mooeypoo

A thousand people can be wrong, too, regardless of who they are, without being liars. Please don't put words into my (or others') mouth. That's why evidence is weighed on the merit of the EVIDENCE and not on the merit of who supplied it. In contrast, an uneducated person can provide perfectly reasonable proof, regardless of who he is. There has been a lot of instances throughout history that 400, 600, or 10,000 people saw the same phenomenon they can't explain. That doesn't automatically makes it what it is. On top of that, this isn't an unknown story; everyone knows this story, and it's enough you have one or two instances that you can't explain, reverting to this particular "abduction" story is not all that implausible. The fact they all share details is because they're all reiterating the story... have you ever seen "The 400"? Ever wonder why all those "abduction stories" in our world, ever, have surfaced at *once*, in multiple locations, knowing the same details without first sharing them or hearing them or speaking only of general-terms? If you wake me in the middle of the night, I promise you I can tell you a compelling story about alien abduction that will be virtually indistiguishable from any other story like it. If you don't have basic rules to separate between what is OBJECTIVE and true and what is SUBJECTIVE and untrue, then how would you know which of these, if not all, are telling the truth, and which aren't? Every evidence you will put forth with be weighed on its own merit, regardless of who supplied it. People can be wrong, and many of the phenomena you (and they) describe are very common; visual/auditory illusions are quite common (with everyone, btw, regardless of who they are). Second, you didn't answer my question - I asked you to give me an example of a theory you are skeptical of. I have a meaning behind this, and htis meaning is to show you how you and I are not all THAT different from one another in our thinking. If you refuse to cooperate and decide to analyze our intentions for us, there's not much to be done in terms of debate, is there.. Third, I am giving you one last chance to cite your sources. This is pointless without citation, and it's *AGAIN* against forum rules. ~moo

Yes I agree, which is why evidence are not weighed by the person who speaks them, but rather by their own merit. Since there is nothing to corroborate this piece of suggested evidence other than the word of a single man, doctor or no doctor, this evidence is quite unsupported. Which would make it not a proof, wouldn't it?

With due respect, neither do you.

Well said, padren, that is what I am trying to find out - CHAOS, let's see where our common-ground is, so we can try and see how we come to a logical conclusion about your theories. If you tell me what you find to be false and what you find to be plausible, we can start seeing where we both stand in terms of our doubting senses, and see if there are any common threads we can use between known mythological stories and more substantiated, or more logical, theories. Help us out, CHAOS, let's find that common ground so we can go from there?

CHAOS, I am curious, is there a government conspiracy you do not believe in? This isn't meant as an insult at all, I am curious as to where your personal level of skepticism goes. Can you give me an example, if there is one, of a conspiracy you don't believe in and what makes you skeptical of it? I think we are not as different as you may think, other than this specific alien-visitation theory. You would be surprised, but when I was a bit younger, I was an absolute believer on that one. In any case, I'd appreciate if you indulge me for a second - it will make a good exercize for the both of us, and will help me understand what you are trying to prove better. ~moo

I am not a lawyer, which is why I posted the website for you. Arguing with me about the rules without reading the rules is really not going to help this discussion. Read the rules, read the laws of copyright, and see for yourself. In any case, posting ANYTHING without proper citation (which was done a few times already by you, and twice with that zip file) is ABSOLUTELY copyright violation. How 'bout you start by telling us where this batch is from, so that even if you *CAN* post it, it's properly attributed and cited, and we could go and check the site for ourselves, perhaps even make that donation, if we so wish, and read it in context. Do not post that zip file until you verify you may do so. I would recommend sending an email to the site authors and asking them. That would be the only way to assure you are following copyright laws. Debate about it won't get us anywhere, and it is also offtopic. You are still in need of proving your statements, and I am very uncertain that this file is doing that regardless of its copyright status. Cite its source, start from there.

No, it does not, I supplied a site for you to read about it. In the case of no clear copyright statement, a copyright is to be assumed. The only way a site/resource is copyright free, is if there is a statement wavering copyright. The general rule with copyright is: when in doubt, it's copyrighted. buying a resource allows you the right to use it yourself, not to give it freely to others, specifically not in a public medium such as a forum. Read the site I've posted, look up copyright and copyright laws and fair use. In any case this resource is moot without the context - hence, the original site this came from. Now that we're done with laws and rules, I suggest we move on to the actual topic at hand. If you have any real, substantiated, peer reviewed, evidence, please present it. Otherwise, I am not sure what else could benefit this thread, in this particular forum, considering our rules.

