John Cuthber

"What is responsible for the rippling water freezing last?" Partly the fact that whatever water freezes first, stops rippling. Party it's because whatever is causing the rippling (most likely the wind) is supplying energy to the system and will slightly raise the temperature.

I don't. What are you trying to do?

What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter if you count pollen grains, sugar molecules, ions or whatever.. Once you have diluted stuff down to the point where you have (statistically) one 1 in a million chance that there's even 1 left, it doesn't matter if it was an ion or not. It's just water; exactly the same as it came out of the tap.. It's not" science" really. It's common sense. The only thing science ads is saying that you can't have half a molecule (or, half an ion).

"The solute in a homeopathic drug is not molecular because it’s been ionized" Plenty of ions are molecules "and there are tests that prove it. But, as I said, it isn't relevant. "All of the extreme controversy over whether or not the homeopathic remedy is placebo or verum, whether or not these materials are medically effective, and all of these phony money offers to “prove homeopathy”, conveniently avoid this simple, demonstrable fact" Because it's irrelevant. "a fact that separates homeopathy from fiction: the solute in highly diluted solutions used as homeopathic drugs is ionized" Many (or most) drugs are ionised. "and can be physically detected by conventional chemical analysis." No. It can't be detected in these "preparations" because it's simply not threer. They started off with not much,and then by repeated dilution, they threw it away. "Students and professors of electrochemistry should be well aware of this elementary principle of molecular dissociation, that as the solute presumably decreases and thins out, its molar conductivity increases to an asymptote and evidence of the solute persists in the solvent despite an apparent infinite number of dilutions." My word! something that's actually true- but irrelevant. "Why or how the solute persists in infinite dilution is not clear," Oh yes it is; the maths was worked out about a hundred years ago. "ut strange as it may seem to the zenophobic, it does so, no matter how dilute it is in serial dilutions." No, once you throw it away,it's just not there to have a defined degree of ionisation. It's like saying that if you have ten oranges and one of them is peeled you can say that 10% are peeled. Butiif you have no oranges, what is the ratio of peeled to unpeeled ones? Sorry, but at this point I'm bored There is practically nothing in that article that is meaningful or correct. It is all utter bollocks.

I already considered that when I first put the case that they needed to explain why it was recent or rare. I didn't realise I needed to keep repeating myself. Of course, the antiquity of the claims tends to speak against this "excuse" The context is that the discussion is on a science website. A paper is always a good thing in science. However, the point isn't the lack of a published peer reviewed paper. The problem is that there's no real evidence at all.

So you think Christ was so important that the best thing to do was not bother to document His life. I wonder if anyone else sees that as plausible. "Yes, they attacked Christ through the time of Constantine, who epitomized the mantra, "If you can't beat them, counterfeit them."" Oh come off it; the crucified run-of-the -mill thieves too. They crucified people because it's really really nasty- it doesn't kill them quickly. "Again, you misunderstand because you've not given care to the text. Christ always sought escape from the masses from the very close of his very first Sermon, masses growing numerously by the day. If any Roman soldier so much as laid a hand on him there would have been horrific riots. His arrest depended on betrayal by a close friend." Bollocks. After the arrest and trial they could have cut His head off. They crucified Him because they wanted Him to suffer. "The price God required of his Son, the penalty paid for all human sin." Someone already made the comment elsewhere about telling child services. It's still a valid point. That's not what loving Fathers do. "When a person is pierced in their side, and water and blood flow, as in Jesus' case, he is indeed dead." According to one biassed witness, who know what the significance of that claim would be. And it's not even true from a medical standpoint. "Perhaps notable, but not of much force in your argument. It should be expected that opinions would clash since local calendars were not always in sync with the Julian Calendar, nor with one another, not to mention the transitions of calendars that followed." FFS! who doesn't know if it's the Sabbath? All the shops are shut. (And there's the minor matter of getting stoned to death for not keeping it) No subsequent change in the calendar would have explained why they didn't agree at the time. Incidentally, I'm old enough to remember what life was like before the internet- and I couldn't remember what I'd had for my damned breakfast then either- so that part of your post is dross too. "It should frighten you to assume so much without shame." It's not an assumption; we have evidence- we have the books- and they don't tally- just like bad copies. "The Eden story begins the history of a fallen world, due to human pride. " No it fell because God wanted it to because He is evil. That's why He put the serpent in there (either directly or through an agent - perhaps in order to maintain what would be called "plausible denial" if He did it today.) He made sure the whole system was going to go tits up from the outset. If this "People reject Christ because they are not content with just good. They prefer good, with evil" was true then you would need to work out how that's the case. Here's a clue "in His image".

