StringJunky

That's reasonable in principle but in practice It might violate UK medical ethics for it to be performed here or at least give it a very hard time ... "Doctor. I'm not clean. can you cut my clitoris and labia off for me.". I've read in the past about this subject with African mothers who have had their daughters forcibly done - sometimes with tin lids - and they've died. My own personal thoughts on this are automatically visceral and "What the f***k!" figures strongly in those thoughts. It's the ultimate masculine symbol of domination over women.

That's true but the 'chance' parts are the necessary molecules being in proximity to each other and under conditions that allow them to react.

That wasn't the question. It was: What are the chances of life evolving? One could be picky and say "Of course, once it has arisen it will evolve" but I think the OP meant it arising in the first place, as per abiogenesis. What you are suggesting, as I read it, is that if I won three lottery jackpots in a row my chances of winning were 1:1. You need to think of the scenario in the question before the fact and not after it. Also, Ophiolite made the salient point that until we have more data we don't have a clue.

Signed.

Wouldn't an atom or molecule transfer/lose photons, at the very least, in the act of performing some action?

In the context of this subject, faith is the act of committing yourself to something you have no evidence for, or else it wouldn't be an act of faith. Can there be evidence for sky fairies? The probability is vanishingly small but to be truly scientific - science doesn't deal in certainties - there can be evidence for them which it will look at if it presents itself. This is what distinguishes science from religion ...it always leaves the door open for new evidence and can change in the light of it.

At the early stages of the Big Bang the universe inflated faster than the speed of light. What this means is that space was created between any two points all over the universe simultaneously and not like an explosion, as the 'big bang' title suggests, radiating from a single point outwards. If you were stood in this expanding space you will see things moving away from you but you will feel stationary. The speed-of-light limit applicable in nearly all cases does not apply to the rate at which space (distance) can form. In case you ask, expansion only occurs now at the distances between superclusters ie 200MLYRS+ ...at distances less than this gravity wins and keeps things together.

Yes, I bought John J Pinel's Biopsychology and it was an eye-opener as to how much we actually actively construct as opposed to passively receive, like a lens on a projection screen, which is what most people think.

US physicists have studied the fluid dynamics of urine "splashback" - and found tips to help men and women with their accuracy and hygiene. Using high-speed cameras, the team filmed jets of liquid striking toilet walls and studied the resulting spray. Splashback was low when the jets were used close up with a narrow "angle of attack", said the Brigham Young University team. They will present their research at an American Physical Society meeting. "In response to harsh and repeated criticisms from our mothers and several failed relationships with women, we present the splash dynamics of a simulated human male urine stream," reads their conference abstract Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24820279

There is the phenomenon of time which is the order of events and there is the human construct of time which we mentally superimpose on that observed order for accounting purposes...the human construct was borne out of the observation of that order. If time didn't exist we would not have evolved memory...there had to be a stimulus for it to happen. An organism won't evolve an ability if there isn't some pervasive existing condition to adapt to that keeps favouring that ability through successive generations. Another point that Swansont brought up a while ago that I think is logically indisputable is that two objects cannot occupy the same spatial co-ordinates at the same time but can at different times, so, time exists as a real phenomenon.

I think salt, in sufficient concentration, inhibits bacteria by drawing water out of them via osmosis. This is how it works as a preservative in foodstuffs.

Uninstall > Reboot > Re-install. If there is any option during uninstall to save preferences choose No.

It's the journey that matters to some, not the arrival.

I think IIRC you missed a step. It is theorised that quantum fluctuations caused the actual deviations or granularity in the initial homogenous universe, which was then amplified by gravity as it inflated...gravity caused the slightly denser gaseous areas to coalesce and ultimately create the galaxies we know today. I just thought it was pertinent to add how the universe went from smooth to irregular.

Life is an emergent property of atoms and molecules. That is to say, at some level of complexity, this group of atoms and molecules that seem to be acting collectively in a concerted and autonomous way, becomes defined as 'alive'. I found this article about emergence which might help to enable your understanding of it which I think is important to grasp as a concept in order to mentally transit from the non-living molecules through to the living organism. http://io9.com/5844183/emergence-the-scientific-concept-that-explains-slime-friction-and-brooklyn-neighborhoods

If it had no evolutionary value, why do we pursue it and indeed why does it even exist within us? Because, on the whole, it makes us more productive, which benefits the individual and spins off to those around them enhancing group cohesion and .adaptability in various forms like creativity, empathy etc The more individuals that can cohabit peacefully in a given area the greater the, chances of mating and hence progeny occurs....happiness facilitates this. Are you more likely to have sex when you are happy or not happy?

The light that was over there, is coming over here and the light that was here, is going over there...it's taken billions of years for those photons to reach us. You might find it easier to visualise if you imagine yourself standing on the surface of a sphere and this sphere's surface is the path the photons travel on. Wherever you are on it, photons from the CMBR will be coming to you.

I found this recent article that suggests that the initial combinations were formed in impact craters from meteorites: "Thanks to regular and heavy comet and meteorite bombardment of Earth's surface during its formative years 4 billion years ago, the large craters left behind not only contained water and the basic chemical building blocks for life but also became the perfect crucible to concentrate and cook these chemicals to create the first simple organisms.... " "...Because of Earth's perfect proximity to the sun, the comets that crashed here melted into water and filled these basins with water and more ingredients. This gave rise to the geological stage. As these basins filled, geothermal venting heated the water and created convection, causing the water to move constantly and create a thick primordial soup." Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-10-paleontologist-life-theory.html#jCp Does this idea seem plausible?

If you accidentally backspace the page, follow the same procedure I outlined earlier starting with going back to the relevant thread then do a page refresh. The autosave feature updates every two minutes so if you backspace too early in the first two minutes, nothing was saved, so you are screwed.

Also I've found, you can actually shut the computer down - as long as you haven't set your browser to clear the cache on shutdown or used some other app like Ccleaner - the unfinished post will still be there in the relevant thread if you follow the procedure I mentioned before, without the refresh.

Had a play and I don't know if this will add anything for you but you should click the page Refresh first then click anywhere in the textbox. Then click View Autosaved Content and you get this: Click Restore Content to put it back. The saved material is actually stored on your computer, not the server, so it would appear it can be retrieved ...probably in the cache of your browser.

Yes I know it's a tough one when you think from our classical perspective that we know but the Universe is here now and we are in its timeline with no view of its past beyond a certain point. The problem is you are thinking in a nice straight linear fashion with a beginning, middle and end in this scenario but it just won't comply with the established parts of physics that we know, like conservation that I keep mentioning, to have a sudden start. When you construct hypotheses you must work from sound principles, and the laws of thermodynamics are such. to build bridges into that we don't know yet ... "If I have seen further it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants" - Newton.

If you think you are going to take a long time why not write it in Word or similar and then copy/paste when you are ready?

I'm saying, based on conservation of energy, it had no beginning/it always existed ...in this context they are synonymous. Where is it flawed?

There was never a time in the past that it didn't exist.