John Cuthber

Yes. People have understood the importance of crop rotation for about 6000 years. By whom? For example, here's the evidence of people explicitly planning to suppress resistance among weeds. http://archive.agric.wa.gov.au/objtwr/imported_assets/content/pw/e-weed_1_1april2011.pdf What? Oppression by the government of the country next door on religious grounds?

Once there's enough water around to hydrate any sulphate ions you have a material that's mainly water and isn't really hygroscopic any more. So hydration energy can't be much of a factor. The reaction of water with sulphuric acid to give H3O+ and HSO4- is very energetically favoured so any water that gets into the acid is effectively trapped as involatile ions.

OK, The spuds boom in Ireland was a gamble, and they knew it. They knew the importance of crop rotation but chose not to heed it for a quick result. Much of the death and suffering was due to politics, rather than crop failure. "anyone except a couple of publicly mocked maverick researchers and health food nuts that they were in fact quite dramatically lethal" They were widespread. I certainly ate them. I'm not dead. You seem to have exaggerated their lethality.

Why? What could Reagan have done differently? Anyway, re. "Suppose the US leads international economic sanctions on Russia and certain wealthy Russians, can Russia retaliate by placing sanctions on the US, US Corporations, or wealthy Americans?" The simple answer is yes, but who wants to travel to Russia?

Obligatory xkcd reference http://xkcd.com/1268/

Yes, I care about equality. Got a problem with that? (That's a rhetorical question. I don't mind much whether you care about my opinion or not). How about answering the question I asked. Do you really think people choose to get killed for their sexuality?

So? A friend of mine and her other half are thinking of starting a family. I didn't think it was polite to ask how, given that they are both women. More importantly, while it's amusing to laugh at Peter BE Cimp's astonishing naievete, I'd still like him to address the point I raised (and he ignored) earlier in respect of his claim that sexuality is a choice.. I asked "OK, so you think the people jailed, persecuted and killed for their sexuality have chosen that fate? Seriously? They wanted to make their own lives difficult- or even terminal?" Incidentally, I'm sorry Peter, but I'm not sure I can answer your question "To answer your question John, you must first answer mine; why do you engage in conversations that will never effect you in life?" As far as I'm aware, I don't think I ever do engage in such questions. (The word is affect BTW) It's fair to say that I might idly discuss things like what I would do if I won the lottery - that's pretty unlikely since I have never bought a ticket. On the other hand, such conversations allow me to contemplate what I (and those with whom I'm talking) really value. At any rate, it has absolutely nothing to do with this thread, You are making a whole bunch of assumptions there (the obvious one is that I'm straight and you happen to be right. The less obvious ones are about the orientation of everyone I know and care about- on which point you are hopelessly wrong) So, enough of the pointless bluster an dilly dallying. Answer the question. Do you think the people jailed, persecuted and killed for their sexuality have deliberately chosen that fate?

Whoever invented the word "tepid" knew what the idea was in order to need to invent a word for it. It is therefore obviously absurd to suggest that the lack of a word for something means you can't imagine that thing. Someone invented the television before there was a word for it. And, if you are not aware of visual thinking, you are missing out on a lot of thought. Can you do those "which of these shapes can be rotated to give the shape below" type puzzles? Do you do those in French or English?

OK, to be consistent, please show me the results of testing the effects of not using GMO technology over the next 100 years. Looking at previous data won't help for a number of reasons, notably population growth, climate change and pesticide resistance. What you are saying is that the data indicating GMO's safety is incomplete- which is always true for just about everything we ever do. But you have not looked at the other side of the equation. Is it safe not to use this technology?

This isn't a simple issue. You really need to consult an expert in the field of ventilation engineering, rather than a web site. A better answer would be to distill off the ether, capture it, and reuse it.

I don't know about you, but I generally ask them.

