Sayonara

The cure is simple: 1) Member posts incontrovertible proof, 2) Some degree of co-ordination occurs, 3) Thread closes, 3a) Subsequent threads redirected to closed original with helpful "look here, smiley" message, then closed themselves, 4) Souls saved - PROFIT!

I don't feel that my first and third posts made significantly different requests. Although to be fair I could have said "a visible point", rather than just "a point". It depends what you mean by "governing dynamics"? If you mean evolution, then since evolutionary processes per se can be held independent of the actual mechanisms by which they occur, we should accept that the mathematical basis of evolution - at the very least - CAN have a universal presence. This assumes of course that all living systems will work around a principle that we would call "the path of least resistance", and have some form of energetic economics, as Terran life does. However if you refer to the ecological processes and population events that "manage" populations and help to drive the evolutionary adaptations themselves, then it gets a bit more complex. There is another thread running parallel to this one which might (eventually) be worth keeping an eye on: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=26208

If discussion is your goal, then again I strongly advise that you rephrase the original post so that members will actually know what the topic of your thread is. On a more general note, I also strongly advise against antagonising administrators. In fact, I strongly advise against antagonising any member of staff.

I don't feel compelled to play games with you.

If you are going to post as "Carl Sagan", please do him the honour of posting threads that both have a point and encourage accessible discussion.

It's up and down like a yo-yo over here. From the Home Office: ...which is the latest data that is easily available. It doesn't help that while the number of serious offences (like murder, robberies) involving a firearm are dropping, the number of types of crime recorded as a firearms offence has gone up, which clouds the issue. Our gun crime really is peanuts in the UK though, compared to other countries. To make the statement "gun control does not prevent gun crime" just because gun crime has gone up since gun control was introduced, you have to factor in everything from population expansion to crime recording, otherwise you are basically just correlating. Everyone, etc. We already had a thread that dealt with this issue exhaustively. It was long, boring, and violent. It was closed when we all got sick of it. Let's not duplicate it here.

This is kinda interesting: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6567709.stm Conceivably a powerful enough field would be able to deflect particles before the craft collided with them (rather than just "slowing" the exposure, as with the system described in the article). What would be super handy is if you could produce this field as a cheap by-product of your drive system.

Can I point out that the O/P did not ask what animals are "more intelligent than humans". Also I don't think it is at all helpful to call his question "semantic and pointless", unless you are going to propose an alternative form. The O/P is clearly looking for examples of the most remarked-upon intelligent behaviour in the animal kingdom, and he has given several criteria by which this might be measured. I am sure he is not naive enough to expect a single animal that fulfils them all. Since this is a thread in a "proper science" forum, could we please stick to answering the O/P.

Try searching for the paper and reading the abstract.

YT wasn't joking by the way. He WILL get you.

Aren't virtual trees virtually carbon neutral?

It's because the Terrorists Are Coming.

Check what number system your calculator is using.

None.

When you see Leonard Kleinrock getting the lion's share of the airtime, and Vint Cerf's thoughts on the matter reduced to a sound-bite that obviously originally had a "but..." on the end of it, it is difficult to not immediately think "agenda pushing". I don't believe there is likely to be a new form of internet architecture that allows both freedom of information exchange, but also heightened security and stability. Defences against spammers and hackers should stay on nodes at the lowest level, where they belong, and not become part of the infrastructure (if that is even achievable, which I think is a bit far-fetched seeing as software intervention can't keep up). Infrastructure-based security would be an international regulatory nightmare, and it would open up data to government and corporation snooping, misuse, and even extortion. To me, this whole thing smacks of "we didn't realise how much freedom we would be handing to the people who aren't in charge". I bet Pandora would have liked a rethink as well.

No. But then, who is going to devote staff, time, and computer resources to changing their members' information because a third party "asked" them to?

