SkepticLance

There are two kinds of conclusions in this world. 1. A rational, logical, and reasonable conclusion drawn from data. This can be correct or wrong. And its correctness or falsehood can be demonstrated. 2. Opinion. This is subjective, and there are no right or wrong answers. In my mind, I draw a clear cut distinction between the two. Where insane alien agrees that access to guns increases suicide deaths, that is item 1 - conclusion based on data. Where insane alien disagrees with me on the correct action to take, that is opinion. When we discuss opinion, no-one is 'right' and no-one is 'wrong'. I am just as likely to be 'wrong' as anyone else. To Sayonara I am sorry if I seem to have overlooked some specific point you have made. Perhaps you could be kind enough to repeat the point you want me to address?

Man, did I stir up a hornets nest!! I have observed this phenomenon (overreaction to a single post) before. It represents the reactions when someone threatens other people's firmly held emotional beliefs. I have noticed in other threads that gun ownership is one of the emotional buttons that, when pressed, cause an eruption of passionate protest that should be a case history in a psychological study. Of course, people who think emotionally are incapable of realising that they are thinking emotionally, and come up with all sorts of spurious and ridiculous arguments without even knowing that their arguments are spurious and ridiculous. I accept that the idea of the right to own a gun being more important, versus an extra 20,000 odd deaths from suicide each year, is an opinion. It is not based on data. My opinion is that human life is important, and 20,000 extra deaths each year is too high a price to pay. But other people put a lower value on human life and a higher value on the right to own and keep in their possession instruments designed to kill humans. I cannot prove they are wrong, since that is opinion. But there are other things I can demonstrate are wrong, since there is official data to demonstrate that. To iNow : It may seem like a personal attack. But my statement was firmly directed at one of your arguments, not at you. Sayonara. Suicide rates can be high in nations that have low gun ownership. That is because suicide rate is a function of several, not one, variables. That does not change the fact that the single variable I am concentrating on is vitally important. I could argue that, if we increased gun availability in Japan, or the UK, that successful suicide rates would increase substantially. I believe that to be true, but cannot prove it until the experiment is carried out. For the United States, however, the position is clear. Easy gun ownership substantially increases death rate by suicide. That is clearly shown by the Harvard researchers paper, which shows that suicide death rate is higher in states with easier gun ownership. You said : "You seem to be completely ignoring the successful suicide attempts which occur without any firearms involvement whatsoever, which means you cannot have considered whether firearms access plays any kind of role there at all." That's where official statistics come into play. They show where one outcome dominates. Sure, some people successfully suicide without guns. That happens in Japan, UK, Lithuania and all round the world. But the percentage of successful suicides increases drastically when guns are available. And official stats show that 90% of suicide attempts are not repeated. Pangloss said : "It's also not a scientific point at all, and I think it's a cop-out to pretend that it is. You're deliberately interpreting the data in a specific manner. That's a political message." Yet the conclusions I come to are exactly the same as those in the papers published in JAMA or the Harvard study etc. You are accusing eminent researchers of being unscientific at the same time as you accuse me. My view is that this opinion is so far off beam that is must be motivated by emotion, not rational thinking. Guys, I know I am asking something very difficult. But how about you stand back away from your emotions? Look at the data. Discard your prejudicial ideas. Start again with data, not opinion.

Just for the record, I have been arguing against those who deny data and the obvious logical conclusions to be drawn from data. If you want to make the argument that possessing guns is a human right, and should be upheld despite the price, then that is an opinion, and not data based. As an opinion, there is no right or wrong answer, and I have little interest in entering such an argument, since there is no chance of anyone 'winning' the argument. It would appear from the last few posts, though, that there is now little argument against the clear cut data and clear cut logical conclusion from that data, with one sad exception. iNow is still arguing against some of the data when he says : "As has been repeatedly shown, if someone wants to take their own life, they will find a way. It's really that simple." since the data clearly shows that most people who attempt suicide and fail will not repeat the attempt and will survive. iNow is correct only for minority of suicide attempts. The data also clearly shows that states of the USA that have tighter gun laws have a lower rate of death by suicide. Thus, iNow's repeated assertion that a potential suicide will kill himself regardless of gun availability is simply wrong. The data shows that this statement is wrong. If you want to discuss people's rights to own guns and use them for suicide, and argue that this right is more important than a few thousand deaths each year, then that is a subjective opinion, and not something I can use data to argue against. That is fine. You are entitled to your opinion. But on this forum, denying clear cut data shows a person who does not think in a proper scientific way.

