Sisyphus

Again, though, nobody is forcing them to buy them. If GE crops are so much better that they're still more productive/cost effective even factoring in having to import seeds every season, then they're good for the poor.

Ok, first off, disregard everything Tolsomoff is saying. If the universe has more than 4 dimensions, than we do "reside in" them. We certainly reside in 4. (I assume it took you some finite amount of time to compose your question?) Dimension does not equal some "other place." It's an other direction.

The purpose of sterile crops is not just to guarantee continued business but also because of the very dangers that Greenpeace is worried about. No unpredictable hybrids, no taking over ecosystems, etc.

New species have been observed. However, you're not going to see a lot in just a couple thousand years for large animals that take years to produce new generations, let alone the few decades or so we've been really paying attention. Microbes, however, evolve extremely fast, because they reproduce so quickly and in such huge numbers. That's why you need a new flu shot every year.

Diseases evolve too, and a field of genetically identical plants is a prime target for specialized bugs. Of course, this isn't an inherent problem with GE crops, just a potential one. You just have to make sure to deliberately maintain diversity, something which otherwise would have happened naturally.

Light is not exactly like a classical wave. It is released in discrete packets called photons, that carry energy proportional to their frequency. Increased "amplitude" in normal speech is just a higher number of photons. The difference becomes apparent in things like the photoelectric effect, in which incoming photons cause electrons to be knocked loose. Increasing the frequency of the light increases the energy of the released electrons, and increasing its amplitude only increases the number of released electrons. So in a way they both increase the energy, in the same way that ten thousand tennis balls at 200mph or one cannon ball at 200mph both have more energy than one tennis ball at 200mph.

You're right not to think of it as "substance" (all the "stuff" is at the singularity itself) but I think calling it a "reference point" understates its significance. It's a boundary with very real physical significance. It is the point beyond which it is impossible that anything can escape. As I understand it (which might be a flawed understanding), because of the way space has been warped, no straight line originating within the event horizon leads anywhere but elsewhere inside the event horizon.

It's not just a "catch-all," because it's also predictive. Here's a decent overview: http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect16/Sect16_2a.html No substance is inherently a "pollutant." It's a pollutant if it causes detrimental effects. It's like the oft-repeated and oft-forgotten "the dose makes the poison."

Every model I've seen incorporates non-human factors, and isolates human influence. Have you looked at any actual papers?

It would probably be safest if we just forbade teaching people to read.

This is my feeling as well. AGW is the big fear, but it's not like most of the steps taken to mitigate it would be money in the toilet if it weren't true. Clean, sustainable, domestic energy is a primary goal, and I would support it as very high priority even if there were no such thing as global warming. And while I certainly sympathize with a desire for more concrete information before we do something drastic (and what would that be?), time is a factor here. What evidence would be satisfactory? How long will that take to confirm? How much damage would be done in the meantime? Etc.

Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett died in 1974. He did, in 1947, hypothesize a unification of gravity and electromagnetism based on observations of Earth's magnetic field, but he later proved it false himself by experiment. So that's a bit out of date. Another way to falsify it (unavailable in the 40s and 50s) would be in noting the extremely weak magnetic fields of other planets.

Wouldn't being west of the CD put you at the eastern edge of the western half?

True. But the OP's difficulty seemed to be in imagining how individual bodies can collide when the group as a whole is becoming more rarified, and it seemed like a simple visualization to address it. And, to be fair, while the motions of galaxies are driven by deterministic forces, the "initial conditions" are random for all intents and purposes, no? Like a room full of rubber balls on both counts! And, for a big enough room, it would indeed be the case that you could approximately measure a given ball's distance by it's velocity, even as it would locally be too randomized.

If I understand you correctly, then what you're describing is not how magnets work. There aren't postive parts and negative parts, only positive directions and negative directions. That ball would have a north pole and a south pole.

Picture thousands of rubber balls bouncing around a room. Now steadily increase the size of the room. On average, the balls are spreading out, getting farther apart. But any two could still be getting closer, and there would still be collisions between them.

Zee goggles do nossing!

Zee goggles do nossing!

Another way you're acting like a creationist: claims of persecution and forced silencing. Dude, NOBODY IS SAYING YOU CAN'T QUESTION IT. The problem is not with "your insistence on questioning," and insisting it is is intellectually dishonest. I question it. Scientists continue to question it. It is not an article of faith. It is, however, probably true. We act on the information we have. It's called rational skepticism.

You are, actually. Your argument is that scientific consensus has been wrong, therefore it isn't a valid basis for action. So if you find that people keep comparing you to a creationist, that might be a sign to reevaluate your logic. Am I as sure of AGW as I am of the fact of biological evolution? No, not at all. But it's probably true, and it is not rational to deny that. Obviously we should keep questioning. But in the meantime, we need to act as if it is true. Do you understand that much?

Who's pretending? I'm acting as if what is probably true, is. I act on the best available information. I'd "wait and see" if that were possible, but if what the evidence indicates is probably true, then there's really no time for wait and see. If new facts come to light pointing in a different direction, I'll adjust my position accordingly. That's how it works. You're making almost the exact same argument as creationists attempting to discredit science as a whole because "they used to think they Earth was flat."

Clearly this is a rhetorical question, but I have no idea what point it's trying to make.

It makes a bit more sense when you consider Alaska's relatively tiny population. For comparison, the whole state has about 1/30th as many people as the New York City metro area (otherwise known as The Fake America). So I tend to think of Alaska politics as more similar to something like county politics than what I am used to thinking of as the state level. Of course, the American colonies in 1776 had only about 4 times the present day population of Alaska, and we were able to put together a pretty good group of leaders, so who knows.

I don't "write off" opposing evidence, I just note that it's much less abundant than supporting evidence. If that changes, so will my opinion. I ask again, is there any other reasonable approach for the layman?

That's true for nuclear weapons, but "air burst" when we're talking about meteorites means in the upper atmosphere. 5-10m objects collide with the Earth about once a year with nuclear weapon-scale energies, but cause no damage because they explode in the upper atmosphere. Just a flash in the sky.