Ringer

http://www.amazon.co...s/dp/0465025102 good book on the subject IMO. I'm about halfway through it and it makes some good points. http://www.indiana.e...ynneffect.shtml also and interesting read and pretty good overview of IQ and the Flynn effect.

The difference is that one is a generic term for states of mind while the other is the study of the mind.

Your RQ score is 100

n++

I think you confuse the word random and arbitrary. Emilio not swansont btw

You assume balls have to have a human element to be in any situation and people are always interacting with them. It was an analogy that you were using to pertain to all situations, so yes I assumed you meant everything because you kept saying: even though you are wrong that wasn't my full example, explain how the flow of magma is random. [edit] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_volcanic_eruptions#Eruption_mechanisms I couldn't let saying eruptions are random stand. . . I really tried [/edit]

yes that is what you said. Is that a question? You said everything is either random or intended, my example is neither.

so nothing moves without intent? I think you confuse intent with kinetic energy. Is the flow of magma out of a volcano random or intended, neither. It is caused by measurable pressure and flows in ways that can be determined.

All animals that live in groups, and many that don't, have different cries or calls (that I'm aware of). Part of what it is thought to be in many animals is an attempt to scare off a would be attacker, in the example of a pained outcry. If I remember right there are striking similarities in most animals cry of pain, anger, excitement, etc. But like Charony said not everything that any animal has is absolutely a survival mechanism and could be explained as such

So, in your theory on what should be seen as unscientific we should throw out all of history, anthropology, physics, etc. As an example that's not really science to make put this in perspective if everything had to be directly observed we would say that there were no accurate way to say where languages come from. Spanish, French, Italian, etc. have no common ancestral language (latin) because we never watched the languages diverge. Even though we see writing styles change slowly throughout history we can never say that the languages changed in any way because we weren't there and we didn't see it happen in a single generation. Also, we cant say why languages change because we never saw two languages interact to change the language as a whole. Again even though all evidence points to this we can't say for sure because we didn't listen to every word. That's how your theory sounds. P.S. Darwin's explanation of evolution was commonly compared with linguistic change so I thought it fitting

letters are patterns partially because what they were based on, A for example comes from an ox head ('aleph) in phoenician,hich was borrowed in Greek to make alpha, then our A. Such goes for any type of writing/script and just because our inventions have patterns doesn't mean everything in existence is patterned.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19956961/ http://www.cuttingedge.org/n1034.html There are two people who believe in evolution that religious people should be able to listen to. Also, interestingly enough, Catholic Schools are some of the only schools that teach evolution thoroughly in America. [edit] http://ncse.com/rncse/28/3/review-creation-evolution-conference-with-pope-benedict-xvi I think this is an interesting read as well [/edit]

Most of the time when a species becomes extinct it's without any "catastrophe". Say a foreign predator somehow makes it's way into an ecosystem that has no defenses against said predator, many prey animals may very well become extinct due to the predator coming into a niche that other species aren't designed for (design being used loosely). One example is somewhere in Washington there are worms used as fish bait that aren't usually naturally there. Now much of the plant life is dying because the worms give off a different waste substance, at least that's what I got out of the news report.

Also, animals don't really evolve similarly just because they are in contact with each other, say like us growing tails because we are around a lot of animals with tails. If animals could become more intelligent by being in contact with us it would probably be safe to assume that domesticated animals would be the first to develop that sort of thing.

Personally I like like to watch and listen to lectures and speakers. Some good websites for this are: http://academicearth.org/ http://videolectures.net/ http://fora.tv/topic/science http://thesciencenetwork.org/

This book goes into good detail about the chemicals and everything that are involved in romantic love.

I doubt there would be any way to really test if they are getting smarter, whatever that would imply, because, as far as I'm aware, we don't really have a meaningful way to test our intelligence. Also, what makes you think it would even be good for most animals to become more intelligent. It takes an incredible amount of energy to have a brain like ours, and I don't see most animals developing a need for any sort of "higher" intelligence.

As they said in Jurassic Park, "Life will find a way."

Psychosis is a type of abnormality, if most of society is psychotic it's no longer abnormal. Who, exactly, is displaying: * Abnormal displays of emotion * Confusion * Depression and sometimes suicidal thoughts * Disorganized thought and speech * Extreme excitement (mania) * False beliefs (delusions) * Loss of touch with reality * Mistaken perceptions (illusions) * Seeing, hearing, feeling, or perceiving things that are not there (hallucinations) * Unfounded fear/suspicion

And what evidence that there is any organism that has less than 10 generations that has been naturally formed. Long is the billions of years of fossils that gives a large amount of evidence of speciation over long periods of time. The reason we use this view of evolution is because it's the only viable explanation we have as to way things are the way they are. If there is good conclusive evidence otherwise we would approach evolution from a different stand point, but there's not so we don't.

What's short? The fact that most all living things have very similar genetic blueprints makes it far more possible that we all come from a very long line of ancestry. Not to say it isn't possible for there to have been multiple original organisms, but even it that's true it's still a long line of speciation.

This discovery isn't really all that new. Not to say it isn't interesting, but social psychologists and economists have studied things like this for years. If I remember right it comes from something like a mixture of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.

If you're asking why people in general tend to enjoy certain stimuli like vivid colors, certain landscapes, etc. the way I understand it is for the most part people find things attractive things that would have helped us to survive in earlier evolutionary periods. vivid colors showed that fruit was ripe and ready to eat while dull colors meant that it was probably rotten. The same thing with landscapes, overall people seem to find grasslands with patches of trees to be more aesthetically pleasing, while mountains and jungles tend to invoke more awe or fear than pleasure. Music, on the other hand, is a mystery as far as I know. The only thing I have ever heard about why we could enjoy music was just a guess someone was giving during an interview and was something about how it could be a replication of bird songs and insect noise which usually means there aren't any predators around. But I don't know if anyone has ever tested anything to explain enjoying music

But their communication can only convey kin/non-kin, food, direction, etc. nothing in the realm of understanding existence which is exactly what religion is formed to do. And we can test what those chemicals do to the ants and what other animals, ants or otherwise, do while being introduced to the chemicals. As far as I know they don't have the cortical area that is associated with abstract thought or communication.

I'm pretty sure follow up studies showed Mead's finding to be somewhat less that conclusive (to put it nicely). I'm almost certain I read something saying that the difference in sex drive in men and women is largely caused by how much easier it is for males to become aroused in a short period of time than it is for women. If I remember right women had a much more difficult time being relaxed around a person/people they didn't have a lot of earlier contact with and that relaxation playing a major role in arousal/orgasm. I'm tired and don't really feel like looking for the study. maybe later Xq28 I think is a gene that may be associated with homosexuality. Also, a woman in a mans body is a transgendered and is a lot different than homosexuality.