mississippichem

I don't think torture is ever justified when the torture causes permanent disfigurement, mutilation, or death. I personally don't have a problem with water boarding [hold your fire please, hear me out]. Water boarding is really more of a psychological interrogation technique than physical. The idea is to completely convince the prisoner that you are going to drown him. Once he believes that next time you are not going to stop (from what I understand, water boarding comes along with some serious rough talk), he talks. Now how effective is it? I don't know, and I'll admit that it's efficacy is questionable. In my opinion. I would much rather be water boarded than killed in battle. I've never understood why killing is not a war crime and yet pretending to drown someone is. I think there are interrogation techniques that are "too far". Cutting off fingers, sexual torture, and mutilation are among these. However, war is war. There is nothing beautiful or humane about war. War is by definition, "let's all get together and kill each other until one of us gives up". War is always an immoral sport in my opinion; but if we must go to war, then we must win. I also don't think that members of a non-official terrorist organization that targets civilians should get the same humane treatment as members of a sovereign foreign army. And I don't think those Japanese soldier's should have been hung for water boarding. We dropped two nukes on them... My main problem is that our government lets this kind of information out. If we are going to water board or torture, it should not leave the confines of Gitmo. That sounds terrible, but once again no more terrible than war in general.

I would never prompt a friend of family member to go into prostitution (no 401K plan). But adjustable rate mortgages are a comparably bad idea and those are perfectly legal. I don't think it is the governments place to decide what is best for our lives. As far as social/vice/moral law is concerned they should only not allow us to do things that infringe on others rights to life/liberty/pursuit of whatever. By legalizing currently illegal vice activities like drugs and prostitution, we can turn all the illegitimate "black money" into real GDP. I don't think prostitution would solve our debt crisis; but we have to be willing to drop our silly social ideals in the name of revenue generation. I say we legalize everything and tax the hell out of all of it.

Inside a lead lined refrigerator at ground zero of a nuclear explosion. Just to prove there is no way Indiana Jones could have survived the nuke at the beginning of The Crystal Skull. That movie ruined Indiana Jones for me. I think it's worth devoting my last seconds of life to rebuke George Lucas.

IIRC from my protestant upbringing; blasphemy of the holy spirit is living your entire life without acknowledging the divinity, death, and resurrection of Christ. Once one believes in this, God forgives all sins. So not believing this equates to having to pay the fine for a lifetime of unforgiven sin, i.e. an all expense paid trip to Club Hades for the next [math] \infty [/math] years. Other sects of Christianity may believe differently. I think Catholics don't emphasize the hole "salvation" idea as much. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Alright. So molecules that have stability are stable because the electrons in that bonding configuration are lower in energy than the constituent parts would be. That's why chemical reactions happen at all. If it's not favored by entropy or enthalpy or both, it tends to not happen without catalysis. So the energy coming from your oxygen combustion comes from the fact that the electron configuration of water is a more stable configuration than two hydrogen radicals and an oxygen atom. That energy "surplus" [not over unity, just the difference in energy] comes off as work, heat or light. Alright, this reaction is not spontaneous because [math] \Delta G^{o} > 0 [/math]. So plants and other photosynthetic autotrophs use chlorophyll and photosynthesis [a catalytic process] to carry this out. That energy can come from other exothermic reactions inside a cell. The catalyst just gives the reaction a "kick-start" by lowering the activation energy, the energy "hump" that has to be overcome to get the reaction going. A more simple case is an endothermic reaction happening in a beaker in a lab, life is much easier en vitro. In the lab the heat supplying an endothermic reaction just simply comes from your hot plate or Bunsen burner [people still use those right?]. The hot plate gets it's heat from resistive heating in a wire. The Bunsen burner utilizes the exothermic combustion of propane or butane. Just remember, energy never gets created or destroyed. We just ride the waves of endothermic and exothermic processes. Nature does the dirty work of making hydrocarbons at no expense to us, we supply the initial flash and then harvest the precious Joules that come out.

We just cut out the middle man. I can forgive someone for the wrong they did against me without the aid of the anthropomorphic bearded sky fairy. It forces us to reconcile disputes as humans. I forgive you Lemur.

The electron actually gets paid for his drink.