To Sayonara I concede your point. I believe that near intelligence has occurred only in the last 50 million years, which is not the same as proving it to be a fact. It is possible, though I would consider it unlikely, that some more ancient cephalopods, and possibly some dinosaurs had near intelligence earlier than that. However, I have seen little good evidence to prove my belief wrong. Perhaps you have such evidence?

To i.a. The logic is simple. - 90% of all suicide attempts with guns leads to death - 90% of all failed suicide attempts are not repeated - 43 out of 44 suicide attempts are not successful - 57% of all successful suicides in the US use guns Since most suicide attempts fail, and most with guns succeed, then most suicide attempts do not involve guns. But those that do, drastically raise the death rate out of all proportion. Therefore, if guns are not available, the death rate will fall.

Dichotomy As you said, behaviour is both innate and learned. It is interesting to try to determine which is which. In spite of what CDarwin said, I am convinced the human smile is universal and represents a behaviour that is innate. If I give a friendly smile, it is perceived as such whether I am in Beijing, Greenland, Timbuktu or New York. The universality of the behaviour makes it rather probably that this is innate. There have been numerous experiments comparing male and female behaviours. Many of them are universal, and appear at a very young age. This suggests that they are encoded in our genes. Trying to determine percentages is probably futile. I regard untested behaviours as probably 50:50, but this is merely a way of looking at it, and proper testing would change that view.

To Dak You are correct, of course. The publication of material that meets the definition of 'zealotry' is not part of formal scientific reports. However, such writings are still very common. To Swansont The phrase 'less than' came from my reference. Obviously, those who prepared this report clearly believed that earlier reports were for significantly greater numbers of hurricanes.

To iNow As has been shown earlier, many or most cases of severe depression leading to suicide attempts are not permanent. If the person fails to kill himself/herself, then in time the depression is likely to be relieved. For a person to successfully suicide, when the alternative is eventual relief from depression and a long satisfying life, well that is tragedy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_depression Quote : "[edit] Prognosis Major depressive episodes often tend to resolve over time regardless of treatment. Outpatients on a waiting list show a 10–15% decrease in symptoms over a few months, with approximately 20% no longer meeting full criteria.[127] The median duration of an episode has been estimated to be at least 23 weeks, with the highest rate of recovery in the first three months.[128] Studies recruiting from the general population, which includes but is not limited to individuals who have had treatment, indicate that around half of those who have a major depressive episode do not have any further episodes, but around half have at least one more and a minority experience chronic recurrence.[129] Studies recruiting from selective inpatient sources suggest low recovery and high chronicity, but studies of mostly outpatients show that nearly all recover, with a median episode duration of 11 months. Recurrence occurs in 40% to 70% within several years, however, and overall about one tenth have poor, one third have intermediate, and one half have favorable outcomes. Around 90% of those with severe/psychotic depression, most of whom also meet criteria for other mental disorders, experience recurrence.[130][131] There is a higher than average suicide risk in major depression. Although articles and textbooks have typically stated a suicide rate of 15%, the figure was based on hospitalized patients and more severe criteria. A reexamination indicates an approximate figure of 3.4%, with differing rates of around 7% for men and 1% for women.[132][133]"

To iNow Re zealots Zealotry, or fanatic adherence to a belief, is an aspect of human nature that is near universal in application. In other words, every branch of human thought will have its zealots, and science is no different. I see it all the time in environmental science, where people take scientific findings and streeeeeetch the interpretation way beyond what is scientifically justifiable based on the data. You could argue that the whole 'science' of superstrings is based on this principle. Those who promote possible extreme outcomes of global warming are often very zealous.

