mooeypoo

This is a moot question. Both physics and chemistry are methods of describing reality. They are not mutually exclusive, and they answer different type of questions. It's like asking "which is better for you, being awake or sleeping" -- you need both, and each has its own set of benefit. You wouldn't live much if you gave up one. Same goes with physics and chemistry, really, in relation to science.

You're not going to answer my points? Don't preach, divinum. We're here to debate, that means you can't pick and choose which claims you're comfortable with answering and which you want to skip.

None of which? Absolutely none? Really? I think you should go take a few physics courses. Right now the only really big "disagreeing theories" we have are Relativity vs Quantum Mechanics, and they don't disagree with one another, they just work on different scopes. Which theories, exactly, disagree with one another? Seems we do quite a good job using those "divided" "too many theories" that don't agree with one another when we create technology that's based on them in the past 100 years, or conduct huge number of experiments that remain consistent throughout. But please, expand on that.

I know what Poynting vector is, I actually spent quite a very long time using it in calculations. I know what dipole is. How does it relate to the star of bethlehem -- you are not answering this question at all by explaining again what dipole is. "Relativity" is another physical subject and now you need to explain how, in the name of all that is sane, is THAT related to the topic at hand? You are making zero sense, and your explanations are making even less sense the more you try. Take a break, sit back, think about our questions and come back with relevant answers. Adding more and more physical concepts do not make you sound more knowledgeable - they just make no sense in the context. ~mooey P.S, simply put (and ignoring some more complicated etymology), my nickname means 'bullshit' so I do agree that in this discussion it is self evident. Not quite sure how it's relative to relativity, though, unless you're the frame of reference, and I'm the observer.

Oh superball, superball. We're trying. Hard, so hard. It isn't self evident or I wouldn't have asked. And the person who's not being sicentific is you. I'm not asking you , I'm telling you, and your attitude is only going to get you out of this forum, permanently, especially seeing as you are arguing your OWN weird ideas on *OTHER PEOPLE'S THREADS*. You are the one who is taking the threads on different directions. You better stop, and you better stop quickly. The moderators are starting to lose patience. Yes, I know what a dipole is. What I don't understand (and asked you directly) is how it is related to the debate at hand about the Star of Bethlehem pointing from Babylon to Jerusalem. What does the dipole have to do with it? That above sentence is so unclear I don't even know what you mean.

And the source of this remarkable animation is....? How is it defying scientific factor? And how is it remotely related to the discussion at hand?

Fair enough. That doesn't necessarily makes it bunk, though. It just might make the delivery method 'cheap' or 'pop culture'. There's a difference, I think? See physics books from physicists like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku and Brian Greene -- they write books that are considered "pop culture", but the physics in them is essentially true. They might be simplified and should not be used in a physics lab or publishable paper, but they're useful in their own way to deliver physics concepts to interested people who didn't spend 20 years studying very complex physical phenomena. My question here, really, is NLP a completely bunk methodology on its own, or is it just a pop-culture way of delivering something that, in essence and in the more complex subject, has merit? I know a little about NLP because my parents used to have books about it. They didn't really consider it "good psychology" and didn't use it for "self help", but the concepts about interpretation of body language in others fascinated them. Quite honestly, it fascinates me too. Some of it makes sense to me; I think some of the books go to extreme ("If you see X, it means Y" never makes sense in psychology) but some give good general points about behaviors and 'tips' about how things look to the outside, etc. I have to say, a lot of those concepts sound like they have SOME underlying merit. They might be oversimplified, and I would never say that they're a "cure" for psychological conditions or for "self help", but is it really totally bunk, or is it just a pop culture simplification of something that makes sense? Again, I'm not judging, I have no idea, I'm simply asking. I know a lot of people reject it off hand, I just am not sure if it's the "pop culture" aspect of it, or the actual theory. ~mooey

You will need to be a bit more specific. What do you mean a decision will reward oneself? Anything we choose has consequences, and part of making rational decisions is to calculate the "benefit" a decision will give us. Not all decisions in life end up being beneficial, and not all are reational, but when you do consider something rationally, that's what you're doing, isn't it? Considering the 'reward' of the choice? Not sure what you're asking here.