When the glass cools, the vibrations in the [ce] SiO_{2} [/ce] molecules become less intense or slower. Temperature is an expression of the average kinetic energy per molecule or atom. So as the glass cools, and the molecular vibrations slow, you will observe a drop in temperature. So in short, the energy comes from the molecular vibrations.

Good Points. I don't necessarily believe that the marijuana legalization advocates are morally right; but I think they have a point that the law is inconsistent. Which being the efficiency nazi that I am bothers me . That is a great point that I honestly don't have a great answer for. However, I tend to be the type that thinks social regulation should be designed to impede freedoms as little as possible. I think it is morally wrong to commit any act that coerces others. But then I run into the dilemma that I'm basically advocating anarchy. So I'll stick with that and add the caveat that moral perfection in a society is a goal at odds with our concept of organized society, and is thus attainable or not worth it. I would use coercive acts when the benefits outweigh the moral costs, realizing that that requires subjectivity. That's why we need a robo-government that only makes decisions based on statistical analysis. If it gets out of hand, Arnold Schwarzenegger will "be back".

Agreed. But one must be sure to have a useful and strict definition, and not one that is all encompassing. I don't claim that you are. I'm saying that if you accept the logic of Pascal's Wager, then you must in order to stay logically consistent. This is where our opinions diverge. How can you claim that the universe is ordered when you know of no other universes with which to compare or contrast? As has been said here often before, a puddle of water in the road would find that hole in the road perfectly fit for it; Naively neglecting the fact that all possible holes of the same volume would fit him perfectly. There is yet to be one phenomenon objectively attributed to the supernatural. Most phenomena previously thought to be of supernatural origin have since been proven to occur by natural means. Lightning used to be the anger of Zeus, the setting sun was Ra's battle with the serpent, and more recently prayer has been shown to be ineffective in a multitude of double blind trials: 1) J Med Ethics 2008 2) Harvard Gazette Arhives, n=1800! So, in light of the fact that there is absolutely not one shred of empirical, objective or even strong circumstantial evidence of the supernatural. You should believe what I'm saying. The same empirical standard that is par for the course in science must also be par for the course in spirituality/religion. Everyone expects objectivity with respect to every other facet of our lives: science, math, engineering, law, accounting, business, government etc...The question I have for you is, why should belief in God be exempt from that? You can't just exempt some facet of a worldview from critical logic. Either there is an objective knowable truth, or there is not. No middle ground, no prisoners .

I agree with CharonY that the quality of the research group matters more than the school. I go to a school that probably isn't considered a "top tier" chemistry school. But of 14 chemistry professors and a handful of materials science professors we have 6 that draw NSF funding, and several that have receive very large (7-digit) grants from large corporations. Which means that undergrads and grads at my school have a large chance of getting published. I'm sure there are top tier schools that can beat that; but I have many friends who have graduated and gone on to prestigious grad schools or acquired high dollar jobs. Find a good research group, get published, and you'll get hired/accepted almost every time. Assuming your GPA is good which is a given in the science world.

True. I agree. I wanted to add that Pascal's Wager is also flawed in the sense that it assumes the odds of a god's existence or non-existence are 50/50. By Pascal's Wager logic, I can tell someone that: "If you don't wear lederhosen everyday then you are going to hell. You may not believe me, but it's in your interest to just do it because I could be right." Once you open that logical door, that any conjecture automatically starts at 50/50 odds, you can't close it. Every conjecture that comes along automatically becomes worth believing no matter how outlandish.

Well, it's Saturday, May 21. I'm still alive here in the states. Everyone still alive in Europe?

Vice law in the US makes absolutely no sense. You can drink alcohol or smoke tobacco, but can't smoke marijuana. Tobacco is a smoking activity [like pot] and alcohol is an intoxicant [also like pot]. So evidently you can pay to watch sex [pornography or strippers] that you derive enjoyment from. Which to me means that you can pay someone to have sex with someone else, and you enjoy the watching. But you can't pay a prostitute directly for sex. So what happens if someone pays a prostitute to have sex with someone else? That is really the same phenomenon as the pornography. Pornography photographers/directors have to pay an employee to have sex with someone else every time they film. I think this is what we get for basing our social laws on religious morality [illogical soup]...but that's another thread.