Well, this thread has developed a bit since I last checked in. I think it is important to understand two things about the arguments I have been making: Firstly, the question of whether or not Mars could ever be free of all dependencies on Earth will have massive ramifications for any colonies, bases, or (optimistically) nations that arise there. Secondly, while the discussion has so far leaned towards the technological arguments, self-sufficiency of a Martian population would be contingent on a very particular set of circumstances which are unlikely to coincide. Don't forget that we are not just talking about it being feasible, we are talking about it being workable. There are all sorts of factors which have not been considered. People and groups on Mars will have familial, political, religious, financial, and social links to Earth, to name just a few.

Actually, the Philosophy of Science section - like so many subforums - was closed due to lack of use, so perhaps the need you describe is simply not something people on this site actually have. I don't see how you can start out at "the religion forum was taken off the science site" and get to "science has been limited to boring facts". Which is fine, but the fact remains - this thread is somewhat off-topic. I don't particularly disagree with much of what you said in your unnecessarily extensive post. In fact I am all for much of it (except the bits I commented on, obviously). BUT... you have been here long enough to know that: a) if you are diverting a thread into a new discussion that has both merit and interest, the polite thing to do is start a new thread, and b) if you have concerns about changes to the site, there is usually at least one thread devoted to discussing those changes, not to mention an entire "suggestions and comments" forum. I don't intend to have a protracted argument about this.

It's this bit that makes me wonder about their methods: The only way they can do this lawfully is with the child's co-operation (and hence login details), unless they acquire access details by filing an SAR, which they have no legal right to do. In the case where they are attempting to change content that was not written by the child of the client, they are so far off the map in terms of rights of access it is just funny. I am guessing that "proprietary techniques" means typing in a very particular way, or something. Perhaps while hopping and balancing a pretzel on their nose.

This is not the case. All the technical literature for Star Trek (except for the DS9 technical manual, which is an odd aberration) state that the replicators draw power from the warp core (or station/facility reactor) and convert it into matter. The transportation process has never been described by a canon source in enough detail to establish exactly what happens during teleportation. Conservation is irrelevant if you are converting equivalent mass and energy. DS9, for some reason, has an unusually high incidence of throw-away explanations that flatly contradict previous episodes and create new problems for subsequent episodes. The DS9 technical manual is widely known for being completely wacky and disregarding half the known Trek universe (including making basic factual errors about things in Deep Space Nine, such as the size of the Defiant).

Should have "it" finished this weekend so expect bloggage (And by competing resource, I don't mean competing with Wikipedia as a product, I just mean that I am providing better info than them about a certain subject, so don't get too excited!)

The creationist claim that evolutionary processes introduce new information from nowhere is simply false. Evolutionary theory proposes that novel combinations of existing information arise through selective mechanisms, and the claim is well-evidenced.

I think you have somewhat missed the points. Full marks for optimism though.

