SkepticLance

Good point, Mr. Skeptic Education has consistently failed to redirect people's behaviour when that behaviour is generated by more basic drives, such as the bag of hormones. The best we can do is to try to teach the kids who are gonna have sex anyway, how to do it safely.

I am not expressing a personal opinion here. Just want to see what others think. The latest New Scientist (Australian printed copy, 23 Feb. 08 page 18) has an editorial by Professor Donald Braben of University College London and author of "Scientific Freedom : The Elixir of Civilisation". Prof. Braben suggests that modern scientific structure, including the requirement for peer review is stifling creativity and scientific innovation. He suggests that, in the 20th Century before the 1970's, the greatest discoveries were made by a small group of top scientists (about 400 - roughly the number of Nobel prize winners) who thrived in a freer research environment. He suggests that their success was to a large extent driven by freedom - the ability to work without the restraints that modern research institutions apply. Prof. Braben suggests that the important basic discoveries are not being made in today's world, because of the stifling effect. He suggests a new small group of top scientists (which he calls the Plank Club) be permitted to work in an environment of much greater freedom, without the need to submit to peer review etc. He accepts that current structures are OK for the majority of researchers, but that the top scientists must be set free. What do others think?

Just a point about making hydrogen or synthetic methanol. My logic is based on the assumption that such fuels will be needed and will be made. In terms of energy efficiency, it matters not whether the electricity used to make them is nuclear, hydroelectric, or wind power. In every case, there will be energy lost. However, since wind power is erratic, and cannot be relied upon for steady electricity flows where that is needed, why not use it, instead of more reliable steadier sources, as the power for synthesizing fuels? Power such as nuclear can then be used where a steady supply is vital.

To markus Children are wonderful. However, raising a child under the wrong conditions leads to horrible results. A child should be wanted, and part of a stable relationship - otherwise known as a family. Teenage girls becoming pregnant leads to children who become criminals. The statistics are very clear. Children of stable families are far more likely to be happy, well adjusted, and a valuable part of society. Children of solo mothers are far more likely to be unhappy, stressed, and criminal. It is no accident that, 20 years after abortion was made freely available, violent crime dropped dramatically in the USA.

To Lockheed Very simple really. When the wind blows, you generate electricity. When you pump water uphill, or compress air instead, some of the energy is lost. Simple laws of thermodynamics. When the water flows downhill through a turbine, or the compressed air is released to drive a turbine, some more energy is lost, for the same reason. End result is that you produce half, or less than half the amount of electricity compared to simply letting the wind turbine directly make electricity. Much better to use wind power to produce hydrogen or synthetic methanol as fuel without any attempt to otherwise store energy. You cut out a very wasteful step.

To bascule I know you were being ironic. A fission powered car sounds good - no re-fuelling for 1,000,000 miles! However, as you know, it is seriously unlikely to ever happen due to a wide range of problems. To Captain Panic. Storing energy, such as wind power, by pumping water uphill, is not a good solution, since there are substantial energy losses - first in the pumping stage, and secondly in the re-generating stage. An alternative suggestion was storage by compressing air. That idea has the same drawback. Intermittent energy sources, such as wind power, have their place, but will never be able to provide 100%. Personally, I think the best use of wind power is to produce fuels, such as hydrogen gas, and synthetic methanol. Making those fuels are going to involve energy loss no matter how it is done, and the fact that this energy source is intermittent is less important, since the energy is stored chemically.

Unlike thedarkshade, I do not think there is anything really wrong with having sex. The harm comes from having dangerous sex. Sure, if someone does not want to have sex, they should not be pushed into it. Sex is surrounded by all sorts of emotional baggage and some people cannot indulge without getting heavily emotionally involved, which can lead to heartbreak. Such people should not indulge in sex unless it is with someone they love, and who loves them. However, for the rest of us, there are only two real risks - pregnancy and STDs. If those can be avoided (hint; use a condom), and you enjoy sex, go for it. Enjoy yourself!

To Phi for all I totally agree with your first paragraph. Your final sentence suggests science avoids generalising about unknowns. In other words : "keep an open mind." The reply is that we should always keep an open mind, but not so open that our brains fall out.

To Phi for All The modern interpretation of the Principle of Occam's Razer, includes excluding totally unknown hypothetical factors, and concentrating on that which is known. By that standard, 'humours' and things outside known science are excluded.

