Sayonara

"Patriotism" is one of a handful of words that was made up for transferring the attention of the mob onto the people who disagree with you. Basically.

That's a bit of a loaded example, to be fair.

I think what most people are trying to say is that if living systems do not have the capacity to evolve in some way, they die out. So yes, any other living system we encounter is likely to be subject to evolutionary forces. Assuming exploration across the galaxy, we could reasonably expect to encounter a large number of common problems solved in evolutionarily similar ways, and a relatively small number of rare problems solved in wildly different ways (although this does not mean that organisms sharing common solutions to survival problems will look similar in any way). For example leg systems like the ones we see on Earth are probably going to be common not just across the galaxy, but the universe - conditions like gravity might change from planet to planet but legs are basically just levers, which only have a couple of governing principles. There are two basic leg designs; one is a pair of sticks with rubber bands on the outside (e.g. in mammals) or the inside (e.g. in crabs), and the other is a hydraulic tube with a flexible cuff (e.g. in spiders). However primary senses might be solved in any number of weird ways. In fact even on this one planet there are half a dozen systems I can think of just off the top of my head. So it can get complicated, but the thing to remember is that many problems for living systems very often have so few basic principles behind them that the most effective solutions crop up again and again in completely unrelated species. So while we wouldn't expect see the same organisms on different planets, we would expect to see different species solving similar problems in similar ways.

This is not an acceptable reference. SFN rules Section 2 Part 1©: Slurs or prejudice against any group of people (or person) are prohibited. You know better.

I think the popular name for the new laws in the UK is something like the "pop outside" law.

And as a smoker, so do I. In fact I find many smokers to be rude and inconsiderate in their smoking habits, but like most people they are hardly going to expend all of their intellectual capacities on explaining the deepest roots of their behaviour to a po-faced inquirer. As a responsible smoker I challenge anti-social smoking habits by openly pointing them out, using my voice and my reasoning. Usually the offending smokers see the error of their ways and are better for it, because believe it or not I can actually be quite diplomatic IRL. I am with you on this issue: nobody should have to tolerate someone else's cigarette smoke while they are eating. But if you can't come up with decent arguments for it, just don't bother trying. It's a bit embarrassing. Please also don't try to recite any more alleged "smokers' arguments", because they were just moronic. I don't care if they came from smokers you know; if I want to hear from a moronic smoker, I'll go find one. They are ten-a-penny. What I am saying is that if you want to prove a point, you need to successfully attack the actually good arguments that come from the opposition, not mess about with trivia. In this case the only arguments worth a damn are going to be the ones that deal with the civic and legal ramifications of laws that will tighten the screw on civil liberties. Up to one in six people are smokers. This means that by passing a "smoking law" to make it unlawful to smoke in certain areas, the government is handing a rod to the majority and asking them not to spare it. But this is unnecessary - all you really have to do is ask people to stop smoking. They refuse to stop smoking in a restaurant? The management already have the discretionary right to ask them to leave. It's that simple. So why the law? Because it makes 5/6 of the population smug and happy that they now have the upper hand over the "annoying" smokers, placebo though it may be. It's social manipulation, plain and simple, and it's really very transparent if you know what you are looking for. Well, it is of course a combination. Clearly with just laws and no people there wouldn't be much action at all. I don't know about the specifics in the USA, but in the UK simply being naked in public is not unlawful. However, we have the Public Order Act which acknowledges (among other things) that a complainant can legally be considered "harmed" by alarm, harassment, or distress. So yes, public nudity can harm people, and that harm is chargeable under Section 5 Public Order Act 1986 (and possibly crimed as a sexual offence, depending on what the intent is). Believe me, I see enough of these cases every day to know exactly how much police, CPS, and court time is wasted just because people don't know how to behave in public, or because they are (not surprisingly) ignorant of all the thousands of minor and trivial offences it is possible to commit without actually killing anyone, blowing anything up, or stealing something worthwhile. You may have heard Brits complaining about the "Nanny State". This is basically the term given to a government which legislates away the personal accountability of the citizenry. This is the problem we currently face in the UK - the majority continue to fuel the crazy fires of the nanny state because, quite frankly, they'd rather mortgage a bit of personal freedom and the future of the society than shoulder a little responsibility of their own. I am quite sure similar effects are observable in the USA.

