Ringer

I don't know, I'm growing to love this pink pony. . .

I never said I know for a fact it wouldn't be cost effective, I just have yet to see an argument that convinces me otherwise. Farming humans would be fairly cost effective, else the slave trade never would have prospered; farming clones, on the other hand, is different entirely. Like I said the clones put forth in this discussion would have to be 'less' than human or not conscious. In that regard they would be very difficult to take care of. Plus it is a very specialized market when talking about things like organ farming, by the time we are at a point it is easy to make clones for organ donation it would most likely be cheaper to create organs by themselves without the hassle of all out cloning. Economies of scale don't usually work with forms of farming so far as I'm aware. The only way to make it into an economy of scale would be to produce in bulk, which would only work for sex trade and even then you would have to take care of them. I could be wrong since I haven't taken an economics course since I was in high school.

I'm shocked no one said anything about not being able to reproduce without men. . .

I am going to have to assume that you mean Moore's law which only applies to electronics, not to livestock. There is a very large difference between producing livestock and an electronic device. No they are not handled at all. You are specifically referencing clones, so it's assumed that they do not reproduce so they would not be cost effective to buy/sell because once one reaches maturity you would not have more that were produced from it like you would cows and other livestock, otherwise it's just slavery which is illegal. When I was a child I helped my dad and uncle on a farm that raised pigs and cattle; if you just bought a set and didn't plan on breeding it would not be worth your time or money. Also like anything else there are differences in price between regular old herd cattle and stock angus, most of the steaks you are going to buy are coming from quality cattle while most of the cattle at auction wont be extremely high quality. You also have to take into account all the middle men that the meat goes through to get to the grocery, and you don't take into account the amount it cost to keep the cows alive. In short, your argument that 'handled' my comment did no such thing. The laws of contamination would also be much more strict so the organs would not be infectious to the person receiving them. You would also have the problem with spending that kind of money and not know whether you would even need the organ transplant in the first place! Clones don't just form into grown organisms immediately, they have the same developmental times we do. So to spend that kind of money for a just in case scenario would be ignorant. Not to mention cows can eat, bath, etc on their own, for these clones to be considered less than human it was said they would have no consciousness, so they would probably not be able to do these things so would require constant supervision. The list of why farming humans isn't cost effective goes on and on.

You may have been in sales and marketing, but that has nothing to do with production. Human's dietary needs are a pretty far cry from most of the other animals we tend to farm. Not to mention they would have to be kept fairly healthy for organ donation and fairly attractive for a sex slave. I'm going to the issue of cost because you are assuming that human cloning will get to a point where that would be an issue. For purely civil liberty reasons I don't believe that will be an issue. So I am just ignoring that issue and pursuing other reasons why it would not be feasible to 'grow' humans for commercialization.

Not that I'm aware of, and even if they do they still have the right to refuse to be a surrogate. That depends on the assumption that we A.) know what consciousness is B.) have the knowledge to engineer genes to ONLY act upon neurons that influence consciousness and no others C.) we somehow are able to think of a clone as not human which out of all of these I find the least likely. Do you have any basis whatsoever that they will only be thought of as mindless hulks? Do you realize that if they have the same genes that they will, more or less, develop the same as the person cloned so they will not be mindless? Or how about the problem with the time it would take to actually let them grow and mature to where their organs are even the least bit usable? It would probably cost much more in upkeep and such than they would help just so they could be organ farms or sex slaves.

The only worry I would have with human cloning is that clones made from things that are older tend to have age related difficulties much earlier than they normally should. Dolly ended up being put down when she was relatively young from lung disease and arthritis. Also for the whole sex slave or organ slave thing, if the above problem was worked out, the clones would still be humans. Being humans they would still have all the basic human rights. Saying otherwise is the equivalent of saying only one identical twin has basic human rights.

Hopefully no one here 'instantly' believes anything. Part of scientific thought is skepticism of claims made, but on that same vein the hypotheses and theories that do make it through a good stretch of time are most likely fairly reliable. If you want to look at some evidence of evolution there are plenty of resources out there. Here are a couple to get you started: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs.html

I'm assuming that the S2 species doesn't naturally occur in the same area as S1 and was introduced to that area by some means. A further assumption is that these two species are rather closely related and are able to interbreed but were considered different species because barriers made them unable to do so (i.e. allopatric speciation). I know it is a stretch but this is really just a thinking exercise to try to help him.