I meant you in the plural sense. It was made up by someone else- big deal, it's still imaginary. This pitiful pauper seems to have been responsible for a lot of suffering. Why would a kind and loving God not stop him You have offered nothing for me to understand.

Possibly as a result of a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone. http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Golgafrincham

More "act of clod" than "act of God". And who are you to tell science what it can and can't do? Why do you think that you get to decide what's supernatural?

As I pointed out earlier, there is a reason for taking this line. For any experiment on this "magic" that you can imagine, there's always an excuse why it doesn't work. You can't refute those excuses. When the so called "mystic" says "the spirits were tired today" there's absolutely nothing you can say to refute that excuse for the experiment's failure. But evolution happens inevitably, and continuously. If the effect is real then it should be practically universal- but it isn't. So, rather than giving the mystics carte blanc to "explain away" the failure of any experiment, I'm asking them to explain away the failure of countless natural experiments done over tens of thousands of years across the whole human race. Any effect too small to see on an experiment that big is, for all practical purposes, non-existent. It's not perfect, but it's still a strong point.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Anyone claiming that some people have this ability need to explain why not everyone has it. Also RobbityBob's earlier comment "Imagine if it happens to be you. You find you are able to do TK and TP. OK the rest of the community thinks you're nuts. How does that help you get a mate?" totally misses the point. the community only thinks you are nuts if you can't actually do it; in which case you are making a delusional claim and you are (colloquially speaking) nuts. If you actually can do it, the community probably thinks you are some sort of God; at the least, they think you are "more interesting than the next bloke"

Can we start "positive eugenics" by preventing people who believe that eugenics can be positive from breeding? Seriously, why is it that people understand that biodiversity is a good thing, but forget that exactly the same thing applies to us?

It' not credible that any mutation could make the difference you are on about. But, just for the record, your comment about "A mutation that allows for these (TK and TP) to happen could also mean that another trait has suffered in the process. One gain maybe more than offset by the other." would apply to colour vision, sexual reproduction or, indeed, just about any significant evolutionary change. Yet they still happen. Did you think it was a valid point? can I just point out that you didn't actually address my point, you went off on some irrelevant tangent about magic mushrooms. While you are about it, do you realise that even the trivial ability claimed by the OP would be helpful in getting a mate? Even if it's pretty useless, it's a clever conjuring trick. In the days before the internet,TV and even books, such a skill would be highly prized. So, why isn't it universal?

Rather than believing old books. I'm ignoring the invisible worlds that you have to make up to support the story of an all powerful God who is subordinate to Satan. It's silly, and it's not science or logic.

It' not credible that any mutation could make the difference you are on about. But, just for the record, your comment about "A mutation that allows for these (TK and TP) to happen could also mean that another trait has suffered in the process. One gain maybe more than offset by the other." would apply to colour vision, sexual reproduction or, indeed, just about any significant evolutionary change. Yet they still happen. Did you think it was a valid point?

Well, there are a number of possibilities, For a start, I can eliminate rivals for mates by telekinetically pinching their jugular veins. And, of course, I can also influence the fall of the balls in the national lottery so I would get very rich. (Or, if I wanted to be a bit subtler, I could use my telepathic ability to find out what's happening in theboard room of FTSE100 companies and make money on the stock market.) So, even without the facility to make women's pants vibrate from across the room, I think it would increase my DNA's chances. Was your question actually serious; had you just not thought it through?