! Moderator Note Discussion shifted to religious topic, and hence moved to the Religion subforum.

We've had a bit of a semi-discussion about this on the channel, but I'd like to surface it here. PhDwannabe, you are a professional psychologist (or upcoming) and for you it might be utterly clear why NLPt is pseudoscience bunk, but the answer seems a bit dismissive; No offense, but not everyone knows that immediately -- or even know why you say that. I personally heard in the past that NLP is bunk, but I wasn't sure where and why. If you can provide a (very short) explanation of why you so vehemently oppose it, that will be very helpful for everyone (me included). NLP makes sense on first-read. It might be bunk - in fact, many "theories" that "make sense" are complete bunk -- but the fact it makes sense on first read is a hint of why a lot of people believe in it and follow it. Dismissing it doesn't help convince people that it's really bunk. It's enough if you can just direct us to some useful articles online?

! Moderator Note superball, you were warned not to advertise other unrelated (CLOSED!) threads in discussions. There will come a time where we will stop reminding you of the rules you agreed to when you joined. Links removed. Next time the post will be deleted.

I would also like to point out that since we are "scienceforums", all of our sub-forums are under the conditions of scientific debate and the requirements of 'evidence first', 'falsifiability', 'logical and rational explanations', and all the other 'stuff' that goes on to a scientific debate. Even the religion forum. That's how we're different than many other forum networks. If people bother to go to the religion forum they will clearly see that only threads that have some form of rational scientific arguments about religion stick around. Any arguments that are 'religious' in nature tend to go to dogmatic and preaching, and are closed. Moving a thread to religion doesn't mean we discard it, or that we see it as less scientific. The requirement to remain scientific still exists in the religion forum -- it just means that the subject of the thread is religious. Any sort of religion; Christianity is not the only religion on Earth. I think the problem is when religious-minded people come to a science forum and expect to convince us their dogmatic and evidence-lacking unorganized preachy statements are "science". They're not. This thread was quite different, though. As John Cuthber put it: This thread wouldn't fly in the Religion forum either. The thread, as it was going, was probably going to end up closed.This isn't about "encouraging" against science. It's about following up on subjects, all of them are required to be discussed scientifically, in a thread that clearly and absolutely without any doubt was not bringing up any scientific claims. The only reason it's currently in Speculation, is because the FIRST POST is semi scientific. That's it. If we were to judge this thread by the final posts, it would end up in "Religion", and close. Before criticizing our actions, I suggest you go over our rules and take a look at the other threads in all of our sub-forums. ~mooey

As usual with pop-media, the title is a tad bombastic; the effect seems to be that the brain takes less processing time with nude bodies than it does with clothed ones, which I guess makes a lot of sense. There's less to analyze. Still, it was too good not to share. http://cnews.canoe.c...3/19013771.html If anyone can find the original science study, I will be happy to stare at it.

I couldn't go, but I have to make sure I can go to The Amazing Meeting this year. Damnit, I have to! I'm in skeptic-withdrawal! Glad to see you had fun, ydoaPs

I'm the chief of police. I have the leather uniform and sparkly whip to prove it.

Glad to help In any case, I think our system has something above akismet because it's a network of blogs. If you see excessive spam over what you're used to seeing, you should send a note to staff[at]scienceforums[dot]net -- we (well, the admins mostly) can take a look and see if there's something abnormal. Usually, though, we get lots of spam because any blog gets lots of comment spam, and we're a big forum system. If it's really bad, let us know.

