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Would anybody be interested in 'featured articles'? Someone suggested that a featured article be posted monthly or bi-monthly by the members. This would, however, require that members contribute articles. The purpose of the article would be to introduce and give a general overview of a scientific topic. It does not have to be a research paper. The article can be on any topic, as long as it is science-related (no politics/religion/philosophy/etc). One other suggestion was adding a journal feature for members. I could do this, but I doubt anyone would use it. Anyhow, I thought I'd run the ideas by you guys. If anyone is interested or has any other ideas along those lines, let me know.

I'll draw up the ladder later. Just need one more player to make it even!

She didn't ask why they died off, she asked what factors existed which allowed them to reach the size that they did. Let's stay on topic please.

So far: blike J'Dona 5614 bloodhound Tesseract TimeTraveler Lance one more person!

amazingly, it didn't snow on the atom!

PSH suggestion=

Anyone want to be in a make-shift chess tournament? We need at least 8 people willing to play over Yahoo chess. No downloads required, other than the chess plugin. It's free, but you need a yahoo login name (free, takes less than a minute to create). Like I said, we'd need 8 people. I would organize the ladder. Opponents will arrange times via PM or the thread. JUST HOPE YOU DONT HAVE TO PLAY ME

excellent question. I don't have an immediate answer. I'll have to mull it over awhile.

I'm clearly not a physicist, but I think the very act of a photon striking a particle would collapse it's wave function. In order for us to observe a particle, we must interact with it somehow (whether it be through photons bouncing off the particle and striking our eyes, or applying a magnetic field). The act of interacting is what collapses the wavefunction, not really the act of looking at it. Trees in a forest don't exist in a wave function because the particles are constantly interacting with one another and with light. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. -master of newton, ignorant of heisenberg

It's not so much observation as it is "interaction", right? As in, particles bumping into each other, not the physical act of me looking at it.

I don't think your point was the same point I was making. Your point was that destroying life to redress a destroyed life is like adding -1 and -1 trying to get zero. My point was that justice is perceived as a scale, and thus balance is only acheived by -1 and -1. That's not what I am saying. The modern justice system is essentially what you have described. As I said in earlier posts, we do not steal theives cars, nor do we beat those who are guilty of domestic violence. We are not an eye for an eye society. Any system of justice has quantified offenses against society into either a monitary value or a defined number of days in jail. We, as a society, say: "Stealing a car is worth 10 years in prison. Stealing a car at gunpoint is worth 12 years in prison." That is what law is. This is easy to do because we, as a society, can quantify all of these offenses. A car is worth a certain amount of money, and so we can say justice has been preserved when we put a theif in prison for stealing a car. But a society who calls life invaluable cannot quantify life. We cannot make it a monitary value. We cannot define it as a certain amount of days in prison. That is why we, as the United States, do not have an eye for an eye society EXCEPT in the case of murder. We can quantify the damage to all other things: property, money, assets, bodily harm, everything. We cannot quantify the damage done by removing human life into 75, 100, or even 200 years in prison. Because only something invaluable can redress the balance of something invaluable. This concept is the very foundation of justice. What is taken is owed. _____________________________________________________________ We're repeating ourselves too much here. Lets try a different approach to the argument. I'll ask a few questions and you answer them. Then I'll ask some more, you answer, then we'll flip. You ask, I answer. 1) Do you believe life is invaluable (just asking because it's fundamental to our discussion)? 2) Is the purpose of social law to render justice? Justice in this case may not be an "eye for an eye", but two $10s for a $20, as you stated earlier. The end result is that the punishment fits the crime, though it may not be the exact same action as the crime. For example, stealing a car might result in 10 years in prison. 2a) If not, what is its purpose and what is the basis for rendering punishment?

nice, i got my brother one as well.

