John Cuthber

Indeed, because the scheme won't work. For example, 16O has a reasonable neutron capture cross section and is converted to 17O

You seem not to have noticed that the guy isn't a terrorist and there was no evidence suggesting that he was, so using anti-terrorist legislation is inappropriate. Ironically, they used the counter-terrorist laws as a terrorist act against a journalist. Also, remember the guy got the (alleged) information from somewhere. Wherever he got it from there were other people with that information. Why not detain them in the same way. You probably think that's silly- after all, it's the military's job to have information. OK, fair enough. But it's also a journalist's job too. Since thus guy had the data, it's clear that it was already "not secured", so he's the symptom, not the cause. You don't improve a country's well-being by turning it into a police state. .

Are you sure that's what you will do? It seems to me that you have evidence that's pretty much as convincing as a blood test, yet you won't go to the doctor. Why will getting confirmation change that? Are you certain that you won't just tell yourself that "well, I'm keeping an eye on it and so now I don't need to see the doctor"? Stop kidding yourself and go and see one. A friend of mine is managing to control his blood sugar pretty well without "medical" intervention thanks to the advice he received so you have a lot to gain and nothing to lose by going to the doctor.

I'm not assuming that belief is an intrinsically bad thing, I'm demonstrating it. Dead children are not an assumption: they are the outcome of parents trying to "pray away" treatable diseases. Faulty logic is a real effect and it seems well correlated with religion. Nothing convinces fanatics that they have the right to harm others as well as the belief that "God is on their side". Most religions seem happy to supply the equivalent of the Army Chaplain who is happy to say that "thou shalt not kill" doesn't apply. It's not a good thread, it's pointless because it's redundant. Who are these people "looking for reasons to hate"? Do they exist or is that a straw man argument? That is a sign of exactly the sort of poor reasoning that belief leads to.

Indeed, science is always in the business of proving itself wrong. If I publish a paper saying something, I can bet my socks that lots of people will do their best to show that I'm wrong. So, perhaps Swanson't should have said "Modern planes fly(a hell of a lot better than the old ones did)" because of science. When science stops trying to prove itself wrong and starts claiming that anyone doing so is immoral or evil, then you might be able to say that religion has infected science. The purpose of science is to change, the purpose of religion is to stay the same.

That would be cruel and unusual.

Ask Maradona the footballer. Meanwhile, back at the topic. These people are "mistaken" in that they believe that prayer works- though it doesn't. They think their God is wise, yet He's the one who put the serpent in the Garden. They believe that the Bible is the word of God- even though it contradicts itself. These people should be looked after by someone otherwise they might believe that I 'm going to sell them tower bridge.

No. I'm basing a relationship on evidence. I know that she's generally honest. So it's reasonable for me to continue to trust her. If I find otherwise I will change my outlook. Whereas, if I do the comparison with God, He lets me down at every opportunity. His book is full of contradictions. He never answers my prayers (or anyone else's) and the daft ****wit left the serpent in the Garden of Eden. And yet, people expect me to accept his "love" as a matter of faith. How is that anything but broken? Equally importantly re "I'm saying that religion can help a person love their kid... " Anyone who needs religion to love their children is more broken than the guy trying to run his car on nose hair. EDIT to add Here we go again http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23729684 Still broken.

I didn't say the process was religious (though I think it is). I said that your attitude- based on faith and anecdote rather than evidence is religious. So what experiences I may, or may not, have had are not relevant.

If you asked "what colour is your dog?" and I replied "Black", would you understand that I meant "the colour of my dog is black"? OK, by analogy. "What's the legality of collecting all of my posts into a book and then selling the book?" "Moot." So, the legality of collecting all of your posts into a book and then selling the book is moot. Because, while you could offer the book for sale I doubt you could actually sell it. Who would buy it? As has already been pointed out, it would be rubbish and it would also be pointless- anyone who wished to read it could do so here for free. Even if the site claimed copyright (and that would get tricky), the point would still be moot. There wouldn't be enough sales to justify taking up a court's time with it. de minimis non curat lex. "1 open to discussion or debate; debatable; doubtful: a moot point. 2.of little or no practical value or meaning; purely academic. 3. Chiefly Law. not actual; theoretical; hypothetical." from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/moot

When did "frequent" become a noun?

OK, fair enough. Here's the razor. "Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate" Plurality is never to be posited without necessity. But a universe and God is plural while a universe without God is singular. And there's no evidence for God so He's unnecessary. Seriously, isn't it just as reasonable to be sceptical about God as it is to be so about the CIA?

