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The wording you use suggests that you believe there is a reason or goal of diversity. There is not. Diversity is simply something that naturally occurs due to the way the universe works. You may as well ask the tactic behind rain falling to the earth instead of to the sky. It falls simply because that is the nature of the universe. (other than the fact there is no 'tactic') That is exactly right. The anteater is part of the ant's environment. An ant that happens be less visible to the anteater is more likely to survive and reproduce, thus passing on its reduced visibility to its offspring. And once that reduced visibility ant exists in sufficient numbers, the anteater that happens to have senses that allow it to find the less visible ant will be more likely to survive and reproduce, thus passing on its better senses to its offspring. And on and on... It does not matter how stable the environment is, there will always be conditions that allow one being a better chance at survival than another. Correct. There is no real purpose or point. But it happens nonetheless.

As chadn737 said, mutation and natural selection. No. There is no 'seeking' and there is no 'perfection'. There is diversity because a tree that thrives in a swamp is unlikely to thrive in the desert.

I remember learning that one in school. I showed it to my kids a couple of months ago. It's pretty cool.

Most of the 'shooting stars' on earth occur in the mesosphere, which runs from about 30 - 60 miles above the surface of the earth. Therefore I would expect that small incoming meteors would burn up in Mars' atmosphere just as they would in Earth's atmosphere, only much closer to the surface of Mars.

My understanding is that lying flat on the ground is a bad idea, as a close strike on the ground will more easily be conducted through the wet earth into your body. Better to squat (and sob quietly).

Please define what you mean by 'how fast is the universe moving'. Until you do that you will not get an answer that satisfies you.

Can you define what you mean by 'how fast the universe is moving'? Are you talking about individual components of the universe? If so, which components and moving relative to what? Are you talking about the universe as a whole? If so, I don't believe there is anything the universe can be moving 'relative to', and so don't know how you could measure its velocity.

Yes, I think this is a major cause of the problem. People put too much emphasis on 'position'. If a car in front of them drives slightly slower and they get to their destination five seconds later because of it, no one give it a second thought. But if a car gets in front of them that they felt should have been behind them, and it causes them to get to their destination the same five seconds later, they take it personally.

I find it amusing how many people decide that the merge set up by the highway department (clearly identified by the 'merge' sign) is not appropriate, but that the merge envisioned and enforced by these individuals (unknown to others and varied by the person who is enforcing these rules) is the appropriate merge. It is probably unethical of me, but I admit to occasionally taking great pleasure in getting in front of these people and enforcing what I have decided is the appropriate speed limit.

The shoot apical meristem in trees is generally considered 'immortal'. This is the portion of the plant at the end of stems, which controls longitudinal growth. The plant as a whole is not immortal, and therefore the apical meristem dies when something critical happens, such as the tree falling over. But as you said it is theoretically possible to take cuttings indefinitely from the shoots without deterioration of cells.

From what I've been able to find, there is no on/off switch for the transponder, but the electronics system is accessible from the cockpit. If you know what you are doing, you can pull the fuse to shut off the transponder. I also read that the acars system is available by subscription through Boeing and that the subscription may not have been active. If the subscription is not active, the system continues to ping satellites.

That is not what I was trying to say. I was attempting to make the point that groups are made up of individuals, having individual characteristics, thus making it difficult to 'know' what someone is like based simply on their affiliation. It is not difficult to identify group members, but to suggest that "all" members of the group share certain negative characteristics is risky, and is typically bigoted. It is true that Catholics are an existing religious group. It is not true that all Catholics fail to think for themselves and make their decisions with the absence of logic. It doesn't matter if you choose to be part of the group or not. Making assumptions about people based on group affiliation is risky. Not even going to touch that one...

