John Cuthber

No, what I said at the outset was that my guess was that it wouldn't work. I explained that guess. Perhaps, rather than making inapt snide comments, you might like to explain how the observed rules of physics are evaded in this case? Poking the bear might be OK. Preaching isn't.

You seem to ignore the rather obvious fact that water is not split up by visible light, which has a rather shorter wavelength.

"Two vaccines for Ebola have been fast-tracked by WHO. Which one seems more effective? " If there was a clear answer to that only one of them would be being fast tracked.

Well, for a start, water is pretty transparent to UV more so than air at some wavelengths.. There's still a problem. if you boil the water to steam you heat the air. If you heat the air, you reduce it's refractive index. If you do that, you are trying to get a laser beam to pass undiverted through what amounts to a negative lens. This sort of thing happens http://www.rp-photonics.com/thermal_lensing.html There's also the problem of dust etc which might absorb some of the light and - at those power levels- promote ionisation of the air. ionised air is rather a good absorber. So, as I said, I don't see how this is possible.

Not real. Straight propaganda or, at least, "enhanced"

Well, you are entitled to an opinion. Do you have any evidence to go with it, or are you preaching?

Why are you leaping to those conclusions? Why, for example, should there be passport + border controls there any more than there are between plenty of neighbouring countries? Why do you think it will damage 300 years of progress? Do you imagine that, for some reason, one side or the other of the border will suddenly forget what has been learned over those years? Scotland is already another country. Nobody has yet decided what form the separation will take. Blaming the EU makes little, if any, sense. Better to blame the Tories. Either blame them for decisive policies which alienated many Scots, or simply blame them for agreeing to the referendum.

Plenty of them will have done it for what they considered was a rational reason. They were told by the government that vaccination was safe. They were told by the newspapers that it was not. Around that time- call it 2001, the government was declaring war on Afghanistan because of an attack by Saudi citizens on America. Not trusting the government was a reasonable option If you didn't have the scientific background to root out the truth yourself, it was perfectly plausible to believe the papers and think that vaccination was "evil".

My guess is that it's not real.

Sadly, they shouldn't be hard to find http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/measles-cases-surge-u-s-fueled-unvaccinated-travelers-n88196 http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jun/11/mumps-cases-rising-england-wales

If it doesn't seem that way to 50+% of the voters then they will change it. So, you are not predicting any change? Since we presently let the banks create our money (and, as you say, devalue real work) It's entirely possible that the Scots might come up with a better idea. Introducing a new currency has been done before http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsmark and it has happened in Scotland too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_Day It's messy, but perfectly possible.

It is far from clear that Scotland would be part of the EU. But, whatever we think about it, the decision lies with Scotland. At least the current UK let them vote on it, and it seems most of them favour leaving.

You need to point out what a post hoc fallacy is. Just because some babies fell ill after vaccination, that doesn't mean the vaccine is the cause. Also, point out that the information that she relying on comes from the same discredited sources that told her the nonsense about autism. The sanitation "explanation" doesn't work. Smallpox is wiped out throughout the world- even the bits with truly appalling sanitation problems. Diseases don't just "die out" we know that some f them have been with us since the stone age. Re "So her argument is that why take the risk of our child getting an adverse reaction or pump poison into, when they could most likely survive the virus anyways." That would be a valid point, but it's the wrong way round. Why take the risk of being killed or maimed by the virus when you will most likely survive the vaccination anyway? The odds work out in favour of vaccination- by a long way.

To whom does it seem to work?

On what basis do you rule out the idea that the people of Scotland might also benefit? I accept there would be major upheaval but that will settle down. It reminds me of the reunification of Germany- people said that would be impossible. It worked.

I don't know how to break this to you gently, but, since money is entirely imaginary, it really doesn't matter what you use. They can just stick the word "Scottish" in front of every reference to "pound" in any relevant bank account.

Ask her for her explanation of the fact that the vaccines were in wide use for decades before there was a rise in the reports of autism.

It's clear that we don't discourage new members of the forum, because we get new members and they stay. It's also clear that we discuss new things- for example- the rottenness of the forum which was previously not even defined. The forum is governed by a set of rules.

"Regarding your suggestion that "reality doesn't care what anyone believes" - isn't that a little bit at odds with QT - observer-generated wave-function collapse, and stuff? " No, The outcome of, for example, Schroedinger's cat experiment does not depend on whether or not I like cats. So that was a dumb comment. And there'e also the glitch in your "logic" that I believe in global warming "because I wan't to". Of course I don't- it's a very bad thing. I don't want to believe in it, yet I do. That is, obviously, the opposite of wishful thinking. So that was a dumb comment. Yet you posted them as if you thought they were some sort of rebuttal of my points. As you say "When you're dumb, you're too dumb to realise that you're dumb".

Indeed. Many people in Scotland are understandably annoyed at what they see as "A bunch of Westminster politicians telling them what to do" David Cameron's response is to send a bunch of politicians (of all parties) from Westminster to tell the Scots what to do. Some people say he's out of touch.

back on planet Earth, here's what I actually linked to "In addition to being a cognitive bias and a poor way of making decisions, wishful thinking is commonly held to be a specific informal fallacy in an argument when it is assumed that because we wish something to be true or false, it is actually true or false. This fallacy has the form "I wish that P is true/false, therefore P is true/false." Wishful thinking, if this were true, would rely upon appeals to emotion, and would also be a red herring." Of course, it's possible that you can't distinguish that from "Just management-speak, with added scientific words to jazz it up." What do you make of this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect However when you sum it up as "If you want to believe in it, you will. And if you don't want to, you won't. " you overlook the fact that the evidence is on one side, and that believing that side is reasonable, but believing the other side is wishful thinking. In effect, you ignore the fact that reality doesn't care what anyone believes.

Since all 3 major parties are hoping for a "No" vote, they all look equally bad if the Scots vote "Yes". Cameron will survive that with no problem. What happens at the next election will de interesting, and depend largely on how the economy is doing at the time. That, in turn will depend on, among other things, the outcome of the Scottish decision. But if Scottish voters (many of whom are Left wing) are not involved in the next Westminster election it will make Cameron's job easier.

Is the sky falling too? All the referendum does is say they have to do something to split the to groups. It doesn't say what they split and what they choose to continue to share. The outcome might not be very different from the status quo (though I think it will be pretty different). Stock markets fall + rise like the fashion in skirts. If they didn't drop from time to time, they couldn't rebound and give investors a chance to make lots of money. Perhaps I will buy some shares while they are cheap.

That's just weird. It's states that declare war, not groups of misfits. However, by the same "logic" the US declares war on itself by executing US citizens on a regular basis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States

Who needs evidence when you can have proof by wishful thinking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking#As_a_fallacy