To Sayonara Sorry I did not fully understand what you were getting at before. Yes, I agree. We cannot know for sure. We do know that modern whales and dolphins are reasonably intelligent , and I made the assumption that the earliest whales with large brain cases were also quite bright. OK, we cannot be sure. The real point though, is that near intelligence has occurred only in the last few million years (maximum 50) and has already exploded into numerous semi-intelligent species. Evolution can go many different ways, but over a long enough period shows a clear trend towards producing more complex organisms. On Earth, this trend led in the end to many semi-intelligent species. We cannot be sure that this happens everywhere, but I would suspect very strongly that a large fraction of worlds with life would demonstrate the same trend to increased complexity over time. Given enough time, intelligence or near intelligence would emerge in many such worlds. I would be more inclined to suspect few worlds developing life itself, but a high fraction of worlds with life developing semi or real intelligence. The idea that life must appear inevitably, or almost so, on any world that has the physical requirements, is to my mind, more an aspect of a kind of religious faith than genuine science.

The nature versus nurture argument about human behaviour has been going on for a long time. I have always thought that, as a general rule, purely as a mental tool, it is good to consider most human behaviours to be about 50:50 unless there is good data to show otherwise. This is not exact science, but the study of human behaviour is rarely exact science either. The 50:50 idea might be a useful mental tool though? I have also thought that a good way to distinguish between human behaviour that is learned and that which is encoded in our genetic material is to see if it is universal or not. This tells us, for example, that the thumbs up sign is not instinctive, since it has different meanings for different cultures. However, a smile is totally universal, meaning pretty much the same thing everywhere you go, suggesting that the meaning behind a smile is genetic. I came across a nice reference relating to this. http://www.sciencedaily.com:80/releases/2008/08/080811200018.htm Quote : "The victory stance of a gold medalist and the slumped shoulders of a non-finalist are innate and biological rather than learned responses to success and failure, according to a University of British Columbia study using cross-cultural data gathered at the 2004 Olympic and Paralympic Games." What do other people think about the relationship between cultural universality (or non universality) and behaviour being innate or learned?

I have been involved in a couple of thread discussions where I have suggested that the short to medium term harm from global warming is not going to be as bad as zealots predict. One of the arguments used against me is the predicted increase in number and force of hurricanes. So when I saw the reference below, I thought it worth posting. http://www.sciencedaily.com:80/releases/2008/08/080812160615.htm Not that I am a great fan of this kind of computer model. But it is interesting to see that the frequency of hurricanes is now predicted to reduce, not increase. I quote : "Together, these results suggest that in a global warming world, there would be less hurricanes, but those that do form could become stronger." So the prediction now is fewer, not more hurricanes, even if they become somewhat more potent. What is tomorrow's prediction, I wonder?

To Sayonara, I do not quite understand your point, or why speculation is wrong. This whole thread is speculative. However, my 50 million number comes from whales. They appear to be the oldest of the 'reasonably intelligent' mammals. Apes, elephants and the smarter carnivores did not have large brains till later. Whales with reasonable size brains were found as fossils in sediments dated to 50 million years ago. To the best of knowledge, all other smart mammals are younger. Similarly, there are no clear cut fossils of 'brainy birds' that far back.

Falcon Nothing will 'fix' suicides. However, there are actions that will cut down the death rate from suicide. The statistics already presented show that the death rate from suicide attempts using guns are 90%. About the same number of suicide attempts (90%) are impulse driven, and if they do not result in deaths, are not repeated. Suicides from other methods are far less successful. For example : drug overdose results in only 2% death rate. Overall 43 of 44 suicide attempts are unsuccessful. And in the USA, 57% of deaths from suicide are from firearms. Plus the fact that states with stricter gun control have lower per capita death rates from suicide. The inevitable conclusion, for everyone except those who totally lack the ability to put 2 and 2 together, is that easy gun availability increases the number of suicide deaths. Not the number of suicide attempts - most of which do not result in fatalities. But ready access to guns increases the number of people who actually get killed.

