John Cuthber

Why can't you accept that all plants will grow without pesticides, and all plants will grow better with them? That's true for cultivars and weeds. The difference is not that we selected plants that need fertilisers and pesticides; we selected plants that produce more (and better) food.

Except that they heat the air slightly and don't remove humidity.

In addition to the minor legal issues, unless you are wearing a CBW suit you are likely to be a victim of your own product too. You might also want to remember that, from time to time, pepper spray like weapons are lethal.

I think you will find that what Galileo offered a telescope ( to a bishop I think, rather than the Pope) for was to see the moons of Jupiter (which you can do with just one look). This revelation was at odds with the Church teaching at the time. The Universe was created for man's benefit. A moon of a distant planet couldn't be useful so it shouldn't exist. It also rather comprehensively messed up the "crystal spheres" model. (though not as much so as watching the moons move would do). What I meant was that, for example, I can look through a telescope at some distant object. Then I can walk to that object and confirm that the telescope does indeed give me the same effect as looking at the thing from closer up. I can do this for lots of things (and I can get my friends to do so to). Then, having confirmed that 'scopes let you get a better view of things, I can point one at the sky. If I see that, Jupiter has blobs round it then I can reasonably deduce that, if I were a lot nearer to Jupiter then I would be able to see these blobs. I also know that, in general, if I can see something, it is there. I have verified this a huge number of times by, for example, finding a biscuit in the tin, and eating it. So, since I know that I can usually assume the reality of things I see, and I have confirmed that the telescope lets me see things I wouldn't other wise see by reason of their being too far away, I can conclude that the moons of Jupiter are real and distant. Not proof, I grant you; but good evidence. What we are arguing about is the degree of robustness of the evidence we need to accept things. Some people will believe anything they see in the Sun; my viewpoint differs.

"Toys Impact on Child Development " What else would the point of toys be (from an evolutionary perspective)? But I still think it's spam.

OK, so I have had a few beers, but let me know if this "In my opinion 100% of the world is the same." turns out to mean anything. In the meantime, perhaps someone should think about the difference between things they believe because there is evidence, and things they believe as a matter of faith.

" has this been considered?" yes.

You were an individual before you were born. In particular, you had a genetic make-up that distinguished you from everyone else. However, before going any further you need, as Lemur says, to define "individual".

The heat of combustion of hydrogen is near 300 KJ/mol and that's the reaction you are seeking to undo. A mole of hydrogen will give 18 ml of water so each ml will need about 17KJ Your 95J will split about 0.006 ml. You seem to have miscalculated something. It gets worse. The capacitor has a charge of 13.8 Coulombs; that's enough electrons to neutralise the charge on about .00015 moles of H+ ions and will generate half that many moles of H2. In doing so it will split just 0.0013 ml of water and form about 3 ml of gas. As for "would the explosion be enough to propell a .25 inch by .5 inch rod? " Well, not very far.

"type A men are more likely to be bald, while more hirsute characters (with the exception of Hitler and Stalin) tend to be more relaxed." You should never make sweeping generalisations.

Just in case anyone thought that Imatfall was being clever with photoshop, that place is real http://www.secretnuclearbunker.com/hire.html On the other hand Yomomma's conspiracy theory is a total fabrication.

The tangential speed of the Earth is, an most, about 1000 miles an hour. That's a very small fraction of C, so relativistic effects are tiny- too small to notice. However the effect of the spin of the earth can be measured quite easily, a spring balance calibrated at the equator will give the wrong results if used at the poles. The effect isn't big (about 0.3%), but it's a lot bigger than any relativistic effects.

Correct. Now for the even more obscure one. Suppose epsilon is a large negative integer.

" I do not believe Satanism can claim to have God's revelation laws, as do the God of Abraham religions. " I doubt the Satanists care what you believe or, logically, about God's laws. " I do not believe Satanism can claim to have God's revelation laws, as do the God of Abraham religions. " I doubt the Satanists care what you believe or, logically, about God's laws.

