John Cuthber

The joke is that you consider that to be a rebuttal. Exactly which policies do you think didn't work, and on what grounds do you think so?

It think it's fair to say that they would do worse if they stopped lying. I have two pieces of evidence for that. The first is that they keep lying: they aren't stupid so they must be doing it deliberately and they ought to know what they are doing. The second is more complex. The policies of their party, such as cutting taxes and welfare payments, are really only beneficial to the rich, and are plainly detrimental to the poor. Most people are not rich. So most people shouldn't vote for them. In order to get most people to vote for the, they have to convince voters that their policies are good for those who are not rich. That's a lie. So, they have to lie to succeed.

What's the bottle made of? Glass bottles leach alkali and that would ppt the Al. More fundamentally, what has changed? Have you moved lab, bought a bottling machine, changed your nitric acid supplier, moved to the Arctic? There has to be something.

No, it's just that you don't understand what it says on the wiki page. "for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature."

I don't see how the whole plant can maintain its temperature and nor can a fish. How fortunate that they don't need to do so in order to be classed as alive.

If you try to ride a motorbike at a very low speed- like walking pace or lower, it is difficult to maintain balance (unless you have a side car). And above about 100 MPH it's quite difficult to control. Anywhere between those speeds would be sensible. 60*3.141592 =188.4955..... Rather nearer to 188.5 than 188.4 Now you need to find out the difference between going through a loop and going round a loop.

Popcorn, don't worry too much- it's not like it's the only thing he got wrong.

Here's their webpage http://oal.ul.pt/ Where's the story? Also, do you realise that " a proprietary model." means an untestable one?

Through the loop is easy and you can do that at any sensible speed. Round the loop is a bit more of a question. Incidentally, shouldn't it be 188.5 feet?

It's not a game, it's a choice of coordinates. From my point of view the ground actually is static, to a good enough approximation for the job in hand. Nothing you say will change that. And of course this "then you best accept that nothing like you is static." is a meaningless strawman. Here's what I actually said. "No, it means that it is static in my frame of reference to a good enough approximation for the job in hand." You see, I didn't say I was static, nor did I say that the ground was unconditionally static. You just pretended that I had said I was static (which is a bit silly) and then attacked what you pretended I'd said. In much the same way, the scientist didn't say " we're quite sure". he said "a good enough approximation for the job in hand." Please stop with the strawmen. They are, among other things, a breach of the rules here.

Are you familiar with this sort of thing? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoichiometry

It's perfectly possible, though extremely unlikely that a member of some distant civilisation will be say "It's one small step for (a) splodgian, but one giant leap for splogdekind. What the f*** is that?" as voyager crashed into their moon. They will detect it if they see it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Biology I make it 7 of 7 for any of the cells concerned. Once they die, they stop ticking the boxes.

Can I ask a related question please? How can someone "age" if they are travelling on a unicorn?

You can take a single cell from a sheep and clone the whole sheep from it. Of course that cell is alive. So is a sperm cell. So are all the cells in a testicle. There's an important difference. A strawberry seed is very good at producing another plant. the other options mentioned need a lot of help from outside. But the property common to all three is that they are alive.

Yes, it is typical of me to point out that, if there's a God who deliberately misleads people by faking the carbon dating evidence then He's a liar and it is questionable practice to worship Him. The problem with that statement is that it applies to a lot of things (It's equally true or false, whatever you apply it to) for example. ""The one undeniable FACT with ALL observations about butterflies is that they are all based on unprovable assumptions about the past."" Obviously, that's true in so far as I can't tell you what the insect will do tomorrow, nor do I have proof about what they did in the past. I may have evidence, but that evidence may have been faked. The assumption is that nothing has changed and that butterflies today do the same as they did before. Someone somewhere might have a vested interest in convincing the world that butterflies, for example, were born to a virgin and were martyred, but rose from the dead three days later. If they got enough people together and bribed them to tell that story and if they tied it in to some other more plausible beliefs then they could possibly get at least some people to accept it. Those people might spread that story too and they might write it down in a big book. It may, in the end become quite widely believed. But none of that would make it true. On the other hand, I might say that butterflies came from caterpillars. If people didn't believe me I could invite them to get some caterpillars and watch them. That's the difference between the claims of carbon dating- anyone who wants to can verify the rate of decay of carbon, and they can,also look at other solar radiation products to check that "clock" But it's clearly impossible for anyone to verify, for example, the Bible.

If you plant a reasonably fresh strawberry, it will grow new plants. It can't be dead if it does that.

The evidence says that he would (unless you are calling him a liar). So, go on- " How about you prove there is a god and show some actual evidence of his amazing power." otherwise your statement is false. You now have two choices, Evince you claim or admit that you can't, and that you were not telling the truth when you said you could do so.

Lead acetate is quite soluble, but lots of other lead compounds are not. For example, lead phosphate isn't very soluble. If the medium has phosphate in it (and it's tricky to see how the bugs will grow without it) then you will get lead phosphate precipitated if the product of the concentrations of phosphate ions and lead ions exceeds the solubility product for lead phosphate (estimates vary but that's of the order of 10^-10 in near neutral solutions and 10^-40 in alkaline solutions.). Autoclaving it may well produce side reactions with (in particular) sulphur containing compounds. If you can't sterile filter the mixture then autoclave the lead solution and the rest of the material separately then mix them. The important thing is that lead which has fallen out of solution can't affect the bacteria. Another option would be to add something like EDTA to keep the lead in solution- but then that might kill the bugs and, of course, the lead EDTA complex will have a different toxicity.

That may be because religious people believe that they can gain absolution by prayer and confession so doing things which they know to be wrong is less of an issue. Of course, you also have to accept that a large fraction of the prison population are there because they are essentially dishonest, so asking them about their religious beliefs might not get an honest answer. Also, if I were in jail I might think that going to chapel on Sunday was more interesting than being in my cell so I'd pretend to be God squad and also I'd do my best to fake the idea that "I was a lost soul but now I got religion"- so you can let me out on parole now.

How much of that 7% is actually soluble in water? If it's not soluble then it's not available to the bacteria so there's no point trying to "mimic" it in the culture medium. I think most media contain chlorides and that will precipitate lead so there's no way to get the lead content much higher that the concentration you get from a saturated solution of lead chloride.

Astrology "assigns a meaning" to the position of the stars when you were born. But that doesn't show that the "meaning" is true in any way or that astrology is valid. The interpretation of dreams assigns a meaning, but it's a matter of luck if it gets the correct meaning - if such a thing exists. Religion gives a meaning to things- but that meaning is superficial (Goddidit) and not proof of anything.

How much lead do you think you need to add? If you are adding so much that it falls out of solution, how could you have that much naturally present?

I think we are missing a crucial part of the discussion here http://xkcd.com/675/

You might want to discuss that with Galileo. OK, perhaps that's impractical (please don't try to write it off as "Historical" while still believing in a bronze age creation myth). OK, how about a more recent example Ask the family of Savita Halappanavar. You can't ask her directly- she was killed by religious dogma- but could have been saved by science. Also, I didn't realise that Catholicism had renounced the Bible. It plainly has contradictions http://sciencebasedlife.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/biblecontradictions-reasonproject.png but you say your dogma doesn't contradict itself.