To SH3RLOCK Helium gas is a by product of radio-decay of some elements. Normally it 'disappears' due to its very light weight. However, it can accumulate under certain impervious rocks, if they are domed. This is also the structure that traps natural gas underground. Thus, in a few sites, Helium is found mixed with natural gas. The origins of each is quite different, but the means of trapping both gases are the same. However, the radio-decay takes many millions of years. Thus, once the Helium is used up, it will not be replenished in a hurry!

Helium gas is aproximately 1 part per million of the atmosphere by weight. Not much, but in theory it is extractable, at a high cost, in amounts enough for any reasonable level of use. Cheap Helium from natural gas will soon be gone.

DH I definitely agree with you that communicating civilisations in our galaxy will be rare, and might well be restricted to planet Earth. Your comments about star formation are excellent. I still disagree on intelligence. This thing about near intelligence, is that it has existed for less than 50 million years, and only that long in 'handicapped' species with no hand equivalent. Against a backdrop of 3 to 4 billion years with life, that is an 'eyeblink' of time. Near intelligence in terrestrial species with hands has existed for a very few millions of years. Given more time, I suspect, it would appear in many species. The major advantages of intelligence are : 1. Social factors - hence breeding 2. Tool manufacture and use 3. Communication and cooperative hunting. Of those three, I would say the main driver of human evolution has been the tools. And we already see chimpanzees beginning down that road. In the wild, they use stones to crack nuts, twigs to fish out termites, and even sharp sticks as spears in hunting. Given time, the chimps would very likely become our second fully intelligent species.

DH said "Perhaps I have not made myself clear. I'll be blunt. You are missing the point. Excluding entire star systems is the job of the factors R*, fp, and ne. It is not the job of the factor fl, which is the probability that life will arise given that a star, its star system, and some planet(s) in that star system are suitable for life. Think of it as a conditional probability." OK. I am happy to accept that qualification. However, I still think that number will be very low. Planets suitable for life will, in my opinion, be rare. Re life dying out. Yes, that remains a strong possibility, and it is a good point for you to bring up. I guess I have tended to lump that possibility in with the odds that life did not arise at all. Your point about the moon is a good one. What is your guesstimate about the percentage of planets that once developed life, only to see it die out? Re intelligence. I disagree with you in your statement about intelligence being a fluke. There are too many other quite intelligent species. The bottlenose dolphin, for example, has a larger brain than humans, and a brain to body weight ratio that is quite similar. While we do not know how smart it actually is, it's large brain must carry at least the adaptive disadvantages of the human large brain, such as energy demand, and difficulty with birth. http://practicalethics.net/blog/?s=untoothed I quote : "Dolphins rank higher in encephalization quotient (EQ), the ratio of the brain volume to the surface area of the body, than great apes and have been placed only second to humans. The EQ is significant because it gets higher as the subjects’ social structures get more complex. But some suggest that the EQ measurement may be underestimated in dolphins because of the additional weight of blubber in the cetacean body (see Marino, further resources below). This indicates that dolphins, therefore, may have at least the marine parallel to the human EQ." Intelligence, albeit less than human, is also found in octopi, some parrots, some crows, other cetaceans, other great apes, elephants and some carnivores. Humans have been intelligent for a tiny fraction of the time life has existed, and given more time, many of those species would probably develop human or greater smarts.