I get annoyed by the use of xmas, but not of Xmas and so does my spell check. As an atheist I can take my holidays whenever I like. It's convenient for me to take them at the same time that the Christians are celebrating the Solstice (by burning logs) or vernal equinox (by messing about with eggs, maypoles and other fertility symbols). They get the dates a bit wrong, but why should I care?- I'm not an astrologer.

OK, I know there's more to life than wiki but from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion. "The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect." and "Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept or thing.[1][2] The English word is thought to date from 1200–50, from the Latin fidem or fidēs, meaning trust, derived from the verb fīdere, to trust.[1] The term is employed in a religious or theological context to refer to a confident belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. It may be used to refer to a particular religious tradition or to religion in general." from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith Tend to suggest that belief in God- in the absence of compelling evidence, is an act of faith of the sort commonly referred to as religion. Incidentally, Mr Skeptic, Stargate isn't real.

What's purple and commutes?

Make up your mind. Is it easy to gather enough wild food i.e. "you should give some thought to how much easier it would be to collect wild plants for fresh vegetable nutrition than to cultivate a garden"? Or is it difficult, because the wild food tends to be widely dispersed i.e. "finding a crop of abundant nutritious wild edible plants would be like a miracle of divinity. "? Actually, never mind. It probably doesn't matter what you or I as two individuals think. Lets look at the whole of agriculture. It seems that the farmers choose to grow stuff, rather than just hoping to gather "naturally" available plants. I guess it could be that they are all fools who put in all that effort, when they could just rely on nature; but I doubt it.

"Just with that, you are already ahead of the game on nutrition." Nope, Nutrition isn't the same as freedom from pesticides. There are two facets to this. Pesticides are chosen to have low toxicity to humans, and the regulations ensure that the quantities that get into the food chain are not an issue. Just to repeat that Pesticide residues in food don't harm people (except occasionally when someone screws up big-time). Nutrition is a measure of the way in which food meets our requirements. A lot of people in this world are short of calories and proteins. Simply by selecting for improved yields we improve that aspect of nutrition. "I don't know of any cultivated edible plants that don't require fertilizer " No plant needs fertiliser, but all plants grow better when they are provided with the things they need. Farmers use fertilisers to improve productivity. They would still do that whatever variety of plant they were growing. "Italians have probably the most developed "taste" for bitter flavors. " You might want to discuss that with these people http://www.camra.org.uk/ In general, bitter flavours are a warning of toxicity. There is some truth to the idea that weeds tend to be fast growing; however quantity isn't the same as quality. There's often a negative correlation between the two. Also, for most staple foods, we don't eat most of the plant-- we eat its food stores (seed, tbers etc) but the bit of weeds that grows fast is generally not the bet we would eat. OK, the lettuce isn't a case of that; but nobody lives on lettuce.

"Secularism has removed the idea of God from morality by framing it in terms of secularized rationality, but that rationality is still rooted in a religious premise that goodness is better than evil." No. The rational basis for most morality is "what would happen if everybody did that?" No need for any religious idea at all.

This "Clearly the government has no intention of covering up some transgressions by making some data public. It's not only cynical, but totally unrealistic to think that the whole of government is conspiring to allow a small minority of MPs to overclaim on expenses." is more or less the exact opposite of what I said.

I'm cynical enough to think that they are hoping that, if they put enough data out in the public domain, then people will be too busy trying to track down their MP's expenses to notice that the government are ripping them off. It may also be that they would rather control the flow of information (and the spin on it) than let wikileaks do it for them.

I'm guessing you use Durex rather than Pirex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durex WTF?!!

"Animals almost always have sharper senses than humans" I'm fairly sure that my colour vision is better than a nautilus. It's also probably better than my neighbour's cat's monochrome version, at least in good light.. If the phenomenon is real (which I doubt) it could be as simple as "goats don't have much else to think about" or "goats, with 4 feet, are better coupled to the ground so they can sense the fore-shocks better. Why invoke magic like "they somehow perceive the electromagnetic effects of rocks being fractured"?

"Plasticsare the synthetic polymers" Nope, not all of them are synthetic. "of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen" Not entirely. "derived frompetrochemicals" except for those that are not. And so on.