CHAOS, are you intentionally avoding reading the rules? It's quite self explanatory in the rules of the forum. They are here: SFN Forum Rules: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/announcement.php?f=59&a=14 Speculations Forum Rules: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/announcement.php?f=59&a=13 And as I've pointed out to you before, this is a scientific forum, following the scientific method. We require proof, substantiation, citations and logical explanation. Please read our rules.

It was removed for a reason, and you would see it if you read our rules, as you were urged to do for abotu four times already. If content is paid for, then it is NOT LEGAL to post it free of charge. Please refer to the laws: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/ And go read our forum rules.

Something just struck me as I've read this part, so I have to point it out and ask if I am right about this -- it seems to me that since our brains are *part of us*, then the body does "know" how to separate between sex and masturbation? I am not sure how relevant this is for evolution, as was pointed out in the thread, but I was just wondering about this part, specifically..

CHAOS, I am just curious on something, and I really don't mean this as anything but a real question out of curiosity - With a conspiracy so big as this, involving more than just one or two countries, and spanning for a VERY long time, how do you explain that there are not even the slightest tiniest *peer-reviewed* proof to this? History shows us that the government failed in holding out much lesser conspiracies than these when it was only a handful of people involved.. with SUCH a large scale conspiracy - it seems highly illogical this would be kept a secret by multiple countries, most of which were (and perhaps still are) enemies.

Once more, with feeling: This forum does not tolerate copyright infringement kindly. Please cite your sources. Not only is it unfair and illegal not to, it will also give your fellow debaters a chance to read this article in proper context. For the convinience of everyone, I ran a google search on your article and produced this result: http://www.virtuallystrange.net/aic/pa2.htm if this is not where you took this article from, please supply the source. Please make sure you do that for *every* citation. It is worth noting, btw, CHAOS, that this is again not a peer-reviewed, reliable source. Do you have any actual proper peer-reviewed citations or any actual, peer-reviewed, verified findings we can truly work with?

Which is exactly why this is not for this forum. if you still don't understand why, switch "aliens" in your posts in this thread to "Unicorns", or "Leprecauns" or "Flying Pretzels", and if you still think that the discussion does not sound absolutely moot, then perhaps you should revisit our rules, as well. That's not an attempt to scoff at anything, it's an attempt to show you that if you don't prove the existence of the implausible, the discussion is pointless. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedChaos, I am urging you to go over the rules of this forum again. Please stick to one thread per topic, and avoid copyright infringements. We would love to conduct debates (and we do, quite a lot, on your subject and others), but we do have rules, even the "Pseudoscience/Speculation" forum. Please follow them.

Move on to what? So far there's still not even the slightest shred of proof that aliens are visiting this earth in the manner you speak of. Unless you have any more evidence to put forth, for us to analyze?

CHAOS, when we say "independent" we mean that the tests themselves were independent and conducted by valid, objective, certified scientific facility, and gone through peer review. Having results from "somewhere" (who made these? what's the name of the facility? who else conducted the same experiments without knowing the other results, independently? what's the name of the second facility? where are its findings published?) posted in three different websites are *not* what anyone in the scientific community regards as "independent sources". I would say they're not what anyone considers independent sources. They're just reiterations of the same source.

CHAOS, this is a science forum, not a belief forum. To make such suggestion, you need to first prove your statements. If you want to go on a philosophical discussion, then I think your questions need to be a bit broader, seeing as they are very hard to answer to anyone that is looking at reality as it is being represented with hard evidence rather than mythology or rumor. You have a thread discussing the possibility of Alien life visiting the earth. I think the best option is to first try and see if you can prove it there. This particular thread (the current one) is the same as anyone posting a "Question for believers only" about what color would the Poopoa Unicorn have in the back of his left earlobe in case of capture. It's a meaningless question unless such Poopoa Unicorn is proven to exist.

As Klaynos pointed out in the IRC channel earlier, the concept should be divided to 2 "sub" concepts: Gliding and "falling slower". Both are very different and require different mathematical concepts and equations. In the IRC channel you seemed to have been interested in the second subject, langy666, is that still the case, or are you interested in gliding? or maybe specifically knowing how this *specific* fish is gliding? If you're interested in knowing what makes this SPECIFIC fish glide, is "flying fish" its name? do you know what its actual name is? We could help out with finding research but we will need some details about it.

I think you (all, actually) should read Richard Dawkin's book "The Selfish Gene". It explains how Abiogenesis is possible and not with so much chance, as with just variations of molecules. Molecules are assembled and dissemble, etc, and it's only a matter of time in such a huge number-game for 1 type of molecule to have the "property" of, just, quite simple, multiplying itself. When that happens, the molecule replicates, and replicates, etc etc, but mistakes always happen in replication - which is where a very VERY basic version of evolution is the process. It's a very good read.