So wait...Aether is quantified in units of joules. Explain that one. Or are you just admitting that your entire theory of "aether" displacement is all based on some hunch? What is the justification for your equation? Is it derived from first principles or fitted from data? Please derive it.

An elaborate explanation to not be backed with any math or observational evidence. How do you quantify this displacement force? I want to see this as well, mpc755.

Well, hybrid orbitals don't really exist. They are an approximation given to freshmen undergrads and high school students that explain molecular geometry in a "pseudo wave mechanics manner". In real life, it's not so easy. Hybrid orbitals do not represent the true electron probability distribution function, but there is some truth to them. In real life, we have to add atomic atomic orbitals through linear combination, optimize the geometry (usually with computers), check for vibrational overlaps...etc. The process is quite laborious and is something I'm just now getting to where I can wrap my head around. What you want to know is the HOMO (highest occupied molecular orbital), between two zinc atoms. All the other lower energy orbitals contribute 0 to the net bond enthalpy. You're not going to like this answer but it depends on what else is bonded to the zinc atoms. Zn-Zn bridges do exist, but the dimensions of the d-d Zn-Zn bond will be dependent on back donation from other ligands. You can't just have di-zinc that I'm aware of. I'm sure some nerd has made it in the gas phase though.

Topic moved to Psychiatry and Psychology which falls under medical science anyway. So no harm no foul.

How is science changing our understanding of God? That sounds like an interesting book though.

Look no further. What problems are you having?

hm...Lorentz Transforms in spherical polar coordinates...why what for Shroedinger's Hat? don't answer that: just get it to work on my browser!

Even if your question were an organic one, the fact that you have only one question isn't going to allow you to see any trends. I think it's funny that two "non-lay" chemistry people were the first to respond to this thread. It says a lot about how we chemistry people are bothered by non-analytical stats. Even if your question were an organic one, the fact that you have only one question isn't going to allow you to see any trends. You're question is also far too easy for any kind of chemist.

I'm not nit picking over words. The definition of god is the only data we have on god. Or it's the only objective thing about a hypothetical god we can discuss. But the only agreed upon way for anyone to worship any God is through some established religion or spin-off of an established religion. If all the religious text tell stories that only exist in our imagination, i.e. are false, then why would you agree with these texts that a god exists at all seeing as how they are the main proponents of the existence of god. What I'm trying to say is, I think that if you had never been exposed to the ideology of a major world religion, and had grown being taught science only, you would have absolutely no concept of a god. You can't try to separate your views from those of a mythological religion. This is always used as a back-door-out in religious debates. No matter what I say to the detriment of god, you can say that ultimately none of us can know god so my argument comes out of ignorance. But really, that argument only admits that none of us can know anything about any hypothetical or real god. So if you bring in that logic, then you must admit that your argument is at least equally as ignorant as mine. I prefer not to bring it in though because it is fallacious and really shows how all supernatural claims are not falsifiable, and therefore likely to be false. Yeah we began relying too much on science. Its a shame that our lifespans are so long now and we have modern technology like the internet and supersonic travel. I miss the days when we burned witches at the stake and offered up human sacrifices to the sun; you know, back when the mentally retarded were demonically possessed. We really have missed the importance of mythology, nothing beats blind faith in an anthropomorphic boogie man who disapproves of your sex life and will readily subject you to infinite torture for a finite sin. I disagree. Illogical fear is born from ignorance of objective truth. Are you afraid of Al Queda? I'll tell you that the odds of you dying in a terrorist attack are vanishingly small. Are you afraid of monsters? I'll tell you that the odds of you dying from a monster attack are infinitesimally small. Are you afraid of dying from cancer? I'll tell you that your fears are legitimate and you may well die of cancer. Telling children the truth empowers them to be masters of their own destiny. If a child knows the truth about the world, he'll be forced to rely on himself to use intelligence and logic to solve problems enhancing his life greatly. I'm not critiquing your parenting skills by the way, he's your kid. I didn't get that memo. That's a tall claim. I imagine you have a barrage citations to back that one.

Swansont: you do a damn good job, as a mod and an expert, and that's about all there is to it. Keep it up, this is by a large margin the best science discussion forum on the internet that I'm aware of. We have a great mod/admin staff to thank for that.

I tallied 91 on the Index: Crackpot Index