As glider said, the transport of nutrients, water and minerals is in phloem and xylem tissues right next to the cambium. In other words, living tissue just under the bark. The centre dead tissue is to provide strenth and support only. And yes. The tree dies if the outside living tissue is destroyed, either by fire or by ring barking.

To iNow The reason blips should not be used as evidence is because they are absolutely normal. Hot and cold, and wet, and windy periods have always been a part of the climate. Only if the blips become exceptional, to a degree that is statistically very significant should they be quoted as evidence. And so far this has not happened. In the 1930's, in central USA, there was a time of drought, leading to what has been called the dust bowl incident. People thought that was a sign of long term disaster. Not so. In time, the climate returned to 'normal' and the grass grew once more. There have been times of strong hurricanes, many in number. Times when hurricanes were few. Times of heat waves, cold snaps etc etc. All these things happen from time to time, regardless of global warming, cooling, human activity or catastrophes. Every time these days we see a heat wave, some idiot calls it global warming. The same idiot stays very quiet when there is a cold snap, such as is hitting several Northern areas right now. The blips are, in fact, meaningless.

Here in NZ, at the beginning of the year, we have a bunch of so-called psychics jumping out of the woodwork making assorted predictions for the year to come, and having those published in newspapers etc. The NZ Skeptics decided to act on this, and talked with the newspapers and other media, and came up with their own set of predictions. The skeptics then recorded all the predictions and re-checked at the end of the year, and rated each set for accuracy, compared to their own. That started some years ago, and (I think) the skeptics have always been on top. The reason for the success is that the skeptics predictions were based on good scientific sense and on rating probable events, compared to the nonsensicle erratic predictions of so-called psychics. It is easy to make predictions with a good likelihood of success, if you are a wee bit ambiguous, and only note events that have happened before with reasonable frequency. Since it is still not far from the beginning of 2008, here are some of my predictions for the year to come. There will be a substantial volcanic eruption in middle or South America. There will be a substantial earthquake in south east Asia. There will be a scandal affecting some member of the British royal family. There will be allegations of sexual misconduct against a US Senator. Perhaps some other people might like to make their own predictions. Remember to make it a bit ambiguous, and reflect a frequent event, so that it is likely to happen. But not too likely, since you don't want to be totally obvious. We can see what came true at the end of the year.

Creationists often use the 'God of the Gaps' argument. That says that every gap in scientific knowledge is explained by invoking God. As far as the fossil record is concerned, there are always gaps. In fact, the more the fossils that are discovered, the more the number of gaps. Take the evolution of birds. Once, there were 3 stages known. Dinosaurs. A feathered dinosaur ((Archaeopteryx) Birds That leaves two gaps. Today, a number of 'missing links' have been discovered. There are now nine 'missing links' known in the fossil record. Scientific American, February 1998 has an excellent article showing these links. So what happens? The number of gaps increases. If you fill in 20 fossils as no longer missing links, that leaves 21 extra gaps for the creationists to quote. It actualy does not matter how complete the fossil record is; the creationists will always point out gaps.

Long term climate trends are fairly clear. However, we are currently experiencing a blip in that trend. There was an opposite blip in 1998, an El Nino year, in which temperatures soared. Currently the blip causes temperatures to drop. I would like to point out that blips should not be used as evidence. I am getting a bit tired of every extreme climatic event being used as definitive evidence of catastrophic global warming. Hurricane Katrina was not a result of global warming. It was an inevitability of climatic variability that turned out to be disastrous because of the stupidity of city planners who refused to allow for powerful hurricanes. Warm snaps are not the result of global warming. They are inevitable blips in climate, and have always happened, yet they are often used as evidence for disastrous global warming. The current cold snap is evidence of nothing more than the fact that the climate is variable. However, so are the warmer seasons.

There appears to be a glitch in the general pattern of global warming. The ice that was lost at the Arctic is back, and ice in Antarctica is increasing. http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/global_warming_or_cooling/2008/02/19/73798.html?s=al&promo_code=457E-1

It is not easy making a fossil. It requires a very special set of circumstances. Some organisms fossilise easily, since they are large and lumpy to begin with and are found in places where they easily get covered by sediment to preserve them. For this reason, there are billions of fossil oysters in the world. However, a number of organisms live in places where they are unlikely to have their remains preserved. Those living things leave minimal records as fossils. Humans and pre-humans are a good example. Since we and our ancestors lived on land, few skeletons ended up buried in sediment to fossilise. It is remarkable how great a job of work has been done by those studying human and pre-human fossils, bearing in mind how few there are. Creationists like to avoid the fossil record of those organisms that fossilise well, and pick on the record of those that do not. Where fossils are rare, due to the organism living in conditions not conducive to fossilisation, creationist theories are thick on the ground.

