StringJunky

That example clearly illustrates, what I said elsewhere to you, that evolution is a mix of random mutation and serendipity ("right time, right place"); The sooted trees and surfaces of the IR was the 'serendipity' part for the black version of the moth. If you take your blinkers off you'll see evolution doesn't require any intelligence to drive it.

Here's a good example of evolution with natural selection over a very short timescale. Intro: "The evolution of the peppered moth over the last two hundred years has been studied in detail. Originally, the vast majority of peppered moths had light colouration, which effectively camouflaged them against the light-coloured trees and lichens which they rested upon. However, because of widespread pollution during the Industrial Revolution in England, many of the lichens died out, and the trees that peppered moths rested on became blackened by soot, causing most of the light-coloured moths, or typica, to die off from predation. At the same time, the dark-coloured, or melanic, moths, carbonaria, flourished because of their ability to hide on the darkened trees.[1] Since then, with improved environmental standards, light-coloured peppered moths have again become common, but the dramatic change in the peppered moth's population has remained a subject of much interest and study, and has led to the coining of the term industrial melanism to refer to the genetic darkening of species in response to pollutants. As a result of the relatively simple and easy-to-understand circumstances of the adaptation, the peppered moth has become a common example used in explaining or demonstrating natural selection"

Can you elaborate on this?

I'll let you off.

Skitt's Law Alert: It should be "It's"...capital 'I' because it starts the sentence.

The fact we have to produce a new vaccine for the latest flu virus is due to and evidence of evolution. Evolution happens much quicker on the scale and numbers of micro-organisms.

Evolution is not anthropomorphic in any way; everything it does to advance a species, it does by random mutation and serendipity which, in reality, means exponentially more failures than successes. It's taken an awful lot of throws of the dice and time for Life to get where it is today.

I know it is, but this is the correct kind of response from someone who aspires to follow the scientific method. You showed me a flaw in my logic and I corrected accordingly and immediately...no ego to support here. I've no wish to argue for the indefensible unless I'm playing Devil's Advocate which I'm not here. My initial position required a metaphysical explanation to support it ie a 'soul', that you rightly imo, pointed to which is counter to current biological ideas on what Life is. I support the idea that Life is an emergent property of a complex set(s) of molecules, so, what I said before was incongruous with conventional scientific ideas on this subject.

On reflection, I think you are right as far as what I said before and I therefore retract it forthwith. On the basis that we do not possess a soul and that we are actually the sum total of our memories embedded in our brains, I would have to conclude that we would be transferred if those memories were transferred in their entirety. How's that for a 180 degree turn.

I agree. I think time is over-analysed...it's just a system that measures magnitude of duration relative to some arbitrary reference that has some desirable feature of inherent cyclicity or of fixed and known durational magnitude; like an hourglass.

You made me think (a rare thing!). Do chemists have "cyber laboratories" now where they can virtually test prior unknown combinations of elements and compounds under specified conditions and see the resultant products? I envisage a chemical database with every known necessary parameter for each element and then being able to chuck two chemicals into a virtual test tube and the software, once all conditions have been inputted, tells you the result. How far down the road is chemistry with that scenario now?

I think it's important for future readers to see modnotes and the locked threads so that they can see how things are dealt with. I say this because I frequent a another forum, albeit with a different interest, and they routinely wipe out whole threads from existence if they get out of hand. It gives a false impression that all is rosy there to the unfamiliar and also, of course, without the deleted threads as visible evidence and reminders, history repeats itself much more often there imo.

One's attacking the person and the other is addressing the behaviour. You are more than intelligent enough to differentiate. What one says and what one actually thinks can be contrary to each other...we can't change the person but we can attempt to change the outward behaviour...this is the essence of CBT which I think you are aware of and I think respect IIRC.

Skitt's Law get's everyone...I don't even think about attempting to correct people's grammar or punctuation, lest I fall victim. Edited to correct punctuation...damn!

a·nal·o·gy ( -n l -j ). n. pl. a·nal·o·gies. 1. a. Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar. I liked your article AJB...well-written and presented. Nice one.

Although what was seen last night was very nice it was nothing compared to an occultation (Venus passing behind the Moon) of the moon and Venus I saw in 2001...when Venus exited between the horns of the crescent Moon it was exceptionally bright for a few minutes at the point shown in the image I mocked up. I have never seen such natural precision of position before or since...exquisitely beautiful

The Moon, Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction This is probably your grandfather's "spaceship"...the International Spacestation:

You are starting from an erroneous premise. If the universe encompasses all of space what does it move through? Answer: nothing since it doesn't make sense for something to move through itself. Therefore, the universe does not move. Because the universe clearly doesn't move with respect to something else that blows your static electricity idea out of the water.

They are all examples of Emergence.

I read a review on the audio collection and the reviewer recommended using it in conjunction with the books because the books show what he's writing on blackboard and , of course, you will not be aware of this on the audio...it probably causes discontinuity and gaps for the listener is what the reviewer is suggesting I think in the absence of the books.

This and the FTL Neutrino results which the researchers held up for outside scrutiny shows how uncrompromising the established science community is in the overall collective pursuit of trying to describe how Nature really behaves and its subsequent dissemination...great stuff! Dogmatic?...my arse! At the end of the day he's not a Professor for nothing and cock ups are part-and-parcel of being human. I hope he will find this episode a cathartic experience and will move on having learned something ultimately positive in the end...that scientists are always watching each others backs. The Peer Review process is quite ruthless but awesome at the same time imo.

It would seem he's broken the 'rule' of keep it simple but no simpler and as a consequence come out wrong. That's if my interpretation of the (paraphrased) Einstein quote is correct.

http://www.feynmanphysicslectures.com/

I think it's mind-doodling metaphysical word-salad. One thing you might note is that real scientists with religious sentiments seem to keep their scientific work and faith far apart from each other...in public at least.

I agree, but that's all newcomers have got to go on initially regarding credentials. It's easy to know when you are in a similar level of knowledge as swansont like yourself. The fact that he has a PhD matters initially until comes such a time a person can judge him on his posts. One should (as an amateur and new poster) imo make the assumption that he has not been made a staff member for nothing. As an amateur myself, I have assumed faith on his expertise and other SFN staff and as far I'm concerned, after nearly three years of double-checking a fair few of their posts I'm interested in, they are more than adequate for me...they are my experts. For what it's worth, I give equal creedence to your contributions as well DR. Edit: I propose that that Dr Rocket be made a designated Expert. If he's not an expert in maths and physics within the confines of SFN then I'm Jesus...I make no apologies.