Evolution of, say, size can happen because there is always variation within a population. The variation is allows different animals to reproduce and have offspring that may or may not, depending on the environment and variation type, be better adapted to the environment. Say that there is a population of trees called S1. Now obviously there will be trees the that are shorter and some that are taller, but overall most have an average height. Now say that another species of tree is introduced,S2, into this population that has a slightly taller average. Since the sun is needed for these trees to produce energy the small trees will not be able to get sunlight and die off. The S2 population, being taller, is easily surviving and getting enough sun at the expense of the shorter trees. Now since there was variation in height in the S1 species there will be some that are surviving and reproducing and having offspring with that height. So long as this goes on for many generations the S1 allele for height can be dramatically changed and the overall height will be higher than previous generations. Perhaps the S1 and S2 species cross-bred (I don't remember if trees asexually reproduce or not but you get the idea) and now there are no S1 or S2 species at all, just a tall S3 species. In any case, whether S1 and S2 stay separate or interbreed, the allele frequency of the height of trees has changed so evolution has happened.

Since when do legal implications have anything to do with scientific accuracy?

An environmental force that forces a duck to hunt underwater will not cause a duck to hunt underwater if said duck is incapable of hunting underwater. Therefore that duck would no longer be able to hunt and would die out, while the ducks that could go underwater, although may have not hunted there before, out survive/reproduce the other kind. A behavioral change may then take place predisposing the ducks who have survived to eat underwater animals, etc etc. Crossover and mutation are just a couple of many ways that evolution to occur If they can't reach the leaves then they would not be able to survive. They would probably not be able to produce offspring if they can't eat Somewhat, but long neck isn't necessarily a simple Mendelian dominate/recessive trait and even if it were nature doesn't really 'decide' which is which. The became the majority phenotype, most likely, because of the method above. As long as the neck is 'long enough' for the giraffe to survive and reproduce it will be kept. No. If this were true, as shown in an early experiment on evolution, you could cut off the tails of mice and their offspring would not have tails. Or if you say they would have shorter tails then if you continued to cut off the tails they would end up disappearing after a long enough time. This obviously doesn't happen. Giraffes support each other too. So do ants, so should they not evolve. I don't know what ways you assume giraffes are inferior. Again this has little effect on evolution overall. There are no ideal traits. Traits that work in one condition may not in another. Early philosophers' ideas that there were 'ideal' forms to made and animals change towards those forms are wrong. Nature doesn't select for what is good for 'you' but what allows offspring. Take peacocks, their tails are not really what one would consider 'good for you'. It doesn't give an advantage for survival, but it does attract peahens so they can reproduce. Nature doesn't care if they get eaten by a predator so long as they survived long enough to reproduce.

Yes. . . http://www.sciencemag.org/content/309/5741/1720.short http://www.sciencemag.org/content/309/5741/1717.short That's from a single issue of Science, there are more floating around External conditions and acquired traits are different. Your example is acquired trait; also if external condition does cause mutation in a gamete it will not affect the genome of the parent. There are also many other ways genes can mutate without external influence, such as mistakes being made during transcription. This is a fairly difficult question to answer. You have to realize our definition of species is rather arbitrary. Usually we refer to a species as a population that is capable of interbreeding in nature and can produce viable offspring. Obviously this definition has some problems but it works for this. And remember the way we define species was in place long before genome sequences were coming out. Saying the our genes and Chimp genes our 99% similar can be misleading to some for just the reason you said. Our DNA has a certain amount of DNA that actually codes for certain amino acids and portions that are non-coding DNA. We all have, for the most part, the same coding and non-coding segments. We all have 23 homologous pairs. Chimps have a different number of coding and non-coding segments, a different number of homologous pairs, etc. An example is our chromosome 2, which is evolved from 2 separate chromosome that our on a chimpanzee. There are a lot of other things one could get into but hopefully this gives the gist.