Assuming that you mean inanimate things, I have news for you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_doll

I will just reiterate the point that , if GMOs all vanished tomorrow, or had never been invented, we would still have monocultures, just as we did when the potato famine struck. So, while GMO certainly don't (as currently used) promote diversity, they don't discourage it except indirectly. Agribusiness wants consistent production and that means monoculture. It doesn't matter if the seed suppliers use GM or not. Essentially the problem with "I clearly stated that GMOs encourage monocultures." is that we had monocultures anyway, before the GMO arrived. That's not an issue of matters of opinion, it's a matter of cause and effect. GMO can't cause something that happened before they were invented. How can you "encourage" something that's almost universal anyway? You say "In expressing a concern I am implicitly stating that, based upon my reading of such data as I have considered, my opinion is that there is a risk. This risk is presently unquantified." And I'm asking through what means would the hypothetical restriction of elimination of GMO alter that risk? (Though I disagree that the risk is unquantified, there is a lot of data about it. you can make reasonable assessments of risk in this case, just as you can with all the other things we do in the absence of complete knowledge- in that regard, you are "picking on " GMO)

OK, so you think the people jailed, persecuted and killed for their sexuality have chosen that fate? Seriously? They wanted to make their own lives difficult- or even terminal? And sexual attraction is a natural urge. In some casese it's an urge towards homosexuallity. You are missing the fact that you are wrong about this "If sexuality is a nature, then why does homosexuality exist, because it completely goes against the basic need for parents to ensure the survival of the next generation" and, from that you are deriving a mistaken belief that it's unnatural. It's a glib point, but homosexuallity has been discovered in many species. It's perfectly natural. on the other hand, homophobia only occurs in one species. Why are you apparently engaging in this unnatural behaviour?

"Doesn't the condemnatory reaction to Vasileturcu's posts show, how resistant some worthy but elderly scientists can become to anything that challenges the beliefs they've been taught?" No.

The Irish famine and the surfeit of "Golden delicious" apples and cavendish bananas show that monocultures are nothing new. They come from farming practices. GMO does nothing to stop them, but it's not a cause per se. An outright ban on GMO would still leave us with monocultures. All food supplies are controlled by big business. Seed and pesticide companies are using GMO technology but, if that technology were banned they would continue to do much the same sort of business. As a species, we are seldom, if ever, aware of the full consequences of our actions. Why pick on GMO? Edit (cross posted with CharonY)

"So the photoelectric effect is given by the electromagnetic waves,not by photons as corpuscles." No it isn't. And if the experiments don't agree with your ideas, it isn't because reality made a mistake.

And, by that argument, since a dog would understand it better than a rock... I'd probably kick whoever it was that expected me to make that choice. Of course, you can turn the argument on its head and say "Since I can't be sure the dog goes not have feelings, I shouldn't kick it".

To be blunt, the animal testing industry prefers to use rats because they are cheap to feed and house. Humane considerations are probably a bit secondary. I doubt that you will find many people who disagree with the idea that "it is probably not best to kick a dog.". However I also doubt you will find many who can fully justify their belief without gross anthropomorphism.

Well, I may have an opinion on that but who cares? It was you who said they "clearly have feelings". So it falls to you to prove that those "feelings" are different from my robot that said "Ouch!", otherwise it's not clear. "but this is something you need to experience yourself." tricky- I have never been a dog. Nor have you or anyone else; that's why it's not clear.

"and you lose track of what's involved in, say, having allowed conversion of 3/4 of the North American agricultural production to a couple of still untested bottleneck genetic complexes of largely unknown potential and largely private corporate benefit as well as control," Just exactly what has been "untested" here? I can google sheds full of testing results. You might want to hold a mirror up to this statement "who can keep you from the gross foolishness displayed by the people who post stuff this:"

"Shouldn't liquids slowly get thicker than instantly freezing into a solid?" They do. Syrup is probably one of the better known examples that shows this effect strongly, but most liquids become more viscous when they are cooled.

"consider instead that we kill animals, that clearly have feelings" Nope, it isn't clear. That's been a significant part of the discussion so far. "(who wants to stare an animal in the eyes while eating it)" people who like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargazy_pie On the other hand, I agree with the sentiments expressed as "take only what you need and put the rest back. do so in humility."

This anthropomorphism "The authors then induced the animals to become depressed," is begging the question. and re "They also expressed preferences behaviorally, showing they have interests." I once built a "robot"- a simple toy car that trundled round the floor until it bumped into something, when it would back away and turn and then set off again. I connected the computer that ran it to a speech synthesis chip so it said "Ouch!" when it hit things. Did it feel pain? It's not reliable to deduce sentience from behaviour. that's what I meant when I talked about flowers following the Sun. It could be said that sunflowers "expressed preferences behaviorally", but I don't think yoo would convince many people that a ZX81 or a sunflower was sentient.

No, but it is one that's plainly not directed towards the health of the organism. So it's plain that, at least in some cases, there is no "direction" involved.