The stage magician, James Randi, has had a one million US dollar prize offered for some years now. It is to be given to anyone able to demonstrate in front of a special panel of scientists and stage magicians any psychic power. Obviously, psychic power MUST include anything of a supernatural religion base, such as prophecy etc. There have, of course, been a number of claimants to that very large prize. However, the people vetting them are not easily fooled, and so far they have all turned out to be either charlatons or the self-deluded. This is a pretty good first step towards the scientific testing of claims of special religion based powers. So far, such claims have failed.

If your story requires birds to attack humans, then you could introduce, as a fictional tool, a predator that is similar in size and shape to humans. You could even make that predator extinct, but only recently so, in order to make the birds react violently against humans.

Island tameness relates to predation. The dodo was tame since it had no predators. NZ birds were never quite that tame, as far as we know, since predators were not uncommon. It has been suggested that the earlier birds, that went extinct under the predation of early humans, were 'tame'. However, that is supposition, not known fact. If you want an island ecology, hostile to outsiders, I suggest you introduce predators of a wide range of shapes, so that the prey organisms are wary of anyone.

Speaking as a New Zealander. It appears that my country, some 25 million years ago went underwater for a time, wiping out all land mammals. Though this is still debatable. What followed was a mass of birds, which underwent rapid evolution. The largest one was the giant moa - 3 metres tall. Sadly for your story, it was a grazer. However, until humans arrived, we also has the world's largest eagle, which was definitely NOT a vegetarian. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Giant_Haasts_eagle_attacking_New_Zealand_moa.jpg

If Jeff's original notion were correct, that would lead to the prediction that more complex organisms evolve more slowly than less complex. Look at the fossil record. Has evolution slowed down. I think not!

If you are handing out contraceptives, of whatever nature, you have to ask yourself, who is accepting them? To me it is obvious. Those who intend to have sex will accept them, and thus giving them out is a good idea. Those who do not intend to have sex will not bother with contraceptives, and that is a neutral outcome. One thing for sure. If someone intends to have sex, they will have sex. Whether you give out contraceptives or not will not affect that decision.

As of right now, science cannot prove or disprove God. However, we cannot predict the future. Maybe some time in the future, some bright spark might design a suitable predictive test.

To bascule Your reference to oil from algae is also considerably interesting and looks most promising. You might be interested to know that there is a research team here in NZ who have been doing a parallel project. They have developed a process which uses algae on sewage oxidation ponds. They are 50% by weight of oil. I could envisage a process which would involve a pre-treatment of human sewage to render it liquid - basically a mix of nitrates, phosphate, and other nutrients - which would be pumped through very shallow pools full of algae. Most of the algae would be removed at the end for processing into bio-diesel, and a small part reintroduced into the beginning of the process. If the surface area of the sunlit ponds was enough, the amount of bio-diesel would be massive. To swansont Your argument falls down on the assumption that these new technologies would have to be introduced relatively quickly. There is enough fossil oil for some decades yet. We have time. As new technologies are introduced slowly, the use of fossil oil can be accordingly reduced.

This process has been available in less efficient form for several decades. It strikes me that what is new is that the process is being made more efficient, and hence more practical. Good news. Swansont. I do hope you appreciate the relevence of this in terms of replacement of oil. I have been an advocate for nuclear energy for decades. Not so much as first choice, but as a choice that should always be on the table for consideration, alongside others. I look at the political rejection of nuclear energy by the idiot greens, and feel nauseated by their selective blindness. There is nothing new or uniquely harmful about nuclear. We are all exposed to the effects of radioactive decay, from before birth to death. Our species has evolved within a sleet of radiation (particular and electromagnetic) which is called the background level. We have evolved methods of dealing with it, and repairing genetic damage. Studies have shown that moderate levels of increased radiation do not increase cancer or lower lifespan. Only substantially higher levels compared to background radiation are harmful to health. Nuclear waste is not a problem if dealt with responsibly. Even some forms of irresponsible action may be OK. Early on in the history of nuclear energy, the American industry put nuclear waste in steel drums and dumped them at sea. They must have rusted away many years ago. Yet no-one has reported any environmental damage from the release of that waste into the oceans. The so-called environmental harm from the nuclear industry has been exaggerated by lobby groups for decades.