Think of justice as a scale, not a math equation. You can't put 1N of force on one side and -1N of force on the other and expect it to balance. You could argue that, but that's not justice in any sense. I agree about the ambiguity of quantifying the argument, but I felt the point was being severely comprimised by my ability to communicate the idea. The logic does follow, at least in my opinion, but perhaps I was not stating it clearly enough. I threw in some alternate--but admittedly more ambiguous--ways of looking at it. Of course I am not relating it to karma or anything. I agree, somewhat. But if a jury decides that murdering someone 'merits' life in prison, then they are saying that the victims life is worth 50 years in prison. And thus, they have quantified the victim's worth. Indeed, the punishment does not have to and does not always fit the crime. In that case, justice is not being preserved. As I said before, many societies are fine with that. But how can a society proclaim, "Human life is invaluable!" and then out of the other side of their mouth say "Well, it's actually only worth a lifetime of freedom". Furthermore, how can a country maintain that human life is invaluable but then not enforce justice for the innocent victim. atinymonkey and I briefly discussed whether or not punishment for crimes (specifically capital punishment) is revenge some time back. Why do you think that it is? Where is the line between revenge, punishment, retribution, etc. Any punishment could be likely argued to be a form societal revenge. Retribution and recompense could also be argued for as a form of revenge.

It is invaluable. That's the reason ONLY the removal of an invaluable life will offset the unjust removal of another invaluable life. Infinite is owed, and thus, only infinite can repay. Perhaps a better definition is that, "the only as valuable as a human life is another human life."

But capital punishment is not unjust, by definition, because it is merited. The removal of the invaluable life is not in vain, it is owed (in a manner of speaking).

If a society holds that a human life is invaluable, and justice is "the assignment of merited rewards or punishments", then anything less than the executing murderers is, by definition, an unjust punishment.

Oddly, yes.

I believe that law should be just, and thus, I believe the death penalty should be applied. Any government which does not allow the death penalty is not preserving justice to the fullest extent in the case of murder. If a nation finds this acceptable, as many do, very well. I cannot argue against your right to apply justice as you see fit. However, the majority of the United States feels that the death penalty should be applied when necessary. As I have argued, the only way for justice to be truely preserved is for the death penalty to be allowed. Thus, the death penalty is clearly justified and reasonable.

Just as an interesting side note, Scott Peterson was sentenced to death today. He'll appeal, of course. "The six-man, six-woman jury reached its unanimous death penalty decision after finding Peterson guilty of killing Laci Peterson, 27, and her fetus on or around Christmas Eve 2002." "He will sit on death row for more than five years before being appointed an attorney for his first appeal to the California Supreme Court, which is mandatory. After exhausting state appeals, Peterson’s case would move to the federal courts, usually with a new attorney. The case would go to U.S. District Court and then to the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has overturned more California death sentences than it has allowed. "

Naturally, I do not believe any state has the right to commit genocide or torture subjects. But the reason that no state has the right to commit genocide is that genocide cannot be justified under any circumstances. That is, I believe, the reason most people do not believe genocide is moral. They may label it an immoral act, but they are really saying it is unjust.

I am arguing that for a state to effectively do it's job, it must allow capital punishment. A prisoner also has the ability to harm his fellow inmates. Then you must demonstrate that it is not. The law is based on justice because that's its purpose. Justice is what the law of this country was founded upon and created to execute. I do not take back that claim. The purpose isn't to send a message. But that doesn't mean that it does not or cannot send a message. Starting my car engine is a good way to get the heater running, but that's not the purpose of my car engine. Yes. While you have picked over my points, you still haven't constructed an argument as to why I am wrong other than make a few statements without providing support. For example, you don't believe that the purpose of law is to execute justice, but you haven't stated why you believe that. Indeed.

I'm back now (finals week are over). I haven't been ignoring everyone, but I haven't had a lot of time to post. I will address Rakasha's post then yours JaKiri.

LOL, what a good observation.

hilarious!

Maybe he should consider plugging it in to charge. But seriously, the early iPods had a battery defect issue I believe. That was several generations ago though.