Sayonara

The approach is basically the same as you need for the gold question you posted ealier. The half-life describes the time taken for half of the atoms to decay. So you need to halve the number of atoms X times, where X is the number of half-life intervals that fit into the measured time period. Does that make sense?

For moderator reference, agentchange was writing that post while I was writing mine.

You are now officially just another YEC nutcase. You have nothing new to offer, and have clearly ignored the thread I directed you towards at the end of my first reply to you. Continue to take the thread off-topic by spreading deceit, and you will be banned. This is your only warning. For the other posters in this thread, please don't bother replying to the off-topic posts, no matter how tempting it may be.

At least the homophobes are honest.

None of which lends any more credibility to the Appeal that Authority to you were making, or magically makes OFSTED interested in promoting arbitrary religious beliefs. Nothing at all. But the fact that Creationism is the only "alternative" presented in place of evolutionary theory in these ostensibly Christian schools is a bit of a giveaway, don't you think? I think you might mean "Creationist and ID lies and misunderstandings", as opposed to "recent advances in science". Evolution comprises a raft of processes which are going on now, and will continue to go on regardless of human sustenance or opinion polls. If you are truly trying to make the case that creationism is better than homophobia, you are not doing a good job. One would imagine that someone promoting genuine Christian sentiments would be bigging up the social and personal benefits of Creationism, and denouncing homophobia, rather than attacking the credibility of evolutionary theory (ha!) and the "validity" of homosexuality. Your angle of attack may be slightly different to the typical YEC forum poster, but you are - I can assure you - not being significantly original or compelling enough to put yourself in a new category.

That has nothing to do with how "dangerous" sexual behaviours are. Please respond to my post as if you were interested in discussing the thread topic, instead of using it as a platform for badly disguised gay bashing.

I can't speak for anyone else, but my point - which I galvanised at the end of my post - was entirely on topic. Having said that, as if I need to explain myself, I think our major concern in the area of "not arguing creationism" is actually the hit-and-run thread starter league, and not the people who reply to threads in a way that helps us illustrate the foolishness of it all.

As if science geeks on an internet forum are not going to be computer geeks as well, in any case. Jesus. "Me me me, now now now, a-waaaaaaahh".

This is not an issue of much science you do or do not know. It is about your ability to follow simple instructions, and to ask the right questions. We KNOW you have read the "how to use the homework help" thread, because you replied to it. The same lack of patience and self-accountability that makes you think other people should do your homework for you is also what makes you think that the above post is in any way an appropriate response in an adult environment where the participants have a habit of following their own rules. Like anyone is going to rush to sign up. It's an off-the-shelf content management system. I'm impressed.

Just to clarify, I do know the answer to my question. Before anyone gets smart

How hard is it to find out from a basic chemistry text book what those numbers represent?

If only they had said people lived to be dinosaurs, then we would be swimming in evidence.

Ha, in before edit. Ironic mis-spelling preserved FOR ALL TIME.

I would have thought an algal bloom more likely.