I think one of the problems of this thread is that the definitions are WAAAY too broad. I get the same feeling about women and men who are "needy" too. I like strong women (and men), and neediness makes me go "ugh". But niceness is not necessarily neediness.. and the question is how you make that distinction in such a "test" to actually get valid results. I believe a lot of it is social, even only because it was very different 50 and 100 years ago. Women back then were expected to be timid and compliant, and strong women had fewer suitors, so I think it has a lot to do with social aspects - which is also why I recommended doing such test in more than one country/society, to measure the level of social impact on these things. Also, niceness is not very objective; I define niceness differently than other people, most likely. So how would you test for it? I guess this is one of the regular problems in sociology experiments/tests, though.. and I have to say I'm not too well versed in it to know how they're usually done. I would assume it requires quite a lot of balanced questions to first check how the person defines "niceness" and then how the person finds that subjective niceness to be attractive, and then try to see how you can get valid conclusions out of it in both men and women, age groups or social backgrounds... Tough question, though.

Yeah, I tend to agree, I think it's a matter of political definitions, though.. There were a few offers for a cease fire that Hamas didn't accept and one that Israel didn't.. Israel just calls this a unilateral cease fire because its intentions are to stop the fire and get out (which is what the cease fire was meant to achieve, all three of them) but without accepting Hamas' demands of opening the border crossings. Again, with due respect to everyone, I think people tend to forget that "opening the crossings" means that Palestinians have uncontrolled entry *into* Israel. I don't see how that's any form of plausible demand. If they want to open their way to the outside world, they should ask from *BOTH* Israel *and* Egypt, and make sure their harbor to the sea is operational (instead of shooting at anyone who comes to rebuild it?). As I've pointed out before, the borders with Gaza have only been closed off in the past 10 years, and during those 10 years they were open off-and-on. They were only closed off completely after a suicide bomber managed to pass through, or when Isarel caught one trying to pass through. On a personal note, I remember watching the news and physically crying as I've seen .Before that incident, there were 2 others involving children, but they had explosives in their bags, so the conclusion was that they were unsuspecting tools, used by the terrorists without their knowledge (not that this makes it any less horrible). I am not sure anyone can really blame Israel for being reluctant to open the crossings *INTO* Israel. Take into account, though, that the fact they're closed does not mean they're COMPLETELY closed. If you look back in the recent years, Palestinians have been (and still are) going back and forth to hospitals in Israel and to visit their families inside Israel or in the West Bank. It's also worth mentioning that a suicide bomber (woman) was caught trying to . The situation is never simple. Demanding Israel opens its borders undescriminantly, specifically in light of those events, is not very realistic. And quite an unfair demand, I'd say.

Do you have the equation/method of calculating moment of inertia? It will help you figuring this out; it's pretty straight-forward method, but I don't want to just give you a solution.. If you want to post the equation and start the method, we'll surely help out.

Yes, that might be, but that again is a discussion for a peace talk. One of the subjects in peace talks is the "right to return" -- that, too, is complicated - there are territories taht are more clearly "deserving" this right-of-return and territories that are less clear. It's a historical argument and it belongs in peace talks -- as it was, for a while, with Arafat. You can't make any leeway with that, though, when the other side is not only unwiling to talk, but also declares it wants the annihilation of Israel. Would you automatically allow people who want to kill you (declaring so!) to go into whatever territories they declare are theirs historically? If that was the case, then 2500 years ago, when the Israelites lived in the biblical Israel - stretching from the Perth to the outer limit of modern Iraq - should do the same, and demand Iraq gives them right of return. These things are never simple, but the way to resolve them is peace talk and mutual acceptance of compromise. You can't really say that Israel is unwilling to compromise overall, when it gave up Gaza in 2005 *unilaterally* as a sign of it wanting to conduct peace talks... and leaving other Palestinian territories throughout the past 10 years for the same reason... And you can't really expect a country to automatically give "right of return" - even if that is, in your opinion, a deserving result - when these 'returnees' goal is to annihilate Israel off the map. Israel has an obligation to its citizens' safety. A very big part of it is making peace (because peace = safety. Take it from someone who lived in a conflicted zone most of her life and lost loved-ones and friends [that didn't make *me* more militant, btw, since i understand it wasn't the palestinian PEOPLE who killed my friend, but an extreme faction within them]; War sucks). Another part of it is making sure missiles are not being shot on Israeli citizens. Sometimes you just can't bite your tongue anymore, and if attempts for talks (despite a constant shelling from Gaza on Israeli citizens for 7 years) fails, and the Gaza extremists (who are now their government) refuse to talk and *expand the range of their missiles*, the government has an obligation for its citizens safety. As I've asked bascule before, I am curious to know what solution you would come up with (a realistic one, please - saying 'the dissassembly of Israel' is not realistic. Whether it has a right to exist or not, it's there now, and it's not going anywhere, it seems), in light of constant missile attacks on *civilians* from Gaza. Notice, btw, that even when the Israeli troops entered Gaza, the missiles from Hamas were *still* directed at Israeli *CITIES* (civilians!) and not at the groups of soldiers or military facilities that now 'sat' inside it and on its border. Hamas seemed to have *purposefully* targetted civilians. ~moo

