Area54

No, I entirely got your point, but I felt it was worthwhile clarifying the ambiguity it contained, even though that ambiguity was not central to the point. The same creationists whose views you are addressing are also adept at taking an exclusively anthropomorphic view. It is important to remind them and interested bystanders that life is much more varied than they tend to believe it to be.

I hope your reference to modern life is to the life we are generally familiar with and not in the sense that conflates modern with current. Extremophiles in general, many of the archaea and quite a lot of the bacteria are not comfortable in the present atmosphere. I'm pretty certain my gut bacteria don't like it.

Not being an expert in these matters, this would have to be my response. I've tried to capture the flavour of his approach. "As the vortices of experiential thought cascade through existential perceptions and intersect dichotomous modalities, we must be ever mindful of superficial mimicry imposing a pedagogic priority on transcendent detail. Coruscating epitomies not withstanding, the dialect must hold true if we are to grok the fundamentals of disembling exactitude. More specifically a field torque cannot be enhanced by lexicographic disemination; a corpuscular interpretation is not codified by entymological expansiveness; nor is vacuum permitivity negated by extraneous obfuscation." Apologies to all, if any of that made sense.

You are correct. Twinkling of stars is an external effect caused by variable refraction related to atmospheric "turbulence". The phenomenon discussed here is internal, related to our optical system.

The ice, as you suspected, alters the aerodynamics of the wing, increasing drag and reducing lift. This can lead to a stall. Some discussion here, but lots of items online: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ice-flight-3407/

Well it's nice to have all that straightened out. Who would have thought it would be so simple. Make sure you let all the astrobiologists and biochemists know you have solved the problem of abiogenesis, so they don't waste anymore time on yesterday's problem. And say hello to all the medical staff.

I shall bow back in long enough to clarify one point and emphasise another. I don't get shivers down my spine at the mention of higher life forms. So far in this thread I don't think you have given a precise definition of what constitutes a higher life form. That encouraged several members to point out that there were lots of life forms that were entitled to be thought higher than man. It all depended on how you defined higher, which, as noted, you never did with adequate precision. If by higher you meant a sapient and sentient species possessing more "talent" than humans then I accept that these may exist. I also accept that they may not exist. There is insufficient evidence for either case. I'm not from Missouri, but as regards higher life forms I might just as well be. Equally, I have no trouble with the notion that there may be a God, though I consider it highly unlikely that he/she/it is comparable with any of the gods of the world's major religions. So mention of God principally evokes in me a degree of puzzlement that the believer has arrived at that belief with precious little evidence. Now to the second point. Yes. I understand this is what you believe. I can best express my view of this with a story. When I was five or six I was bullied on successive days during playtime at school by an older boy. Some of the more responsible girls in primary four had been assigned as monitors to oversee playtime activities, so I went to one of them for help. She tore a verbal strip off the boy and for a time I had no more problems. My world view was confirmed - when in trouble go to a grown up, or an authority figure and all shall be made well. Some time later I was bullied again, so I followed the previously successful strategy and went to one of the monitors. Her response was different. "Well, if he's bothering you, just hit him." Now that may not have been the best advice, but the thinking behind it was a revelation to me. We are responsible for solving our own problems and should not rely upon someone else to do that for us. That was when, at the age of five or six, I began to grow up. Mike, in holding the beliefs that you do, expecting, hoping, believing, that there is a higher being out there who will correct the errors of our ways I fear you are thinking with the mind of a young child. I urge you to consider that it may be time for you to grow up. Be brave. Accept reality and consign fantasy to the fiction shelves of your beliefs.

It was a sufficient concern that in the late 1950s, in Britain, the government was considering prohibiting the consumption of milk by children. I do not have a reference for this, but recall it from my own memories of the time. There is some current US information here. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/i-131

Let me be blunt. If we adopt your approach of hoping that someone, or something, out there, or up there is going to come to our aid, then that is an abrogation of our responsibility for our own futures and for that of our planet. It is an irresponsible and, I must say, an immature approach. It contributes to the problems and cannot, in any way, be characterised as an informed, useful or sound position. I do not wish or intend to give offence Mike, but I consider your view to be a dangerous one. I urge you reconsider your position. I doubt there is much more to be said on the matter from my perspective, so thank you for your time and courtesy. I'll probably bow out of this one.

There is a bunch of work being done by many scientists on the origin and early years of the solar system. An important datum is the age of Jupiter. This is because, as the largest planet in the system, it has a profound effect on the others. The presence of the asteroid belt rather than a planet at that distance is an example. A team of researchers have used an interesting approach to try to define this. "using molybdenum and tungsten isotope measurements on iron meteorites, [they demonstrated] that meteorites derive from two genetically distinct nebular reservoirs that coexisted and remained spatially separated between ∼1 My and ∼3–4 My after Solar System formation." They suggest the most likely cause of this partitioning was the formation of Jupiter <1 m.y. after solar system formation. The research is published here. Unfortunately, only the abstract is available. I think all PNAS papers become open access after a year or eighteen months. I get a little tired of the plethora of papers that model planetary system formation, prefering ones like this that deal with physical reality. (Not that the modelling isn't immensely valuable, but so is broccoli and I don't like that either.)

Mike, if I understand your argument it is, in outline, this. We have messed up the planet, our relationships between countries, individuals and man's relationship with nature. We have had millenia to get it right and we are failing sadly. Therefore we need outside help to correct the problems. Therefore I believe there is outside help available and, given how bad things are now, it will makes its presence felt soon. If that is not what you meant, please explain your thinking, because that is what has come across in multiple posts from you. If that is what you mean, can you not see how ludicrous it is? - A classic example of wishful thinking.

