John Cuthber

You have two competing "stressors". The "whatever" that you plan to use (I'm guessing maybe temperature or nutrient deficiency or the presence of something toxic) and The radiation. If the radiation dose is low enough that it isn't a serious stressor then it's not doing much- so it's not producing much mutation. If, on the other hand, it's causing serious rates of mutation, then it's likely to kill everything if it's given a long time. The easiest way I can see to get round that is to expose them to a brief period of radiation. However the sort of radiation source that will bring about significant rates of mutations in a short period of time isn't suitable for a home-experiment. At the least, you need to stop and consider exactly what you are trying to achieve here, and how you might go about it. For the sake of discussion, let's go with the idea of yeast as a test species. I like the idea of cyanobacteria but I don't like this aspect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria#Health_risks Some nice well behaved brewing yeast would seem a better bet. (Plants would be fine, but to study evolution you need to look at many generations. For yeast each generation takes about an hour; for plants it's typically a year.

I have had another look through the thread and I think that we may have been at crossed purposes. I think I was probably thrown by this line " Especially when CO2 is absorbed and reflected within microns of the ocean surface and solar penetrates hundreds of meters." What do you mean? Very little penetrates hundreds of metres into the ocean. CO2 isn't really reflected from it. I'm also not sure what you are asking here "In this, there is a 40 year lag claimed and accepted by those of Skeptical Science. However, it is the CO2 effect. Not solar. I will ask, why is this lag OK for CO2, but not solar? " If the sun went out the air would cool, the seas would cool and the ground would cool- but not all at the same rate. The air would cool quickest- simply because it's not very massive and has a relatively small heat capacity- on the other hand, the sea and land would tend to keep the air warm. For the air, and the ground's surface we can tell by everyday observation (it's colder at night) that the cooling must be significant over the course of 12 hours or so. On the other hand, it's widely cited that caves' temperatures are nearly constant all year round.The use of wine cellars etc supports this. So the bits of the planet that we look at on a day to day basis, the top soil and the air can heat and cool quite a lot over the course of a day. I'm told that it gets noticeably chilly during a solar eclipse- that's a time scale of a few minutes The deep soil and the deep oceans change much more slowly. But those rates of change are dependent on power transfer and on heat capacity, not the route by which the heat arrives. Now, I could calculate the rate at which the Earth's surface would cool down if the sun stopped shining. It's a nasty calculation and I'd rather not bother- especially since someone famously did it for me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth#Early_calculations Rutherford ignored radioactive decay- which is good from my point of view, because it's not what we are looking at. He assumed the earth cooled from molten rock (he took a generous upper bound of about 5000C if my memory serves me rightly) And he calculated that it would have cooled to today's temperature - about 20C over the course of something like 100 million years So, it cooled from something like 5300 K to 300 K thereby losing about 95% of its heat. So, the time scale for cooling of the Earth by 90% must be something of the order of 100 million years. But we are not generally worried about how long the deep core of the Earth takes to heat and cool. We worry about the surface. And, as I say, the lag in Winter weather compared to the Solstice indicates a lime period for that effect that's a few months. You can essentially cherry pick any time scale between a few minutes and 100 million years depending on how much of the planet you are warming up. Just dig a deep enough hole, and put the thermometer at the bottom of it, then backfill. How can this arbitrary choice of averaging period make a difference to whether or not the extra blanket makes the Earth hotter?

There is,of course, an alternative hypothesis (rather than the idea that people get banned for being "anyone who threatens the consensus". People get banned for failing to provide evidence for their claims. Does anyone have any evidence of someone who got banned for that where the allegation was not reasonably well supported by evidence? And, BTW, Wild Cobra, You are in exactly that boat- you made a claim. It's far from being self-evident. If you don't support it, or retract it then you are likely to get banned for that failure. Are you going to make some absurd claim that you were "hounded" into saying it? Or are you going at admit that it's simply not true, or are you going to risk getting banned? (Incidentally, I'm not a mod; it won't be my decision, but it may well be yours)

The sad truth is that we know the answer to the question "Could modern humans like you and me survive without our intelligence?" Ask anyone who is caring for someone with a degenerative disease like Alzheimer's how well they would get on without a lot of help. You can play games with the definition of "intelligence"but the outcome is pretty much the same; without it we'd be dead in a day or two from dehydration. Of course, the same is true for practically any animal.

Wild Cobra, At the start of this thread I quoted you as saying " it appears to me that the moderators are quick to suspend or ban anyone who threatens the consensus." and I asked you to provide evidence. You didn't So, once again, Before you go any further, perhaps you would like to cite some evidence for that claim.

Man.

You seem to have missed something. It's not your opinion that mattered, it was the opinion of the mods who suspended you that is relevant. They held (and stated *) the opinion that you were not following the rules. There was no difficulty finding evidence of that (and the substance of this thread is evidence of you doing it again). Are you saying that they don't know what they suspended you for, or that they lied about it? It's also worth noting that nobody would get suspended or barred for a single "offence". *Specifically "continued soap boxing and refusal to listen to staff"

Why do you think this? Are you aware that the data shows that the sea temperature varies with the seasons -i.e. on a much shorter time-scale than 50 years. http://www.seatemperature.org/europe/united-kingdom/aberdeen.htm http://www.seatemperature.org/europe/united-kingdom/penzance-february.htm The fact that the peak temperatures ( July August) are slightly later than the peak sunshine (June) tells you that the delay between the sun's effect and the temperature change is about a month or two. How did you come to the conclusion that two months is the same as fifty years?