Everyday usage means absolutely nothing in science discussions. Weight is the force in relation with mass and gravity. Say I have a mass of 70 kg (yes I am small), if someone were to say my weight is 70 kg they don't mean mass they mean the I have a force of 70kg/9.82 km/s^2. It's just easier to say that I weigh 70 kg. This isn't just a theoretical notion, this is the relationship between mass and weight.

Look for twin studies.

This was all I needed to read to know you have no idea what you are saying. Even elementary school teaches that mass =/= weight.

The challenge of Randi has to be paid because it's a non-profit organization. To offer the reward he HAS to have the money in the bank. Not to mention if you were to due it and he refused to pay you could easily sue, not to mention all the other money you could make from other charlatans for taking Randi down

I 100% disagree that you need to memorize the periodic elements. It's better to get a feel for how the periodic table is set up and why it is that why than trying to memorize 122 element names. Understanding is always better than mere memorizing.

How exactly do you believe that seeing sex harms a child? Do you have any evidence what so ever to support this. Not to mention that just because something is immoral doesn't mean it should be illegal. Different people have different morals and by your standards damn near anything could be arbitrarily deemed illegal. Things like polygamy aren't necessarily illegal because it is immoral, a large part of the polygamy laws came into effect because of tax deductions for multiple marriages. If it were to be illegal for moral reasons than cheating would be a legal offense as well.

No I think the problem would be anatomical, I'm sure behavior could be adapted to suite the use of extra limbs the same way it can be changed sans limbs. Well you would have to think that in development neurons 'sniff' where they are supposed to go by proteins and such released by cells, similar to how some cells differentiate. So It would be interesting to see if if the neural density in, say, the pre and post-central gyri increase substantially. Or they could just space the nerve cells that are normally in and space them out differently. I don't think that the visual system would be effected very much, I don't know of any way the visual system would actually act on extra limbs and vice versa. Of course I'm talking about actually incorporating organic body parts into the anatomy of people, the addition of robotic/synthetic limbs would be less of a problem. Not saying that I would be easy or anything, but I don't think Goro from Mortal Kombat would work nearly as well.

The problem with having extra limbs isn't necessarily psychological. You'd have to think about what body parts would have to be added/subtracted in order to have the correct structure. It has been shown that healthy limbs can be grown where they aren't supposed to be (I know of an experiment where they had drosophila grow legs where its antenna were supposed to be), but adding to a place it usually isn't can have a negative impact overall. It would be interesting to see the effects of neuronal layout/concentration on, say, hands if there were a extra one that was fully functioning.

'But even the much more modest conclusions that the figures fail to show any favorable effects of psychotherapy should give pause to those who would wish to give an important part in the training of clinical psychologists to a skill the existence and effectiveness of which is still unsupported by any scientifically acceptable evidence.' Seems he makes a distinction between psychotherapy and other clinical practices. Back then psychotherapy was not the broad term that it is today; it was the couch therapists method that is so often seen in movies, which is, as I said, Freudian. She doesn't really take their claims apart. They claim prolonged therapy helps more than short term therapy. Although Consumer Reports misrepresent the numbers with the use of that graph it still doesn't show how psychology is not a science.

I'm fairly certain we have all already agreed on this, and many other threads, that Freud was a quack. What theories and self-validated reasoning are you referring to? Hopefully you won't mention the psychosexual theories of Freud because that just may show your ignorance of how far psychotherapy and analysis has come. Your use of Freud is the same thing as me saying that evolution isn't true because Lamarck had a bad theory. I'd have to assume you are referring to This study which, so far as I can tell, just discusses the use of Freudian techniques in comparison to other techniques (I just skimmed it so I may be wrong). Another thing to take into account is that the paper was written in 1952, before something as simple as behavior modification would be implemented. About the AAP president study, please give a link to such a study so others know what it says and perhaps be able to actually have a discussion. I'm sure many people may agree with you, that doesn't mean your right.

So science disproving misconceptions and gaining more knowledge proves science is useless? Makes perfect sense. Aside from that how do you know that Neanderthal wasn't more intelligent, whatever that may mean, and just happened to succumb to a disease, or that we were more warlike and killed them off?