It's a shame you quit reading my post when you did, as the very next sentence explained what I meant by that. My entire quote was "I tend to believe that atheists have biases in exactly the same way religious people do. That is, they develop a belief system over time, and that belief system colors their view of the world. People cannot help but to be influenced by what they believe." People are more than simply their belief or lack of belief in a deity. Why? Because it interferes with your ability to pigeon-hole people into neat little categories? Sorry. Such is life. Not everything is as neat and clean as we'd like it to be. Categories are made by humans to help make sense of the world. They are generally nice guidelines but very often the reality doesn't quite fit. Insulting in that you have taken a category and assigned negative attributes to that entire group ("...they all conform to a belief system based on absolutes, as opposed to individually formed rationales...). This is no different than suggesting that the Irish are drunks, the Poles are dumb, and the blacks are lazy. (As a side note, had you made generalizations about those groups, you would probably have been warned about a rules violation. Not that I think anyone is being malicious, but I do think it points out that biases against the religious go beyond just your comments.) Close, but not quite. According to me, the group does not exist with the attributes you are assigning to it. Sorry, didn't mean to drag you into a redundant and pointless discussion. I'll drop off.

I never said it stemmed from atheism, so my argument is intact. Here are your biases coming into play again. That statement is simply not true. First of all, they do not 'all conform to a belief system'. Five minutes of conversation with a couple of Catholics will tell you that. Second, your statement that a person who is religious cannot/does not base their decision on 'individually formed rationales' is not only wrong, but terribly insulting. The simple fact that people change their view of religion over time, or have doubts, or disagree on whether or not the bible is the literal word of God, should be proof enough. The religious DO NOT put themselves in a group of people who believe based on 'blind and sheer belief, based on nothing other than their gut...opposed to individually formed rationales".

I tend to believe that atheists have biases in exactly the same way religious people do. That is, they develop a belief system over time, and that belief system colors their view of the world. People cannot help but to be influenced by what they believe. For example, you believe that atheist beliefs vary greatly from one atheist to the next (I agree). Yet your biases tell you that just because people share religion that their beliefs do not vary greatly from one to the other (couldn't disagree more) and that they conform to that belief system blindly (I have yet to meet two Catholics who agree on all aspects of Catholicism). You'd do well to stop referring to 'the religious' as some sort of collective group. They vary by particular belief system, as well as by individuals within the belief system. 'Religious' includes many types of people, including those who have no more in common than belief in a deity.

I don't want to speak for anyone, but possibly because it sounded a lot like you were ranting.

Sorry I wasn't more clear on my intention. Yes, it is my position that religion has some imperative to dictate what people should think. Religion tells us what to think about life, death, sex, eating, drinking, worship, fear, science, and nearly all aspects of our lives. Punishment for not believing runs the gamut from verbal harassment to death in this life, or suffering to eternal damnation in the next.

Religion

"Nobody has ever seen a situation from the past…" I think you could argue that EVERYTHING we see is from the past, as we don't see it until sometime after the event occurred. The further away the event occurs, the further in the past it is by the time we see it. To use a simple example, observing a supernova is observing an event that happened possibly millions of years ago.

No Freudian slip. That is what I meant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Missouri_School_of_Medicine

At a local medical school the students in large part teach themselves. A group of about a dozen students and one instructor meet daily. The students are given a medical case and told they must diagnose and suggest a treatment. The students take turns researching symptoms, tests, treatments, etc. and present them to fellow students. As the days go on the students get to request specific tests be performed and they are presented with the test results. The role of the instructor is (among other things) to ensure what they are being told is accurate, and to ensure the students are not wasting their time working too far toward a dead end. This has proven to be a very effective method for them. The students not only feel the need to do well for their own sake, but the expectations of the group as a whole drives them to perform well, as the other students are dependent on your research and understanding of the topic you are assigned to investigate. The success of this method is shown by the high success rate when the students take their licensing exams.

'I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.' --- Yogi Berra

So using the example of a prism, it appears as if light enters one side of the prism, is absorbed/emitted many times, and exits the other side of the prism. When a photon is emitted, is it essentially emitted traveling in the same direction as the photon that was previously absorbed? Or is it emitted in some random direction, and what I interpret as light entering one side of the prism and exiting the other, is in reality simply some of the photons making it all the way through, while others head off in other directions?

A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn Seems to be the version of United States history that is not taught to grade school children since it doesn't cast us in the best light.

Remember that whether something is alive or dead, a plant or animal, a planet or planetoid, these are simply categories invented by humans to organize our thoughts. Not everything we find in nature falls neatly into one of the categories we have created. 'Killing a virus' does not necessarily imply the virus was 'alive'. I can also kill an idea or kill someone's career. http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/yellowstone/viruslive.html