But the brush really is that broad- religious faith drives out rationality and we are where we are today because we can think. You are possibly implying a false dichotomy. It's perfectly possible (and indeed overwhelmingly likely) that they love their kids whether they are religious or not. However teaching them that dogma is better than understanding and logic handicaps them profoundly.

Moot.

OK Sorry, got muddled there. Do you accept that the people who believe in God are leaving themselves and their children open to exploitation? If they are then there's not much difference between them and the poor soul who thinks he can run a car on nose hair.

It's mainly salty water, but in detail, it's incredibly complicated so the idea that you can synthesise it may prove very optimistic. What are you trying to do?

But all religious faith is destructive because it stops people doing better. It tells them not to ask question (generally on pain of everlasting torture). It lets them justify war and torture and slavery. It's a "double think" that the world would be better off without. Shucks! even if people just spent an hour on Sunday picking litter, rather than going to church it would be a better world (and they might just learn not to drop it in the first place). I realise this sounds like a thin end of the wedge argument- but remember the thick end is plain to see. If you tell people (from a young age) that a man died 2000 years ago having been born the son of a virgin through the action of a God who created the universe then you teach them to believe things that are not true. (and that's still the case, even if He was born 2000 years ago...) If you teach people to believe things just because someone tells them to believe it (and even though it makes no sense) then you are setting them up as sitting ducks for exploitation. You agree that you would want pictures before you accepted that iNow had seen a UFO. All a UFO need is a species a bit like us (possibly prepared by the same God if He exists) with better technology and a lot of time. That's very improbable because of the size of the universe- but not actually impossible. It's not outside the laws of physics as we know them But you seem prepared to believe in God even though He is intrinsically vastly less likely, not to mention logically self conteradictory. Do you not see the doublethink there?

Yes, I know, and my friends who grow viruses tell me that it's damned difficult. However, it is, in principle, possible to separate the viral proteins (which we want an immune response to) from the rest of the cell debris (which we don't). It's not a great analogy but we don't give people with headaches willow bark to chew- we give them aspirin. It's easier to titrate the dose and safer in that we don't give people other chemicals that don't help (for example, the bark might contain mycotoxins). From that point of view, it would "obviously" be better to use only the viral proteins as a vaccine. However I wonder if the other materials present act as an adjuvant. What I fully understand is that it would be more expensive to "purify" the product and you might well find that it didn't work so well. I can't blame the companies who make the vaccines for not taking that step. After all- if it fails they will get sued into oblivion. (It's not that I trust "big Pharma" further than I can spit, it's just that they are stuck with making business decisions. So,we could take at least some of the "food" proteins out of vaccines. It would be expensive, they might stop working and such action might not actually alter the incidence of food allergy. As I asked vinucube before, lots of allergies are on the increase- hay-fever for example- but pollen isn't present in vaccines. How can you say that the rise in food allergy isn't caused by whatever is causing the rise in pollen allergy?

"Can you offer any positive empirical evidence of that world salad you call a post or are you just going over the edge due to inability to come up with anything but "I can't understand it so it couldn't have happened that way"? "

I'm waiting for the Americans to start calling the study of energy, electricity and such "physic". Presumably "physic" will include "mechanic" and "electrostatic". I'm not sure about "thermodynamic"- will that be part of chemistrys? Maths isn't a plural anyway so all that stuff about plurals is beside the point.

You may take some consolation from the fact that other professions have similar difficulty with definitions. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac00085a709?journalCode=ancham

When everyone has had their say in this thread, will the world have changed as a result?

I hope they have thought that through. We have enough people allergic to insects already.

Ed, electronegativity is perfectly well established (if a bit wishy washy). It's a bit of a stretch to say "Oxygen for example when supposedly charge balanced with 8 electrons and 8 protons still behaves as if it were positively charged. " but, to the extent that it has a measurable electron affinity, it's a reasonable (if rather shaky) analogy. The problems with the OP start with "This has some profound and unexamined consequences in cosmology and suggests the existence of large scale electrical gradients throughout the universe" which is total bollocks, and get worse from there. Leif is talking nonsense. Most people don't realise but solids, liquids and gases are not the commonest form of matter in the universe. Most of the conventional matter in the universe is present as a plasma. It's ionised and electrically charged So you can't get a long term charge displacement in the universe- the charge leaks away.

"What I am looking for is a type of "glue" using encased chemicals" What could you hope to encase them in? All the stuff we have is made of chemicals There are molecules made of chains of single atoms though they are not generally very stable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyyne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_sulfur#Solid_catena_sulfur_allotropes