Preventing what? Most insurance companies consider lightning to be an act of God...

On a related note, why do so many churches have lightning conductors?

It's not arrogant to assume that, for example, stellar physics will not suddenly change because you change your mind about something. On the other hand, to think that one's opinion will alter the universe is spectacularly arrogant. Lazy typing, I can forgive (as long as it's still clear what you mean). How do you blame lazy thinking on your 'phone?

You don't seem to understand science. "Doesn't quantum teleportation break the law of the speed of light ?" no "Anyway that's what I read." So read better things. " I want to comment something, and that is how young modern science is. It is only about 100 years old, it is practically an infant, both in comparison to the overall age of humanity, " You might want to make that comment, and you might even make it, but that doesn't make it true. It is true by tautology that new science is new. however science has been going on for a long time This guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon is widely cited as the "father of science" about 400 years ago, but there's a strong argument that the subject started hundreds or thousands of years before him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_in_early_cultures "it is practically an infant, " What infant that you know of gave you the internet and the microwave oven and antibiotics and so on? "It is very young " Only if you ignore the old bits. Even if you take the rather odd definition you chose, it's twice as old as I am, and it has the advantage of being able to amass the knowledge of many people rather than just one. "but at the same time also very arrogant and boustful" It isn't arrogance to claim to be right when you can demonstrate that you are. (and it also gave you access to spell checking software; why not use that? "sort of like a baby bully" Who does it bully? It's an abstract concept- how does it bully? "My personal belief is that in the future ..." Reality doesn't know or care what you believe.

Nope. I don't have a religion. That's not a problem. The bloke down the road has a religion. That's not a problem. The bloke down the road's religion says he should hate me for not sharing his religion. That's a problem.

OK, fair point, but at the moment nobody is making any such claim. They just say "it works some of the time" (By an odd coincidence that seems to mean it works when they are the only one watching, but fails the rest of the time). They come up with excuses like the effect won't work through glass or the "interference" from the camera stops it working or whatever. OK, any of those could be a reason why it is never actually found to work when tested scientifically. They could even claim that it's God-given and thus it obviously won't work when it's tested because the Bible says so. However, in spite of all the excuses they can invent, and then some; they still need to explain why it's not universal.

You don't have the authority to do that. If you want to call it Robbittybob motion, that's fine. But if you use an established term you need to use it correctly. So, as I said, the only reason we are still discussing Brownian motion is that you don't understand it- specifically, you think it's some thing you made up. Now we have established that you were wrong, can we drop it? On the subject of evolution, both telepathy and telekinesis would be such useful traits that, if anyone had ever possessed them, it would have been strongly selected for. By now, many generations after the subject was first discussed, those without it would be either a sub-class of slaves, or extinct. Anyone who claims that these things exist has to show why they recently arose or why they are not universal.

But it is not harmonious; it is full of imperfections. So, by your argument there is no God. (And I know I'm not good at using it either, but can you please sort out how to use the quote function. In that last post you attributed this "Actually it's a principle of Providence." to ajb) In any event, you have completely failed to say anything to do with science, you have just preached (badly, in my opinion). Please stop.

Any competent devoted follower would have kept a diary at the time. transcribing it ant tidying it up for publication could be done in a few weeks. Rome did know how to crucify, and they also knew why they did it. If they just wanted someone dead they could take his head off with a sword. But the point of crucifixion is not to offer a quick death but as long, drawn-out, and painful one as could easily be achieved. So, since the point of some of the details of crucifixion was to keep the unfortunate victim alive so they could suffer, it's entirely plausible that sometimes they managed to keep him alive for a few days. If they then mistakenly thought the unconscious man was dead they would cut him down and entomb him. Hence an apparent resurrection. It's notable that, even though this resurrection was the only thing that set the biblical Jesus apart from many other wannabee prophets at the time, there seems to be considerable disagreement of what day it happened. You would think they got that important detail right but no, not even that. They are not a very good record; certainly not fit to be used as proof of anything.