Well good. Most of the Creationists we get here only register to make drive-by statements, and are not interested in discussion of any sort. Having said that, prepare to be mauled What we consider to be 'bad' about Creationism as a verb (in the sense that it is the one thing we all agree on as a scientific community; obviously individuals will have additional criticisms) is that in its worst form it has several negative effects on the way in which its supporters think: - It actively seeks to prevent critical thought, - It seeks to undermine the education of an entirely valid branch of science, - It is ludicrously selective in its attacks, - It passes lies as facts, - It passes fallacious arguments as reasoning and logic, - It prevents minds from questioning the world. Well no, it isn't. This does not of course mean that we will never find evidence that strongly supports the idea, but at the current time there is little or no evidence to support Noah's flood and ample rational evidence that makes it pretty much impossible. This is a science site, so if you wish to make an argument for a global flood then you are the one who needs to provide evidence. Although this particular thread is perhaps not the place to do that; I would suggest an "Evidence for a Historical Global Flood" thread in the Speculations forum or the General Discussions forum. You may also wish to use the search function to find previous threads on that topic - I believe it has come up before. Two things: 1) The OFSTED report provides a qualitative appraisal of the educational standard of the colleges. It makes no commentary on whether or not the teaching of creationism has anything to do with the overall academic results. 2) In an interview with the BBC last year, Vardy stated that he "would be concerned if creationism was taught as fact in [his] schools". So either you are wrong, or he is a liar. This is demonstrably not the case. And in fact, it is also not the case that "attacks" on Creationism take place on anything like the same scale as Creationist attacks on science. It is not scientists who travel the web finding Creationist sites to spam with their beliefs; it is the other way around. You will find dozens of threads on this forum where YE Creationists have landed and posted scathing and wildly inaccurate attacks on evolution. The time that scientists waste arguing with YECs is usually spent in defence, not attack. We have no particular reason to attack your beliefs. YECs have every reason to attack science as some of their beliefs are contradicted by it. It is just such a great shame that through either stupidity, laziness, dishonesty, or a fear of actually using science properly, so many YECs are willing to abuse logic and reasoning in order to air their views. Well, yes. Plenty. But the onus is not on "science" to "disprove" something for which you have not bothered to provide any evidence. Some people are trigger-happy with the word, therefore we can ignore any other social or psychological effects that might be described by that word, is that it? If all people don't use the word properly, then gay bashing, sexuality-motivated crime, discrimination, prejudice, inequity, and religious intolerance can all be overlooked? Please try harder. By "the gay lifestyle" I am going to assume you mean gay sex. There is no scientific reason why homosexual activity per se should be considered "more dangerous" to your health than heterosexual activity. People are more at risk because of their own personal choices (failing to use the appropriate form of protection for the act, for example), which has nothing to do with their sexuality. Regardless, if your motives are in any way noble, moral and right, then surely the health risks which you perceive homosexuality to bring with it (a) make no comment about the "validity" of people being gay (what a nasty and dishonest way to describe the condition), and (b) should be taught in great detail to schoolchildren to ensure that this "gay lifestyle", which you apparently perceive as a medical threat, is discouraged. I hope you realise that none of the issues you have with homosexuality justify or ameliorate the existence of homophobia, in any way, shape, or form. Why should people who do not believe in that god follow his rules? Why should people who are not in the "institution for raising children" care about committed marriages? God said a lot of things. If we took them all literally, and based society's moral structure off them, most of us would have been stoned to death by now - including you. So if you want to cherry-pick which of God's commandments you are going to follow, then presumably you will have to come up with a justification for that which would satisfy God Himself. I think this is a case of you trying to substitute in a meaning which the OP did not intend. I believe the OP is referring to those people who actively seek to promote hatred and violence towards the gay community, and as someone who regularly deals with the aftermath of hate crimes, I can assure you that the answer is "****loads". If you think that nobody has ever been hurt by homophobia, you are living in la la happy dimwit land. People have been physically injured, had their lives, property and careers destroyed, been driven from their homes, and have even been killed because of homophobia. And people like you are complicit in that because you seek to divert attention away from fighting it. Do you understand? You can say "I do not hate or fear homosexuals and in my career have never treated them adversely in any way", but the fact remains that your attitude makes you complicit. Complicit. There is no requirement to pay an academic admission fee before making a criticism of popular literature. Do you see what my response reveals about (i) your post and (ii) your question regarding our view of Creationism? I will spell it out just in case anyone missed the (admittedly subtle) point: You claimed to be answering the question of "which is worse, creationism or homophobia", but instead you used misdirection and dishonesty to launch pre-emptive attacks on bible criticisms, and to mud-sling at homosexuals and those who would defend their right to equality. And that is one of the main things that we find so abhorrent about Creationism. The movement has no moral fibre. For Creationists, you see, far too readily allow themselves the moral latitude to lie, swindle, and deceive, and to spread hatred, doubt, uncertainty, and animosity within their own society. That is hardly compatible with genuine Christian beliefs. Incidentally, you may wish to read this thread before you continue here: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=13261

In any case, it doesn't follow for Japanese.

... In what language? さよなら = goodbye.

I like "mathmology".

Because it is there.

A restriction is being artificially applied because if a straight man or woman has a child by any means they are said to be producing offspring, but when this "the gays can't reproduce" argument comes up, all of a sudden the production of offspring is impossible unless it takes place between two people in particular. In case anyone is confused, I might point out that while people may differ in their sexuality, they are actually generally considered to be members of the same species. I.e. not reproductively isolated.

Possibly, but this is not a film. I doubt it will be that simple. I don't think "Pakistan wasn't doing its part" will wash, seeing as nobody but Tony Blair bought "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction" for a second. At the very least, France will get extremely haughty about the whole thing, and Australia will sigh quietly.

I am now leaning towards assuming that ecoli means "take [the terrorists] out". That would make more sense.

I think you are disregarding both the role that will be played by anti-US sentiments in the East, and the political and strategic ramifications of such an 'incursion' for countries which are not Pakistan. This is not a trivial error.

Sleight of hand. "Not doing anything to stop terrorism" is not the same as "threatening us". Let me reiterate, so we are all clear on this: 165 million people. It didn't work the first few times, so what makes anyone think that wading into yet another country - a much bigger and much more important one this time - is going to generate a different result this time around? The USA administration is pretty much writing its own epitaph by this point. This is not Sparta, this is insanity.

The problem is in invading a major nation that has both nuclear capacity and good diplomatic and trade relations with most of the planet. Pakistan is not some dictator-led backwards desert which everyone else has been trying to wipe off the globe for decades. There are 165 million people there; over six times as many people as there are in Iraq, living in less than twice the land area. They are the largest Islamic nation next to Indonesia. They have a GDP of nearly half a trillion USD (compare this to Iraq's measly 90 billion). They have excellent ties with many nations including the US itself, having provided 5,000 troops to the coalition in the 1991 Gulf conflict. They of course have significant ties to Britain for historical reasons. They have legitimate arms and defence contracts with South Asian countries, most recently and notably China, which will not be lightly abandoned. Invading Pakistan would be political suicide. The American people will start to care very shortly after the backlash begins.