Fair enough. I don't suppose the chimp factor is relevant anyway I have not forgotten. I think the difference between us is that my appreciation of the Martian requirements has a much broader scope than yours. Or at least, enough of a difference in scope for us to draw very different conclusions. I have already named several products and materials. I am sure I could name more, but since no list I produce will be exhaustive, what is the point? Also, there is little point in me adding more examples until all the ones I have provided have been adequately refuted. Clearly the limiting factors will vary by example. It is not feasible to send every kind of available fabrication technology to Mars with the colonists, and by implication they cannot build every kind of fabrication technology as the need arises. The remaining option is a supply of new technologies from Earth. What would that achieve? Any example I give you that you do manage to refute can be replaced with a dozen more. Okay, fine: let's go with saltpeter. That's going to be very handy for an emergent colony, and has various applications which could make it useful to a terraforming project. Not to mention fuel and propulsion. Except in powering your advanced Martians' nuclear fusion device, and any other technologies one cares to imagine. You can't just toss aside examples because they are difficult to get around. No, Earth is not dependent on other planets. But Earth and Mars are not alike, and it is my belief that they never will be. Even allowing endless resources and technologies, the conditions on Mars are not conducive to producing Earth-like societies. A Martian population will invest much of its man hours in maintaining a hospitable environment, even after terraforming. Unless Earth stops producing new information, that cannot happen. Conceivably this scenario could occur, but it will always go hand-in-hand with import requests. You also have to consider the economics of the situation - just because Mars can theoretically achieve something, it does not mean that the government will allow the investment. Earth already suffers from this developmental blockage, and we are a developed world (relatively speaking, of course). I am not sure that point can be reached, however I will go with it for the sake of argument. What you are proposing here is isolationism rather than independence, which is a lot harder to maintain. You will have a planetary rebellion on your hands if you sever all familial, social, and business ties between Mars and Earth. Basically, you are proposing North Korea. Yes, they survive, but they are stagnant, and their survival is delicately precipitated upon the government cheekily purchasing technology and information on the black market and smuggling it under their own embargo. If you believe half of what comes out of North Korea you really have to wonder if "survival" is the appropriate term. I feel that in asking whether or not Mars will survive, you are moving the goalposts somewhat to make my job harder. When I proposed that a Martian civilisation would not risk declaring political independence on the basis of their resource requirements, I was referring to a decision that would protect the Martian ability to thrive and develop. If they are simply to "survive" then the arguments will have to change. It would also help if the population dynamics qualifying for survival were stated. Does Mars not expect to grow? If they do, what are the tolerances for adaptation? No, it doesn't. But it does mean avoidable mortality in a population where individuals have a vastly higher value to society than they do on Earth. Also, (i) cancer is not the only human affliction, and (ii) Mars is unlikely to generate as many new cures and treatments as Earth, nor produce them within comparative time-scales. As I stated earlier, this comparison is fairly meaningless, seeing as Mars has the resource deficit and Earth has the resource surplus. I remind you that by "resource" I mean all commodities, including intelligence. But there is this massive gap still. You seem to be proposing this: MARS PLAN: 1) Colonise Mars 2) Mysterious happenings 3) Advanced technology now achieved! 4) Do what we like It's that step (2) that bothers me. If you can't even produce thermoplastics as and when you need them, then you are unlikely to be able to build machines that can -- to use your own example -- reorganise matter. See the 'moving the goalposts' bit. Survival of a terraformed Mars without Earth's assistance is possible, but you would be looking at major mortality from any number of factors, not the least of which would be civil unrest. I would hardly call this a good result, and it is a far cry from a thriving and developing planet that stands on its own two feet. Survival of a pre-terraformed Mars without Earth's assistance is highly improbable. But also, Mars does not have to "die" to be a failed project. We do not face the challenges that anyone might reasonably expect the Martians to face. And need I point out, all of your arguments concerning an advanced Martian society hinge on the assumption that the society will survive and develop for that long, which is by no means certain. Yes, it is possible. It's also possible that the original Martians left a powered matter re-organiser behind on the planet before they left, which will be handy because the human colony sure as hell won't survive long enough to design and build one. On the other hand, it is also possible that they will learn to eat rocks and drink dust, which will get rid of many many problems. I think "fiction" is the key term here. You have hit the nail on the head. The problem with extrapolation is precisely that it leads you to things that aren't there. Don't rely on an imaginary developmental path unless you have adequate evidence to support it. While it is true that many useful advances have their roots in science fiction, it does not follow that any fictional piece of technology is a candidate for a working, real-world counterpart. For one thing, it might rely on processes that defy the laws of physics. Other concerns are that it might not be economically viable (a major concern for a limited province like Mars), it could require more energy than is available, or it might simply -- gasp -- require resources or manufacturing techniques that are just not there. I should not have to extract anything, but then if it was the same point that you have explained above it doesn't really matter now. I don't really see how leaving the science out can possibly help any of us Clearly the Martians are going to have a unique and diverse set of challenges, at least we can agree on that! And as I explained above, only if Earth stops all innovation. Earth is hardly likely to rush every single one of the latest inventions over to Mars when they can keep the colony dependent by slow-bleeding technology to them. Mars is always going to be two steps behind, unless they devote a massive amount of man hours to the parallel pursuit of all academic fields with more fervour than the equivalent man hour allotment on Earth. Which really, really, really won't ever happen. Ridding yourself of a minor dependence is simply not worth planetary disruption. I am not trying to be pedantic or anything, but isn't having "high confidence" the same as being sure?

Gateways can, generally speaking, be really really crappy. They don't do anything taxing.