The anti-smoke crowd are right of course, smokers should not be so downright rude and they ought to keep their toxic by-products out of the way of people who didn't choose to inhale them. It just makes me laugh when I see some of the "arguments". "Waaaa, I shouldn't have to breath that smoke" Really? You will also be arguing for a public ban on cars based on the same reasons then, won't you? "Waaaa, the smoke gets in my clothes" You were planning on washing them anyway, right? "Waaaa, smoking near food is disgusting" Yes, it is filthy and rude. But you don't really need legislation to challenge someone's behaviour, do you? Have some balls and - gasp - do it yourself. Excuse me madam, would you mind not lighting up while there are others eating? Or at least move away from the food? OH MY GOD, that was like so hard. No, you shouldn't have to ask people to not be so rude and inconsiderate, but smokers or not there are people out there who are just plain old pig ignorant, and it's not an efficient use of everyone's time to challenge that by making up laws that single out the group they belong to. Ever wonder why society seems to be crumbling? It's because we can't even properly enforce the laws that say "don't brutally kill each other", yet somehow we keep falling for this circus where a tiny minority decide a trivial matter will help them gain political popularity, and turn it into a massive juggernaut of popular opinion, and before you know it we have law enforcement agencies and civil services having their time and resources diverted into something that is not in any way a threat to society. And for what? "Because it was annoying."

Doesn't rape require a certain degree of... insertion? This is weird.

Self-marketing from new members is not appreciated. I'll ask again: Are you actually posing the question "what if the force, we were compelled to fight; was a force of nature needed to survive on earth?" for discussion in this thread, or just advertising your book?

That is good advice. Next time this issue comes up I will use a more comprehensive counter-argument.

This is not the "argue against evolution" thread. The topic is the discussion is evolution universal?, which tends to pre-assume evolution. If you don't believe evolution occurs, fine; you're wrong, but take it as being a hypothetical discussion simply for the sake of argument. I expect Lucaspa's posts to be the last word on the matter.

Well, now you have a problem with justifying that. If the technology or the physics it is based on is poorly described, then you can't possibly know whether or not it will work, can you? Unless you (a) can somehow determine its fundamental principles and (b) are ruling out any advancements in our understanding of physics within the next four centuries. Some of their silly plot devices I agree whole-heartedly on, but I don't see that as being a death-knoll for "all Star Trek technology", particularly since some of it has actually come about since the show first started.

Correction - I seem to have 999 invitations.

I have a spare too.

Are you actually asking the question "what if the force, we were compelled to fight; was a force of nature needed to survive on earth?", or is that marketing speak?

Money is not simply another form of bartering because it levels the playing field between the service provider and the customer. There is a good article on the Wikipedia about that which is quite interesting. I know what you mean in ST terms though, Voy used some good plot devices which showed how the fed principles could be bent when needs became dire. Agreed.

You're right. Every episode should be 2 minutes of peril, then 41 minutes of lecturing in theoretical physics, followed by five seconds of pressing a button that actuates what was discussed in the lecture, and 115 seconds of evading the peril and laughing heartily while learning a moral lesson. That would be much better.

You misunderstand. I did not say "new information is not added", I said that the claim "new information is added from nowhere" is false. The reason for only addressing the novel combinations in selection is because the "garbled data" argument is the only one I have seen coming from the creationist camp (ref: Phil Fernandes and his buddies).

Most frogs eat insects, snails, etc, although larger frogs may eat small mammals, fish, and even other frogs. Frogs are amphibians, so they will need some water and a shaded area as well as some dry land to waddle about on. Do you have any idea what sort of frogs they are?

... Deja vu. I think this has come up before on here.

If the graviton exists, then don't we detect its presence through the effects of gravity? You seem to be asking the question "if we cannot interact with something in any way, then for all intents and purposes might we not say that it doesn't exist?", which is certainly a tricky one.

Well let me pu it this way: assume we had never developed the ability to detect... say... X-rays. That would not make them non-existent.

By not having the virtue of being the same thing.

Dunno. Space tigers did it?

I was rather under the impression that being unable to detect a particle does not necessarily preclude it from being useful in theoretical physics. Well... no. Impossible to detect is not the same as non-existent.