That's a more interesting question. Even if it's lousy as an explanation, does the fact that it's eye catching mean that people are more likely to read the article? If more people read it, does that mean it's doing a better job?

As far as I am aware, nobody has been banned for threatening the consensus. Before you go any further, perhaps you would like to cite some evidence for that claim.

I'm less concerned about the tacit insult than I am about the lack of science. The evidence that the drawings were actually produced by chemists is equivocal at best, and was non existent when the thread started.

Commander, Deleting your entire post when someone points out the problems in it look as if you are being dishonest. Anyway, what I said was not that your statement about you belief was false. What I said was that what you believe is plainly wrong. I don't doubt that you believe that "the main reason why MAN needs Religion is ..." But, just because you think it is true, doesn't not stop it being plainly false. It is plainly not true that man needs religion for any reason. Because man does not need religion. because plenty of us get by without it. Do you understand that? It's like saying "I believe mankind needs internet access so they can watch music videos". It's obvious that the belief is wrong. Mankind doesn't need internet access- lots of people who do not have access to the web are doing fine, and a hundred years ago, nobody had access to it. And, incidentally you said "Why do I get into more arguments and difference of Opinions when...?" Which is asking a question. So this bit simply isn't true "All I have tried to say in this thread is that I find my behavior and resultant reaction by others is different if I am in a Faithful mode or in a Scientific Mode / Mood. It is a statement I HAVE MADE ABOUT MYSELF and therefore it is always true and there is no debate about its veracity." It was not a statement but a request for an explanation. When that explanation was given, you ignored it, and talked about something else. then, when i pointed out that you were wrong and that your post was irrelevant, you pretended you never said it by deleting it. After that, you came back and said things that just are not true. Are you surprised that you get arguments?

That sounds reasonable. Sound follows an inverse square law and phonons have zero mass. Also I think that a finite mass implies a finite range so the particles would,in some way, "die out" at large ranges. The inverse square law makes sense for particles that just carry on, getting more and more spread out as the sphere they are reaching gets bigger. However the force between two dipoles- say two small magnets, doesn't follow the 1/r^2 law,even though the force carriers are photons.

And, once again, you are ignoring the evidence. You say "And then recount all the great miracles God has done in your own life saving your self and children etc from grave danger etc." Well, if there is any truth in that then it is equally true that God put me in that danger in the first place. Why do you thank God for giving you a faulty heart in the first place? Why don't you understand that you survived, not through the grace of God, but because of the scientific competence of human doctors? . More importantly it has nothing to do with the point I raised. You stated a belief that isn't true and seemed surprised when people argued. You keep starting arguments by saying things that are not true. Don't you understand that? Also, if you ignore the points people raise then you will start other arguments about your misbehaviour.

It is also only true for a point source. An infinitely long glowing wire gives an inverse first power law and an infinitely large flat luminous sheet gives an inverse zeroth power (it's just as bright if you are near it as if you are far away).

Yes, but it won't be a plasma any more. If you cool the mercury plasma down it will condense then freeze. If you keep cooling the solid mercury it will become a superconductor.

You seem to have missed the point I do care about. Imagine that I posted up some pictures and said "I think (though I haven't actually checked) that these pictures were drawn by [ insert persecuted minority of your choice]. Why are [persecuted minority of your choice] so bad at drawing?" Would you see a problem with that? If someone pointed out that you hadn't even checked that the artists were from that group and that you hadn't actually shown the at was, in any objective sense, bad, would you berate them for doing so?

"Why do I get into more arguments and difference of Opinions when I am less Faithful in Religion and more bent towards Scientific Truth !" Because you voice opinions that are clearly wrong. For example, you say "I believe the main reason why MAN needs Religion is to gain that composure in practical life if not anything else" When it is clearly not true. Many people on this site are calm and composed without religion. Do you understand why you would get into a lot of arguments if you posted things like "I think all fish can fly" or "I believe cars would work better if they had square wheels"? Saying things like that , which are obviously wrong, is going to start an argument. It's just the same when you say "I believe the main reason why MAN needs Religion..." Man does not need religion. Plenty of us get by without it. And, as has been pointed out before, it kills lots of people.

As far as I can tell this whole thread is baseless. The pictures in science journals are not generally drawn by scientists. So the question should be "Why do these pictures which were almost certainly drawn by commercial artists not appeal to Hypervalent iodine very much?" and, to be honest, my answer is "who cares?"

Why have you asked the same question three times? Also, how would ozone come into contact with an embryo?

Here's a nice example. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/80536-mercury-element-cube/?p=852313

I'm not sure that any material is actually hydrophobic. The reason that water runs of greasy surfaces is not that it is repelled by the grease but because it's more attracted to the water. It's actually attracted to the grease too, but much less so.

There's some data here for heats of vaporisation of a few solvents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy_of_vaporization Ethanol isn't there, but methanol and water are. The heat needed is larger at lower temperatures.

What do you mean by "op temp"?

Now that is an interesting point. There is some evidence that all people- even young babies recognise a smile. And It's probably an instinct even older than our interest in the moon. So, perhaps all the images you have shown as pictures of the moon are actually similes.