To DH I did not ignore your reference to the inevitability of life. I was, instead, unable to access it. You are correct to say we cannot mark a particular time as the start of life. We simply do not know. SciAm states 3 to 4 billion years ago. That is a pretty big margin of error! You said "Regardless of which is the answer, you are placing star systems with hot Jupiters and planets with highly elliptical orbit in the wrong bucket. The prevalence of brown dwarfs will reduce R*. The prevalence of hot Jupiters will reduce ne. The fraction fl The is fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears. The key here is "suitable planets." Neither a hot Jupiter nor a planet with a highly elliptical orbit is suitable. Double-counting will falsely reduce the final value for N." I may not have made this very clear. What I am trying to do is exclude entire star systems. A system with a planet Jupiter size or larger, close to the sun, will not very likely have life bearing planets. Nor will a system with highly elliptical orbits. And based on empirical evidence to date, most systems have planets with highly elliptical orbits. We still need a lot more data about extra-solar star systems, but to date the results do not look promising for lots of life bearing planets. A comment on the fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligence evolves. About 10% of the galaxy is composed of star systems that are 2 billion plus years older than our own. Evolution of life in these systems, if it follows a pattern roughly equivalent to Earth, would have reached a point similar to life on Earth today around 2 billion plus years ago. Thus, 10% of life bearing worlds have had heaps of time for intelligence to evolve. This is a prime reason why I think that the fraction of life bearing worlds with intelligence has to be a lot greater than 1:1,000,000.

To iNow I think we have agreed that this is speculation. Thus, putting firm numbers on anything is exceedingly risky. I can only offer you a guess, and my guess may be way out. As a guess, I would say somewhere between 1 in 1000 and 1 in a million, but as stated, I could be way wrong.

I think we all agree we are engaged in strong speculation, and our conclusions are going to be highly tenuous, at best, and total garbage at worst. Back to dating life. DH's reference on 4.25 billion year old carbon, while interesting, is probably a red herring. There was an article on earliest hints of life in Scientific American a year or 3 ago. They mentioned 3.8 billion year old traces of hydrocarbons in Canadian rocks, but were not prepared to draw conclusions, and really thought that, too, was a red herring. They also mentioned the 3.5 billion year old rocks in Western Australia that have been interpreted as early stromatolite (photosynthetic bacteria) fossils. SciAm thought that was pretty uncertain also. In addition, there is iron oxide in ancient rocks. Apparently the Earth is rich in iron compounds, and these tend to oxidise when exposed to pure oxygen. There is a one billion year period of about 3.5 billion years ago to 2.5 billion years ago where the rocks are very rich in iron oxide. This has been interpreted by some researchers as meaning that photosynthetic organisms were releasing oxygen into the atmosphere over that time. After that time, all the available iron was oxidised and oxygen could build up in the air rather than being absorbed by iron. Anyway, SciAm suggests that it is likely the first life on Earth appeared 3 to 4 billion years ago. The evidence is too poor to be more definitive. My own feeling is that the first life appeared 3.5 to 4 billion years ago, and the purported stromatolite fossils in Australia were probably real - but that is just my opinion. If this is the case, life appeared 500 million to 1 billion years after the formation of the Earth. This is not, in my utterly humble opinion, strong evidence for the universality of life! We are speculating. We do not know what conditions are needed for life to form. We know it happened here, but cannot assume that it happened anywhere else. Once the first life appeared, then if no nasty accidents happen, it has the chance to evolve into more robust forms. The first life, though, without strong adaptations to changes in the environment, must have been very vulnerable to extinction. It is probably no accident that the first life appeared on Earth in the period after the early bombardment by meteors was pretty much over. Models indicate that the massive impact events took about 500 million years. One part of the model indicates that the presense of Jupiter in its special orbit was crucial to removing the space debris causing the bombardment. Without Jupiter, or if Jupiter was elsewhere, this would not have stopped. Amont the 200 odd extra-solar planets discovered, giants like Jupiter are not normally found anywhere near the special orbit Jupiter has. Indeed, many are so close to their sun that they would be inside the orbit of Mercury. These close in giant planets would be inimical to the development of life, since meteorite impacts would continue unabated within the liquid water zone. I also repeat that most of these extra-solar planets have strongly elliptical orbits. The evidence strongly suggests that the nearly circular orbits in our solar system are very unusual. My conclusion is that the beginnings of life outside Earth are probably rare.

