwich Islands. And I think there is a Sandwich Island (singular) somewher in the Pacific. The islands are uninhabited and part of the British Overseas Territory that incorporates the Falklands and South Georgia. Unless MI6 are training squads of suicide penguins I can't think of any reason for secrecy and, as Strange points out, the fact that we have a picture of it demonstrates it is not secret.

Perhaps AnubisSight is not a native English speaker. In that case they could have misinterpreted the reference to enforcement in the paper's title: "Oxytocin-enforced norm compliance reduces xenophobic outgroup rejection". Is that what you were thinking about AnubisSight?

Search "Tree of life cladogram" on duckduckgo.com, selecting the Images category. I'm sure Google would yield similar results, but I don't use it on principle.

How do you envisage this conversion occurring? We can accomplish the feat on Earth with a radio receiver, suitably designed, and loudspeakers, but it is difficult to imagine the chance formation of an equivalent device in space.

For much more recent work in this area consider Belcher and McElwain, Science v321 p1197-100 2008. From experimental work they place the limit at 15%, raising additional doubts. Here is their abstract: "Several studies have attempted to determine the lower limit of atmospheric oxygen under which combustion can occur; however, none have been conducted within a fully controlled and realistic atmospheric environment. We performed experimental burns (using pine wood, moss, matches, paper, and a candle) at 20°C in O2 concentrations ranging from 9 to 21% and at ambient and high CO2 (2000 parts per million) in a controlled environment room, which was equipped with a thermal imaging system and full atmospheric, temperature, and humidity control. Our data reveal that the lower O2 limit for combustion should be increased from 12 to 15%. These results, coupled with a record of Mesozoic paleowildfires, are incompatible with the prediction of prolonged intervals of low atmospheric O 2 levels (10 to 12%) in the Mesozoic."