== EDITED == It all depends what the poster wants, really. If they are looking for a place with people who will automatically bow down to his ideas and worship his notions, then there are quitea number of forums out there that don't deal with science. However, I don't think it's too much surprise to come to a science-forum and watch the posters argue about .. oh.. I don't know.. science. The only other option for this thread is "Speculation" forum. There's no way this unscientific discussion goes to the mainstream science forums, I'm sure everyone recognizes that. So, perhaps, speculation. Thing is -- this is religious in nature. I know that the OP and superball seem to wnt to claim it has nothing to do with religion, but their posts say otherwise. Now please, let's stop arguing about WHERE this thread is, and start discussing WHAT this thread is about. ~mooey

== EDITED == You know, the original poster supplied links to BAUT forum, where the video/idea was already discussed, and the posters there make incredibly good points. (Please remember, to avoid plagiarism and be fair, if you link to anything someone else said, be it in a forum or a website, supply the full link-back and credit) link: http://www.bautforum...097#post1870097 Another point, is that the event is claimed to be at 7BC, not 0, and I'm not sure who defines "7BC" is the birth of Jesus rather than 1AD, which is by definition the birth of Jesus according to Christianity. Finally, I don't see the point of any of this. Even if it is true that there was a start that shone brighter - that was not and will not be the first time that ancient folk see amazing phenomenon and attach a religious/unique meaning to it. It's not only in Christianity, either, and it's not confined to that period of time. Human beings make imaginative explanations to what they don't understand. Even *if* that star was there, it proves absolutely nothing about anything in Christianity, other than people saw it and had no idea what "star" actually means, therefore attached a religious meaning to it. Ancient Egyptians thought the Sun was a god; they worshipped it and followed a lot of phenomena associated with it, including the occasional solar eclipses. They explained it by Ra's different moods, and it was consistent in their religion. I don't think there's anyone that suggests that the fact the eclipses were TRUE EVENTS it means that Ra existed, or that there's any merit to the Egyptian Gods' stories. I'm not quite sure what the point is in this "idea", really. ~mooey

You scared me there for a second, I use Akismet in 3 blogs...

Since when is akismet not free? Is this new? I knew that you just need to open a wordpress.com account and that gives yo free Akismet access. Look into that, I'll be really surprised if akismet started costing money...

Superball, you don't get to decide who posts here. You came to this forum, a *science* forum, and people will answer you. They will answer you when they disagree with you, too, and give evidence. That's what we do. Science doesn't go by "polls", and you already have a thread open about your theory. We don't accept threads here that's only existence is to get people to go to other threads. Don't do this again. ! Moderator Note Duplicate "marketing ploy" thread CLOSED. Don't open this again, superball, stick to the thread you have.

Great. I challenged yours back. That's why we're a debate forum, and not a religion-marketing yellow pages book. Of course there's a need. You just refuse to give proper reasoning, by saying "axiomatic", and you convince no one. We're not here to listen to you soapbox; do you want to debate, or not? Obviously you misread. I don't go around putting words in your mouth - don't put words in mine. Just like any other "scientific" claim (which yours isn't, 'cause it's unfalsifiable, but okay) the burden of proof seems to be on you. You just refuse to give it, claiming it's "axiomatic" and thinking we lost our way by not agreeing with you. That's preaching. Not only will it not benefit anything in this debate, it's also against our rules. You too.

Seemingly, because it requires no further questions -- it's an absolute answer. But I do agree with this notion that you're raising with the question. I never quite got this 'simplest answer' bit either -- saying "God" seems to raise a LOT more questions than any naturalistic answer, since it requires the relying on a LARGE number of unsubstantiated "non natural" answers. I would say that's the LEAST simple answer, but I don't have the "blind faith" that seems to be required to answer questions with the "God" answer without challenging it. ~mooey

Yes. Almost any interaction with the beam will decrease its energy. Energy is related to the frequency ([math]E=hf[/math], where E is energy, h is planck's constant, and f is the frequency) so that would decrease the frequency. But you have "lower frequency" lasers. Laser beams depend on coherence, not on frequency. Here's a good place to start on that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser and http://www.antonine-...el_of_light.htm