I can never recall the distinction between envy and jealousy. Which one is it that you are feeling? I wouldn't either. Does this make me inferior? At least we agree on something. What about Richard Branson? He has a nice beard and likes balloons. That worked well for us in Syria and Afghanistan and, for the older folks, Vietnam. (And, as a side note, the president cannot order NATO troops to do anything. I presume you are in the early stages of your geopolitical studies.) And if they try we'll just lock them up or execute them. Long live freedom! Long live democracy!

No one is assuming this is the case. Some scientists find that the possibility is consistent with the evidence currently available. That is not an assumption. It is a sound provisional hypothesis. In contrast you would assume the data were wrong and incomplete if they failed to support your initial belief. That is not science. That is more like the less attractive aspects of religion.

Engineers are good at overcoming complexities, but this is (nearly) always at a cost. There are so many complexities involved in this proposal that, without doing any calculations, the gut screams "No!". Forest fires are very hot. I lack your confidence that the water would avoid reaching boiling point. That is going to create all kinds or pressure and flow problems that demand complex valving and control systems, not to mention piping that can tolerate higher pressures and one heck of a temperature gradient across the steel. Forest fires are undpredictable. This will create large and constantly changing patterns of temperature within the affected area. That adds to the control complexity already meantioned. Forest fires are rare. In a given patch of forest they occur decades, often many decades apart. So, you build your infrastructure and wait thirty years (with ongoing maintenance) until you can reap the brief energy reward. The intent of your proposal is noble. The practicalities seem to me to make it unworkable (in the extreme).

Because that would have seemed, to me, incidental to my central point. All categories (individuals, behaviours and beliefs) that I proposed are humans, or a product of human agency. I suppose we could extend my argument slightly and say the belief that bone cancer in children is the devil's work would inhibit our search for the real cause. My underlying thought remains: belief in the devil (and, perhaps, belief in god) represents an effort to shift responsibility from ourselves. @Strange and Sensei - I believe Sensei may not be a native English speaker. Consequently he may have used "tremendously" as a synonym for "significantly". I hope you would agree that the atmospheric nuclear tests from the 40's through to the early 60's did significantly increase the risk of thyroid cancer in children who drank milk. It seems to me that was the point Sensei was making.

What if we consider the devil to be a metaphor for those individuals, behaviours and beliefs that are "evil", or at least "up to no good"? On that basis then the devil would certainly appear to be active and widespread. However, the way to fight that devil is not by shifting the blame to a mythical entity, but by dealing directly with the individuals, behaviours and beliefs that are the problem. Pretending the devil is real simply exacerbates the real problem.

Using partial quotes to imply ignorance is unworthy of you. If we are reducing the strength or effect of an emotion (as addressed in the portion of my post you chose to omit) then we are controlling that emotion. Perhaps you misunderstand the meaning of control.

This is equivalent to me saying, "My finances are in bad shape, my employment prospects are minimal, my savings depleted, my expenses on the rise. I definitely need to think of winning the lottery." It is a silly idea and more than that, a dangerous one. It offers a fanciful solution that relies on something beyond us that is only imagined and not proven, rather than addressing the problem through our own knowledge and skills. Shame on you. It is not a solution. It is a cowardly reliance upon someone else to help us out of the mess of our own creation.

Imagine you have to make a decision upon which your life depends. You have two choices. First choice, provisionally accept the views of a large body of people, containing thousands of geniuses and dozens of Nobel laureates, who have spent millions of hours and billions of dollars investigating the problem. Second choice, accept the view of some random guy on the internet who has formed his conclusion from deep ignorance, "common sense" and a feeling that the consensus scientific view feels wrong. You might also spend some time studying the nature of the logical fallacy "Appeal to Authority". I think you will find that is not what I did.

You asserted that we could not control our emotions. If we can mitigate them, then we are controlling them. Of course, if you mean that we can simply overlook the emotion, but that it is still present then, in my experience, you are incorrect. The emotional reaction need not express itself if one chooses that it should not. I am quite perplexed by your talk of blame. Why are you introducing it? I did not suggest that the inability to control ones emotions was something we should "blame" people for. I do not see that Coherentbliss did either.

The main return we got from the ISS was to learn that Russian rockets are better than American ones. That's quite an expensive lesson.

Individuals who are smarter than you and I, and who have studied the matter would disagree. Vehemently.

Imagine it is winter in the Northern hemisphere. The Earth's north pole is pointed away from the sun at an angle of about 23 degrees. That axial tilt means the axis is always pointing towards the same spot among the "fixed" stars. (At least over the time frame we are considering.) However, as the Earth moves around the sun the north pole must, six months later be leaning towards it. The reverse is true in the southern hemisphere. Hence the seasons. As others have commented this is very simple stuff that is taught in primary school. It is very basic. Perhaps you would benefit from taking your own advice. Begin by opening your eyes. I recommend holding off on thinking for yourself. You may not be ready for that yet.

That runs counter to my experience. One can anticipate the onset of at least some emotions and then co.untermand them. It's similar to consciously lowering ones heart rate. Perhaps you are technically correct, since there is probably a fraction of a second, perhaps even two, where the emotion is present, but it can be immediately countered, if one chooses to do so.

Would any of your relatives be able to give you some tuition in grammar, spelling, logical thinking, basic science and manners? It would be a start. I've noticed the forum has a section called the Trash Can. Would that not be a better home for this thread?