To DH I like your final conclusion, but I would arrive at it a little differently. I do not think we can consider that 0.9 of all planets within the liquid water zone will develop life. Even though life appeared quickly on Earth, to suggest that this is transferable to other planets is a bit naive. We do not know what the exact conditions were for life to form. There are lots of theories, but no real facts. One thing is clear, though. A minor 'wrong' in initial conditions would be enough to prevent life's appearance. Too many impact events. Too elliptical an orbit. No tectonics. Perhaps the wrong mineralogy, or the wrong initial atmosphere. I would rate this factor well down - way below 0.9. I would do the opposite for the percentage of planets with life that develop intelligent life. We have just Planet Earth to draw on for comparison, but it looks quite clear to me. Life evolves. While individual species can change in all sorts of weird ways, overall there is a trend towards greater complexity, and towards higher intelligence. Today, as well as humans, there are quite a number of species that are semi intelligent. I think that if life gets well established, the probability, given time, that it will develop into intelligence is quite high. In the same way, if intelligence appears, then the main thing preventing them achieving electronic technology is either lack of hands (like dolphins) or lack of time. It took Homo sapiens about 200,000 years from the species first appearing to emitting radio signals. Since the galaxy is about 8 billion years old, we can assume the time required has already occurred. On Earth, about one third of all semi-intelligent species have some sort of hand equivalent. So I think the percentage here would be a lot higher than 1%.

To Gilded The article did not include a definition of 'Earth-like'. From other reading I have done, I assume it means being in that orbit in which water is liquid. I have some difficulty with this one. The estimate of 10% of planets being 'Earth-like' seems way over the top to me. The 200 odd planets outside our solar system so far discovered nearly all had strongly elliptical orbits. From that data, it seems that, if 'Earth-like' includes having a nearly circular orbit, like Earth, then the proportion is way lower than 10%. If the orbit is strongly elliptical, then it would move in and out of the zone in which water is liquid, and that would seem to make it very unlikely that life could get started. Life would have a bit of a problem when all water turns to steam!

To Sisyphus You may understand iNow better by looking at his hobby (Martial Arts). This is an activity frequently adopted by the ex victims of bullies - those of low self esteem and insecurity. By learning to kick the crap out of others, they boost their flagging self esteem. The fact that he cannot stand the fact that I do not agree with everything he says, indicates that he lacks the personal confidence that most people have, permitting them to accept lack of agreement. I think iNow must have been bullied. (Just joking!) To iNow If your argument is that a few bullies may be differently motivated, then I agree. Throughout I have modified my statements with words like 'typically' or 'usually'.

Reference war, here we come! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050411100940.htm Quote : "December 2003, Juvonen, Graham and Mark Schuster, associate professor of pediatrics in UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, reported that bullies are often popular and viewed by classmates as the "coolest" in their classes; they don't show signs of depression or social anxiety, and do not suffer from low self-esteem." http://www.college.ucla.edu/news/03/juvonen.html Quote : "More than one in five 12-year-olds are repeatedly either bullies, victims or both, and bullies are often popular and viewed by classmates as the "coolest" in their classes, according to new UCLA research from the most comprehensive study on young adolescent bullying in an ethnically diverse, large urban setting. Bullies, seven percent of the students, are psychologically strong. "Bullies are popular and respected: they are considered the 'cool' kids," said Jaana Juvonen, UCLA professor of psychology, and lead author of "Bullying Among Young Adolescents: The Strong, the Weak, and the Troubled," published in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics. "They don't show signs of depression or social anxiety, and they don't feel lonely. "We hope that these findings help us dispel the myth that bullies suffer from low self-esteem," Juvonen said. "Our data indicate that bullies do not need ego boosters. Unfortunately, this myth is still guiding many programs conducted in schools. Instead, we should be concerned about the popularity of bullies and how to change the peer culture that encourages bullying." Of course, low self esteem is characteristic of those who become the victims of bullies. The bully feels superior and boosts that good feeling by destroying the self esteem of those he considers to be 'inferior'.