Hang on a minute, though. What you're talking about is the discussion of where the border goes between the Palestinian territories and the Israeli territories. I'm talking about the Arab Israelis who live *INSIDE* Israel territory. For example, in the Galilee (northern israel) there's no discussion over the "green line", and many Arab villages and cities -- all of which are Israeli citizens. Don't mix arguments. The argument about where the border lies is a political one, that goes on and will, hopefully, eventually be solved by talks. You can't claim Israel is segregating all Arabs when that's simply not true. The Arabs that stayed inside Israeli territory have the SAME RIGHTS as any other Israeli citizen, and the live in peace with the jewish and christian inhabitants.

bumbus, the Israeli Arabs that live inside Israel *are* citizens. Only those who live in Gaza are not Israeli Citizens, and even that is relatively recent (past 20 years) because they've declared themselves to be a different nation. Do I think that there's still different treatment to the Arab citizens? yes. Not by laws, though, by society, and that happens in every country (ask Native Americans, eh?). No country is perfect, and we have a lot to go. I was a member of a social-justice organization in Israel that pushed for better treatment to the Arab Israeli citizens. It's problems that occur in any "mixed-religion" country. But that's still far from saying Israel purposefully excludes its Arab citizens entirely. They can vote, they have rights and obligations like any other citizen. The Palestinians declared their own autonomy -- you can't have the cake and leave it whole; either they're their own autonomy with their own government, or they're citizens of Israel with Israeli government. If they're autonomous (which they are, they just seem to not running it very well), then why would Israel let them vote on its own government? Would they let Israelis vote in *their* government? They shouldn't. Israel shouldn't, either.

That's fine, it seems to me that your history is a bit misrepresented, as I said before. I don't try to represent Israel as a perfectly peaceful country; this conflict has 2 sides to it. It seems to me, however, that you're doing the extreme opposite of what you're claiming we're doing and claim the Palestinians to be the innocent "little fella" that has every right to kill as many civilians as they want. Your history is innacurate, bombus, as I've said before, the two nations lived on this land for much longer (MUUCH longer) than the past 60 years, and in relative peace. Historically, Israel has the same right to exist than the Palestinian nation. The difference is that when Israel was declared the Arab nations immediately declared war (1948). However, Israel declared many many times (and acted on it, by leaving Gaza in 2005, by signing the Oslo accords, by appealing to the international community, by offering half of Jerusalem to Arafat, etc etc) that it is interested in a 2 state solution. If this discussion is to go anywhere, we need to stop with extreme remarks, and try to see where the facts lie - on both sides. But that's just it, bombus - whenever anyone other than you "bets" or "guesses" you make a (just!) remark that it's lacking proof. But you seem to keep doing it yourself. Be consistent with what you're asking others to do, and supply the proof you expect others to supply as well. I'm not that sure the rockets are going to stop, but Israel declared it's going to leave Gaza anyways. I don't think anyone thought they could stop *ALL* rockets with any sort of action short of a massive carpet-bombing of gaza (which, as you know, was not done). What *was* achieved is a severe blow to Hamas smuggling infrastructure and their tunnels. This is far from returning to 'square one'; now in a cease fire the chances of them smuggling weapons and explosives in, and the chances of having actual talks is higher. Yeah, well, we can all make extreme-remarks that drive people into a disgust-emotional state (did you read the article I posted a few posts ago?). That doesn't mean it's valid, or historically true, or getting the discussion anywhere other than the emotional gutter. Politics is hard to be objective in, but there *are* ways to try. Historical honesty is one. Avoiding low-blows is another. Extreme tactics can be done in both sides of the discussion. And yet, what good will this do to this discussion..?